Dodge & Dart? Hammer & Tongs? Shoot & Scoot?

[jawillroy]

How do you envision fleet engagements IYTU - how do you see fleets operating against each other? Mainly setting the ruleset aside for the moment (with the understanding that really, any of the rulesets have to abstract things out to be manageable.)

It seems as though there's plenty good reason for a battlefleet to stick together: a lone ship or squadron can be eaten up piecemeal by a larger concentration of ships. But what does it mean for a fleet to stick together, when they're all evading like mad?

Just looking for some viewpoints, here.

 

[dccarles]

A very good question.

I think of task forces as being much like points, and fleets being constellations of these points. IMTU early detection and missile screening matter, so pickets and anti-missile escorts will be put some ways out from the main body of the task force, but not enough to put them at risk of getting overwhelmed by the concentrated fire of the enemy main force's spinal mounts.

There's not much reason not to concentrate all your ships in one task force, though, unless you're pursuing more than one objective or trying to gain a positional advantage. If the risk of defeat in detail outweighs the possible benefits, then fleet engagements will be pounding matches with no maneuver other than to change the range or dodge. I like more maneuver in my games/universe, so I assume a ship's armour is concentrated up front and over vital systems, so maneuvering to hit the vulnerable areas pays off.

--Devin

 

[jawillroy]

I've been of many minds regarding pickets, one reason I'm putting this out there. I also am keen on early detection - for book 2 combat, it seems to be the single most important factor, making it doubly maddening how poorly book 2 deals with it. That first laser phase can end a battle! but it did occur to me that a lot of that early detection could be handled with probe missiles, obviating the need for sending out frigates or fighters on recon suicide missions.

I also like the idea of maneuver in my games, but it's just so unwieldy to use LBB2 for fleet actions...

 

[Matt123]

I agree with your assesment that smaller fleets may be defeated in detail.

This means that by concentrating your forces into large fleet 'Hammers' you may avoid defeat in battle, however you may loose the war against a foe that disperses his fleet and avoids confrontation with overwhelming force whilst ransacking your trade, comms and important systems.

Against an elusive foe and all foes are elusive when you have more toys than they do, you need an 'Avil'. This is a military concept known as 'Pinning'. 'Pinning' is the act of finding something your opponent values, a capital, industrial world, communication hub, religious centre and attacking it knowing that they will meet you in battle and attempt to defend it with all possible strength. If you are really confident you may even broadcast the impending attack in order to allow that concentration of force to happen.

Without pinning your opponent against an anvil, you may never get to engage in battle with the hammer of your main fleet unless its in defence of your capital in the last days of your empire.

This leaves you with a problem if you have been invaded. There is nothing within your territory that your opponent can be pinned against. (excepting advanced supply depots if your territory is large, the invasion takes several years and the peneration is deep). (Oh and leader stupidity, eg Hitlers fascination with Stalingrad allowing his army to be pinned, surrounded, starved and defeated.)

So if you are attacked, you have to use your hammer in defence, meaning your opponent can predict the likely locations (capital, industrial, religious worlds for example and key astrographic locations with only one refueling point). Pretty much you are pinned and your hammer can defend one location which your opponent will seek to bypass (eg: Blitzkreig tactics avoiding strongpoints and cutting them off from supply & comms). As your hammer moves, much smaller opposing forces will take the position you last defended.

In effect attempting to win local battles with overwhelming force against an opponent that does not have to play will doom your war efforts.

I can picture the main fleet hammer working if you bee-lined directly for the opposing capital, attempting to avoid major actions before getting there and taking the capital before the defensive fleets can assembled in your wake. But the damage to your territory done by by-passed fleets, knowing your main fleet has headed in the opposite direction, will be enourmous and politically un-popular at home.

Cheers!
Matt

 

[jawillroy]

Matt, these are good observations; and actually, the strategic aspects of fleet ops have been buzzing in my mind, too.

The obvious anvil, generally speaking, is going to be the other guy's homeworld. IMTU, these are actually pretty close together, so everyone's got to maintain a very powerful fleet around their homeworld. (I have a cozy ProtoTU of about 9 subsectors to worry about.) That's the nature of the arms race IMTU: maintaining a sufficient homefleet to protect the capital, while maintaining enough striking capability to keep the other guy from being free with your client states. Any strike at a homeworld would have to be done with great secrecy, and would involve multiple jumps into empty spaces (either heavily tankered fleets, or fleets with long jump capability and multiple jump's worth of fuel) to ensure that the other guy absolutely didn't see it coming until the fleet showed up on the doorstep with flowers, candy, and gigaton upon gigaton of destructive potential.

But my curiosity is more in envisioning the tactical realm, rather than the strategic. Once you have that fleet encounter, how do you envision it going down? Multiple passes by fleets moving with long vectors? Massed fleets facing off against each other and pounding away? Task forces darting in and out of scanner range potshotting at one another?

 

[The Oz]

But my curiosity is more in envisioning the tactical realm, rather than the strategic. Once you have that fleet encounter, how do you envision it going down? Multiple passes by fleets moving with long vectors? Massed fleets facing off against each other and pounding away? Task forces darting in and out of scanner range potshotting at one another?

I posted earlier about this in another topic. In a universe with Newtonian movement (as TRAVELLER is) I think there's only two main options for a fleet encounter.

1. The two fleets both choose to close on vectors that slowly merge, producing a long, drawn-out battle (mostly using missiles at long range, and perhaps fighter strikes if YTU allows fighters to be useful) that has damage slowly build up. In this battle many ships are hurt, some are crippled, but few are killed since it's easy to disengage because a ship can see the damage adding up and the rest of its fleet is there to discourage pursuit as it withdraws.

2. The two fleets choose to close on vectors that nearly oppose each other, producing a fast-closing, rapidly over battle that would comprise an initial exchange of missiles at range (greatly enhanced effective missile range, thanks to those closing vectors, and greatly degraded defenses, also thanks to the closing vectors), a sudden blast of beam weapons as the two fleets pass close to each other, and then mostly silence and damage control as the two fleets fly away from each other (missiles would be of very limited use here, as the vectors carry the fleets apart as quickly as they closed, making defenses even more effective against missiles). Ships will tend to be killed or crippled in this kind of action, thanks to the increased use of beam (spinal) weaponry.

The skill of Fleet Admirals would be shown in manuvering for the kind of battle wanted, while avoiding the kind the enemy wants. Who gets the battle they want would depend on skill, fleet maneuver capability, astrography, and some luck.

 

[jawillroy]

So Oz, I'm getting: 1) Slowly merging vectors, or nearly stationary relative to each other, leading to a controlled exchange of missiles with lasers in the defensive role or
2) suicidally reckless flybys.

I'm wondering if there's room for a middle ground - fencing around at the edge of detection range?

So much depends on how you interpret missiles, is the thing.

 

[The Oz]

I'm wondering if there's room for a middle ground - fencing around at the edge of detection range?

So much depends on how you interpret missiles, is the thing.

And it depends on how you interpret detection range. If you can see and identify the enemy while still way out of range, there's little need for fencing around. You either accept battle or decline it, depending on the force structures and your mission.

If you =can't= see or identify his force outside weapons range, then you have to fence for information if you feel uncertain of the result of a direct clash. If you're certain you can win regardless of what the enemy could possibly have, then you close in anyway without fencing.

So fencing for information comes when:

1. You have time to fight for information.
2. You don't have information you need.
3. You can't afford to be wrong.
4. You can't get the information without fighting.

That makes it look like you wouldn't be fighting for information (scouting) too often, but if you've been given an adequate but not excessive force and told to secure an area (a star system or small group of star systems) you'll almost have to scout, because:

1. You can't possibly have current information on all of your objectives.
2. You don't have enough force to be overwhelming strong everywhere.
3. You can't spread out too much or the enemy might be overwhelming strong in one place.
4. You need information from more than one place simultaneously, because you must find where the enemy is, and where he isn't so you can predict where he can possibly be when you jump to intercept him.

 

[aramis]

So Oz, I'm getting: 1) Slowly merging vectors, or nearly stationary relative to each other, leading to a controlled exchange of missiles with lasers in the defensive role or
2) suicidally reckless flybys.

I'm wondering if there's room for a middle ground - fencing around at the edge of detection range?

Yes, but it's not "engagement" per se. Smaller force, with no chance, fires off while disengaging, relying upon being able to escape (to jump of atmosphere) prior to retaliatory fire arriving.

Basically, a hedge to make an invasion costly, even though you can't escape it.

Another engagement type is the parallel: two groups engaging in combat en-route to a destination, probably with intent to deny acquisition of some portable resource (Like stolen plans on a neutral world, or resucing a hulk)... but it's not going to be normative for naval engagements.

So much depends on how you interpret missiles, is the thing.

Oh, yes, quite true. KKM damage should be quite ugly (as it often was in CT Bk2) on a closing vector.

 

[jawillroy]

Well, parallel's essentially the same as both parties being stationary relative to each other... so it's all looking a lot like high guard, to me... my Book 2 combat might get pretty simple if I keep thinking the way I'm thinking now. Who's going to charge knowing missiles are coming at them as fast?

 

[aramis]

Well, parallel's essentially the same as both parties being stationary relative to each other...

Not quite. Since it only occurs when there is an outside third point that is being made for at best speed, it actually pretty much PRECLUDES maneuver... they continue on their courses at max burn (because, if they don't, they miss), and simply take relatively poor shots (getting better as they close on the destination) as the range slowly closes.

This, ironically, is the normative for TNE. Due to very limited fuel reserves, warships have little to no maneuver fuel, and usually are cooked if caught while on a fastest course situation.

 

[flykiller]

Who's going to charge knowing missiles are coming at them as fast?

may not have a choice. if a squadron is vectoring in and suddenly encounters an enemy squadron and goes to agility 6, it will then be maneuver 0 and will drift on in.

ruleset and battlespace depiction will drive the answers to your questions. if sensor ranges are long then escorts will be irrelevant and it will be difficult to bring any unwilling fleet to battle. if sensor ranges are short then engagements may be short sudden passing affairs that may not result in any decisive damage to either side. comm rules will be important - can an extra-tough ship approach the enemy and relay targeting information back to the main fleet? and range band battlespace doesn't depict maneuver of any kind very well. etc.

 

[jawillroy]

Yep, detection and communication are the nails in the wall that hold the whole picture up.

I'm trying to abstract something from Book 2 that allows for maneuver if one wants it (like mayday) but that doesn't ignore book 2 detection ranges (and book 2 RANGE) and doesn't get too horribly cumbersome. It all makes me wish that some clever programmer would do an applet which would allow you to lay book 2 vectors for multiple ships and missiles, and take care of the scutwork each turn, so you could really see what book 2 combat could look like without having a frelling basketball court (and an open week) to play it out.

 

[dccarles]

It all makes me wish that some clever programmer would do an applet which would allow you to lay book 2 vectors for multiple ships and missiles, and take care of the scutwork each turn, so you could really see what book 2 combat could look like without having a frelling basketball court (and an open week) to play it out.

Funny, I did a turn-based racing game in Java some months ago. (I used Google Earth photos of real racetracks, with realistic accelerations and friction, and found it nigh-impossible to stay on the track.) So I've got a fair bit f the framework written already.

--Devin

 

[jawillroy]

cue delighted toddler squeals

*So I've got a fair bit f the framework written already.*

OHPLEASEPLEASEPRETTYPLEASEWITHSUGARONIT

It wouldn't even have to cover the rolls, or anything... just the vector addition, and the ability to duplicate a vector (missile/sand launch) with maybe a feature to determine the range between targets - just straight vanilla book 2.

And maybe the planet templates! How cool would that be?

 

[flykiller]

Yep, detection and communication are the nails in the wall that hold the whole picture up.

well, lots of other things too. if weapons ranges are greatly less than sensor ranges then combat becomes an affair of choice. if they match sensor ranges then combat becomes a meeting engagement. if they greatly exceed sensor ranges then ambushes become possible. also, aspect is important to maneuver, so ship layout, weapons' placement, and armor differentiation become critical - this leads to a need for deckplans and/or generic rules for determining aspect. fun.

I'm trying to abstract something from Book 2 that allows for maneuver if one wants it (like mayday) but that doesn't ignore book 2 detection ranges (and book 2 RANGE) and doesn't get too horribly cumbersome. It all makes me wish that some clever programmer would do an applet which would allow you to lay book 2 vectors for multiple ships and missiles, and take care of the scutwork each turn, so you could really see what book 2 combat could look like without having a frelling basketball court (and an open week) to play it out.

hard to eliminate the size and complexity inherent to combat by large numbers of ships. if you don't mind race-track vectors then excel works ok. you can use a bitmap to depict the battlespace - it's large enough for most engagements, it's useable over the internet, and it allows a referee to show two opposing players only what their ships' sensors detect. see my link below, Vector Movement, for an example.

 

[jawillroy]

Well, my two cents with LBB2 IMTU, Missile range is about twice sensor range, and effective laser range is about two/thirds of detection range. Ambushes are possible, theoretically: but with strictly military engagements a native defender will have a system seeded with sensors, and any incoming fleet will pepper the area with sensor missiles. While that won't help with targeting lasers (time lag's still there) it'll do fine for fleet location and should be good enough for missile targeting.

I'll have a look at the link!

 

[jawillroy]

Re: your vector thingy, Flykiller, that looks really cool - and in fact, that look is exactly what I had in mind for a computerized lbb2. I don't really know how the bitmap's produced... I'm pretty unskilful in that area.

 

[Warlock]

About the best I could find/come up with was an Excel spreadsheet that helped be track the vectors of up to 6 craft (counting the PC's ship). It allows me to enter vector changes and acceleration/deceleration changes then gives me effective distances.

If anyone's interested, I'll see if I can find it. Haven't run a space combat with it for a few years now.

 

[jawillroy]

I would be *very* interested in seeing that.