Spoilers - Toll of Honor

Honor speaking.

<snip>

And you know how tight we’re starting to run maintenance cycles just to keep ships too. Just like you know we can't even activate the mutual defense provisions of the Alliance without a formal declaration.

<snip>

I suppose only god and his Remington knows what the mutual defense provisions are. Even I can speculate. But at that point in the timeline who would the defense provisions benefit? Surely Manticore didn't need ships from Grayson to help protect the MBS. But as far as rear areas, couldn't Grayson react and redeploy ships according to the Alliance's wishes on their own accord?

At any rate, this passage got me thinking. After Oyster Bay, the RMN was dependent on Beowulf for production. But who kept the Alliance's existing ships serviced? Shouldn't that responsibility have severely hampered Beowulf's production abilities? Come on, Beowulf would have had to refit, repair, maintain and produce weapons and systems for the entire Alliance. I just didn't think Beowulf had that kind of infrastructure at the time.

penny wrote:Honor speaking.

<snip>

And you know how tight we’re starting to run maintenance cycles just to keep ships too. Just like you know we can't even activate the mutual defense provisions of the Alliance without a formal declaration.

<snip>

I suppose only god and his Remington knows what the mutual defense provisions are. Even I can speculate. But at that point in the timeline who would the defense provisions benefit? Surely Manticore didn't need ships from Grayson to help protect the MBS. But as far as rear areas, couldn't Grayson react and redeploy ships according to the Alliance's wishes on their own accord?

At any rate, this passage got me thinking. After Oyster Bay, the RMN was dependent on Beowulf for production. But who kept the Alliance's existing ships serviced? Shouldn't that responsibility have severely hampered Beowulf's production abilities? Come on, Beowulf would have had to refit, repair, maintain and produce weapons and systems for the entire Alliance. I just didn't think Beowulf had that kind of infrastructure at the time.

After Oyster Bay some of the basic repair and maintenance could have been taken up by Haven's yards (as they quickly joined the alliance). Those yards don't have all the high tech or stockpiles of specific RMN components, but they're more than capable of, say, replacing worn impeller nodes and sail tuners. The actual production of, say, Beta-squared nodes might be beyond their current production infrastructure; but if Beowulf makes them Haven has more than enough yard slips to handle installing them.

Also, Manticore and the RMN would have a certain number of mobile repair ships, stockpiles of maintenance spares in forward repair yards like Hancock, and the like. So it's not like losing their three main stations and dispersed yards completely eliminated the RMN's own repair and maintenance capabilities. And finally, the RMN ships themselves have a surprising amount of low rate production capability in their own internal workshops -- it's less efficient to make, say, replacement molycircs computer cores onboard instead of getting a new one off the assembly line; but they can do so given sufficient time. So if the RMN is willing to accept some additional downtime they could also temporarily shift more of the repair and maintenance onto their ships' internal capabilities (as a short to medium term band aid)

Now refits and upgrades likely had to be postponed, but they can probably get a handle on basic yard maintenance pretty quickly.


As for the mutual defense clause in Toll of Honor (at the start of the first war), Grayson wouldn't have much at this point (mostly just some destroyers and cruisers Manticore had given them, but Erewhon and Talbot (one T, the first war single system ally, not the later Talbott, two Ts, quadrant) both had some ships of the wall which would be useful additions to the RMN's order of battle.
But speculating further the mutual defense clauses might also potentially have given RMN admirals command over local forces in their systems (say Alizon or Zanzibar's local cruisers and destroyers -- if those systems came under attack you might need to give them tactical orders directly, rather than relay requests through their Admiralty). Or potentially they might have triggered funding or manpower obligations on the smaller treaty partners -- since they wouldn't be able to contribute useful numbers of ships. Or it might simply have removed layers of getting permission each time the RMN needed to change its fleet strengths in the allied systems. (e.g. maybe without the mutual defense clauses active the might have to formally ask the system government each time they wanted to send reinforcements, draw down the defenses, or simply swap out ships. Something that becomes a problematic delay at best in wartime).

But ultimately you're right -- we don't actually know what those clauses were or why activating them would have been so helpful

penny wrote:At any rate, this passage got me thinking. After Oyster Bay, the RMN was dependent on Beowulf for production. But who kept the Alliance's existing ships serviced? Shouldn't that responsibility have severely hampered Beowulf's production abilities? Come on, Beowulf would have had to refit, repair, maintain and produce weapons and systems for the entire Alliance. I just didn't think Beowulf had that kind of infrastructure at the time.

The RMN still had many repair ships, like the one Warnecke had at Sidemore in Honor Among Enemies. Also Haven's facilities became available soon afterwards, but I expect that rebuilding shipyards for repair was a high priority.

Note that ending the war with Haven resulted in the return of many captured shipyard workers.

penny wrote:Honor speaking.

<snip>

And you know how tight we’re starting to run maintenance cycles just to keep ships too. Just like you know we can't even activate the mutual defense provisions of the Alliance without a formal declaration.

<snip>

I suppose only god and his Remington knows what the mutual defense provisions are. Even I can speculate. But at that point in the timeline who would the defense provisions benefit? Surely Manticore didn't need ships from Grayson to help protect the MBS. But as far as rear areas, couldn't Grayson react and redeploy ships according to the Alliance's wishes on their own accord?

At any rate, this passage got me thinking. After Oyster Bay, the RMN was dependent on Beowulf for production. But who kept the Alliance's existing ships serviced? Shouldn't that responsibility have severely hampered Beowulf's production abilities? Come on, Beowulf would have had to refit, repair, maintain and produce weapons and systems for the entire Alliance. I just didn't think Beowulf had that kind of infrastructure at the time.

Jonathan_S wrote:After Oyster Bay some of the basic repair and maintenance could have been taken up by Haven's yards (as they quickly joined the alliance). Those yards don't have all the high tech or stockpiles of specific RMN components, but they're more than capable of, say, replacing worn impeller nodes and sail tuners. The actual production of, say, Beta-squared nodes might be beyond their current production infrastructure; but if Beowulf makes them Haven has more than enough yard slips to handle installing them.

Also, Manticore and the RMN would have a certain number of mobile repair ships, stockpiles of maintenance spares in forward repair yards like Hancock, and the like. So it's not like losing their three main stations and dispersed yards completely eliminated the RMN's own repair and maintenance capabilities. And finally, the RMN ships themselves have a surprising amount of low rate production capability in their own internal workshops -- it's less efficient to make, say, replacement molycircs computer cores onboard instead of getting a new one off the assembly line; but they can do so given sufficient time. So if the RMN is willing to accept some additional downtime they could also temporarily shift more of the repair and maintenance onto their ships' internal capabilities (as a short to medium term band aid)

Now refits and upgrades likely had to be postponed, but they can probably get a handle on basic yard maintenance pretty quickly.


As for the mutual defense clause in Toll of Honor (at the start of the first war), Grayson wouldn't have much at this point (mostly just some destroyers and cruisers Manticore had given them, but Erewhon and Talbot (one T, the first war single system ally, not the later Talbott, two Ts, quadrant) both had some ships of the wall which would be useful additions to the RMN's order of battle.

But speculating further the mutual defense clauses might also potentially have given RMN admirals command over local forces in their systems (say Alizon or Zanzibar's local cruisers and destroyers -- if those systems came under attack you might need to give them tactical orders directly, rather than relay requests through their Admiralty). Or potentially they might have triggered funding or manpower obligations on the smaller treaty partners -- since they wouldn't be able to contribute useful numbers of ships. Or it might simply have removed layers of getting permission each time the RMN needed to change its fleet strengths in the allied systems. (e.g. maybe without the mutual defense clauses active the might have to formally ask the system government each time they wanted to send reinforcements, draw down the defenses, or simply swap out ships. Something that becomes a problematic delay at best in wartime).

But ultimately you're right -- we don't actually know what those clauses were or why activating them would have been so helpful

Thanks a lot guys. I didn't think Haven was an option because of incompatible tools, systems, and ship design. Granted, although I would think the logistics of Haven helping out would be annoying, it shouldn't be insurmountable. And they could share technicians and engineers, etc. But I thought Manticore lost a lot of experienced yard workers, engineers, technicians etc., that should have taken loads of time to bring Haven's yards up to snuff or to retrain additional qualified people in the MBS. Everything relating to Beowulf would be compatible.

Anyway, holy cow, I forgot the need to rebuild everything added to the mix. It still seems it should have been a huge undertaking. But with Haven's help, I agree it could have been done. Haven probably had a lot of dispersed yards themselves; which is ironic thinking Manticore would have surely exclaimed at some point a wish they hadn't destroyed certain infrastructure of Haven's. "I sure wish we hadn't gutted System X."

Anyway, Jonathan, after OB Erewhon and Talbot's ships wouldn't be an option, would they? The enemy at that point was the SL. If either Erewhon or Talbot had been drawn down I think both of them would have become tasty targets.

Now that one of you mentioned it, Haven had mobile repair ships as well.

At any rate, something just occured to me about the mutual defense provisions. Recall when High Ridge soured the alliance between Manticore and Grayson? The two navies couldn't share Intel, research, etc.

penny wrote:I suppose only god and his Remington knows what the mutual defense provisions are. Even I can speculate. But at that point in the timeline who would the defense provisions benefit? Surely Manticore didn't need ships from Grayson to help protect the MBS. But as far as rear areas, couldn't Grayson react and redeploy ships according to the Alliance's wishes on their own accord?

Yes, they could, but what ships? This is 1906, early 1907. The GSN didn't have a lot of spare ships yet. They had acquired (or been gifted) older RMN ships starting in 1903 and had been building Manticore-licensed ships up the tech ladder, but at this time that's all they had. They were quick, starting with building those Manticore designs in 1904, so some of the ships were ready for the war. But how many could they spare from local system defence to project power?

And no capital ships yet -- their first SDs were the Manticore's Gift class, which were the 28 DuQuesne-class ex-PRN units among those that were captured during Third Yieltsin. Even the most lightly damaged of those units means it had been sufficiently so that it couldn't escape White Haven's trap only about a year in the past. The Steadholder Denevski class ships were still in construction and the Benjamin the Great was only an idea.

So at this time the GSN could at best do patrolling and some commerce protection. They had no Battle Fleets to send out to join Third and Sixth Fleets. They might have contributed a CruRon or two to each of those fleets, maybe a BatCruRon, but that's not a lot to add.

What begs the question is what the other members of the Alliance could have done. We know Erewhon had SDs so could contribute a Battle Squadron and we know some of the other minor members did have some too, but by activating the mutual defence treaty, they also declared war on Haven and thus could be subject to attack. So the mutual defence treaty's activation means each system needed more protection, not less.

At any rate, this passage got me thinking. After Oyster Bay, the RMN was dependent on Beowulf for production. But who kept the Alliance's existing ships serviced? Shouldn't that responsibility have severely hampered Beowulf's production abilities? Come on, Beowulf would have had to refit, repair, maintain and produce weapons and systems for the entire Alliance. I just didn't think Beowulf had that kind of infrastructure at the time.

You're forgetting the Andermani yards (of which there must be at least two and one of them is hidden!), Haven's - including Bolthole - and the repair yards that the RMN had at Trevor's Star and elsewhere.

penny wrote:
Anyway, Jonathan, after OB Erewhon and Talbot's ships wouldn't be an option, would they? The enemy at that point was the SL. If either Erewhon or Talbot had been drawn down I think both of them would have become tasty targets.

I mentioned them only in response to the other half of your post; about the mutual defense clauses from Toll of Honor (so set in 1905 PD; at the start of the first war. So 17 years before OB)

By the time of Oyster Bay you're right neither would have been useful with Manticore's fleet maintenance; nor would their ships be hugely useful against the League (even if they wanted to participate -- which is unlikely).

Talbot (one 'T') had reportedly mothballed or closed their capital ship yards during the ceasefire (rather than upgrading them to handle the more modern ships and tech that had come into existence during that first war) and then left the Manticoran alliance over High Ridge's nonsense. So they now (after OB) lacked the tech, yards, modern ships, or obligation to help Manticore.

Erewhon had bought their pre-war SDs from League yards so didn't have capital ship yards in the first place (though after also pulling out of the alliance over High Ridge's nonsense they started building towards that. But any capital ship slips they have would be full of their first domestic built SD(P)s -- but offhand I can't remember if they've yet graduated from their domestic BC(P)s to SD(P)s yet) And even at the time they left they only had some of the Manti-tech invented during the first war (and of course nothing from after that); so their production lines wouldn't be all that helpful and they lack yard capacity -- even if they wanted to help out Manticore.
Though their navy, and naval construction, did help out Torch.

penny wrote:Thanks a lot guys. I didn't think Haven was an option because of incompatible tools, systems, and ship design. Granted, although I would think the logistics of Haven helping out would be annoying, it shouldn't be insurmountable. And they could share technicians and engineers, etc. But I thought Manticore lost a lot of experienced yard workers, engineers, technicians etc., that should have taken loads of time to bring Haven's yards up to snuff or to retrain additional qualified people in the MBS. Everything relating to Beowulf would be compatible.

They did, but as tlb said, by ending the war, Haven returned the POWs that had been captured all the way back in Operation Thunderbolt, so that helped alleviate the shortage, somewhat. It also meant that the repair yards didn't have to service Eighth Fleet's battle damage against the RHN, so could turn to rebuilding the tools to build the tools to build new ships and stations.

Beowulf would be more compatible for anything high-tech (and definitely closer) but Beowulf didn't have any of the technology that even Haven had at this point because Manticore and Beowulf were deliberately keeping the SL in the dark about their capabilities.

As I said above, the most capable yards at this time would have been the Andermani's. Those had been part of the new Alliance since Thunderbolt and had been building SD(P) even earlier. They had a great deal of the Manticore tech package, possibly all of it because their existing Adler-class SD(P)s were being refitted with Keyhole II and their new constructions were coming out of the yards with those. We know the time it takes to travel from the Gregor terminus to New Berlin and it's reasonable enough: it's closer than Grayson and Haven.

What we don't know is where that other yard is. The one where those Adlers were being refitted. The one that Theisman's NavInt couldn't find. It's unlikely to be in Gregor - that would have been great, but too obvious for NavInt to have missed. And its construction would have been started way before the Alliance, so the IAN would have never placed it in the system where RMN ships emerged frequently in.

Finally, don't discount Marsh and the Republic of Sidemore.

Anyway, Jonathan, after OB Erewhon and Talbot's ships wouldn't be an option, would they? The enemy at that point was the SL. If either Erewhon or Talbot had been drawn down I think both of them would have become tasty targets.

At this time, Talbot has faded from history. We don't know what was happening there. But note that the war with the SL was not a Manticore Alliance war: the Andermani were excused from it so they could focus on finding the Alignment. It was Grand Alliance war.

Erewhon was also out. At this time, they had their own secret dealings with the Maya Sector and their Carlucci Industries were building up the tech ladder to get to Manticore-style SD(P)s for both the ESN and the later MARSN. The SLN would not attack Erewhon because they thought they were already getting everything via Maya.

We also know they didn't have the full tech package. As much as Manticore may have wanted to help Erewhon and Maya (and they did, with Pat Givens going to Smoking Frog to talk to Roszak and Barregos!), they also knew not to hand over too much to where the SLN was paying attention.

At any rate, something just occured to me about the mutual defense provisions. Recall when High Ridge soured the alliance between Manticore and Grayson? The two navies couldn't share Intel, research, etc.

Soured is not the same as abrogated or exited the treaty. All he did was take the lofty position of overlord of the treaty, making all decisions and treating all other members as inferior, not worthy of attention. He probably toed the strict line of the treaty in terms of what had to be shared, but did not grossly and openly violate it. All those Alliance members were still useful markets for him and he needed to keep Manticore in a state of war to avoid dropping the extra taxation and the admission of new peers into the Lords.

Non-gross violations were probably ignored because those other members probably did need Manticore's help, if they were seeing the writing on the wall the same way that Grayson was or possibly with Grayson's intel. That is, unless they signed peace treaties with Haven directly. Which Pritchart was all too happy to do.

Jonathan_S wrote:Erewhon had bought their pre-war SDs from League yards so didn't have capital ship yards in the first place (though after also pulling out of the alliance over High Ridge's nonsense they started building towards that. But any capital ship slips they have would be full of their first domestic built SD(P)s -- but offhand I can't remember if they've yet graduated from their domestic BC(P)s to SD(P)s yet) And even at the time they left they only had some of the Manti-tech invented during the first war (and of course nothing from after that); so their production lines wouldn't be all that helpful and they lack yard capacity -- even if they wanted to help out Manticore.
Though their navy, and naval construction, did help out Torch.

By 1922, the Carlucci Industries-built SD(P)s were not yet in service in either the ESN nor delivered to Maya. I suppose the first one might have been out of the yards and in builder's trials, but that's little comfort. According to the wiki, the first BC had only been commissioned in the Maya Sector Detachment in January 1922.

See also above why the GA would not want to help the Erewhonese too much at this time.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:I suppose only god and his Remington knows what the mutual defense provisions are. Even I can speculate. But at that point in the timeline who would the defense provisions benefit? Surely Manticore didn't need ships from Grayson to help protect the MBS. But as far as rear areas, couldn't Grayson react and redeploy ships according to the Alliance's wishes on their own accord?

Yes, they could, but what ships? This is 1906, early 1907. The GSN didn't have a lot of spare ships yet. They had acquired (or been gifted) older RMN ships starting in 1903 and had been building Manticore-licensed ships up the tech ladder, but at this time that's all they had. They were quick, starting with building those Manticore designs in 1904, so some of the ships were ready for the war. But how many could they spare from local system defence to project power?

And no capital ships yet -- their first SDs were the Manticore's Gift class, which were the 28 DuQuesne-class ex-PRN units among those that were captured during Third Yieltsin. Even the most lightly damaged of those units means it had been sufficiently so that it couldn't escape White Haven's trap only about a year in the past. The Steadholder Denevski class ships were still in construction and the Benjamin the Great was only an idea.

So at this time the GSN could at best do patrolling and some commerce protection. They had no Battle Fleets to send out to join Third and Sixth Fleets. They might have contributed a CruRon or two to each of those fleets, maybe a BatCruRon, but that's not a lot to add.

What begs the question is what the other members of the Alliance could have done. We know Erewhon had SDs so could contribute a Battle Squadron and we know some of the other minor members did have some too, but by activating the mutual defence treaty, they also declared war on Haven and thus could be subject to attack. So the mutual defence treaty's activation means each system needed more protection, not less.

At any rate, this passage got me thinking. After Oyster Bay, the RMN was dependent on Beowulf for production. But who kept the Alliance's existing ships serviced? Shouldn't that responsibility have severely hampered Beowulf's production abilities? Come on, Beowulf would have had to refit, repair, maintain and produce weapons and systems for the entire Alliance. I just didn't think Beowulf had that kind of infrastructure at the time.

You're forgetting the Andermani yards (of which there must be at least two and one of them is hidden!), Haven's - including Bolthole - and the repair yards that the RMN had at Trevor's Star and elsewhere.

I didn't forget the Andermani. I recalled they decided to stay out of the Alliance, for reasons I cannot recall. They probably did not want to become a target. But now that you all mention it, the Andermani did offer to at least assist with infrastructure, etc. I don't know why they'd think that would be the definition of remaining neutral.

Is their hidden yard(s) still classified to Haven, Grayson and Manticore? If so, why? OpSec in the face of the MAN?

penny wrote:I didn't forget the Andermani. I recalled they decided to stay out of the Alliance, for reasons I cannot recall. They probably did not want to become a target. But now that you all mention it, the Andermani did offer to at least assist with infrastructure, etc. I don't know why they'd think that would be the definition of remaining neutral.

Is their hidden yard(s) still classified to Haven, Grayson and Manticore? If so, why? OpSec in the face of the MAN?

It was decided to leave them out of the battle with the Solarian League, even though they had participated in the fighting against Haven; because at that point everyone knew the extra force was not needed. But I am quite sure that they were included in the attack on Galton.

I do not remember any mention of hidden Andermani yards.