Honorverse ramblings and musings

The number of forts has left me gob smacked. I was completed oblivious to the count. Text states that they are arranged in a circular perimeter about ACS? I suppose one could have fun juggling the numbers trying to figure out optimum placement distance relative to each other which still allows mutual support, plugging in max accel of 150g.

Why do the forts have mobility? Surely the mobility helps in the initial deployment but does it play any other tactical or logistic role or do the forts' location remain static during battle? I can imagine certain forts shifting towards an enemy prong of attack in support, as ships in a formation move in closer or alter position in a formation to help cover wounded ships and bolster their CM envelope. Textev has given at least some rudimentary tactical elements of ACS from At All Costs with this...

"..bring Admiral Havlicek up to speed on what we've already done. I'm sure we're going to have drones incoming from these people in the next thirty or forty minutes, and I'm sure he's got his own plans for dealing with them, but ask him if there's anything we can do to help. I'm thinking we may need to be looking at ways to stack the incoming wallers to block the drones' LOS to the terminus, keep them from getting a close enough look to tell the Peeps what's coming or when. Whatever JDC needs and we can do, he's got, but I need to know what he wants now."

I have this imagery of a forts utility as being in a strictly defensive role, but with the ability to move suggests a possible offensive capability if push comes to shove. We as readers are always hearing, "surely they won't come into range of the forts." I always wondered why the forts couldn't employ their own joint tactical maneuvers to trap, impede or decrease operating space of a maneuvering fleet. In other words, playing a more active than a wait-n-see passive role to join the fray. I know the max accel of forts is minuscule relative to the hundreds of gees that a ship can pull. But 150g of accel can be used ruthlessly by a keen Admiral it seems, certainly in conjunction with her own maneuvers.

The downside is the potential of the forts being caught out of position of junction support.

I'm aware that a forts' historical definition is to hunker down and fortify a position, but that was all during the times of the Civil War and beyond when they couldn't have wheels or wedges.

Am I stark-raving-mad? If so, I can simply apply for employment with the MAlign -- seems a prerequisite.

Why do the forts have mobility? Surely the mobility helps in the initial deployment but does it play any other tactical or logistic role or do the forts' location remain static during battle? I can imagine certain forts shifting towards an enemy prong of attack in support, as ships in a formation move in closer or alter position in a formation to help cover wounded ships and bolster their CM envelope. Textev has given at least some rudimentary tactical elements of ACS from At All Costs with this...

To protect them against long range ballistic attacks, and for station keeping.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/116/1

Originally certain forts were in energy range of the junction, and they rotated this role. Some exposed forts were at very high level alert and others were at lesser levels.

Currently this concept exists, but at missile range instead of energy range, so you have tens of seconds to react, not hundreds of milliseconds.

I'd thought even before the outbreak of hostilities, when Honor had taken command of the heavy cruiser Fearless, we saw how the Junction Forts were NOT within energy range of the junction itself.

We found out a paragraph later, that Honor had participated (albeit it, only as a junior officer) in a bunch of wargames that had determined a suitable Peep "suicide rush" through a single Junction could eliminate over a billion tons of Junction Forts, for the 'mere' loss of whatever amount of battleships it was. And that loss of life (something Manticore didn't have to spare) was vastly in the Peeps favor, allowing them to repeat it multiple times.

So the forts were arrayed just beyond energy range, giving at the very minimum time for some of the forts to at least go to computer controlled missile defense, while they cleared to action stations.


And kzt makes a good point of having those powerful drives to give enough mobility to dodge long range, C-fractional strikes with driveless missiles.

Somtaaw wrote:I'd thought even before the outbreak of hostilities, when Honor had taken command of the heavy cruiser Fearless, we saw how the Junction Forts were NOT within energy range of the junction itself.

We found out a paragraph later, that Honor had participated (albeit it, only as a junior officer) in a bunch of wargames that had determined a suitable Peep "suicide rush" through a single Junction could eliminate over a billion tons of Junction Forts, for the 'mere' loss of whatever amount of battleships it was. And that loss of life (something Manticore didn't have to spare) was vastly in the Peeps favor, allowing them to repeat it multiple times.

So the forts were arrayed just beyond energy range, giving at the very minimum time for some of the forts to at least go to computer controlled missile defense, while they cleared to action stations.


And kzt makes a good point of having those powerful drives to give enough mobility to dodge long range, C-fractional strikes with driveless missiles.

Actually given that the attacking ships won't have wedges or sidewalls for minutes until they clear the grav effects of the terminus entry lane. So the forts, with their sidewalls could potentially sit at a range where their sidewalls are immune to return energy fire but their energy batteries are effective against the bare armor of the attackers. OTOH the leaves them dangerously close in if sufficient numbers if ship transit that some start surviving to put up sidewalls and launch missiles.

Also going back to one if cithia's questions about mobility. When the forts use their wedge they can't use their bubble sidewall and their firing arcs are restricted. My understanding is that their layout and armorments are optimized for combat without the tunnel effect of a wedge.

Missiles didn't get effective standoff range until the 1880s IIRC. Before that they would need to be inside the grav shear of the junction, which would instantly destroy them. So the forts needed to be in energy range.

At All Costs

She didn't really care for tactics which split an attacking fleet up into penny packets. It was too good a way to fritter away a numerical advantage and invite defeat in detail, especially if your timing screwed up, and that seemed to be what was about to happen to Hasselberg and Morser. It looked as if Hasselberg had planned on a simultaneous attack, enveloping Yanakov from ahead and astern at the same time. If he had, however, his timing was decidedly off.

Honor's distaste for the tactic stands out. To me at least. I always wondered why she would never split her forces to try this same tactic of squeezing an enemy between two prongs of attack — partly because of the apparent effectiveness of sandwiching an opponent and partly because it seems that two or more attacking forces would afford better angles available for missile attack to at least one of the attacking forces. But mostly because the RMN always enjoyed a significant edge in accel. Pincering an enemy would seem a commonly used canned tactic available to a more mobile fleet.

In considering it, I keep hearing lines from Top Gun, "Check the guys to the North. Check the guys to the North." "Banking Right."

You have to at least honor the threat or there'll be consequences against a more mobile enemy, like Migs to F-14's. No?

cthia wrote:At All Costs

She didn't really care for tactics which split an attacking fleet up into penny packets. It was too good a way to fritter away a numerical advantage and invite defeat in detail, especially if your timing screwed up, and that seemed to be what was about to happen to Hasselberg and Morser. It looked as if Hasselberg had planned on a simultaneous attack, enveloping Yanakov from ahead and astern at the same time. If he had, however, his timing was decidedly off.

Honor's distaste for the tactic stands out. To me at least. I always wondered why she would never split her forces to try this same tactic of squeezing an enemy between two prongs of attack — partly because of the apparent effectiveness of sandwiching an opponent and partly because it seems that two or more attacking forces would afford better angles available for missile attack to at least one of the attacking forces. But mostly because the RMN always enjoyed a significant edge in accel. Pincering an enemy would seem a commonly used canned tactic available to a more mobile fleet.

In considering it, I keep hearing lines from Top Gun, "Check the guys to the North. Check the guys to the North." "Banking Right."

You have to at least honor the threat or there'll be consequences against a more mobile enemy, like Migs to F-14's. No?

As Honor said, the problem is timing, but it is also a defensive issue. If the timing is off it allows a superior enemy time to pound on you. Before Buttercup and podlayers, a Manty SD wasn't equal to 2 Peep SDs, it was in the nature of 1:1.3 Peeps. So if the timing was off, a smaller subfleet could be devastated before it's 2nd prong could reach firing range - then the superior op-for could turn on the 2nd subfleet and destroy it in turn.

The 2nd consideration is counter missile fire, If the op-for decides to concentrate all it's firepower on 1 of the 2 prongs - that prong only has 1/2 of the available anti-missile defenses, and the op-for can concentrate 2x the firepower on each ship.

In addition, as you know, Honorverse ships have 2 broadsides, the 2nd being (mostly) unused in most combat. So prior to modern RMN ships, an Honorverse ship could engage a 2nd enemy equally with the unused 2nd broadside. This actually allows the ships inside the Pincer to fire and defend with both broadsides simultaneously - allowing them to fire 2x the missiles (and defenses).

cthia wrote:At All Costs

She didn't really care for tactics which split an attacking fleet up into penny packets. It was too good a way to fritter away a numerical advantage and invite defeat in detail, especially if your timing screwed up, and that seemed to be what was about to happen to Hasselberg and Morser. It looked as if Hasselberg had planned on a simultaneous attack, enveloping Yanakov from ahead and astern at the same time. If he had, however, his timing was decidedly off.

Honor's distaste for the tactic stands out. To me at least. I always wondered why she would never split her forces to try this same tactic of squeezing an enemy between two prongs of attack — partly because of the apparent effectiveness of sandwiching an opponent and partly because it seems that two or more attacking forces would afford better angles available for missile attack to at least one of the attacking forces. But mostly because the RMN always enjoyed a significant edge in accel. Pincering an enemy would seem a commonly used canned tactic available to a more mobile fleet.

In considering it, I keep hearing lines from Top Gun, "Check the guys to the North. Check the guys to the North." "Banking Right."

You have to at least honor the threat or there'll be consequences against a more mobile enemy, like Migs to F-14's. No?

Theemile wrote:As Honor said, the problem is timing, but it is also a defensive issue. If the timing is off it allows a superior enemy time to pound on you. Before Buttercup and podlayers, a Manty SD wasn't equal to 2 Peep SDs, it was in the nature of 1:1.3 Peeps. So if the timing was off, a smaller subfleet could be devastated before it's 2nd prong could reach firing range - then the superior op-for could turn on the 2nd subfleet and destroy it in turn.

The 2nd consideration is counter missile fire, If the op-for decides to concentrate all it's firepower on 1 of the 2 prongs - that prong only has 1/2 of the available anti-missile defenses, and the op-for can concentrate 2x the firepower on each ship.

In addition, as you know, Honorverse ships have 2 broadsides, the 2nd being (mostly) unused in most combat. So prior to modern RMN ships, an Honorverse ship could engage a 2nd enemy equally with the unused 2nd broadside. This actually allows the ships inside the Pincer to fire and defend with both broadsides simultaneously - allowing them to fire 2x the missiles (and defenses).

Nice analysis Theemile. You even touched on some of the possible considerations inferred by Honor's statement...

It was too good a way to fritter away a numerical advantage and invite defeat in detail, especially if your timing screwed up...

However, in that instance GA ships were attempting to execute the maneuver against their own ships — against whom they had no advantage in accel or missile performance.

It is a tactic that I'd think was exclusively available to an RMN fleet going head-to-head against the Peeps or the SLN, because of...
1) the advantage in accel.
2) the advantage in missile ranges.

Although timing would still be a concern, it would be less of a problem to overcome because of the difference in accel and missile performance.

Which, of course, typifies the concerns regarding the need of the elements of an order of battle to be mercilessly drilled to get niggling little things down as timing, before being considered a fully integrated unit.
.

cthia wrote:Nice analysis Theemile. You even touched on some of the possible considerations inferred by Honor's statement...

It was too good a way to fritter away a numerical advantage and invite defeat in detail, especially if your timing screwed up...

However, in that instance GA ships were attempting to execute the maneuver against their own ships — against whom they had no advantage in accel or missile performance.

It is a tactic that I'd think was exclusively available to an RMN fleet going head-to-head against the Peeps or the SLN, because of...
1) the advantage in accel.
2) the advantage in missile ranges.

Although timing would still be a concern, it would be less of a problem to overcome because of the difference in accel and missile performance.

Which, of course, typifies the concerns regarding the need of the elements of an order of battle to be mercilessly drilled to get niggling little things down as timing, before considered to be a fully integrated unit.

Up until the existence of podlayers rather rendered the method moot the acceleration and missile advantage that Manticore enjoyed over Haven was a matter of degrees rather than a massive advantage. (Since MDMs weren't available yet either)

The best accel improvement I can recall before the Harrington-class SD(P)s were laid down was about 15%. In an SD that translates to about a 50g difference (assuming both are running at the same safety rating). If, as the Peeps tended to do, they were willing to run a 10% margin, as opposed to the RMN's 20% that difference shrinks to 8g.

It's enough to ensure that they can't run away from you, but not enough to prevent them from lunging towards one of your sub-formations and enjoying a non-trivial period of local superiority. (Then they can attempt to roll wedge against your other formation and break for the hyper limit)

It's hard to pin them down and prevent them from doing that.


Also, splitting up your formations makes your initial towed pod salvos less effective because dispersing them drastically reduces their ability to simply swamp the enemies defenses and inflict that crucial first salvo damage. That's what softens up their defenses for the rest of the missile duel.

Splitting up like that does provide more angles to attack them from; should you manage to hold them in range of both formations simultaneously, but it reduces your opening towed pod effectiveness, disperses your defenses, and risks getting one formation engaged in detail.

Now splitting up if you can combine it with surprise (a 2nd formation sneaking around at low accel under stealth; or dropping out of hyper within weapons range) can be devastating if it works. (As it almost did against Hamish that one time; 1st Nightengale (?)) But most of the time, if the enemy can see you doing it, it just adds risks without much potential of improved reward.