runsforcelery wrote:See the discussions on the Peep side in Flag In Exile. They started using the BBs in active operations though they knew they were not suited for them because they were more suited than any other available force.
But the BB's didn't get all destroyed. There were enough left that the pre-war RMN BC deep raid strategy was a disaster that was rapidly discontinued.
Um. That really isn't explicitly stated in the books anywhere because it isn't what happened.
The prewar RMN favored the BC because they thought in terms of commerce warfare as a substitute for the deep raid doctrine that later evolved. They intended to raid their opponents' shipping and conduct raids on orbital infrastructure using their BCs as the primary platforms for both.
Two things mitigated against that. One was, indeed, the BBs the Peeps used for rear area security, but that was definitely secondary to their thinking. The BBs didn't surprise them or their prewar planners, but the deployment pattern the Peeps adopted post coup
was a bit of a surprise, because the Legislaturalists had always intended the BBs moe for
internal system control than as a primary defensed against
external attacks, since under their doctrine, they were the ones who were supposed to do all the attacking.
When Pierre & Co. overthrew the Legislaturalists, they pulled the BBs out of a lot of the rear area systems to concentrate them for (a) system defense and, later, for (b) offensive operations, mainly as diversionary forces, because the true PRN wallers were so desperately needed elsewhere.
This brings us to the second factor from the RMN's side, which was that (1) there weren't as many opportunities to raid Peep commerce as they'd expected, once the Peeps adopted a convoy system (with, admittedly, BB escort) and (2) they needed a
lot more pickets among their alliance partners' home systems than they'd anticipated prewar. That was largely a political issue; the allies had decided they needed a lot more cover than had been agreed to prewar now that the shooting had started, and the SKM saw no option but to provide it, both as a moral obligation and because everyone on both sides was still thinking in terms of short advances with well secured bases close to the front. There is actually a point in one of the books where Honor and (I think) Mercedes are discussing the fact that in light of the operational realities of the actual war (as opposed to the prewar assumptions) many of the Alliance members were more burden than aid because of the diversion of Manty effort they represented, especially pre-
Shrike. The RMN was already badly overstretched in the run up to the final Trevor's Star campaign and, then, the lead into Buttercup, and they made up a lot of the weight the pickets needed with BCs because the Peeps couldn't spare anything heavier than battle
ships for the raids the pickets were expected to defend against. In other words, the
political requirements of coalition warfare required the diversion of forces, and the BCs were more dispensable than wallers would have been. They were, in effect, doing on the Manties' side of the line precisely what the BBs were doing on the Peeps' side of the line. (And despite the basic failure of Stalking Horse, that and McQueen's offensives had the desired effect of making the Manties' allies even more insistent on detachments to help safeguard their systems.)
It wasn't the function Manticore had envisioned for the BCs any more than the carrier escort role had been the primary task visualized for the new USN BB designs of the late 30s, but it wasn't because the BBs had turned their original strategy into a "disaster that was rapidly discontinued." It was because of a confluence of events. Without the required diversion of forces to the pickets, the Manties might well have persevered in their deep raids, at which point the Peep BBs would have discovered that a pair of Manty BCs was more than a match for any Peep BB in commission . . . which was about the tonnage ratio the Manties had figured they'd need all along.
Perhaps fortunately for both sides, in this respect, the realities of their war threw
both sides' prewar doctrine and planning out of whack.[/quote]
It is a very informative post. I have a question, though.
RMN Admiralty during the second half of First Havenite-Manticoran War seem to attach BCs to SDs/DNs almost always in a ratio of about 1 to 1 (and in some cases 2 to 1).
Examples:
- Eighth Fleet in 1813 included 49 wallers (SD(P)s/SDs/DNs) and 40 BCs;
- The Zanzibar picket in 1813 included 6 SDs and 6 BCs;
- The Hancock picket in 1813 included 5 SDs, 1 CLAC and 11 BCs;
- The Seaford Nine picket in 1813 included 3 SDs and 4 BCs;
- The Elric picket in 1814 included 3 SD(P)s, 2 SDs and 16 BCs.
My question why did the RMN Admiralty not reduce the number of BCs in these pickets in half and send the other half in deep raids. I mean, what additional capability was added to the Eighth Fleet by the last 20 of its BCs ? In what scenario would 49 wallers and 20 BCs would be hard pressed and an additional 20 BCs would make a signifficant difference ?
The same goes about the other pickets: what signifficant capability was added by the last 2 BCs of Seaford Nine picket ? What conceivable scenario was materially made better by adding 2 BCs to a picket of 3 SDs and 2 BCs (except maybe that one of two additional BCs carried Admiral Santino's replacement on board
)?
