Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

Brigade XO wrote:For one caputred Solly SD, put together a scratch crew to navigate one and pair it up with a BC as it's defenses.

Send the pair out to make surprise appearances just outside the hyper limits of a number of Solly systems. Drop into normal space, deploy a few Ghost Rider drones (to be run by the BC but the SD can carry them) You can just run outside the hyper limit while the RDs scout the system. If something comes out to "run you off" you could destroy the RDs.
Otherwise just cruse around the edge of the hyper limit all big and nasty and get people all in a twitter about who could be using SDs to scout systems. Would waste a lot of time and energy on the part of the SL looking to defend against something that isn't actually a threat.

Just for fun, change the transponder on the SD to broadcast (when you switch it on) FORMER SLN Zephran Cochrain just to tweak their noses if you want to.

Wouldn't it be easier to divert one of the still in-service tube SDs for this little show?

It's not like they can't fake the transponder and emissions (radio and wedge strength) of a SLN SD. And it doesn't sound like you're planning for anyone to get close enough to actually eyeball the things, so nobody would notice if it was really an RMN DN or SD rather than a Scientist or Vega.


Assuming of course that it was worth bothering with this exhibition at all

Brigade XO wrote:For one caputred Solly SD, put together a scratch crew to navigate one and pair it up with a BC as it's defenses.

Send the pair out to make surprise appearances just outside the hyper limits of a number of Solly systems. Drop into normal space, deploy a few Ghost Rider drones (to be run by the BC but the SD can carry them) You can just run outside the hyper limit while the RDs scout the system. If something comes out to "run you off" you could destroy the RDs.
Otherwise just cruse around the edge of the hyper limit all big and nasty and get people all in a twitter about who could be using SDs to scout systems. Would waste a lot of time and energy on the part of the SL looking to defend against something that isn't actually a threat.

Just for fun, change the transponder on the SD to broadcast (when you switch it on) FORMER SLN Zephran Cochrain just to tweak their noses if you want to.

why do they even need to scout the systems? send a pair of BCs and trash everything in space. Including any and all military ships in the system. With Lacoon 2 being initiated, they might also be given approval to take out merchies. or at least destroy their nodes so the solly trade is damaged without totally destroying the ships

It would be psychological warfare. It would obviously be a Solly SD. Each system visited would have to be wondering what in hell the SLN was doing sending an SD to hang around their system and what was comming next.

As I said, it is going to create a lot of wasted time and effort on the part of the SDF both to respond to an SD showing up and then trying to make sense of what they might be doing and if they may have to defend themselves. Just sending a formal message from X system to Earth or the closest SLN base asking what the hell they are playing at is going to create some interesting responces.

Brigade XO wrote:It would be psychological warfare. It would obviously be a Solly SD. Each system visited would have to be wondering what in hell the SLN was doing sending an SD to hang around their system and what was comming next.

As I said, it is going to create a lot of wasted time and effort on the part of the SDF both to respond to an SD showing up and then trying to make sense of what they might be doing and if they may have to defend themselves. Just sending a formal message from X system to Earth or the closest SLN base asking what the hell they are playing at is going to create some interesting responces.

Except that they all know that Manticore captured hundreds of Solarian ships.

I really dont't see what good this would do. You say psychological warfare, but what benefit do you think comes of it? I don't see any.

A couple of varied ideas.
1) Several posters have downchecked cutting through armor to get to equipment. Broadside, bow and stern are armored, tops and bottoms of hulls not so much. Can anyone say wedge?
2) If Maya wanted some of the ships, one relatively cheap way to turn them into a half-assed podlayer. Andy-style hull pods.

doug941 wrote:1) Several posters have downchecked cutting through armor to get to equipment. Broadside, bow and stern are armored, tops and bottoms of hulls not so much. Can anyone say wedge?

Which still took months to do in a yard which had all the necessary equipment. No one in the Alliance is going to throw a huge monkey wrench into their support structure by trying to process the SLN's SDs.

2) If Maya wanted some of the ships, one relatively cheap way to turn them into a half-assed podlayer. Andy-style hull pods.

Except two Mount Everest sized points against it are:

1. Maya does not want the public exposure of having SDs they're not supposed to have, and

2. Maya already has much more effective ships on the way, which they can actually man out of their covert pool of recruits.

Brigade XO wrote:It would be psychological warfare. It would obviously be a Solly SD. Each system visited would have to be wondering what in hell the SLN was doing sending an SD to hang around their system and what was comming next.

As I said, it is going to create a lot of wasted time and effort on the part of the SDF both to respond to an SD showing up and then trying to make sense of what they might be doing and if they may have to defend themselves. Just sending a formal message from X system to Earth or the closest SLN base asking what the hell they are playing at is going to create some interesting responces.

uhhh... psychological warfare-wise somebody actually trashing one's orbitals has a lot more impact not only because you would be destroying their equipment and showing you are totally unafraid to do so in addition to making it seem as effortless as possible.

Having 2 ships hanging around the outer system doing nothing can be twisted into something like 'they dont know how to use our hardware and are afraid of going deeper into the system because they know we will destroy them if they do that'...

Not that it'll happen because crews are needed for more important things, but how about this?

Send each Sollie SD to a system of your choice. Have the crew put the ship onto a path that won't run into any planets, but inside the hyper limit - maybe a couple million km, but well out of range of any other Sollie ships that may already be in-system - then leave the ship. Obviously, the Sollie SD would be escorted by another ship or three that could take the crew.

After the transport crew is gone, send a message that the RMN is returning these wayward ships to the SLN...

...then remotely scuttle 'em.

MaxxQ wrote:...then remotely scuttle 'em.

Just what the Sollie spinmeisters need, sensor data on SLN SDs exploding. Unless you're talking about just slagging the computers so they can't save it from a ballistic course to the nearest star; That still wouldn't stop the spinmeisters from lamenting "the loss of 6000+ lives callously sent to their deaths by heartless Manticorans."

Hi Weird Harold,

Sorry to break it to you, I've read nothing new here I didn't read 8 years ago.

I know you're heartbroken.

RFC has repeatedly posted why they're worthless, but then we had almost ten years of RFC telling us the RHN second fleet surviving SD's were being scrapped.

The 48 BF SD's in Spindle could be useful scarecrows, 3 parked in each system, even if they never leave orbit with very small caretaker crews; their reputation is far more effective than the locally unknown RMN LAC's, besides providing useful training for all sorts of things, the workshops aiding the local tech and economy, the small craft training new pilots, marines.

Given that it will still be years before Manticore commission new ships, the 48 BF SD's and 69 FF ships are going to deeply appeal to the Talbot Quadrant in lieu of anything better.

Granted there are still 237 RMN SD's [not SDP's], almost 5/6 of those it had before BoMA, and one each would be so much better, but we've yet to get any deployment data, and the odds of getting any are extremely low; RFC keeps those cards very close to his chest.

This is another pulped extinct equine, let's move on.

L

Weird Harold wrote:

MaxxQ wrote:...then remotely scuttle 'em.

Just what the Sollie spinmeisters need, sensor data on SLN SDs exploding. Unless you're talking about just slagging the computers so they can't save it from a ballistic course to the nearest star; That still wouldn't stop the spinmeisters from lamenting "the loss of 6000+ lives callously sent to their deaths by heartless Manticorans."