Manticore vs. The Tau

[Connor MacLeod]

I don't like saying this, but Impeller wankage probably gives Manticore a big advantage. The Tau can counter this with their superior numbers and by laying waste to Manticore's industrial base.

Well that depends. How powerful are the railguns (momentum and KE wise?) The wedge and sidewalls might stop the KE from hitting the hulls, but they won't block the moomentum (a sufficiently high momentum can probably indirectly damage the ships, and I recall WH40K having some obscenely powerful KE weapons.)

Aside from that, while the wedge is impenetrable, this is the stage where they don't have "bow" or "stern" walls.. so the "throat" and "kilt" aspects of the wedge remain quite open (and they ARE quite large gaps, relatively speaking.) Moreover, Honorverse ships tend to be fairly sluggish in terms of rotational ability (at least on the wedge.), so if they have a sufficiently flexible FTL capability (sorta like warp or microjumping) they can probably position themselves for "down the throat/up the kilt" shots.

And do the Tau have any massless beam weapons? Lasers? I know they exist in WH40K. If they have those they can probably shoot through the sidewall. Honorverse firepower is probably at best comparable (energy-weapon wise. I'm betting their warheads are better), but I'd be willing to give the edge to the 40K side in an energy-weapons duel.

[18-Till-I-Die]

The Tau use ion cannons, IIRC, for energy weapons. I dont know if that's 'massless' or not.

[Ford Prefect]

What are their Ion Cannons anyway? Is it based on scaled up pulse weapon technology?

[Connor MacLeod]

The Tau use ion cannons, IIRC, for energy weapons. I dont know if that's 'massless' or not.

Ion cannons are particle beams. They won't penetrate the sidewall.

[18-Till-I-Die]

I only know a little about the Tau in space, their ground capabilities are more up my alley. IIRC a website i saw explained their pulse rifles as using some kind of coils to supercharge particles and fire them at a target, really powerful charged particle beam guns basically. I presume an ion cannon is a bigger version of that maybe charged ions or something.

Take that at a grain of salt though.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Ok found some info on teh Tau fleet.

It said their weapons are equal or better to the IoM and Chaos, and their speed is slightly less than Chaos which is pretty fast in W40K as i recall. Their biggest ships are 'a match' for an Emperor-class battleship and even their gunships mount ion cannons, which are described as being largely like a lance on an Imperial vessel.

All their weapons are organized so they can, if they get the chance, fire everything in one huge forward volley and their railguns fire some kind of guided rounds.

There was some other stuff, but it was largely game rules. This was stuff actually said/stated.

[Ford Prefect]

Yeah, an Emissary class starship is capable of trading blows with an Emperor class, and is maybe five to seven ks long. That'd be pretty vague, because I'm using a pic of the space battle in Firewarrior that they featured in White Dwarf.

[Imperial Overlord]

40K warp drive can't be used for tactical microjumps. As I said, I know little about the Tau fleet, other than it is competitive with the rest of the 40K universe and has smart torpedoes.

[18-Till-I-Die]

To be competitive at all, wouldnt it have to be at least on parity with the IoM in firepower? As i recall, the weapons on a Imperial battleship can do BDZ-like damage, so i would think just to damage the IoM ships the Tau must be about even, or am i mistaken?

If not, then they might just punch through the sidewalls/wedges with sheer brute force like the Empire (or i recall that being mentioned in a thread i think about ISD vs Honorverse ships the idea being that the momentum of a TL could damage a wedge somehow so it might work).

Again i wish i know more but Tau ground fightin' is more my thing.

[Imperial Overlord]

Firepower is competitve with IoM so with the right arnament (usually specialized weapons are used) the Tau can commit Exterminatus and lay waste to a planet.

As for the sidewalls, my understanding is the HH grasers are gigaton range weapons and sidewalls affect them. 40K doesn't (with a few exceptions like full power Necrons, Blackstone Fortresses, and the Planet Killer's main gun) have anything close to Wars level of firepower. I don't know what weapons Tau use for weapon batteries, so I can't say for sure what effect they will have. Lasers will of course work and gravity pulsars versus sidewall would be interesting.

[HRogge]

To be competitive at all, wouldnt it have to be at least on parity with the IoM in firepower? As i recall, the weapons on a Imperial battleship can do BDZ-like damage, so i would think just to damage the IoM ships the Tau must be about even, or am i mistaken?

If not, then they might just punch through the sidewalls/wedges with sheer brute force like the Empire (or i recall that being mentioned in a thread i think about ISD vs Honorverse ships the idea being that the momentum of a TL could damage a wedge somehow so it might work).

They might ( we don't know ) punch through the sidewall, but I don't think so because torpedos in the WH40K universe are not built as kinetic weapons but to stay slow enough to get through the shields ( correct me if I'm wrong about this shields ). So the best think the torpedo could try is to get to the stern/aft aspect of the wedge ( which is open )... and hope it's not shot down in the process.

What kind of sublight engine do the TAU use ? An ion/plasma drive ?

[Ford Prefect]

The Tau do appear to use some form of reaction drive, like the Imperium.

[Coalition]

Anyone have the numbers for Tau fleet firepower? That would give a good idea of the gigatonnage needed to drop the Tau shields, and how much gigatonnage the Tau would be replying with.

I think one point of damage in BFG (WH40k ships) is ~600 gigatons. Can anyone confirm/deny this? Also, I think each turn in BFG is 15 minutes.

From there, let me see the Tau fleet:

The Orca Gunship has the following stats:

Escort/1
Spd: 20 cm
Turns: 90
Shields: 1
Armor 5+
Turrets: 1

Weaponry:
Prow Railguns: 2
Prow Ion guns: 1

With a shield of 1, that means it can take 600 gigatons of firepower every 15 minutes, or ~600 megatons per second. The shield's upper limit is 600 gigatons (deliver it all at once, and the shield is down)

With the Weaponry, that means that it can deliver up to 1800 gigatons of firepower every 15 minutes. That is ~1800 megatons per second.

The turn of 90 means that it takes the ship 15 minutes to turn left or right 90 degrees.

I'll ignore the speed, armor, and turrets.

The above ship is a mere escort. The converted merchantships available to the Tau have the same amount of shielding, but twice as much firepower, plus lauching 2 groups of missiles (each salvo capable of 600 gigatons of firepower) every 15 minutes.

For the Explorer, it has the same amount of shields, the same firepower as the Merchantships, but fires 8 salvos of missiles, and is designed to carry 4 squadrons of strike craft, and three Orca gunships.

The only real Tau warship is the Hero class. It has twice as much shielding, can launch up to 6 salvoes of missiles, 3 sets of strength 4 railguns (2400 megatons per second capacity, in each of three placements), and can carry 2 squadrons of strike craft.

Assuming each Manticore missile delivers 300 megatons, then it would require 2000 missiles per Tau vessel just to drop its shields.

[Falkenhayn]

Yeah, an Emissary class starship is capable of trading blows with an Emperor class, and is maybe five to seven ks long. That'd be pretty vague, because I'm using a pic of the space battle in Firewarrior that they featured in White Dwarf.

Not saying much. An Emperor, though durable, is designed as a fleet carrier, and so must be weaker structurally, due to the amount of extra space required for hangars, maintenance, magazines etc that can't be devoted to defensive systems. If the Emissary were to go punch for punch with a Retribution or a Vox Veritas class, that would be a better indicator of its potential.

If by this you mean that Emperor was using its strike craft as its main weapon during the egagement, then that speaks well of Tau PDB networks. However if they were slugging it out broadside to broadside then my previous statement stands.

[Tasoth]

In the Tau codex they had some fluff on the Damocles Gulf Crusade. In the first engagement, the IoM fleet jumped in and picked up Tau vessels at the system edge, which they were said to engage immediately. Said Tau vessels began torpedo volleys at long range that broke up the IoM's formation. The second space engagement, where the Tau almost routed the IoM fleet, the Tau space station brought down a large number of Escorts, and a handful of Tau vessels hurt the IoM fleet, end result was four IoM capships and 14 escorts destroyed.

[Black Admiral]

Not saying much. An Emperor, though durable, is designed as a fleet carrier, and so must be weaker structurally, due to the amount of extra space required for hangars, maintenance, magazines etc that can't be devoted to defensive systems. If the Emissary were to go punch for punch with a Retribution or a Vox Veritas class, that would be a better indicator of its potential.

If by this you mean that Emperor was using its strike craft as its main weapon during the egagement, then that speaks well of Tau PDB networks. However if they were slugging it out broadside to broadside then my previous statement stands.

The engagement in Fire Warrior was broadside to broadside, and the Emissary lost, badly. Only got off about 5-10 seconds' fire before the Emperor's secondary armaments (possibly the pulse lasers mentioned in Sabbat Martyr) disabled its' guns.

BTW, for battleship-carriers, the Omnia Vincit-type CVBs are always fun.

[The Dark]

Firepower is competitve with IoM so with the right arnament (usually specialized weapons are used) the Tau can commit Exterminatus and lay waste to a planet.

So probably roughly equal to the Honorverse. Given the combination of the Eridani Edict's attempt to restrict warfare near planets and the ability of dreadnoughts to shatter moons, it's probably that a non-specialized fleet could render a planet pretty much uninhabitable.

As for the sidewalls, my understanding is the HH grasers are gigaton range weapons and sidewalls affect them.

I believe it was a dreadnought's broadside that worked out to gigaton range, so individual grasers are lower powered. At a guess, based on a battlecruiser's weapons layout and scaling to the larger dreadnought, an individual capital graser would be somewhere around 40-50 megatons.

The Orca Gunship has the following stats:

Escort/1
Spd: 20 cm
Turns: 90
Shields: 1
Armor 5+
Turrets: 1

Weaponry:
Prow Railguns: 2
Prow Ion guns: 1

With a shield of 1, that means it can take 600 gigatons of firepower every 15 minutes, or ~600 megatons per second. The shield's upper limit is 600 gigatons (deliver it all at once, and the shield is down)

With the Weaponry, that means that it can deliver up to 1800 gigatons of firepower every 15 minutes. That is ~1800 megatons per second.

The turn of 90 means that it takes the ship 15 minutes to turn left or right 90 degrees.

I'll ignore the speed, armor, and turrets.

The above ship is a mere escort. The converted merchantships available to the Tau have the same amount of shielding, but twice as much firepower, plus lauching 2 groups of missiles (each salvo capable of 600 gigatons of firepower) every 15 minutes.

For the Explorer, it has the same amount of shields, the same firepower as the Merchantships, but fires 8 salvos of missiles, and is designed to carry 4 squadrons of strike craft, and three Orca gunships.

The only real Tau warship is the Hero class. It has twice as much shielding, can launch up to 6 salvoes of missiles, 3 sets of strength 4 railguns (2400 megatons per second capacity, in each of three placements), and can carry 2 squadrons of strike craft.

Assuming each Manticore missile delivers 300 megatons, then it would require 2000 missiles per Tau vessel just to drop its shields.

Unless I'm misreading badly, it would require six missiles striking within one second, since its capability is ~1.8 gigatons per second. It would require 2000 missiles over 15 minutes to destroy the shields, if we attempt to pull the game mechanics into real numbers (rather than keeping it in furlongs per fortnight ). Given that pods exist as of SVW (first battle they're used), a battlecruiser has an initial salvo of 89 missiles, with followup salvos of 25. The Hero would be a tougher nut, since the railguns would discourage attacks from close in, since (assuming the game mechanics are as stated) its railguns are roughly 2 1/2 times as powerful as a dreadnought's broadside. Manueverability is a slight advantage to Manticore, as an old superdreadnought would have a turn rating of 105 (it does seem to have improved with new designs, although I don't have anything exact), while a destroyer would be turn rating 810.

[Imperial Overlord]

The Emperor class is on the large size by battleship standards and, by IoM standards, high tech. It is as tough as most other battleships, with lots of weapon bays and point defence turrets. The pulse lasers were probably battery fire. What the Emperor class really lacks is lance batteries (massive linked beam weapon mounts).

[Nephtys]

600 gigatons per 15 minutes. Manticoran warheads seem likely to be around 200MT, as such a head was not particularly extrordinary (as mentioned in an earlier thread). That means, sixty missile hits should drop the thing pretty instantly. Multiple salvoes over time could probably do the same... if that 'gunship' is equivilent of a Destroyer or Light Cruiser, a comparable Manty ship could produce that firepower pretty quickly with either missiles or direct fire.

[Imperial Overlord]

It's roughly equal to a destroyer. Those stats are a little missleading because the armour rating (5+) includes the difficulty of scoring a damaging hit past the deflection action of the shields and the thick armour. It is possible to blast through the armour and the deflection rating of the shields with brute strength (Lance batteries do). The turret rating refers to dedicated point defence weapons and the weapon batteries can also target missles.

[Black Admiral]

I think the "15 minutes' fire dispersion" thing is games mechanics; , in Execution Hour there's a stated cycle time on planet-based lance batteries (identical to shipboard ones AFAIK), and that cycle's one minute (page 204; the Lunar-class Graf Orlok brings its' ventral shields online faster).

[18-Till-I-Die]

Yes 15 minuets per shot doesnt seem to jive, it's probably just game mechanics. Also when they said the largest Tau ship could match an Emperor i presume they mean the real warships and big boys can literally stand up to and/or kill one.

[Coalition]

Well, the fifteen minutes mainly comes from the firing rate of the Nova Cannons. So you can have the batteries on a ship firing every 2 seconds, the total damage over 15 minutes is measured in that gigatonnage range.

I.e. an Acclamator delivers a total of 6000 gigatons per minute per gun, but each gun fires once every 2 seconds. So each shot is only 200 gigatons.

As for the shields, that is 600 gigatons necessary to drop the shields on the Orca (essentially a gunship), the Merchant, or the Explorer class. Not merely ~600 megatons applied per second (that is the recharge rate), but a total of 600 gigatons to drop.

If you assume a standard Manticore missile does 300 megatons of damage, you could have 2 missiles hit every second, and the shields would not notice it. 3 missiles per second continuously would lead to shield failure in half an hour.

Time to failure = 600,000 / [(MT/s hitting the ship)-600 MT/s] seconds

(I know, it is really 666.67 megatons per second, but I am lazy.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Its also exceedingly generous to assume that all of the energy released by the Manticoran missiles actually strikes the target. With an omnidirectional nuke, at best maybe half will strike (and that generally relies on a contact detonation, ,which is very different from the normal "proximity" kills they get with nukes.)

And I'm sure someone is going to mention laser heads, but they are still subject to the same problem: its grossly generous to assume all the energy is directed at the target (On Basilisk STation makes it evident that a substantial portion of the nuclear detonation does not actually hit the lasing rods.) Moreover, only about 80-90% of the energy of the detonation is going to be in a unsable form. And lastly, the radiation striking the rods is going to produce a laser out of both ends of the rod without some sort of mirror (and there is no evidence they have an x-ray mirror, if such a thing exists.) although depending on where the nuke is placed relative to the laser heads most of the laser power might be directed at the target. (And this is further disregarding the fact that most laser heads tend to go for a "shotgun" effect - it is VERY generous to assume all the generated lasers will hit the same target.)

[18-Till-I-Die]

So...forgive me i suck at numbers but in blunt terms, the Manties might have to dump whole magazines to take out a Tau warship? Or am i reading it backwards?

Forgive my understanding being as sucktastic as it is.