Space Battle

Excerpt from the Battle of New Melbourne, May 2507, Alliance Heavy Cruiser Capital City.

Captain Rowe: Engage active search(1).
Communications Operator Storme: Aye sir, engaging active search. (13 second pause) Confirm sir, I have three pings bearing 93 by 78(2).
Rowe: Mark those and lock them. Distance?
(16 second pause)
Storme: 24 klicks and closing.
Rowe: Ident?
(15 second pause)
Storme: Two hornet class light transports, one beetle class heavy transport. IFF query unresponsive(3).
Rowe: Prep three fish. Reduce speed to half.
Pilot Uko: Aye sir, reducing speed to one half.
Chief Weapons Officer Hickerson: Aye sir, prepping three missiles.
(10 second pause)
Storme: The hornets have gone active.
(2 second pause)
Storme: I have a launch warning.
(3 second pause)
Hickerson: Confirm launch warning. Four, repeat four missiles. (2 second pause) Impact in 12 seconds.
Rowe: Do they have range?
(2 second pause)
Hickerson: Barely. Evasive?
Rowe: Zulu burn on my mark(4). (2 second pause) 3. 2. 1. Mark.
Uko: Go for burn.
Storme: Scrub one(5). (2 second pause) Scrub two and three. (3 second pause) The hornets have increased speed and are breaking off.
Hickerson: One impact. Aft port fuselage. Pressure is holding steady. Aft bulkheads sealing. Missiles are prepped.
Rowe: Get me a solution on those hornets, and power the dorsal rail gun(6).
Hickerson: Aye sir.
(Two second pause)
Hickerson: I have a solution.
Storme: Launch warning. Hornets have moved within 10 klicks.
Hickerson: Confirm launch warning. Two missiles. Impact in 8 seconds.
Rowe: ADS go(7).
Hickerson: ADS on.
Storme: Scrub one and two.
Hickerson: Solutions still good sir.
Rowe: Fire. Prep all tubes. Power up ventral rail gun.
Hickerson: Weapons away. (2 second pause) Ventral rail gun is powered up.
Storme: Launch warning from the beetle. It’s holding at 14 klicks.
Hickerson: Confirm launch. Lord. 8 missiles. Impact in 7 seconds. (2 second pause) Impact on the hornets. One is disabled. The other is losing atmo fast.
Rowe: Get me a solution on that beetle. Zulu burn on my mark. Mark.
Uko: Go for burn.
Hickerson: Scrub one through six. Two impacts. Starboard exterior engine is out. CATMAN reports coolant leak(8). Maneuvering thrusters are at 55% nominal. Second impact hit fore starboard fuselage. Pressure is holding. Bulkheads sealing.
Storme: Launch warning. It’s from the hornets.
(4 second pause)
Hickerson: Negative. That’s a negative. Those are escape pods. (3 second pause) All tubes are prepped.
Rowe: Get me that gorram solution.
Storme: Launch warning. The beetle is dropping decoys.
Rowe: Do we have a solution?
Hickerson: Negative. I can’t lock it down.
Storme: Launch flash reported. Rail gun.
Rowe: They have a rail gun on that thing. Those are some big teeth.
Hickerson: Impact. Fore starboard fuselage. Pressure is dropping. CATMAN reports terminal weakness in superstructure and casualties. Maneuvering thrusters have dropped to 45% nominal. (3 second pause) I’ve got a solution. Sir. We have a fire on deck 2.
Rowe: Fire!
Hickerson: Weapons away. (4 second pause) Miss.
Storme: The beetle is powering up its gravity drive.
Rowe: That was sloppy. Can we get another solution.
Hickerson: Negative sir. She’s gone.

Common Parlance:
Starboard: The right side of a ship, when facing forward.
Port: The left side of a ship, when facing forward.
Aft: The rear of a ship.
Prow: The front of a ship.
Ventral: The top portion of a ship
Dorsal: The bottom portion of a ship
IFF: Identifier, friend or foe.
Fish: A term for missiles.

Endnotes
1. Ships have two sensor modes—active and passive. Passive requires little power, and simply receives latent emissions from surrounding bodies. Passive sensors have very short range, but have the benefit of being invisible. Active sensors, contrastingly, have a much longer range because they emit IR waves and determine the distance and speed of objects within their line of sight. Since IR moves at the speed of light, long distances can be covered. The down side is that you have to have active sensors engage to use most ships weapons systems, and beam can be tracked by other ships with even mediocre sensors. When a ship goes from passive sensors to active, it is called lighting up.
2. Because coordinates have to be in three dimensions, spacers use a two point tracking system. The first number represents the horizontal degree relative the keel of the ship, and the second number represents the vertical degree from the first number. Both move in a clockwise fashion. In this case, the ships are 93 degrees from the keel of the ship (almost due starboard), and 78 degrees below that (almost right above them). So they are roughly 24 kilometers to the starboard and below the Capital City.
3. All ships are supposed to carry an IFF transponder. These are issued by the Alliance to identify the ship. It is a radio beacon that, when queried by another ship, contains the make and model of the ship and, if the captain has been so inclined, information about the crew, owner, etc. Additionally, the IFF transponder serves to help ships in need because it acts as an emergency beacon. Most people are unaware of this, but the Alliance also used IFF transponders as beacons for missiles during war. The beacon can be linked to a missiles guidance system so that it can fly in fire and forget mode, and keep track of the ship anywhere. Subsequently, ships that have frequent run-ins with Alliance vessels have multiple IFF transponders, no IFF transponder, or a variable frequency IFF transponder. Of course all three are highly illegal.
4. Captain Rowe is referring to the axis of thrusters he wants to use for maneuvering. Smaller ships have variable direction engines, so most times the simply need to turn an engine in a specific direction or subdue thrust to change heading, spin or make all kinds of other fanciful maneuvers. Larger ships like the Capital City are massive, and have maneuvering thrusters located at the prow and aft on all sides (Starboard, port, ventral, dorsal). The lay out of thrusters are as followed. X thrusters are located at the aft of the ship, used to propel it forward in space. These are frequently the main engines, but not necessarily. Y thrusters are located on the starboard side, used to propel the ship port. Z thrusters are on the port side, and are used to propel the ship starboard. A thrusters are located at the prow of the ship, and propel the ship backward. B thrusters are located on the ventral side, propelling the ship upward, and C thrusters are located on the dorsal side, propelling the ship downward. While the pilot, in the course of maneuvering a ship through the control yolk, frequently uses all of these thrusters to varying degree, during combat maneuvering they are used for a hard burn, where the thrusters are given maximum power to shift the position of the ship quickly. If done in the correct timing, the missiles can’t correct their course in time and move past the ship without hitting it.
5. Scrub is a nautical term that originally meant just that—washing something vigorously. Alliance captains have taken the term and used it to mean that they’ve managed to shake off a missile or a cannon round. At first it meant simple that counter measures have jammed or fooled the missile into not hitting you, but, with the rise of the ANGEL system (See below), it has become a catch all to explain shaking or destroying a missile or cannon round.
6. Captain Rowe here is referencing a shooting solution. In historical naval warfare, firing on an opponent was a large scale operation. You had to triangulate, prepare weapons, bring them to bear, coordinate with fire control, clear decks and other such things. In this context, a shooting solution is the final step in actually firing at the target. Obtaining one means that weapons are on-online, the target has been locked into the fire control system, and, upon captains orders, the chief weapons officer can fire.

Rail guns are a common place weapon on most ships heavier than cruisers. The Capital City has two of them located in turrets. One is dorsal midship, the other is ventral aft. Because the rail guns are massive, and require a lot of power both in terms of moving them, rotating their barrels, and keeping a flow of electrons on which the slugs can float, most captains don’t keep them constantly on.
7. ADS stands for Automatic Defense System. In military talk it’s also knows as the ANGEL system. Created by Blue Sun, the ADS uses a separate fire control system that is linked to the sensors of a ship. On the Capital City, the ADS is linked to the rail guns. Basically, it independently tracks objects in space, and if they come too close to the ship, it fires a barrage from the rail guns. It is useful for destroying incoming missiles or large shells, but often times the system is incapable of addressing all incoming objects. The rail guns have a short burst capacity, so many times the ADS is used only in conjunction with maneuvering or decoy deployment.
8. CATMAN stands for CATastrophe MANagement system. Like the ADS, it is an independent, unlinked system that monitors damage to the ship. It gathers data in real time, and allows the captain and the chief weapons officer to see what damage occurs. Additionally, it determines the damages impact on tertiary systems, as well as controls the damage containment robots and damage crews. In the case of the Capital City, the missiles fired from the beetle hit the exterior engine (The Capital City had four engines, two starboard and two port, with an interior and exterior), causing a coolant leak from the fusion thermal conduits. The result was that coolant from other engines had to be diverted to offset the leak, which impacted the thrusters all around. This thereby prevented the other thrusters from maximizing output. If the battle had gone longer, one of two things would have happened. Repair crews would have pumped more coolant into the system, increasing effectiveness, or it would have leaked out altogether, leaving the ship unable to move.

Battle of Enoch City

I got a letter today from Lieutenant Wallace’s widow. He was a Corporal when I first met him. I remember him so well. He was a quiet, withdrawn little guy, maybe 150 pounds soaking wet. He was a scrapper though. You look at him funny and he’d damn near stick you. Wallace used to keep a stiletto in his boot. Said he kept it for the uppity Browncoats. I remember the first time I ever saw him use it. He punched a hole in a Rat-bag. He’d always use it to stick whatever food we were eating, bread, fruit, whatever. We had just moved into the edge of Enoch City on Three Hills. Gorram Mordeau had been fumbling the conflict since he arrived. When we landed we had nearly half a million men, and clear air superiority. We harassed those Browncoats all over the planet’s surface, till they wizened up and moved into the cities. By then the cities had been emptied of all the civilians, but some remained. Enoch City was the industrial center, and the biggest city on Three Hills. General Mordeau wanted to keep the city as intact as possible. Of course General Vaughn had no such ideas. She ordered her men to dig in and wait.
I remember arriving at the depot, still gleaming from OCS. I didn’t know that was going on. I sat in the officers briefing and took notes like I was a little school boy, hanging on each word like it would be my last. I should’ve taken better gorram notes. I met Wallace on my way out of the briefing room. He and I were reporting to Charlie Company, 5th Battalion. He was to be a squad leader, and I was the company CO. We went our separate ways, and I briefed my NCO’s on the days mission. Alfa through Delta companies were to assault the governor’s complex in the center of the city. Echo and Foxtrot companies had already cleared the way, and were pulling back because the complex was well defended. After gearing up, we humped the two mile walk to the combat zone. My cadre had the medic, my CCO, the company sergeant, and a couple of grunts. Somehow I had drawn the right to be point company, so our orders were to move up to a street about two blocks away from the complex and secure one side. It was called line black. We’d set up subsequent streets, as lines, to measure progress, and we’d fight our way to the complex by securing each line and fighting forward.
As the company approached we heard sporadic gun fire. The complex has us at a might bit of a disadvantage, since it was about six stories up. We moved up as quickly and quietly as we could, and I don’t think we took casualties to speak of. Alfa, Bravo, and Delta companies were in the rear, waiting for us to secure our point so they could move up. When we arrived at line black, I don’t know what I was thinking. My company just moved out into the street along with me in my command squad. After orienting myself, I just stared blankly at the buildings on the other side of the street. I couldn’t remember if we were supposed to move past line black or hold short of it. I remember looking at the CCO. His name was Mitchell I think. He registered my confusion a second before a Browncoat sniper shot him in the head. The gorram bastards were right there on the other side of the street. Weapons fire erupted around us. They were everywhere. On top of buildings, in attics, basements, behind walls. Everywhere. I ducked down to check Mitchell, but he was dead. The two corporals with me started wildly firing, unmoving in that open street. I stood up to see five more of my men go down before I ordered everyone back to the buildings behind us.

Colonel Douglas Amadi Recalling the Battle for Enoch City 12th May, 2508