Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War

Sigs wrote:[So if Manticore had that many forts, and Haven has been in the bisness of conquest for quite some time at that point wouldn't it be reasonable assumption that they too have forts...and a lot of them.

No the Manticore Wormhole Junction had that many forts, apparently 120 forts, each of which could handle multiple SDs. IIRC, about 12 SDs. It's pretty clearly the most heavily defended object in the Honorverse to date.

It's unclear if Manticore or Spinx had any fortresses.

It's been clearly stated that they were three fortresses around Haven.

3 is less than 120. So no, Haven is not even close to as heavily fortified.

It's very unclear if 1000 SLN SDs is enough to take the WHJ. It certainly isn't going to be able to hold it when a PRN fleet shows up. So what's the point?

Sigs wrote:

kzt wrote:I can’t remember if David mentioned how many forts were at the Manticor WHJ, but early war it was a LOT of forts. It was enough that later analysis showed that they could safely defeat any concevable threat. So no, attacking the single most heavily defended point in the inhabited galexy is probably not a good idea. Those planets 12 light hours away will probably make your life diffcult.

So if Manticore had that many forts, and Haven has been in the bisness of conquest for quite some time at that point wouldn't it be reasonable assumption that they too have forts...and a lot of them.
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Not necessarily. Manticore had lots of forts because the Junction formed a unique defensive challenge.

It was a major source of their wealth, and they had a lot of expensive infrastructure out there servicing yet. And its got only a million km or so hyper limit, so an enemy could pop out quite near the defenses. But a fleet positioned out there is quite poorly placed to defend the capital (and even worse placed to defend Sphinx). So they needed a big defense out there that nobody would be tempted to reduce to send off on offensive missions. And a pile of forts is a cheaper way to put in a given amount of firepower than an entire junction fleet would have been (plus doesn't provide the temptation to skim off from it)

Haven doesn't really have any similar deep deep space valuables to defend - and was more offensive focused anyway. So arguably they have far less need for forts.


That said, we know there are some orbital forts around Haven itself. And from Ashes of Victory we also know that their major fleet base at Barnett had forts protecting it, in addition to the naval units stationed there. We just don't know how widespread forts were beyond the home system and their largest forward fleet base.

kzt wrote:No the Manticore Wormhole Junction had that many forts, apparently 120 forts, each of which could handle multiple SDs. IIRC, about 12 SDs. It's pretty clearly the most heavily defended object in the Honorverse to date.

If I remember correctly the forts could handle 10-15 SD(P)'s once missile pods and Apollo were introduced.

IF Each fort is 16,000,000 tons I don't see how they can be good at 12 SD's

It's unclear if Manticore or Spinx had any fortresses.

I think some of the books stated there were forts and later on not so much but I could be mistaken.

It's been clearly stated that they were three fortresses around Haven. 3 is less than 120. So no, Haven is not even close to as heavily fortified.

Barnette had 40 forts, I don't see how Haven had only 3... Do you remember which book this was stated?

It's very unclear if 1000 SLN SDs is enough to take the WHJ. It certainly isn't going to be able to hold it when a PRN fleet shows up. So what's the point?

If they cant take the WHJ what's the point in going after Haven System? They will just end up having to abandon ships in Haven on their way Home. Even if they wipe out 200 SD's in Capital Fleet there would still have 480 Allied SD's 240 DN's and 300+ battleships to go after Capital Fleet. But its not really relevant because as of 1901 when Fearless was going to Basilisk Honor was thinking that the 120 Forts could not survive against the firepower of a mass transit from 2 Termini how can they expect to survive an attack by 20 times the size through regular space?

If 120 old style Forts can hold off 1000+ SD's then I would say its game over for the League, there is no way for the SLN to send all 2,000 SD's to attack Haven and Haven has too powerfull a fleet in the Haven sector to let 1,000 SD's do more then trash one of the major industrial systems before they get crushed. Once that happens it would be a long time before the League replaces their losses and they dont have to replace their losses, they have to double or triple their fleet because guess what, last time 1,000 SD's wasnt enough so I would wait till I had 3,000 SD's to use in an attack by which time SD(P)'s and CLAC's are going to be a plenty in the People's Navy and the IAN and the SLN will be screwed no matter how many SD's they managed to build.

Haven just finished a war, their shipyards are still likely in full swing if the war ended with Manticore and the League war started within a few months, which means that they could be pumping out 100-150 SD's a year just out of Havens yards, if they managed to capture Manticore and Grayson yards that would increase dramatically, they could be pumping out 300 SD's a year with Haven's yards, Manticore and Grayson's Yards and Andermani Yards. Even if they lose 200 SD's, 240 DN's and 300 BB's to the SLN's 1,000 SD's loss they would still make up their losses and then some within 3 years of the battle while the League would get their 300 ships in refit back in service and maybe another 1,000 from combination of new construction and mobilizing the newest ships in the reserve. Throw in all the new Toys that Haven captured from Manticore and it truly is game over as they would be coming into service right around the 3 year mark.

Destroying the vast majority of someone's mobile forces, even at the cost of a large portion of your available mobile forces, has a utility, in that they no longer have those mobile forces which which to threaten you.

Which, if you are the SLN, has bought you time to reactivate a few thousand SDs.

Not destroying 120 16MT fortresses at the cost of a large part of your available mobile forces accomplishes what? What can Haven not do that they could do yesterday? What can you do that you couldn't do yesterday?

Sigs wrote:

kzt wrote:It's been clearly stated that they were three fortresses around Haven. 3 is less than 120. So no, Haven is not even close to as heavily fortified.

Barnette had 40 forts, I don't see how Haven had only 3... Do you remember which book this was stated?

The story 'A Whiff of Grapeshot', where the Capital Fleet CO is trying to avoid her fleet getting into a fight with the 14MT orbital fortresses Liberty and Equality, and failing. The first two end up getting in a fight with Orbital Fortress Fraternity.

Given that Capital Fleet was busy conducting KE strikes on Nouveau Paris and dropping a marine assault brigade on the Committee For Public Safety I think you would have heard about others.

Duckk wrote:

To bring this back to the original post, although it is SLN policy to go after the capital of an enemy that is mainly because their doctrine is geared towards going after single system nations.

No, it was SLN policy to go for the capital because they the largest fleet in space and they see no need to beat around the bush. System by system advances were the norm if you couldn’t achieve meaningful superiority, like the early phases of the First Havenite War. When the SLN’s fleet has an order of magnitude more supedreadnoughts than the next biggest fleet, they don’t have to mess around - going straight for the capital means the war is over in an afternoon.

They could do that when a force like Crandall's, a mere 3.5% of the active Battle Fleet, was sufficient. And Crandall's force was larger than any SDF in the League and was probably larger than any navy except the Top 10.

This actually brings me to a question I've been meaning to ask for some time: could the SLN go after Haven? We've discussed assembling a fleet of 800 to 1000 SDs to do that, but can the SLN do that?

Filareta was first mentioned in "Storm from the Shadows" (SI2) Ch. 10, after the Battle of Monica, in the same sentence that first mentions Crandall. ("Having Verrochio go all gutless on us, now... [i]That's[i] more than a little irritating. Especially after all the investment we made in Crandall and Filareta"). We know at this time Crandall was already executing Operation Winter Forage. Presumably, Filareta already had a couple hundred SDs in a convenient position. This is over a year before Filareta actually arrived in Manticore.

So the MAlign had the SLN had been quietly preparing an invasion for over a year, with half as many ships. And the SLN only went for Manticore because they were convinced the system defences had been smashed.

How quickly could they assemble over twice as many ships for an invasion of the Haven System? In this scenario, there's presumably a time of escalating tensions that would allow the MAlign to begin moving forces, but nowhere near 1000 ships.

Moreover, can the SLN move 50% of Battle Fleet at all? Wouldn't that, as pointed out above, "criminally uncover" the Core systems? Politicians may not let the SLN move that many ships.

I see two possibilities here:

1) the SLN waits for activation of the Reserve, so they have at least 500 more ships, which allows some FF ships to return to serve as escorts. The problem here is that a determined Alliance, seeing an opportunity that will close if they don't act, takes the intiative to go on the offensive.

2) the SLN seeing that it cannot wait, launches an invasion with fewer ships than we've been talking about. That's an assured defeat.

Either way, they're in a pickle.

kzt wrote:The story 'A Whiff of Grapeshot', where the Capital Fleet CO is trying to avoid her fleet getting into a fight with the 14MT orbital fortresses Liberty and Equality, and failing. The first two end up getting in a fight with Orbital Fortress Fraternity.

Given that Capital Fleet was busy conducting KE strikes on Nouveau Paris and dropping a marine assault brigade on the Committee For Public Safety I think you would have heard about others.

Yeah, that's inconsistent. I'd expect that a fortress be something bigger than a fort. 14 million tons for a fort sounds fine, but if I had to place three fortresses around my planet (probably 120° apart on high or geostationary orbit), I'd tow some hollowed out asteroids -- if they aren't there already, as source of raw materials for the industries in orbit. A couple billion tons of rock is a very effective armour.

On the other hand, it's very much what the Legislaturalists and CPS would do. Having several different units around your planet that can bombard it means several different officers in command. You don't want that literally hanging over your head.

There are a seies of alternatives between doing nothing and hurling your entire fleet at Haven.

First, you econmically cur off the Peeps and their allies from the SL. No banking, no trade, etc. almost certainly hurt them more than you.

You could start activation of the reserve, which takes time but for a limited scale (like a thousand) probably under a year.

You could expand the training establishments while recalling people.

Organize a call-up of the SDFs.

You increase production of SDs at you usual manufacturer’s and work on developing others. You have over 1000 heavily industrialized sustems, it doesn’t take a lot to get a lot.

You could give out letters of Marquee to people who want them. This would be against the peeps and all their allies.

You could send out raiding detachments of SDFs and FF BC squardons. This is a tually useful even if you are planning a direct attack, as it forces dispersion of Haven naval forces.

You could go liberate the star nation that got you into this.

You could go after their allies, one at a time. Force them to reevalute the whole cost/benefit tradeoff.

You could establish a base with the GSN, since they seem a little exposed right now.

You could launch large scale strikes on economically critical systems. This also forces dispertion of the peeps.

Sigs wrote:But if the SLN went out after the Manticore WHJ the story would be completely different even if the the forts around the junction were captured intact and are at that point are fully manned and operational. Even if completely manned and operational, a force of 1,000 SD’s would overwhelm them and gain control of the Junction.

That's a good strategy and I'm sure that the Manticoran exiles in Beowulf would be pushing for, with Honor standing on the front. The BSDF would go for that too -- provided there are sufficient defences on the Beowulf terminus to deter any incursions.

The problem is, like others, I'm not sure that 1000 SDs can defeat the Junction forts. If they aren't there -- if the RMN scuttled them before or after the surrender -- then there's no problem. Like above on the Beowulf side, a handful of forts and/or SDs can reasonably blockade a transit. But they wouldn't hold against a local assault.

SO how do you win against sufficient forts? You can't do hit-and-run from hyperspace, as we discussed earlier in thread: three minutes for SDMs to fly to destination is too short for SDs to hyper back out. Adding ballistic flight at the end just makes the missiles easier to pick by the point defence. So you can't slowly wear the forts down by attrition.

You could try and starve them out. That would mean capturing at least three other termini (Basilisk, Trevor's Star, and Gregor) and the Manticore Binary System itself, to prevent resupply. And presumably the forts have enough consumables to last at least a year (if an SD half as big can, why not a fort?). Meanwhile, the SLN is holding four systems against counter-attack, any of which must have enough forces to withstand such an attack and two of which are very close to the industrial centres of the Alliance.

Plus, I would assume the Manticore System isn't in a good shape to support the SLN, having just been liberated after being conquered. Any yards the RMN didn't destroy before its surrender, the PN would have.

The only way those forts surrender, under these conditions, is when the war is over.

Unless the SLN or at least the BSDF can deploy MDMs before the forts. Maybe even ERMs. If the SLN/BSDF can outrange the missiles the forts throw, then they can sit outside their range and still hit them. It's going to cost a lot of missiles, but it could be done.

kzt wrote:There are a seies of alternatives between doing nothing and hurling your entire fleet at Haven.

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Very good points. In summary, the SLN can win, if it fights smart and it can defend itself against incursions meanwhile.

The problem is we can't assume the SLN would fight smart. And given that the MAlign is there behind the scenes wanting the SL to break up, they would be forcing the SLN into errors. Such as sending a patently inadequate force 700 light-years to attack Haven.

I suppose the way the MAlign would go about that is to have the Alliance hit important systems in the League and make the public lose trust in the SL and SLN: "if they can't defend me, why should I be a member?" Have an Alignment system that is a member of the League, like Visigoth, Second Chance, Line or Maxwell, start the ball rolling, declaring independence, neutrality, and subsequent association with Mannerheim for defence.