SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread II

[Mr Bean]

Two notes before you start again
One I officaly will take no part what-so ever in this game except for moderation of these threads(And limited only to locking them when they hit the 1250 mark or there abouts), this is Duchess game.

Second, see what happens when I not around to restrain Sheppard? And even then I could only do it by promising to team up with him to destroy the world, but even better later on(Which is how FYI the UKB survived SD.Net 1)

With that in mind
Have at it.

[MKSheppard]

Second, see what happens when I not around to restrain Sheppard? And even then I could only do it by promising to team up with him to destroy the world, but even better later on(Which is how FYI the UKB survived SD.Net 1)

You didn't even live up to your part of the deal to destroy our enemies.

[Mr Bean]

Second, see what happens when I not around to restrain Sheppard? And even then I could only do it by promising to team up with him to destroy the world, but even better later on(Which is how FYI the UKB survived SD.Net 1)

You didn't even live up to your part of the deal to destroy our enemies.

Had I not been gone the week you would have seen the war come to an end just to see the UKB use it's stockpiled Rockets to toss it's Gen-3 KKV's into low LEO orbit(100km) and even as aid ships hit foriegn ports, the last remaining non-UKB ships sunk by a second wave KKV strike even as President sheppard kicks back in Mountainhome(The remote Royal getaway) and pop open a cold one since I had a double triple fake going that never got the big reveal before every lost entrance.

Rest assured there were no function governments not UKB puppet approved a few months after the big end-game.

[Karmic Knight]

Quick Question, what time of the year did we start at?

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

I fail to see how this is an act of war.

As far as what's on top of the table:

1. MESS exercise caused damage on Shepistan fishing boats.
2. MESS ships, in compensation for the damage, towed the fishing boats to help repairs.
3. The MESS is not responsible for deafened crewmen.

The logical "wink wink nudge nudge" followup would be MESS issuing an apology to the fishermen's loss, and the fishing boats leaving "nice and clean".

[RogueIce]

Quick Question, what time of the year did we start at?

I would say somewhere around the last fourth of 2008.

[Karmic Knight]

I would say somewhere around the last fourth of 2008.

So, we started relatively around the time that it would be in game if '08 started on the 1st of August?

Which would make the first of the month universal new years (every new month means a new year)?

[RogueIce]

I would say somewhere around the last fourth of 2008.

So, we started relatively around the time that it would be in game if '08 started on the 1st of August?

Which would make the first of the month universal new years (every new month means a new year)?

That's about how we do it, yes.

[MKSheppard]

I fail to see how this is an act of war.

As far as what's on top of the table:

1. MESS exercise caused damage on Shepistan fishing boats.
2. MESS ships, in compensation for the damage, towed the fishing boats to help repairs.
3. The MESS is not responsible for deafened crewmen.

The logical "wink wink nudge nudge" followup would be MESS issuing an apology to the fishermen's loss, and the fishing boats leaving "nice and clean".

Except they're not fishing boats, you moron; but trawlers in the Shepistani Naval Auxilary rolls, with actual hull numbers under all the gunk and crap. Does the word "USS Pueblo" ring a bell?

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

I fail to see how this is an act of war.

As far as what's on top of the table:

1. MESS exercise caused damage on Shepistan fishing boats.
2. MESS ships, in compensation for the damage, towed the fishing boats to help repairs.
3. The MESS is not responsible for deafened crewmen.

The logical "wink wink nudge nudge" followup would be MESS issuing an apology to the fishermen's loss, and the fishing boats leaving "nice and clean".

Except they're not fishing boats, you moron; but trawlers in the Shepistani Naval Auxilary rolls, with actual hull numbers under all the gunk and crap. Does the word "USS Pueblo" ring a bell?

Except that the mentioning of them looking like fishing boats in my post were for the purpose of covering any loose ends like this. They were "fishing boats", down to the point where "Jenny" and some random number instead of Shepistani Naval designations were painted on the side.

[RogueIce]

Meh, whatever, it's done. Jesus do we have to have an argument already over an incident that, well, didn't blow up into An Incident?

[Beowulf]

If the fact that they're naval auxilliaries cannot be determined before boarding (hull numbers et al covered in gunk, and not flying a different jack than Shepistani civilian ships), then you have no case. USS Pueblo was at least clearly marked as a US naval ship.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If they're not flying under colours, yes, Shep wouldn't have a case, but I want to hear this out more. It was a damned bloody serious provocation, regardless, and it lends a lot more plausibly to his strategy of tension that you're willing to do such a thing.

[MKSheppard]

Although the port of el-Kalim in southwester al-Akharabat remains closed due to the Shepistani mining barrage, the nearby port of Kashrash has been cleared enough by local minesweeping assets to permit a safe navigation channel for ships bearing aid supplies.

I call bullshit on this. There's no way you could have cleared a safe path through 800 mixed acoustic + magnetic + Pressure mines all with random counters (they won't all go off on the first ship or sweep that goes through the path, or the 24th, but the 30th sweep will trigger the mine); and the counters were set randomly for each mine.

Unless you're willing to risk a major public disaster of a ship full of humanitarian aid sinking in a "Cleared" channel, it's still sealed off for a few more months.

[RogueIce]

I call bullshit on this. There's no way you could have cleared a safe path through 800 mixed acoustic + magnetic + Pressure mines all with random counters (they won't all go off on the first ship or sweep that goes through the path, or the 24th, but the 30th sweep will trigger the mine); and the counters were set randomly for each mine.

Unless you're willing to risk a major public disaster of a ship full of humanitarian aid sinking in a "Cleared" channel, it's still sealed off for a few more months.

Then we're shooting ASROCs and lots of them.

[MKSheppard]

Then we're shooting ASROCs and lots of them.

Okay fine. Expend your anti-submarine ammunition stocks to clear a minefield.

[RogueIce]

Of course, looking back, you mined those ports after Cascadia had declared them open for refugee and aid shipments. And then you went and did it again later for your "super duper" minefield.

"Defensive measures" my ass. You had no justification for that, other than being an utter prick.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Arik's OOB for that NPC shitcan, it doesn't matter which, from the old thread is approved, by the way.

[Steve]

Of course, looking back, you mined those ports after Cascadia had declared them open for refugee and aid shipments. And then you went and did it again later for your "super duper" minefield.

"Defensive measures" my ass. You had no justification for that, other than being an utter prick.

That would only count is he cared, or if Skimmer cared. Neither do. Skimmer wants to deny us easy transport because it gives him more time to seize more of the country (because let's be frank with OOC info here, it's pretty damned clear this is Japanistan looking to acquire more natural resources and is outright conquering the area) and Shep is helping him because they're effectively allies now.

It does give us justification for retaliation, but then we're risking escalation.

[Steve]

I'm going with the idea that Kashrash is a rather small port and so was not subjected to the second, intensive re-mining.

However, the next time Shepistan tries to mine any port in this area, their bombers aren't just going to be noticed and left to fly by.

[MKSheppard]

Some words from Comrade Slade -- the clearance of old WW2 mines is a huge problem in the TBOverse for the europeans, and we discussed it in a Anvil of Necessity thread:

The problem is that the standard of late-war influence mines was such that old-fashioned sweeping techniques just didn't work very well. It wasn't so much fusing that did for minesweeping as inert switches and counters. The first meant that the mine could go inert for a period then come back to life, the other that it had to be triggered a set (and variable) number of times before it exploded. Essentially, these meant that sweeping no longer guaranteed a cleared channel was clear. The mines in it could have been inert at the time the sweep was made or simply hadn't been triggred enough times. Combination fusing made life even more difficult; for example some mines are designed so they are activated by an acoustic signal but triggered by a magnetic signature. The nasty one there is that the acoustic signal comes first, then the magnetic signature. If the magnetic signature comes first, then the acoustic or they both come together, then the mine doesn't explode.

In @ off Wonsan, the US Navy took a month to sweep the field; they cleared 225 influence mines (a rate one every three hours) and it cost them four minesweepers and a tug sunk plus five destroyer-minesweepers damaged.

The only way to clear modern influence mines is to locate them with a search sonar, image them to identify the type using a classification sonar (that's essential because a goodly majority of the mine-like things seen on the sea bed aren't mines) then send either a diver or a UUV down to blow the thing up with a demolition charge. It has to be destroyed because it might still be active if it isn't. It's also quite possible to build mines that are activated by the emissions of the search and classification sonars.

Basically, to clear the minefields navies have to invent modern mine clearance - and minehunters are fiendishly expensive. In @ it took the North Europeans (mostly British) 10 years to clear 30,000 mines. In TBO they have two orders of magnitude more mines to deal with and far fewer assets available to do it with. Most of the ports have a single narrow cleared channel in and out (cleared by divers). You see, the Germans mined them to keep the Americans out and the Americans mined them to keep the Germans in.

I'm afraid there's no easy way out of it.

and

Why do the Europeans have to use expensive high tech minehunters if divers already work? You say in the story that a diver can clear 1 mine per hour. Assuming an 8 hour shift and a 250 work day year, then 1 diver can clear 2000 mines per year. Why can't the Brits just train 1000-2000 divers and send them out in little low tech or no tech wooden boats. I'm sure a lot of the divers will die, but what's a few hundred more deaths at this point? Also, if the UK is as grim as portrayed I suspect there wouldn't be any real problem with volunteers. Just make sure the danger pay includes an A-1 ration card and a ticket in (good for the whole family) to anywhere in the Commonwealth after a 1 year tour.

The catch is one has to find the mines first and identify them for what they are. The search and classification sonars do that. Then, one can send the UUV or diver down and do the demolition job. If we don't have the search and classification sonars, the job has to be done by sending a diver down to search the seabed by eyeball and touch. The visibility of the water can be down to a few feet sometines so that;s a laborious purpose. Also, when one blows a mine up, one has to be certain all the divers are up and out of the water or they could be injured or killed by the shockwaves.

It is possible to do things that way but its very slow indeed. The other problem is that divers can't move predictably underwater, they're swept of course by currents etc so its hard to work out what areas they've covered and which ones they haven't. And all that assumes the mines haven't got buried by drifting mud/sand on the seabed - which may, or may not, disable them.

I'm not a diver myself so I lack accurate figures but I don't think a diver could work for eight hours continuously. My guess would be that they could do one, perhaps two dives on a known mine position per shift. If anybody's got some precise knowledge of divers working in the North Sea, contributions would be gratefully received.

and

What about using hedgehogs to blow up suspected mines instead of sending some poor sap, or does that simply screw up the acoustic quality of the water, making locating other mines difficult for the next few hours?

The problem is that to destroy a mine, the hedgehog round would have to score a direct hit on it. Mines are really tough (they're comparable with a 500-pound or 1,000 pound bomb in size and configuration - in fact a lot are 500 or 1,000 pound bombs with mine fuses) and are small targets. It would take repeated Hedgehog salvoes to score a hit and the disturbance would mess up the seabed reducing sonar and manual search efficiency still further. The answer to sending down a diver and hoping he didn't come back on the installment plan was to design UUVs like the PAP-104 or the Double Eagle.

These days, in @, we're beginning to crack the problem by designing small mini-torpedoes that are cheap enough to be used as expendable mine destructors. Problem is, we've only been able to do that for a few years. Took a long time for electronics to be small enough and cheap enough to make that idea work.

The mine clearance problem isn't really soluble. Sweeping doesn't work against sophisticated mines and hunting takes too long. There isn't a third option, at least not until very recently.

To give you some idea, in @, the modern classification sonars (the ones that identify a contact as being a mine and not an old refrigerator) are about 20 percent accurate. In other words, they give the right answer one time in five. The remaining four times, somebody has to go down and take a look. Again. we're just beginning to crack that by using a modern generation of sidescan sonars, again something we could only do in the last few years.

and

Another approach might be to simply trawl the bottom of the ocean and pull the mines up, or explode them that way through anti-tampering devices that react when they're caught in a trawl net.

It's been done; its called a chain sweep. It only works where the seabed conditions are just right and only then against the crudest of influence mines.

and

What about using unmanned barges (the technology for radio control is around in WWII for short range control) with signature enhancers on them, and driving them up and down the channel to be cleared? Make the mines blow themselves up, doing your job for you; by blowing up against a cheap target which can be replaced easily?

This has actually been done, using surplus ships filled with welded-shut oil drums to keep them afloat and the ships controlled from the bridge. Its called a Princess Sweep because the crew sit on twenty layers of mattresses to absorb the shock and it reminded them of the story about the princess on her wedding night who could feel a pea through twenty layers of mattresses.

It works against pressure mines (a ship has to be more than 800 tons to set off a pressure mine unless the water is very shallow) but we hit the counter problem again. How many times do you run the ship down the channel before its deemed safe? However many you chose, one fday its going to be one too few.

Don't feel bad about this. The best brains in NATO beat their brains against this problem for fifty years and didn't come up with a good (or even not-terrible) solution to the problem.

[RogueIce]

On second thought, we'll instead request that Japanistan, with the assistance of Shepistan, clear it for us. After all, they should have the minefield marked out for an eventual lifting when the situation is more stable.

Given that the Republic of Cascadia has secured two additional ports with which we can begin bringing in more humanitarian supplies (and also securing those ports against future pirate basing, the whole reason for the minefield in the first place) there is no reason why they shouldn't cooperate fully and expedite mine clearance procedures.

Unless Imperial Japanistan is there for other than humanitarian reasons?

[Zor]

Zoria pledges its support to FASTA.

Zor

[Coyote]

Hummm... interesting. I wonder what the global reaction would be.

A port is declared open for the delivery of humanitarian aid supplies in a desperate part of the world.

Hours later, a Shepistan plane openly mines the harbor, twice, making no effort to hide its presence or affiliation.

An open act of...? What, exactly? And for what reason? Simple dickitude?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

PeZook, I'm heading for PeZookia now. So I'll write it up later.