Adapting Wolfpack Tactics to HV

Jonathan_S wrote:Though if you're doing an infrastructure raid like that why do you even need the LD? Send in a freighter, kick the Ghosts out of one bay (like was done to get them into Manticore) kick a pile of g-torps out another, and then proceed on your way. A week or so later everything blows up and the Ghosts self-extract and begin the long flight home.

Exactly.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:But the g-torps already have endurance measured in days to weeks - and can already move invisibly across the system.

A reusable tug might buy you a higher acceleration - while its drive lasted - but at the cost of being far likely to be spotted (presuming it uses the same wedge based drive the Hasta III's tugs did). And if the LD dropped those tugs off and left then it wouldn't be around to recover the tug for reuse.

Given how long a g-torp can loiter I don't see the need to haul them across the system in pods. And given how slow they are and how much time you have to set up the attack I don't see the benefit to mass launching them from pods.
And pods are bulkier than bare missiles -- yes you can dump them out faster than you can empty your magazines; but a magazine the size of your pod bay can carry more rounds. So podding the g-torps would reduce the number that an LD could potentially carry.

So that's why I'm not seeing the benefit of podding torps. (Edit - except, maybe, for system defense use; where the pod could protect a torp from long term exposure to solar wind, flares, particles and micrometeorites -- but that's a special case for when a weapon needs to float out there for many months at a time between servicing)

I see your point, but it doesn't have to carry many of them. Like the few old-fashioned nukes stocked aboard ship.

Anyway, I was thinking of utilizing the pods as a life-saving diversionary tactic. Think about the movies when someone hiding is about to be discovered and they throw a rock in the opposite direction to distract and lure them away from their location.

I don't know if that tactic has a name, so I'll just call it the rock&bait tactic.

I forgot to add the pod would be ejected by a mass driver in the rock&bait.

Jonathan_S wrote:But to be a distraction the enemy has to notice it.

If you had a pod that carried a g-torp and could get it 'over that a way' before the g-torp launched it still couldn't distract the enemy until the g-torp to close enough to be picked up; or close enough to fired its graser. Given their low accel that'd take a while - and they'd still have no idea where it came from. Seems like you could just as easily make such an attack with a tube launch g-torp that snuck up on them.

A pod (or more) of Cataphracts would seem a much more useful diversion to focus an enemy away from you. They're highly visible, so they'd distract the enemy the moment they left the pod, and the enemy would need to turn and start launching CMs and deploying jammers, decoys, etc. All of which would not only focus their attention away from you and towards the Cataphract but would also put out enough noise to make it harder for any sensors still pointed your way to notice you slip further away.

Yes, that's the idea! I like your solution much better.

It seems the LD is going to have to have some way of distracting an enemy from stumbling upon it. And/or employing a spontaneous attack w/o being anywhere near the location of the attack, when the situation merits it; since we speculate they're glass cannons. Again, much like the tactic Megan Petersen employed at Hypatia. Considering the situation Megan was in, she was essentially a "glass cannon" herself.

Anyway, I dreamed up the tactic in the Pawn to Q-7 ... Checkmate? thread because when approaching a planet to "control" the orbitals a pod of g-torps inserted 10 LS away from the planet would be undetected. And that pod can be released on command w/o being anywhere near that location when they launched.

That would be true of a pod of cataphracts as well. But if it is simply a demonstration strike for the planet to surrender, my thinking was to use g-torps as kews. Undetectable. Low acceleration to cause less damage to the planet.

Of course, this tactic would be employed in the end game where the orbitals have almost been "sterilized."

At any rate, the tactic can make it appear that there is an entire army surrounding your wagon when in reality their is only one "soldier." Similar to the tactic used at The Battle of Jericho when the Israelites used a small amount of people marching around the city for days making a lot of noise to appear to be a much larger army to get the enemy to surrender ...

The Battle of Jericho, as described in the Biblical Book of Joshua, was the first battle fought by the Israelites in the course of the conquest of Canaan. According to Joshua 6:1–27, the walls of Jericho fell after the Israelites marched around the city walls once a day for six days, seven times on the seventh day, with the priests blowing their horns daily and the people shouting on the last day.

Am I correct that any number of the missiles can be fired from a pod without having to launch all of them?

penny wrote:Am I correct that any number of the missiles can be fired from a pod without having to launch all of them?

We've never seen that capability.

So who knows whether they built that capability into any of the existing pod designs. (It doesn't fit in well with their intended use case - massed fire; where you're usually firing not just all the missiles from one pod but all the missiles from significant numbers of pods). Generally if you want to fire fewer - say, a single missile warning shot, you'd use your a chase or broadside tube. (Or for Invictus-class, which have no tubes, have one of your escorts fire it)

But I assume if someone really wanted that capability they could design a pod that implemented it

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:Am I correct that any number of the missiles can be fired from a pod without having to launch all of them?

We've never seen that capability.

So who knows whether they built that capability into any of the existing pod designs. (It doesn't fit in well with their intended use case - massed fire; where you're usually firing not just all the missiles from one pod but all the missiles from significant numbers of pods). Generally if you want to fire fewer - say, a single missile warning shot, you'd use your a chase or broadside tube. (Or for Invictus-class, which have no tubes, have one of your escorts fire it)

But I assume if someone really wanted that capability they could design a pod that implemented it

Necessity is the mother of invention. It is ironic that the MA could argue for Honors (pardon the pun) of the first mother (Eve) of the mother of invention.

However, that capability would seem to fit a lot of tactics that may be needed by an LD. Such as the aforementioned Megan maneuver.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:Am I correct that any number of the missiles can be fired from a pod without having to launch all of them?

We've never seen that capability.

So who knows whether they built that capability into any of the existing pod designs. (It doesn't fit in well with their intended use case - massed fire; where you're usually firing not just all the missiles from one pod but all the missiles from significant numbers of pods). Generally if you want to fire fewer - say, a single missile warning shot, you'd use your a chase or broadside tube. (Or for Invictus-class, which have no tubes, have one of your escorts fire it)

But I assume if someone really wanted that capability they could design a pod that implemented it

When that ability was discussed previously, it was pointed out that firing a single missile would impart sufficient velocity on a non-tractored pod to lose control of the pod entirely, if not damage it beyond usability.

penny wrote:Am I correct that any number of the missiles can be fired from a pod without having to launch all of them?

Jonathan_S wrote:We've never seen that capability.

-- snip --

But I assume if someone really wanted that capability they could design a pod that implemented it

Theemile wrote:When that ability was discussed previously, it was pointed out that firing a single missile would impart sufficient velocity on a non-tractored pod to lose control of the pod entirely, if not damage it beyond usability.

There are things going on with pods that are not explained. I have pointed out before that the weight of the pod by itself is probably a fraction of the weight of the missiles that it carries. So when it ejects them, the pod should end up moving faster than any missile. I do not believe that happens, so the mass driver in the pod is non-Newtonian or it contains a drive mechanism or it throws a counterweight backwards. We do not know.

I do not believe that pods are normally controlled by a tractor beam. That certainly wasn't the case when we first saw them in Honor Among Enemies.

tlb wrote:There are things going on with pods that are not explained. I have pointed out before that the weight of the pod by itself is probably a fraction of the weight of the missiles that it carries. So when it ejects them, the pod should end up moving faster than any missile. I do not believe that happens, so the mass driver in the pod is non-Newtonian or it contains a drive mechanism or it throws a counterweight backwards. We do not know.

I do not believe that pods are normally controlled by a tractor beam. That certainly wasn't the case when we first saw them in Honor Among Enemies.

I suspect pods also use the same general kind of technomagic non-Newtonian grav drivers that allow hand pulsars to fire extremely high muzzle velocity darts on full auto without significant recoil.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Am I correct that any number of the missiles can be fired from a pod without having to launch all of them?

Jonathan_S wrote:We've never seen that capability.

-- snip --

But I assume if someone really wanted that capability they could design a pod that implemented it

Theemile wrote:When that ability was discussed previously, it was pointed out that firing a single missile would impart sufficient velocity on a non-tractored pod to lose control of the pod entirely, if not damage it beyond usability.

There are things going on with pods that are not explained. I have pointed out before that the weight of the pod by itself is probably a fraction of the weight of the missiles that it carries. So when it ejects them, the pod should end up moving faster than any missile. I do not believe that happens, so the mass driver in the pod is non-Newtonian or it contains a drive mechanism or it throws a counterweight backwards. We do not know.

I do not believe that pods are normally controlled by a tractor beam. That certainly wasn't the case when we first saw them in Honor Among Enemies.

Actually, Pods were first seen in SVW, and they were tractored behind Honor's BCs. Pods have usually been held by a tractor until firing. Podlayers had massive amounts of tractors to hold the pods, then Manty Pods became self-tractoring, then Donkey's and Huskey's were built to multiply ship's tractor abilities by the RHN and SLN respectively. there is always a tractor involved in handling ship based pods.

But could a tractor overcome the impetus of a wedgeless pod firing 1 missile? It would be a severe shere force off axis with the towing vector. David would probably have to weight in.

Theemile wrote:Actually, Pods were first seen in SVW, and they were tractored behind Honor's BCs. Pods have usually been held by a tractor until firing. Podlayers had massive amounts of tractors to hold the pods, then Manty Pods became self-tractoring, then Donkey's and Huskey's were built to multiply ship's tractor abilities by the RHN and SLN respectively. there is always a tractor involved in handling ship based pods.

But could a tractor overcome the impetus of a wedgeless pod firing 1 missile? It would be a severe shere force off axis with the towing vector. David would probably have to weight in.

You are right about the appearance of pods, it was the pod layer that was introduced when I said. Where do you see that podlayers have a massive number of tractors?

There is nothing I could find in the book to indicate that Wayfarer had extra tractors nor used any to eject pods.