OK KZT: What's wrong with AAC?

Jonathan_S wrote:We also know that in the interval between SftS (which ends in Feb 1921 PD), where it's implied the central Junction currently doesn't have forts, and the Battle of Manticore (July 24, 1921 PD) the Junction does get its new modern (yet apparently non-Apollo) forts online.

Jonathan_S wrote:
If Manticore deployed any significant number of (pre-Apollo) missile pods around around Sphinx that they'd also have to provide fire control. I'd think the most reasonable way to do that is to simply make some more of the prefabricated fortress chunks that they were already sending to Lynx, and probably using for the forts around the Junction, and assemble them in Sphinx orbit to manage the orbital defenses. But as we saw with Lynx those were pre-Apollo designs and so it's quite reasonable to think Sphinx had at least a few of the new 10 million ton standard forts -- but that they hadn't yet been updated for Apollo. (That having happened first for the more isolated Gryphon defenses)

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:We also know that in the interval between SftS (which ends in Feb 1921 PD), where it's implied the central Junction currently doesn't have forts, and the Battle of Manticore (July 24, 1921 PD) the Junction does get its new modern (yet apparently non-Apollo) forts online.

Why do you think the junction forts do NOT have Apollo at this point, when Gryphon is about to get Apollo? Why wouldn't it make sense for the junction forts to also be refitted for Keyhole II?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

tlb wrote:Note how long the Andermani ships required to be refitted with Keyhole:

>>>The longer-range fix is to modify their existing SD(P)s to accept the Keyhole platforms and fire our new 'flat-pack' pods with the all-up fusion-powered birds. That's going to take considerably longer, because each ship will have to spend an absolute minimum of ninety days in yard hands to carry out the modifications.<<<

I would expect while similar work was being done on the forts (except for being Keyhole II), that they were offline and had their missiles unloaded

Note that this was about Keyhole II on the Adlers already.

I agree the forts being refitted would need to be offline while work happens. But unlike what was done for the IAN, they wouldn't be MIA. The forts would stay roughly where they are. But more importantly, the work wouldn't be on all of them at the same time, as was done for the Adlers.

I also don't know how to compare the time. On one hand, the Andermani technology would be far different than the forts, which were Manticore through and through. Manticore had had 10 years of knowledge of its own technical progress to carry out incremental upgrades that would facilitate that. It would be inconceivable that those forts couldn't fire MDMs in the first place. On the other hand, forts are larger and they can't be towed to a drydock for being serviced.

Theemile wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:
Forts can be c-fraced unless they have missiles which can have a ballistic phase--and we only saw ballistic stuff with Apollo. All you need to take them out is enough throw weight to penetrate their defenses.

Forts are mobile and have wedges and sidewalls - any C-frac attack is eaten by wedges and sidewalls - that's what they are designed to do, swallow any weaker wedges, causing a feedback loop which destroys the nodes (and usually the entire hull) of the incoming device. Any smart Fort commander has the fort being mobile with a "random walk" pattern in constant use so they avoid patterns (while deploying to cover their zone with the other forts).

Jonathan_S wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:She was able to control the demonstration. Had it been fired for effect it would have had an up-the-rear shot at whatever it was shooting at--figure that as a kill (drive damage means it doesn't get away, you don't need to take it out.)

She was able to control a handful of ACM (presumably 6; since the demonstration was with "less than sixty of them", and 6*9=54) using, IIRC, the bandwidth of a Hermes bouy as an impromptu relay.

But even against the first surprise demonstration salvo - missiles that never had to settle down for proper terminal attack runs, and appeared to continue to maneuver evasively all the way through his formation - his point defense crews nailed 2/3 of them. His hit percentages should go up against subsequent waves since he knows where they're coming from and his point defense crews will be looking in the right direction and expecting them.

Also, a Hermes buoy broadcasting FTL fire control signals should be pretty obvious on grav sensors. If Honor had continued to try to utilize it I wouldn't be all that surprised if Tourville was able to localize and destroy it. It's not like the buoy has a single defense to its name.

Jonathan_S wrote:We also know that in the interval between SftS (which ends in Feb 1921 PD), where it's implied the central Junction currently doesn't have forts, and the Battle of Manticore (July 24, 1921 PD) the Junction does get its new modern (yet apparently non-Apollo) forts online.

tlb wrote:Why do you think the junction forts do NOT have Apollo at this point, when Gryphon is about to get Apollo? Why wouldn't it make sense for the junction forts to also be refitted for Keyhole II?

Jonathan_S wrote:I'd assume no Apollo because if they'd had it they wouldn't have needed to wait for BCs to come through to chase away those Republic BCs that were surveilling the Junction.

I'm sure the Junction forts were on the list to get the upgrade, just as we know that Sphinx and Manticore's orbital defenses were on the list. But we know Gryphon got it first, and I'd probably put Sphinx and Manticore before the Junction; but the Junction before pushing the upgrades out to the forts at remote termini, and those before orbital forts elsewhere in the SEM.

kzt wrote:The LACS will probably have as much success as the last batch of LACs had on 2nds SDs. Which I think was 95% losses with no damage on the SDs.

So the RHN might not be very worried about the LACs.

Whether there are forts around the planets seems to depend on the needs of the plot. We know that David has written that there were at one point in time, but at every point where they should figure in the story they are absent.

Jonathan_S wrote:

tlb wrote:You are right, it can be read that way. But still all the pre-war forts were decommissioned (that process started with the capture of Trevor's Star) and all the new forts had the "same increased automation and weapons developments which had gone into the Navy's new warships". Now that automation did precede Keyhole II, so it depends on the timing of how far they got with building the new forts before they realized that the forts needed to be refitted with Keyhole II. It certainly sounds as though only the junction forts have the missiles pods that Keyhole II allowed them to control. I cannot tell whether the others have older pods; but it is entirely possible that in the process of refitting to handle Apollo, that all of the old stuff was stripped away.

On the other hand, if they did have old style pods; they could be what Honor ordered to stay out of the fight near Sphinx.

You can't have old style pods without some form of fire control for them. You need to leave warships there to control the missiles, build a fire control platform, or put in ground control (which has its own limitations -- and makes for a priority target for bombardment).

Yes, I know AAC mentions that the "he system reconnaissance platforms are going to give the defense pods very good accuracy" but recon data doesn't automatically get consumed as fire control data. You need a tactical computers and fire control links to consume the recon data, make decisions, and transmit instructions to the missiles

And a fire control platform that's unprotected is damned vulnerable. (See what the RMN did with mistletoe to the Republic's unprotected Moriarty fire control platform!) That's why you generally put that fire control into forts - and the RMN should know that lesson as it's taught it to its enemies.


We know the Lynx forts were coming online in March or April 1921 PD, were "being shipped in in prefabricated chunks", were 10 million tons "built with the latest in weapons, sensors, and EW systems [...] Bristling with missile tubes and LAC service bays", and designed to stand off 250 (pre-Apollo) podnaughts. They were originally build without Apollo then then in MoH we're told they've now been upgraded to include it.

We also know that in the interval between SftS (which ends in Feb 1921 PD), where it's implied the central Junction currently doesn't have forts, and the Battle of Manticore (July 24, 1921 PD) the Junction does get its new modern (yet apparently non-Apollo) forts online.

If Manticore deployed any significant number of (pre-Apollo) missile pods around around Sphinx that they'd also have to provide fire control. I'd think the most reasonable way to do that is to simply make some more of the prefabricated fortress chunks that they were already sending to Lynx, and probably using for the forts around the Junction, and assemble them in Sphinx orbit to manage the orbital defenses. But as we saw with Lynx those were pre-Apollo designs and so it's quite reasonable to think Sphinx had at least a few of the new 10 million ton standard forts -- but that they hadn't yet been updated for Apollo. (That having happened first for the more isolated Gryphon defenses)

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Note that this was about Keyhole II on the Adlers already.

I agree the forts being refitted would need to be offline while work happens. But unlike what was done for the IAN, they wouldn't be MIA. The forts would stay roughly where they are. But more importantly, the work wouldn't be on all of them at the same time, as was done for the Adlers.

I also don't know how to compare the time. On one hand, the Andermani technology would be far different than the forts, which were Manticore through and through. Manticore had had 10 years of knowledge of its own technical progress to carry out incremental upgrades that would facilitate that. It would be inconceivable that those forts couldn't fire MDMs in the first place. On the other hand, forts are larger and they can't be towed to a drydock for being serviced.