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Ad Astra ex Lutum

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Well, this is what the edit to the update has to say abut alien arrival trajectory and possible impactor bombardment.
Blackstar said:
The bad news is that as the aliens have crossed the theoretical burnback point of their brachistocrome they have so far failed to engage their drives indicating either a faster arrival time or any number of worse factors. Current thinking is that the Alien Enemy is aiming to accelerate their arrival to the planet after seeing initial mobilization programs, but even that would imply a deeper understanding of local matters then expected. Operations in the belt are of the principle concern as if a frigate stays in position there is no telling the number of asteroids that can be re-directed onto planetary commands. The only thing left to do now is to wait and continue to harden the economy but even that is unlikely to make gains in time to endure large-scale bombardment. Mining ships have re-consolidated at the stations, combining their forces and giving them some theoretical staying power if another boarding is attempted.
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Simon_Jester said:
having never gotten a close look at our planet before within relevant historical time
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I am not sure how relevant that is if they want to just hit the population centers. You don't exactly need to spend a lot of time to point out the largest concentration of lights on the planet, even without considering SIGINT.
Simon_Jester said:
Though I'm mainly voting for Ardens Hastae because of the nuke spam.
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I will note that the first additional nukes will only come in two months, after the landing if they aiming to arrive on the first pass. We do have the nuclear stockpile already on hand and the existent nuclear production sites, though.
 
Also if be hesitant about calling the war fortification projects useless because the civilian emotion support bunker program was trash talked by Ricky, personal biases aside it's a different level of fortification and I doubt he's let it into the docket if he didn't think it would do anything.
 
If anything, it's noted that even the barebones "Final Defense Bunkers" were of some use.
Blackstar said:
Final Defense Bunkers: A bunker network is of questionable value given the degree of ordinance that would be used for a full-scale landing but several political figures and younger officers have advocated for it. These would largely be facilities with dug-in command infrastructure to provide robust centers of organization in case of a moderate scale or restrained invasion. The program itself is unfortunately popular for reasons beyond simple logic and avoiding funding is a fast route towards political issues. (50B Or Costs) (Political Support Gain) (86)

Mass construction of bunkers has been conducted in several urban fortification zones, effectively providing the space for a few thousand to preemptively bury themselves under whatever ruins are left. The facilities facing the public are planned to integrate small pod-based living quarters, the capacity for organizing resistance forces, and a few small additions of supplies to provide support in the case of the theoretical survival of the maximum capacity for three months. Government and military-centric facilities are set to be dug in far deeper with an assumed redundancy and capacity for maintaining low communications regimes for at least a year. Resistance organization is going to be the key aspect of any facility that is organized as in the current state the ground forces might optimistically be able to resist an enemy division.
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Given the whole "assumed redundancy and capacity for maintaining low communications regimes for at least a year."

Also, this is from an Elven POV, and I believe the Elves have a much more unhinged view on what "the degree of ordinance that would be used for a full-scale landing" is supposed to be than basically uh...anyone else.

And the main Fortification projects we have now are far more extensive.
 
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The idea that the fortifications have no effect does not hold water; we've literally seen how infantry in close combat can kill enemy infantry- fortifications, and fortifications are how we force more of those engagements. Ricky being pessimistic about the doom bunkers are based on elf theories of war, which involve extremely heavy fires that theres no indication the enemy has. Pulse lasers arent going to do anything against fortifications, theres a limited amount of K-Slugs the alien enemy has available and if they use them on fortifications theyre not using them on industrial targets. If they start chucking space rocks they'll have to spend a lot of time driving around in system to grab asteroids and so on.

In addition, Ardens Hastae is inherently flawed imo, and seems more based on vibes then a sound plan. Why are we doing the nuke pile now? It has a 2 month lead time before it gives us any nuclear warheads, giving us what, 2k a month after that? Not a small amount, but currently we have many tens of thousands. Its a way to refresh our stockpile in the long term, it wont do shit for the first landings.
 
The nukes being produced will not be available until two months later, well past when the aliens will make landfall. The new facilities are for continuing to be able to sling nukes in the long term, though that does raise the question of what our current nuclear status is.

@Blackstar How many nukes do we have currently stockpiled and how many do we currently produce?
 
Fireiy said:
The nukes being produced will not be available until two months later, well past when the aliens will make landfall. The new facilities are for continuing to be able to sling nukes in the long term, though that does raise the question of what our current nuclear status is.

@Blackstar How many nukes do we have currently stockpiled and how many do we currently produce?
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Above 100k but the ability to deliver them is far more limited, as most of them are built into unguided MLRS munitions and other various artillery devices discounting the ones you have as orbital mines and surface-to-orbit missile systems. If you ramp production most of it is going to go towards artillery shells and lower-ish velocity rockets as you don't have adequate surface-to-surface hypersonics to confidently sneak them through.
 
WestOrEast said:
I'm considering the possibility that they're planning a drive-by shooting. Making a hell of a mess out of the orbitals while moving as fast as they can to avoid getting shot at in return, while their sensors are drinking up as much data from the planet as possible. Then they'll turn around and come in slowly to get the actual invasion started.
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Distinctly possible.

Josiah said:
Interplanetary, rather.
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Yes, yes, that's a typo on my part.

agumentic said:
Well, this is what the edit to the update has to say abut alien arrival trajectory and possible impactor bombardment.

I am not sure how relevant that is if they want to just hit the population centers. You don't exactly need to spend a lot of time to point out the largest concentration of lights on the planet, even without considering SIGINT.
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Up to a point, I guess. A lot depends on how far out you launch from, how well you can see, and so on.

But "target the big glowy areas" means you're also wrecking the target population's capacity to be productive as servants if you ever intended to conquer them in the first place, and it means you still need to throw a lot of megatonnage to be reasonably sure of getting everything.

I will note that the first additional nukes will only come in two months, after the landing if they aiming to arrive on the first pass.
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Well, yes. That's still part of nuke spam. And the aliens having to constantly worry that they haven't gotten our last fissile production pile and that at any time we might sneak a suicide submarine up alongside one of their occupied islands and light off a two hundred megaton bomb just off the coast... that is part of what I want.

Blackstar said:
Above 100k but the ability to deliver them is far more limited, as most of them are built into unguided MLRS munitions and other various artillery devices discounting the ones you have as orbital mines and surface-to-orbit missile systems. If you ramp production most of it is going to go towards artillery shells and lower-ish velocity rockets as you don't have adequate surface-to-surface hypersonics to confidently sneak them through.
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Hmmmm. That's not necessarily a bad thing...
 
[X]Plan War of the Biter

I feel like Plan Ardens Hastae is doing this weird thing, where the options taken do not synergize together. It is going with war plan orange, without doing any preparations for high intensity fighting (especially not even ramping up ammunition factories feels really bad) instead it takes good long term options, which will be completely wasted in the crucial days of fighting over the landing sites.
 
Adronio said:
The idea that the fortifications have no effect does not hold water; we've literally seen how infantry in close combat can kill enemy infantry- fortifications, and fortifications are how we force more of those engagements. Ricky being pessimistic about the doom bunkers are based on elf theories of war, which involve extremely heavy fires that theres no indication the enemy has. Pulse lasers arent going to do anything against fortifications, theres a limited amount of K-Slugs the alien enemy has available and if they use them on fortifications theyre not using them on industrial targets. If they start chucking space rocks they'll have to spend a lot of time driving around in system to grab asteroids and so on.

In addition, Ardens Hastae is inherently flawed imo, and seems more based on vibes then a sound plan. Why are we doing the nuke pile now? It has a 2 month lead time before it gives us any nuclear warheads, giving us what, 2k a month after that? Not a small amount, but currently we have many tens of thousands. Its a way to refresh our stockpile in the long term, it wont do shit for the first landings.
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Ricky's pessimism about bunkers may be poorly considered, but the conclusion is still correct. They're the ideal target for orbital bombardment assuming the enemy does not intend a campaign of straight extermination, and once localized they're just a death trap. It doesn't take any high technology to forge and drop tungsten rods.

Nuke production will not be an option later. They'd have to be incompetent not to strike our facilities and end this capacity - unlike with other matters, completely removing this capacity from us is well within their abilities thanks to the relatively few number of targets. We must make nukes now.

Attacking the landing sites with anything less than nuclear artillery shells is futility, and in the extension of the war, having nukes available to our forces en mass will make occupation of the planet impossible. Our options are limited to this extent if the landing occurs immediately - if not, great, but if so, it must be this or nothing.
 
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MSH said:
Ricky's pessimism about bunkers may be poorly considered, but the conclusion is still correct. They're the ideal target for orbital bombardment assuming the enemy does not intend a campaign of straight extermination, and once localized they're just a death trap. It doesn't take any high technology to forge and drop tungsten rods.

Nuke production will not be an option later. They'd have to be incompetent not to strike our facilities and end this capacity - unlike with other matters, completely removing this capacity from us is well within their abilities thanks to the relatively few number of targets. We must make nukes now.

Attacking the landing sites with anything less than nuclear artillery shells is futility, and in the extension of the war, having nukes available to our forces en mass will make occupation of the planet impossible.
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But we already have quite the stockpile of nuclear warhead, more than sufficient for the fighting over the landing sites. And while they may possibly eliminate our nuke producing capacity, this is not something we cannot rebuild. At this point, nukes are not too complex technology.
 
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MSH said:
It doesn't take any high technology to forge and drop tungsten rods.
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It still takes effort for manufactoring them and delivering them to orbit. And a bit more effort if they have to be accelerated before launcing them.
The invasion fleet does not seem to have factory ships, so they probably would have to manufactore them at the surface of the moon (best scenario for them), or at the surface of Danaan. How wide would be their tungsten-to-rod-to-orbit-to-target pipeline, and how much damage each would make?


Blackstar said:
Not really, you have some proposals for nuclear-tipped R37-ski's and similar systems but they are not expected to be used at a significant scale until the airforce is remotely ready to be committed to operations.
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Yeah, I thought more in the vein of nuclear s-24/s-25
well, no means no
 
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Oh man, this is going to come down to dragging the aliens into a proverbial knife fight in a phone booth, isn't it?
aaaaaaaaaaaa

Blackstar said:
The formal engagement took seconds with alien turrets confirming their design as pulse lasers by shooting through the power core and gutting out the crew and reactor radiator systems bringing the vessel to a slowly cooking low-power state. All data onboard was deleted in a continuation of prepared protocols with EM jamming removing any further communication with the vessel as it drifted. Tight Beam communication from her rangefinding lasers was available until the final boarding action indicating the use of alien laser weaponry and that the 15mm round was able to destroy primary armored plates. Power and communications cut out at around this point with a strong radiological spike, indicating that the captain forced the CASP reactor into an unsafe condition and flooded the boat with radiation, ensuring that SAS Biter was just as much of a tomb for the invader.

Sixty-seven soldiers have been rewarded with the highest reward available to auxiliary forces, for their valor in resisting the invader and ensuring that it would have nothing but ash. Capitan Keevan has been given a medal for valorous service in the line of duty posthumously for his quick thinking, reporting of critical intelligence, and destruction of at least twenty soldiers of the invader.
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WITTNESSED
Those poor bastards went above and beyond, I hope we can get the rest of the mining crews back to the planet.

Blackstar said:
Ambitious mobilization plans started as soon as the alien fleet entered the system with further applications from them effective immediately. The mass distribution of basic designs and micron-level print heads has led to the predicted effect of each micron-level printhead being able to replicate another micron printing head. Full modernization of current print capacity will take at least two months to crowd out easy gains but a veritable tide of metal will be available. Smaller printers less capable of larger works with single heads have been tasked with making more micron-level printing heads, giving much of the economic capacity a degree of self-replication.
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Assuming we get this as well as our important industry stuff decentralised enough, we can make Vietnam look like a leisurly stroll through the forest.

Blackstar said:
Hopes to get the Type 44 into every small workshop have gone far slower than expected as the recoil damping mechanism is complicated and the barrels that can be printed are far less reliable than expected. Fully printed versions require a full replacement of the barrel after one hundred and fifty shots with an overall far faster degradation of precision. The internal computer responsible for the AR integration has received a software update to count the number of shots between barrel installations with engineers currently working on an updated more durable version. Conventionally manufactured versions do not have the same limitations but there is little that can be done to entirely fix the problem before the invasion starts.
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Unfortunate, but if we distribute printing capacity enough, this should give even the worst equipped squad/platoon of soldiers something to crack alien power armour.

Blackstar said:
UNISA has if anything over-delivered as their original expectation seemed to be conservative despite the vast promise. The prioritization of engineers and materials has allowed UNISA to directly shift into quadruple-shift production in all six of their factories with production rapidly scaling. Several shortcuts have already been integrated into the process with most of the engine block printed along with most of the mechanical internal systems. Computing power onboard the wartime rationalization variants have been unified with wires spanning the vehicle, technically reducing redundancy but improving production capacity. The new Type 45 Tank is decidedly mediocre but for something that has been thrown together in a month; minor instability when firing to the side is an entirely acceptable tradeoff to having large caliber firepower.
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OUR GLORIOUS HORDES OF STEEL WILL BURY THE ENEMY LANDING ZONES UNDER PATRIOTISM AND HIGH-VELOCITY EXPLOSIVES



I wonder if in the future (assuming we survive this invasion), we will invest into something similar to the Trashcans of Death.
A cheap, road-mobile counter to kinetic impactors like the Temülen seems like it could be very useful.
Same for the Sunspear orbit denial missile, especially since both of these could likely be largely printed, except the nuclear warhead and rocket fuel.
Even funnier is the proposal for nuclear-tipped MANPADS for use against landing craft and kinetic impactors.

I have no idea how viable any of this is in-universe, but it would be very in character, I feel.
 
[X]Plan War of the Biter
-[X]Plan Orange
-[X]Form Auxiliary Troops
-[X]Surge of Electronics Production (-10)
-[X]Munitions Plants (-15)
-[X]Artillery System Development (-30)
-[X]Build Fortified Works in the Mouran Sector (-30)
-[X]Build Fortified Works in the Eastern Sector (-20)
-[X]Partial Retreat From the Orbitals (-10)
-[X]Anti-Orbital Gun Upgrades(1/2) (-35)
 
Vote Called for
[X]Plan War of the Biter
-[X]Plan Orange
-[X]Form Auxiliary Troops
-[X]Surge of Electronics Production (-10)
-[X]Munitions Plants (-15)
-[X]Artillery System Development (-30)
-[X]Build Fortified Works in the Mouran Sector (-30)
-[X]Build Fortified Works in the Eastern Sector (-20)
-[X]Partial Retreat From the Orbitals (-10)
-[X]Anti-Orbital Gun Upgrades(1/2) (-35)

Rolling since there is a solid lead.
Blackstar threw 2 100-faced dice. Reason: Military Plan Rolls -5 Total: 90
27 27 63 63
Blackstar threw 7 100-faced dice. Reason: Economic/Politics +10 Total: 466
29 29 98 98 75 75 97 97 16 16 83 83 68 68
 
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Rolls per items
Plan Orange 27
Form Auxiliary Troops 63
Surge of Electronics Production 29
Munitions Plants 98
Artillery System Development 75
Build Fortified Works in the Mouran Sector 97
Build Fortified Works in the Eastern Sector 16
Partial Retreat From the Orbitals 83
Anti-Orbital Gun Upgrades(1/2) 68
 
Modified Rolls
Plan Orange 22
Form Auxiliary Troops 58
Surge of Electronics Production 39
Munitions Plants 108
Artillery System Development 85
Build Fortified Works in the Mouran Sector 107
Build Fortified Works in the Eastern Sector 26
Partial Retreat From the Orbitals 93
Anti-Orbital Gun Upgrades(1/2) 78
 
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