Royal (Imperial) Manticore Army

Jaxon06 wrote:The "the common practice of warfare between civilized nations ". Always an interesting phrase when we're talking about mass collateral damage.

What "mass collateral damage"? I just explained that orbital bombardment can be as neat or messy as you want it to be. If I'm dropping a KEW on a missile battery or command center, I don't have to flatten the entire countryside along with it.

And who is going to "police" the Eridani Edict when Manticore goes to war with the Sollies?

Should be an interesting time to be in the RMA.

The Eridani Edict takes the "mutual" out of "mutually assured destruction". If someone is going around busting planets, then they damn well better get everyone on the opposing side all at once. Because if they don't, they're going to do hit back just as nastily. You don't need the Sollies around to keep the the Edict (or the general idea of it).

Just because the Sollies might not be around to enforce the Edict doesn't mean Edict violations are the norm. The Eridani Epsilon Massacre was an extremely atypical event. People aren't just saying "if it weren't for that pesky little Solarian League we could be popping planets like zits". That is absolutely not how anyone's thinking in the Honorverse works. People weren't regularly smashing planets before the Edict, and they're not magically going to find a taste for it after the League falls.

Zakharra wrote:It doesn't take much for a world to de-civilize, or the population could be stubborn enough they won't surrender easily. An occupation could be resisted and tie up several brigades if the population was willing to take the casualties. As long as the power holding the high ground (space) doesn't just decide to say 'screw this' and use nuclear And KEW bombardments to flatten everything. Remember the SEM/GA isn't likely to do that even if they do hold the high orbitals. They are much less inclined to bombard a world that doesn't surrender even if the defending fleet is destroyed. If the population remained solid, a world could easily be a meat grinder for the GA if they aren't willing to inflict massive casualties or lay waste to entire areas/deny/destroy power plants and factories to get the population to stop resisting.

And as the infodump I linked to showed, the attacker is fully justified in destroying every militarily relevant target from space should they face such intransigence. It's really hard to resist when your weapons are vaporized.

Plus, it's going to be really hard for the defenders to muster up the morale and the will to continue resisting after the hundredth KEW flattens a base, armory, or whatever. By that point the attackers have made it clear to even the most die-hard defender that defeat is inevitable. This all loops back to practicable breach that David mentions in the infodump.

Could there be such situations where the entire planet is insane enough to refuse to bow to reality? Possibly. But they are going to be very few and far between, and there certainly wasn't any in the Havenite Wars. In which case yes, you would probably send in the Army, but, again, such situations are going to be incredibly rare.

An example would be Beowulf or the Manticore system worlds, do you think they would meekly surrender and not resist SL occupation if the SL managed to occupy orbital space?

If there were no hope for immediate relief, then of course they would surrender. They're not stupid. Again, if the attackers hold the orbitals, then the outcome is pretty much inevitable. So why get your people killed for no gain? Whether it's pitched warfare in the streets or dropping a KEW on your head, the end result is the same. Choosing to resist is just going to inflate the body count, and blow whatever little goodwill at the negotiating table you might have had if you had peacefully surrendered.

I admit that the Mandarins and the higher officers in the SLN are far more likely to use bombardment to pacify the worlds, the chances of the GA/Manticore doing so is much lower. They seem more likely to be content to hold the system and leave the planet to its own devices for a few decades until the population changes its mind.

To quote Terekhov, "Why is it that people like you always think you're more ruthless than people like me?" That should really sum up what is wrong with your comment. If the objective is to take the planet, then you take the planet. And if there's a way to for the attacker avoid casualties - potentially massive ones - and thereby preserving it as a fighting force for future use, then it is irresponsible not to take that option. If the defender is so stubborn as to choose to resist when there is no way out, then any casualties suffered by them are on the defenders' heads, not the attackers.

You have an amazing reliance on the threat of KEW, and the lack of resistance of people that can avoid putting military targets out where they are easily rendered into dust.

Having seen how the OFS works, and how Mesa apparently does't subscribe to the Edict, I think that the SLN would have no problem using its old/tired muscles to make a point.

I don't know that Manticore would do the same, but then if you want to actually "take" the ground.... the Navy is not going to keep ships in orbit when they're needed on the front lines.

Jaxon06 wrote:You have an amazing reliance on the threat of KEW, and the lack of resistance of people that can avoid putting military targets out where they are easily rendered into dust.

Having seen how the OFS works, and how Mesa apparently does't subscribe to the Edict, I think that the SLN would have no problem using its old/tired muscles to make a point.

I don't know that Manticore would do the same, but then if you want to actually "take" the ground.... the Navy is not going to keep ships in orbit when they're needed on the front lines.

I'm not sure what your point is here. It is David Weber who has said that systems in the Honorverse honor the threat of KEWs and will generally surrender when the orbitals are taken over. And we have already seen Manticore use KEWs to strike people who did not surrender.

Jaxon06 wrote:You have an amazing reliance on the threat of KEW, and the lack of resistance of people that can avoid putting military targets out where they are easily rendered into dust.

And as shown in the infodump, if you don't want civilian casualties, you don't put those targets in the middle of civilians.

Having seen how the OFS works, and how Mesa apparently does't subscribe to the Edict, I think that the SLN would have no problem using its old/tired muscles to make a point.

Go reread the Oyster Bay attack in MoH again. The Alignment doesn't care about the morality of the Edict. The Alignment very much does care about the practical results of violating it.

I don't know that Manticore would do the same, but then if you want to actually "take" the ground.... the Navy is not going to keep ships in orbit when they're needed on the front lines.

That's a fundamental misunderstanding of my position. As I said at the very beginning of this topic, the Army's role (in general, at least, and definitely specifically for Manticore) in wartime is to provide the heavy ground combat element and to provide a garrisoning force. My point has been that you will very rarely need to make a contested landing in order to get boots on the ground.

Secondly, it is not a requirement to have Navy ships in orbit to provide fire support. Orbital command centers (much like the one that orbited Verdant Vista) can easily provide the command and control and surveillance to use kinetic weapons. We've seen in SoF the KEW system called Damocles which are independent of any ship.

I completely understand the role of the RMA. I disagree with some assumptions that TPTB would not place military targets within civilian locales. Its happened before in real life. Also that placing an orbital command center is easy.

Duckk wrote:... if you don't want civilian casualties, you don't put those targets in the middle of civilians.

…that is unless you want to use those aforementioned civilian casualties as weapons of propaganda.
Example: Hamas, Gaza, Israel

Arol wrote:

Duckk wrote:... if you don't want civilian casualties, you don't put those targets in the middle of civilians.

…that is unless you want to use those aforementioned civilian casualties as weapons of propaganda.
Example: Hamas, Gaza, Israel

Except that, in the Honorverse, everyone agrees that putting those weapons in the middle of civilian populations and refusing to surrender puts the blame on you, not on the people who bombard those positions after you refuse to surrender. The propaganda would generate negative reactions to the person who invited civilian casualties like that. The Honorverse is not the 21st century, and cannot be understood with 21st century attitudes.

So now that the SKM is the SEM, when will Parliament authorize the formation of Legions?

Jaxon06 wrote:I completely understand the role of the RMA. I disagree with some assumptions that TPTB would not place military targets within civilian locales. Its happened before in real life. Also that placing an orbital command center is easy.

No one has said that it would never happen. We have in fact seen it happen recently in the books. And Terekhov responded by killing those people who did it with KEWs.