I predict that the Solarian League will survive.

Theemile wrote: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.

Ah, yes. I looked it up - MSDF Task Force 4 is mentioned specifically as not being assigned to the MSDF covering force on the other end of the Verdant Vista wormhole bridge.

TF 4 was assigned to guard the Felix wormhole junction - that's where I got confused.

As I recall the process for transiting a wormhole, you move into the event horizon of the wormhole at a fairly sedate rate of speed with only the sails deployed and, once through, you are essentialy blind untill you do a number of things including retracting the sails, bringing your impellers on-line for "normal" flight status and begin to get reading on your sensors and any tactical equipment you have running.
Blind and slow and trusting to the last information you have about the wormhole that there is nothing (like a ship comming in the opposite direction which is ONE reason there are travel lanes defined for all wormholes) in your way. Straight through on a particular course relative to the wormhole as you approach it.
What you do after you get though is a different story. In the descriptions of the opening of Lacoon II, the BCs which went through to take the SL side of the teminus at the end of his assault chain came out in a pattern, or at least in a set of predetermined courses relative to the exit point. The first ship was having a conversation with local Astro Control while the rest of the BC manuvered very quickly AFTER reconfiguring to impeller to give the broadest tactical coverage of the terminus before the 1st CLAC came though.

Harvest Joy was a former RMN light cruiser that had been retrofitted for survey work. It retained much of it's armament. The Captain had just enough time to realize they were under attack before the ship was destroyed. I don't recall that they even saw the ships that fired on them, just the weapons.

Sending several SDs through the Torch wormhole to attempt to survive a hypothetical ambush? Really? All Manticore and the people observing the departure of the Harvest Joy into the wormhole really know is that they didn't come back out to report. How many people on the Harvest Joy? It was an older light cruser but still a warship. The longer time goes by, the better the chances that it was not only damaged (or just had equipment failure that won't let it return through the wormhole) in transit, but that it was lost (as in destroyed) in transit, and that the ship is never getting home.

So which person in what government is going to take several SDs in a mass transit of the unmapped wormhole at something under the CALCULATED maximum transit capacity said wormhole. How many people are you talking about risking?
It is much more likely that Manticore (or Haven) or Torch (or even their friends in Maya) is going to hire a private survey ship to make a second attempt. They will also pay quite a fee for that ship and crew, up-front, to the company that owns it and the premiums on the insurance policies for the crew.

Sending an SD through, at battle stations, in the face of a couple of BC ready to engage plus whatever mines or other defensive weapons the Alignment has deployed and the rest of the BC squadron a bit further back but possibly in missile range is not going to mean that the SD is going to survive the engagement.

If the Alignment forces -just the BCs at the closest interdiction to the terminus start fireing as soon as something is detected comming through the worm hole, they are going to get in essentialy a free, undefended volley at the target. I would guess that they are going to have gone to rapid fire with all systems (this is the Alignment protecting their secret network) until target it destroyed. Just how much can an SD -without it's wedge up- survive?
They don't care if the target is destoyed with loss of all hands. That actualy is preferable to any other solution. It's been a couple of years since the Harvest Joy's attempt. By this time, the Alignment probably has at a squadon of it's own "conventional" warships at that terminus now in addition to or perhaps fully replacing the Mannerheim one.
If you had Graser Torps, wouldn't it make sense to park a couple of them (and rotate through a formation of same) as close to the terminus as possible with sensors live and prepped to shoot immediately upon contact with a target materializing in front of them? Remember, your target is a ship with it's impellers not yet back engaged to make a wedge and even if it does get the wedge up shortly, you are essentialy shooting down it's throat.

So, no, sending six or seven SD's though the "killer wormhole" doesn't make a lot of sence.

PeterZ wrote:

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 was thinking that eventually, as Maldorian suggests, some sharp GA strategist will guess enemy action is the cause for the Torch WHJ difficulties. Sending in one of Crandall's SDs reconfigured to generate spherical sidewalls. Well, perhaps they opt for something better and send a Benjamin the Great class SD reconfigured to generate spherical sidewalls.

Going through the wormhole with sails and sidewalls might be survivable.

JohnRoth wrote:Two points here. First, I seriously doubt that they don't have "enemy action" on the top of the possible list for the Torch wormhole. Either that, or three of the best intelligence analysts in the galaxy have suddenly decided to carry the Idiot Ball. As I've said before, a competent intelligence analyst never throws out a possibility until it's been affirmatively disproved. A review of how Bayesian statistics work would be helpful here.

Second, in current warships, sidewalls appear to be incompatible with sails. Why this is so is a mystery probably having to do with the Awesome Power of Plot.

It would require a significant research and development effort to manage to put sidewalls together with sails. If someone was silly enough to expend that effort, then all they would have would be a sitting duck for several minutes, with the defending force willing to expend dozens of SD-grade laser warheads to turn it into plasma.

The entire point of that kind of a probe is the same as any intelligence-gathering exercise: getting the data back.

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

I've long since wondered, if by some Weber chance, whether the MAlign might be the first to successfully traverse a defended wormhole.

1. We have huge gaping holes in our MAlign intelligence, their technology, etc.

2. They can grow kamikazes to assault the wormhole in droves in cheaply built ships, quickly built simply to take the heat and be a distraction and meat for the grinder in wormhole assaults while they sneak ships in.

3.The MA can create a line simply to live to die.

cthia wrote:
I've long since wondered, if by some Weber chance, whether the MAlign might be the first to successfully traverse a defended wormhole.

1. We have huge gaping holes in our MAlign intelligence, their technology, etc.

2. They can grow kamikazes to assault the wormhole in droves in cheaply built ships, quickly built simply to take the heat and be a distraction and meat for the grinder in wormhole assaults while they sneak ships in.

3.The MA can create a line simply to live to die.

Wormholes have "mass" limits and then need time to recover before another transit can happen. That mass limit allows the defender to size the blocking force appropriately.

PeterZ wrote: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.

David ended up posting - i reposted it recently but can't find it right t the moment. But basically it worked for a similar reason that the Laocoon wormhole seizures worked. When the ships went through the terminus wasn't defended.

In the case of Laocoon that's because they were never fortified.
In the case of Trevor's Star in the final plan White Haven's wall threatened the inner system and the Peeps kept their mobile forces concentrated and between White Haven and the planet. He then detached some BCs to sweep the mines that were the only remaining terminus defenses. Once done one of the BCs popped through to Manticore to let the waiting reenforcements from Home Fllet it was safe to transit.

Jonathan_S wrote:

PeterZ wrote: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.

David ended up posting - i reposted it recently but can't find it right t the moment. But basically it worked for a similar reason that the Laocoon wormhole seizures worked. When the ships went through the terminus wasn't defended.

In the case of Laocoon that's because they were never fortified.
In the case of Trevor's Star in the final plan White Haven's wall threatened the inner system and the Peeps kept their mobile forces concentrated and between White Haven and the planet. He then detached some BCs to sweep the mines that were the only remaining terminus defenses. Once done one of the BCs popped through to Manticore to let the waiting reenforcements from Home Fllet it was safe to transit.

Thanks, Jonathan.

The only likely way to discover Darius, then is to get a clue about materials exported to Darius. The more stuff that gets sent in, the more likely someone gets an idea there is something being hidden. Something like a secret wormhole terminus.

If they send nothing to Darius, the that limits how quickly Darius can grow. If they push the envelope on growth, keeping the secret becomes more difficult.

PeterZ wrote:Thanks, Jonathan.

The only likely way to discover Darius, then is to get a clue about materials exported to Darius. The more stuff that gets sent in, the more likely someone gets an idea there is something being hidden. Something like a secret wormhole terminus.

If they send nothing to Darius, the that limits how quickly Darius can grow. If they push the envelope on growth, keeping the secret becomes more difficult.

Darius doesn't import anything aside from Mesan refugees. It's completely self-sufficent and doesn't need imports to grow rapidly. The current system population is four billion - age uncertain, but it was colonised after Mesa. Manticore, which had always been able to draw upon high immigration and had three planets, is only up to three point something billion.

Darius has at least one asteroid belt similar to those of Manticore's or Bolthole's. Its growth is only limited by their factories and cloning equipments' output rate. Imagine a state with the power and ability to say "Right, in ten years we want population production turned up to one hundred million clones per year. Ten million will be allocated to agriculture, forty to manufacturing, thirty to the military, etc., on a rolling basis."

PeterZ wrote:
The only likely way to discover Darius, then is to get a clue about materials exported to Darius. The more stuff that gets sent in, the more likely someone gets an idea there is something being hidden. Something like a secret wormhole terminus.

If they send nothing to Darius, the that limits how quickly Darius can grow. If they push the envelope on growth, keeping the secret becomes more difficult.

Why? They are, as is any other system, fully self-sufficient in raw materials. You have to assume that their industrial plant includes the facilities to build tools and large-scale fabrication systems (who else would have built the machines that build spider drives?). So I don't see them as needing anything from anyone, though I'm sure information would be nice to get.

What would you expect that would need to be sent to Darius to allow it to grow faster?

kzt wrote:

PeterZ wrote:
The only likely way to discover Darius, then is to get a clue about materials exported to Darius. The more stuff that gets sent in, the more likely someone gets an idea there is something being hidden. Something like a secret wormhole terminus.

If they send nothing to Darius, the that limits how quickly Darius can grow. If they push the envelope on growth, keeping the secret becomes more difficult.

Why? They are, as is any other system, fully self-sufficient in raw materials. You have to assume that their industrial plant includes the facilities to build tools and large-scale fabrication systems (who else would have built the machines that build spider drives?). So I don't see them as needing anything from anyone, though I'm sure information would be nice to get.

What would you expect that would need to be sent to Darius to allow it to grow faster?

The best of modern tech people and technology. There should be at least one branch of Malign to look around for people like that they can send to Darius...even before Operation Houdini. Perhaps they could actually develop some top alpha lines for scientific development. Far safer in Darius than on Mesa. Sort of like Bolthole for the baddies.

kzt wrote:

PeterZ wrote:
The only likely way to discover Darius, then is to get a clue about materials exported to Darius. The more stuff that gets sent in, the more likely someone gets an idea there is something being hidden. Something like a secret wormhole terminus.

If they send nothing to Darius, the that limits how quickly Darius can grow. If they push the envelope on growth, keeping the secret becomes more difficult.

Why? They are, as is any other system, fully self-sufficient in raw materials. You have to assume that their industrial plant includes the facilities to build tools and large-scale fabrication systems (who else would have built the machines that build spider drives?). So I don't see them as needing anything from anyone, though I'm sure information would be nice to get.

What would you expect that would need to be sent to Darius to allow it to grow faster?

If they devote resources to grow quickly, less resources can be used to build and sustain a navy. Any material devoted to the navy isn't devoted to growing the capacity to sustain greater production and larger population. So the MAlign has to decide how big Darius has to be to optimize the odds of defeat the GA. Whatever is necessary to achieve that growth is the top priority, the rest can be devoted secondary priorities like the navy.

That's my point. If the time table requires a certain economic growth rate and a certain sized navy beyond what Darius can sustain on its own resources, they would have to import.