>>6113642‘Victory!’ the tiny Captain squeaks at once. The actual sounds that come out of her mouth are something more like “desu desu desu!” but you have no trouble understanding it.
“That’s your analysis?”
‘Yes! The enemy fleet’s current aircraft are stationed too close to their ships, and have not been replaced or refuelled in the last forty minutes. The strike will be delivered from standoff distance and with safe egress.’
“Are you certain of that?”
‘All analysts are confident of success.’
It wasn’t easy to share their confidence, but having a second opinion did help a little. “Can you elaborate?”
‘Enemy air-to-air weapon performance is judged to be poor. Analysis of hostile radar emissions indicate low-power mechanically-steered arrays of only moderate sophistication, highly susceptible to electronic attack. The Enemy has demonstrated no electronic warfare capabilities beyond crude jamming and unclassified short-range interference techniques.’
“As in, ‘prevent detection entirely’ susceptibility?”
‘Of our strike aircraft, yes. Their aircraft will likely alert them to the incoming cruise missiles.’
“Will they be able to shoot them down?”
‘Some, but not all. Though no clear assessment can be made of the performance of their interceptors, based on the type and performance of enemy countermeasures in the last battle, our analysts believe at least one hit per ship can be considered likely.’
That’s really all it would take. The impact of an AShM is a devastating thing. And you have sixty-four of them on the way to absolutely fuck the enemies’ shit the hell up, ten or eleven per ship. It would be the first true cruise missile saturation attack ever attempted against an enemy fleet.
And despite your still-fresh nerves from the outcome of the last battle, you can see clearly that this would not be a repeat. You had no one but your own aircraft to defend, no priorities split between the hostile cruise missile threat and the air battle, and you would be firing from great distance against an enemy that apparently could not put up the kind of aerial defence you just had.
