Hypothetical Tactical Option Question.

Consider the following:

It's late 1922PD, and your 8 ship Roland division has just been deployed to the "Blah-Blah" sector of the SL to protect several newly liberated Protectorates. The 2 Systems under your care, XYZ and ABC are just ~2 hours apart in hyper. You've taken an abandoned mining habitat in orbit of a Gas giant outside of the hyperlimit in XYZ, as your base, allowing you to quickly get from 1 system to another.

2 days ago, a Freighter dropped off what your crews are call a "PASS" comtainer - it contains Pods, Ammo, Spares and Supplies to enable your division to stay on station for an extended period without a supply ship or proper base. A 9th destroyer, an old Chanson, is currently headed toward your base to refuel after dropping off a small diplomatic mission.

Suddenly, the DB you left watching ABC while your DDs partook of the PASS container erupts out of hyper screaming a warning - 2 Squadrons of SLN BCs just entered ABC space and are headed for the major extraction platform in ABC space. You forward the DB on to the next largest RMN response force, a 4 ship Sag-C division ~4 days away in hyper.

The Chanson promises to watch the base and destroy the PASS if necessary, while you head to ABC to deal with the Threat.

The PASS contains all brand new hardware with the newest software upgrades (as do your onboard systems after the uploads from the PASS), and 3 types of Pods - it has flatpacks of all 3 varieties, Apollo, Mk23D, and Mk16G.

Each Roland has 240 missiles in it's internal mags and can haul 15 flatpacks. Your standing orders are not to reveal the FTL nature of Apollo nor the Mk 23's 3rd stage, and you are not to needlessly endanger your platforms.

Given your division is running to danger on it's own, what pod load-out would you take, and why?

Your standing orders are not to reveal the FTL nature of Apollo nor the Mk 23's 3rd stage

Why? The cat's out of the bag thanks to Second Manticore and Spindle regarding Apollo. And while I suppose it might be interesting to keep the Sollies guessing about the specific maximum range of the Alliance's MDMs, practically speaking it's not really going to matter. The SLN is waking up to MDMs. Since there's a demonstrable two-drive missile, it's not a stretch for them to think of a three-drive missile either. So they'll know that the Alliance could have a power flight range in excess of 60 million kilometers, even if they don't know the exact numbers.

Second, if the Admiralty wanted to keep that information secret, they wouldn't have sent along the pods to use them. The best way to keep the secret is to rendering one incapable of revealing it. So since they did send the pods, then their presence means you're allowed to use them if the situation warrants it. I reckon being outnumbered 2 to one in hulls (and far, far worse in terms of tonnage) qualifies as one of those "in case of emergency, break glass" cases.

interesting.

personally i'd take just Mk 16Gs.

I'm only up against BCs, i don't need a Mk 23s super powerful laser heads to penetrate their armour, nor do i need the 3rd drive to stay out of their reach even assuming they've got the smaller cataraphts that can be fitted into a BCs tubes. plus the sollies are still unaware of the 3rd drive and i want to keep the ace close to my chest for now.
my recon drones can be used like they were at saltash to cut lag in half, for what few salvos are needed.

16, is more solly BCs then we've seen in one place for a while but not enough to need the heavy stuff, and Mk16s are available in more quantities then the Mk 23s

Duckk wrote:

Your standing orders are not to reveal the FTL nature of Apollo nor the Mk 23's 3rd stage

Why? The cat's out of the bag thanks to Second Manticore and Spindle regarding Apollo. And while I suppose it might be interesting to keep the Sollies guessing about the specific maximum range of the Alliance's MDMs, practically speaking it's not really going to matter. The SLN is waking up to MDMs. Since there's a demonstrable two-drive missile, it's not a stretch for them to think of a three-drive missile either. So they'll know that the Alliance could have a power flight range in excess of 60 million kilometers, even if they don't know the exact numbers.

Second, if the Admiralty wanted to keep that information secret, they wouldn't have sent along the pods to use them. The best way to keep the secret is to rendering one incapable of revealing it. So since they did send the pods, then their presence means you're allowed to use them if the situation warrants it. I reckon being outnumbered 2 to one in hulls (and far, far worse in terms of tonnage) qualifies as one of those "in case of emergency, break glass" cases.

might be bad tonnage wise but saltash showed that Rolands can take BCs without breaking a sweat. 16 is perhaps few more then we've seen operating together for a while but not enough to make that much of a difference when you consider how many more Mk 16s you get in a pod.

I don't disagree that the Mk-16G can spank battlecruisers. I just find the hypothetical order for this hypothetical situation to be a bit nonsensical. If I'm not allowed to use them, why include them in the scenario to begin with?

hmmm. yes, that is somewhat contradictory isn't it?

Duckk wrote:I don't disagree that the Mk-16G can spank battlecruisers. I just find the hypothetical order for this hypothetical situation to be a bit nonsensical. If I'm not allowed to use them, why include them in the scenario to begin with?

You're allowed to use the Mk23's - you're discouraged from using the 3rd stage.

On the other hand - if you've got Mk16-G's, you've got two stage missiles with comparable warhead strength anyway. So maybe the Mk23's are along just in case you somehow do need the 3rd stage (why, I do not say) and/or the full-up Apollo fire control (to the extent your Rolands could even take advantage of that) so much that the official discouragement about using them goes out the airlock.

It doesn't seem entirely reasonable that they should be sending out Mk23's under these circumstances, much less combined with those orders, no. I may find it a little bit less nonsensical than you do, but I'm definitely scratching my head about it too. Still, it's a confused situation and your orders and the PASS package may well represent different stages of Admiralty thinking and/or whatever is on hand to send people who may need who knows what.

But anyway - yeah, Mk16-G's will do, and the pods can represent sheer additional missile capacity as well as more at a time. You can shrug and leave the Mk23's behind - chances are you can't limpet that many pods to the Rolands anyway, and if the Chanson gets a hostile visit, they can do some duty there.(Especially if they'd be just destroyed anyway - let them be destroyed by the detonation of their own payload at 30k km from the enemy!)

JeffEngel wrote:On the other hand - if you've got Mk16-G's, you've got two stage missiles with comparable warhead strength anyway. So maybe the Mk23's are along just in case you somehow do need the 3rd stage (why, I do not say) and/or the full-up Apollo fire control (to the extent your Rolands could even take advantage of that) so much that the official discouragement about using them goes out the airlock.

It doesn't seem entirely reasonable that they should be sending out Mk23's under these circumstances, much less combined with those orders, no. I may find it a little bit less nonsensical than you do, but I'm definitely scratching my head about it too. Still, it's a confused situation and your orders and the PASS package may well represent different stages of Admiralty thinking and/or whatever is on hand to send people who may need who knows what.

But anyway - yeah, Mk16-G's will do, and the pods can represent sheer additional missile capacity as well as more at a time. You can shrug and leave the Mk23's behind - chances are you can't limpet that many pods to the Rolands anyway, and if the Chanson gets a hostile visit, they can do some duty there.(Especially if they'd be just destroyed anyway - let them be destroyed by the detonation of their own payload at 30k km from the enemy!)

And while the 23Es would let your Rolands totally flatten the BCs (due to the 8x multiplication of their already significant fire control) that same benefit would let the single obsolescent Chanson have a far better chance should a second force happen to pop up. Maybe even good enough that it can win and isn't forced to destroy the resupply point.

But all told this seems kind of an odd scenario.

Jonathan_S wrote:But all told this seems kind of an odd scenario.

Aye. For starters, I don't think I would have deployed all eight Rolands in one system. I would have two Rolands in the less vital system B, with full pod loadouts. The remaining six stays with the mini-base. If the assignment lasts for a while, I'd send two from system A to system B to relieve the pair there, presuming another local emergency hasn't called them away.

Which means, if I'm the overall commander sitting in system A, I'm finding this out from a dispatch boat closely followed by two Rolands with empty magazines and eight or nine freshly painted SLN BC silhouettes on their hulls.

I only need dispatch four Rolands with full pod loads to deal with the remainder, leaving two to guard system A and the re-arming ships from system B. The Chanson can refuel and wait for post-action reports to take back to Manticore or the nearest fleet base.

Edit: All the pods used are filled with MK16Gs. MK23s, with or without Apollo, are overkill and only to be used against enemy wallers, should they appear.

One point--2 hours distance in hyper between systems? That would be something less than a LY, more like a double system like Manticore A and B, IMHO.

That said, it would depend if I had the report from Saltash or not. Having that, I'd take 6 Rolands to the other system with as many Mark16's as I could tractor and leave the Chanson and the remaining two Rolands in case of an attack on that system.

With six Rolands I can fire-control 144 missiles per launch and if I have tractored 6 10-missile pods per ship I have 360 pod missiles plus 1,440 ship-borne missiles. Saltash shows that 120 missiles is more than enough to deal with a SLN BC, so fire the pods at five targets (72 missiles each) and then six single (12 tube) broadsides (72 missiles each) at six additional BC's. Evaluate results (10 of 16 BC's wrecked/heavily damaged) and ask the SLN commander (whoever is left alive) if he'd like to surrender now.

Meanwhile the two Rolands will have enough fire control, using the Oversteegen/Henke scenario at Spindle, to fire nearly 50 Mark 23 Apollo pods, or about 450 of the most devasting missiles in Known Space. Which would tend to cause anything short of a full BF SD Squardon to have a Very Bad Day.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

ETA: Monroburton's scenario works equally well and with about the same result.