cthia wrote:But when an attacker crosses the hyper limit, the defender's area of concern becomes much smaller. Falling further down the gravity well in hopes of a zero/zero intercept with the planet changes the tactical situation more into something resembling a choke point.
Of course it's smaller. The problem is that however small it is, the hyper limit is still way too big for any single-system navy to protect the sphere.
Further down the gravity well, MUCH closer to the planet, the situation is different. But we're talking a handful of light-seconds from the planet, not light-minutes.
It is odd that your traditional read on the tactical situation does not change considering that this is an enemy you cannot see. That is an error that could be very fatal.
This has nothing to do with the ability to see anything. This is simply about the maximum range of the spider assets given the time and a probabilistic encounter. If the GA knows the acceleration limits of the spiders, then they can make use of this advantage. If they don't, they'd have to come up with a very different plan because their risk assessment and probability of success shift considerably. They'd probably send probing attacks first, which may reveal some of the constraints.
However, the defenders do know the capabilities. And they shouldn't bet the farm on the GA not knowing the upper acceleration limits of their defences. That's a very, very thin defence. So the defenders need to disposition their assets in a way that actually defends something.
You also fail to realize what strategic situation will undoubtedly exist for the GA. The GA cannot simply hyper into the system and destroy peripheral infrastructure and then turn around and leave without any further confrontation. This can't simply be a raid. The MAlign is not an entity you can attack, and make the mistake of leaving their Navy intact. You are charged with controlling the orbitals and forcing the planet and government to surrender. Or, however long it takes this entity - who doesn't play by the rules of war - to get their invisible ships into position in your Home System will KEW your planet into ruins.
Who said anything about leaving? I'm talking about a siege. Unless the MAlign has equipped every freighter with stealth and a spider, which is extremely unlikely, the freighters and ore haulers from the outer system will be vulnerable to interdiction. They can't even be used as good traps, because no freighter ever made can fight a single LAC. And don't say Q-ships, because they can only be used once and you can't have all your freighters be Q-ships.
The siege can't stop the stealth ships from leaving, but those that have left can't easily return. Unlike the spiders, the GA missiles can cover 65 million km in 9 minutes and 6 light-minutes in 15, a time that doesn't allow the returning ship to have sufficiently moved to guarantee escaping. And where is it going to rearm?
I always assumed that space stations and orbitals are located in the path of common travel lanes near the elliptic. Half of the area around the planet is protected by the planet. You cannot target a space station with a planet in-between you and the target.
Of course you can. To "see" what's on the other side, you just need some Ghost Riders having swung a wide curve around the planet. Then fire a missile past it, which turns and shoots backwards.
Another point is that something in any non-stationary orbit is moving relative to the planet, so it will come out in the open eventually. And if it's in stationary orbit so it won't do that, then it's also 36000 km from the planet, meaning it can be fired from the sides. Plus, te attackers can also move so the planet is not between them.
Actually, something in a fast, low-orbit is harder to attack because of its proximity to the planet and accuracy of the weapons.
I keep saying that the GA's fleet train will have a very limited expiration date in this system. Therefore, the GA will not have an unlimited supply of missiles. The fleet train will be as close to certain death as any GA platforms.
No doubt that the GA would have a longer logistic line at this point. Their supplies must be brought in from far away, via hyper. Meanwhile, the defenders have the shortest possible supply lines: their sitting on their supply.
But remember they've yielded the entire space-based infrastructure outside the planet. All the mineral extraction facilities, haulers, and cloudscoops will be gone. And depending on how angered the CO of the attacking fleet is, he/she may decide to attack the near-orbit space facilities too. Apollo is accurate enough to do that to anything above very low orbit, from nearly the hyperlimit.
I also keep saying that I suspect storyline to advance the timeline enough for the MA to become a worthy adversary. So the constant bit about the MA not having enough time to seed the system doesn't worry me. Pair that with the fact that Darius is a virgin system to war. At the time of invasion, they will not have suffered losing endless tons of infrastructure.
We know it won't advance decades. And even if it did, "seeding" the system to the levels you're discussing wouldn't happen. To get the levels you're discussing, given the pace we've seen anywhere in the HV, they'd need multiple centuries.
The 700+ gravities a LAC can pull will be irrelevent. I keep telling you, when you are blind you have to slow down and feel your way around. Or stumble and fall. If you fall, you die. The LACs won't be able to leave the protection of the fleet anyway to go charge after ghosts. To control the orbitals, that same 120 - 200 SDs will have to run the gauntlet. The invisible gauntlet. Good luck with that.
No, that analogy does not apply. There's no need to decelerate. What matters is not the relative velocity, but the relative
position.
The important thing is that if you're not trying to run the gauntlet, then your future position can't be predicted with any certainty. Given enough acceleration difference, the chance that any attack launched by the defenders will be in range of the sieging fleet is minimal. And given the sphere defence solution, with LACs around the perimeter, we've discussed, the chance of weapons penetrating the perimeter to strike at the big boys in the middle is minimal, even assuming maximum relative velocity, which you can't assume. Honor's attack at Solon, with a mere 2 Invictus-class SD(P)s and 6 CLACs, nearly stopped 11,000 Havenite missiles cold and those were screaming in at over three quarters of light-speed.
Against this, the MAlign would have far better chance using Cataphract missiles, which are very visible and much less powerful, but exist in much greater quantity and have a far better chance of generating an intercept.