?

Jonathan_S wrote:That said, even pulling off the in hyper ambush you need to get them fast before they can evade into some other band (or all the way to normal space) -- otherwise you've likely got to spread your forces across all the accessible bands to find the fleeting enemy before they can evade or hide. (Mind you, even chasing them off into a lower hyper band would likely have allowed Rollings to reach Hancock before the CLs could have brought warning)

My guess is the the first ships stopped (or slowed) in the Alpha band and then translated up. So when the pickets appeared in the final band the Peeps were already behind them with their wedges (?) hidden by stealth and that was when the pickets were trapped. They could not escape, because the hyper-generators did not have time to recycle. The pickets thought they were safe, because they could see that the fleet was moving forward during each transition.

penny wrote:I am glad you made that point. And I agree. However, it is also related to another point I've been meaning to make. Akin to the analogy of making spaghetti sauce. If you are going to spend hours cooking spaghetti sauce, then cook a lot of it to use later. Likewise, if you are going to spend months sneaking ships into a system, then sneak in a lot of them. Send along the kitchen sink too. I was thinking about how effective nasty LACs are to capital ships when they can get in close in swarms. And their acceleration is even greater because of the size of the LAC. But if a lot of these hyper raiders spend months on an insertion in important systems of the GA, then there should be enough of them to follow several convoys into hyper.

The more ships attempt this, the bigger the hyper footprint will be. It's more risky.

And you're still talking about one warship per freighter or handful or freighters, every couple of months. That's a huge investment of matériel for what appears to be very little gain.

Another reason to attack in hyper instead of in-system, I hope, is to level the playing field. A spider ship can get its ass shot out from under it by a Q-ship in n-space, etc., etc. Hyper warfare is less risky and at first glance seems to require less firepower???

It's not less risky at all.

But I need some help. What weapon would be more effective in hyper if this strategy works? Are ships more vulnerable in hyper? Would a 3-second mounted ship graser do the trick?

No, ships are not more vulnerable in hyper, except in a grav wave. In a grav wave, any ship that loses its sails will get shredded. But in a grav wave, the attacking ship is not stealthy any more either. That may not matter if tracking and attacking un-escorted freighters, but a Q-ship would ruin the attacker's day.

Besides, here's a question: is the translation up from n-space detectable? We know there's a hyper footprint translating down in any band, detectable in the arrival band. Wouldn't there be the same for translations up? Ships lose their forward velocity when they translate.

What would change is the geometry. In theory, translating up should get you 62x closer to a target compared to n-space. But this is untested theory and RFC has not revealed what really happens to formations. More than likely, he does not want to go there, so your strategy fill run afoul of the Author's Hammer.

penny wrote:Why? The RMN withheld major capabilities from the galaxy for a long time. Anyone giving orders or attempting to exceed certain unauthorized performance thresholds aboard a MAN ship simply drops dead. Seriously, I wouldn't bank on that.

That's a fair argument, but the GA intelligence services are still pretty good. The RMN had very good intel on the Peep order of battle and technology before the war, and good intel on the SLN too, even if their padding to account for inaccuracies wasn't required. Moreover, they have the Andermani on their side, who seem to have a knack for finding anything you want to keep hidden. The Peep intelligence services missed the RMN tech edge because they had a blind spot. And once the war started, the entire Manticore-B component was declared off limits, which limited what the Peeps could find.

So if the RF is keeping regular secrets, it may be found.

In any case, what I was thinking is that the RFN ships that are in Mannerheim and some other big systems will be visible to all the merchant ships. The yards will be visible too. So the GA will have a very good idea of the order of battle (like they did with the Peeps) and whether anything funky is showing up on their ships.

I have argued before Daddy Detweiler was even potty trained that the RFN is at least a defacto part of the MAN.

I wouldn't say that. Controlled by the MAlign, patsy and working in conjunction with the RFN? Yes. But not part of. Given the Plan called for the RF to be the beacon of stability in the chaos, the RFN needs some modicum of apparently independent action.

Achieving the desired objective of causing a redeployment and thinning the herd traditionally. But you might be right. However, it is possible that even the mighty GA gets at least one specific critical material from way outside of GA space. I would hope Bolthole isn't as dependent, but you never know. At any rate, causing a redeployment and luring smaller forces into your web to defeat in detail works as well.

Your strategy has the same risk of defeat in detail for the MAN forces. It would be very poor planning on their part to attempt to defeat in detail using details and not recognise the problem.

The author might have been saving certain 'whine' until its time. The end game of the series is ripe for the author to unleash everything he is saving.

It's not his style. He gives us hints before.

Though I'll grant it's entirely possible he's doing that in the next few Honorverse Expanded books, as well as in the remaining Manticore Ascendant and the new Edward Saganami ones.

That very well might be the case, like you said for whatever reason. It certainly is possible for convoys and fleets to follow each other. It could be that one needs to enter hyper at nearly the same point in space. But absent some quirk, I fail to see why a stealthed ship cannot enter hyper close on the heels of, and follow, a convoy.

Because it might need to be so close that it would be detected? Maybe not for myopic, civilian sensors on freighters, but what happens if that is actually a Q-ship?

See upstream. I suggested an entire convoy could be wiped out. But even a single freighter would be worth it if it only takes one hyper raider amongst the dozens available to destroy it. It only requires one warship to destroy a freighter in n-space.

A couple dozen freighters are not going to make a noticeable impact in the GA economy. You need at least two orders of magnitude more.

My problem isn't that this can't be done. It can. It's that it's a huge waste of resources. So there would need to be some other, pressing need to cause this to be a deployed strategy.

Do they enter hyper traveling at 0.5C? The MAN has significantly upgraded particle screens. Shouldn't they be much faster off the blocks? And if there is no escort, the hyper raiders can enter hyper and follow freighters very closely. I was under the impression that a freighter's sensors can't see their own arses in a clear mirror. Much less one that is distorted.

No. I was thinking of tracking down a ship in transit, not an attack soon after departing from the origin system. The problem there is that your horizon is so close and space so vast that you may be quite far from the target for any number of reasons. Going from 20 light-minutes to 30 would be a marginal improvement; going to an hour or an hour and a half would be significant. But given the trip takes weeks, an hour is too little. If they can't get a light-day of scanning range, they can't find convoys, except in the way that everyone else already does.

To do what everyone else already does, you don't need new technology.

Not in hyper against the MA's significantly improved particle screens and the spider-drive in impeller mode.

The spider drive doesn't operate in impeller mode. For all we've heard, the only way a ship can generate a wedge is using the ring of nodes. Moreover, all the evidence we have says the spider can't be any faster than what it currently is, even if it doesn't need to keep the stealth. And in the case of a ship, if it can't have a wedge, it can't accelerate much faster without killing its crew.

210 gravities is enough to overtake freighters at 150 gravities, but you don't need that. You can overtake freighters using the same acceleration if you have a higher top speed... which every warship already does.

Now, I will readily say the spider ships probably have a way to project a wedge, because it's extremely likely they can project Warshawski sails. So maybe when stealth is not required, those ships bring up their wedges. They're probably not as efficient as the GA's, quite likely not even as efficient as the SLN's because of the compromises required to have the spider triple-skeg hull in the first place, but that might give them a couple hundred gravities without crushing the crew, so they can start the stern chase.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:Why? The RMN withheld major capabilities from the galaxy for a long time. Anyone giving orders or attempting to exceed certain unauthorized performance thresholds aboard a MAN ship simply drops dead. Seriously, I wouldn't bank on that.

That's a fair argument, but the GA intelligence services are still pretty good. The RMN had very good intel on the Peep order of battle and technology before the war, and good intel on the SLN too, even if their padding to account for inaccuracies wasn't required. Moreover, they have the Andermani on their side, who seem to have a knack for finding anything you want to keep hidden. The Peep intelligence services missed the RMN tech edge because they had a blind spot. And once the war started, the entire Manticore-B component was declared off limits, which limited what the Peeps could find.

So if the RF is keeping regular secrets, it may be found.

In any case, what I was thinking is that the RFN ships that are in Mannerheim and some other big systems will be visible to all the merchant ships. The yards will be visible too. So the GA will have a very good idea of the order of battle (like they did with the Peeps) and whether anything funky is showing up on their ships.

I have argued before Daddy Detweiler was even potty trained that the RFN is at least a defacto part of the MAN.

I wouldn't say that. Controlled by the MAlign, patsy and working in conjunction with the RFN? Yes. But not part of. Given the Plan called for the RF to be the beacon of stability in the chaos, the RFN needs some modicum of apparently independent action.

Achieving the desired objective of causing a redeployment and thinning the herd traditionally. But you might be right. However, it is possible that even the mighty GA gets at least one specific critical material from way outside of GA space. I would hope Bolthole isn't as dependent, but you never know. At any rate, causing a redeployment and luring smaller forces into your web to defeat in detail works as well.

Your strategy has the same risk of defeat in detail for the MAN forces. It would be very poor planning on their part to attempt to defeat in detail using details and not recognise the problem.

The author might have been saving certain 'whine' until its time. The end game of the series is ripe for the author to unleash everything he is saving.

It's not his style. He gives us hints before.

Though I'll grant it's entirely possible he's doing that in the next few Honorverse Expanded books, as well as in the remaining Manticore Ascendant and the new Edward Saganami ones.

That very well might be the case, like you said for whatever reason. It certainly is possible for convoys and fleets to follow each other. It could be that one needs to enter hyper at nearly the same point in space. But absent some quirk, I fail to see why a stealthed ship cannot enter hyper close on the heels of, and follow, a convoy.

Because it might need to be so close that it would be detected? Maybe not for myopic, civilian sensors on freighters, but what happens if that is actually a Q-ship?

See upstream. I suggested an entire convoy could be wiped out. But even a single freighter would be worth it if it only takes one hyper raider amongst the dozens available to destroy it. It only requires one warship to destroy a freighter in n-space.

A couple dozen freighters are not going to make a noticeable impact in the GA economy. You need at least two orders of magnitude more.

My problem isn't that this can't be done. It can. It's that it's a huge waste of resources. So there would need to be some other, pressing need to cause this to be a deployed strategy.

Do they enter hyper traveling at 0.5C? The MAN has significantly upgraded particle screens. Shouldn't they be much faster off the blocks? And if there is no escort, the hyper raiders can enter hyper and follow freighters very closely. I was under the impression that a freighter's sensors can't see their own arses in a clear mirror. Much less one that is distorted.

No. I was thinking of tracking down a ship in transit, not an attack soon after departing from the origin system. The problem there is that your horizon is so close and space so vast that you may be quite far from the target for any number of reasons. Going from 20 light-minutes to 30 would be a marginal improvement; going to an hour or an hour and a half would be significant. But given the trip takes weeks, an hour is too little. If they can't get a light-day of scanning range, they can't find convoys, except in the way that everyone else already does.

To do what everyone else already does, you don't need new technology.

Not in hyper against the MA's significantly improved particle screens and the spider-drive in impeller mode.

The spider drive doesn't operate in impeller mode. For all we've heard, the only way a ship can generate a wedge is using the ring of nodes. Moreover, all the evidence we have says the spider can't be any faster than what it currently is, even if it doesn't need to keep the stealth. And in the case of a ship, if it can't have a wedge, it can't accelerate much faster without killing its crew.

210 gravities is enough to overtake freighters at 150 gravities, but you don't need that. You can overtake freighters using the same acceleration if you have a higher top speed... which every warship already does.

Now, I will readily say the spider ships probably have a way to project a wedge, because it's extremely likely they can project Warshawski sails. So maybe when stealth is not required, those ships bring up their wedges. They're probably not as efficient as the GA's, quite likely not even as efficient as the SLN's because of the compromises required to have the spider triple-skeg hull in the first place, but that might give them a couple hundred gravities without crushing the crew, so they can start the stern chase.

Do forgive my wording. That should have read "spider-drive ships" in impeller mode. You appear to accept that a spider ship may be able to produce a wedge. If so, that would technically make it a hybrid. A wedge-spider hybrid is what we are using in this discussion. The hybrid was suggested by Remontoire and tlb. Just so we are on the same page before we proceed.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Now, I will readily say the spider ships probably have a way to project a wedge, because it's extremely likely they can project Warshawski sails. So maybe when stealth is not required, those ships bring up their wedges. They're probably not as efficient as the GA's, quite likely not even as efficient as the SLN's because of the compromises required to have the spider triple-skeg hull in the first place, but that might give them a couple hundred gravities without crushing the crew, so they can start the stern chase.

penny wrote:Do forgive my wording. That should have read "spider-drive ships" in impeller mode. You appear to accept that a spider ship may be able to produce a wedge. If so, that would technically make it a hybrid. A wedge-spider hybrid is what we are using in this discussion. The hybrid was suggested by Remontoire and tlb. Just so we are on the same page before we proceed.

The only sense in which they would not be as efficient as a ship of the GA, is that there is additional space taken up by the extra equipment that the GA does not use. However there is no conflict with having both the triple-skeg hull and the spindle shape dictated by the sails. In particular, they can have both the gravity plates needed for spider drive acceleration and a compensator for use with the wedge and sails. Think of it as a wedge driven warship, equipped with the latest and best stealth mode when running using the spider drive.

A complaint could be made that too much space was being used to house the extra drive system; but consider if Wayfarer had been built with military standard components, instead of commercial grade. Wouldn't there still be a tremendous amount of open space to accommodate a spider drive and armor? For the same size ship, the hybrid would have less magazine space; but ship sizes are going up anyway. The compensator sets the ultimate mass limitation.

I was working on this post which slightly disagrees with the one tlb posted in the meantime. I think there are some further inefficiencies to the hybrid design.

But inefficient isn't the same an unworkable.

penny wrote:Do forgive my wording. That should have read "spider-drive ships" in impeller mode. You appear to accept that a spider ship may be able to produce a wedge. If so, that would technically make it a hybrid. A wedge-spider hybrid is what we are using in this discussion. The hybrid was suggested by Remontoire and tlb. Just so we are on the same page before we proceed.

Yes, it should be possible. But the only known way to make would would be inefficient.

We're told that a starship's impeller nodes have to be in specific placement relative to the ship's length and width, and that they force hulls not to stick out past the classic double-taper shape (lest the protruding bits get mangled when the wedge starts up).

We're also told that the compensated acceleration of a ship is based primarily on the volume of its compensation field. not its actual mass. (Which is why Tom Pope once gave me for why CLACs which are "fatter" than other ships don't have quite as much acceleration as more classically shaped ships of the same tonnage and tech).



So, seemingly, the only known way to get Alpha nodes successfully onto a spider ship is to basically draw the smallest optimized hull form you can that fully encloses the actual triple-skeg spider ship; look at where the impeller rings for that sized conventional ship go and put the spider-hybrid's nodes there. (Whether permanently, assuming that didn't interfere with the spider drive's operation; or run out on rams or something when you want to switch to wedge)
Note that to keep the skegs from poking out past the outline's taper you might end up with an optimized hull form that's significantly larger and longer than the actual spider ship -- potentially forcing you to put the impeller rings out beyond its normal bow and stern.

And you get the compensated acceleration of whatever size optimized hull fits around you; which, as noted, may be much larger than your actual mass.

* A Ghost which, IIRC, should be less than 60k tons might only fit entirely within, say, the hull outline of a 120k ton light cruiser. (On ships that small isn't too bad; a 120k ton CL is only about 2% lower accel than a 60k ton large frigate or small DD)

* A 4M ton Shark might only fit within the hull outline of a 7M ton DN; if so then a spider-hybrid Shark would suffer a nearly 7% hit to max compensated accel compared to a notional 4M ton wedge-only ship. (But still be comfortably more than twice as quick as under spider drive)

* A Lenny Det, OTOH, isn't likely to be usefully hybridized -- they're already so large that they're well beyond the "compensator cliff". So massive that a wedge and compensator is going to provide no acceleration benefit over what their grav plates already provide.

Jonathan_S wrote:So, seemingly, the only known way to get Alpha nodes successfully onto a spider ship is to basically draw the smallest optimized hull form you can that fully encloses the actual triple-skeg spider ship; look at where the impeller rings for that sized conventional ship go and put the spider-hybrid's nodes there. (Whether permanently, assuming that didn't interfere with the spider drive's operation; or run out on rams or something when you want to switch to wedge)
Note that to keep the skegs from poking out past the outline's taper you might end up with an optimized hull form that's significantly larger and longer than the actual spider ship -- potentially forcing you to put the impeller rings out beyond its normal bow and stern.

And you get the compensated acceleration of whatever size optimized hull fits around you; which, as noted, may be much larger than your actual mass.

Doesn't it depend on what you imagine a triple skeg hull must mean? For example: can it mean a basically round hull cross-section with three small bulges 120 degrees apart? Are you thinking that it must mean the hull cross-section must have the same area for most of its length (but that can be true for a spindle)? In particular, I do not think that it requires a triangular cross-section.

If the skegs must be straight, with no bend as it nears the ends; then they could stop at the points where the spindle ends begin. This might cause some loss of efficiency for the spider drive; but if needed to have sails, it is still workable. However, I am not sure straightness is a requirement.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:So, seemingly, the only known way to get Alpha nodes successfully onto a spider ship is to basically draw the smallest optimized hull form you can that fully encloses the actual triple-skeg spider ship; look at where the impeller rings for that sized conventional ship go and put the spider-hybrid's nodes there. (Whether permanently, assuming that didn't interfere with the spider drive's operation; or run out on rams or something when you want to switch to wedge)
Note that to keep the skegs from poking out past the outline's taper you might end up with an optimized hull form that's significantly larger and longer than the actual spider ship -- potentially forcing you to put the impeller rings out beyond its normal bow and stern.

And you get the compensated acceleration of whatever size optimized hull fits around you; which, as noted, may be much larger than your actual mass.

Doesn't it depend on what you imagine a triple skeg hull must mean? For example: can it mean a basically round hull cross-section with three small bulges 120 degrees apart? Are you thinking that it must mean the hull cross-section must have the same area for most of its length (but that can be true for a spindle)? In particular, I do not think that it requires a triangular cross-section.

If the skegs must be straight, with no bend as it nears the ends; then they could stop at the points where the spindle ends begin. This might cause some loss of efficiency for the spider drive; but if needed to have sails, it is still workable. However, I am not sure that is a requirement.

I hadn't put much thought into it, but yeah I was assuming that the hull wouldn't have any taper; That the 3 skegs/keels would run flat and straight from bow to stern.

checked the text-ev
The spider ships are described as "squat, stumpy, and downright peculiar looking" [MoH]. But mostly I was assuming that all those dozens of projector beams needed to be able to angle forward, in order for their "pulling in their "micro-spaced bursts" to impart forward velocity -- and that to get the most consistent views forward you wouldn't want any rearward taper to the skegs.
Though thinking about it now, the decks are oriented like a skyscraper, so a tapered hull would mean the already small decks would get even smaller footprints.


That said, all we really know is they're squat, stumpy, trilaterally symmetrical, and have 3 broadsides. None of that description seems incompatible with having a tapered hull. So who knows what they actually look like

Jonathan_S wrote:

On Basilisk Station wrote:Hyper-space wasn't like normal-space. The laws of relativistic physics applied at any given point in hyper, but as a hypothetical observer looked outward, his instruments showed a rapidly increasing distortion. Maximum observation range was barely twenty light-minutes under ideal conditions; beyond that, the gravity-warped chaos of hyper and its highly charged particles and extreme background radiation made instruments utterly unreliable.

And we know from IEH that radar and passive sensors are far more strongly affected.

Remember when Wanderman pulled off his little trick to get gravitics back up during a combat sim? Without her grav sensors Wayfarer wasn't able to see a (simulated) enemy that was within missile range!!. Radar and EM passives couldn't see a ship a mere "one-point-five million klicks". (5 lightseconds)
So it seems in hyper that grav sensors have something like 240x the range of anything else.

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually, just looking a bit further in OBS I'm not sure what you could actually see, even in ideal conditions, at 20 LM.

Because later on it said this

On Basilisk Station wrote:the latest generation detectors could detect a grav wave at as much as eight light-minutes and spot turbulence within a wave at up to half that range.

If your grav detectors can only see something as powerful as a grav wave at 8 LM I don't see how they could possible see the far weaker grav signal of a wedge anywhere near as far.
But we know from the must later HAE book that radar and (non-gravity) passives can't see a target in even the (relatively) low particle density of the Selkar rift at 1.5 million km -- so the 20 LM couldn't have been those types of sensors.


So we might need to radically dial back the practical sensor distance for tracking or intercepting ships in hyper. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to narrow down that actually useful range.

Jonathan, I'd like to start this post off by thanking you for your summary of combat in hyper. The author should include that in the back of his books. Kudos!

I think I incorrectly digested the "ideal conditions" in the above post from OBS. I assumed ideal conditions meant in n-space. Wouldn't that be the most ideal?

Also, this refers to warships. How would this relate to freighters? Whose sensors are seriously myopic.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:Why? The RMN withheld major capabilities from the galaxy for a long time. Anyone giving orders or attempting to exceed certain unauthorized performance thresholds aboard a MAN ship simply drops dead. Seriously, I wouldn't bank on that.

That's a fair argument, but the GA intelligence services are still pretty good. The RMN had very good intel on the Peep order of battle and technology before the war, and good intel on the SLN too, even if their padding to account for inaccuracies wasn't required. Moreover, they have the Andermani on their side, who seem to have a knack for finding anything you want to keep hidden. The Peep intelligence services missed the RMN tech edge because they had a blind spot. And once the war started, the entire Manticore-B component was declared off limits, which limited what the Peeps could find.

So if the RF is keeping regular secrets, it may be found.

In any case, what I was thinking is that the RFN ships that are in Mannerheim and some other big systems will be visible to all the merchant ships. The yards will be visible too. So the GA will have a very good idea of the order of battle (like they did with the Peeps) and whether anything funky is showing up on their ships.

Do forgive me for snipping some of your post. What do you think about this? I always assumed that not only would the RFN not have the latest generation of ships, but their Navy would appear very small compared to what it actually is. The RFN's main order of battle is being worked up in some system similar to Bolthole. The RFN cannot appear to be a powerhouse so soon. They must withhold the truth about their true order of battle as sincerely as the Peeps did. A large RFN would draw serious attention. And if those are not modern warships with the latest toys, if I were top brass, I would give orders to showcase what they can do. Nobody in the GA should be worried about them. Rightfully so.

penny wrote:I have argued before Daddy Detweiler was even potty trained that the RFN is at least a defacto part of the MAN.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:I wouldn't say that. Controlled by the MAlign, patsy and working in conjunction with the RFN? Yes. But not part of. Given the Plan called for the RF to be the beacon of stability in the chaos, the RFN needs some modicum of apparently independent action.

You say potato. I say pototto. You are probably right. I made that statement a long long time ago. But, well, even now I think it is semantics. I mean, Galton isn't really a part of Darius.

penny wrote:Achieving the desired objective of causing a redeployment and thinning the herd traditionally. But you might be right. However, it is possible that even the mighty GA gets at least one specific critical material from way outside of GA space. I would hope Bolthole isn't as dependent, but you never know. At any rate, causing a redeployment and luring smaller forces into your web to defeat in detail works as well.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:Your strategy has the same risk of defeat in detail for the MAN forces. It would be very poor planning on their part to attempt to defeat in detail using details and not recognise the problem.

True. All plans have the ability to end up in the crapper. And quickly. But if their hyper combat is successful because their technology and strategy has an advantage initially, then they will be fine. You must believe in your strategy. No need to second guess yourself until the need to second guess yourself.

penny wrote:The author might have been saving certain 'whine' until its time. The end game of the series is ripe for the author to unleash everything he is saving.

Thinksmarkedly wrote: It's not his style. He gives us hints before.

Though I'll grant it's entirely possible he's doing that in the next few Honorverse Expanded books, as well as in the remaining Manticore Ascendant and the new Edward Saganami ones.

He didn't give hints about Galton. He didn't give hints about the entire MAN. Let alone their tech. Not only is there plenty of things of which we were given no hint, a lot of those things came out of left field.

penny wrote:See upstream. I suggested an entire convoy could be wiped out. But even a single freighter would be worth it if it only takes one hyper raider amongst the dozens available to destroy it. It only requires one warship to destroy a freighter in n-space.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:A couple dozen freighters are not going to make a noticeable impact in the GA economy. You need at least two orders of magnitude more.

My problem isn't that this can't be done. It can. It's that it's a huge waste of resources. So there would need to be some other, pressing need to cause this to be a deployed strategy.

I don't think you are looking at the big picture. If this is happening in every important, or somewhat important system then a lot more freighters are disappearing.

But let's go back to my notion of the big picture. Manticore has taken a lot of systems under its wing. These systems will be crying bloody murder about losing shipments. The RMN will have to respond by redeploying forces. Those forces will be dependent on shipments that might never arrive. Even communication between the picket and the MBS could be severed because the MA will surely have no respect for dispatch boats either. And, even though a lot of the traditional strategy and tactics when taking on the MA will have to be flushed down the toilet, much of it will remain the same. Like the need to thin the main battle components out. The MA cannot allow the GA to remain concentrated any more than the Peeps could allow the RMN to, or vice versa.

I am at a loss as to why you think it would be a huge waste of resources. First off, these hyper raiders would be built in adequate numbers to wage war in hyper around the galaxy. And if my suggestion that this strategy would be successful as I think it would be... no loss of ships because of an insurmountable advantage, (more on that later) then it would not be a waste of resources at all. Remember, the GA is not even aware of what is happening and that they are in a war. And when they do, it isn't like those many hyper-raiders cannot be re-tasked for an assault on major systems when the time comes. Or that they cannot undertake a more traditional task or attacks on commerce in-system.

Do consider that during the opening phase of war on major systems, spider-drive ships do not have to sneak in. Let the MBS see the many faint ghost images all over the system. LOL It will not be anything like seeing a plethora of hyper footprints created by wedges where there is no danger of losing track of a single one of them.

So, the many hyper-raiders will play a very critical role in the final phase of war.

Close your eyes and imagine it. Ghost footprints appearing all over the system. You can't vsee anything? Neither can the RMN. What can they possibly do? The RFN bearing down on them. Many ghost images appearing all over the system. And LDs have slotted into place long ago.

P.S. I forgot to add that those newer systems will be receiving a lot more freighters than usual. They are under the mighty Manty wing and there's a need for a lot of goods. The commerce raiding strategy will also include yachts and anything else. We are talking about the MA.