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Ad Astra! ... an Aurora Forum Game, run by blue emu

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Few assistant prowl around the lab mindin their business, you can hardly hear anybody doing anything, only little chatting every now and then. Too few teams working now, of course the positive side is that I can use more of my time to real reseach rather than coordinating teams... not to mention that how horrible it would be if I would be assinged from project to project on moments whim.. would get even less done that way.

Just waiting for day when our glorious leader decides that we are needed again and we can prove the value of sield research!

-Dr. Tuominen

(latest update from few pages back, difference is that Bo Mosberg is already researchign next level engine, of course other projects have advance somewhat as well)
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Nabobalis said:
If I'm honest, I don't think that plan will work. I think in order to hit anything you need an active sensor "lock" even if you blind fire into the same spot as a ship or PDC.
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The upper stage warhead has sensors.
 
After jumping to the Ross 248 system to take themselves beyond the range of Earth's Deep Space Surveillance Network, the Combined Fleet orbits and scans the nearest non-habitable planet. No sign of life. Good. This junk planet will be used to represent the "hypothetical enemy world" in our fleet exercise.

We place a way-point directly on the planet by selecting the planet itself and then clicking "Last" in the way-points menu. The way-point appears on the target planet, and moves with it in its orbit around the sun. Excellent... that's the first necessary step in our attack profile, confirmed.

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We now back off about 100 m-km into deep space, and load the first two test rounds... Test Round #1 is just a size-1 missile, with its engine, fuel tankage and guidance altered to give it a range of 100 m-km at slow speed instead of the usual 6 m-km at high speed. Test Round #2 is quite similar, but with an even weaker engine in order to allow enough displacement for a set of short-range homing sensors. The flagship ESN John Paul Jones will fire these first two test rounds from her size-1 PD missile launchers.

The missiles launch successfully at the way-point 100 m-km distant... far outside sensor range, so another potential snag is overcome... and start running out to range. The first long-range round will require more than an hour and ten minutes to run 100 m-km, the second round, with an even weaker engine, will require over an hour and a half.

Both missiles successfully pass our maximum fire control range without self-destructing, so yet another potential snag in the attack profile does not materialize.

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Even the test phases in this game are tense. :p
 
The first test missile impacts the way-point, and with no sensors it just hovers there until it runs out of fuel and is removed. A successful test.

The second missile follows it in, impacts the way-point, finds no target for its active sensors, and again hovers at the way-point searching for targets until it runs out of fuel. Another successful test.

Now only the successful deployment of the upper stage of multi-stage missiles remains to be tested.
 
The Mine-Layer ESNM Iguana fires a size-36 MIRV Cruise missile at the way-point on the planet. This missile travels at low speed... it will require nearly three hours to cross the 100 m-km to the planet... but packs an awesome punch of two size-36 warheads.

The attack plan is for the size-36 MIRV Cruise missiles to strip the armor off the enemy PDC, after which the follow-up shots with size-36 Cluster Bomb Cruise missiles will wreak havoc on the unprotected internals of the PDC, with eight size-4 warheads.

After the size-36 MIRV Cruise missile has run part of the way down-range, a single size-36 Cluster Bomb Cruise missile is launched to follow it in.
 
Hours later, the Cruise Missiles approach their designated target:

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The size-36 MIRV missile impacts the way-point and...

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... successfully deploys its upper stage!

Every aspect of the attack profile has been successfully tested! The fleet offers its warm congratulations to our team of missile scientists, and shapes course for the jump point back to Sol.
 
Now we just have to hope that the planetary defense complex can't kill us from 100 m-km away... because we now know that we CAN kill it from that distance... after running it out of PD defense, of course.
 
Excellent news!
 
Based on the results of our troop-trials of the new weapons, we have designed a modified version of the size-36 MIRV Cruise missile, with a somewhat smaller bang (2 x strength-25 instead of 2 x strength-36) but with a more powerful engine, more fuel and better sensors; giving it a better ability to track and follow its targets. The concern addressed by this change is the possibility that, after the upper stage deploys the warheads, the planet's orbital motion around its sun might carry it beyond sensor range, leaving the powerful warheads with no target at the very last moment. The modifications now being made should rule out this possibility.

A short production series of the Mark-2 versions is now underway.
 
blue emu said:
Now we just have to hope that the planetary defense complex can't kill us from 100 m-km away... because we now know that we CAN kill it from that distance... after running it out of PD defense, of course.
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Do we even know if the planet do have any defense complex for sure?
 
Lord Martin said:
Do we even know if the planet do have any defense complex for sure?
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No... but there is a field of seven wrecks in orbit around the planet, so we have good reason to suspect that it is defended.

I consider the wreckage-field to be "not proof positive, but good circumstantial evidence"... like finding a trout in the milk.
 
blue emu said:
No... but there is a field of seven wrecks in orbit around the planet, so we have good reason to suspect that it is defended.

I consider the wreckage-field to be "not proof positive, but good circumstantial evidence"... like finding a trout in the milk.
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What is that suppoused to mean ? Are rations is going to be cut again ?
 
Edzako said:
What is that suppoused to mean ? Are rations is going to be cut again ?
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Finding a trout in the milk is "good circumstantial evidence" that the farmer has been watering-down the milk, in order to, in effect, sell the same milk to two different customers.

The fleet is headed back to Earth for R&R. Rations should not be a problem.
 
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There is a very real chance that the crews will face short rations in the second Wolf 294 expedition... it will probably take the salvage ships MONTHS (quite literally) to dismantle all those wrecks, and the fleet will have to remain on-station for all that time, being refueled by relays of Tankers.
 
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