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Did the MBS corner the market on trade?

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Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by cthia   » Fri Jul 31, 2020 2:51 pm

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:Something I'm not clear on. If the wormhole was not defended because of a catastrophic battle of Herculean proportions, wouldn't that also mean that Astro Control had been reduced to rubble too? Lest there was a jury rigged AC. My point is it seems the MWJ would be closed to all foreign traffic pending "major repairs."

These are all things that the DB should have reported to Tsang. In particular, since Astro Control and the forts were all in fine shape, the transit is a no-go. In fact the DB could have gone through days earlier and reported that.

My conclusion in that Tsang had a secondary objective, provided this situation held, of forcing the Beowulf defense forces to explicitly reject Tsang's right to transit (which was not going to really be attempted) as a propaganda point that could be used in the League.

Understood. But even if it isn't defended by forts, wouldn't warships be tasked with the duty? LACs could handle the duty can't they? Why would the League not think the junction was still being defended, at least, by ships?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by tlb   » Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:10 pm

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cthia wrote:Something I'm not clear on. If the wormhole was not defended because of a catastrophic battle of Herculean proportions, wouldn't that also mean that Astro Control had been reduced to rubble too? Lest there was a jury rigged AC. My point is it seems the MWJ would be closed to all foreign traffic pending "major repairs."

tlb wrote:These are all things that the DB should have reported to Tsang. In particular, since Astro Control and the forts were all in fine shape, the transit is a no-go. In fact the DB could have gone through days earlier and reported that.

My conclusion in that Tsang had a secondary objective, provided this situation held, of forcing the Beowulf defense forces to explicitly reject Tsang's right to transit (which was not going to really be attempted) as a propaganda point that could be used in the League.

cthia wrote:Understood. But even if it isn't defended by forts, wouldn't warships be tasked with the duty? LACs could handle the duty can't they? Why would the League not think the junction was still being defended, at least, by ships?

Absolutely, UH gives a perfect example of the RMN defending a wormhole against the SLN. Eventually even the defenders took pity on the clueless ships coming through.

So the ships could still have had problems coming through the Manticore WHJ; but importantly there was no such destruction at the junction by Mamticore and ships going to Beowulf should know that. Were there no Solarian news couriers to pass this information before the attack?
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Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by Brigade XO   » Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:16 pm

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This whole bit about Tsang NOT getting any information about was or was not the condition of the Junction pushes belief out the airlock.
There is commercial/civilian traffic going through the terminus by Beowulf, both ways and lots of it. Ok a whole bunch of it is Manticore and we presume Beowulf merchant shipping hauling new materials to Manticore and possibely hauling back already refined or just bailed up scrap from Oyster Bay to be convertered to new stuff or in-bulk materials as payments
ANY merchant ship that went from the terminus to Sol (of course there are lots, anybody who wants to ship to or from Silesia and even Manticore is going to use non-SL flagged ships) would get -well should have gotten- lots of questions asked by SLN etc. Heck, DBs - real or black- could have been being used as couriers to conduct passive scans of the Junction and could report back on both direct observations and posted updates by Astro Control as to lanes and regs etc. If SLN has ANY assets working on the various platforms working around servicing traffice for the Junction including wearhouseing, there should be a clear picture available: whatever/whoever hit the Manticore orbitals DID NOT hit either the forts or warships assigned to the Juntion and, in fact, nothing happened by the Junction. Oh, there was an alarm but fairly quickly traffice went back to normal...actualy way beyond normal but the SL isn't getting numbers from Beowulf as to traffic so they may or may not know about the higher ping-ponging of ships back and forth between Beowulf and any of the 3 inhabited planets of the Binary System.
There is also the absolute lack of discussion or even "thoughts" by or with Tsang about a secondary (or primary) mission to force Beowulf to block her attempt at transit. The 1st SLN officer sent opened that conversation and Tsang was very surprized (per what we read) that the BSDF showed up in her way and told her that not only did Beowulf consider her described forcing of transit illegal (no state of war) and Beowulf was NOT going to help her, but that if she actualy attempted it BSDF would fire upon her.
NO conversation about Tsang sending a DB back to Sol to report her little problem.

So, what's going on. Is Tsang being set up to be yet another martyr of the SLN by the Alignment with the connivence of the senior comand structure? She doesn't report the difficutly with BSDF (and she has at least some idea of when the Fillerta attack is likely to come so asking High Command is something she should at least contemplate because if she does have to fight her way though BSDF that is going to be a bit more than beating the crap out of some neo-barb navy with a couple of DD's.

We seem to be being told that she has ONE information source on the other side of the wormhole and that is only to come get her when there is an attack on Manticore? So she is cooling her heals and drining way too many Tequela Sunrises just far enough away from the terminus (and out of direct traffic flow to the Astro Control covered areas that she put a couple of DDs closer to VISUALY be available to the DB when it comes though? Really? Otherwise the DD's will have to be broadcasting their transponders insted of waiting for a ping...why the hell would a DB be pinging after it had cleared the lane and headed for "wherever it was supposed to be going" since Astro Control would have been providing a very good picture (updated continuously to) CIVILIAN TRAFFIC.

So Tsang gets the information from the DB, starts to move and BSDF is RIGHT THERE in her way and tells her again. And she says .....well, I forget because the RMN TASK FORCE that has managed (no surprise) to remain hidden from Tsang and her forward placed DDs un-clokes. At that point she decides "this is not a good day to die" and, tucking her tail tightly between her legs, runs away.

I guess she isn't as clueless and arrogant as some people thought when they sent her out to die (one way or another)
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Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Jul 31, 2020 8:49 pm

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cthia wrote:Understood. But even if it isn't defended by forts, wouldn't warships be tasked with the duty? LACs could handle the duty can't they? Why would the League not think the junction was still being defended, at least, by ships?


At this point, the SLN had not seen any modern LACs. If anyone had reported that there were LACs at the Junction, they would have laughed their asses out and when they stopped crying they would just say "neobarbs can't even buy decent ships!" Remember that prior to Buttercup, LACs were third-rate ships and saw as much service in first-rate navies as frigates: namely, none at all.

The thinking on other ship types must have been that if Filareta had arrived with 431 SDs plus escorts, the RMN would send everything and the kitchen sink to defend their system. It should have been an all-hands-on-deck situation.

The fact that the RMN had spared 60 superdreadnoughts to oppose her force was a huge surprise to Tsang. I remind again that the RMN knew that Filareta was coming and was telling everyone that, so Tsang would be under no illusion that this task force didn't know either. This task force was on the Sigma Draconis side knowing there were 431 SDs coming to their home system.
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Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by cthia   » Sat Aug 01, 2020 12:54 am

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Indeed. That part about the LACs should have been parenthesized. It was more for MY edification, and simply a throwaway statement. The point being, the idiots should have known the junction would be defended with SOMETHING, even if with only Grayson's baseball bats. Which would have been more than adequate for these gorillas.

I don't quite understand the rest of your post. I was under the impression just one or two SD(P)s could defend the junction against even that many ships coming through piecemeal and naked.

Another question. Why is it even necessary to worry about defending the MWJ from transits at this juncture (pardon the pun) of the MBS's development? In storyline, "They'll have the junction only long enough for help to arrive to kick them off." That statement is meaningless when "help" is already there. Lots of it! Of course, we know it isn't necessary. The RMN can open the MWJ wide open and swat flies as they enter the house. Which is what Beowulf was trying to tell them would happen.

Even if the Silly Sols got every ship, Filareta and Tsang, in-system, what could they do with their... good fortune??? They were not only counting on the keepers of the castle to be gone, but for their magazines to be empty as well. If the mags were empty, they didn't need Tsang anyway.

With Apollo and the RMNs advantage in missile range, the junction can be left wide open.

ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK

Gone is the need to even fortify the junction from Beowulf, now, it seems, certainly as long as Paul Revere has a relative living on Beowulf.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by cthia   » Sat Aug 01, 2020 9:27 am

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At what point in the timeline did Manticore exceed the League's ability to carry trade? Exactly when could the RMN have surpassed the League in the number of freighters? By nature, the League had thousands of worlds and was steadily growing. Simply considering their own need for freighters should have given them as many as the warships they had in storage. And they certainly would have wanted their subjects to trade with them, which would have bolstered their economy. It would be like the US losing all of its imports and exports to North Korea. No, make that China who got rich off of the error of America's lax trading policies which in turn funded its Navy and enabled it to get uppity, just like certain neobarbs.

Surely the League could build freighters coming out of their arse, if they didn't have their heads stuck up there.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by Dauntless   » Sat Aug 01, 2020 10:16 am

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You forget the arrogance of the the sollies.

In their minds NO-ONE would ever even THINK about attacking the SL, economically or physically, so the idea that it would matter whose flag the freighters carried was irreverent. particularly when shipping via manty hulls saved the transtellor all the maintenance and personnel costs of running their own freighters.

once the manties pulled their ships, they did start to build some of their own, they no choice but that takes time min 6 months probably for a 4+ MT ship, even with solly tech, which was quite good outside the SLN. also before the ships were finished manticore had the gall to stop SL hulls going through lots of wormholes so transit times incresed a lot, effectively removing more freighters from those available to carry cargo.
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Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Sat Aug 01, 2020 1:42 pm

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cthia wrote:Indeed. That part about the LACs should have been parenthesized. It was more for MY edification, and simply a throwaway statement. The point being, the idiots should have known the junction would be defended with SOMETHING, even if with only Grayson's baseball bats. Which would have been more than adequate for these gorillas.


Well, to take your hyperbole, this is probably what the Sollies were thinking: the neobarbs would defend the wormhole with baseball bats, clubs and laser pointers. There would be nothing to stop Tsang from completing her transit, if she needed.

I don't quite understand the rest of your post. I was under the impression just one or two SD(P)s could defend the junction against even that many ships coming through piecemeal and naked.


Non-hyperbolically: the point is that between defending the home system where the Queen (now Empress) lives and the Junction, the home system takes precedence. Lose it and game over. Lose the Junction and you can still live to fight another day. So even if there had been a division or squadron of SD(P)s at the Junction, by the time Filareta showed up, the SLN expected them to go to the inner system to help defend it. All hands on deck. That would leave the Junction undefended against transit, which would give Tsang a window of opportunity to get a beachhead in the Junction. Once she had a squadron of her SDs (12 minutes of transit), she could defend locally against being retaken.

We know that's a flawed conclusion. And THEY should have known it too. First, the aforementioned forts: those can't contribute to the defence of the home system even if they wanted to. Moving such a giant is a work of at least a week, probably longer. As I said before, forts are overt defences and anyone who transited the Junction in the last 3 months would have seen them.

Second, it ignores the fact that the RMN didn't need an SD(P) to defend the Junction from transit. Terekhov had shown that he could defeat 73 SDs with just cruisers. However poor the SLN thought of the RMN, they knew RMN cruisers in Talbott could control pods, so even if the RMN hadn't scaled that capability down to CLs, destroyers or frigates or LACs, they could just leave a single lone cruiser to defend the Junction from transit.

Even if the Silly Sols got every ship, Filareta and Tsang, in-system, what could they do with their... good fortune??? They were not only counting on the keepers of the castle to be gone, but for their magazines to be empty as well. If the mags were empty, they didn't need Tsang anyway.


Indeed. If 431 SDs couldn't do it, what would an extra 100 help?

With Apollo and the RMNs advantage in missile range, the junction can be left wide open.

ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK

Gone is the need to even fortify the junction from Beowulf, now, it seems, certainly as long as Paul Revere has a relative living on Beowulf.


You need to have someone there to prevent a hostile force from doing what the GA did with Lacoön: block traffic. Once that someone is there, you can't dislodge them via transit. You'd have to send a force via hyperspace the long way around to do that, which takes time while you're losing commerce and fees.
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Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by drothgery   » Sat Aug 01, 2020 6:41 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:Remember that prior to Buttercup, LACs were third-rate ships and saw as much service in first-rate navies as frigates: namely, none at all.

Prior to 2nd Hancock, surely.
And that's kind of short-changing the Trojans' LACs.
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Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by cthia   » Sun Aug 02, 2020 6:25 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
cthia wrote:Indeed. That part about the LACs should have been parenthesized. It was more for MY edification, and simply a throwaway statement. The point being, the idiots should have known the junction would be defended with SOMETHING, even if with only Grayson's baseball bats. Which would have been more than adequate for these gorillas.


Well, to take your hyperbole, this is probably what the Sollies were thinking: the neobarbs would defend the wormhole with baseball bats, clubs and laser pointers. There would be nothing to stop Tsang from completing her transit, if she needed.

I don't quite understand the rest of your post. I was under the impression just one or two SD(P)s could defend the junction against even that many ships coming through piecemeal and naked.


Non-hyperbolically: the point is that between defending the home system where the Queen (now Empress) lives and the Junction, the home system takes precedence. Lose it and game over. Lose the Junction and you can still live to fight another day. So even if there had been a division or squadron of SD(P)s at the Junction, by the time Filareta showed up, the SLN expected them to go to the inner system to help defend it. All hands on deck. That would leave the Junction undefended against transit, which would give Tsang a window of opportunity to get a beachhead in the Junction. Once she had a squadron of her SDs (12 minutes of transit), she could defend locally against being retaken.

We know that's a flawed conclusion. And THEY should have known it too. First, the aforementioned forts: those can't contribute to the defence of the home system even if they wanted to. Moving such a giant is a work of at least a week, probably longer. As I said before, forts are overt defences and anyone who transited the Junction in the last 3 months would have seen them.

Second, it ignores the fact that the RMN didn't need an SD(P) to defend the Junction from transit. Terekhov had shown that he could defeat 73 SDs with just cruisers. However poor the SLN thought of the RMN, they knew RMN cruisers in Talbott could control pods, so even if the RMN hadn't scaled that capability down to CLs, destroyers or frigates or LACs, they could just leave a single lone cruiser to defend the Junction from transit.

Even if the Silly Sols got every ship, Filareta and Tsang, in-system, what could they do with their... good fortune??? They were not only counting on the keepers of the castle to be gone, but for their magazines to be empty as well. If the mags were empty, they didn't need Tsang anyway.


Indeed. If 431 SDs couldn't do it, what would an extra 100 help?

With Apollo and the RMNs advantage in missile range, the junction can be left wide open.

ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK

Gone is the need to even fortify the junction from Beowulf, now, it seems, certainly as long as Paul Revere has a relative living on Beowulf.


You need to have someone there to prevent a hostile force from doing what the GA did with Lacoön: block traffic. Once that someone is there, you can't dislodge them via transit. You'd have to send a force via hyperspace the long way around to do that, which takes time while you're losing commerce and fees.

You and I and everyone in the Haven system knows the RMN can defend the wormhole against 431 SDs with mere cruisers, but I doubt the Sols knew. So they should have expected an SD or two. And knowing what mere cruisers were capable of, they should have had diapers full of baby caca over the prospect of tangling with a Manty SD. A prospect which was a cloud of trepidation painted by the entire series.

Pulled their own Lacoon? From within the MBS? ??? ???

How's that possible? That would be like 431 spiders crawling inside an ant tower saying "We're commandeering the gateway."

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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