GA response to SL attempts to prevent seccessions

kzt wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi PeterZ,

I suspect part of the mission planning would be to minimize collateral damage, and options such as approaching the anchorage from the angle of the nearest inhabited planet, so impacts would be away from it or any other inhabited planet or space habitat that might be affected.

Of course this is all speculation, but it all might be moot if the radius of the RD's wedge is more than 700 meters from the RD, since that's wider than any SD, so there would be no debris!

I think the wedge will catastrophically fail with a 150 ton object hitting a 6 million ton object. There is an upper limit to what it can handle. And 4000x1 is almost certainly well about it.

If the wedge is the only thing that intersects with the parked SD, then what's the problem?

The drone slices along the ring of parked SDs with its wedge cutting incompletely through the SD's width but nearly completely along the entire length. The damage would be more expensive to repaid than to simply build from scratch. Since the wedge wouldn't pass through another field, there wouldn't be the feedback into the nodes. The wedge would simply turn lots of matter in few large/connected pieces into a lot more pieces of unconnected matter.

PeterZ wrote:We know that the SLN FF BCs are being sent as commerce raiders to knock the GA back a step or two. The hope is to both cause the SEM pain and to encourage SL polities to remain members of the League.

Where would the SLN strike to kill the most birds with their limited number of stones?

Certainly they will send a couple of squadrons to all those systems suspected of having Manty backed insurgents. The Silesia will get some attention as well as key Havenite systems.

My question is if the SLN will send in their BCs in larger TFs or against more targets but with fewer ships per target?

Largely irrelevant, really. Solly BCs have already demonstrated an acute lack of capabilities. In order to raid GA home territory, they'll have to face system defenses designed for the second Manticore-Haven war. Absurd. Even Manticore's BCs were unsuccessful at this role during their first war.

As for those systems suspected of having Manty-backed insurgencies - we've already seen one visited by a squadron of SLN BCs in the latest book. The Battle of Wloclawek didn't go very well for the Sollies, despite them being supplied with missiles improved over what Filareta had and facing considerably less opposition.

If RMN/GA forces aren't present - we've already seen that too. At Mobius, I believe. A few light cruisers or destroyers were sufficient to bombard the planet. They, however, were unable to stop Terekhov from later taking the system and bombing the Gendarmerie battalions in turn.

Any GA system with a few LACs and MDM pods could handle the sort of SLN force which visited Wloclawek. It's already Game Over for them - the League cannot militarily make a dent in this war except by resorting to pirate tactics. Only a matter of time until the entire SLN is hunted into extinction - unless the GA accepts a diplomatic solution short of that.

PeterZ wrote:If the wedge is the only thing that intersects with the parked SD, then what's the problem?

The drone slices along the ring of parked SDs with its wedge cutting incompletely through the SD's width but nearly completely along the entire length. The damage would be more expensive to repaid than to simply build from scratch. Since the wedge wouldn't pass through another field, there wouldn't be the feedback into the nodes. The wedge would simply turn lots of matter in few large/connected pieces into a lot more pieces of unconnected matter.

Mostly because David has stated there is an upper limit. To prevent say tunneling through the entire planet with an AA missile.

munroburton wrote:

PeterZ wrote:We know that the SLN FF BCs are being sent as commerce raiders to knock the GA back a step or two. The hope is to both cause the SEM pain and to encourage SL polities to remain members of the League.

Where would the SLN strike to kill the most birds with their limited number of stones?

Certainly they will send a couple of squadrons to all those systems suspected of having Manty backed insurgents. The Silesia will get some attention as well as key Havenite systems.

My question is if the SLN will send in their BCs in larger TFs or against more targets but with fewer ships per target?

Largely irrelevant, really. Solly BCs have already demonstrated an acute lack of capabilities. In order to raid GA home territory, they'll have to face system defenses designed for the second Manticore-Haven war. Absurd. Even Manticore's BCs were unsuccessful at this role during their first war.

As for those systems suspected of having Manty-backed insurgencies - we've already seen one visited by a squadron of SLN BCs in the latest book. The Battle of Wloclawek didn't go very well for the Sollies, despite them being supplied with missiles improved over what Filareta had and facing considerably less opposition.

If RMN/GA forces aren't present - we've already seen that too. At Mobius, I believe. A few light cruisers or destroyers were sufficient to bombard the planet. They, however, were unable to stop Terekhov from later taking the system and bombing the Gendarmerie battalions in turn.

Any GA system with a few LACs and MDM pods could handle the sort of SLN force which visited Wloclawek. It's already Game Over for them - the League cannot militarily make a dent in this war except by resorting to pirate tactics. Only a matter of time until the entire SLN is hunted into extinction - unless the GA accepts a diplomatic solution short of that.

My thoughts align with yours.

It's just that the counter attack from the SLN will lead to a blood bath of military porn or there will not be any page time on those attacks. The same can be said about whatever the SLN sends to Beowulf. Those 50 BDF SDs can control enough light speed only Mk-23Es to gut whatever force of SDs BF chooses to send.

If the GA gets cagey, they could sell Beowulf a couple of Apollo capable fortresses to orbit Beowulf. That alone will put paid to the SLN attacking force.

I don't think there is a chance in hell of a deep strike SLN attack succeeding. That makes for a boring book. So what can I be missing?

kzt wrote:

PeterZ wrote:If the wedge is the only thing that intersects with the parked SD, then what's the problem?

The drone slices along the ring of parked SDs with its wedge cutting incompletely through the SD's width but nearly completely along the entire length. The damage would be more expensive to repaid than to simply build from scratch. Since the wedge wouldn't pass through another field, there wouldn't be the feedback into the nodes. The wedge would simply turn lots of matter in few large/connected pieces into a lot more pieces of unconnected matter.

Mostly because David has stated there is an upper limit. To prevent say tunneling through the entire planet with an AA missile.

I can see that upper limit. Would that also hold for a wedge slicing part way through an SD? An SD is largely hollow and not a dense planet.

My question is if the SLN will send in their BCs in larger TFs or against more targets but with fewer ships per target?[/quote][/quote]



Notice that in Cauldron there was discussion of setting up Keyhole and Moriarty systems for Erewhon, Smoking Frog and Torch.

Chances are there will quickly be similar systems throughout the Talbott Quadrant and Haven's planets. They don't have to be as large in terms of missiles for some of them. Why would a lot of Sollie ships come to Pequod?

I would guess that raiders would be more likely to stay away from the planets or try to slip in at the edges.

And in the long run it won't work because the GA can do a lot more raiding and they're already doing it. And they can raid planets where the raiding ships are being built.

PeterZ wrote:I don't think there is a chance in hell of a deep strike SLN attack succeeding. That makes for a boring book. So what can I be missing?

Well, the League is supposed to crumple like a paper bag. The Harrington Doctrine will do that faster than the Alignment master plan intended, though.

The big mystery is whatever the Alignment's next interfering operation intends to do and whatever it actually accomplishes.

munroburton wrote:

PeterZ wrote:I don't think there is a chance in hell of a deep strike SLN attack succeeding. That makes for a boring book. So what can I be missing?

Well, the League is supposed to crumple like a paper bag. The Harrington Doctrine will do that faster than the Alignment master plan intended, though.

The big mystery is whatever the Alignment's next interfering operation intends to do and whatever it actually accomplishes.

Well, it occurs to me that Damien Harahap aka, Firebrand, факел, Dablenaren, Mwenge, Eldbrand and the myriad other possibilities his sense of humor will discover will have an interesting role. He knows something of the Alignment and more details of operation Janus. He is smart enough to glen a goodly chunk of information from his interactions with Alignment members. And one thing that the Alignment hasn't considered is his fundemental sympathetic of the verge independence movements. If given a chance to follow his conscience, he will help those verge nations rather the retain his professional loyalty to the Alignment.

I can see Indy Graham as part of the conversion process. Indy never felt the betrayal Firebrand planned for Seraphim. All Indy and the rest of Seraphim have experienced is a stalwart comrad in arms who delivered on everything he promised. He promised weapons, weapons were delivered. He promised RMN naval units, naval units came. The excrement hit the rotary impeller? Firebrand took up arms to fight and risk his life along with all the other Seraphimians.

All Indy lost was an illusion that Firebrand was a dependable friend. That knowledge is only intellectual, not driven into his soul with the experience of being deeply betrayed. Will Indy reach Firebrand? We won't know unless both of them join commander Zavala's squadron and visits Adm Gold Peak and her furry minions to confirm whatever Firebrand has to say. I am thinking Indy rides in Tristiam.

PeterZ wrote:If the GA gets cagey, they could sell Beowulf a couple of Apollo capable fortresses to orbit Beowulf. That alone will put paid to the SLN attacking force.

Textev says Beowulf is building and installing the very first Mycroft system. It is/was supposed to be complete just before the plebiscite on secession.

Mycroft is essentially a KHII module with attached computer support (and presumably some life-support for an onboard tactical crew.) Several Mycroft modules and a few million Apollo-SD (four drive Apollo pods) seeded strategically around the Beowulf System should take care of any conceivable SLN attack force.

RFC left it as a cliffhanger, because Mycroft should be complete, the Plebiscite scheduled, and the SLN "election monitors should arrive, all around the same time. Rumors of massive Beowulfan casualties just add to the cliffhanger effect.

Weird Harold wrote:Textev says Beowulf is building and installing the very first Mycroft system. It is/was supposed to be complete just before the plebiscite on secession.

Mycroft is essentially a KHII module with attached computer support (and presumably some life-support for an onboard tactical crew.) Several Mycroft modules and a few million Apollo-SD (four drive Apollo pods) seeded strategically around the Beowulf System should take care of any conceivable SLN attack force.

Hmm, I've been assuming since Mycrosft is described as a fire control relay -- and it's inspired by the lightspeed Moriarty (unmanned) relays that each KHII derived module is unmanned - the tactical section lives elsewhere; probably in a few forts orbiting the system's habitable planet(s).

We know, from the first Mistletoe attack that all the Moriary repeaters were dumb units. Take out the centeral fire control station and there's nobody to control any of the missiles. (Which is why later the system was upgraded to IIRC 3 redundant centralized stations, and they started building defenses and not just stealth into them). And Moriarty would have benifited far more from local tac crews because the light-speed signals made it almost hopelessly laggy.

So given that you can bounce a (sufficiently amplified/relayed) FTL signal clear across the diameter of hyper limit of most stars in under 45 seconds there's really no need to locate tactical crews and computers at each of the dozens of relays it would take to cover the inner system.