What is the |value| of captured enemy systems?

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:I'm certain it can be calculated and it most probably is calculated. But it isn't milspec to the tune of galactic coordination of prongs of attack.

I think given enough time to refine observations and calculations, synchronization could be fairly accurate. If you're going to sneak task-forces to multiple WHT for simultaneous attacks on the WHJ, it would be trivial to plan for time to make very fine observations and calculations.

I don't doubt the fairly accurate part. An error of minutes when using manmade instruments on such great distances is fairly accurate. IMO. But if Tourville relies on its fair accuracy, it might be close, but he gets NO cigar.

cthia wrote:I just don't understand that. RMN presence and the picket was already there. Choosing to fully support it wouldn't have appeared as if it was ratcheting up the pressure, but simply strengthening an already existing defensive posture - because as you said it wasn't well positioned as a base from which to attack Haven.

It seemed like an awful expenditure of firepower and an awful waste of long hours of strategy and tactics the Peep Admiralty spent in the War Room to seize her, simply for an economic attack on a very lucrative star system. The Peeps pulled out all the stops for Basilisk, even introducing Q-ships to the series. And to the Star Kingdom? The SK showed the Peeps a better use for a Q-ship. Although they risked their MVP (IMO) to do it.

All that aside, you don't think a concerted effort utilizing an attack through Basilisk on the order of the first BOM to be a serious threat? At a time the SKs toys would only have been a pipedream?

It would have been nice if textev had divulged the Peeps order of battle hiding in hyper.

.

Actually I guess on second thought taking Basilisk away from Manticore could have had a second significant effect. How likely is it Manticore would be as succesful putting together their pre-war alliance if everyone they courted had just seem them roll over for Haven and surrender their (quasi) soverign territory?

From the diplomatic standpoint taking Basilisk away could have been very helpful to Haven. But militarily it does almost nothing to help them - it's poorly positioned for them to reinforce or supply. (edit: I see Kael Posavatz also touched on this)



Though it's also likely that the Peeps hadn't yet realized quite how useless it could be militarily (or if their Navy did their Legislaturalist bosses might not -- see Darkfall).

Even Manticore didn't realize quite how effective laserheads and pods were at defending against a wormhole assault -- and the Peeps don't even know about the pods yet. So they might have thought having 2 termini would allow them to successfully seize the Junction. (Ironically, given some of their intel sources in the Manticoran government they might even have thought that because they got wind of Manticore's erroneous belief of that) So the Peeps could have be planning to seize it for a perceived military advantage -- but I'm convinced such a dual wormhole assault, even as the surprise start of a war, would have ended in disastrous failure for them.

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:I'm certain it can be calculated and it most probably is calculated. But it isn't milspec to the tune of galactic coordination of prongs of attack.

I think given enough time to refine observations and calculations, synchronization could be fairly accurate. If you're going to sneak task-forces to multiple WHT for simultaneous attacks on the WHJ, it would be trivial to plan for time to make very fine observations and calculations.

cthia wrote:I don't doubt the fairly accurate part. An error of minutes when using manmade instruments on such great distances is fairly accurate. IMO. But if Tourville relies on its fair accuracy, it might be close, but he gets NO cigar.

Mere minutes can be the difference in life and death. It reminds me of the scene in Top Gun. . .

01:32:59 - "What about Willard and Simkin?" - "We can't launch any aircraft yet, sir."

01:33:04 - "How long?" - "It'll take 10 minutes."

01:33:06 "Bullshit! 10 minutes! This thing will be over in two minutes! Get on it."

IINM, even textev in the Honorverse places a limit on the accuracy of Honorverse instruments. Remember, calculating complicated jumps out of the RZ Zone can be fatal and they're inputting data into high tech computers.

What was the total elapsed time of both BOMs?

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:I just don't understand that. RMN presence and the picket was already there. Choosing to fully support it wouldn't have appeared as if it was ratcheting up the pressure, but simply strengthening an already existing defensive posture - because as you said it wasn't well positioned as a base from which to attack Haven.

It seemed like an awful expenditure of firepower and an awful waste of long hours of strategy and tactics the Peep Admiralty spent in the War Room to seize her, simply for an economic attack on a very lucrative star system. The Peeps pulled out all the stops for Basilisk, even introducing Q-ships to the series. And to the Star Kingdom? The SK showed the Peeps a better use for a Q-ship. Although they risked their MVP (IMO) to do it.

All that aside, you don't think a concerted effort utilizing an attack through Basilisk on the order of the first BOM to be a serious threat? At a time the SKs toys would only have been a pipedream?

It would have been nice if textev had divulged the Peeps order of battle hiding in hyper.

.

Actually I guess on second thought taking Basilisk away from Manticore could have had a second significant effect. How likely is it Manticore would be as succesful putting together their pre-war alliance if everyone they courted had just seem them roll over for Haven and surrender their (quasi) soverign territory?

From the diplomatic standpoint taking Basilisk away could have been very helpful to Haven. But militarily it does almost nothing to help them - it's poorly positioned for them to reinforce or supply. (edit: I see Kael Posavatz also touched on this)



Though it's also likely that the Peeps hadn't yet realized quite how useless it could be militarily (or if their Navy did their Legislaturalist bosses might not -- see Darkfall).

Even Manticore didn't realize quite how effective laserheads and pods were at defending against a wormhole assault -- and the Peeps don't even know about the pods yet. So they might have thought having 2 termini would allow them to successfully seize the Junction. (Ironically, given some of their intel sources in the Manticoran government they might even have thought that because they got wind of Manticore's erroneous belief of that) So the Peeps could have be planning to seize it for a perceived military advantage -- but I'm convinced such a dual wormhole assault, even as the surprise start of a war, would have ended in disastrous failure for them.

Basilisk was a political nightmare for the RMN so your and Kael's points make sense. Though as far as reinforcing her being a problem I just don't see it that way. . .

I don't see it that way at all. Why would the Peeps need to reinforce her? That kind of battle doesn't rage on and on. It's decided in much less time it takes to reinforce or even have time to even feel the need to reinforce. Remember how long each BOM took? Simply send a large enough force to Basilisk in preparation for the Coup De Grâce and that's that.

Of course, your notion about laser heads withstanding.

Question. In time of peace, can Navies use the MWJ? Could the Peeps send forces to Basilisk in dribs and drabs in hopes not to telegraph what's coming?

If, of course, Basilisk was Peep territory and the galaxy was enjoying the lull of peace at the time.

A question comes to mind whether the RMN would have sought to retake Basilisk if she had been lost under Young's command, considering there wasn't much support for her anyway.

cthia wrote:
Basilisk was a political nightmare for the RMN so your and Kael's points make sense. Though as far as reinforcing her being a problem I just don't see it that way. . .

I don't see it that way at all. Why would the Peeps need to reinforce her? That kind of battle doesn't rage on and on. It's decided in much less time it takes to reinforce or even have time to even feel the need to reinforce. Remember how long each BOM took? Simply send a large enough force to Basilisk in preparation for the Coup De Grâce and that's that.

Of course, your notion about laser heads withstanding.

Question. In time of peace, can Navies use the MWJ? Could the Peeps send forces to Basilisk in dribs and drabs in hopes not to telegraph what's coming?

If, of course, Basilisk was Peep territory and the galaxy was enjoying the lull of peace at the time.

A question comes to mind whether the RMN would have sought to retake Basilisk if she had been lost under Young's command, considering there wasn't much support for her anyway.

Why would they want to? In OBS they had a couple squadrons of the Wall tucked away in hyper. It'd be easier and a lot more secure to send the reinforcements that way.

Keep in mind, when GSN Honor Harrington takes Honor Harrington home to Grayson in AoV, it was through hyper because the alliance was keeping military traffic away from the junction to avoid 'neutral' eyes. (btw, was the first half of that sentence as funny to read as it was to write?)

The other thing to consider is that Honor mentioned being in a wargame where the Peeps threw battleships in a warp-point assault, and that while the outcome was lopsided, she commented the peeps had enough BB that they could do it again, and again, and again if they were prepared to accept the losses. I don't remember which book, might have been AoV in the same area as above, or perhaps when translating the junction in OBS or HoE.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:I just don't understand that. RMN presence and the picket was already there. Choosing to fully support it wouldn't have appeared as if it was ratcheting up the pressure, but simply strengthening an already existing defensive posture - because as you said it wasn't well positioned as a base from which to attack Haven.

It seemed like an awful expenditure of firepower and an awful waste of long hours of strategy and tactics the Peep Admiralty spent in the War Room to seize her, simply for an economic attack on a very lucrative star system. The Peeps pulled out all the stops for Basilisk, even introducing Q-ships to the series. And to the Star Kingdom? The SK showed the Peeps a better use for a Q-ship. Although they risked their MVP (IMO) to do it.

All that aside, you don't think a concerted effort utilizing an attack through Basilisk on the order of the first BOM to be a serious threat? At a time the SKs toys would only have been a pipedream?

It would have been nice if textev had divulged the Peeps order of battle hiding in hyper.

.

Actually I guess on second thought taking Basilisk away from Manticore could have had a second significant effect. How likely is it Manticore would be as succesful putting together their pre-war alliance if everyone they courted had just seem them roll over for Haven and surrender their (quasi) soverign territory?

From the diplomatic standpoint taking Basilisk away could have been very helpful to Haven. But militarily it does almost nothing to help them - it's poorly positioned for them to reinforce or supply. (edit: I see Kael Posavatz also touched on this)



Though it's also likely that the Peeps hadn't yet realized quite how useless it could be militarily (or if their Navy did their Legislaturalist bosses might not -- see Darkfall).

Even Manticore didn't realize quite how effective laserheads and pods were at defending against a wormhole assault -- and the Peeps don't even know about the pods yet. So they might have thought having 2 termini would allow them to successfully seize the Junction. (Ironically, given some of their intel sources in the Manticoran government they might even have thought that because they got wind of Manticore's erroneous belief of that) So the Peeps could have be planning to seize it for a perceived military advantage -- but I'm convinced such a dual wormhole assault, even as the surprise start of a war, would have ended in disastrous failure for them.

Jonathan, you're analysis misses 2 separate points.

1) Strategic - As you mentioned, at this time the RMN didn't appreciate the advantages laserheads (and pods) gave to a wormhole defender. With their erroneous, outdated defensive thinking, the loss of a 2nd wormhole terminus might have caused the RMN to fortify the home system further - pulling back their waller deployments on allied nations or weakening them, in either case this would make rolling over the RMN outposts and allied nations easier for the PRN in a later offensive, or cause the allied nations to break entirely from the alliance as Manty support and forces stayed in Manticore space.

Regardless of the actually Peeps throwing waves of SDs and BBs down the 2 junction legs, if the Peeps control them, the RMN has to assume that it might happen at any time. That means reinforcing the home defenses, and the only way to do that is to pull back ships from everywhere else.


2) Economics - the bulk of the RMN's trade at this time came from the great triangle trade through Silesia. Removing the return leg through Basilisk of the triangle trade due to embargo, increases the return time from the Confederation, or removes trade with the eastern portion, in both cases, lessening the effectiveness of the Manticorian Merchant Marine's trade in the region.

If the Peeps allowed travel, but charged a fee, they could siphon off the Manticorian economy, empowering themselves at the same time as increasing costs for the Manticorian economy. The PRH's entire rational to take Manticore was for additional funding - and taking a terminus that was essential for the Manticorian trade, and placing a toll booth in front of itwould be a nice step in this direction.

cthia wrote:IINM, even textev in the Honorverse places a limit on the accuracy of Honorverse instruments. Remember, calculating complicated jumps out of the RZ Zone can be fatal and they're inputting data into high tech computers.

What was the total elapsed time of both BOMs?

My understanding is that hyperspace navigation is more an issue with position that with time. That said, relative time in the Honorverse probably is tricky.

The multiplicative effect of the hyper band should be irrelevant, that doesn't cause any relativistic effect. But the velocity you travel at does exert relativistic time dilation on your clocks. You'd be able to have extremely accurate count of the shipboard time, but attempting to convert that back into a common point of origin time relies on knowledge of your exact velocity for the entire trip.

With only inertial positioning, no outside sources to measure against, I suspect that there's some amount of error in their velocity measurments. Over time I assume that would accumulate, but I haven't tried crunching numbers to see how sensitive the final time is to errors in velocity estimation.


Obviously on some gross level they can do this just fine. They routinely track home system time, but for most purposes it probably doesn't matter much if that was even an hour out (though I'd guess the normal error would be more in the single digit minute range.


For a "simultaneous" wormhole assault being off by a minute or two probably isn't a that big deal, whichever force shows up first will get all the missiles launched at it and the delayed force will appear before they can hit. But more than, say, 6-9 minutes off and you risk your two forces being defeated in detail.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:IINM, even textev in the Honorverse places a limit on the accuracy of Honorverse instruments. Remember, calculating complicated jumps out of the RZ Zone can be fatal and they're inputting data into high tech computers.

What was the total elapsed time of both BOMs?

My understanding is that hyperspace navigation is more an issue with position that with time. That said, relative time in the Honorverse probably is tricky.

The multiplicative effect of the hyper band should be irrelevant, that doesn't cause any relativistic effect. But the velocity you travel at does exert relativistic time dilation on your clocks. You'd be able to have extremely accurate count of the shipboard time, but attempting to convert that back into a common point of origin time relies on knowledge of your exact velocity for the entire trip.

With only inertial positioning, no outside sources to measure against, I suspect that there's some amount of error in their velocity measurments. Over time I assume that would accumulate, but I haven't tried crunching numbers to see how sensitive the final time is to errors in velocity estimation.


Obviously on some gross level they can do this just fine. They routinely track home system time, but for most purposes it probably doesn't matter much if that was even an hour out (though I'd guess the normal error would be more in the single digit minute range.


For a "simultaneous" wormhole assault being off by a minute or two probably isn't a that big deal, whichever force shows up first will get all the missiles launched at it and the delayed force will appear before they can hit. But more than, say, 6-9 minutes off and you risk your two forces being defeated in detail.

Nice post!

But, it could matter which force shows up first if the plan depends on it. Such as only one force being armed with a particular new weapon (Eighth Fleet). Or in the case of the Peeps, their unveiling the Tripple Ripple for the first time but production and time has limited it to one force. I just don't think coordination of forces is possible on such great distances unless one side simply has so much firepower to throw in the first place.

cthia wrote:I don't see it that way at all. Why would the Peeps need to reinforce her? That kind of battle doesn't rage on and on. It's decided in much less time it takes to reinforce or even have time to even feel the need to reinforce. Remember how long each BOM took? Simply send a large enough force to Basilisk in preparation for the Coup De Grâce and that's that.

Of course, your notion about laser heads withstanding.

Question. In time of peace, can Navies use the MWJ? Could the Peeps send forces to Basilisk in dribs and drabs in hopes not to telegraph what's coming?

If, of course, Basilisk was Peep territory and the galaxy was enjoying the lull of peace at the time.

A question comes to mind whether the RMN would have sought to retake Basilisk if she had been lost under Young's command, considering there wasn't much support for her anyway.

They wouldn't need to tactically reinforce Basilsik, as you say battles don't last anywhere near long enough for to reinforce from outside the system. I probably should have made my point better - but it's a long trip from Haven to Basilisk and the forces there are much closer to Manticore than they are to any other Havenite naval forces. There's a risk that Manticore could send a sizable portion of Home Fleet through hyper, crush the Havenite detachment, and use the recaptured wormhole to pop back to Manticore before Haven could find out or react.
And if you do decide to strategically adjust your forces it takes a long time to send units (or order) from any other Haven base to Basilisk.

As for naval forces using the Junction I believe even in peacetime Manticore limited that to governments they had especially close relationships with. And further, after Haven had seized Trevor's Star IIRC Manticore had closed the Junction to all Haven flagged traffic and prohibited all traffic to/from Trevor's Star. I'd assume that if Haven grabbed Basilisk that Manticore would apply the same prohibition against travel using that terminus. (Which means Haven couldn't even use neutral 3rd party traffic to move communications from Trevor's Star to a captured Basilisk via the Junction)


I tend to doubt that Manticore could justify declaring war on Haven to retake Basilisk during peacetime. However a counter stroke there if Haven declared war, or attacked without warning, would seem almost inevitable.

I don't see a problem for coordinating an attack down to the second.

The TF's transits to their respective staging areas in advance, take stellar readings, compensate for distance between the different areas and calculate the time down to microseconds.