Unconventional Naval Warfare
- Thread starter belter
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BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Or just a bigger bomb for a bomb pumped laser cluster similar to a BPL missile head only bigger. It is a mine, doesn't have to be reuseable once it has gone off. The problem with missile or gun platforms is they are reuseable. (And not neccessarily by your side.)
Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
IMTU space mine = big det laser missile.
The problem with that is that the game only gives stats for up to 500ktn nukes. Gtn nukes are where it's at, you know. It's not like hydrogen is hard to come by, or like you want to have a kill take more than one hit. A Gtn nuke is a good way to kill a planet's population too, if you're a Black War player.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
A very bad guy.
Someone who throws the Rules of War out of the window. Use of WMD, attacks on civilian population centres, use of terrorism by spec ops teams to weaken morale etc.
Someone who throws the Rules of War out of the window. Use of WMD, attacks on civilian population centres, use of terrorism by spec ops teams to weaken morale etc.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
In other words almost every major player in that whole MT Rebellion thing
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It's also the way the Vilani and the K'kree fight their wars as standard 
How about setting up a system rigged around privateering. Announce right off that you have an elaborate system in place to give refuge, ship repair, and oppurtunities to fense spoil to raiders, to be activated on a given code word. After all "it is, it is a glorious thing, to be a pirate king"
On the subject of black wars, I'd like someone to check my rough math here.
Take a free trader, 200 dTons, roughly spherical in shape. Volume is 2700 m^3, or roughly 11 m in radius, 22 m in diameter.
Now accelerate that free trader towards a planet at 1 G, 9.8 m/s, for 2 hrs. Final speed should be about 70 km/s.
According to one of the Asteroid Impact Calculators, the resulting collision would be equivalent to a 3-25 MTon nuke! (3 MTons if you assume that the free trader is more akin to an icy asteroid, 8 MTons for a rocky, or 25 MTons for an iron asteroid).
If my calculations (and the site) is correct, just your average free trader is a seriously powerful terrorist weapon. A scary concept that I'm kinda glad isn't a normal consideration in the OTU.
Ron
PS: I shudder to think about the calculations for one of my original ideas for this thread (take a far trader way out in the system and accelerate continuously for days/weeks). Btw, the website's maximum collision speed is something like 73 km/s.
Take a free trader, 200 dTons, roughly spherical in shape. Volume is 2700 m^3, or roughly 11 m in radius, 22 m in diameter.
Now accelerate that free trader towards a planet at 1 G, 9.8 m/s, for 2 hrs. Final speed should be about 70 km/s.
According to one of the Asteroid Impact Calculators, the resulting collision would be equivalent to a 3-25 MTon nuke! (3 MTons if you assume that the free trader is more akin to an icy asteroid, 8 MTons for a rocky, or 25 MTons for an iron asteroid).
If my calculations (and the site) is correct, just your average free trader is a seriously powerful terrorist weapon. A scary concept that I'm kinda glad isn't a normal consideration in the OTU.
Ron
PS: I shudder to think about the calculations for one of my original ideas for this thread (take a far trader way out in the system and accelerate continuously for days/weeks). Btw, the website's maximum collision speed is something like 73 km/s.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
And that's what all the billions in planetary defense are for. Any such attempt will result in a nice brief light show far out in space, only those looking in the right place at the right time, and probably with a high power sensor will even notice it.
Now if we're talking some backwater, self-absorbed, fractious little world, like, I don't know, Terra circa 2,004 TY, then yeah you could probably pull of such a stunt, maybe even a couple of times before they knew what was happening. And even then they wouldn't be able to do much about it except plead for mercy and sue for peace.
Now if we're talking some backwater, self-absorbed, fractious little world, like, I don't know, Terra circa 2,004 TY, then yeah you could probably pull of such a stunt, maybe even a couple of times before they knew what was happening. And even then they wouldn't be able to do much about it except plead for mercy and sue for peace.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Choose Mercury as the target, you can up the impact velocity to 115
7-69 MTons for an asteroid/ship hull 22m diameter.
7-69 MTons for an asteroid/ship hull 22m diameter.
Another disruptive tactic could be to use the impact strategy with much larger tonnage vessels to break up moons orbiting other planets in the solar system Maybe even damage other planets enough to change their orbits and ultimately the target planet's orbit, the resulting climactic changes would be very disruptive!
Gentlemen, the topic is on defending against a much larger foe, and the sub-topic appears to be on designing mines and orbital defenses, not on Black War tactics or futuristic terrorism. If you want to talk about that, then say something like "You could issue a discreet threat to your potential invader that you have all these ships set up, ready to go at a moments notice, which would be used to conduct a terror campaign. Just tell them you don't want to be bothered, and they won't have to worry about it." Or something along those lines.
Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
Ah, so your state sponsors terrorism, eh? We must invade immediately for the sake of interstellar peace and security...
Ran Targas
SOC-14 1K
As background: My alternate TU is a cross between Star Wars (ANH/ESB) and CT. My PC's are Rebels fighting to overthrow the dreaded Empire of Man and restore freedom and democracy.
One of the many obstacles they have faced is a radical arm of their own Rebel Alliance who has been turning the Empire's tools of war against it. Bio and chem weapons are a favorite. The problem is these radicals are responsible for huge numbers of civilians casualties and are making the real Rebels very unpopular. One campaign consisted of tracking down and eliminating these radicals.
Some of the radical tactics:
1. Diving 10kT freighters into Imperial facilities (with drives at full burn)
2. Dumping the anthrax equivalent into atmospheric processors of a habitation satellite
3. Detonating a ship's fusion reactor inside a dome city
4. Lots of speeder bombs
5. Destroying food supplies on a remote outpost
6. Sabotaging the power generators on a highport
7. Destroying the control systems on a space liner
Depending on the moral stance of your particular pocket empire, all these could be considered viable activities for Spec Ops.
Something these activities taught my PC's the importance of PR in any fight; old friends can become enemies very quickly when tragedy strikes their family.
One of the many obstacles they have faced is a radical arm of their own Rebel Alliance who has been turning the Empire's tools of war against it. Bio and chem weapons are a favorite. The problem is these radicals are responsible for huge numbers of civilians casualties and are making the real Rebels very unpopular. One campaign consisted of tracking down and eliminating these radicals.
Some of the radical tactics:
1. Diving 10kT freighters into Imperial facilities (with drives at full burn)
2. Dumping the anthrax equivalent into atmospheric processors of a habitation satellite
3. Detonating a ship's fusion reactor inside a dome city
4. Lots of speeder bombs
5. Destroying food supplies on a remote outpost
6. Sabotaging the power generators on a highport
7. Destroying the control systems on a space liner
Depending on the moral stance of your particular pocket empire, all these could be considered viable activities for Spec Ops.
Something these activities taught my PC's the importance of PR in any fight; old friends can become enemies very quickly when tragedy strikes their family.
While the poor little planet is getting ready to defend itself, what is the big nasty stellar empire next door doing with that six months? An empire of that size should have a naval staff capable of organizing an invasion without giving six months of lead time to the target. If the empire gave the target planet that kind of notice, it's security is badly flawed or it had a viable reason to give notice. The big bad empire would have several things going on to make conquest as easy and cheap as possible. They would infiltrate teams to begin;
Psi Ops
Black Ops
Scouting for deep meson sites and sensors
Sabotage
Election fiddling
Plague spreading
Spreading corrupting TriDee shows
Broadcast evil music to turn kids away from their parents
"Insert creative disruptive influence here"
After six months of infiltration operations, the little target planet should be begging the big bad empire to save them from theri horrible rulers.
Psi Ops
Black Ops
Scouting for deep meson sites and sensors
Sabotage
Election fiddling
Plague spreading
Spreading corrupting TriDee shows
Broadcast evil music to turn kids away from their parents
"Insert creative disruptive influence here"
After six months of infiltration operations, the little target planet should be begging the big bad empire to save them from theri horrible rulers.
vegascat wrote:
"An empire of that size should have a naval staff capable of organizing an invasion without giving six months of lead time to the target . . . The big bad empire would have several things going on to make conquest as easy and cheap as possible. They would infiltrate teams to begin . . ."
The size of an empire won't dictate its ability to prevent successful penetrations by foreign intel services. I agree that an empire will keep its secrets most of the time but there are times when secrets do get out. The Cold War is full of several such occasions where disgruntled individuals, seduced Marines, and others passed on important classified materials.
Furthermore, the purpose of this forum is to explore unconventional naval warfare and to see how far the rules can be pushed to defeat or punish a superior foe.
I agree that an invader would infiltrate the target empire and conduct spec ops, etc. On page 2 I wrote:
"If a pocket empire has so many ways to turn itself into a poison pill a smart potential invader would prep the PE by implementing its own massive psyops / spec ops plan to critically weaken its resolve and ability to resist an invasion before sending in the fleet. A strictly conventional naval invasion would be leaving too much to chance.
It would be interesting to model this aspect of a conflict in a fleet combat game."
I think everyone who has responded has contributed to a thorough overview of the subject of unconventional naval warfare.
"An empire of that size should have a naval staff capable of organizing an invasion without giving six months of lead time to the target . . . The big bad empire would have several things going on to make conquest as easy and cheap as possible. They would infiltrate teams to begin . . ."
The size of an empire won't dictate its ability to prevent successful penetrations by foreign intel services. I agree that an empire will keep its secrets most of the time but there are times when secrets do get out. The Cold War is full of several such occasions where disgruntled individuals, seduced Marines, and others passed on important classified materials.
Furthermore, the purpose of this forum is to explore unconventional naval warfare and to see how far the rules can be pushed to defeat or punish a superior foe.
I agree that an invader would infiltrate the target empire and conduct spec ops, etc. On page 2 I wrote:
"If a pocket empire has so many ways to turn itself into a poison pill a smart potential invader would prep the PE by implementing its own massive psyops / spec ops plan to critically weaken its resolve and ability to resist an invasion before sending in the fleet. A strictly conventional naval invasion would be leaving too much to chance.
It would be interesting to model this aspect of a conflict in a fleet combat game."
I think everyone who has responded has contributed to a thorough overview of the subject of unconventional naval warfare.
