Young and Basilisk station

n7axw wrote:My point is that I don't think Manticore would have allowed the Peeps to keep it without a fight even if they would have had to go through hyper to get there. When RMN task force showd up, the Peeps would either have had to back off or the war would have started right there.

Sure. They could do that. I'd assume they are not crazy enough to try an opposed transit, as that would write off at least 1/2 of home fleet.

If they have to go the long way that opens up the home system, as the Peep fleet in much larger then the RMN fleet. If home fleet has pulled out to go fight in Medusa they won't be there if there is a phase 2 that involves a massive peep fleet dropping by to chat with the Queen.

As it's obvious to the casual observer that the there didn't "just happen" to be a Peep fleet in the vicinity, so the possibility that this entire operation is a huge mousetrap is hardly absurd. It would be somewhat higher risk than the peeps have carried out before, but it also has a massively higher payoff. And if you are down to fixed defenses against most of the peep fleet it will almost certainly not end well for Manticore. It might take a while, but a massive mobile force seems to have a lot of advantages in the Honorverse over fixed defenses based on FiE.

Putting home fleet in Medusa with the RMN holding both ends of the junction is a vastly lower risk operation for the RMN, as you can move home fleet back in under 12 hours, which is almost certainly not enough time to reduce the fixed defenses in a systematic low-risk fashion. Getting caught between the fixed defenses and home fleet wold not end well for the peeps, so it makes any mousetrap plans a vastly higher risk operation.

I'm going to suggest a syntactical nitpick:

It says the entire home fleet conducted exercises in Basilisk. It does not say that the entire home fleet conducted those exercises there at the same time.

So it is possible that the home fleet was rotated through Basilisk during those two months.

BobfromSydney wrote:I'm going to suggest a syntactical nitpick:

It says the entire home fleet conducted exercises in Basilisk. It does not say that the entire home fleet conducted those exercises there at the same time.

So it is possible that the home fleet was rotated through Basilisk during those two months.

Probably, the entire Home Fleet conducted exercises until the Peeps arrived, were "entertained", and then departed. And then probably a significant detachment was stationed in Basilisk while the Act of Annexation was amended.

Also, the way I read the passage is that while Fearless was under repair, Home Fleet's exercises were only one of many events that happened during those two months. Not that the exercises necessarily lasted the full two months.

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:My point is that I don't think Manticore would have allowed the Peeps to keep it without a fight even if they would have had to go through hyper to get there. When RMN task force showd up, the Peeps would either have had to back off or the war would have started right there.

Sure. They could do that. I'd assume they are not crazy enough to try an opposed transit, as that would write off at least 1/2 of home fleet.

If they have to go the long way that opens up the home system, as the Peep fleet in much larger then the RMN fleet. If home fleet has pulled out to go fight in Medusa they won't be there if there is a phase 2 that involves a massive peep fleet dropping by to chat with the Queen.

As it's obvious to the casual observer that the there didn't "just happen" to be a Peep fleet in the vicinity, so the possibility that this entire operation is a huge mousetrap is hardly absurd. It would be somewhat higher risk than the peeps have carried out before, but it also has a massively higher payoff. And if you are down to fixed defenses against most of the peep fleet it will almost certainly not end well for Manticore. It might take a while, but a massive mobile force seems to have a lot of advantages in the Honorverse over fixed defenses based on FiE.

Putting home fleet in Medusa with the RMN holding both ends of the junction is a vastly lower risk operation for the RMN, as you can move home fleet back in under 12 hours, which is almost certainly not enough time to reduce the fixed defenses in a systematic low-risk fashion. Getting caught between the fixed defenses and home fleet wold not end well for the peeps, so it makes any mousetrap plans a vastly higher risk operation.

If they had to send someone through hyper, I don't think they would have used home fleet for it. The RMN is more than large enough by this time to have assembled a task force sufficient to confront three squadrons of Peep SDs apart from home fleet.

Don

n7axw wrote:If they had to send someone through hyper, I don't think they would have used home fleet for it. The RMN is more than large enough by this time to have assembled a task force sufficient to confront three squadrons of Peep SDs apart from home fleet.

You won't know what exactly is there until you show up. You'll likely get something as people flee through the HW, but that won't last long as that is the first target. Then all you know is that the peeps made a military move with multiple squadrons of SDs. How many will be there when you arrive in a month? Will it be more or less? How much firepower did the freighters that just might have happened to be with the fleet that just happened to have been at Medusa have with them? 8 million tons is a lot of missile pods.

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:If they had to send someone through hyper, I don't think they would have used home fleet for it. The RMN is more than large enough by this time to have assembled a task force sufficient to confront three squadrons of Peep SDs apart from home fleet.

You won't know what exactly is there until you show up. You'll likely get something as people flee through the HW, but that won't last long as that is the first target. Then all you know is that the peeps made a military move with multiple squadrons of SDs. How many will be there when you arrive in a month? Will it be more or less? How much firepower did the freighters that just might have happened to be with the fleet that just happened to have been at Medusa have with them? 8 million tons is a lot of missile pods.

Well since there's no indication that even Manticore had missile pods out of R&D as far back as OBS (years before the war actually started) I'm not sure how much of a worry that specific point would have been.

Although just because we know with the benefit of hindsight that the Peeps didn't develop missile pods until after facing them in combat, doesn't mean that ONI can necessarily be sure they aren't ahead in pod development. So I guess the concern can't be totally discounted (even though we know it would be wasted)

Jonathan_S wrote:Although just because we know with the benefit of hindsight that the Peeps didn't develop missile pods until after facing them in combat, doesn't mean that ONI can necessarily be sure they aren't ahead in pod development. So I guess the concern can't be totally discounted (even though we know it would be wasted)

You forget the Peep system defense missiles in tHotQ.

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:If they had to send someone through hyper, I don't think they would have used home fleet for it. The RMN is more than large enough by this time to have assembled a task force sufficient to confront three squadrons of Peep SDs apart from home fleet.

You won't know what exactly is there until you show up. You'll likely get something as people flee through the HW, but that won't last long as that is the first target. Then all you know is that the peeps made a military move with multiple squadrons of SDs. How many will be there when you arrive in a month? Will it be more or less? How much firepower did the freighters that just might have happened to be with the fleet that just happened to have been at Medusa have with them? 8 million tons is a lot of missile pods.

My presumption is that someone got away when the Peeps showed up with "Case Zulu" reporting the presence and number of the Peeps. In fact traffic control could do it. IIRC, that was who reprted Giscard's presence when he broke over the hyper limit for his raid during Icurus.

Don

n7axw wrote:My presumption is that someone got away when the Peeps showed up with "Case Zulu" reporting the presence and number of the Peeps. In fact traffic control could do it. IIRC, that was who reprted Giscard's presence when he broke over the hyper limit for his raid during Icurus.

Don

My understanding is that the hyperdrive and nodes for traffic control is still on order. They may have had a DB on hand, but I don't remember one. But it's been a while.

kzt wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Although just because we know with the benefit of hindsight that the Peeps didn't develop missile pods until after facing them in combat, doesn't mean that ONI can necessarily be sure they aren't ahead in pod development. So I guess the concern can't be totally discounted (even though we know it would be wasted)

You forget the Peep system defense missiles in tHotQ.

You mean the ones that Blackbird base was firing? "Haven’s ground-based missiles"?

Honor of the Queen wrote:He’d been horrified when she first told him about the endurance their larger, more robust drives gave Haven’s ground-based missiles, but she’d seemed confident.
Now it was time to see if that confidence had been justified. If those missiles had the endurance she estimated, they would accelerate to an incredible 117,000 KPS and reach eight-million-plus kilometers before burnout.

I assume there were big (bigger than capital ship) and powerful missile tubes down there throwing those; certainly they had launchers which Rafe wanted to engage. But the fact that you could mount 30 heavy missile tubes to a moon base where mass and volume are basically irrelevant doesn't seem to say much about your ability to have effective towed pods.