Talk:AFOH/@comment-27015223-20151013144344/@comment-27015223-20151014084030

If you guys have actually been reading my replies you'd have noticed that my tank is intended to use slipspace, but I used the term warp because I was under the impression that warp was an acceptable blanket term for FTL travel in general. I will continue to use warp as a blanket term for the sake of simplicity, but please understand that the mechanics of this AFV's FTL capability is based purely off of the concept of slipspace travel.

@TATO

I'd be more than happy to listen to your opinion on the concept of a warp capable AFV. Unfortunately my time available for chat is limited, so perhaps an alternate method can be agreed on? For now, I will assume that your arguments will include (1. Warping into a ship requires extreme precision (2. Even if you warp into a ship, where in the ship would you warp? Since these are indeed potential problems I will address these here regardless of whether they are part of your opposition to warp AFVs or not.

My replies to these problems are (1. Yes warping into the interior of a warship requires extreme precision. (2. AFVs boarding a ship through warp would target large open spaces such as aircraft hangars.

Like all military units, a warp boarding party needs some prerequisites before they can actually conduct an operation. A air assault brigade, for example, requires a large, flat, open clearing to act as an LZ before an air assault can be conducted. In the same way, a warp boarding party requires that any prospective target has a large, open space such as an aircraft hangar. In the absence of such, operations cannot be conducted. They would then, end up mostly targeting large super capital warships that contain an embarked air (aerospace) wing of small craft.

If a boarding attempt is initiated, the entire boarding party would target not the ship, but the designated boarding zones. However, a large fraction of the boarding party would miss the BZ. Say 50% of attempters succeed in hitting the BZ, while 50% fail. Say that 20% of the failures miss the BZ (10% of original force), but still manage to jump into the interior of the ship, while the remaining 80% of the failures (40% of the total force) end up outside of the target ship altogether. The 10% that missed the BZ but ended up inside the ship are probably dead now, stuck inside a solid block of armor or the likes. The 40% that missed the ship altogether, are out of the equation, while the 50% that hit the BZ are now continuing with the operation.

This is a very high attrition rate, so my intention was that warp boarding units be "Redemption Units", consisting of death-penalty convicts for example, who have no future. They would be trained in this mission for a chance at redemption, resulting in an extremely highly motivated, well-trained, well-equipped force. If the personnel all die, they have met their fate. If they succeed, they have earned a second chance at life, with some additional rewards. What about the super expensive tanks? As long as the few hundred AFVs involved in the operation don't cost more than the massive super warship carrier they are attempting to satotage or capture, its a worthwhile trade off.

So the whole thing is one massive gamble, but he who dares wins. War is all about risk. Warp Boarding operations would either pay off bigtime, or fail miserably. It's worth it to me.