Thomas Thiesman

Zakharra wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:One of the very few recurring unrealistic themes of the Honorverse is the seemingly willingly suicidal military personnel who by the millions apparently have little problem taking that final death ride to death?

Or, put another way, one of the first things a commanding officer learns, (sometimes the hard way) is to never give an order that he has reason to believe will not be carried out. Why did not the Peep fleet just refuse?

HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm....no...wait...I have been promoted! Hee Haw!! I am now a full Commander! I love this Forum!

Why would the fleet have gone in? Because that's what they were trained to do. When someone joins the military, it's with the expectation that they can die if shooting starts. The natural human instinct is to usually avoid conflict and situations that will likely result in death. Military training makes it so people -can- advance into situations where they can die. That's something else training does, it lets people function while in combat by training them to respond. This goes for all military forces and the best ones are ones that are willing to advance into fire as well as fighting intelligently.

As for the attack on Manticore being suicidal, remember that it almost worked. If not for Honor and the 8th Fleet, the Haven attack would have worked since they would have destroyed the Manticore system Home Fleet and the fleet from Trevor's star. The Haven 2nd Fleet was wrecking the fleets trying to defend the Manticore system. Would a lot of RHN personnel died? Yes, but that's a risk they willingly took on when they joined the RHN.

I'm not going to refight the battle again, but assuming eveything had gone the Havenite's way and Honor was gone, Could the remaining RHN shuips have taken out the system? That was the Plan - rearm in hyper or deep space and return to punch out the static defenses.

Chen would have had ~85 effectives Tourville would have had <60. Still a potent force, but every one of Tourville's was beat up - most may be written off though techinically still battle worthy at the moment.

They still had the following formations to face:

1) Sphinx fixed defenses - a handful of forts (call it 10-12) and shoals of pods

2) Manticore Defenses - ditto Sphinx and LACS

3) Gryphon Defenses - Ditto Manticore - if they should go there

4) Any forces swaning around Manticore A&B and terminus reachable systems not with Fleet 1 or 2 - so Kusak's cruisers, the 12 Medusas at Lynx, etc.

5) Anything under maintenance/construction that can be gotten underway. I'm sure another dozen or so SDs going into mothballs, ships finishing up and ships under maintenance can be rushed into service in 6 hours. I'm not saying they would be 100%, but....

6) Terminus forts - they don't move fast, but they could always peel off 1/2 their strength and slowly move into the inner system. They might not be available right away, but they may arrive in 30 hours or so.

That's alot to take out, especially with damaged ships. If they continued, the Havenities might have met their mission objectives, but virtually nothing was coming back.

If the RHN blows the fabrication facilities on the three orbital stations they win, even if every single RHN ship was lost. The RMN has no new weapons available and the RHN has a continuing supply.

Which makes me kind of curious as to why he didn't blow up the Spinx infrastructure just as he had done against Zanzibar from that kind of range. He was allowed to get deep into powered missile range without anyone shooting at him. (Even more curiously, I don't remember anyone ordering the emergency evacuation of the stations. Did I just miss that?)

There were a lot of very odd command decisions made in this battle, but the obvious answer would be that Haven was trying to force an end to the war, not a complete defeat of Manticore and not blowing the entire industrial infrastructure would seem to make that a bit easier. And without 8th fleet showing up there were very few options left for the RMN to stop Haven from doing whatever they want.

Theemile wrote:

Zakharra wrote:
Why would the fleet have gone in? Because that's what they were trained to do. When someone joins the military, it's with the expectation that they can die if shooting starts. The natural human instinct is to usually avoid conflict and situations that will likely result in death. Military training makes it so people -can- advance into situations where they can die. That's something else training does, it lets people function while in combat by training them to respond. This goes for all military forces and the best ones are ones that are willing to advance into fire as well as fighting intelligently.

As for the attack on Manticore being suicidal, remember that it almost worked. If not for Honor and the 8th Fleet, the Haven attack would have worked since they would have destroyed the Manticore system Home Fleet and the fleet from Trevor's star. The Haven 2nd Fleet was wrecking the fleets trying to defend the Manticore system. Would a lot of RHN personnel died? Yes, but that's a risk they willingly took on when they joined the RHN.

I'm not going to refight the battle again, but assuming eveything had gone the Havenite's way and Honor was gone, Could the remaining RHN shuips have taken out the system? That was the Plan - rearm in hyper or deep space and return to punch out the static defenses.

Chen would have had ~85 effectives Tourville would have had <60. Still a potent force, but every one of Tourville's was beat up - most may be written off though techinically still battle worthy at the moment.

They still had the following formations to face:

1) Sphinx fixed defenses - a handful of forts (call it 10-12) and shoals of pods

2) Manticore Defenses - ditto Sphinx and LACS

3) Gryphon Defenses - Ditto Manticore - if they should go there

4) Any forces swaning around Manticore A&B and terminus reachable systems not with Fleet 1 or 2 - so Kusak's cruisers, the 12 Medusas at Lynx, etc.

5) Anything under maintenance/construction that can be gotten underway. I'm sure another dozen or so SDs going into mothballs, ships finishing up and ships under maintenance can be rushed into service in 6 hours. I'm not saying they would be 100%, but....

6) Terminus forts - they don't move fast, but they could always peel off 1/2 their strength and slowly move into the inner system. They might not be available right away, but they may arrive in 30 hours or so.

That's alot to take out, especially with damaged ships. If they continued, the Havenities might have met their mission objectives, but virtually nothing was coming back.

You're making some big assumptions of the size of the Haven forces that would have been damaged. If the mobile Manticore fleets are taken out, everything becomes a huge orbital target.

1. Planetary fixed defenses; taken out by long ranged missiles and since they cannot maneuver, they are sitting ducks. Haven's technology is very good to have been able for the RHN to be able to survive and compete with Manticore's. They can be swamped with missiles and once the forts are taken out, the missile pods are effectively useless. There's no one nearby to provide targeting data or has the control runs to be able to fire and target the missiles.

2. The same thing with Manticore defenses and the LACs.

3. See 1 and 2

4. Admiral Kursak's fleet was getting pounded into scrap and would have been destroyed.

5. The ships in the building slips are big juicy targets. Most of them are likely not in much condition to fight; still being built/repair. It takes a LOT of work, weeks to months, to get a ship out of mothballs and get it into fighting trim. Those ships undergoing maintenance, unless they -just- got to the slip, aren't in any condition to fight. Their reactors are likely shut down and those take awhile to bring back up safely.


6. I doubt they can fight that well from being attacked from behind and as long as they don't get resupplied. All of their firepower is more or less useless if nothing comes into reach. All the RHN needed to do was to wipe out the main fleet, reduce any forts in orbit of the plants to scrap and they hold the high orbit. Then they can legally demand the surrender of the planets one by one and I believe, under interstellar law, the RHN would be able to bombard the planet if the government refused. So the Junction forts themselves are not a concern. It's the planets and the orbital space around them that is important.

Remember that Admiral Chin's fleet was supposed to Haven's hole card. It was supposed to be dropped in to trump 8th Fleet. But when Tourville concluded that Harrinton would have already been brought into play if her fleet were available, Chin got dropped on Kuzak instead. Harrington then trumps Chin.

No question but what with Chin's comparatively fresh fleet, Haven wins and forces Manticore's surrender if Harrington does not intervene.

Don

Zakharra wrote: 1. Planetary fixed defenses; taken out by long ranged missiles and since they cannot maneuver, they are sitting ducks. Haven's technology is very good to have been able for the RHN to be able to survive and compete with Manticore's. They can be swamped with missiles and once the forts are taken out, the missile pods are effectively useless. There's no one nearby to provide targeting data or has the control runs to be able to fire and target the missiles.

Honorverse 'forts' are oversized sublight SDs. They can maneuver, they just have accel comparable to large civilian freighters.

HB of CJ wrote:I can understand the military mindset. Used to have one.

But, having said and kinda understanding that, why did not the Peeps just hunker down in their own home system and let the GA 8th fleet come to them instead of doing the Valkyrie thing? Better to die in your home system protecting your home world?

Why is it so hard for you to understand that if they had sat in their home system and waited for 8th fleet they would have certainly lost the war, and taken more losses while inflicting fewer on the enemy? By going on the attack they had a chance to win the war, and going on the attack was their only chance to win.

Roguevictory wrote:Why is it so hard for you to understand that if they had sat in their home system and waited for 8th fleet they would have certainly lost the war, and taken more losses while inflicting fewer on the enemy? By going on the attack they had a chance to win the war, and going on the attack was their only chance to win.

Yup. It's like you get a letter from that jerk at work bragging, in great detail, about how, in the next week, he will steal a jet at the airport and crash it into your house. Do you hole up in your house to defend it against this (umm how?) or do you consider perhaps interrupting their plan at an earlier stage when it is a bit easier to stop?

We should all keep in mind in this discussion that we are talking about a literary universe.

While it is preferrable if the characters' actions make sense within the framework of the Honorverse, ultimately the dramaturgy of the storyline is what trumps all.

If we overanalyze and question every in-world decision, we make if very hard for the author to come up with good stories.

If we take Shakespeares' Hamlet for instance it would arguably have been logical for the Prince of Denmark to kill is uncle in the first act, the second at the latest. But where would the story be in that?

So give David a break please.

The decision of the Havenite side to launch an all-out attack on Manticore made sense within the framework of the story. Of course there also were counterwailing arguments - valid ones - but the decision was still understandable and that is enough for me to enjoy the story.

And what counts in the end - on the meta-level - is the overarching storyline: After a long, rocky and heroic career Honor was going to die in the defense of her homeworld. A satisfying end to an immensely successful and fantastic story, starting with Basilisk station.

That she didn't die in the end is an added bonus.

Don't forget that 350 SDPs was a huge concentration of Haven's forces. Each of the fleet elements would have received orders to assemble at a certain point.

If the officers of those ships were to refuse those orders, they would be relieved and new ones appointed. If the crews refused, their pay would be stopped and they would fall under military discipline for disobeying orders at a time of war.

I can't imagine once the forces were concentrated, that the Havenite spacers would have looked at the other 349 SDPs and said to themselves 'there's no hope, we're goners' and decided to mutiny.

Remember that Haven was a democracy at the time and the Senate VOTED to resume the war.

Honor Amoung Enemies actually gave us a good look at malcontents who may be inclined to mutiny. There is little they can really do so long as they are in the minority. It does show that the honorverse is a 'realistic' place.

In fact Honor managed to survive the battle in Flag in Exile against Thiesmann by RELYING on the 'human factor' - that the commander of the peep fleet detachment would not be willing to die to 'win' the battle.

Yet another point to consider. Haven did not send all of their available SDs and SD(P)s. Because of the uncertainty of the whereabouts of 8th Fleet and Honor's intentions, some were kept back in case she showed up. Once 8th Fleet was tied down, if Chin had hypered out, Haven could have sent another attack. Not necessarily against the Manticore system, but against everyone else. For that matter, if they had been willing to accept the loses, they could have attacked Manticore again. The fact that no follow up action occurred says to me that, regardless of the loses in personnel and ships, the Havenite will to fight took a sever beating. After all, in spite of all their loses, the total number of capital ships was even more heavily in favor of Haven. They lost a larger number of ships but a lower percentage of their navy overall.