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

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.

Jonathan_S wrote:

JohnRoth wrote: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)

This is what I said originally. Critical point underlined.

JohnRoth wrote: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.

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.

It's implied that some or most of the RF have a naval component. Mannerheim being the largest doesn't exclude Visigoth from having a couple of battle squadrons - and they do have a Wormhole Junction to worry about, one which used to connect to an outlaw system.

But then under Lacoon 2, aren't Manticore already trying to secure the Visigoth end?

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Annachie wrote:But then under Lacoon 2, aren't Manticore already trying to secure the Visigoth end?

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It is undoubtedly on the list, but not a high priority with the Mesa end under Manticoran control. Solarian trade can be blocked from traveling to Visgoth and interned if they travel from Visigoth.

Weird Harold wrote:

Annachie wrote:But then under Lacoon 2, aren't Manticore already trying to secure the Visigoth end?

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It is undoubtedly on the list, but not a high priority with the Mesa end under Manticoran control. Solarian trade can be blocked from traveling to Visgoth and interned if they travel from Visigoth.

When Lacoon 2 was launched nobody knew Michelle Henke was going to occupy the Mesa System with Tenth Fleet. However, to argue against it being an early target for Lacoon 2, Visigoth is a Core World deep inside the Solarian League & I got the impression that Lacoon 2 was targeting those wormhole termini in the Shell & further out & would leave those in the Core until later. You can argue it either way.

Rincewind wrote:When Lacoon 2 was launched nobody knew Michelle Henke was going to occupy the Mesa System with Tenth Fleet. ...

Mesa would have been a fairly high priority even before Michelle decided to attack sooner than later after the additional info she picked up in Meyers. Visigoth would have been a much lower priority because of its internal position within League space and Manticore only needs one end of a bridge or the central junction of there are multiple bridges.

There may be another task force on the way to Mesa and/or Visigoth but they'll be pretty much redundant by the time they arrive.

munroburton wrote:
It's implied that some or most of the RF have a naval component. Mannerheim being the largest doesn't exclude Visigoth from having a couple of battle squadrons - and they do have a Wormhole Junction to worry about, one which used to connect to an outlaw system.

Mannerheim is supposedly one of THE most powerful SDF's in the entire League, according to Torch of Freedom. It's all inferred data, but Admiral Osiris Trajan commands Task Force Four of the Mannerheim Navy. His flag is flown from a dreadnought, commanded by a Captain Adelaide Granger, and Trajan himself is widely regarded as the Mannerheim System-Defense Force's two or three best flag officers.

At least Four Task Forces, and the fourth has at least a single Dreadnought, which we can relatively safely assume is a full eight-ship squadron. Which by further inference, we can guesstimate that Mannerheim has at least a DN squadron in each Task Force for a total of a minimum 32 dreadnoughts, plus upto another 32 screening cruisers for said dreadnoughts.

The entirety of the Beowulf SDF was 36 superdreadnoughts that actually confronted Tsang, with the possibility of a couple more down for refit and/or maintenance. And if Mannerheim's regarded as one of the most powerful in the entire League, they either have more than just four Task Forces, or they're considerably larger than we have any evidence for currently.



But that's just Mannerheim, Mesa had a joke of a Navy most of the key officers are actually MAN officers, which presumably also disappeared as Houdini progressed, or they all ran for it the second Tenth Fleet came out of hyper and charged in. And Visigoth is openly OFS territory I believe, and a HQ at that, so it'd always have light Frontier Fleet units, and being openly OFS nobody until now would ever have attacked it.

Annachie wrote:But then under Lacoon 2, aren't Manticore already trying to secure the Visigoth end?

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They haven't yet, either because they need to wait for Beowulf to formally secede and join the GA in order for attacks to be launched through the Beowulf Terminus or because Visigoth has enough military forces of its own making to put up a bloody fight for their Junction.

Somtaaw wrote:

munroburton wrote:
It's implied that some or most of the RF have a naval component. Mannerheim being the largest doesn't exclude Visigoth from having a couple of battle squadrons - and they do have a Wormhole Junction to worry about, one which used to connect to an outlaw system.

Mannerheim is supposedly one of THE most powerful SDF's in the entire League, according to Torch of Freedom. It's all inferred data, but Admiral Osiris Trajan commands Task Force Four of the Mannerheim Navy. His flag is flown from a dreadnought, commanded by a Captain Adelaide Granger, and Trajan himself is widely regarded as the Mannerheim System-Defense Force's two or three best flag officers.

At least Four Task Forces, and the fourth has at least a single Dreadnought, which we can relatively safely assume is a full eight-ship squadron. Which by further inference, we can guesstimate that Mannerheim has at least a DN squadron in each Task Force for a total of a minimum 32 dreadnoughts, plus upto another 32 screening cruisers for said dreadnoughts.

The entirety of the Beowulf SDF was 36 superdreadnoughts that actually confronted Tsang, with the possibility of a couple more down for refit and/or maintenance. And if Mannerheim's regarded as one of the most powerful in the entire League, they either have more than just four Task Forces, or they're considerably larger than we have any evidence for currently.



But that's just Mannerheim, Mesa had a joke of a Navy most of the key officers are actually MAN officers, which presumably also disappeared as Houdini progressed, or they all ran for it the second Tenth Fleet came out of hyper and charged in. And Visigoth is openly OFS territory I believe, and a HQ at that, so it'd always have light Frontier Fleet units, and being openly OFS nobody until now would ever have attacked it.

All mostly speculative. For example, Mannerheim could have four squadrons of four DNs each, with each squadron leading up a "task force" containing additional smaller ships. Their "dreadnoughts" may be similar to the Scientist SD - or even bigger(like the Bellerophon was), with no SDs. They might only use even numbers for their formations or have discontinued formations(Manticore at one point disbanded the 5th BatCruRon and then reformed it).

Or they could have eight eight-ship squadrons for a total of 64 wallers, all of them equivalent to Gryphons or whatever.

It's easy to twist tables of organisations to look bigger... or smaller than you actually are.

Small point - we're not sure 36 SD is all Beowulf had. It's been speculated they could have had four more down for maintenance. Not likely, though - they had plenty of advance warning.

As for Visigoth being OFS territory... uhh, no. Textev is that it's a full League member(and has been for a LONG time - tell me when & how did Beowulf émigrés move to Mesa?), whose current President Roman Hitchcock is on the Renaissance Factor's heads-of-state board.

All I said in my previous post is, nothing stops Visigoth from having a few wallers. They certainly should be able to afford them too, after owning a two or three termini Junction for several centuries.

The point is, the RMN does not want to be in a position where it potentially has to fire upon and kill tens of thousands of Visigothers(or any other League SDF personnel) - who as far as anyone is aware, were perfectly justified in defending their sovereign property. That might hurt their diplomatic efforts to break the League up, no?

Annachie wrote:But then under Lacoon 2, aren't Manticore already trying to secure the Visigoth end?

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Weird Harold wrote:It is undoubtedly on the list, but not a high priority with the Mesa end under Manticoran control. Solarian trade can be blocked from traveling to Visgoth and interned if they travel from Visigoth.

Rincewind wrote:
When Lacoon 2 was launched nobody knew Michelle Henke was going to occupy the Mesa System with Tenth Fleet. However, to argue against it being an early target for Lacoon 2, Visigoth is a Core World deep inside the Solarian League & I got the impression that Lacoon 2 was targeting those wormhole termini in the Shell & further out & would leave those in the Core until later. You can argue it either way.

Why do you say "deep inside the Solarian league?" All we really know about its location is that it's 60 ly from Beowulf. There's some time-of-flight evidence that it's on the other side of Beowulf from Earth, which puts it on the boundary between the Core and the Shell.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Visigoth settled from Beowulf and as a daughter colony of Beowulf would not be on the Lacoon 2 list?