Turning points in the RMN/RHN war

Theemile wrote:

Duckk wrote:Sure, you could try to shoot down the mines with energy weapons and PDLCs. How many mines can each ship get before dying? A few dozen? Maybe a hundred? Meanwhile, the other million or so mines will be lighting up.

Also mines are usually stealthed, as in OBS - You gotta find them before you can hit them.

noblehunter wrote:Making Manty strategists, or even just the less military savy politicians worry, about a double assault would have had its own benefits. Erring on the side of caution is still erring. Then there's the spectre of a three sided assault (both Termini plus hyper space), though I don't think the Peeps would have the ability and/or audacity to try it. Having two termini in enemy hands might have resulted in more resources devoted to fixed defenses, which would suit the Peeps in the war they thought they were going to get.

Could a Peep attack through the Manticore Wormhole Junction succeed? (Asked Thu Jun 14, 2012)

The defender's problem, of course, arises when there are multiple axes of attack. That is, when someone can flank you and hit you from hyper as well as through the terminus. Even then, you are risking enormous losses for the force transiting the terminus, and one reason to attack from hyper as well is to get close enough that you can target the terminus defenses (including all those mines and stuff) from behind. You cam "sweep" the mines on a terminus with weapons launched in n-space on the other side, opening a gap in any "automatic" defenses, while your forces coming in through hyper draw any defending starships out of position by forcing them to honor the new threat.

In the case of Trevor's Star, the Peeps hadn't put any forts on the terminus. They hadn't needed to. If anyone started any wars between them and the SKM, they intended for it to be them, which meant that --- unlike the SKM --- they didn't have to worry about a sneak attack in peacetime. Therefore, it made more sense to use the immensely less expensive option of mining the single transit lane to a fare-thee-well. That strategy came back to bite them when White Haven managed to convince the Admiralty to let him go after the terminus from both directions at once, but please do note how long it took him to convince Admiralty House to let him try that even with the enormous strategic edge Trevor's Star's was going to give the RMN. Had the PR been able to find the resources to put forts on the terminus to protect it against an attack through hyper-space, White Haven's plans probably wouldn't have worked because there would have been something in place to back up the mines, but the PN didn't have all those big nasty forts and was under the impression that a sufficient number of SDs ought to do the trick.

In Honor's case in OBS, her major concerns were (1) the SKM would lose the entire Basilisk System plus terminus if the Peeps succeeded; (2) in the event of a war, the SKM would pay just as hideous a price as anyone else if the Manties were insnae enough to try an assault through a terminus; (3) Manticore would have lost control of a full third of the Junction's then known termini if the Peeps succeeded; and (4) that the bad guys might not accept the conventional wisdom and that the conventional wisdom might be wrong.

IRT that last point, note that no one had ever been stupid enough to TRY a terminus assault into a prepared defense. Manticore couldn't be positive that the Peeps might not be ready to try it in the event of a war, and until someone did try it --- or until they'd had sufficient time to be sure the laserhead was going to work as advertised --- they couldn't be positive it was unworkable.

I suppose I should admit that the terms in which I have been discussing this sort of a scenario are those of around 1900-1920 --- i.e., after the laser head has been throughly tested in battle. Prior to that time, a terminus assault just might have been survivable in the absence of powerful fortifications, and in that sense I have been guilty of a possibly misleading statement in earlier posts. Prior to the development of the laser head, minefields were armed with the old "boom or burn" warheads rather than laser heads. They required longer to get into effective attack range, which actually might have given someone who transited the terminus long enough to get his own missiles off before he got wiped. At that point, you needed the forts to back up the mines against someone coming through the terminus. It was only after the laser head was developed and thoroughly tested that the SKM's forts became redundant in wartime defense against assault transits and assumed defense against attacks via hyper as their primary function. Prior to the laser head, defense against a "peactime" assault through the terminus and against a more conventional attack through hyper were of coequal importance.

One should also note that SKM doctrine and defensive analysis was lagging even in 1900 because the laser head had not yet been used in combat. To use a very imperfect analogy, their fears that the Peeps might be willing to throw in a wave of BBs, even knowing they would lose them all, in order to erode the defenses, was somewhat equivalent to an admiral in 1939 being unprepared to declare the battleship obsolete in the face of carrier airpower. Until the Manties knew laser heads were going to work as well as they hoped, they were unprepared to risk the SKM's existence on the proposition. In that respect, shutting down the Junction forts as obsolescent reflected the final validation of the laser head. The RMN now knew that the mines could do the job unassisted; until they had the test of combat behind them, they couldn't be positive of that.

cthia wrote:I find it astounding that both of the governments of the opposing navies provided their own turning points in contention with their war efforts -- akin to shooting themselves in the foot. There were times that both the Manticoran and Havenite governments were their own worst enemy.

On the Havenite side, there were Saint-Just and Pierre eliminating experienced officers and alienating others - killing the effectiveness of the navy. Being caught lying to the galaxy about the execution of Honor Harrington created all kinds of ripples in their pond. Saddling CO's with People's Commissioners riding herd.

On the Manticoran end there is the build-down of the navy, the exile of its most important officer and pulling the plug on the most successful fleet operations of the war at the eleventh hour.

Both governments deserve, at least, honorable mention in the Honorverse Hall of Shame.

An aside:
Honor strong-armed the Grayson government to acquire a meeting with Protector Benjamin, dressed down Hemphill in front of the WDB, challenged White Haven's stance on the new weapon systems, stood up to Elizabeth by calling her out on several matters, threatened the richest man in the galaxy with bodily harm, pulled a power move on (some secretary at BuPers?) to get her request for certain officers -- Honor isn't intimidated by authority figure, is she?

What an interesting handful of a child she must have been to raise...

"You just got back from where with your cat young lady?"

Vince wrote:

cthia wrote:I find it astounding that both of the governments of the opposing navies provided their own turning points in contention with their war efforts -- akin to shooting themselves in the foot. There were times that both the Manticoran and Havenite governments were their own worst enemy.

On the Havenite side, there were Saint-Just and Pierre eliminating experienced officers and alienating others - killing the effectiveness of the navy. Being caught lying to the galaxy about the execution of Honor Harrington created all kinds of ripples in their pond. Saddling CO's with People's Commissioners riding herd.

On the Manticoran end there is the build-down of the navy, the exile of its most important officer and pulling the plug on the most successful fleet operations of the war at the eleventh hour.

Both governments deserve, at least, honorable mention in the Honorverse Hall of Shame.

An aside:
Honor strong-armed the Grayson government to acquire a meeting with Protector Benjamin, dressed down Hemphill in front of the WDB, challenged White Haven's stance on the new weapon systems, stood up to Elizabeth by calling her out on several matters, threatened the richest man in the galaxy with bodily harm, pulled a power move on (some secretary at BuPers?) to get her request for certain officers -- Honor isn't intimidated by authority figure, is she?

What an interesting handful of a child she must have been to raise...

"You just got back from where with your cat young lady?"

I'm surprised you find it astounding. History is full of examples of governments doing stupid things in war for what turned out to be idiotic reasons.

The Great Purge or the Great Terror (Russian: Большо́й терро́р) was a campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union which occurred from 1936 to 1938. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and government officials, repression of peasants and the Red Army leadership, and widespread police surveillance, suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and arbitrary executions. In Russian historiography, the period of the most intense purge, 1937–1938, is called Yezhovshchina (Russian: Ежовщина; literally, "Yezhov phenomenon", commonly translated as "times of Yezhov" or "doings of Yezhov"), after Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the Soviet secret police, NKVD.

Then there was Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, the Holodomor, and more.

The total for Chinese Communist Party democide is 77 million, more than the Soviet Union (62 million), Nazi Germany (21 million), or any other regime in the 20th century.

Brigade XO wrote: Beowulf sits at the other end of the primary terminus of the Junction and is the probable major route of trade and traffic through the Junction. It is the path to the SL. Beowulf -we are later told- has massive ties to Manticore both in terms of intermarriage of populations, massive trade relations with Manticore and has been deeply connected on the political side for generations. Much more so than with San Martin with whom Manticor fought a war.

drothgery wrote:

Brigade XO wrote: Beowulf sits at the other end of the primary terminus of the Junction and is the probable major route of trade and traffic through the Junction. It is the path to the SL. Beowulf -we are later told- has massive ties to Manticore both in terms of intermarriage of populations, massive trade relations with Manticore and has been deeply connected on the political side for generations. Much more so than with San Martin with whom Manticor fought a war.

Oh, in the 130 or so years between the San Martin War and the Havenite conquest, Manticore and San Martin got very close. Manticore's government might have been surprised when San Martin proposed joining the SKM, but there was pretty much no significant opposition to the move on Manticore or San Martin.

cthia wrote:It seems like the treecats learning to sign would be the basis of some sort of turning point. Yet, has any revelations come out in communication between treecats and humans?

Perhaps in the future.