GA PR campaign for splitting and collapsing the SL

namelessfly wrote:The best, or at least most effective, PR gesture would be to respond to the impending attack on Beawulf by first destroying the SLN ships then making the short hop from the Beawulf terminus to Sol system with a squadron of SD(P)s to blow away all of the remaining SLN fleet (including reserves), SLN fleet bases, and shipyards known to build ships and parts for the SLN.

I suppose that the RMN should be gracious enough to grant the inhabitants of the various space platforms an opportunity to surrender and evacuate rather than just blowing them away from long range to kill millions of people as occurred at Oyster Bay.

The RMN might even take steps to ensure that no "fragments" from orbital facilities impact inhabited planets to kill millions.

This would be the absolute worst thing the Manticorans could do.

What hitting Sol now would do would produce a rallying cry and convince League members that might otherwise be sympathetic to Beowulf and the criticisms against the League that they can't work with the Manties (or, especially, the Beowulfers, who immediately become treacherous villains rather than sympathetic figures). You're knitting the member systems together, giving them new incentives to reform the system and fix the League's revenue and legislative problems, and once you've done that you've killed Manticore dead.

If the Solarian League decides to stay a unified polity and fight Manticore the way Haven fought them, Manticore and the Grand Alliance will lose. Today, tomorrow, the end is a certain loss of independence and Solarian protectorate status. Probably a newer, sleeker, more constitutionally potent Solarian League, but the Solarian League nonetheless. Anything that Manticore does to encourage the League members to stick together and not splinter is tantamount to flirting with suicide.

I would definitely not choose to take out the reserve.

Now look at this forum. Look at the number of people who keep bringing up ways to put the captured Solarian SDs to 'useful purposes'. Consider that this is in spite of all the experienced and knowledgeable people (including the AUTHOR) saying that it cannot and should not be done.

Imagine the Mandarins desperately trying to raise taxes to build a new fleet and the politicians, pundits and public saying 'But what about the reserve?'. Big Boeing and Lockheed style companies developing proposals to 'modernise' mothballed SDs KNOWING that after getting paid for those contracts they will get paid again to develop and construct useful fighting vessels.

I imagine leaving the fleet reserve intact would be the strategic equivalent of tying the Leagues shoelaces together for at least 6 months. Probably longer.

Never stop your enemy from making a mistake! Taking away the fleet reserve would only be removing a possibility for the league to go wrong, without actually improving the GA's military position.

Nice.

Hi SWM,

The problem with trying to send all the POW's back is that only ~60 SD's are still intact and able to travel, so trying to pack over a million survivors into just 60 is a bit much, roughly 3 times their nominal crew size.

While the marine troopships could carry the now disarmed marines again, to reduce that tight crewing considerably, I suspect those transports might be considered more valuable to the GA than the SD's.

Or using them as a workforce to help terraform Grayson or Alizon etc, where death waits if they don't return to their quarters to recharge their breathing masks etc, might also be effective POW camps.

Challenging the marines; "Can you wimps handle this?"

OTOH, delivering a few or just one or two with local system POW in the SD's etc to each of Sol's neighbors within 40 LY [~18] might be very effective, being out of the control of the mandarins before the news spread beyond their control.

Taking out Hyperion One and LogCom, both very military targets, after the attack on Beowulf but going no further into Sol should be more than acceptable to any rational observer.

Are Terran's becomes the question.

From the textev, Hyperion One is about 4 LM inside the H-L, which means the RMN can hit it with Apollo from a LM further out, while LAC's could could reach it in a zero-zero in less than 2 hours from the H-L.

There are at least 6 other 'anchorages' for the BF reserve, so they could average ~1200 each, and the GA might well hit the others first leaving Sol alone for at least a while, to emphasize they aren't attacking it solely because of its emotional weight with the rest of mankind, but suggesting there's a time limit if Terra doesn't dispose on its obsolete bully-weapons itself soon, possibly by simply dropping them into the sun.

The possible surgical near casualty free nature of the other strikes would also be very effective propaganda.

L

SWM wrote:The news services have already been investigating the story. And Manticore has repeatedly asked the League to stop its aggressions against Manticore.

I'm not saying that returning the sailors is a bad idea (I'm undecided on that), or that the gesture might not affect public opinion (I can't decide whether for good or ill). But as for the rest, I think we are way beyond the point where demands to the League or appeals to the newsies makes any difference. The League just attacked the Manticoran home system. They crossed the line, and there is no doubt in anyone who has heard the headline that this is war. The rest of it is just dressing.

lyonheart wrote:Taking out Hyperion One and LogCom, both very military targets, after the attack on Beowulf but going no further into Sol should be more than acceptable to any rational observer.

Under that logic it could be argued Japan taking out Pearl Harbour should be more than acceptable to any rational observer as well.

Or Thunderbolt was acceptable to the Manticore's leadership or citizenry.

Even if the Solarian League surrendered, the GA would not necessarily get what it wanted - in 20-50 years time the SL would get its act together and come after them with the REAL mother of all fleets.

Flipping it around:
Imagine the typical scenario where dictator ABC in some foreign country does something despicable or threatening and the U.S. launches an air strike and loses a few planes (and pilots). Some of the pilots survive but become POWs. How does public opinion stand? Some are for the war, some are against the war, many are indifferent.

Now dictator ABC uses a submarine (or whatever) to drop a few cruise missiles on the pentagon, or torpedoes Norfolk naval station. Was that a good move for dictator ABC? Where does public opinion stand now?

I think most of us hardcore fans are also wargamers of some stripe and can easily fall into the wargame mentality of the winner being the player with the most points on the board or destroys the most enemy units at the end of the game.

The size disparity between the GA and the SL means that the SL is an enemy that cannot be defeated by conventional means. In fact they need to change the 'enemy' status and end the conflict as friends of the league's member systems, if not the league itself.


Regarding the Solarian POWs:
Absolutely don't release them until the GA achieves its goals!
Maybe a fleeting morsel of goodwill would be gained by releasing them, but the downsides in terms of propaganda and leverage would dwarf that goodwill by a large measure.

Every day those POWs spend in captivity damages the SL, Mandarins and SLN. Furthermore war is an uncertain thing. It is not inconceivable that GA personnel (uniformed or otherwise) may get captured at some stage in the conflict. Not having prisoners to exchange compromises the GA's ability to A) Get their prisoners back and B) Ensure 'Geneva Convention' treatment of their own.

On the SLN POWs:
Alternatively, release all of them...on neutral carriers...to as many diverse Verge and Shell SLN stations as feasible. (I knew there was another reason for leaving the Empire out of the GA, and Erehwon hulls would make for convenient routing to the far side of League space.)

Let's make sure that their stories about just how bad, and good, the Manties really are get spread as thoroughly as possible, to other naval personnel, and to any potentially restive portions of the League.

You could even route many troops with the "proper attitude" to be repatriated through the FF base facilities at, say, Smoking Frog. I'm sure the base personnel there could find ample re-integration and re-assignment slots for many of them.

dreamrider

BobfromSydney wrote:I would definitely not choose to take out the reserve.

Now look at this forum. Look at the number of people who keep bringing up ways to put the captured Solarian SDs to 'useful purposes'. Consider that this is in spite of all the experienced and knowledgeable people (including the AUTHOR) saying that it cannot and should not be done.

Imagine the Mandarins desperately trying to raise taxes to build a new fleet and the politicians, pundits and public saying 'But what about the reserve?'. Big Boeing and Lockheed style companies developing proposals to 'modernise' mothballed SDs KNOWING that after getting paid for those contracts they will get paid again to develop and construct useful fighting vessels.

I imagine leaving the fleet reserve intact would be the strategic equivalent of tying the Leagues shoelaces together for at least 6 months. Probably longer.

Never stop your enemy from making a mistake! Taking away the fleet reserve would only be removing a possibility for the league to go wrong, without actually improving the GA's military position.

Another reason not to take out the fleet reserve is that without it, Battle Fleet loses its reason for existing. From the internal SLN point of view (at least what we have seen so far - which isn't a whole lot though) while Frontier Fleet is supposed to be reasonably competent (at least below the flag officer ranks), Battle Fleet is thoroughly incompetent (massive understatement there) from the point of view of Frontier Fleet.

Destroy the reserve and Frontier Fleet suddenly becomes the SLN, which may improve its combat effectiveness. Then again if the reserve is destroyed, we may see more situations where Frontier Fleet (flag) officers are pushed aside in favor of Battle Fleet (flag) officers a la Byng.

How about they just damage all the Reserve SDs "just a little bit", knock off some nodes, poke a hole or two.

That way the "reasonable" (and graft intensive) thing to do is to repair them, on a high-cost war emergency crash basis. That should only take about an extra year or so at SLN levels of efficiency, and when they are done...they still have SLN SDs.

dreamrider

BobfromSydney wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Taking out Hyperion One and LogCom, both very military targets, after the attack on Beowulf but going no further into Sol should be more than acceptable to any rational observer.

Under that logic it could be argued Japan taking out Pearl Harbour should be more than acceptable to any rational observer as well.

Or Thunderbolt was acceptable to the Manticore's leadership or citizenry.

Even if the Solarian League surrendered, the GA would not necessarily get what it wanted - in 20-50 years time the SL would get its act together and come after them with the REAL mother of all fleets.

Flipping it around:
Imagine the typical scenario where dictator ABC in some foreign country does something despicable or threatening and the U.S. launches an air strike and loses a few planes (and pilots). Some of the pilots survive but become POWs. How does public opinion stand? Some are for the war, some are against the war, many are indifferent.

Now dictator ABC uses a submarine (or whatever) to drop a few cruise missiles on the pentagon, or torpedoes Norfolk naval station. Was that a good move for dictator ABC? Where does public opinion stand now?

I think most of us hardcore fans are also wargamers of some stripe and can easily fall into the wargame mentality of the winner being the player with the most points on the board or destroys the most enemy units at the end of the game.

The size disparity between the GA and the SL means that the SL is an enemy that cannot be defeated by conventional means. In fact they need to change the 'enemy' status and end the conflict as friends of the league's member systems, if not the league itself.


Regarding the Solarian POWs:
Absolutely don't release them until the GA achieves its goals!
Maybe a fleeting morsel of goodwill would be gained by releasing them, but the downsides in terms of propaganda and leverage would dwarf that goodwill by a large measure.

Every day those POWs spend in captivity damages the SL, Mandarins and SLN. Furthermore war is an uncertain thing. It is not inconceivable that GA personnel (uniformed or otherwise) may get captured at some stage in the conflict. Not having prisoners to exchange compromises the GA's ability to A) Get their prisoners back and B) Ensure 'Geneva Convention' treatment of their own.

I agree with your comments about the consequences of attacking any of the League Fleet bases. However as far as the prisoner exchange goes. Good will is not all you are after. Out of the hundreds of thousands of personel returned a lot of them will probably remain in service. They have seen how outclassed the League Navy is and probably won't mind sharing that fact with their fellows. If the League mounts any further adventures they will have a lot of personnel, and officers among them, that aren't going to be happy playing target.

As far as the League is concerned word would spread to the systems that the ships were returned and that all the money spent on their invincible fleet was peed down a rat hole. That is going to be the straw that broke the camel's back, in my opinion, and cause a mass exodus from the League.

As you said the League has to be either broken up or friendly or the Grand Alliance is in big trouble within a couple of decades. The parallel I would draw is "Everyone knows you don't attack Russia in Winter".

BobfromSydney wrote:Regarding the Solarian POWs:
Absolutely don't release them until the GA achieves its goals!
Maybe a fleeting morsel of goodwill would be gained by releasing them, but the downsides in terms of propaganda and leverage would dwarf that goodwill by a large measure.

Every day those POWs spend in captivity damages the SL, Mandarins and SLN. Furthermore war is an uncertain thing. It is not inconceivable that GA personnel (uniformed or otherwise) may get captured at some stage in the conflict. Not having prisoners to exchange compromises the GA's ability to A) Get their prisoners back and B) Ensure 'Geneva Convention' treatment of their own.

I tend to agree with the caveat that if a POW's home planet withdraws from the League that POW should have the option to be repatriated to their newly independent home planet.

Maybe you use treecats to determine if they're sincere about not wanting to return to Battlefleet, or take up arms against Manticore, but honestly the PR from releasing them is probably good enough to offset any risk even if they were just itching to return to the fight.

Now I'm sure there are people who will stick to their SLN oaths and refuse to take parole to be repatriated, but some might. And it certainly doesn't seem to hurt to offer. (I guess SL PR could try to spin it as encouraging oathbreaking or something, but overall I think it's still a win to release them to their homeworld once it's out of the fight)