cthia wrote:Everyone is making one of the most common thus frequent mistakes on the forum. Time and time again it is reproduced. But, when attacking Darius this mistake could be fatal. Very well will be.
We know it won't.
What the game-changer will be, we don't know. But something will make that attack possible.
Possibilities:
- the GA develops effective, even if limited, spider detection capability;
- the attack happens before the MAN can build sufficient spider-driven defences;
- the attacking force is so disproportionately large (RMN, IAN, RHN, GSN, SLN) that it offsets the stealth advantages;
- a fifth column inside the Onion thwarts plans to defend, defecting with plans and/or sabotaging defences.
Or maybe there will be no attack on Darius and a revolution inside the Onion deposes the Detweilers.
Attacking Darius is taking on a completely different paradigm in tactical and strategic planning. You cannot treat the MAN as if it is a traditional navy. Because it isn't. Everything will be different. You cannot judge a MAN by his clothing, or his attire by your closet. Case in point, let's address a major wound ...
No one is treating them as a conventional navy here.
Gentlemen, you have just hypered into a system that turns its weaknesses into strengths. This system has formulated its tactics and strategy around its own technology and not around the wedges of enemies. When you hyper into the Darius System you cannot expect the tactical situation to resemble anything outside of that system.
That's a vague statement. Tell us concretely what it means in terms which assets are used, where they are placed, and how they're used.
And, you cannot fly rings around emplacements that you cannot see.
A fort with no bubblewall is extremely vulnerable against a lucky shot. See the post above for why it has to be close to the planet it's defending. And like Jonathan and munroburton have said, an asset that moves like a ship, fights like a ship, and quacks like a ship is a ship, not a fort.
And you don't have to see the attacker to keep evading. Make long, zig-zagging courses, spiralling down the gravity well towards the planet, so the defender forces which you don't see get all garbled up.
Plus! This system uses the enemies strengths against them. This system turns the enemy's higher accel into a liability. When warships are pulling five hundred gravities they can't instantly alter their bearing like a dogfighter. And an enemy that has totally infested its system with invisible system defense pods and invisible forts and Spiders will have those weapons emplaced at very specific strategic positions to ward off the much quicker but far more clumsier flies flying blind. Have you ever played the game of Fox & Geese? Making the right move - strategic and methodical - traps the fox every time.
No, but a ship pulling 500 gravities can change its vector much more quickly than one pulling 150 that was trying to shadow it can. The problem with the smaller acceleration is that the defenders MUST take the inner position, which means they must be at a much more limited volume of space than the attackers.
The lower acceleration is a weakness. It cannot be turned into a strength.
I would imagine that while Forts may enjoy specific positions of mutual support, Spiders also crawl to specific predefined locations at the first sign of invasion. Spiders and Forts don't need to be quicker, just smarter. As long as those faster ships don't outrun the calculated engagement range of the Spiders plus their graser torps. That is what I meant by ...
Agreed. They must fight smart to compensate for the weakness of their acceleration. The capital ships may use their stealth to their advantage too.