tlb wrote:penny wrote:If member systems are allowed to have their own SDF, then it should not matter if a neighbor loaned their SDF out to another in an emergency. Then if Beowulf had gotten the intel in time, some units of its SDF could have assisted Hypatia.The problem I see with Beowulf helping Hypatia, is that such action would be more in the form of moral support, than effective assistance. Beowulf's ships are still Solarian standard at that point and would be greatly outnumbered by the SLN forces sent to destroy the orbitals. Even the ships from Manticore took major damage, except for the one equipped with multi-drive missiles. So Beowulf certainly would send the ships and lose them making a moral point and a physical defeat.Jonathan_S wrote:Didn't the attack on Hypatia happened after Beowulf left the League? If I'm remembering correctly then it wouldn't actually have mattered anymore to them what rules might (or might not) have applied to a member worlds use of its SDF. (Though it appears that it might have happened in the interval between Beowulf announcing its intention and actually holding its plebiscite to let it's citizen vote on the matter).
Good point. Beowulf would likely have needed to send most of its entire SDF (say at least the majority of the 36 SDs they'd had at the terminus confrontation with Admiral Tsang) to survive the missiles salvos from the 98 BCs (plus escorts) the SLN sent against Hypatia. And that's assuming that the Buccaneer forces still lost their missile colliers before they could deploy additional pods (something that Beowulf's forces alone likely couldn't have pulled off).
The SLN force had Cataphracts in their magazines and Beowulf's ships don't mount missiles of such range (though I guess we don't know what kind of GA missile pods they might have already had access to). So it's unclear if Beowulf could have even successfully fired back unless they'd been able to sneak into SDM range.
Now if Beowulf had had an SD squadron or two (or several BC squadrons) supplementing the RMN's TG 110.2 then that extra missile defense (even if they contributed nothing offensively) might have let much more of the task group survive the 120,000 missile alpha strike they called down on their heads -- and thus not required HMS Arngrim, as its sole detached survivor, to basically bluff the surviving SLN ships into retreating. (Though given the less effective per ton missile defenses that Beowuld SDF ships presumably have the total killed might have been higher, even if the percent of the force destroyed was reduced)