So I’m trying to drop 5t troop companies on unsuspected enemy.
Doctrine:
The Assault Navy clears the system of any enemy ships.
The Spaceliners encroach on the planet, stopping around the < 4 billion km mark.
The Troop Transports drop directly onto the planet and return for subsequent waves.
Task Group Components:
2x Chani-class Spaceliners
4x Bashar Type T MkV-class Troop Transports
4x Leto Atreides-class Troop Transports (Drop-capable parasites assigned to the Chani)
Technical Status: Current propulsion is at the Magneto-plasma Drive level. This doctrine is not yet battle-tested, but deployment is highly likely in the coming years.
Chani class Spaceliner 70 000 tons 620 Crew 5 431.2 BP TCS 1 400 TH 1 280 EM 0
1828 km/s Armour 8-151 Shields 0-0 HTK 80 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 5 048 Max Repair 480 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 30 000 tons
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 600 CDE 50%
Caterpillar Marine MPD1280.00 - EP50 - FC0.4 - TR50 - ES160.00 (2) Power 2560 Fuel Use 1.77% Signature 640.0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 485 000 Litres Range 70.5 billion km (446 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Carrier for auto-assignment purposes
Bashar Type T MkV class Troop Transport 70 000 tons 314 Crew 2 140.6 BP TCS 1 400 TH 1 280 EM 0
1828 km/s Armour 1-151 Shields 0-0 HTK 86 Sensors 11/11/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 19 Max Repair 480 MSP
Troop Capacity 50 000 tons Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 1
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months CDE 50%
Caterpillar Marine MPD1280.00 - EP50 - FC0.4 - TR50 - ES160.00 (2) Power 2560 Fuel Use 1.77% Signature 640.0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 763 000 Litres Range 111 billion km (702 days at full power)
General Dynamics Phalanx 4-48 4k-16-5k ECC-0 (5x8) Range 1000 km TS 16 000 km/s ROF 5
Kelvin Hughes EMS11 - 1.0 - EH2 (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect 1000: 26.2m km
Kelvin Hughes THS11 - 1.0 - EH2 (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect 1000: 26.2m km
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Troop Transport for auto-assignment purposes
Leto Artreides class Troop Transport 14 768 tons 265 Crew 2 950.5 BP TCS 295 TH 1 523 EM 0
10314 km/s Armour 6-53 Shields 0-0 HTK 41 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 8-5 PPV 0
Maint Life 0.70 Years MSP 998 AFR 218% IFR 3.0% 1YR 1 424 5YR 21 354 Max Repair 1 142.4 MSP
Troop Capacity 5 000 tons Drop Capable
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months CDE 50% Morale Check Required
BMW-Northrop Cruiser MPD1523.20 - EP140 - FC0.4 - TR50 - ES68.00 (2) Power 3046.4 Fuel Use 35.57% Signature 761.60 Exp 14%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 8.6 billion km (9 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Troop Transport for auto-assignment purposes
Suggestions. You cannot have enough armour on the dropships as your doctrine has them being shot multiple times by the STO weapons, unless your warships kill them first in which case you don’t need the dropships. So cut their deployment time down to about 0.1 or so use any freed up mass and the small spare to add armour or a shield generator
This is a fun opportunity for a compare and contrast of doctrines, both of which are not yet battle tested.
You are paying 2950BP to drop 5kt of troops at 10314 kmps, protected by 318 points of armor.
I am also at mag-plas engine tech.
I am paying 1475BP to drop 25kt of troops at 1910 kmps, protected by no armor at all.
(Armourless dropship = 850BP, commercial tug = 625BP.)
The loss of a 25kt formation (2.8k BP) is more than thrice as costly as the dropship itself.
And I suspect the STOs will target the dropships first, since they are much larger than the tugs.
My cost per kt of troop delivery is 10% of yours.
My losses on approach will (obviously) be more significant.
I know the enemy’s tech level (a bit behind my own), but I know nothing about their STO specs.
Assuming racial FC range of 48k, which is the best of theirs that I have observed, their STOs will have up to 240k range.
That will take roughly 125 seconds for my forces to traverse, which means each STO will surely get multiple shots at my fleet.
The very large drop bay has 24HTK, and I doubt they have STOs that can do 24 damage at significant range, so I’m expecting we can mostly shrug off the first shot or two.
I plan to attack with 80 dropships.
2 million troops that cost a total 224k BP to train.
80 dropship-tug pairs that cost 118k BP to build.
(But, crucially, do not require any maintenance.)
Many of my soldiers and crew will die in the attack.
That is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
Fellow appreciator of planning just-in-case for opposed landings.
I’d say you’ve got way too long range on the dropship. STO-units are unlikely to reach out to 1m km’s. I myself keep the dropship range below 3000 000. It cuts down on components, reduces overall size and increases speed. Speed is absolutely nr.1 priority for dropships. In my opinion armor is wasted on them, since the plan is to get in-and-out of STO range as fast as possible.
That is of course assuming you pulverize majority of STO’s and time arrival of missile salvos to coincide with the arrival of dropships to soak up most of the incoming fire.
EDIT
Don’t forget to change deployment time to 0.3 days. The longer deployment time, the more crew modules are added.
Has anyone ever experimented with military tug plus a civilian dropship/tug combination? Have the dropship with an efficient and slow engine tow the military tug to the fight, then have the military tug tow the dropship to the target and away at much higher speed?
Speed is extra good against STO because STO have crappy tracking speed. Either they are PD and get 4x racial tracking speed but short range, or they are 1x racial DFC tracking speed and 4x racial DFC range.
The PD guns are usually gauss so only once damage per hit, so there is some value to armoring your dropships.
I’m not sure what you mean by “replenish”. I just have them parked aboard a larger troop transport from which to load troops from for ground assault.
They’ll be flying only for combat drops or other special circumstances, which is why they don’t have engineering component. The host troop transport has maintenance facilities to keep them operational.
Internal Confinement Fusion engine technology.
Designed to combat-drop a company.
IL-107B class Dropship 3,373 tons 10 Crew 1,223.2 BP TCS 67 TH 154 EM 0
14231 km/s Armour 1-20 Shields 0-0 HTK 16 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0-0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 674% IFR 9.4% 1YR 461 5YR 6,920 Max Repair 135 MSP
Troop Capacity 2,000 tons Drop Capable
Leytenant Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days CDE 60% Morale Check Required
TPU-120M-MK1 fusion thruster (8) Power 960 Fuel Use 871.42% Signature 19.20 Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 0.31 billion km (5 hours at full power)
The forementioned troop transport in question:
Projekt 161073M class Troop Transport 215,571 tons 1,840 Crew 15,211.5 BP TCS 4,311 TH 4,051 EM 0
3915 km/s JR 3-50(C) Armour 6-320 Shields 0-0 HTK 301 Sensors 11/14/0/0 DCR 21-0 PPV 0
MSP 1,144 Max Repair 1,055 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 21,000 tons Troop Capacity 41,000 tons Cryogenic Berths 1,000 Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 8
Kapitan tret'yego ranga Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 420 CDE 60%
Maintenance Modules: 7 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 28,000 tons
Soyuz-7 FTL drive Max Ship Size 216000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
EDTU-2110-MK "Volna" fusion rocket (8) Power 16880 Fuel Use 0.96% Signature 506.40 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 700,000 Litres Range 60.7 billion km (179 days at full power)
AK-357M2 close-in-weapon system (10x8) Range 1000 km TS 20,000 km/s ROF 5
GLONASS-3 navigation radar (1) GPS 2100 Range 33.9m km RES 100 ECCM-1 EH-30
Perimetr-1 Cep.03 early warning system (2) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km RES 1 ECCM-1 EH-30
GOI-1071 IR sensor (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect 1000: 26.2m km
TPO-1091 radar warning receiver (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect 1000: 29.6m km
Strike Group
6x IL-107B Dropship Speed: 14231 km/s Size: 67.46
2x Ka-230M Dropship Speed: 20045 km/s Size: 4.79
5x Ka-243 Dropship Speed: 20029 km/s Size: 1
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Carrier for auto-assignment purposes
Capacity is 41,000 tons of troops which is slightly more than a regiment.
There’s nothing at all to the designs.
The drop ship is a no-armour station with just a Very Large drop bay. 30,397t.
The tug is plain. Just 2x 5kt@50% engines, 500kL of fuel, and a tractor beam. 11,479t.
I don’t plan to reinforce after dropping.
I’ll just retreat out of STO range and wait.
I will send some drop ships back to the ground force production colony to replace losses. The rest will stay at the target colony to pick up whatever forces remain.