Skipping the parts where I think we're in violent agreement, just failing to explain so to each other.
Sigs wrote:I agree with your first paragraph and disagree with the second. If Theisman said that there was a good chance the forces sent to Manticore could extricate themselves, he had very good reason to believe so. He wasn't padding the numbers or trying to tell Pritchart what she wanted to hear. He was being honest. And as I said before: he was right, until Apollo changed everything.
If I gave you a parachute and told you to jump from 10,000 feet with the understanding that there is "a good chance" the parachute will open will you do it?
That's not even remotely comparable. I don't know you and I don't know your qualifications.
Let me change it to more comparable: if my parachute instructor, who has prepared parachutes for me and for others before, tells me that this will open before I hit the ground, I'll trust him.
Theisman is not an unknown person to Prichart and he's not reckless.
Attacking Trevor's Star and crushing 3rd Fleet and 8th Fleet when they are outnumbered by the RHN 4.2 to 1 and even with their tech advantage it is 3.2 to 1. The RHN gets to crush 20% of the Alliance capital ships and suffer significantly less casualties, they remove the forward operations base from the middle of their territory and then can launch against Manticore with a newly reinforced fleet of 330 SD(P)'s. At that point Manticore might be warned ahead of time but what exactly are they going to do? They can strip all their wallers from Alizon and Zanzibar, they can beg Grayson for some wallers and they can speed up refits and half-ass it but can they really form a fleet of 100 SD(P)'s or more in a month or two after Trevor's Star? Probably not, so the RHN goes into Manticore with overwhelming firepower and crushes Home Fleet without worrying about Trevor's Star. But at that point of cancelation of the summit the RHN crushing the defences of Trevor's Star and then asking for another summit might accomplish more than going to Manticore, trashing their industry to prove that you are the good guy and are being manipulated.
How do you know those weren't Operation Aurelie or Operation Danielle? Theisman said there were multiple operations possible and he gave Pritchart all of them in detail, he only chose to brief her directly on Beatrice and Camille. I suppose because Camille was the most likely and Beatrice because he really needed to explain himself.
At All costs Ch.7
"So," Caparelli said, "looking at every pod-laying waller we can scrape up between us, Grayson, and the Andies, and including all of the Any current SD(P)'s currently in commission as fully effective units, we have a total of two hundred thirty-two. Assuming out construction times hold up, and allowing for working up time, we can have a total of 400 within the next 11 to 18 months."....
Also in the same chapter they discuss how there could be 400-450 SD(P)'s under construction in Bolthole alone that started aafter the announcement by the Republic about having SD(P)'s. Then there were an estimated 400 SD(P)'s under construction in Haven and 2-3 other central systems. According to the book the construction of those SD(P)'s started in late 1919 6-8 months after the RoH announced possession of SD(P)'s.
Any SD(P) started after the announcement wouldn't be ready by May 1921. There's just not enough time. The shipyards besides Bolthole may have finished a few SD(P)s that had been started before the announcement but hadn't yet differentiated into pod-layers. Not more than 50, I'd say.
If Bolthole's capacity is 400 now and they had finished 315 before Thunderbolt, then let's strike the middle and say 357 were produced in the second wave. That's at most 315 + 357 + 50 = 722 SD(P)s total ever built. From that, you have to remove those lost before May 1921.
That number is closer to 620 than to 956.
Where exactly did he say he counted them in the total? He said they have a good chance to retreat if the enemy is stronger than estimated, where did he say that half or a third of the forces are counted in those 620 SD(P)'s used for defence of the republic? And how exactly does that work? I have 620 SD(P)'s for defence of the nation, but I have 335 of them in offensive operations against the heaviest defended system in history but since they have a good chance of extracting themselves from anything I will use them in my defensive deployments because I just know they will come back.
Basically, yes. He clearly said that he believed the forces he sent to Manticore could extricate themselves. There is no discussion about this point.
We can only discuss whether whatever was left was a decent defence of his nation or whether that was reckless.
And if things didn't go as planned they would be in a significantly worse position than the Alliance. They are gambling, if things go well they win the war, if things go bad they end up facing the 250-290 SD(P)'s of the MA with ~180 fully Operational SD(P)'s and 100 working up SD(P)'s. And they are gambling even worse if they only have 80 SD(P)'s left over after Beatrice.
You're painting an impossible scenario: 336 ships drive into a black hole and don't damage almost any enemy ship. Was he sending those ships full of Stormtroopers?
If there was a reasonable chance of that happening, I would agree it was reckless. But I don't think that chance was reasonable. Non-zero, yes; but not high enough to warrant holding back.
And once again: this was the planning stage before Lovat happened. The Operation wasn't authorised yet. And as posted above, RFC said that neither Theisman nor Pritchart
wanted to launch it. It was a contingency. So we can transfer the question of whether it was reckless to launch it to whether it was reckless to pre-deploy a portion of the ships.
When you are planning something like this, don't look at what happens if everything goes right, look at what happens if everything goes wrong.
Agreed, but at the same time you don't plan for the unreasonable. You don't plan for "all of our ships suffer engineering causalties at low speed soon after crossing the hyper limit." You don't plan for "Manticore has superweapon that can crush everything". Also because if they do, then it doesn't matter how many ships you hold back anyway.
Those things can happen, but if you let the absolute worst dictate your actions, you'll be paralysed and won't win.
How is it too small a chance? Does Theisman know every variable involved in the defence? Does Tourville know everything he is facing? Giscard? Do the two sides get together once a month to compare notes and keep each other appraised of what the other is doing? What if they run into the MA's version of Moriarty? Get inside the hyper limit and find out that there is a hell of a lot more firepower thanks to that platform for them to handle.
If there's anything that can seriously damage Second Fleet without trashing Home Fleet in the process, Chin never translates to n-space. She takes her 96 SD(P)s and 30 CLACs back home without firing a single shot.
Chin only engages the MA forces after Second Fleet has engaged and crippled Home Fleet, and ascertained that the Python Lump is still in the yards. In fact, sending RDs to see if the yards are full of SD(P)s nearing completion is one of the first things the Second Fleet CO would do. If he finds them empty, he'd operate differently, possibly by going to the hyper limit and going home.
All of this would be worked out in advance. All of those contingencies in case of the unexpected and worst-case scenarios.
And there is ALWAYS the chance that something goes wrong, so leaving yourself no fallback is criminal.
I disagree that 184 effective SD(P)s and 100 working up ones, plus CLACs, are "no fallback" and "criminal."
Wasn't it you who argued that the RHN had only 80 SD(P)'s remaining after committing Beatrice? I'd say the MA would have a hell of a lot more left over than the RHN.
I did and I was wrong. Textev clearly shows at least 620 SD(P)s total.
If the MA had "a hell of a lot more" after Beatrice, that means they had "a bigger hell of a lot more" before Beatrice or they can suddenly deploy the ships they couldn't before. That's balance-shifting and all the more reason to attack than not to.
Even if they have 160SD(P)'s left for defence with another 100 SD(P)'s working up the MA can strip all the SD(P)'s from the Andermani Home system, Zanzibar, Alizon, Basilisk half of the Grayson Home Fleet and all of Third Fleet to attack the Republic BEFORE they find out what happened with 2nd and 5th Fleet. And they can be back before the RHN can react. Yeah its a gamble but very quickly you can gather 145 SD(P)'s into one force, hit 2 or 3 of the RHN's most important systems and be back in Trevor's Star before the RHN hears about the BoM. In the process the MA crushes another 50-60 RHN SD(P)'s along with 20% of their SD(P) construction, they will be back defending Grayson, Trevor's Star and Manticore before an attack could be mounted on any of those systems, by the time they are back the RMN Python Lump should be ready for deployment. RoH moral is fully in the crapper because they lost 60-90% of their fleet in 20% of their shipyards.
And that isn't reckless? You're the one arguing against reckless operations; stripping all of your critical systems of their defenders on the chance that there isn't another RHN force doing reckless stuff is even more reckless.
Let me repeat that either Home Fleet is destroyed or Chin never shows up. They are mutually-exclusive options. So if Home Fleet remains, no one in the MA knows that there are another 96 SD(P)s and 30 CLACs out of defensive positions.
Conversely, if Chin made an appearance, then Home Fleet was decimated and Eighth Fleet is redeployed. The Python Lump can't be combat effective for another few months (they were working up when Oyster Bay hit), so they wouldn't be left as the only defence of the critical systems. And there's only one system they could reach in time to take up defence: the Manticore Binary System.
Only if the RHN wall of Battle was 920 SD(P)'s. If it's 620 SD(P)'s you run the potential to lose either 54% of your modern wall or 80% of your modern wall...both of which are well north of 1/3.
Only if you lose all of them. My calculation was that they lost two thirds of Beatrice, so one third comes back, in exchange for destroying Home Fleet and half of Third Fleet. By the time they do come back, the 100 SD(P)s working up are near done, so that's 284 + 112 = 396 ships left. That's 63% of the original 620.
When the stakes are the future of your entire nation and people, risky plans should be avoided unless no other choice is given.
I agree. And there was no other choice
when they launched Beatrice.
We're not arguing that. We're arguing whether a) preparing for Beatrice was reasonable and b) if Beatrice had a good chance of success after whatever prompted its launch revealed itself.
Home Fleet and 8th Fleet are in Manticore as are the missing IAN SD(P)’s. The Python Lump was pushed through so now there are 100 SD(P)’s at the junction coming through for a planned offensive against all the systems Haven captured during Thunderbolt…
First, if the Python Lump is out, then the operation is different or scrubbed. Everyone in the Manticore System can tell when dozens of SD(P)s start leaving Hephaestus, so the Havenite spies would advise the Second Fleet CO when it emerges.
Second, Eighth Fleet would not come into the Manticore-A hyperlimit. Why would they be 38 hours out of position? And reveal their strength to the spies in the Junction, which they would have to pass through? Similarly as above, the Second Fleet CO would know that Eighth Fleet had transited into the MBS before he crossed the hyper-limit.
Third, any offensive against the RoH would be launched from Trevor's Star, so those 100 SD(P)s are not coming into Manticore, but out of it. Even if that's what you meant, there's no reason for those SD(P)s to be parked at the Junction. They'd be transiting as quickly as they arrived. And where did these 100 SD(P)s that are not the Python Lump come from? The Andermani? If it's the Andermani, they're coming from the Gregor terminus and are therefore not sticking around the Junction. For there to be 100 SD(P)s at the Junction, they can't be Andermani or Grayson because they need to come via hyperspace. And Beatrice would have to be incredibly unlucky to commence in the half hour between their arrival and their transit.
And again like above, but this time with textev to prove it, the attack scouted the Junction, so they'd see those 100 SD(P)s and immediately fly to Manticore to advise Second Fleet that there's a force that is at least as big as Third and Eighth Fleets combined coming their way.
Finally, that also means that Eighth Fleet is suddenly 3x bigger than before. All the more reason to end the war now by crippling the Manticoran infrastructure.
The only scenario that changes the situation so dramatically that a hail mary is a good option is Apollo, anything else the RHN will be able to catch up shortly. Afterall the MA knows that by end of 1921 the RHN would have 1,200 SD(P)’s with more under construction, even with the python lump we are talking about 600-700 SD(P)’s in the Alliance fleet and that is a maybe, against 1,200 SD(P)’s in the RHN. The RHN still maintains its advantage.
I can even agree with you and that doesn't change the facts because Operation Beatrice wasn't actually launched until after Apollo was revealed. Without Apollo, Pritchart might have chosen Operation Aurelie, Camille, Danielle, Emilie, or Francine. Some of which could have used the pre-deployed forces that Beatrice called for.
Most of the ships had to be deployed ahead of time, otherwise the BoM wouldn’t have happened two months after Lovat.
200 out of 336 is "most" (nearly 60%).
I mean you have to get news of what happened in Lovat, take some time to figure out what really happened, make a decision, send orders for the ships in various locations to gather, concentrate that fleet in one location and drill them etc. They had most of the pieces in play except for the last of the fleet, send out the orders and wait. Just getting orders from Haven to the various bases would eat up most of the time, then those ships have to make their way to the rally point.
The ships that would be the ones to travel the furthest are the ones that would have left before Lovat. Those that were near Haven and could be reached and ordered quickly didn't need to leave just yet. Incidentally, the most important systems to Haven are those closest to it, like Jouett.
Trevor’s Star is in the heart of the republic, he is basically fighting a two front war, one is in the center of the republic against Trevor’s Star and one is on the western front against Manticore. Haven has at least half a dozen other industrially or economically important systems, or systems with enough pull in congress to warrant SD(P)’s. Do you think that the RoH as a democracy can tell its important member systems to f**k off when they demand protection?
Yes, though not in those words. Congress doesn't dictate military tactics, Theisman and the Octagon do. If they say that those systems are adequately protected, they are, whatever their definition of that is. Unlike a sovereign ally, there's little those systems can do. They can secede and declare themselves neutral, which removes the need to protect them in the first place. They can try to impeach Pritchart, but there's no guarantee they'll succeed.
Your 270 SD(P)’s are now further reduced because he has to maintain forces around Trevor’s Star, and the front where they would have forward bases, and at least half a dozen if not a dozen important systems within the republic each requiring between 8 and 30 SD(P)’s.
No, he doesn't. If there's one thing Cutworm had already proven at this point is that distance doesn't matter. There's no reason for the MA to attack unimportant systems and there's no reason for him to deploy significant forces there.
WhichFire off a couple of Ghost Rider platforms, come back a few days later take their intel and fire off a couple of more, come back in a few days later, fire off a couple of more platforms and pick up the original two. Constant intel flow, the RHN can keep their ships in stealth for a day or two or even a month but not forever.
A star system is a big place outside the hyperlimit. The RHN can keep fleets hidden indefinitely, especially if they are on the move. If the MA is lucky, they'll pick up a resupply and know that fleet is right there, right now. They can't know one day later if that fleet hasn't gone to another system, so the information isn't useful when it gets to the planners. And that's if the resupply happens in-system, not in hyperspace or in deep space, outside of Ghost Rider range. Add a couple of empty fleet trains doing round-trips to confuse the scouts and you really can't tell where those fleets are.
And none of this tells you what the strengths of those fleets is.
The ship deploying the Ghost Rider is also a dead giveaway that someone inserted into the system. Ghost Riders have finite endurance, finite acceleration, finite sensing range, and can't translate to hyperspace.
