Third Fleet and Apollo ships in the Battle of Manticore

SharkHunter wrote:I don't know about that, Honor's pod supply can be roughly calculated... RFC says she fired of half of 8th Fleet's supply in the first salvo, so with a 90% survival rate, while out in hyper and prepping for the return, any admiral worth their salt is going to "calculate the cannonballs", i.e they have mass readings on the RMN SD(P)s so just by replaying their tac-recordings they could figure out what 8th Fleet has left.

He did? Oh, ok. Then I need to revise my estimates down. I had calculated that 8th had about 20000 pods total and Honor fired 7700 at Chin, so she'd still have 60% left. Maybe it's close enough.

Still, Chin can calculate that Honor has more than enough to ruin her day and has closer reinforcements.

With RHN missile colliers waiting, Chin can selectively hyper into a position far enough to cycle her hyper generators before the RMN missiles could arrive, issue a warning to evac the stations and protect the planets, hyper back out, and on the next cycle launch a deadly but ballistic salvo at Hephaestus, Vulcan, and Weyland which they can't dodge.

If Chin can take the time to reammunition, so can Honor and Honor has a bigger supply nearby. True, she'd still need to deal with Tourville, but Chin wouldn't know whether Tourville had surrendered or not. Besides, in the time needed to resupply, Eighth Fleet would have moved far into the hyperlimit, preventing an ambush.

The stations can't dodge, but there are plenty of ships nearby to interpose wedge. And I imagine the stations have plenty of CM tubes that could put a large defensive shield too. Finally, attacking the stations from afar would invite retribution in Haven, especially if a large piece of the station fell on one of the planets. The Alliance had enough friends (as we've seen) to continue the war and had enough stockpiles of missiles somewhere to actually beat Chin to Nouveau Paris.

This is not winning the war, it's signing the Republic's death sentence. The best Theisman and Pritchart could do at this point is surrender unconditionally to Honor and disavow Chin's actions.

Secondarily, Tourville isn't Theisman so he can only surrender his own fleet. Ergo, plot wise, 5th Fleet's SD(s) had to mostly be mission killed. About all she could do (and presumably did "off screen" is pop an observinng ship with a quick hyper cycle time back into Manticoran space, get the report that 2nd Fleet has surrendered, then head home to RHN space.

Tourville can't surrender the entire Navy or the Republic, but he can surrender the battle. As the senior admiral (he had the largest of the two forces), his saying binds the rest of the forces during this battle.

Chin violating that surrender puts the half a million spacers from RHN2nd who did survive in jeopardy and all the spacers in future battles where the Alliance might not give any quarter.

--minor snipping--

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:I don't know about that, Honor's pod supply can be roughly calculated... RFC says she fired off half of 8th Fleet's supply in the first salvo, so with a 90% survival rate, while out in hyper and prepping for the return, any admiral worth their salt is going to "calculate the cannonballs", i.e they have mass readings on the RMN SD(P)s so just by replaying their tac-recordings they could figure out what 8th Fleet has left.

He did? Oh, ok. Then I need to revise my estimates down. I had calculated that 8th had about 20000 pods total and Honor fired 7700 at Chin, so she'd still have 60% left. Maybe it's close enough. Still, Chin can calculate that Honor has more than enough to ruin her day and has closer reinforcements.

I was basing my estimate of 7700 on Honor's instructions remaining supply pre-jump to tractor half of her Apollo pods. Before re-reading, I thought she only launched a third also. So we're pretty much in agreement and it's the tactic that matters more than the count. With say 90 SD(p)s remaining, Chin isn't going to EVER come in range. Her goal is now the infrastructure... original story wise, Tourville should have announced that goal immediately, even prior to Home Fleet coming out, by the way. That would have forced a number of guarding ships to get between Vulcan and Sphinx.

ThinksMarkedly wrote: If Chin can take the time to reammunition, so can Honor and Honor has a bigger supply nearby. True, she'd still need to deal with Tourville, but Chin wouldn't know whether Tourville had surrendered or not. Besides, in the time needed to resupply, Eighth Fleet would have moved far into the hyper-limit, preventing an ambush.

Now THERE's a conundrum and interesting tactical question We know that at Zanzibar, Tourville hypered out and back in before the Alliance ships could re-ammunition. Got me to wondering how long it takes a ship to reload because Honor's ships are still WAY outside the hyper limit, and Manticore's ammunition ships are deep within the limit. So it would be a race to see who could do so first.

By the way, I think in any sequence, Honor would have made sure that Tourville issued a "system-wide surrender" that only Theisman could overturn, and have it transmitting continuously on RHN frequencies as long as 8th Fleet is stuck playing home guard.

Anyway, minor nits on battle sequences that never happened. But heck, we're tossing bits of maybe and Hmms, and this there for that, all these years after this fictional battle appeared in print so it's all in fun.

"So if his situation is so desperate," Judson Latrell asked, "why didn't he abandon the rest of his ships with impeller damage and run for it at a higher acceleration rate in the first place?"

"I suppose the answer to that depends at least in part on exactly what their actual objective is," Kuzak said.

This passage is partly responsible for me thinking that Chin might not have pulled a Pavel Young and fled the scene.

Since Kuzak couldn't put together that another shoe was coming, there must have been a possibility of other objectives, like Vulcan, like Weyland. (My timeline clock constantly has to be reset. I think it's made in Taiwan.)

I can't believe there wouldn't have been an order to execute the secondary mission objectives instead of demolishing 8th Fleet, if it became impossible to do. Could Chin have hypered back in beyond 8th's range headed for other prizes, intent to do a fly by if need be, while 8th is preoccupied?

I understand that Theisman wanted 8th Fleet's head, but if he could destroy the Apollo production, that would be a huge win. That was the MA's objective.

Theemile wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:8th fleet dies as thoroughly as Home and 3rd fleets before it, but kicks enough crap out of 5th fleet that (insert even smaller squadron here) is able to see them off. The Lynx or Basilisk pickets are not negligible and so far unaccounted for, but for them to work 5th fleet would have to have enough stuffing kicked out of them for a squadron or two of standard podnaughts to finish them off.

According to David, the only substancial reinforcement was the Lynx force, consisting of 12 Medusas, which was over a hour off the terminus, and arrived shortly after the shooting had ended.

All the other terminus forces were forts and cruiser level mobile forces, unable to substantially assist in the defense of the Home System.

12 Medusas would suffice for that alternate timeline, or authorial fiat could have changed that force level as necessary.

ThinksMarkkedly wrote:He did? Oh, ok. Then I need to revise my estimates down. I had calculated that 8th had about 20000 pods total and Honor fired 7700 at Chin, so she'd still have 60% left. Maybe it's close enough.

Andermani podnaughts carry considerably fewer pods than Invictus ships, possibly fewer than Medusas, and they were the majority of her Apollo-capable ships.

All: One thing we need to keep in mind is that this alternate "Honor dies" scenario could have been entirely reworked from the most basic levels, from force levels on both sides to 8th fleet getting mousetrapped with 3rd, to an entirely different attack concept entirely. Or more likely, the "Honor dies" scenario was roughly worked out first and later reworked into the scenario we know.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Evacuating the stations could probably be done in under an hour. They are huge, but clearly military targets, so the defenders really ought to have their evacuation plans up-to-date. An hour is long enough that you need to basically control the system, but short enough that you don't have to worry about reinforcements from New Berlin, Yeltsin or some nodal force elsewhere.

There are several million people on board. And it was noted that nobody hsd run an actual evac drill, much less a full evac test, in a long time.

Generally is seemed in other cases that many hours to days were needed.

Galactic Sapper wrote:All: One thing we need to keep in mind is that this alternate "Honor dies" scenario could have been entirely reworked from the most basic levels, from force levels on both sides to 8th fleet getting mousetrapped with 3rd, to an entirely different attack concept entirely. Or more likely, the "Honor dies" scenario was roughly worked out first and later reworked into the scenario we know.

IIRC RFC has said that his original “Honor dies” scenario was basically just that Honor and McKeon’s positions were flipped.

So Honor would be the one near the Terminus with a handful of 8th fleet’s SD(P)s monitoring while the rest of 8th was off running an exercise. Basically the rest of the trap at BoM runs the same and 8th still saves the day, but after Honor has died alongside much of 3rd Fleet.

cthia wrote:I can't believe there wouldn't have been an order to execute the secondary mission objectives instead of demolishing 8th Fleet, if it became impossible to do. Could Chin have hypered back in beyond 8th's range headed for other prizes, intent to do a fly by if need be, while 8th is preoccupied?

I understand that Theisman wanted 8th Fleet's head, but if he could destroy the Apollo production, that would be a huge win. That was the MA's objective.

I can't believe there were no system defences anywhere in either component. We didn't see them participate in the fighting, but that could have been because they were being saved to protect the infrastructure. So taking out one of the three space stations wouldn't be practical at long range: RHN would need to rearm and batter them down.

And even if it is possible, taking out the Apollo production but not Eighth Fleet doesn't save Haven or end the war. They had much fewer Apollo missile pods then (July 1921) than when OB happened (Feb 1922), but there must have been sufficient to rearm Eighth. In this emergency, Apollo production could begin at Grayson, New Berlin or even Beowulf. Once the 4-stage MDMs are in place in a couple of months, Eighth Fleet can move and thrash Capital Fleet and take Haven.

I don't think this scenario likely because at this point the conflict with the SLN is heating up and information from captured BCs at New Tuscany won't reach Manticore until Jan 1922. It would more likely have led to treaty negotiations.

But within a decade, Manticore public may want to exact vengeance on Haven, unless the peace treaty was harsh on Haven in the first place. This is why I don't think Chin would have attacked from long range if she couldn't hold the system. The long-term consequences are too dire, even if short-term acceptable.

Missiles are normally stored at major naval bases. Like the main RMN bases in orbit around Sphinx and Manticore....

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote:I really doubt that. If it’s lose the war or blow up people who are being held hostage on a target, i wouldn’t want to be on that platform.

Even at lower stakes that’s what the Peep raid at Basilisk did. Wasn’t sure they could safely hold the orbitals so they gave the platform occupants every second they could to evacuate — but evacuated or not the Peep’s tired before they were carried out of missile range.
And that was viewed by Manticore as a very clean and honorable approach.

Hephaestus would be given as much time to evacuate as 2nd fleet thought they could safely give them. But come the end of that time they’d destroy the platform before losing the chance.

But! The operative word is "much lower stakes." This is for all the marbles. You can't stop just shy of the finish line to help your enemy who has fallen. Nice gesture, but stupid. It would not have been done out of malice, and the Manties would know that. No more than the Peeps could have faulted the Manties in the same predicament. I would not have wanted to be an 8th Fleet who returned home and admitted to a gross error in conscience being responsible for not winning all the marbles. That opens a can of worms way back to Hiroshima.

kzt wrote:Missiles are normally stored at major naval bases. Like the main RMN bases in orbit around Sphinx and Manticore....

True, but Eighth Fleet was stationed at Trevor's Star. It stands to reason that a considerable chunk of the available supply was moved there to support Eighth. I'd stage there at leat two full reloads, if not more. Those forts can protect them pretty well.

Another point is that all those MIA IAN SD(P)s must be getting resupplied somewhere. If they had been coming to Manticore to get the missiles, NavInt would know about them. But NavInt didn't, so it stands to reason they (or at least some of them) were getting their ammo elsewhere. So the same reason as above leads to there being a staging area in some IAN station hidden from Havenite eyes. Even convoys en-route to fully arm the 35 IAN SD(P)s we know were coming online make a huge difference.

We also know that the RMN did have a good supply left after Oyster Bay. True, this is 8 months later, so a lot more had been manufactured and thus would have been distributed, but storage facilities did exist.

And then there's the strategy: the whole gamble was to win the war outright before Apollo could shift the balance of power too steeply. They didn't know how much had been stockpiled so far. Is angering the Alliance even more by killing 4 million more Manticoran citizens after nearly 1 million had died aboard Home and Third Fleets worth it?