How was Haven supposed to fight the SL (Detweiler Plan)?

tlb wrote:There is no indication in At All Costs that they ever began Operation Camille. Perhaps some of the deployed ships would have been used in Camille? If you want to criticize the forward deployment, go ahead and if you want to quibble with the number of ships that is fine too; but don't tell me the reasons for Operation Beatrice are wrong, because the author has been very consistent about them. Here it is again at the end of chapter 58 (which basically gives the book its name):

"Maybe it was. But the way we got here doesn't change where we are, or the options we've got. So, if we can't negotiate, and we can't surrender, what can we do except launch Beatrice? It's an 'all-costs' situation, Eloise, and thanks to your preliminary authorization and the forward redeployments we've already carried out, we can launch it far sooner than the Manties probably expect any response to this. And Beatrice Bravo was specifically designed to take out Eighth Fleet, as well. If we manage that, we knock out the only force we know is equipped with the new missiles, but even that's pretty much beside the point if the main op succeeds. That's really what it comes down to, now. If we wait, we lose; if we attack and I'm wrong about their deployment status, we lose; but if we attack and I'm right, we'll almost certainly win. It's that simple."

The entire point of Camille was to execute it after they defeat an Alliance offensive and then quickly follow it up with a blow of their own. They needed one before the other.

kzt wrote:Haven was GOING TO LOSE if they failed to defeat Manticore in the next few months.

Unless they were psychic they did not know that at the time they planned Beatrice.

They were out of time for half-measures and demonstrations. If thos failed they were doomed. If it wasn’t launched they were doomed. The RMN was going to be able to crush them like a bug in a few months.

Before Lovat they were winning, AFTER Lovat they had 2 options, go for surrender or a winner take all operation. I would have gone for winner take all and send Capital Fleet along with 2nd and 5th, hell pick up every SD(P) and CLAC on the way to the rendezvous, even if it adds a couple of more weeks they can end up with an extra 100-150 SD(P)'s which might have made the difference.


They planned and forward deployed their forces BEFORE Lovat. Before Lovat the Operation was highly risky and could have lost them the war, After Lovat they knew they were losing the war anyway so they threw a Hail Mary.

Relax wrote:Turbocharged is superior at all altitudes, as it collects waste heat, quite superior at HIGH altitude in theory, but requires a large volume to do right(why P47 looks how it looks and why B17/B24/B29/B25 etc all look as they do with their large engine nacelles compared to Brit Bombers.

The 2nd stage turbo is part of it. Of course many of British bombers also had much narrower nacelles because the most well known types like the Avro Lancaster, Handley Page Halifax, and de Havilland Mosquito used the V-12 Merlin engine; which has a much smaller frontal area than a big radial engine. (though the Short Sterling and Vickers Wellington did use radial engines)

In contrast all the listed US bombers used large radial engines (as did the P-47) and those are pretty bulky all on their own before you bolt on any kind of forced induction.

Relax wrote:Why they are called TurboSUPERchargers. The Turbo charger is in addition to the supercharger.

Can you point to a source confirming that "TurboSUPERchargers" was used specifically to means a turbo charger in addition to asupercharger?

As pointed out GE called their turbocharger a turbo-supercharger; and appear to have done so as far back as their 1918 tests with a Liberty engine (where they had only a single stage of forced induction, the turbo-supercharger). And it seems to have also been used in what may be the first patent on the concept, issued by Imperial Germany to Alfred Buchi in 1910.

I don't disagree that in WWII, as far as I'm aware, the US only fitted turbos as second stages; assisting the first stage mechanically driven supercharger. My point was that the term turbo-supercharger wasn't invented to describe that multi-stage compression. It predates it and was used differentiate exhaust turbine driven superchargers from the existing mechanically driven ones. (Quite similar to how generators powered by some form of turbine were contemporaneously called turbo-generators; in contrast to "normal" generators)

But if you can point to documentation to the contrary I'd be glad to learn from it.

tlb wrote:There is no indication in At All Costs that they ever began Operation Camille. Perhaps some of the deployed ships would have been used in Camille? If you want to criticize the forward deployment, go ahead and if you want to quibble with the number of ships that is fine too; but don't tell me the reasons for Operation Beatrice are wrong, because the author has been very consistent about them. Here it is again at the end of chapter 58 (which basically gives the book its name):

"Maybe it was. But the way we got here doesn't change where we are, or the options we've got. So, if we can't negotiate, and we can't surrender, what can we do except launch Beatrice? It's an 'all-costs' situation, Eloise, and thanks to your preliminary authorization and the forward redeployments we've already carried out, we can launch it far sooner than the Manties probably expect any response to this. And Beatrice Bravo was specifically designed to take out Eighth Fleet, as well. If we manage that, we knock out the only force we know is equipped with the new missiles, but even that's pretty much beside the point if the main op succeeds. That's really what it comes down to, now. If we wait, we lose; if we attack and I'm wrong about their deployment status, we lose; but if we attack and I'm right, we'll almost certainly win. It's that simple."

Sigs wrote:The entire point of Camille was to execute it after they defeat an Alliance offensive and then quickly follow it up with a blow of their own. They needed one before the other.

Sigs wrote:They planned and forward deployed their forces BEFORE Lovat. Before Lovat the Operation was highly risky and could have lost them the war, After Lovat they knew they were losing the war anyway so they threw a Hail Mary.

We agree on all of this, so why are you repeating it? What point are you trying to make? Are you arguing that the forward deployment meant the conditions for Camille were less likely to occur?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
No, it wasn't. Their plan was to wait for Eighth Fleet's next attack and then decide which of the operations to launch. There was never a requirement that they be done in sequence and that one operation depended on the previous one's result.

Sure it was, they needed 8th Fleet beaten back in an offensive and then they were to execute Camille. If Camille didn't get their point across they would have gone for the bigger stick(Beatrice). After Lovat, Candice was not an option, so they went with Beatrice.

Partially correct. Given that the only real mobile forces the MA had were Eighth Fleet and that fleet was actually launching Sanskrit, it wouldn't be obvious that 50% of your ships had departed. As I conjectured above, you only need to move the ships that would have taken the longest once the order was given and that's probably those that were furthest from the front and not in Sanskrit's scoutings.

They were actively scouting dozens of systems, and more then that they were likely scouting or keeping tabs on systems at both the main front and Trevor's Star. During the first war ONI knew when SD's DN's and BB's were being concentrated what makes you think that no one would notice? What's more they needed to concentrate both 2nd Fleet and 5th Fleet, just not necessarily at the same location.

The RHN was planning an attack on a system that Theisman assessed as "We'll be hitting very hard, well prepared defences--probably the toughest in the explored galaxy, at the moment--manned by highly motivated people, and they'll have the technological advantage, even though we've narrowed it." So if they are sending a force against such a system they need to be drilled to have a chance of survival. You don't just grab a bunch of ships, slap them together in task forces and a fleet and send them on their way into the teeth of the "toughest defences of the explored galaxy" against potentially multiple fleets that have been together for years at that point. Unless it was out of desperation, then gather as many as you can and screw prep time.

Moreover, concentrating the forces near Haven allows them to be QRFs to an attack by Eighth Fleet as well as reducing the control loop to launch them. And as I said before, I don't think you need "at least 240" pre-deployed. 200 might be sufficient, if they are complemented by ships coming from close to Haven.

Uhm, 2nd Fleet was 240 SD(P)'s, I would prefer that my people have as much training as possible as a formed body before they hit the toughest defences in the galaxy. You are talking about launching an offensive with two of the largest fleets ever send into one battle against well prepared defences, they were most definitely forward deployed to train as a formed unit, at least 2nd fleet would have been.

Finally, they don't need to be pre-deployed close to the front. They can be pre-deployed close to Haven, because the order is going to come from Haven anyway.

Does it really matter where they are? Weather they are near Haven or Near Manticore it doesn't matter since 95%+ of the RoH is now either defenseless or defended by obsolete SD's. Keeping this fleet near the Front with Manticore allows a quick Reaction if this go wrong, correct me if im wrong but aren't dispatch boats made to get from point a to point b faster than SD(P)'s?

Keeping the Beatrice Force near Haven makes less sense because if push comes to shove Capital Fleet is near by as would be the pickets of the handful of important systems needing protection, which means that the core area of the republic is a hell of a lot better protected than the main front of Trevor's Star.

This one is just wrong. There was no dependency on Camille, no need to launch Camille and they did not "fully intend to use it".

So they striped virtually the entire Republic(Which by the way is a democracy and can make their displeasure known) for a operation they did not intent to execute? So what exactly was the pre-deployment for? They wanted peace at the lowest cost for both the RoH and the MA(Camille) but if that didn't work they didn't want to draw out the war too long so they forward deployed for Beatrice.

If 8th Fleet is beaten back, Camille is a go and if Camille doesn't force the MA to reconsider negotiations Beatrice was the next biggest hammer the RoH had, forward deploying a large % of your fleet for a mission you had no intention of executing while stripping your defences seems like the worst thing to do.

The thinking was that they'd wait for the reaction to Solon to decide which operation to launch. If that reaction was too strong for Camille, they'd go with something stronger. One of those options was Beatrice, but we don't know if the A, D, E, F operations could've been chosen. Theisman was clear that Beatrice was "one end of the spectrum."

They obviously forward deployed for Beatrice because later on in the book he tells her because of their previous deployment for Beatrice they could launch the operation quicker then expected.

It doesn't matter if they had Beatrice and Camille only, or if they had Camille and 5,000 variations of Beatrice because they had to forward deploy the forces for Beatrice, because sending a bunch of SD(P) squadrons against Manticore needs some training from the ship all the way up to the Fleet level, otherwise you are just sending 41 Battle Squadrons as a fleet rather than a fleet with 41 Battle Squadrons.

As said above, forward-deploy does not mean out of position to defend their core systems.

Unless the RHN can Teleport it sure down.

In fact, as said above, forward-deploying them closer to Haven increases the protection of those systems.

And Leaves both fronts completely defenseless thereby negating Thunderbolt. Either way people will ask where was the RHN.

At worst, what the RHN had to do was to concentrate those forces so they could begin working up, which meant fewer non-core systems would be defended.

If you have 620 SD(P)'s, 100 are working up and 50 are defending Bolthole, 100 are in Haven and 240 are deployed in 2nd Fleet that leaves you with 130 SD(P)'s to defend a half a dozen core systems at most, anything less and 8th Fleet can walk over those systems as well. This means that there are no Ambush fleets, but we know that they had some deployed, at least 2, which means that they either had only 30 SD(P)'s defending the rest of the republic, they were using SD(P)'s working up as system pickets or they had stripped Haven to the bone to maintain 2nd Fleet, Ambush Fleets and pickets for core systems.

Now if there were 950 SD(P)'s its a whole different ball game, they have 520 SD(P)'s to protect Haven, Bolthole, core systems, maintain a fleet at the main front and the Front around Trevor's Star.

Since the war had been escalating, the MA going backwards and attacking a tertiary system was unlikely.

Which was why it could have been likely that a major system would have been attacked. If the RHN deployed all their Ambush Fleets on secondary systems that they expected 8th Fleet to hit, in BoM 8th Fleet had 41 SD(P)'s which would have crushed any core system's picket while the Ambush Fleets were covering secondary targets. 8th Fleet attacked Lovat because they were reasonably confident that there was an ambush fleet there, if they wanted to avoid those fleets they would have attacked a system with different criteria.

If Eighth Fleet crushes one or two core systems, it won't be Camille that will be launched. But it doesn't mean Beatrice either.

It would have to be Camille or a version of Beatrice, if the MA went after a target that the RHN wasn't covering they would need to retaliate as quickly as possible otherwise they would need to use those 240 SD(P)'s to form another 6 ambush Fleets and expand the picket to primary and secondary targets which puts the RHN on the defensive against a numerically inferior foe. I would assume Beatrice would be a go because they would want to end the War quickly rather than give the MA time to come up with game changing tech.

They'd do that because the MA attack was weak and could be parried.

Even without Appollo, with just mistletoe and a significant force of CLAC's and Katanas backing the 18 SD(P)'s 8th Fleet could have crushed 1/3 if not 2/3 of the ambush Fleet even if they had to ultimately temporarily reinforce it with the Protector's Own and ships from Home Fleet and 3rd Fleet and every CLAC they can get their hands on.

50% of the RHN is more than sufficient to protect the core systems.

Don't forget Haven and Bolthole as well as ~100 SD(P)'s working up and the Ambush Fleets.

If we're right and the RHN is 620 ships, then 50% of it is nearly what they started the war with. They've grown more from the start of the war to the moment of this conversation than the Manticoran Alliance has, even if all IAN ships had been ready.

That's the name of the game, you try to out build the enemy. I believe they build more than 620 because they knew they were launching a war so they knew to prepare while only 1 of the 3 major Alliance Navies was preparing for war. So they would have had time before coming out in the open about their SD(P)'s to stockpile parts and components for a few years while Janacek wasn't paying attention.

I'm not saying that an MA attack had to be weak. That's what they were going to determine: if it was weak, then launch Camille. If it was strong, launch Amélie. If it was devastating, launch Beatrice.

If it was beaten back, Camille was the way to go, if they were defeated in an attack then Beatrice was the way to go, and you cant keep the forces for Beatrice forward deployed for too long before someone notices and takes advantage.

In addition to what I've already disagreed with above, I don't think there's a need to defend against Trevor's Star.

You cant really leave the area around Trevor's Star exposed.

Third Fleet cannot sortie, because it has to defend Trevor's Star.

But the old Style SD's in Home Fleet can, 50 SD's are a mighty weapon against anything other than an SD(P). 3rd Fleet can stay and defend Trevor's Star, 8th Fleet can sortie and the SD's backed back CLAC's and BC(P)'s can wreak havoc in those systems, all of whom have representatives in congress and all of whom will make themselves heard. The RoH is different than the People's Republic in key area's like how the president cannot make a unilateral decision to abandon entire star systems to the enemy without risking losing support in the democratic houses that make up congress. If she abandons the systems, she runs the risk of creating a political crisis during a war, something she cannot afford. Plus she has to keep a fleet or two in the region specifically to threaten Trevor's Star and keep the MA from deploying it for offensive operations.

But Haven has nothing critical around it.

That's hard to explain to the voters in those systems.

And Honor had already shown with Cutworm she was going to bypass the closer, tertiary systems and go for the secondary ones closer to Haven.

Until she changes direction. Going for weaker systems is the way to go when you yourself are weak, once 8th Fleet is strengthened they can change course and attack the systems near Trevor's Star, then go back to hitting Secondary Targets, or split 8th Fleet and hit multiple 3rd rate systems. The offensives by 8th Fleet are important for a number of reasons, force the RHN to disperse their forces, destroy net positive industrial centers but also they can go after systems that don't contribute to the Republic's bottom line because every bit of industry they destroy, the Republic has to send aid to it's citizens those resources they cannot use for more warships.

The Alliance can't afford to send 50 SDs to Talbott because they, however outmatched they may be, are all they have to protect the Manticore Binary System.

Did they really add enough firepower to Home Fleet to matter?

Home Fleet did have 50 SDs. Of the 225 SDs that are listed in the Pearls, I imagine the balance are in Third Fleet and in the Alliance members that needed to be protected.

And they are just about as useless in 3rd fleet as they are in Home Fleet.

If they don't have 50 to spare, then don't have 120 to use in an attack.

They use SD's in Home Fleet so that they have some more wallers, not because they actually expect them to add enough firepower to the equation. At most they can help the SD(P)'s run dry a bit faster. Plus having SD's in Manticore, Grayson and New Berlin means that they are conveniently located to deactivate them and transfer their crews to new construction. They weren't there because they actually trusted those SD's to be of much use during a battle.

[url="https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_Squadron_61"]Battle Squadron 61[/url] was all the wall that they could spare and it was attached to Eighth Fleet. And where did you get 90 BC(P)s? According to the Pearls, there were 57 of them in 1920, where would the rest come from?

There were 57 BC(P)'s...in 1920.


According to House of Steel the RMN and GSN built around 85 Agamemnon BC(P)'s, 40 Courvoisier II-Class BC(P)'s and according to Chapter 7 of At All costs the MA was expected to have ~160 BC(P)'s by mid 1921, the balance being made up of IAN BC(P)'s.


The Alliance had ~205 old school BC's in active service in 1920 if they mobilized the reserves this could go up to 370 BC's. Sending 60-100 of those BC's to Talbott and throw in 50 SD's to the mix with some CLAC's and the Talbot forces become serious even if none of the BC(P)'s are there.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:You can also confuse the RDs. Since you can translate in and out of the system outside its sensing range, you could have a single fleet show up in multiple places. Without accurate (close) identification, you can't be sure it's the same or multiple.

That's assuming the RHN is planning on 1)hiding, 2)trying to trick the RD's they don't know for sure are there and 3)take notice of the RD's. In Lovat it was mentioned that the RHN paid little attention to the RD's because they knew they couldn't catch them so they wasted very little effort trying. I don't see that changing this late in the game, at that point it becomes habit to ignore the frustrating drones. Plus sending ships in and out of the system means you run the risk of getting caught out of position in case of attack.

In any case, interplanetary space is big. There's no way to cover all of it and that's even assuming those ships are in n-space, not waiting in alpha.

Yes some would be in Alpha, that's expected and they know the score and they know the RHN wont deploy all of their ships in Ambush Fleets because that surrenders the initiative to the Alliance. The RHN already has between 3 and 5 ambush fleets, having another 5 improves the odds that you are going to catch 8th Fleet in an ambush IF they hit the targets you expect. The MA can switch targets to force more uncertainty, they don't have to keep hitting targets in 1921 that they started hitting in 1920.

The advantage of outnumbering the enemy is that you can defend your vital systems, front line, have some ambush fleets and still have ships for offensive operations.

Sigs wrote:

So sure, they could move half their forces off somewhere and nobody will notice that they are not launching large-scale offensive or massive attacks because they hadn't launched any large-scale offensives (after the initial attacks) in quite a while.

But the MA is actively scouting dozens of systems, trying to trip the ambush fleets and leave the RHN guessing. I would venture a guess that they are actively scouting major bases as well, so the problem is that someone(scouts, ONI) might notice that something like 70% of the SD(P)'s have disappeared from the front and inner systems, exactly how many Alliance targets are there that require several hundred SD(P)'s?

I'd agrue that the evidence is they noticed NOTHING. It was a total bolt from the blue. Like the Donkey, which ONI hadn't bothered to mention to anyone.

Ain't plot great?

Jonathan_S wrote:Well it wasn't going to be Theisman's preferred plan. But he did have worries about the 100 of so IAN SD(P)s that were suspiciously missing. If they'd suddenly showed up in 8th Fleet's order of battle Honor would suddenly be able to raid a much larger selection of systems - radically multiplying Haven's defensive headaches. So they didn't need to fear a radical technological shift to want to have a go to hell contingency plan ready for rapid activation. Prepping for the plan doesn't mean expecting to actually execute the plan.

Using his numerical advantage he could have gone after any number of alliance targets, forcing the dispersion of forces. An RHN fleet of 40 SD(P)'s suddenly entering the empire and hitting a dozen poorly protected systems might force the MA to disperse any newly assembled force quickly to cover another avenue of attack. They don't have to have enough ships to knockout the IAN out of the war, they just need enough ships with enough logistics support to force the Alliance to worry about protecting 21 Imperial Systems, send 2 Squadrons of SD(P)'s to Silesia to go after 9th Fleet and destroy as much industry in the region. By detaching 56 SD(P)'s and 24 CLAC's the RHN just amplified the requirements of the MA, even with their internal lines of communication. When the IAN's 120 SD(P)'s are busy picketing the empire, when the RMN is forced to deploy SD(P)'s to Silesia to counter a threat there while another force of 5 SD(P) squadrons and 3 Squadrons of CLAC's go after Alizon and Zanzibar to destroy the remaining industry in Alizon and the picket of both systems and then go after the remainder of the small alliance members. Deploying offensive forces of 12 Battle Squadrons and 6 CLAC Squadrons for an offensive will quickly eat up those 100 IAN SD(P)s and might even divert 8th Fleet to more important tasks to force the MA to strip 8th fleet of much of their reinforcements.

It's a hell of a lot easier to deploy 56 SD(P)'s on 2 different extended operations which will force the MA to deploy at least double if not triple their forces trying to catch them. After the RHN draws forces to the empire, they don't need to make major attacks, all they need is to keep showing their faces around Silesia and the Empire to force the Alliance to keep the ships there.

So it doesn't seem like being "forward deployed" and assigned possibly execute Beatrice sidelined those forces.

You can't take 240 SD(P)'s from 4,5 or 10 different formations, put them all in one fleet and send them on an attack against the most heavily protected system in the explored galaxy. Tourville and Giscard were experienced and smart officers but even they had never commanded a fleet of 240 SD(P)'s and I doubt Adm. Chin had commanded almost 100 SD(P)'s before hand, they needed to drill as a formed unit...before Lovat, after Lovat training for the operation became less of a concern.

So it seems you can afford to have them ready to execute an attack, even one you think unlikely to be activated. (And then Giscard's losses may have reduced the forces for Beatrice below the original plans)

If I am to give command of an operation to a commander who has never commanded more than 100 SD(P)'s in battle an operation where he will command 240 SD(P)'s in one fleet and be in command of the entire operation of 330 SD(P)'s, I would want to give him more than a week to train.

Once the decision to send a massive attack on Manticore they have very little time to re-plan or add and integrate additional units. IIRC simply covering the distance of Trevor's Star to Manticore through hyper takes a warship a solid month. So hitting Manticore 2 months after Lovat basically meant they had zero time to adjust Beatrice; they just pulled out and executed their ultimate contingency plan exactly as is.

Because they had those forces concentrated, in a system no one knew about probably in the middle of nowhere. At the same time if the RHN was at 620 SD(P)'s they had virtually nothing protecting the rest of the republic.

kzt wrote:This is not really a complex plan. You use capital fleet for the main force, assign another single command to force b. Then you do rehearsals underway.

The RHN already had 4-5 fleets deployed to ambush 8th Fleet, likely each with ~50 SD(P)'s so that right there is 200-250 SD(P)'s. Capital Fleet is another ~100 SD(P)'s and the main front pickets would be another 100-150 SD(P)'s. Theisman sends the orders to those pickets, everyone concentrates in one unoccupied system in the middle of nowhere with a force of 400-450 SD(P)'s. Get them all in the same system, launch at the same time and train with whatever time is available on the way there.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
And on that note, going back to the original topic: how does OB figure in the MAlign plans? They reveal a technology and, once the cat is out of the bag, a series of counters become possible. Did it do more harm than good?

If it had worked according to plan it wouldn't have mattered that they showed their hand. If the SKM was occupied by the RHN and the SL was fractured what would it matter if someone knows that there is a mystery player, no one in the League or what is left of the League will care or believe.