Infrastructure

One other assumption was that if an enemy only intended to destroy the space based industries they would allow the personnel to evacuate to safety. That is the current major problem for Manticore is they lost almost all the trained personal of the shipyards and orbital manufacturing as they did not get a chance to evacuate. All of their rebuilding efforts are hampered by that. Ironically the new shipyards and orbital manufacturing will be even more efferent and capable then the previous incarnations once they can get them up and running. You can often build facilities and equipment far faster then you can train people to use them.

pnakasone wrote:One other assumption was that if an enemy only intended to destroy the space based industries they would allow the personnel to evacuate to safety.

Or at least in the time it took to fight through home fleet and the fixed defenses that many of the personnel could be evacuated.

pnakasone wrote:One other assumption was that if an enemy only intended to destroy the space based industries they would allow the personnel to evacuate to safety. That is the current major problem for Manticore is they lost almost all the trained personal of the shipyards and orbital manufacturing as they did not get a chance to evacuate.

They didn't start to evacuate when Spinx had ~150 some hostile SD inbound that had just crushed Home Fleet....

kzt wrote:They didn't start to evacuate when Spinx had ~150 some hostile SD inbound that had just crushed Home Fleet....

That was because it was expected that they would be given the time to evacuate in a safe manner.

There are practical reasons to give them a chance to evacuate such as wanting your people to have the same chance if tables should happen to turn and it is your stuff being targeted.

Yawata Strike was such as violation of the expected rules of war that it effectively gave birth to GA.

pnakasone wrote:That was because it was expected that they would be given the time to evacuate in a safe manner.

You mean like the several hours it took for the fleet to get into powered range of the planet? During which time nobody took ANY steps to evacuate the several million people on that station? Exactly what would you consider a sufficient threat that it would be worth starting an evacuation of the station if 150 or so hostile SDs heading directly for you having crushed the only mobile force in the system with isn't sufficient?

You will note when Honor allowed time for people to evacuate Haven orbital sites she was planning on blowing up this was a concession by her, not an obligation. The RHN also had no obligation to allow the people crewing one of the largest fleet bases of the RMN to leave before they blew it up.

kzt wrote:

pnakasone wrote:That was because it was expected that they would be given the time to evacuate in a safe manner.

You mean like the several hours it took for the fleet to get into powered range of the planet? During which time nobody took ANY steps to evacuate the several million people on that station? Exactly what would you consider a sufficient threat that it would be worth starting an evacuation of the station if 150 or so hostile SDs heading directly for you having crushed the only mobile force in the system with isn't sufficient?

You will note when Honor allowed time for people to evacuate Haven orbital sites she was planning on blowing up this was a concession by her, not an obligation. The RHN also had no obligation to allow the people crewing one of the largest fleet bases of the RMN to leave before they blew it up.

Same thing when they hit the orbital infrastructure at Basilisk. The Havenite admiral had no obligation to wait until the last possible moment before firing. And if he'd been pressed harder by the pursuing fleet he might have launched earlier to ensure he destroyed his target.
Even as it was with a couple hours (IIRC) of seeing him bearing down on the effectively undefeated station I dint think the evacuation got everybody out.

It is a catch 22 for the station commander. If they call for an evacuation of the station before their superiors deemed it absolutely the only option they had will at the very least suffer career problems. Having the opposing fleet commander telling you that you have a set amount of time to evacuate before they open fire is a very solid defense. Of course if you did not evacuate when you had the chance and got a lot of people killed you will be worse off as the scapegoat for all the deaths.

Neither side was obligated to do a lot of things in the war. But a number of things where done to avoid escalating the conflict. In warfare the golden rule applies never do anything to the enemy that you would not want done to you in return.

pnakasone wrote:It is a catch 22 for the station commander. If they call for an evacuation of the station before their superiors deemed it absolutely the only option they had will at the very least suffer career problems. Having the opposing fleet commander telling you that you have a set amount of time to evacuate before they open fire is a very solid defense. Of course if you did not evacuate when you had the chance and got a lot of people killed you will be worse off as the scapegoat for all the deaths.

snip

= Dr. Alveda King
My Uncle Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."

IIRC, one of the problems of the solarian league is that they discourage independent thinking by subordinates. A character in one of Murray Leinster's stories commented that a primary duty of a high ranking officer is to encourage thinking by low ranks, because sometime, some will move up in rank and they need practice before then.

I can't rightly recollect, were very many or any stockpile of missiles destroyed with Oyster Bay as well? Perhaps representing more Manty eggs all in one space basket?

Certainly all of a missile stockpile shouldn't be kept in one place. Regardless of any perceived outside threat. Freak accidents on your own side can wipe you out if they are all kept at a single location such as a space station.

IIRC, we Americans somewhat got lucky at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese chose not to destroy the stockpile of fuel in the many tanks at Pearl Harbor. They had determined that the smoke plumes could hinder their vision.

A mistake, as that same fuel was later used against them.

cthia wrote:I can't rightly recollect, were very many or any stockpile of missiles destroyed with Oyster Bay as well?

I don't recall any mention of missile stockpiles. The primary missile production lines were destroyed, and obviously any missiles that hadn't been shipped, but no mention of stockpiles in the discussion of possible missile shortages.