19:45
Mutsu has ECM strength of 60, dropping our fire control range from 64.8m km to 25.9m km, meaning we can't fire quite yet. Soon... But, this is a worrisome turn of events - why would an unarmed grav-survey vessel have ECM?
19:58
Glorious sight:
****
20:01
Beautiful:
So what had I done? I assigned correct missile for each tube, then assigned all tubes to correct fire control and finally I selected "sync fire" and "auto fire" boxes on each frigate. This means that the eight frigates fire as one, giving us a salvo of 32 missiles.
But it's going to take 50 minutes for the missiles to reach the Mutsu 003 - though I think that time will be halved as the alien ship is still heading towards my frigates. Anyway, since reloading the launchers takes two minutes AND the alien ship is so fast, I select caution and order the frigates to head towards Earth. At least that way the distance between them and Mutsu 003 will close little bit slower, giving the gunners more time to reload and fire - which we will probably need as SS-N-1/8 is only 2k km/sec faster than Mutsu, not many of the missiles will hit.
****
20:21
The missiles reach Mutsu 003. And talk about information overload! Whoa, let's see - I'll give details for each batch of four missiles.
#1 - all four destroyed by PD.
#2 - all four destroyed by PD.
#3 - 3 missed, 1 hit for 9 points of damage.
#4 - all four missed.
#5 - 2 missed, 2 hit for 9 points each.
#6 - all four missed.
#7 - 2 missed, 2 hits.
#8 - all missed.
All together, five size-9 explosions detected. Five out of thirty-two, not too bad. Mutsu might have two railguns for PD, nothing very significant - considering they only got eight missiles and SS-N-1/8 is a first generation missile - very crap.
Salvo 2 is off the launchers at the same time.
Apparently Mutsu is well armoured - those five hits were all absorbed. No change in velocity or thermal signature.
****
20:37
Second salvo reaches Mutsu 003. Again, the first eight missiles are destroyed by point defence.
Batch #3 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#4 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#5 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#6 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#7 - 2 missed, 2 hit
#8 - 2 missed, 2 hit
That's 8 missiles lost to PD, 13 that missed the target through evasive manoeuvres and 8 that hit home. And we pierced the armour! The alien ship is streaming atmosphere after the last two hits and it's thermal signature dropped from 960 to 800. So it's damaged but not heavily - velocity dropped from 8000 km/sec to 6665 km/sec. So probably one engine was knocked out, which means that if they can't repair it quickly, the next salvo will have easier time hitting them!
Salvo 3 is launched at the same time.
****
20:49
Third salvo reaches Mutsu 003.
Batch #1 - 4 destroyed by PD
#2 - 3 missed, 1 hit
#3 - 3 missed, 1 hit, venting more atmosphere
#4 - 3 missed, 1 hit, venting more atmosphere
#5 - 2 missed, 2 hit, venting even more atmosphere
#6 - 4 missed
#7 - 2 hits - at which point Mutsu 003 explodes! The remaining missiles self-destruct as there are no targets for them.
So not only did Salvo 2 knock out one of their engines, it must have destroyed half of their PD capability. One secondary explosion was detected just before Mutsu went supernova, though it wasn't any bigger than the warheads of my missiles.
In any case, a clear victory! Eight frigates used up 96 missiles to destroy a single ship.
Woo-hoo.
Well, eight shitty frigates used 96 shitty missiles to destroy a single ship that was at least two, if not three generations ahead of us. So that's little perspective.
Okay, all my vessels will head back to Earth to refuel and rearm. I also need to design a salvage ship so I can check that wreckage.