The Misalignment of MA plans?

noblehunter wrote: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.

When Hexapuma was passing through the Junction early in SoS, Helen notes that

A sizable chunk of Home Fleet was deployed out here, ready to dash through the Junction to reinforce Third Fleet at Trevor's Star at need, or to cover the Basilisk System against a repeat of the attack which had devastated it in the previous war. And, of course, to protect the Junction itself.

One presumes they could deploy to Lynx as well.

cthia wrote:

Annachie wrote:Ego.

Albrecht wanted the RF to happen in his life time.



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Now this is some uncanny déjà vu. You took the words right out of my mouth.

It does seem like he simply wanted it to happen in his lifetime. Possibly because he thought that noone else had the brains to carry through with it? Or simply his ego getting in the way - par for the course for megalamaniacal, power hungry, non breast-fed Hitlerists!

Does he have an understudy per se?

More that the plan is so close to fruition and that a little nudge will let him see it happen and it's so damn close ...

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noblehunter wrote: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.

Remember what the detweilers said in SftS? No matter what Monica was told, it wasn't expected to win. It was supposed to hit the terminus, get reamed, go running to the OFS, then Crandal was supposed to get reamed, starting the war between the SEM and the SL.

Crandal did do her "job", she got the SL in a war with manticore.

George J. Smith wrote:It would seem that he has 3 (direct clones brought up as sons)

Six. We haven't seen Everett, Franklin or Gervais do much yet. And yes, there is a pattern to their names...

kzt wrote:

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

The RMN disagreed.

How close where they being completed? That could have been a rude surprise for the Monican Navy to find out the hard way when the forts opened fire them.

pnakasone wrote:How close where they being completed? That could have been a rude surprise for the Monican Navy to find out the hard way when the forts opened fire them.

None were even minimally combat capable. Everything was essentially collections of parts being bolted together, with huge piles of munitions all crated up. You'd have gotten Apollo, FTL, lacs, CMs, software, warheads and seekers, etc. all of which Technodyne would have been cloning and selling to the SLN and every SDF in a few months. It would have made the whole war with SL much more interesting.

Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational Battle Sta...Fort.

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

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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While they are fundamentally testbeds I think they have use in a stealth role--they can sneak around much better than an ordinary ship due to the lack of a wedge.

kzt wrote:Monica's plan had that, they were going to be disappointed. One would assume Technodyne and the MA's secret plan did not expect that. But with several fortresses worth of Apollo hardware, full technical docs, and thousands of pods one would assume that the R&D guys on Darius would be able to somewhat speed up certain MAN R&D efforts. Not to mention they would have obtained huge amounts of other systems and documentation. Having a working version of the RMN EW warheads, countermeasures, PDLC trackers, missile launchers, CMs etc makes it a lot easier to fully understand how to fight the RMN effectively.

And they wouldn't have blown the stuff upon retreat?

Besides, consider the battle of Spindle--cruisers plus pods killed a SLN battlegroup. I think the Monica forces would have faced the same fate unless they could have gotten into energy range by surprise and I think the GA forces would be dispersed against this very possibility.

You should reread "Shadow of Saganami".

Chapter 8
The forts were under construction, the civilian infrastructure was growing almost literally as she watched, and hordes of merchies were streaming through the terminus . . . and the Royal Manticoran Navy's total presence—aside from Hexapuma, who was only visiting—were two relatively modern destroyers and one elderly light cruiser.

Well, she thought, I suppose Home Fleet is on call at the central terminus, but still . . .

The sight of that grossly understrength picket—almost as weak as the one the first Janacek Admiralty had assigned to Basilisk Station before the First Battle of Basilisk—made her feel even queasier than the wormhole transit had. She knew the Navy couldn't be strong everywhere, but she also knew the Talbott Station task force was far more numerous than anything she saw here. Surely, Rear Admiral Khumalo could have spared something more to watch over the billions of dollars worth of fortresses and service platforms under construction.