LACs vs Lenny Dets

dreamrider wrote:

kzt wrote:I'd assume that the passive sensor suite on a LD is going to be pretty spectacular. Against that I suspect that the LD may well have a lot less trouble engaging LACs than you might think. I certainly would expect their missile pods are full of missiles with much longer engagement range against a LAC the the LACs effective graser range.

We shall see.
A counterpoint consideration is that FIRING the missiles at the LACs localizes the firing ship for the tac officers of the follow-up hyper warships that are looking for a missile target of their own. Or even for the Apollo clusters that were fired into the area with 'search and destroy' programming.

Or whatever David has already thought of...

dreamrider

Well, somewhat localizes the ship, it might had dropped those pods a hour before and changed vector. If its willing to accept degraded fire control it could be over a tens of millions of km from the pod when launched. (Or you could potentially attempt to herd a target by launching a previously dropped pod with zero fire control, so absolutely nowhere near you, just to force them to react)


The missile launching will be a unmissable gravimetric signal, but to localize the controlling ship you might be better off looking for fire control signals. Those pretty much need to be direct path from the transmitter to the missile, and probably can't be pencil beam lasers - too hard to keep connectivity with the missile maneuvering at that accel at those ranges. (Although it's possible that the Lenny Dets might use a deployable fire control relay - not entirely dissimilar to a Keyhole (I) - to obfuscate their location while still controlling the missile salvos.

The MAN has the tech to do something like that: they had those deployed platforms to guide oyster bay, so some modified version of those could be used.

Leonard Detweilers (LD) would be good for commerce raiding. Per the books, the Sharks were pod layers with the Grazer Torpedoes (GT) in racks on the side. The LDs are large enough to carry GTs internally. The GTs have a range comparable to a recon drone, so a whole system range. I'm sure the AI on the GT is pretty good as well.

With the exception of top line systems like Manticore, most systems will not have extensive long-range sensors, if they have them at all. The Mesan Alignment Navy (MAlign/MAN) surely has had long enough to know the capabilities of the static sensors of various systems. Especially since they are large, out in the open sensors.

So, jumping in a one or two LDs at long range is most likely to be undetected. Using recon drones, the LDs find convoys, installations, ships in parking orbits and the like that they want to attack. You swim out the GTs to attack those. The endurance on a GT (since they are comparable to a recon drone), means you can leave some in place on likely vectors for a convoy to attack later and can attack installations and parked ships since they are in predictable orbits. You can also leave pods as mines if they have the endurance for that. Since the LD is so big, you can use a bigger pod with more AI and endurance. Once you drop pods and/or GTs for an attack run, you change course to get you further from the datum point. And if the pods are on delayed activation even the better. The GTs can change their own course making it even harder to figure out where the LD was when it fired it. The same above applies for places where convoys enter and leave grav waves. Since impellar ships use grav waves to save fuel and speed up transit times, the paths from one location to another are fairly predictable and setting up an ambush, while harder than at the edge of a system, is not insurmountable because of the travel along known grav wave pathways.


Now for convoy defense, LACs on freighters are to deter pirates and the light convoy raiders; Light Cruisers and below. When heavier convoy raiders show up, then the admiralty should send out Cruisers and Battlecruisers to swat the convoy raiders. In fact, if warships show up to raid a convoy at all, the admiralty should send warships in response. If LDs show up to swat convoys, then the SDs should be sent out. LACs are not there to defeat every convoy threat, but to swat the ones they can and force the enemy to assign more and larger warships to convoy raiding if that is what they want to do. Then you are forcing the enemy to deploy ships more on your terms which is a step to defeating him.

Kizarvexis wrote:Leonard Detweilers (LD) would be good for commerce raiding. Per the books, the Sharks were pod layers with the Grazer Torpedoes (GT) in racks on the side. The LDs are large enough to carry GTs internally. The GTs have a range comparable to a recon drone, so a whole system range. I'm sure the AI on the GT is pretty good as well.

Tactically, yes a Lenny Det could wipe out any merchant ship, or most convoys, and can evade detection by most system's sensor networks.

But to what strategic end would the MAlign adopt commerce raiding? Germany did in the World Wars because it had a chance of starving one of their enemies out of the war, and even if it failed at that end was a relatively economical way of directly and indirectly harming the UK's war fighting ability. The US did it in World War II against Japan for largely the same reasons with the added bonus that Japan needed oil tankers to provide virtually all the fuel for her military - sink enough of them and the ships can't steam and the planes can't fly.

I don't see a correspondingly powerful enough result from preying on SL, ex-SL, or GA commerce in a systematic way. I guess I could see occasional operations to encourage people to sign on with the local powerhouse (Renesanace Factor planet) for defense against the "pirate" threat - but even that's a bit of a stretch.

I think people (myself occasionally included) are too caught up in the submarine analogy. We know historically subs were used primarily for sinking merchantmen so of course the larger than a battleship Lenny Dets "must" be intended for commerce raiding.


But first we need to figure out if commerce raiding even effectively serves the strategic ends of the MAlign.
Then, assuming it does, we have to think about the most efficient way to carry it out.

There's a reason that nobody planned to use their main battleline for commerce raiding. It's too expensive, and too important, and it's total overkill for hunting down merchantmen on the high seas. You can do it more effectively and more economically with more numerous cheaper platforms.

Now there were a few instances where BBs were used to go after merchantmen, but only once the cycle of escalation provided convoys that were "rich" enough to justify the risk and were heavily defended enough to discourage cruiser raids. And at least for Germany it helps that her few BBs were never numerous enough to make any kind of effective stand against the Royal Navy's battleline, so might as well get some use out of them - even if you might have been better off with those resources invested in more CAs, subs, or even tanks and planes. The Italian fleet in the Med was a bit different, but even there the BBs only soritied to try and stop important convoys of military supplies - they weren't out chasing down random freighters (there were subs, eboats, and planes for that) - the BBs only came out when the risk / reward justified it. To attempt to stop well defended convoys that Malta relied on.

Jonathan_S wrote:Tactically, yes a Lenny Det could wipe out any merchant ship, or most convoys, and can evade detection by most system's sensor networks.

But to what strategic end would the MAlign adopt commerce raiding?

Oh, that's easy. The Alignment would adopt commerce raiding to do the following:

A) Convince more systems that the League can no longer protect them, accelerating the breakup of the Solarian League.
B) Give the Renaissance Factor systems a reason for declaring independence and deploying their fleets.
C) Convince systems they need the protection of stronger systems like the Renaissance Factor.
D) Force the Grand Alliance to disperse ships to protect their own systems, their convoys, and their major trading partners.
E) Ultimately, to create the threat that brings about the creation of a reborn League, under their control.

I'm not sure that the Alignment would use Detweilers to do all this, but I am certain that they intend to create a shadowy threat such as commerce raiding by unknown parties which does all the above.

SWM wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Tactically, yes a Lenny Det could wipe out any merchant ship, or most convoys, and can evade detection by most system's sensor networks.

But to what strategic end would the MAlign adopt commerce raiding?

Oh, that's easy. The Alignment would adopt commerce raiding to do the following:

A) Convince more systems that the League can no longer protect them, accelerating the breakup of the Solarian League.
B) Give the Renaissance Factor systems a reason for declaring independence and deploying their fleets.
C) Convince systems they need the protection of stronger systems like the Renaissance Factor.
D) Force the Grand Alliance to disperse ships to protect their own systems, their convoys, and their major trading partners.
E) Ultimately, to create the threat that brings about the creation of a reborn League, under their control.

I'm not sure that the Alignment would use Detweilers to do all this, but I am certain that they intend to create a shadowy threat such as commerce raiding by unknown parties which does all the above.

If I had access to the Lanny Det's and trained crews I would not waste them on commerce raiding. I would create mass confusion and make the break up of the League as messy and violent as possible. I would also find a way to pin back the Grand Alliance's ears.

If the League hasn't splintered by the time the Lanny Det's are worked up I would:
1. Attack multiple systems all around the League at random. Making sure to deploy drones that mimic Manticoran or Havenite ship signatures. Cause enough damage and if the drones are close to the right spot, the Grand Alliance will be blamed.
a) I would target infrastructure
b) Any and all shipping in the area
c) Make certain a few missiles hit the planet the action takes place at.
d) I would make the engagement quick, violent and then leave.
2. I would look to attack and wipe out Grand Alliance ships at worm hole junctions.
3. I would use them to spy and find out Manticore's production areas and if any shipping is coming in from other star systems with supplies. I would do everything in my power to damage / interrupt the shipments.

The reason for 3 should be clear. Upset their production recovery and give them something serious to look into instead of who is destabilizing the League.

I think you have to choose one or the other, it'd be hard to convince people that the GA is the one with the stealth raiders when they are getting attacked at the same time.

quark wrote:I think you have to choose one or the other, it'd be hard to convince people that the GA is the one with the stealth raiders when they are getting attacked at the same time.

After Oyster Bay, with the GA openly talking about the Mesan Alignment, the choice is effectively already made - unless the MA can create enough confusion in how reports are made, spread, and received.

So, assuming they're not confident in Project: Universal Snowjob, you'd be left with the MA having to orchestrate supposed GA attacks on everyone else with conventional ships (if there are any ex-StateSec ships out there, they'd be candidates) to frame them, and sticking with the spider-drive warship attacks on the GA's forces, commerce, planets.

Having to picket every wormhole around, with minimal distances to hyperlimits, does mean that a lot of GA forces are exposed without the generous sensor frontiers that may make for decent defense against those invisible raiders. It would also help the MAN not to have to confront the GA head-on, which it just can't.

SWM wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Tactically, yes a Lenny Det could wipe out any merchant ship, or most convoys, and can evade detection by most system's sensor networks.

But to what strategic end would the MAlign adopt commerce raiding?

Oh, that's easy. The Alignment would adopt commerce raiding to do the following:

A) Convince more systems that the League can no longer protect them, accelerating the breakup of the Solarian League.
B) Give the Renaissance Factor systems a reason for declaring independence and deploying their fleets.
C) Convince systems they need the protection of stronger systems like the Renaissance Factor.
D) Force the Grand Alliance to disperse ships to protect their own systems, their convoys, and their major trading partners.
E) Ultimately, to create the threat that brings about the creation of a reborn League, under their control.

I'm not sure that the Alignment would use Detweilers to do all this, but I am certain that they intend to create a shadowy threat such as commerce raiding by unknown parties which does all the above.

I can see that. I'm just not sure that mysterious losses (from spider ships that won't show themselves) are better than say outfitting a bunch CLs for commerce raiding. And then for bonus points use basically FF designs so you have the option of implying that it's rouge FF forces who've turned pirate - or at least people selling 'excess' first line FF ships to pirates - extra confusion and distrust.

They can cover more ground, since you can probable outfit at least 8 for the cost of each Lenny Det.
Sure they shouldn't be tackling well defended convoys, but in the scenario you put forth you're trying to put pressure on people who largely don't have militaries. So the ability to punch out a convoy defended by GA caliber cruisers is complete overkill. (But if they do scrape up real convoy escorts then maybe you divert a Lenny Det or a Shark for a one time assist for your raiders; to punch out those escorts)

Jonathan_S wrote:

SWM wrote:I'm not sure that the Alignment would use Detweilers to do all this, but I am certain that they intend to create a shadowy threat such as commerce raiding by unknown parties which does all the above.

I can see that. I'm just not sure that mysterious losses (from spider ships that won't show themselves) are better than say outfitting a bunch CLs for commerce raiding. And then for bonus points use basically FF designs so you have the option of implying that it's rouge FF forces who've turned pirate - or at least people selling 'excess' first line FF ships to pirates - extra confusion and distrust.

They can cover more ground, since you can probable outfit at least 8 for the cost of each Lenny Det.
Sure they shouldn't be tackling well defended convoys, but in the scenario you put forth you're trying to put pressure on people who largely don't have militaries. So the ability to punch out a convoy defended by GA caliber cruisers is complete overkill. (But if they do scrape up real convoy escorts then maybe you divert a Lenny Det or a Shark for a one time assist for your raiders; to punch out those escorts)

I'm sure you could outfit a lot more than eight conventional frigates or light cruisers for the cost of a Leonard Detweiler SD. For that matter, at this point, they wouldn't likely want to use spider drive warships doing anything publicly that they aren't content to have attributed to the Mesan Alignment.

There's a lot of the galaxy to poke that isn't going to have top-of-the-line GA equipment defending it though. Silesia's getting cleaned up, but that's still likely to mean a lot of privateers looking for sponsors, and Manpower can provide that. Those can make for well-supported, well-organized trouble for both Andermani and SEM Silesia and Andermani and Verge systems out that way - at least those without decent SEM or Andermani pickets in place. "Verge privateers" could plausibly start hitting OFS protectorates, to help along the disintegration of the Solarian League and the climate of fear the RF needs.

I'm still wondering just what operational role the Detweilers are meant to fill, with Oyster Bay not something they can repeat, with spider drive ships hopelessly unsuited for the line of battle, and with SD's hopelessly excessive for raiding. I'm tempted to think the MAN made a huge jeune ecole mistake: develop a cool, radically different weapon system and build a navy around it with a tactical and operational doctrine to be figured out later.

But certainly the MAN can do a lot of practical villainy with conventional units.