SLN Logistics

Sigs wrote:

WeirdlyWired wrote:Yeah, true. But by the Second Battle of Manticore, the Admiral in charge would be more than likely be thinking of what happened with Crandal and Byng rather than trying to make a couple of bucks.

Can't spend the money if you are dead. Filareta realized that he was facing a potential disaster in Manticore, I think making a profit was the last thing on his mind at the time.

Agreed. Filareta was way more worried about those rumors of Manty missile ranges. Equally worried about his Manpower paymasters, the source of his real graft. I mean pilfering from the chandle accounts is about petty cash.

Also, only the timely intervention of that little bit of nano and the bomb prevented Filareta from surrendering. He had every intention of enjoying the fruits of his previous peculations.

Sigs wrote:

Castenea wrote:Hope this is not too much of a spoiler (Duckk feel free to remove if so).

Prior to the attack on Mesa the combined fleet along with their fleet train assembled around a star six light years from Mesa (only known by a catalog number). I would expect this to be close to standard practice for most navies in the Honorverse, and the fleet train stays in the otherwise unoccupied system until summoned to the newly conquered system or the survivors of the attacking force return for patching up and help limping home.

We are also talking about the combined fleet of two of the most experienced navies around. The arrogance that either might have had has been beaten out of them after 20 years of hard fighting with both sides getting major victories and serious setbacks. At least initially the SLN was operating on the assumption that they were the big bad wolf and everyone else was a flea. They couldn't conceive of anyone fighting back when they were outnumbered so bad. As for Filareta if I am not mistaking he made quite a long journey, in one jump so I doubt he send his fleet train to a different system without scouting it in the first place.

If I were him I would either bring them with me and protect them as best I can, or I would move my entire fleet in an unoccupied system, secure that system and leave a picket strong enough to protect the fleet train. Then I would leave some destroyers or light cruisers out of the way to monitor the fighting and go back to recover the fleet train should I fail in the battle. The last think I would do is send my all too valuable fleet train into a system inside the territory of my enemy without securing it, or scouting it in the first place.

fzirst, battles are not fought in hyperspace. you drag your supply train with you, if yiu need them you need them NOW, not in however long it takes a DD or whatever to hurry back and convoy them to you. You leave them in hyper, like All those divisions of SDs that mousetrapped Filareta. and Honor and Theisman kept mousetrapping each other.

Also IIRC, the old, pre jeune ecole doctrine was Ships of the Wall fired missiles then rolled to interpose wedge to incoming fire. Probably, I assume, the standard SLN BF plan of action. even facing "only" 80 SDs with superior missile range, Filareta would want his ammo train immediatly available for reloading. He would also want repairs dome so he could chase the poor benighted RMN fleet to ground.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:The last think I would do is send my all too valuable fleet train into a system inside the territory of my enemy without securing it, or scouting it in the first place.

Would a SLN Battle Fleet admiral see his fleet train as "valuable" or as "an irritating necessity?"

A Frontier Fleet commander might see a fleet train as "valuable," but they don't appear to operate in large enough units that a fleet train is practical.

Given the contempt Battle Fleet commanders have shown for anyone not part of Battle Fleet's combat power, I'd be surprised if "Fleet Train" didn't rank somewhere below REMFs for most SLN-BF commanders.

Not really, no. I doubt that any SLN commander of any detatchment gave much thought to a fleet train, or ever had one in recent memory. FF was based in nodes around the Verge, thus having no need for a supply train. BF almost never went anywhere, mostly slogging out their time in orbit or hauling to make a show at all the core worlds. No need for a supply train which was the purported purpose of Operation Winter Forage: To see if BF even could maintain itself away from their bases. wasn't it over 100 years since BF went clear out to the verge in ny group larger than a squadron? Seems Daoud commented on it in MoH.

WeirdlyWired wrote:Also IIRC, the old, pre jeune ecole doctrine was Ships of the Wall fired missiles then rolled to interpose wedge to incoming fire. Probably, I assume, the standard SLN BF plan of action. even facing "only" 80 SDs with superior missile range, Filareta would want his ammo train immediatly available for reloading. He would also want repairs dome so he could chase the poor benighted RMN fleet to ground.

Rolling to interpose the wedge is what they did to quit a fight. Back then the volume and damage quality of missiles wasn't significant enough to hurt wallers that much - it took an entire wall's firepower focused against a single one of the enemy's units and even then, this would've only resulted in a mission-kill once all the surface equipment was destroyed leaving the ship blind, legless and toothless.

Didn't really change until the RMN introduced Keyhole - first-generation Medusas and all Havenite SD(P)s can't fight whilst rolled. They can't defend well against missiles either - more reliant on PD.

Older launchers had much slower firing rates as well. IIRC, the latest solly launcher has a 30 second reload time and its precedessor(still in use) took 45 seconds. About 15 years ago, at Fourth Yeltsin, the Graysons were firing every 20 seconds with ex-Havenite launchers described as "slightly slower than Manticoran and newly built Grayson ships".

WeirdlyWired wrote:
fzirst, battles are not fought in hyperspace. you drag your supply train with you, if yiu need them you need them NOW, not in however long it takes a DD or whatever to hurry back and convoy them to you. You leave them in hyper, like All those divisions of SDs that mousetrapped Filareta. and Honor and Theisman kept mousetrapping each other.

Also IIRC, the old, pre jeune ecole doctrine was Ships of the Wall fired missiles then rolled to interpose wedge to incoming fire. Probably, I assume, the standard SLN BF plan of action. even facing "only" 80 SDs with superior missile range, Filareta would want his ammo train immediatly available for reloading. He would also want repairs dome so he could chase the poor benighted RMN fleet to ground.

It's true that battles aren't fought in hyper - but it's also hard to rendezvous in hyper; crappy sensor ranges and lack of navigational references. You might leave a fleet train there - but that makes it slightly harder to send a DD back to order them forward once you've secured the system.

But I disagree that if you need the fleet train you need them "NOW". Fleet trains provide strategic support not tactical support. You're not going to run out of fuel, food, or other supplies out of the blue - you monitor consumption, onboard supply levels, and project those against your strategic movement plans; scheduling fleet replenishment stops as necessary.
Same for significant engineering maintenance periods - if you've got a long enough transit that your ships need scheduled drive maintenance (which would require repair ship assistance). You'd know when those maintenance intervals would come up and plan your transit accordingly.

The one thing that could surprise you is an engineering casualty (something unexpected broke) - but warships have enough redundancy that that isn't going to be immediately crippling or life threatening. You don't need a repair ship to jump into action within hours -- you've got time to limp back to it or call one forward. (Unless you're about to be in combat - in which case attempting the repair is a good way to lose both the initial ship and the repair ship. At that point everyone abandon's ship from the cripple and you 'scuttle' it.


And nobody is going to attempt to reload a missile-tube based warship in the middle of combat. You've got to strike the wedges on both ships and it can takes an hour or more to replenish depleted magazines. You'd be the worlds biggest sitting duck; virtually defenseless. It wasn't until the pod combat era where it became slightly feasible to resupply missiles during combat - but even then it's almost never done (battle of Monica being the very notable exception)


I just don't see what you'd need right now access to the fleet train for.

Even the very latest Haven/Manticore battles never had the fleet trains actually present in the system. Proof of that is in every single battle, the defenders see X number of ship sources that cross the wall. As their recon drones went out, and started reporting back, they'd always refine the number into however many wallers, battlecruisers, and screen.

Somewhere between initial arrival and the defenders figuring out what exactly is headed towards them, we'd have one or more scene jumps from the attackers side and we'd see the numbers matching up more or less exactly to what defenders see.

This means, any fleet trains that were present, stay in hyper until sent for, especially on attacks where the attacker isn't quite sure they'll win. Even Tourville did this, when he blew out Alizon and Zanzibar; he'd cross the hyper limit going in until the defenders come to meet him and blow them away before retreating back outside the hyper limit to meet his ammunition (and other fleet train) ships, and then came over the limit again.

The only time, we've seen a fleet train actually crossing over the hyperwall with the fleet it's attached to, is the Protector's Own when they did their surprise 'training' arrival at Marsh in War of Honor. I don't think there's ever been another fleet train sighting, and precious few mentions of even that much. Usually it's something like Theisman stating he wants the fleet train expedited to get Tourville what he needs.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:The last think I would do is send my all too valuable fleet train into a system inside the territory of my enemy without securing it, or scouting it in the first place.

Would a SLN Battle Fleet admiral see his fleet train as "valuable" or as "an irritating necessity?"

A Frontier Fleet commander might see a fleet train as "valuable," but they don't appear to operate in large enough units that a fleet train is practical.

Given the contempt Battle Fleet commanders have shown for anyone not part of Battle Fleet's combat power, I'd be surprised if "Fleet Train" didn't rank somewhere below REMFs for most SLN-BF commanders.

I would say he would see it as valuable since he is a long way from home and attacking a technologically superior enemy. Filareta would be approaching this more cautiously than either Byng or Crandall since he has them as evidence that the SLN is not so all powerful as they may have believed.

WeirdlyWired wrote:

Sigs wrote:He did that because he needed the pods quickly. I doubt he would have brought his freighter in otherwise since he knew he was facing at least 11 BCs in various stages of completion.

Not so. The collier dropped pods in system and Terekov's ships loaded up then proceeded in system all fat, dumb and happy expecting only 11 BCs in the repair slips + whatever LACs and DDs Monica had. Then he proceeded to get 75% of his ships shot to [expletive deleted] by those System defense pods. Then Helen finds the 3 BCs boring down on them.

Yeah and he wouldn't have been able to supply them with pods from a different system...

WeirdlyWired wrote:
fzirst, battles are not fought in hyperspace. you drag your supply train with you, if yiu need them you need them NOW, not in however long it takes a DD or whatever to hurry back and convoy them to you. You leave them in hyper, like All those divisions of SDs that mousetrapped Filareta. and Honor and Theisman kept mousetrapping each other.

How long did it take them to figure that out? Was it their standard operating procedure at the beginning of the first war or was it developed during the second war?
The SLN is still fighting with the rules of 1900 not 1922.

WeirdlyWired wrote:Also IIRC, the old, pre jeune ecole doctrine was Ships of the Wall fired missiles then rolled to interpose wedge to incoming fire. Probably, I assume, the standard SLN BF plan of action. even facing "only" 80 SDs with superior missile range, Filareta would want his ammo train immediatly available for reloading. He would also want repairs dome so he could chase the poor benighted RMN fleet to ground.

That is pretty much my point. I would have them with me or close by but I would definitely not be sending them to a system I was not sure was properly scouted beforehand. Especially because the fleet train would be deposited in essentially the SEM's back yard and you never know weather the systems nearby are monitored in one way or another.

Somtaaw wrote:Even the very latest Haven/Manticore battles never had the fleet trains actually present in the system. Proof of that is in every single battle, the defenders see X number of ship sources that cross the wall. As their recon drones went out, and started reporting back, they'd always refine the number into however many wallers, battlecruisers, and screen.

We may not be seeing it because there was no reason for the fleet train to be present. Haven's strategy was based around building up a base near their target before they moved in and as a result their fleet train was under developed for a fleet their size...at least in the first war. Manticore had a much better developed fleet train because It was used to operating widespread without the benefit of nearby bases.

I don't remember where it was mentioned but the RMN would attack a system, capture it and then move in it's fleet train to repair whatever damage they could and prepare for the next attack by rearming and resupplying. That requires the fleet train nearby rather than with you. The problem is for the SLN they had to come from a long distance into what is enemy territory. If they left their fleet train in a system near Manticore they would have to move in with the whole 11th Fleet to secure the system and make sure it is in fact empty. The last thing any of them would want is to end up sending their fleet train to an "empty" system with a light escort and discover it is in fact either monitored or occupied by the RMN thereby loosing your fleet train.

Somtaaw wrote:This means, any fleet trains that were present, stay in hyper until sent for, especially on attacks where the attacker isn't quite sure they'll win.

Was that a thing in 1905 or was it a thing after the start of the Second war? I am not entirely sure either way but I am leaning that the staying in hyper was developed after Second Battle of Marsh when Haven started copying the RMN's tactics in that Battle.