FT Forts (battle report using same)

I said the rules I used fort asteriod forts was for a specific senario, and
here is the senario.

I`ve read the replies to my posting about forts, and was suprised by the
number of people who pointed out the vulnerability of forts to MT missiles.
Suprised, because this is actually how the opposing player tried to take out
the monster fort protecting the warp point it was defending.

The senario was that the NAC had a increase of new ships coming on line, and
the ESU command couldn`t figure out where they were coming from (it would
require a new shipyard to account for all the new hulls). In a piece of
espeonage that took sacrificing several spies, the ESU obtained records that
the NAC had discovered a warppoint that enabled ships to jump from this one
point in the system new caterham to a system inside a nebula. This system
inside the nebula was a strategist dream, because being inside a nebula meant
ships could not jump in normally, because jumping into a nebula would destroy
a ship (the system was aproximatly 22 light years inside said nebula), and the
only way in was through the warppoint. The NAC navel command immidiatly began
constructing a shipyard and defences for this system. The ESU, realising that
if given time, a sytem with inpentratable defences and a shipyard that
couldn`t be attacked would mean the NAC could churn out ships with inpunity,
begain a plan to destroy the shipyards, or at least cripple them. In a large
scale plan, the ESU navy had drawn off all the mobile defenders in the area,
leaving the system to be defended by it`s fixed defenders only. The NAC
command had realised this, and was rushing
re-enforcements to the area. In this window of oppetunaty, the ESU
attacked.

The ESU player captured 4 NAC freighters in the new caterham system, and used
these with a penal squadren to clear the defenders. The penal squadren
consisted of convicted criminals flying converted corvettes (mass=10, 1
engine(T=2), 1 hull, 1 FTL, 1 firecon, 3 MT missiles, cost=38), which would

jump into the system and salvo their ordinance at the forts. They would then
try and return throught the warppoint with detaled sensor info on what was on
the other side (detailed plans of what awaited them were unavalibe to the ESU
spies). Any criminals that survived would then be pardoned (actually exicuted,
but they didn`t know this).

The NAC player had been warned by a currier from the new caterham system that
a ESU taskforce had arrived insystem, before the currier had left to fetch
re-enforcements from the nearest NAC navel base (aprox a 4 week round
trip). This was the senario we used.

The ESU player used a nice trick to try and take out the fort, which was his
primary concern. The fort had enough firepower to destroy any ship exiting the
warppoint, so the ESU player decided to try and overwhelm the firecons of the
fort with a large number of small targets (the aformentioned missile armed
corvettes). To deal with the mines that had been positioned on the other side
of the warppoint to bottle up any attacker, the ESU player intended to use the
freighters to clear a path through them (which is why he captured them). This
was his plan, anyway.

The NAC player had his fort, and a SD, CVF, 2xBB, BC, CH, and 6xDD. The fort
had a mass of 3000, with 800 pts of armour, 300 hull DP`s, 30 firecons, 30
SML`s with 5 salvos each, 10 fighter bays (std fighters), and 30 6 arc Cl.3
bats, plus 200 PDS. To simplify the records, we said that the dammage would be
applied directly to the armour first, and any extra would be applied to the
hull afterwards (instead of half to armour and half to hull). Total cost of
the fort was 7000 pts. Also, to represent the effects of the transit, we said
the defender was allowed to fire and apply dammage first, before the attacker,
but could only have a limited number of his units at combat stations (of
course, he chose the fort, and 6 fighter squadrens from the
CVF).

When the corvettes jumped through, using a simultainous transit, to get the
maximum number of units in place as quickly as posible, any unit that rolled a
6 on a D6, died from colisions. The ESU player sent through in a single wave
all his corvettes, 200 of them! He lost 21 from transit (ouch), and the fort
and fighter patrol awaiting them had a chance to fire first before the
corvettes could fire. The fort had 30 firecons, and was equipted with SML`s
and Cl.3 bats, at a range of 20 MU. He fired a full volly of SML`s, and 30
beams at the targets. Any SML killed a single corvette, which resulted in 30
kills, and the beams managed to take out another 12. There was also 6 fighter
squadrens, which managed to kill another 4 ships. This left 133. The corvettes
then salvoed their full load of missiles, and targeted them all on the fort.
The fort had 200 PDS, and managed to reduce the number of missiles down from
399 to 285 (prety good die rolling). These remaining missiles reduced the
forts armour to nill, but only managed to take out a row and a half of the
forts hull (we rolled for every missile, and he got some awful rolls,
averaging out at about 3.2 DP per missile). The fort lost 3 Cl.3 bats, 6 PDS,
a a SML launcher and a SML magasine (different launcher and magasine, taking
out 2 launchers), and 2 fighter bays (both empty). This first turn had alerted
the NAC player, allowing him to activate all his ships and launch all his
fighters, but not before the corvettes turned round and made a run back for
the warppoint. The fort and the fighters within range of the warppoint managed
to take out another 38 corvettes first.

The ESU player was worried when he actually saw what was awaiting him from the
returned corvettes. He had lost 105 corvettes and the fort was still active.
He at this point decided to continue, and had brought along some freighters
with hanger bays and MT missile reloads for the corvettes, and spent 10 turns
reloading them to try again. This time, immidiatly after the corvettes, he
would be sending through the freighters and his 6 SD`s, but only 1 at a time
(having seen what the colisions did to his corvettes, he wasn`t going to try
it with his big `uns). Unfortunatly, the NAC player had used the time to place
all his fighters on top of the warppoint, and bring his ships within effective
range. He had also used the time to repair the systems taken down on the fort.
The ESU sent his corvettes through again in a simultaneous transit, and only
lost 3 to colisions. Unfortunatly, the fighters (18 squadrens), the fort (all
weapons active), and the defending ships (also all active) were waiting. The
result was the destruction of 63 corvettes before they could fire, and the
remaining ones salvoed their missiles against the fort again (87 missiles
incoming). The PDS on the fort performed exceptionally again, and only 11 got
through. These 11 were enough to take the fort over another threshold, and
this time he lost 5 SML`s, 2 magasines, 3 Cl.3 bats and 12 PDS. Instead of
transiting back, the corvettes waited because the freighter were coming
through, and the NAC player switch targeting to the freighters and ignored the
weponless corvettes (I asked the NAC player afterwards, and he said that he
knew what the freighters were being used for, as he had also read crusade
<G>). The freighter came through one at a time, and were destroyed as soon as
they transited. The SD`s then started coming through one at a time, and with
the firepower awaiting him n the other side, even these died pretty quickly
(the longest any survived was 3 turns. When you have 24 SML`s incoming in a
single turn, even a SD dies quickly). In return for destroying the 6 SD`s, the
ESU managed to inflict more dammage upon the fort, and destroy 3 DD`s. The
remaining corvettes (all 8 of them, because the ESU had been using them as
missile sponges against the incoming SML`s) then transited back through the
warppoint and alerted what was happing on the onther side of the warppoint. At
this point, the ESU player decided to retreat, and declare a NAC victory.

> From this game, we came to some conclusions.

If the ESU player had had more corvettes (He had more corvettes in point value
than the fort cost, but still failed), or better die rolls with the first
salvo, he would have won. If it was a open space battle, without the warppoint
effects (losing those ships to colisions), he would probably faired better.
Also, if the NAC player hadden`t had exceptional rolls for the PDS of the fort
against the incoming missiles, or it was SML`s he was facing, the fort would
have been destroyed (both players later said that had the corvettes had SMR`s,
the fort would have probably died. The ESU player didn`t equipt them with
such, because he didn`t know how far the fort was from the warppoint. Having
played against the NAC player before, and knowing he liked to use MT missiles
(including the launcher version) and fighters, was expecting the fort to be
further away and be armed mainly with MT missiles and fighters, to attack
beyond SML range).

I leave yorselves to draw conclusions as to if the construction rules for the
fort are overpowerful or not.

You guys must have worn out your wrists rolling all those dice...
Cool battle though.  8-)