Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Duckk wrote: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... That's 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.

I don't see why they couldn't. When Filareta went to Manticore, the SLN was still assembling a bigger second wave and pulling a few hundred wallers out of the Reserve.

Counting Crandall's force, the SLN had sent something like 1100 SDs away from the Core by the war's end. That leaves 900 of their pre-war active wall plus the several hundred Reserve units they could reactivate quickly.

It might take the SLN longer to actually launch a 1,000-SD invasion fleet but unless Beowulf flips and joins Haven, the League's core is as distant from Haven as vice versa. A home guard of +1200 SDs is more than adequate to hold Sol and Beowulf against any force Haven could attack with.

I think the biggest danger for the SLN is that they do panic at the prospect of mass BB raids overrunning Frontier Fleet and dispatch a smaller fleet immediately to open the Manticore Wormhole Junction, which gets leaked. Haven could defeat that by uncovering its core and buy substantial time(the SLN's reinforcements/second wave at Beowulf would need to move to Manticore or Haven itself). Forced to survive, Haven uses Bolthole to produce SD(P)s and smashes the League.

The League's best play is to make that 1,000 SD fleet ready and go for Nouveau Paris, even if it takes a year to organise.

Has it been decided what happened to Erewhon in this scenario? If they haven't been conquered by Haven as part of the Manticore war(and hence became a contributory factor in starting the PRH-Solarian conflict), they're quite likely to have joined the League and provided their wormhole as a shortcut.

munroburton wrote:I don't see why they couldn't. When Filareta went to Manticore, the SLN was still assembling a bigger second wave and pulling a few hundred wallers out of the Reserve.

Counting Crandall's force, the SLN had sent something like 1100 SDs away from the Core by the war's end. That leaves 900 of their pre-war active wall plus the several hundred Reserve units they could reactivate quickly.

For 1100, are you including this second, bigger force? Crandall had 70 ships and Filareta 430-some only.

Anyway, we've heard that the SLN wanted to send this force, but we don't know where they were or how quickly they could assemble. It's entirely possible that what we heard from Rajampet and the Mandarins was nothing more than wishful thinking, with a great deal of exaggeration by Rajampet.

It might take the SLN longer to actually launch a 1,000-SD invasion fleet but unless Beowulf flips and joins Haven, the League's core is as distant from Haven as vice versa. A home guard of +1200 SDs is more than adequate to hold Sol and Beowulf against any force Haven could attack with.
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Has it been decided what happened to Erewhon in this scenario? If they haven't been conquered by Haven as part of the Manticore war(and hence became a contributory factor in starting the PRH-Solarian conflict), they're quite likely to have joined the League and provided their wormhole as a shortcut.

I wrote that Erewhon falls but didn't write what happens to its wormhole. The Beowulf terminus would certainly be blocked because Beowulf had been an antagonist of the PRH for a long time, since the Technical Conservation Act of 1778 PD. But we don't know what's in Joshua. It's quite unlikely that they'd have an SDF capable of stopping the PN.

So if the Alliance activates its version of Lacoön when hostilities seem inevitable, the first thing they'd do is secure the wormholes leading to the SL Core. Joshua may be nowhere as close to Sol as Beowulf, but too close for comfort.

On the other hand, whatever mobile forces the Alliance can deploy will be nowhere as capable as those the GA did deploy in the actual timeline. With no entrenched forts and no MDMs, those forces could be bounced out by a determined SLN task-force. Doing it to Joshua would be first order of business: liberate Erewhon, which was one of the reasons for hostilities, and secures a wormhole to access Haven and blocks a second MWHJ terminus (Terre Haute).

You can pretty much expect that eveyone who works on a MMM ship isn’t going back to Manticore. And the government in exile will certainly support that.

Given that most people in the galaxy with money live on the Beowulf side of the junction, shutting down the wormhole will have bigger impact on the Peeps that the SL. There are some logistics issues, but freighters are something that every core world can turn out.

Given that the SLN has access to a rather experianced team of people who have a lot of recent combat experiance against Haven you’d expect at least some of that to flow into the SLN via Beowulf.

kzt wrote: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.

They can threaten you, but you cant threaten them. That would be the key right there, the SLN sending 1,000 SD's and having those 1,000 SD's turned into debris means that whatever they do have left over stays put because there are hundreds of core and shell worlds that will demand SLN protection, the SLN will either disperse their SD's to provide some protection to as many core world as they can or they will concentrate them in their bases and try to rebuild their strength. The SLN just got defeated in Haven sector and worse they don't really know what happened and how many allied ships they destroyed, so the alliance taking a risk and sending a large % of their remaining wallers at the heels of the news and attacking the League might stun the league and by Haven enough time.

The League has core and shell world demanding protection, it has precious few shipyards they must protect and at the same time they have Beowulf and Joshua to picket...don't forget Sol as well. Lets say that the SLN decides to protect Sol, Beowulf, Joshua and 9 largest yards(some of which would coincidently hold portions of the reserve). That is 12 systems that need protection, out of a fleet of 1,000 SD's or 1,300 if you rush the refits. That's ~100 SD's per system if you break it evenly.

The Alliance knows they will eventually loose if they don't take risks so leaving a small picket of 100 SD's in the Haven sector, and 100 SD's in the Empire leaves you with an offensive force of 280 superdreadnoughts. Hell, send everything, you either win big or you lose quicker. They are larger, more capable ships than the SLN SD's and their crews are more experienced. Sending those SD's into the leage allows you to either defeat the SLN in detail with their SD's spread guarding a dozen locations or you get to hit their shipyards and reserve yards because their fleet is concentrated in one system or you crush some of their yards and part of their fleet, punch through the picket defending Beowulf and go home. We are talking about a battle that would take a year+ to execute, by which time the Alliance has 300 new SD's, 200 SD's picketing the Haven sector and whatever is left of the offensive force and in control of Beowulf or leaves you with untouched offensive force because the SLN refused to engage, 200 SD's in reserve at home and 300 SD's new construction after the Alliance demolishes a few of the League's very limited shipyards.

Haven and the Empire know they have to take risks, because they are the under dogs, if they don't take risks, and the tech they captured from Manticore doesn't pan out they lose either way in the long run, if they take risks they may still lose or they may push the league off balance long enough for the new construction and new technology to come into service.

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

1. Do they have a few thousand WORTH activating?
2. Do they have the manpower to operate those few thousand if they do reactivate them?
3. Do they have the means to reactivate a few thousand in a year or less.(Shipyards, technicians etc...)
4. Do they have the ammunition to rearm a few thousand new SD's, I mean if the SLN has not had a war in a few hundred years, and did not foresee a war would they have adequate stores of missiles, CM's? They just send 1,000 SD's to Haven which were hopefully fully loaded, I would also hope they send ammunition colliers with those ships which may or may not be captured by the Alliance.
5. How many of the reactivated ships will have autocannon PD?

Not destroying 120 16MT fortresses at the cost of a large part of your available mobile forces accomplishes what?

Separates the Alliance in 3. However many IAN wallers are in the Empire are now separated from their Allies in the Haven sector, and those are separate from whatever is picketing Erewhon. You knocked off fortress Command and whatever ships were picketing Manticore, you are now in Havens back yard while they are 800 LY away from your territory. They are now separated in three while you can safely bring a bigger portion of your fleet into Manticore potentially captured valuable shipyards or at least workers and you might have former RMN members who would be more then willing to assist you with everything they can.

What can Haven not do that they could do yesterday?

Attack the League, I dont know how long it takes to cross 700 LY, but I bet it is significantly longer than going through the WH.

What can you do that you couldn't do yesterday?

Bring as many of my FF units as I can get, bring any light BF units that I can get my hands on. Keep the Wallers and a sizable screen in Manticore while sending out BC's and below in force to clear as many of Havens Systems as possible. Those light units will be able to cut through whatever ships are picketing the target systems or would be able to outrun any heavies.

I know they wont send their SD's to the League because if they do, it will take them a significant amount of time, during which I can crush opposition in Haven by concentrating virtually my entire wall in the sector and then turn around and defend through the WH. If it takes 4 months to get from Haven to the core, that's 4 months I can use to overrun Haven and bring the fleet to the core through the WH. Chances are it wont happen, Haven will be forced to counterattack to retake Manticore facing 1,200-1,500 of my SD's and 3,000+ screen with their entire fleet aside from the Erewhon picket which should be sizable and the IAN which is also powerful.

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.

Wasn't that the same CO that made a list of reliable officers of Capital fleet that Theisman eventually used? Those could have been the only once with range or with wildcard co's.

Sigs wrote:

Not destroying 120 16MT fortresses at the cost of a large part of your available mobile forces accomplishes what?

Separates the Alliance in 3. However many IAN wallers are in the Empire are now separated from their Allies in the Haven sector, and those are separate from whatever is picketing Erewhon. You knocked off fortress Command and whatever ships were picketing Manticore, you are now in Havens back yard while they are 800 LY away from your territory. They are now separated in three while you can safely bring a bigger portion of your fleet into Manticore potentially captured valuable shipyards or at least workers and you might have former RMN members who would be more then willing to assist you with everything they can.
.

well, how did getting 1000 sd destroyed while not taking the WH produce that outcome? Because thats what is going to happen. You need more like 1500 to have a shot. otherwise you are ust marching into a meat grinder. One fortress can block the WH. You have to get ALL of them to get anything. And you won’t. And even if you had 50 surviving SDs, what are they going to do when a Peep fleet drops in? So at the end you get nothing, other then getting your entire mobile fleet destroyed. If that’s your plan youcan probably do better with a scrap dealer.

Though it does simplify your options, given that you got tour entire moblie force massacred and did absolutely no damage to the Peep mobile forces.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

munroburton wrote:I don't see why they couldn't. When Filareta went to Manticore, the SLN was still assembling a bigger second wave and pulling a few hundred wallers out of the Reserve.

Counting Crandall's force, the SLN had sent something like 1100 SDs away from the Core by the war's end. That leaves 900 of their pre-war active wall plus the several hundred Reserve units they could reactivate quickly.

For 1100, are you including this second, bigger force? Crandall had 70 ships and Filareta 430-some only.

Anyway, we've heard that the SLN wanted to send this force, but we don't know where they were or how quickly they could assemble. It's entirely possible that what we heard from Rajampet and the Mandarins was nothing more than wishful thinking, with a great deal of exaggeration by Rajampet.

Obviously. The second wave assembled at Tasmania, whose exact location is still unknown, but was almost certainly a fleet base "north" of Beowulf, probably in the Shell. Barely qualifies as "away from the Core," but close enough.

Rajampet may have been a fool, but he was still SLN CO. If he orders 600 SDs to go somewhere, what are they going to do? Mutiny? Or set forth even knowing they might have to abandon up to a dozen SDs enroute due to engineering casaulties?

Sigs wrote: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?

RFC did later say that the war games that showed the forts might be vulnerable hadn't adequately accounted for the effectiveness of laserhead missiles against a hostile transit of the wormhole. So even throwing all those battleships into a suicidal mutual kill scenario wouldn't actually have worked.

Still, I'm not so sure how that assault was suppose to work even against older missiles. If nothing else the forts can advance to energy range against the termini and we saw just how ineffective Peep BBs were against SDs in an energy range fight. They should be even less effective against the bigger nastier forts. (Plus until the BBs clear the grav effects and can raise sidewalls the forts can hang back and take free shots with their energy mounts. Sidewalls roughly cut effective energy range in half - so the forts, behind their bubble walls would be basically immune to energy fire from beyond 500,000 km - but the BBs without any sidewalls would be vulnerable up to around 1,000,000 km. So if the nearest forts hung back at, say, 700,000 km they could smash arriving ships with grasers and ignore their response.

Sigs wrote:

kzt wrote:The basic question is jow strong are the defenses at haven? When 800 SDs drop in, supported by say 400 BCs and 400 lesser vessels, how will that work out?

Because, despite David’s claim that nobody ever did anything but slow methodical advances prior to the second war, the SLN has traditionally just gone for the throat. They mass a fleet and drop in on the enemie’s home system with an unstoppable amount of firepower. So whatever Peep and IAN forces are not in the Haven system on that day might as well not exist. And I doubt they can handle 40-50% of Battle Force, even as overconfident and underskilled as most BF units might be, with just the Peep Capital Fleet.

Offhand, I’ll go for ‘the peeps are screwed’. Unless the SLN decides to take down the IAN first, but I’d expect they plan to deal with them next.

The SLN might go for the Throat but the throat in this scenario is still the Manticore System because of the Junction. If the SLN takes Manticore, they split the allies so that they cannot mutually support each other, the SLN now has direct access to its core bases and shipyards as well as reinforcements. They Separate Haven from the Empire and whatever forces are deployed in Erewhon, Phoenix and Joshua are now isolated and can be picked off separately.

The Problem for the SLN is that the Junction defences wouldn't necessarily be involved in a battle for the system between Manticore and Haven so they may have been surrendered intact or mostly intact which means that the Junction is heavily fortified by fixed defences(Forts) as well as a hell of a lot of pods and mobile forces.

No matter how arrogant the SLN is, they have to know that if they go straight to Haven they still will need to fight their way in, destroy whatever forces are deployed in the system as well as fixed defences and either occupy the system and fight off whatever rescue forces come in while trying to do field repairs 600 LY away from the nearest bases and potentially run out of ammunition eventually or retreat all the way back into the League for repairs and rearmament once the ammunition colliers are emptied. Either way the risk of losing many of their damaged ships in holding the system or retreating from the system when they cant afford to lose those ships.

This seems like the most likely scenario to me. The MWHJ not only has enormous economic value, it provides strategic mobility. Control the MWHJ and all terminals and the effective combat power of the SLN is massively magnified. It is a short hop from Sol system to Beawulf and that terminal. Then onward to Trevor's Star and Gregor. The PRH will surrender and the IAN will negotiate a peace.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

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.

There is no Way, no how 120 forts of between 16-20 million tons can hold off 1,000 SD's when technologically they are within a generation of each other and the attacking force is a professional military(very arrogant, inexperienced, and not as well trained but still trained to operate the ships)

For a 16,000,000 ton fort to have 10X or more of the firepower of an SD, the SD has to have only at most 1,500,000 tons in offensive missile weapons(just the system not counting the ammo) and the fort has 1,000,000 tons for offensive energy weapons, defensive weapons, life support, armour, structure, propulsion, sidewalls etc... They basically are a 1 shot weapon, they have 10X the firepower of an SD...for the first shot, after that they have no means to defend themselves, no armour to protect them, no ammunition to attack the enemy...nothing.


A fort would by its very nature have more firepower ton for ton over an SD, no doubt about that, but the fort still needs sidewalls, sidewall generator, life-support, quarters, work space for the people, hangers, a million and one other things to make a fort operational plus armour, energy weapons, power plants for well power to the fort, CM's and PD's, did I mention armour? The thing is and correct me if I'm wrong but forts don't have impeller wedge so they have to have heavy armour covering all sides of the fort not just the "exposed" portions and would need sidewall generators.


So instead of having 15,000,000 tons of offensive missile armament would probably have 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 in offensive armament with the rest dedicated to energy weapons, armour, sidewalls and everything else.

Unless most of the forts at the junction were 30,000,000+ they would not be able to hold off 1,000 SD's.

Besides, if they were that powerful to be able to take 1,000 SD's at once and since they have limited movement capability the second the war looked like it would be lost I would use that limited ability to move and move them to a more important objective like my capital and the industry associated with it, what I wouldn't do is leave 1,000+ SD's worth of firepower in a location where they cannot do anything for the war... you lose the manticore system you lose the war, you lose the junction you probably lose the war.

The junction forts represented 30% of the RMN's budget yet represent firepower 2X the PN's 412 SD's, 48 DN's, 374 BB's why didn't the RMN just invest into another 120 forts for Manticore, 80 for Sphinx and 40 for Gryphon? That right there would represent 1,200 SD's defending Manticore and its industry, 800 SD's defending Sphinx and 400 SD's defending Gryphon all for the price of 90% of the RMN's budget. So for the Republic to Capture the Junction they will need 1,500 SD's to ensure victory, wait 20 years to rebuild their shattered fleet, send 1,500 SD's to capture Manticore, wait 15 years to rebuild send 1,000 SD's to capture Sphinx, rebuild their shattered fleet and leave Gryphon alone.

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.

Unless the Republic slaughtered or kidnapped the entire workforce, Manticore would have a highly competent, highly motivated workforce and they would be just on the other side of the league which can throw resources their way to rebuild the shipyards damn quick. Most places in the League would need conversion of some sort and would need guidance to start pumping out SD's plus they would lack experience, offer Manticore League membership and since they aren't really in a position to say no, when they agree throw money and resources rebuilding the industry, hell within two years with the league backing them they should be able to support the SLN as an advanced base and be producing ships of their own.