Battle of Manticore
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| Battle of Manticore | |||||
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| Combatants | |||||
| Manticoran Alliance: Star Kingdom of Manticore Protectorate of Grayson Andermani Empire |
Republic of Haven | ||||
| Commanders | |||||
| Sebastian D'Orville, Theodosia Kuzak, Honor Harrington |
Lester Tourville, Genevieve Chin |
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| Strength | |||||
Home fleet (Fleet Admiral Sebastian D'Orville)
Third Fleet (Admiral Theodosia Kuzak)
Eighth Fleet (Admiral Honor Harrington)
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Second Fleet (Admiral Lester Tourville)
Fifth Fleet (Admiral Genevieve Chin)
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| Casualties | |||||
| 596,245 killed, 3,512 wounded |
At least 1.7 million killed 6,602 wounded |
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The Battle of Manticore is a battle which takes place in the fictional Honorverse. It occurs in the book At All Costs and is the largest battle in the Honorverse to date.
The Republican Second Fleet under Admiral Lester Tourville translated out of hyperspace near the planet Sphinx, forcing Fleet Admiral Sebastian D'Orville and the Manticoran Home Fleet to respond. After a massive exchange of missile fire, the badly outnumbered Home Fleet was virtually destroyed by the Republican forces. Admiral Theodosia Kuzak's Third Fleet returned to the scene via the Manticore Wormhole Junction, only to be caught between Tourville's forces and Republican Admiral Chin's Fifth Fleet. Kuzak's forces suffered massive losses before Admiral Honor Harrington and Eighth Fleet arrived. Upon her arrival, Harrington attacked the Republican forces with full Apollo salvos beyond their effective range, destroying Chin's fleet and forcing Tourville's surrender.
Contents |
[edit] Background
The strategic situation prior to the battle is as follows. The Republic of Haven has significant numerical superiority in ships of the wall over the Manticoran Alliance. This is largely due to its successful attack on the Grendelsbane shipyards (and the ships under construction there) as the opening act of the resumption of hostilities, and also to the policies of the Manticoran Government during the preceding cease-fire. Manticoran ships however still have a technological edge over their Republican counterparts. The Alliance exploits this technological superiority to pursue offensive operations despite the force imbalance. In a recent engagement at Lovat elements of Eighth Fleet under Honor Harrington deployed Apollo missiles for the first time. Each Apollo pod contains a 'missile' which contains an FTL transmitter, allowing real-time, unlimited range shipboard control of the other missiles in the pod. This is a major advance and would essentially nullify the Republican advantage in number of hulls, as Alliance vessels could attack them from out of range.
Admiral Thomas Theisman infers, correctly, from the use of the Apollo missiles at Lovat and nowhere else that the Manticoran Alliance is desperately using any technological advantage to offset its lack of ships, and consequently does not yet have these weapons in significant quantities. (If this were not the case then it would be strategically advantageous for the Alliance to wait until it had a significant supply of the new weapons before attacking to retain the advantage of surprise, as they did with the introduction of Ghost Rider).
Furthermore the Republican administration has recently become aware that it re-entered the war because their own Secretary of State had forged both sides' diplomatic correspondence. They attempted to open peace talks with the Manticorans, but these were derailed by assassinations. The Republic of Haven therefore had three options - to surrender (on the grounds that the war was unjustified), which was politically unfeasible, to continue the war at the present level, which would mean that once the Alliance's new weapons were fully deployed Haven would almost certainly be defeated, or to attack the home system of Manticore directly, making use of their numerical advantage while it lasted, destroying the Manticoran shipyards, Home Fleet and any other fleets which responded via the wormhole junction, and gaining control of the junction, thereby forcing an end to the war. President Eloise Pritchart authorised the third option.
[edit] First Phase
[edit] Disposition of Forces
Admiral Lester Tourville with Second Fleet, consisting of 240 SD(P)s, 16 CLACs and a screen of 90 ships, translated out of hyperspace at the hyper limit of the Manticore system, 8 light minutes from the planet of Sphinx (or 3 hours for a zero/zero intercept), where the Manticoran Home Fleet was deployed. Home Fleet, under the command of Admiral Sebastian D'Orville, consisted of 42 SD(P)s, 48 old-style SDs, 12 BC(P)'s, and was severely outnumbered, but nevertheless headed out to engage the Republicans. Five or six thousand LACs were scrambled from their bases elsewhere in the system in support.
A 'Case Zulu' message (invasion imminent) was transmitted to all other commands. Admiral Theodosia Kuzak's Third Fleet was at the wormhole terminus in Trevor's Star, and could begin to transit to Manticore immediately. Most of Admiral Honor Harrington's Eighth Fleet, also in the Trevor's Star system, was away from the terminus on maneouvres, and would take a couple of hours to reach the terminus. Rear-Admiral Alistair McKeon's SD(P) squadron (3 of which were Apollo capable) and Vice-Admiral Alice Truman's CLAC group were not involved in the manoeuvres and were still stationed at the terminus. Harrington detached them to Kuzak's command so they could assist Manticore sooner. Admiral Blaine's task force in the Talbott Cluster was also recalled, but would take even longer to reach the Lynx terminus and arrive in Manticore than Harrington.
In addition a Republican force of BCs under the command of Rear Admiral Oliver Diamato was stationed just outside the hyper limit and near the Manticore wormhole junction in order to observe the arrival of any reinforcements via the Junction.
[edit] First Engagement
Home Fleet and Second Fleet closed until the distance between them was 65 million km, at which point they both fired. Technological advances on both sides meant that each faced a larger number of missiles than expected.
The Republicans had developed 'donkeys', pod-sized devices with ten tractor beams and a receiver for power from the ship. These donkeys could be chained together, allowing many more pods to be towed by a ship than before, the previous limiting factor being the number of tractor beams (and power available for them) that the ship possessed. The Republicans had also increased the number of missile control links per ship to allow them to control the increased number of missiles they could now deploy, and developed a 'rotating control' system allowing them to handle 60% more missiles.
The Manticorans had circumvented the tractor beam limit by incorporating a tractor beam into their new 'flat pack' missile pods. Their Keyhole platforms also increased the number of control links for their missiles.
Home Fleet fired seven salvos each containing 21 600 missiles, a total of 151 200. Second Fleet however fired 524 000 missiles. Home Fleet was effectively destroyed, the twenty or so ships which physically survived were reduced to wrecks. Over two thousand of the LACs survived however and more continued to join them from further in the system.
Second Fleet however lost 97 ships of the wall, 19 more had lost at least one impeller ring, reducing their maximum acceleration, and only eleven of the remaining 124 SP(P)s were undamaged. Second Fleet reduced its acceleration to the best its crippled ships could maintain, with the result that they could not now achieve a zero/zero intercept with Sphinx. It also altered course away from Sphinx to avoid facing the planet's fixed defenses. The engagement lasted less than twelve minutes.
[edit] Second Engagement
The surviving Manticoran LACs, together with reinforcements from elsewhere in the system, making 2400 in total, continued to close to attack range of Second Fleet. Due to Second Fleet's ammunition status, only the screening units - 33 BCs, 41 CAs and 2700 LACs - engaged the Manticoran LACs, whose high velocity meant the engagement would last just over five minutes.
600 of the Manticoran LACs were killed by Republican LACs, but took twice as many with them, despite the Republicans' recent introduction of bow-wall technology. The Republican screen killed another 300 Manticoran LACs at missile range, but the Manticoran LACs continued to close, and essentially destroyed the Republican screen. The missile-armed Ferret-class LACs destroyed all 41 heavy cruisers, bombarding each ship with around 400 missiles at almost point-blank range. The graser-armed Shrikes destroyed 28 of the 33 battlecruisers. However almost 600 Manticoran LACs were killed in so doing, and as the remainder passed within energy range of the Republican ships of the wall more were destroyed, so that only 200 or so survived.
[edit] Second Phase
[edit] The resonance zone
An understanding of the astrography of the Manticore system now becomes important, in particular the resonance zone. A wormhole terminus in the neighbourhood of a star results in a volume of space in which hyperspace astrogation is unreliable. This resonance zone is a cone with the wormole at the point, and the base twice as wide as the star's hyper limit, with the star in the middle of the base. The effect is stronger for larger termini of junctions, and since the Manticore wormhole junction has seven termini it is virtually impossible to plot a hyper transition within the resonance zone. The planets of Sphinx and Manticore are currently within the resonance zone, meaning that in the next phase of the battle, which occurs in the vicinity of Sphinx, neither side can manoeuvre in hyperspace.
[edit] Disposition of Forces
Between the destruction of Home Fleet and the LAC engagement Kuzak completed bringing her units through the junction. Kuzak's forces micro-jumped from the junction to the edge of the resonance zone, placing Second Fleet between them and Sphinx. Second Fleet, despite having scuttled all ships which could not maintain an acceleration of at least 370g, was unable to avoid coming into range of Sphinx's fixed defenses. Their present course was designed to minimise the engagement window as well as allow them to exit the resonance zone as quickly as possible in order for the crippled ships to escape to safety in hyperspace, and to be able to rendezvous with their ammunition ships currently hidden in hyperspace.
Harrington by this time had reached the junction terminus in Trevor's Star, and began to send her ships through, starting with battlecruiser and heavy cruisers under Rear-Admiral Oversteegen to deal with any Havenite light units which might be monitoring the junction. Once all of Oversteegen's eighteen ships had transited the junction, they translated into hyper to build up velocity, then returned to normal space in range of Diamato's ships and launched missiles at them, forcing them to retreat to hyperspace to avoid destruction, and thereby preventing Tourville from monitoring the region around the junction.
Tourville was by this time within missile range of Third Fleet, but had not yet opened fire. The Republican ops plan was designed to draw Eighth Fleet into the battle so that they could destroy almost all of the Manticoran wall of battle in the engagement. Tourville concluded from the fact that only light vessels were now being sent through the junction that Eighth Fleet's ships of the wall would not do so, and therefore sent the command for Admiral Chin's Fifth Fleet of some 90 ships of the wall to emerge from hyperspace. This trapped the Manticoran Third Fleet between the Republic of Haven's Second and Fifth Fleets, each of which outnumbered it by a factor of two. It also trapped Third Fleet inside the resonance zone, meaning they could not easily escape by hypering out.
[edit] Third engagement
Because of the vectors of the different fleets, Third Fleet would only be within simultaneous range of Fifth and Second Fleet for eleven minutes. Admiral Kuzak judged Second Fleet, which was still heading in-system, to be the greater threat, despite its battle damage, and concentrated her offensive fire on it. Second Fleet responded by concentrating its fire on Kuzak's 91st Battle Squadron, destroying it within 60 seconds, then concentrating on Battle Squadron 11. Fifth Fleet also attacked Kuzak, with salvos of a similar size to Second Fleet. Neither of the Havenite fleets had deployed donkeys for this engagement, so Third Fleet did not fare quite as badly as Home Fleet, particularly since many of Second Fleet's ships had been damaged in the previous engagement. Nevertheless it was still under heavy fire from forces twice its size.
Admiral McKeon's squadron, containing 3 Apollo-capable SD(P)'s was authorised for independent targeting, and attacked one of Fifth Fleet's squadrons, killing its ships one by one. It managed to destroy 5 SD(P)'s before Fifth Fleet's targeting shifted (randomly) to McKeon's squadron. The entire squadron was destroyed, with the exception of McKeon's flagship, however the Havenites had scored a direct hit on her flag bridge, killing McKeon and his staff.
Admiral Truman's retained her Katana-class LACs to augment Third Fleet's missile defences, but detached the rest of her LACs to attack Second Fleet. Since Second Fleet's light units had been destroyed in the previous engagement, this forced Tourville to remove two squadrons from the attack on Third Fleet to conserve their ammunition for the arrival of the LACs.
Nine minutes after Fifth Fleet had emerged from hyperspace it was almost out of range of Third Fleet. At this point Third Fleet had lost 30 ships of the wall, with half the rest critically damaged. Admiral Truman was now in command, Admiral Kuzak having been killed with all hands when her flagship's inertial compensator failed, and Vice-Admiral Emiliani, the next most senior officer, having been killed by a direct hit on his flag bridge. Fifth Fleet had 85 combat-capable SD(P)'s, having lost 11, Second Fleet at this point had 56.
[edit] Fourth Engagement
When Fifth's Fleet's hyper footprint was first detected, Admiral Harrington brought the rest of her SD(P)s and CLACs through the junction in a single transit, leaving her remaining battlecruisers to defend Trevor's Star. Bringing this much tonnage through in a single transit locked the wormhole for several hours, which was the reason both Harrington and Kuzak had been bringing their ships through one by one. The only way for Harrington to then reach engagement range fast enough was to micro-jump, despite the fact that they were in the resonance zone. Eighth Fleet through skilled astrogation managed this safely. Eighth Fleet then fired a salvo of just under 8000 Apollo pods at Fifth Fleet, and another of 60 missiles at Second Fleet, outside the range where either could return fire. These missiles were able to reach attack range by firing two of their engines, then coasting ballistically (and hence undetectably), then firing their third stage engine for the attack run. The difference Apollo made was that these missiles could be controlled from shipboard during the attack run, whereas previously targeting information had to be loaded at launch, which meant that the target vessels could easily evade fire by manoeuvring during the missile's ballistic phase.
68 of Fifth Fleet's ships of the wall were destroyed by this salvo, the remaining 17 either escaped into hyperspace or were destroyed as well. Second Fleet, observing the disappearance of all of Fifth Fleet on its gravitic sensors, stopped the engagement with Third Fleet. By this time Third Fleet was down to 7 SD(P)s still capable of fighting, and Admiral Truman had only 5 of her 8 CLACs, all heavily damaged.
Harrington then used the 60 missiles she had fired at Second Fleet to demonstrate she had the range to attack them by sending them through Tourville's formation, then detonating in empty space in a manner which was obviously controlled. In the face of superior firepower Tourville had no choice but to surrender to Harrington, who required he do so with his databases intact.
[edit] Aftermath
Since Eighth Fleet was now the only force capable of defending the Manticore System it was redesignated Home Fleet, and Harrington therefore became Fleet Admiral Harrington, the rank coming with command of Home Fleet. Despite the Republic of Haven's massive losses in the Battle of Manticore it still possessed several hundred ships of the wall and could theoretically have attacked Manticore again if it were not defended by Apollo capable units.
While it was a clear victory for the Manticoran Alliance, the Republic of Haven forces having failed to destroy any of the Manticoran shipyards, it was also a pyrrhic victroy. With the loss of two out of the three largest Alliance fleets, Manticore is effectively restricted from further offensive action against the Republic of Haven in the near future.
[edit] Reference
At All Costs, David Weber (Baen, 2005) ISBN 1-4165-0911-9
