Medusa-C (The end of the SDP?)

Somtaaw wrote:The majority of the reason why the LAC's actually achieved almost no SD(P) kills in First Manticore, was because they had to get through the screen first. And the Havenite screen mangled them pretty badly, and they were travelling so fast there was zero time to re-organize for the "en masse" shooting Shrikes need to properly damage superdreadnoughts.

Pretty much. Which is why they should have rolled against the SDs and planned to slow down, reorganize and come back now that there was no screen. 2nd fleet was still going to be a threat in 30 minutes or whatever, so no need to play bug to their windshield right now.

kzt wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:The majority of the reason why the LAC's actually achieved almost no SD(P) kills in First Manticore, was because they had to get through the screen first. And the Havenite screen mangled them pretty badly, and they were travelling so fast there was zero time to re-organize for the "en masse" shooting Shrikes need to properly damage superdreadnoughts.

Pretty much. Which is why they should have rolled against the SDs and planned to slow down, reorganize and come back now that there was no screen. 2nd fleet was still going to be a threat in 30 minutes or whatever, so no need to play bug to their windshield right now.

There was no need for Home Fleet to play bug on their windshield either. As you've observed in various other threads, there were a lot of really stupid tactical decisions, and thinking "oh hey, we know Haven has SD(P)'s, but they're going after Sphinx really fast so they can't possibly have pods with them."

A more intelligent Home Fleet action to remain a viable threat from in front, with a LAC rush that's now behind the Havenite Second Fleet. Second Fleet now has to decide whether they put what LAC's they had left in position to stop the Shrikes from coming right up the SDP's backsides, or stay and act as missile defense from a Home Fleet that's trying to hold the range open.

By that time Third Fleet would have completed it's microjumps, and Second Fleet would have to try and split it's defenses in three directions. Third Fleet gets pounced on by Chin's fleet for a two-way split, but possibly in range of Home Fleet. So everybody's now in a multi-direction "oh crap" mentality, and then Eighth Fleet finishes getting in gear and does it's microjump and Apollo trick.


End results:
-Manticoran Home Fleet capital ships, massive damage, more survivors (although since they originally had near zero survivors, this is huge)
-Manticoran Home Fleet LACs, large damage after passing through screen, more survivors because they didn't try to go face first into capital grasers but depends how aggressive they came from behind
-Manticoran third Fleet, broken just like in the books because of the multi-way flails hitting it
-Havenite Second Fleet, absolutely crushed because they got hit by Avalanche and Manty Home Fleet actually used intelligence
-Havenite Chin's Fleet, considerably more damage because they would have been taking fire from Home Fleet and McKeon's Apollo squadron.
-Manticoran Eighth Fleet, considerably more missiles fired but again no damage.

Somtaaw wrote:

Duckk wrote:The exchange with Home Fleet killed some of the cruisers by accident. The LACs finished off the rest. The only screening units left to Second Fleet were its LACs, who didn't have time to resupply between D'Orville's charge, the LAC strike, and engaging Third Fleet.

I stand corrected then Duckk, I'd been sure Second Fleet's screen existed in some shadow of itself after the LAC strike, rather than being totally eliminated. Especially since the Shrike's had been so devastated passing through that they couldn't achieve anything on the capital ships that I'd sort of paired the two together, if the Shrikes were so crushed the screen must not have been totally eliminated, ergo screen exists.

Doctrine had been for Shrikes to follow behind the Ferrets when attacking light ships (screen) and to take point when hitting the capital ships. It's cold, but the Shrikes either should have dropped back to survive to attack the big ships en masse, or fired their grasers on smaller ships too. That would have had them rotated slightly to the SD's, which could permit rolling ship against the SD grasers.

IIRC, Shrikes did shoot at the BCs. The Ferrets had all launched against the heavy cruisers - they didn't have enough missiles with enough punch to swamp the entire screen. I can't remember if the Shrikes had time to recharge their grasers before they passed out of range of the Havenite SD(P)s or if they had assigned a smaller percentage to deal with the BCs.

LACs certainly outperform legacy era screening units. They're replacing them to some extent. But they can't take on wallers, whether they're legacy or new.

Bear in mind the Shrike's graser is one from a Reliant BC. Four Peep BCs once managed to scratch the paint on a RMN DN - and got obliterated in return. LAC missiles are also about the same as a Star Knight's - Fearless's engagement with Thunder of God shows the efficiency of those missile weights against BCs to be low.

So LACs are absolute murder against anything up to heavy cruisers. They can nail BCs too, but DNs and SDs are a whole other matter. Especially legacy era wallers - SD(P)s made a Grayson-style shift to fewer but heavier mounts to free up space for pods, so they have fewer beam mounts to shoot at LACs with. Second Fleet, with no legacy wallers, was able to see off the Manticoran LAC strike well enough.

munroburton wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:I stand corrected then Duckk, I'd been sure Second Fleet's screen existed in some shadow of itself after the LAC strike, rather than being totally eliminated. Especially since the Shrike's had been so devastated passing through that they couldn't achieve anything on the capital ships that I'd sort of paired the two together, if the Shrikes were so crushed the screen must not have been totally eliminated, ergo screen exists.

Doctrine had been for Shrikes to follow behind the Ferrets when attacking light ships (screen) and to take point when hitting the capital ships. It's cold, but the Shrikes either should have dropped back to survive to attack the big ships en masse, or fired their grasers on smaller ships too. That would have had them rotated slightly to the SD's, which could permit rolling ship against the SD grasers.

IIRC, Shrikes did shoot at the BCs. The Ferrets had all launched against the heavy cruisers - they didn't have enough missiles with enough punch to swamp the entire screen. I can't remember if the Shrikes had time to recharge their grasers before they passed out of range of the Havenite SD(P)s or if they had assigned a smaller percentage to deal with the BCs.

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So LACs are absolute murder against anything up to heavy cruisers. They can nail BCs too, but DNs and SDs are a whole other matter. Especially legacy era wallers - SD(P)s made a Grayson-style shift to fewer but heavier mounts to free up space for pods, so they have fewer beam mounts to shoot at LACs with. Second Fleet, with no legacy wallers, was able to see off the Manticoran LAC strike well enough.

I try not to remember BoMa too much, so many bad decisions for plot reasons it didn't really feel like a traditional honorverse battle.

And do we have confirmation that even Haven followed the Grayson inspired "less but heavier" doctrine? I'd thought that was almost purely Grayson, with some Manticoran dabbling in it?

We already know Havenite equipment is generally larger than anything from Manticore, from their pods to standard SDM & MDM missiles, which means their launchers are already going to be bigger on a class for class basis. We could extrapolate that if Havenite missiles (and thus launchers) are larger to get the same output, so would their grasers which is already going to keep them from having equal numbers of normal output to Manty oversized grasers

Somtaaw wrote:We already know Havenite equipment is generally larger than anything from Manticore, from their pods to standard SDM & MDM missiles, which means their launchers are already going to be bigger on a class for class basis. We could extrapolate that if Havenite missiles (and thus launchers) are larger to get the same output, so would their grasers which is already going to keep them from having equal numbers of normal output to Manty oversized grasers

There is little information in the mainline books about this, but I would estimate that the energy weapons are at least roughly equivalently sized between the RMN and the RHN. Remember that most of the R&D went into improving missile combat performance and ancillary tech, improving energy-range performance wasn't seen as that big a priority. As a result, while a manticoran energy mount would likely be a bit more compact or efficient than a havenite one, I don't think the differences are pronounced enough to affect ship design that much.

That said, Havenite ship design calls for main battery energy weapons to play a supplemental role in missile defence; given that, I find it unlikely that they'd go for the "fewer, heavier" style armament scheme for new construction when they haven't made major improvements to the performance of their main defensive weaponry (if anything, I can see them cut down on energy weapons as a whole to cram in more countermissiles and PDLCs).

The E wrote:There is little information in the mainline books about this, but I would estimate that the energy weapons are at least roughly equivalently sized between the RMN and the RHN. Remember that most of the R&D went into improving missile combat performance and ancillary tech, improving energy-range performance wasn't seen as that big a priority. As a result, while a manticoran energy mount would likely be a bit more compact or efficient than a havenite one, I don't think the differences are pronounced enough to affect ship design that much.

That said, Havenite ship design calls for main battery energy weapons to play a supplemental role in missile defence; given that, I find it unlikely that they'd go for the "fewer, heavier" style armament scheme for new construction when they haven't made major improvements to the performance of their main defensive weaponry (if anything, I can see them cut down on energy weapons as a whole to cram in more countermissiles and PDLCs).

Point. They could even have gone with broadsides of BC-grade lasers - perfect for LAC-smashing, if less ideal should they end up in energy range of the all-graser Invictuses.

Whilst unlikely, I do recall the Havenite Navy was particularly traumatised by LACs - not just Hancock but that Buttercup battle where Scotty's LAC wings took out an entire system defense picket including dreadnoughts.

Boy, I really want the next Companion book now.