Why Didn't Grayson Invade Masada? ...

Keep in mind, until Protector Benjamin, successive generations of selfish Keys had effectively neutered any planet-wide initiatives.

Let's say they chose to use the resources... to do what? Try to reconstitute Grayson ON Masada post HotQ? Why bother? given that Manticoran Tech has given them (finally) the ability to grow their population for quite a while. Aside from that the GSN and shipbuilding capacity alone (prior to OB) would give them the resources to find another Verge or out there planet and start over or colonize EASIER, without the need to essentially engage in a multi-generational war of conquest.

drothgery wrote:The Masadan invasion of Grayson a generation prior to HotQ went... very poorly... for Masada. The Graysons were afraid of the Masadans because they were crazy (and therefore willing to do things that rational star nations don't, like EE violations), not because they were powerful.

The Masadans were still the ones thinking they COULD do it.
And as is clearly mentioned in the books, Grayson had to focus more on defense to be sure to be able to defend.
Both implies that Masada could bring more nastiness with them, than Grayson could.

And there´s still the drastical difference between "attack" and "invade".


#####

Donnachaidh wrote:By HotQ Grayson could easily get a naval force to Masada. They could barely get to Masada after the Grayson Civil War which was about 500 years before HotQ.

I meant a naval force with the ability to defeat the Masada defences and navy.
GSN comprised 2 CL and 5 DD.

With the Zion class DD noted as having a missile total of 48. Contact warheads only.
Autocannon point defense and just 2CM per side.
That´s seriously NOT a ship suitable for offensive work.

The Masadan navy is noted to be ~20% stronger than the Grayson one, and ~much stronger in terms of hypercapable ships.
5 CL, 8 DD and 20 LAC. Only crazies would try to attack that with 2 CL and 5 DD, with pretty much just the CLs being effective offensive units, it´s totally suicidal.

That is not what you said, that is maybe half of what you said. What you said was "they could barely get there". Whether or not they could get there has no bearing on whether or not it is wise to go there.

I'm not arguing that it would have been a good idea; on the contrary, I said it was a bad idea to for the Grayson Navy to attack Masada pre-HotQ.

Tenshinai wrote:

Donnachaidh wrote:By HotQ Grayson could easily get a naval force to Masada. They could barely get to Masada after the Grayson Civil War which was about 500 years before HotQ.

I meant a naval force with the ability to defeat the Masada defences and navy.
GSN comprised 2 CL and 5 DD.

With the Zion class DD noted as having a missile total of 48. Contact warheads only.
Autocannon point defense and just 2CM per side.
That´s seriously NOT a ship suitable for offensive work.

The Masadan navy is noted to be ~20% stronger than the Grayson one, and ~much stronger in terms of hypercapable ships.
5 CL, 8 DD and 20 LAC. Only crazies would try to attack that with 2 CL and 5 DD, with pretty much just the CLs being effective offensive units, it´s totally suicidal.

Donnachaidh wrote:That is not what you said, that is maybe half of what you said. What you said was "they could barely get there". Whether or not they could get there has no bearing on whether or not it is wise to go there.

I'm not arguing that it would have been a good idea; on the contrary, I said it was a bad idea to for the Grayson Navy to attack Masada pre-HotQ.

I expressed myself less than clearly, sorry.

I collated the overall outlook of GNS as only really having the CLs suitable for anything but local defense (their small DDs being more like sized up FFs with pathetically small missile loads), their main component, the LACs obviously not getting there at all, their severe lack of transport ability(as the key question was about invading), their limited tech ability to even deal with Alpha-nodes at all and overall focus on defense(due to Masada having a bigger navy)...

They CAN certainly get to the area around Masada, but they would be highly unlikely to get to the PLANET with anything remotely resembling an invasion force.
But still, even just getting to the area, only their CLs are effective offensive ships, so going with just them is suicidal...

Hence my "they can barely get there", as on several levels, they effectively cannot.

Trying to invade is a dead end(emphasis on "dead"), trying to destroy the Masada navy is suicidal because even without their LACs they have a more powerful navy, they don´t have the support structure to maintain their ships/troops on/around Masada even if they could go there and win etc etc...

There was a point in time where Grayson did attack and take out Masada's orbital infrastructure with intent of keeping watch to make sure Masada didn't rebuild and once again become a threat.

But they had a couple of weak protectors in a row and watching Masada was abandoned in favor of internal affairs. Masada did rebuild and when the conflict resumed, Masada had a bigger industrial base and population.

This is the situation that the Peeps and Manticore found as both intervened in the conflict in HotQ.

Don

n7axw wrote:There was a point in time where Grayson did attack and take out Masada's orbital infrastructure with intent of keeping watch to make sure Masada didn't rebuild and once again become a threat.

But they had a couple of weak protectors in a row and watching Masada was abandoned in favor of internal affairs. Masada did rebuild and when the conflict resumed, Masada had a bigger industrial base and population.

This is the situation that the Peeps and Manticore found as both intervened in the conflict in HotQ.

Don

So there seem to have been times when Grayson could have defeated the space defenses of Masada. But then what. It's still a planet full of crazy fanatics. Unless you're willing to use your orbital position to blow them all up you're outnumbered by hostile so that are going to fight a guerrilla campaign forever, more or less. And given Grayson's demographics (shortage of males) and employment (no women in the military) getting bogged down in a fight were you steadily lose your young men for decades seems a massive 'own goal'.

Jonathan_S wrote:So there seem to have been times when Grayson could have defeated the space defenses of Masada. But then what. It's still a planet full of crazy fanatics. Unless you're willing to use your orbital position to blow them all up you're outnumbered by hostile so that are going to fight a guerrilla campaign forever, more or less. And given Grayson's demographics (shortage of males) and employment (no women in the military) getting bogged down in a fight were you steadily lose your young men for decades seems a massive 'own goal'.

My reading was that they never had the navy capable of defeating Masada, but that idea of trying to BUILD such came up a few times.
And was dismissed due to being unrealistic.

Tenshinai wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:So there seem to have been times when Grayson could have defeated the space defenses of Masada. But then what. It's still a planet full of crazy fanatics. Unless you're willing to use your orbital position to blow them all up you're outnumbered by hostile so that are going to fight a guerrilla campaign forever, more or less. And given Grayson's demographics (shortage of males) and employment (no women in the military) getting bogged down in a fight were you steadily lose your young men for decades seems a massive 'own goal'.

My reading was that they never had the navy capable of defeating Masada, but that idea of trying to BUILD such came up a few times.
And was dismissed due to being unrealistic.

Seems to me the Grayson Navy resurrected the MAD policy. If Masada was building a capability to strike at Grayson(IIRC, they did nuke Grayson at least once), Grayson would have built something capable of retatilation, however limited. Forcing the Masadans to destroy the GSN first, before they could attack Grayson again.

Jonathan_S wrote:

n7axw wrote:There was a point in time where Grayson did attack and take out Masada's orbital infrastructure with intent of keeping watch to make sure Masada didn't rebuild and once again become a threat.

But they had a couple of weak protectors in a row and watching Masada was abandoned in favor of internal affairs. Masada did rebuild and when the conflict resumed, Masada had a bigger industrial base and population.

This is the situation that the Peeps and Manticore found as both intervened in the conflict in HotQ.

Don

So there seem to have been times when Grayson could have defeated the space defenses of Masada. But then what. It's still a planet full of crazy fanatics. Unless you're willing to use your orbital position to blow them all up you're outnumbered by hostile so that are going to fight a guerrilla campaign forever, more or less. And given Grayson's demographics (shortage of males) and employment (no women in the military) getting bogged down in a fight were you steadily lose your young men for decades seems a massive 'own goal'.

The info I was referring to in my previous post is found in the section on Grayson in House of Steel. Had they maintained a force in Endicot and prevented the rebuilding of Masada's orbital infrastructure at that time, they could have kept Masada out of space altogether. But instead the watch was abandoned and Masada rebuilt to the cost of Grayson later.

Don

Tenshinai wrote:<snip>

I meant a naval force with the ability to defeat the Masada defences and navy.
GSN comprised 2 CL and 5 DD.

With the Zion class DD noted as having a missile total of 48. Contact warheads only.
Autocannon point defense and just 2CM per side.
That´s seriously NOT a ship suitable for offensive work.

The Masadan navy is noted to be ~20% stronger than the Grayson one, and ~much stronger in terms of hypercapable ships.
5 CL, 8 DD and 20 LAC. Only crazies would try to attack that with 2 CL and 5 DD, with pretty much just the CLs being effective offensive units, it´s totally suicidal.

According to HoS, The GSN at the time was 3 CLs (1 "Glory" class, 2 "Austin Grayson" class) and 4 DDs (1 "Ararat" class, 3 "Zion" class)

But the hyper ship totals, and your point still stands.

I believe the GSN ships had a slight tech edge, but far from enough to offset the numerical inferiority of the Masadan home fleet and any fixed defenses they might have.