Arriving from the recent engagement in the K’tsa-Kar system, the local militia ships, together with elements from Spacefleet arrive back at Ken’zah-Kit just as the sathar arrived at the planet. Arriving just too late to prevent the destruction of the fortified defense station in orbit, the militia and Spacefleet vessels made quick work of the sathar invaders, destroying all five ships in just twenty minutes of fighting.
While several ships will need time in a starship construction center to complete repairs, the only loss, beyond the station, was one of the militia assault scouts which was lost with all hands.
With Task Force Cassidine in-system and only three days out, it feels like Ken’zah-Kit is secure for now.
Rak’tal-ka, StarPlay News
Background
The UPF forces had wanted to engage the sathar in deep space, but having jumped in on the opposite side of the system, they were only able to intercept the attacking forces as they approached the planet. The frigate UPFS Flying Cloud, which has been on a continuous high speed transit from the Liberty system before the fighting started, finally joins up with the rest of PG Meteor just a day before the sathar are engaged. Task Force Cassidine is also in the K’aken Kar system. However, they just jumped in a day ago and are too far away to participate in this fight.
With Task Force Cassidine coming in behind them and the militia and PG Meteor ahead of them, the sathar have to fight and intend to take on the smaller group first, hoping to defeat them and then join up with SBF-B2 that is currently en route from the K’tsa-Kar system before taking on the UPF task force.
While the UPF have more ships, the sathar have a slight hull advantage in this fight. It was supposed to be a tough fight for the UPF forces.
Order of Battle
K’aken-Kar Militia
2 assault scouts
1 fortified station
UPF – PG Meteor
3 assault scouts
1 frigate
2 destroyers
Sathar
1 frigate
2 destroyers
1 light cruiser
1 heavy cruiser
The Battle
Setup
The station is on the side of the planet facing the invading sathar forces and orbiting counterclockwise. With both fleets racing to intercept and coming directly from jumps into the system from opposite directions, they are starting on opposite sides of the map. The K’aken-Kar militia and PG Virgo are coming in fast on the left side of the map moving at speed 30. The K’aken-Kar militia assault scouts are high above the planet with the UPF assault scouts are below the planet. The frigate and destroyer are flying in formation in the middle and come in just above the planet.
The sathar, moving fast at speed 25, appear in their standard diamond formation headed straight at the station and planet. They intend to make a fast run at the station before engaging the smaller ships.
Initial positions for the battle. Click for full size image.
Turn 1
The sathar maintain their speed making a full frontal assault on the station, veering off just 20,000 km away to avoid colliding with the planet and turn toward the UPF capital ships and the militia.
Defensively, the stations fires all of its weapons at the closest sathar destroyer hitting with its laser batteries knocking out the destroyer’s masking screen launcher and causing an electrical fire. It also fires all of its ICMs at the salvo of incoming torpedoes.
Offensively, the sathar fire every weapon they have at the station. The UPF and militia forces can only watch helplessly as 17 of the 26 weapons fired, including 3 torpedoes that made it through the ICM screen, connect with the station and obliterate it.
Angered by the destruction of the station, the Frontier forces swoop in to exact their revenge. The UPF assault scouts use their maximum acceleration and swing up from below the planet to fire at the lower destroyer. The militia assault scouts line up for an assault rocket run at the sathar frigate and then veer off behind the planet, accelerating to speed 34. The frigate and destroyers slow to speed 29 to just come within rocket battery range and fire on the sathar heavy cruiser; they turn away from the planet at the last moment to prepare to fire at the sathar ships as they fly by.
Defensively, the sathar frigate and light cruiser fire their energy weapons at the militia assault scouts, each targeting a single ship, and their rocket batteries at the UPF frigate. The other three ships target the lead UPF destroyer. The sathar frigate misses completely but the light cruiser connects with its laser battery and electron battery damaging the assault scout’s engines and causing a loss of navigation control. It also hits the frigate with the rocket battery knocking out its laser cannon. The other sathar ships don’t do much better with the far destroyer and heavy cruiser missing completely while the closer destroyer only hits with its electron battery shorting out the UPF ship’s defensive systems.
While the gunners on the sathar vessels were not very effective, the same cannot be said for the gunners on the Frontier ships. The militia ships hit with one laser battery and both assault rockets destroying the sathar frigate. Similarly, the UPF assault scouts hit the lower destroyer with a laser battery and two assault rockets destroying that vessel. The UPF capital ships fare nearly as well. While the torpedoes didn’t make it through the screen of ICMs fired by the heavy cruiser, the large ship was still hit by a rocket battery from the frigate and each destroyer hit with their laser cannon, laser battery, and a rocket battery. Combined, the damage from the weapons disabled the cruiser’s distruptor cannon, damaged its engines, knocked out its maneuvering, and seriously damaged it, leaving it’s hull integrity at a mere 26 percent.
Courses and positions after the first round of combat. Click for full size image.
Turn 2
Seriously damaged, the sathar heavy cruiser just drifts away from the battle firing at the UPF frigate as it passes. The light cruiser and surviving destroyer loop around the planet (speed 25 and 26), buzzing the UPF capital ships and firing their torpedoes at the lead destroyer. They then train all of their energy weapons on the militia assault scouts and fire their rocket batteries at the UPF assault scouts.
Defensively, the UPF frigate fires at the heavy cruiser and connects with its laser cannon, cutting the large ship’s remaining hull integrity by over half but not quite destroying it. The UPF destroyers fire at the remaining sathar destroyer only missing with a rocket and laser battery. The weapons that do hit knock out the destroyer’s electron battery before ripping its hull to shreds. The assault scouts all fire at the light cruiser and two of the UPF assault scouts hit knocking out the light cruiser’s laser batter and causing significant hull damage with maximum damage laser battery hit (20 HP).
Of the weapons brought to bear, only the heavy cruiser’s electron battery misses the UPF frigate with the torpedo slipping through the ICM screen. The frigate has its damage and navigation control systems comprised and its hull severely damaged, knocking its hull integrity down to just 32 percent. The torpedo from the light cruiser misses the UPF destroyer, but it hits the trailing militia assault scout with it’s proton battery and distruptor cannon destroying it. It also hits one of the UPF assault scouts with the rocket battery knocking its hull integrity down to less than half.
The 3 UPF Assault scouts chase after the Heavy cruiser while the destroyers and surviving militia assault scout go after the light cruiser. The UPF Flying Cloud (frigate) with a damaged navigation control system, pulls a hard turn to starboard, looping around the planet. It manages to hold its damaged hull together and not break up from the strain of the maneuver.
The heavy cruiser fires at the incoming assault scouts but only hits one with a laser battery knocking its hull integrity to just 33 percent. The light cruiser fires at the militia assault scout hitting with an electron battery knocking out half of the small ship’s hull integrity. It fires its rocket battery at the lead UPF destroyer but misses.
The UPF assault scouts hit the heavy cruiser with 2 of their assault rockets finally destroying the larger vessel. The other ships combine their fire on the light cruiser hitting with 2 laser canons, a laser and rocket battery, and an assault rocket and torpedo. The torpedo took out the cruiser’s proton screen but the other weapons all ripped into its hull destroying it.
Final moves and positions. The heavy cruiser and assault scouts are an additional 8 hexes off the map with the assault scouts veering of at a range of 4 hexes after making their assault rocket attack. Click for full size image.
Repairs
The UPF frigate manages to hold together after another hard turn to port and then gets its navigation control issues fixed despite its reduced damage control capabilities. Over the next 3 hours it repairs the rest of its systems but can only get its hull to 75% without spending time in a shipyard. The militia assault scout repairs some of it’s hull but only gets it back to 66% before running into issues that will require a shipyard. The UPF assault scout hit by the heavy cruiser repairs most of its hull but has a little (13%) that needs attention in a shipyard. The other assault scout and the damaged destroyer get all their systems back online in under an hour.
Lessons Learned
This one didn’t go anything like I expected. With the ships staring out on the opposite sides of the map, I knew the sathar would get a free round on the station. I expected them to take out the station (it was a primary target) but maybe not as spectacularly as they did (170 of 140 HP with three weapons, including 2 torpedoes, doing double damage).
From there everything went pear shaped for the sathar. Their tactics were actually pretty sound but their gunners couldn’t hit to save their lives (literally). The sathar light cruiser gunners did just fine, constantly hitting their targets but the other ships, beyond hitting the station, were not so accurate. This really didn’t help the sathars’ cause as they were unable to eliminate the assault scouts and suffered a few more assault rocket hits than they would have liked.
That, combined with the absolutely amazing firing from the UPF, both just in accuracy in hitting and also some well-placed double-damage rolls on the first round (two AR for 34 HP each on the frigate and destroyer, a LB hit for 14 HP on the destroyer, and a RB hit for 34 HP on the heavy cruiser), destroyed two of the sathar ships and seriously wounded a third right off the bat shifting the balance of power to the UPF. Had those ships survived that first round, the UPF would have probably still won but the casualty list would have been much higher. The rapid destruction of the ships on round one allowed the UPF to focus their fire on round 2 and keep the engagement short.
The incoming SBF-B2, being a just slightly larger version of the fleet destroyed here (an extra destroyer plus an assault carrier with 7 fighters) doesn’t have a chance against the combined forces of Task Force Cassidine (which is roughly the same strength, substituting a frigate, 3 assault scouts and a battleship for the three sathar destroyers), PG Meteor, and the surviving militia assault scout. The sathar are going to have to reasses their strategy.
This will be the last battle I report that occurs in the Rim. I had these two battles set up in the timeline already so I’ve been reporting them. And while I really should have handled the sathar and Rim interaction in this timeline, the truth is I have never really worked out what the Rim has in terms of ships and ship production capability. So that will have to be a project for a future date.
A second sathar force was engaged today in the space around Stenmar by the surviving Flight elements in the system. Lacking reinforcements from the core Rim systems, the Flight forces were severely outnumbered and succumbed quickly to the sathar onslaught with only a single fighter surviving to seek shelter in the outer system. Before being overwhelmed, Flight forces managed to destroy a sathar light cruiser and a new vessel never seen in the Rim before.
Limited reports from the battle indicate this new sathar vessel falls in size between an assault scout and a frigate and seems to sport dual laser batteries. Not much more is known due to the limited engagement and savagery of the sathar attack.
Kaarln Duggart – Stenmar News Syndicate
Background
Intended to reinforce the original fleet sent to the Kazak system, this battle fleet was already preparing to depart when the first battle occurred. Surprised by the initial resistance in the Kazak system, the sathar committed their four new Cutter-class vessels to the conflict as well to boost the firepower of the fleet.
Worried about sathar incursions into the core Rim worlds, no reinforcements for the Kazak system were readily available so the surviving elements of the Flight from the first battle were all that remained to face the new onslaught. Seriously outgunned, they hope to pull off another victory relying on the success they had in the first battle with their assault rocket attacks.
The sathar have other plans.
Order of Battle
The Flight
10 Fighters
2 Assault Scouts
1 Frigate
1 Fortified Station
Sathar
4 Cutters
1 Frigate
3 Destroyers
2 Light Cruisers
The Battle
Setup
The station is on the side of the planet directly opposite the sathar, orbiting counter clockwise. The Rim forces form up close to the planet with the frigate and a wing of 5 fighters above the planet and the assault scouts and remaining fighters below the planet. They are all moving at speed 20.
Having learned from the engagement at New Pale (Truane’s Star) four days earlier, the sathar forces come in fast, starting at speed 25. They form up directly opposite the Flight forces allowing them to bring their forward firing cannons to bear in the initial engagement, knowing that in later phases of the battle, this might not be possible due to the higher maneuverability of the Rim ships. The cutters form a flight to square off against the upper flight of fighters, a frigate and destroyer line up opposite the Rim’s frigate, the remaining two destroyers go after the assault scouts and the light cruisers plan to take on the lower group of fighters.
Initial setup for the conflict. Click for full size image.
Turn 1
The sathar all fly straight toward their intended targets. The cutters accelerate to speed 29 to come into point blank range with their laser batteries while all the other ships accelerate slightly to speed 26 to bring them within range for their rocket batteries.
Defensively the frigate and station fire at the sathar frigate hitting with a laser cannon and rocket battery from the frigate and a laser battery from the station. They manage to damage the frigate’s engines, knock out its masking screen launcher, and reduce its hull integrity by over half from a well placed hit with the rocket battery. The assault scouts fire at the lead destroyer and manage to inflict some minor hull damage with one of their laser batteries.
The sathar cutters open fire on the upper flight of fighters with their dual laser batteries, nearly destroying the lead fighter, damaging and reducing the maneuverability of her wingman, and destroying a third fighter. They missed the other two.
The sathar destroyer hit the Rim frigate with its laser weapons starting a fire and damaging the ship’s engines. The gunners on the sathar frigate must be veterans or well trained as they landed a hit on the Rim frigate with nearly every weapon fired, only missing with the laser battery. They knocked out the Rim vessel’s masking screen and damaged it’s hull with the laser cannon and rocket battery before it was obliterated by the torpedo.
The two fighters and remaining assault scout, all seriously damaged, just drift forward. The other fighters accelerate to 25 and loop around remaining out of range of the sathar energy weapons. They all fire at their closest target as they fly out.
Defensively the sathar continue to fire at the same targets expect that the frigate and two of the destroyers shift their fire to the station. The cutters finish off the two wounded fighters in the upper group and hit a third for serious hull damage an a navigation control hit. The fourth fighter remains unscathed. The light cruisers are not as effective with the first hitting one fighter for some minor hull damage, and another knocking out its engines. The other light cruiser misses with all weapons. While the destroyers both miss the station, the frigate hits with is laser and rocket battery doing some significant hull damage.
The assault scout hits the lead sathar destroyer with its assault rocket damaging its maneuvering. One of the cutters is hit with 2 assault rockets damaging its engines and nearly destroying it. The lead light cruiser is hit by all four assault rockets which rip through the hull destroying it.
Initial round of combat. Click for full size image.
Turn 2
The damaged sathar cutter and frigate drift away from the battle hoping to survive and get repairs done while the other ships finish off the Rim forces. All the other sathar ships loop around the planet to attack both the station and the surviving Flight vessels.
The surviving cutters loop around to go after the larger group of fighters below the planet. The two destroyers go after the group of fighters above the planet. The remaining light cruiser and third destroyer go after the Rim assault scout. The ships use their energy weapons on the smaller ships while firing their rocket batteries and torpedoes at the station.
Defensively the station fires at the cutter and frigate that are drifting away attempting to finish them off. The laser battery hits the cutter inducing a navigation control hit while the rocket battery hits the frigate knocking out some of its acceleration ability. The assault scout fires at the destroyer chasing it cause some significant hull damage with its laser battery.
The lead sathar destroyer in the upper flight only hits the lead Rim fighter with its laser battery inducing a loss of navigation control. The other destroyer is much more effective hitting with all three energy weapons destroying the other fighter.
The cutters eliminate two of the four fighters in the lower group, completely missed a third, and damaged the navigation control system on the the fourth. The third sathar destroyer hit the lone assault scout with its laser canon, destroying the smaller vessel.
The station fires all its ICMs at the incoming torpedoes. Despite this, 3 of the 5 torpedoes, and an equal number of rocket batteries slam into the station from different directions completely destroying it.
The lone Rim fighter above the planet, spinning out of control, manages to line up for a shot on the sathar destroyers, but the destroyers hit it with an electron battery that knocks out the assault rocket launcher before it can fire. The undamaged fighter in the lower group, hoping to eliminate the crippled ships to prevent their repair and subsequent use, races off after the damaged frigate and cutter, unfortunately, it is hit by two laser batteries from the cutters, destroying it before it can catch the crippled ships. The final fighter, its navigation control system damaged, spins to port and manages to get an oblique shot with it assault rocket launcher at one of the cutters, scoring serious hull damage on the ship (just over 60% of its total). Amazing, the fighter flies through the barrage of laser batteries unscathed.
Positions and courses at the end of the second round of combat. Click for full size image.
Turn 3
The damaged seriously damaged cutter with the navigation control damage pull a hard turn to port and breaks up from the strain of the maneuver. The sathar light cruiser and destroyer chase down the fighter that escaped the cutters and eliminate it with their energy weapons. The sathar allow the other fighter to escape.
Repairs
The damaged Rim fighter gets its navigation system repaired and, realizing it is no match for the combined sathar fleet, heads out to the outer system to find somewhere to take shelter.
Over the next hour and a half, the sathar repair what damage they can. All of the damage to internal systems are repaired but the three ships with hull damage (a cutter, the frigate, and a destroyer) all require time in a starship construction center to fully repair, the cutter and frigate are seriously damaged with less than half of the their hull integrity intact while the destroyer only has a small bit of damage.
Lessons Learned
The Rim leaders were forcibly reminded that while the fighters and assault scouts pack a serious offensive punch, they have little to no defensive capability and quickly succumbed to the overwhelming sathar fire without being able to return much of their own. With a lack of capital ships by Flight, the sathar effectively got two shots for every one that the Rim forces had.
The rapid advance of the sathar forces, here and at New Pale, have shown that the Rim and UPF fighters are quite vulnerable to a first strike by sathar forces that target them. They are going to have to stand off further from the beginning of the battle in future engagements so that the sathar cannot have that first strike advantage.
The sathar cutters seem to be effective against the small ships with their pairs of laser batteries and could proved to be quite useful in an anti-fighter role.
This battle actually occurred two days ago in the timeline. However, since I was still catching up on the battles from the opening day of the conflict, this posting got delayed. Going forward, the battles will be much less frequent and the battle reports will arrive on they day they occur.
After a nearly an hour of intense battle around New Pale, militia and UPF forces manage to drive off the invading sathar fleet destroying two sathar vessels and seriously damaging the other three.
Unfortunately, due to heavy losses and critical damage, the UPF and militia forces were unable to pursue the fleeing sathar ships which began accelerating out of the system for a jump back to Zebulon shortly after the battle ended.
While the sathar have been driven off, the losses around New Pale represent the most damage to militia forces yet seen in this conflict and the second highest loss of ships overall, coming in only after the massive battle at Prenglar two days ago.
Goolar Nadd, New Pale News
Background
The Truane’s Star militia is supported by the remaining elements of Patrol Group Virgo which just returned from being stationed in the Kazak system in the Rim days before the sathar fleets appeared. Bolstered by the Spacefleet forces, and having seen the success of the UPF forces in the other systems two days prior, confidence is high that they can defeat the sathar ships.
The sathar have learned from those other engagements as well. Knowing that there is a second fleet en route just 11 days behind them, this battle fleet has some very specific orders: Eliminate the fighters and assault scouts!
Order of Battle
Had Patrol Group Virgo not been in the system, and the militia not had the extra assault scout, this would have been the scenario I presented as “A Pale Prospect” in the Stand Your Ground article in issue 3 of the Frontier Explorer (p30) back in 2013. Before starting this timeline project, this is how I thought the first fight in Truane’s Star would play out.
However, the additional ships completely change the dynamics and with the sathar’s new tactics, this turned out to be the most interesting battle for me so far as it did not go at all as I expected. And the high speeds meant that the ships were flying everywhere on the map.
Truane’s Star Militia
4 Assault Scouts
1 Frigate
Note that this is one more assault scout than described in the order of battle for the game in the KH Campaign Book. They captured this assault scout from the Star Devil pirates early in the timeline so it is available in the fight.
UPF – PG Virgo
8 Fighters
2 Assault Scouts
2 Light Cruisers
1 Assault Carrier
Sathar
1 Frigate
2 Destroyers
1 Light Cruiser
1 Heavy Cruiser
The Battle
Setup
The UPF and militia forces, deploying tactics that have worked in the other systems, set up in a broad line with the smaller ships on the outside, the two LC near the station at speed 15, with the assault scouts split into a flight of 4 (below the planet) and 3 (above), both groups at speed 20, and a flight of 4 fighters on either wing at speed 25. The assault carrier is on the far side of the planet orbiting at speed 10 with the militia frigate acting as escort. The station is in on the far side of the planet from the approaching sathar and orbiting counter clockwise.
The sathar, however, are not using the tactics they have used in other systems. With their new directive, they come in fast, high above the planet at a speed of 25! Additionally, they are formed up in an inverted form of their standard diamond formation with the heavier ships leading and headed straight for the upper group of fighters.
Initial positions of the UPF and sathar forces. Click for full size image.
Turn 1
The sathar ships advance straight at the fighters and at the last moment turn toward the upper group of assault scouts. The heavy cruiser remains at speed 25, while the light cruiser and frigate accelerate by 1 and 2 respectively to join up with the larger ship. They fire all weapons expect their torpedoes at the flight of 4 fighters. The destroyers accelerate to speed 27 and 28 and join up directing all their fire at the flight of assault scouts.
Defensively only the upper light cruiser and flight of assault scouts are in range and they fire everything at the lead destroyer. Only the light cruiser connects with its laser battery doing some minor hull damage.
The sathar open with a devastating barrage at the smaller ships. The light cruiser’s disruptor cannon vaporizes the lead fighter, while the disruptor cannon from the heavy cruiser knocks out the assault rocket launcher on his wingman. The third fighter is hit by a pair of laser batteries and the sathar frigate’s laser cannon damaging its acceleration and navigation control system and nearly destroying it. The final fighter is hit by an electron battery and destroyed.
The destroyers do just as well. The lead militia assault scout is hit by a laser battery, electron battery, and laser canon destroying it. The second assault scout is hit by a laser battery and laser cannon and also destroyed. The last assault scout in the group is hit by an electron battery and rocket battery knocking out its assault rocket launcher and nearly destroying the ship.
The sathar have done well, eliminating four ships and knocking out the assault rocket launchers on two others and severely damaging the last. Caught off-guard by the speed of the sathar advance and initial devastation, the UPF and militia forces scramble to react.
The surviving assault scout, heavily damaged, just drifts away from the battle at speed 20. The fighter with the damaged navigation control system pulls a hard turn to starboard remaining at speed 25 and flies away from the battle. Luckily, it doesn’t break up from the maneuver. The other fighter, relatively undamaged but unable to fight due to the loss of its assault rocket launcher, loops away from the sathar ships back toward the assault carrier and slows to speed 20.
The assault carrier and frigate accelerate to speed 12 and turn away from the oncoming ships. All of the other UPF and militia ships loop around and head toward the group of sathar ships centered on the heavy cruiser, the ships coming from below the station accelerating to get in range.
Defensively, the sathar continue to focus on the smaller ships firing all their energy battery weapons at the incoming fighters and their cannons at the wounded assault scout as it drifts by. They fire their rocket batteries at the light cruiser that has come into range.
All five cannons hit the assault scout causing a fire and damage to its maneuvering and damage control system before destroying it. Three of the five rocket batteries slam into the UPF light cruiser disabling its ICM launcher, completely knocking out its maneuvering and doing significant hull damage. The lead fighter is hit by a laser battery reducing its acceleration ability while the shots at the second fighter completely miss. The third fighter is hit by a laser and electron battery and destroyed. The final fighter takes a hit from an electron battery which starts an electrical fire on-board.
The surviving fighters with operational assault rockets fire at the light cruiser, three of which hit doing significant hull damage and causing a power short circuit knocking out its screens and ICMS. The assault scouts and more distant light cruiser fire at the heavy cruiser. Only two of the assault rockets from the assault scouts hit but cause significant hull damage (65% of total). The light cruiser hits with its laser battery and disruptor canon knocking out the heavy cruiser’s distruptor canon and acceleration capability. The other light cruiser hits the sathar frigate with its laser, electron, and proton batteries knocking out most of its acceleration ability and causing a fire.
Positions and courses of the ships at the beginning of the battle. Click for full image.
Turn 2
Unable to accelerate, the sathar heavy cruiser drifts down toward the assault carrier. It fires at the militia assault scouts with its energy weapons and its rocket weapons at the damaged light cruiser. The sathar destroyers decelerate and make a run at the undamaged light cruiser. The sathar light cruiser and frigate loop around and fire all their energy weapons and rocket batteries at the fighters and UPF assault scouts while they fire their torpedoes at the damaged light cruiser. The fire on the UPF fighter burns through over half of the small ship’s hull.
Defensively, the two UPF light cruisers focus their fire on their sathar counterpart hitting with multiple weapons reducing its acceleration ability, inducing a navigation control failure, knocking out its ICMs, and doing more damage to its hull but not destroying it. The assault scouts fire at the sathar frigate and hit with 2 laser batteries causing some minor hull damage. The station fires at one of the destroyers as they pass but misses and the assault carrier and militia frigate take long range shots at the heavy cruiser but also miss.
The militia assault scouts are both hit by a laser battery which knocks out all the maneuvering capability on one and slight reduces the maneuvering on the other. The lead (damaged) UPF light cruiser is hit by a rocket battery and torpedo doing some minor hull damage and shorting out its screens and ICMs. The trailing UPF light cruiser is pummeled by the destroyers having its screens and ICMs disabled and losing over half of its hull integrity.
The three fighters are each hit with a battery weapon destroying one, reducing the damage control capability on the second, and damaging the navigation control system on the third. The two UPF assault scouts are hit by a rocket battery and distruptor cannon respectively that knock out just over half of the first’s hull integrity and damages the assault rocket launcher on the second.
The seriously damaged fighter (off the top of the map) continues to spin out of control but still manages to hold together. The fighter with the disabled assault rocket launcher continues to approach the assault carrier, and the other fighter with the navigation control spins hard to starboard and flies off the top of the map. The assault carrier accelerates to speed 14 and loops down under the path of the heavy cruiser. The militia frigate splits off from the assault carrier and turns to engage the heavy cruiser. The lead light cruiser, its maneuvering knocked out, decelerates to speed 12 and drifts straight, currently out of the fight but trying not to get too far away. The other light cruiser turns to follow the heavy cruiser and manages to hold together through the maneuvering. The militia assault scout with no maneuvering left, decelerates as much as possible to avoid passing the sathar light cruiser and coming in range of its disruptor cannon. Unfortunately, it is now only 10,000 km away. The fighters still in the fight fire at the frigate while the assault scouts fire at the light cruiser. The fire on the sathar frigate does some minor hull damage.
Defensively the frigate and light cruiser fire at the assault scouts and fighters, destroying one of the fighters and seriously damaging the hull of the non-maneuvering assault scout and causing a fire on the same ship. The heavy cruiser fires at the militia frigate and knocks out its masking screens and reduces its acceleration ability.
Offensively, the frigate is hit by one assault rocket knocking out its laser battery, the light cruiser is hit by an assault rocket and two laser batteries destroying it, and the heavy cruiser is hit by the militia frigate’s laser canon knocking out its ICMs.
Courses and final positions after 20 minutes of fighting. Click for full image.
Turn 3
The sathar frigate accelerates and makes a pass at the assault scouts. The destroyers loop around to fire at the UPF light cruiser, and the heavy cruiser turns to strafe the assault carrier and flies out of the battle. The fire on the UPF assault scout burns through the hull destroying it.
Defensively, the assault scouts fire at the frigate and hit with a laser battery knocking out its laser canon. The station scores a long distance hit on the lead sathar destroyer knocking out its ICM launcher. The assault carrier hits the heavy cruiser knocking out its maneuvering engines. All other defensive fire misses.
Offensively, the sathar frigate hits the lead assault scout with a rocket battery, destroying it but misses with the torpedo aimed at the other assault scout. The sathar destroyers hit the UPF light cruiser with nearly everything, including both rocket batteries and torpedoes, and destroy it. The heavy cruiser hits the assault carrier with all of its energy battery weapons but the torpedo is intercepted by ICMs launched by the carrier. The hits knock out its navigation control system and causing some minor hull damage.
The two UPF fighters off the map continue to spin out of control but the damaged one doesn’t break up. The assault scouts make another run at the sathar frigate. The militia frigate strafes the sathar destroyers focusing its fire on the lead one and then loops around the planet. The lone UPF fighter continues to follow the assault carrier. The light cruiser off the map slows to speed 9. The assault carrier’s damaged navigation control system pulls it to port and it fires at the lead sathar destroyer as it passes by. The fire on the sathar frigate does some minor hull damage.
Defensively, the sathar destroyers fire at the militia frigate and while the lead frigate misses, the other hits with its laser and electron batteries knocking out the frigates laser cannon and maneuvering engines The defensive fire at the assault scouts miss.
The assault scouts hit the sathar frigate with a laser battery and assault rocket damaging its hull and knocking out its masking screens. From all the shots at the lead sathar destroyer, it is hit by a proton, rocket, and laser battery doing some significant hull damage.
Positions and courses at the end of the first half hour of battle. Click for full image.
Repair Turn
Almost every ship in the fight has some damage at this point. The only one that isn’t is one of the sathar destroyers.
On the UPF side, the fighter trailing the assault carrier, as well as the second UPF assault scout, repair their assault rocket launchers. The fighter that’s been spinning out of control from the beginning of the fight manages to repair its navigation control system as does the assault carrier. The carrier also repairs some of its hull. The militia frigate restores some of its maneuverability as does the light cruiser off the map. Unfortunately, the light cruiser’s hull repair runs into significant problems and its hull can only be repaired in a shipyard.
The sathar frigate puts out the fire while the other two ships repair some of their hull damage.
Turn 4
The sathar heavy cruiser, unable to maneuver and not wanting to risk acceleration and breaking up with its weakened hull, continues to drift away from the fight (its already off the map). The frigate, out of rocket weapons and with its energy weapons knocked out, is unable to fight and turns to follow the heavy cruiser, accelerating as much as possible with its damaged engines. The destroyers loop around the planet and strafe the assault scouts each firing all their energy weapons (their rockets and torpedoes are depleted) at a different assault scout.
Defensively, all ships fire at the lead sathar destroyer. The assault carrier and station hit knocking out its navigation control system and electron battery and causing some minor hull damage.
The lead sathar destroyer hits the surviving militia assault scout with it’s laser canon nearly destroying it. The other destroyer hits the UPF assault scout knocking out half of its hull integrity with it’s laser battery and damaging its combat control system with its electron battery.
The seriously wounded UPF ships continue to drift away from the battle or spin out of control while those that can, converge on the sathar destroyers again firing at the lead destroyer. The light cruiser (off the map) accelerates and starts to turn back toward the battle now that it has some maneuvering capability restored. With its limited maneuverability the militia frigate turns and takes long distance shots at the destroyers.
Defensively the destroyers fire their laser cannons at the militia frigate (which miss) and their energy batteries at the fighter and assault scout. Th trailing destroyer hits the assault scout with its electron battery slightly damaging its hull.
The UPF fighter and assault scout both hit the lead destroyer with their assault rockets. The fighter, frustrated at being out of the battle from the start, scores a massive hit knocking out nearly half of the destroyer’s hull integrity. The other assault rocket damages the destroyer’s combat control system. The gunner on the militia frigate lands an amazing long distance shot with the laser battery scoring a maximum damage hit and destroying the sathar vessel.
Positions and paths at the end of the fourth round of combat. There aren’t too many ships left and many have left the battle. Click for full sized image.
Turn 5
Knowing that it can out run the assault carrier, the destroyer fires its laser battery at the fighter and electron battery at the assault scout attempting to take them out of the fight and accelerates at maximum thrust to fly off after the heavy cruiser and frigate.
The assault scout and assault carrier return fire hitting with all of their batteries damaging the destroyer’s engines slightly and weakening its hull. The sathar’s electron battery connects with the UPF assault scout and destroys it. The laser battery misses the fighter.
With all of their ships damaged (expect the fighter) and many seriously out of position, the UPF commander calls off the pursuit of the sathar ships. The surviving UPF and militia vessels begin repairs and return the station.
Final ship positions and path as the sathar retreat. Click for full sized image.
Repairs
Over the course of the next thee hours, the UPF repair what they can and the assault carrier collects its scattered fighters. In the end most of the ships are fully repaired but the UPF light cruiser has hull damage that will require time in the shipyard.
The sathar form up and manage to repair most of their systems but all three ship have hull damage that will require time in a starship construction center to fully fix. While the damage to the destroyer is relatively minor (only 24% of its hull), the damage to the frigate and heavy cruiser is much more significant, 43% and 61%. Since they lost the fight here, they cannot use the local shipyard and must return to SCC#5 for repairs. They start accelerating out of the system being careful of the heavy cruiser’s hull.
Lessons Learned
When they want to, the sathar can do significant damage to the smaller UPF ships. Their tactics worked out quite well. In fact, much better than I expected. I really thought the UPF would win this one and eliminate all the sathar ships but would take significant damage. I never expected that the sathar would get away with three of their ships, although heavily damaged. The time to get those ships back into the fight will be much shorter than having to build new ones.
While the UPF and militia “won” and drove off the sathar, this was really a victory for the sathar in many ways as well. In the end, if you factor in the damage that requires a shipyard to fix, the sathar lost 198 hull points in this fight while the UPF and militia lost 228. If you just look at ships destroyed, then the sathar lost 2 ships for a total of 120 hull points while the UPF lost 12 ships, most of them fighters and assault scouts, totaling 200 hull points. Either way the sathar came out ahead. And they achieved their goal of taking out most of the assault rocket capability of the UPF forces in this system in advance of the next sathar attack in 11 days. While it doesn’t make up for the beatings they took in some of the other systems, it is definitely a boost to their morale.
There really isn’t much the UPF could have done differently other than be placed a little closer together for mutual support. The small fighters and assault scouts had no defense against the initial onslaught and paid the price. The only real defense there would have been to be further back from the station but then the sathar may have made a run at the station instead. This battle will definitely shift the tactics of both sides, at least somewhat. We’ll have to see what develops.
This is a big one and the last of the opening battles of the war. There is one more battle post coming tomorrow for a battle on FY61.287 that would have been posted yesterday but I’m still getting caught up. There are a few more fights coming soon but it will be a while before the next ones after that. Settle in, this is going to be a long write-up.
A major battle occurred today in the space around Gran Quivera between UPF forces and a massive sathar fleet that was more than twice the size of the fleets reported in the other systems.
Task Force Prenglar, aided by the timely arrival of Strike Force Nova returning from the Cassidine system, met the sathar forces as they approached the planet. After nearly an hour of fighting, and suffering major casualties, Spacefleet forces defeated the sathar invaders.
Frustrated by the inability to immediately get the more seriously damaged ships into the PGC shipyards for repairs, Spacefleet has sent a delegation to the Council of Worlds demanding activation of the Wartime Construction Control clause of the UPF charter that would grant them full control of all starship construction centers in the Frontier.
Kami Hemsley, Frontier News Network
Background
The sathar launched their biggest fleet of the opening offensive at Gran Quivera, hoping to strike at the heart of the Frontier and sever the various segments of the Frontier joined by this core system. With a fleet double the size of the ones appearing in the outer systems, and supported by a pair of assault carriers each carrying seven fighters, the sathar fleet outgunned Task Force Prenglar by a decent margin. Their only major concern were the two minelayers that were part of the Task Force. They fully expected to win this fight. And they may well have.
Unfortunately for the sathar, Strike Force Nova was already en route to the Prenglar system after an extended patrol of the Frontier and arrived in the system just hours after the sathar fleet was detected. With two of the Frontier’s major fleets to deal with, the tables turned and the sathar were now facing a superior foe. When news of the arrival of Strike Force Nova in the system reached the sathar commanders, they no longer expected to win, but they were committed to doing as much damage as possible.
Order of Battle
This is easily the largest battle I’ve ever played. And to make it even more complex I ran it all with the Advanced Combat rules. I’ve found that using the Basic Combat rules just makes the fights boring with the only option being hull damage. This one is going to be a doozie.
Task Force Prenglar
5 Assault Scouts
3 Frigates
2 Destroyers
2 Minelayers
3 Light Cruisers
1 Battleship
1 Fortified Station
Strike Force Nova
6 Fighters
3 Assault Scouts
2 Frigates
1 Destroyer
2 Light Cruisers
1 Assault Carrier
1 Battleship
Sathar
14 Fighters
2 Frigates
4 Destroyers
2 Light Cruisers
2 Heavy Cruisers
2 Assault Carriers
The Battle
Setup
Everyone knows that it’s a literal minefield between the sathar and the planet, the question for both sides is how the sathar are going to attempt to navigate it.
The UPF set up in a battle line with the center anchored by the battleships and light cruisers, with the destroyers, frigates, and assault scouts out from there on either side of the planet. SF Nova’s fighters are on the far wing above the planet. The line is positioned slightly behind the planet to allow the sathar to commit before the UPF move into the fray. The larger capital ships are moving at speed 10, the smaller capital ships at speed 15, and the fighters and assault scouts are moving at speed 20. The assault carrier, escorted by a light cruiser, along with the minelayers, are far behind the line above the planet and moving at speed 10. They plan to orbit out there and hopefully stay out of the fighting. In advance of the fight, the UPF have deployed all 40 mines from the two minelayers as well as all 16 seeker missiles (4 from each minelayer and battleship).
The sathar set up their capital ships in two of their “diamond” formations with some modifications. The HC is joined by an AC and there are two fighters with each of the frigates. In addition, there are two flights of 5 fighters on the far wings. The capital ships are all moving at a cautious speed of 5 while all the fighters are moving at speed 30. The sathar suspect that the fighters on the wings will fly around the mines while the ones with the capitals ships are intended to be used as sacrificial probes to clear a path to the planet and beyond. The sathar intend to punch through and fight on the far side of the planet where they believe the mine threat to be smaller.
The initial positions of all the ships. Click for full size image.And here is the starting positions with the mine field (red circles) and seeker missiles (grey counters) shown. Click for full size image.
Turn 1
The two sathar diamond formations advance maintaining their initial speed with the destroyers on the wings flying in to close the formation with the heavy cruiser and assault carriers. The two flights of fighters on the wings accelerate to speed 35 and make a run at the assault scout squadrons on each wing. The other four fighter fly ahead of the diamond formations and as they approach the planet, split up with one from each pair looping around the planet and making a pass at the station (accelerating to 35) while the other two remain at speed 30 and turn at the last minute to line up on the destroyers.
Unfortunately for the fighters in the middle, but per the sathar plans, each pair trips 3 different sets of mines that the UPF had laid out. Unsurprisingly, all four fighters are obliterated. However, they have done their job and cleared a path through the minefield for the capital ships.
Defensively, the assault scouts all fire their laser batteries at the fighters. The more distant UPF frigates and destroyers also target the fighters in an attempt to destroy them before they can fire their assault rockets. The assault scouts manage to destroy the lead fighter in the upper flight while another has its navigation controls damaged and one has its maneuvering engines knocked out. The frigates and destroyers score some long-distance hits nearly destroying another fighter and causing an electrical fire on the one with its maneuvering knocked out (in the lower flight).
On the upper flight all four surviving fighters hit with their assault rockets seriously damaging two assault scouts and destroying a third. The fourth assault rocket knocks out the assault rocket launcher on the last assault scout. On the lower flight, only 3 assault rockets hit, two on the lead assault scout knocking out its LB and nearly destroying it. The other assault rocket slams into the trailing assault scout and it is destroyed.
With the sathar’s cautious movement placing their ships right in the middle of some of the seeker missile deployments, the UPF active two seeker missiles on either side of the sathar formations. Both missiles in each group home in on the light cruiser in each formation. The UPF also activate 2 seeker missiles in the more distant groups that they expect will intercept the formations on the next turn. The sathar light cruisers fire ICMs at the incoming seeker missile in an attempt to nullify the threat. Both missiles aimed at the upper light cruiser miss. One headed for the lower light cruiser is destroyed by the ICMs while the fourth missile slams home dropping the hull integrity of that ship to less than half.
The UPF ships on the battle line advance maintaining their speed with all of the ships preparing to engage on the next turn while the assault scouts get some maximum range shots with their laser batteries on this turn. The minelayers, assault carrier and light cruiser advance and turn in their orbit and fire at the fighters, attempting to take them out.
The fire on the sathar fighter damages its combat control system.
Defensively the sathar ships fire all their energy weapons at long range at the lead assault scout in each flight. The upper assault scout is hit by a laser battery from the frigate and proton battery from the assault carrier destroying it. None of the shots at the lower flight of assault scouts hit but the particle weapons from the light cruiser and assault carrier come close.
Offensively, only one of the assault scouts in the lower flight connects with the sathar’s frigate damaging its acceleration. One of the minelayers’ laser batteries connects with one of the damaged fighters destroying it, while the UPF’s assault carrier takes out a second fighter with its laser battery and the light cruiser takes out the navigation control system on a third.
Paths and positions for the first round of combat. Triggered mines are marked with a new counter I made for the fight. Paths of seeker missiles are shown in green. Click for full size image.
Turn 2
The sathar capital ship formations accelerate to speed 7 and each focuses all their fire at the closest UPF destroyer while preparing to defend against the incoming seeker missiles. The upper flight of fighters, two out of three of which have navigation control hits, spin a bit out of control but manage to line up briefly to fire their assault rockets at the assault carrier. The lower flight of fighters split up with the main group of 4 going after the assault scouts and the other one (with a fire and no maneuvering ability) just flies straight and out of the battle. All the fighters slow to speed 30.
Defensively, the minelayer and assault carrier group, as well as the lower flight of assault scouts, fire at the fighters attacking them while all other ships focus on the closest sathar frigate.
In the upper flight of sathar fighters, the UPF manage to destroy two of the fighters before they get their shots off. The third puts an assault rocket into the assault carrier damaging its acceleration.
The assault scouts in the lower flight all miss as they fire on the incoming fighters. The fighters on the other hand do a bit better hitting two of the assault scouts with assault rockets and destroying both of them.
The UPF capital ships fare no better than the assault scouts with only a single destroyer hitting the frigate in the lower formation with a laser battery doing some minor hull damage.
The sathar only manage to do a bit better. With all the weapons being brought to bare, the upper UPF destroyer is hit by 3 laser batteries and an electron battery slightly damaging its hull and knocking out all of its weapons except its rocket battery. The lower UPF destroyer doesn’t get off so easy as, despite firing ICMs at it, the torpedo from the sathar frigate hits nearly destroying it. It is also hit by an electron battery from the assault carrier that does a bit more hull damage.
The seeker missiles all home in on the closest heavy cruiser. The cruisers fire 3 ICMs at each incoming seeker missile. Against the upper formation, one of the seeker missiles miss while the other connects damaging the cruiser’s acceleration. On the lower heavy cruiser, one of the missiles is intercepted by the ICMs while the other impacts the cruiser and takes out nearly half of its hull integrity.
With its hull nearly destroyed, one of the UPF assault scouts in the upper flight drifts off the map and out of the fight taking a long distances shot at the sathar frigate as if flies away. Similarly, the seriously damaged destroyer just drifts by the sathar formation firing everything at the frigate as it passes by.
The UPF fighters accelerate to 25 and make an assault rocket pass at the sathar heavy cruiser in the upper formation before darting out of range and preparing for another run. The 2 surviving assault scouts in both the upper and lower flights make a similar run (remaining at speed 20) but fire at the assault carriers in each sathar formation.
The surviving frigates and destroyers loop around behind the sathar ships and focus their fire on the assault carriers as well. Defensively, the sathar ships fire ICMs at the incoming torpedoes.
The UPF battleships & light cruisers all slow to speed 8 and turn in to focus fire on the sathar light cruisers. The light cruiser, assault carrier, and minelayers continue their speed 10 orbit away from the battle.
The fire on the sathar fighter knocks out half of its damage control system.
Defensively, the sathar fire at a number of ships instead of really focusing on a few. In the upper group, the destroyers, assault carrier, and heavy cruiser spread their energy weapon fire across all the fighters, attempting to take them out before they can bring their assault rockets to bear. The destroyers in the upper group only hit with a single laser battery and electron battery seriously damaging the hull on one fighter and knocking out the assault rocket launcher on another. The heavy cruiser hits a third fighter with its laser battery but only scratches the hull slightly. The assault carrier does a little better and it laser battery destroys one of the UPF fighters. With the fighters and battleship out of range, the heavy cruiser and assault carrier fire their rocket batteries at the lead UPF light cruiser. Both hit taking out nearly half of the light cruiser’s hull. The frigate and light cruiser in this upper group focus their fire on the UPF battleship. While the frigate completely misses, the light cruiser hits with a laser, electron, and proton battery each doing damage to the battleship’s hull.
In the lower group, the sathar frigate fires at the damaged UPF destroyer as it flies by and hits with its rocket battery destroying it. The lower destroyers fire at the lead UPF light cruiser and one hits with a rocket battery causing some significant hull damage. The light cruiser fires at the battleship hitting with its laser and proton batteries knocking out the battleship’s maneuvering engines and damaging its navigation control system. The heavy cruiser and assault carrier split their fire with the energy weapons targeting one of the UPF frigates and the rocket batteries going after the lead light cruiser in the bottom flight. The rocket batteries both hit knocking out most of the ship’s acceleration and seriously damaging its hull dropping the hull integrity to less than half. The UPF frigate is hit by two laser batteries and a proton battery causing some hull damage, completely knocking out its acceleration, and damaging its maneuverability.
The four surviving UPF fighters all hit the sathar heavy cruiser in the upper formation with their assault rockets, destroying it.
The assault carrier in the upper group is hit by a laser canon, electron battery, and two torpedoes that slip through the ICM screen knocking out the carrier’s masking screen and ICM launcher, causing a power short circuit in its defenses, and taking out a third of its hull integrity.
The assault carrier in the lower group is hit by a laser cannon, two torpedoes, and an assault rocket. One of the torpedoes damages the carrier’s combat control system before it is destroyed by the other weapons.
The sathar light cruiser in the upper group is pummeled by the weapons from the two UPF light cruisers and the battleship being hit by a distruptor cannon, 2 laser, 3 electron, 2 proton, and 2 rocket batteries as well as a torpedo that slipped through the ICM screen. It suffers damage to its hull and a number of systems before finally being destroyed by an electron battery hit from the battleship.
The light cruiser in the lower group doesn’t fare any better. While it is only hit by 2 laser, 1 electron, 1 proton, and 2 rocket batteries, being already damaged by a seeker missile hit it is destroyed as the last rocket battery from the battleship impacts the hull.
Ships and positions after the second round of combat. Click for full sized image.
Turn 3
We’ve started to whittle down the number of ships on both sides at this point (either through destroying them or damaging them enough that they are out of the fight) so each turn will go a bit faster. But on the flip side, damage to acceleration and maneuvering means that the ship squadrons are going to be breaking up so maneuvering will become more complex and chaotic. There is still a lot to be done.
The sathar capital ships all accelerate to speed 9 and fire at the closest light cruisers, splitting shots between the each pair. The surviving fighter group decelerates to 25 and loops around to make a pass at the station. Unfortunately for them, they pass through another mined hex. Finally, the single surviving fighter that flew off the top of the map comes screaming back in at speed 32 and fires its assault rocket at one of the minelayers.
Defensively, the UPF battleships fire at the assault carrier or heavy cruiser in the sathar formation they are targeting. The light cruisers each pick a sathar destroyer and focus their fire on that ship. The frigates and destroyers spread their fire around the same ships. The minelayer and assault carrier group fires at the lone fighter. The mines are not very effective only damaging the assault rocket launcher on a single fighter; the other four make it through the minefield unscathed. The station fires on the incoming fighters.
The surviving sathar assault carrier is savaged by shots from the battleship and a pair of UPF frigates knocking out over half of its hull integrity, a laser battery, its maneuvering engines, and its navigation controls system. The lead destroyer in the upper group has over half of its hull integrity knocked out by the lead light cruiser while the trailing light cruiser and a UPF destroyer hit the trailing destroyer in this group damaging its maneuvering and damage control systems, disabling its ICM launcher, and nearly ripping the hull to shreds.
In the lower group of sathar ships, the UPF battleship and frigate completely miss the heavy cruiser. The lead sathar destroyer is hit by one of the UPF light cruisers knocking out its ICM launcher and damaging its combat control system. The other destroyer is hit by the other UPF light cruiser and a frigate for some serious hull damage. The station misses the incoming fighters but one of the minelayers hits the lone fighter destroying it before it can fire its assault rocket.
Having survived the barrage of defensive fire, the sathar open fire on the light cruisers and station. The station is hit by 2 assault rockets which damage its combat control system and score a significant hull hit. The lead UPF light cruiser in the upper group, already damaged, is hit by two laser batteries and a torpedo from the sathar frigate which destroy it. The second light cruiser in that group are hit by multiple weapons from the sathar assault carrier and one of the destroyers including a rocket battery and torpedo suffering only a minute bit of hull damage but significant damage to its acceleration and maneuvering and damage to its combat control system.
In the lower group the lead UPF light cruiser, again already heavily damaged, is hit by a laser battery and torpedo from the sathar frigate knocking its proton battery before the cruiser is destroyed by the torpedo. The second light cruiser takes a beating from the other sathar destroyer and the heavy cruiser being hit by 2 laser, 1 proton, 1 electron, and 2 rocket batteries as well as a torpedo. Knocking out over half of the light cruiser’s hull integrity, the shots also knock out its distruptor cannon and ICM launcher as well as damage its maneuvering capabilities.
The two surviving assault scouts, only one of which has a working assault rocket launcher, join up and make a pass at the sathar heavy cruiser. The UPF fighters make an assault rocket run on the sathar destroyers in the lower group where they are joined by the lower flight of UPF frigates. One of these frigates, whose acceleration is damaged, turns off to follow the assault scouts while the other two slow down to speed 9. The frigate and destroyer group slow to speed 10 and the frigates fire at the assault carrier while the destroyers each target a different sathar destroyer. Screening the smaller ships behind it, the upper battleship slows to speed 9 and pulls to within 10,000 km of the sathar vessels firing on the assault carrier. The damaged light cruiser in the upper group, with reduced maneuvering and a navigation control hit, turn to port and maintains its speed taking a long-distance shot at the assault carrier. The seriously damaged light cruiser in the lower group just drifts away from the battle followed by the battleship that has had its maneuvering systems knocked out. They fire long-range shots at the sathar heavy cruiser. The minelayer and assault scout group accelerates to speed 11 and turn away from the oncoming sathar vessels. They, together with the station, fire at the group of sathar fighters. The fire on the sathar fighter that has now drifted off the map damages its navigation control system.
Defensively, the sathar ships in the upper group fire everything at the battleship knocking out one of its laser batteries and causing some significant hull damage (a quarter of its total hull integrity). In the lower group the heavy cruiser and frigate fire at the incoming fighters while the destroyers target the assault scouts. One of the fighters has its assault rocket launcher disabled, taking it out of the fight, one is hit by a electron battery for some minor hull damaged and a third is hit by a laser battery, destroying the small ship. The lead assault scout it hit by an electron battery starting an electrical fire on board and the other is hit by an electron battery serious damaging it’s hull (dropping it below half integrity).
Despite the long-distance shots, one of the sathar fighters his hit by a laser battery damaging its combat control system and the UPF assault carrier scores an electron battery hit on another, destroying it. The surviving sathar heavy cruiser is only hit by the single assault rocket and an electron and proton battery knocking out its maneuvering and doing some minor hull damage. The lead sathar destroyer in the lower group gets off fairly easy as well being hit by a laser cannon and battery which damage in maneuverability and disable its laser battery. The other destroyer takes a bit more damage being hit by two assault rockets and two laser cannons dropping its hull integrity by more than half and damaging its acceleration and combat control systems.
The ships in the upper group are not so lucky. While the lead destroyer survives, it suffers a significant hull hit, has its electron battery disabled, and suffers a navigation control hit. The other destroyer is hit by every weapon fired by the trailing UPF destroyer completely obliterating the ship. The assault carrier doesn’t fare any better being hit by 10 different weapons from the battleship and two frigates and is completely destroyed.
Positions and course after a half hour of battle. Click for full size image.
Repair Turn
On the UPF side, the station manages to repair its reduced damage control repair system bringing it fully back on-line. The assault scout with the fire manages to extinguish it before it can do any damage. The other two assault scouts (one of which is off the map) both repair some of their hull damage as does the heavy damaged light cruiser and one of the battleships. The other battleship repairs its navigation controls system and restores some of its maneuvering ability. The upper light cruiser also repairs it’s navigation control system. The two damaged fighters both manage to restore their assault rocket launchers bringing them back into the fight. One of the UPF frigates restores some of its acceleration while one of the destroyers repairs its laser cannon. The assault carrier attempts to repair its damage acceleration but something goes seriously wrong and it seems that it is going to require a shipyard to fix properly.
For the sathar, the lone fighter way off the map gets its fire under control and the frigate in the upper group repairs its laser canon. The other ships all attempt to repair some of their hull damage (and most succeed although the destroyer with the navigation control damage does not).
Turn 4
The two sathar frigates and the less damaged sathar destroyer from the lower group all accelerate and turn to make an attack pass at the station. The destroyer in the upper group with the navigation control system damage makes a hard turn to port. Unfortunately, its severely damaged hull cannot stand the strain and the ship breaks apart. The sathar heavy cruiser and final surviving destroyer just drift forward firing at the assault scouts. The fighters fly out to attempt a run on the UPF minelayers.
Defensively, the UPF focus on just a two of the ships headed toward the station and the fighters. The first target is the sathar frigate from the upper group. All of the ships above the planet fire at that ship, which is really their only target. While the UPF frigates miss completely, the battleship and destroyers land a series of blows. However, despite hitting with 8 different weapons including a rocket battery and two laser canons, the frigate survives the blast suffering a near 75% hull integrity loss, a defensive power short circuit, and damage to its repair ability and maneuverability.
The UPF ships below the planet, together with the station, fire at the destroyer approaching the station from that direction. It is hit by 3 laser batteries and a laser cannon knocking out nearly half of its hull integrity and maneuverability.
Finally, the minelayer and assault carrier group fire at the incoming fighters reducing the acceleration and maneuverability of one, damaging the hull and knocking out the maneuverability of a second and destroying a third.
The surviving sathar fighters fire at one of the minelayers damaging its combat control system and inflicting some hull damage. The wounded and drifting destroyer and heavy cruiser fire at the assault scouts damaging the repair systems on both of them. While the frigate coming in from above misses the station completely, the ships coming up from below do much better hitting with both laser canons, a laser and rocket battery, and slipping a torpedo through the ICM screen. The station suffers a power short circuit in its defenses with the other weapons ripping into its hull including a massive explosion by the torpedo. All told, the station loses over half of its hull integrity.
The minelayers and assault carriers continue to accelerate away from the fight while the undamaged light cruiser loops back to engage the oncoming sathar ships. In an attempt to finish the fight, the UPF ships all spread out to target different sathar vessels. The assault scouts slingshot around the planet and make a run at the heavy cruiser which is also targeted by the UPF fighters. One of the UPF frigates and the destroyers chase down the frigate from the upper flight. Two of the UPF frigates go after the destroyer that made a run at the station, the battleship goes after the other sathar frigate, and the other two frigates go after the wounded destroyer with the heavy cruiser. The seriously damaged UPF light cruiser continues to drift away from the battle while the other turns to go after the surviving sathar fighters. The other UPF battleship, some navigation control restored, accelerates and turns back toward the planet as it slowly rejoins the fight.
The sathar all fire at the ships attacking them. The UPF battleship suffers some minor hull damage from a laser battery hit, one of the UPF frigates attacking the upper destroyer has its navigation control system damaged, and three of the UPF fighters are hit for a slight damage to maneuvering on one, a navigation hit on a second and the assault rocket launcher knocked out on a third. The most serious damage was one of the frigates near the sathar heavy cruiser being hit with a rocket battery that destroyed half of its hull integrity.
The sathar frigate from the original upper flight of ships, barely holding together as it is, is hit by two laser cannons and a laser battery, destroying it. The other frigate, despite being hit by 1 laser, 1 proton, and 2 electron batteries, as well as a distruptor cannon from the battleship, manages to pull through with only minor hull damage but also having its laser cannon knocked off-line, it acceleration reduced, and its maneuvering completely knocked out. The sathar destroyer that just attacked the station is hit with 2 laser canons, a laser battery, and two rocket batteries destroying it. The other destroyer is hit by a laser cannon, laser battery, and 2 rocket batteries. It too is destroyed. The heavy cruiser is hit by 3 of the 4 assault rockets that were fired at it and breaks apart as the explosions rips through the hull. The light cruiser manages to get a long distance hit on one of the sathar fighters igniting an electrical fire.
Positions and courses after the fourth round of combat. Note that the map has been shifted slightly to keep the minelayers and assault carrier on the map. The battleship and light cruiser at the bottom have moved off the map although the battleship is slowly maneuvering to come back to the fight (I’m tracking it on a separate map). Click for full size image.
Turn 5
The sathar fighter with the fire also has no maneuvering capability (or assault rockets left) and just drifts by the UPF light cruiser passing with 10,000 km of the larger ship which hits it with a laser and electron battery destroying it.
The other sathar fighter, also out of assault rockets, accelerates to sped 27 and attempts to ram one of the UPF assault scouts. It is intercepted by multiple hits from several ships that vaporize it.
The sathar frigate, having no maneuverability, accelerates to speed 15 to try to clear away from the UPF ships. However, between the battleship, the undamaged light cruiser and the frigates that were nearby, it is hit by 10 different weapons and destroyed.
The only surviving sathar vessel at this point is the lone fighter that was damaged on the first round of combat and has been drifting away for the past 40 minutes with no maneuverability. The two surviving assault scouts chase it down over the next couple of hours and eliminate it.
Ship positions at the end of the battle when the last sathar ship was destroyed. The map is shifted again to keep the sathar frigate attempting to flee on the map. Click for full size version.
Whew! That was quite a battle. And this is probably the longest post yet on the site clocking in a just around 5750 words.
Repairs
With most of the UPF ships damaged to some extent or another, it is six hours before all the battle damage that can be repaired has been. By then the lone sathar fighter has been destroyed and all of the ships return to take up orbit around the planet.
In the end, four vessels have damage that requires shipyard work to repair. On is the fortified station, having been reduced to less than 40% of it’s hull capacity, it is only back to 57% capacity before problems arise that require outside assistance. The assault scout severely damaged early, that drifted out of the battle, is only able to restore 80% of its hull and one of the frigates has a small hole in the hull that just refuses a patch.
The other ship is the assault carrier assigned to Strike Force Nova which suffered permanent damage to it acceleration. If it and its four surviving fighters remain with the Strike Force, they will not be able to execute any high speed risk jumps until that is repaired.
Lessons Learned
While the sathar played it well using the fighters to clear paths through the minefield, and did a good job targeting the assault scouts early to reduce the assault rocket threat, they were a bit too timid trying to traverse the minefield and came into the battle with not enough speed to clear it quickly. This severely hampered their combat options and it turned into a shooting gallery for the UPF ships which were free to maneuver. Had Strike Force Nova not been in the system, their tactics might have been sufficient and though they would have suffered some loses traversing the minefield, more ships would have made it across to really engage with the UPF. Next time they are in a system with minelayers, they might try something different.
One thing I completely forgot were the seeker missiles on the sathar heavy cruisers. After the fact I realized that I could probably have deployed them on round 2 or 3 and activated them to keep the UPF ships circling around in the mined area on their toes and possibly affected their maneuvering. If nothing else, they may very well have impacted the station and possibly have destroyed it. You would think that with the UPF seeker missiles flying around I would have remembered the sathar ones but it completely slipped my mind until I was doing this write-up.
The ability to maneuver in the minefield, as well as the superior numbers allowing them to focus their fire on more ships, really served the UPF well as they were able to whittle down the sathar ships and use their weapons to full effect. While they suffered some serious losses in numbers of small ships and the loss of the two light cruisers and destroyer, yhey gave much better than they took and definitely came out ahead.
The only real problem is that now most of the UPF force is in the center of the Frontier at Prenglar, while the sathar forces are on the periphery. It’s going to take some time to get ships where they are needed but at the same time, knowing that the sathar could strike at Prenglar again at any time, they have to keep forces here to defend this core world.
Due to the amazing skill of the Clarion and Ken’zah-Kit militias and UPF Spacefleet crews, the sathar invaders were quickly overwhelmed but not before they managed to destroy the armed station orbiting the planet.
Rescue operations are ongoing for the station’s crew and the hearts of the people of Kawdl-Kit go out in sympathy to the families of those who lost their lives and gratitude to the militias of the neighboring systems who came to their defense.
The CMS Osprey is the only ship that experienced lasting damage and will be returning home to effect repairs due to the lack of a starship construction center here in the K’aken-Kar system.
Vah’zen’rk – Kawdk-Kit Global Reporting
Background
While K’tsa-Kar doesn’t have any militia of its own, the K’aken-Kar assault scouts, under the ZKKDA, risk jump into the system to help defend it. From the other direction, the available ships of Patrol Group Meteor, along with the Clarion Royal Marines, arrive from White light. Both groups make a high speed risk jump to get there in time. The UPF have many more ships than the sathar but only a slight hull point advantage (and that’s only if you count the armed station) as most of the ships are small assault scouts. This might be a tough battle.
While the sathar were only expecting to fight the armed station, they are confident that they can handle the swarm of small ships.
Order of Battle
K’aken-Kar Militia
2 assault scouts
1 armed station
White Light Militia
4 assault scouts
1 frigate
This is +1 assault scout compared to the Order of Battle in the Knight Hawks Campaign book due to events occurring in the timeline.
UPF – PG Meteor
3 assault scouts
2 destroyers
Sathar
1 frigate
2 destroyers
1 light cruiser
1 heavy cruiser
The Battle
Setup
The militia ships deploy above the planet with the Clarion frigate and a single assault scout taking the inner position, the other Clarion assault scouts (lead by the CMS Osprey) out from there and the two K’aken-Kar assault scouts on the wing. Below the planet the two UPF destroyers form a flight with the three assault scouts on the wing. The assault scout groups are moving at speed 30 while the capital ships (and the single assault scout) are moving at 20. The station is orbiting counter clockwise.
As they have done in the other systems, the sathar are formed into their diamond pattern with the frigate, LC, & HC in the middle and the destroyers on the sides. However, unlike in the other systems, the sathar are moving at a speed of 15.
Initial positions at the start of the battle. Click for full sized image.
Turn 1
The sathar frigate, light cruiser, and heavy cruiser accelerate to speed 17 and at the last minute, turn to head toward the K’aken-Kar assault scouts. The destroyers accelerate to 18 and 16 respectively to remain in the diamond formation. Unknown to the UPF forces, the sathar heavy cruiser deploys its seeker missiles along its route. The sathar ships all fire at maximum range at the station.
The station returns fire defensively with its laser battery but given the extreme range misses. The sathar, on the other hand, have a good maximum range shot with both the light cruiser and closer destroyer connecting with their cannons and a laser battery each. The station has its laser battery knocked out and nearly half of its hull integrity destroyed.
With the sathar turning toward the militia ships, the UPF vessels loop around and hit the heavy cruiser from behind which fires ICMs at the incoming torpedoes. The Clarion militia ships maneuver to stay out of the forward firing arc of the sathar vessels and unleash everything at the sathar destroyer closest to the station, which fires ICMs at the torpedoe from the frigate as well. The Kaken-Kar militia ships pass in front of the sathar ships but out of range of their canons and loop around to hit the destroyer on the far side of the formation. With its laser battery damaged, the station deploys a masking screen.
Defensively, the sathar light cruiser, frigate, and destroyer further from the planet fire at the K’aken-Kar assault scouts hoping to take them out of the fight before they can engage. The destroyer closer to the planet fires at the Osprey, and the heavy cruiser fires at the lead UPF assault scout. The lead K’aken-Kar assault scout is hit by two laser batteries damaging its hull while its sister ship is hit by an electron battery knocking its laser battery off-line. The CMS Osprey is hit by an electron battery damaging its hull and the lead UPF assault scout is hit by another electron battery causing serious hull damage and reducing the hull integrity to less than half.
The training of the the UPF and militia forces is evident as they press home their attack. All three assault rockets connect with the heavy cruiser along with two laser batteries and two electron batteries knocking out various weapons and other systems and doing some hull damage. But the gunnery award goes to the torpedo gunner on the second destroyer. They threaded their missile through the ICM screen and impacted it right above what must have been the heavy cruiser’s torpedo magazine. The resulting explosion ripped the ship apart. The destroyer targeted by the White Light militia was hit by three of the four assault rockets and four of the five laser batteries knocking out it laser cannon and masking screens before ripping the ship to shreds. The K’aken-Kar militia, not to be shown up, hit the other destroyer with both assault rockets, each scoring critical hits and between the two of them destroying the sathar vessel.
Positions and maneuvers for the first 10 minutes of battle. Click for full sized image.
Turn 2
The two remaining sathar ships loop around and bring everything to bear on the station, the light cruiser accelerating to speed 18. The station fires a screen of ICMs at the incoming torpedoes. The sathar also activate the seeker missiles laid down by the heavy cruiser which both go after the UPF destroyers.
Defensively, the UPF ships focus their fire at the sathar frigate. Most of the fire is ineffective with only one of the UPF destroyer connecting with a laser battery damaging the frigates engines and the CMS Flitter scoring an amazing maximum-range laser battery shot that takes out a quarter of the frigate’s hull integrity.
The sathar ships manage to hit the station with a disruptor cannon and laser battery from the light cruiser and the frigate hits with its missile weapons. The hits sabotage the station’s damage control systems and reduce its hull integrity to almost nothing. Between the two UPF destroyers, they fire a massive swarm of ICMs at the incoming sathar seeker missile and manage to catch it before it can impact one of the ships.
All of the UPF and militia ships loop around and converge on the sathar vessels firing everything they have at them with the assault scouts focusing on the light cruiser while the capital ships focus on the frigate.
As the station pulls away, the sathar ships fire at it once more and while the frigate misses completely, the light cruiser hits with every weapon except its laser battery, destroying the station which begins to break apart.
Angered by the loss of the station, the assault scouts, while only hitting with one of their laser batteries, connect with eight of the nine assault rockets fired doing enough damage to destroy the light cruiser two times over. The sathar frigate is hit by two laser canons and a laser battery causing an electrical fire and damaging its hull. Then one of the torpedoes slips through the defensive screen of ICMs slamming into the ship and destroying it.
After twenty short minutes, the battle is over.
Positions and maneuvering at the end of the battle. Click for full sized image.
Repairs
Over the next hour and a half, most of the ships are able to repair their damage. However, part of the hull damage to the CMS Osprey is beyond a battlefield repair and will need to be handled in a ship yard. With the system secured, the Osprey begins acceleration and calculations for a jump back to Clarion.
Lessons Learned
This didn’t go anything like I expected. Defensive fire by the sathar on the first round was not all that great. When I rolled the attacks and damage results, I thought the lead K’aken-Kar assault scout was going to be destroyed as both laser batteries did hull damage and one of them was a double damage roll. But when I rolled the damage, I rolled a 2 for the double damage die and a 1 for the regular damage so instead of suffering the 15+ HP of damage I was expecting and being destroyed, it only suffered 5.
Then there was the UPF fire that turn which was the exact opposite. At first I thought the heavy cruiser was going to get off easy since none of the assault rockets did hull damage and only one electron battery did (although that was for 10 HP, the maximum). I thought it was going to get off with a bunch of ancillary and weapon damage but then I rolled a hit with the torpedo, rolled double damage, and then rolled 35 on 4d10 for a total of 70 HP from that single hit. That combined with the 10 it had suffered from the electron battery was enough to destroy it.
The other ships did just as well with two double damage laser battery hits on the first destroyer (one of which did 20, the maximum possible) and both assault rockets by the K’aken-Kar militia at the other destroyer doing double damage and just enough (52/50 HP) to destroy it. With 3 of the 5 sathar ships destroyed on the first turn, the UPF victory was assured. The only question was if the station would survive as the sathar were gunning for it.
I was amazed at how well I rolled for the UPF attacks and damage. Had they not rolled so well, this fight might have gone very differently. I think the UPF would still have won, but they would have suffered significantly more losses.
Facing overwhelming odds, the local militia assault scouts are annihilated after inflicting serious but non-fatal damage on one of the sathar vessels. The sathar then proceeded to destroy the armed station orbiting the planet as they approached and settled into orbit themselves.
Strangely, they have made no move against the planetary surface as they did against Pale 62 years ago. Rather, they remain in a high orbit around the planet. The population of Zik-kit wait in fear of what may come.
T’katt’ska – Zit-kit Wire News
Background
The rules of engagement for militia ships is that they have to make at least one attack against the sathar when defending their home system before they can retreat, after which they just become part of Spacefleet if the stations in their system are destroyed.
With the K’aken-Kar militia head off to help in the K’tsa-Kar system, and the Fromeltar milita tied up with sathar forces in their own system, the two assault scouts are left to face the on-coming sathar attack by themselves.
With no chance against the overwhelming odds, the plan was to get an assault rocket shot off at the sathar ships and slip away to the K’aken-Kar system where they hoped to meet up with other ships as reinforcements.
Order of Battle
This setup is the one presented as the Hopelessly Outgunned scenario in the “Make a Run For It” article found in issue 1 of the Frontier Explorer (p37). As I mentioned in the Battle of Terledrom post, I’ve had this opening planned for a while.
Militia Forces
2 Assault Scouts
1 Armed station
Sathar
1 Frigate
2 Destroyers
1 Light Cruisers
1 Heavy Cruiser
The Battle
Setup
The militia assault scouts are high above the planet moving at speed 30 and planing on swooping in on the sathar from above. The station is orbiting counterclockwise (I always roll randomly to see which hex the station happens to be in to start).
The sathar appear in their diamond formation with the frigate, light cruiser, & heavy cruiser in the center and a destroyer on each wing. They are moving at speed 10.
Ship positions at the start of the conflict. Click for larger image.
Turn 1
The sathar advance, decelerating to speed 8 as they approach the planet. The assault scouts accelerate to speed 32 and sweep in to make a maximum range assault rocket attack on the upper destroyer.
Defensively the sathar focus all of their fire on the lead assault scout hitting it with a laser battery (from the heavy cruiser), and two electron batteries (one from each cruiser) doing a total of 16 HP of damage destroying the assault scout before it has a chance to fire.
The surviving assault scout hits with its assault rocket taking out nearly half of the destroyer’s hull integrity.
Positions and paths after the first 10 minutes of combat. Click for full sized image.
Turn 2
The sathar frigate and damaged destroyer turn off from the main group and pursue the remaining assault scout, which now regrets not using its full acceleration previously as it is in range of torpedoes and rocket batteries from both ships. The other three ships continue toward the station and decelerate to speed 7. Unfortunately, the assault scout misses its defensive laser battery attack on the destroyer.
The sathar frigate and destroyer fire their energy weapons and rocket batteries at the assault scout but elect not to fire torpedoes. Unfortunately for the militia ship, the sathar gunners are well trained and the small ship is hit by both laser canons, a laser battery, an electron battery, and a rocket battery. Together the weapons start an electrical fire, take out the ship’s combat controls system, and do enough hull damage to destroy three assault scouts. The small ship is nothing more than a small debris cloud.
The station is at the extreme range of the light cruiser’s particle weapons but they all miss.
Positions after the second round of combat and destruction of the militia ships. Click for full sized image.
Turn 3
With the militia ship destroyed, the frigate matches speed with the destroyer (11) the two ships loop around to return to the main group. The rest of the sathar vessels decelerate to 5 as they approach the planet. With the station shielded by the body of the planet, no shots are fired.
As the station emerges from behind the limb of the planet, the closer sathar vessels fire their energy weapons at it hitting with a laser canon, laser battery, electron battery, and proton battery and reducing the station’s hull integrity by nearly half. The station returns fire with its laser battery but misses.
Positions after the first half hour of combat. Click for full image
Repair Turn
The sathar destroyer and the station both manage to repair a bit of their hull.
Turn 4
The sathar ships closest to the planet decelerate to speed 3 as they approach. The other two ships decelerate to speed 8 and turn toward the station and planet.
With the sathar vessels just out of rocket battery range, the station fires its laser battery at the approaching destroyer but misses.
All of the sathar ships fire their energy weapons at the station and the light cruiser and destroyer fire torpedoes. The station fires 2 interceptor missiles at each torpedo. Unfortunately, both torpedoes hit as well as several of the energy weapons. The weapons damage several of the station’s system but more importantly, overcome the station’s hull integrity and it breaks apart as the sathar ships settle into orbit around the planet.
Sathar positions at the end of the battle. Click for full image.
Repairs
The only damaged ship is the sathar destroyer and it works to fully repair its hull damage over the next hour.
Lessons Learned
Two assault scouts are no match for a massed group of capital ships. Against a single, isolated opponent they are probably fine but not up against a large group as they were here. To survive and escape to fight another day, they should have just taken a maximum range shot with the laser batteries and flown away. They had the speed and acceleration advantage over the sathar ships and would have made it, possibly unscathe but also probably not inflicting any damage on the sathar. However, they wanted a shot at the destroyer (and with 2 AR and 2 LB had a reasonable chance to take it out or at least do significant damage) and got a little too close.
Plus, the dice for the sathar were hot for this fight and the Frontier forces couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with their energy weapons. The elimination of the assault scout before it could fire was pure luck of the dice that every weapon did hull damage. I wouldn’t have expected the two electron batteries to both do hull damage but they did and it was just enough to take out the small ship.
There are four battles occurring on this day in the timeline and I debated which one to post first. I settled on this one as it was interesting for how quickly it was over. The other three, plus the battle that occurs on day FY61.287, will be showing up one a day for the next four days.
The Fromeltar militia, supported by the the Inner Reach and Outer Reach militias from Dramune that arrived yesterday after a high-speed risk jump, engaged sathar forces today around Terledrom.
In an intense battle lasting only twenty minutes, the militia forces overwhelmed the sathar forces, which consisted of five capital ships. Militia forces sustained damage and causalities resulting in the lost of the Inner Reach militia destroyer and severe damage to both frigates of the Outer Reach militia.
A memorial service will be held tomorrow for the crew of the lost ship. Our hearts go out to their families and we thank them for their dedication to defending the Frontier.
The damaged frigates have been given top priority to move into the local shipyard for repairs as soon as space opens which is expected to occur tomorrow.
The surviving militia crews remain vigilant as we await the arrival of Task Force Cassidine some time tomorrow evening.
Kat’kst’kll, Terledrom News Service
Background
The Fromeltar system has one of the larger militias with a frigate and 3 assault scouts on the roster. When news of the sathar ships went out across the Frontier, both the Inner Reach and Outer Reach militias in the adjacent Dramune system decided that it was in their interest to help Fromeltar and both militias risk jumped to the system arriving a day in advance of the sathar forces. They hope to stop the worms here and prevent them from ever entering the Dramune system.
Similarly, Task Force Cassidine was dispatched by Spacefleet and ordered to make a high speed risk jump to the Fromeltar system. Unfortunately, coming from two systems away, they are still a day away from Terledrom when the militia forces engage the sathar. They will be able to clean up the remnants of the sathar fleet if the militias can’t hold the line, but won’t be any help in this battle. This fight will be completely between the UPF militias and the sathar.
All of the battles are going to be run using the Advanced Combat Rules from the Tactical Operations manual and the combat table that represents the “average” skills. It would be interesting to run this using the specific skills provided by the Second Sathar War rules for the different groups (or even individual skills per ship), but I decided that would be just one more complication that I didn’t want to have to track.
Order of Battle
This setup is nearly identical to the Banding Together Knight Hawks encounter that I published back in Jan 2013 in issue 3 of the Frontier Explorer (p30). The only difference is that in that scenario, there was an additional UPF destroyer. This opening gambit by the sathar and the UPF response is something I’ve been thinking about playing out for a while now and that article and some of the others I’ll reference were specifically based on this opening of the Second Sathar War. As you’ll see, the UPF ship isn’t needed.
Militia Forces
With the arrival of the Dramune militias, the UPF have a definite hull point and ship number advantage although most of their ships are small.
Terledrom (Fromeltar)
3 Assault Scouts
1 Frigate
1 Armed station
Inner Reach (Dramune)
3 Assault Scouts
1 Frigate
1 Destroyer
Outer Reach (Dramune)
2 Assault Scouts
2 Frigates
Sathar
1 Frigate
2 Destroyers
1 Light Cruiser
1 Heavy Cruiser
This is a standard mix that the sathar are employing to start off the battle. You’ll see it in several of the upcoming battles. While it should have been enough to deal with any of militias they encountered, they didn’t figure on high risk jumps to support neighboring systems.
The Battle
Setup
With the recent animosity between the two Dramune worlds, the ships from those respective militias line up on opposite sides of the planet with the Terledrom militia arrayed between them. The Outer Reach militia and Terledrom assault scouts are “above” the planet with the other ships “below”. The assault scouts have an initial speed of 30 while the capital ships start at speed 20. The station is at position 4 and orbiting counter clockwise.
The sathar start at speed 10 and are arranged in a diamond formation with the center consisting of a frigate in the lead, followed by the light and heavy cruisers with the destroyers above and below the main line. They are headed straight toward the planet.
Starting positions for the battle. Click for full sized version.
Turn 1
The sathar vessels accelerate and veer down to engage with the ships that are “below” the planet. However, due to the extreme range, no shots are fired.
The UPF sweep in closing in from both sides. The Outer Reach militia focuses on the two destroyers with the assault scouts making an assault rocket pass and then flying out of range of the sathar’s energy weapons while the frigates fly into torpedo range and keep their laser canons trained on the sathar vessels.
The Inner Reach militia converges on the sathar light cruiser, with the destroyer and frigate coming in from the aft port quarter and the assault scouts making a pass on the forward port quarter and then flying out of range to prepare for another pass.
The Terledrom assault scouts loop around and come in from behind to make a pass at the sathar heavy cruiser and then fly off. Trying to avoid a direct shot by the sathar frigate and light cruiser, the Terledrom frigate accelerates, rolls to port, and lines up for a shot on the sathar destroyers, electing to shoot at the same ones as the Inner Reach assault scouts.
Defensive fire by the sathar is practically ineffective with the only damage being the light cruiser’s electron battery which disables the ICM launcher on the Inner Reach destroyer.
The militia are much more effective.
The heavy cruiser is hit by 3 assault rockets damaging its combat control system and reducing its hull integrity by over half. One of the destroyers is hit by an assault rocket severely damaging it and reducing its hull integrity by nearly half. The other destroyer gets away nearly unscathed as both of the torpedoes fired at it are neutralized by its interceptor missiles (ICMs), only being scratched by a laser battery for minimal hull damage. The sathar light cruiser is hit by a torpedo, 2 assault rockets, and a laser battery taking out nearly half of its hull integrity and its ICM and torpedo launchers.
Ship positions and paths at the end of turn 1. Click for full sized image.
Turn 2
The sathar heavy cruiser turns to go after the Inner Reach frigate. The light cruiser and frigate turn to go after the Outer Reach frigates focusing all their fire on the leading one. The sathar destroyers swing around to go after the Inner Reach destroyer.
The defensive fire by the Inner Reach frigate and destroyer focuses on the sathar heavy cruiser and is devastating – hitting it with both laser batteries, both laser cannons, and a rocket battery knocking out the cruiser’s distruptor cannon before completely destroying the massive ship. The Outer Reach frigates are not quite as effective. Firing their laser canons at the lead sathar destroyer they only knock out its laser battery, The other weapons are fired at the frigate as it approaches and only do some minor hull damage even though they hit with two rocket batteries.
The sathar destroyers are quite effective hitting the Inner Reach destroyer with a laser cannon and two torpedoes which don’t have to worry about a screen of ICMs as the militia’s ICM launcher was damaged. The torpedos completely destroying the militia destroyer. Similarly, the sathar frigate and light cruiser focus their fire on the the lead Outer Reach frigate hitting it with a laser and distruptor cannon and a rocket battery knocking out all of its defensive systems and 75% of it’s hull integrity.
The Terledrom assault scouts loop around to fire at the lightly damaged destroyer. The Inner Reach assault scouts make a run on the sathar light cruiser. The Outer Reach frigates fire at the damaged sathar destroyer and the frigate with the heavily damaged one just drifting away from the battle as it fires. The Inner Reach frigate splits its fire using its laser cannon on the light cruiser and the other weapons at the damaged destroyer. The Terledrom frigate also loops around to fire at the light cruiser. The Outer Reach assault scouts loop around to fire at the frigate.
The sathar’s defensive fire is again mostly ineffective. The undamaged Outer Reach frigate is hit by several energy weapons from the frigate and light cruiser damaging its engines (both accelerating and maneuvering) and doing some significant hull damage (about 40% of the hull). The sathar destroyers fire at the Inner Reach frigate knocking out its ICM and torpedo launchers.
The return fire from the militia obliterates the last four sathar vessels. The frigate is hit by a rocket battery, two assault rockets, and two laser batteries knocking out its laser battery and doing enough hull damage to destroy a heavy cruiser. The damaged sathar destroyer is hit by a laser canon igniting an electrical fire and then a torpedo makes it through the ICM screen and hits a weapon magazine causing a massive explosion that destroys the ship. The undamaged destroyer is slammed by three different assault rockets that rip it to shreds (and a laser battery that knocks out some of its acceleration). Finally the light cruiser is hit by a laser battery starting a fire and then slammed by 3 assault rockets that rip its hull to pieces.
The savagery of the assault rocket damage surprised even the militia crews and the battle was over in less than 20 minutes.
Ship positions and paths at the end of the battle. The map has shifted to keep the drifting Outer Reach destroyer on the map for visualization. Click for full sized image.
Repairs
The damaged ships immediately begin working on battle repairs but the hull damage to the second Outer Reach frigate is beyond space repairs and needs to be completed in a shipyard. Similarly for the damage to that ship’s thrust. The other Outer Reach frigate is able to repair enough hull damage to prevent it from breaking up as it begins to maneuver and decelerate to return to the planet but it too will need time in the repair yards. The other ships are able to repair their minor damage over the next 2.5 hours.
Lessons Learned
I’ll admit, I expected this fight to go a bit longer and cause more damage to the militia. Between really good rolls for the militia and lousy rolls for the sathar, this fight was amazingly short.
Both sides leaned just how effective the assault rockets could be, especially if you roll well. The sathar seem to focus their ICMs on deflecting torpedoes but not the assault rockets which can do significant damage. Unfortunately for the other sathar fleets, this lesson was learned a little too late as all the sathar ships were obliterated in a single round and there was no time to transmit that information out. It wouldn’t have affected the other battles occurring today, but may have been useful for future encounters.
The sathar also learned (again) that they should probably focus on the smaller vessels to reduce that assault rocket threat. That information was transmitted from the Battle of Stenmar but the commanders of this battle fleet seems to have ignored it, focusing on the larger vessels first.
The militia were extremely lucky in this fight. It could have gone much worse. I rolled really bad for most of the sathar defensive fire which could have eliminated some militia ships before they could fire and the dice were extremely hot for the militia with double damage being generated for 6 assault rockets, 1 laser canon, 1 laser battery, and 1 torpedo. Even some of the regular damage rolls were really high (a torpedo hitting for 26 HP, laser batteries hitting for 9 & 10 HP, a RB hitting for 16 HP, and assault rockets hitting for 19 and 21 HP). Plus they took out the heavy cruiser before it even had a chance to deploy its more effective weapons. It only got one round of defensive fire and missed with everything.
I had planned to do an article on an alternate set of astrogation rules, but as I started looking at it, it was going to require more time than I had to get it done properly. So that one will come at some point in the future.
If you’re following the Star Frontiers Twitter feed, you know that yesterday started the main events of the Second Sathar War. A lot of my free time has been spent working on that and staying far enough ahead that I can get the battle posts up, track the ship movements, record and schedule repairs and new ship construction, and figure out strategy and tactics as they shift after each encounter. In fact, if I hadn’t posted it early to get some feedback, the Battle of Stenmar post I did a while back would have been today’s post as the tweet about that battle will be going up at some point today. Tracking all the ship movements and playing out the battles is keeping me busy. Who knew that managing a Frontier-wide battle for both sides would be so much work! 🙂
Given that the Second Sathar War narration is where my focus is right now, I thought I’d do a related post and talk about the Sathar starship construction centers (SCCs) in my version of the setting.
Some Background
Placing the SCCs
If you have looked closely at the Extended Frontier Map, you already know the locations of these SCCs – they are marked on the referee version of the map. And as I mentioned in the posts about the creation of that map, the sathar worlds and jump routes were originally laid down decades ago. I modified them slightly to account for the Zeb’s Guide data and fan material that I included in the map as the latter hadn’t been produced and I didn’t own a copy of the former when I made the original map as a teenager.
On that original map, only the first five SCCs were marked. I had originally created the map to help track the exact project I’m doing now as part of the Detailed Frontier Timeline, namely track the Second Sathar War from a ship construction and movement perspective with the RPG rules rather than the board game rules in in the Campaign Book. It was also made for a exploration campaign where the PC would go out to expand the borders of the Frontier and look for the sathar worlds but that’s a different set of posts. Because of that, I only included the five SCCs that I envisioned participating in the conflict and which is why those five, closest to the Frontier, have the first five numbers and not the ones deeper in sathar controlled space which arguably were created first. If I ever go back and rework everything, I might change the numbering.
When I was setting up the Detailed Frontier Timeline project and making the Extended Frontier Map, I realized that I needed to add in a few more SCCs in the other parts of sathar-controlled space to handle all the other ship construction needed by their empire. That got me up through the ninth SCC. I then realized they needed one to manage the fight against the Saurians and so added in the tenth one. So while they are numbered in order of creation, it was their creation in my head for the setting, not their creation dates in the timeline.
Sathar Ship Hull Sizes
Another item of note relative to the SCCs is the hull sizes I use for each of the sathar ships. These are slightly different than the values I use for the UPF ships but all fall within the range of sizes given for each class of ship on page 5 of the Knight Hawks Campaign Book. The sizes I use for the sathar ships are:
Fighter – HS:1
Cutter – HS:4
Frigate – HS:5
Destroyer – HS:6
Light Cruiser – HS: 14
Assault Carrier – HS:16
Heavy Cruiser – HS: 18
In the timeline the cutter is a new ship type that will see action first in the Rim and later in the Frontier. The specs for the ship can be found on page 6 of Frontier Explorer issue 2.
It’s my take that the larger sathar ships are a bit bulkier than the corresponding UPF version. So sathar light cruisers are HS:14 while the UPF ones are HS:12, the sathar assault carriers are HS:16 while the UPF ones are HS: 14, and the sathar heavy cruiser is HS:18 compared to the single UPF heavy cruiser which is HS:16. Even the sathar destroyer is actually HS:6+ being just a bit larger than the standard HS:6 volume but not enough to actually be HS:7.
The reason for this is the role I have for these larger ships. In addition to being mainline fighting ships, the larger capital ships also double as troop transports. You can see this in the Sathar Destroyer Technical Manual. Someday I’ll detail out the light and heavy cruisers similarly. In any case, this makes the sathar ships a bit bulkier and take a bit longer to produce. They aren’t being used for the troop transport role at the beginning of the war but the capability is there. While this doesn’t have any impact on the actual battles, it does impact the starship construction centers and so needed to be spelled out.
The Starship Construction Centers
In this section, we will look at each of those starship construction centers in turn to talk about their capacity, production queues, and main focus.
If you’ve been following along with the Detailed Frontier Timeline and playing close attention, you could probably reconstruct the production queues of SSCs two through five as I’ve been posting the ships that were produced there as part of the timeline. SCC#1 has just come online and only produced a single ship (a light cruiser) so it’s full queue hasn’t been revealed and SCC#10 will soon be shifting from the Saurian conflict, which has ended, to the Second Sathar War. The first ship out of that SCC (a fighter) to participate in the SSW will complete construction in early December (FY61.304).
The production queues for SSCs one to five were specifically set up to try to produce the sathar Order of Battle from page 55 of the Knight Hawks Campaign Book at the time I started up the war in the timeline. I started with an initial semi-random “seed” of ships, modified for the encounters in the Detailed Frontier Timeline (like the fight a Volturnus), and then allowed the SSCs to crank out ships. I came pretty close with only a few more fighters (most of which I destroyed in the fight in the Liberty system) and one extra destroyer. I have a small computer program that allows me to run the production queues and add (and remove) SCCs as needed to produce the ships so I don’t have to do it by hand.
Okay, let’s look at these construction centers. Directions for the locations of the SCCs are given on the Extended Frontier map assuming the top of the map is “north.”
SCC#1
Location: OFS203 (“S” of Prenglar)
Capacity: 48 HS worth of ships
Production Queue:
42 HS of capacity dedicated to the production of light cruisers (3 under construction at any one time), staggered to produce a new LC every 140 days
6 HS of capacity dedicated to the production of destroyers, one every 180 days
Notes: This is the newest of the starship construction centers with its first ship being produced on FY61.208. It is at the far end on the sathar jump routes (without passing through the Frontier). It was constructed specifically to be a jump off and repair point to strike right into the heart of the Frontier at Prenglar.
The recent loss of SSC#2 and the Liberty system has actually isolated this SSC from the others. Ships produced here (or headed here) will have to pass through the Liberty system. This will give the UPF a chance to detect these ships if they try to get into the Frontier anywhere other than Prenglar.
SCC#2
Location: FS30 – now Liberty (“SE” of Theseus)
Capacity: 46 HS
Production Queue:
16 HS of capacity devoted to production of assault carriers, one very 480 days
24 HS of capacity devoted to production of destroyers (six under production at any one time), staggered to complete one every 45 days
6 HS of capacity split between production of fighters and destroyers. Produces 6 fighters in 30 days, then a destroyer 180 days later, than back to fighters.
Notes: This SCC has been operating for a while and is responsible for the production of most of the destroyers seen in the Frontier recently and present in the fleets in the initial attacks in the Second Sathar War and produced some that were used against the saurians. It was also the driving force behind the exploration that established the sathar jump routes over to SCC#1 and in to S’esseu space.
In the notes in the SFKH4 module The War Machine (the Beyond the Frontier series), it said that this SCC was responsible for about 20% of the ships in the second sathar war. This is why I went with five SCCs when creating the original map.
This SCC was lost just recently along with a large number of fighters in the events of the SFKH4 module which wrapped up on FY61.40, only 40 days before the first sathar ships appeared in the Frontier to start the Second Sathar War. It will be interesting to see how things play out with the loss of this system, but that was always intended from the start.
SCC#3
Location: OFS138 (“NE” from Kizk-Kar)
Capacity: 59 HS
Production Queue:
54 HS of capacity devoted to heavy cruiser production (three under production at any one time), staggered to produce one HC every 180 days
5 HS of production dedicated to frigate production, one completed every 150 days
Notes: This is an older SCC as well and originally fueled the sathar exploration on the eastern side of the Frontier that resulted in the discovery of the saurians and the Mhemne.
Now focused on the battle with the Frontier, this SCC is responsible for the construction of the majority of heavy cruisers present in the early days of the conflict.
SCC#4
Location: OFS111 (“N” of Fromeltar)
Capacity: 49 HS
Production Queue:
16 HS of capacity dedicated to assault carrier production, one every 480 days
28 HS of capacity dedicated to light cruiser production (two under production at any one time), staggered to produce one every 210 days
5 HS of capacity dedicated to frigate and fighter production, completing 5 fighters in 30 days, then a frigate 150 days later and then back to fighters.
Notes: This is a older SCC established after the First Sathar War to explore more into the Frontier sector and the Rim. The route to Zebulon has been known for hundreds of years but most of the other routes are fairly new.
SCC#5
Location: OFS019 (“N” of Truane’s Star/Zebulon)
Capacity: 50 HS
Production Queue:
28 HS of capacity dedicated to light cruiser production (two under production at any one time), staggered to produce one every 210 days
18 HS of capacity dedicated to heavy cruiser production one every 540 days
4 HP of capacity dedicate to cutter production, one every 120 days
Notes: This is a newer SCC set up to provide ships for fighting in the Rim and the Frontier and built as part of the preparation for the Second Sathar War.
The cutter is a new ship that the sathar have developed partially in response to the UPF’s assault scout. It is not battle tested and at the start of the Second Sathar War, only 4 have been produced. They will see first blood in the Second Battle of Stenmar (coming on FY61.293).
SCC#6
Location: OFS117 (upper left center of Extended Frontier Map)
Capacity: 200 HS
Production Queue: Random, mostly non-military ships
Notes: This SCC is located in orbit around what in my game is the sathar homeworld. It is larger than even the largest SCC in the Frontier but is not currently involved in the SSW conflict, although that may change. This SCC primarily is responsible for producing “civilian” ships that the sathar use for non-military purposes.
It did, however, supply the ships that comprised SBF-F1 and SBF-F2 that attacked Stenmar (in the Kazak system) in the Detailed Frontier Timeline. Since those battles were outside the scope of the simulation I was working on (I’m ignoring the Rim), I had the ships for the fight in the Rim come from somewhere other than the five main SCCs.
SCC#7
Location: OFS101 (upper right of Extended Frontier Map)
Capacity: 75 HS
Production Queue: random, “civilian” ships
Notes: This is a new SCC and is currently focused on producing “civilian” ships and ships for exploration to the “NE” of the sathar homeworld. Not currently involved in SSW production.
SCC#8
Location: OFS097 (“N” of OFS117)
Capacity: 75 HS
Production Queue: random, “civilian” ships
Notes: This is another SCC that is producing civilian ships for the day-to-day operation of the sathar worlds. Not currently involved in SSW production.
SCC#9
Location: OFS064 (upper center of Extended Frontier Map)
Capacity: 75 HS
Production Queue: random, military and exploration vessels
Notes: This SCC is focused on an active campaign to explore the upper left corner of the Extended Frontier Map. It was ships from this system that many years ago discovered the Tetrach complex on OFS070 that the Discovery Squadron went looking for and which was contacted by the complex on Laco (Dixon’s Star) back at the end of FY59. It was actually this signal, plus the events of Volturnus, that kicked off the Second Sathar War.
The sathar are currently trying to find a way through the large nebula in this region as they have detected signals from another race on the other side of the nebula that they intend to conquer. It is not currently producing ships for the SSW and probably will not be used for that purpose at it is focused on a different threat.
SCC#10
Location: OFS174 (“E” of White Light)
Capacity: 60 HS
Production Queue:
18 HS of capacity dedicated to heavy cruiser production, one every 540 days
16 HS of capacity dedicated to assault carrier production, one every 480 days
14 HS of capacity dedicated to light cruiser production, one every 420 days
6 HS of capacity dedicated to destroyer production, one every 180 days
5 HS of capacity dedicated to frigate production, one every 150 days
1 HS of capacity dedicated to fighter production, one every 30 days
Notes: This SCC is producing some of every type of main-line sathar warship. For the past several years, it has been focused on the war with the saurians and is responsible for producing most of the ships that destroyed their worlds.
Being already focused on military production, and with the campaign against the saurians now ended (finished on FY61.282) and the loss of the SCC in the Liberty system, this SCC will shortly be added to war effort against the Frontier (officially on FY61.296).
Last Thoughts
Those are the sathar starship construction centers scattered about. All told, there are 737 HS of capacity across the 10 SCCs. It’s about 45% more capacity than in the Frontier, although more spread out. It is also more focused on military ships. The UPF has 430 HS of capacity that can produce military vessels and another 80 HS of capacity that can produce civilian ships and do maintenance.
As the battles play out, the sathar may shift the production queues to different mixes going forward (e.g. they have lost most of their destroyer production) but we’ll have to see how the upcoming battles play out. Look for the first play report later this week and running into next week as the initial battles occur around the Frontier.
How do you see the sathar starship construction being set up and handled? Have you every attempted anything like this for your game? Or have you been more sensible and just hand-waved it? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
I originally had a different post, the write-up of my players’ venture into the GODCo bio-lab, scheduled for today, but decided to bump it to next week in favor of getting this one up and getting some feedback.
Some Background
The Detailed Frontier Timeline project has reached the point where the events of the Second Sathar War game presented in the Knight Hawks Campaign Book play out in the timeline with the sathar’s main assault on the Frontier. The whole timeline project was originally conceived as a way for me to track, in a “realistic” manner the movement and construction of ships for that event (i.e. using the ship construction rules and rules for void jumping.).
As such, the initial round of events will look very similar to the opening of that game. But after that, things will start to diverge from the way the game plays in a number of ways.
First, I’ll be using the Void Jumping rules for travel times instead of the times portrayed on the Frontier Deployment Map this is part of that game.
Second, the Order of Battle for both sides is slightly different from what was presented in the rules. Although not by much. The timeline events have tweaked things so that the White Light and Truane’s Star militias have an extra assault scout or two, the UPF unattached ships are a slightly different mix, and the sathar have the cutter class ship. I tried to set up the ship construction so the sathar had the ships listed in the game and I came pretty close. They ended up with a few more fighters and an extra destroyer.
Third, reinforcements for both sides will come from the various starship construction centers around the Frontier and in sathar space rather than the arbitrary rules presented as part of the printed game. The sathar have a fully functioning ship construction pipeline that will continue to churn out ships, although they did just lose the starship construction center in the Liberty system. The UPF have a few ships already under construction (2 battleships, 1 light cruiser, an assault carrier and 6 fighters) but otherwise are going to need to get a production pipeline going.
Finally, I’ll be factoring in my take on various political situations across the Frontier as well as involvement of civilian and megacorp ships that may get involved in the conflict. This will also affect the ship construction to some effect.
The Second Sathar War game rules as printed are actually a good balance for a game to be played out over a short period of time but probably don’t represent how things would play out in “real” life in the Frontier. For one thing, a more realistic ship construction system will probably make it a much more drawn out affair, which is what I wanted to explore with the timeline project.
As the battles occur across the Frontier, it was always my intention to play them out with the tactical battle rules to see which side won and have the sides react accordingly. The results of those battles and the basic reactions will be the entries you see in the timeline.
Last week, I posted the question to the Star Frontiers Facebook group if they would like to see more detailed summaries of the battles more than just who won, what ships were lost, etc. There was definite interest and so this series of posts was formed. The format may evolve as I do more of these but here I’ll be posting write-ups of the battles, probably in a couple of different formats, but at the very least with turn by turn synopses (and maps) to show how it went.
Except for this one, which is coming out nearly a month early, the plan is for each of these posts to come out on the same day as I post that day’s timeline update to Twitter. Although when I have several battles the same day, I might just post one a day to spread them out. It is my intention that these are going to be “off schedule posts” that probably won’t count as one of my regular weekly posts (expect for this one and maybe the 4! for the battles that will come starting the Saturday before Thanksgiving in the U.S.). After the first few battles that open the conflict, they are going to start to spread out as ships begin to repair and maneuver.
Posting on the day the battle occurs, this battle wouldn’t show up until November 17th, but I’m posting it early to get feedback on the format and what people would like to see in the posts going forward. Please share your thoughts in the comments. You can consider this a “sneak peek” into some of the timeline events.
In addition to just being a “play report” of how the battles went for me, each one will include the order of battle for the various sides that you can set up and play at your own table. They won’t always be balanced encounters, but it would be interesting to see how you and your groups handle the various tactical challenges.
Anyway, we’ll see how it goes. On to the first battle.
Battle of Stenmar – FY61.281
While I had not planned on figuring in fighting in the Rim as part of this project, and haven’t really been tracking (or even really thought about) Rim ships and the organization of the Flight, part of the Timeline has dealt with events in the Rim and the Kazak system as it pertains to the discovery of the sathar construction center in OFS019 and the trip to Kazak by Strike Force Nova. As such, I had a list of Rim ships that were in the Kazak system. Plus, it’s a natural entry point into the Rim and is traversed by the sathar to get to Zebulon on my star maps. So it makes sense that the sathar would send ships to control this system. And since I already knew what ships were there, I designed some sathar fleets to attack this system. This is the write-up of the attack on Kazak that opened the conflict for the sathar. Plus using this as the first trial write-up doesn’t spoil the events of the conflict in the Frontier.
The ships for this scenario are not part of the order of battle for the Second Sathar War game presented in the Campaign Book but are extra to that. So what happens here doesn’t exactly impact the playing out of that larger scenario. Maybe at some point I’ll go back and work out the details of the fighting in the Rim.
This battle occurs on FY61.281 in the timeline, the day after sathar ships are detected entering the Frontier systems.
Order of Battle
Here are the ships on each side. I did not really plan this (I built the sathar fleet before I went back and looked to see what Rim ships I had placed in Kazak) but it turned out the sides were fairly even.
Rim Forces
10 Fighters
3 Assault Scouts (AS)
2 Frigates (FF)
2 Destroyers (DD)
1 Light Cruiser (LC)
1 Fortified Station
All told there were 18 ships plus the station with a total of 515 hull points. Definitely weighted to the smaller ships.
Sathar Forces
8 Fighters
2 Frigates
4 Destroyers
1 Light Cruiser
1 Heavy Cruiser (HC)
1 Assault Carrier (AC)
The sathar had 17 ships with a total of 569 hull points and more capital ships.
The Fight
Setup
The Rim forces arrayed in a line slightly behind the planet and station and divided into several groups according to ship type. From top to bottom there was a flight of 5 fighters, the 3 assault scouts, and the light cruiser above the planet and then the 2 destroyers, the 2 frigates, and the remaining five fighters. The fighters were moving at speed 25, the assault scouts and frigates at 20, and the light cruiser and destroyers were moving at speed 15
The sathar’s main battle group was arrayed to directly approach the planet in a flying diamond. The middle row was the light cruiser, the heavy cruiser, and then the assault carrier. Outside of those ships were the four destroyers, 2 on each side, and then a frigate on either side forming the tip. All of these ships were moving at speed 10. The fighters were arranged into two flights of 4 fighters and positioned further out on the wings. They were traveling at speed 20 The setup looked like this:
Setup for the Battle of Stenmar. Click for full-sized image.
Turn 1
The main sathar battle group began decelerating toward the planet (slowing to speed 8), looking to make a concerted attack on the station as it came around from behind the planet. The sathar fighters accelerate to speed 25 and swing out further on the wings to prepare to swing in on the next turn and make their attack while staying out of the forward firing arc of the Rim forces.
The Rim forces decided to ignore the fighters and focus on the main battle group. The fighters accelerated to speed 30, flew in to make a maximum range attack with their assault rockets on the two frigates on the wings and then sweep back out of range of the capital ships’ main weapons. The assault scouts accelerated to 25 and executed a similar maneuver but aiming for the lead destroyer on their side of the formation. The frigates, with less maneuverability than the smaller ships accelerated to speed 23, swept past the main sathar formation, and then doubled back to attack the tail destroyer on that side of the formation. The remaining ships (LC & 2 DD) accelerated to speed 17 and turned in to attack the light cruiser. All the Rim ships stayed at least 4 hexes away from the sathar ships to remain out of range of their rocket batteries.
The sathar decide to ignore the smaller ships and focus on the Rim’s capital ships. However, the longer range and apparently poor training of sathar forces result in little damage to the Rim ships with the LC only sustaining 11 HP of damage and one of the frigates taking a hit to its combat controls system. All the other shots at the Rim ships, including several shots at one of the destroyers, missed completely.
The Rim ships were much more effective. The results were as follows:
The sathar frigate on the left flank (“top” of the diamond) is hit by 3 of the 5 assault rockets (AR) taking 14 HP of damage, losing 2 ADF, and having it’s masking screen launcher knocked out
The sathar frigate on the left flank (“bottom” of the diamond) is hit by 4 of 5 AR taking 28 HP of damage, losing 1 MR, and having it’s torpedo launcher knocked out.
The sathar destroyer on the right flank fires two ICMs at each of the incoming torpedoes (which miss) and is hit by 2 laser batteries (LB) for 8 HP and has its masking screen launcher knocked out
The sathar destroyer on the left flank is hit by 3 LB and 2 AR from the three AS and is completely destroyed with one of the LB and AR each doing double hull damage.
The sathar light cruiser fires two ICMs at each incoming torpedo (only the one from the Rim LC hits) and is hit by a number of weapons resulting in a loss of 2 ADF, a navigation control hit, a combat control system hit, its disruptor canon damaged, and a loss of 60 HP (the torpedo did double damage for a total of 52 points)
At then end of the turn, the ships were arrange as shown in the following map (with their movement marked). Destroyed ships marked with a red X.
Result. after the first turn.Click for full-sized image.
Turn 2
The sathar fighters on the left wing swoop in and unload into one of the UPF destroyers and then fly out of range to line up for another run. The frigate on that same flank, not expecting to survive the round, given the damage it sustained, turns and attempts to ram one of the destroyers. The rest of the ships turn and take on the Rim’s light cruisers.
Defensively, the assault scouts score a single hit on one of the fighters near them taking out its AR launch, effectively neutering it. The destroyers, seeing the frigate coming in for a ramming attempt, fire everything they have at it. One of the rocket batteries connects and the frigate flies apart before gets too close. The Rim frigates continue to fire at the destroyer they had already damaged doing 7 more HP of damage, and knocking out its MR and electron battery. The Rim light cruiser attempts to eliminate the damaged frigate before it can fire. It only causes 9 HP of damage but does knock out its MR and causes an electrical fire on board.
The sathar fighters firing on the destroyers unload all 4 AR at a single destroyer which all hit doing 65 HP of damage, destroying it. They caused a power short circuit as well but it was moot at that point. The rest of the ship unloaded all their ordinance in to the Rim light cruiser. It survived the 3 AR that hit from the fighters (knocking out its LB, all its MR, and 7 HP), the shots from the frigate (knocking out is combat control system), the shots from the destroyers (knocking out 1 MR and 22 more HP), but the sathar heavy cruiser finally overwhelmed it (knocking out its PS, a power short circuit, and a final 39 HP).
One flight of Rim fighters make a pass at the sathar heavy cruiser while the remaining Rim ships converge from various directions to make a pass at the sathar assault carrier. The fire on the sathar frigate causes another 7 HP of damage.
The sathar heavy cruiser fires at the incoming fighters with its EB doing 2 HP to one of them and a LB hit triggers a fire on another. All of the other sathar ship fire at the Rim destroyer doing 35 HP, -2 ADF, and a combat control hit.
Offensively, all 5 AR fired at the sathar HC hit knocking out 1 MR and the combat control system and doing a total of 85 HP of damage destroying it. Between the fighters and assault scouts, the sathar AC is hit with 6 of the 8 AR fired knocking out a LB, the ICM and masking screen launchers, and doing 83 HP of damage, destroying it. The Rim destroyer’s EB started an electrical fire and the LC from the frigate did an additional 26 HP of damage but the assault carrier was just scrap at that point.
Here are the ships at then end of this turn:
Positions after turn 2. Click for full-sized image.
Turn 3
The sathar fighters all converge on the station to fire their assault rockets. The sathar frigate with the fire, and the destroyer that has had its MR knocked out drift forward toward the station. The destroyer accelerates slightly to bring it’s torpedoes in range this round. The undamaged sathar destroyers turn and go after the remaining Rim destroyer. The Rim fighter with the fire suffers 2 HP of damage.
Defensively, the station fires at the three closest fighters with working weapons systems. all three shots hit knocking out the AR launcher on one of the fighters and destroying the other two. The assault scouts fire their laser batteries at the other flight of sathar fighters as they fly by but all the shots miss. The Rim frigates and destroyer fire at one of the sathar destroyers knocking out its LB and EB and doing 12 HP of damage.
Only the 4 distant fighters can fire at the station but 3 of the 4 AR hit doing 82 HP of damage. The ICMs from the station neutralized the torpedo from the destroyer and frigate and all the rest of those ships’ weapons miss. The shots at the Rim destroyer as less effective than hoped. They knocked out 2 MR, the MS system, and caused a power short circuit but only did 7 HP of damage.
The Rim frigates and one flight of fighters go after the sathar destroyers, the other flight of fighters go after the two damaged sathar ships near the station, and the assault scouts split their attacks firing their AR at the destroyers and their LB at the undamaged flight of sathar fighters. The station fires at the two fighters closest to it. The damaged Rim destroyer, unable to maneuver, drifts of the map hoping to slip away and survive the battle.
Defensively, the sathar destroyers fire their energy weapons at the retreating Rim destroyer starting a fire that is snuffed out when the other weapons do a total of 16 HP destroying the damage vessel. The fire their RBs at one of the frigates and both hit knocking out its MS and doing 14 HP of damage. The sathar ships near the station fire at the station but all miss.
The Rim forces have another stellar round with their assault rockets. The flight of fighters fire at one of the undamaged destroyers hitting with 4 of the 5 AR taking out the destroyers ADF, MS, and doing 16 HP of damage. The assault scouts fire at the other destroyer and hit will 2 of the 3 AR doing 24 HP of damage and knocking out 1 MR. All of the LB shots at the fighters miss, however. The Rim frigates fire at the same destroy targeted by the assault scouts and hit for 18 more HP and knocking out 2 ADF. The station manages to destroy one of the nearby fighters (leaving a single fighter with no AR in that flight). The fighters going going after the damaged sathar frigate and destroyer split apart momentarily to line up their shots with 2 fighters firing at the frigate and 3 at the destroyer. All 3 AR hit the destroyer doing 22 HP and knocking out 2 ADF. One of the AR hits the frigate doing 14 HP and destroying that ship.
At the end of the turn, the ship were here:
Positions after turn 2. (I forgot to move the station forward). Click for full-sized image.
Repairs
Several of the ships were able to enact repairs with the Rim fighter putting out its fire, the Rim frigate repairing 9 HP, and the station repairing 3 HP. The sathar destroyers were able to each repair some of their hull damage (10, 4, and 7 HP respectively).
Turn 4
At this point he Rim forces know they have a victory, as all the of the sathar ships (except a few fighters) are heavily damaged. It’s just a matter of cleaning up and protecting the heavily damaged station.
Only one of the sathar destroyers can maneuver and it loops back to fire on the Rim frigates, the other two just drift along on their current course. The fighter with the damaged AR launcher (it couldn’t get it repaired) loops around and attempts to ram the station. The other sathar fighters fire their last ARs at the station and loop away.
Defensively, the Rim assault scouts fire at the undamaged fighters but only one LB hits doing 5 HP of damage. The station also fires at these fighers (judging that the AR are more deadly than the ramming fighter). The Rim frigates fire at the destroyer closing on them and knock out all it’s MR and do 31 HP of damage, just 1 HP shy of destroying it before it could fire.
The lone sathar fighter rams the station for 4 HP of damage and 2 of the 4 AR from the other fighters hit doing 43 more HP of damage. The damage destroyer drifting by manages to hit with its LB causing a power short circuit and knocking out the the station’s screens and ICM launcher. The destroyer firing at the Rim frigate hits with its LB and EB knocking out 1 ADF and half of the frigates DCR.
Out of assault rockets, the Rim fighters start decelerating to dock with the station and execute some big loops away from all the capital ships. The assault scouts split up to each go after a damaged destroyer with their last AR. The frigates, suspecting that the sathar fighters might attempt to ram the station, pursue those ships in an attempt to eliminate them.
Defensively the sathar destroyer drifting off the bottom of the map is the only one to hit, its EB causing a fire on the assault scout.
The Rim assault scout firing at the destroyer now closest to the station hits with its AR doing 28 HP and destroying the sathar vessel. The assault scout targeting the destroyer drifting to the left also hits for 23 HP and destroys. it. The last assault scout, gunners distracted by the fire, miss completely. The frigate are not as successful as they had hoped, only hitting two of the fighters but both are obliterated (20 HP from a LC and 24 from an RB – both did double damage).
At then end of the turn, the battle looked like this:
Battle map after round 4. Click for full-sized version.
Turn 5
The remaining sathar destroyer continues to drift away and the two remaining fighter loop back and attempt to ram the station (which only has 14 HP left). The fire on the AS damages its DCR cutting it in half.
The Rim frigates fire at the two remaining sathar fighters and destroy them before they can ram the station. The burning assault scout fires at the drifting destroyer doing 8 HP.
The Rim fighters continue to decelerate and approach the station. All the other ships set off in pursuit of the last destroyer, only two of the assault scouts coming in range this round.
The sathar destroyer fires at the non-burning assault scout and hits with its EB knocking out 1 MR point but both AS hit the destroyer with their LBs doing a total of 14 HP and destroying it.
With the battle over, the ships positions were:
Map at the end of the fight. The counters were shifted to pursue the drifting destroyer. Click for full-sized version.
Wrapping Up
The fire on the assault scout continued to burn while repairs were attempted but caused a disastrous fire knocking out the assault scout’s ADF and MR and damaging its combat control system. Unable to put the fire out, over the next 20 minutes the assault scout succumbs to the fire as it eventually burns through the hull destroying the ship.
The other damaged ships manage to repair the minor damage they sustained. After 3.5 hours of work, the station manages to restore 33 HP before running in to a snag that will require outside assistance to get past and repair more.
Aftermath
The sathar tactics for this fight was basically “go for the heavies,” ignoring the smaller ships and going for the larger ships first. With all the Rim fighters and assault scouts flying around with their assault rockets, this was probably the wrong idea. We’ll see if any of the lessons learned were able to be transmitted out before the sathar were destroyed.
The Rim forces, capitalizing on lessons learned at the two fights in the Zebulon system over the past year and half, used the maneuverability of those smaller vessels to stay out of range of the sathar’s heavier weapons and inflict punishing damage. They Rim forces also heavily concentrated their attacks, preferring to focus on only a few ships each turn instead of spreading everything around. This resulted in a bit of over kill a few times (especially on the sathar assault carrier) but payed off in the end.
The sathar lost all 17 vessels totaling 569 HP. While the Rim only lost 4 ships, they were mostly capital ships totaling 185 HP. Plus the station only has 47 of its original 140 HP left. If the sathar had paid just a little more attention to the station (going after it earlier with the fighters or the one maneuverable destroyer going after the station instead of the frigates) they might well have destroyed it as it was down to only 14 HP at the end of the fight.
Speaking of the damaged station, the rules for the Second Sathar War game don’t give any guidance on how you repair station hull points if they fail a DCR roll. I’ve decided to apply the following rule throughout this write-up. A station (in a system that doesn’t have a starship construction center) can repair 10 HP a day after failing a DCR check for hull repair after a battle starting on the day after the battle occurred. If it is in a system with a SCC, the full repair ability of the SCC can be applied to the station. We’ll see how that goes.
News of the victory against the sathar was quickly broadcast across the Rim and Frontier as fast as subspace radio messages could traverse the intervening distances.
Sathar forces were engaged today by elements of the Flight around Stenmar in the Kazak system. After nearly an hour of fighting, the Rim forces were victorious destroying all the sathar ships but suffering serious losses themselves.
Sources within the Flight say that the sathar fleet consisted of single heavy and light cruiser, four destroyers, two frigates, and an assault carrier with eight fighters. It is believed that they originated from the recently discovered sathar occupied system OFS019.
The Flight lost a light cruiser, two destroyers, and an assault scout in the battle. Additionally the fortified station orbiting Stenmar was severely damaged and almost destroyed in the fighting. Repairs to the station are on-going but may take some time to complete.
Flight forces across the Rim are on high alert for other possible sathar activity.
Kaarln Duggart – Stenmar News Syndicate
Details of tactics used by both sides and the outcomes were transmitted to Flight and Spacefleet forces as well. Spacefleet and militia vessels across the Frontier, especially those facing an imminent fight with other sathar fleets in just a few days, eagerly studied the data and updated their plans and tactics.
The first battle in the Rim was a success for the Flight but who knows what else the sathar have in store. The first fights in the Frontier are only days away as the sathar ships decelerate into four of the UPF’s systems.
Last Thoughts
This is probably the longest post I’ve made yet on this site. And it was only a medium-to-large fight. The battle at Prenglar (in a few days in the timeline) is going to be a doozie as it involves Task Force Prenglar, Strike Force Nova, and a sathar fleet even bigger than this one.
What do you think of this style of write-up? Too technical and too much detail? Not enough? What would make it more interesting or enjoyable? Would you rather just see a narration of the fight instead of the details of each bit of combat? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
