Archive through April 22, 2005
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Rules:
Orbital Defense Platforms:
Archive through April 22, 2005
Richard
That's the point. If DB is a significant possibility, then having spent all that BPV on fighters and bases, a couple of T-bombs to boot will not add much. Considering that enemy ships have to close to range 5 to shoot at the installations, those T-bombs will be useful regardless of the enemy tactics anyway. Spending all those commanders options on extra ground stuff will do you no good if all your bases get blown away by drones or enemy ships.
Yes, I know the ground installations will get hit by an atmosphere-burst T-bomb. However, taking 10pts on shields (or even internals) is a heck of a lot better than getting hit by n drones where n is some lethally large number.
Uh (reading back) - I get it now. You are enacting a DB assault, and for better or worse, the elements on the PDU do not have a T-bomb. I was under the impression that the above meant that the PDU composition was under review.
General Comment:
OOC
We have 11 F-16M and 1 F-16EM fighters in the squadron.
there are 6 separate drone groups (that we know about).
if all the fighters are dispatched in 6 groups of 2 fighters each, and (assumption) are able to intercept the drones at the 300 hex range point. each pair of fighters could kill all or most of the drones in each drone group before the drones get to the planet hex. presumes that each fighter uses phaser gatlings, kills 4 drones per turn, and has 9 turns to shoot at the drones "on the way in".
The problem still remains that we do not know if the klingons are escorting the the drones... we know from the original report that there were 5 Cruiser sized hulls, 2 of which had special sensors... if one of those cruiser hulls was a tug with carrier pods... our fighters could have to deal with 2 fighters with each group (assumes the klingon carrier has 12 fighters, and that they dispatched them to the point where the 429th was most likely to intercept the drone groups.)
If one of the klinks ships were a PF tender... each drone wave could be escorted by a PF...
If no pf's or fighters are there, and 3 of the klingon ships were the drone ships (say a D6D type) then the other 2 ships could be a command ship and (horror!) a mauler or other support type. Sending a pair of F-16M's or a F-16 M and a F-16EM out to duel with a D7C or a C-7 does not thrill me though I would expect Richard Sherman or whatever pilots are engaged in the action to have an "adrenalin spike") 
.
We also shouldnt be complacent if we are successful in defeating the drones.... what if the two other ships in the DB group are are commando ships with a reinforced battalion (or possibly even 2 battalions) on board?
The Drones could just be the first punch of Petrick's "1-2 punch" routine...and while we are engaged in drone killing... the commando ships enter the transporter range of the planet while all our efforts and weapons are engaged in killing drones?
keeping a reserve available to deal with unexpected military threats is a principle in military history that has saved more than one commander from losing a battle... is it a luxury that we can afford to have now?
Think like the Klingons.
How much threat do you pose to them? Clearly, on your own, the planet can easily have its bases wrecked by the 5 klingon ships, irrespective of drone bombardment. So, there are three cases.
1) The Klingons think there are no Fed assets in the area. In which case, you are dead anyway unless they are wrong. They come in close and kill you over about ~12-20 SFB turns or less if the drones are effective. You will be do well to cripple a single klingon ship unless they foul up against the fighters. The only difficulty they may have is in actually capturing the planet once your marines are dispersed outside the (to be destroyed) bases.
2) The Klingons think there are sufficient Fed assets to save the planet if Fed reinforcements get there on time, but insufficient to threaten their squadron in deep space (e.g. 2-3 frigates).
In which case, they will escort the drone wave in, and leave before the frigates arrive, hopefully having done the job.
3) The Klingons think that their is a 6+ ship Federation squadron in the area that might be able to catch them droneless after their assault. In which case, they are highly unlikely to escort the wave closer than 200 hexes or so, the priority being to buzz off.
Several things are crucial here.
How good is Klingon Intel likely to be on Federation deployments in the area? Given that they are striking *now*, it's probably best to assume that it is excellent, as least for today. So far, it seems from what I have read that you have no help in range, so things are pretty grim.
What are the other two ships? If one is a troopship, then you know they intend to come in capture the planet. Ditto Mauler. I.d. of these is crucial so you know the Klingon intention. How good are those fighter sensors for attempting this? If they intend to have a try at capture, you can be pretty sure they will escort the drones in to 40 hexes or even less.
I think your best shot is make the Klingons *think* you have reinforcements available - give them reason to doubt their intel, Some clever bluffing may be in order here. I note that the Klingons are scanning the planet, so may pick up some of your communications... Maybe you could try using the fighter call sign of a squadron based at a nearby CVB? Using a code that the Klingons have broken may make it a little obvious that you are leading them up the garden path. They probably can track which direction your communications are going, so why not send a communique in a direction where there are actually no Fed ships/bases, but the Klingons won't know that?
Sending out the fighters is still probably OK. They can, after all, go back at top speed once they spot enemy ships, and that will be at a long enough range to make it difficult for the Klingons to kill them (assuming F16s can go 30 packed)
Jeff Wile:
#1 are the Klingon ships positioned to intercept fighters launched from Cassandra IV that inturn are dispatched to intercept the various drone groups? (in plain english, if Col Knight launchers the fighters to kill the drones, will the Klingon ships be in position to attack the fighters?)
RESPONSE: No. The Klingon ships are, as noted, not approaching the planet.
#2 are there ANY indications that there are any other Klingons ships operating in the area?
RESPONSE: That question is vague, but I will assume you mean any other Klingon ships that might intervene in the system. The answer to that is no. If you in fact meant the entire area, the answer would of course be yes.
#3 is there any way to calculate when Col Knight must give the order to scramble the fighters to intercept at the 300 hex range mentioned earlier? does he have 5 minutes from the initial report? 10 minutes? an hour?
RESPONSE: At this juncture, I am pretty much allowing the battalion time to do all it wants. Tell me what the fighters are doing, what drones and/or RALADs and/or Pods they are carrying. Where they are deployed (long range intercept, close intercept, in the latter case, where do you want them to start between 100 hexes and zero (in the atmosphere) hexes. Colonel Knight should be giving orders to the ground bases on the "be prepared to engage" and let the various LTs determine what they will do. Orders to the Fighters (if the squadron commander is available to play) should basically be what he wants them to do and let the Squadron commander do the drone/pod/RALAD load out (it is his squadron). Orders to the various ground companies should probably have to do with assisting civilian evacuation. Lt Trauger might be ordered to get the one ADMIN shuttle over to one of the fighter bases to be loaded as scatter/shatter pack, and use the GAS shuttles to move civilians, say from the hospital, to shelters. Trauger would then "roleplay" what he is doing (helps get him comfortable for later tasks by playing his "platoon").
If Scatter/shatterpacks are used, as I noted, I just need a note on their targeting and where they are on the board to make their intercepts.
But quite clearly, if it takes more time to "shake things out" I am going to let you guys take that time. This is not real life, and the resolution does not have to be this Monday, it could be Monday a week (or later). But part of the idea is to try to get this started as a "bar topic" so that people can interact, develop characters, including subordinates of their platoons (who, by the way, may then by killed or have other horrible things happen to them by me to help move things along or explain how something is done . . . like the unfortunate Technician Timmy in the Battalion Four Shop's maintenance platoon. The guys who also provide the non-fighter deck crews to look after Lt Trauger's shuttles. Who was killed while servicing a DefSat. Did you know that Timmy, who was a very popular member of that platoon was a Tellarite? Yet everyone liked him and he got along with everyone.)
Finally, is there an assistant Btn intelligence officer posted yet? anybody on duty at that intel offices?
RESPONSE: When someone gets there, the Battalion Intel Shop only operates during "The Duty Day" during normal operations, obviously if Klingons landed on the planet the shop, like your own Three Shop, would go on 24 hour duty. Please understand, the Klingons would not KNOW that you were at a party, but could guess that this might be "night" for the battalion headquarters on the assumption that the main GMG is probably located somewhwere near the capital. But you cannot expect a drone bombardment every day forever.
Cat Who Leaps:
Are you SURE you are a Kzinti? (GRIN)
You said: "d) 17 drones impacting will devastate a planetary hex side. So anything over about 220 drones in one turn and Noumea is totally devastated. The Klingons can do this math too, and 220 drones is easy to arrange to come in in one turn. That is about one D6D's loadout. If this is a full 3 ship strike - all in one turn - the Space Raid bunkers had better be deep."
The problem here is that these are "bombardment drones", which means that they are type-IIIXX. If you used normal type-III drones and were trying to launch 220 of them from one D6D, it would take 36 turns to launch them, which means that 11 turns of drones would have to be launched after the first drones reached the planet (normal type-III drones have only 25 turns endurance).
Type-IIIXX drones are two-space drones. A D6D has 200 spaces of drone storage in cargo, meaning it can have 100 type-IIIXX drones in cargo. Add to that you have 36 spaces of drones in the drone racks, plus 36 reloads, giving you another 36 type-IIIXX drones, that gets you to 136. But this is well after Y175, which means that the D6D will have its Y175 refit, which added another reload (36 spaces), which boils down to another 18 type-III drones. So a typical D6D in this period would have 154 type-IIIXX drones. It would take a D6D just over 51 turns to launch all those drones. Since type-IIIXX drones have 100 turns of endurance the D6D can do this, and then you manipulate the way points and launch turns and angles to get the drones to arrive when you want. This of course means that the D6D will spend a lot of time moving while going through the launch, and yes it will be a lot closer to the "target" than the nominal 3,200 hexes range of the drones at various times, because if you try to use that full range . . . well the drones would arrive six at a time every other turn. That CAN have an effect in a deep space battle (six extra drones showing up in the middle of the fight distracting enemy firepower, maybe actually scoring a hit), but when you are "shelling" a planet (or a base station or a Battle Station) with no ships, you need MASS to make up for the fact that none of your ships are there.
Loren Knight:
The battalion is deployed as you wished.
Sure, I remember Timmy. We were in basic training together, before going different directions for AIT. Yeah, he was a Tellarite, but he didn't act like you'd expect a Tellarite to act most of the time. But he did have this "Tellarite Stereotype" act he'd pull out anytime people were getting on each other's nerves. Good way to break the tension, it's probably why everyone liked him so much.
One thing to keep in mind when intercepting the drones with F-16CMs. The F-16s have a normal top speed of only 13. The megapacks only double that to 26 (and a phaser-pod will reduce that to 25 if carried, but it can be dropped after it takes its shot). The drones are moving speed 32. If you fire your first phaser-G salvo at range zero on Impulse #32, you will fire the next at range two on Impulse #9 of the following turn. The next at range six on Impulse #1 of the third turn. The next range 12 on Impulse #1 of the fourth turn. Drones launched IN FRONT of the bombardment drones will intercept, but drones launched BEHIND the drones will never intercept (same speed). So you need to figure out (if you are going to intercept) on what impulse of the turn you want to make the intercept (obviously late in the turn), and how far in front of the drones you want to make the intercept (you need to look at your own drone launch rates, i.e., an F-16CM can carry four type-I drones, but can only launch ONE a turn. It can also only launch one type-VI a turn (it could launch one of both, but can only do that if both are launched AT THE SAME target). So this has an effect when planning your intercept.
I've been following this thread with high interest, even though I have no SFB training (I'm an F&E player). I do have a question, though (if you don't mind an outsider interrupting). Do you have to defend all hex sides of the planet? From earlier, Biloxi and Fargo don't have any ground stations. Do these hex sides have civilian populations or infrastructure like mines/farms/campgrounds/etc.? Human occupation tends to be non-uniformly distributed. There aren't that many people on the planet, and I assume "the" Federation lifestype to be relatively urbanized/concentrated (i.e. few but major settlements). Plus, artists tend to develop from cities. Could the planet recover from the raid if these two hex sides were smashed, but the others were fine? I'm not saying just letting those two drone groups go is preferrable, but if you had to choose where the X nukes (antimatter?) that were going to get through anyway fell, are there better locations for the planet to take it on? Maybe not as since this seems to be a morale-point for the Federation, any devastation is bad.
From what I can follow, the use of waypoints could mean that the two drone groups initially heading towards these two sides could have been set to redeploy to other hex faces, so one couldn't predict which drones were going to come in on what face (unless the fixed number of waypoints is necessary to get them to their current deployment). Is there anything that isn't Federation military hardware on the planet that the Klingons would want to specifically destroy (morale-point or abandoned items) and would it even make a difference if there was?
Sorry to interrupt, but this sounds like a cool exercise and I'm just curious.
Dale LLoyd Fields:
Welcome to the thread, and dont sweat the "F&E thing" - Chris Fant is participating so there would seem to be tacit approval for 'F&E Geeks' participation 
That issue has been raised, and I **think** that is a decision that Col Knight (in consultation with Col Baluda and the planetary Governor?!?) will have to make.
It seems to break down to just 3 general options...
1. forward defense: launch the fighters early and intercept the drone waves as far forward as possible and have them "attrition" the drones using phaser gatlings as the faster drones out pace the slower F-16M's.
2. keep the fighters within the 100 hex range of the planet.. and let them "attrition" as many drones as they can in the 3 turns that they will have the drones in range.
3. short range defense... keep the fighters within 5 hexes of the planet, using 5 admin shuttles as shatter packs, and the drone defenses of the 429th PDU.
There infact may be other options that I havent thought of, but... so far no one has proposed any other options.
each of the options has problems... but comments posted above imply that 360 drones coming in from 6 different headings may well swamp the ability of the 429th the kill all of the drones in 1 x 32 impulse turn.
And it should be noted that Col Knight has not yet answered SPP question as to what impulse the drones arrive on map.
If any one has an opinion as to when should the drones enter the turn sequence, now would be a good time to "weigh in".
If the question is not answered, SPP will pick... and I would recommend against letting that happen.
The population is spread over the entire planet. Some on the main lands and some on islands. Our duty is to protect the general population.
The bases will be generally protected from general devestation.
What is a real danger to the 429th is losses while defending the planet.
Once the drones start targeting things they will likely target some of our fighters. Hopefully chaff will be capable of minimizing loses and may even reduce some of the enemy drone load. However, we must be sure this doesn't cost us the ability to fire at drones so firing before use of chaff is needed.
If not careful we could see the entire squadron happilly killing drones at point blank range suddenly targeted and destroyed.
I have to work this out but at first, I think, the fighters will work ahead of the drones, killing as many as possible. But at some point they need to get behind them to avoid being targeted (or perhaps we should allow them to be targeted to distract as many as possible into chaff?). If so then I definately do not want any Range 0 combat with drones. R1 will allow the use of chaff. This will reduce the odds of drone kills but it would be worse to have fighter losses.
Phaser pods are good for this reason. A phaser-G will not kill four drones. Most likely it will kill 3 but not four. A phaser pod will finish a surviver. We can spend a drone on this instead but that costs drone supplies. We need supplies.
I will have to double check drone supplies but I do want Scatter Packs loaded with 12 Type VI's. ADD's aren't guaranteed kills wile Type-VI's are. But I'm not sure we have all that many available.
Comments?
I dont have my rules with me... can a F-16M "dog fight" a drone so as to use the low power setting on the phaser pod?
the difference means that the phaser pod, instead of only getting 1 shot, and get (iirc) up to 4 shots during the dogfight resolution procedure.
in short, instead of taking 12 shots with phaser pods (one per fighter of the 12 in the squadron) and maybe killing 9 drones (on average) the fighters would get an additional 48 "shots" with maybe 36 drones KIA.
something to consider?
With 51 turns to bombard from, why wouldn't the DB ships deplkoy in a circle around the base to bombard from all directions?
That would most complicate our defenses by having drones inbound from every direction.
A deep-intercept would only get 1/6 of the drones if they're lucky.
The other two ships function as pickets to make sure the DB mission isn't disturbed by rude surprises.
What's standard Klingon DB doctrine?
I have been following this thread with interest, but have not had the time to chime in due to RL issues.
Just wondering if there are any low level slots avilable on the TO&E.
The Klingon IIIXX drones have to use the rules as published... IIRC they could have ATG...which is limited to just 8 hexes.
if the fighters operate more than 8 hexes from the planet when the drones get within 8 hexes of the planet... then the fighters will be either out of range or out of arc of the drones ATG system...
if the fighters are given the responsibility of killing drones outside of 16 hexes range of the planet... and all other assets are limited to targets inside of 16 hexes... then the drones (the IIIXX) would not be able to target both the planet and fighters at the same time... and if the drones go to ATG outside of range of the planet... then there is no reason to target the "innert" drones.
One other possible benefit of using shatter packs... the type VI drones might themselves be targeted by multiple IIIXX drones (assuming random targeting is chosen) that means that type VI's might account for more IIIXX drones than we expect?!?
Captain Stovell leaves Mrs Johnson and her group.
There was a nervous excitement in the hall which seemed different from the excited babble when he had first entered. He wondere what mix of emotions was squirling in the air now. Some fear seemed logical, he drew a deep breath in through his nose, yes some but not overwhelming. He reviewed the Klingon attack on the 2nd squadron when his fire battery had been restricted to quarters. Corporal Jones had been telling the newer recruits horror stories.............
Dale Lloyd Fields:
For all practical purposes under existing rules, the planet would not be considered devastated if one hex side takes less than 200 points of damage (P2.311), even if the other five take far more than that. So it would be entirely possible under the rules of the game to pick one hex side of the planet and concentrate all the defense there and allow the drones to hit the other five, and the planet would not be considered "devastated". At that point you would get into a lot of 'campaign' concerns. Does the entire planet have to be hit with 200 points a hex side again concomittant with the last hexside getting hit with 200 points in order for devastation to take effect, or will it suffice for just the one remaining hexside to be hit with 200 points? Does this one remaining hexside have to be hit in six months in order to take advantage of the devastation of the other five? Etc., etc. For our purposes, Colonel Knight might have to write-off an area/areas of the planet (ecological damage could be assumed to be significant in that/those areas, but given the sparseness of the human population, casualties in those areas (and there would be) would be minimal compared to say a direct drone impact into the planet's capital.
So at this juncture we can pretty much just look at it as an exercise. Even if massive numbers of drones do (somehow) impact, totally planetary devastation is unlikely (possible, but unlikely) simply because the battalion can always defend ONE hex side to make sure it does not hit 200 damage points. The exercise is more to see if they can defend more of the planet. In truth, if they had both F-16 squadrons, they would be in better shape (one was lost to a pirate attack enroute, complete with the attendent ground bases, but fourtunately few lives were lost as the personnel of those squadrons and bases were on a troop freighter that was not destroyed, so the cost in lives was minimal (although a rather significant matter to the particular freighter crew).
Parameters originally given to me was that I am there to protect the entire planet.
My ideas as to the expected scenario flow, if engaging the drones with fighters at range is chosen.
Turn 1 & 2: Fighters are loaded with drones.
Turns 3-6: Fighters take off and close with attacking drones. Fighters starting guiding drones into the attacker. Meanwhile, shatterpacks start loading.
Turn 7: Fighters launch remaining drones, if possibile, then start engaging drones with phasers. As each wave of drones passes the fighters by, the fighters engage the next batch of drones that overrun the fighters. (Some attacking drone bunches will be ignored in order to make the shatterpacks more useful.) The fighters will HET and start pursuing the drones about 120 hexes from the planet.
Turn 8-9: Shatterpacks are launched to break up the largest remaining drone groups. Phaser-4s start shooting up drones because they can.
Turn 10: The drones enter the point defense range of the planet. Defsats launch all their drones.
Turn 11: drones are mired in atmosphere. Fighters are back and all defenses get off a last phaser shot.
Turn 12, impulse #1: Drones explode on the planet. Ouch.
I hope I calculated the flow correctly. This all presumes that the attacking drones are set up in multiple groupings seperated by a few hexes to minimize vulnerability to mines.
John Trauger:
The drones are approaching from all six directions. The question of whether or not they are "evenly divided" or if one or two (or five) swarms are weaker than others has not been determined.
Jeff Wile:
Sorry, but the dogfight rules apply to shuttle on shuttle, not shuttle on drone. It is, after all, difficult to dogfight something that ignores you and proceeds towards its target with (to coin a phrase) robotic fanaticism. Even a human Kamakaze would likely take evasive maneuvers while trying to reach his target.
Loren Knight:
As I have noted, while you are limited to "available stores" (i.e., what you know you have) for any given "scenario", your "consumables" (i.e., drones, pods, etc.) will be replaced from other stores that you cannot access during a scenario. While obviously you are not a "major supply point" like a "Minor World" in Federation and Empire, just as obviously your presence means that ships might come by to pick up replacement shuttles, drones, and even T-bombs (you just cannot service or use them yourself) among other things. Your people can only keep so much equipment active at one time (drones require maintenance checks, as do shuttles, phasers, special sensors, your men's small arms, etc.).
Scott Tenhoff:
Role playing your character as the S-4 might seem difficult, but in theory you are going to be trying to get updates on maintenance problems (maybe one of the phaser-4s was actually out of operation when this started to have a service check, you see, but just as obviously I would have no intention of that phaser not being put back together in time for the battle). Maybe you need to plan on moving more fuel for the fighters to their bases. Maybe you need to check the locations of drone stocks to replace what is going to be used. You have people to talk to and things to do. Maybe you can think of things and problems to advise Colonel Knight on (or major Wile or Major Harding, or Major Wells, and perhaps you are also expected to support Colonel Baluda's troops, and if Colonel Baluda is not available, may Major Ford will want something).
Richard,
Your flow looks about right. The GAS shuttle deployment needs to be included.
NOTE: Speed 26 fighters can make 27 hexes by use of mid-turn speed changes (straining there engines?) this might be important.
Fighters can launch type-1 at range 35 on an impulse 32 and follow up with a second impulse 8 the next turn. They need to keep the drones in FA arc until they impact. I calculate this will put them about 8 hexes from the front of the wave.
They can then HET and only lose a hex or two on the wave the rest of the turn. I'm not sure if they can easily get turned around to get off a type VI but once they have they can HET back to follow the drone wave. The last type VI can catch a drone up in the atmosphere.
Shayne Demeria, Richard Sherman:
I have no problem with people joining up, even if it is for just a short while. The idea is to have a "bar topic" that the players can interact in "in character", perhaps develop a few tactics out of the interaction, and for me to occassionally drop by and do something "nasty" (like a drone bombardment) that the players can react to in character (and discuss tactics and such).
The question is pretty much what you want to do and if the position is open. You can be sergeants, or fighter pilots (no problem with Richard being in a cockpit), or one of you could be the "Battalion Surgeon" (the doctor) and the other the "non-denominational battalion Chaplin".
But Loren should really start assigning anyone new who shows up, so perhaps you should petition him. If he needs advice on something, he can E-mail me about duty positions.
So ask for what you bearing in mind those jobs already taken (and as noted, I have no problem with Richard Sherman being a pilot).
Paul Stovell:
Incorrect. The fighter is required to have the target of its drone in its FA arc at the time it is launched, but it can guide the drone from any angle. See second sentence of (J4.21).
Jeff:
FYI, Type-III drones include a special form of ATG which does not require outside quidance and which can find its own targets after launch.
Type-IIIXX drones can be launched on a long ballistic course with up to 3 waypoints. During the tracking of these waypoints, it will ignore any targets. After the final waypoint, it will activate its sensors and proceed on it's programmed course until it either exhausts it's fuel or finds an acceptable target. If that target is defined as a planet, it will ignore fighters and drones or any other target other than a planet. Doesn't mean he won't mix a Type-IIIXX Multi-Warhead or Starfish drone in the pack which could have other target criteria.
Flight Sgt Demeria, Reporting for duty.