Jump Point Defense

History has more than a few examples of a nation's military being pared down significantly the moment peace breaks out (or is percieved to have broken out), often much to the misfortune of that nation, later (see WW2 and Korea, for just 2 examples).

As for the fleet, even with reversing the tide of the war, by that time there was still only a relative few fleet carriers, with a large part of the carrier offensives at that time using escort carriers (many of which were sold off to the Landreich) for "behind the lines" attacks to hit the Kilrathi logistical "tail". It wouldn't have taken a lot of decommissionings to gut the TCN carrier force.
 
Porthos said:
Again, from the Jump FAQ, iirc, buoys were not merely markers. That info was already in the Nav computer. They also served as relays, sending information through the line. Thus, shielding one would be important in some instances.

I thought that the buoys where an image on your hud, I recall reading that somewhere. I think it was the explanation as to why you can not destroy them.
 
Jump buoys were used by both sides to mark known jump points, monitor jump point traffic and in some cases were used as communication relays. In WC3 you can destroy jump buoys, try it in the simulator. I'm not 100% sure about later games off the top of my head.
 
Good points Haesslich. I disagree two of them. There was no need for concern of the Kilrathi fleet bypassing Tolywyn and going right for Earth. That would be too far out of character for Thrakath. I also think a minefield capable of delaying, but not damaging, the Kilrathi fleet would have still been a good tactic as, up til Sol, they were essentially fighting a delaying action. I can understant this not being feasible though for time and/or resource contraints.

I can rationalize reasons for not defending the jump point at all, it just seems weird that the idea isn't even mentioned when it is one of the few possibilities to gain a tactical advantage. Even if you aren't going to do it, you think you might still toss the idea around a bit, unless it was an obviously bad idea. The lack of the Lexington would have been discouraging and its possible, although we haven't seen such a limited vessel in WC that I can recall, that some or many of the civilian craft wouldn't have been capable of making it to the jump point.
 
Wolf Dog said:
Good points Haesslich. I disagree two of them. There was no need for concern of the Kilrathi fleet bypassing Tolywyn and going right for Earth. That would be too far out of character for Thrakath. I also think a minefield capable of delaying, but not damaging, the Kilrathi fleet would have still been a good tactic as, up til Sol, they were essentially fighting a delaying action. I can understant this not being feasible though for time and/or resource contraints.

I can rationalize reasons for not defending the jump point at all, it just seems weird that the idea isn't even mentioned when it is one of the few possibilities to gain a tactical advantage. Even if you aren't going to do it, you think you might still toss the idea around a bit, unless it was an obviously bad idea. The lack of the Lexington would have been discouraging and its possible, although we haven't seen such a limited vessel in WC that I can recall, that some or many of the civilian craft wouldn't have been capable of making it to the jump point.

You've forgotten something - Thrakath hating Tolwyn was something personal, and even when Tolwyn retreated to Earth, Thrakath STILL took the time to nuke the human colony in the system he was in before going after Tolwyn. Which would mean that he could just send the cruisers after Earth while his Hakagas went off and killed the human fleet at the jump point. This is the main reason they fell back on Earth, IIRC - they couldn't mount an effective defense of the area given the forces they had, so interdicted the area between Earth and the nearest jump point to Earth. Mine fields have been used in other games and in the novels... but I doubt they had time for that here, or the ships to do it with.

Basically, at this point, they had maybe a day or three to get the final defense organized, and no more than a week from when the fleet was mobilized to jump out to Warsaw to meet the Kilrathi till when the Kilrathi hit Earth orbit and launched their antimatter strike. Minefields are used in the games and the novels... but I don't believe they had time here to do that, given that all their efforts were put into mobilizing the carriers available to them, and stuffing every ship they could with pilots. Even the civvie pilots were mobilized to fill their own craft... and paid the price for it.

Static defenses aren't really useful in the context of jump-point defense; either they deny the area to everyone, such as the case of putting a whole LOT of asteroids in an area and are also prohibitively expensive to move a few million rocks into that region so a ship couldn't help but materialize in one, or else they can be fairly easily bypassed or defused (such as minefields). They may not even slow an enemy fleet down all that much, especially since the Hakagas and I suspect the larger Kilrathi dreadnoughts could shrug off even antimatter torpedo strikes. WC seems to take the view that they can be used to slow down an enemy slightly, but that warning systems are the best defense.
 
Haesslich said:
...such as the case of putting a whole LOT of asteroids in an area and are also prohibitively expensive to move a few million rocks into that region so a ship couldn't help but materialize in one...
That sounds like it would've been an excellent strategy for Sol System to adopt for the losing scenarios of WC3. If cost is the only deterrant- how much is the survival of humanity worth? Still the logistics may have been a real deterrant to this since I doubt the jump point is anywhere near the asteroid belt, and it would take probably too much time to shuttle the asteroids into the vicinity.
 
Mjr. Whoopass said:
That sounds like it would've been an excellent strategy for Sol System to adopt for the losing scenarios of WC3. If cost is the only deterrant- how much is the survival of humanity worth? Still the logistics may have been a real deterrant to this since I doubt the jump point is anywhere near the asteroid belt, and it would take probably too much time to shuttle the asteroids into the vicinity.

They'd have had to cover several jump points - Scylla, the one by Jupiter, and the one which Tarawa used to enter the system during the end of Fleet Action are three I can name off the top of my head. Do they HAVE enough debris to cover all these points with, or the time or energy to spend on moving the asteroids there with? Or would they be better off trying ot evacuate as m any people as they co uld, or putting it towards a last-ditch defense? It's not like the Kilrathi would've been stopped by that.. and it'd have made it pretty near impossible for Confed s hips to escape as well.

.
 
There is another issue: space minefields are probably easy to destroy. A few mace-like missiles would probably set a chain reaction... It's different from land and sea mines.
 
Are mines that easy to destroy? I remember a line from Fleet Action: "that was a trick we tried too often -- hide a drone in a minefield and hope they'd simply avoid the minefield." Instead of destroying them they used minesweepers, even though a Kilrathi class is never mentioned, and the Terran Clydesdale is the last of its kind that we ever hear about, but I'm sure they existed.
 
Edfilho said:
There is another issue: space minefields are probably easy to destroy. A few mace-like missiles would probably set a chain reaction... It's different from land and sea mines.


Yeah, I'm not sure how the logistics of it work. They have thrusters so maybe they do station keeping to avoid being blown out of the desired area. But if the minefield is dense and stuff starts to be blown apart and debris is flying in all directions, you have to wonder how long it will stay intact.
 
Back
Top