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

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
The problem is not the odds, it's how many ships he'd lose.

So what if the GSN had sent the Protector's Own and 23 SD(P)'s from their Home Fleet to Grendelsbane along with the RMN's 6 SD(P)'s from Marsh? That's 42 SD(P)'s in Grendelsbane that Ambush 32 RHN SD(P)'s and crush them with minimal losses.

The RHN misses that there are 40 GSN SD(P)'s hidden and are ambushed, because the MA SD(P)'s are about as good as 1.3 RHN SD(P)'s the firepower advantage in Trevor's Star is overwhelmingly in favour of the Alliance. Add the Katana's and this becomes a slaughter.

Suddenly the Alliance destroys 32 RHN SD(P)'s in Grendelsbane, plus however many CLAC's are sent, 100 SD(P)'s in Trevor's Star and however many CLAC's are send for a ground total of 132 SD(P)'s lost.

The MA loses 5 SD(P)'s in Grendelsbane and 30 in Trevor's Star.

So post Thunderbolt, the RHN has 198 SD(P)'s, vs 162 Alliance SD(P)'s. The MA has ~110 SD(P)'s near completion in Grendelsbane and Manticore and Grayson has about 100 SD(P)'s in various levels of completion. Because of Marsh the Andermani's throw in with the Alliance so right there we have 42 SD(P)'s more and another 90 under construction.

With the IAN the MA is 202 SD(P)'s against the RHN's 198 SD(P)'s. The RHN took less risks and their situation is really not all that rosy.

Let's make a simplification: at 2:1 odds in Haven's favour, the Havenite force destroys all the Alliance defenders, but loses equally many ships. So at 100 against 48, Giscard is victorious but lost 48 ships. At 180 against 86, Giscard is victorious but lost 86 ships. Because of construction limitations, this may not be an acceptable trade-off. Whatever force remains has to hold Trevor's Star against a retake attempt and also defend Haven space.

Who exactly is going to try and retake Trevor's Star and with what are they going to try and retake it if he destroys 86 MA SD(P)'s and still has 90+ SD(P)'s remaining? Whatever the RHN losses are they can make up a lot faster than the MA. They have somewhere close to 800-900 SD(P)'s under construction. So even if they lose 1 for 1 it would be significantly worse for the MA than the RHN.

Then factor in that at most, if they stripped Grayson to 40 SD(P)'s in Home Fleet, nothing in Grendelsbane and Marsh the RMN Home Fleet would have at most another 71 GSN/RMN SD(P)'s if all the ships not in Grayson are in Manticore. 150 SD(P)'s vs 71 SD(P)'s are amazing odds. Whoever is in charge of 1st Fleet can take 1 for 1 casualties and still win the war without even going after the industry of the SKM.

So 2nd Fleet is left with 94 SD(P)'s and 1st Fleet is left with 79 SD(P)'s while the MA is left with 40 SD(P)'s. I would say that no matter how much of a genius Honor is and how resilient the SKM is its game over for them. They don't have a single SD(P) in service, they have 110 SD(P)'s under construction but no way to protect those in Grendelsbane. The GSN has 100 SD(P)'s under construction and 40 in service.

The MA is reduced to 40 SD(P)'s while the RHN is reduced to 174 SD(P)'s and they hold Trevor's Star. First Fleet retreat's, on the way out they trash Grendelsbane and wait for their construction.

And are those 150 SD(P)s sufficient to defend Haven, Bolthole and the primary systems? My worry is not whether Haven can succeed in destroying more in this battle, but whether it compromises its ability to win the war.

Yes it would be. No Trevor's Star=longer transit for the MA, smaller 8th Fleet means there are fewer targets it can hit closer to the border.

At this point, Haven cannot have 800 SD(P)s under construction. There's exactly one yard that is building SD(P)s in Haven space at this point and that's Bolthole. It has just completed 315 of them. So it probably has a second wave under construction, around 350, for completion in early 1921. The other yards will immediately start construction, but even if Theisman was smart and can repurpose some of the partial hulls to SD(P), I wouldn't give them more than 40. Everything else is going to start.

At this point the MA has known about the RHN having SD(P)'s for close to a year. It was announced early 1919 while Thunderbolt happened late 1919 early 1920. The RoH laid down SD(P)'s in all yards as soon as they announced the SD(P)'s existence. It took them ~4 months according to RMN ONI to get in step and fully start but by 1920 the RHN has over 800 SD(P)'s under construction.

More problematic is the fact that Haven takes 36 months to build an SD(P). So most of the ships under construction (however many they are) won't be ready before early 1921. Manticore, on the other hand, can build an SD(P) in 24 months. If Grendelsbane is not taken out, those partially-built 75 Invictus will be ready some time in mid-1920. That dramatically changes the balance.

And with the 150 SD(P)'s near Manticore that decide not to attack Manticore they can go and take out Grendelsbane and there is absolutely nothing the MA can do to stop them.

Most of the Bolthole construction would be completed near the end of 1920 while only 35 RMN SD(P)'s would be completed by then and probably double that from the GSN. So by 1921 the MA would be 215 SD(P)'s vs the RHN's ~480 SD(P)'s.

2) The IAN could be part of it. Honor was supposed to be in Marsh because of escalating tensions with the IAN, specifically because elements in the Haven government were fanning those tensions. But she did meet with von Habenstrage again. So who's to say she wasn't coming home with evidence of Havenite involvement? That would explain why she was at the Junction or in Trevor's Star, not in Marsh as was expected.

The protectors own is either with her 6 SD(P)'s in Sidemore or they are in Manticore/Trevor's Star, they cant be in both places at once.

And the IAN must be considered as an effect after the attack too, even if they didn't show up in Manticore during Thunderbolt. The fact that Haven did attack would make them choose sides and join the Alliance. So their 42 SD(P)s need to be added to the count of ships that Haven might need to defend itself against.

Unless the MA losing 86-100 SD(P)'s scares them away. If they see the RMN as losing the war would they really align with Manticore?

And remember that at this point Andermani SD(P) designs hadn't been tested in battle, so Haven had to plan for them being quite effective.

And they would have to plan for the majority of those SD(P)'s sitting in New Berlin and a few other systems guarding them. The Empire is not altruistic to just give away their defences to defend Manticore, they send ships to the MA once new ships were released to the Fleet. Those 42 SD(P)'s do not factor in to the war until the IAN has another 42 SD(P)'s to guard their territory.

3) that is the point. Since they didn't know Haven had any SD(P)s, Haven has to plan for Manticore making weird decisions. And Haven does know how many they have, so that goes into their plans.

Haven announced they had SD(P)'s in early 1919, the question was not IF, the question was how many.

Yes, the Home Fleet whose SDs are tractoring pods full of missiles that are more effective than theirs and is defended by thousands of LACs. The superiority in SD(P)s doesn't count for the first launch, only for those after the first.

And the RHN SD's are coming empty handed? And the RHN CLAC's aren't bringing 4800 LAC's?

The initial exchange isn't 14 against 140, it's 114 against 140. Of course, Haven can offset that by bringing SDs of their own with tractored pods.

So the initial would be 150 RHN SD(P)'s backed by 100 RHN SD's and 4800 LAC's.
Font forget the RMN has deployed 60+ SD's in the occupied systems, SD's they cannot use in Manticore for very obvious reasons. There are ~50 SD's in Trevor's Star, 16 in Grendelsbane and 36 in Marsh for a grand total of 102 out of 185 SD(P)'s. So at most, Home Fleet has 83 SD(P)'s but chances are a lot of those are down for maintenance. So if we take the standard 15% in refit that means Home Fleet has 49 SD's and ~14 SD(P)'s against 150 SD(P)'s and 100 SD's. Even with the SD's added to the total the RHN would still outnumber the RMN 2.4-1 and if we factor in the 100 SD's they brought along with them it becomes 4 to 1 odds.

And maybe someone actually uses those forts and system defence pods we've heard about?

And if they do and force the RHN to fall back? So what? The RMN is history, 13 SD(P)'s and only 85 SD's remaining in service. The GSN is left with 52 SD(P)'s left in service.

The Goal is to capture the system and get them to negotiate or lose their industry. But destroying 50% of the MA's SD(P)'s for only 120 RHN SD(P)'s is amazing trade off. The Alliance wont be launching any attacks while the RHN can launch quite a few attacks if they take risks.

By the way, weren't you the one arguing that even preparing for sending 50% of your modern wall was a Hail Mary situation/ What do you call sending 100% of your modern wall as the opening attack?

Attacking someone who you are at war with, who is prepared for you, who is united, and who is actively scouting your territory is one thing. You take them into the teeth of the most heavily defended system in existence.


Attacking an alliance that is divided, dispersed, unprepared, during peacetime is completely different. The RMN is pathetically small, poorly drilled and their leaders are assigned based on favours rather than capabilities for the most part.

In one taking away x number of SD(P)'s to train them during war is irresponsible, with the other, they are at peace and the MA doesn't know how many there are so it is in their best interest to keep them out of sight, training.

You've lost the context here.

This was in the situation under which the forces at Trevor's Star yield the system and transit to Manticore. So the 140 SD(P)s of the attacking Havenite force are now facing 114 MA SD(P)s and 100 SDs and is trapped inside the hyperlimit. With 250 SD(P)s, Tourville would have lost to Home Fleet and Third Fleet, if Fifth Fleet with Adm. Chin hadn't showed up. In your scenario, the forces attacking Manticore are smaller (though Home Fleet is also weaker) and the transiting forces from Trevor's Star are twice as strong as Third Fleet. Tourville surrendered, so why wouldn't this CO?

Why did Tourville surrender? was it because he was outnumbered and outgunned or did he surrender because 8th Fleet can kill him from well outside his range? He could have fought on and won if it wasnt for Apollo but chose to surrender because he believed that Apollo would have devastated his fleet.

Either way, none of those 140 SD(P)s make it home. You've traded 14 MA SD(P)s from Home Fleet and some more from the relief forces that got damaged for 140 of yours. And if some of the surrendered SD(P)s are repairable and can be returned on service on the MA side, it gets worse.

Here is the thing, it becomes a race to the industry. If those 140 SD(P)'s and their SD and LAC escort don't think they will be able to get out of the system they go in as fast as they can, if even 50 or 20 SD/SD(P)'s and 500-600 LAC's survive to get to the station around Manticore they can either destroy it or start negotiating, pull back or we take out the station type of deal. I don't think the Queen would be too keen on seeing her biggest and most important station destroyed.

so you just traded 150 SD(P)'s for 14 RMN SD(P)'s, another 10 active SD(P)'s in refit, probably 50% of the SKM's spaceborne industry if not more and now they have to travel 300 LY as opposed to 50 or 60.

kzt wrote:No, the really worst case is that their weapons are far less effective against the RMN than they expect and their fleets essentially get obliterated by the RMN while the RMN takes pretty minimal damage in return.

That's ALL their fleets. Game Over.

Well, yeah. But that's a topic I was going to leave for another time.

If this is a possibility in this theoretical scenario, it was a possibility for the real Thunderbolt. Let's say that RHN needs 4:1 to win. What was the worst case scenario in either case?

Note how 4:1 still means 32 SD(P)s sent to Grendelsbane can defeat Higgins and his 7 defenders.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
They did have a month in hyper to simulate together. They might have had a couple of weeks together anyway: it was ten weeks from the Battle of Lovat to the Battle of Manticore. If the travel time is 8 weeks, that's two weeks of exercises as a whole unit. They also didn't have to be on-station as ambush fleets until the first possible time for Honor getting there..

Yeah because it was an emergency, no one will launch an attack like that with so little training unless they had to.

You're quoting the reasons in April. I want to know what reasons Theisman would have on May 16, 1921 (after Lovat), when he knew the war was going to end on July 24 (Battle of Manticore).

Time? Some Ambush fleets were too far away. SD(P)'s working up in Bolthole, Bolthole picket, he though if he couldn't get through with those ships more wouldn't matter.

I would have brought everything, SD(P)'s, SD's, BB's if you have them, Every CLAC I ca get my hands on. Why he didn't? Mystery to me, maybe because if he brought another 150 or 300 SD(P)'s 8th Fleet wouldn't have been enough?

If he has 150 SD(P)s somewhere near Manticore that aren't doing anything but keeping the Manticore forces pinned, why didn't he send them? They were in range.

How do you know those were not part of the 335 SD(P)'s he send?

You're the one claiming that the force of 240 SD(P)s needs to train together and must have started doing so before Lovat. If that is the case, why was their CO not there with them?

He died before he got orders to join the fleet?

Lovat was one of the Top 20 systems. Your proposal was that Eighth Fleet would attack tertiary systems -- those outside the Top 50.

Switch it up, every system you take out is a system they have to spend money and resources rebuilding, money and resources not spend on SD(P)'s. If you have a list of 25 potential targets, you hit 5 the first wave and 5 the second wave, chances are that you are hitting one or more of the ambush fleets on the next attack.

Quite correct.

And there's nothing they can do about that. Haven has something like 300 systems. Let's say that 200 are populated. Let's say that the minimum force to effectively protect against Eighth Fleet is 32 SD(P)s). The RHN needs 6400 SD(P)s to cover all of them. Since they have a tenth of that, we conclude the RHN is not covering all of them.

They cant cover everything, but taking 240 SD(P)'s for forward deployment and taking them out of defensive roles makes it worse not better.

Taking your number of 956 SD(P)s and subtracting 100 that are in Capital Fleet, 100 that are in Bolthole and 64*2 that are in the two most important systems after Haven and Bolthole, the RHN has 628 ships left, including the ones working up. With the same force levels, the RHN could then cover an additional 19 systems. That covers the Top 23 systems only.

You are correct, they cant protect everything at every time, I am not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that if they cant provide adequate protection to all their systems they do their best, and taking 240 SD(P)'s out of the rotation for an undisclosed amount of time for an operation that will likely never happen just exasperates the problem.

But you said that Theisman had to keep 150 SD(P)s close to Manticore and Trevor's Star. That reduces the number of additional systems covered to 15. That means that even with the force number of ships that you claim he had, the RHN can't effectively cover the Top 20 systems in the Republic.

He keeps SD(P)'s close to Manticore so they cannot let 8th Fleet have too many SD(P)'s.

If 150 SD(P)'s are pulled out, 8th Fleet doubles in size. If 8th Fleet doubles in size the Ambush Fleets have to increase as well. If the Ambush Fleets increase they have to decrease in number because individually they are now more numerous.

Conclusion: Congress isn't happy any way you look at it. That means the overall strategy has to be the Republic first, the individual systems second.

The Conclusion is, take 2 of those shiny Ambush Fleets and send them to attack Zanzibar, Alizon and all the other Minor allies.

Take another Ambush Fleet and send it to the Empire, they don't have to do much, they have to show up and destroy some industry in an unprepared system. Once the Empire comes under attack the MA would be forced to send SD(P)'s there, wanna guess where those SD(P)'s are going to come from?

You take out 60 MA SD(P)'s in 5 different systems for minimal losses, and you tie down 150 MA SD(P)'s with 50 of your own in the Empire.

Defending everywhere is a failing strategy, using 100 SD(P)'s to attack the minor allies and destroy 60 MA SD(P)'s in the process is a winning strategy. Using another 50 SD(P)'s to tie down the IAN and RMN/GSN reinforcements in the empire chasing 50 RHN SD(P)'s is just a sweet bonus. Throw in 2 squadrons of SD(P)'s and 4 of SD's with 3 Squadrons of CLAC's into Silesia and the MA is now forced to defend another 60 systems. They go from having 11 systems to defend, to having 90 systems to defend. They will be too busy reinforcing Silesia and the Empire to let 8th Fleet loose.

But if you're right, why did he in May 1921, after Lovat had happened, after he knew how destructive Apollo was, after he guessed why the IAN ships he was so worried about were missing, would he launch Beatrice with those same 336 ships? Why hold back? Why hold back those 150 that are pinning MA forces and are on the way anyway? Even if it takes an extra week to get them to join the train, that's increasing his force strength by nearly 50%.

If he send 500 or 600 SD(P)'s Apollo might not be quite as effective especially when they run out of ammunition, so for the plot? It doesn't make sense to me either. If I was desperate I would every SD(P), SD, BB, BC, CA, CL, DD and CLAC that I can get my hands on. I don't care if they know I'm taking everything. Anybody with half a brain would have figured out that the RHN would have only 2 options(Surrender or all out attack on Manticore) why they didn't anticipate the attack is beyond me.

kzt wrote:No, the really worst case is that their weapons are far less effective against the RMN than they expect and their fleets essentially get obliterated by the RMN while the RMN takes pretty minimal damage in return.

That's ALL their fleets. Game Over.

Does it really make that much of a difference if they lose their fleet or find out their fleet is useless and get to keep it?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Well, yeah. But that's a topic I was going to leave for another time.

If this is a possibility in this theoretical scenario, it was a possibility for the real Thunderbolt. Let's say that RHN needs 4:1 to win. What was the worst case scenario in either case?

Note how 4:1 still means 32 SD(P)s sent to Grendelsbane can defeat Higgins and his 7 defenders.

But they take overwhelming casualties to destroy those 7 SD(P)'s. At which point the MA knows that their 190 remaining SD(P)'s are equivalent to 760 RHN SD(P)'s. They leave 120 SD(P)'s split amongst Grayson, Manticore and Trvor's Star and take the other 70 SD(P)'s to wreak Havok in the republic and try to destroy as much as they can get their hands on.

Relax wrote:I get your calc, but it is not close IMO.

Addressing my main point. NO ONE willingly will live in a submarine. Most people get clausterphobic. Most people want a living quarters etc. Most people want a life outside of their job. This life requires THINGS. This life requires space/volume--> Garage/basement full of junk to tinker with/store/ratpack/just in case..... This life requires some peace and quiet. This life requires fishing(I don't), walking in a park, a window with a view, something to clear your head.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Then scale the habitat up. Why are we arguing that it isn't big enough? Were figures for its size given anywhere? I don't remember.

Let's say a reasonable, high quality standard of living is 0.02 cubic kilometres (1 km² × 20 m) per person. This habitat would need to be 440,000 km³ in internal volume. That's a sphere 47.2 km in radius.

A more reasonable number would be 100 m² × 10 m = 1000 m³ per person of private accommodations, plus some leisure, commerce, retail, etc, and some engineering spaces overhead, per group of people. Let's say that's 1 km² * 10 m = 10000 m³ for every 10 people, just because that's the same volume as the private accommodations. 22 million people times 2000 m³ is 44 km³, or a sphere with a radius of 2.19 km, or a cylinder 4 km long and with a radius of 1.32 km.

Even if we use only the internal surface and no decks, the same 200 m²/person is a cylinder 16 km long and with a base radius of 3.5 km. And that's 200 m² per person, not per family. A family of 4 would rate a 400 m² private living space on the ground floor. (For the square metre challenged: 400 m² is 4305 sq. ft)

In any case, in 2000 years the human needs can change. Two or three hundred years ago people wouldn't have put up with the "tiny horribly expensive closets" that many habitations are in New York.

As stated, just increase the space allocation to include green space and sports areas: there can be a central park (like NYC) and massive sports complexes and smaller parks scattered around the structure. Increasing the cubic space per person by a factor of 1000 only increases the diameter of a sphere by a factor of 10.

Fishing and certain other recreations might be better left for vacations planet-side. But I do not think that we need people to change, the first tenements were in Roman times. Some people may always prefer to live in the country, but there are plenty of people who love NYC; particularly if they can take the occasional trip to the Catskills or Atlantic City.

Relax wrote:Hrmm, how the Hell would a singular several hundred ton cargo container get inside a civilian infrastructure? Industrial? Sure, but civilian? Sorry, no dice. Of course, maybe I am wrong, and their standard cargo containers are several hundred tons to the platforms would this even make sense? Food containers from the planet etc for bulk goods of grains seems right. But everything else? No. OF course we are talking 20Million people, so maybe as we are talking a population density that dwarfs anything on earth. This brings up a very telling problem... WHO would put up with that population density for very long?

NO ONE would put up with that insane pop density other than dedicated people under MILITARY law/order. This is supposed to be a civilian infrastructure, so need for parks, windows for everyone, space to NOT listen to the neighbors arguments or farts or dog barking is paramount to any society that does not want to be ruled by authoritarian dictators. Who today lives without a window even in the DENSEST apartment complexes in even the lowest of rat infested warrens in the 3rd world? NO ONE.

Total population is high, but population density, given the mind boggling size of Beowulf Alpha actually seems quite low.

Uncompromising Honor wrote:Beowulf Alpha gleamed like an enormous gem. Not surprisingly, since it was larger and much more massive than even HMSS Hephaestus had ever been [snip[
Hephaestus’s longest dimensions had almost matched those of Beowulf Alpha[snip]
Hephaestus had been a fairytale sculpture, a thing of components, sub units, long connecting booms, and massive industrial modules, more necklace and lacework than solid. The space station had been a dispersed tracery of open space and structural elements, growing in every direction—and in leaps and bounds—to meet perceived needs, with new sections added wherever seemed most convenient, completely irrespective of any master plan to coordinate that growth, and assembled in the wild Escher-like geometry of microgravity.
Beowulf Alpha hadn’t. Beowulf Alpha had expanded over the centuries in carefully planned additions, each incorporated into the existing structure only after carefully considering its impact upon the entire station[snip]
In Beowulf Alpha’s case, that meant its light industrial modules were located on the long engineering and support booms stretching out from the main platform like the legs of some glittering spider

Hephaestus was 110 km on its longest axis, but lets assume the Beowulf Alpha is maybe 125 but assume that 50 km is those long engineering and support booms - that leaves a core volume, said to be densely packed, of an estimated diameter around 75 km.
Assuming its roughly spherical that would give an interior volume of 220,893,233,455,532 cubic meters. If just 1% of that is home/apartment/personal space that gives each of the 23 million inhabitants their own 96,041 cubic meters.

For reference the average US house is 2,687 square feet, or if we assume 10 foot per floor 20,687 cubic feet (761 cubic meters). Or another way to look at it, Anchorage Alaska is the least dense US city with just 173 people per square mile and if we give them each a lofty 5 meters of vertical too, then each person in Anchorage has their own 74,855 cubic meters (which isn't just their personal space as that include everything in the city); still 23% less room that what we got for just each person's personal space on Beowulf Alpha. A third way to look at is if that if every occupant got their own 1/4 acre lot with a ceiling ~250 feet high (so a good sized suburban lot with plenty of height for full grown trees) that's be about 75,900 cubic meters; still less than that actual volume we came up with.


So your "insane pop density" folks seem like they'd have 125x more personal space than the average US house, 25-30% more space than a quarter acre lot with a vast height, with the other 99% of the core habitat providing common areas, parks, colleges, workplaces, shopping, infrastructure, etc. - with the long engineering booms isolating the industrial areas out even further!


Okay the core station likely isn't a solid sphere - OTOH I tried to estimate high for the length of the industrial booms, and it seems crazy for personal living space to be just 1% of the volume - so the main point should still hold. The population may be high (it'd be our current Earth's 4th largest city) but it's so ludicrously large than it can't even remotely be called dense.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Yes, the Home Fleet whose SDs are tractoring pods full of missiles that are more effective than theirs and is defended by thousands of LACs. The superiority in SD(P)s doesn't count for the first launch, only for those after the first.

The initial exchange isn't 14 against 140, it's 114 against 140. Of course, Haven can offset that by bringing SDs of their own with tractored pods.

I'd quibble that SD(P)s were built with more fire control specifically to handle their expected alpha strikes - and so their superiority still counts some in that first launch.
(But to be fair i'd point out that going the other way, the SDs don't just contribute to the first launch - they can fire as many missiles as their fire control can handle until they run out of towed pods or enemy return fire arrives several minutes later)

Manticore has probably has only a limited ability to retrofit additional fire control into their old SDs. Those designs predate Manticore's reintroduction of towed pods; much less the self-tractoring pods that let an SD tow enough pods to match as SD(P)s stacked alpha strike. So even while the pods last they're likely contributing less pods per salvo than the SD(P)s are. Still that's a non-trivial contribution; so we shouldn't just look as the SD(P) numbers.


Hmm - when did those self-tractoring RMN pods get deployed? Did Home Fleet have them during Thunderbolt? Or were they a later improvement - that might drastically affect how much SDs could contribute when talking about a possible earlier Beatrice...

Jonathan_S wrote:Total population is high, but population density, given the mind boggling size of Beowulf Alpha actually seems quite low.

Uncompromising Honor wrote:Beowulf Alpha gleamed like an enormous gem. Not surprisingly, since it was larger and much more massive than even HMSS Hephaestus had ever been [snip[
Hephaestus’s longest dimensions had almost matched those of Beowulf Alpha[snip]
Hephaestus had been a fairytale sculpture, a thing of components, sub units, long connecting booms, and massive industrial modules, more necklace and lacework than solid. The space station had been a dispersed tracery of open space and structural elements, growing in every direction—and in leaps and bounds—to meet perceived needs, with new sections added wherever seemed most convenient, completely irrespective of any master plan to coordinate that growth, and assembled in the wild Escher-like geometry of microgravity.
Beowulf Alpha hadn’t. Beowulf Alpha had expanded over the centuries in carefully planned additions, each incorporated into the existing structure only after carefully considering its impact upon the entire station[snip]
In Beowulf Alpha’s case, that meant its light industrial modules were located on the long engineering and support booms stretching out from the main platform like the legs of some glittering spider

Hephaestus was 110 km on its longest axis, but lets assume the Beowulf Alpha is maybe 125 but assume that 50 km is those long engineering and support booms - that leaves a core volume, said to be densely packed, of an estimated diameter around 75 km.
Assuming its roughly spherical that would give an interior volume of 220,893,233,455,532 cubic meters. If just 1% of that is home/apartment/personal space that gives each of the 23 million inhabitants their own 96,041 cubic meters.

For reference the average US house is 2,687 square feet, or if we assume 10 foot per floor 20,687 cubic feet (761 cubic meters). Or another way to look at it, Anchorage Alaska is the least dense US city with just 173 people per square mile and if we give them each a lofty 5 meters of vertical too, then each person in Anchorage has their own 74,855 cubic meters (which isn't just their personal space as that include everything in the city); still 23% less room that what we got for just each person's personal space on Beowulf Alpha. A third way to look at is if that if every occupant got their own 1/4 acre lot with a ceiling ~250 feet high (so a good sized suburban lot with plenty of height for full grown trees) that's be about 75,900 cubic meters; still less than that actual volume we came up with.


So your "insane pop density" folks seem like they'd have 125x more personal space than the average US house, 25-30% more space than a quarter acre lot with a vast height, with the other 99% of the core habitat providing common areas, parks, colleges, workplaces, shopping, infrastructure, etc. - with the long engineering booms isolating the industrial areas out even further!


Okay the core station likely isn't a solid sphere - OTOH I tried to estimate high for the length of the industrial booms, and it seems crazy for personal living space to be just 1% of the volume - so the main point should still hold. The population may be high (it'd be our current Earth's 4th largest city) but it's so ludicrously large than it can't even remotely be called dense.

Wow, was I incredibly wrong when I compared the Beowulf orbital to Hephaestus. For some reason this never registered.

So Sigs was correct that the Beowulf orbital was bigger in all senses of the word.

Sigs wrote:Yeah because it was an emergency, no one will launch an attack like that with so little training unless they had to.

Agreed, but adding: if it's an emergency, you cut as many corners as you can before you start compromising the operation itself.

If he has 150 SD(P)s somewhere near Manticore that aren't doing anything but keeping the Manticore forces pinned, why didn't he send them? They were in range.

How do you know those were not part of the 335 SD(P)'s he send?

I was actually thinking that too. If such a fleet pinning MA forces exists, it would might be one of the components of the attack. Say, one with 117 SD(P)s led by Adm. Genevieve Chin.

But if that's the case, then those 117 ships had always been part of Operation Beatrice's plan. In your accounting, that would mean 620 ships not part of Beatrice would also not have to take up this force-pinning requirement. Can you revise what you think what the 520 not working up are doing at the time Beatrice was supposed to launch (pre-Lovat planning)?

You're the one claiming that the force of 240 SD(P)s needs to train together and must have started doing so before Lovat. If that is the case, why was their CO not there with them?

He died before he got orders to join the fleet?

If that's your answer, then Theisman's plan was that the training had not yet started by Lovat, mid-May 1921. In fact, it wouldn't start until Giscard arrived. If the training site is, as you claimed, far from Haven and close to Manticore (forward deployment), it would take Giscard 3 weeks to arrive. If it's close, it's maybe 1 week or 10 days.

The only thing that could have been expedited is the travel of ships that were further away from the training site than Lovat. That is what I am calling "pre-deployment:" bring the ships that are further away, especially those on the far side of the Republic.

[Snipping the part where we agree that the RHN can't cover every system anyway and that Theisman has to be smart on how he's going to cover what he can cover, trying to catch Eighth Fleet at the same time]

If he send 500 or 600 SD(P)'s Apollo might not be quite as effective especially when they run out of ammunition, so for the plot? It doesn't make sense to me either. If I was desperate I would every SD(P), SD, BB, BC, CA, CL, DD and CLAC that I can get my hands on. I don't care if they know I'm taking everything. Anybody with half a brain would have figured out that the RHN would have only 2 options(Surrender or all out attack on Manticore) why they didn't anticipate the attack is beyond me.

That's the entire point! If he had 500 or 600 more ships beyond those he had planned to use, he would have used at least some of them. That's why I am forced to conclude that there was no such quantity of ships in the first place.

"Because plot" works only when we have no other explanation for why someone would behave what they did. Here we have a different explanation and this whole discussion stems from a simple disagreement in interpreting what Theisman said when he said the RHN had 620 ships.