(Spoilers) Future technological developments.

tlb wrote:I now see that the discussion is about putting an impeller shield around an orbital station; such as was done with the Beowulf factory line in UH. Why not build more tugs than you need for their normal duties and rotate them as guard ships around orbital structures?

The problem with tugs is that they have other uses - they could be anywhere in the system when they are required to form the blocking shield. The Manticore Tugs were intended to be blocking ships - but they were out of place (and had no time to react in any event.) the Blocking buoys would have no other purpose and always be in position to take a hit - assuming they can get their wedges up in time.

The merchants were just a stop-gap for a purpose built system, especially since they were just sitting around.

tlb wrote:I now see that the discussion is about putting an impeller shield around an orbital station; such as was done with the Beowulf factory line in UH. Why not build more tugs than you need for their normal duties and rotate them as guard ships around orbital structures?

Theemile wrote:The problem with tugs is that they have other uses - they could be anywhere in the system when they are required to form the blocking shield. The Manticore Tugs were intended to be blocking ships - but they were out of place (and had no time to react in any event.) the Blocking buoys would have no other purpose and always be in position to take a hit - assuming they can get their wedges up in time.

The merchants were just a stop-gap for a purpose built system, especially since they were just sitting around.

I understand that tugs have uses; that was why I suggested building an excess number and assigning them in rotation to the protection duty. So the assigned ships would not be out of place.
The problem with blocking buoys is the amount of money tied up in something that has no other use and depending on maintenance might not work when needed. I would rather see the orbitals have the capability to generate a spherical sidewall, with monthly tests of the emergency sidewall system.

I think the orbital stations did have spherical sidewalls. They just were not up.

There was a lot of slackness in how the stations were managed. For example, apparently the first actual evacuation test in living memory was conducted right before they were blowed up. You know what happened before that the didn’t result in an emergency evacuation? The entire RHN 2nd fleet boring in on the station, and the response of the high command was “Huh, wonder what we should do about the millions of civilians in orbit when 2nd fleet gets there and blows it all up. Let’s commission a report from some retired flag officers.”

kzt wrote:I think the orbital stations did have spherical sidewalls. They just were not up.

There was a lot of slackness in how the stations were managed. For example, apparently the first actual evacuation test in living memory was conducted right before they were blowed up. You know what happened before that the didn’t result in an emergency evacuation? The entire RHN 2nd fleet boring in on the station, and the response of the high command was “Huh, wonder what we should do about the millions of civilians in orbit when 2nd fleet gets there and blows it all up. Let’s commission a report from some retired flag officers.”

Right - there were layers of defenses, including forts, other warships, the tugs, purpose built blocking ships, spherical sidewalls, and active defenses. But the OB strike was designed so that none of it had time to react. The whole reaction was lackadaisical, especially when a Havenite fleet recently came inside shooting distance in recent memory. But the defensive focus was on nano-virused navigators turning ships into weapons, rather than actual weapons.

kzt wrote:I think the orbital stations did have spherical sidewalls. They just were not up.

Are you talking about Beowulf Alpha, Beta and Gamma or about Weyland and so on in the Manticore system?
I do not remember any description of sidewalls for the Beowulf orbitals. That is why I do not understand why there were blocking ships for the factories, but not the living spaces.

Wayland etc. which among other things housed the main RMN bases.

The Beowulf stations weee not militarily valid targets.

kzt wrote:I think the orbital stations did have spherical sidewalls. They just were not up.

There was a lot of slackness in how the stations were managed. For example, apparently the first actual evacuation test in living memory was conducted right before they were blowed up. You know what happened before that the didn’t result in an emergency evacuation? The entire RHN 2nd fleet boring in on the station, and the response of the high command was “Huh, wonder what we should do about the millions of civilians in orbit when 2nd fleet gets there and blows it all up. Let’s commission a report from some retired flag officers.”

theemile wrote:Right - there were layers of defenses, including forts, other warships, the tugs, purpose built blocking ships, spherical sidewalls, and active defenses. But the OB strike was designed so that none of it had time to react. The whole reaction was lackadaisical, especially when a Havenite fleet recently came inside shooting distance in recent memory. But the defensive focus was on nano-virused navigators turning ships into weapons, rather than actual weapons.

tlb wrote:Are you talking about Beowulf Alpha, Beta and Gamma or about Weyland and so on in the Manticore system?
I do not remember any description of sidewalls for the Beowulf orbitals. That is why I do not understand why there were blocking ships for the factories, but not the living spaces.

kzt wrote:Wayland etc. which among other things housed the main RMN bases.

The Beowulf stations were not militarily valid targets.

True, the Beowulf stations were not valid military targets; but there should still be planning to prevent collateral damage. The discussion of blocking was for orbitals that did not possess a built-in defense capability. Weyland did not need blocking buoys when it could just turn on its sidewalls.

Oyster Bay was a bolt from the blue that no one could have predicted. The Havenite attack was completely different. Do we know whether or not the sidewalls were active on the Manticoran orbitals during the battle? I do not believe that trying to evacuate while in an active shooting situation would have been a good. Better to ride it out and not add to the confusion, trusting in the protection of the sidewalls.

tlb wrote:Do we know whether or not the sidewalls were active on the Manticoran orbitals during the battle? I do not believe that trying to evacuate while in an active shooting situation would have been a good. Better to ride it out and not add to the confusion, trusting in the protection of the sidewalls.

It's a valid military target. It's on of the two primary shipyards, munitions storage and naval bases for the RMN. How effective do you think the sidewall is going to be against the first salvo of 24,000 MDMs? You have like 4 hours in which to do something about the 2 million people on the platform. Perhaps you should make use of it?

tlb wrote:Do we know whether or not the sidewalls were active on the Manticoran orbitals during the battle? I do not believe that trying to evacuate while in an active shooting situation would have been a good. Better to ride it out and not add to the confusion, trusting in the protection of the sidewalls.

kzt wrote:It's a valid military target. It's on of the two primary shipyards, munitions storage and naval bases for the RMN. How effective do you think the sidewall is going to be against the first salvo of 24,000 MDMs? You have like 4 hours in which to do something about the 2 million people on the platform. Perhaps you should make use of it?

Perfectly true and if this was a raid in force that would be a major problem. However in an actual attempt to defeat Manticore and end the war, they are not important targets and any missiles sent that way would be wasted. If Manticore were defeated, then the resources the stations represent would be invaluable and not something to be lightly blown away.
The danger point would occur if the Havenite attack were beaten off and they made a Parthian Shot.

What would be the best way to quickly evacuate either station assuming a plan for two million people? One million life pods (used in the Wayland test)? That might be the only practical solution; but if missiles were coming that way, then the environment just became target rich (not that Haven would intentionally shot pods). The pods would be shredded by impellers of missiles that might not even see them.

If the only option on the approach of an enemy is evacuation, then why bother with side walls? Meteor protection?

HMSS Hephaestus is multi-use, unlike Weyland, serving as entry port and a lot more to Manticore. Should they have separated the civilian funtions from those for the military off in a separate orbital? That would simplify the military evacuation.

If all they did was blow up the fabrication plants at Manticore and Sphinx it’s a win. The RHN has a huge number of ships reaching operational status. The next batch gets Gryphon.