?

penny wrote:This has been simmering on my brain for some time. Shouldn't LACs as a picket suffer a serious tactical disadvantage against ships that can hyper out? I agree that it hasn't appeared to have mattered ordinarily. Navies have been antagonizing each other at the hyper limit forever.

That's why no one fights outside the hyperlimit. See Toll of Honor.

Toll of Honor, Slocum System, June 27, 1907 PD wrote:The fact that she'd accelerated straight at them for over an hour, building a vector from which it would have been impossible to avoid close action in n-space, was another giveaway that she had no intention of remaining in n-space. But it didn't really matter that they'd figured it out.

I'm ignoring the rest of the discussion about sending only LACs against MAN hyper-capable ships.

Plus LACs have limited endurance don't they?

Not severely. They can easily last a week. But the point of LACs is that either you have a CLAC or a LAC base to retire to, to rotate the personnel off-shift, and for more LACs to launch from.

Even if the hyper capable ships don't have a stealth mode, if the LACs can not enter hyper their tactics are more limited. Hyper capable ships can hyper out and micro jump back in to pincer LACs. They can switch to spider-drive working in conjunction with other stealthed ships and torps pre inserted lying in doggo. LACs can be trapped, pincered, flanked, surrounded and destroyed.

They can't really pincer, because astrogation in hyper for micro-jumps is imprecise. That's not the strategy they'd use.

Thinksmarkedly indicated that would still be two hours away. But in a system protected by LACs, it can be just inside of hyper. LACs can't enter hyper. Against LACs only, the MAN can operate in hyper with impunity.

Yup, but so can basically any navy. This is not exclusive to the MAN.

If you tried to send an old-style destroyer or cruiser against RMN LACs, you would get a nasty surprise, but as you said, the hypercapable ship can simply hyper out and come out elsewhere. Once the LACs are out of position, it can try something else.

But a system that is protected only by LACs is a terrible system to attack. There's nothing of value there. Why is the MAN even bothering?

And will there be a GA system that is protected only by LACs? No missile pod shoals controlled by the LAC base? No Mycroft? No destroyers?

penny wrote:Exactly! But, my point is they can be only a half hour away or less and it won't do the LAC group any good if the ready squadron cannot be summoned. A LAC cannot summon them. And if a single destroyer is left behind to summon them what do you think the first order of business is going to be for the MAN?

Why does the LAC have to do the summoning? A system with hyper detectors will tell the ready destroyers to go investigate via regular FTL. The LACs won't be involved at all.

Also, in time of peace, like now, the GA will not remain together. Neither member of the alliance can afford to do that. I am sure they will reform when and if it becomes necessary, but each member will settle back into their normal defensive postures existent before the war with the SLN and later Galton.

Neither member of the alliance has an infinite supply of ships, and each member has to deploy ships to protect its rear areas and to meet its obligations; the same as it has always been. The RMN nor Haven has ever had enough ships to do that at any time. I find it difficult to believe that the RMN can protect all of its systems now. It just isn't a perfect universe. I do not expect even all Tier 1 systems to have both a ready squadron of destroyers and a LAC contingent.

True. No one is arguing that every system will be protected equally, not even by a CruRun in each system. But you said attacking a Tier 1 or Tier 2 system: those will have a minimum of a CruRon detachment, possibly a BatCruRon, and a few Desrons. Regional capitals will probably have a Battle Squadron and a CLAC division. That's the scenario I was addressing.

If the MAN wants to attack Tier 3 and 4 systems, with little to no defences (only enough to deter pirates and enforce customs), and no hyper detection grid, they will be able to. But what's the gain there? What's the strategy that leads to the MAlign's victory?

tlb wrote:Why would you think that members of the Grand Alliance cannot afford to remain united? What exactly is the unbearable cost of unity? You might suggest expensive fleets, but cutting back on ships can be done just as easily while together, as apart (perhaps even easier, since resources can be pooled).

Jonathan_S wrote:Agreed. Now the Grand Fleet probably won't remain an active formation. But you can remain allies without concentrating your main striking power into a single unified fleet.

It depends on what you mean by united. If by united you mean concentrated, then my point stands. Grand Fleet definitely won't remain concentrated. That's a no brainer. That would be more than just costly, but logistically impossible and impractical over an extended period of time. It would be like trying to maintain DefCon 1 indefinitely.

I never said the two navies would not remain allies. Of course they would. But what motivation would there be for either ally to send an inordinate amount of ships to support the other in time of peace? An inordinate amount of ships translates to any number that increases the other's order of battle.

There are Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 and on and on systems. There are systems so insignificant that they might not even be classified. And that goes for each ally. But responsibility is still accepted for these systems. There will be lots of those new systems entering the MBS. Now, what possible excuse would either Haven or Manticore have of sending ships to support an ally when it's own members are screaming bloody murder because they are being hit by pirates etc.? And that is in peacetime. When war breaks out with the MAN, they will be attacking rear areas. It is going to be impossible to explain to members of your own government and the annoying dissenting, difficult and dangerous politicians of why you have enough ships to share with an ally and an ally's cause when you claim and appear to not have enough ships to meet your own responsibilities and obligations. Good luck with that.

There is no reason that ships cannot still work together and drill with other navies, to remain sharp when working with each other and to learn the others tactics, etc. But that should be on a one to one exchange rate in peacetime.

Jonathan_S wrote:And it's hardly surprising if the MAN can defeat a system defended only by LACs. That indicates that it is, at best, a 4th tier system -- without major defenses.

It isn't defended only by LACs. There is a ready squadron on standby ready to be summoned. It is one of those systems that is important, a Tier 2, but the ready squadron is hanging out in the nearby Tier 1 system. Pulling double duty. Remember when Henke was summoned from a nearby system after the Byng incident(?).

Jonathan_S wrote:Also, it belatedly occurred to me that a system with only LACs for defense isn't going to be important or rich enough to even have the vast deep space sensor arrays you'd need to detect arrivals much beyond the hyper limit.

That is the point I made upstream. Certain systems will not have the arrays installed; yet. But the system might be important politically. Or for its astrography. But again, the method to the madness is to get the RMN to spread its forces thin; in preparation to attack the Home System.

Jonathan_S wrote:So nobody, not even the LACs, would be out investigating someone who emerged even a light-hour beyond the hyper limit because the system wouldn't even know they were there. That's just the reality of a low tier system. (Pretty sure it's cheaper to afford DDs than it is to afford the kind of sensor array needed to see deep space arrivals -- or at least it's a better investment. So I'd think that any system able to see an long distance arrival would have the hyper capable units that are capable of getting there quickly through hyper)

Who will alert them? Also, if LACs are not going to investigate sensor ghosts while the ready squadron is away – or if they cannot see them anyway – then the many insertions are going to give that ready squadron a very bad day when they return.

penny wrote:Also, in time of peace, like now, the GA will not remain together. Neither member of the alliance can afford to do that. I am sure they will reform when and if it becomes necessary, but each member will settle back into their normal defensive postures existent before the war with the SLN and later Galton.

tlb wrote:Why would you think that members of the Grand Alliance cannot afford to remain united? What exactly is the unbearable cost of unity? You might suggest expensive fleets, but cutting back on ships can be done just as easily while together, as apart (perhaps even easier, since resources can be pooled).

Jonathan_S wrote:Agreed. Now the Grand Fleet probably won't remain an active formation. But you can remain allies without concentrating your main striking power into a single unified fleet.

penny wrote:It depends on what you mean by united. If by united you mean concentrated, then my point stands. Grand Fleet definitely won't remain concentrated. That's a no brainer. That would be more than just costly, but logistically impossible and impractical over an extended period of time. It would be like trying to maintain DefCon 1 indefinitely.

I never said the two navies would not remain allies. Of course they would. But what motivation would there be for either ally to send an inordinate amount of ships to support the other in time of peace? An inordinate amount of ships translates to any number that increases the other's order of battle.

You did NOT state that the ships would not stay together, you said that the Alliance would not stay together. The "normal defensive postures existent before the war with the SLN" was each state being isolated and not united in an Alliance (Haven was even at war with Manticore and Grayson).

Nobody was saying the fleets would remain concentrated and Jonathan_S made that explicit.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:And it's hardly surprising if the MAN can defeat a system defended only by LACs. That indicates that it is, at best, a 4th tier system -- without major defenses.

It isn't defended only by LACs. There is a ready squadron on standby ready to be summoned. It is one of those systems that is important, a Tier 2, but the ready squadron is hanging out in the nearby Tier 1 system. Pulling double duty. Remember when Henke was summoned from a nearby system after the Byng incident(?).

Jonathan_S wrote:Also, it belatedly occurred to me that a system with only LACs for defense isn't going to be important or rich enough to even have the vast deep space sensor arrays you'd need to detect arrivals much beyond the hyper limit.

That is the point I made upstream. Certain systems will not have the arrays installed; yet. But the system might be important politically. Or for its astrography. But again, the method to the madness is to get the RMN to spread its forces thin; in preparation to attack the Home System.

Jonathan_S wrote:So nobody, not even the LACs, would be out investigating someone who emerged even a light-hour beyond the hyper limit because the system wouldn't even know they were there. That's just the reality of a low tier system. (Pretty sure it's cheaper to afford DDs than it is to afford the kind of sensor array needed to see deep space arrivals -- or at least it's a better investment. So I'd think that any system able to see an long distance arrival would have the hyper capable units that are capable of getting there quickly through hyper)

Who will alert them? Also, if LACs are not going to investigate sensor ghosts while the ready squadron is away – or if they cannot see them anyway – then the many insertions are going to give that ready squadron a very bad day when they return.

A squadron in a different system is NOT a "ready" squadron. An actual ready squadron will be alerted by the sensor array.

A LAC group will NOT investigate a sensor "ghost", they will ONLY investigate bogies within the hyper-limit.

If the Sharks were supposed to be Test Beds for the LD's they probably should have been at least reasonably sized to match the actual LD.

It is possible that they were in similar configuration as and LD only smaller but, while being already with enough internal storage to be pod-layers, did not have the tubes (and magazines) for G-torps which may or may not have been finalized in overall design at that point. All that sounds really iffy.
Clearly the 2nd wave of the weapons were coming in on ballistic trajectories and arriving shortly after the G-torps made the initial part of the strike. That was taking down the giant orbit stations and other high value targets totally without letting the stations have warning. The challenge is that even if the G-torps are massively large compared to pods, just how much bigger would they have to be before any bay doors (even with multiple pos/materials bays with separate access for each) would have to be redesigned for clearances ?

One associated question would why would it not have been possible to put the G-torps in the cargo bays and -like the other weapons pods- open or retract the doors to deploy them from the ships since putting exterior hard points/rails on the hull of the ship is- and then hanging weapons off them- is going to degrade the stealthiness of the ships?
Even with the LDs, even if the G-torps are tube launched they are going to have to use mass-drivers or chemical propulsion or gas pressure to eject them from the tubes and they will not be using wedge drives.
I think it might be more difficult to build a "tube" for a projectile that 3 drive skeges evenly spaced longitudinally bow-to-stern on the torp. Perhaps they found some really old plans for the turbo-launch sections for Colonial Vipers from the Battlestar Galactica . Perhaps building launch bays (tubes) for the g-torps was going to involve something akin to bringing a fighter up on an elevator from the magazine rather than a nice smooth impeller drive missile in the feed systems of a modern starship from Manticore or the SLN. If that hat wasn't ready for final production they improvised by welded hard points on, ran the electronic and power connections though the hulls and sent them off.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Grendelsbane station was probably a tier 2 (or maybe 3) system just because of the number of implement cutting edge hulls in its yards. Logically those yards shouldn't have been there - but they were and made it important.

But even in peacetime, under the neglectful Janacek admiralty it
seven SD(P)s, sixteen pre-pod SDs, four CLACs, nineteen battlecruisers and cruisers, and 430 LACs (plus forts)

WoH doesn't bother to give the number of associated destroyers -- but it'd be more than enough to have divisions assigned to investigate suspected hyper emergences.

(Now, yes, the High Ridge government was nearly criminally neglectful in failing to update those defenses to deal with modern threats like CLACs and MDM equipped SD(P)s. But that doesn't change that there'd have been plenty of DDs around.

I am surprised at your designation of Grendelsbane. Grendelsbane had to have been at least a Tier 2 system. If it wasn't classified as a Tier 1 system it was only because of the limited ships I speak of above. Because an easy argument could be made that it should have been classified as a Tier 1 system, if it wasn't already.

The only thing that made Grendelsbane important any more is the half built ships sitting there (which should have been long gone by that point).

The system originally had geographic value based on where the fighting was during the first war with Haven -- but that importance had long faded as the front lines moved on. It has no inhabited planet, no major resource extraction, heck as far as I can remember it didn't even have major production lines. What it had was a repair yard that had (for reasons of temporary expediency over long term benefit, grown into a large assembly yard. But it wasn't even making most of the things for those ships -- the components were being made at Manticore, shipped out to Grendelsbane, and then more or less bolted on). And for where combat was now expected it wasn't a particurally use place to act as either a fleet base nor a fleet repair yard. From the expected front lines it'd take longer for a damaged ship to get to Grendelsbane than it would to Manticore itself.

If High Ridge hadn't been an incompetent who cared more about political appearance than actual economic or military benefit they'd have used the ceasefire to complete the current ships and then tear down the yard and defenses and send them somewhere reasonable; somewhere that already had major defensive requirements so they could concentrate their defenses; not disperse them -- say Trevor's Star)

But you can tell it wasn't even considered a 1st tier system (and possibly not even a 2nd tier one) because the Admiralty assigned barely more ships to defend it than they diverting to Silsia with Honor -- which was hardly a core defensive interest of the SKM. (Honor had 1 fewer SD(P) and 4 fewer pre-pod wallers from the RMN -- for this I'm ignoring the extra Protector's Own ships Benjamin secretly provided her)

And certainly, even with the partly completed ships there Gendelsbane wasn't as important to hold that Manticore itself, as Grayson, or even as Tevor's Star. So, yeah, it'd rate it no higher than 2nd tier and arguably 3rd. (But by that point it should have been empty and had no defensive resources wasted on it)


(However this really comes down to how many tiers you're splitting systems into. If it's only 4 tiers; with 4 being no forces at all defending it then, no, Grendlesbane wouldn't be only a 3, and with that few might even rate a 1. But that's too few tier to be useful in helping determine that appropriate level of defensive investment to spend on each system. In a more fine grained 10 or 20 tier system then yeah it'd be lower. Thanks to High Ridge's incompetence it was still, temporarily, quite important, but even so it wasn't among the very most important systems)

Jonathan_S wrote:And it's hardly surprising if the MAN can defeat a system defended only by LACs. That indicates that it is, at best, a 4th tier system -- without major defenses.

penny wrote:It isn't defended only by LACs. There is a ready squadron on standby ready to be summoned. It is one of those systems that is important, a Tier 2, but the ready squadron is hanging out in the nearby Tier 1 system. Pulling double duty. Remember when Henke was summoned from a nearby system after the Byng incident(?).

Michelle Henke was not acting as a "ready" squadron for New Tuscany, which had refused to join with Manticore and decided to remain independent. She was responding to the destruction of three destroyers by Admiral Byng's ships.

Again, only a squadron in the system being defended can be a "ready" squadron. If the system is valuable enough to have a sensor net, then it will have several squadrons, who will rotate being the ready squadron.

PS: A system with only a LAC group would still need a hyper-capable ship to summon anyone from another system. That happened with Byng, because there were four destroyers and one remained at the hyper-limit in stealth. But there is no point in doing that to investigate a sensor "ghost"; which if not done in a timely manner, need not be done at all.

tlb wrote:Michelle Henke was not acting as a "ready" squadron for New Tuscany, which had refused to join with Manticore and decided to remain independent. She was responding to the destruction of three destroyers by Admiral Byng's ships.

Again, only a squadron in the system being defended can be a "ready" squadron. If the system is valuable enough to have a sensor net, then it will have several squadrons, who will rotate on being the ready squadron.

Now there is another totally separate concept that Penny might have been conflating with the "ready" squadron -- and that's a nodal response force.

That's where instead of trying to defend a bunch of (relatively) unimportant systems you instead concentrate your major naval force in one and effectively just put pickets in the others -- pickets that can run and summon that nodal response fleet to relieve the attacked system.

For picket forces you put somewhere between a handful of destroyers up to maybe a CruRon -- depending on how much force you can afford to spend to discourage really low end piracy or commerce raiding in the systems. But in any case if some serious force shows up at least one of your ships runs for reinforcement from the nodal response fleet and the other(s) try to picket the place and keep an eye on what that enemy's doing.


But you nicely recapped what the "ready" squadron is, and why it has to be stationed in the system it's monitoring.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now there is another totally separate concept that Penny might have been conflating with the "ready" squadron -- and that's a nodal response force.

That's where instead of trying to defend a bunch of (relatively) unimportant systems you instead concentrate your major naval force in one and effectively just put pickets in the others -- pickets that can run and summon that nodal response fleet to relieve the attacked system.

For picket forces you put somewhere between a handful of destroyers up to maybe a CruRon -- depending on how much force you can afford to spend to discourage really low end piracy or commerce raiding in the systems. But in any case if some serious force shows up at least one of your ships runs for reinforcement from the nodal response fleet and the other(s) try to picket the place and keep an eye on what that enemy's doing.


But you nicely recapped what the "ready" squadron is, and why it has to be stationed in the system it's monitoring.

A system with a major nodal force is a Tier 1 system. Those will have sensitive hyper-detection arrays, maybe not as sensitive as the capital systems. They will probably be home to one of the numbered fleets too, with a Battle Squadron or two, CLACs and a fleet train. I'd expect the regional capitals to be classed as Tier 1. In the case of the SEM, Tier 1 would be the MBS, Trevor's Star, Spindle, and the Manticore Silesia capital. The termini of the Junction (outside of Gregor and Beowulf) are defended by Home Fleet itself.

We could see a Tier 1.5 system with a BatCruRon as a nodal response force.

For me, a Tier 2 system is one that is not a regional capital, but is important enough to deserve a CruRon or half of one, and two Desrons permanently assigned there, plus LAC bases, missile pod shoals and a Mycroft network. Those systems will need some kind of hyper-detection net out to at least the 12 light-hours of the system's official territory. The "ready squadron" might not be a full squadron of ships, but just a division.

I revise what I said about their readiness location. I now think in a Tier 2 system, the ready division would be inside of the hyperlimit, but within 15 minutes of it. That's about 2 million km, which suffices to avoid being jumped at energy range. It's a 72-second missile run (sprint mode, so a DDM at minimum!), which is also enough to bring defences up. Those 15 minutes are also required to spool up the hyper generators from cold.