Part 22: Battle of Verdun, Warsaw System, Vega Sector (Gameplay only, no story)

23rd December 2668, Warsaw System, Vega Sector
Episode 3, Mission 1 - Battle of Verdun

The Firekka scrambles fighters to intercept an incoming Kilrathi attack at one of Confed's precious fleet carriers, the TCS Verdun.

Mission Briefing:
There is no briefing. This mission is a scramble.


Mission Video (Youtube)

Kills this mission: 23

So previously we've had the wingman competence edition. This, I guess, is the player competence edition. That was actually supposed to be a map run, as you can somewhat tell since I left a couple of the maps in, you'd pretty much have to check at those points anyway. I don't often fly quite that well, and I couldn't resist showing off that performance, because....well, because I pretty much soloed one of the harder missions, and OVER 70% GUNNERY HITS. Also because:



This is also one of my favourite missions; the first time you get into a Rapier and suddenly 3:1 odds don't seem so daunting; Drakhri and Sartha are something like a crop to be harvested when you're really in the zone.

Tactics Corner
Friendly Forces:
1x Concordia-class fleet carrier TCS Verdun
6x Rapier medium fighter
3x Sabre heavy fighter

Concordia-class?, I hear you ask, but it looks nothing like the Concordia! Err, yeah. There's a story behind this, but it's a WC4 story, so it's going to have to wait...rather a lot. The current Concordia isn't Concordia-class, it's Confederation-class. This is, of course, not at all confusing.

Enemy forces:
9x Sartha light fighter
9x Drakhri medium fighter
5x Grikath bomber (arrive after 1m 20s, with one delayed)
2x Krant-II medium fighter (arrive after 1m 20s)
3x Jalekhi heavy fighter (arrive after 2m 25s)
5x Kamekh corvette (arrive after 2m 25s)

10 friendlies (if you count the carrier), 33 enemies, welcome to the Battle of Warsaw.

Deployment:

The opening Kilrathi wave is just a fighter sweep, designed to knock down the carrier's CAP fighters and clear the path for the bombers and corvettes to follow:

The Verdun's CAP, flying Sabres, tend to end up in almost exactly the wrong place, and even those the Kilrathi fighters can't really hurt the Verdun it's still not advisable to hang with the Sabres because you want to be in amongst the enemy light fighters as soon as possible so as to thin the herd before the bombers arrive. So it's probably best to try and close up with the Verdun (you arrive about 30 seconds before the enemy), or aim for a point somewhat behind her stern; that puts you and the Rapiers that will stay close to you in a good position to intercept the incoming cats. Now may be a sensible time to use your heat-seekers, or alternatively save them for whenever you get into trouble.


There's 1 minute and 20 seconds until the first wave of bombers arrive. I'm not entirely sure what's going on here. As the map shows, four Grikaths show up straight away, but after I'd killed two in the video there were three left. The secrets of Grikath mitosis are yet to be unlocked by the Confederation, I guess. Anyway, Grikath heavy bombers guarded by a pair of Krants. They carry torpedoes, they will take down the Verdun if you leave them alone. Open up the tacmap, find the one closest to you/the Verdun, kill it, repeat. The Rapier is fast enough and elusive enough that you can rely on your afterburners and frequent minor course changes to keep you safe while you're doing this. Additionally, now is probably the time to unload your FF missiles, and definitely your dumbfires which are one-hit kills and easy to aim at Grikaths doing torpedo runs.

It's highly unlikely you'll be able to destroy all of them by the time the corvettes arrive, along with some Jalkehi heavies:

The bombers are still the larger threat; they're faster and can get into torpedo range more easily. Also, they have fewer hitpoints, so finish them first then move onto the corvettes. Fortunately, Kamekh-class corvettes put out enough firepower that you're unlikely to have to worry too much about enemy fighters since if they close in on you while you're attacking the 'vettes they'll probably be shot to pieces by the turrets. Unfortunately, corvettes do have quite a lot of firepower and the Rapier doesn't take prolonged damage at all well - strong shields, but weak armour. Fortunately, the Rapier empties its gun capacitors pretty quickly, so just give the corvette two rounds of full guns, fly some evasive loops while the energy recharges, and repeat. It's not that slow and generally once you start ripping into the corvettes they target you rather than the Verdun, so that should survive - it can take a couple of torpedo hits, though I'm not sure if that might make later missions harder or cost you in terms of which ending you get.


Ship of the day:
Rapier II

Class: Superfighter Medium Fighter
Length: 19.02m
Mass: 15 tonnes
Max Velocity: 450 kps
Afterburner Velocity: 1300 kps
Maximum Yaw: 100 degrees/second
Maximum Pitch: 100 degrees/second
Maximum Roll: 100 degrees/second
Weapons: Laser Cannon (2x), Particle Cannon (2x), Dumbfire Missile (2x), Friend-or-Foe Missile (2x), Heat-Seeking Missile (2x)
Shields: Front: 115 Back: 115
Armour: Front: 75 Left: 65 Right: 65 Back: 75

Game says: The Confederation's primary space superiority fighter for over a decade, the Rapier II has excellent maneuverability, strong shields and a good weapons loadout.

I say: In Wing Commander I the Rapier was OK but probably inferior to the Raptor because of it being incorrectly gunned. That flaw was fixed for the Rapier II in Wing Commander II, in which it was the best fighter except for maybe the Morningstar. Somehow, when the Standoff team plugged what they swear are the same stats into the Vision engine, they created a superfighter. Bradshaw's supposed to be a Rapier pilot, so it's thematically appropriate that the Rapier is the best ship in the game* in terms of simulating his skill I suppose. The Rapier turns on a dime, has enough firepower to down a Sartha before it can get away or cripple a Drakhri, has the shields to get you through accidentally wandering into the path of a Gothri's guns (once) or to go turretwhacking, the afterburner speed to get into and out of trouble...basically the only thing it doesn't have is an ITTS. Well, to be hyper-critical I'd prefer IR missiles to HS, but otherwise all is good. The Rapier's dumbfire missiles are the most important part of its arsenal - we've already seen the AI use these proficiently and it's not difficult for human pilots either, especially on bombers. Almost every mission in a Rapier I'll knock down incomimg Grikaths or Gothris with these.

I guess if I have to sum it up in one sentence: The Rapier is as good as the Gladius is bad.

*Sort of. The rival contender for that title only shows up in one mission and is a lot of fun but very different so hard to compare.
Total kills (Standoff): 11 missions / 100 kills
Total kills (including previous thread): 124 missions / 1022 kills

Next time on Standoff:
Reader interaction! Here's the briefing:

Briefing Video (Youtube)

And we've got a choice (kinda) here: fly the strike in a Gladius, or escort the bombers in a Rapier?

Finally,

With Forstchen, even the dialogue is stolen from World War II.