Spoilers - Toll of Honor

penny wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Also, why would small navies be doing raiding? The scenario of w war with the MAlign, the MAlign would be doing the raiding, not the other way around.

In any case, what I took important from the passage is that you can do a 4-band crash translation in 15 minutes, so you can do two bands in 5. That's important for the calculation of how long the ready-desron takes to respond to a hyper footprint way out from the hyperlimit.

I was specifically referring to the RMN. The RMN is traditionally a much smaller navy than the RHN, and certainly smaller than the SLN. And the RMN has been attacking the Peep's rear areas since the beginning. Sometimes that is all a mosquito can do until its Project Gram gives it a significant bite. Especially when the much bigger navy is forcing you into war. Besides, "island hopping" is a thing.

Jonathan_S wrote:I wouldn't have guessed that was who you were talking about.

While it is true that the RMN, as the third largest navy, as of OBS, is smaller than the 1st largest (SLN) or 2nd largest (RHN) it is not what most people would call small. (Over 300 wallers, 2/3rds as many as Haven is still quite a large navy)

penny wrote:This is also something that is quite interesting, but it is also something else that surpried me. This particular crash translation subtracted a full two T-months off the generator's life cycle? I knew that crash translations resulted in wear and tear, but that amount seems to be far too excessive for a much smaller navy to sustain; a smaller navy who has a much smaller order of battle overall. Intuitively, a far bigger navy can wage a different kind of war of attrition by forcing the enemy's need for repairs to exceed the life of their components, and their ability to keep up with repairs. I realize that that happens anyway as a byproduct of battle, but I am suggesting that the tactic can be used intentionally. Not only are ones enemy's people worn down by the tactic of constantly hypering in and out, but an enemy's ships can be worn down by forcing them to maintain hot nodes.

At any rate, it would appear that crash translations are imperative if a fleet is to be successful attacking the enemy's rear areas. But eating away at that much of your component's life cycle during every attack on an enemy's rear areas seems very costly. (OTOH, it might explain why the humongous League had so many maintenance issues because of their larger bailiwick). And if the enemy has hot nodes, a smaller navy probably cannot sustain the resulting attrition rate. And if the crash translation is off and there is some middle ground in the enemy's ready status, it could all be a waste of component wear.

What does Jayne's say about the MTBF of the hyper generator and the compensator?

Choosing the correct operational tempo seems to be far more critical than I once thought. Honor and Eighth Fleet readily comes to mind.

That didn’t even consider what that sort of sustained plunge through hyper space would do to the crews’ stomachs. They’d hit each band’s boundary at a maximum gradient, and a lot of people would be puking their guts out by the time they finished. From Captain Zaragoza’s expression, she expected to be one of them.

I am assuming that maximum gradient refers to the shortest distance between two bands—the infamous smallest distance between two points. Something our very own space shuttle wouldn't want to try at home during reentry.

Brandy’s stomach was less sensitive than many, but she still made a mental note to go easy on the pre-battle solid meal the Navy traditionally fed its people.

“Once we’ve made translation into n-space,” Chen continued, “a lot will depend on how good our astrogation was. Either way, though, we’ll be accelerating in-system at the wallers’ maximum safe pod-towing compensator settings. The screen—that’s us and Admiral Moreno’s battlecruisers—will be well out in front of the wall-of-battle. We’ll be Admiral White Haven’s primary surveillance screen, and we’ll deploy recon drones to supplement our shipboard sensors for relay to the wall. In addition, CruRon Thirty-Three and BatCruRon Five will have primary responsibility for the outer missile defense zone. Because of that—” laying out the operation’s parameters clearly and concisely, and Brandy sipped coffee as she listened.

Whatever “the wallers’ maximum pod-towing compensator settings” actually mean. I thought the compensator settings didn't matter as long as the pods were inside the wedge. Did I miss something?

Unlike quite a few of Sixth Fleet’s personnel, she’d seen combat. She knew how ugly it could be. But this time, the Navy would be attacking the Peeps, not the other way around, and she smiled vengefully as she contemplated that minor difference.

That is the difference I preached on and on about if the MA attacks first. It seems kind of hard for me to imagine a more exciting war if the MA happens to attack the galaxy first.

Guess who has come to dinner.

Jonathan_S wrote:Jayne's doesn't say anything about the maintenance cycles of a hyper generator. (And neither does SITS or House of Steel)

So I don't think we have any way to know what the normal overhaul cycle period is (how much, if any, more than 15 months) on a hyper generator; so we don't know how large a percentage of that time the 2-months reduction amounted to.

However I disagree that crash translations are imperative when raiding an enemy rear. They were done in this case because for some reason White Haven specifically wanted that translation. But a crash translation produces a much larger alpha flare -- making your force's arrival far more visible -- while simultaneously leaving you with far less base velocity than if you'd made a gradual translation down to the Alpha bands, spent a little while rebuilding your velocity, and then made a gentler (shallower gradient, longer duration) translation down into normal space. I don't know why White Haven wanted a noisy entry with a low base velocity; but his plans went out of their way to achieve that effect.
Most raiders probably don't want either of those things (or if they do was a low base velocity to better let them break back over the limit there are other ways to achieve that without the wear and tear and stronger hyper emergence flare of a crash translation)

So I don't think we can rely on small navies running themselves to maintenance exhaustion by repeatedly making crash translations.

I suspect that any hyper translation is going to cause more wear than keeping the hyper generator on standby -- though from the other text in Toll of Honor it's clear that keeping them on standby does wear them down -- but it seems to imply that crash translations (from higher velocities with more abrupt translations), especially over more bands, causes much more wear. But the normal overhaul cycle time is going to be predicated on an expected average usage mix of the generator; so it's only forcing more frequent or harder use than assumed that will shorten the cycle time.


As for the waller's compensation settings -- this attack happens before we'd seen anybody start using the trick of tucking pods inside the wedge. Plus, a waller can tow fewer pods that way; so if White Haven is going in heavy then he'd be dragging along too many pods to hide them within the wedge even if that tactic had already been dreamed up.

“The attack plan’s actually pretty simple,” he said. “Those of us with sensitive stomachs won’t like the preliminary very much, but it should be effective in attaining surprise.

Unfortunately, the Peep base orbits Samson-4, a gas giant well outside the hyper limit. That makes it more vulnerable to a quick pounce, which is exactly what we intend to execute. It also means, though, that any ship with its hyper generator at readiness can hyper out before anyone engages it. On the other hand, no one’s been poking around Samson in the last couple of months. With no sign of us to make them nervous—and damn all indication that we might get our thumbs out and actually take the war to them—they may well have elected to drop back to no more than standby readiness levels, or even lower, to avoid the wear on their hardware. We can’t count on that, of course, but Fleet figures the odds are pretty heavily that they have.

“Obviously, given that—as the Captain just pointed out—this is our first operation after the formal declaration of war, we’d really like to hammer as many of their starships as possible, and that’s what we intend to do. On the other hand, even if we can’t—even if their mobile units are able to duck into hyper before we can take them out—their base facilities—the maintenance slips, the tank farm, the logistic nodes—can’t. So even if every one of their ships get away, we’ll still take out the entire base, and that’s totally worth doing in its own right.”

penny wrote:
The series of books have always painted the MBS’ navy as significantly smaller than the Haven sector’s navy, and an inevitable target. King Roger always knew that the MBS had a target on its back. As did the Andermani. If it hadn't been for Gram, the MBS would have fallen. Even with Gram the RHN had to adopt the tactic of attacking the Peep’s rear areas, both to maintain the initiative and to keep the bigger beast off balance.

Anyway, dunno why it wasn't obvious that I was referring to the RMN. Adopting a tactic of wearing out an enemy's components would have been a huge waste of time and totally unnecessary against any other smaller mosquito who hasn't developed a significant bite.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:
The series of books have always painted the MBS’ navy as significantly smaller than the Haven sector’s navy, and an inevitable target. King Roger always knew that the MBS had a target on its back. As did the Andermani. If it hadn't been for Gram, the MBS would have fallen. Even with Gram the RHN had to adopt the tactic of attacking the Peep’s rear areas, both to maintain the initiative and to keep the bigger beast off balance.

Anyway, dunno why it wasn't obvious that I was referring to the RMN. Adopting a tactic of wearing out an enemy's components would have been a huge waste of time and totally unnecessary against any other smaller mosquito who hasn't developed a significant bite.

It didn't seem obvious to be because
a) the RMN is a BIG navy (just not the very biggest)
b) the RMN has more than sufficient manufacture, maintenance, and refit capability to keep atop component replacement -- especially for the smaller ships used in rear area raids during the first war. (So wearing out their components wasn't a viable defensive strategy)

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:It didn't seem obvious to be because
a) the RMN is a BIG navy (just not the very biggest)
b) the RMN has more than sufficient manufacture, maintenance, and refit capability to keep atop component replacement -- especially for the smaller ships used in rear area raids during the first war. (So wearing out their components wasn't a viable defensive strategy)

Yes the RMN is a big navy, just not nearly as big as the Peep's throughout history. Yes, the RMN began to reduce the odds. At least it thought it had until Bolthole dropped the shoe.

But I think you are wrong about the tactic not being viable. Text implies it was already happening. The RMN was missing maintenance schedules already. Important maintenance schedules concerning hyper generators which could go boom. Brandy Bolgeo was trying to get a handle on it.

Now, since the RMN was already backlogged, consider how much more the Peeps could have forced the issue intentionally.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:It didn't seem obvious to be because
a) the RMN is a BIG navy (just not the very biggest)
b) the RMN has more than sufficient manufacture, maintenance, and refit capability to keep atop component replacement -- especially for the smaller ships used in rear area raids during the first war. (So wearing out their components wasn't a viable defensive strategy)

Yes the RMN is a big navy, just not nearly as big as the Peep's throughout history. Yes, the RMN began to reduce the odds. At least it thought it had until Bolthole dropped the shoe.

But I think you are wrong about the tactic not being viable. Text implies it was already happening. The RMN was missing maintenance schedules already. Important maintenance schedules concerning hyper generators which could go boom. Brandy Bolgeo was trying to get a handle on it.

Now, since the RMN was already backlogged, consider how much more the Peeps could have forced the issue intentionally.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:It didn't seem obvious to be because
a) the RMN is a BIG navy (just not the very biggest)
b) the RMN has more than sufficient manufacture, maintenance, and refit capability to keep atop component replacement -- especially for the smaller ships used in rear area raids during the first war. (So wearing out their components wasn't a viable defensive strategy)

Yes the RMN is a big navy, just not nearly as big as the Peep's throughout history. Yes, the RMN began to reduce the odds. At least it thought it had until Bolthole dropped the shoe.

But I think you are wrong about the tactic not being viable. Text implies it was already happening. The RMN was missing maintenance schedules already. Important maintenance schedules concerning hyper generators which could go boom. Brandy Bolgeo was trying to get a handle on it.

Now, since the RMN was already backlogged, consider how much more the Peeps could have forced the issue intentionally.

Jonathan_S wrote:The maintenance issue was a temporary funding problem; caused by Parliament refusing to issue the declaration of war. (Now later on, during the Trevor's Star campaign, there was a different backlog of refits/upgrades; where wallers were being kept at the front in an effort to maintain momentum. That required an operational pause after the campaign was concluded in order to catch up on maintenance and refits. But I get the impression that refits were being deferred more than maintenance)

But I'm unclear on how the Peeps could force the maintenance issue. The RMN gets to decide when and where to launch raids, and gets to decide whether to pick attack profiles that cause excess component wear.

The defender (the Peeps in this case) can't really do anything to force an attacker to make a crash translation. So how can they force Manticore to run its maintenance cycles even further behind?

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:It didn't seem obvious to be because
a) the RMN is a BIG navy (just not the very biggest)
b) the RMN has more than sufficient manufacture, maintenance, and refit capability to keep atop component replacement -- especially for the smaller ships used in rear area raids during the first war. (So wearing out their components wasn't a viable defensive strategy)

Yes the RMN is a big navy, just not nearly as big as the Peep's throughout history. Yes, the RMN began to reduce the odds. At least it thought it had until Bolthole dropped the shoe.

But I think you are wrong about the tactic not being viable. Text implies it was already happening. The RMN was missing maintenance schedules already. Important maintenance schedules concerning hyper generators which could go boom. Brandy Bolgeo was trying to get a handle on it.

Now, since the RMN was already backlogged, consider how much more the Peeps could have forced the issue intentionally.

Theemile wrote:Let's not forget, the RMN had 97 Wallers and about 150 other ships in the final months of construction at Grendlesbane on the eve of the 2nd war - an entire modern navy lost to the incompetance of the Hight Ridge administration. All of those wallers was 2-4x the capability of a Havenite SD(p). The RMN only had 115 other SD(p)s in service or under construction at the time - The Grendlesbane ships would have almost doubled the RMN modern wall, making Bolthole far less relevant, and completely changing the tone and tempo of the 2nd war.

Grendlebane was also one of the RMN maintenance hubs, taking it offline massively reduced the RMN's capability to maintain it's hardware closer to the front lines. (Politically removing the shipyard at Talbot also had similiar, if fewer, maintenance ramifications) Fortunately, Fleet bases had been built at San Martin and Basilisk (a fortuitous outcome of the High Ridge "Home Space Peace Dividend" graft) and were able to pick up much of the maintenance weight during the 2nd war and afterwards during the post-OB rebuilding.

Early in the war, several items happened to mess with the RMN maintenance schedules.

First, War was not initially declared by the Manticore govt., and the RMN burnt it's training, maintenance, and OPs budget in just a few months to take the war to the Havenites before they could respond. Then they had to stand down... but couldn't do all the maintenance they needed from the brief, but strenuous activity, because they had little remaining funds for the year.

Once war was declared, Available ships were rushed to the front lines to take whatever advantage they could and push the Havenities back as much as possible before they could react.
Maintenance was being missed to keep as many ships on the front line as possible, ships that already were behind the curve because their maintenance funds had been allocated to fight the first reaction to the war. And these ships were kept on the front lines as long as possible to keep strength up.

penny wrote:Understood. And you have a point. But your point emphasizes my own. If the Peeps had adopted the tactic of wearing down components at the right time, then Grendelsbane might not have amassed anywhere near the same number of ships. I think the tactic would have ultimately affected the Python Lump as well. The one thing that could have helped the RMN assuage the effect is the control of the junctions which would have eased the task of cycling ships in and out, somewhat. But Trevor's Star was not in RMN hands at one point.