Scotty's New commands

he doesn't have Terekov's foreign office experience true, but as demonstrated when he stopped Honor executing masadan prisoners when no-one would have faulted her, he does have tact and the ability to see beyond the hull of his ship.

A wiling ness to say it has to be THIS way, no matter how much he might like to say otherwise.

--snipping--

BobG wrote:Seriously, I think he will be in the forefront of the effort to free the Virge from the SL. And as long as he can keep his magazines filled, he will succeed. OTOH, establishing governments that are stable and guarantee equal rights to all, is probably beyond his expertise. Fortunately, he will still be under Terekov's command, so there is at least a chance that some stability will be established.

-- Bob G

Actually I see him as peer to Terekhov but as the action arm. Terekhov being the person you don't want to deal with badly, and Tremaine being the force commander you don't want to deal with in fleet actions. Not that Aivars is inferior in command ability, but he's kinda got the "street cred" for ice cold negotiating and boot stomping bad players. Terekhov and Kavala are perfectly poised to beset take action and act for the freedom / independence effort in the Verge systems where Damian Harahap, etc. has been agitating.

With Scotty's experience in Buttercup, BofM, and Spindle, he's got the the best tutelage/mentoring in all fleet aspects (cruisers: Honor Harrington, CLACs: Jackie Harmon & Alice Truman, fleet actions: Henke and Terekhov) to use a small task force to decimate FF's ability to bring battle to the RMN anywhere in 10th Fleet's area of operations. Thoughts?

In all of these posts I've yet to see one that really addresses Kingsford's planned actions. Recall that the SLN is planning no actions using wallers other than the Beowulf action.

Kingsford's plan is commerce raiding using screening units from BF and BCs from FF. Since his wall is useless against anything in the GA sectors h'es going to try using light units to raid any systems willing to trade with the GA.

This strategy is tailor made for Cruiser weight task groups or smaller units. In that confrontation it will be cruisers and destroyers escorting shipping and LACs with System defense pods on the defense of systems. For the next while Scotty will be swatting raiding forces rather than raiding himself.

BrightSoul wrote:In all of these posts I've yet to see one that really addresses Kingsford's planned actions. Recall that the SLN is planning no actions using wallers other than the Beowulf action.

Kingsford's plan is commerce raiding using screening units from BF and BCs from FF. Since his wall is useless against anything in the GA sectors h'es going to try using light units to raid any systems willing to trade with the GA.

This strategy is tailor made for Cruiser weight task groups or smaller units. In that confrontation it will be cruisers and destroyers escorting shipping and LACs with System defense pods on the defense of systems. For the next while Scotty will be swatting raiding forces rather than raiding himself.

Another thing he could usefully do in that regard is head up a Talbott Quadrant Training Command in Spindle, to convey LAC experience to the LAC crews training for local defense there. Some of those crews - or other people in a similar program, anyway - will be in places FF raiders will be hitting. The SLN still hasn't seen Grand Alliance LAC's strut their stuff in the anti-shipping role. Against FF BC's on down - what will be doing that raiding - those LAC's will be able to do ferocious damage with relatively little expense. Each system in the Quadrant at first, and later those with trade and defense agreements with Manticore, will be able to support a LAC group able to keep that system safe from anything likely to show up below the wall. That in turn will free up a lot of hypercapable warships to hit the FF bases. And Tremaine and Harkness are among the best to get those people trained up well enough to do that - or at least, to train the future trainers, and then get back to the running and smacking job.

In addition, if they leak the word that system X is signing on with Manticore, they can keep a concentration of force in X (presumably with X's permission!) ready to bushwhack a FF reprisal force. The hardest part of countering Kingsford's raiding strategy is getting forces where the raiders will be. "Suggesting" a place to the local FF commander solves that problem. The basic sneakiness and use of deception Tremaine's learned under the Salamander and Harkness was probably born with should do well there.

BrightSoul wrote:In all of these posts I've yet to see one that really addresses Kingsford's planned actions. Recall that the SLN is planning no actions using wallers other than the Beowulf action.

Kingsford's plan is commerce raiding using screening units from BF and BCs from FF. Since his wall is useless against anything in the GA sectors h'es going to try using light units to raid any systems willing to trade with the GA.

This strategy is tailor made for Cruiser weight task groups or smaller units. In that confrontation it will be cruisers and destroyers escorting shipping and LACs with System defense pods on the defense of systems. For the next while Scotty will be swatting raiding forces rather than raiding himself.

I suspect that in a lot of cases, this will be a "inserting a hand and pulling back a stump". The SLN has no concept of how stealthy and powerful LACs have become, even RHN LACs, and given a LAC squadron (8 LACs) vs 1 SLN DD or Cruiser, it'll be over in a blink. Vs a BC, it'll be a little harder, but not impossible. The only problem I see is that the SLN won't be getting negative feedback, i.e. hearing that their ships are being blown away, because that will be the classic case of sending them out and nothing coming back.

Of course, that relies on at least a LAC squadron per liberated and/or protected system. The RHN probably has a lot more LACs available than the RMN, and their manufacturing capabilities are still on-line.

All-in-all, I think that the commerce raiding plan is mostly a non-starter, partially because their ships will just vanish without a trace, partially because FF sectors will be reluctant to give up ships that are needed to cover rebellions, and partially because Alliance commerce raiding, either in parallel to or in response to the SLN, will cause SL worlds to scream for ships for defense - never mind that they won't help.

-- Bob G

the SLN's first encounter with Manty (or Grand Alliance) LACs, will be if/when it actually tries to retake one of the closed wormholes.

Recall during Laocoon-II, we saw a brief bit of the deploying forces. Using mere light cruisers, and destroyers, and detaching single CLACs to hold a wormhole end. From the owner/defender point of view, each CLAC was actually a Superdreadnought (this is also evidence Manticore either stopped building its dreadnought CLACs, or borrowed heavily from Grayson's SD sized CLACs)

But only 1 (SD) is guarding with a few light forces, so FF/BF might decide to try and overwhelm it with their much more numerous sub-capitals. Notably their very large cruiser fleets, so we could expect 3 or 4 squadrons of Battlecruisers, plus screen to hit a Laocoon-II taken wormhole. They then proceed to get shredded by the 8-12 squadrons of LACs, depending on which exact class of CLAC was stationed there.

Then the survivors, if any, run away, and proceed to (from their superiors POV anyways) lie their asses off, about how powerful these new LACs are. And FF/BF will proceed to pull a Saint-Just, and point to ONI who obediently says "no LACs are that powerful, you're imagining things and lying to shift the blame."

Somtaaw wrote:the SLN's first encounter with Manty (or Grand Alliance) LACs, will be if/when it actually tries to retake one of the closed wormholes.

Recall during Laocoon-II, we saw a brief bit of the deploying forces. Using mere light cruisers, and destroyers, and detaching single CLACs to hold a wormhole end. From the owner/defender point of view, each CLAC was actually a Superdreadnought (this is also evidence Manticore either stopped building its dreadnought CLACs, or borrowed heavily from Grayson's SD sized CLACs)

They're just measuring by SLN standards there. Scientist SD's are only 6.8 mtons. RMN CLAC's are between 6 and 7 mtons - the range of RMN DN's.

It's telling that the SLN's wallers are smaller than anything Manticore or Haven has built for service in the wall in about 30 years.

But only 1 (SD) is guarding with a few light forces, so FF/BF might decide to try and overwhelm it with their much more numerous sub-capitals. Notably their very large cruiser fleets, so we could expect 3 or 4 squadrons of Battlecruisers, plus screen to hit a Laocoon-II taken wormhole. They then proceed to get shredded by the 8-12 squadrons of LACs, depending on which exact class of CLAC was stationed there.

Then the survivors, if any, run away, and proceed to (from their superiors POV anyways) lie their asses off, about how powerful these new LACs are. And FF/BF will proceed to pull a Saint-Just, and point to ONI who obediently says "no LACs are that powerful, you're imagining things and lying to shift the blame."

Yup. That's entirely possible and consistent with SLN practice, although surviving to run away and tell such stories would be an impressive accomplishment by their latest track record!

Somtaaw wrote:Recall during Laocoon-II, we saw a brief bit of the deploying forces. Using mere light cruisers, and destroyers, and detaching single CLACs to hold a wormhole end. From the owner/defender point of view, each CLAC was actually a Superdreadnought (this is also evidence Manticore either stopped building its dreadnought CLACs, or borrowed heavily from Grayson's SD sized CLACs)

Not necessarily. Solly SDs are currently around 6.9 megatons - RMN CLACs are about 6.1 megatons.

In some of those cases, the viewpoint wasn't naval personnel, but that of civilians or astro control personnel. Who don't often see warships bigger than a million tons(BCs).

Somtaaw wrote:But only 1 (SD) is guarding with a few light forces, so FF/BF might decide to try and overwhelm it with their much more numerous sub-capitals. Notably their very large cruiser fleets, so we could expect 3 or 4 squadrons of Battlecruisers, plus screen to hit a Laocoon-II taken wormhole. They then proceed to get shredded by the 8-12 squadrons of LACs, depending on which exact class of CLAC was stationed there.

Then the survivors, if any, run away, and proceed to (from their superiors POV anyways) lie their asses off, about how powerful these new LACs are. And FF/BF will proceed to pull a Saint-Just, and point to ONI who obediently says "no LACs are that powerful, you're imagining things and lying to shift the blame."

Indeed, I expect the SLN to attempt retaking some of the termini. But I don't expect there to be any survivors getting away, unless the SLN brings a dispatch boat to observe battles from a safe distance(say, the other side of the system).

Somtaaw wrote:But only 1 (SD) is guarding with a few light forces, so FF/BF might decide to try and overwhelm it with their much more numerous sub-capitals. Notably their very large cruiser fleets, so we could expect 3 or 4 squadrons of Battlecruisers, plus screen to hit a Laocoon-II taken wormhole. They then proceed to get shredded by the 8-12 squadrons of LACs, depending on which exact class of CLAC was stationed there.

Then the survivors, if any, run away, and proceed to (from their superiors POV anyways) lie their asses off, about how powerful these new LACs are. And FF/BF will proceed to pull a Saint-Just, and point to ONI who obediently says "no LACs are that powerful, you're imagining things and lying to shift the blame."

no question if their are survivors no-one (outside that one solly analyst who actally has a brain, and his students/friends) is going to believe that LAC's could be so powerful, let alone that anyone would waste a ship the size of a (solly) SD on transporting them. everyone knows LACs are for local defence and scaring merchies