Vargr raiders in the Domain

> >  Probably ex-navy ships from some of the Vargr states bordering the Imperium
> >with crews that got bored running routine patrols:)
>
> Superficially plausible, but think about it a bit. You're the Domain admiral
> in charge of the coreward border and these 50.000 T raiders starts to appear.
> What do you do?
>
>    50.000 T
>    raiders won't attack small worlds, because there's simply not enough
>    loot to satisfy the crew (or pay for the yearly maintenance). Nor
>    will they attack HP worlds, because the planetary defenses would be
>    too tough (look at the size of the Vargr border states. Most of them are
>    no larger than half a subsector).

  I think we have forgot the TL aspect in this discussion. I ran this kind
of action as the 'Battle of Naasakiira' Naasakiira (Corridor 1309 C556687-9 Ag
Ni 623 Vg K7 V). I computed the number of ships the Naasakiira would have
built for themselves and the ground-based installations, at the percentages
given in 'Striker'. Against them, I put a force of 6 5000 vargr battalions of
TL 13 troops, 10 7000t ships and 20 800t corvettes. All in all a 150 to 1
advantage in manpower (whole population against whole vargr force plus crew).
  I realize that this isn't the correct way of calculating the relative
strength, but it might give some indication of the size of forces needed to
take a small world.
  In any case, without TL15 help, it would have been a walkover. The orbital
forces of the planet had 100% losses in the first 20 minute round. They and the
ground to space batteries had a hard time getting close to hitting the enemy,
and when they did the damage was medium. Meanwhile the enemy pounded the
batteries with everything they had. I admit that I was biased in favour of
the defenders here: The attackers did only marginal damage against the batteries
but their objective was to get the swarms of gravcarriers to low orbit,
where they could travel down on own power and destroy the batteries in close
combat. If I had let them use the meson-guns against the surface batteries
according to the TL-firecontrol rules any TL15 help wouldn't have matteret
one bit.
  Down on the ground the situation were worse: The only weapon the defenders
had that could penetrate the enemy gravcarriers were their tankguns and missiles
while the secondary armament of the attackers cut through all the defenders
vehicles.
  Extending the example, I'd bet that a force of 250,000 could take on a planet
of 40,000,000 if they have a 4 tl advantage and take it with low to nonexistant
losses. They could possibly handle a 120,000,000 planet after a fight.

  The very high GNP figures for planets cuts both ways: It gives the planet a
big defence and it gives the raiders a big booty.

>    And a Vargr state wouldn't let all
>    it's ships go raiding at the same time.

  I thought that this raiding buisness was the decsision of the individual
ships totally without regards to what their gov said. The governments then
made a virtue of a necessity when they claimed sovereignity of the looted
territory.

> 6) Then you go home. (No you don't, come to think about it. You go on
>    and re-integrates Corridor into the Domain. (And this time you
>    rectify an inexplicable mistake of the early 3rd Imperium and
>    grab all the worlds between the Great Rift and the Windhorn,
>    instead of stopping at the coreward border of the Sectors ;-))

  Administrating a hostile population numbering in the billions?! Yuck!

> Big fleets are just to identifiable and too tied to repair facilities
> to be used for raiding anybody bigger than yourself. Think about what
> happened to the Barbary States.

  They got Amphibious-Assault ships named after them? :)

>       Hans Rancke

- -bertil-
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
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I wrote:
>> 50.000 T raiders won't attack small worlds, because there's simply not
>> enough loot to satisfy the crew (or pay for the yearly maintenance). Nor
>> will they attack HP worlds, because the planetary defenses would be
>> too tough (look at the size of the Vargr border states. Most of them are
>> no larger than half a subsector).

Bertil writes:
>  I think we have forgot the TL aspect in this discussion. I ran this kind of
>action as the 'Battle of Naasakiira' Naasakiira (Corridor 1309 C556687-9 Ag
>Ni 623 Vg K7 V). I computed the number of ships the Naasakiira would have
>built for themselves and the ground-based installations, at the percentages
>given in 'Striker'. Against them, I put a force of 6 5000 vargr battalions of
>TL 13 troops, 10 7000t ships and 20 800t corvettes. All in all a 150 to 1
>advantage in manpower (whole population against whole vargr force plus crew).

[Describes how the small invader force beat the pants off the defense.]

>  Extending the example, I'd bet that a force of 250,000 could take on a
>planet of 40,000,000 if they have a 4 tl advantage and take it with low to
>nonexistant losses. They could possibly handle a 120,000,000 planet after
>a fight.

I admit that I never worked out any battles like this, so I hadn't given
tech level differences much thought. But if they really are that important,
then that should work against the Vargr in general. Some Vargr may be able
to gain a local advantage once in a while, but since the average Vargr tech
level is lower than the average Imperial (the typical Vargr raiders shown in
_Rebellion_ are TL 11!), so much the worse for them. That means that the navy
needn't try to achieve parity with the raiders, but can distribute their tech
15 ships on more worlds. Give Naasakiira a brace of Azhantis and where would
your invader fleet have been? And how many Azhantis could the sub-sector that
Naasakiira is in afford? More than two per planet I'd guess.

>  The very high GNP figures for planets cuts both ways: It gives the planet
>a big defence and it gives the raiders a big booty.

Well, don't you think the citizens of Naasakiira realizes this? So don't you
think they would have bought tech 13-15 defenses from a nearby world? Even
if they have to import technicians to maintain them?

Still, I'm not saying that the Vargr couldn't mess up some planets if they
got lucky. But then what? They can't stay, because the relief fleet will
kick their ass if they do, and they can't go home, because the vengeance
(sorry, deterrent) fleet will kick their ass there if they do. Actually,
they propably do go home, and they may even escape the destruction of
their home planet's spaceyards, but whatever happens they won't use that
planet as a base any more. Pretty soon they'll run out of places to get
repaired and maintained. Then no more raiding. And they most certainly
won't conquer (as in move in and stay) any Domain planets. By 1118 at the
latest the frontier will be back to normal. That's assuming the Vargr got
so excited over the news about the Rebellion that they lost enough sense
to start anything in the first place (Which, I grant you, is extremely
likely).

>>   And a Vargr state wouldn't let all
>>   it's ships go raiding at the same time.
>
>  I thought that this raiding buisness was the decision of the individual
>ships totally without regards to what their gov said.

Well maybe. I think that any Vargr raider with any sense at all will keep
on the good side of the people who controls the spaceyard he needs to keep
his ship flying, but then who said that Vargr raiders had any sense?

>                                                     The governments then
>made a virtue of a necessity when they claimed sovereignity of the looted
>territory.

You mean, they don't control the looted planets at all? Just what I think
myself.

>>6) Then you go home. (No you don't, come to think about it. You go on
>>   and re-integrates Corridor into the Domain. (And this time you
>>   rectify an inexplicable mistake of the early 3rd Imperium and
>>   grab all the worlds between the Great Rift and the Windhorn,
>>   instead of stopping at the coreward border of the Sectors ;-))
>
>  Administrating a hostile population numbering in the billions?! Yuck!

Why not? The 2nd and 3rd Empire and the Solomani Confederation did it. I
could even give you an argument about how hostile they would be against a
power that could protect them against those incessant raids from their
naighbors, but actually I was just being sardonic about the way the 3rd
Empire stopped at the top of Corridor and Vland Sectors. The area above
is old 1st and 2nd Empire territory. Why stop precisely there? Ah well,
something to do with the treaty with the Julian League, I suppose. But I
still think it's odd.

>>Big fleets are just to identifiable and too tied to repair facilities
>>to be used for raiding anybody bigger than yourself. Think about what
>>happened to the Barbary States.
>
>  They got Amphibious-Assault ships named after them? :)

They used to be corsair havens until they got trounced and forced to stop
being corsair havens.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
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