JumpShips are perhaps the most
valuable pieces of equipment currently being
used throughout the Inner Sphere. Without
JumpShips, interstellar travel would be all but
impossible and civilization as we know it would
fall into chaos and ruin. Because they are rare,
expensive to maintain, and difficult to construct
(even using salvaged parts), JumpShips are the
only vessels which are virtually immune to attack.
How, then, does a mercenary company, trading cartel, or Successor State obtain these scarce and valuable vessels? Outright purchase is the most obvious and the most honest method of acquiring JumpShips, but since even the smallest of JumpShips have prices which range into millions of C-bills (3,000,000 Cbs for a new Scout class JumpShip), none but the largest mercenary outfits and merchant companies can afford to buy a JumpShip, even if one could be found for sale. Since JumpShips are by custom protected from attack, salvaged vessels of this type are uncommon, to say the least. The only remaining viable way of obtaining a JumpShip is to capture one.
The capture of a JumpShip is one of the knottier tactical exercises that an infantry unit can face. Approaching a JumpShip parked insystem is only the first of several problems. If the boarding party waits too long after the ship arrives in-system, the crew may have enough time to recharge the ship's Kearny-Fuchida drives, and jump out-system. If the assault is made too soon, the prize crew will have to sit and wait while the K-F drives recharge, and run the risk of the vessel being retaken.
The most common method used by the latter-day pirates who wish to capture a JumpShip is to impersonate the DropShips which are scheduled to dock with the JumpShip. These impostors are used to carry the boarding parties to their prey. Another common tactic has the DropShip on station at the nadir or zenith points of the star's gravity well. Posing as customs or security officials, or even employing a false distress signal, the boarders are generally able to gain entrance to the JumpShip. Quite often, they obtain complete surprise over the JumpShip's crew. This tactic generally works best with a JumpShip on a scheduled run, as the DropShip need not remain on station for days or weeks, waiting for its victim to appear. The JumpShip's own DropShips could even be seized while on the ground, and then used to approach and board their parent craft. This particular method works very well if some member of the DropShip's bridge crew can be convinced to stay aboard and help with the approach.
It should be noted that stealing of JumpShips which are on scheduled runs tends to make ship owners and captains a little hesitant to make pick-ups or deliveries in systems where previous attacks have taken place.
Once the boarders have reached the JumpShip, the problems multiply. Due to the rarity and the fragile nature of some of the systems and components aboard a JumpShip, mass damage weapons like SRM's, grenade launchers, man- pack lasers, PPC's, and flamers are generally shunned for boarding operations. The fact that JumpShips are in freefall (that is, they lack artificial gravity) precludes the use of high- or sustained-recoil weapons like assault rifles, shotguns, or SMG's. Free-fall also makes it difficult to use melee weapons like swords, cudgels, and the like, since the body's weight will no longer counterbalance the force of the swing.
Even the impact of a projectile weapon can send the person struck into an uncontrolled spin. Very few weapons are suitable to zero-G combat. Obviously, energy weapons such as lasers and stunners have little recoil. Recoil will send the one who fires it caroming around the null-gravity of a JumpShip's interior like a billiard ball. Gyrojet and tranq weapons have very low levels of recoil energy to impart to their user. Likewise, crossbows and longbows have almost no recoil and are frequently used by both boarders and defenders.
Boarding parties are as a rule specially trained for the express purpose of capturing JumpShips. Much like the special anti-terrorist squads of the five Successor States, these boarding parties should be familiar with the internal layout of the JumpShips which they plan to capture. If possible, diagrams of the ship's corridors, docking bays, living spaces, and so on would be studied by the boarders before the operation begins.
The boarders should memorize the shortest routes from the docking bays to the bridge, engineering section, and the crew's quarters. When available, LCD memo pads similar to those worn by aerospace pilots can be used by team leaders to aid them in finding their way through the veritable maze of accessways and corridors which make up a JumpShip's interior.
When attempting to capture a JumpShip, three of the primary objectives for the attacking party are the engineering section, the crew's quarters, and the bridge. By capturing these three vital areas, the boarding party can effectively paralyze all other sections of the ship.
Capturing the engineering section of a JumpShip enables the boarders to take control of the drive and life-support systems throughout the entire ship. Once the drive room has been taken, the remainder of the ship can be captured at the boarders' leisure, as the attackers need not fear losing the ship to an out-system jump. It need be, the boarding party can even override the bridge jump control circuits, and take the ship outsystem themselves to a place where the beleaguered ship is less likely to receive assistance from friendly forces.
Capturing the life-support areas of the engineering section lets the boarding party literally extort the vessel from its crew. Such an incident occurred when Helmar Valasek's pirates attempted to seize the Hapsburg Maiden, a merchantclass JumpShip registered to ExoStar Industries out of Luthien. The attack took place in the Susquehanna System of the Draconis Combine. Two weeks later, the Maiden was found drifting derelict near the Holmsby System.
A combine security team boarded the ship, only to find that everyone aboard was dead of vacuum exposure. It seems that both the crew and the pirates alike were killed when the bandits attempted to decompress the area of the ship occupied by its crew. Apparently, the pirate Tech working at the ship's master life support control panel was not very competent.
Rather than bleeding off atmosphere slowly, he released the pressure all at once, opening the ship to space. Under ordinary circumstances, the airtight bulkheads which divide the ship into several different compartments would have limited the areas decompressed to those which were open to space. However, during the fighting, several doors and bulkheads had been breached. As a result, all areas of the ship suffered a catastrophic decompression. Only the ship's automatic log remained to tell the tale. The ship's drives had already been programmed for their next two jumps. Therefore, with no one aboard to reprogram the drives, the ship made its jumps and ended up in the Holmsby System, the next scheduled stop. For a time, the Hapsburg Maidenwas sensationalized across the Inner Sphere as a 31 st Century "Flying Dutchman".
Capturing the crew's quarters limits the number of effective fighters that can be mustered against the boarders. Since they generally lie a long distance from the docking bays, it is difficult to secure these areas by force. Here, guile serves the pirates best.
A few men posing as crewmen, or, if possible, a few actual crew members who have been suborned by the pirates, can produce weapons and secure the living spaces, preferably just as the pirates are docking with the JumpShip. Often only a few men are needed to accomplish this task. On the average, 4 to 6 men are enough to perform this mission. The number of men depends on the size of the JumpShip's crew.
Men who are already members of the crew who have been bribed by the pirates are the best for this job. This is because newcomersare usually treated with suspicion bythe existing crewmembers; -who tend to be somewhat clannish.
In one case, three crew members of the Monolith- class JumpShip EJ Mallory set off gas grenades in the crew's quarters, rendering about one third of the ship's complement, themselves included, unconscious. The traitors were found out when the pirates who hired them failed to take the ship and were captured. One of the pirates confessed to charges of piracy and attempted theft of a JumpShip. In his confession, he named the three suborned crewmen.
The bridge is the nerve center of any vessel. By capturing it, the boarding party is able to gain control of most systems and sections. Communications, navigation, and command centers are only a few of the vital areas housed in the bridge. The bridge should be taken as quickly as possible, or the bridge crew might have enough time to send off a call for help, jump the ship away from the bandit's ships, or even wreck the bridge controls, rendering the ship inoperative.
A JumpShip's interior creates a tactical nightmare in which ordinary small group tactics are useless. Narrow corridors, small rooms, and lack of gravity all combine to make for conditions guaranteed to confuse and disorient even the brightest infantry tacticians. For this reason, special tactics and equipment have been developed for combat aboard JumpShips.
Low-recoil, fully automatic weapons, like a cone rifle, are preferred. With them, the long narrow corridors can be used as fire lanes, to prevent reinforcement of enemy position. Rooms can be cleared of enemy troops one at a time by firing in an irregular burst-pause-burst pattern and by coordinating the pauses with the movement of an assault group. In ideal circumstances, the cone rifle should be supported by a marksman armed with a laser rifle. He can suppress enemy fire while the assault team is moving, with less danger of hitting his own men than the gyrojet gunner.
As rooms are cleared, the assault group can provide covering fire for the cone rifle team, while that team moves into a better position. Once the fire-suppression team sets up in their new position, the whole process can begin all over again.
Clearing a room aboard a JumpShip is a nasty business. Often attacks are made at close range with melee weapons. Quarter is rarely asked and seldom given.
Smoke, gas, or stun grenades should be thrown into the room as the assault group approaches it. As soon as the grenades go off, the assault team should quickly enter and secure the room. Each team member should know his job and be able to perform it without hesitation. If a man pauses to think, it could cost not only his own life but also those of his teammates.
If possible, the room should be attacked through a number of doors all at the same time, catching those inside in a crossfire and limiting or eliminating the occupants' escape routes.
During an operation of this type, it is usually
impossible to guard prisoners and unwise to leave a merely
unconscious man behind. Therefore, in order to avoid any
unnecessary killing, previsions should be made for
restraining any of the enemy who survive the fighting. Given
the brutal nature of this type of combat, disposing of
prisoners is more often than not a moot point.
The process of clearing rooms and corridor resembles city fighting on a much smaller scale. The assault group should carry a variety of melee and fire-combat weapons. A traditional weapon used by both sides of a boarding action is the cutlass. The cutlass, whose roots go back to the 17th century on earth, is a shorter, heavier version of the standard sword, with a single, slightly curved cuffing edge. (The average cutlass is 80 cm long and weighs about 2 kilos.) In spite of its small size, the cutlass is still a horrendously effective weapon, capable of completely severing an unarmored man's arm with a single blow.
Most men fighting on shipboard carry a knife or dagger for close combat. Occasionally, other types of melee weapons are carried in boarding parties. Long spears with an auxiliary hooked blade called boarding pikes are exceptionally useful. In addition to their use as weapons, boarding pikes are exceptionally useful when employed as grappling devices by means of the hooked blade (or fluke).
Clubs, stun stick, vibroblades, and even the occasional neural whip have found their way into the hands of boarding parties. Regardless of what type of melee weapon is chosen, remember that in a zero-G environment such as is found aboard a JumpShip, any blow can send an unanchored man into an uncontrolled spin.
For fire combat, most assault group members carry a pistol, with laser and stunner varieties being the most obvious, by reason of their lack of recoil. Slug and tranq pistols, along with submachine guns, are more likely to be used by boarders and defenders alike, because they are less expensive and easier to obtain than energy weapons.
When using a projectile weapon, it is important to brace oneself against a wall, door frame, structural member, or other solidly attached object. This minimizes the effects of firing a non- recoilless weapon in a gravity-less environment. Gyrojet rifles do not completely eliminate the problems of recoil-imparted spin, but the low/high pressure firing system used in a cone rifle's projectiles goes a long way toward reducing it. Even the normally recoilless crossbow and longbow can impart some degree of spin to their user in a zeroG situation. As the limbs of the bow snap forward, propelling the arrow, they cause a slight recoil.
The only difference between the recoil of a bow/crossbow and the recoil of a firearm is that the firearm drives its user's upper body backwards, while the snap of the bow causes a slight pull forward. Under ordinary circumstances, this minute amount of recoil is hardly felt. In freefall, however, any amount of force, no matter how small, has an effect on a weightless body.
Over the years there have been many devices invented for counteracting the effects of freefall. These gadgets cover the entire spectrum from the ingenious to the bizarre. One device, invented in the early 21 st century, falls into the latter category. Consisting of a pair of specially designed boots whose soles were made up of a series of sucker clamps, this gadget was purported to permit a man in a zero-G environment to stand in one place while operating heavy equipment.
These clamps were affixed to a smooth surface, like a deck or bulkhead, by placing the sole of the boot against the surface and pressing down with the foot. Lifting the foot released the clamps. Suction was provided by means of a small pump located in the thick sole of the boot. Pressure forced air out of the sucker clamp. Releasing pressure permitted air to flow back into the clamp, freeing it from whatever surface it was attached to. The theory sounds plausible. The device failed miserably whenever it was used.
The most efficient piece of hardware for dealing with the effects of weightlessness is a small, lightweight version of the infantry jump pack. Called the Personal Maneuvering Unit, or PMU, this backpack-like device we weighs a little over 3 kilograms and operates in the same manner as a regular jump pack. Controlled "flight" is accomplished by a series of steerable nozzles set in the PMU's casing.
The unit's controls consist of a pair of joysticks which extend forward from the backpack at waist level, one on either side of the body. The Personal Maneuvering Unit has its roots in the 20th Century space program. It was developed for use by stevedores and shipyard personnel aboard deep space freighters during the 22nd Century.
It should be noted that PMUs are only used in short spurts, to control the direct and velocity of a man's "flight" in a zero-G environment. Used in this fashion, a PMU will have a fuel supply of about 3 hours. If used constantly, its propellant will be exhausted in a few minutes. This limitation makes PMU's unsuitable for infantry jump packs. They will not generate enough thrust during their limited burn time to lift a man off the ground. PMU's are not intended to counteract the recoil of a projectile weapon. They merely permit one who is suffering a recoil-imparted spin to regain his equilibrium a bit sooner than one who is not so equipped.
In any combat situation, body armor is an important consideration. Armor worn in zero-G combat often incorporates many of the same systems used in a vacuum suit. Special zero- G combat armor is constructed of ballistic cloth in the form of a jumpsuit with attached boots and gloves. The visored helmet attaches to the shoulders of the suit by means of a locking ring. Zero-G armor does not carry its own heating/ cooling system like a vacuum suit. It only carries a small reserve tank of air. If a man wearing zero-G armor is in a section of the ship which suddenly loses its atmosphere (assuming he survives the initial decompression), he will have just a few minutes to make his way out of the decompressed area.
Since a small amount of air is carried, the helmet visor is kept open until it needs to be closed to seal the suit. Obviously, damage to the suit will threaten its integrity as a vacuum suit. Most suits of zero-G armor incorporate a short-range personal communicator, a PMU, and attachment points for weapons, powerpacks, etc. Some more advanced models include flashlights, suit recorders, and even IR detection gear.
In most cases, the crew of a JumpShip has the rather annoying habit of refusing to simply hand their precious vessel over to the boarding party. For defending crew members or for boarding parties who have recently captured a JumpShip and who don't wish to surrender it, we offer the following thoughts:
Away Borders
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