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Mousetrapping vs Apollo

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Re: Mousetrapping vs Apollo
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Jan 26, 2020 3:40 pm

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SharkHunter wrote:Jonathan S. excellent response about mousetrapping an Apollo force matches my assessment. More specifically though, to put it in context of an Honorverse battle sequence, let's put 8th Fleet in the position of "closer to the junction" so they hyper in first, which in theory puts them inside Theisman and Tourville's strategized mousetrap, i.e. within range of both RHN fleets.

We'll also assume that 8th Fleet uses the same tactics -- meaning half of the Apollo missiles ready to launch on emergence, and that HH is foolish enough to hyper into an go for that optimum position which is in the RHN's hoped for kill-zone. In theory, 8th Fleet is now endangered because they only get the massive salvo opportunity once, after which they're rolling highly accurate smaller salvos. So yes, you may have mousetrapped an Apollo equipped force. But that's sort of like trapping a forward controlled mortar unit and hoping to get close enough for a bunch of rifle shooters to win the day.

Anyway, in the Honorverse, the RHN trap assumes two things, maybe three. First, Tourville has to survive long enough to order Chin to hyper in, and second, that 8th Fleet launches the full 1/2 loadout at 2nd Fleet. Both of which don't make sense given Honor's disdain for all-or-nothing kill everybody tactics described in her time as a Saganami instructor. I think she would instruct her ships to launch half that massive salvo (1/4, or about 3800 pods) at 2nd Fleet, targeting the 40 least damaged SD(P)s with a smattering of 5-10 pods each going after the cripples. Then she communicates a surrender order to whichever RHN admiral is still alive after the strike hits.

Meanwhile, let's assume that 5th Fleet does somehow get the order to hyper in, and does so to the pre-selected point minus the differential listed in AAC. Before Chin's SDs can re-cycle her generators, 8th Fleet retargets, and launches the other half of the limpeted Apollo pods at 5th Fleet. Again, that's 3800 pods. If they get their generator's cycled, their only choice is to hyper back out. If not? KaBoom. 40-ish more RHN SD(P)s go buh-bye. Only this time, those ships are at a range where Sphinx can launch their system defense Mark 25s as well, and hand off control to 8th Fleet.

So far 8th Fleet has only launched two massive salvos...

Then Kuzak's Third fleet micro-jumps in to mousetrap whatever is left of 5th Fleet. Who then have to hyper out immediately.

Two points for talking about BoM.
First AAC is quite clean that after the Havenite BC lurking beyond the hyper limit was sent to activate the trap that Chin's 5th fleet adjusted their position based on its information in order to emerge close enough to the RMN fleet. Chin wasn't targeting a pre-selected point; she has at most minutes old information to use to aim for her pre-selected distance from her target. If 8th fleet had gone first and been in a slightly different position Chin still would have had the info necessary to get the drop on Honor.

Second, in part due to the need to adjust position, Chin missed her mark; ending up 10 million km further out than planned for. The idea was to drop the larger 5th fleet only 30 million km from Honor's 8th fleet. At that range light speed fire control for MDMs is good enough that Apollo's relative superiority is greatly reduced.


There's nothing to say that given a different chance to make the attack that Chin's navigators might not have hit closer to the mark. In any case, even at that 41 million km range Chin actually managed, her MDMs are going to roughly handle 8th fleet (though not as badly as they did 3rd; since Honor has more Keyhole equipped ships with their several times stronger missile defense. And Honor's going to be killing 5th fleet ships faster)

SharkHunter wrote:By the way, that would have been my backup strategy for 5th Fleet. Having them hyper out back to retake Trevor's Star -- because if 5th and 8th are in Manticoran space, they can do so.
How would that work. It'd take 5th fleet over 25 days to reach Trevor's Star through hyper. Manticore could have shuffled parts of 3rd fleet back there in hours.

(Plus the correct response to anything 5th fleet does, even recapturing Trevor's Star, is ignore it since after the BoM you're only a couple months from 8th fleet dictating terms from Haven orbit)
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Re: Mousetrapping vs Apollo
Post by SharkHunter   » Sun Jan 26, 2020 4:14 pm

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--snipping--
Jonathan_S wrote:
SharkHunter wrote:By the way, that would have been my backup strategy for 5th Fleet. Having them hyper out back to retake Trevor's Star -- because if 5th and 8th are in Manticoran space, they can do so.
How would that work. It'd take 5th fleet over 25 days to reach Trevor's Star through hyper. Manticore could have shuffled parts of 3rd fleet back there in hours.

(Plus the correct response to anything 5th fleet does, even recapturing Trevor's Star, is ignore it since after the BoM you're only a couple months from 8th fleet dictating terms from Haven orbit)
True, and I realized that after I posted. In my head, I had 3rd Fleet with 8th anchored as Home Fleet as I think it took longer to get the rest of 8th Fleet up to snuff. Putting 3rd Fleet back into Trevor's Star negates any advantageous attack from the RHN unless it had happened simultaneously with the Battle of Manticore. Which might not have been a bad strategy! as it might have tied up 8th fleet for long enough to let the RHN win. Hard to coordinate, though.
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All my posts are YMMV, IMHO, and welcoming polite discussion, extension, and rebuttal. This is the HonorVerse, after all
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Re: Mousetrapping vs Apollo
Post by cthia   » Mon Jan 27, 2020 8:26 am

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MOUSEIt should not be possible to mousetrap 8th Fleet. Well, possible, but not probable. Harrington always does her homework, and she isn't likely to overlook sending probes all about her area of concern.

Mousetrapping is simply the old board game of Fox & Geese. All the goose has to do to escape is eliminate a single fox. It's indeed a tall order for geese to pull off, but nobody aboard 8th Fleet is a goose. Honor is certainly no goose.

8th can be driven off its objective, maybe. But that only means she'll achieve another objective of totally eliminating a sly fox. Prerolling pods will ensure there will be fox for dinnerTRAPPING

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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