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

Sigs wrote:

tlb wrote:Also at some point, the bottleneck in producing the system defense Apollo pods is solved and that adds another layer for Haven.

The RMN didn't forsee a basic reaction to their offensive, would they really be in that much of a rush to strengthen the defences of the Home System? It seems to me they were almost surprised that the RoH reacted in anyway other than surrender or stick their head in the sand.

Who said anything about rushing? The conversations in AAC show that they were planning on adding those systems anyway, at the normal rate that would have come from going into production.

More importantly, this is not an assumption Theisman can make. "They've just got this new weapon, let's assume they won't use it for defence and all of it will be in Trevor's Star. We can wait two months to attack, sure."

Theemile wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Or not. If Manticore starts lobbing Apollo-controlled missiles from 70 million km and taking SDs along, the RHN force would disengage.

They couldn't easily disengage, they were trapped by the resonance zone and hyper limit. Yes, they could have changed course an tried to build a vector out system, but Home Fleet could follow and continue to launch Apollo missiles from beyond the range the RHN could effectively respond.

That depends on how quickly Home Fleet responded and where Second Fleet was when the missiles arrived. If D'Orville reasoned "oh, crap, 250 capital ships going for Sphinx, launch now!" those ships may still be close enough to the hyper limit to turn back.

If instead he waited and baited a trap like Honor did for Filareta later (though nowhere as sophisticated), he'd catch them completely unable to turn away before all the forces were obliterated. He might even do like Terekhov would later do in Spindle and wait for the first one or two waves had hit before launching a third. Tourville would see that there's no way that he could get past more waves and would surrender.

Whether D'Orville had a third wave to fire or not.

Jonathan_S wrote:Home Fleet's historic Death Ride, despite getting surprised by Donkey, outright killed 40% of Tourville's historic fleet, crippled another 8% and damaged the remaining 52%.

Because second Fleet was lacking in missile defence. In Lovat they had 41 LAC's for every SD(P) in the BoM which was arguably the most important battle of the RHN's history they brought 13 LAC's for every SD(P). Now if they had brought enough LAC's it might have been different. In the BoM Home Fleet fired roughly 46 missiles/LAC, if the RHN had brought an appropriate number of their LAC's with them it would be 15 missiles/LAC. Throw in more escorts, SD's and this would have been much different. They had more LAC's with 5th Fleet than with 2nd Fleet which makes no sense. If Tourville brough no LAC’s it would have been worse.

And at that they died with quite a number of pods unfired - they'd waited until well inside powered MDM range before firing in order to maximize their hit percentages; and the surprise of the pod swarms Donkey enabled obliterated them far faster than their own worst estimates.

They should have fired wave, after wave, after wave until they were dry. They shouldn't have bother keeping anything for round two especially since round two would have likely been with a much reduced Home Fleet under best circumstances.

Apollo pods, as we much later saw at Beowulf, are quite effective at extreme ranges (about 200 million km) even without any FTL fire control. Given that Home Fleet had historically launched far closer to 50 million km, and that that was the edge of really effective use of pre-Apollo MDMs, a Home Fleet opening up with salvos 8 times as large at a range over 4 times as far will just gut Tourville's force even if it's two or three times as large.

But why didn't they have any Apollo pods in Manticore? Were they waiting until they had overwhelming numbers before they deploy or were they just not building them? Because if I had 10,000 pods I would have deployed 10,000 pods in Manticore BEFORE the battle. If they had 100 pods, deploy them, then start deploying as soon as they are built, don't wait until you have overwhelming number before you deploy.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Who said anything about rushing? The conversations in AAC show that they were planning on adding those systems anyway, at the normal rate that would have come from going into production.

More importantly, this is not an assumption Theisman can make. "They've just got this new weapon, let's assume they won't use it for defence and all of it will be in Trevor's Star. We can wait two months to attack, sure."

So 24 July 1921 there are no Apollo pods deployed, but 24 August 1921 the Manticore Home System would be an invincible fortress made up of Apollo pods?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Who said anything about rushing? The conversations in AAC show that they were planning on adding those systems anyway, at the normal rate that would have come from going into production.

More importantly, this is not an assumption Theisman can make. "They've just got this new weapon, let's assume they won't use it for defence and all of it will be in Trevor's Star. We can wait two months to attack, sure."

Sigs wrote:So 24 July 1921 there are no Apollo pods deployed, but 24 August 1921 the Manticore Home System would be an invincible fortress made up of Apollo pods?

That depends on when the system defense pods were in full production, doesn't it? If that change had occurred in the middle of July, then there could be significant numbers deployed by the middle of August.

Sigs wrote:D’Orville would be busy shooting at and being shot at by the lead fleet to worry about a trailing fleet and Kuzak and Honor would be busy getting shot at by the Trailing Fleet and 5th Fleet to worry about the point TF.

The trailing fleet, consisting of older SDs, would not be firing at Third or Eighth Fleets since they wouldn't be carrying MDMs in the first place. Even if they fired from tractored pods, Kuzak and Honor would know those are older ships and of a lesser threat than the one full of modern SD(P)s hammering Home Fleet.

Most of the navy has been fighting for the last 15 years, they should be competent enough in an emergency to be able to fight without putting their fellow ships in danger.

Agreed, which is why I don't like this explanation.

2) the ships' presence would be a net negative contribution; even more battle-drilled SD(P)s could be in this category, if the C&C networks become saturated (think "Mythical Man Month");

When you are desperate, a ship is a ship.

Not if it is a negative ship. Do you know what I am talking about when I refer to "Mythical Man Month"? If not, see the Wikipedia article. The summary is that adding more resources to a project can make it worse than not doing so.

But again, I don't like this explanation. I just had to be thorough.

By the looks of it, the RMN was oddly surprised and shocked that they were attacked, I don’t think another month would have changed much if they were so far gone to not anticipate Beatrice after Lovat.

See other reply. Summary: that's not a chance Theisman can take.

Here's another explanation: the Octagon decided that Giscard was really good in defence, having just blunted the attack in Solon, so they swap roles compared to what Theisman told Pritchart. Giscard stays for the defence and Tourville is sent to take command of Second Fleet.

I believe Tourville and Giscard would have both been to Beatrice, two major fleets on the biggest operation of the war, I would send the best commander I have to command both fleets.

Why are you rejecting a simple explanation that would explain why the ships you said had to be away could be away with their CO?

Someone had to stay behind to parry Eighth Fleet incursions. At this point, Beatrice isn't launched, it's just a pre-deployment for a contingency. Defending against Eighth Fleet is more important. Given Giscard had done defending at Solon and was in Lovat doing the same, it's a reasonable conclusion that he was kept on that role.

Probably 80-90% of the RHN was on the way to Manticore. Sending DB’s to all systems with ships concentrations with orders to leave NLT 48h from receipt of the message and meet in system x should get everyone within a week of each other. So it might delay the operation by a few days, to a week but it would be worth it.

It wasn't. In everyone's calculation (including yours), no more than 50% of the fleet was being prepared to go for Manticore. So when the news came to Haven of what had happened in Lovat, the other half of the fleet (or majority, in your calculations) wouldn't have any orders to move towards Manticore.

Your calculations of "within a week of each other" is simply inaccurate. Haven space was at least 4 weeks' travel, end-to-end, probably wider. Though I'll grant you that the majority of the forces that would make a difference would be within a week of Haven. With one important exception: Bolthole. The J-156-18(L) system (the local end of the wormhole leading to Bolthole).

Dark Fall wrote:J-156-18(L) was seventy-two light-years from the Haven System, which meant ninety percent of the People’s Republic was closer to Trevor’s Star than to the PRH’s end of the new bridge.

At 3000 times c pseudovelocity, ignoring accelerations and transit, that's nearly 9 days' travel. And the Calvin System was again 10 light-years away from Bolthole, so add another day and a half. That's 10 days each way and that's only getting them as far back as Haven. Forces from Bolthole would arrive at the rally point from 12 to 20 days after the DB that contained the orders from Haven would, assuming they left immediately upon the courier's arrival with the movement orders.

So could Haven afford a 3-week delay? That's the question.

I suppose I have to explain how this shouldn’t matter. If I am the First Space Lord, before launching an operation like the one in Lovat I would sit down with my brain trust and ask them some questions, if you were the RHN what would see as your options after Lovat. How would you view the situation after the revelation of the new technology?

What I should get as an answer from most of them:

1) No change. The RHN believes it was a trick/fluke etc… therefore they don’t do any major changes to their operations tempo and plans.

2) Surrender. They see this as a game changer and give up instantly.

3) Do a winner take all operation to end the war quickly. They have seen that their numerical advantage has evaporated and its only a matter of time before the MA sends 8th Fleet with 50-60 SD(P)’s with Keyhole and Apollo to capture Haven.

Since Theisman is intelligent and the RHN as whole seem to be competent and capable number one should be scratched out immediately. Number two is more likely but still the Battle of Lovat demonstrated that the MA does not have Keyhole and Apollo in great numbers so there is still a chance for victory. This leaves number 3, and that should be the obvious conclusion. You don’t just launch an operation like Sanskrit without thinking of the consequences for the enemy and how they can/will react to it. The RHN went from comfortable superiority in ships and the ability to dictate to a degree the direction of the war to having a few months before an entire Fleet of keyhole and Apollo SD(P)’s come out of the yards.

I have to the "What's wrong with AAC" thread for the discussion on this. I agree with you but the Admiralty didn't.

The Allied SD(P) strength post BoM should be around 240-260 SD(P)’s total. The RHN SD(P) strength should be 269 SD(P)’s. The Allied SD(P)’s were ~30% more capable than their RHN opponents. The RHN had ~300 SD’s in service post BoM while the Allied SD(P)’s would be equivalent to 325 RHN SD(P)’s if we took the middle ground and assumed that 250 Remain. Now, if no power in the universe could prevent the RHN’s remaining SD(P)’s from rolling over Manticore HS what the hell are the fixed defences and the 250 MA SD(P)’s going to do?

The Allied SD(P) strength was about 200 RMN+GSN ships before BoM, but about 100 of those were destroyed. So the Allied strength is 100 + IAN. Theisman estimated between a hundred and a hundred and twenty, but we know that only 40 were coming out of the yards after the Emperor had them change schedules so some ships were able to finish the Keyhole II refit. So your estimate is a little high.

[...] post BoM I would be recalling every SD(P) from the minor allies, rushing every refit and redeploying SD(P)’s from New Berlin and Grayson to rebuild a fleet to defend Manticore and Trevor’s Star.

Even then I don't think this strengthens Home Fleet under Honor beyond 60 SD(P)s, probably less, with all additions being older Medusa-class SD(P)s. The mothballed SDs can't be returned to duty quickly and enough and in any case there are no crews for them. The only salvation for Home Fleet is the Python Lump, which we do know is coming in a couple of months (and maybe could be expedited) but again you run into the problem of having crews for them. At best you can do a 1:1 swap of a Medusa for an Invictus, but you still have to mothball the older ship.

We can probably assume that the Python Lump was expedited. We know it launched in October or November.

So for the foreseeable future, the defences at Manticore would have to be those 60 plus whatever the IAN would spare of their 40. Even if we assume all 40, that's about 100 SD(P), against a minimum of 300 RHN equivalents.

Sigs wrote:So 24 July 1921 there are no Apollo pods deployed, but 24 August 1921 the Manticore Home System would be an invincible fortress made up of Apollo pods?

The question is: can Theisman take that chance? He knows they're coming. He knows the system will be impregnable once they're in sufficient quantities. He just doesn't know when.

Sigs wrote:

tlb wrote:Also at some point, the bottleneck in producing the system defense Apollo pods is solved and that adds another layer for Haven.

The RMN didn't forsee a basic reaction to their offensive, would they really be in that much of a rush to strengthen the defences of the Home System? It seems to me they were almost surprised that the RoH reacted in anyway other than surrender or stick their head in the sand.

Given the text of AAC those defense were unlikely to be in place at Manticore in just a single additional month.

At All Costs wrote:In fact, Manticore-B's forts and space station were already refitting with Keyhole II and would begin deploying the first of the system-defense Apollo pods within the next three weeks, on the theory that it would need them worse since it couldn't call as readily on Home Fleet's protection.
And once Manticore-B's defenses were fully up to speed, Sphinx would receive the next highest priority, despite the fact that the planet of Manticore had the largest population and the greatest economic and industrial value of any of the binary system's worls. Like Manticore-B, Sphinx was simply more exposed than Manticore.

So Gryphon will start receiving the system defense variant of the Apollo pods within 3 weeks - but Sphynx probably won't until after Gryphon has adequate pods. (Though the refit of Keyhole II in anticipation of those pods will probably start once they run out of forts and station around Gryphon to upgrade.

So the process was already in progress - but even at the rate Manticore can crank pods out once the kinks are worked out it'll probably take at least a few weeks production to get enough system defense Apollo variant over the Gryphon to start deploying them to Sphinx - so 3 weeks to start shipping them to Gryphon and it would seem at least 3-6 more to finish getting the necessary numbers. So optimistically Sphinx might start seeing it's Apollo based system defenses starting to really come online more like 2 months after the BoM actually happened; and it might be another several weeks beyond that.


(Though since the system defense variant of Apollo is a different pod carrying a somewhat different missile, getting Gryphon equipped with those shouldn't slow down the production of the flat-pack pods with their Mk23Es needed to upgrade all SD(P)s, and ships towing pods, to the extra firepower of light-speed controlled Apollo)

Sigs wrote:They should have fired wave, after wave, after wave until they were dry. They shouldn't have bother keeping anything for round two especially since round two would have likely been with a much reduced Home Fleet under best circumstances.

Home Fleet kind of planned to; but they screwed up and drastically overestimated their survivability. (Mostly thanks to Donkey letting Tourville pre-deploy many many more pods that the RMN thought he every could). Mind you, firing from within effective range of MDMs it was unlikely that the SDs would manage to fire off every pod they'd brought since around 9 minutes after opening fire they'd start losing them in job lots to proximity kills from return fire.

Apollo pods, as we much later saw at Beowulf, are quite effective at extreme ranges (about 200 million km) even without any FTL fire control. Given that Home Fleet had historically launched far closer to 50 million km, and that that was the edge of really effective use of pre-Apollo MDMs, a Home Fleet opening up with salvos 8 times as large at a range over 4 times as far will just gut Tourville's force even if it's two or three times as large.

But why didn't they have any Apollo pods in Manticore? Were they waiting until they had overwhelming numbers before they deploy or were they just not building them? Because if I had 10,000 pods I would have deployed 10,000 pods in Manticore BEFORE the battle. If they had 100 pods, deploy them, then start deploying as soon as they are built, don't wait until you have overwhelming number before you deploy.[/quote]
I'd assume because not enough had been built yet. They were only just hitting their production stride and Honor's 8th fleet would have needed a bunch to replace the ones they'd fired at Louvat. So the bulk of the completed pods were probably in Honor's ships, in ammo ships assigned to resupply 8th fleet, and at Trevor's Star as a stockpile to support further 8th fleet operations; with some additional warehoused to fill the ships currently in the yards undergoing Keyhole II installation (like the IAN SD(P)s).

But in one more month 8th fleet isn't likely to be able to complete another attack, so there'd seem to be little reason to send all the additional production to Trevor's Star. So it could focus on replacing Home Fleet's pods with Apollo ones.



Which is all just another way of saying that hitting Louvat as a way to deliberately reveal Apollo and its revolutionary capabilities at Louvat was a major screw-up. It was game changing enough that they only needed to buy a little more time and Haven wouldn't have been able to win the war.

Keep in mind that Apollo Pods consist of One Apollo missile, One modified Mark 23 Pod that essentially replaces two tubes that launch Mk-23 missiles with one tube that launches the oversized Apollo control missile. Once Manticore has limited production of Apollo control missiles and the oversized launch tube, they can very rapidly assemble full up Apollo pods from components that they already have.

Here is a shocker for Weber. If you have moderate numbers of Apollo pods and a very limited number of SD(P)s equipped with Keyhole 2, it might make sense to redistribute the KH2 equipped SDs and partnered with normal SDs loaded with Apollo pods to distribute the advanced capability.

The moral of the story is that the RMN FUBARed by employing Apollo at Lovat. They should have put off that eaid until the home system was better defended.