Question about Beowulf tactics

StealthSeeker wrote:If it were 2 fleets meeting at some random point in space I think I would agree with you. However, in the defense of a terminus the attacking fleet must move on a fixed point in space much like a planet. And I would think that a fleet that is out flanked is very vulnerable in it's defense. The only thing about attacking a terminus is that if you do get flanked, you can hyper out

Exactly what benefits do you see from flanking the attacking force? The benefits I can see do not seem to be greater than the benefits of integrating offensive and defensive fire. How is this different from 2 fleets meeting at some random point in space?

kzt wrote:I can buy that. Full integration is a lot harder and requires a huge amount of both work and trust.

Thanks! However,... don't throw away that need for work and trust. What I have been describing works great on offense but defense is a totally different thing. In the modern interlinked defensive umbrella there must be full integration and cooperation. However, I bet there is a lot of commonality in ship maneuver, counter missiles and defensive lasers.

SWM wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:If it were 2 fleets meeting at some random point in space I think I would agree with you. However, in the defense of a terminus the attacking fleet must move on a fixed point in space much like a planet. And I would think that a fleet that is out flanked is very vulnerable in it's defense. The only thing about attacking a terminus is that if you do get flanked, you can hyper out

Exactly what benefits do you see from flanking the attacking force? The benefits I can see do not seem to be greater than the benefits of integrating offensive and defensive fire. How is this different from 2 fleets meeting at some random point in space?

well, My concept of how a defense is most effectively done is if that defense is concentrated/directed in one direction. Having to try to defend in 2 directions from a simultaneous attack I believe severely degrades the effectiveness of a defense. Which would make a fleet very vulnerable. Then again I could be wrong.

But even if I am wrong about the split attack, I would think that it might have an effect if the group your attacking suddenly doubles in size. If I can set a president that creates fear and doubt in any SLN officer attacking a terminus that I am defending, I want that mental advantage. I want them looking over their shoulder, I want them willing to jump away at an imagined threat.

None of this works at a random point in space as there is no fixed point at which the enemy fleet will approach. There is no way that I could have a static fleet sitting in hyperspace at the random point in which the 2 fleets would meet.

SWM wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi SWM,

I'm not sure about your statement here. In that wedding conversation it is Honor who is wishing to put Invictuses as a visible deterent.

I might be mistaken on this next one, but I think that the concern about not intimidating voters is directed toward the voting public of Beowulf, not the League. In short after the vote, there is no reason not to move in with a task force strong enough to protect Beowulf's infrastructure. In fact it would be insane not to since Beowulf is going to be the GA's primary sourse for keyhole 2s to be wed to ships manufactured in Haven along with being the GA's primary sourse of missiles.

As for what the League thinks, the GA which after the vote will include Beowulf will be at war with the League so it seems to me that worry over the Mandarin's tender sensitivities is probably passe.

Don

Note that statement--a visible deterrent. Honor wasn't worried that Beowulf wouldn't be able to defend itself. She was worried that the SLN would not be able to see that Beowulf could defend itself.

Having a relief force hiding in hyperspace does not help the SLN see that Beowulf can defend itself. And Honor apparently did not doubt that Beowulf would be able to defend itself even without the extra ships. It was a VISIBLE deterrent she wanted, to keep the League from going into Beowulf's hyper-limit in the first place.

There is no question but what visible is a part of it. But as I read that conversation, it is an obvious concern that Mycroft is not yet in place and that is a worry. Now Mycroft is not particularly visible system which implies to this tired old brain of mine that Honor is not only concerned with appearances, but with the actual defense of Beowulf between the conversation and when Mycroft is actually up and running. IIRC, there is a 2 month period of actual vulnerability there either until the election or until Mycroft is up. I don't have ART immediately in hand at the moment, but at next opportunity I will take another look.

At any rate, until my last reading of that passage, I had your point of view, but then came to the conclusion that there was more to it than appearances.

Don

SWM wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi SWM,

I'm not sure about your statement here. In that wedding conversation it is Honor who is wishing to put Invictuses as a visible deterent.

I might be mistaken on this next one, but I think that the concern about not intimidating voters is directed toward the voting public of Beowulf, not the League. In short after the vote, there is no reason not to move in with a task force strong enough to protect Beowulf's infrastructure. In fact it would be insane not to since Beowulf is going to be the GA's primary sourse for keyhole 2s to be wed to ships manufactured in Haven along with being the GA's primary sourse of missiles.

As for what the League thinks, the GA which after the vote will include Beowulf will be at war with the League so it seems to me that worry over the Mandarin's tender sensitivities is probably passe.

Don

Note that statement--a visible deterrent. Honor wasn't worried that Beowulf wouldn't be able to defend itself. She was worried that the SLN would not be able to see that Beowulf could defend itself.

Having a relief force hiding in hyperspace does not help the SLN see that Beowulf can defend itself. And Honor apparently did not doubt that Beowulf would be able to defend itself even without the extra ships. It was a VISIBLE deterrent she wanted, to keep the League from going into Beowulf's hyper-limit in the first place.

To my way of thinking, having a very VISIBLE fleet suddenly show up in the SLN fleet's rear becomes a very VISIBLE incentive for an SLN fleet to give up on an attack before it can do any damage to Beowulf. If the attacking fleet is only encountering missiles then there could be a belief that there aren't that many of them and if they just persist in the attack they could succeed. I couldn't encourage them to not attack, but I sure could encourage them to abort an attack.

And besides, to my way of thinking, I want the SLN to make an attack that they have to abort. The SLN attack give Beowulf the justification for striking back against the Mandarins by attacking the mothballed fleet. which, in the version of the story in my mind, is the next needed step to take some air out of the SL balloon with out actually attacking any planets.

SWM wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:If it were 2 fleets meeting at some random point in space I think I would agree with you. However, in the defense of a terminus the attacking fleet must move on a fixed point in space much like a planet. And I would think that a fleet that is out flanked is very vulnerable in it's defense. The only thing about attacking a terminus is that if you do get flanked, you can hyper out

Exactly what benefits do you see from flanking the attacking force? The benefits I can see do not seem to be greater than the benefits of integrating offensive and defensive fire. How is this different from 2 fleets meeting at some random point in space?

Given any imbalance in forces, flanking is a critical maneuver because the flanked force will continually be defeated in detail. In land terms, I'll give you ten divisions of men to my four, so long as I can put preposition enough of my forces on your flank and with advantage of position on the field. Give me that and I'll chew your forces up one division at a time because you can't shoot through your own soldiers to get to mine.

In spatial terms, consider the Battle of Sidemore. Honor prepositioned the Protector's own in the one system (just vacated) where there was NO chance of the Havenite's finding them, and that turned out to be at 180 degrees to the rear. I'm sure she would have much rather placed them in a position that would have "flanked" Tourville's turn, because there would have been no way for Foraker's schemes to defend all ships from angular fire. In turn that would have kept Tourville's fleet under more intensive and successful bombardment all the way to the hyper limit, in turn possibly forcing a full surrender rather than a third of the ships escaping.

It would be like having to gallop towards a field of machine gun to escape the cannon fire that's tearing your calvary charge to shreds. No good options.

SWM wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi SWM,

I'm not sure about your statement here. In that wedding conversation it is Honor who is wishing to put Invictuses as a visible deterent.

I might be mistaken on this next one, but I think that the concern about not intimidating voters is directed toward the voting public of Beowulf, not the League. In short after the vote, there is no reason not to move in with a task force strong enough to protect Beowulf's infrastructure. In fact it would be insane not to since Beowulf is going to be the GA's primary sourse for keyhole 2s to be wed to ships manufactured in Haven along with being the GA's primary sourse of missiles.

As for what the League thinks, the GA which after the vote will include Beowulf will be at war with the League so it seems to me that worry over the Mandarin's tender sensitivities is probably passe.

Don

Note that statement--a visible deterrent. Honor wasn't worried that Beowulf wouldn't be able to defend itself. She was worried that the SLN would not be able to see that Beowulf could defend itself.

Having a relief force hiding in hyperspace does not help the SLN see that Beowulf can defend itself. And Honor apparently did not doubt that Beowulf would be able to defend itself even without the extra ships. It was a VISIBLE deterrent she wanted, to keep the League from going into Beowulf's hyper-limit in the first place.

Going back and rereading the section (end of Chapter 33)

“I agree that once Mycroft’s up and running, especially, anybody who goes after Beowulf is going to get bloodied in a hurry,” she said now. “I guess my main concerns are that, like the terminus picket, Mycroft isn’t a visible deterrent, especially since we’re keeping it so completely under wraps till it’s actually up and running, and, secondly, that it isn’t up and running yet and won’t be for at least another couple of months. Maybe longer.” She shook her head. “It’s that window that worries me,” she said soberly. “In the Mandarins’ place, I’d make it a point to assume that we had to be aware of Beowulf’s vulnerability and be doing something about it, but I’m not at all sure they will.”
“Well,” Benton-Ramirez y Chou said with a shrug that was just a bit more philosophical than his mind-glow tasted, “I guess there’s one way to find out.”
“And that’s what I’m afraid of, Uncle Jacques,” she said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

This sounds like Honor is actually worried about Beowulf being able to defend itself for the 2+ months before Mycroft is ready. The 2 months that everyone has been quoting is a minimum, not a maximum. The question is how much longer (if any) is it going to take, and can the SLN mount an attack in that time frame. Also, earlier in the chapter the discussion about not posting ships in Beowulf orbit until after the vote concerned the appearance of coercion to Beowulfers who were opposed to the succession. You don't want to give them the excuse to complain that they were coerced, either explicitly or implicitly by Manticoran ships in Beowulf orbit.

SharkHunter wrote:Given any imbalance in forces, flanking is a critical maneuver because the flanked force will continually be defeated in detail. In land terms, I'll give you ten divisions of men to my four, so long as I can put preposition enough of my forces on your flank and with advantage of position on the field. Give me that and I'll chew your forces up one division at a time because you can't shoot through your own soldiers to get to mine.

In spatial terms, consider the Battle of Sidemore. Honor prepositioned the Protector's own in the one system (just vacated) where there was NO chance of the Havenite's finding them, and that turned out to be at 180 degrees to the rear. I'm sure she would have much rather placed them in a position that would have "flanked" Tourville's turn, because there would have been no way for Foraker's schemes to defend all ships from angular fire. In turn that would have kept Tourville's fleet under more intensive and successful bombardment all the way to the hyper limit, in turn possibly forcing a full surrender rather than a third of the ships escaping.

It would be like having to gallop towards a field of machine gun to escape the cannon fire that's tearing your calvary charge to shreds. No good options.

In the battle of Sidemore, they lured the enemy into the hyper limit, just as I described in an earlier post. That is a different situation.

My understanding is that if you have the smaller force, splitting it up to flank the enemy only works if you have the protection of cover. You don't have cover in space. Splitting up into a flanking force, especially outside the hyper-limit where the enemy could hyper out to try to outflank you in turn, just opens you up to the possibility of defeat in detail.

fallsfromtrees wrote:
This sounds like Honor is actually worried about Beowulf being able to defend itself for the 2+ months before Mycroft is ready. The 2 months that everyone has been quoting is a minimum, not a maximum. The question is how much longer (if any) is it going to take, and can the SLN mount an attack in that time frame. Also, earlier in the chapter the discussion about not posting ships in Beowulf orbit until after the vote concerned the appearance of coercion to Beowulfers who were opposed to the succession. You don't want to give them the excuse to complain that they were coerced, either explicitly or implicitly by Manticoran ships in Beowulf orbit.

Hi fallsfromtrees,

This is exactly how I am hearing the concern Honor is expressing as well as the political situation. There is a real window of vulnerability here that is cause for concern.

Actually in the interest of keeping our ducks in a row here (quack, quack,) the actual window of vulnerability is either until Mycroft is up and going or until the vote of succession, presuming the vote carries....whichever comes first. When Mycroft becomes functional, the vulnerability is past. OR once the vote is over, the GA can place a fleet in Beowulf orbit to protect the planet and its infrastructure. The window ends that way too.

In her speech before the League Assembly, Hadley announced that the vote would occur two months from that moment in time. IIRC, the Assembly voted out its resolution to investigate Beowulf almost simutaneously --within a day or so-- of the royal wedding. So there you have your window of vilnerability, a maximim of almost exactly two months.

Don

n7axw wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:
This sounds like Honor is actually worried about Beowulf being able to defend itself for the 2+ months before Mycroft is ready. The 2 months that everyone has been quoting is a minimum, not a maximum. The question is how much longer (if any) is it going to take, and can the SLN mount an attack in that time frame. Also, earlier in the chapter the discussion about not posting ships in Beowulf orbit until after the vote concerned the appearance of coercion to Beowulfers who were opposed to the succession. You don't want to give them the excuse to complain that they were coerced, either explicitly or implicitly by Manticoran ships in Beowulf orbit.

Hi fallsfromtrees,

This is exactly how I am hearing the concern Honor is expressing as well as the political situation. There is a real window of vulnerability here that is cause for concern.

Actually in the interest of keeping our ducks in a row here (quack, quack,) the actual window of vulnerability is either until Mycroft is up and going or until the vote of succession, presuming the vote carries....whichever comes first. When Mycroft becomes functional, the vulnerability is past. OR once the vote is over, the GA can place a fleet in Beowulf orbit to protect the planet and its infrastructure. The window ends that way too.

In her speech before the League Assembly, Hadley announced that the vote would occur two months from that moment in time. IIRC, the Assembly voted out its resolution to investigate Beowulf almost simutaneously --within a day or so-- of the royal wedding. So there you have your window of vilnerability, a maximim of almost exactly two months.

Don

Right - even if Mycroft isn't operational, it becomes feasible to move a dozen Invictus SD(P)s into Beowulf orbit, assuming the secession passes. If it fails, they just announce that to the SLN fleet, which hopefully has orders to gracefully leave under those circumstances - if they don't it could cause a serious backlash.