Has anyone else decided to root against Manticore?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:There was a SLN mil DB in Manty space- it's job was to signal Tang when Filareta showed up.

Even standard nav sensors should see 120 forts around the Junction, hundred to thousands of LACs running around, and nav bouys marking mine fields and pod shoals as a merchant ship tries to use the junction. The moment the case Zulu is called and all the nav becons turn off would be telling... And chilling...

That was at the Junction and there was never any claim that Oyster Bay had attacked it. What they were deluding themselves over was whether the system defences were gone, both the Home Fleet and the system defence pods. I don't know how well one can hide Home Fleet -- you probably don't want to, since it is deterrence. And that should have been readily visible to the planners: there were still multiple dozen SD-sized vessels running around in the system. And when Filareta arrived, that's exactly what Honor showed him.

But the system defence pods, those shouldn't be visible. No one, not even with milspec sensors, should be able to find them unless you're within a half a light-second or so. And system defence pods is what the SLN planners were thinking caused Crandall's defeat. So the story went that if someone got to the space stations, the pods should have been emptied.

That would certainly answer my question in another thread why the DB didn't warn Tsang to abort.

At any rate, I think it was more a question of desperation. The Mandarins knew they had to call the neobarbs on their shit, and there wouldn't be a better time to smack them down than after they've suffered a successful attack against them. Plus the influence from the rafters.

Theemile wrote:About the junction...if it was believed there was no damage, whose idea was it to believe that 100 SlN SDs and 36 BSDF SDs could survive a junction assault.

Once again, no real planning, no intel.

Definitely an idiot. Or a brilliant MAlign agent, depending on your point of view. I don't remember if we get to hear how Rajampet approved it, but given it's Rajampet, there wasn't much of a need to prove at all.

It might have been something like the Parthian Shot, though: political decision. The Parthian Option was something that Kingsford had rejected, but someone went and whispered about it to the Mandarins, so they ordered Kingsford to include it in the plans.

The objective of TF 11.6 attempting to go through the wormhole wasn't to help Filareta. Either he succeeded and the forts stood down, or TF 11.6 would die in the transit. But before it transited, it would have faced the Beowulf SDF and destroyed it. That's the political decision.

BTW, how did SLNS DB 17025 find out about Eleventh Fleet's arrival? If it was at the junction, it was 12 light-hours away from the arrival. I don't think any ship, milspec or not, can detect a hyper footprint at 12 light-hours away. Need to reread that part...

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:About the junction...if it was believed there was no damage, whose idea was it to believe that 100 SlN SDs and 36 BSDF SDs could survive a junction assault.

Once again, no real planning, no intel.

Definitely an idiot. Or a brilliant MAlign agent, depending on your point of view. I don't remember if we get to hear how Rajampet approved it, but given it's Rajampet, there wasn't much of a need to prove at all.

It might have been something like the Parthian Shot, though: political decision. The Parthian Option was something that Kingsford had rejected, but someone went and whispered about it to the Mandarins, so they ordered Kingsford to include it in the plans.

The objective of TF 11.6 attempting to go through the wormhole wasn't to help Filareta. Either he succeeded and the forts stood down, or TF 11.6 would die in the transit. But before it transited, it would have faced the Beowulf SDF and destroyed it. That's the political decision.

BTW, how did SLNS DB 17025 find out about Eleventh Fleet's arrival? If it was at the junction, it was 12 light-hours away from the arrival. I don't think any ship, milspec or not, can detect a hyper footprint at 12 light-hours away. Need to reread that part...

IIRC, it was from all of the activity his arrival generated - like everyone dropping what they were doing and scattering like a bat out of hell.

How were they supposed to come by that intel, against a navy they were already in a defacto state of war? If indeed a DB's sensors are too myopic.

And, Raging Justice was time critical for more reasons than one.

cthia wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Definitely an idiot. Or a brilliant MAlign agent, depending on your point of view. I don't remember if we get to hear how Rajampet approved it, but given it's Rajampet, there wasn't much of a need to prove at all.

It might have been something like the Parthian Shot, though: political decision. The Parthian Option was something that Kingsford had rejected, but someone went and whispered about it to the Mandarins, so they ordered Kingsford to include it in the plans.

The objective of TF 11.6 attempting to go through the wormhole wasn't to help Filareta. Either he succeeded and the forts stood down, or TF 11.6 would die in the transit. But before it transited, it would have faced the Beowulf SDF and destroyed it. That's the political decision.

BTW, how did SLNS DB 17025 find out about Eleventh Fleet's arrival? If it was at the junction, it was 12 light-hours away from the arrival. I don't think any ship, milspec or not, can detect a hyper footprint at 12 light-hours away. Need to reread that part...

IIRC, it was from all of the activity his arrival generated - like everyone dropping what they were doing and scattering like a bat out of hell.

How were they supposed to come by that intel, against a navy they were already in a defacto state of war? If indeed a DB's sensors are too myopic.

And, Raging Justice was time critical for more reasons than one.

One good sign would be when all the nav bouys would simply turn off at the junction. Then a nice warning on the Guard frequencies calmly warns all merchant of an immenient attack on the Manticore System, and recommends civilian traffic disperse into hyper in the event of an attack on the junction, or a closing of the junction for military traffic.

Even the BSDF told them that Manticore's defences were not greatly damaged, and the junction was untouched.

Come on, you have 2 options in a wormhole assault: you send in SDs one by one, 4.5 minutes apart, in which case a defense reduced by 80% could take out the ships with ease; or else you send in 27 ships, then wait ~17 hours to send another 27, which even a 50% damaged defense could handle with ease.

unless there is insane levels damage to the defenses, any such assault is suicide en mass, having the BSDF along is pointless ( other than the MAline gets to kill the BSDF).

Theemile wrote:One good sign would be when all the nav bouys would simply turn off at the junction. Then a nice warning on the Guard frequencies calmly warns all merchant of an immenient attack on the Manticore System, and recommends civilian traffic disperse into hyper in the event of an attack on the junction, or a closing of the junction for military traffic.

Since all that communication was done by the enemy you're trying to defeat, depending on its lines of communication and that it will not introduce a delay was irresponsible. What if the RMN & Astro control simply decided to delay the notice an hour?

Come on, you have 2 options in a wormhole assault: you send in SDs one by one, 4.5 minutes apart, in which case a defense reduced by 80% could take out the ships with ease; or else you send in 27 ships, then wait ~17 hours to send another 27, which even a 50% damaged defense could handle with ease.

unless there is insane levels damage to the defenses, any such assault is suicide en mass, having the BSDF along is pointless ( other than the MAline gets to kill the BSDF).

Indeed. Could Tsang have orders to not actually transit, only to arrive there and wait? Again, the objective was to destroy the BSDF.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:One good sign would be when all the nav bouys would simply turn off at the junction. Then a nice warning on the Guard frequencies calmly warns all merchant of an immenient attack on the Manticore System, and recommends civilian traffic disperse into hyper in the event of an attack on the junction, or a closing of the junction for military traffic.

Since all that communication was done by the enemy you're trying to defeat, depending on its lines of communication and that it will not introduce a delay was irresponsible. What if the RMN & Astro control simply decided to delay the notice an hour?

Come on, you have 2 options in a wormhole assault: you send in SDs one by one, 4.5 minutes apart, in which case a defense reduced by 80% could take out the ships with ease; or else you send in 27 ships, then wait ~17 hours to send another 27, which even a 50% damaged defense could handle with ease.

unless there is insane levels damage to the defenses, any such assault is suicide en mass, having the BSDF along is pointless ( other than the MAline gets to kill the BSDF).

Indeed. Could Tsang have orders to not actually transit, only to arrive there and wait? Again, the objective was to destroy the BSDF.

At that point, Tang was invading on her own, the armed opposition of the entire BSDF wall was a surprise. Until Truman unstealthed, Tang was plowing ahead to Manticore, with the BSDF just another group of neo-barbs to be pushed aside.

Theemile wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Indeed. Could Tsang have orders to not actually transit, only to arrive there and wait? Again, the objective was to destroy the BSDF.

At that point, Tang was invading on her own, the armed opposition of the entire BSDF wall was a surprise. Until Truman unstealthed, Tang was plowing ahead to Manticore, with the BSDF just another group of neo-barbs to be pushed aside.

But if Truman hadn't unstealthed, would Tsang have stopped short of transiting, but after obliterating the BSDF?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:
At that point, Tang was invading on her own, the armed opposition of the entire BSDF wall was a surprise. Until Truman unstealthed, Tang was plowing ahead to Manticore, with the BSDF just another group of neo-barbs to be pushed aside.

But if Truman hadn't unstealthed, would Tsang have stopped short of transiting, but after obliterating the BSDF?

Doubt it. She was full speed ahead before the BSDF unstealthed.

Theemile wrote:Doubt it. She was full speed ahead before the BSDF unstealthed.

But she knew the BSDF was there and would try to stop her, since she had already exchanged comms with Vice Admiral Marianne Holmon-Sanders. If her orders were to force a confrontation and destroy the BSDF, but not sacrifice her fleet, she was accomplishing it.

She had a 3:1 advantage in hulls and her SDs were of comparable quality to Beowulfan SDs. As your signature keeps reminding us, refitting Beowulfan SDs to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting an SLN SD. And we know the new weapons had been held from the BSDF to avoid them falling into SLN and corrupt contractors' hands.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:Doubt it. She was full speed ahead before the BSDF unstealthed.

But she knew the BSDF was there and would try to stop her, since she had already exchanged comms with Vice Admiral Marianne Holmon-Sanders. If her orders were to force a confrontation and destroy the BSDF, but not sacrifice her fleet, she was accomplishing it.

She had a 3:1 advantage in hulls and her SDs were of comparable quality to Beowulfan SDs. As your signature keeps reminding us, refitting Beowulfan SDs to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting an SLN SD. And we know the new weapons had been held from the BSDF to avoid them falling into SLN and corrupt contractors' hands.

I suspect the Beowulfan SDs were more than comparable with the Scientist-class of the SLN. True they don't have any of the tech toys that Manticore rolled out during the course of the 1st or 2nd war. But Beowulf worked quite closely with Manticore for years so I'd be surprised if their SDs weren't at least the equivalent of a 1905-PD fit of a Sphinx-class SD, if not Manticore's final pre-war design the Gryphon-class. Better optimized for laserhead combat: heavier emphasis on CMs over PDLCs, faster cycle times on both missile & CM tubes, etc.

That, and the small size of SLN SDs, would likely put the Beowulf SD at around 1.5x as capable as an SLN Scientist. And if Beowulf had done some domestic upgrades based on feedback about missile combat during even the 1st war they might be capable of taking on 2:1 odds against Scientists. But probably not 3:1 even if everybody was using SDMs.


However this SLN detachment presumably also carried Cataphract-Bs in their tubes, which outrange anything Beowulf should have.
(Unless Manticore had turned over towed pods of DDM/MDM at the last minute) The other last minute question would be whether Manticore had shared the SLN EMC/HALO data they had captured in the confrontations in Talbott; that info would make Beowulfan missiles and defenses significantly more effective with just software changes.