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Unconventional Naval Warfare

belter

SOC-9
If you were the defense planner for a small pocket empire and had intelligence that a much larger neighboring empire like the Imperium was going to invade you in 6 months, what unconventional methods of naval warfare would you use to try to save your empire?

Your intelligence also informs you that -
1. The goal of the invader is complete conquest.
2. If you can destroy 2 or 3 major assets within 1 month after the invasion begins (a base, 10k+ ships) the enemy gov't will deem the cost too high and withdraw.
3. If you can prolong the war for an additional 6 months beyond the 1.5 year conquest timetable the enemy will withdraw.

The more unconventional the ideas, the better!
 
That would depend on your defense budget. Your best, most cost effective, route would be to hit them before they could hit you. But you would use SEALS. (Or in Traveller since there are no SEALS, Marines.) A small ship with a black globe generator to deploy and recover your team, or perhaps leave them for long term action. SOmething that could stealthily deploy around a Platoon. Anything much more than that would attract too much notice. I wonder if there is a ship in Canon like that?
The Kinunir is actually about right for the job. The problem with this approach is that if word got out that you could deter a major power like that they would have to take you out regardless of losses to keep someone else from doing it.

If you have a real Navy, sit down in your bunkers dispatch every one of your major ships to raid their trade lanes. And not just near the front. 8-12 Lightning Class Cruisers and some escorts would reak major havoc on the economy of the Star empire. Draw capital ships away from you. (The deeper and more places you strike at once the better.) Though it is virtually impossible to coordinate once the ships have left on their missions. They will also be very hard to recall.
However think of how much fleet the Bismark tied up before it sailed. And how much of the British fleet the Tirpitz tied up without ever sailing. Same concept. They will probably still take you but will be forced to withdraw lots of stuff from the frontiers to deal with your commerce raiders. If you use Jump-5 ships or Jump-6 Ships (Though in most versions of Traveller worthwhile Jump-6 ships are few and far between.) They go away and you come out of your bunkers and take it back.


Most other solutions would require too much time. 5+ years to build capital ships etc.
 
Place a lot of mines in the gas giants atmospheres to prevent refueling. Order SDBs and the like to target tankers and support ships. Remote controlled SDBs filled with nukes to clamp onto the hulls of capital ships. Use civilian ships the same way. Buld a couple of antimatter mines (very expensive but just about possible at TL 9+) and then bluff that you have more. Train civilian engineers and technicians to be able to carry out acts of saboutage.
 
So far -

1. Mass commerce raiding to draw large numbers of enemy forces back to their own territory

2. Mining gas giants to disrupt the enemy's advance

3. Suicide ships to destroy high value targets

4. Use of Special operations forces /civilian saboteurs

I really like the bold move of sending the bulk of your forces to commerce raid the enemy. It would be politically/economically unacceptable for the enemy to ignore this. Prepositioning undercover tankers/supply vessels among the targeted trade routes would greatly enhance this tactic. (Like German "Sea Cow" subs in WWII.)

What kind of operations could Spec Ops & saboteurs conduct to have a strategic impact upon a large navy such as the Imperial navy?
 
Send some folk over the border as traders and starport employees. Saboutaging a few Imperial starports should have an effect ;)
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Considering a 6 month lead time, how does a spec ops team or civilians significantly damage a class A or B starport?

I can think of strikes like explosives in the underground fuel storage but what about detonating nukes on board a parked ship? This seems to be extremely damaging and easy to accomplish.
 
And gives the Imperium the ideal excuse to invade... ;)

Accidentally crashing a (remote) ship's boat into the control centre or loading bays or as much as you can manage simultaneously would be a good way to cause damage. A ship's hol filled with conventional high explosive willl do a fair amount of damage too ;)
 
Wouldn't even need a hold full of conventional explosives. Two ships with holds full of the right chemicals that, when combined, create an explosive (like the truck bomb in Oklahoma City).

Clive Cussler did this in one of the Dirk Pitt novels: Two large cargo ships docked side by side in Havana harbor, then bombs were planted to blow up both ships. The fertilizer in the hold of one ship combined with something in the other ship to create a massive explosion.
 
Originally posted by Paraquat Johnson:
Wouldn't even need a hold full of conventional explosives. Two ships with holds full of the right chemicals that, when combined, create an explosive (like the truck bomb in Oklahoma City).

Clive Cussler did this in one of the Dirk Pitt novels: Two large cargo ships docked side by side in Havana harbor, then bombs were planted to blow up both ships. The fertilizer in the hold of one ship combined with something in the other ship to create a massive explosion.
Forget novels. The Texas City Explosion of 1947 was the result of a freighter of ammonium nitrate (for fertilizer) catching fire and then cooking a bit before blowing up. The resulting fires eventually triggered a second explosion of another freighter filled with more ammonium nitrate. Six hundred people died, and the explosion was powerful enough to throw the 1.5 ton anchor a distance of 2 miles. The Houston Chronicle has a good series of web pages covering the disaster including pictures.

Ron
 
Assassins on military, noble, and political targets.
Q how long would it take to move a 100 dton rock from pluto to star base at 1 g ? Or 100 1 dton rocks loaded in 400 ton free trader. Jump into pluto orbit range. Start run at 1 g. Once Astronav plots orbit of star base. Compute where it will be in x time. Flip ship over. Reduce to 0 g in ship open back door. hit manuver thrust. rocks out back. Wait until rocks are clear of thrust plot jump home. Y time later starbase and surrounding area are hit with your space shot gun. Of course if base has screens it won't work.
 
Is it really so easy to destroy an enemy's starport? Let's say you land a scout ship with a nuke onboard and detonate it. Now do that to 10 starports along your border and each of those starports are now radioactive craters surrounded by rubble and debris? All it costs you is 1000 tons of ship for 10 class A starports.

Why would any starport allow ships to dock so close if such a tactic can be employed at any time. Especially in a milieu where conflict between powers is the norm?
 
Take a subsidized merchant and fill the forward part of the cargo hold with a iron or a high density metal. Convert the rest of the cargo hold into supplemental fuel storage. Convert part of the cabins to fuel storage. Fit a far trader with a supplemental fuel tank in its cargo hold.

Find the nearest system with a naval base, preferrably one located on a moon or an otherwise uninhabited planet.

Now jump the converted merchant along with the far trader way, way outsystem (Oort cloud or so). Remove/destroy all communications equipment on the subbie. Set the computer to head towards the naval base accelerating continuously until some theoretical detection range is reached, fuel runs out, or some maximum safe speed is reached. At that point, the computer shuts down the power plant and all systems. After several weeks or months of 1G acceleration, the now ballistic, no power emissions subbie should be travelling quite fast and be hard to detect before it slams into the naval base or at least close enough nearby to cause significant damage. Even if the subbie is detected, it should be going fast enough that reacting in time may be difficult.

The crews jump out in the far trader and return home long before the ballistic subbie hits.

Slight downside to this tactic is that given the long distance and inaccuracies involved, several attempts might be needed. Major downside is that if there is a significant civilian population on the world or near the base, there will be astonishing civilian casualties, and the larger empire will be perfectly justified in invading.

Ron
 
How much trouble do you want to get into up front? A strong enough preemptive action could trigger the very invasion you're hoping to forstall. (If your enemy has the logistics in place to go early).

If I wanted to be 'subtle', I'd send in commerce raiders who look like pirates, fund dissident groups (be they political parties, rebels, lobbyists, what have you), create a political scandel in the OPFOR government, get into whatever information systems the adversary has and sow havoc. My personal preference is to inconvenience the public on the other side, not kill or injure outright.

If I wanted to be blatant I'd send in commerce raiders and target key command and control assets using special forces. I might target military ports if there's a reasonable chance of success.
I might apply to the Imperium for membership or invite it to co-locate troops at my own bases.

If I didn't care what the outcome was except that I won, I'd likely nuke military (and maybe commercial) assets, target the foreign leadership and/or launch 'kinetic strikes' using space debris. I might try and forceably involve the Imperium in the matter.
 
Another unconventional approach: petition to join the larger entity as a client state. Or, failing that, as a full subservient member. Forgo the military invasion and accept that the pocket empire can't win against the larger might of the much larger state, that the pocket empire's responsibility is towards its people, and that any military action will likely result in worse immediate and long term conditions. Assuming that the larger empire is a reasonable state, the people probably won't care after some time who is in power (ie, won't affect their day to day lives).

Ron
 
I'm sure the invader will present any actions by the smaller empire as further justification no matter who attacks first. If I were to strike preemptively I would go with Ron's view that mass civilian casualties would only fuel the enemy's desire to fight on.

On the other hand, if the enemy stikes first I would nuke military sites no matter how close to population centers and point the finger at the invader when people cry foul. A PR campaign among affected enemy border worlds challenging the justification for the war could help to weaken public support and create problems.

Threatening high altitude nuclear airbursts (real dirty & performed by 100 ton scout ships) could cause the most disinterested citizen to think hard about the actions of his gov't.

So far I'm seeing a strategic use for the scout ship - destroying starports & threatening entire worlds with radioactive fallout.
 
Easier to sneak your SOF forces groundside and detonate a magazine. Then it looks more like an accident. Look what happened to Murmansk. It was pretty much wiped out and the Soviet fleet had to stop using it because a magazine blew up. (As far as I know this was actually an accident.) If you set off a Nuke in a Magazine at a Naval Base that would look enough like an accident and take quite a while to figure out, if there is enough evidence left behind to figure out, to blame it on anyone. If you do that to several bases then they will know someone is doing it and it isn't an accident but who do they blame. If you are using ships, then it is easier to identify the culprit. Remember you want them busy elsewhere not having more reasons to come after you. Causing a fireball on the ground by blowing the fuel dump. Causing the main Fusion plant at Starbases to run away. All of this causes massive damage, causes massive manhunts, leaves little evidence and makes the people in charge demand some kind of protection. Less stuff to come after you. Combine that with a Commerce raiding mission and their Navy will be too busy to come after you.
Leave the commerce raiding until they actually kick off at you and you still can't be blamed for the other attacks.

Remember we are trying to delay, forestall and fogget about you. Not give them excuses to come after you.
 
Setting aside all concerns for public opinion can a small empire inflict enough pain on a large, well equipped invader to convince them to withdraw?

Some of the tactics discussed can create major economic and political havoc with a small amount of resources. For example, one week after the invasion begins 20 scout ships filled with nukes are ordered to blow up in 20 enemy starports along the border. Let's say 4 fail to accomplish their mission for one reason or another. That's only 2000 tons of ships in exchange for 16 multi-trillion credit starports. Not a bad exchange rate; avoid the enemy's center of gravity (superior naval forces)and hit the weak points.

I think this discussion demonstrates that small empires who take intelligence and planning seriously can use technology & strategy to cause a severe erosion in an invaders' will to continue the fight. A small empire willing to fight to the bitter end could turn the invader's border region into a large amber zone for months.
 
Actually, Paraquat has a good point. It depends on how much public opition can affect the opposing government, but I'd put some serious bucks into a covert psyops propaganda campaign. Find some semi-respected folks who think that invading your PE is a bad idea and get them onto the pundit circuit. You want the other side's Joe Sixpack to be saying "Hey, what's this place got that's worth fighting over?"

It's not a given that it will work, but a little money can go a long, long way here.

On the home front, if it looked like invasion was inevitable, I'd go the Swiss Defense route. Put a gun / missle launcher / laser battery / whatever on every single rock in your system. Break up a couple of planetoids and give your mainworld a bunch of small new satellites and pack'em full of weapons. When the bad guys come, blow up some more planetoids and fill your orbital spaces with so much junk that assault shuttles will be flying through a field of flying gravel.

Hmm, back to psyops, start spreading rumors about the devastating biological agents you're willing to release on any invaders. Yes, combat troops can fight in protective gear, but it's a tremendous drain on their efficiency, and you simply can't remain in protective gear all the time.

Basically, convince the other side that you're a poison pill. Sure, they'll beat you in the end, but the victory will be Pyrrhic. If they get the message up front, you may win without firing a shot.

John
 
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