[SpardaSon21]

No.  Unlike First Fleet, Second Fleet knows what they're doing.  Orbital infrastructure probably also has a much greater defensive presence on all UEF planets after Steele's Blitz was so devastating, making it the sort of trick that works great once but is very hard to pull off a second time.

[Scotty]

That, and the Blitz was complete and total strategic and tactical surprise.  It won't work a second time.

[SpardaSon21]

Yeah, the UEF wasn't expecting Steele to launch an all-out assault on Earth's orbital infrastructure after 18 months of low-intensity conflict in the outer system.  Up until WiH the war was proceeding at a comparative glacial pace with none of Steele's subspace speed chess.

[-Norbert-]

And even when Steele took over and increased the intensity and pace, he still left the vast majority of infrastructure intact. Only with the Blitz did that change.

[SaltyWaffles]

180k hitpoints for a Solaris is about as good a baseline as an Orion's HP are for the Carthage.

Fair enough, but unless its durability is something like doubled, the same kind of danger/threat still applies. It works as a threat because Steele has a reputation and track record for not playing by the old rules, for being very aggressive and creative, and for tons of rapid, precise subspace jumps (both with Serkr Team and the Atreus).

As for beam jamming, yes, it is certainly a viable counter. However, I wouldn't hold it up as a surefire counter--TAG missiles are still a major threat for beam jamming, as well as Tev AWACS support (of which they have plenty, not even including Auroras). And after DE, it's possible that the Tevs have got enough data/scans/experience with Oculus beam jamming that they have better performance against it. The UEF, obviously, also tries to improve its anti-beam capabilities, but the point still stands about the uncertainty.

And as for the Tevs having frequent, solid intel on the positions of major UEF fleet assets? I'd bet that they do to at least a significant extent--Solaris-class destroyers are rarely deployed, and vectoring the continual carrier actions back to their sources would be a big approach as well. It's at least somewhat likely that they usually loiter near vital, central UEF positions (like a Kumari).

Add in a number of Pegasus recon operations, AWACS, Auroras, spies, and assistance from the Gefs, and you've got a pretty decent case.

The real key for the "shock-jump a Solaris and kill it" scenario is that the UEF isn't (at least so far) well suited for quickly organizing a massive, asset-heavy counterstrike force against a dangerous threat. The best they've done so far is Calder's awesome use of his two remaining Narayanas to drive the Atreus off at Rheza Station. And even then, Steele escaped relatively quickly, despite having made a jump a couple minutes earlier. If Steele suddenly commits a massive force (Atreus, Serkr Team, a few AWACS, and maybe a Diomedes) to gank the Toutatis, the UEF would have to organize and commit a massive response force to either strike back at the gank team or the now-lightly defended Tev positions in the system. But between the Hood, Imperieuse, Shepsakaf, and over a dozen Deimos corvettes (along with at least half a dozen Aeolus/Hyperion cruisers), that's still a very risky proposition. And if Steele's destination for jumping back 'home' is a place that is counterattacked, well, now things are even riskier.

I'm not saying it would be anything short of incredibly difficult to pull off for Steele, but the threat is real enough to have a strategic impact in itself (especially in the future, when the UEF has perhaps lost more frigate assets, making it an even more credible and dangerous threat). And given the friction and clashing strategies of Byrne and Calder, it may be even more of a threat.

[General Battuta]

You lost me on the first sentence of your post. Please compare an Orion's hitpoints with the Carthage's effective hit points.

Also I do not know why you don't understand the GTVA's total terror of UEF bomber assets.

[The E]

Fair enough, but unless its durability is something like doubled, the same kind of danger/threat still applies.

In one of the R2 missions, the Carthage has effectively over 4 Million hitpoints. That does not mean anything at all.

[CT27]

Since people have dismissed the possibility of a second Blitz...

Steele should focus more on small tactical attacks (taking out a Karuna or Sanctus here and there, etc.) rather than large high-risk strategic moves?

[MatthTheGeek]

One would think that now that the UEF is headed toward logistical collapse with no chance of redemption, the wiser move would be to just let it happen and not take risks until it happens. However, between the social pressure increasing in the GTVA home systems, and Steele's ruthlessness, you can be sure he'll try something else to fasten things. After all, we all know he doesn't play by the book.

[headdie]

I think as discussed before Steele will need to at a minimum keep picking at the UEF fleet to keep it from doing anything too ambitious/desperate though ultimately he will want as fast a victory as feasible so he will continue to strike at important targets looking to cemant that fact that we seem to be in the end game and force it to accelerate.

[-Norbert-]

Since people have dismissed the possibility of a second Blitz...

Steele should focus more on small tactical attacks (taking out a Karuna or Sanctus here and there, etc.) rather than large high-risk strategic moves?

He can't do another blitz in so far, that he can't do such a widely spread out attack again, without suffering massive losses. But that doesn't mean he has to completely stop targeting logistically important stations. He'll "just" have to commit enough forces to overcome the local defenders and the fast response teams and be out there before the second wave of reinforcements can destroy his attack force.
Maybe wreak a bit of havoc with the gateway to make it harder for the UEF to move what fuel and ammo they have left to the places where they are needed.

[headdie]

thinking about it, he probably dosnt have to destroy a lot now. Send a sprint equiped strike to hit an instilation somewhere with instructions to jump out when serious opposition shows up, this hurts the UEF more in some ways because 1) not only have they spent resources including precious fuel responding to an attack with little hope of causing serious damage to GTVA forces and 2) the UEF will be forced to either repair the target costing resources and the fuel needed to ship them or abandon it, again costs fuel to move the survivors on top of that it serves a blow to moral.

[Klaustrophobia]

the logistical collapse only happens if the pace of the war more or less maintains.  if the GTVA sits on its ass, the UEF can rebuild.  obviously not to full capacity anytime soon, but probably enough to pull them out of the deep end.

[CT27]

So keep up the pressure against smaller ships, but avoid risky gambits against Solari vessels?

[Aesaar]

What about an attempt at capturing Mercury?  Or is the risk of those antimatter stores being destroyed either by accident or by the UEF not acceptable?

[SpardaSon21]

The farms are massively defended by First Fleet and it has been mentioned they also have their own copious arrays of Apocalypse launchers.

[The E]

What about an attempt at capturing Mercury?  Or is the risk of those antimatter stores being destroyed either by accident or by the UEF not acceptable?

The antimatter farms are nowhere near Mercury. They are on an eccentric orbit somewhere inside Mercury's, and assaulting them is nearly impossible, since in order to do so, you need to have a fix on their orbital elements (which is tricky), you need to jump in at very precise coordinates (otherwise you risk coming out of subspace outside of the farm's heatshield envelope), and then you need to be there at the right time and place and squawking the right signature, otherwise you get a free sample of the farm's products right in your face. Or they turn their heat sinks into makeshift beam weapons on you.

[SaltyWaffles]

Fair enough, but unless its durability is something like doubled, the same kind of danger/threat still applies.

In one of the R2 missions, the Carthage has effectively over 4 Million hitpoints. That does not mean anything at all.

...what?

That's...interesting. I'm intrigued. And very, very confused.

I mean, four million hitpoints would be four times that of the Colossus. And four times that of a Sathanas, IIRC. That kind of durability is a game-changer--it means that GTVA destroyers could actually last more than a few seconds in front of a Sathanas, really opening up the target to flanking shock-jumps with Chimera/Bellerophon corvettes.

And....well, ****, if the Carthage can have four million hitpoints, what is the Atreus capable of?

Better yet, why did the Carthage even need assistance from the Imperieuse at all on Delenda Est? Heck, if it kept the battlegroup together and then focused everything on taking out the Oculus ASAP, nothing short of sniping all of the Carthage's beams would have worked.

So, I guess I'm wondering what the general rules are for that kind of durability; could the Carthage not achieve it after two rapid subspace jumps, due to power constraints? Is it more of an adaptational ability against UEF-specific weapons?

Also I do not know why you don't understand the GTVA's total terror of UEF bomber assets.

In general, sure, that's a huge factor. But with the Atreus, Serkr Team, AWACS support and perhaps even a bit of cruiser/corvette support, you'd need a huge bomber force to threaten the gank team in the time before they could jump out. And if the UEF's reserve of heavy bombers is actually as low as it is implied to be, then it would be a major commitment (even if very reasonable).

Really, with the range advantage and damage output advantage the Redeemer has over the Vajra (and the fact that a Durga can mount 12 of the former while Vajra bombers can only mount one of the latter), and the limited utility of torpedoes in their current form (a huge, slow, lumbering bomber waiting around for aspect lock after aspect lock at close range is just begging to get skewed with AAAf's and Trebuchets), the real strength of the UEF's bomber force seems to depend on how large its reserves of Durgas and growing supply of Lapiths are.

And if the Vajra's in-game performance and table data are not indicative of its real effectiveness, then why isn't it mounted as a warship weapon in place of, say, the Sanctus' mass drivers? Heck, doesn't a single Redeemer out-dps a Sanctus mass driver anyway, with about the same range (but a much larger volume of fire)?

I suppose the question is how powerful a non-interceptable anti-ship weapon capable of being mounted on a heavy bomber can be for it to not be superior to major armaments on larger warships. Range would seem to be the most practical of options (it's much more practical for a bomber to get within 1-2 kilometers of the target than for a corvette, for instance), but don't we already see the Redeemer and Vajra in action in Aristeia and Serkr's debut of gutting the Ranvir? Does that matter, though?

[The E]

See, now you've jumped to conclusions again. You once again mistake in-engine values for in-universe reality. This effective number of hitpoints is just a balancing tool for us so that we can make sure the mission plays out as we want it to; it does not not NOT mean that the Carthage is suddenly four times as tough as a Sathanas.

[SaltyWaffles]

See, now you've jumped to conclusions again. You once again mistake in-engine values for in-universe reality. This effective number of hitpoints is just a balancing tool for us so that we can make sure the mission plays out as we want it to; it does not not NOT mean that the Carthage is suddenly four times as tough as a Sathanas.

Okay, fair enough. I thought the in-engine values for canon FS1/2 were fair game, but I was mistaken.

I think I understand (finally, I know) the overall approach; in-story feats are the empirical standard, not hard stats beyond what is solidly confirmed by the story/exposition.