[MatthTheGeek]

Lopez's loyalty to the GTVA in Delenda Est despite her critical situation, cloudy orders and no knowledge of the Imperieuse trap, shows that Steele would be wrong to distrust her. Steele isn't the kind of man who would fail to judge people under his command to that point. Besides, he knows that her battlegroup and the crews and pilot under her command are among the most skilled of the whole GTVA, and he even tells her "You are one of the finest officers I have ever had the pleasure to command. You make your ships perform in ways that I probably could not manage at my finest.".

Steele has contingencies for contingencies, but not to the point of seeing the devil everywhere. He's careful, not paranoid. Lopez and her fleet are too great an asset for his victory in the Sol theater for him to threw them away just for a distrust issue.

[redsniper]

Plus, throwing away a whole fighter wing's worth of your own pilots just seems too evil, even for Steele. WiH is all about the gray morality; he's no Darth Vader, he's just on the other side of the war.

[Aesaar]

I know but they are very (excessively so) well funded and supplied. And they have *absolutely* no pinch for any of their losses. Just take a look at Delenda Est, The GTVA lost 5~6 squadrons EASILY, plus 5 capitals if you go for the kill. Now if the Imperieuse was in-system waiting for the wargods and if Steele had any moral sense, He could have easily deployed the Imperieuse earlier.

The Imperieuse had to wait for the Hanuman to jump in, and then for a TAG beacon to find its way to it (probably delivered by a Pegasus).  Steele also wanted to kill the frigates, so had to make sure they were all present.

If you assume the Pegasus got the order to TAG the Hanuman the moment the Katana and Altan Orde jump in, there's, what, 5 minutes before the Imperieuse shows up?  I could buy that kind of delay.

[LordPomposity]

They also had to wait for the Hanuman to enter the Carthage's beam range.

[Aardwolf]

I know but they are very (excessively so) well funded and supplied. And they have *absolutely* no pinch for any of their losses. Just take a look at Delenda Est, The GTVA lost 5~6 squadrons EASILY, plus 5 capitals if you go for the kill. Now if the Imperieuse was in-system waiting for the wargods and if Steele had any moral sense, He could have easily deployed the Imperieuse earlier.

The Imperieuse had to wait for the Hanuman to jump in, and then for a TAG beacon to find its way to it (probably delivered by a Pegasus).  Steele also wanted to kill the frigates, so had to make sure they were all present.

If you assume the Pegasus got the order to TAG the Hanuman the moment the Katana and Altan Orde jump in, there's, what, 5 minutes before the Imperieuse shows up?  I could buy that kind of delay.

It's possible it wasn't a standard missile-delivered TAG. For all we know it could have been planted by a saboteur days earlier, and then remote-activated for maximum effect.

[LordPomposity]

That's what I assumed. There was probably a Pegasus on standby in case the TAG was discovered or a different AWACs was used, though.

[Aesaar]

It's possible it wasn't a standard missile-delivered TAG. For all we know it could have been planted by a saboteur days earlier, and then remote-activated for maximum effect.

Definitely another possibility.  But how it was delivered doesn't really matter.  The delay between the 2 Jovian frigates showing up at the Imperieuse arriving is small enough that I can accept that Steele's plan came together as fact as can be expected.  Doesn't make much sense to throw away the Carthage's air wing and its escorts just for the hell of it.  I don't think Steele would consider making Lopez less of a political threat worth crippling one of his best battlegroups.

[CT27]

I think Steele wants to win the war.  It would be incredibly foolish to throw away that much just for the sake of weakening a potential rival for power.  He may be clever and somewhat deceitful, but I don't see him as paranoid.

[-Norbert-]

But he didn't just throw them away. He used them effectively.
Okay maybe I did chose a poor fomulation to bring across the point I was trying to make.

I didn't try to say that the whole trap was only made to limit Lopez' influence or that he killed off those pilots purely for a political agenda.
I meant that the political balance within the fleet might have been a contributing factor to the way Steele planned out the trap.
While Lopez did go along with it this time, there is no telling if she might have a change of hearts later on, when more and more such incidents acumulate, so better to have some loyal people in place to watch for signs and intervene if necessary, purely as a precaution.

I mean attacking them with bombers and fighters only, far away from the corvettes doesn't make much sense. Putting the two Deimos pairs so far apart that they can't help each other doesn't make sense. Why not have all four corvettes wait together in one place and hold the strikecraft in reserve untill the UEF ships have come into range of those corvettes?
For someone who's supposed to be a military mastermind, Steele made quite a few questionable decisions in that battle. Sure it worked out, but there are things that could have been done to minimize GTVA losses even without tipping off the UEF to the trap and I'm wondering why.

[Scotty]

Several things.

1) if you look at the arrangement of the GTVA ships in Delenda Est at the beginning of the mission, they're arranged to intercept the Wargods on any approach.  They just didn't know where they were going to emerge from.

2) Steele didn't personally direct the battle, so blaming him for some (perceived) tactical shortcomings is a little bit of a chase in the wrong direction.

[The E]

The battle of Saturn was Lopez' show, not Steeles. Sending out two Deimos Corvettes and an Aeolus to soften up the Wargods' fighter screen is a debatable, but not exactly stupid move. Also note that usually, both Corvettes survive the run, as does most of the Carthage's escort fleet unless the player explicitly moves to kill them.

Second, if Steele had doubts about Lopez' commitment to his command, he would have her replaced, NOT sacrificed like that. Steele knows that Lopez is far more valuable to the GTVA alive than dead. Could the situation have been resolved differently? Yes, of course. The Imperieuse could have been ordered into action as soon as the second pair of frigates showed up, but this is where Steele's psywar tendencies come through. He wanted to use this action to deliver the most crushing blow possible against UEF morale, which meant waiting for just the moment when the UEF believes to have won the day.

[MatthTheGeek]

Sending out two Deimos Corvettes and an Aeolus to soften up the Wargods' fighter screen

Unless changes were made since I last played it, no Aeolus were sent with the first pair of corvettes.

To the others : keep in mind that a pair of corvettes coupled with bomber support is about enough to bring down a single frigate and a single Sanctus. Given her position, not knowing what else the UEF could bring at her, and wanting to gain as much time as possible to recharge her drives, sending a small part of her screen to face a potential threat without compromising the rest of her defences is actually a perfectly logic and reasonable move. If you think Lopez made any tactical mistake, please think twice before speaking next time.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Several things.

1) if you look at the arrangement of the GTVA ships in Delenda Est at the beginning of the mission, they're arranged to intercept the Wargods on any approach.  They just didn't know where they were going to emerge from.

2) Steele didn't personally direct the battle, so blaming him for some (perceived) tactical shortcomings is a little bit of a chase in the wrong direction.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree that Lopez did the best she could to cover all the angles. While the GTVA was obviously expecting the attack, it's unlikely they knew the exact composition of the Wargods task force. Just because the Indus and the Altan Orde had been conducting most of the Wargods operations doesn't mean that a commander of Lopez's caliber would be shortsighted enough to assume that the Wargods didn't have discretionary command of other assets. If she would have been dumb enough to allow the first wave of the Wargods force to draw off all or even most of the escorts, she's leaving a flank wide open to an artillery strike or even to have some Durgas vectored in. Pretty sure if Sorenson radios in and says, "Hey guys, we've got our hands full with the escorts but the Carthage's flank is wide open," someone's gonna show and pound her, most likely leading to a reappearance of the Vikrant and Toreador (oddly enough, even after the trap was sprung, if those two had come in they would have been in prime position to blast the Imperieuse's engines - sounds like the UEF needed more contingencies). Oh well. What if's could go on all day. Basically, my point was:

This.

[crizza]

Untill now I thought Lopez knew the Imp was on standby and she was ordered inflict as much damage as possible...hm...

[Ryuseiken]

Untill now I thought Lopez knew the Imp was on standby and she was ordered inflict as much damage as possible...hm...

That's what I'd believed as well. Especially playing it through a second time, when I heard her being compared to Koth and replying "Only if I lose captain, only if I lose." I pictured her voicing it with a healthy dose of confidence because she knew she had the Imp lined up to cause some mischief.

[The E]

First of all, Lopez is one of the best combat commanders the GTVA has. Her confidence in her ships is entirely justified. Second, while she did not know about what exactly Steele had planned, she knew something was planned, she had her orders telling her to initiate combat operations. She knew that there were risks for her command involved, but she also knew that Steele would not throw her command away.

In addition, by the time the Imperieuse shows up, the Carthage was almost ready to jump away again anyway, while at the same time not in immediate critical condition.

[MatthTheGeek]

She didn't know. She might had her suspicions, but in the "Aboard GTD Atreus" part of Conversations from War in Heaven, it is obvious she didn't know about the Imperieuse and that is why she disapproves Steele sending her battlegroup on a risky strike operation all over the Belt. That, and I was confirmed by a BP team member over IRC that she didn't know (which doesn't mean she couldn't have her suspicions, but you can't base the survival of your destroyer and its battlegroup over a suspicion).

EDIT: ninja'd

Just because the Indus and the Altan Orde had been conducting most of the Wargods operations doesn't mean that a commander of Lopez's caliber would be shortsighted enough to assume that the Wargods didn't have discretionary command of other assets. If she would have been dumb enough to allow the first wave of the Wargods force to draw off all or even most of the escorts, she's leaving a flank wide open to an artillery strike or even to have some Durgas vectored in. Pretty sure if Sorenson radios in and says, "Hey guys, we've got our hands full with the escorts but the Carthage's flank is wide open," someone's gonna show and pound her, most likely leading to a reappearance of the Vikrant and Toreador (oddly enough, even after the trap was sprung, if those two had come in they would have been in prime position to blast the Imperieuse's engines - sounds like the UEF needed more contingencies). Oh well. What if's could go on all day. Basically, my point was:

This.

1) Lopez knew the rest of the Wargods were incoming, simply because the rest of the Wargods engaged her and forced her to crash jump during Pawns. They weren't there yet at the beginning of DE because they had a subspace drive to recharge too, but she knew they would reinforce the attack at some point. The real question was when, and especially, from where. Which is why she didn't want to compromise her defensive screen and hence open her flanks to a counterstrike from those frigates.
2) It's not a matter of whether the UEF lacked contingencies or should have sent a message to let the rest of the fleet know or something. For about the thousandth time : what you see in Delenda Est is only a small part of a system-wide engagement against Tev positions. All the available UEF ships were mobilized to pin down all the Tevs assets they knew could have assisted the Carthage, and hence they had absolutely no spare ships to send against the Imperieuse. It's as simple as that.

[LordPomposity]

Lopez must have also had orders to "accidentally" crash into Saturn's gravity well while trying to escape the Wargods after "Pawns". The chance that she would accidentally hit a target as small as one planet when she had the entire solar system to jump to are just too small to even bear consideration. Hell, the fact that the Carthage managed to strand itself at Saturn instead of jumping back to Jupiter or Neptune against such literally astronomical odds should have set off some serious alarm bells for the Wargods.

Unless Lopez was borrowing the Indus' navigator.

[MatthTheGeek]

Lopez must have also had orders to "accidentally" crash into Saturn's gravity well while trying to escape the Wargods after "Pawns". The chance that she would accidentally hit a target as small as one planet when she had the entire solar system to jump to are just too small to even bear consideration. Hell, the fact that the Carthage managed to strand itself at Saturn instead of jumping back to Jupiter or Neptune against such literally astronomical odds should have set off some serious alarm bells for the Wargods.

Unless Lopez was borrowing the Indus' navigator.

Errrrrr...

The $r Carthage's jump trajectory was captured by Saturn's gravity well. We estimate she won't be able to jump again for at least twenty minutes.

(DE's briefing).

She didn't "hit" it. Her trajectory accidentally got close enough that she was attracted by it. Depending on how much an influence a planet the size of Saturn could affect subspace in BP canon, her trajectory could have been 100k km away from Saturn from all we know.

Also, sounds like somebody didn't understand the concept of "crash jumps". She couldn't just escape to Jupiter, Neptune or other any safe zone because she was surprised by the Wargods' strike and had to escape before she could calculate jump coordinates. In all effect, she engaged a random jump. The same thing that happened to the Indus at the end of DE, and the same thing that stranded the two 3rd fleet frigates in Collateral Damage.

[Qent]

Also, sounds like somebody didn't understand the concept of "crash jumps". She couldn't just escape to Jupiter, Neptune or other any safe zone because she was surprised by the Wargods' strike and had to escape before she could calculate jump coordinates. In all effect, she engaged a random jump. The same thing that happened to the Indus at the end of DE, and the same thing that stranded the two 3rd fleet frigates in Collateral Damage.

I think he understood quite well. If the Carthage executed a random jump, what are the odds that it would end up a sitting duck near Saturn instead of, say, crashing into the sun? I would say though, that although in hindsight it seems like it was too good to be true, it definitely seemed plausible at the time.