Battle: Raid at Balmorra

[Cailst]

Since I haven't seen the other guy post, I'll just go ahead and the post order can just be between the two of us with the other two posting whenever they feel like.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

Since I haven't seen the other guy post, I'll just go ahead and the post order can just be between the two of us with the other two posting whenever they feel like.

What are you talking about? I was the last person that posted. Why would the order go to you and Rameth?

 

[Cailst]

What are you talking about? I was the last person that posted. Why would the order go to you and Rameth?

I'm saying that to speed things up, Rameth and I should be the only people in an actually post order. However, you and Finbar should generally be free to post whenever you want unless it seriously gets out of whack with the rest of the thread.

 

[Cailst]

Umm...

The battle was getting perilous but finally the last part of the plan came together. A barrage of missiles flew from the task force toward the capital. Within seconds the skies above the capital filled with hundreds of missiles. Kalin watched as the first few managed to get past the defense systems.

“Order the fighters back. We're leaving.”, Kalin ordered, the job was done.

Kalin shielded his eyes as a blast unlike he'd ever seen before engulf the city. If he didn't have his helmet on he might have been blinded for a few moments. When he put his hand down he saw a large mushroom cloud where the city used to be.

“What the dar'yaim was that?!”, Kalin barked at one of his officers.

“I...I don't know sir.”, the officer studdered.

Kalin couldn't believe his eyes. The Hutts must have ordered this behind his back. He never would have agreed to use a thermonuclear device if he had known. He was tricked by the Hutts to lead this raid. Enraged Kalin slammed his fist into the wall, leaving a small dent.

“Get us out of here now!”, Kalin started mumbling to himself in Mando'a in anger.

The city was completely leveled. This was supposed to be a standard raid, small time destruction. Not only was the city destroyed but dozens of his fighters that were close must have been destroyed in the blast. The Hutts would hear from Kalin about this, he didn't like being in the dark. The task force began to turn away from the planet, plotting their course for retreat. The remaining Starfighters would able to link up with the vessels before they managed to jump but it would be close. One of his Malice gunships exploded as a MAC round punctured deep into the ship. It had taken sever damage, Kalin wondered if it would make it out of here.

How many missiles did you have? You cleared sufficient parts of two mine fields, and had enough to utterly overwhelm any anti-missile defenses. And you had how many ships? This is getting a bit silly.

Also, while I'm glad you finally acknowledged the MAC guns, what about the other ships in orbit engaging your fleet at medium range? Were all of them so bad at aiming that every single one managed to miss and not only that, your fleet knew that they were completely terrible and ignored them. I understand I did write kinda densely at some points but it couldn't have been that hard to read through it. And did any of the Balmorran fighters do a thing to your guys? Were they so incredibly poorly trained that your Taung fighters could dispatch them without a hitch?

 

[Rameth]

Umm...

How many missiles did you have? You cleared sufficient parts of two mine fields, and had enough to utterly overwhelm any anti-missile defenses. And you had how many ships? This is getting a bit silly.

Also, while I'm glad you finally acknowledged the MAC guns, what about the other ships in orbit engaging your fleet at medium range? Were all of them so bad at aiming that every single one managed to miss and not only that, your fleet knew that they were completely terrible and ignored them. I understand I did write kinda densely at some points but it couldn't have been that hard to read through it. And did any of the Balmorran fighters do a thing to your guys? Were they so incredibly poorly trained that your Taung fighters could dispatch them without a hitch?

I'm just going to respond to you with a different paragraph for each "issue".

I brought four Malice-class Gunships each of which has 24 forward facing missiles tubes. I have two Dread-class ships with 4 forward facing missile tubes each. That means I can fire 104 missiles from my ships in one barrage. All of my ships are facing the capital, none of them are engaging the other ships, except maybe the random turbolaser shot.

Also the first barrage is more than enough destroy the small section of the minefield I'm going for. Even if each Malice had only 10 missiles for each tube that would mean they would each have 240 missiles each. Thats 960 missiles plus the ones that the Dread ships have.

What do you mean I finally acknowledged the MAC guns? I've been saying the entire time that my ships are taking damage. I already tried to go over this to find out how powerful they are but no one told me this. I assumed they were of moderate strength considering how many you said you had. Its not my fault that no acknowledged how strong they are.

The fighters are not directly under my control, I've already stated this. Thats Finbar and Falcons area. Any damages the fighters take would be in their posts. Yet you decided you wanted to take Falcon and Finbar out of the equation.

I have been responding to all of your posts and not saying anything about how everything you have keeps getting magically better. The defenses around Balmorra suddenly appear and are getting better and better as the fight goes on. Your fighters are somehow better then mine because they are "atmospheric". Your "mines" don't explode on contact which makes them more of a triggered explosive which would make the point of the minefield moot. You manage to bypass my jamming signal for no reason at all which makes it pointless in the first place. You can somehow scramble together fighters that are magically above your capital ready to fight off my own even though I have around 80 or so heading toward your capital. Why don't we address these issues before assuming things about what I'm doing?

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

How many missiles did you have? You cleared sufficient parts of two mine fields, and had enough to utterly overwhelm any anti-missile defenses. And you had how many ships?

Around 2,500. To be honest, you should not have brought this up. Him saying he fired 300 missiles is being courteous and kind. Really, the number should be over 1000. Each Malice-warship has 24 concussion missile tubes, each tube holding between 10-30 missiles. Depending on rate of fire, that number could get really huge, really fast.

Also, while I'm glad you finally acknowledged the MAC guns, what about the other ships in orbit engaging your fleet at medium range?

Soon, they would get close enough to the raiding fleet to do some serious damage.

Don’t complain that he isn’t acknowledging that your ships are doing damage when you state yourself that they aren’t close enough to do anything serious.

And did any of the Balmorran fighters do a thing to your guys? Were they so incredibly poorly trained that your Taung fighters could dispatch them without a hitch?

Why is it our responsibility to say what your fighters are doing? I said in my post that I destroyed 4 of your fighters, and engaged the rest. All you did was say they engaged. I expected you to post your kills in the same fashion. Where are you getting this assumption that none of our fighters are being destroyed? Really, the dogfight just started, so I haven’t had a chance to post anything that’s even happening in it, although you have, even though you only took the opportunity to say “Lolz good try, its k though because ours are better” instead of actually posting what the fighters were doing (shooting down some ships perhaps?).

***

Now lets get to the things I believe you are doing wrong, most of which we have overlooked.

Their aerodynamic advantages would soon show themselves in dogfighting and simple maneuvering which would likely mean that the Taung would be driven away.

I’m not arguing about this “aerodynamic advantage” thing. Those fighters have no advantage over starfighters.

"Whoops, at least the other mine fields weren't that badly set up. And they still have to penetrate 34B and 34C which don't self detonate." One engineer meekly said.

What sort of evolving mines are we talking about here? A mine is designed to blow up when something gets close or touches it, why wouldn’t it blow up when shot? The purpose of mines in this technological era would be to deter movement, not anything more, because they could be detected. Shooting them would definitely be enough to blow them up. You saying there weren’t anymore chain reactions is fine though.

Tran Xu's fleet was finally in hyperspace and would be coming out any moment.

I remember the first time I hyperspaced across a few systems in 10 mins. It was really cool. :CStern

This is getting a bit silly.

No yer silly! tee hee hee. ... :CStern

 

[Santoro]

I'll just interject by saying the Malice ships are specifically missile ships used for planetary assault. They're slowly getting worked out for the new line, but still do their job (of clearing mines and raping teh planetz).

Ps- as for the reinforcement fleet, we said way early it wouldn't get there in time. Let's not get into that.

 

[Will]

Why is it our responsibility to say what your fighters are doing? I said in my post that I destroyed 4 of your fighters, and engaged the rest. All you did was say they engaged. I expected you to post your kills in the same fashion. Where are you getting this assumption that none of our fighters are being destroyed? Really, the dogfight just started, so I haven’t had a chance to post anything that’s even happening in it, although you have, even though you only took the opportunity to say “Lolz good try, its k though because ours are better” instead of actually posting what the fighters were doing (shooting down some ships perhaps?).

I would imagine it's your responsibility to take damage though, otherwise, it can be construed as auto-hitting. That's simply good sportsmanship. Saying they engaged has the obvious connotation of attacking.

That's what I believe Cailst's issue is here.

 

[Cailst]

I brought four Malice-class Gunships each of which has 24 forward facing missiles tubes. I have two Dread-class ships with 4 forward facing missile tubes each. That means I can fire 104 missiles from my ships in one barrage. All of my ships are facing the capital, none of them are engaging the other ships, except maybe the random turbolaser shot.

Also the first barrage is more than enough destroy the small section of the minefield I'm going for. Even if each Malice had only 10 missiles for each tube that would mean they would each have 240 missiles each. Thats 960 missiles plus the ones that the Dread ships have.

Okay, so your gunships do have a lot of missiles in your gunships. However, I'd assume that this would be a definite possibility that the Republic would consider. Considering that the planet is a well fortified Republic world, why would they not have the anti-missile defenses to stave off a couple gunships? I'd imagine these guys are anticipating full scale attacks as well and I'm sure a fleet of capital ships are going to have more missiles than several well stocked gun ships

The fighters are not directly under my control, I've already stated this. Thats Finbar and Falcons area. Any damages the fighters take would be in their posts. Yet you decided you wanted to take Falcon and Finbar out of the equation.

I never said I wanted them out of the equation, I simply said that they shouldn't be part of a fixed turn order but rather

I have been responding to all of your posts and not saying anything about how everything you have keeps getting magically better. The defenses around Balmorra suddenly appear and are getting better and better as the fight goes on. Your fighters are somehow better then mine because they are "atmospheric". Your "mines" don't explode on contact which makes them more of a triggered explosive which would make the point of the minefield moot. You manage to bypass my jamming signal for no reason at all which makes it pointless in the first place. You can somehow scramble together fighters that are magically above your capital ready to fight off my own even though I have around 80 or so heading toward your capital. Why don't we address these issues before assuming things about what I'm doing?

They haven't been getting magically better, they're about what I said in the beginning. As I argued before, fighters built for the atmosphere are going to do better than multi-purpose ones on their home turf unless the multi-purpose ones have another significant advantage.

I didn't say they didn't explode on contact, I just said that they aren't going to set each other off if one gets shot. Personally, that sounds like a terrible idea for a mine field and I don't see why someone would design defenses like that.

As for the jamming the radar, we both jammed each other's radar and both of us switched to different frequencies. I don't think that should be an issue.

Also, why wouldn't fighters be able to scramble fairly quickly? Again, this is a heavily defended planet, why would fighters not be ready to deploy?

One last thing, the other ships are approaching you at mid-range. Not only were their armaments apparently completely ineffective, your ships didn't even respond to them. Personally, I'd think that at mid-range, something would begin taking some damage at least.

 

[Rameth]

Yes they would have anti-missile defenses but not enough to stop that many missiles coming at one city. The fact that its a well fortified world is debatable but I can't argue about that cause the Republic has hidden boards. Also no they wouldn't imagine being attacked, Balmorra isn't even near the fighting. Thats why the world was attacked.

No on the atmospheric fighters. You guys didn't have an argument about that other than "just because". Rupulsorlifts allow fighters to do anything that a normal jet fighter can do. Also airspeeders use repulsorlifts. Plus fighters with shields allow a fighter to ignore wind resistance which allows them to perform even better. That is on wookieepedia is you want to check. The only reason planets even have atmospheric fighters is cause they are cheaper because they don't need hyperdrives and other crap to be spaceworthy. Spacecraft on the other hand need all the same stuff that an atmospheric fighter does. So it wouldn't make sense for atmospheric fighters to be any more maneuverable or faster.

Falcon was the only one who put that the mines blew up close to each other, which would make sense as some of them might have gotten a little close. He wasn't saying it was taking out the entire minefield. You post made it seem like they didn't explode on contact, that was our problem.

I wasn't saying that they wouldn't be able to scramble quickly but how many would you have defending a city? A few dozen on standby and a few dozen more that would be in the air within half an hour? Its barely been that long.

Again, like I said in my last post but you ignored apparently, I haven't been ignoring your ships, your MAC guns or anything you've done. I've only had three posts and in each one I mentioned damage to my ships. I'm not going to post that Ships 1-2 have 30% damage and Ships 3-6 have 40% damage. Expecting me to would be dumb. I've even said twice, I think, that we (the task force) would need to leave quickly or be destroyed. Did you think I was talking about imaginary damage from no one?

ANYWAY. Regardless of whats happened or who agrees with what. You wouldn't be able to stop the the majority of the missiles before they hit the city. The nuke went off. The fleet took/is taking damage. We are leaving. This raid is over. Basically anyway. Only a post from Falcon and Finbar saying they link up with the fleet. Then you and we're gone.

 

[Cailst]

Yes they would have anti-missile defenses but not enough to stop that many missiles coming at one city. The fact that its a well fortified world is debatable but I can't argue about that cause the Republic has hidden boards. Also no they wouldn't imagine being attacked, Balmorra isn't even near the fighting. Thats why the world was attacked.

Balmorra may be a decent distance from the fighting but it's clearly a very important world. Given the industrial production from that planet, to have it undefended would be folly. Plus, Corellia has been attacked before, the Jedi Temple on Coruscant was partly destroyed by Bogan. It's already self-evident that no where in the galaxy is truly safe.

As I was saying before, if gunships can carry that many missiles, then capital ships of a larger magnitude certainly can. And again, Balmorra certainly should be prepared for that considering its importance.

No on the atmospheric fighters. You guys didn't have an argument about that other than "just because". Rupulsorlifts allow fighters to do anything that a normal jet fighter can do. Also airspeeders use repulsorlifts. Plus fighters with shields allow a fighter to ignore wind resistance which allows them to perform even better. That is on wookieepedia is you want to check. The only reason planets even have atmospheric fighters is cause they are cheaper because they don't need hyperdrives and other crap to be spaceworthy. Spacecraft on the other hand need all the same stuff that an atmospheric fighter does. So it wouldn't make sense for atmospheric fighters to be any more maneuverable or faster.

Shielding absorbs heat from the wind resistance, it does not reduce drag. Therefore, the fighters designed for always fighting in an airy environment are going to have an advantage over fighters who must also take into account other situations. Also, the hyperdrives and other crap needed to be spaceworthy takes up not only money but space and mass. And those are two things which will cause further drag and lower maneuverability. So yes, it does make sense that ships built for a specific environment will function better in that environment than ships designed for multiple environments and must compromise between attributes that would be helpful in any one environment.

I wasn't saying that they wouldn't be able to scramble quickly but how many would you have defending a city? A few dozen on standby and a few dozen more that would be in the air within half an hour? Its barely been that long.

Considering that Britain and Germany had thousands in the battle of Britain, I'd say that the Republic presence on Balmorra would have many thousands and at least several hundred around the capital should be able to scramble at a moments notice.

Again, like I said in my last post but you ignored apparently, I haven't been ignoring your ships, your MAC guns or anything you've done. I've only had three posts and in each one I mentioned damage to my ships. I'm not going to post that Ships 1-2 have 30% damage and Ships 3-6 have 40% damage. Expecting me to would be dumb. I've even said twice, I think, that we (the task force) would need to leave quickly or be destroyed. Did you think I was talking about imaginary damage from no one?

While you were trying to hurry up in the event of my ships closing in, there should have at least been a few shots going off at long range. Lasers and missiles should have been whizzing by your ships if not hitting them. And at medium range, a lot more stuff should have whizzing by or hitting your ships. Of course, maybe not as much as at close or point blank but some serious damage can be dealt at those ranges.

ANYWAY. Regardless of whats happened or who agrees with what. You wouldn't be able to stop the the majority of the missiles before they hit the city. The nuke went off. The fleet took/is taking damage. We are leaving. This raid is over. Basically anyway. Only a post from Falcon and Finbar saying they link up with the fleet. Then you and we're gone.

Unless your ships are within several miles of the capital, I don't see why the anti-missile systems should be overwhelmed. They should be able to withstand attacks from large numbers of capital ships let alone a few gunships. So unless you're so close that the missiles have no chance to be intercepted, most should be staved off.

 

[Rameth]

You know what I'm just going to ignore mostly everything else you said cause it doesn't matter anymore. I shouldn't even have posted all that stuff cause it doesn't matter.

First why would planets be able to fend off multiple capital ships? There is no reference in Star Wars of planets, other then fortress worlds, actually being able to fend of capital ship attacks. Even then they would still need a fleet. Yes Balmorra is defended. Yes it would have missile defenses. But even if the majority of the missiles were destroyed, lets say 70%, I still shot hundreds. Lets go with 400, and know I shot more then that. If 70% of 400 missiles were destroyed 120 would still be hitting the ground. Your fighters can't help because they are engaging my fighters and the planet can only have so many anti-missile defenses realistically. Remember this is a single city on the whole planet. It can only have so many defenses.

 

[Zach]

You know what I'm just going to ignore mostly everything else you said cause it doesn't matter anymore. I shouldn't even have posted all that stuff cause it doesn't matter.

First why would planets be able to fend off multiple capital ships? There is no reference in Star Wars of planets, other then fortress worlds, actually being able to fend of capital ship attacks. Even then they would still need a fleet. Yes Balmorra is defended. Yes it would have missile defenses. But even if the majority of the missiles were destroyed, lets say 70%, I still shot hundreds. Lets go with 400, and know I shot more then that. If 70% of 400 missiles were destroyed 120 would still be hitting the ground. Your fighters can't help because they are engaging my fighters and the planet can only have so many anti-missile defenses realistically. Remember this is a single city on the whole planet. It can only have so many defenses.

Let me know if I'm intruding and should butt out, but if this is an orbit-to-ground missile strike, realistically the defenses of other cities could fire into space to shoot down some missiles too, but they'd be pretty inaccurate. Maybe only shoot down a dozen or two. If it's an atmospheric assault, then there's not a lot they could realistically do to prevent those missiles, unless some of the fighters wanted to disengage, chase them down, and then get shot down by the fighters they exposed themselves to. Or if you have a magically convenient anti-missile shield.

EDIT: Just to clarify in case my post was misread, I'm supporting Rameth's arguments.

 

[Santoro]

I'd like to just stop this debate here. During the Battle of Nar Shaddaa, the worlds of Nar Shaddaa AND Nal Hutta were threatened by twenty five relatively small Imperial vessels. By relatively small, I mean their biggest ships were three 600m Dreadnaught-class ships. Two planets, 25 ships, and the Hutts were worried about a takeover of their capital. Repeatedly, it was said that those ships could completely kill all life on both planets. I don't think Balmorra would realistically have huge mine fields and thousands of starfighters ready to move, considering Nar Shaddaa's entire defense fleet was somewhere around 50-60 ships, including starfighters.

Either way, let's stop arguing about things we can't possibly know like how aerodynamic ships are and whether or not that would give us a significant advantage or if mines are placed close enough to detonate each other. Really? Does it really matter that much?

 

[Zach]

Either way, let's stop arguing about things we can't possibly know like how aerodynamic ships are and whether or not that would give us a significant advantage or if mines are placed close enough to detonate each other. Really? Does it really matter that much?

Yeah, that aerodynamic thing was kinda dumb. As for mines causing a chain reaction, that would suck in all scenarios, because even if you got one ship, the entire field would explode. I don't think they would be close enough to cause a chain reaction. Just my opinion.

 

[Cailst]

I'd like to just stop this debate here. During the Battle of Nar Shaddaa, the worlds of Nar Shaddaa AND Nal Hutta were threatened by twenty five relatively small Imperial vessels. By relatively small, I mean their biggest ships were three 600m Dreadnaught-class ships. Two planets, 25 ships, and the Hutts were worried about a takeover of their capital. Repeatedly, it was said that those ships could completely kill all life on both planets. I don't think Balmorra would realistically have huge mine fields and thousands of starfighters ready to move, considering Nar Shaddaa's entire defense fleet was somewhere around 50-60 ships, including starfighters.

Either way, let's stop arguing about things we can't possibly know like how aerodynamic ships are and whether or not that would give us a significant advantage or if mines are placed close enough to detonate each other. Really? Does it really matter that much?

Perhaps it may have happened in some other time period. Look at the amount of ships in a typical battle, usually around a hundred each time. So I don't think that really applies. However, I seem to recall a certain hypothetical situation where Republic ships were intended to show up a light second or two away from Nal Hutta(about distance from Earth to Moon) and apparently, Nal Hutta had enough defenses everywhere to entirely destroy the fleet within the minute that Republic ships were there.

Now Balmorra might not be that cool but I'd imagine that it would have more fighters than Britain did in WW2. And minefields seem like a fairly cheap solution. Apparently they weren't very effective given the speed which fighters penetrated through them.

You know what I'm just going to ignore mostly everything else you said cause it doesn't matter anymore. I shouldn't even have posted all that stuff cause it doesn't matter.

While perhaps some of the discussion was a bit pedantic, I'd say the presence of Republic capital ships in medium range was kinda important. Ships start doing serious damage at that point.

First why would planets be able to fend off multiple capital ships? There is no reference in Star Wars of planets, other then fortress worlds, actually being able to fend of capital ship attacks. Even then they would still need a fleet. Yes Balmorra is defended. Yes it would have missile defenses. But even if the majority of the missiles were destroyed, lets say 70%, I still shot hundreds. Lets go with 400, and know I shot more then that. If 70% of 400 missiles were destroyed 120 would still be hitting the ground. Your fighters can't help because they are engaging my fighters and the planet can only have so many anti-missile defenses realistically. Remember this is a single city on the whole planet. It can only have so many defenses.

Considering that it's an important planet, I'd say that it should at least be able to defend against the missiles of a couple capital ships. But certainly, the capital should be able to stave off a few missiles from a some little gunships unless they're within only a few miles and interceptors have no chance. However, from what I gathered, you were somewhere in the upper reaches of the atmosphere which means you're about a hundred miles away which is plenty of time for interceptor missiles to intercept them or for space lasers to take them out. Perhaps not all would be intercepted but most should be.

 

[Santoro]

Do you mind just responding? This back and forth on every thread is really killing the momentum.

 

[Cailst]

Do you mind just responding? This back and forth on every thread is really killing the momentum.

Certainly, I'd like to get back to RPing the thread. However, I'd like for some of the defenses to actually get noticed and have some effect on the attacking force.

 

[Rameth]

Certainly, I'd like to get back to RPing the thread. However, I'd like for some of the defenses to actually get noticed and have some effect on the attacking force.

Like I said before, I haven't ignored anything you've thrown at me. My ships are taking damage, I've responded by saying we're taking damage. I know all your defenses that are attacking me. No I may not having actually said anything about them in my post, because we are not engaging them, but I am aware they are there and are taking damage from them. Thats all that matters right?

Secondly it doesn't matter how many missiles you shoot down or how far away I am. As I've said and you've said at least twice now, some of them would get through, thats all that matters. Those some, even if there only 20 or even 10, are the ones that hit and blew up. Theres nothing more to discuss.

Now Falcon has posted to say that he's leaving and Finbar hasn't been active for the last few days so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's onboard as well. Please post so we can end this Raid.

 

[Cailst]

Like I said before, I haven't ignored anything you've thrown at me. My ships are taking damage, I've responded by saying we're taking damage. I know all your defenses that are attacking me. No I may not having actually said anything about them in my post, because we are not engaging them, but I am aware they are there and are taking damage from them. Thats all that matters right?

Secondly it doesn't matter how many missiles you shoot down or how far away I am. As I've said and you've said at least twice now, some of them would get through, thats all that matters. Those some, even if there only 20 or even 10, are the ones that hit and blew up. Theres nothing more to discuss.

Now Falcon has posted to say that he's leaving and Finbar hasn't been active for the last few days so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's onboard as well. Please post so we can end this Raid.

Even if your ships aren't responding to certain threats, shouldn't you still take note of them in your post? And wouldn't you be getting extra damage from them since your shielding is focused elsewhere?

So does that mean that if in the future, I head off to Nal Hutta, launch a whole bunch of nukes, and I can auto hit Nal Hutta?