Opening Phase of Havenite war

cthia wrote:You misunderstand. Trevor's Star is a direct line of attack into Havenite space. Without Peep control of it, Trevor's Star also represents a Manticoran base in which to attack Haven. Many of you know that I fancy breaking things down to the bare essentials to more easily analyze. The chess board is my common apparatus in which to do so.

"But everything can't be broken down to the analogy of a chess board," in anticipation.

Correct. Yet many of the same strategies and tactics do apply, even if only peripherally. For instance, on the chess board, if two fairly evenly matched opponents are going head to head and both are about to checkmate the other, the one who moves into checkmate position first (controlling the orbitals) wins the game by "default" even though the very next move by the other opponent is checkmate as well. Checkmate causes the other "navy" to have to surrender its forces. That does not happen in real life.

I am not suggesting that Haven hand over Trevor's Star in the opening Phases of the war, what I am suggesting is that Haven cannot do much with Trevor's Star other than mass suicide of its ships in mass jump against the Junction Forts. Manticore has to honour the threat that Trevor's Star represented to the Home System but they at the same time cannot and do not pose a significant threat to Trevor's Star through the Junction. If it is suicide for Haven to attack prepared defences through the Junction then it goes the same for the RMN.

I would keep enough of a picket to defend the Junction and ignore the inner system, leave some BB's and CA's to picket the inner system with a light screen. Anything the RMN sends over the Junction is slaughtered and anything they send the one way around is tied down for weeks and/or months considering it would have to be launched AFTER the surprise attack.

Trevor's Star is not in immediate danger after the surprise attack especially if it is executed properly, if the RHN had made an attack with overwhelming force either on the Home System or they had made an overwhelming attack on Yeltsin and then followed it up with a sweep along the Manticoran Alliance's system with major concentrations of wallers the RMN would have been hard pressed to do anything in offence. They would have to abandon allies and consolidate their fleet or fight the overwhelming RHN armada piecemeal and consequently the RMN is demolished in short order.

If the Peeps attack the Manty Home system, they also have to protect itself from a simultaneous attack.

The SKM had to go through a process that made surprise attacks highly unlikely. Haven did not have to worry too much about surprise attacks especially after all of the crap they had pulled. They could have stripped the entire nation of SD's save for Trevor's Star, the Capital System and a couple of other important systems and send the Rest to fight Manticore, they can expect a counter attack only once they start the war with the SKM. The RMN would not launch a counter attack if there is a massive concentration of RHN ships in the Alliance threatening every member system including Manticore.

That is the raw reality of strategy and tactics, the pervading common denominator of war. If your army is at my house raping and pillaging my family, you must ensure that remnants of my army isn't inside your own home having the exact same fun with yours. The Peeps must honor that possibility.

But with enough BB's, and SD's left over they could easily cover any important systems against counter attack. If Haven had hit Yeltsin and crushed Second Fleets 8 SD squadrons quickly they could have forced the RMN on the defensive. The RMN had 12 Squadrons in Home Fleet, 8 Squadrons in 2nd Fleet for a total of 20 Squadrons out of Potentially 32 Squadrons deployable. With 4 more Squadrons in Hancock the RMN is stretched pretty thin to begin with. If Haven managed to wipe out the 8 Squadrons of Second Fleet without the reinforcements from Home Fleet and then gone out as quickly as feasible to crush as many large concentrations as possible while forcing Manticore to recall them they could have whittled down the RMN by another 5 or more Squadron then Manticore would have no option but to concentrate on defending the Home System. If the remaining 16 Squadrons were concentrated in one place it would be in the Home System.

And again, the plan calls for an immense mobilization of forces without alerting the best strategic thinkers in the business that "something wicked our way comes."

Manticoran intelligence had to gather all the intelligence from dozens of systems, get it to their home system and figure out what it means, then they decide how to action it. The problem is that as a democracy of sorts they are restricted on what they could do with that knowledge, its not like they can find the gathering point of the Largest RHN fleet and surprise attack that fleet base without going to Parliament. They barely got a declaration of war AFTER the attack, how likely would it be for them to get approval for a surprise attack?

A series of attacks does require a full fleet train. You'll take casualties and get damaged ships, need resupply, and things will just break when you are in a series of closely spaced fights. Even if you have overwhelming mass there is going to be noticeable attrition if you don't have forward service units.

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote:The junction is the most heavily fortified part of the Manticoran system. It would eat several hundred SLN SDs, particularly as they probably just march in one after the other. And I suspect that not all members of the SL would be happy with about this whole idea, as the SL doesn’t fortify WHs. Like the one now connecting Haven to Beowulf. Or the one now connecting Gregor to Haven.

You’d hope even in 1905 that the SLN wouldn’t be dumb enough to assault through a wormhole that even the most cursory research would show is massively fortified.
They’d take losses if they sent battle squadron the long way through hyper. But nothing like the losses of advancing one by one from Beowulf. That early in the series the SLN could put together large enough forces to fight and win a conventional fight with the Junction forts. They’d get hurt way worse than they’d expect but they could win. Don’t know if even they had enough forces to win an assault through the wormhole.

Wormholes are equivalent to "The Hot Gates" of Thermopylae.

@ Sigs -- all in the name of my humble opinion.

I agree with everything you posit Sigs, basically. But again I think you've missed my point. We know that any attack through a wormhole is equal to the puree setting on a blender, under normal circumstances. It is the abnormal circumstances that you must plan for which keeps one honest, especially against an opponent as smart and tech savvy as the Manties. The Peeps had to remain honest. Regardless of what assault they launched against the Manties, they had to spend significant forces locking down Trevor's Star which represents a direct line of attack to Nouveau Paris. The Peeps had no way of knowing whether or not Manticore had developed game changing, force multiplying tech and named it Apollo. If the SKM was on the verge of grabbing Trevor's Star through normal hyper with such tech then the Peeps would have been toast. If the SKM is successful at opening up a direct line of attack and a direct line of quickly recalling forces to assist at Manticore would have represented a fatal strategic misstep by Haven.

On the chess board its like failing to support your flanks "en appui" - advancing that crucial pawn - before launching what is thought to be a devastating attack against what appears to be a weakened opponent. Who, instead of being weak - has set a trap. (My niece, the little snot!) Which leaves your main battle element (Eighth Fleet at one point) sorely out of position.

As I recall, the Peeps didn't fortify Trevor's Star with the traditional mines, etc. It remained that way even during White Haven's campaign, iinm. All I'm saying is that launching such an attack without fully locking down the road to Noveau Paris could have been a gamble that bites in the posterior.

Scenario: Trevor's Star (in a coincidental simultaneous Manty attack) has fallen from inadequate forces of a mere inconsequential picket because, well, surely the SKM won't go after Trevor's Star. The Peeps all or nothing attack on the Manty Home System fails, or is hindered. With Trevor's Star now in Manty hands and the lion's share of the Havenite fleet away fighting the battle of its life against an insanely fortified Home System, Paris is naked. The Peeps had to test the waters of Manty resistance by attacking piecemeal with a series of smaller engagements and mopping them up first. If they fail to mop up at least one engagement where they enjoyed the advantage in hulls, what motivates them to want to attack the home system? Surely things are much worse there. If Haven had won a few of those early skirmishes instead of getting sent home limping every time, they may have come to the decision they could take the Manties in one direct thrust. Or they may have found the balls to attack larger SKM bases. Heck, if a light cruiser did what it did to the Peep operation in the Basilisk System, what other fate would await them? Getting your eyes blackened in every single battle against an underweight opponent does not lend voice to your war cry.

I also never got the feeling the Peep "powers that be" were great strategic thinkers. I'm not talking about the Admiralty, but whoever was in power at the time. Beth always had faith in her navy, as did her father. I didn't see that on the Peep side.

At any rate, in light of the premise of this thread, it makes me wonder why the Peeps wasted itself on the proposition of taking Basilisk.

****** *

Even if both navies controlled the other's orbitals, who wins? He who has overwhelming strategic and tactical advantage. BUT! The Peeps had no reason to think they could quickly control the orbitals when each of the little skirmishes with "the little navy who could" in the fringes of space was NO indication, other than, "If I keep getting my ass kicked against any of their smaller brothers, what makes me think I can attack their bigger brothers at home?" I'm simply trying to step into the mindset of the Peeps.

If I can't win a single preseason game, how can I hope to win the Superbowl?

In a nutshell, they were afraid of what that relentless long-legged boogeyman would do to them at home. That fear got worse as time drew on. Case in point, BoM.


Late edit:

The mindset at the opening phase of the war was simply this . . .

"Attacking the heavily fortified home system of any of the Superpowers without game changing tech isn't much different than suicide by wormhole. Unless, to wit, we first attrit."

If you want to close the WH, you mine it and leave a squadron hanging around to pop anyone trying to clear them.

If your fear is fixed defenses then how exactly are you going to attrit them by skirmishing out where it didn't matter? That's the whole reason people build fixed defenses, so they will protect the site you built them to protect, not do what is trendy today. The forts will still be there waiting for you.

And with warnings they will deploy missile pods, mines, raise their readiness level, etc. All of which will make them a more difficult foe.

And note that in BoM the fixed defenses never engaged. Of course the RMN was so concerned about the threat that they didn't even start to evacuate the millions of people who live on their main naval bases because nobody would possibly target a critical military site like that, right?

Yeah, there is a reason why it's 'that awful book' for me.

To be honest the one bit that has always confused me in the opening stages of the war, from an SKM perspective, is why didn't the just smash Trevor Star first, then go after the other bases.

A single fleet, could of been dispatched with a suitable support units during the period between the Haven "surprise" attack and the SKM Parliament voting to go to war. If they decide not to go to war, there is more than enough time to send a courier through the junction to Trevor Star and then onto a "insignificant Star System", where the Fleet has been instructed to wait for a given period (allowing for travel time from Manticore etc.)

kzt wrote:If you want to close the WH, you mine it and leave a squadron hanging around to pop anyone trying to clear them.

If your fear is fixed defenses then how exactly are you going to attrit them by skirmishing out where it didn't matter? That's the whole reason people build fixed defenses, so they will protect the site you built them to protect, not do what is trendy today. The forts will still be there waiting for you.

And with warnings they will deploy missile pods, mines, raise their readiness level, etc. All of which will make them a more difficult foe.

And note that in BoM the fixed defenses never engaged. Of course the RMN was so concerned about the threat that they didn't even start to evacuate the millions of people who live on their main naval bases because nobody would possibly target a critical military site like that, right?

Yeah, there is a reason why it's 'that awful book' for me.

I would sign off on that prescription of closing any other wormhole, except the one leading directly into the heart of my defenses. I wouldn't just lay mines, I'd make that a shit load of mines and quite a bit more than a single squadron or two to mind the store. Remember, unforeseen tech can quickly give you a bad day and again, iinm, Haven utilized no mines atall. If podlayers, MDMs, LACs and/or Apollo with its hellish ECM had been developed in the opening phases of the war, sending a large part of your navy off -- the long way around mind you -- to do battle would have been a strategic mistake. Especially if your opponent was thinking more in the terms of strategic island hopping. Today Trevor's Star, tomorrow Nouveau Paris. I'm not saying the Manties would have enjoyed things that easily if Haven had decided on a direct assault, but the Havenites had to bear that possibility in mind.

Also, anticipating everyone's rebuttal, if any of the later tech had been produced in the early stages of the war would have made it all a moot point anyway? Not necessarily. The SKM could have misstepped too, if only by the mere shenanigans of an ignorant government. There were way too many unknowns in the Home System.

The fear isn't only fixed defenses. Your fear is in going up against a healthy navy PLUS fixed defenses. Even the SLN wasn't that arrogant. They attacked because they thought one or more of the above was weakened. There are certain strategic realities one must accept until the very end. You don't want to hyper into a fully healthy system with a fully healthy navy who surmised a Case Zulu and recalled all forces via the MWJ. Losing a war/battle is much different than blowing a war/battle. Remember, the MWJ does give the SKM certain advantages. You cannot blame the SLN on the one hand for not being aware of those advantages and OTOH flog Haven for being aware of them. Remember, attacking your opponent's Home System puts the prospect of being the underdog on your shoulders.

Yes, with proper warning, fixed defenses will be beefed up. That's part of my initial argument hindering the Peep's operation had the Manties deduced what's coming.

And no, the fixed defenses never engaged at the BoM. What if they had? I always wanted to know what the outcome would have been if they had.

cthia wrote:And no, the fixed defenses never engaged at the BoM. What if they had? I always wanted to know what the outcome would have been if they had.

Depends on whether David decided they have forts that day or not.

Sigs wrote:I would keep enough of a picket to defend the Junction and ignore the inner system, leave some BB's and CA's to picket the inner system with a light screen. Anything the RMN sends over the Junction is slaughtered and anything they send the one way around is tied down for weeks and/or months considering it would have to be launched AFTER the surprise attack.

There are a lot of assumptions hidden within that notion. No Admiralty worth their weight in brass would bank on it. First, it is assuming the enemy is reacting instead of seizing the initiative. Weeks are meaningless if an enemy has already launched his plan, preceding yours by weeks, beating you to the punch. After all, the early bird gets the worm-hole. You have to put yourself in the hotseat of the man at the Admiralty gazing down into the holotank. You don't want to roll dice, you want to roll heads, or pods if you have them.

Sigs wrote:Manticore has to honour the threat that Trevor's Star represented to the Home System but they at the same time cannot and do not pose a significant threat to Trevor's Star through the Junction. If it is suicide for Haven to attack prepared defences through the Junction then it goes the same for the RMN.

The difference is that Manticore heavily fortified its end. The Peeps seemed to take Trevor's Star more lightly. Apparently they weren't too caught up worrying the RMN would roll the dice that way, but they couldn't afford to wholly bank on it on such an ambitious all or nothing attack, leaving the Hot Gates open to a traditional assault. Had the SKM seized Trevor's Star mere days before a Havenite surprise attack, where would that have left Haven?

Sigs wrote:The SKM had to go through a process that made surprise attacks highly unlikely. Haven did not have to worry too much about surprise attacks especially after all of the crap they had pulled. They could have stripped the entire nation of SD's save for Trevor's Star, the Capital System and a couple of other important systems and send the Rest to fight Manticore, they can expect a counter attack only once they start the war with the SKM. The RMN would not launch a counter attack if there is a massive concentration of RHN ships in the Alliance threatening every member system including Manticore.

You may be right of course, but the thing is, they couldn't bank on any of it to the tune of risking such a huge investment of forces and initiative. At any time Beth could have talked her government into a surprise attack of its own. Could have. You don't want the prospect of your over aggressive posture and your second guessing of the enemy to be the cause of spilling the blood of your loved ones on your hands because you failed to dot all "eyes" and cross all "tees."

Garth 2 wrote:To be honest the one bit that has always confused me in the opening stages of the war, from an SKM perspective, is why didn't the just smash Trevor Star first, then go after the other bases.

Can I get an Amen! Giving them an inside straight!

I'm shocked that everyone is concentrating on the weight advantage Haven held, but isn't considering the strategic advantage afforded Manticore with the MWJ. Interior lines of communication -- apparently weeks not months at all points even on the very fringes of space* -- advantages in mobility, strategic reach, logistics, etc., etc. The strategic advantages of the MWJ are much more significant than the credit being given. And, the RMN aren't in the business or habit of squandering its advantages. A calculated risk should at least be. . . calculated. A weight advantage simply isn't enough in the Honorverse, especially if you're not bearing gifts of new toys by your R&D teams. Foraker was wonderful, but she wasn't handing out tech that could load the bear before vacationing into Manty space. It was all she could do to keep up.

*Deduced by textev stating that mere weeks was enough to recall all freighters during Lacoon.

drothgery wrote:

Sigs wrote:Haven was losing the first war because of political rather than military reasons. If the Coup had not happened chances are that Haven would have performed a lot better.

They would have performed better in the early stages for sure. But pretty much all the top Havenite commanders (both in the late 1st war era and the 2nd war) except Chin failed to achieve flag rank under the Legislaturalists because they weren't Legistlaturalists.

True. On the other hand we can't assume the top Havenite commanders we saw were all significantly better than the top Legislaturalists commanders from before the coup and purges.

Certainly White Haven had a hell of a lot of respect for Admiral Parnell's tactical abilities (after he extracted so much of the Peep's fleet from the ambush at Yeltsin) and he probably wasn't the only capable pre-revolution senior officer.


(Yeah some of their admirals are undoubtably sub par; in place due to political patronage. But the same could be said to some extent of the Manticoran fleet at that time)