OBT Forum

95% is a hefty total for a standard K-F Core. Doesn't leave much leftover for boom boom.

A WarShip is a big, ugly target in a big, black void.  Hitting it with a nuke eliminates it easily, costs considerably less than operating your own WarShip or throwing a fleet of DropShips at it, and doesn't harm the natural beauty of the world you're attempting to conquer.  It's a no brainer.

That's why nukes rock. They're the RPGs of AeroTech in the BattleTech universe. So what if you have a multi-million ton leviathan? I have a couple of Davy Crocketts that say that expensive, irreplaceable ship is little more than a radioactive satellite waiting to happen.

What I'm more curious about, is for the folks who are more agreeable to the "CGL killed my battleships and it's dumb!" crowd...how much did your play, prior to their reduction, involve WarShips? Has that number actually increased or decreased since (especially considering the greater product support for WarShips than at any point in BT's production history)? Why? And does the change of fleet styles (with the fewer WarShips taking on the role that SLDF battlecruisers once held) mean you will have less fleet action in your play or more?

This is a good question. From what I understand, aerospace-oriented products have not sold as well in comparison to BattleMech-oriented products. The same can be said for niche faction-specific publications. Even with the glut of new minis and era books that feature aerospace units heavily, I'm not sure it's making much of a difference. Ask IWM. I wonder how many WarShip Squadrons they've sold lately, or its percentage of total sales?

I think one of the reasons why some people get so emotionally hung up on WarShips is that (generally speaking) before the Jihad BattleMech regiments were far more likely to survive conflict intact. Sure you could whittle a regiment down a battalion or two, but as long as enough of the command remained intact it would (quickly) rebuild and survive to fight another day.

So the survivability of a BattleMech regiment is pretty high, and therefore it's overall longevity. A WarShip isn't so fortunate. WarShip clashes tend to have a low survivability rating simply because you can't destroy 25-50% of a WarShip and expect it to rebound quickly, or at all.

The same attachment we invest in a BattleMech Regiment is also invested into individual WarShips, but it sits more precariously perched between "Oh I want my ship to fight," and "Oh I hope it doesn't get destroyed" because of the lower survivability.

Scarcity makes the emotional investment even riskier.

       

Big question is how do you do just tactical nuclear warfare. Main problem here was that generally use it or lose it leads to escalation and full blown strike as soon as possible. The only way where you can do tactical nuclear strikes that is a situation where one side is extremely strong and other side is very weak and strong has no wish to flatten out weaker side. This should make those local nuclear wars more of a realm of planetary uprisings and like... lots of possibilities there.

Are you asking about using tac nukes in a campaign game setting (using game play rules), or just asking how to use them?

Long time ago I lost about 25 to 50% of assets per ASF/aero battle when I was young and stupid. On after action analysis this is mostly due difficulty to break out and disengage before damage turns deadly. WarShip vulnerability was obvious even in days of old AeroTech when I married it to TRO:2750 (was it written without playtesting?) The Aero rules have been broken all the time (as I stated before in this thread). It has nothing to do with "emotional attachment", merely the fact that rules do not work like advertised in my old house books (and Star League book) that made WarShips come across as leviathans (which they proved not to be). When rules do not match setting, it is time to rewrite one thing or another. There is nothing bad in doing that as long as you are upfront and honest about it.

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However, on bigger picture it is good to remember that casualties depend entirely how you play (and rules you use, I use extensively different kinds of "reality rules" to make it more like a modern warfare).

For example in my games the ASFs break and run whenever they might face enemy fighting with even chance. The counterexamples to this are far and between. You could say that their motto is: "We only go to massacres where we are serving the death cards." Getting a single hit from enemy weapon is excellent reason to break and run away. I have to say that I have never seen a dropship being destroyed in my current campaign. In the end it is all about keeping assets intact and avoiding own side casualties.

When I did some statistics of my battletech campaigns I can safely say that you have roughly 1% chance of getting killed (you lose your Mech/ASF) per mission-day in front line (or a sortie).

Is it realistic? Well, in real life you can expect to lose about 1 to 10% of your naval vessels per day in a sea battle with vast majority of assets having about 1-3% chance of getting killed (that 10% belongs to minesweepers). Tanks have a monthly loss rate of about 10%. Notice that tank systems are nominally "killed" and can be restored back into action whenever there is time.

I also went through some of my current RPG campaign statistics. In a recent major Mech battle between battalion on both sides there loser lost 1 mech as destroyed and left behind and had one almost destroyed. Loser also had about 10 Mechs so badly damaged that they were deemed out of action for rest of the fight. Winner lost about 20 mechs so badly damaged they could not be used for rest of the fight. This shows that you do not necessarily "lose" mechs nearly as much as you end up with mission kills that force your unit to sit back and fix damage for a week or two. Interestingly most of the badly damaged mechs came due single company versus platoon fight so without them perhaps 1/3 of the forced would have been engaged and somehow involved in a fight (most of the forces are always out of fight due one reason or another).

The Aero rules have been broken all the time (as I stated before in this thread).

However, on bigger picture it is good to remember that casualties depend entirely how you play (and rules you use, I use extensively different kinds of "reality rules" to make it more like a modern warfare).

For example in my games the ASFs break and run whenever they might face enemy fighting with even chance. The counterexamples to this are far and between. You could say that their motto is: "We only go to massacres where we are serving the death cards." Getting a single hit from enemy weapon is excellent reason to break and run away. I have to say that I have never seen a dropship being destroyed in my current campaign. In the end it is all about keeping assets intact and avoiding own side casualties.

On the rules aspect, I think we'll probably just disagree. I find space-based (and even high altitude) naval combat to model things quite nicely. Admittedly, aerospace on ground maps has some issues. Honestly though, I don't know that I've ever found a game system that models such a diverse force mix very well. The speeds at which aerial units interact with ground units (on ground maps) is going to be a major issue with many systems. It's not great, but I think it works decently. (My own experiences here are more limited, so I don't necessarily have suggestions on what to fix.)

As for the style of play you use on your own home table, that's very different from canon naval warfare in BT. It's even very different from most ground warfare in BT. Fighting to the first wound wasn't something that commonplace except for perhaps some of the smaller conflicts of the 3rd Succession War. That's not a great majority of canon material supporting that style. My own extensive ground campaigns have very different casualty numbers from yours. That's not to imply anything wrong with your own style, simply that I haven't found mine to match it.

On a side note, I admit a little curiosity in how you portray your 3rd SW campaigns. WarShips and nukes involved? Interesting changes there.

The standard core takes up 95% of a vessel's mass, so their warload would be limited compared to canon warships. But this is part of the idea, to take the 'battlerider' concept to its logical conclusion (see MadCapellan's post). Even so, you could mount 4 SCL/1s, 4 AR10 launchers and 2,400t of ammo (say, 20 each of Killer Whale, White Shark, and Barracuda missiles) on a standard StarLord jumpship and still have two dropcollars left. Which could carry a paIr of hvy NPPC equipped droppers.

Wouldn't JumpShips have issues with maneuvering though? WarShips have the separate in-system movement drives, which is something JumpShips lack. Or are you talking about building something on WarShips scale/size, just simply no compact cores?

On the second point, yes, if you want WarShips (or non-ASF in general) to be quite a bit more balanced, StratOps rules really save the day there. Though capital fighter squadrons are still very scary.

Yeah, I just meant that they aren't mobile in a combat sense. I'm not sure what the value would be though, if they aren't mobile in normal naval combat.

Yeah, I just meant that they aren't mobile in a combat sense. I'm not sure what the value would be though, if they aren't mobile in normal naval combat.

In part, it's that- the jumpship's low mobility shifts attention to the combat dropships. It's also partly that even jumpships should be able to defend themselves; the canon rules allow jumpships to mount Capital/SubCapital/conventional weaponry, but no canon examples take advantage of it. Some applications speak for themselves: what were the pirate vessels that took out the Cameron class SLS St.Joan? What would private security contractors during the Star League have used? I find it unlikely that the SLDF would allow true warships in private hands.

Big question is how do you do just tactical nuclear warfare. Main problem here was that generally use it or lose it leads to escalation and full blown strike as soon as possible.

Battletech-wise, I have never found this to be the case from campaign experiences.  Let's say you have two BattleMech regiments going at it, and both have Arrow IV based nuclear weapon systems.  Both are deployed across the surface of an entire globe.  Neither side wants to destroy the valuable strategic targets (factories, mines, etc) that they are fighting to control.  This means the only time the use of nuclear weapons will be effective is if one side catches the other massing outside of an area of strategic value, within range of their artillery.  Deploying a nuclear warhead against anything less than a company sized 'Mech formation is going to be a waste, and they're going to have to be within the range of your artillery, which is generally a major mistake to begin with.

Aerospace Fighter deployed Alamos are significantly more dangerous, but it is unlikely that an Aerospace Fighter could be scrambled rapidly for a nuclear strike on massing BattleMechs on the field, and even less likely that the BattleMechs would not be made aware of the fighter(s) and disperse before they could arrive on target. 

Ironically, significant access to tactical nuclear weapons goes a long way to explaining small military sizes in Battletech.  A significantly larger force simply attracts nuclear attack.  A smaller force can avoid massing and rapidly strike at the enemy's nuclear delivery systems.