The Alignment's Next Step

feyhunde wrote:It's a pure strategic weapon to attack infrastructure. Even if they had their fleet in Sigma Draconis, they can't maneuver an intercept with a normal space fleet unless its in drydock.

No, that's how it's been used. These are apparently roughly as tough as RMN fort, massively armed with pods and "other" long ranged weapons. And functionally invisible. So say a squadron of them supported by a squadron of ghosts drops of out of hyper very carefully at the limit and heads for your planet.

What do you see? You see 9 different hyper transitions of low energy spread across the hyperlimit, both along the ecliptic and towards the poles. And then nothing.

What do you do? What do you tell your defense commanders to do?

Note that your ship's detection range is significantly less than their graser range.

kzt wrote:No, that's how it's been used. These are apparently roughly as tough as RMN fort, massively armed with pods and "other" long ranged weapons. And functionally invisible. So say a squadron of them supported by a squadron of ghosts drops of out of hyper very carefully at the limit and heads for your planet.

What do you see? You see 9 different hyper transitions of low energy spread across the hyperlimit, both along the ecliptic and towards the poles. And then nothing.

What do you do? What do you tell your defense commanders to do?

Note that your ship's detection range is significantly less than their graser range.

Note I'm bad at tactics, but this would be my plan:
I launch sensor platforms, escorts and LACs to intercept as much volume as possible.

I'm trying to remember details about their stealth, but I think their control for heat emissions was directional, meaning if I'm able to put the data together for a large enough volume I can maybe spot them.

Sending them in with a conventional fleet does mean I have to worry about both. But it also means I've got hot wedges and sidewalls up.

Hmm, maybe its not totally useless in a conventional fight though. I think pulling off an intercept with a conventional fleet and spider drive fleet would be pretty hard though. It sounds like real world coordination might fall apart with real world complications, eg an unit out of the expected positions and able to throw off the intercept timeline.

feyhunde wrote:

kzt wrote:No, that's how it's been used. These are apparently roughly as tough as RMN fort, massively armed with pods and "other" long ranged weapons. And functionally invisible. So say a squadron of them supported by a squadron of ghosts drops of out of hyper very carefully at the limit and heads for your planet.

What do you see? You see 9 different hyper transitions of low energy spread across the hyperlimit, both along the ecliptic and towards the poles. And then nothing.

What do you do? What do you tell your defense commanders to do?


Note that your ship's detection range is significantly less than their graser range.

Note I'm bad at tactics, but this would be my plan:
I launch sensor platforms, escorts and LACs to intercept as much volume as possible.

I'm trying to remember details about their stealth, but I think their control for heat emissions was directional, meaning if I'm able to put the data together for a large enough volume I can maybe spot them.

Sending them in with a conventional fleet does mean I have to worry about both. But it also means I've got hot wedges and sidewalls up.

Hmm, maybe its not totally useless in a conventional fight though. I think pulling off an intercept with a conventional fleet and spider drive fleet would be pretty hard though. It sounds like real world coordination might fall apart with real world complications, eg an unit out of the expected positions and able to throw off the intercept timeline.

Given their low accel, they probably won't maneuver with a conventional fleet. That doesn't mean they can't coordinate with a conventional fleet, though. If a spider force jumps in early, they could arrange a trap with them (or their graser torps) as the anvil, and a conventional force as a hammer. It would take some coordination and a fair amount of planning and a little luck.

Theemile wrote:
Given their low accel, they probably won't maneuver with a conventional fleet. That doesn't mean they can't coordinate with a conventional fleet, though. If a spider force jumps in early, they could arrange a trap with them (or their graser torps) as the anvil, and a conventional force as a hammer. It would take some coordination and a fair amount of planning and a little luck.

Hence why I think its a great idea on paper, but hard to work in the real world. I can see it'd be great even with bad coordination to do something like a fork attack or pulling a fleet off station. It would also be useful to attack fixed forts.

Still, even then, the MAN seems to have limited use in the near to mid term except for those sorts of invisible attacks everyone says will tip their hands or requires killing of all witnesses (eg massive EE violation) to work. The Alignment isn't planning on conventional attacks using their own forces since they don't want anyone to know they exist.

Hmm, possibly they could be useful in flipping a battle as well. I still think it'd be risky and requires a 'leaves no witness' approach, but have the Spider fleet already in a target system and SLN has orders for a pre-planned position to limit tactical options. Wait until a GA force shows up. GA beats the SLN fleet. MAN Spider fleet attacks the GA fleet during the mop up. Insanely risky and requires lots of luck to pull off. Then obscuring what happens tips off the GA.

Also I can see the MAN pulling back on plans for the Spider fleet if they think there's a risk the GA can better detect them.

kzt wrote:What do you do? What do you tell your defense commanders to do?

Note that your ship's detection range is significantly less than their graser range.

Recon drones. Or perhaps long-duration system defense versions thereof. Sure, the drone is in range before it's detected but if they fire on the drone they just revealed themselves. Soon there will be a pod of Apollo missiles heading towards the flaming datum the left. They might succeed in killing them in time but only at the cost of a lot more flaming datums. Their combat capability isn't that much above the SLN, once the volume of space they're in is known they're dead.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Recon drones. Or perhaps long-duration system defense versions thereof. Sure, the drone is in range before it's detected but if they fire on the drone they just revealed themselves. Soon there will be a pod of Apollo missiles heading towards the flaming datum the left. They might succeed in killing them in time but only at the cost of a lot more flaming datums. Their combat capability isn't that much above the SLN, once the volume of space they're in is known they're dead.

Sorry, it's BoM, no recon drones allowed to poke at the attacking fleet.

Actually it doesn't matter, you won't see anything because your detection range is 1 light second.

kzt wrote:

feyhunde wrote:It's a pure strategic weapon to attack infrastructure. Even if they had their fleet in Sigma Draconis, they can't maneuver an intercept with a normal space fleet unless its in drydock.

No, that's how it's been used. These are apparently roughly as tough as RMN fort, massively armed with pods and "other" long ranged weapons. And functionally invisible. So say a squadron of them supported by a squadron of ghosts drops of out of hyper very carefully at the limit and heads for your planet.

I don't remember the description of the Lenny Dets being that tough. The comparison with Manticoran forts and bristling with weapons is something I can't find in the only description I have: MoH chapter 38. Did RFC say more somewhere I don't remember?

It also doesn't make a whole lot of strategic sense, since one of the objectives is to take out opponents of the RF to clear the path, without making enough waves to solidify people's suspicions.

-- big snip --

I'm interested to know other people's alternative ideas for short and medium ranged MA plans. For example, the Spider-drive fleet. The problem for the MA is how to use it again anytime in a way that makes sense.

Not that I have any insight, but it is apparent that at some point, the plan has been to put most of the Darius fleet through the formerly "Verdant Vista" wormhole as an attack vector into the Haven "quadrant" via a jump to Erewhon. Which would have been rather easy if it was an unobserved Manpower owned planet... which it isn't anymore. Among other things to use the now "Torch" end of the wormhole, they not only have to emerge and take the system, they have to do so without ANY craft escaping to announce the invasion... which ain't going to happen. It might still be the only choice they have, but it just got a lot more expensive. Especially if 'twixt now and series wrap up the RTN fortifies around the wormhhole.

What I don't think the spider drive ships are going to do is engage the SLN, as it is there goal to let the GA take down the SL Navy and have not much GA-navy left at the end of the equation. As an MAlign strategist I might aim for ambushes to trim the GA force advantage, but even then -- one captured or "now we know how and you are easily detected" ghost ship and the gig is up.

Given Detweiler's megalomania however, I think Beowulf gets targeted on the simple reason that if his vision is going to be taken down, he's going to try for a burn on 'the enemy of all things Mesan'.

Thoughts?

The present intentions for the Lenny Dets is another major question. We could PRESUME from what we have seen so far that they were intended for an "Oyster Bay" that would crush a Haven that had defeated Manticore (and have to hit all the Haven yards/infrastructure plus anything of Manticore's that survived it's defeat by Haven plus the same for places like Grayson, the Aldermani, and possbily several SL locations of especial merit.

We just don't know what the actual scope of the original Oyster Bay plan covered or how far it was going to reach into destroying the industrial capacity of any particular System or collection of Systems.

All we do know is that the LDs are designed to carry the Graser Torpedoes and (probably) all the weapons for delivery via Ballistic attacks against targets such as in the infrastructure attack against Manticore. We also don't know what other things the Alignment had developed but not yet used for the comming conflicts.

Speculation was that the LDs might be used to smash resistance against the RFs gathering in of systems but that is -as has been mentioned- probably that would lead too many questions being asked and too many people wanting to look for whomever has these invisable warships and is smashing spaceborn system infrastructure. Which -give what Manticore and Haven have been saying- should lead people to believe that the Alignment both exists and is truly dangerous and is looking to take ultimate control.
That cat is out of the bag, using the Oyster Bay tactics against almost anyone adds confirmation. Perhaps even the Mandarins and SLN Senior Command are not too contorted in their own little worlds to figure this out and, just perhaps, also start looking for the Alignment plus try to cool the war with the GA. On the other hand, having sanity break out on the part of the SL bureaucracy and Sr. Naval staff is probably too much to hope for.

Theemile wrote:Given their low accel, they probably won't maneuver with a conventional fleet. That doesn't mean they can't coordinate with a conventional fleet, though. If a spider force jumps in early, they could arrange a trap with them (or their graser torps) as the anvil, and a conventional force as a hammer. It would take some coordination and a fair amount of planning and a little luck.

And of course they appear to have the classic submarine tactics avalible. Utilize their stealth to sit close enough to a suspected transit lane than even with their far lower accel they can achieve a firing position against a quicker but unsuspecting target.

After all you'd be hard pressed to find a WWI or WWII warship that had a lower top speed than the contemporary submarines. Yet due to stealth and good tactics more than one warship, while underway, was successfully attacked by a slower submarine.


Not against the League, but that's OK. The GA is plenty to crush the SLN, and the MAlign think they've already got all the levers they need to split the League apart once that happens. If anything I think they'll be focused on damaging the GA along the way to keep them from getting too powerful. And since the GA already knows super stealthy ships exists there's no reason to avoid using the spider ships to whittle down GA forces (where it can be done fairly safely). You just need to avoid doing it in such a way that the League can't avoid knowing there's a 3rd party pulling the strings. But if you keep it to something the GA is yelling about the League can continue to dismiss it as self-serving propaganda or misinformation.