Black Jack vs The Salamander

if we are talking elite or massively superior firepower opponents, I feel I should point out that Black Jack did have to fight Deathstar-building nutcases whose SDs can shrug off a hit from a planetary bombardment round, significantly superior forces at a similar tech level, enemies with the willingness and ability to blow away whole solar systems, and, last but not least, himself with better stuff, and won, even if by delegating and leaning heavily on his wife, and Honor has not.

As far as a ship to ship dual would be concerned, it wouldn't actually be Honor Vs Black Jack, but Honor Vs Tanya, and that would be Veeerry interesting to see, as well as invalidating the never argue with a woman ... argument.

One question I would have is about engagement speeds in the Honorverse. I read the series with an eye for battle scenes rather than scientific values, so I have to interpret as best I know. Honorverse combat can go on for hours with both sides in continuous contact, granted the large missile envelope helps, but it argues for both a different inherent tactical doctrine and a much lower engagement velocity than in the realm of Black Jack, whose battles are fought at .2C. Given that I read the Lost Fleet to be superior in shields, AI targeting, armor, propulsion, reaction sumps, and possibly energy weapons, the only tech advantages Honor would have is superior missiles and FTL comm and sensors. Given grav signatures are effectively FTL, Black Jack could essentially track Honor's ships in realtime anyway, so if she can't pop him at a distance her life is liable to get fairly interesting.

We never actually see Geary functioning as a captain outside of flashbacks since he was an Admiral or brevet Admiral for the entire series. But while Honor is certainly a great captain I think Geary would have to be a great captain as well to accomplish what he did at Grendel so I don't think we know enough to say who would win in a ship to ship duel.

tourist wrote:if we are talking elite or massively superior firepower opponents, I feel I should point out that Black Jack did have to fight Deathstar-building nutcases whose SDs can shrug off a hit from a planetary bombardment round, significantly superior forces at a similar tech level, enemies with the willingness and ability to blow away whole solar systems, and, last but not least, himself with better stuff, and won, even if by delegating and leaning heavily on his wife, and Honor has not.

As far as a ship to ship dual would be concerned, it wouldn't actually be Honor Vs Black Jack, but Honor Vs Tanya, and that would be Veeerry interesting to see, as well as invalidating the never argue with a woman ... argument.

One question I would have is about engagement speeds in the Honorverse. I read the series with an eye for battle scenes rather than scientific values, so I have to interpret as best I know. Honorverse combat can go on for hours with both sides in continuous contact, granted the large missile envelope helps, but it argues for both a different inherent tactical doctrine and a much lower engagement velocity than in the realm of Black Jack, whose battles are fought at .2C. Given that I read the Lost Fleet to be superior in shields, AI targeting, armor, propulsion, reaction sumps, and possibly energy weapons, the only tech advantages Honor would have is superior missiles and FTL comm and sensors. Given grav signatures are effectively FTL, Black Jack could essentially track Honor's ships in realtime anyway, so if she can't pop him at a distance her life is liable to get fairly interesting.

I have to disagree about relative tech levels. The Honorverse has far more acceleration in ships and missiles, as well as almost endless power in the ships. The honorverse recon capabilities and stealth appear to be much, much better, as well as large aperture grasers. The missiles themselves have much larger range, better warheads and better AI seekers. The "shields" in honorverse are also much better as the wedge is impenetrable.

In the Gearyverse the shields are completely penetrable, lasers are point defense, missiles are so, so and grapeshot are simply kkv's. Their computers cannot engage at better than 0.2C and honor showed that engagements up to 0.8C are not only practical, but common (Buttercup, Cerberus, Manitcore I and II)

But the biggest issue in the Gearyverse is the power availability. Geary's ship are always running out of power. Only at Cerberus did Honor ever have a power problem.

blackjack217 wrote: Gotta disagree with you on a few points here. First, the Syndics did find a few capable CEOs, such as the one in the forth book who Geary explicitly said didn't make a single mistake during the whole battle (He won due to having twice as many ships as she did, as well as having capable subformation commanders).

I have to disagree, starting a fight at 1:2 odds with no countervailing advantage sounds like a huge mistake. I imagine Sun Tzu would have some choice words for the commander who does that kind of thing.

BobfromSydney wrote:

blackjack217 wrote: Gotta disagree with you on a few points here. First, the Syndics did find a few capable CEOs, such as the one in the forth book who Geary explicitly said didn't make a single mistake during the whole battle (He won due to having twice as many ships as she did, as well as having capable subformation commanders).

I have to disagree, starting a fight at 1:2 odds with no countervailing advantage sounds like a huge mistake. I imagine Sun Tzu would have some choice words for the commander who does that kind of thing.

I'm pretty sure that the Syndic government uses the same motivation techniques as the late PRH government aka shooting commanders who retreat and their families as well.

Both series are great reads. The winner would depend on which author was writing the book.

The handwavium physics is quite different. While the Honorverse has the more extreme super physics it is actually more carefully constructed, and thus more believable.
Some of the Lost Fleet's dogfights between fleets just don't compute. Many on this forum debate Honorverse physics to extreme lengths, and I'm sure that the Lost Fleet books wouldn't stand up to the same scrutiny.

Daryl wrote:Both series are great reads. The winner would depend on which author was writing the book.

The handwavium physics is quite different. While the Honorverse has the more extreme super physics it is actually more carefully constructed, and thus more believable.
Some of the Lost Fleet's dogfights between fleets just don't compute. Many on this forum debate Honorverse physics to extreme lengths, and I'm sure that the Lost Fleet books wouldn't stand up to the same scrutiny.

Having started with the Lost Fleet books before Honorverse, I can say that it was a stark difference between the two in terms of plot depth. The Lost Fleet books seem to me more of a young adult series while Honorverse is decidedly (except for the 'Cat sub series) not.

Roguevictory wrote:
I'm pretty sure that the Syndic government uses the same motivation techniques as the late PRH government aka shooting commanders who retreat and their families as well.

They tend to do a bit more labor camps then the PRH, but particularly unfortunate CEOs have been known for "volunteering for medical experiments."
Also the commander in question probably thought that the alliance fleet was being chased by the Syndic main fleet, and if she could just delay him a bit he'd surely be caught and destroyed. Said fleet had actually been destroyed several weeks ago, but she had no way of knowing that.

While I have to say both series are enjoyable, I find The Lost Fleet to be something that use to keep me reading sci-fi when I get over info-dumped by Honorverse or even Safehold standards. Its just quicker in pace and easier to digest. Though the lack of maps in that series compared to the other two is annoying.

On to the question at hand: Harrington (Salamander) vs Geary (Black Jack). I have several thoughts on this: 1, it would depend greatly on what you call an "equal playing field;" 2 it would depend on their subordinate commanders; finally, 3, battle doctrines and traditions.

Going into this, my view is that the Salamander would win handily 40% of the time, win by an even margin about an additional 25%, stalemate about 5%, lose about 15% and be defeated-in-detail the remaining 15% of the time.

Let's see how this matches up after review in detail.

First, I'm curious what you call an equal playing field. Ship-class? That wouldn't work because the heaviest thing Black Jack has in terms of the Wall are his BB. RMN got rid of their last battleship at least a T-century ago in favor of real Wallers like DN and SDs--even before the reincorporation of the missile pod and LACs with their CLACs.
Tempo/battle rhythm? Harrington's missiles are mutli-drive to Geary's single plus she's got exponentially more launchers (nevermind capital launchers) than he does. Plus, her missiles go a lot further, faster, and pack a whole lot more BANG for their buck than Geary's fleet plus she's still got her impellers and sidewalls to Geary's shields. To my knowledge, Geary's missiles do have much in the way of pen-aids; nevermind ECM. Then again the "ranges" his fleet engage at make those things irrelevant anyway. All that's excluding Harrington's LACs which where a triple hat of interceptor, ship-killer, and defender. To be fair, in Geary's universe, LACS are a lot smaller, one or two-man fighters with VERY limited munitions...and oxygen supplies that make them one-way wonders (or blunders depending on perspective).
Detection/communications? This is tricky. In Geary's universe, every system has a finite number of jump-points. Their militaries know this and can take defensive measures as necessary. But this is negated as they really don't use these anymore in favor of their stargate-like network. In Honorverse, there is no such limitation on where fleets can or cannot hyper-in, though she is limited in terms of flexibility by not have a gate. Moving on, yes they could see each other effectively at the same time going off of light-speed emissions, but Harrington's still got her Ghost-rider [i]faster-[i]than-light comms to Geary's time-lagged communications. He has to constantly synchronize his tactics and deployments by saying "Whoever, come (input bearing or course adjustment/deployment change) at (insert time)." Harrington never has to do that. And don't get me started on Missletoe or Apollo.

So, edge still goes to Harrington.

Second, moving onto their respective subordinates. Where do I begin?
Geary's fleet only has one Admiral-him. Yes, he's got a civie representative on board to keep him in line, but she's nothing like the commissioners the Peeps used and he's still responsible for and able to make all the military decisions he needs to. He doesn't even have a staff; never-mind a flag-captain, to help him keep things organized and stay focused on the big picture. He's also got several ships-captains that are border-line, if not outright, mutinous on a regular basis Harrington's fleet. His best, and regular favorites, are CPTs Duellos and Tanya and Commander Cresida--all BC skippers and squadron commanders. One of those dies spectacularly, and isn't really replaced until he gets back to Alliance and his grand-whatever-niece Jane Geary takes her place (and she's a BB skipper for once--yay).
FLT ADM Harrington's fleet. Need I really say more? She's personally trained several of her subordinate commanders turning them into little Harrington's who've done much the same thing in turn. Only real exception I can think of to this is ADM Yu and that's hardly a bad thing. She's got her choice of commanders for subordinate formations (Second Marsh/Sidemore and Sickle Cut(s)). She's got full staffs (plus the computers that would make Geary's computers/staff wallow in self pity) and competent, dependable subordinates and ships-CPTs practically across the board. Hell, in the Sickle Cuts, she regularly, intentionally divided her force in the face of superior enemies that had tech parity and still won 90% of the time, up til Solon. Then more than made up for it at Lovat...only to get knocked back her heels with the First Battle of Manticore.

So edge still goes to Harrington if only because she can trust her subordinates to keep their heads, operate independently, and stay focused on the big picture. Geary can only dream of that.

Finally doctrines and traditions. They're light-centuries apart. Harrington wins handily in this criteria alone and here's why Black Jack doesn't measure up.
He's at war with himself. The Alliance's Black Jack tradition has been used to justify human wave tactics that would make Stallin, Mao, and Kim Jung-Sung proud. often for marginal gains, Pyrrhic victories, and just a whole lot of senseless death that has been dragged out for nearly 100 years while the real guy is drifting in a half-dead cryo escape pod. When he's thawed he has to undo a century of complete and total idiocy calling themselves as "tactics." Right. Their tactics are charge, charge, and charge again until either we're dead or they are all in the spirit of "competition between ships" in the midst of battle solely to see who can get the most kills. JESUS! Know what, I re-tract my leading statement, Geary wins in this regard. He's able to fight that myth, brow beat virtually all of his Captains and senior commanders back in-line, retrain them on the fly, and still produce victory after victory with a hugely favorable kill:loss ratio. Very well done, sir.
Here's where he starts to lose ground. Geary, himself, is on board a BC throughout. He cannot transfer the flag to a BB without destroying what morale his fleet's got thanks to the Black-Jack tradition. Which means his tactics are limited because if Dauntless, his ship, goes down, there is a very strong probability that his Captains will revert to their old-habits.
Furthermore, the Alliance fleet has a history of either defeat or Pyrrhic victories. Still further, their traditions call for the massacre of life-pods and planetary bombardment/Eridani Violations. Granted, while Geary had a lot more going on, and made a lot of progress, he himself still committed Eridani Violations. Granted, he tried to limit the collateral damage by striking only military targets but lobbing "rocks" onto a planetary surface from on-high is a bad idea.
The RMN didn't have really any of that to worry about.

So...edge still Salamander.

What are y'alls thoughts?

The only real way I see to determine which commander is best cleanly would be to drop them into command of identical fleets from a non-Honorverse, non-Lost Fleet setting and let them have the same amount of time to study their new fleets and ships before letting them loose in a meeting engagement.

Make it a best out of 3 or best out of 5 contest using fleets from different settings in each match to make sure the first win isn't a fluke or that it wasn't some advantage granted by the settings weapons, and equipment favoring one commander's style or the tactics of their setting over the other that determined the outcome.