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Failure and the SLN...

Join us in talking discussing all things Honor, including (but not limited to) tactics, favorite characters, and book discussions.
Re: Failure and the SLN...
Post by Tenshinai   » Wed May 14, 2014 9:29 am

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kzt wrote:His point was that the total (and generally successful) coverup by the Japanese government of Midway was what made it a total and complete disaster.


Oh that, that´s the aftermath not the battle so of course i wasn´t including it... And i´m not so sure i agree with the conclusions and perfect hindsight about that either.

kzt wrote:Hmm, sound like any Honorverse organization you can think of?


I´m sure we can come up with something if we look hard... ;)

kzt wrote:Here's the link to the complete article, but note it is highly political as it uses the Midway disaster and coverup only as the starting point. Which is why I was reluctant to link to it here.


Hmmm. A crapload of assumptions with more or less backing and logical assertions whose logic is questionable, it´s rather well-written but i wouldn´t bet a cent on its veracity.

Still, an interesting read.
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Re: Failure and the SLN...
Post by munroburton   » Wed May 14, 2014 11:39 am

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namelessfly wrote:From Saltash we get a sense of how many missiles are needed to takedown even a backwater system but without trashing infrastructure. Five DDs launched four, triple salvos totallying 5 x 4 x 3 x 12 = 720 missiles.

This is a bit shy of 1,000 missiles. Taking out industrial infrastructure will increase the missile expenditure as will having to engage moderately effective defenses including Technodyne system defense missile pods.

Assume only 10,000 missiles expended per core system. That is a total of 10 million missiles or the load out of 2,000 SD(P)s.

The GA has the missile stockpile needed, barely.


That also assumes the GA will have to fire off that many missiles to accomplish this scorched earth(space) policy - which they won't embark upon, anyway. Meyers was taken without firing a shot, for example, because the SLN assets there had enough information and exposure to know resistance was futile and because the RMN had a lot more ships present.

Saltash was an odd situation. Five destroyers(perceived as light cruisers) facing down four battlecruisers? The only reason an engagement was fought and used so many RMN missiles was that both opposing COs underestimated the RMN edge.

The Governor Duenases of the SL will find it much more difficult to order penny packets of subwallers to face down a GA battlecruiser or, god forbid, SD(P) squadron. And when word of Saltash gets around - easily, as the RMN went away after they recovered interned Manticoran civilians - they will not find it so easy to order BCs to engage 'light cruisers'.

Chalker, with 6 DDs, backed off from two Sag-Cs, a Roland and another DD. Tsang, with 100 SDs, backed down from 36 SDs and ~60 SD(P)s. Filareta, with 427 SDs, was going to surrender to 440 SD(P)s.

One of the best strategies of war is to force surrenders without firing a shot. However, to do that, the RMN needs to wait a little while, allowing the news to spread and sink in. It may take a little longer, because the SL itself used to occupy that position of dominance, where a dispatch boat carrying a diplomatic threat was sufficient because of that huge battle fleet looming in the background.

Mount Royal now sends those dispatch boats, not Old Chicago. If any League system dares ignore or disobey them, they won't after up one or two battle squadrons show up and executes the Byng Maneuver, blowing the local flagship up. They do not need to expend more than 300 missiles per target to guarantee a kill and can probably use considerably fewer. After all, they have a whole bunch of captured SLN SDs to use as target practice, under the Crusher's best programmers, to refine their missile algorithms. Competition of the week: Kill a SD using the fewest missiles. Previous competition: Develop the best anti-missile doctrines possible for the Scientists.

Even if some locations are so stubborn they need 10,000 missiles of persuasion, there won't be anywhere near a thousand of them. They also don't need to destroy infrastructure, but if they did, there are ways other than using missiles. Wedge sweeping, for instance, which even a freighter can perform.

Manticoran monster trucks. ;)
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Re: All The Sollies Have To Do Is Survive...And Buy Time
Post by SWM   » Wed May 14, 2014 12:21 pm

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Tenshinai wrote:
HB of CJ wrote:Oh wait....they already have the Tecknadyne (sp?) missiles; they just do not know it yet League wide.


Ah, but DO they really HAVE them? Or is it actually the MA that have them? :twisted:

Yes, they have them. In ART, it is specifically stated that the Solarian League is starting large-scale construction of cataphract missiles.
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Re: All The Sollies Have To Do Is Survive...And Buy Time
Post by kzt   » Wed May 14, 2014 12:52 pm

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SWM wrote:Yes, they have them. In ART, it is specifically stated that the Solarian League is starting large-scale construction of cataphract missiles.

But does that mean 100 pods a week at 10 sites, or 1000 sites making 1,000 a day?
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Re: All The Sollies Have To Do Is Survive...And Buy Time
Post by MAD-4A   » Wed May 14, 2014 1:47 pm

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HB of CJ wrote:...What if that delayed float plane launched off one of the many Japanese heavy cruisers had spotted the USS Enterprise much sooner?...

Sorry, but IJN cruiser Tone & USS Yorktown not Enterprise. Actually one of the errors the IJN made was that they thought the Yorktown was so badly damaged at CS that she still had to be in the yards, if she even made it back at all. They knew from pre-war Intel that we had 3 Yorktown class ships. When the 1st strike hit Yorktown they left believing that it was a fatal blow. Later when the 2nd strike came, Yorktown had gotten her damage under control and the fires out, so the Japanese "knew" it had to be a different (undamaged) "3rd" ship. so when it was reported hit, though the 1st carrier strike force had been gutted, they thought they had won "we still have Hiryu, & Hosho back with the battleline, but have taken out all of the Yorktowns!". They were totally surprised when they were suddenly attacked by yet more carrier planes.
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Re: All The Sollies Have To Do Is Survive...And Buy Time
Post by Northstar   » Wed May 14, 2014 3:39 pm

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For any interested the Cohen and Gooch quote is from Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War by Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch. It was quoted in the following book, quoted in the article: Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway, by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully.

kzt, thank you for the link, which let me find both books on amazon. The article itself... :? but it led to the books which look very interesting indeed. Again, thanks. :D

Happy reading :)
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Re: Failure and the SLN...
Post by Michael Riddell   » Wed May 14, 2014 4:40 pm

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Just to divert slightly from the discussion of the battle itself, Robert Ballard (man who found the Titanic) tried looking for the wrecks of Midway, but only managed to find the Yorktown:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/midway/

There's a book as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Return-Midway-Robert-D-Ballard/dp/0792275004/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400098880&sr=1-3&keywords=robert+ballard

A later team managed to find a chunk of the IJN Kaga, but nobody's been back to try and locate the rest of the ship.

http://www.nauticos.com/midway/IJNwreckanalysis-kaga.htm

http://www.combinedfleet.com/MidwayFind.htm

Going back to the main subject of the thread, under Rajampet the SLN wasn't going to learn anything. He was too wrapped up in the idea of the League being the Ultimate Power(tm) that there wasn't anything to fear from the neobarbs. Yes, just before his death he admitted to himself that the Manties were tougher than expected, but there doesn't seem to have been any indication that he thought that the SLN couldn't pummel them into submission eventually. Certainly no indication he was going to change tactics.

Kingsford, on the other hand, appears to be more realistic from what we've seen so far. He has learned that sending SLN wallers to fight the Alliance is suicidal, though it took the Raging Justice Disaster to ram the lesson home. The raiding strategy he outlines to Kolokoltsev is a reasonable response - force your opponent to divide their forces so they're tied down away from the front. Therefore giving you the chance to attain local superiority and defeat them in detail and cause as much destruction and economic disruption as possible. Whether that will actually work, considering the tech disparity, is another thing. What RFC has him doing next will be interesting to see.

The really big imponderable is whether or not the League has the ability stay together as coherent political unit. That's the $64,000 question and only RFC knows the answer!

Mike. ;)
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Re: All The Sollies Have To Do Is Survive...And Buy Time
Post by lyonheart   » Thu May 15, 2014 5:22 am

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Hi HB of CJ,

Have you read the pearls where RFC says the SL doesn't have even five years, which is how long it'd take to build their first SDP, if they knew how to build an SDP right now?

You do realise that the SLN is still ignorant of what an SDP is, or the fact that GA MDM's are triple drives not just DDM's?

The Cataphract missile is a two stage missile that has to briefly coast before the second stage powers up; because the MAlg after almost a decade of trying still can't copy GA MDM's with better tech than the SL, yet you expect the SL to whip up an MDM far faster?

One wonders, given the response time, that by the time the news fully spreads of the Cataphract to the whole of the SL, how much of it won't be in it anymore.

More importantly don't you think reports of the Cataphract will be overshadowed by the report of Filaretta with his 427 SD's, despite being armed with the Cataphract, being so easily obliterated?

The sleeping SL giant will be dead, shot in the head, before it ever wakes up.

Your smart Sollie's are not in charge, they are riddled with MAlg agents who are bent on sabotage [does anyone think that Captain Gweon's predecessor's accident was truly an accident?] while the other 99.9+% continue with business as usual in the same old ruts.

HH's strategy is to see to it that whatever survives certainly won't be a giant anymore, but smaller than the SEM, so aside from most of the old league core at the moment, who else will stay?

L


HB of CJ wrote:I see it happening the other way around. All the Sollies have to do to win in the end is to survive short term and get their collective fingers out of their a...s and quickly develop their own SD(P) and BC(P) ships AND system defence missiles... then marry the two systems together. Oh wait....they already have the Tecknadyne (sp?) missiles; they just do not know it yet League wide.

The Sollies just knowing the GA has FTF comm may mean that just knowing something is possible may save off considerable time developing your own. Key Hole? Apollo? I dunno there. My point is that not all the Sollies are stupid. There must be many who are very smart and may get a chance to perform. Never underestimate a sleeping giant, which the Sollie League might just be.

Regarding Midway? Wow, what a dice roll! It easily could have turned out the other way. What if that delayed float plane launched off one of the many Japanese heavy cruisers had spotted the USS Enterprise much sooner? Yeah, what if the IJN had gotten in the first ship strike ..FIRST? What if Halsey had been in command? Yikes! Too aggressive? I think the USN was just lucky. My read only.

HB of CJ (old coot) I Love This Forum
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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Re: Failure and the SLN...
Post by lyonheart   » Thu May 15, 2014 6:42 am

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Hi Namelessfly,

Obviously if the GA has any brains they aren't going to follow your scenario.

NTM your assumptions were mixing quite a few apples and oranges.

Permit me to disagree with your assumptions. ;)

From CoS there were then only 1784 member systems while the protectorates don't have much infrastructure, so lets assume around 1800 members about 3 years later; from the pearls most SL members aren't that interested in space infrastructure etc [such as building their own freighters, which are pretty easy], since relatively few take that much advantage of it.

Given the GA is seeking lots of support why would they start out by trashing every SL member's system infrastructure?

The Maya sector was rather unusual in being very heavily industrialized, so expecting all SL members to be so is another error.

Haven had ~135 systems before the second war, and has added almost a dozen more as a result, so its closer to 150 than 100.

The 4 BC's destroyed in Saltash evidently could have been destroyed with half as many missiles, NTM it is hardly going to be typical for every system or protectorate when the FF averages only 3 ships of all types per system after accounting for 15% refits etc.

If a BC takes ~60 missiles, a CA around 30, a CL about 20, and a DD only 10; then the average for the FF assuming equal numbers for all classes would be about 30 each or ~90 missiles per system assuming all three were on station in each system, which obviously won't be the case.

Do you want to agree even 1.5 FF ships per system might be high?

If Saltash were the average system, destroying its infrastructure would take less than a dozen missiles, ie only ~100 missiles per protectorate if the GA were so stupid in so many ways as to destroy such non-threatening infrastructure in the first place.

A quarter of the EC voted with Beowulf, so they are hardly hostile to its and the GA's arguments and philosophy, while given the smaller populations of the shells etc could represent a third of the member systems which might soon become GA members.

The shells, where the vast majority of member systems exist, are rather opposed to the preferential treatment given the core worlds at their expense, many have only been kept in line by the BF and its massive reserve, so I doubt too many of them will have their infrastructure targeted as well.

So the actual GA initial target list might be less than 100-200 systems for all the SLN bases and hostile SDF's.

The core 'old league' systems are only ~80 systems that includes Beowulf and several about to follow her, and according to the pearls have only LAC's and no military R&D, being completely reliant on the SLN, so they can be largely ignored as an immediate threat aside from SLN bases, and the rather rare SLN shipyard [only ~6 or so can build SD's, taking ~3 years], so even assuming 20-30% have military targets, missile expenditure could be less than 20,000 MDM's for the whole core, depending on how all of the BF and FF reserve is destroyed, ie with single contact nukes possibly delivered by modified RD platforms to reduce the expense since they're helpless targets.

Regarding missile numbers, HH told Filaretta the quarter million plus he could see were less than 10% of the pods available to her, ie not those in the RHN or used in Lacoon 1 etc for something probably exceeding 3 million pods averaging close to 10 missiles per pod for something probably in excess of 30 million missiles before adding non-pod missiles, without getting into probable RHN daily production rates, or Beowulf starting up Apollo in in a couple of month's.

Total initial MDM expenditure could be as low as 250-500,000 not 10 million.

Regarding the Cutworm raids, HH only had less than a single SDP squadron, which they operated as pairs for the ~11 raids.

So assuming there were 200 primary target systems that are initially attacked by 50 TF's with at least 2 SDP's each, it might only take 4 month's to eradicate the SL's effective naval forces, while if the GA can spare a hundred more SDP's out of 900+ SDP's [soon to be over 1200] it might take only 2 month's.

L


namelessfly wrote:ROFLMAO!


Now, sticking to the Honorverse, it remains theoretically possible for the SLN to recover. Others have expressed extreme optimism regarding the capability of the GA to destroy the SLN's infrastructure, but let us consider the numbers.

The SL has about 2,000 member systems including probably 1,000 densely populated, technologically advanced, and industrialized core systems. In contrast, Haven is what, 100 systems?

From Saltash we get a sense of how many missiles are needed to takedown even a backwater system but without trashing infrastructure. Five DDs launched four, triple salvos totallying 5 x 4 x 3 x 12 = 720 missiles.

This is a bit shy of 1,000 missiles. Taking out industrial infrastructure will increase the missile expenditure as will having to engage moderately effective defenses including Technodyne system defense missile pods.

Assume only 10,000 missiles expended per core system. That is a total of 10 million missiles or the load out of 2,000 SD(P)s.

The GA has the missile stockpile needed, barely.

Now consider time. During the Cutworm raids in AAC, Honor was trashing may be one system per month using the rough equivalent of an SD(P) squadron.

If the GA assigns 50 squadrons to raiding SL systems, then they take out 50 systems per month.

In 20 months, they can take down the SL.

Problem is, take out the industrial infrastructure after you have taken out interstellar commerce and these SL systems will collapse economically and socially. The same Potterry Barn rules that applied in Iraq will apply with the SL. You Break it, You Buy It. How will the GA provide security, governance and sustenance to these SL systems? How can they do this whhen they need to cover themselves from the Malign?
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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Re: Failure and the SLN...
Post by TheMonster   » Thu May 15, 2014 11:24 am

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munroburton wrote:They also don't need to destroy infrastructure, but if they did, there are ways other than using missiles. Wedge sweeping, for instance, which even a freighter can perform.

Manticoran monster trucks. ;)
I'm a fan of letting Shrikes do a pass through the orbital shipyards, etc., slicing them up with their grasers. That has the added benefit of getting the word out that GA LACs are nasty little bastards that nothing below the wall wants to fight.
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