Reserve destruction

George J. Smith wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:They have kept the people maintaining the RMN chat forum servers employed securely for years.

And the forumites totally side-tracked

You know - given how effective SLN crews and hardware are against the RMN, sucking up officer productivity on forum brainstorming may be one of the most powerful services Filareta's fleet could render the League war effort.

If I were Manticore taking out the reserve would be VERY low on my list of priorities, a waste of missiles. The "political goal" is stated as being to decapitate the monster and replace it with a bunch of friends with whom the SEM can do business.

If nothing else, the existence of the SLN has "other empire" suppressing capability, out of loyalty to the old beast, in other words, those forces can still suppress the rest of the universe from going up in the smoke of interstellar wars for empire.

Besides which, there's a worse enemy on the horizon that needs to be dealt with first. In "pre-diaspora" terms, give Spain their entire wood boat armada for however many centuries, and the German's the WWI and WWII fleets with the Nazis in command. Who would you have the USN and RMN concentrate on first?

Shark Hunter, I see your point, but destroying the mothballed ships are not going to be that costly; either have 2-3 CLAC's use them for Grazer practice for their LAC's or several old destroyers/LC's with a supply ship with contact nukes should do the job just fine (once the GA has cleared out any lurking warships).

And as others have pointed out, what is an obsolete deathtrap against Manticore or Haven may be an overwhelming powerhouse in a less visited part of the Verge 1,000 LY's away...

We shall see, eventually.

Hutch wrote:Shark Hunter, I see your point, but destroying the mothballed ships are not going to be that costly; either have 2-3 CLAC's use them for Grazer practice for their LAC's or several old destroyers/LC's with a supply ship with contact nukes should do the job just fine (once the GA has cleared out any lurking warships).

For that matter, clearing out lurking warships may not be quite necessary. Translate out of hyper with the CLAC's a good ways out and gently - you may be mistaken, especially by the sloppy SLN, as a sensor ghost. Let the Shrikes accelerate slowly under stealth for a bit and coast ballistically to the Reserve ships. Open up with grasers as you pass, targeting the tops and bottoms of the capital ships where the armor is trivial. Accelerate freely after that, presumably to meet the CLAC's on the far side of the hyper limit thereafter.

JeffEngel wrote:

Hutch wrote:Shark Hunter, I see your point, but destroying the mothballed ships are not going to be that costly; either have 2-3 CLAC's use them for Grazer practice for their LAC's or several old destroyers/LC's with a supply ship with contact nukes should do the job just fine (once the GA has cleared out any lurking warships).

For that matter, clearing out lurking warships may not be quite necessary. Translate out of hyper with the CLAC's a good ways out and gently - you may be mistaken, especially by the sloppy SLN, as a sensor ghost. Let the Shrikes accelerate slowly under stealth for a bit and coast ballistically to the Reserve ships. Open up with grasers as you pass, targeting the tops and bottoms of the capital ships where the armor is trivial. Accelerate freely after that, presumably to meet the CLAC's on the far side of the hyper limit thereafter.

Might be better to approach just that bit closer and go for axial shots. Since those ships don't have active fusion reactors, you might end up breaking them into halves. And halves can be glued back together.

Actually, you could probably land shots on the ventral or dorsal surfaces which are aimed diagonally but covering as much length as possible. That way, you gut the ships more completely, even if the outer hulls are left almost intact.

munroburton wrote: Might be better to approach just that bit closer and go for axial shots. Since those ships don't have active fusion reactors, you might end up breaking them into halves. And halves can be glued back together.

Glue, hell; per Cauldron of Ghosts, we know that duct tape still survives in the 42nd century!

Actually, you could probably land shots on the ventral or dorsal surfaces which are aimed diagonally but covering as much length as possible. That way, you gut the ships more completely, even if the outer hulls are left almost intact.

Like I said: target practice. Although I am becoming more enamoured with the using contact nukes, set to the tune of the 1812 Overture (da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-BOOM;da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-BOOM) or "99 Superdreadnoughts on hand; 99 Superdreadnoughts, you take a bomb and set it down and there's 98 Superdreadnoughts on hand'.

Now, get rid of that earbug...

Hutch wrote:

munroburton wrote: Might be better to approach just that bit closer and go for axial shots. Since those ships don't have active fusion reactors, you might end up breaking them into halves. And halves can be glued back together.

Glue, hell; per Cauldron of Ghosts, we know that duct tape still survives in the 42nd century!

Actually, you could probably land shots on the ventral or dorsal surfaces which are aimed diagonally but covering as much length as possible. That way, you gut the ships more completely, even if the outer hulls are left almost intact.

Like I said: target practice. Although I am becoming more enamoured with the using contact nukes, set to the tune of the 1812 Overture (da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-BOOM;da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-BOOM) or "99 Superdreadnoughts on hand; 99 Superdreadnoughts, you take a bomb and set it down and there's 98 Superdreadnoughts on hand'.

Now, get rid of that earbug...

Personally, I always wondered what kind of damage a CM would do to an unarmored SD. I bet it would be pretty.....

Theemile wrote:Personally, I always wondered what kind of damage a CM would do to an unarmored SD. I bet it would be pretty.....

Oh. Yeah, you could just drive your wedges into them. Poof. Now I'm picturing LAC wings playing bowling balls and seeing how many SDs they can sweep in a single maneuver.

One good thing about the size of the Reserve - it allows ample opportunity for all methods to be tried.

Hutch wrote:Shark Hunter, I see your point, but destroying the mothballed ships are not going to be that costly; either have 2-3 CLAC's use them for Grazer practice for their LAC's or several old destroyers/LC's with a supply ship with contact nukes should do the job just fine (once the GA has cleared out any lurking warships).

I had a thought here:

Do a long-duration CLAC mission--drop the LACs so far out they are not detected. Boost to .8c and aim to pass 100,000km from the ships--then go into stealth, wedges down once you actually approach the system.

The reserve isn't going to have warship guards nearby, the LACs won't be detected. When they come into range they fire their grasers but otherwise stay as dark as possible--still no wedge. The Sollies see their ships going boom without any indication of what's doing it--how's that for demoralizing!

(And, yes, they can almost certainly pull this off unless they have the bad luck to have a warship in the wrong place. Stay far from the ecliptic and this isn't likely to happen. Defenseless due to no wedges?? Even if they are detected they are basically invulnerable against most threats. Not even the GA possesses a missile that can engage unless they're flying at the launch platform. Grasers can--but only if the firing ship is already perfectly placed. Time is also a factor--suppose they pulled this tactic on manned wallers, would they get hit? No--they will be outside maximum Graser range in 5 seconds. Unless the enemy was already at battlestations they wouldn't have a hope of engaging in this window. You couldn't pull this on alert ships because of detection on the way in, not because of what would happen on the way out.)

Hutch wrote:Shark Hunter, I see your point, but destroying the mothballed ships are not going to be that costly; either have 2-3 CLAC's use them for Grazer practice for their LAC's or several old destroyers/LC's with a supply ship with contact nukes should do the job just fine (once the GA has cleared out any lurking warships).

And as others have pointed out, what is an obsolete deathtrap against Manticore or Haven may be an overwhelming powerhouse in a less visited part of the Verge 1,000 LY's away...

We shall see, eventually.

Point is those ships represent enough of a threat to be a power in ANY system, meaning that the RMN doesn't have to police every star system with pirates or warlord types that won't act that out to much because they're afraid of FF or battle fleet.