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	Archive through August 30, 2022	25		08/30 09:16pm

This idea has both merit and precedent. While not officially in the game as hardline ships it is possible as others have noted to pod/pallet + escort your way into this.

Late war can the Aux Tactical Group rule enable this concept without the direct benefit of the escort? (I cannot remember)

The Hydran SRG is a nice little ship with fighters/scout channels and troops but it will die against the coalition quickly due to its DD size.

The main benefit to Joe’s idea is that these groups are built to be escorted not simply consorted. Therefore they will be tougher to take down. It’s a bigger investment by the marine side of the naval forces. The reward for killing them is the multi-ship cost loss to the opponent. Or at least pushing an entire group into the repair bays.

Typically I could see these being employed over the Majors but truthfully the big benefit is the reduction of risk over the smaller targets. Often my coalition opponents will send a force to cripple a BTS with enough fighters and a G. They burn the fighters to save the damage and the G attack the base killing it more often than not with a decent die roll. Typically using DirDam on a G-ship that I can cripple so they lose the G is a common strategy over letting them eat the damage in fighters. Having a group like this protects the Troop ship. Again it’s already possible but early on there aren’t enough Tugs to really employ the concept.

When would this or the ships be available? (Don’t say y175! …inside StratCon joke)
It seems the concept should come sometime after carrier escort technology is well established though.

I don’t see Alliance using this much until the rebound turns as they would focus on regular carriers first. The coalition would because it starts with semi-crap carriers and protection of the troops makes holding captured planets a little easier.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 08:41 pm: Edit

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Quote:

The Feds, Lyrans, Klingons and Kzintis can use tugs to do this by having one carrier pod and one troop pod on the tug. In my game with Ted, I actually have one Fed tug in this mode.

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By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 08:58 pm: Edit

Respectfully Alex, while I love the concept, I think that having a commando ship with a FULL squadron of fighters has a snowball's chance in Hades of getting approved.

What, in my opinion, has a *better* chance of getting past the Steves is a commando ship with a small fighter element -- 2 to 4 fighters max that are nominally a force multiplier, as in CAS.

Trying to make a ship that is excellent for carrier operations *and* ground operations in one has little chance of being approved.

By Dal Downing (Rambler) on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 09:09 pm: Edit

Actually for the Feds and I am sure others the strike fighter F18s can be A18s So a half squadron wouldn't be out of the question if you reallocate them to the ground attack role once your over the target.

And just a sidenote. Wasn't the USS Kittyhawk made a Helo Assault Carrier for her final mission or 2?

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 09:16 pm: Edit

Hmmm, how about a shuttle bat with four fighters, two ready rack boxes for either two fighters, 2 GAS, or 1 GBS. and two-four (depending on the base hull) for admin, GAS, HTS, GBS ... [8-10 shuttle bay] ...

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 10:48 pm: Edit

I think this idea isn’t needed or workable. An LHA Carries fighters to support ground troops. You want to use them for ship combat. You cannot get more than three squadrons in a battle force anyway. What are you trying to do? Use two CVs and a CVL plus an LHA?

To create this, you need to find a commando ship, not remove any marine stuff (no removing labs, hull or shuttles), then find a way to shove in six fighters. You cannot make that happen. LHAs are BIG ships compared to modern cruisers. 45,000 tons. Battleship size.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, August 31, 2022 - 01:09 am: Edit

Mike, a non-strike carrier on a CA hull isn't excellent for both carrier operations and ground operations though, even a CVD-based one. It doesn't have the offensive density of a CVS, even with the full squadron - as it's giving up the CVD's second squadron for the commando facilities and capabilities. It's certainly an idea I can see architects coming up with, but being passed over as there's much better things to do with CA hulls. I'd be happy to see such a class in Module R13, but think the issues with it being real is not soo much "too good" as "not good enough at either".

And as I said, and SVC reinforces, anything smaller just wouldn't be viable either based on raw number of boxes or the more intangible parts of the background not directly reflected in the mechanics of either game - doing the same general thing as I proposed with a patrol carrier qith just with six fighters works out the same in terms of boxes overall, but would also result in a miserably over cramped ship for all aboard.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 31, 2022 - 02:30 am: Edit

It should be noted that this idea came from the F&E side and F&E has no "ground support fighters" concept.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, August 31, 2022 - 05:06 pm: Edit

Like, I have zero dog in this fight (I never use the ground attack rules in F+E :-), but it doesn't seem at all out of the realm of reason.

Take a CW. Modify in a dozen+ fighter boxes. Half of them hold fighters (for dedicated escort duty). Half of them hold GAS/HTS. It has no heavy weapons, but barracks, troops, and more than the usual number of transporters.

In F+E it gets a G unit or two, and can be escorted as a CV by regular carrier escorts for increased compot (IIRC, ships escorting ground attack units are generally standard ships with reduced compot). Like, the potential for useful is there, and I understand the want for such a thing.

I mean, yeah, a TG+VP+GP will do about the same thing. But still. It isn't like this idea is completely out of the realm of reasonable. I mean, if it isn't going anywhere, it isn't going anywhere, and that's totally fine.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, August 31, 2022 - 11:18 pm: Edit

Just an observation:

SVC posted that F&E has no “Ground Support Fighters” concept.

I may be wrong here, but he just gave you a nice big soft ball pitch, at low relative velocity and a really nice arc.

this might be a reference to the failed A-7 ground support fighter originally mentioned in Rules Module M.

Several people have mentioned that a proposal needs a concept, mission or role for the proposed ship, non-ship or other system.

No mission, or role, means no reason to add it to the game.

Hope this helps!

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, September 01, 2022 - 02:25 pm: Edit

Among Alpha Octant empires, the closest to this concept might be with the Gorns, or perhaps the Seltorians. Or even the "lost empire" Paravians, at least for dreadnought-sized vessels (which, unlike smaller Paravian ships, cannot land safely on planets).

In the case of the Gorns, a significant proportion of their "line" ships' shuttle bays are already assigned GAS shuttles in place of other empires' admins - plus they tend to take a larger than average boarding party complement as standard. Notably, in F&E terms, both the Gorns and Setorians have a commando bonus when more than 50 combat factors' worth of ships are deployed to a given battle force.

Plus, since both the Gorns and Seltorians rely on "mercenary" fighter pilots - the Skoleans flying modified Fed-type fighters on the one hand, and Klingons and Klingon subject species pilots flying exported Klingon fighters on the other - they might be more liable to consider means of using their carriers for other missions in the potential absence of (or at least a potential shortage of) such fighters, ones in keeping with their Marine-forward combat doctrines.

In the case of the Paravians, they could either modify a heavy carrier for this purpose, or perhaps take certain pods for use aboard a Raid Mothership. Note that both dreadnought- and battleship-sized Raid Motherships have no movement penalties for taking their full complement of pods, unlike most other empires' fleet transports - or, indeed, unlike the Paravians' own tugs or LTTs...

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Outside of the Alpha Octant, I could picture the Bolosco and Iridani configuring their larger hull types to carry out these missions, once more is known about Omega Octant Marine battalion organizations.

As, indeed, might the Zosman Marauders, depending on what their fighters and mission modules end up looking like, and how these are to be deployed on their yet-to-be-published larger hull types.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 - 08:53 am: Edit

Why not use a HDW for this role?