OK KZT: What's wrong with AAC?

cthia wrote:At any rate, I can't think of a single reason that Eighth and Third were chained to Trevor's Star. Can anyone think of a reason? There must have been a strategic or tactical reason for that deployment. At least during normal times. Which, of course, should have been overruled or rethought in light of the reality which existed after unveiling Apollo.

I think that you are being unclear again; at least I have missed a logic step in this chain. The wormhole connecting Manticore to Trevor's Star is the most important one for the war effort. It was hard won and absolutely must be protected. Any force at the Trevor's Star end can quickly return to Manticore. Any force At Trevor's Star can quickly strike at Haven, while having an untouchable supply line.

So please expound on this; what are you trying to say?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:At any rate, I can't think of a single reason that Eighth and Third were chained to Trevor's Star. Can anyone think of a reason? There must have been a strategic or tactical reason for that deployment. At least during normal times. Which, of course, should have been overruled or rethought in light of the reality which existed after unveiling Apollo.

I think that you are being unclear again. The wormhole connecting Manticore to Trevor's Star is the most important one for the war effort. It was hard won and absolutely must be protected. Any force at the Trevor's Star end can quickly return to Manticore. Any force At Trevor's Star can quickly strike at Haven, while having an untouchable supply line.

So please expound on this; what are you trying to say?

You said it yourself ...

tlb wrote:You are correct that the Admiralty should have done things differently. Whether it was shuffling the forts or moving Third Fleet to the Manticore side of the junction (or both), while keeping Eighth close to Trevor's Star or exercising other options that we can only guess.

I thought this was another example of something that should be obvious in my post.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:At any rate, I can't think of a single reason that Eighth and Third were chained to Trevor's Star. Can anyone think of a reason? There must have been a strategic or tactical reason for that deployment. At least during normal times. Which, of course, should have been overruled or rethought in light of the reality which existed after unveiling Apollo.

tlb wrote:I think that you are being unclear again. The wormhole connecting Manticore to Trevor's Star is the most important one for the war effort. It was hard won and absolutely must be protected. Any force at the Trevor's Star end can quickly return to Manticore. Any force At Trevor's Star can quickly strike at Haven, while having an untouchable supply line.

So please expound on this; what are you trying to say?

You said it yourself ...

tlb wrote:You are correct that the Admiralty should have done things differently. Whether it was shuffling the forts or moving Third Fleet to the Manticore side of the junction (or both), while keeping Eighth close to Trevor's Star or exercising other options that we can only guess.

I thought this was another example of something that should be obvious in my post.

Tlb, I reread my post and I think you are correct again. I should have asked why both Eighth and Third were chained to Trevor's Star.

It is interesting that you think that Third should have moved to the MBS and Eighth Fleet should have remained at Trevor's Star. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but why do you feel that way?

I ask because I wonder how things would have went if Eighth Fleet had been in the MBS when Haven attacked. If she had remained close to the junction to support Trevor's Star, could she have been mousetrapped?

cthia wrote:At any rate, I can't think of a single reason that Eighth and Third were chained to Trevor's Star. Can anyone think of a reason? There must have been a strategic or tactical reason for that deployment. At least during normal times. Which, of course, should have been overruled or rethought in light of the reality which existed after unveiling Apollo.

tlb wrote:I think that you are being unclear again. The wormhole connecting Manticore to Trevor's Star is the most important one for the war effort. It was hard won and absolutely must be protected. Any force at the Trevor's Star end can quickly return to Manticore. Any force At Trevor's Star can quickly strike at Haven, while having an untouchable supply line.

So please expound on this; what are you trying to say?

cthia wrote:You said it yourself ...

tlb wrote:You are correct that the Admiralty should have done things differently. Whether it was shuffling the forts or moving Third Fleet to the Manticore side of the junction (or both), while keeping Eighth close to Trevor's Star or exercising other options that we can only guess.

I thought this was another example of something that should be obvious in my post.

No, because the plain meaning of what you said was that was no reason to have forces at Trevor's Star, even before revealing Apollo. You are asking why a force was kept there in normal times and saying that you cannot think of a reason for doing so.

My post on reshuffling, still had Eighth close to the Trevor's Star junction.

cthia wrote:Tlb, I reread my post and I think you are correct again. I should have asked why both Eighth and Third were chained to Trevor's Star.

It is interesting that you think that Third should have moved to the MBS and Eighth Fleet should have remained at Trevor's Star. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but why do you feel that way?

I'm speculating here, but I guess they were on the Trevor's Star side of the Junction because of there's considerably less traffic on that side, whereas the Junction itself is probably the single busiest cubic-light-second in the entire Settled Galaxy. ANYONE could gather intel of what ships are on the Junction side, if they just put their two neurons together[*], by sending any number of covert ships.

Whether that intel is actionable while it's still valid or not is a different story of course. For Haven, the closest terminus would be via Trevor's Star itself, so that is not gain. But at this very time, tensions with the SL were ratcheting up and transits through Beowulf could not be interrupted.

(*) This condition excludes Adm. Tsang.

I ask because I wonder how things would have went if Eighth Fleet had been in the MBS when Haven attacked. If she had remained close to the junction to support Trevor's Star, could she have been mousetrapped?

It's possible, but I don't think so. She'd have launched a massive Alpha strike against Tourville, so there's a decision point already on whether to call Fifth Fleet forward or not. Probably not, because unlike with Third and Kuzak, they wouldn't have waited to make the decision, so Tourville would be at a better state than when they did call Chin. But Tourville would be suffering great losses because Honor had been reinforced with more Apollo-capable ships, so she'd be firing on both directions and destroying 6+ SD(P)s per salvo. She might have to split and fire one shot in each direction and she'd definitely lose ships, but she'd come out ahead.

It might be that she died in this... which was the original plan. So this might have actually been what RFC had intended all along.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:At any rate, I can't think of a single reason that Eighth and Third were chained to Trevor's Star. Can anyone think of a reason? There must have been a strategic or tactical reason for that deployment. At least during normal times. Which, of course, should have been overruled or rethought in light of the reality which existed after unveiling Apollo.

<snip>

No, because the plain meaning of what you said was that was no reason to have forces at Trevor's Star, even before revealing Apollo. You are asking why a force was kept there in normal times and saying that you cannot think of a reason for doing so.

My post on reshuffling, still had Eighth close to the Trevor's Star junction.

Let's not forget, Eighth Fleet is not a defensive formation - Home and 3rd are. Eighth Fleet is an offensive fleet using Trevor's Star (the closest operating base of the Star Kingdom relative to Haven) as a forward operating base. Eighth is only there to refit, repair and plan between ops - it's use as a backup defensive formation is at best Tertiary to it's other responsibilities.

Each op will probably take Eighth fleet away from Trevor's Star between 4 and 6 weeks. It's likely that in the year and a half between when Honor took command of Eighth, and BoMa, the Fleet was probably on station ~50% of the time, and a majority of that was refitting and repairing - and until the last several months, she didn't have the firepower to appreciably enhance the forces arrayed in Home and 3rd Fleet.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Tlb, I reread my post and I think you are correct again. I should have asked why both Eighth and Third were chained to Trevor's Star.

It is interesting that you think that Third should have moved to the MBS and Eighth Fleet should have remained at Trevor's Star. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but why do you feel that way?

I'm speculating here, but I guess they were on the Trevor's Star side of the Junction because of there's considerably less traffic on that side, whereas the Junction itself is probably the single busiest cubic-light-second in the entire Settled Galaxy. ANYONE could gather intel of what ships are on the Junction side, if they just put their two neurons together[*], by sending any number of covert ships.

Whether that intel is actionable while it's still valid or not is a different story of course. For Haven, the closest terminus would be via Trevor's Star itself, so that is not gain. But at this very time, tensions with the SL were ratcheting up and transits through Beowulf could not be interrupted.

(*) This condition excludes Adm. Tsang.

I ask because I wonder how things would have went if Eighth Fleet had been in the MBS when Haven attacked. If she had remained close to the junction to support Trevor's Star, could she have been mousetrapped?

It's possible, but I don't think so. She'd have launched a massive Alpha strike against Tourville, so there's a decision point already on whether to call Fifth Fleet forward or not. Probably not, because unlike with Third and Kuzak, they wouldn't have waited to make the decision, so Tourville would be at a better state than when they did call Chin. But Tourville would be suffering great losses because Honor had been reinforced with more Apollo-capable ships, so she'd be firing on both directions and destroying 6+ SD(P)s per salvo. She might have to split and fire one shot in each direction and she'd definitely lose ships, but she'd come out ahead.

It might be that she died in this... which was the original plan. So this might have actually been what RFC had intended all along.

You are correct Trevor's Star was limited to Local and Military Traffic. They were using the system to work up new builds and as a forward operating base.

3rd fleet has always been the defensive fleet for Trevor's star ever since White Haven used 3rd fleet (the original offensive fleet) to take Trevor's Star. If the formation would be moved to Manticore permanently, it would just be a taskforce... of Home Fleet, and whatever was left in Trevor's star would be third fleet.

cthia wrote:It is interesting that you think that Third should have moved to the MBS and Eighth Fleet should have remained at Trevor's Star. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but why do you feel that way?

I ask because I wonder how things would have went if Eighth Fleet had been in the MBS when Haven attacked. If she had remained close to the junction to support Trevor's Star, could she have been mousetrapped?

I am not sure exactly what would have happened if Honor's ships had been on the Manticore side. I see ThinksMarkedly speculates that perhaps that was how Honor was intended to die; by becoming the fleet that gets trapped between Tourville and Chin. If she had been the one forced to react immediately, would she have had time to think that this might be Sidemore written large? Even if she had; wouldn't her actions still have been forced, because Tourville had to be chased? She was better suited to survive the situation that eliminated Kuzak's fleet, because of her weapon's range; but against the volume of fire that the "donkey" allowed, her ships could still be hurt badly when Chin fired.

As it actually happened, Honor had the benefit of Kuzak springing the trap; that way Honor knew where everyone was, there was nothing more to add.

My initial choice to put Kuzak at the Manticore end of the wormhole and leave Honor at Trevor's Star, was because I expected Honor to continue to attack the enemy. That places me with the members of the Admiralty that would face recriminations after the Battle of Manticore.

tlb wrote:I am not sure exactly what would have happened if Honor's ships had been on the Manticore side. I see ThinksMarkedly speculates that perhaps that was how Honor was intended to die; by becoming the fleet that gets trapped between Tourville and Chin. If she had been the one forced to react immediately, would she have had time to think that this might be Sidemore written large? Even if she had; wouldn't her actions still have been forced, because Tourville had to be chased? She was better suited to survive the situation that eliminated Kuzak's fleet, because of her weapon's range; but against the volume of fire that the "donkey" allowed, her ships could still be hurt badly when Chin fired.

As it actually happened, Honor had the benefit of Kuzak springing the trap; that way Honor knew where everyone was, there was nothing more to add.

My initial choice to put Kuzak at the Manticore end of the wormhole and leave Honor at Trevor's Star, was because I expected Honor to continue to attack the enemy. That places me with the members of the Admiralty that would face recriminations after the Battle of Manticore.

8th fleet would have ripped 5th fleet apart.

Let's go through how it works.

8th Fleet jumps in with a huge percentage of it's pods tractored to the hull. Honor, not smoking crack, starts to engage with extreme long range Apollo fire immediately. This will get hits, but not kill many ships. But hey, it keeps them busy for 30 minutes, 8th has planety of ammo, and keeping the enemy busy keeps them from plotting.

Eventually, if 5th doesn't show up, they reach actual max range for Apollo. And then Honor will probably provide them one final opportunity to not die, and then 2nd fleet goes away. And 5th decides they are not going to play that game and goes home without ever leaving hyper.

If 5th fleet shows up before that moment, 8th fleet has many thousands of Apollo pods tractored to the hull. So when 5th fleet shows up, before they can deploy pods or cycle their hyperdrive, 8th fleet hits them with 30,000 Apollo missiles and they go away.

Then she will contact second fleet and suggest they surrender.

Of course, if Honor is smoking crack then 5th fleet hypers in right after 2nd fleet blows up in a glorious lightshow, and then the fight is on. But nobody will be deploying donkeys, 8th will immediately start firing and every 12 seconds or so a ship in 5th will blow up.

kzt wrote:Of course, if Honor is smoking crack then 5th fleet hypers in right after 2nd fleet blows up in a glorious lightshow, and then the fight is on. But nobody will be deploying donkeys, 8th will immediately start firing and every 12 seconds or so a ship in 5th will blow up.

I have never attempted to figure ranges or firing times. However you are saying the Chin's fleet has no time to shoot the same missiles that blew away Kuxak's ships before they could hyper out, if they found Honor's ships in the same position (as I understand it, Honor would move inside the hyper-limit to punish Tourville's ships)? Why couldn't pods be fired in the time it takes the hyperspace generator to cycle? Or are you saying that Honor would not move inside the hyper limit, since her missiles have the range? Isn't the signal for Chin's fleet to jump that the enemy ships have moved an appropriate distance inside the hyper-limit?