Tamaguchi's biggest Mistake in SoV

jdtinIA wrote:

cthia wrote:It was the first time the SLN ran from an opposing force in centuries.

Weird Harold wrote:Not quite. Lacoon II was full of SLN retreats and defeats.

Yeah, but how many of them would Tamaguichi have had time to her about in enough detail to do any good. IIRC he still didn't have hard data from Crandall's little oopsie at Spindle.

Weird Harold wrote:Whether Tamaguchi knew about them or not is irrelevant. He wasn't the first to run, and he won't be the last.

The fact that others ran before him might save him at an inquiry where all of the incidents might be known is questionable. The SLN just might make an example of everyone with sense enough to run when they know they're outclassed (and the MAlign is probably going to steer them to that action if they don't come up with it on their own.)

You have a point Harold, technically, and I suppose I really should amend that statement somehow.

Everyone else ran after they were made to see reason. There's no shame in that.

Tamaguchi started running, right out the gate!

cthia wrote:
Tamaguchi started running, right out the gate!

He WAS being prudent. There has been an awful lot of odd things happening to BF and FF recently and there was no FF units known to be comming to join him. That he didn't have one or more ships cut wedges isn't so much of a concern as they quite probably would then have been run-down by whatever just showed up if (when) it started comming after him. Unless he both thought of it instantly (or it was part of some version of contingency plans- unlikely) and had any ships that he had drop wedges also change vectors to take them out of an overflight path, they would soon be at a major disadvantage if they did anything due to speed and location (and direction of travel) and be relatvely easy targets. Remember, if they had not been under accleration for hours, then an overtaking force would effectivey have a range advantage due to their own weapons relatively higher speed for the engagement envelope even if they had exactly the same missles.

If Byng (but then he was an idiot) then Crandall and then Fillerta didn't leave anybody outside the relevent system as a sentinel or possible courier to report on what happend (or provide an overview plus copies of transmissions) for the official record or watch their backs, why should anybody expect Tamaguchi to do so? If he had done it he might or might not have been thanked (because he would have gotten at least some hard data from SLN warships home to be analyzed) but it is not something SLN sees to have in it's tactical doctrine.

Crandall and Filiarta had direct contact to Alignment agents if I remember correct. I don´t think saving data was part of their instructions.

The conflict became bigger what means, that the Alignment has no longer full control, so there is a chance that a Solarian Commander get the idea to get data with backup ships.

Brigade XO wrote:

cthia wrote:
Tamaguchi started running, right out the gate!

He WAS being prudent. There has been an awful lot of odd things happening to BF and FF recently and there was no FF units known to be comming to join him. That he didn't have one or more ships cut wedges isn't so much of a concern as they quite probably would then have been run-down by whatever just showed up if (when) it started comming after him. Unless he both thought of it instantly (or it was part of some version of contingency plans- unlikely) and had any ships that he had drop wedges also change vectors to take them out of an overflight path, they would soon be at a major disadvantage if they did anything due to speed and location (and direction of travel) and be relatvely easy targets. Remember, if they had not been under accleration for hours, then an overtaking force would effectivey have a range advantage due to their own weapons relatively higher speed for the engagement envelope even if they had exactly the same missles.

If Byng (but then he was an idiot) then Crandall and then Fillerta didn't leave anybody outside the relevent system as a sentinel or possible courier to report on what happend (or provide an overview plus copies of transmissions) for the official record or watch their backs, why should anybody expect Tamaguchi to do so? If he had done it he might or might not have been thanked (because he would have gotten at least some hard data from SLN warships home to be analyzed) but it is not something SLN sees to have in it's tactical doctrine.

Prudence, is a first for an added tactic, in centuries, by the SLN as well Brigade. If they were ever even familiar with the concept of prudence in their long history, that is. LOL

I need to reread, because it crossed my mind to enquire about the pods Tamaguchi was carrying. To be sure, Tamaguchi launched three salvos. I was expecting an awful lot of missiles from one of their launches because they were forced to flush their pods. Use 'em or lose 'em. I suppose I'm accustomed to Manticoran pod launches even w/o UMVs.

So apparently, the SLN is lagging behind the number of missiles their pods put out and are ignorant to the density of RMN pods?

IOW, where was their really large (usually the first launch with pods) salvo?

cthia wrote:Prudence, is a first for an added tactic, in centuries, by the SLN as well Brigade. If they were ever even familiar with the concept of prudence in their long history, that is. LOL

I need to reread, because it crossed my mind to enquire about the pods Tamaguchi was carrying. To be sure, Tamaguchi launched three salvos. I was expecting an awful lot of missiles from one of their launches because they were forced to flush their pods. Use 'em or lose 'em. I suppose I'm accustomed to Manticoran pod launches even w/o UMVs.

So apparently, the SLN is lagging behind the number of missiles their pods put out and are ignorant to the density of RMN pods?

IOW, where was their really large (usually the first launch with pods) salvo?

[caution - this is from the e-ARC, not the final so it's possible something changed]
It was called a use it or loose it situation, but instead of a single massive salvo Tamaguchi split it into 4 tightly sequence salvos.

To be fair it's never made a lot of sense to me that people would launch all towed pods the instant they saw the enemy fire. At MDM ranges you're looking at 7-9 minutes for their missiles to arrive. Even allowing for some safety margin you've got 5-6 minutes to use your pods before they're at risk. You've got time to sequence several salvos from the pods before they're lost. (Or you could simply wait a few minutes before launching everything)

Anyway, I'd speculate, and it is pure speculation, that the SLN ships don't carry as many redundant missile fire control links as even a late pre-pod RMN ship would. That could force them to stagger the launch because they flat out don't have the links to control that many missiles in a unified salvo.

cthia wrote:Prudence, is a first for an added tactic, in centuries, by the SLN as well Brigade. If they were ever even familiar with the concept of prudence in their long history, that is. LOL

I need to reread, because it crossed my mind to enquire about the pods Tamaguchi was carrying. To be sure, Tamaguchi launched three salvos. I was expecting an awful lot of missiles from one of their launches because they were forced to flush their pods. Use 'em or lose 'em. I suppose I'm accustomed to Manticoran pod launches even w/o UMVs.

So apparently, the SLN is lagging behind the number of missiles their pods put out and are ignorant to the density of RMN pods?

IOW, where was their really large (usually the first launch with pods) salvo?

Tamaguchi had an insane 24 pods on tow behind each of his 8 Nevadas. each pod held 10 missiles, and were fired in 4 groups of 480 missiles.

In ~1908, RMN and PRN BCs were limited to towing ~8 or so pods before the pods would start causing accel issues (which were never mentioned as a problem for Tamaguchi's force). They only should have been able to tow 6-10 primitive pods full of the massive Cataphract-Cs, but now, plot drives BCs to carry the levels we only see available after flatpack pods came available with internal tractors.

Theemile wrote:Tamaguchi had an insane 24 pods on tow behind each of his 8 Nevadas. each pod held 10 missiles, and were fired in 4 groups of 480 missiles.

In ~1908, RMN and PRN BCs were limited to towing ~8 or so pods before the pods would start causing accel issues (which were never mentioned as a problem for Tamaguchi's force). They only should have been able to tow 6-10 primitive pods full of the massive Cataphract-Cs, but now, plot drives BCs to carry the levels we only see available after flatpack pods came available with internal tractors.

It’s plot. All the way down.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Prudence, is a first for an added tactic, in centuries, by the SLN as well Brigade. If they were ever even familiar with the concept of prudence in their long history, that is. LOL

I need to reread, because it crossed my mind to enquire about the pods Tamaguchi was carrying. To be sure, Tamaguchi launched three salvos. I was expecting an awful lot of missiles from one of their launches because they were forced to flush their pods. Use 'em or lose 'em. I suppose I'm accustomed to Manticoran pod launches even w/o UMVs.

So apparently, the SLN is lagging behind the number of missiles their pods put out and are ignorant to the density of RMN pods?

IOW, where was their really large (usually the first launch with pods) salvo?

[caution - this is from the e-ARC, not the final so it's possible something changed]
It was called a use it or loose it situation, but instead of a single massive salvo Tamaguchi split it into 4 tightly sequence salvos.

To be fair it's never made a lot of sense to me that people would launch all towed pods the instant they saw the enemy fire. At MDM ranges you're looking at 7-9 minutes for their missiles to arrive. Even allowing for some safety margin you've got 5-6 minutes to use your pods before they're at risk. You've got time to sequence several salvos from the pods before they're lost. (Or you could simply wait a few minutes before launching everything)

Anyway, I'd speculate, and it is pure speculation, that the SLN ships don't carry as many redundant missile fire control links as even a late pre-pod RMN ship would. That could force them to stagger the launch because they flat out don't have the links to control that many missiles in a unified salvo.

Forgot about the control links, but didn't they have a breakthrough in control links with one of their new platforms?

Also, if there are enough targets in range to shoot at, and you have the control links, flushing the pods may not be a bad thing, or a waste, if you are targeting lots of ships. There is something else about Barricade I don't understand and I'm reminded of it by this discussion.

Did Tamaguchi launch all of his birds against just one ship? If not, and it's hard to believe that he did, then the missiles should have been on completely divergent flight paths that varied too significantly to be taken out by Barricade. I really need another in-depth reread.

Forgive me if my memory is out to lunch.

cthia wrote:Forgot about the control links, but didn't they have a breakthrough in control links with one of their new platforms?

Are you thinking about Aegis? That's defensive only - the SLN ripped out a couple broadside energy mounts and replaced them with additional CM control links. (And RFC has said in the past a CM control link isn't compatible with an offensive missile, it's smaller and had a much shorter working range; a tradeoff to let you carry enough of them)

But that's the only fire control 'breakthrough' I remember the League making.


I mean, in theory, there's probably nothing stopping them from pulling a few more energy mounts and slapping an extra offensive control link or two in - but we haven't read that they have; and that wouldn't make a major difference unless they fairly well gutted their energy range teeth.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:Prudence, is a first for an added tactic, in centuries, by the SLN as well Brigade. If they were ever even familiar with the concept of prudence in their long history, that is. LOL

I need to reread, because it crossed my mind to enquire about the pods Tamaguchi was carrying. To be sure, Tamaguchi launched three salvos. I was expecting an awful lot of missiles from one of their launches because they were forced to flush their pods. Use 'em or lose 'em. I suppose I'm accustomed to Manticoran pod launches even w/o UMVs.

So apparently, the SLN is lagging behind the number of missiles their pods put out and are ignorant to the density of RMN pods?

IOW, where was their really large (usually the first launch with pods) salvo?

Tamaguchi had an insane 24 pods on tow behind each of his 8 Nevadas. each pod held 10 missiles, and were fired in 4 groups of 480 missiles.

In ~1908, RMN and PRN BCs were limited to towing ~8 or so pods before the pods would start causing accel issues (which were never mentioned as a problem for Tamaguchi's force). They only should have been able to tow 6-10 primitive pods full of the massive Cataphract-Cs, but now, plot drives BCs to carry the levels we only see available after flatpack pods came available with internal tractors.

Even odder than that, 8 BCs and 8 DDs control a total of 500 Cataphract-C missiles each (62 missile per BC+DD), even though Admiral Filareta's SDs could control no more than 40 Cataphract-C missiles each (427 SDs could control 17000 missiles). It seems odd even for SLN a BC/DD pair can jointly control half again as many missiles as a SD.