OpForce against OpForce

Tom wrote:I disagree with you regarding McQueen vs. Alexander, and precisely because of the advantages provided by Trevor's Star.

Ahhh, isn't that sweet. Him feel sorry for Hamish.

It's ok to feel sorry for Hamish. I feel sorry for him too. But the fact is, he was way out of his league. And he got that ass whacked. All we can do is suggest a brand of ointment to rub on his heinie.

Seriously. I was wondering when someone would rise to Hamish's defense by crying "no fair, McQueen wasn't a better tactician, she had benefit of 'interior position.'"

Having the interior position does not ensure victory. It must be accompanied by superior tactics.

It's like saying Leonidas was a tactical genius because he dug in at Thermopylae. Of course you dig in at the choke point when faced by superior odds. That's operational or strategic brilliance, not tactical.

You make the mistake that many generals make - in the War Room. (And in Leonidas' time, on the battlefield too. Since Leonidas was pretty much the general. Essentially, Leonidas was the quintessential swashbuckler, of the swashbuckling that I spoke of earlier.) Swashbuckling, is a tactic. Although it's true that operational warfare is more associated with strategy than tactics, it is actually separate from either. However, its main concern is the consideration of the available tactics on the battlefield to achieve said objectives.

You ever heard the common phrase, "It sounds good on paper?" It is a very poignant statement that carries with it a subtle warning, by reminder, that a plan is only as good as he who carries it out. The resources of the War Room are not available on the battle field. The decision to seize a natural choke point is a sound strategy for certain. A choke point is a natural strategic objective. However, the mistake I was referring to earlier is that once a choke point is acquired, it is useless without the proper tactics that utilizes its advantages.

The tactic that the Greeks used to defeat the Persian army was the 'strength of the phalanx' - a column of heavy infantry carrying long spears. This tactic had proven itself to the Greek army much earlier at the battle of Marathon.

By the time of the battle of Thermopylae, the Greek army had honed this tactic to a devastating edge. On top of the phalanx, the Greeks had utilized tactical maneuvers of advanced formations that supported this new tactic of the phalanx. They then added an additional tactic that made it even more devastating, the lunge and parry!" A devasting, insurmountable tactic that was made so by holding the interior position of a choke point!

"On top of it all, Xerxes was an excellent organizer but a mediocre general. It is said that his presence on a battlefield demoralized his men for fear of a weak leader. -Wiki" Xerxes was simply outclassed by Leonidas. Sound like any other matchup I've been harping on?

Strategy - Tactics: Difference in Military Usage
Militaries often make a distinction between strategy and tactics. Strategy involves planning, during war and peace times, preparing for the unexpected for greater security and future victory. Tactics, on the other hand, deals with carrying out the objectives laid out in strategy — i.e., accurately and efficiently deploying troops and military equipment to combat zones.


'It sounds good on paper,' subtly teaches this...

Website Wrote:
The heart of Operational Maneuver is the maneuver of naval forces at the operational level, a bold bid for victory that aims at exploiting a significant enemy weakness in order to deal a decisive blow. Mere movement, which may lead to indecisive results or even be counterproductive, does not qualify as operational maneuver. That is to say, operational maneuver should be directed against an enemy center of gravity-something that is essential to the enemy's ability to effectively continue the struggle.

Your strategy, must be tempered with the appropriate tactics.

Tom wrote:It's like saying Leonidas was a tactical genius because he dug in at Thermopylae.

Oh no! NOT just Leonidas, but the entire army of Spartans, down to the very last man, ARE inherently, tactical geniuses because they were trained to be.

The Greeks, on the other hand, were trained athletes; many had participated in the Olympic Games. In fact the battle raged while the Olympics were taking place and Greeks that participated in these Games were not allowed to leave and fight. This may be a reason why Leonidas received no reinforcements. The Spartans, as most historians know, were the most perfectly trained forces in the history of warfare. Spartans began training at the age of seven and trained with an adult until eighteen when they became part of an "eat-group," which was a platoon of Spartan warriors eating together. The Spartans did not put emphasis on the family, except for obvious reasons of repopulating the species.

Strategy
Larger, overall plan that can comprise several tactics. Broad, big picture.

Tactics:
Plans, tasks, or procedures that can be carried out; may be part of a larger strategy.

In chess, one may assume a strategy of controlling the interior lines of attack by controlling the center. That is a good strategy. In fact, control of the center is considered of paramount importance to victory, if all else is equal. However, to command control of the center requires certain tactical maneuvers. Maneuvers that may include the sacrifice of pieces for position, pins, brilliant combinations, positioning knights on unopposed lines of attack, pawns supported en appui, the use of psychology, tactical patterns, etc., etc.

Strategy is a mechanism of planning to allow combatants to position themselves to have a better chance to ultimately win a battle tactically - how battles are ultimately won. The best strategy in the world is nothing short of pissing in the wind without sound tactics. However, sound tactics can win a battle without a formal strategy. Not at all recommended, but possible. And has happened quite often.

"The confusion over terminology was brought up in professional military publications that sought to identify "...slightly different shades of meaning, such as minor tactics, tactics, major tactics, minor strategy, major strategy, and grand strategy". - Wiki"

Without getting into all of that, I still think that my niece penned it humorously better, found in the opening credits of the Honorverse favorite one-liners thread, and originally in the Honorverse Top Ten Tacticians, Strategists thread...

For any still aimlessly lost on the battlefield, strategy is what is planned in the War Room on paper. Tactics are what happens in the heat of battle to prevent that heat from catching your ass and your papers on fire! -Cthia's 12-year-old niece

I cannot apologize for the rambling. It is who I am.

Lord, I was born a ramblin' man,
Tryin' to make a livin' and doin' the best I can.
And when it's time for leavin',
I hope you'll understand,
That I was born a ramblin' man.

Please note, that my strategy is to include a little lightheartedness and humor in my posts. Laughter is the best medicine. But oftentimes I fail in the tactics necessary to achieve that strategic objective. Tactics that include the proper use of grammer, articulation, spelling, composition, respect. Oftentimes, implementing my strategy on paper into the forums fail for the same reason that many tactical maneuvers fail - time.
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/an ... pylae.aspx

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At the time of the McQueen vs Hamish Alexander battles, Hamish had every advantage numerically, but McQueen drilled her command crews mercilessly.

Edit: sorry, Hamish had the edge technologically with pods. Numerically he was always at parity, or slightly less than McQueen had. Peep pods didn't come out until much later than the Second Nightingale.

Recall, uh I think it was Second Nightingale, it was right near the start of one of the books, Alexander came in with twice as many ships as the defenders (openly). During the closing maneuvers, the defenders had a whole second task group that was laying doggo in ambush, that only failed to achieve success due to the commander "jumping the gun". At the time they stopped lying doggo, Alexander actually went from a two:one advantage to I believe it was parity (so neither side had a true numeric edge)

Not only that, but during the missile duels, the Peep task force actually rolled ship in a Manticoran maneuver, using their wedges as a true wall defense against the missiles, not the usual Peep method which let each ship roll independently WITHOUT socketing them tightly into a rigid (Manty-style) formation.

The Manticoran formations were heavily reliant on their, usually superior, command training and ruthless drilling. The only time we ever saw Peep task groups operating like that, were either McQueen's forces (in and around Trevor's Star) and a few with Giscard and Tourville, prior to McQueen becoming War Secretary and then "associated" with McQueen.


Trevor's Star only truly "fell" in the end, not because McQueen was called home, was because Hamish finally admitted to Caparelli they needed to shake things up. And that they were going to possibly sacrifice a unit from Home Fleet to scout the wormhole terminus, and "pull a Filareta" by having reinforcements coming through the Junction. Both admirals were ruthlessly against suicidal "do or die" missions, which is what McQueen counted on.

If the RMN hadn't done it, and done it when they did, McQueen might actually have pushed the RMN back onto the defensive with her raids. And then Trevor's Star never would have been retaken by anything prior to the Buttercup offensive.

Somtaaw wrote:At the time of the McQueen vs Hamish Alexander battles, Hamish had every advantage numerically, but McQueen drilled her command crews mercilessly.

Edit: sorry, Hamish had the edge technologically with pods. Numerically he was always at parity, or slightly less than McQueen had. Peep pods didn't come out until much later than the Second Nightingale.

Recall, uh I think it was Second Nightingale, it was right near the start of one of the books, Alexander came in with twice as many ships as the defenders (openly). During the closing maneuvers, the defenders had a whole second task group that was laying doggo in ambush, that only failed to achieve success due to the commander "jumping the gun". At the time they stopped lying doggo, Alexander actually went from a two:one advantage to I believe it was parity (so neither side had a true numeric edge)

Not only that, but during the missile duels, the Peep task force actually rolled ship in a Manticoran maneuver, using their wedges as a true wall defense against the missiles, not the usual Peep method which let each ship roll independently WITHOUT socketing them tightly into a rigid (Manty-style) formation.

The Manticoran formations were heavily reliant on their, usually superior, command training and ruthless drilling. The only time we ever saw Peep task groups operating like that, were either McQueen's forces (in and around Trevor's Star) and a few with Giscard and Tourville, prior to McQueen becoming War Secretary and then "associated" with McQueen.


Trevor's Star only truly "fell" in the end, not because McQueen was called home, was because Hamish finally admitted to Caparelli they needed to shake things up. And that they were going to possibly sacrifice a unit from Home Fleet to scout the wormhole terminus, and "pull a Filareta" by having reinforcements coming through the Junction. Both admirals were ruthlessly against suicidal "do or die" missions, which is what McQueen counted on.

If the RMN hadn't done it, and done it when they did, McQueen might actually have pushed the RMN back onto the defensive with her raids. And then Trevor's Star never would have been retaken by anything prior to the Buttercup offensive.

Trevor's Star fell because the technological advantage the RMN had over the PRN suddenly widened from a narrow gap (shouting distance) to a yawning abyss (totally outclassed). The introduction of the MDM and modern LAC, with CLAC to carry them through hyper to use as offensive units, made the difference. Or although 'quantity has a quality all its own', that saying only holds true if the opposing forces are in shouting distance militarily of each other (both in numbers* and in technology*)

It wouldn't have mattered who in the PRN commanded the defense of Trevor's Star when Operation Buttercup kicked off with the weaponry and other advancements that were part of Project Ghostrider, Trevor's Star was going down.

And it wasn't necessary to "throw a force through the Junction". Instead after Barnett had fallen, Hamish could have repeated the same tactics at the Trevor's Star terminus he used at the planet.

Once any mobile units (starships or forts) guarding the terminus were destroyed or driven off, the rest of the defenses (mines and energy platforms) would have been in the same predicament that the defenses of Cerberus (Hell in Echoes of Honor) were potentially in when the PRN and SS came calling in the scratch-built squadron under General Chernok and Rear Admiral Yearman.

Echoes of Honor wrote:Chapter 45

"All right, Sir. I don't know if I agree with you—not yet, anyway— but I can't refute your reasoning based on anything we know at this moment. But assuming the prisoners have taken the planet, what do we do about it? Alert Nouveau Paris and the other Sector HQs?"
"No," Chernock said decisively. "We move on this ourselves, Brig. Immediately."
"Sir, we only have two or three of our own ships here in Danak right now. And if the prisoners have managed to take Styx, I think we have to assume they've also taken over the armories, the battle armor storage and vehicle parks. . . . We'll need troops and additional firepower, not to mention a way to deal with the orbital defenses."
"Orbital defenses?" Chernock looked startled by the citizen colonel's last remark.
"Sir, it's a logical consequence of your basic assumption," Therret pointed out. "Assuming they've actually taken Styx, then they must have taken the central control room pretty much intact—and broken most of the security codes—because they were able to receive, read, and respond to the message traffic Heathrow delivered. That being the case, can we afford not to assume they have control of the orbital defenses, as well?"
"No. No, you're right," Chernock said, and grimaced sourly. "All right, we need a ground combat element—probably a good-sized one—and an escort capable of taking on the orbital defenses. Damn!" He slammed a fist down on his com unit. "That probably means we do have to send all the way back to the capital!"
"Not necessarily, Sir."
"What do you mean?" Chernock turned back to the citizen colonel, and Therret shrugged.
"I read a report on the Cerberus defenses a couple of months ago, Sir. It was generated by the Navlnt Section after that disgrac—" He stopped himself as he remembered who had been responsible for the tardy response to another escape attempt to which he had been about to apply the adjective. "After that unfortunate business with Citizen Secretary Ransom and the Tepes" he went on after only the tiniest hesitation.
"And?" Chernock chose to ignore his chief of staff's self-correction.
"It pointed out that the system was much more vulnerable to external attack than anyone with InSec or, for that matter, with our own HQ staff had ever realized. Apparently there's some way to attack unmanned orbital weapons from long range and take them out without ever entering their own engagement envelope." He shrugged again. "I didn't understand it all—it was written from a naval perspective—but the conclusion, I believe, was that even a few battlecruisers could probably blow a way through the defenses. Our own ships here in Danak might not have enough firepower, but if we conscripted a few naval units, we could almost certainly shoot our way in if we had to."
"We could?" Chernock looked disturbed by the thought that Hades was so much more vulnerable than he'd assumed. Or perhaps he was disturbed by the notion that he might have to become the one responsible for blowing a hole in the defenses StateSec had always thought were impregnable . . . and use units of the distrusted regular Navy to do it. He frowned in silence for several long seconds, then sighed.

Chapter 47

"The parameters of our problem are relatively straightforward," Yearman resumed. "We've all studied the data Citizen General Chernock has been able to provide on the orbital defenses, and I'm sure all of us are aware of the fundamental weakness inherent in their design. Aside from the ground bases on Tartarus, Sheol, and Niflheim, all of their weapons platforms are unprotected by any passive defenses and effectively incapable of movement. In addition, their missile defense capability is much more limited than their offensive firepower. They're short on counter-missile launchers, and they have barely a third of the missile-killer laser platforms I would have built into the defense grid. As such, their weapon systems are extremely vulnerable to proximity soft kills, and we can almost certainly penetrate their defenses without resorting to cee-fractional strikes. We may have to take our lumps from the ground bases, but their ammunition is limited, and we should be able to blow a massive hole in the orbital defenses before we have to enter the ground bases' range.

***Snip***

"If we have to shoot our way in, I anticipate that the heavy cruisers will sit more or less on the sidelines, at least initially, aside from thickening our anti-missile defenses. We'll be going in without pods, which I regret, but we can't always have everything we'd like to have."

Boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.

Offsetting the fact that the Trevor's Star terminus defenses were almost certainly built by the PRN (with enough CM and PDLC platforms), is that once the control centers operating the defensive platforms (aboard forts or starships) are destroyed or driven off (using MDMs), the defensive platforms will be on their own, with at best very limited command and control provided by whatever AI (if any) is on board the defensive platforms.

Which effectively puts the Trevor's Star terminus defenses back to the same point of Cerberus' defenses were. And Hamish wouldn't have to deal with any mobile units sneaking up on him, he would have already taken out the ones at Barnett, and then the terminus forts and any starships stationed there.

* For an example of numbers, see Arthur C. Clarke's short story Superiority. For an example of technology, see the battle of the RMMC versus the Stilties in The Honor of the Queen.

Vince wrote:Trevor's Star fell because the technological advantage the RMN had over the PRN suddenly widened from a narrow gap (shouting distance) to a yawning abyss (totally outclassed). The introduction of the MDM and modern LAC, with CLAC to carry them through hyper to use as offensive units, made the difference. Or although 'quantity has a quality all its own', that saying only holds true if the opposing forces are in shouting distance militarily of each other (both in numbers* and in technology*)

It wouldn't have mattered who in the PRN commanded the defense of Trevor's Star when Operation Buttercup kicked off with the weaponry and other advancements that were part of Project Ghostrider, Trevor's Star was going down.

And it wasn't necessary to "throw a force through the Junction". Instead after Barnett had fallen, Hamish could have repeated the same tactics at the Trevor's Star terminus he used at the planet.

Major dissonance with the established timeline here!

Trevor's Star was taken several years before Operation Buttercup, partially using Home Fleet transiting through the terminus. Stalemate followed for a while as the RMN pulled its units in for maintenance.

Op. Buttercup was launched with a massive strike at Barnett, where the PRH's front line had fallen back to after losing Trevor's Star.

munroburton wrote:

Vince wrote:Trevor's Star fell because the technological advantage the RMN had over the PRN suddenly widened from a narrow gap (shouting distance) to a yawning abyss (totally outclassed). The introduction of the MDM and modern LAC, with CLAC to carry them through hyper to use as offensive units, made the difference. Or although 'quantity has a quality all its own', that saying only holds true if the opposing forces are in shouting distance militarily of each other (both in numbers* and in technology*)

It wouldn't have mattered who in the PRN commanded the defense of Trevor's Star when Operation Buttercup kicked off with the weaponry and other advancements that were part of Project Ghostrider, Trevor's Star was going down.

And it wasn't necessary to "throw a force through the Junction". Instead after Barnett had fallen, Hamish could have repeated the same tactics at the Trevor's Star terminus he used at the planet.

Major dissonance with the established timeline here!

Trevor's Star was taken several years before Operation Buttercup, partially using Home Fleet transiting through the terminus. Stalemate followed for a while as the RMN pulled its units in for maintenance.

Op. Buttercup was launched with a massive strike at Barnett, where the PRH's front line had fallen back to after losing Trevor's Star.

To quote Shannon Foraker: "Oops." I accidentally moved Barnett (confused it with San Martin) to Trevor's Star.

For my own clarity, at the beginning of McQueen's defense of Trevor's Star, the ships of both sides was at their closest parity?

Also, am I correct in recollection that McQueen received no reinforcements throughout her tenure at Trevor's Star? That she had to absorb each battles damages? I may be in error on those counts but it's how I recall it.


****** *


We were really cheated of the POV of McQueen's defense of Trevor's Star and Hamish's offense of it. Both POV's would be thrilling. To me, it promised to be one of the most interesting battles in the 'Verse. I can't believe RFC cheated us out of it.

RFC cheated us! Cheated! Cheated!! Cheated!!!

But his alter ego, MWW, can make up for it in a flashback.

Vince wrote:To quote Shannon Foraker: "Oops."

I did the same thing, I listed Second Nightingale as the reference battle but it was really FIRST Nightingale

cthia wrote:For my own clarity, at the beginning of McQueen's defense of Trevor's Star, the ships of both sides was at their closest parity?

Also, am I correct in recollection that McQueen received no reinforcements throughout her tenure at Trevor's Star? That she had to absorb each battles damages? I may be in error on those counts but it's how I recall it.


****** *


We were really cheated of the POV of McQueen's defense of Trevor's Star and Hamish's offense of it. Both POV's would be thrilling. To me, it promised to be one of the most interesting battles in the 'Verse. I can't believe RFC cheated us out of it.

RFC cheated us! Cheated! Cheated!! Cheated!!!

But his alter ego, MWW, can make up for it in a flashback.

Given how Randsom was constantly using PubInt to label Trevors Star as a "line in the sand", I believe that CPS did actually reinforce TS. But they would have been doing it in the manner of "as ships are available" basis.


And yes, I also feel like we were cheated out of getting a more detailed story, of how HAlexander finally took Trevor's Star and defeated the admiral Pierre threw in to replace McQueen. The closest thing we got, was that simple oh.... maybe four paragraphs describing the ambush HAlexander nearly walked into at First Nightingale, and then his later meeting with Caparelli to describe how they planned to do it.

-----

We could almost get some form of "flashback" that Hamish has when Honor starts telling him about some engagement or another. And his mind wanders back to Sixth Fleet engaging PNS in Trevor's Star and Kuzak commanding the Home Fleet detachment that comes through.

It wouldn't be nearly long enough to do that sort of battle justice, but then again after BoMa I think most of us have gotten the same skewed battle mentality of SheVa crews from Ringo's Pos-verse.

For those who haven't read the pos-verse books, SheVa tanks are around:

from the dimensions in the back of hells faire
hight 170 ft from ground to top of turret
tread hight 27ft
tread widthe ( individual) 150ft
total vehicle width 385 ft
" " length 268ft

gun lenght 200ft inc barrel and breach
gun bore 16"

They fire "bullets" that have I believe a full kilo of anti-matter, in a steel-coated, depleted uranium slug. So they make "REALLY" big explosions. And when people started talking about blowing up mountains, SheVa crews tend to forget exactly how powerful their gun is and think it's too small.

Vince wrote:Major dissonance with the established timeline here!

Trevor's Star was taken several years before Operation Buttercup, partially using Home Fleet transiting through the terminus. Stalemate followed for a while as the RMN pulled its units in for maintenance.

Op. Buttercup was launched with a massive strike at Barnett, where the PRH's front line had fallen back to after losing Trevor's Star.

To quote Shannon Foraker: "Oops." I accidentally moved Barnett (confused it with San Martin) to Trevor's Star.[/quote]
Yep. Oh well it happens.
On the other hand you thereby accidentally stumbled onto an interesting related point. The tech that was coming, which allowed Operation Buttercup, would have allowed Manticore to take Trevor's Star easily had it not already fallen.

None of that tech was dependent on capturing Trevor's Star first. And in fact if fighting around Trevor's Star had still been ongoing there wouldn't have been the operational stand down that gave McQueen time and forces to put together Operation Icarus - so no raid on Basilisk.

The flip side is that the Buttercup construction was partially manned by reductions in the Junction fort defenses that were possible once the threat of a lunge from Trevor's Star was removed. (And without a break in the fighting I don't know if White Haven would have been willing or able to hold back the new designs until they were available in decisive numbers. They might have gotten thrown in piecemeal earlier to help take Trevor's Star.

How about Beullefeille against Yanakov?

Battle setup and sequence for the sim, anyone?

SharkHunter wrote:How about Beullefeille against Yanakov?

Battle setup and sequence for the sim, anyone?

Beullefeille is too sneaky for Yanakov. She's a really sneaky bitch. I have images of her before a battle, giggling, "I'm gonna rip this idiot a new arse."

She'll definitely take Yana first time meeting, and second, before he gets a feel for her tactics.