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Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash

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Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash
Post by Borealis   » Thu Mar 27, 2014 4:07 pm

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I'm once again rereading RFC's books and I'm at the section in SoF where Commodore Zavala fires on the four Indefatigable-class BC's. RFC goes into some of the reasoning Zavala put into using option Sledgehammer over Zephyr, but I'm surprised Zavala only considered what was basically an all or nothing approach. Basically he seemed to have determined he only had a choice between wasting missiles he didn't have on a 'demonstration' or blowing away his targets completely as quickly as possible.

Because he launched at minimum intervals, he didn't leave himself an option to even allow the enemy to surrender at the result of his first salvo. As I see it, he ended up with the worst of both worlds by 'wasting' 3/4's of his missiles on ships that might (and did) surrender to what effectively was the 'demonstration' strike he didn't feel necessary.

What really strikes me as strange was he still had plenty of time to launch the next salvo since he was still so far out of the Vice Admiral Dubroskaya's own missile envelope.

Considering every other Manty commander has gone out of their way to give the enemy every opportunity to surrender, I find Commodore Zavala's response kind of odd, almost vengeful, which doesn't seem to match his personality as written. Especially when Mike has been so very adamant about minimal casualties and had made a point of discussing with him her expectations before sending him off in the first place.

Just seems like an odd choice to have been made, since it eliminated so many other options...
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Re: Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash
Post by Duckk   » Thu Mar 27, 2014 4:37 pm

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I had an email exchange with David a long time ago regarding this. He expected to cripple all 4 of them instead. He already did everything short of bringing the Sollies on board and showing the missiles sitting hot in their tubes. The preengagement discussion highlights this. He knows the Sollies know what happened to Byng. He shows the Roland's superior compensator. He shows them his FTL comm capability. He shows them the capabilities of Ghost Rider. In short, he gives them everything they need to substantiate all those "wild" rumors of Manticoran tech to know that he's absolutely not bluffing. They reject it anyways. At this point he's under no compunction to protect the Sollies from their own stupidity.

So Zavala opens fire. He has 1 salvo for each BC. He expected to cripple all 4 of them (barring any golden BBs), which shows he was quite restrained. But thanks to the Mod-G and knowledge on how Halo worked and would be used, his attack considerably exceeded his own expectations. Note that it's something he beats himself up over after the shooting stops.
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Re: Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash
Post by HungryKing   » Thu Mar 27, 2014 5:05 pm

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My impression was that it was not mostly the mod-G that he was under estimating. He knew that with Ghost Rider and being able to use Halo as homing beacons, he'd get a lot of hits, but he was still in the mode of thinking of the leagacy warheads that the mk16 originally mounted, warheds which generally required multiple hits in close proximity to penatrate the outer armor, the outer hull, and the core armor in order to inflict critical battle damage. He even mentally acknkowledges that he is not trusting the projected power of the mk16G.
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Re: Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash
Post by wholf359   » Thu Mar 27, 2014 7:02 pm

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While he does underestimate the mod-g warhead by quite a large margin it really does not matter. As a commander his job was to protect the people under his command, not protect the people trying to kill his people. As was mentioned in text if the BC's got into range of his Roland's, it would only take a hit or two to ruin there entire day. Add in this was the first time the mod-g had been used in combat and its easy to see why he miscalculated on the side of protecting his ships.
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Re: Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash
Post by TheMonster   » Thu Mar 27, 2014 7:22 pm

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wholf359 wrote:While he does underestimate the mod-g warhead by quite a large margin it really does not matter. As a commander his job was to protect the people under his command, not protect the people trying to kill his people.
I'll go so far as to say it's also his job to "underestimate" his new tech until it's proven in real-world conditions, not just a sim. One of these days we're going to see a Manty commander who thinks that their tech advantage is so overwhelming they can't possibly get hurt... and that's when they'll get crushed.

No policeman or soldier is required to "fire a warning shot", "shoot to wound, not to kill", or "shoot the gun out of the desperado's hand". You're lucky to get even one chance to surrender without getting shot.

A lot of Sollies are going to have to get killed before the rest of 'em learn to surrender before the Manties have them in their engagement envelope. On second thought, that isn't even possible with MDMs; they can leave in a really long ballistic phase and have pretty much whatever range they want. Just surrender the first time they ask you, so you can be a O'Cleary instead of a Crandall.
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Re: Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash
Post by namelessfly   » Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:55 pm

namelessfly

The last battle between Mk-16 armed RMN ships and SLN BCs was Monica. Hexapuma barely survived. This affects Zuvalla's thinking.

The last time Rollands went up against SLN BCs, all of the Rollands got blown away when the BCs opened fire without warning. This affects Zuvalla's thinking.

The closing velocity is high enough that Zuvolla does not have a lot of extra time to space out his salvos then fire follow up salvos if needed.
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Re: Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash
Post by Uroboros   » Fri Mar 28, 2014 3:51 am

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While the loss of life was unfortunate, it's not his job to think about the lives of those people who are trying to kill him; that's the job for the other commander. Even if he had just crippled the ships, chances are excellent that many, if not most, of them would have lost their lives as well. He went well out of his way to show them the technical advantages he had, he didn't even have to do that.
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Re: Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash
Post by Eagleeye   » Fri Mar 28, 2014 4:19 am

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Uroboros wrote:While the loss of life was unfortunate, it's not his job to think about the lives of those people who are trying to kill him; that's the job for the other commander. Even if he had just crippled the ships, chances are excellent that many, if not most, of them would have lost their lives as well. He went well out of his way to show them the technical advantages he had, he didn't even have to do that.


One thing he could have done is, to target only 2 of the 4 BCs to see how it works with its first 2 salvos. After the start of his 2nd salvo, he could take a break of about 90 seconds, before he starts his second 2 salvos - that would give him time enough to either deciding to proceed or to abort his 3rd and 4th salvo - depending on the results of the first 2 salvos.

But I concede - everyone is smart after the battle ;)
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Re: Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash
Post by The E   » Fri Mar 28, 2014 7:53 am

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Eagleeye wrote:One thing he could have done is, to target only 2 of the 4 BCs to see how it works with its first 2 salvos. After the start of his 2nd salvo, he could take a break of about 90 seconds, before he starts his second 2 salvos - that would give him time enough to either deciding to proceed or to abort his 3rd and 4th salvo - depending on the results of the first 2 salvos.

But I concede - everyone is smart after the battle ;)


That would be irresponsible. If, after all that he did, after demonstrating his complete technological superiority, his opponent is still moving to engage him, then there are two possibilities: 1, your opponent is a complete idiot, or 2, your opponent thinks he has something to even the odds regardless. In order to ensure his command's safety, Zavala had to engage, and engage hard, because the risk of possibility 2 being in effect outweighs other considerations.
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Re: Zavala's Response to the BC's at Saltash
Post by SWM   » Fri Mar 28, 2014 8:42 am

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Zavala thinks to himself that he could have put more time between salvos. He didn't, and he didn't have to, and no other commander will blame him for his decision. His decision was perfectly reasonable and probably what any other commander would have done in his shoes. He did it to protect his own ships, which is his duty. He may feel guilty about it for a while, and it will color his future decisions. But at the same time, he bent over backwards to avoid firing at all. He did nothing wrong.
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