Black Globe Tactics

[JustinInOz]

(...moved from the thread here: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=21897 )

Would a hobby sized black globe like that be mainly used for silent running? Can you enter jump with the globe on? If not, jump in behind a moon or nearby body. Set up a slingshot course. Turn on the globe as you come round the body. Cout down until you are over your target.

Just a thought.

 

[far-trader]

Precisely Justin. CT HG pg 43 (notes mine) says this...

"Suppose, for instance, that a fleet were to jump into a system with its black globes on(1) and its velocity set upon a predetermined course(2). It could drift unseen past any defending fleet(3) and drop its screens at a preplanned moment(2), to bombard a planet or to engage enemy fleets by surprise(4). Further tactical possibilities are left to the imagination of the referee and players."

(1) - So, jump space can't possibly interact with Black Globes. My pet theory is Black Globes and Jump Drives are much the same technology, just differently applied. Specifically a Jump Drive engages a limited Black Globe during jump. That's what makes it work. Not some cloud of plasmafied hydrogen held in place by some jump grid voodoo

(2) - Which, in my not so humble opinion, means the whole random jump time and space rolls (random hours, random "off the mark" roll) are NOT actually random at all, but precisely calculable and calculated. The random rolls are meta-game only and NOT reality. The reality is the precise point and time of jump precipitation is known when the jump is plotted. And it can be plotted far in advance for a specific set of initialization parameters. Misjumps can be quite random however.

(3) - To be detected the ship with a BG has to be closer than a few kilometers according to HG.

(4) - But just how does the BG fleet see the defending fleet to know when they've slipped past it? They don't. Unless said fleet is simply sitting there for (or maintaining a repeated patrol) for weeks on end. And even then it's only a guess. Until the BG fleet drops their globes they don't know what the actual disposition will be. Seems to me they could be as surprised, or even more so, than the defenders.

 

[Commander Truestar]

Would a hobby sized black globe like that be mainly used for silent running? Can you enter jump with the globe on? If not, jump in behind a moon or nearby body. Set up a slingshot course. Turn on the globe as you come round the body. Cout down until you are over your target.

Just a thought.

My Black Gobe tactical book generally holds that a a BG-equipped ship would build it s delta vee while closing on its "jump out" point. The vee would be tailored to the mechanics of the solar system it is entering such that it can either use gravitic breaking(the pull of a body in the detination system slows it) or drop it's BG field and fire decel burns as it begins its actions in-system. Of course, this requires a very good Navigator/Astrogator and very fine detail on the stellar mechanics of the system.

A "step down" varient would be to come to zero delta vee and jump to an outer portion of the system to avoid being seen entering the system. Then take your specs and plan your movement while playing "unnoticed piece of space debris" before firing up the m-drive to get the needed vee and finally throwing on the BG before anyone has noticed you.

Another very difficult BG manuver would be the "drive by", in which a ship builds significant vee before jump. It then arrives at a high rate of movement and activates the BG as soon as it safely can. The ship is then completely dependant on the calculations and intelligence that went into designing the mission. Once the correct point in the elapsed mission time is reached, they drop the BG and do what they are gonna do(which is usually either energy weapon or very high speed missile fire if offensive or data gathering if this is an intel run) while also firing the drives to increase speed! This continues until computer estimates indicate the hazard of hostile fire at which point the BG is re-engaged. This "usually" allows a vessel to make a single pass strike through a hostile system at so high a rate of speed that they can get clear and jump while hostiles are stll building speed to pursue. It also has so many moving parts that it is restricted to the most nessesary cases and elite(or desperate) ships and crews. IMTU, there were a number of such missions by the IISS through front line Zho systems to gain intel. Data gained from media intel and records released after the Fifth Frontier War indicated the fates of a number of the missions formerly listed as "Not Completed".

Marc

Marc

 

[Icosahedron]

I wrote up a tactic somewhere here before, but I can't find it now.

It involved a 'Black Globe Submarine' - a missile-armed ship that drops its globe, launches a volley and then raises the globe again, hopefully before being detected.
The BGS uses a hard-to-detect small craft with a powerful computer/sensor suite as a 'periscope'.

 

[boomslang]

The BGS uses a hard-to-detect small craft with a powerful computer/sensor suite as a 'periscope'.

That's probably an excellent application for a missile-sized, disposable, robot sensor drone, I have always thought.

 

[Icosahedron]

That's probably an excellent application for a missile-sized, disposable, robot sensor drone, I have always thought.

Such things didn't exist in CT, except as a Referee artifact. Good idea, though.

 

[boomslang]

Such things didn't exist in CT, except as a Referee artifact. Good idea, though.

However, I suppose you could cobble one together with CT Book 8 and/or CT SS3, if you were of a mind to.

As an alternative, a Scout/Courier untouchably parked in the proverbial "outer system" (á la TCS) could simply broadcast occasional observations of local, enemy movements, and the BG-cloaked ship could just listen for the modulated signal as it strikes the globe... signal attenuation might be an issue with that sort of scheme, though.

 

[stealth]

However, I suppose you could cobble one together with CT Book 8 and/or CT SS3, if you were of a mind to.

As an alternative, a Scout/Courier untouchably parked in the proverbial "outer system" (á la TCS) could simply broadcast occasional observations of local, enemy movements, and the BG-cloaked ship could just listen for the modulated signal as it strikes the globe... signal attenuation might be an issue with that sort of scheme, though.

I think the signal gets lost when the energy is shunted to the jump drive (otherwise, passive sensors would work).

Globes never made much sense to me. At most, I might put one on a dispersed structure carrier and use it as a commerce raider. At least it could hide. I could see a scout using it as well, if pulling some kind of sentry duty.

 

[boomslang]

I think the signal gets lost when the energy is shunted to the jump drive (otherwise, passive sensors would work).

The idea is to watch the incoming flow of energy, and detect the signal encoded therein as the flow fluctuates ever so slightly (think: Morse Code).

Globes never made much sense to me. At most, I might put one on a dispersed structure carrier and use it as a commerce raider. At least it could hide. I could see a scout using it as well, if pulling some kind of sentry duty.

Again, in sentry scenarios you can save your money by just parking your scouts in out-of-the-way spots, tethered to a decent fuel reserve, and they can simply Jump away with any important recon intel they have.

The BG is mostly useful for sneaking up on prey, to get in range for a surprise attack of some sort... although the Dishkili Maneuver low-energy approach is a possible alternative tactic -- for the brave.

 

[kafka47]

Stealth is one way of using Black Globes...

Another would be the Pearl Harbor tactic...jump within 10 diameters of the main world when within 10 go guns blazing and attempt to knock out as much as 3C as possible. Refuel using the world's oceans and jump back out.

Also, one could use the flicker in radical zigsaw vector pattern confusing the enemy. There is the fleet...no it must have jumped again...wait there it is...no lost it again.

Police cordon fire, then raise shields and relentless move to the main world. Shoot, then raise shields...move forward...shoot.

 

[socar37]

Stealth is one way of using Black Globes...

Another would be the Pearl Harbor tactic...jump within 10 diameters of the main world when within 10 go guns blazing and attempt to knock out as much as 3C as possible. Refuel using the world's oceans and jump back out.

Also, one could use the flicker in radical zigsaw vector pattern confusing the enemy. There is the fleet...no it must have jumped again...wait there it is...no lost it again.

Police cordon fire, then raise shields and relentless move to the main world. Shoot, then raise shields...move forward...shoot.

I don't think you can zig-zag with your BG up. When it's off to change vector, the opposition can run a track, plot a straight line when your globe turns on and then be ready to intercept when the thing turns off again.

Mike Timmins
SoCar-37

 

[boomslang]

I don't think you can zig-zag with your BG up. When it's off to change vector, the opposition can run a track, plot a straight line when your globe turns on and then be ready to intercept when the thing turns off again.

Not only that, but I am not aware of anything in all the rules and writings about Jump drive that would let a vessel deliberately precipitate out of Jumpspace less than 100 diameters from any object (such as a planet or star).

In Trav, you traditionally cannot exit Jump that close to something.

 

[Commander Truestar]

IMO the BG - as written - is good for two things. In the OTU BG's were found on the capital ships of the time. Kinunar were supposed to be both important and deadly before they were overshadowed by the introduction of real capital ships. So I assumed they had two functions both attributed to "survial of the expensive toys".
If your expensive ship was being pounded and there was hope that your forces were winning the day, you could pop the globe on and carry out damage control ops while redirecting otherwise critical combat crews to assit in repairs. If there was little or no hope of victory, or if the battle was early enough to be undetermined, you could throw on the globe and make what repairs you can while escorts hopefully keep enemy guns off your event horizon.
In any case, you can certainly not scout. This is because "All" energy hitting the event horizon is absorbed. you can neither see in nor out of a black globe field. And once you pop the field off, you become visible unless you are hanging all but dead in space with passive sensors on...in which case...why spend the cash on mounting a BG?
the one "actionable" tactic I came up with at all was "the high vee pass". Since you can not drop your globe and act without being detected, use if for cover and protection unitl you escape.
User your passive scouts to learn as much as possible about the system and plan a pass through or strike op. Build up HUGE vee before you jump and then tie your computer to your globe controls so that you activate teh BG as soon as you possibly can after precipitating. Arrive well enough out of the 100 diameter limit that no one is watching and no one will notice that slightest of bits of sensor noise. Then you drift in on your vee and a timer. When the timer says "Now" your crew is at battle stations and your ship is fully powered up and prepared for its mission...
then when the clock says "now" you drop your shields and do what you were ordered to. It could be going to active sensors andd recording as much as possible while firing off a number of salvos just for s-n-g's
It could be firing on a set of coordinates, because the egg heads who planned this figured that if you drift in at x velocity on y vector for Z time then you will be close enough to hit the target labeled "big jucy target number 1" if you fire at that vector at that time you are in range if that target is wher it is supposed to be.

And then you turn on your BG again and hope you have enough vee that the enemy will not be able to catch up to you once they have figured out what happened, pulled their sensor data, plotted a response and built up enough vee to get close enough to shoot at you.

But this also depends on having "_Very_Good_Data_" Why? Because if a ship or two are in your way at any point in your transit....BOOM. Or if the target has moved even morginally, you do not have the sensor time to adjust, or if any number of the many factors has changed you either crash into something, miss your target or suffer any of the myrad of issues that means your mission has failed. And in a large number of those issues you also died..

So beware all those who enter the protection of the BG field.

Marc

 

[Icosahedron]

if a ship or two are in your way at any point in your transit....BOOM.

Really, far too much mileage is made out of collisions in space. A collision between two ships in space would be hard enough to engineer, it won't happen by accident, not even if you're skimming close planetary orbit on your trajectory.

If you're deliberately getting close enough to a planet to bombard it, you could conceivably hit the planet, but even if you deliberately plotted a course that would take you straight through a formation of starships, you almost certainly wouldn't hit any of them.

Forget that two, or even one dimensional 'let's graze past the Reavers' crap.

Space is big.

 

[Commander Truestar]

Really, far too much mileage is made out of collisions in space. A collision between two ships in space would be hard enough to engineer, it won't happen by accident, not even if you're skimming close planetary orbit on your trajectory.

I would concede your point except that the main thrust of my comment is the fact that you are tryig to get close enough to "something". Be that to "scan it while pouring out enough fire to add to your vee in getting you out alive" or to "pour enough fire at the programmed moment to devistate an expected target", you are coming in close. So unless it is a highly remote base in the system or has some other reason to be seriously isolated from all traffic(includingnaval) there is a good chance you will have to cut through a traffic pattern or two.
Add to that the simple needs of a significant system to have lots of resources shipped in as cargo... Entering from the extreme edge of the system at high speed in a straight line, your scouts can tell you where the main transit routes through the system are but the many minor ones are goig to be clouds in your way. So in a big system(the ones that cn support the really important targets) you are likely going to have to cut through a minor traffic cloud. Then you need to get close to your target so you have to cut tangentally through the local traffic cloud...
And all while being 100% invisible until you cut the BG field and cut loose with the guns..

Yeah, the odds of collision are remote under general terms. But when you have to plot a straight line without more than a "two weeks ago the traffic patterns seemed fairly stable like this" intel report...
Good luck getting close to that target without getting into a traffic cloud or two...

Marc

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Truestar, Jump probably isn't precise enough for you to be able to time a high-vee manoeuver like you plan. There is a couple of thousand kilometre variance (correlating with jump distance).

More importantly, there is a time variable of several hours. Celestial bodies can move quite a bit over the course of even an hour or two, let alone several. Any actual calculations of where everything is positioned when you come out of jump are going to have to have a variance of up to a million kilometres or more.

This won't interfere with your standard come-in-at-100-diametres and gently glide into port scenario. But it will likely throw a spanner into any attempts to pinpoint a planetary bombardment at untrackably-high speeds.

And if anybody did get your vector, I suspect you'd be toast. It would take just a few deep meson sites to make short work of any ID'ed and tracked black globe generators.

 

[Commander Truestar]

Truestar, Jump probably isn't precise enough for you to be able to time a high-vee manoeuver like you plan. There is a couple of thousand kilometre variance (correlating with jump distance).
More importantly, there is a time variable of several hours. Celestial bodies can move quite a bit over the course of even an hour or two, let alone several. Any actual calculations of where everything is positioned when you come out of jump are going to have to have a variance of up to a million kilometres or more.
This won't interfere with your standard come-in-at-100-diametres and gently glide into port scenario. But it will likely throw a spanner into any attempts to pinpoint a planetary bombardment at untrackably-high speeds.

Actually, I largely agree with most of your points but disagree that it can be pulled off.
the more brief parts fo my description are the scouting for the mission, and this is what makes this kind of a mission, while expensive and very hard to pull off, possible IMTU if perhaps not IYTU. But I do believe the possability does exist ni the OTU.
They way I see it, there are two levels of mechanics that need to be worked on simultaniously.
First, there are the macro-mechanics of the jump plot. Canon
sources to support the position that, with the proper amount of calculation and correct data, near exact precipitation points can be plotted for emerging from jump in a destination system. So any military intent on carrying out such an attack would need to invest a significant amount of research in the expected quantum state of the mechanics both at the time they will make the initial jump and while they expect to be passing through jump space as well as in the destination system.
Second would be the mechanics of the solar system the ship(s) is/are jumpping to. Well in advance of the attack, small ships must be jumpped to just outside the edge of the solar system and need to lay there passively collecting enough data on that system's orbital mechanics, etc... Once that mission jumps home, the data collected must be sufficent to allow for both it's inclusion in the jump plot data AND for the generation of a plotted flight course at the time the attack with emerge fro jump as well as during the time the attackers will be transiting the system.

Of course, this is absent system failures including hardware, software or human error >

But I have been consistent in that the type of attack I suggest is possible, if rediculously difficult and resource dependant.

The only time I would expect something like this would be attempted is in a "Raid on Tokyo" type scenario where the raid must be made despite the risk can cost in crew and equipment.

And if anybody did get your vector, I suspect you'd be toast. It would take just a few deep meson sites to make short work of any ID'ed and tracked black globe generators.

I 100% agree with that, as well as with any sufficnetly placed weapons site that can put fire into the vector ahead of the moving vessel. I never suggested it provided absolute safety but, as a tactic, it would reduce the most likely responses. Mind you, you must recall that such attacks are only possible:
1) After the attack has drpped its BG, which means a strike or other destructive attack has alrady been carried out and the counter-strike is closing the barn door after the horse has been BBQ'd and eaten
2) Before the attack in the event some hardware failure has given the attack craft and their vector away, yielding a decisive defensive victory
3) Before the attack in the event some planning or other human error has left a window open alllowing the defenders to spot and react as in Item 2 above...again yielding a decisive defensive victory.

Marc

 

[Icosahedron]

Good luck getting close to that target without getting into a traffic cloud or two...

Marc

Well, YMMV, of course, but IMTU those 'clouds' would be more like (at most) a rucksack full of tennis balls scattered across a football field. The variations on the game of Bowling all demonstrate the difficulty of deliberately hitting one small object in space with another, much less doing it by accident.

If YTU has such a density of ships visiting its ports that all the billions of cubic miles surrounding the planet in 3 dimensions are perpetually filled with craft such that it's impossible to draw a straight line through the 'cloud' without a high probability of intersecting a ship, then YTU is much, much busier than mine.

Incidentally, wouldn't that create a 'nuclear winter' effect as the incident sunlight is blocked by ships?

 

[Commander Truestar]

If YTU has such a density of ships visiting its ports that all the billions of cubic miles surrounding the planet in 3 dimensions are perpetually filled with craft such that it's impossible to draw a straight line through the 'cloud' without a high probability of intersecting a ship, then YTU is much, much busier than mine.QUOTE]

In Space, nuclear winters are just a "blast" > But my point was that we are not talking about "all the billions of cubic miles surrounding the planet in 3 dimensions". We are talking about the potentially busy slice of local space near a specific space dock or orbital arcology. So while all the area around the rock and its dependants may be relatively clear, your mission...should you be assigned it...is to get close enough that the firing solutions will be able to do their part...assuming the target is where you expect it to be.
If that target is a key ship or arcology, there will be tenders and other traffi around the target not to mention the fact it will be is an active area.
An example would be the mini subs that Japan sent to participate in the strike on Pearl Harbor in WWII. Imagine if the subs, dropped out in the middle of the pacific, could submerge and then approach while completly cut off from the outside world. All they had was their plotted course and a firing solution. Their mission profile would tell them exactly what to do when so they would arrive at teh mouth of Pearl Harbor just when spies determined the torpedo nets were drawn open... With no way of knowing if the nets had been opened, they would folow their course and slip in, still completely oblivious of everything that is happening outside the skin of their boat. Then, at the right point in thier course as determined by their mission clock...they fire their torpedos, spin up the screws and then burn for the harbor mouth.
Yes, as they cross the pacific they are so far from any traffic that they would not not see traffic. Even as they close on the Hawaii, they would be very lucky to get even near shipping. But the closer to pearl they got, the more traffic they would encounter until a collision is very real possability.

So there are times you will have the whole ocean to deal with... But there are times where you will just have the busy corner near your targget.

Marc

 

[Icosahedron]

I can see what you're saying, but I still believe you're thinking in one dimension. I'm not familiar with the layout of Pearl Harbour, but I'd imagine that, like most other harbours, it could be defended with 'torpedo nets' because its mouth is effectively one-dimensional, with traffic funnelled in from a single narrow direction. As I recall, it was sensibly attacked from the air, where collision with other craft was near-impossible...

Even taking the harbour mouth analogy to be a true representation of the situation in space, I think you could probably eat your dinner while an autopilot sailed your boat up the Thames toward the Port of London without a huge danger of collision. Even busy ports tend not to be so busy that their vicinity is crammed with ships.

But in space things are very different. There is no logical reason for an interceptor to fly for several minutes along a narrow canyon in order to hit a target the size of a Wamp Rat, nor is there any logical reason why a vessel should have to creep past a fleet of cannibals so closely that you can see the corpses decorating their ships, in order to access a planet.

In space, you can access any target from any direction, and in a pre-planned situation such as you describe, you would choose the least-trafficked route.
So again, I say that unless your planet, satellite, base, or whatever is completely enclosed by a seething spherical shell of traffic (which I consider extremely unlikely) the chances of accidental collision would be very low.