Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...

... and you intended to try to block the Mesa terminus. How would you do that?

I think, I would go with a Giscard-derivate (Battle for Basilisk; Operation Icarus). Derivate insofar, as that I would at first go for the terminus; and only after that for the system itself. The resonance zone of the terminus shouldn't be a problem, because of my DDMs and MDMs. So I could hyper into normal space, say, at a range of around 30 Million kilometers (or as far away as I need to be to be ouside the resonance zone) and send a few minutes after that no more than a dozen missiles against the terminus. Then, I would let them detonate outside the range of ERMs, but far away from the terminus itself (say: 5 to 10 Million kilometers outside the terminus).

In the 1st minute (before I send the missiles on their way) I would send some hermes buoys in the same general direction, and give the vessels near the station, after the detonation of the missiles, via these buoys orders to stay there they are, else ...

If I would try such a maneuver, I would use only one Nike-BC. Because a Nike is big enough that - at a 1st glance - she could be mistaken for a 2-Megaton-Merchant-vessel; especially if she plays some games with her alpha-nodes.

edit: Just an additional thought: If the deception with the impeller nodes works, I could postpone the missiles until after I sent the message. The shock, to get such a message out of the blue should be enough to make sure noone goes away, don't you think?

1st Problem: We don't know how good the sensor-suites of the transit-station or the vessels waiting for their transit are. We also don't know if such a station has an own umbrella of satellites, to detect any incoming object from outside it's own sensor-range. Additionally, we don't know how far away such a satellite has to be from the source of a hyper-footprint to make sure the cloaking of the Nike-hyper-footprint works.

In case, such an umbrella doesn't exist, could, say, a merchant vessel or a dispatch boat waiting for transit detect a hyper-footprint from 30 million kilometers away (and identify it correctly!), go through the terminus (or outside the resonance zone to hyper out) - and do that in time?

2nd problem: How intense is the Mesa-outbound-traffic concerning this terminus? 1 transit per hour? Or 1 per minute? After all, the people in Visigoth will be very suspicious in no time, if no vessel passes through from Mesa anymore ... but that would be all they have - suspicions. No facts. The question will be, what they will do with their suspicions ...

Eagleeye wrote:... and you intended to try to block the Mesa terminus. How would you do that?

I think, I would go with a Giscard-derivate (Battle for Basilisk; Operation Icarus). Derivate insofar, as that I would at first go for the terminus; and only after that for the system itself. The resonance zone of the terminus shouldn't be a problem, because of my DDMs and MDMs. So I could hyper into normal space, say, at a range of around 30 Million kilometers (or as far away as I need to be to be ouside the resonance zone) and send a few minutes after that no more than a dozen missiles against the terminus. Then, I would let them detonate outside the range of ERMs, but far away from the terminus itself (say: 5 to 10 Million kilometers outside the terminus).

In the 1st minute (before I send the missiles on their way) I would send some hermes buoys in the same general direction, and give the vessels near the station, after the detonation of the missiles, via these buoys orders to stay there they are, else ...

If I would try such a maneuver, I would use only one Nike-BC. Because a Nike is big enough that - at a 1st glance - she could be mistaken for a 2-Megaton-Merchant-vessel; especially if she plays some games with her alpha-nodes.

edit: Just an additional thought: If the deception with the impeller nodes works, I could postpone the missiles until after I sent the message. The shock, to get such a message out of the blue should be enough to make sure noone goes away, don't you think?

1st Problem: We don't know how good the sensor-suites of the transit-station or the vessels waiting for their transit are. We also don't know if such a station has an own umbrella of satellites, to detect any incoming object from outside it's own sensor-range. Additionally, we don't know how far away such a satellite has to be from the source of a hyper-footprint to make sure the cloaking of the Nike-hyper-footprint works.

In case, such an umbrella doesn't exist, could, say, a merchant vessel or a dispatch boat waiting for transit detect a hyper-footprint from 30 million kilometers away (and identify it correctly!), go through the terminus (or outside the resonance zone to hyper out) - and do that in time?

2nd problem: How intense is the Mesa-outbound-traffic concerning this terminus? 1 transit per hour? Or 1 per minute? After all, the people in Visigoth will be very suspicious in no time, if no vessel passes through from Mesa anymore ... but that would be all they have - suspicions. No facts. The question will be, what they will do with their suspicions ...

I'm still wondering why I'd want to block it. Take it over under Lacöön II, yes, and deny transit to any Solarian flagged vessels as well as any engaged in the slave trade.

Nobody has explained why I'd want to keep people from knowing that I'd taken control of the Mesan end of the wormhole as well as Mesa itself. It simply seems to be an assumption that this would be a "good thing."

The basic thing would be to take over terminus control, which means eliminating Mesan naval strength in the vicinity.

Since it appears that the Mesan General Board has capitulated (otherwise why would General Drescher have cancelled the assault only a few hours before it would have completely succeeded), it's probable that the turnover in control could happen without any military-style unplesantness.

JohnRoth wrote:

Eagleeye wrote:2nd problem: How intense is the Mesa-outbound-traffic concerning this terminus? 1 transit per hour? Or 1 per minute? After all, the people in Visigoth will be very suspicious in no time, if no vessel passes through from Mesa anymore ... but that would be all they have - suspicions. No facts. The question will be, what they will do with their suspicions ...

I'm still wondering why I'd want to block it. Take it over under Lacöön II, yes, and deny transit to any Solarian flagged vessels as well as any engaged in the slave trade.

Nobody has explained why I'd want to keep people from knowing that I'd taken control of the Mesan end of the wormhole as well as Mesa itself. It simply seems to be an assumption that this would be a "good thing."

If we assume we want to prevent news from leaking out then logically we have either have to gamble that there's no ship that happens to already be moments from transition (and the likelihood of that depends quite a bit on the traffic level) or we have to sneak some stealthed scouts in close enough that they can observe the traffic and pop into hyper to grab the rest of the force once there's a sufficiently long gap.


But you could only do the later if Mesa lacked the very long ranged sensors that the Manticore home system has to monitor for hyper emergence. And if they lack those, then assuming the terminus isn't covered by massive defenses, your best bet to seize it without significant civilian casualties would be a stealthy LAC insertion. They're stealthy enough to likely get to energy range before being detected - and that that point they can enforce their orders on the civilian traffic control and freighters without the risks of having to lob missiles from several minutes flight-time away.

But basically we don't know enough about the sensors and defenses to know how practical it is to grab the terminus before any ships can pop through the wormhole with the news of the attack.

Eagleeye wrote:... and you intended to try to block the Mesa terminus. How would you do that?

I think, I would go with a Giscard-derivate (Battle for Basilisk; Operation Icarus). Derivate insofar, as that I would at first go for the terminus; and only after that for the system itself. The resonance zone of the terminus shouldn't be a problem, because of my DDMs and MDMs. So I could hyper into normal space, say, at a range of around 30 Million kilometers (or as far away as I need to be to be ouside the resonance zone) and send a few minutes after that no more than a dozen missiles against the terminus. Then, I would let them detonate outside the range of ERMs, but far away from the terminus itself (say: 5 to 10 Million kilometers outside the terminus).

In the 1st minute (before I send the missiles on their way) I would send some hermes buoys in the same general direction, and give the vessels near the station, after the detonation of the missiles, via these buoys orders to stay there they are, else ...

If I would try such a maneuver, I would use only one Nike-BC. Because a Nike is big enough that - at a 1st glance - she could be mistaken for a 2-Megaton-Merchant-vessel; especially if she plays some games with her alpha-nodes.

edit: Just an additional thought: If the deception with the impeller nodes works, I could postpone the missiles until after I sent the message. The shock, to get such a message out of the blue should be enough to make sure noone goes away, don't you think?

1st Problem: We don't know how good the sensor-suites of the transit-station or the vessels waiting for their transit are. We also don't know if such a station has an own umbrella of satellites, to detect any incoming object from outside it's own sensor-range. Additionally, we don't know how far away such a satellite has to be from the source of a hyper-footprint to make sure the cloaking of the Nike-hyper-footprint works.

In case, such an umbrella doesn't exist, could, say, a merchant vessel or a dispatch boat waiting for transit detect a hyper-footprint from 30 million kilometers away (and identify it correctly!), go through the terminus (or outside the resonance zone to hyper out) - and do that in time?

2nd problem: How intense is the Mesa-outbound-traffic concerning this terminus? 1 transit per hour? Or 1 per minute? After all, the people in Visigoth will be very suspicious in no time, if no vessel passes through from Mesa anymore ... but that would be all they have - suspicions. No facts. The question will be, what they will do with their suspicions ...

How do you block the terminus? You put an adequAte force on the Visigoth side of the terminus.

Fleet decides to take Mesa, send a full task force (or was it group, I always bloody confuse the two) to a forward deployed system that's loosely equal distance between the two which then splits off into hitting both sides of the Mesa-Visigoth bridge as close to simultaneously as possible.

Make both task group's (assuming thats the smaller one since I cant remember) at least a full sqadron of modern battlecruisers screened by another squadron of modern heavy cruisers. A division or two of CLAC's for each task group, and there isn't anything either end of the bridge can do to say "no" or resist in anything except assisted suicide.

No merchant can clear either side because you're just dropping out of hyper practically on the bridge itself, so far as we know it's totally unfortified on either side. And their first reaction would be to go through the bridge (if possible) which just gets them caught by your other Task Group with their wedge totally down.

Would also deploy a flotilla or two of destroyers with each Task Group to handle system perimeter patrolling & interceptions after you've captured both ends of the bridge. According to Torch of Freedom, a flotilla of tincans is 18 organized in 3 squadrons, so two full flotilla's should be more than enough to handle hyper limit patrolling in each system. Really depends on whether you care that the word eventually gets out that you've captured both systems, because by around this point you're essentially doing a Warnecke, especially if you're seizing/capturing any merchants as they cross the hyperlimit heading towards Mesa or Visigoth before a slower-than-light message of "flee you fools!" can arrive.


Note: you can skip the forward deployment of the Task Force, if you skip the possibility of getting a recall order issued before the warships arrive. With the forward deployment, and speeds of DB's, you could have anywhere upto perhaps 3 weeks to re-decide and send off a DB to recall your TF before you're committed to the seizure of the Mesa Bridge.

Somtaaw wrote:Fleet decides to take Mesa, send a full task force (or was it group, I always bloody confuse the two) to a forward deployed system that's loosely equal distance between the two which then splits off into hitting both sides of the Mesa-Visigoth bridge as close to simultaneously as possible.

Make both task group's (assuming thats the smaller one since I cant remember) at least a full sqadron of modern battlecruisers screened by another squadron of modern heavy cruisers. A division or two of CLAC's for each task group, and there isn't anything either end of the bridge can do to say "no" or resist in anything except assisted suicide.

No merchant can clear either side because you're just dropping out of hyper practically on the bridge itself, so far as we know it's totally unfortified on either side. And their first reaction would be to go through the bridge (if possible) which just gets them caught by your other Task Group with their wedge totally down.

Would also deploy a flotilla or two of destroyers with each Task Group to handle system perimeter patrolling & interceptions after you've captured both ends of the bridge. According to Torch of Freedom, a flotilla of tincans is 18 organized in 3 squadrons, so two full flotilla's should be more than enough to handle hyper limit patrolling in each system. Really depends on whether you care that the word eventually gets out that you've captured both systems, because by around this point you're essentially doing a Warnecke, especially if you're seizing/capturing any merchants as they cross the hyperlimit heading towards Mesa or Visigoth before a slower-than-light message of "flee you fools!" can arrive.


Note: you can skip the forward deployment of the Task Force, if you skip the possibility of getting a recall order issued before the warships arrive. With the forward deployment, and speeds of DB's, you could have anywhere up to perhaps 3 weeks to re-decide and send off a DB to recall your TF before you're committed to the seizure of the Mesa Bridge.

Say what? How does Admiral Gold Peak get a task force all the way around to be able to hit Visigoth at the same time she's doing an assault on Mesa coming from Meyers?

I'm assuming that Honor is going to send a task force to take the Visigoth end to secure the communications link and incidentally cut off the Gupta sector. We'll see.

So how exactly is launching attacks on SL core worlds contributing to their long range objectives? Particularly a core world that has a reputation for having a rather large and modern SDF.

JohnRoth wrote:Nobody has explained why I'd want to keep people from knowing that I'd taken control of the Mesan end of the wormhole as well as Mesa itself. It simply seems to be an assumption that this would be a "good thing."

The basic thing would be to take over terminus control, which means eliminating Mesan naval strength in the vicinity.

Since it appears that the Mesan General Board has capitulated (otherwise why would General Drescher have cancelled the assault only a few hours before it would have completely succeeded), it's probable that the turnover in control could happen without any military-style unplesantness.

I agree with you--there's no need to hide the conquest of Mesa. They were too late on pulling the trigger on Houdini--their disappearance wasn't invisible.

The government left behind reacted as it should to a hostile warfleet seizing it's orbitals--it surrendered. While there might be MAlign ships around they'll be running--the MAlign has nothing that can stand up to a GA fleet. Their stealth might score some victories but once they've left a flaming datum they're dead.

kzt wrote:So how exactly is launching attacks on SL core worlds contributing to their long range objectives? Particularly a core world that has a reputation for having a rather large and modern SDF.

I don't believe I've seen anything about Visigoth's fleet. Mannerheim's, yes, but it's the largest in the RF. Visigoth's is therefore smaller, but I don't know how small.

As for the rest, I did say. Lacöön II, cutting off the Gupta sector and securing the line of communication to Admiral Henke in Mesa.

JohnRoth wrote:

kzt wrote:So how exactly is launching attacks on SL core worlds contributing to their long range objectives? Particularly a core world that has a reputation for having a rather large and modern SDF.

I don't believe I've seen anything about Visigoth's fleet. Mannerheim's, yes, but it's the largest in the RF. Visigoth's is therefore smaller, but I don't know how small.

As for the rest, I did say. Lacöön II, cutting off the Gupta sector and securing the line of communication to Admiral Henke in Mesa.

Yeah, if you can seize the Visigoth end of the terminus that would appear to significantly shorten the communication loop from Mesa to Manticore. Visigoth to Beowolf appears to likely be closer than Mesa to Lynx. But unless you could whistle up reenforcements from home that leaves 10th fleet spreading even more units out away from their core assignment of the Talbott Quadrant...
Not to mention if there are any defenses on that end your talking about another lengthy lung through hyper to attack and attempt to seize it. That might give Visigith or the Malign time to set a nasty surprise there... (Assuming they got word through the wormhole of he fall of Mesa)