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Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle

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Re: Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle
Post by quite possibly a cat   » Sat Sep 08, 2018 12:06 am

quite possibly a cat
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tlb wrote:
H: "We have you surrounded, come out with your hands up" (not really, but this part does not matter).
T: "If you don't immediately leave this system, we will send a ship to blow up big parts of your world".
H: "We will soon have control of the space around your planet, so you should reconsider because of the consequences. If you launch an attack on one of our worlds, then we will kill one million of your citizens. Further for every Haven citizen that dies we will kill an extra thousand of yours. You have a lovely little planet, it would be a shame to mess it up".

If you are responsible for Toulon, then what are your next steps?
Tell them the ship is set to autopilot and will trigger if they attack or cross the hyper-limit. It can't be called off and uses a randomized route. What's your next move if you're responsible for Haven? Push the button and gamble its a bluff or the AI can't pull it off?

If Haven wants to murder a bunch of their own citizen that's on them. Toulon can't stop Haven from murdering their own citizens. If Haven wants to murder Toulon's citizens bad enough to murder Haven's citizens at the same time, then Haven can do that.

Appeasement of irrational people never works.
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Re: Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle
Post by Dilandu   » Sat Sep 08, 2018 3:58 am

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tlb wrote:Or are you thinking this could be started from well outside the hyper limit and the missiles would be coasting after burn out (so no wedge)?


Basically yes. Planets are fully predictable targets, and you do not need any maneuvering capabilities to hit a planet. And if your missile burned her wedge outside of enemy sensors range, she would be simply impossible to intercept on near-light velocities - not only the light front would come too late to actually do something, but even the simple position of the missile could not be pinpointed due to relativistic effects. Worse, the missile could use submunitions, to hit the target not as a single body, but as a cloud of small relativistic impactors - making any kind of intercept literally impossible.

Let's consider Haven about to take over Toulon in the Gaston System. Toulon has had some warning and has decided to hit the Haven home world if the invasion takes place. The Toulon ship Dague is positioned so it can evade any attackers and strike. Here is my imagined conversation when the Haven task force arrives in overwhelming force.

H: "We have you surrounded, come out with your hands up" (not really, but this part does not matter).
T: "If you don't immediately leave this system, we will send a ship to blow up big parts of your world".
H: "We will soon have control of the space around your planet, so you should reconsider because of the consequences. If you launch an attack on one of our worlds, then we will kill one million of your citizens. Further for every Haven citizen that dies we will kill an extra thousand of yours. You have a lovely little planet, it would be a shame to mess it up".


T. "Perhaps. But since our attack would kill every single one citizen of Haven, you would still loose. In fact, you would still loose even if just a few of our missiles hit, because your war is imperialistic attempt of conquest, and such attempt could NOT be non-profitable. So; back off, or we launch!"
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle
Post by tlb   » Sat Sep 08, 2018 11:14 am

tlb
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tlb wrote:Or are you thinking this could be started from well outside the hyper limit and the missiles would be coasting after burn out (so no wedge)?

Dilandu wrote: Basically yes. Planets are fully predictable targets, and you do not need any maneuvering capabilities to hit a planet. And if your missile burned her wedge outside of enemy sensors range, she would be simply impossible to intercept on near-light velocities - not only the light front would come too late to actually do something, but even the simple position of the missile could not be pinpointed due to relativistic effects. Worse, the missile could use submunitions, to hit the target not as a single body, but as a cloud of small relativistic impactors - making any kind of intercept literally impossible.

tlb wrote: Let's consider Haven about to take over Toulon in the Gaston System. Toulon has had some warning and has decided to hit the Haven home world if the invasion takes place. The Toulon ship Dague is positioned so it can evade any attackers and strike. Here is my imagined conversation when the Haven task force arrives in overwhelming force.

H: "We have you surrounded, come out with your hands up" (not really, but this part does not matter).
T: "If you don't immediately leave this system, we will send a ship to blow up big parts of your world".
H: "We will soon have control of the space around your planet, so you should reconsider because of the consequences. If you launch an attack on one of our worlds, then we will kill one million of your citizens. Further for every Haven citizen that dies we will kill an extra thousand of yours. You have a lovely little planet, it would be a shame to mess it up".

Dilandu wrote: T. "Perhaps. But since our attack would kill every single one citizen of Haven, you would still loose. In fact, you would still loose even if just a few of our missiles hit, because your war is imperialistic attempt of conquest, and such attempt could NOT be non-profitable. So; back off, or we launch!"

quite possibly a cat wrote:Tell them the ship is set to autopilot and will trigger if they attack or cross the hyper-limit. It can't be called off and uses a randomized route. What's your next move if you're responsible for Haven? Push the button and gamble its a bluff or the AI can't pull it off?

If Haven wants to murder a bunch of their own citizen that's on them. Toulon can't stop Haven from murdering their own citizens. If Haven wants to murder Toulon's citizens bad enough to murder Haven's citizens at the same time, then Haven can do that.

Appeasement of irrational people never works.

Haven does not lose at much as you think, since it is a multi star system polity and the leading families conveniently were on vacation at various garden planets.
The Haven government reconvenes to condemn the act of piracy that killed millions of dolists and proclaims a commemorative statue will be erected on the new planet that will be open for colonists as soon as intervention troops finish eradicating the vermin that infest it.
In other news, there are a number of scientific papers written about dinosaur killing events: Did the dinosaurs die immediately or did it take several years for the effects of the asteroid hit to wipe them out (we know that life in general survived, but the disruption of the food chain killed the apex animals)? Did the asteroid alone suffice to kill the dinosaurs or did it require the additional effects of the Deccan Traps or did the asteroid trigger Deccan volcanism?
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Re: Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle
Post by Galactic Sapper   » Sat Sep 08, 2018 12:52 pm

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quite possibly a cat wrote:What? Not only are there decoys capable of operating inside a wedge, their are decoys capable of generating their own wedge and operating inside it!

I'd need to see text to back that up. Maybe something like Halo can hang out inside the wedge of the ship that launched it but certainly nothing with a wedge of its own can. That's why missiles need to get such a powerful kick from the launch tubes - they need to clear the launching ship's wedge before they can light off their own.

Fire up one of those decoys, let it plug along as a normal SD acceleration, while the drone-SD plugs along far faster than any normal SD could. Unless the programmer anticipated drone-SD the missile will conclude the drone-SD is a drone and the decoy is the only possible target.

How? The only thing capable of accelerating like that is a wedge. It's been established several times that a ship can move around inside its wedge a bit - a few kilometers out of center of a 300 km wedge, but the generating ship is always going to be within a small volume inside the center of the wedge. At best you'd get a missile seeing two SDs inside the same wedge and have a 50/50 chance of picking the right one. That of course assumes your decoy is a 100% perfect match for the SD it's supposed to be emulating, which it almost certainly is not.
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Re: Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle
Post by Dilandu   » Sat Sep 08, 2018 12:59 pm

Dilandu
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tlb wrote:Haven does not lose at much as you think


Haven lose money. And considering that the whole expansion for Haven was an attempt to get money, any campaign that would result in even one major Havenite system glassed, would be utter and absolute disaster. Not only no money would be obtained, but also the economic and infrastructure of the Republic would suffer enormous blow, forcing to spend much more on reconstruction.

In short: it would made Havenite imperialism non-profitable. And non-profitable imperialism is literally a definition of nonsense.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle
Post by tlb   » Sat Sep 08, 2018 3:44 pm

tlb
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tlb wrote:Haven does not lose at much as you think

Dilandu wrote:Haven lose money. And considering that the whole expansion for Haven was an attempt to get money, any campaign that would result in even one major Havenite system glassed, would be utter and absolute disaster. Not only no money would be obtained, but also the economic and infrastructure of the Republic would suffer enormous blow, forcing to spend much more on reconstruction.

In short: it would made Havenite imperialism non-profitable. And non-profitable imperialism is literally a definition of nonsense.

Haven loses money and infrastructure in the short term; but also loses dolists that caused the need for that money. So there would have to a careful cost benefit analysis to see how much is actually lost. In the long term, how many other small systems in the way of the Haven's advance will try to repeat what Toulon did? If seems more likely that they will scramble to be allied with anyone, even Haven; rather than face a heroic annihilation.
Also what if the incident motivates the Dolists to join the armed forces to combat those stinking pirates?

So Haven does not lose as much as you think; but the only analysis that matters is done by the ruling class and they were not hurt.
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Re: Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle
Post by Dilandu   » Sat Sep 08, 2018 3:50 pm

Dilandu
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tlb wrote:Haven loses money and infrastructure in the short term; but also loses dolists that caused the need for that money. So there would have to a careful cost benefit analysis to see how much is actually lost. In the long term, how many other small systems in the way of the Haven's advance will try to repeat what Toulon did? If seems more likely that they will scramble to be allied with anyone, even Haven; rather than face a heroic annihilation.
Also what if the incident motivates the Dolists to join the armed forces to combat those stinking pirates?

So Haven does not lose as much as you think; but the only analysis that matters is done by the ruling class and they were not hurt.


...Seriously, your economical knowlege is... flawed. Basically, if we follow your logic, the nuclear destruction of New York and Philadelphia would be economically beneficial for USA, if only the USA would be able to nuke Iran back. Because hey, the destruction of New York would put a lot of welfare receivers out of payroll, so the government would save the money!

Really, you should work on your logic. Hard.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
Top
Re: Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle
Post by tlb   » Sat Sep 08, 2018 5:00 pm

tlb
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Posts: 3854
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:34 am

tlb wrote:Haven loses money and infrastructure in the short term; but also loses dolists that caused the need for that money. So there would have to a careful cost benefit analysis to see how much is actually lost. In the long term, how many other small systems in the way of the Haven's advance will try to repeat what Toulon did? If seems more likely that they will scramble to be allied with anyone, even Haven; rather than face a heroic annihilation.
Also what if the incident motivates the Dolists to join the armed forces to combat those stinking pirates?

So Haven does not lose as much as you think; but the only analysis that matters is done by the ruling class and they were not hurt.


Dilandu wrote:...Seriously, your economical knowlege is... flawed. Basically, if we follow your logic, the nuclear destruction of New York and Philadelphia would be economically beneficial for USA, if only the USA would be able to nuke Iran back. Because hey, the destruction of New York would put a lot of welfare receivers out of payroll, so the government would save the money!

Really, you should work on your logic. Hard.

War is not a purely economic proposition; look again at the sentence I highlighted. I am not claiming that Haven is not hurt, rather that what you and "quite possibly a cat" present as guarantee against aggression is not as iron clad as you think.
You and cat were claiming the USA could never nuke Iran if it were possible for them to hit NYC or Philly back; I think there are other factors to consider before we can declare that to be true.
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Re: Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle
Post by Dilandu   » Sat Sep 08, 2018 5:08 pm

Dilandu
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tlb wrote:War is not a purely economic proposition;


War is not; imperialism IS. The colonial conquests must not cost more than they could bring, otherwise why conquer them at all? That's exactly why colonialism died out so quickly after World War 2; it stopped to be profitable, and colonial wars became prohibitively costly.

You and cat were claiming the USA could never nuke Iran if it were possible for them to hit NYC or Philly back; I think there are other factors to consider before we can declare that to be true.


No. I'm claiming, that such war would NOT be in any possible way profitable for USA in economical sense. We have exact example with North Korea; USA could nuke North Korea, but A - there is a probability (not much, but still) that US territory would be nuked back, B - there is almost a certainty, that important US allies would be nuked back, and C - there would be no profit out of all this. So while USA MIGHT nuke North Korea in retaliation or defending allies, the USA WOULDN'T start to lob nukes on NK just for "increasing the local democracy and freedom". It would not cost the losses.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
Top
Re: Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle
Post by tlb   » Sat Sep 08, 2018 6:30 pm

tlb
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tlb wrote:War is not a purely economic proposition;

Dilandu wrote:War is not; imperialism IS. The colonial conquests must not cost more than they could bring, otherwise why conquer them at all? That's exactly why colonialism died out so quickly after World War 2; it stopped to be profitable, and colonial wars became prohibitively costly.

tlb wrote: You and cat were claiming the USA could never nuke Iran if it were possible for them to hit NYC or Philly back; I think there are other factors to consider before we can declare that to be true.

Dilandu wrote:No. I'm claiming, that such war would NOT be in any possible way profitable for USA in economical sense.

In the case of Haven: although the reasons presented in "The Short Victorious War" make it sound as though their expansion was for economic reasons; that cannot be completely true, because Haven would then introduce their Dole system which would ruin the benefit of the conquest. If Haven were convinced that the conquest of Toulon might be a big loss, but the effects of doing so would be an increase in people getting off the Dole to get in the navy (which is what happened after taking on Manticore) and an easier conquest of other worlds due to the example set, then Haven might well proceed against Toulon despite the economic cost.
Try to remember that this line of discourse was set by you and cat claiming that the Eridani Edict made conquest easy, so the Edict was not a good thing. You are now saying that pure economics can make imperialism unlikely. I am saying that unlikely is not impossible, because the decision makers operate on more than just economic motivations and they can be incorrect in any of their reasons, but once started may continue to forge onward (the sunk cost fallacy).
Finally the biggest colonial empire did end after WWII due to economics, but not in the way you meant: the British lost their empire because they impoverished themselves fighting the Germans. The US gave up the Panama Canal and the Philippines, but not for an economic reason. Only the French gave up colonies because of the economic cost of military action (perhaps I should include the USSR's actions in Afghanistan also, but then giving up Eastern Europe is a counterexample).

PS. Note the Eridani Edict would not stop the Dague from hitting the Haven home planet with as much damage as it possibly could. The League would not do anything because Toulon is already under Haven control. So how does the Edict stop a weak planet from threatening ultimate destruction in self defense?
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