Nitpicking at A Rising Thunder...

Bill Woods wrote:
No, they'd tried to come in closer. They did have extended-range missiles, but legally you can't just shoot missiles toward an inhabited planet; you have to be in at least high orbit around it.

No, you can shoot towards an inhabited planet. You are legally not allowed to hit it. Which, for everyone other then the RHN at Zanzibar, is a real possibility - so they don't.

Found it in A Rising Thunder

SLN BF translated next to the hyper limit a mere 12ls away 300,000x12 ~ 3.6Mkm.

So, even BF in its supposedly "worst" can easily translate near a hyperlimit or WHJ termini well within SDM range.

Relax wrote:Found it in A Rising Thunder

SLN BF translated next to the hyper limit a mere 12ls away 300,000x12 ~ 3.6Mkm.

So, even BF in its supposedly "worst" can easily translate near a hyperlimit or WHJ termini well within SDM range.

One, Filareta is/was one of the better/more competent BF commanders.
Two, that's still a helluva long way from deliberately jumping right on top of - energy range of - the pickets.
Three, while such a jump would give them surprise, 12 light seconds is still not enough to catch the Manticorans completely unawares, with all defenses down - Manticoran defenses would have more than enough time to activate.

Do we have any information on what type of doctrine the SLN uses, because that will tell us how they would attack a picketed wormhole junction.

SLN isn't known for any fancy operation plans since so far they have been the big bear and there haven't been anyone that could go toe to toe with them until know. From that I guess that the SLN would go for a pretty straightforward attack on any pickets, more or less following the pattern of Filareta.

Joat42 wrote:Do we have any information on what type of doctrine the SLN uses, because that will tell us how they would attack a picketed wormhole junction.

SLN isn't known for any fancy operation plans since so far they have been the big bear and there haven't been anyone that could go toe to toe with them until know. From that I guess that the SLN would go for a pretty straightforward attack on any pickets, more or less following the pattern of Filareta.

Classic SLN doctrine for dealing with other star nations is go for their home systems in overwhelming force. If you lose that, it's all over, so the SLN can count on getting all your forces there to be destroyed or otherwise neutralized.

They could attack a wormhole terminus in overwhelming numbers, and just wade through missile fire until reaching energy range or until the picket goes away. The picket may move off and keep firing; if they have really overwhelming numbers, they may be able to englobe the target area so heavily that any RMN unit pulling away in normal space to maintain fire gets within SLN missile of too many SLN warships to brush off. The numbers get so large then that it may be more than the SLN can afford though.

But worst of all, the enemy always can go away, and the enemy state can lose control of a single terminus - not even permanently - and carry right along. The RMN range advantage will mean any SLN picket is a sitting duck, and their control of the rest of the wormhole network will mean an ability to deploy forces for a counter-attack with fair ease. So classic SLN doctrine won't help them here.

Joat42 wrote:Do we have any information on what type of doctrine the SLN uses, because that will tell us how they would attack a picketed wormhole junction.

SLN isn't known for any fancy operation plans since so far they have been the big bear and there haven't been anyone that could go toe to toe with them until know. From that I guess that the SLN would go for a pretty straightforward attack on any pickets, more or less following the pattern of Filareta.

So far as I can see, the SLN has exactly one operation plan that is used in all circumstances:

1) Arrive in the enemy home system in overwhelming strength.

2) If the enemy does not surrender before the might of the ISLN, advance on the enemy capitol world.

3) If the enemy does not surrender before the might of the ISLN, destroy any enemy shipping that crosses your path on the way.

4) If the enemy does not surrender before the might of the ISLN, occupy the high orbitals and demand their surrender.

5) If the enemy does not surrender before the might of the ISLN, drop rocks until they a) come to their senses or b) are reduced to the Stone Age.

Lather, rinse, repeat until the Solarian League rules the universe.

Dafmeister wrote: So far as I can see, the SLN has exactly one operation plan that is used in all circumstances:

1) Arrive in the enemy home system in overwhelming strength.

2) If the enemy does not surrender before the might of the ISLN, advance on the enemy capitol world.

3) If the enemy does not surrender before the might of the ISLN, destroy any enemy shipping that crosses your path on the way.

4) If the enemy does not surrender before the might of the ISLN, occupy the high orbitals and demand their surrender.

5) If the enemy does not surrender before the might of the ISLN, drop rocks until they a) come to their senses or b) are reduced to the Stone Age.

Lather, rinse, repeat until the Solarian League rules the universe.

Oddly. Henke disagreed that the Sollies' doctrine is to go for the throat. "Oh, they went straight for Spindle and straight for the home system, but both of those moves were completely in line with their step-by-step approach; it just happened that we didn't have a lot of depth." What her basis is I don't know. When was the last time the League fought a multi-system power?

Kytheros wrote:I think that in HotQ, they were at about the lowest state of combat readiness a warship in motion is ever at.
I also think that it's fairly safe to say that the warships Manticore pickets wormhole termini with will be at a higher state of combat readiness/alert than that.

No, they had their wedge up and were underway. Every second you have the wedge up puts wear on the nodes. Nodes that currently are not replaceable and have a typical life of years of service only when most of that time is spent with the wedge down. Same thing with sidewall generators.

Now admittedly they are mostly deploying new ships that have minimal wear on their nodes, but node wear is a big problem when there are virtually no replacements, and any replacements are a month plus away.

Kytheros wrote:

Relax wrote:Found it in A Rising Thunder

SLN BF translated next to the hyper limit a mere 12ls away 300,000x12 ~ 3.6Mkm.

So, even BF in its supposedly "worst" can easily translate near a hyperlimit or WHJ termini well within SDM range.

One, Filareta is/was one of the better/more competent BF commanders.
Two, that's still a helluva long way from deliberately jumping right on top of - energy range of - the pickets.
Three, while such a jump would give them surprise, 12 light seconds is still not enough to catch the Manticorans completely unawares, with all defenses down - Manticoran defenses would have more than enough time to activate.

Moving the goal posts much?

The issue was taking WHJ termini away from Manticore with umpteen thousands of SLN SDM equipped ships. The issue was never jumping into energy range. The issue was jumping onto a terminus in SDM range. Therefore all the discussion with HOW LONG it would require a ship to transit a terminus. Several said minutes. Obviously SDM is sub 3 minute flight...

If you can jump within energy range... Well, lets just say defending a terminus is impossible.

kzt wrote:No, they had their wedge up and were underway. Every second you have the wedge up puts wear on the nodes. Nodes that currently are not replaceable and have a typical life of years of service only when most of that time is spent with the wedge down. Same thing with sidewall generators.

Now admittedly they are mostly deploying new ships that have minimal wear on their nodes, but node wear is a big problem when there are virtually no replacements, and any replacements are a month plus away.

And we are back to the RMN having a typical deployment to Silesia of two years prior to 1903. They had minimal maintenance facilities in the area.

Not to mention that Warlock had "Months of hyper time" left before they needed replaced. Only reason they were replaced in OBS was to have the commander stuck on Manticore for the 2 month replacement time. While his ship was opened like a ration tin.

So they are all new and probably good for 2 years at least. Now they might all have to go to the yards at the same time if they all are active for the same amount of time but ...

Mitigating that is the fact that Honor had difficulty convincing BuShips to replace a single beta node in HotQ. After a 2 year deployment to Silesia.

Just saying again,
T2M