Best use of the Agamemnons (BC(P))--and other Ships

JeffEngel wrote: *Snip*
In some ways, the Verge may be better off than the Core: the OFS sectors represent political structures of a viable size with the traces of a nascent national identity. The chief problem is that, for most of them, it's an unwilling association under an unloved regime. Maya Sector is an exception, thanks immediately to Barregos being an exception. Meyers is enjoying unified Manticoran liberation and some maybe patronage being reconstituted as a multistellar entity. Other OFS sectors may need governors who see which way the wind is blowing and become "Barregos-in-a-hurry" to become heroes of the new regime instead of the hated symbols of the old one. Or they may try their hands at being independent dictators instead of disguised dictators on behalf of the League. (Telling the two sorts apart is left as an exercise for concerned parties - poor schmucks.)

If OFS sectors cut across old, existing multistellar national identities - like post-colonial borders following the world wars here - then you're likely to see the same sorts of bloody messes we have.

Interesting thoughts, Jeff, and may be worthy of a thread in it's own right. What kind of polities will be replacing the SL; the Core may differ from the Shell and the Protectorates/Verge may be something quite different.

Let me think a bit and if you have no objection, perhaps discuss it in a new thread.

Hutch wrote:Interesting thoughts, Jeff, and may be worthy of a thread in it's own right. What kind of polities will be replacing the SL; the Core may differ from the Shell and the Protectorates/Verge may be something quite different.

Eh, I suspect the vast majority of current League members and protectorates will both go back to what they were before they either joined the League or were welcomed into OFS's protection, and that's independent single systems in almost all cases.

Hutch wrote:

JeffEngel wrote: *Snip*
In some ways, the Verge may be better off than the Core: the OFS sectors represent political structures of a viable size with the traces of a nascent national identity. The chief problem is that, for most of them, it's an unwilling association under an unloved regime. Maya Sector is an exception, thanks immediately to Barregos being an exception. Meyers is enjoying unified Manticoran liberation and some maybe patronage being reconstituted as a multistellar entity. Other OFS sectors may need governors who see which way the wind is blowing and become "Barregos-in-a-hurry" to become heroes of the new regime instead of the hated symbols of the old one. Or they may try their hands at being independent dictators instead of disguised dictators on behalf of the League. (Telling the two sorts apart is left as an exercise for concerned parties - poor schmucks.)

If OFS sectors cut across old, existing multistellar national identities - like post-colonial borders following the world wars here - then you're likely to see the same sorts of bloody messes we have.

Interesting thoughts, Jeff, and may be worthy of a thread in it's own right. What kind of polities will be replacing the SL; the Core may differ from the Shell and the Protectorates/Verge may be something quite different.

Let me think a bit and if you have no objection, perhaps discuss it in a new thread.

I have in fact started a new topic for this discussion:

http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6597

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:How about just attaching an Agamemnon for every Sag C and Roland deployed in a Squadron. 3rd ship as is would add all the Mk16 or Mk23 pods they would need. And include a Company of Marines.

It is almost as fast as a Sag C 95.5% and wouldn't slow any of the ships down by towing pods. It could also carry reloads and a huge load of Ghost Rider Platforms. Two Agamemnon added to 2 Saganami C and 2 Roland would give a 6 Ship Squadron with the Marines these ships lack and 720 Pods. It would have more armour than either and increase their Defensive capabilities. CM 50% and PD 30%+ Plus mounts more powerful and 40% more Grasers than a Sag C.

And you don't have to build them because you already have them.

I read this a bit fast--but if you deploy an Agammemnon with every Sag-C and Roland in a squadron, then you end up needing a lot more Aggies. I think you meant to deploy one Aggie with each Sag-C or Roland squadron; that gives you the firepower I think you are after.

the real question is, why do you need it on top of a Sag-C squadron? For a short action, in defense, the cruisers will make mincemeat of attackers using pods; in an extended raid situation, they take an ammunition ship, and load up external pods before they attack. Dropping down to n-space to load the pods on, wouldn't make any strategic or tactical difference at interstellar distances.

And it isn't like the Sollies are in any shape to complain about the attackers delaying out there beyond the hyperlimit while they load up.

Rob

----------------

I can see a Agamemnon deployed as a flagship with the Sag-C's or Rolands, especially if the Aggie is loaded with Mk-16's rather than Mk-23's.
Common missile ordnance and a MUCH deeper missile load-out.
For now, the approx. 40M km range of the Mk-16 is not going to be a liability and an Aggie can be reloaded with Mk-23's later.

-- Stewart

Number of Agamemnon from HoS is ~85, number of Roland is ~50 & ~150 for Sag C.

25 squadrons made up of 2 Agamemnon 2 Roland and 2-4 Sag C would be a good fighting force. That will leave 30+ Agamemnon and 50-100 Sag C for other duties. Perhaps a defense of Beowulf or something else.

Towing pods and ammo ships cause three problems.
1. Pods slow down the ships towing them. Especially if you have lots of pods.
2. Pods interfere with defensive firing lines.
3. Ammo ships either need to be rondevoused with or brought into hostile space. Ammo ships are very weak and slow.

Plus you need to protect the ammo ships, the last thing you want is a Sollie raiding force to capture an Ammo ship full of pods.

The Agamemnon are part of the light ship squad. Carry extra Marines and lots and lots of missiles. They have offensive and defensive capabilities are 93+% of the speed of the Sag C and most of all you already have them. They can be deployed yesterday.

Lord Skimper wrote:Number of Agamemnon from HoS is ~85, number of Roland is ~50 & ~150 for Sag C.

25 squadrons made up of 2 Agamemnon 2 Roland and 2-4 Sag C would be a good fighting force. That will leave 30+ Agamemnon and 50-100 Sag C for other duties. Perhaps a defense of Beowulf or something else.

Towing pods and ammo ships cause three problems.
1. Pods slow down the ships towing them. Especially if you have lots of pods.
2. Pods interfere with defensive firing lines.
3. Ammo ships either need to be rondevoused with or brought into hostile space. Ammo ships are very weak and slow.

Plus you need to protect the ammo ships, the last thing you want is a Sollie raiding force to capture an Ammo ship full of pods.

The Agamemnon are part of the light ship squad. Carry extra Marines and lots and lots of missiles. They have offensive and defensive capabilities are 93+% of the speed of the Sag C and most of all you already have them. They can be deployed yesterday.

Actually Skimper, you missed #4 - Pods using tractors have a "tactical" lifespan before they run out of reactor mass.Tactical, has been roughly defined by MWW as more than a day, but less than a week - I would define it as somewhere between 40 and 120 hours.

So, for prolonged patrols, a Roland cannot carry 15 pods, but only 5 or so - a Sag C might be carrying 15 out of the 40 it can manage before it gets slowed. So that Sim where 4 Rolands are jumped while sheparding a convoy while carrying 15 pods each is bubkis - the tractor borne pods wouldn't have the lifespan for lengthy convoy operations.

This is where an Aggie would be useful -leading patrols with light and medium units.

Even though I'd rather park the Aggies as the hammer in small multi-ship-type squadrons (2 Rolands, a Sag-C, an Aggie, and an ammo/repair ship), I found another use for a few of them, based on this little jewel I found over at the fifth emporium:
--snipping--

Pearls of Weber wrote:"The warship-building capacity of the SLN is concentrated in perhaps a couple of dozen major nodes. There are any number of star systems within the League which could become major warship-building centers, but they haven't been developed. This has two major implications. (A) The warship design and building industry is very much a "closed community." Not only that, but certain building centers specialize in certain types of construction and maintenance. Eighty percent of the existing yards doing active construction specialize in supporting Frontier Fleet, and build nothing heavier than battlecruisers...(snip) (B) Because there are so few major building nodes, the entire SLN's current building capacity constitutes one huge potential point source failure. In effect, the SLN has an entire succession of Grendelsbanes, of varying degrees of vulnerability. Again, this is something Frontier Fleet is aware of and has pointed out (without much effect) to Battle Fleet."

Since we know that FF units are toast against current RMN tech, once Kingsford's raiding strategy goes into effect, he's effectively putting FF into the grinder in hopes of stopping the bleeding in Battle Fleet. It won't be long before Frontier Fleet needs those yards to start making up losses and repairing ships. At the same time, the RMN won't want FF to start making up losses, as that might introduce opportunities to significantly upgrade the Solarian BC's. Ergo... early on, those twelve building centers will likely go ka-boom. I'd think that it wouldn't take much more than a couple of my mini-squadron plus a 2nd generation CLAC to inflict a Buttercup/Lovat style wipeout of ANY of the twelve Solarian fleet bases outside of the Sol System.

SharkHunter wrote:Even though I'd rather park the Aggies as the hammer in small multi-ship-type squadrons (2 Rolands, a Sag-C, an Aggie, and an ammo/repair ship), I found another use for a few of them, based on this little jewel I found over at the fifth emporium:
--snipping--

Pearls of Weber wrote:"The warship-building capacity of the SLN is concentrated in perhaps a couple of dozen major nodes. There are any number of star systems within the League which could become major warship-building centers, but they haven't been developed. This has two major implications. (A) The warship design and building industry is very much a "closed community." Not only that, but certain building centers specialize in certain types of construction and maintenance. Eighty percent of the existing yards doing active construction specialize in supporting Frontier Fleet, and build nothing heavier than battlecruisers...(snip) (B) Because there are so few major building nodes, the entire SLN's current building capacity constitutes one huge potential point source failure. In effect, the SLN has an entire succession of Grendelsbanes, of varying degrees of vulnerability. Again, this is something Frontier Fleet is aware of and has pointed out (without much effect) to Battle Fleet."

Since we know that FF units are toast against current RMN tech, once Kingsford's raiding strategy goes into effect, he's effectively putting FF into the grinder in hopes of stopping the bleeding in Battle Fleet. It won't be long before Frontier Fleet needs those yards to start making up losses and repairing ships. At the same time, the RMN won't want FF to start making up losses, as that might introduce opportunities to significantly upgrade the Solarian BC's. Ergo... early on, those twelve building centers will likely go ka-boom. I'd think that it wouldn't take much more than a couple of my mini-squadron plus a 2nd generation CLAC to inflict a Buttercup/Lovat style wipeout of ANY of the twelve Solarian fleet bases outside of the Sol System.

Two dozen yards, about 80% FF and 20% BF (alternatively: 80% BC on down, 20% able to do wallers too). So about 5 BF and about 19 FF.

Punching out all the FF complexes may be time-consuming and would represent a wave of attacks that may be politically awkward, if the GA is supposed to be the plucky defenders against Solarian aggression.

But any one of them would be a fairly easy target, presumably they are all known and no trouble to find, so the time-consuming part of it is livable.

Politically, the GA may not have to punch out ones that are not in fact producing more FF units (Kingsford will have a hard time getting crews into deathtraps if FF ships go up like popcorn as much as BF ones have); the GA can destroy them with all due care and more to preventing loss of life while underlining their technical advantages (just like the Cutworm attacks on Haven that way) to preserve the impressions of both special care for lives and overwhelming qualitative advantage; and that sort of example may make other such yard complexes just opt out of working: if you can avoid being blown up by simply building freighters instead, and freighters are in high demand... Frontier Fleet can just get in line.

Hitting the smaller number of BF yards would make for individually scarier attacks, again potentially troubling the political aims, but again it'd be easy to frame that as doing the most to protect lives and defend the GA worlds, only at some remove. And heck - they can remind people that wallers those yards would build would be deathtraps anyway, so they're doing SLN personnel a favor by destroying the coffin-building facilities.

SharkHunter wrote: *SNIP* Since we know that FF units are toast against current RMN tech, once Kingsford's raiding strategy goes into effect, he's effectively putting FF into the grinder in hopes of stopping the bleeding in Battle Fleet. It won't be long before Frontier Fleet needs those yards to start making up losses and repairing ships. At the same time, the RMN won't want FF to start making up losses, as that might introduce opportunities to significantly upgrade the Solarian BC's. Ergo... early on, those twelve building centers will likely go ka-boom. I'd think that it wouldn't take much more than a couple of my mini-squadron plus a 2nd generation CLAC to inflict a Buttercup/Lovat style wipeout of ANY of the twelve Solarian fleet bases outside of the Sol System.

As I have said before, I expect the next appearance of Lester Tourville to be in the Yildun System, cigar in hand.

JeffEngel wrote:Two dozen yards, about 80% FF and 20% BF (alternatively: 80% BC on down, 20% able to do wallers too). So about 5 BF and about 19 FF.

Punching out all the FF complexes may be time-consuming and would represent a wave of attacks that may be politically awkward, if the GA is supposed to be the plucky defenders against Solarian aggression.

But any one of them would be a fairly easy target, presumably they are all known and no trouble to find, so the time-consuming part of it is livable.

Jeff, I can't see the time-consuming part. Given six BatSqd with support elements should be about to punchout the 18-19 sites within 3-4 months, IMHO.

Politically, the GA may not have to punch out ones that are not in fact producing more FF units (Kingsford will have a hard time getting crews into deathtraps if FF ships go up like popcorn as much as BF ones have); the GA can destroy them with all due care and more to preventing loss of life while underlining their technical advantages (just like the Cutworm attacks on Haven that way) to preserve the impressions of both special care for lives and overwhelming qualitative advantage; and that sort of example may make other such yard complexes just opt out of working: if you can avoid being blown up by simply building freighters instead, and freighters are in high demand... Frontier Fleet can just get in line.

Concur; albeit that converting a Military yard to civilan purposes may not be all that simple--albeit I will plead ignorance on that score.

I do think that we will be seeing the GA make a visible effort to differentiate between blowing up Solarian League assets versus Planetary System assets. Oh, they may disable or hold the frieghters until the political matters are sorted out and put an embargo on building new ships, but only until the "political situation brought on by the reckless and criminal actions of the Mandarins are resolved by your planetary authorities." (I.e., play nice with us and we have no interest in hurting your economy and indeed would love to trade with you).

Hitting the smaller number of BF yards would make for individually scarier attacks, again potentially troubling the political aims, but again it'd be easy to frame that as doing the most to protect lives and defend the GA worlds, only at some remove. And heck - they can remind people that wallers those yards would build would be deathtraps anyway, so they're doing SLN personnel a favor by destroying the coffin-building facilities.

Nice. And I agree, taking out the BF yards is high on the GA list of 'things to do'. We only differ in that I think the FF yards are nearly equal priority.

It will be the political aspects that follow the military action that will be the big decider.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

--snipping--

JeffEngel wrote:Two dozen yards, about 80% FF and 20% BF (alternatively: 80% BC on down, 20% able to do wallers too). So about 5 BF and about 19 FF.

Punching out all the FF complexes may be time-consuming and would represent a wave of attacks that may be politically awkward, if the GA is supposed to be the plucky defenders against Solarian aggression.

But any one of them would be a fairly easy target, presumably they are all known and no trouble to find, so the time-consuming part of it is livable.
...

--end snipping--

I'd still hit the FF bases first, because the RMN's ideal strategy is still to break the League into smaller chunks, and befriend them, not terrorize the Core worlds. Might as well leave those saddled with the old Battle Fleet mentality aka unwillingness to re-invest in a state of the art set of SD(p)s because we have 9000 wallers available... On the other hand, removing the threat of Frontier Fleet rebuilding capability would HAVE to give the Verge Systems and Protectorates a boost of confidence to play nice with the GA, knowing that there's no way for FF to easily get back on the horse after a few smack-downs.