OK KZT: What's wrong with AAC?

cthia wrote:There should have been a contingency fleet.

Made up of what? Prayers and best wishes?

If I were Theisman, at the very least I would have pulled 25 ships from each fleet as bait to spring the trap. It would have been obvious that it was all a ruse trying to run Sidemore's con game again. The RMN would have been arrogant and overconfident and swallowed the cheese hook, line, and sinker. And then after the bait is taken, the true trap door opens and closes.

Which is why the RMN wouldn't take the bait. 50 SD(P)s is something that Home Fleet could handle without breaking too much of a sweat. Tourville went against Home Fleet with a 2.5:1 advantage in hulls, which would put him at rough parity in terms of capabilities (and we know he actually had the better exchange). At 2:1 disadvantage, that's nothing but a suicide mission and/or diversion.

Yes, Case Zulu would be declared and Third & Eighth Fleets would begin transiting. But since it looks like a trap and Home Fleet has it handled, they'd arrive at holding positions. In fact, they'd have to wonder if the Junction wasn't the target, so Third Fleet might have waited there while Eighth transited and only once both were accounted for would one of them hyper in to the inner system.

The protection of Haven's flank and peripheral systems should have taken a back seat and played second fiddle to such an ambitious operation. Theisman should have stripped Haven's Home Fleet down to the very last destroyer!

And then Honor or those IAN ships arrive, then what? Double K.O.? The Alliance had two other capital systems that could continue the war even if Manticore falls; Haven has no other Haven system. Bolthole is not Haven's equivalent; it has the shipyards but not the brain power or the institutions to train more people.

Also remember that the Haven system is probably under surveillance. If Capital Fleet gets suddenly reduced, it invites attack. The Alliance has a shorter communication loop than Haven does because of Trevor's Star.

Finally, there's transit time and the cost of opportunity. If he had decided to draw from Capital Fleet and other systems further out, that would have put the operation back a couple of weeks. Since they were racing against the clock, giving the Alliance time to make more missiles and finish equipping ships with the necessary tools is counter-productive.

I think it would have been tactically more sound to at least split the two forces into a third, providing a backup redundant mousetrap. Since the entire operation was dependent upon the very wily and "long-legged" mouse being trapped. In other words...

You can't be strong everywhere because that makes you weak everywhere. If you took 15% of each of the two fleets, you could make a third fleet of 50 SD(P)s. But you've reduced Second Fleet to 204 ships and Fifth to 82. That might have been critical in the exchanges that did happen: Second vs Home is only a 2:1 advantage in hull numbers, which is probably not enough to overcome the tech difference. Instead of losing 116 ships, he might have lost 140 and then he'd be down to 64 cripples.

Besides, when would he commit those forces? He did wait for some time for Eighth to appear and it didn't. So what happens if he called those forth and Eighth shows up amyway?

But then, would even a third prong matter against Apollo?

I don't think a third prong would have helped.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Also, Beatrice had been planned before Apollo was revealed. The only alternative to launching it with 336 SD(P)s and 40 CLACs would be to send a single ship with the white flag and say "we give up." I'm sure he considered that option, because he knew that a lot of his spacers would die even if they won.

Yep, it was a pre-existing 'go to hell' contingency plan; though one I doubt they ever expected to need to activate.

Also, I'd have to double check, but I think they scared up a few more units between the initial discussion between Pritchart and Theisman and the actual Battle of Manticore. I thought Tourville's fleet had 240 SD(P)s and Chin's had another 110 - for a total of 350 (rather than the originally discussed 336).

The larger the salvo size the longer it takes to build because 5th has no missiles deployed when it exits hyper. What 5th actually did was use salvos every minute that crippled or destroyed 1-2 ships per. Realize that if they go from salvos every minute to say a bigger salvo every two minutes that means another five 8th fleet salvos hit. So you are losing 30 ships per two minute salvo.

And, once 1500 missiles start going off every 12 seconds will this magically soft kill all the RHN pods being stacked?

The 576 number comes from the three 8th Apollo capable ships with 3rd that were killing a ship in 5th every 48 seconds using quad pods. These were the only ships firing on 5th and were slicing through the defenses of all 96 ships with no problems.

So 8th isn’t going to wait and allow a huge salvo to be built, they are all going to go to rapid fire because their tests show that those will work and putting the enemy under stress helps keep them for doing clever things.

And 5th melts like a snowman in the rain.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:There should have been a contingency fleet.

Made up of what? Prayers and best wishes?

If I were Theisman, at the very least I would have pulled 25 ships from each fleet as bait to spring the trap. It would have been obvious that it was all a ruse trying to run Sidemore's con game again. The RMN would have been arrogant and overconfident and swallowed the cheese hook, line, and sinker. And then after the bait is taken, the true trap door opens and closes.

Which is why the RMN wouldn't take the bait. 50 SD(P)s is something that Home Fleet could handle without breaking too much of a sweat. Tourville went against Home Fleet with a 2.5:1 advantage in hulls, which would put him at rough parity in terms of capabilities (and we know he actually had the better exchange). At 2:1 disadvantage, that's nothing but a suicide mission and/or diversion.

Yes, Case Zulu would be declared and Third & Eighth Fleets would begin transiting. But since it looks like a trap and Home Fleet has it handled, they'd arrive at holding positions. In fact, they'd have to wonder if the Junction wasn't the target, so Third Fleet might have waited there while Eighth transited and only once both were accounted for would one of them hyper in to the inner system.

The protection of Haven's flank and peripheral systems should have taken a back seat and played second fiddle to such an ambitious operation. Theisman should have stripped Haven's Home Fleet down to the very last destroyer!

And then Honor or those IAN ships arrive, then what? Double K.O.? The Alliance had two other capital systems that could continue the war even if Manticore falls; Haven has no other Haven system. Bolthole is not Haven's equivalent; it has the shipyards but not the brain power or the institutions to train more people.

Also remember that the Haven system is probably under surveillance. If Capital Fleet gets suddenly reduced, it invites attack. The Alliance has a shorter communication loop than Haven does because of Trevor's Star.

Finally, there's transit time and the cost of opportunity. If he had decided to draw from Capital Fleet and other systems further out, that would have put the operation back a couple of weeks. Since they were racing against the clock, giving the Alliance time to make more missiles and finish equipping ships with the necessary tools is counter-productive.

I think it would have been tactically more sound to at least split the two forces into a third, providing a backup redundant mousetrap. Since the entire operation was dependent upon the very wily and "long-legged" mouse being trapped. In other words...

You can't be strong everywhere because that makes you weak everywhere. If you took 15% of each of the two fleets, you could make a third fleet of 50 SD(P)s. But you've reduced Second Fleet to 204 ships and Fifth to 82. That might have been critical in the exchanges that did happen: Second vs Home is only a 2:1 advantage in hull numbers, which is probably not enough to overcome the tech difference. Instead of losing 116 ships, he might have lost 140 and then he'd be down to 64 cripples.

Besides, when would he commit those forces? He did wait for some time for Eighth to appear and it didn't. So what happens if he called those forth and Eighth shows up amyway?

But then, would even a third prong matter against Apollo?

I don't think a third prong would have helped.

Even if there was a 3rd mousetrap, what is going to happen 2 hours later when Blaine's 12 SDs showed up? a 4th mousetrap? further winnowing numbers from the first 3 forces?

Or 13 hours later, when a handful of hastily manned ships previously under repair in Trevor's star and some fresh Adlers working up in Gregor A space join forces and jump in system - are they to be moustrapped by a 5th fleet?

Gonna plan a 6th fleet to try to jump any Junction forts which attempt to make a high speed crossing to the inner system?

All these RMN responses WOULD or COULD have happened had the battle progressed. How crazy is the planning going to go?

Beatrice Bravo was one of dozens of scenarios seriously gamed ( and hundreds previously rejected), and was seen to be the best available in situation which the Havenite High Command's intel suggested. Yes, the intel was flawed, but you have to make assumptions on the available evidence.

Beatrice was based on the existent forces forward deployed to do the job, deeper forces had to disperse to defend the locations the Beatrice force deployed from. The movements were designed to protect the opposition from Knowing something was happening as long as possible, as long as the timetable was followed.

There were no more available ships, there was no more time to move or build more. No other plan envisioned would work better given the known parameters. As KZT said, it was Beatrice, die system by system, or send 1 ship with a white flag.

Jonathan_S wrote:Also, I'd have to double check, but I think they scared up a few more units between the initial discussion between Pritchart and Theisman and the actual Battle of Manticore. I thought Tourville's fleet had 240 SD(P)s and Chin's had another 110 - for a total of 350 (rather than the originally discussed 336).

They did. The original plan when he presented to Pritchart was about 250 ships.

kzt wrote:The larger the salvo size the longer it takes to build because 5th has no missiles deployed when it exits hyper. What 5th actually did was use salvos every minute that crippled or destroyed 1-2 ships per. Realize that if they go from salvos every minute to say a bigger salvo every two minutes that means another five 8th fleet salvos hit. So you are losing 30 ships per two minute salvo.

And, once 1500 missiles start going off every 12 seconds will this magically soft kill all the RHN pods being stacked?

I believe they would, by the rules as we understand them. But Eighth Fleet can't build salvos either because there are incoming salvos from Second Fleet.

I hear you on RHN not being able to pre-deploy before exiting hyper, but that's a fatal flaw in the plan. I don't see how they would overcome it, even if Honor hadn't been reinforced.

[qupte]The 576 number comes from the three 8th Apollo capable ships with 3rd that were killing a ship in 5th every 48 seconds using quad pods. These were the only ships firing on 5th and were slicing through the defenses of all 96 ships with no problems.[/quote]

Ah, thanks. McKeon's efforts.

Though we have to understand that those were the best he could do. Third Fleet was taking fire from Second (like Eighth would in this scenario) so he couldn't build up bigger salvos. We've all agreed that Apollo is actually far more capable than the designers themselves predicted.

Which is to say that Honor wouldn't have known any better if Eighth had hypered in instead of Third. She'd have fired at max rate like McKeon did at one or two targets only for the first 6-8 minutes. Only after the first shots land would the targetting change, which gives Chin 5-7 minutes to prepare to hyper out.

So 8th isn’t going to wait and allow a huge salvo to be built, they are all going to go to rapid fire because their tests show that those will work and putting the enemy under stress helps keep them for doing clever things.

And 5th melts like a snowman in the rain.

I agree. Or Chin hypers out and Tourville surrenders. Either way, Honor wins the day.

At this point, I don't think there's anything that Haven could have done to offset the advantage. Apollo was far more deadly, and at a longer range, than anticipated. And Honor had more ships than they expected. Theisman was right that Apollo was a war-ending change and the window was closing; he simply got the timing wrong and the window had closed by the time Tourville arrived.

The only way for Haven to win at this point would be if the defenders made other mistakes.

cthia wrote:However, you are being much too harsh on Theisman, but then, you dismissed my post upstream about Honor simply being the better tactician / strategist.

Plus, Theisman did not know all of the variables. One very important variable. The nature of Apollo..

You are mistaken, I have never disparaged Honor's abilities as a tactician nor as a strategist; RFC has created her as the best. If you check, you will find that I stated Honor became MVP at the point that she acquired the nickname the "Salamander" as a result of the events in Flag in Exile. What I did disparage was your analogy that reduced Hamish to a running back; Honor only became the top quarterback when she was given Eighth. Prior to that all her efforts were off in sideshows, not in the main event.

Theisman did have enough knowledge about Apollo to know that it was fatal to Haven's war efforts once it became widespread. If KZT is correct, then RFC made it an invincible war winner even when limited to Eighth. And if that is true, then KZT is also correct that At All Costs is a terrible book.

kzt wrote:The 576 number comes from the three 8th Apollo capable ships with 3rd that were killing a ship in 5th every 48 seconds using quad pods. These were the only ships firing on 5th and were slicing through the defenses of all 96 ships with no problems.

So 8th isn’t going to wait and allow a huge salvo to be built, they are all going to go to rapid fire because their tests show that those will work and putting the enemy under stress helps keep them for doing clever things.

And 5th melts like a snowman in the rain.

Except there were "four Apollo-capable ships of McKeon's squadron" [AAC]; not 3. So quad stack pods is actually 768 attack/ECM missiles + 96 ACMs = 864 total missiles.

And that's assuming that the 2 non-Keyhole SD(P)s in his squadron weren't also carrying Apollo pods -- which we can't rely on given that Keyhole II has extra control bandwidth and given how long it takes to refit a ship with Keyhole it'd make sense for non-Keyhole SD(P)s assigned to 8th fleet to carry extra Apollo pods to thicken the salvos from the few ships that did carry the full Apollo suite. He might just as likely be throwing quad stacked salvos of 1152 + 144 = 1296 missiles.



Side note - Kuzak's 3rd fleet got to pound on Tourville's fleet for as long before Chin's arrival because Tourville was waiting to see if 8th fleet would make a slightly belated appearance. If 8th had shown up instead then the moment they started flinging Apollo around he'd have sent orders to MacArthur; telling her to let Chin know to spring the trap. So 8th fleet wouldn't have gotten as long to pick apart Theisman's forces -- meaning there'd be more missiles coming from that direction for Honor to worry about. (Even if she was further out). Oh, and at a bit further out from the RZ and hyper limit Chin might not have had to err so far on the side of safety and might have emerged at the planned 40 million km from her target -- not the 50 million she actually managed again Truman's forces. That would make her weapons more effective and start slicing away at Honor's ship that much sooner.

Apollo is somewhere between 10x to 30x more deadly than RMN pre-Apollo Mk23s, maybe 50x if you can control the geometry enough. The 900 SDs Have was building could probably take 8th as of BoM, but there would be a lot less ships at the end and would likely win by running 8th out of ammo.

It’s playing cowboys vs combat aviation brigade. Under the correct circumstances a bunch of skilled men with 45-70s can put a real hurt on them, but if you are not very clever and achieve surprise you are going to get slaughtered.

Jonathan_S wrote:Side note - Kuzak's 3rd fleet got to pound on Tourville's fleet for as long before Chin's arrival because Tourville was waiting to see if 8th fleet would make a slightly belated appearance. If 8th had shown up instead then the moment they started flinging Apollo around he'd have sent orders to MacArthur; telling her to let Chin know to spring the trap. So 8th fleet wouldn't have gotten as long to pick apart Theisman's forces -- meaning there'd be more missiles coming from that direction for Honor to worry about. (Even if she was further out). Oh, and at a bit further out from the RZ and hyper limit Chin might not have had to err so far on the side of safety and might have emerged at the planned 40 million km from her target -- not the 50 million she actually managed again Truman's forces. That would make her weapons more effective and start slicing away at Honor's ship that much sooner.

Well, sure, if honor was smoking crack.

8th jumps in, reaches apollo maximum range (far outside RHN effective range) and blows up 2nd. Basically, they all die in a single giant volley like what she killed 5th with. Does she even need to enter the hyperlimit?

So there is no extended shooting back and forth, Honor says ‘bored now’ and stops playing with her food. If 5th jumps in first, then Honor kills them, all of them, in the same cataclysmic volley that she did. And then goes back to wait for 2nd to come into range.