Question about Beowulf tactics

stewart wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:The BSDF, we believe, has SDs reasonably close to design to the SLN.

Beowulf is believed to be facing an attack or "intervention" by the SLN to deal with the vote on leaving or not leaving the SLN

How about this:
Beowulf asks or offeres to by 5 or more former SLN SDs captured by RMN and RHN at the battle of 2nd Manticore.
Beowulf rigs them to be operated by remote control and removes the safeties on the compensators. Part of the modifications include being able to fire the main weaponry, activate the CM defences and EMC. The ships are held in near-Beowulf space with maintenace crews which abandon ship when they are activated.
WHEN the SLN makes their move, the SDs (named such things as BSDF Joe Buckley, the Bernie Madoff, The Quizling, Baron Harkonan,The Ebola) in conjunction with the BSDF to intercept but then sprint ahead. They initialy engage (controlled remotely) with the SLN force at realistic ranges for SLN warships but then go to max acceleration on courses to ram 5 of the SLN ships while fireing as fast as possible (on automatic) with their missile tuber at other ships in the SLN task for (each "new" BNSD SD firing a full folly at one SLN SD then switching to the next closest SLN SD until the remote SD is destroyed -one way or another.

That should seriously mess up the attack pan of the SLN force and inflict massive casualties on that force. The mangled force would still have to meet the regular BSDF units.

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Sorry to disappoint your plans XO, but remember, the captured SLN SD's (1) do not have bow walls, (2) have no FTL.
remote control maneuvering will be very slow -- arthritic even.
Even an BF SLN Adm (if assisted by his / her tac and ops officers) should be able to arrange down-the-throat shots. The RMN and RHN have not had to worry about that for several years.

-- Stewart

Actually, thinking about it further, given that Raging Justice was blown to Beowulf almost as soon as it was planned, it is hard to believe that the BSC won't pick up on the plans for an invasion of Beowulf almost as quickly, along with the line of approach to be taken. Given that, it should be possible to park a number of the captured Solarian SDs out there near the expected emergence point, and when the fleet appears, then engage the invasion fleet. Yes they are going to get shot up, but it could cause the Sollies to expend a great deal of their munitions doing so, and it certainly something to be done with the Solarian SDs, which should hopefully put that thread to rest, with a stake through its heart.

Brigade XO wrote:The BSDF, we believe, has SDs reasonably close to design to the SLN.

Actually, the BSDF and any other SDF force for that matter, only needs to be "backward compatible" with SLN tech. They need to be able fire SLN missiles and data-share with SLN ships during their annual (once a decade?) joint readiness exercises -- wherein the SDF plays the role of inept aggressor to stroke SLN egos and obtain a passing grade so the SLN will go away and leave them alone.

One thing seems certain: that the Beowulf SDF is better than Battle Fleet by a long sight. Granted Admiral Truman's sudden appearance with another sixty SD(p)'s caused Tsang to turn tail and run, but even then, Admiral Holman-Sanders did not appear to be signifcantly concerned about being outnumbered 3:1. Nor did any of the civilian leaders seem to be wringing their hands about the possibility or ask the RMN to intervene.

RFC has also told us that many of the SDF forces are quite a bit closer to state-of-the-art in control systems, ECM, etc. for non-FTL, non MDM starships. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "leave behinds" from Alice's ships didn't include either more serious FTL sensor coverage, or maybe even a few stealthed ships still on-station. Any whisper of SLN ship movements will trigger an action plan to defeat ANY SL attack.

BTW, my reading of the textev about the latest SL admiralty brainchild by al-Fanudahi and Teague (who are a couple of light years better that whatever SLN brain exists so far) give a "jump on Beowulf" and make it to the planetary orbitals only a remote chance of success with four dependencies: a) IF they can get both the Technodyne pods, b) a sufficient force of SLN SD's gathered up as a surprise attack to tow them in, c) only if Beowulf isn't surrounded by her own shoals of nasty new long-range missiles, and d) that all of the RMN SD(p)s are two light hours away at the terminus. The only bit of reality we've been given so far is that of those, only d) is likely to be correct as it matches the current Manticoran/GA political mindset at least until after the plebiscite.

Adding in C) as true (no SDF missiles outranging Technodyne's) doesn't mean that Beowulf's cupboard is bare against even a Raging Justice size operation. All it takes to defend against that size of a pod-based attack (500 SD's) is maybe the loan of {one or two observing SAG-C's and a freighter full of Mistletoe Drones} waiting in stealth closer to the hyper limit. That gives you a combination of something like 2nd Hancock and Solon / Spindle and suddenly those attack ships have zero pods, leaving a really pissed off Beowulf SDF with all of their own system defense pods ready to finish the butt-kicking.

Politically, the warn off plus the whole debacle [less how the attack force's pods were decimated] would naturally get recorded by at bunch of different news organizations, and the reporting data chips sent by Beowulf to every "likely to be pissed off at Old Chicago" nodal system in the SL, mildly pointing out the the fact that the Assembly never voted out a declaration of war before hand....

SharkHunter wrote:One thing seems certain: that the Beowulf SDF is better than Battle Fleet by a long sight. Granted Admiral Truman's sudden appearance with another sixty SD(p)'s caused Tsang to turn tail and run, but even then, Admiral Holman-Sanders did not appear to be signifcantly concerned about being outnumbered 3:1. Nor did any of the civilian leaders seem to be wringing their hands about the possibility or ask the RMN to intervene.

RFC has also told us that many of the SDF forces are quite a bit closer to state-of-the-art in control systems, ECM, etc. for non-FTL, non MDM starships. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "leave behinds" from Alice's ships didn't include either more serious FTL sensor coverage, or maybe even a few stealthed ships still on-station. Any whisper of SLN ship movements will trigger an action plan to defeat ANY SL attack.

BTW, my reading of the textev about the latest SL admiralty brainchild by al-Fanudahi and Teague (who are a couple of light years better that whatever SLN brain exists so far) give a "jump on Beowulf" and make it to the planetary orbitals only a remote chance of success with four dependencies: a) IF they can get both the Technodyne pods, b) a sufficient force of SLN SD's gathered up as a surprise attack to tow them in, c) only if Beowulf isn't surrounded by her own shoals of nasty new long-range missiles, and d) that all of the RMN SD(p)s are two light hours away at the terminus. The only bit of reality we've been given so far is that of those, only d) is likely to be correct as it matches the current Manticoran/GA political mindset at least until after the plebiscite.

Adding in C) as true (no SDF missiles outranging Technodyne's) doesn't mean that Beowulf's cupboard is bare against even a Raging Justice size operation. All it takes to defend against that size of a pod-based attack (500 SD's) is maybe the loan of {one or two observing SAG-C's and a freighter full of Mistletoe Drones} waiting in stealth closer to the hyper limit. That gives you a combination of something like 2nd Hancock and Solon / Spindle and suddenly those attack ships have zero pods, leaving a really pissed off Beowulf SDF with all of their own system defense pods ready to finish the butt-kicking.

Politically, the warn off plus the whole debacle [less how the attack force's pods were decimated] would naturally get recorded by at bunch of different news organizations, and the reporting data chips sent by Beowulf to every "likely to be pissed off at Old Chicago" nodal system in the SL, mildly pointing out the the fact that the Assembly never voted out a declaration of war before hand....

And given the probable infiltration of the SLN and SL in general that the BSC has achieved, the chances of a sneak attack are virtually zero. So given that it will take several weeks to amass a number of the Technodyne pods at Sol, and that there is virtually no chance of a sneak attack (and even 2-3 hours of advance notice would be enough to allow the Manty SDs at the terminus to approach the orbit of Beowulf in stealth), the chances of a successful attack on Beowulf start at zero, and range downward from there.

--snipping--

fallsfromtrees wrote:And given the probable infiltration of the SLN and SL in general that the BSC has achieved, the chances of a sneak attack are virtually zero. So given that it will take several weeks to amass a number of the Technodyne pods at Sol, and that there is virtually no chance of a sneak attack (and even 2-3 hours of advance notice would be enough to allow the Manty SDs at the terminus to approach the orbit of Beowulf in stealth), the chances of a successful attack on Beowulf start at zero, and range downward from there.

Agreed.

But I'd still buy popcorn to the MORE fun movie version if RFC let us watch the GA good guys use Mistletoe from stealth. We'd get to see the SLN admiral's faces go and the BDSF admirals eyes go as the SLN pods go ka-boom buh-bye.

SharkHunter wrote:--snipping--

fallsfromtrees wrote:And given the probable infiltration of the SLN and SL in general that the BSC has achieved, the chances of a sneak attack are virtually zero. So given that it will take several weeks to amass a number of the Technodyne pods at Sol, and that there is virtually no chance of a sneak attack (and even 2-3 hours of advance notice would be enough to allow the Manty SDs at the terminus to approach the orbit of Beowulf in stealth), the chances of a successful attack on Beowulf start at zero, and range downward from there.

Agreed.

But I'd still buy popcorn to the MORE fun movie version if RFC let us watch the GA good guys use Mistletoe from stealth. We'd get to see the SLN admiral's faces go and the BDSF admirals eyes go as the SLN pods go ka-boom buh-bye.

Well yes, and given that they will probably know the approach vectors of the SLN fleet, eminently practible.

Another question I have is how long before we sew the first SLN crew mutiny rather than being send again the GA. I mean the moral of the SLN must be really low right now. Going from having almost no casualties to millions of casualties in a couple of months. I think that it was not all that great to begin with. And how many onsided slaughters do you need, before shooting the officers and taking your chances look attractive.
Imaging a fleet begins to assemble. All of a sudden the officers who are well connected and have a well developed sense of self preservation get transfer orders. There is a spike of desertions. GA psyops leaks some technical data to some media experts. Officers are stressed and do not handle the situation all that well. Maybe something breaks, which requires lengthy yard time, due to operator error. The lower decks of the SLN could become a powder keg fast.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:One thing seems certain: that the Beowulf SDF is better than Battle Fleet by a long sight. Granted Admiral Truman's sudden appearance with another sixty SD(p)'s caused Tsang to turn tail and run, but even then, Admiral Holman-Sanders did not appear to be signifcantly concerned about being outnumbered 3:1. Nor did any of the civilian leaders seem to be wringing their hands about the possibility or ask the RMN to intervene.

RFC has also told us that many of the SDF forces are quite a bit closer to state-of-the-art in control systems, ECM, etc. for non-FTL, non MDM starships. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "leave behinds" from Alice's ships didn't include either more serious FTL sensor coverage, or maybe even a few stealthed ships still on-station. Any whisper of SLN ship movements will trigger an action plan to defeat ANY SL attack.

BTW, my reading of the textev about the latest SL admiralty brainchild by al-Fanudahi and Teague (who are a couple of light years better that whatever SLN brain exists so far) give a "jump on Beowulf" and make it to the planetary orbitals only a remote chance of success with four dependencies: a) IF they can get both the Technodyne pods, b) a sufficient force of SLN SD's gathered up as a surprise attack to tow them in, c) only if Beowulf isn't surrounded by her own shoals of nasty new long-range missiles, and d) that all of the RMN SD(p)s are two light hours away at the terminus. The only bit of reality we've been given so far is that of those, only d) is likely to be correct as it matches the current Manticoran/GA political mindset at least until after the plebiscite.

Adding in C) as true (no SDF missiles outranging Technodyne's) doesn't mean that Beowulf's cupboard is bare against even a Raging Justice size operation. All it takes to defend against that size of a pod-based attack (500 SD's) is maybe the loan of {one or two observing SAG-C's and a freighter full of Mistletoe Drones} waiting in stealth closer to the hyper limit. That gives you a combination of something like 2nd Hancock and Solon / Spindle and suddenly those attack ships have zero pods, leaving a really pissed off Beowulf SDF with all of their own system defense pods ready to finish the butt-kicking.

Politically, the warn off plus the whole debacle [less how the attack force's pods were decimated] would naturally get recorded by at bunch of different news organizations, and the reporting data chips sent by Beowulf to every "likely to be pissed off at Old Chicago" nodal system in the SL, mildly pointing out the the fact that the Assembly never voted out a declaration of war before hand....

And given the probable infiltration of the SLN and SL in general that the BSC has achieved, the chances of a sneak attack are virtually zero. So given that it will take several weeks to amass a number of the Technodyne pods at Sol, and that there is virtually no chance of a sneak attack (and even 2-3 hours of advance notice would be enough to allow the Manty SDs at the terminus to approach the orbit of Beowulf in stealth), the chances of a successful attack on Beowulf start at zero, and range downward from there.

Manticore will likely not get openly involved until after the vote. The SEM has been very careful to play it as close as they can to not appearing to want to unduly influence the voting. Having SEM warships in orbit around Beowulf before the vote would wreck or at the least severely damage the SEM's reputation for playing fair with other nations/systems because it would be very easily argued that their mere presence in orbit would have added some pressure to vote 'Yes' on sece3ssion. A vote taken under the threat of violence to ensure the proper outcome.

It's clear that most Beowulfians would have wanted to secede, but there would be enough muddying of the waters to throw the vote into question of how much -really- wanted to secede or where forced to vote 'Yes'.

Zakharra wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:One thing seems certain: that the Beowulf SDF is better than Battle Fleet by a long sight. Granted Admiral Truman's sudden appearance with another sixty SD(p)'s caused Tsang to turn tail and run, but even then, Admiral Holman-Sanders did not appear to be signifcantly concerned about being outnumbered 3:1. Nor did any of the civilian leaders seem to be wringing their hands about the possibility or ask the RMN to intervene.

RFC has also told us that many of the SDF forces are quite a bit closer to state-of-the-art in control systems, ECM, etc. for non-FTL, non MDM starships. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "leave behinds" from Alice's ships didn't include either more serious FTL sensor coverage, or maybe even a few stealthed ships still on-station. Any whisper of SLN ship movements will trigger an action plan to defeat ANY SL attack.

BTW, my reading of the textev about the latest SL admiralty brainchild by al-Fanudahi and Teague (who are a couple of light years better that whatever SLN brain exists so far) give a "jump on Beowulf" and make it to the planetary orbitals only a remote chance of success with four dependencies: a) IF they can get both the Technodyne pods, b) a sufficient force of SLN SD's gathered up as a surprise attack to tow them in, c) only if Beowulf isn't surrounded by her own shoals of nasty new long-range missiles, and d) that all of the RMN SD(p)s are two light hours away at the terminus. The only bit of reality we've been given so far is that of those, only d) is likely to be correct as it matches the current Manticoran/GA political mindset at least until after the plebiscite.

Adding in C) as true (no SDF missiles outranging Technodyne's) doesn't mean that Beowulf's cupboard is bare against even a Raging Justice size operation. All it takes to defend against that size of a pod-based attack (500 SD's) is maybe the loan of {one or two observing SAG-C's and a freighter full of Mistletoe Drones} waiting in stealth closer to the hyper limit. That gives you a combination of something like 2nd Hancock and Solon / Spindle and suddenly those attack ships have zero pods, leaving a really pissed off Beowulf SDF with all of their own system defense pods ready to finish the butt-kicking.

Politically, the warn off plus the whole debacle [less how the attack force's pods were decimated] would naturally get recorded by at bunch of different news organizations, and the reporting data chips sent by Beowulf to every "likely to be pissed off at Old Chicago" nodal system in the SL, mildly pointing out the the fact that the Assembly never voted out a declaration of war before hand....

fallsfromtrees wrote:And given the probable infiltration of the SLN and SL in general that the BSC has achieved, the chances of a sneak attack are virtually zero. So given that it will take several weeks to amass a number of the Technodyne pods at Sol, and that there is virtually no chance of a sneak attack (and even 2-3 hours of advance notice would be enough to allow the Manty SDs at the terminus to approach the orbit of Beowulf in stealth), the chances of a successful attack on Beowulf start at zero, and range downward from there.

Manticore will likely not get openly involved until after the vote. The SEM has been very careful to play it as close as they can to not appearing to want to unduly influence the voting. Having SEM warships in orbit around Beowulf before the vote would wreck or at the least severely damage the SEM's reputation for playing fair with other nations/systems because it would be very easily argued that their mere presence in orbit would have added some pressure to vote 'Yes' on sece3ssion. A vote taken under the threat of violence to ensure the proper outcome.

It's clear that most Beowulfians would have wanted to secede, but there would be enough muddying of the waters to throw the vote into question of how much -really- wanted to secede or where forced to vote 'Yes'.

Only if the Manty SDs are still in orbit when the vote is taken. If they blow away the SD invasion force, and then retreat to the terminus again, much of the argument is removed.

Using captured but unmanned SLN SDs would be intended to distract and cause the SLN attacking force to both expand a lot of ammunition and wonder what the hell was going on.

If they (the SD drones) start spewing missles as soon as they enter powered flight range of the SLN attack force, it nessiarily forces the SLN to defend themselves. Whatever gets through the SLN defense starts to at least degrade it's ability to fight. If you target the 1st launch of 2 drones at a single SLN SD and then switch targets and keep repeating till it can't fire any more, you are PROBABLY going to saturate the defences of each SD in term for at least the initial double volley, That should make for a rather sick SD with lots of problems up to and possibley past mission-kill.

You might be able to put an FTL unit on each SD (with proper self destruct gear) and use that to control the that (for each) to pass both tactical info and direction to the SD.s command channels.

So they don't have bucklers, neither do the SLN SDs. Besides, once you push the acceleration to the max that you believe the ships can stand (since they have no flimsey humans to worry about), the SLN ships are going to have dam little time to target the major weak spots. As far as your SD drone missile volleys, they are going to be on their own shortly with only the missles on-board targeting but there will be a lot of them flying around.

Possibly the biggest problem will be either the SLN on purpose or the Alignment in stealth putting a ballistic till the last moment missile (of SLN design) into Beowulf itself and causing a catastrophy. Ultimatly that satisfies the Alignment (they can always tell the Beowulf survivors later it was them) as far as taking Beowulf out of the equation.