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

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Under either set of rules escorted convoys of freighters may be attacked and destroyed without warning - the act of traveling in military convoy makes them military targets. If an enemy warship comes up while you're dealing with one of their freighters that freighter pretty much now gets treated as if under convoy. But otherwise the enemy's freighters can't be destroyed without warning - you need to give the civilian crew a chance to leave the ship and, assuming they heave to when ordered and cooperate in abandoning ship, you are responsibly for ensuring that they can reach safety. Once they've evacuated, or if the ship attempts to run or fight you, then you can destroy the ship.

Ah, I see. So if a warship is conducting commerce raiding and happens upon a civilian ship under the flag of the enemy, it can then demand the ship heave to, but it cannot fire upon that ship if they comply. If this ship suddenly gets a memo that they are needed elsewhere, they can't simply fire on the freighter, they'd have to let them go.

On the other hand, if an enemy warship turns up while they're preparing to board the freighter, the freighter becomes a military target and can be destroyed. So it's up to the warship of the enemy to decide whether to engage or not, because it knows it's putting those civilians at risk. It may need to wait out of range until the crew is safely transferred and the ship either taken into prize or scuttled, before beginning an approach.

Correct?

Yep, that's basically the classic age of sail cruiser rules. Though they also include the ability to take enemy freighters as prizes if you'd prefer to do that rather than destroy them. (And the USS Essex in her War of 1812 campaign against British ships in the Pacific, mostly whalers, took some as prizes and refitted them as additional US Navy raiders, took others as prizes to consolidate captured crews aboard, and from yet others removed their crews and burned the ships)

But whether destroyed or captured you have a duty of care for their civilian crews and need to ensure they are kept safe. (As long as they're cooperating reasonably) Even simply putting them into their ship's boats is deemed insufficient; unless they're basically within sight of a safe harbor or the like.

But yes, if you decide you can't wait around to take off their crew then you're not allowed to destroy the ship instead. (Though you could send over a prize crew to take control of it)


Though as a practical matter in age of sail, until the invention of shell guns near its very end, it'd take far longer to sink a freighter by gunfire that it'd take to remove its crew and then set it afire. So firing on a surrendering freighter takes longer than following the rules - so their wouldn't be much temptation to violate them like that.

Jonathan_S wrote:Yep, that's basically the classic age of sail cruiser rules. Though they also include the ability to take enemy freighters as prizes if you'd prefer to do that rather than destroy them. (And the USS Essex in her War of 1812 campaign against British ships in the Pacific, mostly whalers, took some as prizes and refitted them as additional US Navy raiders, took others as prizes to consolidate captured crews aboard, and from yet others removed their crews and burned the ships)

But whether destroyed or captured you have a duty of care for their civilian crews and need to ensure they are kept safe. (As long as they're cooperating reasonably) Even simply putting them into their ship's boats is deemed insufficient; unless they're basically within sight of a safe harbor or the like.

But yes, if you decide you can't wait around to take off their crew then you're not allowed to destroy the ship instead. (Though you could send over a prize crew to take control of it)

Though as a practical matter in age of sail, until the invention of shell guns near its very end, it'd take far longer to sink a freighter by gunfire that it'd take to remove its crew and then set it afire. So firing on a surrendering freighter takes longer than following the rules - so their wouldn't be much temptation to violate them like that.

One flaw in those rules is what happens if a Q-ship is employed (or is suspected of having been employed). The result is mentioned in chapter 1 of Honor Among Enemies:

Personally, White Haven doubted the concept was workable in the long term. The Peeps had used Q-ships of their own to some effect against previous enemies, but the fundamental weakness of the tactic was that it was unlikely to work against a proper navy more than once or twice. Once an enemy figured out you were using them, he'd simply start blowing away anything that might be a Q-ship from the maximum possible range.
*** snip ***
Where a Peep commerce raider might be willing to accept the risk of encountering a Q-ship in order to simply destroy Manticoran shipping, a pirate would be looking to capture his victims and would be unlikely to hazard his ship against a merchant cruiser unless he anticipated a particularly luscious prize.

That implies it is more a matter of the rules of engagement, than a strict rule on the conduct of war.

tlb wrote:One flaw in those rules is what happens if a Q-ship is employed (or is suspected of having been employed). The result is mentioned in chapter 1 of Honor Among Enemies:

Personally, White Haven doubted the concept was workable in the long term. The Peeps had used Q-ships of their own to some effect against previous enemies, but the fundamental weakness of the tactic was that it was unlikely to work against a proper navy more than once or twice. Once an enemy figured out you were using them, he'd simply start blowing away anything that might be a Q-ship from the maximum possible range.
*** snip ***
Where a Peep commerce raider might be willing to accept the risk of encountering a Q-ship in order to simply destroy Manticoran shipping, a pirate would be looking to capture his victims and would be unlikely to hazard his ship against a merchant cruiser unless he anticipated a particularly luscious prize.

That implies it is more a matter of the rules of engagement, than a strict rule on the conduct of war.

Which I mentioned (though without the reference to that bit from HAE, since I'd forgotten about it) in my original posts. Q-ships / disguised merchant raiders are a real problem. Just ask the non-existent survivors from the CL HMAS Sydney which had the misfortune to approach, unsuspecting, too close to the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran.

Q-ship (originally so named for anti-submarine work) was one of the justifications the Germans claimed for going to unrestricted submarine warfare in WWI. If any freighter might be secretly armed and capable of destroying you should you announced your presence - well you can argue, and the Germans did (though nobody else much accepted their argument) that means all freighters should be considered likely to be armed auxiliary warships and hence may be sunk without warning.


That was less of an issue with age of sail cruising rules since it was harder to disguise gunports at the effective combat ranges; so having hidden armament capable of dealing with even a fairly small warship was far less practical.

Jonathan_S wrote:
Which I mentioned (though without the reference to that bit from HAE, since I'd forgotten about it) in my original posts. Q-ships / disguised merchant raiders are a real problem. Just ask the non-existent survivors from the CL HMAS Sydney which had the misfortune to approach, unsuspecting, too close to the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran.

Q-ship (originally so named for anti-submarine work) was one of the justifications the Germans claimed for going to unrestricted submarine warfare in WWI. If any freighter might be secretly armed and capable of destroying you should you announced your presence - well you can argue, and the Germans did (though nobody else much accepted their argument) that means all freighters should be considered likely to be armed auxiliary warships and hence may be sunk without warning.


That was less of an issue with age of sail cruising rules since it was harder to disguise gunports at the effective combat ranges; so having hidden armament capable of dealing with even a fairly small warship was far less practical.

At the turn of the 20th century, virtually every large ship in most merchant marines had provisions for mounting a large gun or 2 in it's basic design. Companies usually were given construction money from their government to design ships as an auxiliary cruiser with weapons hardpoints (usually a couple 4-8" guns from the previous generation of warships). The Lusitania was one such ship and was listed in Janes' as an auxiliary cruiser, though it did not mount any of it's guns at the time of it's sinking.

tlb wrote:What you really mean is smaller in number of casualties compared to Beowulf; because physically Hephaestus is probably bigger than the orbitals destroyed at Beowulf combined.

Sigs wrote:That's what matters to me, the people.

But you stated this in answer to a question about using smuggled bombs to attack Manticore's orbital stations, and in that context it is irrelevant. Hephaestus was not a good target for a smuggled bomb (or several), precisely because of its enormous size: there was no way to get close to destroying either the shipyards or the missile production lines. Yes, it would create a major disturbance, but it would not alter the dynamics of the war.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
That doesn't bode well for the plan.

Doesn't bode well for the alliance when the Fleet Commander of 1st Fleet decides to invade Manticore on schedule and finds Home Fleet MIA.

In the real Second Battle of Trevor's Star, it was 100 RHN SD(P)s versus 86 GSN + RMN SD(P)s. Giscard left without engaging. I'm not sure he'd have engaged if he had had 180 SD(P)s. Any engagement would have cost him some of his ships, which would be needed to defend the republic against whatever remained of the RMN and GSN and IAN.

At what point would he have engaged? 10-1 odds? 1,000 to 1 odds? 1,000,000-1 odds? A 1,000,000,000-1 odds?

100-46 SD(P)'s is 2.17 to 1 odds in his favour, 180-86 SD(P)'s is 2.09-1 odds. If he was conforatable with 2 to 1 odds in one scenario, he would have been confortable with 2 to 1 odds in the other scenario.

And he happened to chance upon the GSN forces. If he hadn't and got ambushed, he would have no time to extricate himself. Risky plan.

And both the RMN and GSN would have suffered in that engagement.

And I repeat that "lose most of their ships" are a bad proposition unless that leads to outright victory or, like Beatrice planned, destroying the shipyards.

Not really, if 2nd Fleet is 90% destroyed and in the process destroys 3rd Fleet and the GSN task Force I think that's fair trade off. The MA would have 111 SD(P)'s to cover Grendelsbane, Manticore and Grayson while the RHN would still have 150 SD(P)'s from 1nd FLT if they didn't engage and whatever is left over from 2nd FLT. The SKM would have 100 SD(P)'s under construction and Grayson would have 50-100 SD(P)'s under construction but while the republic would still have almost 800 SD(P)'s under construction.

Difference is that instead of 8th Fleet having a 3 week round trip now its 8-10 weeks round trip because they lost Trevor's Star.

We know that the GSN had sent away 12 SD(P)s (or 16) to Sidemore and 40 to Trevor's Star. That's over two thirds of their total forces. So please don't argue that they wouldn't do what we know they did.

52/115 = over 2/3? That's not even 50%.

Those forces are sufficiently mobile. And if Haven has just had the vast majority of its SD(P) fleet smashed, the GSN forces can be effective. Plus the IAN.

1)You are assuming that the RHN ships get destroyed without firing a shot. If 180 SD(P)'s of the RHN get destroyed you better believe that the GSN and RMN are suffering insane casualties as well.
2)IAN was NOT part of the alliance during Thunderbolt and not really a concern at the time.
3)The GSN/RMN did NOT know how many SD(P)'s the republic had, the RHN could have had no more SD(P)'s or 300 more SD(P)'s.

The fact is that they were there. The RHN cannot make a plan that assumes that they won't be.

Sure they can, they were send to Sidmore because of Honor, not to help the RMN. If Honor was in the capital the Protector's Own would have stayed in Grayson or would have reinforced Grendelsbane.

The distance from Trevor's Star to Grendelsbane is the same, regardless of whether it's an RMN, GSN or RHN ship. And that distance might be shorter if starting from Manticore. We don't know.

?

Anyway, even if the RHN manages to take Trevor's Star and destroys the Grendelsbane yards, the attack on Manticore still failed and did chew up a significant portion of the ships sent there. Unless they also left, without achieving their objective, which leaves MA forces to retake Trevor's Star.

How do you figure? If the Allied fleet withdraws from Trevor's Star to Manticore right as 1st Fleet is coming in they will catch 1st Fleet between the 12 SD(P)'s of Home Fleet and 86 SD(P)'s of the combined Fleet from Trevor's Star, that is still 1.5 to odds. That is still 150 SD(P)'s, if the RHN gets 1st chewed up bad, chances are they didn't just let it happen they fought back and did the same to the Allied Fleet. With the odds they had they could have wiped that fleet and sailed away with at least a third of their ships.

He can't. If he's in sufficient range of Home Fleet to be effective, he doesn't have time to disengage from Home Fleet before the relief forces drop in outside the hyper limit. If he's in range of both, he's toast. If he's not in range of the relief forces, that means he's so far inside the hyper limit he won't be able to hyper out before they close the range, so he's also toast.

You mean the Home Fleet he outnumbers 12.5 to 1 in SD(P)'s? He doesn't have to disengage, Home Fleet is already expanding wreckage.

And in that situation, there's a good chance the admiral in charge will simply surrender with their ships, which subtracts from the RHN total and adds to the MA total. Not a good exchange.

So he will outnumber the enemy but surrender? Really?

The Alliance is not a central government. The multiple members are sovereign entities, have their own navies and will make their own decisions.

And only 3 of the alliance members had SD's at the time so the RMN still had to redeploy their and the GSN's SD's to cover the navies and the decisions they made.

I repeat myself: the forces preparing for Beatrice are available to serve as ambush fleets. Pre-deploying them does not mean sending them away from the core systems. It means moving them closer to Haven so the decision loop is shorter and consolidating in large groups so they can train together.

They are either training for Beatrice, or they are ambush fleet. The whole point of getting 240 SD(P)'s together is to TRAIN THEM, you don't put 240 SD(P)'s in a fleet and send them on their way to attack the most heavily defended system known to man without being comfortable that they can work well at the ship, division, squadron, task force and fleet level. IT's not as simple as getting 240 ships that have never operated in a fleet that large and send them on their way with a plan that requires precision. You don't do that unless you have no other choice.

Guess what ambush fleets are? Large groups of ships training together.

Guess what, 48 ships training together is a little different than 240 ships training together.

Don't say they had to be all together. The person that THeisman had picked to be their CO wasn't with them; he was in Lovat in one of the ambush fleets. So if Giscard was preparing for Beatrice and was serving at the same time in an ambush fleet, that supports my argument that the two things can be done at the same time.

You are 100% right, they just grabbed 7 individual fleets that had never operated in anything more than 50 SD(P) strength, put them together and send them on their way as the largest concentration of SD(P)'s ever deployed?

So why didn't he send 600 ships?

Read the book, I am getting tired of posting the same excerpts for you to ignore.

I'm interested on how you explain Giscard's presence in Lovat.

Killed before he can be recalled? They started gathering the ships for the operation and he was the last on the list. It's not like there was a year or two between the discussion and Lovat, there was a few weeks at most.

No. They aren't diversion. They are actual, inner system defence. A multi-vector defence usually implies at least one force coming from the inner system. So seeing a squadron in the inner system is expected and doesn't tell you if there are more forces in hyper or in the outer system.

Really? Because in Lovat they had SD's picketing the system and the entire SD(P) force dropped in on 8th Fleet.

Of course, two could play this game, but the leaders of those other sovereign nations are far more likely to make public noise than the governors of Havenite systems, especially if such a fleet was stationed on a system like Seaford Nine that didn't have a civilian population.

If there are civilians in the system, the person elected by the people will make noise, if he doesn't make noise the people will not elect him again. He will make noise because he also has stacked interest in keeping his systems industry and economy in one piece.

You could be wrong.

But I'm not.

If the primary and secondary systems remain, they may be able to support reconstruction of all the tertiary systems without significantly impacting the war-fighting ability.

The RoH is not exactly a model of a healthy economy, they have had 4 years to undo centuries of damage.

In any case, the point is moot because the MA simply doesn't have the time that it would take to do that in the first place.

Oh but they do. In a democracy, like Haven is supposed to be, the President cannot simply ignore duly elected public officials and do as she pleases especially when they control the budget. They see half a dozen systems economies destroyed and demand protection. At least in the short term after a large number of systems are attacked the RHN will have to redeploy to cover a lot more systems with less if necessary to assure the people they are heard.

Theisman knows that he can't let the war drag for too long, he has to conclude it before the balance shifts away from him.

Theisman cannot make unilateral decisions ignoring congress, you know the people funding the navy. Imagine what happens to his beloved constitution if he gambles on an offensive and loses while simultaneously ignoring the pleas of the duly elected officials and their constituents?

And because the MA knows that Haven knows this, they won't implement a plan that does little to the war-fighting ability of Haven.

What the hell was Lovat? It did nothing to their warfighting ability but lit a fire under their ass to get the war over now.

Unless the RHN is able to properly cover every system and I calculated above that they can't, there's no way that the Ambush Fleet's presence would be announced to the population. Even the governors wouldn't be told. That would be poor OpSec: who knows if the RMN ONI or the Manticoran SIS or the Andermani haven't penetrated that system's government?

That's my point, even the systems that are covered by a fleet don't know they are covered by a fleet, so every system aside from the 7-8 with visible fleets will be screaming for defences and the RHN will be nowhere to be found, not a good look in a democracy.

If they do turn up, it's likely they'll be armed with these weapons, so holding 600 ships back won't do any good, but would do a lot of bad.

Unless he alrwady had those 240 SD(P)'s ready and prepped and took 90 ships from the only fleet that had a that many ships in one place, they are already trained to work together and they work as a separate fleet from 2nd Fleet. Orders are get to 2nd Fleet, arm up and leave. Wether they had 590 SD(P)'s or 920 SD(P)'s after Lovat they should have send every ships they could get their hands on but they didn't, most likely because the majority of Beatrice Force was forward Deployed already.

Again, the planning doesn't matter right now. Why would Theisman hold back 620 ships if he knows they are paper tigers?

I am getting a headache from you. My issue is not POST LOVAT it is BEFORE LOVAT.

No. First, because stopping all ship movements in Haven for a month would be economically catastrophic. Maybe it was worth it if it had the desired effect.

Yeah because the alternative would not be economically catastrophic.

But second, because they couldn't stop the word getting out either way. The RMN doesn't depend on civilian traffic to scout Haven. They probably have a DD or CL dropping in once a week to find out what's going on and to keep tabs on Capital Fleet.

I'm going to assume that the RoH has sensors to light weeks away from Haven and they would know if the RMN is scouting them just like the RMN would know if the RHN is dropping DD's in the Manticore HS.

There are probably Manticoran RDs there.

Not likely.

Even without the RDs, the fact that the system is on lockdown is a dead giveaway that something is up.

Panic? Civil War? Civil disturbance? Coup?

The civilian newsfaxes that are broadcasting information in the open would have also be speculating on why Capital Fleet is suddenly gone.

And they cant go past the hyper limit.

tlb wrote:But you stated this in answer to a question about using smuggled bombs to attack Manticore's orbital stations, and in that context it is irrelevant. Hephaestus was not a good target for a smuggled bomb (or several), precisely because of its enormous size: there was no way to get close to destroying either the shipyards or the missile production lines. Yes, it would create a major disturbance, but it would not alter the dynamics of the war.

Its harder to smuggle a bomb in a station of 3 million people most of who are directly or indirectly employed for the war effort than it is to smuggle in a civilian station of 15 million people. but more importantly, the SKM most likely has their cargo transfer points in stations of their own far away from the planet and their manufacturing stations. If something is going to one of the stations it will be inspected. This adds more chances of discovery if a container has to go from the ship, to the transfer station, and from the transfer station to another SKM ship to one of the stations or the planet.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
No, it can't be just as easily. Fudging the correspondence took two people in the right places who otherwise had legitimate access to the correspondence.

And sending an attack to Manticore requires 1 senior officer at the right place. If Theisman or Giscard or Foraker had told their people we are doing this how many of them would have gone over their heads to the president to see if it was legitimate order or not?

tlb wrote:But you stated this in answer to a question about using smuggled bombs to attack Manticore's orbital stations, and in that context it is irrelevant. Hephaestus was not a good target for a smuggled bomb (or several), precisely because of its enormous size: there was no way to get close to destroying either the shipyards or the missile production lines. Yes, it would create a major disturbance, but it would not alter the dynamics of the war.

Sigs wrote:Its harder to smuggle a bomb in a station of 3 million people most of who are directly or indirectly employed for the war effort than it is to smuggle in a civilian station of 15 million people. but more importantly, the SKM most likely has their cargo transfer points in stations of their own far away from the planet and their manufacturing stations. If something is going to one of the stations it will be inspected. This adds more chances of discovery if a container has to go from the ship, to the transfer station, and from the transfer station to another SKM ship to one of the stations or the planet.

There is NO evidence for "cargo transfer points in stations of their own". Hephaestus was a mixture of everything, civilian and military. It was where the civilian ships docked bringing passengers and cargo. The paragraphs in Mission of Honor detail the movement of some of those people as the attack occurred. So there is NO justification for saying "most of who are directly or indirectly employed for the war effort". RFC has made it clear that most of the civilian manufacturing was there, not just military construction. From chapter 29:

"I don't know," he told her, unable to entirely keep the irritation out of his voice. The girl was incredibly bright and even more curious than most nine-year-olds, and she'd been one question after another ever since their shuttle delivered them to Hephaestus. To be honest, much as he loved her and as happy as her keen wittedness normally made him, John was looking forward to getting her settled aboard the ship to Beowulf, where there'd be no convenient windows and she could ask her questions of the ship's library.
*** snip ***
The Mesan graser which incinerated Passenger Concourse Green-317 terminated Jennifer Rivera's reflections upon her career prospects along with her, Manfred O'Neill, and four hundred and nineteen other arriving passengers from the Hauptman Lines starship Starlight.
Approximately three-hundredths of a second later, Starlight, her crew of twenty-eight, and the two hundred through-passengers to Sphinx who hadn't disembarked, followed them into destruction.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
The moment the attack starts on either side, the Junction locks down. So at best the spies on either side would be able to tell that the attack commenced, but not who's winning. If the forces in Trevor's Star had been significantly reinforced and the CO on the scene decides to withdraw, the first indication the CO on the Manticore side will have that this happened is when ships start transiting from Trevor's Star. Heck, maybe they bluffed with sensor decoys (and we know that's possible because Lorelei would exist in two years) and the CO fell for it!

1) Coordination for the attack happens before the attack is launched, not during the attack. I figured it was obvious but I will mention it now, coordination for the attack happens before either fleet moves like days before.

2) The CO in Manticore would have 12.5 to 1 odds against Home Fleet, I think he will be fine even if he has to run for it.

3) For an attack like this they send a very competent commander with combat experience, they wont send some random idiot who panics or gets tricked easily.

Not really. You're exchanging Trevor's Star for 140 of your SD(P)s, about half the force you had available. And there's a good chance 100 of those are surrendered in working conditions that add to the MA battle roster.

Really? You don't know much about the military do you?

Yes, they will. 2.1 to 1 is not overwhelming superiority. You risk losing the majority of your fleet when you won't have more SD(P)s for another 2 years, at least.

Neither will the other side. The Republic will have a hell of a lot more SD(P)'s sooner than the MA would.

This is "counting on the enemy doing what you expect them to do." Please describe your plan not in "most likely" but "in the worst case" (I'll grant you reasonable cases, not that High Ridge was actually brilliant, had a secret shipyard with 200 SD(P)s ready to go and was just playing dumb).

Worst Case scenario the GSN sends 115 SD(P)'s, all of their CLAC's, BC(P)'s and SD's to the Manticore system, the RMN deployes 100% of their SD(P)'s, BC(P)'s and SD's to the manticore system at which point the CO of the RHN fleet retreats, trashes Grendelsbane and captures Grayson because they were idiots and are defensless. So the MA is reduced to Manticore with 197 SD(P)'s combined Strength but only 35 SD(P)'s under construction. No Trevor's Star, no Grayson.

Those 10 would be in Marsh. The scenario here is that Honor gets recalled with here 6 SD(P) from Marsh unexpectedly. Tourville would still be there or on the way back, but not able to join the fighting.

The scenario I presented was an alternative to Thunderbolt in the books, not simultaneous. There are only two fleet and 2 attacks, Trevor's Star and Manticore. The SKM deployed 6 SD(P)'s to Marsh because of the IAN NOT because of the RHN.

Anyway, the RHN had 315 SD(P)s. 180 plus 140 is 320 already.

Anyway, the RHN had 318 plus the 10 they did not lose in Marsh because they were NOT deployed to Marsh.

And what's the contingency for that? Lose the war in one strike?

The contingency? RUN AWAY

Anyway, I'm not talking about 150 Alliance SD(P)s, let's say the 86 that were in Trevor's Star when Giscard didn't attack and the 18 more that Honor brought back with her: 104. Plus the conventional SDs that would be towing pods: 52 that were under Kuzak plus 25 more with Honor. And 11 DNs. Whoever was sent with 180 would withdraw. Your plan is for the attack in Trevor's Star to go first, so there would be no news through the Junction that the attack in Manticore was underway. The forces in Trevor's Star need to assume they're on their own against those 192 ships of the wall.

1) If the 6 SD(P)'s they send to Marsh were to be redeployed, they would be redeployed to one of the two systems short on SD(P)'s not the one system that holds the majority of the SD(P)'s.

2) Even if they did deploy 18 SD(P)'s(Marsh+PO) to Trevor's Star that still would be 104 SD(P)'s. SD's are irrelevant because the RHN ALSO has SD's.

3) If all of those ships are there, it means that someone told them that the RHN is coming so the RHN is screwed either way.

4) If someone told them that the RHN was coming they would also tell them that there are 2 fleets and one is going to Manticore, if they had to choose I would say Manticore gets the bigger fleet not Trevor's Star.

The big difference is how many ships remain.

It doesn't matter. If 3rd Fleet with their 46 SD(P)'s had crushed Giscard without breaking a sweat the war is over. If Higgins had crushed the 32 SD(P)'s in Grendelsbane with his 7 SD(P)'s its over. Once the MA realizes that their SD(P)'s are vastly superior to the RHN they can free up 50 SD(P)'s and go after Haven.

Under the actual Thunderbolt, the RHN sent out 130 of its 315 SD(P)s, meaning 185 remained and would definitely not be damaged or destroyed.

And if the other 144 SD(P)'s they send out on Thunderbolt had been massacared in 3 different battles because they were significantly inferior having having 184 SD(P)'s in reserve means nothing because you are now outnumbered by the MA and their ships can crush you like a bug. At 5-1 the firepower, the MA's 197 SD(P)'s would be as good as 985 RHN SD(P)'s. So it's irrelevant.

Giscard clearly had orders not to sacrifice his fleet, so he also left without firing a single shot.

Nope, the odds went from 2-1 to 1.16-1. If there were only 46 SD(P)'s in Trevor's Star he would have attacked, if he had 80 SD(P)'s more and the GSN send 40 SD(P)'s he would still attack.

All the other task forces were sent against systems without heavy pickets, so their chances of success were much greater. The only must-win target was Grendelsbane. If that one failed, those 75 Invictus would enter service before Haven could deploy the second wave from Bolthole.

And all the other systems did nothing for the war effort.

But even if only those 285 ships remained, the MA had 190 SD(P)s. They wouldn't have the 3:1 advantage needed to win the war, but they'd have sufficient to hold the balance of power and they could outbuild the MA.

Not if the MA figured out that 1 of their SD(P)'s was as good as 3 RHN SD(P)'s. At that point its game over.

In your scenario, there's a non-negligible chance that the RHN would lose 200 ships or more, with some of those actually being pressed into service on the MA side.

You are right, the RHN should wait until they are 100% sure of victory and every individual scenario is covered.

Even if they take Grendelsbane out, the RHN could find itself at 120 ships against 190 on the Manticore side.

Where would those 190 SD(P)'s come from? Who is guarding Grayson and Grendelsbane?

That's an even worse exchange. And unlike the actual Thunderbolt, the COs on the scene would really need to attack, otherwise the MA forces could just cross the wormhole and obliterate the other side.

Depends on how good the crystal ball of the GA ONI is.

Again "counting on the enemy doing what you expect him to do." The whole argument here is that your plan depends on this.

Really? What is your argument here? That some how, someway the GSN would go to a card reading, find out that the RHN is launching attack on 15 September 1919 at 2200, against Trevor's Star with 180 SD(P)'s and 24 CLAC's. And they will launch an attack on Manticore on 16 September 1919 at 1000 with 150 SD(P)'s. So they will take that to Janasek and Highridge and show them what the psycic said and get them to deploy all of the RMN along with all of the GSN in Trevor's Star to take on the first attack, after they crush 2nd Fleet without taking any losses they teleport to the Terminal, go to Manticore and Teleport to a blocking position with all 197 SD(P)'s, 66 CLAC's and 46 BC(P)'s against 150 SD(P)'s of the RHN, crush them and then Teleport back to the Terminal, go to Trevor's Star and attack the RoH.

The worst case scenario in your plan is much worse than what was the worst case for Thunderbolt.

The worst case scenario depends on competent leadership in the SKM and a spy in the RHN really high up there who was part of the planning for Thunderbolt. No spy=no joy.

But I repeat that 180 RHN SD(P)s against 104 RMN and GSN SD(P)s are not good odds. It's not "more than enough to crush the Alliance Fleet". At best that's a stalemate where both forces are depleted. If this happens, then there's no one to go after Grendelsbane and the MA can outbuild Haven.

Uhm… 1st Fleet? After they take on the 12 SD(P)s of Home Fleet., make the SKM surrender they can do as they please.

No, 100% of the Manticoran or Grayson Home Fleets would not leave the Home System. But over two thirds of the GSN did leave and in case of an attack, two thirds of the Manticoran Home Fleet could transit to Trevor's Star.

So 76 GSN SD(P)'s would go to Trevor's Star at just the right time? What if whoever gave them the schedule for Thunderbolt was off by a couple of days?

And 2/3 of Home Fleet is 8 SD(P)'s, they don't add much.

The problem with the DBs is not that it's complex, it's that you invite a bad defeat for one or both of the forces if something does happen.

And what are the chances that happens?

You have to game out what's the worst that could happen if everything goes wrong for you and right for the enemy and your plan has a much worse result in the worst case.

No it doesn't. The Worst case scenario is 18 more SD(P)'s in Manticore or Trevor's Star.

Sure, it has a much better result in the best case, but the risk/reward ratio here is way too lopsided.

The GSN HAS to know the attack is coming.
The GSN HAS to send the Protector's Own to Trevor's Star
The GSN HAS to convince the RMN to not send Honor to Marsh.
The GSN HAS to know when the attack is coming.
The GSN HAS to be sure that the RHN is not attacking them.
The GSN HAS to know about the DB's.
The SKM PM HS to be willing to listen to Grayson.
The RMN HAS to follow the instructions of the GSN.
The RMN HAS to leave Grendelsbane exposed.

What if Grayson had send the Protector's Own to Trevor's Star along with those 40 SD(P)'s and instead of attacking there, the RHN had hit Grayson with 150 SD(P)'s, Grendelsbane with 32 SD(P)'s and took out the two largest consentrations of near completed wallers along with 60 SD(P)'s?

Yes.

Why did Protector Benjamin send 40 SD(P)s to Trevor's Star? My argument is that he could have sent ALL the CLACs because he doesn't need the carriers to defend his system, only the LACs. Those can be based on forts and bases.

He send 40 SD(P)'s to Trevor's Star with 8 CLAC's. He send 12 SD(P)'s and 6 CLAC's to Marsh. That left him with say 40 SD(P)'s for Home Fleet and 23 SD(P)'s for a QRF along with 10 SD(P)'s and about 30 BC(P)'s. This was a reserve for whatever might be needed.

The GSN Intelligence estimate there was likely an attack, they didn't have a schedule in front of them.

There's no guessing what the right time is. The GSN component can be sitting in Trevor's Star for several months.

Yet they came at the nick of time, like the day before or the day of the attack? What if the CO had stopped for coffee and a donut at the junction forts? Or they left a day later?

And no on is talking about moving Home Fleet before the attack happens in Trevor's Star. The point is that Home Fleet can move once it knows the attack starts.

They Have to know there is an attack coming. Otherwise the battle will be over before the 12 SD(P)'s of Home Fleet can intervene.

The plan should not count on Home Fleet staying put once it knows Trevor's Star is under attack.

The plan Highridge and Janacek are so enthusiastic about?

And yes, coordinating two DBs through a Junction the enemy controls is too unreliable. Not complex, just unreliable.

How so? How does the RMN know which two DB's to stop? How do they know when those DB's are coming through? How do they know there is an attack Coming? Are they going to stop every DB and torture every member of every DB for months on end? Are they going to paralyze all traffic through the junction? How do they know that the RHN is attacking, where the RHN is attacking and when the RHN is attacking.

Each SD takes 3 minutes through the Junction. So 50 ships would take 2 hours and 30 minutes. An attacking fleet dropping out of hyper on the limit needs 3 and a half hours to reach 0-0 with Manticore, 2 and a half for a drive-by.

What if they are heading away from the junction for an hour or two at maximum acceleration? how long do they need to slow down and reverse direction? Can they make it before 1st Fleet gets to Manticore?

But again not the point. You can't count on the Home Fleet CO not being reckless. What happens if he is reckless and sends the majority of his force through the Junction, and the Manticore prong of the attack didn't launch or launched late?

Yeah, unless they have Apollo in them, those 12 SD(P)'s will most likely not add too much to the firepower at Trevor's Star.