The Two General's Problem

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:That's not what I'd consider a tactical use. Tactical is something that has an effect within a single battle.

And even with a streak drive (which can shave about 30% off the transit time between systems) the nearest system is still days away -- any combat will be long over before a message carried through hyper will get to its destination.

A single battle is what I'm talking about. Let's say it was the MAN that did what Byng did (minus the stupid act, but attacking in the New Tuscany System) or any act that would cause Henke to come running. A streak boat could have beaten the messenger to Henke way ahead of time and arranged for an attack on Henke to begin, busying her so she couldn't respond to any incident in New Tuscany. That would also have given the operation in New Tuscany time to raid data banks, take prisoners and to effect any other time consuming matters. Let's assume New Tuscany has something of value. Even if planetside.

That's pretty much the definition of an operational level use of the capability. Using a communications advantage to set up a battle in your choice of locations to divert enemy attention from an area more important to you. But once this new battle (at Spindle?) starts the streak drive no longer can affect its outcome.

It operationally set the stage for the tactical battle, but the battle there will be decided based on other factors.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Getting your fleet/reinforcements to a system before your enemy can is an operational level action; not a tactical one.

True, but you're thinking is limited to hardware and not information. Beating a messenger to the punch, as in beating a Case Zulu, might be more important than reinforcements if said plan has been devised as such. If a GA warship stumbles across a nest of Spiders (LDs) in the New Tuscany System, beating that messenger to Henke and ordering the force hiding in stealth to attack Henke might pay dividends if the force in New Tuscany needs time to rummage through data, take prisoners, search for survivors, take prizes, etc. Especially if a lengthy operation planetside is needed. Although, that might come closer to a strategic use.

Again I'd say that's more operational use -- the layer between tactical and strategic.

Strategic is how you plan to win the war.

Operational is where and when you're going to fight the battles, and getting forces and supplies into place to do so (and information on the enemy force's locations and capabilities so you can plan where and when to fight most advantageously)

Tactical is how the forces available in this one battlefield move and fight this one battle.

A streak drive might affect the strategic level if the information it carried caused the MAlign planners to alter their high-level plans to win the war. But if it's just brining messages that cause one battlefield to be picked over (or in addition to) another, or some forces to be rearranged, without a change to the high-level plans then it's acting on the operational level.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:And the streak drive, definitely has operational level advantages -- but once the forces are present within a star system and combat is imminent I don't see any tactical advantages of it over a normal hyper drive -- not based on what we've been told it can do.

Agreed. But I think it has strategic and tactical advantages as well, dependent upon the imagination and needs of the "general on the spot."

Streak drive can certainly have strategic advantages -- if intelligence is found that opens up a new way to win the war then getting that to the MAlign high command in time to take advantage of it would be a strategic advantage.

But tactical, outside of the hyperspace chase, I'm still not seeing an advantage. Not unless the streak drive has additional capabilities RFC hasn't shared.

Your input reminds me of Runsforcelery's in the Top Ten Tacticians and Strategists thread. I yield.

The MAN and I are willing to settle for a strategic and operational advantage.

penny wrote:A single battle is what I'm talking about. Let's say it was the MAN that did what Byng did (minus the stupid act, but attacking in the New Tuscany System) or any act that would cause Henke to come running. A streak boat could have beaten the messenger to Henke way ahead of time and arranged for an attack on Henke to begin, busying her so she couldn't respond to any incident in New Tuscany. That would also have given the operation in New Tuscany time to raid data banks, take prisoners and to effect any other time consuming matters. Let's assume New Tuscany has something of value. Even if planetside.

That is an example of streak drive use, but it makes little sense in this scenario in particular.

The time between the first and second New Tuscany incidents was several weeks. Byng had more than enough time to do what he needed to do in New Tuscany. Sending a streak boat to delay the response would buy very little. It also assumes he knew there would have been a quick response, which he didn't. He had assumed that the RMN would send someone looking for Commodore Bear only after he'd been overdue, because he didn't know that HMS Tristram was around observing anything, nor that they'd left Ghost Rider drones around. It also requires Byng having known where to send his streak boat in the first place, meaning he'd have to know where Tenth Fleet was going to be. Tristram would have known better than his boat.

More crucially, a diversionary tactic would require something that would occupy Tenth Fleet. A single streak boat would not be that. He'd need to send a significant portion of his own forces, which in turn invites defeat in detail.

True, but you're thinking is limited to hardware and not information. Beating a messenger to the punch, as in beating a Case Zulu, might be more important than reinforcements if said plan has been devised as such. If a GA warship stumbles across a nest of Spiders (LDs) in the New Tuscany System, beating that messenger to Henke and ordering the force hiding in stealth to attack Henke might pay dividends if the force in New Tuscany needs time to rummage through data, take prisoners, search for survivors, take prizes, etc. Especially if a lengthy operation planetside is needed. Although, that might come closer to a strategic use.

Same problem: this is assuming they know the information got out, where to find Henke, and not invite defeat in detail. If they had a force capable of engaging and defeating Henke, what were they waiting for?

Attempting to coordinate attacks across light-years and weeks of travel is how Parnell got his plans squashed in the outset of the First War.

At any rate, I hope we are in agreement that it definitely has a strategic use. Beating the messenger to the MBS and other major allied systems ahead of the Case Zulu warning can give the enemy forces who are waiting some critical time to go ahead and begin the attack. Preventing those allied systems from being forewarned and preparing. Shooting Paul Revere or beating him to his stops would have cost a lot of the lives that were saved. And might've cost the victory.

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I agree there can be some strategic and tactical use.

Just don't try to be too clever. Imagine this trip requires going through at least one wormhole, which a streak boat could do because it is inconspicuous. But suppose that it arrives there and a Lacoön II-like case is in place with the RMN holding the WH and denying passage to any non-Allied ship. Now the message doesn't arrive or arrives late.

Shooting Paul Revere might have delayed the message, but who knows by how much? The next dozen guys would also have seen the British.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Shooting Paul Revere might have delayed the message, but who knows by how much? The next dozen guys would also have seen the British.

Amusing fact, there were two other people also riding that night: William Dawes and Samuel Prescott; Revere was captured (but released later) and only Prescott completed the ride. Revere was the best known person at the time and Longfellow's poem ensured that he remained better known.

One use of the streak drive that actually fulfilled a strategic purpose was the Malign learning of the planned peace meeting between Manticore and Haven on Torch and arranging two assassination attempts to stop it. The timing was such that it was believed only Haven could have arranged the attacks.

Amateurs study tactics, Professionals study logistics.
The streak drive would be usefull for making stock market killings, or for cornering the supply of essential materials ahead of others knowing of the requirement.

Couple questions. When a Streak Boat gets into hyper, how long does it take to climb into the higher bands?

A warship can see into N-space before it hypers in. Can a ship from the iota / kappa bands also see into N-space?

A ship in a higher band cannot see into a lower band even if each warship is not accelerating?

penny wrote:A warship can see into N-space before it hypers in. Can a ship from the iota / kappa bands also see into N-space?

A ship in a higher band cannot see into a lower band even if each warship is not accelerating?

Where did you get the idea that there is a way to see anything outside of the current band (or normal space)? I know of no way to do that; it is hard enough to see things at a distance wherever the ship currently resides.

penny wrote:Couple questions. When a Streak Boat gets into hyper, how long does it take to climb into the higher bands?

A warship can see into N-space before it hypers in. Can a ship from the iota / kappa bands also see into N-space?

A ship in a higher band cannot see into a lower band even if each warship is not accelerating?

Nope, a warship can't see into n-space from hyper (from any hyper band) - in fact they can't see anything through any hyper wall, so they also can't see ships in other hyper bands.

Inability to see into n-space is why ships need the inertial navigation dead-reckoning hyper logs; they can't take sightings because even stars aren't visible from within hyper (much less smaller things like planet, ships, or wedges). If they weren't able to inertially navigate they'd have no way to know if they were about to emerge within a hyper limit or dangerously close to an outer plane.

That inability to see across hyper walls is also why the Paul Revere mousetrap trick can work (the fleet in hyper can't be seen by the fleet it's going to mousetrap) but also why a ship has to be waiting in normal space to carry the sensor data to the mousetrap fleet. Because they can't see into normal space they don't know the enemy fleet has arrive, its heading or composition, nor can they judge when and where best to emerge to trap it. All that info must be carried to them by someone watching the target fleet in normal space.



As for how long it take to climb; RFC hasn't offered firm numbers on that. But at least based on the narrative descriptions of diving back down the hyper bands (like Honor's convoy arriving a Yeltsin) it seems like it'd take somewhere between 30 seconds and several minutes per band to cover multiple bands. It certainly wasn't instant, but it also didn't seem prolonged. Now I don't think we know for sure whether it takes any longer to climb up than drop down; but I'd suspect it doesn't.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:Couple questions. When a Streak Boat gets into hyper, how long does it take to climb into the higher bands?

A warship can see into N-space before it hypers in. Can a ship from the iota / kappa bands also see into N-space?

A ship in a higher band cannot see into a lower band even if each warship is not accelerating?

Nope, a warship can't see into n-space from hyper (from any hyper band) - in fact they can't see anything through any hyper wall, so they also can't see ships in other hyper bands.

Inability to see into n-space is why ships need the inertial navigation dead-reckoning hyper logs; they can't take sightings because even stars aren't visible from within hyper (much less smaller things like planet, ships, or wedges). If they weren't able to inertially navigate they'd have no way to know if they were about to emerge within a hyper limit or dangerously close to an outer plane.

That inability to see across hyper walls is also why the Paul Revere mousetrap trick can work (the fleet in hyper can't be seen by the fleet it's going to mousetrap) but also why a ship has to be waiting in normal space to carry the sensor data to the mousetrap fleet. Because they can't see into normal space they don't know the enemy fleet has arrive, its heading or composition, nor can they judge when and where best to emerge to trap it. All that info must be carried to them by someone watching the target fleet in normal space.



As for how long it take to climb; RFC hasn't offered firm numbers on that. But at least based on the narrative descriptions of diving back down the hyper bands (like Honor's convoy arriving a Yeltsin) it seems like it'd take somewhere between 30 seconds and several minutes per band to cover multiple bands. It certainly wasn't instant, but it also didn't seem prolonged. Now I don't think we know for sure whether it takes any longer to climb up than drop down; but I'd suspect it doesn't.

Thanks! Forever I was thinking that a ship can see from hyper into n-space but not vice versa. And I didn't realize a ship was taking tactical information to the ships waiting in hyper.

However, I know a fleet's coordinates cannot change much in the time it takes to hyper in, but a fleet's change in coordinates plus the inaccuracy of jumps should prove fatal on occasion.

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up... and tlb.

Can a ship drop out of hyper from any band directly into n-space?