Team Randakar should have gone for the head of Red 1 once the missiles were expended.
But now, a jump point ambush does seem smart.
But now, a jump point ambush does seem smart.
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Easy to talk in hindsight though.
The other option would have been to head straight for the NLNZ jump point instead of playing games of chicken with Red 1.
But .. hindsight.
I thought the issue was we weren't sure we had enogu straight to take out red 1.
This, basically. We have theories, we are fairly sure they are out of missiles, but we aren’t certain of anything really. We could go barrelling in and discover they are well ahead of us in laser tech, and are capable of pulling the stand-off we inflict on the Jerx.
We don’t expect that outcome, but it is possible. Playing chicken was a reasonable option in the absence of a second main fleet. Especially as, in the absence, the goal was mostly keep their fleet here, to prevent it returning home and rearming.
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We do know however that a reasonable amount of tonnage in that fleet is necessary for missile launch tubes size 12 and size 1, plus ammunition stowage for the reloads. Which doesn't leave much space for other things.
I don't recall if we guessed what each/all of them could do, I thought that we knew which hulls were the "large salvo" missle launchers, and which was the reload carrier, and which was the AWACS, but I thought that there were some that were more unidentified.
I guess I could go look at the past messages. Expect a message on that subject later tonight.
The approaching enemy Red 2 fleet has just jumped into the Neutral Zone from their home system Mechanus. The RADAR satellite on the JP sounded the alarm.
That puts them three-quarters of a billion km from the jump point NZ => Harmony. They will reach the JP in 15 hours and 20 minutes. That's 0.63 days.
Our Harmony fleet is 1/3rd slower than Red 2 and is also further away. It cannot reach the Neutral Zone jump point in less than 81 hours.
There is no possibility of setting up an ambush at the Neutral Zone. The enemy will pass through that choke point (and start firing missiles) days before we arrive.
... so we must set up our ambush at the Lernea JP instead.
If we can beat them there.
After passing through the Neutral Zone => Harmony jump point it will take Red 2 another 5.44 days to reach the JP to Lernea.
Total trip time: 6.07 days from the Mechanus => Neutral Zone JP to the Harmony => Lernea JP.
Our Harmony fleet, starting much closer to the Lernea JP but moving much more slowly, will require 5.8 days to get there.
... so we will pass through the jump point to Lernea while the pursuing enemy fleet is still 317 million km behind us.
We beat them to the JP, passing through JUST before they enter missile range. They ALMOST catch us!
The rest of the good news is that the Earth Fleet will get there in 3 days. So they will already be in position, waiting for the Harmony fleet to arrive.
That puts them three-quarters of a billion km from the jump point NZ => Harmony. They will reach the JP in 15 hours and 20 minutes. That's 0.63 days.
Our Harmony fleet is 1/3rd slower than Red 2 and is also further away. It cannot reach the Neutral Zone jump point in less than 81 hours.
There is no possibility of setting up an ambush at the Neutral Zone. The enemy will pass through that choke point (and start firing missiles) days before we arrive.
... so we must set up our ambush at the Lernea JP instead.
If we can beat them there.
After passing through the Neutral Zone => Harmony jump point it will take Red 2 another 5.44 days to reach the JP to Lernea.
Total trip time: 6.07 days from the Mechanus => Neutral Zone JP to the Harmony => Lernea JP.
Our Harmony fleet, starting much closer to the Lernea JP but moving much more slowly, will require 5.8 days to get there.
... so we will pass through the jump point to Lernea while the pursuing enemy fleet is still 317 million km behind us.
We beat them to the JP, passing through JUST before they enter missile range. They ALMOST catch us!
The rest of the good news is that the Earth Fleet will get there in 3 days. So they will already be in position, waiting for the Harmony fleet to arrive.
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It will be epic if we actually manage to pull this off and can assemble most of our remaining Navy for that ambush.
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I have 10 tabs of past posts standing by for analysis and I'm still 23 pages in the past. Further results tomorrow, but the 7 Lot-et-Garrone ships are the ones that fired the BIG salvos, ( they each have 20 tubes and 3 Fire controls), the 3 Gard's are the AMM-PD ships, the 3 Vosges' are the short-range PD ship (Gauss turrets, or Railguns, or whatever).The 2 Deux-Sevres are unidentified (so far). The biggest EM emitter seems to be the Missle ships. It looks like there is no dedicated AWACS ship.
Ships in other forces include the Marengo class which have 7 missle tubes and a not-as-strong radar as the Lot-et-Garrone class, and the Loire-Atlantique, which is unidentified.
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Extremely helpful. Sounds like the plan is clear.
Annoying that we probably don't even have time to kill some ships in Red 1 but so be it.
Annoying that we probably don't even have time to kill some ships in Red 1 but so be it.
Annoying - but not necessarily devastating the way another series of size 12 missile salvos at 200m km could be.
And with a bit of planning and luck we can JP ambush them too on their way back into the battle zone.
How did we spot them in Mechanjs?
I thought we wanted them to.fire their missiles before we jump.
We didn't. The RADAR satellites were all placed on the side of the jump points closest to Earth.
So the RADAR satellite on the Mechanus => Neutral Zone jump point is on the Neutral Zone side.
The RADAR satellite on the Neutral Zone => Harmony jump point is on the Harmony side.
The RADAR satellite on the Harmony => Lernea jump pint is on the Lernea side.
And so on.
They report when somebody passes through the JP.
In order to do that we need to reach the JP ahead of them. Without getting missiled to death en-route.
How did we then know they were on their way before they went through the jp to the nz?
Bear in mind, we still don’t entirely understand why their massive salvoes at our fleet were so inaccurate, while the Marengo class seemed to get massively better hit rates against the gunships.
The gun ships can effectively ignore the AMM missiles , as their ECM is sufficient to prevent the AMMs hitting. We can also effectively ignore a single Marengo ( possibly even 2?) as insufficient to overwhelm our shields and slow enough firing our shields can recharge between salvoes.
The problem is the initial massive volley… is it worth sacrificing some fighters before the JP to Lernea to try and draw some of the salvoes?
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No.
The reload time is 9 minutes. They have ammunition on board for multiple salvos but it doesn't matter in a close quarters fight like the JP fight we want to create.
Our own reload rates are much, much faster.*If* they shoot their load it will take at least half a minute of our gunships and the assembled fleet hammering them to dust before they even get to fire. Longer if they try to get a coordinated salvo off because then their ships will wait for everyone else to be ready
But even if they do get to fire - at point blank range - we'll have a lot more PD there than last time. The other half of the fleet presumably also has a ton of storms in there.
And if they survive afterwards they will have to wait 9 minutes before their tubes are reloaded. Way too long to matter. They can outrun the gunships but not the missile salvos the rest of the fleet can bring to bear.
Their only hope then is that we take enough damage to really hinder our operations. But given their performance so far, I doubt that is what happens.
As long as we manage to get there in time and they follow us, we should be just fine.
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I have just had an even more abusive thought, which with the mechanics strikes me as not particularly abusive… let suitable parts of the fleet camp on the JP to draw his fire, jump through a minute before each salvo hits, and jump back a minute after the salvo vanishes. This allows us to dissipate his missiles at no risk to us, and only costs us a bunch of micromanagement around the jumps.
If the Xenos chooses to withdraw after shooting off his missiles, we can send just the gunships after his fleet, and run it down in a battle we control without the “do or die” aspect of allowing him the chance to get his missiles off at our fleet at point blank range. If he doesn’t withdraw, we just jump having depleted his missile stock and execute the ambush without needing to worry about a missile salvo.
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Correct.
My post 8989 (reporting the initial discovery of Red 2) has just happened.
I've spent the intervening time measuring distances, calculating rates-of-advance and potential seperations of hostile fleets, and forming a plan.
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