Honor: Pimp My Ride

cthia wrote:

tlb wrote:That is not a study in tactics, it is a study of massacre. You need to get closer to equality to begin to see tactics.

Says he who doesn't seem to quite have a handle on tactics. Honor gets "massacred" going against SLN units?

She might - if she got mousetrapped by a truly stupidly large number of units bringing Cataphract pods; but I'm pretty sure the massacre normally would go the other way - and be equally boring on a tactical level.

The SD(P) sees SLN units approaching - orders them to stand clear. They continue and are ordered to back off or be engaged. They continue hostile approach, the SD(P) rolls pods, swamps them in a tsunami of MDMs, and accepts the surrender of any survivors. Not much room for fancy tactics.

And if a number too large to conveniently engage is seen approaching the SD(P) has the acceleration to simply avoid engagement; hell it can handily outrun their escorting destroyers.

It's only at risk if surprised at decisive range by a overwhelming mob; and so until the tech imbalance equalized there's no need for fancy tactics.

cthia wrote:

tlb wrote:That is not a study in tactics, it is a study of massacre. You need to get closer to equality to begin to see tactics.

Says he who doesn't seem to quite have a handle on tactics. Honor gets "massacred" going against SLN units?

Jonathan_S wrote:She might - if she got mousetrapped by a truly stupidly large number of units bringing Cataphract pods; but I'm pretty sure the massacre normally would go the other way - and be equally boring on a tactical level.

The SD(P) sees SLN units approaching - orders them to stand clear. They continue and are ordered to back off or be engaged. They continue hostile approach, the SD(P) rolls pods, swamps them in a tsunami of MDMs, and accepts the surrender of any survivors. Not much room for fancy tactics.

And if a number too large to conveniently engage is seen approaching the SD(P) has the acceleration to simply avoid engagement; hell it can handily outrun their escorting destroyers.

It's only at risk if surprised at decisive range by a overwhelming mob; and so until the tech imbalance equalized there's no need for fancy tactics.

Unless the carrot is an AT ALL COSTS objective.

cthia wrote:Again, I'm interested in how a ship of the wall may change its tactics IF IT HAD to operate as a singleton. Who better to demonstrate those tactics than Honor, and what better time to do so than against a slower opponent while still enjoying the advantage in missile range.

*** snip ***

I'd simply like to see Honor duke it out, alone, in a ship of the wall. She's a big girl and can choose to move about the galaxy as she pleases. There's no reason her personal yacht can't be an SD. And her exploits as a civilian, master of her own ship, does not put her in the navy. However, fighting for her own life, or going to the aid of some damsel in distress, is okay by me. YMMV.

tlb wrote:That is not a study in tactics, it is a study of massacre. You need to get closer to equality to begin to see tactics.

Even the Queen only has a BC. Acting as a civilian, she can only respond in self defense or in immediate defense of others, so mostly this would be a waste of her talent and money. Simply not going to happen, except in fanfic.

cthia wrote:Says he who doesn't seem to quite have a handle on tactics. Honor gets "massacred" going against SLN units?

I thought it was obvious that an SD, with an advantage in acceleration and a big advantage in missile range, would massacre anything that it encountered; therefore no particular tactics were needed. However you twist that into a a ridiculous statement that I must think Honor will get slaughtered. No wonder you think I do not have a handle on tactics; I wonder about you sometimes.

PS. I do not need to be a mind-reader to understand what RFC wrote at the end of UC. He has made it clear that she is too advanced in her career to have another single ship command. Yes, as a civilian she can have a personal ship; but an SD so she can play Preston of the Spaceways?

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:She might - if she got mousetrapped by a truly stupidly large number of units bringing Cataphract pods; but I'm pretty sure the massacre normally would go the other way - and be equally boring on a tactical level.

The SD(P) sees SLN units approaching - orders them to stand clear. They continue and are ordered to back off or be engaged. They continue hostile approach, the SD(P) rolls pods, swamps them in a tsunami of MDMs, and accepts the surrender of any survivors. Not much room for fancy tactics.

And if a number too large to conveniently engage is seen approaching the SD(P) has the acceleration to simply avoid engagement; hell it can handily outrun their escorting destroyers.

It's only at risk if surprised at decisive range by a overwhelming mob; and so until the tech imbalance equalized there's no need for fancy tactics.

Unless the carrot is an AT ALL COSTS objective.

If anyone is ever sending a single SD(P) at an ALL COSTS objective things have already gotten so bad that mere tactics are unlikely to save the day.


If the SD(P) is attacking it can presumably use it's acceleration to keep clear until it runs out of ammo killing the fairly hapless SLN defenders. But if there are still too many to take in an energy duel then no tactics will help.

But if a single SD(P) ends up defending something that can't be abandoned then it's even worse since if it uses its accel to keep clear the attackers will just keep heading to the target. So either it has enough missiles to kill all the attackers or it doesn't. If it doesn't then they have to decide if they want to die heroically in an energy range fight or actually abandon the defense - come back with reinforcements to retake the objective.

cthia wrote:Again, I'm interested in how a ship of the wall may change its tactics IF IT HAD to operate as a singleton. Who better to demonstrate those tactics than Honor, and what better time to do so than against a slower opponent while still enjoying the advantage in missile range.

*** snip ***

I'd simply like to see Honor duke it out, alone, in a ship of the wall. She's a big girl and can choose to move about the galaxy as she pleases. There's no reason her personal yacht can't be an SD. And her exploits as a civilian, master of her own ship, does not put her in the navy. However, fighting for her own life, or going to the aid of some damsel in distress, is okay by me. YMMV.

tlb wrote:That is not a study in tactics, it is a study of massacre. You need to get closer to equality to begin to see tactics.

Even the Queen only has a BC. Acting as a civilian, she can only respond in self defense or in immediate defense of others, so mostly this would be a waste of her talent and money. Simply not going to happen, except in fanfic.

cthia wrote:Says he who doesn't seem to quite have a handle on tactics. Honor gets "massacred" going against SLN units?

tlb wrote:I thought it was obvious that an SD, with an advantage in acceleration and a big advantage in missile range, would massacre anything that it encountered; therefore no particular tactics were needed. However you twist that into a a ridiculous statement that I must think Honor will get slaughtered. No wonder you think I do not have a handle on tactics; I wonder about you sometimes.

PS. I do not need to be a mind-reader to understand what RFC wrote at the end of UC. He has made it clear that she is too advanced in her career to have another single ship command. Yes, as a civilian she can have a personal ship; but an SD so she can play Preston of the Spaceways?

Mama Mia! What's in those meatballs! And sometimes he wonders about ME. Gawd.

I was simply giving YOU the benefit of the doubt.

1. If it would always be a massacre in Honor's favor, then what the hell are we arguing about; let's be about it and put Honor's Heine in an SD(P) - replete with design elements donated from all of the GA's navies, to protect her Heine AT ALL COSTS as the premise of the thread suggests.

2. You don't have a handle on tactics if you think simply having the advantage in firepower will necessarily preclude you from having to use your head, tactically. I thought Honor herself made that obvious, time and again. OR IF your inability to think outside the box blinds you from seeing that a specific objective can handicap your abilities; like a crippled freighter, yacht, warship, etc., could limit your accel. Or two distinct objectives separated by some distance could undoubtedly do as well. Or if you think Murphy will ever place Honor in a situation where she doesn't have to use her head for something other than a hat rack.

3. OR if your limited thinking blinds you to the fact
that the MA has severely altered the traditional battlefield, and the fact that Honor could be ambushed simply traveling to Grayson. An SD should be more survivable.

The problem with mousetrapping or boxing Honor in, is that Honor has a nasty habit of thinking OUTSIDE THE BOX, and she will always be the sharpest stylus IN THE BOX. LOL

An SD(P), not so she can set out to play Preston of the Spaceways, per se, but so she can wear his pants, IF NEED BE. Honor certainly has no problem wearing pants. It's why she performed so well in a Queen's uniform.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:She might - if she got mousetrapped by a truly stupidly large number of units bringing Cataphract pods; but I'm pretty sure the massacre normally would go the other way - and be equally boring on a tactical level.

The SD(P) sees SLN units approaching - orders them to stand clear. They continue and are ordered to back off or be engaged. They continue hostile approach, the SD(P) rolls pods, swamps them in a tsunami of MDMs, and accepts the surrender of any survivors. Not much room for fancy tactics.

And if a number too large to conveniently engage is seen approaching the SD(P) has the acceleration to simply avoid engagement; hell it can handily outrun their escorting destroyers.

It's only at risk if surprised at decisive range by a overwhelming mob; and so until the tech imbalance equalized there's no need for fancy tactics.

Unless the carrot is an AT ALL COSTS objective.

Jonathan_S wrote:If anyone is ever sending a single SD(P) at an ALL COSTS objective things have already gotten so bad that mere tactics are unlikely to save the day.


If the SD(P) is attacking it can presumably use it's acceleration to keep clear until it runs out of ammo killing the fairly hapless SLN defenders. But if there are still too many to take in an energy duel then no tactics will help.

But if a single SD(P) ends up defending something that can't be abandoned then it's even worse since if it uses its accel to keep clear the attackers will just keep heading to the target. So either it has enough missiles to kill all the attackers or it doesn't. If it doesn't then they have to decide if they want to die heroically in an energy range fight or actually abandon the defense - come back with reinforcements to retake the objective.

Honor is never INTENTIONALLY sent out to accomplish as much as she does with as little as she does. It just happens. Murphy is a malignant MA agent and he doesn't like Salamanders. Was it Theisman who said, paraphrasing "They shouldn't have sent you out with so little firepower this time Milady." I simply aim not to make that same mistake.

Just before publishing my last post, the site alerted me to your post Jonathan. So I clipped the final "aside" because it fits here perfectly ...

Aside: Honor visits Michelle in her brand spanking new SD just in time to be of assistance. Honor shoots herself dry but Michelle sends her an avalanche of MDMs which Honor assumes control and manages from a much shorter distance. A tactic White Haven used out of desperation. Except here it would be on steroids and bbbbbad to the bbbbone.

Honor conducting gunboat diplomacy in an SD is just asking for an assassination attempt by the MAlign. Intentionally stir the pot in a system to lure her in, and conveniently have half a dozen LDs in system before she gets there so there's no hyper footprint to detect. Either they sneak into energy range themselves or send torpedoes while she's conducting said diplomacy.

Or if you want to skip the LDs entirely, have her arrive in orbit and receive the local dignitary aboard ship for a conference. Only instead of the local dignitary the shuttle has a half gigaton fusion bomb aboard and goes off inside the boat bay.

Also, from earlier in the topic:

cthia wrote:How long does it take to bring each (sidewalls/bow walls) of them up? I got the feeling the time is significant, as far as the bow walls are concerned. So I'm going to assume I can apply it across the board.

The reference you were looking for is in The Service Of The Sword, when Oversteegen is ambushed by the Four Yahoos. It doesn't give an exact time to raise the stern wall, but missiles launched with a time of flight of 150 seconds hit a stern wall that wasn't yet all the way up. Allowing for information lag and reaction time, that indicates somewhere between a minute or two to raise the stern wall to full power. Of course, that's using relatively early tech on a Saganami-B, but tech hasn't advanced all that far since then.

cthia wrote:Again, I'm interested in how a ship of the wall may change its tactics IF IT HAD to operate as a singleton. Who better to demonstrate those tactics than Honor, and what better time to do so than against a slower opponent while still enjoying the advantage in missile range.

cthia wrote:If it would always be a massacre in Honor's favor, then what the hell are we arguing about; let's be about it and put Honor's Heine in an SD(P) - replete with design elements donated from all of the GA's navies, to protect her Heine AT ALL COSTS as the premise of the thread suggests.

The military evaluates its tactics by wargaming them, as you have seen in many examples in the books. They know that a proper evaluation can not come if the opposition force is significantly inferior to the side being tested. That was one of the many problems that the SLN faced, for decades (if not centuries) the Op force was not as good as the side being judged. That is not the RMN way; when Michelle wanted to see what Michael Oversteegen could do, she gave Apollo to the Op force.

So the authorities at Manticore are not going to brainstorm tactics by putting Honor in an SD and sending her forth. She is far too valuable to be treated that way. If you really think that this is something RFC would do, then we will just have to wait and see; but to me it sounds like fanfic.

Galactic Sapper wrote:Honor conducting gunboat diplomacy in an SD is just asking for an assassination attempt by the MAlign. Intentionally stir the pot in a system to lure her in, and conveniently have half a dozen LDs in system before she gets there so there's no hyper footprint to detect. Either they sneak into energy range themselves or send torpedoes while she's conducting said diplomacy.

Indeed, and that's a very good point. I considered it as well, but then, Honor may consider it her duty if she can smooth out speedbumps all over the Galaxy's ghettos. But you're certainly correct that the MA may be able to get to her if she were to take on that role. However, as I posted earlier, as a civilian, Honor will be much more vulnerable to assassinations anyway. She could be ambushed aboard the Tankersley while simply traveling to Grayson.

Galactic Sapper wrote:Or if you want to skip the LDs entirely, have her arrive in orbit and receive the local dignitary aboard ship for a conference. Only instead of the local dignitary the shuttle has a half gigaton fusion bomb aboard and goes off inside the boat bay.

Suddenly I don't think this is a good idea anymore. LOL
Just not sure if Honor would agree. Albeit, everyone in her sphere would undoubtedly agree. But is she to be forbidden to travel only between Grayson and the SEM?

tlb wrote:...cruisers are faster, cheaper and can handle any SLN ship that they meet.

Perhaps. We don't know the capabilities of the new threats. At any rate, it would ring true only if the Cruiser can SEE "any ship that they meet." The introduction could very well be "Hello. Goodbye." Shouldn't an SD be more survivable?

tlb wrote:Interesting premise, but unlikely; since she intends to be a mother first for a few years. The Queen is certain that Honor will be back if the need is enough, but firefighting does not qualify.

So let her be a mother for a few years. We all agree the MA will likely lay low for a while anyway.

Anything qualifies if it concerns the honor of the Queen. Besides, firefighting/diplomacy was exactly something found in Honor's bag of tricks, once. She was too valuable to be risked then as well, albeit she was backed up by Eighth Fleet. An SD pimped all out with all the latest bells and whistles, isn't Eighth Fleet, but she'll fit the Salamander quite well says the IAN, GSN, RHN and the RMN. As well agrees any of Sonja and Shannon's new bag of tricks.

tlb wrote:True that everyone in the GA trusts her, but is that really true in the Core Worlds of the League?

Perhaps it wasn't before UH for the lion's share of people there, But such a visible persons reputation has a tendency to precede them. Do recall that Honor's exploits and resume preceded her even unto the denizens of Hell.

tlb wrote:It is unlikely that the GA will be traipsing through the League anyway; but that is still is a big part of Human space in the Galaxy. So saying the "entire Galaxy" is a bit overblown.

Not the League, but former elements of the League. The GAs services could be "requested." Especially when the RF arrives on the scene.

tlb wrote:But suppose for argument's sake you are right; then the idea that she needs an SD to protect her, means that she is too important to be doing what you suggest. reductio ad absurdum.

I thought she was too important for it as well when she showed up in the Haven system practicing diplomacy for the Queen, but, well...she could have been assassinated by rogue elements then.

It will all come down to what HONOR thinks, when she catches wind of the aroma emanating from the pot Murphy cooked up where it is in the best interest of her SEM for her to do some stirring.

Stirring = Diplomacy.

Popular personalities are suddenly presented with many a stage and opportunity to speak and effect change, whether they like it or not. In today's world, your success is also considered to be your responsibility to effect this change. It is why Dennis Rodman found himself in North Korea.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Again, I'm interested in how a ship of the wall may change its tactics IF IT HAD to operate as a singleton. Who better to demonstrate those tactics than Honor, and what better time to do so than against a slower opponent while still enjoying the advantage in missile range.

cthia wrote:If it would always be a massacre in Honor's favor, then what the hell are we arguing about; let's be about it and put Honor's Heine in an SD(P) - replete with design elements donated from all of the GA's navies, to protect her Heine AT ALL COSTS as the premise of the thread suggests.

The military evaluates its tactics by wargaming them, as you have seen in many examples in the books. They know that a proper evaluation can not come if the opposition force is significantly inferior to the side being tested. That was one of the many problems that the SLN faced, for decades (if not centuries) the Op force was not as good as the side being judged. That is not the RMN way; when Michelle wanted to see what Michael Oversteegen could do, she gave Apollo to the Op force.

So the authorities at Manticore are not going to brainstorm tactics by putting Honor in an SD and sending her forth. She is far too valuable to be treated that way. If you really think that this is something RFC would do, then we will just have to wait and see; but to me it sounds like fanfic.

More likely after a few years they'll draft her as the semi-permanent opfor commander for the Crusher.