In Flag CIC, Commander Ninyu Hrolfsen scanned his board. The enemy's leading wave - mostly cruisers, with a few of the larger carriers - was just entering extreme range. "Admiral, we've got the range now."

There was a pause. "Hold your fire, Hrolfsen. Wait until they're in range for our outer screen."

Ninyu eyed the screen and did a quick calculation. "Understood Admiral. At current rate of advance that'll be in three minutes."

The minutes passed quickly, as the images of hostile warships seemed to flow across the screen towards the abstract line marking the effective range of the fighter missiles from Third Fleet's outermost patrols. Twenty seconds before contact, the Admiral finally spoke.

"Alright Hrolfsen. All ships can engage with Type-K capital missiles."

"Aye sir," the young man responded, his board taking control of launchers all across the fleet. "Preferred targets?"

Black Barney scowled. "Focus on their carriers. The fewer fighters they can launch the better."



Across Third Fleet, ships shook as the tremendous mass of capital missiles leapt from racks and tubes. Even the Nekohono'o destroyers were out, adding to the barrage with their spinal missile tubes. Each of the eighteen destroyers could launch three capital missiles, the seven frigates fired eight each and even the carriers could both add four missiles to the volley. One hundred and sixty capital missiles streaked away from the fleet.

Seconds later, both of the Mjolnir-class Battleships rocked as their four railguns and twenty-four massdrivers spat their deadly loads. Four Nightlords added over thirty railgun slugs and eighty clouds of massdriver shot to the volley and as the volley passed them, more and more ships added to the weight of metal being cast after the missiles. Fighter missiles were in flight now from the Sholagars on the outer perimeter, slowly being overhauled by the two waves of destruction on their tails, and the almost ninety corvettes that were outside the line of fire.

The hostiles - too far away to return fire with the massive energy batteries that made up the bulk of their firepower - brought their anti-fighter systems online in the hope of stopping the barrage. It was hopeless - their range was far short of the point when the missiles completed final tracking and burst into swarms of plasma warheads that burst towards the fleet.

And then the wave of massdriver and railgun fire arrived, closely followed by fighter missiles. Missiles went from ballistic to tracking as they reached interceptor range - leaving the defenses split between the plasma warheads and the smaller fighter missiles. Meanwhile the railgun slugs, almost invisible to sensors, adjusted their courses by means of shaped charges as the NAI's piloting them closed

It was called 'Time On Target', a artillery technique adopted by the space services for such long range fire as this. Careful timing left the entire barrage from several different weapons arrive at once, overwhelming defences capable of defeating any of them independently.

Only half the hostile warships had been targeted, but that included all their carriers, as well as twenty cruisers. Many were struck by a dozens or hundreds of plasma and nuclear warheads the latter usually the worst as the railgun slugs drove deep into hulls before detonating their horrific payloads. Not one such survived in any meaningful sense as scarcely conceivable energies were applied to them.

Five cruisers in the kill zone survived. Their hulls buckled and scorched from proximity blasts, raked by the clouds of hypervelocity massdriver shot and pummelled by fighter missiles. But they came on, and thirty more cruisers that had yet to be targeted.



Admiral Black Barney of the Third Unified Fleet examined the display. "Congratulations, commander. You just killed an estimated twenty thousand hostiles."

Hrolfsen stared at the display. "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds," he muttered to himself.

"No time for another volley," the large, swarthy admiral decided. "They'll be in energy range before then. All ships! Maneuver for close action!"



~This enemy had proved unusually resourceful. The loss of carriers had been unfortunate, but not crippling. Subsequent waves would be prepared for such tactics. The remaining cruisers could be most effectively employed in breaking up the enemy formation for the next wave to exploit.~



The hostile cruisers fired first, spinal mounts ripping into the corvettes.

Barney cursed as three Avengers and a Noruff were blasted apart. "Evasive, goddamn it! Pull the carriers back and get the fighter strikes in!"

He turned to screen that would connect him with his flag captain but the Tamerlane was already shaking with the recoil of two dozen massdrivers and the hiss of capacitors was audible even from the flag CIC as they strained to maintain maximum rate of fire from the battleship's sixteen particle cannons.

The rest of the fleet was firing and Hrolfsen removed two cruisers from the display - the combined fire of all seven battlecruisers focused on first one, then another of them. That was the last chance of concentrating fire though as the hostile's return fire forced them to scatter, the Fung Huang-class Glory limping after a lucky ship tore open one of her primary thrusters.

Five cruisers ignored every return fire and pummeled the Dagger mercilessly. The light cruiser disintergrated almost instantly but a railgun slug from the De Ruyter split open the rear half of one of the cruisers and corvettes swarmed over the others, their weapons slowly ripping away layer after layer of hull armour. One of the Tamerlane's own Noruff-class escorts was shot clean through by a particle cannon and the remains crashed into an Avenger-class corvette from the frigate Crusader.

The hostiles didn't seem to have fighters now that their carriers were gone and the Xerxes heavy fighters were having a field day as they raked their targets again and again with their light massdrivers. Turk medium fighters dashed in again and again, their lasers supressing the alien's interceptor turrets, but Barney kept the lighter Sholagar and Thrush fighters in reserve. They had no business in that tight maneuvering space - and he had a suspicion he would need them against the hostile fighters once more carriers arrived.

Suddenly, the Tamerlane lurched sending the Admiral's staff flying across the Combat Information Centre. Only by gripping his char hard enough to deform on armrest did the fleet's commander reamin seated.

"Goddamn it..." he bellowed, only to be cust off by Hrolfsen, who had wound up sprawled over damage control.

"A heavy particle beam just hit us sir, We've lost three massdrivers, one of the missile armouries, an auxilary reactor... and the ship's CIC. The Captain is missing, presumed dead. Commander Moray is already in sickbay, command falls to the Tactical Officer - shit, we've lost internal comms to the bridge, I can't reach her."

Barney snarled. "Mamoud's teeth! You mean command of this battlewagon just fell to some bright young spark and we can't even talk to her!?"

"That's about the size of it, sir. Inless we can get a runner up to the bridge, we're passengers right now."

The ship rocked again. A railgun, difficult to aim in these conditions, but one of the hostile cruisers staggered away, a front quarter stoved in by the impact - probably a good job the warhead hadn't detonated since it would have wiped out the two destroyers that were hanging in a blindspot created by earlier battle damage and tearing at it with their secondary weapons - too close to use missiles.

"Second wave on sensors," a young lieutenant reported.

Barney and Hrolfsen exchanged looks. "These things are worse than cockroaches," the Admiral said in disgust.



[This would be set a few years prior to Act II, as Nueva Terra has their first encounter with a new and hostile alien species.]

drakensis

A Toast to the Federated Commonwealth! Conceived 3022, born 3055, shot 3057, expired 3067.

The following comments are meant to be "constructive" criticism.

>Ninyu eyed the screen and did a quick calculation.
>"Understood Admiral. At current rate of advance that'll be in
>three minutes."

Note this point for later.

>Twenty seconds before contact, the Admiral finally spoke.

I infer that this is twenty seconds before the fighter missiles' range.

>Across Third Fleet, ships shook as the tremendous mass of
>capital missiles leapt from racks and tubes. Even the
>Nekohono'o destroyers were out, adding to the barrage with
>their spinal missile tubes. Each of the eighteen
>destroyers could launch three capital missiles, the seven
>frigates fired eight each and even the carriers could both
>add four missiles to the volley. One hundred and sixty
>capital missiles streaked away from the fleet.

This is point Two.

>Seconds later, both of the Mjolnir-class Battleships rocked
>as their four railguns and twenty-four massdrivers spat
>their deadly loads. Four Nightlords added over thirty railgun
>slugs and eighty clouds of massdriver shot to the
>volley and as the volley passed them, more and more ships
>added to the weight of metal being cast after the
>missiles.

This is point Three.

Also: the differentiation between "railgun" and "mass-driver" just _screams_ "Fanboi", to me. A railgun is a kind of massdriver. If you want to distinguish between different "calibers" of weapons, use terminology relating to "caliber" differences. For example, call one type "spinal" or "heavy" or "20 cm", or "5 ton", as the case may be, and call the second type "secondary", or "Dual Purpose", or "5 cm", or "100 kg", again, as appropriate.

>Fighter missiles were in flight now from the Sholagars
>on the outer perimeter, slowly being overhauled by
>the two waves of destruction on their tails, and the almost
>ninety corvettes that were outside the line of fire.

Okay: the _corvettes_ are overhauling the _fighter missiles_? What?
Clarify who is overhauling what, please.

>The hostiles - too far away to return fire with the
>massive energy batteries that made up the bulk of their firepower

Point Four.

>- brought their anti-fighter systems online in the hope
>of stopping the barrage. It was hopeless - their range was
>far short of the point when the missiles completed final
>tracking and burst into swarms of plasma warheads that
>burst towards the fleet.

Two uses of the word "burst" within the same sentence.

Also: kinda ... crappy lil' AMD systems they got, there, eh?

>Only half the hostile warships had been targeted, but that
>included all their carriers, as well as twenty cruisers.
>Many were struck by a dozens or hundreds of plasma and
>nuclear warheads the latter usually the worst as the

Needs punctuation between "warheads" and "the latter".

>railgun slugs drove deep into hulls before detonating
>their horrific payloads.

Most nuclear warheads are very shock-sensitive: not ideal payloads for a high-velocity impact delivery system. Also: whyfor not make the missiles nukes as well. Also: Nuclear detonations _inside_ your armor are "usually" the worst?

>Not one such survived in any

Not one such what? Not one such target?

>Five cruisers in the kill zone survived. Their hulls
>buckled and scorched from proximity blasts, raked by the clouds
>of hypervelocity massdriver shot and pummelled by
>fighter missiles. But they came on, and thirty more cruisers
>that had yet to be targeted.

Why were the enemy carriers still keeping their fighters in the barn? FOr that matter, why were the carriers in area of battle at all? Carriers keep them-selves out of the line of fire, unless there's a _very_ good reason to do otherwise.

>Admiral Black Barney of the Third Unified Fleet examined the
>display. "Congratulations, commander. You just
>killed an estimated twenty thousand hostiles."

"Black Barney" is an _exceedingly_ weird thing to be some-one's real name.

As a nick-name it makes sense, but then you don't put the "admiral" in front of it.

>"No time for another volley," the large, swarthy admiral
>decided. "They'll be in energy range before then. All
>ships! Maneuver for close action!"

Point Five.

Okay, at this point I have to lose my suspension of disbelief.

I realize that no-one really wants to spend their story time doing orbit calculations, but I think we have a certain responsibility to at least wave cheerfully at the laws of Physics as they go "whooshing" by.

-s-h-i-n-i-n-g-s-p-i-r-a-l- Capships have a maximum acceleration of 5 - 10 Gs. Even RMN Battlecruisers don't max out at greater than 15, and that's riding the ragged edge of Compensator failure as it is.

5 Gs is a total acceleration of 50 meters per second.

Even the weakest and most anemic of spiral Capital weaponry should have no trouble whacking targets at 1000 kilometers, given that the ships they are mounted on are able to get a reasonable target lock.

You don't cover 1000 km so fast that an opponent has only one firing opportunity, unless you do it so fast that your measely 50 mps accel will _not_ enable you to do _anything_ in the maneuver vein except flash past them at 50 + kilometers per second.

Again, the acceleration of the missiles must be taken into account: if they have enough accel to reach 1000 km in a few seconds to a minute, then they have enough reach to hit _way_ farther than 1000 km range, unless there's something _really_ strange about them. If 1000 km is the limit of their range, then a railgun firing at 20-30 kilometers per second will not be firing a Time-on-Target volley mere "seconds" later.

And again, "energy" batteries should be dead-shot cinches over a mere 1000 km distance. If they have a notably shorter range, this would be seen as unusual, and needs to be explained instory.

I'll note, again, that Carriers are not put into the line of battle by anyone with any sense at all. The whole Raison D'etre of a carrier is to keep the support facilities for its fighters out of harms way. (There _are_ such things as "carrier-only" battles, of course, but they work much differently.)

I would also note, just as a general thing, that few militaries have the capital resources to support more than one "battle-winning" weapon at a time. That is, in general, you will see Battleships _or_ Carriers, but not both. This is a minor issue in comparison, though.

The above issues can be dealt with in several separate ways, but since I don't know much about what kind of background you are assuming, I will decline to do so arbitrarily.

Eric Hallstrom, Speaker-to-Dreamworlds
--
I remember back when computers were annoying because they did what you
told them to do regardless of your actual wishes.
-J.D. Baldwin, pining for the Golden Days of Yore, sdm

>The following comments are meant to be "constructive" >criticism.

Precisely what I was trolling for.

>Twenty seconds before contact, the Admiral finally spoke.

>I infer that this is twenty seconds before the
>fighter missiles' range.

Correct.

>Also: the differentiation between "railgun" and "mass-
>driver" just _screams_ "Fanboi", to me. A railgun is
>a kind of massdriver. If you want to distinguish
>between different "calibers" of weapons, use
>terminology relating to "caliber" differences. For
>example, call one type "spinal" or "heavy" or "20
>cm", or "5 ton", as the case may be, and call the
>second type "secondary", or "Dual Purpose", or "5
>cm", or "100 kg", again, as appropriate.

The difference is based largely on their ammo types. Massdrivers fire a shotgun-like spread of solid shot - Railguns fire larger slugs that contain explosive warheads. This distinction is made in the text. The principle of operation is electromagnetic in both cases although I believe that there are differences in how they get to it. I will look at making this distiction clearer in the text.

>Fighter missiles were in flight now from the Sholagars
>on the outer perimeter, slowly being overhauled by
>the two waves of destruction on their tails, and the almost
>ninety corvettes that were outside the line of fire.
>
>Okay: the _corvettes_ are overhauling the _fighter >missiles_? What?
>Clarify who is overhauling what, please.

The fighter missiles are being overhauled by:
a) the naval missiles
b) the railgun and massdriver rounds.

>- brought their anti-fighter systems online in the hope
>of stopping the barrage. It was hopeless - their range was
>far short of the point when the missiles completed final
>tracking and burst into swarms of plasma warheads that
>burst towards the fleet.
>
>Two uses of the word "burst" within the same sentence.
>
>Also: kinda ... crappy lil' AMD systems they got, >there, eh?

Good point, maybe:
"when the missiles completed final tracking and burst into swarms of plasma warheads that dove into the fleet."

As far as AMD goes, there were 160 naval missiles targeting thirty-odd ships. Average of five missiles per ship, average of six warheads per missile. That's thirty warheads. Kill half before they hit and you still catch 15 nukes in the face. _However_, I will stipulate that neither side has had a chance to adapt their ECM to deal with the other's systems yet - which favours the missile using ships.

>Only half the hostile warships had been targeted, but that
>included all their carriers, as well as twenty cruisers.
>Many were struck by a dozens or hundreds of plasma and
>nuclear warheads the latter usually the worst as the
>
>Needs punctuation between "warheads" and "the latter".

Mistyped - there should have been a hyphen.

>railgun slugs drove deep into hulls before detonating
>their horrific payloads.
>
>Most nuclear warheads are very shock-sensitive: not >ideal payloads for a high-velocity impact delivery >system. Also: whyfor not make the missiles nukes as >well. Also: Nuclear detonations _inside_ your armor >are "usually" the worst?

The missiles carry plasma warheads, because they have more blast radius and can inflict damage even with a near miss. Railgun slugs, which are considerably harder to intercept, carry relatively simple, low-yield fisson bombs - much more like that used on Hiroshima than a hydrogen bomb. Impact crushes one subcritical mass back into another subcritical mass, leading to a critical mass within a couple of seconds. It's not that simple in practise, but it's still relatively robust and they've had thousands of years to work out the problems.

>Not one such survived in any
>
>Not one such what? Not one such target?

Um. Yeah. Let's just go with "Not one of those unfortunate ships survived"

>Five cruisers in the kill zone survived. Their hulls
>buckled and scorched from proximity blasts, raked by the clouds
>of hypervelocity massdriver shot and pummelled by
>fighter missiles. But they came on, and thirty more cruisers
>that had yet to be targeted.
>
>Why were the enemy carriers still keeping their
>fighters in the barn? FOr that matter, why were the
>carriers in area of battle at all? Carriers keep them-
>selves out of the line of fire, unless there's a
>_very_ good reason to do otherwise.

Okay, good point about the fighters not having been launched. The reason the carriers were closing is that they also carry somewhat more firepower than a cruiser - they're about twice the size and only 40% the difference is made up of fighter bays etc. 'Carriers' is to distuinguish them from 'cruisers' which do not carry fighters.

>Admiral Black Barney of the Third Unified Fleet examined the
>display. "Congratulations, commander. You just
>killed an estimated twenty thousand hostiles."
>
>"Black Barney" is an _exceedingly_ weird thing to be >some-one's real name.
>
>As a nick-name it makes sense, but then you don't put >the "admiral" in front of it.

It's not a nickname. First name Black, 'family' name Barney. Admittedly, he chose it himself and he is exceedingly weird. I haven't finished writing another part of the story yet, but he's one of only fourteen Barney-type GRELs and the only one to actually use the name Barney - the others don't want to be hunted down and executed by the NEC, who didn't like their newest supersoldiers taking up free enterprise.


>Ninyu eyed the screen and did a quick calculation.
>"Understood Admiral. At current rate of advance that'll be in
>three minutes."
>
>Note this point for later.

>Across Third Fleet, ships shook as the tremendous mass of
>capital missiles leapt from racks and tubes. Even the
>Nekohono'o destroyers were out, adding to the barrage with
>their spinal missile tubes. Each of the eighteen
>destroyers could launch three capital missiles, the seven
>frigates fired eight each and even the carriers could both
>add four missiles to the volley. One hundred and sixty
>capital missiles streaked away from the fleet.
>
>This is point Two.

>Seconds later, both of the Mjolnir-class Battleships rocked
>as their four railguns and twenty-four massdrivers spat
>their deadly loads. Four Nightlords added over thirty railgun
>slugs and eighty clouds of massdriver shot to the
>volley and as the volley passed them, more and more ships
>added to the weight of metal being cast after the
>missiles.
>
>This is point Three.

>The hostiles - too far away to return fire with the
>massive energy batteries that made up the bulk of >their firepower
>
>Point Four.

>"No time for another volley," the large, swarthy admiral
>decided. "They'll be in energy range before then. All
>ships! Maneuver for close action!"
>
>Point Five.
>
>Okay, at this point I have to lose my suspension of >disbelief.
>
>I realize that no-one really wants to spend their >story time doing orbit calculations, but I think we >have a certain responsibility to at least wave ?>cheerfully at the laws of Physics as they >go "whooshing" by.
>
>-s-h-i-n-i-n-g-s-p-i-r-a-l- Capships have a maximum >acceleration of 5 - 10 Gs. Even RMN Battlecruisers >don't max out at greater than 15, and that's riding >the ragged edge of Compensator failure as it is.
>
>5 Gs is a total acceleration of 50 meters per second.
>
>Even the weakest and most anemic of spiral Capital >weaponry should have no trouble whacking targets at >1000 kilometers, given that the ships they are >mounted on are able to get a reasonable target lock.
>
>You don't cover 1000 km so fast that an opponent has >only one firing opportunity, unless you do it so fast >that your measely 50 mps accel will _not_ enable you >to do _anything_ in the maneuver vein except flash >past them at 50 + kilometers per second.
>
>Again, the acceleration of the missiles must be taken >into account: if they have enough accel to reach 1000 >km in a few seconds to a minute, then they have >enough reach to hit _way_ farther than 1000 km range, >unless there's something _really_ strange about them. >If 1000 km is the limit of their range, then a >railgun firing at 20-30 kilometers per second will >not be firing a Time-on-Target volley mere "seconds" >later.
>
>And again, "energy" batteries should be dead-shot >cinches over a mere 1000 km distance. If they have a >notably shorter range, this would be seen as unusual, >and needs to be explained instory.
>
>I'll note, again, that Carriers are not put into the >line of battle by anyone with any sense at all. The >whole Raison D'etre of a carrier is to keep the >support facilities for its fighters out of harms way. >(There _are_ such things as "carrier-only" battles, >of course, but they work much differently.)
>
>I would also note, just as a general thing, that few >militaries have the capital resources to support more >than one "battle-winning" weapon at a time. That is, >in general, you will see Battleships _or_ Carriers, >but not both. This is a minor issue in comparison, >though.
>
>The above issues can be dealt with in several >separate ways, but since I don't know much about what >kind of background you are assuming, I will decline >to do so arbitrarily.

Fair enough.

To start with, let's say that the engagement opens at a range of 1000 km between the captial ships. The missiles launch. Because they do not need to accomodate a crew, they launch at about Mach 5 - very, very fast, yes - they will reach the target ships in around 10 minutes. The massdrivers and railguns operate very similarly, but launch a little faster, and this fire later.

Set the combat speed at Mach 0.5 - 165 m/s. In sixteen seconds of accelerating at 1 gravity, the ships could be travelling at less than 20 kmh or just shy of Mach 1. In less than three minutes they could go from Mach 5 to a dead stop. Since the missile's targets are approaching on the same line while accelerating, the actual contact would be after six or seven minutes. (remember, the missiles could have been fired well before.

Missile acceleration is a moot point. Naval missiles of the Unified Fleet coast most of the distance and then burn out their drives during the last twenty seconds or so, when they drop off most of their velocity to improve their accuracy. Because they are not powered in flight, they are difficult to detect and stop.

I will grant that more than one shot could have been fired - probably more were. But there was only one massed volley because once the first hit, targeting data would have been hopelessly confused and anythoing on the way would almost certainly have missed. By waiting until the attack hit, Black Barney was conserving his firepower and improving his targeting data. Once the enemy was in firing range, the ships under his command had to maneuver to minimise their vulnerability and there was no more opportunity to mass up such a volley.

The energy weapons being used (on both sides) can certainly hit at ranges of more than a thousand kilometers - but have to be closer to be effective weapons because of dissipation and loss of focus. I would estimate that really effectve fire from the apporaching cruisers was at ranges of less than five hundred kilometres.

I dealt with the carriers up above, but as a side note, most of the Unified Fleets ships carry at least a small number of fighters. They do have a distinct class known as a carrier, but this is not a dedicated fleet carrier type. Most Unified Fleet ships have multiple roles and their carriers carry firepower equivalent to a heavy cruiser, on the hull of a battlecruiser.

drakensis

A Toast to the Federated Commonwealth! Conceived 3022, born 3055, shot 3057, expired 3067.