Was Manticore ever vulnerable to any other navy?

I would agree that Manticore had a silver spoon inserted, somewhere.

One factor that protected Manticore was logistics. Weber only alludes to the issue of fuel consumption and supply, but we are left with the impression that Honorverse starships are not analogous to nuclear powered wet navy ships out even sailing ships. Their endurance and range is not unlimited. The Warasawki sail enhances endurance and range, but that was not always a safe mode of transportation.

As of the time of the wars with Haven, warships were comparable to oil fueled wet navy warships. In prior centuries, they were more analogous to coal fired warships. No Navy in their right mind would deploy a significant fraction of their fleet so far from home that they could not reach their destination and return home without refueling unless they had secured refueling bases along the route. These bases in turn needed to be defended. As a result, only a fraction of a Navy's ships could be deployed at great distances. You see the legacy of this strategic thinking in SVW.

I recall a certain genius who once posted on this forum utilizing the information provided by Weber regarding Honor's use of fusion thrusters to sneak up on the Havenites who apparently had their headers inserted to deeply to notice fusion exhausts that were brighter than planets. If IIRC, the estimated fuel fraction was about 20%. The fuel fraction and thus range can easily be increased for freighters, but fuel is bulky. The need to about a warship imposes a limitation on fuel fraction and thus effective range.

The bottom line is that up until about 1800, Manticore was protected by distance. No one who could conquer them would try to conquer them until the existence of the Manticore wormhole junction was deduced. Even then the conquerors were a bunch of mercenaries who probably over extended themselves.

OMG! to a schism rented by ThinksMarkedly. Manticore is vulnerable NOW.

Never in a million hands-of-hands would King Roger ever believe that the keys to the fount of knowledge would ever be handed over to the Peeps. The keys to the safe (MWJ) and the keys to conquering Manticore is now in Haven Space.

Tester, don't let Pritchard die and a wholeass that's a cross between Saint-Just and High Ridge comes to power.

The SLN spawned into the 800# Gorilla.
The RHN can spawn into the 800# Goliath.

Whaaat??? It was only a nightmare? Thank Tester it was simply a nightmare.

cthia wrote:Simply put, is there a time Manticore could have been conquered by the Solarians, Havenites or Andermani?

Or, were they simply born with a silver spoon in their mouth?

Until ~1912 PD, Manticore was vulnerable to conquest by the Solarian League Navy if the SLN and its political masters were willing to take the casualties needed to mass enough force to beat back fixed defenses and Home Fleet.

Only after the introduction of both podnoughts and MDM pods configured for a system defense role is Manticore a too tough nut for the SLN to conquer even with human wave/waller-wave attacks. At that point Manticore may be vulnerable to ballistic bombardment attrition attacks.

Manticore's strategy regarding security against the Solarian League is partially a political strategy (get in and stay in good with Beowulf) and partially a military policy to be too tough of a nut to crack for an accidental/incidental conquest. Home Fleet, Junction Fortresses etc were always strong enough to make Frontier Fleet come with multiple squadrons of the wall. This is more than enough to prevent an 'incidental' conquest as multiple battle squadrons is a huge political investment for FF to assemble as they have to go to Battle Fleet for those units.

Except for perhaps a 10 year period, Manticore had always been vulnerable to the Solarian League IF the SL decided it wanted to pay the cost to conquer Manticore.