Cold War Comments Thread

[Kurt (OP)]

The map made things a lot clearer for me. before looking at it I thought the DeBringi fleet was retreating towards the Rehorish fleet , not as in the actual position where the Human fleet is between them.
I wonder if once the Humans have chased the DeBringi through a WP would they be better off doubling back and trying to catch the Rehorish fleet and force it to battle in Volvograd or Moskva with the Coalition force from Epsilon Eridani sneaking in behind it and laying some DSB-L on its retreat path to pin it in place for the Human fleet to force an engagment

The Rehorish have been stalled in the Soviet colonial territories for a while, by closed warp points.  The USSR/Coalition alliance has no current info on the Rehorish advance, because the Rehorish control all of the colonies in the colonial territories, or at least have cut them off from the home system, and, once the Soviets lost control of the Moskva system, they were reluctant to send scouts out to the area that might just lead the Rehorish back into the inner system.  The human fleet commanders are trying to figure out what to do right now. 

The Soviets want to force the warp point from Moskva to Leningrad, even if it means assaulting the D'Bringi fleet, because they want to free what's left of the Russian Home Fleet, which retreated to the Brezhnev system.  The Coalition really doesn't want to assault the warp point, at least not till the Rehorish fleet has been dealt with, because they fear the inevitable losses that would go with the assault would weaken the combined fleets to the point they couldn't deal with the Rehorish, of which very little is known.  The Coalition would prefer to fortify the warp point in Moskva with DSB-L's, perhaps with a few ships left in support, and then deal with the Rehorish.  However, that strategy is inherently risky.  If the Rehorish fleet is three or four jumps away, in the Soviet colonial territories, then moving that far away from the inner systems would leave the Solar system open to assault if the D'Bringi break through the defenses on the warp point from Moskva to Leningrad.  Or, possibly worse, even if the D'Bringi didn't assault the Sol System, they could cut the human fleets off from their main source of supply. 

This is not the position either fleet commander wanted to be in, but here we are.  Interestingly, the D'Bringi-Rehorish fleet commanders are unhappy as well.  The D'Bringi have been forced out of the Moskva system by a superior fleet, and it isn't clear how they will be able to return.  And, their communications line to the Rehorish fleet is very long, making coordinating actions difficult.  The Rehorish fleet commander's advance has been stalled by the fact that they can't find the route to the inner systems to join up with the D'Bringi, and has contemplated making the long trip back to their home system, then through D'Bringi space, to join the D'Bringi fleet, but that has issues as well. 

[Kurt (OP)]

Without knowing how mines work, I assume the D’Bringi have mined every jump point heading back towards their home systems so the Human fleets could be suffering some significant damage after each jump.
Also the D’Bringi have a bit of an emphasis on beam weapons, will that help them defending against a jump point assault?
Would the combined effects of the mines and beams be able to even out the tonnage difference?

It would be a reasonable assumption that the D'Bringi have mined all of the jumps heading back towards their home system.  Certainly the humans would have to expect that, however, whether the D'Bringi have that many mines is another question.  There is a hard to resist impulse to concentrate mines forward, at the point of contact, and the humans have no way of knowing at this point what the D'Bringi have done. 

Mines are the only weapon in the game that attacks during the movement phase.  Basically, if a ship or ships move into the same hex as a minefield, they are then attacked by a percentage of the mines present, based on the size of the ship.  If the ships have long ranged scanners and point defense they can defend themselves fairly well, if they don't have long-range scanners then it is more difficult to mount a defense.  If there are enough mines in the hex, then the minefield can easily destroy even large ships.  Mines cannot be placed in the same hex as a warp point, unless it is a closed warp point, but they can be placed in the six hexes that surround a warp point, and commonly are. 

The strategies for dealing with minefields typically involve saturating the minefield with enough targets to disperse its fire among numerous targets, and using minesweepers, which are ships with long-range scanners, enough point defense to deal with the maximum sized salvo for that class of ship, and then heavy armor and some beam weapons, which can sweep some of the remaining mines after they attack. 

The D'Bringi fleet is primarily beam-armed, with some missile ships in support, which is the opposite of the human fleets, which are primarily missile armed, with some beam or other short or medium ranged ships in support.  Coupled with mines it definitely could make a big difference.  How much of a difference I don't know.  Under the rules, approximately 30% of the defending fleet is active at the start of a warp point assault, and the defender has to roll to activate his ships going forward.  This means that only a little bit less than one in three ships is ready to fire on the first turn.  This is balanced out by the attacker's difficulties, primarily that he can only force so many ships through the warp point, and on the first turn of transit the newly arrived ships suffer heavy penalties to their to-hit rolls. 

All of this adds up to a big fat "I don't know" what would happen if the humans assault the warp point, but I do know that it would be bloody and almost certainly they would suffer heavy losses.  And the human fleet commanders know that too. 

Kurt

[Kurt (OP)]

That makes the assumption that the D'Bringi brought freighters and freighters full of mines - they were an offensive fleet, that now has to retreat, so I doubt they're carrying so many mines with them to allow them to mine the hell out of warp points.

That said, if they do have enough to mine one heavily, it might be in their interests to form an ambush as Migi suggests and give it a whirl.

The D'Bringi don't want to retreat any further than they have to, as they still hope to join up with the Rehorish fleet.  That's what this recent scout action as all about.  The Rehorish were unable to find the route to the inner system from their side, but the D'Bringi may have found it from their side.  Maybe.  The key to the D'Bringi-Rehorish alliance's entire strategy was linking up in the human's inner systems and then overwhelming whatever defenses and remaining fleet elements the Soviets had.  Now that the Coalition is in the war, linking up has become even more important. 

[Starslayer_D]

Warp point assaults against strong defenses are defenitely a science of their own. At least untill the universal sweeper broom of SBMHAWKs comes along. One reasons why I am not building many of those so far in the Theban campaign, they make it relatively cheap to deal with fixed defenses.
Specialised assault ships wich can endure the defenders fire and pile up in numbers untill their usually weaker armaments (compared to their massive defenses) are strong enogh to whittle down the defenders under fire seem a way to go. We kinda stopped the previous campaign when the machine race lead the assault with 72 SDs, all having over 120 pts of passive defenses at TL 10. Battles became too big simply.
Though the bugs have their own versions of dealing with them, with cheaper throw-away ships and gunboats. Or not... at least one armored WP probe brick was taken out by ADMs recently.  Ouch.

[misanthropope]

the D'T' combined fleet doesn't look to have the mass needed to gain much advantage from the choke point.  unless i'm misremembering 3rd ed activation rules, it looks like the humans could push hull spaces through faster than the aliens could activate units.  given grade and the fleet doctrines involved, it's probably better for the aliens than a high space battle, but i don't think they can really gain a favorable exchange let alone hope to hold. 

in the only really successful campaign i ever ran (4th ed) i combined mild force-reduction measures with a heavily revised WP system.  empires of any size that came into contact, tended to develop quite a few points of contact quite quickly.  preventing people from stacking their entire navies in one tactical hex was good in a lot of ways.

[Kurt (OP)]

the D'T' combined fleet doesn't look to have the mass needed to gain much advantage from the choke point.  unless i'm misremembering 3rd ed activation rules, it looks like the humans could push hull spaces through faster than the aliens could activate units.  given grade and the fleet doctrines involved, it's probably better for the aliens than a high space battle, but i don't think they can really gain a favorable exchange let alone hope to hold. 

in the only really successful campaign i ever ran (4th ed) i combined mild force-reduction measures with a heavily revised WP system.  empires of any size that came into contact, tended to develop quite a few points of contact quite quickly.  preventing people from stacking their entire navies in one tactical hex was good in a lot of ways.

The Russians and the Coalition have exactly no experience in WP assaults, and are reluctant to push too hard out of fear of suffering losses that can't be made up quickly.  They also fear that the D'Bringi/T'Pau fleet is more experienced than their fleet, which would allow them to activate ships quicker.  And, finally, the D'Bringi and T'Pau fleet is optimized for short-range combat, supported by some long range combatants, while the human fleets are the opposite, optimized for medium to long range combat.  In a warp point assault the defenders get to choose the range, at least at first, which gives the short-ranged ships of the aliens a big advantage. 

If the humans ever manage to push the alien forces back, then the nature of the war will change.  Right now, everything is concentrated in and around the Moskva system, which is a chokepoint.  Once the fighting moves away from that system, both sides will be forced to disperse their fleets, at least somewhat.  Who that will favor is an open question, at this point. 

Kurt

[Kurt (OP)]

Warp point assaults against strong defenses are defenitely a science of their own. At least untill the universal sweeper broom of SBMHAWKs comes along. One reasons why I am not building many of those so far in the Theban campaign, they make it relatively cheap to deal with fixed defenses.
Specialised assault ships wich can endure the defenders fire and pile up in numbers untill their usually weaker armaments (compared to their massive defenses) are strong enogh to whittle down the defenders under fire seem a way to go. We kinda stopped the previous campaign when the machine race lead the assault with 72 SDs, all having over 120 pts of passive defenses at TL 10. Battles became too big simply.
Though the bugs have their own versions of dealing with them, with cheaper throw-away ships and gunboats. Or not... at least one armored WP probe brick was taken out by ADMs recently.  Ouch.

Really, this war has been eye-opening for both sides, revealing weaknesses in their capabilities that they hadn't previously suspected.  For example, the alien factions have realized their weakness in the area of long-range communications, as it takes months for messages to go from the Rehorish fleets to the D'Bringi fleets, unless and until they are able to link up.  An ICN would alleviate most of that problem, but neither side had deployed one prior to the war.  Another example is forward repair capability.  None of the alien races had built ships capable of repairing their forward deployed units, meaning that they had to travel back to the home system to be repaired, a trip that might take months if their engines were damaged.  Also, none of the alien races had munitions ships available to support their fleets.  These inadequacies were due to the fact that for the most part their fleets were intended for primarily defensive duties, not a large scale offensive war.  The humans suffer from similar problems, although it hasn't affected them as much because of the way the war has gone against them to date. 

A lot of lessons will be learned during this war, but who will be left to implement changes is another question. 

Kurt

[Migi]

So the human fleet got a bit of a bloody nose from that encounter, I'm guessing they don't want to try and force the point after this.

The question for the D'Bringi is whether to hold position and try to get more engagements like this or to keep running for repairs and safety.

At least the humans can get all their damaged ships sent back for repairs.

[Kurt (OP)]

So the human fleet got a bit of a bloody nose from that encounter, I'm guessing they don't want to try and force the point after this.

The question for the D'Bringi is whether to hold position and try to get more engagements like this or to keep running for repairs and safety.

At least the humans can get all their damaged ships sent back for repairs.

The humans will send back any ships with internal damage, but for now are holding on to ships with only armor damage, out of a desire to keep their numbers up. 

The D'Bringi are now able to retreat to their closed warp point with little fear of being followed, at least for a time, but they hope that their scouts will enable the Rehorish fleet to finally breakthrough to the Moskva system, and if they retreat, then the Rehorish will be left facing the Coalition and USSR fleets alone. 

Kurt

[misanthropope]

i've been thinking about the whole nicely-complicated political situation on both sides.  I really think the coalition ought to start sandbagging hard at this point.  if the border freezes at moskva-leningrad, i think that serves the coalition perfectly.  you have the d'bringi threat to keep the russians friendly, you've restored enough of the russian economy to make them much more effective, you've left them short of their high-water mark (meaning, firmly the junior partner).  let the war stagnate til other points of contact are found, meanwhile be your bad american selves and leave the d'bringi and russians in the dust with your economic expansion.

[Kurt (OP)]

i've been thinking about the whole nicely-complicated political situation on both sides.  I really think the coalition ought to start sandbagging hard at this point.  if the border freezes at moskva-leningrad, i think that serves the coalition perfectly.  you have the d'bringi threat to keep the russians friendly, you've restored enough of the russian economy to make them much more effective, you've left them short of their high-water mark (meaning, firmly the junior partner).  let the war stagnate til other points of contact are found, meanwhile be your bad american selves and leave the d'bringi and russians in the dust with your economic expansion.

You're not wrong.  The Coalition would be perfectly happy to halt at the warp point from Moskva to Leningrad and fortify there.  After all, there are at least two undiscovered closed warp points to D'Bringi space in Leningrad and the other two systems beyond, making the entire warp chain a huge security risk.  Plus, none of those three systems have a habitable planet, meaning there is no real reason to fortify those systems instead of Moskva. And, finally, its a closed warp chain, with no other open warp points to exploit. 

The Russians, on the other hand, will push hard to reach the Brezhnev system, on the far side of the Leningrad system, to reach what remains of their Home Fleet.  The Soviet high command agrees that as long as the location of the closed warp points remains unknown the security situation in that area is untenable, but has instead proposed evacuating the Brezhnev system in its entirety, and withdrawing back to Moskva and then fortifying the warp point from Moskva to Leningrad. 

With the Rehorish fleet now able to move into the inner systems, this question has become somewhat moot, as the combined fleets will now have to turn to face the Rehorish and try to prevent them from reaching and joining with the D'Bringi fleet. 

You have correctly identified the main division between the USSR and the Coalition, though.  The Coalition's main goal is to push the aliens away from the home system and conclude the war on terms favorable to humanity, preferably without heavy fighting.  Heavy losses are anathema to the Coalition, as the leadership fears public support eroding if they suffer heavy losses in what was, for them at least, a war of choice.  The USSR's goals are to regain the Home Fleet in Brezhnev, then remove the Rehorish from their colonial territories, and finally, to push the aliens back to their home planets and conquer them, enriching the Soviet Union and ensuring that they never threaten the homeland again. 

[Starslayer_D]

Point of interrest, are you using the supply network rules in Starfire Assistant, Kurt?
Those have so far been the biggets trouble for long, sweeping offensives, as being short by even 1 MCr damages evers ship in tze fleet, as SA rolls on every system of every ship whether it gets destroyed by a lack of maintennace. Even if for the whole fleet only a fraction should have been out of supply. 4 jumps out from a habitable world you own usually is the point where you better have a lot of MCr in your holds of your fleet to linger for a longer time.
And I've not yet spotted a supply freighter or three in your fleets.

[Kurt (OP)]

Point of interrest, are you using the supply network rules in Starfire Assistant, Kurt?
Those have so far been the biggets trouble for long, sweeping offensives, as being short by even 1 MCr damages evers ship in tze fleet, as SA rolls on every system of every ship whether it gets destroyed by a lack of maintennace. Even if for the whole fleet only a fraction should have been out of supply. 4 jumps out from a habitable world you own usually is the point where you better have a lot of MCr in your holds of your fleet to linger for a longer time.
And I've not yet spotted a supply freighter or three in your fleets.

No, I'm not.  I used the rules with the Phoenix Campaign, but I couldn't remember how they worked and so decided not to use them for this campaign.  I might turn them on at some point, because I'm kind of remembering as I go. 

Kurt

[Migi]

Do the humans have any forewarning of the Rehorish advance, are there any scouts or forward units out in that direction?

Also what made the Rehorish think that they would find a link to human space, in Aurora that would be incredibly unlikely? Are warp point destinations chosen differently in Starfire or was this done in service of the narrative?

[Starslayer_D]

well, they were contacted 'from' human space. And warplines go both ways, even though closed warppoints make it hard.