Honorverse Analytics: Why Manticore Won the War

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:
Those have to be Nevadas, since the ToF comment with 10 Halo Decoys was for Indefatigables.

SO (for our details):

Indefatigable BC (Flight IV Aegis upgrade)- 10 Halo decoys (5 per broadside)

Nevada BC - 12 Halo Decoys (6 per broadside)

Scientist/Vega SD (Fleet 2000 Aegis Upgrade) - 16 Halo decoys (8 per broadside)

It's a mix of classes. Back in chapter 23, as Michelle's battlecruisers slip into Monica Artemis' CIC IDs Byng's BCs as 8 Nevadas and 9 Indefatigables.

And the the phrasing "half-dozen or so" is vague enough that it could have actually been 5 per broadside rather than 6 for all of them.
Or it might have been reported imprecisely because some (Nevadas) deployed 6 while others (Indefatigables) deployed 5 which led CIC to be unsure of their exact counts.

But the report is indefinite enough I don't think we can say more than that the Nevada's might mount an extra pair of Halo platforms.

Indeed, and whether it's 5 Halos for an Indefatigable class or 6, either way she's still mounting more tractors on a ton for ton class basis than anything outside of the Haven Sector pre-pod era ever mounted.

If memory serves, the Halo system only got thought up, when someone actually took a very very large grain of salt to Haven Sector combat reports, but only actually got installed into ships during the Fleet 2000 initiative funding. But this is pretty much the only time the SLN actually didn't knee-jerk NIH reject combat increases, let alone take a form of action on it.

I'll have to check those Torch and Shadows books to try and find where/when/how the reason for the Halo decoy introduction to be absolutely certain.

1) To make the tractors numbers work for early books and hauling around pods, we can do this by stating the tractors are placed on the hammerheads and not the broadsides.

2) To make the decoy's, broadside deployable, we could either go with tiny jets that boost the decoy, in-->out of their broadside bays and then the hammerhead tractors take over, or there is a small tractor in the broadside bay itself that takes over for the bigger tractor on the hammerhead when pulling the decoy back in.

3) Or, the broadside decoy bay has the normal tractors, but the hammerhead tractors are there as backup. Of course this doesn't make much sense as the decoy's are replaceable during battle. This has a few implications. Though it would presumably be true that if the bay that dispenses/houses the decoy's is hit, the tractors in said bay would also be destroyed. This would further indicate multiple decoy broadside bays that are not shown on the drawings.

IF 3) is true, then those broadside bay tractors will be shadowed aft and cannot be used to haul pods in a "string" aft of the ship as is stated in the books and... someone tell me if I am wrong, it is also stated that the tractors on the AFT end of the ships are used. I looked for a quote, came up empty... maybe it is my mind "filling-in-the blanks"

If 1) & 2) is true, then there are extra aft tractors on the hammerheads for the decoy's and likewise would NOT be shadowed by the hammerheads aft and therefore can be used to haul pods around. This frankly seems most plausible IMO. Likewise this would explain why Thunder of God was able to haul a LAC or two... by using a large number of available tractors that could all be pointed AFT. Otherwise they couldn't reach the LAC to begin with if they were located on the broadside.

Even that count leads to silliness: if the US Army had gone into WWII using planning from 1915, Kasserine Pass wouldn't even rate a footnote in the histories. You might find an aside indicating that the Italians had found some American troops there, brushed them aside and the Americans played no further role in the North African campaign.

Since they didn't do anything that stupid [quite], the actual outcome was quite creditable

robert132 wrote:It makes me wonder what the defenses of the various Malign starships are going to look like and how effective will they be? I'm a firm believer from real life in preparing to fight not this war or the next but the next 4 or 5 after those.

kzt wrote:That's totally silly. It's 1915 in the US, how do you prepare to fight the 6th war to come? That's the 1990 Iraq war. Please explain how much effort you are going to put into training on tank table VIII and recruiting helicopter pilots in vs training your infantry troops on accurate shooting on the m1903 Springfield?

Which will likely pay more dividends on the battlefield?

Jonathan_S wrote:To some extent that depends on how you define a war.

You could also count it as:

Occupation of Haiti
Sugar Intervention (Cuba)
Occupation of the Dominican Republic
WWI
Russian Civil War
WWII

But even so some of your effort needs to be focused 20 or more years out, to steer R&D, more needs to be looking about 10 years or so out to steer major weapons development projects, and a lot looking 2-5 years out looking at acquisitions and training.
How many wars there may be in that time isn't as relevant as keeping a useful planning horizon. (Though it's a good idea not to lock yourself into the assumption that you're always going to be fighting in the same area and terrain)

kzt wrote:

robert132 wrote:It makes me wonder what the defenses of the various Malign starships are going to look like and how effective will they be? I'm a firm believer from real life in preparing to fight not this war or the next but the next 4 or 5 after those.

That's totally silly. It's 1915 in the US, how do you prepare to fight the 6th war to come? That's the 1990 Iraq war. Please explain how much effort you are going to put into training on tank table VIII and recruiting helicopter pilots in vs training your infantry troops on accurate shooting on the m1903 Springfield?

Which will likely pay more dividends on the battlefield?

Apologies. "4 or 5 wars into the future" was an exaggeration on my part, not intended to be taken seriously.

But for the NEXT (major) war after "The Great War" there were already strong clues on which way to go. Aircraft and mobile armor would make trench warfare worse than obsolete by restoring mobility to the battlefield. The French paid no attention to that possibility, choosing instead to invest Millions of Francs in that magnificent, marvelous and worse than useless Maginot Line.

At sea, again aircraft would be the dominating factor, even more than the submarine. Indeed, aircraft were a major factor in reducing the German submarine threat. Sonar (ASDIC if you're a Brit) reached maturity during the interwar years and RADAR ... I could go on and on, but why?

As you point out we are now fighting essentially "Iraq War II" using the same weapons and tactics we used in 1990/91 (I was there, just off shore), but even after moving to the sidelines right after GWI I can see trends with tactics and technologies offering hints in how the next major war (WWIII?) will eventually be fought with directed energy and stealth becoming either fully mature or nearly obsolescent, along with several other technologies emerging and the Strategy and TACTICS to fully utilize them.

What will they be? Damned if I know, my crystal ball is on the fritz.

The French army of 1918 would have offered a much more formidable opponent to the Germans than the French army of 1940. The leadership was the most critical issue, not equipment.

Equipment is about the least important issue determining who will win a battle. If in 1973 you gave the IDF the modern soviet equipment the Syrian army had and gave the Syrian army the obsolescent gear the IDF used would the outcome change?

kzt wrote:The French army of 1918 would have offered a much more formidable opponent to the Germans than the French army of 1940. The leadership was the most critical issue, not equipment.

Equipment is about the least important issue determining who will win a battle. If in 1973 you gave the IDF the modern soviet equipment the Syrian army had and gave the Syrian army the obsolescent gear the IDF used would the outcome change?

Sometimes equipment can really matter and sometimes it doesn't. I'm not sure that the German blitzkrieg would have worked nearly as well with French tanks - the lack of onboard radio for coordination would really screw up the German combined arms tactics.

Similarly of that era if you made the Luftwaffe swap all their planes with British or Soviet 1939 counterparts the lack of army dive bombing would seem like a fairly important missing capability.

Or later in the war in a one on one dogfight a US pilot might be just as effective in a BF-109 as a P-51 Mustang. But try doing the important long range bomber escort missions with the German plane...


But many other times you're right, training and good tactics can offset some significant apparent differences in technology or equipment.

Jonathan_S wrote:Or later in the war in a one on one dogfight a US pilot might be just as effective in a BF-109 as a P-51 Mustang. But try doing the important long range bomber escort missions with the German plane...


But many other times you're right, training and good tactics can offset some significant apparent differences in technology or equipment.

The problem is that tactical theories inform equipment procurement, and equipment also influences tactical development.

Throughout the Second World War American planes tended to be poorer in a level turn than British or German planes, while being larger, better armed and longer ranger than British or German planes. Also the fact that German (and to an extent British) equipment was built in much smaller lots than American equipment tended to influence the tech available at the front.

I have seen claims that Germany was behind because they did not build large 4-engined heavy bombers, with those armchair generals not bothering to notice that German doctrine actually did not put an emphasis on strategic bombing. Luftwaffe tactics and doctrine emphasized tactical support of the Army. The US Army got Congress to pay for the B-17 by claiming they were for long range maritime patrol, the doctrine developed here paid dividends when the B-24 was sent out on convoy protection.

Another good example is submarines, the American Fleet class (E.g. Balao) tend to compared in performance to the German type VII subs which were half the size, and barely had the range to get outside the North Sea. A better comparison would be to the type IX, and even there I believe that claims of faster diving were comparing US crews in 1941 to German crews of the same time, and the standard of crew training were very different.

Morale is to the physical as three (four?) to one.
At the start of WW2 the German army was fired up with the Ayran myth of supremacy. As it progressed reality came back, and they realised they could be beaten, thus they were.

kzt wrote:The French army of 1918 would have offered a much more formidable opponent to the Germans than the French army of 1940. The leadership was the most critical issue, not equipment.

Equipment is about the least important issue determining who will win a battle. If in 1973 you gave the IDF the modern soviet equipment the Syrian army had and gave the Syrian army the obsolescent gear the IDF used would the outcome change?

I don't think it would have changed a damned thing because, as you correctly point out LEADERSHIP is crucial, but to go hand in glove with that is both the level of TRAINING and COMPETENCE of the people in the line.

While it might take some time to learn the nuances of the T-62 / T-72 MBT, BMP, BRDM and BTR-60 IFVs, various supporting equipments and the various field pieces, well educated and well led troopers ARE going to be the winning difference.

As I pointed out elsewhere, I had the opportunity years ago to witness the Israeli military both in training (Army and Navy) and the Air Force (against Syria.) Today they have the advantages of both top of the line equipment and top notch training.

Whoever you are, I wouldn't mess with these kids unless you want your butt kicked and your head handed to you.

Daryl wrote:Morale is to the physical as three (four?) to one.
At the start of WW2 the German army was fired up with the Ayran myth of supremacy. As it progressed reality came back, and they realised they could be beaten, thus they were.

Maybe, but you've got to apply appropriate scaling on the physical.

I've been reading a history of the Boer War and some of those British troops had damned high morale. But there were plenty of examples in the middle part of that war (before the seiges of Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking were lifted of even relatively low morale dug-in defenders driving off very high moral attackers. The defensive advantages of trenches and magazine equipped rifle were very high (and the offensive power of artillery against dug in troops was far inferior to what it would be in WWI only 15 years later).

So if Napoleans dictate was true then the physical defensive advantages of digging in an high volume of (more or less) aimed fire much have exceeded a 3 fold advantage.


Things were a bit clearer when most soldiers were equipped with muzzle loading smoothbores - then a good bayonet charge could cause the moral of many defenders to break and they'd scatter. Except with the very best trained and motivated troops it wasn't possible to lay down enough fire to break such a charge if driven home with determination. But by the turn of the century the much longer range, and much high rate of fire, of breech loading magazine rifles made sustaining such a charge almost infeasible - no mater how fired up the attackers were.