Question about Beowulf tactics

Relax wrote:NIT: Japan did not declare war before Pearl Harbor.

The declaration was published in the front page of every newspaper in Japan on December 8th. Across the international date line, it was still December 7th in Hawaii when it was published. They did declare war before Pearl Harbor, they just didn't inform the US until after the bombs fell.

SWM wrote:

Zakharra wrote: It is more than a police action. Manticore has made it known under no uncertain terms that there -is- a state of war between the SEM/GA and the SL. There is no way to legally wiggle out from under the fact that the SL is at war anymore. The need of the Delegates to vote on the matter was taken away when Manticore declared war (and blew away the SLN fleet) in the process. I think there would be provisions for self defense for the SLN in the case of attack by a outside power, in which case of threat that the SLN has the authority to enter and defend any system of the SL.

Sure, you can say that a state of war exists. But the League bureaucracy still can't execute any war powers unless the Legislature declares a state of war. It doesn't matter what the Mandarins say--they CANNOT use those powers to force the planets of the League to do anything unless the Legislature declares a state of war and GIVES them those powers.

There would be clauses and powers given in the Constitution and legislation that gives the SLN the power to do just that in the event of an emergency when an outside attacker attacks/invades and the SLN needs to move in to help defend the systems. In cases like that, the SLN WOULD have the authority to commandeer the system SDF, -for the defense of the system-. It would probably have to release said control after the situation was resolved, but for that specific emergency kit would have too, otherwise the SLN would be forced to stand aside while an enemy ravaged systems, wait until after a vote passed before taking action.

If the US was invaded by Mexico, do you think the US military would wait until the states told them they could come in before they went and started repelling the invaders?

crewdude48 wrote:They did declare war before Pearl Harbor, they just didn't inform the US until after the bombs fell.

They also intended to formally declare war, but there was a delay in decrypting the declaration so it was delivered late.

Weird Harold wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:They did declare war before Pearl Harbor, they just didn't inform the US until after the bombs fell.

They also intended to formally declare war, but there was a delay in decrypting the declaration so it was delivered late.

I read somewhere (I wish I had bookmarked the page) that the Japanese never intended to deliver the declaration of war before the attack. To do so would have given the US warning of it. The US did have telegraph and telephones (I believe) contact, so it would have taken only a call to warn the US Naval command there of a possible attack.

crewdude48 wrote:They did declare war before Pearl Harbor, they just didn't inform the US until after the bombs fell.

Weird Harold wrote:
They also intended to formally declare war, but there was a delay in decrypting the declaration so it was delivered late.

Zakharra wrote:

I read somewhere (I wish I had bookmarked the page) that the Japanese never intended to deliver the declaration of war before the attack. To do so would have given the US warning of it. The US did have telegraph and telephones (I believe) contact, so it would have taken only a call to warn the US Naval command there of a possible attack.

The attack was at 7:48 in the morning (Hawaii time). The note was supposed to be delivered at noon Washington time (7:00 am Hawaii), breaking off diplomatic relations - effectively a declaration of war. Because the embassy in Washington was prepping for war, they had destroyed all but one of the code machines, and were unable to decode the message in time, and therefore did not deliver the note until after 2:00pm Washington time. Oops.

fallsfromtrees wrote: Because the embassy in Washington was prepping for war, they had destroyed all but one of the code machines, and were unable to decode the message in time, and therefore did not deliver the note until after 2:00pm Washington time. Oops.

IIRC, the first line of the message also said that the ambassador had to decode the rest himself. He had, shall we say, limited expertise in this process.

kzt wrote:IIRC, the first line of the message also said that the ambassador had to decode the rest himself. He had, shall we say, limited expertise in this process.

It also meant that they couldn't use a trained typist to type out the official note to be handed to the Secretary of State. It sounds a bizarre reason for a delay to us, but we're all used to using keyboards. Back then, it was a skilled job and many people didn't have that skill, particularly high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats who normally dictated documents to secretaries, who then typed them up. The ambassador, or whichever top security clearance official was assisting him (if any) would have been having to pick out the letters on the typewriter one at a time, probably averaging a speed of about 2-3 words per minute [edit] on a document which, if I recall correctly, was over ten pages long. [/edit]

fallsfromtrees wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:They did declare war before Pearl Harbor, they just didn't inform the US until after the bombs fell.

Weird Harold wrote:
They also intended to formally declare war, but there was a delay in decrypting the declaration so it was delivered late.

Zakharra wrote:

I read somewhere (I wish I had bookmarked the page) that the Japanese never intended to deliver the declaration of war before the attack. To do so would have given the US warning of it. The US did have telegraph and telephones (I believe) contact, so it would have taken only a call to warn the US Naval command there of a possible attack.

The attack was at 7:48 in the morning (Hawaii time). The note was supposed to be delivered at noon Washington time (7:00 am Hawaii), breaking off diplomatic relations - effectively a declaration of war. Because the embassy in Washington was prepping for war, they had destroyed all but one of the code machines, and were unable to decode the message in time, and therefore did not deliver the note until after 2:00pm Washington time. Oops.

I believe that your timing here is correct but regardless of the "mistake" by the Japanese ambassador the things that really burn me are the ones that the U.S. made. At that time the U.S. had broken the Japanese code and our military knew the contents of the Japanese letter long before the Japanese ambassador did. But our military only made a halfhearted attempt to get a warning to Hawaii about the time deadline given in the letter. The warning did finally arrive in Hawaii but not until hours after the attack was over.

Had the warning arrived on time, the sighting of the Japanese sub outside Perl Harbor nor the sighting by radar of the incoming Japanese airplanes would have been dismissed as they were. Had the warning arrived in Hawaii as it should have, the Japanese would have arrived and found themselves in a world of hurt. A great number of our planes would have been in the air to greet them.

The U.S. had behaved a great deal like the SLN in our story here.

Duckk wrote:

If they leave their hyper generators up they could easily jump back out if they needed to avoid a bunch of missiles coming their way from the terminus defensive fleet.

Superdreadnoughts cannot go back into hyper immediately after transiting. It takes a SLN Scientist or Vega 12 minutes to fully recharge, and another 4 to boost into hyper. So if you hyper out inside missile range, you're committed to eating multiple missile salvos.

Thanks - I drafted a longer version of this but didn't know for sure how long it took those SDs to recharge (RFC's infodump only had the 4 minutes from full standby and the 32 minutes from fully powered off)

StealthSeeker wrote:Darn, cold water on part of my parade. So that takes away the possibility of the SLN jumping out of hyper with in missile range and then jumping back out. But how would things work for a SLN fleet that approaches from a distance, preps for a jump during their approach, and then jumps as soon as the RMN fires missiles. Would this be a successful tactic to deplete missile stores? Or would the SLN ships still be caught in at least one missile salvo?

Well the powered endurance of an MDM is 3 [edit2: 9] minutes (and 65 million km) -- though of course you can reach longer by adding ballistic phases. [edit2: but the furthest distance the MDM can cover in 4 minutes appears to be 22.7 million km; using 2 full power drives + a half power drive for 120 seconds] So if the SDs wait until they see the missiles launch it takes them at least a minute longer to hyper out that it takes for the first wave to arrive. (Ouch) [edit2: nope; but within 22.7 million km they can't react quickly enough]

Now they could try playing guessing games and hit the button based on when they think the defenders will launch. Get that right and they could hyper out before the missiles arrive. But that's risky, because if you guess wrong after you're inside about 78 million km [edit2: 75.4; but at 10 minutes] and you eat a missile salvo. (That's how far an MDM with a 60 second ballistic phase before the final drive can travel)

Plus of course once you jump out any missile you launched are flying dumb. So even if you stay far enough back to jump free the defender can force you to deplete missiles in wasted attacks.


Oh, and there nothing stopping the defenders from putting a few ships or pods scattered out on the approaches so you're not entirely sure where that 78 million km [edit2: 22.7 million km] 'line of death' really might actually be drawn.

Edit: RFC seems to have carefully stacked the deck so that even outside the hyper-limit hyperspace can't really be a tactical factor in battle; just a strategic one. (I'm categorizing something like a Paul Revere as a strategic gambit; and hypering away from missiles as a tactical one)

Edit 2 - a day later: I realized I'm an idiot and used the wrong endurance for MDMs. At max range they have 3 minutes per drive!. Oops. (Also I screwed up my spreadsheet and had some residual acceleration in my ballistic phase)

Zakharra wrote:

SWM wrote:Sure, you can say that a state of war exists. But the League bureaucracy still can't execute any war powers unless the Legislature declares a state of war. It doesn't matter what the Mandarins say--they CANNOT use those powers to force the planets of the League to do anything unless the Legislature declares a state of war and GIVES them those powers.

There would be clauses and powers given in the Constitution and legislation that gives the SLN the power to do just that in the event of an emergency when an outside attacker attacks/invades and the SLN needs to move in to help defend the systems. In cases like that, the SLN WOULD have the authority to commandeer the system SDF, -for the defense of the system-. It would probably have to release said control after the situation was resolved, but for that specific emergency kit would have too, otherwise the SLN would be forced to stand aside while an enemy ravaged systems, wait until after a vote passed before taking action.

If the US was invaded by Mexico, do you think the US military would wait until the states told them they could come in before they went and started repelling the invaders?

Yes, there are clauses and powers given in the Solarian constitution--and they require authorization by the Legislature. Until the Legislature gives them that authorization, the SLN does NOT have the authority to commandeer an SDF. The Solarian League is not the United States. It is an association of largely independent member governments. The League government is extremely restricted in what they can do when it infringes on the rights of the individual members.