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Operation PitchFork Strategic Battle-plan.



Introduction:
My own initiative to ponder on the options based on current data taking into account assets as described on the Operation PitchFork website.
The plan will cover the generic formation of units, recon and intel gathering planning and planning for ship boarding and large-scale troops deployment on planets to secure portions or the entire planet.
Operation PitchFork states it wishes to deploy around 100.000 players in the entire operation, might be more or less but a large volume of players will be present.
Furthermore, there will be no grand armada, it will be more a loose formation of countless players.

Besides this white paper, I am also working on a study on analyzing SC ships.
This white paper is up on the Operation PitchFork Forum and my own website.
It will be a continuous project and I will be adding new chapters as I go along.
Everything is subject to change, SC is still early Alpha anything and everything can change.

I draw experience in advising Armed Forces worldwide, but I specialize in small unit and guerilla tactics.
Some of my "work" has been taken into account fighting ISIS and forming the NATO rapid response Brigade in Europe.
My rework of Headquarter Command units has been employed both in NATO members countries and none NATO member countries.


I. Enemy Intel, species case study.
II. Battle Formations.
III. Recon and Intel, the gathering and processing of intel into a fleet-wide format.
IV. Staging and Supplies.
V. Phase 1, Getting into Vanduul Space.
VI. Phase 2. Forming Beach Head(s).
VII. Phase 3. Securing Systems and Planetary Assault(s)
VIII. Phase 4 Consolidating and Reforming.
IX. Phase 5. Retrieval of enemy assets, harvesting technology.
X. Phase 6. Withdrawal to UEE space, Securing a System(s) to be incorporated in UEE space.
XI. Phase 7. Retrieving and dislodging of friendly assets.
XII. Standing down.

 

Chapter I:

Lore on the Vanduul is fairly limited and mostly subject to change.
This chapter will probably be the last chapter finalized when more is known/released.
Under normal circumstances, this is where any planning begins, behavior and physiology study.


Chapter II:

In the SC verse, the main force would consist of a Navy with Marines and Army forming the ground forces.
Note there is a difference in terms make sure you know what term you are using to prevent confusion.
A Navy Squadron differs from an Air Force Squadron, a Regiment while listed separately is about the same as a Battalion but due to heritage or branch, these might be different in size.
However, they are usually fielded in a Brigade structure.
An easy and well-written piece is found on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_organization#Formation

Chapter III:

The gathering of intel by reconnaissance or a more traditional intelligence agency type.
However, Recon and Intel are usually boring and take patience forget about the colorful hot/cold recon type of language.
That is a myth, Recon is the absence of combat when combat occurs this means you have been compromised resulting in a partial failure of your mission., complete failure if captured or killed.
In order to properly study your prey, you need to observe them undisturbed.
Then and only then will you be able to learn patterns, what then leads to finding valuable secrets.
You will only find secret bases, command posts by carefully tracking and monitoring.
If you are spotted they might and usually relocate those valuable assets.

The terms Force Recon does not mean per say combat, it means you bring considerable firepower.
This serves the purpose of deterring the enemy engaging your positions, quickly smashing through weakly defended area's, mostly used directly at the front line to scout ahead of the main body.
But prolonged engagements are usually avoided this is a mission for combat units.
Force Recon is also employed screening and scouting out flanks of independent formations.
Furthermore, this means while being able to field considerable firepower mobility and speed are key.

In short forget about glorious battles, if there is one it will be for your life.
Recon is boring and takes a lot of patience but is invaluable to any military operation.

But then you are half way all the knowledge in the world counts for nothing if it is not processed and archived so it can be used appropriately.
Also important is to double check and follow up on information deemed valuable.
Ensure that educated guessing and gut feelings are refined into real data, the assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups.
Ensure all data is tagged and assigned to a sector/planet but that is may overlap since convoys might cross several sectors and birth several planets/stations.
Also why it would be wise to have 1 single body handling this vital task to ensure 1. information is shared at all times, 2. no mistakes are made, no information is faulty, 3. No competition over resources.
What other teams might do is up to them but you must ensure that the foundation of the operation is sound.

Now let's look how you apply these somewhat generic rules of thumb to SC.
How would you use a ship of a given type for recon and intelligence gathering?

Exploration Ships.
The main staple of the prolonged process of gathering information and mapping Vanduul space.
Have units/cells of 4 to 8 that can take shifts for long duration, carefully mapping the area then deploy to a planet's surface.
Furthermore, you will need to find new jump points in order to access Vanduul space.
Any known entries will be guarded, you want to sneak in and hide in an Asteroid belt.

Ships you will be fielding are Carrack. 600I, Constellation Aquila, Misc Freelancer Dur.
You will also need ground vehicles to explore planets and perform scans, those come with the above-mentioned ships.
Smaller ships can be used for short duration and reinforcing current operations.
Also, continuous monitoring of explored systems will be required this will be very useful to have on hand a large pool of small jump capable ships that can monitor systems.

Stealth Ships:
Stealth armor will only be used for force recon operations screening the main body.
They do not possess the electronics for long range scanning or long endurance.

Other ships:
While you will not use these, for the most part, there might be times operations require a larger formation of ground vehicles.
Flying in some Dragonfly's in a Caterpillar, think along those lines.
Also, something to consider is the possibility to have limited strike missions to distract, extract.

The Herald:
This ship will be important, I can see the use of such a ship on an alt to relay information on long distances.
This is not a set 24/7 job but a quick login to send and receive data from deep space.
In time other ships that offer the same capabilities might be added to the verse, the Carrack or other exploration ships also offer a strong antenna array
With upcoming modules/blades/chips, these ships can also relay information.

>>>More to Come<<<<