Wormhole Assault: MA Style

kzt wrote:No, it just has to be the best option they have. If it's stupid but it works...

It could be, so long as it has the range. And that's exactly the point where RFC seems to disagree, so it's not something we can get around.

Stopping a missile after it has fired is not useful. Losing the ability to evade in order to strike at missiles inside their firing range doesn't seem like a good trade-off.

I could only see that if the MAN had already lost several LDs to the GF and those had a good idea that they get very close to the target because it had insufficient defences. Outside of that scenario, I'd expect missiles to make a heuristic decision on terminal manoeuvres whether to take a shot or to continue further in order to get an even better shot, meaning that a significant fraction of any missile swarm will have fired outside of the range of the spider.

In other words, a desperate move would only be undertaken under desperate situations!

We don't actually know what the LDs have in the way of defensive suite other than being very stealth and -to this point- seem to be using the long range deployment of ballistic of incredibly stealthy things like the Grazer Torpedoes as offensive weapons.

So, exactly how will a LD defend itself if discovered? Ramming -or attempting to ram- an attacker doesn't strike me as the best 1st plan to keep from being destroyed.

Any thoughts?

Brigade XO wrote:We don't actually know what the LDs have in the way of defensive suite other than being very stealth and -to this point- seem to be using the long range deployment of ballistic of incredibly stealthy things like the Grazer Torpedoes as offensive weapons.

So, exactly how will a LD defend itself if discovered? Ramming -or attempting to ram- an attacker doesn't strike me as the best 1st plan to keep from being destroyed.

Any thoughts?

If all they have are conventional defences, the sheer volume and length and the fact that there is no wedge would allow them to fire a massive number of CMs. They can also turn two faces to the incoming missile swarm and have two thirds of its PDLCs have firing solutions on the missiles too.

But I can't see how any single ship, however big, can put out enough defence to stop a 12000-missile alpha launch (and this was what Terekhov fired at Spindle). There's a reason why battle squadrons have screening units whose sole purpose is to thicken the defensive screen, from battlecruisers all the way down to LACs. So maybe an MAN battle squadron will also have Ghost-sized escorting units and other ones between a Ghost and a Shark.

Maybe an innovation they can pursue is a forward-deployed platform like the graser torpedoes but used for defence. Load it up with strapped-on CM canisters, some internal magazine, and lots of lasers. That is, something like a Keyhole when used as a defensive tool (not as a missile control link). The concept is not too alien and the MAN does have the technology to send a long-endurance stealth platform. It won't be stealthy when actually firing, but it would retain so while deployed "just in case" and wuoldn't make the missile targetting easier.

Another thing I expect the MAN to go for is their equivalent of the Loreleis: decoy units capable of diverting attention from the actual ship

This guy named David keeps claiming that a 12-16mt fort can defeat 200mt of SDs. So I don’t know.

kzt wrote:This guy named David keeps claiming that a 12-16mt fort can defeat 200mt of SDs. So I don’t know.

Didn't that fort control enough missile pods to launch 20000 missiles?

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:

kzt wrote:This guy named David keeps claiming that a 12-16mt fort can defeat 200mt of SDs. So I don’t know.

Didn't that fort control enough missile pods to launch 20000 missiles?

I burned too many neurons trying to figure out how that could be. The pods can not be the answer, because tactically SDs are mobile. Forts are as well to a degree, but their pods aren't. Ballistic launches could have taken out the pods way back even before MDMs, when David made that statement.

cthia wrote:I burned too many neurons trying to figure out how that could be. The pods can not be the answer, because tactically SDs are mobile. Forts are as well to a degree, but their pods aren't. Ballistic launches could have taken out the pods way back even before MDMs, when David made that statement.

It was about the unfinished forts at Lynx WH that the MA planned to have captured. MDMs were certainly a thing then,

Ballistic launches at pods deployed by (or taken over by) forts defending something like the Junction are going to a truly interesting problem in targeting.
How many pods, spaced how far apart (remember, the "standard" RMN pod is going to have 6+ missiles -if a missile pod- and so have to be arranged such that they avoid fratricide of missiles fired at targets. But how many pods are deployed in the existing fields?
It these are Graser Pods- using recycled SLN grazers mounts- there there are still a lot of pods.

The problem is that you are looking at having to destroy pods before they can launch their batches of missiles. If the pods are spread enough to avoid their missile from killing either other pods and or the missiles launched from other pods......what do you use? A crapload of CM's on ballistic paths , each targeted on a specific pod from your massively detailed prior recon probe (under incredible stealth like floating Ghosts close enough to detect the shoals of pods) ? Then have the ballistic CM's activate in a progressive wave sequence such that the leaders light off 1st and (hopefully) take out their targets with the next in line go VERY shortly afterwards so as not to have wedge fratricide and go after their own targets (or possibly clean up one or two the 1st sequence missed.
Still, a LOT of CMs and you have to send them into operational range ballistically because (presuming your using a LD) you aren't going to be engaging from point blank range.

If your not attacking the minefields (of pods) defending the Junction or other locations, you are talking about going after a fort that is spewing pods in defensive deployment for an attack. How are you going to target those?
Sure, causing enough damage to the deploying fort MIGHT eliminated it's recently deployed pods as a threat except for the problem that your taking about things that can be switched over to other tactical control systems to deliver targeting and launch instructions so you might have pounded for XT-6 to a burning wreck by RY-74 an uplink targeting info and flush XT-6's pod birds at whatever target is being tracked.

Ok, this presumes the pods have wedges of any sort to maintain formation, but if they do and you switch those to ON , the pods themselves will start taking out what is sent at them. Even if you are "only" using gas thrusters, you still have to direct whatever your suing (CM, full-up missiles) or Kinetic weapons) to intercept the pod(s).
And don't tell me you are going to use a multi-lasing rod anti-ship missile to take out multiple pods at a time. Why? Because you would have to do some serious reprograming and probably physical modifications such that the rods are going to need to be AT LEAST oriented in different directions (to target different pods in different directions) relative to where the missile ejects the rods---and with different targeting solutions for EACH rod rather than the relatively close area represented by where a ship is expected to be. And pods are minuscule relative to a starship and they are not giving off much in the way of emissions (unlike a warship with it's wedge up).

I suppose one version could be "throwing rocks" and you could just disperse several thousand tones of pea gravel -at a great distance-on a ballistic course for the pod field but how many pieces of gravel traveling how fast do you need to take out a pod.

So many questions:)

Brigade XO wrote:Ballistic launches at pods deployed by (or taken over by) forts defending something like the Junction are going to a truly interesting problem in targeting.
How many pods, spaced how far apart (remember, the "standard" RMN pod is going to have 6+ missiles -if a missile pod- and so have to be arranged such that they avoid fratricide of missiles fired at targets. But how many pods are deployed in the existing fields?
It these are Graser Pods- using recycled SLN grazers mounts- there there are still a lot of pods.

The problem is that you are looking at having to destroy pods before they can launch their batches of missiles. If the pods are spread enough to avoid their missile from killing either other pods and or the missiles launched from other pods......what do you use? A crapload of CM's on ballistic paths , each targeted on a specific pod from your massively detailed prior recon probe (under incredible stealth like floating Ghosts close enough to detect the shoals of pods) ? Then have the ballistic CM's activate in a progressive wave sequence such that the leaders light off 1st and (hopefully) take out their targets with the next in line go VERY shortly afterwards so as not to have wedge fratricide and go after their own targets (or possibly clean up one or two the 1st sequence missed.
Still, a LOT of CMs and you have to send them into operational range ballistically because (presuming your using a LD) you aren't going to be engaging from point blank range.

If your not attacking the minefields (of pods) defending the Junction or other locations, you are talking about going after a fort that is spewing pods in defensive deployment for an attack. How are you going to target those?
Sure, causing enough damage to the deploying fort MIGHT eliminated it's recently deployed pods as a threat except for the problem that your taking about things that can be switched over to other tactical control systems to deliver targeting and launch instructions so you might have pounded for XT-6 to a burning wreck by RY-74 an uplink targeting info and flush XT-6's pod birds at whatever target is being tracked.

Ok, this presumes the pods have wedges of any sort to maintain formation, but if they do and you switch those to ON , the pods themselves will start taking out what is sent at them. Even if you are "only" using gas thrusters, you still have to direct whatever your suing (CM, full-up missiles) or Kinetic weapons) to intercept the pod(s).
And don't tell me you are going to use a multi-lasing rod anti-ship missile to take out multiple pods at a time. Why? Because you would have to do some serious reprograming and probably physical modifications such that the rods are going to need to be AT LEAST oriented in different directions (to target different pods in different directions) relative to where the missile ejects the rods---and with different targeting solutions for EACH rod rather than the relatively close area represented by where a ship is expected to be. And pods are minuscule relative to a starship and they are not giving off much in the way of emissions (unlike a warship with it's wedge up).

I suppose one version could be "throwing rocks" and you could just disperse several thousand tones of pea gravel -at a great distance-on a ballistic course for the pod field but how many pieces of gravel traveling how fast do you need to take out a pod.

So many questions:)

Plus I wouldn't be surprised if forts, without having to constrict their hull form to the tapered spindle form forced on starship by the need to mount sails, had room to mount multiple groups of pod hatches. So they could potentially deploy fresh pods at a far higher rate than the 6 at a time an SD(P) can roll.

So wiping out the pre-deployed system defense pods weakens their firepower, but it would hardly leave them toothless; and they should still be more than equal to any SD(P).
[After all, part of the reason you build pod-laying forts - rather than relying exclusively on pre-deployed pods and Moriarty/Mycroft style fire control modules is that their internal missiles and fire control are survivable against a surprise attack in a way that free floating pods and unarmored stations are not]

There is also the question of why you would need to attempt to destroy a Junction or terminus's deployed pods to attack the forts (and any warships that are stationed there.

Even before Dual Drive and now MDM, an attacker could stand outside the powered envelop of the defenders missiles and pump their attack birds in ballistic even if they had to preload or do an update on targeting before they lit off the drives. The fort's don't dodge all that well and mostly it's they and whatever warships assigned that would be feeding targeting data to the pods (well, that and Astro Control who is monitoring the Junction's sensor net)

Other than attempting to eliminated the deployed pods (mines etc) so you could- contemplate - getting closer to engaging the manned defenses, the other major reason would be to clear the way for ships you were going to have attack through the wormhole.

Does that strike you as a reasonable option? If you have secured the Junction or that end of the wormhole, you control the pods etc. Of course, taking out all the forts guarding a SEM terminus is not a trivial undertaking. It is, of course, always possible that SEM has a Go-To-Hell plan buried in the coding for the pods/mines software that could be triggered such that if communications is cut off-either comms are shut down or a code is sent- the pods will set for a series of preprogramed default and do things like kill anything that shows up as coming though the wormhole or lights them up with targeting sensors and them launches at the pods unless they get a stand down instruction.

Colossal Dead Man Switch. Very bad news for everybody involved