SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread VII

[Mr Bean]

It's 3 AM
Do you know where your deniable assets are?

[Lonestar]

It's 3 AM
Do you know where your deniable assets are?

Burning, twisted wreckage at Nexus City Naval base.

[Czechmate]

New thread, new discussion.

So I was wondering; what does everyone figure the average PC-state tech level is approaching? I mean, it's nearly 2016 and it's been a messy, agitated eight years. Nearly every nation has made advances in every field, especially the ones related to blowing people up...

...in short, where is my jetpack? Where is my flying car? Where is my less insane, more utopian Nova^2 Terra?

[Lonestar]

Dominion Electronics and Whatever Fin's computer company have made basic computing advances(new processing techniques, USB 4.0, etc). Tian Xia cleared the way for 4G networks, I believe.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Dominion Electronics and Whatever Fin's computer company have made basic computing advances(new processing techniques, USB 4.0, etc). Tian Xia cleared the way for 4G networks, I believe.

Icarus Electronics. We are also heavily funding Quantum COmputation, compactisation of Atomic fountain clocks, Atomic Gyroscopes for precision Inertial Guidance etc.

[Beowulf]

Dominion Electronics and Whatever Fin's computer company have made basic computing advances(new processing techniques, USB 4.0, etc). Tian Xia cleared the way for 4G networks, I believe.

4G networks and 100 Mb/s fiber broadband for $20/month.

[Ryan Thunder]

New thread, new discussion.

So I was wondering; what does everyone figure the average PC-state tech level is approaching? I mean, it's nearly 2016 and it's been a messy, agitated eight years. Nearly every nation has made advances in every field, especially the ones related to blowing people up...

...in short, where is my jetpack? Where is my flying car? Where is my less insane, more utopian Nova^2 Terra?

Jetpacks, eh? Well, Miratia's crazy enough to try it.

Dunno if they'd be crazy enough to actually make it work, though.

[CmdrWilkens]

So anyway yeah space race continues forward. I'll get a name eventually and I won't forget to include the FASTA exchange astronaut on the roster for either 5, 6, or 7 as those are the flights most likely to land. The first one is the earliest I have a lander mission planned so 6 is currently the front runner but if I end up getting some crappy dice roll (actually the =RAND1000 feature on Excel) then it might push to 7.

[Coyote]

So, Rogue, how does one redirect a search term on the ol'Wiki? I want to make it so that simply typing "Canissia" (or mispellings like "Cannisia") directs to the formal "People's Royal Republic of Canissia" and so on.

[Ryan Thunder]

Oh, by the way, just a friendly reminder to everybody that Miratia's been experimenting with small nukes purchased from San Dorado prior to their joining with CATO. You never know whether or not some part of our armed forces will have a couple.

So far, there's an experimental artillery shell (nothing mobile to fire it from, as of yet, however, since we generally stick to rockets and such), and an experimental air-to-air and surface-to-air missile (with a booster for the latter to increase its range.)

That would be the VNS-X14 800mm artillery shell (5 kt), and ONM-X15 5 anti-aircraft missile (5 kt), respectively. And yes, the missile is guided. There's also the ANW-X16 strategic nuclear bomb and the GNR-X17 "Mourning Star" nuclear ballistic missile in the works, but funding hasn't been allocated for that yet.

[Shroom Man 777]

Beowulf thinks Costa is Shepistan. But it's not. No ground IADS, no nuclear munitions to shorten the gap between obsolete and modern technology through indiscriminate use of nuclear munitions. And a lone Type 214 isn't quite a carrier killer in my view, not right near the harbor at the very least. Mining is an issue, so Baerne's ships could've been hit by mines.

That is all. The Su-30MKI could've scored against MiG-31s, but the scores would be around 2:1 proportion or the like -the MiG-31s operating in groups of hunter killers with one AEW plane could cover 1000 km squares and detect any Su-3X planes at distances around 160-180 km - basically the Su-30MKI (presumably Batch 1.0) could do the same at 140 km, if I'm not mistaken about the Bars Mk.1 radar.

So for each MiG-31, 0.5-0.7 Su-30MKI would be lost. The F-106s are just cannon fodder - there's no ground network of radars to guide them, and even if there were one, they are not hardened, meaning the first wave of MiG-31s going in full speed would take them out and then Costa is blind. End of story.

The Type 214 submarines should be considered a serious threat, so Baerne should be patrolling the coastal waters with all the ships he has. I doubt Costa sailors are exactly top of the line, so some ships may get sunk. Not Kirovs though, that's very unlikely - torpedoes have no nuclear ordnance, they aren't supercavitating, and the Kirovs have countertorpedo munitions unlike Western ships.

Third world wartorn shithole planes don't touch militant second-world nation's Migs.

(hurrr super competent costan cocksucking crapsacks, bullshit baernish blue balls!)

EDIT:

And I gave Baerne permission to use mercenary F-22 Raptors.

[K. A. Pital]

The real scenario of a supposed Baerne attack on Costa:

MiG-31s versus F-106H, Embraers and Su-30MKIs - MiG-31 losses: up to, no higher than 10 machines. F-106H: probably 20-30 machines or more. Su-30MKI - quite possibly no losses or low losses, 3-5 craft. No dogfights between combatants likely. The fight...

15 squads of 4 MiG-31s go in fast, the 15 AEW-coordinator MiG-31s go at ~20 km pushing out all up to max speed, the guided 3x15 groups go below them, spread out, keeping the speed - maybe going just slightly slower than the wing leaders.

The R-99 Embraer can detect them at oh-400 km. In ~10 minutes from intruder detection the R-99 is waste and toast, even if these are baseline MiG-31s which are flying with baseline R-77s, no fancy stuff. It can't even run away, and it would only buy itself a minute at most. If any additional AEW&C attempt to rise up, they would be downed.

The MiG-31s would be carrying a mix of R-77 and Kh-31P missiles. The defenders would have a total of 96 F-106H and 16 Su-30MKI planes. Even if they sortie at a rate of 1 per minute per airfield, and they have like 4 airfields alltogether, it would be roughly 25 minutes before everything is in the air. By that time, the MiG-31s would already close on their targets, or be closing. A sizeable number of planes would be in the air, but without nuclear missiles, ground radars and a guiding center the F-106H is going to be nigh-useless. The Su-30MKIs would put up a good fight, but as I said, the casualty count wouldn't be anywhere as lopsided.

Maybe no casualties would be inflicted on the Su-30MKI just because the MiGs won't bother getting bogged down which would make them vulnerable for the kills. The MiG-31s ability to simply outrun any pursuer would play a great role here.

Maybe several MiG-31s would be lost to enemy action, and a few to pilot errors. I'd say losing 10 out of 60 is a pretty decent estimate. As for the enemy losses, I would believe the MiG-31s would hardly be able to inflict large losses in evasive air-to-air combat, but everything that is flying below them, rising to fight them, or staying on the ground (radar masts, planes on the rise, watch towers on airfields) will be dusted by Kh-31 salvos.

The MiG-31s would leave Costa airspace in a matter of minutes if they want to. "Binding" the MiG-31s in Costa is impossible for their airforce; they don't have heavy SAMs to bind them, lock them in their operative depth. The MiGs will leave as soon as they feel they are taking too much flak or simply get objectives accomplished. The pursuers would not be able to pursue them effectively - the disparity in speed would penalize Costa.

Note on fighter losses: I project high frame fatigue losses for old planes. Both F-106s and MiG-31s are old frames. It's likely that out of 9-10 MiGs lost, 2 would be lost to frame fatigue. The F-106s force could have as high as 10 machines dying to frame fatigue. The Su-30MKIs wouldn't have fatigue problems. Pilot experience is likely to doom some Baerne MiGs (I projected 1 out of 10), and likewise for Costa especially on strained machines, 3-5 would die simply due to pilot errors.

Bomber losses: 18 out of 20, or (X- small number) out of X depending on how many you sent

The B-1Bs... why send strategic bombers into tiny Costa? That's stupid in my view. But if Baerne did that, I'm afraid he'll be losing some of them indeed. The Su-30MKIs are not as good as dedicated interceptors, but still they'd manage. The F-106Hs here would be a tad better despite the obsolecency, still they'd be much faster than the B-1. If not all Embraers would be taken out by the MiG-31s first run, then they could be adequately guided to the B-1B.

So I'm afraid Beowulf is correct on the casualty count with the bombers. No matter if you send them high or low, their ceiling is too low to be competitive vis modern fighters and interceptors, and their speed is quite low likewise. RCS-reducing measures on the B-1 are slightly inferior to those of the Tu-160, and it's basically the least competitive amongst modern supersonic bombers of SDN World...

Naval warfare: result: no Kirovs lost, the carrier's fate is up for grabs. The submarine - most likely killed.

Baerne would quite probably concentrate on counter-mine warfare before sailing out: minesweepers and large number of frigates would be dedicated to cleaning the area. I see Baerne has no, or did not list, small-tonnage ASUW patrol craft. That is regrettable, because it indicates that indeed the submarines may be undetected for a while.

The 5th escadra, alert, would probably disperse and maintain range between escorts and the carrier - P-3 and Hawkeye craft would be constantly patrolling the area. Sonobuoys would be most likely deployed in vinicity of the harbor, meaning the attack should be occuring further out - and further out the ships won't be as concentrated.

The Kirovs would most likely defeat a submarine attack against them, they have purposeful salvo systems which yield a 0.9 kill probability against a simple heavy torpedo going at them and have a very little reaction time and distance, meaning even if we sub were close, it wouldn't succeed unless deploying 3-4 torpedoes to sink the cruiser (incidentaly that's the number used to sink it at the trials I recall, so...). Even with a two-torpedo attack, the Kirovs would evade the other torp. After which, all sorts of shit would be shot towards the submarine.

The carrier is unlikely to evade a torpedo hit, unless one of the Kirovs helps it with a hedgehog barrage - which is distinctly possible. However, it may be that the carrier would be damaged.

The submarine may be toast or not, but with the concentration of ships in the area, most likely toast. Towed arrays would be deployed by all ships at small sail to determine the location of the attacker.

Thanks for playing

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Wait, if the bombers used cruise missiles, they could fire the missiles outside Costa itself. Would that change anything?

[K. A. Pital]

Yes, that would. That's why I'm asking if Baerne sent the B-1s over Costa to drop gravity bombs or not. On one hand, it's unlikely Baerne has many modern ALCMs to use. On the other hand, going with bombers into a dense SAM environment (and here we have a dense fighter environment, Costa sortied over 100 fighters and even if some were killed in the first minutes of the operation, and some fell due to fatigue, that's still al ot of dangerous machines)... is kinda stupid - even I only try to penetrate it with fighters or fighter-bombers, but leave the actual bombers out of the danger zone.

[Shroom Man 777]

Come on, the Baernes won't be total retards while the Costans go all competent and clever. Those B-1s will be launching cruise missiles or something.

[K. A. Pital]

I liked your first post better. Did you save it? Because it was awesome. Especially about Mangdalore.

[Shroom Man 777]

I can rewrite it.

Or you can press the back button and check what I wrote? I kind of... closed that other tab.

[Shroom Man 777]

I think it went something like:

Come on! The Baernes will totally use air-launched cruise missiles! Those turd world Costan cocksuckers can't be super competent geniuses while the Baernish are gonna be a bunch of incompetent retarded mongoloids. Those Costan cockdicks are a bunch of turd world shitpieces who can barely handle a bunch of ragtag rebel fucks led by Stone Cold Steve Austin while the Baernes are a militant second-world nation, goddamn it!

Or maybe the Baernes totally lost their fighters, their bombers, their cruisers and carriers and their ground forces, no thanks to those plucky crazy-competent Costan clone commandos under the brave leadership of goddamn Mangdalore!

[Master_Baerne]

The B-1s would indeed have used cruise missiles. The Air Force got shiny new toys in three of the last eight fiscal years, it's time to see them use some!

So...What do we say to 10 MiGs lost, 5 B-1Bs to some of the Costan planes evading my MiGs, the carrier severely damaged, and my divisions mauled but still active?

Perhaps that can be in-game explained as "We were going on a peacekeeping mission; we didn't bring any long-ranged ADA"? If so, that will be shipped out immediately.

[K. A. Pital]

It's feasible as an explanation, especially as you didn't have much time to properly plan the operations. I'm sure that you'd simply remove the majority of the bombers if you saw the amount of enemy fighters rising up, so I'd say only a few could be lost due to communications lag (I can't imagine that though: "This is MiG-LEADER speaking to the bombers, the clutter is growing worse and there's hundreds of enemy craft trying to get a score on us: it's HOT, don't go here". That would be enough).

I'm questioning the severity of the damage to the carrier, because basically, these things are very floatable and the other ships are still surviving.

Your divisions shouldn't be mauled AT ALL. PeZook's right, NATO had complete air superiority for months in Serbia; their divisions weren't "mauled", and here we are talking about several days. Suffice to say your land forces are nigh intact. And Costa's ATG capabilities are almost nil (certainly nil after the MiG-31 assault); so there's little to worry about.

I'd say though, that after such a fierce initial battle the Baernish military will have a lot of explaining to do: (1) who sent the bombers into a territory swarming with supersonic, relatively modern interceptors - leading to the loss of extremely expensive craft (2) coastal patrols will have heads rolling due to the inability to secure the coast from the subs; though that's par the course, I'd say every nations coastal forces could fail here. Modern subs are quiet and without simply swarming the area with enormous numbers of patrol craft, there's little one can do.

So what do you say to a ceasefire - so far?

[Master_Baerne]

We have one. Since before Beowulf posted his casualty list, even. We've just been trying to decide who lost what.

[K. A. Pital]

That's a lot of losses for both sides actually. I'd say both sides need to cool down, re-assess their losses and mistakes.

[Ryan Thunder]

So, uh, is my part in that battle just being ignored or has nobody actually read it yet? XD

[K. A. Pital]

We have. Any intervention on behalf of Baerne would increase the enemy losses, but wouldn't necessarily reduce Baerne's losses.

If you do intervene, you would basically encounter the same as he did - some 40 to 60 sortied fighters and interceptors depending on the time of arrival, with new ones sortied every minute. All Su-30MKI would probably be sortied, and as prime combatant they are rather dangerous. The F-106Hs would be taking heavy casualties from MiG-31s' R-77s and on the ground, radar stations and airfields with planes would be experiencing unpleasant fire in the face of Kh-31Ps.

Depending on how many craft you commit, you can kill several dozen enemy craft in the air fight and maybe, if you brought ATG machines, participate in the carnage against the airfields after the first intense battle dies down, Baerne's MiG squadrons return home and he sends another wave in several hours or so.

You will suffer your own losses in case you are commiting planes which are fourth generation combatants into this aerial bloodbath. With 4+ generation you might escape almost unscathed. Depends on what you actually do.

[PeZook]

The question is: did you co-ordinate the attack with Baerne?

If you didn't, I expect lots of friendly fire

Of course if you did, it changes the stakes significantly, since your Lightnings are essentially Mig-31 analogues, right?

On the ground situation: If one analyzes the situation further, we could see Baernish divisions losing a lot of vehicles, but only if they kept moving to their frontline jump-off points during an air battle and knowing they had no mobile ADA with them (which isn't really true, their OOB mentions medium ADA vehicles)

Though since the Costa is a little country, they could conceivably move to the frontline and secure their vehicles within the 24 hours that passed between both air battles, wither the attack and either wait in dugouts and camouflaged positions for additional ADA, or launch an immediate armored thrust towards the capital (though 14 regiments of Costa units would probably be able to delay the assault long enough for a second round of airstrikes to happen).

Things went so fast, though, that most Baernish tanks were probably still rolling out of their positions when the ceasefire call came.

Damn, we need a timeline for this clusterfuck