The enemy in "extended space": SLN or MAlign

kzt wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:And I would say that the mothball fleets would have lots of smaller units, otherwise where would Mesa get all those BC's that they sent to Monica? The mothballed ships can't be just SD's.

No, they don't. Not to the level you would expect.

Indeed. And for that matter - the clock's ticking. Any Reserve fleet units have to be recommissioned, recrewed, reammunitioned (if anyone still makes the missiles those ancient launchers would take!), restocked, shake down - and then be scrapped, because that war is well over and that ship is useless. The few subwallers in the Reserve Fleet are likely even further behind schedule for refits than the perpetually dated SD's. They would, after that refit, likely be a little behind the 1900 PD Silesian pirate stock.

StealthSeeker wrote:Ok, trying to turn a bunch of the Verge system into independent star nations can be very helpful. Maybe Meyers and the systems it controlled will become another Talbott quadrant type of system group. Though I don't know if Queen Elisabeth would necessarily want to add all those planets into the SEM. Though I bet that the SEM would more than welcome having the trade that these systems were sending to the core worlds.

The SEM -- and the GA -- have explicitly said they don't want to integrate more systems; they would rather establish trade and defense treaties with successor states.

StealthSeeker wrote:There has got to be a more overt and effective way to "assist" in the demise of the core worlds cohesion. Beowulf is going to need to react to the attack by the SLN on it's world. What should that reaction be? How should they strike back?

That's the problem: the more overt the GA is about attacking the SL, the more they risk a "bloody shirt" being waved to paper over the fracture lines. The way to "assist" core worlds to secede is to let Beowulf's and Maya's example and diplomats lead the way. As each core world secedes, one more example and set of diplomats are added to the "assistance."

StealthSeeker wrote:So if a mysterious attack out of nowhere happens they can point and say "look, see there, that's how we do things, wasn't us that bombed your orbitals."

If the SEM or GA need an example of restraint, they have the example of Adm Gold Peak's conquest of Meyers. No infrastructure was destroyed, no ships were destroyed, and nobody died in her attack. The message there is we have such an advantage that we don't need to kill anyone.

Adm Gold Peak's probable conquest of Mesa followed the same pattern, as far as we can tell.

StealthSeeker wrote:And I would say that the mothball fleets would have lots of smaller units, otherwise where would Mesa get all those BC's that they sent to Monica? The mothballed ships can't be just SD's.

From Technodyne Idustries of Yildin. Textev explicitly says they were designated for destruction and recycling (not drawn from mothballs.) Textev also says TIY has a habit of building a spare or ten at SLN expense and then "losing the paperwork."

The reserve fleets do have some smaller ships -- as noted in the infodump linked above -- but they represent a small fraction of the smaller ship inventory of the SLN, most of which are on active service with Frontier Fleet.

kzt wrote:No, they don't. Not to the level you would expect.
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/si ... gton/202/0

"The Reserve does also contain battlecruisers and cruisers as screening elements, but nowhere near what its ships-of-the-wall would require in the event of all out hostilities. The plan has always been for the Frontier Fleet's active units to provide the entire SLN's light forces requirements in such an unthinkable event, although there's been virtually no detailed planning for how all of that would be managed. ("We'll muddle through on the day" is sort of a hallmark of Solarian planning where any sort of real war is concerned. After all, they might as well be planning for how they'll defeat the ravening hordes from Andromeda as how they would defeat any significant short-term threat from anywhere in the explored galaxy.)"

A very interesting web site you sent me to there. I have read about the "pearls" but had never seen them before. Thanks.

Weird Harold wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:There has got to be a more overt and effective way to "assist" in the demise of the core worlds cohesion. Beowulf is going to need to react to the attack by the SLN on it's world. What should that reaction be? How should they strike back?

That's the problem: the more overt the GA is about attacking the SL, the more they risk a "bloody shirt" being waved to paper over the fracture lines. The way to "assist" core worlds to secede is to let Beowulf's and Maya's example and diplomats lead the way. As each core world secedes, one more example and set of diplomats are added to the "assistance."

Just as in a fist fight, you can't throw that first punch, regardless of how ineffective it was, and not expect to be punched back. The SLN threw the first punch in a now declared war, at least on the GA's part, and the SL can't expect to not receive a return punch. I suppose that Lacoon-II could be seen as a return punch, but that is nothing compared to sending 500 ships after your home planet. The SL has nothing to complain about if the RMN punches back, especially if it's done after the looming attack on Beowoulf.

If someone working for your state police killed a member of an outlaw biker gang under highly questionable circumstances, would you feel it's ok if the bikers burned your town down? Why or why not?

StealthSeeker wrote:My concept about commerce raiding is that you don't need the latest modern ships to do the job. Look at the pirates and what they use. Admiral Kingsford is just saying that the light units used in commerce raiding would be his most effective way to strike back.

I agree that you don't need much of a ship to destroy or capture merchant ships.

But pirates usually take advantage of systems that either turn a blind eye, or are too weak to patrol the hyper limit. In the short term there probably aren't a lot of systems like that that will be seeing much GA merchant traffic. So Kingsford seems likely to make a bad choice looking for places where GA merchants are more likely to show up (but where he'd not expect to run into heavy RMN defenses). Places like, say the Talbott Cluster systems, or minor systems on the Haven side of the Manticore/Haven frontier.

But we know that most of those systems have pod and/or LAC based defenses capable of very roughly handling BC squadrons, or even (especially given their poor missile defense) SD squadrons. So those attractive looking targets
are a bad idea.

Another possibility would be to attempt to grab back a wormhole so you can ambush merchants attempting to use it (most likely those on a return leg back to a seized wormhole). But again, the modern light units there can chew up SLN BCs unless very very unlucky.

Or you can sit in Verge systems that you think might draw GA merchant traffic, or try to lay patrol lines across strategic rifts. But the RMN has a lot of experience at convoy protection, and even their older units are going to fights like hell to keep the SLN raiders off the merchants. A Nevada probably would win one-on-one against a Star Knight; but it'll be limping back to the body and fender shop afterwards.

kzt wrote:If someone working for your state police killed a member of an outlaw biker gang under highly questionable circumstances, would you feel it's ok if the bikers burned your town down? Why or why not?

I doubt that you would be happy that your town got burned down, but you would know why it happened. And if you wanted to prevent it you would do a little preemptive engaging with that biker group to try to head things off.

If the SL doesn't want to get beaten to a pulp, they had better be doing some “engaging” to make a little peace before things get out of hand. And the GA/RMN needs to make it very clear to the SL in general that they have to do something about their Mandarins activities before something really nasty happens.

Jonathan_S wrote:A Nevada probably would win one-on-one against a Star Knight; but it'll be limping back to the body and fender shop afterwards.

Before the first war officially started, a Star Knight(actually, I think it was the Star Knight) took on four Peep BCs and sent at least two of them to the yards.

IMO, it'd do a little more than send a Nevada limping, but it'd be a fight similar to Jessica Epps vs Hellbarde.

munroburton wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:A Nevada probably would win one-on-one against a Star Knight; but it'll be limping back to the body and fender shop afterwards.

Before the first war officially started, a Star Knight(actually, I think it was the Star Knight) took on four Peep BCs and sent at least two of them to the yards.

IMO, it'd do a little more than send a Nevada limping, but it'd be a fight similar to Jessica Epps vs Hellbarde.

You remember correctly. The RMN heavy cruiser Star Knight took on 4 Sultan-class battlecruisers in The Short Victorious War and sent two of them to the yards for longer than the Peeps expected. Star Knight was lost in action.