?

Somtaaw wrote:[

In fairness, at least prior to the SLN adopting Buccaneer and contingency order Parthian Shot... NOBODY shot missiles even remotely in a planets direction. The closest we've come to near Eridani violations, was the Masadan lunatics in HotQ in command of Thunder, and that's only because Masada/Yeltsin aren't signatories and didn't really understand exactly how the Sollies would have dropped on both systems like a ton of bricks.

Zanzibar.

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Good point. Though normally you see the enemy coming. And while slow, at under 100 gees, forts can change position. Maybe they normally orbit closer and then when an enemy fleet is seen approaching they concentrate down that threat axis.

Then you'd just need enough forts to create an adequate defensive bubble on a particular threatened segment of the total sphere.

Even against MDMs that kind of works. The missiles have enough endurance to skirt the total defensive bubble of the forts and still cut back after the targets behind them. But they'd have to alter vector so radically they'd cut off fire control telemetry from the launching ships - so they'd be much less effective.

Your're assuming that they are the main form of defense kit. Another piece in the inventory was the wedge buoy. A device the size of a FF to CL with a DN-SD wedge and a fusion reactor - usually kept at readiness at all times. A cloud of these would be used to create a missile shield for a planet (or other defensible position.

The wedge size to hull size you're describing is identical to those Manticoran tugs; they're relatively small ships with big SD sized wedges; powerful enough to tow even SD's out from Manticoran yards and when used defensively, could have protected Hephaestus from Oyster Bay if they'd had just 15-30 minutes of warning of incoming missiles.


Major wedge walls used in a defensive nature were only conceived after Oyster Bay, and post Cachalot and Hypatia. 2-3 tugs could easily have protected the sprawling Hephaestus, but as we saw at Battle of Beowulf, it took dozens/hundreds of freighters (freighter wedge size is close to SD wedge size) to 'wall off' the Beowulf space stations. This was literally only possible because due to the ongoing conflict of Alliance vs League, hundreds/thousands of freighters were floating around not doing anything else and were thereby free to be utilized as a missile defense system.




Long-range bombardments of a planet, ANY planet, was a no-no right up until the Solarian League showed they were basically willing to ignore the Eridani Edict left and right themselves. Due to how unconceivable it was to deliberately violate the Eridani Edict, and that even in several centuries the League only had to enforce it a few times, proves NOBODY wanted to slap any planet with a missile, however accidentally. Even the holdout StateSec forces employed by Mesa to go nuke Torch knew they were screwed after being briefed, whether they succeeded or not, they'd never again have a home because violating the Edict would have followed them eventually.

kzt wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:[

In fairness, at least prior to the SLN adopting Buccaneer and contingency order Parthian Shot... NOBODY shot missiles even remotely in a planets direction. The closest we've come to near Eridani violations, was the Masadan lunatics in HotQ in command of Thunder, and that's only because Masada/Yeltsin aren't signatories and didn't really understand exactly how the Sollies would have dropped on both systems like a ton of bricks.

Zanzibar.

When were Zanzibar orbitals taken out by long range bombardment? Tourville attacked that system more than once and not once did they attack any planetary orbit targets from long-range. At no point to my memory has Zanzibar ever been faced with a situation where attackers were potentially going to nuke it into a billiard ball (directly), or long-range launches that could directly hit the planet or things in orbit.


The closest time I can think Zanzibar ever came to that, was when Tourville lured the Zanzibar picket out to attack him, exchanged long-range fire, retreated long enough to resupply his podnoughts and then drove back in. After he killed the picket, he could take the time to destroy everything properly but without long-range launches. This was about the time Honor was fielding Apollo and killed Giscard at Solon.

Which is similar the sort of strike Admiral Gyarau (wrong spelling I know) did at Cachalot, where he used his own battlecruisers wedges in combination with nuclear demolition charges, to 100% GUARANTEE no debris could possibly reach the surface (it'd impact the BC wedges and vaporize). And he kept those wedges up long enough to ensure no debris would eventually make it past.

Somtaaw wrote:Zanzibar.

When were Zanzibar orbitals taken out by long range bombardment? Tourville attacked that system more than once and not once did they attack any planetary orbit targets from long-range. At no point to my memory has Zanzibar ever been faced with a situation where attackers were potentially going to nuke it into a billiard ball (directly), or long-range launches that could directly hit the planet or things in orbit.


The closest time I can think Zanzibar ever came to that, was when Tourville lured the Zanzibar picket out to attack him, exchanged long-range fire, retreated long enough to resupply his podnoughts and then drove back in. After he killed the picket, he could take the time to destroy everything properly but without long-range launches. This was about the time Honor was fielding Apollo and killed Giscard at Solon.

Which is similar the sort of strike Admiral Gyarau (wrong spelling I know) did at Cachalot, where he used his own battlecruisers wedges in combination with nuclear demolition charges, to 100% GUARANTEE no debris could possibly reach the surface (it'd impact the BC wedges and vaporize). And he kept those wedges up long enough to ensure no debris would eventually make it past.[/quote]
I pointed out that you'd have to be an idiot to get caught like that, and one David Weber said, 'no, the RMN fleet had to come out because the RHN was blowing up the orbital industries.'

You tell me how that works.

Somtaaw wrote:
The wedge size to hull size you're describing is identical to those Manticoran tugs; they're relatively small ships with big SD sized wedges; powerful enough to tow even SD's out from Manticoran yards and when used defensively, could have protected Hephaestus from Oyster Bay if they'd had just 15-30 minutes of warning of incoming missiles.


Major wedge walls used in a defensive nature were only conceived after Oyster Bay, and post Cachalot and Hypatia. 2-3 tugs could easily have protected the sprawling Hephaestus, but as we saw at Battle of Beowulf, it took dozens/hundreds of freighters (freighter wedge size is close to SD wedge size) to 'wall off' the Beowulf space stations. This was literally only possible because due to the ongoing conflict of Alliance vs League, hundreds/thousands of freighters were floating around not doing anything else and were thereby free to be utilized as a missile defense system.




Long-range bombardments of a planet, ANY planet, was a no-no right up until the Solarian League showed they were basically willing to ignore the Eridani Edict left and right themselves. Due to how unconceivable it was to deliberately violate the Eridani Edict, and that even in several centuries the League only had to enforce it a few times, proves NOBODY wanted to slap any planet with a missile, however accidentally. Even the holdout StateSec forces employed by Mesa to go nuke Torch knew they were screwed after being briefed, whether they succeeded or not, they'd never again have a home because violating the Edict would have followed them eventually.

The 1 advantage of the buoys (or idle surplus freighters) is they are pre-positioned with hot nodes - they just need to raise their wedges to form the defensive barrier. The downside is you need to keep them fueled and working - hot nodes = constant maintenance on hundreds of buoys. (The snippet in the pearls on the nodes was originally longer, bemoaning the high maintenance of the system). I would imagine any such system had a series of spares, that would allow a handful of Buoys to constantly be rotating through a maintenance cycle.

Yes, oodles of idled freighters can do if they are available - and positioned for the work. The tugs give me pause though; the chances are, in a true emergency, they would be out of position (doing their actual jobs), some would not be able to respond (as they are stuck doing their actual jobs), and in the end, we're discussing dozens of ships, where hundreds to thousands would be required to create a thorough planetary shield.

kzt wrote:I pointed out that you'd have to be an idiot to get caught like that, and one David Weber said, 'no, the RMN fleet had to come out because the RHN was blowing up the orbital industries.'

You tell me how that works.

BoManticore yes it was a really really bad decision of plot driving tactical choices, but Zanzibar kept getting pounded because the (local) idiots kept literally handing their System Defense plans out to attacking Havenite forces.

• Icarus era attack by Tourville by attacking in a 'dead area' where no offensive action had been taken in months, McQueen assigned overwhelming force nothing could have stopped it
• Operation Gobi era attack, also by Tourville had been pre-empted in AAC right in the opening chapters by a LAC strike from a whopping TWO CLAC's. Zanzibar admirals overrode the Manticoran decision, and gave away the entire defense plan for nothing.

Being slightly fair, apparently Zanzibar has a lot of deep-system industry, like Grayson who also didn't like their belt industry being raided. So if Zanzibar hadn't used the outer system pods against the LACs, they'd have lost years of industry but possibly protected the system (slightly) better against the later strike by Tourville. Choosing the "protect slightly better now, over a possible attack that may never happen" logic really is hard to face, 20/20 hindsight causes a lot of blame games.


If the RMN stayed in the inner system (again), Tourville would have simply moved around the entire outer system and destroyed all the outer system pods with long range missiles and LAC strikes first, then closed on inner system, and still been in the situation he could withdraw, signal his missile colliers still in hyper where to translate, reload his podnoughts and come back in to finish destroying the picket just like he did originally.

Zanzibar was screwed either way; but Tourville never actually launched at long-range planetary targets. The Manty ships accelerating towards him certainly, but by that act of accelerating out they were no longer near the planet and his long-range strikes never risked hitting the planets.


Compare to the Cutworm Republican admirals, who actually DID use their planet as shields from long-range fire. They knew the Manty ships HAD to (eventually) close into their range, so they tried using their planet to force Manty ships to approach enough Republican weapons could fire back. And even then, instead of closing in, Henke chose to send in LAC's and split her fleet to pincer those Republican admirals, and at no time showed even the slightest desire to even remotely come close to a potential Eridani violation.

kzt wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:Zanzibar.

When were Zanzibar orbitals taken out by long range bombardment? Tourville attacked that system more than once and not once did they attack any planetary orbit targets from long-range. At no point to my memory has Zanzibar ever been faced with a situation where attackers were potentially going to nuke it into a billiard ball (directly), or long-range launches that could directly hit the planet or things in orbit.


The closest time I can think Zanzibar ever came to that, was when Tourville lured the Zanzibar picket out to attack him, exchanged long-range fire, retreated long enough to resupply his podnoughts and then drove back in. After he killed the picket, he could take the time to destroy everything properly but without long-range launches. This was about the time Honor was fielding Apollo and killed Giscard at Solon.

Which is similar the sort of strike Admiral Gyarau (wrong spelling I know) did at Cachalot, where he used his own battlecruisers wedges in combination with nuclear demolition charges, to 100% GUARANTEE no debris could possibly reach the surface (it'd impact the BC wedges and vaporize). And he kept those wedges up long enough to ensure no debris would eventually make it past.

I pointed out that you'd have to be an idiot to get caught like that, and one David Weber said, 'no, the RMN fleet had to come out because the RHN was blowing up the orbital industries.'

You tell me how that works.[/quote]

I always read that the destroyed Zanzibar orbital industries in question were stellar orbital - like in one of the Asteroid belts where all the pods and LAC bases were. If the RMN fleet was in planetary orbit, they would have been in place to defend the planetary orbital industries - hence no reason to sally forth from the inner system in defense.

kzt wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:It doesn't matter if it can trash everything in orbit. Controlling airspace means you have rid it of threats, not merely that you can bring heavy firepower to bear on threats. I would assume controlling orbitals would mean the same thing. Getting your ship into orbit undetected doesn't keep the defenders from unloading pods on you--I would not call the orbitals controlled while operational pods can bear.

And here I though you liked that planet! Because there isn’t going to be very much left after that. But I really doubt you’ll do much damage to the spider.

The question is whether it is an Eridani violation.

Jonathan_S wrote:Good point. Though normally you see the enemy coming. And while slow, at under 100 gees, forts can change position. Maybe they normally orbit closer and then when an enemy fleet is seen approaching they concentrate down that threat axis.

Then you'd just need enough forts to create an adequate defensive bubble on a particular threatened segment of the total sphere.

Even against MDMs that kind of works. The missiles have enough endurance to skirt the total defensive bubble of the forts and still cut back after the targets behind them. But they'd have to alter vector so radically they'd cut off fire control telemetry from the launching ships - so they'd be much less effective.

Forts need to be within CM range of the assets they're trying to defend. They can't reposition fast enough if the missile trajectory is not a straight line from where the enemy forces are coming from. If they are sitting 5 million km from the planet and need to reposition 90°, that's a 5√2 million km distance. At 50 gravities, that's 2 hours and 6 minutes. And then they'll be out of position for the second salvo that was launched 40 seconds later.

This is valid for intercepting the forces, not just missiles. Even 322-gravity turn-of-the-century SDs can literally run rings around forts positioned that far away. You don't need a two-pronged attack for this, just fly by the planet and then double back.

cthia wrote:Unless that firepower is directed at Mt. Royal Palace and other critical targets. The planets, the government and the RMN has to honor the threat. If not, the two or three additional decloaked LDs and Sharks ready to intercept any remaining ships, will show the Filaretas of the RMN the hopelessness of their situation.

I can't shake the dramatic baggage I have of the four alien ships in Independence Day maneuvering into a zero zero - line of communication - intercept of the planet.

What I'm saying is that if they fire on Mt. Royal Palace at that point they have committed an Eridani violation. If anyone finds Darius the response very well might be unloading everything they have on the planet.