Fortress Command

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:Maybe if the French did not have the invincible Maginot Line in 1940, they might have been more motivated to modernise and reorganize their military.

The French did modernize their amy and airforce they just didn't use them effectively. Their tanks and fighters were actually better hardware than what the Germans used in their initial Blitzkrieg attacks.

Silverwall wrote:When looking at this sort of expenditure you can't rule out politics. Generally a democratic system will favour defence over offence and it's a lot easier to sell the "We hate imperialism" Liberals and extreme conservitives on static defensive instalations than on the offensive weapons systems.

Sigs wrote:

Silverwall wrote:When looking at this sort of expenditure you can't rule out politics. Generally a democratic system will favour defence over offence and it's a lot easier to sell the "We hate imperialism" Liberals and extreme conservitives on static defensive instalations than on the offensive weapons systems.

SD's don't need to be seen as "offensive" weapons. They are essentially highly mobile defensive systems. Sell it to the Liberals that instead of building 124 Forts that may cost a million(random small round number) and defend one objective you can build 200-250 SD's that will have the option to defend not just one thing(the junction) but the Home System as well. It wont be an easy fight but the fruits of that victory would give the RMN the ability to fight Haven on the assumption that those 200-250 SDs would be defending everything in the Home System instead of the Junction Alone.

Dafmeister wrote:Home Fleet can’t properly defend the Junction, certainly not during the period of the pre-war build-up. The Junction is seven light-hours from Manticore-A, which means it’s functionally seven light-hours from Home Fleet if the fleet is deployed to defend the planets. FTL comm doesn’t factor into this equation because the Junction forts were built before FTL comm existed, so if the Junction is attacked (either through the wormhole or going the long way round through hyperspace), it’ll be seven hours before Home Fleet even knows it’s happening. At that point, Home Fleet has to make a choice; either they can take the shortest route out of the resonance zone and attempt a tricky micro-jump to the Junction, or make the trip in real-space. In real-space, (if my maths is correct) a least-time run will take over 17 hours and leave Home Fleet screaming past the Junction at 0.8c with its particle and radiation shields maxed out. A zero-speed intercept will take more like 24 hours. Either way, an attacking PN fleet would have plenty of time to establish control of the Junction, lay mines and bring through reinforcements and ammunition from Trevor’s Star before they had to engage Home Fleet.

And, of course, when they respond to this attack, Home Fleet are leaving the inner system with only its static defences.

The Junction and the inner system have to have their own, independent defence systems, especially in the days before FTL comms, and, as has been said, forts are a cheaper option that can’t be taken off-station, no matter how tempting the circumstances. Home Fleet, on the other hand, has to be mobile as it has to cover both Manticore and Sphinx (Gryphon is relatively expendable) and also has to serve as the RMN’s strategic reserve.

SharkHunter wrote:Permit me to not remember all of the details, but it seems like the "junction forts" had been there for a while, not built after OBS. Meaning that they originated before or early into King Roger's buildup which IIRC correctly started focusing on weapons development, then ships, etc.

Anyway, the big thing others have already mentioned wasn't whether or that the PN could have attacked to take the junction from the sides earlier in the war -- it was that they could have put large enough contingents of warships through multiple termini to achieve a winnable tactical superiority. Honor even works the numbers IIRC and early on, just using the majority of the battleships the PN would have torn through most of the forts, let alone Home Fleet.

yes/no?

John Prigent wrote:But what use would the seizure of Manticore's planets be without the seizure of the forts? They can be resupplied through the Junction ad infinitum, so don't need to surrender while supported by at least Beowulf if not other systems, and can completely stop the aggressor from having any use of the Junction that is the main reason for wanting Manticore. And, given the power of their armaments, and their ability to change positions to avoid missile attacks, trying to attack them directly would be like charging tanks with horses.
Cheers
John

Theemile wrote:
Not only that, but the forts aren't truly "static". They have an acceleration of 150 Gs - while they do not have hyper, they can redeploy anywhere in a system - slower than normal "mobile" units, but they can still redeploy.

Given about 2 days, they can reach the inner Manticore system. So even if someone were to "blow away" the inner defenses, the junction defenses could send a portion of their force inward to deal with the threat or to reinforce the remaining inner defenses. (Likewise, the inner forts could reinforce the junction forts while the mobile force watches the planets, though it would probably make more sense for the mobile force to cover the terminus.)

Sigs wrote:I have been thinking for a few days now about the forts guarding the Junction in the Manticore System and Basilik at the beginning of the war. Basically if I remember correctly the smallest one was 16 million tons, I don’t remember what the largest one was if it was even mentioned but that represents a lot of money/tonnage/manpower for a stationary battle system.

Assuming on a low end cost comparison 1 fort at 16-20 million tons’ equals to 1.75 SD’s and the Manticore Home system had around 124 forts at the beginning of the war then it would have been the equivalent of 217 SD’s and that assumes that ~16,000,000 tons of fort translates to 14,000,000 tons of SD’s.

Ignoring the political situation for the moment, would the SKM have been in a much stronger position at the beginning of the first war with 217 SD’s more in their fleet rather than the having the forts?

And keep in mind that my calculation is based on 124 forts at the smallest size of 16 million tons, if we assume that they can be up to 20 or 24 million tons on the large once and the average is say 18 or 20 million tons per fort and the price/manpower translates nicely ton for ton we could see even more SD’s. For example, at 19,000,000 tons and 1:1 ratio it would be around 294 SD’s more in the fleet but without any forts.

Third, for their function, and for the firepower they pack, fortresses are more economical than hyper-capable starships and one hell of a lot tougher than LACs.

The crew of one of the "new-model" fortresses which have been built to cover the Junction and the Lynx Terminus is about the same size as that of a Nike-class battle cruiser, exclusive of any LAC personnel assigned to them. That's not a very big manpower investment in a 15-16 megaton platform, I think, especially when the platform in question is so much bigger, tougher, and generally kick-the-hell-out-of-you nastier than any superdreadnought ever built. And especially when you consider that crew increases do not scale linearly if fortress size is increased above 16 megatons (see below).

Defending critical wormholes and junctions is indeed expensive, and the capital investment in effective fortresses is high, but it is worth the expense and protects the operational and strategic availability of a navy's mobile striking forces at what is actually a very economic cost in manpower and long-term physical plant.

Brigade XO wrote:The Maginot Line was created the way it was because of politics, strategy, tactics and economy.
Go back and review the actual history.

It was a fortification built to stop or at least slow up mostly one particular opponent of the last major military conflict. I say slow up for a couple of reasons. The 1st is that, like castles and fortified cities, you might sucessfully resist a siege but you also need to retain the surrounding countryside that supports it. It doesn't really matter how big (and well equipped) your army is, you still have to have that army in place and ready to fight.
Since you really have difficulty keeping the full army at full alert all the time you have to mobilize both your (relativly small) standing army and your reserves. That takes time. See all sorts of books on WW I etc). That line and your allied military treaty partners are expected to provide that time.

The Line is the place you are going to (try to) stop the aggressor army while you compleat that mobilization. It is also the place you are going to concentrate your weapons to attempt to destoy the army that is going to attack you.

Then there are the limitations. Do you really want to piss off your allied and freindly neighbors by extending that fortified line to wall of your boarders with them just like with the people you are actualy concerned with. If X (in this case Germany) decides to attack you, going through Y to flank your wall will also put them at war with Y (who actually does have defences oriented against Germany just not the same type) AND who has different sets of alliances. Part of what you are depending on is that your friendly neighbor- who isn't interested in being over run by someone they are already worried about- will fight in their own defense, not just to protect access to you.

You need to keep up the political goodwill with the friendly neighbors.

How the hell are you supposed to know that Germany is putting together large elite groups of guys who jump out of airplanes that come from bases you can't see a hundred miles behind their boarder that will take major fortresses in your allies defense? Then there was the Blitzkreig tactic- with mechanized columns of armored vehicles (and a lot of guys with BOLT ACTION rifles and mostly horse-drawn logistics support) sailing down those nice paved roads once they had eliminated the critical roadblocks.

You also have ecomomic limitations. The whole Guns vs Butter argument. It does sometimes come down to needing to depend on someone else who is also interested in protecting themselves because you - home politics etc- can't afford to build something you know you should have but can't justify to your population because they don't see the need to treat Y like X. You also really do have a practical limit on what you can spend and most of your population isn't focused on fighting another/the next war.


It has been said that generals are always preparing to fight the last war. That is actually true. They do also try to prepare to fight what they preceive as new things that will come in the next war but they are working in theory here and the crystal ball is very cloudy about what will actually be the most effective weapons and tactics of "the next war". So you have to protect against what worked the last time (for you, them or anybody else) and GUESS what is going to confront you then beyond the hundred thousand or a million guys with rifles, slings, knives, spears and some type of cannon.

The French equipment in early WW II has been described actualy better on an item by item basis over a bunch of German stuff, the Germans had more stuff and differnt tactics. The French Army actualy did a credible job, they got, flanked (their neighbors got over run) overwhelmed, and nobody else- their existing allies- could get there early enough with enough stuff to prevent this.

Not so minor problem....Russia, who had been a MAJOR contributor to the was on the side with the French/English etc, went through their revolution in the middle of WW I and - at the start of WW II had all sorts of secret treaties with Germany which kept them out of WW II for a while. That changed the stratagy and deployments of the German armies etc in the preparation for the actual fighting start to WW II.

It is always a combination of the Politicians and the Generals that end up having to make decisions about how to spend actual capital and polictical capital/will.

Everybody was depending on (and some of them [Germany and Russia] intending soon on betraying) their treaty partners to BOTH deter and then slow down any military move by the other side. That didn't work out as well as planned.
The line actualy did quite well. The Germans had to take it from the back- which was still a problem for them until France surrendered. Heck, they used it to slow down the Allied forces going through that area on thier way to Germany late in the war. It did force the Germans to go around it.

More Politics- or was it deliberate strategy? There was the "Phony War" period where tensions were high because of what Germany was doing and while large portions of the French Army were called up and deployed- and ended up sitting around. Then, when the situation cooled down (again) France actualy did mostly stand down and it appears most of the allies went along in similar mode, unable to keep what they had started in mobilizations going forward without the direct threat of war about to break out.

Hindsight is a bitch.