Question about Beowulf tactics

Brigade XO wrote:Using captured but unmanned SLN SDs would be intended to distract and cause the SLN attacking force to both expand a lot of ammunition and wonder what the hell was going on.

If they (the SD drones) start spewing missles as soon as they enter powered flight range of the SLN attack force, it nessiarily forces the SLN to defend themselves. Whatever gets through the SLN defense starts to at least degrade it's ability to fight. If you target the 1st launch of 2 drones at a single SLN SD and then switch targets and keep repeating till it can't fire any more, you are PROBABLY going to saturate the defences of each SD in term for at least the initial double volley, That should make for a rather sick SD with lots of problems up to and possibley past mission-kill.

You might be able to put an FTL unit on each SD (with proper self destruct gear) and use that to control the that (for each) to pass both tactical info and direction to the SD.s command channels.

So they don't have bucklers, neither do the SLN SDs. Besides, once you push the acceleration to the max that you believe the ships can stand (since they have no flimsey humans to worry about), the SLN ships are going to have dam little time to target the major weak spots. As far as your SD drone missile volleys, they are going to be on their own shortly with only the missles on-board targeting but there will be a lot of them flying around.

Possibly the biggest problem will be either the SLN on purpose or the Alignment in stealth putting a ballistic till the last moment missile (of SLN design) into Beowulf itself and causing a catastrophy. Ultimatly that satisfies the Alignment (they can always tell the Beowulf survivors later it was them) as far as taking Beowulf out of the equation.

So, finally a use for the captured Sollie SDs. Lets copy this to the lightbuld thread and put that puppy to rest.

Zakharra wrote:
Manticore will likely not get openly involved until after the vote. The SEM has been very careful to play it as close as they can to not appearing to want to unduly influence the voting. Having SEM warships in orbit around Beowulf before the vote would wreck or at the least severely damage the SEM's reputation for playing fair with other nations/systems because it would be very easily argued that their mere presence in orbit would have added some pressure to vote 'Yes' on sece3ssion. A vote taken under the threat of violence to ensure the proper outcome.

It's clear that most Beowulfians would have wanted to secede, but there would be enough muddying of the waters to throw the vote into question of how much -really- wanted to secede or where forced to vote 'Yes'.

They don't have to have the warships in orbit around Beowulf. They only have to be in system, preferably in stealth, but close enough to present themselves in a hurry if needed.

Don

Brigade XO wrote:Using captured but unmanned SLN SDs would be intended to distract and cause the SLN attacking force to both expand a lot of ammunition and wonder what the hell was going on.

If they (the SD drones) start spewing missles as soon as they enter powered flight range of the SLN attack force, it nessiarily forces the SLN to defend themselves. Whatever gets through the SLN defense starts to at least degrade it's ability to fight. If you target the 1st launch of 2 drones at a single SLN SD and then switch targets and keep repeating till it can't fire any more, you are PROBABLY going to saturate the defences of each SD in term for at least the initial double volley, That should make for a rather sick SD with lots of problems up to and possibley past mission-kill.

You might be able to put an FTL unit on each SD (with proper self destruct gear) and use that to control the that (for each) to pass both tactical info and direction to the SD.s command channels.

So they don't have bucklers, neither do the SLN SDs. Besides, once you push the acceleration to the max that you believe the ships can stand (since they have no flimsey humans to worry about), the SLN ships are going to have dam little time to target the major weak spots. As far as your SD drone missile volleys, they are going to be on their own shortly with only the missles on-board targeting but there will be a lot of them flying around.

Possibly the biggest problem will be either the SLN on purpose or the Alignment in stealth putting a ballistic till the last moment missile (of SLN design) into Beowulf itself and causing a catastrophy. Ultimatly that satisfies the Alignment (they can always tell the Beowulf survivors later it was them) as far as taking Beowulf out of the equation.

Uumm... as far as I know, you can't make a SLN SD into a drone. They need a crew on-board to operate the systems. SLN SDs had enormous crews, even compared to the pre-Haven wars RMN SDs. There's no way the RMN would be able to retrofit the SLN SDs to be autonomous drones. not to mention use of them would indicate exactly who was using them since there is only one place they could have come from in the first place. Manticore.

Only if the Manty SDs are still in orbit when the vote is taken. If they blow away the SD invasion force, and then retreat to the terminus again, much of the argument is removed.

It would still give the impression of using a show of force to impress upon the population of Beowulf that it had better vote 'Yes' on succession or else. From what I have read, the SEM is playing it as neutral as it can in regards to the vote because they do -not- want to be seen as pressuring the population to vote the way they (Manticore) wants them to. It's good politics to be as hands off as possible.

I have been reading several of these posts and after thinking on it I believe the solution to the problem is fairly simple. Its just a matter of exchanging time for material.

Beowulf is already in production of missiles for their own defense but they don't have enough time to make enough of them to complete their defense needs before a possible attack.

So I see the solution to be that Manticore has the materials available now that they can strip from their own planetary defense and give to Beowulf immediately thus securing that planet. Beowulf missile production would then be going to replenish the defense of Manticore.

Manticore, unlike Beowulf, has time it can "spend" as it would take months for the SLN to ever launch another attack on Manticore. And during that time Beowulf would be able to replenish what Manticore had supplied them for their defense.

Another nice "convienience" of Manticore handing over system defense missile pods to Beowulf would be that Manticore would be seen as supporting Beowulf's ability to determine it's own future as the pods would be controlled by Beowulf not Manticore. It supports a political position of being supportive, not threatening or pressuring.

That would take care of the immediate defensive needs of Beowulf but to truly defend itself it must go on the offence. The best way I can see of doing this with out making an enemy of it's neighbors is to attack a resource not a planet. The resource I have in mind would be the SLN's mothballed fleet. That mothballed fleet represents a perceived strength of the SLN and its destruction would make the whole SL feel vulnerable and hopefully less aggressive.

As far as I understand it no SL planet or solar system maintains a "home fleet" as it has always been believed that the SLN was such a large force that nobody would ever want to attack any planet that belonged to the SL. Therefore, it should be possible to make an attack on one of the 2 systems that house the mothballed ships, preferably the largest one. The attack would take place in phases where the first phase would present a threat that would draw off what active ships are in the system into an attempt to defend. Once they are drawn off, or dealt with, LAC's with their energy weapons can be used to do the actual destruction of the mothballed ships. This would save on missiles which are going to be in short supply until Mantiore can resume it's own production of them.

And when that system with the mothballed ships is attacked, don't forget to destroy any ship building or repair facilities and also capture and take any cargo ships found there. Cargo ships are already in short supply in the SL and taking them would make it harder for the SL to accomplish any ship building program.

StealthSeeker wrote:I have been reading several of these posts and after thinking on it I believe the solution to the problem is fairly simple. Its just a matter of exchanging time for material.

Beowulf is already in production of missiles for their own defense but they don't have enough time to make enough of them to complete their defense needs before a possible attack.

So I see the solution to be that Manticore has the materials available now that they can strip from their own planetary defense and give to Beowulf immediately thus securing that planet. Beowulf missile production would then be going to replenish the defense of Manticore.

Manticore, unlike Beowulf, has time it can "spend" as it would take months for the SLN to ever launch another attack on Manticore. And during that time Beowulf would be able to replenish what Manticore had supplied them for their defense.

Another nice "convienience" of Manticore handing over system defense missile pods to Beowulf would be that Manticore would be seen as supporting Beowulf's ability to determine it's own future as the pods would be controlled by Beowulf not Manticore. It supports a political position of being supportive, not threatening or pressuring.

That might work. Beowulf's building already, with Mycroft, the latest generation of system defense missile pod and control packages, but Manticore's system defense missile pods may be useful interim help. On the other hand, Beowulf may have already been able to build some of that without it being under SLN notice the say refitting Beowulf's ships would be, so it's possible it'd be offering something they have already.

That would take care of the immediate defensive needs of Beowulf but to truly defend itself it must go on the offence. The best way I can see of doing this with out making an enemy of it's neighbors is to attack a resource not a planet. The resource I have in mind would be the SLN's mothballed fleet. That mothballed fleet represents a perceived strength of the SLN and its destruction would make the whole SL feel vulnerable and hopefully less aggressive.

Could be. There are a whole lot of posts on here about attacking the Reserve Fleet - check the "Grand Alliance's Grand Attack" thread for one epic discussion. Opinions are mixed. There's some argument to be made for leaving them to keep a "resource" that they cannot convert to anything worth a lick without R&D they haven't done, crews they haven't raised or moved, time they don't have, and money the League government is not raising what with the income sources of the League government dried up. (Short version: it's funded by dues from interstellar trade and hitting up the protectorates, and the loss of the wormhole network and use of Manticoran freighters has crippled the trade-based income and hurt the protectorates-based income, and they've got no secure remaining grasp on the protectorates.)

As far as I understand it no SL planet or solar system maintains a "home fleet" as it has always been believed that the SLN was such a large force that nobody would ever want to attack any planet that belonged to the SL. Therefore, it should be possible to make an attack on one of the 2 systems that house the mothballed ships, preferably the largest one. The attack would take place in phases where the first phase would present a threat that would draw off what active ships are in the system into an attempt to defend. Once they are drawn off, or dealt with, LAC's with their energy weapons can be used to do the actual destruction of the mothballed ships. This would save on missiles which are going to be in short supply until Mantiore can resume it's own production of them.

Many Solarian League systems retain system defense forces - Beowulf's 36 SD's, for instance, are its current known and primary line of defense against League aggression. An SDF is (or has been, anyway) a bit of a luxury for a League member, but still, plenty of them do have them and they don't suffer from the institutional arrogance of the SLN.

For that matter, the SLN is supported by a tiny, tiny portion of the League budget, and the League budget is a tiny, tiny portion of the total League GDP. Luxury or not, it wouldn't be hard for a League member system to maintain an SDF that represents a force all out of proportion to its "share" of the SLN. Suppose Beowulf represents 1/1000th of the wealth of the League. For the SLN to have a wall of battle in proportion to Beowulf's SDF, it'd need 36,000 SD's in commission. I don't have the figure for Battle Fleet's wall in 1922 P.D., but I do know it's vastly smaller than that - even if we were generously to include the Reserve Fleet, full of much older ships totally unavailable anytime soon.

And when that system with the mothballed ships is attacked, don't forget to destroy any ship building or repair facilities and also capture and take any cargo ships found there. Cargo ships are already in short supply in the SL and taking them would make it harder for the SL to accomplish any ship building program.

You may not get the chance to do so without ticking off (in the thousands of brave men and women died sense) system governments, which would undercut the entire strategy for dealing with the League. If you could avoid that - or make it clear to all concerned your hand was forced - it becomes a lot more attractive.

JeffEngel wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:I have been reading several of these posts and after thinking on it I believe the solution to the problem is fairly simple. Its just a matter of exchanging time for material.

Beowulf is already in production of missiles for their own defense but they don't have enough time to make enough of them to complete their defense needs before a possible attack.

So I see the solution to be that Manticore has the materials available now that they can strip from their own planetary defense and give to Beowulf immediately thus securing that planet. Beowulf missile production would then be going to replenish the defense of Manticore.

Manticore, unlike Beowulf, has time it can "spend" as it would take months for the SLN to ever launch another attack on Manticore. And during that time Beowulf would be able to replenish what Manticore had supplied them for their defense.

Another nice "convienience" of Manticore handing over system defense missile pods to Beowulf would be that Manticore would be seen as supporting Beowulf's ability to determine it's own future as the pods would be controlled by Beowulf not Manticore. It supports a political position of being supportive, not threatening or pressuring.

That might work. Beowulf's building already, with Mycroft, the latest generation of system defense missile pod and control packages, but Manticore's system defense missile pods may be useful interim help. On the other hand, Beowulf may have already been able to build some of that without it being under SLN notice the say refitting Beowulf's ships would be, so it's possible it'd be offering something they have already.

That would take care of the immediate defensive needs of Beowulf but to truly defend itself it must go on the offence. The best way I can see of doing this with out making an enemy of it's neighbors is to attack a resource not a planet. The resource I have in mind would be the SLN's mothballed fleet. That mothballed fleet represents a perceived strength of the SLN and its destruction would make the whole SL feel vulnerable and hopefully less aggressive.

Could be. There are a whole lot of posts on here about attacking the Reserve Fleet - check the "Grand Alliance's Grand Attack" thread for one epic discussion. Opinions are mixed. There's some argument to be made for leaving them to keep a "resource" that they cannot convert to anything worth a lick without R&D they haven't done, crews they haven't raised or moved, time they don't have, and money the League government is not raising what with the income sources of the League government dried up. (Short version: it's funded by dues from interstellar trade and hitting up the protectorates, and the loss of the wormhole network and use of Manticoran freighters has crippled the trade-based income and hurt the protectorates-based income, and they've got no secure remaining grasp on the protectorates.)

As far as I understand it no SL planet or solar system maintains a "home fleet" as it has always been believed that the SLN was such a large force that nobody would ever want to attack any planet that belonged to the SL. Therefore, it should be possible to make an attack on one of the 2 systems that house the mothballed ships, preferably the largest one. The attack would take place in phases where the first phase would present a threat that would draw off what active ships are in the system into an attempt to defend. Once they are drawn off, or dealt with, LAC's with their energy weapons can be used to do the actual destruction of the mothballed ships. This would save on missiles which are going to be in short supply until Mantiore can resume it's own production of them.

Many Solarian League systems retain system defense forces - Beowulf's 36 SD's, for instance, are its current known and primary line of defense against League aggression. An SDF is (or has been, anyway) a bit of a luxury for a League member, but still, plenty of them do have them and they don't suffer from the institutional arrogance of the SLN.

For that matter, the SLN is supported by a tiny, tiny portion of the League budget, and the League budget is a tiny, tiny portion of the total League GDP. Luxury or not, it wouldn't be hard for a League member system to maintain an SDF that represents a force all out of proportion to its "share" of the SLN. Suppose Beowulf represents 1/1000th of the wealth of the League. For the SLN to have a wall of battle in proportion to Beowulf's SDF, it'd need 36,000 SD's in commission. I don't have the figure for Battle Fleet's wall in 1922 P.D., but I do know it's vastly smaller than that - even if we were generously to include the Reserve Fleet, full of much older ships totally unavailable anytime soon.

And when that system with the mothballed ships is attacked, don't forget to destroy any ship building or repair facilities and also capture and take any cargo ships found there. Cargo ships are already in short supply in the SL and taking them would make it harder for the SL to accomplish any ship building program.

You may not get the chance to do so without ticking off (in the thousands of brave men and women died sense) system governments, which would undercut the entire strategy for dealing with the League. If you could avoid that - or make it clear to all concerned your hand was forced - it becomes a lot more attractive.

Actually we do have a feel for the size of Battle Fleet. Before the current unpleasantness, BF had about 2000 SDs active and about 8-9000 in the Reserve. As of this moment, there are about 1500 active SDs, and some of the reserve is starting to be activated (one of Rajampet's last actions before his "suicide"). The point to thsi duscussion is that the League as to strike before the vote - if they wait until after, then the Manticore SDs that they know about will be in orbit around Beowulf, and any hope of taking the planet over is gone. The only real question is can the League mount a credible attack in the two months before the plebiscite? IMHO, the answer is no - they are too cumbersome to act that quickly, and I consider the possibility that they will be able to do so without Beowulf learning of the attack with ample time to prep to be virtually zero.

Vince wrote:"Hutch"]"munroburton"] *snip*

What if the SLN split up into two task forces, one of which takes position in the alpha band as close to the terminus as they can calculate? Possibly using one of their "newsy" dispatch boats to 'mark the spot' for them.

The second task force feints an attack on Beowulf and brings the GA SD(P)s running into energy range of the first SLN task force waiting in hyper.

Hell of a long shot. But if it works...

But that would take, imagination, daring, and guts...something we haven't seen in a SLN BF Officer to date.[/quote]
We've seen at least one SLN Battle Fleet officer with imagination, daring and guts--Captain Daud al-Fanudahi. We just haven't seen any SLL Battle Fleet flag officers with imagination, daring and guts.[/quote]


-------------

Ah, but Daud if considered a radical best kept in a dead-end position at Operational Analysis where he can be told what operations to analyze.

No operational flag officers (outside of Maya Sector) that we have seen seem to have much mental or tactical flexibility.

-- Stewart

stewart wrote:
Ah, but Daud if considered a radical best kept in a dead-end position at Operational Analysis where he can be told what operations to analyze.

No operational flag officers (outside of Maya Sector) that we have seen seem to have much mental or tactical flexibility.

-- Stewart

The SLN seems to have a policy "If any junior officer shows signs of thinking for him/her self, he/she is to be immediately shunted into a dead end position where they can't disturb their betters."

The problem really isn't the availability of pods for Beowulf. The GA has hundreds of thousands of those and it would be no trick at all to have those shipped in.

The difficulty is control links for those pods and how to provided what is needed. Further, the system being installed is Mycroft which means that it involves a ftl component with Apollo. How many pods with the Apollo component are available becomes another question which I am not aware of the answer to. The control centers are being constructed which is the hold up. The alternatives here is that you bring in in the Invictuses with Keyhole 2 to control the pods or you wait on the construction of the control centers to be complete. Bringing in the Invictuses, of course, is contraindicated prior to the vote.

However if you bring in the pre-Apollo Mark 23 pods, you can reprise Spindle with a a squadron of Sag Cs which have the control links to handle them. That would be more than sufficient to deal with the actual threat and avoid the expenditure of the Apollo pods. Whether or not using Sac Cs rather than SDPs avoids the political issue is not something I know.

At any rate, my two cents.

Don

JeffEngel wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:Another nice "convenience" of Manticore handing over system defense missile pods to Beowulf would be that Manticore would be seen as supporting Beowulf's ability to determine it's own future as the pods would be controlled by Beowulf not Manticore. It supports a political position of being supportive, not threatening or pressuring.

That might work. Beowulf's building already, with Mycroft, the latest generation of system defense missile pod and control packages, but Manticore's system defense missile pods may be useful interim help. On the other hand, Beowulf may have already been able to build some of that without it being under SLN notice the say refitting Beowulf's ships would be, so it's possible it'd be offering something they have already.

I did a little research on the time frame of the novels and I find that "A Rising Thunder" and "Shadow of Freedom" both finish in August of 1922 P.D. and "Cauldron of Ghosts" ends in October of the same year. Which would seem to indicate that the next book (HH14) will pick up in August or September of 1922 P.D. and cover the next 6 months. To me that says that the first two months of the book will be dedicated to what ever Weber wants to do to make sure that Beowulf survives the coming attack. The transfer of bunches of missiles and the hurried completion of mycroft is the only politically and militarily viable option I see available.

Then in the October time frame, just before Beowulf votes, the balloon goes up on the SLN attack on Beowulf, and at about the same time the attack on Mesa takes place and also Zilwicki returns to Manticore. Bunches of things are going to come together at the same time. I get a grin when I think about how surprised the Mandarins are going to get when Mesa is attacked as they are attacking Beowulf. Even though Mesa is not part of the SL it's going to have a significant impact on the Mandarins to have 2 threats so deep in SL space. The last four months of the book will deal with the aftermath of the attacks on Beowulf and Mesa and I hope it includes an attack on the mothball fleet.

JeffEngel wrote:Could be. There are a whole lot of posts on here about attacking the Reserve Fleet - check the "Grand Alliance's Grand Attack" thread for one epic discussion. Opinions are mixed. There's some argument to be made for leaving them to keep a "resource" that they cannot convert to anything worth a lick without R&D they haven't done, crews they haven't raised or moved, time they don't have, and money the League government is not raising what with the income sources of the League government dried up. (Short version: it's funded by dues from interstellar trade and hitting up the protectorates, and the loss of the wormhole network and use of Manticoran freighters has crippled the trade-based income and hurt the protectorates-based income, and they've got no secure remaining grasp on the protectorates.)

Thanks for the pointer to "Grand Alliance's Grand Attack" I was looking for something like this but couldn't find it.

JeffEngel wrote:Many Solarian League systems retain system defense forces - Beowulf's 36 SD's, for instance, are its current known and primary line of defense against League aggression. An SDF is (or has been, anyway) a bit of a luxury for a League member, but still, plenty of them do have them and they don't suffer from the institutional arrogance of the SLN.

For that matter, the SLN is supported by a tiny, tiny portion of the League budget, and the League budget is a tiny, tiny portion of the total League GDP. Luxury or not, it wouldn't be hard for a League member system to maintain an SDF that represents a force all out of proportion to its "share" of the SLN. Suppose Beowulf represents 1/1000th of the wealth of the League. For the SLN to have a wall of battle in proportion to Beowulf's SDF, it'd need 36,000 SD's in commission. I don't have the figure for Battle Fleet's wall in 1922 P.D., but I do know it's vastly smaller than that - even if we were generously to include the Reserve Fleet, full of much older ships totally unavailable anytime soon.

I think your going a bit off track here with your idea of 36,000 SD's being available to the SLN. I would bring to your attention the exchange of messages between Honor and Filareta before their battle (such as it was) where Filareta states that the SLN has 1,500 active SD's and 8,000 mothballed SD's. Nor do I believe that it is common for inner world SL planets to have a System-Defense-Fleet (SDF) as it has been a common discussion in the books as to how much even the rich planets dislike supporting even the current level of expense they pay for the SLN. I can't imagine that they would be willing to spend the money for an SDF of their own when the SLN had damn well better be able to do the job they are already paying them to do.

I think Beowulf is an exception to the general rule about SDF's as they have had a need for their own fleet to pursue their low level war with Mesa and to unilaterally act to stop the slave and clone trade.

JeffEngel wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:And when that system with the mothballed ships is attacked, don't forget to destroy any ship building or repair facilities and also capture and take any cargo ships found there. Cargo ships are already in short supply in the SL and taking them would make it harder for the SL to accomplish any ship building program.

You may not get the chance to do so without ticking off (in the thousands of brave men and women died sense) system governments, which would undercut the entire strategy for dealing with the League. If you could avoid that - or make it clear to all concerned your hand was forced - it becomes a lot more attractive.

My motivation for destroying the mothball fleet is not just to destroy the SD's. As I said the mothball fleet represents a perception, a belief of strength in the SLN by the SL members. I want to crush that belief. I want SL systems so paranoid that they demand to have the SLN deliver to each of them a SDF, which would stretch the already sparsely deployed SLN to even thinner deployments though out the SLN controlled space. And when I say destroy, I really mean more like permanently disable every ship rather than vaporizing them. I want the scrap mettle to be there for rebuilding newer and better ships when the time comes to battle the MA. But I don't want that time to happen for a while, thus I want the building and repair facilities destroyed. And I want all mothballed ships made useless to prevent even the light units from being used in the raiding of the GA merchant fleet as Kingsford wants to do