Meerclaw at Kuballus

 The Coalition has arrived again on our central regions with a massive combined force. Partly thanks to financial aid from the Federation, plus our own earlier building efforts, our defences are in reasonable shape. We do not expect the enemy to be able to take the capital itself, but they will degrade our main planetary installations even further - economic warfare, in effect. The CVL Tempest, whose fighter force I command, is assigned to system defence at Kuballus, which is uncomfortably close to Kzinti itself.

On this occasion our main enemy will be the Lyrans. We have a good concentration of force here, including the recently commissioned CVA Dreadnought-class carrier Olympus. The fighting is fierce in the first engagements, and then the Tempest is called into the main line. Our immediate force is very powerful: an Early Dreadnought; a Battlecruiser; and a Scout Tug as well as ourselves. We are off to port from Kuballus, skirting orbit; the main enemy facing us is similarly powerful. They have a Dreadnought off their own, together with a Mauler cruiser, a Jagdpanther CVL, and a War Destroyer Scout. 

My squadron's orders are to loose drones to keep the Lyrans occupied. We are under no illusion that we have enough missiles to get through their defences, the planet's own fighters having been severely reduced in two previous battles. The idea is simply to force the Lyrans to use energy to keep the drones at bay while our main line closes. Once we have expended our anti-ship drones we are to engage, but only if our losses are light; if we start taking heavy fire, we are to go into silent running. Our Count is now the senior surviving commander on our side, and he knows his stuff - he is obviously trying to keep our fighters intact for as long as possible.

We manage to get off half our missile consignment when the enemy hits us with a barrage of disruptor and phaser fire at medium range. Fortunately for us this particular contingent is built more for close fighting due to the presence of the Mauler, but they still remove half of our squadron. As per orders, I order the remainder to go silent. This takes us out of the battle, but it does mean that we have absorbed the first blast of enemy firepower instead of our main ships. One can easily lose one's head in the heat of battle, but I am now enough of a veteran to be able to keep control in combat; I hope this continues.

I observe the rest of the battle from my cockpit as the main fleets close. I do not see much of the action on the other side of Kuballus due to the close proximity of the planet, but I see our own ship element close on the enemy command, in conjunction with one of our cruiser squadrons. The exchange is intense as the Lyrans cripple a Battlecruiser. The combination is too much for them, however. In conjunction with the increased ground base phaser power, the enemy Dreadnought ceases to exist and the Jagdpanther is crippled; the enemy leaves. In the post-battle briefing I find out that our CVA group crippled a War Cruiser Leader and destroyed a Frigate in return for a Medium Escort Cruiser crippled. As usual, our lighter ships fared badly, being too small easily to survive a fleet engagement: a Frigate, Police Flagship and Police Corvette were all destroyed, along with another Corvette crippled.

A Kzinti Dreadnought-class ship. From http://blog.mongoosepublishing.co.uk/?attachment_id=138

The fleet lost almost all of its fighters. My squadron's losses are partially replenished by the remnants of the contingent from Kuballus, while the Olympus receives replacements from carrier re-supply vessels in the rear echelons. We make ready for the next attack.

A similar story unfolds as my squadron takes the initial battering; I and the other surviving craft go into silent mode to await the outcome. And again the fighting is intensive. We lose an entire flotilla of light ships as two Police corvettes and a Frigate are all destroyed; a Battlecruiser squadron is completely crippled. The Lyrans have two Frigates and a War Destroyer crippled, along with two Cruisers and a Battlecruiser crippled. The last-named is forced out of the battle by a final strike from the CVA fighter group, although many of its fighters are destroyed in the process. It is enough, however, to force the enemy to retreat once more.

Our fighters are replenished from the rear echelons, bringing both my own and the CVA contingents back up to full strength for my third engagement in a row. Our forces are beginning to feel the attrition, as we are joined by a CVS Strike Carrier in the Battlecruiser role, similar to ourselves on the Tempest. This does allow us to bring more fighters to bear, though.

And again we see heavy fighting, this time all across the front. The Tempest is deployed to the port side of the planet this time, accompanying the CVS and a Medium Escort Cruiser, with a frigate flotilla in attendance. We are facing the enemy command plus a carrier group, along with a squadron of very light vessels - two Frigates plus an Orion mercenary Light Raider. This is a good sign because it means that the attrition is telling on our opponents too; the Lyrans will leave their frigates out of battle unless they have no other available vessels. 

My fighters are combine with those from the CVS to make a decent strike force, and we are the ones who absorb the initial medium range volley from the enemy, losing around a third of our number. We launch drones as we advance, more to force the Lyrans to siphon off energy to deal with them. Lyran ships are very strong, but they have correspondingly high energy demands. Enemy overloads strike away most of our fighters, and we launch a close assault on their carrier escorts. We are under no illusion about making it; the plan is to follow the drone wave to force the Lyrans to use ESGs against us so that they cannot go up against our carriers with them.

This is where our training pays dividends. For months now we have been practising a tactic commonly known as fighter-drones; basically, we move our fighters into a position that will force the Lyrans to deploy lots of power to stop us getting through, including ESGs if at all possible. We then eject before the fighters get too close, effectively using them to punch holes in the Lyran defences. Anything that degrades their energy curve has to be useful because it will reduce the damage to our main ships; it also saves pilots' lives. This is the last thing I see before my cockpit life support kicks in and renders me unconscious to conserve oxygen.

After a few days recovering in sickbay, I review the video logs of the rest of the battle. We are still, albeit barely, hanging onto Kuballus, but our fighters have been badly mauled. We lost two Frigates and an Escort Light Cruiser destroyed, with a Medium Escort Cruiser too heavily damaged to continue in the front line. Our carrier group crippled the enemy Battle Tug and destroyed one of their frigates; they also lost a War Cruiser destroyed on the other side of the planet with another crippled, with their squadron leader too heavily damaged to continue.

The next one comes as something of a relief for me, as we are stationed together with the CVs and a Carrier Tug being used as a cruiser (no fighters). I have been placed in command of our total fighter complement, which is slightly larger than a normal full contingent. We are to port of Kuballus, and to our port side is the CVA group. This means that all of our fighter and main drone missile power is concentrated together, while our direct-fire ships are stationed on the other side of the planet. Unfortunately for the Lyrans, they only have a War Cruiser squadron to face our carrier force, and they feel the full force of our wrath: the leader and one of the cruisers are both destroyed and the other cruiser barely gets away crippled. The other half of the battle does not go quite so well for us because that is where the Lyrans have placed their most powerful vessels. We lose a Battlecruiser destroyed and a Tug with Scout Pods crippled, along with a Frigate heavily damaged. The enemy loses only a Frigate crippled here, but what we have inflicted is enough o force them to retire.

The next battle could well be our last, since we really are running out of reasonably intact ships. Our carrier continent is deployed to port of Kuballus again, with myself in command of the rather reduced fighter contingent. The rest of the fleet is on the other side of the planet. 

Talk about heavy fighting!

We manage to hold off the enemy in our sector, at the cost of almost our entire fighter contingent, together with the CVS heavily damaged. The enemy has a really bad time in the other sector, though, losing a Battle Tug destroyed and a Mauler crippled before they leave again. Sensors are still picking up a reasonable number of cruisers and frigates in the Lyran reserves, though, and we are almost entirely out of ships. We get ready to go in again, secure in the knowledge that although we expect to have to disengage from Kuballus, the damage we have done to the Lyran fleet is truly remarkable. I am placed in command of what is left our fighters now: a whole five attack craft with six of the new disruptor fighters from the CVA. At least I get to fly one of those for the first time.

Again we do lots of damage to the enemy, but again it just isn't enough: sheer weight of numbers forces us to concede Kuballus; the Lyrans destroy the planet's military infrastructure before leaving to lick their very substantial wounds. In this final round we lose a Police ship destroyed and another crippled, with a Scout Frigate also crippled. Although the damage to the fleet is relatively light, the accumulated attrition means that we no longer have any reserves; hence the tactical withdrawal. In return we destroy another Lyran battlecruiser along with a light flotilla of two Frigates an a mercenary Light Raider.

Now that the Coalition has retired, our forces consolidate - or what is left of them. The fighting has been brutal, and this is what our list of crippled ships looks like: 

I know this looks bad, but you should see the other guys!

Seriously, we have inflicted much more than the on the enemy, so it should be a while before they return on another drive-through attack on ours infrastructure. In the meantime, financial aid from the Federation will help us to recover as much as we can. I reckon there will not be much happening in the way of new production or even conversion: the priority will be to get the fleet up and running. It's cheaper to repair existing ships than it is to produce new ones, no matter how good they are.

The news from the fighting against the Klingons makes similarly grim reading. Commodore S'Murrus, heir to the Marquis, was killed in action leading the defence of the recently completed second Starbase in the home systems. It too was eventually destroyed in such the same way we had to abandon Kuballus: weight of numbers. My personal circumstances change too; the First Officer of the Tempest is promoted to command a crippled Battlecruiser which has lost its ranking officers, so I am promoted to First Officer with the rank of Commander in his place. This means I get to work more closely with Captain M'noren, a highly respected officer. My advancement accords with traditional practice: the squadron commander is also considered Second Officer of his carrier, and it is well known that the high command prefers officers on carriers to have served previously as fighter pilots.