A question about the battle of Saltash

I just reread SoF, and got an idea ...

From the pov of the Solarian CO, Vice-Admiral Dubroskaya (sp?): She had to know, that any Manty responses to the illegaly quarantined Manticoran freighters most probably would come from the Talbott-Quadrant. I wonder now, if it would be possible to ... determine the volume of space the RMN-vessels most probably would use to hyper into the system? And - in advance of that - put some surprises in the back of them?

After all, most Navies go as close to the limit as possible, if they go back into normal space, so why not put some destroyers (or maybe an BC), drifting with minimum impeller-drives in the same general direction as the RMN-vessels will go, in their back? Because, the RMN-CO didn't have any reason to put some eyes behind his command ... does he? And if the surprise-ships would drift with ... oh, 4.000 or 5.000 km/s, they would be able to remain (or at least get back in time) into their own weapons range during the approach of the RMN-vessels to the planet.

Only reason I see why it wouldn't work - the sollies wouldn't know exactly, when the Manties would come calling. But they could count on a speedy response, so the real question would be, how far in advance of the RMN the SLN-BCs were in Saltash? Would they've had time to build that kind of trap?

Eagleeye wrote:Would they've had time to build that kind of trap?

Probably?

The problem is, there isn't a lot you can do with that sort of information. Even if you know the approximate direction the force you're expecting is coming from, that still leaves an entire hemisphere of the hyper limit to play with. There is no way to leave enough mines out there to be effective, and even missile pods (particularly the single-drive missiles the SLN has access to at that point) are likely going to be unable to engage effectively from a position on the hyper limit.

After all, most Navies go as close to the limit as possible, if they go back into normal space, so why not put some destroyers (or maybe an BC), drifting with minimum impeller-drives in the same general direction as the RMN-vessels will go, in their back? Because, the RMN-CO didn't have any reason to put some eyes behind his command ... does he? And if the surprise-ships would drift with ... oh, 4.000 or 5.000 km/s, they would be able to remain (or at least get back in time) into their own weapons range during the approach of the RMN-vessels to the planet.

This is not going to work. Or rather, it will only work if you know exactly when and where the enemy will make translation; If you're off by an hour, your drifters will be out of position. And even if you pull it off, with your forces on a vector and at a speed that would allow them to make the intercept, you're still relying on the RMN CO to not detect your forces before they can open fire.

The E wrote:This is not going to work. Or rather, it will only work if you know exactly when and where the enemy will make translation; If you're off by an hour, your drifters will be out of position. And even if you pull it off, with your forces on a vector and at a speed that would allow them to make the intercept, you're still relying on the RMN CO to not detect your forces before they can open fire.

And if the Solly vessels in question copy a page from "the Salamander" itself - lie doggo in the center of the most probable space-volume until the Mantis translate into normal space and then accel not with their impellers, but with their thrusters? After all, we know that any sensor watch tends to ignore non-gravitic signals ... But, I concede, that would need a Solly-CO with some fantasy. And it would need a big enough hydrogen-tank in the Saltash-System - else the vessels in question (assuming they survive the battle) are most probably anchored in the system for some time.

Eagleeye wrote:And if the Solly vessels in question copy a page from "the Salamander" itself - lie doggo in the center of the most probable space-volume until the Mantis translate into normal space and then accel not with their impellers, but with their thrusters? After all, we know that any sensor watch tends to ignore non-gravitic signals ... But, I concede, that would need a Solly-CO with some fantasy. And it would need a big enough hydrogen-tank in the Saltash-System - else the vessels in question (assuming they survive the battle) are most probably anchored in the system for some time.

Yeah, I knew this would come up. Do you not remember the scene a couple books later where Mike Henke demonstrates just why Cerberus was something that could only work in that system, against that particular opponent?

Or the scene in Short Victorious War, where a grayson cruiser does the whole "drift along the hyper limit" thing when a merchie makes an emergency translation across while being pursued by raiders?

Even if you restrict yourself to the most probable approach vector, it's still an enormous volume to cover, and a good commander will never build an ambush around the assumption that the opposition will not look at their sensor screens to closely.

Eagleeye wrote:

The E wrote:This is not going to work. Or rather, it will only work if you know exactly when and where the enemy will make translation; If you're off by an hour, your drifters will be out of position. And even if you pull it off, with your forces on a vector and at a speed that would allow them to make the intercept, you're still relying on the RMN CO to not detect your forces before they can open fire.

And if the Solly vessels in question copy a page from "the Salamander" itself - lie doggo in the center of the most probable space-volume until the Mantis translate into normal space and then accel not with their impellers, but with their thrusters? After all, we know that any sensor watch tends to ignore non-gravitic signals ... But, I concede, that would need a Solly-CO with some fantasy. And it would need a big enough hydrogen-tank in the Saltash-System - else the vessels in question (assuming they survive the battle) are most probably anchored in the system for some time.

It also requires Zavala to completely neglect his recon drone assets. Textev is that he spewed scores of the things in every direction, although the majority went in-system. He found the BCs lying doggo where they were very quickly anyway.

At Cerberus, they knew exactly where the attackers would come in and had the element of surprise - those attackers "knew" there could NOT be any defending mobile forces. Neither variable was in play at Saltash.

That's also assuming after Cerberus, RMN sensor techs continue to ignore other types of sensors. I believe they shouldn't even have the opportunity, as FTL RDs are definitely equipped with other types of sensors. They've been taking optical shots of Solly SDs' painted names ffs!

Eagleeye wrote:

The E wrote:This is not going to work. Or rather, it will only work if you know exactly when and where the enemy will make translation; If you're off by an hour, your drifters will be out of position. And even if you pull it off, with your forces on a vector and at a speed that would allow them to make the intercept, you're still relying on the RMN CO to not detect your forces before they can open fire.

And if the Solly vessels in question copy a page from "the Salamander" itself - lie doggo in the center of the most probable space-volume until the Mantis translate into normal space and then accel not with their impellers, but with their thrusters? After all, we know that any sensor watch tends to ignore non-gravitic signals ... But, I concede, that would need a Solly-CO with some fantasy. And it would need a big enough hydrogen-tank in the Saltash-System - else the vessels in question (assuming they survive the battle) are most probably anchored in the system for some time.

Add to this that they didn't know how strong a force would arrive.

In addition, to even think of the scenario, you would need a commander that had the smarts to "pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel."

On the other hand - the Sollies need a win to "cut back the uppity neobarbs" - after all, they didn't score a victory in any clashes with Manticore so far (aside from Byngs destruction of Chaterjees defenseless destroyers). Given a certain ... desperateness in their mindset, it might appear to them as an idea worth trying. Especially, if the Solly-CO in question will get the order to do so by his or her civilian master. I, at least, wouldn't put it after the Saltash Governor (or any other Solly "Apparatchik" with enough influence) to order something like that - especially, if the bureaucrat in question thinks of him- or herself as an unrecognized military genius (what, admittedly, the Saltash governor didn't).

Eagleeye wrote:On the other hand - the Sollies need a win to "cut back the uppity neobarbs" - after all, they didn't score a victory in any clashes with Manticore so far (aside from Byngs destruction of Chaterjees defenseless destroyers). Given a certain ... desperateness in their mindset, it might appear to them as an idea worth trying. Especially, if the Solly-CO in question will get the order to do so by his or her civilian master. I, at least, wouldn't put it after the Saltash Governor (or any other Solly "Apparatchik" with enough influence) to order something like that - especially, if the bureaucrat in question thinks of him- or herself as an unrecognized military genius (what, admittedly, the Saltash governor didn't).

Part of the problem is that those bureaucrats haven't caught up with the times yet. Until after 2nd Manticore, they still thought Solarian Navy doctrine was valid, because they thought its superiority was still valid. Even after 2nd Manticore, PubInfo was putting spin out, claiming Filareta was only defeated because "Harrington convinced him to scuttle his pods and then fired." A second, even bigger wave is massing at Tasmania.

So why bother with sneaky ambushes and the like? Just wait for more SLN to show up and clean the mess up. After all, that's what Frontier Fleet has been doing for OFS for centuries.

For my money, any SLN ambush with a chance of succeeding is going to rely on shotgunning battle squadrons into normal space in the hopes one of them will emerge within energy range of the enemy formation. If they pull it off, that single battle squadron has more short-range firepower than two squadrons of Invictuses. Which, by the way, can no longer engage with missiles because they don't have shipboard launchers and the SLN would be close enough to blow up missile pods before they could fire.

It'd still be a losing engagement for the SLN, but they'd be at least inflicting as much damage as the Peeps did during Fourth Yeltsin. Assuming the GA formation doesn't simply roll wall and withdraw into a hyper limit to build range once its CO realizes what the SLN CO is trying to do, that is.

Eagleeye wrote:On the other hand - the Sollies need a win to "cut back the uppity neobarbs" - after all, they didn't score a victory in any clashes with Manticore so far (aside from Byngs destruction of Chaterjees defenseless destroyers). Given a certain ... desperateness in their mindset, it might appear to them as an idea worth trying.

The SLN in Saltash didn't see any need to be innovative or terrible sneaky. They were working with insufficient and garbled intelligence but they believed they had overwhelming force available and their mere presence would be sufficient to cow a mere five "light cruisers" who couldn't possibly be carrying enough pods to endanger four Frontier Fleet battle-cruisers.

Shadow of Freeedom wrote:One thing Dubroskaya was confident of was that the stories they had heard—like the ones about what had happened to Josef Byng in New Tuscany—had obviously grown in the telling. There had to be at least some core of truth to the wild tales of disaster, but the destruction of dozens of SDs while the Manties got off scot free? Ridiculous! Still, the SLN had clearly taken losses and, presumably, retreated from the system in the face of unexpectedly heavy resistance, and that was more than bad enough for Oxana Dubroskaya. The fact that a Solarian fleet had failed to take its objective for the very first time in the SLN’s history was a sobering—and infuriating—thought, and she was determined not to let overconfidence lull her into creating her own disaster, which was one reason she was less than enthralled by Dueñas’ strategy. She and her staff had analyzed the badly garbled bits and pieces of information they had as carefully (and pessimistically) as possible, however, and it seemed evident that the Manties must have managed to get more system-defense missile pods into the system than Crandall had realized. They’d probably been longer-ranged than Crandall had expected, too, judging by the limited accounts they had. That was the only explanation they could come up with…and as she’d just pointed out to the governor, missile pods in Spindle weren’t going to help them in Saltash.

The E wrote:

Eagleeye wrote:And if the Solly vessels in question copy a page from "the Salamander" itself - lie doggo in the center of the most probable space-volume until the Mantis translate into normal space and then accel not with their impellers, but with their thrusters? After all, we know that any sensor watch tends to ignore non-gravitic signals ... But, I concede, that would need a Solly-CO with some fantasy. And it would need a big enough hydrogen-tank in the Saltash-System - else the vessels in question (assuming they survive the battle) are most probably anchored in the system for some time.

Yeah, I knew this would come up. Do you not remember the scene a couple books later where Mike Henke demonstrates just why Cerberus was something that could only work in that system, against that particular opponent?

And even then only because they were hiding the thrusters' giant energetic plasma bloom by attacking "out of the sun".

Even the most myopic braindead automated system would notice that kind of plasma flare against the out-system cosmic background. I'm sure alarms would be going off in that scenario even if the sensor techs were all off on a coffee break .


Basically I think the SLN would have to be astronomically lucky and have the Mantie's drop out within SDM range of the ships lying doggo to have a chance to inflict even a semi-successful ambush.