Attacking Darius:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So I'm not saying this tactic wouldn't work. It would... a few times, against small fish, for a huge allocation of resources.

It that's your target, just drop some graser torps at the common area where people hyper in. As your programmed target ship slows to orbit it suddenly blows up real good. Obviously a compensator failure.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:There's also a question of opportunity and cost of opportunity.

Deploying a division of Leonard Detweiler capital ships involves a cost in personnel, expendables, and if nothing else, opportunity: the ships that are waiting for a target to show up are not elsewhere.

I agree, somewhat, but in a different fashion. More on this down below.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:There are plenty of systems in the Star Empire, in the Republic of Haven and in the Andermani Empire that will have long-range gravitic sensing much smaller than the capitals. So it's totally feasible to insert a couple of ships two light-days out and have them go completely unnoticed by the defenders.

I agree with the tactic, but not with the strategy. The maiden voyage of the LDs will carry a very important element in its cargo holds called Surprise! That element should not be squandered on small fry. The maiden voyage of the LDs should go for the juggler in the MBS. They will be there to kick the shit out of Home Fleet and lay waste to the system. Any other allocation of the Spiders and their element of surprise would be the real waste of resources. As I stated on several occasions, the MA cannot afford for the Galaxy to get too many looks at its weapons. If ever a Navy should aspire to a short victorious war, it is the MA. For once in the history of the Galaxy, the MAN just might have the weapons, means and surprise for a short victorious war.

We shall continue to agree to disagree on how many Spiders will have been hatched when it comes time to spin their web.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:An LD can sustain an acceleration of 150 gravities, which means they can go from zero to 0.8c in 45 hours. In that time, they can cover just over 18 light-hours. That means an insertion 36 light-hours out takes 90 hours; anything further will incur coasting at 0.8c: so if they inserted 2 light-days out, the extra 12 light-hours add 15 hours to the trip, for a total of 105 hours of insertion.

And then they have to wait. How long does it take for a suitable target to arrive? And what's a suitable target? Is this attack force going to announce itself to the planet by taking out half a squadron of destroyers that came in on patrol? The GF has a thousand destroyers, plus a couple hundred cruisers more. The MAN dedicating 2 out of its 50 LDs is a completely wasteful allocation of resources, and I'm being generous with 50.

So they wait for a minimum of a BC division to arrive. What's the average time between visits of a BC to arbitrary system in Silesia, Talbott, or Haven? Two months? Three? Because I'm pretty sure the time between visits of a battle squadron is going to be measured in years.

And for how long would this tactic work? After the first ships are lost to this tactic, the inhabited planet in the system will warn any new incomers that there is a danger and transmit any readings it obtained. Those arrivals will turn back and hyper out with the information.

So I'm not saying this tactic wouldn't work. It would... a few times, against small fish, for a huge allocation of resources.

Which is why the Spiders should never waste all of that trouble on small fry. If they do that to the MBS, they don't have to wait for anything. All of their objective(s) will already be there. Waiting, maybe even sitting like ducks. All dumb and happy. Never expecting the allegedly most fortified system in the Galaxy to be attacked. Therefore, the MBS will be completely oblivious to their recent infestation of Spiders.

I don't see any logic in wasting the element of surprise on some place like Talbott. For what purpose? Even testing the stealth of the LDs on an inferior system's long range gravitic scans is useless. Plus, the MA does not want to risk a Case Zulu being sent out.

The Mesan Alignment has never engaged in small-minded thinking. BIG egos begat BIG plans.

So, spend that cost in personnel and expendables on something worthy of the grandiose plans of an Alpha.

The Mesan Alignment will not adopt the popular strategy of nipping at peripheral systems. They cannot afford an attritional war. If all 100 of the Spiders are hatched, the Alignment can take the time to infest the Home Systems of the entire GA and wait to attack all three simultaneously.

With the streak drive, somehow they may be able to pull off the first galactic coordination of forces.

tlb wrote:All the malignant things that a spider drive warship or missile might do to the Grand Alliance ships are dependent on being invisible to their sensors. We know that it is possible to sense the spider drive, because the Malign can do it.

Therefore it seems a likely task for RFC to set himself sometime early in the next book (?) is to have the GA develop such a sensor for themselves. At present there does not seem to be anything for a Shannon Foraker to tweak; but if someone like her could find that right tweak, then it can be automated so that anyone can do it. Otherwise the GA will be fighting blind and I do not see how that can be made to work.

One possibility offered free of charge: the spider plucking at the hyperspace boundary creates a hum that can be read and located by the GA's FTL receivers.

I understand your logic here, and you may be right. Somewhat.

But at the same time, RFC does not strike me as the type that would miss an opportunity for the dramatic. Nor do I think he will repeat history by allowing the MA to be defeated so easily without first giving us some real good battles and nail biting cliffhangers.

So, you may be right. The GA just might produce this sensing technology, but it will probably have its limitations and quirks. I certainly don't think RFC will completely pull the teeth of the MAlign before a few battles are waged and won. In fact, I can totally believe that acquiring the correct sensor reads on the Spiders after losing a few exciting battles to them is how this sensor tech will be developed and or refined.

It would be very realistic if at least one of the Capitals is trashed before the GA gets back on balance. Personally, I would like that to be Haven. Since war has never darkened the door of Noveau Paris. I would love to see a major battle go down in that system against the brilliance of Tom Theisman. Then the RMN can return the favor to Haven for their assistance against the SLN.

I said the following in another thread:

But the Mesan Alignment is not accepting defeat by doing nothing as long as its location is unknown. The whole point of the Galton sacrifice was to make everyone think that the Malign is already defeated; so it would be counter productive to do these things before it is clear that the sacrifice failed.

Every attack has a chance of going wrong, which is why the Detweiler sons talked their father out of Oyster Bay II, the attack on the forces at Trevor's Star. So suppose one of those Leonard Detweiler ships had a failure that killed the crew without destroying the ship, that would expose the spider drive and the location of Darius. That is unlikely, but what do they gain that would help their survival by these (snip) attacks?

I do not see in what you have posted any mention of waiting to see if the Galton sacrifice has failed. You wrote "The maiden voyage of the LDs should go for the juggler in the MBS". If they could attack the jugular of the Grand Alliance (not just the MBS), then it might be worthwhile; but the Leonard Detweilers are not the vehicle to do that, since the Malign cannot hold the high orbitals of a planet with something that can be killed by a sting-ship.

cthia wrote:It would be very realistic if at least one of the Capitals is trashed before the GA gets back on balance. Personally, I would like that to be Haven. Since war has never darkened the door of Noveau Paris.

You mean other than when Admiral McQueen killed millions with cluster bombs in those streets when the Levelers tried a revolt (including the use of nuclear bombs within the city)? Or later when St. Just triggered a nuclear weapon under the military headquarters within Nouveau Paris to stop a coup by McQueen?

It seems that more have died due to combat within Nouveau Paris than in any other civilian capital.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:It would be very realistic if at least one of the Capitals is trashed before the GA gets back on balance. Personally, I would like that to be Haven. Since war has never darkened the door of Noveau Paris.

You mean other than when Admiral McQueen killed millions with cluster bombs in those streets when the Levelers tried a revolt (including the use of nuclear bombs within the city)? Or later when St. Just triggered a nuclear weapon under the military headquarters within Nouveau Paris to stop a coup by McQueen?

It seems that more have died due to combat within Nouveau Paris than in any other civilian capital.

Indeed, but all of that is filed under the heading of internal strife. And if we are considering that - and I am not - then we also have to consider the dark ages in the Peep's history of the needless purges of their officer corp. I am talking about invasions only.

The US has also had its own share of internal strife in its long history, but no matter how much one would want, I don't think one could consider even the recent storming of the capital as an invasion. Would you? Well, except for maybe an invasion of the idiot core.

cthia wrote:It would be very realistic if at least one of the Capitals is trashed before the GA gets back on balance. Personally, I would like that to be Haven. Since war has never darkened the door of Noveau Paris.

tlb wrote:You mean other than when Admiral McQueen killed millions with cluster bombs in those streets when the Levelers tried a revolt (including the use of nuclear bombs within the city)? Or later when St. Just triggered a nuclear weapon under the military headquarters within Nouveau Paris to stop a coup by McQueen?

It seems that more have died due to combat within Nouveau Paris than in any other civilian capital.

cthia wrote:Indeed, but all of that is filed under the heading of internal strife. And if we are considering that - and I am not - then we also have to consider the dark ages in the Peep's history of the needless purges of their officer corp. I am talking about invasions only.

The US has also had its own share of internal strife in its long history, but no matter how much one would want, I don't think one could consider even the recent storming of the capital as an invasion. Would you? Well, except for maybe an invasion of the idiot core.

Well, internal strife brought on by war, however the officer purges did not occur exclusively in the capitol. Still I would not say that Nouveau Paris has been untouched by war, which is the way you initially framed your point.

The USA has been invaded a number of times, particularly if you count the Civil War (but maybe you consider that and the Revolutionary War as internal strife): most recently by the Japanese in Alaska during WW2. But the capitol has only been invaded once that I can remember from history; when the British set fire to the U.S. Capitol, the President's Mansion, and other local landmarks during August 1814 as part of the War of 1812..

I have a question. Can the accel of torpedoes be selected for each launch, to effect a simulataneous time on target? Or do they have to haul flat out?

cthia wrote:I have a question. Can the accel of torpedoes be selected for each launch, to effect a simulataneous time on target? Or do they have to haul flat out?

Unknown. I would expect that is adjustable, but it has never been stated. It also appears that, unlike the wedge on a missile or recon drone, that this can be started and stopped multiple times. But we really know almost nothing about the details.

cthia wrote:Which is why the Spiders should never waste all of that trouble on small fry. If they do that to the MBS, they don't have to wait for anything. All of their objective(s) will already be there. Waiting, maybe even sitting like ducks. All dumb and happy. Never expecting the allegedly most fortified system in the Galaxy to be attacked. Therefore, the MBS will be completely oblivious to their recent infestation of Spiders.

I don't see any logic in wasting the element of surprise on some place like Talbott. For what purpose? Even testing the stealth of the LDs on an inferior system's long range gravitic scans is useless. Plus, the MA does not want to risk a Case Zulu being sent out.

The Mesan Alignment has never engaged in small-minded thinking. BIG egos begat BIG plans.

I agree. Using capital ships to snip at destroyers and cruisers is stupid. It's a wasteful allocation, like I was trying to point out.

However stupid a strategy, it's one that can work. For a while, anyway. I didn't address inserting in the capitals because I don't think it can work, at all.

To insert in one of the capitals, those ships need to translate at a minimum 2 light-months out, then spend 75 days coasting inwards, towards a target that may or may not be there. The Home and Capital Fleets can move, usually on exercises. There will be moments when they're more vulnerable than others. So even if those spiders halt their approach 5 light-hours out (orbit of Pluto) and wait for the best time, they have to predict the window of opportunity 11.5 hours in advance, so they can move in. The position of the target may change considerably in that time.

Which means they in turn will be arriving in the inner system at 0.2c, which isn't very fast. It's probably low enough to avoid bow-shock, but it means they'll be inside the hyperlimit and thus within the full scanning range of all the assets in those capitals for a long time. And of all the civilian traffic that may be going about.

We know they nearly got detected during Oyster Bay (though the MAlign may not realise that). And that was just a pair of Sharks with a handful of Ghosts. If we're talking about 3 squadrons of 12-million-tonne ships in a system, the chance of detection is much higher.

This isn't the tactic of Honor at Cerberus. This is a repeat of Oyster Bay. It's what those ships were designed for, indeed, which is why it looks like it could work. The problem is that it's been tried once.

Furthermore, OB was about attacking a fixed installation. You're proposing they attack something mobile and with active wedges, if not sidewalls too. And probably a Combat Space Patrol of LACs going about. Your premise earlier in this thread was to attack a blind spot and/or where lazy operators weren't paying attention to. I don't think the former exists and while I disagree on the latter, I could accept it could happen. But when attacking a fleet of a hundred individual ships and thus one hundred different sensor crews and CICs, you'd need all of them to be dozing off to pull this attack. It suffices that one pick something up and say, "hmmm, that's funny."

The Mesan Alignment will not adopt the popular strategy of nipping at peripheral systems. They cannot afford an attritional war. If all 100 of the Spiders are hatched, the Alignment can take the time to infest the Home Systems of the entire GA and wait to attack all three simultaneously.

They can't build 100 LDs.

Or, should I say, they could, but the books will end before that happens. I don't doubt they have the will and the industry to eventually get there. I'm just saying that Darius will be found and those industries trashed before 100 ships are completed. Much fewer than 100.