Attacking Darius:

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Please note that Shuttlecock wasn't a disappointment to the MA. At the end of the day. Paraphrasing, "On the flip side, we just destroyed more ships in a single launch than the SLN destroyed during their entire war. And Shuttlecock was always meant to be a probe of Manty defenses."

Very nice cherry pick, but the complete text goes like this:

It was obvious the Grand Alliance hadn't seen the Hastas coming, at least until the very last moment. He'd authorized Auberjonois to spin up two more of there precious FTL communications relays to feed Irving Fischer's tactical officers data in near real-time, and he'd felt a fierce surge as the stealthy platforms launched their attack birds and the torrent of fire had ripped straight into the Grand Alliance's teeth.

But now his jaw tightened as the huge fortress's CIC refined and updated its data.

Three ships. They'd destroyed three ships.

His hands closed into fists under cover of his console as that sank home. Only three.

"Grossadmiral, I -" Auberjonois's voice faltered, and Montalvan nodded.

"I see it, Tomasz." He was astounded his own voice sounded so calm, and he tilted back in his command chair. "I'd hoped for more. Still, we just killed more Alliance superdreadnoughts in a single salvo than the Sollies managed in their entire war. And Shuttlecock was always at least a probe. A test of their defenses. And we got a lot of data on those. The next strike will use it."

If the best the Malign can do is say we accomplished more than the SLN, that is not much of an accomplishment at all.

But the next strikes did not do much more damage. For the final large Hasta strike the fleet just hypered out until the danger was past. That one killed 70 LAC's.

Now if Darius had Ghost-class ships monitoring all of this, it might be more significant; but we will not know until we get a book that follows up.

I really wasn't picking cherries. So it was only three ships. And sure, like any other navy, they would have been happier with more kills. But again, the important thing to remember is that it was a probe. An attempt to gain data. I am sure they got the data they needed.

(Actually, I think the MA has been using Ghosts to spy on the GA since before they were the GA. When they instigated the war with the Solarian League, they were watching then.)

But remember, this is the battle between the two super powers of the galaxy. Well, the GA against Darius's second string. And they were both feeling each other out. The fact that Shuttlecock only killed three ships was no different than Honor's massive launch at Beta that was, for all intents and purposes, survived. IINM, I think Honor said that that launch would have wiped an entire fleet out of existence? IINM. Which makes sense, since the author said a fort can withstand the combined force of how many SDs?

At any rate, do consider the same old song playing over again. How much more effective will MA tech get when they get their own mini Manty powerplant. That means a bigger power budget for their ECMs, which means more of those 3-second firing grasers will get through.

tlb wrote:But the next strikes did not do much more damage. For the final large Hasta strike the fleet just hypered out until the danger was past. That one killed 70 LAC's.

penny wrote:I really wasn't picking cherries. So it was only three ships. And sure, like any other navy, they would have been happier with more kills. But again, the important thing to remember is that it was a probe. An attempt to gain data. I am sure they got the data they needed.

(Actually, I think the MA has been using Ghosts to spy on the GA since before they were the GA. When they instigated the war with the Solarian League, they were watching then.)

But remember, this is the battle between the two super powers of the galaxy. Well, the GA against Darius's second string. And they were both feeling each other out. The fact that Shuttlecock only killed three ships was no different than Honor's massive launch at Beta that was, for all intents and purposes, survived. IINM, I think Honor said that launch would have wiped an entire fleet out of existence? IINM. Which makes sense, since the author said a fort can withstand the combined force of how many SDs?

But the data did not help them. I do not know the final tally of GA ships destroyed and people killed, but the final attack after surrender is said to have killed several thousand more (I believe).

Still, far more of the Galton defenders died in the forts than the losses by the GA. After the final massive Hasta launch only destroyed 70 LAC's, the GA fleet settled down to pounding the forts to scrap.

penny wrote:I really wasn't picking cherries. So it was only three ships. And sure, like any other navy, they would have been happier with more kills. But again, the important thing to remember is that it was a probe. An attempt to gain data. I am sure they got the data they needed.

On the other hand the MAlign weren't the only people who got data from the probe.

The Grand Alliance also learned - and quickly adopted modified tactics and fleet disposition that seem to have largely blunted the threat from those weapons.

We'll have to wait and see who learned more, and thus who is therefore more effective in future clashes

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:But the next strikes did not do much more damage. For the final large Hasta strike the fleet just hypered out until the danger was past. That one killed 70 LAC's.

penny wrote:I really wasn't picking cherries. So it was only three ships. And sure, like any other navy, they would have been happier with more kills. But again, the important thing to remember is that it was a probe. An attempt to gain data. I am sure they got the data they needed.

(Actually, I think the MA has been using Ghosts to spy on the GA since before they were the GA. When they instigated the war with the Solarian League, they were watching then.)

But remember, this is the battle between the two super powers of the galaxy. Well, the GA against Darius's second string. And they were both feeling each other out. The fact that Shuttlecock only killed three ships was no different than Honor's massive launch at Beta that was, for all intents and purposes, survived. IINM, I think Honor said that launch would have wiped an entire fleet out of existence? IINM. Which makes sense, since the author said a fort can withstand the combined force of how many SDs?

But the data did not help them. I do not know the final tally of GA ships destroyed and people killed, but the final attack after surrender is said to have killed several thousand more (I believe).

Still, far more of the Galton defenders died in the forts than the losses by the GA. After the final massive Hasta launch only destroyed 70 LAC's, the GA fleet settled down to pounding the forts to scrap.

Because the LACs were the only targets left to destroy after the entire GA bugged out and hypered out. In future such attacks, the GA will need time to hyper out. The GA won't be allowed to stooge around at the hyper limit if it attacks Galton. Err, make that Darius.

.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I don't think the author would include the sentiment simply for window dressing. You're pulling at straws. Besides, I agree with Honor's sentiment about SLN hubris. No one else's tech can be better than the mighty SLN, than the mighty RMN. Until it is.

I eagerly await the next book in this series, when we may get answers. However I am depressed that reportedly there are at least two projects that have higher priority.

The flip side of that coin is that two projects could cover lots of time in dog err book years. Let's see... 50 LDs per project will be a total of 100 LDs completed.

tlb wrote:I eagerly await the next book in this series, when we may get answers. However I am depressed that reportedly there are at least two projects that have higher priority.

penny wrote:The flip side of that coin is that two projects could cover lots of time in dog err book years. Let's see... 50 LDs per project will be a total of 100 LDs completed.

I do not think there is a correlation between writing years and years lapsed in Honorverse: UH (released in 2018) has an ending date of March 1923 PD, while TEiF (released in 1921) has a beginning date of February 1923 PD. Shadow of Freedom and Shadow of Victory have major overlaps in the stories.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:I eagerly await the next book in this series, when we may get answers. However I am depressed that reportedly there are at least two projects that have higher priority.

penny wrote:The flip side of that coin is that two projects could cover lots of time in dog err book years. Let's see... 50 LDs per project will be a total of 100 LDs completed.

I do not think there is a correlation between writing years and years lapsed in Honorverse: UH (released in 2018) has an ending date of March 1923 PD, while TEiF (released in 1921) has a beginning date of February 1923 PD. Shadow of Freedom and Shadow of Victory have major overlaps in the stories.

But it certainy could happen as far as those 100 LDs. Just like he did with an entirely new system called Galton, the author can easily manufacture 100 LDs... like... POOF!... There it is.

I still think Darius will seed the outer system with invisible pods. The GA's sensors will be completely concentrated ahead of the fleet and towards the inner system.

Galton analyzed the history of Honor's previous tactics. Adebayo was trained to confront Honor. She studied Honor's tactics and was surprised that Honor departed from her norm and remained outside the system lobbing missiles. Darius' eyes surely took note of the GA's tactics.

If pre-spotted invisible weapons platforms are placed where they will be behind an emerging enemy hypering into the system, being that they are located behind the enemy should make them even stealthier. I see no reason the GA won't attempt to duplicate their previous tactics of stooging around at the edge of the system sizing the enemy up.

penny wrote:If pre-spotted invisible weapons platforms are placed where they will be behind an emerging enemy hypering into the system, being that they are located behind the enemy should make them even stealthier. I see no reason the GA won't attempt to duplicate their previous tactics of stooging around at the edge of the system sizing the enemy up.

If you were to put a base a light-day or more away from the primary and have it stocked with say a thousand graser torps....

The other way to really screw up the current GA tactic is to have enough precision in a microjump that you have an average deviation say 10% of a light-second. Then you jump a squadron of energy heavy fully stealthed ships into the midst of the fleet. You combine that with the demonstrated ability to screw up GA sensors with big honking fusion bombs (which have no effect on grav sensors) I think it would be interesting. At that range I'm sure the GA fleet can detect and localize the MA stealthed vessels, but I further suspect that they won't be able to do it in the five or so seconds they have.

kzt wrote:The other way to really screw up the current GA tactic is to have enough precision in a microjump that you have an average deviation say 10% of a light-second. Then you jump a squadron of energy heavy fully stealthed ships into the midst of the fleet. You combine that with the demonstrated ability to screw up GA sensors with big honking fusion bombs (which have no effect on grav sensors) I think it would be interesting. At that range I'm sure the GA fleet can detect and localize the MA stealthed vessels, but I further suspect that they won't be able to do it in the five or so seconds they have.

But a microjump creates a signal in grav sensors as you return to normal space, so the stealth will not affect first detection and then the fleet can shoot before the arrivals can react.

tlb wrote:

kzt wrote:The other way to really screw up the current GA tactic is to have enough precision in a microjump that you have an average deviation say 10% of a light-second. Then you jump a squadron of energy heavy fully stealthed ships into the midst of the fleet. You combine that with the demonstrated ability to screw up GA sensors with big honking fusion bombs (which have no effect on grav sensors) I think it would be interesting. At that range I'm sure the GA fleet can detect and localize the MA stealthed vessels, but I further suspect that they won't be able to do it in the five or so seconds they have.

But a microjump creates a signal in grav sensors as you return to normal space, so the stealth will not affect first detection and then the fleet can shoot before the arrivals can react.

They know a bunch of things just jumped in due to the energy flare. The MA ships don’t show up on their sensors. And you’d microjump with relative velocity. Lets assume 1000km sec, so it is 100 km sec. In 20 milliseconds the ship is clear of anyone shooting at the bright flash. And maybe they dump a few gigaton scale fusion bombs too, for the sensor overlad effect. How long does it take to get the grasers on a GA ship ready to fire and permission granted? A second at least, maybe multiple seconds?

What is the MA doing in that time? Remember that this assumes they are within 30,000 km from where they planned, so they already have a loaded and pre-programmed automatic fire plan just waiting for targets when the pop out of hyper. So they star shooting within about 20ms. So the most threatening GA ships are dead before they even have processed they are under attack.

And for optimum effectiveness this would be slightly after the second wave of graser torps. Where the MA ships are there to complete the destruction that was unleashed about 5 seconds earlier, so you already have dozens of ship reactors failing with their petaton scale fireballs.