First New Manticore Ships

munroburton wrote:
First, even a 5% loss is a significant number, especially after the carnage of First Manticore. Second, the older ships do not represent 'significant' combat power. Third, they had about 100 to 200 new hulls being laid down.

Probably more than that if they continue the same tempo since the 2nd war started. We don't know the size of the building traunches, but there are probably were 50-75 CAs under construction at any time to have 149 Sag-Cs and 2-3 squadrons of Sag-Bs COMPLETED between ~Dec 31 1918 and May 1st 1921 (Hos date); we know the Python lump was ~200 SD(p)s in size, and there were 35 more SD slips used by the halted 1st war builds. And nearly 100 CLACS were completed in the same time period as well as >100 BCs, most of which required BB sized slips. Throw in ~300+ DD/CLs completed in the same time period, not to mention an unknown number of auxiliaries, and the number of active construction slips has to be in the 400+ range. With 2 shooting wars happening, there was no reason to slow down construction, especially with the increased automation.

Theemile wrote:However, there were 35 slips in which 1st war builds of Invicti were emptied in early to mid 1920, which were available to build some prototype Medusa-Bs (or follow-on Invictus builds).

Hm close but i dont think so.

'After what they did to Grendelsbane, we have only thirty-five SD(P)s under construction. They should be commissioning within the next six to ten months, but we won't see any more than that until the ships we're laying down right this minute commission.'

This is a Caparelli quote after the Raid on Alizon which happened in early 1920. So at best they could start building Medusa-Bs in August of 1920.
I dont know offhand how much time exactly they needed to build Superdreadnoughts at this point (about 2 tyears i think), but Oyster Bay hit them in Februar 1922. Thats only 17 tmonths, IMO simply impossible for building a lead ship of a heavily modified subclass.
Such projects usually always take a bit longer than follow on buildings.

IMO the only hope for Medusa-Bs is Grayson. Their building projects are insane and improbable anyway so why not.

Munroburton wrote:A planet's moon is hardly an inconvenient location for a Navy that has its three major bases located around three different planets around two different stars.

You need to get stuff and people from the space station to the moons somehow. Why bother?

Munroburton wrote:Indeed, a little distance is perfect for security considerations. Declaring a no-go area around a moon serves that function whilst keeping those assets close by and covered by the general defensive umbrella.

Huh? What security considerations? The entire Manticore B system is a closed military zone.

Munroburton wrote:Their efforts to keep the fleet highly maintained after the post-Trevor's Star pause are given. This combined with the need to keep everything covered after First Manticore, IMO, should equal a surge in maintenance work starting as soon as the python lump commissioned.

Ships usually dont break just sitting in orbit. The Manties had a surge in maintenance needs after tyears of uninterrupted offensive operations. During the second war 95% of the fleet did nothing except waiting for the RHN to attack.

Munroburton wrote:First, even a 5% loss is a significant number, especially after the carnage of First Manticore. Second, the older ships do not represent 'significant' combat power. Third, they had about 100 to 200 new hulls being laid down.

5% would not be a significant number, its immaterial compared to the losses at BoMa.
Older ships would represent a significant loss of quantity which can impact the overall combat power rather severely.
They loss of the actual hulls laid a couple of weeks ago at best is insignificant. Construction just started, some basic frames got blown up, no big deal at all.
And nobody would regard the their destruction as a loss of combat power anyway.

Theemile wrote:Probably more than that if they continue the same tempo since the 2nd war started. We don't know the size of the building traunches, but there are probably were 50-75 CAs under construction at any time to have 149 Sag-Cs and 2-3 squadrons of Sag-Bs COMPLETED between ~Dec 31 1918 and May 1st 1921 (Hos date); we know the Python lump was ~200 SD(p)s in size, and there were 35 more SD slips used by the halted 1st war builds. And nearly 100 CLACS were completed in the same time period as well as >100 BCs, most of which required BB sized slips. Throw in ~300+ DD/CLs completed in the same time period, not to mention an unknown number of auxiliaries, and the number of active construction slips has to be in the 400+ range. With 2 shooting wars happening, there was no reason to slow down construction, especially with the increased automation.

Its so funny when you compare this info from HoS with them whining about not having enough funds for more SD(P)s in AAC.
Instead of wasting funds, time and capacity to build up an entire navy bellow the wall they should have focused entirely on building SD(P)s in Grayson-style dispersed yards.
Or actually doing something with all this crap instead of leaving it behind like Kuzak did during BoMa.
Its even more hilarious when you think about the manpower requirements for all this and their problems to man their shiny new wall.

Star Knight wrote:Or actually doing something with all this crap instead of leaving it behind like Kuzak did during BoMa.

Everything Kuzak did at BoM was pure plot.

Star Knight wrote:

Theemile wrote:However, there were 35 slips in which 1st war builds of Invicti were emptied in early to mid 1920, which were available to build some prototype Medusa-Bs (or follow-on Invictus builds).

Hm close but i dont think so.

'After what they did to Grendelsbane, we have only thirty-five SD(P)s under construction. They should be commissioning within the next six to ten months, but we won't see any more than that until the ships we're laying down right this minute commission.'

This is a Caparelli quote after the Raid on Alizon which happened in early 1920. So at best they could start building Medusa-Bs in August of 1920.
I dont know offhand how much time exactly they needed to build Superdreadnoughts at this point (about 2 tyears i think), but Oyster Bay hit them in Februar 1922. Thats only 17 tmonths, IMO simply impossible for building a lead ship of a heavily modified subclass.
Such projects usually always take a bit longer than follow on buildings.

IMO the only hope for Medusa-Bs is Grayson. Their building projects are insane and improbable anyway so why not.

Despite Caparelli's comments, Honor had 2 new Invicti in her fleet when she formed it in May 1920 pd. I assume they had a rushed working up period, and Caparelli's thoughts include normal working up periods. Including a short, "normal" working up period, the first couple heldup Invicti probably left their construction slip in the March timeframe, leaving ~23 months before OB.

The construction times for SD(p)s according to David was down to ~20-22 months. So throw in time for a little time for a newer design (which may not have been that different after all - it was an evolution over the last design and many facets may have been identical), and it's ... possible.... that the first few slipped out of the yards before the torps hit.

It's a stretch, I agree, but if David wanted to say 2 Madusa Bs survived, the numbers could work - If he said 6 squadrons were completed in time, then things don't make sense.

All I'm saying is there is a chance...

Now the Graysons already have an updated design in service, the Harrington B, which is really a sister to the Invictus. There never was a mention of a 3rd gen Grayson design.

kzt wrote:Everything Kuzak did at BoM was pure plot.

well
i can excuse her not firing and 2nd fleet to not provoke a launch on Sphinx... the other stuff from not using Apollo to its fullest to not rolling pods is just ... pure plot as you said.

Theemile wrote:Despite Caparelli's comments, Honor had 2 new Invicti in her fleet when she formed it in May 1920 pd.
I assume they had a rushed working up period, and Caparelli's thoughts include normal working up periods.

Nah they just build 12 Invicti before the war started, has nothing to do with the 35 run at Manticore.

This is from HoS:
'At the resumption of hostilities, only twelve Invictus-class were in comission, with a few more nearing completion in Manticore from previously suspended construction programs'

Actually if you think about it, they build more than 12+35 before BoMa since according to HoS 53+ Invicti were build in total until Mid 1921 (or the number given is just BS).

And she had 3 when 8th Fleet was activated, Imperator, Intolerant and Intransigent.

The construction times for SD(p)s according to David was down to ~20-22 months. So throw in time for a little time for a newer design (which may not have been that different after all - it was an evolution over the last design and many facets may have been identical), and it's ... possible.... that the first few slipped out of the yards before the torps hit.

As shown, AAc indicates that the first ships of the 35 construction wave left the yards in early August 1920 at best. Its just not enough time until OB to get done. Sorry.

Now the Graysons already have an updated design in service, the Harrington B, which is really a sister to the Invictus. There never was a mention of a 3rd gen Grayson design.

Yes but why should we know about it? We have close to zero information on Grayson construction (and what we know is far fetched to say the least).
So far, Grayson has build a version of every waller design Manticore came up with. And usually faster to boot.
Since it doesnt look like Grayson had a python lump (they continued their war building programs during the High Ridge period) they could have started on Medusa-Bs ('Harrington-Cs') as soon as plans were made available.

If RFC wants to have Medusa-Bs for some reason, Grayson would make the most sense.

George J. Smith wrote:What class will the first ships to be built in the new Manticore yards be?

I will argue for Sag C's, mil-spec ammo ships, and CLACs, followed by Nike(s) followed by SD(P)s, though I suspect I've got those three in the wrong order [freighters can carry pods, after all].

Reason? force projection and protection. Even though some of my other tactically oriented posts have been about how much damage a squadron of Rolands backed up by Sag-Cs can hand out, the C's are a better choice given limited slip space and a CA's survivability in a hornet's nest. Let a freighter also bring in whatever Mycroft turns out to be with the -C able to use them, and likely a system becomes effectively impregnable to known, detectable threats. [aka if the MAlign were foolish enough to use Spider ships in a system the RMN was patrolling, and got them in system successfully.]

kzt wrote:

Star Knight wrote:Or actually doing something with all this crap instead of leaving it behind like Kuzak did during BoMa.

Everything Kuzak did at BoM was pure plot.

Meh on that one... Pure plot was having Kuzak closer to the Junction than Eighth Fleet. Kuzak's tactical choices were spot on -- to the extent that they became predictable enough to Thomas Theisman, who might tip his hat to Honor but is not an inferior officer. So he set his mousetrap correctly.

Also keep in mind that how the three Apollo ships fired was under McKeon's immediate direction, not Kuzak's, and those three were the only ships in position to join the fight-- they'd never practiced with Third Fleet in battle maneuvers.

Previously argued of course but the biggest plotted "mistake" was that d'Orville didn't saturate the oncoming RN S(p)s with enough MDMs in a steady stream to keep 2nd Fleet from deploying pods to begin with. That cost him his entire fleet.

SharkHunter wrote:Everything Kuzak did at BoM was pure plot.

Meh on that one... Pure plot was having Kuzak closer to the Junction than Eighth Fleet. Kuzak's tactical choices were spot on -- to the extent that they became predictable enough to Thomas Theisman, who might tip his hat to Honor but is not an inferior officer. So he set his mousetrap correctly. [/quote]
Pretty much the only thing Theisman guessed right was anticipating 3rd/8th fleet going after Tourville. Big deal.
His biggest mistake was sending Tourvilee out with inadequate forces. Even without him badly missjudging 8th Fleets combat power, Tourvilles command was way too week to fight through a competently lead 3rd Fleet and the fixed defenses in the planetary orbits.

But this is trivial to how Kuzak f*ed up during BoMa.

Why did she abandon her screen? Why didnt she issue orders for her units bellow the wall to catch up?
Why didnt she roll pods? There is no excuse for this, even with Tourville not firing on Sphinx, she had to plan for every contingency.
Why didnt she deploy her LACs in a proper missile defense layout against 2nd Fleet? She was able to redeploy them against 5th Fleet, never would be possible if she actually had prepared her command for battle.
Why didnt she use McKeons Keyhole 2 ships properly? McKeon could have opened fire way sooner, he could have rolled all of his pods and later taken over the telemtry from the older SD(P)s...

I think that about covers it, as said, i can excuse her not firing on Tourville since he showed no intention for attacking Sphinx, but the rest is pretty bad.
You can find excuses or half assed explanations for this or that, but the reality is, Kuzak fu*ed up royaly because the plot demanded it.
And thats bad because there was no real need for Honor to save the day once more. But it has always to be her for some stupid reason.

SharkHunter wrote:Also keep in mind that how the three Apollo ships fired was under McKeon's immediate direction, not Kuzak's, and those three were the only ships in position to join the fight-- they'd never practiced with Third Fleet in battle maneuvers.

Half assed excuse, sorry.
1) McKeon was specifically attached to 3rd Fleet for the Battle, Kuzak had overall command. She can order him whatever she wants and he would have obeyed the order.
No brainer really.

2) If we ignore 1 it just shifts some of the blame from Kuzak to McKeon. If he is supposed to act independently he should still fire much more much sooner.
I dont think he's that incompetent.

3) Its true they never trained with 3rd Fleet and Kuzaks command was probably unfamiliar with Apollo. But this is no excuse. Even Henke in Talbott trained 10th Fleet on Apollo without having any Apollo capable units in the hole damned Cluster. And she had an actual job to do.
Kuzak was just sitting fat and happy and Trevors Star for what, close to a decade at this point? Her only job besides sitting there was to keep her command current on the latest technical and tactical advances.
If she failed to train for Apollo with 8th Fleet literally sitting right next to her... well, i'm wondering what the articles of war say about gross negligence in time of war.

SharkHunter wrote:Previously argued of course but the biggest plotted "mistake" was that d'Orville didn't saturate the oncoming RN S(p)s with enough MDMs in a steady stream to keep 2nd Fleet from deploying pods to begin with. That cost him his entire fleet.

Well if we ignore RFCs off hand comments on Zanzibar, he didnt know about Donkey.