[MatthTheGeek]

I actually don't remember TAG being involved in any FS2 retail missions aside from Game of TAG and being needlessly available in the loadout of some mishes.

[headdie]

probably thinking BP and the subspace missiles

[General Battuta]

the initial plan (involving TAG and destroyers) was probably way better anyway

The one that failed miserably?

are you sure you're not thinking of the ravana attack?  i thought they never got to the point of attacking the sathanas with destroyers.  (i don't remember TAG being involved in the plan either)

I actually don't remember TAG being involved in any FS2 retail missions aside from Game of TAG and being needlessly available in the loadout of some mishes.

probably thinking BP and the subspace missiles

YOU should be ASHAMED to call yourselves FREE SPACE FANS

drop and give me TWENTY

readings of the briefing for speaking in tongues

Your reconnaissance of the Sathanas identified weak points in the Juggernaut's defenses. However, exploiting these weaknesses will require firepower that can be provided only by the main guns of our capital ships. The GVD Psamtik, the GTD Aquitaine, and the GVD Toeris are standing by. Your mission is to lure the Sathanas into position.

wait hang on

that doesn't mention TAG at all

uh oh 

well uh the mission does involve you having TAG missiles so uh clearly the plan was to uh tag the sathanas' subsystems and uh the destroyers would all shoot the subsystems and

* General Battuta commits seppuku

[Rodo]

Long range torpedoes, fast, really really fast, stealth and with enough punch to pierce through the armour of any warship so it can deliver a couple of kilotons worth of explosives into the inner halls of the target.

[el_magnifico]

Yes General Battuta, I know which plan you're talking about. And it failed miserably.

[...]exploiting these weaknesses will require firepower that can be provided only by the main guns of our capital ships. The GVD Psamtik, the GTD Aquitaine, and the GVD Toeris are standing by. Your mission is to lure the Sathanas into position.

The Sathanas disregarded the GTVA and ran straight for the node.
Besides, if the only way to engage a Sathanas the GTVA can think of requires a very specific battlefield (the nebula), and they fail to make sure the enemy will do battle where the Alliance wants them to, that plan is bound to fail.

Then later came this:

"The Sathanas decimated our fleet at the Capella node.[...]"

"This is the Thebes. We have emerged within a large debris field, Command."

A fleet blockading the Capella node was destroyed. The exact size of said fleet is unknown in canon, but judging by the way the Phoenicia was considered absolutely expendable, as well as the presence of a large debris field, it's reasonable to assume the blockade consisted of several destroyers, and possibly smaller warships too.

Fact: The Sathanas is faster than every destroyer in the Allied fleet.

I've ran simulations where even 4 GTVA destroyers flanking a Sathanas where unable to destroy it before being outrunned and falling out of range. And such a scenario assumes GTVA warships can jump near a Sathanas with enough precision to avoid its devastating frontal and rear beams. I'm not even considering Allied destroyers would have to deal with any warships escorting a Sathanas. Or even a Sathanas wing in formation!

In my humble opinion, this demonstrates destroyers are both cost-ineffective and overall ineffective against a Sathanas.

Long range torpedoes, fast, really really fast, stealth and with enough punch to pierce through the armour of any warship so it can deliver a couple of kilotons worth of explosives into the inner halls of the target.

Untested technology. Besides, nothing in canon indicates such a weapon would be possible with Allied technology. And the Sathanas has AWACS capability.

By the way, has anyone considered my plan? Any opinions?

[headdie]

By the way, has anyone considered my plan? Any opinions?

The GTVA also has ETAK. They may be able to use it to tap into Shivan communications and even to disrupt them.

One of the more intelligent suggestions made at a strategic level but has limited application at the tactical level

Hmmm... What about attaching an engine and a subspace drive into a Mjolnir RBC? About 10 to 15 of those should be enough to destroy a Sathanas in a reasonable time if they are properly escorted. They don't even need to be manned, since the GTVA already has drone technology.

Mjolnir is very limited in keeping itself alive and is a situation which would be extremely difficult to resolve, strapping the drives to a torpedo would probably make more sense.

[General Battuta]

a pretty good plan would have been to shoot the sathanas' subsystems with tag-assisted precision beam fire from destroyers

it is probably a better plan than putting the colossus in harms' way

[el_magnifico]

By the way, has anyone considered my plan? Any opinions?

The GTVA also has ETAK. They may be able to use it to tap into Shivan communications and even to disrupt them.

One of the more intelligent suggestions made at a strategic level but has limited application at the tactical level

Because we don't know how the Shivans organize and coordinate their fleets?

Mjolnir is very limited in keeping itself alive

That's the point. With more hull plating and proper fighter escort, it could survive against Shivan fighters and bombers for long enough to destroy the Sathanas, and/or their escorting fleet. They're expendable, so if they are destroyed you just build more. You can't possibly expect to recover anything you throw at a Sathanas, so you have to plan keeping that in mind.

Mjolnir is very limited in keeping itself alive and is a situation which would be extremely difficult to resolve, strapping the drives to a torpedo would probably make more sense.

But even the Helios is too weak for that. And it's costly as hell.

[...]The Helios is prohibitively expensive to produce, thus its deployment is severely restricted.

[headdie]

while the helios is a limited weapon a subspace missile would have looser restrictions on size because you dont have to fit it inside a bomber but a capital ship, meaning you can build it with a bigger motor and bigger warhead.

[el_magnifico]

while the helios is a limited weapon a subspace missile would have looser restrictions on size because you dont have to fit it inside a bomber but a capital ship, meaning you can build it with a bigger motor and bigger warhead.

This assumes the high cost and limitations of the Helios are due to its "miniaturization" and not to the very nature of the warhead. This may or may not be the case, we don't have enough canon information to know. But yeah, it's possible.

[Mongoose]

I don't know that using Mjolnirs themselves would work out in practice, but I think you're on the right track.  To defeat a Sathanas-type ship, I think what you need is the beam equivalent of a mobile artillery platform.  Design a class of ship that's corvette-sized or so, but entirely structured around one powerful central beam cannon, much like the A-10 Warthog is structured around the Avenger cannon.  Give it a decent set of engines, so that it can make precision jumps and keep up with something of the Sathanas' speed.  Have the ship's tactical doctrine call for it being deployed in groups, with the ships jumping in scattered around the target's blind side.  I think this would wind up giving the combination of firepower and flexibility needed to take down a big bad Shivan ship, which was something the GTVA really didn't have when fighting the Sathanas.

[General Battuta]

that's pretty much the golgotha or the bp chimera/bellerophon hunter-killers inn't (by which i mean, seems like a consensus good plan)

let's not fool ourselves though, whatever new doctrine gets thrown out there the shivans will be blowing the **** out of it in ~half a campaign

here on hlp we specialize in planning to fight the last war

[el_magnifico]

let's not fool ourselves though, whatever new doctrine gets thrown out there the shivans will be blowing the **** out of it in ~half a campaign

here on hlp we specialize in planning to fight the last war

Since the GTVA is unable to acquire intelligence regarding the Shivans' nature, their motives, their alliances, and the extent and organization of their forces, that's the only think we can do. As Sun Tzu said: "If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."

I say again, ETAK could possibly be a way to solve that.

[CT27]

In BP, it was figured out how to jam beams.

If the GTVA could figure out how to jam Shivan beams without compromising their own, that would be an immense strategic/tactical advantage.

[headdie]

In BP, it was figured out how to jam beams.

If the GTVA could figure out how to jam Shivan beams without compromising their own, that would be an immense strategic/tactical advantage.

I think in BP it came down to a specialised form of sensor jamming in which case it should be easy to implement in a manner that don't affect friendly beams.  This of course relies on the shivans using the same basic technology for their beams but it would not be out of the question.

[Klaustrophobia]

imo the best tactic against the sathanas is the one they ended up using:  fighter/bomber strike to de-fang it, and then just happily chip away at it with beams, from the colossus or destroyers, or even a ****load of cruisers if it strikes command's fancy.  without the BFReds, the sath is just a BFTarget.  and the beams aren't really even that hard to take out with bombers.  although in the fluff vice gameplay, you'd want an OVERWHELMING bomber force with proper escort, not just a single wing.  or hell, maybe even a few ares wings could do it with a maxim/treb strike.

[MatthTheGeek]

without the BFReds, the sath is just a huge carrier housing hundreds of very angry fighters and bombers, and that can still jump the f*** out and repair its beams somewhere out of reach.

Fix0red.

Let's be honest, the Shivans falled to that once, nothing say they will again. Technically, a defanged Sath is still a massive threat until it has been properly reduced to burning spare parts.

[headdie]

With a little more preparation time, bearbating could have been a lot more decisive because with an additional bomber wing targeting the navigation subsystem the Sath would have been pinned in place for a short while while the shivs repaired the sath's jump capability.

[Dragon]

Exactly, if you can kill BFReds, you should be also able to destroy it's navs. And it's fighters and bombers can be kept at bay by superior GTVA strikecraft.

[MatthTheGeek]

Of course you can. You just should remember that defanged Sath != dead Sath. If you have 80 Saths to kill, it'd be a good idea to not forget that point.