Grayson v. Haven

I had a thought a while back. So, after High Ridge signed the cease fire with Saint-Just, Grayson was pissed. Pissed... and had plenty of SD(P)s.

Let's ignore the political dimensions for a moment. Assuming that he could persuade everyone involved to go along with it, what would happen if Benjamin decided to carry on the war without Manticore? If he assembled a fleet, put Honor in command, and told her to take Haven, could she do it?

I imagine that militarily there would be nothing to stop her. Even with Theisman in command, the Graysons could tear right through Capital Fleet.

Holy alternate ending, Batman!

Good question. Would Grayson have had the supporting fleet train of Apollo missiles to punch through?

cthia wrote:Good question. Would Grayson have had the supporting fleet train of Apollo missiles to punch through?

Nope. Apollo was deployed years later.

cthia wrote:Holy alternate ending, Batman!

Good question. Would Grayson have had the supporting fleet train of Apollo missiles to punch through?

Well that's about 6-7 years before anybody had Apollo missiles . [and kzt beat me to that while I was writing the rest of my post]

But assuming you mean the older capacitor powered MDMs, it's still an interesting question.


I suspect the answer is yes. They so ridiculously outrange anything Haven has at the time that even the smaller GSN likely could have bypassed the penultimate Peep defenses at Lovat and directly attacked Haven, defeated its Capital Fleet and forts, and demanded unconditional surrender.
(However I don't know if they had the logistics to hit Lovat, resupply, and then hit Haven)

But that would have required unilateral action, plus the significant strategy change of ignoring a system by system slog and raiding deep after a vulnerable target. (And yes, Haven at that stage, against the newly unveiled capabilities was a vulnerable target assuming, as I do, that they had enough SD(P)s to punch out Capital Fleet)

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Holy alternate ending, Batman!

Good question. Would Grayson have had the supporting fleet train of Apollo missiles to punch through?

Well that's about 6-7 years before anybody had Apollo missiles . [and kzt beat me to that while I was writing the rest of my post]

But assuming you mean the older capacitor powered MDMs, it's still an interesting question.


I suspect the answer is yes. They so ridiculously outrange anything Haven has at the time that even the smaller GSN likely could have bypassed the penultimate Peep defenses at Lovat and directly attacked Haven, defeated its Capital Fleet and forts, and demanded unconditional surrender.
(However I don't know if they had the logistics to hit Lovat, resupply, and then hit Haven)

But that would have required unilateral action, plus the significant strategy change of ignoring a system by system slog and raiding deep after a vulnerable target. (And yes, Haven at that stage, against the newly unveiled capabilities was a vulnerable target assuming, as I do, that they had enough SD(P)s to punch out Capital Fleet)

No, truthfully, I actually meant Apollo. I remember that the RMN enjoyed a range advantage then, I just misremembered it being Apollo. Sorry.

Believe it or not, I wanted Grayson to do just that. Grayson was double-crossed by the Manticoran government.

Question is, what were the tactical and strategic considerations preventing White Haven from doing just that - going directly for the heart of the Haven system? His next stop wasn't Haven as I recall. I think the tactical considerations was the possibility of getting hit from behind?

Why wouldn't Grayson have been bound by the same strategic considerations/limitations -- hence, available fleet train support to carry out a somewhat extended operation. Rearming included.

cthia wrote:No, truthfully, I actually meant Apollo. I remember that the RMN enjoyed a range advantage then, I just misremembered it being Apollo. Sorry.

Believe it or not, I wanted Grayson to do just that. Grayson was double-crossed by the Manticoran government.

Question is, what were the tactical and strategic considerations preventing White Haven from doing just that - going directly for the heart of the Haven system? His next stop wasn't Haven as I recall. I think the tactical considerations was the possibility of getting hit from behind?

Why wouldn't Grayson have been bound by the same strategic considerations/limitations -- hence, available fleet train support to carry out a somewhat extended operation. Rearming included.

White Haven was thinking in terms of taking and holding systems. There's no way the GSN could have fought a conventional war like that on its own. This would be Grayson pulling an Operation Beatrice, going for a total knockout by destroying Capital Fleet and forcing Saint-Just to surrender.

There is, of course, the possibility that the People's Navy would ignore Saint-Just's surrender and instead seek to recapture Haven from the Graysons. Assuming Manticore stayed on the sidelines, it would have come down to whether Grayson's logistics or Haven's politics would have failed first.

Meshakhad wrote:

cthia wrote:No, truthfully, I actually meant Apollo. I remember that the RMN enjoyed a range advantage then, I just misremembered it being Apollo. Sorry.

Believe it or not, I wanted Grayson to do just that. Grayson was double-crossed by the Manticoran government.

Question is, what were the tactical and strategic considerations preventing White Haven from doing just that - going directly for the heart of the Haven system? His next stop wasn't Haven as I recall. I think the tactical considerations was the possibility of getting hit from behind?

Why wouldn't Grayson have been bound by the same strategic considerations/limitations -- hence, available fleet train support to carry out a somewhat extended operation. Rearming included.

White Haven was thinking in terms of taking and holding systems. There's no way the GSN could have fought a conventional war like that on its own. This would be Grayson pulling an Operation Beatrice, going for a total knockout by destroying Capital Fleet and forcing Saint-Just to surrender.

There is, of course, the possibility that the People's Navy would ignore Saint-Just's surrender and instead seek to recapture Haven from the Graysons. Assuming Manticore stayed on the sidelines, it would have come down to whether Grayson's logistics or Haven's politics would have failed first.

Yes, but in a theater of war, strategically why White Haven wanted to take the systems then hold them is to prevent a powerful enough of a force to flank or trap.

You can't just blow by key enemy fortifications on your way to your objective and leave them intact. It's like surrounding yourself with the enemy. Exposing yourself to being outmaneuvered by a counter-offensive - pincered, flanked and swarmed.

.

Depending on how early into the cease-fire Grayson suddenly decides to continue waging the war.


on the bright side, anything from operations starting less than a month after OSJ snookered the peace-talks, and High Ridge was only just starting to form his own coalition. The window of opportunity would have lasted until Haven finished it's quasi-civil war with Theisman and Pritchart holding Haven, and all the former StateSec generals with their vest pocket empires.

By that point in time, Theisman would have had Foraker firmly established out at Bolthole, and the early generation Havenite podnoughts would have been designed.


However, as we say, a bare core of between 4 and 8 battle squadrons of podnoughts, and something like 3 or 4 squadrons of CLAC's, was more or less the entirety of Eighth Fleet circa Operation Buttercup. With only Haven itself, and seemingly Lovat being the only true 'fleets' Haven had left, it's very possible Grayson alone could have forced terms from Haven's orbitals.

The primary reason Eighth Fleet even stopped, prior to the cease-fire, was for their ammunition ships to catch up, and to consolidate their scattered forces specifically to smash Lovat, and clear the way directly to Haven. If they'd finished that wait period even a few hours faster, they could have left their rally point and tearing Haven's Second Fleet (including Giscard, Tourville, and Foraker) apart before the stand-down order could be given.

Would Grayson have needed access to wormhole termini? If so, how would that have been explained?

cthia wrote:Would Grayson have needed access to wormhole termini? If so, how would that have been explained?

They already had a rather substanial core already in place within Eighth Fleet, and as such were based in Trevor's Star. So the core of Eighth Fleet could have continued operations, however continuing to receive supplies and munitions, Grayson would probably have required the Junction to send them in a timely manner.

Which as they proved immediately prior to Thunderbolt, even if High Ridge wanted to throw a fit, according to the military portion of the treaty, Manticore couldn't have stopped Grayson from sending their whole damned fleet through the Junction, and receive priority transit to boot.