Light Carrier and Marine Formation for Boarding Combat

[ChubbyPitbull (OP)]

Hello! Taking my first foray into boarding combat and was looking for some feedback. My empire had a nice start in a dead-end easily defensible portion of the galaxy with already 3 or 4 colonies within 1-2 jumps of Sol (Random Stars). So I've gotten a pretty decent way along in techs but mineral resources are low, and the only two exits from my empire each have a different NPR claiming the system. Time to go to war!

I've already designed a basic fleet based around beam weapons with escort ships carrying gauss turrets to weather missile storms, so the goals for these designs is to be boarding ships that can take the fight to the enemy crews, capture the ships, and then either pilot them back or be tugged back for salvage as Gallicite is tight in my empire right now.

First off and where I'm looking for the most help are my Space Marine Formations. I have high armor tech and ok weapons tech, and don't expect enemy security forces beyond crew, so currently lean heavily towards CAP weapons. Each Marine is Boarding Capable with Heavy Power Armor (42 Armor). Here are the units:



And the two formations:

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2058 Marine Platoon
Transport Size: 250 tons
Build Cost: 24 BP
2x 2061 Space Marine Platoon HQ
7x 2061 Space Marine SAW Gunner
3x 2061 Space Marine Logistics
16x 2061 Space Marine
1x 2061 Space Marine Grenade Launcher


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2058 Marine Company
Transport Size: 1,000 tons
Build Cost: 102 BP
2x 2061 Space Marine Company HQ
15x 2061 Space Marine Logistics
40x 2061 Space Marine SAW Gunner
4x 2061 Space Marine Grenade Launcher
45x 2061 Space Marine

Right now doctrinely I'm looking at primarily using the Marine Platoon in Boarding pods, is 2 HQ units to much for such a small element? Does it make sense to even avoid HQ entirely to avoid Ground Commander massacres?

Carrying the Marines to the Ships are these two boarding ships:

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Kidon class Breaching Pod      485 tons       16 Crew       194.3 BP       TCS 10    TH 355    EM 0
36688 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 2      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 1.63 Years     MSP 25    AFR 19%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 11    5YR 166    Max Repair 177.60 MSP
Troop Capacity 250 tons     Boarding Capable   
Dictator    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days    Morale Check Required   

Wartsila Mark 2 Boosted Inertial Fusion Drive  EP355.20 (200%) (1)    Power 355.2    Fuel Use 512.55%    Signature 355.20    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 2,000 Litres    Range 0.15 billion km (1 hours at full power)

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This design is classed as a Troop Transport for auto-assignment purposes

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Zaharon class Assault Shuttle      1,939 tons       61 Crew       755.6 BP       TCS 39    TH 1,368    EM 0
35276 km/s      Armour 1-13       Shields 0-0       HTK 6      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 0.40 Years     MSP 85    AFR 86%    IFR 1.2%    1YR 214    5YR 3,207    Max Repair 684.00 MSP
Troop Capacity 1,000 tons     Boarding Capable   
Dictator    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days    Morale Check Required   

Wartsila Mark 2 Boosted Inertial Fusion Drive  EP1368.00 (200%) (1)    Power 1368.0    Fuel Use 261.17%    Signature 1368.00    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 11,000 Litres    Range 0.39 billion km (3 hours at full power)

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Troop Transport for auto-assignment purposes
I originally had these rounded off at 500 tons and 2000 tons with a bit extra armor and range, but decided to prioritize speed to maximize boarding chance, and the goal is the carrier (with heavy escorts) would close on ships to launch the breaching pods.

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Herev class Light Carrier      32,000 tons       644 Crew       6,371.7 BP       TCS 640    TH 6,400    EM 3,390
10000 km/s      Armour 6-89       Shields 113-565       HTK 171      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 73      PPV 17.53
Maint Life 4.34 Years     MSP 12,551    AFR 191%    IFR 2.6%    1YR 1,073    5YR 16,101    Max Repair 1600.00 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 9,000 tons     
Vice Chancellor    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   PFC   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Flight Crew Berths 180    Morale Check Required   

MTU Friedrichshafen Mark 2 Inertial Fusion Drive  EP3200.00 (2)    Power 6400.0    Fuel Use 6.32%    Signature 3200.00    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 3,005,000 Litres    Range 267.3 billion km (309 days at full power)
Reyga Scientific Consortium Theta S113 / R565 Shields (1)     Recharge Time 565 seconds (0.2 per second)

Twin-2 General Dynamics Gauss Cannon R400-100 Turret (1x12)    Range 40,000km     TS: 32000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
General Dynamics Fleet Defense Console R84-TS32000 (SW) (1)     Max Range: 84,000 km   TS: 32,000 km/s     88 76 64 52 40 29 17 5 0 0

IAI Elta Mark 2 EL/AS4-R1 Proximity Targeting Array (1)     GPS 12     Range 4.8m km    MCR 430.9k km    Resolution 1

ECM 30

Strike Group
18x Kidon Breaching Pod   Speed: 36688 km/s    Size: 9.68

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a b for auto-assignment purposes


Any feedback would be appreciated! Thank you!

[serger]

1. You actually need no LOG in your boarding troops, because there is nearly no chance for boarding combat to last enough that wearable ammo will be drained. You can still reserve some LOGs for possible planetary combat, but it's rather inefficient use of boarding troop space.
2. LB (grenadiers) are useless for boarding too, because there will be no vehicle elements during boarding combat, and if your opponents will have enough personal armour level to tank your PWI - your companies are meat: no chance that 4 grenade launchers will be enough to mow down enemy platoon or decent ship's crew of such tech level. Again, you can reserve grenadiers for possible planetary combat, because it's theoretically possible to meet several armoured vehicles there and your compamy will die helpless if they have no anti-vehicle weapon at all and there will be no reinforcements, but it's rather inefficient reservation.
3. PWI is inefficient in boarding combat against equal-tech enemies, because their main targets will be unarmoured crew members, so no need in penetration, you'll need more shots instead of less high-pen ones. Though it's possible to meet higher-tesh opponents and then you'll need increased-pen mass weapon to have any chance to win boarding action, and higher-tesh prizes are the most valuable ones if you have enough speed and luck to launch boarding action. That's a question of compaign setup and your expectations-and-plans.
4. Doubled HQs for platoon level cannot be usefull enough to be efficient at all; it's doubtful even for company level. Minimal volumes of HQ elements are quite big for those small-size formations, and so HQ redundancy is overexpensive. You have to manually pick up the best of your junior officers to make even single HQ element efficient enough for it's volume, so I'd vote against marine HQ units at all (roleplay-wise you can name your PW unit as an officer and to have 1 such unit in formation, but it's not headquarters unit as such).
5. You have marine heavy (machine) gunner and marine sapper designs, but no such elements in your marine formations. It's wasted research points, though not very much of it.

[Andrew]

Because I tend to use CAP or HCAP for my marines in power armour I find that I can often fit in 2 command elements for a 250 ton unit because of the smaller size of the command elements.
Logistic, Anti-armour and bombardment weapons are not much use for boarders if you are fighting crew you may need the anti-armour weapons if enemy marines of superior tech in power armour are onboard but in that case your marines are in trouble

[Garfunkel]

What others said.

LOG, LAV and LB are completely useless in boarding combat. Even if you board their troop transport carrying vehicles, the vehicles themselves will not fight - only the enemy infantry will join the crew in fighting your boarders.

HQ is kind of a moot point but for RP you might want a single company HQ and same with PWI - if you need it, you're probably frakked anyway as crew armour and weapon level is half of racial standard. So if 50% of their armour is more than 100% of your weapon, then yeah you're toast since the crew will most likely outnumber your marines by an order of magnitude.

What you could do, is to have bunch of PW/CAP marine companies for usual boarding actions and a single PWI/HCAP heavy company that is usually kept in reserve and only used to help out a standard company that gets in over its head with a high-tech enemy - or is unlucky enough to board a troopship where the infantry with their power armour joins in the brawl. That gives you bit more flavour for your force.

[nuclearslurpee]

For Marines: It has been discussed elsewhere, so I won't recount the theory behind this right now, but in almost all cases the only "optimal" weapons for boarding marines are PWL and CAP. PWL is the most effective weapon if your opponents have equal (or worse) armor and attack tech, since ship crew are modeled as INF+PWL with 1/2 the racial armor and HP stats. If your opponents have better techs than you, CAP becomes clearly superior. Every other weapon type is overkill in all but the most lopsided situations, except for PW which is just strictly inferior to CAP. I usually mix and match equal tonnage of PWL and CAP for a marine company, and stick a 10-ton HQ unit if I want to have commanders for these formations. You do not need LOG at all for boarding formations as they are not subject to the usual rules for supply consumption.

The boarding ships look fine, no comments here.

For the carrier: Without knowing the rest of your fleet and how this fits in, I can't speak very accurately, however I would probably suggest reducing some of the defensive and engineering payload to include some magazines and a big active sensor or two, to allow the carrier to be used for carrying combat fighters and not only boarding craft. One of the big benefits of carriers is that they can be quickly respecced for a different mission just by changing their parasite loadout, so it makes sense to design a carrier that can also support fighter missions even if you don't currently have fighters to speak of to ensure you have that logistical flexibility later when you might need it.

[ChubbyPitbull (OP)]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I'll re-design the marine formations around CAP and PW, and drop the HQ and LOG.

For the carrier: Without knowing the rest of your fleet and how this fits in, I can't speak very accurately, however I would probably suggest reducing some of the defensive and engineering payload to include some magazines and a big active sensor or two, to allow the carrier to be used for carrying combat fighters and not only boarding craft. One of the big benefits of carriers is that they can be quickly respecced for a different mission just by changing their parasite loadout, so it makes sense to design a carrier that can also support fighter missions even if you don't currently have fighters to speak of to ensure you have that logistical flexibility later when you might need it.

Thanks for the tips! I was thinking about that, was nervous about dropping too much from the carrier in case the enemy lobs more ASM's it's way than an escort could handle. Right now I have Command Cruisers with Jump Engines and wider area sensors, supported by CAs, DDs, and DDs.These are the current fielded designs although they're definitely due for a tech refresh; current operational needs have made it hard to get them back in for refitting:

Fleet Leader:

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Secundus class Command Cruiser      32,000 tons       811 Crew       7,775.6 BP       TCS 640    TH 6,400    EM 5,100
10000 km/s    JR 6-50      Armour 16-89       Shields 170-425       HTK 151      Sensors 0/6/0/0      DCR 50      PPV 30.14
Maint Life 2.18 Years     MSP 6,181    AFR 201%    IFR 2.8%    1YR 1,740    5YR 26,101    Max Repair 1600.00 MSP
Vice Chancellor    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   FLG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

J48000(6-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 48000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 6

MTU Friedrichshafen Inertial Fusion Drive  EP3200.00 (2)    Power 6400.0    Fuel Use 7.91%    Signature 3200.00    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 1,162,000 Litres    Range 82.7 billion km (95 days at full power)
Reyga Scientific Consortium Epsilon S85 / R425 Shields (2)     Recharge Time 425 seconds (0.4 per second)

Quad General Dynamics Gauss Cannon R400-100 Turret (1x24)    Range 40,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
General Dynamics Fleet Defense Console R60-TS20000 (1)     Max Range: 60,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     83 67 50 33 17 0 0 0 0 0

IAI Elta EL/AS118-R200 Sensor Console (1)     GPS 43200     Range 118.8m km    Resolution 200
ELINT Module (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km

ECM 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes

Anti-Ship Cruiser

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Gabbard class Cruiser      32,000 tons       932 Crew       13,207.7 BP       TCS 640    TH 6,400    EM 5,100
10000 km/s      Armour 15-89       Shields 170-425       HTK 188      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 39      PPV 156.14
Maint Life 2.09 Years     MSP 7,635    AFR 277%    IFR 3.8%    1YR 2,341    5YR 35,120    Max Repair 1600.00 MSP
Vice Chancellor    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

MTU Friedrichshafen Inertial Fusion Drive  EP3200.00 (2)    Power 6400.0    Fuel Use 7.91%    Signature 3200.00    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 1,168,000 Litres    Range 83.1 billion km (96 days at full power)
Reyga Scientific Consortium Epsilon S85 / R425 Shields (2)     Recharge Time 425 seconds (0.4 per second)

Atalskes Phaser Corporation PL18-400 Phaser Array (7)    Range 400,000km     TS: 10,000 km/s     Power 55-10    ROF 30       
Quad General Dynamics Gauss Cannon R400-100 Turret (1x24)    Range 40,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Atalskes Phaser Corporation Weapons Console R480-TS10000 (2)     Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 10,000 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
General Dynamics Fleet Defense Console R60-TS20000 (1)     Max Range: 60,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     83 67 50 33 17 0 0 0 0 0
Atalskes Phaser Corportation Power Supply (R10) (7)     Total Power Output 70.2    Exp 5%

IAI Elta Mark 2 EL/AS4-R1 Proximity Targeting Array (1)     GPS 12     Range 4.8m km    MCR 430.9k km    Resolution 1

ECCM-4 (2)         ECM 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes
Anti-Ship/Fighter Destroyer (also needs updating to have max speed in line with current fleet standard 10000m/s):

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Ashdod class Destroyer      15,000 tons       430 Crew       4,636.6 BP       TCS 300    TH 3,200    EM 2,550
10667 km/s      Armour 10-54       Shields 85-425       HTK 86      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 25      PPV 57.9
Maint Life 2.22 Years     MSP 2,946    AFR 118%    IFR 1.6%    1YR 807    5YR 12,104    Max Repair 1600.00 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 400   
Vice Chancellor    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

MTU Friedrichshafen Inertial Fusion Drive  EP3200.00 (1)    Power 3200.0    Fuel Use 7.91%    Signature 3200.00    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 637,000 Litres    Range 96.7 billion km (104 days at full power)
Reyga Scientific Consortium Epsilon S85 / R425 Shields (1)     Recharge Time 425 seconds (0.2 per second)

Atalskes Phaser Corporation PB4-400 Phase Cannon (5)    Range 400,000km     TS: 10,667 km/s     Power 10-10    ROF 5       
Triple General Dynamics Gauss Cannon R400-100 Turret (1x18)    Range 40,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Atalskes Phaser Corporation Weapons Console R480-TS10000 (1)     Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 10,000 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
General Dynamics Fleet Defense Console R60-TS20000 (1)     Max Range: 60,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     83 67 50 33 17 0 0 0 0 0
Atalskes Phaser Corportation Power Supply (R10) (5)     Total Power Output 50.2    Exp 5%

IAI Elta Mark 2 EL/AS4-R1 Proximity Targeting Array (1)     GPS 12     Range 4.8m km    MCR 430.9k km    Resolution 1

ECCM-4 (1)         ECM 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes
Destroyer Escort (Less Armor to fit a 5th Triple Gauss Turret)

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Pirocia class Destroyer Escort      15,999 tons       444 Crew       4,122.3 BP       TCS 320    TH 3,200    EM 2,160
10000 km/s      Armour 3-56       Shields 72-400       HTK 99      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 26      PPV 114.5
Maint Life 2.09 Years     MSP 2,576    AFR 128%    IFR 1.8%    1YR 790    5YR 11,856    Max Repair 1600.00 MSP
Vice Chancellor    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

MTU Friedrichshafen Inertial Fusion Drive  EP3200.00 (1)    Power 3200.0    Fuel Use 7.91%    Signature 3200.00    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 647,000 Litres    Range 92.1 billion km (106 days at full power)
Reyga Scientific Consortium Epsilon S72 / R400 Shields (1)     Recharge Time 400 seconds (0.2 per second)

Triple General Dynamics Gauss Cannon R400-100 Turret (5x18)    Range 40,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
General Dynamics Fleet Defense Console R60-TS20000 (6)     Max Range: 60,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     83 67 50 33 17 0 0 0 0 0

IAI Elta Mark 2 EL/AS4-R1 Proximity Targeting Array (1)     GPS 12     Range 4.8m km    MCR 430.9k km    Resolution 1

ECCM-4 (1)         ECM 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes