cthia wrote:At any rate, I pulled that complaint out of my in-box to have a closer look. Right out of the box I recalled that Manticore even had a very big warning that Operation Raging Justice was coming, what it entailed, when it was arriving, its CO, and the order of battle. Damn! What a cheatsheet!
I wonder how that Operation would have fared had it been a total surprise; if the SLN had managed to maintain total Operation Security. My two bitcoins on it is the floor still would have been mopped with them, but perhaps some key RMN personnel would have died.
It would still have been turned around, but would have been far bloodier. And that's considering that the SLN lost 250 SDs outright in that battle.
Remember that the Second Battle of Manticore happened about one year after the First. And remember why Haven launched Operation Beatrice in the first place: Apollo missiles and possible deployment thereof in system defence.
So when Filareta arrived, there would have been a significant constellation of Mk42 system-defence versions of Apollo. Filareta wouldn't have walked into a trap that was designed for him to surrender with minimal bloodshed. Instead, a Case Zulu would be declared and the missiles fired once he attempted to close with Sphinx. RMN assets could have found themselves in the wrong position, too close to avoid battle with the arriving SLN, given that Filareta had those Galton-improved Cataphracts.
But in the end, there was nothing he could do. The assessment in the text was that Yeltsin's Star could survive an attack by 1000 superdreadnoughts and I'm assuming they were talking about Havenite quality ones, not SLN. The MBS could probably do better, at the very least because they'd have enough time to shift resources from one of the components to the other and call in reserves via the Junction.
As for what it would mean if Darius is forewarned, I can't tell. I should point out that Galton did not it was going to eventually be invaded, but I don't see that there was anything that they could have done to change the outcome, or even nudge it significantly.