Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:James Webster, once CO of Home Fleet, was he ever featured in a battle? Promotions included Fleet Admiral. He was also First Space Lord, so why weren't we, as readers, treated to his tactical skills in a hands on fashion? Or were we and I've missed it?

Nope we weren't. Given when he would have been rising through the ranks there wasn't a lot of real combat for him to have been involved in. By the time of the Havenite War he had the critical command of Home Fleet (took command 1903 PD), but Home Fleet had to protect the home system and it's presence was sufficient to deter attacks there during the entire first war. So no direct combat there. (and after the ceasefire Janacek put him on half-pay; and he was off on Earth as a diplomat during the 2nd war).

We haven't had much set in the 20-50 years prior to OBS because that was mostly routine pirate suppression; and the little we've seen has mostly followed Honor's early career. IIRC the last major action was the "San Martin War" but that was 150 years earlier (1752 PD); well before Webster's time. (And not that tactically interesting -- see the brief description in HoS's I Will Build My House of Steel)

So at most we could potentially have a short story of Webster as a captain out in Silesia, or an Admiral overseeing more fleet simulations. Otherwise there appears to have been a distinct lack of tactical situations in which to see him.

Roguevictory wrote:

cthia wrote:At All Costs
Eloise really wished she could surrender. This was probably one of the hardest questions posed to her in her life. Making the decision drove her to tears.

Would anyone care to share their thoughts, had Eloise gone ahead and just surrendered?

Unfortunately I suspect Elizabeth's feelings towards the Havenites might have driven her to impose some very stupid terms and I'm not sure if Parliament could have stopped her.

For that matter Haven's Congress might have impeached Eloise for attempting to surrender when Haven appeared to have the advantage - especially since the prior offer to negotiate a mutual end to the war was rejected by Manticore.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:James Webster, once CO of Home Fleet, was he ever featured in a battle? Promotions included Fleet Admiral. He was also First Space Lord, so why weren't we, as readers, treated to his tactical skills in a hands on fashion? Or were we and I've missed it?

Nope we weren't. Given when he would have been rising through the ranks there wasn't a lot of real combat for him to have been involved in. By the time of the Havenite War he had the critical command of Home Fleet (took command 1903 PD), but Home Fleet had to protect the home system and it's presence was sufficient to deter attacks there during the entire first war. So no direct combat there. (and after the ceasefire Janacek put him on half-pay; and he was off on Earth as a diplomat during the 2nd war).

We haven't had much set in the 20-50 years prior to OBS because that was mostly routine pirate suppression; and the little we've seen has mostly followed Honor's early career. IIRC the last major action was the "San Martin War" but that was 150 years earlier (1752 PD); well before Webster's time. (And not that tactically interesting -- see the brief description in HoS's I Will Build My House of Steel)

So at most we could potentially have a short story of Webster as a captain out in Silesia, or an Admiral overseeing more fleet simulations. Otherwise there appears to have been a distinct lack of tactical situations in which to see him.

Not much is known about Webster's service, especially any combat history, as he was right at the top of the RMN from the very first novel. It's also obvious that the Webster family is one of those which featured heavily in the RMN officer corps. So I'd expect his abilities are as much political as military - see how adroitly he handled the Basilisk affair, including the unofficial order to tear HMS Warlock apart for major refits.

And Caparelli may have fought the war, but he did it with the Navy James Webster polished whilst struggling with the Manticoran Opposition as well as the occasional CA First Lord.

Speaking of Caparelli, there's a First Space Lord with known combat history - he was badly wounded as a captain in Silesia and subsequently a patient of Alfred Harrington at Bassingford Hospital.

munroburton wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Nope we weren't. Given when he would have been rising through the ranks there wasn't a lot of real combat for him to have been involved in. By the time of the Havenite War he had the critical command of Home Fleet (took command 1903 PD), but Home Fleet had to protect the home system and it's presence was sufficient to deter attacks there during the entire first war. So no direct combat there. (and after the ceasefire Janacek put him on half-pay; and he was off on Earth as a diplomat during the 2nd war).

We haven't had much set in the 20-50 years prior to OBS because that was mostly routine pirate suppression; and the little we've seen has mostly followed Honor's early career. IIRC the last major action was the "San Martin War" but that was 150 years earlier (1752 PD); well before Webster's time. (And not that tactically interesting -- see the brief description in HoS's I Will Build My House of Steel)

So at most we could potentially have a short story of Webster as a captain out in Silesia, or an Admiral overseeing more fleet simulations. Otherwise there appears to have been a distinct lack of tactical situations in which to see him.

Not much is known about Webster's service, especially any combat history, as he was right at the top of the RMN from the very first novel. It's also obvious that the Webster family is one of those which featured heavily in the RMN officer corps. So I'd expect his abilities are as much political as military - see how adroitly he handled the Basilisk affair, including the unofficial order to tear HMS Warlock apart for major refits.

And Caparelli may have fought the war, but he did it with the Navy James Webster polished whilst struggling with the Manticoran Opposition as well as the occasional CA First Lord.

Speaking of Caparelli, there's a First Space Lord with known combat history - he was badly wounded as a captain in Silesia and subsequently a patient of Alfred Harrington at Bassingford Hospital.

It's funny how the RMN prized the BC captain role prior to the 1st war, yet, most of the action over the years went to the DD-CA captains who got to swat pirates. From what we heard in the first few books, you would have thought that RMN BC captains were sent on missions every day that tested their grit, with daring deep raids to keep opponents on their toes.

In reality, the RMN wasn't at war with anybody for... hundreds of years, and if a BC went anywhere, it was either the biggest/baddest warship in the system and the small fries behaved in it's presence, or it was on a visit to another major power, and there was zero action outside the crew's in the bars near the spaceport. Yes, there was the lead up to Carson and the Ranier war hundreds of years in the past, but for the most part, commanding an RMN BC in peacetime must be dull.

Theemile wrote:In reality, the RMN wasn't at war with anybody for... hundreds of years, and if a BC went anywhere, it was either the biggest/baddest warship in the system and the small fries behaved in it's presence, or it was on a visit to another major power, and there was zero action outside the crew's in the bars near the spaceport. Yes, there was the lead up to Carson and the Ranier war hundreds of years in the past, but for the most part, commanding an RMN BC in peacetime must be dull.

They don't even seem to get the theoretical RMN doctrinal use during wars. They're supposed to be doing the commerce and system raiding, but there was very little of that on the RMN's part in the First Havenite War - it was all about careful system-by-system advances til Buttercup, and even that was "just" more aggressive, faster system-rolling.

In the Second Havenite War, system raids were by task forces that had SD(P) and CLAC cores, with the BC's working as probes or emergency MDM platforms.

I submit that the RMN has a drastic, long-term tension among (1) how they design BC's, (2) what they expect of BC's, and (3) how they actually use BC's.

Theemile wrote:It's funny how the RMN prized the BC captain role prior to the 1st war, yet, most of the action over the years went to the DD-CA captains who got to swat pirates. From what we heard in the first few books, you would have thought that RMN BC captains were sent on missions every day that tested their grit, with daring deep raids to keep opponents on their toes.

In reality, the RMN wasn't at war with anybody for... hundreds of years, and if a BC went anywhere, it was either the biggest/baddest warship in the system and the small fries behaved in it's presence, or it was on a visit to another major power, and there was zero action outside the crew's in the bars near the spaceport. Yes, there was the lead up to Carson and the Ranier war hundreds of years in the past, but for the most part, commanding an RMN BC in peacetime must be dull.

Well, we don't know what class of ship Caparelli was captain of. And Commodore Saganami had a BC for his final fight.

But yeah. The Manticore Ascendant series make it more or less clear the BC's prizedness was due to it being the original battle wall of the RMN. For kicks, a light cruiser started the battle with the Volsungs on favourable terms while the majority of the RMN's BCs were in mothballs.

I think it's simply that a BC is tough enough to kill 90% of the units it encounters without suffering catastrophic damage and the other 10% are usually other BCs. Things went a little differently in the Haven war with all those BBs, but BCs are expected to run away from dreadnoughts. Most of the smaller cruisers and destroyers tended to suffer a lot more relative damage, whatever they faced.

That, combined with HMS Nike becoming the fleet's icon, makes BC duty coveted.

Theemile wrote:It's funny how the RMN prized the BC captain role prior to the 1st war, yet, most of the action over the years went to the DD-CA captains who got to swat pirates. From what we heard in the first few books, you would have thought that RMN BC captains were sent on missions every day that tested their grit, with daring deep raids to keep opponents on their toes.

In reality, the RMN wasn't at war with anybody for... hundreds of years, and if a BC went anywhere, it was either the biggest/baddest warship in the system and the small fries behaved in it's presence, or it was on a visit to another major power, and there was zero action outside the crew's in the bars near the spaceport. Yes, there was the lead up to Carson and the Ranier war hundreds of years in the past, but for the most part, commanding an RMN BC in peacetime must be dull.

Well they occasionally got to do a tour through Silesia - or were sent there to find and close a pirate / privateer base with prejudice.

But you're right. For the most part they'd just be running around doing practice sims.

JeffEngel wrote:They don't even seem to get the theoretical RMN doctrinal use during wars. They're supposed to be doing the commerce and system raiding, but there was very little of that on the RMN's part in the First Havenite War - it was all about careful system-by-system advances til Buttercup, and even that was "just" more aggressive, faster system-rolling.

There was clearly some of it offscreen since there was a mention of a Havenite commander who got a commendation for cleverly mousetrapping some raiding BCs with her (I think it was her) old BB.

But, after SVW, Honor wasn't assigned to any BC forces so with our Point of View character off doing other things we never had a real reason to see independent BC operations.

munroburton wrote:

Theemile wrote:It's funny how the RMN prized the BC captain role prior to the 1st war, yet, most of the action over the years went to the DD-CA captains who got to swat pirates. From what we heard in the first few books, you would have thought that RMN BC captains were sent on missions every day that tested their grit, with daring deep raids to keep opponents on their toes.

In reality, the RMN wasn't at war with anybody for... hundreds of years, and if a BC went anywhere, it was either the biggest/baddest warship in the system and the small fries behaved in it's presence, or it was on a visit to another major power, and there was zero action outside the crew's in the bars near the spaceport. Yes, there was the lead up to Carson and the Ranier war hundreds of years in the past, but for the most part, commanding an RMN BC in peacetime must be dull.

Well, we don't know what class of ship Caparelli was captain of. And Commodore Saganami had a BC for his final fight.

But yeah. The Manticore Ascendant series make it more or less clear the BC's prizedness was due to it being the original battle wall of the RMN. For kicks, a light cruiser started the battle with the Volsungs on favourable terms while the majority of the RMN's BCs were in mothballs.

I think it's simply that a BC is tough enough to kill 90% of the units it encounters without suffering catastrophic damage and the other 10% are usually other BCs. Things went a little differently in the Haven war with all those BBs, but BCs are expected to run away from dreadnoughts. Most of the smaller cruisers and destroyers tended to suffer a lot more relative damage, whatever they faced.

That, combined with HMS Nike becoming the fleet's icon, makes BC duty coveted.

I wasn't necessarily commenting on Caparelli (or Webster), but the actual experience any of the RMN Captains or Admirals had doing anything but swatting pirates prior to 1904. Since San Martin (and even then), The RMN's capital experience was all theoretical and sim based, and the BC's Captain Extraordinaire dream, was just that, a dream that rarely was reality.

We don't know the stats, but I bet the # of BCs that killed pirates each year was low - because a front line DD, CL, or CA, can do the job more economically, and just as easily, so is the usual unit to be assigned such jobs.

A short story where a Senior Captain finally gets their first BC command, only to find the luster is more than just lacking would be interesting.

Thanks guys. I wasn't sure if Webster was just featured in a book I haven't read yet. And I was sure that he must have had his ticket punched quite a bit. I don't imagine that someone would make CO of Home Fleet or First Lord without having exhibited the proficiency. If he hadn't had any real battles, then IMHO, that'd just make him the mirror image of Khumalo, more of an administrator. I don't see Khumalo ever being promoted to CO of Home Fleet or First Lord. At any rate, there must have been at least some good clashes with pirates. I just don't know where else he'd get the expertise to do Caparelli's job from just tackling pirates and sims. But that's just me.

Jonathan_S wrote:There was clearly some of it offscreen since there was a mention of a Havenite commander who got a commendation for cleverly mousetrapping some raiding BCs with her (I think it was her) old BB.

I can't remember if it was here, in a book or a comment by David at Honorcon, but the BBs pretty much shut down the whole BC raid concept during the war. They tried it a few times, got hammered with massive losses a significant percentage of the time and decided to stop.