Question about Beowulf tactics

Brigade XO wrote:As far as IF Haven takes the Manticore System, what it would get and in what condition depends on the timing.

Would Elizabeth leave sucessfully and set up a government in Exile? Well, at 1st Manticore she didn't leave. If that attack had been successful, it is unlikely that she would have been able to leave as the Haven ships isolated the planet(s) from the rest of the system and demanded surrender. Other than any official trips of state, Elizabeth was basicaly on Manticore the whole time.

With BoM, Manticore was clearly not at all worried about the outcome. Heck they didn't even evacuate the industrial platforms when 300 hostile RHN ships crossed the wall. nor when they obliterated Home fleet in 5 minutes and over a hundred started to head directly for Sphinx.

Weird Harold wrote:I'm sure that Beowulf can design and build the interface and power-supply to turn an existing Keyhole II into a Mycroft platform in far less than two months -- if nothing else, a Beowulf ship can beam power an fire-control info to a free-standing Keyhole II without the nesting form in its hull. It probably wouldn't be as efficient as a fully integrated KHII system, but we're talking about defending against the SLN -- the 36 BSDF SDs should actually be able to handle that without Mycroft or Apollo.

No. David has clearly stated that the KHII is just a part of the entire system, there are very significant elements that are part of the ship carrying the KHII.

Jonathan_S wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:Your argument has given me an insight on another way to look at SD(P)'s and what missiles they can fire. As SD(P)s are firing all of their missiles from pods the ability to launch the missiles reside in the pods that hold the missile. There fore an SD(P) can launch any missile for which it can carry the pod. Which should be just about any pod and therefore any missile.

So,... the only limitation on what missiles an SD(P) would carry is determined by it's fire control systems and how many links and what type of control links it has. (ie: keyhole or keyhole-2)

But with any ship that uses internal launchers, their physical construction limits what missiles they can launch.

SD(P)s are definitely more flexible - but there can still be a few restrictions on the missiles they carry.

First they need to be able to provide the power (or plasma) necessary to power up the missiles (or jumpstart their reactors) just before each pod is rolled. (The missiles aren't, AFAIK, left powered up while stored in the pod bay)

I don't believe that this would be the case. There have been several battles in which older ships have brought to battle newer missiles that they could not launch from internal tubes but had no problem launching from external pods. In fact one way used to determine what kind of missiles a ship might bring to battle was if their accel rate was less than normal for the ship class as this would indicate that they could be towing pods. This in turn could indicate that the ship could be launching missiles with greater capability than the ship itself could bring to battle. So the ship towing the pods may have to beam energy to the pod, much as it had to do for counter measure platforms (until the latest versions), but the pods themselves would have to have the technology to launch the missile.

Jonathan_S wrote:Second there are still maximum dimensions on the pods that they can handle. Fatter missiles could just mean less per pod, but a longer missile might not be able to squeeze into the pods a given SD(P) can carry.

As I read the books my mind created the idea that missile pods were of a standardized dimension much like cargo containers on ships today. The number of missile put into a pod was determined by how many of the new sized missiles could be fit into the standard dimension pod. Thus, as missiles got larger, the number of missiles they put in the pods was reduced, as with the Mk-23 missiles.

But if changes to the SD(P) was necessary I can't see it being any more that re-spacing the rail system on the inside and maybe expanding the hatch through which the pods would enter and exit the ship. If I were designing these ships, I would create a modular railing system that could easily be changed over from one size pod to another. This way an SD(P) could take on what ever missile might currently be available if the pod sizes were indeed different.

Jonathan_S wrote:More applicably, it's possible that then much larger Havenite missiles might require pods that are physically too large for RMN ships to carry -- that might limit the ability to supplement the RMN's missile stockpile until their production plants are rebuilt. (Though their existing supply should be more than sufficient)

Even if the Havenite missiles could be put into RMN ships I wouldn't be doing that. I would be doing a redeployment of types of ships to better utilize types of resources. For instance, I would replace 2/3 of the SD's at the Beowulf terminus with Haven Ships so the In a battle Haven missiles would be use rather than RMN missiles. Haven's missiles would be given the added effectiveness of getting FTL recon updates to their targets.

The ships I pulled out of Beowulf I would be sending to critical places in Haven to augment the ships there with better recon capabilities and at least some long range missile capability if it is needed. The Haven sips would become a large part of the front line ships until RMN missiles were back into full production.

StealthSeeker wrote:Haven's missiles would be given the added effectiveness of getting FTL recon updates to their targets.

Using the FTL transceivers they bought at wall Mart and then wired into their fire control systems using software written by who?

kzt wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:Haven's missiles would be given the added effectiveness of getting FTL recon updates to their targets.

Using the FTL transceivers they bought at wall Mart and then wired into their fire control systems using software written by who?

The Haven ships would launch and maintain control of their own missiles but the Manty ships could provide to the Haven ships the FTL recon "plot" updates that the Haven ships would use to control their missiles during flight. This is what RMN did to control the MK23 missile before the MK23e became available. It made the RMN missiles much more effective, why not the Haven missiles.

StealthSeeker wrote:The Haven ships would launch and maintain control of their own missiles but the Manty ships could provide to the Haven ships the FTL recon "plot" updates that the Haven ships would use to control their missiles during flight. This is what RMN did to control the MK23 missile before the MK23e became available. It made the RMN missiles much more effective, why not the Haven missiles.

Again, using software written by whom? Who is an expert in the internal of both RHN and RMN fire control systems and able to write the interface needed? Do you think it might be a very good idea to possibly test this in a carefully structured method before send using it to control tens of thousands of missiles moving a .8c through an occupied star system?

SharkHunter wrote:Again, harking to Kingsford's original idea of attacking Beowulf before the plebiscite,

It wasn't Kingsford idea, it was the idea of the Mandarins as discussed in ART(p453). It's only in the last 4 pages of ART where there is a discussion about the collection of information about Beowulf that there is an indication that the SLN is at least tinking about an attack on Beowulf.

SharkHunter wrote:What if the GA gives each of the 36 Beowulf SD's enough Apollo pods as limpets to and towable within the wedges, plus several ammunition ships a la Spindle, with enough Sag-Cs with enough links to control the missiles once launched. We'll also specify that all RMN ships need to be on loan and captained by Beowulfan command officers, though the tac-sections, etc. can be from Her Majestie's navy. That stops the accusation that the population of the planet is being held hostage by any Manticoran ships.

I'm reasonably sure that anything that isn't fully manned and controlled by Beowulf would be seen a a politically difficult thing to accept. Though I did throw out the idea of loaning "training" platforms with KH-2 capabilities to Beowulf but that still has the same problem as your idea.

A couple of comments on the latest chain of posts.

Not all pod layers only fired missile from pods. This is true of the Invictus class of SD(P), but the Medusa (Harrington) class of SD(P) had:

Broadside: 26M, 13L, 15G, 54CM, 52PD
Fore: 9M, 4L, 5G, 18CM, 22PD
Aft: 6MP, 4L, 5G, 14CM, 20PD

Secondly, there are already a log of Manticoran ships in the Beowulf system. There are in fact all out by the terminus, but they are present.

Thirdly, it is politically embarrassing if people in Manticoran uniform are seen near the planet. How difficult would it be to put your trainers on the KHII platforms in Beowulf uniform? Presumably Beowulf has a few spare uniforms around that could be used.

kzt wrote:Again, using software written by whom? Who is an expert in the internal of both RHN and RMN fire control systems and able to write the interface needed? Do you think it might be a very good idea to possibly test this in a carefully structured method before send using it to control tens of thousands of missiles moving a .8c through an occupied star system?

Each Navy's ships would be firing and controlling their own missiles, not extra software needed. I wouldn't think that scan/plot information would be that difficult to share either. After all the RMN has supplied scan/plot information to unarmed enemy ships to collect survivors of battles. Scan information has even been shared with *news* outlets to backup/support claims about what happened in battles. Why would it be such a monumental task for RMN ships to forward FTL scan/plot information to Haven ships and have those Haven ships utilize it?

Weird Harold wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:That's much more complicated and politically risky than the actual plan of seeding the Beowulf system with Mk-25 Apollo system defense pods and "Mycroft" control platforms.

Just a reminder that Honor's main concern about the defense of Beowulf wasn't "Can Beowulf be defended" it was "Is the BSDF sufficient visible deterrence to prevent massive loss of life (primarily SLN loss of life.)"

Honor has no doubts about Beowulf's ability to defend itself even if Mycroft is not fully installed and redundant, she's only concerned about "feeding chicks to near-sharks."

Yes, this is more of the way I am seeing things as they are discussed in the book during the "wedding conversation." "Mycroft" as it is discussed there is not just one or two KH-2 platforms to control missiles, "mycroft" is referring to a whole integrated system of sensors, missiles, and a couple dozen KH-2 platforms. It doesn't all have to be completely working for it to be very deadly.

But here is another idea. As it is a political problem to have any other navy's ships *SEEN* in orbit around Beowulf, how about we put 50 RMN SD(P)s in hyperspace near Beowulf. If SLN ships attack, wait until they are across the hyper limit by a few minutes then drop the RMN ships out of hyperspace right on their tail, bringing them in effective missle range before the SLN ships can get any where close to Beowulf. The RMN ships could fill in any "gaps" created by incomplete mycroft instillation and use the planetary defense pods/missiles. This might provide the "visible" deterrent to get the SLN ships to surrender and the firepower to squash them if they don't.