pappilon wrote:
I disagree, but only slightly. Albrecht and Colin (?) underestimated the huge disparity of force between the SLN & the RMN which became totally obvious when Crandall was destroyed with virtually marginal damages. They not only needed the SL to collapse, but Haven & Manticore as well. That was already a non-event before Grand Flourish, when Haven signed the peace treaty and combined forces against the league.
Granted, it didn't workout too well for them from the begining but now instead of having the GA united and the League disintegrate they have the League and the GA which will both end up much stronger in the long run.
They needed the league to become more militarily competent at that point because their entire strategic plan was based on chaos and fear in the remnants of the league. They were feeding weapons tweaks to Technodyne and tactical help to the SLN to try to balance the military equation. They needed the League to pass the constitutional amendment. And that was Albrecht's brilliant modification of the final flourish undercutting the GA's moral superiority that allowed rhe amendment to be nearing ratification.
My view is that for them they would have been better off trying to collapse the league and leave the GA alone after what happened in Mesa. They can spend 20 or 30 years building up a nation from the ashes of the League to be able to match the GA because 20 or 30 years down the road the GA will not have the overwhelming technological advantage. Now the only place they can actively build up a nation from is the Protectorates and the independents and the RF which would be much smaller than the GA and the League.
[2]Er, questionable onclusion from the information they had. Daoud's group was already operating prior to even the events on Mesa. Had they not rolled up a good portion of the MAlign's intelligence network, the SLN would be blissfully unaware. their people would have dismissed the grazer fire data or caused it to be dismissed. No one would have bought into the ridiculous notion od some MAlign group manipulating the SL. And they have no idea how totally screwed they are since there has been no time for any disatch boat to reach them on Darius from Earth.
If the MA had destroyed Mycroft and left it at that the SLN might have been asking some questions but they would have written it off to an accident or malfunction or a sensor glitch etc etc etc but when they blew up 40+ million people, anyone with a functioning brain in the league would have latched on to any shred of evidence that the SLN was not responsible. It might be hard to dig if the only evidence is the destruction of one platform or even a dozen of them no matter how convenient for you and inconvenient for the other guys but it becomes so much easier when you are trying to prove to all of humanity that you didn't just commit EE and kill more civilians then all casualties combined on all sides since the beginning at Monica.
Or not, they could just make the stupid assumption that it was long planned just like Barregos' Sepoy Option triggered prematurely by Barregos' own taped broadcast to Earth.
They might but if you were in a position like that would you? Just because you think they are innocent would you assume they are? Or would you keep a close eye on them?
Harsh judgement. MY humble opinion is the only stupid move they made was the terror attack on the 3 habitat modules, and it probably did not make any difference. Just attacking the Mycroft platforms coupled with the tax amendment would have forced theGA's hand to attack Sol.
Mesa was both a stroke of genius and a horrible decision at least to me. What happens when news filters to Darius that the MA leadership just massacred hundreds of thousands of MA members and most likely some of the family members of those they evacuated to Darius? After all how many of the people in Darius unknowingly lost close family and friends in the attacks leading up to the GA showing up and the explosions after they showed up? If the MA's top leadership threw a tantrum and promised revenge because their parents died at their OWN hands how do you think the remainder of the MA evacuees would feel when they learn that they lost siblings, parents, husbands and wives, kids etc.... at the hands of the MA and not the enemy?
The Plan was trashed way back when Terekov attacked Monica. It just wasn't obvious. When Zilwicki & Cachat made their spectacular rise from the dead with Simoes, Albrecht knew The Plan was in serious jeopardy and forced the operational tempo of Houdini. Pricharts response to that information was the nail in the coffin of The Plan.
And at that point it should have been obvious that the plan was lost and they should have amended it to take out one party if they couldn't take out both. Continually poking the GA in the eye seemed like throwing a bad decision on top of another bad decision, on top of another bad decision.
Besides not getting involved physically in the attack on Beowulf, I'm not sure what they could have done differently to save the plan. And to be fair, they are new at being in charge, it takes a while for any new management team to find its footing. They were forced to take over at a very bad time both strategically and emotionally.
They had several hundred years to plan for this eventuality. Being unprepared is their own fault.
They are no longer fighting a war against the 800 kilo gorilla. indeed there is no more active military engagement. Demobilization from a war footing to a peacetime footing is not following down the path Janacek took them down.
It is almost exactly the same as what happened after the first war with the only difference being in degree. At the end of the First war with Haven they had only a few systems they needed to protect and most were minor allies or captured systems they didn't much care about. Now they have 50-60 new member systems they have to protect. Home Fleet, a Fleet to defend Talbott and Silsia and you have stripped the cupboards bare without protecting anything well. If the war was over that would be one thing, but the war with the League was essentially a distraction since the GA doesn't know if the MA has 1 SD, no SD's or 10,000 SDs being completed. Aside from that they also don't know where the MA is located and where their industry is which means until they find out the GA has to be able to defend everything to at least some degree. Building up their industry in Talbott and Silesia and leaving it poorly defended seems like a recipe for disaster.
I am certain they will continue to modernize their combined fleets, and continue with R&D at bolthole. Plus they have all that data from Ganymede that Honor captured to plow through. They'll probably complete the SDs under construction, then concentrate on ships below the wall.
If we assume that between Grayson and Manticore they have 250-300 SD(P)'s and haven has ~700 SD(P)'s plus 700-900 under construction then they won't need more SD(P)'s until they can build Manticore level technology rather than havenite level of technology.
Having ~1,700-2,000 SD(P)'s in 4 years time would be more than adequate while they rebuild their industry. There is Beowulf and some other core systems that might join them to form a nation that once they rebuild their industry they will want sufficient protection for themselves especially those who suffered through or nearly suffered through Bucaneer. If I remember correctly there is one core system which still has it's industry thanks to a RMN squadron. I don't remember the name but they might be thankful to the RMN and be one of the biggest investors and contributors to the rebuilding effort of the GA industry and expansion of the SEM's industry in Talbott and Silesia.
They have a serious flaw in Mycroft hat needs fixing, but that will take a lot of system defense pressure off the active navy.
until the next time someone figures out how to take out one platform and throw your defences in disarray. Relying on fixed defences and leaving your mobile assets to shrink to a level where they become the next best thing to useless is a horrible idea.If manticore cuts their active fleet from 150SD(P)s down to say 80 or 100 this would mean that in the event of an emergency a handful of systems can be weakly protected while the vast majority of the SEM is left out in the cold. Being able to reinforce your fixed defences means you have flexibility, relying predominantly on fixed defences leads you to watch one system after another get crushed without having the means to do anything about it.
