When you're a hammer: MAlign blind spots

ThinksMarkedly wrote:When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

The espionage service of the People's Republic of Haven (InSec) was extremely biased to their own ways of thinking. The people running the PRH were political animals, buying votes from the Dolist Managers to keep up the appearance of a democratic system electing them. They were concerned with keeping up their own political privileges, which was what gave them their other advantages through corruption and control of the state. As a result, InSec focused on political espionage and attacks. Prior to the annexation of San Martin, the PRH absorbed other systems by political subterfuge too: they forced the leaders of those systems to request annexation, or they engineered civil troubles that they later would come in to solve, like they tried to do at Basilisk (and also what the OFS was doing).

In Manticore, they spied in the political system and fed money to some parties in an attempt to subvert the system without fighting. We know they also engineered the assassination of King Roger III, hoping that they would be able to control Queen Elizabeth III and minimise any fighting. It wasn't a complete misuse of resources, since the Cromarty Government was busy creating the Manticore Alliance and got the League to embargo exports to Haven in that period.

But crucially, they focused too much on political aspects and too little on military matters. InSec missed the forest for the trees and allowed the RMN to get the edge in technology. They failed to infiltrate any of the higher level weapons development; they had no idea on the research on MDMs before the first ones struck at the outset of Operation Buttercup.

What does this have to do with the Alignment?

The Alignment focuses on subterfuge and behind-the-scenes manipulation. They also think in the very long term. Everything they've done so far has been one or the other, or both. All their actions in manipulating first the Talbott Sector's population and Monica, then New Tuscany, then the League, were subterfuge: getting others to do their dirty work. Before that, using Manpower was also subterfuge, like hiding the genetic uplift in the form of genetic slavery, hiding the Twins wormhole by occupying the Congo System with no profit. The Renaissance Factor is another example: a set of families in a dozen systems, seizing power slowly for generations.

When they were forced to act directly and in the short term, things have unravelled so far. They were forced to expose far more of Manpower's cover in Talbott. They tried to act in the very short term to retake the Congo System by using the People's Navy in Exile, thus allowing MAN personnel to be identified (though they were wearing Mesan Space Navy uniforms). They exposed the stealth technology of the spider drive early, by rushing Oyster Bay, and that in turn had the worst possible unintended effect: the formation of the Grand Alliance. They rushed the evacuation of the Onion members from Mesa with Houdini and we're going to see how well that stuck in the next book, but also possibly causing some evacuees to rethink their allegiances.

And the Leonard Detweiler class still makes no sense to me. It's an eggshell once detected and it has very limited tactical manoeuvrability.

Are stealth and long-term thinking Onion blind spots? What other blind spots do they have?

Once the GA upped the tempo against the Alignment, they seem to make a lot of mistakes. And the MAlign is playing in the GA's field: military. This could be their undoing.

Please forgive my exasperation once again. But again I find myself in contention with the overall consensus.

I don't see where the MAlign made such huge mistakes. I agree they made some mistakes, what navy hasn't. But huge mistakes? No. Big mistakes? I can't go all in on that bet either.

Sure, the MA has long range plans. But what is wrong with that? It shows the ability to look many moves ahead strategically. I do seem to recall contingency plans for most of their strategies too. But where exactly have their plans fallen apart fatally? Nowhere as I can see. You'll have to enlighten me.

Their immediate plan was the collapse of the SL. Accomplished. Their plan was to use the much touted RMN as patsies to bring the SL down by making fools and tools out of both parties, thus saving their own resources. Done. Both parties eventually figured out they were used. So what? The deed is done.

I agree that the MA made a big mistake revealing the existence of the spider drive. Was it a huge mistake? We don't know yet. Unless the GA can counter it in time the point is as moot as the RMN's premature unveiling of the existence of the Apollo System.

At any rate, the depth and overall success of their very long range plans shows a marked brilliance to me. Psychopaths have a habit of sharing their dinner table with brilliance.

And the Leonard Detweiler class still makes no sense to me. It's an eggshell once detected and it has very limited tactical manoeuvrability.

Who in the hell started this dangerous assumption that the Leonard Detweiler Class are eggshells? Who? Do the Alignment strike you as a bunch of imbeciles? Why? They have certainly never come off that way to me. I'll agree that they are ruthless heartless psychopaths. But imbeciles? No. Obviously the Spiders make sense to them. And they are not imbeciles. They USE imbeciles.

One more thing. How can stealth and long term thinking be blind spots? You should tell that to Manticore, a system that has managed to survive solely because of their stealth and the long term thinking of King Roger.

And the MAlign is playing in the GA's field: military.

I have heard this argument several times before and I just don't get it. What does the MA have to do to convince you that they belong on any military playing field? They managed to use their military prowess to successfully attack and destroy the most heralded space stations in the entire galaxy, which were located in the most protected system in the entire galaxy without even a single loss. Without even being detected.

They used their military might and knowhow to bring down an entire polity. The oldest in existence! Their stealth is unmatched, and they've unveiled quite a few more military surprises. And you still question their prowess at playing on a military playing field???

Sounds like the thinking of the average Solly married to their own success.

cthia wrote:I don't see where the MAlign made such huge mistakes. I agree they made some mistakes, what navy hasn't. But huge mistakes? No. Big mistakes? I can't go all in on that bet either.

I'm pretty sure you'll be proven wrong. We know "The Good Guys Will Win In The End"™ and I'm pretty sure we'll find out that some of those mistakes will have been reasons for their downfalls.

Sure, the MA has long range plans. But what is wrong with that? It shows the ability to look many moves ahead strategically. I do seem to recall contingency plans for most of their strategies too. But where exactly have their plans fallen apart fatally? Nowhere as I can see. You'll have to enlighten me.

We've discussed the Detweiler Plan is off the rails. I don't want to rehash that here. My point in this thread isn't to discuss that they have long-term plans. It's to discuss whether they can operate in the short term, with very quickly changing conditions.

I agree that the MA made a big mistake revealing the existence of the spider drive. Was it a huge mistake? We don't know yet. Unless the GA can counter it in time the point is as moot as the RMN's premature unveiling of the existence of the Apollo System.

Agreed. The RMN did recover from that mistake, though, but barely. It was a mistake to corner Haven before they could defend from Haven throwing the kitchen sink at the MBS. And this was two sets of opponents that knew extremely well and we know both had very good tacticians and strategists, logisticians and military history.

Does the MAlign & MAN? I am guessing we will see the reveal of the spider drive that early was a mistake, especially the re-use of it at Beowulf. Politically, that showed the entire Galaxy that there was someone else out there. Militarily, the Silver Bullets loitered in the system for weeks, so reviewing the recorded sensors may reveal that they had been picked up.

I agree that you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. So they had to act some time. The question is not that.

At any rate, the depth and overall success of their very long range plans shows a marked brilliance to me. Psychopaths have a habit of sharing their dinner table with brilliance.

Which is for naught if they lose in the short term.

Who in the hell started this dangerous assumption that the Leonard Detweiler Class are eggshells? Who? Do the Alignment strike you as a bunch of imbeciles? Why? They have certainly never come off that way to me. I'll agree that they are ruthless heartless psychopaths. But imbeciles? No. Obviously the Spiders make sense to them. And they are not imbeciles. They USE imbeciles.

I did. I don't think they are imbeciles. I think they have their blinders on. They designed a ship for long operations and for stealth, like their own psychology. I am claiming that the ship may have fatal flaws when used in a way it wasn't designed: short, quick military actions. Moreover, the commanders aboard those ships have the same mentality blinders and may not act in quick & decisive fashion.

One more thing. How can stealth and long term thinking be blind spots? You should tell that to Manticore, a system that has managed to survive solely because of their stealth and the long term thinking of King Roger.

The blind spot is not what they're strong at. The blind spot is where they're not looking and improving on: military tactics, rapidly evolving situations, commander-on-scene decision-making.

I have heard this argument several times before and I just don't get it. What does the MA have to do to convince you that they belong on any military playing field? They managed to use their military prowess to successfully attack and destroy the most heralded space stations in the entire galaxy, which were located in the most protected system in the entire galaxy without even a single loss. Without even being detected.

They didn't use their military prowess to do that. They used stealth and subterfuge. Yes, stealth and subterfuge can win against military might, sometimes. The question is whether it can win every time. I claim it can't.

And I agree that they don't belong in any military playing field. Which is the whole point of this thread: they don't play by military rules and everyone else does. If the game is long-term activity, who can influence the public opinion the most, extract allies from the opponent, cause death and destruction without depleting one's own resources, then they should win. If the game is fast-paced, military action, they won't.

And you do realise this is Military Sci-Fi right? Which one do you think it will be?

They used their military might and knowhow to bring down an entire polity. The oldest in existence! Their stealth is unmatched, and they've unveiled quite a few more military surprises. And you still question their prowess at playing on a military playing field???

The SL still exists and is the biggest polity, even if shrunk to a quarter its size. More importantly, ALL the Core Worlds still exist with their population base, and all but one of them still have their industries intact. There has been no massive death and estruction. The RF is NOT the shining beacon of light amid chaos because their no chaos and there are brighter beacons.

cthia,

There's 2 ways to fight- hard and soft.

Call it what you want- hard and soft, covert and overt, conventional and asymmetric- both are fighting but they require different equipment, tactics, experience and mindsets.

'Hard' is your traditional set piece battle between similar forces. That's what the whole mainline series is all about. You gather up yours over there, I gather up mine over here and we fight it out right here in the open when we run across each other. Yes, there's place for subterfuge, disinformation and traps but those are most often tactical uses.

'Hard' is expensive and labor intensive. It takes a lot of money, time and effort to develop your forces and train them up to being competent. When you lose some of them- and you will lose forces- it takes more time, money and effort to replace them.

The thing is, the survivors learn on the fly what works and what doesn't and get better the longer they survive. Smart organizations also pull the survivors back from the front and let them teach those coming up behind them what they have learned so their learning curve is not as steep.

'Soft' is more along the lines of guerilla warfare or the tactics of modern terrorists. It's ambushes, raids, knives in the dark, unexplained 'accidents', ...

'Soft' is cheap monetarily and in labor. Small groups can make an impact far beyond what they could do in more conventional settings. They rely on anonymity and secrecy. They strike when and where they decide and fade into or stay in the background when the odds aren't in their favor. Think of all of the stories from Viet Nam and Afghanistan and Iraq of patrols seeing military age males all over the place one day but not seeing them the next time through the area- usually right before they get attacked.


The MA are long time experts at 'soft' warfare. Yeah, it helped that nobody but them knew that they were at war, but the fact nobody found out- or even suspected- they even existed until very recently says a lot for their prowess.

The MA has decided it's time to transition from 'soft' to 'hard' and have started building conventional forces.

One problem they have is that they have chosen the best equipped, most experienced half a dozen or so conventional forces in existence as their opponent. Note the use of 'opponent' singular. They aren't going to get to pick them off one at a time and their ploy of having them pick each other off has failed spectacularly.

Yes, I count the Sollies in that mix. The Manties worked a miracle when they knocked all of the hubris out of the upper echelons of Solly Navy. The Sollies were never 'bad', just stuck in a couple ruts based around past glories. Ruts that got a LOT of people killed.

I'm also counting Torch. They are inheriting their institutional mindset from both the Manty and the Havenite Navies (and a little Andy thrown in for good measure) and have Thandie as a taskmaster (she might be a ground pounder but don't think that means she's incapable of recognizing slackness). They are already capable of punching above their weight class at the end of the latest book, so what are they going to be like in a decade or two after more experience in larger ships? Maybe some exchange of officers for cross training with Haven or Manticore or candidates attending Saganami Island?

Another problem they have is that they aren't ready for prime time yet. Unfortunately, the opposition now knows that they are around. The Gaston ploy will only work for so long because there's too many eyes looking for clues and too many really smart minds thinking about what's being found.

jtg452 wrote:cthia,

There's 2 ways to fight- hard and soft.

Call it what you want- hard and soft, covert and overt, conventional and asymmetric- both are fighting but they require different equipment, tactics, experience and mindsets.

'Hard' is your traditional set piece battle between similar forces. That's what the whole mainline series is all about. You gather up yours over there, I gather up mine over here and we fight it out right here in the open when we run across each other. Yes, there's place for subterfuge, disinformation and traps but those are most often tactical uses.

'Hard' is expensive and labor intensive. It takes a lot of money, time and effort to develop your forces and train them up to being competent. When you lose some of them- and you will lose forces- it takes more time, money and effort to replace them.

The thing is, the survivors learn on the fly what works and what doesn't and get better the longer they survive. Smart organizations also pull the survivors back from the front and let them teach those coming up behind them what they have learned so their learning curve is not as steep.

'Soft' is more along the lines of guerilla warfare or the tactics of modern terrorists. It's ambushes, raids, knives in the dark, unexplained 'accidents', ...

'Soft' is cheap monetarily and in labor. Small groups can make an impact far beyond what they could do in more conventional settings. They rely on anonymity and secrecy. They strike when and where they decide and fade into or stay in the background when the odds aren't in their favor. Think of all of the stories from Viet Nam and Afghanistan and Iraq of patrols seeing military age males all over the place one day but not seeing them the next time through the area- usually right before they get attacked.


The MA are long time experts at 'soft' warfare. Yeah, it helped that nobody but them knew that they were at war, but the fact nobody found out- or even suspected- they even existed until very recently says a lot for their prowess.

The MA has decided it's time to transition from 'soft' to 'hard' and have started building conventional forces.

One problem they have is that they have chosen the best equipped, most experienced half a dozen or so conventional forces in existence as their opponent. Note the use of 'opponent' singular. They aren't going to get to pick them off one at a time and their ploy of having them pick each other off has failed spectacularly.

Yes, I count the Sollies in that mix. The Manties worked a miracle when they knocked all of the hubris out of the upper echelons of Solly Navy. The Sollies were never 'bad', just stuck in a couple ruts based around past glories. Ruts that got a LOT of people killed.

I'm also counting Torch. They are inheriting their institutional mindset from both the Manty and the Havenite Navies (and a little Andy thrown in for good measure) and have Thandie as a taskmaster (she might be a ground pounder but don't think that means she's incapable of recognizing slackness). They are already capable of punching above their weight class at the end of the latest book, so what are they going to be like in a decade or two after more experience in larger ships? Maybe some exchange of officers for cross training with Haven or Manticore or candidates attending Saganami Island?

Another problem they have is that they aren't ready for prime time yet. Unfortunately, the opposition now knows that they are around. The Gaston ploy will only work for so long because there's too many eyes looking for clues and too many really smart minds thinking about what's being found.

And you can look at Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor for a semi-recent example of a force that tried to use surprise and subterfuge to launch attack to rebalance things so their "hard" starategy could win enough ground for them to get more than they lost once the fighting ended.

And how badly that went for them despite one of the most successful surprise attacks I can think of. As a percentage of the most powerful combat units disabled or destroyed Pearl Harbor was vastly more devastating to the US Navy than Oyster Bay was to the RMN. And yet because it didn't alter the fundamental industrial and manpower mismatch between the two sides it ultimately failed at gaining Japan her war aims.

Oyster Bay did hurt Manticore and Grayson's industries and ship building more than Pearl Harbor hurt the US's (despite hurting their active fleets far less). But the MAlign isn't going to be facing Manticore alone - at the very minimum it's facing the combined economic power of Manticore, Grayson, Haven, and the Andermani. So unless it can repeat Oyster Bay over and over until those polities collective military production falls below what a single isolated system (Darius) can manage they may be just repeated the mistake of Pearl Harbor on a grander scale.


And of course we know that their biggest blind spot was assuming that accomplishing their initial stated goal (more galactic freedom for genetic experimentation that Beowulf allowed, and more acceptance for Genies) required military force and the destruction of the existing nations. RFC has basically told us that if they'd invested the same kind of time and resources they've used over the years in their long term plan for that they have long ago been able to coopt and influence galactic opinion sufficiently to achieve the first Detwiler's stated goals.

Jonathan_S wrote:Oyster Bay did hurt Manticore and Grayson's industries and ship building more than Pearl Harbor hurt the US's (despite hurting their active fleets far less). But the MAlign isn't going to be facing Manticore alone - at the very minimum it's facing the combined economic power of Manticore, Grayson, Haven, and the Andermani.

Don't forget Beowulf-Hypatia. While Hypatia may not have military industries, they are a Core world with high standards of living, with industry and financial markets to match.

And Torch, which brings in Erewhon and the Maya Autonomous Regional Sector too.

So unless it can repeat Oyster Bay over and over until those polities collective military production falls below what a single isolated system (Darius) can manage they may be just repeated the mistake of Pearl Harbor on a grander scale.

None of the capital worlds of those polities are susceptible to the same attack as Oyster Bay. Variants of it may have some level of success, depending on how different it is. We've seen the Silver Bullet be successfully inserted even after Oyster Bay, but the mission was quite different.

And this is assuming they can locate Bolthole, which may have to remain hidden for another decade.

And of course we know that their biggest blind spot was assuming that accomplishing their initial stated goal (more galactic freedom for genetic experimentation that Beowulf allowed, and more acceptance for Genies) required military force and the destruction of the existing nations. RFC has basically told us that if they'd invested the same kind of time and resources they've used over the years in their long term plan for that they have long ago been able to coopt and influence galactic opinion sufficiently to achieve the first Detwiler's stated goals.

Right. We know from RFC's posts in the past that the Inner Onion lives in an echo chamber. They are arrogant and convinced that they are in the right. As such, they can't conceive that their strategy is wrong, or, like Jonathan has just said, they'd have reevaluated and approached the problem differently.

So, are they sufficiently blind that they can't imagine their strategy might not work? Will they continue throwing good money after bad?

Sun Tzu did not say "attack your enemy where they're strongest." The Alignment's enemy is strongest in military. Why are they using military tactics?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Oyster Bay did hurt Manticore and Grayson's industries and ship building more than Pearl Harbor hurt the US's (despite hurting their active fleets far less). But the MAlign isn't going to be facing Manticore alone - at the very minimum it's facing the combined economic power of Manticore, Grayson, Haven, and the Andermani.

Don't forget Beowulf-Hypatia. While Hypatia may not have military industries, they are a Core world with high standards of living, with industry and financial markets to match.

And Torch, which brings in Erewhon and the Maya Autonomous Regional Sector too.

So unless it can repeat Oyster Bay over and over until those polities collective military production falls below what a single isolated system (Darius) can manage they may be just repeated the mistake of Pearl Harbor on a grander scale.

None of the capital worlds of those polities are susceptible to the same attack as Oyster Bay. Variants of it may have some level of success, depending on how different it is. We've seen the Silver Bullet be successfully inserted even after Oyster Bay, but the mission was quite different.

And this is assuming they can locate Bolthole, which may have to remain hidden for another decade.

And of course we know that their biggest blind spot was assuming that accomplishing their initial stated goal (more galactic freedom for genetic experimentation that Beowulf allowed, and more acceptance for Genies) required military force and the destruction of the existing nations. RFC has basically told us that if they'd invested the same kind of time and resources they've used over the years in their long term plan for that they have long ago been able to coopt and influence galactic opinion sufficiently to achieve the first Detwiler's stated goals.

Right. We know from RFC's posts in the past that the Inner Onion lives in an echo chamber. They are arrogant and convinced that they are in the right. As such, they can't conceive that their strategy is wrong, or, like Jonathan has just said, they'd have reevaluated and approached the problem differently.

So, are they sufficiently blind that they can't imagine their strategy might not work? Will they continue throwing good money after bad?

Sun Tzu did not say "attack your enemy where they're strongest." The Alignment's enemy is strongest in military. Why are they using military tactics?

If they were reading Sun Tzu, they would know better than doing their enemy a small hurt, too.

All that does is make them angry and focuses their ire on you with a vengeance. Oyster Bay was a failure when they missed getting the 'python lump' of Manty new construction while they were still in the docks.

It was also one of those 'anomalies' that set off so many alarm bells.

"I know I didn't do it, I know you aren't capable of doing it and they damn sure didn't do it to themselves, so who did it, how'd they pull it off, where are they and why did they do it?"

- passed the lips of a whole lot of folks starting with Kevin Usher and working its' way down to the rank and file at Solly ONI.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
The question is whether that force is sufficient. And for the purposes of this thread: whether the MAN trains its captains for a military, overt solution, as opposed to a sneaky, covert one. An LD is a huge amount of fire power, both offensively and defensively, and can probably barrel through any third-rate system's BC squadron or smaller. Those won't have good ships or well-trained crews either.

But that won't work in tier one or tier two systems. And it's still a military operation.

Will they do it?

If I was the CO and being overt was within the scope of the mission, then maybe.

What is their total force? What percentage of the total force was at likely home? What percentage of this force can you see searching for you right now?

The odds are that none of the forces committed to the search can intervene. The command loop is too long. So the question is can you take everyone else when they are supported by their fixed defenses?

Invisible monster ships are still terribly difficult to find and deal with. The problem is the defender only knows where some thing came out of hyper. Is is still there? Is it maneuvering towards your critical infrastructure at say 200G (because the LDs will have better grave plates) or is it doing something else?

If you maneuver towards the LDs you have the risk that they pop in behind you when you are moving outbound at 30,000 km/sec. So the defender probably doesn't want to do that.

But a clock is running for the LD CO. He can't be much inside the hyperlimit when everyone out searching comes home.

So the likely result is the defender forts up and the LDs have to get to them, by fire or physically moving.

So I don't know. Not enough info on Prob Detection (pD) of the grav torps, probability of kill (pK) of the grav torps, pB of the LDs as ranges change, missile armament of the LDs, anti-missile strategy of the LDs and the recon (drone or otherwise) of the LD formation.

There would appear to be a pretty good chance that, against a significant but not huge and top tier, that massive missile barrages from the LDs combined with synchronized grav torpedo waves could pretty much obliterate a defender.

This also depends on whether 'extensive collateral damage' is acceptable. Because bombardment from many light minutes out is likely to be less than surgical.

So the mega intelligent Alphas have this weapons system (the LDs, the grazer corps, lots of fancy yet basic weapons packages for ballistic delivery and had to use the Sharks because they discovered that they really really really needed to crush (but not burn off the planets) of Manticore and Grayson to "free up" Haven and stay on track to shatter the SL.

What exactly are the LD's designed to do? Massive ships with essentially stand-off weapons to devastate the orbital infrastructures of "problem" systems. Stand-off with apparently longish travel times and then -unless you don't care about extinction level damage to said planets- you have to take a long time to painstakingly build up your targeting and then have a relatively long (weeks?) to have the weapons get from release to target?

How many systems need the Oyster Bay treatment? How many LDs are they going to build to "do the job" .
And now the League isn't actualy gone. Beowulf, Manticore, Haven, the Andermani, Erwhon, (and Torcj) are all out for blood and the League is both still there and quite possibly will help? And the Renesance Factor is ......odd for a creation just now having sort have formed-really quick, like they were waiting for this.....going to push for snapping up league members?

Are we going to see four more misdirection targets -hundreds of years in the planning- to get the Alignment back on track?
I think somebody related to Darius is going to push the wrong button and solve everybody else's problems.

Are they smart enough to realize that onion peeling has now reached the Darius layer, so that they need to establish yet another hidden world?

Brigade XO wrote:So the mega intelligent Alphas have this weapons system (the LDs, the grazer corps, lots of fancy yet basic weapons packages for ballistic delivery and had to use the Sharks because they discovered that they really really really needed to crush (but not burn off the planets) of Manticore and Grayson to "free up" Haven and stay on track to shatter the SL.

What exactly are the LD's designed to do? Massive ships with essentially stand-off weapons to devastate the orbital infrastructures of "problem" systems. Stand-off with apparently longish travel times and then -unless you don't care about extinction level damage to said planets- you have to take a long time to painstakingly build up your targeting and then have a relatively long (weeks?) to have the weapons get from release to target?

How many systems need the Oyster Bay treatment? How many LDs are they going to build to "do the job" .
And now the League isn't actualy gone. Beowulf, Manticore, Haven, the Andermani, Erwhon, (and Torcj) are all out for blood and the League is both still there and quite possibly will help? And the Renesance Factor is ......odd for a creation just now having sort have formed-really quick, like they were waiting for this.....going to push for snapping up league members?

Are we going to see four more misdirection targets -hundreds of years in the planning- to get the Alignment back on track?
I think somebody related to Darius is going to push the wrong button and solve everybody else's problems.

All ships in Honorverse are eggshells. Where they get their survivability is from their impeller wedge and sidewalls.

That's why down the throat and up the kilt shots are to be avoided at all costs.

That's why the LD's are seen as eggshells. To be effective they can't be running the impeller. Once they are though, sure they are as tough as any in their weight class.