Scenario of War with the League

I have a much more realistic scenario, since your scenario leaves immense gray zones since no allowance for advancement was given post 1910:

Leave Honorverse tech tree stand as is, except, give the SLN the ability to teleport 80Mkm once every hour.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:Did you read the numbers I posted? How does the SLN have the overwhelming numbers when they also have 20 times the territory to defend? If the GA had to protect Manticore, Grayson, Haven, Bolthole and maybe a dozen to 2 dozen other systems while the SLN has to protect several hundred core worlds which will be screaming for protection.

The SLN's standard contingency plan is precisely what Adm Crandall did -- head for the Capitol system and force a surrender. The SLN only has to capture three or four systems and has the numbers to do that if only faced with SDM technology.

The League will probably fall apart later, but the war would be over before the construction advantage became relevant.

Incorrect. Maximum firing rate for havanite ships of the wall is 20 seconds. (manticore is probably faster. That is 9 broadsides in 3 minutes, with a broadside of 36 tubes, an SD would need to be able to control at least 324 missiles per SD.

The GA has pods, the SL does not. Advantage manticore.

With pods propositioned and spread throughout the system, there is no way that even with SDM's in pods that a defending alliance force can't destroy an attacking force at 10:1 odds, even if the attacking force has pods.

On the defence end, the SL needs to protect hundreds of systems, which means that they ca'nt put more than a squadron at each core world. 10th fleet can go in with 20 squadrons of SD's and capture each world one at a time.

With less than 20 systems that need protecting, the GA can put 5 squadrons of the wall in each, and with pods they can defeat filerta's force if 400 SD's

Did all of the SL's forts disappear? Unless we are going to postulate none of the SL worlds have any.

Relax wrote:Did all of the SL's forts disappear? Unless we are going to postulate none of the SL worlds have any.

We can postulate they have at most A fort, because most of them rely upon being Solarian, thus the Solarian Navy which is only the largest, and most powerful Navy in existance to protect them. Building fortresses is expensive, both in upfront and upkeep fees that they don't really need.

There's probably forts guarding various shipyards, and maintenance bases, think Solarian versions of Hancock Station circa tSVW, or perhaps a little larger for actual construction. So actually somewhere between Hancock Station and Grendlesbane, small enough to be in a bunch of locations and large enough to handle basic construction of upto cruiser grade.

The only thing we know about Solarian defences, is only a dozen systems have System Defense Forces that match Beowulf's ~30 Superdreadnoughts, and even then we don't really know WHY those other 12 systems have that powerful a local Navy. Beowulf obviously had their agreement with Manticore to guard their end.

Somtaaw wrote:

Relax wrote:Did all of the SL's forts disappear? Unless we are going to postulate none of the SL worlds have any.

We can postulate they have at most A fort, because most of them rely upon being Solarian, thus the Solarian Navy which is only the largest, and most powerful Navy in existance to protect them. Building fortresses is expensive, both in upfront and upkeep fees that they don't really need.

There's probably forts guarding various shipyards, and maintenance bases, think Solarian versions of Hancock Station circa tSVW, or perhaps a little larger for actual construction. So actually somewhere between Hancock Station and Grendlesbane, small enough to be in a bunch of locations and large enough to handle basic construction of upto cruiser grade.

The only thing we know about Solarian defences, is only a dozen systems have System Defense Forces that match Beowulf's ~30 Superdreadnoughts, and even then we don't really know WHY those other 12 systems have that powerful a local Navy. Beowulf obviously had their agreement with Manticore to guard their end.

Part of me suspects that those powerful SDFs are actually older than the League and the SLN. That they're legacy symbols those systems aren't prepared to give up.

Another possibility is they all have wormhole termini or junctions - those generally fall outside the legally recognised territory of a star system, unless that star system has sufficient force to hold that wormhole for their own interests.

A large chunk of the SL's income is from wormhole transit fees - fees they would only be able to collect if the local star system wasn't able to lay a plausible and secure claim to the terminus.

Basically, it doesn't matter that the SLN has 2,000 wallers to your 16 or 24, because the mere fact that you have them forces the League to commit some of their wallers if they want to stamp on you. Doing so threatens to upset the status quo for the League itself.

Not unlike our current world and its nuclear powers. Only two or three really have enough of an arsenal to repeatedly strike everyone else, but even those with only a few dozen or scores of limited-deployment devices acquire several international privileges.

As for forts, we indeed don't know much. I figure whatever forts there are in the SL are equally, if not more, obsolescent as their SDs. Although it's said to be the most heavily fortified system in the mapped universe, neither Battles of Manticore featured its forts.

munroburton wrote:As for forts, we indeed don't know much. I figure whatever forts there are in the SL are equally, if not more, obsolescent as their SDs. Although it's said to be the most heavily fortified system in the mapped universe, neither Battles of Manticore featured its forts.

I would also consider it likely that there are few to no forts run by the SLN. Forts as fixed defences would be owned and run by the various SDFs. I would expect that there are forts that run the gamut from Museums (think Tower of London), to late model modern construction (Maginot line in 1937).

munroburton wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:The only thing we know about Solarian defences, is only a dozen systems have System Defense Forces that match Beowulf's ~30 Superdreadnoughts, and even then we don't really know WHY those other 12 systems have that powerful a local Navy. Beowulf obviously had their agreement with Manticore to guard their end.

Part of me suspects that those powerful SDFs are actually older than the League and the SLN. That they're legacy symbols those systems aren't prepared to give up.

Another possibility is they all have wormhole termini or junctions - those generally fall outside the legally recognised territory of a star system, unless that star system has sufficient force to hold that wormhole for their own interests.

as easy as lacoon 2 was able to capture wormholes, I doubt that any of the SDF's were actually guarding wormhole termini. Although some of the SDI's may be in systems with wormholes, I doubt that many of them are in "wormhole systems."

IMO there is a far more likely scenario for at least some of the SDI's. We know that the malign has about a dozen secret daughter colonies. I would be willing to bet that at least some of those have powerful SDI's.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:Did you read the numbers I posted? How does the SLN have the overwhelming numbers when they also have 20 times the territory to defend? If the GA had to protect Manticore, Grayson, Haven, Bolthole and maybe a dozen to 2 dozen other systems while the SLN has to protect several hundred core worlds which will be screaming for protection.

The SLN's standard contingency plan is precisely what Adm Crandall did -- head for the Capitol system and force a surrender. The SLN only has to capture three or four systems and has the numbers to do that if only faced with SDM technology.

The League will probably fall apart later, but the war would be over before the construction advantage became relevant.

And the only way they can do that is by stripping their core systems of all mobile defences. If the GA has Beowulf by the time the SLN fleets get to Haven, Manticore or Grayson the GA would be able to smash the core into a million pieces if they want to or if they chose not to they can move in and make peace with each individual system. And whatever loyalty any of those systems might feel towards the League will be gone because the League would have abandoned them. And do you even for a second think that the Leadership in Earth would send out the SLN to attack any of the GA's important systems with the whole Fleet leaving Earth defenceless?

Relax wrote:Did all of the SL's forts disappear? Unless we are going to postulate none of the SL worlds have any.

Why would they have any or at least enough to matter?

We are talking about the biggest, strongest and richest nations in existence and human history. In what scenario would the SLN be building forts over SD's? The League thinks in terms of offensive power rather than defensive power, if anyone is going to need forts it would be the other guy not them. There may be forts in strategic locations and maybe even some core systems might have them or even systems that are not so friendly with their neighbours but ultimately, there would not be enough to actually offset the need for mobile defences.

At the same time, Manticore, Haven and Grayson utilize forts to one degree or another which means that their important systems will be covered to some degree even if the mobile fleet is away.

darrell wrote:as easy as lacoon 2 was able to capture wormholes, I doubt that any of the SDF's were actually guarding wormhole termini. Although some of the SDI's may be in systems with wormholes, I doubt that many of them are in "wormhole systems."

IMO there is a far more likely scenario for at least some of the SDI's. We know that the malign has about a dozen secret daughter colonies. I would be willing to bet that at least some of those have powerful SDI's.

Fair enough, all of them having wormholes is too strong. I meant to say some or most of them might have such assets. However, there isn't even enough evidence to rule this out - we don't even know how many wormhole links there are and where they are. IIRC, there's some speculation based on there being only one historical ship-eating wormhole(other than Torch) making up less than one percent, suggesting ~200. Obviously there aren't that many strong SDFs... but junctions are rarer and exponentially more valuable.

As for Laocoon - even in late 1922, the Visigoth wormhole had not been seized, despite being a junction relatively close to the Beowulf terminus. This suggests to me that Visigoth, not the League, controls its own wormhole and further, that Visigoth has a SDF of some substance.

For example, if Visigoth has 8 SDs, the RMN would need to send at least sixteen to guarantee that Visigoth concedes possession of their junction without firing any shots(even though a single Invictus could wipe all 8 out). But then the RMN has to keep all 16 on top of the terminus... where they'd be a tempting target for something like Tsang's 100-SD task force. So then they have to send additional squadrons just in case.

It's also a very poor move diplomatically. The key element of the Harrington Doctrine is to break the League up into smaller bits and be friends with those bits. It's a bit hard to do that when you've sent a battle fleet to seize their property and deprive them of income, however temporarily, not to mention any uniformed citizens who may be killed in action.

You won't find much argument from me about the Renaissance Factor having wallers. There is textev from the Big Bad himself that their SDFs are supposed to merge and form a respectable navy, to which the many spiderships being built by Darius are meant to supplement.

However, I believe only three or four RF members have them. Why? Because if suddenly 11 of the most powerful SDFs banded together and seceded on their own, crucially ignoring Beowulf's lead... Well, if I were ONI, I'd have those 11 on the top of my infiltration list!