Re: [Spaceships] Pod-Layer Battlewagon
 

Well, weak, frightened interplanetary states will definitely want to use this tactic to discourage their bigger enemies from invading them anyway. I mean, it's sort of 'Anybody tries to invade one of my planets and I kill more of your planets than I ever had; I have nothing to lose!'.

Re: [Spaceships] Pod-Layer Battlewagon
 

Except that the tactic within the framework of the honor verse means it would mean not just fighting the already bigger enemy from attacking you but also the galaxies sole super power as well.

Outside of framework of the Honorverse it is quite possible a viable tactic but only if you have enough ships to both burn through the defense fleet and whatever orbital/planetary defenses that exists as well (although of course if you are in possession of enough firepower at that point to effectively incinerate the surface area of the planet you might be better off forcing its capitulation instead).

Re: [Spaceships] Pod-Layer Battlewagon
 

At the point of no longer having anything to lose in the first place, that doesn't sound like a credible threat.

It basically requires you to have enough ships/missiles/etc. to incinerate the total surface area of your own civilization + a bit + what you will lose on bypassing defenses (likely not very much compared to what gets through). At that point, you're just no longer worth it.

Re: [Spaceships] Pod-Layer Battlewagon
 

How are you building these unstoppable rocket-bombers, exactly?

Re: [Spaceships] Pod-Layer Battlewagon
 

Except in the first case it is the difference between loosing a war and loosing your entire civilization. A nation or a civ can recover from loosing a war the complete elimination of your entire civ is a bit more difficult to recover from ;).

It requires you not to have enough ships/missiles/etc. to incinerate the total surface are of your civ but the defense grid of the other sides civ, and to be able to repeat that enough times against whatever defense the other side enjoys to make it not worth their time. Which tends to move the discussion from the theoretical broad discussion to a more details oriented conversation.

Re: [Spaceships] Pod-Layer Battlewagon
 

As I said, it's specifically for 'nothing to lose' cases. Something akin to WWII for Jews, only on an interplanetary scale, I think.

It's not meant for cases when complete occupation and mass deaths aren't a thread.

Re: [Spaceships] Pod-Layer Battlewagon
 

Fair enough and under those conditions I definitely agree to its potential as a deterrent though your earlier remarks below seemed to instead indicate it as more of a general strategic principle rather than as an act reserved for last stand scenarios.

Re: [Spaceships] Pod-Layer Battlewagon
 

Last stand is relative. But sincirely speaking, I did forget what I wanted in the first place. I'm mostly regurgiating stuff read on Atomicrocket.

Re: [Spaceships] Pod-Layer Battlewagon
 

Rules prod: Hangars can't go in the core hull. Your PD drone hangar needs to be relocated.

I'm a bit doubtful of the pod concept with this technical base.

The Honor can roll 10 or 11 pods in a 20 second round. That's a lot of missiles (561 in space per round). But a single Brackin boasts 600 PD mounts, with the drones out. That's probably not going to stop the volley alone (if using conventional proximity warheads), but it's respectable, and a pair of the destroyers actually have a good chance of coming through unscathed.

They can't actually win the exchange, since their weapon system has trouble penetrating the podlayer's skin and the second clutch of pods will overwhelm them if they don't break away from the first batch, but they get a shot at it.

At the same time, an Honor-sized battleship with two layers of armor would be quite resistant to 16cm missiles, which average 168 damage. A heavy 3-layer battleship would actually be able to ignore the missiles with impunity, unless they carried nuclear warheads (which are much harder to get through point defense).

Re: [Spaceships] Pod-Layer Battlewagon
 

The battle role of the pod-layer is not to fire once a round, it is to lay ALL their pods behind a defensive screen, then the screen clears and ALL the pods shoot. For the Honor-class pod-layer at the beginning of the thread, that's a total salvo of 127,500 missiles not including the replacement pods. That is guaranteed to put a hurt on whomever they're fired at, no matter how dense their point defense. Then regular battlewagons can engage while the pod-layer lays down it's smaller number of replacement pods for a second salvo (still numbering in the many thousands of missiles).

The inspiration of this, the ships of the Honorverse, utilize x-ray laser warheads (the nuke warhead detonates, energizing single-shot x-ray lasers which spray out in all directions). That would hurt armor, as would nuke warheads that got real close. Or just bunches of kinetic-kill missiles hitting the same ship over and over and over until something gave.

To paraphrase Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, "I get there fustest with the mostest." Concentrated firepower is the name of that game.