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

Sigs wrote:

tlb wrote:Do you realize that the system defense variant of Apollo is not the same as the missiles 8th Fleet carries? So, it is true that some of them would go to Trevor's star for both the forts and the planets, but none would go to 8th Fleet. The ones put around the home planets would be under the control of Home Fleet, but I do not believe that they would be tractored to the ships.

No I didn't know that. I assumed that it would be the exact same so that if something happened to your pipeline you can use the system defence pods to arm your ships. It seems a little weird that there would be two variants, one for ships one for system defence. This OB destroying the stations and the missile pipeline which reduces the keyhole capable SD(P)'s to regular pods. Im assuming that the reason for that is to add endurance to the pods, but I can think of a lot of other ways to add endurance without making 2 variants.

The system defense Apollo was, last we heard about the plans, had some serious modifications for improved extreme range engagements; but making a larger and more powerful missile:
* A 4th drive allowing you to use the normal 3 to boost it up to a very fast ballistic coast but still have a final 4th drive for terminal maneuvering (though based on an exchange with RFC something or other would cap the usable top speed to 0.9c so most of that 4th stage is only usable for lateral maneuvering)
* a larger Apollo control missile allowing it to carry a somewhat longer ranged FTL transceiver - so Mycroft repeaters can be further apart than the roughly 5-6 lightminutes a Keyhole II and a Mk23E can communicate.

But either of those changes, much less both, means they are too big to fit in the flatpack pods that SD(P)s can carry. Also the flatpack pods are only designed for fairly short times from deployment to firing. Maybe a couple of weeks before they'd have to be pulled back aboard and given major servicing. So system defense pods also differ from shipboard pods as they're designed for much, much longer intervals floating around in space between servicing. (And probably put even more work into stealthing them; the better to hide them from a persistent pre-attack search)

tlb wrote:Do you realize that the system defense variant of Apollo is not the same as the missiles 8th Fleet carries? So, it is true that some of them would go to Trevor's star for both the forts and the planets, but none would go to 8th Fleet. The ones put around the home planets would be under the control of Home Fleet, but I do not believe that they would be tractored to the ships.

Sigs wrote:No I didn't know that. I assumed that it would be the exact same so that if something happened to your pipeline you can use the system defence pods to arm your ships. It seems a little weird that there would be two variants, one for ships one for system defence. This OB destroying the stations and the missile pipeline which reduces the keyhole capable SD(P)'s to regular pods. Im assuming that the reason for that is to add endurance to the pods, but I can think of a lot of other ways to add endurance without making 2 variants.

From Storm from the Shadows, chapter 12:

"This is the system-defense variant, the Mark 23-D, for the moment, although it's probably going to end up redesignated the Mark 25. It's basically an elongated Mark 23 to accommodate both a fourth impeller drive and longer lasing rods with more powerful grav focusing to push the directed yield still higher. Aside from the grav units and laser rods, this is all off-the-shelf hardware, so production shouldn't be a problem, although at the moment the ship-launched system has priority.
"With the Apollo missile itself—we've officially designated the ship-launched version the Mark 23-E, partly in an attempt to convince anyone who hears about it that it's only an attack bird upgrade—" the cursor moved to the third missile "—the situation's a bit more complicated. As I say, it's an entirely new design, and we're looking at some bottlenecks in getting it into volume production. The system-defense variant—the Mark 23-F—is another all-new design. Aside from the drives and the fusion bottle, we had to start with a blank piece of paper in each case, and we hit some snags getting the new transceiver squared away. We're on top of those, now, but we're still only beginning to ramp up production. The 23-F is lagging behind the 23-E, mostly because we've tweaked the transceiver's sensitivity even higher in light of the longer anticipated engagement ranges, which increased volume requirements more dramatically than we'd expected, but even the Echo model is coming off the lines more slowly than we'd like. When you factor in the need for the original Keyhole control platforms to be refitted to the Keyhole-Two standard, this isn't something we're going to be able to put into fleet-wide deployment overnight."

So the system-defense missiles have a fourth drive; the Mark-23D has a bigger warhead and the Mark-23F has a more sensitive FTL transceiver.

I think that it is fairly standard to have a system-defense variant that is even bigger and meaner. Remember that the SLN was trying to explain losing SD's to BC's by convincing themselves that the cruisers had tractored system-defense pods.

tlb wrote:From Storm from the Shadows, chapter 12:

"This is the system-defense variant, the Mark 23-D, for the moment, although it's probably going to end up redesignated the Mark 25. It's basically an elongated Mark 23 to accommodate both a fourth impeller drive and longer lasing rods with more powerful grav focusing to push the directed yield still higher. Aside from the grav units and laser rods, this is all off-the-shelf hardware, so production shouldn't be a problem, although at the moment the ship-launched system has priority.
"With the Apollo missile itself—we've officially designated the ship-launched version the Mark 23-E, partly in an attempt to convince anyone who hears about it that it's only an attack bird upgrade—" the cursor moved to the third missile "—the situation's a bit more complicated. As I say, it's an entirely new design, and we're looking at some bottlenecks in getting it into volume production. The system-defense variant—the Mark 23-F—is another all-new design. Aside from the drives and the fusion bottle, we had to start with a blank piece of paper in each case, and we hit some snags getting the new transceiver squared away. We're on top of those, now, but we're still only beginning to ramp up production. The 23-F is lagging behind the 23-E, mostly because we've tweaked the transceiver's sensitivity even higher in light of the longer anticipated engagement ranges, which increased volume requirements more dramatically than we'd expected, but even the Echo model is coming off the lines more slowly than we'd like. When you factor in the need for the original Keyhole control platforms to be refitted to the Keyhole-Two standard, this isn't something we're going to be able to put into fleet-wide deployment overnight."

So the system-defense missiles have a fourth drive; the Mark-23D has a bigger warhead and the Mark-23F has a more sensitive FTL transceiver.

I think that it is fairly standard to have a system-defense variant that is even bigger and meaner. Remember that the SLN was trying to explain losing SD's to BC's by convincing themselves that the cruisers had tractored system-defense pods.

However, those missiles were not there at BoMA. Gryphon had just been updated to Apollo and Sphinx (while next for the upgrade) still had standard MDMs. In addition, we don't know if even Gryphon had the new missiles yet - all RMN pods have a system defense mode, and standard Apollo pods may have been used in the interm if the advanced missiles were still having teething problems.

Theemile wrote:However, those missiles were not there at BoMA. Gryphon had just been updated to Apollo and Sphinx (while next for the upgrade) still had standard MDMs. In addition, we don't know if even Gryphon had the new missiles yet - all RMN pods have a system defense mode, and standard Apollo pods may have been used in the interm if the advanced missiles were still having teething problems.

All certainly true; these options only factor into the question of what happens if either Lovat or Beatrice had been delayed. It appears that the only Apollo missiles fired in BoMA were from ships that had been issued them.

Jonathan_S wrote:Ah, I didn't go back and try to look up the distance, I just remembered that Haven's old government had had the idiotic idea that a wormhole out past Manticore would be useful in assisting them in hitting Manticore from multiple points on their hyper limit. Somehow that stuck in my head as meaning it was reasonably close. Oops.

I think you're mixing up multiple things. The Peep government certainly would have liked that and this was the biggest worry on Manticore's side (and probably Andermani's), but that's not the wormhole they'd found. That's also why Manticore never found Bolthole, as they were searching in the wrong direction. Not that they could have: that's just too many systems to search, even with just G- or K-type stars, without a good idea of what one is looking for. And they'd never think of the Refuge system, since that was a quaternary system.

When they found the Calvin Wormhole, their idea was to use it as a shortcut to Sol. But as "Dark Fall" recounts, the journey via the Manticore Junction is 150 light-years shorter than via Calvin. That's the 200 from Sol to Calvin minus the 40 light-years to Sigma Draconis. The 10 remaining light-years are unexplained and could just be rounding.

Note: Wikipedia lists Sigma Draconis at 18.77 ly, which is inconsistent with the Honorverse wiki. But the wiki also says that the Sigma Draconis terminus is 475 light-years from Manticore, which means Sol, Sigma Draconis and Manticore are almost at a straight line.

Theemile wrote:However, those missiles were not there at BoMA. Gryphon had just been updated to Apollo and Sphinx (while next for the upgrade) still had standard MDMs. In addition, we don't know if even Gryphon had the new missiles yet - all RMN pods have a system defense mode, and standard Apollo pods may have been used in the interm if the advanced missiles were still having teething problems.

Question: were they used in Beowulf against the SLN?

The defence was based on Mycroft, but even with that out of the picture, they managed to hit SLN ships running for the hyperlimit way beyond the 6-light-minute range. The text didn't specify which variant it was, only that it was Apollo.

Theemile wrote:However, those missiles were not there at BoMA. Gryphon had just been updated to Apollo and Sphinx (while next for the upgrade) still had standard MDMs. In addition, we don't know if even Gryphon had the new missiles yet - all RMN pods have a system defense mode, and standard Apollo pods may have been used in the interm if the advanced missiles were still having teething problems.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Question: were they used in Beowulf against the SLN?

The defence was based on Mycroft, but even with that out of the picture, they managed to hit SLN ships running for the hyperlimit way beyond the 6-light-minute range. The text didn't specify which variant it was, only that it was Apollo.

Just checked and Beowulf must have been concentrating on the ship-borne missiles, because page 659 says it is the Mark 23-E (not the F).

Sigs wrote:Their survival rates are not important to the mission, the success of the mission is of paramount importance. Home Fleet destroyed 120 SD(P)'s but did 2nd Fleet need 240 SD(P)'s to destroy Home Fleet's 42 SD(P)'s?

Maybe not 240, but what is the exact number? Honor had demonstrated at Solon, despite losing, that two Invictus protected by LACs could shrug off 11,000 missiles. 42 SD(P)s, though most of them Medusas, deserved attention. The other Gryphon- and Sphinx-class SDs should not be ignored either. The big issue was the number of LACs, which they could not properly predict.

Overkill is an acceptable outcome. Underkill is not: if the attacking force is neutralised and Home Fleet survives, it can go after the other force.

Having 80 SD(P)'s and 100 SD's with 5,000 LAC's would have almost certainly been destroyed by Home Fleet's 150,000 missiles but the 80 SD(P)'s and 100 SD's can launch ~170,000 maybe a little more which should be enough to destroy Home Fleet as well, at the end of the day whether its 170,000 or 525,000 missiles Home Fleet would be just as dead and 2nd Fleet would have a TF behind the leading elements able to take on the fixed defences with fresh unbloodied forces. Whatever LACs survived the battle if any can fall back and join the 2nd TF to thicken missile defence.

Theisman and Tourville calculated half a million missiles necessary to gut Home Fleet. Why are you calculating less than 200,000? Do you know somoething they overlooked but should have known?

In hindsight, we know fewer would have wormed. The question is how to plan with the information they had.

Uh, I don't think so, they would be guarding the systems higher on the list than Lovat. Lovat had 24 SD's as picket, chances are that the systems above it would also have an equal or larger picket force. The third tier systems get BC's as picket and in the case of at least one system(Hera) BB's, I am not entirely sure where they got those from but there might be 50 or 60 BB's left over for the low tier systems. So most likely where there is an ambush Fleet there is a strong conventional system picket. I doubt that Lovat had 24 SD's guarding it and the 15 systems above it on the list had nothing.

The info from RFC himself says there were no BBs left (the line actually completely missing from the table). But you're right that Hera system still had two. As the discussion between Andrea and Honor goes, it's probably just a handful here and there, on the way to decommissioning so their contribution wasn't a factor.

Either way, by the time of the conversation between Theisman and Pritchart, manpower was an issue and they were decommissioning SDs. The RHN wouldn't keep any crew on a BB if they could be user on an SD or SD(P) or CLAC. So at this point, defence was likely consisting of BC and lower, SD and up only. No BBs or DNs anywhere to be seen.

Defence of one system 8th Fleet might not even hit. Before Lovat 8th Fleet was an annoyance, they could have easily kept 8th fleet busy if they went on the offensive, and I'm not talking about major offensives just deploy 96 SD(P)'s in 3 Fleets to attack Silesia, Andermani Empire ad the minor allies. The RHN wouldn't try to take over the Empire or Silesia, they just show up in weak systems and crush the picket and the industry. The MA cannot ignore this, they would have to set up ambushes of their own and can you imagine trying to set up ambushes when there are 80+ potential targets between the Empire and Silesia? Silesia did not have any SD(P)'s as far as I know and the Empire might have had 40 of them but their main defence was the distance.

So 48 SD(P)'s for the Empire, 32 SD(P)'s for the minor allies and 16 SD(P)'s for Silesia. They are by no means an invasion fleet, but they are powerful enough to require significant defences by the MA.

I'm not sure where you're going with this.

You're questioning Theisman and the RHN Admiralty and NavSec. Sure, you have different ideas and they could have worked given you know something they didn't. I simply asked the question: given the parameters of what they were planning for, who would they use for the defence? Giscard had just won a battle against Eighth Fleet.

Being ready does not mean being in position to make the trip in time.

How so?

Travel time. The courier could have to go in the wrong direction to bring the mission orders and they would have had further to travel.

The bulk of the RHN would be between Haven and Manticore and the RHN would not bother calling for ships from the east side of the republic because the east side of the republic is literally the opposite direction. For most other systems, if it take 30 days to get from Haven to Manticore will take 60 days from the time the DB leaves Haven to the time they get to the rally point.

You're making an assumption that the bulk of the RHN is betwewen Haven and Manticore. Nothing in the text supports that conclusion. Given that Eighth Fleet was doing deep raids weeks from its supporting base, why couldn't they attack systems on the other side from Haven? And if so, why wouldn't the RHN set up pickets in them?

Because if he had ordered the extra ships there then the Python Lump would have happened right before the battle to reinforce 8th fleet so that the MA wins once again. They almost won with 335, imagine if there were 450 SD(P)’s 90 CLAC’s 500 escorts and 250 SD’s? Even with their super weapon 8th Fleet just barely squeaked out a victory, throw a force of another 120 SD(P)’s 45 CLAC’s, 400 escorts and 250 SD’s above and beyond what 2nd and 5th brough with them and 8th Fleet would have destroy a number of them, ran dry and would have had to surrender with the rest of the SKM and the Home System.

If the Python Lump, with another 50 SD(P)s -- all of them Invictus class -- is out of the yards, then those extra ships would not suffice. Especially if those ships are Keyhole II-capable. The Python Lump would also have a number of Agamemnons and Nikes which would thicken the missile offence and defence.

Forget increasing your forces to 1000 SD(P)s supported by 35000 LACs. If Manticore is defended by 50 Apollo-equipped SD(P)s, the battle is lost.

At this point, Theisman doesn't know it takes retrofitting or building in KH2 specifically to control the Apollo missiles, but he knows that Honor's Invictus (Invicti?) and Harrington IIs do have that capability. His first worry is not the ships in the Python Lump, but the missiles.

What does travel from Lovat to Manticore matter?

Sorry, I didn't mean that. I meant that the time between the Battle of Lovat and the Battle of Manticore was 10 weeks. Of which 8 weeks would be spent in travel. Whether the fleet was 1 week away from Haven by DB or 7 weeks doesn't matter: the total time combined by the DB and the fleet is 8 weeks.

They are at war, they should always be ready to go, this is not peacetime they should be ready to move on a moments notice. Since they are in a system as a picket they should have plenty of time to frequently top off everything they need, they aren’t on a patrol with no resupply for months, they are right next to a planet.

Someone more familiar with military strategy has to chime in whether always being prepared for long trips is even possible. Consider this: do they have sufficient perishables for 2 months of travel at all times? If not, can they load sufficient in 2 days?

Sending the fleet on rations doesn't seem like a good idea to me. They'd get there, but morale would be sufficiently low to compromise combat effectiveness.

Indeed, they were given to Honor for Eighth Fleet. That's how Eighth went from a single battle squadron to 30-35 SD(P)s by Lovat.

That might have been helped along by the IAN, kinda like how the IAN also had ships in the RMN Home Fleet.

Not the KH2-capable ships that attacked Lovat. Those were RMN and GSN construction. Mostly GSN construction.

SD-31=/=SD(P)-31, there were SD’s before the Honor Harington and that was the first SD(P)if I remember correctly and it was launched to commemorate its name sake on her 1 year anniversary of her execution.

I mentioned the GSNS Honor Harrington's hull number to give an idea how many ships the Grayson yards could construct. Yes, she was the first SD(P) ever, not the 31st.

Lets go back to at all costs Chapter 7.

RMN has 75 SD(P)’s in service, the IAN 42 SD(P)’s in service and the GSN 115 SD(P)’s in service in January 1920. Caparelli states that within the next 18 months they would have just over 400 SD(P)’s in service between the 3 allied navies.

The RMN had 35 SD(P)’s under construction, and according to Caparelli they wont have more than 110 SD(P)’s for at least 2 years(24 months). So we know that the RMN in 18 months would be 110 SD(P)’s(75 SD(P)’s plus 35 SD(P)’s).

That's the Python Lump. Which did not launch until October or November, so Caparelli was optimistic. Or didn't take into account the need to fit them them with Keyhole II, which delayed the process. The ships 2 years out are those that would be laid out at the moment the war started, as Manticore builds a superdreadnought in 24 months.

Also note how the delay in the Python Lump, which applied to the IAN, probably also applied to the GSN. The addition of Keyhole II inserted a delay into already-in-process ships.

So the Alliance did not have 400 ships at the moment the Battle of Manticore started. Yes, that's what Theisman estimated they'd have when he talked to Pritchart, but he was including all 120 IAN SD(P)s which we know weren't ready. So the total must be 320-340, at most.

So at the Time of Lovat the MA had no less than 343 SD(P)’s in service with another 40-45 SD(P)’s close to finish by the IAN and probably 100 or more in SKM yards and 50 in GSN yards nearing completion. So the MA was expecting close to 200 SD(P)’s after Lovat.

I'd say the MA had no more than 343, so let's agree that that's the exact number.

We know the Manticoran shipyards wouldn't deliver their share until three or four months after the Battle of Manticore. As I said above, the delays might have pushed the additions you're mentioning further out.

Maybe more ships to Grayson but unless I am right and the RHN has 605 SD(P)’s remaining after BoM the empire is safe. If the RHN has 270 SD(P)’s the last thing they would be doing is sending any SD(P)’s to the Andermani who are probably a month and a half away. So that would be 3 months for whatever SD(P)’s the RHN sends to the empire to get back and knocking the empire out of the war means nothing since the SKM has enough Keyhole ships under construction to finish the RHN.

Tell that to the Emperor. There's no way he'd agree to critically uncovering his capital world or his important shipyards. Note how Theisman not knowing where the 120 Andermani wallers are probably indicates those yards are not in New Berlin.

The Sultan of Zanzibar might protest and make the Alliance fragile in the long run if his system is uncovered, but there's little he can actually do in the short term if the ships are pulled. The Gustav Anderman can simply order his ships not to go, plus recall his contributions to Eighth Fleet.

Not really. We know from Uncompromising Honor that the SD(P)s weren't freed until Mycroft came online. The system may have defence pods, but apparently they can't be fired or controlled without the ships.

Im not talking about removing the SD(P)’s from the Home System, I am talking about removing the non-keyhole SD(P)’s from the home system.[/quote]

Which ones survived the Battle of Manticore? Almost all of the new construction was delayed because of the need to add Keyhole II.

They don’t have a reserve like the RMN Home Fleet has so their fleet is normally stronger than the RMN Home Fleet. They don’t have 3rd Fleet to ask for help so throughout the war, the GSN maintained a heavier Home Fleet than that of Manticore. But once it becomes obvious that Manticore is the alliance member to beat you can weaken the GSN Home Fleet to reinforce Manticore and Trevor’s Star. If Grayson surrenders, the war still goes on, if the Empire surrenders the war goes on, if the SKM surrenders the war ends quickly because they hold the bulk of the new keyhole ships and it splits the remnants of the alliance in two, separated by hundreds of LY. The Empire will have their 40 SD(P)’s with keyhole 200 LY from manticore, and Grayson might have their 20 SD(P)’s with keyhole near Manticore but the RHN has neutralized the biggest concentration of SD(P)’s with keyhole.

They have a stronger Home Fleet than the Manticoran Home Fleet for a reason and the reason is what you said: there's no strategic reserve 6 hours away, which you can order to start moving in 18 minutes. Manticore was the target that RHN did attack, but it need not be the only one. The yards in Grayson were building Apollo missiles and Keyhole II enabled ships just like in Manticore. Probably at a smaller scale, but at a non-negligible contribution. A simple rule of thumb is that Manticore would be contributing 50%, Grayson 25% and the Andermani another 25%. Presenting juicy targets to the RHN would be unwise. Especially the one that, until the Python Lump and new construction really did go forward, was the premier navy in the alliance and was carrying the biggest load.

No, weakening Grayson is irresponsible.

So as a conclusion, there aren't enough movable forces in commission at the time of the Battle of Manticore that could be used to reinforce Eighth Fleet against another 320 RHN SD(P)s.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That's the Python Lump. Which did not launch until October or November, so Caparelli was optimistic. Or didn't take into account the need to fit them them with Keyhole II, which delayed the process. The ships 2 years out are those that would be laid out at the moment the war started, as Manticore builds a superdreadnought in 24 months.

Also note how the delay in the Python Lump, which applied to the IAN, probably also applied to the GSN. The addition of Keyhole II inserted a delay into already-in-process ships.

Sorry, I realised a few minutes after posting this that I made an error here by drawing a distinction between the Python Lump and the new construction. The Python Lump is the new construction started after Thunderbolt. When I posted the above, I was thinking of the partially built ships left over during the High Ridge administration, which should take from 0 to 80% of 24 months But that can't be right either.

In the same Chapter 7, Caparelli says that there are 35 SD(P)s under construction and should commission between six to ten months. Those are the only RMN ships that might be commissioned before January 2022. Caparelli says that there are 90 IAN SD(P)s in construction, but some won't be complete in 18 months. So if the Alliance started the war with 232 and added all the 35+90 by the Battle of Manticore, that leaves 43 to be added by the GSN.

Now, we know that the IAN did not add 90 by July 1921. They only added 40.

Anyway, your argument is that by the time they'd need to execute Beatrice:

1. The RHN would have 956 total ships, 856 of which would be battle-ready
2. The majority of the Havenite forces would be close to Haven and would not add more than 1 week of delay

So when Lovat happened and Theisman, the Admiralty and Pritchart knew the war would be won or lost on a single operation, regardless of how much industry Haven kept, Theisman still ordered only 336 ships to go?

Why would he do that?

Let me add a couple ONI estimates from Chapter 7:

• RHN had, at the time of the meeting (early 1920) some 300 SD(P)s (matches the infodump);
• Haven had 400 to 450 ships in construction at Bolthole, though they had no idea how far in construction they were;
• 400 more units were in construction elsewhere in "Nouveau Paris and two or three other of their centrala systems"
• those 400 others wouldn't complete for 24 to 30 months

We can't know for sure if the estimates at Bolthole were right or not, since ONI had no direct visibility to it. I'd assume they're not too far off the mark, but even if they are, we can take it they weren't far off the mark for the other yards: that means all the ships to be used in Beatrice had to come from Bolthole.

In order for there to be 956 ships, Bolthole would have had to produce 620 in the 18 months between Thunderbolt and Beatrice. Since it takes 3 years to build each, any ships ready by June 1921 would have to have started in early 1918 at the latest. Since the design didn't start before 1916, the 336 ships used in Bolthole and these 620 of yours must have at some time been all in construction at the same time. That means Bolthole had to be able to construct 956 ships simultaneously.

Finally, if the RHN had 700-750 more SD(P)s coming in between late 1922 and early 1923 (400 from the other yards and 336 from the slips freed by the construction used in Thunderbolt) in addition to the 956 already in commission, how in the Galaxy would the balance tip towards the Alliance once the Python Lump and other Alliance war-time efforts were ready?

At All Costs, Ch. 7 wrote:"That may be, Pat," Hamish said, "but the thought of looking at twelve hundred SD(P)s in a couple of years doesn't exactly fill me with joyous enthusiasm."

Your numbers are off by 515.

The Detweiler Plan -as we have seen it- appears to presume that Haven takes Manticore and then has control of the Manticore Junction.
At that point, if the SL hadn't already decided to intervene in the Haven Quadrant, there wouldn't be able to get at Haven except through hyperspace. And, no, there probably wasn't any consideration for the as yet undiscovered wormhole to Talbot.

So Haven has at least another way at the League via Hennesy but the League has the same problem as Fillerta as far as getting to where they can hurt Haven.

If the League does more than put an imbargo on Haven (PRH taking Manticore) then Haven absorbs the business with Manticore's customers/aliances other than in the League and probably converts a whole bunch of merchant shipping that was MMM to be flagged some place like Marsh/Sidemore and it's a fig leaf to let what is now PRH freighters carrying all that stuff to and from the WHJ to Sigma Draconis and all the businesses that depened on traffice through the Junction are happy.

Yeah, a lot of MMM what was on the the Beowulf end of the terminus when Manticore falls might just take up new homes and not go back to Manticore but that still leaves all that shipping in the League and Beowulf and others would be happy to pick them up in their own merchant fleets.

And if the League moves to intervine AFTER Haven take's Manticore you back into those political problems the League has and just what do you send to Manticore (or to Haven which is a totally differnt discussion of how to get there)?

Haven still has a major war fleet and a lot of combat experienced crews and leadership. It will have concentrated a significnt force both in the Manticore Binary System and at the Junction as a deternet against the League moving against them. And other than "base greed and political adventurism" what justifcation does the League have for objecting to Haven taking Manticore to end their war (there would of course been a "war of agression against Haven by Manticore) when Haven makes it totally clear that the Junction will remain open- no increase in tolls, possibly even lower tolls to League Member flagged ships--and it will be business as usual.

Haven can also- remember, they have a LONG history of picking off single star systems- can start making deals with systems.

How does Haven fight the League? Other than the diplomatic and economic means? IF the League sends warships, Haven----with "great relutcance and sorrow" will just have to beat the snot out of three or so League systems with deep raiding strikes and several OFS sector HQs and tear the shit out of the usual minimal number of SLN ships that are gathered in any place other than the major bases. The League struck first and haven is "only defending itself". The 1st round of Haven strikes will not only be unexpected (who would dare do that) they will be devastating as the PRHN will be vastly better than the SLN ships it encouters and it will in all likelyhood be a series of massacres.
At which point the League will try to retaliate at the same time Haven is possitioning a 2nd round and things go down hill from there. The RF rises as the League bleeds systems leaving to avoid being struck by Haven or the growing horror or the League overtly trying to become an attoricty committing (and there will be attoricities) monster .

See, easy
And back to the title thread.