This article and its companion Three Blind Mice ( also by David),
are in my opinion the best Star Cruiser add-ons to
ever appear in Challenge magazine, or in print. My thanks
to David for granting permission for me to host it on my web site. -
Kevin Clark - Nov. 19th, 1996.
by David C. Nilsen
( dnilsen AT interactive DOT net ),
Stutterwarp Chart designs created by Devon Nilsen
Copyright ©1988, 1996 David C. Nilsen. All Rights Reserved.
Originally published in Challenge magazine #33.
HTML entry/layout/editing by Kevin Clark
( kevinc AT cnetech DOT com )
Please report errors to me.
Disclaimer required by Far Future Enterprises: This item is not authorized or endorsed by Far Future Enterprises ( FFE) and is used without permission. The item is for personal use only. Any use of FFE's copyrighted material or trademarks in this file should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. In addition, this item cannot be republished or distributed without the consent of the author ( David C. Nilsen).
The following account is based on data from the frigate Faucon. The data was squirt transmitted to, and delivered by, Courrier de Flotte Joyeusse, the sole survivor of the encounter off Hochbaden.
Capitaine de Vaisseau Raoul de Lombard settled back into his control couch with a sense of deep satisfaction. The promotion befitting his new assignment as convoy commander had come through only the day before, and arriere-garde Joyeusse had just called to confirm that she had herded the last of the civilian freighters into formation. The civilian shipmasters were a headstrong, uncooperative lot, but now, as the seven-ship convoy approached the 0.0001G gradient, they had finally surrendered their objections to military discipline. The convoy would get off on time after all, and his first assignment was well on its way to a successful conclusion.
Faucon's cramped but efficient bridge hummed and bleeped its song
of well-being and soothed Lombard into peacefulness.
Until his sensors officer blurted, "Quoi?"
"What is it, Enseigne?"
"Large unidentified target, sir, off the port quarter, bearing 235,
positive 30."
Lombard's head snapped toward his communications officer. "Check incoming
traffic reports. Are any major units due in?"
"Capitaine," the sensors officer interrupted, "Neutrino
sensor indicates a fusion drive in the hundred megawatt range; spectral
sensors indicate ablative screens are erected. I don't think it's one of
ours."
"Have we been spotted?"
Radar warning alarms blared from several locations around the bridge.
"We have been now, sir. We are being painted by several radars in
the search and fire control bands. Wave form indicates Kafer equipment."
"Merde," Lombard snapped. "Sound battle stations. Sensors,
go active; make a complete spherical scan; make sure there's only one of
those things."
"Affirmative, sir. However, several smaller targets coming into view
around the large Kafer. Suggest they're fighters or missiles, sir."
"Send to merchants: 'Make best possible speed course 55 degrees relative.
Will engage hostile vessel.' Though I doubt we'll be able to stop them
- not all of them, anyway."
"Weapons showing manned and ready, sir."
"All mounts open fire. Fire on best possible solution."
Lombard drummed his fingers on his console. The tactical plot showed the
five merchants scattering, their newfound discipline shattered. Faucon
seemed to throb with each salvo of her weapons. "No appreciable damage
to target, sir; she's pretty heavily protected. Small targets have resolved
as fighters and are splitting up to pursue freighters."
"A Dieu ne plaise! Make broad-band distress to all ships in system.
Tell Joyeusse to break off and to receive squirt transmission. I
want all sensor data on the Kafer and all records to be prepared for squirt.
Someone has to get the details out, and only Joyeusse has the speed."
More alarms jangled.
"Capitaine, am receiving avionics broadcasts. Probably mid-course
corrections for X-ray-type missiles. IR is picking them up now, sir."
"Is the squirt transmission ready?"
"Yes, sir."
"Begin transmitting. Add 'Vive la France.' Keep the guns firing on
the Kafer ship, not the missiles. If we can't get him, we're dead anyway."
Nearby, several thermonuclear warheads blossomed silently against the blackness
and were focused into invisible knives that sliced deep into Faucon's
belly. She flared brightly and became an expanding cloud of gas.
As the freighters came under fire from the pursuing fighters, Joyeusse
darted away through the void.
The long-feared threat has materialized. One or more Kafer warships are loose in human space, preying on supply and communications routes. Losses have been most severe to French, German, and Ukrainian interests, but alarmist voices on Earth have begun suggesting that the survival of humanity may be at stake.
Humanity's interstellar age has thus far been marked by the extension of national rivalries into the frontiers of space, as age-old conflicts and dislikes have burst into open warfare over colonial territories or access to certain commodities. The boundaries of human language and culture continue to be persuasive to many government or armed forces leaders, but this seems to be changing. Humanity is finally threatened by another species, one which bears all the signs of being implacable, malevolent, and wholly incomprehensible. While generations of philosophers and statesmen have predicted the revolutionary effects of such an external threat, it is still stunning how the Kafer menace promises to turn the "family of man" into more than a pretty phrase. On Earth, the popular sentiment, as endlessly reported and rereported by the global media, is that the 19 Starfaring Nations should unite to face the threat in the name of mankind. This view has been particularly persuasive in the United States, which has become the first nation not involved in the French Arm to send military forces to the engaged area. Australian forces, integrated into the American Arm, are also present in the French Arm, as are starships from Britain, Azania, and Japan, as well as a fighter group from Texas.
As this human fleet, under the still unofficial protocols of Les Forces Humaines, continues to assemble at Eta Bootis, the casual observer might imagine that a unified human race faces the alien threat. This, however, would be incorrect. Crises, even one so profound as an interspecies conflict, have traditionally been seen by governments as oppontunities for the bold. Many military forces in the French Arm are present for purposes of national prestige or to take advantage of the chaos in this embattled region. Were French fortunes to take a serious reverse, other national forces might be well-placed to snap up territories "in need of protection."
The protocols of Les Forces Humaines consist centrally of an equivalency listing of international military ranks so that proper courtesies can be paid by one national force to another. While the subordination of various national fleets to one international command has not yet been achieved, the protocols do include provisions for the integration of forces into other national fleets for short-term operations. It is as yet only poorly understood on Earth how limited and ad hoc these protocols truly are.
It is in this environment that steps are being taken to meet the threat of the Kafer raider. The raider seems to be one or more independently operating Improved Alpha battleships and has been dubbed "le loup seul" or "the lone wolf" by French naval intelligence. While the Lone Wolf could be met and destroyed by the main body of Les Forces Humaines, the human fleet can only be in one place at one time, and at any rate it is needed to defend entire solar systems and cannot be shuttled around to defend shipping against one vessel. On the other hand, convoy operations are ineffective, as the couple of escorts available to defend each of the many convoys are not capable of defeating an Alpha battleship.
The compromise that has been reached provides several hunter-killer groups, each hopefully powerful enough to at least slow down an Alpha class until help can arrive. If properly supported by couriers and supply vessels, this force should be able to cover a fairly large area and allow the fleet to remain on guard for the Kafer main body. The Ukrainian naval forces, badly mauled in recent fighting, have elected to maintain their strength as part of the main body of the human fleet and to support convoy operations with detached Kiev-class destroyers. France, Germany, and the United States, however, have each assigned cruiser divisions to the task, as well as numerous small couriers and support vessels. Each of these cruiser divisions is under independent command despite French protestations that the best results would come from unified (French) command.
For Germany as an independent contributor, the opportunity to help hunt down the raider is a chance to assert her status as a free nation against her former dominating French "ally." Germany, with many legitimate colonial interests in the Arm, cannot allow its efforts to protect its own civilians to become a mere subpoint of French strategy, especially as the Germans of Hochbaden, the site of the Wolf's first strike, were not protected by French policy. Finally, the bulk of the German navy is made of veterans of the War for German Reunification and have as much practice shooting at the French as at the Kafers.
The United States, on the other hand, has long chafed at the irritation of French ascendancy. This has rankled even worse following the global assessment that the American Arm was tapped out, forcing the Americans to beg into someone else's sphere of influence or get out of the colony business. American international and domestic prestige would be greatly enhanced by an American force arriving in the French backyard "to pull the froggies out of the fire." Furthermore, the rambunctious American officer corps is rightly convinced that they have, in the Kennedy cruisers, the finest warships ever designed by humanity. And without a single space war to their credit, they are understandably unwilling to allow these "Queens of the Firing Ranges" to be sucked into French control, where the arrogant French press will claim credit for all of their virtues.
Though being the preeminent human power, the French are no less dependent on their international prestige. In order to maintain leadership, France must demonstrate that she can lead successfully. She is aware that bungling the Kafer menace could result in her fall from dominance and allow some upstart nation (the Americans or Ukrainians) or even worse, Satan, himself (the Germans) to assume global leadership in the ensuing power vacuum. Three hundred years of post-Twilight leadership is at stake in front of millions of defenseless French colonists. If the French cannot lead the defense of the Arm named for them, they feel their survival as man's standard bearer is at risk. Finally, much to the German chagrin, the French command is able to point out that the first lives lost to the Wolf were the crew of the frigate Faucon, who died to defend the convoy and German colony. In the words of Francois 1er at Pavia, "Tous est perdu fors l'honneur" (All is lost save honor). For honor's sake the French will see that these French lives are avenged by French forces.
The Lone Wolf is a scenario for 2300 AD and Star Cruiser and is intended for three players and a referee. The players will take the roles of the French, German, and American contingent commanders, while the referee adjudicates the action and controls the Kafer forces. The referee needs to remember that he is not competing with the human players but is simply controlling the Kafer forces as a disinterested administrator. While he should handle the Kafer sources as intelligently and reasonably as possible, the purpose of the scenario is to allow the human players to eliminate the Kafer threat if the caliber of their play warrants it. A military victory by the Kafer referee is not to be sought.
FRENCH IMPERIAL NAVAL HEADQUARTERS LUNE/SOL 10 FFV 2301
TO COMMANDANT QUATRIEME DIVISION LEGERE
IN COOPERATION WITH GERMAN AND AMERICAN FORCES BEING DISPATCHED TAKE MEASURES TO LOCATE AND DESTROY KAFER CORSAIRE. PROTECTION OF FRENCH AND GERMAN SHIPPING WILL BE BEST SERVED BY UNIFIED FRENCH COMMAND. YOU WILL BE EXPECTED TO ACT ALONE IF AMERICAN AND GERMAN COOPERATION IS NOT FORTHCOMING. FRENCH SHIPPING AND PRESTIGE IS AT STAKE. VIVE LA FRANCE.
4e DL ASSETS: SUFFREN-CLASS CRUISERS DUQUESNE AND COLBERT PLUS VARIOUS ATTACHED COURIERS AND ORDNANCE SUPPLY VESSELS.
DEUTCHES RAUMMINISTERIUM MOND/SOL 11 FEB 2301
TO FLAGOFFIZIER ZWEITE KREUZERDIVISION
THE KAFER HANDELSZERSTORER OPERATING IN THE FRENCH ARM WILL BE DRIVEN OFF OR DESTROYED. GERMAN UNITS MUST BE INTIMATELY INVOLVED WITH THIS OPERATION. AVOID SUBORDINATION TO FRENCH COMMAND AT ALL COSTS. GERMAN CONTRIBUTION MUST BE SEEN AS PIVOTAL AND AUTONOMOUS. OUR EYES ARE ON YOU.
II. KREUZERDIVISION ASSETS: HAMBURG-CLASS CRUISERS BAYERN AND AUGSBURG PLUS ATTACHED COURIERS AND RESUPPLY.
UNITED STATES SPACE FORCE HEADQUARTERS LUNA/SOL 12 FEB 2301
TO COMMANDER CRUDIV THREE
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY INCREASE IN GRADE TO REAR ADMIRAL (0-7). PROCEED WITH PATROL OPERATIONS TO COUNTER KAFER RAIDER(S) OPERATING IN THE FRENCH ARM. DO NOT, REPEAT, NOT ACCEPT POSITION SUBORDINATE TO FRENCH OR GERMAN COMMAND FOR PURPOSES OF THESE OPERATIONS. SUPPLY SITUATION DEPENDENT UPON YOUR COOPERATION WITH FRANCO-GERMAN AUTHORITIES. HOWEVER AMERICAN PRESTIGE RIDES ON AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION AS AUTONOMOUS FORCES, SAYS WHITE HOUSE. GOOD HUNTING.
CRUDIV THREE ASSETS: KENNEDY-CLASS CRUISERS ROOSEVELT AND KOSTEK.
In their persona as cruiser division commanders, the players will find they are Vice-Amiral Bernard Perret, Konteradmiral Rudolf Bader, and Rear Admiral Douglas Blake.
To begin the scenario, present the players with the opening narrative and the Overview section. Allow them to form any preferences on which force they would like to handle, and when a decision has been reached, present them with there respective orders, above.
If there is no consensus on who plays which role, it is advisable that the most experienced player with the most persuasive personality should play the French role. In attempting to hold together a doomed joint venture, the French Vice-Amiral will have the most difficult role. The German, by virtue of his less flexible vessels, will also find that negotiating skill is a virtue. If you have a player whose taste runs to maverickism and who would rather go West than let anyone tell him what to do, he's a natural American. And if his thin-skinned ships get caught with their backs against the wall, he might just learn a lesson or two.
After letting the players get used to their commands and examine their Ship Systems sheets, etc., allow them to read the section on Naval Doctrine. This will give them ideas on how to begin preplanning their operations while the referee sets up his master board. This should be out of the sight of the players, as it will display the current location of Kafer forces, human couriers, and other happenings that individual players would not know. For the master board, it is suggested that a large piece of paper be set up as the example, Figure 3, below. This is a flow chart displaying the various stellar systems as holding boxes with arrows connecting systems within 7.7 light-years of each other.
A copy of this master board should also be made available to the players so they can see where they are going. Alternately, a single master board can be set up for the referee and players, with the referee keeping secret dispositions on hidden papers. Table 3 also handles the data needed for use with the master board.
At this point, present the French and German players with their support forces. The German receives three Merkur-class couriers and three Krupp 821-type freighters, while the French receives four Lideau couriers and two Guiana-class freighters. While these freighters do carry sufficient supplies and refueling facilities to support their forces, there are no extra missiles available at the start of the scenario since they are in great demand by the Human Fleet assembled at Eta Bootis. The American player gets no supporting forces at the start. Crew quality for all cruisers is + 1, and is zero for all other vessels at start.
All three forces begin with the Fleet at Eta Bootis, where they are free to confer and agree on interstellar jumps (see Naval Doctrine). Other vessels such as couriers, convoys, etc., may be encountered in other systems, but except in limited cases, they will not be subject to the commands of the players.
"Lone Wolf" is a campaign for 2300 AD, and for Star Cruiser in particular. This article exists to propose certain rules and conventions to run a campaign but is based exclusively on published 2300 AD material. Certain references may be made in this article to various rules, equipment, or basic data from which certain figures are extrapolated. These can all be found in the 2300 AD Boxed Set Referee's and Player's Manuals, the Near Star List, and 2300 AD companion products, Star Cruiser and Ships of the French Arm. The Colonial Atlas is recommended for orbital data, and Mission Arcturus is nice, though not essential. Other information necessary for play has been written for this article.
The heart of the campaign is the master board mentioned above. It comes in two parts - Figure 3: The Primary and Secondary Board, and Figure 4: The Tertiary Board. The campaign is centered on the terminal finger of the French Arm, from Kimajano to Eta Bootis. The colonies on the Arm itself are the primaries, while the Systems connected to the primaries through which one can run parallel to the Arm or leap-frog around it are the secondaries. These systems are those in which most of the campaign will take place and are on the board. The tertiaries, which connect to the secondaries and function as secondaries to the secondary systems, have complex patterns and are relegated to a second sheet. The players and referee can agree to keep the campaign on the Primary/Secondary Board to keep things more easily grasped, but use of the Tertiary Board allows more possiblities and realism. The boards, although representing the correspondence between the star systems, bear little resemblance to the actual physical location of the stars as rendered on the 2300 AD Near Star Map. They are merely flow charts to graphically represent the destinations possible from each star system.
The referee will use the board(s) to keep track of the comings and goings of the various Kafer and human ships, as simultaneous movement is important. Friendly ships with messages for each other, or enemy ships intent on violence, may miss each other by mere hours upon entering or leaving a system. The referee will compare a vessel's warp efficiency with the distance of the route being attempted and compute the number of hours or days that will elapse before arrival. This bookkeeping depends on the referee's discretion, as this article is too short to address the issue. Unless the players specifically state that they are adopting standard doglegs en route from one system to another to ensure that they will cross paths in interstellar space, there is no chance that ships will come upon each other, except in stellar systems.
When a player's ship enters a star system, it appears on the System Tactical Display (Figure 5). This is a set of concentric rings that illustrate the space around a primary star. The scale is variable and will be set depending upon the system currently occupied. If, for example, it were to be used for the Sol system, the diameter of the tenth ring would be set at 60 au for the orbit of Neptune. Each ring would be 3 au wide, making each "square" worth 9 square au. The performance and search capability figures to be found in Table 1 and Table 2 are to be used here to regulate the movement of ships through the circular grid.
Information from Table 3 will also be used here, in the form of establishing the key G gradients in the system display. These are the 0.1G gradient where stutterwarp discharge takes place ( if it is done at the star; it can also be done at the 0.1G gradient of any planet in the system - placement of these is at the referee's discretion following data in the Colonial Atlas), and the 0.0001G gradient where stutter performance falls below light-speed.
Starships can pass with impunity through the system subject to their speed restrictions except within the "deep well", inside the 0.1G gradient where stutterwarp performance off to less than that of gravity. Fighters listed on Table 2 are restricted to remaining within their mission radius of their designated base. Any search patterns which they conduct must also be contiguous with their base.
Upon entering the star system, a warship begins to grav scan the system for other stutterwarps while it heads for a 0.1G gradient for discharge, which will take 40 hours upon arrival. Players are allowed to see bogie markers on the Tactical Display and will not even know if the bogies are each other's vessels unless they flash a stutter code or break communications silence. More exacting searches, such as DSS ( Deep System Scanner) or Passive Sensor Sweeps, are conducted by physically passing the ships through the grid based on how large a space their sensors can "clear" per per hour or day.
Colony systems will contain activity for the players to observe, or protect. Any ship that checks in at the colony will find that a courier is always standing by. The French and German players can order the ready courier to depart with a message, but they cannot add the courier to their forces. The American player having no colonies in the Arm, can make no request of the colonial couriers.
Convoys will also be arriving or departing colonial systems. The referee will have to decide before the game whether he will roll randomly upon entering colonial systems for the presence of convoys, or if he will set up a schedule of convoy arrivals and departures before the game which will then be made available to the players.
Stellar Distances and Departure Angles (Table 4) assists with convoy procedures. Convoys will only pass between colonies and certain intermediate secondary systems on standard, simple routes. Table 4 lists only such systems on the Primary/Secondary Master Board that contain convoy routes. While the Kafer commander would not be aware of specific convoy schedules, he would know that the geography of space forces departing convoys to adhere to certain departure angles. As will be discussed in Naval Doctrine, ships can make evasive modifications to these angles, but the low level of military training in commercial crews prevents convoys from making any but the most rudimentary evasive doglegs. Therefore, their departure angles will only be so far removed from the direct line, or "pipeline," to the destination system. The Kafer commander's favored tactic is to lay low with drives shut down along one of the much-used departure angles and keep watch with his passive, grav, and DSS scanners (which consume essentially no power) for an approaching convoy. The departure angles in Table 4 are based on the simplification that all of the stellar system ecliptic planes are parallel to the horizontal x-y plane of the Near Star Map itself. The departure angles are given with respect to a 360 degree reference, where 0/360 degrees is toward the 2300 AD logo on the Near Star Map, 90 degrees is to the right past DM-22 6219, and so on. The up or down angle is in degrees above or below the system's ecliptic, starting from the primary star.
Merchant and escort ships in convoys cannot be controlled by the players; they are under orders to keep a schedule. The players, however, can attach their vessels to the convoy screen to protect it from Kafer attentions.
At any point in the game, the players are free to detach any vessels from their command for independent operations. They should give simple and clear orders for the vessel(s) to follow (though the orders' meanings can be fairly complex). After all, warships are commanded by intelligent, experienced, and trained officers. Typical orders include, but are not limited to:
The players should bear in mind that any detached vessels (detached means any vessel not in the same stellar system as the flagship) will not be fought in combat by the owning player but by another player designated by the referee, with the restrictions of the orders. The referee will prevent any player from deliberately losing another player's vessel in this way, but in any event, players must be careful with others' ships, as their own turn to hand over detached command will come soon enough.
Returning vessels will give clear, intelligent, and responsible reports to the admirals, but detached captains will not be able to use the same initiative or question-asking ability that the player character would use were he in the situation. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
If any detached vessel runs out of fuel or is damaged so that it cannot maneuver, it is to be considered destroyed when the Kafer Alpha next enters the system - unless it is located by allied forces first.
It is important for the referee to remember the principle of limited intelligence upon which the 2300 AD system is based. A commander will only know what is happening in the system he currently occupies (and not even that much about it) plus whatever reports have reached him via his own or other player's ships. All referees have had the problem of how to tell players things that some of them might not know. Some split their players into groups in different rooms, some pass notes, some whisper information. Naturally, since the gaming group desires to play together, these things aren't often simple. But in the long run a referee has to be able to his players to remain in character for the good of the game. This means understanding that not everyone can know everything that is going on at the time, and that if a piece of information slips, a player has the self-control to play as if the character did not hear the divulgence. Referees will have to make their own decisions on how to control their players under these conditions, and this must be the first decision when planning this campaign.
Both resupply and repair are handled as the need occurs. Resupply can be conducted at colonies or by freighters configured as support ships. Repair can only be conducted at colonies.
Resupply can be one of three types: fuel, food, and ordnance. Many of the vessels in the campaign run off MHD plants and require hydrogen refueling. This can be done at any colony world and takes two to 12 hours. Some freighters are mentioned as carrying fuel for transfer, and these vessels can refuel MHD ships wherever they rendezvous. Food is rarely a problem with the cruisers, as they all carry life support supplies for at least six months. The smaller ships, refueling as often as they do, top off their larders fairly regularly. Food is light and compact enough that it should be assumed to be available at any support freighter or colony.
It is ordnance that is troublesome to replenish. The big military missiles are expensive, complex, and in great demand. This means that they are also in short supply. French Ritage 1 and 2 missiles and German SR-10s are theoretically available at any of the German and French colonies on the Arm. In practice, they are mostly on their way to the Fleet at Eta Bootis, which makes them scarce. Whenever a French or German vessel calls on a colony for mission resupply, roll for missile availability: 1D10 + 1D6 for SR-10s, 1D6 for Ritage 1s, and 1D3 for Ritage 2s. Fortunately, missiles are also available for purchase with victory points (see Victory, below). For the American player, this purchase is the only way he can restock SIM-14s. Without any form of logistic net in the French Arm, the American may be forced to beg for French and German missiles. In one day at a colony, the American missile bays can be transformed to carry Ritage 1 or SR-10 missiles, replacing SIM-14s in the bays on a one-for-one basis. Since the Kennedys have four bays, the American could have one converted to SR-10s, one to Ritage 1s, and save the remaining two bays for the awaited SIM-14s. However, as the missile roll above is rerolled only once per week per colony, this will cut into French and German supplies and can only be done with their approval. This is a form of invisible victory points for the American, as he can receive awards from the French and German players for certain actions. However, as this is unofficial and at the sufferance of the other two players, the American could end up without an ordnance supply.
Other resupply for the American is handled similarly; he must receive German or French permission to refuel or resupply at any of their colonies. This is strictly up to the European players, and they are not obliged to deal with the American in one way or another. Fortunately, the American is not extremely dependent on resupply except in the case of missiles. His cruisers do not need fuel, nor do they need food for six months The Retief squadron is refueled and serviced by its Cargomax tender; indeed the only resupply dependence the Americans have is that of refueling the Cargomax itself after it has done 16 Retief refuelings.
Repair is handled similarly at any colony. Hits repaired in combat by damage control are expedient fixes at best and must be repaired permanently at a later time. Each of these hits can be repaired as "light damage" while alongside the repair facility. Hits considered by Star Cruiser to be "beyond repair for purposes of the game" can be repaired at a colony as heavy damage, as can critical hits. A colony can supply 20 repair points per day, split among more than one ship if necessary, which are used at the following rate: one point per light hit, two points per heavy hit, and four points per critical hit. In addition, all hits that can be handled by damage control as per the Star Cruiser rules are automatically repaired to damage control standards on the first full day of repairs. While these hits will still need to be permanently repaired as light hits above, they can be taken into battle under emergency conditions at a greater risk of breakdown if sufficient repair time is not available. All ships undergoing battle repairs are considered to be in a powered-down "cold" condition and would take several hours to power up to combat status.
As an exception to the above repair notes, any American vessel attempting repairs can only be repaired at 60 percent the above rate, or 12 repair points per day. This is because the French and German colonies do not stock American spare parts and must make time consuming improvisations in the repairs. This can be remedied if the American spends a victory point for a spare parts stock (Victory, below) on a given colony. This has the effect of raising American repair capabilities to 20 points per day on that colony alone. This does not, however, eliminate the problem, as with resupply above, of obtaining German or French permission to undertake repairs at their colonies.
While this is not such an immediate crisis for supply concerns, the urgency of battle repair makes this a real American concern, as they would have to go as far up the Arm as Beta Canum or Queen Alice's Star in order to obtain repairs without making a deal with their "allies."
Manpower replacement is one final obstacle for the forward deployed Americans. The Germans and French are able to make good any crew casualties at any of the numerous colonies, but the Americans do not have such a replacement pool until they buy one with victory points. This, along with many other stumbling blocks, forces the American Rear Admiral into extreme caution early in the game. In all cases, however, manpower losses can affect crew quality. Regardless of the current crew quality of a French, German, or American ship, if it suffers greater than 25 percent casualties in combat that must be replaced, crew quality drops down to zero until it can be brought back up again with victory points.
In contrast with the Americans, the Kafer force starts out with a very strong material condition. The Improved Alpha carries a full load of of 20 X-ray missiles and four Golf fighters. The Alpha's crew is at a constant quality level of + 2 - that is, always aroused for combat. The raider is supported by a force of two to three freighters, treated as equivalents to the Manchurian Shenyang type. These ships make their way back to Kafer territory to reload with supplies and either drop them off in prearranged caches for the raider or rendezvous with it themselves (see Alternatives, below). The freighters are well-stocked with X-ray missiles, replacement Golf fighters as well as Foxtrots for self-defense, spare parts for battle damage repairs, including entire gun towers, and replacement crew.
The raider is unique in that it will break off from combat if it is in danger of being defeated, generally throwing up an intimidating screen of X-ray missiles and turning to disengage, often abandoning its fighters as a rear guard. The referee will be careful in assessing the Kafer's chances in combat to ensure that it has a chance to withdraw instead of becoming ensnared in typical Kafer fashion.
The referee will also arrange for the raider to rendezvous with its support ships in order to conduct postbattle repairs These will generally be in remote systems where repairs can be conducted and new crew and replacement fighters brought on board. This combination of capabilities - high crew quality, efficient resupply, tactical withdrawals, and prompt repair and casualty replacement - makes the Lone Wolf one of the most formidable threats to commerce ever seen in the French Arm. With the likelihood of its rampage continuing farther and farther toward the Core, Earth governments will begin to release reinforcements to the disposal of the players each time a colony or outpost system is violated by the raider for the first time.
Each time this occurs, roll 1D6:
The reinforcement will be added to the force of whichever player has the highest current victory point total, provided he did not receive the last such reinforcement, in which case it goes to the second highest victory point total. The referee is responsible for keeping an up-to-the-minute victory point tally on all three players and should be prepared to give a current rundown on all players' current victory point levels whenever asked.
The active and passive sensors listed on the Ship Status sheets are quite important since those most finely calibrated sensors are necessary for complicated fire control solutions. However, even when dealing with the largest target in known space, the Kafer Alpha, maximum detection ranges are only 18 and 10.8 million kilometers (.12 au and .07 au, respectively). These sensors are thus very limited in terms of scanning an entire system for hostile activity.
Fortunately, for more generalized but longer-ranged locations, the deep system sensor and gravitic sensor are extremely useful. The DSS can detect any functioning power plant within one au from its passive emissions, giving readings within 8.3 minutes of real time. The gravitic sensor, on the other hand, can detect any functioning stutterwarp within 150 au. The stutterwarps show up as trace lines against the "flat" background of unstrained space and the "bumps" of gravity wells. This range gives the capability to detect starships at a distance of 2.5 times the diameter of the solar system. Any shutdown stutterwarp, however, is not detectable, thus making the DSS indispensable when searching for hiding enemy vessels. A vessel may also attempt to power down - shutting down its power plant to become undetectable except by active sensors - but there is a substantial time penalty to refire the power plant. Basically, any vessel detected while "lying doggo" will be destroyed before it can power up, unless it detects the searchers with enough time to crash start the plant. In any event, only the most experienced crews - those aboard first-line warships - can attempt this tactic. These tactics would be impossible for a fleet support ship or a civilian freighter, due to both crew quality and lack of specialized equipment.
The electronic battle is the most important battle in space; thus the tremendous military value of the DSS and gravitic sensors makes them mandatory electronic equipment on all military vessels of frigate size and larger.
The two most important issues on a commander's mind when he brings his vessel into a star system are discharging the stutterwarp and obtaining a grav scan of the system. However, it takes 21 hours to receive data from the outer limits of the 150 au range of the grav sensor. For this reason, vessels on defensive patrol of their own areas generally head to the inner system to discharge in the stellar gravity field. This allows them to cut in half the time necessary to scan the entire system by scanning from the center as compared to scanning from one edge. Conversely, vessels on offensive sweeps in enemy territory generally discharge at a planet in the outer system. While this results in a more time consuming grav scan, it allows them to avoid the more heavily trafficked inner system where the "deep well" or sphere defined by the 0.1G discharge gradiant averages 0.071 au in human colonial systems.
If a vessel is feared to be lying low with stutterwarp drives shut down, a DSS search must be conducted. For purposes of this scenario, the value for the Kennedy, Suffren, and Hamberg classes are given in the Detection Ranges for Human Starships table. These values are in square astronomical units which an be covered per hour. The two-dimensional figure used as the DSS range allows coverage up to one au above and below the ecliptic plane while conducting a flat pattern. It is highly unlikely that any enemy vessel will be outside this area, as stutterwarp discharge would oblige him to venture to within less than 1 au of the ecliptic. A ship using the "All Stop" rule per Star Cruiser still has a running power plant and is thus still visible to the DSS at a range of one au.
Only on very rare occasions will the vessels be obliged to use their tactical sensors (i.e., the active and passive sensors listed on the Status sheets) for a search. This would only be in cases where the quarry is suspected to be powered down with the power plant shut off completely, relying on batteries for minimal functions. Active scanners cannot be used in such a search for a hostile vessel, as the active emissions serve to warn the enemy vessel to power up and get away long before his hunters are in sensor range. Passive sensors alone can be used for this purpose, as the Kafer Alpha has a radiated signature of one when shut down completely. A hull that size has simply too much residual radiation to be completely invisible. The range at which the three human warships can pick up the doggo Kafer are also listed on the Detection Ranges for Human Starships table. However, since the Improved Alpha has passive sensors superior to the human vessels, and the human vessels are maneuvering at maximum speed in order to cover the areas listed in the table, the Kafer will detect them first and have a crucial several turns to relight the power plant and ambush the human vessels. This was the tactic used off Hochbaden in the opening section of the scenario. The antique Faucon's sensors were unable to pick up the powering-up Kafer before action was forced upon her. Friendly forces will often arrange various IFF (Identification Friend/Foe) procedures in order to recognize each other at long range. This procedure generally involves switching the stutterwarp off and on according to a prearranged pattern upon entering a system, thereby identifying itself to all friendly grav scan-equipped warships in the system. This method takes only half the time of sending and awaiting challenge/reply messages and greatly eases the difficulties of deciding which of several bogies to alter course to inspect. These stutterwarp flashes are typically arranged for several months in advance, with each day having a different prearranged pattern for identification. A variation on this pattern allows a ship to identify itself to other ships in the system with access to the "stutter code." Clever players in this scenario will discover that by not flashing their stutterwarps, they can keep their erstwhile "allies" in doubt as to the identity of that blip out there and perhaps draw them out of position at a critical moment.
Movement from one stellar system to another is also a matter of much military concern. As grav scanners confer to the ability to exhaustively scan any system for active enemy vessels, the only other place that hostiles can be is en route from one system to another. As long as ships stick fairly close to the "pipeline," or the imaginary perfectly straight line from system center to system center, they can be fairly easily intercepted by ships going the opposite direction. In military parlance the "pipeline" is known as the "sewer pipe," as "any ship with a predictable course has flushed his chances for survival." For this reason all military vessels fly a dogleg pattern when travelling from star to star. There are two types of doglegs, the first of which is the basic or defensive dogleg. Figure 1 shows the tremendous capability of a defensive dogleg, as the vessel has used all of its available 7.7 light-year range to "bend the pipeline." As there are over 63,000 au in one light-year, it is easy to see that a vessel following this course will be virtually impossible to detect during the midcourse portion of its flight. Even the grav scanner can only cover one two-thousandth of the dogleg's mid-course diameter.
However, the departure angle is the same as the arrival angle in the destination system. This eases the job of the defender who has to watch only one cone of space for incoming hostiles.
This gives rise to the improved, or offensive, dogleg, which seeks to increase the difficulty of the defender by allowing the offensive force to enter the targeted system through any approach angle, including directly opposite the direction of travel. Such a 180-degree approach angle is illustrated in Figure 2. By decreasing the departure angle to 19.4 degrees in this case, the vessel has leftover range when it arrives in the vicinity of the target system, system A. It can then use this range to maneuver into an unexpected approach angle to take defending forces by surprise. As the distance between systems increases, the ability to make involved entry maneuvers such as in Figure 2 decreases, as there is less excess endurance. However, the example in Figure 2 is conducted over a fairly lengthy six light-year distance, and the vessel has only travelled a total of 7.35 light-years by its arrival, showing a margin for error.
Two significant points should be noted in Figure 2. The first is the distance of the final approach leg of 0.1 light-year, or 6,324 au, well in excess of any detection apparatus. It is thus virtually impossible for a ship on this course to be detected until it actually enters the system proper. The second point is that most of the trip is made not in the pipeline, but rather on the inside of a cylinder with a diameter of 2.12 light-years. Thus two vessels only one degree apart on the perimeter of the cylinder will still be separated by 1,170 au, eliminating detection as a realistic possibility.
While the offensive dogleg could just as easily be used in reverse in order to disguise the destination of a departing force, in practice this can only be done with military vessels. Civilian merchant ships, even when organized in convoys, generally lack the training and experience for this kind of sophisticated maneuver.
Since military vessels always take a longer route between stars than the minimum pipeline route, we see that the importance of high speed in warship design is not in order to make their passage from star to star faster. On the contrary, it is to allow them to waste more distance in deceptive maneuvers without arriving so late as to be useless in strategic planning. This is the point of the Kennedy class: It can conduct a radical offensive dogleg maneuver and arrive from an unexpected direction in a hostile system and still take less time to do it than any other ship that used a less circuitous course. This is known as "maneuver superiority," which is the real reason for high stutterwarp performance - not, as is so often assumed, the simple thirst for raw speed.
Departing from this same strategic philosophy, American designers have completed a new class of couriers. Most couriers in service have insufficient speed to make evasive doglegs and still deliver dispatches and communiques in a timely fashion. This has led to the frustrating situation of news arriving with the battle fleet or the commander's having to thin out his force by sending high-speed destroyers with his communications. The Americans have created a companion for their Kennedys in the form of a high-speed courier, but have gone one step further by outfitting it uniquely among couriers, with a comprehensive sensor fit of DSS and grav sensors, allowing it to conduct strategic scouting and reconnaissance. These are the Retief-class Recce couriers which are now entering service. The first three examples, Retief, Flandry, and Falkenberg are available as reinforcements to the American commander (see Victory section).
While relatively short-legged in terms of unrefueled endurance, Retief-class couriers' speed allows for the kind of high-tempo, high-mobility operations that have been pioneered by the tacticians at the USSF Academy in New Springs, Colorado. According to the dictates of Tactical Department Head CDR Devin Tschudi, these vessels are flimsily armed and armored, not only to make them small, but also to force their commanders to, in his words, "Get the picture, get the message, and get out." Details of the class are as follows:
AMERICAN RETIEF-CLASS RECCE COURIER (Ship Status Sheet)
Original Date of Design: April 11, 2296.
First Example Laid Down: June 7, 2297.
First Example Completed: May 14, 2300.
The Retief is perhaps the most tightly designed vessel in human service, and is intended as the smallest package for a high-performance mission. As such, her completion and certification have taken longer than might otherwise be expected for a vessel of her size. The name-ship and her two sisters, all in U.S. Space Force service, are incapable of many of the feats of more typical couriers: They are not streamlined for planetary landing, have a minuscule cargo capacity of 15 cubic meters/4 tons, carry no medic, and have only enough fuel for 3.16 days. However, they are among the fastest starships ever built and carry sensors sufficient for strategic intelligence gathering. Allowing a minimum effective defensive dogleg of 0.272 light-years, Retief can get in and out of any system within 6.35 light-years and grav scan a 54 au diameter sphere there for stutter-warp traces on one load of fuel. The fact that she will require specialized refueling support upon returning merely allows her to dispense with such niceties as medical capability and atmospheric streamlining. When in fleet service, these vessels are expected to revolutionize naval scouting.
Sensor Package: Passive, deep-system scan, gravitational sensors.
Crew: Bridge: 12 TAC: 4 Engineering:
3
Performance Characteristics: Warp Efficiency: 4.25 Power
Plant: 20MW MHD Turbine Fuel: 902 tons, sufficient for 3.16
days operations Range: 7.7 Mass: 1396 tons Cargo Capacity:
15 cubic meters/4 tons Comfort: 0 Total Life Support: 19
Price: Lv58,200,000
Movement: 9 Screens: 0 Radiated Signature: 5 Radial Reflected: 4 Lateral Reflected: 4 Targeting Computer: + 2 Radial Profile: -1 Lateral Profile: -1 Armor: 0 Hull Hits: 2/3/5 Power Plant Hits: 8/40 Active Sensors: None Passive Sensors: 10 Other Systems: 1 x TTA, 1 x Big Clip, 1 x Grape Shot Dispensers Crew Details: Bridge includes one Communications crew above minimum, TAC includes two Fire Control, one DSS, and Grav Sensor Operator in place of Active Operator.
The ability to maneuver in between stars with virtual invisibility means that blockades are impractical and that all interdiction of enemy traffic must be conducted within the system. In general, warships keep tabs on starships within a system by their stutterwarp traces and dispatch fighters or small starships to check out unidentified traces. In this way they avoid allowing the fleet's main body to be lured out of position by decoys that will allow an attack from another angle before the main body can recover. Naval combat is thus characteristically slow and deliberate in unfolding and often devolves to nothing more than point defense due to the difficulty of intercepting enemy units.
The only counter to this is the use of ships to "shadow" enemy vessels between stars. This is possible, as the grav scanner allows even a fast-moving distant vessel to be kept in view if the shadowing vessel responds quickly enough. Vessels equipped with only tactical scanners find shadowing to be impossible, as the tremendous speed of interstellar travel overwhelms the short range of tactical scanners. Naturally, any shadowing vessel has to have speed at least equivalent to the vessel being followed. The great range of the grav scanners makes it possible for a vessel to track another without a speed advantage, which would be necessary with more limited electronics.
Experience and tactics are the keys to successful shadowing. The most critical moment of a developing shadow comes when the targeted vessel crosses the 0.0001 G threshold gradient and passes into FTL pseudovelocity. If the would-be shadower is caught on the wrong side of the threshold gradient for too long, the difference in the sublight and superlight speeds will take the quarry beyond the 150 au sensor range very quickly indeed. For example, once a vessel with warp efficiency 2 crosses the 0.0001 gradient, it takes less than two minutes to travel 150 au. Needless to say, the shadower would have to he very close behind the target in order to keep the stuttertrace in range. For that reason, the most common tactic of shadowers is to remain right along the threshold gradient waiting for the target to pass. If the shadower finds itself out of position, it is a fairly simple matter for it to cross over the gradient line and run along the perimeter to cut off the target still struggling deeper in the well. The grav sensor not only makes shadowing possible by allowing a vessel to keep another in sight at interstellar speeds; it enables the shadower to win the transition phase and get into position for the interstellar tracking portion of the mission. It does this by using the grav scanner to allow it to keep long-range track of its quarry so it can keep itself between the target and the 0.0001 gradient and follow it into FTL transit.
Ideally, courier-type vessels would be used for such work, but the vessels available are not always up to the job from a speed standpoint, and none of them carry the appropriate sensors. The new Retief is ideal for this task, this being one of its design capabilities. However, they will probably not become common in this role because of their limited numbers and their demanding refueling requirements.
The destruction of the Kafer raiding forces is the ultimate goal of the human players, and if this comes to pass, they will all share in the credit. But from the point of view of their home governments, what really matters is how much of the share of credit each national force will get. While it would be nice for each of the three human admirals to cooperate, any commander who supports his allies and allows them reap the credit will find his promising naval career prematurely ended. While nominal cooperation is the framework of this campaign, ruthless self-interest is its heart and soul. A system of victory points will assist the players in understanding their selfish motivations and allow the referee to calculate who is ahead in the public relations war.
Back on Earth, the worlds' presses and major governments are all making noble pronouncements about a common purpose and the unity of the human cause. These sentiments are not only laudable, but very popular among domestic opinion. At the same time, the civil and military leadership of France, Germany, and America insist that their forces carry away more honor and credit than do their competitors. Therefore, Perret, Bader, and Blake, the on-scene commanders, are forced into a balancing act between national self-interest and the appearance of cooperating with the counterparts. Earthwide honor and prestige will be heaped upon the nation and the forces which prosecute action against the Lone Wolf, so long as they are not witnessed to be acting contrary to the ideals of human unity. Herewith, the victory points:
* These awards are divided among the players present who fulfilled the conditions. Ratio is up to the referee, depending upon the judgment of which force offered the most to the result. Additionally, the French player suffers - 1 if he is not present at one of these events, -5 if not at battleship destruction.
* * = For various political reasons, the Earth governments have allowed it to be assumed that the Forces Humaines protocols call for unified French command in times of crisis, while it is a public opinion crime for a commander to force a confrontation on this shaky precedent.
*** = Once a week the referee will offer the opportunity to issue communiques, doubtless to be used to distort events to one's own advantage. If only one player so issues, he receives 2 victory points. If, however, one or both opponents issue communiques to challenge his, each player rolls 1D6. The French player and the player who earned the most victory points that week add one to their rolls. The highest roll gets 2 victory points while the loser(s) takes -2 victory points.
There are no negative victory points for loss of a vessel in one's own command because victory points will only be lost if the player seeks to obtain a replacement. In addition to attaining victory, victory points can also be used to purchase items for use in the campaign. At any point in the turn, the player may state to the referee that he will be purchasing an item, provided he has the victory points, and the expenditure will not drive him into negative victory points.
Most ships will only be available for a duration of two weeks. This time is counted from the day they appear on the board, and they disappear after 14 days. Ships may be placed on any colony world the player chooses, but they must appear when the player's admiral is present in that system in order to receive initial orders. This is not necessary for the static fighter squadrons. They are simply defensively placed and begin defensive patrols in whatever system the player chooses. Various supplies will appear at any one colony the player chooses and will remain there until used.
Each player starts with zero victory points and can begin earning them immediately. Victory points can go negative due to adverse events, but this can never occur due to overspending on the above chart. When victory points reach - 5, the player character is relieved of command. His forces must return to the nearest colony where they will sit idle for five days until a replacement arrives. The force will then restart with victory points reverting to zero. If an admiral dies in combat, he will similarly be replaced in five days. If the flagship was also destroyed in the process, it will be replaced free of victory point cost, and the new admiral will have a default starting level of two victory points due to the epic and heroic death of the previous admiral.
As this is a role-playing rather than a strictly defined board game, situations may occur when the referee is obliged to make judgment calls on the awarding of victory points. He should attempt to be as fair as possible within the spirit of the above list.
Victory is assessed at the moment of destruction of the Kafer battleship. The player with the most points after the destruction points are awarded becomes the victor. He will get a one-grade increase in rank and a choice command assignment for his accomplishments.
The referee should feel free to explore various alternative flows for the campaign in order to keep the players from reading this article and knowing what to expect. Additional replays of the campaign will also need to be changed to add an extra surprise. The following suggestions are to help the referee add his own particular flavor to the game.
There may be more than one Alpha involved in the action. While only one of these will be the experimental battleship ( see Discussion section below), a spare battleship may be available to allow the experienced crew to transfer aboard without awaiting damage repair. Various details in superficial markings or damage should allow the player characters to see whether this is or is not the battleship they have engaged earlier. If the Kafer crew switched back and forth, players may become convinced they are dealing with two Kafer intruders. Or there may be a separate Alpha which does conduct raiding operations at the same time as the experimental ship, but it is handled more clumsily according to normal Kafer habits. This support raider may alternatively be a Beta battle cruiser.
Kafer resupply also has several variations. Two or three Kafer freighters (use Manchurian Shenyang class from Ships of the French Arm as equivalent) may be crisscrossing space to rendezvous with the Lone Wolf at prearranged locations; they may be lying for long periods at All Stop waiting for the Alpha to arrive and give them instructions for the next rendezvous, or one might accompany the raider at all times to provide timely supply and repair. A particularly tricky play would be for these freighters to drop off supplies, missiles, and spare fighters in unpowered modules at prearranged sites. These caches could be anywhere and would be virtually undetectable to human forces except by strenuous active sensor sweeps which are unusual liabilities in wartime situations, especially if Kafer fighters are waiting to defend the caches. Conversely, if Kafer freighters lay low at All Stop, they could take the precaution of dropping a few low output power plants throughout the system as decoys for vessels making DSS sweeps. Active detection coverage by defensive fighters would be inadequate, as their range is too short to allow them to search the inaccessible areas where such caches would likely be dropped.
It is basically up to the referee if he wants to make full use of the third dimension in the system's tactical display in terms of search patterns and approaches to combat. While full use of the z-axis adds complexity to the game, for some playing groups, the extra flavor of space combat given by the third dimension is worth the effort. Either way, it is up to the referee and players, and the figures for two- and three-dimensional search capabilities are in the Detection Ranges for Human Starships table and the Detection Ranges for Human Fighters table.
For enhanced interaction, the referee can modify the rules for reinforcements from newly violated colonies. Many of these colonies, particularly the British and Ukrainian, will have their own command structures and will not simply call up a ship or two to add to the other human forces. The referee could choose to add these forces under the control of a fourth player or else handle them in the guise of an NPC commander who would be seeing to his own uncooperative interests.
Human naval forces have almost gotten used to Kafer space tactics as being plodding, heavy-handed, and inflexible. Many battles have been decided because Kafer ships were simply sitting when battle was joined, still carrying unrepaired damage from previous battles. This inattention to detail has been much noted and discussed, not to mention appreciated. It had been virtually decided that the Kafers simply lacked the kind of mental agility to conduct creative military operations such as deep commerce raiding. That was until Hochbaden.
The Kafers also were aware that they often lost battles in the opening minutes before their crews could become aroused and efficient and while damage untouched from earlier engagements handicapped them still further. That, plus an unwillingness to break off when losing, functioned as something of a "force divider" in operations against humans. Several solutions had been considered by Kafer planners, and the Lone Wolf raider of the French Arm is one of the most interesting.
This Improved Alpha battleship represents an experiment in combat psychology and chemical stimulation designed to mitigate some of the limitations of Kafer short-term intelligence. Thus the crew, which has trained extensively under these modified circumstances, enters combat already aroused and primed to function effectively. By-products of this program are the safety features built into the Alpha's control systems. The onboard computer analyzes damage patterns and rates and thereby calculates when an engagement has turned against the ship. If this happens, it automatically initiates disengagement maneuvers, generally retiring behind a heavy screen of X-ray missiles and Golf fighters. This feature allowed the experimental vessel to survive so that the lessons of its techniques could be assessed. The question is whether the Kafer will be able to reproduce the effectiveness of this prototype vessel on a large scale. The more successful its maiden campaign, the more determined the effort will be.
The players should find this combination of traditional Kafer physical staying power with more humanlike tactical flexibility quite challenging. No less important to them will be the questions of how to deal with each other.
All three players will likely want to build up "little" victory points at first, in order to finance various projects as soon as possible. The American player, handicapped by his distance from his logistics net, needs to rapidly set up his replacement, repair, and resupply systems by making the few quick, cheap sightings that his fast ships should allow him to get. The German player, with his slower, sensor-poor ships, will want a few quick victory points to attempt to buy some more forces for patrolling, while the French player would like to build up a cushion of victory points to allow him the option of issuing some orders at moments of prime opportunity.
While it would be easy to imagine the game degenerating into selfishness and backbiting, the three players really do have a serious interest in maintaining high levels of cooperation (at least in the beginning) to ensure that no one leaps ahead of the field. They should maintain a regular system of rendezvous and information sharing, for they need to know what the other players are up to, and they do not have enough forces to just shadow each other at the beginning of the game. While striking off on one's own will eventually be necessary, self-interest demands that the players do stick fairly closely together at first because if they're with you, you can see what they're up to.
Safety in numbers is also a good incentive, especially before there are enough victory points to make good any losses. The Germans and American cruisers make natural partners - the fast, sharp-eyed, thin-skinned Kennedys scouting for the plodding, armored, heavily-gunned Hamburgs. The Vice-Amiral, with his more balanced ships, can afford to go it alone if he needs to, but God forbid him to be absent from action that the Germans and Americans share. The interest of cooperative action must surely dictate that a French courier be present with all task forces, n'est-ce pas?
No matter who wins, the commanders of the three forces will each have that most coveted of naval commands: the independent cruiser force. Removed from the constricting demands of fleet operations, they still have the firepower to make their wills known. For some commanders, it just wouldn't be a decent war without a few Lone Wolves to hunt down. - David Nilsen
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