Why were they so foolish?

Theemile wrote:Tang always planed on transiting to MAnticore - there is no text-ev of her only planning on sitting on the Beowulf terminus. Of course there also was no planning stated on how to actually go through the guarded terminus with 100 SDs.

There's also no textev proving she didn't have orders to stop short of transit. I know it's proving a negative and we actually have enough insight to her thinking to lead us to believe she did intend to transit.

The more sinister possibility is that the Mandarins knew she wouldn't be able to transit and hold, but told her to go anyway. As the OP said, the advance party would have had plenty of opportunity to surveil the Junction forts and conclude they were still there. Was it always a suicide mission, with no possibility of success?

Why would Kingsford have allowed this? Rajampet I can understand, since he was in the MAlign pocket and couldn't care less about throwing away Solarian lives and matériel. Kingsford had so far struck me as sensible enough. Will we have to revise our estimation of him?

Or Adm. Marjorie Simpson is also in the MAlign pocket and her report to Kingsford was a complete fiction. This couldn't be just Caswell Gweon intercepting and doctoring the report; Adm. Simpson is Kingsford's cousin and is in his staff.

If you look at it from the standpoint of the Alignment, sending Tsang though - even if Beowulf stood aside- was going to kill those SLN SD's and esentialy every person on them. Scratch a lot of 1st line SDs
If she has to go through BSDF 1st, that's even better as it gets Beowulf to kill SLN sailors along with making traitors fo Beoulf for attacking Tsang's ships to prevent her from fulfilling her orders. Along with cutting down Tsang's numbers it also destroys or damages most of the BSDF forces engaged- thus making the RF's job easier as it's removed much of Beowulf's ability to maintain stability in it's own region post Promethous. And Tsang still looses everything that is capable of transiting the junction.

I don't recall if Haven's arrival and offer to help defend Manticore has made it's way to the SLN at that point. Fillerta was still going to have his hands full with Harrington and the RMN as he still didn't realize what a meat grinder he was going to slam into.

This is sowing chaos in the League and making sure that the 1st hard fracture comes with BSDF and Tsang's forces fight over access to the terminus. If she fires on BSDF, there will be a lot of people- in power and in the pubic in general that will have to consider that the League is willing to open fire on and at least devastate a Core Member SDF. That is a clear forshadowing of the Operation Buccaneer that comes later.

When suddenly faced with 60 RMN SD(P) -though she may not realize the true scope of her problem- that is 60 SDs that had remained totally invisable and yet were right on top of her, have her dialed in, fully identified and she is clearly heading into a killing ground. Equally suddenly it probably occured to her that what the RMN did at Spiindle with BCs aganst Cranall's fleet of SD- if even 1/4 true- means that she and her fleet are vastly out gunned and allready measured for a shroud. Two fleets of SD and she is in the crossfire target basket of both of them.

Brigade XO wrote:I don't recall if Haven's arrival and offer to help defend Manticore has made it's way to the SLN at that point. Fillerta was still going to have his hands full with Harrington and the RMN as he still didn't realize what a meat grinder he was going to slam into.

I believe that finding Theisman on the bridge with Honor was a major surprise.

tlb wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:I don't recall if Haven's arrival and offer to help defend Manticore has made it's way to the SLN at that point. Fillerta was still going to have his hands full with Harrington and the RMN as he still didn't realize what a meat grinder he was going to slam into.

I believe that finding Theisman on the bridge with Honor was a major surprise.

Indeed, but Brigade's question was whether that information had made its way to the Junction and through the Junction to Tsang. I don't think it had: the communication couldn't have come from Filareta in time (too far for unrelayed light-speed comms) and the RMN would not have volunteered. Identifying who ships belong to would not be easy, especially as the RHN Second Fleet translated behind Filareta, outside of the hyper limit.

Brigade XO wrote:If she has to go through BSDF 1st, that's even better as it gets Beowulf to kill SLN sailors along with making traitors fo Beoulf for attacking Tsang's ships to prevent her from fulfilling her orders. Along with cutting down Tsang's numbers it also destroys or damages most of the BSDF forces engaged- thus making the RF's job easier as it's removed much of Beowulf's ability to maintain stability in it's own region post Promethous. And Tsang still looses everything that is capable of transiting the junction.

Quick correction: Tsang would still have a lot of ships left. She came with 100 SDs and the total count in the BSDF is about 36. It's not in the text how many ships Adm. Marianne Holmon-Sanders had, but I doubt she had all of them. If she had two thirds, which is 3 full 8-ship squadrons, Tsang had over 4:1 advantage in hulls.

But the result is the same: Solarian-on-Solarian deaths, gutted BSDF. These two things would have helped the Detweiler Plan tremendously.

If it weren't for those meddling manties!

Brigade XO wrote:I don't recall if Haven's arrival and offer to help defend Manticore has made it's way to the SLN at that point. Fillerta was still going to have his hands full with Harrington and the RMN as he still didn't realize what a meat grinder he was going to slam into.

tlb wrote:I believe that finding Theisman on the bridge with Honor was a major surprise.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Indeed, but Brigade's question was whether that information had made its way to the Junction and through the Junction to Tsang. I don't think it had: the communication couldn't have come from Filareta in time (too far for unrelayed light-speed comms) and the RMN would not have volunteered. Identifying who ships belong to would not be easy, especially as the RHN Second Fleet translated behind Filareta, outside of the hyper limit.

No, his question was whether it had made it to the Solarian Naval Headquarters and to Filareta (that is "did Filareta have any inkling before Theisman talked to him from the bridge?"). Tsang could have received it much sooner, if someone on the way to Sol had given that fleet a copy of the message; but I do not think that had happened either. If that DB had been paying attention to the news as it waited, then that was another thing that it could have carried back to Tsang.

When I posited this question, maybe I wasn't clear enough in my thinking.

I take as a given the following conditions:

1. Tsang had orders to transit the bridge from Beowulf to Manticore. Tsang was going to do this.
2. Tsang had secret orders that said not to let Beowulf get in the way.
3. That it should be apparent to even a DB's sensors that the forts were all fully online and ready to do their duty in stopping any transit of the wormholes into Manticore space.

So my question about Admiral Simpson was very direct, given that she's there in Beowulf. The use of DB's to get around blockades is well documented through out the series so it would not have been difficult to send one through with Simpson or one of her trusted staffers on board to personal eye ball the status of the forts.

This could have been a simple day trip in her itinerary. Maybe she was fully in the MAlignment's pocket and would have sent back a fictious report. But if the SLN had time to dispatch her to Beowulf to try and enlist the BDSF, and to let them know about the coming Tsang task force transit of the wormhole, then they could have easily have gotten her to go to Manticore on a DB.

What Admiral/General in their right mind turns down a chance at verifiable and 'trusted' data like this when planning an op? It would have been the ideal way to not shove their hand into the meat grinder, saving Tsang's ships and lives at the least. And at the time Simpson is talking to Beowulf, there was still time to inform Filaretta that Manticore isn't as beaten as they thought it was. That it's fixed defenses are really largely intact, and not destroyed the way they think.

Rampajet's plan is predicated on the facts of the fixed defenses being severely damaged and the moral one-two punch of the SLN coming in so big and strong, so 'fast' on the heels of the previous attack. Simpson's report, or anyone on her staff's report, that Manticore's fixed defenses are largely untouched would have spiked any planner's ideas on attacking through the wormhole or executing Raging Justice. RG could have been called off, delayed, or whatever at this point.

Your conditions are incorrect. Again, transiting the junction was not the plan. Reread chapter 25 from ART:

“Admittedly, it never occurred to me Beowulf might be so far gone as to actually invite Manty wallers through into Beowulf space to threaten the League Navy,” Kolokoltsov conceded. “On the other hand, I never expected Admiral Tsang to be so frigging stupid as to actually try to fight her way through when Beowulf told her no, either!” It was his turn to shake his head, his expression disgusted. “She was supposed to back off ‘in deference to Beowulf’s expressed wishes’ — to let the Beowulfers stand on their ‘constitutional rights’ so we got the credit for showing restraint in the face of their irrationality!”

It is implied that Rajampet gave secret orders to force a military confrontation with Beowulf as part of the Alignment's plan, but the one officially approved by the Mandarins was simply one of posturing.

In A Rising Thunder Tsang reflects on her orders during the exchange with Holmon-Sanders, that Tsang intends to carry out ALL of her orders. Including the secret clause in her orders.

The Mandarins intended for her to transit the wormhole, but if Beowulf objected she was supposed to back off. However those weren't the orders that she received. So Tsang DID plan to transit, whatever else the Mandarins might have intended.

But back to the initial point, why not use the DB ploy to get the information about the status of the junction forts and so forth? The INS DB that is used in A Rising Thunder could have certainly told them that the junction forts are fully online and ready to go, without any loss of missile capacity. The same DB could have been Admiral Simpson's ticket to check on things for herself and to make a report back to home before the Raging Justice campaign was launched.

Duckk wrote:Your conditions are incorrect. Again, transiting the junction was not the plan. Reread chapter 25 from ART:

“Admittedly, it never occurred to me Beowulf might be so far gone as to actually invite Manty wallers through into Beowulf space to threaten the League Navy,” Kolokoltsov conceded. “On the other hand, I never expected Admiral Tsang to be so frigging stupid as to actually try to fight her way through when Beowulf told her no, either!” It was his turn to shake his head, his expression disgusted. “She was supposed to back off ‘in deference to Beowulf’s expressed wishes’ — to let the Beowulfers stand on their ‘constitutional rights’ so we got the credit for showing restraint in the face of their irrationality!”

It is implied that Rajampet gave secret orders to force a military confrontation with Beowulf as part of the Alignment's plan, but the one officially approved by the Mandarins was simply one of posturing.

All you are really saying is that the Mandarins thought that the plan was as you state, but the Solarian Navy was actually operating with a different plan. Your objection has nothing to do with the question of why the Navy did not do more to validate the parameters of its plan. There was traffic through the junction, someone on plain clothes could easily have taken the suggested trip on a news courier and returned with a report. Perhaps the SLN had never studied David Weber's writing on the difficulties of putting a force through a wormhole?

Fireflair wrote:In A Rising Thunder Tsang reflects on her orders during the exchange with Holmon-Sanders, that Tsang intends to carry out ALL of her orders. Including the secret clause in her orders.

The Mandarins intended for her to transit the wormhole, but if Beowulf objected she was supposed to back off. However those weren't the orders that she received. So Tsang DID plan to transit, whatever else the Mandarins might have intended.

But back to the initial point, why not use the DB ploy to get the information about the status of the junction forts and so forth? The INS DB that is used in A Rising Thunder could have certainly told them that the junction forts are fully online and ready to go, without any loss of missile capacity. The same DB could have been Admiral Simpson's ticket to check on things for herself and to make a report back to home before the Raging Justice campaign was launched.

Perhaps my understanding is a bit askew. Correct me if so and I'll adjust my ballast tanks.

1) The Mandarin's entire hole card was that the defenses had been gutted. There was no need to investigate whether that logic was true because it was implied. The loss of infrastructure in the MBS could be seen. Or heard if you turn on your HD. It dominated the news. The most proliferous space stations in history had been destroyed. For a navy to do that, Manticoran defenses simply HAD to be gutted. Or how did any navy accomplish that? Everybody in the galaxy knows the RMN will fight right down to the last ship and fire their very last missile before losing that infrastructure. So the Mandarin's logic was sound. And there was no need to waste time confirming what is obviously a given. What simply had to be a given. There is no way they could have known about the essential missing variable. MALIGN STEALTH. You can't blame the Mandarins or the SLN for drawing conclusions based on any conventional Navy's tech. Because, if a conventional navy with conventional tech attacked the RM-frickin-N and was able to destroy Hephaestus and Vulcan, then Mandarin logic would have to been sound, wouldn't it. Any conventional Navy would have had to go through Manty defenses first. The Mandarins just didn't know the RMN couldn't SEE it's invaders. So there was no need to check to see if that assumption was correct. It is implied by the loss of infrastructure and reported lives. And it WOULD have been correct of a conventional navy.

The entire galaxy had to be talking about the destruction of Hephaestus and Vulcan.

2) The Mandarins heard the sounds of Big Ben ticking down the amount of time it had remaining to strike. There was a window of opportunity that they knew the Manties would be busy closing. Time was of the essence.

3) I don't think it mattered one single ratsass what Tsang's orders were. Tsang is a naval officer. There is no way in hell any officer and crew would have deserted one of its own Fleets and left them unsupported. One Pavel Young per galaxy please. All Tsang - or any other naval officer worth her weight in salt - would have wanted to know is if and when Filareta attacked. Filareta had loose orders to abort if he saw fit. The only way Tsang, being a hardwired naval officer, would not have gone to Filareta's aid is if he aborted his attack or she was stopped. The latter happened.

3) Just because the Forts are online doesn't mean THE FORTS aren't simply posturing. Akin to pointing an empty gun.

4) If the fact that the RMN could afford to cut loose a force that large to oppose Tsang didn't alert her that something was fishy in Oz, then nothing would.

5) Any preliminary reports carried out beforehand would have been dismissed because A) the logic and the writing on the wall had to be sound and the scouting reports would have had to be flawed. B) The Mandarins had maneuvered themselves between a rock and a hard place, and if it wasn't true, all was lost anyway. There was no other option but to roll the same dice the Peeps did.

The MBS is so rich that Navys tend to think it's Vegas and want to roll the dice. You can't win against the house, you'll get busted every time. But when the rent is due and you have no other option, those pretty dice speak to you.