The Broken Commonwealth...

[Euphonium]

Fifteen months?  Did no one think to check Kowloon for that long?

And if not, dang.  At least Agamemnon knew where to find Achilles's tent.

A solar system is a big place and I'll bet that if Sharon is in the Kowloon system, she's not on the planet itself.

[Cannonshop]

Rim Territories...

There was no warning given at all.  No rumours of a punitive expedition, no suggestion that this level of violence was about to descend.

It's been more than a generation since the last time, and there had been no signs of intelligence agents pursuing them.

It began, with the jumpships, and simultaneous strikes.

Fighters scrambled, with no better target than 'out there somewhere'.

that's when the kinetic kill weapons rained down on spaceports containing dropships.

Main Street, Engadine, were the first hit.  Every ship at the jump points, and everything in orbit, and everything capable of orbit were being hit, with no better target than 'somewhere out there'.

but it spread out from there, until only Pain, and The Rack..and then, it arrived there, too.

it is impossible to maintain a pirate realm, without ships.  The ability to maintain those ships went the same time those ships were crippled or destroyed, effectively, the Rim Territories and their Bandit-King Overlords were cut off from the outside world, as even HPG systems (which, strangely, had NOT been blinded by whatever blacked out the network) were struck as well.

as each local lord got organized, and tried to restore order?

well, that's when the rocks started falling.

48 hours after it began, most of the worlds of the Rim Territories were rendered borderline uninhabitable with dust clouds and volcanic gasses, and the scourge of the Lyran border and periphery of the Free Worlds League was...removed.  a memory.  rendered in the past-tense.

Regiments of 'mechwarriors can do nothing when the sky falls.

[paulobrito]

Ouch - dark.

[Cannonshop]

Somewhere z-axis 37 Light Years from Coventry...

"Feeling better, Punkin?"  Patrick Ngo was in his eighties.  "Did you sleep okay?"

Sharon stretched and unlocked her rigging strap from the sleep-pod.  "Yes, uncle, thank you for your hospitality."

"You got a taste of it, but not a taste for it, ayeh?" he asked.

"you could say I have seen the elephant and turned away." she told him.  "You were right, they're hopeless."

"Maybe not entirely right.  So what brought my Niece to the point she would resign her comission and spend eight months looking for me?" he inquired, it was the same question every time.

"What's the job today?" she deflected.

"We're prospecting on a colloid, looking for light elements and useful carbon compounds, unless you want another shift in the greenhouse?"

"I'll do the mining." she asserted.  "I need to break something."

"Still angry, huh?"

she nodded.  "Still angry.  Still Disappointed."

"You know you need to go home." he told her.  "To Kowloon, eventually."

"They're better off without me." she said, "I made a mess of things, Uncle.  I tried to fix the mess Mom left, and I made it so much worse."

"It can't be that big a mistake." he told her.

"It's big enough.  I sent my...the guy, you know? the one who fit me? I sent him off to fight a war, and took a job for the Archon, only she decided she didn't need to be the boss and bent the knee to the Wolves, and then, I couldn't even do my job."

"Politics? Mom was always pretty good at that, and your mother was too." he told her.

"I suck at it.  Every call was just one more disaster.  When I managed to get things to go right there it would pop up again, some order signed by one of the Archons, or from their staff, interfering, changing, making changes, and then, there's the corruption!"

"Mom hated that too.  I think it's why she stayed as far from the Throne as they would let her." He noted.

"I should've." she groaned, "but I didn't, I was losing my damned mind down there."

"Dad would be disappointed." he told her, "He was pissed off enough about me choosing this life over what he called my 'responsibilities'...but you need to go home.  You resigned, you've spent an admittedly lovely six months out here with me, but you're The Duchess of Kowloon."

"this is leading up to something."

"Yeah. I know you won't go on your own, so I'm going to take you home." he told her, "And I guess we'll visit and try to lend a hand undoing the mess you've no doubt caused by storming off into the deep black instead of going back where you belong."

[eriktheviking]

I did wonder if the Rim attack was a Falcon training exercise.

[Euphonium]

I was assuming it was Sharon right up until the saturation rockfall began, but now yes I think it sounds like Malvina trying to practice for hitting Kowloon

[georgiaboy]

It's the omnicidal Aliens from Planet X.....

[glitterboy2098]

I was assuming it was Sharon right up until the saturation rockfall began, but now yes I think it sounds like Malvina trying to practice for hitting Kowloon

I thought it was the Lyrans or wolves trying out Sharon's suggestions.. right up till the saturation rockfalls.

[Cannonshop]

KCGS ia Drang, Landmark class Heavy Cutter December, 3149...

In LCN service, she would be a block 2 Duchess Class.  While the orders had continued, the Boojum shipyards had kept expanding slips, and building 'duplicate part sets' with a slight padding of the contract, the extra components (both duplicates unneeded, and 'factory seconds' that could be repaired) were diverted to the secondary assembly site orbiting Boojum's second moon, well within the gas giant's ring system and blocked from most non-optical observation by the gas giant's cranky RF growl and thermal bloom.

This gave Kowloon the perfect excuse to expand the Coast Guard's cutter force-well, this, and the executive order from the Archon laying supplemental training and recruitment duties on the system's local government.

so Linda Minh, whose last command had been a seventy five thousand ton cutter that sank a battleship, is now riding high in a proper capital ship hidden under an innocuous name as part of the 13th Coast Guard Squadron, a unit technically detailed to provide emergency response and law enforcement services in the deep Kowloon Oort, where even the twin suns were little more than slightly brighter pinpricks in the starry distance more than one light hour away.

"Emergence wave portside, positive Z-axis thirty degrees, five thousand kilometers out.  Class Three."

class three. son of a bitch.

"shift to black-box comm on all channels, fighters and shuttles away on emcon, cold thrust only, and take our lights down."

"Aye mum."

There are shoes that, in a gravity well, drop.  Since entering the war and being seen, Kowloon had been waiting for that second shoe-a Jade Falcon punitive strike.

"Telescope, do we have visual?"

"Visual now...she's a Potemkin class, red-orange reflective coating, count is eleven combat dropships...son of a bitch.  She's a Hell's Horses boat, rigged for fleet action."

"Send to Thirteen Squadron, rally on me, mirror send to Ten Squadron and base, send still imagery."

"Aye mum."

"Also, General Quarters, general quarters, this is not a drill, set all stations to condition one, battle stations, depressurize in three, two...one."

[paulobrito]

Fun times ahead. Loony type of fun times.

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Hi Sharon!  While you were the Coast Guard bought you a pony so you wouldn't get sad and run away again.

[glitterboy2098]

good news about the coasties building proper warships.. when the Wolf-Lyran partnership's fleets get wiped out because of incompetence and corruption, Sharon and Kowloon will be in better position to ride to the rescue in a BDH moment followed by a "i told you so, but you didn't listen"

[Cannonshop]

First Skirmish,  Battle of Kowloon, 3149...

Attacking forces:

mixed Clan Jade Falcon and Hell's Horses
CHS Armageddon

3 Carrier class carrier dropships
2 Triumph Pocket Warships
5 Noruff Class assault dropships
3 Clan-Refit Mule Pocket Warships
5 Overlord A3
3 Miraborg fighter carriers
2 Outpost Class dropships


Defenders:

(Initially)
KCGS Ia Drang
18 SL-19 variant Slayer heavy fighters
2 Electronic warfare modified Mk VII

(Reinforcements)

KCGS Isthmus Da Nang Landmark Class
18 Fighters, 2 Smallcraft
KCGS Minsky's Folly Landmark Class
18 Fighters, 2 Smallcraft
KCGS Golden Lake Landmark Class
18 Fighters, 2 Smallcraft

Cutters:

KCGS Charles Vanh Sampan Block III*
KCGS Coriander Deen Sampan Block III*
KCGS John Sithers Sampan Block III*
KCGS Sarah Jennings Sampan Block III*

KCGS Tranh Truk Ngo Sampan Block III*
KCGS Janice Hoang Sampan Block III
KCGS Arnold Knickerbocker II Sampan Block II
KCGS Allison Graften Sampan Block II

Note: Sampan Block III* units carry 12 SB-27 fighters and 2 small craft to act as electronic warfare units.  Smallcraft can be reconfigured in minutes to serve as cargo, fuel, or passenger/marine assault platforms.

The attackers' plan

CHS Armageddon is here to set up a forward strike on the Kowloon system, specifically the naval shipyard near Boojum 3.  in keeping with 'learning lessons' their cargo bay is loaded with several hundred kinetic kill vehicles meant to be deployed in the outer system and set into motion ahead of the main thrust, while the virtual fleet of combat dropships is here to protect the main ship and conduct strikes and raiding against any forward-located comm relay, monitoring station, or unescorted dropships and/or commercial jumpships entering the system or attempting to leave.  The size of the mission dictated the size of the unit sent, in this case, a vast area needed to be secured for the incoming invasion force.

The choice of emergence was intended to take advantage of a cometary event that would (it was estimated by Falcon planners) obscure the arrival of the pre invasion party by scattering most detection signals along a multi-million kilometer frontage.  Unfortunately, the Coast Guard were conducting sensor exercises in that area.

[Cannonshop]

Overview: what the hell is going on? (what the Hell's Horses is going on?)

The Hell's Horses/Falcon Alliance fractured back in the 30s, but sometimes fractures just don't stick, and the Horses in the 32nd century are all about that taking any advantage they can get.

Malvina offered really nice terms and there was, up until 3146, no reason to believe that warships would be needed as anything more than glorified fire-support bombers-after all, the Lyran Fleet was both crippled, and moribund, they weren't at feud currently with Clan Ghost Bear on their other border, and...well...the Falcons under Malvina had adopted their brand new philosophy, even improved on it, and better still, was having roaring success kicking the everloving dogsnot out of all comers with it.

To understand the situation requires some understanding of history-in particular, why Moussolini chose to line  up with the Third Reich for World War Two, or why Vidkun Quisling really thought the Germans had the right idea in that same conflict, even with loads of evidence that there were glaring flaws in the whole idea of fighting the entire rest of the world.

IOW, they still think they're on the winning side, and that being on the losing side is a fatally bad idea.  The roughly equal showing at Gibbs did not dissuade this impression, especially since it took both Lyran and Wolf navies to pull what amounted to a rough draw in casualties.

nonetheless, they are keenly aware of the effectiveness of the ongoing commerce-raiding campaign, and would really like to hurt the people who keep blowing up their merchant and logistical shipping-so there's a bit of a personal grudge there.

Mathematically, there's a problem.  none of the invading clans (except the Snow Ravens) bothered to build shipyards capable of servicing warships, and the nearest one belongs to the Sea Foxes...or to their opponents.  thus, only sending one ship, instead of a proper battlegroup.

As Elizabeth Ngo once infamously said, "If you can't afford to lose it, you can't afford to use it."

[Euphonium]

@Cannonshop what is your version of a kinetic kill projectile - inert & accelerated by it's launching vehicle, or having it's own thruster to get it up to speed? What's the procedure for launching them? Since Ia Drang has seen the arrival, could they in theory see the projectiles launch and transmit vectors that might allow another unit to intercept?

[Cannonshop]

Overview (continued)

The ability to assemble a significant force quickly to achieve local superiority is the main reason that Kowloon never stood in line for either salvaged, or newly built Pocket Warships.  With over 500 million 'rockjack' or spacer or Belter residents in the system, one inhabited world and outposts/facilities on several moons and such, in addition to the billion and a half planetary Kowloonese, the need to move in the Kowloon binary requires in-system jumps (much like Mizar's system, only imagine the population spread out across that intervening area.)  "Jump Ferries" run between the major facilities/subcolonies and Kowloon, with long-range shuttles where jump ferry service is unavailable.

One knock-on impact of this, is that Kowloon produces a LOT of trained space navigators, pilots, and has a bustling industry in cottage manufacturing in addition to the major industrial centers.  For the majority of Kowloon's history in the Lyran Commonwealth, this cottage industry was more or less equivalent to subsistence level activity with periodic spikes in local wealth due to successful mining claims, and so it went largely unnoticed until the succession of Elizabeth Ngo to the Ducal seat in 3053.

Because of the sheer size of the system, most of the industries produce locally for local customers still, with only a few (like Ngo Industries, Groves Armaments, Ia Drang Aerospace, and a few other third-tier manufacturers) exporting goods for outside capital.

Notably, while major defense contractors still have very little presence in the Kowloon system when taken from the whole of the Lyran Commonwealth, there are ties to most of the ones still in business, as Ngo Industries remains a major tooling and industrial infrastructure consulting firm, providing much of the difficult and complex tooling to the major manufacturers in the Commonwealth (in competition with Krupp of Terra).

Upshot is, the Jade Falcons probably should have sent a bigger force-this isn't a system that's going to fold if you blow up the capital (the last time someone did that, well, the result wasn't what was expected or desired by House Amaris.)

but back to strategy and why Kowloon built small-core jumpships instead of assault dropships or purchasing pocket warships...

To patrol the system requires jumpships.  period.  it takes long enough at newton's speeds that anything LESS covering that much range would need a patrol radius of over two years, or cryosleep capability, and such a government would be unable to enforce their will on the Rockjacks, (or defend against them) as the Rim Worlds eventually found out in 2769.

In relative terms, Kowloon is probably the best place to get skilled combat jumpship crewmen in the entire Lyran Commonwealth (or at least, to recruit candidates), because the Coast Guard has dozens of jumpships constantly doing in-system jumps and jump calculations to nonstandard points and transitory locations.

The addition under Duchess Elizabeth's tenure of black boxes as standard equipment on Cutters negated the need to rig 'temporary transmitters' through jumpship cores for the Coasties (though the training remains in use).

FTL comms, plus FTL local Jump, equals the ability to move large numbers of ships spread out for patrols into a concentrated fist in seconds instead of weeks.  It provides unparalleled responsiveness, and accounts for why a large warship with heavy dropship escort isn't facing a lone 'heavy cutter' in piecemeal to annihilate at leisure.

[Cannonshop]

@Cannonshop what is your version of a kinetic kill projectile - inert & accelerated by it's launching vehicle, or having it's own thruster to get it up to speed? What's the procedure for launching them? Since Ia Drang has seen the arrival, could they in theory see the projectiles launch and transmit vectors that might allow another unit to intercept?

the Kowloonese model uses a 9 meter penetrator with a simple guidance module, rcs thrusters, and drop tanks to accelerate at 3 gravities for anywhere from 14 days to 30 days.  The penetrator is made of vacuum forged tungsten, depleted uranium, and a carbon-copper mesh jacket to conceal it during the inert, terminal phase after the fuel runs out.  Interception is really only possible in that initial boost phase, after which, the only way it can miss, is either to get a steering command, or to...well...miss.  the entire assembly is dead-rock-simple and costs less than most warship munitions including nukes.

The Jade Falcon version, uses the engines from an aerospace fighter and (again) drop-tanks, and requires assembly at the launching site before deployment.  the hull is a gutted and stripped aerospace frame with a much more expensive and complex computer guidance system, sheathed in Starslab standard armor with a carbon/copper mesh coating.  Due to the much more expensive and complex guidance module, the only way to stop the Clan version, is to access it and tell it to stop.

The Kowloonese version has a miss radius of 100 meters due to vagaries in calculations, the Clan version has a miss radius of 10 meters.

iow like most tech things, The Clan version of the same concept is better...from a certain point of view.

[worktroll]

I can see fratricide being an issue ...

[Euphonium]

Thank you.

Looking forward to seeing how this develops. It sounds like the attackers have assumed that they'll have plenty of time to assemble, fuel, & launch their KKVs without interruption and that part of the plan just went out the window. In their place if I can't jump out and try again elsewhere I'd be tempted to launch all my DS and have those with the KKVs try to get a few away while the assault DS cover them. I wouldn't expect the attackers to really underatand how fast the 'Loonies can get reinforcements to help out Ia Drang

[Cannonshop]

Interesting things happen when fighters come to the merge in deep space. 

In particular, when six fighter squadrons escorting capital missiles run into ten fighter aerostars and demonstrate that their 'old and broke' designs are still relevant with a combination of Arrow Air-to-air and arrow anti-shipping  aimed at the carriers of those fighters, which are still in the process of separating from their drop-collars and manuevering.

the fighter-launched missiles hit the dropships at about the same point of time that the shells from the Ia Drang's main guns do.

ever seen what happens when you blow up a dropship in contact with a drop-collar?  Raking fire from the destroyer chews a line through the just-releasing Noruff and Carrier class dropships.

it's kind of overkill.  The collar assemblies in three cases hadn't even decoupled yet, so fire and shock transferred right into the warship from the detonation of her embarked dropships, while debris spreads out at high speed, striking neighboring hulls and in a few cases, holing them immediately, while creating a chaff field that fouls point defense sensors...right before the missile spread hits.

This is still the opening volleys, the CAP launched by the Armageddon did not expect to find incoming fire and fighters right outside their launch bays.

They are, however, able to be thankful that the initial hits didn't include thermonuclear weapons.

[Euphonium]

The Ia Drang's fighters are escorting the Ia Drang's missiles in?

[Cannonshop]

The Ia Drang's fighters are escorting the Ia Drang's missiles in?

The Clans still use SLDF doctrine-that means they use smallcraft and fighters to deal with incoming capital missile strikes as their primary point defense.

(See: Sarna.net entry on the White Aerie and the NL-45 smallcraft).  since everyone who knows naval history knows SLDF naval doctrine, and the Coast Guard has an institutional memory of the same, counters would be used-also, Kowloonese pilots be some crazy bastiches.  (speculation; all that spicey food and having a two-year orbital period.)

[Euphonium]

I hadn't realised ASF could enage cap-missiles

[Cannonshop]

Forty minutes into the fighting...

Clan crews have long had access to Harjel, a wonderful material that expands and seals things like hull breaches in combat.  Thus, like their Star League Ancestors, they fight with their hulls and life support systems running full atmospheric pressure.

This makes a remarkable number of tasks much, much easier on a warship, and saves a lot of resources on crew training, since you can reliably operate in standard uniform.

There's an unfortunate thing that happens when you do that.

Armor stops weapons...but it doesn't stop all weapons (hence, the use of Harjel layers in hull structures and self-sealing bulkhead doors, blast doors...)

Unfortunately, some things still get through, and if those things are depositing energy in unorganized fashion (known as 'heat') after striking with lots of kinetic force? fires are not unlikely. Nor are translations of shock, since nobody in a thousand years has come up with a kinetic energy sink.

Shock and fires are the enemy of delicate starship systems, even (sometimes especially) military spec systems.

They also don't do good things to unprotected human bodies, such as crewmen and officers in shirt-sleeves uniforms.

The crew of the CHS Armageddon isn't having a nice day.  now facing a continuous bombardment from four Landmark class destroyers while their dropships and fighters are playing blood-tag with Sampan III's, Fast moving fighters, strike fighters, and opposing small-craft, their situation is getting worse.

The tipping point for Star Commodore Israel Dudzinsky comes when that concentrated volley from the locals-who arrived way too fast, appearing already in motion on long range sensors from seemingly nowhere half an hour ago, chewed through the armor on the Armageddon's port aft quarter, setting off shock and explosions in the cooling and fuel systems feeding the ship's main drive, and rupturing one of the liquid helium tanks that cool the jump core.

jumping out would be now, or never.

He turned the key and hit the release switch, sending a signal to the drive controller to return them to the coordinates of the system they last stopped at, because the LF batteries never fail.

ERROR!! ERROR!! ERROR!!

that last salvo had penetrated the housing of the LF batteries, the shaking had been the discharging of all that energy into space...except what was currently superheating the airtight bulkheads and cooking the harjel to brittle consistency.

"NO!!"

the overload and feedback through the power system tripped breakers and burned through fuses, and the Bridge went dark.

[Cannonshop]

Four hours into the battle...

The enemy's pocket  warships tried to keep fighting, as did their aeropilots, but deprived of landing grounds, and with only a limited life support for the fighters, it was just a matter of time.

meanwhile, the dropships might have been truly mighty war machines when used by surprise in the hands of the Word of Blake seventy years ago, they aren't now.

Combat shuttles returned to the Squadron's ships, to have their electronic warfare pallets offloaded and assault modules installed.

you see, each Sampan class cutter carries 25 infantrymen in powered armor.  These are marines, and they get lots of practice in dynamic entry thanks to frequent drills to resolve emergency calls in the deep belts.

including the occasional criminal or madman who needs to be restrained.

it's easier to kill a man, than to take him alive. Especially in space. Coast Guard marines are trained in both.

The assault shuttles handled their loadout swap in under fifty minutes and moved to engage in 'search and rescue'-aka board and capture operations, while supplemental forces are being rallied and moved forward to rendezvous with additional Marines, medical personnel, and prisoner transport vehicles leased from the various Rockjack communities.

The part of the battle involving capital weapons, starships, fighters, and dropships, is over.  the part involving the safe rescue and recovery of enemy and friendly personnel has just begun.

[Euphonium]

Do 'Loonie crews get a share of prize money for capturing enemy ships?

[glitterboy2098]

I hadn't realised ASF could enage cap-missiles

it requires careful maneuver to stay in the same hex, iirc.
the Combine actually developed a dedicated point defense fighter in 3068, the SB-31 Saber Defense Special, which packed an XL engine onto the normal Saber frame in order to combine three ER mediums with a trio of laser AMS. it went into production as the SB-31D (which dropped a bit of fuel for more DHS)

[Euphonium]

I thought CapMissiles hit the same turn they were fired though, apart from tele-operated, so how can you intercept them on the tabletop?

[Giovanni Blasini]

IIRC, friendly units with AMS or other point defense weapons in range of the path the missile would use can engage.

[Liam's Ghost]

Aerospace craft can choose not to make a standard attack in order to engage capital missiles with their standard weapons. They have to actually roll to hit, and there's a very stiff penalty, but they can take one shot against a missile (or given recent point defense errata, a volley of missiles) that passes within six hexes of them.