Remaining holes in SLN intel

Loren Pechtel wrote:

kzt wrote:Manticore has destroyed a golden age of peace and there will be lots of military R&D everywhere.

Manticore? They didn't choose the war. They just chose not to be the next victim of existing wars. In a golden age of "peace"???

Sure, if you believe the fairy tales of secret societies and centuries long hidden conspiracies propagated by Manticore. But the 5 or so trillion people who live in the core worlds know better than to believe that BS.

And the golden age? The last time the SL was at war was when? Heck, when was the last time an actual naval battle occurred inside the SL? I will point out the Manticore and their allies were the people who declared war on the SL, the SL never declared war on them, the SLN had to just carry out defensive moves while the government dithered.

kzt wrote:Sure, if you believe the fairy tales of secret societies and centuries long hidden conspiracies propagated by Manticore. But the 5 or so trillion people who live in the core worlds know better than to believe that BS.

And the golden age? The last time the SL was at war was when? Heck, when was the last time an actual naval battle occurred inside the SL? I will point out the Manticore and their allies were the people who declared war on the SL, the SL never declared war on them, the SLN had to just carry out defensive moves while the government dithered.

IIRC the GA has not declared war with SL but has stated they feel that they are in a effective state of war with SL.

Nah, the League didn't declare any war. They merely blew those destroyers out of space at New Tuscany, sent a fleet to attack the SEM's regional capitol in Talbot, and sent Filereta to conquer Manticore. No big deal we can be open minded about these things... No war has been declared at all.

Don

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pnakasone wrote:IIRC the GA has not declared war with SL but has stated they feel that they are in a effective state of war with SL.

Umm, no.

"“The gloves are off now,” Culbertson said flatly. “You’ve all seen the reports on Second Manticore. As Duchess Harrington told Filareta, if war’s what the Sollies want, then war is what they’re damned well going to get. By this time, Kolokoltsov and the other Mandarins have received the Grand Alliance’s formal declaration of war, and Admiral Gold Peak is already moving on the Madras Sector. That being the case, I see no reason we shouldn’t take a few offensive steps of our own. I intend to take or destroy any Frontier Fleet units in those systems. In addition, we will seize any Solarian civilian shipping as legitimate prizes of war…and if our people should just happen to walk into another Mobius situation—” those bleak, brown eyes circled the table again “—then they can damned well do something about it.”"

kzt wrote:
Umm, no.

"“The gloves are off now,” Culbertson said flatly. “You’ve all seen the reports on Second Manticore. As Duchess Harrington told Filareta, if war’s what the Sollies want, then war is what they’re damned well going to get. By this time, Kolokoltsov and the other Mandarins have received the Grand Alliance’s formal declaration of war, and Admiral Gold Peak is already moving on the Madras Sector. That being the case, I see no reason we shouldn’t take a few offensive steps of our own. I intend to take or destroy any Frontier Fleet units in those systems. In addition, we will seize any Solarian civilian shipping as legitimate prizes of war…and if our people should just happen to walk into another Mobius situation—” those bleak, brown eyes circled the table again “—then they can damned well do something about it.”"

Sure no wars, only "Police actions" perpetrated against practically unarmed civilians. Only how many examples of Case Buccaneer offing unarmed merchant ships and orbital infrastructure.

Damn I hate conservative revisionism.

pappilon wrote:Damn I hate conservative revisionism.

Hey, revisionist history worked out fine for failing near bankrupt minority political party once upon a time. Well, for few years.

Luckily, given the demonstrated near worship of the core values of the SL and the willingness to sacrifice short term political advantage for those, as shown in the rejection of the censure of Beowulf... Oh right. Never mind.

kzt wrote:

pappilon wrote:Damn I hate conservative revisionism.

Hey, revisionist history worked out fine for failing near bankrupt minority political party once upon a time. Well, for few years.

Luckily, given the demonstrated near worship of the core values of the SL and the willingness to sacrifice short term political advantage for those, as shown in the rejection of the censure of Beowulf... Oh right. Never mind.

The damage done to the GA and its shipping is rather minor compared to what could be done to the Sollies.

And the big transstellar companies could really lose money fast. Losing a planet would be a disaster. Having their home planet ravaged (which could happen if Beowulf is badly hurt) would really be scary.

ldwechsler wrote: The damage done to the GA and its shipping is rather minor compared to what could be done to the Sollies.

And the big transstellar companies could really lose money fast. Losing a planet would be a disaster. Having their home planet ravaged (which could happen if Beowulf is badly hurt) would really be scary.

Most of the transtellars are nothing more than shipping agents, finding cargo and commissioning hulls, formerly RMMM, to to haul it. But, yeah, after reports start trickling in, could be new forms of battle porn.

Unfortunately part of Capt. Gweon's analysis is true, SL controlled space is YUGE, and the GA can't be everywhere.

The MAlign is manipulating Operation Buccaneer, so I would guess nothing larger than a BC in the raiding mix. the smart thing ( )would be a xouple of DDs, and a CL with a BC doggo doing oversight in case they run into a serious SDF somewhere.
Of course we don't know what strategy the MAlign is playing out here. They may be sending light units to where the GA isn't and heavier ones to where they are, thus eliminating the heavier units below the wall.

pappilon wrote:

ldwechsler wrote: The damage done to the GA and its shipping is rather minor compared to what could be done to the Sollies.

And the big transstellar companies could really lose money fast. Losing a planet would be a disaster. Having their home planet ravaged (which could happen if Beowulf is badly hurt) would really be scary.

Most of the transtellars are nothing more than shipping agents, finding cargo and commissioning hulls, formerly RMMM, to to haul it. But, yeah, after reports start trickling in, could be new forms of battle porn.

Unfortunately part of Capt. Gweon's analysis is true, SL controlled space is YUGE, and the GA can't be everywhere.

The MAlign is manipulating Operation Buccaneer, so I would guess nothing larger than a BC in the raiding mix. the smart thing ( )would be a xouple of DDs, and a CL with a BC doggo doing oversight in case they run into a serious SDF somewhere.
Of course we don't know what strategy the MAlign is playing out here. They may be sending light units to where the GA isn't and heavier ones to where they are, thus eliminating the heavier units below the wall.

No, the GA can't be everywhere, but with their control of the wormhole network, they can be a lot more places a lot faster than the League. And... they don't have to be everywhere. All they really have to do is come up with a list of the Leagues potential targets and focus on that... The rest of League space is irrelevant.

About the Alignment... I wonder if we're not giving them too much credit. They are not really gods and that focus can distract us from the reality that the League is more than capable of screwing up on its own.

Don

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We have seen the Alignment using what are essentialy pirates in the past, certainly mercenary groups. The People's Republic Navy in Exile was a pirate force, not mercenary. Monica is/was running a shop as a mercenery supplier.

With Capt. Gweon providing input, the Alignment is pulling all sorts of strings with the raiding. Not perhaps a fine tuned control but certainly general impact. While killing both GA merchanting shipping (actual GA member merchant marine or independents who are trading with them) is one goal, killing GA warships is probably in the mix but that depends on your perspective. You look at this one way and the SLN is going to loose a lot more ships trying to kill GA warships. They might develop (and perhaps even report back on sucessfull tactics of they survive) ways to destroy either PRHN or RMN ships but the loss ratio is probably going to be very badly lopsided unless the SLN has overwhelming numbers and good ambush.
On the other hand, if they do the asymectrical warfare approch and kill merchants where the warships are not currently patrolling, they force the GA to change deployments and probably disburse the warships with both adds to the needs of both navies and makes it more likely that they can catch a GA ship alone to their advantage.

Remember that the Alignment is just as happy to kill off SLN ships and crews, particularly those who show initiative and creativity. Just the chaos of perhaps 50 actual warships engaging in commerce raiding- and just for destruction of shipping- is going to be a significant problem for all sorts of people. About the only one not effected is the Alignment since they don't have much in the way of "civilian" traffic out there to get hit.