2nd Battle of Manticore questions

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

cthia wrote:Wasn't aware that the flagship had been identified. I suppose triangulation of the signal via the Hermes buoys would have yielded fruit, if both legs of the signal could have been passed through Hermes.

But anyways, what could Filareta possibly know? Except for more Manty bashing.

SWM wrote:Filareta's flagship was definitely identified, because Honor sent her communication specifically to his ship by laser. No one else heard the message.

Bill Woods wrote:Mmm, maybe. The first message was specifically addressed to 'Admiral Filareta, CO 11th Fleet', but I doubt it was on a tight beam. The first couple of of rounds, Honor was transmitting from her flagship a light-minute away. It might be possible to hit a single moving ship at that range, but why bother? At that stage, she was showing off her knowledge of his plans, but not her tech. Though her recon platforms surely identified his flagship when he responded.

The final rounds, she was flaunting her FTL comm buoys, but the text doesn't say it was a tight beam. If I were in her place, I'd want all the squadron and ship commanders to be clear on the facts that (A) they were hopelessly outgunned, but (B) they were being offered a chance to surrender.

Leaving all the assorted physics out of it, I spent years intercepting comms and determining the specific echelon of traffic by virtue building a net diagram. Small units are replicated everywhere; command nets don't get so many outstations, and include other command elements.

Signal officers in the Honorverse also function as signals intelligence, and monitor transmissions in the communications frequencies(as early as OBS); a few minutes of watching signals being cycled through after the transit--the units will have to be reporting status, etc, and the Manties will id all of the squadron flagships; and the fleet flagship will be the one all of those squadron flagships are talking to. . . It doesn't take an astro-physicist or engineer to do that, it is totally obvious once you diagram it. The emitters might be tight-beam lasers, but you don't have to read their traffic or intercept it--just observe the traffic flow of the comms and you will id the flagships.

I agree that Honor's comms to Filareta went out to all ships; why rub just Filareta's nose in SLN inferiority, when you can let all his officer enjoy it?

Cthia, a girl that young who is that smart is almost frightening.

Rob

cthia wrote:
Almost frightening?

Bob, I posted long ago that oftentimes I feel irresponsible for not just gathering up all of her journals and setting fire to them!

cthia wrote:
For all concerned, she's a very pleasant young Princess. It really irks my sister that all of her company requests the presence of her daughter. "Where is your daughter? I'd like to discuss..."

Same with my friends. She has a very engaging tone and personality.

cthia wrote:I can't help but feeling that a better solution to sending the correct message to Filareta would have been to fire on a ship from the most extreme ballistic component range. Do to them what was similarly done to Genevieve Chin.

"What do those idiots think they're doing firing at this range?"

Then later, after a ship is broken down into its component parts of space dust.

"Oh shit!"

"Game over! Game over man! Game over!"

My most favorite quote from Aliens, by Bill Paxton.

cthia wrote:I can't help but feeling that a better solution to sending the correct message to Filareta would have been to fire on a ship from the most extreme ballistic component range. Do to them what was similarly done to Genevieve Chin.

"What do those idiots think they're doing firing at this range?"

Then later, after a ship is broken down into its component parts of space dust.

"Oh shit!"

"Game over! Game over man! Game over!"

My most favorite quote from Aliens, by Bill Paxton.

SWM wrote:

cthia wrote:I can't help but feeling that a better solution to sending the correct message to Filareta would have been to fire on a ship from the most extreme ballistic component range. Do to them what was similarly done to Genevieve Chin.

"What do those idiots think they're doing firing at this range?"

Then later, after a ship is broken down into its component parts of space dust.

"Oh shit!"

"Game over! Game over man! Game over!"

My most favorite quote from Aliens, by Bill Paxton.

Honor achieved exactly that without firing on a single ship. Filareta surrendered when Honor demonstrated her superior numbers and superior technology. Honor was trying to make a point--Manticore did not fire first. Even though the Solarian League was blatantly in the wrong by invading their system, Manticore did not wish to kill Solarian spacers. The problem was that Filareta's surrender was superceded by Mesa.

Firing on a ship as you suggest would have produced the same result, except that the League could try to spin the story that Filareta opened fire after being ambushed by Manticore.

cthia wrote:Still think my solution would have worked better. The SLN wouldn't have been close enough to do anything stupid. And it would have been obvious enough that they still weren't going to surrender when they failed to correctly respond to your surrender demands, in time to space-dust them.

It's just that the solution I proposed is not my own. It had been used throughout the conflict with the League with perfect results. Every time an SLN had been fired on from an extreme range garnered the suitable reply. In one instance, can't remember which, the SLN officer ordered his ships to turn around. Which is exactly what the RMN commander wanted, as he was trying to avoid any additional bloodshed.

It would have carried the same exact single message that the Senior officers back in the League hasn't been able to ignore...

"What are you going to do about our extreme missile range?

SWM wrote:Firing on a ship as you suggest would have produced the same result, except that the League could try to spin the story that Filareta opened fire after being ambushed by Manticore.

cthia wrote:Still think my solution would have worked better. The SLN wouldn't have been close enough to do anything stupid. And it would have been obvious enough that they still weren't going to surrender when they failed to correctly respond to your surrender demands, in time to space-dust them.

It's just that the solution I proposed is not my own. It had been used throughout the conflict with the League with perfect results. Every time an SLN had been fired on from an extreme range garnered the suitable reply. In one instance, can't remember which, the SLN officer ordered his ships to turn around. Which is exactly what the RMN commander wanted, as he was trying to avoid any additional bloodshed.

It would have carried the same exact single message that the Senior officers back in the League hasn't been able to ignore...

"What are you going to do about our extreme missile range?

munroburton wrote:

SWM wrote:Firing on a ship as you suggest would have produced the same result, except that the League could try to spin the story that Filareta opened fire after being ambushed by Manticore.

And they aren't spinning that story anyway?

SWM wrote:No, they aren't.

"In some ways, this is Spindle all over again - all we have really is the Manties' word for what happened, plus the stories filed by civilian newsies in the system. In other words, the only first hand information is coming from official Manty sources. So we do what we did then." [Abruzzi] shrugged again. "We lie."
"How?"
"The sequence is clear from what the Manties have released. Filareta sailed into an ambush; Harrington sprang the trap and gave him the option of surrendering or being destroyed; he opened fire; she handed him his head. Right?"
Heads nodded.
"Well, we can't possibly win if we try to defend his actions. So instead, we change the storyline. Harrington deliberately drew him into the trap; she offered him the option of surrending as a ploy to get him to scuttle his missile pods; he did scuttle his missile pods... and the instant he'd given up the one weapon she was afraid of, she opened fire and cold bloodedly destroyed his fleet. It was never about giving him a chance to surrender, it was always her intention to destroy him whatever he did."