TLIAFD: Peashooters against a Dreadnought

[archibald]

Goddam it, stop sending RAF pilots to their death. Send a nuclear submarine nearby and nuke that fucker with a full load of Polaris - Chevaline or Trident.

Maybe a join attack by the British and French submarine fleets, throwing all they have again the murdering invader from the stars.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution-class_submarine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard-class_submarine

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redoutable-class_submarine_(1967)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triomphant-class_submarine

...
Although it won't work.

The movie clearly showed that not even a freakkin' nuke would scratch the paint. Still, it would make one hell of fireworks, particularly if all the subs fire all their missiles into that alien SOB.

6*16 for the French (Redoutable was gone but Trimphant was in trials by  1996)  + 4*16 for the British = 160 missiles.

6*16*6 = 576 nukes for the French, 4*16*8 = 512 nukes for the british. Total 1088 warheads thrown into that ruthless flying saucer. Should shake the invaders a little.

Dang.

[James G]

Aug 31, 2020 16:21:05 GMT archibald said:

Goddam it, stop sending RAF pilots to their death. Send a nuclear submarine nearby and nuke that fucker with a full load of Polaris - Chevaline or Trident.
...
Although it won't work.

The movie clearly showed that not a ven a freakkin' nuke would scratch the paint.

Dang.

The next update will consider the 'nuclear option'.
Of course, in the end, will the RAF see success but before then...

[archibald]

I wouldn't want fighting the aliens flying a Jaguar. Although it doesn't make a big difference in the end.

I mean, if Will Smith in a F-18... Hornet couldn't screw one of these aggressors without throwing his entire, doomed aircraft in their face... then nobody can.

When he punches the alien in the face chomping his cigar, as translated in French it sounds like

"Chais ch'que chapelle une rjencotre dchu tchroisième chype" ROTFL

I remember hating the movie back then, in 1996 - I was only 14. Then again, I had red "The war of the worlds" a short time before, so you guess, that novel abysmal butchering by Roland Emmerich somewhat unnerved my little self...

(imagine how i felt as a space nerd two years later when I saw Armaggeddon AAAAAAAAAAAARGH)

[forcon]

One hopes that BBC Radio Four will go off air shortly...

[James G]

Aug 31, 2020 16:37:09 GMT archibald said:

I wouldn't want fighting the aliens flying a Jaguar. Although it doesn't make a big difference in the end.

I mean, if Will Smith in a F-18... Hornet couldn't screw one of these aggressors without throwing his entire, doomed aircraft in their face... then nobody can.

When he punches the alien in the face chomping his cigar, as translated in French it sounds like

"Chais ch'que chapelle une rjencotre dchu tchroisième chype" ROTFL

I remember hating the movie back then, in 1996 - I was only 14. Then again, I had red "The war of the worlds" a short time before, so you guess, that novel abysmal butchering by Roland Emmerich somewhat unnerved my little self...

(imagine how i felt as a space nerd two years later when I saw Armaggeddon AAAAAAAAAAAARGH)

The RAF used Jaguars with Sidewinders in the first fighter effort but then they had their base raided by those Hornets: in the film, MCAS El Toro gets attacked and that is what I have the aircraft (I named them Hornets) doing here to military bases plus certain civilian infrastructure nationwide.
The BBC made a War of the Worlds adaptation last year. Britain was torn apart with no one able to do anything in the face of the attacks during that: I'm sort of using the same idea here.

Aug 31, 2020 16:41:40 GMT forcon said:

One hopes that BBC Radio Four will go off air shortly...

Ah... the 'continuous at sea deterrent', one sub, is in contact with home. That will change though. I hadn't considered Radio 4 and will need a think on that!

[James G]

The ultimate weapon

From London to Birmingham and from Birmingham to Manchester, the Dreadnought took a direct course. Its speed varied but there was no deception employed in where it was going. The RAF was able to use radar tracking to monitor its progress between those cities and then to do so too once it moved away from Manchester on a northern course. It was going straight towards Glasgow: Britain’s fourth biggest population centre. When it would arrive there was unknown because the Dreadnought had been shown to increase and then decrease speed at will yet there was no doubt in the minds of the senior military people at Faslane and Leuchars, nor Forsyth at the former either, that Scotland’s largest city was about to get the same treatment as the three urban areas in England had just down. The Scottish Secretary was at that time thought to be the senior-most surviving UK Government minister yet it wasn’t known that Roger Freeman, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was alive too, just out of contact. Regardless, those in uniform looked to Forsyth for authority for what they proposed.

The nuclear option was presented by the Air & Flag Officers. Use of what was regarded as the ultimate weapon, which the Dreadnought would surely not be able to survive, was requested. Both the RAF and the Royal Navy sought to employ them so as to stop the unchecked mass death being undertaken. Forsyth was told that there was no other means to do that. The plan presented to him – Operation MELANCHOLY – was for an immediate strike. There was a submarine at sea, HMS Vanguard, armed with Trident missiles while a good number of Tornado GR1 strike aircraft flying from Scottish airbases had the capability to employ air dropped bombs. The Dreadnought was to be destroyed while flying above Cumbia with multiple detonations to go off while it was over the thinly-populated Peak District. Nuclear explosions would take place above and, if need be, ahead of it as well. The thinking was that should the Dreadnought’s shielding somehow protect it from above, it would then be tipped over by other blasts where it would crash into the mountains.

Forsyth was horrified by the idea. Few people lived in the Lake District, that was true, but his concern was about radioactive fallout spreading across the country. Those in uniform pushed him to make a decision though, fearful of waiting too long.

Yet, before it could be made, the decision was taken out of human hands.


Rocks from the Heavens fell once more upon Britain. There were hundreds up there in space, all orbiting the Earth with the Mother Ship retaining full control over how and where to use them. Faslane and Leuchars, like High Wycombe beforehand, had been showing a high level of communications on identified military channels. It was deemed that something was afoot and so that was put to an end.

RAF Leuchars was located in Fife and near to St. Andrews University. There were aircraft on the ground there and RAF personnel on-station. A nuclear bunker provided protection against all but a direct hit from such a weapon. The overhead coverage that provided was useless for those inside when one of those space rocks, with it being close to half the size of the RAF station, crashed landed atop of it. The whole facility was destroyed. Moreover, devastation spread outwards from the airbase across the Fife Peninsula killing close to ten thousand civilians in the wider area. No warning had come and there was sudden silence over those communications links from Leuchars.

HMNB Clyde at Faslane, also known by the name of HMS Neptune (a ‘stone frigate’), was hit by a smaller lump of rock yet with an awful lot of devastation done there on the other side of Scotland too. The command post for the Flag Officer was the epicentre of all of this. He was killed in an instant and without knowing why just like Forsyth was alongside him. There were submarines tied up alongside too, not far from the targeted bunker. Among them were two fitted for nuclear ballistic missile use: HMS Repulse and HMS Victorious. Vanguard was out in the depths of the North Atlantic but these two others were blown to smithereens alongside the naval anchorage which they called home. Neither of them had nuclear weapons aboard them at the time yet there were urgent preparations being made to get them to sea with the belief that they could be targeted when in-port. Another Hornet attack was feared: the Rocks from the Heavens were still not known about despite their multiple use. From the ruins of the Faslane area, where the two nuclear submarines had been wiped out, and from the reactors of other boats armed with conventional weapons yet nuclear-powered, an ecological disaster of unimaginable scale would come following this attack when their powerplants would leak post-attack.

As to Vanguard, that submarine was far out to sea. No orders came for her to launch her Trident missiles. The Tornados waiting at RAF Lossiemouth likewise didn’t receive attack orders to employ their WE.177 bombs either. MELANCHOLY was never put into action. None of the attacks would have worked to eliminate the Dreadnought anyway.

[forcon]

Good work. Always an opportunity for the worst case scenario: having lost contact with UK Naval Command and with the Today Show off air, the submarine on doomsday patrol fires on the ruins of Moscow; the Russian's Dead Hand system (if it exists) retaliates automatically against NATO and the Americans launch on what's left of Russia. Hell, at least there wouldn't be anything left for the aliens to conquer. I know that's not where you're taking the story, but it's a darkly amusing concept.

[James G]

Aug 31, 2020 20:35:47 GMT forcon said:

Good work. Always an opportunity for the worst case scenario: having lost contact with UK Naval Command and with the Today Show off air, the submarine on doomsday patrol fires on the ruins of Moscow; the Russian's Dead Hand system (if it exists) retaliates automatically against NATO and the Americans launch on what's left of Russia. Hell, at least there wouldn't be anything left for the aliens to conquer. I know that's not where you're taking the story, but it's a darkly amusing concept.

No I get you. Then of course there is 'Skynet' in the update below... a different thing from a different movie but the same name.
I am thinking that by now, others have tried what Britain has failed to do in using nukes.
The Americans will and I'm thinking of the other major nuclear powers: France, Israel, Russia and maybe Indian/Pakistan.

[James G]

Caught red handed

Britain had a national military communication network based upon satellites known as the Skynet system. Located high above the Earth, the satellites allowed for global communications with overseas elements of the British Armed Forces on long-term or short-term deployment; use by NATO partners and other allies was also allowed. The British Army, the RAF and the Royal Navy all made use of Skynet. In the days preceding the arrival of the Mother Ship and then the particular Dreadnought over the UK, communications over Skynet had been suffered unexplainable disruption (as did civilian links) which had not initially been tied to the arrival of those out to exterminate humanity. The Alien force made use of Skynet themselves, bouncing their own signals off those satellites. During July 3rd, as millions of Britons died, the same thing was done but by that point it became apparent of what was happening. Operators at the ground station at RAF Oakhanger in Hampshire were able to trace the source of disruption to operations and they set about cancelling it out. Those Hornets on the rampage then went and shot-up Oakhanger, bathing the satellite dishes there in fire. However, ahead of that attack, those making unauthorised use of Skynet had been caught red handed. The British knew what had been done. Confirmation came from Oakhanger in its last active moments that British forces based on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus were reporting other use of UK and NATO communications links as well. There was a signals facility at RAF Troödos – deep within the interior of Cyprus – and a report came from there that their equipment was being utilised too. This of course wasn’t just happening to the communications links of the UK but it was what the British focused upon. Oakhanger failed to put an end to it before its own destruction yet that event didn’t cause a complete cessation of efforts to deny the enemy what it was using against the country.

The British Army’s Land Command headquarters was based not far from Oakhanger at Wilton in neighbouring Wiltshire. General Roger Wheeler survived the day’s enemy attacks where the senior people from the other uniformed services didn’t. Luck didn’t play a role in that: it was instead an understanding gained through information such as Skynet’s hostile use that allowed him and his headquarters staff to not suffer the same fate as those at High Wycombe, Leuchars and Faslane. Erskine Barracks in Wilton was evacuated during the day just after a British Army helicopter flew from the nearby army airfield at Middle Wallop on Wheeler’s orders up to High Wycombe. Reported observations were that of complete devastation and what was correctly identified as a huge lump of space rock half buried into the ground. Faslane and Leuchars got the same treatment later though Wilton didn’t… yet Wheeler was of the belief that if he had stayed at his headquarters using his communications links from there, he would have been killed. His counterparts in the RAF and the Royal Navy had been eliminated because they had been making extensive use of their fixed communications. To stop the wiping out of command and control, Land Command went mobile. They used a fleet of Land Rovers already fitted with powerful radio gear (meant for overseas deployment; who would ever have thought they would be needed in the UK itself) and light helicopters to disappear into the countryside. Military exercises in previous years when faced with the Soviet/Russian threat gave the British Army’s top-level leadership the know-how to do this but Wheeler took the initiative in seeing it done. The enemy was wiping out headquarters posts and effectively assassinating the military leadership but the British Army would avoid that fate. This was a passive move, yes, but it was the beginning of the fight back.


When on the move later that day, Wheeler’s mobile command post travelled across Salisbury Plain. On the edges, military garrisons which had been attacked earlier – Bulford, Larkhill, Tidworth & Warminster – burnt in the distance but no attack came against the vehicles and helicopters too. Short-range radio transmissions were made and Royal Corps of Signals personnel in attendance were ordered to also make use of fixed telephone links. Land Command established contact with military bases across the nation, British Army ones primarily, through placing a phone call. The extend of the Alien ability to monitor and understand what was being said was unknown and the worst was feared with regards to that. Therefore, contact over the telephone was short and sweet. Orders were sent for military units to disperse away from their bases and await further instructions. Too much had already been lost while sitting still waiting on political decisions which there was no sign of any coming. A fight with the enemy on the ground was seen as an eventual possibility and that was the first stage in getting ready for that.

Further contact with military units which Land Command gave orders to disperse to was to be made using the helicopters under Wheeler’s command. Messengers were sent to deliver orders in person. Middle Wallop had all of those British Army ones but he also took command of those at two RAF stations in Southern England. Neither RAF Benson nor RAF Odiham had faced attacks from above with no regard paid to the Wessex’s from the former and the Chinooks & Pumas from the latter. Whether the enemy didn’t consider them a threat or it was an oversight, Wheeler didn’t know. He had them dispersed though and they were thought to be very useful for whatever came next. Should there have been an eventual landing made by the invading army gathered up on the Mother Ship far above the Earth, and the Southern England part of that plan had gone off, the British Army would have been in a better state than others elsewhere to make that contested early on. No landing would come in the long run… still, thinking was done beyond the emergency of that day.

Where the mobile Land Command was unable to make contact with when on the move that night was to the north of Britain. There was no idea down on Salisbury Plain what was going on with the Dreadnought and also the Hornets which flew from it after the attack on Manchester.

[James G]

A kill is a kill

The Hornets were back at it. They flew from the Dreadnought on night-time attacks – starting late on July 3rd and into the early hours of the 4th – across the northern reaches of the UK. The space craft acting as a flying aircraft carrier which they called home continued to bare down upon pre-war Britain’s fourth largest population centre while many of them went elsewhere. Others remained inside though, ready to defend against an attack. Their numbers were unknown by their opponents though the available range would be better understood after tonight. Hornets departed from the Dreadnought when it was above Lancashire to attack targets across Scotland and Ulster too.

During this, one of those Hornets was brought down due to British military action: the first victory was achieved after so many horrible, crushing defeats.


In Scotland, groups of Hornets struck at Rosyth Dockyard first. There were a couple of warships there from the Royal Navy though also a Danish one too. The fire-creating weapons were used with impunity against vessels and infrastructure. The launching of air defence missiles and the firing of guns did nothing at all to stop them doing what they did before they flew away. Redford Barracks on the edge of Edinburgh came under attack afterwards. There were British Army troops garrisoned at the facility yet, independent of any higher orders, many of them had already moved out of there or where in the process of doing so when the attack came. The road and rail bridges over the Forth also drew fire to bring them crashing down as well. In the small city which was Scotland’s capital, the striking Hornets weren’t seen for what they were by those who called Edinburgh home. They just saw fire and heard explosions at the barracks outside Edinburgh as well as at the nearby Rosyth. Panic, more than there already was, gripped those who remained in Edinburgh after waves of people had already left. Throughout the night, and especially the next morning, a lot of the city’s residents fled for their lives. Many found that they couldn’t go over the Forth as planned though without any direct access north: it hadn’t been realised that transport links were being hit just as military bases were.

Away to the west, between Glasgow and the sea, two airbases were attacked. Prestwick Airport served Glasgow but was used by both the Royal Navy’s aviation arm and the RAF as well. In addition to attacked military targets, civilian aircraft there when it was struck at were likewise blasted. Across on the Kintyre Peninsula, MOD Machrihanish (also known as Campbeltown Airport) drew the Hornets towards it. Up until only the year before, the US Navy had their SEALs based there with many aircraft movements to support them in far-flung deployments. Other US Navy aircraft as well as RAF visitors had been active at Machrihanish back before the closure in 1995. It was empty when the Hornets visited though, even of RAF jets which had dispersed across the country. Out-of-date information was employed by the Alien force as to what they could find there.

Outside Belfast, the city’s airport shared its runway with RAF Aldergrove. Hawk T1 training aircraft had left Wales earlier in the day and gone to Aldergrove so they could be ‘safe’. They were on the ground at that facility when it was struck and targeted alongside supporting aircraft and infrastructure. Hornets attacked following signals interception indicating there would be that presence there at that time of British military aircraft. During the attack on Aldergrove, the Hornets were involved in that clash with the RAF which saw one of them brought down.

This was done by one of those Hawks and without the use of weapons too.

Several of them got airborne in the last moments ahead of the attack on Aldergrove when radar images showed an inbound raid. They were crewed by highly-experienced instructors yet no weapons were carried (there was the ability to, just none at hand). The Hawks sought to escape but were attacked in-flight. They scattered in response with several going low over both the ground and the waters of the North Channel while twisting & turning to evade fire. Three Hawks were shot down despite every effort expended to avoid that but the fourth one managed to gain a ‘manoeuvre kill’. The pilot aboard duped his opponent chasing him into crashing into the water. The Hornet broke up on impact in spectacular fashion with the instant death of its own pilot. As to that Hawk, it flew back to land almost on fumes as the fuel gauge was at near zero with the instructor pilot making sure he was credited for a kill.

To a combat pilot, a kill is a kill no matter how it is achieved. Mattering more than that, the enemy was shown to not be completely invulnerable too.


The Dreadnought recovered all but one of its Hornets without the knowledge of what happened to that missing small vessel. The last Hornets arrived as it passed above the Southern Uplands and closed in upon its target for the carried main weapon. Glasgow was reached just ahead of dawn.

There was no immediate firing though. Above the city, the Dreadnought loomed like it had done over London. Day broke and still there was no employment of the city-destroying fire. It just hung there in the sky, seemingly waiting for something. No one below knew what that was.

[James G]

Not enough

It sat where it was for more than four hours. The Dreadnought filled the sky above Glasgow without making any move to destroy the helpless city below and kill all who called it home. Glaswegians fled from their city that morning, all the while fearing that at any given moment death would come to them.

BBC Radio Scotland had come under the control of the British Army the evening beforehand – the headquarters of the Scottish District was cut off from communications with Land Command to the south though – and while the Dreadnought was above Glasgow, broadcasts were made on the television (before the signal suddenly & inexplicably went dead) and the radio to tell people to leave. The public were informed that they needed to urgently get at least a dozen miles away from Glasgow maybe more: the fifteen mile range of the fireball which the Dreadnought could create wasn’t at that point known. The same message went out to the people of Edinburgh as well where Scots from there were also told to leave with the fear that that city would be next in the firing line.

Before his death when Faslane was obliterated by one of those Rocks from the Heavens, Scottish Secretary Forsyth had authorised the releasing of these evacuation orders. He’d granted full authority to the British Army to take charge while at that point ahead of his demise engaged in discussions with the RAF and the Royal Navy over the proposed use of nuclear weapons. It had been the right thing to do, a necessary measure. However, once there was only silence from Faslane with Forsyth being no more, no further political guidance came to those in uniform. They told those who lived in Scotland’s two largest cities to evacuate to save countless lives but that was it.

Where were people to go?

Who was to assist them during their evacuation?

How could those who couldn’t physically get away still manage to?

What were people who lived elsewhere than in Glasgow & Edinburgh to do?

None of these important questions had answers that could be provided. Forsyth had known full well the many difficulties that would come when issuing the orders for the evacuation to go ahead and had been trying to resolve them. The task had been too much though. Even if Faslane hadn’t been wiped out by a lump of space rock dropped on the naval base where he was, Forsyth wouldn’t have been able to solve them. The Cold War only ended a few years beforehand and the expectation might have been that a planning document was somewhere where evacuations of cities had been war-gamed. That wasn’t the case: UK civil defence planning (such as it was ) had never been about evacuating people to safety. The people of Scotland’s largest population centres were told to flee their homes with a decision taken with haste with nothing standing ready to assist them when they did so.


Using cars, other vehicles and, also, their feet, more Glaswegians did the same as others ahead of them when they left their city while above them the Dreadnought was. Out from Glasgow they went, seeking the promised safety if they made it away. Not enough of them went far enough. With them, not enough people had brought enough of what they would need either. The weather was reasonable so shelter wasn’t as much of an issue if the time of year had been winter though it was something that many people would need regardless in the long run. Food and water was something that not enough people thought about bringing with them. Possessions were taken as a priority with the little matter of what they might eat and drink only considered while on the move: it was something that so many evacuees would seek when on the move. Where they would end up was once more something that not everyone properly considered too.

The exodus from out of Glasgow was unlike anything seen in modern times in Britain. It brought with a wealth of human tragedy and the outcome from the made-dash rush to flee, something the people were told to do without a plan as to what would happen next, wasn’t something that could be solved should the Dreadnought have suddenly vanished.

That it didn’t though. It sat where it was throughout the morning of July 4th with no answers known to anyone on the ground as to why that was the case.

[James G]

News from overseas

Land Command received a message after seven o’clock that morning coming from the French Armed Forces. One of the radio masts deployed out of the back of a Land Rover on Salisbury Plain where General Wheeler had dispersed his headquarters to picked it up. Overseas communications links had died out the day beforehand when one after another connection went silent but now there was firm contact made. The French Air Force was who made contact with their intention being trying to co-ordinate a counter-attack alongside the RAF.

Co-ordinate a counter-attack!?


It was known that Paris had a City Destroyer above it ahead of the Main Attack being launched (what hit London, Washington and so many more capitals too) yet that was mostly it. The British knew more about what had occurred over Germany and also the Low Countries than events in France. With that contact, there was plentiful news from overseas. It was learnt that other French cities – Lyons and Marseilles for certain… maybe more – had suffered the same fate as their capital had. French military forces had been extensively targeted as well although there was already a titbit of information there after a French fighter had touched down at a Royal Navy airfield in Cornwall when with bingo fuel and its pilot had reported Hornets over his country blowing up much. Yet, what Land Command discovered was that the Armée de l'Air and the Marine Nationale had been worked over just as the RAF & Royal Navy had been. To communicate with each other, and also their president too, the survivors had done what the British Armed Forces had moved to do in using mobile medium-range radios, fixed telephone links & dispatched messengers. They had repeatedly tried attacking their own Dreadnought and also engaging the Hornets too all to no avail. Rocks from the Heavens had fallen on selected locations without warning as well with the French saying that they had detected the presence of many of them in orbit using radar images of them too: there were hundreds up there.

After all of that, taking as much of a battering as Britain was, with a massive loss of life suffered, the Armée de l'Air was still trying to fight and now they wanted the British to join with them. They spoke of a communication which had arrived from across the Atlantic a few hours previous, one sent by Morse code too. The message from the Americans was one of counter-attack.


Wheeler’s party had been joined by mid-ranking RAF officers and was the only viable national military command structure at that point before the RAF and Royal Navy could put themselves back together. Further, extensive contact with the French as to what this was all about followed after initial contact. Information was shared and plans hatched in a hurry which, it must be said, did cause some concern over whether that would mean failure in the end. However, the details of the counter-attack were something that was thrashed out. There was a way to attack the Dreadnoughts and it was one that was believed would work… as long as it was done in a co-ordinated fashion.

Land Command was a British Army headquarters. There were some RAF elements and also the jets with the Fleet Air Arm (Sea Harriers FA2s serving the Royal Navy) which were under its control but Wheeler knew that the majority of the surviving RAF fast jet force – plus what was left of the Americans from out of East Anglia – had fled either north to Scotland or to Northern Ireland. Communications with them were ‘difficult’. He’d been trying throughout the early hours but with RAF Leuchars a hole in the ground and also RAF Aldergrove having been enveloped in fire, the links had been patchy and the chain-of-command had been all over the place. Rapid work was done to repair that situation after contact with the French. Chinooks air-lifted Land Rovers with their radios to selected spots in the Midlands to relay radio messages while a two-seat Sea Harrier T4 with the Fleet Air Arm flew with external fuel tanks to Belfast.

There was a countdown underway to get things in motion, so that when the counter-attack was made on what was looking like a global scale, it would bring with it all the promise it looked likely to hold. In the midst of all of this, news came from Scotland as to what was happening with the Dreadnought which Land Command had learnt was sitting above Glasgow.

[forcon]

Interesting update; good work.

I like the idea of naval air power playing a big part in the counterattack. With the RAF operating from emergency fields, those FAA Harriers will have to play a major role with their sidewinders and maybe air-to-ground munitions from above.

The US Navy could support the counteroffensive in Europe if they had any carriers in the region. Sixth Fleet could also hit the Dreadnought(s) with Tomahawks. Perhaps, if they survived, a total smack down with B-52s firing AGM-86s would be way more effective than a bunch of AMRAAMs & Sidewinders.

[James G]

Sept 2, 2020 19:35:49 GMT forcon said:

Interesting update; good work.

I like the idea of naval air power playing a big part in the counterattack. With the RAF operating from emergency fields, those FAA Harriers will have to play a major role with their sidewinders and maybe air-to-ground munitions from above.

The US Navy could support the counteroffensive in Europe if they had any carriers in the region. Sixth Fleet could also hit the Dreadnought(s) with Tomahawks. Perhaps, if they survived, a total smack down with B-52s firing AGM-86s would be way more effective than a bunch of AMRAAMs & Sidewinders.

Thank you.
I've been thinking a bit about aircraft munitions when they go after the Dreadnought. Sea Harriers carried a pair of Sea Eagle antiship missiles/ RAF Harriers and Tornado GR4s had Mavericks.
More bang for the buck than a Sidewinder and the target will need that as it is massive!
You've got me thinking now on whether the RAF could actually bomb it with high explosives!

I have been thinking about bigger US weapons use too. Maybe a destroyer in UK waters with Tomahawks. They used SatCom guidance but I am sure there was a backup using star positioning.

[forcon]

Sept 2, 2020 20:42:02 GMT James G said:

Sept 2, 2020 19:35:49 GMT forcon said:

Interesting update; good work.

I like the idea of naval air power playing a big part in the counterattack. With the RAF operating from emergency fields, those FAA Harriers will have to play a major role with their sidewinders and maybe air-to-ground munitions from above.

The US Navy could support the counteroffensive in Europe if they had any carriers in the region. Sixth Fleet could also hit the Dreadnought(s) with Tomahawks. Perhaps, if they survived, a total smack down with B-52s firing AGM-86s would be way more effective than a bunch of AMRAAMs & Sidewinders.

Thank you.
I've been thinking a bit about aircraft munitions when they go after the Dreadnought. Sea Harriers carried a pair of Sea Eagle antiship missiles/ RAF Harriers and Tornado GR4s had Mavericks.
More bang for the buck than a Sidewinder and the target will need that as it is massive!
You've got me thinking now on whether the RAF could actually bomb it with high explosives!

I have been thinking about bigger US weapons use too. Maybe a destroyer in UK waters with Tomahawks. They used SatCom guidance but I am sure there was a backup using star positioning.

Re. Bombing it with high explosives - surely it'd be possible to get aircraft directly above the Dreadnought? The target is pretty much unmissable using plain old unguided dumb bombs. Whether or not that'd be enough to bring it down is another question. Perhaps some sort of bunker-buster dropped from a high-flying Tornado GR4?