[QuakeIV]

Yes exactly, if he had planned things out fully he would have sent in corvettes and then let the Imperieusse fry some bigger fish.

[Klaustrophobia]

delenda est was more about a morale crush than a devastating military defeat.  3 or 4 karunas isn't all THAT big of a force.  the GTVA wanted to be seen  swatting aside the supposed elite badasses of the UEF like it was nothing.  the imperieuse curbstomping them one after another is much more effective at that than a few corvettes that the frigates could at least engage, even if they are still destroyed.

[CT27]

Think Carey may try to trick Steele somehow?  She probably would help the UEF one more time even if she gets the firing squad as a result.

[MatthTheGeek]

Yes exactly, if he had planned things out fully he would have sent in corvettes and then let the Imperieusse fry some bigger fish.

The Imperieuse had been in hiding for weeks, already lacking of supplies and repairs since the blitz, by the time of DE. Although she looked fine in DE, I doubt she'd be in shape to face a Solaris, or at least I doubt the Tevs would have taken the risk. The Wargods were the target from the beginning, and they pose less of a threat to the Imperieuse, especially after battling the whole Carthage battlegroup.

Like Klaustrophobia said, Steele's objective was to crush the UEF morale, single-handely demonstrating in a single engagement his strategical superiority, making a mockery of UEF intelligence and destroying the single UEF unit that managed to actually deal some stings to the Tev war machine after 18 month of warfare. Solarises are also interesting preys, but none of em has the psychological impact the destruction of the Wargods had.

Think Carey may try to trick Steele somehow?  She probably would help the UEF one more time even if she gets the firing squad as a result.

I hardly see how she would be able trick anyone from jail.

[Medve]

The great variety of possibilities you guys described above shows just how much we don't know for sure.

[QuakeIV]

Yes exactly, if he had planned things out fully he would have sent in corvettes and then let the Imperieusse fry some bigger fish.

The Imperieuse had been in hiding for weeks, already lacking of supplies and repairs since the blitz, by the time of DE. Although she looked fine in DE, I doubt she'd be in shape to face a Solaris, or at least I doubt the Tevs would have taken the risk. The Wargods were the target from the beginning, and they pose less of a threat to the Imperieuse, especially after battling the whole Carthage battle group.

Like Klaustrophobia said, Steele's objective was to crush the UEF morale, single-handedly demonstrating in a single engagement his strategical superiority, making a mockery of UEF intelligence and destroying the single UEF unit that managed to actually deal some stings to the Tev war machine after 18 month of warfare. Solarises are also interesting preys, but none of em has the psychological impact the destruction of the Wargods had.

Its quite possible your right about the supply issues, I doubt the Imperieuse could have for instance launched a huge number of fighters and bombers.  It however seemed to be quite capable of firing away with its beams all it wanted.  Since the UEF destroyers were busy 'tying up' GTVA assets instead of overwhelming them, I think that they would already be on the edge of safety.  Again seeing the performance of the Imperieuse in DE I think it could have done some serious damage to a Solaris and brought it down with the assistance of the other warship assets that were already engaged.  It seemed to me that the loss of a destroyer would be a bigger morale blow than the loss of the Wargods.

I was previously looking at things from the perspective of the destructive power that would be lost in either case.  From the perspective of morale, the wargods seemed to be construed as the UEF's last hope to win the war through military might and offensive operations.  Crushing them like insects is pretty much the best way to counteract something liek that.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that a UEF admiral could serve as a martyr due to the general UEF psyche, however I think that an admiral dying gloriously could serve some similar effect.  It may have actually been detrimental to take out a destroyer while so much of the UEF military was still intact.

The great variety of possibilities you guys described above shows just how much we don't know for sure.

I'm inclined to agree, a lot of what we are saying is by necessity conjecture.


e: edited to hell and back to make my point slightly more clear

[Klaustrophobia]

i seriously doubt killing a solaris would have been a realistic option, even with the imperiuese suprise attack.  afaik, they do not have a way to pin it down like the wargods were, and it could simply run.  or even if it couldn't, the UEF would be sure to send plentiful backup and you risk losing YOUR destroyer.

[Drogoth]

Also the suggestion that they should have prepped a bunch of corvettes the blitz the wargods and save the Imperiuse for a Solaris assumes they have enough Corvettes to maintain the tie down, AND crush the wargods. The Imp. may have been the only asset available to attack the wargods. If it had been involved in a major engagement what would have happened?

"This is Admiral Calder, the Imperiuse has engaged us. Clearly we have had a major intelligence failure. All units are to abort mission immediately"

The wargods bail, whatever solaris was under attack likely escapes. Failure from Steele's perspective. Maybe Calder wouldn't have called a retreat, but I know that if an enemy Destroyer that I thought was in another system turned up in battle I'd be a little bit squeamish about continuing with my operation lest the enemy pull something else I wasn't expecting out of their ass.

[Medve]

Also the suggestion that they should have prepped a bunch of corvettes the blitz the wargods and save the Imperiuse for a Solaris assumes they have enough Corvettes to maintain the tie down, AND crush the wargods. The Imp. may have been the only asset available to attack the wargods. If it had been involved in a major engagement what would have happened?

"This is Admiral Calder, the Imperiuse has engaged us. Clearly we have had a major intelligence failure. All units are to abort mission immediately"

The wargods bail, whatever solaris was under attack likely escapes. Failure from Steele's perspective. Maybe Calder wouldn't have called a retreat, but I know that if an enemy Destroyer that I thought was in another system turned up in battle I'd be a little bit squeamish about continuing with my operation lest the enemy pull something else I wasn't expecting out of their ass.

I agree, this sounds most realistic.

[QuakeIV]

They could just jump the Imperieuse in shortly after the enemy comes in so that the UEF can't abort.  Theres a reason the wargods didn't just casually jump out when they saw the Imperieuse.  They had even been engaged for quite a while as they wrecked the Carthage BG, giving them plenty of time to recharge.  I'm willing to bet a Solaris has even worse subspace maneuverability than a Karuna.

Also with regards to them not having enough corvettes to crush the wargods AND maintain the tie-down, I'm willing to bet the Imperieuse is worth the firepower of quite a few corvettes.  If the Imperieuse was put into play instead of an equivalent number of corvettes then the wargods would have been just as dead if the freed up corvettes were sent into Delenda Est.  All the GTVA needs to do is replace a large group of corvettes that are engaged with a solaris battlegroup. 

My point is that they don't need Titan grade firepower to exterminate the wargods.  They could free up a relatively small number of corvettes, apply much more pressure on a solaris BG, and still crush the wargods.

[MatthTheGeek]

Theres a reason the wargods didn't just casually jump out when they saw the Imperieuse.  They had even been engaged for quite a while as they wrecked the Carthage BG, giving them plenty of time to recharge.  I'm willing to bet a Solaris has even worse subspace maneuverability than a Karuna.

That, plus being in Saturn's gravity well making jump calculations even more complicated than usual. And probably making crash jumps more risky than usual.

[headdie]

iirc 2 of the wargods had only recently entered the field when the Imp arrived so I think were still recharging their drives.

Also had the Wargod's ego reached the point they didn't have the exit vectors pre-plotted? because at the end of the day they had survived against monumental odds in the past and even shown the GTVA's best hunter killer team a good kicking not that long previously, putting the GTD Hood out of direct combat for a while in the process.  Also the story stuff showed the Wargods being extremely confident in themselves so was fatal arrogance slipping in?

[MatthTheGeek]

You can't entirely pre-plot subspace trajectories, because they depend on a lot of impredictably varying factors. You can probably do some preliminary calculations, but you'll still need minutes of calculation everytime you want to jump out.

[Drogoth]

Also with regards to them not having enough corvettes to crush the wargods AND maintain the tie-down, I'm willing to bet the Imperieuse is worth the firepower of quite a few corvettes.  If the Imperieuse was put into play instead of an equivalent number of corvettes then the wargods would have been just as dead if the freed up corvettes were sent into Delenda Est.  All the GTVA needs to do is replace a large group of corvettes that are engaged with a solaris battlegroup. 

This is exactly my point. The wargods had to wait until the rest of the GTVA fleet was tied down, in the case of DE, all the corvette assets with the exception of Lopez's battle group. If the Imperiuse had been used INSTEAD of those corvettes, so that a corvette pack would be used to hunt the wargods, what would the UEF have done?

They'd have seen a destroyer they were sure wasn't in system, fully engaged (albeit not against the Wargods), which, unless Calder is criminally stupid, should be a sign that everything is not as it seems and there is likely a nasty trap in the works. I.e., it's time to bail. The wargods attack likely never would have been launched, and the rest of the fleet would have backed off ASAP.

Edit -

The only way, (in my opinion) that the Imperiuse could have been freed up to fight something else, as well as using Corvettes to hit the wargods means the Imperiuse has to be used as an ambush vessel as it was against the wargods, because as I saidearlier, if it's there at the beginning of the engagement, it will spook the UEF and the entire operation will hit "it's time to get the hell out of dodge" mode.

I don't disagree that the Imperiuse was overkill, it definitely was. But I don't think that the GTVA had enough assets to use anything else. If these corvettes were flagged for the ambush, something would have had to deal with the ships they actually did deal with, and that something would have had to be the Imperiuse. If nothing was doing their tie down job from the beginning, then UEF assets would have been able to bumrush some sad sorry ship with all their frigates that weren't engaged.

[LordPomposity]

When you've got twenty thousand people serving as bait for your trap, you want a little overkill in the force you send to save them.

[headdie]

When you've got twenty thousand people serving as bait for your trap, you want a little overkill in the force you send to save them.

With Steele, and this is a point that is made repeatedly in WiH is that the GTVA dont care about the human cost of the war, the worry for Steele is the loss of a destroyer and it's strategic importance.

[LordPomposity]

When you've got twenty thousand people serving as bait for your trap, you want a little overkill in the force you send to save them.

With Steele, and this is a point that is made repeatedly in WiH is that the GTVA dont care about the human cost of the war, the worry for Steele is the loss of a destroyer and it's strategic importance.

On the other hand, the loss of life would have been what got him relieved of command and quite possibly ended the war if he'd screwed it up.

[redsniper]

It's also more dramatic from a storytelling POV to get roflstomped by a huge warship no one was expecting to be there, rather than getting roflstomped by a bunch of corvettes that were freed up by that same huge warship showing up somewhere off-screen....

[LordPomposity]

It's also more dramatic from a storytelling POV to get roflstomped by a huge warship no one was expecting to be there, rather than getting roflstomped by a bunch of corvettes that were freed up by that same huge warship showing up somewhere off-screen....

True.

Also, Steele is a very skilled military psychologist. He likely relied on the emotional impact of the Imperieuse showing up to shock the Wargods into a defeatist mindset. If the relief force had been less overwhelming, the Wargods' thoughts might have gone from "oh crap, how do we get any of us out of here alive" to "oh crap, how do we turn this around and still pull out a victory". They're skilled and resourceful, and with the proper mindset they might have been able to come up with something unexpected. That's not a possibility the GTVA could afford, especially considering how many variables and unknowns were already in play.

[SaltyWaffles]

You know, why didn't the Wargods have one of their ships just ram the Carthage after the Imperieuse showed up? I mean, unless I'm mistaken, it was the Carthage that was the primary jammer of the Wargods' long-range communications. So if even mostly successful, it would allow the rest of the Wargods to get an emergency bail-out by the First Fleet (obviously he wouldn't sortie the whole thing, just enough to get the task force back alive). But even if help couldn't arrive in time, the operation would still be a success if the Carthage was destroyed. While a big blow militarily, the political blow would be far larger--over ten thousand lives and a massive destroyer blown up by a ''ramming'' attack, of all things. Combine that with the loss of the Carthage's entire air wing and all of the casualties sustained by the rest of the Carthage battle group, that's going to be a huge death toll and shocking morale blow all at once.

It might also be a better screening action than charging the Imperieuse to get promptly obliterated one by one in short order. The effects of the ramming--as well as the violent destruction of both the Carthage and at least one corvette or frigate sized ship might well screw with beam targeting for a little bit.

Even given the mindset they were in at the time, it's a bit surprising that they didn't even bring up the possibility. They were already sending most of the task force to a quick death in a desperate hope to screen the Indus' and Yangtze's retreat. Karunas are faster than Titans...and they have a head start. So if they're already throwing there lives away in a desperate attempt, why not pull a heroic sacrifice in the most obvious and effective way possible--after all, the Carthage's engines were still working fine, as was a decent portion of its armament--isn't it a much better screened retreat if you can destroy half of the attacking force for the cost of a single Karuna (or even two)?