[spoilers]What happens when Shannon Foraker meets...

...Admiral Hemphill?

One of the things I've always enjoyed in this whole series is the interesting counter-strategies and technologies employed by both Haven and Manticore throughout the various wars. Especially the cunning little tactical doctrines I, for one, would never have thought of in the same situation, and these are in many cases originated by Admiral Foraker, as ways to get around the technological advantage of the SKM.

So, as a bit of wish-listing, what do all you Honorverse tech-heads think Shannon might be able to come up with to give the League's thousand-waller fleets a bowel problem if/when she gets some playtime with BuWeaps and the cutting edge of Manticoran technology?

Cap'n Roderick wrote:...Admiral Hemphill?

One of the things I've always enjoyed in this whole series is the interesting counter-strategies and technologies employed by both Haven and Manticore throughout the various wars. Especially the cunning little tactical doctrines I, for one, would never have thought of in the same situation, and these are in many cases originated by Admiral Foraker, as ways to get around the technological advantage of the SKM.

So, as a bit of wish-listing, what do all you Honorverse tech-heads think Shannon might be able to come up with to give the League's thousand-waller fleets a bowel problem if/when she gets some playtime with BuWeaps and the cutting edge of Manticoran technology?

I could see DW making this event happening as it would require established and respected leaders from manticore/haven to step up and represent the necessary courage to leave the animosity and start the healing required to be brothers in arms. Obviously the two admirals' and their teams have a deep respect for one another
so bonding and cooperation could be achieved relatively quickly. Once the havenities are brought up to speed only DW knows what that very large toybox of goodies contains except that the SLN will not appreciate it ) Also with that large and dedicated tech team (I see a red and blue team structure of conceptual tech and the other team playing devil's advocate/countering the new tech to maximize effectiveness in what they do best) they may be able to detect spider drives.... and other interesting advances.

I believe that Shannon has a better chance of getting a way of finding spiders because she has the mentality of maximizing tech down and if she can play with Hemphil this will just get better BC she will have bigger toys to play with.

The problem with Mesa is the streak and the spider are new technologies. Admiral Hemphill is really good at getting pure R&D into useful forms, and certainly her approach leads to a real improvement in tech levels and war fighting ability, but they don't really produce miracles on demand.
Shannon Foraker has been reverse engineering miracles using a much lower tech base, less skilled workforce, much less developed R&D capacity. Her work is focused, very much directed towards solutions to tactical and strategic changes introduced by higher Manty tech levels.
Mesa has radical new drive and weapons technogies that Haven cannot match, ;) shock. She has been there, done that, got the T-shirt and matching pocket protector. If I had to pick a leader for the project, I would give the defector, and the survivors of the Manty R&D station to Shannon at Bolthole.
She gets the most out of her people, keeps them focused on task, and works out the tactical and strategic doctrine to go with the tech so it can be employed to best advantage. Hemphill thinks tech is a magic wand, new is better and thus will win. Foraker understands a tool without good doctrine on use is useless. She is the better leader of the two.

John T Mainer wrote: She gets the most out of her people, keeps them focused on task, and works out the tactical and strategic doctrine to go with the tech so it can be employed to best advantage. Hemphill thinks tech is a magic wand, new is better and thus will win. Foraker understands a tool without good doctrine on use is useless. She is the better leader of the two.

No, Hemphill has actually run a fleet in combat, which Foraker hasn't. Hemphill has been seriously and publicly involved in running the RMN for decades. The comparison of the Mesa hyperphysicist with her by the president and the war minister of Haven suggest that they don't see her having anywhere near the kind of leadership skills that Hemphill has demonstrated over the last 20 years.

In our universe the Krupps family in Germany and the Armstrong family in Britain alternated for many years in naval technology. Each would invent a gun that would penetrate any known armour then develop armour that would stop any known gun, and the other would respond. Elsewhere others like Parrott were also developing new technologies.
In ships, twice Britain developed a tactical lead by building a ship that was far superior to anything else; the Warrior in 1860 and the Dreadnaught in 1906. However some believe that they had made a strategic error in that at each time they then went from far and away having the most number of ships of the line, to only having one more than their opponents who then proceeded to build copies.

Daryl wrote:In ships, twice Britain developed a tactical lead by building a ship that was far superior to anything else; the Warrior in 1860 and the Dreadnaught in 1906. However some believe that they had made a strategic error in that at each time they then went from far and away having the most number of ships of the line, to only having one more than their opponents who then proceeded to build copies.

That is precisely why the SLN is by far the most conservative navy out there. Plus some embarrassing scandals and stupidity, but mostly just structural conservatism.

kzt wrote:

John T Mainer wrote: She gets the most out of her people, keeps them focused on task, and works out the tactical and strategic doctrine to go with the tech so it can be employed to best advantage. Hemphill thinks tech is a magic wand, new is better and thus will win. Foraker understands a tool without good doctrine on use is useless. She is the better leader of the two.

No, Hemphill has actually run a fleet in combat, which Foraker hasn't. Hemphill has been seriously and publicly involved in running the RMN for decades. The comparison of the Mesa hyperphysicist with her by the president and the war minister of Haven suggest that they don't see her having anywhere near the kind of leadership skills that Hemphill has demonstrated over the last 20 years.

Ah, I was unclear. Leadership of the design team, not leadership of the fleet. This is a Manhatten Project style brain trust with a definite deadline to have working hardware in commanders hands. Foraker is not the person to develop something brand new, she is the person to give you the answer to some specific focused problem right fragging now. Foraker as a tac witch is very skilled and would make an excellent staff officer for the fleet commander, but she lacks the line command experience necessary to lead.

Horrible Hemphill is a current and senior fleet commander who has remained abreast of the technical developments, as well as both the strategic situation and political reality. She is far more suited to fleet command at this juncture than Foraker is.

John T Mainer wrote: Foraker is not the person to develop something brand new, she is the person to give you the answer to some specific focused problem right fragging now.

So in fact, until the Manticoran industry is rebuilt, Shannon is the ideal person to help the Grand Alliance make the most of what they *do* have, increasing efficiency on their relatively limited stock of bleeding-edge equipment. For starters she can probably help the manties make the absolute most of their remaining apollo missiles, telling them the exact minimum needed per SLN SD. She might also be good for finding new and interesting ways to combine the existing Havenite and Manty forces - Intermixing fleets of the wall to use keyhole I level control to improve the accuracy of the Havenite salvos for starters, perhaps?

She's definitely the most likely person to be able to develop a spider-detector, and once Manticore is reasonably well back on its feet to start innovating again, she'll be the best person to supervise prototype testing and shake-downs.

I think once some more interesting threats than mere obsolete SLN SD's rear their ugly heads, that's when this topic will be interesting to speculate on. Perhaps it'd be better instead to look at how the SLN is going to try and close the gap with doctrine and small tech jumps over the next two years or so, and then how the GA will counter that?

Cap'n Roderick wrote:I think once some more interesting threats than mere obsolete SLN SD's rear their ugly heads, that's when this topic will be interesting to speculate on. Perhaps it'd be better instead to look at how the SLN is going to try and close the gap with doctrine and small tech jumps over the next two years or so, and then how the GA will counter that?

Without new builds or many months in shipyard there are severe limits to what the SLN can do. The critical problem is the baseline performance they have.

RMN figures are that an SD requires about 250 hits to kill. In the BoM the RMN killed one RHN SD per 1300 mark 23 missiles fired, so each RHN ship stopped an average 1050 of the RMN missiles. At Spindle each SLN ship stopped an average of 48 missiles.

So they need at least an order of magnitude improvement in their defenses in order to survive. You can only do so much with doctrine, they are way too light on PDLCs and CMs. CMs have magazines, so they typically need penetrations of the main armor core.

PDLCs mostly need power, and you could do something with CM box launchers against at least the first wave or two, but they don't have the tracking and guidance to drive them.