Honorverse ramblings and musings

I imagine it may be for a couple of reasons.

One, McKeon's squadron was probably better trained and drilled than Third Fleet's personnel, as well as fitted with the latest equipment. That made them the most effective units even without Apollo and in fights like those, you go for the enemy's most effectives first. The first nine ships were randomly targeted, but as soon as the Havenites got some individual perfomance data on the RMN ships, they went for McKeon's units.

Two, not being part of Third Fleet means McKeon's squadron doesn't fight exactly in step with them. We've seen textev in lots of other places of COs worrying about or avoiding mixing squadrons/crews up without enough time to train up. And indeed, we watched a battlecruiser squadron work up during SVW, making a lot of painful mistakes because they weren't used to each other.

Weird Harold wrote:

saber964 wrote:Are we sure that Dimitri was a prolong recipient? He would have been twelve when Prolong was introduced to Manticore, but that doesn't guarantee that he received it before he was too old for even first generation Prolong.

He was a member of the Manticorian nobility and probably fairly wealthy and near enough to Hamish and Thomas Bachfich in age to be given prolong.

Very true. He was also of a class that would believe that Prolong was their right-by-birth.

All of which doesn't answer the question of whether he did receive the treatment. His poor health and need for a life-support chair at a mere 90 years old would make more sense if he hadn't received Prolong for some reason.[/quote]


Considering the fact that Dimitri Young was described as obese and overflowing his life-support chair. Young probably treated his body like an amusement park e.g. recreational pharmaceuticals, heavy drinking and over eating. Look at people today who get into abusing drugs and at what ages do they die. I had a friend in HS who got into the three 'C's' of drugs (Crack, Crank and Coke) at age 16 or 17 and essentially starved to death by age 25. His body weight was 100 lbs when it was discovered vs his weight in HS at about 200 lbs.

kzt wrote:

cthia wrote:How the heck did I miss that there were four Apollo capable ships in McKeon's squadron?

Because it says there were three in another chapter?

8th fleet assets were under the command of 3rd, who we have already established - to at least our mutual satisfaction - was smoking crack. They should have been able to kill about 30 fully capable RHN SDs.

Realistically, David has never explained to anyone's satisfaction why 3rd didn't actually prepare for battle. (other elements that bother me a lot even after David's explanations don't bother a lot of people.) It's absurd as a modern infantry battalion knowingly marching in parade formation into a field full of machine gun nests covered with layers of concertina. What could possibly go wrong?

He made it much, much, worse with one of the infodumps that claims an Apollo SD(P) squadron constantly "jangles" their active Keyhole II around. 6 ships, 12 Keyhole IIs, and apparently only one active at any given time; constantly switching to avoid getting the FTL signal source precisely targeted.

If that one KHII can control a normal double or quad stacked salvos then (baring FTL interference issues) you should be able to ludicrously multiply your immediate fire control if you said screw it and went active with all 12 KH-IIs (or in this case all 6 KH-II if we take the 3 Apollo capable number). If each could control just the equivalent of the squadron's double-stacked salvo that's 432 pods; or 3,456 simultaneous attack missiles (exclusive of the Mk23E). Sure you'd have to have distributed your Apollo pods to every other ship in 3rd fleet - but that kind of Apollo launch opening salvo would flat out gut most other fleets in existence - at least 14 PRN SD(P)s dead; even ignoring saturation effects.

cthia wrote:

kzt wrote:5th jumped inside of powered MDM range of 3rd. There was no magical way for the few Apollo armed ships to get out of powered MDM range of 5th. So you are objecting to the wrong issue.

I don't think so kzt. Why didn't he hyper in with an appropriate standoff range in mind as Honor did? Again, being a squadron of Honor's very own Eighth fleet McKeon should have been fully versed on the capabilities of Apollo and its effective fighting tactics from benefit of all of the brainstorming thereof...

McKeon's ships almost certainly had the most modern and effective defenses of 3rd fleet - being the newest Apollo equipped ships they'd also get the newest point defense). So Kuzak detaching them as a 3 ship (or 4 ship) sub-squadron also reduces 3rd's missile defense capabilities by more that detaching any other 3 (or 4) ships.

In the event the missile defenses even with them present were grossly insufficient; so hindsight says that may not have mattered here. But if you don't know ahead of time that it's a hard decision to detach ships to act as snipers if they're also your best area defense units. (And heck, detaching McKeon to snipe at max Apollo range at Tourville likely would have left him further back near the hyper limit which would put him closer to 5th fleet when it sprung the trap. Now his ships are not only more visible (not buried in the herd) but also at a range where the PRN MDMs are more effective... Oops.

Jonathan_S wrote:(And heck, detaching McKeon to snipe at max Apollo range at Tourville likely would have left him further back near the hyper limit which would put him closer to 5th fleet when it sprung the trap. Now his ships are not only more visible (not buried in the herd) but also at a range where the PRN MDMs are more effective... Oops.

You start shooting as soon as you exit hyper and just hang with the rest of 3rd. You will go winchester well before 3rd fleet reached the range that Kuzak decided to shoot at. Presumably you'd then pods from someone else to control in phase 2.

In reality, if they started to do the kind of damage I think they would, where they start methodically punching out the most combat capable RHN ships, 5th would be dropping in to pay a visit well before the Apollo ships run out of ammo.

But this assumes Kuzak actually wanted to win they fight. If you look at the numbers given during the battle, 2nd was going to decisively defeat 3rd without 5th's help due to Kuzak's absurd decisions. Like not deploying the LACS in missile defense formation forward of 3rd and preventing anyone from rolling pods. Not to mention abandoning the ammo and range advantage that she and her CoS talked about before her spectacular assisted suicide.

kzt wrote:You start shooting as soon as you exit hyper and just hang with the rest of 3rd. You will go winchester well before 3rd fleet reached the range that Kuzak decided to shoot at. Presumably you'd then pods from someone else to control in phase 2.

In reality, if they started to do the kind of damage I think they would, where they start methodically punching out the most combat capable RHN ships, 5th would be dropping in to pay a visit well before the Apollo ships run out of ammo.

But this assumes Kuzak actually wanted to win they fight. If you look at the numbers given during the battle, 2nd was going to decisively defeat 3rd without 5th's help due to Kuzak's absurd decisions. Like not deploying the LACS in missile defense formation forward of 3rd and preventing anyone from rolling pods. Not to mention abandoning the ammo and range advantage that she and her CoS talked about before her spectacular assisted suicide.

And we are back to numbers.

The 2nd had 118 SD(P)s at the start. With the approximate capability of 80 wallers. According to her Intelligence officer. 3rd having 55 SD(P)s.

Next look at the aftermath. Despite 220% the effective combat power used against her compared to her expectations. She still destroyed more than her own numbers.

Was it enough? The enemy had a better plan. Somebody quotes something about what happens when the enemy shows up relating to plans.

Nobody's plan actually worked that day. Interesting to note 2nd was projected to lose less tahn 1:1 to Home Fleet. Yet they actually lost more than 1:1. 12% more than the commander expected which was 25% higher than the planners.


Where those numbers come from.

3rd destroyed 11 of 5th's 96 SD(P)s. There were a total of 68 SD(P)s left in the 2nd. Total SD(P)s destroyed 50 of 2nd fleet 11 of the 5th equals 61 for the total loss of 53 RMN SD(P)s in this portion of the fight.

Granted it was told in an unclear fashion,there are significant timing issues in the telling. For that matter, probably, the gaming of it--though I am not as certain of that.

You are assuming her and her are Gods. "Judge a commander by what she knows when she knows it."

IMO without the 5th she hands the 2nd its head for probably very minor losses.

All the above should counted with Howard T's adage.

Have fun,
T2M

kzt wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:(And heck, detaching McKeon to snipe at max Apollo range at Tourville likely would have left him further back near the hyper limit which would put him closer to 5th fleet when it sprung the trap. Now his ships are not only more visible (not buried in the herd) but also at a range where the PRN MDMs are more effective... Oops.

You start shooting as soon as you exit hyper and just hang with the rest of 3rd. You will go winchester well before 3rd fleet reached the range that Kuzak decided to shoot at. Presumably you'd then pods from someone else to control in phase 2.

In reality, if they started to do the kind of damage I think they would, where they start methodically punching out the most combat capable RHN ships, 5th would be dropping in to pay a visit well before the Apollo ships run out of ammo.

But this assumes Kuzak actually wanted to win they fight. If you look at the numbers given during the battle, 2nd was going to decisively defeat 3rd without 5th's help due to Kuzak's absurd decisions. Like not deploying the LACS in missile defense formation forward of 3rd and preventing anyone from rolling pods. Not to mention abandoning the ammo and range advantage that she and her CoS talked about before her spectacular assisted suicide.

I'm surprised that Honor didn't suggest to McKeon to roll pods before entering the system -- or why McKeon didn't roll on his own lest he felt he wasn't afforded the time.


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Can Apollo be fired in anticipation of ships exiting hyper after evidence of the azure bleed of the sails, and when the entire bridge is dealing with the nausea? The real question I'm posing here -- and what I think is a yet unused advantage and tactic of Apollo -- is to fire missiles before 'missile lock' -- with the intent of achieving missile lock on-the-fly?


****** *


An Aside - FMI:
Another advantage of Apollo of which I'd like to be sure that I'm not in error...

Let's assume Haven has a two-to-one wall advantage over a Manty fleet. They are just inside effective missile range of each other. If the Manty fleet fires first -- compounded by higher missile acceleration and spreads fire over half of the Peep fleet... now this is where my understanding may fade into error...

If Apollo destroys half of the Peep squadron before their missiles arrive, wouldn't the now orphaned missiles belonging to now destroyed Peep ship's be rendered an ineffective threat?

cthia wrote:...snip...

If[/i] Apollo destroys half of the Peep squadron before their missiles arrive, wouldn't the now orphaned missiles belonging to now destroyed Peep ship's be rendered an ineffective threat?

I did calculations for this a long time back. At extreme range figuring Newtonian physics. The last upsate gets sent something like 2.5 minutes before it gets there.

So all those RHN missiles will be guided--for varying values of guided.

It is also pointed out in the sim of the SLN arrival n the home system. At the puny range of ~20 million km the SLN missiles would have received the last light speed update before all the SLN SDs were destroyed.

Enjoy,
T2M

cthia wrote:An Aside - FMI:
Another advantage of Apollo of which I'd like to be sure that I'm not in error...

Let's assume Haven has a two-to-one wall advantage over a Manty fleet. They are just inside effective missile range of each other. If the Manty fleet fires first -- compounded by higher missile acceleration and spreads fire over half of the Peep fleet... now this is where my understanding may fade into error...

If Apollo destroys half of the Peep squadron before their missiles arrive, wouldn't the now orphaned missiles belonging to now destroyed Peep ship's be rendered an ineffective threat?

It largely depends on the specifics of the engagement. Assuming a conventional engagement where the Havenites fire immediately after, the first Havenite's missiles would have dropped to internal guidance well before the destruction of their control ships would have been relevant. They're simply too far downrange for them to care about updates even if the launch ships were still there. Subsequent salvos may be affected, depending on how tightly sequenced their fire is.

thinkstoomuch wrote:

cthia wrote:...snip...
If[/i] Apollo destroys half of the Peep squadron before their missiles arrive, wouldn't the now orphaned missiles belonging to now destroyed Peep ship's be rendered an ineffective threat?

I did calculations for this a long time back. At extreme range figuring Newtonian physics. The last upsate gets sent something like 2.5 minutes before it gets there.

So all those RHN missiles will be guided--for varying values of guided.

It is also pointed out in the sim of the SLN arrival n the home system. At the puny range of ~20 million km the SLN missiles would have received the last light speed update before all the SLN SDs were destroyed.

Enjoy,
T2M

Thanks thinks#, for running the numbers.