Imperial marine fighter / attack craft

[flykiller]

militaries plan to fight the last war

it's a nice meme, but really, there's been an effort for decades to get away from that.

what can you base your plan on, if not the most recent experience you have?

simple. on new capabilities. drones, stealth, hypersonics, lasers, and cyber-ops are being pushed very hard by all possible future combatants.

and of course all the "old" stuff will be around forever too, because there simply is no subsitute for heavy ordinance on target.

 

[aramis]

The Army is (or at least was) prohibited from operating fixed-wing ground attack aircraft. The Air Force and Marines had the OV-10 Bronco and the Army the roughly similar OA-1 Mohawk, but they were forced to disarm them in the mid-1960's.

Not from operating, just from buying.

Half the A-10 squadrons at Eilson AFB were staffed by US Army officers in the 80's and 90's.

 

[Matt123]

Militaries train to fight the last war.

it's a nice meme, but really, there's been an effort for decades to get away from that.

It's more than a meme, being a step ahead of your opponent in strategy and tactics is just as valid today as it was decades and centuries ago. Largely it features improved technology used in novel ways and the military of other nations being resistant to change until after the tech and associated tactics are 'proven'.

The British in particular are good at starting with old Generals with excellent credentials and quickly swapping them out after a couple of defeats (and the British are generally considered the source of this meme). One thing the British reaction shows is that militaries can react fast. For the aggressor to have any lasting advantage, the resulting political victory has to follow quickly, before the opponent military can adapt.

The efforts of the last few decades don't change that core dynamic of attempting to shape the battlefield in advance, in your favour.

In recent years we have seen;
- fighting wars on other peoples territory (minimizing risk to your own infrastructure)
- guerilla insurgencies (be smart, avoid tactical battles you cannot win)
- COIN operations (as a reaction to sneaky insurgents)
- Cyber attack/defence capability (think similar effect to strategic bombers on infrastructure but without the risk to your fighting talent)
- Drone use (as a force multiplier)
- Hypersonic missiles (as a undefendable threat - for the moment)
- the Space Force (dominate the high ground)
- gearing up nuclear capability (possibly to upgrade fifty year old tech)
- hearts and minds via Social Media (influencing the influencers or creating large megaphones or generating confusion, distrust and doubt)
- influencing democratic elections (practiced by all major powers on minor democratic powers. Possibly now being used against major democratic powers)
- access to vaccines against pandemics (every military will be watching Covid-19 with professional interest)

Meantime, strategic oddities exist. I've deleted my short list as it was rather US focused which reflects more what I have easy public access too than the point I wanted to illustrate. That point being that an opponent will look for advantage in the spaces that are weak. Years later, those weaknesses will be obvious and the leaders of the day ignorant (of course tanks should be massed at the main point of the attack! of course the opponent will go around your fortifications! of course the opponent won't fight you in the open where they can be defeated! all very dashed inconvenient- I had a foolproof plan!). Some countries will have sacked those early leaders and sought out fresh thinkers or promoted early thinkers in the opponents new strategy. Life goes on.

Just my 2Cr.

 

[Condottiere]

Principles remain the same; technology creates opportunities.

What seems to happen is that tempo of operations speed up, and the hinterland no longer tends to be secure.

The American thought that the expanse of the Pacific gave them space and time against the Japanese; the British knew from experience of the Great War they had to create a defense against strategic bombing of the Home Isles.

 

[flykiller]

What seems to happen is that tempo of operations speed up, and the hinterland no longer tends to be secure.

at this point don't see how the hinterlands can get any more insecure than they've already been for decades.

The American thought that the expanse of the Pacific gave them space and time against the Japanese

(shrug) it did. observe the japanese invaded china, but not the states.

 

[Condottiere]

Disrupting the hinterland is an operational goal, destroying it a strategic objective.

The problem with Pearl Harbour was that the Japanese decided to hit and run, going for tactical success after achieving operational surprise.

They could have sent along an invasion force (resupplying it is another issue), they could have tried a third strike to mop up survivors and damage infrastructure, and they could have tried hunting down the carriers, who have might made the Japanese's job easier by remaining in port.

The British knew they no longer had the absolute luxury of time and space with the event of strategic bombing, so they prepared for it for the next war.

 

[flykiller]

resupplying it is another issue

THE issue. no victuals, no victory.

 

[BlackBat242]

Oops, sorry. I can't say I keep track of all US air forces. For the Finnish airforce only the F-18 was/is considered to have acceptable performance, IIRC related to basing requirements. I vaguely thought the F-16 was old and the F-18 modernised and current.

The F-16 (first flight January 1974) was the winner of the USAF lightweight fighter competition in January 1975 - the loser (F-17) was then developed into the F/A-18 (first flight November 1978) for the USN and USMC.

Both aircraft have been continuously upgraded and modified, with late models of the F-16 (block 50/60/70 currently in production) being vastly more-capable than the early versions.

The F/A-18 (variants A/B/C/D) has not been quite as extensively modified - instead, in the early 1990s a mostly-new aircraft, based strongly on the F/A-18 was developed... it was also designated F/A-18 (variants E/F/EA-18G) despite really being a different aircraft (larger and more-capable). It was named "Super Hornet" (first flight November 1995), with the older version retaining its original name of "Hornet".

 

[Carlobrand]

it's a nice meme, but really, there's been an effort for decades to get away from that. ...

With varying degrees of success. War in the early era of atomics had the army stymied for a while early on. They played around with concepts involving spreading the troops out more thinly to avoid concentrations that would invite nuclear attack, figuring atomics would dominate the battlefield and they could stop enemy concentrations with nukes, then came the news that we weren't going to be the only force in the world with strategic nuclear capability and the realization that the enemy could concentrate to defeat our forces and that responding to the threat with nukes could escalate to something that ended with American cities sitting under fireballs. So, they dropped that and came up with new plans, and then other new plans, and then other new plans as tech and political circumstances evolved. Some of those might have worked had war started while those plans were in the ascendant, some might have failed miserably - they still argue about that.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Space combat was always a small part of the adventures we ran. It was there, significant, but did have the huge emphasis of some settings or campaigns.

I bring this up because one of my pet peeves has been with the Rampart "bullet with wings" fighter that's the official "F" for the Imperial Navy. Aesthetics aside, would there not be more variants for things like planetary tactical fighter wings and Marine Units stationed on both carriers and naval depots?

Thoughts?

 

[coliver988]

Space combat was always a small part of the adventures we ran. It was there, significant, but did have the huge emphasis of some settings or campaigns.

I bring this up because one of my pet peeves has been with the Rampart "bullet with wings" fighter that's the official "F" for the Imperial Navy. Aesthetics aside, would there not be more variants for things like planetary tactical fighter wings and Marine Units stationed on both carriers and naval depots?

Thoughts?

Like you, space combat was never a major thing way back then or now. My current gaming group is much more about the characters than the hardware.

Like a lot of Traveller, I just used the "standard" ships as a starting point. CT allowed you to try anything, the skills were just what you were good at. Similarly, for me the standard ships were not the end all of ships in use but just the ones that were especially good at that role. Yes, the Rampart was the primary fighter for the Navy, so had all the launch tubes and supporting equipment standardized across much of the fleet. But there were always other fighters and craft as well. Now, back when I started, pre-internet days, we just drew our own. Now there is a surplus of cool designs and things out there so I pick and choose what I want depending on the "feel" for that game. My own little pocket empire/MTU uses the Space Patrol instead of the Navy, and while I do draw on that source book that does not stop me from having dozens of other ships at the need of plot, or just happen to find a cool looking ship that I want in play for chrome.

And yes, I still draw my own spaceships time to time. Some things just never change

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I bring this up because one of my pet peeves has been with the Rampart "bullet with wings" fighter that's the official "F" for the Imperial Navy.

The Rampart is just a fighter, not The Fighter.

S9 states that the standard Imperial small craft is about 50 Dt, including the heavy fighter detailed therein.

 

[Condottiere]

Fifty tonnes is a legacy volume, reflecting earlier editions' engineering caps.

Also, you got a hardpoint in any event.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Like you, space combat was never a major thing way back then or now. My current gaming group is much more about the characters than the hardware.

Like a lot of Traveller, I just used the "standard" ships as a starting point. CT allowed you to try anything, the skills were just what you were good at. Similarly, for me the standard ships were not the end all of ships in use but just the ones that were especially good at that role. Yes, the Rampart was the primary fighter for the Navy, so had all the launch tubes and supporting equipment standardized across much of the fleet. But there were always other fighters and craft as well. Now, back when I started, pre-internet days, we just drew our own. Now there is a surplus of cool designs and things out there so I pick and choose what I want depending on the "feel" for that game. My own little pocket empire/MTU uses the Space Patrol instead of the Navy, and while I do draw on that source book that does not stop me from having dozens of other ships at the need of plot, or just happen to find a cool looking ship that I want in play for chrome.

And yes, I still draw my own spaceships time to time. Some things just never change

Thanks for that. A few years after I joined this forum back in 2001, there was the whole "Yanks in space" debate as I previously mentioned. Meaning that to some non US players the Imperium seemed to mimic US military structure. But I don't recall either the basic starship design nor High Guard giving out statistics for things like a CVBG or a marine squadron or two based on a carrier having Imperial analogs.

Still, I think it's interesting to explore as a thought exercise. I never saw the Imperium as an RPG mirror of Star Wars or any other media property, but it did have a kind of gestalt from a lot of various things and other fictions to make the Imperium it's own "thing", so to speak.

So, do Imperial marines fly around in the Imperial equivalent of Hornets supporting their assault brethren? It's interesting to think about.

And for me personally, the game was about adventure. In spite of the law enforcement tone, and psychiatric vibe from the races, it's ultimately about your characters writing their own stories. Whether that involves the Imperial equivalent of an F/A-18 (even one engaging a dragon as per my Dragon thread ) is up to the referee.