Operation Sanskrit - a minor doubt

I'm sure my esteemed fellow readers and ponderers can help me with this one.

So Honor was pounded in Cutworm III, thanks to the trap the Peeps prepared. But we know that, essentially, the Peeps just had to try and guess which system she was going to hit, and hope for the best (which worked for them, of course).

Now, with Operation Sanskrit, Honor seems to be reasonably confident that the Peeps will attempt to trap her again, and a lot of the plan seems to rely on this assumption (I may be wrong in this, of course)
So the problem is reversed: if the Peeps had to "guess" what system she was going to hit, how could she reasonably expect the trap for her to be ready in Lovat, especially when there are good reasons for the Peeps not to expect an attack on Lovat (as stated more than once) in the first place?
Was it just her turn to get lucky?

Thanks for any comments

Dr. Arroway wrote:I'm sure my esteemed fellow readers and ponderers can help me with this one.

So Honor was pounded in Cutworm III, thanks to the trap the Peeps prepared. But we know that, essentially, the Peeps just had to try and guess which system she was going to hit, and hope for the best (which worked for them, of course).

Now, with Operation Sanskrit, Honor seems to be reasonably confident that the Peeps will attempt to trap her again, and a lot of the plan seems to rely on this assumption (I may be wrong in this, of course)
So the problem is reversed: if the Peeps had to "guess" what system she was going to hit, how could she reasonably expect the trap for her to be ready in Lovat, especially when there are good reasons for the Peeps not to expect an attack on Lovat (as stated more than once) in the first place?
Was it just her turn to get lucky?

Thanks for any comments

The RMN/Honor did not just get lucky.

Honor's mission at Lovat was to destroy the Havenite infrastructure, which would have been executed without the destruction of Giscard's attack forces had they not tried to mousetrap her ships similar to Solon.

However, prior to the raid, they had executed a number of scouting missions designed to identify the Moriarty platforms (aka locations where the RHN trap was set) for easy destruction. This triggered enough of a response for Eighth Fleet to know that Lovat would likely provoke the response it did, and for her reverse trap to spring as well.

It should be noted that without the Apollo control missile, it would have been a fairly even battle, instead of resulting in the destruction of all of the attacking RHN forces.

SharkHunter wrote:

Dr. Arroway wrote:I'm sure my esteemed fellow readers and ponderers can help me with this one.

So Honor was pounded in Cutworm III, thanks to the trap the Peeps prepared. But we know that, essentially, the Peeps just had to try and guess which system she was going to hit, and hope for the best (which worked for them, of course).

Now, with Operation Sanskrit, Honor seems to be reasonably confident that the Peeps will attempt to trap her again, and a lot of the plan seems to rely on this assumption (I may be wrong in this, of course)
So the problem is reversed: if the Peeps had to "guess" what system she was going to hit, how could she reasonably expect the trap for her to be ready in Lovat, especially when there are good reasons for the Peeps not to expect an attack on Lovat (as stated more than once) in the first place?
Was it just her turn to get lucky?

Thanks for any comments

The RMN/Honor did not just get lucky.

Honor's mission at Lovat was to destroy the Havenite infrastructure, which would have been executed without the destruction of Giscard's attack forces had they not tried to mousetrap her ships similar to Solon.

However, prior to the raid, they had executed a number of scouting missions designed to identify the Moriarty platforms (aka locations where the RHN trap was set) for easy destruction. This triggered enough of a response for Eighth Fleet to know that Lovat would likely provoke the response it did, and for her reverse trap to spring as well.

It should be noted that without the Apollo control missile, it would have been a fairly even battle, instead of resulting in the destruction of all of the attacking RHN forces.

Rather I'd say there was some element of luck that their first major strike drew an attempted RHN trap (allowing Honor to turn the trap).

But like you said, Lovat was a worthwhile target even if the RHN nodal force wasn't waiting to spring a trap.


What would be interesting is how much of the mistletoe capabilities Honor would have been willing to show off had the RHN not come out to play. Would she have kept the ability to locate and neutralize Moriarty (and the majority of it's pods) secret, or would she have needed to expose that to avoid significant losses against even the unsupported Moriarty system defense?

--snipping--

Jonathan_S wrote:Rather I'd say there was some element of luck that their first major strike drew an attempted RHN trap (allowing Honor to turn the trap).

But like you said, Lovat was a worthwhile target even if the RHN nodal force wasn't waiting to spring a trap.

What would be interesting is how much of the mistletoe capabilities Honor would have been willing to show off had the RHN not come out to play. Would she have kept the ability to locate and neutralize Moriarty (and the majority of it's pods) secret, or would she have needed to expose that to avoid significant losses against even the unsupported Moriarty system defense?

I think you are right; they wouldn't have uncovered any of their "new" capabilities. Instead of the drones, they would have used long range missile strikes to take out the system defense pods; though Moriarty might have been used even without the four formations which hyper'd in. In that case, obviously the RMN would have mistletoed the control platform as well.

Jonathan_S wrote:What would be interesting is how much of the mistletoe capabilities Honor would have been willing to show off had the RHN not come out to play. Would she have kept the ability to locate and neutralize Moriarty (and the majority of it's pods) secret, or would she have needed to expose that to avoid significant losses against even the unsupported Moriarty system defense?

Probably would have used Mistletoe. Even once the RHN knows about it, they're not going to have an easy time countering it. And by taking Moriarty out that way, Eighth Fleet wouldn't need to use its other new party trick.

Apollo's the one that would've remained in the bag if there wasn't a trapping RHN force, though it's interesting to contemplate how they would've done that if every single pod with Eighth Fleet had an Apollo control missile in it.

SharkHunter wrote:--snipping--

Jonathan_S wrote:Rather I'd say there was some element of luck that their first major strike drew an attempted RHN trap (allowing Honor to turn the trap).

But like you said, Lovat was a worthwhile target even if the RHN nodal force wasn't waiting to spring a trap.

What would be interesting is how much of the mistletoe capabilities Honor would have been willing to show off had the RHN not come out to play. Would she have kept the ability to locate and neutralize Moriarty (and the majority of it's pods) secret, or would she have needed to expose that to avoid significant losses against even the unsupported Moriarty system defense?

I think you are right; they wouldn't have uncovered any of their "new" capabilities. Instead of the drones, they would have used long range missile strikes to take out the system defense pods; though Moriarty might have been used even without the four formations which hyper'd in. In that case, obviously the RMN would have mistletoed the control platform as well.

On the other hand - Part of the political aim of the military efforts at that point was to demonstrate that Manticoran technology was once again so far ahead that Haven's defense was hopeless, and that Manticore would be open to a mutually acceptable peace agreement, signaled by fighting with an extraordinary effort to spare lives. Showing off a capability - in this case, to assassinate the core of system defense pod operations - would help that political aim. "Look, you're outclassed. Just give up already. We're not out for blood, but we'll keep wrecking your stuff til you give in."

I'm not claiming it's a decisive factor, just that there's some weight in this case against preserving the secret of a given capability, even if you don't really need to use it to handle the objective at acceptable cost.

munroburton wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:What would be interesting is how much of the mistletoe capabilities Honor would have been willing to show off had the RHN not come out to play. Would she have kept the ability to locate and neutralize Moriarty (and the majority of it's pods) secret, or would she have needed to expose that to avoid significant losses against even the unsupported Moriarty system defense?

Probably would have used Mistletoe. Even once the RHN knows about it, they're not going to have an easy time countering it. And by taking Moriarty out that way, Eighth Fleet wouldn't need to use its other new party trick.

Apollo's the one that would've remained in the bag if there wasn't a trapping RHN force, though it's interesting to contemplate how they would've done that if every single pod with Eighth Fleet had an Apollo control missile in it.

You probably couldn't have hidden the fact that something new was going on; but you could have avoided the "clumping" behavior by simply not launching the Apollo Control Missiles from the pod. Treat each launch as an 8 missile pod.

That would leave Haven wondering why Manticore suddenly had 2 less missiles per pod, but it wouldn't shout "FTL control" to them.


Alternatively you could launch Apollo but use it under light-speed control (as was later done at Spindle), which would be appear a little more capable than the pre-Apollo missiles (especially if you didn't exploit the 8x control multiplier it gave you). Enough to justify the change, but not enough to be truly panic inducing.

Jonathan_S wrote:You probably couldn't have hidden the fact that something new was going on; but you could have avoided the "clumping" behavior by simply not launching the Apollo Control Missiles from the pod. Treat each launch as an 8 missile pod.

That would leave Haven wondering why Manticore suddenly had 2 less missiles per pod, but it wouldn't shout "FTL control" to them.


Alternatively you could launch Apollo but use it under light-speed control (as was later done at Spindle), which would be appear a little more capable than the pre-Apollo missiles (especially if you didn't exploit the 8x control multiplier it gave you). Enough to justify the change, but not enough to be truly panic inducing.

Apollo had the sub light links left in. Just use them. As RHN already had used the one control missile to control more missiles, doing so with sub light comms doesn't given anything away.

Jonathan_S wrote:

munroburton wrote:What would be interesting is how much of the mistletoe capabilities Honor would have been willing to show off had the RHN not come out to play. Would she have kept the ability to locate and neutralize Moriarty (and the majority of it's pods) secret, or would she have needed to expose that to avoid significant losses against even the unsupported Moriarty system defense?

Probably would have used Mistletoe. Even once the RHN knows about it, they're not going to have an easy time countering it. And by taking Moriarty out that way, Eighth Fleet wouldn't need to use its other new party trick.

Apollo's the one that would've remained in the bag if there wasn't a trapping RHN force, though it's interesting to contemplate how they would've done that if every single pod with Eighth Fleet had an Apollo control missile in it.

You probably couldn't have hidden the fact that something new was going on; but you could have avoided the "clumping" behavior by simply not launching the Apollo Control Missiles from the pod. Treat each launch as an 8 missile pod.

That would leave Haven wondering why Manticore suddenly had 2 less missiles per pod, but it wouldn't shout "FTL control" to them.

Alternatively you could launch Apollo but use it under light-speed control (as was later done at Spindle), which would be appear a little more capable than the pre-Apollo missiles (especially if you didn't exploit the 8x control multiplier it gave you). Enough to justify the change, but not enough to be truly panic inducing.[/quote]
I've been thinking about this a bit more, [given the hindsight that we are all so wonderfully endowed with "after the fact" as readers...]

I wonder why they DID use Mistletoe at all, instead of keeping the capability to do so in reserve. After all, the platforms couldn't evade or stop so much as a single missile pod apiece from taking them out, using the guidance from the GR drone on station. Maybe the logic was "we can blow all your new toys to kingdom come, and you won't even be able to track where the booms are coming from until it is too late".

fallsfromtrees wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:You probably couldn't have hidden the fact that something new was going on; but you could have avoided the "clumping" behavior by simply not launching the Apollo Control Missiles from the pod. Treat each launch as an 8 missile pod.

That would leave Haven wondering why Manticore suddenly had 2 less missiles per pod, but it wouldn't shout "FTL control" to them.


Alternatively you could launch Apollo but use it under light-speed control (as was later done at Spindle), which would be appear a little more capable than the pre-Apollo missiles (especially if you didn't exploit the 8x control multiplier it gave you). Enough to justify the change, but not enough to be truly panic inducing.

Apollo had the sub light links left in. Just use them. As RHN already had used the one control missile to control more missiles, doing so with sub light comms doesn't given anything away.

When did the RHN do that? I know they used rotating control links - but that's totally different than using 1 missile as a control hub for multiple other missiles.