Opening Phase of Havenite war

Silverwall wrote:It is very clear from the early books that the deployment range of fleets of capital ships before these effects kick in are low at the start of the Narrative which is the context we are talking about.

You can tell this from the fact that the Haven navy NEVER tried a direct attack on Manticore from deep inside Haven space because it's just absurd. Oh, wait...

kzt wrote:Play it out. Haven is slowly grinding down the MA, and step by step getting closer to Manticore. What options does Maniticore have to get major military assistance?

Given that the alternative is that the ruling class of manticore gets shot? So less than perfect solutions become much more interesting than they might have been just a few short years ago.

Is there anyone who might be willing to offer effective military protection in exchange for say 50-75% of the Junction revenue and discount prices for their vessels transit?

Anyone at all? Maybe someone's who could be convinced to do this in exchange for generous contribution to their retirement account? Or someone to whom rational appeals of mutual advantage might work better.

So essentially a long drawn out war of attrition where haven grinds down the RMN means that when they cross the wall at Manticore they are either going to be facing the SLN or the IAN. And then they do what?

Thats bound to be an option no matter what. Haven could have captured Manticore and occupied the entire Manticore alliance only for Queen Elizabeth to escape and seek entry of Manticore in to the League. When 500 SLN SD's show up in Manticore Home System Haven has one of several options, negotiate, fight, retreat. Hell Beowulf and it's 36 SD's would be an invincible force against Haven because they may be outnumbered 15 to 1 by Haven but they have the entire SLN at their back.

NathanG wrote: think the issues with this strategy are as follows:

(1) Havenite intelligence on the Manticore Home System was necessarily much, much weaker than it was on outlying stations and allies, given the impossibility of inserting scout ships. I doubt very much that Parnell had anything like as good an idea of the size of Home Fleet or it's disposition or just how powerful the fixed defenses were as WE do.

There would be thousands of freighters going in and out of the Home System, they likely had much better intelligence on Home Fleet than the RMN had on Capital Fleet. One freighter might not have the whole picture, but 100 freighters selling you data gives you pretty good intelligence.

(2) It's true that Solarian Strategy called for an immediate, overwhelming attack on the enemy home system, but the League hadn't fought anyone except single-system, fifth rate powers in generations. Given the existence of the Alliance, Manticore was essentially a multi-system star nation, from Haven's perspective. And the strategic conventional wisdom in regards to that called for a deliberate, star-to-star advance, securing your flanks and rear as you went. (Weber talked about this here: http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/103/0). Until McQueen and White Haven reinvented the whole concept of the "deep strike", it was universally seen as foolhardy. For that matter:

Knock Manticore out of the war and the MA alliance follows along. In 1905 Erewhon had a dozen wallers and Manticore had 307 SD/DN's the other members between them I don't think had anything heavier than a heavy cruiser or BC at most.
Choice was:
a)Fight and try to capture 10 systems that represent 5% of the Alliance's industrial and economic might, or
b)Fight and capture a system with 95% of the Alliances industrial might.

(3) A deep strike strategy before MDMs or missile pods is going to be VERY, VERY risky. The developments of 1905-1922 really shifted the balance of power away from the defensive, but I think we can forget how much weaker a Havenite or Manticorian SD was at the start of the war in terms of firepower. They would have had a much harder time taking out those forts than I think you're expecting.

Haven went to war with Manticore, so they had to have expected to be able to take those forts out otherwise no matter how long the war and no matter how costly if the junction forts were so invincible Haven might as well have kept their fleet at home.

(4) Even if they win the Battle of Manticore, they still have to keep control of the system from inevitable counterattacks. Most of the RMN would still be alive, and it would have a multi-planet support structure, while the People's Navy would have been gutted in a best-case scenario.

Capture the Manticore HS and if you can't keep it blow up all the industry on your way out, war is over. Swing by Yeltsin and Hancock/Zanzibar/Alizon/York with overwhelming force until you crush those forces and you end up with 1/3 of the RMN destroyed, if you can hit the HS with whatever you have left if you think you have enough ships.

Sure, the advantage would lie with Haven, especially if they were able to destroy the system infrastructure, but then you have to administer a VERY restive empire (including some VERY restive new acquisitions) with a Navy that's been smashed. Not to mention that the casualty figures would have seriously undermined the government's legitimacy. Remember, the Legislativists were more worried about domestic unrest and opposition than they were about foreign attacks. (Rightfully, as it turned out).

And the prize was the junction, once Home Fleet is smashed, any large concentration of RMN wallers in the Alliance is smashed, Eventually the remaining RMN ships run out of supplies and ammunition or require refit/repair. Haven still has their Yards, Manticore won't.

(5) Obviously it looks better in hindsight, but it's a high-risk, high-reward gambit. If Parnell and Harris had known how outclassed they were? Maybe they'd have gambled everything. But from their perspective, the military situation was very favorable. If this went wrong, they'd lost the bulk of their Navy (and the war) in a single afternoon, and they had no way of knowing for sure that it wouldn't. The risk were far to high to justify it, given what they knew at the time.

The problem was that they tried to secure victory on the cheapest conditions possible. Send such an overwhelming force that any enemy would be quickly overwhelmed. In Yeltsin they assumed their intelligence was right so they send a fleet with barely 2 to 1 advantage in wallers only to be ambushed by a fleet with equal numbers. If they had send 150 SD's and 40 DN's backed by as many BB's as they can gather and attacked Yeltsin they would have crushed the 32 SD's they though were there and they still would have crushed the 96 SD's that were actually there. Unless the RMN's wallers proved to be twice as powerful as the PN's Haven would win at the end. If the RMN's ships proved to be twice as strong as Haven's then Haven should have just started to draft their terms of surrender.[/quote]

munroburton wrote:

Sigs wrote:Haven blew the element of surprise on insignificant prizes, if the coup had not happened they would still be 80 wallers down for next to no benefit. Even if it was a complete success where they magically suffered no losses but knocked off Hancock and destroyed the 4 squadrons in Grayson they would not have been that dramatically better off then before.

I don't agree that it'd be "insignificant". The prize Haven originally was aiming at was closer to 12 squadrons(including TF Hancock and the 4 squadrons supposedly moved out of Yeltsin). That's more than a third of the RMN's battle wall.

If their plan worked, they would not have lost as many wallers as they did. Eg. 20, 40 or 60, not 80.

There were 4 Squadrons in Hancock as far as I remember plus the one that Arrived during the Battle and 2nd Fleet had 8 squadrons with planted intelligence suggesting only 4 squadrons remained while the other 4 were being redeployed.

At the start of the war the RMN had ~38 SD and DN squadrons, their target list included only 8 Squadrons as far as they knew. Even if they managed to crush all 8 squadrons that is roughly 21% of the RMN wall. Their edge in Yeltsin was 3 to one if their intelligence was 100% correct, if 2nd Fleet was concentrated there then Haven would have been 11 squadrons to 8 squadrons.


My point is that if Haven wanted to launch a surprise attack they should have made it with overwhelming force. They had 412 SD's and 48 DN's in their wall plus 374 BB's, they could have been relatively sure that Manticore wouldn't throw the first punch so they can concentrate as large a force as they could without worry about leaving their systems open.

No matter what Ambush the RMN planned if a force of 150-200 SD's showed up with 40 DN's and 100 BB's the fleet at Grayson will be crushed wether it was the 32 SD's they expected or it was the 96 SD ambush. Even if they suffered 1 for 1 casualties (destroyed and damaged) They still would have crushed a significant % of the RMN's wall while suffering a proportionally smaller % of wallers destroyed/damaged themselves.

Silverwall wrote:There is a lot of 20/20 hindsight in these responses. I have been critical of RFC's worldbuilding at times but in this case the justification for the behaviour of the Havenites was very realistic given the history he is modelling.

Part of this is that we go from warfare that is analagous to the limited warfare of the Louis XIV era. Where you fight for limited objectives while being diplomatic to the big players. 5 years later we have changed to modern total war thinking. But they DO NOT have a total war attitude at the start of hostilities and an opening strike at the Manticore system is very much total war thinking.

To those saying just do it anyway if your navy is not set up for deep deployments then your in a situation similar to the Wehrmacht sitting on the channel coast going... "how do we cross that?" you just don't have the resources, structures or doctrine to do it.

We are not talking about a change in strategy, Manticore was a single system nation with a bunch of allies that were essentially a drain on their resources throughout both wars for the most part with the exception of Grayson. If Haven had followed through with their historic strategy they would have crushed 95% of the Alliances industry in a matter of hours not to mention a good chunk of the alliance's wall and all their weapon manufacturing and ship yards.

kzt wrote:

Silverwall wrote:It is very clear from the early books that the deployment range of fleets of capital ships before these effects kick in are low at the start of the Narrative which is the context we are talking about.

You can tell this from the fact that the Haven navy NEVER tried a direct attack on Manticore from deep inside Haven space because it's just absurd. Oh, wait...

Silverwall does have a point.

Around 1900, I don't think any navy had enough of a standing fleet train to support more than a few battle squadrons away from base for long.

For example, Haven sent three squadrons to Basilisk. Manticore sent two to Silesia after Saganami's death and did the same with San Martin during that brief war.

But the experience, doctrine and support resources for lobbing forces of 100+ wallers around simply didn't exist and had to be developed. It's sort of like saying the Allies or Axis could have crossed the English Channel in 1941.

They could have tried, but it wouldn't work out well for whoever tried it.

Should Haven have built up a fleet train sufficient for 500 wallers? Probably, but they were bankrupt and Manticore's naval buildup was only accelerating.

There really is no need for fleet trains. You are going to fight one battle. If you win you can figure out how to repair the damaged ships. If you lose you are going abandon the wounded and run on back the Haven to draft your terms of surrender. You are not planning on setting up a base and running a bunch of operations. You will own the entire manticores industrial base.

Once the queen surrenders the war is OVER. You win. Anyone still fighting is a pirate. And you hold their families hostage.

typo

We have to take into account that politics will always raise its ugly head. An all or nothing attack may have been the most sensible military strategy the politicians wanted a plan that they could pull their hand back in case things went pear shaped. No one sensible in politics wants the only option if attack fails is surrendering.

Then there is the very real problem of communication lag time being multiple months in both directions . You may be launching your all or nothing attack based on Intel that could be easily very out of date by time the attack begins.

Well, they went to war too weak to be willing use the only successful strategy they had used to win wars. Which right there is a huge red flag.

If the Peeps are unwilling to go for the throat because they don't have enough combat power and the Peeps also know that a long-term war of attrition won't lead to victory over Manticore then how exactly is going to war a sensible plan?

How exactly does stealing underwear lead to profit? Are you sure it does? Really sure? Once you go through that door you can't go back.

kzt wrote:There really is no need for fleet trains. You are going to fight one battle. If you win you can figure out how to repair the damaged ships. If you lose you are going abandon the wounded and run on back the Haven to draft your terms of surrender. You are not planning on setting up a base and running a bunch of operations. You will own the entire manticores industrial base.

Once the queen surrenders the war is OVER. You win. Anyone still fighting is a pirate. And you hold their families hostage.

typo

The fleet train is there to get you to the fight in good condition in the first place. It has extra H2 fuel, extra spare parts, extra supplies of food/water/O2, replacement personnel for inevitable injuries or incompetence. It has the medical support for your crews as you are going to take damage. It has spare recon drones in case you get stuck a long time maneuvering trying to separate the defensive ships from the fixed fortifications etc etc etc.

Haven actually needs a fleet train much more than the RMN because it is well established that the crews do not have the skills to do in place repairs the way Manticore can. Thus they need a much bigger supply of replacement components for modular swap maintenance. Deploying a whole fleet is going to be about a 2 month+ deployment from Trevors Star going by the timescales of later actions. This is a lot of time for mechanical attrition and component failure. Warships break A LOT! it's true now and everything RFC wrote made it clear there is a constant stream of repairs and maintenance just to keep a ship of the wall running. Given everything we know of Havenite ships and crews I would be very surprised if after a 2 month deployment any of the SDs on such a hypothetical attack were even at 90% combat rating.

The great unkowns of the earlier Havenite wallers is how livable they are long term. One of the issues German ships in WW1 had was they were not designed for the crews to live on them long term and I suspect that the Haven ships have the same problems given they seem to operate in much the same ways. This problem can be fixed with appropriate refits but that is a Major Major investment of time and resources. If it is not fixed the crews are exhausted, run down and suffering from lower morale.