Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War (12 page)

14

Nothing was
ever simple. Especially too much of anything new.

Many of the new practices and protocols Naero instituted across
Strike Fleet Six proved fruitful and actually cut and prevented losses. They worked just fine, and integrated into the daily routine seamlessly, with a modicum of adjustment.

Yet, u
nfortunately, some of the new regs that sounded good in theory, did not work very well at all in practice, and only led to confusion and disarray.

There was always a trade off it seemed
, a learning curve, a price to pay for everything. Several ships dumped their power cores too soon.

Some of them r
ight in the midst of battle.

They
either got the auto protocols wrong, or their on board AIs reacted prematurely, dumping the cores as soon as the ship’s shields went down, or the core areas sustained a near hit.

That proved both
embarrassing, and in one case, even deadly.

The destroyer,
The
Wellington
, was set upon and obliterated by the enemy.

Yet doubling the number of escape pods on the fleet did manage to save over
two thirds of her crew. Still, a very costly mistake, and a very high price to pay.

Naero and
her captains agreed to re-adjust the core jettison protocols back closer to the prior combat levels. They coupled that with pweaking the responsiveness of the fleet AIs. She had Tyber and his teks and fixers kept working on the problem.

The new core shielding
, however, did work better and saved many lives.

But the casualty estimation flows were a complete
and total bust.

In the heat of battle, there were just too many variables at work. Potential casualties simply could not be predicted in any rational way
.

Studies showed that the test groups using the calculators performed much more poorly during a fight. They were a constant distraction to their captains and officers. In some cases
, it caused them to pause or hesitate too much.

A battle might even sweep in another direction and pass them by in a matter of minutes, while they
attempted to study predictors and variables. While they ere paralyzed by what
might
happen to them.

Or even worse, the enemy might see them holding back as weakness and pounce on them
even more–in order to crack through a weak link.

That experiment was promptly dropped. Testing proved that it was better for the captains to rely upon their experience and instincts. Battle computers and
AIs could only evaluate so much.

They possessed no power to predict the future completely
in any rational way.

Naero reported all of their fin
dings to the fleet. The bad ideas were studied and dropped. Many of the good ones were implemented throughout the Alliance, but only if they proved effective.

The Alliance continued to strive to adapt and improve against the many tricks and strategies and tactics that the enemy threw at them. Sometimes
these changed from day to day.

Naero adjusted her own patterns and practices
.

She struggled to remain cunning and hardnosed, but neither reckless
nor bloodthirsty—nor heedless of the damage and casualties her ships and crews endured.

Balance
, where everything was chaos and out of balance.

*

A week or so later, Naero and Tarim had dinner in her quarters. A hearty seafood stew, bread, and cold meat and cheese sandwiches on sweetbread. And of course, lots of Jett.

Naero waved her hand at the frozen holoships above them, and two vessels started fighting again
.

“The standard goal in naval combat is usually to close with another vessel or vessels and duke it out with them. You wear down their deflector shields first, and then degrade their armor. Then you start doing actual physical damage to the ship and its vulnerable systems that keep it functioning and able to fight back
.”

“Like the power core,” Tarim said. “I’ve watched your warships target enemy power cores time and time again, with great success
.”

Naero smiled. “So, at least you have paid some attention. Power cores are great targets, because they more or less control the entire ship. Take out a ship’s power core and the ship ceases to function. It’s no longer a threat and is more or less dead in space. And if you damage a power core badly enough, the entire ship can explode and be destroyed, although lately, Alliance battle doctrine now seeks to avoid destroying enemy ships entirely
.”

Tarim jumped in on that point. “So that we can capture even severely damaged enemy ships and convert them with our fixer clouds to Alliance use
.”

Naero nodded. “You can’t convert something very well that has been blown to smithereens. I see the strategic wisdom in that policy, but given the choice between completely taking out a ship from a fight, or letting it still shoot at and possibly destroy me…I’m going to take it out and be sure it can’t fight back. Every damn time
.”

“Sounds reasonable, N
.”

“So, that’s why each warship does its best to protect its power core as best it can. Other vulnerable systems to target directly on starships include the bridge, of course; take out the ship’s command and control. That is why all primary Alliance warships have a secondary, or backup bridge, ready to take over if the main bridge should be taken out
.”

“I think I get this part. Take out a ship’s systems and it can’t function. Knock out it’s scanners and communication, and it becomes blind and deaf. Take out its weapons, and it can’t fight back. Destroy its sublight drives and jump drives, and it can’t move or get away
.”

Naero continued. “Take out its gravitics and life support, and it can’t operate very well, and the crew won’t last long. Plus, damaging starships in general usually sets them on fire and forces them to void the battle and flee–if they want to survive and fight another day. If a ship is in danger of cooking-off and exploding, the crew will normally abandon ship in lifepods as a last resort, in order to get a safe distance away
.”

“I’ve seen a lot of the enemy warships simply give up and surrender, after they’ve been licked. But Triax does not take prisoners
.”

“No, they never have. Throughout all four of the Spacer Wars with the Gigacorps, Triax and the others have not taken prisoners, and show no mercy to our helpless crews. We tried to negotiate that into the last treaty as well, but the Corps usually ignore it. When we capture their people, they are put on huge
POW. ships, and sent to wait out the end of the war far to the rear.”

“But first,” Tarim noted, “Enemy vessels that surrender must be boarded and pacified. As part of the process of their crews becoming prisoners of war. Usually our Marines are put in charge of that. I’ve seen that first hand. I’ve went along with some of the Marine boarding parties during pacification operations
.”

“Yes,” Naero said. “That’s why each Alliance warship has full detachments of Marines stationed on board. Marines train constantly to be experts at pacification, security, and boarding operations. This also includes all ops on the ground on liberated enemy systems, worlds, and bases
.”

Tarim looked up at the two battling holoships once more. Both of them sustained minor damage and a few fires on board
.

“So, negate the enemy warship’s deflector shields, punch through their armor, and damage their systems sufficiently enough to eliminate them as a threat. Destroy them, leave them floating helpless for later capture, or force them to turn and flee
.”

Naero crossed her arms in front of herself and began to pace slightly
.

“Most naval space battles are not static, Tarim. They’re very dynamic and complex, with many variables and strategies at work. Fleets of fifty ships fight in all three dimensions and are usually constantly moving and maneuvering at attack speed, in various complex formations. They do this in order to gain advantageous attack vectors and gunnery profiles to concentrate the effectiveness of their massed weapons
.”

“I’ve noticed that most warships primarily rely on one to four main guns, usually in a spinal mount configuration
.”

“Yes, Naero said. “That is based on the limits of current tek. The standard primary weapon remains the particle beam cannon–usually the bigger the better–and it has been that way since the Third Spacer War. But size has been limited by tek and available materials. Main guns require large quantities of energy from the well-protected, central power core in order to fire. But the basic tek has changed little overall. Most of the recent advances have been in power supply and rate of fire. A ship with a smaller main gun that can fire rapidly can–in theory–do more damage in a shorter period of time than a huge main gun that fires slowly. But it also has to get in closer to do so
.”

Naero popped up another four pak of Jett and tossed Tarim one
.

He caught it, took a slug, and asked her, “So, is it the size of its cannons that determines a ship’s class and function
?”

Naero winced slightly. “Perhaps in part, but that’s putting the cart before the horse. Size, mass,
construction materials, displacement tonnage, power supply, and other parameters determine what a warship is configured to be, its primary role, and what size armaments it can effectively support. You could put bigger guns on a smaller ship, but it wouldn’t produce enough power to be able to utilize those weapons effectively.

“And that would also take away from the ship’s allocations for shields, armor, and other vital capabilities. Ship design must take all of these factors into consideration and come up with a balanced, workable approach
.”

Naero pulled up holos of standard ships and designs in front of them
.

“Larger warships usually have bigger guns, with the exception of carriers. Carriers are primarily used to deploy fighter waves. Carriers usually do not have spinal guns or primary batteries. They focus on heavy secondary batteries for defensive purposes
.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, destroyers normally have multiple main guns ranging from .5 meters to 2.5 meters in diameter. Cruisers can be one, two, or three times again the size of destroyers, and support fewer, but larger main guns anywhere between 3 and 6 meters. Battleships are at least twice the size of cruisers, and are armed with the largest production particle beam cannons possible–7 meters to 12 meters normally. But now, new cannons can be up to 16 meters in diameter–usually on dreadnaughts, or what we call ‘super-battleships.’
”

Now it was Tarim who grinned. “That is why
The
Hippolyta
and all of the other Dromon Class dreadnaughts are so formidable. They wield the largest main guns ever produced–16 meters–enormous. And their rate of fire is staggering. If it’s one thing I can appreciate, it’s big guns and heavy firepower.”

“Indeed. The Amazons are true ship-killers, but they are also difficult and time consuming to manufacture. You could produce five or six conventional battleships with greater firepower overall, in the same time frame that each dreadnaught is completed. Yet the trade off is survivability. The Dromon class is simply that much tougher. They’ve suffered severe damage, but not a single one has ever been destroyed outright
.”

“The admirals should just have the dreadnaughts focus on destroying ship after ship
.”

Naero grinned and shook her head. “You might think that. But actually, the Dromon Class Dreadnaughts have proven themselves to serve an even better purpose—one that even the designers did not foresee
.”

“And what is that
?”

“The Amazons and their huge cannons are unmatched in taking down enemy shielding. No other warship can negate enemy shields as quickly. Sometimes even multiple ships at a time with each blast, if the firing profiles can be lined up correctly. That leaves multiple enemy vessels almost instantly vulnerable to the other strike fleet ships roaring up behind. Even shield negation missile frigates cannot get in close enough, and take out the enemy shields as fast as the Dromon can–and almost at any range
.”

“What then, is a mass-driver?”

“More or less a glorified, high velocity rock-chucker. A railgun, shooting a projectile at hyper-velocities. The same basic principle as your gauss sniper rifle. Mass drivers were a primary weapon during the first two spacer wars, even more effective than the long obsolete pulse and beam lasers. Mass-drivers are still effective as planetary or system defenses, as we’ve seen Triax use them against us within various worlds, moons, and asteroid fields. But mass-drivers still need ammunition. Particle beam batteries do not, plus they do more damage, and have a higher rate of fire, overall.”