Posted by: NihilRex
« on: April 10, 2014, 06:49:07 PM »The Naval Board finally released the results of their inquiry into the Lacaille incident. CBG Enterprise entered the system and proceeded according to established protocol, heading for the inner system, while launching survey parasites. Given the distance from the primary, escorts were not dispersed. This was a point of contention on the board, and I feel that Admiral Dunn was justified in his decision, as events proved. However, if entry into a system is made within ~10 light minutes of a system body, protocol will now dictate that escorts be launched immediately upon entry, before sensors stabilize, in case there are some unknown enemies within firing range.
3 days later, the survey had barely begun, when the Panoptic system onboard the Enterprise registered three unknown contacts headed for the CBG. Escorts were pushed out, and survey craft recalled. Further observation showed them to be almost 3/4s the size of our Burke Class destroyers, but they were accelerating at 5400k/s, a speed then thought unreasonable for large ships. Obviously, the new Zumwalt design has been influenced by this evidence.
The ready squadron on Enterprise was launched, and the Cobras headed insystem to make contact. Despite repeated warnings, the unknown contacts crossed the lighthour perimeter, and the Burkes begin launching Dazzlers and Halibut torpedoes.
Strike Group 3 punched a full flight of Sparrows across the enemy flight path as a warning shot, then burned hard for home. After the first flight of Dazzlers barely made an impression on observed flight characteristics, and the Halibuts did only armor and engine damage, Adm Dunn ordered the CBG to launch a combined Mjolnir salvo and a third Halibut salvo. The Mjolnirs arrived before the second Halibut salvo, and the unknowns were reduced to wreckage. Unfortunately, that meant that over 100 halibut were in space, unrecoverable. Whoever comes up with a way to recover and refurbish missiles has my vote to take my job.
Per standing orders, the Enterprise group then swept the Lacaille 8760 system, finding no more unknown contacts, nor any sign there was an alien population in the system. Deployment time nearing completion, the CBG returned to Earth for resupply.
The only commentary I have on this is that we need either forward bases or ships with much longer Maintenance and deployment cycles. The Enterprise class ships are huge, perhaps the -C model could increase its berthing capacity to provide "ship leave" for destroyer crews in the future, while the onboard techs do a partial overhaul...
3 days later, the survey had barely begun, when the Panoptic system onboard the Enterprise registered three unknown contacts headed for the CBG. Escorts were pushed out, and survey craft recalled. Further observation showed them to be almost 3/4s the size of our Burke Class destroyers, but they were accelerating at 5400k/s, a speed then thought unreasonable for large ships. Obviously, the new Zumwalt design has been influenced by this evidence.
The ready squadron on Enterprise was launched, and the Cobras headed insystem to make contact. Despite repeated warnings, the unknown contacts crossed the lighthour perimeter, and the Burkes begin launching Dazzlers and Halibut torpedoes.
Strike Group 3 punched a full flight of Sparrows across the enemy flight path as a warning shot, then burned hard for home. After the first flight of Dazzlers barely made an impression on observed flight characteristics, and the Halibuts did only armor and engine damage, Adm Dunn ordered the CBG to launch a combined Mjolnir salvo and a third Halibut salvo. The Mjolnirs arrived before the second Halibut salvo, and the unknowns were reduced to wreckage. Unfortunately, that meant that over 100 halibut were in space, unrecoverable. Whoever comes up with a way to recover and refurbish missiles has my vote to take my job.
Per standing orders, the Enterprise group then swept the Lacaille 8760 system, finding no more unknown contacts, nor any sign there was an alien population in the system. Deployment time nearing completion, the CBG returned to Earth for resupply.
The only commentary I have on this is that we need either forward bases or ships with much longer Maintenance and deployment cycles. The Enterprise class ships are huge, perhaps the -C model could increase its berthing capacity to provide "ship leave" for destroyer crews in the future, while the onboard techs do a partial overhaul...