RE: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.

BIF