This is true in deep hyperspace but I don't know if Beta layer of hyperspace has a hyper limit on moving down to alpha. Which is why I argued on putting a garrison force on every layer of hyperspace. Then having that Garrison randomly move around. To prevent the hot drop scenario you mentioned. Sure lighter units could drop down and spot the Garrison force, but that would alert the Garrison force that an enemy force is present and detach escorts to hunt and kill.
You appear to be envisioning multiple concentric "hyper limits" at higher levels of hyperspace, and there's no supporting evidence for that in the setting that I know of. So far as I can determine, if you put a 'garrison' in the alpha bands of hyperspace, you are simply inviting an enemy to detect you from extreme range or with a recon drone, then approach you invisibly in the beta bands and drop out on top of you within graser range.
I honestly don't see how you envision this actually working.
I would also like to mention that staying in hyperspace is probably an active process as in you need a hyper-field around your ship (from wiki) to stay in hyper and that would strain the hyperdrive and also why drones/missile/pods will probably need a hyperdrive to move around independently in hyper.
Uh, no. Missiles work fine in hyperspace. Shuttlecraft without hyper generators can be used to transfer crews and so on between ships in hyperspace. Most of hyperspace is just empty void like sidereal space. It's just that you need a hyper generator to
get there.
There are specific areas of hyperspace where you can't survive without specialized equipment, the "grav waves," but these are rare and make up only a small minority of overall space.
The reason maintaining a blockade of a star system in hyperspace is hard is that ships have finite endurance on station, and that you still need a quite substantial force. The large force is needed in order to have enough force
density that the defenders can't blast holes in the blockade force at will. The SLN can do this; few other powers in space can. Someone like the RMN could, but they will usually have better things to do like assault the system directly.
But you absolutely can set up your "forward operating base" a few dozen light-years from the target star system, maintain a blockade around that star system, and just fly your ships back and forth when they need refueling and maintenance.
I can see your point but do you have a source that says that radiation shielding on missiles are short lived? Because without an official source there is no way to know for sure. But I get your point which is where the Garrison fleet and fortress stations come in. What's stopping a construction fleet from building a fortress in alpha?
The reasoning about radiation shielding on missiles is based on the simple observation that missiles,
especially Manticoran missiles, need to be optimized for their intended mission.
Suppose you were to design an automobile. You would not add redundant, useless components such as a flowerbox or a bathtub, because these would compromise the design function. Likewise, the design function of a missile is compromised if it wastes significant internal tonnage or volume on radiation shielding not actually needed to fulfill its mission. This is especially true for RMN missiles, which are trying to fit a lot more complex systems into a package that hasn't gotten all that much larger over the past twenty years.
The level of radiation shielding on a missile will therefore be defined by "what is the minimum amount that reduces the missile's expected probability of failure to an acceptable level in realistic situations the missile is designed for." A missile designed to fly from Point A to Point B for all of ten minutes will have radiation shielding (and general systems redundancy, which serves some of the same purposes) designed to keep the probability of failure due to radiation hazards
within that ten minute period down to something acceptably low, such as 1% or 0.1% or whatever.
Now, it's certainly possible to design a beefier missile (or bulkier missile pod, something with extra passive protection to take the radiation the missile would otherwise take, designed to be dumped out of big bulky minelayers let's say) that is more heavily shielded.
But in the final analysis, this entire scheme of deploying weapon systems into hyperspace as a way to "concentrate" the defense plows into the same problem, over and over:
Any attempt to mount fortifications or quasi-fortifications in hyperspace invites an enemy sneak attack on those fortifications, by the enemy simply flying "above" them at a higher level of hyperspace and "dropping" upon them within point blank range of the target.
The only reason that long-range defense systems are
possible in the Honorverse, that the ultimate defensive weapon isn't a heavily armored battle planetoid armed wtih grasers and bubble sidewalls, is because of one critical detail.
Namely, that you
cannot do the "jump from hyperspace death from above" gambit to a defender who is sitting in sidereal space within the habitable belt of a typical star, because of the hyper limit.
