cthia wrote:Let me get this straight. Imagine the
War Room with the nice holotank and top brass is assembled to game it all out. I don't imagine the holotank is going to make the job that used to be done with old-fashioned pointers and miniature figures any easier for the admiralty when "virtually" none of the important variables are known.
As I said above, a siege is not the first strategy. The first thing you do to a newly discovered enemy location is surveillance. You watch it to see what assets it has, what its lines of communications and supply are, whether any weaknesses can be spotted in their operating procedures, etc.
Siege is the second option, if outright military victory isn't possible.
1. Where are their supply lines?
They could have invisible supply lines already set up in the system. And their invisible ships could be rearmed from system emplacements like the SLN ships were rearmed from the rear with Cataphracts.
I like that system, btw. I suggested it some time ago. I never understood why ships wouldn't "loan" another ship missiles. Like when you are in a gunfight and you toss your mate a clip. Why can't ships launch however many missiles toward another ship - ballistically, using a ballistic launch without firing off the missile's drives. The receiving ship can simply snare them with tractors and load them aboard in magazines. The entire process should be automated. But colliers can eject, send, thousands.
Extremely unlikely that the supply ships are invisible all the time. It's extremely unlikely that the MAN is using stealth freighters with spiders. That would not only increase the operating cost enormously, it would be extremely reckless. It would increase the cost because the spider isn't cheap -- it's a new technology. It changes the hull form from the most advantageous volume/mass ratio (circular cross-section), which means the same mass of ship can carry less cargo. It increases the operating cost because the spider is so slow. And it increases the operating cost because the stealth is also a mass & power penalty to operate, around the clock. All of this increases the maintenance cost of the freighter. And on top of that, it's a security risk, because you multiply the number of spider ships with top-of-the-line stealth technology out there, and only one being detected or, worse, captured, gives the game away.
Plus, that makes the warships more expensive and/or late too, since they now compete with the freighters for shipyard and other resource allocations.
Even if all of that were true, which I can't see being so, there's the question of being stealth ALL the time. The surveillance ship will focus their scanners and Ghost Riders on the points where the stealth ships must go: the ship yards, the industrial centres, etc. Once the stealth ship opens its doors to load and reload, the stealth is compromised and it s very visible. Then the surveillance ship will just covertly stalk that ship to see where it's going.
2. Is there a back way into the town?
— "We don't know. There could be another junction leading in and out."
Two junctions in a system? Unless they've already gone through the Twins, they wouldn't think about that.
If you meant whether there may be a junction in a nearby star system, like the Phoenix Wormhole "Junction," then sure. But even then a round-trip time is a week, plus whatever time on the other side.
Again, tailing the ships that are going from this system to figure out where they're going and who the allies are would be the first order of the day.
3. Where are their warships?
— "We don't know."
A few of them are visible on the shipyards.
4. What do they have for system defense?
— "We don't know."
That's generally true of any system. Most of the defences aren't advertised and must be discovered by other means, such as leaked intelligence or leaked emissions. Finding out as much as possible about this, such as observing the maintenance of a weapons platform or missile pod, is quite required.
5. What is the order of battle of their Home Fleet?
— "We don't know. We can't see it anyway."
Ditto as above. The ones that are in active patrol will eventually rotate back to receive resupply. At that point, they're visible.
Another point is that the size of the observed shipyards and the pace at which they're constructing now can give an upper number of ships that could have been produced. (In this shipyard, of course; they'd have to wonder if there aren't others in other undiscovered systems)
6. What type of weapons do they have?
— "We don't know."
As above. You either need intelligence breakthroughs or you need to face them in battle to get their measure.
8. Well do we at least have a good location we can use as a staging area?
— "We don't know for sure. We can wing it by stooging outside their hyper limit."
That one we can say for sure is the wrong answer. There are any number of empty systems nearby, within a few days' travel, that could be used as a staging point. They will know the astrography much better than we can.
"We can't see what we're supposed to be surrounding? And we won't know whether WE are surrounded?
You can't see a planet? We've been able to see planets in our sky since we've had eyes!
I agree you won't know if you're surrounded, but I counter by saying there's no way that the surrounding of a significantly-sized fleet can affect its movements. It can always get out. Sieges aren't done to mobile forces; they are done to fixed population and industrial centres.
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inhumane.