How big is that jump drive on the ESN Agincourt? A proper tender might allow it to have a small jump engine and more weapons.
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First off, congratulations on that battle - "the longest day" would be a good name for it!
1. Heavy armor seems to be an interesting choice. Not sure if the meson beams that were discussed change this. I second Guillaume HJ with the armored fighter suggestion but would suggest a slightly different option. A fleet of small vessels with heavy armor, high radiation and active scanners flying in front of the fleet and soaking up missiles may prove valuable. I may not even need weapons.
2. Tactics. We did not use our heavy artillery ("mine layers"), which is a shame. They should be closer to the main fleet. I can't quite remember if the unfortunate tactical situation was due to the larger than expected number of prix ships, or if it was planned that way.
touché and QFT
1. Heavy armor seems to be an interesting choice. Not sure if the meson beams that were discussed change this. I second Guillaume HJ with the armored fighter suggestion but would suggest a slightly different option. A fleet of small vessels with heavy armor, high radiation and active scanners flying in front of the fleet and soaking up missiles may prove valuable. I may not even need weapons.
2. Tactics. We did not use our heavy artillery ("mine layers"), which is a shame. They should be closer to the main fleet. I can't quite remember if the unfortunate tactical situation was due to the larger than expected number of prix ships, or if it was planned that way.
The biggest problem was how slow they were. I assume they were kept separate as not to slow the entire Battle Fleet down to an unaccpetable level but they do need to find a way to get into the battle, they are a rather large waste of resources if they aren't shooting at things.
I think this happen because prix jamming made all ranges much shorter than initially thought, and the initial spacing between the minelayers and mainfleet was based on the "unjammed" range.
Today the Staff were inexplicably unruly. They were even drinking at work and having a party. Asked why they werent working one of the staff answered something about a victory over the prick.
I do not tolerate being insulted by the staff so the Staff in question has now voluntered to be employed as a ION drive.
I am no prick!
I do not tolerate being insulted by the staff so the Staff in question has now voluntered to be employed as a ION drive.
I am no prick!
Are there any plans to go and salvage the wrecks considering there technological advantages, or has it been deemed too risky?
I think the lesson here is that ships that are slower than the design speed of the main battle line are useless in a running battle because actual combat are too rapid for them to catch up. If we intend mine layers to be an integral part of the Combined Fleet we should design a faster Fleet Mine Layer that can keep up with the rest of the ships
Which reminds me: ECCM research. We need it badly. The Prix ECM cut our effective ranges by almost half if I recall the numbers properly. If that had not been the case, we could have crippled the Temujin-class chasers before they ever came close to our Rocks, and we would have gotten off a much larger alpha-strike from our fighters during the inital attack run, when our fleet was forced to run the gauntlet without even being able to return fire.
Last I heard, there are plans to repair, rearm, reinforce and return. There were several battle wrecks BEFORE we got there, and we just added eight new Prix wreck to be salvaged, too.
Too valuable to pass up, really, and it would make the entire nerve-wrecking operation pointless if we didn't.
We should rethink our use of CIWS system.
Massed CIWS proved very successful on the rocks. But Agincourt showed that single or dual CIWS is easily overwhelmed by incomming missles.
I would suggest to replace the CIWS with a single turreted gauss cannon on every ship as new "CIWS" system for the fleet.
Massed CIWS proved very successful on the rocks. But Agincourt showed that single or dual CIWS is easily overwhelmed by incomming missles.
I would suggest to replace the CIWS with a single turreted gauss cannon on every ship as new "CIWS" system for the fleet.
it was not really overwhelmed, the missles where just to fast, it's pure luck to hit anything at this speed..
We would still need something that can jump the Carriers in and out. That requires two things: a Military-grade jump drive (a Commercial drive won't work), and MASS... you cannot make an assisted jump with a smaller tender. It must equal or exceed your own mass.
A few of my own comments:
1) Pre-battle intel : a total, disgraceful failure. We would never have attempted that mission had we known in advance that nine Prix ships were waiting for us. We were very lucky to even extract a few survivors from that debacle, let alone to totally crush the Prix force and sail triumphantly back home without losing anything larger than a Fighter. By rights, we should have lost our entire fleet. We desperately need better pre-battle intel, whether it is a purpose-built Recon Ship, a military-grade sensor-equipped Rock, a Drone, a two-stage missile with powerful sensors on the upper stage, or whatever.
2) The Rocks : worked brilliantly, and would have worked even better if I had used them to best advantage, by positioning them further forward. When we entered that system, the Rocks were one of those crazy ideas that just might work. They are now proven technology, and we can include them in our future plans and future fleet engagements. Being Commercial vessels, they can be built quickly (our Commercial yards are much larger than our Military yards, up to 98,000 tons vs up to 15,000 tons), require no maintenance or overhauls, and do not compete with our warships for Military-grade slipways. Even so, it seems worth thinking about designing a Military version of the Rock so that it can be equipped with powerful sensors and/or a weapon or two.
3) The Fighters : got massacred, but even so they saved our asses. Not one of our ships would have escaped if our Fighters had not soaked up those fifty salvos of nineteen missiles each. That's nearly ONE THOUSAND missiles that our warships didn't have to absorb, and there's no possible way our PD defense could have stopped them. Those AMMs were moving at 23% of light-speed, with 19 per salvo... they couldn't possibly be stopped, only absorbed, and by tremendous good luck, they were absorbed by the only truly expendable or quickly replaceable parts of our force: the Rocks and the Fighters. It also should not be forgotten that one of the Fighters (Iche Bins) killed a damaged Prix Cruiser. It is certainly worth replacing our Fighter losses and bringing the Squadrons back up to strength.
4) The Mine-Layers : this hardly requires comment. They are way, way too slow to work successfully with the fleet; and this lack of speed handicapped us throughout the battle. We spent the entire 2-hour engagement trying to draw the Prix within range of our Boomers, and only succeeded in the final few minutes... by which time, I was sure that we were going to win the engagement, and decided to save their shots anyway in case that big bastard came back. No doubt the Mine-Layers are useful enough in their designed role (as Mine-Layers, Buoy-tenders and Ammunition Ships), but they were a failure in a general fleet engagement. However, their poor speed is their only obvious drawback, and that can be fixed by tech advance.
And for the conduct of the battle itself...
5) Pre-battle dispositions : I screwed up. Through impatience, I allowed too large a gap to develop between the Battle Fleet and the Mine-Layers, and this flaw in our dispositions was not remedied until the battle was virtually over. I also failed to position the Rocks far enough in advance of the fleet, probably because they were still at that time an untested concept and I didn't want to risk having them cut off from the support of our Battle Fleet. Now that we have confidence in them, we will use them more aggressively, and make better use of their ability to absorb punishment.
6) The actual hands-on conduct of the battle; fire and movement : Here, at least, I feel that I made no obvious tactical mistakes. I think I handled the actual Fleet engagement pretty damned well... each decision on holding course or turning away, target selection, firing and cease-firing, whether to use full fleet salvos, half-salvos or individual ships... I don't feel that I wasted many missiles (perhaps none at all), and we simply couldn't AFFORD to waste any; we returned with our magazines almost empty as it was.
My 2 cents analysis:
what worked well,
1) Rocks concept worked well, but they were to close to the main battle fleet and only two of them (well actually you wasn't expecting to face 9-10 enemy ships neither)
Maybe 16 layers of armour is too much and you can do with 10, also CIWS weren't that much effective and they soak huge space
2) Standardized missile's-size was a big asset, maybe the one that finally give you victory
3) AMM and ASM provided sufficent performance when finally you could use them
4) Having the fighters sponge enemy ASM was providential even if unintended
what mistakes were made,
5) Entering an enemy controlled system without a proper, deep reconaissance beforehand was your main mistake
6) Having only 1 jump-support ship able to assist your most valuable ones (the carriers)
the most dangerous potentially
7) Not having ammunition tender with your main fleet could be fatal too
what design flaws were revealed,
8) The mine-layers were definetly too slow, more a burden then an asset thus
suggestions,
9) Need two fast scout class, 7500 km/s is possible with Ion-engine, carrying huge (size 10 or more) active sensor one and huge (size 10 or more) passive sensor the second
10) Recon-drones (active sensors) and decoys-drones are both needed; fasters mine-layers too of course
11) ECM & ECCM is a must, even 1 or 2 levels, they are game changer sometimes
12) You could design your ships with slightly less weapons but better speed (5000 km/s) and some more armour and shields. Surviving come first.( I've got mine like this but I don't want bother you with, if you wish to see them I'll post in the general aurora thread)
13) You need a middle layer PD turret, gauss cannon, small laser or meson, whatever you can better achive with your techs.
FINALLY your sang froid and your leadership were the decisive factor
Best regards
EDIT: oh well, totally Emu'ed
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Concur on investigating the design of a military-grade Rock-class with active sensor - as I noted earlier, this allow us to both switch active sensors on from the start, and keep the battlefleet running in sensor stealth.
Ok, I concur with most suggestions, with some alternative and perhaps refined ideas...
First, the scouting..
How about 'sacrificing' one carrier to carry few wings of fast 'fighters' with only sensors on them, to advance ahead of the fleet once in system, after all, we clearly can't really sneak up on anyone with this tech disparity. (Might be micromanagement hell [well, in this game, duh] but I think coverage would be greatly better than single ship with a strong single sensor...)
Second, rocks, as pilot of one, yes, the incoming enemy fire seemed to jump off us the moment they got something else in range, not a minor feat this, as long as they keep shooting at us, we are happy...
...But, perhaps, we should stagger the rock formation, so that no single ship would remain as target for long, sort of like
scouts <--- 50m km --->2 rocks <--- 500k km ---> rock <--- 500k km ---> rock <--- 500k km ---> fleet (pick your distances of course, I'm not that clear on 'how much ahead' you'd like them) and possibly keep the rocks out of 'direct line' as well, to show what the enemy is shooting at/running towards earlier.
Now I'm not sure about these design suggestions, people want more armor, more speed...
...can't have both, or we end up practically unarmed, it's either or...
And in the end, the weapon heavy approach worked fine, did it not? We were practically ambushed, and still came out on top. The next engine tech past ion is quite expensive to research, but well worth it, so if we have some decent PP researcher now, consider pushing that some time soon'ish.
Edit: so as I now command one of the two biggest 'military' vessels, when do you plan to build us new bigger ones, preferably with more guns?
First, the scouting..
How about 'sacrificing' one carrier to carry few wings of fast 'fighters' with only sensors on them, to advance ahead of the fleet once in system, after all, we clearly can't really sneak up on anyone with this tech disparity. (Might be micromanagement hell [well, in this game, duh] but I think coverage would be greatly better than single ship with a strong single sensor...)
Second, rocks, as pilot of one, yes, the incoming enemy fire seemed to jump off us the moment they got something else in range, not a minor feat this, as long as they keep shooting at us, we are happy...
...But, perhaps, we should stagger the rock formation, so that no single ship would remain as target for long, sort of like
scouts <--- 50m km --->2 rocks <--- 500k km ---> rock <--- 500k km ---> rock <--- 500k km ---> fleet (pick your distances of course, I'm not that clear on 'how much ahead' you'd like them) and possibly keep the rocks out of 'direct line' as well, to show what the enemy is shooting at/running towards earlier.
Now I'm not sure about these design suggestions, people want more armor, more speed...
...can't have both, or we end up practically unarmed, it's either or...
And in the end, the weapon heavy approach worked fine, did it not? We were practically ambushed, and still came out on top. The next engine tech past ion is quite expensive to research, but well worth it, so if we have some decent PP researcher now, consider pushing that some time soon'ish.
Edit: so as I now command one of the two biggest 'military' vessels, when do you plan to build us new bigger ones, preferably with more guns?
I concur on the ECCM / ECM / sensor / fire control upgrades. Next: Missiles, and running out of them. We need a missile carrier; had our carriers not lost its fighter force, we would have been dry really early. And it ought to be a fighting vessel, with decent armour to fly with the main battle group and restock on the go.
That's not my analysis.
The full sequence of event is this.
1. Enemy fire several salvoes on Rock-A.
2. Enemy fire several salvoes on Rock-B
3. Enemy fire several salvoes on Agincourt/fighters
4. Enemy run out of ammo.
5. Salvoes begin to hit Rock A
6. Salvoes begin to hit Rock B.
7. Salvoes begin to hit other targets.
My best reading of the situation is that the enemy chronically underestimate how many missiles they need to take out the Rocks, thus fire what they deem sufficient for a "first strike", then switch target (since they think enough missiles have been fired). By the time Rock-A gets hit, they have run out of missiles already firing on other targets.