The Factor

Let the Record show that "deowll" <***@gmail.com> on or about Sun,
28 Feb 2010 20:43:54 -0600 did write/type or cause to appear in

Post by deowll
If the fleet on its way to Manticore is taken out after inflecting no
damages it is likely that the present head of the SLN will be forced to
retire one way or the other since about 1/4 of career battle fleet crews
will have vanished dead or captive under his watch and his avowed intent to
send in another 600 would bring it up to half of the normal career battle
fleet crews. Since DW has said everybody is related to everybody with strong
ties to the military procurement side that has got to hurt. When battle
fleet hasn't had a casualty in centuries having one 1/4 of everybody gone is
going to cause a massive culture shock.

But lots of room for promotion...

-
pyotr filipivich.
Just about the time you finally see light at the end of the tunnel,
you find out it's a Government Project to build more tunnel.

deowll

2010-03-03 05:44:45 UTC

Post by pyotr filipivich
28 Feb 2010 20:43:54 -0600 did write/type or cause to appear in

But lots of room for promotion...

They will have millions of job openings many of them for very senior, high
ranking, and high paying positions. An observation that is going to make
people in similar positions extremely unhappy.

None of which is going to help recruiting all that much when their
unspoken recruiting slogan is going to be, "Join the SLN and die."

1) If you kill my brother/sister and a major hunk of my family by sending
them on a suicide mission that accomplished absolutely nothing for our side
in order to give me a promotion I'm not going to like you.

2) If your plans include sending me on the same suicide mission you sent him
on I'm going to like you even less. In fact I'm going to want you dead. I'm
also not going to want anything to do your insane mission.

3) I don't think anyone else is going to be volunteering for this mission
either even with a promotion and combat duty pay.

4) The Sollies do not have the trained crews to turn the mothballed fleet
into a coordinated, polished fighting force in less than years. They can
most likely get it moving in months but that isn't the same thing nor are
these ships going to have any prospects of survival much less victory
against what they are being activated to attack all of which is going to be
painfully obvious to everybody.

In a way it might look like all the League officials have to do is delay any
more attacks until they can do the research and build new fleets but their
prestige will be shoot and much of battle fleet that is activated is not
going to be fully ready to rock and roll assuming that it had at least
thought it was before this situation blew up on them.

A lot of Frontier Fleet is out of position and had been operating short
handed before this came along. People were folding because they knew what
would happen when Battle Fleet showed up. I say that Frontier Fleet is
about to be put to the test. They are going to start needing wallers to back
them up and the cash flow should be down to pay for anything. The six
hundred waller fleet being put together is also going to have major
screening units pulled out of Frontier Fleet which will stretch it a lot
thinner.

The more remote parts of the League are going to start doing their own thing
without that much less regard for what the home office thinks. I suspect
that means cash flow is going to dry up even more as remote parts of the
League decide to keep the money for their own uses. In order to deal with
that Battle Fleet is going to need to send major units of wallers to show
the flag and if anything where to happen to some of them... At that point
the entire situation could easily spiral completely out of control because
as soon as one sector blows up a dozen more may do the same thing plus
commerce raiding may run wild and Frontier Fleet is going to need to grow
like a weed to control it. There will be a struggle for resources between
Frontier Fleet and Battle Fleet. My money is on Battle Fleet getting the
money but this could well be a huge mistake.

I am assuming that Mr. D has seen the need for commerce raiders to stir the
waters and major forces are going to be in place to start raiding commerce
as soon as the word gets out that the SLN fleet was taken out at Manticore
besides what would have occurred naturally. Maybe it was even stated?

This is going to cause everybody to want to upgrade their navel units and
many of them will actually need to do more commerce protection.

By the way in Torch of Freedom some Masen reworked ships got turned over to
Torch. Those ships are going to need missiles: cataphracts I think. Torch
can try to role their own or contract with a neighbor most likely the same
neighbor making hardware for Maya. That observation leaves me wondering who
else said neighbor might be making hardware for.

By the way I'm reasonably confident that with a little help Silesia could
build two stage missiles more or less like the ones being made by Mesa and
with some help Talbot could at least make some very long range one stage
system defense missiles not that I expect DW to take advantage of any of
that. I'm merely observing that is is the sort of thing that people with
their backs up against the wall would do as insurance against having their
new one and only missile production yard for their super high tech missiles
taken out and leaving you with nothing. Putting all your eggs in one basket
when everybody's life depends on it is not just stupid; it's stooopid. You
always have a plan B fall back position if you can, and they could have,
even though you hope not to ever have to use it. However this is DW's story
line and I'm pretty sure he's not going to have them do it anyway.

I suppose the need for this back up production is reduced if Haven is
willing to supply their missiles complete with pods and maybe the ships to
use them but this should have already been in the works with everybody
hoping that these third rate fall back missiles aren't needed and can
eventually be scraped out or sold off as surplus. Now that is an interesting
thought. What do you want to bet that a lot of people stuck with one stage
missiles might like to buy some two stage missiles?

A thought on Mr. D's fleet. To me these ships would be great to send in
fours and fives to locations that you know one or two Frontier Fleet ships
will show up and take them out and do some commerce raiding. Basically you
are just thinning the numbers without going for a fleet action until what is
left of Frontier Fleet clumps up for self defense and leaves much/most of
the League unpoliced. In fact I might hit a few Frontier Fleet bases I
thought was going to get in the way or even Battle Fleet though you would
need to pick your targets or that might back fire in public opinion. You
might take out a space station or two just to make it clear to the locals
that Frontier Fleet is not protecting them though just setting off an old
contact nuke nearby should make that point. I suppose they could demand
tribute but the real objective would be to cause people to seek entry in
some organization other than the League.

At least to start with I think I'd keep my stealth ships well hidden and
just do some Frontier Fleet hunting. Try to catch them somewhere near the
hyper limit and take them out without anyone getting a very clear look at
what happened. I might not use them for commerce raiding because of the
world view the crews have. This is a problem. The people crewing that fleet
and the people living on the world with the hidden navel yard have been lied
to and they most likely aren't going to be compeletely happy when they find
out about it.

Of course I don't think that's how Mr. D is planning on using those ships at
all.

Post by pyotr filipivich
-
pyotr filipivich.
Just about the time you finally see light at the end of the tunnel,
you find out it's a Government Project to build more tunnel.

pyotr filipivich

2010-03-22 19:19:09 UTC

Let the Record show that "deowll" <***@gmail.com> on or about Tue,
2 Mar 2010 23:44:45 -0600 did write/type or cause to appear in

But lots of room for promotion...

What is the unspoken assumption of the various factions on the
boards of directorates of the Mesa conglomerates? "If only those
clowns would get out of the way, we could implement our Brilliant
Plan"?
Same would go for the SLN - "they" got killed because they did
something stupid.

How many lower ranks are waiting for an opportunity to get
promoted to where they can finally do something to fix this JFOU
(Joint fleet operations foul up)?
-
pyotr filipivich.
Just about the time you finally see light at the end of the tunnel,
you find out it's a Government Project to build more tunnel.

deowll

2010-03-23 04:55:04 UTC

Post by pyotr filipivich
2 Mar 2010 23:44:45 -0600 did write/type or cause to appear in

But lots of room for promotion...

No. The Mesa Conglomerates don't actually have much to say in this because
they aren't that far inside the onion.

Post by pyotr filipivich
Same would go for the SLN - "they" got killed because they did
something stupid.

Exactly. Everybody except the guy that issued the orders is going to be
thinking that ONI is run by cretins and the top brass is brain dead. The
stupid thing that was done was attacking somebody with advanced tech using
obsolete tech. This is going to be glaringly obvious.

Post by pyotr filipivich
How many lower ranks are waiting for an opportunity to get
promoted to where they can finally do something to fix this JFOU
(Joint fleet operations foul up)?
-

The people doing the deciding are all still safe and sound and still
occupying space.

If your boss just made a series of mistakes that caused every fourth person
in your branch of the military on active duty to die or become a POW getting
a promotion is not likely your highest priority when it is his expressed
wish to do the same thing to you. Preventing him from killing you and your
friends is most likely going to be your highest priority.

Post by pyotr filipivich
pyotr filipivich.
Just about the time you finally see light at the end of the tunnel,
you find out it's a Government Project to build more tunnel.

pyotr filipivich

2010-03-23 07:22:40 UTC

Let the Record show that "deowll" <***@gmail.com> on or about Mon,
22 Mar 2010 23:55:04 -0500 did write/type or cause to appear in

Post by pyotr filipivich
What is the unspoken assumption of the various factions on the
boards of directorates of the Mesa conglomerates? "If only those
clowns would get out of the way, we could implement our Brilliant
Plan"?

No. The Mesa Conglomerates don't actually have much to say in this because
they aren't that far inside the onion.

Analogy. Meas is plague by the idea that We know what we are
doing,unlike those bunglers. The Sollies have the same mind set.

Post by pyotr filipivich
Same would go for the SLN - "they" got killed because they did
something stupid.

Exactly. Everybody except the guy that issued the orders is going to be
thinking that ONI is run by cretins and the top brass is brain dead.

They've thought that for the last how many centuries? Such
thinking exists now, and we haven't even left the planet!

Post by deowll
The stupid thing that was done was attacking somebody with advanced
tech using obsolete tech. This is going to be glaringly obvious.

Now, now it is obvious. Remember, the British Navy set sail in
1917 for what became known as the Battle of Jutland, in ships which
were actually technologically inferior to the German Kreigsmarine. How
ever, they also set sail to yet another Glorious Victory, harumph,
harumph. Jolly Good, and all that. They almost got their kesters
handed to them, but they expected to win, while the Germans were not
as confident in their own ability.
Now, how that would apply to this situation is that the Sollies go
forth to muddle through to Yet Another Victory over another bunch of
upstart neo-barbs. Only the Manties aren't that backwards, or over
awed. They've been cutting edge for some years now, and know it. The
only thing they are "worried" about is the "quantity has its own
quality" issue. So, they tangle with the Sollies and introduce them
to Modern Warfare.

The rest of the SL fleet is going to be after revenge, although
some are going to wonder how exactly, such a debacle could have
occurred in the first place. But Beurocr^H^H^H^ Organizational
inertia is against them - the problems are not so much in the
Solarian ships, as they got over confident.
-
pyotr filipivich.
Just about the time you finally see light at the end of the tunnel,
you find out it's a Government Project to build more tunnel.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-24 01:50:52 UTC

On Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:22:40 -0700, pyotr filipivich

Post by pyotr filipivich
The rest of the SL fleet is going to be after revenge, although
some are going to wonder how exactly, such a debacle could have
occurred in the first place. But Beurocr^H^H^H^ Organizational
inertia is against them - the problems are not so much in the
Solarian ships, as they got over confident.

Except for one little detail: The utter one-sidedness of the battles.
The Sollies have just had an incredible demonstration of how far
behind they are. They didn't live to fire a single shot despite
apparently having an overwhelming advantage.

The people on the rest of the fleet will know about that disasterous
battle. Now what happens with round 2 and they find themselves with
nowhere near the advantage they had before.

And what happens when Haven does an all-hands broadcast: We are aware
of your mission. The situation is very different than you were
expecting. While Manticore's infrastructure was damaged their
defenses are intact. Our war with them has ended, we have united
against our true opponent. We are here as our second-rate missiles
are still capable of defeating you as totally as in the battle of
Spindle. Even if you somehow got past us Manticore is capable of
destroying your entire fleet in a single salvo.

As we do not like killing millions of people who are just following
orders we hope you will have the sense not to fight.

deowll

2010-03-24 04:59:39 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
On Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:22:40 -0700, pyotr filipivich

Except for one little detail: The utter one-sidedness of the battles.
The Sollies have just had an incredible demonstration of how far
behind they are. They didn't live to fire a single shot despite
apparently having an overwhelming advantage.
The people on the rest of the fleet will know about that disasterous
battle. Now what happens with round 2 and they find themselves with
nowhere near the advantage they had before.
And what happens when Haven does an all-hands broadcast: We are aware
of your mission. The situation is very different than you were
expecting. While Manticore's infrastructure was damaged their
defenses are intact. Our war with them has ended, we have united
against our true opponent. We are here as our second-rate missiles
are still capable of defeating you as totally as in the battle of
Spindle. Even if you somehow got past us Manticore is capable of
destroying your entire fleet in a single salvo.
As we do not like killing millions of people who are just following
orders we hope you will have the sense not to fight.

I thought the Havenites would just appear out of hyper behind them and say,
"Dudes, you guys are cluster fucked. As some of you may of guessed sense it
hasn't been right yet, your office of navel incompetence didn't get its
facts straight before it sent you off in your antiques to beat up on us poor
backward neobarbs.

Yah got two choices. Roll your wedges and evacuate as many of your people as
yah can and we'll pick them up along with who ever got left on board and you
can live to a rip old age'r you're going to die in your skin suits sometime
in the next 30 minutes or so. It's purely up you to decide. I don't want cha
to think I'm pressuring you do something you don't want to do or nothing. We
believe in freedom of choice and personal responsibility. You are the ones
that are going to live or die as the results of your choices today and it
should clearly be up to you to decide which you want to do.

We're going to start shooting in one minute and as long as yah follow
directions you can go on living. Refuse and it's up to you to stop the
missiles heading your way anyway you can or die trying. If you don't roll
your wedges before it's to late to stop or redirect our attack your next of
kin will be duly informed of your unfortunate demise. Well actually they'll
most likely learn about it on the evening news. We invited the press to come
watch you get your ass kicked. The way we saw it was if you guys wanted to
commit suicide the least yah deserved was your six seconds of fame.

I guess we might as well kill the center first. That way if what's his face
doesn't roll over nobody's going to have to worry about _him_ making a
negative report about _them_ because they did cause he's gonna be in
Valhalla. Tony, Fire one! At that point a massive wave of missiles heads
toward the center of the SLN fleet.

From that point forward it's going to be up to each ships captain to decide
what the right thing is and do it. Isn't freedom of choice and personal
responsibility a wonderful thing?

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-24 20:27:34 UTC

Post by deowll
I thought the Havenites would just appear out of hyper behind them and say,
"Dudes, you guys are cluster fucked. As some of you may of guessed sense it
hasn't been right yet, your office of navel incompetence didn't get its
facts straight before it sent you off in your antiques to beat up on us poor
backward neobarbs.
Yah got two choices. Roll your wedges and evacuate as many of your people as
yah can and we'll pick them up along with who ever got left on board and you
can live to a rip old age'r you're going to die in your skin suits sometime
in the next 30 minutes or so. It's purely up you to decide. I don't want cha
to think I'm pressuring you do something you don't want to do or nothing. We
believe in freedom of choice and personal responsibility. You are the ones
that are going to live or die as the results of your choices today and it
should clearly be up to you to decide which you want to do.
We're going to start shooting in one minute and as long as yah follow
directions you can go on living. Refuse and it's up to you to stop the
missiles heading your way anyway you can or die trying. If you don't roll
your wedges before it's to late to stop or redirect our attack your next of
kin will be duly informed of your unfortunate demise. Well actually they'll
most likely learn about it on the evening news. We invited the press to come
watch you get your ass kicked. The way we saw it was if you guys wanted to
commit suicide the least yah deserved was your six seconds of fame.
I guess we might as well kill the center first. That way if what's his face
doesn't roll over nobody's going to have to worry about _him_ making a
negative report about _them_ because they did cause he's gonna be in
Valhalla. Tony, Fire one! At that point a massive wave of missiles heads
toward the center of the SLN fleet.
From that point forward it's going to be up to each ships captain to decide
what the right thing is and do it. Isn't freedom of choice and personal
responsibility a wonderful thing?

I don't think they would be that insulting.

Also, killing the center doesn't destroy the chain of command.

Besides, I don't think Haven can do that good a job of picking out the
center. They would need Apollo for that.

deowll

2010-03-26 04:23:02 UTC

I don't think they would be that insulting.
Also, killing the center doesn't destroy the chain of command.
Besides, I don't think Haven can do that good a job of picking out the
center. They would need Apollo for that.

A kindergarten student could pick out the center using a merchant ship's
sensors and that is normally where the higher ups are at. You blow away the
top guys and whoever is left may not even know they are supposed to be in
command until long after the fight is over.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-26 17:52:15 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
Besides, I don't think Haven can do that good a job of picking out the
center. They would need Apollo for that.

I meant in guiding the missiles to it, not in locating it. The
missiles would have to fly through the defenses of the ships around.

deowll

2010-03-27 06:14:41 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
Besides, I don't think Haven can do that good a job of picking out the
center. They would need Apollo for that.

I meant in guiding the missiles to it, not in locating it. The
missiles would have to fly through the defenses of the ships around.

Why would you think that? Havenite forces did a bang up job on the Manticore
home fleet. Are you claiming the SLN is that good?

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-27 21:46:11 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
Besides, I don't think Haven can do that good a job of picking out the
center. They would need Apollo for that.

I meant in guiding the missiles to it, not in locating it. The
missiles would have to fly through the defenses of the ships around.

Why would you think that? Havenite forces did a bang up job on the Manticore
home fleet. Are you claiming the SLN is that good?

Nothing says Haven ever shot at ships that were behind the front
lines, though. When you go *PAST* the first ships you give them a
very good shot with their point defenses at the missiles going by.
There's a reason the missiles have such a long standoff range--getting
that close means you don't get very many missiles through.

deowll

2010-03-28 01:19:22 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
Besides, I don't think Haven can do that good a job of picking out the
center. They would need Apollo for that.

I meant in guiding the missiles to it, not in locating it. The
missiles would have to fly through the defenses of the ships around.

Why would you think that? Havenite forces did a bang up job on the Manticore
home fleet. Are you claiming the SLN is that good?

You know for sure how the SLN will deploy?

The ships in the front are going to be targets for the missiles in front.
What I expect those ships in front to be when missiles start going past them
is hulks and debris. The ships behind will in many cases be secondary
targets.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-28 03:25:24 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
Nothing says Haven ever shot at ships that were behind the front
lines, though. When you go *PAST* the first ships you give them a
very good shot with their point defenses at the missiles going by.
There's a reason the missiles have such a long standoff range--getting
that close means you don't get very many missiles through.

You know for sure how the SLN will deploy?
The ships in the front are going to be targets for the missiles in front.
What I expect those ships in front to be when missiles start going past them
is hulks and debris. The ships behind will in many cases be secondary
targets.

I think the SLN will deploy with the leaders as protected as possible.

As for being hulks by the time the missiles go by--when the next salvo
gets there I agree they will be. That doesn't change the fact that
Haven can't pick off the command ship like Mike did in the first
battle.

deowll

2010-03-29 00:04:42 UTC

You know for sure how the SLN will deploy?
The ships in the front are going to be targets for the missiles in front.
What I expect those ships in front to be when missiles start going past them
is hulks and debris. The ships behind will in many cases be secondary
targets.

I think the SLN will deploy with the leaders as protected as possible.
As for being hulks by the time the missiles go by--when the next salvo
gets there I agree they will be. That doesn't change the fact that
Haven can't pick off the command ship like Mike did in the first
battle.

The President said the Havenite fleet contained two or three hundred
wallers. Based on what happened at Spendle that is more than enough Havenite
Wallers to mission kill every Waller the SLN sent on this venture in the
first salvo using towed pods alone. This is a major point you just aren't
getting. The SLN wallers have a truly pathetic missile defense compared to
the kind of missile storm they can expect to have thrown at them nor are
they in any way prepared to deal with the quantity of EW they can expect to
face. There is no way they could stop the attack even if the Havenites don't
bother with EW. You seriously need to go back and reference the battle at
Spindle. This is in no regards a battle between equals or even near equals.
It is more like 1840 era ships of the line going up against WW II era Battle
ships. How much luck do you think a ship of the line would have against an
Iowa? Okay if you want to be more generious how much luck do you think a
ship like the Spanish American War era Mane would have against an Iowa class
battleship? None! Yet the time displacement between those two ships is about
the same as that during which the Havenite fleet has been improving compared
to the SLN.

In order to reduce deaths I suggested taking out 120 wallers in the center
to make it clear that fighting is not an option; the options are surrender
or death.

The SKM ONI knows who is in charge of this fleet and most likely knows which
ship he has been traveling in previously and its impeller signiture because
it was made clear in previous books they try to keep up with this on _every
ship_ they come in contact with. As you noted his ship will almost certainly
be in some position dictated as being _best/safest_ by SLN doctrine. If he
goes by the book it should take about six seconds to figure out about where
he is after which you target everything at that location.

Wild guess: biggest, newest ship, located near the middle of his fleet, not
in the front line. Okay, DW did note that these ships are all pretty much
made based on the exact same design so biggest and newest may not matter.
I'd still want one that had undergone a recent refit.

While it is possible that he might have relocated to some other ship and
taken up an unorthodox location in the fleet failing that taking him out
should not be a challenge.

Loren Pechtel

2010-04-27 18:37:02 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
As for being hulks by the time the missiles go by--when the next salvo
gets there I agree they will be. That doesn't change the fact that
Haven can't pick off the command ship like Mike did in the first
battle.

Sorry for the late reply--I've been off at the relatives.

What you are missing is that I'm doubting the ability to target the
guys behind. You can throw enough missiles but can you aim them
properly??? I think you'll get a lot of overkill on the first layer
but the deeper ones will survive the first salvo with any reasonable
number of birds.

Don Sample

2010-04-27 20:46:39 UTC

Sorry for the late reply--I've been off at the relatives.
What you are missing is that I'm doubting the ability to target the
guys behind. You can throw enough missiles but can you aim them
properly??? I think you'll get a lot of overkill on the first layer
but the deeper ones will survive the first salvo with any reasonable
number of birds.

Standard SLN fleet tactics won't place the Solarians into a layered
bunch of ships. They spread out in a nice flat wall (hence the name)
and everyone is in the front line.

--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>

Doug Jones

2010-04-28 01:59:15 UTC

Sorry for the late reply--I've been off at the relatives.
What you are missing is that I'm doubting the ability to target the
guys behind. You can throw enough missiles but can you aim them
properly??? I think you'll get a lot of overkill on the first layer
but the deeper ones will survive the first salvo with any reasonable
number of birds.

Standard SLN fleet tactics won't place the Solarians into a layered
bunch of ships. They spread out in a nice flat wall (hence the name)
and everyone is in the front line.

Most of their tactics are obsolete as well. As we saw at Spindle, it
wasn't just that their equipment/technology was several generations
behind what the Manticorans had, so were their tactics. They were
first surpised by the longer range, and then thinking they were
prepared to deal with that, they turned out to be totally unable to
deal with massed missile fire - and their whole defense tactics were
based on old assumptions. Manticore and Haven have had a long time
for darwinian selection of tactics that work in that environment. The
SLN not only needs to jump its technology two generations, but it also
needs a whole new leadership - and they may not have the time for that
to develop.

pyotr filipivich

2010-04-28 06:20:50 UTC

Post by Don Sample
Standard SLN fleet tactics won't place the Solarians into a layered
bunch of ships. They spread out in a nice flat wall (hence the name)
and everyone is in the front line.

It is one thing to come up with the new "toys" it is another thing
to come up with the right application and doctrine. Compare the
tactics of the American Civil War. Unfortunately for a lot of people,
the manuals had not been updated to take into consideration the
changes wrought by rifled muskets and Minnie balls. Napoleonic
tactics suitable to smoothbore muskets and round bullets (an effective
range of one hundred yards max) failed miserably when the rifles could
shoot twice as far. Likewise in WW1, the British Artillery was
intended for direct fire, with 'shrapnel' and fragmentation rounds -
requiring the guns to be right up front. The Germans went with
howitzers, which lobbed high explosives over the lines. There was a
battle in the early months of WW1 (I forget the name) which pitted the
two doctrines - and the brits did well, but could not keep their guns
supplied.
The Manties had a lot of time to work up the use of LAC and LAC
carriers before they deployed them.
And, there is also the issue of getting a unit to "work together"
- hence all the training operations, starting at the individual crew
stations, and working up to fleet wide exercises. The Sollies are not
likely to have that kind of time, even if they can bootstrap their
technology. Smoothbore tactics with rifles weapons.

tschus
pyotr

-
pyotr filipivich.
Just about the time you finally see light at the end of the tunnel,
you find out it's a Government Project to build more tunnel.

deowll

2010-05-03 02:28:39 UTC

Post by Don Sample
Standard SLN fleet tactics won't place the Solarians into a layered
bunch of ships. They spread out in a nice flat wall (hence the name)
and everyone is in the front line.

Agreed. These people don't actually know what it means to be combat ready
even to fight their way. They have never actually been pushed because they
had so many ships they couldn't be defeated no matter how inept the were. It
takes time to work out how to best use the new toys.

It takes time to design and build new ships and train the crews and
commanders to make best use of them and they don't even have the new toys to
build the new ships around. Given enough time and the resources of the SL
they would win but they don't have unlimited time nor all the resources of
the SL behind them.

Post by pyotr filipivich
tschus
pyotr
-
pyotr filipivich.
Just about the time you finally see light at the end of the tunnel,
you find out it's a Government Project to build more tunnel.

Loren Pechtel

2010-04-28 15:35:23 UTC

Sorry for the late reply--I've been off at the relatives.
What you are missing is that I'm doubting the ability to target the
guys behind. You can throw enough missiles but can you aim them
properly??? I think you'll get a lot of overkill on the first layer
but the deeper ones will survive the first salvo with any reasonable
number of birds.

Standard SLN fleet tactics won't place the Solarians into a layered
bunch of ships. They spread out in a nice flat wall (hence the name)
and everyone is in the front line.

Think their leaders will be in that nice flat wall, though???

Don Sample

2010-04-28 21:29:35 UTC

Post by Don Sample
Standard SLN fleet tactics won't place the Solarians into a layered
bunch of ships. They spread out in a nice flat wall (hence the name)
and everyone is in the front line.

Think their leaders will be in that nice flat wall, though???

Probably smack dab in the middle of it.

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Doug Jones

2010-04-28 23:51:27 UTC

On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:35:23 -0700, Loren Pechtel

Sorry for the late reply--I've been off at the relatives.
What you are missing is that I'm doubting the ability to target the
guys behind. You can throw enough missiles but can you aim them
properly??? I think you'll get a lot of overkill on the first layer
but the deeper ones will survive the first salvo with any reasonable
number of birds.

Standard SLN fleet tactics won't place the Solarians into a layered
bunch of ships. They spread out in a nice flat wall (hence the name)
and everyone is in the front line.

Think their leaders will be in that nice flat wall, though???

Center of it, or as close to the center as possible. If you have
light-speed communications, you want to reduce lag between elements in
the formation.

A common situation in the earlier phases of the Haven war was that
both sides were targeting certain ships in the wall, because they knew
that was where the command very likely was. It's a simple function -
your opponent's doctrine places their admiral *here* in a formation,
so that's where you shoot. After your opponents have lost enough
admirals, they generally change their doctrine, just as you do yours.
In the case of the Sollies, they're using a doctrine that hasn't been
tested in battle for a few centuries. Anyone fighting them is going
to know their doctrine inside and out, it's not really a secret.
Against someone who has been continuously upgrading their warfighting
technology *and* battle doctrine, it's a recipe for crushing defeats.

Loren Pechtel

2010-04-29 05:49:30 UTC

On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:51:27 -0400, Doug Jones

Post by Don Sample
Standard SLN fleet tactics won't place the Solarians into a layered
bunch of ships. They spread out in a nice flat wall (hence the name)
and everyone is in the front line.

Think their leaders will be in that nice flat wall, though???

Center of it, or as close to the center as possible. If you have
light-speed communications, you want to reduce lag between elements in
the formation.
A common situation in the earlier phases of the Haven war was that
both sides were targeting certain ships in the wall, because they knew
that was where the command very likely was. It's a simple function -
your opponent's doctrine places their admiral *here* in a formation,
so that's where you shoot. After your opponents have lost enough
admirals, they generally change their doctrine, just as you do yours.
In the case of the Sollies, they're using a doctrine that hasn't been
tested in battle for a few centuries. Anyone fighting them is going
to know their doctrine inside and out, it's not really a secret.
Against someone who has been continuously upgrading their warfighting
technology *and* battle doctrine, it's a recipe for crushing defeats.

I fully agree it will be a crushing defeat. I'm just questioning a
decapitation strike. I think the Sollie admirals won't be on the
front line.

deowll

2010-05-03 02:46:48 UTC

Sorry for the late reply--I've been off at the relatives.
What you are missing is that I'm doubting the ability to target the
guys behind. You can throw enough missiles but can you aim them
properly??? I think you'll get a lot of overkill on the first layer
but the deeper ones will survive the first salvo with any reasonable
number of birds.

Standard SLN fleet tactics won't place the Solarians into a layered
bunch of ships. They spread out in a nice flat wall (hence the name)
and everyone is in the front line.

Think their leaders will be in that nice flat wall, though???

No, but I think that when word gets back to the public about all those lost
crewmen SLN leaders may find their backs against the wall in more ways than
one.

It takes a Draconian chain of command not to start blowing up when the
people at the top are obviously out of their minds and getting everyone
killed for no gains. Part of the problem being that the people expected to
command the next wave of wallers are going to be among those blowing as well
the people and organizations that care about them especially when word hits
the media that they have the Havenites to contend with as well as the
Alliance and no hope of winning.

The idea behind the current attack was to run Manticore out of missiles so
the next wave could take them out. When the fleet gets taken out by Havenite
forces it is going to be glaringly obvious that Manticore missile supplies
weren't reduced by this attack and that SLN now has a much bigger problem
than it had before. It will also have lost a staggering amount of face and
its reputation will be in tatters. Huge numbers of ships will be out of
place and what ever it may be doing with the mothballed fleet amounts to a
waste of time. I would expect the situation in the shell and verge to become
interesting.

Don Sample

2010-05-03 03:16:56 UTC

Post by deowll
It takes a Draconian chain of command not to start blowing up when the
people at the top are obviously out of their minds and getting everyone
killed for no gains. Part of the problem being that the people expected to
command the next wave of wallers are going to be among those blowing as well
the people and organizations that care about them especially when word hits
the media that they have the Havenites to contend with as well as the
Alliance and no hope of winning.
The idea behind the current attack was to run Manticore out of missiles so
the next wave could take them out. When the fleet gets taken out by Havenite
forces it is going to be glaringly obvious that Manticore missile supplies
weren't reduced by this attack and that SLN now has a much bigger problem
than it had before. It will also have lost a staggering amount of face and
its reputation will be in tatters. Huge numbers of ships will be out of
place and what ever it may be doing with the mothballed fleet amounts to a
waste of time. I would expect the situation in the shell and verge to become
interesting.

The planners of this charley foxtrot believe that the Manticorans are
already pretty much dry of missiles. They figure whoever blasted the
hell out of their orbital infrastructure had to blast their way in. I
guess they aren't paying any attention to all the media reports that
said it was a total surprise attack.

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deowll

2010-05-04 05:44:44 UTC

I think they get that it was a surprise attack but they don't get that it
wasn't a fleet action.

Since there would have been commercial ships in system that would have
recorded much of what happened automatically and with enough detail to make
what happened modestly clear the exact reason they don't know escapes me.
By modestly clear I mean they would have had to have noted the total absence
of any evidence of hostile ships with wedges.

Post by Don Sample
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Loren Pechtel

2010-05-04 18:29:18 UTC

Post by deowll
I think they get that it was a surprise attack but they don't get that it
wasn't a fleet action.
Since there would have been commercial ships in system that would have
recorded much of what happened automatically and with enough detail to make
what happened modestly clear the exact reason they don't know escapes me.
By modestly clear I mean they would have had to have noted the total absence
of any evidence of hostile ships with wedges.

Isn't Manticore closed to non-Manticoran shipping, though?

Don Sample

2010-05-04 19:17:51 UTC

Isn't Manticore closed to non-Manticoran shipping, though?

Not until very recently. They didn't close off the wormhole to Solarian
shipping until after Crandall got her ass shot off at Spindle. They've
had lots of Sollie news people coming and going through the system.
Some were even killed in the Oyster Bay attack.

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Loren Pechtel

2010-05-03 14:37:57 UTC

Post by deowll
The idea behind the current attack was to run Manticore out of missiles so
the next wave could take them out. When the fleet gets taken out by Havenite
forces it is going to be glaringly obvious that Manticore missile supplies
weren't reduced by this attack and that SLN now has a much bigger problem
than it had before. It will also have lost a staggering amount of face and
its reputation will be in tatters. Huge numbers of ships will be out of
place and what ever it may be doing with the mothballed fleet amounts to a
waste of time. I would expect the situation in the shell and verge to become
interesting.

Agreed. I can't see the Sollies launching a third attack. This one
is going to stop any attacks on Manticore for quite some time to come.

The only issue is how to avoid killing millions of people getting the
message across.

deowll

2010-05-04 05:46:59 UTC

Agreed. I can't see the Sollies launching a third attack. This one
is going to stop any attacks on Manticore for quite some time to come.
The only issue is how to avoid killing millions of people getting the
message across.

No, the main issue is to make sure that nobody on your side becomes a
casualty and that no damage is done to the system. What happens to the other
side is always a secondary issue or should be.

Loren Pechtel

2010-05-04 18:29:18 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
The only issue is how to avoid killing millions of people getting the
message across.

No, the main issue is to make sure that nobody on your side becomes a
casualty and that no damage is done to the system. What happens to the other
side is always a secondary issue or should be.

The first goal is a triviality with any reasonable action on their
part. Thus the second goal is the only real goal.

deowll

2010-05-03 02:21:33 UTC

Sorry for the late reply--I've been off at the relatives.
What you are missing is that I'm doubting the ability to target the
guys behind. You can throw enough missiles but can you aim them
properly??? I think you'll get a lot of overkill on the first layer
but the deeper ones will survive the first salvo with any reasonable
number of birds.

Standard SLN fleet tactics won't place the Solarians into a layered
bunch of ships. They spread out in a nice flat wall (hence the name)
and everyone is in the front line.

And they most likely won't be bunched up as much as they should be.

Post by Don Sample
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deowll

2010-05-03 02:20:30 UTC

Sorry for the late reply--I've been off at the relatives.
What you are missing is that I'm doubting the ability to target the
guys behind. You can throw enough missiles but can you aim them
properly??? I think you'll get a lot of overkill on the first layer
but the deeper ones will survive the first salvo with any reasonable
number of birds.

These people stopped using a reasonible number of missiles a long time ago.
SLN EW is not going to have much impact on the missiles going past because
the ships in front aren't going to be functional when they do and the point
defense won't be able to achieve anything against that much Havenite EW and
that many targets before the ship is junk. I'm also not sure of the exact
fleet formation.

Look, according to what DW wrote about what happened at Spendle the SLN
defense is going to be staggeringly overloaded though less out classed. The
nearest ships will be taken out without putting much of a dent in incoming
assuming the SLN ships are layered and they are attacked through the layers.

Don Sample

2010-05-03 02:56:57 UTC

Sorry for the late reply--I've been off at the relatives.
What you are missing is that I'm doubting the ability to target the
guys behind. You can throw enough missiles but can you aim them
properly??? I think you'll get a lot of overkill on the first layer
but the deeper ones will survive the first salvo with any reasonable
number of birds.

These people stopped using a reasonible number of missiles a long time ago.
SLN EW is not going to have much impact on the missiles going past because
the ships in front aren't going to be functional when they do and the point
defense won't be able to achieve anything against that much Havenite EW and
that many targets before the ship is junk. I'm also not sure of the exact
fleet formation.
Look, according to what DW wrote about what happened at Spendle the SLN
defense is going to be staggeringly overloaded though less out classed. The
nearest ships will be taken out without putting much of a dent in incoming
assuming the SLN ships are layered and they are attacked through the layers.

Even if the Solly fleet does set up in layers, with 400 ships in eight
layers of 50 ships each, a missile volley like the one Mike launched at
Crandall's fleet at Spindle will still be able to get enough of its
missiles past all of the first seven layers to do significant damage to
the eighth one, unless the Sollies increase their missile defence
effectiveness significantly. Double the size of the volley, and they'll
be able to quite handily take out the back layer, with any reasonable
improvement to Solly missile defence doctrine that Filareta can hope to
implement in the time he's got.

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deowll

2010-05-03 03:09:39 UTC

Sorry for the late reply--I've been off at the relatives.
What you are missing is that I'm doubting the ability to target the
guys behind. You can throw enough missiles but can you aim them
properly??? I think you'll get a lot of overkill on the first layer
but the deeper ones will survive the first salvo with any reasonable
number of birds.

These people stopped using a reasonible number of missiles a long time ago.
SLN EW is not going to have much impact on the missiles going past because
the ships in front aren't going to be functional when they do and the point
defense won't be able to achieve anything against that much Havenite EW
and
that many targets before the ship is junk. I'm also not sure of the exact
fleet formation.
Look, according to what DW wrote about what happened at Spendle the SLN
defense is going to be staggeringly overloaded though less out classed. The
nearest ships will be taken out without putting much of a dent in incoming
assuming the SLN ships are layered and they are attacked through the layers.

Agreed. If they wish to the Havenite force should be able to kill that many
ships in one go. I doubt if they will wish too but that is up to DW.

Post by Don Sample
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Loren Pechtel

2010-05-03 14:37:57 UTC

Post by Don Sample
Even if the Solly fleet does set up in layers, with 400 ships in eight
layers of 50 ships each, a missile volley like the one Mike launched at
Crandall's fleet at Spindle will still be able to get enough of its
missiles past all of the first seven layers to do significant damage to
the eighth one, unless the Sollies increase their missile defence
effectiveness significantly. Double the size of the volley, and they'll
be able to quite handily take out the back layer, with any reasonable
improvement to Solly missile defence doctrine that Filareta can hope to
implement in the time he's got.

Can they even pick targets in that 8th layer, though??

Furthermore, the missile defense will work a lot better against
missiles that are flying past. I still think only Apollo can pick off
the ships behind without simply blasting their way through everything
in front.

Don Sample

2010-05-03 20:57:28 UTC

Can they even pick targets in that 8th layer, though??
Furthermore, the missile defense will work a lot better against
missiles that are flying past. I still think only Apollo can pick off
the ships behind without simply blasting their way through everything
in front.

How far apart are the ships in a fleet? They'd have to bunch up pretty
tight for the lead ships to be able to mask the ones behind ... so tight
that by the time your missiles are in attack range of the lead ships,
they're also in attack range of the trailers.

MDMs are also moving so fast by the time they've reached their targets
that the point defence doesn't have *time* to get off many shots, it's
harder to hit a missile going past you than it is a missile coming at
you, and if the missile isn't maneuvering to attack you, it's only going
to be showing its wedge to your laser clusters, anyway.

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Loren Pechtel

2010-05-04 00:47:48 UTC

Can they even pick targets in that 8th layer, though??
Furthermore, the missile defense will work a lot better against
missiles that are flying past. I still think only Apollo can pick off
the ships behind without simply blasting their way through everything
in front.

How far apart are the ships in a fleet? They'd have to bunch up pretty
tight for the lead ships to be able to mask the ones behind ... so tight
that by the time your missiles are in attack range of the lead ships,
they're also in attack range of the trailers.
MDMs are also moving so fast by the time they've reached their targets
that the point defence doesn't have *time* to get off many shots, it's
harder to hit a missile going past you than it is a missile coming at
you, and if the missile isn't maneuvering to attack you, it's only going
to be showing its wedge to your laser clusters, anyway.

Remember that they switched from contact nukes to standoff weapons
because contact nukes had little chance of getting through the point
defense.

If missiles can penetrate a layer of ships and hit the ones behind
then they could also engage those front ships with contact nukes
effectively.

(Actually, I agree that the point defense shouldn't be all that
effective even at point blank range but that's not how the world
works.)

Don Sample

2010-05-04 01:23:37 UTC

Can they even pick targets in that 8th layer, though??
Furthermore, the missile defense will work a lot better against
missiles that are flying past. I still think only Apollo can pick off
the ships behind without simply blasting their way through everything
in front.

How far apart are the ships in a fleet? They'd have to bunch up pretty
tight for the lead ships to be able to mask the ones behind ... so tight
that by the time your missiles are in attack range of the lead ships,
they're also in attack range of the trailers.
MDMs are also moving so fast by the time they've reached their targets
that the point defence doesn't have *time* to get off many shots, it's
harder to hit a missile going past you than it is a missile coming at
you, and if the missile isn't maneuvering to attack you, it's only going
to be showing its wedge to your laser clusters, anyway.

To engage with contact nukes, you've got to get your nuke within a few
kilometres of your target. A nuke 10 kilometres away is 10 times easier
to hit than one 100 kilometres away, while the standoff weapons can
engage from 1,000s of kilometres range.

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Loren Pechtel

2010-05-04 13:38:42 UTC

Post by Don Sample
MDMs are also moving so fast by the time they've reached their targets
that the point defence doesn't have *time* to get off many shots, it's
harder to hit a missile going past you than it is a missile coming at
you, and if the missile isn't maneuvering to attack you, it's only going
to be showing its wedge to your laser clusters, anyway.

It comes down to time--the missiles are coming in so fast that that
each defense laser is probably only going to fire once.

Do you shoot far out for a lower kill chance, or do you wait--and
perhaps have the weapon pop before you chose to engage it? So long as
the attack birds are a mix of laser and contact warheads you should be
able to get them through.

deowll

2010-05-04 05:36:50 UTC

Can they even pick targets in that 8th layer, though??
Furthermore, the missile defense will work a lot better against
missiles that are flying past. I still think only Apollo can pick off
the ships behind without simply blasting their way through everything
in front.

How far apart are the ships in a fleet? They'd have to bunch up pretty
tight for the lead ships to be able to mask the ones behind ... so tight
that by the time your missiles are in attack range of the lead ships,
they're also in attack range of the trailers.
MDMs are also moving so fast by the time they've reached their targets
that the point defence doesn't have *time* to get off many shots, it's
harder to hit a missile going past you than it is a missile coming at
you, and if the missile isn't maneuvering to attack you, it's only going
to be showing its wedge to your laser clusters, anyway.

Remember that they switched from contact nukes to standoff weapons
because contact nukes had little chance of getting through the point
defense.
If missiles can penetrate a layer of ships and hit the ones behind
then they could also engage those front ships with contact nukes
effectively.
(Actually, I agree that the point defense shouldn't be all that
effective even at point blank range but that's not how the world
works.)

Aren't you overlooking the fact that an SLN SD doesn't have the point
defense of a HC and that the sheer amount of EW they are going to face means
what they have is going to be hopelessly confused? Based on what DW said
even if the Havenites used no EW the point defense is inadequate to stop
more than a fraction of the missiles they can expect to face. What part of
completely massively overloading the defense do you not understand?

You basic unshakable assumption seems to be this is going to be a
confrontation between equals or near equals and everything DW has said makes
it clear that it won't be. This is more like ships of the line from the age
of sail or maybe iron clads going up against a nearly equal number of Iowa
class battle ships.

Loren Pechtel

2010-05-04 18:29:18 UTC

Remember that they switched from contact nukes to standoff weapons
because contact nukes had little chance of getting through the point
defense.
If missiles can penetrate a layer of ships and hit the ones behind
then they could also engage those front ships with contact nukes
effectively.
(Actually, I agree that the point defense shouldn't be all that
effective even at point blank range but that's not how the world
works.)

Aren't you overlooking the fact that an SLN SD doesn't have the point
defense of a HC and that the sheer amount of EW they are going to face means
what they have is going to be hopelessly confused? Based on what DW said
even if the Havenites used no EW the point defense is inadequate to stop
more than a fraction of the missiles they can expect to face. What part of
completely massively overloading the defense do you not understand?
You basic unshakable assumption seems to be this is going to be a
confrontation between equals or near equals and everything DW has said makes
it clear that it won't be. This is more like ships of the line from the age
of sail or maybe iron clads going up against a nearly equal number of Iowa
class battle ships.

I don't see it as a battle between equals at all. Either Haven or
Manticore can swat them easily.

However, the way the world works is that point defense becomes *MUCH*
better as you get closer, that's why contact warheads have been
replaced with laser heads--that last tenth of a light second is
virtually unsurvivable.

If you can't get a missile through that last tenth of a light second
then neither can you get it past the ship.

Don Sample

2010-05-04 19:46:45 UTC

Post by deowll
Aren't you overlooking the fact that an SLN SD doesn't have the point
defense of a HC and that the sheer amount of EW they are going to face means
what they have is going to be hopelessly confused? Based on what DW said
even if the Havenites used no EW the point defense is inadequate to stop
more than a fraction of the missiles they can expect to face. What part of
completely massively overloading the defense do you not understand?
You basic unshakable assumption seems to be this is going to be a
confrontation between equals or near equals and everything DW has said makes
it clear that it won't be. This is more like ships of the line from the age
of sail or maybe iron clads going up against a nearly equal number of Iowa
class battle ships.

I don't see it as a battle between equals at all. Either Haven or
Manticore can swat them easily.
However, the way the world works is that point defense becomes *MUCH*
better as you get closer, that's why contact warheads have been
replaced with laser heads--that last tenth of a light second is
virtually unsurvivable.
If you can't get a missile through that last tenth of a light second
then neither can you get it past the ship.

That was back in the day of single drive missiles, fired off in salvos
measured in dozens. Before the development of the SD(P) an SD could
fire off a volley of only about 40 missiles, and their top speed was
about .3c. The Havenite fleet can fire off hundreds of missiles per
ship, and using 2 drives, they're going to be coming in at .6c.

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deowll

2010-05-04 05:16:23 UTC

Can they even pick targets in that 8th layer, though??
Furthermore, the missile defense will work a lot better against
missiles that are flying past. I still think only Apollo can pick off
the ships behind without simply blasting their way through everything
in front.

You think they will attack on on a line fifty ships wide or what? The term
_line_ doesn't even compute in space when used this way. The formation
would have to be three demensional. If you just put 25 ships in 4 layers you
have a hundred ships in the first wave and four waves. Of course a block of
ships 5 X 5 would give you 25 ships in the front wave and 8 waves. The back
ships might be fairly well protected or not. Missiles going above or below
might be able to hit any ship in the group if they were really clumped.

I suppose extreme fear might cause them to jam them together in some sort of
flying cube or brick but unless the side walls are almost touching you
should be able to send missiles between ships with no trouble and you should
be able to tell missiles to egnore the front wave of ships.

I've already noted the obvious. There will be no/nada/none missile defense
as the missiles are going past because the SLN ships in the front line will
have been hit countless times by the missiles targeted at them and they
can't shoot through their own wedges anyway. If you can locate missiles to
shoot through the gape between the wedges you should be able to send
missiles to one side of a wedge.

Don Sample

2010-05-04 09:46:58 UTC

Post by deowll
I suppose extreme fear might cause them to jam them together in some sort of
flying cube or brick but unless the side walls are almost touching you
should be able to send missiles between ships with no trouble and you should
be able to tell missiles to egnore the front wave of ships.
I've already noted the obvious. There will be no/nada/none missile defense
as the missiles are going past because the SLN ships in the front line will
have been hit countless times by the missiles targeted at them and they
can't shoot through their own wedges anyway. If you can locate missiles to
shoot through the gape between the wedges you should be able to send
missiles to one side of a wedge.

The bit about shooting at the back layer was a response to the claim
that the Solly admiral is going to be hiding at the back of the fleet,
where he couldn't be hit. I pointed out that with the demonstrated
Mantie capabilities, they *can* shoot at the ships in the back layer of
such a formation, while bypassing the others, if they choose to.
Certainly not the most efficient use of missiles, but in a way, that can
be part of the point of the exercise.

The toughest part might be localizing just which ship the admiral is on.
If he's reasonably careful about his communications procedures, that
might be hard to figure out. If he's stupid, and broadcasts any demands
for Manticore's surrender from his flag ship (as it seems Crandall did
at Spindle) then it will be easy to spot him. The smarter thing to do
would be to use the fleet tactical net to transmit the messages from the
flag ship, to some other ship, and let it do the broadcasting, maybe
switching it around from ship to ship. (And in a properly set up
tactical net, it shouldn't be possible to do any sort of signals
analysis to determine which ships are originating any messages.)

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Loren Pechtel

2010-05-04 18:29:18 UTC

Post by Don Sample
The bit about shooting at the back layer was a response to the claim
that the Solly admiral is going to be hiding at the back of the fleet,
where he couldn't be hit. I pointed out that with the demonstrated
Mantie capabilities, they *can* shoot at the ships in the back layer of
such a formation, while bypassing the others, if they choose to.
Certainly not the most efficient use of missiles, but in a way, that can
be part of the point of the exercise.

Manticore can. I'm saying Haven can't hit him without shooting up
everything in front of him.

Post by Don Sample
The toughest part might be localizing just which ship the admiral is on.
If he's reasonably careful about his communications procedures, that
might be hard to figure out. If he's stupid, and broadcasts any demands
for Manticore's surrender from his flag ship (as it seems Crandall did
at Spindle) then it will be easy to spot him. The smarter thing to do
would be to use the fleet tactical net to transmit the messages from the
flag ship, to some other ship, and let it do the broadcasting, maybe
switching it around from ship to ship. (And in a properly set up
tactical net, it shouldn't be possible to do any sort of signals
analysis to determine which ships are originating any messages.)

I don't think they knew where Crandall was--they were simply shooting.
Remember that Crandall did *NOT* die of Manticore's missiles. but
afterwards under mysterious circumstances. (No doubt one of the
Alignment's controlled people, probably Crandall himself but we don't
know for sure.)

Don Sample

2010-05-04 19:26:36 UTC

Manticore can. I'm saying Haven can't hit him without shooting up
everything in front of him.

Haven's got most of the same capabilities in their missiles, as what
Mike used at Spindle. They might have to use more missiles to get the
same result, but they could do it.

Crandall's *ship* was mission killed by the missiles. Then someone shot
her in the back of the head.

--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>

Loren Pechtel

2010-05-04 18:29:18 UTC

Can they even pick targets in that 8th layer, though??
Furthermore, the missile defense will work a lot better against
missiles that are flying past. I still think only Apollo can pick off
the ships behind without simply blasting their way through everything
in front.

You think they will attack on on a line fifty ships wide or what? The term
_line_ doesn't even compute in space when used this way. The formation
would have to be three demensional. If you just put 25 ships in 4 layers you
have a hundred ships in the first wave and four waves. Of course a block of
ships 5 X 5 would give you 25 ships in the front wave and 8 waves. The back
ships might be fairly well protected or not. Missiles going above or below
might be able to hit any ship in the group if they were really clumped.
I suppose extreme fear might cause them to jam them together in some sort of
flying cube or brick but unless the side walls are almost touching you
should be able to send missiles between ships with no trouble and you should
be able to tell missiles to egnore the front wave of ships.
I've already noted the obvious. There will be no/nada/none missile defense
as the missiles are going past because the SLN ships in the front line will
have been hit countless times by the missiles targeted at them and they
can't shoot through their own wedges anyway. If you can locate missiles to
shoot through the gape between the wedges you should be able to send
missiles to one side of a wedge.

I can't imagine them using 8 layers anyway--that wasn't my model.

I'm picturing a formation where most of them are laid out in a grid
but the commanders and some others are behind the grid. They know
they are going against a superior force and they'll shield themselves
the best they can.

Don Sample

2010-03-28 01:42:59 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
Besides, I don't think Haven can do that good a job of picking out the
center. They would need Apollo for that.

I meant in guiding the missiles to it, not in locating it. The
missiles would have to fly through the defenses of the ships around.

Why would you think that? Havenite forces did a bang up job on the Manticore
home fleet. Are you claiming the SLN is that good?

There have been several battles in which the Manties targeted the ships
at the centre of the Havenite formation, specifically to take out the
admiral in command. Later and smarter admirals moved their commands to
ships with less offensive fire power than the main line ships of the
wall, and positioned somewhere other than the centre, so that they
wouldn't draw much as much fire in the initial salvos.

--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-28 03:25:24 UTC

Yeah--but other than the big battle when have there ever been enough
ships involved for any real shielding to take place?

deowll

2010-03-29 00:38:18 UTC

Yeah--but other than the big battle when have there ever been enough
ships involved for any real shielding to take place?

For real shielding to take place you need more than numbers. You need combat
effective units.

The SLN Wallers have a missile defense that would barely do credit to a
modern DD. They were designed to take part in battles in which fleets lined
up and passed through each other firing with beams at close range and
missile fire was something that was light and seldom killed a ship. The
Havenite ships the SLN are going to fight are designed to throw vastly more
missiles than anything the SLN designers ever dreamed they might need to
deal with even if the Havenite ships didn't use pods and using pods...

deowll

2010-03-29 00:17:05 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
Besides, I don't think Haven can do that good a job of picking out the
center. They would need Apollo for that.

A kindergarten student could pick out the center using a merchant ship's
sensors and that is normally where the higher ups are at. You blow
away
the
top guys and whoever is left may not even know they are supposed to be in
command until long after the fight is over.

I meant in guiding the missiles to it, not in locating it. The
missiles would have to fly through the defenses of the ships around.

Why would you think that? Havenite forces did a bang up job on the Manticore
home fleet. Are you claiming the SLN is that good?

Exactly. Since the SLN hasn't been kissed yet the newbies should repeat the
same mistakes as all the other newbies.

Post by Don Sample
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>

Terry FitzSimons

2010-03-26 18:04:23 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
I don't think they would be that insulting.
Also, killing the center doesn't destroy the chain of command.
Besides, I don't think Haven can do that good a job of picking out the
center. They would need Apollo for that.

My initial reaction to this notion was that it was a waste of missiles. The
grouped defenses should knock down most if not all of the missiles as they
are coming in. But on consideration, that might be what you are after.

If you salvo 12,000+ missiles and plan on having 200 actually arriving at
the ship in the center of the formation and blow it to vapor with little to
no EW and Pent aid. Even if its not the flagship, the loss of 12,800
missiles and you still killed a ship will be unsettling at the least.

If the next salvo is targeted at the closest 100 ships, that only 120
missiles to stop and this time you turn on the EW and Pent aids to medium.
If you are lucky they might have survivors this time.

If the next salvo is targeted at the closest 100 ships that are undamaged,
that only 120 missiles to stop as well and this time you turn on the EW and
Pent aids to medium high. If you are lucky they might have fewer survivors
this time.

But I have fought a few SITS battles before the fleet rules came out and
learned to move my flag to a different location, the relay isn't that long.
But usually If I am targeting the ship in the center, the adjacent ships,
boost the defensive fire and ecm to the point that the salvo doesn't
survive. So its pick on the closest ships, which has a easier defensive
fire and ecm number, or pick on the ship that breaks formation for what
ever reason.
--

Terry FitzSimons
***@mintel.net

deowll

2010-03-27 07:27:07 UTC

Post by Terry FitzSimons

My initial reaction to this notion was that it was a waste of missiles. The
grouped defenses should knock down most if not all of the missiles as they
are coming in. But on consideration, that might be what you are after.
If you salvo 12,000+ missiles and plan on having 200 actually arriving at
the ship in the center of the formation and blow it to vapor with little to
no EW and Pent aid. Even if its not the flagship, the loss of 12,800
missiles and you still killed a ship will be unsettling at the least.
If the next salvo is targeted at the closest 100 ships, that only 120
missiles to stop and this time you turn on the EW and Pent aids to medium.
If you are lucky they might have survivors this time.
If the next salvo is targeted at the closest 100 ships that are undamaged,
that only 120 missiles to stop as well and this time you turn on the EW and
Pent aids to medium high. If you are lucky they might have fewer survivors
this time.
But I have fought a few SITS battles before the fleet rules came out and
learned to move my flag to a different location, the relay isn't that long.
But usually If I am targeting the ship in the center, the adjacent ships,
boost the defensive fire and ecm to the point that the salvo doesn't
survive. So its pick on the closest ships, which has a easier defensive
fire and ecm number, or pick on the ship that breaks formation for what
ever reason.
--

This won't be a SITS battle.

It is a navel officers duty to reduce the causalities on their side.

Something along the lines of 57 very similar SLN wallers if I recall right
didn't have enough EW to stop what was thrown at them at Spindle. If the
Havenites throw everything but the kitchen sink at the middle and use their
EW, etc. the SLN ships will have two options: Roll wedges or die. I'd throw
the first salvo at extreme but not impossible range for my side and let them
look at it coming and do the math. Way more missiles than they can possibly
stop even under ideal conditions and they might do a fair job because
Havenite EW is not clearly better than SLN EW based on what we know other
than the Havenites use a lot more of it. They make up for this handicap with
volume. I'd do everything in my power to prevent the ships that rolled
wedges from being hit and attempt to turn the others into debris. Over kill
is not a bad thing when you are trying to panic somebody into giving up.

It would be my sincere hope that the survivors would appreciate the gravity
of their situation and roll wedges. If they failed to comply I would blow
them away starting with the right and then taking out the left. In any event
I don't think this battle should last longer than three salvoes and the
battle should be over before the SLN got close enough to fire.

My two main objectives would be 1) stop the SLN 2) don't take any
causalities doing it. Given the disparity in the two sides relative
abilities this should be possible for the Havenites to achieve.

I'm still recalling with some disquiet that Mr. D did something that he
thought would ensure that a battle occurred even if cooler heads tried to
act prudently.

Post by Terry FitzSimons
Terry FitzSimons

Michael R N Dolbear

2010-03-27 19:49:25 UTC

Post by deowll
It would be my sincere hope that the survivors would appreciate the gravity
of their situation and roll wedges. If they failed to comply I would blow

You drop your wedge to surrrender, rolling wedges is defensive and used
to be what you did before you discontinued the action and (if not
trapped) departed. Rollong back again is probably faster than bringing
up your wedge and sidewalls.

Laser head missiles can still go for the sidewalls and throat/ skirt of
a rolled ship and of course an old tech ship is very restricted in its
use of its antimissile defenses when rolled.

--
Mike D

deowll

2010-03-27 22:15:31 UTC

Post by deowll
It would be my sincere hope that the survivors would appreciate the

gravity

Post by deowll
of their situation and roll wedges. If they failed to comply I would

blow
You drop your wedge to surrrender, rolling wedges is defensive and used
to be what you did before you discontinued the action and (if not
trapped) departed. Rollong back again is probably faster than bringing
up your wedge and sidewalls.
Laser head missiles can still go for the sidewalls and throat/ skirt of
a rolled ship and of course an old tech ship is very restricted in its
use of its antimissile defenses when rolled.
--
Mike D

Rolling is apparently part of crying uncle. I suppose dropping your wedge
would say the same thing but as you noted getting it up would take time and
leave you naked. You can not in fact use your EW effectively after rolling
your wedge is my understanding. You are not in a postion to attack. Sending
off a flood of escape pods makes it pretty clear you don't want to fight and
that ship can't be used effectively if those pods contained the crews. I
don't think missiles are programmed to go after anything that small. I
suppose the pods could be fired sans crews but I wouldn't advise that. You
would need to role back to continue the attack and this time I think the
Havenites would go ahead and kill you. These ships are not fast enough to
escape.

Don Sample

2010-03-28 01:36:48 UTC

Post by deowll
Rolling is apparently part of crying uncle. I suppose dropping your
wedge would say the same thing but as you noted getting it up would
take time and leave you naked.

If you are actually being shot at, at the time, striking your wedge is
kinda suicidal. Striking your wedge is a universally recognized way of
saying "I surrender" but it's really only used if you can't say it any
other way, or as a response to an explicit demand for your surrender,
and you aren't actively under fire.

Post by deowll
You can not in fact use your EW effectively after rolling your wedge
is my understanding. You are not in a postion to attack. Sending off
a flood of escape pods makes it pretty clear you don't want to fight
and that ship can't be used effectively if those pods contained the
crews. I don't think missiles are programmed to go after anything
that small.

In Ashes of Victory, when the missiles were coming in on Grayson One,
and Queen Adrian, the protection details for the various dignitaries
didn't launch their escape pods into space because they were afraid
that the missiles *would* target the pods. (And this was without
knowing that the missiles were homing on beacons carried by the Queen
and Prime Minister.)

Post by deowll
I suppose the pods could be fired sans crews but I wouldn't advise
that. You would need to role back to continue the attack and this
time I think the Havenites would go ahead and kill you. These ships
are not fast enough to escape.

Also faking a surrender is considered something that Just Isn't Done.

--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-28 03:25:25 UTC

Post by Don Sample
In Ashes of Victory, when the missiles were coming in on Grayson One,
and Queen Adrian, the protection details for the various dignitaries
didn't launch their escape pods into space because they were afraid
that the missiles *would* target the pods. (And this was without
knowing that the missiles were homing on beacons carried by the Queen
and Prime Minister.)

A totally different situation as those were assassination missiles.

There's also the issue that even if the missile goes for the ship the
pods will be pretty close nearby when it blows.

Also faking a surrender is considered something that Just Isn't Done.

Yeah--a fake surrender means you would have no way of doing a real
surrender later and it might very well mean your opponent wouldn't
accept a surrender from any of your forces.

We are seeing some of that in Afghanistan and Iraq now--the wounded
being shot rather than our guys risking a palmed grenade.

pyotr filipivich

2010-03-28 23:14:23 UTC

Let the Record show that Don Sample <***@synapse.net> on or about
Sat, 27 Mar 2010 21:36:48 -0400 did write/type or cause to appear in

Also faking a surrender is considered something that Just Isn't Done.

Not a second time....

pyotr

-
pyotr filipivich.
Just about the time you finally see light at the end of the tunnel,
you find out it's a Government Project to build more tunnel.

deowll

2010-03-29 00:13:03 UTC

Post by deowll
Rolling is apparently part of crying uncle. I suppose dropping your
wedge would say the same thing but as you noted getting it up would
take time and leave you naked.

Let me put it this way. I doubt that a military missile with factory
settings would target an escape pod. I don't think they normally home in on
beacons either. Since this was an assassination attempt pure and simple
there would be valid reasons to suspect that they might.

96 alarms should have gone off when those beacons started broadcasting.

Also faking a surrender is considered something that Just Isn't Done.
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>

Terry FitzSimons

2010-03-29 15:32:15 UTC

Post by deowll
Rolling is apparently part of crying uncle. I suppose dropping your
wedge would say the same thing but as you noted getting it up would
take time and leave you naked.

Let me put it this way. I doubt that a military missile with factory
settings would target an escape pod. I don't think they normally home in on
beacons either. Since this was an assassination attempt pure and simple
there would be valid reasons to suspect that they might.
96 alarms should have gone off when those beacons started broadcasting.

Not if they were multi-frequency agile. Current technology spins through
100+ frequencies a minuet for secure communications, plus encryption. When
you have over 10,000 discrete frequencies to monitor, you might never
notice a frequency is in use till its passed.

Also faking a surrender is considered something that Just Isn't Done.
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>

--

Terry FitzSimons
***@mintel.net

Terry FitzSimons

2010-03-29 15:19:54 UTC

Post by deowll
Rolling is apparently part of crying uncle. I suppose dropping your
wedge would say the same thing but as you noted getting it up would
take time and leave you naked.

Actually it depends on timing. If there is enough time for the launching
ships to recognize and command detonate their missiles before they finish
their approach run and switch to terminal attack mode.

I doubt that any surrendered ship has actually shut down all of their
defenses much less their main one all the way down. Their wedges were
probably dropped to the lowest non-movement level possible so they could be
raised if the det command did not reach the front missiles, but would still
give the impression that they were dropped.

Once the space was cleared of active missiles, then the wedges could be
dropped all of the way and the housecleaning started, (deleting and
reformatting sensitive computers, smashing the hardware, ect. Preferably
before you are given the order not to).

While decoys extend beyond the sidewalls, they don't extend past the wedge,
and they probably don't have that many fire control channels in comparison
with the emitters on the sides of the ship.

The sensors on the outer hull, as well as on top and bottom of the ship can
read through the wedge, it can't do it very well.

So yes, when you roll your ship, you loose most if not all of the ECM
capability

Also faking a surrender is considered something that Just Isn't Done.

--

Terry FitzSimons
***@mintel.net

pyotr filipivich

2010-03-28 23:14:23 UTC

Let the Record show that "deowll" <***@gmail.com> on or about Sat,
27 Mar 2010 17:15:31 -0500 did write/type or cause to appear in

Post by deowll
Rolling is apparently part of crying uncle.

You "roll ship" to bring the wedge up as shield between you and
the incoming missile/beams. The wedge serves as a "shield" for the
top and bottom of the ship - saving the need to armor all the way
around. (I do suppose an attacker could attempt to maneuver a
laser-head inside the wedge to fire "down" on the unarmored top, but
that's a really small area, really close to the target &defensive
fire.) Hence the need as well, for missiles to have some drive left
when they reach attack range - in order for the missile to (in effect)
roll up with the wedges and aim for the gap between them.

You strike the wedge to indicate surrender. No wedge, "nothing"
to intercept incoming weapons, and the top & bottom are "wide open".

Post by deowll
I suppose dropping your wedge
would say the same thing but as you noted getting it up would take time and
leave you naked. You can not in fact use your EW effectively after rolling
your wedge is my understanding.

Hence the Mantie (iirc) Standoff EW pods, held in place by tractor
beams, to look "over" the wedge, which is now a "wall" between you and
the incoming missiles.

Post by deowll
You are not in a postion to attack. Sending
off a flood of escape pods makes it pretty clear you don't want to fight and
that ship can't be used effectively if those pods contained the crews. I
don't think missiles are programmed to go after anything that small. I
suppose the pods could be fired sans crews but I wouldn't advise that. You
would need to role back to continue the attack and this time I think the
Havenites would go ahead and kill you. These ships are not fast enough to
escape.

-
pyotr filipivich.
Just about the time you finally see light at the end of the tunnel,
you find out it's a Government Project to build more tunnel.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-28 03:25:25 UTC

Post by deowll
It would be my sincere hope that the survivors would appreciate the

gravity

Post by deowll
of their situation and roll wedges. If they failed to comply I would

I doubt rolling would do much of anything against modern missiles
going up against the SLN junk. All you would do is give up defensive
fire and even the crappy SLN defenses stopped a thousand birds at
Spindle.

deowll

2010-03-29 00:40:58 UTC

Post by deowll
It would be my sincere hope that the survivors would appreciate the

gravity

Post by deowll
of their situation and roll wedges. If they failed to comply I would

Good, you got that. Why do you think the crappy SLN junk is going to be able
to stop the Havenite missile storm at the next battle of Manticore system?

Loren Pechtel

2010-04-27 18:37:02 UTC

Post by deowll
Good, you got that. Why do you think the crappy SLN junk is going to be able
to stop the Havenite missile storm at the next battle of Manticore system?

I don't think they can. I'm just saying that it can't be done with
one shot--there's no targeting the leaders and leaving the ones in
front alone with Havenite missiles.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-27 21:46:11 UTC

Post by deowll
Something along the lines of 57 very similar SLN wallers if I recall right
didn't have enough EW to stop what was thrown at them at Spindle. If the
Havenites throw everything but the kitchen sink at the middle and use their
EW, etc. the SLN ships will have two options: Roll wedges or die. I'd throw
the first salvo at extreme but not impossible range for my side and let them
look at it coming and do the math. Way more missiles than they can possibly
stop even under ideal conditions and they might do a fair job because
Havenite EW is not clearly better than SLN EW based on what we know other
than the Havenites use a lot more of it. They make up for this handicap with
volume. I'd do everything in my power to prevent the ships that rolled
wedges from being hit and attempt to turn the others into debris. Over kill
is not a bad thing when you are trying to panic somebody into giving up.

1) They were up against Apollo. Much better EW.

2) There was no reason to believe Manticore did anything but shoot at
the ships in front.

Post by deowll
My two main objectives would be 1) stop the SLN 2) don't take any
causalities doing it. Given the disparity in the two sides relative
abilities this should be possible for the Havenites to achieve.

The outcome is clear. The SLN can't hope to close to launch range on
the Havenite ships. Against a mere twice their number Haven can
probably kill everything it can reasonably bear on in a single salvo.
Killing the whole fleet would take as many salvos as there are layers
to the Sollie fleet.

The question is how to get as many as possible to surrender rather
than be blown up.

deowll

2010-03-28 01:12:59 UTC

1) They were up against Apollo. Much better EW.
2) There was no reason to believe Manticore did anything but shoot at
the ships in front.

The outcome is clear. The SLN can't hope to close to launch range on
the Havenite ships. Against a mere twice their number Haven can
probably kill everything it can reasonably bear on in a single salvo.
Killing the whole fleet would take as many salvos as there are layers
to the Sollie fleet.
The question is how to get as many as possible to surrender rather
than be blown up.

At Spindle the RMN used part of the SLN as a demonstration.

That's the same thing I'm suggesting.

Demonstrate what you can do. Seeing is believing. Give up or we do it to
you.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-28 03:25:25 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
The question is how to get as many as possible to surrender rather
than be blown up.

At Spindle the RMN used part of the SLN as a demonstration.
That's the same thing I'm suggesting.
Demonstrate what you can do. Seeing is believing. Give up or we do it to
you.

Huh?

In the first encounter which was not at Spindle they blew away the
leader like you are saying--but it was 1 ship of 19, there was no
defense in depth.

In the battle at Spindle they weren't sure of their firepower and
weren't trying to do a demonstration. They fired the maximum they
could control and when they saw how utterly devastating it was they
destructed the second wave to let the Sollies surrender.

I do think shooting the leader is a good strategy if they can pull it
off but I don't think Haven can when shooting at a fleet that large.

deowll

2010-03-29 03:10:17 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
The question is how to get as many as possible to surrender rather
than be blown up.

At Spindle the RMN used part of the SLN as a demonstration.
That's the same thing I'm suggesting.
Demonstrate what you can do. Seeing is believing. Give up or we do it to
you.

Huh?
In the first encounter which was not at Spindle they blew away the
leader like you are saying--but it was 1 ship of 19, there was no
defense in depth.
In the battle at Spindle they weren't sure of their firepower and
weren't trying to do a demonstration. They fired the maximum they
could control and when they saw how utterly devastating it was they
destructed the second wave to let the Sollies surrender.
I do think shooting the leader is a good strategy if they can pull it
off but I don't think Haven can when shooting at a fleet that large.

They got the leader's ship anyway. They did demonstrate that the defense had
no chance. They took out 1/3 of the fleet and the rest gave up. Your basic
claim that they didn't know where in the fleet to expect Crandall's ship to
be is debuis at best. I'm not saying she had to be there but doctrine is
going to cover where she ought to be.

"Those missile-born talons gouged and tore. Energy mounts and missile tubes,
counter-missile launchers, radar arrays, point defense clusters, boat bays,
gravitic sensors, impeller nodes-all of them shattered, exploding into
tattered ruin in a single catastrophic moment, faster than a man could have
blinked. In less time than it would have taken to cough, Sandra Crandall's
flagship was transformed into a broken wreck, a splintered hulk, coasting
onward under momentum alone, with three quarters of her crew wiped out of
existence.
Nor did van Heutz' ship die alone. Her squadron mates Joseph Lister, Max
Planck, and Joseph Hutton died with her. Like Buckley, Hutton at least
avoided immediate and total destruction, but Lister and Planck were less
fortunate. Lister shattered, breaking into three distinct pieces; Planck
simply disappeared in a flash of white-hot fury.

Archimedes, Andreas Vesalius, Hipparchus, Leonardo da Vinci, Gregor Mendel,
Marie Curie, Wilhelm Roëntgen, Alfred Wegener, Avicenna, al-Kawarizmi . . .
every one of the Alpha launch's twenty-three targets-thirty-two percent of
Crandall's total wall of battle-was reduced to splinters and wreckage in
that single inconceivable, exquisitely synchronized explosion."

Now this was 79 SLN wallers against what? Every ship targeted was taken out.
I really didn't remember it this way but this is almost an exact scaled down
dry run of what I suggested and you said wouldn't work only the odds are
going to be much worse for the 400 waller SLN fleet. Sure the Manticore toys
are higher tech Havenite toys. That is going to matter against the Alignment
but against the SLN Battle Fleet it won't make much difference.

I don't think missiles going past SLN ships are going to be in all much
danger either. According to this the ships they are going past should be
coming apart with all their systems going off line. I guess we get to wait
until DW decides to tell us what happens if ever.

Doug Jones

2010-03-29 23:32:30 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
The question is how to get as many as possible to surrender rather
than be blown up.

At Spindle the RMN used part of the SLN as a demonstration.
That's the same thing I'm suggesting.
Demonstrate what you can do. Seeing is believing. Give up or we do it to
you.

Huh?
In the first encounter which was not at Spindle they blew away the
leader like you are saying--but it was 1 ship of 19, there was no
defense in depth.
In the battle at Spindle they weren't sure of their firepower and
weren't trying to do a demonstration. They fired the maximum they
could control and when they saw how utterly devastating it was they
destructed the second wave to let the Sollies surrender.
I do think shooting the leader is a good strategy if they can pull it
off but I don't think Haven can when shooting at a fleet that large.

<snip>

Post by deowll
Now this was 79 SLN wallers against what? Every ship targeted was taken out.
I really didn't remember it this way but this is almost an exact scaled down
dry run of what I suggested and you said wouldn't work only the odds are
going to be much worse for the 400 waller SLN fleet. Sure the Manticore toys
are higher tech Havenite toys. That is going to matter against the Alignment
but against the SLN Battle Fleet it won't make much difference.

<snip>

Not to mention that the RMN can augment the power of the Havenite
wallers by simply attaching a few DD's (or other ships) with FTL
communications to the Havenites and deploy Ghost Rider drones to study
the Sollie fleet. As we saw at the Battle of Spindle, it cut the EW
analysis/situation report in half. Even though it's not Apollo, it's
definitely another major advantage. So each salvo can be retargeted
much faster than anything the SLN can come up with at the moment.

deowll

2010-03-31 09:25:09 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
The question is how to get as many as possible to surrender rather
than be blown up.

At Spindle the RMN used part of the SLN as a demonstration.
That's the same thing I'm suggesting.
Demonstrate what you can do. Seeing is believing. Give up or we do it to
you.

Huh?
In the first encounter which was not at Spindle they blew away the
leader like you are saying--but it was 1 ship of 19, there was no
defense in depth.
In the battle at Spindle they weren't sure of their firepower and
weren't trying to do a demonstration. They fired the maximum they
could control and when they saw how utterly devastating it was they
destructed the second wave to let the Sollies surrender.
I do think shooting the leader is a good strategy if they can pull it
off but I don't think Haven can when shooting at a fleet that large.

<snip>

<snip>
Not to mention that the RMN can augment the power of the Havenite
wallers by simply attaching a few DD's (or other ships) with FTL
communications to the Havenites and deploy Ghost Rider drones to study
the Sollie fleet. As we saw at the Battle of Spindle, it cut the EW
analysis/situation report in half. Even though it's not Apollo, it's
definitely another major advantage. So each salvo can be retargeted
much faster than anything the SLN can come up with at the moment.

True but even baring that it is my understanding that the Havenites now have
their own extremely large FTL system. Sticking it in a medium sized ship
that does little else rather than hiding it in a larger ship seems to have
been a mistake that makes them obvious targets to Manticore but they do have
the thing and it does work after a fashion. Since the SLN isn't likely to
even get within missile range the fact that they aren't throwing enough
missiles or what ever isn't going to cause them to become targets.

deowll

2010-04-01 01:04:56 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
The question is how to get as many as possible to surrender rather
than be blown up.

At Spindle the RMN used part of the SLN as a demonstration.
That's the same thing I'm suggesting.
Demonstrate what you can do. Seeing is believing. Give up or we do it to
you.

Huh?
In the first encounter which was not at Spindle they blew away the
leader like you are saying--but it was 1 ship of 19, there was no
defense in depth.
In the battle at Spindle they weren't sure of their firepower and
weren't trying to do a demonstration. They fired the maximum they
could control and when they saw how utterly devastating it was they
destructed the second wave to let the Sollies surrender.
I do think shooting the leader is a good strategy if they can pull it
off but I don't think Haven can when shooting at a fleet that large.

<snip>

<snip>
Not to mention that the RMN can augment the power of the Havenite
wallers by simply attaching a few DD's (or other ships) with FTL
communications to the Havenites and deploy Ghost Rider drones to study
the Sollie fleet. As we saw at the Battle of Spindle, it cut the EW
analysis/situation report in half. Even though it's not Apollo, it's
definitely another major advantage. So each salvo can be retargeted
much faster than anything the SLN can come up with at the moment.

The RMN targeted 23 of 79 wallers and mission killed or more honestly killed
all 23. The RMN fired ~12,000 missiles and ~1,000 were stopped or ~1/12. If
the SLN had sent 4 times as many ships for a total of 316 ships the SLN
could have stopped ~4,000 missiles in the first salvo, maybe, but 8,000
would have still hit home pretty much killing or crippling ever ship
targeted. You'd need to fire 14 salvos to target every ship but you would
have been able to retarget a few of the cripplies for a total of 168,000
missiles but more of the missiles would have been hitting home after every
salvo so a higher percentage of SLN wallers would have been completely taken
out on every salvo. From where I'm setting it looks like the RMN force that
actually played an active role in the defence of Spendle could bleeping
well pretty much mission kill 316 SLN wallers if they had 200,000 to
250,000 missiles to do it without so much as a nose bleed.

Of course that's assuming that the SLN didn't decide to yell uncle before
they all got mission killed.

Doug Jones

2010-04-01 03:25:26 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
The question is how to get as many as possible to surrender rather
than be blown up.

At Spindle the RMN used part of the SLN as a demonstration.
That's the same thing I'm suggesting.
Demonstrate what you can do. Seeing is believing. Give up or we do it to
you.

Huh?
In the first encounter which was not at Spindle they blew away the
leader like you are saying--but it was 1 ship of 19, there was no
defense in depth.
In the battle at Spindle they weren't sure of their firepower and
weren't trying to do a demonstration. They fired the maximum they
could control and when they saw how utterly devastating it was they
destructed the second wave to let the Sollies surrender.
I do think shooting the leader is a good strategy if they can pull it
off but I don't think Haven can when shooting at a fleet that large.

<snip>

<snip>
Not to mention that the RMN can augment the power of the Havenite
wallers by simply attaching a few DD's (or other ships) with FTL
communications to the Havenites and deploy Ghost Rider drones to study
the Sollie fleet. As we saw at the Battle of Spindle, it cut the EW
analysis/situation report in half. Even though it's not Apollo, it's
definitely another major advantage. So each salvo can be retargeted
much faster than anything the SLN can come up with at the moment.

The RMN targeted 23 of 79 wallers and mission killed or more honestly killed
all 23. The RMN fired ~12,000 missiles and ~1,000 were stopped or ~1/12. If
the SLN had sent 4 times as many ships for a total of 316 ships the SLN
could have stopped ~4,000 missiles in the first salvo, maybe, but 8,000
would have still hit home pretty much killing or crippling ever ship
targeted. You'd need to fire 14 salvos to target every ship but you would
have been able to retarget a few of the cripplies for a total of 168,000
missiles but more of the missiles would have been hitting home after every
salvo so a higher percentage of SLN wallers would have been completely taken
out on every salvo. From where I'm setting it looks like the RMN force that
actually played an active role in the defence of Spendle could bleeping
well pretty much mission kill 316 SLN wallers if they had 200,000 to
250,000 missiles to do it without so much as a nose bleed.
Of course that's assuming that the SLN didn't decide to yell uncle before
they all got mission killed.

True, but the point I was making had nothing to do with that. What
the point was is that even without committing Apollo to the mix, or
firing a single missle, Manticore can increase the effectiveness of
Havenite missles - above and beyond the number and capability they
are going to have - by reducing the command loop time for the missles.

That's what they did at Spindle, and it can be repeated at Manticore.
Use Ghost Rider recon drones close into the Sollie fleet to observe
the EW, formation shifts, etc., put an FTL communication capable ship
(or ships) with the Haven fleet to feed them virtual "real time"
data on the Sollies. The Haven fleet's analysis and commands to their
missles is now only the time it takes for a light-speed transmission
to reach them, not the round-trip time. Besides just firing
shitloads of missles at the Sollies (which they can do), it gives the
Haven fleet a much faster response time to deal with any Sollie
defensive and EW changes, and retargeting salvoes as needed. Their
attack efficiency is going to be drastically improved, made even more
superior to what they already have over the Sollies.

The other thing to remember was that in Spindle, the first salvo was
meant to be overkill. Here's the section:

"Experience against the Republic of Haven indicated that two hundred
to two hundred and fifty Mark 23 hits would destroyor mission-kill,
at leasteven the latest Havenite SD(P) . . . which was why Fire Plan
Alpha had allocated four hundred missiles to each of its targets."

So Manitcore knows now how effective its fire was - and has enough
captured Sollie SD's to make an even better evaluation. That means
that they can target more per salvo.

deowll

2010-04-02 04:40:31 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
The question is how to get as many as possible to surrender rather
than be blown up.

At Spindle the RMN used part of the SLN as a demonstration.
That's the same thing I'm suggesting.
Demonstrate what you can do. Seeing is believing. Give up or we do it to
you.

Huh?
In the first encounter which was not at Spindle they blew away the
leader like you are saying--but it was 1 ship of 19, there was no
defense in depth.
In the battle at Spindle they weren't sure of their firepower and
weren't trying to do a demonstration. They fired the maximum they
could control and when they saw how utterly devastating it was they
destructed the second wave to let the Sollies surrender.
I do think shooting the leader is a good strategy if they can pull it
off but I don't think Haven can when shooting at a fleet that large.

<snip>

<snip>
Not to mention that the RMN can augment the power of the Havenite
wallers by simply attaching a few DD's (or other ships) with FTL
communications to the Havenites and deploy Ghost Rider drones to study
the Sollie fleet. As we saw at the Battle of Spindle, it cut the EW
analysis/situation report in half. Even though it's not Apollo, it's
definitely another major advantage. So each salvo can be retargeted
much faster than anything the SLN can come up with at the moment.

The RMN targeted 23 of 79 wallers and mission killed or more honestly killed
all 23. The RMN fired ~12,000 missiles and ~1,000 were stopped or ~1/12. If
the SLN had sent 4 times as many ships for a total of 316 ships the SLN
could have stopped ~4,000 missiles in the first salvo, maybe, but 8,000
would have still hit home pretty much killing or crippling ever ship
targeted. You'd need to fire 14 salvos to target every ship but you would
have been able to retarget a few of the cripplies for a total of 168,000
missiles but more of the missiles would have been hitting home after every
salvo so a higher percentage of SLN wallers would have been completely taken
out on every salvo. From where I'm setting it looks like the RMN force that
actually played an active role in the defence of Spendle could bleeping
well pretty much mission kill 316 SLN wallers if they had 200,000 to
250,000 missiles to do it without so much as a nose bleed.
Of course that's assuming that the SLN didn't decide to yell uncle before
they all got mission killed.

True, but the point I was making had nothing to do with that. What
the point was is that even without committing Apollo to the mix, or
firing a single missle, Manticore can increase the effectiveness of
Havenite missles - above and beyond the number and capability they
are going to have - by reducing the command loop time for the missles.
That's what they did at Spindle, and it can be repeated at Manticore.
Use Ghost Rider recon drones close into the Sollie fleet to observe
the EW, formation shifts, etc., put an FTL communication capable ship
(or ships) with the Haven fleet to feed them virtual "real time"
data on the Sollies. The Haven fleet's analysis and commands to their
missles is now only the time it takes for a light-speed transmission
to reach them, not the round-trip time. Besides just firing
shitloads of missles at the Sollies (which they can do), it gives the
Haven fleet a much faster response time to deal with any Sollie
defensive and EW changes, and retargeting salvoes as needed. Their
attack efficiency is going to be drastically improved, made even more
superior to what they already have over the Sollies.
The other thing to remember was that in Spindle, the first salvo was
"Experience against the Republic of Haven indicated that two hundred
to two hundred and fifty Mark 23 hits would destroy-or mission-kill,
at least-even the latest Havenite SD(P) . . . which was why Fire Plan
Alpha had allocated four hundred missiles to each of its targets."
So Manitcore knows now how effective its fire was - and has enough
captured Sollie SD's to make an even better evaluation. That means
that they can target more per salvo.

So the RMN most likely got about 350 hits per ship or a tad more however it
might be best to not forget that these old wallers are carrying a heck of
lot more armor than more modern designs. They were extremely easy to hit
but it _may_ actually take more hits to mission kill one. The RMN should be
able to work it out by examining the hulks at Spendle.

As for the SLN 400 waller force at the time of the book ending, they were
more or less past due at Manticore. I'd say the Havenites should just go
ahead and use what they have including their own FTL system rather than get
caught trying to hash together a cludge even if the cludge works better once
you get it working. The idea is to save things like ghost rider for when
ghost rider and better is going to be needed and it sure isn't needed to
take out these antiques unless DW decides to pull a surprise out of his hat
in the form of new tech in the hands of the SLN. This hasn't even been
hinted at.

A more useful long term thought is to help the Havenites to shrink their ftl
plateforms. Reduced sized fusion units or advanced fission units would also
do a lot for their LAC forces though those are much less critical. If
Grayson could build the fission units then so can the Havenites in fact they
should have been able to examine debris after Operation Buttercup and worked
them out.

That still leaves better electronics and fusion drives for missiles.

One thing the SLN could do in the short run is to gut some of their wallers
and make them EW plateforms or build a few from scratch not that I think
it's really sunk in just how badly they are bleeped yet to the point of
causing the dullards at the top to start making major changes in ship
design. The guy at the top is still thinking in terms of if we just throw
enough ships at them we'll win without considering what would happen to the
SLN and the League even if that worked much less facing the fact that it
won't work using current plateforms.

I also suspect that if what we think happens does happen his ability to
recruit qualified people to join the SLN and take on the Star
Empire/Havenites is not going to go well. It would have to much in common
with asking for volunteers to jump into volcano when there is no obvious
reason for anybody to do it. After all nobody has attacked the League have
they?

Loren Pechtel

2010-04-27 18:37:02 UTC

On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:32:30 -0400, Doug Jones

Post by Doug Jones
Not to mention that the RMN can augment the power of the Havenite
wallers by simply attaching a few DD's (or other ships) with FTL
communications to the Havenites and deploy Ghost Rider drones to study
the Sollie fleet. As we saw at the Battle of Spindle, it cut the EW
analysis/situation report in half. Even though it's not Apollo, it's
definitely another major advantage. So each salvo can be retargeted
much faster than anything the SLN can come up with at the moment.

In time, yes. I don't think they can be coordinated well enough
without quite a bit of work.

Loren Pechtel

2010-04-27 18:37:02 UTC

Post by deowll
They got the leader's ship anyway. They did demonstrate that the defense had
no chance. They took out 1/3 of the fleet and the rest gave up. Your basic
claim that they didn't know where in the fleet to expect Crandall's ship to
be is debuis at best. I'm not saying she had to be there but doctrine is
going to cover where she ought to be.

...

Post by deowll
Archimedes, Andreas Vesalius, Hipparchus, Leonardo da Vinci, Gregor Mendel,
Marie Curie, Wilhelm Roëntgen, Alfred Wegener, Avicenna, al-Kawarizmi . . .
every one of the Alpha launch's twenty-three targets-thirty-two percent of
Crandall's total wall of battle-was reduced to splinters and wreckage in
that single inconceivable, exquisitely synchronized explosion."
Now this was 79 SLN wallers against what? Every ship targeted was taken out.
I really didn't remember it this way but this is almost an exact scaled down
dry run of what I suggested and you said wouldn't work only the odds are
going to be much worse for the 400 waller SLN fleet. Sure the Manticore toys
are higher tech Havenite toys. That is going to matter against the Alignment
but against the SLN Battle Fleet it won't make much difference.

But there is no reason to think they weren't targeting the ships in
front.

I have no doubt the Havenites can kill the first layer of ships
easily.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-27 21:46:11 UTC

On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:04:23 -0400, Terry FitzSimons

Post by Terry FitzSimons
But I have fought a few SITS battles before the fleet rules came out and
learned to move my flag to a different location, the relay isn't that long.
But usually If I am targeting the ship in the center, the adjacent ships,
boost the defensive fire and ecm to the point that the salvo doesn't
survive. So its pick on the closest ships, which has a easier defensive
fire and ecm number, or pick on the ship that breaks formation for what
ever reason.

I've never played SITS but I saw this with Harpoon. It's *MUCH*
easier to kill the ships on the outside. What was really fun was
watching the big anti-air ships in the center of the fleet waste
basically their entire magazine this way. I'd fire some
anti-radiation missiles and then when the SAMs launched I would fire
the shipkillers.

The anti-radiation missiles would race in and some would be hit by the
defenses of the target ship but the good SAMs wouldn't be there yet.
While the launchers were recycling the shipkillers would be closing
and again the SAMs would lose the race--and this time there was a good
chance the target ship's defenses would be in trouble from the
anti-radiation missiles, not to mention that they might still be
recycling also.

deowll

2010-03-28 01:07:20 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:04:23 -0400, Terry FitzSimons

I've never played SITS but I saw this with Harpoon. It's *MUCH*
easier to kill the ships on the outside. What was really fun was
watching the big anti-air ships in the center of the fleet waste
basically their entire magazine this way. I'd fire some
anti-radiation missiles and then when the SAMs launched I would fire
the shipkillers.
The anti-radiation missiles would race in and some would be hit by the
defenses of the target ship but the good SAMs wouldn't be there yet.
While the launchers were recycling the shipkillers would be closing
and again the SAMs would lose the race--and this time there was a good
chance the target ship's defenses would be in trouble from the
anti-radiation missiles, not to mention that they might still be
recycling also.

Different games, different rules, different outcomes.

I'm trying to guess what would happen using DWs rules.

I'll merely note that with out anywhere near enough EW to stop what is
coming even if the SLN EW works 100% as the designers wished the SLN isn't
going to stop the missile storm no matter which part is attacked. Their
software wasn't programmed to deal with missiles coming as fast as what they
are going to be facing in mind nor do I think they ever imagned the pure
numbers being thrown. That might or might not cause major snafus with the
EW. The people that sat up the training for the SLN EW people never dreamed
of a situation like this in their worst nightmares. The pure numbers might
cause a few sane EW personnel to panic, freeze, or just give up. People do
all sorts of things when they know they are about to die and if they are at
all good at their jobs these people are going to know.

I think it is also fair to note that the SLN ships will each be running
their own EW independently so the odds are staggering that a lot of missiles
will be targeted more than once further reducing its impact. Then at some
point the much larger amounts of Havenite EW kicks in. If the Havenite EW
can suck off even half of the SLN EW then what was vastly less than hopeless
is going to become hopeless squared, cubed and raised to the tenth power.

If you tell somebody that you are going to terminate the 120 ships in the
middle of their fleet that don't give up and you turn those ships into
drifting hulks and debris the rest are going to be a lot less willing to
commit suicide when they don't have a hope of doing more than die.

The fact that none of the Captains in any of the SLN wallers has ever been
in a real battle of any sort and up until recently hadn't had any reason to
expect they'd ever be in a battle much less on the receiving end of a
massacre is going to mean some of them more or less panic when they see what
happens to their middle. With death a palpable presence they are liable to
do anything. Some of them are most likely reasonably competent professionals
but the odds are extraordinary that a lot of them aren't. None of them want
to die like rats dropped into a running meat grinder. I know I don't.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-28 03:25:25 UTC

Post by deowll
I'll merely note that with out anywhere near enough EW to stop what is
coming even if the SLN EW works 100% as the designers wished the SLN isn't
going to stop the missile storm no matter which part is attacked. Their
software wasn't programmed to deal with missiles coming as fast as what they
are going to be facing in mind nor do I think they ever imagned the pure
numbers being thrown. That might or might not cause major snafus with the
EW. The people that sat up the training for the SLN EW people never dreamed
of a situation like this in their worst nightmares. The pure numbers might
cause a few sane EW personnel to panic, freeze, or just give up. People do
all sorts of things when they know they are about to die and if they are at
all good at their jobs these people are going to know.

I just think that sending the missiles past intact ships will make for
a tremendous amount of attrition.

Post by deowll
The fact that none of the Captains in any of the SLN wallers has ever been
in a real battle of any sort and up until recently hadn't had any reason to
expect they'd ever be in a battle much less on the receiving end of a
massacre is going to mean some of them more or less panic when they see what
happens to their middle. With death a palpable presence they are liable to
do anything. Some of them are most likely reasonably competent professionals
but the odds are extraordinary that a lot of them aren't. None of them want
to die like rats dropped into a running meat grinder. I know I don't.

I just had an interesting thought here if the timing could be pulled
off:

Take a ship hauling a few pods worth of the 4-stage system defense
missiles. The ship goes way out and then comes back at .8c. When the
Sollie fleet is located they drop the pods far away. The missiles
burn 3 stages while they are still some light-minutes away and then
come in ballistic. They'll be at at least .97c at this point.

This is done far enough away that the Sollies don't realize what's up.
The Sollies will be coming in in formation, they ballistic solution
will be pretty good.

If the ballistic solution is good enough leave the final stage
untouched--remember that the effective radar range is reduced by their
speed. If the radar can see them at a million km but they're going
.97c the ping won't be returned until they are a mere 30 thousand km
out--attack range. If they could pull it off all the Sollies would
see would be the detonations of undetected missiles.

Even if they have to use the final stage to get into position it won't
be for more than a few seconds.

Talk about scaring guys who haven't ever fought before!

deowll

2010-03-29 01:03:09 UTC

I just think that sending the missiles past intact ships will make for
a tremendous amount of attrition.

They aren't designed to deal out more than a moderate amount of attrition on
the numbers that will be coming their way even if they weren't going to be
to busy being blown to shreds to be truly combat effective.

Post by deowll
The fact that none of the Captains in any of the SLN wallers has ever been
in a real battle of any sort and up until recently hadn't had any reason to
expect they'd ever be in a battle much less on the receiving end of a
massacre is going to mean some of them more or less panic when they see what
happens to their middle. With death a palpable presence they are liable to
do anything. Some of them are most likely reasonably competent
professionals
but the odds are extraordinary that a lot of them aren't. None of them want
to die like rats dropped into a running meat grinder. I know I don't.

I just had an interesting thought here if the timing could be pulled
Take a ship hauling a few pods worth of the 4-stage system defense
missiles. The ship goes way out and then comes back at .8c. When the
Sollie fleet is located they drop the pods far away. The missiles
burn 3 stages while they are still some light-minutes away and then
come in ballistic. They'll be at at least .97c at this point.
This is done far enough away that the Sollies don't realize what's up.
The Sollies will be coming in in formation, they ballistic solution
will be pretty good.
If the ballistic solution is good enough leave the final stage
untouched--remember that the effective radar range is reduced by their
speed. If the radar can see them at a million km but they're going
.97c the ping won't be returned until they are a mere 30 thousand km
out--attack range. If they could pull it off all the Sollies would
see would be the detonations of undetected missiles.
Even if they have to use the final stage to get into position it won't
be for more than a few seconds.
Talk about scaring guys who haven't ever fought before!

Sounds like a long shot in more ways than one. Might be worth trying if it
was needed. It isn't needed.

The SLN Wallers are slow. They have an ultra weak missile defense for this
day and age for a ship their size. They only have one stage missiles with a
very slow firing rate and very limited range. Even if the SLN showed up
with a thousand wallers the Havenite force should be able to trash them
without anyone on their side getting a nose bleed or needing to ask for
help from the RMN. Part of it would be as simple as when the captians in the
ships that weren't trageted saw what happened to the ships that were
targeted many of them might well simply try to flee. Since the smart thing
for the Havenite task force to do would be to target the ships that were
trying to continue the attack some of the SLN ships _might_ actually manage
to escape.

Loren Pechtel

2010-04-27 18:37:02 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
If the ballistic solution is good enough leave the final stage
untouched--remember that the effective radar range is reduced by their
speed. If the radar can see them at a million km but they're going
.97c the ping won't be returned until they are a mere 30 thousand km
out--attack range. If they could pull it off all the Sollies would
see would be the detonations of undetected missiles.
Even if they have to use the final stage to get into position it won't
be for more than a few seconds.
Talk about scaring guys who haven't ever fought before!

Sounds like a long shot in more ways than one. Might be worth trying if it
was needed. It isn't needed.
The SLN Wallers are slow. They have an ultra weak missile defense for this
day and age for a ship their size. They only have one stage missiles with a
very slow firing rate and very limited range. Even if the SLN showed up
with a thousand wallers the Havenite force should be able to trash them
without anyone on their side getting a nose bleed or needing to ask for
help from the RMN. Part of it would be as simple as when the captians in the
ships that weren't trageted saw what happened to the ships that were
targeted many of them might well simply try to flee. Since the smart thing
for the Havenite task force to do would be to target the ships that were
trying to continue the attack some of the SLN ships _might_ actually manage
to escape.

There is no doubt the Sollies can be killed. The issue is how to stop
them without killing millions of Sollies in the process.

Terry FitzSimons

2010-04-30 17:47:37 UTC

On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:37:02 -0700, Loren Pechtel

Sounds like a long shot in more ways than one. Might be worth trying if it
was needed. It isn't needed.
The SLN Wallers are slow. They have an ultra weak missile defense for this
day and age for a ship their size. They only have one stage missiles with a
very slow firing rate and very limited range. Even if the SLN showed up
with a thousand wallers the Havenite force should be able to trash them
without anyone on their side getting a nose bleed or needing to ask for
help from the RMN. Part of it would be as simple as when the captians in the
ships that weren't trageted saw what happened to the ships that were
targeted many of them might well simply try to flee. Since the smart thing
for the Havenite task force to do would be to target the ships that were
trying to continue the attack some of the SLN ships _might_ actually manage
to escape.

There is no doubt the Sollies can be killed. The issue is how to stop
them without killing millions of Sollies in the process.

Use the same attack, but change the standoff attack point to use the
contact nukes warheads.

If you launch 37,000 nuke missiles that blow up at the stand-off range, it
might give them the notion of just how badly screwed they are, without
damaging a single ship.

Let them know that the first was a demonstration strike, the second 37,000
now coming in isn't, nor is the third 37,000 that we are firing now.
--

Terry FitzSimons
***@mintel.net

Loren Pechtel

2010-05-01 04:31:45 UTC

On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:47:37 -0400, Terry FitzSimons

Post by Terry FitzSimons

Post by Loren Pechtel
There is no doubt the Sollies can be killed. The issue is how to stop
them without killing millions of Sollies in the process.

Use the same attack, but change the standoff attack point to use the
contact nukes warheads.
If you launch 37,000 nuke missiles that blow up at the stand-off range, it
might give them the notion of just how badly screwed they are, without
damaging a single ship.
Let them know that the first was a demonstration strike, the second 37,000
now coming in isn't, nor is the third 37,000 that we are firing now.

Good point.

It wouldn't take anything like 37,000 warheads, either. Take some
ordinary missiles and disable the rods and program them to detonate at
the point of closest approach rather than normal standoff. Shoot a
couple thousand of them and let the Sollies see how ineffective their
defense is.

Don Sample

2010-05-01 05:39:50 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:47:37 -0400, Terry FitzSimons

Post by Terry FitzSimons

Post by Loren Pechtel
There is no doubt the Sollies can be killed. The issue is how to stop
them without killing millions of Sollies in the process.

Use the same attack, but change the standoff attack point to use the
contact nukes warheads.
If you launch 37,000 nuke missiles that blow up at the stand-off range, it
might give them the notion of just how badly screwed they are, without
damaging a single ship.
Let them know that the first was a demonstration strike, the second 37,000
now coming in isn't, nor is the third 37,000 that we are firing now.

Good point.
It wouldn't take anything like 37,000 warheads, either. Take some
ordinary missiles and disable the rods and program them to detonate at
the point of closest approach rather than normal standoff. Shoot a
couple thousand of them and let the Sollies see how ineffective their
defense is.

You need more than a couple of thousand. Against 400 SDs thats only 5
missiles that each ship has to intercept. Crandall's fleet at Spindle
managed to intercept about 1,000 of the 12,000 missiles launched at
them. That was about 15 interceptions per SD. If Filareta has a
similar interception rate, you'll have to launch at least 6,000 missiles
at his 400 ship fleet to saturate his defences. And Filareta seems to
be a little smarter than Crandall, has a much better idea of what's
going to be coming at him, and is likely to have been drilling his point
defences hard, so it will take even more missiles than that to guarantee
getting hits.

--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>

Loren Pechtel

2010-05-01 17:52:10 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
Good point.
It wouldn't take anything like 37,000 warheads, either. Take some
ordinary missiles and disable the rods and program them to detonate at
the point of closest approach rather than normal standoff. Shoot a
couple thousand of them and let the Sollies see how ineffective their
defense is.

Agreed.

deowll

2010-05-03 02:58:15 UTC

Agreed.

I think his fleet and crews will be much more ready for combat than the
fleet at Spindle was but the limits of his hardware means he doesn't have
enough point defense to do the job nor enough EW to matter nor are his ships
actually set up or trained to protect others if they aren't targeted. Target
a hundred or so ships and they will largely stand along. I guess I'm not
clever. I'd take out that hundred or so ships despite everything they could
do and then stop the next wave and tell them time to cut their wedges or get
ready to die with their skin suits on.

Loren Pechtel

2010-05-03 14:37:57 UTC

Post by deowll
I think his fleet and crews will be much more ready for combat than the
fleet at Spindle was but the limits of his hardware means he doesn't have
enough point defense to do the job nor enough EW to matter nor are his ships
actually set up or trained to protect others if they aren't targeted. Target
a hundred or so ships and they will largely stand along. I guess I'm not
clever. I'd take out that hundred or so ships despite everything they could
do and then stop the next wave and tell them time to cut their wedges or get
ready to die with their skin suits on.

That's still something approaching a million deaths.

deowll

2010-05-04 06:14:47 UTC

That's still something approaching a million deaths.

As always when it comes to counting causalities you need to make sure that
the causalities aren't your own people. The objective of the SLN is to
inflect as many causalities as it takes to subjugate the Manticore system
after which the Manticore system will be enslaved. Your objective is to
inflict as many casualties as it takes to prevent them from achieving their
objective. I have grave reservations about this force surrendering without
getting slammed hard first. On the other hand I expect them to surrender
once it is clearly demonstrated that the option is immediate death. Dragging
out the process isn't going to make it any less ghastly or save any lives.

If they don't say uncle when they see the welcoming committee you need to
hurt them badly enough fast enough they _know_ they can't bull their way
into range and hope to achieve something. I doubt that the officers running
the fleet understand at a gut level what's going to happen to them in combat
and they do expect to do major damage even if they are defeated. So far they
are more or less reacting like it's just a numbers game though they are
slowly catching on. Put the expectation of immediate death in them with
nothing to show for it and I think their will to fight will evaporate. Fail
at that and you may have to kill them all.

Loren Pechtel

2010-05-04 18:29:18 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
That's still something approaching a million deaths.

I'm not worrying about Manticoran or even Havenite deaths--unless they
blunder there shouldn't be any. Even if Haven does the same degraded
shots that Manticore did it's a turkey shoot--no Sollie will get
anywhere near launch range.

Post by deowll
slowly catching on. Put the expectation of immediate death in them with
nothing to show for it and I think their will to fight will evaporate. Fail
at that and you may have to kill them all.

Agreed--which is why I'm trying to come up with ways to do it while
killing as few as possible.

deowll

2010-05-03 02:09:50 UTC

Sounds like a long shot in more ways than one. Might be worth trying if it
was needed. It isn't needed.
The SLN Wallers are slow. They have an ultra weak missile defense for this
day and age for a ship their size. They only have one stage missiles with a
very slow firing rate and very limited range. Even if the SLN showed up
with a thousand wallers the Havenite force should be able to trash them
without anyone on their side getting a nose bleed or needing to ask for
help from the RMN. Part of it would be as simple as when the captians in the
ships that weren't trageted saw what happened to the ships that were
targeted many of them might well simply try to flee. Since the smart thing
for the Havenite task force to do would be to target the ships that were
trying to continue the attack some of the SLN ships _might_ actually manage
to escape.

There is no doubt the Sollies can be killed. The issue is how to stop
them without killing millions of Sollies in the process.

You can do what I orginally suggested. Hit part of them very hard and
convince the others to give up because they know they can't stop the next
wave of missiles.

deowll

2010-03-24 04:08:46 UTC

Post by pyotr filipivich
22 Mar 2010 23:55:04 -0500 did write/type or cause to appear in

No. The Mesa Conglomerates don't actually have much to say in this because
they aren't that far inside the onion.

Analogy. Meas is plague by the idea that We know what we are
doing,unlike those bunglers. The Sollies have the same mind set.

As the prophetess of Delphi said, if you go to war a great empire will be
destroyed. It is up to Fates/DW to decided which one and to learn that you
have to roll the dice. The Alignment is rolling the dice. I suspect they
will learn they should have tried other more peaceful less high risk options
but some people like to go for broke.

However the D family's goals can still be achieved even if the more visible
part of the Alignment is terminated as long as the RF survives. As long as
nobody breaches the firewall between those organizations...It ought to at
least survive.

Post by pyotr filipivich
Same would go for the SLN - "they" got killed because they did
something stupid.

Exactly. Everybody except the guy that issued the orders is going to be
thinking that ONI is run by cretins and the top brass is brain dead.

They've thought that for the last how many centuries? Such
thinking exists now, and we haven't even left the planet!

Post by deowll
The stupid thing that was done was attacking somebody with advanced
tech using obsolete tech. This is going to be glaringly obvious.

Now, now it is obvious. Remember, the British Navy set sail in
1917 for what became known as the Battle of Jutland, in ships which
were actually technologically inferior to the German Kreigsmarine. How
ever, they also set sail to yet another Glorious Victory, harumph,
harumph. Jolly Good, and all that. They almost got their kesters
handed to them, but they expected to win, while the Germans were not
as confident in their own ability.
Now, how that would apply to this situation is that the Sollies go
forth to muddle through to Yet Another Victory over another bunch of
upstart neo-barbs. Only the Manties aren't that backwards, or over
awed. They've been cutting edge for some years now, and know it. The
only thing they are "worried" about is the "quantity has its own
quality" issue. So, they tangle with the Sollies and introduce them
to Modern Warfare.
The rest of the SL fleet is going to be after revenge, although
some are going to wonder how exactly, such a debacle could have
occurred in the first place. But Beurocr^H^H^H^ Organizational
inertia is against them - the problems are not so much in the
Solarian ships, as they got over confident.

The people in the fleet aren't all that confident but they are willing to
follow orders. They think they have a shot and expect to do major damage
even if they get taken out. They expect the fleet behind them to finish off
the job.

The book implies but does not state the top SLN Admiral got sold a bill of
goods by his Mesan _friends_ and is about to find himself left to swing in
the wind after taking their advice resulting in the biggest military
disaster in the history of the League. That is going to cause fissures to
show up all over the League and the SLN is going to be way short of ships to
adequately control the situation and a lot of the active duty ships aren't
going to be where they need to be because the Admiral is forming a new 600
waller fleet and pulled a lot of Frontier fleet out to serve as escorts.
Since there weren't enough Frontier Fleet ships to start with, with out the
threat of the big hammer of Battle Fleet to back them up this is going to
cause major problems. Okay Battle Fleet will still be there but people are
going to be a lot less impressed.

Two things that may be about to hit the news is that Zelwikie wasn't killed
on Mesa which makes the story the League bosses have been pushing look
rather dubious at best.

The other is that if I were the SKM I'd invite the League media in and let
them watch the SLN break the law by invading sovereign space without a
declaration of war and get trashed like a pack of baboons who tried to
attack a fortress complete with barbed wire, land mines, and machine guns. I
would of course follow all the rules and be very careful to cross all my Ts
and dot all my eyes but I'd do everything in my power to make the SLN look
like completely inept thugs. If you can cause people to loose all respect
for the SLN then the public won't support it at the same time people are
testing it all over the place. In those locations it fails the test on the
first go round it will take a lot more force to get the situation under
control on the next go round. A lot of locations are going to be too remote
from the core worlds and to strong to deal with in the short run and maybe
in the long run.

Some of the League might hang together but even if they do they are apt to
change the League constituion to allow a bit more control by the law making
body. The Top officals are likely to get voted into office by the League
members.

Post by pyotr filipivich
-
pyotr filipivich.
Just about the time you finally see light at the end of the tunnel,
you find out it's a Government Project to build more tunnel.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-24 20:27:34 UTC

Post by deowll
The people in the fleet aren't all that confident but they are willing to
follow orders. They think they have a shot and expect to do major damage
even if they get taken out. They expect the fleet behind them to finish off
the job.

I don't really think they're that suicidal. Rather, they think that
while they might lose the battle that the people will survive. They
don't realize how extreme the overkill is.

Post by deowll
The book implies but does not state the top SLN Admiral got sold a bill of
goods by his Mesan _friends_ and is about to find himself left to swing in
the wind after taking their advice resulting in the biggest military
disaster in the history of the League. That is going to cause fissures to
show up all over the League and the SLN is going to be way short of ships to
adequately control the situation and a lot of the active duty ships aren't
going to be where they need to be because the Admiral is forming a new 600
waller fleet and pulled a lot of Frontier fleet out to serve as escorts.
Since there weren't enough Frontier Fleet ships to start with, with out the
threat of the big hammer of Battle Fleet to back them up this is going to
cause major problems. Okay Battle Fleet will still be there but people are
going to be a lot less impressed.

Which is exactly what Mesa wants.

Post by deowll
Two things that may be about to hit the news is that Zelwikie wasn't killed
on Mesa which makes the story the League bosses have been pushing look
rather dubious at best.

I'm not at all sure they'll go public with that. That would tell Mesa
how deeply they have been compromised. Manticore can simply say that
they have realized Mesa is the true enemy without exposing how they
knew. After all, the fact that he was on Mesa in the first place
implies that Manticore is investigating Mesa.

Post by deowll
The other is that if I were the SKM I'd invite the League media in and let
them watch the SLN break the law by invading sovereign space without a
declaration of war and get trashed like a pack of baboons who tried to
attack a fortress complete with barbed wire, land mines, and machine guns. I

How do they get there in time? And how do they believe what they are
seeing?

Maybe, though... If there's time to do it get the lightest ship they
can that was captured at Spindle, remove it's weapons and hand it to a
skeleton crew and put the newsies on it. Invite it along to the
battle. It can go anywhere it wants except it must stay away from
Haven or Manticore forces (it can hide behind them if it wants,
though) and head for home as soon as the battle is over.

deowll

2010-03-26 05:15:38 UTC

I don't really think they're that suicidal. Rather, they think that
while they might lose the battle that the people will survive. They
don't realize how extreme the overkill is.

Maybe as a POW. They aren't expecting to get home if they don't win.

Which is exactly what Mesa wants.

I normally confabulate Mesa and the Alignment but in this case it is best to
make a distinction. The D family have plans and those plans require the
breakup of the League. Does the population of Mesa stand to benefit by those
plans? I think the answer is no but then they weren't consulted. The
population may take orders but a lot of them aren't going to like it and may
act in ways meant to benefit themselves and their families rather than the
Alignment.

Post by deowll
Two things that may be about to hit the news is that Zelwikie wasn't killed
on Mesa which makes the story the League bosses have been pushing look
rather dubious at best.

They are going to need to go at least semi public with a lot of it in order
to get cooperation. Somebody somewhere is going to be working for the
Alignment. Worse, government officals/office holders have a wonderful track
record of leaking information off the record.

If you don't get what I'm saying try this story. A man wanted some
classified information about a new weapons system a few years back. The U.S.
government refused to share. He asked the Russian consulate which seemed
bemused but did provide the data a few days later.

How do they get there in time? And how do they believe what they are
seeing?

The SLN is coming the long way. It is a very short trip from Earth to
Manticore using the worm hole junctions or they could just round up anybody
still left in Talbot, Manticore, and Beowulf, etc. that might like to be
witness to the biggest news story in the last few hundred years. The
sensors in any ship media types might happen to be in should allow them to
see and record most of it. If they want to use their own equipment/ship, why
not? You could give them data dumps from all over the system Manticore
system to compare. Drop the information on anybody passing through Manticore
that will take it and get the story out to everybody all over known space
ASAP. Once the story is out all over the place with plenty of data from many
sources/observation points to back it up anybody trying to do a spin is
going to be running well behind whatever the locals have already decided it
means. The media/local system governments getting the data will of course
share the data with their systems defenses forces who will be intrigued and
more than willing to act as consultants giving their expert interpretion of
the events in question.

What you don't want to do is allow League officials to control the story.
This way they can't. Any spin they may try to put out is going to be swamped
under the various interpretations put out by others. While the people
interpreting the data might on occasion take a dim view of the people
defending Manticore system they're going to be extremely impressed with the
lack of success of the invaders. Somebody is going to get the credit for
that and I find it hard to believe that anyone could survive that much heat.

Post by Loren Pechtel
Maybe, though... If there's time to do it get the lightest ship they
can that was captured at Spindle, remove it's weapons and hand it to a
skeleton crew and put the newsies on it. Invite it along to the
battle. It can go anywhere it wants except it must stay away from
Haven or Manticore forces (it can hide behind them if it wants,
though) and head for home as soon as the battle is over.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-26 17:52:15 UTC

I don't really think they're that suicidal. Rather, they think that
while they might lose the battle that the people will survive. They
don't realize how extreme the overkill is.

Maybe as a POW. They aren't expecting to get home if they don't win.

Nobody would dare mistreat League POWs and they wouldn't be POWs long
as the next fleet would liberate them. (Or at least that's what they
think!)

Post by Loren Pechtel
Which is exactly what Mesa wants.

Agreed--it's what the Alignment wants. However, it's the Alignment
that's manipulating the orders anyway.

Post by Loren Pechtel
I'm not at all sure they'll go public with that. That would tell Mesa
how deeply they have been compromised. Manticore can simply say that
they have realized Mesa is the true enemy without exposing how they
knew. After all, the fact that he was on Mesa in the first place
implies that Manticore is investigating Mesa.

What I'm saying is that Manticore will reveal *SOME* information but
not tell how it was obtained so Mesa doesn't know it's streak drive is
compromised.

Post by Loren Pechtel
How do they get there in time? And how do they believe what they are
seeing?

But would they be *SLN* reporters?? They certainly can get local
reporters.

Post by deowll
sensors in any ship media types might happen to be in should allow them to
see and record most of it. If they want to use their own equipment/ship, why
not? You could give them data dumps from all over the system Manticore
system to compare. Drop the information on anybody passing through Manticore
that will take it and get the story out to everybody all over known space
ASAP. Once the story is out all over the place with plenty of data from many

A civilian ship won't have the sensors to know what's going on. That's
why I suggested providing a disarmed Sollie ship. The point of
sending them directly home is to avoid any possibility that Manticore
tampered with the data.

Remember the tampering allegations about the battle of Spindle--I'm
proposing a system by which Manticore can't touch the data.

Grashtel

2010-03-27 03:56:40 UTC

On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:52:15 -0700, Loren Pechtel
[snip]

Post by deowll
The SLN is coming the long way. It is a very short trip from Earth to
Manticore using the worm hole junctions or they could just round up anybody
still left in Talbot, Manticore, and Beowulf, etc. that might like to be
witness to the biggest news story in the last few hundred years. The

But would they be *SLN* reporters?? They certainly can get local
reporters.

Even assuming that Solarian League Navy reporters exist (knowing the
SLN its quite possible) they wouldn't be going to Manticore except on
the SLN fleet. On the other hand reporters from the Solarian League
are reletively easy for the Manties to get hold of as they just so
happen to have a shortcut straight to the core of the League making
Beowulf (a Leage core world, almost certainly a founder memeber of the
League, and quite possibly the originator of it) functionally part of
the same star system as Manticore.

Assuming of course the the League reporters don't already have and
can't get hold of ships with decent sensors. Just because standard
merchie sensors suck doesn't mean that its not possible to get a
civillian (or at least privately owned, consider the ASL frigates,
Haputman Cartel liners, and armed merchies seen in the books) ship
with sensors matching or exceeding the quality of those of a
comparable sized warship.

Post by Loren Pechtel
Remember the tampering allegations about the battle of Spindle--I'm
proposing a system by which Manticore can't touch the data.

By giving them a ship that has been worked on by Manty yards? Because
of course no one would ever accuse the Manties of having made
additional modifications, such as say a little something to let them
make the ship's sensors show whatever they want them to.

Loren Pechtel

2010-03-27 21:46:11 UTC

Post by Grashtel

Post by Loren Pechtel
Remember the tampering allegations about the battle of Spindle--I'm
proposing a system by which Manticore can't touch the data.

Good point. I guess it doesn't work.

deowll

2010-03-27 06:12:25 UTC

I don't really think they're that suicidal. Rather, they think that
while they might lose the battle that the people will survive. They
don't realize how extreme the overkill is.

Maybe as a POW. They aren't expecting to get home if they don't win.

Nobody would dare mistreat League POWs and they wouldn't be POWs long
as the next fleet would liberate them. (Or at least that's what they
think!)

Maybe but I think even the dullest dimwit is going to be aware that if you
are in a ship that gets killed you aren't all that likely to become a POW. A
thirteen or fourteen year old might be oblivious to stuff like this but not
the people in charge. They already know what happened to the last fleet that
took on the Star Empire so they have to know somebody on their side is going
to be dead by the time the fight is over. A little basic math would suggest
that if Manticore still has 60 or so wallers they're going to kill at least
that many SLN wallers. A little better math would suggest at least 120 or
more ships will be knocked out. Even better math would suggest each SKMN
Waller might be able to kill three SLN ships each before the SLN got into
range.

Basically what the SLN is hoping is that the primary SKMN advantage is
their system defense pods and those were largely taken out in the previous
attack by parties unknown. How they'll react when they are greeted by
Havenites is anybody's guess. Off hand I suspect they'll require the other
side to fire on them at least once. Unfortunately for the SLN the difference
between the Havenite navy and the SKMN is zero as for at they are concerned.

Post by Loren Pechtel
Which is exactly what Mesa wants.

Agreed--it's what the Alignment wants. However, it's the Alignment
that's manipulating the orders anyway.

The problem is when you look real close the Alignment proper may be less
than 1,000 people. It may even be less than 500 people. In many ways that is
not a robust civilization or society. Everybody else is in the outer layers
of the onion and as we all know onions aren't that firmly bound together. If
you make a few cuts in key places and apply even a little pressure they come
apart.

In other words the Alignment has many of the same weaknesses as the League.
League members see themselves as being citizens of their home systems rather
than League citizens and many of the people being manipulated by the
Alignment are loyal to family, business, or home system and have never
heard or only recently heard of the Alignment and what they are hearing may
not completely thrill them. It isn't likely that they will willingly die for
the Alignment or put their families in harms way for it. It is very likely
they will get themselves and their families out of harms way at the expense
of the Alignment if the opportunity presents itself.

What I'm saying is that Manticore will reveal *SOME* information but
not tell how it was obtained so Mesa doesn't know it's streak drive is
compromised.

I would think if they revealed a meaningful amount of credible information,
something that would impact people's plans, the source is going to have to
be part of it and even if they tried to hide the source it would still be
obvious to anyone as intelligent as the D. family.

Unknown source = dubious

Post by Loren Pechtel
How do they get there in time? And how do they believe what they are
seeing?

But would they be *SLN* reporters?? They certainly can get local
reporters.

Okay the information that the attack was coming has been public information
for at least a week and the SLN hasn't shown up yet. It is on the way.
Beowulf is a respected League system and getting people to the Manticore
system isn't going to take over a day from Beowulf so a lot of media people
should be there to observe based on that alone. If the attack is delayed
much longer you might even have SLN observers in system pretending to be
media people to observe if that is what you are asking? The SLN ONI may have
a ship or three keeping a safe distance from the fleet to act as observers.
If they don't they are massively incompatent but then the people at the top
are massively incompatent. I have my doubts such ships could escape unless
allowed to escape. The Andies should have observers. So should the Cluster.
In fact somebody should have shown up through every worm hole junction.

Observers from various other systems should be able to make the trip and
record events for themselves. As long as the worm holes junctions aren't
captured by the SLN all of this information should, with in days, be
spreading all over the space. Not all of it going in the same direction.
The data coming through Talbot is going to show up in Monica and points
nearby long, as in weeks, before anything gets to them from Earth or offical
SLN sources. The same is true for Eriwyn (sp) and from there it can jump
deep into the League. I would think the same might be true of the Andies.
I'd guess Maya will get the news first from non League sources. They will
regard it as good news but their navel forces aren't ready yet. On the other
hand they know this is going to distract the SLN and League bosses so they
will most likely try to take advantage of it some way. It might even serve
as good excuse to purchase more military ships from Eriwyn openly at least
in the smaller sizes. I mean if the SLN is going to be taking on both the
Star Empire and the Havenites and the SLN has already lost over 400 wallers
plus a substantial number of lesser ships it does rather look as if the
League forces are going to be needing some replacements doesn't it?

Everybody is going to regard the largest navel battle/disaster in the
history of the SLN as big news and the news is going to spread with every
ship that stops in a system and picks this up from the locals because they
are going to share what they know every place they stop. In time the news is
going to start running into itself but that just means the locals can look
at two or more sources and compare.