Scenario of War with the League

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:The idea that High Ridge's "Building the Peace" initiative was essential to discovering the Lynx connection is dubious at best. The lead scientists on that project was already working on it - Reynaud even thinks the government oversight doubled the research time from its inception.

Were they working on it before the cease-fire? I don't really believe that the High Ridge vehicle for graft and corruption did anything more than encourage what was low-priority research during wartime, but I do believe that the circumstances that made the High Ridge government's "Peace" possible would not have happened with "pre-Buttercup" level technology.

I believe it was a long term project Astro Control had been running for years, if not decades. They seem to be continiously mapping the Junction.

Given the economic value of additional termini, it's always worth checking your wormhole regularly in case an extra one is hiding there. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the agencies is continuing to search for an eighth terminus, just in case there's one after all.

Relax wrote:Sigs said no podnaughts and no MDM's. Said nothing about fire control. All of the ships at that time were being built with vastly higher numbers of control channels to handle even more pods on tow.

"Ships being built at that time" -- ie pre-buttercup" -- were largely pod-noughts building up to Buttercup. Presumably Sigs means designs older than those used in Buttercup except for CLACs, Shrikes and Ferrets.

Even conventional designs with extra fire-control channels -- or Havenites using Forracker's rotating FC Links -- wouldn't have the same sort of capability built for Buttercup.

Even with extra fire-control and 1920-ish flat-pack pods the RMN doesn't have the numbers for a war of attrition and without a significant range advantage they WILL take damage/losses in every battle.

munroburton wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Were they working on it before the cease-fire? I don't really believe that the High Ridge vehicle for graft and corruption did anything more than encourage what was low-priority research during wartime, but I do believe that the circumstances that made the High Ridge government's "Peace" possible would not have happened with "pre-Buttercup" level technology.

I believe it was a long term project Astro Control had been running for years, if not decades. They seem to be continuously mapping the Junction.

That may be true, but I doubt that it had much of a priority for funding during wartime. Finding a new terminus did suck away a squadron of the wall and all the lighter units that eventually became the core of 10th Fleet; that doesn't seem like something a country scraping the bottom of the barrel for ships would actively court.

Kytheros wrote:It wouldn't take 50 years to start building stuff, true.

It would only take a few years, probably a decade at most, to build the infrastructure to start building the best ships that the various core worlds have the technology for. Also true.

Manticore predicted that, staring with essentially high school shop classes, they could have the infrastructure in place to be building SDs in 4 years. If you start with an actual industrial infrastructure with modern gear and experienced industrial engineers, machinists, machine operators, large orbital assembly work forces (instead of having to train all of those from largely scratch) it should take quite a bit less time.

PRESUMING...the GA is formed after Battle of Manticore....that presumes that 8th Fleet still contributes to the willing of Battle of Manticore and Honor still goes to Haven and there is a GA formed from the terms Honor. Except why would they be forming that alliance without the Alignment as the primary motivator.

BUT... no Alignment messing with Haven and Manticore you then don't get at least the Webster assination and you may still have "Mesa" doing the attack on Torch which Maya's is still there to break the attack and the Peace Converence goes on at Torch (who is going to take a second pass at Torch in that time frame) and Haven and Manticore do reach an equitable peace.
So you have 8th Fleet with 10th fleet working up either in Manticore system (which is reasonable ) and with without Oyster Bay you have Manticore (and Grayson) with their entire INTACT space based industrial infrastructure and continuing to crank out current generation RNM/GSN warships and weapons and you have Keyhole II and Apollo being fitted everywhere. Elizabeth may be happy to have peace but - unlike High Ridge and with the need to help nail down Silesia etc- Elizabeth and the government isn't going to stop building modern ships and weapons.

So why does SL then move against Manticore? OK perhaps Manticore (and Haven) decide that their biggest problem WILL be the SL. Lagoon I & II may have gone ahead and SL is really unhappy. There is still Beowulf who may or may not decide to NOW withdraw from the League but it will not have been with a pre-positioned Filerta due to come in and Crandall is unlikely to have been staged out to Macintosh. Also, no Byng and no Battle of Monica. The homegrown problems of Norbit and Westman are not getting Alignment help though it is possible that OFS is going to START making trouble. Norbit is going to have problems once the system govt asks RMN to help. Westman, given his ability but running up against the idea that he has to start hitting things that create local casualties is also going to prompt a Montana requeset for RNM assistance and things will end badly for both Norbit and Westman.

The SL moving to intervene in a Beowulf withdrawal from the League is also going to have some interesting consequences as Beowulf WILL have Manticore to ask for assistence without the propaganda scenario of already being in a defacto state of war with Manticore. If Beowulf is the trigger for SLN going after Manticore, it is a Manticore with an intact Home Fleet.
Recall that Beowulf is still tied into it's own intelegence sources in SLN and a strike at Manticore- with lots of Apollo capable ships and weapons and SLN (may or may not be Filerta commanding) comes in without Cataphracts, just with the "normal" compliment of weapons. Manticore does not- probably- have any read on SLN ECM etc but they still outrange SLN in missile and any attempt to use the Sigma Draconus terminus to augment an SLN strike at Manticore is going to end "badly" with the forces Manticore will have placed to secure and defend the SD wormhole. Badly as in the RMN fleet destroys rather than convinces to retire the SLN fleet wanting to transit the wormhole.

At this point, SLN still has NO CLUE about the RNM weapons edges- not even the reports (that they don't believe) from the fleets that RMN didn't have to engage in Talbott Quadrant. SLN still doesn't have the current combat experience just quantity of ships. SLN does't really have pods it can deploy with the attacking forces going against Manticore. Home Fleet eats the attacking SLN fleet for lunch if it doesn't surrender crossing the hyper limit. Just the Home Fleet.

Not clear what the Harrington Doctrine would be as far as getting the SL to shatter without the Alignment pushing the problems. Cutting off the trade flow by shutting the wormholes would have been an act of war but Lacoon I would not actualy been a declaration of war though it would be a major contributing factor...and Lacoon II without the previous actions of Byng and Crandall is going to be the same non-declartion of war against the League. Political problems big time.

So you have a GA....and Haven and Manticore- both with full capasity and not having lost any warships in a "1st Manticore" are going to be able to essentilly blockade the SL from that entire arc across the "Haven Quadrant" and deal with SL "diplomacy" as needed.

Weird Harold wrote:

darrell wrote:The battle of spindal fired 1536 pods. The E missiles were controlled by only a portion of henke's fleet. (500 by the rolands) My guess is that her entire fleet would be able to control about 1/4th the pods, so that would be 384 pods, each with 12 SDM's, 10 attack birds, 2 EW birds each.

You're missing the point that 10th fleet would NOT have the fire-control in Sigs alternate-honorverse that they had in the book. With "pre-buttercup" limits on offensive tech, I don't think there would have been a Battle of Spindle or Talbott Quadrant to worry about.

That's the big flaw in Sigs' premise; the lack of buttercup levels and quantities of offensive tech means that the course of the war with Haven would have been drastically different and minor details like the High Ridge government and "Building the Peace" initiatives would never have happened.

There would be no "Grand Alliance" that includes Haven (and probably no alliance with the Andermani) because there would be no overwhelming advantage on either side -- whether Buttercup level or Apollo level.

Without the events in the Talbott Quadrant -- Monica, New Tuscany I and II, & Spindle -- there's no reason to go to war with the SL and no Raging Justice to fuel outrage.

With the explicit exclusion of the MAlign's activities, there is no impulse to initiate hostilities on either side.

With only pre-buttercup offensive tech and no Grand Alliance or Talbott Quadrant, Manticore doesn't have the numbers to withstand the SLN. Luckily they don't have any reason to go to war either.

Culverin DD (1899) 5 tubes each broadside, would have been able to control at least 30 missiles, might have been able to control 120.

Valiant CL (1902) 8 tubes each broadside, would have been able to control at least 48 missiles, might have been able to control 192.

Edward Saganimin CA (1908) 14 tubes each broadside, would have been able to control at least 84 missiles, might have been able to control 336.

Reliant BC (Flights III-IV) (1908) 24 tubes each broadside, would have been able to control at least 144 missiles, might have been able to control 576.

At a maximum Two squadrons of each, or one squadron of DD's, CL's, CA's and 3 BC squadrons would have been able to to control the 384 SDM pods in my example.

Another example: Just one squadron of each can control at least 2448 missiles. That is 204 pods, but call it 200 pods, with 10 attack and 2 EW birds each. 2000 attack missiles targeting 500 missiles each SD (henke targeted 400 Mk23 attack missiles) would be mission kill. 72 SD's would take 18 salvo's. two more salvo's to kill all the screening units. At one salvo every 4 minutes and 4,000 pods would kill every ship of crandals force in less than 1 1/2 hour, and crandal wouldn't have even reached turnover.

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:I believe it was a long term project Astro Control had been running for years, if not decades. They seem to be continuously mapping the Junction.

That may be true, but I doubt that it had much of a priority for funding during wartime. Finding a new terminus did suck away a squadron of the wall and all the lighter units that eventually became the core of 10th Fleet; that doesn't seem like something a country scraping the bottom of the barrel for ships would actively court.

But any owner of a wormhole junction is going to be looking just in case they need to put defences on the far side. Or at least a few ships to scurry back through it to warn "holy crap there's a fleet coming in hot!" This is, after all, the reason Manticore originally annnexed Phoenix and their half-assed early Basilisk annexation, and why they signed agreements with the Andermani and Beowulf regarding their terminii.

It's not going to be something you spend the hundreds of millions of dollars the High Ridge 'Building the Peace' work did, but as observed, Manticoran Astro Control was already using a considerably smaller budget for exactly the same work, and zero PR, even during the First Haven War.

Weird Harold wrote:Trans-stellar corporations are going to be the only source of funding and support the Mandarins can reasonably expect, and I doubt that support is going to last long as the League crumbles.

I still suspect despite the corps that have been explicitly mentioned in the novels (most of which were directly or indirectly Alignment fronts, and so not actually operating with profit in mind), the overwhelming majority of big League businesses are, well, businesses. They care a lot more about the wormhole network being unavailable and vastly increasing shipping costs than they do about the war.

drothgery wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Trans-stellar corporations are going to be the only source of funding and support the Mandarins can reasonably expect, and I doubt that support is going to last long as the League crumbles.

I still suspect despite the corps that have been explicitly mentioned in the novels (most of which were directly or indirectly Alignment fronts, and so not actually operating with profit in mind), the overwhelming majority of big League businesses are, well, businesses. They care a lot more about the wormhole network being unavailable and vastly increasing shipping costs than they do about the war.

I think a good many have invested too much graft in the League and don't find Manticore fertile ground for corruption. They're going to back the SLN as long as they see any hope of a return on their bribery.

Of course, those most invested in the Verge are just as likely to try to buy a FF sector to create a independent base they can exert even more control for less cost.

darrell wrote:Culverin DD (1899) 5 tubes each broadside, would have been able to control at least 30 missiles, might have been able to control 120.

Valiant CL (1902) 8 tubes each broadside, would have been able to control at least 48 missiles, might have been able to control 192.

Edward Saganimin CA (1908) 14 tubes each broadside, would have been able to control at least 84 missiles, might have been able to control 336.

Reliant BC (Flights III-IV) (1908) 24 tubes each broadside, would have been able to control at least 144 missiles, might have been able to control 576.

At a maximum Two squadrons of each, or one squadron of DD's, CL's, CA's and 3 BC squadrons would have been able to to control the 384 SDM pods in my example.

Another example: Just one squadron of each can control at least 2448 missiles. That is 204 pods, but call it 200 pods, with 10 attack and 2 EW birds each. 2000 attack missiles targeting 500 missiles each SD (henke targeted 400 Mk23 attack missiles) would be mission kill. 72 SD's would take 18 salvo's. two more salvo's to kill all the screening units. At one salvo every 4 minutes and 4,000 pods would kill every ship of crandals force in less than 1 1/2 hour, and crandal wouldn't have even reached turnover.

You're just a little high.... on everything. I can't speak to exact control numbers on the given classes, but I give you these 3 data points from the pearls and the books.

1) from the Roland "spring style" pearl, the Roland has 36 control channels.

2) mentioned during the battle of Spindle, the Sag-c has 128 control channels.

3) mentioned during the Battle of Manticore, the average MA SD(p) had just over 400 control channels.

I just can't see a Chanson having anywhere near the firecontrol of a Roland.