Opening Phase of Havenite war

The junction is the most heavily fortified part of the Manticoran system. It would eat several hundred SLN SDs, particularly as they probably just march in one after the other. And I suspect that not all members of the SL would be happy with about this whole idea, as the SL doesn’t fortify WHs. Like the one now connecting Haven to Beowulf. Or the one now connecting Gregor to Haven.

kzt wrote:The junction is the most heavily fortified part of the Manticoran system. It would eat several hundred SLN SDs, particularly as they probably just march in one after the other. And I suspect that not all members of the SL would be happy with about this whole idea, as the SL doesn’t fortify WHs. Like the one now connecting Haven to Beowulf. Or the one now connecting Gregor to Haven.

You’d hope even in 1905 that the SLN wouldn’t be dumb enough to assault through a wormhole that even the most cursory research would show is massively fortified.
They’d take losses if they sent battle squadron the long way through hyper. But nothing like the losses of advancing one by one from Beowulf. That early in the series the SLN could put together large enough forces to fight and win a conventional fight with the Junction forts. They’d get hurt way worse than they’d expect but they could win. Don’t know if even they had enough forces to win an assault through the wormhole.

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote:The junction is the most heavily fortified part of the Manticoran system. It would eat several hundred SLN SDs, particularly as they probably just march in one after the other. And I suspect that not all members of the SL would be happy with about this whole idea, as the SL doesn’t fortify WHs. Like the one now connecting Haven to Beowulf. Or the one now connecting Gregor to Haven.

You’d hope even in 1905 that the SLN wouldn’t be dumb enough to assault through a wormhole that even the most cursory research would show is massively fortified.
They’d take losses if they sent battle squadron the long way through hyper. But nothing like the losses of advancing one by one from Beowulf. That early in the series the SLN could put together large enough forces to fight and win a conventional fight with the Junction forts. They’d get hurt way worse than they’d expect but they could win. Don’t know if even they had enough forces to win an assault through the wormhole.

Nobody has that much. It’s like a pile of firewood getting in a battle with a wood chipper. No matter how big that pile is...

tlb wrote:I do not understand your scenario: a long drawn out war of attrition is exactly what Haven chose to fight in the books and they were losing at it, because of the technological disadvantage that was baked into the beginning of the war. Haven was constantly being put in the position of reacting to something new.

Manticore was only belatedly put in a position of buying off the Andermani with half of Silesia; but that was more to keep them out of adventures around Sidemore, not because the RMN needed the help.

Haven was losing the first war because of political rather than military reasons. If the Coup had not happened chances are that Haven would have performed a lot better.

NathanG wrote:
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.

Thing is that if Manticore was on the verge of defeat, the IAN would most defiantly landed in their camp because with the size of Haven they were at a disadvantage, but with the junction to fund the Havenite navy they stood no chance. Realpolitik would be to go to Manticore's defence if they were in trouble rather than fighting a Havenite Navy funded with Junction fees and backed by Manticoran Industry.

Sigs wrote:
Thing is that if Manticore was on the verge of defeat, the IAN would most defiantly landed in their camp because with the size of Haven they were at a disadvantage, but with the junction to fund the Havenite navy they stood no chance. Realpolitik would be to go to Manticore's defence if they were in trouble rather than fighting a Havenite Navy funded with Junction fees and backed by Manticoran Industry.

The ANI was more advanced than the peeps, but much smaller. If Haven could take down Manticore they can take down the Empire one they get all the additional shipyards that had been built by the MA. Even running at 50% efficiency that’s a lot. And the Peeps get RMN tech. So I’m guessing that in 5-10 years...

Sigs wrote:Haven was losing the first war because of political rather than military reasons. If the Coup had not happened chances are that Haven would have performed a lot better.

They would have performed better in the early stages for sure. But pretty much all the top Havenite commanders (both in the late 1st war era and the 2nd war) except Chin failed to achieve flag rank under the Legislaturalists because they weren't Legistlaturalists.

cthia wrote: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.

I am not suggesting that Haven hand over Trevor's Star in the opening Phases of the war, what I am suggesting is that Haven cannot do much with Trevor's Star other than mass suicide of its ships in mass jump against the Junction Forts. Manticore has to honour the threat that Trevor's Star represented to the Home System but they at the same time cannot and do not pose a significant threat to Trevor's Star through the Junction. If it is suicide for Haven to attack prepared defences through the Junction then it goes the same for the RMN.

I would keep enough of a picket to defend the Junction and ignore the inner system, leave some BB's and CA's to picket the inner system with a light screen. Anything the RMN sends over the Junction is slaughtered and anything they send the one way around is tied down for weeks and/or months considering it would have to be launched AFTER the surprise attack.

Trevor's Star is not in immediate danger after the surprise attack especially if it is executed properly, if the RHN had made an attack with overwhelming force either on the Home System or they had made an overwhelming attack on Yeltsin and then followed it up with a sweep along the Manticoran Alliance's system with major concentrations of wallers the RMN would have been hard pressed to do anything in offence. They would have to abandon allies and consolidate their fleet or fight the overwhelming RHN armada piecemeal and consequently the RMN is demolished in short order.

If the Peeps attack the Manty Home system, they also have to protect itself from a simultaneous attack.

The SKM had to go through a process that made surprise attacks highly unlikely. Haven did not have to worry too much about surprise attacks especially after all of the crap they had pulled. They could have stripped the entire nation of SD's save for Trevor's Star, the Capital System and a couple of other important systems and send the Rest to fight Manticore, they can expect a counter attack only once they start the war with the SKM. The RMN would not launch a counter attack if there is a massive concentration of RHN ships in the Alliance threatening every member system including Manticore.

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.

But with enough BB's, and SD's left over they could easily cover any important systems against counter attack. If Haven had hit Yeltsin and crushed Second Fleets 8 SD squadrons quickly they could have forced the RMN on the defensive. The RMN had 12 Squadrons in Home Fleet, 8 Squadrons in 2nd Fleet for a total of 20 Squadrons out of Potentially 32 Squadrons deployable. With 4 more Squadrons in Hancock the RMN is stretched pretty thin to begin with. If Haven managed to wipe out the 8 Squadrons of Second Fleet without the reinforcements from Home Fleet and then gone out as quickly as feasible to crush as many large concentrations as possible while forcing Manticore to recall them they could have whittled down the RMN by another 5 or more Squadron then Manticore would have no option but to concentrate on defending the Home System. If the remaining 16 Squadrons were concentrated in one place it would be in the Home System.

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."

Manticoran intelligence had to gather all the intelligence from dozens of systems, get it to their home system and figure out what it means, then they decide how to action it. The problem is that as a democracy of sorts they are restricted on what they could do with that knowledge, its not like they can find the gathering point of the Largest RHN fleet and surprise attack that fleet base without going to Parliament. They barely got a declaration of war AFTER the attack, how likely would it be for them to get approval for a surprise attack?

A series of attacks does require a full fleet train. You'll take casualties and get damaged ships, need resupply, and things will just break when you are in a series of closely spaced fights. Even if you have overwhelming mass there is going to be noticeable attrition if you don't have forward service units.

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote:The junction is the most heavily fortified part of the Manticoran system. It would eat several hundred SLN SDs, particularly as they probably just march in one after the other. And I suspect that not all members of the SL would be happy with about this whole idea, as the SL doesn’t fortify WHs. Like the one now connecting Haven to Beowulf. Or the one now connecting Gregor to Haven.

You’d hope even in 1905 that the SLN wouldn’t be dumb enough to assault through a wormhole that even the most cursory research would show is massively fortified.
They’d take losses if they sent battle squadron the long way through hyper. But nothing like the losses of advancing one by one from Beowulf. That early in the series the SLN could put together large enough forces to fight and win a conventional fight with the Junction forts. They’d get hurt way worse than they’d expect but they could win. Don’t know if even they had enough forces to win an assault through the wormhole.

Wormholes are equivalent to "The Hot Gates" of Thermopylae.