The "Suez Crisis"

kzt wrote:Ultimately you have to take Manticore to end the war. It’s going to be bloody, no real way around that. Do you want to do it against the RMN after they have deployed the war only minefields and clouds of missile pods, recalled all the retired (and hence highly experienced) spacers, pulled everything that can shoot out of mothballs, and with your ships shot up and suffering from a lack of maintenance after 6 months or a year of combat or do you want it to be a bolt from the blue with a fully combat ready force that gives the RMN say 3 hours total before you are in orbit around Manticore asking to speak to the Queen?

Either way it’s risky. Going to war is a risk. Anytime two nations go to war they are both reasonably confident they can win. At most one is right. So if you are playing it safe you don’t go to war.

You keep pushing this narrative of the overwhelming surprise attack from no-where. The problem is that because of the events of previous books you won't get strategic surprise. Everyone knows the war is coming and there is a heightened state of readiness.

Also the logistics of consolidating the 300+ wallers + 300ish supporting ships is prohibitive and given that Manticore isn't stupid and does have intelligence assets in Haven space they WILL see such a massive redeployment of assets and raise the alert levels accordingly. If you genuinely believe a peacetime navy can pull off the Honorverse equivalent of the D-day landing and Jutland combined from a cold start I have some Arizona beachfront property to sell you.

I also dispute your assertion that they have to conquer Manticore. All that is needed for war to be profitable is to drive Manticore out of the war in some kind of negotiated peace and pick off the rest of the alliance. Actually taking over Manticore is a bonus. This is cannon from the books.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Of course all of this ignores the basic premis that I was suggesting. The purpose of a Haven attack on the Manticoran home system is not a successful conquest but to present the appearance of a threat to interstellar shipping that gives the SLN a pretext to occupy Manticore's home system.

Why? Why would Haven waste military resources in order to invite the SLN to occupy Manticore and the wormhole? Seems that one result of such a quixotic venture would be to block all future expansion by Haven, since OFS will be expanding control over any resource that Haven might want.

tlb wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Of course all of this ignores the basic premis that I was suggesting. The purpose of a Haven attack on the Manticoran home system is not a successful conquest but to present the appearance of a threat to interstellar shipping that gives the SLN a pretext to occupy Manticore's home system.

Why? Why would Haven waste military resources in order to invite the SLN to occupy Manticore and the wormhole? Seems that one result of such a quixotic venture would be to block all future expansion by Haven, since OFS will be expanding control over any resource that Haven might want.

Manticore can offer credible resistance to Haven because Manticore controls the MWJ. Aside from the enormous revenue from junction fees, control of the MWJ enables discounts to Manticoran ships that enable them to have a competitive advantage over everyone else. This competitive advantage for Manticoran shipping creates a huge demand for ships from Manticoran shipyards. This competitive advantage for Manticoran shipping vastly enhances the market for Manticoran manufactured goods.

If Haven conspires with the SLN and OFS to give the SLN a pretext to seize control over the MWJ, then the economy of the SKM takes a huge hit. Only Weber can say for certain, but a cut of 50% seems reasonable. Cut the SKM economy by 50% and suddenly the RMN can not build and maintain a fleet that is even close numerically to Haven much less fund the R&D to maintain much less expand technological advantage.

Enable the SLN to seize the MWJ, then pick off the other alliance members, wait a decade, then conquer Manticore.

The response by president for life Harris would be “Are you insane? You give the SL any pretext and they will be a ‘peacekeeping’ fleet in orbit around Haven in a decade.”

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Of course all of this ignores the basic premis that I was suggesting. The purpose of a Haven attack on the Manticoran home system is not a successful conquest but to present the appearance of a threat to interstellar shipping that gives the SLN a pretext to occupy Manticore's home system.

tlb wrote:Why? Why would Haven waste military resources in order to invite the SLN to occupy Manticore and the wormhole? Seems that one result of such a quixotic venture would be to block all future expansion by Haven, since OFS will be expanding control over any resource that Haven might want.

TFLYTSNBN wrote: If Haven conspires with the SLN and OFS to give the SLN a pretext to seize control over the MWJ, then the economy of the SKM takes a huge hit. Only Weber can say for certain, but a cut of 50% seems reasonable. Cut the SKM economy by 50% and suddenly the RMN can not build and maintain a fleet that is even close numerically to Haven much less fund the R&D to maintain much less expand technological advantage.

Enable the SLN to seize the MWJ, then pick off the other alliance members, wait a decade, then conquer Manticore.

kzt wrote:The response by president for life Harris would be “Are you insane? You give the SL any pretext and they will be a ‘peacekeeping’ fleet in orbit around Haven in a decade.”

In less than a decade after the League seizes the junction Manticore will be another Verge world under the control of OFS, so conquering it is out of the question. In addition the alliance members will be under OFS "protection" from Haven. So the size of the hypothetical fleet after losing the revenue from the junction is immaterial. The fleet that Haven will have "invited" into their neighborhood is Frontier Fleet backed up by Battle Fleet.

Silverwall wrote:

kzt wrote:Ultimately you have to take Manticore.... playing it safe you don’t go to war.

You keep pushing this narrative of the overwhelming surprise attack from no-where.

Year of discussion is What again?
Pre 1900. In fact, If I skimmed correctly(was mighty fast), it is year approx 1880. Zero Honorverse books have been written.

kzt wrote:Ultimately you have to take Manticore.... playing it safe you don’t go to war.

Silverwall wrote:You keep pushing this narrative of the overwhelming surprise attack from no-where.

Relax wrote:Year of discussion is What again?
Pre 1900. In fact, If I skimmed correctly(was mighty fast), it is year approx 1880. Zero Honorverse books have been written.

Not sure the point, since we are not limited to discussing events within the timespan of the books, but it is incorrect since Ms. Midshipman Harrington is set in 1880 and I will Build My House of Steel begins in 1844.

Silverwall wrote:You keep pushing this narrative of the overwhelming surprise attack from no-where. The problem is that because of the events of previous books you won't get strategic surprise. Everyone knows the war is coming and there is a heightened state of readiness.

They overwhelming attack with no warning is precisely the way that the peeps built their empire. It worked really well. One fine morning everyone is sleeping in after a raucous New Year’s Eve and then a massive fleet pops out of hyper, sometimes accomplices by having your critical defensive nodes mysteriously explode, and you have two hours before they will be in orbit. Too bad the high admiral is on his yearly primitive ice climbing trip and the politically connected but indecisive O6 assistant J8 is the fleet duty officer, but that is surely just a coincidence and I’m sure he’ll do just fine.

And I’ll point out that Pearl Harbor occurred during a “state of heightened readiness”. Everyone knew the war was coming, but after a few years of no conflict you have other priorities. Which is why the AA ammo was locked up in the magazines instead of having a CAP in the air or at least on strip alert with AA guns manned with ready ammo on the mounts.

Tactical and strategic surprise works really well as a massive force multiplier.

If you frame the opening of the Manticore-Haven war with Haven moving all those ships around- as they did and had to- to hit the varioius SKM concentrations- then they probably could have been shifted such that most of them were set to do two things:
1) massive wall-of-battle assault on the Manticore Home System
2) much smaller but possibly just as intense engagement and siege by a small Peep fleet on the Junction to keep both the forts engaged and any RMN starships from heading in-system to fight.

It's not so much that Haven would send support for the FIGHTING directly through from Trevor's Star, it's that they could use that terminus to move people and ships though after SKM surrendered. You don't park your follow-on logistisc train either at Trevor's Star or just off that end of the terminus. You put them in hyperspace and use the "Paul Revere" method to bring them in near the terminus once you have gotten the surrender of Manticore.

If there is a SKM picket at the Trevor's Star end of the terminus, you are going to engage them (at least from a distance) and keep them from going anywhere under pain of losing the terminus. Once any hypercapable forces are taken out of play, you can effectivley sit on the terminus and keep anybody from getting to it.

If you commit "enough" warships to close the Junction to any shipping, you bar it to any SKM warships out at other stations from comming home -in whatever time frame- to join the fight. That also means that unless word has already gone though to Sigma Draconis terminus, SLN isn't comming anywhere near Manticore untill the League get's it act together and send ships through hyperspace. Fighting around the Junction and nobody comming out near Beowulf....I'm not taking anything through there till somebody sends a message (by DB if nothing else) that nobody is going to be shooting at me when I emerge by the Junction.

Presuming Haven wins the attack and compels SKM's surrender, it will then take full posession of both the System and the Junction. Now that is the prize. They will renegotiate the varioius termini treaties and settle in to control the commercial flow fees. The RMN units out of system will not have a lot of choice about what they can do.
How does SL react? Well, not a lot they can do unless someone wants to try and send a massive force to try and change the surrender. Haven would be within it's rights to not allow SLN warships through the terminus citing "concerns about pubic safety and interference by outside powers in purely local events" The SL has not- to that point- actualy done anything about Haveite aggression over the past 50 years they have little to stand on to "investigate" yet another local neobarb war.

kzt wrote:Ultimately you have to take Manticore to end the war. It’s going to be bloody, no real way around that. Do you want to do it against the RMN after they have deployed the war only minefields and clouds of missile pods, recalled all the retired (and hence highly experienced) spacers, pulled everything that can shoot out of mothballs, and with your ships shot up and suffering from a lack of maintenance after 6 months or a year of combat or do you want it to be a bolt from the blue with a fully combat ready force that gives the RMN say 3 hours total before you are in orbit around Manticore asking to speak to the Queen?

Either way it’s risky. Going to war is a risk. Anytime two nations go to war they are both reasonably confident they can win. At most one is right. So if you are playing it safe you don’t go to war.

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Diplomacy is politely telling someone they are an a$$ and having them politely thank you

-- Stewart