Retrofitting the RMN: A Saganami Island Assignment

Captain Golding wrote:Hmm, Seems we are missing Recon Assets.

So refit a Shrike by taking out the Graser and fitting a large Optical suite in there. Upgrade the ESM / ECM / Stealth outfit and enhance the Endurance. Extra wisker lasers for covert comms with Ghost Riders etc.

Produce a package pod to take your LAC(R) and a couple of Ghost Rider drones that is easy for a Freighter to load / drop in deep space.

Why take manned LACs at all? What do you gain in having them that you don't by carrying 10 Ghost Rider RDs in its place?

A LAC is not hypercapable, so it needs to be carried by carrier. It weighs as much as 10 drones. It accelerates one fifth as much as a drone (RDs can do 3500 gravities). And it has nowhere the stealth of an RD.

And:

LAC(R) and GR's do their stuff and the LAC(R) is collected on the way out of the system by either the same Freighter or someone else depending on duration in system. The GRdrones suiciding into the sun or other suitable body if needed.

If you need to get out of the system in a hurry, you can ask the RDs to self-destruct. A manned LAC couldn't do that or if it did, it would leave its crew to be captured.

What's collecting the "Take" from the Recon drones? Who's directing them. Sure if you can drop a cruiser in system do it that way but if you need something to control the Ghost Riders and can't put the controls on the Freighter for Customs to see....
You need to have a visible ship to account for the Hyperfootprint and a destroyer would use up too much tonage of the freighter if that ship is not going to draw attention.
Whisker Lasers too/ from the Freighter in Orbit would be subject to chance interceptionand Gravpulses way to obvious.
The LAC lurking in the outer system should be stealthy enough while co-ordinating the GR drones and adjusting the targeting.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Captain Golding wrote:Hmm, Seems we are missing Recon Assets.

So refit a Shrike by taking out the Graser and fitting a large Optical suite in there. Upgrade the ESM / ECM / Stealth outfit and enhance the Endurance. Extra wisker lasers for covert comms with Ghost Riders etc.

Produce a package pod to take your LAC(R) and a couple of Ghost Rider drones that is easy for a Freighter to load / drop in deep space.

Why take manned LACs at all? What do you gain in having them that you don't by carrying 10 Ghost Rider RDs in its place?

A LAC is not hypercapable, so it needs to be carried by carrier. It weighs as much as 10 drones. It accelerates one fifth as much as a drone (RDs can do 3500 gravities). And it has nowhere the stealth of an RD.

And:

LAC(R) and GR's do their stuff and the LAC(R) is collected on the way out of the system by either the same Freighter or someone else depending on duration in system. The GRdrones suiciding into the sun or other suitable body if needed.

If you need to get out of the system in a hurry, you can ask the RDs to self-destruct. A manned LAC couldn't do that or if it did, it would leave its crew to be captured.

Well, if it's scouting and not taking of wormhole bridges, then a freighter, possibly a Q ship,would be a better answer.

Some older ship, refitted but not much visable without getting in and digging into equipment.
Two sets of sensors, probably using the same antenna and external fittings, one "merchant commercial" active that showes in the bridge and appproriate operations areas and one significantly high end passive military that could be switched to active if needed- and hidden.

Crew befitting an medium or small freighter. Possibly even real papers from somewhere not involved in the current goings on but with a plausable history/cover and cargo.

One thing you might want to add might be carefully hidden instrumentation for investigating wormholes since you are going to want to provide more than what any local Astro Control is goinng to give a freighter to make a routine transit

If a Q-ship, that is going to take the kind of deceptive hull plating and shielded weapons we have seen elcewhere. Offensive capability is trickier as you have to managed the volume and access carefully. Defensive might be handled with CM pods or some sort of blister arrangement to disguise the volume difference of the hold to accomodate the light speed weapons or CM.

You are also going to have to work on ways to get the information back to where it needs to be. In once sence you are talking about dressing up a merchant as they did when scouting Monica. All of the high end commercial and any military type equipment will have to pass inspection of you are boarded.
Same goes for any armed parasite craft.

If you are going to use one of these ships to take control of one end of a bridge there will probably need to be something included to then go though and take the other end.

Also keep in mind that when out move to capture (vs destroying outright without warning) the local Astro Control, you are probably going to then have to deal with a message sent from AS to the local system saying they are under attack. Sure, its going to take a long time to get there but any hypercapable ship in the system (like a merchant) that is told that something bad is happening out at the bridge is going to want to get out of town and will carry the word further. Ripples. there are is always something.

Captain Golding wrote:What's collecting the "Take" from the Recon drones? Who's directing them. Sure if you can drop a cruiser in system do it that way but if you need something to control the Ghost Riders and can't put the controls on the Freighter for Customs to see....
You need to have a visible ship to account for the Hyperfootprint and a destroyer would use up too much tonage of the freighter if that ship is not going to draw attention.
Whisker Lasers too/ from the Freighter in Orbit would be subject to chance interceptionand Gravpulses way to obvious.

Why do it in orbit at all? The freighter has to leave the system anyway, so it can wait for a more opportune moment when it's away from other ships and the captain is sure not to be discovered. The equipment wouldn't be uncommon aboard a high end freighter (whereas a launch bay or an FTL comm system would).

And if that is a problem anyway, wait until an RV point. That's exactly what they did in 1550 when the SMS Vergeltung (the first battleship) carried one drone. No communications at a distance: the drone was launched and then recovered.

This wouldn't work if someone from the local military decides to escort the freighter out. But collecting no data and yet not being discovered is better than collecting data you couldn't take with you and leaving the LAC behind to be captured.

Brigade XO wrote:How many of the SL controlled wormholes, including those that have some obligation OFS, have ever seen a CLAC? That's one big freighter. So, you gin up a set of papers from a neutral party to Flag the ship and come in to pay for passage.

They've probably never seen a CLAC, but a CLAC looks far more like a DN or SD than it does a freighter (those warship hammerheads for a start). So it seems no more, or less, likely to be able to fool an Astro control than any other warship of that tonnage.

Now you could definitely build a Q-CLAC that'd be likely to pass at a large freighter to even visual inspection - but the current ones look unmistakably like the warships they are.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now you could definitely build a Q-CLAC that'd be likely to pass at a large freighter to even visual inspection - but the current ones look unmistakably like the warships they are.

From light-minutes away. They are warships with powerful, double-layered wedges. Civilian designs have a single layer and that's probably detectable from a distance by the intensity of the wedge.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Now you could definitely build a Q-CLAC that'd be likely to pass at a large freighter to even visual inspection - but the current ones look unmistakably like the warships they are.

From light-minutes away. They are warships with powerful, double-layered wedges. Civilian designs have a single layer and that's probably detectable from a distance by the intensity of the wedge.

Could they not come in with only one set of nodes active? Or do the active nodes have to be symmetric with respect to the hull?

Jonathan_S wrote:Now you could definitely build a Q-CLAC that'd be likely to pass at a large freighter to even visual inspection - but the current ones look unmistakably like the warships they are.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:From light-minutes away. They are warships with powerful, double-layered wedges. Civilian designs have a single layer and that's probably detectable from a distance by the intensity of the wedge.

Fox2! wrote:Could they not come in with only one set of nodes active? Or do the active nodes have to be symmetric with respect to the hull?

From Honor Among Enemies, chapter 13:

"No problem, Skip." Foraker gave Jourdain a bright smile, and Jourdain smiled back, almost against his will. "These bastards are on the hunt for merchantmen, Sir. What we do is tune in our EW, take about half our beta nodes out of the wedge to drop it to an energy signature a merchie might have, and come in where they expect to see a freighter. If they're out there, they'll have to come to within, oh, four or five light-minutes, minimum, to see through our EW and realize we're a warship

Jonathan_S wrote:
Now you could definitely build a Q-CLAC that'd be likely to pass at a large freighter to even visual inspection - but the current ones look unmistakably like the warships they are.

Called HMMC Wayfarer and her sisters. Who became too well known to be effective.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now you could definitely build a Q-CLAC that'd be likely to pass at a large freighter to even visual inspection - but the current ones look unmistakably like the warships they are.

Fox2! wrote:Called HMMC Wayfarer and her sisters. Who became too well known to be effective.

Being well known is not a disadvantage against pirates, since you want piracy to diminish and a pirate cannot simply blow up ships that they attack. This is unlike the behavior of commerce raiders in wartime, who are content to destroy ships to deny them to their enemies.