Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - [Ultra-Tech] What would naval warfare at TL10 look like?

Anthony · 10-02-2017, 02:23 AM

In a fight between roughly equal parties, orbital assets are extremely vulnerable, so rather early in the fight one or both parties won't have any. It's quite possible that one of the jobs of naval forces is the removal of orbital assets (this is dependent somewhat on your tech assumptions. Firing missiles up a gravity well is not that effective, but a beam duel likely favors the ground forces by a large margin). This will generally make things like Thor strikes moot, if your enemy is in a position to attempt that you're already in a bad place. The forces you'd use for that purpose will likely be submersible to make it hard to take them out with a first strike.

Naval forces against a superior foe are just a big 'blow this up first' sign, so you don't use them at all (just imagine if ISIS got hold of an aircraft carrier. It would die so very fast). Naval forces against an inferior foe means you can assume the foe doesn't have orbital forces.

10-02-2017, 02:23 AM	#28
Anthony Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Berkeley, CA	Re: [Ultra-Tech] What would naval warfare at TL10 look like? In a fight between roughly equal parties, orbital assets are extremely vulnerable, so rather early in the fight one or both parties won't have any. It's quite possible that one of the jobs of naval forces is the removal of orbital assets (this is dependent somewhat on your tech assumptions. Firing missiles up a gravity well is not that effective, but a beam duel likely favors the ground forces by a large margin). This will generally make things like Thor strikes moot, if your enemy is in a position to attempt that you're already in a bad place. The forces you'd use for that purpose will likely be submersible to make it hard to take them out with a first strike. Naval forces against a superior foe are just a big 'blow this up first' sign, so you don't use them at all (just imagine if ISIS got hold of an aircraft carrier. It would die so very fast). Naval forces against an inferior foe means you can assume the foe doesn't have orbital forces. __________________ My GURPS site and Blog. Last edited by Anthony; 10-02-2017 at 02:28 AM.