Third Fleet and Apollo ships in the Battle of Manticore

I keep bringing this up in threads, the Ramblings and Musings thread being the most significant, of man's inability to nail the proper accepted amount of collateral damage. A reality that seems a given for any military.

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

Especially that early in the deployment phase of Apollo, the missiles (in convenient pod format) were probably being loaded directly onto the ammunition ships which would be used to deliver said missiles to the end users.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

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.

I agree that much of the Apollo pod production would logically be stockpiled at the naval base supporting the only mobile force RMN force currently equipped with that ammunition (8th Fleet out of Trevor's Star).

But I thought that the 'missing' IAN SD(P)s were all stuck in refit slips at Manticore undergoing their conversion to support Keyhole (II). So from Theisman's point of view they were missing; but only because he didn't realize the level of refit they needed before being sent into action.
So I don't think they were at any forward hidden IAN staging area, and since they were AFAIK sitting in refit slips they wouldn't need missile resupply (though Apollo pods may already have been set aside for their initial ammo load when they came out of the yards). So I don't think we can look to the IAN SD(P)s as any sort of evidence there was Apollo production lines already set up outside of the Manticoran binary system.

Jonathan_S wrote: So I don't think we can look to the IAN SD(P)s as any sort of evidence there was Apollo production lines already set up outside of the Manticoran binary system.

You could take Davids answer at Honorcon in the Andi session to my question (in context of the post OB situation) "Does the ANI have the ability to manufacture Apollo?" as a clue.

That answer was "No, but they have since provided with the full plans and documentation and a RMN contact team has been sent to help them set up manufacturing."

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote: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.

I agree that much of the Apollo pod production would logically be stockpiled at the naval base supporting the only mobile force RMN force currently equipped with that ammunition (8th Fleet out of Trevor's Star).

But I thought that the 'missing' IAN SD(P)s were all stuck in refit slips at Manticore undergoing their conversion to support Keyhole (II). So from Theisman's point of view they were missing; but only because he didn't realize the level of refit they needed before being sent into action.
So I don't think they were at any forward hidden IAN staging area, and since they were AFAIK sitting in refit slips they wouldn't need missile resupply (though Apollo pods may already have been set aside for their initial ammo load when they came out of the yards). So I don't think we can look to the IAN SD(P)s as any sort of evidence there was Apollo production lines already set up outside of the Manticoran binary system.

Andy SD(p)s with KH II were new builds, constructed with the capability in Andy yards. However, I believe, ( but have no evidence) that the KH Modules themselves were constructed in Manty yards then shipped to the Andies.

The early conversions of completed Adler's was to allow old Manty capacitor MDM pods to work in the Adler podbays instead of the Andy DDM pods.

David confirmed that the 3rd Apollo missile production line was packed in freighters and shipped to New Berlin shortly after BOMA. At the time of BOMA, only Manticore had a (2) working Apollo production line. Presumedly, line #4 went to Grayson soon thereafter.

Jonathan_S wrote:[But I thought that the 'missing' IAN SD(P)s were all stuck in refit slips at Manticore undergoing their conversion to support Keyhole (II). So from Theisman's point of view they were missing; but only because he didn't realize the level of refit they needed before being sent into action.
So I don't think they were at any forward hidden IAN staging area, and since they were AFAIK sitting in refit slips they wouldn't need missile resupply (though Apollo pods may already have been set aside for their initial ammo load when they came out of the yards). So I don't think we can look to the IAN SD(P)s as any sort of evidence there was Apollo production lines already set up outside of the Manticoran binary system.

My interpretation of AAC Ch. 54, when Theisman briefs Pritchart on Beatrice and CAmille, is that RHN NavInt simply didn't know where those SD(P)s were. To me, that means they were in some hidden IAN yard undergoing refits to handle KH2 or in some hidden base working up the new installations.

But now that I wrote this, I realise it's far-fetched. That would imply that the IAN had had this hidden yard for years, unseen from StateSec and NavInt eyes. It couldn't have been built since the war started.

Still, the fact that these SD(P)s were not readily visible in Manticore or New Berlin, where I imagine NavInt had at least some level of surveillance, implies they were getting their ammo elsewhere. Even a freighterful of pods shipped from Gryphon to New Berlin or Gregor and thence to the IAN staging station would make a difference in further defending Manticore after BoMa.

cthia wrote:I'm not disagreeing. I'm saying that a lesser mortal, may. Honor needed to nail Chin so she wouldn't have to lose sleep over somebody's crazy thinking. Besides, again, 8th Fleet is pinned at home and Shannon has some breathing room to counter Apollo. Honor certainly didn't know how many ships will be available from Bolthole or any other innovations from Shannon.

Whether I'm right or wrong, it is amusing that it all reminds me of the last battle where Honor and Theisman met where Honor's death ride had Theisman running for the hyper limit, only to reverse course when he had a chance to reassess the tactical situation.

"They're reversing course Milady." Honor bluffed.

Honor needed to get Chin, to dispell any Peep hope of an ultimate win.

I think it was more to improve the chance of her bluff succeeding. She couldn't actually save Manticore but by blowing up Chin she demonstrated her missiles work beyond MDM range and the few she fired inward demonstrate they were being properly controlled at that extreme range. The implication is that she could fire off another mega volley and it would be as deadly, hence the surrender. In reality, however, she couldn't--she could have pecked away but not stopped the fleet before it reached Manticore.

SharkHunter wrote: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.

And bring the Sollies in on Manticore's side when a missile slams into an inhabited planet as would most likely happen with this scenario. There's a reason you don't c-frac from beyond the hyper limit!!

Loren Pechtel wrote:

SharkHunter wrote: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.

And bring the Sollies in on Manticore's side when a missile slams into an inhabited planet as would most likely happen with this scenario. There's a reason you don't c-frac from beyond the hyper limit!!

I would assume if Chin could pull it off, (which really isn't the case), she'd come in on a tangent and within the hyper limit to make sure that there are no c-fractional strikes. Sphinx and Gryphon were already exposed by astral positioning, so only Hephaestus would have been the question mark.

SharkHunter wrote:I would assume if Chin could pull it off, (which really isn't the case), she'd come in on a tangent and within the hyper limit to make sure that there are no c-fractional strikes. Sphinx and Gryphon were already exposed by astral positioning, so only Hephaestus would have been the question mark.

Though trying to bombard Gryphon from beyond the hyper limit might go quite badly, since Gryphon's forts had been upgraded to Apollo already.

Even if the Mycroft relays aren't in place they could still launch of ACMs in autonomous mode; and they should have a lot of them.

The question is how long does it take an SD to recharge its hyper generator. We know from RFC's post on them that it takes an SD 4 minutes from pressing the button on a fully charged hyper generator to actually hyper out. And that from a cold start it takes that same SD 32 minutes. What we don't know is how much, if any, less time it takes to rebuild from transitioning in until you can transition back out.
Because Gryphon is 9.7 light minutes inside the hyperlimit and it'd take a normal 3 stage MDM about 20-21 minutes to engage a target at that range. (the 4 stage system-defense version, if they have those, should be able to shave 4 minutes off that time even if it stays to the 0.9c apparent speed limit for missiles)

So if Chin can't hyper back out in 15-19 minutes, depending, from emergence (before even observing the results of her strike) her fleet is going get a very painful lesson.