Hutch wrote:JeffEngel wrote:Two dozen yards, about 80% FF and 20% BF (alternatively: 80% BC on down, 20% able to do wallers too). So about 5 BF and about 19 FF.
Punching out all the FF complexes may be time-consuming and would represent a wave of attacks that may be politically awkward, if the GA is supposed to be the plucky defenders against Solarian aggression.
But any one of them would be a fairly easy target, presumably they are all known and no trouble to find, so the time-consuming part of it is livable.
Jeff, I can't see the time-consuming part. Given six BatSqd with support elements should be about to punchout the 18-19 sites within 3-4 months, IMHO.
Yeah, that probably comes down to different thresholds for "time-consuming". Faster and/or with fewer ships would be nicer. I don't think the time and shipping commitment is anything approaching a deal-breaker either.
Politically, the GA may not have to punch out ones that are not in fact producing more FF units (Kingsford will have a hard time getting crews into deathtraps if FF ships go up like popcorn as much as BF ones have); the GA can destroy them with all due care and more to preventing loss of life while underlining their technical advantages (just like the Cutworm attacks on Haven that way) to preserve the impressions of both special care for lives and overwhelming qualitative advantage; and that sort of example may make other such yard complexes just opt out of working: if you can avoid being blown up by simply building freighters instead, and freighters are in high demand... Frontier Fleet can just get in line.
Concur; albeit that converting a Military yard to civilan purposes may not be all that simple--albeit I will plead ignorance on that score.
I doubt it'd be difficult or expensive. What it would be is a "waste" of resources that might otherwise be going into warship construction, which is practical only at a smaller number of more expensive facilities. But if you really, really don't want to be producing those units and putting a bulls-eye on yourself, who cares?
Another dodge may be for those yards to take orders from SDF's instead. They're hardly failing to satisfy the needs of the Solarian League that way (*snicker*), and they may still avoid GA wrath in that case. And SDF's are likely to have excellent reason to expand. It's another instance of League assets morphing into freer private ones or local ones, much like Roman assets ceasing to be Roman without going up in smoke when the Empire shrunk out of western Europe.
I do think that we will be seeing the GA make a visible effort to differentiate between blowing up Solarian League assets versus Planetary System assets. Oh, they may disable or hold the frieghters until the political matters are sorted out and put an embargo on building new ships, but only until the "political situation brought on by the reckless and criminal actions of the Mandarins are resolved by your planetary authorities." (I.e., play nice with us and we have no interest in hurting your economy and indeed would love to trade with you).
Indeed. The whole idea is simply (!) to undo the League, not destroy anything otherwise or tick off any other institution, individual, or government. That latter isn't going to be totally avoidable, of course, but it can be minimized and delicate suggestions for how to get oneself out of the crosshairs can be conveyed.
Hitting the smaller number of BF yards would make for individually scarier attacks, again potentially troubling the political aims, but again it'd be easy to frame that as doing the most to protect lives and defend the GA worlds, only at some remove. And heck - they can remind people that wallers those yards would build would be deathtraps anyway, so they're doing SLN personnel a favor by destroying the coffin-building facilities.
Nice. And I agree, taking out the BF yards is high on the GA list of 'things to do'. We only differ in that I think the FF yards are nearly equal priority.
Maybe. Certainly more dangerous things can be done with yards producing units that will be used soon, that can be used effectively, and will get more competent leadership.
On the other hand, I'm not too impressed with how well Frontier Fleet will do and or by how much good the yard capacity and future units will do them, and I am impressed with the political risks of the kind of rampage hitting 19+ minor yards will appear to be, when those yards aren't even building the classically frightening sorts of units. An attacker targeting all your police training facilities would not look like someone simply defending themselves, and Frontier Fleet may look too much like space cops to the Solly in the street to avoid that impression.
It will be the political aspects that follow the military action that will be the big decider.
IMHO as always. YMMV.
Yep yep. Some of those political aspects can be seen ahead of time though, and can be cause for avoiding or altering some of the military actions. The political element of this war is a lot more pronounced than it is in many others: outright military victory over the League isn't on the table, since it is just so large compared to the GA, but disintegrating the League - convincing its parts to cease to be a whole - is entirely doable. And while the GA cannot occupy and control the League for the outright military win, it can blow up pretty much whatever it has to - so long as that's consistent with the political aim.