WarShip of the Week: Defender

[Weirdo]

...and since I'm near a computer the whole time, I figure I'll 'liveblog' this, as it were. Setup is 1 Defender(173,687 BV) vs 1 Black Lion 1(119,805 BV), both with 4/5 crews. No escorts or small craft at all, just the 2 ships. Map is 43x24 hexes, smaller than I'd like but there are practical limitations(such as the size of the desk and the mapsheet). Rules are...everything I can think of. Ships are placed on opposite corners of the map, with initial bearings and velocities towards each other, equal to their safe thrust.

Turn 1:

FSS Manly Beard wins initiative, so CCS Twirling Moustache must go first. Aiming to keep the range open, Twirling Moustache turns to port and presents his broadside. Manly Beard wants to close quickly, so uses full thrust to accelerate hard, sideslip to keep Twirling Moustache, and evade to hopefully minimize the damage taken this round.

Ships are now 29 hexes apart, Manly Beard's bow pointed at Twirling Moustache's broadside.

Twirling Moustache fires first, needing 11s and 9s. Most of the NACs miss, but the one 60-pt that does hit strikes true with a 12 on Manly Beard's fore-right quarter, stripping the armor, and succeeding with one of two crit rolls against a thruster. Both missile flights hit, striking the bow but failing to damage anything.

Manly Beard's return fire is predictably difficult with 11s, and she fails to hit anything.

Twirling Moustache plots some Bearings-only shots, and sends them down to the missile crews.

Turn 2

Twirling Moustache loses initiative again, so continues to burn along his present course, but swings his bow over to bring more missiles to bear. Manly Beard has the somewhat meta advantage of living in the same skull as her opponent(though I'm not looking at the written-down numbers), and so accelerates slightly while swinging her bow around to protect her damaged facings. No evasion now, that time has passed. Range is now 13 hexes.

Twirling Moustache fires his preplotted missiles, and at this range they go active almost immediately. Manly Beard's acceleration proved prescient as three of the four flights fly harmlessly past with no targets in their forward arc, but the final group goes active with a battlecruiser's bulk dead ahead, and so close a WWII fighter could hit it. Even with minimum range modifiers, the missiles bore in unerringly, driven off course by point-defense guns only at the last moment. Cannon fire proves just as unlucky despite the close range, with only a single antifighter bay scraping some paint off the target. (Seriously. Needed 7s for all the NACs and 9s for the smaller stuff, and only a single AC/2 bay hit. >:() Manly Beard's return fire is much more accurate, destroying armor all along her target's starboard quarters(stripping the aft quarter completely) and crippling a grav deck.

Turn 3:

Manly Beard must go first this time, continuing her swing while burning hard to avoid flying right off the map. Twirling Moustache is content to simply drift for the moment, his only maneuver a roll along his X axis. Despite the pounding these WarShips have taken thus far, both are now presented with fresh armor.

Manly Beard unleashes her broadside, and manages to concentrate her shots in a way that stabs deep into Twirling Moustache's flank and silences multiple small cannon bays. The Capellan battlecruiser's response is simply lethal. Determined to show their superiority over their comrades who were literally unable to hit the broad side of a 960-kiloton barn, the portside crews earn themselves multiple medals(and a LOT of shore leave) by not only hitting the ship, but also stacking their shells right on top of each other. Manly Beard's fore-left may have been fresh armor, but 160 Capital damage to one facing is simply more than any part of a Defender-class can take, and the mighty vessel snaps in two!

Winner: Black Lion 1 BC CCS Twirling Moustache. Total damage to the vessel consists of 34 damage to the fore-right armor, complete loss of aft-left and aft-right armor, and 13 SI damage. The K-F drive has taken 2 points of damage, Grav Deck #1 has been destroyed, and two of the conventional bays on the left broadside are disabled.

Loser: Defender BC FSS Manly Beard. Total damage to the vessel consists of 24 damage to nose armor, complete loss of fore-left and fore-right armor, and complete loss of structural integrity. The K-F drive has taken 1 point of damage, and the right thruster bank has taken a single hit.

[BrokenMnemonic]

I doubt that. Kentares seemed more like ground slugging matches.

According to House Davion (The Federated Suns) the Prince of the Terran March spent eight years trying to recapture Kentares IV after the initial six-month campaign that saw the planet captured by the Terran Hegemony.

More importantly - dude, don't harsh my buzz when I'm trying to get us a naval-heavy HTP involving the Federated Suns and Terran Hegemony written by *Weirdo* - don't you want to see all those Age of War WarShips squaring off against each other?

[Weirdo]

Eh, despite my loquacity on these forums, I'm no writer. My wife's the author between us, and she's more into actual stories, not sourcebook fluff and scenarios.

Besides, what ship classes *were* active at the time of Kentares? A lot of the AoW House ships we have arrive pretty late in that era.

[BrokenMnemonic]

Well, the six-month campaign was fought in 2431, so the Prince of the Terran March fought using Terran March forces up until 2439. A quick check says that the following were around between the Hegemony and the Federated Suns:

Dreadnought
Dart
Bonaventure
Vigilant
Lola
Quixote
Monsoon
Aegis
Tracker
Vincent

Plus the Defender and Black Lion I.

That does rather give the Hegemony all the toys. Unless the FedSuns had access to other early WarShips we don't know about - it seems odd that they'd build the Defender in 2360 and then nothing else until the Davion I in 2510.

[Weirdo]

They'd have more. Remember, the Cruiser-class was retired and sold off to the Houses in 2405. Seems reasonable that the Davions would have some in 2431.

[Wrangler]

They'd have more. Remember, the Cruiser-class was retired and sold off to the Houses in 2405. Seems reasonable that the Davions would have some in 2431.

They sold them that soon?  That seems to be odd move since they're in competition with those nations in the most part.

[Weirdo]

They had the Dart and Aegis-classes by then, and hated the Cruiser. I guess they figured that if they sold the Cruisers to the Houses, that's what they'd be facing instead of homegrown ships that might be better, and they knew they could beat Cruisers easily. Devil you know, and all that. Also, there was always the chance of selling to one House to keep another off-balance and focused on their neighbor instead of the Terrans.

[BrokenMnemonic]

It's interesting to note that at this point, the Combine had Narukami, the Capellans Du Shi Wangs and the Taurians Winchesters - it looks like the Hegemony had a big head start in WarShip production for well over a century ahead of the other Great Houses. It makes me wonder about those primitive armed JumpShips and how much of a threat they represented to early WarShips.

[ArkRoyalRavager]

According to House Davion (The Federated Suns) the Prince of the Terran March spent eight years trying to recapture Kentares IV after the initial six-month campaign that saw the planet captured by the Terran Hegemony.

More importantly - dude, don't harsh my buzz when I'm trying to get us a naval-heavy HTP involving the Federated Suns and Terran Hegemony written by *Weirdo* - don't you want to see all those Age of War WarShips squaring off against each other?

By all means, carry on then. I won't be a party crasher :)

[Jellico]

Winner: Black Lion 1 BC CCS Twirling Moustache. Total damage to the vessel consists of 34 damage to the fore-right armor, complete loss of aft-left and aft-right armor, and 13 SI damage. The K-F drive has taken 2 points of damage, Grav Deck #1 has been destroyed, and two of the conventional bays on the left broadside are disabled.

Loser: Defender BC FSS Manly Beard. Total damage to the vessel consists of 24 damage to nose armor, complete loss of fore-left and fore-right armor, and complete loss of structural integrity. The K-F drive has taken 1 point of damage, and the right thruster bank has taken a single hit.

Sounds typical. A NAC or two either way.

[Weirdo]

Yeah. At these armor levels, a little luck goes a long way. Had Twirling Moustache actually connected with anything in turn 2, the fight could have ended right there. Same if Manly Beard had ever dropped a decent amount of firepower more than once.

[Evil Imperial]

Can't wait to see a rematch with proper screening elements this time around.

The only real way to determine how this battle would go down is to throw in the small craft/ASFs, dropships/shuttles, and the other escort elements would play into the main fight.

[Weirdo]

True, but that's not something I'm going to do vs myself in an office.

[Evil Imperial]

True, but that's not something I'm going to do vs myself in an office.

Understood, I got to get VhenRa, to run this battle in Megamek, minus bearing only launches (Not implemented), point defense (Not implemented), and Newtonian movement (Way to hard to do for a perpetual aerospace newbie for me).

[gyedid]

So, I was reading through Jellico's fantastic article on 3145 assault Dropships, and I came across the section on high-speed passes.  This must be a new rule that came into effect after I stopped playing AT2 (has it really been 7 years?).

If I understand correctly, wouldn't the Defender be especially devastating if firing its NACs while making a high-speed pass?

cheers,

Gabe

[Alexander Knight]

To simulate the effects of a high speed pass, take record sheets from all involved units and feed them into a paper shredder.

[A. Lurker]

To simulate the effects of a high speed pass, take record sheets from all involved units and feed them into a paper shredder.

Nah, that's the advanced rule for relativistic encounters. :D (Seriously, the last paragraph on Strategic Operations p. 85 basically says so.)

For anything slow enough to still be somewhat interesting to play out while still being too fast for both sides to just stop and engage each other by more normal rules on available thrust, though, StratOps does provide several pages of actual rules before then. And yes, in those engagements the damage inflicted by missile and ballistic weapons that manage to hit does go up (from 50% extra up to four times normal depending on the speed of the encounter). The opposite holds true in high-speed chases, though; it's possible for the same weapons to be utterly useless then because their projectiles just wouldn't catch up with their targets.

[Weirdo]

If I understand correctly, wouldn't the Defender be especially devastating if firing its NACs while making a high-speed pass?

You are correct. A high-speed salvo from a Defender would likely go through anything short of a Pavise in a way best described as a hot chainsaw through butter. Of course, unless your enemy has a mostly energy-based armament, the return fire would be just as nasty.

To simulate the effects of a high speed pass, take record sheets from all involved units and feed them into a paper shredder.

I helped write other parts of the high-speed engagements rules, and that's still the part I was happiest to see make it to publication. ;D

[Welshman]

To simulate the effects of a high speed pass, take record sheets from all involved units and feed them into a paper shredder.

We always strive for a nice professional air in our rules. That said, sometimes we just have to recognize the humor inherent in a game system built around big stompy robots. I couldn't bring myself to remove this line that was provided by one of most scientific of our writers.

[gyedid]

You are correct. A high-speed salvo from a Defender would likely go through anything short of a Pavise in a way best described as a hot chainsaw through butter. Of course, unless your enemy has a mostly energy-based armament, the return fire would be just as nasty.

Well, short of a "phantom ship" ability, that's the only way I can see the Golden Lion being able to do what it did at Cholame.
Sure, there are other ships that would be even scarier at high speed--like the Aegis--but the Defender's thrust profile means it can build up the necessary velocity quicker than typical line ships.

cheers,

Gabe

[Diablo48]

Well, short of a "phantom ship" ability, that's the only way I can see the Golden Lion being able to do what it did at Cholame.
Sure, there are other ships that would be even scarier at high speed--like the Aegis--but the Defender's thrust profile means it can build up the necessary velocity quicker than typical line ships.

cheers,

Gabe

This is making me wonder how viable this tactic would be in an actual engagement.  I feel like a Defender might be able to build up speed for a lethal pass at an opponent mostly armed with energy weapons which it can smash and be gone before its friends can return fire.  It also gets the defender behind the enemy battle line which may create opportunities for popping thin skinned support vessels and sowing chaos as they try to respond.

[sillybrit]

Well, short of a "phantom ship" ability, that's the only way I can see the Golden Lion being able to do what it did at Cholame.
Sure, there are other ships that would be even scarier at high speed--like the Aegis--but the Defender's thrust profile means it can build up the necessary velocity quicker than typical line ships.

Alternatively, given that the Golden Lion was the flagship of a massive fleet, perhaps it didn't even get to shoot during most of the multi-day battle.

Don't forget that when a Defender gets up to high speed that the damage boost for kinetic weapons works both ways, and Combine vessels like the Narukami and Cruiser bring plenty of NAC damage to the table. Even a high speed pass on a Samarkand is still going to be unpleasant for a glass hammer like the Defender.

[Weirdo]

Well, short of a "phantom ship" ability, that's the only way I can see the Golden Lion being able to do what it did at Cholame.

I suspect the use of tactics and strategy.

[Arvanna]

Got the stats at last and tossed them HMAero to do a quick bare bones update of the design prior to the 1st SW and it comes out pretty well with just swapping out the standard armor for Improved F-A and removing the drop shuttle and small  craft bays for proper fighter bays and 6 drop collars. Had enough tonnage left over to toss in a small 6 craft bay and a Killer Whale tube to the bow and front sides without changing anything else.

[ArkRoyalRavager]

Just give it LameFCarb armor. We know the FSN had access to that technology.

[Wrangler]

Got the stats at last and tossed them HMAero to do a quick bare bones update of the design prior to the 1st SW and it comes out pretty well with just swapping out the standard armor for Improved F-A and removing the drop shuttle and small  craft bays for proper fighter bays and 6 drop collars. Had enough tonnage left over to toss in a small 6 craft bay and a Killer Whale tube to the bow and front sides without changing anything else.

No way to make a generic - close to the original version of the Defender? I always have problems when i try make a ship.

[Arvanna]

The only thing I couldn't do was the drop shuttle bays so I put in everything else and had some 9k tons left over, then made the changes I noted going with the Imp F-A since that's what they had on the Davion version of the Congress.,

[Wrangler]

The only thing I couldn't do was the drop shuttle bays so I put in everything else and had some 9k tons left over, then made the changes I noted going with the Imp F-A since that's what they had on the Davion version of the Congress.,

Okay.  Thank you, Arvanna.

[gyedid]

Just give it LameFCarb armor. We know the FSN had access to that technology.

Are you sure about that?  They had ferro-carbide, yes, but lamellor was used sparingly even by the Terran Hegemony--only on two ship classes (Kimagure and Texas), both made by the same manufacturer IIRC.  The FSN of the post-Clan Invasion has lamellor, yes (used magnificently on the Avalon).

I do agree the Defender could have received an armour upgrade (even IFA would make a substantial difference), but the other things would've required structural changes on the order of turning the 2372 Aegis into the SLDF/Clan Aegis (ha ha).

It still boggles my mind why the FSN kept this clearly obsolete ship in service for so long, as flagships no less.

cheers,

Gabe

[Weirdo]

If retiring them was no guarantee that you'd be able to obtain replacement hulls that you wouldn't have otherwise, would you?