[SmashMonkey]

This probably has been addressed somewhere on this board, but in the Aristeia mission in which the UEF Indus and Yangtze face the GTD Hood and Serkr Team, why did Serkr team deploy in front of the gate instead of doing a subspace jump right off the Indus' or Yangtze's broadside? That would have been a better strategy IMHO.

Unless they were afraid of the Toutatis jumping in off the Serkr broadside and pummeling them?

[Mars]

Battuta answered that sometime in 2013, in the BP Tactics thread. I've been digging through it for the last ten minutes or so, haven't found it yet.

[Mars]

Found it:

The Hood should really have a couple more escorts (like some Aeoluses off the bow for instance) the way the Meridian did, but the mission was huge and complex enough as is...

...however it would've been kind of sweet to give the Toutatis a few more things to shoot at...hmmmmm...

What I'm curious is that the Serkr team was deployed wrongly. If they did their usual shock jump tactics they'd blow up the Wargods...what's going on? Is that command guy head.ani really that desperate for a GTL Anemoi?

No they wouldn't have. And having Serkr shock jump in could have been disastrous.

Note how long it took the AWACS in 'Collateral Damage' to plot their entry - several minutes. There was an AWACS with the Hood as well, but by the time Serkr was ready to make its entry, the ECM ship would have already arrived. Even if there hadn't been an ECM ship available, there's another issue: if Serkr jumps in, it can't jump out for at least a minute or two. With UEF assets doubtless ready to assist the Wargods, that could've led to the loss of one (or more) of the corvettes. Putting them in play earlier guarantees they can jump out if threatened. (The intrasystem gate also has a bit of an impact on navigational solutions).

As a general rule, it's easy to look back on a situation, knowing the outcome, and say 'oh, this could have been differently/was done wrong'. But in the actual course of battle, you're down in the fog of war, and whether you're invading Iraq or fighting a space war in the distant future, the only rule is that the retrospectively optimal strategy is rarely apparent in the moment.

[SmashMonkey]

Found it:

The Hood should really have a couple more escorts (like some Aeoluses off the bow for instance) the way the Meridian did, but the mission was huge and complex enough as is...

...however it would've been kind of sweet to give the Toutatis a few more things to shoot at...hmmmmm...

What I'm curious is that the Serkr team was deployed wrongly. If they did their usual shock jump tactics they'd blow up the Wargods...what's going on? Is that command guy head.ani really that desperate for a GTL Anemoi?

No they wouldn't have. And having Serkr shock jump in could have been disastrous.

Note how long it took the AWACS in 'Collateral Damage' to plot their entry - several minutes. There was an AWACS with the Hood as well, but by the time Serkr was ready to make its entry, the ECM ship would have already arrived. Even if there hadn't been an ECM ship available, there's another issue: if Serkr jumps in, it can't jump out for at least a minute or two. With UEF assets doubtless ready to assist the Wargods, that could've led to the loss of one (or more) of the corvettes. Putting them in play earlier guarantees they can jump out if threatened. (The intrasystem gate also has a bit of an impact on navigational solutions).

As a general rule, it's easy to look back on a situation, knowing the outcome, and say 'oh, this could have been differently/was done wrong'. But in the actual course of battle, you're down in the fog of war, and whether you're invading Iraq or fighting a space war in the distant future, the only rule is that the retrospectively optimal strategy is rarely apparent in the moment.

Makes perfect sense now. Thanks a lot!

[qwadtep]

Also, if you remove Serkr from the blockade, you need to add something else to protect the Hood--and that something else wouldn't be available to defend other GTVA assets elsewhere in the system from Calder's wider assault. So from a strategic standpoint, Serkr was exactly where it needed to be--if not for the as-of-yet unknown beam jamming, the Indus and Yangtze would have been gutted instantly and the remaining Wargods swarmed by the Hood's air wing.