Question about Beowulf tactics

Hi Lyonheart,

It looked like Beowulf was leaning on Manticore anyway. How could the sudden appearance of sixty RMN SDPs look? Otherwise I agree with your point.

Don

n7axw wrote:Hi Lyonheart,

It looked like Beowulf was leaning on Manticore anyway. How could the sudden appearance of sixty RMN SDPs look? Otherwise I agree with your point.

Don

It could be argued, successfully, that it would have been Manticore that was doing the leaning by 'loaning' the SD(P)s to Beowulf, which just happened to be parked in orbit around Beowulf at the time of the vote, which puts pressure on the current government to make sure the vote goes the right way. Succession. That might be a false view, but it has the advantage it's very believable. What Manticore did and is continuing to do is the best option it can do politically until -after- the vote is over. The less pressure, real or implied, that the SEM appears to put on Beowulf, the stronger their position is diplomatically and politically with the SL. As it is, they are stretching it by supplying Beowulf with the Mycroft system.

Zakharra wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi Lyonheart,

It looked like Beowulf was leaning on Manticore anyway. How could the sudden appearance of sixty RMN SDPs look? Otherwise I agree with your point.

Don

It could be argued, successfully, that it would have been Manticore that was doing the leaning by 'loaning' the SD(P)s to Beowulf, which just happened to be parked in orbit around Beowulf at the time of the vote, which puts pressure on the current government to make sure the vote goes the right way. Succession. That might be a false view, but it has the advantage it's very believable. What Manticore did and is continuing to do is the best option it can do politically until -after- the vote is over. The less pressure, real or implied, that the SEM appears to put on Beowulf, the stronger their position is diplomatically and politically with the SL. As it is, they are stretching it by supplying Beowulf with the Mycroft system.

You are making a valid point. But Beowulf would have been up the creek without a paddle facing down Tsang's Taskforce without Truman's SDPs. That is the appearance and the reality that will stick.

Don

n7axw wrote:

Zakharra wrote:"n7axw" Hi Lyonheart,

It looked like Beowulf was leaning on Manticore anyway. How could the sudden appearance of sixty RMN SDPs look? Otherwise I agree with your point.

Don quote


It could be argued, successfully, that it would have been Manticore that was doing the leaning by 'loaning' the SD(P)s to Beowulf, which just happened to be parked in orbit around Beowulf at the time of the vote, which puts pressure on the current government to make sure the vote goes the right way. Succession. That might be a false view, but it has the advantage it's very believable. What Manticore did and is continuing to do is the best option it can do politically until -after- the vote is over. The less pressure, real or implied, that the SEM appears to put on Beowulf, the stronger their position is diplomatically and politically with the SL. As it is, they are stretching it by supplying Beowulf with the Mycroft system.

You are making a valid point. But Beowulf would have been up the creek without a paddle facing down Tsang's Taskforce without Truman's SDPs. That is the appearance and the reality that will stick.

Don

True, but Manticore has traditionally kept an eye and control on both sides of the wormholes in their junction. That they let the system (if any) on the other side have nominal control of astro-traffic is of minor consideration, but military control has been, as far as I know, traditionally, politically and diplomatically, Manticore's to control. What Manticore did was as much as they could do politically. Beowulf could be called out on allowing the RMN to move units through the junction, but on them refusing Tsnag to use the Junction? Even if Beowulf had folded, the RMN would have ripped Tsang's force apart with or without Beowulf's help.

It was during the rule of Roger III that Manticore assumed sovereignty over both sides of the wormholes at the junction as Manticore's tensions with Haven increased while Roger's naval buildup continued as per House of Steel.

I'm not sure we are actually disagreeing here, Zakharra. You seem to be stressing more the legal side of things as to Manticore's right to act as she did.

I am merely saying that the appearance is that of Beowulf leaning on Manticore to defend her sovereignty under the League's constitution. Without Truman's SDPs, Tsang would have either destroyed Beowulf's fleet or forced it aside and transited the junction only to get blown away by the junction forts on the Manticore side. That made the appearance the reality.

Don

Zakharra wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi Lyonheart,

It looked like Beowulf was leaning on Manticore anyway. How could the sudden appearance of sixty RMN SDPs look? Otherwise I agree with your point.

Don

It could be argued, successfully, that it would have been Manticore that was doing the leaning by 'loaning' the SD(P)s to Beowulf, which just happened to be parked in orbit around Beowulf at the time of the vote, which puts pressure on the current government to make sure the vote goes the right way. Succession. That might be a false view, but it has the advantage it's very believable. What Manticore did and is continuing to do is the best option it can do politically until -after- the vote is over. The less pressure, real or implied, that the SEM appears to put on Beowulf, the stronger their position is diplomatically and politically with the SL. As it is, they are stretching it by supplying Beowulf with the Mycroft system.

A nerdy nitpick on vocabulary: It is secession, not succession, in this case. Id est, withdrawal; not following in series. Succession is what a titled heir does when he inherits. Successor states will follow the collapse and build a new political framework; meanwhile, systems will secede from the League.

Tactics/and timeing: you are ignoring, or conflating, the timing of some of the events. First, the SLN violated the Beowulf System's sovereignty by not obeying the lawful commands of the local government and going away. Manticore exercised their sovereignty over the junction itself, by moving vessels through whenever they find it necessary. The Tsang-Truman showdown is at the time of Filareta's attack (June).

But it took a couple weeks or more for the Assembly to vote to "investigate" Beowulf for "treason." Now it is July. And it wasn't until after the vote was tallied that Beowulf announced the decision of the government to seek secession with the approval of their voters. I believe the announcement was 60 days out. So, September/October.

The action in the books is skirting around events at Beowulf, but things are building very slowly for the daily news junkies in Old Chicago. This is likely what will bite the Mandarins on the ass the hardest--the long, long time before they can act.

One of the things I took from the books, was the worry that getting Mycroft up and running might take too long, and that the SLN wouldn't know what it was until the shooting started. Which means another Filareta-type massacre.

Regarding Mycroft, Beowulf can't deploy it before they set up production lines to produce the parts. They are not importing the thing, they are building it. They will get a working system much sooner if they buy Moriarty system parts from Haven. But other, far more knowledgeable people have already commented in other threads regarding what is involved in setting up new production lines for the missiles, ftl comms, ew systems, etc.,.

YMMV,

Rob

Again, people are taking this far beyond what I suggested. I was using the same scenario as was written in the books. Truman"s fleet is in the same place, and remains in stealth until/unless required. The ONLY change I suggested by having Gabriel Caddell-Markham, the Director of Defense for the Planetary Board of Directors, speaking from Truman's flag ship give effectively the same speech that Truman did, explaining that Beowulf had borrowed 60 pod layers from the RMN because they thought that the SL might get insistent in their stupidity.

This implies that these 60 podnaughts are under the control of the Beowulf Defense Forces. Let the mandarins make of that what they will.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Again, people are taking this far beyond what I suggested. I was using the same scenario as was written in the books. Truman"s fleet is in the same place, and remains in stealth until/unless required. The ONLY change I suggested by having Gabriel Caddell-Markham, the Director of Defense for the Planetary Board of Directors, speaking from Truman's flag ship give effectively the same speech that Truman did, explaining that Beowulf had borrowed 60 pod layers from the RMN because they thought that the SL might get insistent in their stupidity.

This implies that these 60 podnaughts are under the control of the Beowulf Defense Forces. Let the mandarins make of that what they will.

I think we all understood that. But it really doesn't make any difference in the result, nor does it change the political situation of Beowulf within the League. There was no particular benefit to pretending that the ships were Beowulf's, and they would have complicated the later vote on secession which the leaders of Beowulf expected would be necessary. As I said before, Beowulf didn't have any reason to politically polite.

The Beowulf government told the SLN that they would not assist them in attacking and passing through the wormhole, for two reasons.
1) It was illegal use of the armed forces of the SL in the absence of a declaration of war (which Beowulf knew could never pass because they, Beowulf, thought it was a stupid, misinformed idea, and they knew they would veto it).
2) It was suicide for all the forces which attempted it.

However, it was NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY of Beowulf to defend the terminus from an SL assault.

Beowulf provides security for the traffic and they opertate the traffic control, under terms of agreements with Manticore. The sovereignty over the terminus rests with Manticore, however. It was astro-politically PROPER for Her Majesty's Navy to be the force which dissuaded Adm Tsang from a violation of that sovereignty, and an unambiguous act of war. Recall that, at the moment when these events occurred, the SEM and the SL were not technically at war.

Further, Beowulf had no wish to be placed in the position of being LEGALLY a 'rebel system' in violation of the SL Constitution, by barring and if necessary fighting an SLN fleet over a locale NOT PART OF BEOWULF territory. They were, at the time, still engaged (indeed, are still engaged as of the current moment, in Honorverse) in doing everything they could to USE the Constitutional high-ground to impede and obstruct the Mandarins and the SLN, while simultaneously using the same tools to attract and convince other important portions of the SL membership.

Under all those conditions above, it would have been right dumb to place the undeniable senior manager of Beowulf defense policy and defense forces as figurehead leading a 'borrowed' foreign fleet in potentially heavy action against an SLN fleet while protecting a 'foreign' resource/asset/locale.

It would have forced a break from the SL, probably in a non-Constitutional form, well before the Beowulf powers that be had their own domestic political house in order. It would also have given up the chance to use any of the actions of the SLN in Beowulf space as a political tool and a demonstration piece with the other power players of the SL membership. From the Beowulfan standpoint, it would have gutted all the Constitutional maneuvers that they were attempting to use to mitigate or at least extend the deteriorating state of the League. It would, in other words, have been playing directly into the hands of the Mandarins.

The RMN, on the other hand, had, in a still 'open' international legal environment, every visible reason in the galaxy to tell Adm Tsang, "If you come any closer, I will ruin more than your paint job." So, in any rational view by the respective governments of Beowulf and Manticore, why not let the RMN be the entity to do just that?

dreamrider

Hi SWM,

Agreed.

FallsFromTrees, the problem is the SLN didn't recognise what the differences between a SD and an SDP, so the threat apparent to you and me as readers didn't translate to Tsang and Filaretta, and may still have eluded the SLN back in old Chicago, since the SL people that learn about SDP's so far wind up dead seconds later like Brigadier Yucel.

So admiral Tsang would have thought the ~60 SDP's were simply 60 more SD's, and having a Beowulfian minister on the bridge of any RMN SD would be far better evidence for the mandarins of Beowulfian collusion with Manticore than maintaining tactical separation.

Again I believe the BSDF SD's could have wasted TSang's TF real easy, just by borrowing a few thousand pods, if they don't have their own, or even just a thousand or two [only 28-56 each].

L

SWM wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:Again, people are taking this far beyond what I suggested. I was using the same scenario as was written in the books. Truman"s fleet is in the same place, and remains in stealth until/unless required. The ONLY change I suggested by having Gabriel Caddell-Markham, the Director of Defense for the Planetary Board of Directors, speaking from Truman's flag ship give effectively the same speech that Truman did, explaining that Beowulf had borrowed 60 pod layers from the RMN because they thought that the SL might get insistent in their stupidity.

This implies that these 60 podnaughts are under the control of the Beowulf Defense Forces. Let the mandarins make of that what they will.

I think we all understood that. But it really doesn't make any difference in the result, nor does it change the political situation of Beowulf within the League. There was no particular benefit to pretending that the ships were Beowulf's, and they would have complicated the later vote on secession which the leaders of Beowulf expected would be necessary. As I said before, Beowulf didn't have any reason to politically polite.