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

ThinksMarkedly wrote: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.

But Calvin is IIRC about the same distance from Manticore as Trevor's Star; just in a different direction. Forces from there could save some transit time if they were ordered to proceed directly from Calvin to a rendezvous at some empty system or spot of deep space some 15 or 20 LY from Manticore.

I'm far from convinced that delaying will make things go better for Haven - just pointing out that there's a way to concentrate those forces more quickly. Though they won't have time to drill with the rest of the reinforced Beatrice force - but building in that rendezvous stop should ensure that at least that they all arrive at Manticore on the correct timing.

Jonathan_S wrote: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.

The arrogance of the RMN was clearly pretty high, as they didn't even both to launch recon drones. They correctly identified what 2nd fleet was doing when the deployed pods, and then later carefully laid out all the advantages they had. The, In both cases, they took a deep drag on the crack pipe and said 'whatever'.

Jonathan_S wrote: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)

Were the Apollo system defense pods at Beowulf fired under internal control (based on the manual input) after the destruction of Mycroft? If so, then they would still have an impact without the complete installation of Keyhole II.

I do think Lovat should have been delayed to get the system defenses better equipped.

tlb wrote:Were the Apollo system defense pods at Beowulf fired under internal control (based on the manual input) after the destruction of Mycroft? If so, then they would still have an impact without the complete installation of Keyhole II.

I do think Lovat should have been delayed to get the system defenses better equipped.

Here's the specific quote from UH

Uncompromising Honor wrote:Corey McAvoy’s brown eyes were dark, his lips tight. “We’re still reprogramming the Apollo pods. It’s taking a lot longer without Mycroft—and they’re not going to be as accurate—but we should be ready to launch within the next six minutes, and we’ve got a lot of them. That’s not going to help us if the bastards’ve snuck something into the inner system, though.”

They might have gotten a bit of lightspeed input after that initial programming and launch. But given how far out the SLN units were (I believe they were still near 200 million km out) the Beowulf Apollo launch was effectively on its own internal control for the majority of the engagement.

tlb wrote: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.

Depends on where they go first. If as I believe 8th Fleet got new reinforcements before the BoM most of those Apollo Pods would be going to 8th Fleet to arm the SD(P)'s there, stock up a nice reserve of Ammunition in preparation for the python lump as I assume they weren't surprised by it. They need their ships stocked up, they need pods for rearmament and preparations for the next offensive. Problem is that a month later wouldn't necessarily be worse because of system defence pods, but it would be harder because 8th Fleet would have had more time to drill their SD(P)'s and get more SD(P)'s with keyhole capabilities in their arsenal, now where they go is the question, if they go to Home Fleet that's a problem, if they go to 8th Fleet it might work in the RHN's favour if they get lucky. Normally I wouldn't count on luck but its not like they had much else going for them.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
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.

My point about splitting the fleet was based on the fact that you don't need 240 SD(P)'s to take out Home Fleet, having 80 SD(P)'s and 100 SD's with a sizable LAC force go head to head with Home Fleet would save the other 160 SD(P)'s from damage and destruction. Home Fleet would not be bothering with shooting around, under, over or through the lead elements, they would be fighting to defeat the immediate threat. So yes Home Fleet might destroy 80 SD(P)'s and 100 SD's, but then you have a 2nd TF that is unbloodied and has the remaining 350,000 missiles for a first launch to clear the fixed defences.

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.

In this case, I would add Battleships if I had them. Unless it’s a 300 yearold museum ship I want it with me if I can get it there. Even if you bring a ship just to thicken the missile defence its worth it.

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?

Two Major Fleets, two top commanders with Giscard being the senior of them. I wont bypass my senior field commander and put him in a position one of his subordinates can handle while I put a less experienced officer in command of either 2nd or 5th Fleet. You are going after a tough target, you need your best officers.

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.

Seeing as there is a war going on, they should be ready for battle on a moments notice. So a DB is send out by Theisman the day after the News for Lovat comes in to all systems with ship concentrations with orders to a rendezvous location and leave for that location within 48h, if anyone cant for whatever reason leave in that time frame they should make quick work to fix their issues and move to Haven to form a fleet there.

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).

You are in Washington DC, you need to gather as many troops in Reno, Nevada for an offensive on San Francisco. You take your capital army and send messengers to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas etc..etc..etc.. with orders to leave NLT 48h after receipt of message and rendezvous in Reno Nevada ASAP. You don’t bother sending a messenger to US forces in Europe because they are too far to be of use ATM. The Army unit from North Dakota leaves their base and heads to Reno within 48h as ordered and it will take a little longer to get there but I don’t see how it would be 4 weeks extra.

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

Did it take them 2 months to get to the rally point?[/quote] The question is, can they send a message from Haven to Bolthole and get them to the rally point in time for jump off? If Bolthole has 50 SD(P)’s picket and another 50 SD(P)’s working up along with say 20 CLAC’s that in and of itself is a good sized fleet. They come in formed up with some time for training on the way there. They had 70 days to get news from Lovat to Haven, send orders to the various commands and meet at rally point, and then be at Manticore.

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

And that’s why because plot is an answer here. If the RMN had planned for this, called up reinforcements from the minor allies, GSN and IAN Home Fleet as well as brought up 8th Fleet to Manticore the battle would have been a massacre for Manticore, especially if they had managed to triple Home Fleet’s Lac screen it would have been a one way battle and nowhere near close enough or an immediate retreat/surrender. If 2nd Fleet showed up in Manticore and found it guarded by 200 SD(P)’s waiting for the RHN with 40 of them being keyhole and Apollo it would have been suicide, no trap for 5th Fleet to spring as he will need every SD(P) he can get.

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.

The RMN/GSN started the war with 190 SD(P)’s, there were 35 S(DP)’s under construction in Manticore that were to be finished within a year of Jan 1920. So that right there is 225 SD(P)’s. Then there was the GSN’s SD(P)’s under construction. If throughout 1920 and early 1921 the GSN had commissioned another 30-40 SD(P)’s that brings the total to 265 SD(P)’s for the GSN/RMN. The IAN had 42 SD(P)’s in commission at start of war, those ships might not be on the main front but they will be deployed to the IAN Home Fleet and other important systems in the Empire. I doubt the IAN pulled out their SD(P)’s and put them in yards leaving themselves defenceless or a burden to limited resources of the MA fleet. sO that brings the total to 307 SD(P)’s. Then we add the ~45 SD(P)’s that were sped up by the Emperor so the total is 352 SD(P)’s.

So the MA has 352 SD(P)’s minus 12 SD(P)’s for losses incurred in Solon and Zanzibar.

That is 340 SD(P)’s with 87 of them being IAN, ~110 SD(P)’s being RMN and 143 SD(P)’s being GSN. In all honesty chances are the GSN sold some of their new SD(P) construction to the RMN so those would be off but 20 SD(P)’s more for the RMN and 20 less for the GSN isn’t a big deal since they are on the same side.


During the BoM, the alliance lost Home Fleet, 3rd Fleet and elements of 8th Fleet that were attached to 3rd Fleet. During the BoM the losses were 98 SD(P)’s destroyed or written off. So that’s 340 SD(P)’s – 98 SD(P)’s leaving the allied wall to 242 SD(P). Which is 10 SD(P)’s more than they started the war with.

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.

Yeah, mothball older ships which incidentally would be the SD’s still with 3rd Fleet since they probably weren’t brough in, the GSN Home Fleet, IAN and covering secondary systems like Alizon, Zanzibar etc. With 240 SD(P)’s remaining in the MA SD(P) strength, there are only ~4 truly critical systems(New Berlin, Grayson, Manticore and Trevor’s Star) and after BoM we can safely rule out New Berlin even though the MA should still have SD(P)’s in the system. New Berlin gets 30 SD(P)’s, Grayson gets 40 SD(P)’s, Manticore gets 70 SD(P)’s and Trevor’s Star gets 70 SD(P)’s. At the same time 8th Fleet would constitute 8th Fleet because they are the only Keyhole force in the Alliance so Home Fleet would be 105 SD(P)’s but only about 35 SD(P)’s would truly matter until new constructions can reform Home Fleet.

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

Which would all be deployed to RMN/GSN Home Fleet and Trevor’s Star thereby freeing 8th Fleet for operations. This would release 180 regular SD(P)’s for redeployment because with Apollo Trevor’s Star, Manticore and Grayson are well protected. I would reinforce the IAN and keep the rest in Trevor’s Star.

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.

Zanzibat, Alizon and whatever other smaller allies are around all have SD(P)’s picketing them. Between 7-11 SD(P)’s but they add up. The GSN HF would add up to ~60 SD(P)’s because they don’t have 3rd Fleet to reinforce them if the need should come so they have to be stronger than the RMN Home Fleet. So grabbing some SD(P)’s from there would work as well. Also pull out any SD(P)’s from non critical systems.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
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.

It should be by degrees, its not going to be 1 Aug 1921 no Apollo pods in Manticore and 2 Aug 1921 there are 50,000 pods. So it would be a gradual growth, the question is when is too long. Since he cant know when the point Apollo makes Manticore impregnable he has to do it as quickly as possible but at the same time waiting a week or two extra for another 100 SD(P)'s would be worth it especially if they came along with another 50 CLAC's. Plus cant tell me that not a single SD was able to join the fleet so he chose to leave them behind.

Jonathan_S wrote:But Calvin is IIRC about the same distance from Manticore as Trevor's Star; just in a different direction. Forces from there could save some transit time if they were ordered to proceed directly from Calvin to a rendezvous at some empty system or spot of deep space some 15 or 20 LY from Manticore.

That can't be. Calvin is 200 light-years from Sol and Sanctuary is 10 from Calvin. Manticore is 512 light-years from Sol. So even if the three line up perfectly in a straight line, the distance would be 302 light-years, or 37 days of travel. Add the 10 days to get the movement orders to Bolthole and you're looking at 47 days between ordering and them making to RV system.

And the chances that the three systems are in straight line are zero. If Calvin is off by 60°, the distance is 447 light-years.

Jonathan_S wrote: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.

See, that's what I don't understand, why don't they blind fire missiles. The pods near Manticore should be close to 500,000 alone, they are dual missiles, why not blind fire them at 2nd Fleet timed to coincide with the longest ranged fire from Home Fleet. Even 10% of those pods would have overwhelmed 2nd Fleet and aided in Home Fleet's fire which they should have been firing until they were dry. Home Fleet should have had at least another 210,000 missiles alone and that's on the low end. I don't care that only a small portion are under actual ship computer, sending 860,000 missiles at 2nd Fleet would effectively destroy them. What were the fixed defences waiting for? Do the old movie fighting trick where the bad guys come in one at a time, except here its Manticore's defences.

Sigs wrote: See, that's what I don't understand, why don't they blind fire missiles. The pods near Manticore should be close to 500,000 alone, they are dual missiles, why not blind fire them at 2nd Fleet timed to coincide with the longest ranged fire from Home Fleet. Even 10% of those pods would have overwhelmed 2nd Fleet and aided in Home Fleet's fire which they should have been firing until they were dry. Home Fleet should have had at least another 210,000 missiles alone and that's on the low end. I don't care that only a small portion are under actual ship computer, sending 860,000 missiles at 2nd Fleet would effectively destroy them. What were the fixed defences waiting for? Do the old movie fighting trick where the bad guys come in one at a time, except here its Manticore's defences.

There is a lot 'plot' in the Awful Book. I'm not saying it would have made sense to engage with the planetary defenses at that range (I think you are the first person the think of that and I haven't thought about it much) but even without that - Home knew that the odds that they would fire more than half their pods were slim using their fire plan. Why not add unguided missiles? They still look like a threat.