Beating up Frontier Fleet, mercilessly

Gun Boat Diplomacy wrote:the grayson's have Burleson class CA's? are they the equivalent of the Sag- C's? just wondering as Burleson is my last name . Also where are they mentioned, if I might ask?

Only in House of Steel at this point. And yes, they are the GSN equivalent of the Saganami-C.

kzt wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:That's almost as good as staging a fake battle, and way lower exposure. And if exposed its less damaging to be found to have lied about ship ordered than to be found colluding with an enemy during time of war.

The thing you have to remember about their fleet is that the crews are SLN regulars. They have ties to the rest of the SL. Officers will have ties to the families that run the SLN. They send letters, visit, get reassigned to other sectors. So how long you can pull this off is really in doubt.

Well up to a year, given the communication lag, seems quite doable.

Even if Rozak has to tell them (or letters mention) he's been ordered to conduct commerce raiding, not a given, nobody would expect him to devote 100% of his forces to it. So for a while he can keep each ship of regulars thinking that its some other ships that got that duty.

And he should be able to come up with reasons to send some off of 4-6 month (non raiding) cruises, and until they come back and the various captains and crew manage to compare notes it's not easy to realize that nobody is raiding.


Plus at least some of the crews seem to be more in on the long term plans than others (the ones getting the Erewhonese tech - they at least have to know not to clue the rest of FF in on the fact that the Mantie-light ships seriously outclass the normal FF designs). If he can trust them then a variant of the above is that he could tell the more League loyal captains that he's only risking the new ships in commerce raiding. That could buy even more time as now all the ones most likely to alert the League have an explanation for why they aren't the ones raiding -- so until they get someone from a new ship to talk they can compare notes with each other all they like without realizing that nobody is hunting Manticoran commerce.


Can Maya keep this charade up indefinitely? Of course not. But given the lengthy com loops they can probably play a delaying game for a year or more -- giving more time to get their BC(P)s complete and in service before they have to break cover.

kzt wrote:
And this will mean that commerce raiders will mostly find single unescorted merchant ships, which they will promptly blow up.

I still argue against the idea that they would blow up these merchant ships. Not when there is such a shortage of shipping capability back in the SL. I say that they would be trying to capture as many as possible to send them back to the core worlds to help things out.

Jonathan_S wrote:
Can Maya keep this charade up indefinitely? Of course not. But given the lengthy com loops they can probably play a delaying game for a year or more -- giving more time to get their BC(P)s complete and in service before they have to break cover.

I say that after Maya hears about what has happened at Meyers and to the whole Madras Sector they will be among the first of the fringe systems to leave the SL and form and alliance with the GA. They won't be trying to fake anything, they'll just be saying "up yours" to the SL.

And thinking of the Madras Sector, how is the SL and SLN going to respond to that situation? Well,once they actually find out about it, which could be a while if arriving ships at Meyers keep getting captured. And where was the rest of Byng's task force? He only had about 17 of his BC's with him when he got shot. Did the rest join up with Crandal? Something happened to them as they were not anywhere in the sector when Admiral Henke took Meyers.

kzt wrote:The thing you have to remember about their fleet is that the crews are SLN regulars. They have ties to the rest of the SL. Officers will have ties to the families that run the SLN. They send letters, visit, get reassigned to other sectors. So how long you can pull this off is really in doubt.

My wild guess is that a lot of FF enlisted crews are "locals" who aren't assigned out of their sectors all that often.

It likely keeps transportation costs down.

Officers, being career people, likely different - but, the senior people are in on the plan, and the juniors are probably being kept in the dark until they can be told the truth.

You know..."The universe went nuts, and we are going to make sure the people we are assigned to protect are taken care of, because This Ship Does Not Abandon Its Responsibilities and we WILL NOT allow piracy and ruin to come to this region of space while we can prevent it. DO YOU GET ME?!...and now that we've carved out a safe spot in the Universe, do you want us to send your Mom & Dad an invitation for dependent housing? The Admiral has gotten clearance for some transports and has detailed off 3 destroyers to go make it happen...Lucky we started those home builds, huh? They are probably bigger & clunky, but we can use Real SLN ships to make sure your family is safe..."

Mitchell, Esq. wrote:My wild guess is that a lot of FF enlisted crews are "locals" who aren't assigned out of their sectors all that often.

It likely keeps transportation costs down.

No, this is a sector of neo-barbs run by OFS, remember? Have you seen any evidence in any of the text that ship crews used to police OFS areas are recruited locally? Much less trained locally?

Ship crew training is a big deal, and a few dozen ships can't justify the whole training establishment.

StealthSeeker wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:
Can Maya keep this charade up indefinitely? Of course not. But given the lengthy com loops they can probably play a delaying game for a year or more -- giving more time to get their BC(P)s complete and in service before they have to break cover.

I say that after Maya hears about what has happened at Meyers and to the whole Madras Sector they will be among the first of the fringe systems to leave the SL and form and alliance with the GA. They won't be trying to fake anything, they'll just be saying "up yours" to the SL.

And thinking of the Madras Sector, how is the SL and SLN going to respond to that situation? Well,once they actually find out about it, which could be a while if arriving ships at Meyers keep getting captured. And where was the rest of Byng's task force? He only had about 17 of his BC's with him when he got shot. Did the rest join up with Crandal? Something happened to them as they were not anywhere in the sector when Admiral Henke took Meyers.

Byng's other squadron of 8 battlecruisers went to Spindle with Crandall's forces:

Mission of Honor, Chapter 20 wrote:As she’d expected, the various destroyers’ emissions signatures varied widely, which wasn’t surprising given how much the Rampart and War Harvest classes had been refitted over their lifetimes. The heavier ships’ emissions were much closer to their “book” profiles, though. Hercules’ CIC had easily tagged the individual units of Rear Admiral Gordon Nelson’s battlecruiser squadron, since they’d lifted his ships’ electronic fingerprints out of the data they’d captured from Byng’s task force. And although they didn’t have hard individual IDs on the other battlecruiser squadron, it was obvious all of them were Nevadas.

Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.

StealthSeeker wrote:

kzt wrote:
And this will mean that commerce raiders will mostly find single unescorted merchant ships, which they will promptly blow up.

I still argue against the idea that they would blow up these merchant ships. Not when there is such a shortage of shipping capability back in the SL. I say that they would be trying to capture as many as possible to send them back to the core worlds to help things out.

You have to put a prize crew on them and then take the freighter back to the rear. The SLN ships are manpower intensive compared to Manty ships, so it depends on if the SLN has enough slack in the crew requirements for prizes. I'm sure they can do some, but send enough prizes back and you don't have enough crew for the ship. And then you take the ship back as well to pick up the prize crews.

Adm Kingsford also might make a priority of destroying freighters rather than taking the time to send them back as a way to increase the pressure on the SEM faster than capturing them. Especially, if the numerous Solly systems ALL start building freighters.

IMO, capturing vs destroying depends on what the Sollies are doing with building new freighters and how fast the SLN wants to destroy/capture Manty freighters. I could see it going either way.

StealthSeeker wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:
Can Maya keep this charade up indefinitely? Of course not. But given the lengthy com loops they can probably play a delaying game for a year or more -- giving more time to get their BC(P)s complete and in service before they have to break cover.

I say that after Maya hears about what has happened at Meyers and to the whole Madras Sector they will be among the first of the fringe systems to leave the SL and form and alliance with the GA. They won't be trying to fake anything, they'll just be saying "up yours" to the SL.

If I were the Mayan guys, I wouldn't want to be an early defector. Wait and see if somebody else will volunteer to go first, with the consequent attention from Frontier Fleet. As long as they aren't being ordered to do something they can't afford to do, like attack a GA system, they can wait, hoping to secede in the middle of the pack.

Jonathan_S wrote:
Can Maya keep this charade up indefinitely? Of course not. But given the lengthy com loops they can probably play a delaying game for a year or more -- giving more time to get their BC(P)s complete and in service before they have to break cover.

StealthSeeker wrote:I say that after Maya hears about what has happened at Meyers and to the whole Madras Sector they will be among the first of the fringe systems to leave the SL and form and alliance with the GA. They won't be trying to fake anything, they'll just be saying "up yours" to the SL.

Bill Woods wrote:If I were the Mayan guys, I wouldn't want to be an early defector. Wait and see if somebody else will volunteer to go first, with the consequent attention from Frontier Fleet. As long as they aren't being ordered to do something they can't afford to do, like attack a GA system, they can wait, hoping to secede in the middle of the pack.

I seem to remember a conversation where Albrecht Detewiller expects Maya to kick off the wave of secessions. That doesn't mean it's going to happen that way, but I wouldn't count on him being wrong.