Turning points in the RMN/RHN war

IIRC, an apologetic admiralty used Grayson as bait -- easier to do since all sides are aware of the importance of Grayson, of the strategic scope (depth) that it affords the RMN.

Duckk wrote:No, they went after Grayson because it was the thinnest part of the Alliance's perimeter, through which they had the most direct path to Manticore.

We would assemble our forces at DuQuesne Base in the Barnett System, far enough inside the frontier that Manticore couldn't tell what we were up to. From there, we'd attack southwest against Yeltsin, the thinnest point in their perimeter. With Yeltsin in our hands, we would advance directly against Manticore, taking out the bases on our flanks to protect our rear as we went. Losses would be higher than a successful Perseus One, but we'd avoid the risk of the total destruction of our forces which Perseus One entails.

It was also the site of one of the largest detachments of the RMN's wall, so taking it out in a surprise attack with overwhelming force would have changed the balance of power significantly.

But regardless, Grayson itself was pretty irrelevant to the decision to attack Yeltsin's Star. It was all about its strategic position and the RMN's presence.

Very nice post Duckk.

For my information, exactly which detachment was one of the RMN's largest that was dispatched to the Yeltsin System? I was always under the impression that everything sent there was bare minimum -- which made for good storyline. Except when Hamish bought the cavalry, of course. What have I missed... again?

D'Orville's Second Fleet was parked in Yeltsin's Star, as mentioned in SVW. Parnell makes a mental comment that the 4 squadrons supposedly transferred out of Yeltsin's Star represented half the "prize", so that'd place Second Fleet's total strength at roughly 48 (EDIT: actually 64) wallers.

IMO, the ultimate turning point, the 'shatterpoint' if you don't mind my using a SW EU concept, of the first war was First Hancock.

The consequences of that particular battle turning out exactly the way it did led to Honor's exile, the establishment of Grayson Sky Domes & Blackbird Yard and the GSN's substantial later contributions to the war effort.

If even a single Commodore had survived(especially Van Slyke), or if Captain Trinh's com systems weren't so damaged, then Young would have been executed before he had Paul Tankersley killed.

From a strictly military perspective, failing to lure Chin's dreadnoughts into range of Danislav's might have given Admiral Rollins enough firepower to fend off Parks' counter-attack, which was a resounding success with only three PNS wallers surviving to retreat. Or they might have inflicted more damage, allowing Adm Coatsworth's squadrons to take Hancock out.

In the meantime, Honor and HMS Nike were screening White Haven's battle squadrons on the advance to Trevor's Star, raiding around the flanks or picketing less critical systems. We know Caparelli later said he believed Honor would have advanced quickly in rank during this period.

But then when Citizen Admiral Thurston came over Yeltsin's hyper limit, Grayson might have been knocked out of the war there and then.

No exile also means no redemption required - Honor wouldn't have been sent to Silesia with HMS Wayfarer and the other Q-ships. Giscard's operation would have succeeded and Warnecke would hang onto Sidemore. That means no Sidemore Station. She also doesn't get to meet the Emperor's admiral cousin - both points vital in resolving the tensions in Silesia, as Tourville wouldn't have been sent out there without a Sidemore Station to attack. The trade cartels may have pulled out of Silesia as well, especially if the Hauptmans are killed.

That means someone else writes the WDB's final recommendations on the Medusa-class SD(P) and CLAC mix - to be fought tooth and nail by Hamish Alexander. With his active opposition to "Hemphill's fantasies" rather than dragging his First Space Lord and Chancellor of the Exchequer out to Grayson(already out of the war by now in this version of events) to see the new hardware in production, Operation Buttercup is delayed. Worse, Havenite intelligence was going to find out about that stuff eventually - would have been easier with loud arguments between Hamish and Sonja.

And of course, Honor wouldn't have been captured escorting some insignificant(in the grand scheme of things) convoy. Cordelia Ransom doesn't die over Cerberus and there isn't a great prison break. Quite possibly Shannon Foraker wouldn't have been pushed into becoming StateSec's worst nightmare early enough.

So... First Hancock turning out exactly the way it did probably shortened the war by a decade and won it, given the economic muscle Pierre's reforms gave a Haven with one or two hundred fewer systems for the second war.

Duckk wrote:D'Orville's Second Fleet was parked in Yeltsin's Star, as mentioned in SVW. Parnell makes a mental comment that the 4 squadrons supposedly transferred out of Yeltsin's Star represented half the "prize", so that'd place Second Fleet's total strength at roughly 48 wallers.

Were they using 6 or 8 ship squadrons? I believe the RMN uses 8, with a temporary switch to 6 during Janacek's final tenure and shortly afterwards.

With 8 squadrons before the 4 supposedly went out, that'd be 64. With the additional 4 actually transferred from Home Fleet, Second Fleet had 96 when Parnell arrived - approximately a third of Manticore's total battle wall at that time.

I always thought Second Fleet must have had a very high percentage of superdreadnoughts in order to do what it did to Parnell's force. Home Fleet was probably sweating bullets until Hamish brought those four squadrons back!

Completely brainfarted there. You're right, that should be 64 ships.

munroburton wrote:

Duckk wrote:D'Orville's Second Fleet was parked in Yeltsin's Star, as mentioned in SVW. Parnell makes a mental comment that the 4 squadrons supposedly transferred out of Yeltsin's Star represented half the "prize", so that'd place Second Fleet's total strength at roughly 48 wallers.

Were they using 6 or 8 ship squadrons? I believe the RMN uses 8, with a temporary switch to 6 during Janacek's final tenure and shortly afterwards.

With 8 squadrons before the 4 supposedly went out, that'd be 64. With the additional 4 actually transferred from Home Fleet, Second Fleet had 96 when Parnell arrived - approximately a third of Manticore's total battle wall at that time.

I always thought Second Fleet must have had a very high percentage of superdreadnoughts in order to do what it did to Parnell's force. Home Fleet was probably sweating bullets until Hamish brought those four squadrons back!

Ah, but what would have happened if the Havenites had seen through the ruse, and brought 150 Wallers to overwhelm the reinforced 2nd fleet. The battle probably would have been a bloody stalemate, due to the superiority of Manticore's fleet, but would have reduced Homefleet to ~50 ships, and destroyed Manticore's ability to go on the offensive in that theater. That means that Manticore wouldn't have been able to take advantage of the Harris Assination's confusion, and reduce the PRN's leadership and forward fleets in the subsequent actions.

The Manties wouldn't have captured the 32 SDs they did in the opening battles, and wouldn't have given the 11 captured at Yeltsin to Grayson. In turn, Grayson's SDs wouldn't have been available to defend the system for 4th Yeltsin (a small Manty Taskforce would have been there due to the (much) reduced size of the Manty fleet.)

Theemile wrote:Ah, but what would have happened if the Havenites had seen through the ruse, and brought 150 Wallers to overwhelm the reinforced 2nd fleet. The battle probably would have been a bloody stalemate, due to the superiority of Manticore's fleet, but would have reduced Homefleet to ~50 ships, and destroyed Manticore's ability to go on the offensive in that theater. That means that Manticore wouldn't have been able to take advantage of the Harris Assination's confusion, and reduce the PRN's leadership and forward fleets in the subsequent actions.

The Manties wouldn't have captured the 32 SDs they did in the opening battles, and wouldn't have given the 11 captured at Yeltsin to Grayson. In turn, Grayson's SDs wouldn't have been available to defend the system for 4th Yeltsin (a small Manty Taskforce would have been there due to the (much) reduced size of the Manty fleet.)

If the PN saw through the ruse and had 150 SDs ready to go, Parnell would have gone to Manticore. Blow through the weakened Home Fleet, taken the Junction, rush reinforcements in via Trevor's Star, park in orbit over Mount Royal and the war is over.

In turn, Gustav Anderman makes an urgent visit to the imperial bathroom.

Somtaaw wrote:Additionally, while Grayson has definitely been a net-positive for Manticore, the majority of their technology increases would have come regardless of Grayson's help, with the exception of improved compensators and eventually Katana's.

Ghost Rider would have come along anyways, along with beta-squared's and MDM's. As long as Manticore could still have played out the initial opening battles, which the only major 'change' if Grayson had been nuked, would have been the future ambush of Parnell by White Haven would have been in a different location. And then small future battles, like Sidemore versus Second Fleet aided by Protector's Own, etc would have been different.

Somtaaw wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Well much of it was offscreen but Buttercup and beyond Grayson built up a substantial wall of modern podlayers, and those numbers told. Especially in the post ceasefire era where first their intervention possibly saved Trevor's Star, and certainly prevented additional attritional loses to the RMN there, and second fielded near to half the Alliance's modern wall from immediately post Thubderbolt era up until the Adermandi units started coming out of refit in substantial numbers (then later the percentage probably dropped again after the Python Lump came online).
Without those raw numbers of heavy ships Manticore doesn't look to have had a chance after Thunderbolt.

OTOH without Grayson and its fleet at a minimum the ceasefire build down might have been less drastic, or Haven might have felt confident in their military edge sooner and triggered the confrontation that led them to Thinderbolt back when they had lower force levels... Hard to say.
But still Grayson contribed far more than just R&D fodder.

I actually did observe Grayson contributed slightly more than just R&D fodder, I bolded the tiny bit where I observed that. I just didn't really go into detail, because the stone ripples of Grayson 'not' being there is really hard to predict beyond the initial short-term. Then events start to get complicated, like you observed it's possible Thunderbolt may have kicked off much earlier, and Janacek may not have built down as much... those become too hard to truly quantify.

The only battles we can say with certainty would have been slightly different, is how/where/when Parnell kicked off his side of the opening strikes of the war. He initially target Grayson simply because he was already seeing that they were helping Manticore considerably. They were also the Primary Ally, he wanted to knock all the other allies into second-guessing the Alliance. Without Grayson, I'd almost guess at Alizon being the next target, they were the next 'best' built up after Grayson and if we exclude Erewhon who were late-joiners to the Alliance.

But the ambush would have happened almost regardless, because Grayson wasn't involved with the misleading of the Havenite Ambassador's spy net, and the whole "we're sending 4 squadrons out of Grayson but we're really sneaking 4 more into it" would have still happened. Substitute Grayson for Alizon, and it's plausible it would happen with much the same result.

I had seen that in your original post, but I was refuting the idea that they only contributed in "small future battles".

For one thing you didn't note that the GSN formed (IIRC) a majority of the modern heavy units, SD(P) and CLAC, in White Haven's 8th Fleet during Buttercup (not the mention their key role in saving the terminus defenses at Basilisk just prior to that). Hardly small battles, since they effectively broke the back of the Peep Navy.

My larger point was that given that at times they formed between 30 - 50% of the modern wall of the Alliance their direct military influence had to be much higher than "slightly more than just R&D fodder", and that by only focusing on the couple of battles where the GSN was shown 'on screen' playiyng major roles you're significantly underplaying their direct military contribution.

Heck the vast majority of battles in the war were 'off screen', that's what happens when the stories primarily follow a few key point of view characters.

For the most part GSN SD(P) and CLAC squadrons operated in blended fleets with RMN units - often with an RMN admiral in charge of the fleet. But there's no way contributing that many SD(P)s, CLACs, and escorts during the Buttercup through Thunderbolt, and on until the creation of the Grand Alliance could have been a barely more than breakeven contribution.



The GSN was arguably the 3rd or 4th most powerful Navy in known space as of Raging Justice, and at one point right after Thunderbolt - Manticore got way more benefit than cost from having them as a close ally (even ignoring their R&D contributions).

munroburton wrote:If the PN saw through the ruse and had 150 SDs ready to go, Parnell would have gone to Manticore. Blow through the weakened Home Fleet, taken the Junction, rush reinforcements in via Trevor's Star, park in orbit over Mount Royal and the war is over.

In turn, Gustav Anderman makes an urgent visit to the imperial bathroom.

I still think getting Parnell arrested was the turning point of the war.