GA Strategy, Tactics and Targets

n7axw wrote:As I read the story, the MAlighn got exactly what they bargained for at New Tuscany and Spindle. The wheels start coming off the tracks with Filarta at 2nd Manticore. They expected SLN to be trashed, but hadn't counted on Haven and Manticore coming together.

Also, Oyster Bay wasn't completely successful. They had hoped to catch Manticore's latest generation SDPs still in their building slips, but by the time OB struck, those ships were working up at Trevor's Star. So while crippling Manticore's
infrastructure was a signicant success, it was still not all that was hoped for.

Another thing they I don't think they counted on (or even know yet?) was Beowulf stepping in to handle Apollo and Keyhole production lines to replace those lost in Oyster Bay far more quickly than Manticore could do so. Albrecht was very clear on the fact that the failure to get those SD(P)s wasn't nearly as important as the success at cutting off their supply of ordnance, without which an SD(P) is useless.

It seems the MAlign plotted to get Beowulf's prestige in the League knocked down, but the idea that they'd exercise their right to secede wasn't on anyone's radar. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.

n7axw, I didn't mean that the Malign expected Bing and Crandall to win. But they did expect the Manties to be hurt, badly hurt, while trashing the Sollie forces. Just as they expected Second Manticore to seriously damage the Manties.

They seriously underestimated the quality of both the Mantie military equipment and leadership and that is usually a fatal mistake.

And they really did want the Monica operation to succeed with the eventual ejection of the Manties from the Talbott Quadrant which is much too close to Mesa for comfort. I'm sure that they expected that process to be a bloodbath on both the SLN and RMN sides which would further the Malign agenda.

The discovery that the Malign exists was another major disaster for it. They had expected to be able to operate from the shadows, if I recall conversations properly, until the very end when all opposing forces had been suitably dealt with. Instead, they are scurrying like rats to their hidey-hole before the proper pre-planned precautions have been taken. While in a real universe that might not be a serious problem, this is Honorverse and there is a God (RFC) providing a guiding hand to the good guys. Oh, there will be major bumps in the road before the bad guys get their just deserts but we all know that it will happen. Hopefully while I'm still in possession of my limited but fading capacity to read and understand.

If the Malign were smart at this point, they'd give up on their plan as originally conceived and go with a lesser but still impressive Plan B.

Plan A - the complete dissolution of the Solarian League and its re-establishment under their control in the form of a new Renaissance Factor. This is never going to work now.

Plan B - the complete dissolution of the Solarian League and its re-establishment in the form of a number of splinter states, the largest and most powerful of which is the Renaissance Factor. This is still very viable.

But anything and everything Mesa does to try to make Plan A happen jeopardizes the possibility of Plan B, because it presents new possibilities to taint their legitimacy to be new founding members. They should accept the fact that their efforts are not going to create a unipolar galaxy with their own ideology driving the unipole, but can still be the driving force for one of the major pillars of the new multipolar galaxy.

Any way you look at it, this is still a major step up for Mesa, and is ample enough reward for their centuries of effort.

Frankly, at this point if I'm Mesa, I go off and hide and do nothing. If I do anything, it's let Manticore find Darius (after carefully scrubbing everything there that might tie to the Renaissance Factor member systems) to let the Manticorans think that the Mesan plan is defeated fully.

.

That section with Detweiller's grumping was partially what I was reflecting on.

What it amounts to is that the Haven sector which was supposed to weaken itself with conflict hasn't. Instead the entire sector with the galaxy's most experienced and technically advanced war making capability has united against MAlign. Adding insult to injury, Manticore is rapidly rebuilding, wiping out the fruit of OB...

MAlighn is not out of the game, but currently faces an adverse strategic situation.

Don

n7axw wrote:That section with Detweiller's grumping was partially what I was reflecting on.

What it amounts to is that the Haven sector which was supposed to weaken itself with conflict hasn't. Instead the entire sector with the galaxy's most experienced and technically advanced war making capability has united against MAlign. Adding insult to injury, Manticore is rapidly rebuilding, wiping out the fruit of OB...

MAlighn is not out of the game, but currently faces an adverse strategic situation.

Don

That depends on what their strategic objectives are.

Reader Bob wrote:n7axw, I didn't mean that the Malign expected Bing and Crandall to win. But they did expect the Manties to be hurt, badly hurt, while trashing the Sollie forces. Just as they expected Second Manticore to seriously damage the Manties.

They seriously underestimated the quality of both the Mantie military equipment and leadership and that is usually a fatal mistake.

And they really did want the Monica operation to succeed with the eventual ejection of the Manties from the Talbott Quadrant which is much too close to Mesa for comfort. I'm sure that they expected that process to be a bloodbath on both the SLN and RMN sides which would further the Malign agenda.

The discovery that the Malign exists was another major disaster for it. They had expected to be able to operate from the shadows, if I recall conversations properly, until the very end when all opposing forces had been suitably dealt with. Instead, they are scurrying like rats to their hidey-hole before the proper pre-planned precautions have been taken. While in a real universe that might not be a serious problem, this is Honorverse and there is a God (RFC) providing a guiding hand to the good guys. Oh, there will be major bumps in the road before the bad guys get their just deserts but we all know that it will happen. Hopefully while I'm still in possession of my limited but fading capacity to read and understand.

I agree with this post. Just a slightly different way of putting it.

Don

Reader Bob wrote: [snip]
Oyster Bay was supposed to lay the groundwork for Haven to finally destroy Manticore to be followed by the Sollie fleet taking out the remnants of the Havenite fleet and then going on to take control of a seriously weakened Republic of Haven.

It was a nicely thought-out plan and could have worked. Without Zilwiki and Cachet getting Simoes to Haven and convincing President Pritchart to visit Manticore instead of invading Manticore it had a very good chance of working. But that one very important glitch in the machine has now thrown everything into jeopardy.

I disagree that it was a good plan. Relying on three independent nations to take each other out in order when you don't really control any of them is just begging for trouble. If Zilwicki & Cachat hadn't turned up alive, Manticore would have been able to handle the Sollie attack on its own, and Manticore and Haven were already close to a peace treaty. Not a done deal, admittedly, but a second Havenite attack on Manticore wasn't in the cards.

Reader Bob wrote: CoG didn't give us much in the way of intelligence at the station where McBryde's brother was transferred out. We don't know if there was any intel worth anything on the station or not. Of course the search for data on Mesa is just getting started. Since Houdini was jump-started it is likely that there is data that shouldn't have been left behind. But is it likely that said data will be found by someone who knows its importance?

Well, there's some intel to be had, about the recent high-priority traffic through the system. The people on the station have no reason not to rat out their former masters to their new ones, and it's all in the station files anyway. And the ship that blew itself up to avoid being taken ought to provoke some head-scratching. Presumably copies of Torch's report on the operation will make their way back to Beowulf and Manticore.

Also, Houdini was essentially blown by Zilwicki even before it was completed: the GA knows that ~10k Malign people evacuated Mesa in the last few months. There's a finite number of ships that left the system in that period.

Not really. If you knew the account name, selecting it automatically logged in, without a password prompt. Aren't security measures great........

Eagleeye wrote:In a certain way, a system with no password is more secure than one with a weak password. As long as noone but the legal user(s) know about the lack of passwort protection - and anyone who wants to break into the system is convinced, there has to be a password ...

Why I believe Beowulf will get its orbital industry trashed by the SLN. SLN will take largish losses, and then get their asses handed to them when the RMN shows up from the junction. DW needs to keep evening the balance to give the books more intrigue. The line, the RMN and friends show up, say hi, and leave debris behind is a fairly piss poor plot line.

TheMonster wrote:

n7axw wrote:As I read the story, the MAlighn got exactly what they bargained for at New Tuscany and Spindle. The wheels start coming off the tracks with Filarta at 2nd Manticore. They expected SLN to be trashed, but hadn't counted on Haven and Manticore coming together.

Also, Oyster Bay wasn't completely successful. They had hoped to catch Manticore's latest generation SDPs still in their building slips, but by the time OB struck, those ships were working up at Trevor's Star. So while crippling Manticore's
infrastructure was a signicant success, it was still not all that was hoped for.

Another thing they I don't think they counted on (or even know yet?) was Beowulf stepping in to handle Apollo and Keyhole production lines to replace those lost in Oyster Bay far more quickly than Manticore could do so. Albrecht was very clear on the fact that the failure to get those SD(P)s wasn't nearly as important as the success at cutting off their supply of ordnance, without which an SD(P) is useless.

It seems the MAlign plotted to get Beowulf's prestige in the League knocked down, but the idea that they'd exercise their right to secede wasn't on anyone's radar. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.

The MAlign blew it already in my opinion with their attempt to get Haven and Manticore to conform to their plan.
During the planning of Rat Poison there was the damning sentence that they need something obvious even a Neobarb would notice, just after they discussed the skill of Manty intelligence!
The first reaction of everyone hearing of the assassination was 'Who could it have been besides Haven?' or if Haven really had done some convoluted double and triple think scheme. Only lacking a viable third party they settled on Haven as the culprit.

To go ahead and force the confrontation between the SL and the Manties, they made the decision because Monica blew up, and they didn't want to waste their bought admirals. Mesa was already in the focus, so triggering the plans there was risky. They worked in forcing a confrontation, but Mesan meddling was immediately discovered.

The same goes for Oyster Bay. It seems like a success, but it proved to everyone that cared that a third party was around, who invested a lot of resources, and while the attack did inflict massive damage, it was not fatal.

This all blew their stealth, piece by piece, and the Malign seems to be unable to see why, because each individual operation is successful in its stated goals. They still operate under the viable Manpower/Solly rule that if you can't prove it in court, everything is okay. In a war, a good guess is enough to act, and absence of evidence is also a piece of information.