The War of the Worlds; Lets Play Aurora

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Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Sign me up for a Command. Something Small and Fast, either a long range scout or something that might defend against raiding or take part in skirmish operations or like a fighter group or something. Whatever it is name my ship the: "A High Degree of Certainty in Future Military Operations"

Pash fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jun 8, 2017

# ¿ Jun 8, 2017 19:38

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 01:39

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

I'm pro scouting, the ideas are pretty good, we should just try to keep it stealthy though, so be mindful of use of active scanners. Don't want to give ourselves away for nothing.

Additionally some sort of raid or faint on the ships going to pluto seems like a good idea. I am Highly against any aggressive action against Pluto itself however, lets not piss off Earth anymore.

Finally I think a probing raid against the IC installation north of Uranus would be a good idea, if for no other reason then to gauge the IC's reaction. It might be a good idea to set up a reserve group to ambush any reaction, but I don't think we should send an all out attack against it. A small attack, testing the defenses, keeping the big guns hiding somewhere nearby. If we go all out on that planet I doubt the forces from Uranus will come out to play without getting reinforcements first.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2017 19:19

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Okay, what about something like this:

A portion of our force, larger than necessary to deal with the expected defenders of the Convoy WITH the support of the ships at Swift-Tuttle, Departs for the IC target north of Uranus. This force attacks the target, and otherwise makes itself known, then withdraws after dealing whatever easy damage to military/shipping targets are there (lets not go bombing a colony or something... again...). This force then peels off, but leaves a fleet scout running its active scanner in the vicinity, maybe slowly making its way back to Neptune. If we want to try to bluff them to make them think we are heading back even more, lets take the biggest ship in our fleet, for the attack, but send it and a few escorts back to Neptune afterwards so there is a big signal if anyone checks.

The rest of the fleet, meanwhile, makes for the Pluto Convoy, either aiming to cut it off before it reaches Swift Tuttle, or afterwards, with the goal to be preventing the IC convoy from making it to Pluto, either due to the fact that they have to retreat, or because we have destoryed them. The Fleet will try to run at a lower speed to avoid detection as long as possible, we don't want to face reinforcements if we don't have to. We might want to set up contingencies if we get word of the ships departing from Swift Tuttle early.

If we want to get really crazy with it we could send a scout and some corvettes off into the shipping lanes between Uranus and Jupiter, aiming to take on any undefended convoys. Probably some of the marine corvettes, maybe with a larger escort or two, only engaging targets that are undefended or that they seriously outgun. Lets not go wasting ships here.

This is a lot to do, but we should be able to do this without leaving our base too exposed unless reinforcements from Saturn or Jupiter head up.

Pash fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Jun 11, 2017

# ¿ Jun 11, 2017 01:01

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Saros posted:

A Gale class fleet scout firing up its actives can spot ships/PDC of 3500+ tons at up to 120m km which should be well beyond the range of any return fire and would give you a good idea of the defences. The harvesting ships are usually going to be in the gas giants atmosphere and are somewhat less obviously a purely civilian target

Oh and if you are going to attack the convoy you might want to indicate if you will accept surrender after the destruction of the escort or attempt to capture any ships. Trying to hightail it away with stolen ships could result in a great payoff but the slow speed of civiie shipping means greater chance of the IC scrambling forces to intercept before you make it back to the protective umbrella of the Neptune defences.

Finally HQ has just notified us that they are deploying stealthy passive scouts to watch Saturn and surrounds so we should have warning of large scale warship movements away from the Saturn system.

Hmm, if this is the case we should accept surrender if possible and try to take them to Neptune. Then if Saturn Scrambles its fleet we wait for them to come part of the way, blow up the convoy, and hightail it to out of there. That should accomplish the goal of drawing out some of the Saturn fleet pretty well.

I still think we might want to send some of the marine ships, maybe with another small ship or two, to capture any hauling we can if its undefended and divert it to Neptune. Give them multiple things to worry about.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 01:15

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Pink Elephant, but I still think we could have some commerce raiding going at the same time with a small detachment of marine ships, one larger ship, and a scout.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 13:52

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Pharnakes posted:

I say let them get well on the way towards Pluto before intercepting. Wait until there can be no other possible destination for the convoy before pouncing, but leave a 100% safety margin of the maximum estimated weapon range to Pluto. I.E don't let them get within 2x the range of their best missile. This will mean them picking up the ships from S-T but I feel we still have more than enough to overpower them, and the IC fleet leaving Uranus is not enough to pose significant threat to the harvesters on Neptune when we the rest of our fleet has support of the PDC there. Quite likely the IC has orders just to chase us off and not engage Neptune anyway.

This seems like a reasonable plan. We can probably assume that the Pluto convoy probably has some escorts that the special branch ship's passives can't resolve, but I think engaging this group well outside of reinforcement range is a good idea. My only concern is the IC realizing how much of our force we have deployed for it and trying to rush Neptune with as many fast ships from Saturn as they can. Thus I would recommend we strike closer to S-T, maybe shortly after they leave it, as there are not any plausible destinations in the outer system other than Pluto after S-T anyway.

One thing we should do for sure though is make sure our ships refuel before we attack in case we need to make top speed back to Neptune.

Pash fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Jun 13, 2017

# ¿ Jun 13, 2017 14:25

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Help Special Branch

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 14:35

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Sad King Billy posted:

The more ships that are needed to support the capture of the cruiser, the more gaps could be left for convoy members to escape.

Remember the non-combat convoy ships are going to be far too slow to escape anyway.

Edit:

Also if we do this we should probably try to have our attack vector come from an angle that puts us between their forces and Saturn/Jupiter so that any military ship that tries to run has to go through our around us.

Pash fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Jun 14, 2017

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 17:12

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Sad King Billy posted:

We have 17 ships, they have 11 on paper. Yes that should be enough to cover any potential escapees but that does depend on how much damage our ships receive. Lose a few engines and pursuit will be more difficult.

I'm being pessimistic I know but even needless concerns may raise other useful points.

I'm just saying that the civilian ships even at max speed are probably not even getting near 50% of our military ships speeds, plus they are not armed. They likely have a few escorts we have not detected and those are the main things we would need to worry about.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 17:50

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Saros posted:

The votes are in and we barely decline 9-8.

Special branch understands operational realities but requests we engage the Cruiser within 500mkm of S-T to allow they to at least attempt to board and capture what information is possible. They will also take care of prisoner pickup and interrogation aboard the Ivanov.

Is 500 mKm close enough that it will piss off S-T?

# ¿ Jun 15, 2017 14:02

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Move to help! - One of the main concerns before hand was pissing off the colony and the impacts on the opinions of other independents. If we help them now and guarantee their independence this will be a big PR win! Plus this gives Special Branch the opportunity for their operation to commence.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2017 19:19

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Given how slow the convoy was I imagine some time has passed, so we might actually not be that far away. I guess it makes sense to wait for them to start heading toward pluto if they are. Then striking when they move to do so near S-T.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2017 20:30

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

If we didn't bring any marines with us on our fleet we should probably send up a detachment from Neptune to liberate S-T.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2017 21:58

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Crazycryodude posted:

Definitely. But once we finish tearing this IC fleet to shreds we should give the now stranded occupiers of S-T a chance to surrender before we dispatch any Marines.

Agreed, but don't give them to long of a chance, we don't want IC reinforcements getting a chance to get there if someone breaks out of the jamming range.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2017 22:46

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Good operation all around! Lets get these captured ships heading to Neptune and liberate S-T! Also those missile destroyers are scary. Imagine if they mass a few of these, they could blow holes in our capital ships and cut the chain of command off at the top.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2017 20:37

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

As much as I like the idea of the mobile ship yard, that might prove to be too tempting of a target for the IC if they figure out its here (they probably have an equivalent of special branch as well). Given the enemies missile alpha strategy I would also fear throwing a battleship into the line, therefore my vote is for the Midway option.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2017 14:06

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Crazycryodude posted:

Yeah, like I said, we're here to stay. Getting a repair yard out here now before things get any hotter is a smart move, because if the IC starts getting serious we may not be able to drag a slow repair yard out through their territory. High Command can send more ships whenever, running an enemy gauntlet is kind of what warships are built to do. A repair yard can't, so let's get it while we can.

This is a good argument. My thoughts about the pros of a carrier compared to the battleship as we can leave it further away from the brawling fleet to make it less likely to be targeted by enemy craft.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2017 16:32

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Give Special Branch the Destroyers. They would be useful but I imagine the intel might be better for Mars as a whole in the long run. As for S-T as much as I wish we could liberated it, unless we have a lot of marines right here we need to pull back and see what happens. Plus if all out war has broken out and those IC civi vessels report the nukes going off then its likely that the IC will realize we are out here, and that we are likely part of the Neptune Fleet. If that is the case they might try to attack Neptune while we are away. We should make good speed back to Neptune to ensure we can defend our holdings there.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 13:58

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Quinntan posted:

Wasn't there a disabled Bill Gates BC from last time too?

Every Bill Gates we have faced we have left as a flaming wreak. Its disabled in the sense that there is still a hunk of metal floating around somewhere, but there is nothing systemwise thats intact with either of them.

I generally think that 2 ships is not going to make a large difference in battles to come, but the intel we gain might. Besides, its not like after Special Branch has their fill pouring over everything that Mars Command cant outfit them and press them into service later.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 14:57

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Friend Commuter posted:

Split off a couple of light ships to escort Special Branch to Pluto, say, an Endurance and a Schiaparelli. Less in case Special Branch needs some fire support, more so they can crack down on any daft ideas that might piss off Earth. Speaking of, please tell Special Branch not to piss off Earth.
Hold position at Swift-Tuttle and route the repair yard over here.
Send a salvager, as many troopships as necessary and a couple of warships as escorts from Triton to S-T to loot, liberate the station and tow that other crippled destroyer home.

I would modify this, I dont think its safe to bring the Repair ship to S-T, we are unlikely to keep this underwraps much longer and there is no point in putting it in harms way or letting them know we brought it out here. Send it a long way around to Triton,

I suggest:

Operation Cautious Rabbit:

Send the repair yard the long way around to Triton, being as safe as it can. Don't bring it near the S-T battle zone.

Split off a couple light ships (say the previously mentioned Endurance and Schiaparelli) to escort Special Branch.

Send the injured ships home, towing the damaged missile ships we stole.

Send a fleet scout toward the nearest IC holdings we expect any response to come from so we get a warning whats coming.

Send up a few of the faster marine battalions to try to take S-T back.

Finally if we detect an IC response that looks threatening to what we still have on station at S-T retreat back to Triton, no use risking our forces while the bigger ships need repairs.

Pash fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jun 20, 2017

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 19:15

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Pharnakes posted:

A couple of destroyers for SB escort, sure. But we don't need to send a cruiser, even a draper CL is way overkill and they are going to be needed elsewhere.

Good point, I will leave that up to voters. If we go with Operation Cautious Rabbit please specify whether you want just destoryer or if you think a draper is worth sending. I'm cool either way.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 20:56

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Crazycryodude posted:

Yes, thanks for reminding me. Edited that in for clarity.

Also, Pash, the only real difference between our plans at this point is that yours has a fleet scout picketing Titania and an explicit provision to keep the repair yard safe, while mine has the scheme with the captured destroyer. I'm fine with both of your differences, if you're ok with mine do you want to just merge them into Operation Whistleblowing Rabbit or whatever?

Sounds good to me. And ya, lets use the mobile infantry and save our marines. If we can only tow one missile destoryer than might as well load up the other and leave it sitting around S-T with a skeleton crew. Trying communication hijinks is fun too.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2017 14:07

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

koolkevz666 posted:

What happens if the IC arrive in the middle of the operation though? Also does anyone have any plans for how to hold the colony after we liberate it?

I don't know if we care about holding it. The main point is to liberate it, then celebrate the PR victory of protecting the sovereignty of independent colonies. The IC's only purpose in taking S-T was as a base between them and Pluto. We stopped them from making it to Pluto and now we have a full out war on, so they would have to pull resources from that if they want to take another shot at Pluto, which accomplishes one of our mission objectives anyway, pulling IC forces away from the inner system.

Besides, we could leave one of our captured IC missile destoryer that we can't tug back here loaded with missiles as a token defense if we want.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2017 15:23

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Veloxyll posted:

Not really worth risking our marines for a PR boost.

And what if the enemy sneaks through past our spotters? Those 1-shot missile ships would love a shot at our marines. That'd seriously curtail our ability to operate.

I specifically changed my idea from using the marines to using the regular infantry from Neptune, as we have a lot more of it and its less valuable.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2017 13:43

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

The thing is one of our major objectives is to draw IC forces out from the inner system. Putting pressure on them by retaking S-T and giving them that objective to take against helps this.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2017 16:02

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Crazycryodude posted:

Did we find anything damning in the holds of those captured freighters? The fact that we captured both a construction brigade and combat engineers pretty much confirms my suspicions that they were hauling PDC's to Pluto, but by some miracle were there not PDC's in the holds? Or if there were, was there anything else?

Haha, if there are PDC's in the holds we could totally set one up on S-T (with their permission) after we take it back. That might be funny.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2017 16:37

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Coffeehitler posted:

No, install the PDC then liberate S-T. Further proof that the perfidious Outers can't be trusted.

Now thats taking the propaganda to the next level.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2017 17:05

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Fray posted:

So I guess let's forget about any S-T ops, get our forces back to Triton, and deploy the captured defense installations if there's time.

Ed: And maybe send a fleet scout out to gather intel on that big contact?

Seems like it. We could maybe try to send some infantry to take S-T via a roundabout path, but really we probably can't spare any ships to defend them... and even if we did its unlikely that they would be able to stop that extra fleet.

As it is it looks like we need to ball up to deal with the combination of those reinforcements and the ships already at Uranus. We could try some raiding, but it seems unlikely that we could actually capture any shipping, as any raiders of our would have to be small and get in and out before the IC fleet from Uranus responds. Hopefully we pulled enough IC forces from the inner system for now to appease Command.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2017 18:52

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

GunnerJ posted:

With IC's fleet moving out, would it make sense to raid some undefended Saturn holdings? Or too much of a risk of splitting forces?

I think its safe to assume that Saturn is still defended, probably at least some very strong PDCs. I think if we struck there the IC would jump on Neptune with their full outer system force. If we are gonna raid it should probably be some small ships looking to jump unprotected shipping, blowing it up and running away.

Alternatively if we could convince Special Branch to give us some of their jamming tech we could have our marines go out, capture some shipping, and then fly somewhere else as hopefully the IC would not realize anything was wrong until their shipment was late.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2017 19:20

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

I'm all for still liberating S-T, but if they are brining a siege warship to the outersystem we need to make sure we defend Neptune, which means getting the majority of our fleet back there ASAP.

I will however also state that we should probably start some commerce raiding with the marines. I suggest sending a fleet scout and the marine ships out to pick off undefended shipping. Those ships should be fast enough to run from enemy fleet assets and are generally weak enough ships that they wont matter to much in any upcoming fleet engagement.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2017 17:55

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Affi posted:

So our plan right now is:

1. marines and marine craft taskforce out and disrupt mining/trade and generally be pirates.

2. Assualt brigade detaches with transports and light escort. Go to S-T and attempt capture.

3. Neptune fleet elements rally at Neptune under the battleship pdcs umbrella basically.

4. Light elements scout neptune moons.

This is a safe plan that I like.

I support this.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2017 15:59

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Pharnakes posted:

OK, in that case I can support Cryo's plan too. But only the marine corvettes to escort to Triton, anything DD and up must stay with the fleet. And I still think we should make an attempt on the IC logistic capability before engaging them in pitched battle.

I also like the idea of doing that if we can fix one of those captured missile ships in time.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2017 22:32

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

This probably explains that tiny ship we detected in the inner system cruiser clash earlier as well. Sounds like we should consider having some of these anti-fighter ships shadow and or scout for our fleets with actives to try to detect these scouts. If we wanted to try to hide our movements and thought these might give us away we could always just have them fly around randomly with their actives on sometimes.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2017 13:44

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

GunnerJ posted:

...is Swift-Tuttle located on Patroclus? What are we reading about here.

Pretty sure thats where the IC attacked Martian Forces in the inner system. We heard a fleet wide broadcast about it.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2017 15:55

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Saros posted:

The drones have extremely adaptive behavior routines and seem to have taken the view the Geneva conventions don't apply to space...

Glad the IC seems to have not learned from any Sci Fi ever. At least after our eventual demise we can rest assured that the Drones will eventually murder all of the IC as well.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2017 16:53

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

What was the class of the missile destroyers that shoot the giant waves again? That looks like a fleet that might be intended to attack Neptune...

# ¿ Jun 27, 2017 20:11

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Affi posted:

Those boxlaunchers only have one salvo before they need to reload?

Prostrat: they will likely target one or two ships. We might trick them into targeting our already crippled ships? While we rush them?

Can we destroy their supply ship?

Skeleton crews trying to eat missiles might be the best bet assuming they attack before the shipyard makes it and can repair them. Wishing others had gone for the Carrier right about now...

Formation wise if the fleet battle comes before we can repair it would probably be best to put the damaged ships up front to eat missiles with the anti missile ships with them to chew up as many as we can.

The Supply ship idea required us getting the captured box launcher ship up and running, which we have not had a chance to do.

Crazycryodude posted:

Double-posting so I don't add more edits:

Does Triton have any missile factories? If we try to take on that deathstack in a straight fight we'll get real bloodied even if we win. If we could fab up some mines to seed along the route between Triton and Saturn, however, we can wear them down before having to fight. We might even get lucky and peg their munitions tender or tanker or something irreplaceable.

Unless we can activate some sort of homing space is so large they won't matter. besides that we will probably face issues of time before that could be useful.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2017 21:10

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Affi posted:

With a scout we ought to be able to pinpoint their heading? And if they are arrogant they might not even change it a bit?

I mean usually you try to lay mines before the enemy is already moving right? Are you suggesting just shooting some missiles in their general path, letting them run out of fuel, and hope they run into them?

# ¿ Jun 27, 2017 21:23

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Whats the ETA on that Cruiser Division from Mars? (I assume they will be way to late...)

Will the captured convoy transports make to to Neptune at the same time as the rest of the fleet? If so do we have time to try to set up those PDCs before the 10 days is up?

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 13:55

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 01:39

Pash: Sep 10, 2009; The First of the Adorable Dead

Fray posted:

Maybe after we deal with incoming force, we can meet the 9th at Uranus for a counterattack.

Lets see whats left of our fleet before we plan this...

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 14:25

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