Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

EDIT: I will update the thread every 2 weeksish.




Fire!

Load!

Aim!

Fire!

It was constant. The guns pounding, the tank shaking, the ghastly screams. Weeks of it, never stopping, never relenting not even for a second. War! War was what it was called but more akin to hell thought the crew as they struggled to stay alive. Four of them only protected from all they could see around them by a few thin layers of armour. Four of them who must repair the tank everyday from the scars it received and to paint on the new kill tallies. Four of them who must drive into that mess everyday.

Once called Kiduha, the glorious city of the Risha system. A beautiful beacon of life and prosperity for all who came. A place where the sky scrapers really looked like they touched the sky andd shone like diamonds so brightly it could be seen from space. But now a warzone targeted for the very things that made it so great.

The crew of A-19 Warden 013 were on the planet when the attack came. Alarms sounded throughout all bases as the mighty battleships of the Royal navy appeared from warp over the planet. The planetary defences started firing but were quickly silenced by orbital strikes in response. The only defence left was a Retribution battleship and an Andromeda frigate, the latter of which came crashing down through the atmosphere, burning up, with survivors crying out on the radio, after just about a minute of fighting. The retribution didn't last much longer as it had no warning, no time to scramble the fighters. After this was when the panic really struck in. The public were told to get out of major areas to avoid the fighting that would be coming, as fast as possible. The army just prepared, sent out a distress signal, fortified any expected landing zone and hoped.

The landing came faster than anyone could have expected though. Troop and tank dropships flying down towards land. The landing was the other side of the planet to Kiduha but the speed of the attack was to fast to defend against. The Blitzkrieg caught all by suprise. The British took vast swathes of land and only started to slow 20 miles from the city when reinforcements arrived to protect Kiduha. That's when the fighting got nasty, very nasty. Heavy artillery started hammering the area causing buildings one mile tall to come crashing down on top of soldiers below. Bombing raids firebombed the city burning huge areas and destroying everything caught inside. Soon two million men on either side were stuck in a stalemate in the city, neither side gaining more than they lost each day. Only one thing was certian though, death was coming and it was coming fast.

In their Warden, crew 013 were in a brutal charge launched to reclaim the city centre by the Americans. Their crew made up of a driver- kyle, a gunner- Erin, tank commander- James and radio operator- Owen. Trying to stay alive using a squad of men infront of them at all times to protect against enemy infantry.

"Ready, target acquired. Fire!" commander James yelled to his crew. The whole tank shoo as the gun fired at a British Bunker that was tearing their troops apart with machine gun fire. So much was happening at onc that it was almost impossible to keep on top of it all. Computer systems inside made things quicher and a shield protected them against energy weapons but the crew still needed luck to survive. After collapsing the remains of a building on a British squad, things started to calmdown, but all the Americans knew that would only last a few minutes before more British arrived to retake the centre

013 and 3 other tanks took the most sheltered positions as possible and waited. The roar of the British Crusaders was recognisable and told the Americans they had less tanks than the British, but they had the advantage as when the British tanks would go around a corner there's a split second before their gun can aim at the Americans.

"Oh God save us now as the screech of Jaguars unleashed their payload upon them. Two tanks went up in flames and bodies were torn apart from the forces of the explosions. Debris went flying and gave the air a hazy dust filled look.

"Ready. Wait wait" just as the Crusaders poked theirfronts around a building.

"Fire!" slam the gun went as it shot the projectile at supersonis speeds. The British tank was ripped apart from the resulting explosion. The gun reloaded itself from the previous shot and was ready to fire again, but not before a shell hitting their tank sent shrapnel everwhere.

"crap" whispered Owen as he collapsed on the floor with blood pouring out of him and a peice of metal 5 inches big sticking out of his stomach. The rest of the crew had to ignore this loss and greive later or be killed themselves, and so the gun fire again and again at the waves of infantry and few tanks sent against them.

The American Retribution class battleship (on the left) is a more carrier based battleship although still has a greatly smaller carrying capacity than a dedicated carrier,. It has 2 gun decks (84 guns per side of deck) (used as they are drastically more powerful than turbolasers), and 450 turbo charged gas powered lasers (turbolasers for short), 28 heavy turbolasers and 20 anti capitol ship missile launchers. For defence it has 200 flak cannons and 100 missile defence systems. It can carry 200 fighters and 64 bombers.

1km long
64,000 mph top speed
3:49 minute turning circle
class 7 warp drive
674 gun deck guns

The British Nebula class battleship (on the right) is a more conventional battleship than the American Retribution. It has 4 gun decks (80 guns perside of deck), 32 heavy turbolasers, 200 turbolasers and 16 anti capitol ship missile launchers. For defence it has 200 flak cannons and 100 missile defence systems. It can carry 64 fighters and 20 bombers. An addition to these weapons it has a ram for close quarters battles as at long ranges weapons are inaccurate and so battles happen at relatively close distances.

1.2km long
60,000 mph top speed
4 minute turning circle
class 8 warp drive
1280 gun deck guns


Also in the picture is the burning remains of the American Andromeda class frigate and Another British Nebula and a few British Orion class frigates. Also obviously the planet.

Nice.

Turbolasers are used as gun decks only face side wards and so to hit targets behind, below, above or in front you need to use them. The Retribution being more carrier based will need turbolasers a lot more than other standard Battleships. Deck guns are more powerful as they can use a combination or solid and laser ammunition but the solid is less than 1KG. This part stops the dispersion of the laser. Turbo lasers lack these as they can't be reloaded during battle as they are on the outside of the ship.

Mph is the top speed while not in the warp. standard earth ships built for speed in 2018 can "only" go 20,000 mph.

Warp drive class 8 is better than 7. These are used instead of regular speeds as in the warp distance seems to be shorter as well as the ship going faster but no-one is sure how much lower the distance is. Each warp dive class you go up is 1 minute less of travel to get from earth to Sirius (the closest star apart from the sun). But in the warp ships go so fast they can only shoot dead backwards otherwise the laser hits the barrel and blows up.

Weapon inaccuracy is not due to the targeting systems but more due to even a few nano metres of a gun barrel diameter on one side can effect the accuracy. While at normal ranges this is not big enough to care or even notice in space combat at a hundred thousand milees you could miss by an few hundered miles.

Finally with turbolasers its the turret that's moved by turbo charged gas, not the laser powered by it.


Rams were added on as part ram for extremelly close combat if your ship left warp too late and ended up in the middle of the enemy fleet, and partially for armour at the front as the whole thing is almost all solid metal.

Missile defence systems differ from flack cannons in that they super heat the warhead causing the primer to go off and the laser can go almost the speed of light, but are usless against fighters where as flak cannons can be useful against missiles but not anywhere nearly as effective and explode causing damage to ships where as super heating a small tiny spot on a fighter does nothing.

Fighters are used mainly for ground support and assaults to defend drop ships and strategicly bomb. Can be against capitol ships that are extremmely damaged or against smaller frigates or partol ships. One last use is patroling against pirates as the detectablity range is much smaller than a 1km battleship, so the pirates don't have as much time to run.

As always my drawing is bad so please stand by.

American things on the left
British things on the right

NOT TO SCALE. In universe each class of weapon is roughly the same size.

Turbo laser (at the top). As written and quite obviously seen they can't be reloaded with the dispersion preventers. Heavy turbolasers are basically just bigger versions with a few extra cooling vents.

Deck guns (at the bottom middle) have the back rectangular part reloadable with those dispersion preventers. Due to the small mass of them these solid weapons can be fired with minimal thrust from the ship to stop it flying in the opposite direction, also lets the laser fall if used on the ground so indirect fire can be achieved. Each magazine holds roughly 100 shots depending on what calibre and what countries version. Deck guns are also just the standard artillery gun of that country. Some have sights for space combat incase targeting systems are down the gun crew still has a chance of hitting.

Flak cannons (at the top middle) fire small explosive lasers at enemy fighters. Heavy flak fires at lower rates of fire but more powerful and aare used against slower but tougher bombers.

Anti missile systems (at the bottom), capitol ship variants use super heated lasers to prematurly detonate missile warheads, the giant panels are used to cool the weapon down so it can fire for longer. Fighters use flares similar to 21st century variants, just far more effective.

Next post willprobably be the 2 tanks mentioned and then some time in the weekend another short story about this universe.

The next post will be a short story.
Quick note smoothbore guns are more accurate at close distance ( for a tank, about 2-3 miles), and have less wasted energy while rifled guns are far more accurate at long ranges (up to around 8 miles). Fin stabilized rounds hardly miss until around 3 miles where due to physics, air makes it veer wildly.

The American A-10 Warden (at the left) is a main battle tank ( MBT). Named Warden due to its purpose of being an Infantry support tank, that is used for taking out machine gun nests while infantry hides behind, or destroying enemy tanks before they get too much of a threat, as a result of the close ties with infantry, it's slightly smaller than the average MBT so it can move better in urban areas. Due to this nature it uses 200mm semi-automatic smoothbore gun. It uses three types of shell as standard, armour-peircing fragmentation fin-stabilized discarding sabot ( APFFSDS) round, high-explosive fin-stabilezed for anti-infantry or bunker and a heat seekng missile for use against drop ships in close range. It also has tracers that can be added onto an shell, but aren't used normally as o not give position away. For defence it has 2 anti-missile flares. It has a multi layered composite armour, but its effectiveness is measured in the equivelent thickness of steel, and an energy force shield.

Top speed 40MPH
Gun 200mm SB L/60 (L/ then the number is a measure ment of how penetrating the roundswould be if you just fired a peice of steel with the normal propellant amount. It is thespeed of the shot divided by the diameter. The higher the number the better)
Front armour 380mm
Side armour hull 340mm
turret 320mm
Rear armour hull 280mm
turret 240mm
Shield strength 6


The British Crusader MK IV ( at the right) is designed to be able to survive on its own as regular infantry have anti tank weapons and suppression weapons. It has a longer range of engment than most tanks, with a large emphasis on armour, unlike the WWII origional variants that it's named after. It has a 240mm rifled gun, it has four types of shell, the armour-piercing high explosive anti-tank APHEAT, the high explosive HE against infantry, the armour piercing AP used against ridiculously armoured targets but doesn't do a much damage as a standard shot, and a heat seeking missile used against drop ships and gun ships. For defence it has a multi layered composite armour and an energy force shield and a missile defence flare system.

Top speed 35MPH
Gun 240mm R L/75
Front armour 400mm
Side armour hull 360mm
turret 340mm
Rear armour 300mm
turret 280mm
Shield strength 7