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

Sigs wrote:
However, if there are other SD(P)s and LACs taking up the balance of the defence needs, they should be quite effective.

If I were facing BC(P)'s and SD(P)'s mix I would be giving the BC(P)'s special attention since they are easier to kill. If the RMN doesn't think they can stand in the wall I don't see why they would be good in the wall past the first volley.[/quote]
They are just as survivable as SD(P) in a heavy combat situation. Which is not at all. The trick is to fire off everything you can before you get killed.

Consider the likely outcome if Home Fleet in BOM was composed entirely of BC(P)s. Would Home Fleet have suffered more losses? Hah! But they would have had a hell of a lot more fire control and fired a lot more missiles. So more of Second Fleet would have been destroyed. And in the end a lot fewer RMN personel would have died.

tlb wrote:Who is this 2nd fleet that is going to be crushed? The perpetrators of OB were not even a fleet.

Sigs wrote:If the Manticore Government thinks Haven is guilty of the attacks and 2nd Fleet showing up on the heels of the attack would suggest it was I doubt they would care how they would just crush them if they had the means.

In chapter 30 of Mission of Honor, no one believes that it is either Haven or the League that committed this act. All the fingers are pointing toward Mesa:

"I'd just like to add something to what Tom's said, Your Majesty," he said. "First, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the people who did this did it in hopes that either the League or the Republic will finish us off before we can recover. Frankly, I don't know how likely they are to succeed, if that was their intention; there are too many political and diplomatic elements tied up in that kind of decision tree for me to offer any kind of meaningful opinion. But, secondly, the one thing that's struck me about this—in addition to what Tom and Sonja have said about new drive technologies—is that the people behind it can't have a very large navy."

tlb wrote:Although she feels that this an EE violation, most of the language is about strikes on the planet surface. We have people in this forum that claimed what Honor did to the orbital structures in the Sol System included EE violations, because some of what was destroyed was purely civilian (although without the civilian deaths that Hypatia was facing).

Hypatia was given a deadline that would have reduced deaths and in that respect was not much different than Haven's destruction at Basilisk when not all civilians could abandon the targets (warehouses and transshipment terminals) in time. This might be an example of the paradox of the heap.

I think there is more gray area on the question of orbital structures than you suggest. I believe the woman was responding to the spirit, rather than the letter of the Edict.

Sigs wrote:I don't think anyone is really concerned with the civilian structures, it is the civilians occupying the structure. In Hypatia they were given insufficient time to evacuate so it would be an EE violation against a purely civilian structure with civilians on board, it was a terror strike that served no other purpose, the SLN wasn't demanding a surrender or else, they were going to blow it regardless of what Hypatia said or did and regardless of how many civilians were on board. In Sol all those structures were empty before they were destroyed.

Well there were people in this forum that were concerned about civilian orbital structures, despite being empty.

At Basilisk Haven could not give sufficient time to completely evacuate (it was a drive-by shooting after all); but we are giving them credit that is not being afforded the SLN at Hypatia. The situation is more similar than you suggest. The quantifiable difference is that one had a death count between hundreds and thousands, while the other had a potential count in the millions. At what point is the line drawn? Would it be okay if the SLN command had extended the deadline so the count was less than a million or would it need to be under a hundred thousand?

tlb wrote:As an example, I thought the Green Pines nuclear explosion would count against Cachet and Zilwicki as an EE violation; but RFC explained that it did not qualify. It was murderous, but a civilian explosive would not reach the level to violate the Edict.

Sigs wrote:So it's like how the world feels about Syria, we don't mind you killing your citizens, just don't kill them with gas. So if you are in orbit and you don't kill that many people would it count as an EE violation? Or if you send down your marines with civilian grade nukes?

If the whole world were horrified by the conduct of the Syrian government, then the situation would be completely different; instead the Russian government is acting as its friend and protector. So what can those parts of the world do, when they object to the conduct?

If you are in orbit and the planet is resisting your surrender demand, then you are permitted to use things much stronger than civilian grade nukes.

Sigs wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
You're both saying the same thing: BC(P)s cannot defend themselves very well against the weight of fire and especially the endurance of that fire that an SD(P) can sustain. So you'd never send BC(P)s alone against SD(P)s.

However, if there are other SD(P)s and LACs taking up the balance of the defence needs, they should be quite effective.

If I were facing BC(P)'s and SD(P)'s mix I would be giving the BC(P)'s special attention since they are easier to kill. If the RMN doesn't think they can stand in the wall I don't see why they would be good in the wall past the first volley.

That accurately describes the Grayson's doctrine for employing BC(P)s to augment their wall of battle. The BC(P)s were intended to dump their pods, banding many of the pods off to SD(P)s and SDs, then reposition themselves behind the wall so they will not receive "special attention.". This would massively augment the opening salvos while preserving the ammo load of the SD(P)s.

Do not forget that the BC(P) concept evolved at a time when Haven didn't have SD(p)s and it was expected that they would not have them any time soon. The BC(P)s were intended to be Battlecruisers. It was expected that they would perform normal BC functions. However; since the BC(P)s evolved during the phony peace when Manticore was no longer a reliable Ally, the BC(P)s were also expected to be able to hold their own against Haven's conventional SDs and BBs. After the battle in FLAG IN EXILE, Grayson was particularly motivated by the need to rapidly enhance it's ability to defend it's own system. BC(P)s were the cost effective answer.

For the RMN, the BC(P)s were an experiment to develop a BC that would operate as a BC in an era of multiple drive missiles. Manticore had the advantage of knowing that the MK-16 was in development and designed the Agememnons with the expectation that the new missiles would be the preferred load out. The Nike was an alternative design that was entirely dependent on the MK-16 being a successful program. Once the Mk-16G was introduced, the Nike was indisputably the better design.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:
That accurately describes the Grayson's doctrine for employing BC(P)s to augment their wall of battle. The BC(P)s were intended to dump their pods, banding many of the pods off to SD(P)s and SDs, then reposition themselves behind the wall so they will not receive "special attention.". This would massively augment the opening salvos while preserving the ammo load of the SD(P)s.

Do not forget that the BC(P) concept evolved at a time when Haven didn't have SD(p)s and it was expected that they would not have them any time soon. The BC(P)s were intended to be Battlecruisers. It was expected that they would perform normal BC functions. However; since the BC(P)s evolved during the phony peace when Manticore was no longer a reliable Ally, the BC(P)s were also expected to be able to hold their own against Haven's conventional SDs and BBs. After the battle in FLAG IN EXILE, Grayson was particularly motivated by the need to rapidly enhance it's ability to defend it's own system. BC(P)s were the cost effective answer.

For the RMN, the BC(P)s were an experiment to develop a BC that would operate as a BC in an era of multiple drive missiles. Manticore had the advantage of knowing that the MK-16 was in development and designed the Agememnons with the expectation that the new missiles would be the preferred load out. The Nike was an alternative design that was entirely dependent on the MK-16 being a successful program. Once the Mk-16G was introduced, the Nike was indisputably the better design.

It should also be noted that rayson does not use BCs the same way Manticore does, that have 2 separate needs and doctrine fro their uses.

Manticore had 3 roles for it's BCs:

1) Manticore, with it's wide trading empire and thousands of trading relationship partners, relied on BCs to be it's heavy hitters across the galaxy. When trouble brewed, a division or Squadron of BCs was used to send the message or deal with the issue. Everyone knew Manticore had more power to back up whatever was sent, so just a handful of Manticore BCs (which were the equal to anyone else's designs, and most nation's entire navy) could handle most items.

2) Heavy raiders. Manticore had a pre-war doctrine of BC (and CA) raiding parties to do commerce raiding, harass lightly defended systems, and prey on small defenders. Against a major power like Haven, Manticore'a BC raiders got their wings clipped, which taught Grayson at a time when they were building up their forces.

3) Wall escorts. Most nations with wallers have a doctrine which ties CAs or BCs tight into Waller formations to boost antimissile defenses, cover holes in the formation, and increase the throw weight of a formation. Manticore was slightly less focused on this than other navies - keeping many BCs available for #2

Grayson, had no need for BCs as a diplomatic heavy in the hinterlands, and saw what Haven did to Manticore's BCs during raids. As mentioned, they prefer to tie them to the Wall, not as missile sponges, but as missile adjuncts, and to keep them as the fast wing of waller tactics.

TFLYTSNBN wrote: Once the Mk-16G was introduced, the Nike was indisputably the better design.

It really depends on what you need them to do and how you arm them. A couple of Nikes vs a SD(P) with MDMs will get blown to hell and not do a whole lot of damage at 60m km. A group of BC(P) will provide a better result. But in both cases it will probably be a bad day to be on a BC.

Sigs wrote:I don't think it would be that easy to especially considering some of the new ships could be a new SD design. But it doesn't matter because my bigger concern would be scaring 3rd Fleet away. If 2nd Fleet shows up in the system with 250 of the wall against 100 of the wall and they figure out that the RHN brought in 180 Wallers vs the RMN's 46 they would likely retreat rather than get destroyed for nothing especially since this represents 56% of the entire SD(P) force of the RMN. Depends on how well the terminal is defended with forts, I would retreat to the terminal and let them have the system for now which would cause 1st Fleet problems, not insurmountable problems but bigger casualties type of problems.

Not sure who you meant here that would retreat. Did you mean that the Havenite forces would retreat? That doesn't make sense.

Did you mean Third Fleet? If Kuzak knew she was facing 180 DuQuesne-class or even improved conventional SDs, she would engage and destroy them before any of them got into missile range. But that's unlikely, since she'd question why suddenly the RHN thought its obsolete ships could have a fighting chance when 4 years before they couldn't. So there had to be a trick. Hence, swarms of RDs, which detect deployed pods and pods coming out of the stern of pod-layers.

But if she avoids engagement and retreats, that means she retreats TO Manticore, reinforcing Home Fleet against its attackers. That's not good for Thunderbolt.

What would worry me is that it might end up with 46 RMN SD(P)'s, 40 GS SD(P)'s and 1,000 Katana's on the wrong side of the Terminal, if you do something that pisses them off they can wreak Haven and all the other core systems just as easily as you can wreak Manticore because if the Junction Forts refuse to surrender you have to rush back fast to stop them. If you split the fleet and 2nd Fleet CO determines it is safer to retreat then you have a major force to protect Haven and the core systems, but if you take Manticore with 315 SD(P)'s there is nothing to stop 3rd Fleet and the GSN TF.

You're right it's possible that San Martin declares immediate independence and Third Fleet becomes the San Martin Navy. Since they are much closer than Haven than the Havenite forces are, uncovering all the Haven critical systems of its modern defence invites counterattacks. So attacking Manticore only is a risky proposition.

And don't forget the 75 SD(P)s of the GSN that weren't expected to be in either Manticore or Trevor's Star.

Worst case scenario from the POV of the RHN is that the RMN has deployed 50 SD's to both Marsh and Grendelsbane and kept all the SD(P)'s home and the GSN sends the Protector's Own as well while at the same time both 3rd Fleet and the GSN TF retreat to Manticore because then the RHN would be facing more firepower than they can fight off. But what are the chances that the GSN would send the Protector's Own the Manticore and the RMN would basically abandon Marsh and Grendelsbane especially considering the number of ships in the system?

The GSN did send the Protector's Own and a great deal of its forces away from Grayson at exactly that time, so the chances were "good". If the RHN attacks in two prongs and the GSN comes through the wormhole in response to case Zulu, whether Third Fleet comes as well or not, the RHN attack on Manticore is doomed to failure. When Lester did come with 250 SD(P)s against Home Fleet, he wiped Home Fleet but in turn was getting wiped by Third Fleet. If it wasn't for Chin arriving with the RHN 5th, he'd have surrendered earlier. And this is the scenario you've painted here.

The only way this succeeds is if the Trevor's Star attack manages to keep any substantial forces from transiting to aid Home Fleet's defence. That could be the GSN or it could be Third Fleet or it could be a visiting force of the IAN for all they knew. That's why I am saying that dividing the attack invites defeat in detail.

But I counter that by saying Haven didn't need to have the fleets in position, only to create reasonable doubt that the fleets could be in position. The MA intelligence can't know for certain that all the 620 SD(P)s are beyond a month's travel from Manticore.

Out of sight out of mind. The MA would be more open to take small risks by uncovering some less vital systems if there is no obvious and immediate threat.

Sure, but a small force of 24 or 32 SD(P)s that can be found every now and then (showing the flag) is sufficient to prevent the MA from uncovering those allies.

Irony note: "a small force" that is bigger than all but 6 navies in existence, fielding ships that at this time only 4 navies even had.

The RHN cant be strong everywhere so they have to pick the most likely systems to defend with ambush fleets, if the MA switches up the criteria for round three because they have a large influx of SD(P)'s, and since the republic is a democracy once again the President might be forced to bow to pressure at least in the short term and break up 2nd fleet into smaller pickets but once they lose the initiative they may have a hard time getting it back.

Being a democracy does not imply that the running of the war is done by popular vote or even by committee. There's a reason there's a Commander in Chief or equivalent rank in most polities, so all military decisions are done within the military hierarchy. In a time of war, with explicit war declared even, Pritchart and Theisman do not have to bow to popular pressure.

It may be politically inadvisable, but losing the war is also politically bad.

I wasn't clear in my statement, 150 SD(P)'s in 3 fleets of 50 SD(P)'s not 3 fleets of 150 SD(P)'s. Having a fleet of 50 SD(P)'s is strong enough that the MA has to gather a major force to take it, a force they cannot raise at the moment while the RHN can at any moment consolidate all 3 fleets into one system to be a little more menacing if they so choose. Having a force of 150 RHN SD(P)'s in the region keeps the SKM's HF at ~50 SD(P)'s, the GSN HF at ~60 SD(P)'s and the minor allies at between 50-90 between the lot of them. Having 150 SD(P)'s ties down anywhere between 160 to 200 Alliance SD(P)'s.

I agree that having a fleet of 50 SD(P) is strong enough that the MA has to honour the threat. Which means that 150 SD(P)s is overkill. The RHN only needs to make it look like it could have those ships available, exact strength unknown but no less than 24 or 32 SD(P)s.

Terminology issue here. I'm using secondary and core systems interchangeably here to mean systems like Solon and Lovat, though "core" encompasses both secondary and primary. Primary would be Haven, Bolthole and at most one or two more.

To me a core system is a system with SD(P) construction capabilities. Losing economic centers hurts, losing 1/8-1/4 of your capital shipbuilding capability and the ships under construction hurts more. Also in this group would be major CLAC yards and LAC yards. I believe in the book it said Lovat was in the top 20 systems in the republic but near the bottom of the top 20 so that's a lot of systems with more warfighting industry that could be considered core systems.

Again more or less agreeing. Losing a major shipyard would indeed be a problem, but we don't know how big those are. That's why I said Bolthole, Haven plus two more, the two with the biggest shipyards. That's four systems with shipyards. The other two systems with second-rank shipyards are probably guarded by ambush fleets anyway.

I think it's said Haven had six major shipyards, though that may have been in the PRH time, which means some could have been destroyed in the Civil War or hadn't yet been retooled to produce SD(P)s. But let's take that number for the moment. We know Bolthole can produce 300 SD(P)s and that was definitely the biggest yard. I'm going to call that fully 50% of the production capacity of the RHN. That leaves 300 slips across 5 other yards. They won't all be equal in size either, so I'd give Haven and the two other systems 80 slips in average. That leaves the final two only 20 slips apiece. Losing either of those yards would represent 3.3% loss of the shipbuilding and warfighting industry.

It might hurt, but it might be an acceptable trade off if they catch Eighth Fleet. And I'm not saying to uncover them at all. The RHN does have enough ships in those 620 that aren't working up to cover Haven, the two other primary systems, Bolthole, put another 3 squadrons in each of the two shipyard systems, and have left over for the ambush fleets. And yes, I'm including the 100 working up: they may not be the best that RHN has to offer yet so Theisman doesn't want to throw them against the single most defended system in the Galaxy, but they aren't useless for defence. They can be used in the ambush fleets in either a secondary position or under capable leadership. And they need to be somewhere to work up too, so they may as well be in secondary systems.

Giscard's Fleet was of 48 SD(P)'s with only 32 SD(P)'s being destroyed before Bogey 4 was out of range.

Wrong battle. You're quoting the numbers of the Battle of Lovat and I was thinking of the Battle of Solon. But that's a good point that the Ambush fleet was scaled up from 4 to 6 squadrons.

The RoH has at least 19 systems more important than Lovat, so they have permanent fleet covering 4 of those systems and maybe 1-2 ambush fleets will cover some of the rest because likely some of those systems will not meet the criteria for cutworm I,II,III. So basically it would be 5-6 of your 20 most important systems will have SD(P)'s 2 of the most likely trgets outside of those 20 systems will be covered and the rest of the republic will not be covered.

Ok, this is a good point too. If Sanskrit was attacking one of the Top 20 and the RHN wanted to cover them all, they'd have 420 ships (620 minus Haven and Bolthole) to do it with, for an average of 23.3 ships per system. But even with a 956 ship total (in May 1921), that's still 42 per system on average. That's a worse ratio if we say that two systems beyond the capital and Bolthole had forces bigger than Giscard's (64), because that reduces to (420-64*2)/16 = 18.25 or (756-64*2) = 29.25 on average. Either way, we have to conclude that the RHN had to guess where and uncover some of the systems so they could be actually strong when Honor showed up.

Since they had to make a guess any way, there's no reason to believe that they a lot more ships.

Like I said before, if its that desperate a situation I would forget about training and do it live with every ship I can get my hands on in a reasonable timeframe.

Thankfully Theisman and the Octagon thought differently. Launching such a desperate attack without training is likely just going to get his spacers killed for little reason. Without having first analysed the possible failure points so they'd know how to react to Third and Eighth Fleets arriving at different times, how to scout the Junction, how to call Chin in, etc. the chances of winning are lousy.

That might have been the case if Eighth Fleet had showed up in Haven and annihilated Capital Fleet or showed up in Bolthole and reduced it to slag. Then the RHN would have nothing but one throw of the dice with 520 SD(P)s. And even then I don't think they would have, because if Eighth Fleet had gone through 100 Havenite SD(P)s to achieve its objective, sending 520 more into the same maw might also be just another massacre.

So it was good that they had a contingency plan for "we have one last chance."

If you send a squadron of SD(P)'s somewhere you have to send a squadron of SD(P)'s, if you try to be sneaky the RD's might catch you. But more importantly you end up looking real sloppy, real quick if they keep seeing all this movement when before they caught nothing so someone will ask the question why is the RHN suddenly so sloppy.

They might catch you but they might not. I'm not saying this is the best plan that the RHN had for hiding the ambush fleets, this is just one idea. If they had better ideas, by all means use them. My point is only that an ambush fleet is, by necessity, a hidden variable. And clearly whatever they did worked in Solon, since Honor didn't see Giscard coming. In Lovat, one can argue that they went for a system with an ambush fleet in order to use Apollo, but I doubt that Honor's planners were courting danger. They'd have tried to minimise it.

continue scouting until you get there, set up shop in an empty system close to 2 or 3 prospective targets and continue scouting, instead of intel being weeks or months out of date 8th Fleet would have up to date information. If they see 6 SD(P)'s going into the system but none come out and they cant find the SD(P)'s they might reach the conclusion its a decoy, if they see the same trick played out over a few systems they may see a pattern and actually catch one or more of those Squadrons in the process of coming into the system or sneaking out of the system.

Haven did definitely have enough ships to send 6 SD(P)s to all 18 Top 20 systems besides Haven and Bolthole and still have 5 squadrons left. So waiting might not be an acceptable option for Eighth Fleet. Not to mention that the Top 20 systems need not be concentrated in a small volume: some of them may be weeks away from Haven and wherever Eighth Fleet sets up shop. So any intel Honor gets is two weeks out of date by the time she comes to that particular system.

And as I was trying to say above, you may be able to see 6 SD(P)s in the inner system (limited volume for RDs to look at) but not in the outer system...

They are in a democracy. When you don't have enough ships to protect the republic, people start demanding answers and protection, when you keep losing infrastructure in your systems people end up really pissed and things happen, things that undermine the government not to mention the moral of the fleet when they cant defend the republic.

So you may as well surrender then. There's no way that the RHN could have adequate protection for all Top 20 systems, even with 956 SD(P)s, much less the entire republic. See math above.

Trashing 3rd rate systems helps the war effort by forcing the RoH government to spend resources in emergency aid to the system, those resources cannot be used to build more SD(P)'s. How many systems losing their industry would it take and the RHN being unable to stop 8th Fleet before systems start seceding from the RoH?

A lot. First of all, Bolthole is completely isolated from all of this and the MA knew it. They couldn't find supply ships to follow to Bolthole, so they knew Bolthole wasn't consuming production from elsewhere. And they couldn't find supply ships coming out of Bolthole either.

Second, the Top 5 systems in the Republic probably account for 80% of the industry, so they can aid all of those that get raided without a huge loss in the war-fighting production. I'm not saying it'll be nice, but it can be done. In the cold calculus of war, you have to make some unpopular choices.

Finally, if they secede, it's a blow for the Pritchart Administration, but it's a net gain or at worst a neutral result. The systems that are most likely to secede are the ones that aren't being protected in the first place because they aren't big contributing factors to the economy.

Unless I didn't want to run into an ambush and go for weaker targets. Just because they were leading up to something doesn't mean they have to follow through with it, in fact it means they should switch up. Hitting 9 smaller targets deep in the republic while a couple of hundred SD's hit up all the systems that the RHN captured at the beginning of the war because they are now defenceless seems like a win to me and the RoH moral will tank because they are back to where they were in 1915.

And cede the initiative to the RHN. Preventing that from happening was the entire reason for attacking in the first place. So, no, Eighth Fleet wouldn't do that. It doesn't sound like a win to me any more than the RHN attacking Basilisk.

So by march the first 100 SD(P)'s are finishing their 60 days Workup, by April another batch of 100 SD(P)'s is finishing their workup, by May its another 100, by June its another 100, coincidently the 100 SD(P)'s he mentioned working up.

If Theisman had 956 SD(P)s plus however many CLACs go along with that at the time he'd expected to have to launch Beatrice, even if 100 are working up, he'd have sent more than 335 at Manticore. For an outright win, you play big or you lose.

That's saying before Lovat. After Lovat, when it was clear that the MA had Apollo, he wouldn't have sent any fewer ships than he could have. If he knows that he either has to win in that battle or surrender, why would he keep two thirds of his fleet back? It doesn't matter if he misses Eighth Fleet on a new sortie and they trash a critical shipyards: either way, the war is over and the need for shipyards drops dramatically. There was sufficient time to send for ships close to Haven and get them moving to the rally point before launching.

335 is just about everything that he could send, short for the 100 in Capital Fleet, 100 in Bolthole and some other systems that couldn't be recalled in time and the least ready of the ships still working up. He can't send a good portion of Capital Fleet because the news of its movement would make to Manticore before those ships; he wouldn't send the least ready of the ships because that's just throwing spacer lives away and could possibly hinder the other good ships (net negative contribution). And no, don't say "send those working up to Trevor's Star to prevent Third and Eighth Fleets from transiting."

Sigs wrote: What about Thunderbolt? Did he know that it was his government that messed with the papers? Just because you would likely know doesn't mean you will definitely know if someone is using their own agents for this. Besides this seems sucpiciously like what happened to the queen in 1915 except for the target.

He knew exactly what his government was up to. He didn't know that a rogue element inside the government had messed up the communication.

In 1915 they used a similar style of weapon in a similar manner, how hard is it to look at the two, look at the history of the republic and think it might actually be them.

No, they didn't. There's a huge difference in scale here. A person properly placed can intercept communications. A small operation can send an assassination squad. Neither of them can create a whole new technology that would be effective against the entire massed defences of the Manticore Binary System, then build sufficient ships around that technology to attack three targets simultaneously. This required resources that could only be funded by a major national government. And he knew his government wasn't that one.

If the attack had been what happened later in Beowulf, yes, I could believe so. A bomb smuggled into the space stations is something that can be done by a small team.

Which begs the annoying question: why didn't the MAlign do that instead of launching Oyster Bay? There's a chance it will be intercepted, true, but if it isn't caught, there are three very big benefits:

1. There's no tipping the hand that the MAlign exists in the first place.

2. There's no revelation of radical new technology and stealth systems.

3. It plays to the stereotype of the Peeps, especially because as you say this had happened before, which would make it far more likely for Manticore to assume it was a Havenite plot.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If the attack had been what happened later in Beowulf, yes, I could believe so. A bomb smuggled into the space stations is something that can be done by a small team.

Which begs the annoying question: why didn't the MAlign do that instead of launching Oyster Bay? There's a chance it will be intercepted, true, but if it isn't caught, there are three very big benefits:

1. There's no tipping the hand that the MAlign exists in the first place.

2. There's no revelation of radical new technology and stealth systems.

3. It plays to the stereotype of the Peeps, especially because as you say this had happened before, which would make it far more likely for Manticore to assume it was a Havenite plot.

But the Malign was trying to tip the scales so Manticore would lose, setting up its preferred opponents of Haven against the League. The Beowulf targets were compact, almost spherical; but the Manticoran space stations were vast sprawling beasts. Bombs that are disguised as undelivered cargo are not going to stop either the new ships being built or the missile production lines; since the cargo handling sites are probably far from the military sections.

Disguising the attacks as something Haven might do will just increase the Manticoran resolve.