Opening Phase of Havenite war

kzt wrote:Indeed. The Peep’s deliberately created a long war of attrition. Give me a way this produces a win for them.

We know it doesn't but they thought it did. They badly underestimated the productive capacity of the Manticore/Grayson space industry and even more greatly underestimated the economic strength that allowed this to occur. Given this underestimation they assumed they could outbuild the opponents given the much larger size of territory they controlled and thus win by attrittion if the early strikes failed.

Remember Manticore is richer and more productive than even the core solarian worlds on a per head of population basis so there is plenty of room for getting this estimate wrong in the Octogon's war planning room.

We know they were wrong but it was not immediatly obvious because to be blunt Manticore was coasting economically pre war and no-one knew what they could achieve, not even them. I am sure if you had told the pre-war liberals or conservative leaders that Manticore could sustain 100 SD+ production year on year they wouldn't have believed it.

This is yet another case or Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics/production capacity and sadly (For them) the Havenites were more amateur than Manticore. The person earlier in the thread that said that they blew the opportunity by decades was correct.

NathanG wrote:The Empire seems more possible to me; if Manticore gave them Silesia they might jump in. But given Andermani realpolitik, if Manticore is close to losing the war, why join the losing side? I could see Gustav grabbing Silesia while everyone is distracted and then trying to build up a large enough fleet to stand off the peeps by himself.

It was pretty widely believed that Haven would be moving on the Empire after defeating Manticore and rolling up Silesia (and correctly so, too; this was definitely part of the Legislaturalist plan).

Jonathan_S wrote:I think they went in caution because the handful of (admittedly light unit) encounters between RMN and Peep units in the years before the war had gone unexpectedly against the Peeps.
They were trying to hit targets that were hard enough to give them data on how big the tech edge was but weak enough that even a worst case disadvantage could be overcome by their numerical superiority.

And thats why they should have concentrated an overwhelming force and crushed whatever objective they chose. Once Manticore was attacked there was no backing out there was war one way or another, the question was when would the government of Manticore overcome the domestic opposition and declare war. So going in with weak offensive forces split into multiple attacks gets you the worst of all worlds, even if Manticore had only the 32 SD's in Grayson that the PN expected they still would have given a good account of themselves, and whats worse from the perspective of Haven is that if they managed to destroy even half of those wallers the gloves are off, not even the liberals can argue against a war and win.

Plus punching out Hancock'd repair base cripples Manticore's ability to sustain operations in that sector. Their ships have to move much further to the rear for repair which adds time and reduces the number of effective ships. (Plus you can hang around and hope to pick of piecemeal reinforcements that trickle in before word of Hancock's loss spreads)

Thats another thing that bothers me, as far as I can remember Hancock was a base aimed at supporting Alizon, Zanzibar and one or two other systems. To me it seems like a waste having to defend 2-4 allied systems and then decide to put a repair facility in a 5th unoccupied system that will require further dilution of the very limited resources. Having one of the allied systems be the major base means you have one less system to defend.

Though remember the decision to attack right then wasn't the plan; that was Admiral Rollins improvisation when he found out Yancy Parks had pulled out all his wallers. The plan was for Rollins to hit Parks' 16 SDs + 16 DN with the 24 SDs + 8 DNs at Seaford 9 reinforced with 16 more wallers; so 48 peep wallers vs 32 RMN. With a 50% advantage in hulls and a repair base Parks would presumably be reluctant to lose Rollins would be expected to pin them against the base and take out and damage many of the RMN units before the remainder rolled behind their wedges and ran. (Remember that it was assumed that forces couldn't be more than attritionally hurt until forced to fight for an objective they wouldn't abandon - though this was another as yet untested assumption)

Even so that called for a 3 to 2 advantage in wallers. Sending overwhelming numbers against the RMN would have let them win, and potentially destroy a good chunk of the RMN in just two attacks(Grayson and Hancock) One unexpected event such as 1 DN squadron of 10 DN's showing up at the wrong time and their entire equation is out the window. Their advantage of 3-2 is gone and replaced with near parity with a technologically superior enemy.

Probing semi-cautiously for information and favorable attritional losses turned out to be a bad strategy; but it's hard to totally fault military planners for trying to use apparently overwhelming force on limited objectives until they had more information on the enemy's actual abilities.

Haven had several advantages that Manticore did not have.

-They(Haven) knew they would be the aggressors in this and it would be very unlikely that the SKM would launch a surprise attack on Haven.
-The RMN had only 66% of the wallers that Haven had(Not counting BB's) when you factor in the BB's the RMN has only ~45% of the tonnage of the PN.
-Manticore has to get the intelligence, figure out whats going on, decide what to do about it and then move ships around and there are only so many ships that they can move.
-The SKM through their own planning was saddled with allies that in the grand scheme of things did not contribute much in terms of military or industrial power in 1905, but at the same time they could not abandon those allies and were obligated to defend them.

Concentrating 200 SD's, 40 DN's and 100-120 BB's in one fleet would have given them a chance to do some real damage wether a direct attack on the Manticore system, Grayson, Hancock or a combination of systems. They knew the fleet size of 2nd Fleet, they should have gone with overwhelming numbers in one system wipe out the RMN picket and move on for as long as their limited fleet train can sustain them. With such numbers even the reinforced 2nd Fleet stood no chance. Hit Grayson destroy as much of 2nd Fleet as you can, rearm, send any damaged ships back to rear area and move off after destroying any and all industry aside from farms. They could have made the trip with whatever was left over after the Battle at Grayson to Hancock, Alison, Zanzibar, York etc... hit them until the PN runs out of steam or the fleet train calls it quits. Manticore either reinforces their allies and is defeated piecemeal or they concentrate their forces and abandon their allies, at that point losing 2nd Fleet plus every other picket they can get their hands on would have the RMN reeling and off balance.


Haven knew they would have problems sustaining a long war yet they chose to ignore their advantages and attack the SKM in the worst way possible which led to them loosing 17% of their SD's and DN's in one go. They could have had the same casualties but at the same time could have dealt the RMN some crippling losses to either Home Fleet or some of the largest concentrations of Wallers aside from Home Fleet.

Yup. The Haven plan had a clearly defined "We start the war" phase and a "We pillage the losers" phase, but the middle was kind of weak.

It's like this plan.

drothgery wrote:

NathanG wrote:The Empire seems more possible to me; if Manticore gave them Silesia they might jump in. But given Andermani realpolitik, if Manticore is close to losing the war, why join the losing side? I could see Gustav grabbing Silesia while everyone is distracted and then trying to build up a large enough fleet to stand off the peeps by himself.

It was pretty widely believed that Haven would be moving on the Empire after defeating Manticore and rolling up Silesia (and correctly so, too; this was definitely part of the Legislaturalist plan).

Oh yes! But in the context of "Manticore is on the verge of defeat and tries to bribe the Empire to join them with major concessions" (which was the scenario raised), I could see the Andermani deciding that Manticore was a lost cause and that joining the war would just get them taken over immediately. Instead they might take advantage of the chaos to conquer Silesia and build up the IAN by themselves while the PRH ingests Manticore. Obviously, they might also have chosen to try and help the SKM stave off defeat. My point was just that it wasn't obvious that a Manticore on the brink of defeat would've been able to find allies, even with them offering junction fees or Silesian concessions.

kzt wrote:Indeed. The Peep’s deliberately created a long war of attrition. Give me a way this produces a win for them.

To be fair, Haven did dump their entire command team right after the opening round of the war failed. We can't know what Harris and Parnell would have done after that disastrous opening round of the war.

If it wasn't for the Pierre coup, Haven would have pursued a different strategy. Perhaps even thrown a knock-out punch whilst letting Manticore advance to Trevor's Star instead of clinging onto everything with idiot people's commissioners or counter-attacking unuseful systems.

And I'm certain that Pierre did not want a short war. He needed a long war to force the Dolists to accept his reforms.

Sigs wrote:

cthia wrote:Nice thread!

I've posited the same thing. The Peeps waited until after their window of opportunity had long since closed. Albeit, there was a lot of that going around. There is one big variable though. To do what you suggest would have involved assembling this massive juggernaut somehow in secrecy, which, given the brains of Manticoran Admiralty and Honor, would surely have signaled a Case Zulu. With the element of surprise, the result might've been burnt Manticoran toast. If OpSec had been compromised and a welcoming committee formed, it might not have been worth it. One thing Haven had to worry about was the fact that any such attempt would have been an "all in" attempt, which might have left them bare naked with so many systems to cover.

They already had assembled a fleet of ~90 SD's in secret, Manticore could have set up a surprise in the Home System but the problem with that is that it is a lot easier for Haven to gain intelligence in Manticore Home system than for Manticore to gain Intelligence in Havenite space. Just the sheer size makes gathering the intelligence once you have it time consuming. By the time the RMN gets the intelligence back to the Admiralty, analyzes it, makes a decision and starts issuing orders it would be months.

Also, the Peeps needed control of Trevor's Star before executing such a plan.

Trevor's Star was nothing but a threat that the RMN HAD to honour, any plan that involved an attack from Trevor's Star was in my opinion suicide plain and simple.


As for the all or nothing aspect? I agree it would be terrifying for a nation to commit something like 50-60% of their wallers on a single attack but unless they send a complete idiot to lead said attack they would still inflict crippling damage to the RMN, the RMN would not be able to open up the home system to further attack thereby freeing Haven from having to worry about retaliatory attacks.

Home Fleet would have had ~100 SD's, and another ~28 in ship hands, thats almost 69% of the RMN's SD's in one place, they get destroyed or even the majority of them get destroyed the war is lost.

You misunderstand. Trevor's Star is a direct line of attack into Havenite space. Without Peep control of it, Trevor's Star also represents a Manticoran base in which to attack Haven. Many of you know that I fancy breaking things down to the bare essentials to more easily analyze. The chess board is my common apparatus in which to do so.

"But everything can't be broken down to the analogy of a chess board," in anticipation.

Correct. Yet many of the same strategies and tactics do apply, even if only peripherally. For instance, on the chess board, if two fairly evenly matched opponents are going head to head and both are about to checkmate the other, the one who moves into checkmate position first (controlling the orbitals) wins the game by "default" even though the very next move by the other opponent is checkmate as well. Checkmate causes the other "navy" to have to surrender its forces. That does not happen in real life.

Albeit, a true representation of time is not accurately depicted in chess. Even so, many of the same realities and concepts of war still apply.

If the Peeps attack the Manty Home system, they also have to protect itself from a simultaneous attack. That is the raw reality of strategy and tactics, the pervading common denominator of war. If your army is at my house raping and pillaging my family, you must ensure that remnants of my army isn't inside your own home having the exact same fun with yours. The Peeps must honor that possibility.

Trevor's Star must be neutralized. There remains certain realities of war whatever/wherever the theater of conflict. The Peeps have no way of knowing what tech the enemy is about to unleash, thus the enemy's own capabilities and plans -- case in point, the Apollo system. These facts conspired to keep the Peeps honest, as it does any navy contemplating such an attack. You simply must mind your own drawbridge first! Or risk opening yourself up to a counter punch. It represents the same realities White Haven faced when he had plans to besiege the PRH. Why not go directly for it? After Trevor's Star is mopped up.

When the Peeps controlled Trevor's Star, they didn't even properly fortify it. I imagine it would be heavily fortified by whatever remaining forces are repositioned to cover it, risking attack from its drastically weakened flanks from a heavily drawn down navy or simply risking it.

The RMN almost always enjoyed a technological edge. At any given time, Haven has to assess whether its weight advantage offsets any Manticoran tech advantage at the time of attack, which would be exacerbated by the overwhelming losses that attacking a heavily fortified position entails.* To us omniscient readers who enjoyed knowing everything, even we can still make a strategic mistake knowing all of the variables. However, in the Havenite War Room, the strategic realities of war weighs heavily on the thinking of anyone contemplating a direct attack on the enemy's Home System. After all, in the aftermath of your miscalculation, your loved ones will be left to pay your debts. And the Peep Admiralty was hardly omniscient. Plus, they didn't have a Salamander to "take it to 'em!" With all of their own internal strife, at what point were their better strategists and tacticians in the driver's seat? Heck, at one point they were being shot or forced to defect.

And again, the plan calls for an immense mobilization of forces without alerting the best strategic thinkers in the business that "something wicked our way comes."

*See Battle of Manticore.

kzt wrote:Indeed. The Peep’s deliberately created a long war of attrition. Give me a way this produces a win for them.

I thought an attritional war was good strategy for the Peeps. When you outnumber your opponent in warships as they did, it was not only a sound strategy, but a safe one, as opposed to a daring and risky direct assault. What the Peeps didn't count on was the persistent headache of Manticoran tech and their feverish building rate. After all, how could Japan ever hope to out-produce the US? All of Manty tech was a "just in time deliverer from evil." There was no way the Peeps should have expected the Manties would continuously pull a rabbit out of their hat. If the Have-nots would have gone the route of a direct attack and lost, then we'd be flogging them for not using their weight advantage to whittle away at a much smaller opponent whose luck and fancy-tech-in-time modus of operandi would surely run out. Bada bing bada boom - right back to an attritional war.

From where I'm sitting, Haven didn't think there was any need to take unnecessary risks, and I concur. A direct attack against a seasoned and worthy opponent is too ambitious a project and any idiot in Havenite space proposing such a thing might be shot, especially in light of outmassing their opponent by such a large margin, which indeed suggests an attritional war. It's the same overly ambitious strategy that McArthur wanted to adopt but Halsey was more like "Are you mad, man? Slow your roll!" Hey, Haven's strategy almost worked. The RMN grew extremely desperate to the point of having to expose their best officer's undies out of desperation with Cutworm.

There probably was a window of opportunity, somewhere, but the Peeps had so many ducks they needed to lineup first that it became obscured. An all in, all or nothing attack is a very difficult roll of the dice to accept, except, out of pure desperation. The Peeps never felt that desperate until the Manties cheated and sought help from a God. Apollo.

cthia wrote:

kzt wrote:Indeed. The Peep’s deliberately created a long war of attrition. Give me a way this produces a win for them.

I thought an attritional war was good strategy for the Peeps. When you outnumber your opponent in warships as they did, it was not only a sound strategy, but a safe one, as opposed to a daring and risky direct assault.

It probably is a good strategy IF you assume kzt is wrong about a sufficiently desperate Manticore being able to successfully cut a deal with someone sufficiently strong to make the PRH back down.

However if kzt is correct and Manticore is likely to be able to put themselves under League protection then Haven's only winning strategy it to overwhelm Manticore so quickly they never get a chance to; leaving the League either ignorant of Manticore's final gamble or at least presented with a fait accompli.


I'm less convinced that Manticore could pull that off; after all they were the ones strong arming the League around this war AND Haven can make counter-offers to try to buy off OFS. But it is a potential risk and one that a lightning war would mitigate (though that significantly increases other risks)

Even if you don’t think it’s likely to work, it’s an obvious endgame move. How were they planning on countering it? Given that we know that it’s possible to deploy SLN fleets to bizarre places given bribes to the right people and Manticore has vast assets that can be used to pay bribes, and generates an astonishing amount of cash on a recurring basis is it that likely that they can’t cut a deal?

Particularly as the Peeps are simply not a threat to the SLN, so it’s risk free money.