The Misalignment of MA plans?

kzt wrote:You should reread "Shadow of Saganami".

Chapter 8
The forts were under construction, the civilian infrastructure was growing almost literally as she watched, and hordes of merchies were streaming through the terminus . . . and the Royal Manticoran Navy's total presence—aside from Hexapuma, who was only visiting—were two relatively modern destroyers and one elderly light cruiser.

Well, she thought, I suppose Home Fleet is on call at the central terminus, but still . . .

The sight of that grossly understrength picket—almost as weak as the one the first Janacek Admiralty had assigned to Basilisk Station before the First Battle of Basilisk—made her feel even queasier than the wormhole transit had. She knew the Navy couldn't be strong everywhere, but she also knew the Talbott Station task force was far more numerous than anything she saw here. Surely, Rear Admiral Khumalo could have spared something more to watch over the billions of dollars worth of fortresses and service platforms under construction.

A year ago, the Manticoran Wormhole Junction's permanent fortifications had been virtually nonexistent. In fact, they'd been so sparse he'd been forced to hang Home Fleet all the way out at the Junction to cover the critical central nexus of the Star Kingdom's economy against attack.

boballab wrote:The point they are making is that Monica didn't have any operational former SLN Battlecruisers at that point so they had nothing to grab and hold the wormhole with. If they tried to grab that wormhole with their 3rd rate navy then those 3 RMN ships would have ate them up like a plate of cookies.

The E wrote:

boballab wrote:The point they are making is that Monica didn't have any operational former SLN Battlecruisers at that point so they had nothing to grab and hold the wormhole with. If they tried to grab that wormhole with their 3rd rate navy then those 3 RMN ships would have ate them up like a plate of cookies.

Not really, no. In a wormhole assault, Manticore's range advantage doesn't mean anything since (assuming reasonably precise navigation) the attackers can come out of hyper within single drive missile range, at which point the sheer mass of missiles they could throw would quickly decide the battle in their favour.

Granted, the RMN picket would be able to inflict disproportionate amounts of damage in return (assuming some amount of pods ready to fire), but it might be closer than comfortable.

And yes, the fact that the RMN doesn't really have any qualms about blowing their own stuff up if hostile forces are about to capture it was also something the Monican planners missed.

Any wormhole terminus associated with a star formed a conical volume in hyper, with the wormhole at its apex and a base centered on the star and twice as wide as its hyper limit, in which hyper-space astrogation became less than totally reliable.

Besides, the Manties were supposed to see him. If the timing worked properly, they would have almost an hour to react to his presence before Citizen Rear Admiral Darlington arrived. Which should give the defenders time to let themselves be well and truly caught between stools when they realized what was actually happening.

...

"I see we seem to have misplaced a decimal point, Gorg," he said instead, unable to keep an edge of harshness out of his voice, however hard he tried. Then he cleared his throat. "How bad is it?"

"We . . . overshot by one-point-three light-minutes, Citizen Admiral," Citizen Commander Huff replied. "Call it twenty-three-point-seven million klicks."

"I see." Darlington folded his hands behind him and rocked on his toes, digesting the information. Of course, it wasn't quite as simple as "overshot" might be taken to imply, he thought grimly. Task Group 12.4.2 had been supposed to emerge from hyper four million klicks from the Basilisk terminus, headed directly towards it with a velocity of five thousand kilometers per second. That would have put them in missile range and firing by the time the defenders could realize they were coming. And with any luck at all, the picket force normally stationed on the terminus would have been headed in-system at max for a full hour, which would have put those ships safely out of the way and left only the two operational forts to deal with. Thirty-two million tons of fort would still have been a handful, but he had eight dreadnoughts, twelve battleships, and four battlecruisers— a better than three-to-one edge in tonnage—and he should have had the invaluable advantage of complete and total surprise, as well.

But Citizen Commander Huff had blown it. In fairness, it was expecting a great deal to ask anyone to cut a hyper translation that close, but that was exactly what he'd been trained for years to do . . . and the reason TG 12.4.2 had dropped back into n-space less than two light-months out to allow him to recalibrate and recalculate. And he hadn't actually missed it by all that much, had he? His error was—what? Less than two-thousandths of a percent of the total jump? But it was enough.

boballab wrote:Actually no, "precise" navigation would have been impossible due to the resonance zone

The Peeps tried that plan at Basilisk and failed and they had much better trained crews than Monica had and their plan didn't even call for popping out in single stage range, they went with misdirection to pull most of the forces off so that they could overwhelm the Wormhole Terminus forces.

The E wrote:

boballab wrote:Actually no, "precise" navigation would have been impossible due to the resonance zone

No, it isn't; The RZ is a conical volume and so there's plenty of room around a wormhole for ships to emerge (See also: All the ships that evacuated the Basilisk wormhole when that system came under attack).

The Peeps tried that plan at Basilisk and failed and they had much better trained crews than Monica had and their plan didn't even call for popping out in single stage range, they went with misdirection to pull most of the forces off so that they could overwhelm the Wormhole Terminus forces.

Yes, but the Peeps were an actual navy with actual training. They knew what the limits of their hardware and of the people using them were, and they made plans that took those limits into account. The Monicans, I submit to you, were neither predisposed nor encouraged to do so; The Alignment put much effort into hyping them up.

He’s going to come just about to rest relative to us at six and three-quarters million klicks. That’s extreme range for low-powered missile drives, which isn’t exactly the mark of an aggressive captain.

Genevieve Chin's heart began beating once again, and her instant instinct to break off eased a bit as the range registered. At almost seventy-three million kilometers, the new arrivals were well outside even MDMs' powered range. Besides, there were only thirty-eight of them—less than half her own strength, even if all of them were wallers and not carriers.
...
"They've fired, Ma'am," Spiropoulo repeated. "It doesn't make any sense. They're still at least seven million kilometers out of range!"

boballab wrote:Kzt is arguing the position that Moncia could have grabbed the terminus and held it to get technical information, even in your scenerio (which isn't plausible) they still couldn't grab the terminus.

1) It isn't just a cone, there is a complete sphere around the terminus just like with a star that you can't hyper in right next to a terminus.

2) It is easier to hyper out than it is to hyper in and if you are escaping you don't need to be precise, just as long as you get away to a point where you can recalibrate.

3) The ships that used hyper had up to 1 hour to clear the RZ before Darlington even showed up.

4) The Peep plan called for them to be 4 light minutes and heading towards the forts if things went entirely to plan which is still well outside of single stage missile range. From Honor of the Queen we have this:

He’s going to come just about to rest relative to us at six and three-quarters million klicks. That’s extreme range for low-powered missile drives, which isn’t exactly the mark of an aggressive captain.

That is barely over one third of a light minute which in Kilometers which is almost 18 million and 4 light minutes are almost 72 million Kilometers which is over double a Mk16's range. Hell 4 light minutes is not even in effective Mk23 range without Apollo:

Genevieve Chin's heart began beating once again, and her instant instinct to break off eased a bit as the range registered. At almost seventy-three million kilometers, the new arrivals were well outside even MDMs' powered range. Besides, there were only thirty-eight of them—less than half her own strength, even if all of them were wallers and not carriers.
...
"They've fired, Ma'am," Spiropoulo repeated. "It doesn't make any sense. They're still at least seven million kilometers out of range!"

5) Knowing how hyperspace works the picket ships would have sat in the RZ where no one could drop out of Hyperspace on top of them. To grab and claim ownership from the RMN picket they would have had to enter the RZ and take it from them, don't do that and one pinnace through the wormhole and Home Fleet is there in well less than 30 minutes since they were already sitting at the Junction.

Bottom line there was no way for those BC's to just drop in on them already in missile range and just blow them up no matter how you try and wiggle around, the physics do not support you

The E wrote:

boballab wrote:The point they are making is that Monica didn't have any operational former SLN Battlecruisers at that point so they had nothing to grab and hold the wormhole with. If they tried to grab that wormhole with their 3rd rate navy then those 3 RMN ships would have ate them up like a plate of cookies.

Not really, no. In a wormhole assault, Manticore's range advantage doesn't mean anything since (assuming reasonably precise navigation) the attackers can come out of hyper within single drive missile range, at which point the sheer mass of missiles they could throw would quickly decide the battle in their favour.

Granted, the RMN picket would be able to inflict disproportionate amounts of damage in return (assuming some amount of pods ready to fire), but it might be closer than comfortable.

And yes, the fact that the RMN doesn't really have any qualms about blowing their own stuff up if hostile forces are about to capture it was also something the Monican planners missed.

darrell wrote:

The E wrote:Not really, no. In a wormhole assault, Manticore's range advantage doesn't mean anything since (assuming reasonably precise navigation) the attackers can come out of hyper within single drive missile range, at which point the sheer mass of missiles they could throw would quickly decide the battle in their favour.

Granted, the RMN picket would be able to inflict disproportionate amounts of damage in return (assuming some amount of pods ready to fire), but it might be closer than comfortable.

And yes, the fact that the RMN doesn't really have any qualms about blowing their own stuff up if hostile forces are about to capture it was also something the Monican planners missed.

Had monica had time to get all 14 BC's working it still wouldn't have been sucsessful for monica to get tech samples.

Lets say you are right and the monican navy manages to translate into normal space within missile range.

One ship translates through the wormhole with case zulu before the missiles can arrive this dosen't even have to be a member of the picket force, just the next ship in the que with a message from the picket commander.

The picket force is blown away.

The first SDP from home fleet translates through, and because the monican navy is not within energy weapons rang, the SDP has time to switch to web before missiles can arrive.

3 minutes for monican missiles to arrive 46Kg's vs 90 seconds for manticoran missiles to arrive at 92Kg's mean that.

The SDP blows the monican force to itty bitty bits with one apollo salvo. that is a dozen attack birds for each BC.

As the monican BC's are destroyed before the first wave of their missiles arrive, they will be unguided, when they do arrive, and IMO will be unlikely to do more than superficial damage to the SDP.

Theemile wrote:You are forgetting that the Emerging SD is in an emergence lane for as much as 5 minutes (we don't actually know the length for the lynx terminus, but it is a measurable amount of time). During this time it can not raise it's wedge, use it's sidewalls, or fire missiles - it can only fire energy weapons and defenses. So the Monicans can fire missiles on it un-opposed and the SD must just take whatever fire (with only it's PDLCs to defend it). However, if a SD emerges from the lane and can raise it's wedge, the gig is up.