Commerce raiding

Relax wrote:DEFENSE MISSILE PODS SITTING IN ORBIT. HELLO? 4 stages... can go forever, you know THOSE missile pods?

Ah yes, put yours pods nicely clustered in orbit around the planet. Concentrating pods like that worked out wonderfully for Haven a couple of times when Manticore showed up with Mistletoe. Can you say proximity kill?

Having demonstrated why concentrating your pods is a bad idea I'm sure Manticore would turn around and repeat that when planning the system defense of Beowulf.

(That said, rechecking UH, I see that "Hundreds—thousands—of missile icons raced outward from a launch point one light-minute outside Beowulf’s orbit" [UH]. So they weren't really in orbit - being at least 46 times further from the planet as Luna is from Earth -- but they also weren't so far that lightspeed delay should have been a major issue with programming them.



And, yes, Apollo updates would be less useful in a single salvo strike.
But I have to assume that the system grav sensors (even the close in ones measured in at least dozens of meters( will be able to see the enemy much further away that the comparatively tiny sensor on the missiles themselves. Sure would be nice if you could, say, let the missiles know if the enemy had radically changed course when they saw the missile launch -- rather than letting the missiles fly to where the enemy had being going and hope their sensors can detect the new location of the enemy early enough there's sufficient delta-v left on their drives to intercept them.
The Beowulf launch was from "Missile launch—multiple missile launches! Range at launch two-zero-five-point-two million kilometers" [UH] -- that's going to take the missiles over 23 minutes to fly; giving the enemy quite a lot of time to be elsewhere. (Though, of course, even lightspeed updates about the enemy's new vector would be useful if the course change was relatively early in the missiles' flight)

And since Apollo still apparently can't talk directly with Ghost Rider RDs having Apollo and Mycroft would be helpful it there happened to be an RD close enough to get a better look at the enemy during the period the missiles were in flight. You could get more detail about the signatures of each ship (as opposed to what your system surveillance could see from lightminutes away prior to launch) and then push that to the missiles. (It's not as good as getting to see what ECM the enemy used against prior salvos; but it doesn't seem useless information either)

tlb wrote:A problem with the mini-reactor is that it has radiation output that is damaging to humans.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:There are fusion reactions that don't involve free neutrons, thus no induced radioactivity

Maybe, but word of the author is that the mini-reactor CANNOT be used in a manned ship; they are only for missiles etc., because of the radiation (which might be x-ray to gamma ray, rather than free neutrons).

The literature is mixed about whether a gamma ray can induce radioactivity, by knocking a neutron loose.

Jonathan_S wrote:Some of it may be their BB's sluggish acceleration; they're 10% slower than even a BC; and thus have relatively low overtake against fast freighters.

Plus even early war you could counter them with having a few of the freighter haul along pods to drop for the escorts. Even a pair of BBs is going to be hurting if the cruisers escorting a convoy dump a dozen missile pods into their face.

And to tlb's point, even if the League didn't object to raiding Manticoran commerce within their borders, outside of fleet train convoys, most of Manticore's commerce went straight through the Junction -- so ships attempting to raid it need to travel many months through hyperspace just to get to the far termini where the freighter traffic pops out to begin it's hyperspace trips.

I don't know if battleships were optimized for long range patrols like cruisers and BCs were. But even with ships designed for long range patrols pushing them that far from your maintenance, fuel, repair, and supply bases isn't easy. (And given Haven's internal political unrest if you'd pulled BBs to, say, supplement the one commerce raiding mission we know they pulled in Silesia you've got to come up with enough replacement force that potential rioters/insurrectionists remain deterred by the iron boot looming overhead)

The other problem for Haven is that with the Junction Manticore can potentially exploit it extreme internal lines to cut loose DNs or SDs from home fleet, show up in the commerce raiding area and crush the BBs, then be back before Haven knows those ships were diverted (much less before they could warn the BBs about the wallers).

Jonathan, you gave that as an escuse for why the Peeps could not have used those surplus BBs for wearing down RMN components that I suggested Haven could have done.

But I just don't see any planet under the heel of Haven wanting to risk rioting and the like. The response would have been worse than what the SLN did. Orbital bombardments later, regardless of who was in charge when a force finally arrived. Anyway, how could the denizens planetside know the size of the force looming ahead if they are restricted to the ground, as they would be if there is political unrest.

penny wrote:But I just don't see any planet under the heel of Haven wanting to risk rioting and the like. The response would have been worse than what the SLN did. Orbital bombardments later, regardless of who was in charge when a force finally arrived. Anyway, how could the denizens planetside know the size of the force looming ahead if they are restricted to the ground, as they would be if there is political unrest.

But we know specifically that there could be unrest; Operation Dagger wanted BBs from the back regions, but they were unavailable because "Malagasy had exploded in the Committee of Public Safety's face.".

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:But I just don't see any planet under the heel of Haven wanting to risk rioting and the like. The response would have been worse than what the SLN did. Orbital bombardments later, regardless of who was in charge when a force finally arrived. Anyway, how could the denizens planetside know the size of the force looming ahead if they are restricted to the ground, as they would be if there is political unrest.

But we know specifically that there could be unrest; Operation Dagger wanted BBs from the back regions, but they were unavailable because "Malagasy had exploded in the Committee of Public Safety's face.".

Not to mention the Levelers trying to overrun Nouveau Paris.

Logically such riots or insurrections are almost certainly doomed to fail. And logically you shouldn't need a BB to discourage them -- ground troops, a couple of destroyers for orbital bombardment, and rapid reaction assault shuttles (whether parked on secure planetside bases or in a station, or heck a converted freighter should be able to bring nearly as much pain.

But riots and insurrections are often not logical. (And for units stationed on the planet you worry more about sabotage, surprise attack, or simply subversion of the unit or its commander as they have more day to day interaction with the population or corporations)

tlb wrote:But we know specifically that there could be unrest; Operation Dagger wanted BBs from the back regions, but they were unavailable because "Malagasy had exploded in the Committee of Public Safety's face.".

Jonathan_S wrote:Not to mention the Levelers trying to overrun Nouveau Paris.

And the Levelers would have succeeded if not for the intervention of Admiral Cluster Bomb.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:But we know specifically that there could be unrest; Operation Dagger wanted BBs from the back regions, but they were unavailable because "Malagasy had exploded in the Committee of Public Safety's face.".

Jonathan_S wrote:Not to mention the Levelers trying to overrun Nouveau Paris.

And the Levelers would have succeeded if not for the intervention of Admiral Cluster Bomb.

A conquered planet trying to be intransigent is much different than political unrest on your own planet.

At times you can get away with it on your own planet, or country.

Jonathan_S wrote:Not to mention the Levelers trying to overrun Nouveau Paris.

Logically such riots or insurrections are almost certainly doomed to fail. And logically you shouldn't need a BB to discourage them -- ground troops, a couple of destroyers for orbital bombardment, and rapid reaction assault shuttles (whether parked on secure planetside bases or in a station, or heck a converted freighter should be able to bring nearly as much pain.

But riots and insurrections are often not logical. (And for units stationed on the planet you worry more about sabotage, surprise attack, or simply subversion of the unit or its commander as they have more day to day interaction with the population or corporations)

In Jayne's, the Triupmhant page talks about one of the class which has to put down a successionist conspiracy with 2 BCs.

One of the sr leaders on Hades was a leader from the Pegasus navy which carried on a terrorist campaign in space after the planet was captured.

It seems like the PRH had issues controlling it's empire.

tlb wrote:But we know specifically that there could be unrest; Operation Dagger wanted BBs from the back regions, but they were unavailable because "Malagasy had exploded in the Committee of Public Safety's face.".

Jonathan_S wrote:Not to mention the Levelers trying to overrun Nouveau Paris.

tlb wrote:And the Levelers would have succeeded if not for the intervention of Admiral Cluster Bomb.

penny wrote:A conquered planet trying to be intransigent is much different than political unrest on your own planet.

At times you can get away with it on your own planet, or country.

Yes, it is different. In this particular case, the unrest on the home planet almost succeeded in overthrowing the government. That is not something that can be achieved from a conquered planet, so I am not sure why you think one "can get away with it" on the home planet.

The rulers at Nouveau Paris were always aware that control of the home planet was required for control everywhere else.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:But we know specifically that there could be unrest; Operation Dagger wanted BBs from the back regions, but they were unavailable because "Malagasy had exploded in the Committee of Public Safety's face.".

Jonathan_S wrote:Not to mention the Levelers trying to overrun Nouveau Paris.

tlb wrote:And the Levelers would have succeeded if not for the intervention of Admiral Cluster Bomb.

penny wrote:A conquered planet trying to be intransigent is much different than political unrest on your own planet.

At times you can get away with it on your own planet, or country.

Yes, it is different. In this particular case, the unrest on the home planet almost succeeded in overthrowing the government. That is not something that can be achieved from a conquered planet, so I am not sure why you think one "can get away with it" on the home planet.

The rulers at Nouveau Paris were always aware that control of the home planet was required for control everywhere else.

How quickly we forget. On ones own planet one may be assisted by ones own Navy. See Thomas Theisman. And on ones own planet it isn't exactly an insurrection, depending on who one asks. See our own "insurrection."

On ones own planet one is merely exercising his perceived political rights and/or ones own political responsibilities. Ring any bells?