Author Topic: From the ashes - part 23  (Read 2767 times)

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Offline Haji (OP)

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From the ashes - part 23
« on: February 13, 2017, 09:52:44 AM »
26th November 2400

   Fifteen Traveler warships, eight cruisers and seven battlecruisers, are detected in the Rampart system. As the anomaly kept moving, the distance to the enemies is only one hundred and ninety million kilometers, which means the planet may experience a missile attack very shortly. To make matters worse there was no time to build planetary missile bases so the defenses are limited to the Sixth Fleet and six orbital weapons platforms.
   The most important question before Vice Admiral Widodo, commanding the force, is whether to meet the enemy in deep space or wait for him in the planetary orbit. His biggest problem is lack of knowledge about the enemy. One type of cruiser was encountered previously and is believed to be equipped with fifty long range anti-missile launchers and very, very large magazines, but that accounts for only five units out of fifteen. Even so this tells him he can expect large missile attacks, comprising three hundred and fifty interceptors in each wave at a minimum.
   As using anti-missiles to intercept other anti-missiles have time and again proven to be a losing proposition, it all comes down to his last ditch point defenses. Those are mounted aboard his twelve Talca class frigates, eighteen Saimaa class frigates and his fourteen Harpy class cruisers. Between them their gauss cannons can intercept up to five hundreds missiles in each enemy wave, which is further supported by the orbital defenses, which can intercept further three hundred and sixty missiles, and fast firing anti-ship railguns. Unfortunately due to tracking speed it will be impossible to use the defenses to their full potential so the actual number than can be intercepted without the use of ordnance is much lower.
   Overall his force may be able to withstand the enemy use of anti-missiles in offensive mode, but the entire fleet would have to leave orbit and the planetary defenses themselves may be inadequate. In addition if the aliens will launch even larger salvo – a definite possibility since the other ten warships may also carry missiles – the Commune forces may find themselves in serious trouble. In the end Widado decides to stay near the planet and see what the enemy does. Fortunately for him the Travelers decide to move towards Bastille, instead of going for any of the jump points, possibly because they don't know their location. By virtue of extreme luck there is also currently no other traffic in the system, so any human constructs are in orbit of the single colony. 
   He could of course fire his Trebuchet missiles, which have range of over two hundred million kilometers. Unfortunately he has only sixteen hundred and fifty five of them and considering the sheer number of anti-missiles the enemy can bring to bear, such a number is unlikely to accomplish anything. The twelve Skrzak class destroyers have another fourteen hundred and forty missiles on board, but those are short ranged Arrows rather than long ranged Mistletoes. Even if that wasn't the case the Commune shipkillers have different speeds which would make it impossible to coordinate an attack and even a combined salvo could be ineffective against an enemy capable of launching three hundred and fifty anti-missiles every five seconds. For the Sixth Fleet to go on the offensive, the enemy must first use his ordnance.
   Forty minutes after the enemy entered the system he stopped nearly one hundred and seventy million kilometers away from the planet. Thirty four minutes later the first missiles were detected by the powerful sensors on board the jumps cruisers Athena and Hera. After ten seconds the enemy firing pattern became obvious – they were launching anti-missiles and shipkillers together as quickly as their launchers could cycle. Both had the same speed of eighty thousand kilometers per second, allowing for coordinated salvos, but the anti-ship missiles had twice the cycling rate. As such waves of three hundred and fifty shipkillers, accompanied by two hundred and fifty anti-missiles were interlaced with counter missiles alone.
   The smaller salvos were no danger. The larger ones were far too large to be dealt with by point blank defenses alone.
   The first thing Vice Admiral Widado did was to order the launch of his own munitions. With the enemy low on his own interceptors the sixteen hundred and eighty Trebuchets had a real chance of getting through the enemy defenses. Better yet, they had their own sensors, so even if the defending cruisers end up destroyed, the missiles they fired will still continue to their targets. The problem was who should he fire against, as he knew armament of only a single type of the enemy warships. However after checking how the incoming shipkillers were clamped, he arrived at the conclusion that the seven battlecruisers were the ones to fire them. Five of the eight smaller ships were armed with anti-missiles, which meant the three unknown cruisers were armed either with short range munitions or energy weapons. As the missile armed warships had to be low of ammunition – assuming they had any left – that made the three remaining cruisers the primary target and Widado decided to throw everything he had against them. The other enemies may have secondary energy batteries, but those would have to be strictly limited in numbers and as such a much lesser threat.
   Unfortunately that part of the plan did not work out, as the enemy ECM was just a little to powerful. The Sixth Fleet was seventeen million kilometers short of the required range and they could not close without uncovering the planet and losing orbital defenses. They had to defend and attack later.
   The defense however would be complicated. The humans had to use anti-missiles for as there were far too many incomings, but the Admiral was concerned about his ammunition situation. The Samiaa class frigates and the Harpy class cruisers were equipped with the fourth generation anti-missiles, which should have about sixty percent chance to intercept the enemy ordnance, but the Vistuala class corvettes had only third generation birds, with twenty five percent chance to hit. Worse the Travelers have proven to have very large magazines for the number of launchers they carried, so he could expect numerous incoming salvos, possibly as much as fifty.
   His biggest problem were the automatic systems. As they had to keep track of numerous objects moving at significant fraction of the speed of light, they were rather simple minded. If used they will target all incoming missiles and there were simply not enough Spears in the fleet for that. Ultimately he decided he had no choice but to involve humans in the targeting. He begun giving orders.
   The automated systems will be needed to quickly divide and allocate tasks but the warships crew themselves will control the launches and targeting systems. At any point no more than one Spear IV or three Spear IIIs were to be targeted at any incoming shipkiller. Anti-missiles were to be ignored completely, as their light warheads were far less dangerous. Of course the majority of them should be intercepted by gauss cannons and railguns but if there were any leakers, the warships should be able to survive the damage easily. The planet was a different matter of course and if targeted would sustain heavy damage, but the Sixth Fleet simply did not have the firepower needed to safely and completely neutralize the incoming missiles, not without risking total destruction. And if the warships were destroyed than not only Gotland, but also other planets may end up being bombarded. Some risks simply had to be taken. For the same reason if any shipkillers manage to get past anti-missiles, they will not be targeted again. Most of the Commune warships had enough ammunition for only twenty or so salvos, but the aliens usually had much deeper magazines.
   The tasks were assigned quickly and Widado had nothing more left to do but to watch the engagement unfold. The rest was down to who had the deeper magazines.
   The plan worked nearly perfectly. The vast majority of enemy ordnance was intercepted with only few missiles getting through defenses and only then rarely. The Admiral didn't know if this was the result of unlucky intercept probabilities or human mistakes but he didn't intend to find out. His people had to work very fast under very hard circumstances and their performance, however imperfect, was still outstanding.
   As the last enemy missiles were taken down, he begun to survey his command. The corvette Sira and one of the orbital weapons platforms have been destroyed, with few survivors orbiting Gotland in life pods. The destroyer Polevik and corvette Kathita were unable to keep up with the fleet, so if he had to move out, those two would have to be left behind. Six more corvettes, a frigate and two orbital weapons platforms had various levels of internal damage with two corvettes and seven frigates suffering light armor damage but no internal one. However the majority of his forces were untouched.
   As the enemy begun moving towards the planet, Widado decided to wait in orbit, using the time to repair as much damage as was possible. He also ordered his cruisers to launch their Trebuchets at the three suspected laser armed cruisers as soon as the enemy was in range. As it turned out the enemy did not use all of his anti-missiles, merely as many as were needed to support the shipkillers, so he still had some left. Even so one of the targeted enemies was destroyed outright with the other two damaged.
   As the distance fell below seventy million kilometers the twelve Skrzak class destroyers launched all of their Arrow missiles. Thanks to the enemy being out of ammunition, the strike was much more successful, but it still left three cruisers – assumed to be anti-missile armed escorts – and six battlecruisers – assumed to be armed with shipkillers – in the field, even thought most of them were damaged and slowed. In fact they stopped moving towards Gotland and it looked like they set course back towards the anomaly.
   Widado didn't know whether he should let them go or not. Observing the transit – assuming there will be one – could give humanity invaluable amount of information, potentially leading to development of appropriate space drives. On the other hand, if the Travelers really couldn't communicate with the rest of their race, letting them go could have catastrophic consequences for the Commune as the enemy will have far too much information about them. In the end he orders the Ninth Cruiser Division and Third and Fifth Destroyer Squadrons to give chase. The other formations are left behind as they are either slower, or have significant number of already damaged ships.
   It appears however that the speed will not be an issue as the enemy is moving less than five thousand kilometers per second, likely due to engine damage on some of his ships. Thanks to such an advantage in mobility Widado decides to close to a hundred thousand kilometers from the enemy. If they have any weapons left at all, they will likely be able to fire at him, but he should be able to retreat before suffering any significant damage. However if the enemy doesn't have any weapons left the Commune will be able to use their very fast firing one hundred twenty millimeters railguns.
   The plan worked perfectly. The enemy had no weapons left and was quickly cut down by human batteries. With that the ships retreat back to the Gotland while messages are still on their way to the capital system of Baltic. Two hundred and forty five people died in the attack with seventy three more injured but in no further danger.

27th November 2400

   The Administrator and the Oversight Committee were eighteen hours behind events in the Rampart system, due to light speed limitations and distances. As such they preferred to once again await the end of the battle before making any decisions.
   There is of course a lot of new data, as well as a long and very pointed letter by the Vice Admiral Widado dealing with shortcomings of current practices, all of which are being analyzed by the Intelligence, but that will take some time, possibly as long as several weeks. However there are decisions that have to be made immediately, in particular what to do with the current formations comprising Sixth Fleet.
   While only one ship and one orbital base was destroyed, numerous ships suffered quite significant damage. The orbiting space stations will be able to repair some of it, but not all which means the ships have to head to shipyards for repairs. All in all only the cruiser divisions suffered no damage and while affected ships could be detached, the Commune formations were designed as just that – formations of ships working in unison. As such it would be best to send those home together, repair them, replace their loses and work them back up to the Force standards together. That however would mean reinforcements from the Home Fleet would be needed.
   Fortunately such reinforces are not as hard to come by as they used to. To replace the three destroyer squadrons and two frigate squadrons which will be detached the Force will send a battlecruiser division, a cruiser division, two destroyer squadrons and four gunboat flotillas. This will significantly improve both defensive and offensive capabilities of the Sixth Fleet.
   In addition new space stations will be sent, as currently Gotland cannot support ships as large as battlecruisers, more orbital weapons platforms will have to be sent as soon as possible, tugs will need to tow damaged bases to shipyards for repairs and more ammunition will have to be delivered to the colony as over three thousand shipkillers and nearly fourteen thousand interceptors were spent during the recent battle.

3rd December 2400

   The news of the recent battle in the Rampart system have spread throughout the human space. Unwilling to provide the Hegemony with information that may be used against them, many aspects of the event were classified. What was generally know however was the the Travelers attacked in larger than usual numbers and that Commune sustained loses. Light as those were most analysts were able to figure this meant more ships got damaged and it was unusual, to say the least, for the Force to suffer any casualties during battle. All of which made it obvious to everyone that those new aliens can become a significant danger.
   The Hegemony is not worried as they have eleven carrier groups, huge industry which keeps growing and no contact with the new species. In fact they are quite pleased the Commune is distracted and are looking for an opportunity to turn it into their advantage.
   The Republican military however reacts very differently. For three years now they have been upgrading their ships to the newest engine standard but only half of their Dreadnought class battleships have completed their refits and none of the larger, more capable New Atlantis class have been worked on yet. The escorts are faring better, but even if their upgrades completely earlier, this will simply mean no new ones will be constructed as destroyers and cruisers, at least as currently designed, are useless without battleships to protect. With new threat powerful enough to go toe to toe with the Commune, the military approaches the government asking for increased naval spending preferably in the form of new shipyards.
   This isn't the first time such a request has been put before the Phoenixian government. The resources and money are all there, all that was ever needed was the approval. Unfortunately the nation is the victim of its own luck. It never had to contend with powerful aliens and was never attacked by the Hegemony. In effect it fared extremely well and never lost a single spacer in combat, making the government fully believe their current military and its slow growth is completely sufficient for their needs. Even the threat of the Destroyers is no longer seen as truly significant, as the analysis of battle at Peter's Crossing revealed two battlegroups should be more or less sufficient to destroy an alien warship like the one which destroyed Sol. As the Republic had eleven battlegruops with two more unassigned battleships, their missiles have improved considerably and there were two equally powerful nations around, many in the government, general population and even the military itself felt secure. As such no increased naval spending have been authorized.

30th December 2400

   A Commune salvage group arrives in the Rampart system ordered to examine the recent Traveler wrecks. However their presence poses a significant problem for Vice Admiral Widado. Admittedly the Sixth Fleet had received the promised replacement vessels and the orbital defenses have been upgraded to ten Moats, but the recent battle have been a very close thing. While for casual observer the light human loses would indicate a one sided battle, the fact is that one more enemy battlecruiser could likely run the defenses out of ammunition completely resulting in much larger damage in the later stages of the battle. Two more enemy battlecruisers would likely throw so much additional ammunition most of the Sixth Fleet would have been destroyed. Three more enemy battlecruisers could have likely won the Travelers the battle. And considering they have sent fifteen warships last time, three more would not have been a large increase.
   To make matter worse the geometry of the situation is very inconvenient. The anomaly is so close the enemy likely emerges within his own shipkiller range, and even interceptors are only slightly too short ranged in this situation. As the wrecks are even closer the aliens could emerge and begin firing immediately. Worse if they split their fire between the planet and the salvage group, they could very likely get through some missiles, potentially killing millions. If the anomaly was further than the large speed of the Commune vessels would allow easy redeployment, but that won't be possible in this situation.
   As the salvage group is technically not part of his fleet, Widado decides to do something unusual – ask the government just what it expects him to do. They answer that since the Travelers have been appearing only once every a couple years or so it is very unlikely they will attack again in the near future, which means there should be no danger for the salvage operations and a couple of squadrons deployed with the commercial ships should be sufficient protection.
   The Vice Admiral points out the enemy is thinking and adaptable unlike the ADS and the Specters and dividing his forces is too much risk. As the new arrivals are not under his command it is up to the government to order them to perform salvage without any protection, to send it back home or to get additional forces into the area.
   The Oversight Committee is taken aback by the answer and is considering to order the Admiral to divide his forces. However they face serious opposition from the Administrator and the Force pointing out that historically the central authority did not interfere with the commander on the spot. The policy was adopted mostly out of necessity – the distances and information loops were enormous – but also to prevent officers on the spot from being scapegoated for the decisions made by someone else.  In the end the government decides to not interfere and orders the salvage ships to begin their work without protection, despite the risks.

2nd January 2401

   For the past several weeks the various Commune intelligence agencies have been analyzing the recent battle in the Rampart system and they are finally ready to present their conclusions. The first part deals with the Travelers itself but there isn't really much to say.
   It is still unknown why they keep sending well armed ships rather than colony expeditions. There are currently two prevalent theories – the aliens are merely destroying competition, like the Destroyers would or they are capable of communicating over enormous distance, but are still xenophobic which is why they have sent construction ships first and then warships as soon as they realized this part of the galaxy is inhabited after all. At any rate at this point no one expect the enemy to either be open to negotiations – which were attempted each and every time they appeared – nor to stop attacking humans.
   The other enigma is the relatively small force the Travelers keep sending through. For this particular question there exist three possible answers. First the aliens merely find the anomalies, rather than generate them, and they send whatever is in the area. Second they did not expect this part of the galaxy to be inhabited and they only begun construction of warships after the first contact with the Commune. Third as next to nothing is known about the anomalies it is very possible that only a certain number of ships can be send through.
   The important part of the explanations is that in two cases out of three it can be expected that the Travelers will be sending larger and larger forces as the time passes. If that is indeed the case they can pose a significant threat to humanity, possibly as large as the Destroyers.
   As for the enemy tactics of using numerous waves of missiles and anti-missiles in offensive mode, those can be considered quite dangerous. While some wanted to significantly increase the number of gauss cannon and railgun based point defenses, the Force disagrees with that vehemently. Such an increase would come at the cost of other armament or defenses and that was simply not possible. The warships had to have anti-missiles and missiles in current numbers at least, the armor was only moderately thick as it was and energy weapons were very important despite their rather limited use, especially as there was only enough ammunition to fight a limited number of major battles.
   Another question raised by the enemy tactics was the current ratio of anti-missile launchers to the magazine space. Most Commune warships carry enough interceptors for twenty to twenty two salvos, but until the Force intelligence begun looking at it they did not realize the number was basically taken out of hat. The original Vistuala class corvettes were designed before any missile engagements and as the Destroyers did not use shipkillers, there was no meter stick as to how many interceptors would be needed or how quickly they would have to be launched. As a result the designers had to take a guess as to what was needed.
   Of the known powers two of them – the Specters and the Destroyers – have never used missiles, so against them the ability itself is wasted. Two more powers used numerous launches. The ADS however used them in such small numbers they were ineffective. The Travelers were a different matter and they had enough ammunition for about twenty seven waves. While this means many formations run out of ammunition during the recent engagement, the Sixth Fleet had so many launchers that the Third Destroyer Squadron and majority of the Fifth only begun using their anti-missiles when the rest of the force have run out and they ended up engagement with a total of around one thousand Spears still in reserve. Enlarging magazines, at the cost of some launchers would be an option against those aliens, but there is still the issue of how it will impact other threats.
   The Commune and the Republic use a single, massed wave of missiles. Obviously the Force does not expect to fight itself or its allies, but for the purpose of this analysis they must cover all the possibilities. In such a case as the current interception envelope is seven million kilometers and the speed of the newest Trebuchets – taken as an example – is around a hundred thousand kilometers per second, Commune warships would be able to launch a total of fourteen anti-missile waves against incoming shipkillers. In such a scenario about a third of their ammunition would be uselessly lingering in their magazines.
   As the Hegemony was very careful to reveal as little as possible it is unknown which tactics were used by the aliens they recently conquered, leaving only New Earth to analyze. As they use fighters they fire limited numbers of very large salvos, with three observed during the battle of ES – 09. Assuming their shipkillers have by now speed similar to that of the Commune ones a potential total of forty two anti-missile salvos could be launched through the engagement. In such a situation the current magazine space is grossly inadequate.
   The results indicate that a massive upgrade in magazine space, most likely at the cost of launchers, would be needed but the Force is somewhat resistant to the idea for the current shipbuilding practices worked extremely well throughout the existence of the Commune. They also point out that the number of launches possible against the Hegemony is deceptive. Not only is it not known if so many launches would actually be needed, their worships can fire only once, which means the first salvo would be much larger than the follow up ones, which is exactly what happened during the battle of ES – 09. For that matter if New Earth decides to abandon the carrier doctrine, they will likely switch to firing one massive salvo, like the Commune and the Republic. Last but not least if enemy can sneak some missiles through the defenses and destroy some ships early, like the Travelers did in Rampart, they will also destroy huge amounts of interceptors lying uselessly in the magazines.
   Overall when it comes to anti-missiles the Force recommends only limited changes as the performance of existing designs was more than satisfactory. As such they want to continue building existing vessels and once the future ones are designed they want to increase the magazine capacity, but only slightly, enough for a ship to fire twenty five to thirty salvos of interceptors. The Oversight Committee agrees with the recommendation, although they are somewhat split on the topic.
   The second part of the analysis deals with a latter sent by Vice Admiral Widado in the aftermath of the battle of Rampart, who performed his own analysis of the battle, finding certain decisions to be questionable at best.
   First and foremost is his opinion that the string of victories won by the Force over the decades made the government and the military complacent and far too willing to trade short term risks for long term benefits. He referred specifically to the lack of ground missile bases on Gotland. The planet was colonized specifically to support the Sixth Fleet with everyone knowing it will be on the front lines, but the first thing they built were terraforming installations and recently they were finishing building a set of ordnance factories. Missile bases were expected but only later. This however had proved to be a significant danger as the Sixth Fleet barely had enough ammunition to deal with the latest incursion and they would have benefited greatly from additional fortifications.
   The initial decision was made by the governor of the colony but everyone – from the Administrator, through the Oversight Committee to Vice Admiral Widado himself – knew it and no one questioned it. That's because the Commune is truly strapped for manpower and they need more of it plus, as the Admiral pointed out, everyone got complacent. Based on what they knew at the time many, including the Administrator, believe the decision was sound, but they also agree that a change in policy is needed. From now on fortifications in boarder systems will have much higher priority.
   The next part of the latter dealt with offensive capabilities of the Sixth Fleet. As Widado pointed out he had two frigate squadrons assigned, but those had no long range offensive capability and were supposed to work together with gunboats, which were not assigned to his formation. Admittedly they were there because the Travelers were using long range missile strikes and were assigned to the station specifically to thicken the anti-missile defenses of the planet, a decision which again the Admiral agreed with. But as he also pointed out when the time came to deal with the intruders, he had rather few shipkilers. In fact if the enemy hadn't spend himself with long range strikes, he would likely never get through the Traveler defenses and be forced to rely entirely on energy weapon engagement. In this particular case it would likely not be an issue, but next time might be different and he recommended that all stations should receive at least some gunboats, especially the Seventh Fleet which had none.
   Finding the necessary hulls may be difficult however. The gunboats were very important part of the Force and to a large extent still are, but at a certain point there were nearly sixty flotillas in existence while construction of new larger formations was lacking. Because of this the government decided to suspend further production focusing on keeping the existing formations as up to date as possible, as their lack of active defenses meant they were much more reliant on their speed for safety.
   Unfortunately while the numbers sounded impressive, they really weren't. Ten flotillas of Sharks were in Atlantic and Pacific each, keeping an eye on the New Earth force while the remaining nine were undergoing refits in Baltic. Once those were done, they were expected to stay there as new connection to the Hegemony might be found in which case the government wanted to be able to establish significant defenses quickly. Of the twenty nine flotillas of Piranhas thirteen were assigned permanently to Knossos in case of a new Destroyer incursion, four were now assigned to the Sixth Fleet, four to Home Fleet and eight to other formations. As Sharks were still in Baltic reassigning Piranhas from the Home Fleet to the Seventh Fleet was a possibility, but it was now obvious that the Force has grown to such a size that new flotillas were needed.
   The last part of the Admirals' letter deals with the missile speeds. As he pointed out there are currently three shipkillers used by the Commune but all have different speeds, making unified strikes impossible. His own fleet had two different munitions and if not for the enemy lack of interceptors in the later stages of the battle, he would have been unable to deal any damage at long range. In his opinion missile speed should be unified, so that if a situation demands it mixed strike were possible, even if this meant under utilizing the range of some missiles.
   Taking a closer look at the missiles, the Force was surprised to notice that the short ranged Arrows and the big, long range Trebuchets had almost the same speed already. In the future unifying it was not impossible, although they would really hate to develop new munitions now and complicating the supply situation just for the sake of modifying the speed. But what interested them more was the comparison of Trebuchets and Mistletoes.
   The two missiles possessed many similarities. Both were designed to have very long range and both had active sensors to search for their own targets in case the previous one was destroyed. However the Mistletoe was designed to be as small as possible to allow Sharks to fire useful numbers of them while the Trebuchet was supposed to be a very capable missile. As such despite their similarities the former was slightly shorter ranged, had much weaker search sensor but also a proportionally heavier warhead, which made unifying the speed of the two munitions much more difficult.
   But Vice Admiral Widado had something else in mind. As he pointed out the Skrzak class destroyers had missile tubes that could fire either Arrows or Mistletoes, allowing them to fight together with the gunboats and having fire controls to manage either munition. If cruisers did something similar they not only would become much more versatile, were able to work together with other formations much better than currently, but would also carry a lot more ammunition allowing them to easier deal with enemy defenses. The Force was quite interested in the concept but were unsure if Mistletoes were the best ordnance for cruisers so instead they ordered a new design, that could potentially marry the strengths of the two missiles. The result is given below.

Code: [Select]
Missile Size: 2 MSP  (0.1 HS)     Warhead: 6    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 93600 km/s    Engine Endurance: 37 minutes   Range: 208.2m km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.24   Sensitivity Modifier: 320%
Resolution: 50    Maximum Range vs 2500 ton object (or larger): 540,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 4.224
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 936%   3k km/s 310%   5k km/s 187.2%   10k km/s 93.6%
Materials Required:    1.5x Tritanium   0.144x Boronide   0.24x Uridium   2.34x Gallicite   Fuel x1150

   Thanks to improved fuel efficiency and new reactors the missile, which lacked an official name, had speed somewhere between that of Mistletoe and Trebuchet, but warhead as good as the former, range similar to the latter and satisfactory, if not exceptional, on board seekers. Both the Force and the government are quite interested in this possibility, especially as a significant number of cruisers armed with Trebuchets is already present, so they authorize the development of the new missile and order a new cruiser design to handle it. The missile is named Longbow.
   They also design a new version of their other missiles. The Arrow and Trebuchet (which will be needed for the older ships and planetary bases) have the same speed as the Longbow, but thanks to said lower speed, better fuel efficiency and new power source they have much heavier warheads than previously and better active sensor, while having the same ranges. Last but not least the new Spear have the same speed and range than the previous generation but thanks to better fuel efficiency larger avionics package was available, making the new interceptor more accurate. New version of Mistletoe have not been designed as those are supposed to be completely replaced by Longbows and as such the production of older missiles will be completely halted.

Code: [Select]
Arrow VII

Missile Size: 2 MSP  (0.1 HS)     Warhead: 10    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 93600 km/s    Engine Endurance: 13 minutes   Range: 72.8m km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.18   Sensitivity Modifier: 320%
Resolution: 15    Maximum Range vs 750 ton object (or larger): 220,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 5.128
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 936%   3k km/s 310%   5k km/s 187.2%   10k km/s 93.6%
Materials Required:    2.5x Tritanium   0.108x Boronide   0.18x Uridium   2.34x Gallicite   Fuel x402.5

Code: [Select]
Trebuchet VI

Missile Size: 4 MSP  (0.2 HS)     Warhead: 12    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 93600 km/s    Engine Endurance: 37 minutes   Range: 206.1m km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.495   Sensitivity Modifier: 320%
Resolution: 40    Maximum Range vs 2000 ton object (or larger): 1,000,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 8.4726
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 936%   3k km/s 310%   5k km/s 187.2%   10k km/s 93.6%
Materials Required:    3x Tritanium   0.2976x Boronide   0.495x Uridium   4.68x Gallicite   Fuel x2277.5

Code: [Select]
Spear VI

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 45
Speed: 156000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 2 minutes   Range: 22.8m km
Cost Per Missile: 2.9072
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 7020%   3k km/s 2340%   5k km/s 1404%   10k km/s 702%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   2.6572x Gallicite   Fuel x112.5


7th January 2401

   All warships damaged in the recent battle of Rampart have been repaired. The Third, Fourth and Fifth Destroyer Squadrons together with the Sixth Frigate Squadron will now join the Home Fleet. The Eleventh Frigate Squadron however will be sent to Eden to await a replacement corvette.

10th January 2401

   In the wake of the analysis of the recent battle in Rampart the government and the Force begun looking a little closer at their naval base on Gibraltar in the Atlantic system which borders the Hegemony and has seen two incursion by this nation. The base is rather small as there are no colonies present around the brown dwarf and the installations have to come from somewhere else and be assembled in place by construction brigades. However as Odin is very important manufacturing site, used to settle and support new worlds, the base has for all instances and purposes stopped growing. Unfortunately everyone concludes that without a habitable planet in the system it will be simply impossible to provide support as good as in other systems.
   As such the Commune decided to embark on ambitious and experimental project. One of the “asteroids” in the system is actually sixteen hundred kilometers across, making it reasonable body for development of advanced habitats with artificial gravity. That will be very expensive and it is still unknown whether or not it will provide desired results, but if the project works out it will open huge amount of worlds to colonization. Between fifty and a hundred construction brigades will be sent to the dwarf planet, named Malta, to be followed by colonists and at least two hundred construction factories. Even so due to distances and the cost of the project it will be some time before the first people begin arriving.

13th January 2401

   As part of their new defensive stance, the Commune reorganizes the Seventh Fleet. In order to ensure the human warships were able to chose the engagement range, to better position themselves for a fight against the Travelers all formations assigned to the frontier fleets have to be faster than the intruders. This has proven to be especially pointed in the case of the Seventh fleet which consisted almost entirely of older units. In fact the only warships faster than the aliens were the recently assigned gunboats. Unfortunately there aren't enough modern cruiser divisions available at the capital so one of those will be replaced by two destroyer squadrons.
   The Sixth Fleet is in a somewhat better situation as only a single cruiser division isn't faster than the Travelers. Unfortunately there are simply no faster forces available, so considering the strength of the rest of the fleet – which comprises one battlecruiser and three cruiser divisions supported by two destroyer squadrons and four gunboat flotillas – the warships will not be replaced for now. Of course the slower warships could be replaced by the newly upgraded Elatha class cruisers assigned to one of the other fleets, but those have fewer warships per division and railguns for point defense, rather than the much more useful gauss cannons.
   This of course will mean the Home Fleet will consist of mostly slow vessels, making it much harder for it to respond, but no one sees any way around it. It also raised some questions about the wisdom of building new vessels instead of upgrading older ones, when speed is so important, but the government and the military stand by their assessment that right now they primarily need a larger fleet. They also point out that cruiser divisions, frigate squadrons and gunboat flotillas are being upgraded, albeit slowly.
 

Offline Graham

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Re: From the ashes - part 23
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2017, 01:44:09 PM »
Great read as always.
 
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Offline QuakeIV

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Re: From the ashes - part 23
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2017, 02:37:00 PM »
The new high tech mini-missiles promise interesting engagements in the future.
 

Offline Haji (OP)

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Re: From the ashes - part 23
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2017, 08:39:09 AM »
Hopefully yes. This is actually the first time I played Aurora on such high technological level so I'm kind of making this as I go along. With any luck it will be interesting enough.