Editing Nobledark Imperium Writing (section)

== Episode III: Revenge of the Orks ==

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++Excerpt from a lecture series given by Sky Marshal Nigel Iger at Bakka Naval Officers' Acadamy, 867.M41++<br>
++"How to kill an Attack Moon"++

Even once you've cleared out the attending fleets, an Attack Moon will hardly sit passively while you destroy it. A counter-attack of some sort is inevitable, and you must be prepared to weather it. 

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First, consider the Moon's fighter complement. The previous white-room exercise presumed it did not launch any of its small craft before nova cannon range was achieved; this is almost never the actual case.
This is not an insurmountable problem. While frying the enemy fighters as they launch is the ideal, they do not magically become immune to nova cannon once in open space. Further, the rate at which an Attack Moon can prepare and launch fighters is often limited, so enemy fighter strikes will naturally separate into staggered waves that can be taken one at a time.
Make no mistake, once the fighters have launched the nova cannon will not kill all of them. Maybe not even most of them, depending on how fast and far they disperse. However, if they want to survive they will have to disperse widely, meaning they will attack piecemeal in small, ragged groups. Such attacks can be easily dealt with by adopting a tight, mutually-supporting defense formation.
But- and there is always another wrinkle- adopting such a formation will leave you vulnerable to the Moon's super-heavy guns, while the open formation and independent maneuvering needed to evade those guns exposes individual ships to getting swarmed under, even by a disorganized and ragged attack. 
You can use your carriers to defend the fleet while still keeping an open formation. But, deck space dedicated to interceptors and space-superiority fighters is deck space not dedicated to bombers that can strike at the Moon itself.
Frigate and destroyer squadrons can also be used to defend other ships while remaining mobile enough to not be hit by the big guns, but can be vulnerable to being swarmed under themselves.
Ultimately, there are no perfect solutions. You just have to decide what tradeoffs you want to make, and accept that no matter what you do, people are going to die.

Beyond that, the exact capabilities of Attack Moons vary widely, according to the personal tastes of the Big Meks constructing it. However, one thing they all have in common is teleporters. And that means teleporter assaults. 
Defending against a teleporter assault is different from other aspects of naval warfare, because it's not really naval combat, it's ground combat. Success or failure is determined by the quality of armsmen and layout of internal defenses, both of which are determined before battle is joined. As naval officers, there's not a whole lot you can do, unless you happen to be on the Internal Security track. 
Not much, however, is not nothing. The key here is to identify which ships are most important to your battle plan, which ships the Orks are most likely to attack, and to shift your armsmen around to defend those most heavily. Be prepared to launch counter-boarding actions in support of attacked ships at a moment's notice. Everybody in the fleet should know that teleporter assault is virtually inevitable, and be prepared for it. Close coordination with Astartes elements is vital here.
Now, the ships that are most vital to the plan will most often be the nova cannon carriers. Why should be obvious from all the different contexts they've popped up in through these lectures. Fighter suppression, defense suppression; these are the difference between victory and death, and while it's not actually impossible without nova cannon, it becomes much harder.
And no Warboss with an Attack Moon at his disposal is stupid. Most often, it is the nova cannons that will come under heaviest attack. Reinforce the armsmen on those ships heavily.

Third, psychic attack. This is less inevitable than teleporter assault, but still common. Any Waaagh with an Attack Moon will be very large, and consequently have a lot of psychic power behind it- which can be channeled into psychic attacks. And while it is possible their weirdboys will get it catastrophically wrong and the Moon will immolate itself in green fire- don't bet on it.
Ork psykery is less about weird headfuckery and more about raw, destructive power, a fact that should surprise absolutely nobody. True fleet-killing magics is thankfully orders of magnitude rarer than even Attack Moons, but you can still expect green lightning to periodically destroy individual ships or, sometimes, entire squadrons. Fortunately, psykers are hard to aim, so targeting is semi-random. You will not see them singling out flagships, nova cannons, carriers, or whatever ships are most vital to your battle plan at the moment.
Mostly. Orks. Expect variation, if nothing else. 

Defense against psychic attack occurs on the psychic plane, so the defense is simple- bring lots of combat psykers. If you are fortunate enough to have a selection, brings ones specialized in counterspelling. I'm informed that, if you're subtle and skilled enough, you can disrupt a psychic attack with much less energy than it takes to launch it, even kill a psyker through his own workings. Eldar are supposed to be good at this. 
Again, once battle is joined there's not much you can do to affect the outcome in this arena. Either what you've brought is sufficient or it isn't, and all you can do is hope.

Even in the hands of a genius, Attack Moons are not terribly capable of tactical subtlety. Past what I've already discussed, most surprises are going to be matters of mechanical variation. Aside from the normal variations in weapons, armor, engines, etc. many have some sort of unique specialist system or weapon. 
My personal experience includes a lightning-field point defense system that destroyed any fighters or torpedoes within its area of effect. Completely prevented the usual first wave of pinpoint strikes until a teleport assault by Astartes was able to sabotage the weapon- which took a week and delayed the attack long enough for the Moon to be reinforced and launch its own assault on a nearby planet. 
Other examples in the historical record include an engine turbocharge system that enabled brief spurts of acceleration on par with a frigate, a set of massively oversized Power Klaws apparently intended for close combat with tyranid Hive Ships, a spinal weapon similar to a nova cannon of utterly staggering size, and more.
A full accounting of all the odd customizations made to Attack Moons would occupy an entire lecture by itself. Giving general advice on how to counter these unique weapons would be impossible- as each one is unique, each one requires unique tactics to counter. 
These devices are usually large and distinctive enough to be obvious, so the fact that they have ''something'' up their sleeve is not itself a surprise. Exact function and power can be guessed at. Ultimately, however, in order to know exact capabilities you must see the device in action.
This is not difficult. Any Ork in control of such a weapon will use it at every possible opportunity; goading them into demonstrating it for you is often trivial. 

From there- well. Given the variety of enemies we face, an officer of the Imperial Navy must be flexible.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow, where I will discuss ways of killing AttackMoons that do not consist of throwing more nova cannon at them.

++Conclude excerpt++

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