Battle report - scratch one more NSL task force

Title says it all, really :-/

Cinematic battle, theoretically floating table (though we didn't need to use
that option). Core systems and ship morale were not used.

This time the fleets were:

NSL:
3 Maria von Burgund-class BB
2 Radetzky-class CE
3 Kronprinz Wilhelm/E-class CLE
5 Waldburg/M-class DDG
14 Falke-class SC
Total: 2998 pts

FSE:
1 Bologna-class CVL (4 Interceptor sqdns)
2 Roma-class BB
3 Jerez-class CA
8 Ibiza-class FF
8 Mistral/A-class SC
Total: 2997 pts

This time the NSL might have had too much ADFC support - they were a
rather weak in beams. They definitely had too many missile units; standard DDs
would have been far more effective than the DDGs in this battle.

The DDGs were there mainly to soften up the FSE FFs and SCs before they
could open fire - with the speeds I normally fly at, SMs and fighters
are the only weapon systems which can reasonably reliably do that, and killing
5 of my strike craft before the BBs opened up would've left about 4 of my
small ships able to fire at anything.

Unfortunately I had realized the same thing, and brought interceptors to
protect against any NSL SMs (or fighters, had there been any). They
did marvelously well - although 6 of the 8 missile salvoes the NSL
fired during the battle were on target, not even one single missile got past
the fighters.

The FSE tactics were the same as in the last battle - small fry attack
at high speed from one direction, the heavies hit from a completely different
direction one turn later.

The NSL, OTOH, basically sat still - the BBs never flew faster than
speed 2 and quite often didn't move forward at all (though they did spin in
place quite often), and the fastest NSL ships during the battle
were two DDs that re-deployed from one flank of the NSL formation to
the other. They moved at speed 10 :-/ Following Alan's advice, only 2
Falkes covered each MvB initially while the other 8 formed a line 6mu behind
the MvBs. The DDGs covered both flanks, and the cruisers were crammed in
between the reserve Falkes and the battleships.

There was one problem with this formation: It is almost impossible to turn it
in Cinematic without having the BJs fall out of formation and
leave some of the front-line ships without reserves. Since the FSE
attacked from two directions, it was impossible to keep the Falkes in a
position where they were both covered from attack by the battleships *and*
able to move forward for BJ duty at need.

The FSE small fry hit first, approaching perpendicular to the NSL formation
and killing 7 Falkes for a cost of 4 Ibizas and 5 Mistrals. Not too good an
exchange, but no worse than expected. The survivors then withdrew at high
speed.

The NSL now spun in place to recieve the FSE heavies that came screaming in
from almost the opposite direction and ending the turn at
range ~20. The NSL hammered the closest FSE ship - a Roma - but lost 4
Falkes and had a Kronprinz Wilhelm crippled in return (which didn't lose many
systems apart from its ADFC... and was completely unable to repair the damn
thing during the next 7 turns!). The MvB closest to the
FSE heavies was now completely stripped of BJs - the FSE small fry had
killed its initial escorts, and the heavies had killed the ones that
could have replaced them - and one of its ADFC escorts had been knocked
out.

Then the missiles started flying, and the FSE heavies closed to
point-blank range. The three remaining Falkes tried to move forward to
cover at least the other two MvBs, but ended up in a clump together
with three of the cruisers - and all three FSE CAs, and four FSE
missile salvoes, three NSL salvoes, and all four FSE fighter squadrons (all
within a 5x5 mu square... no problem, there was plenty of room
left, promise ;-) ). As mentioned above the NSL missiles were all shot
down by fighters, and the FSE missiles narrowly missed the BJs and hit the
cruisers. The stripped MvB was squarely hit by 5 salvoes and blew up in a
spectacular fireball; one Radetzky (hit by 2 salvoes) hung on with a single
damage point and virtually no systems, the other Radetzky took two thresholds,
one Kronprinz lost most of its armour and almost took a threshold check, and
the two NSL DDGs which hadn't launched their last missiles ate one FSE salvo
each and lost their chance to launch (one lost the magazine, the other the
FC).

The NSL were shaken but not beaten, and now the FSE force - a mere six
ships - sat at point-blank range of 2 MvBs and a bunch of others.
Unfortunatly they had misjudged their spin somewhat, and couldn't concentrate
their fire as well as they'd've liked. They killed the Roma they had already
battered and inflicted serious damage on two of the Jerezes, but the FSE got
even by killing the three remaining Falkes,
the gutted Radetzky, a Waldburg/M and a Kronprinz (which took three
points from FSE PDS :-) ). (No, the FSE dice weren't that hot - apart
from the PDSs - but I concentrated at picking off his wounded ships.
The Radetzky and the Falkes weren't too hard to kill, either :-/ )
While both Jerezes lost critical systems - one an SML, the other its
FCs - they managed to repair enough of the damage to remain in fighting
condition.

The FSE kept going straight through the NSL formation, starting a slow loop
back. As a parting gift they launched another nine missile
salvoes, this time at the BBs (and one salvo at a DDG - curse those
cross-broadside launchers on the Roma...). All missiles hit their
intended targets (the BBs were moving at speed 2, and I had killed
everything vectored towards them on the previous turn - they were
rather easy targets :-/ ). The DDG simply disappeared; one of the
battleships was completely gutted (1 damage point left, and a total of
three systems remained - a PDS, half its engine and an FC...), but the
other one was covered by the undamaged CLE and got away with a mere 23 damage
points (ie, it only took one threshold). Parting beam shots finished off the
gutted MvB, but the NSL almost killed one of the Jerezes. It managed to repair
its engines and FTL drive, but had to withdraw as fast as it could.

At this point in the battle, the forces consisted of:

FSE:
1 Bologna-class CVL (light hull damage, 1 salvo remaining in magazine)
1 Roma-class BB (undamaged, 2 salvoes remaining)
2 Jerez-class CA (one seriously damaged, one with light damage, no
missiles remaining)

1 Jerez, 4 Ibizas and 3 Mistrals had withdrawn from the battle.

NSL:
1 Maria von Burgund-class BB (half-way to the 2nd threshold, no
important systems lost)
1 Radetzky-class CE (half-way to the 3rd threshold; lost all beams
except 1x C1, but all other systems OK)
2 Kronprinz Wilhelm/E-class CLE (one had lost its ADFC, the other was
undamaged)
3 Waldburg/M-class DDG (1 with light damage, none with missiles left)

The FSE decided to swing around for one more attack run, to try and kill the
last NSL battleship. It took them four turns to loop back into beam range,
during which the NSL repaired most of their damaged systems (except that ADFC)
and grouped into a tight formation around their last
BB - in effect using the DDGs as BJs. The FSE entered extreme C2 range
and killed the Radetzky before they launched missiles, but the Roma took
serious damage and lost most of its beams. In addition they had misjudged
their attack slightly so they were unable to fire all the three remaining
salvoes at the BB; instead they launched the last salvo at the CLEs.

Put it like this: Even if there are BJs 1mu away, a thrust-2 ship
starting the turn at speed 0 isn't that difficult to hit. Both salvoes
directed at the MvB hit it, and the third hit the undamaged CLE - with
the only surviving ADFC. Although the CLE stopped the missiles attacking
itself cold, it failed to protect the battleship which died. The FSE ships
charged in just behind their missiles and once more ended
the turn at point-blank range; their beam fire killed the other CLE
(the one which still hadn't repaired its ADFC) and a DDG. The NSL didn't have
very much left to return fire with, and only inflicted minor damage. When the
FSE ships had rushed past them, they scattered and fled into FTL before the
FSE could turn around and finish them off.

This battle was a lot more even than the last one and could probably have gone
the other way if the NSL had had somewhat better luck with their PDS rolls
(eg, not rolling all their sixes against one single salvo and leaving the
others almost untouched <g>), or brought normal
DDs instead of the DDGs - that'd've provided some much-needed beam
firepower and made my interceptors worthless.

Even so, it was a fairly convincing FSE victory; the FSE lost 232 HS and had
most of the rest damaged or even crippled, but the NSL lost 774
HS - more than three times as much.

The low speeds and spinning in place allowed the NSL to fire much more
effectively than in the last battle, but it also allowed me to launch my
missiles very accurately. Only one of my salvoes hit another ship
than the one I aimed at - my first missile launch was directed at one
BB, two CEs and two DDGs, but one of the salvoes intended for a CE hit a CLE
instead.

Merry Christmas to you all,

> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> This battle was a lot more even than the last one and could probably

Sounds as if he didn't use his CLs as BJs (which you may have to do in
extremis - at least one of the Marias must be preserved). OTOH you've
proved your point. My contention was that a balanced fleet using BJs are a
sovereign remedy against any balanced FSE fleet under these circumstances,
whereas you've shown that it can lead to a fair fight. Thanks.

> The NSL, OTOH, basically sat still - the BBs never flew faster than

I learned long ago (OK, just this year) that to sit still, even with low
thrust ships, is death.

> Alan wrote:

> > Cinematic battle, theoretically floating table (though we didn't

It was physically impossible to get the CLs close enough to the BBs to disrupt
my aim (the models were too high to get closer than 2mu, and at the low speeds
they flew at that wasn't nearly enough).

In the my first missile salvo the two cruisers closest to the targetted MvB
used most of their PDS to protect it rather than themselves, but they were
Radetzkys with only 3 PDS each (it turned out that the Kronprinz covering that
BB had lost its ADFC on the previous turn, so couldn't help... I didn't know
that when I launched the missiles, though); they were in turn protected by the
other two Kronprinzes (one of which had also been targetted by a salvo).

In the final turn he could have ignored the single salvo targetting his
remaining CL completely and hoped to protect the (already wounded) BB, but
that would have left him with a badly damaged CL and a crippled BB instead of
a dead BB and an undamaged CL. As it were the CL used three PDSs to protect
the BB and two to defend itself, but, well... he used up all his sixes against
the salvo attacking the CL. He killed 11
of the 6 missiles in that one :-/ He did use his DDs as BJs to protect
the last battleship, but again they didn't get close enough.

> OTOH you've

Under the right circumstances, yes. It depends a bit on the size of the gaming
area (ie, the speeds at which you can fly), and quite a lot on which movement
system you use. It is harder to set up fast attack runs in Vector, and much
easier to position the BJs well, but the basic idea
- gun for anything that'll disrupt the missile barrage first, *then*
launch missiles - has worked reasonably OK so far.

IME the larger FSE ships are tough enough to take one turn of fire in range
band 2 (during which time they shoot at the enemy BJs, and
possibly cruisers) before they launch any missiles - yes, they risk
losing some of the launchers, but they usually won't lose enough launchers to
defeat them early on.

Ah well - over to you to develop anti-anti-BJ tactics :-)

> Schoon wrote:

> >The NSL, OTOH, basically sat still - the BBs never flew faster than

Well... yes and no. It allowed me to launch missiles very accurately, but it
also allowed those NSL heavies to use most of their weapons most
of the time instead of about half their weapons about 2/3 of the time
(and none of their weapons except the C1 batteries the remaining 1/3)
as happened in the last battle. It added to the overall level of death and
destruction on both sides; if any side benefitted from it, it was the NSL.

It certainly was a very radical departure from our normal tactics, and
I hadn't quite realized that a non-moving ship turns as fast in
Cinematic as it does in Vector <g>

Regards,

> Sean Bayan Schoonmaker wrote:

Anyone know where the "Speed is life" quote came from? I think it may have
been SFB, but I still do my best to remember it when I'm playing. Of course,
in combat all rules are made to be broken.

"Speed is life" is a common quote among fighter pilots. Speed = energy
=
manuver potential.

Happy Holidays,

Magic

[quoted original message omitted]

> Anyone know where the "Speed is life" quote came from? I think it

To my knowledge, it has come from a number of sources, one of which IS SFB.
The comment was also used in almost any tactical aircraft combat game of the
era as well.