Relax wrote:Zakharra wrote: I must point out to Relax that the MMM he is touting.. isn't in SL space any more. ALL of them were recalled; from the Core, from the Inner and Outer Protectorates, and from the Verge. That was the point of Lacoon 1. The complete removal of MMM ships from all of SL space, which includes a considerable part of the Verge (otherwise they wouldn't have OFS and Frontier Fleet in the area) Unless that MMM is on RMN business there are -no- Manty merchant vessels in SL space. Period. and a good number of the crews on those MMM ships are currently on active duty on RMN warships.
1) The Verge is NOT the protectorates. Look at DW's maps. SL-Core-Shell-Protectorates then the Verge. Haven/Manticore/Andies/TQ etc are all in the Verge.
2) The ships were recalled to "friendly" space, NOT their crews to active duty. Where on earth did you ever get that idea from? Read ART again. First couple of chapters. Notice whats his face was ruminating that he was "likely" going to recalled to active duty and toting back something quite a bit less profitable and a lot more explosive.
3) Look at a timeline. Lacoon I, was not a recall. It was a war warning. Or you could recall there was this "little problem child" called Oyster Bay that rolled through Mancticoran space when Lacoon II was kicking off and MMM shipping was simultaneously being pulled from SL space. OB eliminated any "new" shipping these recalled crews could have possibly gone to in either case, even if you are correct about being recalled to active duty.
Bottom line: Thousands of stationary freighters with crews and no income.
The Verge is also thick with OFS and FF ships. It is, for all intents and purposed, SL space, more or less. Otherwise what the hell is OFS for then? The frontier is the Verge. The Inner and Outer Protectorates are SL space as is the Core. The Verge is on the verge (in terms of decades if not centuries) of being annexed by the SL, hence the reason for the Office of Frontier Security and the Frontier Fleet. The Verge also had several wormhole junctions. Junctions the SEM seized control temporarily in Lacoon 1 and somewhat permanently in Lacoon 2.
Manticore and Haven are outside of the listed Verge space. The Talbot cluster is in Verge space, but the two nations you named? Outside of Verge space.
Lacoon 1 was a recall. It flat out stated that the RMN was recalling ALL MMM ships from League space. It was also a warning to the SL that the RMN and SEM was serious about protecting its ships and citizens. but what was declared an act of war was the closing of
Manticore's Junction to all SL ships. Recalling the MMM was bad enough, the SL could complain about that but not really do anything legally but protest diplomatically. What really got the Mandarins attention though was the closing of SEM space and the Manticore Junction to SL ships. That is what they really considered an act of economic warfare.
Of those thousands of merchant ships, a good portion of those crews are not manning RMN warships. Many of the rest are probably already headed out on runs in Silesia, the Andermani Empire and now in the Republic of Haven. SL space is off limits atm as would be Verge space because they would not be able to guarantee the safety of any MMM ships there in the line of fire. You might not think it so, but the Verge is unfriendly space atm as far as the RMN and SEM is concerned. Any MMM ship traveling through there is taking its life in its hands and those ships are vulnerable to SLN ships.
Oyster Bay did eliminate the shipyards and space stations, but there are still crews that need to be rotated out for some much needed R&R, replacements for crew killed in battle and a thousand other things. Sooner than later the shipyards will be turning out ships again and when that happens, they need those trained reservists -there- to man them. As soon as the ships start coming out of the slipways, they will need to be fully manned and ready for acceptance trials, then battle. The reservists can't be half way across explored space on a merchant vessel.
Draken wrote:Going back to strategy. Easiest one is using BC, CLAC, CA, DD, CL as raiding forces to destroy every enemy shipyard which we can find. Beowulf should have a lot of information on that. If Sollies will lose a lot of shipyards they will not have enough industrial capacity to build new ships, so they economy will be falling apart. After destroying that BC(P) should go after mining ships, smelters and everything which is part of space economy. They should be able to rebuild it pretty quickly but every month of delay is good and we have commanders which commanded that kind of battles before (Diamato, Honor, Tourville, Theisman, Truman, Henke, Oversteeger, Miklós) only problem will be with scouting and making list of which should be attacked. And another good idea would be to have few freighters with military grade impellers so they can carry anything valuable. Captured prototypes, any useful materials and other stuff.
Doing that would ensure that you piss off those systems when you wreck the very basis of their system economy by destroying it. Manticore wants to have those systems as friends at least. Turning everything in the system but what's on the planet into junk and scrap metal is not the way to do that.
Think of it this way (assuming you live in the US): if a foreign nation attacked the US and systematically managed to destroy the military then went down the list destroying the industrial/economic infrastructure of the states, including your state, basically reducing them to poverty, do you think those states or the Us would be grateful to that nation and want to be friends with it after they wrecked the country? Most of the population would be 'Hell no! Screw those (insert insult of choice)!' As kzt puts it, it would pit the 3 billion of the SEM (not including the unknown number in Talbot and Silesia) and the population of Haven against the hundreds of billions to several trillion people of the SL. Unless you're going to start glassing planets, wiping out system infrastructure like you outlined isn't going to make anyone any friends.
Edit: to Relax, the RHN isn't in any real condition to be raiding SL space anymore than the RMN is. They lost a huge chunk of their fleet in First Manticore. And it was a larger percentage than the SL lost in Second Manticore. The SLN had far greater reserves while the RHN sent practically all of its fleet in one massive attack except for the Home Fleet. The Republic doesn't have that many ships to spare yet until more come out of the slipways of the shipyards.