Chapter 48

Sir Thomas Cassimatis shook the hands of RearAdmiral McDermid and Commodore McCock,

"Thank you all for coming, and so quickly too. I would desire an explanation for the rapidity of the journey. Be seated please."

McCock noted that on the Admiralty side, the four Space Lords were accompanied by Rear Admirals Rowan and Cochrane. He also noted there were no recorders.

"No recording, Sir Thomas?"

"No, Aggy, this is to be a truly 'caps in the corner' conference. The sole purpose of this discussion is to determine our recommendations to the Government of their options working on the assumption that the Chencon fleet is going to attack Mountserrat. They of course, are looking at the other possible intentions which will not require any action on our part. Aggy, what have you got on the enemy force?"

"I'll pass that to my intel officer, Sir Henry Bollinger; Henry?"

"Gentlemen and Ladies, I have been in charge of gathering information on this subject for 119 (Reformed);" began Sir Henry, "I have used an upgraded UVA of the U90 class with SatCom attached. The U90 sits outside the hyper in hard space directly above the Solar system and its SC sits inside it in the outer hyper band..." This announcement caused some hard looks from the Admiralty personnel with a few short notes made on the pads in front of them. Sir Henry continued " ... gathering both electronic and visual signals from Old Earth. Recently, I was able to organise over a three week period planetary fly-bys using a UVA of the U40 class.

As of two days ago, I can confidently state that the Chencon have assembled a battle fleet of five hundred or so DNs, BBs and BCs, escorted by a similar number of CAs, CLs and DDs. Here is the report I gave to the Commodore yesterday. On it is also the details of the supply train which is somewhat more advanced in preparation. It consists of about two thousand vessels. As far as I can see, it is dividing into four elements based around repair vessels. The heaviest repair ship is the core of one division and the other lighter repair vessels are fairly evenly divided into three. Numerically speaking, there are more VLRCs in each of the three elements than in the heavy lift division. From this and the way the warships seem to be setting themselves up, I think the battle fleet will form three divisions each with a supply train designated with the heavy element as a stand alone; I would presume that there will be covering elements for the supply trains. It is possible that the war fleet wont shake down until in hyper. This would deny intra system observers information on the battle formations.

I have been examining the resources available in view of having to shadow that fleet. Aggy, we are stretched on U90s but have buckets of U40s so logistically, there should be no problem even if they widely split into the four divisions. I don't believe they will split. I think the present arrangement is for convenience of internal administration with only minimal physical separation of the fleets. They will remain interdependent.

Battle plans!

Even with my two and a half GEC battle computers, I cannot war game against five hundred ships of the line. I can war game against two hundred ships of the line or I can game against three fleets. The scenario has to be a meeting engagement; you cannot ambush a moving alert fleet with full shields which they will have to deploy to be able to spread sails. The ships are vulnerable with sail spread but at first whiff of trouble can switch to full defensive shields and their shields are very good, marginally better than we encounter on Harbourian vessels.

I can envisage that 119 (Reformed) could destroy a division's line of battle but while it is totally involved in that, the screen vessels of the division will swarm and swamp us.

I have examined the Battle of Home Space. Admiral Cunningham was able to destroy seventy five enemy line of battle of the second arrivals with her thirty eight line of battle, that is the equivalent of the power from ten battle 'puters. She was able to convince nearly two hundred ships of the line to surrender but there were few undamaged ships left and all the screening vessels had been swept away. Her battle line would have been virtually unscathed against any combination of screen vessels.

119 has only six lightly skinned small warships. We cannot stand in a fleet engagement. The result at Harbouria was a very successful ambush of stood down vessels.

Put the full strength of the Chencon fleet together, and I believe they will fight as one force, and, no matter which way I cut it, our combinations are destroyed. Even when I include full Amaranti and Renmark fleets with us, all that happens is Chencon casualties are much greater but we are all destroyed. Aggy, you and I were looking at the Spanish Armada which is nearest in relative strengths to this situation."

"Henry, those were wind sail driven vessels and the winds were adverse. Storm and starvation was what really did the job. Warships now come with their own power supply. However, all the enemy warships are designed for the Solar system whereas all the supply train except the repair ships and the reactor mass carriers, RCs, are designed for intergalactic commerce and provision is made for appropriate bunkerage. Even so, those vessels are designed to travel from harbour to harbour where they can rebunker. All those vessels, particularly the warships, are dependent upon reactor mass supply, and frequently. That is, as I see it, their only weak spot. Gentlemen?"