The Two General's Problem

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Maybe the MAlign wasn't aware, but the sequencing actually had to be within 13 minutes, because that's the one-way message time via Hermes buoy-relay system between the A and B components of the MBS (13 light-hours divided by 62, roughly 13 minutes). We don't know the exact position of Manticore and Sphinx during the attack, but they are never farther than 18 light-minutes apart, so 18 seconds of warning time via FTL, and this the MAlign definitely knew about. Though at this low end, the issue is that there isn't much a defender can do in 18 seconds; raising bubblewalls is going to take a minute, assuming the nodes were already at stand-by.

Jonathan_S wrote:Thanks for the correction on Manticore A - B signal time. I did the math on that correctly and then mentally screwed up my units (thinking the ~13 minutes was ~13 hours) -- and having made that simple and dumb mistake figured that a dispatch boat parked on the limit could beat that and guessed at half an hour. Oops.

At the moment, he was on Gryphon, which would have made any kind of real-time conversation impossible even if there'd been an FTL link between Manticore-A and Manticore-B. Still she had plenty of time to transmit it to the regular morning Admiralty courier. Light-speed transmission time between the Manticore Binary System's two components was almost eleven hours, whereas messages aboard the Admiralty couriers who jumped back and forth every four hours on a regular schedule - or more frequently, if an emergence message came up - made the transit in about half a hour.

tlb wrote:PS: Please point me to the information about one minute to raise sidewalls from standby, since it takes so much longer to raise a wedge from standby. However I question whether they would be on standby (except for Weyland because of its position), because the normal assumption would be that an attack would be noticed by the time the enemy crossed the hyper-limit.

Short Victorious War wrote:"Sweet Jesus, they're Peeps!" Bellerophon's junior tactical officer whispered. The Book didn't like enemy reports like that, but Lieutenant Commander Avshari felt no inclination to criticize. After all, The Book didn't envision this lunatic sort of situation, either.
The lieutenant commander watched his status boards' green lights turn amber and red and wished to hell the Captain would get here. Or the Exec. Or anybody senior to him, because he didn't have a clue and he knew it. This was supposed to be a milk run, a good opportunity for junior watch keepers to get a little bridge time on their logs, but he was a communications officer, for God's sake—and one whose Academy tactical scores had been a disaster, to boot! What the hell was he supposed to do next?
"Sidewalls active! Starboard energy batteries closed up on computer override, Sir!" the youthful lieutenant at Tactical said, and Avshari nodded in relief. That decided which way to turn, anyway.
"Bring us hard to port, Helm."
"Aye, aye, Sir. Coming hard to port."
The dreadnought began her turn, and fresh alarms whooped even as she swung.
"Incoming fire!" the tac officer snapped, and lasers and grasers ripped at Bellerophon's suddenly interposed sidewall. Most of them achieved absolutely nothing as the sidewall bent and degraded them, but red lights bloomed on Avshari's damage control display as half a dozen minor hits cratered her massive armor, and this time he knew exactly what to do.
"Ms. Wolversham, you are authorized to return fire!" Bellerophon's com officer barked the order straight from The Book, and Lieutenant Arlene Wolversham punched the button.
* * *
Admiral Pierre swallowed a groan as the dreadnought snapped around and her sidewall swatted his broadsides contemptuously aside. He'd never seen a ship that size maneuver so rapidly and confidently. She'd taken barely ten seconds to bring her sidewalls up and get around—her captain must have the instincts and reactions of a cat!

tlb wrote:PS: Please point me to the information about one minute to raise sidewalls from standby, since it takes so much longer to raise a wedge from standby. However I question whether they would be on standby (except for Weyland because of its position), because the normal assumption would be that an attack would be noticed by the time the enemy crossed the hyper-limit.

Jonathan_S wrote:The first place that comes to mind is back in SVW; when Admiral Pierre's BCs accidently jumped the DN HMS Bellerophon

Short Victorious War wrote:Admiral Pierre swallowed a groan as the dreadnought snapped around and her sidewall swatted his broadsides contemptuously aside. He'd never seen a ship that size maneuver so rapidly and confidently. She'd taken barely ten seconds to bring her sidewalls up and get around—her captain must have the instincts and reactions of a cat!

(emphasis added)
And keep in mind, this was still (technically) peacetime - so that should be representative of their status in even just times of heightened concern. (Meaning it should be representative of how fast sidewalls could have been brought up during OB)

Though, to be fair, that was for sidewalls of a warship; and we don't know if a spherical bubble sidewall can be brought up so quickly. Still, it's clear from even that one example that sidewalls can be raised vastly quicker than a wedge can.

tlb wrote:Second paragraph in chapter. Again I had to copy this by hand, so I hope I did not introduce errors; but the point about a lack of FTL communication by buoys is plain.

PS: Please point me to the information about one minute to raise sidewalls from standby, since it takes so much longer to raise a wedge from standby. However I question whether they would be on standby (except for Weyland because of its position), because the normal assumption would be that an attack would be noticed by the time the enemy crossed the hyper-limit.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And it can't be that they keep the bubblewall up all the time, because if they did the station would still be there and Yawata Crossing would still exist.

Maybe during about half of the Sphinxian year they are protected by the MWHJ Resonance Zone, which would make the Oyster Bay attack depend on whether Sphinx was at that time of their year. We know the attack was launched early, but was it a multiple of 5 T-years early?

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And it can't be that they keep the bubblewall up all the time, because if they did the station would still be there and Yawata Crossing would still exist.

Maybe during about half of the Sphinxian year they are protected by the MWHJ Resonance Zone, which would make the Oyster Bay attack depend on whether Sphinx was at that time of their year. We know the attack was launched early, but was it a multiple of 5 T-years early?

But the resonance zone has nothing to do with either the original plan for Oyster Bay, nor the actual attack; since all the weapons used came out of hyperspace one light month away from the hyper-limit.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And it can't be that they keep the bubblewall up all the time, because if they did the station would still be there and Yawata Crossing would still exist.

Maybe during about half of the Sphinxian year they are protected by the MWHJ Resonance Zone, which would make the Oyster Bay attack depend on whether Sphinx was at that time of their year. We know the attack was launched early, but was it a multiple of 5 T-years early?

tlb wrote:But the resonance zone has nothing to do with either the original plan for Oyster Bay, nor the actual attack; since all the weapons used came out of hyperspace one light month away from the hyper-limit.

Jonathan_S wrote:I had a similar initial thought -- but now I think he was saying that the RZ might have played into Manticore's defensive plans.

Since they (presumably) couldn't envision someone able to sneak in like the MAlign actually did, the RMN might have been assuming the RZ would force any attackers to emerge and be detected further from Sphynx and thus that they could lower the readiness levels of HMSS Vulcan's defenses when deep within the RZ.

But that when Sphynx was exposed and the RMN had to worry about attackers emerging on the hyper limit, already within missile range of the station, they might have taken steps to heighten the alert levels (maybe even just preemptively turning on some of the blockship wedges -- since they wouldn't have time to raise them if an enemy emerged near the limit and thus could have missiles hitting in under 5 minutes).

So if Sphynx was in the RZ when OB hit its defenses might have been at that lower alert level.

If that was the defender's assumption then that obviously backfired on them badly when, as you say, the surprise of OB rendered any defensive depth and expected warning time irrelevant.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I had a similar initial thought -- but now I think he was saying that the RZ might have played into Manticore's defensive plans.

Since they (presumably) couldn't envision someone able to sneak in like the MAlign actually did, the RMN might have been assuming the RZ would force any attackers to emerge and be detected further from Sphynx and thus that they could lower the readiness levels of HMSS Vulcan's defenses when deep within the RZ.

But that when Sphynx was exposed and the RMN had to worry about attackers emerging on the hyper limit, already within missile range of the station, they might have taken steps to heighten the alert levels (maybe even just preemptively turning on some of the blockship wedges -- since they wouldn't have time to raise them if an enemy emerged near the limit and thus could have missiles hitting in under 5 minutes).

So if Sphynx was in the RZ when OB hit its defenses might have been at that lower alert level.

If that was the defender's assumption then that obviously backfired on them badly when, as you say, the surprise of OB rendered any defensive depth and expected warning time irrelevant.

I certainly agree with both of you that the RZ would have an effect on defensive planning.

My disagreement was over whether that could determine (or even influence) the timing of Oyster Bay, which counted on total stealth to defeat any possible defensive plan.

Jonathan_S wrote:I think that would depend on what the high-alert defensive plan for Vulcan was.

When outside the RZ Sphynx and Vulcan sit less than 1 light-minute from where an enemy might appear. So they could be taking fire in less than 5 minutes from an enemy emerging -- too little time for some defenses (block ships) to come online. So at least parts of their defensive plans during that period wouldn't be able to rely on seeing an enemy before bringing defenses online. And thus that extra defense, that doesn't rely on spotting an enemy first, would be up despite the OB attack not being detected.

A couple possible ways to deal with not having time to wait to detect an enemy might be:
1. Having the bubble sidewall up the entire time Vulcan isn't protected by the RZ (opening oversized 'gun ports' to let ships/shuttles in and out.
2. Having many of the block-ships constantly running their wedges so they're always interposing a barrier against surprise missile fire.

But the MAlign would know whatever the defensive routine was, it'd be easily visible to all ships visiting Sphynx so they'd be able to incorporate it into their plans.

And the RMN doesn't seem to have gone with option 1 -- but if they had I think the OB planners could only have dealt with that by either allocating many additional weapons to Vulcan to ensure its destruction despite having a sidewall up OR by scheduling the attack during a period of lower defensive readiness when the sidewall wouldn't be routinely raised.

If the RMN went with option 2 then the OB planners would either need to find a vector where the missiles and torpedoes could coast in without encountering the block ships (quite possible if they only pre-emptively block the short path between the hyper limit and Vulcan) or again scheduling the attack for when the Sphynx defenses aren't pre-emptively raised.

tlb wrote:The war with Haven had changed from fleet against fleet to attacks against points of value (which might necessitate such plans); but Haven's mobile fleet had been captured and Manticore's fleet was at Haven's home planet at the time of Oyster Bay. The ships that Honor had could destroy everything that Haven had, so there was no obvious need to worry about bubble sidewalls or blocking ships.