SLN, and MAlign playing catch up with Manticoran superiority

penny wrote:At any rate, the submarine analogy is not considered correctly.

The most consistent error that is made when applying the analogy is in not realizing that the analogy needs to be applied across the board. The most important and remarkable achievement that subs allowed -- and that truth still stands -- was to make it possible to get a substantial force close to the enemy. Period. Undetected, or undetectable, is a plus.

But, in WWII the subs did not have reliable firepower. Sometimes the torpedoes did not detonate when contacting the ship. Their delivery system was suspect as well, requiring a lot of luck along with a fair amount of skill. Their firepower was also nowhere nearly as effective as it is with the LDs. It certainly won't require several torpedoes to destroy a ship that is a sitting duck.

Comparatively, as far as the analogy goes, the MA's weaponry is more reliable. They will hit their targets if said targets are completely oblivious as they quite oftentimes were historically. The g-torps will not fail to detonate and they will deliver a devastating payload. A payload that even exceeds the GA's ability to produce. For a much more accurate and analogous account, the subs of WWII were effectively operating in energy range!

All of this is why I say that the maiden voyages of the LDs are going to be devastating, and it is also why I say they will have varying missions.

BUT! If the subs of WWII had had reliable and effective torpedoes and a reliable delivery system? The game would have been OVER!

Torpedoes as reliable delivery systems had three components to that, and I think you're significantly overstating one of them.

All WWII torpedoes had issues hitting a target -- nearly all were 'dumb' weapons that traveled a fixed course after launch. So if the target maneuvered, or the launching sub had gotten the intercept calculation wrong, the torpedo would miss. (A few late war weapons had early acoustic homing capabilities, and the Germans had pattern running anti-convoy torpedoes to try to increase hit probability -- but for the most part torpedoes just went where you'd aimed them and if the enemy wasn't there they couldn't adjust)

Now the second, smallest, issue is that sometimes the mechanisms that let them hold their course and depth failed - leading to circular running torpedoes, or ones that passed clean under the target or porpoised out of the water.

The third factor, the one I think you're overstating, is issues exploding when they did hit. That was almost exclusively a US Navy issue, and just for the first couple years of their involvement in the war. Now, everybody who tried magnetic influence detonators had them fail (for example the Germans in Norway) -- due to insufficient understanding of the conditions involved and insufficient testing to discover them. But the Germans and British just pulled them and went back to their effective contact detonators -- again it was the USN that stuck to the faulty design too long, and also had a faulty contact detonator design.

But after the first few months of the naval war the German uboats had torpedoes that nearly always went where they were aimed and almost without fail exploded when they hit. And while they sunk a lot of Allied shipping, and a few Allied warships, working torpedoes and subs that let them get close were not "game OVER" for the Allies, their navies, or their shipping

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:At any rate, the submarine analogy is not considered correctly.

The most consistent error that is made when applying the analogy is in not realizing that the analogy needs to be applied across the board. The most important and remarkable achievement that subs allowed -- and that truth still stands -- was to make it possible to get a substantial force close to the enemy. Period. Undetected, or undetectable, is a plus.

But, in WWII the subs did not have reliable firepower. Sometimes the torpedoes did not detonate when contacting the ship. Their delivery system was suspect as well, requiring a lot of luck along with a fair amount of skill. Their firepower was also nowhere nearly as effective as it is with the LDs. It certainly won't require several torpedoes to destroy a ship that is a sitting duck.

Comparatively, as far as the analogy goes, the MA's weaponry is more reliable. They will hit their targets if said targets are completely oblivious as they quite oftentimes were historically. The g-torps will not fail to detonate and they will deliver a devastating payload. A payload that even exceeds the GA's ability to produce. For a much more accurate and analogous account, the subs of WWII were effectively operating in energy range!

All of this is why I say that the maiden voyages of the LDs are going to be devastating, and it is also why I say they will have varying missions.

BUT! If the subs of WWII had had reliable and effective torpedoes and a reliable delivery system? The game would have been OVER!

Torpedoes as reliable delivery systems had three components to that, and I think you're significantly overstating one of them.

All WWII torpedoes had issues hitting a target -- nearly all were 'dumb' weapons that traveled a fixed course after launch. So if the target maneuvered, or the launching sub had gotten the intercept calculation wrong, the torpedo would miss. (A few late war weapons had early acoustic homing capabilities, and the Germans had pattern running anti-convoy torpedoes to try to increase hit probability -- but for the most part torpedoes just went where you'd aimed them and if the enemy wasn't there they couldn't adjust)

Now the second, smallest, issue is that sometimes the mechanisms that let them hold their course and depth failed - leading to circular running torpedoes, or ones that passed clean under the target or porpoised out of the water.

The third factor, the one I think you're overstating, is issues exploding when they did hit. That was almost exclusively a US Navy issue, and just for the first couple years of their involvement in the war. Now, everybody who tried magnetic influence detonators had them fail (for example the Germans in Norway) -- due to insufficient understanding of the conditions involved and insufficient testing to discover them. But the Germans and British just pulled them and went back to their effective contact detonators -- again it was the USN that stuck to the faulty design too long, and also had a faulty contact detonator design.

But after the first few months of the naval war the German uboats had torpedoes that nearly always went where they were aimed and almost without fail exploded when they hit. And while they sunk a lot of Allied shipping, and a few Allied warships, working torpedoes and subs that let them get close were not "game OVER" for the Allies, their navies, or their shipping

The difference though is that the subs of WWII were not carrying the equivalent firepower to destroy complete systems as the LDs do and they lack the other critical issues which you agree are not a problem for the LDs. A single sub in WWII did not have the ability to completely destroy Pearl Harbor or any other naval base, along with the rest of the manufacturing infrastructure.

A single LD can completely destroy all of the infrastructure in a system and also take out any sitting ducks disguised as warships. If the MA gets the location of Bolthole, game OVER! Certainly if the LDs are allowed to get as close as WWII subs, and I think they can, what will stop them? To be clear, I agree they do not have to get close to static targets, but if they get a bead on moving targets, and are close enough, and are successful at being on the right bearing then "uh oh, the GA better get Maaco."

What the subs of WWII lacked is the ability to wage a short victorious war. IMO, the LDs can make it a very short war indeed. The only saving grace the GA has is an ally called David Weber.

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penny wrote:A single LD can completely destroy all of the infrastructure in a system and also take out any sitting ducks disguised as warships. If the MA gets the location of Bolthole, game OVER!

Maybe. In the aftermath of Oyster Bay Bolthole has probably taking countermeasures which will reduce the effectiveness of such a strike -- quite possibly to the point where a single LD can't bring enough ammo to kill the extremely extensive infrastructure at Bolthole.

For example keeping sidewalls active over the yards at all times; having block ships constantly putting up mazes of wedges outside of that, leaving PDLCs on automatic computer control (which could blunt the short range launches of stealthed pods of cataphracts), etc. Those are all expensive, in terms of burning through component lifetimes and maintenance requirements (and leaving people out of the loop on the PDLCs carries some risk of friendly fire) -- but they're something that could have been done without any new technological breakthroughs once it was apparent that weapons might strike with near-zero warning.

None of those will stop an attack -- but they probably up the number of weapons needed to kill a yard by 50 to 100 times.


Still, unless the GA has come up with effective anti-spider procedures and tech, LDs would be able to devastate Bolthole - assuming it's found. But it might take a squadron or two to do it.

Jonathan_S wrote:In the aftermath of Oyster Bay Bolthole has probably taking countermeasures which will reduce the effectiveness of such a strike -- quite possibly to the point where a single LD can't bring enough ammo to kill the extremely extensive infrastructure at Bolthole.

We can safely assume that those who can, have taken the lessons learned from Oyster Bay and looked at how to mitigate such an attack.

Regardless, it's not very hard to trash a systems infrastructure with conventional ships and weapons - you don't really need LD's for that as the SLN demonstrated. And if you want to do it "undetected", you translate in very far out and send your missiles in on ballistic.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:A single LD can completely destroy all of the infrastructure in a system and also take out any sitting ducks disguised as warships. If the MA gets the location of Bolthole, game OVER!

Maybe. In the aftermath of Oyster Bay Bolthole has probably taking countermeasures which will reduce the effectiveness of such a strike -- quite possibly to the point where a single LD can't bring enough ammo to kill the extremely extensive infrastructure at Bolthole.

For example keeping sidewalls active over the yards at all times; having block ships constantly putting up mazes of wedges outside of that, leaving PDLCs on automatic computer control (which could blunt the short range launches of stealthed pods of cataphracts), etc. Those are all expensive, in terms of burning through component lifetimes and maintenance requirements (and leaving people out of the loop on the PDLCs carries some risk of friendly fire) -- but they're something that could have been done without any new technological breakthroughs once it was apparent that weapons might strike with near-zero warning.

None of those will stop an attack -- but they probably up the number of weapons needed to kill a yard by 50 to 100 times.


Still, unless the GA has come up with effective anti-spider procedures and tech, LDs would be able to devastate Bolthole - assuming it's found. But it might take a squadron or two to do it.

Maybe. If their neurons are firing at all, Bolthole has put certain procedures in place, but I would not bet any money on it. The MBS has perhaps the largest economy in the galaxy.* Second to none. Yet the MBS itself has not implemented any of the measures you speak of. Perhaps because of its expense and impracticality. And Bolthole is hidden, why wouldn't they rely solely on that?

* IINM, I recall a passage saying that the MBS would soon surpass the SL in that respect. Who foots the enormous bill caused by Pac Man gobbling up cogs, sprockets and nodes? Manticore? Haven? I can't imagine Haven being able to afford a 50/50 split.

As I have stressed in many threads on this subject, maintaining DefCon 1 will be a very expensive undertaking. Bolthole would probably struggle just to keep the wedges, cogs, sprockets and nodes that are needed in the system serviced. LOL

But, if you are correct, then those very precautions represent one example of why the LDs would need to take on varying missions. You are talking about a tougher nut to crack. Even if you are correct about blocking ships and the like, the MA is not going to walk away from destroying Bolthole because it happens to be more fortified.

I do not see PDLCs making a difference against stealthed g-torps, but if blocking ships are placed as densely around targets as needed (although I cannot imagine that is possible) then there might be a problem. At any rate, if an LD needs to skulk in closer, it will. Bolthole would require a different type of mission.

I agree that Bolthole might require a squadron of LDs, just to be safe. Nothing wrong with overkill. But at the end of the day, Bolthole would be decimated. If the game ain't over then, somebody better get the fat lady off the podium and away from the mic. She's clearing her throat.

But your notion brings up questions. How maneuverable are g-torps? Why can't they avoid wedges? If not, then this is a prime example of the need for an LD to get in closer.

penny wrote:

penny wrote:A single LD can completely destroy all of the infrastructure in a system and also take out any sitting ducks disguised as warships. If the MA gets the location of Bolthole, game OVER!

Jonathan_S wrote:Maybe. In the aftermath of Oyster Bay Bolthole has probably taking countermeasures which will reduce the effectiveness of such a strike -- quite possibly to the point where a single LD can't bring enough ammo to kill the extremely extensive infrastructure at Bolthole.

For example keeping sidewalls active over the yards at all times; having block ships constantly putting up mazes of wedges outside of that, leaving PDLCs on automatic computer control (which could blunt the short range launches of stealthed pods of cataphracts), etc. Those are all expensive, in terms of burning through component lifetimes and maintenance requirements (and leaving people out of the loop on the PDLCs carries some risk of friendly fire) -- but they're something that could have been done without any new technological breakthroughs once it was apparent that weapons might strike with near-zero warning.

None of those will stop an attack -- but they probably up the number of weapons needed to kill a yard by 50 to 100 times.


Still, unless the GA has come up with effective anti-spider procedures and tech, LDs would be able to devastate Bolthole - assuming it's found. But it might take a squadron or two to do it.

Maybe. If their neurons are firing at all, Bolthole has put certain procedures in place, but I would not bet any money on it. The MBS has perhaps the largest economy in the galaxy.* Second to none. Yet the MBS itself has not implemented any of the measures you speak of. Perhaps because of its expense and impracticality. And Bolthole is hidden, why wouldn't they rely solely on that?

I don't recall anything describing one way or the other the current conditions in the MBS in terms of defenses around the replacement stations/yards that they building. So I don't think we've any basis to say that they haven't implemented any of those measures -- we've no evidence either way.

penny wrote:
* IINM, I recall a passage saying that the MBS would soon surpass the SL in that respect. Who foots the enormous bill caused by Pac Man gobbling up cogs, sprockets and nodes? Manticore? Haven? I can't imagine Haven being able to afford a 50/50 split.

As I have stressed in many threads on this subject, maintaining DefCon 1 will be a very expensive undertaking. Bolthole would probably struggle just to keep the wedges, cogs, sprockets and nodes that are needed in the system serviced. LOL

Expensive yes -- but the largest yard collection in the GA shouldn't struggle to churn out enough replament components or trained manpower to keep on top of constant usage.

It'll cut into their net production a little -- but it won't be that bad. Especially since the wedge block-ships don't need military drives. They can use the more robust, but lower performance, commercial impeller nodes -- which require less maintenance and have longer service lives.

penny wrote:But, if you are correct, then those very precautions represent one example of why the LDs would need to take on varying missions. You are talking about a tougher nut to crack. Even if you are correct about blocking ships and the like, the MA is not going to walk away from destroying Bolthole because it happens to be more fortified.

Nor did I claim that they would. Of course the MA would attack if they located Bolthole. And of course those defenses wouldn't be enough to stop a large attack. Never claimed they would.

In fact I specifically said they wouldn't.
They'd just force the MA to devote more ships to the attack. I was mostly pointing out that your flippant seeming claim of one LD wiping out Bolthole was probably hyperbole; and they'd likely need to bring more ammo to the party than a single LD can carry.

penny wrote:I do not see PDLCs making a difference against stealthed g-torps, but if blocking ships are placed as densely around targets as needed (although I cannot imagine that is possible) then there might be a problem. At any rate, if an LD needs to skulk in closer, it will. Bolthole would require a different type of mission.

Which is why I only said they'd blunt the other weapon used in OB - the stealthed pods of Cataphracts.

It might force them to rely more on g-torps. Which are bigger and thus you can carry fewer in a given ship -- again driving up the number of ships you need to devote to overcoming those defenses. Of if the MA didn't account for the PDLCs and still relied on significant numbers of close range Cataphracts then their attack might be less successful than expected -- at which point they'd have to consider whether it was worth the risk to close to energy range or whether engaging in energy combat might give any surviving defenders too great a chance of localizing and counter-attacking the LDs.

penny wrote:I agree that Bolthole might require a squadron of LDs, just to be safe. Nothing wrong with overkill. But at the end of the day, Bolthole would be decimated. If the game ain't over then, somebody better get the fat lady off the podium and away from the mic. She's clearing her throat.

But your notion brings up questions. How maneuverable are g-torps? Why can't they avoid wedges? If not, then this is a prime example of the need for an LD to get in closer.

If they didn't build up too might a base velocity they could avoid wedges. OTOH we know that the MA worries that at close ranges, with sensors behind them, that their stealth can be penetrated.

A shell of block ships with overlapping wedges can force a stealth attack to maneuver through the very small openings -- channeling g-torps into those exposes then to close range sensor scrutiny and from many angles. It's quite possible that they'd be detected trying to maneuver though such a blockship shell.

Of course the first g-torps could start blowing holes in the shell, which would at least let subsequent torps fly through the new gaps and possibly avoid getting locked up by point defenses. But blowing gaps through the shell would alert the defenders and might let other parts of the attack be somewhat blunted.


Still -- I'll reiterate my belief that, unless anti-spider procedure and tech make great strides, the GA is quite vulnerable to LD strikes. It's just that I think more LDs may need to be involved in each strike than your initial claim.

My apology. Didn't mean to take the credit away from you. You did say they would attack Bolthole if they found it. Actually that it is a no-brainer if anything is. I was just doubling down on my initial thought.

And again, I agree that it should take more than a single LD to decimate Bolthole, I just wouldn't bet on it. Anyway, a target as important as Bolthole should rate a squadron of LDs. But why should a squadron of LDs all use the same tactic of lobbying g-torps from the edge of the system?

The pods of cataphracts would be launched by another LD from in-system as a distraction to move the blocking ships out of position, etc., etc. IMO.

Anyway, to be honest, it should also take more than a single LD to wipe out the MBS, Grayson or any of the other major players. "Should".

Apologies if this has already been discussed elsewhere, but my question is, what is the chance that the MA could even be able to FIND Bolthole's location? Bolthole's location remained inviolate for the entire length of the war. And wouldn't the need to maintain secrecy be even more heightened after the attack on the MBS?

Admittedly the MA has a superior intelligance agency, but the GA has already been demonstrating the efficacy of treecats in ferreting out enemy intelligance operations. And limiting the knowledge of the system's location to an extremely small number of people and their navigation systems wouldn't be an insurmountable achievment. Their would be a finite number of ships going to and from Bolthole's system, And they could concentrate their efforts and treecats amongst those people.

And then there's the fact that IIRC (I'm not sure, it's been a looong time, but I read a story here in the forum that mentioned a wormhole) Bolthole is reached via a wormhole. Surely the wormhole's approaches and the exit could have a large concentration of surveillance systems to oversee them. I would think that that would eliminate any enemy attack.

And what are the chances that the actual stellar coordinates be found? That would be the only way that the LDs could execute a sneak attack. But that information could be (and would be) even more tightly held than the location of the wormhole access route.

So isn't the possibility of an attack by the LDs be relatively small? If not downright impossible.

Mycall4me wrote:And then there's the fact that IIRC (I'm not sure, it's been a looong time, but I read a story here in the forum that mentioned a wormhole) Bolthole is reached via a wormhole. Surely the wormhole's approaches and the exit could have a large concentration of surveillance systems to oversee them. I would think that that would eliminate any enemy attack.

And what are the chances that the actual stellar coordinates be found? That would be the only way that the LDs could execute a sneak attack. But that information could be (and would be) even more tightly held than the location of the wormhole access route.

So isn't the possibility of an attack by the LDs be relatively small? If not downright impossible.

The difficulty of finding Bolthole or Darius is in either getting hands on a ship that still has the astrographic information or a person that has been there. Yes, both are approached by a wormhole and we expect the exit to be heavily defended. But any information about the alignment of the stars from the site can give information about its location.

In the case of Bolthole, this would be much more useful than for Darius; because just saying stars hidden within a dust cloud that is not far by colony ship from Calvin's Hope, could allow someone to pinpoint the site.

tlb wrote:

Mycall4me wrote:And then there's the fact that IIRC (I'm not sure, it's been a looong time, but I read a story here in the forum that mentioned a wormhole) Bolthole is reached via a wormhole. Surely the wormhole's approaches and the exit could have a large concentration of surveillance systems to oversee them. I would think that that would eliminate any enemy attack.

And what are the chances that the actual stellar coordinates be found? That would be the only way that the LDs could execute a sneak attack. But that information could be (and would be) even more tightly held than the location of the wormhole access route.

So isn't the possibility of an attack by the LDs be relatively small? If not downright impossible.

The difficulty of finding Bolthole or Darius is in either getting hands on a ship that still has the astrographic information or a person that has been there. Yes, both are approached by a wormhole and we expect the exit to be heavily defended. But any information about the alignment of the stars from the site can give information about its location.

In the case of Bolthole, this would be much more useful than for Darius; because just saying stars hidden within a dust cloud that is not far by colony ship from Calvin's Hope, could allow someone to pinpoint the site.

The operative statement is, "getting hands on a ship that has been there"....isn't that possibility extremely unlikely? It's well known in the Honorverse that all computer databases be deleted if the possibility of capture occurs. And that's assuming the MA (or it's agents) manages to run down a ship that's actually been there. Would they even know to look?

And they'd have to be even luckier to capture a person who has been there, wouldn't they? It would certainly be a priority for them, but it still seems to me that there would be a lot of luck involved to find someone with the actual stellar coordinates to Bolthole.