Hi Namelessfly.
Others have already made excellent points on some of the things you touch upon below, that 3 million pods is quite possible, and no I too don't think they'll trash anybody else's infrastructure unless they have good reason.
If you check, I suggested 10,000 missiles per day, which is what I suggested back at the bar years ago that partially provoked RFC's response, my point then being neither side could afford so many missiles [I suggested M$8-10 million each given OBS's textev costs].
Granted that could mean around 30,000 pods per month.
Regarding Eighth Fleet reinforcements for Tenth Fleet, I doubt they'll be BCP's given their limited number of pods when 8th already has SDP's; rather a RHN TF with more SDP's, CLAC's and a heavy marine component, which given Mesa is only a ~100 LY in hyper from the SEM might happen faster than some expect, which will leave most local verge systems feeling they've been run over or knocked down by an air lorry or swept away by it's airflow/drag when they show up instead of the semi-expected RMN.
I look forward to some possible dialog like this [thanks to Abby]:
"We're RHN not RMN, -we're RMN allies now, -don't worry about it."
L
namelessfly wrote:Replying to Lyonheart's 3:02 pm post. The nesting and snipping are not working for me today.
Where do you get the idea that Manticore and Grayson are building 10,000 pods per month?
Back in OBS HH herself commented on how expensive missiles were at about $1 million or 20 years salary each. Weber has commented on the forum that missile load out for an SD(P) cost about as much as the ship. At $10 billion per SD(P), this makes sense. Compare to a current aircraft carrier whose air wing cost as much as the carrier and a full load of AAM, ASMs ext cost as much as the aircraft. The same is true for an Ohio class ballistic missile sub.
At the peak of the python lump, Manticore was building the equivalent of about 1/2 an SD(P) per day. This is $5 billion per day expenditure or $1.7 Trillion per year. If they are spending as much money on missile production, that is arguably 500 pods with missiles per day or about 180,000 per year. At $10 million per pod this works out to about $1.8 Trillion per year. Let us not forget construction cost and ammo for light combatants at may be another $trillion per year.
When can quibble about details, but the point is that Manticore can not suffer the missile expenditures and ship losses of First BoM, then get reamed in OB, then expend probably 1/4
million missiles to ream Adm Filarta and still have vast stockpiles of missiles. Remember how Adm Henke had her Apollo pods recalled after OB? Remember Adm Henke and the Cabptains implementing Case Lacoon II worrying about missile expenditures and Mk-23s much less Apollo being less plentiful than Mk-16s which they could not afford to waste either.
Also consider that after the First BoM, there must have been something like one million expended missile pods floating around. In HAE, Weber describes retrieving and reloading missile pods. No doubt the RMN retrieved iits own missile pods and may be Haven's. Honor told Adm Filarta that she had shit loads of missile pods. She did not tell him that all or even most of the pods were loaded. May be they were empty pods?
My point her is that in spite of our number crunching, the RMN and GSN characters obviously worry about ammo supplies. Since their opinions are informed by MWW, I will defer to their opinion.
The Battle of Saltash probably gave the RMN more confidence in it's ability to destroy the SLN with it's limited ammo. However; the RMN and GSN not to mention RHN have no combat experience against the Malign. They will make worse case assumptions about how many ships and missiles they hold in reserve to guard their home systems.
My prediction is that Tenth Fleet augmented by an expeditionary force of BC(P)s from Eighth Fleet is all that the GA will commit to offensive operations against the SL. They will destroy SLN fleet bases and SLN ships wherever they find them. They will nuke operational shipyards capable of building warships. They will not be trashing anyone else anytime soon.