Operation Treehouse

Could Manticore actually build ship-for-ship even if the government gave them the go? Even with extra monies thrown in by the filthy rich? They would still need the building infrastructure.

But wouldn't a Hauptman, Harrington, Montaigne partnership be able to afford this out of pocket since they are in the top 100 richest humans club? If Protector Benjamin wanted to help he could do as he pleases with nobody able to nay say him. The Alexander brothers would also push pretty hard for this idea and Honor would obviously include them in the idea stage. Even horrible Hemphill would be on board.

There's personally rich, and then there's socially rich. It's like asking Bill Gates to fund the US military. Even at his highest worth (and assuming he could liquidate everything at full value), Bill Gates was worth about 60 billion. That's still a full order of magnitude less than what the US spends on its military each year. There's no way any individual or handful of individuals can fund a project the size and complexity of Bolthole. A project that big, that expensive, and that long running requires the backing of nations.

The moment the wheels came off and the Havenites attacked after the first cease fire with those Highridge idiots, Harrington and company should have begun Operation Treehouse.

Again, where would all the money and industry be coming from? Everything was tapped out trying to rebuild after Thunderbolt. All of it was devoted to building up the fleet after the Janacek drawdown, so there's nothing left to build another major shipyard.

Duckk wrote:That presumes that Manticore had the capability to make the massive monetary and industrial investment needed to build a secret shipyard disappear.

Also, it would be all but impossible for a free society to build a large-scale secret shipyard in peacetime (Haven was lucky the Committee set up Bolthole; the Republic probably couldn't have), and due to Honorverse construction and transportation times, if you start building a secret shipyard when you're actually at war, you probably won't get any capital ships out of it until the war's over.

Duckk wrote:
There's personally rich, and then there's socially rich. It's like asking Bill Gates to fund the US military. Even at his highest worth (and assuming he could liquidate everything at full value), Bill Gates was worth about 60 billion. That's still a full order of magnitude less than what the US spends on its military each year. There's no way any individual or handful of individuals can fund a project the size and complexity of Bolthole.

The moment the wheels came off and the Havenites attacked after the first cease fire with those Highridge idiots, Harrington and company should have begun Operation Treehouse.

Again, where would all the money and industry be coming from? Everything was tapped out trying to rebuild after Thunderbolt. All of it was devoted to building up the fleet after the Janacek drawdown, so there's nothing left to build another major shipyard.

I am not saying they would pay for the ships. The yards themselves can be built by the private sector and they sell the ships to the government just like Grayson does. Many of their neighbors would be likely to help with manpower like Beowulf or even smaller ones like Zanzibar. Hell, Gustov would be more than helpful since he is getting serious tech transfer out of it. And there are thousands of close by star systems with no populations that they can hide in. Bolthole has no habitable planets or they would have been found by simply visiting all the stars with known habitable planets in their sphere of influence. Manticore did just that and failed. Dispatch ships went all over hell and back looking and came up empty handed.

Umm, you can't get help in building your secret base, or it isn't a "secret base". It's really, really hard to do this. The whole issue of "So Admiral, would you please explain to the committee where $1.5 trillion $M from last years budget went?" is a big problem.

drothgery wrote:

Duckk wrote:That presumes that Manticore had the capability to make the massive monetary and industrial investment needed to build a secret shipyard disappear.

Also, it would be all but impossible for a free society to build a large-scale secret shipyard in peacetime (Haven was lucky the Committee set up Bolthole; the Republic probably couldn't have), and due to Honorverse construction and transportation times, if you start building a secret shipyard when you're actually at war, you probably won't get any capital ships out of it until the war's over.

Actually there is textev that Bolthole was started before the Committee took over Haven.
I can't remember the name of the Navies senior intel officer, but she comments that she would like to talk with ADM Parnell because she suspects he may have been involved with Bolthole from the start.

JPMorgan wrote:...Bolthole has no habitable planets or they would have been found by simply visiting all the stars with known habitable planets in their sphere of influence. ...

IIRC, there is a mention-in-passing line that implies Bolthole is NOT within Haven's "sphere of influence," it is well outside of their borders in a previously uninhabited system. Not necessarily uninhabitable, just not colonized until Bolthole was established.

exiledtoIA wrote:Actually there is textev that Bolthole was started before the Committee took over Haven.
I can't remember the name of the Navies senior intel officer, but she comments that she would like to talk with ADM Parnell because she suspects he may have been involved with Bolthole from the start.

David later directly said they were wrong, it was a committee project.

I think this thought has merit. The RMN could have at least built another inactive, emergency shipyard somewhere. Turn on the lights when needed.

I like the name too.

Easy reason as to why this never happened:

Until Oyster Bay and the previously unimaginable technology used to carry it out, it was all but impossible for an enemy to wreck the Star Kingdom's 3 Naval Yards without also wrecking Home Fleet and taking control of the system.

And, once the Manticore system fell, what would be the point? Any RMN units would be incredibly slow to find out/react to the news that Manticore had fallen and would be showing up in small groups or solo and being forced to surrender.

Now, it is easy to say "What about Grayson!" And, certainly, that is true NOW. However, during the first war Manticore didn't have the resources to spare to build up that kind of infrastructure (Grendelsbane took decades of investment and was done openly!). After the pause, the RMN was sure of its superiority and not worried. After Thunderbolt, same situation as during the first war.

Now? Post Oyster Bay? I certainly expect that while the main shipyards of the Star Kingdom will remain in the Manticore system, there will be at the very least satellite yards in Trevor's Star and multiple Talbott Quadrant systems. Heck, I would assume that eventually every SEM system will at the least have a yard capable of repairing any ship in the RMN and capable of building LACs up to Heavy Cruisers (as well as Freighters). But, all that is to come.. ?