How would you handle rolled pods?

The situation has been mentioned many times, an opposing wall of Podnaughts is closing on you and are rolling pods - holding them to fire until the range is optimal.

Given a 1922 RMN defensive fleet of roughly equal capability (but not specifically ship #, size, nor type) how would you deal with rolled pods (while rolling your own).

Assume the opposition has triple drive MDMs with approximately the same range as the RMN, using Donkey or ship tractored pods (ie not-Flatpack), conventional CMs, and has a appropriate screen.

I'm pretty sure the weakness is still nukes, so maybe something like Mistletoe'd work. After all, it was used against pods at Lovat.

19chickens wrote:I'm pretty sure the weakness is still nukes, so maybe something like Mistletoe'd work. After all, it was used against pods at Lovat.

One issue might be that an enemy fleet coming over the wall might reach their desired firing range before Mistletoe could reach them.

The situation has been mentioned many times, an opposing wall of Podnaughts is closing on you and are rolling pods - holding them to fire until the range is optimal.

Theemile wrote:Given a 1922 RMN defensive fleet of roughly equal capability (but not specifically ship #, size, nor type) how would you deal with rolled pods (while rolling your own).

Hard to say. If the two sides are really roughly equal capability then you've no advantage at any particular range.

If you have the normal Manticoran edge at very long ranges then it's better to fire early enough to force them to limit the depth of their pod stacks. OTOH you have to fire enough missiles to have a decent probability of reaching prox-kill range through their defenses. Light probing fire is likely to be handled by screening units and CMs and killed before it can threaten the towed pods. So you have to commit to a fairly heavy weight of fire to force them to counter-fire.

If you start too late you risk getting swamped by their alpha strike, but if you start too early you risk running out of pods before reaching a decisive conclusion. (Which is fine if the attacker permanently breaks off at that point, but sucks if they lure you into combat with a fresh, or refreshed, force before you can resupply).
Though at least podnaughts v podnaughts you don't have to risk having all your pods shot away if their salvo breaks through prox-kill range -- just the unfired ones you've already rolled.


Ideally you don't make is a fair fight, and you've got some system defense pods you can call on. Use those for lower probability long range fire to prevent them from stacking pods while you simultaneously stack your own pods for a deep alpha strike one the enemy reaches your preferred range.

But going back to 19chickens's idea Mistletoe could work if you can trade distance for time long enough to sneak the armed RD into range. That would be even better because it could wait until they're rolled a decent percentage of their pods - then destroy them all by surprise before they can launch. (Kind of like what the Shrike's did at Hancock, before they moved on to graser attacks against the BBs). That should leave your SD(P)s with significantly more usable ammo, and allow you to either fire more rapidly or run them out of ammo and then close the range.

It depends. If you have missiles with a longer effective range and better accuracy and lot and lots of ammo (like say Home fleet or 3rd fleet) I'd shoot early and often. If does you no good to get blown up with 80% of your ammo still aboard.

So I'd start with ballistic attacks to get the whole mystical soft kill thing going, and keep that going as we close to prevent someone from massing missiles.

Eventually, even at long range, you will start to do actual damage as each salvo you fire exposes his defenses and also might run light vessels out of CMs. And you start damaging him 30 minutes before he starts shooting I see that as a good thing.

Assuming a range disadvantage, you have to fire early and often.
Possibly with a balistic phase, possibly with a scatter to try and guess at possible manouvers.
Maybe a 2 phase launch, first phase wide open all the way to try and hide a balistic phase behind it.

Basically, you need the soft kills on the incomming pods.

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The first question is did your scouting screw up or not? Do you have numerical superiority or not?

If no, FIRE EARLY so they cannot swamp you while you RUN because currently the bottleneck is the ability to fire a large number of CM's to counter pod launches. Accuracy at range for inflicting damage is secondary to staying alive past the hyperlimit and getting out of Dodge.

If yes, then FIRE EARLY so they cannot stack pods and therefore overwhelm your enemic absurd CM defenses. Its not like pod swamping hasn't been around for say... oh, 15+ years or anything..... BuShips, response to Pod alpha strike for the past 15 years is..... Lets barely increase number of CM tubes compared to pods..... Yea. That works.

The use them or lose them scenario would apply.

How long dos a commander have to decided before they lose the opportunity to fire ?

How quickly can the order to fire missile be carried out?

Would holding off firing the pods till the last possible moment give an advantage in accuracy to make it worth the risk of losing the opportunity to fire their pods off?

kzt wrote:It depends. If you have missiles with a longer effective range and better accuracy and lot and lots of ammo (like say Home fleet or 3rd fleet) I'd shoot early and often. If does you no good to get blown up with 80% of your ammo still aboard.

So I'd start with ballistic attacks to get the whole mystical soft kill thing going, and keep that going as we close to prevent someone from massing missiles.

Eventually, even at long range, you will start to do actual damage as each salvo you fire exposes his defenses and also might run light vessels out of CMs. And you start damaging him 30 minutes before he starts shooting I see that as a good thing.

Although Home Fleet had virtually all its pods (or MDMs for that matter) external, and ship for ship had less CMs and PDLCs than the Havenite SD(P)s.

Manticore's missiles have somewhat better long range performance, but even if the RHN ones aren't scoring direct hits once they start getting into laserhead detonation range Home Fleet is going to start losing it's unused pods in mass quantities to proximity kills.


I don't see any reason why Havens forces would wade though 30 minutes of unanswered fire, just to reach their ideal engagement range. Once they take fire they're very likely to respond. (If nothing else they'll start flushing the pods they already rolled before they lose them to proximity kills.

I'm not sure there was a good answer for Home Fleet. Yes, they died with plenty of pods unfired. But I'm not convinced that by firing earlier they'd have inflicted more damage before dying. They might have gotten a couple extra, less accurate, salvos off but they'd still lose most of their pods unfired. (After which Haven's forces could pause, restack pods, and wipe them out with an alpha strike anyway. Without SD(P)s pods don't have endurance in combat)
3rd, with many more SD(P)s is a somewhat different matter.

Jonathan_S wrote:Manticore's missiles have somewhat better long range performance, but even if the RHN ones aren't scoring direct hits once they start getting into laserhead detonation range Home Fleet is going to start losing it's unused pods in mass quantities to proximity kills.

Nope, the pods are tractored to the ships hull. Inside the wedge, the sidewalls and the radiation screens. If you lose those pods to proximity kills you'll be losing ships to those same proximity kills.

Pods are supposed to only be vulnerable if deployed outside the wedge because reasons, but pods actually attached to the hull of the ship are very nearly as protected as pods in the pod bay.

So Manticore is effectively invulnerable to the mystical "proximity soft kills" and Haven is terribly vulnerable. Given the acceleration change it was obvious what Haven was doing, hence some of the most experienced officers in the RMN decided to ignore it because plot.

Have I mentioned recently I hate that damn book?

Given the constraints of the enemy being an incoming force, so having range advantage, and the possibility of reinforcements appearing behind, I would need to force a waste of their alpha strike, or a degradation of its abilities, to maintain equal effectiveness. My response would probably not be the most effective at killing enemy ships, but im designing it to protect my feelt from the alpha strike foremost.

an inwards concaved wall of battle, with ships as close as possible, with the ships turned to present the belly or roof towards the enemy, and the sidewalls into the curve. Place this curve such that the movement of the curve is around the enemy towards the aft. this keeps the impeller facing the missiles, reducing effectiveness, while allowing covering fire between ships and screen. the movement also prevents the missiles coming head on to the centre of the formation before splitting to hit everyone, reducing the overall attack vector as to attack the centre, the missiles must remove the screen and edge first, which is being supported by the other ships hidden in the wedge shadow. multiple cms per control link and a triple ripple aimed at removing the control missiles, should further improve efficacy of the defense.

this should blunt a portion of the alpha strike, hopefully enough to stop most of it, and prevent targeting of most of my ships, meaning even if i lose a good portion, the majority should be unharmed.


As for the attack, whilst my defense is going on, im rolling pods, but firing a portion of them, say a third. Im not aiming to alpha strike at range, im attempting to deny the ability for him to build enough of an alpha strike, while building my own for closer in. keep them off balance, accepting light losses, while holding for a strong attack where my missiles have a better chance of hitting. So i have a building alpha strike while also forcing a defensive move on his part by streaming waves bigger than non pod waves, but not all out waves, perhaps with one pod in 20 or so a tenth of a second behind, to hide in the wedge shadows of those in front, and catch any hole in the defense to punish my opponent severely.

Im not aiming for a one hit kill, im aiming to make the attrition heavily in my favor while reducing his effectiveness to prolong until he runs low/dry, then move even closer and hammer him to death.


Not sure how effective it would be, but in my head, it shouldnt do too bad......