Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

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Vympel
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Vympel »

The Battle of Vermilion - Episodes 50 - 54

The Battle of Vermilion was the decisive engagement of the first war between the Free Planets Alliance and the Galactic Empire in Space Year 799.

Background

Shortly after the defeat of Admiral Wahlen, Reinhard von Lohengramm summoned all of his subordinates to a meeting where he set out his strategy where he would personally draw out and defeat Yang Wen-li once and for all.

His first order was for High Admiral Reuenthal to take his fleet to the Rio Bell sector, attack the Alliance supply base there, and secure the area. Reuenthal understood Reinhard's intent immediately, and blanched.

In a grand pretense, all of Reinhard's subordinates would take their fleets and attack various Alliance supply bases, leaving the Lohengramm Fleet isolated - an irresestible bait for Yang Wen-li to attack.

Müller objected, calling the plan too dangerous, and asked that his fleet be allowed to remain behind as well. Reinhard dismissed his worries, silencing him with a rhetorical question of whether he thought Reinhard would lose to Yang when they both had an equal number of ships.

Mittermeyer in turn thought it inappropriate for Yang, "only a solider commanding a fleet", to meet Reinhard in battle under equal conditions. Reinhard dismissed that argument as well, noting that both he and the newly promoted Yang were Fleet Admirals.

Reinhard then allayed his subordinates fears by setting out his tactics for the coming battle. He called for a thick pile of paper, and then poured some red wine on top of it. He then proceeded to pick up and discard sheet after sheet of the paper until he came upon a clean sheet - he would set so many defence lines, Yang would be unable to penetrate them all - buying time for all of Reinhard's Admirals to return and encircle him.

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Following the meeting, Hildegard von Mariendorf went to Reinhard with an alternate plan - that they should merely attack Heinessen and force them to surrender, without fighting Yang. Reinhard refused to conque the Alliance without ever defeating Yang. Further, he told Hildegard that she would not be with him in the battle - with the dangers such as they were, she would be sent away, to wait for news of the victory.

On 6 April 799, the Yang Fleet, having received intelligence about the dispersal of the Imperial fleet, arrived at the Gandharva System. Yang had originally planned to begin his attack when the Imperial fleets reached their maximum defence perimeters - but if he waited for that, the Lohengramm Fleet would reach Heinessen first.

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The various Imperial fleets' dispersal paths

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The Lohengramm Fleet's projected arrival at Heinessen

Therefore, Yang would have to engage and defeat Reinhard sooner than planned, and at a point where it would be impossible for the other Imperial fleets to return quickly. Knowing it was a trap, Yang would attack anyway.

On 11 April, the Yang Fleet docked at an Alliance asteroid supply base, Rudmila, to take on supplies for the battle, and have some final R&R for the soldiers.

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Supply base Rudmila

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An Alliance transport taking on supplies

Whilst on R&R, Yang took the opportunity to speak privately with Lt. Commander Frederica Greenhill - asking for her hand in marriage, to which she happily agreed.

Arrival in Vermilion

The Yang Fleet arrived in the Vermilion System, with Yang giving orders to Vice Admiral Murai that the 125 billion cubic light-seconds around the system were to be divided into ten thousand sectors, with two thousand patrol units being assigned to them, to immediately ascertain when the Lohengramm Fleet entered the system.

Advance scout unit F0-2 detected the Lohengramm Fleet's arrival in the system, only 40.6 light seconds from the Alliance fleet.

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The Lohengramm Fleet arrives

The scout was detected by forward elements of the Lohengramm Fleet under Vice Admiral Rolf Otto Brauhitz, who tracked the scout's path in order to find the Alliance main fleet.

With their position determined, Reinhard ordered his troops to take three hours of R&R - there being no risk of surprise with the Yang Fleet's position known. Vice Admiral Murai gave the same R&R orders to the Alliance troops.

Mindful of the return of Reinhard's subordinates (the first of whom to return probably being the Gale Wolf, High Admiral Mittermeyer), Yang ordered a the fleet to take a tight formation and lure the enemy into close quarters battle. Their advantage was that they only needed to destroy one ship, the Brunhild. Duke Lohengramm would have to destroy Yang's entire fleet.

Battle commences

Battle was joined at 1420 hours on 24 April 799. To start, both Reinhard and Yang were extremely conservative with their tactics, fearing some sort of trick or novel strategem on the part of his opponent.

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First shots

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Triglav and Airged Lamh

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Missile fire being exchanged

However, against both their wishes, the battlespace soon began to expand, testing command and control. On both sides, front line commanders asked for orders on how to proceed. Both Reinhard and Yang were frustrated with their subordinates for not making command decisions in accordance with their individual situations.

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Vice Admiral Brauhitz' flagship Sindri

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An Imperial gunship carrier deploying its craft...

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And being destroyed in the process

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The Hyperion pulls back, a shot glancing off its forward shields

With communications being jammed, Reinhard relayed his orders via shuttles that had been prepared beforehand. Vice Admiral Thurneysen took Reinhard's orders as giving him free reign - even though he had not received firing orders, and was directly behind the Brauhitz Fleet, which was engaged at the front line.

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Thurneysen's flagship Theodoricus

He therefore decided to join the battle at the front line and kill Yang Wen-li with his own hands.

Thurneysen's arrival on the front line sent Brauhitz' formation into disorder, infuriating Brauhitz.

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Yang reacted quickly, firing on both clustered fleets and inflicting heavy damage on both.

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Hyperion pours on the fire

Reinhard was furious. High Admiral Oberstein remarked sardonically that Thurneysen - a very outspoken and boastful young officer - could only see what was right in front of him, and was a man to stay away from. Reinhard could only reply that if he survived the battle, he would take Oberstein's advice.

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"His voice reaches far, but his eyes can only see what's right in front of him."

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Thurneysen withdraws as Brauhitz advances

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And is then much reduced

After a shuttle was sent and Thurneysen withdrew, Brauhitz' Fleet was lured into Yang's formation and suffered heavy losses. Vice Admiral Brauhitz kept his head, and was able to put up effective resistance nonetheless.

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Sindri holds the line and destroys an enemy battleship

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Carnage of battle inflicted on Imperial and Alliance soldiers

By this point, it was 26 April 799. With combat approaching its third day, both fleets broke off combat. Yang lamented his situation - he needed more ships. Even 3,000 more ships would be sufficient.

On 27 April, Yang reoganized his forces and ordered a blitzkrieg. They succceeded in breaking through the first line of defence. Yang immediately realized it had been too easy.

Commodore Marino's squadron broke through the next defence line - only for another layer of defence to appear in front of him.

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Commodore Marino's flagship Muh'wäse

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"Dammit! How many layers of defence do they have?!"

By 29 April 799, the Yang Fleet had broken through the eigth layer of Reinhard's defence - with no end in sight. High Admiral Merkatz likened it to peeling the layers off an onion. With no advantage in stopping, Yang had no choice but to continue.

At this point, Julian Mintz offered up his thoughts on Lohengramm's tactics. He reasoned that his intent was to slowly chip away at Yang's endurance - both materially and mentally. Mintz argued that Reinhard's seemingly never-ending defence lines weren't coming at them from the front, as they appeared to be - if they had been, they would have been picked on on sensors, and Reinhard would have difficulty assessing changes in the combat situation.

Rather, the path between their fleet and the Brunhild was technically clear - the Imperial forces were position to either side, like thin cards - drifting in front of the Alliance fleet as it advanced.

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Reinhard's sheets of paper

Julian's reasoning was correct. Reinhard had organized his forces into twenty-four defensive lines. Each wall, once penetrated, retreated to the rear (just in front of Reinhard's own force), reorganized its formation, and prepared a new defensive line. In this way, Reinhard had a seemingly endless series of defensive lines.

Yang found Julian's reasoning sound, and began to think. At the same time, fighter combat was breaking out between the fleets, with Commander Poplin and Konev being sent out to meet the Imperial squadrons from the latest Imperial line.

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Horst Schürer's Valkyrie

The Alliance squadrons took heavy losses - the tactics of Imperial ace Horst Schürer saw them herded towards Imperial warships, which devastated them with main gun fire.

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Spartanians sent into cruiser fire and destroyed

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Poplin evades the enemy by hugging a battleship's hull

In the course of the dogfight, Commander Konev was killed by fire from an Imperial cruiser. Yang pulled them back to the fleet on Murai's recommendation.

After the next defence line was broken through, Yang set his plan into motion, withdrawing his fleet by 800,000km to an asteroid belt.

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Yang pulling back, from the Imperial point of view

On 30 April, the Imperial fleet detected the enemy moving out fo the asteroid field, pulling hard to the port flank. Sensors estimated enemy strength at 10,000 ships. Reinhard speculated that Yang was trying to spread out the Imperial forces, but the main issue was whether those ships were his main fleet. Oberstein reasoned that since Yang had allowed them to see it, it was probably a decoy - but he couldn't discount the possibility it was their main force.

Reinhard agreed that in either case, spreading out their forces in response to the move would be foolish. Reinhard, always prideful, had been exercising an extraordinary level of patience in maintaining his defensive lines for such a long period - he decided it was a ploy by Yang to move his forces, and ordered his fleet to combine and turn to port with the intent of destroying them.

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"We'll take them head on, and punch them in the nose!"

The fleet of Vice Admiral Welner Aldringen brought up the front of the Imperial formation, and was the first to enter firing range. At that point, the recon image of the Alliance force expanded - revealing that it was mostly a collection of construction ships towing tethered convoys of large asteroids.

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Vice Admiral Dietrich Saucken realizes the deception

Before they had a chance to react, the fleets of Vice Admiral Attenborough and Vice Admiral Morton moved in to cut off their retreat.

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The Triglav and the Achilleus

The Imperial fleet then rushed to protect Lohengramm's force, turning 180 degrees to attack Yang's force, which was in the process of advancing on Lohengramm's own force. Commodore Marino's squadron, which had been responsible for the asteroid lure, moved out and charged the Imperial fleet.

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Sindri turns

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Muh'wäse moves to intercept

The construction ships also joined in - blasting their engines and releasing their tethered asteroids, sending them smashing through the Imperial lines.

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Construction ships lob asteroids at the Imperial fleet

The Imperial fleet seemingly was about to break through the flank of Yang's fleet - but only for a moment. Yang turned his ships 90 degrees and concentrated fire as the Alliance forces closed off their rear. The vast majority of the Imperial fleet was encircled from all sides, and began to be taken apart.

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The situation looked initially much better ...

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...than it actually was

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Seperated from his forces, a detachment of the Alliance fleet made for the Brunhild, blasting through the Brunhild's defenders.

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Reinhard looks on his impending defeat

Rear Admiral Streit had a shuttle prepared and urged Reinhard to evacuate. He scoffed - saying that he saw no need to retreat, and if he ran away from Yang now, all the men he had killed would laugh at him from Valhalla. Streit signalled to Kissling, who appeared to be ready to physically seize Reinhard and evacuate him.

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"Is it to be victory upon victory, only to suffer defeat at the very end?"

The Brunhild was then rocked as the battleships shielding her from Alliance fire were destroyed. Under the guns of an enemy battleship, Reinhard appeared ready to meet his fate, when the battleship exploded.

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It was 2 May, and the Müller Fleet had arrived earlier than expected.

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Müller arrives

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"Protect Duke Lohengramm!"

Ironically, the Müller Fleet, once it arrived at the Alliance supply base in the Lycus System on 24 April, was not met with resistance. The base commander, Aubry Coquelin, negotiated with Müller for a peaceful takeover, provided that the supplies in the base be used for the benefit of Alliance civilians, narrowly avoiding a mutiny by his own men in the process. Though he had the best of intentions, he inadvertently cost Yang Wen-li his chance to kill Duke Reinhard.

Soon after the takeover had been effected, Müller received the news that the battle had commenced. Müller left an administrative staff behind and made best speed for Vermilion - his haste was such that he arrived with only his fastest ships, 60% of his fleet.

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"That was a terrible oversight, not figuring in Müller."

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"Miracle Yang will show us another trick."

Müller cut into Yang's formation, inflicting heavy losses.Vice Admiral Morton tried his utmost to press ahead to reach the Brunhild, but in the space of only an hour, his fleet had taken 60% losses - 2,000 ships. Morton himself was soon killed when his flagship Achilleus was destroyed.

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The death of Vice Admiral Morton

Both Reinhard and Yang were deeply impressed with Müller's abilities. Whilst the Yang Fleet was starting to run out of energy and missiles, Reinhard's forces were still encircled.

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Vice Admiral Grünemann is pinned under a column when his battleship Vigrid is hit

Amongst the encircled Imperial forces, Vice Admiral Carnap managed to get in touch with the Brunhild, and requested reinforcements. Reinhard responded he had none to give, and told him to die there, in battle.

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Carnap's battleship Hermodr

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"Die, he says?! Fine, I will! If I die, I'll reach Valhalla first, and you'll be the one running errands for me, Reinhard von Lohengrramm!"

Carnap ordered his ships full speed ahead to where the Müller fleet was concentrating its fire, to break out of the siege.

Yang deliberately let Carnap escape. As the Alliance ring opened, Müller rushed forward to rescue his allies. As the fleets joined, Yang opened fire on both, inflicting heavy damage. Vice Admiral Carnap was killed.

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The Müller and Carnap fleets under heavy bombardment

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Carnap's death

In the process, Müller's flagship Lübeck took critical damage. With its fusion reactor breached, Müller ordered all hands to abandon ship.

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The Lübeck is lost

Müller transferred his flag to the battleship Neustadt. However, it too was hit by Alliance fire, and lost navigational capability. It was abandoned and then destroyed. He next transferred his flag to the battleship Offenburg, and two hours later to the battleship Herten, carrying on a brave defence throughout.

Nevertheless, Yang had successfully dealt with Müller's arrival on the battlefield. After rebuilding his formation and making new plans, at 22:40 on 5 May, the Brunhild finally came under the guns of the Hyperion.

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Brunhild in Hyperion's sights

The moment before Yang gave the order to fire, an emergency message from Heinsessen arrived, ordering unconditional surrender.

Schönkopf begged Yang to fire.

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"Ignore those orders from the government, and order a full assault! Then you will have seized three things: Duke Lohengramm's life, the history of the universe, and the future! Harden your resolve. If you would only go forward, then you can put the history of the universe on its proper course!"

Yang ordered the fleet to retreat, and requested a ceasefire from Duke Lohengramm. To the last, he was a soldier of a democracy, and would never ignore orders from his government to court military rule.

For his part, Reinhard was incensed, calling Yang's abandonment of victory madness.

Hildegard von Mariendorf, saviour of the Empire

After leaving Reinhard's fleet prior to the battle, Hildegard von Mariendorf had made for the Eleuthera system, where the Mittermeyer Fleet had been sent- arriving on 2 May.

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Beowulf and her fleet over a captured Alliance base

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Hildegard's Small Fast Ship

Ms Mariendorf advised Mittermeyer that it was already too late to help Reinhard at Vermilion - though one ship could arrive in time, a large fleet would take at least four days (i.e. Mittermeyer, if he left immediately, would arrive on 6 May). Prior to her arrival, she had gauged the battle situation and decided that, Alliance aggressiveness being what it was, Duke Lohengramm would be defeated before that.

However - the Mittermeyer Fleet was only two days away from Heinessen. With the Alliance committing all its forces to Vermilion, it was probably undefended. She proposed atttacking Heinessen and making the Alliance government order Yang to stop fighting.

Mittermeyer's only reservation was that Yang may not obey the government's orders, kill Reinhard, and seize power for himself. Mariendorf noted that if he wanted to seize power, he had passed up plenty of chances. Though she called it despicable, Yang's ideals would have to be used against him.

On balance, Mittermeyer agreed with her plan. But he noted he could not go alone - if he attacked Heinessen by himself, he would be suspected of having political ambition. High Admiral Reuenthal, his closest friend, was in the neighboring system, and could easily be communicated with.

Rear Admiral Bayerlein expressed concern that the plan could result in battle if Reuenthal didn't agree with the plan. Mittermeyer replied that he was not the sort of person to be friends with an unreasonable man for 10 years. Notwithstanding, Bayerlein had his fleet assume extraordinary defensive measures, which didn't go unnoticed by the Reuenthal Fleet.

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"Have I made men of extraordinary ambition and talent realize what an extraordinary opportunity this is?"

Reuenthal agreed to go along with the plan, and the two fleets combined. Reuenthal went to the Beowulf, to allay any fears that Bayerlein, "that bloodhound", might assume that Reuenthal would do Mittermeyer harm.

Attack on Heinessen

On 5 May, the "pillars of the Empire" arrived at Heinessen with their combined force of over 30,000 ships.

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The statue of Ale Heinessen, founder of the Free Planets Alliance, in Heinessenopolis

"This is the Imperial High Admiral Wolfgang Mittermeyer speaking. The airspace above your capital is under our military control. I demand dialogue with the government of the Free Planets Alliance. Cease all military action, and stand down. Otherwise, we will commence a full assault on Heinessen. You have three hours to consider. In the meantime, enjoy this demonstration."

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Beowulf in orbit

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The Strategical Planning Centre's defence systems launch

The Strategical Planning Centre's defence systems had barely launched their missiles before it was wiped out by the Beowulf.

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Mittermeyer commented that people in power wouldn't care if the homes of ordinary people were destroyed - but the destruction of government building would make the blood drain from their faces.

Ms Mariendorf also had another message sent - that if they surrendered, their highest ranking officials would not be prosecuted.

In Heinessenopolis, Job Trunicht, as Chairman of the High Council, decided to agree to the Empire's demands, giving their threat of an all-out attack as justification. Walter Islands tried to object, but was silenced when Trunicht aired all of his political dirty laundry. Trunicht also denounced Fleet Admiral Yang as a "moron", saying that if he hadn't destroyed the Artemis Necklace during the civil war, then they would not be under attack.

Fleet Admiral Bucock also objected, giving an impassioned speech about the demise of democracy in the Alliance. Finally, he got up and went to grab Trunicht, with the intent of stopping him. Before he could lay hands on him, troops burst in - along with armed members of the Earth Church. Islands collapsed, and Bucock was placed under arrest.

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Bucock is arrested

Plans for the future

During the ceasefire, Yang made several arrangements. First, he had High Admiral Merkatz and Commander Schneider leave the fleet - asking them to take ships, supplies and men with them. He could not guarantee that Alliance military power would stay intact, and so Merkatz would take them for when they were needed. Yang compared his task to that of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest. The Empire would be unlikely to verify whether those ships had been destroyed in battle or self-destructed. Similarly, High Admiral Merkatz would be reported dead. Commander Olivier Poplin and Kasper Linz of the Rosen Ritter also accompanied him.

Before the other Imperial fleets returned, Merkatz departed with only 60 ships and 11,820 men - all of them being listed as killed in action.

Aftermath

After he learned what happened, Reinhard commented, smiling, that it was shameful that the victory he had achieved was not his, but was handed to him - "just like a beggar".

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The Vermilion star and the refuse of the battle

The Battle of Vermillion had lasted twelve days. The Imperial fleet had suffered 87.2% losses, with 72% casualties. The Alliance fleet had suffered 81.6% losses, with 73.7% casualties. Together, both sides had lost 2.5 million men.

In terms of battle capable ships, the Yang Fleet only had 3,000 remaining by the time the Imperial fleets returned to Duke Lohengramm.

Neither side believed themselves the victor. Strategically, the Imperial forces were victorious, whilst the Alliance was tactically victorious, but both Yang and Reinhard appraised the other's victory higher than their own.

Reinhard and Yang meet

At 2300 hours on 6 May 799, Yang departed the Hyperion in a shuttle for the Brunhild.

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Over a cup of tea in Reinhard's chambers, Yang and Reinhard met for the first time. Reinhard's first question after the exchange of pleasantries was an offer for Yang to serve him as an Imperial Fleet Admiral.

Yang refused - though he expressed his great admiration for Reinhard's leadership, he was not an Imperial citizen, and his loyalty was to democracy alone. A discussion on various topics ensued, including the merits of autocracy and democracy.

Fleet Admiral Bucock had a message sent to the Imperial fleet, requesting that he be the sole subject of Duke Lohengramm's wrath. Yang asked that he not be permitted to assume that burden alone, but he need not have bothered - Reinhard did not consider himself a vengeful man. There would be no blood spilled now that the fighting was over.

The meeting ended on good terms, with Yang saying he would go home and retire.

Alliance affairs

On 12 May 799, the Imperial fleet arrived on Heinessen. As he stepped off the Brunhild, Reinhard was again proclaimed Kaiser by his men.

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Meeting with Mittermeyer and Reuenthal at the Alliance High Council meeting, they reported that the Imperial court-in-exile had dissolved. Count Remscheidt had committed suicide in the process of being apprehended. Baron Alfred Lansburg had kidnapped the young Erwin Josef II, and fled with him. All the other conspirators were arrested.

Oberstein advised that it was too early to dismantle the Alliance and place it under direct Imperial rule. The approach taken by the Empire was to force the Alliance to disarm, and then recognize a facade of autonomy. Further, the Empire would pursue policies to impoverish the Alliance - with Alliance military spending so curtailed, the Alliance economy was bound to rebound, risking them becoming a second Fezzan.

Alliance personnel

Yang, Attenborough, Schönkopf and Bucock's retirement notices were accepted. Vice Admiral Alex Cazerne's was rejected - due to the need for administrators, he was promoted to head of Logistics and Support. Admiral Rockwell was promoted to Commander of the Armed Forces. Admiral Chung Wu-Chen was appointed acting secretary of the Alliance fleet.

The Treaty of Barlat

The Treaty of Barlat (named after the star which Heinessen orbited) - which formalized the arrangements between the Empire and the Alliance, was executed on 25 May 799. A key term of the treaty provided that the Alliance was to dismantle all of its battleships and spacecraft carriers.

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Oberstein and Trunicht at the signing of the Treaty of Barlat

After signing the treaty, Job Trunicht announced he would take responsibility for the defeat, and resign. When the circumstances of the surrender became known throughout the Alliance public, the citizenry turned their anger from the Empire to Trunicht, with mass demonstrations and riots.

With Trunicht gone and Islands sick, João Rebelo took over leadership of the Alliance.

Imperial pesonnel

The Alliance turned over three star systems to direct Imperial control. The Imperial fleet in Alliance territory was stationed at Urvashi, with Admiral Steinmetz appointed its commander. The position of overall Imperial consul for Alliance territory was given to Admiral Lennenkampt. Lennenkampt had not been Reinhard's first choice - he had wanted Reuenthal's talent in that role. However, Oberstein recommended they be kept at home, to strengthen the troops (in truth, his real motivation was to keep Reuenthal where he could keep an eye on him).

Oberstein was not keen on Reinhard's choice of Lennenkampt either - thinking him too much a military man, and likely to be too harsh given his loss to Yang Wen-li. Reinhard noted simply that if Lennenkampt failed, he would be removed, and the Alliance would be punished for any transgressions.

In a display of sheer shamelessness, Job Trunicht requested a meeting with Reinhard, asking for not only guarantees that his life and property would not be harmed, but asking to live in the Empire and to be given a post. Thoroughly disgusted with him, Reinhard refused to meet him, but granted his requests, if only to ensure that the Empire kept its promise that the leadership not be held responsible.

In the following days, Reinhard eventually came to terms with the events of Vermilion, and thanked Hildegard von Mariendorf for saving his life.

Mittermeyer and Reuenthal were both promoted to the rank of full Fleet Admiral.

The Goldenlöwe Dynasty is Born

On 20 June 799, Duke Lohengramm returned to Odin. Baron Jurenph von Pernitz, the regent for the 1 year and 8 months old Kaiserin, abdicated the throne on the Kaiserin's behalf.

22 June was Reinhard's day of ascension as the new Kaiser of the Galactic Empire, and his coronation.

Before he took the crown, for the briefest moment he thought he saw the two people he most wanted to be there.

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Kaiser Reinhard von Lohengramm

Space Year 799 became the first year of the New Imperial Calendar.
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Vympel
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Vympel »

Man, this took so long to finish. I don't know why.

Some notes:-

*You'll notice that the names of various characters have changed. This is in accordance with the original DVD native captions, which are for the most part superior and more accurate than the LaserDisc native captions used before (though there are exceptions, e.g. they think Bucock should be spelt Bewcock). I intend to go back through all my old posts and make the same changes (and more). I'll do a summary post for all those changes when they're done. That's a job for the coming weeks. I hope everyone knows who I'm talking about in the meantime. If anyone reads this except me!

*Getting the subtitles to appear on my new PC is an incredibly difficult job compared to my old one. With three exceptions that I managed to get by changing the MPC renderer (to something of inferior quality, and which I don't like the look of) - I gave up and am resigned to simply typing out dialogue I think is noteworthy or fun.

EDIT: oh, re the issue of "old-style" Dagon-era warships, the crew of a Dagon-era FPA battleship is 465 men, in comparison to 660 men for a modern FPA battleship (e.g. the Ulysses). The dimensions are comparable - a Dagon battleship is 605.6m long, 62m wide and 155m high (including antennae, as always). A modern battleship is 624m long, 65m wide and 136.5m high.

DOUBLE EDIT:- yes, that's than the LaserDisc native captions, not to. Whoops.

Further, yes the Sindri does have a different coloured crest in between screenshots. Its an error in between Episode 51 and 52. In 52 and Episode 80, its red an white (as it is in the Fleet Files) - so that's the accurate one.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Vympel »

Edit log of previous entries:-

Astarte:-
Muckenburger = Mückenberger
Staaden = Staden
Phezzan = Fezzan (identified first as Dominion of Fezzan)
Trunhit and variations = Trunicht
Pastoll = Pastolle
Paeta = Paetta
Yusuf Tparoul = Yusef Tpalour
Krunten = Kärnten

EDIT 2:

4th Tiamat
Musel = Müsel
Grunewald = Grünewald
Lazar Lobos = Lassalle Lobos

7th Iserlohn
Kastrop = Castrop
Schenkopp = Schönkopf
Cazellnu = Cazerne
Anshal = Anshar

EDIT 3:
Alliance invasion of the Empire
Johan Lebello = João Rebelo
Huang Louis = Huang Rui
Lufeber = Lefebvre
Ulanfu = Ulanhu
Andrew Fork = Andrew Falk
Lugen = Lügen
Koenigstiger = Königstiger
Jawanhahr = Jafnhár
Birlost = Bilrost
Dwelg = Dverger
Mouton = Morton
Borsorn = Bolthorn
Amlitzer = Amritsar
Guen van Hugh = Nguyen Van Huu
Poplan = Poplin
Minci = Mintz

EDIT 4 (Amritsar continued):-

Alweis = Alviss
Wansteidt = Wänsteidt

EDIT 5:-

Imperial Civil War Pt 1

Freya = Freyà
Anton Ferner = Anton Fellner
Neithart Mueller = Neithard Müller
Ovlessor = Offressor
Altener = Altena

EDIT 6:-

(Amritsar again!)

Hoghwood = Hawood

Those changes will be made to later posts as I go through them, without further notations.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Connor MacLeod »

Since I'm bored, i'm taking another break from 40K analysis and I'm just catching up on battles.. I'll throw in my observations for shits and giggles.
Vympel wrote:On 11 April, the Yang Fleet docked at an Alliance asteroid supply base, Rudmila, to take on supplies for the battle, and have some final R&R for the soldiers.

5 days maybe (april 6 to 11th) Was this in Gandharva? It coudl be either a FTL or a sublight figure depending on where the supply base is.
If the battle started on april 24, and they docked on the 11th (if its in Gandarva) nearly 2 weeks of FTL travel.. I'd roughly estimate between 1500-2500 LY. ~56,000c average time.
The Yang Fleet arrived in the Vermilion System, with Yang giving orders to Vice Admiral Murai that the 125 billion cubic light-seconds around the system were to be divided into ten thousand sectors, with two thousand patrol units being assigned to them,
hmm 125 billion cubic LS.. about.. 3,000 LS radius.. a lil less than a light hour. I think that would give you a rough idea of how "close" to the system they can get. If you have any other instances of emergence where they travel insystem to a habitable planet and know the timeframe you can probably calc accel from this.
I'd guess each patrol ship would be responsible for a volume of space roughly 245 light seconds in radius, if i did the math right. (each patrol craft responsible for ~5 sectors on average) Each sector would encompass ~143 LS in radius I think, so it may suggest that the patrol ships were overlapping sectors.
Advance scout unit F0-2 detected the Lohengramm Fleet's arrival in the system, only 40.6 light seconds from the Alliance fleet.
..
With their position determined, Reinhard ordered his troops to take three hours of R&R - there being no risk of surprise with the Yang Fleet's position known.
Assuming Yang's fleet didn't move at all.. and assumignt the battle starts at the usual 20 ls range, they covered 20.6 LS in a matter of hours. A rather leisurely 556 km/s or so. Acceleration, assuming constant burn, would be some 10 gees.
After the next defence line was broken through, Yang set his plan into motion, withdrawing his fleet by 800,000km to an asteroid belt.
Get a timeframe there and you'll possibly get another accel calc.
The construction ships also joined in - blasting their engines and releasing their tehtered asteroids, sending them smashing through the Imperial lines.
Interesting tactic. Could be as calcable as the other asteroid scene (scaling, estimating velocity, etc.) They'd have to be thrown pretty fast to hit Imperial starships from a distance (light seconds?) That'd also give another performance figure for starship engines (and mass) - this time the construction ships and whatever other vessels were with them.

Oh, and the encirclement of the Imperial fleet by the Alliance? That doesn't look terribly good if those are external shots. I hope someone is witnessing that from the bridge somewhere, or maybe its some sort of starship camera footage, because otherwise its going to look bad range-wise (someone will scream inconsistency.)
The Brunhild was then rocked as the battleships shielding her from Alliance fire were destroyed. Under the guns of an enemy battleship, Reinhard appeared ready to meet his fate, when the battleship exploded.
Interesting idea on durability, if it's taking multiple close proximity battleship detonations.
Müller left an administrative staff behind and made best speed for Vermilion - his haste was such that he arrived with only his fastest ships, 60% of his fleet.
That tells you something about ratios or proportions of the fleet. I'm guessing he left alot of his logistical (supply and support) ships behind, possibly some of his slower warships (battleships?)
It also implies to us that the flagships possibly have far greater engine power than smaller battleships (which makes sense considering so many seem to mount huge numbers of guns.) This likely can also account for greater durability in the form of mounting and sustaining stronger shielding.
It also indicates he arrived at Vermillion in about 9 days. Maybe.. 1500 LY covered? ~60,000c if so.
The moment before Yang gave the order to fire, an emergency message from Heinsessen arrived, ordering unconditional surrender.
Unequivocable proof of FTL comms, then.
After leaving Reinhard's fleet prior to the battle, Hildegard von Mariendorf had made for the Eleuthera system, where the Mittermeyer Fleet had been sent- arriving on 2 May.
nine days again. From Vermillion I assume?. ~2500-3500 LY maybe. ~120,000c. That small fast ship must be specially designed for fast transit.
On 5 May, the "pillars of the Empire" arrived at Heinessen with their combined force of over 30,000 ships.
From Vermillion? If so 3 days I'd guess. and quite a bit of distance 3500-4000 LY I estimate. We're talking a whopping 486,000c. Either I'm off on something (which I'm banking on) or there's lots of factors dictating FTL speed that make it inherently variable.
The Strategical Planning Centre's defence systems had barely launched their missiles before it was wiped out by the Beowulf.
By stuff we still don't know. If its a beam weapon.. depends on how big the defence center and surrounding area was I guess. hundreds of meters, maybe several km (hard to judge and the only benchmark are again those starships but they're pretty far away) Obviously didn't deeply penetrate the crust (eg not kilometers deep) I havent watched it so I don't know duration. high kiloton/low megaton at least, likely.
On 20 June 799, Prince Lohengramm returned to Odin
Heinessen to Odin, in maybe ~39 days. I'm guessing maybe 6-10K LY. Average velocity of around 56,000c.

I'm betting some of those figures are off at least, but it probably gives an order of magnitude figure for most.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

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Also I am just looking over the first few pages.. ugh I'm going to have some catch up to do. There's lots of little things I see that might potentially be interetsing. It will at least give me some ideas what to look out for when watching the series. (still not quite motivated enough to do that yet fully. I'm more in a dabbling stage than rather "diving in' :P)

Oh yeah, and to revive the old "Thor's Cannon" argument. I wonder.. what if the weapon actually isn't so much a brute force beam weapon as some sort of fusion-reaction based flamethrower?

- We know there's at least some particle beam type or matter component to it. Although it also has an x-ray component.

- It's designed for a large area of effect, sort of like a nuke, but its confined to a specific range and radius of effect (more like a flamethhrower, or a solar flare.

- Its effects are vastly greater than the input energy.

Now if they're creating some sort of beam weapon that behaves like a fusion bomb in space, it might be incredibly devastating over a large area (thus perfect for defending a "corridor' which I believ ewas its point?) It wouldn't also be something you might easily deploy in a starship - it looks like its a very unwieldy and complicated setup, requiring alot of precision that would necessitate a stable platform. Also a big station like that can have huge ass fuel tanks iwthout worrying about how it impairs mobility.

It's still increidbly convoluted, and ruogh, and probably needs fine tuning, but it's an idea I think.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Connor MacLeod »

Another thing puzzling me when I was watching. Are starships using their main engines inside Iserlohn or Geiersberg when they're trying to land or return to base? That would be very... uhm.. curious to contemplate, since with the hydrometal it would be a confined enviroment. Part of me thinks the engines aren't really firing and they're just going in on antigrav.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

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Connor MacLeod wrote:Another thing puzzling me when I was watching. Are starships using their main engines inside Iserlohn or Geiersberg when they're trying to land or return to base? That would be very... uhm.. curious to contemplate, since with the hydrometal it would be a confined enviroment. Part of me thinks the engines aren't really firing and they're just going in on antigrav.
Well, fighters can be launched from directly from Iserlohn but they use launch tubes to get them outside the armor. The tubes are even have guns to prevent the enemy from using them to gain access to the fort. This would suggest it's either impossible for a small craft to fly through the liquid or it is too slow to fly through it as fighters need to get out quickly. Here's some close up footage of a ship maneuvering into the fort youtube

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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Vympel »

5 days maybe (april 6 to 11th) Was this in Gandharva? It coudl be either a FTL or a sublight figure depending on where the supply base is.
If the battle started on april 24, and they docked on the 11th (if its in Gandarva) nearly 2 weeks of FTL travel.. I'd roughly estimate between 1500-2500 LY. ~56,000c average time.
Gandharva was in Imperial possession (its the system where Uruvashi, the main Imperial base in Alliance territory, was located), so definitely not there.
hmm 125 billion cubic LS.. about.. 3,000 LS radius.. a lil less than a light hour. I think that would give you a rough idea of how "close" to the system they can get. If you have any other instances of emergence where they travel insystem to a habitable planet and know the timeframe you can probably calc accel from this.
I'd guess each patrol ship would be responsible for a volume of space roughly 245 light seconds in radius, if i did the math right. (each patrol craft responsible for ~5 sectors on average) Each sector would encompass ~143 LS in radius I think, so it may suggest that the patrol ships were overlapping sectors.
Hmmm well the next entry is going to be about an attack on Earth, there might be something there.
Get a timeframe there and you'll possibly get another accel calc.
No timeframe to be had unfortunately. My habit is to give all the possible analysis information if its provided, doubt I missed anything.
Interesting tactic. Could be as calcable as the other asteroid scene (scaling, estimating velocity, etc.) They'd have to be thrown pretty fast to hit Imperial starships from a distance (light seconds?) That'd also give another performance figure for starship engines (and mass) - this time the construction ships and whatever other vessels were with them.

Oh, and the encirclement of the Imperial fleet by the Alliance? That doesn't look terribly good if those are external shots. I hope someone is witnessing that from the bridge somewhere, or maybe its some sort of starship camera footage, because otherwise its going to look bad range-wise (someone will scream inconsistency.)
Whatever it is, it'd be a mistake to fall into the thinking that all LOGH battles take place at light second ranges as a matter of course. They usually start that way, but no one should pretend they stay that way. Even the 6 million km quote battle has Kircheis take 800 fast battleships and cut a swathe through the enemy formation at extreme close range.
That tells you something about ratios or proportions of the fleet. I'm guessing he left alot of his logistical (supply and support) ships behind, possibly some of his slower warships (battleships?)
It also implies to us that the flagships possibly have far greater engine power than smaller battleships (which makes sense considering so many seem to mount huge numbers of guns.) This likely can also account for greater durability in the form of mounting and sustaining stronger shielding.
It also indicates he arrived at Vermillion in about 9 days. Maybe.. 1500 LY covered? ~60,000c if so.
Well I don't know the distance from Lycus to Vermilion, but his battleships definitely seemed to accompany him, he transferred his flag to various battleships in his fleet enough times. It may be his smallest ships couldn't keep up (destroyers and cruisers?)
nine days again. From Vermillion I assume?. ~2500-3500 LY maybe. ~120,000c. That small fast ship must be specially designed for fast transit.
Its not really made clear. It might've been, or it might have been before Reinhard arrived in the system.
From Vermillion? If so 3 days I'd guess. and quite a bit of distance 3500-4000 LY I estimate. We're talking a whopping 486,000c. Either I'm off on something (which I'm banking on) or there's lots of factors dictating FTL speed that make it inherently variable.
From further away than Vermilion. The Imperial fleets split up further back, Reinhard arrived at Vermilion alone.
By stuff we still don't know. If its a beam weapon.. depends on how big the defence center and surrounding area was I guess. hundreds of meters, maybe several km (hard to judge and the only benchmark are again those starships but they're pretty far away) Obviously didn't deeply penetrate the crust (eg not kilometers deep) I havent watched it so I don't know duration. high kiloton/low megaton at least, likely.
The Strategical Planning Centre actually has a significant underground component, and it was still in use by the Alliance military after the above ground was wiped out.
Heinessen to Odin, in maybe ~39 days. I'm guessing maybe 6-10K LY. Average velocity of around 56,000c.

I'm betting some of those figures are off at least, but it probably gives an order of magnitude figure for most.
This is the right magnitude. Its stated in one of the Gaiden to be 10,000LY from Tiamat (in the Iserlohn Corridor) to Odin, so ...
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Connor MacLeod »

Vympel wrote: Gandharva was in Imperial possession (its the system where Uruvashi, the main Imperial base in Alliance territory, was located), so definitely not there.
I'm not clear on the context anyhow, so it may have to be tenative.
No timeframe to be had unfortunately. My habit is to give all the possible analysis information if its provided, doubt I missed anything.
Sometimes the relevant info isn't incident specific. It may be something like "standard combat engagement ranges are no more than 20 LS" or something like that. Or maybe they have a limit of how close they can get to a planet. Or how long on average it takes to arrive, stuff like that. Or it may just be inferred from other, similar cases. Piecing together disparate info can often be required.
Whatever it is, it'd be a mistake to fall into the thinking that all LOGH battles take place at light second ranges as a matter of course. They usually start that way, but no one should pretend they stay that way. Even the 6 million km quote battle has Kircheis take 800 fast battleships and cut a swathe through the enemy formation at extreme close range.
So I'm noticing. The one thing I am noticing, which goes contrary ot what I was earlier thinking, is that the odds of scoring killing hits goes up the closer the ranges get. Range really doesnt seem to have as much impact on shield penetration as I'd thought, so it would seem to be more complicated than that (EG there's more factors to their shields, or to penetrating them with weapons, than is apparent.)
Well I don't know the distance from Lycus to Vermilion, but his battleships definitely seemed to accompany him, he transferred his flag to various battleships in his fleet enough times. It may be his smallest ships couldn't keep up (destroyers and cruisers?)
Maybe. It may mean that bigger ships have stronger FTL drives and can travel faster (since we know so little about FTL speed we dont know what parameters affect its performance. Bigger ships have larger internal volume and more raw power, which may dictate faster speed in this case. Or it could be a case of durability.)

On the other hand, we're talking "as fast as possible over a long distance/period of time" which is going to be as much about raw speed as it is endurance. Destroyers or cruisers could be considerably faster, but only at the expense of cutting into endurance.
From further away than Vermilion. The Imperial fleets split up further back, Reinhard arrived at Vermilion alone.
How much further though? That would affect the calc. Ah well. That either means my calc is still wrong or there are variables to FTL we dont know about.
The Strategical Planning Centre actually has a significant underground component, and it was still in use by the Alliance military after the above ground was wiped out.
Do we know how deep belowground it is? I'm assuming not miles beneath, but still.
This is the right magnitude. Its stated in one of the Gaiden to be 10,000LY from Tiamat (in the Iserlohn Corridor) to Odin, so ...
One out of the rest is better than nothing.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

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Sometimes the relevant info isn't incident specific. It may be something like "standard combat engagement ranges are no more than 20 LS" or something like that. Or maybe they have a limit of how close they can get to a planet. Or how long on average it takes to arrive, stuff like that. Or it may just be inferred from other, similar cases. Piecing together disparate info can often be required.
It really depends on when you find the enemy too. We've seen 6.4 light seconds firing ranges (Episode 21), 11 light second firing ranges (Third Battle of Tiamat - Season 2 Gaiden) and even as low as 750,000km in Episode 50 (one or two factors at play in that battle which might've effected range, though its never explicitly stated).
So I'm noticing. The one thing I am noticing, which goes contrary ot what I was earlier thinking, is that the odds of scoring killing hits goes up the closer the ranges get. Range really doesnt seem to have as much impact on shield penetration as I'd thought, so it would seem to be more complicated than that (EG there's more factors to their shields, or to penetrating them with weapons, than is apparent.)
Yeah, they're hard to pin down.
How much further though? That would affect the calc. Ah well. That either means my calc is still wrong or there are variables to FTL we dont know about.
Its not clear. It'd be nice if the map of the Imperial fleet dispersal had a distance scale on it :)
Do we know how deep belowground it is? I'm assuming not miles beneath, but still.
IIRC it was a pretty large number of levels. As always its hard to pin down what episode you watched something in unless you did so recently.
One out of the rest is better than nothing.
I think some later episodes are good about distances. Pretty sure the distance between Heinessen and Fezzan is stated explicitly in a coming one. Will let you know.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Simon_Jester »

Reinhard took a cruiser on a deep-raid mission into Alliance space once during the prequel gaidens; it seems logical that they have high operational range, but maybe not at high speed- engines optimized for short high-speed runs or long low-speed "cruises."
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

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I just took a whole day out to breeze through all sixteen pages of the Battles thread. I have about 60k worth of notes and quotes to comment on from all that and I'm not sure I want to do it all at once. I'll probably have to handle it piecemeal. Sufficed to say, there's ALOt of stuff I've noticed.

Also I'm more convinced than ever zeros are continually getting either added or misplaced in this series. Sometimes only one, sometimes alot.

PS: (Geiersberg joins all the other insane engineering and energy chucking feats.)
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

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If you're going to do one of your usual jobs, we're gonna need a dedicated analysis thread...
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Connor MacLeod »

Naw, that'll only happen once I actually start *watching* the series. I'm just doing an observation based on everything Vympel provided and quick research off the wiki and online. :P I can probably break it down into 3-4 posts of 15-20k (which would actually be smaller than my typical 40K posts.)

Maybe it should go into a separate thread though. I was thinking the LOGH vs Honorverse one probably should have gone that way since for the last 6 pages or so its pretty much been only LOGH. The read through created as many questions for me as it did answers (like zephyr particles.)
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Vympel »

Go ahead and create a new thread at your leisure. If you like, I can split and merge posts into it from here and the LOGH/Honorverse thread.

(feel free to ask about any zeroes which you think may be misplaced, btw. I can check the native subtitles / spoken dialog against google translate easily)

Also, drop me a line when you intend to start watching the series. I'll hook you up with the CA fansubs (by then all the rips of the DVD remaster will be out) and the native QTS rip with original Japanese subtitles if you want. And also a viewer's guide :)
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Connor MacLeod »

I think I can sum up the relevant points of the past 16 pages or so in a handful of posts or so (depends on how "big" I want to make them.) Now that I kinda caught up I doubt there's really any sense I'm going to fall behind again, so I don't have to rush to put it all out there, so to speak.

Besides, its involved as part of the battles, and the debate has concerned a great deal of the firepower and other capabilities, so why not. Plus I still feel like I should be contributing ot your thread, rather than usurping what I see as your little niche.

Also I think i'm still going to wait on watching the series. right now my HDs (including at least one external) is full of stuff I'm wanting to catch up on or re-watch (several LARGE anime series I wnated to watch, including alot of the Lodoss stuff and Slayers, plus I'm wanting to catch up on some series like Mythbusters and Farscape. I also nabbed Exo squad and the Starship Trooper Chronicles because I never fully watched them when I was younger. Oh, and Gargoyles.)

(And I'm still sorting 40K stuff. I'm just not in "note taking" mode anymore. You know how fucking time consuming it can be to put all your data in order, and shit. Probably worse for you since you're doing text AND images.)
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Connor MacLeod »

Vympel wrote:It really depends on when you find the enemy too. We've seen 6.4 light seconds firing ranges (Episode 21), 11 light second firing ranges (Third Battle of Tiamat - Season 2 Gaiden) and even as low as 750,000km in Episode 50 (one or two factors at play in that battle which might've effected range, though its never explicitly stated).
The earlier entries you did also mention one 5.5 LS one too. Simon (I think) alluded to a light minute battle but that never was clarified. But weapons ranges aren't the only thing I was thinking of. Getting a rough idea of warp emergence points, things like that, etc.

Also the 750,000 km scene got hinted at as an "extreme range" one from the earlier discussion of it.. part of me wonders if a zero got dropped :P
Yeah, they're hard to pin down.
Formations seem to be a big one, I suspect.
Its not clear. It'd be nice if the map of the Imperial fleet dispersal had a distance scale on it :)
I usually just scale off the route of the 10,000 LY march. It seems to have worked so far.

Since I decided not to do a separate thread I'll throw my additional comments from your battle reviews here. For the most part they're all your comments, except for one or two where I specificalyl state who i am commenting on. This bunch goes up to before Fork's Invasion Adventure

Concerning the Tiamat battle, not much I could upll directly from Astarte's review.
Vympel wrote: Planet Legnica’s atmosphere was composed of helium and hydrogen, with atmospheric wind speed of approximately 2,000km/h, rendering any radar or tracking device almost useless.
I don't quite know why the high windspeeds would cause this. It could be a matter of precision, I doubt sensor antennae or anything lik that could function well if winds are pressing on them or whipping them about.
Also, the wind is going to act on the mass of the ships. If they hold largely steady, you probably can figure out (based on pressure and estimated surface area) the probable masses of the ships.
Patroclus and Brunhild clashed head-on and passed each other by a distance of mere metres.
...
The exchange of fire was inconclusive, with the Brunhild emerging unscathed whilst the Patroclus suffered only superficial damage.
Even allowing for sensor issues and the fact that flagships are "superior" to regular ships, this tends to suggest that close ranges don't guarantee shield penetration like I earlier assumed. I would have expected knife fights to be more brutal, otherwise. This doesn't mean that range ISN'T a factor, it just means that the defense issues (and why ships get destroyed) is more complicated. It may involve (for example) things like shield geometries (since deflection seems ot play a role) or perhaps volume. Or maybe shield strength isn't uniform or consistnet - when opening fire or manuvering shields may have to be selectively weakened because they are would block exhaust/weapons fire.
Reinhard’s plan came into focus shortly. As the weapons fire between the fleets caused the atmosphere’s temperature to rise, the chances of a sudden updraft rapidly increased. The winds stopped briefly – whereupon Reinhard ordered his fleet to rapidly ascend.

Before Paetta could react, a strong wind with velocities of 6,000km/h picked up and threw the 2nd Fleet into disarray. Collisions and general chaos were the result.

Commodore Yang, realizing the imminent danger given the planet’s helium and hydrogen atmosphere, recommended that the fleet immediately ascend, and accept the casualties that would result during the ascent.
while it's not an exact correlation, I'd guess that the average temperature might have tripled in that time. This would give us an indicator roughly of the firepower involved, if we knew the size of the fleets involved and the duration (although it is still only an indicator, since this is energy radiated off into the enviroment - it need not be the whole energy.)
We'd also need to have an idea of the volume of space affected, but we could approximate that from the size of the fleets.
Assuming 20K ships, a 1000 km diameter "area", and a matter of hours would yield a average "per ship" figure around hundreds of terawatts if I did the math right, but that's just an approximation at best.

The increase in velocity also probably provides the same indicator for ship mass.
Yang’s fears were immediately realized – Reinhard gave orders for the Brunhild to fire a nuclear fusion missile. The missile ignited a volatile pocket of Legnica’s atmosphere and created a massive explosion which gutted the 2nd Fleet’s formation.
Reinhard's nuke set off whatever hydrogen was in the atmosphere, and the fleet was caught in a massive chemical explosion (how big? No idea, but big enough to consume the aformentioned fleet, which is quite large.)

It may also be a rather highly specialized means of killing - chemical explosions won't neccesarily be purely thermal but could rely on significant blast effects, and those may not be blocked by shields. Not easily exploitable weaknesses save by special circumstance, and the sheer potential size of the atmosphere (especially judging by the fireball) can still yield alot of energy.

Incidentally on returning ot base, the thrusters are clearly shown firing inside the base, hence my earlier issues WRT exhaust and heat for the hydrometal. Engine exhaust will expel a LOT of energy, even at reduced settings (Terawatts to petawatts easily, per ship.)
Commodore Yang departed aboard the battleship Ulysses – with a crew of three people, accompanied by a few unmanned cruisers, operated only by remote control.

Yang's group penetrated the Imperial fleet’s zone of control, and launched decoys that made it appear as though 8,000 ships had suddenly appeared behind the Imperial fleet.
An indication of the level of automation that LOGH ships possess, which is a good thing for them, methinks.
Also, those decoys are.. intresting, as it implies that they fool even visual checking (or that LOGH ships have some way of cloaking themselves even visually.) because it shouldn't be hard to put a telescope on a drone at the ranges they engage at and figure these things out.


7th Iserlohn Battle:
Six times in 25 years, the Alliance had deployed massive fleets in an attempt to take the fortress, all ending in abject failure, in large part due to Iserlohn’s enormous main weapon, the Thor Hammer, capable of wiping out thousands of ships in seconds.
I would assume the losses, whilst heavy enough to deny victory in the battle, were not so heavy that it crippled the fleet despite the fact they carried this off six times. This tells us something about their ability to replace losses, I'd say. While they may not have totally replaced the losses, I'd say they managed to restore a substantail portion of them, because losing many tens of thousands of starships for one objective is not trivial even for a LOGH fleet. It would in turn suggest an average "construction" time of 3-4 years or so.
In addition, Yang requisitioned from Rear Admiral Alex Cazerne (one of the Alliance fleet’s head logisticians) an Imperial ship (spoils from earlier battles) – and 200 Imperial fleet uniforms.
Why can't they build their own Imperial warships? I'd assume that such subterfuge isn't against any rules, and it might be a rather effective tactic on more than one occasion. That would tend to suggest that shipbuilding is highly "personalized" to either side in some fashion, to make such decoy work impossible unless you actually have one of the enemy's starships.
The Free Planets Alliance set out for Iserlohn on April 27th, Space Year 796. It took two weeks to get to Iserlohn.
I'd guess 5,000 LY, +/- 1000 LY or so. 130,000c or thereabouts.
Yang reasoned that it was impossible to take or destroy Iserlohn Fortress by brute force.
This would suggest that not even the sorts of kinetic attacks they made against the Artemis necklace would succeed. Although to be fair that could be because the Thors Cannon might shoot down any such (although I'm still not sure.) Within certain limits we might make assessments about the durability of the station (and hence its firepower)

It does make me wonder if they ever considered large scale missile bombardments or mass kinetic asteroid attacks though. There is enough "institutionalized stupidity" on both sides in the higher echelons that it may be that noone really bothered to consider ways to take it other than through sheer attrition. And one cannot possibly rule out other options (cost or resources. The FPA is not exactly in an ideal position when it comes to money or resources to be throwing around like that.)
The Bremen closed on Iserlohn, and its pursuers were seemingly warded off by Iserlohn’s floating gun batteries.
...
Thanking the fortress for its assistance, the Bremen requested immediate docking clearance, due to their having suffered serious damage.
They mention the pursuit "fleet" isnt entering gun range. I assume of Thor's cannon, but that might also mean the defence lasers. If the defence lasers are of similar power to those used by starships, that might mean a 20 LS or so range. If it menas thor's cannon its alot shorter (nearly ~2 LS IIRC). IF we know or can estimate timeframe, this might provide a rough figure for velocity/acceleration (or rather, time to slow down on reaching Iserlohn.)
Seeckt, meanwhile, had closed on what he thought to be the main Alliance fleet, and discovered it was a decoy – just as Paul von Oberstein had thought.
Again their super-effective decoys, able (I would guess) to fool even a simple telescope.
Even though the enemy had discovered the deception, Yang noted it would take them at least two hours to return from that sector of space. Meanwhile, it would take the 13th Fleet 1.5 hours to get all their fleet into the fortress – leaving the Rosen Ritter only thirty minutes to open the port before they were attacked on both sides.
Gunhead talks about this later. 600,000 km IIRC for Thor's hammer's range (approximatley.) in half an hour. I'd guess maybe 35-75 gees roughly. Main engines might be a bit faster, since they tend to be bigger/more obvious than retros (or manuvering thrusters- I figure the difference is no more than an OoM between the two)

Although Yang was reluctant to use it, he knew the Imperial fleet could still damage their ships whilst docking, and ordered the Thor Hammer to open fire.
More than 1,000 Imperial ships were instantly destroyed.
..
He ordered the flagship to be targeted. Seeckt was killed, and the Imperial fleet retreated.
That shows some remarkable precision in the weapon. They can spread the focus to encompass a large area, or narrow it down to target only one ship. It's even implied Yang deliberately tried to minimize the damage of the first shot only to intimidate the Imperials.

Melting down a thousand ships (assume average mass half a million tons) assuming iron would be around ~140 Megatons. Though to be fair I've had some issues with the "melting" feats of the weapon, so this may not be accurate.

It was cool, the only thing that bothers me about that is that it was a very close range shot and yet only very few of the beams are present when actually striking the Wallenstein.
In Xon's images on the bottom of page 2, they look like the beams themselves are functionally invisible on impact. That tends to put some credibility in the "traceR" argument (which is good, since the tracers seem to suffer from SW's "variable velocity syndrome" anyhow.)

Interesting thing. Using the Gineipaedia stats for an Imperial battleship, the height of the "nose" I came out with was slightly off.. between 80-90m, depending on whether I used the 677m length (which yielded 2 m/pixel) or the 228m height (yielded close to 2.3 m per pixel.) Not a huge degree of inaccuracy, but it can throw some calcs off if precision matters.
It looks that between 1/3 or 1/2 the height of the nose is melted in terms of beam diameter, and I'd guess (using the side insignia as a benchmakr) around 200 m deep.

I don't know how long that took, but it also looks solid. Assuming between a 30-40 m diameter hole and 200 meters deep? Volume of material affected is betwene 70,000 M^3 and 125,000 M^3. The problem gets.. "interesting" here. What sort of density should we use? If we use an average density of 250 kg*m^3 (about one quarter that of water) that is between 21 and 38 TJ per beam (vaporizing would be between 100-190 TJ or thereabouts). But its metal and the front section looks quite solid.. assuming 50% iron you get between 300 and 600 TJ (and 1500 3000 TJ for vaporization) They'd stil be lower limits though, since the front could be almost entirely solid, and its something alot more heat resistant than iron (given that they can fight in or near a star and even the debris won't glow.)
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Vympel »

More edits:-

Astarte
Yusef Tpalour = Yūsuf Topparol (Yusef Tpalour had no basis, it was a mistake)

Imperial Civil War Pt 2

Shang Tau Sector = Schan'n-tau sector (weird)
Buro = Bülow

Imperial Civl War Pt 3

No Changes except those already noted (and addition of numerous umlauts and various other special characters I didn't know how to do back then, like Königstiger and Müller and Lübeck, same as I've done in the past)

Alliance Civil War

Vice Admiral Luglanju = Vice Admiral Legrange (so ... much ... better!)
Bagdashu = Baghdash
Stocks = Stokes
Shilyunagal = Srinagar
Changed refernces van Hugh to Nguyen, in accordance with Vietnamese naming

Some comments:-
Even allowing for sensor issues and the fact that flagships are "superior" to regular ships, this tends to suggest that close ranges don't guarantee shield penetration like I earlier assumed.
Yeah, I should've remembered that too - when the Patroclus and the Kärnten (or Krunten as I called it off the fansub) battled in ONW (and heck, in the original Episode 2), they're at extreme close range and both of them deflect each other's fire. Especially impressive considering the Kärnten is a standard Imperial battleship and the Patroclus has forty forward guns to the Kärnten's eight.
I would assume the losses, whilst heavy enough to deny victory in the battle, were not so heavy that it crippled the fleet despite the fact they carried this off six times. This tells us something about their ability to replace losses, I'd say. While they may not have totally replaced the losses, I'd say they managed to restore a substantail portion of them, because losing many tens of thousands of starships for one objective is not trivial even for a LOGH fleet. It would in turn suggest an average "construction" time of 3-4 years or so.
This sounds about right. The 11th Fleet was smashed (but not completely destroyed) at the 3rd Battle of Tiamat in early 795 - it didn't participate in the invasion of the Empire and was only heard from again in 797 (Alliance civil war). The Thor Hammer's effects would've been more devastating. If the 6th Battle of Iserlohn is any indication, once the Thor Hammer fires the battle is considered over, and it might get off two shots before the fleet gets away.
I'd guess 5,000 LY, +/- 1000 LY or so. 130,000c or thereabouts.
One annoying thing about this is that later on (which you certainly noticed) the trip time has doubled - even though Yang has a somewhat smaller fleet!
It does make me wonder if they ever considered large scale missile bombardments or mass kinetic asteroid attacks though. There is enough "institutionalized stupidity" on both sides in the higher echelons that it may be that noone really bothered to consider ways to take it other than through sheer attrition. And one cannot possibly rule out other options (cost or resources. The FPA is not exactly in an ideal position when it comes to money or resources to be throwing around like that.)
Large scale missile bombardments after drawing off the main Imperial fleet are the lynchpin of the Alliance attack in the 6th Battle of Iserlohn (Gaiden Season 1). It would've worked, but Reinhard fucks up their missile ships (they use dedicated missile cruisers for the job). No mass kinetic asteroid attacks though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxoBaNzHauk#t=3m14s
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Crossroads Inc. »

I don't know if anyone has ever noticed this... but at 3:51 on that there is what appears to be a cross section of Iserlohn.
I don't think we have ever had any sort of schematic view of the fortress before or sense. Worth studying as it appears to show just how thick the liquid metal coating is.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Simon_Jester »

Vympel wrote:
I'd guess 5,000 LY, +/- 1000 LY or so. 130,000c or thereabouts.
One annoying thing about this is that later on (which you certainly noticed) the trip time has doubled - even though Yang has a somewhat smaller fleet!
Hmm. Possible explanations- logistics? Maybe making a speed run over those distances (I'm not clear on what's being referred to) requires exceptionally high fuel consumption, or imposes serious engine wear. Or some significant fraction of Yang's ships might have been damaged, or suffering from 'peacetime' engineering casualties that needed repair before the ships could run at full speed...

Just some thoughts.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Uraniun235 »

This would suggest that not even the sorts of kinetic attacks they made against the Artemis necklace would succeed. Although to be fair that could be because the Thors Cannon might shoot down any such (although I'm still not sure.) Within certain limits we might make assessments about the durability of the station (and hence its firepower)

It does make me wonder if they ever considered large scale missile bombardments or mass kinetic asteroid attacks though.
Given the bizarre 'constrained' nature of the space surrounding Iserlohn, I imagine the Imperial fleet may have been able to basically clear away or use all substantial asteroids in the area near Iserlohn.

Alternately, the nature of the "corridor" may be such that there is no sufficiently long straight-line path that could be used to get up to fractions of the speed of light necessary to destroy Iserlohn.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by takemeout_totheblack »

Vympel wrote: Yeah, I should've remembered that too - when the Patroclus and the Kärnten (or Krunten as I called it off the fansub) battled in ONW (and heck, in the original Episode 2), they're at extreme close range and both of them deflect each other's fire. Especially impressive considering the Kärnten is a standard Imperial battleship and the Patroclus has forty forward guns to the Kärnten's eight.
Wasn't there an unverified blurb on gineipaedia regarding shields? I think that it said there were two kinds, one being on all the time that blocks ranged shots and such (the ones we see at the beginning of battles), whereas the other was capable of deflecting much stronger shots with the trade-off of only being to do so for a limited time before requiring a cool-down period (the ones we see during 'knife-fights'). This could explain the inconsistencies we see with their shielding mechanisms.

You're the LoGH-person, I just thought I'd bring that to your attention.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

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Yeah, there was. But no basis in the actual show and not appended to any known source of any kind, so something to be culled until there's verifiable evidence of it.
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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Simon_Jester »

Well, save it somewhere, at least it's an interpretation, which gives us a place to start looking.

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Re: Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Battles (Spoilers)

Post by Vympel »

Yeah, like any wiki that stuff is left in the page's edit history, so its no biggie to reintergrate it. Its only the pages that are deleted outright that I take the trouble to save somewhere, just in case.
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