Fortress Command

You might have gotten 180 or so SDs in place of the 124 forts, true. What you don't seem to be grasping is that you would need something closer to 300 SDs to _replace_ those forts, given the disparity in bang per ton.

You also seem to have missed the fact that the inner system _also_ had massive 'fixed' defenses, centered on the 3 space stations. Home Fleet may have been as little as 50% of the firepower inside the hyperlimit - that's not at all certain, of course, since AFAIK there's no specific number given. The reason those defenses played so little role in the Battle of Manticore was that a) their version of Keyhole/Apollo was just starting to deploy, so most of the battle was outside their reach and b) when 2nd Fleet did come into range of the defense systems at Sphinx they were instructed not to engage, since that would allow Tourville to return fire without having to worry about committing an EE violation if anything hit the planet.

As for the assassination of King Roger, Queen's Gambit makes it abundantly clear that the traitors weren't put on trial because there was no possibility of convicting them. I don't recall that there was even any hard evidence developed that the King was murdered.

Sigs wrote:I haven't finished reading the new posts in the thread as I have been busy at work.

My initial post was indented to ask the question of whether the situation would have been different if the Forts guarding the Junction were in fact SD's leaving only a handful bigger forts as fixed defences. Even if it is assumed that ton for ton the conversion is 1:.6 or .7 it would still be worthwhile because the Junction is a secondary objective in the immediate war.

So assuming at an average of 20,000,000 tons per fort for 124 forts that would translate to 177 new SD's even if we assume that the cost and manpower for 1 ton of fort equals to only half a ton of SD.

Why do I think the Junction is a secondary objective in the war? Because losing control of the Junction still leaves you with the three planets and all the industry that is in the inner system, sure it would be a heavy loss but the warfighting abilities of the SKM would have survived at least in the short term. So the motivation for starting the war for Haven was the junction, the knockout blow would not have been the junction, it would have to have been the destruction of all industry or most of it in the inner system and the subsequent capture of the capital.

During the first war with Haven, Home fleet was regularly stripped of ships of the wall, so you end up protecting your main industrial, military, manpower and political resource with a significantly smaller defensive force than you would protect a secondary resource such as the junction.

Having strong stationary defensive forces which could not offer mutual support means that they could be defeated in detail or Haven could have launched the first war with an attack on the Manticore System, destroyed Home Fleet which at the beginning of the first war was reduced to around 72 of the wall which to me means that if haven had reinforced their fleet that was to attack Grayson and instead launched against the Manticore Home system. The war would be over and Manticore would still have several hundred SD's worth of firepower around the Junction.


As for the political situation? I think that when Haven had the King assassinated, the government should have publicly and aggressively brought the traitors to trial and subsequently used that to force through stronger measures for rearmament. Keeping the assassination secret did more damage to their long term rearmament plans than bringing them to trial. The situation would most likely have been significantly better at the start of the war if the assassination had be exposed rather than covered up.

No, there was sufficient evidence. It was a political decision to not do that based on the question of "so the next step is what?" And not liking the answers.

kzt wrote:No, there was sufficient evidence. It was a political decision to not do that based on the question of "so the next step is what?" And not liking the answers.

Yup. Risking war breaking out early than you'd like to ensure a strong ally like San Martin is on your side and you don't lose a Junction terminus is one thing. Doing that after you've lost that chance? Not so such a good idea.

Louis R wrote:You might have gotten 180 or so SDs in place of the 124 forts, true. What you don't seem to be grasping is that you would need something closer to 300 SDs to _replace_ those forts, given the disparity in bang per ton.

My question would be why would you need to replace that firepower? My position is that the Junction is by no means in as much danger as some people seem to believe. You have something that cannot be destroyed, yes the infrastructure can be destroyed or damaged but that would be bad from the point of view of Haven for several reasons. 1) They would need to rebuild it if they capture the Junction and manage to keep it and 2) They might very well destroy billions or trillions worth of cargo owned by League citizens, companies etc… and we have seen that the League is willing to take any excuse to take over the junction.

You don’t need 300 SD’s to defend the Junction because if the PN was to attack the Manticore Home System they wont gather all their SD’s to attack the one object that wont end the war, they may capture the junction for a day or two or even a month or two but eventually the RMN will rally and beat the survivors back.

Haven could only send a mass transit of 55 BB’s at one time or 35 DN’s or 31 SD’s. With a few(10-20) forts and a solid picket of SD’s can take care of any BB’s/DN’s/SD’s that come through the junction which means the real threat would be an attack the long way around, which means that anything the PN sends will get hurt as badly or worse than the RMN picket.

So the PN send 200 SD’s against the 100 SD picket plus 20 forts of 20,000,000 tons(50-60 SD’s of firepower) means that the PN now has 40 or 50 SD’s remaining after the picket and forts are done firing while all the RMN defences are down. What is the end result? The RMN loses 100 SD’s, 20 forts and the junction(for a time) but they will eventually retake it.

To me the Junction is not the primary objective for Haven, it might be the reason they started the war but to win the war capturing the Junction wont do, it would require either capturing the Manticore Home System or destroying all of the industry in the home system.

Louis R wrote:You also seem to have missed the fact that the inner system _also_ had massive 'fixed' defenses, centered on the 3 space stations. Home Fleet may have been as little as 50% of the firepower inside the hyperlimit - that's not at all certain, of course, since AFAIK there's no specific number given.

I understand that there are forts in the inner system, but once the mobile forces are destroyed fixed defences are poor substitute for mobile forces because a mobile enemy could fire from far outside your range and fly in circles around you until the forts are demolished one by one.

As for the strength of Home Fleet, when the RMN send 4 Battle Squadron to Grayson in order to trap the PN it was said that was ~35% or 36% of Home Fleets wall.
4 Squadrons at 8 ships per squadron is 32 Ships of the wall, if that was 36% of Home Fleets wall that means there were approximately 88 SD’s and DN’s in Home Fleet at the start of the war. Sending 32 of them to Grayson means that you have only 56 SD’s and DN’s in Home Fleet.

Louis R wrote: The reason those defenses played so little role in the Battle of Manticore was that a) their version of Keyhole/Apollo was just starting to deploy, so most of the battle was outside their reach

And if Home Fleet and 3rd Fleet were destroyed while 8th Fleet was away on a mission it would mean that Tourville could have sat outside of the effective range of the Manticorean Forts and pounded them will missiles until the forts were destroyed or the Queen Surrendered.

Louis R wrote: and b) when 2nd Fleet did come into range of the defense systems at Sphinx they were instructed not to engage, since that would allow Tourville to return fire without having to worry about committing an EE violation if anything hit the planet.

Thereby eliminating the purpose of those forts, they could engage only if they were willing to put the planet at extreme risk.

Louis R wrote: As for the assassination of King Roger, Queen's Gambit makes it abundantly clear that the traitors weren't put on trial because there was no possibility of convicting them. I don't recall that there was even any hard evidence developed that the King was murdered.

They had 1) and admission of guild by one of the traitors, they had recording of conversations by those individuals discussing the assassination. And they had a witness as well.

drothgery wrote:

kzt wrote:No, there was sufficient evidence. It was a political decision to not do that based on the question of "so the next step is what?" And not liking the answers.

Yup. Risking war breaking out early than you'd like to ensure a strong ally like San Martin is on your side and you don't lose a Junction terminus is one thing. Doing that after you've lost that chance? Not so such a good idea.

How so? The Nobles will not be able to hide their head in the sand.

The Idea would be to show the Nobles who control the funds that Haven is in fact interested in Manticore there is nothing like self interest and self preservation to motivate individuals.

n7axw wrote:As I recall the events surrounding Roger's assasination, the concern was the public outrage would have forced Manticore into a war for which she was not yet prepared. Hence the cover-up.

Don

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They could have controlled it, Haven was not ready for war, neither was Manticore. Use the assassination as a means of showing the common people and the nobles of the threat Haven represents. The top leadership can control the anger, can direct it into constructive avenues. Telling everyone how dangerous Haven is to Manticore while at the same time hiding the proof that they are a threat seems like an incredible waste to me.

The End of the day, if Manticore's citizens are as well educated and smart as it is presented in the series and the Queen and her are as good as they are presented, presenting the proof would only strengthen their position rather than weakening it.

Sigs wrote:

n7axw wrote:As I recall the events surrounding Roger's assasination, the concern was the public outrage would have forced Manticore into a war for which she was not yet prepared. Hence the cover-up.

Don

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They could have controlled it, Haven was not ready for war, neither was Manticore. Use the assassination as a means of showing the common people and the nobles of the threat Haven represents. The top leadership can control the anger, can direct it into constructive avenues. Telling everyone how dangerous Haven is to Manticore while at the same time hiding the proof that they are a threat seems like an incredible waste to me.

The End of the day, if Manticore's citizens are as well educated and smart as it is presented in the series and the Queen and her are as good as they are presented, presenting the proof would only strengthen their position rather than weakening it.

Haven was far more ready for war at that time then Manticore was. The tonnage was more in their favor, the tech advantages Manticore actually had when hostilities broke out weren't in place yet - heck the improved compensators probably never would have come about if war had broken out that far before anyone contacted Grayson. Manticore didn't have the alliances and defensive depth the developed after the fall of Trevor's Star; and of course there was no Peep coup decapitating the Navy right as the war started.

There was an excellent chance that Haven would be able to win the war if they'd continued on against Manticore after crushing Trevor's Star. They'd lose more ships than they ever had before, but I don't think Manticore could have stopped them if they'd been willing to take their losses and push through.

Sigs wrote:

Louis R wrote: The reason those defenses played so little role in the Battle of Manticore was that a) their version of Keyhole/Apollo was just starting to deploy, so most of the battle was outside their reach

And if Home Fleet and 3rd Fleet were destroyed while 8th Fleet was away on a mission it would mean that Tourville could have sat outside of the effective range of the Manticorean Forts and pounded them will missiles until the forts were destroyed or the Queen Surrendered.

No, because effective range of the RMN missiles is significantly longer than effective range of RHN missiles. The fact that David has all his commanders in that awful book throw away this advantage doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

It's also likely that they have a LOT of Apollo pods stockpile in the fleet reserves, which are oddly enough stored at the biggest fleet bases. They might not be able to get FTL fire control working, but there other ways to use them...

David made it clear in HoS's novella that at the time of King Roger's assassination, the Peeps were not ready to push for an open war, same as Manticore. The whole point was to avoid a war with Manticore at the time, hence the assassination to disrupt the government. Given the strategic doctrine of the time, Haven's borders (and thus, fleet bases), were too far from Manticore to support a long distance attack.

kzt wrote:No, because effective range of the RMN missiles is significantly longer than effective range of RHN missiles. The fact that David has all his commanders in that awful book throw away this advantage doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

It's also likely that they have a LOT of Apollo pods stockpile in the fleet reserves, which are oddly enough stored at the biggest fleet bases. They might not be able to get FTL fire control working, but there other ways to use them...

RMN missiles only outrange RHN missiles when both sides are standing still, or moving at relatively same velocity. Forts being unable to build more than a small vector, versus superdreadnoughts capable of going upto 0.6c.

This EXACT same circumstances was covered in both Second Yeltsin (Honor & Fearless versus Saladin) and Fourth Yeltsin (Honor & Yu versus Thurston and Theisman). In both occasions, the RMN (well GSN but same thing really) had forts for defensive reasons, but still actively moved their ships outside effective range of the fortress support, to DENY PNS ships from using C-fractional strikes on the forts.

For BoMa, if Honor & Eighth Fleet were elsewhere, and the system did not surrender, exactly the same as Fourth Yeltsin applies, and both sides are using MDM's instead of SDM's.