Last use for SL SD captured

MAD-4A wrote:And it specified that the Cataphracts delivered to the Fleet were in PODs not the mag launched versions, and they were all flushed in the opening salvo.

Adm Filareta had Cataphract-C missiles in pods. Other groups were provided other versions of the Cataphracts, and there is no evidence either way that the pods of Cataphract-Cs were the only cataphract versions provided Adm Filareta.

Admirals Bing and Crandall were provided any cataphracts.

MAD-4A wrote:]So you make my point for me, Greece didn't care that they weren't 'top of the line - better than the best' they just wanted 'good enough for the job' and both of these 'obsolete, useless' ships went on to serve Greece well for nearly 2 decades - including 2 shooting conflicts! - before being retired. As I have tried to point out many times before "You don't have to be better than YOU, You only have to be better than your ENEMY."

Their enemy was the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire acquired two predreadnoughts from Germany (Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm and Weissenburg) in 1910. Greece got the Mississippis to counter them. Greece also ordered a pair of new build, modern dreadnoughts from Britain and France in response to the Ottoman Empire's modern dreadnoughts.

As you can see, their acquisitions mirrored that of their potential opponent, because their capabilities and economies were relatively close. Now imagine the prospective of Madagascar facing off against the full might of the USN. Buying old junk is just throwing away good money.

And it specified that the Cataphracts delivered to the Fleet were in PODs not the mag launched versions, and they were all flushed in the opening salvo.

ART:

By any meter stick, it was an enormous force, and fifty percent of the missiles in his SDs’ magazines were the new dual-drive Technodyne Cataphract-Bs.

Duckk wrote:Their enemy was the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire acquired two predreadnoughts from Germany (Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm and Weissenburg) in 1910. Greece got the Mississippis to counter them. Greece also ordered a pair of new build, modern dreadnoughts from Britain and France in response to the Ottoman Empire's modern dreadnoughts

Actually the Salamis was order from Germany, The Ottomans ordered from Brittan. and the same money could have just as easily been used to purchase the Oklahoma or Arizona (as Argentina did to Italy with the Giuseppe Garibaldi class Armored Cruiser - "we'll by this one and you can use the money to build another"), nearing completion, providing Greece with an operational SD and - by your argument no need to counter the obsolete 'useless junk' of the ex-German PDs, which were purchased in 1910, and had already served in the war with Italy (no real action) and the 1st Balkan war where they fought the Greek Navy (rather poorly), which somewhat disproved any real urgent need to 'counter' them.

MAD-4A wrote:And it specified that the Cataphracts delivered to the Fleet were in PODs not the mag launched versions, and they were all flushed in the opening salvo.

Wonderful if you're correct - that means that the ex-SLN SDs have only SDM missile avalible. So any Frontier Force raiders you want them to chase off are not only fleeter of foot by have a massive missile range advantage (since they will have Cataphracts or better).

That lets even a BC squadron with towed pods blow the Scientist out of space without taking any hits in return.
They don't even have to whistle up Battle Fleet to explain why it's a bad idea to attract negative SL attention by flying around in a ship the SLN suffered the indignity of having to surrender.

This just sounds better and better for the suckers you pawned a near useless, high maintenance, obsolete 6 millino pound scarecrow off on...


Sure they could use it to grab the orbitals of pretty much any of their Verge neighbors; but you hardly need an old SD do to that. Even couple decade old CA could do that just fine against most verge systems.

Jonathan_S wrote:

MAD-4A wrote:And it specified that the Cataphracts delivered to the Fleet were in PODs not the mag launched versions, and they were all flushed in the opening salvo.

Wonderful if you're correct - that means that the ex-SLN SDs have only SDM missile avalible. So any Frontier Force raiders you want them to chase off are not only fleeter of foot by have a massive missile range advantage (since they will have Cataphracts or better).

That lets even a BC squadron with towed pods blow the Scientist out of space without taking any hits in return.
They don't even have to whistle up Battle Fleet to explain why it's a bad idea to attract negative SL attention by flying around in a ship the SLN suffered the indignity of having to surrender.

This just sounds better and better for the suckers you pawned a near useless, high maintenance, obsolete 6 millino pound scarecrow off on...


Sure they could use it to grab the orbitals of pretty much any of their Verge neighbors; but you hardly need an old SD do to that. Even couple decade old CA could do that just fine against most verge systems.

Notice the Duckk's comment a couple above: half of his in-ship magazine was Cataphract B's, which his SDs were perfectly capable of launching out their tubes.

It was all the Cataphract C's that were in the pods that got flushed. Those FF battlecruisers are perfectly capable of shooting Cataphract A's out of their tubes.

An enemy ship entering a system won't know what they are facing - all they can see is the hull and EM signature - "CRAP!... Its a Scientist class SD, must be one of those that idiot Filareta gave to the Manties, probably has their #&@* long range super-missiles on it."

JohnRoth wrote:It was all the Cataphract C's that were in the pods that got flushed. Those FF battlecruisers are perfectly capable of shooting Cataphract A's out of their tubes.

which are basically destroyer missiles with an extra drive - so you want them to hunt an elephant with BB guns? I suppose you may get lucky and hit it in the eye.

Good luck getting them to agree to that (You want us to do what! Bang - oops, sorry my pulser pistol malfunctioned. Helm, get us out of here, ALIVE, so I can write a report!)

MAD-4A wrote:An enemy ship entering a system won't know what they are facing - all they can see is the hull and EM signature - "CRAP!... Its a Scientist class SD, must be one of those that idiot Filareta gave to the Manties, probably has their #&@* long range super-missiles on it."

JohnRoth wrote:It was all the Cataphract C's that were in the pods that got flushed. Those FF battlecruisers are perfectly capable of shooting Cataphract A's out of their tubes.

which are basically destroyer missiles with an extra drive - so you want them to hunt an elephant with BB guns? I suppose you may get lucky and hit it in the eye.

Good luck getting them to agree to that (You want us to do what! Bang - oops, sorry my pulser pistol malfunctioned. Helm, get us out of here, ALIVE, so I can write a report!)

The FF battlecruisers almost certainly will be towing Cataphract-C pods when they arrive. The Solly force which showed up at Wloclawek had them. 24 pods per BC, in fact, for a total of almost 2,000 Cataphract-Cs.

Consider that at Hancock, the RMN BC squadron were towing only 5-7 pods per BC. They killed one DN outright, in the face of a squadron worth, plus screen, of defensive fire, with their opening salvo.

while CL level ordinance doesn't pose much threat to a modern SDs armour, these are being used against Solly SDs so they will do more damage then would against anyone else's SDs.

plus while a dozen might only scratch the paint, the sollies will likely be firing at least a couple of broadsides per BC, so assuming a Division that is still 100 missiles per broadside , (assuming four BCs with 25 tubes per broadside.)

munroburton wrote:The FF battlecruisers almost certainly will be towing Cataphract-C pods when they arrive. The Solly force which showed up at Wloclawek had them. 24 pods per BC, in fact, for a total of almost 2,000 Cataphract-Cs.

Consider that at Hancock, the RMN BC squadron were towing only 5-7 pods per BC. They killed one DN outright, in the face of a squadron worth, plus screen, of defensive fire, with their opening salvo.

But against the awesome power of plot there was little the SLN could do.

Dauntless wrote:while CL level ordinance doesn't pose much threat to a modern SDs armour, these are being used against Solly SDs so they will do more damage then would against anyone else's SDs.

plus while a dozen might only scratch the paint, the sollies will likely be firing at least a couple of broadsides per BC, so assuming a Division that is still 100 missiles per broadside , (assuming four BCs with 25 tubes per broadside.)

Plus even on an SD sensor arrays, fire control antenna, and drive nodes can't be armored. Even after being attenuated by the heavy sidewall a CL weight laserhead can damage to knock out those components should it manage to hit them.

Mind you, pre-pod no CL could throw a large enough broadside to have any realistic hope of saturating an SD'd active anti-missile defenses so it's probably run out of missiles before racking up a mission kill (even assuming for some reason the SD didn't bother to fire back).

But a BC squadron with Cataphracts in it's tubes is a different proposition. If they decided to commit to a fight against a singleton Scientist they could likely lame it pretty well.

Or of course they could just stay out of the ~15,000,000 km bubble around it that is the continuous powered range of a Cataphract and scatter around the system to trash it's space infrastructure and intra-system shipping. And if the SD came out to defend the asteroid miners some BCs could slip in behind it and trash the planet's stations and orbital infrastructure. Or the SD can circle the planet and let the rest of the system get raided.

But there's no reason for informed raiders to panic and flee from the mere sight of a lumbering defender; no mater how dangerous it might be if it managed to get you in the wrong situation.