Logic behind splitting Lacoon?

I just reread ART, the SLN confrontations in the first bit are some of my favorite recent scenes - but I can't understand why Case Lacoon is split into two parts, or how it could actually work that way.

The SLN don't seem to care about the distiction between nominally Alliance-controlled bridges and their own - after all, plenty of the former have termini in Solarian-ish space. In any case, after Spindle it's fairly obvious that 'not provoking' the League is a bit pointless, since they can provoke themselves perfectly well on their own. Certainly, none of the RMN commanders in Lacoon One have any illusions that they won't be going straight on into Two.

Since Lacoon One might suggest to even the SLN that their wormholes are potentially vulnerable, any delay before continuing to Lacoon Two should give them an opportunity to picket potential target wormholes before the Manties arrive. The SLN's total ineffectiveness at missile range is much smaller or even reversed slightly at energy range, so as soon as they get anything sitting right on the termini, the RMN will start needing BCs and wallers to punch through with no real advantage, rather than cruiser divisions with a ridiculous range disparity. It just turns into a war of attrition, and one side has a distinct advantage there.

Because of that, I can't see how Lacoon Two could ever happen as an independent operation - it needs to be simultaneous with or immediately follow on from Lacoon One, before the SLN can redeploy anything (a cruiser squadron would stop the forces we saw in ART) onto its termini. Otherwise it can't be done at all, at least without far greater force allocations.

Essentially, the decisions for both stages would have to be made within weeks of each other, and I don't see the point in making them separately at all. Does anyone have an explanation as to why they'd be decided separately, or how the time between decisions could be increased to a useful period?

Lacoon 1 is largely non-offensive. It gets all the non-combatants home, while still putting the economic screws on the League. Manticore has been saying they don't want a war with the League, so jumping straight to Lacoon 2's commerce raiding can definitely be seen as an act of war by the League's citizens. As seen in ART, a very large segment of the League can't comprehend that anyone is actually willing to go to war with it. By launching Lacoon 1 first, Manticore gives the League time to realize the fire they are playing with, without committing to open hostilities which could lead to loss of life and give fresh incidents to continue driving the conflict.

FLHerne wrote:I just reread ART, the SLN confrontations in the first bit are some of my favorite recent scenes - but I can't understand why Case Lacoon is split into two parts, or how it could actually work that way.

The SLN don't seem to care about the distiction between nominally Alliance-controlled bridges and their own - after all, plenty of the former have termini in Solarian-ish space. In any case, after Spindle it's fairly obvious that 'not provoking' the League is a bit pointless, since they can provoke themselves perfectly well on their own. Certainly, none of the RMN commanders in Lacoon One have any illusions that they won't be going straight on into Two.

Since Lacoon One might suggest to even the SLN that their wormholes are potentially vulnerable, any delay before continuing to Lacoon Two should give them an opportunity to picket potential target wormholes before the Manties arrive. The SLN's total ineffectiveness at missile range is much smaller or even reversed slightly at energy range, so as soon as they get anything sitting right on the termini, the RMN will start needing BCs and wallers to punch through with no real advantage, rather than cruiser divisions with a ridiculous range disparity. It just turns into a war of attrition, and one side has a distinct advantage there.

Because of that, I can't see how Lacoon Two could ever happen as an independent operation - it needs to be simultaneous with or immediately follow on from Lacoon One, before the SLN can redeploy anything (a cruiser squadron would stop the forces we saw in ART) onto its termini. Otherwise it can't be done at all, at least without far greater force allocations.

Essentially, the decisions for both stages would have to be made within weeks of each other, and I don't see the point in making them separately at all. Does anyone have an explanation as to why they'd be decided separately, or how the time between decisions could be increased to a useful period?

I think they could have jumped straight to Lacoön II if they'd never done Lacoön I. The deployment for forces through the wormhole network isn't really any different between those two plans. My understanding is that the key difference is intent and actions one the forces are through the wormholes.

Under Lacoön I they were just ensuring the safe evacuation of any Manticoran Merchant Marine ships. At that point they weren't (IIRC) denying wormhole transit to non-Manticoran hulls, simply ensuring that nobody prevented Manticore's ships from using them. (Enforcing the equivalent of freedom on the sea)

Under Lacoön II they were actually seizing the wormholes and blockading League traffic from using them (plus potentially, where warranted performing commerce raiding from their wormhole bridgehead)


If they'd never performed Lacoön I then the ship movements for Lacoön II would have been just as much of a surprise; (though more Mantie merchantmen would have been in the line of fire since they hadn't been evacuated first)

And as long as the Lacoön I ships are still hanging around the various wormhole terminii ensuring free transit you've the option to switch to Lacoön II simply by giving them new orders. They don't have to worry about hostile wormhole transits because they're already through and just monitoring.



The only scenario that seems like it might be a problem is if you did Lacoön I, recalled all those ships, and only then determined you actually did need to go back and escalate to Lacoön II. That's riskier because, even though you haven't declared war and your forces in Lacoön I were operating within intersteller rules, it's possible the wormhole defenses have been strengthened and somebody would be trigger happy. In that scenario I'd probably opt for sending forces the long way, through hyper, rather than risking the potentially hostile wormhole transit.


A hostile wormhole transit just isn't a survivable mistake; RFC set the physics such that laserheads give a massively lopsided advantage to the defenders. Heck even a single CL probably a good chance of wrecking a SD or two if they try to force their way out a wormhole it's guarding.

Under Lacoön I they were just ensuring the safe evacuation of any Manticoran Merchant Marine ships. At that point they weren't (IIRC) denying wormhole transit to non-Manticoran hulls, simply ensuring that nobody prevented Manticore's ships from using them. (Enforcing the equivalent of freedom on the sea)

The Zunker Incident was based on the fact that the bridge there was closed to Solarian flagged shipping.

Lacoon I's removal of the Manty freighters from Solarian space was an act of economic warfare. From the what we've seen here and in the books, the Manties have a lock on the majority of the internal carrying trade in the SL. Meaning that a very high percentage of the internal trade in the League is moved by Manty bottoms. By removing it, they are having an enormous effect on the domestic economy of the League.

To put it into a more real world context, let's say that most domestic cars in the US are made in Detroit. That means that there must be a logistical system in place to transport them all over the country. If you removed a substantial percentage of the train cars and tractor trailers from use, there's a massive bottleneck. The supply in distant areas like the West Coast would quickly dry up while the cars being manufactured in Detroit would sit there, pile up and eventually lead to a shut down of manufacture just because they don't have storage space for the finished product. Imagine the results of taking 6 out of every 10 trucks off the road or 6 out of every 10 rail cars out of service. And, if my memory serves me well, 60% is a low number.

That's Lacoon I.

Under Lacoon II, The short cuts represented by the wormhole network are removed as well.

To continue the using the US example above, not only are there less trucks and rail cars available but the major Interstate and rail arteries running across the country (Interstates 10,20,40,70,80 and their rail equivalents) are cut.

A OTR truck driver running solo can currently travel from coast to coast in 7 to 8 days (LA to the NYC area). A team of 2 drivers can do it in a little more than 3 days. That's using the Interstate network. If you were stuck to only using secondary roads, it would take several weeks (lower average speed limit, the roads don't bypass towns so there are stop lights and signs and lower speed limits in every town, time lost accelerating and decelerating, increased fuel use and the need for more fuel stops,...). That means the cost of transportation just went up and that truck is out of service for other uses for at least 3 or 4 times as long.

Add to all of the above the way the logistics system is currently set up.

Most businesses have regular deliveries. As a result, they don't keep a great deal of products on hand. In the retail environment, the most common theory is that you keep enough on hand to see you through to your normal delivery date plus a little to cover some slight delay in the schedule- say, a day or two. for the grocery business, it's even lower. They tend to get some sort of delivery every day or every other day. They may only build in a 12 hour cushion into their on hand inventory as a result. For manufacturing, the schedule is normally even tighter. It may be as tight as enough for one extra shift or 1/2 or even 1/3 of a day. For special orders or orders of items that are too expensive to produce before hand and store as finished products, the order for the finished product in question generates the orders for the components or the raw materials needed to produce the components. When suddenly you change the lead time from a week or less to several weeks or months, chaos will result.

Duckk wrote:Lacoon 1 is largely non-offensive. It gets all the non-combatants home, while still putting the economic screws on the League. Manticore has been saying they don't want a war with the League, so jumping straight to Lacoon 2's commerce raiding can definitely be seen as an act of war by the League's citizens. As seen in ART, a very large segment of the League can't comprehend that anyone is actually willing to go to war with it. By launching Lacoon 1 first, Manticore gives the League time to realize the fire they are playing with, without committing to open hostilities which could lead to loss of life and give fresh incidents to continue driving the conflict.

Quite true enough, friend Duckk, but I think (if I am not putting words in his/her mouth), that FLHerne is wondering why, given the 'provocations' of Lacoon I (such as Manty ships controlling access to wormholes within the SL purview (see Nolan-space), why the SL didn't 'beef up' the patrols there once the Manties had departed, just in case they tried something like that again. It would be the military equivalent of putting the cart before the horse, but that seems to be something the ISLN is quite good at--and it would look like they are Doing Something.

I don't count the 'blockade' at Zunker in this, as that was prohibiting SL ships from entering Manty-Alliance space (at Idaho)--different matter altogether.

Now it may be the timing between Lacoon I and II was too short for the information to get back to the ISLN and for them to move warships to the wormholes--or perhaps the SEM didn't deploy warships to all the wormholes in Sollie space to assist their frieghters in getting home--but I think the point is a good one--once the manties withdrew from Zunker space, wouldn't it make sense for Pyun to leave a division of BC's near it, just to make sure any other intrusions would be...unpleasant?

Oh, and welcome FLHeare to the Forum. Interesting take.

The point I'm trying to make is that the RMN didn't want to give the impression of initiating combat operations - that they were leaving the Solarians an out without further inflaming the public. If they launched Lacoon 2 in conjunction with Lacoon 1, it's quite likely everything spirals out of control.

From a strictly military perspective, giving the SLN an opportunity to defend the wormholes isn't a great idea. But as Clauswitz said, war is a mere continuation of politics by other means. And the politics required 1) demonstrating Manticore's willingness to stand up for itself, while 2) leaving the door open for a peaceful resolution. That means the military strategy has to be subordinate to the diplomatic goals, military risks be damned.

Duckk wrote:Lacoon 1 is largely non-offensive. It gets all the non-combatants home, while still putting the economic screws on the League. Manticore has been saying they don't want a war with the League, so jumping straight to Lacoon 2's commerce raiding can definitely be seen as an act of war by the League's citizens. As seen in ART, a very large segment of the League can't comprehend that anyone is actually willing to go to war with it. By launching Lacoon 1 first, Manticore gives the League time to realize the fire they are playing with, without committing to open hostilities which could lead to loss of life and give fresh incidents to continue driving the conflict.

Absolutely agree here. Lacoon 1 is simply an economic sanction that deprives the SL of the merchant fleet that hauls most of it's commerce and access to the Manticore controlled portion of the wormhole network that allows the remaining SL merchant fleet to operate efficiently. It is comparable to say Egypt and Panama recalling their merchant fleets (a bit of a stretch here) while closing their canals to US registered ships. It would anger the US and probably provoke a military response (at least from former President Bush or a hypothetical President Palin) but it would not be an overt act of war.

Lacoon 1 was a policy/strategy that was formulated as a contingency long before war with the SLN became plausible much less eminent. Keep in mind that up until At All Costs, top RMN Admirals including the two Admirals Harrington/Alexander assumed that Manticore would have zero chance in a war against the SL. Lacoon 1 was a carefully calibrated economic sanction that would hopefully allow Manticore to persuade the SL into being reasonable without waging a suicidal war.

Lacoon 2 was a policy/strategy that was formulated as a contingency for very limited military operations that would enhance the economic pressure of Lacoon 1 while hopefully avoiding all out war with the SL. It has been my impression that all of the wormhole termini that the RMN has seized have the territory of ostensibly independent star nations, not the SL. (I assume that Duckk will correct me if I am wrong.)

The conditions that exist at the time of ART, SoF and CoG were totally unanticipated. Prior the BoM, the battles of New Tuscany, the Battle of Spindle, the Second Battle of Manticore, and the Battle of Saltash, no RMN Admiral would have suggested that the RMN would have such a profound military technology advantage that comprehensive offensive military operations against the SL would be feasible. (All number crunching aside, I accept Weber's premiss that RMN and GSN missile supplies remain limited enough to restrain military operations. (As Queen Elizebeth suggested in her wonderful speech, their SD(P)'s magazines are full and they probably have a few sets of reloads and Mk-16s are more plentiful. However; given plausible increases in SLN competence, missile expenditures per SLN ship mission killed should also increase)

When Lacoon 1 & 2 were formulated, the RMN would not have expected the belligerance and belicosity of the SLN much less the context of the OB attacks. The possibility that the RMN might have to seize wormhole termini to expedite the safe return of Manticoran ships was unanticipated. Although Lacoon 1 & 2 are occurring simultaneously, most Manticoran merchant ships seem to have been able to return home without intervention by the RMN.

No one seems to have mentioned this critical point:

Lacoon I and Lacoon II were split into separate pieces so that Manticore could execute Lacoon I without also executing Lacoon II.

Lacoon I and II were designed long before the recent friction with the Solarian League. The original plan might be decades old, the kind of hypothetical contingency plan that every military creates to cover every situation they can conceive. It has probably been updated regularly, as the political, economic, and military situation has changed over the years.

In less stressful situations, executing Lacoon I would be quite sufficient to achieve Manticore's political agenda, whatever that might be in that situation. Having Lacoon split into at least two pieces, Manticore has more flexibility to use exactly the right amount of pressure appropriate to a future situation whose parameters cannot be predicted. It is probably true that Lacoon II would never be executed without first doing Lacoon I, but the reverse is not true.

SWM wrote:No one seems to have mentioned this critical point:

Lacoon I and Lacoon II were split into separate pieces so that Manticore could execute Lacoon I without also executing Lacoon II.

Lacoon I and II were designed long before the recent friction with the Solarian League. The original plan might be decades old, the kind of hypothetical contingency plan that every military creates to cover every situation they can conceive. It has probably been updated regularly, as the political, economic, and military situation has changed over the years.

In less stressful situations, executing Lacoon I would be quite sufficient to achieve Manticore's political agenda, whatever that might be in that situation. Having Lacoon split into at least two pieces, Manticore has more flexibility to use exactly the right amount of pressure appropriate to a future situation whose parameters cannot be predicted. It is probably true that Lacoon II would never be executed without first doing Lacoon I, but the reverse is not true.

I get it now, thanks to this answer.

Re. the "This is how L2 differs from L1" answers, I could see how that was the case but not, given the situation, how the extra couple weeks* to decide whether to proceed with L2 would be useful.

I was starting from the wrong point though. If Case Lacoon is a generic anti-League plan rather than one devised with knowledge of the exact situation, of course it makes sense to split it - not so that the decision to execute L2 can be made (significantly) after that for L1, but so that L1 could be executed separately in a different hypothetical situation.

Thanks!

*Not much more, because of the aforementioned problems if the L1 forces are withdrawn or the SLN reinforces other termini.