Spoilers - Toll of Honor

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The maintenance issue was a temporary funding problem; caused by Parliament refusing to issue the declaration of war. (Now later on, during the Trevor's Star campaign, there was a different backlog of refits/upgrades; where wallers were being kept at the front in an effort to maintain momentum. That required an operational pause after the campaign was concluded in order to catch up on maintenance and refits. But I get the impression that refits were being deferred more than maintenance)

But I'm unclear on how the Peeps could force the maintenance issue. The RMN gets to decide when and where to launch raids, and gets to decide whether to pick attack profiles that cause excess component wear.

The defender (the Peeps in this case) can't really do anything to force an attacker to make a crash translation. So how can they force Manticore to run its maintenance cycles even further behind?

By hypering in and out of every system under the protection of the RMN. Especially Home Fleet. Haven had a lot of destroyers that it could afford to send to hassle the heck out of every RMN system just enough to keep it honest and prepared by maintaining hot nodes. Haven actually had the numbers to attack the MBS so the RMN would have had to honor the possibility that a Case Zulu was coming. Dunno if it would have worked for the RMN in reverse. At any rate, maintaining hot nodes across the board would have crippled the RMN even if the funds had never been tied up. As it were, the RMN was robbing from Peter to pay Paul by replacing worn components with new components from the new but unfinished builds that were sitting in the slips. And the only reason they had time to do that was because the lack of a declaration of war had at least that one good side effect of giving the RMN some time to catch up on some overdue maintenance issues. So I can't readily agree the Peeps could not have forced the issue a lot more.

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That would put far more wear on Peep maintenance than it would on RMN maintenance. And the Peeps are worse at doing maintenance and their light units are more tightly stretched than Manticores. Also for much of the early war (and then again after Manticore took Trevor's Star) the Manticoran screening forces are closer to their maintenance yards than the Peep probing forces would be - since their front-line maintenance bases (like Seaford-Nine) were overrun during Riposte Gamma.

So not only are these Peep light units putting wear on their hyper generators, which the responding RMN pickets are not, but they having to make long flights from their bases to their targets, which puts more wear on their impellers than just keeping them at standby as the RMN pickets usually can. And when the Peep units need maintenance they're going to be off the front lines longer both because their (remaining) bases aren't as close but also because those bases aren't as efficient so even discounting the extra travel time it'll likely take the Peep yard workers longer to replace the worn components that it would take a workers in an RMN yard.

So based on all that I think attempting this would cause the Peeps to run out of serviceable destroyers and cruisers long before the RMN did. (Plus every time you make that probe you risk your light units stumbling over or getting caught by a superior force and destroyer -- so while you try to run the RMN out of spare parts you risk getting your scouting and screening forces defeated in detail).

Just don't see it as a winning strategy

Jonathan_S wrote:If you can do 4 bands in 15 minutes then why would you expect 2 bands to take only 5?

Because you divide by N-1. You don't have to wait for the recharge time again once you've arrived in n-space.

T+0: translation from Delta to Gamma
T+5: translation from Gamma to Beta
T+10: translation from Beta to Alpha
T+15: translation from Alpha to n-space

I didn't see any such statement in the book. I could see arguments for 7.5 minutes, and wouldn't be surprised to find it takes closer to 10 (which would imply some level of fixed overhead for any change plus some level of additional time for adding extra bands). I suppose it's possible that higher bands simply take more time; meaning dropping from lower bands is disproportionately faster, but offhand can't think of anything that actually says that.

Indeed it is my unproven assumption that it's linear. I am based on this on the fact that the cost of the fixed overhead, as you say, is required for the first translation, so it happened before that first. The cost of the additional translation seems to be low. In the case of the ready-desron, assuming they don't keep hypergenerators charged at 100% of the time, which would wear them very quickly, they would be underway in something like 15 minutes, to go into Alpha. All the calculations I'd done so far assumed that they would travel in Alpha because transitioning to Beta would require 2x15 minutes.

But if you can crash the return in 5 minutes, it means the break-even point of going to Beta is lower: you will recover the velocity bleed off quickly once you're in Beta. And this is assuming you can't crash up either, which might be possible too.

Also, to really nail down that minimum response time we'd also need to know how quickly you can climb the hyper bands. That would let us plot out which band is most optimal for reacting to an event a given range.

I've been assuming 15 minutes, which seems to be the typical recharge time.

Jonathan_S wrote:So based on all that I think attempting this would cause the Peeps to run out of serviceable destroyers and cruisers long before the RMN did. (Plus every time you make that probe you risk your light units stumbling over or getting caught by a superior force and destroyer -- so while you try to run the RMN out of spare parts you risk getting your scouting and screening forces defeated in detail).

Just don't see it as a winning strategy

And if the RMN had been much smaller, as it had been for much of its history except when it counted, the PN wouldn't have needed to resort to this strategy. It would just arrive with a full battle fleet and demand surrender.

Though given how complicated Parnell's plans were prior to the actual opening of hostilities, I could see them trying to do that. Though I'd expect they'd also add an extra cut-out layer and start having the SCN and the would-be warlords in Silesia do that first.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The maintenance issue was a temporary funding problem; caused by Parliament refusing to issue the declaration of war. (Now later on, during the Trevor's Star campaign, there was a different backlog of refits/upgrades; where wallers were being kept at the front in an effort to maintain momentum. That required an operational pause after the campaign was concluded in order to catch up on maintenance and refits. But I get the impression that refits were being deferred more than maintenance)

But I'm unclear on how the Peeps could force the maintenance issue. The RMN gets to decide when and where to launch raids, and gets to decide whether to pick attack profiles that cause excess component wear.

The defender (the Peeps in this case) can't really do anything to force an attacker to make a crash translation. So how can they force Manticore to run its maintenance cycles even further behind?

By hypering in and out of every system under the protection of the RMN. Especially Home Fleet. Haven had a lot of destroyers that it could afford to send to hassle the heck out of every RMN system just enough to keep it honest and prepared by maintaining hot nodes. Haven actually had the numbers to attack the MBS so the RMN would have had to honor the possibility that a Case Zulu was coming. Dunno if it would have worked for the RMN in reverse. At any rate, maintaining hot nodes across the board would have crippled the RMN even if the funds had never been tied up. As it were, the RMN was robbing from Peter to pay Paul by replacing worn components with new components from the new but unfinished builds that were sitting in the slips. And the only reason they had time to do that was because the lack of a declaration of war had at least that one good side effect of giving the RMN some time to catch up on some overdue maintenance issues. So I can't readily agree the Peeps could not have forced the issue a lot more.

.

Jonathan"S wrote:That would put far more wear on Peep maintenance than it would on RMN maintenance. And the Peeps are worse at doing maintenance and their light units are more tightly stretched than Manticores. Also for much of the early war (and then again after Manticore took Trevor's Star) the Manticoran screening forces are closer to their maintenance yards than the Peep probing forces would be - since their front-line maintenance bases (like Seaford-Nine) were overrun during Riposte Gamma.

So not only are these Peep light units putting wear on their hyper generators, which the responding RMN pickets are not, but they having to make long flights from their bases to their targets, which puts more wear on their impellers than just keeping them at standby as the RMN pickets usually can. And when the Peep units need maintenance they're going to be off the front lines longer both because their (remaining) bases aren't as close but also because those bases aren't as efficient so even discounting the extra travel time it'll likely take the Peep yard workers longer to replace the worn components that it would take a workers in an RMN yard.

So based on all that I think attempting this would cause the Peeps to run out of serviceable destroyers and cruisers long before the RMN did. (Plus every time you make that probe you risk your light units stumbling over or getting caught by a superior force and destroyer -- so while you try to run the RMN out of spare parts you risk getting your scouting and screening forces defeated in detail).

Just don't see it as a winning strategy

Not exactly. It will only put more wear on those BBs. Especially if done in peacetime as a prelude to war. But the RMN's components will be wearing out across the board.

I don't agree. The Peeps are not going to suffer any at all. Remember, they have a lot more warships. And it doesn't take a whole heck of a lot of ships to accomplish this. The Star Kingdom isn't a whole lot of systems. Nor is the Star Empire for that matter. I'd say less than 50 BBs will do the trick. Use Manticore and the Queen's bone deep paranoia about their favorite enemy's stripes to do the rest. Word will spread like wildfire. The entire Star Kingdom would have been at DefCon 1. It would only take one ship to hyper in and out of a system for a couple of weeks. Even if the BBs components get a lot of wear and tear, so what. It ain't like they are actually losing the BBs, and dont forget that the reason they can afford to adopt the tactic in the first place is because they have the surplus of ships to burn. The RMN will not attack first. The Peeps know that. They simply catch up on their own maintenance schedules in preparation. Heck, Haven could afford to stand down every ship in their navy while carrying out the tactic; completely cold nodes everywhere. It ain't like Manticore will attack first.

It is a completely different form of attrition.

P.S. I notice that you are tasking destroyers for the job. I assumed BBs would do the trick since Haven always enjoyed a surplus of BBs. But it doesn't really matter does it?

penny wrote:Not exactly. It will only put more wear on those BBs. Especially if done in peacetime as a prelude to war. But the RMN's components will be wearing out across the board.

I don't agree. The Peeps are not going to suffer any at all. Remember, they have a lot more warships. And it doesn't take a whole heck of a lot of ships to accomplish this. The Star Kingdom isn't a whole lot of systems. Nor is the Star Empire for that matter. I'd say less than 50 BBs will do the trick. Use Manticore and the Queen's bone deep paranoia about their favorite enemy's stripes to do the rest. Word will spread like wildfire. The entire Star Kingdom would have been at DefCon 1. It would only take one ship to hyper in and out of a system for a couple of weeks. Even if the BBs components get a lot of wear and tear, so what. It ain't like they are actually losing the BBs, and dont forget that the reason they can afford to adopt the tactic in the first place is because they have the surplus of ships to burn. The RMN will not attack first. The Peeps know that. They simply catch up on their own maintenance schedules in preparation. Heck, Haven could afford to stand down every ship in their navy while carrying out the tactic; completely cold nodes everywhere. It ain't like Manticore will attack first.

It is a completely different form of attrition.

P.S. I notice that you are tasking destroyers for the job. I assumed BBs would do the trick since Haven always enjoyed a surplus of BBs. But it doesn't really matter does it?

The Peeps only have a surplus of BBs if they can trust their captured planets not to go up in flames if

There's a reason they still have all those obsolete BB units and it's not because they fear being attacked. Those are the iron fist that keep a lid on the unhappiness of all their dolists and occupied planets -- and remember that its those conquered planets which are providing the funding to the Peep government and economy. They almost literally cannot afford to risk losing them while working towards the giant money grab of seizing the Junction.

The Legislaturalists, who this would be if you're doing it pre-war, have just gotten some pointed assassination type reminders of how little they're liked. They seem very unlikely to significantly reduce the force that's holding their conquests together in order to attempt to run the RMN out of maintenance cycles.

And while the Peeps have more ships it's not all that many more; and they have a lot more systems to secure and a massively higher internal security concern.

It was only years into the war, after Cordelia Ransom's Public Information had had years of indoctrinating the Peep population to believe that their problems were all Manticore's fault; and thus redirected that internal unrest into focus on supporting the war, that their internal security concerns reduced enough that they were able to free up BBs for other roles. Pre-war you're just not going to be able to do that -- or, at the very least, the Legislaturalists aren't going to believe they can safely do that.

Early in the war, standard tactical and strategic thinking had any navy taking or at least smashing the opponent's bases. That would be both in the most direct (if there actually were any) lines of approach and also bases that were arching around in the area of your allies. Now Haven didn't so much as have allies as it had systems it had captured over the decades but still some of them would have been places where they would have put naval facilities for resupply and maintenance. You don't have to let the unhappy people on your conquest access to the naval stations but you you can run repair and supply from stations there.
Why all the basing? Because of things like having to gather a force at your home system and then sending it all the way to its target. It's that Island Hopping idea. You are also removing those same systems from the enemy's use- and hopefully killing their starships and at least denying the use of the base facilities.

I't a form of chess. Location, ability of pieces and degrading your opponent's ability to strike at you.

Brigade XO wrote:Early in the war, standard tactical and strategic thinking had any navy taking or at least smashing the opponent's bases. That would be both in the most direct (if there actually were any) lines of approach and also bases that were arching around in the area of your allies. Now Haven didn't so much as have allies as it had systems it had captured over the decades but still some of them would have been places where they would have put naval facilities for resupply and maintenance. You don't have to let the unhappy people on your conquest access to the naval stations but you you can run repair and supply from stations there.
Why all the basing? Because of things like having to gather a force at your home system and then sending it all the way to its target. It's that Island Hopping idea. You are also removing those same systems from the enemy's use- and hopefully killing their starships and at least denying the use of the base facilities.

I't a form of chess. Location, ability of pieces and degrading your opponent's ability to strike at you.

Absolutely spot on Brigade. It is as we discussed it in the 'What is the |value| of captured enemy systems?' thread.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9728&hilit=Absolute+value+captured+enemy+systems#p272446

penny wrote:Absolutely spot on Brigade. It is as we discussed it in the 'What is the |value| of captured enemy systems?' thread.

https://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic ... ms#p272446

Very interesting! If I select that link, then I see the thread in the unformatted text version that can be annoying to many. But if I delete just the "S" from "https" then the view flips to the formatted view. Did other people know this? Here is the same link, but in unsecured form:
What is the |value| of captured enemy systems?

Note that the secured form is persistent, so you have to look at my version first and then you will have to do the edit of the URL after looking at Penny's.

Another thing to notice is that you do not normally see the "http://", so you will only know what you are using based on how the page is formatted. No, I am wrong; you seem to see it, if you are in the secured view. My browser hides it with a "Not Secure" warning, which why I cannot see it then.

Also I am not allowed to make the edit if I am not in a forum or a thread within a forum. I can delete the "S", but it immediately resets.

tlb wrote:Very interesting! If I select that link, then I see the thread in the unformatted text version that can be annoying to many. But if I delete just the "S" from "https" then the view flips to the formatted view. Did other people know this? Here is the same link, but in unsecured form:
What is the |value| of captured enemy systems?

Note that the secured form is persistent, so you have to look at my version first and then you will have to do the edit of the URL after looking at Penny's.

Another thing to notice is that you do not normally see the "http://", so you will only know what you are using based on how the page is formatted. No, I am wrong; you seem to see it, if you are in the secured view. My browser hides it with a "Not Secure" warning, which why I cannot see it then.

Also I am not allowed to make the edit if I am not in a forum or a thread within a forum. I can delete the "S", but it immediately resets.

Many browsers now will ignore attempts to force the unencrypted (non-s) version of the page; but I’m glad that workaround works for you.

The ugly text only version of the page seems to be, When it does happen, because the page source forces the use of insecure http links to the formatting stuff (despite it being served through both the http and https modes. Because over time many browser began to refuse to access insecure element within a secure page it can’t load the formatting and you get the unformatted page
If it specified the https secure link to the formatting you’d always get formatting in the secure page but any browser unable to access secure links would get the ugly text version. Or if they just stripped the protocol bit off the url the insecure pages would be free to assume http and the secure pages free to assume https and everybody would get formatting.
I just don’t know how to r contact someone with the access and willingness to make the 5 minute update it’d take to fix the issue

or just specify the URL without referencing the HTTP or HTTP and it should work fine and either mode

Jonathan_S wrote:Many browsers now will ignore attempts to force the unencrypted (non-s) version of the page; but I’m glad that workaround works for you.

The ugly text only version of the page seems to be, When it does happen, because the page source forces the use of insecure http links to the formatting stuff (despite it being served through both the http and https modes. Because over time many browser began to refuse to access insecure element within a secure page it can’t load the formatting and you get the unformatted page
If it specified the https secure link to the formatting you’d always get formatting in the secure page but any browser unable to access secure links would get the ugly text version. Or if they just stripped the protocol bit off the url the insecure pages would be free to assume http and the secure pages free to assume https and everybody would get formatting.
I just don’t know how to r contact someone with the access and willingness to make the 5 minute update it’d take to fix the issue

or just specify the URL without referencing the HDP or HTTP yes it should work fine and either mode

I had not worked this out before, because there seems to be no rhyme nor reason for the flip between formatted versus unformatted. I would see it formatted and the next time in it was pure text. But still the bold and italics (etc.) would work, so some formatting was still there. At least I never thought that it was someone hacking my computer (as another member of the forum might have assumed).