The Misalignment of MA plans?

pnakasone wrote:What they did not anticipate was an RMN Captain by the name of Terekhov launching a a preemptive strike against Monica without getting permission from higher authorities.

It would have sad if he had shown up a week too late... And from the PoV of the metaplot, I think it would have worked better. Obviously David disagrees, and he's the guy doing the work.

kzt wrote:

Eagleeye wrote:To seize Lynx Terminus, the MA had to do that in the short timeframe between the discovery of the Terminus and the petition of the Talbott cluster worlds to get incorporated into the Star Kingdom. That would be impossible to do without a coming out of the Alignment itself, because any pawns in the region wouldn't be able to attack. After all, even the RMN of the High Ridge era would probably eat the Monican Navy (for example) for breakfeast.

No, the BCs Monica had were perfectly capable of defeating what tiny forces were covering the Terminus. They also had minelayers to keep the RMN away while they stole lots of packaged for transport parts. And it was Manpower and Technodyne, not OFS or the MAN that would have been shown to back this. It's all very carefully laid out in the book. But David had them stopped.

Don't forget the timeframe I've set. In the time between the discovery of the Lynx Terminus and the installation of the RMN-Fleet station at Spindle Monica did not have any BCs, but only their own, homegrown navy, with some CAs as the most powerful units. The Nevadas came to Monica only after the constitutional convention at Spindle was in full swing; long after the time, the Manties started to build the forts. And as far as I remember, at the time HMS Hexapuma passed through the Terminus, the first 2 forts were already nearly completed. So even if the Monicans would have got to the Terminus, they were in for a really nasty surprise ...

Eagleeye wrote:Don't forget the timeframe I've set. In the time between the discovery of the Lynx Terminus and the installation of the RMN-Fleet station at Spindle Monica did not have any BCs, but only their own, homegrown navy, with some CAs as the most powerful units. The Nevadas came to Monica only after the constitutional convention at Spindle was in full swing; long after the time, the Manties started to build the forts. And as far as I remember, at the time HMS Hexapuma passed through the Terminus, the first 2 forts were already nearly completed. So even if the Monicans would have got to the Terminus, they were in for a really nasty surprise ...

Just because the forts where not compete yet did not mean they where not functional enough for battle.

I missed the previous rounds of this argument, but what's stopping reinforcements from coming through the Junction, whether from Manticore or Trevor's Star? It's been awhile since I've read the Battle of Monica but I think even a couple of modern units could stop the BCs cold.

pnakasone wrote:Just because the forts where not compete yet did not mean they where not functional enough for battle.

The RMN disagreed.

noblehunter wrote:I missed the previous rounds of this argument, but what's stopping reinforcements from coming through the Junction, whether from Manticore or Trevor's Star? It's been awhile since I've read the Battle of Monica but I think even a couple of modern units could stop the BCs cold.

That's always been the twist - at least a squadron of the BCs needed to transit in close enough to the terminus that they could take it under short missile range immediately, and within energy range within a few minutes. The other squadron would be tasked with dealing with the defenders (some of which which could be a light minute or more from the terminus on picket duty.

Other than precise astrogation, it all hinged on the RMN's ability to respond. If the RMN had a ready squadron of SDs at the terminus that could jump through within 30 minutes, the gig was up. Anything going through the terminus in the first 15 minutes would take BC missile fire; ~20 minutes, long range graser fire; ~30 minutes short range graser fire. In an hour, there would be missile pods backing them up. So, if you could push an SD squadron through the terminus within the first 30 minutes, some of the SDs will get through, and 2 SDs through the wormhole makes the position uncontrollable for Monica. (2 SDs is roughly parity for 14 BCs)

Now Mesa could get trickey and have their freighters already in queue for transit when the BCs arrive, so the pods are dropped right on top of the wormhole, but that would require very precise timing - and would invite murphy in my book.

Yup. The RMN's response to the revealed plan was to park one or more SD(P) squadrons on right top of the Terminus until the forts were fully operational. So the Admiralty certainly thought the assault plan was not a joke.

So if there's an SD squadron on station on any of the termini, the plan is dead. Even a division would probably wreck it. If the BCs are in graser range of the terminus, they they are inside the SD's graser range. As I recall from A Short Victorious War, BCs have a very short lifespan when in energy range of dreadnought scale energy weapons. They don't have the depth to hold the terminus against a determined attack. Even if RFC had given Monica the opportunity, I'm not sure he could have made it into a plausible attack.

It would have been cool to see a StarFire style wormhole assault though. I suspect that Manticore's superior electronics would give them an edge in locating and firing on a target post-transit.

kzt wrote:Yup. The RMN's response to the revealed plan was to park one or more SD(P) squadrons on right top of the Terminus until the forts were fully operational. So the Admiralty certainly thought the assault plan was not a joke.

Yeah, a dozen Medusas, a pair to squadron of CLACs, and a squadron of BC probably would have taken a Taskforce 3x that of Crandall's. They definitely wanted to make sure no one even gave a second thought to doing that again.

cthia wrote:Another thing that seriously bewilders me is the effort that the MA put in developing a fleet of ships that don't actually fight a traditional battle.

One of my Ro friends, during the "Economics of Piracy" thread asked me, "what is the purpose of MA ships if all they were going to do with them was act like mercenaries destroying infrastructure?"

That is loads of money, effort and much time poured into development and construction building high-priced mercenary ships. Because beyond that they seem to be as useless as Sonja's testbed after one use.

Why couldn't they have built the ships to defend their system after they were ready to emerge and jam their flag into Darius dirt and claim "We exist and we claim Darius in the name of MA science?" It isn't like they have prime real estate that anybody wants.


Edit: editing.

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Basically had they had the bigger spiders in theory they could have shot up all the defenses and infrastructure and then forced manticore to surrender. If they could demonstrate orbital superiority and staying power then they would have had every right to demand the surrender and if manticore refused it would have allowed them to perform a lot of kinetic strikes without worrying about an EE violation to compel the surrender.

They went in with basically their test beds shot them selves dry and could only really do a raid .

It is not so much a mercenary fleet but an assassins one. It is not designed from what we can see to fight other peoples navies it is designed for decapitation fights on home worlds. If they proved to have a powerful fleet that controlled a home worlds orbitals could compel their navy to surrender without having to engage them or you risk them dropping kinetic strikes on naval housing/family areas/government buildings until their opponents navy gave up.

That said really once they saw the wheels coming off the manticore/haven thing they probably should have executed houdini and went underground for another few generations to see how things play out. Even the biggest believers in the malign amongst the allies would start being though as crack pots with nothing to show for it.