?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
So the question stands: unless you preposition the fort somewhere where it'll be of some good before the enemy arrives, it's going to be out of action until either your side has driven off the attackers or has surrendered. So where do you put it so it is of use?

David once explained that the concept behind fortresses by the RMN was that you use them to protect absolutely critical sites that you never want to uncover because the good idea fairy visited the Admiral one night. OK, maybe not exactly like that, but you get the idea.


Oh, and if there fortresses around Manticore we've solved the questions as to whether the RMN can detect a spider torpedo at close range. No, they can't.

kzt wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
So the question stands: unless you preposition the fort somewhere where it'll be of some good before the enemy arrives, it's going to be out of action until either your side has driven off the attackers or has surrendered. So where do you put it so it is of use?

David once explained that the concept behind fortresses by the RMN was that you use them to protect absolutely critical sites that you never want to uncover because the good idea fairy visited the Admiral one night. OK, maybe not exactly like that, but you get the idea.


Oh, and if there fortresses around Manticore we've solved the questions as to whether the RMN can detect a spider torpedo at close range. No, they can't.

Absolutely. You wouldn't to uncover the junction. But the fortresses are designed to deal with any threat coming thru the junction, and also any attack thru hyper.

If there is a planetary fort, it should have double duty. However, there just might be one reason to deploy forts in orbit. If they are in orbit, they are always firing on targets AWAY from the planet.


I think the spider drive is a lot stealthier than given credit for. One reason is I remember a conversation in the Inner Onion that even they can't track a spider drive. And it is their own tech, so they should be better positioned to know its limitations, weaknesses and ways to detect it.

It reminds me of Kirk stealing the Romulan cloaking device and Scotty getting it installed aboard the Enterprise just in time. The persuing Romulan vessel couldn't locate her. The female Romulan commander who was duped by Spock stated "It's just a matter of time before we can detect a cloaked ship."

Meaning, it's their tech. They did the research and have the manuals.

Can the RMN detect it's own GR drones?

cthia wrote:

kzt wrote:Oh, and if there fortresses around Manticore we've solved the questions as to whether the RMN can detect a spider torpedo at close range. No, they can't.

Those GTs were coming in at 0.8c and fired for 3 seconds. That means they covered 2.4 light-seconds (720,000 km) while firing. They were also firing at a large target on a fixed, well-known orbit so correcting for evasion wasn't necessary. They have probably begun firing from extreme range, between 750k and 1 million km.

And, of course, at the time no one was looking for them.

I think the spider drive is a lot stealthier than given credit for. One reason is I remember a conversation in the Inner Onion that even they can't track a spider drive. And it is their own tech, so they should be better positioned to know its limitations, weaknesses and ways to detect it.

Indeed, we have textev saying the MAlign couldn't detect their Sharks at a light-second away, even knowing that it was there.

There are two operating facts there: a) MAlign scanning tech and b) range. This is why I've said above that the chance of detection below 1 light-second increases exponentially, so the risk is too high to sneak an LD too close to orbit. There are better tactics.

It reminds me of Kirk stealing the Romulan cloaking device and Scotty getting it installed aboard the Enterprise just in time. The persuing Romulan vessel couldn't locate her. The female Romulan commander who was duped by Spock stated "It's just a matter of time before we can detect a cloaked ship."

Cloaking devices that are a single piece of tech (that looks like the Nomad probe) and that, once installed, cloak the entire ship is... far-fetched, even for Star Trek. And they've done this twice (see "The Pegasus", TNG 7th season).

Meaning, it's their tech. They did the research and have the manuals.

Can the RMN detect it's own GR drones?

It's possible, if the range is short enough. I don't think you can really hide from active sensors at 30,000 km. And if you can't tell where the Ghost Rider drone is, you also don't know if you've been detected. The LD could be running a high risk it's being tracked at FTL speeds and there's a nice brace of missiles coming in ballistically, ready to light up their impellers.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Those GTs were coming in at 0.8c and fired for 3 seconds. That means they covered 2.4 light-seconds (720,000 km) while firing. They were also firing at a large target on a fixed, well-known orbit so correcting for evasion wasn't necessary. They have probably begun firing from extreme range, between 750k and 1 million km.

Noooo
"The Mike Attack torpedoes reached the proper point in space. They aligned themselves with finicky precision, doublechecked and triple-checked their targeting, then fired.
"Every one of them activated in the space of a single second, and three seconds later, not one of them still existed. But their closing speed on their target well over seventy thousand kilometers per second; the target in question was completely unprotected by impeller wedge or side wall, which increased their standoff range to the next best thing to a half-million kilometers; and their approach vectors had been carefully calculated."

Note that he doesn't say the actual range, it probably wasn't the full half-million KM.

And, of course, at the time no one was looking for them.

Doesn't matter. The area surveillance and point defense tracking would be live. They might not have a chance to do much (as they would almost certainly be in a weapons hold status under automated control) but they sure as hell should notice the MISSILES! Which nobody reacted to. Even an automated system can be trusted to tell the difference between a shuttle and a missile. And RMN CMs have a very long range.

cthia wrote:I truly cannot see pods in orbit. System defense pods are rarely fired because "We don't want to give the enemy a reason to engage them for fear of civilian deaths." With that kind of anxiety, why emplace something around a planet that beckons return fire?

In UH, textev describes forts as deep-space objects.

Thinks markedly wrote:Which basically leaves the mobile forces as the single greatest defence a planet has. It appears to be how RFC has envisioned it and he'd probably make the RMN argue that the expense in constructing, manning and running ships pays off better than forts. Until the MAlign, there was no possible way an enemy could close with a planet before crossing paths with the fleet. And worse comes to worst, you can just park that fleet in orbit.

But if the Junction is important enough to have a fort defence, why not a planet? What makes it so much different? Is it that its hyperlimit is so much shallower that even pre-MAlign enemies could close with the asset within a couple of minutes, instead of the hours of the planetary system?

Theemile wrote:A wiff of Grapeshot has 2 Forts in Haven orbit

AAC has the Gryphon forts getting the Apollo upgrade first. then the other planets.

All the Manticore planets have forts, they just havn't been seen yet - David has confirmed this in forum. They are the control center for the pods, and part of any planet's defense. Their size and # is unknown. Most likely they were brand new - High Ridge poured all the money earmarked for completing the Grendlesbane fleet and the 35 Invictuses at Manticore into infrastructure projects in Basilisk and Manticore, including replacement of the pre-war forts (WoH) as works projects.

They didn't engage, because any return fire would send missiles towards Sphinx (as mentioned), but any fleet further attacking the system would have to deal with them, and their pods (which never seems to have reached the RHN calculations).

Interesting. Pods certainly existed then, albeit I can't remember how capable Haven's missiles were. Regardless, they were always good enough to remain in shouting distance of the RMN until some Manty archaeologist discovered the diary of Apollo. My point is that I can imagine missile performance would greatly affect the placement of forts. Was that the case here?

Also, was the fact that there was so much internal strife on Haven part of the reason there were forts in orbit? Which makes one wonder why Saint-Just didn't use them against the navy.

Apollo armed forts could probably be strategically placed anywhere.

cthia wrote:Also, was the fact that there was so much internal strife on Haven part of the reason there were forts in orbit? Which makes one wonder why Saint-Just didn't use them against the navy.

In Nightfall the air defense net gave them the choice of destroying the entire city with a massive saturation strike or not accomplishing anything. And St Just's real problem was the squad in battle armor in his building.

cthia wrote:Apollo armed forts could probably be strategically placed anywhere.

A fort is best placed close to the target it defends, so any attacker MUST go through it, with its bubblewall defences, massive graser batteries and huge stockpiles of missiles.

Something that is not placed close to the defended target does not need to be a fort. I can be a stealthed backup C&C station, if it's in the middle of nowhere.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Something that is not placed close to the defended target does not need to be a fort. I can be a stealthed backup C&C station, if it's in the middle of nowhere.

Someone tried that once. They got a nice present of mistletoe.

Theemile wrote:All the Manticore planets have forts, they just havn't been seen yet - David has confirmed this in forum. They are the control center for the pods, and part of any planet's defense. Their size and # is unknown. Most likely they were brand new - High Ridge poured all the money earmarked for completing the Grendlesbane fleet and the 35 Invictuses at Manticore into infrastructure projects in Basilisk and Manticore, including replacement of the pre-war forts (WoH) as works projects.

But where are they placed? And why in orbit? Considering orbital mechanics, we know why orbits are used. Earth's gravity turns the satellite into a hybrid engine system. It saves on "gas." Energy isn't a problem for something that has a wedge like the forts, and I can't imagine a fort in geostationary orbit simply to protect Mount Royal and the Queen. So where in orbit would they be placed, low, medium, high? Why would an orbit even matter for a fort, which has a wedge?

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:All the Manticore planets have forts, they just havn't been seen yet - David has confirmed this in forum. They are the control center for the pods, and part of any planet's defense. Their size and # is unknown. Most likely they were brand new - High Ridge poured all the money earmarked for completing the Grendlesbane fleet and the 35 Invictuses at Manticore into infrastructure projects in Basilisk and Manticore, including replacement of the pre-war forts (WoH) as works projects.

But where are they placed? And why in orbit? Considering orbital mechanics, we know why orbits are used. Earth's gravity turns the satellite into a hybrid engine system. It saves on "gas." Energy isn't a problem for something that has a wedge like the forts, and I can't imagine a fort in geostationary orbit simply to protect Mount Royal and the Queen. So where in orbit would they be placed, low, medium, high? Why would an orbit even matter for a fort, which has a wedge?

You put things that don't need orbits into orbits so you can let them turn off their drives every once in awhile... and so that things in orbits that need orbits don't slam into them.

Besides Geosync orbit is still considered "knife fighting in a Recreational Vehicle's Coat Closet" range in the Honorverse. It's 1/3rd the range of the PDLCs!

so high orbit - very high....