Thomas Thiesman

Since people have been bringing up the BOM..

Theisman sent all those ships to Manticore knowing half would die in 2nd Fleet. That had to be a given answer from the planners. They had to realize that they were going to take horrendous losses just from system defence pods.

Why is he still an Admiral let alone Secretary of War after an action like that?

Senator Podunk: "Admiral, can you tell the committee just how many ships you were expecting to be destroyed when you sent them on a one way mission to Manticore?"

Senator BigButtios: "Mr. Secretary, you really don't expect us to believe that you thought it was a good idea to kill a million citizens? Yes we are all grateful that you disposed of St Just. Please answer the question."

As Theisman said in AAC, they had no option whatsoever. They couldn't reopen negotiations and they had no prospect of neutralizing Apollo. The only thing they could have done is to destroy the ships before they finished construction. So they had to send their fleet into the most heavily defended system in the galaxy, so casualties were inevitable.

Theisman's reputation probably took a hit, same as Pritchart, but the logic is pretty unassailable.

danpcman wrote:Since people have been bringing up the BOM..

Theisman sent all those ships to Manticore knowing half would die in 2nd Fleet. That had to be a given answer from the planners. They had to realize that they were going to take horrendous losses just from system defence pods.

Why is he still an Admiral let alone Secretary of War after an action like that?

Senator Podunk: "Admiral, can you tell the committee just how many ships you were expecting to be destroyed when you sent them on a one way mission to Manticore?"

Senator BigButtios: "Mr. Secretary, you really don't expect us to believe that you thought it was a good idea to kill a million citizens? Yes we are all grateful that you disposed of St Just. Please answer the question."

Admiral replies: "No, I didn't think it was a good idea to kill a million citizens. I thought it was a good idea to avoid losing the war after a few more months of raids by Admiral Harrington. I executed the operation because my Commander in Chief told me to do it, with the approval with her advisors and the Senate Committee on Naval Operations."

One of the very few recurring unrealistic themes of the Honorverse is the seemingly willingly suicidal military personnel who by the millions apparently have little problem taking that final death ride to death?

Or, put another way, one of the first things a commanding officer learns, (sometimes the hard way) is to never give an order that he has reason to believe will not be carried out. Why did not the Peep fleet just refuse?

HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm....no...wait...I have been promoted! Hee Haw!! I am now a full Commander! I love this Forum!

HB of CJ wrote:One of the very few recurring unrealistic themes of the Honorverse is the seemingly willingly suicidal military personnel who by the millions apparently have little problem taking that final death ride to death?

Or, put another way, one of the first things a commanding officer learns, (sometimes the hard way) is to never give an order that he has reason to believe will not be carried out. Why did not the Peep fleet just refuse?

HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm....no...wait...I have been promoted! Hee Haw!! I am now a full Commander! I love this Forum!

Ummm.. because if they *had* refused, they would have been sitting on their asses in the Havenite system waiting for the Manties to come over the wall and either kill them all there while defending their home system, or they would have surrendered in utter and humiliating defeat.

By attacking Manticore while there was still a *possibility* of winning, they at least *may* not have died in vain. As it was, they did, but there was still a *chance*.

Die now when there's a chance of winning, or die later when there's no chance at all... tough decision, eh?

Edit: Might as well ask why all those troops in WWI went over the trenches into murderous machine gun fire.

HB of CJ wrote:One of the very few recurring unrealistic themes of the Honorverse is the seemingly willingly suicidal military personnel who by the millions apparently have little problem taking that final death ride to death?

Or, put another way, one of the first things a commanding officer learns, (sometimes the hard way) is to never give an order that he has reason to believe will not be carried out. Why did not the Peep fleet just refuse?

HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm....no...wait...I have been promoted! Hee Haw!! I am now a full Commander! I love this Forum!

Why would the fleet have gone in? Because that's what they were trained to do. When someone joins the military, it's with the expectation that they can die if shooting starts. The natural human instinct is to usually avoid conflict and situations that will likely result in death. Military training makes it so people -can- advance into situations where they can die. That's something else training does, it lets people function while in combat by training them to respond. This goes for all military forces and the best ones are ones that are willing to advance into fire as well as fighting intelligently.

As for the attack on Manticore being suicidal, remember that it almost worked. If not for Honor and the 8th Fleet, the Haven attack would have worked since they would have destroyed the Manticore system Home Fleet and the fleet from Trevor's star. The Haven 2nd Fleet was wrecking the fleets trying to defend the Manticore system. Would a lot of RHN personnel died? Yes, but that's a risk they willingly took on when they joined the RHN.

Zakharra wrote: As for the attack on Manticore being suicidal, remember that it almost worked. If not for Honor and the 8th Fleet, the Haven attack would have worked since they would have destroyed the Manticore system Home Fleet and the fleet from Trevor's star. The Haven 2nd Fleet was wrecking the fleets trying to defend the Manticore system. Would a lot of RHN personnel died? Yes, but that's a risk they willingly took on when they joined the RHN.

I still wonder what the follow up plan was if 5th had hypered out when they saw that huge salvo.

And whatever else, Theisman had several things going for him that ensured the RHN's loyalty both to him personally and to the new Republic he personally has resurrected.

First, it was Theisman who killed St Just - you remember, the last surviving member of the Committee of Public Safety, whose purges had led to the deaths of so many naval personnel and their families, for no other reason than their own political survival?

Secondly, it was Theisman himself who resurrected the Republic of Haven and THEN REFUSED TO GRAB THE ULTIMATE POSITION OF POWER for himself.

Thirdly, although Theisman had made mistakes in the past, he more than any other Havenite commander had managed to deliver victories against the Manties, which went a helluva way to restoring the Havenite Navy's pride and confidence in itself.

Fourthly, as SWM wrote, Theisman was ordered to execute the attack. Yes, he advised Pritchart to do so, but the ultimate decision was hers.

Fifthly, no fleet or ship commander in Theisman's Navy can possibly be described as stupid, which meant that they were all well-aware of Haven's hopeless military position. Maybe it was a simple case of wanting to 'go out with guns ablazing', but more probably because they all realized that the attack was the only hope to still wrest a Havenite victory out of a hopeless situation.

Might it be possible that the RHN under Theisman had actually developed a sense of patriotic duty to its star nation and loyalty to that star nation's constitution?

He's no more wrong than the Eisenhower was on D-Day, or MacArthur would have been if we'd invaded Japan. It's a hard target, but 2nd Fleet's 'break-in' was used to pull the RMN reinforcements in so Haven could destroy them. War is not a bloodless game, for either side.

Bottom line, soldiers (which I was for 22 years) sometimes accept that there is a high risk associated with the objectives.

Counter to that, if 2nd had not gone, then the RMN would attack at its leisure and kill them anyway. Theisman made the 'best' choice. Note, it was not a 'good' choice - which Theisman admits. It's a reality of war.

Just my 2 centicreds...
SFC (Ret) Dave

Both of you present good points. Another example of ordinary men charging to their certain deaths is Pickett's Charge on the third and final day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the War Between The States in 1863 in Southern Pennsylvania, USA.

I have walked on the same ground they charged upon. Unbelievable. All those Union Guns on Cemetery Ridge. All firing ball and huge canister loads, which is like a giant shotgun shell. Yep, I can understand the military mindset. Used to have one.

But, having said and kinda understanding that, why did not the Peeps just hunker down in their own home system and let the GA 8th fleet come to them instead of doing the Valkyrie thing? Better to die in your home system protecting your home world?

Again, I default to the nagging notion that the Peep fleet came very close to refusing their orders to attack the Manti home system. I still think their reasoning should have been to instead insist on defending Haven to the bitter end.

Perhaps an excellent story line could have been a little bit better by just a few pages describing the relief and replacement of quite a few Haven officers who refused to willingly ride to their certain death attacking Manticore.

Just me. HB of CJ (old coot) Cm.