Stupid Apollo Tricks

Do the Apollo control missiles have the ability to communicate across platforms or is the communication link strictly downstream to the ship?

If the former, one brood of missiles that is closer to an enemy ship about to make a tactical error and expose its throat can immediately communicate with any other missile that may be in the correct position as well to also lock onto the appropriate vector. Decreasing reaction time.

I think it was posted elsewhere that the ACM communicates only with its brood (short range) and the control ship behind it (long range)

I always thought that if you want to kill the reserve, a LAC strike is the way to go.

Have a squadron of CLACs (probably with a squadron of BC(P)'s and a flotilla of DDs as screen) pop out of hyper about a light-day out. Unload the LACs and go back into hyper.
You might leave a division of DDs when you hyper out to tend the ghost rider drones.

Four or five days later the force hypers back in on some other bearing (planned in advance obviously for recovery of the LACs). Said force makes a great show of invading the system and threatening any pickets.

As soon as the picketing force is all concentrated the LACs hit the reserve SDs, which are presumably unmanned and have their wedges down. LACs then proceed to a recovery point and the whole force hypers out.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

This approach has the advantage of not expending missiles (which are obviously in limited supply) and destroys the Reserve and makes a whole lot of noise without killing many people.

The only problem with this tactic (if it is indeed a problem) is that it won't work indefinitely. But it will also force the SLN to either activate the Reserve just to keep it from being blown away by LACs or force substantial forces to be committed to each system where the Reserve is parked.

Another nasty thought:

Roland slips in, deploys recon drones around the targets.

The second ship arrives more than a light-day out, boost to .8c, drops pods and leaves. The pods are aimed to miss planets by at least a million km so you don't risk an Eridani incident.

The Roland sits there watching, firing the pods at the optimal time. We saw how nasty very short range missile shots are even without speed being a factor--but these will be closing at .8c plus whatever their drives add during their short burn.

Assuming the wedges are down the allocation is one bird per target, the warhead is not fired. We have seen how poorly the SLN defenses fare with plenty of tracking and targets at .5c. With miserable tracking, defenders not on the ball and probably .9c missiles I would expect few intercepts--and a missile that gets through kills it's target, period. (And note that if the missile was aimed properly a laser cluster intercept does no good--the remains are as deadly as the missile was.)

You could also pull the same stunt with LACs instead of pods--much more manpower commitment but no wasted shots and no lost pods.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Another nasty thought:

Roland slips in, deploys recon drones around the targets.

The second ship arrives more than a light-day out, boost to .8c, drops pods and leaves. The pods are aimed to miss planets by at least a million km so you don't risk an Eridani incident.

The Roland sits there watching, firing the pods at the optimal time. We saw how nasty very short range missile shots are even without speed being a factor--but these will be closing at .8c plus whatever their drives add during their short burn.

Assuming the wedges are down the allocation is one bird per target, the warhead is not fired. We have seen how poorly the SLN defenses fare with plenty of tracking and targets at .5c. With miserable tracking, defenders not on the ball and probably .9c missiles I would expect few intercepts--and a missile that gets through kills it's target, period. (And note that if the missile was aimed properly a laser cluster intercept does no good--the remains are as deadly as the missile was.)

This was literally the OP

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:I always thought that if you want to kill the reserve, a LAC strike is the way to go.

Have a squadron of CLACs (probably with a squadron of BC(P)'s and a flotilla of DDs as screen) pop out of hyper about a light-day out. Unload the LACs and go back into hyper.
You might leave a division of DDs when you hyper out to tend the ghost rider drones.

Four or five days later the force hypers back in on some other bearing (planned in advance obviously for recovery of the LACs). Said force makes a great show of invading the system and threatening any pickets.

As soon as the picketing force is all concentrated the LACs hit the reserve SDs, which are presumably unmanned and have their wedges down. LACs then proceed to a recovery point and the whole force hypers out.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

This approach has the advantage of not expending missiles (which are obviously in limited supply) and destroys the Reserve and makes a whole lot of noise without killing many people.

The only problem with this tactic (if it is indeed a problem) is that it won't work indefinitely. But it will also force the SLN to either activate the Reserve just to keep it from being blown away by LACs or force substantial forces to be committed to each system where the Reserve is parked.

Sure, but this is a pretty big force commitment - a force that then can't be anywhere else, doing convoy escort, or commerce raiding or anything. I was thinking along the lines of pure force maximization: How can the RMN do a lot with a very little? We know that no matter how outclassed the SLN is, the SL itself is very large. 1700 planets. Force on force and fleet on fleet action will take a very long time to make progress, simply because the GA doesn't have a lot of fleets in comparison to the number of targets.

I suggest re-reading the Grendelsbane part of Operation Thunderbolt to see just how easy it is to destroy inoperative warships.

I'd use any SDM contact nukes left in inventory for dealing with the SLN reserve. These can be launched on very long ballistic courses and of course their targets will be unable to dodge.

Granted, destroying the reserve with Shrikes sends a different message altogether.

caias wrote:...
Sure, but this is a pretty big force commitment - a force that then can't be anywhere else, doing convoy escort, or commerce raiding or anything. I was thinking along the lines of pure force maximization: How can the RMN do a lot with a very little? We know that no matter how outclassed the SLN is, the SL itself is very large. 1700 planets. Force on force and fleet on fleet action will take a very long time to make progress, simply because the GA doesn't have a lot of fleets in comparison to the number of targets.

According to House of Steel, the RMN has more than 80 BC(P)'s and more than 100 CLACs (adding in Grayson units increases that number by about 50 percent). Neither type seems to be particularly valuable for convoy escort or commerce raiding but they are perfect for a deep strike type raid on a weakly-defended target. You are correct that the League is very large, with approximately 1700 planets. But they had approximately 2000 SDs in active commission before the war started, and between Spindle and second Manticore that leaves them with about 1500 SDs to defend 1700 planets. Which even if the combatants were comparable with the GA ships would leave the SLN in kind of a pickle. Even if you assume that SDFs would double the number of wallers available that would be like a gnat in a blast furnace.

One of the big advantages of heavy raids like I described is it will put enormous pressure on the SLN to split their wall of battle up into penny packets to provide all (or at least the systems that are the squeakiest wheels) of the systems with at least some coverage. The GA could help this tendency by not attacking systems which appear to be well-defended, even if they could theoretically fight their way through.

My guess is that a squadron of BC(P)'s with the new Mark 16 could probably take out two or three times their number of Solarian SDs. And that is probably very conservative.

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:My guess is that a squadron of BC(P)'s with the new Mark 16 could probably take out two or three times their number of Solarian SDs. And that is probably very conservative.

Certainly. No question that the SLN is outclassed in fleet engagements, no matter what the tonnage ratio is.

And no question that force on force engagements will happen, and be the primary focus. The hypothetical question, though, is "What else can you do, to really ratchet up the pressure"?

Operating and raiding with near impunity in lots of different places at once with comparatively light forces seems useful, if you can accomplish anything with it. So, can one abuse the advantages of stealth and accel in ways we haven't seen yet? Almost certainly. Every engagement we've seen so far between the RMN/GA and the SLN has been conducted in a relatively straightforward "You're outclassed, so we'll just go ahead and drive directly at you, kill you dead, and be done with it" fashion. Which is great, and all, if you can pull it off, but it leaves some tricks on the table.

I'm personally curious about what some of those tricks might be. I can imagine, for example, a division of Rolands or Sag-Cs showing up and trashing the industrial infrastructure of any given system while declining to engage the defensive forces in system, for example, just by utilizing stealth and speed. Show up, broadcast your intentions so the civvies can evacuate, and just pull the fleet presences all over the place. Relatively light force commitment for relatively high return.

caias wrote:...
I'm personally curious about what some of those tricks might be. I can imagine, for example, a division of Rolands or Sag-Cs showing up and trashing the industrial infrastructure of any given system while declining to engage the defensive forces in system, for example, just by utilizing stealth and speed. Show up, broadcast your intentions so the civvies can evacuate, and just pull the fleet presences all over the place. Relatively light force commitment for relatively high return.

One of the practical concerns with your strategy is that if you launch a broad-based attack with relatively light forces everywhere your enemy can concentrate their forces in a small number of places and bushwhack you.

Another concern would be that the civilians would drag out the evacuation long enough for a force coming in under stealth to ambush the raiding force.

If you want to attack with relatively light forces, a good target is the SLN's fleet train. Which is underdeveloped to begin with. And since tactics have shifted from close-range energy weapon brawls to missile duels, there needs to be a much more developed supply train keeping front-line units stocked with missiles. If you collect their ammunition ships they will be much less able to bring the fight to the GA. And if they have to substitute commercial shipping (which won't have military-grade hyper drives and particle screening) you will (1) greatly slow down the resupply, which is just as good as killing ships, and (2) put additional pressure on the limited civilian shipping which is under great pressure because of the closure of the wormhole junctions and withdrawal of Manticoran shipping.

Another thought. LAC raids like I described will obviously have to be preceded by extensive scouting. If you had two or three extra destroyer flotillas for every raiding force you could basically force the SLN to react and attempt to cover systems even when no raid was actually planned.

If you can keep your enemy reacting to you and not give them a chance to recover their balance and the initiative you will win. That goes for a street fight or an interstellar war.