Call to Arms

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Jonathan, you didn't mention the better sensors.

Those various Volsung groups "sneaking up" from various
directions, might as well be broadcasting their positions
and velocities when Shrike sensors are looking at them!
(Not to mention the Recon Drones.)

Whereas the Shrikes would not be seen, even close-up,
unless they wanted to be ... and maybe not even then,
if the Volsungs were less than perfect with sensors.

Good point; yet another ridiculous advantage a Shrike would have over 400 year older warships.


Although is some ways it would almost be funnier to see a Katana do it. If the Volsungs would have been is disbelief about the number of insanely fast missiles you could cram into a Shrike what do you think they'd feel about the apparently unending stream of Vipers tearing in over twice as quickly?


Hmm, for that matter a Shrike's PDLC are probably powerful enough to go through a Volsung's sidewalls. But the power and cyclic rate of the SD-grade ones on a Katana...

Jonathan_S wrote:

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Jonathan, you didn't mention the better sensors.

Those various Volsung groups "sneaking up" from various
directions, might as well be broadcasting their positions
and velocities when Shrike sensors are looking at them!
(Not to mention the Recon Drones.)

Whereas the Shrikes would not be seen, even close-up,
unless they wanted to be ... and maybe not even then,
if the Volsungs were less than perfect with sensors.

Good point; yet another ridiculous advantage a Shrike would have over 400 year older warships.



Although is some ways it would almost be funnier to see a Katana do it. If the Volsungs would have been is disbelief about the number of insanely fast missiles you could cram into a Shrike what do you think they'd feel about the apparently unending stream of Vipers tearing in over twice as quickly?


Hmm, for that matter a Shrike's PDLC are probably powerful enough to go through a Volsung's sidewalls. But the power and cyclic rate of the SD-grade ones on a Katana...

Given that a Roland is the size of one of the "BattleCruisers" in the RMN fleet, do we even want to contemplate what 1 Roland would do?

Theemile wrote:

Given that a Roland is the size of one of the "BattleCruisers" in the RMN fleet, do we even want to contemplate what 1 Roland would do?

A Roland would be horrible overkill. A single Mk-16 missile at any ship in the Volsung fleet would surely kill it. What's more it could be launched from so far away and under stealth that would pretty much guarantee that the Volsungs would never even see the Roland was there in the first place. Add that to the Roland's mobility and effective engagement range...

Make it interesting and say the Roland has to engage only with energy weapons.

How about what a single Imperetor could do?

OBVIOUSLY it would be such complete overkill it isn't even worth analyzing. But the sheer terror of seeing one of those, and the speeds it can obtain would be so much fun to see.

Direwolf18 wrote:How about what a single Imperetor could do?

OBVIOUSLY it would be such complete overkill it isn't even worth analyzing. But the sheer terror of seeing one of those, and the speeds it can obtain would be so much fun to see.

I though it and wasn't going to mention it.

"Sir, the sensors are doing even weirder things now - They say that a single 8.8Mton ship just dropped out of Stealth at 50 million KM aft of us, while moving at 600 Gs and just fired 1000 missiles at us. Can the day get any weirder? - Oh, and if these numbers are to be believed, the missiles will be here is 6 minutes 10 seconds."

I wouldn't mind seeing CL Fearless have a go. Being limited to energy weapons would be interesting, given its special weapons fit. Obviously, even its emaciated missile broadsides would wipe the Volsungs out effortlessly.

An Invictus, huh? Why not have Home, Third and Eighth fleets(circa pre-BoMA) show up, then toss a quarter million pods worth of missiles at them?

How about assault shuttles? One managed to pop a dispatch boat over Hades. Using chemical warheads IIRC.

That is an interesting idea though... Imagine something like 1632 series, and instead of a small town going back in time, how about say a BC squadron or something, going back in time.

Interesting thought experiment. Admittedly things like the "People's" Republic of Haven, or the Mesan Alignment would be nipped in the bud super fast, but the shockwaves that would send...

munroburton wrote:How about assault shuttles? One managed to pop a dispatch boat over Hades. Using chemical warheads IIRC.

How about the immediately pre-Alliance Grayson Space Navy?

drothgery wrote:

munroburton wrote:How about assault shuttles? One managed to pop a dispatch boat over Hades. Using chemical warheads IIRC.

How about the immediately pre-Alliance Grayson Space Navy?

I'm pretty sure the pre-Alliance GSN would still have shredded the Volsung. Their ships were obsolete, but far more modern that 400 year old Volsung units.

A quick flip through HotQ turned up at least Masadan missile specs - "His missiles were slower than Thunder of God’s. Their drives would burn out in less than a minute, and their maximum acceleration was barely thirty thousand gravities" - but that's still vastly in excess of the acceleration (and therefore range) of the Volsung's 1,300g missiles.

The Grayson's hyper units were capable of roughly 500g at full accel. A bit less than HMS Fearless (CA), and from smaller ships, but vastly more than anything involved in that first Battle of Manticore.


Courvosier indirectly rates their pre-contact CLs as roughly 1/3 to 1/4 as effective as the DD HMS Madrigal "They weren’t even in shouting range of Madrigal’s systems, and the destroyer could take any three Grayson—or Masadan—light cruisers in a stand-up fight."
Seems to me we'd need to find something even less capable to make it a fair fight


But back to munroburton's suggestion how about a new Mark 30 Condor-class pinnace against the Volsung?
Its impeller head missiles would need a clean down the throat shot, and it doesn't carry many. After than it's got accel (600g) and maneuverability, plus a 5cm laser (and probably some heavy pulser guns designed for ground attack) How bad is the armor of that era and how does a 5cm laser ("with significantly improved gravitic lensing") stack up to one carried on a Destroyer of that day?
That's probably overmatched against the entire Volsung fleet - though it could certainly run away.

munroburton wrote:I wouldn't mind seeing CL Fearless have a go. Being limited to energy weapons would be interesting, given its special weapons fit. Obviously, even its emaciated missile broadsides would wipe the Volsungs out effortlessly.

An Invictus, huh? Why not have Home, Third and Eighth fleets(circa pre-BoMA) show up, then toss a quarter million pods worth of missiles at them?

How about assault shuttles? One managed to pop a dispatch boat over Hades. Using chemical warheads IIRC.

I think the range of TWTMNBN is greater than the sensor envelope of the Volsung ships, so CL Fearless could have taken down their sidewalls and used the energy torpedoes without coming anywhere near the Volsung weapons range.