LACs vs Lenny Dets

Having concentrated on the Lenny Dets in this discussion, what about the Ghosts which did the scouting and targeting for the Oyster Bay attacks?

They were NOT fitted out with the GTs and appear to be essentialy defenseless other that their stealth. We don't know how many the Alignment actually has but I have to guess that there are (or will be) a lot more of them than we were shown with the attacks on the Manticore and Grayson systems.

The Ghosts are essentialy small ships with a lot of drone capability plus the stealth and very sensitive and powerfull sensors and tactical systems. While the Sharks are mentioned as training beds for the LD crews, I see the Ghosts as the primary scout force for the LDs. Essentialy you are going to want to keep the LDs well out of the target systems until you have as much of the tactical and targeting data on the system as you can and then feed it up to the LDs to launch the GTs and whatever other weapons they have planned. Remember that the GTs were effectivly the 1st wave of each strike and then an immediate follow-on by more conventional weapons types on really long ballistic paths.

IF ( a big if) the Alignment is going to use the GT + ballistic + whatever conventional weapons to attack other systems, then they will need the same high level of scouting and data acquisition that the Ghosts provided. This lets the much larger ships slip on on the targets and deploy the weapons systems without exposing themselves.

This would make the LDs essential like very large ammuntion ships and minelayers. The 1st strike weapons- the GTs- have to be ejected well out from the targets and then work their way in. The second and any subsequent wave would also have to be ejected and depend on the existing ballistic speed to get them to the target. It is possible that part of the follow-on weapons, possibly pods of a Catapharact variant (really big pods) could be used in a highly stealthed ballistic mode to be used on targets (at relatively close range with standard impeller systems) that are more likely to have shifted only slightly from marked positions or on things that the active sensors of the missiles can pick up.

At this point, almost any of the SL or SL controlled systems would be easy targets for this type of stealthed attack.

Yilden System, Techondyne's manufacturing system comes to mind as wonderful target for this type of attack. It would be a serious blow to any plans by the SLN to build new types of warships and much of the experienced technical and construction staffs. BF/FF logistic bases are also vulnerable. You can destroy the logistic base and probably a number of warships (and freighters) which are without warning and don't have shielding up.

Brigade XO wrote:Having concentrated on the Lenny Dets in this discussion, what about the Ghosts which did the scouting and targeting for the Oyster Bay attacks?

They were NOT fitted out with the GTs and appear to be essentialy defenseless other that their stealth. We don't know how many the Alignment actually has but I have to guess that there are (or will be) a lot more of them than we were shown with the attacks on the Manticore and Grayson systems.

The Ghosts are essentialy small ships with a lot of drone capability plus the stealth and very sensitive and powerfull sensors and tactical systems. While the Sharks are mentioned as training beds for the LD crews, I see the Ghosts as the primary scout force for the LDs. Essentialy you are going to want to keep the LDs well out of the target systems until you have as much of the tactical and targeting data on the system as you can and then feed it up to the LDs to launch the GTs and whatever other weapons they have planned. Remember that the GTs were effectivly the 1st wave of each strike and then an immediate follow-on by more conventional weapons types on really long ballistic paths.

IF ( a big if) the Alignment is going to use the GT + ballistic + whatever conventional weapons to attack other systems, then they will need the same high level of scouting and data acquisition that the Ghosts provided. This lets the much larger ships slip on on the targets and deploy the weapons systems without exposing themselves.

This would make the LDs essential like very large ammuntion ships and minelayers. The 1st strike weapons- the GTs- have to be ejected well out from the targets and then work their way in. The second and any subsequent wave would also have to be ejected and depend on the existing ballistic speed to get them to the target. It is possible that part of the follow-on weapons, possibly pods of a Catapharact variant (really big pods) could be used in a highly stealthed ballistic mode to be used on targets (at relatively close range with standard impeller systems) that are more likely to have shifted only slightly from marked positions or on things that the active sensors of the missiles can pick up.

At this point, almost any of the SL or SL controlled systems would be easy targets for this type of stealthed attack.

Yilden System, Techondyne's manufacturing system comes to mind as wonderful target for this type of attack. It would be a serious blow to any plans by the SLN to build new types of warships and much of the experienced technical and construction staffs. BF/FF logistic bases are also vulnerable. You can destroy the logistic base and probably a number of warships (and freighters) which are without warning and don't have shielding up.

I agree with you about how wide open the League's systems are to this sort of attack. However, it would bring the MAlign further out into the open than they already are. Each use of their tech offers a renewed oportunity for someone to start developing counters to it.

If I were calling the shots for the MAlign, I would refrain from further use of my toys until they could be used in decisive numbers and then choose a moment when something critical was at stake and then strike.

Don

JeffEngel wrote:
I'm still wondering just what operational role the Detweilers are meant to fill, with Oyster Bay not something they can repeat, with spider drive ships hopelessly unsuited for the line of battle, and with SD's hopelessly excessive for raiding. I'm tempted to think the MAN made a huge jeune ecole mistake: develop a cool, radically different weapon system and build a navy around it with a tactical and operational doctrine to be figured out later.

But certainly the MAN can do a lot of practical villainy with conventional units.

I suspect they were supposed to be the trump card if some serious non-RF power blocks started coalescing. Someone grabbed enough of the SLN or SDFs to stand up to, or even attack an RF member.

Then the non-RF navy suffers a mysterious destruction, ideally when acting offensively so they seem like they deserve it.

Basically use for things that either a given RF members navy isn't strong enough to do, or can't publicly be seen involved in. That's when the invisible attackers slip in and "take care" of the problem.


But that's a little harder to pull off now that Manticore is publicly claiming that this is an ability of a Mesan conspiracy. That makes it hard to use the Spider ships to help out RF members because RF members are supposed to be publicly anti-Mesa... (IOW Oyster Bay may be a failure, and screw-up, in more than one way)

Jonathan_S wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:
I'm still wondering just what operational role the Detweilers are meant to fill, with Oyster Bay not something they can repeat, with spider drive ships hopelessly unsuited for the line of battle, and with SD's hopelessly excessive for raiding. I'm tempted to think the MAN made a huge jeune ecole mistake: develop a cool, radically different weapon system and build a navy around it with a tactical and operational doctrine to be figured out later.

But certainly the MAN can do a lot of practical villainy with conventional units.

I suspect they were supposed to be the trump card if some serious non-RF power blocks started coalescing. Someone grabbed enough of the SLN or SDFs to stand up to, or even attack an RF member.

Then the non-RF navy suffers a mysterious destruction, ideally when acting offensively so they seem like they deserve it.

Basically use for things that either a given RF members navy isn't strong enough to do, or can't publicly be seen involved in. That's when the invisible attackers slip in and "take care" of the problem.


But that's a little harder to pull off now that Manticore is publicly claiming that this is an ability of a Mesan conspiracy. That makes it hard to use the Spider ships to help out RF members because RF members are supposed to be publicly anti-Mesa... (IOW Oyster Bay may be a failure, and screw-up, in more than one way)

I imagine the mysterious destruction would have been a bit suspicious, but then, the scenario there would be a galaxy suffering so much confusion that could be lost in the noise.

Still, somewhat larger RF SDF's, or remarkably modernized ones, could have accomplished much the same effect, so that smacks of overengineering a response to a conventional problem while giving your super-secret organization too much of a distinctive calling card.

I can't think of any better answer, mind you, and I can certainly believe that the ubermenschen screwed up.

If the Lenny Dets SD sized, they could carry enough stealthed weaponry to each destroy the orbital manufacturing and primary military targets in almost any system.

Send Ghost ships to run the targeting scans and then the LD assigned to the system lays down deployment of things like the GTs and various stealthed packages being sent in on ballistic trajectories.
Even Manticore and Grayson are still scrambling to find some useful data to identify what was used to get the weapons in-place for Oyster Bay. Haven has probably 2nd hand tactical scans from Manticore. The Andies the same and Erwhon is probably on the distribution list. The rest of the known universe- not so much.

So who is able to pick up and target/intercept either a Ghost or a LD at the present time?
Lets say that a LD can only hold 20 GTs in internal magazines. That would be more than enough to destroy a massive amount of the spaceborn manufacturing of most of the systems we have been been shown. Add a bunch of purely ballistic weapons or stealthed missiles that would come in ballistic and them power up for very short runs well withing the warning/respond cycle of defence systems since the attack will not show up on traditional detections systems until the attacking weapons are fired or too close to target and fire upon. In most systems, none of the industries or station are running sidewalls or other shielding unless there is a warning and many such defenses really won't stop military grade weapons.

The captain of the Ghost at Grayson that is presented with a Grayson force on maneuvers essentialy just has to keep making like a blank spot in space and the practicing Graysons just move on by. Active searches out in an area where there "should" be nothing to generate any signatures (electronic or otherwise) were incapable of detecting the Ghost. And that is Grayson equipment doing the looking where there was nothing to possibley confuse or mask the Ghost as far as other energy sources in the area.

You could even park GTs above a bit above and below the elliptic of a system and relative to the inhabited planet with a Ghost (and its drones) to target incoming ships and then take out both the System's infrastructure and ultimatly multiple incoming ships, since the Ghosts could send the targeting info to the GT and shoot down the throat of any ship. No one can see the GTs coming. Great reception for a warship from a "friendly" system. Who gets the blame. You don't even have to trash the local system's infrastructure at the same time, just wait till the excitement dies down and you will have a whole bunch of new info on where things are and what is important in system defence.

quark wrote:I think you have to choose one or the other, it'd be hard to convince people that the GA is the one with the stealth raiders when they are getting attacked at the same time.

Actually I think you misunderstand me.

The following would be the attack profile to use on a Solarian League star system picked at random.

1. Launch drones mimicking Manticoran or Havenite warships. Drones would be 80 to 90 million km to target.
2. Stealthed ships much closer in system launch stealthed missile pods.
3. When close to the target the missile pods activate launching their missiles destroying ships and infrastructure.
4. Drones retire from the system and disappear at the hyper limit.
5. The stealthed ship or ships leave during the confusion.

Now what does the Solarian system know.

1. It had Grand Alliance ships on its sensors.
2. Missiles coming in ballistic activated at close range and attacked doing a lot of damage.
3. Manticore has missiles of ridiculously long range.

Nobody knows stealthed ships launched the missiles because they couldn't see them. They could see Grand Alliance ships (or what they think were GA ships) on their sensors. They have also heard about Manticore's ridiculous missiles so the thought of them coming in ballistic and then activating would not be a stretch.

They won't be thinking they got attacked by invisible ships. They will see what they want to see and what makes sense to them. Therefore Manticore gets the blame.

If I was attacking Manticoran or Havenite ships at Wormhole junctions I would use the Lanny Det's and try to punch out the entire picket. If the picket is gone without any ship leaving with information its going to give the Grand Alliance pause. Especially if happens at several wormhole junctions. They will have to spend time and effort determining what happened instead of determining how to deal with the RF.

Anyway this is what I would do. If I can't match you I can at least make things difficult. Especially if I can pin the blame on you while doing it.

Brigade XO wrote:You could even park GTs above a bit above and below the elliptic of a system and relative to the inhabited planet with a Ghost (and its drones) to target incoming ships and then take out both the System's infrastructure and ultimatly multiple incoming ships, since the Ghosts could send the targeting info to the GT and shoot down the throat of any ship. No one can see the GTs coming. Great reception for a warship from a "friendly" system. Who gets the blame. You don't even have to trash the local system's infrastructure at the same time, just wait till the excitement dies down and you will have a whole bunch of new info on where things are and what is important in system defence.

Now that's an interesting idea. Use your invisible ships to provoke fights between groups of non-RF worlds. (And it wouldn't necessarily even have to be a friendly warship you took out. Blow up a semi-friendly freighter with missiles that appear to come from system defenses and there will probably be angry naval units showing up shortly demanding explanations that the system doesn't have. How willing would they be to accept "we didn't do it, it was an invisible ship"...

Well marginally more likely now that Manticore is telling everyone invisible ships exist, are associated with Mesa, and trashed their system. But even so there's a good chance that the situation could escalate because they think it's an excuse to cover a hostile, or at least fatally accidental, act.

And that sort of op should reduce the chances that anybody notices that its only people facing RF forces suffer mysterious destruction.


I wouldn't use a larger than BB Lenny Det for that, but it seems an interesting use for Ghosts (possibly assisted by Sharks). Though that does lead me to wonder why the Sharks were viewed only as training vehicles and the MAlign doesn't appear to be pursuing smaller (cheaper) spider warships for missions that call for "surgical strikes" rather than the full firepower of a Lenny Det squadron.

Jonathan_S wrote:I wouldn't use a larger than BB Lenny Det for that, but it seems an interesting use for Ghosts (possibly assisted by Sharks). Though that does lead me to wonder why the Sharks were viewed only as training vehicles and the MAlign doesn't appear to be pursuing smaller (cheaper) spider warships for missions that call for "surgical strikes" rather than the full firepower of a Lenny Det squadron.

They may have in mind operating Detweiler SD's individually or in small groups. Cost, build time and crew per unit capability tend in the Honorverse to go down with larger units, so they may be building SD's not for a wall of battle but for sheer efficiency, where they don't feel much need to do a job that doesn't require a whole SD(P). When the job is basically system infrastructure bushwhacking, and when it tends to need pre-planning and Ghost surveillance, they may well not have too many missions that don't merit a whole single SD(P).