OK KZT: What's wrong with AAC?

cthia wrote:Would Eighth Fleet have taken it on the Chin, had she only had 18 podnaughts?

Or would it, Chin's chin, have absorbed the blow?

Or, forsaking layman's terms, could Honor have wiped chin off, if she hadn't been reinforced?

She could have, since she outranged and outshot Chin. The problem is that with a lower kill ratio, it might be too little too late. Chin might have decided to take absorb the blows to the chin while finishing off Home and Third Fleets, then linking up with Tourville. Then Eighth Fleet would be facing the combined remnants of Second and Third Fleets. Eighth Fleet was 150 million km away from Second, out-system to it. Honor proved she could shoot from that far, but we're talking about a 90 million km coasting phase and if Eighth Fleet hadn't been reinforced, she might not be able to destroy what remained of the RHN before they made it to Manticore orbit and demanded the Queen's surrender.

My problem with the Battle of Manticore -- and already discussed in previous threads -- is that Home Fleet waited to fire in order to get a higher hit rate on ships. Yet earlier in the book, we read that the RMN has realized that a stream of missiles has an advantage in the pod-laying battle plan because it keeps the enemy from deploying massive towed and stacked salvos.

When we read about how many missiles Manticore had available to wipe out Filereta, they could have made it impossible for the RHN to deploy Foraker's donkeys without Home Fleet ever firing. Picture d'Orville strategizing with some of the home fleet squadrons, and saying "Call system defense... have them set up a firing queue that keeps them form putting anything on tow" -- and keep it up until we can range on the enemy."

Chin's entry can still add a joker to the mix because Kuzak is still in the mousetrap, yadda yadda yadda. But the battle is no longer "flash bang, home fleet is dead"... and therefore much more interesting.

David later said here that a lot of those missile pods were actually RHN missile pods.

That certainly wasn't the impression I got from the text, but that would explain some of that.

It's unclear what the planetary defenses are. It's clearly got pods and there are occasional mentions of forts, but every time it would seem useful to have a fort there (like when the MAN blew up everything it orbit) there was no mention.

SharkHunter wrote:My problem with the Battle of Manticore -- and already discussed in previous threads -- is that Home Fleet waited to fire in order to get a higher hit rate on ships. Yet earlier in the book, we read that the RMN has realized that a stream of missiles has an advantage in the pod-laying battle plan because it keeps the enemy from deploying massive towed and stacked salvos.

When we read about how many missiles Manticore had available to wipe out Filereta, they could have made it impossible for the RHN to deploy Foraker's donkeys without Home Fleet ever firing. Picture d'Orville strategizing with some of the home fleet squadrons, and saying "Call system defense... have them set up a firing queue that keeps them form putting anything on tow" -- and keep it up until we can range on the enemy."

Chin's entry can still add a joker to the mix because Kuzak is still in the mousetrap, yadda yadda yadda. But the battle is no longer "flash bang, home fleet is dead"... and therefore much more interesting.

The problem with forcing the enemy to make their alpha launch is that their alpha launch forces you to make yours too. So if Home Fleet fired the steady stream to force Second Fleet to fire, they'd have to soon make their own launch. The question that D'Orville had to answer is who gains most from the reduced range, him or Tourville? My guess is that Home Fleet benefited up to a certain point, after which RHN accuracy began to increase too.

He knew he was doomed. His best bet was to score the biggest number of mission kills before he died and to keep Second Fleet busy with him, instead of attacking Sphinx and Manticore. While Home Fleet existed, Second Fleet couldn't ignore it and move to Manticore orbit and demand the Queen's surrender. Meanwhile, Third and Eighth Fleets were coming.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:--snipping--
The problem with forcing the enemy to make their alpha launch is that their alpha launch forces you to make yours too. So if Home Fleet fired the steady stream to force Second Fleet to fire, they'd have to soon make their own launch.

Yes and no. 2nd Fleet HAD to deploy the donkeys to gain enough of an advantage quickly, otherwise they're still in a desperate slugging match when 3rd Fleet jumps in. If system defense (not in Sphinx near-space) is sending the stream to stop the RHN alpha launch, (not Home Fleet), then Tourville's ships are stuck in simple pod-laying mode, which favors the RMN getting more system defense LACs into position, etc. and creating bigger pod-salvos of their own.

As was. Tourville was not forced to maneuver. Still enjoyed the book though.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:My problem with the Battle of Manticore -- and already discussed in previous threads -- is that Home Fleet waited to fire in order to get a higher hit rate on ships. Yet earlier in the book, we read that the RMN has realized that a stream of missiles has an advantage in the pod-laying battle plan because it keeps the enemy from deploying massive towed and stacked salvos.

When we read about how many missiles Manticore had available to wipe out Filereta, they could have made it impossible for the RHN to deploy Foraker's donkeys without Home Fleet ever firing. Picture d'Orville strategizing with some of the home fleet squadrons, and saying "Call system defense... have them set up a firing queue that keeps them form putting anything on tow" -- and keep it up until we can range on the enemy."

Chin's entry can still add a joker to the mix because Kuzak is still in the mousetrap, yadda yadda yadda. But the battle is no longer "flash bang, home fleet is dead"... and therefore much more interesting.

The problem with forcing the enemy to make their alpha launch is that their alpha launch forces you to make yours too. So if Home Fleet fired the steady stream to force Second Fleet to fire, they'd have to soon make their own launch. The question that D'Orville had to answer is who gains most from the reduced range, him or Tourville? My guess is that Home Fleet benefited up to a certain point, after which RHN accuracy began to increase too.

He knew he was doomed. His best bet was to score the biggest number of mission kills before he died and to keep Second Fleet busy with him, instead of attacking Sphinx and Manticore. While Home Fleet existed, Second Fleet couldn't ignore it and move to Manticore orbit and demand the Queen's surrender. Meanwhile, Third and Eighth Fleets were coming.

He fired a grand total of 20% of his pod load. The further out he starts firing the more rounds he can fire and the better the hit ratio of RMN to Peep. The closer the range, the less advantage he has. In addition, he knew 3rd would be showing up soon, so he wants to have 2nd exhaust all their ammo against home, and it will take a lot more rounds at long range. So when you have a lifetime supply of ammo and your hit ratio at extreme range is significantly higher and tour opponent is ammo limited you want to draw him into a long-range duel. At best he just soaks the losses as you beat the hell out of him starting at 70m km (or whatever leaves you with no ammo by the point where you expect to get killed)

But he was beaten senseless by the author’s plot hammer...

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Would Eighth Fleet have taken it on the Chin, had she only had 18 podnaughts?

Or would it, Chin's chin, have absorbed the blow?

Or, forsaking layman's terms, could Honor have wiped chin off, if she hadn't been reinforced?

She could have, since she outranged and outshot Chin. The problem is that with a lower kill ratio, it might be too little too late. Chin might have decided to take absorb the blows to the chin while finishing off Home and Third Fleets, then linking up with Tourville. Then Eighth Fleet would be facing the combined remnants of Second and Third Fleets. Eighth Fleet was 150 million km away from Second, out-system to it. Honor proved she could shoot from that far, but we're talking about a 90 million km coasting phase and if Eighth Fleet hadn't been reinforced, she might not be able to destroy what remained of the RHN before they made it to Manticore orbit and demanded the Queen's surrender.

Ignoring the numbering of fleets in your post, as it's obvious what you meant.

Haven was basically playing for a battle of mutual destruction with 3rd/8th Fleet the same as they did with Home Fleet. They were gambling that neither Home Fleet nor 3rd Fleet had ANY Apollo ships, and 8th Fleet had not many more than the twelve they'd seen. Not the 30ish they actually ran into.

2nd Fleet took out Home Fleet, losing about half their ships in the process. Between the 100+ combat effective survivors of 2nd Fleet and the 96 fresh SDs from 5th Fleet, they were expecting to be able to take the 80ish SDs of the combined 3rd/8th Fleets - more than two and a half to one odds, even better than what 2nd Fleet had when it hit Home Fleet. I'm fairly sure not all of 3rd Fleet's SDs were podlayers, either, so the effective odds would have been even higher. Plus the advantage of hitting them from two different directions, thinning out their missile defense screen.

Even if 8th Fleet had a few more Apollo ships than Haven thought they did, the pincer effect should have meant that only one of Haven's fleets would get completely boned. After all, 8th Fleet couldn't send that massive Alpha launch in two different directions at once. So the worst case Haven planned on would have been that Second Fleet got finished off by the Apollo ships while the salvos 2nd and 5th fleets got off in that time would wreck enough of 3rd/8th Fleets that 5th Fleet could finish them off as soon as they could chase the survivors down. They were expecting (stupidly, as discussed elsewhere) timed fire such as was used at Lovat rather than a massive Alpha launch, which would have meant far more launches from 2nd Fleet while it was being wrecked.

Harrington coming through an hour late made the whole difference. If she'd been on the terminus ready to go, Haven would have had a good chance of wiping out all three fleets, even if they'd have been too weak afterward to face the planetary defenses or even the Lynx and Basilisk pickets.

If she'd been a even few more hours out from the terminus or out on a raid, the plan would have forced the settlement Haven wanted. There was no way Manticore could have survived losing 150 SDs, even if Haven couldn't immediately follow through on the advantage by killing their infrastructure. Manticore simply wouldn't have any ships available for offensive operations.

Galactic Sapper wrote:If she'd been a even few more hours out from the terminus or out on a raid, the plan would have forced the settlement Haven wanted. There was no way Manticore could have survived losing 150 SDs, even if Haven couldn't immediately follow through on the advantage by killing their infrastructure. Manticore simply wouldn't have any ships available for offensive operations.

They had no ships available for offensive action until 8th had been sufficiently reinforced by new builds, and then the Queen send 8th straight to Haven to end the war, one way or another.

kzt wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:If she'd been a even few more hours out from the terminus or out on a raid, the plan would have forced the settlement Haven wanted. There was no way Manticore could have survived losing 150 SDs, even if Haven couldn't immediately follow through on the advantage by killing their infrastructure. Manticore simply wouldn't have any ships available for offensive operations.

They had no ships available for offensive action until 8th had been sufficiently reinforced by new builds, and then the Queen send 8th straight to Haven to end the war, one way or another.

Yes, and the delay would have been even longer if 8th fleet and the 20+ survivors of 3rd fleet had also been lost. That's another 60ish SDs that would have been lost had the trap worked as intended.

Without refighting the battle here<
If you have to use-it-or-loose-it with pods that you have outside your hull, the idea that once you have determined the other side has them out there and are closing on you you should use at least some component of your own weapons to mission kill the pods makes sense.

Ok, the rage is too long to get what is demed satisfactory targeting- to get the probable number of hits on you incomming enemy you want- but they are incoming and (for both of you) the range is now improving.
So they have pods out. If deployed pods are suseptable to being effecively killed/usless although not destroyed, if you fire what is looking at an area barrage with the intent of KILLING THE PODS and any hits on the warships is a bonus, why not go with it.
Remember the other side is just as far away and we know that the RHN targeting is going to be at least as poor as yours from out there. Forcing them to launch-at least the missiles in the pods is going to degrade accuracy vs the point which they intended to launch them.

So what are they going to do? Flush the birds in the pods and NOT start using your tubes? Flush the birds in the pods and start vollying with the tubes?

Time and distance. If 20% of their pod load is deployed, isn't it worth forcing them to use those pods further (way further out) and degrade accuacy while having to face a heavier salvo as the distance closes?
They are comming closer into your basket. They are going to keep comming. Why not cut down on the weapos avaiable to them or make them use them before they get into more than extreem range?