Even after the destruction of all the Home Hives, the defenses at that point of contact would have been... formidable seems like an appropriate understatement. And since, for the Bugs, there would have been no point in conserving those resources you can be sure that they would have been configured to place the cost of a warp-point assault somewhere beyond 'ghastly'. But since they were also built largely around mobile units [for limited values of 'mobile' in some cases] 5th Flt can't be pulled off its side of the point without leaving the road to its rear area wide open. So they're kind of stuck out there.
Varangian wrote:I always like the accounts of battle by Fifth Fleet, in the opening stages of ISW-4.
In particular I liked Admiral Demosthenes Waldeck. Sadly after the front stabilized not much more than a mention of him in SHIVA.
Would have liked to see Fifth Fleet get into the action during the later counter-offensives.