Turning points in the RMN/RHN war

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:For my own peace of mind, if such an attack is so easy to thwart, then why is this sort of concern such an integral part of storyline? -- Manticore preventing anyone from attaining access to a wormhole to attack them -- definitely not giving up two.

An attack trough a wormhole is easy to thwart, IF you are prepared to thwart it.

If you're not prepared, you get something like the "Zunker incident" where a couple of Rolands with an ammo ship popped out of the Zunker Wormhole and took control of the system.

As Duckk points out, with experience, the RMN realized they were over-prepared to thwart a wormhole attack, but that is vastly preferable to being under-prepared.

I understand everyone's explanation and it makes sense. Manticore's advancement in tech eventually overcame the threat of simultaneous attack from two wormhole termini. That underlines the need to control both ends of termini.

Question. I am supposing that Manticore would have the same tactical limitations if the problem ever became theirs - trying to take a termini themselves or retake one after it has been seized and heavily mined?

Or, more pointedly, since Manticore has an inside track on the defense of wormholes and the most advanced tech at their disposal to boot -- do they have a leg up in accomplishing what is now difficult to unlikely for another navy to do?

An aside:
I've never understood how mines could be so effective - if an enemy are aware of them. Especially considering the size that missile salvos have assumed. I'm really surprised that space warfare hasn't developed specific tactics and technology to deal with mines. It seems that one ship should be able to cut a swath through mines.

cthia wrote:I understand everyone's explanation and it makes sense. Manticore's advancement in tech eventually overcame the threat of simultaneous attack from two wormhole termini. That underlines the need to control both ends of termini.

Question. I am supposing that Manticore would have the same tactical limitations if the problem ever became theirs - trying to take a termini themselves or retake one after it has been seized and heavily mined?

Or, more pointedly, since Manticore has an inside track on the defense of wormholes and the most advanced tech at their disposal to boot -- do they have a leg up in accomplishing what is now difficult to unlikely for another navy to do?

The topic I linked really covers this. Manticore does not want to make an opposed wormhole transit under any circumstances. For Laccoon II, they made sure to seize only undefended termini, so they wouldn't have to make transit under fire.

An aside:
I've never understood how mines could be so effective - if an enemy are aware of them. Especially considering the size that missile salvos have assumed. I'm really surprised that space warfare hasn't developed specific tactics and technology to deal with mines. It seems that one ship should be able to cut a swath through mines.

What makes you think they are effective? Mines have long been a known tactical problem in the Honorverse, and under most circumstances don't rise above the level of "minor irritant".

Mines are easy to deal with if you know they're there. Use nukes to sweep them, or heck, just go around them. There's also the Andermani anti-mine tactic seen in "An Act of War" by Timothy Zahn. Because mines are immobile, there are only so many places you can put them and expect them to be effective. And those places are just as obvious to the attacker as the defender, so achieving a successful mine engagement is usually pretty hard.

The thing about mines specifically at a junction is that you can't fire missiles until you clear the transit lane, which means you can't clear them out. That leaves the mines plenty of time to acquire and engage any transiting enemies.

cthia wrote:I understand everyone's explanation and it makes sense. Manticore's advancement in tech eventually overcame the threat of simultaneous attack from two wormhole termini. That underlines the need to control both ends of termini.

Improvements in technology helped, but it was Manticore's commitment to defending the Junction that made the difference.

Pre-war the junction was defended by huge fortresses armed with energy weapons; a third of the fortresses were in energy range of the in-bound transit lanes and on high-alert at all times. After ghost-rider's advances, the old, man-power intensive, energy armed fortresses were decommissioned and replaced with smaller Apollo-pod-armed fortresses.

The reduction in required manpower for fortresses much reduced Bu-pers' manning problems. That is mentioned a couple of times in textev.

Ah. I sit enlightened. Cheers to you both.

Duckk wrote:

cthia wrote:I understand everyone's explanation and it makes sense. Manticore's advancement in tech eventually overcame the threat of simultaneous attack from two wormhole termini. That underlines the need to control both ends of termini.

Question. I am supposing that Manticore would have the same tactical limitations if the problem ever became theirs - trying to take a termini themselves or retake one after it has been seized and heavily mined?

Or, more pointedly, since Manticore has an inside track on the defense of wormholes and the most advanced tech at their disposal to boot -- do they have a leg up in accomplishing what is now difficult to unlikely for another navy to do?

The topic I linked really covers this. Manticore does not want to make an opposed wormhole transit under any circumstances. For Laccoon II, they made sure to seize only undefended termini, so they wouldn't have to make transit under fire.

An aside:
I've never understood how mines could be so effective - if an enemy are aware of them. Especially considering the size that missile salvos have assumed. I'm really surprised that space warfare hasn't developed specific tactics and technology to deal with mines. It seems that one ship should be able to cut a swath through mines.

What makes you think they are effective? Mines have long been a known tactical problem in the Honorverse, and under most circumstances don't rise above the level of "minor irritant".

Mines are easy to deal with if you know they're there. Use nukes to sweep them, or heck, just go around them. There's also the Andermani anti-mine tactic seen in "An Act of War" by Timothy Zahn. Because mines are immobile, there are only so many places you can put them and expect them to be effective. And those places are just as obvious to the attacker as the defender, so achieving a successful mine engagement is usually pretty hard.

The thing about mines specifically at a junction is that you can't fire missiles until you clear the transit lane, which means you can't clear them out. That leaves the mines plenty of time to acquire and engage any transiting enemies.

Wait!

The Andermani - found within the covers of a Timothy Zahn? Is this "An Act of War" an Honorverse title?

It's a short story in the anthology In Fire Forged.

Duckk wrote:snip...The thing about mines specifically at a junction is that you can't fire missiles until you clear the transit lane, which means you can't clear them out. That leaves the mines plenty of time to acquire and engage any transiting enemies.

What is the stand-off range of the mines?

Could energy weapons be used to take out the mines whilst traversing the transit lane?

Sure, you could try to shoot down the mines with energy weapons and PDLCs. How many mines can each ship get before dying? A few dozen? Maybe a hundred? Meanwhile, the other million or so mines will be lighting up.

George J. Smith wrote:What is the stand-off range of the mines?

Could energy weapons be used to take out the mines whilst traversing the transit lane?

Basically they are the laser head warheads from a capital ship missile. So yes, in theory they would be in range of the grasers and xray lasers of a ship. As a practical issue, they are almost invisible from the junction. They are small, black, covered in radar/lidar absorbent material and cold with only a very limited emissions until they are instructed to fire. Then they rapidly go from invisible to a multimegaton bright flash, so there isn't a lot of time to deal with them.

Now if someone gave you current details about the field, then it might be practical.

Duckk wrote:Sure, you could try to shoot down the mines with energy weapons and PDLCs. How many mines can each ship get before dying? A few dozen? Maybe a hundred? Meanwhile, the other million or so mines will be lighting up.

Also mines are usually stealthed, as in OBS - You gotta find them before you can hit them.