SFB Tactic of the month [continued]

PENETRATING THE FORTRESS
- Captain Ted Fay, USS Texas

     Attacking a large base (base station or above) can be tricky because of the power of phaser-4s. However, if you are willing to take some damage on the way in, a good way to deal with the base and tremendously amplify your damage is to use T-bombs.
     Charge the base and, at Range 3 or less to the target hex, place as big a stack of T-bombs as you can in an empty hex adjacent to the base. Preferably, transport the mines by dropping a shield that does not directly face the base. Set the mines to detonate for any size class, radius one. Then use launched shuttlecraft and/or drones to blow your own mines, thereby punching a hole in the base's shield. Because the base can only rotate slowly, you time the explosions to occur so that you will have at least several subsequent impulses to fire through the base's now down shield. Additionally, because of how mines detonate, you are likely only going to set off some of the mines. That means you can achieve two separate volleys of damage per impulse, which will quickly strip the base of weapons. Depending on the forces involved, you could strip the base of weapons in just one turn, and thereby suffer only one blast from the base for your efforts.
     You should set the mines when you are at Range 3 or less because you want to minimize the time the base has available to sweep the mines before the mines are set and ready to explode (two impulses after being laid). Additionally, the impulse the mines are set, you will want to be at Range 2 to the mines. That way, you can launch your shuttles and/or drones timed to move on the following impulse (and thereby detonate mines), again minimizing the opponent's ability to destroy your shuttles and/or drones to prevent them from detonating mines.
     If the base is orbiting a planet, then you have a huge bonus. Use the lee of the planet's "line of sight shadow" to approach the base so that it cannot shoot at you. Depending on the base's setup, you might be able to trigger multiple mine blasts over several impulses before you overrun the base, thereby preventing the base from shooting back before you start stripping it of weapons.
     If you are desperate, use your own ships to detonate the mines. You can string your ships out so that each ship only takes one or two mine blasts, but the base keeps getting hammered with internals on the same down shield.