Scenario of War with the League

Dauntless wrote:Beowulf, lynx and bassilisk.

Beowulf: Sure.
Lynx: Sure.

Basilisk? Hell no. Look at the map of the honorverse again. To attack Manticore through Basilisk, an SLN fleet would have to travel past Manticore itself, or alternatively, travel through the Andermani Empire and Silesia. It's an attack route Haven could use, but for Solarians, it's wildly impractical.

And, well. In every single one of those cases, even the SLN knows that an assault through a fortified wormhole is about the least survivable attack strategy imaginable. The one part SLN intelligence will know about regarding the RMN's defensive deployments is that there's a whole bunch of really scary fortresses at the junction; Even a complete fuckup like Crandall would think twice before trying to make an unauthorized transit through it.

The E wrote:And, well. In every single one of those cases, even the SLN knows that an assault through a fortified wormhole is about the least survivable attack strategy imaginable.

The SLN certainly didn't act like they knew that when they tried to send 100 SDs through from Beowulf in "support" of "Raging Justice."

I do wonder why they tried that tactic, because you should be right.

Dauntless wrote:lot been said since i was last on.

there were mentions of 3 "inasion" corridors the SL could use to try and hit the GA.

Beowulf, lynx and bassilisk.

there is also the option of using erewhon.

of course that would be almost as stupid as trying to hit any of the Manticore junction's termini.

even the "primitive" MDMs that Rozark had at Torch (which were old to him by erewhon) would be enough to slaughter any solly fleet that tried to use erewhon's junction

Not to mention Erewhon has more than 4 squadrons of Pre-pod SDs and DNs, in addition to it's forts and any new construction. It was hardened sufficiently that the Peeps never raided it during the war, so it's pre-MDM defenses were probably at least good enough to shrug off 75+ SDs, without the 12 DNs it dispatched to 8th fleet, the 10+ SDs it purchased from Manticore between the wars, and any Manticorian or Erewhonese MDM pods it may now be able to field.

Erewhon may not be able to fend off a Raging Justice size fleet yet, But Crandall wouldn't stand a chance.

Weird Harold wrote:

The E wrote:And, well. In every single one of those cases, even the SLN knows that an assault through a fortified wormhole is about the least survivable attack strategy imaginable.

The SLN certainly didn't act like they knew that when they tried to send 100 SDs through from Beowulf in "support" of "Raging Justice."

I do wonder why they tried that tactic, because you should be right.

You really do have to wonder about their intel department though - despite what they thought had happened to Manticore - someone should have said - "Hey, you know the wormhole is only a week away - let's send a DB to the consulate on Manticore and bring it back asap - and count the big ugly blips on the navigation radar and see how many Forts are left."

Or asking the DB captains that usually take the route if anything happened or was out of place when they took their normal trips. anybody running to the consulate should be able to see that the forts are still there in orbit and more menacing than ever AN the Junction looks normal - just at a heightened state of alarm.

Weird Harold wrote:

The E wrote:And, well. In every single one of those cases, even the SLN knows that an assault through a fortified wormhole is about the least survivable attack strategy imaginable.

The SLN certainly didn't act like they knew that when they tried to send 100 SDs through from Beowulf in "support" of "Raging Justice."

I do wonder why they tried that tactic, because you should be right.

sending 100 ships through the beowulf termini was a POLITICAL attack aimed at beowulf. it had a goal of shutting up beowulf, the mandrins belived it would have succeeded it's primary objection whatever happened.

1. Beowulf let the SD's through, they survived the forts, good PR.
2. Beowulf let the SD's through, the forts killed them, beowulf should have known better and stopped them. It's beowulf's falt, good PR.
3. Beowulf denied transit, battle fleet killed the SDF, Beowulf is a traitor to the SL, good PR, plus one less possible threat to the SL.

Unfortunately for the mandarins, it worked too good. Not only has beowulf been eliminated as a political threat, it is almost certain that Beowulf will be leaving the SL.

That will unfortunately open up both a military threat and an even bigger political problem.

Theemile wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:The SLN certainly didn't act like they knew that when they tried to send 100 SDs through from Beowulf in "support" of "Raging Justice."

I do wonder why they tried that tactic, because you should be right.

You really do have to wonder about their intel department though - despite what they thought had happened to Manticore - someone should have said - "Hey, you know the wormhole is only a week away - let's send a DB to the consulate on Manticore and bring it back asap - and count the big ugly blips on the navigation radar and see how many Forts are left."

Or asking the DB captains that usually take the route if anything happened or was out of place when they took their normal trips. anybody running to the consulate should be able to see that the forts are still there in orbit and more menacing than ever AN the Junction looks normal - just at a heightened state of alarm.

Because she was stopped, there's no telling what Tsang was actually going to do. However, I don't think her task force was ever intended to mount a wormhole assault - the official plan was probably for them to reinforce Filareta once he had secured the far side of the wormhole or something fuzzy like that. No one can argue that securing the Beowulf side of the wormhole isn't a worthwhile strategical goal in its own right anyway, even if Raging Justice's primary component turned out to be a complete disaster.

In practice, Tsang was dispatched by Rajampet with secret orders from the Alignment designed to engineer a conflict between Beowulf and the League's current administration.

Weird Harold wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:The problem is you are looking only at shipboard firepower. At the specified time Manticore has pods, the SLN does not.

True, but the standard practice of all forces using pods of that era is a single missile swarm from towed pods and tube launched missiles for cleanup. The SLN has the numbers to soak up a single missile storm of pod launched SDM missiles.

If you have to bring the pods to the battle I agree with you. What if they're already in space, though? Remember Honor showing Filareta (sp?) pods galore? She could have killed every ship of his 20 times over with just the pods in space. (The only reason there were any survivors of Raging Justice was that she didn't have enough fire control to get a one-round kill.)

While they certainly wouldn't have had that many pods earlier I think they would have had enough to win the battle.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:The problem is you are looking only at shipboard firepower. At the specified time Manticore has pods, the SLN does not. The SLN is going to behave according to doctrine--they're going to go for Manticore. They'll probably meet half of Manticore's fleet (a fight I think they would win) and a whole bunch of pods seeded in space. The SLN eats salvo after salvo from empty space. They might choose to shoot back at best they kill empty pods. By the time the fleets engage the SLN has been ravaged.

Except of course Manticore has never done that with SDM pods. And for good reasons, they're so short ranged that you 'd have to use a truly ludicrous number to cover an inner system; and trying to retreat down a line of then relies too much on forcing the enemy to go where you want them to.

With SDMs you don't cover a system, you cover the planets. Put them in space a few million km out from the planet and put your ships outside and behind them. Don't come out to meet the invaders.

You've got to keep your fleet intact, to provide fire control for the pods, but have to stay nearly in range to lure the enemy into a series of ambushes. However the free floating pods are very vulnerable to proximity kills, even from weapons on ballistic after their drives have burned out.

Group the pods, fire every pod in the group when you use them. The other pods are far enough away not to be killed by attacks aimed at the ones that fired.

Sigs wrote:In what part of the series does the SL worry about defence? They have 2300 SD's and 8000 SD's in reserve that is all the defence they need. The SL does not worry about defence because they are the big bad wolf that nobody would worry about, do you for a second think that the SLN worries about defence because for the last 300 to 400 years nobody has been able to even threaten them, they have enough problems justifying keeping 2300 SD's in commission to be diverting more resources to the unsexy part of the military, the fixed/semi-fixed fortifications. The League updates their ships to look good rather than be effective, what proof do you have that the League has forts?

This. Their "defense" is being the 1000# gorilla that nobody would dare attack. Oops, said gorilla just took 3 pokes at King Kong and they still don't realize what they're facing.

Loren Pechtel wrote:With SDMs you don't cover a system, you cover the planets. Put them in space a few million km out from the planet and put your ships outside and behind them. Don't come out to meet the invaders.

You've got to keep your fleet intact, to provide fire control for the pods, but have to stay nearly in range to lure the enemy into a series of ambushes. However the free floating pods are very vulnerable to proximity kills, even from weapons on ballistic after their drives have burned out.

Group the pods, fire every pod in the group when you use them. The other pods are far enough away not to be killed by attacks aimed at the ones that fired.

Then as the attacker, I simply launch my missiles on a ballistic course at your pod clusters and destroy them with proximity fused warheads. Pods can't engage if I'm a half a light minute outside of their range.