Lena Wilhight finds Shannon Bream's assumed aggressive fighter posture appealing and cultivates it by encouraging her to build an 'appropriately aggressive doctrine' for a wartime tactics together with studies and policy changes necessary to make it happen.
Test ResultsThe results of the tests are somewhat puzzling, but perhaps that simply represents the natural variation to be expected in combat situations. Test 1 results are consistent with about a 30% chance of a kill/MG. In test 2, the Crestbreaker crews proved significantly less effective than onboard MGs, by approximately a factor of 4 and yet after accounting for this reduced effectiveness, the onboard MG equivalents (approximately 200) had about an 85% chance of a kill, substantially higher than test 1. From all the tests, we discover that:
- The number of missiles on-target can be approximately tripled via very short range attacks. This strongly supports the existing doctrine of close range attacks.
- Offboard MGs are approximately a factor of 4 less effective than onboard MGs. Coupled with the overwhelming quantities of missiles used in the TH coup, this implies a need for a new kind of antimissile defense.
ASFThe new doctrine is pervasive antimissile defense, as exhibited by the first Taurian-designed and made heavy strike fighter, a second product of the earlier generation's design war. The Rager draws inspiration from the Shu heavy fighter except bigger and meaner with a heavy intrinsic antimissile defense.
90 ton Rager Base Tech Level: Standard (IS)
Tech Rating: D/C-E-D-D
Weight: 90 tons
BV: 1,576
Cost: 5,425,030 C-bills
Movement: 6/9
Engine: 360
Heat Sinks: 10
Fuel Points: 400 (5.0 tons)
Structural Integrity: 9
Armor: 400
Nose: 120
Left/Right Wing: 100
Aft: 80
Weapons Loc Heat
2x Machine Gun NOS
2x SRM 6 NOS 8
AC/5 NOS 1
5x Machine Gun RW
5x Machine Gun LW
Ammo Shots
SRM 6 Ammo (30 shots)
Machine Gun Ammo (200 shots)
AC/5 Ammo (20 shots)
The Rager is designed as a missile delivery vehicle, sporting 5 tons of fuel and a massive engine allowing it to carry up to 3 Barracudas or a Killer Whale and a White Shark while accelerating at 2.25g. Against faster targets, it can carry a single Killer Whale with 2.9g acceleration or a single Barracuda with 3.4g. In the missile-heavy environments typical of the modern battlefield, the Rager has substantial built-in defense provided by 12 machine guns making it capable of both self-defense and potentially defending allies. With missiles away, the Rager's massive engine turns it into a powerful dogfighter capable of routinely pulling 4.5g maneuvers and a more armor than any other fighter in the inner sphere. The Rager's AC-5 provide a significant punch at medium range against the scout ASFs which are capable of eluding it while the new twin SRM-6's machine guns pull double-duty as a dogfighting buzzsaw.
Fleet upgradesThe admiralty remains somewhat split on the decision to go with a Rube Goldberg Warship. Although those against have not yet developed an effective doctrine given budgetary constraints, two criticisms appear both imminently valid and addressable:
- The decision to go with smaller lasers than the Marathon's out of monetary concerns appears short-sighted as the larger lasers have more range, which certainly matters given the glacial speed of the Taurus I.
- The army is displeased by a lack of support for deployment operations. "At least the Kutai have DROPSHIPS!"
To address these criticisms a
new variant of the Taurus I is created and all are converted into the new variant.
Class/Model/Name: Taurus I, block II
Tech: Inner Sphere
Ship Cost: $346,280,000.00
Magazine Cost: $61,000.00
BV2: 13,456
Mass: 100,000
K-F Drive System: None
Power Plant: Station-Keeping Drive
Safe Thrust: 0
Maximum Thrust: 1
Armor Type: Standard
Armament:
12 Naval Laser 55
608 Machine Gun (IS)
Class/Model/Name: Taurus I, block II
Mass: 100,000
Equipment: Mass
Drive: 1,200
Thrust
Safe: 0.2
Maximum: 1
Controls: 100
Structural Integrity: 1 1,000
Total Heat Sinks: 1020 Single 927
Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 40000 points 4,080
Fire Control Computers: 18
Armor: 315 pts Standard 393
Fore: 65
Fore-Left/Right: 60/60
Aft-Left/Right: 45/45
Aft: 40
Dropship Capacity: 1 1,000
Grav Decks:
Medium: 1 100
Life Boats: 328 2,296
Crew And Passengers:
30 Officers in 1st Class Quarters 300
35 Crew in 2nd Class Quarters 245
114 Gunners and Others in 2nd Class Quarters 798
744 Bay Personnel 0
2172 Steerage Passengers 10,600
# Weapons Loc Heat Damage Range Mass Ammo Rounds Mass
12 Naval Laser 55 Nose 1020 660 (66-C) Extreme-C 13,200 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 2400 12.00
120 Machine Gun (IS) Aft 240 (24-C) Short-PDS 60 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 2400 12.00
120 Machine Gun (IS) FR 240 (24-C) Short-PDS 60 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 2400 12.00
120 Machine Gun (IS) FL 240 (24-C) Short-PDS 60 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 2400 12.00
120 Machine Gun (IS) AR 240 (24-C) Short-PDS 60 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 2400 12.00
120 Machine Gun (IS) AL 240 (24-C) Short-PDS 60 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 200 1.00
8 Machine Gun (IS) Nose 16 (1.6-C) Short-PDS 4
Number Equipment and Bays Mass Doors
40 Small Craft+24 ASF 11,600 3
40 Small Craft+24 ASF 11,600 3
40 Small Craft+24 ASF 11,600 3
28,100 Cargo, Standard 28,100 1
Taking advantage of an overhaul, the Taurus I also has onboard MGs doubled as suggested by test results and adds a docking collar for easy cargo transport to and from existing dropships. The net result is a design that is better defended from missiles, with more range, and with much more operational flexibility. For example, the new Taurus I can quarter and transport two regiments of vehicles with one ready to land from the new Skyfall combat drop shuttle and the other transported as cargo.
200 ton Smallcraft Skyfall Combat Drop Shuttle Base Tech Level: Standard (IS)
Tech Rating: D/D-E-D-D
Weight: 200 tons BV: 776
Cost: 7,135,560 C-bills
Movement: 3/5
Heat Sinks: 0
Fuel Points: 240 (3.0 tons)
Tons Per Burn Day: 1.84
Structural Integrity: 5
Armor: 300
Nose: 90
Left/Right Wing: 75
Aft: 60
Weapons Loc Heat
6x Machine Gun NOS 0
Machine Gun Ammo (100 shots)
Carrying Capacity
Heavy Vehicle Bay (1 door) - 1 unit // the Light variant carries two light vehicle bays.
Cargo Space (1 door) - 10 tons
Crew
Officers 1
Enlisted/Non-rated 2
Gunners 1
Bay Personnel 8
The Taurus I block II loaded for space combat (the default) has 12 Crestbreaker missile defense shuttles, 12 David Marine shuttles with 2 reinforced Regiments of marines (1800), and 7 Air Divisions (168 ASF) with 120 tons of Capital Missiles/ASF.
For ground combat, the load is 12 Crestbreaker missile defense shuttles and 5 air divisions (108) of Skyfall combat dropshuttles loaded with a regiment of combat vehicles (a heavy battalion and 2 light battalions). A second regiment is carried as cargo with each regiment quartered on the Taurus I and an extra 10 tons of cargo space for reloads & repair associated with each vehicle. In addition, 3 Air divisions (72 ASF) provide air support for the ground forces supported by 100 tons of cargo space/ASF for missiles, bombs, etc...
In either configuration, the Taurus I has fuel to support 20 jumps and provisions for a half year as well as a kiloton of extras for reload & repair.
The Taurus I still has a gaping hole in it's missile defense around it's primary laser battery. To address this, a block II design for the Tick was created which mounts 120 Machine guns in a single arc allowing it to plug the missile defense hole.
5000 ton Tick Dropship block II Base
Tech Level: Standard (IS)
Tech Rating: D/E-E-E-E
Weight: 5000 tons
BV: 4,691
Cost: 235,303,600 C-bills
Movement: 11/17
Heat Sinks: 155
Fuel Points: 5400 (175.0 tons)
Tons Per Burn Day: 1.84
Structural Integrity: 20
Armor: 1232
Armor
Nose 308
Left Side 308
Right Side 308
Aft 308
Weapons Loc Heat
120x Machine Gun AFT 0
Machine Gun Ammo AFT 1800
Carrying Capacity Cargo Space (1 door) - 29.5 tons
Equipment: Naval Tug---600 tons
Crew
Officers 5
Enlisted/Non-rated 0
Gunners 20
With the upgraded onboard machine guns, Crestbreaker smallcraft, and Rager ASF, almost 3 thousand machine guns can potentially be brought to bear against a missile wave.
Transport Infrastructure & IntelligenceLena is also concerned with improving the reaction time of TC forces. Although many merchants operate in the TC, as a matter of profit they try to
always jump to and from inhabited systems causing the TC to be broken into several weakly-connected archipelagos of merchant traffic. To improve the rate and reliability of communication, a plan to create several 'rest stops' along 'highways' assisting merchant travel is developed. Several of these, use stars without habitable planets to bridge these archipelagos. Doing this requires a Mother-transportable design for a station which necessitates a depot approach instead of more standard recharge batteries.
Class/Model/Name: Siesta
Tech: Inner Sphere
Ship Cost: $131,430,000.00
Magazine Cost: $12,000.00
BV2: 6,570
Mass: 100,000
K-F Drive System: None
Power Plant: Station-Keeping Drive
Safe Thrust: 0
Maximum Thrust: 1
Armor Type: Standard
Armament:
108 Machine Gun (IS)
3 Naval Laser 55
Class/Model/Name: Siesta
Mass: 100,000
Equipment: Mass
Drive: 1,200
Thrust
Safe: 0.2
Maximum: 1
Controls: 100
Structural Integrity: 1 1,000
Total Heat Sinks: 255 Single 162
Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 240000 points 24,480
Fire Control Computers: 0
Armor: 315 pts Standard 393
Fore: 53
Fore-Left/Right: 53/53
Aft-Left/Right: 52/52
Aft: 52
Dropship Capacity: 2 2,000
Grav Decks:
Small: 1 50
Life Boats: 36 252
Crew And Passengers:
15 Officers in 1st Class Quarters 150
50 Crew in 2nd Class Quarters 350
21 Gunners and Others in 2nd Class Quarters 147
182 Bay Personnel 0
164 Steerage Passengers 820
# Weapons Loc Heat Damage Range Mass Ammo Rounds Mass
18 Machine Gun (IS) Nose 36 (3.6-C) Short-PDS 9 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 400 2.00
18 Machine Gun (IS) Aft 36 (3.6-C) Short-PDS 9 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 400 2.00
18 Machine Gun (IS) FR 36 (3.6-C) Short-PDS 9 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 400 2.00
18 Machine Gun (IS) FL 36 (3.6-C) Short-PDS 9 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 400 2.00
18 Machine Gun (IS) AR 36 (3.6-C) Short-PDS 9 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 400 2.00
18 Machine Gun (IS) AL 36 (3.6-C) Short-PDS 9 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 400 2.00
1 Naval Laser 55 Nose 85 55 (5.5-C) Extreme-C 1,100
1 Naval Laser 55 AL 85 55 (5.5-C) Extreme-C 1,100
1 Naval Laser 55 AR 85 55 (5.5-C) Extreme-C 1,100
Number Equipment and Bays Mass Doors
6 Bay Small Craft 1,200 3 (1 Crestbreaker AMS craft, 1 David Marine Shuttle, 4 utilitarian)
62,945 Cargo, Standard 62,945 1
400 Cargo, Insulated 460 1
6 Bay Fighter 900 3
5 Bay Conventional Infantry (IS), Foot 25
The
Siesta station is capable of fueling well over 120 jumpship charges before resupply, has ample space for transshipment storage, and it can simultaneously refuel 3 jumpships via 2 docking collars and a refueling drogue with a ready load. The design sports substantial antimeteor defenses that can also be used in a missile defense role, as well as a few powerful capital lasers to enforce security non-capital craft in it's immediate environment. The heavy armor and ASF bays provide significant security against small scale pirates and a company of marines provide security within the station itself. All civilian vessels using the Siesta fuel stations are expected to carry and retransmit encrypted military messages as a matter of course. Furthermore, interviews with jumpship crew members about news they've seen while they charge the jump drive are a common part of Siesta use. The transshipment facilities are capacious and available for reasonable rental rates as long as cargo passes safety inspections. In effect, the Siesta stations both create and conduct TC intelligence.
Aside from transportability, which allows these stations to be easily installed in uninhabited systems or even the deep black, the Siesta design provides the ability to service surges of jumpship traffic unlike standard battery-based designs. The significant drawback of this approach is the refuel requirements which will be dealt with by dedicating a Mother with
a tanker variant of the Siesta to resupply. Since hydrogen is easily available from cracking water, the cost of hydrogen is essentially all in the transport so this should keep the cost of fuel down.
Class/Model/Name: Siesta Tanker
Tech: Inner Sphere
Ship Cost: $159,735,000.00
Magazine Cost: $3,000.00
BV2: 5,548
Mass: 100,000
K-F Drive System: None
Power Plant: Station-Keeping Drive
Safe Thrust: 0
Maximum Thrust: 1
Armor Type: Standard
Armament:
18 Machine Gun (IS)
Class/Model/Name: Siesta Tanker
Mass: 100,000
Equipment: Mass
Drive: 1,200
Thrust
Safe: 0.2
Maximum: 1
Controls: 100
K-F Hyperdrive: None (0 Integrity) 0
Jump Sail: (0 Integrity) 0
Structural Integrity: 1 1,000
Total Heat Sinks: 93 Single 0
Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 850000 points 86,700
Fire Control Computers: 0
Armor: 315 pts Standard 393
Fore: 53
Fore-Left/Right: 53/53
Aft-Left/Right: 52/52
Aft: 52
Dropship Capacity: 1 1,000
Grav Decks:
Small: 1 50
Life Boats: 18 126
Crew And Passengers:
12 Officers in 1st Class Quarters 120
53 Crew in 2nd Class Quarters 371
3 Gunners and Others in 2nd Class Quarters 21
70 Bay Personnel 0
52 Steerage Passengers 260
# Weapons Loc Heat Damage Range Mass Ammo Rounds Mass
3 Machine Gun (IS) Nose 6 (0.6-C) Short-PDS 2 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 100 0.50
3 Machine Gun (IS) Aft 6 (0.6-C) Short-PDS 2 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 100 0.50
3 Machine Gun (IS) FR 6 (0.6-C) Short-PDS 2 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 100 0.50
3 Machine Gun (IS) FL 6 (0.6-C) Short-PDS 2 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 100 0.50
3 Machine Gun (IS) AR 6 (0.6-C) Short-PDS 2 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 100 0.50
3 Machine Gun (IS) AL 6 (0.6-C) Short-PDS 2 Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 100 0.50
Number Equipment and Bays Mass Doors
6 Bay Small Craft 1,200 3
6,082 Cargo, Standard 6,082 1
400 Cargo, Insulated 460 1
1 Bay Conventional Infantry (IS), Foot 5 1
6 Bay Fighter 900 3
The initial highways here are:
Taurus/Pleiades: Taurus<->Midale<->Fintoft<->Pleiades (4 jumps)
Zanzibar/Badlands: Zanzibar<->Corodiz<->deep<->Midale<->Brockway<->deep<->deep<->Warren<->deep<->Montour<->Verdigreis<->deep<->Badlands Cluster (12 jumps)
Malagrotta cutoff: Montour<->Cohagen<->Estuan<->black<->Malagrotta (4 jumps)
where 'black' indicates the use of an otherwise uninhabited intermediately located star and 'deep' indicates the use of a deep space station sheltered inside a more minor object capable of generating a hyper limit. Typically, these stations are posted just inside the hyper limit, about 10 minutes away. (OOC, I'm combining information about distance from this map:
http://battletech.rpg.hu/dynmech/planets/ismap_standalone.php?era_id=0&id=1943 with the Capellan/TC border from this map
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/File:Taurian_Concordat_partial_2366.png and the overall structure of this map
http://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/2/24/TC_2571.png.)
These highways leave virtually all TC stars at most a single jump from the highway and offer more direct transit routes between distant stars. As an example of this, Verdigreis<->Taurus is 11 jumps by conventional routes, and a border must be crossed into FedSuns territory. Using the highway system, this is only 8 jumps entirely within the TC. Given standard merchant traffic, this should leave all parts of the TC informed of important events in about a 2 week or smaller timeframe while reducing response time to a near-minimum.
BudgetThe budget breaks down as:
Cost/unit #active Maintenance
Kutai 6092 2 1218
Marathon 621 7 435
Independence 4567 (1 mothball) 0
Fighters 5 1325 663
Smallcraft 10 96 96
Mother 933 4 373
Taurus I 552 4 221
Light DS 300 8 240
Total Maintenance 3246
Prototyping costs, total 501
Siesta 131
Siesta Tanker variant 80
Tick I block II variant 118
Taurus I block II variant 173
Refits #done
Refit, Taurus I Block II 4 80
Refit, Tick 1 block II 4 36 Assuming this can be done without taking up yard space.
New Construction
Mother 2 1866 One refuels the highways with a Siesta Tanker while the other does special missions.
Taurus I, block II 1 346
Tick, block II 1 235
Fighters 360 1800 Ragers, posted on 2 Taurus I's by default.
Smallcraft 216 2160 Skyfall combat dropshuttles that can drop or lift a regiment from or to a Taurus I.
Siesta 20 2620
Siesta Tanker 1 160
Research 130
Savings from last turn -183
Savings for next turn 2
PolicyTo minimize reaction time, the Taurus I fleet will be moved to the Midale crossroads system. This fleet is meant to be kept concentrated although up to 1 RGW may be detached for other duties if it is deemed a clearly sufficient force. In the event of an overwhelming invasion, the policy is to fall back to Taurus and link up with the orbital forts for maximal force concentration. The Taurus I may be used for regimental transport of land forces, but by default they remain ASF carriers with the new Rager ASFs carrying missile loads of Killer Whales, Barracudas, or a mixture depending on the mission. The general doctrine is to prefer attacking capital ships over ASF, although it's entirely plausible to use a Killer Whale+Barracuda load, salvo the Barracudas to eliminate ASF defenders, then salvo the Killer Whales to eliminate the capital ships.
Kutai Alpha patrols the Midale/Badlands and Montour/Malagrotta highways using 2 ASF heavy dropships for support. Kutai Beta patrols the Pleiades/Taurus and Midale/Zanzibar highways using 2 ASF heavy dropships for support. If ground support is needed, the Kutai can interdict a planet and call in a Taurus I with ground forces.
Planetary airwings will consist of a minimum of 2 squadrons (~600 ASF in total) with much more for important worlds. Defense doctrine has the ASF primarily attacking invaders in atmosphere to maximize the advantage of ASF over other spaceborn assets.
Each deployed Siesta will have a squadron of ASF used for defense.
Edit: an
AddendumEdit: Fixed fire control tonnage on Taurus I v2
Edit: added links
