Solarian Military Catchup Attempts

Perhaps the GA should look at taking out the logistics bases which pose the greatest potential threats to the GA. Part of that would be FF forward (in relation to Mantiocre, Haven and perhaps Erwhon).
The other would be a strike at Yildun to cripple what appear to be the main yards for Technodyne and what is probably their primary R&D center.
Looking at the Honorverse wick, Yildun has a wormhole junction with at least three termini. Any strike at Yildun is going to be a major undertaking. Not only would the GA want to at least try to get the yard personel off the stations/yards before destroying them, they are going to have to deal with whatever SLN warships are in system. That would range from units waiting for repair/upgrade, units working up in trials, and anything posted there as system security. Technodyne probably has it's own system security but I would suspect that BF maintains at least a picket.
The Yildun Junction would make a fine killing ground for BF if the GA could bring enough ships and mines. Just being what Yildun is makes it a place SLN would have to at least attempt to recover. At the start of any attack on the system, I would expect at least some SLN units to attempt to use wormholes to get there and join in the defence. Taking out the local Astro Control and then blasting any warships comming in would go a long way to cutting down on active (and perhaps both competent and aggressive SLN commanders).
The GA may not want to kill a lot of Technodyne people but it certainly would want to at least take a large number of the experienced shipyard people out of action as prisoners. That would include anybody in R&D
All of this would be a major assault, require a massive amount of ships (including transports for the anticipated prisoners) and be seriously complicated.
It would, if successful, remove the major (we have been told) SLN construction and repair yard, cripple warship construction, and degrade the R&D capability for at least a while.

Hi SWM,

You're right that's an assumption of mine, based on the overwhelming ECM advantage the RMN had at the beginning of the war, which I attribute in part to ECM missiles enabling a higher hit rate for RMN missiles.

Plus the facts that Thunder of God didn't have them either, nor did we see them used by the peeps at Hancock, etc.

I'd expect the peeps to be up with what was known to be in the SLN's armory, so their lack implies the SLN didn't have them then either.

At least that's the way it appears probaible to me.

L

SWM wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi Zakharra,

All quite true, but the time factor still plays a critical role.

Knowing the SL has the technical capability, the GA will do everything it can to reduce its actual time and ability to do research, to reduce the universe of possibilities to something much more manageable.

In OBS we learned nobody else had developed ECM heads for missiles since they were such a complete surprise to the peep Q ship.

In SoF, FF Admiral Dubroskaya's staff discuss ECM missile heads which they are now familiar with, 22 years after HH-A and the RMN first used them, while they may have used them earlier, no one survived again to tell the tale; NTM neither did the Thunder of God, so it was still a surprise when the war began, so make it 18 years for the SLN to learn about them from the peeps and make their own, though I wonder if they gave credit to the RMN, or let it be known who did it first.

From the textev, evidently not; the FF staff and CO's give no hint they know the RMN developed them first [its quite possible some SDF came up with them much earlier, but hasn't used them yet], reminding me of all the US Army and Navy officers who didn't know where the "Bofors" 40 mm came from, since we got the blueprints from the Brits.

One can't help wondering if the other advances the SLN has shown since 1900 PD are the result of peep data on RMN capabilities, filtered by the MAlign agents etc along the way.

L

OBS does not say that Manticore was the first to deploy ECM missile heads. All it says is that the Sirius tactical officer did not know what kind of ECM emitter allowed Harrington to hide the launch of one missile behind another. Do you have other evidence that Haven did not have ECM missile heads when the war began? I was under the impression that they did have them, but were surprised how big the gap between theirs and Manticore's was. I had the impression that everyone used ECM heads in 1900.

SWM wrote:OBS does not say that Manticore was the first to deploy ECM missile heads. All it says is that the Sirius tactical officer did not know what kind of ECM emitter allowed Harrington to hide the launch of one missile behind another. Do you have other evidence that Haven did not have ECM missile heads when the war began? I was under the impression that they did have them, but were surprised how big the gap between theirs and Manticore's was. I had the impression that everyone used ECM heads in 1900.

SLN officers have talked about the need for EW birds in missile combat, meaning it must be around for at least a century or so...

Hi Brigade XO,

Quite right!

Tackling Yildin will be fascinating!

How RFC does it potentially promises to be a magnum opus of an assault, possibly via the 3 different termini?

Who would command, Truman, or Diamato?

Who would you suggest?

Who knows, perhaps perhaps Bellefeuille came up with a variation of her "smoke and mirrors" plan, and gets to execute it?

Given Yildin's connection with the MAlign, I suspect it's high on the GA target list, so we should see something happening there in the next book.

Who knows?

Perhaps the Houdini operation in Yildin overlooked something.

L

Brigade XO wrote:Perhaps the GA should look at taking out the logistics bases which pose the greatest potential threats to the GA. Part of that would be FF forward (in relation to Mantiocre, Haven and perhaps Erwhon).
The other would be a strike at Yildun to cripple what appear to be the main yards for Technodyne and what is probably their primary R&D center.
Looking at the Honorverse wick, Yildun has a wormhole junction with at least three termini. Any strike at Yildun is going to be a major undertaking. Not only would the GA want to at least try to get the yard personel off the stations/yards before destroying them, they are going to have to deal with whatever SLN warships are in system. That would range from units waiting for repair/upgrade, units working up in trials, and anything posted there as system security. Technodyne probably has it's own system security but I would suspect that BF maintains at least a picket.
The Yildun Junction would make a fine killing ground for BF if the GA could bring enough ships and mines. Just being what Yildun is makes it a place SLN would have to at least attempt to recover. At the start of any attack on the system, I would expect at least some SLN units to attempt to use wormholes to get there and join in the defence. Taking out the local Astro Control and then blasting any warships comming in would go a long way to cutting down on active (and perhaps both competent and aggressive SLN commanders).
The GA may not want to kill a lot of Technodyne people but it certainly would want to at least take a large number of the experienced shipyard people out of action as prisoners. That would include anybody in R&D
All of this would be a major assault, require a massive amount of ships (including transports for the anticipated prisoners) and be seriously complicated.
It would, if successful, remove the major (we have been told) SLN construction and repair yard, cripple warship construction, and degrade the R&D capability for at least a while.

Whitecold wrote:SLN officers have talked about the need for EW birds in missile combat, meaning it must be around for at least a century or so...

Battle of Monica: The Technodyne rep wasn't surprised by the presence of EW missiles. He was surprised by how much POWER they had.

IOW, EW missiles limited to only capacitors for power can't do their EW job very well against ship borne sensors which have vastly more power behind them. Mantie EW missiles with their mini-fusion power plants are capable of totally screwing those same ship board sensors from the moment they light off to the moment the laserheads get into attack range.

Hi Whitecold,

That's possible, but the SLN has been modernizing, albeit at a very slow pace by Haven sector standards; the FF in particular we know is far more cutting edge according to Helen in CoS, as Gauntlet's experience in Tiburon against Gladiator class heavy cruisers demonstrated, while the Nevada BC's are designed for modular replacement to speed upgrades, etc.

We haven't had SLN or FF officers discuss ECM heads before, though they knew they existed ie they had them by NT, and the Technodyne representative in 1920 was familiar with them, even though the BC's didn't use any, nor did the Gladiator CA's in Tiburon.

Why would manpower and its shills hold back a common weapon?

Unless it was still rather rare.

So 20 years after OBS, the SLN appears to be familiar with the concept, and by 1922 at least expect them to be used in any engagement.

Still the power budget of the mini fusion units has always come as a shock to the SLN in the past 3 books, usually in a way they can't report how bad it is.

So while Saltash was generally a clean sweep for Zavala, letting Captain Ping-wa go means news of the RMN's powerful ECM may finally get out to the rest of the SLN, although the news from Zunker should have done the same.

Whether or not the SLN will be able to do anything with that knowledge remains to be seen.

L

Whitecold wrote:

SWM wrote:OBS does not say that Manticore was the first to deploy ECM missile heads. All it says is that the Sirius tactical officer did not know what kind of ECM emitter allowed Harrington to hide the launch of one missile behind another. Do you have other evidence that Haven did not have ECM missile heads when the war began? I was under the impression that they did have them, but were surprised how big the gap between theirs and Manticore's was. I had the impression that everyone used ECM heads in 1900.

SLN officers have talked about the need for EW birds in missile combat, meaning it must be around for at least a century or so...

lyonheart wrote:Hi Brigade XO,

Quite right!

Tackling Yildin will be fascinating!

How RFC does it potentially promises to be a magnum opus of an assault, possibly via the 3 different termini?

Who would command, Truman, or Diamato?

Who would you suggest?

Who knows, perhaps perhaps Bellefeuille came up with a variation of her "smoke and mirrors" plan, and gets to execute it?

Given Yildin's connection with the MAlign, I suspect it's high on the GA target list, so we should see something happening there in the next book.

Who knows?

Perhaps the Houdini operation in Yildin overlooked something.

L

I cut BrigadeXO's comments out to keep the message from being too long, but I agree totally with he and thee on Yildun being a primary target, and one I rather hope RFC spends at least a little time on....

I wonder if due to Lacoon II the wormhole termini from Yildun will already be under GA control and if that may affect the attack plan (no, I AM NOT considering a direct wormhole assault, but if the GA grabs it initially....

And as for the commander, lyonheart, I rather think a major action/raid/smashing things is right up the alley of a certain cigar-smoking admiral of our acquaintance.

Hi Hutch,

Lester, eh?

Perhaps with Alice?

Hmm, wonder if Cthia and RoseandHeather see anything further developing between these two?

Will Alice have the inside track because Mike is stuck in Mesa and the TQ?

Who else might Lester be spending time with in Manticore?

Brigham?

Andrea?

L

Hutch wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi Brigade XO,

Quite right!

Tackling Yildin will be fascinating!

How RFC does it potentially promises to be a magnum opus of an assault, possibly via the 3 different termini?

Who would command, Truman, or Diamato?

Who would you suggest?

Who knows, perhaps perhaps Bellefeuille came up with a variation of her "smoke and mirrors" plan, and gets to execute it?

Given Yildin's connection with the MAlign, I suspect it's high on the GA target list, so we should see something happening there in the next book.

Who knows?

Perhaps the Houdini operation in Yildin overlooked something.

L

I cut BrigadeXO's comments out to keep the message from being too long, but I agree totally with he and thee on Yildun being a primary target, and one I rather hope RFC spends at least a little time on....

I wonder if due to Lacoon II the wormhole termini from Yildun will already be under GA control and if that may affect the attack plan (no, I AM NOT considering a direct wormhole assault, but if the GA grabs it initially....

And as for the commander, lyonheart, I rather think a major action/raid/smashing things is right up the alley of a certain cigar-smoking admiral of our acquaintance.

lyonheart wrote:
Tackling Yildin will be fascinating!

How RFC does it potentially promises to be a magnum opus of an assault, possibly via the 3 different termini?

I suspect it will be very ugly. You will be dealing with the home system of a very large military contractor with essentially no limit to the population they can devote to crews. They know what is going on in the Haven sector. They have had quite a bit of time to advance their state of the art since their last advance was unveiled, and many, many hours to produce very steathy pods of MDMs at 100 per hour.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Whitecold,

That's possible, but the SLN has been modernizing, albeit at a very slow pace by Haven sector standards; the FF in particular we know is far more cutting edge according to Helen in CoS, as Gauntlet's experience in Tiburon against Gladiator class heavy cruisers demonstrated, while the Nevada BC's are designed for modular replacement to speed upgrades, etc.

We haven't had SLN or FF officers discuss ECM heads before, though they knew they existed ie they had them by NT, and the Technodyne representative in 1920 was familiar with them, even though the BC's didn't use any, nor did the Gladiator CA's in Tiburon.

Why would manpower and its shills hold back a common weapon?

Unless it was still rather rare.

So 20 years after OBS, the SLN appears to be familiar with the concept, and by 1922 at least expect them to be used in any engagement.

Still the power budget of the mini fusion units has always come as a shock to the SLN in the past 3 books, usually in a way they can't report how bad it is.

So while Saltash was generally a clean sweep for Zavala, letting Captain Ping-wa go means news of the RMN's powerful ECM may finally get out to the rest of the SLN, although the news from Zunker should have done the same.

Whether or not the SLN will be able to do anything with that knowledge remains to be seen.

L

I just found contrary evidence. I think you were fooled by the fact that the early books did not mention ECM payloads with every missile launch, unlike the later books. In fact, the Thunder of God did have ECM on missiles. So Haven definitely had ECM missiles before the war started. If Haven had them, I think we can assume that the League had them. From HoTQ:

That worried Simonds, for Thunder was a battlecruiser. His missiles were bigger and heavier, with a significantly greater penaid and ECM payload.