Military, Authority & Decisions In MSLN series

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Actually, there was an attack plan.

It was called: STALL IT!

The entire battle purpose was hinged around the Cradle making orbit. If it made orbit, the entire Navy would be needed to beat it. If they could stall it long enough for the Navy to beat it to position, the Navy could fry it before it could tap into the energy of the moons.

The entire battle plan was thus centered around buying enough time to get the fleet into position before the cradle. So really, the only true mission critical element for the TSAB was Vita taking out that reactor and buying fifteen minutes. All other objectives would be deemed as Secondary. Even Nanoha rescuing vivio would be 'secondary' to the safety of all Dimensional Space. (Remember, according to Fluff, a fully powered Cradle could launch DIMENSIONAL attacks.)

As far as attack plans go... one mage going for the critical objective seems a bit flimsy. I would have probably allocated more assets to the task and risked something unimportant getting overrun in exchange. Most likely I would have sent Hayate in with Vita from the start and let the air battle outside play out in whatever way, as that battle was of no consiquence to the teams already inside. Hayate could have ripped a path right through the ship with her firepower. How she managed to suddenly pop up to catch Vita after the hammerhead smashed the reactor is anyone's guess. (Though I suspect she followed the damage path Vita left.)

[Avatar_notADV]

Biggest problem with that plan is that there were a LOT of drones outside the Cradle; if something didn't keep them busy, they're free to dispatch wave after wave against the small force that penetrated the Cradle. Eventually that wears one down, especially fighting in a really heavy AMF area; they might have been able to swarm an Ace under eventually.

Also, Hayate's not really well-suited for shipboard combat. Her biggest and best attacks are huge, destructive area attacks, precisely the sort of thing you can't use in narrow corridors on a ship which has friendlies somewhere on it.

Jail's plan wasn't terrible, but he didn't have the force to push it through, and he put too much into the diversion. If he'd left it to the drones, he'd have been able to reinforce the Cradle with several additional Numbers, who might have been able to hold Vita back Just Long Enough. (In retrospect, of course - if the objective was to occupy the dangerous S-rank enemy mages, then weakening the diversion further wouldn't have helped much.)

Ideally Jail would have dispatched Quattro -with the diversionary force-! She could have made it seem a heck of a lot more formidable than it was, pulled away the enemy Aces to deal with the threat, maybe even conjured up a fake Vivio to make sure Nanoha wouldn't beeline for the Cradle. But he couldn't do that, because at the end of the day, he's got a limited number of fully-reliable Numbers, and she's the one closest to him in mentality (or the least likely to decide that world conquest wasn't on her list of life goals, hey?) He couldn't have left that duty to any of the "unreliable" numbers, and Tre and Sette aren't big thinkers from what we saw. Maybe Uno could have done it, but she doesn't add any combat ability at all...

The other big failure of Jail's planning was killing off the TSAB brains, and losing control of Zest long enough for him to kill Regius. On paper, throwing the enemy's command infrastructure into disarray at the crucial moment looks good. But as it happened, the confused mess that got left essentially let Hayate assume command of the entire battle, which let her engage the Cradle effectively without having the high command shouting at her to come save its (and the civilians') bacon.

So one major failing because Jail doesn't have the full loyalty of his troops (because, frankly, they're a lot rougher and tougher than he is, and don't know if they ought to really respect him or not.) Another because he underestimated how killing only the inconvenient members of the TSAB leadership would free Hayate to do whatever was necessary. A third because Zest had gone off the reservation (this is why zombie slaves are not an effective military tool). Fourth because the Forwards ate their Wheaties and were out for blood, sure.

And fifth because he didn't have anything that could outmatch any of the Aces in full battle fury. He put a lot of faith in Vivio's power, and couldn't have known the power of Nanoha's befriending; that's a miscalculation, but understandable under the circumstances.

Hayate's biggest mistake was letting Signum go after Zest, but she couldn't have known that at the time. And it probably was good for her career-wise that nobody could point at her after the fact and ask, "She didn't try to defend him very hard, did she?" But Vita could really have used the help.

[Jimmy C]

@ATC: They weren't sure whether taking out just the reactor or the command system would be enough to stop the Cradle. So they needed to take both out.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Actually, having more of the forces inside would have been better because of the nature of fighting in a restricted space.

In the corridors inside the cradle, the narrow spaces would reduce the possible directions of attack of incoming drones and limit the numbers attacking them while compacting them into tight clusters... as opposed to being in the open air being strafed in 3 dimensions by widely scattered opponents. Effectively a Killzone. Given a guy with a machine gun and his choice of shooting down a narrow hall, and trying to cover an open field, he'll take that bottleneck.

Now, Hayate has some huge attacks yes, but she has a BOOK full of attacks. Not all of them would have to be tactical nukes in scale. And with two mages pushing through with unrivaled firepower to reach the core, they'd have gotten there sooner, before the outside drones could effectively overpower the mages in the air battle. This means the core would be taken out sooner. Once that is done, they could smash their way out... just pick a direction and blow a hole in the hull. It works for Nanoha right?

The key is, that while the combat dynamics would change a little, the goal remains the Primary Objective. Long Drawn out fights are the worst kind to get caught in. Getting bogged down just results in fatigue. The sooner you complete the primary, the better the rest of the mission can turn out. Hayate could have blasted a path to the core, destroying anything in the way, while Vita acted as rear guard. I daresay anything in Hayate's designated 'FRONT TOWARD ENEMY' is going to get completely and totally demolished, no matter how numerous. Once the core was out of commission, they could both retreat outside and minimize time inside the heavy AMF and mop up on the drones while Nanoha does her thing with Vivio.
Now that Hayate has effectively completed the Primary Objective of the mission, the outcome is certain, there is no need to keep combat pressure on the cradle at full intensity. No drones are going to Interfere with the Mama/daughter battle (That's Quattro's Sadistic little game for personal enjoyment), and once Nanoha turns and snipes Quattro, the drones are effectively out of the fight anyway.

The only thing left to do is to get Nanoha off the ship when it decides to throw a hissy fit and go into Automated Lockdown.

EDIT: They, weren't sure if knocking out the POWER system of the ship would slow the ship down? I would have looked at them when they said that and asked: "What universe do you come from where lack of power means something can keep going? Bizzaroworld?" I mean, the thing had to switch to obviously existing backup systems when the main went, but the main is a MAIN for a reason.

Actually, I'm kind of surprised Hayate wasn't tearing into the ship with her big attacks herself. They could punch into the hull with attacks well enough to get an entrance. Were it me, I'd be carving pieces out of the engine assembly on the back. Engines make you go, no engines, no go. MAN... Logic is wonderful! Of course, then again, maybe nobody but the engineers in Nanohaverse understand anything about what makes a ship go.

Where's my ship? I want to lance the entire engine array a few times from orbit just to make a point.

[Arkeus]

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

EDIT: They, weren't sure if knocking out the POWER system of the ship would slow the ship down? I would have looked at them when they said that and asked: "What universe do you come from where lack of power means something can keep going? Bizzaroworld?" I mean, the thing had to switch to obviously existing backup systems when the main went, but the main is a MAIN for a reason.

In a world with secondary cores and self-repair, obviously. if you remember ,quattro wasn't that bothered by the main core going down. It slowed, but it would still have gone into position before the fleet.

[Keroko]

Hayate probably watched too much Star Wars and thought "It's a superweapon! Go for the reactor!" Which, as Ark pointed out, is actually a good idea if you want to prevent the ship from regenerating.

There is one flaw to sending Hayate inside though. The Type IV's. Now I'll admit, this flaw is using hind sight, but Hayate's lack of melee + stealth drone capable of penetrating Barrier Jackets = splutter.

[xiaoamy]

Hmmm....interesting plan they have got..
What was Otto doing? was he...I mean she also commanding the drones like Quattro...
When Teana was against three numbers there wasn't "really" a plan of attack, first she just went up to them and used her magic which she could use it mentally and also the numbers underestimated her, believe that using brawn should taken care of it. (Maybe) if she did then I would have to re-read or re-watch Nanoha StS
Jail's plan is to escape Mid-childa (with Vivio) and invade another planet, right?

[Avatar_notADV]

I dunno. Hayate knows that Nanoha (and Vita!) are inside the ship. She knows that Vivio is inside the ship. What she doesn't know, well, is what else is inside the ship. When you are conducting what is essentially a raid, you DON'T want to also accidentally fire into the magazine! (Or anything else similarly explody. Hayate going nuts on the Cradle might have damaged it significantly, but it also might have caused an internal explosion and killed a friendly.)

So yeah, lancing it from orbit is a good idea right up until a three-quarters-dead Nanoha pulls herself out of the resulting wreckage cradling a dead Vivio in her arms. Good luck surviving that one, m'buddy. ;p

Keroko has a really good point about the Type IVs, too. They wouldn't be much of a threat if Hayate was moving in with Vita and Signum to watch her back and flanks (and, as you say, FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY means you don't have to worry about that direction). But then again, if Hayate's not outside, that means that not only do you have to worry about the ship's complement, but endless waves of drones that are surrounding the ship and will follow you in. Even Hayate has a limit to what she can do, and without her there to steady what other TSAB forces are still in the fight, it's likely a lot of them would break, or at least not do anything productive.

[al103]

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

All of this is disregarding that Jail was making a point of his "I'm not killing anybody" propaganda (and, frankly, actions) in 16-17. It would be quite a jump to go from that to "I'll kill everyone in the city!"

This propaganda was for one and only thing - stall TSAB response. When Brains are in disarray and try to cover it all is one thing, when TSAB HQ is in rage and goes for blood, there is fleet of cruisers in the sky of Mid and there are half of TSAB response teams + all leaves recalled + secondstringers like Lindy recalled all seeking for Jail... it's other thing entirely. I think Jail wouldn't attack at all if not need of Vivio and needed relic recovery. I also think surprise attack on GF HQ was plant for Cradle lift off (and it was not so successful 2nd time around exactly because it was 2nd time).

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

Part of the problem is that his strategic goals aren't precisely rational (or explained well, for that matter.) He's not looking to exterminate Mid, but to conquer it, at least ostensibly in the name of scientific freedom and martial glory, more probably because he's about halfway around the bend and rapidly receding.

Despite being laughing maniac Jail is very rational at that. Thing is - he was stalled because he couldn't acquire Saint in time - again because of Forwards, lol.

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

The best response from the TSAB would have been to throw everything at the Cradle and let the rest go hang, then; you're right in that it would not have been a big problem to mop up the rest of the Numbers after the Cradle had fallen.

Another thing if Numbers + gadgets were allowed to do civilian massacre it could cripple TSAB much heavier then active Cradle. Cradle can be explained to public, massacre... not so much. Even if loses to Cradle were 100 times higher. With Cranagan being capital of TSAB founder world it could actually kill TSAB. "If they can't protect THEM from just that - what we can wait?" And there are already enormous problems on that front... So Jail diversion was one TSAB couldn't ignore.

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

But if Subaru and Teana and Elio and Caro had sat around and played video games instead of going out to fight the Numbers, it wouldn't have changed anything strategically - Jail still would have lost big.

TSAB would lost BIGGER. Cradle is actually lesser threat here. Politics...

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

I dunno. Hayate knows that Nanoha (and Vita!) are inside the ship. She knows that Vivio is inside the ship. What she doesn't know, well, is what else is inside the ship. When you are conducting what is essentially a raid, you DON'T want to also accidentally fire into the magazine! (Or anything else similarly explody. Hayate going nuts on the Cradle might have damaged it significantly, but it also might have caused an internal explosion and killed a friendly.)

So yeah, lancing it from orbit is a good idea right up until a three-quarters-dead Nanoha pulls herself out of the resulting wreckage cradling a dead Vivio in her arms. Good luck surviving that one, m'buddy. ;p

Keroko has a really good point about the Type IVs, too. They wouldn't be much of a threat if Hayate was moving in with Vita and Signum to watch her back and flanks (and, as you say, FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY means you don't have to worry about that direction). But then again, if Hayate's not outside, that means that not only do you have to worry about the ship's complement, but endless waves of drones that are surrounding the ship and will follow you in. Even Hayate has a limit to what she can do, and without her there to steady what other TSAB forces are still in the fight, it's likely a lot of them would break, or at least not do anything productive.

They still had to worry about the whole ship complement + the drones outside, but they had to do it on the Gadgets' terms: Vita had no one to watch her back, and Hayate had to fight them out in the open where they could surround her or disperse at will.

Originally Posted by al103

This propaganda was for one and only thing - stall TSAB response. When Brains are in disarray and try to cover it all is one thing, when TSAB HQ is in rage and goes for blood, there is fleet of cruisers in the sky of Mid and there are half of TSAB response teams + all leaves recalled + secondstringers like Lindy recalled all seeking for Jail... it's other thing entirely. I think Jail wouldn't attack at all if not need of Vivio and needed relic recovery. I also think surprise attack on GF HQ was plant for Cradle lift off (and it was not so successful 2nd time around exactly because it was 2nd time).


Despite being laughing maniac Jail is very rational at that. Thing is - he was stalled because he couldn't acquire Saint in time - again because of Forwards, lol.


Another thing if Numbers + gadgets were allowed to do civilian massacre it could cripple TSAB much heavier then active Cradle. Cradle can be explained to public, massacre... not so much. Even if loses to Cradle were 100 times higher. With Cranagan being capital of TSAB founder world it could actually kill TSAB. "If they can't protect THEM from just that - what we can wait?" And there are already enormous problems on that front... So Jail diversion was one TSAB couldn't ignore.


TSAB would lost BIGGER. Cradle is actually lesser threat here. Politics...

Losing the whole planet is not lesser than part of a city. Not concentrating on the cradle was, at best, a higher risk, higher return move.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

(The total slaughter of english in the last few post has me gouging out my eyes, but here goes nothin'!)

Going into the Cradle would have been a superior move. Even if you say the drones will come in from outside unabated, you have a FINITE number of drones that have to squeeze themselves into a limited space. You can choose to face them in the open where they have freedom of movement. Or you can face them inside a killzone of your making. Either way, you're still facing the same number. Just because Hayate goes inside, doesn't mean she's magically (pardon the pun) going to suddenly face a huge onslaught any more than what she had to handle outside. And the drones would STILL have to fight the air forces.

Now, having Hayate going to town on the Cradle from inside would be no worse than Nanoha going to town on Quattro... even less in fact if you consider that she'd be firing attacks to the aft segment of the ship. Given the size of the thing, even explosions being set off here and there from sympathetic detonation wouldn't be a threat to the friendlies at the far FRONT end of this multi-kilometer monstrosity.

On top of this, capital ships generally tend to be weaker on the inside than the external defenses, so doing critical damage to the vessel would be much easier as she could attack important components from the least defended angle... Wonton destruction of engine components in the aft section from within, and en mass, would most certainly cripple the ship, perhaps even bring it down before the fleet gets involved.

Now, when you consider a starship in design, it makes more sense.

You start aiming for the priority components. Power, Engines, Control Systems. Knock out the power and engines, and it's not going ANYWHERE. Knock out the control systems and it's a 3 kilometer long flying BRICK.
Now, the mistake one should avoid is assuming that Vivio or Quattro are the control systems. They aren't. Quattro's just an input, and Vivio's just a KEY. As we recall when they were both taken out, the Cradle had a hissyfit and went into lockdown. That means there was still a control system operational onboard.

Now, the ship itself, if it's built in any way how humans tend to build ships, probably has a left-right semmetry to it with a spinal network of important components.

That being said, I would surmize easily that the engine equipment takes up at least the back third of the ship, and is centered on a reactor roughly dead center in the ship, roughly one quarter the ship length from the back.

So a Lance strike placed roughly mid-wing along the spine of the vessel, and then two more slightly aft in the middle of each wing would cause severe engine damage.

Other critical systems onboard would most likely have one of two configurations.

A - Spinal configuration. Where everything important is right up the middle.

B - Seperated Dual configuration. Where everything runs along the ship about half way out from the center, as to be separated and redundant in the case of damage, but still buried deep enough to not be vulnerable to surface damage.

Actually, it's easier to show it.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...e_Overview.jpg

Whether you're hayate inside the thing, or a ship in orbit firing down on it. The structure lends itself to easily predicting where important system nodes are going to be. (You'll need to note, I estimated the reactor location, THEN remembered they showed it on a crossection, which I spliced in. I'm... pretty damn close. Close enough that the resulting splash damage from a lance strike would have knocked out the reactor.)

Knowing a good estimate of the structure means that large attacks fired inside would hit the estimated locations of critical systems, and Hayate would easily have been able to shut the thing down by gutting it from the inside out.

*Sigh.*

The blue 'lance' markers would have been how I spaced out OTS strikes. Three along the aft to hit the engines and reactor, and two spaced slightly off center roughly amidship to sever critical nodes to the throne room. But then again, I'm the space nerd here.

[Avatar_notADV]

That would work great if, for example, they had a complete set of builder's plans for the Cradle, and could easily distinguish "this is the drive system", "this is the power system", and "this is the bit where Vivio is sitting". Nail one of the first two and you've won! Nail the third and you might as well jump out the airlock.

(For that matter, slamming huge energy balls into the power distribution system while it's wired into Vivio might not be such a good thing either, huh?)

Still, you're right in that Hayate (properly backed up by a Knight and pointing well away from Nanoha) could have run riot inside the Cradle. I do have to wonder, though, when it comes to reasons that she didn't, how much of that was doctrine. Hayate is clearly comfortable thinking of herself as the battalion artillery; maybe she's averse to getting close and mixing it up because she's under the impression that she's no good at it? (Then again, she's training with Signum, Fate, and Vita, all three of which are extra-nasty at point blank range, and also Nanoha, who doesn't care how far the enemy is anyway... so it's possible she might think "oh, close range is a bad idea" but would fare pretty well against anyone who's not an S-rank close combat monster.)

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Well, they certainly had enough specs to know where the engine room was and show the schematic to Nanoha and Vita. I mean, all the images I pulled up are from the displays Yuuno and Chrono are looking at, and then the display Nanoha and Vita look at and then split up.

I worked off that.

As far as finding other critical compontents, you can't miss the engines. They're the big ass nozzels pointing out the back of the ship. You'd have to be animated by 7arcs to miss them. The machinery for them would be inside the ship in front of them... You know, where they logically tend to be.

[xiaoamy]

The Craddle doesn't have a chamber that stores all the ammunition because there weren't any large guns on the ship its just large robots attach to the ship
Could they have also taken out the pilots who were manning the ship or person or thing controlling it?
Can anyone tell me what was Otto doing?

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

The control system was some kind of computer system.

Depending on the computer system, it could have been taken out, or it could have been futile.

A centralized computer system would have a Computer Core, and probably a backup computer core. Taking those out would effectively turn the ship into a flying brick.
However, if the system was a NETWORKED design using hundreds if not thousands of sub-processors scattered through the ship, it would have been effectively impossible to remove the control system without tearing the ship apart systematicly.

As for Otto, Otto was groundside directing the fight against the forwards. Until Shamal and Zaphira jumped her.

[Keroko]

Technically, the number of drones were infinite. Remember, the Cradle is not just the armory holding them, but also the factory spitting them out.

One might say Hayate took unknowns into account when she decided not to go inside. They had seen Type IV drones before after all, so it stands to reason Hayate knew what they were capable off, and decided that she with her lack of melee going into the Cradle would be akin to rolling your artillery battery through a city you know to be infested with trigger-happy guerrilla's.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

They wouldn't have been infinite Keroko, because she'd be destroying the factories as she went along.

You're using you're analogy wrong to assume it's like rolling a sensitive artillery piece through a city. In those circumstances, the city is full of friendly and non-combatant targets. Gurillas have a field day because you can't just start blasting antything they can hide behind.

The inside of the cradle is NOT filled with areas designated 'Do not Shoot'.

For a correct analogy, it's more like rolling your artillery piece into town as you blast each building into rubble. You can't do that to a city, but you can certainly do that to the cradle.

[Keroko]

Hmm, point. But what's going to stop said guerrilla's from sneaking up and stabbing you in the back anyway?

Also, you have to remember that their objective was to stop the Cradle from rising until the fleet was present to vape it. Hayate rampaging through the Cradle might just cause the Cradle to actually lose its lifting support and come crashing down on top of Mid itself. Since I distinctly recall it flying above a populated city at one point, this hardly sounds like the ideal situation.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Hmm, point. But what's going to stop said guerrilla's from sneaking up and stabbing you in the back anyway?

The angry girl with the hammer would be my guess. The entire point of the Buddy System is to have someone watching your back while you watch theirs.
This isn't Hayate Going it alone, it's Hayate doubling with VITA.

And you also have to remember that HAYATE *DID* enter the cradle... somehow, and got to Vita fast enough to catch her falling. I'm just saying, put her there from the start and Let-er-rip!

Also, you have to remember that their objective was to stop the Cradle from rising until the fleet was present to vape it. Hayate rampaging through the Cradle might just cause the Cradle to actually lose its lifting support and come crashing down on top of Mid itself. Since I distinctly recall it flying above a populated city at one point, this hardly sounds like the ideal situation.

If they REALLY were concerned about that, they wouldn't have pointed Vita at the reactor core and said 'search and destroy!' You never really know what's going to happen when you take the Main offline. Especially with something as big as the Cradle. How do you know that it's not 90% of the energy coming from the Main just to hold it in the air, and the reason it's slow as molassas is that it's only got 10% energy left for forward thrust? So if your concern is about accidently dropping the thing on a city, you shouldn't be trying to knock out the Primary Reactor Core. Also, given the reduncancy of the vessel: It's likely that it would start listing from battle damage before it completely lost the abilty to stay in the air.

Also, remember the battle was three hours long. There's most certainly ample time at the begining to bring it down safely over the jungle or ocean. Then you don't NEED the fleet to vape it. Just neutralize the controllers and salvage it for research.

[Avatar_notADV]

I don't know if salvaging it would be such a good idea. "Aw, Mom, I'm ready now!" "No flying your own super battleship until you turn 16!"

I still think doctrine is holding Hayate back. Not only her hang-back-and-shoot preferences, but also that she's effectively "it" as far as command goes. Now, as viewers who are probably more comfortable with commenting on military affairs than the show's writers, we can confidently state that the non-RF6 TSAB forces in the area were as useless as wet toilet paper. But it's very, very unlikely that Hayate thinks that; even if it's true, contempt for your own forces is a very bad trait in an officer. She's almost certainly been conditioned to think that making sure SOMEONE is in charge is very important; under those circumstances, it's likely that she couldn't have abandoned the mooks to go charging in even if she had an engraved invitation with the ship's voonerables helpfully marked out with silver inlays and a note saying "attacking here with Mistletein would be super effective!"

But ah well. It ended okay.