Battle of Spindle

no you are right. they dropped the "peoples" part of the name.

generally speaking during the second war, I believe, they were called Havenites, rather then peeps.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Notwithstanding your point about ships available to handle Apollo, I seem to recall a serious initial bottleneck. In fact, the Peeps plan was to attack before the Manties could get the new fangled system widely deployed.

My take on storyline, was there were only enough Apollo missiles to arm Honor's command and for modest resupply logistics. Regardless that all ships that could handle Apollo were given to Honor. The supply lines were getting cranked up, but that isn't to say there was a gluttonous supply of them available. In fact, there really was a shortage of them considering that was one of the selling points Eloise had in her offer of an Alliance -- that the RMN could save those god-awful missiles for a more arrogant opponent, let's say.

Although I must admit, tlb, Honor didn't fire on Chin's Fleet as if there was, somewhat, a shortage of them. LOL

We agree that Honor had the only ships that could handle Apollo and there were sufficient missiles for her operations; but there was not a huge excess as the supply lines were still getting cranked up.

Yes, the plan by Haven was to strike before Apollo was in general fleet use; but that importantly goes to the requirement to convert ships to be able to operate the Keyhole II installation - not necessarily the missile supply. The production lines were expected to be at full speed when the additional ships finally came out of the yards.

But do not conflate this period with the shortages at the time Eloise made the offer of an Alliance; because that came after the Yawata Strike, when there were missile shortages of all types due to the destruction of the production lines. It would be interesting to know how many they had in magazines, depots, ammo ships and other stockpiles that were not touched by the strike. Also there should have been shoals of the system defense variant of Apollo that were not affected by the strike (except for possible debris damage).

I think it is a misnomer to call the forces of Eloise's Haven "Peeps", since this is after the restoration of the constitution. I do not believe the new government called itself the "People's Republic of Haven", but I could easily be wrong.

You are right, of course. But I doubt they'll ever be anything but peeps, to me. I'm not a card carrying Havenite convert. I would have been on the side of resistance Beth let loose her famed Winton temper to get moving on the sharing of tech. "What, with these people?" Hey, I'm not all certain those leopard stripes aren't going to change again, but that's just me.

I'm not surprised I may be wrong about the timeline, with their being so long between publishings, therefore the availability of Apollo.

I still can't see why a single missile, even a 23-E, can't be programmed to be fired from a pod.

cthia wrote:
I still can't see why a single missile, even a 23-E, can't be programmed to be fired from a pod.

---------------

Single Mk-23's likely CAN be fired individually from a pod, but why ? Advantage of the Apollo system is the Mk-23e with its FTL transceiver to provide long distance targeting updates and comm coordination between the other pod 23's.

Long legs without target discrimination limits target selectivity.

-- Stewart

cthia wrote:My take on storyline, was there were only enough Apollo missiles to arm Honor's command and for modest resupply logistics. Regardless that all ships that could handle Apollo were given to Honor. The supply lines were getting cranked up, but that isn't to say there was a gluttonous supply of them available.

Well, the ships that could fully handle Apollo were all given to Honor.

Even the early Apollo should still have the lightspeed control links (though that capability wasn't revealed to readers until later); which means any SD(P) capable of handling pods of normal Mk23s should be able to fire Apollo pods. They'd just "only" get then 8x improvement in fire control links and far more capable missiles at extended ranges where the lightspeed link is too laggy for really tight shipboard control.


The fact they weren't tends to support the idea that while there was a basic sufficiency to equip and resupply the Keyhole II ships, there wasn't a massive surplus of 23Es. Because given a massive surplus you'd expect all of home fleet's SD(P)s would have swapped out their pods for Apollo ones -- because those're more effective that non-Apollo Mk23 pods even when you can't use the FTL control link.

cthia wrote:I still can't see why a single missile, even a 23-E, can't be programmed to be fired from a pod.

stewart wrote:Single Mk-23's likely CAN be fired individually from a pod, but why ? Advantage of the Apollo system is the Mk-23e with its FTL transceiver to provide long distance targeting updates and comm coordination between the other pod 23's.

Long legs without target discrimination limits target selectivity.

For argument sake assume you have fired a MK23 without the controlling E: it does not have the FTL communication, so usefulness is limited by a light speed control loop and all the extended range of the multiple drives is wasted.

Furthering the argument, assume you fire the MK23-E without any of the other missiles in the pod: it becomes a high speed drone, without any stealth. Perhaps that is what you want, but now you have orphaned 8 multi-drive missiles and they can only be controlled by a light speed loop and lose the usefulness of their extended range.

tlb wrote:Furthering the argument, assume you fire the MK23-E without any of the other missiles in the pod: it becomes a high speed drone, without any stealth. Perhaps that is what you want, but now you have orphaned 8 multi-drive missiles and they can only be controlled by a light speed loop and lose the usefulness of their extended range.

Unless the rest of the pod can be redistributed to other 23-Es launched at the same time as part of a large salvo. We don't actually know if each 23-E is limited to controlling eight other missiles or if it has capacity for more.

Jonathan_S wrote:Even the early Apollo should still have the lightspeed control links (though that capability wasn't revealed to readers until later); which means any SD(P) capable of handling pods of normal Mk23s should be able to fire Apollo pods. They'd just "only" get then 8x improvement in fire control links and far more capable missiles at extended ranges where the lightspeed link is too laggy for really tight shipboard control.

The fact they weren't tends to support the idea that while there was a basic sufficiency to equip and resupply the Keyhole II ships, there wasn't a massive surplus of 23Es. Because given a massive surplus you'd expect all of home fleet's SD(P)s would have swapped out their pods for Apollo ones -- because those're more effective that non-Apollo Mk23 pods even when you can't use the FTL control link.

It is true that there was not a massive oversupply of Apollo, but I do not think that you gain as much as you say with Apollo on an unconverted ship. Given that the standard pre-Apollo RMN ship had more than enough fire control links for the massive missile swarms that were being used, then I do not expect an improvement in fire control with the MK23-E using a light speed link. However there still might be a slight improvement because of the onboard AI, particularly at extended range.

The text is that there were enough Apollo pods for the ships that could best use them and the production lines were being ramped up, so as ships came into service with Keyhole II, they would also be supplied.

Mike use the 23E and the pod full of 23's in an at least two-fold process againt it's target. 1st was to, sort of, warn off the target and see how the missiles faired againt the countermeasured. The other part was sending out a FTL platform that was talking with not only it's own pod's birds, but with the recon drones and doing evaluations of the enemy's ECM and point defence. ALL of that information was being sent both back to the fleet AND to the 1st full launch of attack/dazzler/dragon's teeth birds with thier 23-E's
That's real time -at a very extended distance- read and analysis of the enemy capability and reactions. Note that the original 23-E was able to continue both gathering/processsing and reporting back data AFTER it's flight to attack birds was gone.
Then you see the conversation where Helen Z as Terkerove's Flag LT is sent- to physicaly report- to the officer to deliver a message and that ends up (as intended) to be an interview and evaluation of her understanding of what went on at Monica etc by using a long range (and so not the most efficient use) attack to not only start inflicting damage on the enemy but gathering as much tactical, EMC and enemy equipment data in time for it to be applied by the REST of the Squadron to make best use of their individual ships missiles and capabilites.
Sure whittle or nibble the basterds down from as far away as possible. You might even get in a golden BB. But the more tactical information your squadron has WHEN THE ENEMY GETS IN RANGE OF THE REST OF THE WEAPONS OF THE SQUADON...well, you just take advantage of every little peice of information to make both the best use of your own weapons and use your enemies flaw against them.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Of course it was a joke.

Alison was much more conventional than her talk would indicate; she did trade on the stereotypes about Beowulf to shock people, but was very much committed to a monogamous relationship. It is not that she wanted Honor to have relationships with everyone, instead she wanted Honor to climb out of her protective shell and to have a special relationship with someone.

At any rate, Allison is from Sphinx. Though I wouldn't dare paint her as inherently "loose," -- after all, by our mores, what would be considered as loose on Sphinx -- I wouldn't be none too surprised if boys were able to run the trio of bases while dating her. Getting on third base probably isn't viewed with so much disdain on Sphinx.

Although Allison liked to jerk chains—being a married woman insufferably in love, she certainly wasn't about to be unfaithful to Alfred—Honor wasn't married, and it would have been quite fine to Allison, IMO, if Honor had harvested a bit-o-Sphinxian-oats while she was single and it was morally legal, you see. Both parents probably wondered whether Honor even liked boys at one point. Or whether boys liked her.

Allison is from Beowulf, she moved to Manticore and her home was parimarily on Sphinx after she married Alfred Harrington.