Fortress Command

I do not see how this post of mine has anything to do
with that argument between Janacek & Prince Roger.
Beowulf was not mentioned in that argument.
No one in that whole story considered the possibility
that Beowulf might help defend the Junction, much less
the San Martin Terminus.

Me, I feel that that was shortsighted of them,
and even of MWW.
It seems that I have an obsession with wormhole use,
that polities are not bounded by wormholes,
which might be comparable to Theemile's obsession
with Forts In Inner Systems.

MWW indeed writes hardly anything about Forts,
except at the Termini of Manticore's Junction.
He has not even written that the long-range missiles
defending Manticore, Zanzibar, and other systems are
placed in Forts, instead of small space stations or
in smaller ships or platforms.

Of course, lack-of-evidence of their presence is *not*
evidence of their absence,
but DW has not shown that inner-system defenses have
much use for such Forts.
Whatever some of use might deduce.

HTM

Theemile wrote:

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Someone asked why Beowulf would pay to support Junction
Forts after Manticore's planets fell to Haven.

All Termini of a Junction are effectively next to each
other. Therefore a Junction might be ruled from *any*
Terminus.
Especially the one with the strongest nearby Polity!

Beowulf might pay for those forts,
as a part of taking control of that Junction!

For that matter, once the Manticore-Beowulf Route was
found, Beowulf (then *very* much stronger) might have
turned Manticore into a vassal state at any time before
Manticore grew its navy larger than Beowulf's.


HTM

This also give more power to Janacheck's arguments in his rebuttal letters to Lt Cmdr Winton - as mentioned, The 25 capitol ships of the RMN (as antiquated as they were) were a powerful force in the galaxy and no one was directly threatening them ... then. In addition, however, there was a powerful force of Junction forts and inner system forts that greatly outnumbered (and was probably more modern than) the mobile RMN battle fleet, and those forts would actually be the main line of defense of the Star Kingdom, with the mobile force backing them.

This brings up something I've mentioned several times in the past, namely RFC has never mentioned the scarcity of Forts in the SL. We know at only a dozen or so SDFs have more than a squadron of the wall - but how many of these "single star polities" have powerful forces of forts? We know most only have LACs for mobile forces, but does that mean that their habitable areas are covered by dozens of 20 Mton forts?

Because let's face it - these are Self Defense Forces for essentially single system polities, with (in the form of the SLN) an umbrella body which provides piracy suppression and strategic retaliation forces. There is no need for hyper ships if you have no need to deploy them outside your hyper limit - which most SL members wouldn't due to the fine work of the FF and the existence of the BF.

So, what would a single system SDF need for a good defense? LACs for patrolling the system... and Forts to protect the strategic nodes.

And as I said - RFC have never mentioned the scarcity (or quantity) of Forts in the SL.

Makes you wonder what is in Beowulf orbit, doesn't it?

correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the only time forts were ever addressed to be inner system or planet guards, was for San Martin?

I recall reading about that, in the pre-Buttercup days, that there were forts (something like 24 of them), of which half were to be towed out to the Terminus, and the rest were to cover San Martin itself. It went on to, more or less say, the reason they were building the forts for the planet was because the Alliance had paid great expense to (re)capture San Martin and they weren't going to give it up easily.

The only other place that has (or had) forts is Grayson. And Grayson is unique in those forts are mostly legacy forts, that were not scrapped and rebuilt. They were just overhauled to handle (and fight in) modern environments by changing electronics, adding bubble walls and new launchers.

Outside of those unique cases, the only places I can think of that has forts, excluding the Manticore Wormhole Junction itself, is Basilisk.

Edit: ok, I forgot, I think that the other Terminus for Talbott received forts for the Terminus itself, but that's basically just Basilisk repeated. And there's no forts in Basilisk inner system, just the Terminus.

Even Gryphon isn't protected by fortresses, and it's classed as regrettably expendable, in the grand plan of "Defending Manticore System 101". Pretty much everything, unless it gets classified as "critical military needs" gets defended by ships.

Take for example, Zanzibar. Zanzibar is practically the World War France of Honorverse, everytime there's a big series of attacks against the Manticoran Alliance, there's Zanzibar getting torn apart, and losing ships and pods left and right.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:I do not see how this post of mine has anything to do
with that argument between Janacek & Prince Roger.
Beowulf was not mentioned in that argument.
No one in that whole story considered the possibility
that Beowulf might help defend the Junction, much less
the San Martin Terminus.

Sorry, Howard, I actually meant to add on to a message up-thread and quoted yours instead.

Somtaaw wrote:And there's no forts in Basilisk inner system, just the Terminus.

Even Gryphon isn't protected by fortresses, and it's classed as regrettably expendable, in the grand plan of "Defending Manticore System 101". Pretty much everything, unless it gets classified as "critical military needs" gets defended by ships.

I don't believe that any of this is accurate.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/108/0
"The Cromarty Government had included the beginning of a Basilisk equivalent of Hephaestus/Vulcan space station, as part of the initial funding of the major Basilisk rebuild in the wake of Icarus. The High Ridge Government continued the "Cromarty Plan" for Basilisk, but expanded on it for several reasons. Some of them, frankly, were perfectly good ones, given what had happened there when Icarus blew out the system infrastructure and, especially, the fact that the entire star system had been formally annexed and hence had become the Star Kingdom's territory to be defended (and developed). In addition to those good reasons, of course, High Ridge and his cronies saw additional opportunities for porkbarrel projects, civilian job building, and paying off corporate allies with sweetheart deals. Since they were already committed to completing the construction of the terminus forts, which were shipped through from Manticore as components and assembled in place, and since building those forts tied in so well with their economic/industrial/political objectives, they simply ordered five more forts to cover Medusa.

"The Grantville Government would far, far rather that the same funds had been used to build additional SD(P)s, but the forts are there, they are equipped with modern weapons, they are Keyhole-capable (and are in the process of being refitted to Keyhole II capability), and they did permit the mobile forces which had previously been assigned to cover Medusa to be largely withdrawn and used elsewhere. All of which means that, basically, Medusa is currently covered by a cruiser/destroyer-level mobile picket, which wouldn't have been of very much use in the Battle of Manticore, anyway."

However, we also know that forts are (usually) only actually constructed during peacetime.

So orders may have been placed, by Janacek & High Ridge, for forts that will eventually cover Medusa, but they may not have actually been built yet.

From Honor's musing, in I think it was Honor Among Enemies, as she took her Q-ships out. Or one of her trips through the Junction, I'll have to track down the quote.

That was why Basilisk didn't have a large SD picket during BoM, so no, they were in fact both fully built and operational.

In addition, there are tidbits elsewhere that says that all three Manticore planets are covered by fortresses. For example a comment by David mentioning that the KH2 upgrade for the fortresses were weeks to months out when the RHN showed up.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:"
HTM replies:
No, Theemile wrote those two sentences.
I did not.
Nothing by me is in the material quoted by Brigade XO.

Howard True Map-addict

My apologies for bad snipping

I've been scratching my head on this one and apologize for being unfashionably late. (The exigencies of the holidays.)

The historical use of forts is in the protection of tactical and strategic objectives that themselves are immobile. Forts are strongholds. Strongholds are NOT meant to move because you don't want opportunity to be caught with your pants down -- and pulled out of position. (npi)

I haven't read the entire thread, but I didn't see mention of a comparative cost analysis of the absolute operating costs of the forts vs the equal tonnage in SDs. As humans, we often make that mistake. We want a brand new Ferrari, but we fail to take into account the yearly operating costs.

Perhaps a better analogy is that private owners of business jets cannot fail to overlook the significant yearly operating costs of a Boeing Business Jet in addition to the already significant initial purchase price of $100M. The yearly operating cost is somewhere around $2M.

Over decades, would it be significantly cheaper to operate forts than the comparable tonnage in SDs?

Costs would include: top of head.
1. Manpower. Total crews of an SD are replaced often.
2. Man hours. (Not necessarily the same as above. In fact, certainly different.)
3. Maintenance.
=> A. Would there be less total major systems on forts to replace because of wear vs. comparable SD tonnage?
4. Foodstuffs
5. Reaction Mass
6. Medical
7. Repairs
8. Upgrades. Cost to upgarade the forts vs comparable SD tonnage?
9. Miscellaneous

It would be nice to see the tally sheet of the Exchequer's projected operating cost analysis of the forts vs SDs over a half century or more.

My 15 % tip in addition to my two cents. Whatever the forts are there to protect doesn't move. It's the history of forts to protect tactical and strategic objectives that don't move. Therefore, if your area of responsibility don't move, then why buy a mobile home -- if it ain't never going to move -- more importantly, if you don't want it to move. Or, in the forts' case, move significantly? Save on the wheels and rims. lol

The strategic and tactical objectives of forts may represent an incredible investment in time, cost and limited technical resources to protect a time-sensitive-replaceable objective attached to irreplaceable lives able to perform very specialized tasks.

Forts have an implied order to STAY PUT! Hence... FORTIFIED positions... FORTS.

Commanding Officers really don't want to have to divert ships to protect very important strategic and tactical objectives that were mistakenly uncovered

cthia wrote:Perhaps a better analogy is that private owners of business jets cannot fail to overlook the significant yearly operating costs of a Boeing Business Jet in addition to the already significant initial purchase price of $100M. The yearly operating cost is somewhere around $2M.

I think you underestimate that. I know that 15 years ago the yearly support contract for a G4 (a much smaller plane) was a million a year, plus pilots, fuel, mechanic, FBO, rental during inspections etc. They are a very expensive way to travel, but the people I knew who had them felt they were worth the cost due to the flexibility and privacy offered. And they wrote them off as an expense on their corporate taxes.

But your larger point is true. The objective of having fortresses is to protect something that you consider absolutely vital to protect and maintain control over. The fact that they are operationally mobile is a secondary effect due to their having a wedge, if you need to be redeploying a fortress from one area of your system to another it's a bad day.

kzt wrote:

cthia wrote:Perhaps a better analogy is that private owners of business jets cannot fail to overlook the significant yearly operating costs of a Boeing Business Jet in addition to the already significant initial purchase price of $100M. The yearly operating cost is somewhere around $2M.

I think you underestimate that. I know that 15 years ago the yearly support contract for a G4 (a much smaller plane) was a million a year, plus pilots, fuel, mechanic, FBO, rental during inspections etc. They are a very expensive way to travel, but the people I knew who had them felt they were worth the cost due to the flexibility and privacy offered. And they wrote them off as an expense on their corporate taxes.

But your larger point is true. The objective of having fortresses is to protect something that you consider absolutely vital to protect and maintain control over. The fact that they are operationally mobile is a secondary effect due to their having a wedge, if you need to be redeploying a fortress from one area of your system to another it's a bad day.

Intentionally. Costs vary greatly from owner to owner. Wanton pleasures and desires. Safety contingent. Initial investment. *Pimped ride. Frequency of flight, obviously. Many people don't realize that even if the plane isn't flying it requires maintenance.

*Pimped rides include the Trump Jet. Cost of 100M. Regular price of that platform (AF-One platform) is 60M. Trump wanted the more popular, expensive, powerful and reliable Rolls Royce engines. Then you have to hire people to ensure that your original parts (that have a shorter wear on the parts of a newer plane, are put back on your plane).

The Sultan of Brunei, IINM, paid 100M for the plane, then an additional 110M in upgrades.

At any rate, I was given figures of 2M in yearly operating costs as a minimum, even, and mostly, sitting in a hangar.

The sentiment is not meant for the Trumps and Sultans who are hardly limited by cost. It is meant for the rappers and other personalities who try to live above their means. Who think that just because they have the initial purchasing monies does not mean they can afford to operate it. Even sitting on the tarmac. Your total income has to be such that you are legally able to write off the expenses on the government. Uncle Sam is not going to allow you to constantly write off a 2M+ yearly expense if your business only nets 1M annually.

Trump Jet
https://youtu.be/UZq3iCn2y74