Wayne King-Meiouf : What worked and what didn't?

Professor Wayne King-Meiouf of the University of Proxima

As the dust begins to clear after the most bloody and costly war the DDS has fought forover a decade attention is now turning to how the new generation of weapons, many forged with the experience of the Utrek War, performed.

What worked?

• FIDO worked perfectly, at the end of the war 27% of crewing in non-combat situations was being performed remotely. It will be interesting to see how this is developed further, especially with holographic projection so remote crews will be "visable" to crew on site.
• Open Architecture worked very well, helping the DDS keep their battered fleet running.It has been reported that off-site monitoring of ship telemetry helped alert crews on at least 3 occaisions of developing problems on their ships which allowed action to be taken before things got too serious.
• Damage control and protective systems worked very well, it is estimated that improved uniforms and new materials used in ships reduced blast and shrapnel injuries by 70%.

What worked fairly well?

• The Missileer carrier largely worked though the ships may need some extra protection. UCV handling worked flawlessly. The original concept of the Missileer as a missile carrier seems to have faded away though.
• Amphibious forces worked well though only were called upon once, on the landing of Delta 9. We were luckily spared a much more difficult landing on Malau. The lack of defensive systems on the landing craft is an area the DDS will have to examine.
• Panther and Ferret both performed adequately though both will receive combat tuning updates over the next few months to further improve their capabilities.
• The New DDS Army performed well in fighting on Delta 9 as did their weapons, largely from HCS sources. However there were some problems with integration and communications protocols.

What didn't work?

• MRM didn't really work as a first strike weapon in ship combats. After the success of the first battle the ABBOs quickly learned they could largely neutralise the MRM by scattering their fleet. It remains a useful option though however.
• IWC was rather patchy and the DDS were lucky that combat with the Bolitic was not a major part of their war. Future enemies will likely make heavy use of info-weapons and the DDS need to greatly improve their capabilities in this area.
• Orbital facilities proved very vulnerable and the DDS must look at upgrading its static defence capabilites.

Overall i think the DDS can be satisfied with how their new generation of weapons performed in the war, especially as so many were seeing combat for the first time but there will be a lot of scope for improvement. But if the DDS apply the lessons of the war well then their fleet and armed forces will become very formiddable indeed.