The enemy in "extended space": SLN or MAlign

fallsfromtrees wrote:It's not clear, at least to me, that hte Lenny Dets are pod layers. They were designed before the pod layer concept came out. It was stated that they could handle the graser torps internally, but I have always assumed that that meant they were fired from missile tubes.

When was operation Buttercup? When is "now" in the honorverse timeline? It's been most of a decade IIRC.

kzt wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:It's not clear, at least to me, that hte Lenny Dets are pod layers. They were designed before the pod layer concept came out. It was stated that they could handle the graser torps internally, but I have always assumed that that meant they were fired from missile tubes.

When was operation Buttercup? When is "now" in the honorverse timeline? It's been most of a decade IIRC.

Yes. Even the SLN should have been aware of this stuff by now (if nothing else, you can't hide basic elements of ships that millions of people have served on; somebody should have taken a dayliner trip to Beowulf and talked to a Solarian League news reporter by now.) The information is out there, in quite a few ways; it's just that the SLN's intelligence system is fundamentally brain-dead.

The Sharks used pods in the attack on Manticore, and they were the testbed/training ships for the Lenny-based buildup. There seems no reason to assume that the naval architects that designed pods into the one class were unaware of pods when they designed the other, and later, on.

Now, since we have no idea how spider-drive ships are intended to be used, it's possible that the LDs are not MEANT to fight at long-range with pods and Massive Missile Massacres; maybe they're intended to go in a completely different direction and (say) use only energy weapons and graser torpedoes. But it seems to me pods were certainly on the menu of possible choices when they were designed.

tonyz wrote:Yes. Even the SLN should have been aware of this stuff by now (if nothing else, you can't hide basic elements of ships that millions of people have served on; somebody should have taken a dayliner trip to Beowulf and talked to a Solarian League news reporter by now.) The information is out there, in quite a few ways; it's just that the SLN's intelligence system is fundamentally brain-dead.

Or rather, it's been systematically sabotaged by enemy agents.

SharkHunter wrote:Good question. Except that without Battle Fleet or the ability to rebuild short term, all of a sudden the RF might look pretty darn good.

If the MAlign pull an Oyster Bay/Pearl Harbor style attack on any League territory, the RF won't be able to secede and/or offer to replace the SLN.

If you done a poll Dec 6th 1941 in the USA, You'd have found about 80-90% Isolationist sentiment.

If you repeated the poll a week later, you would have had to stand in line at a recruiting station to find anyone to question and any suggestion of isolationism would be asking for a lynching.

The Solarian League would react to a perceived "sneak attack" much the same way the US reversed its Isolationist majority after Pearl Harbor.

Weird Harold wrote:The Solarian League would react to a perceived "sneak attack" much the same way the US reversed its Isolationist majority after Pearl Harbor.

It would be pretty useful for the MA if they could make it look like the RMN did this, wouldn't it?

kzt wrote:It would be pretty useful for the MA if they could make it look like the RMN did this, wouldn't it?

No.

No matter who got blamed for a sneak attack, the effect would be Solarian League solidarity when both Manticore and the MAlign want LESS solidarity. Anything that would present even the remote possibility of healing any of the "fracture lines" both are trying to crack open has to be avoided.

drothgery wrote:

tonyz wrote:Yes. Even the SLN should have been aware of this stuff by now (if nothing else, you can't hide basic elements of ships that millions of people have served on; somebody should have taken a dayliner trip to Beowulf and talked to a Solarian League news reporter by now.) The information is out there, in quite a few ways; it's just that the SLN's intelligence system is fundamentally brain-dead.

Or rather, it's been systematically sabotaged by enemy agents.

Oh, it's maybe had a little bit of that - just to be sure. But for the most part, it's been crippled by having no work requested of it in terms of actual intelligence; no interest paid to any such work that actually happens, beyond "quit rocking the boat, we're trying to sleep around here!"; and having no real need for any such work til recently because, after all, it's the Solarian League.

Warfare is just a sad thing that happens out on the fringes of human space, outside the League. The SLN is kept around - on the cheap, it's a bulk discount! - just to keep warfare out there and away from here, til OFS civilizes all of them too. If ONI isn't perhaps ideally informed about all the things going on out there - if some few beobarbs plowing their whole economy into mutual killing invent a few new tricks - it doesn't really matter.

It did make fine sense for centuries until it didn't. Then the dinosaurs looked up and a great big ball of fire filled the sky.... It went poorly for them, sure, but really, the dinosaurs had a good run doing what they had been doing.

I have a totally different take on things than has been discussed here so far.

There are a few things that are in the background that I believe will become very important. The escapee from Mesa (Semones?) brought enough knowledge with him about the MA drive propulsion that I think bolthole will come up with a solution to tracking it.

There is the MA scientist who was part of the MA evacuation that killed his "protector" who I believe will in some way contribute to problems for the MA.

I think that there is a secret in the Congo system and it's wormhole that will be a problem for the MA. I believe that the MA knew of this wormhole and it was because of it that the Congo system was so important to the MA.

I believe that in the MA's plans Haven was to have destroyed Manticore and the fact that they have joined forces is a big problem for the MA plans.

Part of the MA plans was for the destruction of the SL and I believe that this must still happen, but I believe it must happen much faster than was planned by the MA so that what ever "structure" replaces it has a chance to develop before the MA can get it's hands on it or have to much influence in it's foundation. The fact that the MA had to abandon Mesa is going to make it very difficult for the MA to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances in the SL because of the immense distance they are forced to operate from.

I think that the MA's ship building program is still in it's infancy and while that will allow them to adapt to having pod layers, its going to be years before they have a substantial let alone a massive fleet.

I think that the GA will need to go on an aggressive offensive against the SL after the SLN attacks Beowulf. As Henke says in SoF, the war with Haven proved that the only way to win a war is to go on the attack while you have the advantage.

I think that the GA will take out the mothball fleet as retaliation for the attack on Beowulf. But they will only permanently disable the mothballed ships and not attack the planets where the ships are stored, they attack a resource, not a people. I want the disabled ships available for their mettle to rebuild better ships after the SL falls. They will save missiles during these operations by using combined Haven/Grayson/Manty fleets carry out the attacks. The attacks will be supported by Grayson/Manty ghost rider recon platforms. Haven will use their abundant missiles to force any SDF to surrender and then Grayson/Manty LAC's will use their grasers to do the appropriate damage the mothballed ships.

I see the SLN's attack on Beowulf as it's last hurraw in the way of being able to create a massive fleet of ships to threaten anybody. I think that a confused SLN will make an effort to retake some of the termini that Manticore has taken and that those task forces will be defeated in detail. The SLN will loose enough ships that without it reserve of mothballed ships it becomes little threat to anyone but pirates.

These are the thing I see happening in the Honorverse future.

fallsfromtrees wrote:
It's not clear, at least to me, that hte Lenny Dets are pod layers. They were designed before the pod layer concept came out. It was stated that they could handle the graser torps internally, but I have always assumed that that meant they were fired from missile tubes.

Its been so long since I have read that book that I am very fuzzy on the details. However, I have this memory of the description of the launch of the missiles/pods from these MA ships to be a burdensom thing. Almost like the crews had to manually shove the pods out the door. If I remember this correctly, then I would say that they are not very good pod layer ships.

SharkHunter wrote:
I think you're right about the impeller sig problem, but you could fake a huge impeller arrival with Manpower freighters hypering in at the appropriate time. Drop in thirty freighters or so to simulate a "mass fleet arrival"; once the graser torps and missiles are ready to fire, move them towards the hyper limit, and at the equivalent long range attack time, ka-boom, then hyper the freighters back out. .

As I remember it, these MA ships do make a hyperwall transit footprint just like any other ship. In the Manticore system they were able to make a very small footprint by doing the hyperwall translation at a very slow speed. Apparently the more speed you try to carry during the translation the bigger footprint you make. But after they made their translation these ships were able to "invisibly" move away using their spider drive. So seeing these ships enter your system, assuming they carry some speed, isn't the problem, tracking them is.

Brigade XO wrote:Remember, the Ghosts and Sharks were hanging around both Manticore and Grayson for months doing the recon and setting up the plots/trajectories for the grader trop and ballictic weapons strikes. .

They were able to remain hidden because they used the spider drive rather than the traditional wedge. So far, the spider drive can't be seen when its in operation. However, if some one does find a way to track it, wouldn't the lack of a wedge make the ship much more vulnerable to missile attack? So if the GA/bolthole is able to find a way to track them, they're sitting ducks.

tonyz wrote:
Yes. Even the SLN should have been aware of this stuff by now (if nothing else, you can't hide basic elements of ships that millions of people have served on; somebody should have taken a dayliner trip to Beowulf and talked to a Solarian League news reporter by now.) The information is out there, in quite a few ways; it's just that the SLN's intelligence system is fundamentally brain-dead.

Filareta's attack was the first time that the SLN had encountered CLAC's. I remember the comment being made by the SLN officer about how LAC's were showing up in the group of ships behind them so that one of the large ships had to carry them across the hyper wall. So if CLAC's are still such a secrete, how well know can the SD(P) ships be. I would think that if the SLN does have a hit about pod layers, it still just a whif rather than a good understanding. I think the SLN was still blaming the massive missile salvos on the presence of system defense pods.

Hi SharkHunter,

Interesting speculation, but the first problem is the Lenny Det's are years away from completing and commissioning, so only the Sharks would be available for your raid on the SLN bases, they're needed for training or to attack Bolthole, whenever the MAlign finds it.

While the Sharks might pull it off, the payoff is far less than you think, since the operation would confirm the MO from OB, as others have noted, and possibly mean all the smart SL members joining the GA faster than ever.

Secondly, its at least October, and thanks to Beowulf production of Apollo's has begun again, so "missile preservation" is less of a concern to the GA.

Given the BF SD's need only ~200 MDM's to destroy them, or 25 Apollo pods, the 1500+ active BF SD's require less than 40,000 pods and the RMN and GSN have something over 200,000 Apollo pods aboard their new SDP's alone [2/3 of the BF reserve still have auto cannon not CM's, so only 100 MDM's are needed for them if active?], while the alliance according to HH-A has some 2.5 million pods available to her; which might be the GA's total, or just those HH-A could use in a reasonable amount of time, but more than enough to deal with the SLN, before adding the system defense missile pods.

But I understand your intent was to use lesser missile first, ie RHN MDM's, to preserve the Apollo's for something more worthy of them.

L

SharkHunter wrote:Sort of combining thoughts from several current and past threads regarding what comes next. Obviously ALL of our guesses, surmises, and tactical thoughts have to get dropped in RFC/MWW's tum-tee tum tum jar until further notice, but heck, we're all aspiring armchair admirals and tacticians, so...

Lotta thoughts in many threads about what the LennyDets (MAlign superdreadnoughts, likely pod-dispensing) are going to do, stacked up against Grand Alliance hardware. Ultimately they obviously HAVE to do that but with Manticore already strangling the Solarian League bureaucratic money source, and with the GA in "missile preservation mode" temporarily, what's to stop the LennyDets or even the Sharks from trashing/destroying most or all of the bigger and known SLN fleet bases and mothballed fleet(s) and just blaming it on Manticore?

Seems like a decently nasty/evil and efficient political approach to making things much, much worse...