Hi Zakharra,
Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite [simulated] beverage on the [simulated] house.
Kudos for being quite right on several points.
The FF indeed has far too few ships for all its current missions before considering such an operation, and given how quickly things are changing, how many FF CO's will feel their first duty is to protect the member systems where they've bonded, especially when the system begs them to stay while they both ask for clarification.
Kingsford is talking about sending 'only' BC's to raid the GA commerce, because he now knows BF's SD's are so outclassed.
What the FF thinks of being missile sponges in lieu of far better armored BF SD's will be interesting to see.
The guy who advised him to do this is a MAlign agent, who doesn't care if the mainly FF BC's get chewed up really badly or not, as long as they're away from most of the SL for month's when the GA and the expected general chaos comes calling, because they expect it will continue to make the SL look bad and give reason for the RF to rise go public and establish itself as the refuge for all those desperate systems.
Given how much has already gone off the rails of the MAlign plan, we shouldn't expect this part to go that well either.
As you pointed out, commerce raiding with the exception of the OFS/FF Case Buccaneer isn't a standard SLN tactic, nor is deep raiding, though that may have been part of the original purpose of Crandall's Winter Forage Exercise.
We don't know how deep Beowulf's taps in the SLN go, but I suspect all of them aren't in Sol, but includes talkative neighbors as well, so the GA should have some warning.
Among other things, I would have every potential GA system target broadcast a warning that the GA already knows you're coming and why, with a few suggestions that the systems they left need them more than Kingsford does.
Nominally unarmed [without hyper warships] neighbors like Idaho ought to at least have a couple of old BC's etc with lots of pods visiting, each with 73+ pods tractored to the hull, if not far more since it has a wormhole.
Since the GA has lots of old BC's and heavy cruisers, NTM old SD's and lots of pods, even if RMN missile production hasn't already restarted, all the minor GA systems ought to be well picketed.
Can you imagine the FF CO's reaction when the large freighters in orbit turn out to be RMN SD's?
Especially when it its too late to avoid action?
If the RMN can't completely crew them (and they may not need to be fully crewed), perhaps the RHN might help out, along with other GA members like BSDF reservists etc.
RFC has downplayed RMN Q-ships for a while, so don't expect them to play a prominent role soon, but there still might be some RHN Q-ships though they'd probably be very obsolete by Haven sector standards, but RFC is full of surprises; suppose after Caslet got back that the survivors were modified to launch pods as well?
Then there's the possibility of IAN Q-ships.
Regarding the GA raiding the SL infrastructure or replying in kind in general, I don't think the GA is that desperate yet by any means.
Their first priority after Beowulf will be eliminating threats including those sometimes aimed at SL members so eradicating the BF reserve will be near the top of the list before it can be split up since they can't afford to pay to mobilize it at the moment, besides the 7 odd systems that still build SLN SD's.
After the BF is effectively eliminated, eliminating the 20-30 yards and bases in whatever systems that build FF warships would be next, then those systems already judged hostile to the GA, like Yildin, if it hadn't been targeted in the BF strike.
Once the immediate SLN's infrastructure is gone, the remainder of the FF scattered among 1800+ member systems and several hundred protectorates, roughly 3+ ships per system including those going or coming, will begin to feel very lonely I suspect; and much more willing to listen to any proposal a GA TG CO might propose, if the GA doesn't go after the FF sector or nodal concentrations as third on its priority list, for whatever reason.
L
Zakharra wrote:Brigade XO wrote:Crandall showed up with some of the newest Solly SDs in her fleet and/or had some of the most recent upgrades. So Manticore ONI was very happy to get its hands on whatever the latest hardware and software Crandall delivered to Mike's people.
When the SL starts commerce raiding (that is very much still on the table) they are going to be going after merchant ships. So we will see some of that and only a very few MMM ships carry any weapons at all or are set up to take on even a Solly DD or CA. What happens when the SLN raiders - we also presume the initial raids will be with FF forces- run into any of the RMN ships is going to be interesting. The older the ship, the more interesting since we can expect a single RMN ship encountering a couple or more SLN raiders.
Then there it the problem that Kingsford (with prompting by his personal Alignment Wormtonge) is quite likely to send raiders after Manticore allies. Perhaps Idaho. Even if Idaho has a SDF of more than LACs it is not likely to be anything like current generation RMN stuff though it could be 30 or 40 years old stuff sold as surplus and probably even a match for equivelent SLN stuff on a one-to-one basis. But that would probably be DDs, not even up to the CA range as it would be the very bold pirate who would have wanted to tackle merchant shipping where Manticore was effectively running the Astro Control for a wormhole. A 30 yr old former RMN DD would eat your garden variety pirate and look for a second course. I would presume here that Manticore would help train the SDF people from an partner such as Idaho and include them in joint excercies.
A small SLN squadron hitting a 2nd or 3rd ties Manticore trade partner is going to play hell with the local system. That is just the kind of tactic that would let the Mandarins point out that Manticore "can't" protect its opressed training partners and still let the raiders flee the scene claiming Vicotry when what they did was trash a totally overmatched system and ran while before they could be caught.
Could be intersting to have some SLN force (probably Battle Fleet) decide it was going to stop and Aldermani force going somewhere in the SL- like Mesa- and discover that there truly are a lot of things about neo-barbs that they have no idea about.
I'm new here and this is my first post, but this looks like a good topic to be starting in.
If the SLN FF starts commerce raiding in GA space, it's opening itself up to retaliatory commerce raiding, as well as leaving substantial weaknesses in it's own territory. If I remember right, the Frontier Fleet was always complaining about a lack of ships to cover the immense area that was the Verge,Protectorate and Shell systems. If a good portion of FF and Battle fleet is off raiding GA space, if the GA can free up enough destroyers and cruisers to raid Solly space, then they can put a serious hurt on the SL. Especially if they do go after hard targets like shipyards and naval bases. It would be hard to rebuild an attack fleet if the shipyards and orbital support bases you're depending on to do it get blown out of space. The shipyards and naval bases would definitely be my main targets if I was raiding Solly space
If the SLN sent most of FF and BF's destroyers and cruisers with a few battleships and support ships to back them up, they could do a lot of damage, if they are willing to lose a huge portion of those ships. Remember the SLN will be operating deep in enemy territory with severely limited supplies, in a type of warfare they are quite unfamiliar with (when was the last time the Sollies used commerce raiders on someone even close to their size and military power?), so the SLN units will be at the end of a very very long and fragile rope and throwing away a good portion of their mobile units.
The GA will be well situated to raid on it's own through the MWJ and the junctions it holds. Especially after the SLN and the Mandarins stick their hand into the woodchipper that is Beowolf. If the GA can pry loose several squadrons for commerce raiding, that will help, as will whatever they can come up with for protecting their own backlines and systems. I think the SLN will try to do some raiding, but as inexperienced as they are at it and as bad as their ships are, it almost seems like they are just throwing ships at a problem and hoping something good happens. Although they are much more likely to get better results with the commerce raiding than using their destroyers and cruisers as missile sponges to overwhelm the main Manticore system.
And just to remind people, the RMN and RHN have both used Q-ships to devastating effect in the past.
. I did forget about the Vega but after your explanation I can see why. What that also means is that Beowulf is probably running ships that are ammunition compatible with the Vega and Scientist class SD's.
) since they do have more of a clue what's likely to happen, I think there will be some resistance to trying to send off too much of the FF's BCs. Still, it's said that they can build BCs and other cruisers and destroyer types a -lot- faster than obsolete SDs, so I expect the yards to start pumping those out asap. If the yards survive that is. And the League's going to need those ships to try and maintain its hold on the systems it already has.
