Is the Detweiler Plan off the rails?

tlb wrote:The raid to free the spacers was NOT equipped with Apollo, but they should have seen the fighting discrepancy with Crandall. The particular problem with this instance was the inability to abort a missile flight against a surrendering ship; the commander had FTL communication with the SLN ships, but not with the missiles.

That raid was the Battle of Saltash. Capt. Zavala had five Roland-class destroyers, against 4 Indefatigable BCs.

In any case, it looks like none of the events in SI4 made it back to Mesa for the Onion to include in their planning prior to the Havenite Second Fleet and the Manticoran Tenth dropping out of hyper. Henke's liberation of the Madras sector appears to have been absolute: not a single ship lost, virtually complete destruction or seizure of SLN vessels and almost no communication to the outside galaxy.

I'm still trying to decide who won the best victory ever: her with a full sector or her old roommate by conquering the Sol System!

tlb wrote:There were deep raids before Apollo by both Manticore (using the new LAC's and podlayers in Operation Buttercup) and by Haven (the attack on Sidemore and before that Giscard in Silesia).

The arrogance you are talking about is by the Mandarins and the leadership of the SLN. Perhaps the Malign would have trouble in changing their minds, but they certainly had the apparatus in place to make the attempt.

And yet they didn't, which probably leads us to the conclusion they didn't think they needed to. Probably more of the "echo chamber" symptom.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I'm still trying to decide who won the best victory ever: her with a full sector or her old roommate by conquering the Sol System!

Neither of those were the best victory, given the disparity of weapons they were inevitable.

The best victory was Honor's in the Battle of Manticore, because that preserved the Star Kingdom. That is with apologies to the new government in Haven, since losing to them would not be nearly as bad as losing to the Peoples' Republic.

There is a possible better victory to come in the defeat of the Mesan Alliance.

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I'm still trying to decide who won the best victory ever: her with a full sector or her old roommate by conquering the Sol System!

Neither of those were the best victory, given the disparity of weapons they were inevitable.

The best victory was Honor's in the Battle of Manticore, because that preserved the Star Kingdom. That is with apologies to the new government in Haven, since losing to them would not be nearly as bad as losing to the Peoples' Republic.

There is a possible better victory to come in the defeat of the Mesan Alliance.

But there was a disparity of weapons at Manticore too. Honor chased Chin out of the system and convinced Tourville to surrender only because she had Apollo. And as Theisman later told her, Apollo was much more of a disparity than SD(P)s and LACs were.

And Henke did not use her SD(P)s anywhere except at Meyers. In fact, even her Nikes contributed little: most of the conquest and liberation was done with CAs and DDs. Where she did contribute tactically (at Meyers), she was masterful, preventing anyone from escaping and bringing word that she had advanced Tenth Fleet to Meyers and thus much closer to Mesa.

Besides, history will judge based on outcomes, not on the force disparity. Honor conquered the Sol System! The birthplace of Humanity, the most heavily defended system in terms of number of SDs (albeit paper tigers). And she did it with almost no blood shed on the defenders' side.

tlb wrote:The raid to free the spacers was NOT equipped with Apollo, but they should have seen the fighting discrepancy with Crandall. The particular problem with this instance was the inability to abort a missile flight against a surrendering ship; the commander had FTL communication with the SLN ships, but not with the missiles.

Actually, they didn't see that much--they had overkill but they didn't know how overwhelming the overkill was. Hence once again overkill in the spacer raid.

There were deep raids before Apollo by both Manticore (using the new LAC's and podlayers in Operation Buttercup) and by Haven (the attack on Sidemore and before that Giscard in Silesia).

None were remotely as deep as the Apollo-era raids.

The arrogance you are talking about is by the Mandarins and the leadership of the SLN. Perhaps the Malign would have trouble in changing their minds, but they certainly had the apparatus in place to make the attempt.

No, I'm saying the Mandarins knew they had to stomp on Manticore or the SLN would fall. While there was a lot of arrogance it was pretty much irrelevant, it was do-or-die for them.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

tlb wrote:The arrogance you are talking about is by the Mandarins and the leadership of the SLN. Perhaps the Malign would have trouble in changing their minds, but they certainly had the apparatus in place to make the attempt.

No, I'm saying the Mandarins knew they had to stomp on Manticore or the SLN would fall. While there was a lot of arrogance it was pretty much irrelevant, it was do-or-die for them.

That is indeed what the Mandarins were thinking. tlb's argument is that by then they had already determined that the SL was going to lose, badly. They could've attempted to stop, but they didn't.

Maybe at that point they realised they couldn't stop the war. So instead they continued provoking even uglier actions with Operation Buccaneer, Parthian Option, Operation Fabius, attempting to force the GA to do ugly things of their own. They were probably hoping the GA would have imposed a crushing defeat on the SL and imposed hefty reparations. That way, the successor state would be looking for a rematch a decade or two later and the MAlign would be able to harvest the benefits.

First of all, that didn't happen, thanks to Honor. So plan derailed.

Second, if this is correct, they are thinking only of launching the conquer of human space in 20-30 years (late enough that Raoul and Katherine can participate). That would indicate that they are not ready now for that step. They are still building the Lenny Dets, after all.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I've never understood panicking over the Talbott expansion. It always seemed to me that was an excuse, something that the inner Onion used to justify their intervention in Monica, Split and Montana to the outer Onion. Mesa was not in danger, no one besides Torch was at war with it. But maybe it really was that: panic (thus irrational).

Sometimes I wish I had taken the time to pull interesting posts and actually sort and archive them-- my memory is failing more often now. So I can't remember if this was in the Pearls, or came up here. But the reasons for Mesan anxiety were a) commercial--the potential disruption of their corrupt businesses; b)political --the disruption of their covert and overt influence on local governments; and c) existential -- Manticore was never before in possession of a sufficiently powerful military that it would could ignore the potential displeasure of Mesa's tools in the League (including tools in the SLN).

This is something that came up a long while back, and iirc Himself said it had to do with the fact that the Mesan Transtellars (which are the Mesan Government) were heavily invested in their "local" neighbors; they were acquiring political influence (bribery), smuggling, and slave-trading; you'll remember that both Monica, New Tuscany and Kornati either had trade reps from Mesa, or agents for the Jessyk Combine and/or Kalokainos Shipping. It is likely ALL of the Talbott systems had some connection to a Mesan ally, since Jessyk and Kalokainos were the primary non-Manticoran shippers in the Verge. And, Mesan businesses are not permitted in Manticoran space.

So once Talbott was annexed, their operations in that region were certain to come to the attention of the Manties. And, get thoroughly stomped.

In that sense, a lot of the Verge governments--including some in the Talbott area-- aren't much less venal than the worst of the Silesian system governors; they just operated in a smaller pond. The folks who want to rake the cash off the top don't get along with investors who insist on audits.

It is also worth noting, that the Manti government at the time was in a cease-fire status with Haven; there was a lot of unused military capability; the Lynx terminus was about to completely re-draw the avenues by which trade moves (shifting some busy ports into backwaters) and worst of all, offer a viable alternative to dealing with the Mesans. . . . .

YMMV

Rob

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I'm still trying to decide who won the best victory ever: her with a full sector or her old roommate by conquering the Sol System!

tlb wrote:Neither of those were the best victory, given the disparity of weapons they were inevitable.

The best victory was Honor's in the Battle of Manticore, because that preserved the Star Kingdom. That is with apologies to the new government in Haven, since losing to them would not be nearly as bad as losing to the Peoples' Republic.

There is a possible better victory to come in the defeat of the Mesan Alliance.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:But there was a disparity of weapons at Manticore too. Honor chased Chin out of the system and convinced Tourville to surrender only because she had Apollo. And as Theisman later told her, Apollo was much more of a disparity than SD(P)s and LACs were.

And Henke did not use her SD(P)s anywhere except at Meyers. In fact, even her Nikes contributed little: most of the conquest and liberation was done with CAs and DDs. Where she did contribute tactically (at Meyers), she was masterful, preventing anyone from escaping and bringing word that she had advanced Tenth Fleet to Meyers and thus much closer to Mesa.

Besides, history will judge based on outcomes, not on the force disparity. Honor conquered the Sol System! The birthplace of Humanity, the most heavily defended system in terms of number of SDs (albeit paper tigers). And she did it with almost no blood shed on the defenders' side.

The only victory that impressed me against the Solarian League or Navy was achieved at the Hypatia System. With the exception of Byng's surprise destruction of the destroyers, every other battle against them was a curb stomp battle.

Yes, there was a disparity of weapons at the BOM, but it was only Honor's ships that had the new weapons and this was a desperate attempt to win before those weapons became fleet wide. Haven inflicted massive damage before they were forced to surrender; only the Yawata Strike created more at Manticore.

tlb wrote:The only victory that impressed me against the Solarian League or Navy was achieved at the Hypatia System. With the exception of Byng's surprise destruction of the destroyers, every other battle against them was a curb stomp battle.

Yes, there was a disparity of weapons at the BOM, but it was only Honor's ships that had the new weapons and this was a desperate attempt to win before those weapons became fleet wide. Haven inflicted massive damage before they were forced to surrender; only the Yawata Strike created more at Manticore.

Which is why I don't think the Battle of Manticore was that impressive. It was a slugfest, not due to tactical planning and outsmarting the opponent. The Second Battle of Manticore was better than that, since Honor and Theisman suckered Filareta in.

The Battle of Sol, on the other hand, forced the surrender of the biggest polity and navy in history destroyed thousands of unmanned ships with precision and killed almost no one.

As for Hypatia, I have to agree. Kotouč acquitted himself quite well. Despite losing all of the ships in the attacking force, he outfought 88 BCs to 1. And as Honor told Megan Petersen (CO of HMS Arngrim), Her Majesty likes to open her box of presents when that happens, so I'd like to know what became of both after the war ended.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

tlb wrote:The only victory that impressed me against the Solarian League or Navy was achieved at the Hypatia System. With the exception of Byng's surprise destruction of the destroyers, every other battle against them was a curb stomp battle.

Yes, there was a disparity of weapons at the BOM, but it was only Honor's ships that had the new weapons and this was a desperate attempt to win before those weapons became fleet wide. Haven inflicted massive damage before they were forced to surrender; only the Yawata Strike created more at Manticore.

Which is why I don't think the Battle of Manticore was that impressive. It was a slugfest, not due to tactical planning and outsmarting the opponent. The Second Battle of Manticore was better than that, since Honor and Theisman suckered Filareta in.

The Battle of Sol, on the other hand, forced the surrender of the biggest polity and navy in history destroyed thousands of unmanned ships with precision and killed almost no one.

As for Hypatia, I have to agree. Kotouč acquitted himself quite well. Despite losing all of the ships in the attacking force, he outfought 88 BCs to 1. And as Honor told Megan Petersen (CO of HMS Arngrim), Her Majesty likes to open her box of presents when that happens, so I'd like to know what became of both after the war ended.

Obviously, they were elevated to the peerage with Titles, Estates and all of that crap.

One can only hope that everything regenerates.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The MAlign planners were probably aware that Manticore was not going to be a walk in the park; everyone else simply looked at a single star system and thought it could never resist a 300-star system entity.

And to be fair, if the Peeps had been willing to make a big roll of the dice at the beginning of the war - instead of letting the Alliance scare them off their normal tactic of overwhelming force hammering the enemy's home system - they almost certainly would have won.

But they'd have had to accept very high losses and be politically willing to pull enough forces out of protecting current occupied systems that they might need to come back and reconqure them afterwards. (And they'd risk loss or heavy damage to forward naval bases) But the Peeps had enough wallers if they'd cut their defensive fleets to the bone and thrown it all straight at Manticore Admiral Parnel almost assuredly could have won - even with the surprises of towed pods on the RMN side.

If they'd crushed Manticore then then none of the other allies whether separately or together could make much of a nuisance of themselves - the Peeps could probably get at least ceasefires from them just for the asking. That'd leave the Peeps time to consolidate their gains, put down any revolts that kicked off while their navy was elsewhere, and fund additional rounds of BLS increases out of the Junction transit fees.


Whether or not that course of events would have worked out better for the MAlign is hard to say. Depends, I guess, on how quickly they'd stir up conflict between Haven and the League, as well as how much Mantie R&D Haven managed to get their hands on after the surrender.