Large Scale Fleet Combat
- Thread starter locarno24
- Start date
E.D.Quibell
Banded Mongoose
DFW said:
Have them within 100D of a largeish planet. Put up menson screen, nuclar dampers, and a bunch of point defence lasers, and then blow the enermy fleet out of orbit with your deep site menson guns.
Regards,
Ewan
E.D.Quibell
Banded Mongoose
DFW said:
Tracking isn't done at the deep site. You have a whole planet and it's orbit to place the sensors. Too many for the incoming fleet to disable.
If the ships are too fast to track, then they are too fast to aquire :lol:
Regards,
Ewan
E.D.Quibell said:
Moving too fast and the attacking ships will end up inside the screens before you can react. Bu, Bye fleet. Better yet, make a bunch of planetoids with J-dives, boost them up to high velocity and jump them so that they hit planet & docked fleet.
That's why I said that fleet locations MUST be secret or eventually they are toast. No way around it.
E.D.Quibell
Banded Mongoose
DFW said:
You're suiciding? or Near-C rocking?
Flame bate. I withdraw.
Best regards,
Ewam
DFW said:
Not so sure about that. Rate of movement is fast, but your also talking millions of Km to possibly get anywhere. So they can come in fast, but at 100 diameters out, you don't want to come in too fast, you still need to be able to fire and change vectors to make sure you don't collide with anything, especially if you want to use your spinal mounts, they only point one way.
Still, if you surprise a fleet that is effectively in port you should still have results similar to Pearl Harbor.
Treebore said:
I figured the velocity at 4 hours of 4G accel. Fast enough to avoid much return fire and not too fast to aim at targets were you know the locations of prior.
The planetoid idea is actually better (hit planet & docked fleet). The crew ejects in a small craft at breakout. Their velocity carries them far, very fast. You have pick up ships jumping a lot further out along their trajectories to retrieve them.
DFW said:
Apart from surface installations, you won't know the location prior. Military orbital facilities will adjust their orbits regularly, and your intel on their last known orbit is a minimum of 2 weeks old.
For deep-site mesons, I figure a network of tunnels with the meson guns on huge subway trains. Taget acquisition will be from satelite sensors, relayed directly using meson communicators.
Simon Hibbs
The good news?
All this means that up to date intel on orbits and meson gun dispossition will be vital. You'll need spies in-place to relay detailed data to the attacking fleet as soon as it jumps in. Co-ordinated sabotage attacks on the ground or in orbit along with the attack will also play an aimportant role. All of which is great roleplaying fodder.
The Meson Guns of Navarone anyone?
Simon Hibbs
All this means that up to date intel on orbits and meson gun dispossition will be vital. You'll need spies in-place to relay detailed data to the attacking fleet as soon as it jumps in. Co-ordinated sabotage attacks on the ground or in orbit along with the attack will also play an aimportant role. All of which is great roleplaying fodder.
The Meson Guns of Navarone anyone?
Simon Hibbs
DFW said:
edited:
Yes you know they'll be somewhere in orbit round the planet, but that's about it. Yu will need to be near the planet too to be in range. You'll potentialy have a surprise advantage, but if they're in range of you, your in range of them.
Orbital adjustments also make jumped-in near-C rocks useless against orbital facilities.
Why?
Sure, if you have no interest in capturing territory you can just destroy it completely. They can do that to your homeworld too though. M.A.D.
Simon Hibbs
simonh said:
Yep. But, that aren't already targeting an area at battle stations. 'nuff said.
simonh said:
Right. Those are better to hit near the embedded planet defenses, destroying them immediately. Although a few "decoys" heading anywhere near the obitals will draw and dilute fire against the "real ships"
simonh said:
Can't move those railroad tracks mounted guns fast enough.
simonh said:
This is a sector power play. A planet or two lost is no biggie. Plus, depots aren't hovering over hi-pop civilian worlds...
DFW said:
Ah, I wasn't clear enough. The rails are so you don't know where the guns are and can't effectively target them, not to move them into firing position.
Translate that back to nuclear weapons in the cold war. A city or two lost is no biggie. A missile or two in cuba is no biggie. One or two enrichment plants in Iran and North Korea is no biggie.
Simon Hibbs
C-fractional bombardment of planets makes sense, if you want to destroy the ecosphere. But since the whole idea of having a inhabited planet with a somewhat intact infrastructure is appealing to most invading nations, I seriously doubt that is going to occur.
Besides unless you were planning on cracking the planet open, you aren't going to be able to hit the deepsite meson guns, assuming you even knew where they were in the first place. Meson guns can't be tracked based upon their firing because of how meson's work. You can even mount them in submersible vessels that would be cloaked from sensors. Invading a planet with an active meson defense (especially one that is heavily fortified) is a massive undertaking.
And all navies realize the issue with 'pearl harbor' sort of sneak attacks. I'm sure any major military orbital installation is going to have certain levels of alerts where passive and active defenses are on standby. I don't think you could expect your entire fleet to emerge at the same time, so assuming you could narrow the window within an hour, that's still enough time to bring any defenses online. Plus if I had a major installation in orbit I'd increase/decrease its orbital velocity every day or two, so that you never really know where the hell its going to be when you emerge from jump space because any data you have on it will be at least 2 weeks old.
Besides unless you were planning on cracking the planet open, you aren't going to be able to hit the deepsite meson guns, assuming you even knew where they were in the first place. Meson guns can't be tracked based upon their firing because of how meson's work. You can even mount them in submersible vessels that would be cloaked from sensors. Invading a planet with an active meson defense (especially one that is heavily fortified) is a massive undertaking.
And all navies realize the issue with 'pearl harbor' sort of sneak attacks. I'm sure any major military orbital installation is going to have certain levels of alerts where passive and active defenses are on standby. I don't think you could expect your entire fleet to emerge at the same time, so assuming you could narrow the window within an hour, that's still enough time to bring any defenses online. Plus if I had a major installation in orbit I'd increase/decrease its orbital velocity every day or two, so that you never really know where the hell its going to be when you emerge from jump space because any data you have on it will be at least 2 weeks old.
DFW said:
I don't see how that maths works. A couple of planets != a sector. i.e. I don't see how taking out a few planets in a surgical strike like that will facilitate taking a sector. It takes several months just to get from one side of a sector to the other in peace time. A subsector, maybe. Also I don't see that equation playing out anywhere in the history of the Imperium.
In the OTU setting I think we need to assume a general moratorium on planter-busters otherwise after several thousand years of conflict there really won't be all that many valuable planets left.
I do understand the point you're making. Kinetik kill weapons are horrifyingly destructive and dirt cheap in Traveller. All the more reason to heavily constrain their use by convention. Maybe that's not entirely realistic because for marginal groups with nothing to lose it'll be the terror weapon of choice. But for a credible government with it's own worlds to lose, mutually assured destruction is a powerful motivation to come to an agreement.
I don't think planet busters will be eliminated from the strategic equation completely. That strains credibility too much. However I think it's plausible to assume their use is constrained by treaty and therefore not the norm.
Simon Hibbs
alex_greene
Guest
Friends don't let friends drink and command the fleet.DFW said:simonh said:
Correct. A sector is worth FAR more than a couple of planets.
Remember kids. Don't keep your fleets moored at known locations.
