BB(P/C) for rear area security

SWM wrote:There is absolutely no need to put anything as big as a battleship into captured planets.

Heck, a handful of semi-modern LACs (1st-gen Cimetres (I'm sure I misspelled that) ought to be good enough) and a dispatch boat would be good enough for most places.

SWM wrote:Positroll--your premise rests on the assumption that Manticore will have to free hundreds or thousands of Protectorate planets and then leave at least one large ship in each one. I disagree completely with that assumption.

First of all, there is not really any reason for Manticore to do anything at all with most Protectorate planets. Manticore has developed the deep strike strategy, so it can bypass all the piddling little planets that don't mean anything. Almost none of those planets have any significant ships based there anyway. Second of all, even the planets that Manticore does free do not need anything as big as your BB(P/C) left behind. A simple destroyer would be quite sufficient--it doesn't even need to be a Roland. A destroyer could take care of piracy and keeping a thumb on the local government if necessary. And if the League comes in with something it can't handle, the destroyer can escape and call on nodal forces to kick the League out again.

There is absolutely no need to put anything as big as a battleship into captured planets.

Except that Honor Harrington (at the big discussion with Elisabeth, Hamish and other Mantie bigshots) and others agree that the deep strike strategy doesn't work against the SL.
1)Attacking Earth would get everybody mad at the SEM (can be debated, but the book says so, and while I'm contrarian I'm not going to fight windmills here ...)
2) Attacking and controlling all possible places where the SL might build ships doesn't work because the SL is just too damned big.

Instead, HH proposes to splinter the SL. For that to work, you need to put pressure on the loyalists and provide security for those systems ready to jump ship.
In the later context, just basing a Roland (to run away and come back with some help later once the orbital stations have beeen redued to rubble by the SLN) isn't enough - those people will want, if they ally with the GA, a serious undertaking that the GA will help them keep their systems safe (just like Manties alllies in the Haven wars). A BB does that. Four Nikes and Aggies would, too, but the BB is cheaper imO. Mycroft + LACs might too, but that takes quite some time to set up and requires the political situation in the system to be stable - you don't want a counter-revolution taking over your weapons platforms and then use them against the GA (or give the details to the SL ...

Positroll wrote:Instead, HH proposes to splinter the SL. For that to work, you need to put pressure on the loyalists and provide security for those systems ready to jump ship.
In the later context, just basing a Roland (to run away and come back with some help later once the orbital stations have beeen redued to rubble by the SLN) isn't enough - those people will want, if they ally with the GA, a serious undertaking that the GA will help them keep their systems safe (just like Manties alllies in the Haven wars). A BB does that. Four Nikes and Aggies would, too, but the BB is cheaper imO. Mycroft + LACs might too, but that takes quite some time to set up and requires the political situation in the System to be stable - you don't want acounterrevolution taking over your weapons platforms and then use them against the GA (or give the details to the SL ...

But as Duckk said, you cannot be strong everywhere. Neither do you need to be strong everywhere. If an SLN remnant would start launching raids against targets under GA protection, then the economical thing to do would be to attack the bases the raiding force is staging from. Hell, if Theisman had been able to, his best bet would have been to attack Trevor's Star while 8th Fleet was refitting. But as it stands, that would have been far too suicidal.

The Harrington strategy, if we're gonna call it that, does rely on identifying natural break points in the league. It also expects the GA to offer economic and defense incentives for systems or star nations willing to break free from the SL. But that does not automatically translate into having to garrison each and every system thus liberated; Not to mention that some of those systems will come with significant self-defense forces of their own (Maya sector and Renaissance Factor say hello!).

You seem to be assuming a situation where systems free from the SL will require total protection by GA forces. That is simply not the case.

Duckk wrote:This is the fundamental problem with the whole idea. You cannot be strong everywhere. Trying to be strong everywhere is just a recipe for spreading your forces thin to the point of uselessness. This is a running refrain in AAC, for example.

... snip ...

In either case, there's no need for a pod laying battleship. It falls firmly in between the two stools of strategic requirements. Neither fish nor fowl, it has no use given the current advantages the Alliance enjoys.

1) In a cold blooded, "bean counting" way that's surely right. That didn't stop the Manties from putting strong forces in second tier systems - those of their allies. Or for Haven to do the same wrt its secondary systems. Because their citizens "unwisely" demanded so - and even Hamish had to concede to their wishes, against his better (?) judgement. Because the alternative would have been to loose their support and thus the war.

THATS THE CENTRAL POINT OF CLAUSEWITZ !!! That's why, in the end, in a democracy, generals aren't permitted to run the war on their own.

Just like keeping Manties allies as part of the alliance and just like keeping the second- and third tier Peep systems from rebelling, getting the Solly systems on the side of the GA will require protecting them more than simple military logic would consider wise. That doesn't mean it's not necessary to win the war. Because this will be a war of perceptions - as Henke noted when she decided to support the Firebrand-started rebellions ...


2) My proposed BB is not supposed to fight off current Sollies but to do so wrt Solly raiding forces made up of modernized SLN BCs with extended range pod launched missiles 5 years from now ...

Positroll wrote:2) My proposed BB is not supposed to fight off current Sollies but to do so wrt Solly raiding forces made up of modernized SLN BCs with extended range pod launched missiles 5 years from now ...

Which might not even exist.

The E wrote:But as Duckk said, you cannot be strong everywhere. Neither do you need to be strong everywhere. If an SLN remnant would start launching raids against targets under GA protection, then the economical thing to do would be to attack the bases the raiding force is staging from. Hell, if Theisman had been able to, his best bet would have been to attack Trevor's Star while 8th Fleet was refitting. But as it stands, that would have been far too suicidal.

The Harrington strategy, if we're gonna call it that, does rely on identifying natural break points in the league. It also expects the GA to offer economic and defense incentives for systems or star nations willing to break free from the SL. But that does not automatically translate into having to garrison each and every system thus liberated; Not to mention that some of those systems will come with significant self-defense forces of their own (Maya sector and Renaissance Factor say hello!).

You seem to be assuming a situation where systems free from the SL will require total protection by GA forces. That is simply not the case.

I'd go about it the follwoing way (3-5 years from now):
1) Henke's Meyers sector - style attack on sector capital with a fleet of SD(p)s + support ships.
2) Mop up other SL forces in the sector
3) SD fleet move on to next sector, one SD squadron stays in sector capital
4) BB and SysDefCruiser take over single protectorate systems
5a) System cooperates and stabilizes. Mycroft gets put in. GA CL or DD gets assigned to call for reinfocements if necessary, BB and SDC leave System after a year or so.
5b) System remains hostile. BB and SDC trash shipsyards if there are any; DD gets assigned, BB and SDC leave system,
6) BB and CDC moe to next sector where they are needed

Rinse and repeat ...


P.S. Far out in the verge, occasionally a couple of CAs might suffice from time to time. After all, the SL has thousands of systems - so you use the available BBs somewhat closer to the core where the threat level is higher ...

The E wrote:

Positroll wrote:2) My proposed BB is not supposed to fight off current Sollies but to do so wrt Solly raiding forces made up of modernized SLN BCs with extended range pod launched missiles 5 years from now ...

Which might not even exist.

But as I said above, the GA can't afford to assume that. Worst case, the Sl breaks up of its own - so you wasted some money on unnecessary BBs. So what? No worse than the boondoggles of the conservative/liberal/progressive government ...

O.k., signing off for today.

Positroll wrote: 2) My proposed BB is not supposed to fight off current Sollies but to do so wrt Solly raiding forces made up of modernized SLN BCs with extended range pod launched missiles 5 years from now ...

Then please explain to us why the BB-P/C is the best available option against the following threat:

4 1921 NIKEs and 4 1921 Aggemennons with their pod bays full of capacitor fed MDMs?

The scenario is a single inhabited planet system with 75% of the space going infrastucture value within a light minute of the only planet. 24% of the remaining infrastructure value is in the asteroid belt that is 5 light minutes outside of the hyper limit. The planet is 9 light minutes inside the hyper limit. The system threw in with the Grand Alliance three months ago and is only (via the wormhole network) 5 weeks away for freighters from a major Alliance industrial node (Beowulf or Erewhon for instance) and a week away by warship from Haven's 13th Fleet which has significant heavy forces. 13th Fleet is operational, but in a pause after it conducted intense offensive operations for the last quarter.

Baseline defensive force is half a dozen old Rampart class destroyers that defected from Frontier Fleet, and 25 Shrikes, 10 Ferrets and 10 Katanas that a Manty CLAC dropped off three weeks ago in conjunction with 200 Mk-23 pods.

Now the defensive add-on options are the following:

1) 1 SD-P
2) 2 BB-P/C with 3 frigates and 20 additional LACs
3) a full LAC wing and 2,000 additional pods (basically what the Talbott worlds are getting as 10th Fleet) and a good sensor network.
4) #3 plus a light speed only Moriatry network on an armored hyper capable hull.

#1 and #2 can easily control the near orbitals but can't protect the asteroid belt. #3 can create sheltered nodes in the asteroid belt and cover near orbitals. #4 can do #3 but better. #3 is probably the cheapest and fastest to deploy option, and #4 is probably the most effective option.

Your are positing that the Alliance build an entire navy - not a squadron, not a task force, not even a fleet, but an entire navy from the ground up - in addition to maintaining and expanding the navies they already have. It's impossible. Either your production numbers are going to be so small as to be a drop in the ocean when weighed against your defensive needs, or you completely abandon all other production to make it happen (which would be manifestly insane). To protect even the Alliance's current real estate in the manner you're suggesting would be a monumental drain on resources. That's why you focus on building the classes which have the most utility on offense and defense.

Besides, David's already outlined how he plans on defending the systems economically.

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The E wrote:
The Harrington strategy, if we're gonna call it that, does rely on identifying natural break points in the league. It also expects the GA to offer economic and defense incentives for systems or star nations willing to break free from the SL. But that does not automatically translate into having to garrison each and every system thus liberated; Not to mention that some of those systems will come with significant self-defense forces of their own (Maya sector and Renaissance Factor say hello!).

You seem to be assuming a situation where systems free from the SL will require total protection by GA forces. That is simply not the case.

In many cases the splintered off systems won't even be friendly to the GA, much less allied with it and under it's protection.

Yes, some verge systems around the Talbot Quadrant are looking for GA support throwing off the OFS. But most of the splintering the Harrington strategy is looking for isn't Verge systems breaking away, but Core and Shell systems forming their own little cliques or alliances; removing their forces and economy from control of the SL, but not automatically (or even likely) switching to GA allies or protectorates.

So much of the splinters shouldn't need or ask for GA protection. Which means that Manticore and Haven shouldn't need to worry about putting defensive forces (of whatever strength) into hundreds of new systems.