[NGTM-1R]

And PVB Amuns had killed 3 Orions over the past 5 years, which implies that they were capable of kill Orions.

[Akalabeth Angel]

I'm not advocating the invention of some Tsunami-type bomb for the athena, but I think it should have a smaller, less powerful bomb of some design.  If the capital ships have the big damage flag, then bombs, no matter how pathetic will be the only thing that can hurt them anyway.

As other people have suggested, I think what makes ships vulnerable to bombs is the shields, not the bombs themselves. Heck, any sentry gun is pathetic versus any fighter with shields except in larger numbers. Take away the shields, and ANY capital ship becomes a serious threat to fighters/bombers. One of the hardest missions for me in FS1 was the one where there were a bunch of Ma'at freighters and an Aten flying around. I got my Valkyrie busted up so many times it wasn't even funny.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
And PVB Amuns had killed 3 Orions over the past 5 years, which implies that they were capable of kill Orions.

3 Kills in 5 years is a pretty pathetic ratio wouldn't you say though?

Sure an FS1 bomber might be able to kill a destroyer but it's not easy thing to do and I doubt that those three wings were achieved by simply launching fighter and bomber wings at an Orion and letting them get on with it.

Almost certainly there were extenuating circumstances that made the kills possible.

[TrashMan]

Considering the war lasted for 14 years and that a destruction od a destroyer is considered a big blow, I say it-s not a pathetic ratio...

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Considering the war lasted for 14 years and that a destruction od a destroyer is considered a big blow, I say it-s not a pathetic ratio...

Seriously what the hell are you on about Trashman.

I'm talking about how bombers at the start of FS1 weren't supposed to kill capships. Occasionally they might have gotten lucky and killed one but that isn't the main reason for having bombers.

Now lets look at the statistics. In five years of open warfare the vasudan bombers have managed to kill 3 capships. Are you seriously telling me that bombers are meant to kill capships and that is the best they could do? Even flying one bombing mission a week that's 250 bombing missions and 3 kills.

Are you seriously looking at those statistics and telling me that bombers are meant to kill capships? If you're telling me that then I stand by my phrasing. That is a pathetic kill ratio.

What I believe is that bombers weren't supposed to kill Orions. Their job was to drive them off or disarm/disable them so that they could be killed more easily.
 That's the bombers primary role at the start of FS1. Sure if they get the chance they'll kill the enemy but a kill ratio of 3 kills in 5 years is beyond pathetic if that is their primary function.

[Akalabeth Angel]

If you people are arguing for or against a point you should at least check your numbers:

The Amun is the Vasudans heaviest bomber class ship.  It carries a massive payload and has been responsible for the destruction of at least 3 Orion class destroyers in the past 2 years.  Fortunately, it is slow and has low maneuverability, making it an easy target for our fighters.  Fighter pilots should be wary of the two turrets on this ship: they are not to be ignored.
The Amun is considered a B class threat to all cruisers and capital ships.  They should be given top priority in target selection during escort operations.

Just to re-emphasize:
-responsible for the destruction of at least 3 Orions in the past   2 years.
-The Amun is considered a B class threat to all cruisers and capital ships.
- They should be given top priority in target selection during escort operations.

       Okay, in case you missed it, the length of time is _2_ years, not 5 which is a significant difference. One might say that's still pathetic, but realistically, how intense is the combat after 14 years? I mean the first few missions of the campaign are defending a cruiser, combat patrol, etcetera. We never really see any ship-to-ship engagements between the Terrans and Vasudans before the Shivans arrive. I don't think that after 14 years the fighting will be at its peak, there'll be lulls as well as highs were the most intense fighting is skirmishes between fighters.

       But the fact is, the Amun is a class-B threat to capital ships, which I'd say is significant. It's a higher threat value than the Shaitan. I know that it's just subjective and means diddly-squat but the fact is, that the description gives the impression that the Amun is a threat to terran capital ships. And by saying it's "responsible", I take that to mean that the bombers killed the Orions on their own, rather than disabling them so another cruiser/destroyer could smoke 'em instead. I think that three Orions _is_ a big deal, especially in the Freespace 1 era. Where several missions are based around capturing a lowly Cain cruiser of all things and where Destroyers, on any side, are seldom ever destroyed.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
If you people are arguing for or against a point you should at least check your numbers:

I made the assumption that ngtm1r had his numbers correct and didn't check them. My bad. Still three kills in two years isn't anything to write home about either.

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
But the fact is, the Amun is a class-B threat to capital ships, which I'd say is significant. It's a higher threat value than the Shaitan.

Somewhat strangely however

The Osiris has now become the standard bomber for use in PVN operations.  It has replaced the Amun, correcting many of the faults of its predecessor.  It is not quite as sturdy, but it has nearly the same weapons capacity, and is faster and more maneuverable.
The Osiris should be considered a C class threat to Fenris class cruisers, and a D class threat otherwise.

Make of that what you will.

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
I know that it's just subjective and means diddly-squat but the fact is, that the description gives the impression that the Amun is a threat to terran capital ships.  

Ah, but where does it say that the threat is in terms of it killing Orions? Maybe the threat is that it can very quickly kill an Orion's turrets leaving it defenceless. That's a huge threat cause any FS1 era ship can kill a capship given long enough to do so.

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
I think that three Orions _is_ a big deal, especially in the Freespace 1 era. Where several missions are based around capturing a lowly Cain cruiser of all things and where Destroyers, on any side, are seldom ever destroyed.

You're making a fundemental error here. I agree that taking down three Orions is a big deal in the FS1 Universe. I agree 100% with that. It's even stated in the tech room. What you haven't considered is why it's a big deal.

If taking down an orion is a big deal it suggests that they are very rarely killed. So now we have to ask ourselves why are they very rarely killed?
 If bombers can take down capships do you not think that they would be doing so? This is what I am on about when I say that 3 kills in 2 years is pathetic. If bombers can easily kill Orions why is that number so low? Are the vasudans scared to send their bombers out for some reason?

The explaination for the low kill ratio is quite simple. Bombers find it hard to kill capships. Sure they can do it. In FS1 even a fighter can kill a destroyer but it take a fair bit of effort to do so.

Somehow I doubt that the GTA and PVN built bombers and sortied them regularly in the hope that they might get lucky. If Bombers can only kill a capship once or twice a year then the GTA would have started to use them for something else. Like I said the primary role of the bomber would have been to disarm and disable the enemy.

Once the ship was disarmed the bomber would probably have helped in the destruction but considering the low yield of FS1 era bombs it would probably have been simpler to just bring in the big guns than to keep rearming the bombers.

[Flaser]

Both the Typhoon and the Orion were very expensive super ships of their own time - so über that they couldn't have given the backbone of the fleets only the fine edge.

There were a lot of other capship classes, that simply became way too outdated, scraped and or completely destroyed during the long war, so they never made it to the Great War.

Bombers going against an Orion is like trying to stop a Tsunami - the new capships simply were too powerfull for initial designs - instead destroyers bombers porbably hunted cruisers and monitors.

Any capship in this era is a major fighter/bomber killer so even bombers have to be fast to avoid flak.

Probably initial capships had an anti-capship firepower of their own, but the invention of the powerful fighter/bomber platforms negated their usefullness since once in system these ships had a broader range of operation.
Since destroyers were extremly powerful on their own, they became the premier blockade busters / blockade runners.

Late into the war their anti capship weponry could have been degraded to field more fighters when resources became scare and covering more ground gained even further priority.

[TrashMan]

The reasons not many destroyer get destroyed is simple:

a) They are valubale and powerfull units and allways have escorts. Wit hescorts in place, it is a VERY difficult task to destroy a destroyer.

b) Bombers in FS1 are weaker and it takes moe of them to take down a destroyer - and they have no shields

c) Seeing that a destroyer is so important, I don't think it will sit around and wait for the enemy to finish it off. It would rather run away.

d)As Akalabeth Angel said, after years of conflict, battles were less intense and large capships were never put at any risk unless it was absolutely necesarry.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Yes, any sensible captain of a ship would retreat once his ship became badly damaged (assuming it could). There may have been lots of battles where Orions were damaged by bombers, but the ship got away.

    And if there is some doubt as to worth of a destroyer, remember the Typhon description claims it took out the 4th fleet or something like that (hard to believe), so it must be pretty good (or maybe its pretty good, with its bombers??).

    But as for Karajoma(spl?), it seems we're in a bit of an agreement  anyway as I've said the bombers would have weaker bombs. And maybe it takes a lot of time to take out a Destroyer, and its possible that there are more efficient ways like disabling turrets and the like but bombers should be able to destroy Destroyers on their own if necessary. But at the same time they'll need a hell of a lot of bombers and a hell of a lot of escorts to guard 'em.

[Hippo]

Ok, time to start commenting:

Kara: I agree with you 100%...

Iona: Yeah, thats a fun tactic... It only works with a joystick though... I usually use it with Subachs more often, but it fires at the same rate as it would with double linked, but they're more constantly firing, usefull for spray and pray, or taking out turrets (since it may only take half of that double shot to take a beam turret down, but it might fire before the slow linked one hits it) or something like that...

Thats why i liked the part of FoW i tested... You had to:

Spoiler:

Spoilered, incase Goober wants this hidden, if you want it gone Goob, ust tell me :
One had to disable the Anvil, inorder to keep it from moving to a more defensive position...

Meh...

[Goober5000]

That's vague enough that it won't give away too much if someone highlights it.  Thanks, Hippo.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
Yes, any sensible captain of a ship would retreat once his ship became badly damaged (assuming it could). There may have been lots of battles where Orions were damaged by bombers, but the ship got away.

Exactly. And this would have become the primary role of the bomber. To drive away the capships by damaging them enough that they retreated

[aldo_14]

It's possible that in the TV war destroyers simply weren't front line ships... they would sit as a deterrent and a C&C post, providing fighter cover for the cruisers and supply convoys actually fighting.  

Only in a major operation - such as Operation Thresher, or when defensive lines were compromised, would they actually fight.  In the former case, it'd be likely that the loss of a destroyer would result in the failure of said operation.

Insofar as bomber effectiveness goes, it's mentioned that the Athena was for a long time the primary GTVA bomber, until the GTVA started developing its bigger warheads.  Given the Athenas characteristics, this kind of implies that, for a long time, bombers weren't even intended for attacking destroyers, but more for destroying supply convoys and presumably cruisers.

One other possibility is that after the initial skirmishes it just wasn't cost effective to attack destroyers.... instead of a straight-up military vicotry, both sides may have elected to attack the infrastructure of each - i.e. tageting civillian installations, supply convoys, etc, ala the use of U-boat attacks / naval blockades in WW1/2.    This might have eventually led to more node blockading and more or less a military stalemate... with the only attack operations ending in a fashion akin to the battle of the Somme.

[Black Wolf]

I think we're working off a flawed basis here in assuming that the only ships the Terrans and Vasudans had during the TV War were Destroyers, cruisers, fighters and bombers. This doesn't make any logical sense, especially since, if you accept the FS1 shipset, the Vasudans only had Atens, which even in FS1 were pieces of crap. Why wouldn't they develop a larger cruiser or corvette to combat the heavy hitting firepower of the Terran Leviathan? Why did neither side seem to develop a starfighter carrier that was less than 2kms long?

It makes no sense to go from ships around 250 m long to ships almost an order of magnitude or so bigger with nothing in between, since it wouldn't take such a leap to give one side or the other the tactical advantage in ship to ship combats. Even if, for some odd reason, these vessels had all been retired by the time of FS1, bombers would still be around as an aftereffect of these smaller ships vulnerability to the two sides lighter bombs.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Black Wolf
I think we're working off a flawed basis here in assuming that the only ships the Terrans and Vasudans had during the TV War were Destroyers, cruisers, fighters and bombers.

I didn't assume that. I did say that there might have been other ships that the Athena, Amun and Osiris were effective against. They're just not effective when used to kill destroyers.

[NGTM-1R]

That makes good sense, Aldo...particularly regarding the outcome of Operation Thresher. 500-something pilots dead...? *goes to check first command briefing again*

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Black Wolf
I think we're working off a flawed basis here in assuming that the only ships the Terrans and Vasudans had during the TV War were Destroyers, cruisers, fighters and bombers. This doesn't make any logical sense, especially since, if you accept the FS1 shipset, the Vasudans only had Atens, which even in FS1 were pieces of crap. Why wouldn't they develop a larger cruiser or corvette to combat the heavy hitting firepower of the Terran Leviathan? Why did neither side seem to develop a starfighter carrier that was less than 2kms long?

It makes no sense to go from ships around 250 m long to ships almost an order of magnitude or so bigger with nothing in between, since it wouldn't take such a leap to give one side or the other the tactical advantage in ship to ship combats. Even if, for some odd reason, these vessels had all been retired by the time of FS1, bombers would still be around as an aftereffect of these smaller ships vulnerability to the two sides lighter bombs.

Well, we have to go with what we have evidence of, in terms of ship classes.  In terms of the size gap, it's possibly due to cost & simplicity - i.e. more spare parts available (less types of parts to manufacture), economies of scale in mass-manufacturing, etc.  The Vasudans may have been able to get along with a piece of crap like the Aten because they had more destroyers, or different tactics (like more use of fighter and bomber attacks), or maybe because their freighters were better equipped for offensive purposes.  

Maybe the Vasudans simply decided to make the best they could of the weakness of the Aten, and use it for decoy missions - i.e. to lure a Terran fleet into an ambush.  Or maybe the long war waged such a heavy toll on supplies that it was simply unfeasible to research and construct a large, new ship class.

[Akalabeth Angel]

We know that the Vasudans used other warships besides the Aten, it's clear in the description from FS1:

The Aten class cruiser, while far stronger than most of the Vasudans warships, falls short as a attack cruiser.  It does not have the armor or the firepower to stand up to GTA weaponry.  With a cruiser speed of 25 m/s and only six weapon turrets, the Aten just cannot muster the kind of firepower needed to do real damage to targets of size.

-Far stronger than _most_ warships - which means there are other warships, both weaker in capability and stronger in capability.  (BTW - the Satis is not considered a warship)

I don't think the Aten was ever that weak in FS1 anyway, I mean it has 10,000 more hitpoints than the Fenris. Enough to go toe-to-toe with the main Terran Cruiser.


     Getting back on the subject of bombs in FS1. Remember the Amun has been responsible for the destruction of 3 Orions in 2 years. A fact which has been belittled by some sides of the argument, but the description of the Orion seems to be disagree with the stance that it is a "pathetic" amount.

In the course of the 14 year war, very few of these have ever been lost, making the destruction of an Orion a truly horrible defeat.

Amun is pathetic as a bomber versus Capital ships, but is responsible for three truly horrible defeats for the Terrans.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
Getting back on the subject of bombs in FS1. Remember the Amun has been responsible for the destruction of 3 Orions in 2 years. A fact which has been belittled by some sides of the argument, but the description of the Orion seems to be disagree with the stance that it is a "pathetic" amount.

In the course of the 14 year war, very few of these have ever been lost, making the destruction of an Orion a truly horrible defeat.

Amun is pathetic as a bomber versus Capital ships, but is responsible for three truly horrible defeats for the Terrans.

I've already explained this several times so I really can't see why you're repeating the same arguement. Are you just not looking at my post or something?

If bombers could kill capships easily the vasudans would have inflicted more that three defeats upon the terrans by now. They'd send their capships into Terran space and wipe out all the terrans capships.

I never said the Amun has inflicted a pathetic number of defeats on the Terrans. I said that its kill ratio is pathetic if that is it's main purpose.  I happen to believe that the main purpose of a bomber is to tackle weaker capships and disarm destroyers. Under those circumstances 3 kills is an impressive kill ratio but if you're saying that bombers are meant to kill Orions then it is pathetic and I stand by that usage of the word.

Yes those three strikes were crippling defeats for the terrans but they were crippling defeats precisely because bombers rarely kill capships.

Let's try this from another angle. If a squadron of Bahka's managed to kill a Sathanas it would be a great victory wouldn't it? However the fact that a Bahka can kill a sathanas doesn.t mean that killing juggernauts is it's primary role when deployed against one.

When you deploy FS2 bombers against a juggernaut their job is to disable/disarm it so that something bigger and more dangerous can be used to kill it. Sure if there is nothing around that can do the job then you can try the same thing using more bombers but that still wouldn't change the bahka's primary role.

Scale everything down one level and you end up with the same situation. FS1 bombers who's primary role is to hunt weaker ships are deployed against an Orion. IF they kill it their commanders will be happy but the commanders haven't sent them in to do that job. Their job is to disable the Orion same as it was with the Bahka's and the Sathanas.

Now do you get what I'm on about?