How was Haven supposed to fight the SL (Detweiler Plan)?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:The PRH had never fought a war with a multiple system star nation prior to the opening war with Manticore. All of their conquests had been single system polities with no colonies or allied systems where they might​ have additional forces stationed. The PRH had also had vast numerical superiority over it's victims. The PRH had not spent centuries fighting pirates in Silesia where their captains could be refined by combat. The singular thrust to the system had been a perfect strategy.

Fighting the SKM and its allies presented them with the PRH with strategic and tactical complexities that were far beyond their experiences.

Agreed completely. And given the lack of experience, they turned to the current BKM (Best Known Method) and that was the SLN's experience. Unfortunately, the SLN hadn't fought a multi-system war in centuries either so all of that information was stale. In fact, I doubt there had ever been a war where both sides fielded hundreds of capital ships (only RFC will know).

Plus their fondness for OFS-style tactics that would allow them plausible deniability in the Solarian press.

If memory serves, the Battle of Farelly's Crossing (a Frontier Fleet battle) was the last large scale war/battle prior to the Havenite wars, featuring over 600 ships in said battle- fewer than a dozen were wallers. It happened around 1700pd, and proved to Battle Fleet (who didn't fight it) their invincibility).

Seeing Battleships were a new thing Gustav Anderman invented around 1600pd, there wern't many wallers around to have fights with in the intervening century. So I think we can say, no, there has been no previous war between major powers with large #s of wallers.

tlb wrote:Most people would agree that Beatrice was too dangerous to execute before Lovat, because Haven still had the chance to win by attrition. I believe I can exclude KZT from this, because his argument has been that Haven's best chance to win would have been to execute something like Beatrice as the opening stroke of the war.

It would have been their best chance to win the war because the RMN's SDP were stretched so thin it wasn't even funny. If my math is correct, they had 23 SD(P)'s in Home Fleet along with ~50 SD's. Home Fleet was a mess, they were not ready, the RHN could have gathered as much intel they wanted with how Janacek ran the RMN.

1st Fleet, 2nd Fleet and TF 10 going after Manticore would have crushed the entire RMN, Captured the system without too much worry. Now here is a good time to take a risk, end the war before it begins. The RMN's ONI was a joke, they didn't know how many SD(P)'s the RHN had, hell they didn't know they had SD(P)'s until the RoH told everyone they did. Sending 144 SD(P)'s and every SD you have to Manticore, while sending another 100 SD(P)'s to Trevor's Star as distraction would have drawn out 3rd Fleet and if the GSN was present them as well, hang around menacingly but never cross the Hyper limit. The RHN had access to the Junction so coordination wouldn't be a problem.

Difference between Beatrice and a knockout blow right off the bat is that there are a hell of a lot less ships permanently stationed In Manticore and Trevor's Star, the Manticore HS was far from the most heavily fortified system in the explored galaxy, no one was expecting it and no one was looking throughout the Republic to figure out where your SD(P)'s are. Having a fleet of 144 SD(P)'s hitting a fleet of 23 SD(P)'s would be a massacre, using another 100 SD(P)'s to draw 3rd Fleet and whatever other ships are in Trevor's Star away from the Terminal guarantees that the RHN faces a weak Home Fleet, unprepared defences and a rusty response. Send 30 SD(P)'s against Grendelsbane because it is a relatively low risk mission and game over before it begins. The SKM is defeated, the GSN is stuck, they cant go to war with the RoH by themselves to they fortify Grayson and figure their next move.

So what is your real disagreement with most people on the forum? It appears that you object to Haven making a contingency plan (and RFC has made it clear that Haven would not have executed it unless/until forced by the results of Apollo at Lovat).

If the RHN had 620 SD(P)'s, and 100 SD(P)'s are working up therefore non operational for the moment that would leave the RHN with 520 SD(P)'s to protect Haven, Bolthole man the main front, secondary front, core systems and the ambush fleets. So taking 240 SD(P)'s to prepare for a contingency operation at a time they desperately needed ships to ensure the conditions for Camille were met is extremely dangerous. They basically put themselves into a position where they almost have to launch Beatrice because if they suffer a serious defeat which is likely if they pulled 240 SD(P)'s for an operation, they cant launch Camille, because once again it's condition is defensive victory followed by an offensive victory on a smaller alliance member. If Camille is off the table where does that leave them? General offensive against the smaller allies, an offensive against one of the major alliance members aside from Manticore, an offensive against Trevor's Star or Beatrice.

1) General offensive against the minor allies shows lack of confidence and/or weakness because they are going after secondary systems rather than the primary. The RHN might destroy a dozen SD(P)'s and a few dozen obsolete SD's but it doesn't change the warfighting abilities of the MA.

2) An offensive against Grayson or the Andermani Empire.
i. Grayson could be a viable target, it is almost as well defended as Manticore in terms of fixed defences, but it only has one Fleet that defends it and likely wont be able to call for reinforcements in time. A victory here allows the message to be loud and clear, we crushed a major alliance fleet, took out the industry of a major alliance nation we can do it to you. Bonus points if the RHN gets the victory with minimal casualties and 240 vs ~60 seem like great odds. The RoH get's their message across but face one fleet of ~60 SD(P)'s rather than face 3 individual fleets totaling 130 SD(P)'s. Also there is less of a chance that any reinforcements that become available to the alliance will be in Grayson as opposed to Manticore.

This is less risk less reward, higher chance of success.

ii. Attack the Andermani Empire, this is potentially the worst choice of the bunch. The Empire is ~320-340 LY away from Haven which means that they would 2 months + round trip and it would be longer if the RHN suffers casualties. That's 2 months round trip not counting the 10 weeks to prep that 240 SD(P)'s will be missing, that's 4 months total that the Alliance can notice the opening and find a way to exploit it. This has the possibility of tying down a large chunk of your wallers month+ away from your territory when it is desperately needed.

Yes you are more likely to keep your fleet intact but you defeat a weaker alliance fleet, take out a smaller alliance industry and condemn your fleet to a long transit back home.

3) An offensive against Trevor's Star, this is a less dangerous option because the RHN would face 90 SD(P)'s but Home Fleet will likely not intervene and expose Manticore. Trevor's Star is heavily defended but not at the level of Grayson or Manticore. The problem with Trevor's Star is that they are likely the training area for any new Alliance SD(P)'s they would be there working up so there is a chance that they may face 50-100 SD(P)'s working up in the system, not likely but the chance is there.

I contend that any military leader should have contingent emergency plans, because if disaster strikes there is seldom time to do the planning necessary.

I suspect there is a plan somewhere in NDHQ in Ottawa for a war between the US and Canada, its one thing to make a contingency plan in case disaster strikes and its another thing to make a contingency plan, start stripping your nation of defences for that contingency plan exactly at the time you need to be strengthening your defences to be able to avoid that particular contingency.

So planning Beatrice, while the war seems to favoring your side, is not an act of madness; but an act of caution, not because they knew specifically about Apollo, but because they knew that Manticore had made advances before.

I am not arguing about their planning Beatrice, I am arguing them moving forward with Beatrice and gathering ships and logistical support for the operation. It's one thing to have a plan and dust it off in case you need it, or have a plan and stockpile ammunition ahead of time and its a whole different thing to be deploying 45+% of their Operational SD(P)'s for a contingency they really didn't intent to execute.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Yes, assuming that, because the #1 Rule of Space Warfare: don't make it easy for the enemy to kill you. What you said means they stopped trying to catch the drones. That doesn't mean they made it easy for those drones to collate accurate information. Keep translating in an out of the system, never show your entire force, and the drone has a less-than-accurate picture of which ambush fleet is present, if any.

How long can you keep that up? A day, week, month, two months? If it was so easy the intelligence for either side would be non existent. They would have to put dozens of republic systems on essentially lockdown to keep the MA from finding out. If the RHN keeps sending the same fleet in an out of the system to confuse a RD that may or may not be there means those SD(P)'s are not used for the system defence, and if they are the last thing you want is to have your picket caught out of position.

If what you are suggesting was a legitimate option they would have done it during the first war and hidden all of their ship movements and ONI would know be able to confirm movements of BB's from secondary systems let alone SD's from primary systems.

Indeed. It didn't seem to occur to anyone at ONI that the RHN had that many ships and yet wasn't attacking as strongly as they could have. We discussed this in the "What's wrong with AAC" thread.

Most of those extra ships I am arguing about would have been coming out of the yards and finishing their workup within the previous few months, so until March-May 1921 the RHN would have been 400-500 SD(P)'s. They were just getting their numbers up and offensives would have happened sooner rather than later.

tlb wrote:So planning Beatrice, while the war seems to favoring your side, is not an act of madness; but an act of caution, not because they knew specifically about Apollo, but because they knew that Manticore had made advances before.

Sigs wrote:I am not arguing about their planning Beatrice, I am arguing them moving forward with Beatrice and gathering ships and logistical support for the operation. It's one thing to have a plan and dust it off in case you need it, or have a plan and stockpile ammunition ahead of time and its a whole different thing to be deploying 45+% of their Operational SD(P)'s for a contingency they really didn't intent to execute.

Good, so your fundamental problem is with the forward deployment; provided that it could not be used for any other plan. When stated that way I am in agreement that a forward deployment might make it more difficult to obtain the prerequisites for Camille (as an example).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I'm sure lots of people will doubt. That's why he sends most of his forces away from the hyperlimit, thereby screwing up his chances of catching the Alliance forces by surprise. He then proceeds with a single SD(P) and make himself vulnerable.

He only has to convince them to hold off for another 2 or 3 weeks, until a courier comes from Haven with diplomats. Meanwhile, he's negotiating.

-There is a disagreement on pre war correspondence
-A summit is agreed upon.
-A number of assassinations happen
-Summit is called off.
-The MA crushes one of the Ambush Fleets
-Manticore and Grayson Home systems are completely trashed during war
-2nd Fleet shows up shortly thereafter and declares they didn't do it
-a single SD(P) comes into the system with the RHN's top field commander

If the SEM's civilian leadership didn't believe them when the RoH claimed they had nothing to do with the assassinations, what makes you think they will believe the RoH when they say they had nothing to do with OB?

TFLYTSNBN wrote:
The PRH had never fought a war with a multiple system star nation prior to the opening war with Manticore. All of their conquests had been single system polities with no colonies or allied systems where they might​ have additional forces stationed. The PRH had also had vast numerical superiority over it's victims.

The SKM was a single system nation, having 20 or 30 allies doesn't change the fact that 95+% of the MA's alliance during the first was in one system, take out the system and war is over or at least can be finished at your convenience.

Sigs wrote:

tlb wrote:Most people would agree that Beatrice was too dangerous to execute before Lovat, because Haven still had the chance to win by attrition. I believe I can exclude KZT from this, because his argument has been that Haven's best chance to win would have been to execute something like Beatrice as the opening stroke of the war.

It would have been their best chance to win the war because the RMN's SDP were stretched so thin it wasn't even funny. If my math is correct, they had 23 SD(P)'s in Home Fleet along with ~50 SD's. Home Fleet was a mess, they were not ready, the RHN could have gathered as much intel they wanted with how Janacek ran the RMN.

1st Fleet, 2nd Fleet and TF 10 going after Manticore would have crushed the entire RMN, Captured the system without too much worry. Now here is a good time to take a risk, end the war before it begins. The RMN's ONI was a joke, they didn't know how many SD(P)'s the RHN had, hell they didn't know they had SD(P)'s until the RoH told everyone they did. Sending 144 SD(P)'s and every SD you have to Manticore, while sending another 100 SD(P)'s to Trevor's Star as distraction would have drawn out 3rd Fleet and if the GSN was present them as well, hang around menacingly but never cross the Hyper limit. The RHN had access to the Junction so coordination wouldn't be a problem.

Though war is the continuation of politics by other means. Winning the war in one stroke doesn't really serve the restored Haven Republic's political ends. It makes it hard to establish a lasting non-hostile peace with Manticore and it utterly undermines their attempts to show that they're not like the Committee of Public Safety or Hereditary President Harris's government.

So militarily, yes they had a significantly better than even chance of crushing Home Fleet plus whatever made an emergency transit back from Trevor's Star to reenforce Manticore. And since this predates the Andies joining that would leave Grayson as the only powerful navy left in the Alliance. But it would prove that Haven couldn't be trusted, and ruin their diplomatic credibility for decades.

Of course Theisman might have been less confident of their margin of superiority since he's never battle tested any of the new ships and technology that were supposed to redress the imbalance Haven experienced during Buttercup. A massive attack on the Manticore system would be the worst time to find out that your SD(P)s and LACs needed a 5 or 10 to 1 advantage in numbers to defeat their RMN counterparts. Thunderbolt, despite dispersing his fleet, let him hit with greater local numerical superiority than he'd have been likely to muster against Manticore. Which if nothing else improves each force's likelihood of withdrawing relatively intact should they turn out not to be the equal of the defenders.

Also, Pritchart's preferred outcome of Thunderbolt was a new round of treaty talks where Manticore was willing to actually negotiate - and without the (As far as she knew) lying about diplomatic correspondence in furtherance of theory delaying; instead of the years of stonewalling for petty domestic political advantage. And to that end the only targets they hit, beyond the occupied systems, was the Grendlesbane yards (an unquestionably military target in an otherwise uninhabited system) and Honor's detached fleet out at Sidemore. And if they'd defeated Honor I'm confident that Haven's forces had very strict instructions to depart without any attempt to occupy Sidemore, nor damage/destroy any of their industry or stations; whether commercial or military. (Making it crystal clear that this wasn't an attempt to play conquistador)

Sigs wrote:If the SEM's civilian leadership didn't believe them when the RoH claimed they had nothing to do with the assassinations, what makes you think they will believe the RoH when they say they had nothing to do with OB?

That part is simple, since it requires a technology that is previously unknown. If Haven had it, then it would have been integrated into their war plans.

The assassination of Webster and the attempted assassination of Queen Berry required a biological expertise that Haven did not have. If they had borrowed it, then why would they implicate their own chauffeur?

It was the various assassinations that had proceeded these events, which could be traced directly to them, that made belief difficult. All that went away when Zilwicki and Cachet produced their evidence that Mesa was responsible.

Jonathan_S wrote:Though war is the continuation of politics by other means. Winning the war in one stroke doesn't really serve the restored Haven Republic's political ends. It makes it hard to establish a lasting non-hostile peace with Manticore and it utterly undermines their attempts to show that they're not like the Committee of Public Safety or Hereditary President Harris's government.

If they attack, and in one blow they take out Home Fleet and their 23 SD(P)'s, then force the SKM to surrender they could dictate terms. Those terms don't have to be insane and they don't have to be punitive but they can show the galaxy they are different by offering their terms, coming to an agreement without conquering the SKM or destroying their industry.

So militarily, yes they had a significantly better than even chance of crushing Home Fleet plus whatever made an emergency transit back from Trevor's Star to reenforce Manticore. And since this predates the Andies joining that would leave Grayson as the only powerful navy left in the Alliance. But it would prove that Haven couldn't be trusted, and ruin their diplomatic credibility for decades.

And thunderbolt did what exactly? Their goal was to take their systems back and force Manticore back to the negotiation table but seriously this time. Option 1 starts and ends the war in a day and the negotiations start from the beginning face to face. With Home Fleet and their 23 SD(P)'s and 50 SD's destroyed, whatever is in Trevor's Star drawn far away from the terminal they will have no option, and when the RHN doesn't destroy the SKM's industry but offers them the same terms that they offered before they would have had a better chance at negotiating a lasting peace than if they had accomplished all their goals in Thunderbolt they would have destroyed 128 SD/SD(P)'s, 57 BC's, 100-120 DD/CL/CA's, and 4,000 LAC's. Instead they only managed to destroy 61 SD/SD(P)'s, 41 BC's, 70 CL/CA's and 2,600 LAC's. I would say that they would have destroyed a hell of alot less in one go at the home system than going after dozens of systems including Marsh which landed the IAN on the side of the MA.

Of course Theisman might have been less confident of their margin of superiority since he's never battle tested any of the new ships and technology that were supposed to redress the imbalance Haven experienced during Buttercup. A massive attack on the Manticore system would be the worst time to find out that your SD(P)s and LACs needed a 5 or 10 to 1 advantage in numbers to defeat their RMN counterparts.

I don't think Thunderbolt was any better. If they found out that the RHN needed 10-1 odds to defeat one alliance SD(P) or even 5-1 odds it would have been game over any way. Can't really attack the SKM, find out that your new tech isn't really up to standard and call a timeout until you figure it out.

If the RHN found out that their 100 SD(P)'s attacking Trevor's star weren't up to the task the first they hear of it would be when the survivors if there are any come back into the nearest base. Same goes for Grednelsbane and Marsh. It would have been game over if the RHN send out 140+ SD(P)'s on Thunderbolt and found out too late they were quite inferior and it would have been just as bad if they had send them into the Manticore HS to figure it out, one would have been more spectacular than the other but it would have been the same result.

Thunderbolt, despite dispersing his fleet, let him hit with greater local numerical superiority than he'd have been likely to muster against Manticore. Which if nothing else improves each force's likelihood of withdrawing relatively intact should they turn out not to be the equal of the defenders.

No it didn't. He used 144 SD(P)'s to hit 46 in Trevor's Star, 6 SD(P)'s in Marsh and 7 SD(P)'s in Grendelsbane. So instead of using 100-120 SD(P)'s against 23 SD(P)'s he send 144 SD(P)'s against ~60 SD(P)'s

Attacking Manticore with 120 SD(P)'s gives you a little over 5-1 odds while in Thunderbolt at Grendelsbane it was 4.5-1, Marsh 2-1, Trevor's Star 2-1 without counting the GSN or the Protector's Own. The best time to find out that your tech is not quite as good as you though it was would be when it is at 5-1 odds, not when its 2-1 odds.

Also, Pritchart's preferred outcome of Thunderbolt was a new round of treaty talks where Manticore was willing to actually negotiate - and without the (As far as she knew) lying about diplomatic correspondence in furtherance of theory delaying; instead of the years of stonewalling for petty domestic political advantage. And to that end the only targets they hit, beyond the occupied systems, was the Grendlesbane yards (an unquestionably military target in an otherwise uninhabited system) and Honor's detached fleet out at Sidemore. And if they'd defeated Honor I'm confident that Haven's forces had very strict instructions to depart without any attempt to occupy Sidemore, nor damage/destroy any of their industry or stations; whether commercial or military. (Making it crystal clear that this wasn't an attempt to play conquistador)

What about Trevor's Star? If they had gone through with the attack and the GSN wasn't there they would have destroyed 46 SD(P)'s and 50 SD's, if the Protector's Own wasn't in Marsh they would have destroyed a further 6 SD(P)'s and 36 DN/SD's and if Admiral Higgins was less careful they could have gotten a further 16 SD's and 4 CLAC's in combat at Grendelsbane. I imagine having your capital captured and Home Fleet destroyed would have pissed off the queen and parliament to no end, but if the RoH had approached the aftermath diplomatically the Queen and the SKM would have been a hell of a lot less pissed off than if Thunderbolt had gone according to plan and they had lost another 52 SD(P)'s(69% of the RMN SD(P)) and 102 SD's.


If they blew away Home Fleet's 23 SD(P)'s and 50 SD's, destroyed whatever fixed defences are around Manticore and made an offer that is reasonable they would have had a hell of a lot more luck than if they had killed another 250,000-300,000 RMN personell.

tlb wrote:That part is simple, since it requires a technology that is previously unknown. If Haven had it, then it would have been integrated into their war plans.

Unless they were planning on using it and Lovat happened. Now they are panicking because there is an EE violation, actually several of them and they are saying its not us...

The assassination of Webster and the attempted assassination of Queen Berry required a biological expertise that Haven did not have. If they had borrowed it, then why would they implicate their own chauffeur?

That argument to my recollection was brought up in the books, and it came down to they were dumb/arrogant/didn't care...

It was the various assassinations that had proceeded these events, which could be traced directly to them, that made belief difficult. All that went away when Zilwicki and Cachet produced their evidence that Mesa was responsible.

Yes, but this is before Cachet and Zilwicki, months before that. As far as the SKM is concerned the RoH tried to or succeeded in assassinating several high ranking members of the SKM or their allies and then they blew up the industry of the Home System in a similar fashion to how they assassinated Allen Summervale and tried to assassinate the Queen. Then promptly came into the HS with a massive fleet and denied it happened.