Remaining holes in SLN intel

Brigade XO wrote:Manticore has several huge advantages. Not the least of these is the massive amount of combat experienced Navy personnel. Then there is the recon stealth, the MDM, the ability to use the modern LACs as anti-missle defence as well as offensive weaponry, the RMN elecltronic countermeasures and the FTL commuications with all that it implies with ability to gather tactical data and then control said MDMs.

Your throwing scenarios. Another 500 SLN SDs is (well, perhaps not quite that many but still at least another Fillerlta size group), more than hinted at since there is that 2nd group staging behind Fillerta.
The readers know that it is now the GA covering Manticore. I don't quite know if Beowulf knows-and has passed on to the GA- that this second force is gathering or even if it's existance and purpose might have shown up in captured data from Fillerlta's group. What we can surmise is that while another 300 to 500 SDs (particulary if they are arriving unannounced) would be difficult for Manticore and the assisting RHN fleet, there are still a lot of current generation RMN system defence pods. What that sets up is an even worse engagement FOR BOTH SIDES if that force shows up without any early warning.
My take on that situation is that while Manticore probably survives, all three fleets are brutaly mauled. Without the set-piece disposition of the combined GA fleets the anti-missile defences are not as effective and as large if not larger force is hitting against a open stratigicly disbursed defending force so the concentrations favor the SLN and that takes a toll on the GA ships which are going to be engaged in a more piecemeal fashion as they react to the attack. Of course, that will also probably mean that fewer of the SLN ships (and their crews) survive as the defenders are more or less forced to go into a "kill what I can engage and shift to next target" there won't be a lot of surrenders being taken and a lot of what is rendered combat ineffective will have to wait a long time before anybody comes around looking for them. Presuming the GA successfully defends Manticore, searching out surviving SLN crews is going to be WAY down on their list of things to do.
Essentially this would be yet another Alignment manuver to crush Manticore (and at this point include a RHN fleet) and eradicate another significant portion of the SLN fleet and- perhaps more importantly- all those trained naval personnel. Break the League....killing all those Normals and destroying all those warships.

Maldorian wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:
For example, if 500 Scientist and Vega class SDs came over the wall on a zero-zero intercept for Manticore itself you've got about 4 and quarter hours before they're in orbit. Having 150 or so Gryphon class SDs, even upgraded to fire MDMs, without any pods and without the accuracy boost of Apollo, you're going to have a very hard time killing enough of them to stop the SLN juggernaught.


And there aren't enough missile pods laying around Manticore? Remember, the pods can be just kicked out the hatch if need be. We saw Haven doing this with minelayers.

Also, you don't need total destruction. Any ship that takes impeller damage is now behind the pack and need not be targeted further until the main group is dealt with.

Also, how many captains wouldn't surrender once they realized they were being used to soak up missiles?
Again, this was a counter factual scenario where pods didn’t exist.[1] A Manticore with thousands of MDM system defense pods, but only non-pod MDM equipped SDs would be in a much better position to destroy hundreds of attacking Scientist class SDs.


[1] someone implied that MDMs along would have let Manticore beat the SLN and I was trying to show that pods were also s critical part of that capability by pointing out that without pods you don’t have the fire density to quickly crush really large numbers of targets.

If the sollies want to control Manticore. If they want to destroy Manticore they only need to go down from hyper, start their missles in a ballistic way and destroy manticore and the other planets with a rain of nukes.

That´s the weakness of pods. They could destroy any incomming ships, but not the incomming missles. That´s why I thought to build real defense satellites armed with missles, like pods, but also armed with counter missles and laser cluster to defend the planet against incomming missles.

ldwechsler wrote:Much of this means nothing. First of all, in the text we know tehre were more than a quarter of a million pods set around Manticore. That could really devastate the Sollie fleet.

kzt wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:Much of this means nothing. First of all, in the text we know tehre were more than a quarter of a million pods set around Manticore. That could really devastate the Sollie fleet.

David later mentioned here that a very large number of those were in fact RHN pods.

Maldorian wrote:If the sollies want to control Manticore. If they want to destroy Manticore they only need to go down from hyper, start their missles in a ballistic way and destroy manticore and the other planets with a rain of nukes.

That´s the weakness of pods. They could destroy any incomming ships, but not the incomming missles. That´s why I thought to build real defense satellites armed with missles, like pods, but also armed with counter missles and laser cluster to defend the planet against incomming missles.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:
How can they hope to even psychologically manipulate the vote without a real show of force? Any SLN force isn't a real show of force.

It'd be like trying to rob a bank with a known plastic gun. I'd sure like to know what force mix they sent to do the dirty deed.

No, the SLN is still dangerous - instead of a plastic pistol, call it an co2 pellet gun. After all, they might as well shoot their eye out...

lyonheart wrote:Hi kzt,

Where was that RFC quote?

Just curious.

Is there other RFC commentary on ART etc?

L

ldwechsler wrote:Much of this means nothing. First of all, in the text we know tehre were more than a quarter of a million pods set around Manticore. That could really devastate the Sollie fleet.

kzt wrote:David later mentioned here that a very large number of those were in fact RHN pods.

runsforcelery wrote:

kzt wrote:Look at the number of missile pods that the RMN discloses at 2 BoM. They had a huge stockpile of missiles.

True, but quite a few of those pods had "Made in Nouveau Paris™" labels on them. For some reason, Honor didn't feel real compelled to tell Filareta that. Can't imagine why not.

It's true that the Alignment had significantly underestimated the numbers of missiles and pods already available to the Star Empire, and they didn't have what you might call full or accurate information on just how capable Apollo actually was. In other words, they underestimated its lethality, at least to some extent, and expected it to be available in smaller numbers. With no expectation that the Republic would stand up beside Manticore (rather than shooting it in the back as soon as the smoke of Filareta's destruction had cleared), it actually wasn't irrational of them to expect that Eleventh Fleet would inflict at least some damage on Home Fleet and significantly erode the number of all-up Mark 23s which would be available against a Beatrice II.

cthia wrote:When the Kim Jong-unian neobarbs acquire nuclear assisted miniaturized tech, it is much too late. LOL