SPOILER - How is the GA going to discover Darius or Felix?

if they shutdown the wormhole network, could they not know that they failed to destroy torch properly? it takes time for ships to travel after all? so they already be sending ships to use it.

This discussion is not new. Check out RFC's responses in this topic.

Tenshinai wrote:

Theemile wrote:In the case of Torch, WE know there are no permanent defenses, but the GA does not. If the same 8 BCs were stationed at the terminus, 2 squadrons of old SDs could break through. However,if the Malign gets wind of the transit attack, they could easily position multiple squadrons of Mannerheim DNs to cover the terminus, stopping any GA assault force.

You would probably need a lot more than 2 squadrons of SDs. Without either sidewalls or wedges, even BC size grasers are going to shred SDs VERY quickly.
And they´re also going to HIT, all the time, every shot, because there´s nothing in the way to distort sensorfeeds any more than the energy itself.

Remember - only 2 defensive BCs were "hot", so any initial fire would only be from them - though I doubt you would have more than 10-15 seconds before every one of them was joining. (and then 2-5 minutes of you running the gauntlet without a wedge for cover)

I selected 16 SDs because we know there is a mass limit for every wormhole - iirc, we don't know the limit on the Torch bridge, but Manticore's ~225 Million was the largest. Since you can only get ~30 SDs through Manticore's wormholes, something tells me you aren't going to get anywhere near that # through Torch's - so 16 Gryphons would probably fit under the threshold, 24 probably wouldn't.

Of course this opens up the question about what would be most likely to take the terminus - 16 SDs, 30 BBs, 140 BCs, 400 CAs, or 1200 CL/DDs? I think we can guarantee that some of 1200 DD/CLs are going to get through, just because there are so many targets - but they will be effective as fleeing notification vessels. Chances are the 140 BCs would probably be most effective, due to the combination of # and firepower - if just 8 escape the Gauntlet, you have parity with the defenders, but the same could be said about 1 of the SDs or 2 of the BBs.

Theemile wrote:Of course this opens up the question about what would be most likely to take the terminus - 16 SDs, 30 BBs, 140 BCs, 400 CAs, or 1200 CL/DDs? I think we can guarantee that some of 1200 DD/CLs are going to get through, just because there are so many targets - but they will be effective as fleeing notification vessels. Chances are the 140 BCs would probably be most effective, due to the combination of # and firepower - if just 8 escape the Gauntlet, you have parity with the defenders, but the same could be said about 1 of the SDs or 2 of the BBs.

Problem being that while the mass ceiling for a junction could allow you to send hundreds of small vessels through in theory, the practical realities of funneling that many ships through the terminus will probably make that idea a non-starter.

And all that ignores the rather simple reality that securing a terminus is trivial. Now that the MAlign knows that something may come down the hole at them (assuming that Harvest Joy was intelligent enough to back up their research before firing up the hyper generator), they can just put a minefield and a couple of forts into place with orders to engage anything that appears. From the GA's perspective, it makes no sense at all to throw ships (and crews) at a wormhole they don't even know can be traversed.

In the linked thread, RFC explains that the whole transit-move away from terminus-jump to hyper cycle takes several minutes, even under optimal circumstances, minutes in which the transiting ships are extremely vulnerable due to a lack of primary defensive measures (Wedge folded into a sail, no sidewall generators to interfere, minimal range and no EW to get in the way), which means pretty much certain death for the attackers.

The E wrote:

Theemile wrote:Of course this opens up the question about what would be most likely to take the terminus - 16 SDs, 30 BBs, 140 BCs, 400 CAs, or 1200 CL/DDs? I think we can guarantee that some of 1200 DD/CLs are going to get through, just because there are so many targets - but they will be effective as fleeing notification vessels. Chances are the 140 BCs would probably be most effective, due to the combination of # and firepower - if just 8 escape the Gauntlet, you have parity with the defenders, but the same could be said about 1 of the SDs or 2 of the BBs.

Problem being that while the mass ceiling for a junction could allow you to send hundreds of small vessels through in theory, the practical realities of funneling that many ships through the terminus will probably make that idea a non-starter.

And all that ignores the rather simple reality that securing a terminus is trivial. Now that the MAlign knows that something may come down the hole at them (assuming that Harvest Joy was intelligent enough to back up their research before firing up the hyper generator), they can just put a minefield and a couple of forts into place with orders to engage anything that appears. From the GA's perspective, it makes no sense at all to throw ships (and crews) at a wormhole they don't even know can be traversed.

In the linked thread, RFC explains that the whole transit-move away from terminus-jump to hyper cycle takes several minutes, even under optimal circumstances, minutes in which the transiting ships are extremely vulnerable due to a lack of primary defensive measures (Wedge folded into a sail, no sidewall generators to interfere, minimal range and no EW to get in the way), which means pretty much certain death for the attackers.

And all this goes back to the original statement, that the GA doesn't know what is really at the other end of the wormhole. It's all academic, really, because the next steps would be following KZT's suggestion and placing a moderate minefield and ,maybe a couple SDs to cover the terminus, just in case there is something nasty on the other side, followed by another Harvest Joy level probing.

But you are totally correct, no one is going to do a serious wormhole assault without knowledge of what they are assaulting.

This is a very interesting discussion. There was a link refered to in which RFC weighed in, but no link. I would like to see that.

I just had a thought on how Torch wormhole might be attacked successfully with minimal loss of life...

In another one of David's universes in "Crusade," Ivan Antonov's final assault on Thebes was performed by droned freighters to draw enemy fire and absorb amumition. I'm wondering if some sort of variant on that might not work. Maybe we have even found something honestly useful to do with all those obsolete Solly sds the GA has come onto possession of!

Don

n7axw wrote:This is a very interesting discussion. There was a link refered to in which RFC weighed in, but no link. I would like to see that.

I just had a thought on how Torch wormhole might be attacked successfully with minimal loss of life...

In another one of David's universes in "Crusade," Ivan Antonov's final assault on Thebes was performed by droned freighters to draw enemy fire and absorb amumition. I'm wondering if some sort of variant on that might not work. Maybe we have even found something honestly useful to do with all those obsolete Solly sds the GA has come onto possession of!

Don

It is just not going to happen. Either you know where the wormhole ends, and you move through hyperspace to take control of the end, or you don't know where it ends and you don't mess with it, especially if you don't even know if it ends somewhere survivable.
Antonov had some intel on what was waiting on the other end, and knew that he had to get there, and while drones might suck up mines, grasers have unlimited ammo.

Unless you are colorblind, the link was clearly indicated in my post by using the url tag. Here it is again:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3107

n7axw wrote:This is a very interesting discussion. There was a link refered to in which RFC weighed in, but no link. I would like to see that.

I just had a thought on how Torch wormhole might be attacked successfully with minimal loss of life...

In another one of David's universes in "Crusade," Ivan Antonov's final assault on Thebes was performed by droned freighters to draw enemy fire and absorb amumition. I'm wondering if some sort of variant on that might not work. Maybe we have even found something honestly useful to do with all those obsolete Solly sds the GA has come onto possession of!

Don

I'm pretty sure David Weber set up the wormhole rules for the Honorverse specifically to avoid repeating Starfire style wormhole assaults. No possibility of sneaking warp capable recon drones in, the grav-wave like characteristics around the entry/exit points precludes SMBHawk style missile bombardment pods, etc.

So given that I doubt he's going to take any actions that move the universe back in that direction.

IMHO Darius will have to be found by some other method; not by wormhole assaults up the chain from Torch.

At this point all Manticore and Torch really know is that Harvest Joy did not come back through the wormhole and nobody has heard anything from there from any other place. There is at least one wormhole which had been dubed a "killer" from which nothing has returned. Nobody is looking at sending another ship -of any kind- through this one at the present time.

Amoung the scenarios mentioned in the book is that it is POSSIBLE (but we know different) that the Harvest Joy either came out with damage which is keeping them from going anywhere, especially back through the wormhole. An alternative is that while they may have hyperspace ability, the other end of this wormhole may be so far away from anything in known space that they are going to have to travel for YEARS to get back to Human civilization. There is also the possibility that they ended up so far away that they can't find a reference point or two to let them even start to travel in the direction which may take them to human space.

There was indications that Manpower knew the terminus existed but NOTHING about any information on it in the Verdant Vista computers. That may seem odd but since they lost a bunch of the computer information when the slaves seized the planet they can guess that whatever was on-planet may have been lost at that time.

Also so far, there is NOTHING that the GA knows about the Alignment having ANY secret wormholes. There is nothing to suggest (yet) that they may have run into some sort of guard force that captured or destroyed the ship.

However, should any information about a "private" Alignment worm hole -or worse, a wormhole network- surface, there is a good possibility that someone from Manticore may decide that it would be A GOOD IDEA to post something like a blocking force and mine field at the Torch wormhole. Sending a ship through again would still not be a good idea because the same idea could get around to the thought that there was something waiting on the other side that killed Harvest Joy and a 2nd ship is unlikely to do any better.

Will be interesting to see if and when the Alignment decides that they should establish both an Astro Control system for their own networks AND place at least ships and probably forts with minefields on both sides of any of the wormholes. The possible exception would be the one covered by Mannerheim's SDF since that system is at least on the charts as being owned by someone -though uninhabited- but without the secret wormhole.