A Tactical Problem for your Consideration

OK, something different. Since we won’t be seeing a new Honor Harrington book for at least a year, IMHO, and given that we’ve dissected most of the older battles, I guess the MWW won’t mind if we invent a few of our own….

A couple of comments first.

We know that first-line Manty (and for that matter, Grayson or Havenite) ships can whip anything their size (or in the SEM’s case, much larger) than the ISLN Navy can muster.

We also know from textev that the pre-Filareta’s Folly SEM is still deploying older ships in combat situations (see the reference to the old destroyer at the start of ART, or HMS Repulsethat was assigned to Mike Henke in SftS (Khumalo’s flagship counts for this, too).

And the Grand Alliance not only has to protect their systems and commerce, carry out a military campaign against the largest polity ever known, guard a multiplicity of wormholes, and oh by the way, support unknown numbers of revolts and actions out on the frontier, be they Mesan or indigenous. All with the ships they have now, plus whatever Haven has on the building slips, since Manticore and Grayson won’t be commissioning ships anytime soon.

So it is inescapable (at least to me) that the GA/SEM will have to deploy ships that, while good, are not the latest and greatest in the arsenal. I expect that they will try to support them with as many newer ships as they can—but anyway you look at it, it will be a ‘sub-optimal’ force. Because there is a finite number of ships to perform a mission that has grown much larger than even the height of the Havenite Wars.

So……

You’re a Vice Admiral of the Red and you are not a happy person. Your assignment is to defend a wormhole at the far end of the SL, well into the Shell and three wormhole jumps (and 174 LY total hyper transit between the jumps) or 874 LY in hyper from Manticore. There have been four GA task forces pass through since you arrived (all which have left on various missions elsewhere) and you have been promised major reinforcements within the next 5-8 T-days. However, right now you have the following order of battle:

Two Agamemnon BCP’s: Angus McGyver and Michael Stearns

Four CA’s, two Sag-B’s: Tarantula, Ursa and two Star Knights: Vikrant, Al-Dhafra

Two CL’s, both Flight IV Apollos”: Eugune Cernan, Al Worden

Eight DD’s, 2 Rolands: Xiong Yi, Lancaster and six Culverin’s: Bombard, Mortar, Howitzer, Parrott, Grapeshot and Carronade.

You also have 800 pods that were dropped off, split evenly between Mark 16E and Mark 23 missiles.
Your Intel briefing indicated that the nearest FF base was about 64LY away and had nothing heavier than a BC squadron. The nearest BF base was 72 LY the other direction and had only a division of Scientists with minimal support. Therefore it was felt you would have sufficient forces to meet any expected resistance, and by the time heavier forces could be concentrated, you would have been heavily reinforced yourself. And except for a few SLN destroyers that hypered in at long-range (and promptly hypered out again), you’ve been left alone.

However….

The FF commander, Vice Admiral Hiram Ulysses, and the local BF commander, Admiral Gustave Toutant, are both very smart and, unlike most BF/FF officers, work well together. They also have been watching what has been happening between the SL and Manticore and both have been ‘reshuffling’ ships from other sectors for ‘training and inter-sectional exercises’ for the past several months.

So….today, instead of a destroyer scout, 24 BC, 14 CL, and 16 DD suddenly hyper in about 13.8 Million KM from you North-North-East. And no sooner do you absorb that and begin to issue orders , when another force, this one with 36 SD’s, 12 more BC’s, and 10CA’s hypers in at 11.4 Million KM South-West-West.

So, Vice Admiral of the Red….what are your orders?

Hutch wrote:OK, something different. Since we won’t be seeing a new Honor Harrington book for at least a year, IMHO, and given that we’ve dissected most of the older battles, I guess the MWW won’t mind if we invent a few of our own….

A couple of comments first.

We know that first-line Manty (and for that matter, Grayson or Havenite) ships can whip anything their size (or in the SEM’s case, much larger) than the ISLN Navy can muster.

We also know from textev that the pre-Filareta’s Folly SEM is still deploying older ships in combat situations (see the reference to the old destroyer at the start of ART, or HMS Repulsethat was assigned to Mike Henke in SftS (Khumalo’s flagship counts for this, too).

And the Grand Alliance not only has to protect their systems and commerce, carry out a military campaign against the largest polity ever known, guard a multiplicity of wormholes, and oh by the way, support unknown numbers of revolts and actions out on the frontier, be they Mesan or indigenous. All with the ships they have now, plus whatever Haven has on the building slips, since Manticore and Grayson won’t be commissioning ships anytime soon.

So it is inescapable (at least to me) that the GA/SEM will have to deploy ships that, while good, are not the latest and greatest in the arsenal. I expect that they will try to support them with as many newer ships as they can—but anyway you look at it, it will be a ‘sub-optimal’ force. Because there is a finite number of ships to perform a mission that has grown much larger than even the height of the Havenite Wars.

So……

You’re a Vice Admiral of the Red and you are not a happy person. Your assignment is to defend a wormhole at the far end of the SL, well into the Shell and three wormhole jumps (and 174 LY total hyper transit between the jumps) or 874 LY in hyper from Manticore. There have been four GA task forces pass through since you arrived (all which have left on various missions elsewhere) and you have been promised major reinforcements within the next 5-8 T-days. However, right now you have the following order of battle:

Two Agamemnon BCP’s: Angus McGyver and Michael Stearns

Four CA’s, two Sag-B’s: Tarantula, Ursa and two Star Knights: Vikrant, Al-Dhafra

Two CL’s, both Flight IV Apollos”: Eugune Cernan, Al Worden

Eight DD’s, 2 Rolands: Xiong Yi, Lancaster and six Culverin’s: Bombard, Mortar, Howitzer, Parrott, Grapeshot and Carronade.

You also have 800 pods that were dropped off, split evenly between Mark 16E and Mark 23 missiles.
Your Intel briefing indicated that the nearest FF base was about 64LY away and had nothing heavier than a BC squadron. The nearest BF base was 72 LY the other direction and had only a division of Scientists with minimal support. Therefore it was felt you would have sufficient forces to meet any expected resistance, and by the time heavier forces could be concentrated, you would have been heavily reinforced yourself. And except for a few SLN destroyers that hypered in at long-range (and promptly hypered out again), you’ve been left alone.

However….

The FF commander, Vice Admiral Hiram Ulysses, and the local BF commander, Admiral Gustave Toutant, are both very smart and, unlike most BF/FF officers, work well together. They also have been watching what has been happening between the SL and Manticore and both have been ‘reshuffling’ ships from other sectors for ‘training and inter-sectional exercises’ for the past several months.

So….today, instead of a destroyer scout, 24 BC, 14 CL, and 16 DD suddenly hyper in about 13.8 Million KM from you North-North-East. And no sooner do you absorb that and begin to issue orders , when another force, this one with 36 SD’s, 12 more BC’s, and 10CA’s hypers in at 11.4 Million KM South-West-West.

So, Vice Admiral of the Red….what are your orders?

Fire the Mk 16 pods at the BCs, the Mark 23s at the SDs, run a ship through the wormhole to let them know this side is lost, and have everyone else hyper out. There is no chance of winning, so staying to fight is suicide.

Step 1: Send one of the older DDs through the wormhole to report enemy contact, and if no other communication is received within 24 hours, assume the Alliance has been forced to cede the system.

Step 2: Accelerate on a course orthogonal to the FF and BF force while limpeting all the Mk-23 pods. The Alliance ships have enough acceleration that the SDs cannot force a missile engagement (I am assuming Cataphracts are not in play for the SLN, otherwise this tactical scenario would have only one inevitable outcome).

Step 3: Unload as many of the external Mk-16s pods sitting in space at the FF force as necessary. That's a bit over 100 missiles per ship, which would be gross overkill for them. While the Mk-16 pods would be vulnerable to sweeping by proximity fused nukes, the SLN can't get them fast enough before they accomplish their goal. Either the FF force is completely eliminated, or driven to flee into hyper with massive losses - either way they're out of the fight.

Step 4: Sequence fire from the Mk-23s at the SDs only, from outside their effective missile range. 4000 Mk-23s (plus whatever Mk-16s are left) would be enough to destroy at least 2/3 of the SDs.

(At this point I expect the SLN forces to surrender or break off the action. Very few forces in the history of warfare would carry on in the face of a such a stupendously high casualty rate.)

Step 5: Once all external pods are expended, the BC(P)s and Sag-Cs coordinate their fire to at least cripple the remaining SDs.

Step 6: If they still refuse to stand down (which I find very hard to believe at this point), I concede the contest and fall back out of sensor range to go into stealth and picket the outer system. I presumably know the ops schedule of the task forces which went elsewhere, so I know roughly when they get back. So I just wait around until they can show up and kick the pitiful remnants of the SLN out.

Duckk, since this is a wormhole terminus, wouldn't the superdreadnoughts already be inside their own firing range when they hyper in?

SWM wrote:Duckk, since this is a wormhole terminus, wouldn't the superdreadnoughts already be inside their own firing range when they hyper in?

SWM, the ranges I gave were outside the SLN normal ranges...but I also left open if these ships had Capharacts or some other improvements...it's no fun if you have all the intel....

Duckk, it's a good plan, but remember those 4 task forces that have passed through--if they come back they could be ambushed...and you are presuming that all the SLN forces are accounted for..like I said, it's no fun if you have every jot and tittle laid out for you....

Hutch wrote:
So….today, instead of a destroyer scout, 24 BC, 14 CL, and 16 DD suddenly hyper in about 13.8 Million KM from you North-North-East. And no sooner do you absorb that and begin to issue orders , when another force, this one with 36 SD’s, 12 more BC’s, and 10CA’s hypers in at 11.4 Million KM South-West-West.

So, Vice Admiral of the Red….what are your orders?

They are idiots. I shoot them up and ready my hyper generators.

Hutch wrote:Duckk, it's a good plan, but remember those 4 task forces that have passed through--if they come back they could be ambushed...and you are presuming that all the SLN forces are accounted for..like I said, it's no fun if you have every jot and tittle laid out for you....

I haven't had a chance to play with the scenario yet, but anybody who sent off detached forces on the assumption that the wormhole could be held securely behind them is a moron.

Those 4 task forces should be returning paranoid. Drop in at a semi-random location at fairly long range, and use FTL comms to check in with the terminus defenders.

If you don't get an 'all clear' then take appropriate measures (depending on strength and positioning, either carefully probe for enemy ships or else just say screw it and return the long way through hyper)


And even after checking in with the defenders of this terminus you still shouldn't be using the wormhole without unless those defenders have gotten a recent update about the security situation on the far end. So even if the guys covering the far end get punched out, or driven off, without being able to send warning that should only open a (say) 12 hour window of vulnerability. Any longer than that without a check-in and you have to assume the wormhole is compromised and unsafe to use.


So I'm not too worried about those detached fleets - unless I knew one was due back before the next scheduled "still safe" message I wouldn't let concern for them force me into a desperate fight for the wormhole.

The real tactical problem here is that the op forces both hypered in at under 15 million klicks which is within the envelop of the catapharacts.

So... you send a ship through the wormhole warning them that you ate temporarily conceeding control of the wormhole. Then you hyper out and circle back and resume the engagement at 30 million klicks... on your terms.

Don

n7axw wrote:The real tactical problem here is that the op forces both hypered in at under 15 million klicks which is within the envelop of the catapharacts.

So... you send a ship through the wormhole warning them that you ate temporarily conceeding control of the wormhole. Then you hyper out and circle back and resume the engagement at 30 million klicks... on your terms.

Don

If you try that your ship will get ripped to pieces. You have no wedge or sidewalls.

Just kill them using the deployed pods, then hyper out from their missile fire. You are running light ships, with a faster hyper gen cycle time.

If you've got a (relatively) small force covering a distant wormhole would you even have them all deployed in a single formation?

On the one hand that does give them the ability to provide mutual defensive fire. But on the other it seems to risk losing them all to a single unlucky (or very skilled) pounce from hyper.

Any RRM/DDM/MDM ship within, say, 8 million km of the terminus should easily be able to drop laser heads on a hostile ship making transit, so at least some ships should be in that close. (Heck, they'd be burned out and ballistic, but even an classic SDM should be able to deliver a laserhead from 8 million km in no more than 3min, 9seconds - and it's not like a ship in the "lane" can use CMs, or evade - so even that might be good enough)
But the correlary is you don't need high force concentrations to be able to blow away anybody trying to use the wormhole.


Now the force Hutch is proposing might be powerful enough to justify keeping together. But maybe with it, and certainly if you just left a few DDs to watch, I'd be strongly tempted to break them up into multiple detachments and have at least most hide under stealth and creep around within reasonable missile flight time of the terminus. Makes it harder for an attacker to know where they all are, or to attempt a coordinated pounce on them.

But that approach is predicated on the idea that it's not critical to hold the wormhole in the face of heavy forces - attrit them and yield the terminus before taking real damage yourself. You can always whistle up a heavier force to retake it - or continue to come back (through hyper) and whittle them down.