TEIF errors?

Regarding the only 2 squadrons of invictus at Galton theory....

Over 200 SDs in the alliance fleet, presumably 70+ are Manty.

This is it, the end-all battle, as far as they know anyways. The invictus is the best in the galaxy, wouldn't they send their best?

Manticore has at least 100 invictus, remember the "python lump" construction was invictus, plus the ones that were in 8th fleet.

Manticore is well defended without requiring a large number of invictus. Mycroft, forts, pods, older SDs

Not sure but aren't the invictus SDs the only Manty SDs that are apollo capable with keyhole 2?

I say not sure because it seems lately anybody can just dump missiles out of freighters by the millions so all you really need is fire control, but I digress....

jaydub69 wrote:Regarding the only 2 squadrons of invictus at Galton theory....

Over 200 SDs in the alliance fleet, presumably 70+ are Manty.

This is it, the end-all battle, as far as they know anyways. The invictus is the best in the galaxy, wouldn't they send their best?

Manticore has at least 100 invictus, remember the "python lump" construction was invictus, plus the ones that were in 8th fleet.

Manticore is well defended without requiring a large number of invictus. Mycroft, forts, pods, older SDs

Not sure but aren't the invictus SDs the only Manty SDs that are apollo capable with keyhole 2?

I say not sure because it seems lately anybody can just dump missiles out of freighters by the millions so all you really need is fire control, but I digress....

They had the Graysons and Andermani along, both of whom have their Keyhole-capable SD(P)s. Some first- and second-generation SD(P)s have been retrofitted with Keyhole after their construction(HMS Imperator got her keyholes after Solon, IIRC).

Weber didn't give us the detailed breakdown of what that fleet had been formed from. It could indeed contain every single Invictus the RMN had left in service; in this case, Galton simply managed to identify Imperator's battle squadron. They still paint the ships' names on their hulls, you know. Get a RD close enough and it can simply read that.

I'm not impressed by your willingness to strip the home larder bare and throw everything Manticore had left into Galton. That seems reckless - we've already seen Mycroft systems sabotaged in Beowulf. And as the whole siege of Galton itself demonstrates, fixed defenses are ultimately of little use against a powerful enough mobile enemy force.

My guess is that the Grand Fleet which attacked Galton would've been approximately 40% Havenite, 30% Manticoran, 15% Grayson and 15% Andermani. It could have been closer to 25% each or Manticore provided +80% with a token task group from each of its allies. We don't know.

jaydub69 wrote:Regarding the only 2 squadrons of invictus at Galton theory....

Over 200 SDs in the alliance fleet, presumably 70+ are Manty.

This is it, the end-all battle, as far as they know anyways. The invictus is the best in the galaxy, wouldn't they send their best?

Manticore has at least 100 invictus, remember the "python lump" construction was invictus, plus the ones that were in 8th fleet.

Manticore is well defended without requiring a large number of invictus. Mycroft, forts, pods, older SDs

Not sure but aren't the invictus SDs the only Manty SDs that are apollo capable with keyhole 2?

I say not sure because it seems lately anybody can just dump missiles out of freighters by the millions so all you really need is fire control, but I digress....

Some Medusas were converted to Keyhole or Keyhole II, but 20 Medusas survived BoMa (by being elsewhere) can never got the Keyhole upgrades - these are part of 10h fleet when Mike attacked Mesa. If any SD(p)s are placed in reserve due to the drawdown (and some were) The Medusas would have been first, followed by any Invictuses with too many dings.

Around 37-43 Manty podlayers survived BoMa intact (depending on the ratio of Manty/Grayson ships in 2nd fleet), and as many as 10 might have been repaired and returned to service (or they might have been scrapped, placed into reserve for later repairs, or destroyed while being repaired in the OB strike). And we know the Python lump as all Invictuses - we just don't know how many. But we do know that it was a sufficient # that they didn't start construction of more after the initial # was laid down. (but they did start a 2nd lump after the first.)

I would expect the only active SDs in Manty and Grayson hands to be Invictus and Harrington II designs, with the older ships in reserve. The IAN is probably leaning on their Keyhole II Adlers, while the older Adlers are either updating or in reserve. We know the Havenites are working on a Tremerire class with Keyhole II (installed at Beowulf), but I don't know if the timeline would allow any (or Many) to be available for the Galton strike.

Theemile wrote:I can understand the BCs - the IAN and the RHN never built Keyhole BCs and fewer than 150 Agamemnons, Couvosier II, and Nikes were built, so many escorts which could not roll their wedge would be vulnerable. But CLACS should either be kept back with the support craft or screened by the fleet, depending on their defenses. So losing 4 Minotaur/Hydras just feels like a rookie mistake, that Honor would not make.

munroburton wrote:It's a tough call. What if some surprise force dropped out of hyper and the LACs she took in-system ran out of countermissiles? Tactical reloads, plus the carriers' own defensive contributions, could be sorely missed.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They didn't have to be all the way back to the hyperlimit. They just had to be back in the formation, further away from the front facing the Galton remnants. But that's also not a good idea because you can't screen them properly if they're hanging out back. Honor didn't feel the need to do anything different than what had worked for the past full week: she'd successfully defended her CLACs and fleet train against dozens of attacks. After all, she parked a full light-minute away, so any possible attack would take at least 200 seconds to arrive, assuming the enemy had true MDMs as capable as a GA one.

While the RMN (and some GSN) are "Attack" carriers with heavy defenses and moderate offenses, most GSN carriers are more "Fleet" carriers with mild defenses and the RHN fields massive "support" Carriers with virtually no defenses. You would want to leave the Fleet and Support carriers somewhere safe, and the Attack carriers would be with your main body, but screened on the far side of the main force to limit their vulnerability.

You wouldn't want to put a RHN Aviary class in the front lines, it would soon be trash.

tlb wrote:That is not precisely what the book says; unfortunately I will have to manually type the quote from page 672 (out of 696):

They weren't armed with graserheads, Galton had exhausted its graserhead production arming the Hasta IIIs and the Cataphracts in the larger, more capable missile pods Adebayo had been forced to destroy before Honor crossed the hyper-limit. These were "only" laserheads, and they streaked in through the lattice of counter-missiles and point defense lasers at 173,000 KPS.

That can either be read as the larger pods were more capable then the ones that were left to fire at the end or as the graser headed missiles were more capable than the laser headed ones. But it says nothing about the size of the warhead.

The point that strikes me is this is something that needed to be in place before the battle started, ready at the end to execute the stab from "Hell's Heart" on command. So these were not leftovers, but perhaps something built specifically for the purpose.

Maybe. Still extremely poor military planning if one intended on winning. But they didn't plan on winning; they knew they couldn't win.

Anyway, two points on the text. First, the "forced to destroy:" that makes it sound like they were trying to hide something. I don't know what. There were no graserheads left anyway. The text makes it sound like it was about larger pods, not strictly larger missiles...

The second is the final speed. 173,000 km/s divided by 150 seconds would mean an average acceleration of 1153 km/s² or 117507 gravities. We know the Cataphracts had been improved to increase their acceleration as early as Filareta's visit, but this number is better than Mk23 level of performance, if we were to accept the time too. A Mk23 can't reach 1 light-minute in 180 seconds, a full 20% longer: its range at full power is 14.6 million km, with final speed topping at "only" 162,400 km/s.

Then there's the question of time, too. For this missile to burn at full power for 150 seconds, it means it must have three stages, not two like every single Cataphract we've met so far. That's something I'd expect no sooner than the Ninurta, but I suppose it's possible. Just bolt yet another Javelin or Trebuchet to the back and fire it from pods (which would be large pods, which Adebayo destroyed?). As Travis said, "as big as a destroyer, as expensive as a frigate" but if they were made for-purpose, maybe the MAlign did really do it. That doesn't completely explain the numbers, though. Even if they did push that acceleration for 150 seconds, their range would only be 13 million km, which is far short of the light-minute (18 million) mark that Honor was at. So I discard that as a possibility.

Instead, if those have the regular Cataphract-C performance of 150 s @ half-power of a capital-ship missile body plus 75 s of a CM stage at its only power setting, it can reach the light-minute mark and achieve a velocity of 173,000 km/s. But that's 225 seconds, so we do indeed have to discard that 150 number.

Theemile wrote:While the RMN (and some GSN) are "Attack" carriers with heavy defenses and moderate offenses, most GSN carriers are more "Fleet" carriers with mild defenses and the RHN fields massive "support" Carriers with virtually no defenses. You would want to leave the Fleet and Support carriers somewhere safe, and the Attack carriers would be with your main body, but screened on the far side of the main force to limit their vulnerability.

You wouldn't want to put a RHN Aviary class in the front lines, it would soon be trash.

You still need to put them somewhere. Honor was right to bring them, because this enemy had still some tricks up their very tattered sleeves. She needed the LACs they offered to properly screen her fleet.

So where is the best place to screen them? In the centre of your formation where every direction has a layer of defensive ships? Or out the back, with one direction much weaker than its opposite?

In hindsight, it would have been the latter. But Honor not being clairvoyant, she couldn't have known a threat wouldn't materialise out the back or from another side. I don't blame her for their placement. I feel confident the after-action inquiry will conclude the same

Theemile wrote:
While the RMN (and some GSN) are "Attack" carriers with heavy defenses and moderate offenses, most GSN carriers are more "Fleet" carriers with mild defenses and the RHN fields massive "support" Carriers with virtually no defenses. You would want to leave the Fleet and Support carriers somewhere safe, and the Attack carriers would be with your main body, but screened on the far side of the main force to limit their vulnerability.

You wouldn't want to put a RHN Aviary class in the front lines, it would soon be trash.

Certainly compared to an Aviary-class a Minotaur is well defended. But even so RFC has talked in the past about the Admiralty at least investigating even better defended CLAC designs.

They're not happy with their vulnerability in the wall of battle (hence the RMN often having them drop their LACs and hyper out, with some escorts, rather than crossing the hyper limit). But they still want CLACs that can survive with the fleet, even under the hottest fire, because the fleet needs the ability to rearm the LACs that are providing its anti-missile screen. (Otherwise they run out of CMs after the first couple salvos and your anti-missile defenses get a lot weaker). So they'll possibly end up further specializing with some CLACs designed for close support work and others optimized more for stowage and maintenance of larger LAC wings. The larger CLACs can still drop and go, and then the close support CLACs will handle rearming both their organic LAC wings but also the detached wings from the higher capacity CLACs.

tlb wrote:That is not precisely what the book says; unfortunately I will have to manually type the quote from page 672 (out of 696):

They weren't armed with graserheads, Galton had exhausted its graserhead production arming the Hasta IIIs and the Cataphracts in the larger, more capable missile pods Adebayo had been forced to destroy before Honor crossed the hyper-limit. These were "only" laserheads, and they streaked in through the lattice of counter-missiles and point defense lasers at 173,000 KPS.

That can either be read as the larger pods were more capable then the ones that were left to fire at the end or as the graser headed missiles were more capable than the laser headed ones. But it says nothing about the size of the warhead.

The point that strikes me is this is something that needed to be in place before the battle started, ready at the end to execute the stab from "Hell's Heart" on command. So these were not leftovers, but perhaps something built specifically for the purpose.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Maybe. Still extremely poor military planning if one intended on winning. But they didn't plan on winning; they knew they couldn't win.

Anyway, two points on the text. First, the "forced to destroy:" that makes it sound like they were trying to hide something. I don't know what. There were no graserheads left anyway. The text makes it sound like it was about larger pods, not strictly larger missiles...

I do not understand your quibble with "forced to destroy", since that was part of the surrender terms that they had to obey; as those the pods were visible to Honor's fleet. The graser-headed missiles were gone after those last deployed pods were destroyed.

tlb wrote:I do not understand your quibble with "forced to destroy", since that was part of the surrender terms that they had to obey; as those the pods were visible to Honor's fleet. The graser-headed missiles were gone after those last deployed pods were destroyed.

Oops, missed that. Thank you.

jaydub69 wrote:Greetings all. I enjoyed TEIF very much over all but... some things concerning galton seem like they were missed in the proofreading?

The primary fortress at galton-48 million tons of heavily armored and armed mass so equivalent to about 5-6 SDs, yet over a million Inhabitants?


The "after surrender" attack- less than 1000 surviving standard cataphracts took out 22 capital ships, half of them SDs? Those missiles were orders of magnitude better than the Graser heads, or any other missile. that's my 2 cents for now.

Its worse. It was blind fired 11,000 Cataphract missiles against ~200 SD + 80CLAC + LAC... and here I have a MASSIVE problem with DW... Last Galton missile "salvo" has only 1000 LAC defending... WTF? They brought AT LEAST 8000 as they brought ~80 CLAC... Should be 10,000 or thereabouts.

At Manticore, against 70,000 blind fired Cataphract missiles against a mere 50 SD's and ~2000LAC, with 150SD too far away to really help, essentially no paint was scratched.

So, at Galton, ~-1/6 the missiles fired as at Manticore from essentially same ~distance, 11 SD's are killed outright... Uh. Did someone miss a Zero? It was really supposed to be 110,000 missiles blind fired? Still shouldn't have mattered with 4X the SDP and an additional 80 CLAC and their LAC's for defense. Yea yea, they lost what??? 3 initially.. Ok, 280-3 capital ships and ~8000 LAC's against 11,000 missiles. Oh no! 1 missile per ship! SOS SOS SOS SOS 1 missile per ship! Oh no! Even if it was 10 missiles per ship it still should not have mattered.

As for the Laser vrs Graser... Graser does not mean magic. All it means is more efficient throughput... yet here we only have a single rod of light instead of 7 or 10 in a Capital Grade missile?(The ? is because we do not know on a Cataphract laser vrs Graser) WTH..... The Hasta's shouldn't have scratched anyone's paint. It should require 7-->10X number of Hasta missiles to achieve better damage as Laser head missiles.

The whole Graserhead, as presented in the latest book seems completely contrived, and in contrarian position to the entire tech history of the Honorverse. I am sorry DW, bad move. Good book though.