Fixing the fleets, or why having real fleets would not hurt the game

[BloodRose]

So, greetings.
I hear a lot of talk these days that the warfleets of the SL needed to be destroyed and that bringing back a real navy, or ungimped warship construction rules, as opposed to PWS would lead to Battlemechs being invalidated in a logical sense because ships would just bombard them from orbit.
Well, I say nay.
Why? Because there is one simple thing that everyone forgets in Battletech. Atmospheric interference. If you fire at a planet you are not just firing your shots at the ground. If you fire straight down then only energy weapons will ever reach the surface, and they will do so with much less force. Why? Because of the atmosphere.
The atmosphere of a planet, espcially the upper layers, would strip energy beams of their power and scatter the energy resulting in a far lower level of hitting power when the shot impacts, and ballistic projectiles would burn up.
Ballistic weapons are not firing dropships or even self propelled rounds, which means they do not have the magic power that lets BT dropships and ASF fly in with such a vast delta-V, meaning that they would have the same entry profile as an early rocket had. So, to drop a barrage of NAC rounds on the planet you would first have to work out the shots delta-V and then reach a point above the planet that would let your shot enter the atmosphere and impact somewhere around your target, a process that would be extremely innacurate. And to really make matters fun every ballistic weapon would have its own delta-V. So your NAC-40's would not be able to use the same firing plot as your NAC-35's or your Naval Gauss Rifle. Add to this the relative innacuracy of the shots and you have at best an area saturation weapon of limited use.
Finally what about missiles? A Capital Missile would have a vetter delta-V than ballistic weapons and would be able to partially guide itself onto the target, yes. But at what cost? capital missiles do less damage than any other Capital Weapon, and they are a lot heavier and bulkier meaning that a ship carries a lot less of them.

In the end the choice would come down to this:
Accurate but stripped of most of its hitting power - Direct Energy bombardment
Heavily innacurate but does a lot of damage - Ballistic bombardment
The best of both worlds but is only available in extremely limited numbers - Missile bombardment

Now if you start to factor in an increase in damage to Naval weapons as well (no Mech should be able to survive a NL 35 hit with only heavy damage) and make Capital scale weapons automatically roll for criticals against conventional units (with a bonus) and you have a start of something good.
Also, allow capital Scale weapons to be direct fired from ground units against other ground units. If someone has managed to mount a capital scale weapon in a fortress or mobile structure then they deserve to be able to use it, especially as  it has a massive too-hit penalty for firing at none-capital targets.

[Frabby]

You're effectively suggesting a rewrite of the rules here. Given the history of the AeroTech/BattleSpace/AeroTech 2/StratOps rules, I don't see that happening in the forseeable future.

And BattleMechs would still be marginalized by those strategic assets.

[BloodRose]

Well, the Aerotech rules for naval engagements have been in need of a rewrite for some time. Right now they are all over the place, require three books to play and are difficult to navigate. Fixing them would be a start.
I am not quite sure how this idea would marginalise Battlemechs. Orbital attacks on planets would be difficult to conduct, require a vast expenditure of resources and force the ship to be held immobile in place over a planet.
If you add in rules for surface to orbit fire then it becomes a lot more dangerous and few people would want to leave an expensive sitting duck hanging around to perform the task, especially as orbital to surface fire would only really be effective on area targets, and reaiming would require the entire vessel to be shifted.

[Robroy]

I can see reducing the effectiveness of energy weapons due to the effects of an atmosphere. As for ballistics, I don't know. Goggle "rod from god". Maybe make orbital bombardment only practical from capital missiles. Then you could have anti ship and ground attack types a player would have to load in the magazine.

Making orbital bombardment harder / less accurate is a good way to ensure the use of mechs on the ground to take objectives. As well keep in mind that not every, or most victories comes with the destruction of a target.

Perhaps we need a Aerospace Manual.

[Elmoth]

Wasn't Ronald Reagan's Star Wars the idea of filling space around Earth with ballistic nuclear missiles that could then enter space and destroy whatevger the operator fancied? It would seem that guided missiles should be able to do that in BT as well, then...

[dgorsman]

Wasn't Ronald Reagan's Star Wars the idea of filling space around Earth with ballistic nuclear missiles that could then enter space and destroy whatevger the operator fancied? It would seem that guided missiles should be able to do that in BT as well, then...

Not quite.  It was the flip-side of the coin, a ballistic missile defense system.  Hard to go into without getting into the political side of things.

[Elmoth]

Not quite.  It was the flip-side of the coin, a ballistic missile defense system.  Hard to go into without getting into the political side of things.

Ah, I stand corrected then. Had this idea that someone went that route during the last steps of the cold war.

[The_Caveman]

Perhaps we need a Aerospace Manual.

Nobody plays AeroTech because AeroTech is bad.

AeroTech never gets a rewrite because nobody plays AeroTech.

Also this conception of atmosphere as being able to stop capital weapons is basically rooted in wishful thinking. NAC rounds and lasers are more than capable of reaching the surface of any Earthlike planet.

[Robroy]

Also this conception of atmosphere as being able to stop capital weapons is basically rooted in wishful thinking. NAC rounds and lasers are more than capable of reaching the surface of any Earthlike planet.

I know. I was not saying it stopped them. Atmosphere does interfere with energy weapons. An explosive round fired down into a gravity well may pick up to much speed. Some thing some bombs have had to deal with as they hit so hard the detonator is crushed. I was just offering an in universe explanation to justify rules for reducing their effectiveness/damage so warships can still exist without dominating everything.

[dgorsman]

When the large scale game is destroy everything and rebuild, they are unbalanced.  When the game is conquer and capture, not so much.  You need to land troops for that.

Granted there's still the problem of getting past a defending fleet.  Maybe the whole "space is really really big thing" could be leveraged along with lower thrust values (I know - existing designs...) and long production times.  Just enough to balance things to the point where having a WarShip is somewhere between good and great, but not overwhelming.

[Liam's Ghost]

I know. I was not saying it stopped them. Atmosphere does interfere with energy weapons. An explosive round fired down into a gravity well may pick up to much speed. Some thing some bombs have had to deal with as they hit so hard the detonator is crushed. I was just offering an in universe explanation to justify rules for reducing their effectiveness/damage so warships can still exist without dominating everything.

Ballistic naval weapons use little to no explosive. Their destructive value pretty much comes from their insane muzzle velocity. And what explosive they do have is already designed to withstand the stress of being fired and impacting at that velocity.

And planetary gravity isn't going to have time to add all that much velocity when the shell is already flying at around (conservatively) twice escape velocity when it leaves the barrel. 

[BloodRose]

Incorrect, its not the gravity. Its the atmosphere and the burn up zone. No matter how powerful the shot it is still a massive unguided shot that has to enter the planets atmosphere and survive the burnup zone. Modern spacecraft can only reenter the planets atmosphere through a very narrow trajectory band and deviating by even a degree can result in the ship being destroyed. The disadvantage with ballistics would come not from them moving too fast due to gravity, but from them having to be fired from a precise point into a very tight delta-V with an angle of shot that means they could be scattering a mile off target, and each different type of cannon would have a different approach vector meaning the entire ship would need to reposition just so it could switch from NAC30's to NAC35's or Light Naval Gauss.

[Liam's Ghost]

Incorrect, its not the gravity. Its the atmosphere and the burn up zone. No matter how powerful the shot it is still a massive unguided shot that has to enter the planets atmosphere and survive the burnup zone. Modern spacecraft can only reenter the planets atmosphere through a very narrow trajectory band and deviating by even a degree can result in the ship being destroyed. The disadvantage with ballistics would come not from them moving too fast due to gravity, but from them having to be fired from a precise point into a very tight delta-V with an angle of shot that means they could be scattering a mile off target, and each different type of cannon would have a different approach vector meaning the entire ship would need to reposition just so it could switch from NAC30's to NAC35's or Light Naval Gauss.

I was responding to a different statement that specifically referred to what I was talking about.

Even so, I think you greatly overestimate the atmospheric affects. The distance from firing range to ground simply isn't that big, and the shells are simply moving too fast. And as for repositioning, the ships firing the shots have literally impossible capabilities for repositioning. We know how to achieve better accuracy right now over longer distances without magic fusion engines and projectiles that can't even approach the same velocity. It's silly to assume the nations of the battletech universe couldn't work out the math themselves with all of those advantages. 

[RifleMech]

Battlemechs, and other units, are only marginalized when the game consists of "I kill your mech regiment with my warship!"  It's no fun. Warships should be used to clear the jump point and then the orbital path for the troopships. Once in orbit they clear the LZ and send in the ground troops. Yes that could mean blasting away at a fortress but the idea shouldn't be to create a crater or a field of glass. Those aren't as valuable as a fortress you can repair and use against your enemies. That means you need to put troops on the ground. That means mechs aren't marginalized. If you end up glassing the place, you might have taken it from the enemy but you didn't win either.

[Maingunnery]

I rather have Surface-to-Orbit retaliation/counter-fire be a bigger thing.

[Jellico]

Surface to space fire makes life too difficult for DropShip which in turn makes life difficult for small loads of Mechs to be delivered. Remember Battletech is a squad based game which is at the core of all the low numbers of military forces.

[Maingunnery]

Surface to space fire makes life too difficult for DropShip which in turn makes life difficult for small loads of Mechs to be delivered. Remember Battletech is a squad based game which is at the core of all the low numbers of military forces.

Dropships should get down to the surface as fast as possible, as fast and evasive as possible.
Warships on the other hand would need to be more 'stationary' to hit surface targets.

Balance by to-hit number.

[AlphaMirage]

Or dropships land far enough away from the action and you launch an overland assault

[R.Tempest]

 Not having the physics knowledge to argue the point, my gut says that while it may be correct that Naval A/C's might have a problem hitting ground target's accurately, I'm not sure the same would be true for Naval Gauss rifles. They're basically mass drivers after all.

[RifleMech]

Surface to space fire makes life too difficult for DropShip which in turn makes life difficult for small loads of Mechs to be delivered. Remember Battletech is a squad based game which is at the core of all the low numbers of military forces.

I would think that the surface batteries would be busy dealing with the warships. Leave the Dropships for the fighters, and AA units.

[The_Caveman]

Modern spacecraft can only reenter the planets atmosphere through a very narrow trajectory band and deviating by even a degree can result in the ship being destroyed.

Modern spacecraft have nothing in common with a NAC shell. It's difficult to stress just how fragile anything we can put into orbit today is compared to the flimsiest AeroTech unit.

And it would take 1-2 seconds for a NAC projectile to travel from the top of the atmosphere to the surface. Even with maximum deflection from a 100 km/h wind (for an unrealistic planet where the winds are equally strong all the way up to space) the shot would deviate by ~55 meters. Less than 2 ground hexes.

A WarShip with a big battery of NAC/10s and ground spotters could simply remove any 'Mech or vehicle force that stood in the way of a conquering army.

Would that WarShips had originally been given a factor of 10 less thrust so that maneuvering them into a planetary gravity well was considered an unnecessary risk. That'd keep them out of the ground battle. But it's a bit late now.

[snewsom2997]

Wasn't Ronald Reagan's Star Wars the idea of filling space around Earth with ballistic nuclear missiles that could then enter space and destroy whatevger the operator fancied? It would seem that guided missiles should be able to do that in BT as well, then...

That was Fractional Orbital Bombardment.

[Scotty]

Surface to space fire makes life too difficult for DropShip which in turn makes life difficult for small loads of Mechs to be delivered. Remember Battletech is a squad based game which is at the core of all the low numbers of military forces.

So make Dropships arbitrarily harder to hit, or Warships arbitrarily easier with a high base to hit.  Or make damage taken by Warships in close orbit significantly more dangerous to the Warship.

Realism serves gameplay, not the other way around.  There are multiple ways to prevent Warships from obsoleting ground troops without removing them from the game as a meaningful option.

[Two Guns Blazing]

Not all "planetary bombardment" would take place on planets with atmospheres like Earth, even so, I imagine that targeting computers/ballistic calculators combined with rail guns with specially designed ammunition for planetary bombardment (may have ablative heat shielding and be guided, perhaps by laser designators from the bombarding ship), would overcome any accuracy problems encountered.

[Jellico]

So make Dropships arbitrarily harder to hit, or Warships arbitrarily easier with a high base to hit.  Or make damage taken by Warships in close orbit significantly more dangerous to the Warship.

Realism serves gameplay, not the other way around.  There are multiple ways to prevent Warships from obsoleting ground troops without removing them from the game as a meaningful option.

Because authors don't always read the rules and sooner or later one will hit a Gordian Knot that can only be broken by ignoring the rules. Gameplay serves narrative which is why we now have extensive rules for nukes.

[Wrangler]

As much i would wish the rules to redone to allow Battletech have warships. There too many people who don't like them.
That why i suspect most of the players who were into Aerospace(and Warships) a lot have left. 

I like Battletech as a whole, i'd welcome a rewrite in the rules to see Mechs be around same time as Warships (in reason numbers, not 1 or 2 per nation if at all.)

Will happen? I doubt it.  Too many have bad mojo against Warships on Blakist level now. 

This is just my opinion. 

[The_Caveman]

Get rid of the needlessly giant hexes and 60-second turns and the muzzle energies of capital weapons don't have to be in the kiloton range anymore (and it would also eliminate some don't-think-about-it-too-hard-or-your-head-will-explode conundrums with fighter aka 'Mech scale weapons). That'd make ortillery significantly less OP.

Go to 500m hexes and 10-second turns and a heavy NGauss only needs to be packing 8-10 tons of TNT equivalent energy to hit its target. That's still a hefty punch, but it's not going to obliterate a small city.

Cut the capital damage multiplier from 10 to 5, reduce the blast radius of capital weapons from 4 hexes to 1 hex at half damage like normal artillery. A NAC/10 now does 50/25 damage making it basically a scarier Long Tom with worse accuracy. A NAC/40 will still ruin one guy's day in particular (though an assault 'Mech *might* survive it) but the odds of a direct hit are slim and it's now much harder to saturate the play area with damage.

Additionally, as a balancing factor, large craft making orbit-to-surface attacks can't spend thrust points and attacks against a large craft declaring orbit-to-surface fire are made at -4 to-hit. Do that, and putting a valuable WarShip in position to rain down fire suddenly becomes a huge gamble (and by definition, WarShips can no longer simply hover over the target firing indefinitely, but have to remain in orbit).

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[grimlock1]

Modern spacecraft have nothing in common with a NAC shell. It's difficult to stress just how fragile anything we can put into orbit today is compared to the flimsiest AeroTech unit.

And it would take 1-2 seconds for a NAC projectile to travel from the top of the atmosphere to the surface. Even with maximum deflection from a 100 km/h wind (for an unrealistic planet where the winds are equally strong all the way up to space) the shot would deviate by ~55 meters. Less than 2 ground hexes.

A WarShip with a big battery of NAC/10s and ground spotters could simply remove any 'Mech or vehicle force that stood in the way of a conquering army.

Would that WarShips had originally been given a factor of 10 less thrust so that maneuvering them into a planetary gravity well was considered an unnecessary risk. That'd keep them out of the ground battle. But it's a bit late now.

You are neglecting the complexities of orbital mechanics.
If something is in orbit and accelerates straight down, radially in, that actually has very little effect on its altitude. It will have a MUCH bigger effect on the eccentricity and the latitude of the apsides of the elliptical orbit. But you won't notice those effects until half an orbit later.   

To get down to the surface, an object needs to reduce its orbital velocity, so any projectiles would have to be fired backwards.  How fast they are fired will determine where they land. So if you fire 2 projectiles with different velocities, at the same time, in similar directions, they will hit different locations on the planet.

Picture this, you and a couple buddies are at the range shooting at a target 1,000 feet away. One of you is shooting .308 Winchester, 3,000fps, another has .300 Blackout, 2,000 fps, and the last has .22LR, 1,000fps. I've rounded everything for convenience. If you all squeeze the triggers at the same time, the bullets will all strike at different times.

Now imagine that you are all sitting in the back of a pickup truck, driving around a race track, trying to hit a target 1,000 feet away in the center of the track.  It starts to get complicated with having to pull lead on the target to account for the fact that you are in motion, etc.  Once you scale up to orbital numbers, you are leading the target by 90 degrees and adjusting the muzzle velocity by adding or subtracting grains of gunpowder.

There's a guy on Youtube, Scott Manley.  He's an astronomer by training and has some good videos discussing the weirdness in orbital mechanics. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5XPFjqPLik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0zkhQFHNac

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[grimlock1]

Oh, yeah. The fiction doesn't always adhere to that. Nor do the sourcebooks. I've tried to sidestep that with the optional rulesets, starting with the first Merc handbook. It is correctly stated, though, that lance on lance Battlemech action is the main event.

Regarding the OP, I'll just reiterate, everybody gets Warships, but the threat of total war keeps the genie in the bottle and they mostly sail around a glare at each other, or no one has them. If the BTU really goes this way, without speculating on its likelihood, an Inner Sphere build-up would have to be very carefully managed.

There will be a Warship battle or two in ilClan, I'm sure, as there are a least a dozen or so in the Inner Sphere, even in 3150, but since the next Battle of Terra will be a black hole in which they will be drawn in and consumed, there might be even fewer than that at the end, with a few side notes about factions that are 'looking into building new ones'.

The early decision to go with a three-tiered space infrastructure with highly specific rigid and unique requirements at each tier has made the system a bit rigid. No Millennium Falcon because you can't put a KF on it.

Ubiquitous, small-drive hyperspace, like Star Wars, or poverty of Dropships and fighters, like Star Trek, comes mostly from the big screen, but the tropes have been forks in the road.

BTU chooses 'leviathan-type' Warships, then makes them extinct, over, and over, and over. Doesn't mean you can't go off the script, but, again, don't set your heart on it becoming official.

Here's a question.  Have ICBMs, cruise missiles and nuclear weapons put the infantry out of business?

[HobbesHurlbut]

So make Dropships arbitrarily harder to hit, or Warships arbitrarily easier with a high base to hit.  Or make damage taken by Warships in close orbit significantly more dangerous to the Warship.

Realism serves gameplay, not the other way around.  There are multiple ways to prevent Warships from obsoleting ground troops without removing them from the game as a meaningful option.

No need with regard to DropShips and landing troops; you do it away from the surface to oribtal defense sites which can only be concentrated around spaceports and their associated cities or the Brian castles. It's a waste of resource, manwpower and time to cover all of the planet's landing sites otherwise.

[HobbesHurlbut]

As much i would wish the rules to redone to allow Battletech have warships. There too many people who don't like them.
That why i suspect most of the players who were into Aerospace(and Warships) a lot have left. 

I like Battletech as a whole, i'd welcome a rewrite in the rules to see Mechs be around same time as Warships (in reason numbers, not 1 or 2 per nation if at all.)

Will happen? I doubt it.  Too many have bad mojo against Warships on Blakist level now. 

This is just my opinion.

That's why it's my opinion that for ones who love the Aerospace aspect of BT, especially the warships, they would be better off with having an Alternative Universe that allow for it with the caveat that there's no BattleMech in that setting.

[Col Toda]

Tel Guided capital missiles could remove surface opposition trivially . Warships were reduced to emphasize ground mech combat .

[grimlock1]

That's why it's my opinion that for ones who love the Aerospace aspect of BT, especially the warships, they would be better off with having an Alternative Universe that allow for it with the caveat that there's no BattleMech in that setting.

Why does it have to be one or the other?  Unless your To-Do list involves flattening sizable portions of the landscape, warships are not the ideal tool for every situation.

[HobbesHurlbut]

Why does it have to be one or the other?  Unless your To-Do list involves flattening sizable portions of the landscape, warships are not the ideal tool for every situation.

Because Herbie or one of the TPTB said it themselves; BattleMech is the focal unit of the game BattleTech. This is the reason WarShips were made scarce once again in the Jihad and after.
Do note however I didn't say there shouldn't be tanks, vehicles, and infantry.

But as I said it should be an Alternative Universe because if you love playing Aerospace and especially warships, you want a setting that allow for such activity. Not the BT setting which is made for showcasing the BattleMech and have driven WarShips to near total extinction (yes you can go back to early eras to play them but it's still focused on the 'Mechs.)

[The_Caveman]

You are neglecting the complexities of orbital mechanics.

What you're saying holds true when the orbital velocity is much greater than the projectile velocity. In this case, it's the other way around. Projectile velocities for capital cannons implied by RAW are at least 5 times, probably 10+ times the orbital velocity. The lead angle is considerably less than 90 degrees, more like 4-6. Low enough that the turret mounts on a WarShip can easily compensate for different calibers.

Also, RAW, WarShips don't have to be in orbit to fire on a surface target. They can hover using thrust points.

[The_Caveman]

Here's a question.  Have ICBMs, cruise missiles and nuclear weapons put the infantry out of business?

Attempting to avoid breaking the forum rules, but nuclear weapons have definitely made all-out wars between major global powers all but extinct. The stakes are simply too high for Superpower A and Superpower B to go at it in a conventional conflict without it escalating to nuclear Armageddon. What we have now are proxy wars, "police actions", and brush fires in third- and fourth-tier countries. The nukes and the heavy bombers stay home because they're both overkill and a risk for spilling the conflict over into a larger conflagration.

Which is a fine way to set up a universe. But the BattleTech universe is not designed to be run that way. There are too few factions with too static of borders, and not enough dangerous non-state actors running around. You just can't have Space Vietnam in BattleTech (Ideal War notwithstanding) because there aren't enough independent territories plausibly under the influence of multiple superpowers.

And what fun is it to have a war game universe where there is a class of units (WarShips) that exist but cannot be used because it would trigger a galactic holocaust? That's a giant Chekhov's Gun.

[AlphaMirage]

Every world in Battletech has independent factions, the whole Inner Sphere runs on feudalism.  Barons, Counts, and etc.. have private armies and their own agenda.  Each world likely has some renegades and rebellious elements on a world that the local Lord might have to put down occasionally.

The Mutually Assured Destruction of Warships (and nuclear missile armed PWS) would limit their use for major surface bombardments because unless you have a truly massive fleet you get 2nd Succession War level damage to the surface of planets that is incredibly difficult to defend against.  I think that is a valid enough reason to maintain the supremacy of battlemechs, they are the surgeons tool and maintain the allure of nobility unlike the conventional forces or aerospace elements.

[idea weenie]

How about if orbital bombardment of a selected ground map caused all sorts of atmospheric effects (i.e. debris, clouds, superheated air), affecting future energy weapon shots at that mapsheet.  So each energy weapon battery fired after the first has an additional 1 pt to hit penalty.  From there, if you miss the targeted hex, you start rolling for scatter, and the DoF is applied as well.  So if you are firing the third shot at a certain mapsheet, then you are getting a to-hit penalty of 2 pts, and if you miss (assuming same target number and 2d6 roll), then your scatter distance is 3 hexes greater.

Firing penalty would be reduced by 1 pt per minute.

So the more you shoot at a certain mapsheet, the worse your shots will be.  Smaller units will have one unit annihilated, but successive shots are harder and harder to hit the unit.  Eventually the ortillery unit has to target another hex due to the sheer amount of disturbed atmosphere and debris.

[The_Caveman]

How about if orbital bombardment of a selected ground map caused all sorts of atmospheric effects (i.e. debris, clouds, superheated air), affecting future energy weapon shots at that mapsheet.  So each energy weapon battery fired after the first has an additional 1 pt to hit penalty.  From there, if you miss the targeted hex, you start rolling for scatter, and the DoF is applied as well.  So if you are firing the third shot at a certain mapsheet, then you are getting a to-hit penalty of 2 pts, and if you miss (assuming same target number and 2d6 roll), then your scatter distance is 3 hexes greater.

Firing penalty would be reduced by 1 pt per minute.

So the more you shoot at a certain mapsheet, the worse your shots will be.  Smaller units will have one unit annihilated, but successive shots are harder and harder to hit the unit.  Eventually the ortillery unit has to target another hex due to the sheer amount of disturbed atmosphere and debris.

Still not enough. RAW, you only need a few shots to completely blanket a mapsheet with massive damage regardless of what hex you hit.  Every capital weapon shot deals damage to 61 adjacent hexes.

If you have a 70 fire-factor bay, you're doing still 140 damage to everything 4 hexes from the impact hex. One full broadside salvo from a McKenna (6 NPPC bays, 4 NAC bays, a laser bay and a missile bay) has enough coverage to saturate a 16x17 mapsheet a couple of times over, with the weakest hit dealing 32 damage and the strongest 600.

By the time you've done that 3 times over the entire mapsheet will be glass.

Each NPPC bay (and there are 6 that can hit either side arc) deals 15,000 standard scale damage to its affected area. To hell with "one unit annihilated", that single shot could wipe a 'Mech company. Then there are 3 NAC/40s dealing 10,000 standard-scale damage each, a NLaser bay dealing 4125 damage and a quad AR-10 bay that could deal another 4000 with Whales.

[Liam's Ghost]

The forties aren't a threat, if I recall, the rules don't let you use medium range capital weapons in orbital bombardment.   At least not from space. The ship would have to be within the atmosphere to do that.

[The_Caveman]

The forties aren't a threat, if I recall, the rules don't let you use medium range capital weapons in orbital bombardment.   At least not from space. The ship would have to be within the atmosphere to do that.

Even so, the NPPCs are more than enough to make my point.

Oh, and I forgot to note: all that damage is done using the punch table. So even the NL55s are murderous.

[Liam's Ghost]

Even so, the NPPCs are more than enough to make my point.

Certainly.

Oh, and I forgot to note: all that damage is done using the punch table. So even the NL55s are murderous.

Just this endless field of mech legs...

[Jellico]

And for more happy thoughts, one day I will design a medium sized spheroid DropShip with a large battery of SCL1s in the tail. Maybe give it to the Cappies.

DropShips get lost in the shuffle but they can be just as game breaking, if in smaller doses.

[Daryk]

I'm away from my books for the next couple days... do SCL1s reach Long Capital range?  ???

[HobbesHurlbut]

I'm away from my books for the next couple days... do SCL1s reach Long Capital range?  ???

Yes

[Daryk]

Interesting... new life for Assault DropShips then!  8)

[grimlock1]

What you're saying holds true when the orbital velocity is much greater than the projectile velocity. In this case, it's the other way around. Projectile velocities for capital cannons implied by RAW are at least 5 times, probably 10+ times the orbital velocity. The lead angle is considerably less than 90 degrees, more like 4-6. Low enough that the turret mounts on a WarShip can easily compensate for different calibers.

Also, RAW, WarShips don't have to be in orbit to fire on a surface target. They can hover using thrust points.

Going back to the pickup truck example, a .22LR is moving on the order of 10 times the speed of the car, and it still adds a SIGNIFICANT amount of complexity to the shot. I was going to argue the orbital mechanics don't support a warship hovering in a tail stand until I realized RAW meant "Rules As Written." 

Actually... if you entered highly elliptical orbit with a 400km periapsis, and a speed at periapsis of about 1,700 kph, then burned radially, I'm actually not sure if it would be a radial in or out burn, then a warship might actually be able to hover...

[Daryk]

The ridiculous amount of thrust provided by BT's magical fusion rockets means it's entirely possible to hover.

[The_Caveman]

Going back to the pickup truck example, a .22LR is moving on the order of 10 times the speed of the car, and it still adds a SIGNIFICANT amount of complexity to the shot.

And if you were manually aiming naval cannons over iron sights, that'd be a problem. For a computer, it's a trivial amount of trigonometry. If you want to be really super-duper accurate you can account for things like Coriolis forces, Magnus effect, speed of the rotating planet surface, wind layers, gravity gradient, etc. But given low orbital altitudes and the enormous blast radius of naval cannons, it really doesn't matter. Close is close enough.

[monbvol]

Here's a question.  Have ICBMs, cruise missiles and nuclear weapons put the infantry out of business?

Real world is a bad example in this particular case simply because Mutually Assured Destruction does not exist in the Battletech setting in the way it does for us in the real world.

No doubt you can end any planet bound populace, industry, or military of an enemy easy enough but with the magic fusion drives combined with how it is impossible to trace a jump it'd actually be very difficult to actually eradicate a properly space born element of a nation.

Simply because the mech needs to be the focus the Succession Wars as much as they tried to go full Mutually Assured Destruction didn't, I would even go so far as to say they didn't even come close despite how brutal and destructive they got just so the mech would always be the center piece.

While I am not so absolute about Mechs not existing in a fully realized properly employed Warship rich setting I will still ask questions about if they do make sense.

And for more happy thoughts, one day I will design a medium sized spheroid DropShip with a large battery of SCL1s in the tail. Maybe give it to the Cappies.

DropShips get lost in the shuffle but they can be just as game breaking, if in smaller doses.

This is a prime example of why I've been saying for a while now that the greatest sin of Warships isn't their ability to perform orbital bombardment as that is not unique to a Warship and never has been for the simple fact of you've got plenty of other options that simply cannot be stopped as easily as a Warship can that are also cheaper as long as the ability to put significant mass out to 10 AU in about a week exists.

[Jellico]

I would say Warships sin is shouting that ability from the rooftops. There is a lot of misdirection around other methods.

[monbvol]

You'll get no argument from me that it is the second greatest sin because of that and really it is only second in my book because it is just a hair shy of tying for greatest.

[Cannonshop]

Surface to space fire makes life too difficult for DropShip which in turn makes life difficult for small loads of Mechs to be delivered. Remember Battletech is a squad based game which is at the core of all the low numbers of military forces.

counter argument: surface to space makes squad-size combat absolutely a requirement before you can launch your mass invasion.  The need to knock out those emplacements ahead of your main body, and the difficulty of getting past them, would REQUIRE small units of squad to platoon size, with outsize firepower and protection-aka "Battlemechs" before you could even contemplate landing conventional troops if Surface-to-orbit fire is a thing.

This also suggests an actual tactical reason for the LAM (Land Air 'Mech) to exist-the need to locate and neutralize surface-to-orbit defense sites and the risk posed to bigger dropships by said sites.

Further, it also  suggests a purpose and role for the SLDF's Hussar class light 'mech (the original "Small 'mech big gun" build, from 2750), as a LL doesn't kill but one or two infantry at a time. Fast units that can be delivered on small dropships and attack detection and firing or coordination installations to allow for the landing of your main force.

as for the OP's original idea and thinking...

we have engines whose exhaust is breaking light-speed under the present rules if you bother using RL physics to calc out how much velocity your fighter's fusion exhaust is impartng to each ton of fuel.

If someone bothered to stat that aka "The Jade Falcon Manuever" there's enough destructive power in "Hovering" your dropship to make Orbom unnecessary underkill.

[monbvol]

counter argument: surface to space makes squad-size combat absolutely a requirement before you can launch your mass invasion.  The need to knock out those emplacements ahead of your main body, and the difficulty of getting past them, would REQUIRE small units of squad to platoon size, with outsize firepower and protection-aka "Battlemechs" before you could even contemplate landing conventional troops if Surface-to-orbit fire is a thing.

This also suggests an actual tactical reason for the LAM (Land Air 'Mech) to exist-the need to locate and neutralize surface-to-orbit defense sites and the risk posed to bigger dropships by said sites.

Further, it also  suggests a purpose and role for the SLDF's Hussar class light 'mech (the original "Small 'mech big gun" build, from 2750), as a LL doesn't kill but one or two infantry at a time. Fast units that can be delivered on small dropships and attack detection and firing or coordination installations to allow for the landing of your main force.

as for the OP's original idea and thinking...

we have engines whose exhaust is breaking light-speed under the present rules if you bother using RL physics to calc out how much velocity your fighter's fusion exhaust is impartng to each ton of fuel.

If someone bothered to stat that aka "The Jade Falcon Manuever" there's enough destructive power in "Hovering" your dropship to make Orbom unnecessary underkill.

To be fair ASF exhaust isn't breaking lightspeed but yes even at the fractions of light speed the exhaust coming out of even ASFs, let alone Dropships, would be huge ecological disasters.

[Daryk]

Monbvol has it right... the exhaust doesn't break light speed, even from units that use Strategic Thrust (Lorentz is your friend here).  But the latter DO require more energy than even matter/anti-matter annihilation can provide.  That's where the problem really lies.

[monbvol]

Well it does depend on the unit and their weight a bit.  A Mammoth is a bit over half the speed of light on it's exhaust velocity if I'm doing the math right.  While a 100,000 ton Warship's exhaust slightly exceeds the speed of light.

[Daryk]

If you're exceeding light speed in your calculations, you're not using the Lorentz transformations.  Special relativity is your friend.

[monbvol]

I'll admit I'm not getting that fancy with my math.  I'm just running equations that should obey Newton's Third Law, For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Not fully accurate I know but seems to bear out close enough for most units.

[Daryk]

Newton is absolutely good enough for most units, but once you get into Strategic Thrust, Einstein is a must.

[monbvol]

*nod*

Even tactical thrust for Warships with the numbers available mean something is going on that is above my mathematical/physics knowledge for if all one went by was Newton's Third Law Warship exhaust is breaking the speed of light at even tactical levels by the numbers we have available.

I shudder to think what arcane/eldritch horrors are at work to make a Leviathan able to get up to 300 m/s on 400 kg of fuel.

[The_Caveman]

Fighters actually aren't all that bad. Exhaust from the largest fighters and small craft (in tactical mode) is safely under 1% of lightspeed. 20-ton fighters are downright realistic, albeit for very advanced fusion rockets.

It's larger craft and anything using strategic thrust that cause real physics headaches.

[monbvol]

While this is interesting it is starting to get a bit far afield.

I do tend to agree with Cannonshop in something he said.  Sending in small "commando" teams to disrupt enemy defenses in preparation for a major invasion does make a lot of sense and does actually provide a way for the game as we know it to persist in a Warship rich setting with relatively few changes as long as no one looks at certain things too closely and/or everyone abides by certain civilized agreements.

[The_Caveman]

While this is interesting it is starting to get a bit far afield.

I do tend to agree with Cannonshop in something he said.  Sending in small "commando" teams to disrupt enemy defenses in preparation for a major invasion does make a lot of sense and does actually provide a way for the game as we know it to persist in a Warship rich setting with relatively few changes as long as no one looks at certain things too closely and/or everyone abides by certain civilized agreements.

This is how it's done in my own science fantasy setting. Mecha are special-purpose commando raiders and planetary defenses make starships getting anywhere near a hostile planet a near-suicidal proposition. If you want to invade a planet, special forces have to knock out the surface guns and missile batteries, which may literally be inside mountains.

In a capital weaponry-rich setting, you're likely to see a switch to shuttles as the means of establishing a beachhead rather than DropShips.

[Daryk]

Well, the shuttles are the way to insert the special forces taking down the surface to orbit weaponry.  You'll still want larger ships for the actual "beach" head.

[The_Caveman]

Well, the shuttles are the way to insert the special forces taking down the surface to orbit weaponry.  You'll still want larger ships for the actual "beach" head.

You have to take the beaches at Normandy before you can liberate France. DropShips bringing in armies would be analogous to freighters and troopships landing at major ports after D-Day. You don't use them to breach the Atlantic Wall. That's what the landing craft and paratroopers are for (in this case, shuttles and orbitally inserted 'Mechs/BA).

[Cannonshop]

While this is interesting it is starting to get a bit far afield.

I do tend to agree with Cannonshop in something he said.  Sending in small "commando" teams to disrupt enemy defenses in preparation for a major invasion does make a lot of sense and does actually provide a way for the game as we know it to persist in a Warship rich setting with relatively few changes as long as no one looks at certain things too closely and/or everyone abides by certain civilized agreements.

to be honest, my idea mainly came about as a workaround to explain the "company of 'mechs taking the planet" thing that was common in the source materials back in the day, but it all fits together with making 'mechs make sense-a 'mech squad (Company) is a lot of enriched materials and specialist training with a very limited talent pool, the game itself is optimized for very small unit engagements.

but...then you get TRO 2750, and they slide in warships that can level continents from space.

If "Just about everyone" has surface-to-orbit defenses (or there's a risk of that) then 'mechs in the Star League era make a lot more sense-they were necessary to get sufficient all-terrain firepower moved in to suppress those defenses, esp. 'mechs like the Hussar, which sports exactly ONE weapon (a large laser) on a chassis that is ridiculously fast-but under-protected.  This isn't a unit for suppressing bandits or insurgents and it's not really useful in large mass engagements.

but it's darned useful for knocking out big antenna arrays or exposed missile sites before they can be used on the ship hauling the invasion forces.  Even knocking a hole big enough in the defense to land mass numbers of troops, and at the weight, it can be deployed using smaller, stealthier dropships than something larger.

Likewise, LAM forces actually start making strategic sense-they can insert without a dropship, and without exposing your expensive transportation to that surface to orbit fire, get in, start cutting commo lines and (again) knocking out 'sensor dishes' and such, with high enough mobility to hit several fairly quickly while being a pain to intercept.

of course, once the major defenses have been 1st and 2nd succession-warred, they're still going to be useful for attacking airfields and grounded enemy fighters before a response can be summoned (hence the DC's view that the LAM factory is valuable.)

this also explains units like the Panther...

[monbvol]

*nod*

The fiction does seem to support the idea of some mechwarriors being special forces and the RPGs have also supported that idea for at least two editions if not more.

[The_Caveman]

The need to dodge STO batteries seems like a pretty good raison d'etre for orbital drop pods. A DropShip that comes screaming in from a pirate point on a highly elliptical orbit and chucks some drop pods out before slingshotting back out of range is going to have better odds of survival against STO defenses than one that tries for a surface landing. The pods can use their own retrorockets to time the exact course of reentry, and being well under 200 tons are going to be difficult to track, let alone shoot down.

If you don't have a proliferation of STO batteries it's harder to explain orbital drops. A pod is more vulnerable to enemy fighters than the DropShip that's carrying it and with no self-extract capability it just makes more sense for a well-armed DropShip to shoot its way into an LZ. Even if that's not possible, it's safer (for the 'Mechs) to drop the 'Mechs from within the atmosphere while still out of range of non-capital AA guns. Orbital drops incur the risk of pod failure and make it way harder to get all your forces on target, since even small divergences from the intended trajectory can mean huge final position changes.

[BloodRose]

Wow I did not think this would go so far!
There has been a lot of interesting discussion up to now, and some good points have been raised. One thing for sure is that it appears full warship fleets can exist in the BT universe without breaking any of the focus on the Battlemechs.
Keep up the interesting debate guys.

[monbvol]

Well I'd say it is more accurate to say that the mech could continue to serve a useful purpose but realistically, no it would not be the focus anymore in a Warship rich setting.

[HobbesHurlbut]

Well I'd say it is more accurate to say that the mech could continue to serve a useful purpose but realistically, no it would not be the focus anymore in a Warship rich setting.

Yeah that's why I said what I stated in this thread. If you are a BIG FAN of warships, and you love the WarShips of Battletech, you're better off having a separate AU setting for them. BattleTech setting is mainly to showcase the 'Mech.

[monbvol]

*nod*

As much as the mech and Warships are not mutually exclusive I do tend to agree there are some pretty subtle but significant fundamental changes that would happen if Warships were brought up to even remotely reasonable numbers.

[dgorsman]

Is there a potential in-universe reason, aside from SDS weapons, for Warships to be kept away from orbit?  Seems that could solve a lot of the major balancing issues.

[monbvol]

Not really.

Just keeping Warships out of orbit wouldn't stop some of the less expensive ways to wreck a planet's ability to resist either because honestly a lot of things need to fundamentally change and not just Warships.

[Cannonshop]

Is there a potential in-universe reason, aside from SDS weapons, for Warships to be kept away from orbit?  Seems that could solve a lot of the major balancing issues.

well... one possible balancer would be hindrance of movement.  If every round close to a gravity well, your Warship has to make a PSR or spend fuel not to fall in, for example-aka the only 'safe' orbit for a ship of a given size, (Warship sized) is out of capital weapons range of the surface, that could do it.

I mean, as a game mechanical concept.  alternately gravitation may have other effects that could make those 'space supremacy' superstructures known as warships less attractive.  They're built around a structure that is sensitive to gravitation effects (Jump drives need near-neutral gravity to function, aka almst perfectly flat spacetime).

Maybe if you take your expensive jump-capable warship too close, you risk breaking your core and being stranded, or needing to make repairs and realignments to your nav arrays every time you reach/break orbit because the very expensive control systems for your jump core have to be so sensitive to tidal forces (to find that 'sweet spot' that lets you jump to the RIGHT star system) that it's a major undertaking to approach or leave a planet.  (Which also explains the proliferation of 'spine and collar' jumpships and reliance on droppers over big-drive primitives).

basically this turns Warships into "Commitment barges"-once it's approached a world, X hours are needed per ton of ship to realign the jump-drive controller before you can safely risk a jump. If you don't want to be there for the next 30 days, you hang back at the arrival point, or at least, far enough from a major gravity well that it doesn't futz your calculations too much when  you finally leave the system.

This would still allow Warships, and all the trimmings, but it would also make them only attractive under extreme strategic necessity-unsuitable as support for raiders, but absolutely suitable for supporting a dedicated planetary conquest where you intend to STAY in the system for a piece.

[RifleMech]

Well I'd say it is more accurate to say that the mech could continue to serve a useful purpose but realistically, no it would not be the focus anymore in a Warship rich setting.

While I agree that there would be subtle changes I don't think having more Warships would reduce the focus on mechs. There shouldn't be so many warships that every planet has a fleet. Just key worlds, roving patrols and escorts. Warships also should have their focus in space with ground attack to protect landing zones and eliminate capital surface weapons. Then its mechs and other ground units to take the objectives. After all, even with all the ortillery used during the Reunification War and others the planets weren't taken without putting troops on the ground.



That leaves plenty of focus on mechs to take the world.

[The_Caveman]

well... one possible balancer would be hindrance of movement.  If every round close to a gravity well, your Warship has to make a PSR or spend fuel not to fall in, for example-aka the only 'safe' orbit for a ship of a given size, (Warship sized) is out of capital weapons range of the surface, that could do it.

I mean, as a game mechanical concept.  alternately gravitation may have other effects that could make those 'space supremacy' superstructures known as warships less attractive.  They're built around a structure that is sensitive to gravitation effects (Jump drives need near-neutral gravity to function, aka almst perfectly flat spacetime).

Maybe if you take your expensive jump-capable warship too close, you risk breaking your core and being stranded, or needing to make repairs and realignments to your nav arrays every time you reach/break orbit because the very expensive control systems for your jump core have to be so sensitive to tidal forces (to find that 'sweet spot' that lets you jump to the RIGHT star system) that it's a major undertaking to approach or leave a planet.  (Which also explains the proliferation of 'spine and collar' jumpships and reliance on droppers over big-drive primitives).

basically this turns Warships into "Commitment barges"-once it's approached a world, X hours are needed per ton of ship to realign the jump-drive controller before you can safely risk a jump. If you don't want to be there for the next 30 days, you hang back at the arrival point, or at least, far enough from a major gravity well that it doesn't futz your calculations too much when  you finally leave the system.

This would still allow Warships, and all the trimmings, but it would also make them only attractive under extreme strategic necessity-unsuitable as support for raiders, but absolutely suitable for supporting a dedicated planetary conquest where you intend to STAY in the system for a piece.

The idea of ships having to "calibrate" their KF cores for significant time periods after exposure to deep gravity wells could work and wouldn't break the existing fiction too much. I'd be in favor of it. It keeps WS at lunar distances or so unless they were really and truly committed to the ground fight. Of course a ship like the Ancestral Home has nothing to lose...

I don't like the idea of PSRs to avoid being "sucked in" by a planet because it makes some animals more equal than others--aside from being a completely bass-ackward approach to how gravity works. A 100,000 ton DropShip has nothing to worry about but a 100,000 ton WarShip does.

[RifleMech]

I'm not sure PSRs for being in orbit are necessary but I suppose it could have something to do with how the KF Drive reacts with gravity. Since dropships don't have a KF drive they don't need to worry.

[Cannonshop]

The idea of ships having to "calibrate" their KF cores for significant time periods after exposure to deep gravity wells could work and wouldn't break the existing fiction too much. I'd be in favor of it. It keeps WS at lunar distances or so unless they were really and truly committed to the ground fight. Of course a ship like the Ancestral Home has nothing to lose...

I don't like the idea of PSRs to avoid being "sucked in" by a planet because it makes some animals more equal than others--aside from being a completely bass-ackward approach to how gravity works. A 100,000 ton DropShip has nothing to worry about but a 100,000 ton WarShip does.

I was actually thinking it through while I was writing it, I agree that 'Gravity sucks you down' doesn't work thematically, but then it occurred to me that "Gravity ****** up your jumpdrive" actually fits with the setting, so that kind of rolled out, and seems to work alright, in that it lets you have both a warship "enriched" setting, while keeping the focus on the ground game.

combining it with surface-to-orbit battery threats for more important worlds for eras before the 2nd succession war and maybe AFTER the Republic, with a caveat that a lot of doctrine didn't change in that sense in the intervening years due to loss of information, perhaps?

I'm not sure PSRs for being in orbit are necessary but I suppose it could have something to do with how the KF Drive reacts with gravity. Since dropships don't have a KF drive they don't need to worry.

[Kovax]

What might cure the problem would be:
1 - an armor-piercing ground-based weapon (Naval-class rail gun) that can potentially chip or damage a Germanium core on a critical hit.  That would render the warship incapable of jumping.  A regular warship can go on the offensive, but the attackers risk having their warship stranded in-system until the KF core is extensively altered or rebuilt to accommodate the damage.  A planetary defense ship without jump capability could be extremely powerful, but would never be able to leave the system.

2 - more frequent use of nuclear weapons against warships.  You can build the thing as big as you like, but one ASF with a nuke could slip past the defenses and take it out.  That's a whole lot of eggs to risk in one overpriced basket.  Significantly smaller ships would become the norm, not the bloated monstrosities pictured in the 2750 TRO, or in Dropships and Jumpships.

Basically, a large warship becomes a priority target for nuclear weapons by any attacker, whereas those same nuclear weapons would not be deemed acceptable by any reputable power for use against the planet itself.

Naval class weapons should be able to do large amounts of artillery damage to multiple BT hexes, but MOST of their energy should be focused on a single hex.  Obliterating any 'Mech in the target hex, if it hits, I can agree with, but give it a lot less splash damage, unless it's using nuclear warheads.

The concept of using 'Mechs as an advanced force to secure a landing zone and eliminate ground-based weapons capable of easily damaging or destroying dropships or damaging those literally priceless warships, is sound, but there's not enough fluff to point to that as their primary objective.  They're fluffed as the main combat elements of the House military, rather than the special forces that they would most likely be.  Face it, vehicles are dirt cheap in comparison, and if the old slogan "Life is cheap, Battlemechs are expensive" holds true, then a force consisting primarily of vehicles, with a few Battlemechs as the special forces to tip the scales at the most critical points, should be the norm.

The 'Mechs would still be critical to success in any invasion, and would still be valuable raiders due to their flexibility, but you wouldn't see armies of Battlemechs facing each other.  It would be armies of tanks, artillery, and infantry, with a few 'Mechs making surgical strikes, raiding behind enemy lines, and spearheading critical assaults where it counted most.

[The_Caveman]

I was actually thinking it through while I was writing it, I agree that 'Gravity sucks you down' doesn't work thematically, but then it occurred to me that "Gravity ****** up your jumpdrive" actually fits with the setting, so that kind of rolled out, and seems to work alright, in that it lets you have both a warship "enriched" setting, while keeping the focus on the ground game.

combining it with surface-to-orbit battery threats for more important worlds for eras before the 2nd succession war and maybe AFTER the Republic, with a caveat that a lot of doctrine didn't change in that sense in the intervening years due to loss of information, perhaps?

Maybe a penalty on all control rolls for KF drive-equipped ships operating in a planetary gravity well? The idea being that the gravitational fields produce some kind of unpredictable torque or force on the core that makes the ship harder to pilot.

[monbvol]

Would still leave at least one fundamental Warship problem.

A defending Warship, or a force of them if need be, still presents the problem of they can make landing forces very likely to suffer far too many losses.

Which is the side of the coin I think tends to get forgotten about in these sorts of conversations.

[dgorsman]

Actually taken into consideration with my question.  A small increase of distance from the planet and it geometrically increases the amount of area that needs to be covered.  That makes it easier to get troop ships in, although more difficult to keep sending them in on the same vector.

[The_Caveman]

Pity changing the speed of WarShips would completely invalidate the construction rules. There's really no reason for them to be as fast as DropShips and it would solve some problems if it were possible to outrun them.

[monbvol]

Actually taken into consideration with my question.  A small increase of distance from the planet and it geometrically increases the amount of area that needs to be covered.  That makes it easier to get troop ships in, although more difficult to keep sending them in on the same vector.

There's still a pretty significant chance defending Warships could cripple an invasion before it gets close to the target planet in such a situation.

Pity changing the speed of WarShips would completely invalidate the construction rules. There's really no reason for them to be as fast as DropShips and it would solve some problems if it were possible to outrun them.

There are a number of Warships that are only 2/3 already and I can only think of a couple that are 4/6.  Most transport Dropships are 4/6.

But Warships trying to intercept Dropships have a pretty big advantage.  At least when it comes to defending a planet.  At some point the Dropships have to turn around and start slowing down.  The Warship(s) don't have the same problem, at least not to the same extent.  And they have the trick of potentially being able to jump in system too if pirate points prove usefully located to their purpose.

Also really there'd be only so much you could slow them down before they become compromised as Warships in fulfilling Warship duties.

[Alexander Knight]

All this Warship chatter does not alter the fact that Dropships can mount Capital Missile launchers and some of the SubCapital guns are also capable of orbital bombardment.

[Cannonshop]

There's still a pretty significant chance defending Warships could cripple an invasion before it gets close to the target planet in such a situation.

There are a number of Warships that are only 2/3 already and I can only think of a couple that are 4/6.  Most transport Dropships are 4/6.

But Warships trying to intercept Dropships have a pretty big advantage.  At least when it comes to defending a planet.  At some point the Dropships have to turn around and start slowing down.  The Warship(s) don't have the same problem, at least not to the same extent.  And they have the trick of potentially being able to jump in system too if pirate points prove usefully located to their purpose.

Also really there'd be only so much you could slow them down before they become compromised as Warships in fulfilling Warship duties.

there's a lot of 'ifs' there. remember, Warships are horrifically expensive to build, and for an equivalent value, you can buy quite a lot more dropships plus jumpers to haul them, and a properly plotted assault plan can force the defending warship into bad strategic choices.

well, bad for him.  It's the "How many angles can you cover?" problem.

The second thing that comes immediately to mind, is "What if we take BT History from 2750 on to 3049" as our basis, but plug in the concepts I outlined? does the concept fit the existng lore?

because that suggests solutions and a direction post-3050.

Consider it thus;

your 'useful defensive range' for a warship has to maintain the jump drive's ability to jump.  This means your defending warships have to either hang out near stable/predictable jump point coordinates, or spend weeks recalibrating their hardware after a close pass to a significant gravity well-essentially making them space-stations stuck in a given system.

when defending, to get maximum coverage of a defended body, you need to be relatively close to it-which a warship pays a significant penalty for-or you have to be willing to spend a lot of time overthrusting to try and intercept approaching forces.

alternately, you have to station one of these hyperexpensive ships at EACH stable or recurring point-meaning you need a massive fleet in every defended system "Just in case".

which, most of the time, won't be doing anything except sucking down that fleet maintenance budget.

doing jack shit.

and your coverage is going to suck rocks, even if you have the budget to do it, because all it takes are one or two 'leakers and your fleet's spread out piecemeal and unable to apply that nice, concentrated defensive firepower.

For close in work, your budget makes happier sounds if you use dropships and stations with big fighter screens-because those do NOT experience 'technical difficulties' with their most expensive vital component for being too close to mister Gravity Well.

IOW they're cheaper on the defense.

Warships, then, aren't defensive units. They're offense units, they exist to draw that defense out of position or lay waste to that stationary, static defense array, see?

but they're offense units that risk their single most expensive and difficult to manufacture component, every time they get too close to a target planet-so they're really only useful when going after the most valuable planets in a campaign.  See where I'm going with this?

SO...what's goin'a getta nuke in the 1st Succession War (and second) first?  Because it's a big, expensive asset that's really only good for playing offense?

so that covers the warship poverty of the 3rd and 4th succession wars-budgets and industrial bases are a mess, nobody can finance building a new warship, without compromising the defensive assets that are better bang-for-the-buck on defense than a Warship.

Okay, bear with me now..

so we get to post-4th succession war, and some economic and technical recovery.  Nobody was competent with the things anymore because it's been so long, hence the fetish for ramming a few hundered billion C-bills of nigh-irreplaceable playing warship chicken.  (Steiner-Davion style) instead of ramming the enemy with smaller things like missiles and coherent energy-aka using capital weapons intelligently instead of holding still like an idiot while another idiot rams you in the style of Greco-Persian warfare.

like a noob.

because nobody really knows what the fleep they're doing.

which they did not.

okay, and then there's Case White, which demonstrates that the Terrans weren't much better than anyone else at it.  possibly lead in the water system or something, anyway, nobody builds 'em for a while after because ta-daaa!!! everybody's broke again.

so let's ride that advancing timeline.  Everyone is NOT broke again, and maybe some of the States have hired people who aren't suffering from inbreeding to do their naval planning, they've got money, they build ships.

so now they actually start figuring out a working doctrine.

Warships are "Offensive players", for high value targets that are heavily defended.

Pockets, are defense players.  They're actually pretty optimal for the defense role or as escorts/adjuncts to warships on offense.  From this, we can get a general 'feel' for a warship rich setting, and it looks like World War 2. 

Battleships had to hang back from most of those islands and other coastal areas, they had to be 'put at risk' to get close when firing inland on medium and larger islands, because scraping the reef rips your hull up.  In this situation, 'scraping the reef' is synonymous with "getting close to the planet" and "rips your bottom up" is synonymous with ****** up your jumpdrive, costing weeks to repair."

puts the droppers and the carrier fighters on the "close support during the landings" phase of anything that isn't a major strategic target.  Your warships are there to cover their backsides from the enemy force that is sure to show up during your invasion, or to clear out the naval defenses ahead of your invading army, then cover their backside from enemy reinforcement.

we can have LOTS of warships available for this, without losing the emphasis on the contesting of the only valuable thing in most campaigns-the planets, but they're not going to be wasted on petty  raiding or peacekeeping ops.

see how that works?  Unless you're MAJOR OBJECTIVE is to occupy a planet, the warships stay at home or do training drills, or are in movement to the planet you're actually intending to conquer and occupy.

because once it's gotten close, it's not leaving until it's had several weeks of downtime to recalibrate the jump-controller.

[monbvol]

All this Warship chatter does not alter the fact that Dropships can mount Capital Missile launchers and some of the SubCapital guns are also capable of orbital bombardment.

And have been able to do so since at least the Battlespace rule set.  Not sure about any older rule sets. So it's not like it is a recent rule change but it does seem to be easily forgotten in these discussions.

there's a lot of 'ifs' there. remember, Warships are horrifically expensive to build, and for an equivalent value, you can buy quite a lot more dropships plus jumpers to haul them, and a properly plotted assault plan can force the defending warship into bad strategic choices.

well, bad for him.  It's the "How many angles can you cover?" problem.

The second thing that comes immediately to mind, is "What if we take BT History from 2750 on to 3049" as our basis, but plug in the concepts I outlined? does the concept fit the existng lore?

because that suggests solutions and a direction post-3050.

Consider it thus;

your 'useful defensive range' for a warship has to maintain the jump drive's ability to jump.  This means your defending warships have to either hang out near stable/predictable jump point coordinates, or spend weeks recalibrating their hardware after a close pass to a significant gravity well-essentially making them space-stations stuck in a given system.

when defending, to get maximum coverage of a defended body, you need to be relatively close to it-which a warship pays a significant penalty for-or you have to be willing to spend a lot of time overthrusting to try and intercept approaching forces.

alternately, you have to station one of these hyperexpensive ships at EACH stable or recurring point-meaning you need a massive fleet in every defended system "Just in case".

which, most of the time, won't be doing anything except sucking down that fleet maintenance budget.

doing jack shit.

and your coverage is going to suck rocks, even if you have the budget to do it, because all it takes are one or two 'leakers and your fleet's spread out piecemeal and unable to apply that nice, concentrated defensive firepower.

For close in work, your budget makes happier sounds if you use dropships and stations with big fighter screens-because those do NOT experience 'technical difficulties' with their most expensive vital component for being too close to mister Gravity Well.

IOW they're cheaper on the defense.

Warships, then, aren't defensive units. They're offense units, they exist to draw that defense out of position or lay waste to that stationary, static defense array, see?

but they're offense units that risk their single most expensive and difficult to manufacture component, every time they get too close to a target planet-so they're really only useful when going after the most valuable planets in a campaign.  See where I'm going with this?

SO...what's goin'a getta nuke in the 1st Succession War (and second) first?  Because it's a big, expensive asset that's really only good for playing offense?

so that covers the warship poverty of the 3rd and 4th succession wars-budgets and industrial bases are a mess, nobody can finance building a new warship, without compromising the defensive assets that are better bang-for-the-buck on defense than a Warship.

Okay, bear with me now..

so we get to post-4th succession war, and some economic and technical recovery.  Nobody was competent with the things anymore because it's been so long, hence the fetish for ramming a few hundered billion C-bills of nigh-irreplaceable playing warship chicken.  (Steiner-Davion style) instead of ramming the enemy with smaller things like missiles and coherent energy-aka using capital weapons intelligently instead of holding still like an idiot while another idiot rams you in the style of Greco-Persian warfare.

like a noob.

because nobody really knows what the fleep they're doing.

which they did not.

okay, and then there's Case White, which demonstrates that the Terrans weren't much better than anyone else at it.  possibly lead in the water system or something, anyway, nobody builds 'em for a while after because ta-daaa!!! everybody's broke again.

so let's ride that advancing timeline.  Everyone is NOT broke again, and maybe some of the States have hired people who aren't suffering from inbreeding to do their naval planning, they've got money, they build ships.

so now they actually start figuring out a working doctrine.

Warships are "Offensive players", for high value targets that are heavily defended.

Pockets, are defense players.  They're actually pretty optimal for the defense role or as escorts/adjuncts to warships on offense.  From this, we can get a general 'feel' for a warship rich setting, and it looks like World War 2. 

Battleships had to hang back from most of those islands and other coastal areas, they had to be 'put at risk' to get close when firing inland on medium and larger islands, because scraping the reef rips your hull up.  In this situation, 'scraping the reef' is synonymous with "getting close to the planet" and "rips your bottom up" is synonymous with ****** up your jumpdrive, costing weeks to repair."

puts the droppers and the carrier fighters on the "close support during the landings" phase of anything that isn't a major strategic target.  Your warships are there to cover their backsides from the enemy force that is sure to show up during your invasion, or to clear out the naval defenses ahead of your invading army, then cover their backside from enemy reinforcement.

we can have LOTS of warships available for this, without losing the emphasis on the contesting of the only valuable thing in most campaigns-the planets, but they're not going to be wasted on petty  raiding or peacekeeping ops.

see how that works?  Unless you're MAJOR OBJECTIVE is to occupy a planet, the warships stay at home or do training drills, or are in movement to the planet you're actually intending to conquer and occupy.

because once it's gotten close, it's not leaving until it's had several weeks of downtime to recalibrate the jump-controller.

The trouble is this paradigm makes me feel like Warships are even more paper tigers/white elephants than they are now.  Add in as mentioned it doesn't remove the possibility of orbital bombardment and it just needs a lot more work to me.

[Cannonshop]

And have been able to do so since at least the Battlespace rule set.  Not sure about any older rule sets. So it's not like it is a recent rule change but it does seem to be easily forgotten in these discussions.

The trouble is this paradigm makes me feel like Warships are even more paper tigers/white elephants than they are now.  Add in as mentioned it doesn't remove the possibility of orbital bombardment and it just needs a lot more work to me.

you've got to balance needs here.  It doesn't eliminate the usage of Orbom, whether by dropships or warships, it just means that it's a tactic that you hold in reserve for missions that really NEED Orbom, or (if you're Smoke Jaguar, Mongolly Malvina, or completely insane) places where you're going to stay that need lots of terrain renovation to get that hi-rad glow.

IOW, what I described is how a WISE commander would use them, there's plenty of room for commanders that are Stupid, wasteful, or insane (or desperate to the point of becoming one of those three.)

essentially it still gives you the space superiority role, and a hell of a threat to brandish, but with reasonable drawbacks that prevent it from becoming THE go-to solution to all problems.  a Warship is still damned dangerous, but moves like bringing it in close to a gravity well are marks of significance-the target is too valuable, or too important, or the battle is too desperate, large, or critical to NOT use the biggest gun you have.

and it's a viable gun.  just that...if you happen to lose and need to leave, your naval unit's not going to be defending a territory or a point, it's going to be trying to defend itself while making repairs.

Unless, of course, the commander is clinically insane, desperate, or ignorant (hello Lyran Commonwealth Naval) enough to try to jump with a bad controller.  (LCS Invincible anyone?) in which case he can try a jump after close bombardment with a de-calibrated drive controller.  (Who knows, he might survive?)

The limit also explains why commercial traffic went with a tractor-trailer layout rather than the box vans they started with...and a warship blockade of stable points isn't something to sneeze at in terms of commercial impact to an interstellar civilization, and warships can DO the stable points while having enough thrust to actually make a play at controlling them.

[The_Caveman]

All this Warship chatter does not alter the fact that Dropships can mount Capital Missile launchers and some of the SubCapital guns are also capable of orbital bombardment.

But a lot, LOT less of it. Only the puniest subcapital weapons can penetrate an atmosphere and their numbers are inherently limited by the space limits and more compact firing arcs of DropShips, while capital missiles are just too heavy for all but the biggest DropShips to mount en masse. Not to mention missiles can be shot down. When it comes to ground attack, a Titan is scarier than a Castrum because of all the bombs its fighters can haul.

And of course, the biggest, scariest DropShip is only as tough as the fragile JumpShip that hauls it around.

[Alexander Knight]

But a lot, LOT less of it. Only the puniest subcapital weapons can penetrate an atmosphere and their numbers are inherently limited by the space limits and more compact firing arcs of DropShips, while capital missiles are just too heavy for all but the biggest DropShips to mount en masse. Not to mention missiles can be shot down. When it comes to ground attack, a Titan is scarier than a Castrum because of all the bombs its fighters can haul.

And of course, the biggest, scariest DropShip is only as tough as the fragile JumpShip that hauls it around.

But there are inevitably a LOT MORE Dropships than there are Warships.  If the choice is between 1 Warship with 10 missile tubes and 10 dropships each with 1 tube (for example)....I don't think the ground forces are going to care which is which.

[truetanker]

We can still have Warship fleets, even with PWS...

It's not hard, I've even wrote to Herb way long time ago, about Omni-Warships.

He said " Hell No's! " many times... then he was dropped as Lead and well... kinda fell off as he was passed by... said same thing to Randall... never got a proper answer... last few years went to Brent... still waiting for his answer since last year. He might have forgotten, busy man and all...

Ray? Please check your PM's from last year from me... pretty sure a quick search would find my proposal...

In conclusion, an Omni-Warship is just like the Aurora Dropship, but on a Jumper using Sub-Class weapons...

Keeps Warships around, not a true conversion, but it's MY IDEA...

Simple Jumper frame, add armor and the Sub-Class weapons, some cargo and a few collars to carry party poppers...

TT

[The_Caveman]

But there are inevitably a LOT MORE Dropships than there are Warships.  If the choice is between 1 Warship with 10 missile tubes and 10 dropships each with 1 tube (for example)....I don't think the ground forces are going to care which is which.

True, but if DropShips start being used this way, it just invites JumpShips becoming targets again. And if STO weaponry is a problem for WarShips, it's a straight-up death sentence for DropShips, which have to get closer to the surface and can't withstand nearly as much damage. A heavy NGauss will punch a hole straight through a Union.

[monbvol]

True, but if DropShips start being used this way, it just invites JumpShips becoming targets again. And if STO weaponry is a problem for WarShips, it's a straight-up death sentence for DropShips, which have to get closer to the surface and can't withstand nearly as much damage. A heavy NGauss will punch a hole straight through a Union.

So set a delay on the Capital Missile's engine ignition and kick it out from outside threat range.  There's already rules support for such a tactic.

[The_Caveman]

So set a delay on the Capital Missile's engine ignition and kick it out from outside threat range.  There's already rules support for such a tactic.

Can't be used that way for orbital bombardment. Bearings-only launches can only target large spacecraft.

[monbvol]

Can't be used that way for orbital bombardment. Bearings-only launches can only target large spacecraft.

I see no actual prohibition about using bearings only for orbital bombardment in the rules.  Even if I lose accuracy I can make up for it.

[The_Caveman]

The rules only mention Large Craft and (I missed it on my first read) Small Craft as valid targets. Unless a clarification is issued, I see no reason to assume any other targets are permissible.

[dgorsman]

Seems reasonable enough for house rule.  And it's not really breaking anything, it's only 4 capital points at most for the KW.  Not like 10s of points for most WarShip bays.

[Liam's Ghost]

I feel like if a ship can bearing-only launch missiles at a planet, the planet should also be able to bearing-only launch missiles at a ship.

And a planet has a lot more room for missiles.

[Maingunnery]

Asset Management Weapon (IO, p176)

[monbvol]

The rules only mention Large Craft and (I missed it on my first read) Small Craft as valid targets. Unless a clarification is issued, I see no reason to assume any other targets are permissible.

Possible that it is prohibited by not being mentioned as a valid target option but that'd be weird.

Physics does not bode well for the planet in this equation since it moves in an entirely predictable path while a ship can alter it's path.

So I can't see how you can set a delay and still have a viable chance to hit a ship that can radically change it's vectors but not do the same with a planet.

I can accept that any pretense of accuracy on the ground map goes out the window though.

I feel like if a ship can bearing-only launch missiles at a planet, the planet should also be able to bearing-only launch missiles at a ship.

And a planet has a lot more room for missiles.

I suppose if you strapped boosters to a Capital Missile that could work.  Otherwise the gravity and size of a planet would cause problems when setting a delay on the engine as that'd be a really good way to cause the missile to crash back down into the ground without doing anything otherwise.

Asset Management Weapon (IO, p176)

A really good way to compensate for the lack of accuracy that such a tactic as I'm suggesting would have.

[Robroy]

Wasn't there a deep Periphery realm/planet that had capital missiles set up planet side as an SDS?

[Liam's Ghost]

I suppose if you strapped boosters to a Capital Missile that could work.  Otherwise the gravity and size of a planet would cause problems when setting a delay on the engine as that'd be a really good way to cause the missile to crash back down into the ground without doing anything otherwise.

I tend to assume boosters by default for ground based missile systems (mostly because tele-operated missiles start with full fuel tanks when they make it to the space map), however a small missile equipped station is also surprisingly cheap to produce.

EDIT: On a related note, Tele-operated missiles start with full fuel tanks and aren't limited to the normal range limits, so there you go.

Wasn't there a deep Periphery realm/planet that had capital missiles set up planet side as an SDS?

Canonically, the Alexandrian Covenant is able to maintain ground based missile batteries despite their general technological decline. The planet of New Sierra (I think) was also surrounded by automated, nuclear equipped orbital defense satellites, though no rules were published for those that I know of.

As another defense option that exists in fluff but not in rules, the old Star League book mentions "sleeper missiles" used to mine a jump point. They appeared to just be capital missiles on standby. While parking them at a jump point wouldn't work long term, you could presumably have clouds of them set up in orbit of a planet waiting to be activated.

But again, there's no canon rules for it.

[monbvol]

I tend to assume boosters by default for ground based missile systems (mostly because tele-operated missiles start with full fuel tanks when they make it to the space map), however a small missile equipped station is also surprisingly cheap to produce.

EDIT: On a related note, Tele-operated missiles start with full fuel tanks and aren't limited to the normal range limits, so there you go.

Canonically, the Alexandrian Covenant is able to maintain ground based missile batteries despite their general technological decline. The planet of New Sierra (I think) was also surrounded by automated, nuclear equipped orbital defense satellites, though no rules were published for those that I know of.

As another defense option that exists in fluff but not in rules, the old Star League book mentions "sleeper missiles" used to mine a jump point. They appeared to just be capital missiles on standby. While parking them at a jump point wouldn't work long term, you could presumably have clouds of them set up in orbit of a planet waiting to be activated.

But again, there's no canon rules for it.

Fair enough that seems to be the case at least for tele-operated missiles.  Regular versions though I'm not sure why you couldn't get more range by attaching boosters.  Or what is stopping a ship from using a version that attaches boosters.

Using low-close enough to no gravity asteroids, moons, and what not could certainly help too but again the physics of the situation will still realistically favor the attacker.

As for canon space defenses in the Periphery while I'm not aware of anything being explicitly stated about what the SASF bases around Taurus were actually equipped with it does seem likely some of them were armed with Capital Missile Launchers.

[Robroy]

The Alexandrian Covenant was the one I was thinking about. Seems that could be a  defence that would become a pain for an attacker. Half a dozen concealed silos in a battery that no one sees till they launch. By the time an attacker targets them the tubes are empty and another battery opens fire.

[idea weenie]

Pity changing the speed of WarShips would completely invalidate the construction rules. There's really no reason for them to be as fast as DropShips and it would solve some problems if it were possible to outrun them.

Warships have 45.25% of their hull mass taken up by the KF core.  Dropships don't have that problem, so they can be much faster.  This is in spite of Dropships needing 6.5% hull mass per thrust point, while Warships only need 6% hull mass per Thrust point.


For giving missiles greater range, you could just have the planet launch swarms of small craft or ASF, whose only purpose is to have enough cargo space for a single Capital Missile.  This would give the planet a strategic missile range greater than a  Warship's, at the cost of extra tonnage.  Warships have to measure tonnage carefully, but are nimble.  Planets aren't nimble, but have plenty of tonnage for storing stuff.  Capital Missiles would have to be expensive enough that using them on Dropships would be expensive overkill.

[The_Caveman]

Warships have 45.25% of their hull mass taken up by the KF core.  Dropships don't have that problem, so they can be much faster.  This is in spite of Dropships needing 6.5% hull mass per thrust point, while Warships only need 6% hull mass per Thrust point.

But anything other than an assault DropShip, which is a waste of a precious docking hardpoint, is mostly cargo by weight in canon and only a couple designs are signifcantly faster than typical WarShips. I'm not interested in min/max custom designs to exploit rule edge cases.