Shenzhou Military Academy, Huwang
Department of Strategy and Tactics
Dr. Wang Jianshan
23220206
With the arrest of Zhuli Number Four, who the Daqinren dub "the Mother Empress", war with the Daqin Empire is eminent. Reconnaissance from the Pingqiong System is muddy, specifics indiscernible, but drive signatures of military grade vessels have been confirmed pushing mass to the system's SLE. All existing evidence points toward a large scale invasion of HFR territory to rescue the Mother Empress through the neutral Atlantica system.
The claimed technological supremacy by the Daqinren have concerned Republican military strategists for three decades now: specifically, the tactical advantages of particle beam cannons and their advancements in virtual reality maintenance, allowing their personnel to operate in two spaces simultaneously. The true impact of these capabilities have thus far can only be discussed in theory and wargames. Regardless of the tactical advantages the Daqinren have on paper, the unknown differences between battle doctrines of their military and ours, the greater strategic reality carries predictability: specifically, the sheer distance between controlled territories across interstellar space.
My analysis here heavily draws inspiration from a text written by American Union Admiral Alison Wright, "The Strategic and Logistical Challenges of Interstellar Warfare: Possible Solutions and Bypasses", written in 2287. She hypothesized a conventional, symmetrical war between the AU and the PRC, making the assumption of mutually assured destruction on Earth, while discussing the challenges of the surviving extraterrestrial territories face when they attempt to retaliate at each other. The hundred plus page long thesis drew evidence from contemporary PRC and AU capabilities along with the results of decades of wargaming and simulations conducted by the AU. Her work was in a way prophetic when Zhongzhi occured, indeed heavily influencing AU and CW conduct during the initial phases of Operation Distant Flock. Despite over a century old, Admiral Wright's work still holds weight in gold to this day, espeacially relevant to our upcoming war with the Daqinren.
In brief sentences, Admiral Wright concludes that, in a symmetrical conflict across two or more systems, each individual system fully controlled by a single belligerent, victory is outright impossible for the aggressor due to the shear distances between stellar gravity wells, placing a heavy burden on logistics, subjecting invading fleets to the risk of complete isolation and destruction. Extensive methods to create asymmetric circumstances are required to achieve offensive victory, if overwhelming numbers isn't possible.
Two military operations within the last 120 years show highlight bypasses and solutions to the logistical hurdles, and consequences if they are not found: Operation Distant Flock, and the Hawking War for Independence. Prior to Operation Distant Flock, the PRC military leadership was completely gutted by the Zhuli. Due to the highly centralized nature of the PRC military at the time, the surviving officer base was paralyzed, unable to react swiftly to the sudden change in power structure. With the majority of the PRC space fleet in Sol, the AU and CW were swiftly able to neutralize this increasingly unpredictable and headless threat across interplanetary distances, extremely short in comparison to interstellar. From here, a symmetrical conflict turned asymmetric within a couple of weeks. The Ameri-European coalition took control of the PRC SLE in Sol, then spent six months building up their forces at a 1:10 ratio between combat assets and logictial support units, distributed across Sol, Atlantica, and New Texas. While this gave Li Ming and Shen Zhou PRC remnants to organize their own defenses, there were simply too few units in the extraterrestrial colonies to resist, and the surviving leadership far too fractured to organize effectively. The sheer logistical capabilities of the AU-CW coalition must also be noted, as it was observed that command stations were built by the CW on the outer edges of the systems first, supplied by AU Statesmen-Classes, before a steady and heavy push to the cores of the systems commenced, annihilating any resistance with seemingly endless firepower.
While the AU successfully conducted a great feat of logistics against the proto-HFR states, in recent years its leadership seems to have degraded to the point where it cannot execute its own doctrine as efficiently as it has before, exemplified by the embarrassing failure to put down the Hawking Rebellion. On paper, the AU should have crushed the uprising by the machine cultists and more human sympathizers through sheer mass, yet the Americans failed to play to their strengths. Instead of a slow and steady build-up of logistical assets in a defensible formation out of the limited military assets the Magnetic Assembly had at their disposal, the AU instead decided to strike at the Hawking SLE directly with Statesmen. While these battlecruisers are impressive feats of military engineering, having a high degree of logistical independence across interstellar space, requiring no external SLE, they punch below their weight class, requiring the buildup of dedicated combat vessels to form the vanguard, while the Statesmen anchor the fleet as heavily armed mobile depots. The AU during Operation Distant Flock understood this, yet during the first and only military operation against the rebels in Hawking space, at the Battle of Reiss, six Statesmen were haphazardly flung at a well prepared, defended position, reflecting incredible tactical incompetence, and exacerbating a poor strategic disadvantage the AU has as the attackers.
The MA, for their part, struck the ill prepared battlegroup hard, either downing or capturing all of the Statesmen, reappropriating them to serve as the logistics cores for their own counter-offensive in Atlantica. While the Machine cultists still do not have an official military, they have shown impressive adaptibility by repurposing the many civilian vessels in the system to serve as missile boats, alleviating the hurdles of advancing into another star system. Mirroring the Zhongzhi event, the MA partially paralyzed the AU's decision making process by assassinating half of their senate through unconventional application of automation behind enemy lines, leaving Atlantica under-manned for long enough for the smaller, ad-hoc MA fleet to establish a presence before reinforcements could arrive. The greater Battle of Atlantica is yet to prove conclusive, but the ability of the MA to adapt on the fly and degrade a larger force through asymmetric means should be noted as possible tactics to overcome the interstellar logistical hurdle.
Finally, the recent One Month War, with the CW and SSM as belligerents, should be noted for its lack of mobilization of extraterrestrial assets on both sides of the conflict, instead keeping offensives restricted to Sol. The logic is apparent: while Silbern and Yasny both pose as lucrative, strategic targets, large commitment of resources to sustain offensives in those far out systems presents unaffordable opportunity costs to keep assets in Sol, in which the CW and SSM are quite literally on each other's front door. Interstellar campaigns should never be the first strategic option.
Department of Strategy and Tactics
Dr. Wang Jianshan
23220206
With the arrest of Zhuli Number Four, who the Daqinren dub "the Mother Empress", war with the Daqin Empire is eminent. Reconnaissance from the Pingqiong System is muddy, specifics indiscernible, but drive signatures of military grade vessels have been confirmed pushing mass to the system's SLE. All existing evidence points toward a large scale invasion of HFR territory to rescue the Mother Empress through the neutral Atlantica system.
The claimed technological supremacy by the Daqinren have concerned Republican military strategists for three decades now: specifically, the tactical advantages of particle beam cannons and their advancements in virtual reality maintenance, allowing their personnel to operate in two spaces simultaneously. The true impact of these capabilities have thus far can only be discussed in theory and wargames. Regardless of the tactical advantages the Daqinren have on paper, the unknown differences between battle doctrines of their military and ours, the greater strategic reality carries predictability: specifically, the sheer distance between controlled territories across interstellar space.
My analysis here heavily draws inspiration from a text written by American Union Admiral Alison Wright, "The Strategic and Logistical Challenges of Interstellar Warfare: Possible Solutions and Bypasses", written in 2287. She hypothesized a conventional, symmetrical war between the AU and the PRC, making the assumption of mutually assured destruction on Earth, while discussing the challenges of the surviving extraterrestrial territories face when they attempt to retaliate at each other. The hundred plus page long thesis drew evidence from contemporary PRC and AU capabilities along with the results of decades of wargaming and simulations conducted by the AU. Her work was in a way prophetic when Zhongzhi occured, indeed heavily influencing AU and CW conduct during the initial phases of Operation Distant Flock. Despite over a century old, Admiral Wright's work still holds weight in gold to this day, espeacially relevant to our upcoming war with the Daqinren.
In brief sentences, Admiral Wright concludes that, in a symmetrical conflict across two or more systems, each individual system fully controlled by a single belligerent, victory is outright impossible for the aggressor due to the shear distances between stellar gravity wells, placing a heavy burden on logistics, subjecting invading fleets to the risk of complete isolation and destruction. Extensive methods to create asymmetric circumstances are required to achieve offensive victory, if overwhelming numbers isn't possible.
Two military operations within the last 120 years show highlight bypasses and solutions to the logistical hurdles, and consequences if they are not found: Operation Distant Flock, and the Hawking War for Independence. Prior to Operation Distant Flock, the PRC military leadership was completely gutted by the Zhuli. Due to the highly centralized nature of the PRC military at the time, the surviving officer base was paralyzed, unable to react swiftly to the sudden change in power structure. With the majority of the PRC space fleet in Sol, the AU and CW were swiftly able to neutralize this increasingly unpredictable and headless threat across interplanetary distances, extremely short in comparison to interstellar. From here, a symmetrical conflict turned asymmetric within a couple of weeks. The Ameri-European coalition took control of the PRC SLE in Sol, then spent six months building up their forces at a 1:10 ratio between combat assets and logictial support units, distributed across Sol, Atlantica, and New Texas. While this gave Li Ming and Shen Zhou PRC remnants to organize their own defenses, there were simply too few units in the extraterrestrial colonies to resist, and the surviving leadership far too fractured to organize effectively. The sheer logistical capabilities of the AU-CW coalition must also be noted, as it was observed that command stations were built by the CW on the outer edges of the systems first, supplied by AU Statesmen-Classes, before a steady and heavy push to the cores of the systems commenced, annihilating any resistance with seemingly endless firepower.
While the AU successfully conducted a great feat of logistics against the proto-HFR states, in recent years its leadership seems to have degraded to the point where it cannot execute its own doctrine as efficiently as it has before, exemplified by the embarrassing failure to put down the Hawking Rebellion. On paper, the AU should have crushed the uprising by the machine cultists and more human sympathizers through sheer mass, yet the Americans failed to play to their strengths. Instead of a slow and steady build-up of logistical assets in a defensible formation out of the limited military assets the Magnetic Assembly had at their disposal, the AU instead decided to strike at the Hawking SLE directly with Statesmen. While these battlecruisers are impressive feats of military engineering, having a high degree of logistical independence across interstellar space, requiring no external SLE, they punch below their weight class, requiring the buildup of dedicated combat vessels to form the vanguard, while the Statesmen anchor the fleet as heavily armed mobile depots. The AU during Operation Distant Flock understood this, yet during the first and only military operation against the rebels in Hawking space, at the Battle of Reiss, six Statesmen were haphazardly flung at a well prepared, defended position, reflecting incredible tactical incompetence, and exacerbating a poor strategic disadvantage the AU has as the attackers.
The MA, for their part, struck the ill prepared battlegroup hard, either downing or capturing all of the Statesmen, reappropriating them to serve as the logistics cores for their own counter-offensive in Atlantica. While the Machine cultists still do not have an official military, they have shown impressive adaptibility by repurposing the many civilian vessels in the system to serve as missile boats, alleviating the hurdles of advancing into another star system. Mirroring the Zhongzhi event, the MA partially paralyzed the AU's decision making process by assassinating half of their senate through unconventional application of automation behind enemy lines, leaving Atlantica under-manned for long enough for the smaller, ad-hoc MA fleet to establish a presence before reinforcements could arrive. The greater Battle of Atlantica is yet to prove conclusive, but the ability of the MA to adapt on the fly and degrade a larger force through asymmetric means should be noted as possible tactics to overcome the interstellar logistical hurdle.
Finally, the recent One Month War, with the CW and SSM as belligerents, should be noted for its lack of mobilization of extraterrestrial assets on both sides of the conflict, instead keeping offensives restricted to Sol. The logic is apparent: while Silbern and Yasny both pose as lucrative, strategic targets, large commitment of resources to sustain offensives in those far out systems presents unaffordable opportunity costs to keep assets in Sol, in which the CW and SSM are quite literally on each other's front door. Interstellar campaigns should never be the first strategic option.