Re: Retrograde gimmickry

> >Yes, that's true... but if you're only putting a die or two of beam
fire on
> >a ship every turn, how far out they start from their target isn't
going to
> >matter a terrible amount.

> Well, no, but it does matter how long it takes to get there.
> If you start off two AU away--the FTL limit for the Honor
> Harrington universe is around 3 AU for example--if one thrust =1
> gee and you plan to accelerate all the way in, you'll get there
> in about 72 hours.  Divide by 15 minute turns and multiply by 2
> dice a turn, and you have 576 dice hitting you.  From one
> battlecruiser, about 350 points worth.
 
> If you start out at about 30 AU (Mote in God's Eye universe)
> then your time to target is something like 2 weeks.
 
> Of course, if you have no real limits on your FTL drives, then
> you just pop out of FTL, launch 4000 points worth of missiles at
> his starbase or planet, and pop back into FTL again.	 And hope
> he can't return the favor.

I'd probably take, as my example, the "Assault on Starbase 13" scenario
in MT:
the Kra'Vak were able to come out of orbit close enough to catch people
off
guard, but not close enough that they couldn't power up their systems
before
the Kra'Vak were within firing range.  Whether or not that's the
_normal_ way
of doing it, might be questioned, but there's reason to suspect that FTL
is
capable of putting them within halfway close striking distance of an
enemy
outpost.  Let's not forget that scanner range in the previous books was
only
54" for active scanners... so further out than that you just plain may
not
be able to tell approaching ships apart from celestial matter.	One way
or
another, it seems pretty plain to me that it's possible to get to a
planet
without having to worry about interception before you're within a few
turns
of striking range.  Stick a cloaking device or ECM into the mix, and
most
likely you can hit without a terrible amount of warning.

If the enemy can't meaningfully stop you from reaching the planet, they
probably can kiss it goodbye, yes.  It doesn't even take a terrible
amount
of firepower... but just a couple or three dozen class 5 K-guns or the
equivalent will shred much of a task force in a couple of turns if they
don't respond in kind.	Skirmishers have nothing to do that... which
says
that if that's the entire defense, their homeworlds are probably doomed
once the first concentrated assault takes place.
-- 
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