Vargr Boarding Missile

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

This is something I've been toying with and I'll say up front that it's concept is a bit rusty so any suggestions would be appreciated.

These missiles are used best on stationary objects like an orbital base, or larger, slow moving craft during lightning raids.. From a special missile bay, these missiles in and of themselves are standard missiles. The main difference is that clamped to the side of the missile is a secondary payload....a Vargr mercenary!

The missile (and Vargr) is launched at the target. When the missile has achieved a certain range, a small second stage fires, disengaging the marine and allowing the warhead to continue on. The vargr marine travels along behind slightly slower. After the missile hits, the Vargr marine arrives several moments later ready to take advantage of any breach. If the missile is destroyed after the Vargr is detatched he still continues on, most likely too small to be picked up and will undoubtedly cause much mayhem to the turrets and sensor blisters on the outside of the ship, or board the vessel for a surprise attack.

This configuration should give good potential for disabling an agressive or fleeing ship, while assaulting the vessel with boarding parties at the same time. It also has the added bonus of being very charismatic to the vargr. Riding an explosive warhead to the target, then jumping off and boarding would be extremely cool and prestigious Thoughts?

 

[gardclan]

You may want to consider making the missile large enough to give the passenger a controlable set of thrusters. Preferably with enough maneuver time on the drives to keep the poor fella from going *splat* when he reaches the target.

Give the vargr a (very) long range personal thruster pack otherwise.

Battledress is in order. So is a big fusion cutter in case the missile didn't get through.

Oh yeah... call it the "Wolvesbane" system!

Make sure that the Vargr in question are seriously hopped up on some sort of combat drugs... or at least load them into the tube while the Vargr in question are drunk/drugged/ or unconscious!

Consider firing these things in swarms, mixed 1:1 with similar missiles equipped with jamming heads only.

Make the entire system out of stealth materials.

Consider firing the missile on a purely ballistic course... that way you have no drive signature until its already too late.

You could also read "Starship Troopers" for background ideas... what they used was very similar to what you are describing.

 

[trader jim]

dontcha loveit when a plan comes together!!!

here we go!!

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

Originally posted by Darth Sillyus:
You may want to consider making the missile large enough to give the passenger a controlable set of thrusters. Preferably with enough maneuver time on the drives to keep the poor fella from going *splat* when he reaches the target.

Give the vargr a (very) long range personal thruster pack otherwise.......
You could also read "Starship Troopers" for background ideas... what they used was very similar to what you are describing.

Yeah...I had envisioned the mercs wearing grav belts or having thrusters as part as thier vacc suits, though I didn't go so far as putting them in battle dress. There would probably be one or two of them with cutters, although they would also have electronics for overriding airlocks or cargo doors. Besides that they'd be running around the outside, doing bad things to turrets and sensors and such <G>

There was a variant, which was my original idea, that when the missile fired somehow the exhaust hit a plate or some such which gave the merc negative thrust, so when the missile left, the vargr's velocity was near zero....then he'd maneuver in on suit thrusters. If I can figure it out this is actually the way I'd like it to be. The missile would 2nd stage a few hundred meters from the target, stopping the merc and allowing him to come in at a more controlled pace.

As for Starship Troopers, I remember the dropshells...is that what you're referring to?

 

[RabidVargr]

Ya know, if I had time to get you guys back, I would. I'm going out to sea tomorrow morning though for a week, so my ranting and raving and threatening and picking on poor pinky traders will have to wait a little while. See ya'll next Sat!

RV

I'll get you! You and your little pinky crew too!

 

[gardclan]

Originally posted by N.I.C.E. Labs:
As for Starship Troopers, I remember the dropshells...is that what you're referring to?

Yup! That would be them.

 

[tjoneslo]

Downsides to this system: Point defense would kill the missiles and the riders. A swarm attack with mixed ECM missiles would help. So would having something to distract the target, like a large battleship.

There's no way for the troops to retreat. If they simply let go of the hull, they're floating targets for the enemy ship weapons (again). Vargr may be interested in Charisma, but it only applies if the teller lives to tell the tale. Dead vargr have no charisma.

The Vargr troops end up scattered all over the hull of the ship. Not a real problem if the target is a small merchant, but a large war ship it could be a problem. Hrmm... running gun battle on the surface of a ship during a fleet battle...

It would work for smaller, under armed ships (say merchants), but not for larger warships. An intesting, if expensive, boarding tactic for pirates.

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

Originally posted by tjoneslo:
Downsides to this system: Point defense would kill the missiles and the riders. A swarm attack with mixed ECM missiles would help. So would having something to distract the target, like a large battleship.

There's no way for the troops to retreat. If they simply let go of the hull, they're floating targets for the enemy ship weapons (again). Vargr may be interested in Charisma, but it only applies if the teller lives to tell the tale. Dead vargr have no charisma.

The Vargr troops end up scattered all over the hull of the ship. Not a real problem if the target is a small merchant, but a large war ship it could be a problem. Hrmm... running gun battle on the surface of a ship during a fleet battle...

It would work for smaller, under armed ships (say merchants), but not for larger warships. An intesting, if expensive, boarding tactic for pirates.

Yes I agree, it's not for big battles...more for piracy/surprise assault roles. I envision a pirate leader using the risky maneuver for audacity and surprise factors on unsuspecting installations and weaker opponents. The firing ship would need the ECM packages to protect the missiles to be sure. The main ship itself pressing it's attack would also be a distraction.

In regards to the marines being scattered, they will have thrusters so by the time they reach the target they can form up into units. In instances where this would be used, the main ship would be coming in for it's own boarding action so the threat of being stranded is lessend. The main purpose of the advance troops is to silence turrets and secure a docking beachhead so the main boarding force board vs. a diminshed challenge.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by tjoneslo:
Dead vargr have no charisma.

But they DO wear plaid!

Originally posted by N.I.C.E. Labs:
The main ship itself pressing it's attack would also be a distraction.

I think the Vargr troops swarming the hull would find their own ship's action a distraction as well since they'd be unarmored (relatively to a starship's weapons) sitting ducks, or does the Vargr ship cease-fire once the troops land. I'd also wonder how effective 'sticky' boots would be if the subject ship engaged in even 1g evasive actions. There would be little the Vargr troops could do except hang on as long as the drives are working. If it were the Empress Poppaea and some Vargr pirate pulled this on me at my most vunerable (moving to skim fuel in a GG, low fuel, hours from a safe jump point or help, and surprised by his hiding in the GG) I'd have all kinds of fun watching the GG atmosphere peel the Vargr troops off my hull (being careful to make it an elliptical pass with sufficient vector for escape velocity in case my drives get hit). At any other time I'd probably just engage the jump drive and let the Vargr troops get real intimate with j-space. Anyway just a couple thoughts, keep working out the bugs, it could be quite fun if perfected, or just funny if not quite perfect

Dan "far-trader" Burns

 

[gardclan]

Ok, try this for a variant:

Instead of a "missile", use a five ton or ten ton hull and mount a reinforced nose, grappling arms, fusion cutters, a respectable drive system. Equip the craft with a hurst tool type apparatus so that it can tear into the hull after the fusion cutters slice it up a bit.

Now you have boarding pods... and a way for the dog to have his day in the event things go badly. As an added bonus you have a way for your favorite vargr troops to attack the local mailman!

Stealth the snot out of the thing, and launch it in swarms with LOTS of jammers and decoys.

If these things are smaller, then they will probably only carry one vargr "cargo inspector"... if you make them bigger you can carry more neat stuff and maybe even weaponry. The only downside to the larger craft would be that the enemy can round up more vargr at a time.

 

[Shadow Bear]

Can we put RabidVargr on one of these???

 

[Ben W Bell]

Can you not just attach the Vargr to a missile without a warhead and let it take him the entire way in? Vargr skulls are thick enough to take almost any impact, and there's nothing vital up there to damage anyway.

 

[trader jim]

benbell - for that last "crack" you get one star!!!

 

[Uncle Bob]

Those Vagr flying belts must be really hot if they can cancel a closing speed of kms/sec in a few moments. And the grav compensaters must be awsome to keep the Vagr from becoming a puddle in the legs of the space suit.

Sorry, I shouldn't be sarastic but kinetics makes this idea silly.

 

[gardclan]

Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
Those Vagr flying belts must be really hot if they can cancel a closing speed of kms/sec in a few moments. And the grav compensaters must be awsome to keep the Vagr from becoming a puddle in the legs of the space suit.

Sorry, I shouldn't be sarastic but kinetics makes this idea silly.

Nah... just mount a large "pin" in the inside of the nose cone... poke said vargr... his deflating ego should provide enough delta-V to stop just about anything.

<ducking behind desk as I type>

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

Well, as I said it's not perfect <G> The original idea was to have the marine stop, but that probably isn't feasible, however it might be possible for the breakaway thrust to slow him enough for separation and then his suit applies braking thrusters the rest of the way. He'd still get in fast, but wouldn't splat at the end...yes?

Thinking about it here's another option which would lend to the surprise attack factor...I think this configuration would probably work best. The boarding missiles aren't launched with a constant acceleration...just a good punch to get them to the target provided by the launching ship. This would also keep any chance of detection at a minimum. When in the closing range for the Vargr's suit thruster, then the missiles fire. Suddenly the target ship or installation has missiles show up at close range coming in hot and fast. Meanwhile, the Vargr marines aren't spacebags filled with kibble and they move in for the attack as planned.

Sound good?

(btw, thanks to everyone for helping iron this out...it seems to be coming together very N.I.C.E.ly ^_^)

 

[tjoneslo]

Originally posted by Darth Sillyus:
Ok, try this for a variant:
Now you have boarding pods...

If the HG construction system didn't break down so badly at 10dtons and below, I'd be tempted to make them 1-2 dtons, say 4-6 troopers, sealth, 1-2G to catch the slower merchants, and armor to shrug off a laser bolt or two. WIth the cutting torch laser, a half dozen or so could really ruin a merchant's day.

 

[gardclan]

Either way, you've got to be VERY close to the target before you can deploy this sort of thing. Launching vargr torpedos from a full light second will probably result in fewer vargr in the gene pool.

Maybe you need a heavily stealthed launch platform... say 400dT or so... just loaded with stealth systems, jammers, and a whole bunch of launch tubes. Get in real close before you let your pod puppies fly, and then make docking a priority...

Something like this could be deployed with a ten soldier insertion... those ten troops then secure a docking port for the platform... which then docks and offloads its remaining platoon or so.

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

Well, there are two version it seems we could go with this. One is the stealthed out heavy missile version for elite strike teams in a vargr military operation. Those would have a stealthed strike-vessel with plenty of ECM.

The other is for more of what I intended. A pirate corsair...probably operating alone, hitting freighters and orbital installations unawares.

As for the Breaching Pod...it worked quite well in Babylon 5 ^_^ Again though, that was a military strike vehicle. Probably the thing to do in regards to a pirate ship would be convert a launch or other small craft with a special docking ring lined with cutters. That way you have cargo space to carry off the goods too.

 

[tjoneslo]

A back of the envelope calculation for the smallest boarding vessel using HG I get the following:

Computer/1, Pilot couch, 3 passenger couches, 2G MDrive, PPlant-0.005, Fuel, Armor-2: 3.5 Dtons, Agility-0, MCr2.953, TL14.

Probably small enough to fit through the doors of most merchant ships, and pull the cargo out, and haul it over to the pirate.