Implenting Case Lacoon I & II after Oyster Bay

zuluwiz wrote:Another point to consider: There's really no need for wallers for this job. A squadron of battlecruisers and a squadron of heavy cruisers can control enough pods to defend against most threats.

Unfortunately they wont have so many pods to spare for two or three tyears.

But dont forget, Manticore doesnt need to control the termini. Its all about the junctions. A Wormhole Termini is worthless if the other guy controls the junction.
Sure, the SLN can do a suprise attack through the terminis at the junctions. But to what end? It would be a suicidal move.

There are six junctions that we know of:
Asgard, Erewhon, Felix, Manticore, Visigoth and Yidun.

Asgard is Andermani backyard. A sovereign star nation to be sure but the IAN can take care of them for sure.
Erewhon will ally itself with the Haven Quadrant powers anyway, more than a small RMN or even RHN detachment at the junction wont be needed.
Felix is a secret junction, the Alliance doesnt know about it.
We dont know anything about the location of Visigoth. But since it was discovered some 500 years ago its for sure a League system. With one Termini connecting to Mesa, the RMN will deploy a strong force there.
We know that Yildun is a important League junction with three termini.
So basically its all about Yildun and Visigoth.
The other junctions can be controlled by other Alliance forces.
We are talking maybe 8 BatRons here, no problem whatsoever.

zuluwiz wrote:The problem here is: A) There is no one to man these ships. B) If you stick a few dozen of these ships out somewhere (anywhere) what's to prevent the the Sollies from sending overwhelming numbers against them and rolling right over them? The main advantage the Manties have is not in the energy weapons, it's in the range of their missiles. Ships that cannot operate MDMs are targets, pure and simple. Manticore cannot afford to lose the people required to man these ships.

Actually they would have the personal to support them. They have just got out of the High Ridge government and the Navy was reduced to even lower manpower then before the war with Haven. And the new ship as pointed out when they whooped Crandell do not have as many bodies per ship as they used to in the older style ship. I see no reason why they can not recall to active duty enough to man all the capture Solly SDs.
I think you are right about point B however.

Thirdbase wrote:Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that Manticore by implementing Lacoon II will be effectively declaring war upon the star nation that controls the Worm Hole. Effectively this would be like England seizing control of the Suez and Panama Canals.

... after the African-South American Empire sailed the largest fleet in human history to British waters, where it was promptly sunk by the Royal Navy.

Eagleeye wrote:Because the most of these star nations are members of the Solarian League I don't see any problems with that particular stumbling block. After all, for all intents and purposes Manticore is at war with the league. And the declaration of war was the systemwide speech of Queen/Empress Elizabeth.

I'd argue Filereta's attack is a de facto declaration of war on Manticore.

[quote="Star Knight]There are six junctions that we know of:
Asgard, Erewhon, Felix, Manticore, Visigoth and Yidun.

. . .

We dont know anything about the location of Visigoth. But since it was discovered some 500 years ago its for sure a League system. With one Termini connecting to Mesa, the RMN will deploy a strong force there.[/quote]
Actually, we do know more about Visigoth. We know that it has two termini, one of which is Mesa. And we know that Visigoth is a mere 60 light-years from Beowulf...

Ok, few things:
Chapter 38 from Echoes of Honor:
"Task Group 12.4.2 had been supposed to emerge from hyper four million klicks from the Basilisk terminus, headed directly towards it with a velocity of five thousand kilometers per second. That would have put them in missile range and firing by the time the defenders could realize they were coming."

So, yes, you can jump close enough to the wormhole termini to nullify missile range advantages. I got the idea that resonance zone was more of a cone between the junction on the stars of manticore system(?)

Secondly, controlling just the junctions is far from optimal, you'll want to supply any fleet controlling the junction through the termini, possibly send raids and supply something else on the other side of wormholes as well. (Think Trevor's Star...)

Third, to maintain the range advantage against jumps to near termini, it could be acceptable to put your picket inside hyper limit, into the system itself. Certainly the enemy might be able to use wormhole occasionally, at high risk (maintain fleet close enough to hyperlimit inside, and you could still jump towards the junction if necessary?). But I doubt we'll be seeing all that much of hyperspace tricks to get in range, it's afterall supposed to be rather inaccurate over short distances...

Forgiven wrote:So, yes, you can jump close enough to the wormhole termini to nullify missile range advantages.

Again, no you cant.
I doesnt matter whether or not you can jump right at the termini.
The RMN detachement wont be there.
Their ships will be hidden stationed somewhere else because Apollo can kill you from very far away.
The SLN can jump all it wants, chances are close to zero that they catch the Manticorans in energy range.

Forgiven wrote:Secondly, controlling just the junctions is far from optimal, you'll want to supply any fleet controlling the junction through the termini, possibly send raids and supply something else on the other side of wormholes as well. (Think Trevor's Star...)

It makes no difference.
If you want to supply your forces through a hostile termini you ll need a concoy to actually get to the termini in question.
If your escort can defend a supply convoy it can punch through a SLN detachment guarding a termini.

And of course there is the possibility of stationing a picket at the terminis so that you wont run into a nasty suprise.

heck with Apollo you don't even need your forces near each other. If there was even a chance of this tactic working, the defender would disperse then even if the SLN got lucky they'll only obliterate a small fraction.

Seriously though. You can stay inside the hyper limit, preventing microjump tricks, and just kill em from there.

Staying inside the hyper-limit is probably a bit too far. If you stay inside the hyper-limit and the junction is five light-hours beyond the hyper-limit, it will take six hours for your missiles to reach the enemy--and it will be a little inaccurate. :)

Eagleeye wrote:

Thirdbase wrote:Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that Manticore by implementing Lacoon II will be effectively declaring war upon the star nation that controls the Worm Hole. Effectively this would be like England seizing control of the Suez and Panama Canals.

Yes I realize that none of these star nations would be a threat to Manticore, but it is what they are doing.

Because the most of these star nations are members of the Solarian League I don't see any problems with that particular stumbling block. After all, for all intents and purposes Manticore is at war with the league. And the declaration of war was the systemwide speech of Queen/Empress Elizabeth. That, at least, will be the opinion of the proverbial men in the streets.

And with the other nations, who aren't SL-members ... how about that? Manticore could show them some of the proofs they got from Zilwicki/Cachat - maybe they get even an invitation to block the Termini/Nexi after that? Or the star nation in question (like ... oh, Erewhon?) does the blocking with its own ships?

What about the Phoenix - Erewhon, the Matapan - Asgard, Asgard - Midgard, and Asgard - Durandel ones? Admittedly Durandel is part of the Anderman Empire, and the Erewhon one shouldn't be a problem, but the rest? Plus what ever other ones exist outside Solly space, plus the ones inside Solly space.

If I recall correctly there are only two Junctions in Sollie space, Visigoth and Felix, and it isn't clear that Felix is actually in Sollie space nor is it clear that Visigoth is a Junction rather than a single Wormhole to Mesa.

With 60% of all Sollie shipping traveling in Manty hulls and the loss of the use of the wormhole it will cripple the Sollie's ability to feed their populace let alone the purely economic concerns. We've had surprisingly little textev on how many agri-planets there are in the Old League. If the core worlds are highly developed they may have a very difficult time feeding the masses, let alone doing anything else.

This brings up something I've been mulling over in my mind for a while now, could the Quadrant become the new bread basket of humanity? Montana has been mentioned as having very good prospects with its beef exports. How many other worlds in the Quadrant could have their Agro production expanded to address the needs of the Star Empire and Allies?