SPOILER end of the MA

pappilon wrote:I kind of disagree with that. They showed a concept at Beowulf. Send in Mannerheim and the other RF forces with a fwe Lenny Ds leading the way and your defenders will be against the wall in short order. Yes, as long as there is no way to detect the Spider at ranges longer than light nanoseconds.

In my opinion the only thing the spider drive is useful for are sneak attacks and the silver bullets is a weapon that have very specific use cases on top of that. Regarding the Lenny Ds, as soon as an attack turns into a regular naval battle their survival rate drops to almost nothing unless they just shoot and scoot.

Anyway, from the MAligns viewpoint - persecuting active naval operations against the GA is stupid since it increases the risk of exposure and the possibility of MAlign tech falling into the GA:s hands.

Joat42 wrote:

pappilon wrote:I kind of disagree with that. They showed a concept at Beowulf. Send in Mannerheim and the other RF forces with a fwe Lenny Ds leading the way and your defenders will be against the wall in short order. Yes, as long as there is no way to detect the Spider at ranges longer than light nanoseconds.

In my opinion the only thing the spider drive is useful for are sneak attacks and the silver bullets is a weapon that have very specific use cases on top of that. Regarding the Lenny Ds, as soon as an attack turns into a regular naval battle their survival rate drops to almost nothing unless they just shoot and scoot.

Anyway, from the MAligns viewpoint - persecuting active naval operations against the GA is stupid since it increases the risk of exposure and the possibility of MAlign tech falling into the GA:s hands.

Yeah, sneak attacks and/or a devastating first strike. Think of Lenny D's with FTL firecontrol. They are in a system in support of an RF task force/fleet. The GA form up to destroy the RF force and the Lennys send in a massive launch from stealth. That would put paid to the GA force. If they do this enough time, the GA's advantage in SDPs disapears.

FTL communications is known and so will be developed by the galaxy in time. Pods and podnoughts are already known to the MAlign. The Spyder drive is only being researched now in the GA. They will develop their variant of this in time. Even then it won't matter unless they can discover a way to locate the ships and target them at great enough distances.

So, unless the Spyder drive can be targeted soon enough, the Lennys will be able to get enough missiles off to destroy almost any opponent. The counter is to further improve either their sensors or counter-missile systems. Absent sufficient improvements in one or both of those systems, the Lennys will be able to win any engagement they choose to participate in.

You don't have to wait for the battle to start. The GA's ships spend >90% of their time in orbit around something with their impellers shut down. See the fleet at the Beowuld WH. 'Watch as we convert 1.4 trillion credits of warships into very bright light as a wave of torpedoes sweeps though the sleeping fleet at 0.15C.'

pappilon wrote:I kind of disagree with that. They showed a concept at Beowulf. Send in Mannerheim and the other RF forces with a fwe Lenny Ds leading the way and your defenders will be against the wall in short order. Yes, as long as there is no way to detect the Spider at ranges longer than light nanoseconds.

PeterZ wrote:

Joat42 wrote:In my opinion the only thing the spider drive is useful for are sneak attacks and the silver bullets is a weapon that have very specific use cases on top of that. Regarding the Lenny Ds, as soon as an attack turns into a regular naval battle their survival rate drops to almost nothing unless they just shoot and scoot.

Anyway, from the MAligns viewpoint - persecuting active naval operations against the GA is stupid since it increases the risk of exposure and the possibility of MAlign tech falling into the GA:s hands.

Yeah, sneak attacks and/or a devastating first strike. Think of Lenny D's with FTL firecontrol. They are in a system in support of an RF task force/fleet. The GA form up to destroy the RF force and the Lennys send in a massive launch from stealth. That would put paid to the GA force. If they do this enough time, the GA's advantage in SDPs disapears.

FTL communications is known and so will be developed by the galaxy in time. Pods and podnoughts are already known to the MAlign. The Spyder drive is only being researched now in the GA. They will develop their variant of this in time. Even then it won't matter unless they can discover a way to locate the ships and target them at great enough distances.

So, unless the Spyder drive can be targeted soon enough, the Lennys will be able to get enough missiles off to destroy almost any opponent. The counter is to further improve either their sensors or counter-missile systems. Absent sufficient improvements in one or both of those systems, the Lennys will be able to win any engagement they choose to participate in.

Uhm, why would the RF attack the GA? Talk about outing yourself as the MAlign which would be extremely stupid.

kzt wrote:You don't have to wait for the battle to start. The GA's ships spend >90% of their time in orbit around something with their impellers shut down. See the fleet at the Beowuld WH. 'Watch as we convert 1.4 trillion credits of warships into very bright light as a wave of torpedoes sweeps though the sleeping fleet at 0.15C.'

Forget torps, if the Spider cannot be seen until it's within 1 million KM, A spider drive ship could sneak right up on a sleeping formation and drop the spider and at 1 Million KM pop a bubble sidewall and glide through their formation, Grasers ablaze. Missile pods and G torps would just be the follow ups after the Spider ships have straffed the defenders.

Joat42 wrote:Uhm, why would the RF attack the GA? Talk about outing yourself as the MAlign which would be extremely stupid.

Agreed. However, if the GA spent 15-20 yeas devoting the majority of their industrial production on SDPs without the ability to detect Spyders well enough to engage effectively, then they will be in the same position as the SLN leading up to Honor's visit to Sol. The GA will have a lot of expensive targets waiting for the RF and the MAlign to launch their bid at galactic domination.

Those targets will also mean that there will have been too few lighter units deployed to engage those newly independent systems in ways to expand their network of allies. There will be too few lighter units to adequately protect their allies and protect their merchant fleet. At that point in the conflict, the MAlign could strike at the vulnerable SDPs and leave the GA unable to either attack the RF directly, protect their allies against an RF expansion or protect their merchant fleet from conventional attack under any guise the RF chooses.

Joat42 wrote:Uhm, why would the RF attack the GA? Talk about outing yourself as the MAlign which would be extremely stupid.

At the end of UH, absolutely none whatsoever. But this discussion has time-jumped to OMG The Grantville government has become the Janacek government of military incompetents,asleep at the switch while their known enemies have spent the past 20 years researching, developing and deploying superior in YUGE numbers.

When at that point the MAlign- which includes the Renaissance Factor- will begin executing its Final Solution

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:You don't have to wait for the battle to start. The GA's ships spend >90% of their time in orbit around something with their impellers shut down. See the fleet at the Beowuld WH. 'Watch as we convert 1.4 trillion credits of warships into very bright light as a wave of torpedoes sweeps though the sleeping fleet at 0.15C.'

Forget torps, if the Spider cannot be seen until it's within 1 million KM, A spider drive ship could sneak right up on a sleeping formation and drop the spider and at 1 Million KM pop a bubble sidewall and glide through their formation, Grasers ablaze. Missile pods and G torps would just be the follow ups after the Spider ships have straffed the defenders.

ER- What Spiders do not have wedges, Sidewalls cannot work without a wedge, wedge negates invisibility, bubble sidewall negates acceleration, lack of acceleration makes Lenny D one big ballistic target.

kzt wrote:You don't have to wait for the battle to start. The GA's ships spend >90% of their time in orbit around something with their impellers shut down. See the fleet at the Beowuld WH. 'Watch as we convert 1.4 trillion credits of warships into very bright light as a wave of torpedoes sweeps though the sleeping fleet at 0.15C.'

Theemile wrote:
Forget torps, if the Spider cannot be seen until it's within 1 million KM, A spider drive ship could sneak right up on a sleeping formation and drop the spider and at 1 Million KM pop a bubble sidewall and glide through their formation, Grasers ablaze. Missile pods and G torps would just be the follow ups after the Spider ships have straffed the defenders.

pappilon wrote:ER- What Spiders do not have wedges, Sidewalls cannot work without a wedge, wedge negates invisibility, bubble sidewall negates acceleration, lack of acceleration makes Lenny D one big ballistic target.

Not sidewall, bubble wall. Much like the buckler sidewall of the Sag-Cs. Doesn't stitch to anthing, but does exist to protect the ship. It follows that creating such sidewalls all around the ship is possible. Text pretty much states the same.

PeterZ wrote:Not sidewall, bubble wall. Much like the buckler sidewall of the Sag-Cs. Doesn't stitch to anthing, but does exist to protect the ship. It follows that creating such sidewalls all around the ship is possible. Text pretty much states the same.

Yup. Can't maneuver with that up, but if you are just flying through a formation at say 0.1C it gives you cover for the roughly 40 seconds you are in energy range. And spiders have 360 degree weapon mounts, no dead zones. So you start shooting at 2 LS and simultaneously bring up the bubble, and your 8 meter grasers start firing at rapid mode, so maybe 5-8 shots each during the next 40 seconds.

This is also when the stealthed missile pods you earlier dropped deploy their missiles to keep the few alert people who might be capable of causing you issues busy for the next 60 seconds or so.

And then you dump a bunch of decoys, drop the bubble, change course and spider away from the cloud of wreckage.