Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Dilmah G on May 27, 2013, 11:49:53 pm
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I felt like actually contributing to the FS side of the forum for once, and so as a result I've decided that I should post my thoughts on space combat operations in the FSverse and see what you guys think. This is just the first part, but I'd like to see what you guys think about it. Those interested in the BPverse as well may also be interested to use my ramblings (mostly based upon my crude understanding of Maneuver Warfare as explained by Robert Leonhard) as a basis from which to examine the conduct of the GTVA and the UEF in BP. Knowing me, I'll probably get lazy at some point, but if you guys enjoy what I'm writing I may post up a bit more.
So what follows, more specifically, will be my explanation of Maneuver Warfare and how it can be applied in the FSverse. The explanations in the first part are a bit thin now but I plan to give them some more meat soon. The level of control and polish of the essay is also fairly low, but again, will come around to this later. My number one priority is to tie this to the FSUniverse as soon as possible.
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Maneuver Warfare in the Freespace Universe: Part One
This essay will begin by introducing the concept of Maneuver Warfare as one which competes with Attrition Warfare as a strategy for winning wars, and will make the case for it being the strategy of choice for Terran Officers. Following this will be an application of Maneuver Warfare principles to the conduct of space warfare as it occurs in Freespace. This establishment of Maneuver Warfare in space will be used as a foundation from which to discuss how warfare can in future be conducted by navies in a way that is congruent with the principles of Maneuver Warfare, and this will conclude the essay.
Warfare: Maneuver and Attrition
War, as put by prominent military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, 'is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will'. For the purposes of discussing this within the universe of Freespace, this essay will clarify this to 'is sustained, coordinated violence between different political organisations.' Fundamentally, though, Clausewitz has established why organisations go to war: to make an actor do what the initiating actor wants, and the method of achieving this in war is by defeating them.
As a result, all strategy must be focused fundamentally on defeat.
Defeat is the act of winning over someone in a contest, but in the practice of warfare it is prudent to describe this also as a psychological phenomenon. That is to say that defeat is something that an individual feels. In the context of a battle, a commander can defeat her enemy by making her enemy think that they have been defeated. The use of deception, whether by use of a cavalry charge to scare her into defeat, repeated attacks in the rear to make him think that his position is untenable, and even simple propaganda are all actions designed to cause the psychological phenomenon of defeat in the enemy without the destruction of their mass being such that they can no longer achieve their objectives. It is the provocation of defeat as a psychological phenomenon that Maneuver Warfare primarily concerns itself with.
To establish this further, this essay will introduce the competing concepts of Centre-of-Gravity.
Clausewitz introduced the concept, describing it as the source of a force's strength, upon whose destruction will allow for their defeat. He also wrote that this was where the mass was concentrated the most densely, and that the most effective blow against this was one struck by one's own centre-of-gravity. Thus, war is a contest of strength against strength, and it is this conception of CoG that underlies Attrition Warfare, which is fundamentally defeat by destruction of the enemy's mass.
Maneuver Warfare advocates such as Leonhard and William S. Lind have proposed an alternate interpretation, where a force's CoG is its Critical Vulnerability. A CV is a point, person, or otherwise, whose acting upon by the friendly force will paralyse the enemy force. Leonhard best explains this using Chess, and this essay will employ that explanation to further articulate the differences.
Under Attrition Warfare, a force's CoG is the enemy Queen. It is the strongest piece on the board, and its destruction will surely result in the enemy's defeat as a result of the reduction of the greatest part of their strength, their CoG. Under Maneuver Warfare, however, it is the enemy King. His destruction results in an instant defeat of the enemy, and he is their CV.
Maneuver Warfare, subsequently, is concerned primarily with the destruction of enemy CVs in order to produce the most economical victory. To do this, Maneuver Warfare employs three primary tactics, ranked in order of priority:
1. Pre-emption.
A Maneuver Warfare commander's number one option should be to defeat the enemy before she is ready. If the commander's force strikes the enemy's CV before he has had time to act, victory is most economical.
2. Dislocation.
Dislocation, fundamentally, is rendering the enemy's strength irrelevant. This can be accomplished positionally, by moving the decisive point away from an enemy force, or functionally, by rendering the enemy's strength irrelevant by virtue of exploiting or creating a weakness. An example of this is the use of combined arms: their employment presents to the enemy an 'unsolvable dilemma' if correctly executed. Employing infantry and air forces against tanks means that the tank's strength of being able to accurately employ highly destructive ordnance in open country has been rendered irrelevant, because air forces prevent the tank's passage in open country, but this can be countered by operating in close country where ordnance cannot be precisely employed from the air; infantry, however, are highly effective in close country and easily able to ambush tanks. Thus the tanks are presented with an 'unsolvable dilemma'.
3. Disruption.
Disruption is targeted action through an enemy weakness to reach their CV. Key to this is the concept of 'Gaps and Surfaces'. A good attack, according to Sun Tzu, functions like water: it avoids surfaces and moves through gaps. The two widely practiced methods of executing this are called the 'Command Push' and the 'Recon Pull', and they take the bulk of their foundation from Soviet and German military art respectively.
The Command Push is predicated on the preselection of a point along the enemy's Forward Line of Troops for a weakness to be created or already exploited. This is facilitated by good reconnaissance and intelligence preparation of the battlefield, and is usually planned and executed at the Division level and above. Upon good intelligence and planning, a Command Push is able to employ a high degree of momentum in order to exploit the weakness and disrupt the enemy.
This is contrasted with the Recon Pull, which is where the force commander will rely on the 'force' of his force, that is, their acceleration as opposed to their velocity to find and then exploit gaps. The Recon Pull relies upon recon forces discovering the gaps and then communicating their location to the rest of the force, who by virtue of their superior acceleration will be able to reposition to the gap and then exploit it. This tactic demands a high degree of initiative and competence at the junior levels of command as opposed to senior, which is a great difference that lends it better to some force cultures more than others.
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:jaw: :snipe:
Aaaargghhhh!!! All this war thing goes over my head.
Anyways as you are comparing with chess there is also a move called 'Fork/Double Attack'
For eg.
A Knight is giving check to a King as well as threatening a Queen. The opponent can't do anything besides moving his King near the Queen. Thus, by attacking the Queen you will lose your Knight (Sacrifice). However as a Queen is more valuable it will be you who will be in actual profit.
This also serves as an example of 'counting'
For example in Blue Planet universe :
Steele lost the entire Carthage air wing on Saturn. However he took down three frigates (Katana, Altan Orde, Yangtze), two cruisers (Kyoto, Insuperable). Thus counting assets, Steele won. (Wait what? Am I thinking like Steele? )
Also escalating fight according to strategic importance of positions is helpful. (Again, Blue Planet taught this.)
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What you've just described fits under the attrition strategy of warfare which I described above, where the focus is on trying to lessen the enemy's strength to defeat him as opposed to discerning the critical vulnerability and striking it. Ultimately, to a large degree, it is not the mass of the force that matters (what I've read counting to fall under), it is where that force is directed and with what acceleration and velocity it is being directed with.
The fork seems to me like a good example of what I described above as dislocation, in terms of the presentation to the enemy of an unsolvable dilemma.
Ultimately I've actually played very little chess so unfortunately I can't really make as in-depth a response as I would like to you.
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My eyes! My strained, sleep-deprived eyes!
I'll get to reading this top to bottom of course :p
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All good, and please make sure you let me know if you want the rest when you're done! :P
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I've admittedly read this sort of thing before, so I'm more curious for the second half...
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I thought as much. :P I'm curious as to whether I need to flesh out the introduction to MW a bit more though, especially since I've just realised that I don't have a definition for 'Maneuver' even.
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Honestly, you could probably have afforded to condense a bit.
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I found this highly interesting! I haven't heard of this stuff before, and yeah, it's pretty cool, so please keep it coming!
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Ah, so Steele uses attrition strategy of warfare.
What a tweeeeeest for the next chapter in Blue Planet: War In Heaven !
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Excellent introduction. I for one am certainly interested in the second half, and would love to see examples of these concepts applied to the FS-verse.
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Excellent introduction. I for one am certainly interested in the second half, and would love to see examples of these concepts applied to the FS-verse.
right in mah sig
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right in mah sig
Well yes, definitely. I kinda meant I'd like to see Dilmah's take on the matter - I'm plenty familiar with how BP applies various warfare doctrines.
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Cheers lads, I'll see if I can pump out part two sometime today.
Ah, so Steele uses attrition strategy of warfare.
What a tweeeeeest for the next chapter in Blue Planet: War In Heaven !
Well not really, I think that the example of counting is one that is focused on mass, and focusing on mass is what Maneuver Warfare is not about. I think there are plenty of examples in BP of Steele employing MW, but that your particular reading of the engagement was particularly attrition based.
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Please put the "o" back into "manoeuvre". Every time I see this thread it's like an unscratchable itch :p
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Fine. :P I'm planning to do a mad bit of tone alteration to the introduction as well, so it's not so rigidly 'this essay does x, y, z' like I'd write for my current lecturer, who was a previous teacher of actual Generals, but more 'guys this is x, y, z and this is what I think about them', so it's on the to-do list.
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Does Maneuver Warfare compete with Attrition Warfare? Don't they both have a place in a successful strategy? Perhaps like WW2 Pacific Theatre, US Submarine / mining efforts vs the Japanese merchant fleet (MW?) and Guadalcanal (AW?).
(or does compete not mean "use one to the exclusion of the other")
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Well what Maneuver Warfare really is, is trying to defeat an enemy without destroying their mass by pitting strength against strength. In the absence of such a means or suitable method to do so, Attrition Warfare becomes your only option of winning, which is what makes it really the absence of strategy. In the sense that warfare will involve both is something that's true, and so to some extent I agree with that, but I would maintain that defeating an enemy by destruction of mass by whichever means possible isn't really a good strategy if you can help it.
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hmmmm... I haven't formally studied this, but isn't concentration of force to create local superiority a form of AW? You're destroying their fighting units rather than their weakness, just ensuring that you're putting them at a great disadvantage in order to achieve success? (although, that's still a relative strength vs a relative weakness!) If I'm misunderstanding this point (i.e. defeat in detail), then I think I'm in agreement with you :) I believe the concept of the "decisive battle" (which defines AW?) is widely acknowledged as being non-optimal.
Hah - it is still AW if you're so much stronger than the enemy that it doesn't matter?
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Well concentration of mass with the intention of propelling it toward the enemy's mass is basically the heart of AW, and so from that you could draw that in terms of battlefield physics, f=m.a and what not, attempting to maximise your mass so that your total force is greater enough to reduce the enemy's to 0 falls more under AW than MW.
Ultimately the point of MW is to win without having to destroy of all the enemy's fighting units. If we can avoid the destruction of enemy mass and instead direct our force towards the 'King', that is, their Critical Vulnerability, which is also their Centre of Gravity, and subsequently defeat the enemy without having to execute a defeat in detail, we've basically condensed the fundamental desire of MW into one unwieldly sentence.
It's not that AW doesn't work, because obviously it does, but it is by necessity quite costly in both cash and blood to achieve victory because we are focused upon destruction of enemy mass fundamentally. Which is why MW is an attractive strategy, because it is more or less the antithesis to this.
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NOTE: The following is just my uninformed speculation on the matter. Nothing in this post should be treated as anything more than the ramblings of an amateur.
The decision of going for AW vs MW is one that will inform everything you do, going through all the layers of your force structure. A force built on Maneuver Warfare will always emphasize quick reactions and intelligent initiative in its training and doctrine, whereas an AW force will emphasize a more conservative approach (in order to maximize the lifetime of your assets and minimize the lifetime of theirs).
As Dilmah said, neither school is wrong; it's just that there are different costs associated with each that you have to evaluate before deciding on a path.
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Indeed. The conservatism though I think is something a bit interesting to just briefly mention a bit more in-depth. AW generally does not rely upon innovation and quickly observing-orienting-deciding-acting (I'll mention OODA loops in a bit more detail later!) - it relies on superior mass in order to defeat the enemy. As a result of this, they are conservative in that respect but not always with regards to their force deployment. In the eyes of an AW commander, any tactical victory is an operational victory because they see the overall destruction of the enemy's mass as their strategy to defeating the enemy. This means that where one is possible, it is generally beneficial in their eyes to commit forces, even if it does not advance them closer to their operational goals (I'll address this more later and the disconnect that becomes visible here). This is in direct opposition to what is necessary to an MW commander, who will generally like to engage the enemy only if it brings them closer to their operational objectives.
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What is a critical vulnerability? Could someone give some more applicable examples than chess?
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A supply line, for example. If your opponent is operating in a logistics-intensive fashion (Burning fuel, ammo), then he becomes very vulnerable if you disrupt his flow of supply. While an AW strategy would concentrate on attacking the bits of the attacking force that are shooting things, a MW strategy would involve circling around the enemy in order to hit its resupply first, then wait until the attacker has exhausted its supplies. A historical example of this would be what happened to the egyptian forces during the six day war. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War#Gaza_Strip_and_Sinai_Peninsula)
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What is a critical vulnerability? Could someone give some more applicable examples than chess?
During Gulf One, the entire Iraqi air-defense network was run out of about six buildings. You probably saw them on TV, the ziggurat-like stepped structures in night vision from a stealth aircraft.
At least you saw them for a few seconds before the bomb went through a ventilation shaft. All the communications and command and control and intelligence functions necessary for Iraq to maintain control of its own airspace either passed through or were housed in those structures. Without them search radars were disconnected from units that would actually engage the enemy, aircraft in the air were blind save for what they could see themselves, and any kind of large-scale coordination was impossible. Without those six structures if the system managed to fight at all it did so like it was punch-drunk.
That's critical vulnerability. Something that if lost will severely degrade the enemy's ability to fight.
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What is a critical vulnerability? Could someone give some more applicable examples than chess?
Command and control infrastructure
something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Blue_Ridge_(LCC-19)
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A good way of identifying them is to adopt the viewpoint of the enemy commander, what would paralyse him? Also worth noting that they occur at every level of warfare.
Say at the Tactical level, the COG/CV of a force is usually its leader, its supply train, or a geographical feature (we'll come to those in FS when I post up the second part). At the Operational level, they are what make an Army's position untenable, so usually its command staff (what would happen to the GTVA force in Sol if the UEF eliminated Steele? What if the Shivans nailed Petrarch? Or 3rd Fleet Command?), its supply train, geographical positions such as choke points, etc. At the Strategic level, we look at what would paralyse the actor. Leaders, capital cities, and the dominant ideology are all good places to start.
Also I have to apologise, I've got a mild-moderate peanut allergy and have made the mistake of letting my friend buy me a kebab without realising the satay sauce had peanuts, so whilst not incapacitated obviously, I may not be able to submit anymore substantive material tonight, but I'll do my best!
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Just wondering it you've got anything ready for the 2nd part of discussion you referred to, I'm keen to see your views on MW in Freespace. I read a bit more about MW and it seems that mobility is key, if you & your opponent have about the same mobility then it's quite hard to practise MW. And in Freespace, with everywhere in-system being only a 5 min jump away, it seems that the setting would make MW difficult, until you add stuff like (BP specific) sprint drives & different jump drive recharge times, or the Shivan "enhanced understanding/control" over subspace (e.g. being able to use inter-system nodes too unstable for the GTVA). Perhaps this is one reason for the TV war lasting 14 years?
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Hey mate, I actually have about 3/4 of it done but I haven't been able to complete and post it because I've got an exam tomorrow morning, and three more that finish on the 17th, at which point my plan is to have a few beers and then finish it up. :) Glad to see that there's interest in this.
I agree with your point about mobility to a large extent, but I was going to introduce the Boyd cycle in a bit more depth (OODA loops, which will probably be already familiar to you) in the second part of the discussion and the large role it plays in MW. Significance of the Boyd cycle being that if we measure a force's mobility by how fast it can Boyd cycle, it's now unlikely we'll have two evenly matched forces and forces who are conventionally mobile, i.e. their ships legitimately have greater acceleration and top speeds to our own are now restricted by that. If they can out Boyd cycle us on the tactical level (OODA faster than us), we can defeat them by Boyd cycling them at the strategic and operational levels by putting the fights on our terms where we know that we'll win. This is what we should already be doing, but if we discover that we're being Boyd-cycled at the tactical level we can be smart about what we're doing and employ positional dislocations and functional dislocations (EMPs and feint attacks) to nullify it.
I have some more detailed thoughts about the feasibility of MW in FS obviously, but I'll leave those for the second part. ;)
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Interesting and fascinating.
I wonder how much (if anything or how radically) change technological revolutions should change these philosophical warfare strategies. Between WW1 and WW2 simple technological changes were enough to create breakthroughs in warfare strategies (something that cost the French a hard lesson), and such things kept on changing henceforth, from ICBM's, all the cold war MAD strategies, smart missiles, drone wars and so on and so on.
So no matter how interesting all this is, I think it needs a really deep iterative process of continuous creative destruction in the form of we discussing how **** should go within the scope of subspace jumps, nodes, being on top of planets, and so many other things. Of course, BP already made a lot of interesting rethinking about this, but I wonder if we couldn't go a lot further.
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I plan to deal with your last paragraph there, noting that MW as a strategy is much more philosophical than say, a concrete 'do this x when y' checklist of how to fight war, so it may not be as specific as some people would like in addressing the FSverse, but it can certainly provide a platform to make a lot of interesting comments about FS warfare. I can't say more without giving away the conclusion of the second part!
I think the French example is an interesting one and ties into MW quite well, because the Wehrmacht during that point in time practiced what was more of less the purest application of MW one had seen in recent times. In fact, German Officer training is very interesting to study from a British or American perspective because it is so focused on MW and has consistently done so WELL since WWI, to the point where some literature published regarding training comparisons made between the US military and the German military has been accused of 'deifying' the Bundeswehr. The Blitzkrieg in essence is was an MW affair - the Wehrmacht well and truly out Boyd-cycled the French and British (and everyone else), and did so through penetrating weaknesses to reach the enemy vulnerabilities.
In this sense, I think MW as a philosophy is an enduring one in warfare, because you can fundamentally describe it as out-acting, and out-thinking the enemy, and this is what warfare, provided you haven't lost all of your assets, will always come down to.
This'll make more sense after Part 2, believe me. ;)
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My last exam is 9 o'clock tomorrow morning and I've got most of the second part written up, which should hopefully be done by Tuesday!
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Good luck with that exam! :)
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It's actually on 'Strategy, Diplomacy, and Conflict', so I'm trying to justify this as study. :P
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Consider it justified! :P
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This'll make more sense after Part 2, believe me. ;)
It already does! and I am looking forward to your next instalment.
As an aside, there's this chess game that can't get out of my head while I was pondering this subject. The game was the first game in the 1997 rematch between Kasparov and Deep Blue, where Kasparov sticks his pieces to the first three rows for almost half of the game, avoiding direct confrontation and thus confusing the machine. Then, a sudden straight attack in the right flank gives Kasparov the opening to put two friggin pawns up, shattering his formation and eventually the game. Endulge me and look at that game (http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/garry-kasparov-vs-deep-blue-all-games), it's full of "maneuver warfare" :).
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MW requires something badly lacking from FS2 tactics - Concentration of Force.
GTVA tactics and strategy are incredibly unsound - high value targets like destroyers are not surrounded by anything like the force protection of modern Carrier Groups. Cruisers never travel, manoeuvre or attack in division. Destroyers never fight together, with one providing CSP (combat space patrol) for the two while the other launches massed attacks.
MW is impossible if you fight like the WW2 French Army.
Bh
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Consider the specific peculiarities of the FS universe.
Point 1: All points in a system are, for practical purposes, equidistant. There are no front lines and no rear areas as modern strategic thinking defines the terms; once the enemy has broken past the defenses at the jump node, he is free to maneuver in an unimaginably vast area of space.
Point 2: Concentrating your force, paradoxically, makes it more vulnerable, as there is a period of several minutes after a jump during which the jumping ship is effectively immobilized on a strategic scale, with its best form of defense unavailable.
Point 3: The menu of deployment options favours the defender, as he is able to picket his vulnerable points and able to concentrate his forces at a moment's notice should the enemy decide to attack any single one.
On a strategic level, combat then becomes a game of action and reaction, the attacker trying to force the defender away from certain positions and the defender trying to commit enough forces to battle to achieve a defeat in detail while not uncovering critical positions.
As mentioned upthread, a lot of this thinking is what is behind the actions of the GTVA in BP, based on our idea that the GTVA in FS1 and FS2 was operating on a "needs must when the devil drives" basis, rather than established doctrine, and made sure that that would not repeat itself here.
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All good points, though in Bullhorn's favor the BP GTVA does escort its destroyers heavily and use multiple air wings in concert.
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GTVA escorts its Hecates heavily because they need it. I don't believe they allocate as much forces to the defence of TEI destroyers.
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Point 1: All points in a system are, for practical purposes, equidistant. There are no front lines and no rear areas as modern strategic thinking defines the terms; once the enemy has broken past the defenses at the jump node, he is free to maneuver in an unimaginably vast area of space.
I've actually been thinking about this point lately. I recently reread the tech-entry on subspace and found that my assumption that they could jump anywhere was wrong, at least based on that information. It also seems that it takes destroyers way too long to move between systems in the normal canon. (from my vague memory and not specifics.) So, it seemed as if large ships having multiple short jumps is possible. Resupply rendezvous times could account for this as well, as could wing recall times. Was there a clear example somewhere that clarified this point?
Edit: Clarifying my language.
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All good points, though in Bullhorn's favor the BP GTVA does escort its destroyers heavily and use multiple air wings in concert.
Exactly.
BPs common sense tactics are it's strongest point, for me.
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Consider the specific peculiarities of the FS universe.
Point 1: All points in a system are, for practical purposes, equidistant. There are no front lines and no rear areas as modern strategic thinking defines the terms; once the enemy has broken past the defenses at the jump node, he is free to maneuver in an unimaginably vast area of space.
<snip>
Point 3: The menu of deployment options favours the defender, as he is able to picket his vulnerable points and able to concentrate his forces at a moment's notice should the enemy decide to attack any single one.
On a strategic level, combat then becomes a game of action and reaction, the attacker trying to force the defender away from certain positions and the defender trying to commit enough forces to battle to achieve a defeat in detail while not uncovering critical positions.
As mentioned upthread, a lot of this thinking is what is behind the actions of the GTVA in BP, based on our idea that the GTVA in FS1 and FS2 was operating on a "needs must when the devil drives" basis, rather than established doctrine, and made sure that that would not repeat itself here.
It looks similar to what I saw occurring in a online two-faction war game called AirRivals (Before that: Space Cowboys Online, among other names) where you would have either one and occasionally two hovering portals in and out of a map leading to another, which would result in the usual camping efforts, which when broken would usually mean retreat a whole map (system) within a minute to camp the next gate. Only when the map was the one containing a specific objective, which would randomly appear a few times each day, it would become a complete full scale air war with all defense units circled around the objective.
Difference there was that it wasn't as easy as in near infinite space to hide your fleet of bombers, as there were intrepid interceptor individuals that would patrol and give chase, though there were certainly attempts by people parking their bombers behind enemy lines and logging on when required. Also a difference in that the GTVA can't just give up ground that easily because there's no buffer zones like Gamma Draconis from what we know of.
Back to FS2 and BP, I would be surprised if the GTVA wouldn't dedicate almost all Mjolnirs and other defensive means to heavily reinforce every subspace node they control. Ideally AWACS units would also be permanently stationed there.
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In BP nodes move somewhat erratically rather than obeying traditional orbital mechanics, so stationary fortifications have to be towed and redeployed, and big non-mobile forts are generally ineffective. I encourage most campaigns to adopt this bit of fluff, since it helps you dodge the frustrating conclusion that everybody should guard their nodes with huge balls of armor.
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That's a interesting way to handle that. I do wonder how the GTVA can keep track of the nodes if they move around as it would make it seem as though it would take a while (minutes, hours?) to 'find' the node's new location again, unless you mean the nodes having different entry/exit trajectories but a (near) same position within the system (and likely orbit around the star).
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Their movements are predictable but not in line with traditional orbits; thus, you can't leave objects at them.
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Yeah, and it kinda fits neatly with the Mjolnir, doesn't it? Nobody develops any real stationary node-denial defenses until it's possible to squeeze warship-killing firepower into a towable-size (and presumably burnout-prone, reaction-mass-limited, maintenance-hungry) package, because prior to that, anything big enough to threaten a warship would need to mount a subspace drive and pretty much be a warship itself.
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That said, my own view on balls of armor is that somebody can always pack a ship full of enough antimatter to make the Gods of Boom ask if that's maybe a little overkill and send it one-way. The development of the meson bomb has only made this situation, and the blockade concept in general, worse.
The GTVA in at least one campaign I plotted actually did have watch installations at some nodes, but they were stationed at least 30km out so they were not immediately threatened by one-shot weapons systems or large bombs that emerged blind. It was also implied they were T-V War survivors and it was no longer considered desirable to build installations at subspace nodes.
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Yeah but what do you do if it's literally a solid ball of armor? Does the subspace entry even work? Or are you trapped forever in an endless tunnel of (http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-catdrugs.gif)
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Yeah but what do you do if it's literally a solid ball of armor? Does the subspace entry even work? Or are you trapped forever in an endless tunnel of (http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-catdrugs.gif)
Oh man. Funny thought.
http://colonywars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_Platform
Build it, make it solid, and park it in front of the jump node. Of course, what happens if you want to use the node...
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At the point you have a ball of armor large enough to prohibit anything exiting the node, I think it's safe to say that you've probably spent far more than you would on any kind of conventional defense just getting it there.
Alternately, that much mass would distort local subspace enough to move the node; you can never place a ball of solid armor in the node.
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Get a big rock, shoot it a few times until it moves (laser ablative propulsion), move it so that it ends up on top of a jump nice. It doesn't even need guns.
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To quickly add one more point or question on the feasability of Mjolnirs, if the Triton/other vessel that tows the Mjolnir just stays connected to it (even in the event of the Mjolnir being used for combat) and jumps/moves in accordance to the trajectory the node is going, would that be a feasible way to keep the RBC mobile or would there be other elements to take into consideration?
I do like the method that was described. Having warships defend and blockade the node seems more logical overall anyway, something where I would consider the broadside of the Orion to be ideal for despite it's age.
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Staying on topic a bit...
MW isn't really possible in FS2, as any targeted force can literally jump away, only to jump right back and become the attacker in turn. This just results in a sprawling hiccuping furball, ie Attrition.
MW is defined by speed and force against a target that cannot physically get out of the way quick enough, or does not wish to (ie wants to "hold the line". Holding a line in space is pointless and stupid.
The notes previously about standing off from nodes when defending reflect this point - better to view, react, swarm the entering forces.
A different theory that reflects the two tier speed system of FS universe is required - "Jump Warfare", anyone?
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There are plenty of objectives that you could think of for a holding the line senario. Like important industrial complexes, such as shipyards or refineries. Or space colonies and such. Things a side cannot afford to lose and thus will reinforce so much that a frontal assault by the opposite force will be extremely costly for them.
Also jump drives may not be capable of doing an endless series of jumps in rapid succession.
Or in other words, play BP cause they show how MW could be done in FS2.
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It really depends on your assumptions about how fast drives recharge and how reliably and rapidly subspace jumps can be plotted. It's possible to create a set of rules that actually renders the limited scale and conservative deployments of FreeSpace tactical battles fairly plausible.
e: what spoon said
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I've always heard of Attrition Warfare defined as something different. The gist of it is that, in attrition warfare, you focus on damaging the assets that do not engage in battle, but are important for the enemy, such as supply lines, production facilities, means of transport for the troops, etc. The idea would be to disable the enemy from actually engaging in combat, or forcing them to engage without resources to sustain a battle.
After reading this, I believe I am wrong (as I'm not even close to being as knowledgeable on the matter as you guys are), but now I want to know: What is this I've described called?
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That's hardly the attrition i learned about. If WW1 worked like that, the battles and casualties would probably have ended up strikingly different.
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That's hardly the attrition i learned about. If WW1 worked like that, the battles and casualties would probably have ended up strikingly different.
I wondered about his question too but waited to see if anyone else would take a crack at it.
Attrition just means wearing something down. So there might be no right or wrong here. Though the common meaning I've encountered is indeed wiping out everything the enemy has.
If you destroy all the enemies vehicles, they have no vehicles.
If you kill all the crews, then those vehicles will just sit there.
If you destroy the fuel supply, then those vehicles will just sit there.
If you destory the ammo supply, then they'll be able to move but be little better than a gun with no bullets in it.
If you destroy the food supply, then those vehicles will just sit there after the soldiers die or are too weak to operate them.
It's still all the same, wear them down so you still have something and they don't, whether it's soldiers, vehicles, fuel, ammo, food...
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I've always heard of Attrition Warfare defined as something different. The gist of it is that, in attrition warfare, you focus on damaging the assets that do not engage in battle, but are important for the enemy, such as supply lines, production facilities, means of transport for the troops, etc. The idea would be to disable the enemy from actually engaging in combat, or forcing them to engage without resources to sustain a battle.
After reading this, I believe I am wrong (as I'm not even close to being as knowledgeable on the matter as you guys are), but now I want to know: What is this I've described called?
You could probably call this 'strategic attrition', but no, it's not exactly attrition warfare, because it involves a strategic-level attack on the enemy's ability to make war. If anything, it's closer to maneuver warfare in that it attempts to defeat the enemy by locating and exploiting vital points rather than hammering surfaces and concentrations of force.
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What he said.
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That being said though, the deeper you delve into MW theory, the more it becomes about OODA loops and decentralizing your formations so that they can run through their Boyd cycles faster than the other side can, because they're limited by the inherent drag that sized formations impose upon its decisionmaker's ability to OODA (or alternatively, they may not! And such burning of the fat is necessary to keep one's head above water).
In this sense, this is perfectly applicable to FS in general because whilst a FLOT (forward line of troops) may not exist, strategic points and such do, and this necessitates enemy strategy being focused upon them, and the weaknesses in the presented strategy can be exploited with a strategy that's based upon a foundation of MW principless.
It's also 6:12am in the morning and I am in a foreign country nursing a cold and I'll check this at some later stage to see whether it all makes sense!