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Attacking Earth

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Re: Attacking Earth
Post by munroburton   » Tue Jun 21, 2016 12:22 pm

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StealthSeeker wrote:
George J. Smith wrote:
They already have a fleet of 500+ ships which was intended to be the 2nd wave after Filaletre's fleet, (even though they didn't think it would be required) that plus the task force which was trying to use the Beowulf terminus to support Filaletre might be the force that goes to Beowulf to stop the Beowulfers from leaving the league.



I don't remember any "additional" units that were going to follow Filareta on his attack of Manticore. Only the 80 some that were to cross from Beowulf through the wormhole. The only discussion I can find of units joining Filareta is back in MoH where Rajampet is talking about building up Filareta's fleet to about 400 SD's. But even if those 500 ships did exist, they are currently way out in the verge and it would be difficult to get a message to them and have them travel back with in the 2 month window necessary to prevent the Beowulf vote.

But that is all about attacking Beowulf. The discussion here is about attacking Earth after a catastrophic attack on Beowulf has already occurred. How would the GA go about attacking earth and the SLN. What obstacles and problems would be encountered in attacking Earth and so on.


There is textev. In the big SLN admiralty meeting, near the end of MoH.

Which is why the redeployment of our active wall is designed to concentrate no fewer than an additional five hundred wallers on Tasmania - this time with complete logistical support and a powerful Frontier Fleet screen - within two and a half months. In three months' time, that total will reach six hundred. Which means we'll be able to dispatch a second wave, substantially larger and even more powerfully supported, against Manticore within a maximum of five months -
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Re: Attacking Earth
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Jun 21, 2016 1:58 pm

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StealthSeeker wrote:The Frontier Fleet always seems to be strapped for ships and what they have seems to be of much older and refurbished classes. I don't think Crandal's attack force used any Frontier Fleet ships and she had a good number of smaller class ships.

I just don't see the Frontier Fleet coming up with the number of ships needed for the commerce raiding that the new SLN "High Admiral" is talking about. And it didn't seem like he was talking about taking the time to build a bunch of new ships for how soon he wanted to begin the task. Though he was talking about building a bunch of smaller classes rather than SD's, (he could turn them out much faster) at least until the technology gap is closed. But he is still going to need that bunch of smaller class ships that are almost immediately available and they have to come from somewhere. Where did all those BC's come from that were delivered to Monica?

I think that there are a lot of smaller ships in the reserve.
We're told that FF ships are more modern than those of BF (because they actually see combat, or at least are involved in strong-arming people for the OFS, so they get updated and replaced more frequently.

The BCs Monica got were Indefatigable-class BC which were retired from the FF because they were replaced in FF service by brand new Nevada-class BCs. IIRC those Indefatigables were scheduled for scrapping before they were diverted to Monica. (So despite any apparent shortage of hulls within FF they weren't willing, or at least weren't able, to hang onto and continue to operate older ships in addition to their new builds)
Last edited by Jonathan_S on Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Attacking Earth
Post by drothgery   » Tue Jun 21, 2016 4:55 pm

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kzt wrote:Which is the 100X number I used above.
Of course, given that Battle Fleet has less than 10X the active wall of Manticore* and gets the lion's share of the SLN's funding, I think it... highly unlikely... that Frontier Fleet has 100X the hulls of the RMN below the wall, or even 20X.

* They had more than 10X Manticore between the 1st and 2nd Battles of Manticore, but that was about the only time in since some point during the pre-first Havenite War buildup that that was the case.
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Re: Attacking Earth
Post by Kytheros   » Tue Jun 21, 2016 8:56 pm

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StealthSeeker wrote:
Kytheros wrote:There's no point in destroying the Reserve. Actually
trying to reactivate it would break the SLN, and the League.
Nothing in it has any meaningful combat value, much of it is old and obsolete, even by the standards of the SLN, no real maintenance has been performed, and there's jack all for crew.
It would be cheaper and faster to design and build an entire new fleet than to reactivate the SLN Reserve. You'd almost certainly end up with better ships if you started from scratch, too.



I would disagree. Filareta in his attack on Manticore was boasting of the size of the reserve fleet as in incentive for the Manticore fleet to surrender and not antagonize the SLN. The SLN itself is just now coming to the realization of how useless the reserve SD's really are, how aware do you think the public is of just how useless it is? Having it destroyed would sociologically remove the "club" of the reserve fleet from the minds of the SL general public, not just the SLN.

Second, SD's would be lousy at commerce raiding but the thousands of smaller ships, destroyers and cruisers, which would be much easier to bring out of mothballs, would work great for the commerce raiding that the new SLN "Lord Admiral" is suggesting for a war tactic. Those smaller ships may not be a match for any GA ship of similar size but the shear number of them scattered about the universe would be in hundreds of places that the GA would not have the ships to cover. How many destroyers could they crew with the people from one active SD or called up from a reserve?


Third, how much of a shock would it be to the SL and the SLN to have a bunch of "insignificant" LAC's "ghost" in, unseen, until they go active, and start destroying things. The facilities for building/reactivating ships would also have to be destroyed on the "pass through" by the LAC's. The carriers for the LAC's would drop them off outside sensor range, then jump to the opposite side of the elliptic to pick them up after they have passed through and destroyed everything.

Use those LAC's to hit them hard like they did to Haven in operation buttercup(?). Their heads will be spinning so hard they won't have a clue as to which end is up!

Destroy as much military infrastructure as you can but leave the civilian stuff alone. The GA might even try some commerce raiding of it's own. Capture as much shipping as they can. The SL is already severely short on transports, make it even worse. If the GA ship doesn't have a prize crew for the freighter, space everything from the freighter but food, clothing and farm equipment. We don't want them to think that we are trying to starve anyone to death or kill civilian crews.

Leave civilian stuff as untouched as possible. Make it clear that the attack is only on the military as a reprisal for their attack on Beowulf.

Quite. The existence of the Reserve is a psychological matter. The existence of the Reserve means that the public and politicians will be demanding that the SLN activate the Reserve to defend them. That is, after all, what it is there for.
Do you think the SLN will then say "oh, no, sorry, those are worthless death traps"? Of course not.
The SLN will be forced into trying to reactivate the most modern elements. And the SLN cannot actually activate any meaningful portion of the reserve. If the SLN managed to pull 20% of the crew from its remaining SDs, and pulled an equal number from its lighter ships and all of Frontier Fleet, the SLN would have the crews to just about replace the losses its suffered thus far. It would not have the money to reactivate the ships, and even if they managed to do so, they would still not be able to reactivate enough of the Reserve to make any sort of difference. Oh ... and trying to reactivate the Reserve would eat valuable time and effort. I rather doubt that the League will remain intact long enough that it could make use of ships reactivated from the Reserve.


Attempting to reactivate the Reserve will break the SLN and even if successfully accomplished it will still not actually change anything in any substantive way. It is therefore better to leave it alone, and let it be a weight around the League's neck, rather than to destroy it and free the League and the SLN from it.



drothgery wrote:
kzt wrote:Which is the 100X number I used above.
Of course, given that Battle Fleet has less than 10X the active wall of Manticore* and gets the lion's share of the SLN's funding, I think it... highly unlikely... that Frontier Fleet has 100X the hulls of the RMN below the wall, or even 20X.

* They had more than 10X Manticore between the 1st and 2nd Battles of Manticore, but that was about the only time in since some point during the pre-first Havenite War buildup that that was the case.

Eh, with Battle Fleet, you also need to account for them dumping SDs into the Reserve. And building SDs in a handful of yards to retain the capability.
FF can build ships in a lot more places, and remember, Honorverse ships generally have extremely long expected service lifetimes. Plus, smaller ships are cheaper than bigger ones at the same build efficiency - and I'd bet that the yards building ships for FF are a lot more efficient than the BF SD yards.
But, the point remains, that while FF has a lot of hulls in absolute numbers, it's stretched incredibly thinly, because it has just so much volume it needs to cover.
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Re: Attacking Earth
Post by StealthSeeker   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 2:11 pm

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munroburton wrote:
There is textev. In the big SLN admiralty meeting, near the end of MoH.

Which is why the redeployment of our active wall is designed to concentrate no fewer than an additional five hundred wallers on Tasmania - this time with complete logistical support and a powerful Frontier Fleet screen - within two and a half months. In three months' time, that total will reach six hundred. Which means we'll be able to dispatch a second wave, substantially larger and even more powerfully supported, against Manticore within a maximum of five months -



Thanks for the pointer, I looked it up and sure enough, there it was. Trying to put together another 600 ships with a whole bunch more support ships than Filateta had. But it was going to take several months to put it together. Considering the time line, and how far out they are, and the fact that many of the ships are still in transit to the collection point, do you think there is time enough to get orders to them and have them return in the small window available, to be part of the attack on Beowulf before the vote is taken?
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Re: Attacking Earth
Post by Theemile   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 5:44 pm

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StealthSeeker wrote:
Thanks for the pointer, I looked it up and sure enough, there it was. Trying to put together another 600 ships with a whole bunch more support ships than Filateta had. But it was going to take several months to put it together. Considering the time line, and how far out they are, and the fact that many of the ships are still in transit to the collection point, do you think there is time enough to get orders to them and have them return in the small window available, to be part of the attack on Beowulf before the vote is taken?



Think of it this way. To date, the Malign has gotten the SLN BF to preposition for active operations against Manticore 1200 of the ~2300 active and maintenance SD without anyone really talking notice. (71 at Macintosh against Talbott, 429 at Tasmania against Manticore, 100 against Beowulf, and ~600 more in transit to Tasmania.) In the previous 250 years, there had been just 3 other operations of the BF outside the Shell, all smaller than Crandall's 71 SD fleet, and NO ONE NOTICED 1100 SDs suddenly moving from their fleetbases into the deep dark and being gone for months on end.

NO ONE - not the Manticore Merchant Marine (whose fingers are everywhere), Not Manty or Havenite ONI, Not Beowulf intel, Or even the SLN itself, until they had been briefed from on high.

(now, I find this very strange, when ships move, people tend to notice. Fleets more so. Families are broken apart and change patterns, Bars and other businesses lose business, massive orders of provisions, parts and fuel are made. Ships may be commandeered or hired to move provisions. Maintenance is rushed and what normally would be done sedately becomes a flurry of activity. Ports are shut down while the ships are leaving, etc. And when the ships involved NEVER move - all the above is even more disruptive - and noticed.)

If no one (outside Rampajet) noticed 1200 ships moving around - who knows what the other ~1100 ships are really doing? We know the fleet of 100 is near Beowulf and Earth, and Sol's Hyperion One has to have it's own fleet stationed there, and the other SL bases are all inside the core, so not so distant from Earth. As far as we know, the other 1100 are sitting 10 light years from Beowulf, ready to strike.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Attacking Earth
Post by StealthSeeker   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 10:40 pm

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Theemile wrote:

If no one (outside Rampajet) noticed 1200 ships moving around - who knows what the other ~1100 ships are really doing? We know the fleet of 100 is near Beowulf and Earth, and Sol's Hyperion One has to have it's own fleet stationed there, and the other SL bases are all inside the core, so not so distant from Earth. As far as we know, the other 1100 are sitting 10 light years from Beowulf, ready to strike.



Thinking on the numbers you are presenting... and trying to draw some parallels to the US Navy... the US Navy has 400+ "active" ships in the fleet. A significant part of that fleet is down for refit/maintenance. Most of that fleet is out on patrol somewhere, very little of it is actually in a home port and any one specific time. So,... if 1,200 of the 2,300 has been sent to one location that is way the hell out in north nowhere their recall may take months. Two to three hundred of the remaining "active" units could easily be in refit/repair which would leave about seven or eight hundred left on patrol and in their home ports. For the SLN, that is a fleet that is really stretched THIN for the area they have to cover.

So there is 100 in the Earth system, how fast and how much can the scrounge up in a hand full of weeks to send out to Beowulf? Are you going to give them any time to work with each other before they go to Beowulf? Then there is even less time to get ships together. I think that they would be lucky to get a total of 200 ships to go off to Beowulf.

I can not imagine that these ships will successfully take and hold Beowulf. I believe that most if not all of them are going to get destroyed or captured. Then what? What has the SLN got to defend any of their home ports? Just what there is of the RMN fleet at the Beowulf wormhole terminus could almost cake walk though what is left of ships to defend the Earth system. Other SLN home ports would be just as sparsely defended.

DROP A MASSIVE HAMMER ON THEM!!

The bases, that is, not the planets.


The returning ships, where ever they may be, will have nothing to return to, no where to re-provision. The SLN would be like the sword fighter who over extended and lost their balance leaving themselves open, the opponent is going to disembowel them!!
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Re: Attacking Earth
Post by kzt   » Fri Jun 24, 2016 11:00 pm

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The US Navy says the US Navy has 276 vessels in the deployable battle force, with 20% deployed and 35% underway for training or other non deployment reasons today.
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Re: Attacking Earth
Post by StealthSeeker   » Sat Jun 25, 2016 12:35 am

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kzt wrote:The US Navy says the US Navy has 276 vessels in the deployable battle force, with 20% deployed and 35% underway for training or other non deployment reasons today.



Your number surprised me, I was sure I had read somewhere that it was a little over 400 ships. Wikipedia supplied the following information, 430 total ships, 272 deployable ships.

But still, your kind of backing up my idea. I suppose that the 1,200 ships sent out to north nowhere and points beyond (Manticore) would be considered part of the 35% for training, (at least is what Filareta was suppose to be doing) which in the SLN case would be over 50%. The SLN would try to keep up it's normal patrols so there is your 20% or so. And then you'll have a significant chunk in for refit and repair.

These SLN home ports/bases are going to be extremely undefended. Hit em in the soft spots!!
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Re: Attacking Earth
Post by kzt   » Sat Jun 25, 2016 12:46 am

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StealthSeeker wrote:Your number surprised me, I was sure I had read somewhere that it was a little over 400 ships. Wikipedia supplied the following information, 430 total ships, 272 deployable ships.

Offical stats:
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=146

And yes, that means not so much at home. But since they are not effective against capital ships, that doesn't help that much anyway.
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