The Two General's Problem

penny wrote:Each member of the GA did the same thing and had large navies. The MAN would only need to build the LD and the Ghosts. And the Ghosts would probably be a lot fewer.

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually I'd think the other way around. Sure the Ghosts aren't escorts, so you don't need them for that reason. But they're still your scouts -- the less irreplaceable ships that are as stealthy as possible to sneak in close, ferret out all the targets, and leave behind guidance platform communication relays to provide final strike targeting.

Oyster Bay (admittedly about as big an attack on any system that the MAlign should every need to pull off) used basically everything they had and seems to have had about 18 or so Ghosts to about 28 Sharks. That's fewer, but not a lot fewer.

And I'm actually surprised it's that low.
However a LD seems like it'll carry the firepower of at least a couple Sharks; but won't require any less scouting and advanced targeting.

tlb wrote:So might it be more economical to send a Shark class ship or two on some of these raids, instead of a Leonard Detweiler class ship? The Shark is in a weight class where it might have a compensator making hyperspace travel much faster (even considering that the LD has the streak drive), so much quicker turnaround.

The LD is big enough to carry the graser torpedoes internally, whereas the Sharks carried them externally.

Jonathan_S wrote:Edit - I spent way too long on this; in part because the Wiki was plenty drunken so I was deeply scouring the two relevant books in an attempt to verify numbers.

penny wrote:Each member of the GA did the same thing and had large navies. The MAN would only need to build the LD and the Ghosts. And the Ghosts would probably be a lot fewer.

Actually I'd think the other way around. Sure the Ghosts aren't escorts, so you don't need them for that reason. But they're still your scouts -- the less irreplaceable ships that are as stealthy as possible to sneak in close, ferret out all the targets, and leave behind guidance platform communication relays to provide final strike targeting.

Oyster Bay (admittedly about as big an attack on any system that the MAlign should every need to pull off) used basically everything they had and seems to have had about 18 or so Ghosts to about 28 Sharks. (see below) That's fewer, but not a lot fewer.

And I'm actually surprised it's that low.
However a LD seems like it'll carriy the firepower of at least a couple Sharks; but won't require any less scouting and advanced targeting.

A couple of LDs can likely kill the orbital infrastructure of most any system -- but it'll still take 6 or so ships stealthily poking around to put together the fire plan. Of course (if you don't mind risking them) you could use LDs for that kind of sneak in close, manage short ranged RDs, meet up to exchange sensor takes and consolidate a unified target list. But it'd be a total waste to send 6 LDs to scout a system when you only need 1 or 2's worth of weapons. Better to use the cheaper more specialized Ghosts for that and allocate LDs based on much firepower you need to deliver.

(Plus you could even use freighters to deliver Silver Bullets or even normal graser torps as long as Ghosts have locked in the targeting lists -- letting you economize even further)

So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the MAlign built and deployed anywhere from 3 to 6 Ghosts for every LD.


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The gritty details of the ship counts:

We have a hard count on the Sharks, Albrechts watched all 28 leave; and were later told 20 of those went to Manticore
where after emergence from hyper they split up into the separate 14[1] ship Task Group 1.1 Manticore-A strike, and 6 ship Task Group 1.2 Manticore-B strikes; leaving 8 to hit the Blackbird yards in Yeltsin as Task Group 2.1.

Ghosts are a bit harder to count. We know that "freighters" "all of them of at least four million tons" [SftS] carried the Ghosts. I'm assuming 3 freighters; based on circumstantial evidence.

We know there were 3 scouting groups:
Task Group 1.3 - At least 3 ships[2], commanded by Commodore Karol Østby aboard his flagship MANS Chameleon, scouting Manticore-A
Task Group 1.4 - unknown size, commanded by Commodore Milena Omelchenko aboard her flagship (unknown name), scouting Manticore-B
Task Group 2.2 - 6 ships, commanded by Commodore Roderick Sung aboard his flagship MANS Apparition, scouting Yeltsin/Grayson.

I doubt the scouting groups assigned to the more important two targets were smaller than the one assigned to Yeltsin; but we aren't given an overall count. We have a minimum floor of 10 Ghosts. If we assumed the scouts were weighted the same way the strike was (50%/21%/29%) we'd get an 11/4/6 split for 21 total -- but Manticore-A seemed to get all their from the same freighter and I don't know you could cram 11 frigate sized ships into the holds of a pretty regular freighter. So, maybe a more plausible split is to say 18; making for three equal groups of 6. But I wouldn't be surprised to find Manticore-A did get a larger group.


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[1]There's actually an off by one error between MoH and SftS.

MoH [pg 104/369 of the .rtf ebook]
- Task Group 1.1 is MANS Mako plus "fourteen more ships of Task Force One" [total 15] - hitting Manticore-A.
- Task Group 1.2 is "six units" - hitting Manticore-B.
- Task Group 2.1 is "eight additional Shark-class ships" - hitting Yeltsin
[So that's a total of 29 Sharks]

SftS [pg 371/520 of the .doc ebook] Has Albrecht watching the Shark's head off to initiate Oyster Bay and says there are "only twenty-eight of them, divided between Admiral Topolev's Task Force One and Admiral Colenso's much smaller Task Force Two"

SftS [pg 498/520 of the .doc ebook] Gives Task Force One's size as "The twenty Shark-class ships" (by implication leaving Task Force Two with the other 8)

SftS [pg 504/520 of the .doc ebook] Has, beyond Make's "hull, fourteen more ships of Task Force One kept perfect formation upon her" [15 total]

I think RFC messed up and counted TG 1.1 as 14 total, since "fourteen" was written; and so added up to 28 instead of 29 and wrote the rest of SftS from that mistaken number. But since SftS gives us the hard count I went with it even though I think it's more likely the book in error.

FWIW SftS also messed up the task group designations; its glossary marking Østby as commanding Task Group 1.1 even though MoH clearly said that group was the Sharks; and MoH's glossary lists him in command of TG 1.3.

[2] Because 3 are referred to by name: Chameleon, Ghost, Wraith.

penny wrote:Why were the first two developed so differently from each other? Purpose and compartmentalization is the MA way.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They weren’t developed so differently. Both had the same root development principles: societies bases on genetic slavery controlled by the higher tiers of Malign genetic lines. Both had control of media and information. The difference lay on one being blatantly militaristic and the other not.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Where would the third be different? Why would the Malign create a society that is not filled with genetic clones? Why would they not control it like they want to control the rest of humanity?

penny wrote:Travelling? Where would they go? To other cities on the planet? Because they certainly aren’t leaving the system. That means even less ships overall that the system as a whole needs to produce.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Exactly. That’s why they can’t match Manticore efficiency and innovation. Note I was responding to the third system being potentially able to match those qualities.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:]If it isn’t going to, then I don’t see why it would need to be different than Darius and Galton in the first place. Just do more of the same, only further out.

penny wrote:Galton was intended to be thrown under the bus so its development would be handicapped. Darius, if some of you are correct, is a beautiful system where only great thinkers think, then they mine their theories out.

My question would be if there is another system, which one will the GA find? Darius, the beautiful planet and possibly home to the Alphas and Inner Onion might never be found.

penny wrote:A lot of work Jonathan. Kudos.

Let’s say you are correct. The MA needs 6 Ghosts for every LD. But that would only be a maximum of 18 Ghosts total to cover all the major systems if 3 LDs are used per major system. Grayson. Manticore. Haven. Beowulf. Bolthole? An LD can scout for itself if it is interested in attacking small systems. Besides, the Ghost is the smallest “warship” they produce. Like the Pinto made in the 70’s, it might be produced in very large numbers on the assembly line. The MAN is not interested in a long protracted war.

At any rate, I was attempting to incorporate my theory that an LD itself has varying mission profiles. So, I don’t think Sharks will be needed in large numbers. They would be perfect in a specific mission parameter; to throw at the MWJ to wreck or weaken it.

The MAN might not be interested in attacking smaller systems. If they are, the LD can handle the destruction of those systems on their own. Isn’t that the way it is anyway after a navy arrives in enemy territory and find out that all of the information the scout provided is no longer valid?

.

penny wrote:Why would they not have clones? I’d think the system has even more clones since its building capacity might dwarf Darius and Galton combined. Besides, it might mainly be different in purpose.

Again, why would they even need to come close? The MAN builds less types of ships. No wall of battle. No screening elements. And they have no other planets or allies to protect. No rear areas to strategically worry about. There is much less production needed overall.

As far as their innovation, that seems to be doing quite well in the books I’ve read.

My question would be if there is another system, which one will the GA find? Darius, the beautiful planet and possibly home to the Alphas and Inner Onion might never be found.