I predict that the Solarian League will survive.

JohnRoth wrote:I'm partial to the standard action in the Vor universe for an officer who suggests an assault through a defended wormhole.

Though it usually takes a while to get around to that one there.

I don't recall any reason besides volume constraints that make spherical sidewalls suboptimal for hyper capable warships. The spherical sidewalls are only useful when riding a grav wave and perhaps jumping into a contested wormhole terminus without surprise. Designing a warship with that capability requires too much volume to limit it to very rare circumstances. There are other ways to attack a system with a WH terminus and warships spend too little time riding grav waves.

If those circumstances change, then designing an SD with spherical sidewalls becomes a viable option. Reconfigure 2-3 SDs with spherical sidewalls and put some armour on the roofs and bellies. Automate to hech and back and reduce life support. They aren't designed for long deployments. Send them in simultaneous transit. Having two stage sidewalls like Hexapuma's bow walls will help during transitioning between sails and wedges.

Brigade XO wrote:Nothing is going to survive entering the Torch wormhole from the Torch end if the Alignment blocking squadron stays there, parked right on top of the other end with weapons hot and essentialy zero range.
Just isn't going to happen

I agree that a wormhole assault isn't a viable way forward. But the blocking force we saw wasn't very large. If the transit limit on the Torch wormhole was high enough to toss 3 squardons of SDs down it (18 ships) or about 75% of Manticore's 200 million ton limit a few would likely survive.

But only because the blocking force shown to us, back then, is almost criminally under powered. Just one BC squadron (Mannerheim's Sixth Battlecruiser Squadron) w/o any apparent missile pod support. And even if you knew they'd survive you don't know that a successful assault leads inevitably to your enemy (we know it does, via 2 more wormhole legs, but there's no reason to suspect that that is even slightly likely). And your paying the price of thousands of causalities in the hope some will survive and give you useful Intel.
Yeah that's s loser bet if ever I heard one.



But let's consider the spherical sidewalls some have suggested.
Further lets assume:
a) they can be used while going through a womrhole, and
b) the Torch wormhole has as large a tonnage max as Manticore's (the highest in known space)
There's no evidence, but lets see where the most optimistic assumptions lead us.

We send refit Benjamin the Great's, in 200 mtons we can fit 23 of them. They'll have sidewalls, but while in the grav turbulent exit lane (so for several minutes) still can't deploy decoys, missiles, or CMs. So 34 PDLCs per broadside to fend of several minutes of missile fire they can't respond to. The only good news is that if the defending forces want to go beam to beam they have to close to a range the Bengjis can smash back (unlike if no sidewalls were present).

Against just the broadside tubes of one squadron of BCs they're pretty well off. Assuming they've got as many broadside tubes as the most we've seen in a BC the 6th BC squadron (assume 8 ships) is throwing 8x28 = 224 missile per salvo. Best case for defenders, assuming the attackers are concentrated, is if nobody's broadside PDLCs are masked so you've got 34*23 = 782 PDLCs taking shots at the inbounds. At over 3 to 1 even with the short time it takes to cross the 50 thousand km or so from PDLC range to laserhead range you should knock down almost all of them.

But if reinforced with pods then things get messy. Even if no more BCs are there, and there's no other fire control, each BC should easily be able handle 6 pods per salvo and have access to several minutes of sustained fire worth of pods avalible. (No need to worry about moving them or counter fire) So now the Benjis are facing (an assumed 10 missiles per pod * 6 pods per BC * 8 BCs) an extra 480 missiles per salvo or 704 total. You're going to get leakers which is going to degrade your defenses quickly. And this is still a fairly trivial level of wormhole defense - 8 BCs and say 2,400 pods.

So even adding a spherical sidewall (and assuming it works in wormhole transits) is far from a good chance of success given the ease of rapidly adding defenses.

That was the blocking force HOW many years ago?

kzt wrote:That was the blocking force HOW many years ago?

Exactly - anything they ran into now would be much worse. And it's already infeasible given what we knew was there back then.

Brigade XO wrote:Nothing is going to survive entering the Torch wormhole from the Torch end if the Alignment blocking squadron stays there, parked right on top of the other end with weapons hot and essentialy zero range.
Just isn't going to happen

What about a maximum capacity mass transit of SDs?

They are big and well armoured and maybe 1 or 2 might get to the point where they can return fire and the defenders will be within range once the SDs clear the transit lane. Of course it all depends on just how large the transit capacity is and therefore how many SDs can be sent through in one go, NTM that no-one knows what the maximum capacity is.

Jonathan_S wrote:But only because the blocking force shown to us, back then, is almost criminally under powered. Just one BC squadron (Mannerheim's Sixth Battlecruiser Squadron) w/o any apparent missile pod support. And even if you knew they'd survive you don't know that a successful assault leads inevitably to your enemy (we know it does, via 2 more wormhole legs, but there's no reason to suspect that that is even slightly likely). And your paying the price of thousands of causalities in the hope some will survive and give you useful Intel.
Yeah that's s loser bet if ever I heard one.

Didn't textev also tell us that there were dreadnoughts backing those BCs up?

munroburton wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:But only because the blocking force shown to us, back then, is almost criminally under powered. Just one BC squadron (Mannerheim's Sixth Battlecruiser Squadron) w/o any apparent missile pod support. And even if you knew they'd survive you don't know that a successful assault leads inevitably to your enemy (we know it does, via 2 more wormhole legs, but there's no reason to suspect that that is even slightly likely). And your paying the price of thousands of causalities in the hope some will survive and give you useful Intel.
Yeah that's s loser bet if ever I heard one.

Didn't textev also tell us that there were dreadnoughts backing those BCs up?

Maybe. It didn't stumble across that last night, but I think bits and pieces of talking about the Twins and possibly the forces there is scattered across at least a couple books, so it's hard to find.

If jumping into a contested terminus is always suicidal, why did White Haven incorporate that tactic in taking Trevor Star? I believe there is some opportunity to succeed in the tactic, under certain circumstance. I am curious what the variables are that would improve the odds.

Jonathan_S wrote:

munroburton wrote:
Didn't textev also tell us that there were dreadnoughts backing those BCs up?

Maybe. It didn't stumble across that last night, but I think bits and pieces of talking about the Twins and possibly the forces there is scattered across at least a couple books, so it's hard to find.

No Dreadnaughtss were at the Terminus, it was only the BC squadron there. The Mannerheim Navy has DNs, but none of them were AT the Terminus to intercept Manticore's CL.