Strategic Planning

kzt wrote:Code names are also useful for keeping people who overhear a fragment of a conversation in an elevator or at lunch from having any idea what it is. Which does occasionally happen no matter how often people get told to not do it.

But since it is a book of fiction and not an op plan it is kind of useful to not blizzard the reader in 20 or 30 different random strings. And it also keeps the person writing the book sane.

More or less, anyway,

ldwechsler wrote:Based on the most recent snippet, it looks like the idiots at the League will attack independent planet systems. An interesting way to head off revolts in the Assembly.

The second part being sufficiently covered. yes , that would be. However, I think it's more a warning to any protectorate or verge world. Although, how they expect the message to percolate through the nonaligned, protectorate, and shell worlds is beyond me.

Seems it would only encourage any league world to send an emissary to their nearest GA planet requesting aid with the time table for their secession plebecite and announcement to the Mandarins. Kinda spreads the GA thin but what a nasty surprise for the BF task force bumbling all fat and happy across the wall.

Damn, you beat me to it. No fun.

runsforcelery wrote:

kzt wrote:Code names are also useful for keeping people who overhear a fragment of a conversation in an elevator or at lunch from having any idea what it is. Which does occasionally happen no matter how often people get told to not do it.

But since it is a book of fiction and not an op plan it is kind of useful to not blizzard the reader in 20 or 30 different random strings. And it also keeps the person writing the book sane.

More or less, anyway,

Daryl wrote:

kzt wrote:Code names are also useful for keeping people who overhear a fragment of a conversation in an elevator or at lunch from having any idea what it is. Which does occasionally happen no matter how often people get told to not do it.

But since it is a book of fiction and not an op plan it is kind of useful to not blizzard the reader in 20 or 30 different random strings. And it also keeps the person writing the book sane.

More or less, anyway,

[/quote]

The problem is that a bad code can hurt in terms of public relations. If instead of Desert Storm we had Grab Oil it would have gone over rather badly.

Using Buccaneer might seem clever but what happens if one of the fleets is captured and the planet being damaged demands the leaders for a trial for piracy?

Not to mention how much fun it would be when the Opposition uses it against the mandarins. Remember that the League is attacking (and an embargo is an attack under international law and would probably be part of interstellar law) neutral planets.

That could get very tricky particularly if, as expected, the League more or less loses. They would have a huge bill to pay to the affected planets.

ldwechsler wrote:
The problem is that a bad code can hurt in terms of public relations. If instead of Desert Storm we had Grab Oil it would have gone over rather badly.

Using Buccaneer might seem clever but what happens if one of the fleets is captured and the planet being damaged demands the leaders for a trial for piracy?

Not to mention how much fun it would be when the Opposition uses it against the mandarins. Remember that the League is attacking (and an embargo is an attack under international law and would probably be part of interstellar law) neutral planets.

That could get very tricky particularly if, as expected, the League more or less loses. They would have a huge bill to pay to the affected planets.

Seems to me there was some gnashing of teeth at Mandarin HQ when, post Bing's demise, when they realized it was FF ships not BF ships and those pesky Case Buccaneer and the other one were [assumed] discovered in the computers. Misquoting RFC: Brilliant people wedded to irrational belief systems make apparent logic blunders because they are in a state of denial. Delusional thinking does that to one (my personal experience).

George J. Smith wrote:I believe that commerce raiding was part of the Lacoon II OP.

I suspect it's some pretty targeted commerce raiding. But going after ships belonging to some of the most openly hostile transtellars might be worthwhile.

Similarly shipping that disproportionally benifits the Mandarins or the transtellars that support and provide the majority of the fees that fund them could be a useful target.

OTOH indiscriminately capturing (much less destroying) any freighters moving about the League seems likely to create undesirable backlash in the core worlds' populations.

Core world freighters are a valid target now that war has been declared. Will the League like it? Well, no, they won't. But the solution isn't for the GA not to target the freighters. It is for the folks to whom the freighters belong to stop supporting the League. They can stop predatory action directed at their freighters and regain access to the wormholes by withdrawing from the League and negotiating peace with the GA.

Until then, those freighters are legitimate prizes of war.

Don

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I think the more interesting thing is what are the SSL's plans for commerce raiding. Personally, if I were them and I had to fight, my main target would be the Grayson-Mantacore route. We know that the main merchant routes make grave wave combat possible, it happened in Short Victorious War, and grave wave combat prohibits missile exchanges and forces people into beam range combat. Which means that the playing field is far, far more level, and the SLN should seek to force grave wave combat wherever possible.

Easier said than done of course, but its about the only field where I could see an SLN victory, and I think they need at least one.

blackjack217 wrote:I think the more interesting thing is what are the SSL's plans for commerce raiding. Personally, if I were them and I had to fight, my main target would be the Grayson-Mantacore route. We know that the main merchant routes make grave wave combat possible, it happened in Short Victorious War, and grave wave combat prohibits missile exchanges and forces people into beam range combat. Which means that the playing field is far, far more level, and the SLN should seek to force grave wave combat wherever possible.

Easier said than done of course, but its about the only field where I could see an SLN victory, and I think they need at least one.

What we are seeing, however, is an attack on independents. These are NOT generally considered legal targets. If they are actually the center of the attacks, it leaves the GA basically intact. And if GA ships rescue planets, they will be far more likely to NOT be interested in joining the League.

They may also demand payment later.

runsforcelery wrote: And it also keeps the person writing the book sane.


More or less, anyway,

Begone with you and your Doylists! Death of the Author and all that .

The Watsonian reason works too. SLN ONI sucks, and has been on the take from the MAlign for so long, as well has been so dominate for so long that they forgot foreign powers can really exist.

I betcha most SLN intelligence protocols have been about which Interstellars get tipped off more than anything else. EG the SLN equivalent of the Fat Leonard Scandal is regular business. Even if Wallers and Battle fleet leaving the shell is irregular, there's still a lot of money to be made from movements within the league for Battle Fleet as well as Frontier Fleet movements.