Raid on Sol System-Another Option

doug941 wrote:The second wave, if this operation was to be attempted, would go after the hulls. IF your navy could degrade the sensor platforms the outcome would be to nail down hundreds of picket vessels.

A force with the GA's tech advantage over the SLN wouldn't want hundreds of pickets scattered all over the Sol system, they'd want to come in slow and obvious enough for the SLN to gather all of its ships into one nice neat bundle where they could be destroyed with minmal effort.

IOW, taking out the sensor net would be a waste of time and counter-productive.

Weird Harold wrote:

doug941 wrote:The second wave, if this operation was to be attempted, would go after the hulls. IF your navy could degrade the sensor platforms the outcome would be to nail down hundreds of picket vessels.

A force with the GA's tech advantage over the SLN wouldn't want hundreds of pickets scattered all over the Sol system, they'd want to come in slow and obvious enough for the SLN to gather all of its ships into one nice neat bundle where they could be destroyed with minmal effort.

IOW, taking out the sensor net would be a waste of time and counter-productive.

IF this operation is feasible, it would mean two or three hundred hulls glued to the Solar System as well as any other Core Systems that would be hit. What would the GA rather have, those ships playing tag with Jupiter or Saturn, or fighting somewhere in the Verge? A second point. Any system that did lose all platforms could have GA DDs or CLs sniping at those pickets. If Haven couldn't find Mistletoe, do you think the Sollies could?

doug941 wrote:IF this operation is feasible, it would mean two or three hundred hulls glued to the Solar System as well as any other Core Systems that would be hit. What would the GA rather have, those ships playing tag with Jupiter or Saturn, or fighting somewhere in the Verge? A second point. Any system that did lose all platforms could have GA DDs or CLs sniping at those pickets. If Haven couldn't find Mistletoe, do you think the Sollies could?

Yes, but why would the GA bother with destroying the arrays by stealth? Assuming they wanted to attack Sol (and I am in the camp that thinks this would be a bad idea) or when they attack any other core world, why not just bring a small fleet over the Alpha wall? Said fleet could roll in, take out every single mobile platform in the system, and then take out all of the detector arrays. Then, if they wanted to, they could reload and take out all of the orbital infrastructure in the system. A lot less time and a much smaller headache.

[quote="doug941"]
They wouldn't try to cover that sphere with ships unless they were stunningly incompetent, even by SLN standards. With all the support infrastructure of the Sol system behind them, it would be well within their abilities to maintain a recon drone shell covering the hyper limit, while keeping their ships concentrated.

Dafmeister wrote:

doug941 wrote:They wouldn't try to cover that sphere with ships unless they were stunningly incompetent, even by SLN standards. With all the support infrastructure of the Sol system behind them, it would be well within their abilities to maintain a recon drone shell covering the hyper limit, while keeping their ships concentrated.

This is all a thought exercise, but the idea of a picket shell is if perimeter arrays are destroyed or damaged enough to be unworkable, pickets are the only other option if the League wants to see ships approaching. A drone shell at the orbit or Jupiter would have to cover 7.6 QUINTILLION square kilometers which even the Grand Alliance couldn't dream of doing.

crewdude48 wrote:

doug941 wrote:IF this operation is feasible, it would mean two or three hundred hulls glued to the Solar System as well as any other Core Systems that would be hit. What would the GA rather have, those ships playing tag with Jupiter or Saturn, or fighting somewhere in the Verge? A second point. Any system that did lose all platforms could have GA DDs or CLs sniping at those pickets. If Haven couldn't find Mistletoe, do you think the Sollies could?

Yes, but why would the GA bother with destroying the arrays by stealth? Assuming they wanted to attack Sol (and I am in the camp that thinks this would be a bad idea) or when they attack any other core world, why not just bring a small fleet over the Alpha wall? Said fleet could roll in, take out every single mobile platform in the system, and then take out all of the detector arrays. Then, if they wanted to, they could reload and take out all of the orbital infrastructure in the system. A lot less time and a much smaller headache.

The SEM and ROH would always use stealth to enter a enemy system so why not? If you destroy or even just degrade the perimeter arrays, the system government and citizens demand a substitute be it a new set of arrays, a drone shell or pickets. New arrays take too long, drone shell would take thousands of drones or you would have holes. A shell of pickets could be filled out with drones but every hull watching the system is a hull and crew who isn't causing trouble in the Verge or in GA back worlds.
At root three things would result 1) a small but measurable number of Battle and/or Frontier Fleet not available for combat WHEN NEEDED MOST. 2)Any pickets become basically sitting targets. In one system or somewhere between here and Betelgeuse. 3) The effect on civilian morale. The neobarbs were here last week, what is to stop them from coming back?

Part 2 of reply to DAFMEISTER
A drone shell wouldn't work unless you used multiple nested shells. A sphere at the orbit of Neptune would be 250 quintillion square kilometers, at Pluto 433.588 quintillion square kilometers. Any drone shell that you could deploy would be too close to be anything more than push on your doorbell.

doug941 wrote: This is all a thought exercise, but the idea of a picket shell is if perimeter arrays are destroyed or damaged enough to be unworkable, pickets are the only other option if the League wants to see ships approaching. A drone shell at the orbit or Jupiter would have to cover 7.6 QUINTILLION square kilometers which even the Grand Alliance couldn't dream of doing.

Honor managed to get pretty good coverage of Basilisk with the resources of one over-the-hill light cruiser. An SLN fleet backed up by their HQ and support infrastructure should be able to do better.

Dafmeister wrote:

doug941 wrote: This is all a thought exercise, but the idea of a picket shell is if perimeter arrays are destroyed or damaged enough to be unworkable, pickets are the only other option if the League wants to see ships approaching. A drone shell at the orbit or Jupiter would have to cover 7.6 QUINTILLION square kilometers which even the Grand Alliance couldn't dream of doing.

Honor managed to get pretty good coverage of Basilisk with the resources of one over-the-hill light cruiser. An SLN fleet backed up by their HQ and support infrastructure should be able to do better.

Honor was watching traffic that was (mostly) already in-system, your drone shell(s) would be watching for hyper footprints. As an example if you have drones with a detection radius of 10 million k, you would need 245 drones to complete one ring at Jupiter on the elliptic. How many to complete the shell with decent overlap? 10,000? Add to that outer shells and you get shells larger than you can deploy or use. As an aside, the drones in Basilisk were deployed in the inner and middle system, a shell for Earth would need to be in the outer system.

Ship sensors give you about two light hours iirc.