Theemile wrote:So while there might not be a lot of ships that return to Manticore promptly, Haven can't necessarily determine how many surviving ships can return directly. Any good military planner will expect a high figure can return directly, and plan for that.
Indeed, but you know when they left and you can play a game of cat and mouse in the Haven system preventing their return without committing to a battle that will seriously damage them. They either leave quickly or they leave with damage, as damage accumulating is going do erode fighting capability.
If the fleet from Seaford Nine takes 6 extra days to arrive compared to the shortest, direct course from Haven, it should arrive in the window where the least damaged units have arrived, but the bulk of the units, with damage, haven't. The commander on the scene has the option of disengaging without attacking if the defences prove too formidable.
Two problems with this plan: first, I don't think 6 days is enough. The distance delta itself should make up 6 days, because Seaford Nine is probably not on the direct line between the two. More importantly, the fleet ready won't be ready to ship at a moment's notice. A fast turnaround time would have been 2 days, and I doubt that the PN would have been able to achieve that. The fleet probably wouldn't be drilled to attacking the MBS, so wouldn't do a good accounting of itself if the defences were prepared.
The second is that those defences may be a deception themselves, like Honor and Theisman did during Filareta's visit. They may trick the PN into attacking by having too little visible in terms of defences, while the bulk is hiding. Similarly, they could trick the Capital Fleet into thinking they were attacking with bigger forces than they actually were.