The big problem of late Honorverse

The latter books would be more interesting (when it comes to starship combat) if RFC had, y'know, allowed some time to pass between them so the bad guys could plausibly catch up enough on tech to make things interesting.

OBS to AAC was over 20 years of in-universe time. AAC to Uncompromising Honor was less than 3. If we take RFC at his word that the Victor/Anton books and the Terekhov books are just as much main sequence as the Honor books, then there have been about the same number of novels in there.

My belief is that the books would have been improved if at least once the RMN had failed. My personal preference would have been that Terekhov arrived a couple days too late, and the MA/SL got the hardware and data from the Lynx fortresses.

Dilandu wrote:The best part of the earlier novels - the complex, fascinating, interesting combat sequences, in which heroes done their very best to achieve (sometimes, very costly) victory - they basically disappeared completely. Basically every major battle became "good guys punch the button - bad guys destroyed in quantities - good guys feel sorry about having to kill so many for about five minutes".

The reason is "Apollo" system. To put it simply - it is too good. It is so good, that it basically eliminated all suspense from the combat sequences; there is no need for any strategy, tactics, inventiveness.

I must point out, that RFC could easily avoid such problem - simply by making the "Apollo" unreliable.

Suppose "the bad guys" develop what amounts to an FTL comm jammer: white noise, pink noise, or properly formatted disinformation in the alpha band deafening Apollo missiles to the launching platform.

Something. Anything. The whole "George, the tribesman are holding another spear dance. Can you ask Andy have an attack helicopter battalion teach them another lesson? And bring me another martini, this intense combat can work up a man's thirst" is really kind of old.

But logically the MA will have equiv tech inside a decade. Less if one of their agents on Beowulf supplies them with the details on the tech they are manufacturing.

kzt wrote:Something. Anything. The whole "George, the tribesman are holding another spear dance. Can you ask Andy have an attack helicopter battalion teach them another lesson? And bring me another martini, this intense combat can work up a man's thirst" is really kind of old.

Perhaps not quite that bad, but maybe the equivalent of the British showing up at Jutland with a fleet full of Iowa-class battleships, complete with fire direction radar and 16 inch shells.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

kzt wrote:Something. Anything. The whole "George, the tribesman are holding another spear dance. Can you ask Andy have an attack helicopter battalion teach them another lesson? And bring me another martini, this intense combat can work up a man's thirst" is really kind of old.

Perhaps not quite that bad, but maybe the equivalent of the British showing up at Jutland with a fleet full of Iowa-class battleships, complete with fire direction radar and 16 inch shells.

Or even having an Iowa to engage the Bismarc. Even a South Dakota or a North Carolina would have been a game changer if they could have caught it. An Alaska BC would have made the battle interesting.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:
Perhaps not quite that bad, but maybe the equivalent of the British showing up at Jutland with a fleet full of Iowa-class battleships, complete with fire direction radar and 16 inch shells.

Or even having an Iowa to engage the Bismarc. Even a South Dakota or a North Carolina would have been a game changer if they could have caught it. An Alaska BC would have made the battle interesting.

Alaska had 12 inch guns, Iowa type fire control, but cruiser construction. Not sure if I'd want to have her take on a 15 inch gunned Bismarck. Maybe at night, when the radar fire control would be more effective than Bismarck's optical fire control. Or in concert with Iowa and her sisters. Lutgen's first warning that he's been found is being straddled by 16 inch very heavy AP

Fox2! wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:



Or even having an Iowa to engage the Bismarc. Even a South Dakota or a North Carolina would have been a game changer if they could have caught it. An Alaska BC would have made the battle interesting.

Alaska had 12 inch guns, Iowa type fire control, but cruiser construction. Not sure if I'd want to have her take on a 15 inch gunned Bismarck. Maybe at night, when the radar fire control would be more effective than Bismarck's optical fire control. Or in concert with Iowa and her sisters. Lutgen's first warning that he's been found is being straddled by 16 inch very heavy AP

That is why I say interesting.

The balliustics of the Alaska's 12 inch guns are fascinating. At close range against belt armor, they are reasonably formidable but not revolutionary. Alaska would be at an extreme disadvantage against any battleship. However; Alaska's 12 inch guns and ammunition are optimized for longer range gunnery, sacrificing muzzle velocity for increased projectile mass and minimal aerodynamic drag. At long range Alaska's AP shells could penetrate almost any battleship's deck armor. More importantly, Alaska can penetrate the deck armors of most legacy or even early WW2 BBs from beyond the maximum range of the adversary's guns. Add in the radar fire control that Admiral Willis Lee utilized so spectacularly in the Pacific.

The Alaska would not quite outrage the Bizmark or Tirpitz, but the higher hit probability would give her a good chance of crippling then sinking the German ships before they put a 15" shell through her decks and bottom.

A good analogy is a ROLLAND DD vs an SLN BC or SD.

I decided to add some data.

According to Wikipedia, the Bismarck had relatively light deck armor: 3.9 to 4.7 inches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismarck-class_battleship

The guns of the Alaska could penetrate over 7" of deck armor at long range.

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_12-50_mk8.php

Alaska definitely has the theoretical ability to sink the German battleships at very long range. At intermediate range, Alaska cannot penetrate armor or belt while Bismarck can penetrate either on Alaska.. Alaska can penetrate Bismarck belt at short range, but Bismarck is reaming Alaska.

As long as Alaska doesn't lose it's speed advantage and maintains the range over 35,000 yards where it's radar is superior to optics, it can defeat the Bismarck. Of course one lucky hit by the Bismarck changes everything.

kzt wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So when Kotouč fought Hajdu at Hypatia and when the Grand Fleet stopped Filareta on Second Manticore, they had all of this data available. Kotouč was aboard a Nike-class BC that was designed to fight and kill Havenite SDs and his Saganami-B CAs carried missiles to kill Havenite BCs. Add the favourable geometry and the surprise allowing them to fire 9 waves before any return fire, no wonder they could overwhelm Solarian BCs.

No, the RMN deliberately designed the Nike to not fight SDs. The Mk16 is a cruiser class weapon, they deliberately didn't make it capable of firing Mk23s.
typo

I beg to differ, but please note I wrote Havenite SDs, not SD(P)s. The Nikes were designed during the Janacek Admiralty before any Havenite SD(P) was ever seen in service, much less in batle. And the Mk16, despite being carried by a cruiser, is completely capable of going through SD-grade armour. There's a whole section of text during the Battle of Hypatia, as the first wave of RMN missiles arrives, where RFC explains that the Mk14 missiles were not as capable as the MK16 to go through SD armour. (but were perfectly capable of killing BCs)

A lone Nike has the standoff range and ammunition capacity to outfight and outlast any pre-pod SD. Of course, SDs aren't supposed to travel alone, which should make this engagement theoretical, but then again neither are Nikes supposed to be alone.

drothgery wrote:The latter books would be more interesting (when it comes to starship combat) if RFC had, y'know, allowed some time to pass between them so the bad guys could plausibly catch up enough on tech to make things interesting.

OBS to AAC was over 20 years of in-universe time. AAC to Uncompromising Honor was less than 3. If we take RFC at his word that the Victor/Anton books and the Terekhov books are just as much main sequence as the Honor books, then there have been about the same number of novels in there.

Wasn't that due to the Victor/Anton books, though? The original plan was for the MAlign to be uncovered when Raoul and Katherine were old enough to be active-duty junior naval officers. Presumably, finding themselves in a war against the Solarians was part of the plan for that second series.

An entire new series would've given a much longer period of time for that war, in which there could have been a real danger of the Solarians catching up with the Haven Sector. It would've allowed time for the Solarian League to break apart more slowly, as well.

RFC's problem, having moved the timetable, was that he'd set the Solarian League up as the 800 Lb gorilla and then didn't have a realistic period of time to send the gorilla on a diet.

Which means he simply could not allow anything near a balance of tech, because realistically, if the Sollies could shoot back with any feasible chance of actually hitting something - they'd have squashed Manticore and Haven like a bug, then come back for the Andies as dessert.