What is the |value| of captured enemy systems?

Relax wrote:

dsrseraphin wrote:So planning a synchronous operation is not the problem... executing one that relies on information beyond the local spacetime horizon is the problem. Absolute reliance on such info will most likely result in absolute failure.

No one is saying that, unless I can't read(been known to happen). We all know, there is no galactic telepathy...

dsrseraphin wrote:Sorry, wasn't disagreeing with you
it was just that others were getting bogged down on the ability to keep time and be synchronized

to me that is a non issue

my point on that subject is if you can do space travel, especially ftl travel, synchronizing your 'watches' is not really going to an issue compared to all of the other things you need to accomplish just to get from here to there - "you go to the place where the stars look like this and you attack when they look that".
At this level of tech, if you have the capability to get to where you are suppose to be, you surely have the ability to tee off when you are suppose to.

Now if your orders include some non sense about waiting for some trigger coming from another unit and trying to achieve simultaneity that way - well good luck with that because Murphy will have your units by the short hairs.

Assuming no prepositioning, telepathy ('far' communicating) is a no go also because it requires an observer to already be where your going.

Now accurate clairvoyance (remote viewing or precognition) would be an acceptable triggering method (it changes your spacetime horizon).

Remembering the maxim 'any sufficiently advanced technology can be like magic'

hmmm HV magic... how about an off shoot of the streak-drive - upper band gwandar (gravitational wave navigation, detection, and ranging), gravewave scattering off of 'knotted' gravity sources/sinks like blackholes and ahh perhaps impeller wedges & Warshawski sails; or lets try an off shoot of the spider drive that allows ftl com to punch through to the beta or delta band

(anybody in the 'new school' reading this? - wish list for the fat guy in ugly read suit, white beard & black boots)

-David S.

Actually, I certainly agree that navigation and even synchronization is very accurate. I never doubted either. I simply wish to reserve judgment that time across the galaxy doesn't tend to wander more than the accuracy needed to coordinate forces across galactic distances considering the human element and . . . stuff.

There's already just too much that can go wrong when you can't communicate with another prong of attack even in the here and now, even though we somehow barely and not at all manage it anyway. But in the Honorverse, timekeeping to the accuracy needed may be a problem compounding a problem. Compounding a problem, like the Dispatch Boat jumping the gun in Basilisk and kicking off the fireworks way too early. Compounding a problem, like arrogant irresponsible officers having one last session with his sex-slave while peering at his cheap watch. Etc., etc.

10-15 minutes variance in time across the entire galaxy is acurate as H E double L L IMO. But may not exactly be milspec.

Unlike a Dispatch Boat that can say "Now! And get the lead out!"

or

A Q-ship that can immediately fetch the cavalry out of hyper.

Relying on a galactic coordination of forces beyond what is accomplished by the Admiralty is telling the KISS principle to kiss your ass. Which pisses it off into biting it instead.

Btw, nice post!

OTOH, to argue Joat's point . . .

There has to be a way a ship knows the moment to drop out of hyper, on top of the forces they have hiding there. IOW, the times when warships pick out of the way, less traveled - if at all, inconspicuous waypoints.

Do tell? You seem to have better info that I can find on the subject.

Al Noori et al. [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.08214.pdf], which is the most recent paper I turned up in a quick search, says "Almost 50 years have passed since Jocelyn Bell serendipitously discovered the first pulsar after
noticing periodic fluctuations in radio telescope data [1]. Since then, over 2500 pulsars have been discovered [2]. The vast majority of these pulsars have been found in the Milky Way, with only 23 found in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and 5 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) [3], both of which are satellites of our galaxy. This work is an attempt to search for radio pulsars that are truly extragalactic, lying beyond the Magellanic Clouds." I won't trouble you by expanding their references, but you can have them if you would like. This paper, BTW, goes on to report the failure of their search.

Relax wrote:The PROBLEM, is that said pulsars are in OTHER galaxies far far far away. Humanity has spread out a measly 1000ly from earth. Triangulating the tangent of 0.0000000000000001 degrees is still ~~~ 0. IE massively problematical.

Triangulation via the local stars should be imminently possible. Once enough are done, you can calculate stellar drift of them all. DO this over a period of several hundred years, and you should be able to navigate within SL space extremely accurately at the least as Hyperspace is just a velocity multiplier. How accurate are those hyperspace logs?

No commercial spacer is going to put up coming out of hyperspace a light hour away and then having to burn extra hydrogen/time getting to the hyper limit. Insurance will not put up with this as the insurance is not only for the goods, but also timely delivery. Government will not put up with this. They will have hyperspace mapped very accurately in all the bands. Especially on busy routes. Major systems and wormholes for instance.

So, while I agree with you that due to common logic and applied geometry, navigation should be within a handful million kilometers no matter who or where in HV space, the author says otherwise for plot reasons. Like most other uh..... technological economic SNAFU's in the HV. Making a world too perfect ties your feet down when you need to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

cthia wrote:
There's too damn much pressure on your shoulders in the Honorverse.

How many times does one have to say, "I totally Effed Up sir!"

.

But that's the whole point of Saganami Island & Edward Saganami's legacy (and the British Royal Naval traditions that the RMN has inherited from). Once you were 'at sea' you were 'Master and Commander' of your ship and fate (or squadron or fleet if you were a flag officer).

The officer corps and the Admiralty knew this and acknowledged it. As a captain, a bad decision could mean loss of ship and very likely loss of life, so the Admiralty would most likely NOT keelhaul you if you at least brought the ship back; beach you for life if it was a stupid decision in addition to being bad - but break your sword? not very likely.

A (relatively) small professional officer corp is best run like that in situations of predominantly independent and/or detached commands. Now once the HV develops interstellar grav-com communications, things will change and the Admiralty will rein in the officer corps to bend to their will.

The real question will be, how will grav-com be initially implemented (assuming RFC goes for it): will it be like ulf to boomers (one way low data rate), or like short wave radio (middling data rate but subject to environmental vagrancy). Eventually there will be some sort of communications network that will deliver reliable high bandwidth secure connectivity and your 'poor' line officers wont have the problem of the galaxy on their shoulders.

Neither will there be another Salamander!!!

So enjoy it while it lasts.

-David

Louis R wrote:Do tell? You seem to have better info that I can find on the subject.

DOH! Was thinking Quasars, not Pulsars...

cthia wrote:OTOH, to argue Joat's point . . .

There has to be a way a ship knows the moment to drop out of hyper, on top of the forces they have hiding there. IOW, the times when warships pick out of the way, less traveled - if at all, inconspicuous waypoints.

That's why I suggested gwandar, beta/delta band grav-comm and making it your business to do the necessary cartography whenever you get the chance.

Let's say gwandar is deployed somewhat like sonar buoys in that you need an array of them to be useful {gwandar buoy - an automated pinnace that is at station beyond the translation limit: bobbing up to the alpha band to either send a grav-wave ping if active or, when passive, to detect grav-wave distortions and or scatter; bobbing down for operational cycle recovery, station keeping and n-space comm}.

For defensive operations, seed them a few light hours out along the most likely invasion route, for offensive operations send a scout ship to recon the rally point that is a light day or so out from the target, it deploys a set of buoys that act as markers for the dtz (down translation zone); in either case a Hermes buoy is collocated with the gwandar buoys for ftl communication purposes.

Defensively, you get a detection line that can give you early enough warning so that your ready force is already responding as the attacker is translating into n-space. Offensively, a little more complex but definitely higher return - your forces can stage in n-space as one group relatively close to the objective and you have a recon element that can serve as the operational trigger (a light day out gives an alpha band trigger latency of ~20 mins. at beta band the latency is much less); last min in theater adjustments can be made based upon the info collected by the recon ship.

Voila, a solution (that doesn't exist yet) to your problem.

Btw, that grav-lance that was last heard from in OBS, bet it can be used as a semaphore within hyperspace to extend the practical range of communication.

-David S.

Relax wrote:

Louis R wrote:Do tell? You seem to have better info that I can find on the subject.

DOH! Was thinking Quasars, not Pulsars...

If you haven't read it, the link in Joat's post is interesting on that front.

dsrseraphin wrote:

cthia wrote:
There's too damn much pressure on your shoulders in the Honorverse.

How many times does one have to say, "I totally Effed Up sir!"

.

But that's the whole point of Saganami Island & Edward Saganami's legacy (and the British Royal Naval traditions that the RMN has inherited from). Once you were 'at sea' you were 'Master and Commander' of your ship and fate (or squadron or fleet if you were a flag officer).

The officer corps and the Admiralty knew this and acknowledged it. As a captain, a bad decision could mean loss of ship and very likely loss of life, so the Admiralty would most likely NOT keelhaul you if you at least brought the ship back; beach you for life if it was a stupid decision in addition to being bad - but break your sword? not very likely.

A (relatively) small professional officer corp is best run like that in situations of predominantly independent and/or detached commands. Now once the HV develops interstellar grav-com communications, things will change and the Admiralty will rein in the officer corps to bend to their will.

The real question will be, how will grav-com be initially implemented (assuming RFC goes for it): will it be like ulf to boomers (one way low data rate), or like short wave radio (middling data rate but subject to environmental vagrancy). Eventually there will be some sort of communications network that will deliver reliable high bandwidth secure connectivity and your 'poor' line officers wont have the problem of the galaxy on their shoulders.

Neither will there be another Salamander!!!

So enjoy it while it lasts.

-David

Your posts are certainly packed with punch, lots of fun and food for thought! Thanks for the meals.

The Master and Commander characteristic of the RMN can draw their forces much much further out of position compared to the mistakes Halsey made. Though a little out of position can be just as devastating. Even in the midst of battle. . .

"You just go right on putting distance between you and your friends." Paraphrasing Honor.

Perhaps we just might see another Salamander after all. Remember, she bore a few newts.

dsrseraphin wrote:

cthia wrote:
There's too damn much pressure on your shoulders in the Honorverse.

How many times does one have to say, "I totally Effed Up sir!"

.

But that's the whole point of Saganami Island & Edward Saganami's legacy (and the British Royal Naval traditions that the RMN has inherited from). Once you were 'at sea' you were 'Master and Commander' of your ship and fate (or squadron or fleet if you were a flag officer).

The officer corps and the Admiralty knew this and acknowledged it. As a captain, a bad decision could mean loss of ship and very likely loss of life, so the Admiralty would most likely NOT keelhaul you if you at least brought the ship back; beach you for life if it was a stupid decision in addition to being bad - but break your sword? not very likely.

A (relatively) small professional officer corp is best run like that in situations of predominantly independent and/or detached commands. Now once the HV develops interstellar grav-com communications, things will change and the Admiralty will rein in the officer corps to bend to their will.

The real question will be, how will grav-com be initially implemented (assuming RFC goes for it): will it be like ulf to boomers (one way low data rate), or like short wave radio (middling data rate but subject to environmental vagrancy). Eventually there will be some sort of communications network that will deliver reliable high bandwidth secure connectivity and your 'poor' line officers wont have the problem of the galaxy on their shoulders.

Neither will there be another Salamander!!!

So enjoy it while it lasts.

-David

It's just that it seems rather presumptuous of that poor old chap called the First Space Lord bearing the weight of the movement of so much metal on his shoulders to rely on what he sees on the holo display before pulling the trigger on a truly risky redeployment.

I imagine that there's a fleet of tin cans that simply work to take advantage of the interior lines of communication and to keep the mighty holo display updated. I don't believe textev showed the GSN dispatching a tin can to alert the Admiralty of its intentions.

The autonomy is there but in most cases it communicates its intentions. Autonomy still has a responsibility to the overall strategy of deployed forces by the Admiralty.

cthia wrote:It's just that it seems rather presumptuous of that poor old chap called the First Space Lord bearing the weight of the movement of so much metal on his shoulders to rely on what he sees on the holo display before pulling the trigger on a truly risky redeployment.

I imagine that there's a fleet of tin cans that simply work to take advantage of the interior lines of communication and to keep the mighty holo display updated. I don't believe textev showed the GSN dispatching a tin can to alert the Admiralty of its intentions.

The autonomy is there but in most cases it communicates its intentions. Autonomy still has a responsibility to the overall strategy of deployed forces by the Admiralty.

cthia wrote:The Master and Commander characteristic of the RMN can draw their forces much much further out of position compared to the mistakes Halsey made. Though a little out of position can be just as devastating. Even in the midst of battle. . .

"You just go right on putting distance between you and your friends." Paraphrasing Honor.

Perhaps we just might see another Salamander after all. Remember, she bore a few newts.

Using the old adage 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'...

The RMN is about the same place that the BRN was in late sail - pre Dreadnought; not exactly the same, but close enough.

The strategies & tactics that Admiralty & the Royal Navy's officer corps devised then were literally the best in the world at the time. There would not be an empire 'that the sun never sets on' without it.

The key to it was that the Admiralty could NOT micromanage! So, the line officers had to be trained to be the best at ship handling in any waters under any conditions. The flag officers had to learn how to use any combination of resources that was at hand to get the job done, because refit and resupply was months away at best if they relied on London.

The best the Admiralty could do was plot (not plan, not in details) a campaign. Orders where given with objectives and goals. Tactics was the province of the operational commanders.

The RMN's First Lord is not actually looking at the 'tank' as if he is planning tactical moves... He is looking at that tank evaluating how much of it BS (given what he knows personally about his commanders) and how much, although it may be inaccurate, is dependable (again, given what he knows personally about his commanders). He's looking & evaluating, so he is NOT surprised when it is next updated... so that when a genuine surprise does come along (for good or bad) he can adapt the strategic response.

When he gets notified twice (once by his admiral & once by the GSN 'High' Admiral), while he may not have anticipated the offer when the original orders were cut, he won't be surprised by the tactical decisions of both his flag officer and the allied flag officer on the spot. He will take those decisions into account when moving forward on strategic planning but he will not overrule the tactics used by his and allied commanders.

Halsey comes from a (relatively) later technological time, a time of telecommunications, where the communications loop is just about the same as the decision loop time wise. Now strategy AND tactics can be done at the theater level... the pro is tactically you are not restricted to a local view and can manage operations in more or less real time from theater headquarters; the con is just because you can manage from theater hq dosn't mean you should, the operational resources are still on site and cannot be optimally managed from any where other than on site.

Halsey's mistakes at the Battle of Samar actually illustrates the strengths & weaknesses of local battle space management vs central control. Halsey makes a local battle space decision, not the best in light of his incomplete information but one that matched the strategic goal. Halsey compounds his error by poor c3 within his command (that's all on him and THAT's what cooks his goose). This, unfortunately for Halsey, leads to the CiC of the Pacific Theater to question his tactics (which Halsey took as a severe rebuke). Luckily for Halsey, the extremely positive esprit de corps of the out numbered defenders (of which Halsey was partially responsible for) repulse the demoralized (again, partially a product of Halsey) Japanese attackers. This incident proves my point that operations must managed local (but properly) and that telecommunications can give a timely value add to operations if done wisely.

Today's battle space control is such that the CIC of the entire armed forces can snoop on the mission of a fire team; our pilots now have the option for remote operations; we are training our next generation for remote strategic & tactical battle space management (as entertainment)... we live in interesting times

As for the future of the RMN...

As there is no replacement for Lord Nelson in the BRN;
there can be no replacement for Lady Dame Honor Stephanie 'the Salamander' Alexander-Harrington, PMV, SG, GCR, MC, SC, OG, DSO, CGM, Steadholder Harrington, Duchess Harrington, Countess White Haven. Her newts may make something of themselves on their own and some of them may even surpass her achievements; but like there is only one Saganami - 'there can be only one' (as she thrusts her steadholder's katana up in the air and lighting crashes all about) Salamander

As the SKoM continues its transformation into the SEoM and as technology drives forward in the crucible of the Wars with the League and the MA; implementation of the Harrington strategy has & will continue to alter - getting back on topic - the doctrine on captured enemy systems. The Saganami Island series outlines the new political realities the ME & RMN (hey... shouldn't it be the IMN now? - naw, the Brits never changed their nomenclature, so I guess RMN it stays) regarding systems in the Verge.

-David S.

Sorry for the length, but a bucket list item of mine is to be published and I've been told to write, write, write, and when in doubt write out my doubts and then write some more