Wormhole Assault: MA Style

kzt wrote:The RMN had an entire fleet sitting a light hour or two outside of Beowulf. With their nodes cold, taking an hour iirc to bring us the wedge.

That seems to be SOP for the RMN.

I'm not sure about that being SOP, but it did happen. But I need to remind everyone that that was an ambush fleet. What you're proposing is to ambush the ambushers, which means the first ambush's OpSec has been compromised and the enemy (or, in that case, another enemy) knows about your actions.

It's unlikely to have been a target of opportunity, but it's possible. Imagine the MAN had detached an LD to shadow Tsang, for some reason, probably to mop up any BSDF elements Tsang didn't destroy. And then they stumble upon an RMN fleet in stealth without also revealing themselves to the RMN. Then yes, they'd have plenty of time to deploy torpedoes into suitable attack positions and take out quite a few of those SD(P)s.

How many is still a question. Unlike a space station, the SD(P)s are each separated from one another by tens of thousands of km. A single graser may take out an SD(P) that has no impeller or sidewall (and that remains to be seen!), but it can't take out two. There were 60 SD(P)s in Truman's fleet, so you need at least 60 stealth, spider-driven weapons. Or at least 60 spider-driven torpedo pods.

What are the chances that the detachment to follow Tsang had those on hand in case they stumbled upon an unaware RMN fleet?

Assume an LD is 30 tons, of which 6 million tons is composed of 12,000 ton torpedoes. So the fleet sitting in orbit with their wedge down gets hit with 500 graser torps over about 5 seconds (per LD). And since they can choose their attack aspect they go through the dorsal or ventral surface and cuts say a 500 meter long slash through the entire ship. The question isn't whether the ship will be effectively destroyed, the question is whether you'll hit a reactor and kill everyone or if you have to try treat the gamma radiation exposure from those where not killed outright.

The torpedoes may not mass much compare to the LD, but they are still huge. Remember that the 5-million-tonne Shark could only carry three. A 30-million-tonne LD -- and we don't know by any means it's that big -- can carry 25 or 30, assuming efficiencies gained in making the Mk2 torpedo smaller than what Oyster Bay used. 500 torpedoes would require 20 ships.

And yes, there is such a thing as overkill. You always have more targets than means to destroy them. If you dump 30 salvos of missiles on a fleet only to destroy them with the first seven the odds are pretty good that you could have done something more useful with those 23 missile salvos or the launch platforms.

That's cost of opportunity. Yes, if you mobilise more assets in one place, it means you don't have them elsewhere.

The point I was trying to make is that until the LDs have actually gone through the crucible of battle, the estimate that they can take 10x their number of the currently single best warship ever constructed is lunacy.

I'm not saying it can't happen. I'm saying that an analyst that says that needs to have their meds checked and the strategist that makes plans based on that deserves to be committed to the padded room.

cthia wrote:The RMN had a habit of chucking missiles that didn't grow on trees. The poor little AI's aboard RMN missiles must have been exasperated quite a lot. "You don't need this many of us!"

Better to overkill than underkill. The enemy you didn't kill is one that can still kill you.

The poor AI aboard the missile doesn't know that you didn't need that many of them until it had data to come to that conclusion. That's my point: you need data and you should plan for the worst case scenario.

cthia wrote:I'm proposing an missile sporting that impeller breakthrough which achieves the closing speeds close to GA launches. Which, of course, has significantly more time to accelerate. Traditional missile design has never had the motivation to design a missile that expends its wad so quickly from such minimal ranges of which an LD may launch, because traditional ships would never expect to close to such ranges before engaging. I know it will require certain breakthroughs in impeller/compensator design. Upstream I mentioned that the author surely must be stockpiling handwavium for what will surely be his answer to our demands for a formidable foe.

You're proposing another technological breakthrough. The likelihood of that having happened is vanishingly small, especially in light that the breakthrough would imply they can build regular cruisers and battlecruisers that can be faster than the GA state of the art, but they're not doing that.

I have to accept that the author is keeping something up his sleeve and there's a very good chance it's something technological (though the MAlign tends to strategise in political terms). But David is very good at mapping out the consequences of technology, which is why I am confident it is not a breakthrough in compensator/impeller design. Plus, we know from conversations between the Detweilers that they hadn't cracked the Grayson-style compensators completely yet.

You can say it's something that happened after this conversation. My counter argument is that the LDs were designed and built before such breakthrough and will be ready for deployment before the technology is actually put into service. Those are being built based on a set of technologies and the understanding of warfare that cannot include the breakthrough. Therefore, if there's anything we aren't aware of, it must necessarily be in the past and thus the Detweilers must have already known of.

Conclusion: it's not faster missiles.

Providence is how an LD will come to be in position for such a launch. I.e., when the fly unsuspectingly flys right into the Spider's web. And also as a result of successful stalkings. Pods of these things can be dumped out to light off when the LD(s) are gone.

The best it can do is to sit near the midpoint of a flight out from the planet or base to the hyper limit. At the point of turnover, the ships will have their own highest base velocity. That is, use the other ships' velocity against them. At the turnover point for a 15-light-minute drive to the hyperlimit, a warship accelerating at 500 gravities will have reached 0.12c.

The difficulty in this is that the path from planet/base to the hyperlimit is likely to be very well travelled, for any where a fleet worth attacking would be located. And unlike warships that have good navigation crews, the freighters bumbling about will be all over the place and the couriers will be jostling for position: they could stumble upon the trap.

I'm not saying it will happen. I'm saying it could happen. And then all of a sudden you have a trap sprung and the defenders know there's a shark in the waters, which they can then run down. Is the risk factor too high?

Do you really think the MA would forgo the Spider Drive in favor of such a breakthrough in impeller/compensator design? Why not send that breakthrough by overnite mail to the RFN?

I think it would. The spider drive stealthy, but it's untested in warships and battle tactics. We've been discussing for 2 years what those tactics are and I keep saying they make no sense for battle, only for ambush.

A ship faster than anything the RMN can produce is a known quantity. It's something every strategist knows about and knows how to make use of. It's the safe approach. It's the "Old School" approach that White Haven was a member of and kept the Manticore Alliance alive for the first 5 years of the war with the PRH until Sonja's "jeune école" actually came through.

They can send that to the RFN, but that wouldn't exclude deploying on their own ships. And they don't have to choose one or the other: they can do both, like Manticore did. You don't throw away the baby with the bathwater.

And there's no evidence that they have such a thing.

Besides, GA missiles already have a fair share of handwavium across the board. Only the good guys get an allotment? Another cornering of the market? LOL

At any rate, since the adamance of the consensus indicates it's not possible, I shall give up the ghost. Point defense shot the idea down in the ? thread as well.

There's handwavium in all directions. But it has to be believable and David is very good at making sure it is. I'm sure he also scraps complete plot lines and outcomes he wanted because they can't be reached from the starting point. A lot of Sci-Fi authors will "damn the torpedoes!" and plough through the inconveniences, hoping that the reader never notices the inconsistencies or wilfully ignores them to enjoy the rest of the book. RFC does not do that (too often -- AAC and Barricade are the exception that proves the rule).

Likewise the RMN couldn't count on the effectiveness of Apollo when it was to be used in the field even though data says that it could. Which resulted in initial launches which were overwhelming overkill. Then, after battles against the Peeps made it obvious how effective Apollo actually is, Henke still didn't count on Apollo's performance against the RHN to be the same against the SLN.

I think that is ThinksMarkedly's point.

cthia wrote:Consider that only one of the toys we imagined in the ? will suffice to make the LDs very formidable. We don't know what that something else is, but we do know that it is coming.

Be it a graser-impeller hybrid and/or my notion of a traditional missile launched from spitting distance that expends its wad quickly to achieve insane accelerations to swamp enemy defense. After all, we don't really know how the GA's point defense will perform if its usual allotment of time is severely truncated. Again, it is senseless for the LD to use traditional missiles at the range in which they may launch, leaving so much time on the drives. A missile that expends its wad quickly to achieve absurd accelerations (even if driven by a small supply of handwavium) makes more sense to support the LD's doctrine.

This ultra short range missile engagement only makes sense to me if the MAlign figure out some instant acceleration propulsion for them. [Edit - and now I see you made the same point several posts laster. Ah well - I went to the trouble of number crunching so I'll leave the rest of this here; loudly agreeing with you ]

With impellers even the quickest missiles just take too long to build up velocity to strain point defense at close range. (There's a reason, way back in HotQ, Honor commented on the tradeoffs of his missile heavy DD forced Theisman to engage with laserheads at energy range - and how much less effective that was than if he'd had the significant energy battery of a more balanced destroyer design)



The quickest accelerating missile of any kind I believe we've seen to date is the Mk31/Viper at 130,000g.

RMN point defense is built around stopping MDMs closing at .7c or more. Those cross the ship's entire 3.5 million km point-defense envelope in about 14 seconds.

If you wanted to hit a target with a Viper within 14 seconds you'd need to launch from well inside energy range (firing from 125,000 km - when your energy mounts could blow through a sidewall from four time further - about 500,000 km).

Now in some ways your missile would still gain some advantage because, while you're still spending the same 14 seconds within range of point-defense, that defense wasn't tracking you before that point. It'll take some time to detect, track, and begin engaging you. And the CM's, which are what can reach out to 3.5 million km, are initially launched about 75 seconds before the inbound attack missile reaches that range. That'd be while an MDM was still something like 16 million km away from the ship -- with the missiles meeting (or passing) each other at 3.5 million km from the ship.
That means that using a Mk31 to defend against a Viper launched from 14 seconds out the two would meet at only 1.75 million km from the ship (or even closer, depending on how much tracking was needed before launch). OTOH the PDLCs will still have about 6 seconds to track the Viper before it enters their range, and while an MDM would flash across their range in about half a second this Viper will spend an endless 8 seconds within their range - and be moving at a relative crawl (between 0.025 and 0.059c; so even its terminal velocity is less than a quarter that of an old-style SDM). The PDLC's will eat such a slow target for lunch!

So I think 14 seconds is giving the point defense too much time given how slowly this attack is going.

But even to get that the range of 125,000 km is insanely close to be attacking from - and very hard for even the best stealth to hide you. That's way inside the fleet's formation - you've got escorts and LACs out further than that - which means you potentially have ships on all sides of you - denying you a safe direction to point the "hole" in your stealth.

But if you really want to deny the point defense time to react you probably need to launch from 5 seconds out. And with the Mk31/Viper, again the quickest accelerating thing we've ever seen in the Honorverse, a 5 second flight time requires launching from an insanely close 16,000 km!

That just doesn't seem feasible. We know the MAlign was seriously concerned about their spider ships being detected despite the drive being shut down to increase stealth by a single ship at 1 LS (roughly 300,000 km). You've got to be less than half that to get a 14 seconds launch and ~1/18th that for 5 seconds!!




So, as I said, I don't see it baring a massive breakthrough in missile propulsion technology.

OTOH give them something like the missile drives from Weber's Starfire series, where they nearly instantly reach their max (high relativistic) speed, and a close range missile launch becomes a viable tactic.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The torpedoes may not mass much compare to the LD, but they are still huge. Remember that the 5-million-tonne Shark could only carry three. A 30-million-tonne LD -- and we don't know by any means it's that big -- can carry 25 or 30, assuming efficiencies gained in making the Mk2 torpedo smaller than what Oyster Bay used. 500 torpedoes would require 20 ships.

How many LACS did an seven million ton converted freighter carry? How many can a six million ton LAC carrier deploy in combat? 80% that number? Or over eight times that number? Why might that be?

kzt wrote:How many LACS did an seven million ton converted freighter carry? How many can a six million ton LAC carrier deploy in combat? 80% that number? Or over eight times that number? Why might that be?

I don't know. The point is that a five million tonne Shark couldn't carry more than 3. I don't know why, but there was a reason and if there's any entity that knows tractor beams, it's the MAlign.

By the way, do we know the torpedo is 12k tonnes? I think it was described as 2.5x a Ghost Rider, due to its power generation needs, but a GR is 3k tonnes so this should only bring the up to 7.5k. An LAC is much bigger than that and yet, like you said, CLACs in the 7 million tonne range carry a hundred of those.

So maybe you're right. Maybe the Sharks couldn't carry the gtorps internally because they hadn't been designed for that and no sufficient interior volume for that in their cargo spaces. But a purpose-built ship like the LD could have a huge hollow core and in that volume carry more than one hundred torpedoes.

That would lead to the only strategy that I currently see making sense: the LD stays WELL out of range of any enemies, deploys a large number of torpedoes that accelerate toward unsuspecting enemies, using their predictable routing against them. They'd also be very nasty to any fixed installation that can't have permanent bubble walls or far-flung scanning. While attacks on movable assets can only work once (after that, you just don't make predictable courses), fixed assets can't be unpredictable.

I've been off line for a while so it took time to catch up. i'll try to seperate the points.

Wormhole travel lanes. Survey ships work them out, Astro Control monitor the wormhole and adjust the approch vector for a given lane (one or more as determined by wormhole). 1st you have to find them....Harvest Joy was very busy gathering all the data possible on the way out of the wormhole when she was ambushed at point blank range specificaly to nail down exactly where she exited relative to the wormhole. My though being that the reciprocal entry vector for the the reverse trip is going to be "close" to the one you came out of the wormhole on.
Big guess on my part but the Hexapuma got a great view of a freighter materializing outbound as she was inbound so that is PROBABLY the general idea.


Whitehaven's transits from Trevor's Star to MWJ and then Basilisk...his ships had to go from TS-remember that even though the "pushed it" with the actual KPS going through- they still shed a bunch of that. THEN, they had to move "out of the way" of the next ship and....move somewhere around the WHJ to get into the proper vector to use the Junction to go from WHJ to Basilisk. To do that they had to move "out of the way" and cross whatever volume of space and the (having not crossed -we hope- any other inbound or outbound landes for other termini) set up and go though to BS. At BEST, they came out, sped up- a bit- and arched around to enter the TO land for Basilisk at a safe distance from the wormhole and proceed. What they were probably not doing was decelerating to zero on a slightly differnt vector and then acclerating back for the exit wormhole point. That would have taken a lot of time.

About the only place a wromhole's entry and exit vectors are for a given termini would be right into the resonance zone for the wormhole. Why? Probably because all that gravametic turbulence would mess with what makes a wormhole work. We have often been told about ships comming though and acclerating out heading in the direction of their next stop--if it is not in the star system with the wormhole-- because time is money in shipping and they need to get to a "safe" distance and go to hyper if there is no usable wormhole connection.


Based on what is given in the series, MOST merchants (and warships when not otherwise doing something "military") will head for the point of a star's hyper limit closest to the point they are leaving where they were parked. In general that is going to be the nearest point- given acceleration and planet's (or space stations) nearest point on the system epileptic with the least amount of energy but best time as that will get you to the hyper limit fastest. Military get's to concern itself with doing things like dropping in on "the other side" of the system from the planet in question -if they have multiple ships- to "catch" and intercept merchants or other military that are trying for the least time spot in the opposit direction that your ships are commingn into the system. It would seem that once in hyper- not counting little things like gravity waves- you head in the calculated direction of where a planet/star is going to be when you expect to get there but you can "more or less" determine close to where you want to make your exit from hyperspace relative to the system/ where the planet is in it's orbit. Again, because the less time you take getting to the planet from they hyper limit, the more time you save.

Ambush is war is very effective when used as part of other tactics.

Submarines in WW I and II are good examples. The Battle of the Atlantic was a prolonged ambush with the sub staking out (and also acting as spotters for others) the routes the convoys had to use.
In the Pacific it was similar. Either side worked at putting it's subs in places the enemy- either warships but particularly transports- had to move through to deliver materials or return for something else.

In that context the Lenny Detweilers are perfect. They hide, they attack, they just don't seem to be going after single ships or convoys but as infrastructure raiders. Look at what was done to Manticore and Grayson. They had the majority of their ability to produce and support any starships destroyed at the same time as they lost the ships in longer term orbits and all the personel on the stations and other installations.
I don't think the MA has any intention of engaging in conventional warfare of captureing systems. They really don't care about the numbers of "normals" they kill nor the amount of destruction they inflict on a system. What counts is that the system, or multi-system polity will eventualy crash and the Alignment intends to rebuild the POLITIAL and SOCIAL sturcture of evey system to meet the designs of The Plan.

Look at the description of the initual systems of the RF and the ruling politics and system. And that they intend these RF systems to "inoculate" the social, moral and political systems of their conquests. They don't care how many billions die as long as the result is good little Alignment subject.

Sure, the LD's make massive stealth platforms to saturate a system with devices to smash things, even to sneak upon a fleet "anchorage" and slaughter ships. But they are designed to obliterate the orbital capasity and production of a system to bring it down to where the population will "choose" the Alignment philosophy as the "best" alternative. Rebuild each system from it's ashes if you can't do it through "education".
If you think that can't be right, then why spend all this time and effort to set up the crushing of the League, Haven, Manticore and so many other ...so you can "rescue" them with the RF.

Brigade XO wrote:Submarines in WW I and II are good examples. The Battle of the Atlantic was a prolonged ambush with the sub staking out (and also acting as spotters for others) the routes the convoys had to use.
In the Pacific it was similar. Either side worked at putting it's subs in places the enemy- either warships but particularly transports- had to move through to deliver materials or return for something else.

In that context the Lenny Detweilers are perfect. They hide, they attack, they just don't seem to be going after single ships or convoys but as infrastructure raiders. Look at what was done to Manticore and Grayson. They had the majority of their ability to produce and support any starships destroyed at the same time as they lost the ships in longer term orbits and all the personel on the stations and other installations.

I don't think the analogy with submarines works very well for long. Aside from stealth and the fact that WW2 submerged subs were slower than their prey, nothing else about the LD matches the tactics of submarines. For example, you said "the routes the convoys had to use:" do convoys in the HV have to use particular routes? We know they do use particular routes because piracy exists and we've been shown it very well in HAE, but that does not exclude other, less efficient or more costly routes. If the reward is high enough, the cost is worth it.

Submarines also didn't attack harbours, which is exactly what Oyster Bay was and what you're proposing for the LDs. In that sense, they approximate to the US Navy's SSBNs, but only in the sense that they lurk undetected and can strike at a distance. But ballistic submarines are a deterrent weapon, not an attack one. I could see an LD used as a deterrent ("behave or we'll send one to your system and you won't know about it!") but that only works after you've cowed the target with other military prowess, which the MAN has yet to exhibit.

I don't think the MA has any intention of engaging in conventional warfare of captureing systems. They really don't care about the numbers of "normals" they kill nor the amount of destruction they inflict on a system. What counts is that the system, or multi-system polity will eventualy crash and the Alignment intends to rebuild the POLITIAL and SOCIAL sturcture of evey system to meet the designs of The Plan.

Look at the description of the initual systems of the RF and the ruling politics and system. And that they intend these RF systems to "inoculate" the social, moral and political systems of their conquests. They don't care how many billions die as long as the result is good little Alignment subject.

Completely agreed.

Sure, the LD's make massive stealth platforms to saturate a system with devices to smash things, even to sneak upon a fleet "anchorage" and slaughter ships. But they are designed to obliterate the orbital capasity and production of a system to bring it down to where the population will "choose" the Alignment philosophy as the "best" alternative. Rebuild each system from it's ashes if you can't do it through "education".
If you think that can't be right, then why spend all this time and effort to set up the crushing of the League, Haven, Manticore and so many other ...so you can "rescue" them with the RF.

It may work for 90% of the systems in number. But the rest of the 10% of the systems are responsible for 90% of the production and those aren't going to be that vulnerable.

The LDs were probably designed around 1917-1918, with construction starting in 1920. That means they were designed before hostilities resumed between Haven and Manticore, though of course the Alignment was involved in making sure they did. So that means they were designed to smash through the remnants of Haven and then proceed to do the same in the Solarian League before anyone figured out how to defend against them -- or even clued in that such a thing was possible.

We know that's not what happened. Now, the enemies of the MAlign are forewarned that the drive exists and that there's someone ruthless enough to use it in massive destruction. There are possible counters to it and the MAlign's enemies have the time to come up with something.

Time is not on their side: the more they wait, the more there's a chance the two ladies at the top of Colin's Assassination List will indeed make a breakthrough. The more they wait, the more the League recovers and modernises, outside of the pressure of their thumb. And the more they wait, the bigger the risk of a leak in Mesa, in the RF, in Felix or from Torch into the Twins can show the way to Darius. So they have to act soon, but they don't have the ships yet

ThinksMarkedly, your conclusion and logic as to why the LD's punch line isn't faster missiles is remarkable. Jonathan's post nailed the coffin shut, but he gratefully left a little light shining thru with the instant acceleration of the missiles in the Starfire series. I'll accept that as an act of kindness to know that at least my notion isn't beyond even the annals of "Sci-Fi." Sad because I think it is perfect for the doctrine and profile of the LDs.

There is one misnomer. Subs did attack harbors. The Japanese attacked Sydney Harbor and, although unsuccessful, mini subs were also dispatched to Pearl. And, modern subs today oftentimes thread the needle and sit less than 100 miles offshore of major ports consuming champaign and listening to media broadcasts after having successfully tested the waters of their own stealth. Frightening!

Again, your logic is sound but my Spider-senses are still tingling. Namely, if LDs were simply designed to smash and crash, they don't need approximately 100 of them to do that. Such a large fleet of LDs represent an inordinate amount of overkill simply to wage a scorched earth policy on the appropriate systems. So, the MA had to have had other plans in mind at the time of the LDs conception. Hmm, unless a scorched earth policy is exactly the point! Setting the stage for another Sally-the-Man-der on Fire!

Another problem with the general consensus of the proposed strategy of the LDs smash and crash is it doesn't answer the question "to what end?" Even if the MA is successful at completely destroying the infrastructure of the major players, what then? Do they just retire to Darius and celebrate? Do they then initiate the RF part of the proposed equation? The RF part of the equation could have been completed without going to so much trouble. The LDs would have been effective enough to sneak into Sol harbor and destroy everything, considering SL stupidity, arrogance and lack of preparedness. We all know about SL doctrine. The LDs could have wiped out every single Fleet of the SLN and OFS, without even needing to manufacture and instigate Peep help.

But again, to what end? The industrial might of the SL would rebuild. The systems of the GA would rebuild. And the GA's warships would still be intact. IOW, a smash and crash only seems a wasted effort unless it is also supported by a smash and grab, which includes assimilating specific systems.

That would include defeating supporting ships, controlling orbitals and landing troops. All which is believed to be opposite the original strategy and doctrine of the MA and its fleet of LDs. Which is what the MA's original plan of instigating a war between the SL and the Peeps was to allow them to do.

However, something still smells fishy. Because, with the SL so thoroughly snookered and infiltrated, the MAN itself could have singlehandedly waged war against the SL and completely destroyed every single ship the SL had along with supporting infrastructure, which includes major bases across the board. Consider that the MA showed a remarkable ability to control the movements of the gorilla. Coral them in mock-up exercises at predetermined points and BOOM. Destroy naval bases and the reserve. Then woo away as many planets and absorb them into the RF. The MA didn't even need Oyster Bay. They were presented with providence because the Peeps and Manties were quite busy destroying themselves.

The MA flushed the ability to pull off the galaxy's first short victorious war against the SL right down the toilet. Without the need to prematurely unwrap their tech. At that point they would have been free to activate the RF phase of the plan.

BTW, I still think the author was warning me that the LDs are quite complete in that post I linked to in the ? thread.