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The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline

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The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline
Post by Theemile   » Fri Aug 21, 2015 4:46 pm

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Assume for a moment, that Hamish Alexander had had the opportunity to pass Honor's strategic assessment of the Havenite attack to Adm. Higgens at Grendlesbane prior to the Thunderbolt attack which captured the Fleet Base. He receives Honor's appreciation a day or 2 prior to the attack - He takes it seriously, but since Honor is not a fortune teller and does not know the actual time frame of the attack, He doesn't know that Thunderbolt's task force is, say, 48 hours away from striking the fleet yard.

Obviously, his is the major fleet in the region - no significant force is within several day's travel time for reinforcement.

What do you think he would do?
What do you think he even could do?
And knowing what we know now, what do you think he should have done?
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Re: The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline
Post by munroburton   » Fri Aug 21, 2015 5:09 pm

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I don't think there was anything he could have done, besides set scuttling charges in anticipation instead of using nuclear missiles to destroy the unfinished construction. Possibly his workers might be able to fire up any ships with sufficiently completed drive and hyper systems and drive them to Manticore. He could also ask Grayson for reinforcements, but we know that cupboard was bare.

I've speculated before about whether it would have been possible(and if so, would it be better) to have sent the reinforcements bound for Trevor's Star to Grendelsbane instead. But that essentally means losing TS and probably Third Fleet, unless it retreated or was reinforced by Home Fleet.

Knowing what we know now - specifically, the MA's machinations - Higgins should have surrendered the yard and everything in it intact. Haven would then be further along in adapting Manticoran tech and would return everything after the signing of the Grand Alliance. This is deep into crystal ball territory, however, and Higgins did the best thing he could do at the time with the information known to him.
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Re: The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline
Post by SWM   » Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:16 pm

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I agree--I don't think he could have done anything that would materially change the outcome.
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Re: The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline
Post by JeffEngel   » Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:52 pm

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Theemile wrote:What do you think he would do?
What do you think he even could do?
And knowing what we know now, what do you think he should have done?

Could the warning have made any difference for getting any more of the technicians out? Maybe get some near-complete hulls up for emergency departure for sheer personnel lift with a wedge and a hypergenerator? Or grab off a nearby freighter or transport or three for it?
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Re: The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline
Post by cthia   » Sat Aug 22, 2015 1:39 am

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Only two days lead time simply isn't enuff time. Need more time.

Although it is some lead time. What were drone capabilities back then? Could some sort of elaborate ruse have been manufactured? A bluff of herculean proportions?

It was a shipyard. Wouldn't they have had lots of equipment to work with? Mines, RDs to run a bluff? Couldn't they have jury rigged missile pods? It just seems like an awful lot of stuff was available. One thing he would have had that may have been used to throw the Peeps off-balance is the "knowledge that they were coming." If they would have blatantly shown the Peeps that they knew they were coming, perhaps it would have lent even more credence to some elaborate ruse or bluff.

Under the same circumstances, you don't think Harrington could have at least come up with a way to hurt them a lot? Or bluff her way out?

I'm just wondering if we may be overlooking some apropos chapter of The Art of War.

WWHD? What would Honor do?

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Re: The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline
Post by jgnfld   » Sat Aug 22, 2015 10:24 am

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cthia wrote:...

WWHD? What would Honor do?


Run like hell with as many techs as possible. Commandeer any civilian transport available to evacuate the rest.
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Re: The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline
Post by Somtaaw   » Sat Aug 22, 2015 1:39 pm

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the Thunderbolt Grendlesbane strike was set up with such overwhelming force, even if he'd had forwarning (sufficient time to McGyver some weapons, but insufficient to call for reinforcements) there wasn't anything he could do.


Admiral Higgins only had 7 Medusa podnoughts, and 16 'older' superdreadnoughts, let's be generous and say 100% were the Gryphon-class (most powerful SD's pre-podnought).

He also had 4 CLAC's only capable of putting 400 and change Shrike-B's and Ferrets. Plus a rather light screen of only about 20 mixed cruisers, so less than 4 squadrons worth to screen 4 squadrons or so of waller.

And his opposition was a very heavy mix of the (new) Republican podnoughts and CLAC's, coming in with 32 wallers not counting their screen.

So just in waller alone, he was outnumbered, just in hulls by just under 2:1 odds. And when you exclude the Gryphon's who couldn't properly fight in the new pod environment, he was outnumbered by over 4:1 in podlayers. Even with flatpack pods, the older ships couldn't make use of the pods properly, due to their lack of control links.


It's possible he might have tried to pull a First Hancock, and copied Honor's trick of dropping a minefield... except the RHN had better recon drones, and that trick would never work again. At best, he might have delayed them, by all of an hour or two.


Putting any ship into his order of battle that was little more than a functional impeller drive and little else, he still couldn't bluff it because he'd have to sacrifice task force point defense, to cover the ships that were there simply to 'pad' his task force numbers to try bluffing. But since he was already outnumbered by 2:1 (without a bluff of unarmed, empty shells), the Republic wouldn't even blink at coming in.



No matter how you look at it, the only possible way Higgins could have successfully covered Grendlesbane... would be due to psychic/temporal warnings, and could order every task group in the area to defend the yards.
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Re: The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline
Post by kzt   » Sun Aug 23, 2015 12:58 am

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He supposedly has the Mantie magic factories that can make pretty much anything and are supposed to be able to build everything needed to build a ship from raw materials. I'd suggest they stop making hatches and grav plates and start making missile pods. If you have enough missile pods deployed (like the basic load for the ships under construction) you can really put a hurt on an attacker by starting to fire at maximum range (which is quote a bit over RHN range) and then guide maximum size salvos into them continually. This also prevents deployment of massive missile salvos by the RHN.
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Re: The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline
Post by SWM   » Sun Aug 23, 2015 10:21 pm

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Even Honor Harrington could have done anything in two days that would make any significant difference. Yes, there are some things they could have tried. But none of it would have been enough to make a bit of difference. The incoming force was simply too large, and there just wasn't enough time.
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Re: The Fall of Grendlesbane - alternative timeline
Post by kzt   » Mon Aug 24, 2015 12:50 am

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Yup, would need a few weeks at least to improve the defenses. With 2 days you might be able to be most effective by towing the mostly completed ships out of the system with as much of the base personnel as possible.
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