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Loren Pechtel wrote:It doesn't matter if it can trash everything in orbit. Controlling airspace means you have rid it of threats, not merely that you can bring heavy firepower to bear on threats. I would assume controlling orbitals would mean the same thing. Getting your ship into orbit undetected doesn't keep the defenders from unloading pods on you--I would not call the orbitals controlled while operational pods can bear.

And here I though you liked that planet! Because there isn’t going to be very much left after that. But I really doubt you’ll do much damage to the spider.

cthia wrote:In UH the SL deployed jury-rigged pods similar to Shannon's donkeys. Except these pods, deployed outside the wedge, didn't hamper acceleration as much as any comparable number of pods should have, deployed outside the wedge. Reason being, they had their own wedge.

The Lennys could drop off pods with their own spider drive. Now that's Freddy Krueger frightening. Don't fall asleep Manticore. LOL

It seems I tried to reverse engineer Galactic Sapper's idea. He literally came up with this on page 3, with batteries included. It must be an idea worth investigating. Sorry I misfiled the memo somehow . . .

Galactic Sapper wrote:Or some unholy combination of techs, such as grafting a spider drive to a pod full of missiles so that instead of being able to see a mass missile launch coming from light minutes away the damn things launch from inside CM range and give you almost no time to respond. Worse, the missiles carried on such pods could be a SD-level laser head with only a CM sized drive, since it doesn't need more range than that. Basically, imagine a pod full of Vipers that hit as hard as Mark 23s, that can launch from less than a million km out with no warning.

The Frankenstein'd spider-pod thing might take up as much space as two or three standard MDM pods - maybe even could only be carried externally or in a freighter - but it might be so devastating to be worthwhile.

****** *

Talking about tech falling into the wrong hands. If Shannon gets her hands on that 3 second firing ability of the GTs, a graser array kit similar to the one she's putting together to protect wormholes would be even more devastating. She's proposing five shots per graser now, as opposed to the single shot previously. Five, three second shots from each graser should discourage any enemy. If not, toasted quail is on the menu.

How long do ship grasers fire? If a LACs graser could up its ante to 3 seconds, then holy hell hath surely lit the cake!

cthia wrote:How long do ship grasers fire? If a LACs graser could up its ante to 3 seconds, then holy hell hath surely lit the cake!

We don't know but there's reason to believe they fire in fairly short pulses. And I doubt Shannon or anyone else will be able to get more than one shot out of a grazer torpedo, as the first firing generates enough heat to literally melt the entire torpedo to slag. The MAlign consider that to be a security feature, not a flaw.

cthia wrote:Talking about tech falling into the wrong hands. If Shannon gets her hands on that 3 second firing ability of the GTs, a graser array kit similar to the one she's putting together to protect wormholes would be even more devastating. She's proposing five shots per graser now, as opposed to the single shot previously. Five, three second shots from each graser should discourage any enemy. If not, toasted quail is on the menu.

How long do ship grasers fire? If a LACs graser could up its ante to 3 seconds, then holy hell hath surely lit the cake!

Galactic Sapper wrote:We don't know but there's reason to believe they fire in fairly short pulses. And I doubt Shannon or anyone else will be able to get more than one shot out of a grazer torpedo, as the first firing generates enough heat to literally melt the entire torpedo to slag. The MAlign consider that to be a security feature, not a flaw.

Particularly since the reason that graser remotes are being considered to replace mines is that they do NOT self-destruct after one shot and only require a plasma capacitor recharge to be good for another engagement.

If I remember correctly the torpedoes do not just melt; but explode so strongly that they destroy the spider drive, thus preserving its secret also.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

cthia wrote:How long do ship grasers fire? If a LACs graser could up its ante to 3 seconds, then holy hell hath surely lit the cake!

We don't know but there's reason to believe they fire in fairly short pulses. And I doubt Shannon or anyone else will be able to get more than one shot out of a grazer torpedo, as the first firing generates enough heat to literally melt the entire torpedo to slag. The MAlign consider that to be a security feature, not a flaw.

Millisecond range. They're supposed to act like age of sail cannon, I guess.

Shipboard grasers can go to continuous fire, but this also melts down the graser. Terekhov did this with his CL against CAs at the battle of Hyacinth.

Loren Pechtel wrote:
1) I don't think they can actually orbit without being picked up by old fashioned radar.

2) I don't believe this counts as controlling the orbitals. At that point it's contested space, not controlled space. Firing on the planet at that point is an Eridani violation.

kzt wrote:No, they are magically transparent to everything.

And if you have a 30MT ship in orbit, everything military that was in orbit is clouds of debris.

Loren Pechtel wrote:It doesn't matter if it can trash everything in orbit.

Agreed. What matters is that it does trash everything in orbit.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Controlling airspace means you have rid it of threats,

Bynging everything IN airspace, means you have rid it of threats. At that point, what's left that can threaten you? System defense pods? They're useless at this point. Pods aren't accustomed to being turned on the planet. They're emplaced to bring firepower to bear out system. Besides, what target is there to fire at? The Lennys still have not been localized. Home Fleet might have been able to localize them if given time, and, well, if they weren't all orbital debris. Who's left to even give the order?

At this point, any ship that can come to the planet's aid has either been destroyed or has to get thru a blockade of Sharks, spider driven pods, and . . .

SURPRISE! Two or three more Lennys decloaking off the planet's bow; as soon as they finish their own mopping up, er, mission. Who says the MA can't send an entire squadron of Lennys to deal with any of the Big 5.

Wanna know something truly frightening? The accumulative firepower of just four of these things are enough to be considered a fleet.

Loren Pechtel wrote:... not merely that you can bring heavy firepower to bear on threats. I would assume controlling orbitals would mean the same thing. Getting your ship into orbit undetected doesn't keep the defenders from unloading pods on you--I would not call the orbitals controlled while operational pods can bear.

Unless that firepower is directed at Mt. Royal Palace and other critical targets. The planets, the government and the RMN has to honor the threat. If not, the two or three additional decloaked LDs and Sharks ready to intercept any remaining ships, will show the Filaretas of the RMN the hopelessness of their situation.

I can't shake the dramatic baggage I have of the four alien ships in Independence Day maneuvering into a zero zero - line of communication - intercept of the planet.

cthia wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:... not merely that you can bring heavy firepower to bear on threats. I would assume controlling orbitals would mean the same thing. Getting your ship into orbit undetected doesn't keep the defenders from unloading pods on you--I would not call the orbitals controlled while operational pods can bear.

Unless that firepower is directed at Mt. Royal Palace and other critical targets. The planets, the government and the RMN has to honor the threat. If not, the two or three additional decloaked LDs and Sharks ready to intercept any remaining ships, will show the Filaretas of the RMN the hopelessness of their situation.

I can't shake the dramatic baggage I have of the four alien ships in Independence Day maneuvering into a zero zero - line of communication - intercept of the planet.

The infodump is still down, and I don't have my file of RFC posts handy, but as I recall the rules of the Eredani Edict (which most people presumably still consider effectively the rules of war) there are pretty sharp limits on the critical targets planetside that can be bombarded before you have control of the orbitals.

After taking control of the orbitals you're allowed to bombard military bases, missile defenses, military command and control nodes and the like to soften the planet up for landing forces (if necessary); though even then I believe you have to give the government a chance to surrender before actually starting the bombardment. I think at that same point you're also allowed to bombard the Government; but I'm not 100% sure on that.


But prior to actually clearing and controlling the orbitals my recollection is that the only thing you can bombard planetside is emplacements, or fire control for same, capable of threatening your ships out in space. So unless the Manties made Mt. Royal Palace an early target by adding surface to orbit missile to it's defenses - or giving it direct fire control of the system defense missile pods - I'm pretty sure it is off limits until you win the battle for the high ground and then issue a surrender demand that isn't accepted.


Of course the MAlign could chose to violate the rule of war - that's a different problem. But following them I think they have to win the orbitals before the ground targets can be threatened.

cthia wrote:Bynging everything IN airspace, means you have rid it of threats. At that point, what's left that can threaten you? System defense pods? They're useless at this point. Pods aren't accustomed to being turned on the planet. They're emplaced to bring firepower to bear out system. Besides, what target is there to fire at? The Lennys still have not been localized. Home Fleet might have been able to localize them if given time, and, well, if they weren't all orbital debris. Who's left to even give the order?

At this point, any ship that can come to the planet's aid has either been destroyed or has to get thru a blockade of Sharks, spider driven pods, and . . .

SURPRISE! Two or three more Lennys decloaking off the planet's bow; as soon as they finish their own mopping up, er, mission. Who says the MA can't send an entire squadron of Lennys to deal with any of the Big 5.

I disagree. I do not think it's possible for an LD to get to within half a million km of one of the Big 5 planets. I'm assuming that under 300,000 km (1 light-second), the chances of it being detected grow exponentially. And any of the Big 25 planets has enough ships going about that the chance of one of them spotting the LD is too high. The Big 5 will also have scanning platforms deployed around the planet. It doesn't even take that many to create a shell a million km in radius and leaving no gap more than 30,000 km between them.

So no LD is going to decloak in orbit. At worst (for the defenders), it's going to do so within energy weapons range, at the half a million km mark or more But that's a lousy shot against the warships defending the planet that had their wedges up. Just orient the ships on different inclinations and attitudes and it's impossible for an enemy to cross the T of all of them, unless said enemy can bring as many stealthed ships as there are defending ones.

as for who's to command the pods? The planet's military's HQ is on the planet. One can assume the system defence centre can command the pods to launch on the direction of targets detected coming into orbit. The problem is the time it takes for the missiles to arrive: if they are out at 5 million km and the enemy is detected at half a million, it takes the missiles at least 50 seconds arrive, in sprint mode.

And if the LD is in energy range of structures around the planet, the LD is also in energy range of OWPs, if any are there. OWPs might be too small, too stealthy and too many to eliminate from a distance. And they're moving in orbit, so the LD can't fire on the ones below the horizon. Once those come up, with bubble walls up, they'll be firing.

3 LDs, on the other hand, could cover all angles, but that also increases the chance of random detection further out.

Unless that firepower is directed at Mt. Royal Palace and other critical targets. The planets, the government and the RMN has to honor the threat. If not, the two or three additional decloaked LDs and Sharks ready to intercept any remaining ships, will show the Filaretas of the RMN the hopelessness of their situation.

I can't shake the dramatic baggage I have of the four alien ships in Independence Day maneuvering into a zero zero - line of communication - intercept of the planet.

Mt Royal can withstand an orbital strike. So you can threaten it like that.

Instead, the MAlign would threaten everyone else: civilians and civilian shipping.

But again, I don't think a low-speed attack at a planet is advantageous. A coordinated attack from 3 angles 120° apart has more chances. Either way, the MAlign will be firing AT the planet to take out all defences. And their chances of survival are poor unless they are moving fast enough for the warships that had wedges up to lock on and pursue before they can vanish.

That's 3 ships per planet (9 for the MBS), without catching the fleets in that system, or the Junction. If they want to attack the defending fleet, they'd have to bring even more ships.

And then there's the problem of inserting into the system in the first place. Any alpha translation up to six light-months out is going to be investigated. An unexplained translation is going to set he system on alert on a deadline. Multiple translations, especially a dozen or more, is going to trigger a manhunt.

BTW, does planets have forts in orbit? The Junction has them and they rotate battle stations. Orbital forts with bubblewalls up would be really tough targets. No LD is going to want to close to one.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:BTW, does planets have forts in orbit? The Junction has them and they rotate battle stations. Orbital forts with bubblewalls up would be really tough targets. No LD is going to want to close to one.

They are mentioned at times, and somehow never mentioned when you'd expect them to be. For example, would you expect that perimeter control would be on a soft platform or on a fort? And you'd kind of think that the forts around manticore would do SOMETHING when millions of tons of debris is about to bombard the planet, but apparently everyone had decided to take a nap or something.

And if you can get within energy range of the fort without detection I suspect you can kill it in safety since the evidence to date is that the fort crew will sleep through the attack.