Opening Phase of Havenite war

munroburton wrote:Not very much. Any ships the PRH puts in Basilisk to keep it is unavailable elsewhere. They still have to assault the wormhole Junction through hyperspace to clear out the minefields and such before any wormhole transits can be usefully performed, the same way White Haven took Trevor's Star.

Once that part's done, possessing Basilisk does allow them to transit twice as many ships(either sequentially or simultaneously), but at the cost of pre-positioning those ships. Meaning they're not available for the attack on the Junction defenses or to defend Trevor's Star against a counter-attack - without the Junction itself, they can't imitate White Haven's emergency reinforcement of Basilisk from Trevor's Star.

IMO for the PRH, grabbing Basilisk was mainly about gaining the terminus revenue from the Silesia Triangle(Manticore-Gregor-Basilisk) traffic. At the time, this was a high-risk strategy, but one requiring comparatively little investment to achieve given the messy position Manticore's anti-annexationists had forced.

Interesting take on the benefit of taking Basilisk.

I do not believe that capturing Trevor's Star was an strictly offensive move in the eventual attack on Manticore. Given how emphatic RFC is about the futility of an assault through a wormhole against forts and minefields, I believe that Trevor's Star was intended to shut a door against raiders into Haven's interior regions if the war on Manticore became extended.

The problem, as you state, is that Basilisk and Trevor's Star then require sufficient defense forces to prevent Manticore claiming them through a hyperspace assault. These forces cannot support each other and seriously weaken the force available for a direct attack on Manticore from Haven. It might be possible to coordinate a simultaneous 3-prong attack, but that opens the way for complications - unless they could first consolidate someplace that was a short hop to the objective.

Trevor's Star was just a system in the way they could take and exploit. They grabbed it 20-some years before the war started, and it was surrounded by other peep systems.

kzt wrote:Trevor's Star was just a system in the way they could take and exploit. They grabbed it 20-some years before the war started, and it was surrounded by other peep systems.

Either way, it was not an offensive move against Manticore; but had the benefit of removing a backdoor once Manticore was targeted.

The takeover had to be around 1883 when Elizabeth became Queen, because the assassination of the King was part of the preliminaries. So Manticore would seem to be in the long term plans at the time Trevor's Star was captured.

munroburton wrote:IMO for the PRH, grabbing Basilisk was mainly about gaining the terminus revenue from the Silesia Triangle(Manticore-Gregor-Basilisk) traffic. At the time, this was a high-risk strategy, but one requiring comparatively little investment to achieve given the messy position Manticore's anti-annexationists had forced.

Partly. Plus if Manticore could be convinced to abandon Basilisk it opens the possibility of sidestepping them and expanding into Silesia directly (which Pres Harris said was part of Haven's ultimate goal)

Of course that risks forming an alliance between the still powerful Manticore and the Andies. But without the Basilisk terminus (and quasi Manticoran system) sitting between Haven and Silesia it would have been less risky to expand in that direction and Manticore would have effectively seeded territorial claims out that way.

(Plus as you noted if they grab the terminus they can levy tolls on the Silesian triangle trade. Though there are limits to how much they can charge before many ships just make it a Silesian loop trade and both enter and exit via Gregor)

Jonathan_S wrote:Plus if Manticore could be convinced to abandon Basilisk it opens the possibility of sidestepping them and expanding into Silesia directly (which Pres Harris said was part of Haven's ultimate goal)

Of course that risks forming an alliance between the still powerful Manticore and the Andies. But without the Basilisk terminus (and quasi Manticoran system) sitting between Haven and Silesia it would have been less risky to expand in that direction and Manticore would have effectively seeded territorial claims out that way.

(Plus as you noted if they grab the terminus they can levy tolls on the Silesian triangle trade. Though there are limits to how much they can charge before many ships just make it a Silesian loop trade and both enter and exit via Gregor)

Expanding into Silesia would make conquering Manticore even more important. As you say with Basilisk, Haven could go around Manticore; but that is a purely hyperspace trip with troubling travel times compared to two transits of the MWJ. Without Manticore in the way, Haven would have an opportunity to partition Silesia with the Andermani Empire.

Chess board! A move-or-two ahead.

I'm looking at seizing Basilisk as part of an overall grand strategy and one-two punch of a coordinated attack on the MBS. Not as a standalone move in and of itself. The premise of the thread is for Haven to use its weight advantage in the opening phase of the war. Even with a weight advantage, you don't want to throw it all away w/o some sort of overall strategy. That's akin to boring straight in like a bull in a china shop (Crandall style). A war footing w/o some sort of strategy first, is akin to going off all half-cocked, which is a grave mistake. Something my 12-yr-old niece tried to impart to a group of college students who insisted she parse tactics and strategy in order of importance. Which is asinine, as she stated. However, acquiring Basilisk changes the overall tactics and needed firepower of the RMN to ensure the gates stay closed — having the added Peep advantage of tying down RMN ships when they finally come calling . . .

What does seizing Basilisk do to RMN forces?

1. It makes it imperative for the RMN to keep the Basilisk and Trevor's Star gates closed at all costs.
   
2. It demands mobile RMN units to mind the store as well.

As part of a two-pronged coordinated attack through hyper upon the MBS with its significant weight advantage, Haven could have sent a force directly at the mines in the opening phase of the war, to launch ballistically if need be, without worry of an EE violation, considering the vector of attack. The RMN would have had to honor any force trying to open up the terminii. The RMN force tasked with doing so would have had to be substantial. A collapsed Basilisk/Trevor's Star dam could have spelled doom for the RMN against a mass of prepositioned ships. The RMN would have been primed for a blitzkrieg. That would have split Home Fleet's forces - further weakening them against an already overweight opponent.

Logistically, it would have been a better plan, retaining much of their forces "in Havenite space" and blunting the logistics nightmare of sending so many ships through hyper to Manticore. The Peep forces at Basilisk would have been available for battle without a long exhaustive logistics nightmare — much as how Harrington's Eighth Fleet was available to tap during the BoM. It also would have killed two-birds with one stone -- the Strategic Reach of a prepositioned base with potential to be a part of an overall direct thrust into the heart of Manticore later on, plus add significant revenue to the Peep war fighting machine in the meantime (which . . . thanks to munroburton I'm no longer in the dark regarding that stone.)

Questions:

How close to the junctions/forts/mines can an opposing force hyper?

Does each fort in the MBS cover all inbound terminii, e.g., the Basilisk and Trevor's Star ends? Or does each terminii have its own forts/mines?

Side note: The Peeps using Basilisk as a springboard to advance into Silesia is an example of Strategic Reach.

The RMN had absurd defenses on the junction. The only thing attacking through the WH does is increase your body count.

If you bring enough firepower via hyper to punch out enough of the defenses to open up the junction you don't need the help via the junction. Anything that can transit the junction can come in via hyperspace too.

If you are going to go after the junction (which is a bad plan) you should do it in peacetime before they deploy the minefields.

But if you have enough firepower to confidently take the junction you almost certainly have enough firepower to take Manticore.

kzt wrote:The RMN had absurd defenses on the junction. The only thing attacking through the WH does is increase your body count.

If you bring enough firepower via hyper to punch out enough of the defenses to open up the junction you don't need the help via the junction. Anything that can transit the junction can come in via hyperspace too.

If you are going to go after the junction (which is a bad plan) you should do it in peacetime before they deploy the minefields.

But if you have enough firepower to confidently take the junction you almost certainly have enough firepower to take Manticore.

Indeed, your logic makes sense to me. However, the Battle of Basilisk was during peacetime, wasn't it? Basilisk could have been taken with a large force w/o need of a fleet train, which is what was sent. Then a direct assault shortly thereafter on the Manticore before a shipload of mines are laid. I assume some mines were already emplaced.

Prepositioning forces at Basilisk isn't simply to assist in a direct assault later, but to forego having to hustle up a fleet train for the entire party enroute to Manticore.

Going after the junctions has the benefit of splitting Home Fleet, to defeat in detail. A good plan, IMO, especially if the Tripple Ripple is unleashed for the first time.

At any rate, a bad idea is a direct assault in the first place, counting wholly on a weight advantage.

cthia wrote:Questions:

How close to the junctions/forts/mines can an opposing force hyper?

Does each fort in the MBS cover all inbound terminii, e.g., the Basilisk and Trevor's Star ends? Or does each terminii have its own forts/mines?

The first book mentions that "Both wormholes and stars had hyper limits, within which no ship could enter or leave hyper. For junctions, the limit was, less than a million kilometers" -- Though book 10 War of Honor mentions that the Junction itself is about 1 light-second in diameter -- all 7 termini lie within that volume of space. (So at minimum the closest exit from hyper is 850,000 km from the center of the junction) And don't forget you can't risk screwing up and dropping out in the resonance zone.

It also points out that you don't put even the closest fort within half a million km of a terminus - you don't want an attacker to be emerge from the terminus close enough to punch energy weapons through the fort's sidewalls. I suspect the closest forts would be at about 600-700,000 km away - close enough that their energy weapons are effective against transiting warships (which won't have sidewalls until they manage to clear the grav effects of the terminus 30-300 seconds after emerging) while remaining immune to the energy weapons of the transiting warship.

That does mean that not all forts are going to be within energy range of all termini. However they're all easily within single-drive missile range of all termini.



In theory you could probably drop out of hyper within energy range of some of the forts - but in practice we're told this requires far too precise navigation to be possible (especially given the risks of overshooting slightly are destruction of your ship). So most likely even the best possible navigation, and riskiest approach, drops the attacker at extreme missile range of the nearest forts (and due to the hyperspace transition energy bleed-off they drop out at quite low velocity)

The one time we saw it serious tried - 2nd Basilisk - the pounce came up quite short and the attackers were, what, about half an hour from effective MDM range?

cthia wrote:Going after the junctions has the benefit of splitting Home Fleet, to defeat in detail. A good plan, IMO, especially if the Tripple Ripple is unleashed for the first time.

The terminus and junction are outside the hyperlimit.

You deliver some huge attack they just hyper out.

It takes a serious error or something very clever to get a decisive battle outside the hyperlimit.