BattleTech invades nBSG Colonies

[Q99]

To do that, they'd have to get past the SLDF's Aerospace fighters. Honestly, it's what's keeping this from in fact being a total curbstomp.

Additionally, they'd likely detach dropships and have an escort of them.

[Esquire]

How many fighters does a typical SLDF warship carry?

[Batman]

Warships that lumber about the system at a G or two while the Colonials can have Raptors lob nukes at them with impunity.

And we see them do this how often? As best I can recall, once, in the finale against the Colony, a last-ditch desperate effort and even that wasn't a "jump in, fire nukes, jump out" attack.
We see the Cylons do it, but as was repeatedly shown in the series, the Cylons had much better FTL navigation computers.

Except this isn't against the post-'The Cylons kicked out butts something fierce' remnant fleet, it's against the 12 colonies with their entire fleet and infrastructire intact.

Also, BSG nukes seem to be relatively low-yield. Fighter-sized missiles are in the 50 kiloton range or so. From what I can recall of BT space combat, a hit from one of their Killer Whale nuclear missiles is enough to completely destroy a million-ton armoured WarShip, which suggests a much higher yield. Thus, a few BSg nukes making it past their defences may not be enough for a guaranteed kill.

Nukes are the big no-go in BT. Since when are their antiship missiles nuclear and since when is a Killer Whale an instakill?

[Batman]

How many fighters does a typical SLDF warship carry?

There's no such thing as a 'typical' SLDF warship any more than there was a 'typical' US warship in WW2. The number varies from 'none whatsoever' to '50' from what I can tell (with the average being 4-12 or thereabouts).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Warships that lumber about the system at a G or two while the Colonials can have Raptors lob nukes at them with impunity.

And we see them do this how often? As best I can recall, once, in the finale against the Colony, a last-ditch desperate effort and even that wasn't a "jump in, fire nukes, jump out" attack.
We see the Cylons do it, but as was repeatedly shown in the series, the Cylons had much better FTL navigation computers.

Except this isn't against the post-'The Cylons kicked out butts something fierce' remnant fleet, it's against the 12 colonies with their entire fleet and infrastructire intact.

Them having their full fleet and infrastructure is fairly irrelevant. Such a tactic is never even mentioned. The one time they use a Raptor to nuke a Basestar they give it a Cylon transponder so they can sneak in. If "jump-fire-jump" was a viable tactic surely Adama or Tight would have thought about it.

Also, BSG nukes seem to be relatively low-yield. Fighter-sized missiles are in the 50 kiloton range or so. From what I can recall of BT space combat, a hit from one of their Killer Whale nuclear missiles is enough to completely destroy a million-ton armoured WarShip, which suggests a much higher yield. Thus, a few BSg nukes making it past their defences may not be enough for a guaranteed kill.

Nukes are the big no-go in BT. Since when are their antiship missiles nuclear and since when is a Killer Whale an instakill?

[/quote]

Ok, I know little of BT apart from fanfics, I grant you. However, nukes only became a big no-no during the Succession Wars AFAIK. The SLDF would have to be freaking idiotic not to build their ships with fighter-launched nuke strikes in mind.

Now that I think about it though, why would the SLDF launch an invasion? The Clans I can see doing it (the Crusaders anyways) and the Successor States, sure, they'll want to grab all the tech they can. But the Star League? Methinks they'd probably prefer trying to at least talk to the Colonies. And since they're from Earth, the Colonies will have the whole "omg the 13th Tribe from Earth!" religious angle to make them less likely to fire first.

[Batman]

And we see them do this how often? As best I can recall, once, in the finale against the Colony, a last-ditch desperate effort and even that wasn't a "jump in, fire nukes, jump out" attack.
We see the Cylons do it, but as was repeatedly shown in the series, the Cylons had much better FTL navigation computers.

Except this isn't against the post-'The Cylons kicked out butts something fierce' remnant fleet, it's against the 12 colonies with their entire fleet and infrastructire intact.

Them having their full fleet and infrastructure is fairly irrelevant. Such a tactic is never even mentioned. The one time they use a Raptor to nuke a Basestar they give it a Cylon transponder so they can sneak in. If "jump-fire-jump" was a viable tactic surely Adama or Tight would have thought about it.

Who said it 'was' a viable tactic...with the resources they had available? Them having their total fleet and infrastructure is 'massively' relevant.
And I don't think I ever specified Cylon-style 'jump-fire-jump' attacks, I just said that unlike the SLDF, the Colonials can jump in anywhere they want and jump back out anywhere they want so even if the have to spend an hour getting into missile range of the SLDF they are still infinitely more tactically flexible.

Also, BSG nukes seem to be relatively low-yield. Fighter-sized missiles are in the 50 kiloton range or so. From what I can recall of BT space combat, a hit from one of their Killer Whale nuclear missiles is enough to completely destroy a million-ton armoured WarShip, which suggests a much higher yield. Thus, a few BSg nukes making it past their defences may not be enough for a guaranteed kill.

Nukes are the big no-go in BT. Since when are their antiship missiles nuclear and since when is a Killer Whale an instakill?

Ok, I know little of BT apart from fanfics, I grant you. However, nukes only became a big no-no during the Succession Wars AFAIK. The SLDF would have to be freaking idiotic not to build their ships with fighter-launched nuke strikes in mind.[/Quote]
We already know they're freaking idiotic because they thought Mechs were a good idea.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well apparently in-universe they are a good idea, so, yeah.

As for the jump in and spend an hour approaching missile range, that leaves the Raptors open to detection and counterattack from SLDF fighter screens. I don't know what detection ranges in BT are, but I'm pretty certain they're going to be substantially higher than missile-lock range.

No, you didn't specify jump-fire-jump style, but you suggestion of "they can jump in and fire off a load of nukes" sounds far more like a Cylon tactic than a Colonial one.

There is still the not-so-insignificant question of why the SLDF would be going for an all-out invasion of the Colonies anyways. Though frankly, if we do assume a all-out war and the SLDF ships are vulnerable enough to offset their numeric advantage, then the two sides are basically going to stalemate each other: the SLDF can't reliably overpower the Colonial Fleet to force landings, but by contrast the Colonies just don't have the numbers (of ships, troops and population to land any sort of devastating blow to the Star League. They'll hit the same problems the Clans did, there simply aren't enough of them, with only twelve inhabited worlds to conquer or occupy the Star League.

So I can see it being something like the First Cylon War, drawn-out and bloody conflicts ultimately leading to a negotiated armistice.

[Esquire]

I think you're underestimating that advantage that unrestricted jump drives give the Colonials. If any SLDF task force is small enough for the Colonial Navy to engage it and win, that force is gone if the Colonials want it to be. If the SLDF fires ten thousand missiles to get the first shot in, those missiles will not hit anything. Nuke-armed Raptors will never 'spend an hour getting into missile range;" they can build a massive sublight velocity, jump in as close as they can, and be out of the SLDF defense envelope in minutes, potentially. The ability to always pick the terms of engagement is something any historical general would give his arm for. It's similar to Cylon tactics because the Colonials are in a similar position, using superior manueverability and (potentially) firepower-to-size ratio to defeat an enemy to powerful to meet in open combat.

That said, I agree with you that the most likely outcome is a negotiated armistice. The SLDF will lose a bunch of ships, then keep them concentrated enough to prevent hit-and-run attacks while forcing the Colonials to defend fixed targets. A lot of people will die on both sides and they'll eventually get tired of it.

[Batman]

Well apparently in-universe they are a good idea, so, yeah.

Except they're not. Unless you want to include game mechanics that were deliberately skewered in favour of Mechs so they wouldn't be utterly useless. Using the technology employed in Mechs in conventional military vehicles would be vastly more efficient.

As for the jump in and spend an hour approaching missile range, that leaves the Raptors open to detection and counterattack from SLDF fighter screens. I don't know what detection ranges in BT are, but I'm pretty certain they're going to be substantially higher than missile-lock range.

Based on-what,exactly? You just admitted you don't know beans about BT detection ranges so how do you know they're bigger than nBSG Missile ranges?

No, you didn't specify jump-fire-jump style, but you suggestion of "they can jump in and fire off a load of nukes" sounds far more like a Cylon tactic than a Colonial one.

We have no fucking clue what Colonial tactics before they were raped by the Cylons looked like, but they had the technology and the resources for my approach. Do I know they 'would' have done that'? No. But they absolutely could.

There is still the not-so-insignificant question of why the SLDF would be going for an all-out invasion of the Colonies anyways. Though frankly, if we do assume a all-out war and the SLDF ships are vulnerable enough to offset their numeric advantage, then the two sides are basically going to stalemate each other: the SLDF can't reliably overpower the Colonial Fleet to force landings, but by contrast the Colonies just don't have the numbers (of ships, troops and population to land any sort of devastating blow to the Star League. They'll hit the same problems the Clans did, there simply aren't enough of them, with only twelve inhabited worlds to conquer or occupy the Star League.
So I can see it being something like the First Cylon War, drawn-out and bloody conflicts ultimately leading to a negotiated armistice.

Not my area of interest I went with 'they're fighting for whatever reason'.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That said, I agree with you that the most likely outcome is a negotiated armistice. The SLDF will lose a bunch of ships, then keep them concentrated enough to prevent hit-and-run attacks while forcing the Colonials to defend fixed targets. A lot of people will die on both sides and they'll eventually get tired of it.

This is a good point, the Colonies have twelve heavily-populated worlds to defend, and if The Plan is a reasonable portrayal of planetary defences, they consist solely of the Colonial Fleet, no fixed stations or similar. The SLDF however are on the offensive and have no fixed points to defend, which gives them a way to decide where a battle will be fought, no matter what advantage Colonial jump drives might be - if the SLDF appears over one of the Colonies, the Colonial Fleet has to respond.

Well apparently in-universe they are a good idea, so, yeah.

Except they're not. Unless you want to include game mechanics that were deliberately skewered in favour of Mechs so they wouldn't be utterly useless. Using the technology employed in Mechs in conventional military vehicles would be vastly more efficient.

Again, so what, they use Mechs, they work in-universe, and one of the standards for versus discussions is both side's technology works as advertised. Could they do things better? Most likely, but we aren't arguing using an BT universe are we.

As for the jump in and spend an hour approaching missile range, that leaves the Raptors open to detection and counterattack from SLDF fighter screens. I don't know what detection ranges in BT are, but I'm pretty certain they're going to be substantially higher than missile-lock range.

Based on-what,exactly? You just admitted you don't know beans about BT detection ranges so how do you know they're bigger than nBSG Missile ranges?

I would think it's pretty much axiomatic that, within a given universe, detection range for radar/sensors/DRADIS/whatever is greater than a comparable enemies missile-lock range. With a handful of exceptions, Colonial technology is not drastically different from real-life, missiles included. All the missiles we see attached to Raptors/Vipers are fairly small, while BT missiles can be up to, what, fifty-odd tons? That's Polaris/Trident sized missiles, and if BT sensors are able to pick up targets beyon the range of those missiles, odds-on they can pick up targets beyond the range of nBSG missiles as well.

No, you didn't specify jump-fire-jump style, but you suggestion of "they can jump in and fire off a load of nukes" sounds far more like a Cylon tactic than a Colonial one.

We have no fucking clue what Colonial tactics before they were raped by the Cylons looked like, but they had the technology and the resources for my approach. Do I know they 'would' have done that'? No. But they absolutely could.

There's any number of tactics either side could use but we never observe them doing, so we can file that under "speculation." Sure it coudl be done, but how long would it take for them to coem up with the idea? It might be enough fr them to force an armistice later on I suppose.

AS for "normal" Colonial tactics, well they woudl appear to be use Vipers to engage Raiders, supported by flak barrages whilst Battlestars engage Basestars with their main batteries. Raptors were used as missile pickets on occasion during the series, but any anti-capital-ship tactics seem to be rooted in "have a capital ship of your own available if possible."

There is still the not-so-insignificant question of why the SLDF would be going for an all-out invasion of the Colonies anyways. Though frankly, if we do assume a all-out war and the SLDF ships are vulnerable enough to offset their numeric advantage, then the two sides are basically going to stalemate each other: the SLDF can't reliably overpower the Colonial Fleet to force landings, but by contrast the Colonies just don't have the numbers (of ships, troops and population to land any sort of devastating blow to the Star League. They'll hit the same problems the Clans did, there simply aren't enough of them, with only twelve inhabited worlds to conquer or occupy the Star League.
So I can see it being something like the First Cylon War, drawn-out and bloody conflicts ultimately leading to a negotiated armistice.

Not my area of interest I went with 'they're fighting for whatever reason'.

[/quote]

Fair enough, though "Colonial Fleet vs. SLDF in a cage match, fight!" isn't realy what was asked, which was "SLDF invades the Twelve Colonies" which, like it or not, includes diplomats and politicians, not just soldiers.

For that matter, where are the Cylons in this?

[Batman]

Technically that's untrue. what was asked was what if the Successor States/The Clans/The SLDF invade the colonies. People concentrate on the SLDF because of the three, it's the one least likely to be curbstomped.

[Eternal_Freedom]

And yet it's still them versus the Colonies, not just the Colonial Fleet, no?

[Batman]

Nothing in the setup indicates they wouldn't have their fleet available.

[Esquire]

Having to defend a small number of planets helps limit the otherwise overwhelming maneuver advantage the Colonials have, I think is the point.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That and the SLDF aren't just fighting the Colonial Fleet, they're assaulting planets as well which helps pin down the Battlestars somewhat, but more importantly it means you have to start considering things like "why are they even fighting" or "why is the fighting continuing once one side or the other realizes they're fighting something new and unseen but still human?"

In short, it's "BT invades the Colonies" which includes planets armies, politicians, diplomats, peace envoys and all that shit, rather than merely "SLDF Fleet versus Colonial Fleet in a cubic light year of deep space, fire away."

[Tribble]

Well ya, the only group I could see being aggressive enough to simply launch an attack at the Colonies without provocation would be the Crusader Clans, if only because the Colonies are on the way to Terra. And they would promptly get smashed, which would put an end to the invasion real quick. If the Colonies fell along Clan Wolf's invasion corridor though things would be very different. Clan Wolf would want to investigate and would open up diplomatic relations.

[Q99]

How many fighters does a typical SLDF warship carry?

There's no such thing as a 'typical' SLDF warship any more than there was a 'typical' US warship in WW2. The number varies from 'none whatsoever' to '50' from what I can tell (with the average being 4-12 or thereabouts).

Further complicated by dropships. A warship with none naturally could carry 4 dropships with 12 each and have a nice 48 fighter defense. 18 is a pretty common number for fighter carrying dropships or warships, as that's how many are considered the standard air support of a battalion. Some dropships carry even more than that- the Vengeance is the largest of all, carrying 40 fighters.

One popular SLDF warship class, the Potemkin, was infamously designed for maximum dropship capacity, able to hold 25 dropships.

Hypothetically, a Potemkin could carry 40 Vengeances and have a total capacity of 1,000 aerospace fighters.... though as the Vengeances are one of the most expensive and valuable dropships, and this is a total 'all the eggs in one basket' strategy, it's unlikely to happen. A potemkin's dropships bringing it up to 100+ fighters would be common even when it wasn't being fighter focused, and several hundred when it's leaning in that direction would be what I'd expect.


Hm... dropships are an interesting conundrum for BSG fighters, They're way too tough for anti-fighter weapons, but a nuke seems overkill. I guess by default that has to be the response.

[SAMAS]

There is still the not-so-insignificant question of why the SLDF would be going for an all-out invasion of the Colonies anyways. Though frankly, if we do assume a all-out war and the SLDF ships are vulnerable enough to offset their numeric advantage, then the two sides are basically going to stalemate each other: the SLDF can't reliably overpower the Colonial Fleet to force landings, but by contrast the Colonies just don't have the numbers (of ships, troops and population to land any sort of devastating blow to the Star League. They'll hit the same problems the Clans did, there simply aren't enough of them, with only twelve inhabited worlds to conquer or occupy the Star League.

Well, he justification for the Reunification War against the Periphery States was pretty much "One Species, One Realm". So yeah, if Ian Cameron is in charge, he'd do it.

[Q99]

Also on dropships, it does bring up that Jumpships aren't out of the fight, it's just their role is to 'drop dropships, leave' rather than fight themselves. Bringing in a quantity of dropships can increase the amount of support the warships have noticeably.

Well, he justification for the Reunification War against the Periphery States was pretty much "One Species, One Realm". So yeah, if Ian Cameron is in charge, he'd do it.

Such nice people in Battletech, aren't they?

[Balrog]

Yes, the justification for the SL invading the Colonies is the same as it was for the Reunification War, and they will be willing to take similar measures to achieve their desired outcome.

Also, BSG nukes seem to be relatively low-yield. Fighter-sized missiles are in the 50 kiloton range or so. From what I can recall of BT space combat, a hit from one of their Killer Whale nuclear missiles is enough to completely destroy a million-ton armoured WarShip, which suggests a much higher yield. Thus, a few BSg nukes making it past their defences may not be enough for a guaranteed kill.

Nukes are the big no-go in BT. Since when are their antiship missiles nuclear and since when is a Killer Whale an instakill?

This page lists common BT nuclear weapons and their launch methods. From what I recall of the specific rules the largest will one-hit kill all but the largest warships, while many can survive multiple hits from the smaller ones.

Assuming that the Clans decide to immediately launch an all out invasion, how do you think that would play out? Do the Clans follow the same honour codes in space as they do on the ground? Would there be a bidding process, and would they only fight one on one with other warships? Or would they be willing to cast aside those traditions as the nBSG Colonies fall under the "external threat" the Warden Clans were worried about?

Assume they follow the rules of warfare as listed on the Sarna page.

I can't recall if it has any basis in canon, but there's a common theory that the 120 Battlestar fleet at the Fall was after a long series of major defence cutbacks. So it's possible they'd have large numbers of mothballed ships that they could reactivate in a (relatively) short period of time to gain reinforcements after the intial attack. Not ideal, but faster than buildign new ships from the ground-up anyways.

Of course, that's only really useful in the Clans Invasion scenario. Third Succession War they won't need it and SLDF-Invasion they won't have time.

No fanon Unless you can find some sort of canon information confirming a large mothballed fleet?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Like I said, I dunno if it has any basis in canon. Though the Galactica, one of the original 12 Battlestars, was stated to be "the last of her kind still in service" before the Cylon attack yet we see another of her class destroyed over Caprica (in the miniseries) and a third docked (and destroyed) at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards (in Razor). Maybe those were decommissioned hulls waiting to be broken up. That's the closest that comes to mind, season four was when they started talking about pre-Fall politics a lot in the finale flashbacks, and I wasn't really paying attention to those.

At any rate, I would consider it highly probable they have some reserve/mothballed ships that they could press back into service if needs be. AFAIK most real-life navies do this to one degree or another, so it's hardly a stretch to think the Colonial Fleet does it as well.

For that matter, where are the Cylons in this mess?

[SAMAS]

Enjoying popcorn is my guess.

[Q99]

They'd probably think twice about showing themselves if other humans were around- the size of the Btech humans would make them a big X-factor in any anti-human plans.

[Batman]

Um-Btech humans are the same size as nBSG humans, which is essentially current real-world humans.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think he meant population and/or territory size. Is the Great Detective being overly-literal again?