ID : 9004-001 TITLE : An Introduction to Starship Tactics AUTHOR : Seven Swords Unified Command AUTHOR2: Phred Nyugen, Commander of Raptor, White Sword C DATE : 087/2300 M DATE : 132/2348 M AUTH : John Smith, 7W Fleet Command CLASS. : Unclassified
This document is an attempt to collect the basic theories of starship tactics in a single place. It is not meant to be exhaustive, or even authoritative. It is meant as an introduction for those in training to become starship commanders. The original version of this document was written by Phred Nguyen, commander of the 7WS Raptor, which is known to history as the most successful Seven Worlds warship of all time. Nyugen's tactics were considered unorthodox in his day, but they were (and still are) frighteningly effective. In his later years, Nyugen wrote extensively on the theory of war, and his introduction to starship tactics was used to great effect by a new generation of commanders. In 2348, the document was updated to reflect some new developments in tactics, and especially to address some of the emerging weapon technologies.
The fundamental tactic of all combat is to move to give yourself the advantage. This is of the utmost importance in starship combat. The weapons of a starship are useless if the ship itself is in the wrong position, facing, or attitude. Because of this, every commander must first master the difficult skill of manuvering a starship in combat.
Combat maneuvering is completely different in nature from the slow, contemplated, flight of merchant traffic and peacetime. Peacetime maneuvers are characterized by simple flight paths, deliberated decisions, and dull watches. Combat maneuvering is characterized by chaotic flight, instant judgments, and constant tension. There are no rules about what maneuvers may or may not be done; only the phyiscal limits of the vessel in question.
The mechanics of piloting a starship will not be covered here, as that is more approriately taught by doing. Here, we will be concerned only with the theory of knowing where you wish to be, not with the mechanics of getting there. It is surprising how many excellent pilots exist who can take a ship nearly anywhere, but have no idea of where they should be. This is why a starship has a commander and a pilot; the commander decides where the ship should be, and lets the pilot actually get the ship there.
The most desireable positions in a battle are, of course, whereever you can harm the enemy while not being harmed in return. These locations are set by several factors, but none more so than the effects of drive fields.
Drive fields, and their effects on desired positions
The theories expounded here only apply to ships with Shield drives. Those that are driven by the older reaction-mass engines have none of the benefits or liabilites of a Shield drive, and maneuvering is trivial.
The drive field of a Shield drive is impenetrable to harm, making it of the utmost importance in combat maneuvering. Ideally, a ship should always have its drive field pointed at the enemy, protecting the hull from damage. However, as the ship can only accelerate in a line with the drive field, this may not be achievable in practice. Instead, it is more feasible to maneuver as necessary, and then to turn the ship just before enemy fire arrives, protecting the ship while maintaining flexibility.
When an enemy has a Shield drive as well, the majority of maneuvering is spent in the pursuit of a position where your weapons can shoot without hitting the enemy's drive field. This means that you must be to the side or behind an enemy when the weapons fire arrives. Missiles, with their programmable flight paths, make this problem much easier. Direct fire projectile weapons are the most difficult to use; they travel so slowly that the target will have significantly moved by the time the shot arrives, and may even have a chance to turn its drive field to protect the hull.
The easiest way to insure a successful hit against an enemy is to attack from all directions at once; a drive field protects only from one side, and the ship cannot turn to face all attacks at once. Achieving this simultaneous attack is difficult with only one ship, but it can be done with delayed fire and suitable flight paths.
Acceleration
Acceleration is the ability to change a ship's speed as desired. The maximum acceleration is a fundamental parameter that determines combat maneuverability; a ship with high acceleration can radically alter it's speed, allowing it to avoid long-range attack while placing itself in an advantageous position. For this reason, starships are designed for the highest maximum accelerations possible.
A Shield drive equipped starship can only accelerate in 2 directions: straight ahead and straight back. Virtually all starships have lower acceleration backwards, due to the construction of the Shield drive itself. Light ships (scouts, patrol craft, etc.) are sometimes equipped to offer equal acceleration forwards and backwards. This can be a decisive advantage in combat.
Because of this limit on acceleration directions, starship maneuvering is much like that used for ancient naval vessels, although now in a full 3 dimensions. It should be noted that a Shield drive turns a craft by differential accelerations across the span of the ship. This turns the ship, but does not allow for true sideways acceleration. Hence, the Shield drive acts like the propellers and rudders of a naval ship, but with an additional dimension of movement.
Although the accelerations of a Shield drive are immense (sometimes exceeding 1000 g's), the vastness of space can accomodate this. Moreover, combat must take place at relatively slow speeds due to the limits of tracking and targeting systems. This means that a ship must spend much of its time accelerating and decelerating to confuse enemy tracking, and yet still maintain relatively low speeds. Moreover, accelerations are typically confined to less than 72 g's to allow weapons a reasonable degree of accuracy.
Because most ships cannot decelerate as fast as they can accelerate, combat often becomes a series of passes, with ships accelerating towards the enemy, exchanging fire, and then turning around to do it again. For two lone ships, these passes can look like a medieval joust; for squadron and fleet engagements, the passes are highly non-linear, and may actually take a ship past many enemy before needing to turn around. The overall effect is more similar to an aerial dogfight. In any case, a ship must constantly switch between acceleration and deceleration during a pass; good crews can often make an entire battle into a single "pass" of shifting directions and speeds.
Here, we begin with a brief overview of simple targeting concepts. Next is an introduction to the two types of starship weapons. We conclude with a look at the preferred locations to attack a target.
Firing While Accelerating
It is rarely the case that a starship has the luxury of firing while coasting. Any ship which coasts for even a short time in combat takes a terrible risk; a coasting vessel has a predictable flight path, making it easy to hit with missiles and cannon. Vessels that coast for more than a few seconds tend to die in a brief barrage of cannon and missile fire. For this reason, it is necessary to practice firing while under the accelerations common to combat.
As mentioned before, ships wishing to hit a target must keep their accelerations below about 100 g's. The reason for this is simple; as the acceleration increases, uncertainties in the exact value grow. These uncertainties affect the actual target of weapon fire. At low accelerations and short ranges, these effects are small - smaller than the size of a target vessel. As the acceleration increases, the effects grow, until a weapon targeted at the center of an enemy vessel has almost no chance of hitting it. This happens around 70-100 g's, depending on the local gravity conditions, targeting and aiming systems, and calibration of the accelerometers.
A correctly maintained modern starship can reliably (>%50 hit probability) hit a starship-sized target at normal maximum engagement ranges at accelerations of 72 g's or less. Exceptional ships can push this to 80 g's. Hit probability drops to 10% by 90 g's, and is nearly 0 by 100 g's. At low accelerations (<10 g's), ships have >90% hit probabilities. These numbers are for a stationary target.
Against a stationary target, it is possible to use bracketing fire to improve the range and acceleration limit. This is simple to implement - a first shot is taken, and the exact trajectory noted. A second shot is taken, attempting to correct for the error in the first shot. The trajectory of the 2nd shot is used to correct the aim for the 3rd shot, and so on. Typically, 3-6 shots are needed to fully correct the point of aim. In the presence of highly variable gravity conditions, this iterative approach may not work, as the conditions are so different between shots that one trajectory cannot correct another.
In cases where only a few hits are needed to cause damage, and your ship has extra weaponry to devote to a target, it is also advisable to use a spread-shot tactic. Aim clusters of weapons at different points spread across the possible target locations. These shots are fired all at once, and hopefully at least one cluster is on-target. This can be used to great advantage against smaller, more maneuverable targets at long range.
Direct-Fire Weapons
These are all the weapons that launch an unguided attack directly at the target position. This includes lasers, masers, mass drivers, particle weapons, and even kinetic energy munitions. In some cases, starships have employed debris as a direct-fire weapon; anything that follows an unguided path to the target position qualifies.
Direct-fire weapons are very common, and it is necessary to know both their advantages and failings. The primary advantage of direct fire weapons is their cost; they are cheap to build and operate. The primary failing is the lack of in-flight guidance. The relatively short range of direct-fire weapons is a direct result of this guidance problem; attempting to predice the position of a target in combat for more than a few seconds is essentially impossible. In some cases (such as immobile targets), direct-fire weapons can be used at incredible ranges, but the targeting mechanisms are typically not up to the task, and hence accuracy is very poor.
In general, therefore, it is necessary to restrict the use of direct-fire weapons to short-range engagements, such as those between closely passing ships. Direct-fire weapons cannot avoid anything in their path, meaning that the shots must be fired so as to avoid the drive field of the target. For this reason, it is recommended that direct-fire weapons be used when to the sides and rear of the target. The relatively short ranges of the weapons also helps prevent the target from turning to shield itself; the shots hit before the target can turn.
Although direct-fire weapons are short-ranged, and easily susceptible to the effects of a drive field, they can be exceptionally powerful. A massed barrage of laser or cannon fire can easily puncture starship hulls. Aside with the cheapness of construction and operation, this destructive power is the main reason direct-fire weapons are so popular. It is necessary for any competent commander to master the use of direct-fire weapons, for these are the mainstay of starship combat.
Missiles
Missiles are the most versatile of starship weapons, and the favorite of most commanders. Missile weapons are those which use a guided projectile to attack a target. This guidance may come from the launching ship, or the missile itself. The important point is that the missile can alter its course and flight path after launch.
Missiles, due to their guided nature, are more flexible in their deployment. A starship can launch a missile strike against a target at longer ranges, and in more aspects, than with direct-fire weapons. Missiles guidance systems can be programmed to avoid a drive field, making them a threat even to ships with a drive field pointed at the enemy. In addition, many missiles are self-guided, making them dangerous even if the launching craft is crippled.
This flexibility comes at a price, however; missiles are far more expensive to build and much larger to store than ammunition for direct-fire weapons. The cost and size of missiles severely limits the number that a starship can carry. The largest warships in existance carry only a few hundred missiles, compared to the tens of thousands of rounds for cannon on a major warship.
The limited number of missiles available to a starship makes their deployment challenging; the minimum number of missiles must be used to achieve a goal. A ship that fires all its missiles in the beginning of an engagement can quickly find itself out-ranged by a more conservative foe, and trying to dodge missile strikes while closing to direct-fire range. This is exceedingly difficult to accomplish, and typically results in the death of the vessel and crew.
Missile warheads are very powerful, capable of devastating damage. A few missiles are typically all that is required to cripple or destroy an opposing ship. However, there is no guarantee that every missile launched will strike the target. Missiles cannot survive an encounter with a drive field, and hence a target can use its drive field to shield itself. Point-defense systems always take their toll on an inbound missile strike. The trick is to launch just enough missiles to cause crippling damage, but without wasting any extra missiles.
Complicated flight paths, while occasionally necessary, tend to increase the attrition of missile strikes. The farther a missile must fly, and the more course changes it must make, the greater the chance that an enemy vessel or system malfunction will cripple a missile. Moreover, missiles have a relatively limited maneuvering capability, and cannot hope to match the acceleration of a starship. For this reason, missiles should be launched at a targets projected position, not at the target; missiles cannot catch a ship, and so must intercept it.
There is no reason the launching ship must have a clear line-of-fire to the target; missiles can alter course in mid-flight, and this fact should be used to an advantage whenever possible. Also, missiles have enormous ranges compared to direct-fire weapons; although the exact position of a target cannot be predicted, the general region is often known. Launching a strike of self-guided missiles into this region will allow the missiles to have a reasonable chance of hitting their target.
Finally, do not forget to use missiles as a short-range weapon. At direct-fire weapon ranges, missiles can be launched and impact the target before the target can accelerate away from harm. Point-defense systems are often busy engaging the ship itself, and hence tend to have fewer guns to attack the missile strike. Many engagements have been won by a point-blank missile strike against an enemy's unshielded hull.
Optimal Attack Positions
In general, the optimal attack position is where you can strike the enemy, and not be struck in return. In practice, this is rarely possible. More common is the case where both you and enemy can strike; the concept is to make your strike the more powerful of the two.
Attacks against the shielded portion of an enemy is pointless, and a waste of resources. Hence, it is necessary to attack an enemy from the side or opposite the drive field. Given that most weapons are mounted along the sides of a starship (due to simple geometry), it is often better to be opposite the drive field than along side. However, many ships can quickly switch their drive fields from the bow to stern (or vice-versa), making these end-on attacks somewhat chancy. If the enemy cannot switch the drive field, then being end-on often reduces the number of enemy weapons that can return fire. Note, however, that the latest trend in warship design is mostly turreted weapons, which reverse this doctrine; virtually all weapons can fire towards the ends when they are turreted, making end-on the most dangerous position of all.
Currently, the ideal attack position for Seven Worlds vessels is the tail. This is where you are directly behind the target, with your bow facing directly at the enemy. As all Seven Worlds starship weapons are turreted, this position means at most of the ship's direct-fire weapons can fire at the target, while presenting the minimum target for return fire. As the weapons fire, switch from acceleration to deceleration, which moves the drive field to the rear of the ship. This opens the bow to allow your fire to pass. Immediately then resume acceleration, protecting your bow from return fire. Missiles launched in an arcing strike can help distract the enemy and possibly cause significant damage. Maintain this position, firing as allowed, as long as possible.
Here, we are concerned with examples of exotic or unusual maneuvers that have been shown to be useful in combat. These should be considered a starting point, not a comprehensive list. Much insight can be gained from studying the tactics of the ancient atmospheric pilots; they had many of the same maneuvering constraints as a starship.
Snap-rolls
Snap-rolls are useful for protecting a damaged side of a ship. Essentially, the ship executes a very fast roll, typically of 90 or 180 degrees. This can move a damaged hull section out of the line of fire, preventing the problems associated with holing of the hull. Some ships have used this technique to spread an incoming strike across most of the hull, reducing the damage to any given portion to non-lethal amounts. This practice is useful for a last-ditch effort, but it is better to evade the strike in the first place.
Snap-rolls are also useful for bringing different weapons to bear on a single target; while one section of weapons is reloading, another section with ready weapons can be rolled into firing position.
Evasion
Evasion of attacks is the most difficult task facing the starship pilot and commander. The theory is very simple; be somewhere other than where the enemy expects. In practice, this is very hard; acceleration limits of ships are typically well known, and enemy fleets often have enough information to make a good guess as to where your ship will go. The accuracy of this prediction can be lessened in several ways:
While these tactics can allow a starship to evade an incoming attack, they are virtually impossible to implement while still pursuing an attack of your own. To attack, it is necessary to limit the ship to relatively small accelerations (<80g), which makes it difficult to use these tactics to evade. In practice, evasion is not common, and ships rely on counter-measures and point-defense systems to protect themselves. The mark of the gifted pilot and commander, however, is the ability to use evasion techniques (with all the high-g maneuvers involved) and still prosecute attacks against the enemy.
There are some unusual tactics and weapons that are quite useful. As with the Advanced Maneuvering, this should be considered a starting point for your own tactical developments.
Concussion Zones
Most missiles are programmed to detonate on impact or in close proximity of a target. However, most can also be programmed to detonate on command. This is the basis for the concussion zone tactic. In short, this is the tactic of launching a missile strike that is detonated at a specific location to create a zone of destruction. It is most commonly used against small craft (e.g. shuttles) and missile strikes.
To create a concussion zone, a point in space is chosen. The missile strike is programmed to fly to the point in some formation. Upon reaching the point, the missiles detonate (a delay could be imposed here). This creates a volume of space filled with explosions, which is often very damaging to anything inside. This tactic is particularly effective to large numbers of small targets, such as an inbound missile strike, or a group of small craft. This is one tactic that would have served the Dragoncrests well against the Divine Lightning fighters.
Because this tactic tends to consume large numbers of missiles, it is not often employed. As the guidance and propulsion systems of missiles improves, concussion zones are becoming more common as the only defense against massive missile strikes. The enlarged missile capacities of new warships also makes concussion zone tactics more feasible.
Concussion zones are also typically not particularly damaging to warship hulls, making it wasteful for those sorts of targets. It can be used to great effect to deny the enemy a flight path for a short time. Mines are more useful for this purpose.
Missile-Deployed Mines
Missile warheads do not need to be detonated when the missile exhausts its fuel. Instead, it often becomes nearly dormant, with the warhead waiting for a trigger to detonate. This effect can be used to create minefields at a moment's notice.
Although missile-deployed minefields are often far sparser and weaker than a real minefield, they can be very effective at denying the enemy a flight path or portion of the battlefield. With sufficient numbers, even missile-deployed minefields can be a threat to major warships.
This tactic, like concussion zones, consumes large numbers of missiles, making it expensive and limited. With new starship designs carrying larger missile bays, it may grow in popularity.
Gravitic Warheads against Shield Drives
Gravitic missile warheads can be a useful, and very powerful, weapon. Recall that these warheads detonate by creating a large gravity pulse near the target. Against targets without an operating Shield drive, this can be very damaging. The problem comes when using gravitic weapons against a target with a drive field.
Shield drives continously monitor the drive field, adjusting it to compensate for slight changes in ambient gravity to prevent the ship form being ripped apart by instabilities. The detonation of a gravitic weapon is considered to be just another anomaly in the local gravity field, and is compensated. A ship with a high-power drive field, such as a ship under high acceleration, will barely notice the gravity pulse of the warhead. One with a low-power field, such as is common in station-keeping, can be significantly disrupted by the warhead. However, there is no known case of an operating drive being unable to compensate for the warhead.
For this reason, it is not recommended to deploy gravitic weapons against targets with Shield drives.
Counter-Measures
Along with a point-defense system, missile counter-measures are the main starship defense against missile strikes. Counter-measures comprise many different systems, but they all have an identical goal: make the ship invisible to an attacking missile. They accomplish this in various ways, and with varying degrees of success.
The most common counter-measure is a simple EM jamming system. As missiles use EM signatures to track a target, jamming the EM sensors of a missile can effectively blind it to a target. Some jammers attempt to modify the EM signature of a vessel to make it look friendly or unknown, while others simply drown as much of the EM spectrum as possible in pure noise.
Besides EM jammers, chaff can be used to present the missile with many possible targets to attack. Chaff is essentially a large number of small EM emitters that look, to EM scanners, like identical copies of the targeted ship. The result is very confusing to a missile, as it suddenly has to choose one from a large number of identical targets to attack. Good chaff systems are effective, and an incoming missile strike can be greatly reduced as many missiles track and attack the transmitters.
The other major sort of counter-measure is a passive cloaking. The ship attempts to be so quiet in the EM spectrum that the missile sensors cannot detect it. This is very difficult for all but the smallest of ships. Scout and patrol craft commonly use this tactic, and can be virtually impossible to detect in any EM band.
Point-defense systems are the final line of defense for starships. The actual details of a point-defense system vary between ship types, and is irrelevant to our purpose here. What we are concerned with is how point-defense systems affect tactical decisions.
Point-defense systems are quite effective, and can defend a ship against relatively large strikes. The number of simultaneous targets the system can engage is a critical number that all commanders should know. As long as the system is not overloaded, the commander has little to fear. This effectiveness is why evasion tactics are not commonly used; the point-defense and counter-measure systems are typically enough to handle all but the most intense of assaults.
Of course, since all warships have point-defense systems, tactics have evolved to get around or through these defenses. Most are variants of a single concept: overwhelm. Modern missiles can detect when they are being targeted, and attempt to use random course fluctations to undermine the effectiveness of the point-defense system. The best missiles can do an excellent job of this, requiring double or triple the number of turrets to eliminate them. This reduces the effective rating of the system, and thus makes it easier to overwhelm the system.
Sheer numbers can be used to overwhelm the system. Missiles or ships can deploy chaff or jammers to make the point-defense system think it is facing far more targets, and begin shooting dummy targets rather than the actual missiles. Ideally, the missile strike is simply large enough that the point-defense cannot kill all the missiles before they reach the hull and cripple the ship.
Because point-defense turrets are scattered roughly evenly around the hull, it is also possible to locally overwhelm a point defense system with a small fraction of the total rating of the overall system. By concentrating a relatively large number of missiles in a small solid angle, the point-defense system cannot bring all its turrets to bear, and hence can shoot down far fewer missiles. The danger in this tactic, is that it is now easy for the target to turn its drive field to face the strike, and shield itself from all the missiles. Multiple concentrated strikes can remove this option from the target, and has proven to be an effective attack.
The other method of defeating a point-defense system and crippling the enemy ship is to use direct-fire weapons. A point-defense turret can do nothing to a mag cannon round, or a laser shot. This is yet another reason why the competent commander must be an expert with direct-fire weapons.
Loss of the point-defense system is a crippling blow to most warships; unable to defend themselves, they have no choice but to begin massive evasion or die. Point-defense systems are typically very robust, multiply redundant, and as over-powered as possible. The most efficient way to destroy the point-defenses is normally to destroy the sensors upon which the system relies to target the inbound missiles. Major warships have dozens of sensor clusters, making this a difficult proposition, but still easier than crippling the hundreds of point-defense turrets.
This document is an introduction to the tactics needed to take a starship into combat and emerge victorious and alive. The abstract theories presented here must be practiced in a simulator or reality before one can claim to truly understand them. This need for practice is intentional, and is the reason command schools exist.
As with any document describing warfare, there are portions that are obsolete as they are written, and theories that don't apply in every situation. What is written here is an overview, and commanders must feel free to invent tactics as they are necessary. Everything here was created by some commander under duress, who found some new way that worked. It is a long tradition, and the foundation of successful military action.