(SPOILERS) Expected defeat at Beowulf.

Back to Reality here....

The League tactic discussed was a least time transit from the Alpha Wall to the planet orbitals BEFORE the GA SDNs at the Wormhole have time to respond.

That means the SLN fleet has to come across the wall with maximum velocity, similar to what Hamish did at Grayson in HOTQ. AND they must have maximum pods under tow. AND they have to have sufficient numbers (canon fodder) to get through the Beowulf SDNs and any deployed pods before the GA SDN ready force micro-jumps in to engage. AND they have to go for a zero-zero intercept in order to force surrender, they can't just whiff by the planet at 0.8C.

Given what happened at Manticore with the SLN fleet, I don't see how they can win or even survive to get to the orbitals.

I don't remember the astrogation data on Beowulf, i.e., how far out the hyper limit is from Beowulf, but if its similar to Manticore during Filareta's approach, there is plenty of time for the GA ready force to charge the hyper generators and micro-jump directly from the terminus to within missile range of the SLN force.

For that matter the GA could have placed a couple of TFs in hyper just for this event. Even as few as 10 SD(P)'s could pump out a lot of missiles.

So unless the astrography of Beowulf puts the hyper limit really close to the planet, I don't see even a 700 SDN SLN fleet surviving long enough to get to the orbitals. That's only (!) around 140000 missiles for kills. At 10% hit rate, really, really low, that's only 140,000 flatpacks of MK 23's. Honor showed Filareta over 250,000 system defense pods, and that was not her entire force and not her shipboard pods.

Given all of that, the only scenario that makes sense is the complete obliteration of the SLN fleet that fires every pod and one or two leakers get through to the planet itself - giving the Alignment several major accomplishments at once:

1- Destruction of almost the entire Beowulf self defense force

2 - Complete destruction of the last of the active SLN Battle Fleet wall (leaving Frontier Fleet and various core world self defense forces in dominance - and most elements of Frontier Fleet are under their control)

3 - Complete discreditation of Solarian politics and politicians by the Eridani violation perpetrated by the SLN

4 - A bloody nose for Beowulf - which the MAN would always enjoy

For the MAN, this is a win-win, no matter what happens, and if Michelle gets to Mesa too late to catch them before they abandon ship, it will take two more books to bring them to bay...

We shall ignore the whole question of ROE for Vietnam and other, more recent/current things.

We have a POLITICAL situation at Beowulf that drives the decisions (which we presume is done with the concurence of Beowulf after conversations with Manticore (and probably Haven) to keep RMN fleets away from the Beowulf system and holding somewhere near the Sigma Draconis Terminus. Neither Beowulf nor Manticore want to give the IMPRESSION that Manticore is putting military pressure on Beowulf's population to vote for succession.

What is not clear is just what the SL (Mandarins) and the SLN are going to do about the plebiscite. If they park a fleet in the Beowulf system, that is exactly the same pressure though the SL probably would be spinning that as protection. The problem with putting multiple SLN warships in the system is that they would be in violation of Beowulf's system sovereignty. They really can't come in unless Beowulf invites them. Oh, sure, SLN could say they were making a port call but given the System Wide Plebiscite, Beowulf can certainly refuse entry. That puts the SLN back in the situation of essentialy attacking or overt intimidation of the system population. And it would be seen as such by the rest of the League. Some systems will probably agree with the tactic, they all will certainly recognize it. That becomes the crux of the next problem for the League:
The Bureaucracy of the SL is willing to use the SLN to force compliance on unwilling systems. The SL will now treat MEMBER SYSTEMS like OFS with FF has been treating Verge and other, outside, systems. Member Systems will now be reduced to essentialy Protectorate statis if they attempt to leave the League or offer serious resistance to the SL Buracracy's policies. That will be a really big hammer for fracturing the League

If Manticore AND SLN both park fleets in hyper and use couriers or DDs to transmit orders when the decision (on the SLN's part) to intervene to "save" Beowulf's population from it's own traitor (to the League) government, the spin will be monumental---that is after the battle. Just how many people are going to have to die to demonstrate that the Bureaucracy of the SL is willing to kill millions to retain power? And then what will they need or want to do to explain and cover themselves after the carnage? Do they really think that the BSDF is just going to roll over?

Want to really cause havoc someplace? Take perhaps 20 of the captured SLN SD, take them to a point not far outside the hyperlimit of a major Core World- Earth would work - along with "journalist" dispatch boats to spread the word, and just park them there. Evacuate you skeleton transfer crews from the SDs and send a nice message as you scuttle each of them in sequence by blowing their reactors.
" We are returning some of your trash to you. You should rethink the wisdom of attacking people who don't want to be a part of you criminal schemes. You have now lost (insert proper number here) capital ships and (insert proper number here) killed or captured attempting to attack indepent systems. If you do not yet believe that we have demonstrated that we can defend ourselves and our treaty partners, perhaps you should review the records and think on it a bit before asking for another demonstration. See attached.

It's been pretty clearly stated what the SLN plans to do. And they and their overseers don't care.

kzt wrote:It's been pretty clearly stated what the SLN plans to do. And they and their overseers don't care.

It is also on record that the GA forces at the terminus will have enough time to microjump and interveene on any SLN fleet. I am relly looking forward to what rabbits RFC pulls out of his hat to get the stipulted casualty numbers without making either the GA admiral criminally incompetant (unlikely if it is still Truman) or the Beowulf politicians criminally stupid as we all know in a stand up fight the SLN is toast.

Acceptable approaches include:

* Yawata style orbital debris from destroyed ships
* Another action entirely after the SLN are sent packing e.g. destroying beowulf orbital infrastructre similr to oyster bay.
* Out of Controll missiles destryoing orbital instalations.
* bio weapons

Jonathan_S wrote:Now if you're lucky enough to mousetrap ships without Keyhole, older RMN units or RHN units, that would bring down the required numbers a fair bit. A rough off the cuff guess would be 4 times less. So only a 12-to-1 hull ratio; or 72+ SDs to damage single 6-ship squadron. Though if you're tackling an 8 ship RHN squadron better bring at least 92+ SDs. And you're still going to get ripped up, given your pitiful missile defenses. That's trading away a significant fraction of your remaining wall to inflict significant but not necessarily fatal damage to the ships of a single squadron.

I think the reality would be even worse. The GA missiles would be fired in sprint mode while the Sollie missiles were coming in in endurance mode. The GA missiles get there first--and so the Sollie missiles are pretty much on internal control when they engage. They won't perform anywhere near as well as they would if actively guided.

Silverwall wrote:

kzt wrote:It's been pretty clearly stated what the SLN plans to do. And they and their overseers don't care.

It is also on record that the GA forces at the terminus will have enough time to microjump and interveene on any SLN fleet. I am relly looking forward to what rabbits RFC pulls out of his hat to get the stipulted casualty numbers without making either the GA admiral criminally incompetant (unlikely if it is still Truman) or the Beowulf politicians criminally stupid as we all know in a stand up fight the SLN is toast.

Acceptable approaches include:

* Yawata style orbital debris from destroyed ships
* Another action entirely after the SLN are sent packing e.g. destroying beowulf orbital infrastructre similr to oyster bay.
* Out of Controll missiles destryoing orbital instalations.
* bio weapons

I still think a MAlign saboteur who fires on Beowulf itself. A laser cluster intercept is useless for defense, it has to be counter missiles or ramming. (And most anything that could pull off a ram would be better off firing CMs instead as a ram requires rolling the wedge.)

As much as I sympathise, I'm afraid that you'll have to accept that there _aren't_ any "worthy League opponents". There's exactly 1 living SLN flag officer who has commanded a multi-ship action - and he made all the classic noob mistakes that Haven-Sector commanders have had beaten out of them before they graduate from ship command [usually, in fact, before they _achieve_ ship command]. since he is still alive, Rozsak will learn from them, but he's got a long way to go before he'll be able to face up to someone like Genevieve Chin, never mind a Manty or Grayson trained by Honor Harrington or Hamish Alexander. And he's the only man in Solarian uniform for whom even task force command is more than a theoretical exercise. The majority of Sollies have never even seen blood shed for real. None have had their ships shot to scrap around them.

cthia wrote:

Do you think the Yawata Strike wasn't a big entry under the loss column, then? For that matter, the first battle of Manticore was a big fat lose-lose for both belligerent factions now merged.

Yes I do. Loss. But the L column represents a Lost. You may win a battle with a sucker punch - see the Japanese and Pearl Harbor -- but you don't win a war that way. That way you only awaken a sleeping giant that opens up his big bag of worms and feeds them to you. The Yawata strike wasn't a lost. It was a loss. Subtle, yet very profound difference.

The rest of your post I take under serious advisement.

I'd just like to see the remaining wargames with the League fought with at least a deck stacked with worthy League opponents.

Your brain doesn't have to be as handicapped as the vessel it's in -- see Stephen Hawkings.

Louis R wrote:As much as I sympathise, I'm afraid that you'll have to accept that there _aren't_ any "worthy League opponents". There's exactly 1 living SLN flag officer who has commanded a multi-ship action - and he made all the classic noob mistakes that Haven-Sector commanders have had beaten out of them before they graduate from ship command [usually, in fact, before they _achieve_ ship command]. since he is still alive, Rozsak will learn from them, but he's got a long way to go before he'll be able to face up to someone like Genevieve Chin, never mind a Manty or Grayson trained by Honor Harrington or Hamish Alexander. And he's the only man in Solarian uniform for whom even task force command is more than a theoretical exercise. The majority of Sollies have never even seen blood shed for real. None have had their ships shot to scrap around them.

So can you tell me what fleet actions the leaders of US Navy in WW2 participated in prior to that little dustup? How about officers who distinguished themselves in combat and rose to lead the USN during WW2?

Yeah, kind of hard to find this given that the combat actions prior to WW2 for the last 30 years consisted of a few small-scale actions against uboats, and a total of three USN ships were lost due to enemy action (one to a torpedo, one to a mine, one to an IJN air strike while anchored).

So obviously with that kind of lack of skills and experience the battle hardened Kriegsmarine and extremely competent IJN, both who had been at war for several year by that point, totally dominated the oceans, right?

And yeah, I'm kind of tired of the battles that some guy once described as war porn.

kzt wrote:...So obviously with that kind of lack of skills and experience the battle hardened Kriegsmarine and extremely competent IJN, both who had been at war for several year by that point, totally dominated the oceans, right?

Heck, sticking in the Honorverse and relatively 'recent', the People's Navy was vastly more experienced with actual war when the first Havenite War opened; no one in the RMN had any experience fighting anything tougher than pirates, and had certainly never fought in a fleet action that wasn't a simulation. Yet somehow the RMN won almost every battle of consequence prior to Icarus.

Not the Honorverse but relevant. The 6 day war between Israel and the Arab World in 1967 was interesting. I was on my parent's remote station (ranch), where we only got the papers weekly. One Saturday the headlines were that Israel would be smashed, the next Saturday had a photo of Israeli tanks near the pyramids. Led to the joke of how many gears does an Arab tank have - one forward and five reverse.
Morale is the main plank of effectiveness.