Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: CT27 on May 08, 2012, 01:50:45 pm
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I get that the TEI was designed to create craft to be able to fight better against the Shivans. However, I also saw in reading some FS Wiki articles that there were 'waves' of this project. I wasn't able to find a definite article on the wiki about this, could someone briefly explain the differences in the 'waves' of the TEI for me please?
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Broadly speaking, Wave 1 fighter projects were designed to provide cheap, numerous, strategically sustainable spaceframes to counter massed Shivan bomber attack, while the warships opened up the fleet's new anti-juggernaut doctrine. Wave 2 projects are more expensive, high-performance craft with correspondingly more significant strategic overhead, and many of them have been adapted for the particulars of the Sol Theater.
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Yes. Wave 1 is pre-AoA and Wave 2 is post-AoA, in term of deployment if not in term of conception. Which means that Wave 2 had time to be adapted to the Sol theater's tactical requirements.
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Wave 2 fighters are also greatly superior to their FS2 counterparts, while being cheaper and quicker to build and easier to maintain than UEF fighters. If the GTVA manages to capture Sol reasonably intact, after retooling the factories will be able to churn out tons of Nyxes and Dracos compared to how quickly they build Uriels and Kentaurois.
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If the GTVA is able to win the war and won't use UEF tech...then they deserve to get toasted by the shivans^^
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They won't use UEF tech because it would be a logistical nightmare that would quickly lose all coherency during a Shivan invasion. Just look at how the UEF is faring with just one solar system of ships to support and zero node bottlenecks: complete logistical collapse in six months.
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Bull****, for example their long range torpedos, nothing wirks better then blasting at a Jug with them and jumping away the moment you get yourselve jumped at, sure, SSMs work just fine.
Or the Uriel with its railgun, there are aspects of UEF technologie wich would be stupid of not using.
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Aren't we talking about the GTVA using UEF technology, rather than them using the current UEF designs without any changes?
But even using current UEF ships might have merrit for the GTAV, if they are used in a defensive role, close to the bases. And the UEF fighters, gunships and bombers might work very well against shivans too.
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The main issue is that the UEF crafts tend to work very well in conditions where supply lines are safe and secure, like they were when they only had the Gefs to fight. In a full-scale war against the Shivans, supplies are probably the first thing that will come lacking, VERY fast. And system-wide evacuations can and will happen like at Capella, so you want your ships as independent and mobile as possible to counteract that.
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There's also the fact that weapons like the Archer, Redeemer, and Vajra can only be mounted in massive flying targets that will get surrounded by and shredded by the swarms of Shivan fighters. The Uriel, Durga, and Vajradhara are 38m, 37m, and 56m long respectively, and all of them handle like space bricks.
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If there's one UEF bomber the GTVA would be interested in, it's probably the Lapith. Redeemers and a Sledgehammer in a fairly agile hull (still less secondary space than a Nyx, amusingly enough). The doctrine behind the Uriel is sound, and I could see the GTVA making a fighter-bomber along those lines.
The Durga and Vajradhara, however, are basically just better Ursas, and I'm not sure there's a place for them in GTVA fleet doctrine anymore. Some could be kept on to replace the few Ursas still in the fleet, but I don't think they'd be all that useful.
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For a fleetbomber, the GTVA would be better of with the Stheno against the shivans...
But then...a GTVA Uriel variant would be interesting to se.
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Remember - UEF fighters are inefficient, high performance fuel-hogs that can't handle engagements extended over time and space nearly as well as GTVA fighters can.
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I'm not talking about a Kent or Uriel covering a Destroyer for hours.
It's more like taking the best of both worlds and no one can tell me, that the Feds are better in every aspect.
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So, in very general terms (for fighter craft at least):
Wave 1 is a space Zerg rush and Wave 2 goes back to quality over quantity?
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Wave 1 is space T-55s, Wave 2 is space T-80s.
Or in Starcraft terms, Wave 1 is mass marines, Wave 2 is hahahah terran only needs marines
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need some medivacs in there
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Wave 1 is Marines, Wave 2 is Goliaths if Goliaths were actually worth using.
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There's also the fact that weapons like the Archer, Redeemer, and Vajra can only be mounted in massive flying targets that will get surrounded by and shredded by the swarms of Shivan fighters. The Uriel, Durga, and Vajradhara are 38m, 37m, and 56m long respectively, and all of them handle like space bricks.
Wait a moment.
Massive swarms of cheap fighters... isn't that what the GTVA employed against the UEF in the beginning due to their new doctrine, resulting in horrible fighter-losses for the GTVA, untill they changed their tactics and got wave 2 fighters?
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Um, yes.
The difference, however, is that the Shivans don't give two ****s about losses (that we can determine), and they have the numbers to do that repeatedly and continuously until you die.
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A good chunk of the TEI is about emulating the best of Shivan tactics against them. Which means that, for the most part (and it isn't completely unintentional), the Tevs kind of feel and behave similarly to Shivans in the Sol theatre.
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If the GTVA wins from the UEF, I imagine the GTVA would use 85% of the UEF facilities to produce more GTVA ships and fighters, while using a mere 15% of facilities and labs to research the possible application of UEF designs and weaponry for use in warfare against the Shivans. My money would be on beam weapons though, not mass drivers. Beam weapons have only now begun to look somewhat refined, they can probably be developed much further to be REALLY efficient.
Also, UEF material would be difficult to maintain. You would probably need to modify all your GTVA facilities to be remotely able of maintaining UEF vessels. And since refitting UEF ships to GTVA standards would be costly and carry a constant risk of having incompatibility issues, not to mention a chance to perform sub-par, wouldn't they just likely scrap 70% of the UEF fleet in favour of keeping the larger vessels as a defense fleet for Sol? Sol has facilities which are already compatible with UEF vessels.
Or, I can imagine that decommissioning the UEF's capital ships will go a long way in propaganda, spreading stories that GTVA capital ships are far more advanced. That way the Sol citizens would somewhat feel the GTVA presence gives them better chances against Shivans, once GTVA propaganda kicks in.
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Having a small number of the gauss cannons on some ships would be useful on fast hulls to soften up large warships prior to jumping in with the main strike.
1 or more corvettes or frigates with sprint drives and a couple of gauss could jump in out of beam range of the target and combined with fighters equipped with TAG B type missile could snipe critical subsystems/weapons prior to the main strike going in. With the sprint drives they have the capability to jump out at a moment's notice if a significant counter attack is made making them less vulnerable.
I am thinking that there would only be a small number of these ships built and assigned at the fleet rather than battle group level and attached to a BG as needed
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I can't say how effective and maintanance/ammunition intensive it would be, but putting gauss cannons in the Titans and Raynors heavy pulse turrets certainly looks great ;)
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That doesn't seem physically possible!
Or you mean the point defense autocannons?
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I mean the big, double barrel turrets.
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Bull****, for example their long range torpedos, nothing wirks better then blasting at a Jug with them and jumping away the moment you get yourselve jumped at, sure, SSMs work just fine.
Or the Uriel with its railgun, there are aspects of UEF technologie wich would be stupid of not using.
Go ahead and ask the Wargods how that one worked out. They CAN'T just jump away as soon as they get attacked by shock-jumpers. Heck, a Narayana attacking, say, a Ravana? Sure, it works...until a Lilith jumps in right off its side and opens fire immediately. You'd HAVE to jump out immediately (assuming you don't have any properly equipped Alpha 1's), and the only weapon you'd have against them is your torpedoes, which would now have to be redirected away from the Ravana...which can now close in to hit the Narayana with its beams. Even if the Narayan escaped, it'd sustain major damage without having inflicted much on the Ravana.
The torpedoes are not that powerful; they take a while to kill a capship. They're also interceptable and slow--so if the Ravana has fighter cover, it's all the more difficult.
The Uriel, however, is excellent. I'd test out the concept of equipping a gunship-class attack craft with two of the railguns, while forgoing some of the primary slots and/or missiles. It'd be more dependent on fighter cover, true, but it would be the bane of capships everywhere. Except the Sathanas...
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The torpedoes are not that powerful; they take a while to kill a capship. They're also interceptable and slow--so if the Ravana has fighter cover, it's all the more difficult.
They don't kill ships quickly but they absolutely wreck subsystems. With a Narayana's ability to project them anywhere within a 14km radius and a sublight speed faster than anything bigger than a fighter and the only way you're going to have any beams left when you get in range is to jump in within beam range in the first place. Those fighter wings are better off being sent to attack while the Ravana jumps away.
There's a reason the Tevs haven't won the war.
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There's a reason the Tevs haven't won the war.
You are correct there is a reason, this is not it. Tevs haven't won the war yet (and barring secret project shenanigans or the next best thing to an act of God, they will) because the vast majority of the conflict up to now has been low intensity. Full fleet actions, with the exception of the First Battle of Neptune, have just plain not happened in the previous 18 months.
The Narayana is powerful, there's no doubt to that. It is not, however, the reason the Tevs haven't managed to steamroll everything. They haven't steamrolled everything because they want everything intact. Up until the Blitz (where the Narayana was relatively ineffective at preventing damage), at least.
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Nah, some big **** has gone down - the Requiem ambush for instance.
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There's a reason the Tevs haven't won the war.
Because committing the forces to win the war in a day would result in a massive cluster****, which they would win, but which would be immensely costly to the GTVA and possibly invalidate their objectives for the war.
It has nothing to do with the UEF being able militarily to defeat the GTVA, and everything to do with the way the GTVA has prosecuted the war; few risks, don't damage the infrastructure.
If the GTVA was solely interested in eliminating the UEF as a military force they could easily have done it by now, though probably at some cost. Even if that was their only concern and they didn't want to risk much, they still probably could have done it by now. It's only when you stack all their objectives together that it's taken them this long.
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Because committing the forces to win the war in a day would result in a massive cluster****, which they would win
Ahem. You haven't tried Massive Battle, have you ?
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Right, because throwing all tactical and strategic advantages or planning is really a measure of how the rest of the war would go.
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Because committing the forces to win the war in a day would result in a massive cluster****, which they would win
Ahem. You haven't tried Massive Battle, have you ?
I am sure the GTVA has a few extra battle groups they could deploy if they went to overwhelming force strategy. Would it be costly? Yes both in terms of the human cost and their ability to counter a Shivan invasion in the next few years. Also the GTVA would also risk largely failing in their strategic objective in minimizing collateral damage to Sol's industrial capacity
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I thought "Massive Battle" seriously disadvantaged the GTVA because beams do damage per frame, and framerates are terrible in that mission :)
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... I totally didn't know that. No wonder UEF win by a huge margin every time for me.
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Hmm, I remember thinking that DE might be feeling harder because the new optimised Karunas didn't cause a massive FPS drop everytime they're on screen anymore, after reading this about bp's massive battle. :)
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Bull****, for example their long range torpedos, nothing wirks better then blasting at a Jug with them and jumping away the moment you get yourselve jumped at, sure, SSMs work just fine.
Or the Uriel with its railgun, there are aspects of UEF technologie wich would be stupid of not using.
Go ahead and ask the Wargods how that one worked out. They CAN'T just jump away as soon as they get attacked by shock-jumpers. Heck, a Narayana attacking, say, a Ravana? Sure, it works...until a Lilith jumps in right off its side and opens fire immediately.
I pointed out in some post, that a jump drive would work just fine and the Karuna Mk2 has other weapons apart from torpedos.
And we haven even started to think about jamming shivan beams, since we don't know how their targeting process works...
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and the Karuna Mk2 has other weapons apart from torpedos.
Karuna Mk2, IIRC, is just a concept design and not a single prototype has even been build - at least officially, hard to know what the Fedayeen might be planning.
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Ahem. You haven't tried Massive Battle, have you ?
The fact the GTVA has not deployed their entire fleet indicates they do not want to, not that they cannot. It could be over in a day, but at tremendous cost.
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NO MISSILES
PRIMARIES ONLY
FINAL DESTINATION
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Btw: dont think that the GTVA Warships could work without a working supply chain. Specally Missles, Bombs and Flak shells would go out quite fast :). They just need less than there UEF counterparts.
Exactly. Think AoA. The 14th managed to operate during these few days, under very intensive conditions, only because they had two Anemoi-class logistic ships fully stocked at their disposal. Even with them, they were low on supplies when they emerged back into our universe, which is a pretty good starting point to estimate how long GTVA ships can operate without support. An equivalent UEF fleet would probably never have made it past Forced Entry.
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Hmm, I remember thinking that DE might be feeling harder because the new optimised Karunas didn't cause a massive FPS drop everytime they're on screen anymore, after reading this about bp's massive battle. :)
Might contribute, but not the root of the problem. I think someone posted here that they tested DE while ~ shift K all the beam turrets long before you get close to the warships. Katana still dies.
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Beam damage only starts being reduced if you drop below 5.5 fps or so (beams apply damage 5.5 times per second, but seem to skip a damage increment if it would occur on the same frame as the previous one). If your fps is that bad, you have bigger problems than funky beam behavior. :p
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Shooting and broad side of a barn come to mind there
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Beam damage only starts being reduced if you drop below 5.5 fps or so (beams apply damage 5.5 times per second, but seem to skip a damage increment if it would occur on the same frame as the previous one). If your fps is that bad, you have bigger problems than funky beam behavior. :p
You've never tried to play BP Massive Battle, have you? :P
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Beam damage only starts being reduced if you drop below 5.5 fps or so (beams apply damage 5.5 times per second, but seem to skip a damage increment if it would occur on the same frame as the previous one). If your fps is that bad, you have bigger problems than funky beam behavior. :p
You've never tried to play BP Massive Battle, have you? :P
Yes, and I had bigger problems than funky beam behavior. :p
On a related note, the way beams apply damage lets you break a lot of missions by cranking time compression up to 64x when a friendly ship is supposed to be splattered by a fire-beam event. :)
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I thought I'd check the code to figure out what's really happening...
#define BEAM_DAMAGE_TIME 170 // apply damage
...
// if the damage timestamp has expired or is not set yet, apply damage
if((r_coll[r_coll_count].c_stamp == -1) || timestamp_elapsed(r_coll[r_coll_count].c_stamp))
{
float time_compression = f2fl(Game_time_compression);
float delay_time = i2fl(BEAM_DAMAGE_TIME) / time_compression;
do_damage = 1;
r_coll[r_coll_count].c_stamp = timestamp(fl2i(delay_time));
}
http://svn.icculus.org/fs2open/trunk/fs2_open/code/weapon/beam.cpp?limit_changes=100&revision=8275&view=markup
It seems to be that the delay between applying beam damage is 170 millisecs, so that would theoretically make the beam dps ~5.88 x beam damage value (it'll vary since at 60fps each frame takes around 16.6 millisecs to display, so you've got up to that much extra time added to the delay which could affect the damage output) - that's close to the 5.5 figure mentioned above. However, this code runs once per frame so if you get less than ~5.88 frames per second, the beam damage will be less than it's normal value. That fits massive battle for me, I get 2-4 fps :)
That's at 1x time compression, if you go to 64x time compression then the delay is reduced to ~2.65 millisecs, at that rate if your frames per second is less than ~376 then beam damage is reduced :D
1x = ~5.88 fps
2x = ~11.76 fps
4x = ~23.53 fps
8x = ~47.06 fps
16x = ~94.12 fps
32x = ~188.24 fps
64x = ~376.47 fps
Can anyone see any mistakes in these calculations?
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few days
A day. One. That's all it would take. Crash through the UEF defenses, flatten Earth and Luna, the war is over.
(Also the idea that AoA takes only a few days seems like a rather arbitrary estimate. The idea that the GTVA, which knows it can't depend on a functional supply line, would have a duration of under a week for their warships is just asinine.)
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true, could be because the UEF does not have Orion-sized logistic vessels :lol:
And because the UEF are so logistic-dependant that even Orion-sized logistic vessels wouldn't be enough.
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true, could be because the UEF does not have Orion-sized logistic vessels :lol:
And because the UEF are so logistic-dependant that even Orion-sized logistic vessels wouldn't be enough.
What about Colossus-sized logistic vessels?
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few days
A day. One. That's all it would take. Crash through the UEF defenses, flatten Earth and Luna, the war is over.
(Also the idea that AoA takes only a few days seems like a rather arbitrary estimate. The idea that the GTVA, which knows it can't depend on a functional supply line, would have a duration of under a week for their warships is just asinine.)
What is so unbelieveable about the GTVA capships getting shot to under 25% and getting fully repaired draining the spare parts of the logistic vessels fast? If anything is unbelievable about AoA it's the speed at which the GTVA ships get repaired, rather than the supplies running low.
They expected to just walz into Sol, demand the surrender and be done with it. In the worst case blow up a few ships and always have the option of sending in another logistic vessel.
For that you don't need more than two weeks worth of food and water supply, ammunition for a small war and spareparts to keep your ships going through half a dozen heavy fights and the Anemois would have been loaded accordingly plus some extra just in case.
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My issue is what is the cost benefit of the Anemoi, it is as long as a destroyer and presumably costs something of a similar order to produce and I bet comes with a hefty operating cost.
Its primary purpose is to extend the battlefield duration of a battlegroup's on board supplies and providing a buffer against shaky wartime supply chains and operations away from GTVA space, but what sort of duration does this need to become viable?
in AoA we see one supply ship extending the operations of a battlegroup to a few days under conditions which fluctuate from scouting, skirmishing, and short bursts intense combat with just the Lucifer engagement counting as a prolonged action. While I normally consider BP to be well thought out, to me this seems too short a time to run a logistics ship dry to be justifiable in a fleet engineered to fight the shivans, even taking into account work done to the Sanctuary.
Unless I am missing something this would mean a logistics ship would be run dry in 1 maybe 2 days under the kind of sustained intense combat typically seen in a Shivan hoard invasion at which point would a few Tritons be better?
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The thing about Anemois is that they can feasibly produce anything required by a battlegroup, however their internal stores of prefabricated parts are limited. In other words, they have ready supplies for a moderate engagement length, but will have to resupply (either by resupplying from GTVA central storage facilities, or by converting a few nearby asteroids) after that.
Do note that combat engagements in the FS universe tend to be of the short sharp shock kind; prolonged campaigns like the one in Sol are the exception.
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The thing about Anemois is that they can feasibly produce anything required by a battlegroup, however their internal stores of prefabricated parts are limited. In other words, they have ready supplies for a moderate engagement length, but will have to resupply (either by resupplying from GTVA central storage facilities, or by converting a few nearby asteroids) after that.
So they're like the HW mothership essentially? Cool didn't realise that (just thought they were giant freighters). Out of vague saddo interest (passion of mine), would you imagine them able to do the full flog atom-smashing/forging like Star-Trek replicators (trash/slurry/debris goes in, Nyxs/Balors/Trebs come out :drevil:), or would they need specific raw materials?
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The thing about Anemois is that they can feasibly produce anything required by a battlegroup, however their internal stores of prefabricated parts are limited. In other words, they have ready supplies for a moderate engagement length, but will have to resupply (either by resupplying from GTVA central storage facilities, or by converting a few nearby asteroids) after that.
So they're like the HW mothership essentially? Cool didn't realise that (just thought they were giant freighters). Out of vague saddo interest (passion of mine), would you imagine them able to do the full flog atom-smashing/forging like Star-Trek replicators (trash/slurry/debris goes in, Nyxs/Balors/Trebs come out :drevil:), or would they need specific raw materials?
I would be surprised if they weren't incredibly efficient at material reclamation 90+% perhaps but i doubt atomic manipulation would be involved due to energy needs of such a system
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What is so unbelieveable about the GTVA capships getting shot to under 25% and getting fully repaired draining the spare parts of the logistic vessels fast?
The point was over here, you missed it; the GTVA knows it can't necessarily depend on being able to get supplies of beans, bullets, and black oil to people who need them during another Shivan attack, so my objection is based on the idea that you run out of fuel, food, and ammo capacity in under a week and the ship is no longer able to fight at full capacity. (Which would be remarkably stupid.)
Major damage is a different matter.
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At the same time the Shivans have repeatedly demonstrated in all previous encounters that when they play, they play hardball and the capacity to repeatedly repair critical damage on multiple ships in the battlegroup should be part of the design specification
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What is so unbelieveable about the GTVA capships getting shot to under 25% and getting fully repaired draining the spare parts of the logistic vessels fast?
The point was over here, you missed it; the GTVA knows it can't necessarily depend on being able to get supplies of beans, bullets, and black oil to people who need them during another Shivan attack, so my objection is based on the idea that you run out of fuel, food, and ammo capacity in under a week and the ship is no longer able to fight at full capacity. (Which would be remarkably stupid.)
Major damage is a different matter.
And here I was thinking that alls ships, no matter the size carry fusion engines with them...odd^^
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What is so unbelieveable about the GTVA capships getting shot to under 25% and getting fully repaired draining the spare parts of the logistic vessels fast?
The point was over here, you missed it; the GTVA knows it can't necessarily depend on being able to get supplies of beans, bullets, and black oil to people who need them during another Shivan attack, so my objection is based on the idea that you run out of fuel, food, and ammo capacity in under a week and the ship is no longer able to fight at full capacity. (Which would be remarkably stupid.)
Bear in mind the intensity of those few days. A single battlegroup, divided into halves, undergoing several major fleet actions while stranded in hostile territory, with no hope of reinforcement against overwhelming numbers, a superdestroyer, and a juggernaut.
Without their Anemoi logistics, the 14th most likely would have run dry and folded in less than a day.
(As for the rate of repair, I kind of assumed the GTVA had developed some sort of rapid-repair protocol so they wouldn't have to pull assets off the front lines just because a Moloch sneezed in their general direction like a certain destroyer)
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Bear in mind the intensity of those few days. A single battlegroup, divided into halves, undergoing several major fleet actions while stranded in hostile territory, with no hope of reinforcement against overwhelming numbers, a superdestroyer, and a juggernaut.
Which probably isn't very different from duty against the first/second wave of a Shivan incursion at all, particularly since all available logistics capacity is probably tied up in moving civilians. Several of the ships needed major repairs from the Anemois, but there's really no suggestion that their stocks of munitions and fuel were at any point running low. If anything they were openly profligate in expending fuel (traveling several systems over to chase down an errant cruiser and several back to link up, all at high speed) in a way that doesn't square with needing to conserve a limited resource for possible combat maneuvering.
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What is so unbelieveable about the GTVA capships getting shot to under 25% and getting fully repaired draining the spare parts of the logistic vessels fast?
The point was over here, you missed it; the GTVA knows it can't necessarily depend on being able to get supplies of beans, bullets, and black oil to people who need them during another Shivan attack, so my objection is based on the idea that you run out of fuel, food, and ammo capacity in under a week and the ship is no longer able to fight at full capacity. (Which would be remarkably stupid.)
Major damage is a different matter.
And here I was thinking that alls ships, no matter the size carry fusion engines with them...odd^^
Pretty sure he didn't mean oil literally.
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What is so unbelieveable about the GTVA capships getting shot to under 25% and getting fully repaired draining the spare parts of the logistic vessels fast?
The point was over here, you missed it; the GTVA knows it can't necessarily depend on being able to get supplies of beans, bullets, and black oil to people who need them during another Shivan attack, so my objection is based on the idea that you run out of fuel, food, and ammo capacity in under a week and the ship is no longer able to fight at full capacity. (Which would be remarkably stupid.)
Major damage is a different matter.
No, I didn't miss the point. If you read my last post fully, you'd have seen that I even adressed that very point you just made, but let me reiterate and expand:
The 14th battlegroup was expecting to have the Sol operation wraped up in less than a day with minimal, if any, combat.
Instead they got at least a full week of high intensity combat (more activity mean more burned nourishment and thus the need to eat and drink more and obviously also more used up fuel, amunition and spare parts). Further complications in the matter come in the form of damage to the logistic vessels and possilby gifts for upgrading the Sanctuary.
Stocking up a logistic ship to absolutely full capacity is surely a lot more expansive than stocking it up with what is expected to be needed plus a safety buffer.
While there is no direct indication for it (though no indication for the opposite either), it's possible those two Anemois weren't even half stocked, but because the GTVA intended to split the group between Mars and Earth, they had to send two of them anyway, so that each group could have one.
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No, I didn't miss the point. If you read my last post fully, you'd have seen that I even adressed that very point you just made, but let me reiterate and expand:
Actually, you're still missing the point, which is that what you're describing is ridiculous. You're also betraying some fundamental misconceptions about the importance of the operation and the way militaries think. Having too much in the way of supplies is like having too much money; it's not possible. This is the most important mission the GTVA has launched since the supernova. Every ship will have a full loadout if it is remotely possible for them to. For Admiral Bei to allow the mission to proceed otherwise would suggest an almost criminal negligence; no matter how easy it's planned to be he'll still be an isolated command facing fairly long odds.
You're asserting that the Anemois are necessary to provide basic supplies, i.e. food, fuel, ammunition, for a timeframe shorter than a week. This is patent nonsense. No such warship would be effective in combat. We haven't had major combatant ships with such short legs since the Anglo-Dutch wars in the 17th century in the real world, and even minor blue-water ones have had longer endurance for more than fifty years. You're proposing a giant step back that nobody's ever going to accept.
At best you might be able to construct an argument for ammunition, but the BP team has made repeated comment that the GTVA does not expect to be able to maintain an open supply line in time of war and their ships are designed for greater endurance. As the final nail in the coffin, at no point in AoA is there a pause in the action that would have allowed the 14th to conduct serious replenishment operations; they're always either under threat, in motion, engaged in actual combat, or the logistic's ships efforts are fully consumed in repairing a destroyer.
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Bear in mind the intensity of those few days. A single battlegroup, divided into halves, undergoing several major fleet actions while stranded in hostile territory, with no hope of reinforcement against overwhelming numbers, a superdestroyer, and a juggernaut.
Which probably isn't very different from duty against the first/second wave of a Shivan incursion at all, particularly since all available logistics capacity is probably tied up in moving civilians.
If it were an incursion the GTVA would have its first reinforcements in-system within the day. AoA wasn't an incursion, it was a single battlegroup dropped right in the middle of the hornet's nest and forced to fend for itself.
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No, I didn't miss the point. If you read my last post fully, you'd have seen that I even adressed that very point you just made, but let me reiterate and expand:
You're asserting that the Anemois are necessary to provide basic supplies, i.e. food, fuel, ammunition, for a timeframe shorter than a week. This is patent nonsense. No such warship would be effective in combat. We haven't had major combatant ships with such short legs since the Anglo-Dutch wars in the 17th century in the real world, and even minor blue-water ones have had longer endurance for more than fifty years. You're proposing a giant step back that nobody's ever going to accept.
Okay now you really start to get under my skin.
Apart from your total lack of politeness, you yourself state that the Anemois are responsible for carrying everything, including food in your post and when I say the same it's suddenly "ridiculous"?
Please think not just about what you say, but how you say it.
As for an answer to the content of your post, I think qwadtep summed it up very nicely.
Sending them not fully stocked might be criminal negligence in most cases, but considering the GTVAs projected worse case scenarios of the invasion and the fact that the GTVA is economically unstable, to say the least, gives stroytellers a lot of wriggling room for not stocking the fleet to maximum capacity.
Besides I'd say sending the fleet to conquer Sol and only telling the highest ranking officers about it sounds like far worse negligence to me than not stocking them up with far more items than they are going to need (and it backfired big time too).
Untill AoA, Admiral Bei was a loyal follower of the GTVA, if they said jump, he asked "how high" and did it. If the GTVA said "invade them without being fully stocked" he might have pointed out he thinks it a bad idea, but ultimately he would have (and did) follow the order anyway, unless it's an obvious road to disaster, which wasn't the case for the invasion, since they couldn't possibly know about being dumped in a parallel universe.
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Having said that NGTM-1R has a valid point just to be able to patrol effectively a warship both now and in FS needs to be able to operate independently on food, fuel and the like for several days at a minimum. As this is a combat operation It would be negligent of the fleet to deploy them short on supplies and munitions, as shown in recent conflicts send someone into a potential conflict zones short on supplies and they die. In addition to this I While the GTVA is in economic depression I doubt the GTVA is so short it cant afford to supply a battlegroup and it's logistic vessels properly when deploying them into a situation they know has a good potential to degenerate into an armed conflict.
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I'm not saying that his point isn't valid, but neither is it an unconditional truth no matter the situation and warrents ridiculing of everyone who disagrees with the statement.
The whole war was implemented rather quickly, so some oversights or compromises, for making sure to keep the element of surprise, might have been taken.
The longer they waited with invading, the more suspect the UEF might have become. Maybe they simply didn't have enough time to fully stock the ships without delaying too much for High Commands liking.
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They had 18 years to stock those ships while the gate went up. They were either full or the GTVA was criminally negligent.
Considering the level of planning that went into the operation, I'd say the reasonable assumption is that they were full.
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If it were an incursion the GTVA would have its first reinforcements in-system within the day. AoA wasn't an incursion, it was a single battlegroup dropped right in the middle of the hornet's nest and forced to fend for itself.
An incursion isn't just a military undertaking, we can expect Capella-style evacuations as well so it's going on at the same time as all available cargo hulls are being used to pull civilians from the battle zone. While they may be able to expect military support, or possibly being rotated off the line if they're seriously mauled, a battlegroup in the middle of an incursion in the BP-verse is essentially on its own logistically because all the ships that could be used to attend to its logistical needs are engaged in other activities.
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They had 18 years to stock those ships while the gate went up. They were either full or the GTVA was criminally negligent.
Considering the level of planning that went into the operation, I'd say the reasonable assumption is that they were full.
But the GTVA didn't know something like the UEF existed, when they started to build the portal.
I think the GTVA only turned their minds towards conquering Sol, once their spyprobes brought back the information of what the UEF and Ubuntu were like (or appeared to be like anyway).
How much time passed exactly between the opening of the portal and the launching of the 14th through the node?
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The fact they were sent into the dark is not a reason to understock. It is entirely the reverse.
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But the GTVA didn't know something like the UEF existed, when they started to build the portal.
I think the GTVA only turned their minds towards conquering Sol, once their spyprobes brought back the information of what the UEF and Ubuntu were like (or appeared to be like anyway).
How much time passed exactly between the opening of the portal and the launching of the 14th through the node?
Even before they knew anything about what was beyond the portal, the GTVA presumably had a contingency plan for what to do if they needed to go to war. They wouldn't have much information to base exact plans on, but "let's have a battlegroup ready to go in, and let's load it up with supplies" is pretty basic.
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The fact they were sent into the dark is not a reason to understock. It is entirely the reverse.
I agree. That by itself is no reason to do it.
But wanting to act fast enough to keep the element of surprise is a possible reason. Waiting for the ships to be fully stocked might have taken longer than Command was willing to wait.
Of course it is a risk, but considering the expected situation, a rather small one, well worth it, if it makes sure the war is over before it really got started.
If the UEF would have fortified the node, the whole quick 1-day-war idea would have become very unlikely, so they had to act fast, which they did.
But the GTVA didn't know something like the UEF existed, when they started to build the portal.
I think the GTVA only turned their minds towards conquering Sol, once their spyprobes brought back the information of what the UEF and Ubuntu were like (or appeared to be like anyway).
How much time passed exactly between the opening of the portal and the launching of the 14th through the node?
Even before they knew anything about what was beyond the portal, the GTVA presumably had a contingency plan for what to do if they needed to go to war. They wouldn't have much information to base exact plans on, but "let's have a battlegroup ready to go in, and let's load it up with supplies" is pretty basic.
Usually I would agree with that, since it makes a lot of sense, but I'm not so sure it fits the facts.
We do know for a fact that the battlegroup almost ran out of supplies (of whatever kind... Admiral Bei didn't exactly elaborate in his communication with Command), even though they were only in the parallel universe for a short time ("several days" to quote Command, so probably something around one week or less).
I'm not trying to find the most sensible possiblities here, I'm trying to find the one that fits the known facts the best.
Barring some very unlikely and unlucky Shivan hits into full supply stores on both Anemois, I can only see three other realistic options:
- GTVA ships have far less independent operating time than we all expected.
- The logistic vessels have fewer supplies stored on board than we thought.
- The fleet wasn't fully stocked.
(or any combinations of the above)
Considering the timeframe of both the preparation and operation time of the invasion and the economic and political situation of the GTVA, I think the not fully stocked option is the most likely or rather the least unlikely one.
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There's really not a situation where an Anemoi would go through the gate understocked unless the GTVA was being monumental idiots about logistics, which they've shown that they're not in the BP canon. You have 18 years to stock them up while the gate is being built. You have no idea what's on the other side of the gate. You stock them full while you can because taking risks you don't need to take kills people. When you find out that there are humans on the other end you don't suddenly destock the things and then send them through the portal. That makes about as much sense as massacreing the entire military population of Sol out of principle.
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At the end of AoA, the 14th BG was severely damaged, and its ready logistical supplies (in terms of replacement parts) exhausted by the need to run extensive repairs during those few days, not to mention the stress the personnel was under.
They were definitely NOT 100% combat ready as envisioned by the original Ops plan, and at the time of their return, they had no way of knowing what the current situation was.
We have no firm data on what the endurance of GTVA vessels is (and as such, anything said by me here is not canon), but it should be assumed that a Battlegroup supported by Anemois is capable of running a regular patrol indefinitely. The life support facilities are probably as self-sustaining as they can be, while the Anemois' machine shops are capable of building anything needed provided raw materials are available, except probably for antimatter.
The assumption here is that the Battlegroup runs a patrol, has a few combat encounters, and is then able to drop back and replenish while replacement forces from other systems go to the front line.
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If it were an incursion the GTVA would have its first reinforcements in-system within the day. AoA wasn't an incursion, it was a single battlegroup dropped right in the middle of the hornet's nest and forced to fend for itself.
An incursion isn't just a military undertaking, we can expect Capella-style evacuations as well so it's going on at the same time as all available cargo hulls are being used to pull civilians from the battle zone. While they may be able to expect military support, or possibly being rotated off the line if they're seriously mauled, a battlegroup in the middle of an incursion in the BP-verse is essentially on its own logistically because all the ships that could be used to attend to its logistical needs are engaged in other activities.
The point is that in an incursion, the few days afforded by Anemoi logistics is more than enough for the GTVA to scramble a full fleet to the front, allowing the initial battlegroup to withdraw to a secure system to rearm and repair.
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If the incursion lasts very long, the GTVA expects to lose everything; their plan is to isolate the entry point and throw meson bombs down it until it breaks, as fast as possible. They can't really afford to pull people off the line if they're still even marginally combat effective when their planning is based around a do-or-die first effort, with no second chances once the juggernauts roll in. So it would behoove the GTVA to plan for their ships to be able to keep up that maximum-effort thing up until the point they've either lost or won; probably a week, possibly as many as two.