Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:"cthia"][Shadow of Saganami - Ch. 1[/i]

.... eleven thousand brilliantly polished boots slammed together in instant response. Fifty-five hundred midshipmen and midshipwomen came to attention, ...

I never quite figured that the male/female ratio was so even -- which suggests all sorts of things.

Weird Harold wrote:What gives you the impression that the ratio is even?

Hint: unless Saganami is admitting one-legged cadets, 5500 cadets == 11000 boots.

Thanks for doing the math for me Harold. This is an example of the pitfalls of trying to read with the enticing smell of parfum and a beautiful woman scantily dressed on the sofa beside you - who is feigning innocence.

= blushing laughter.[/quote]

stewart wrote:
--------------

Cthia --
And suggests your priorities are somewhat askew if, on Valentines Day, with a significant other making suggestive eyes at you, WHY ARE YOUR FINGERS TAPPING THE KEYBOARD ?
In naval parlance, Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, over.

-- Stewart

To explain it, we have to go back to the SUPERBOWL.

My friends and I got ourselves into a bit of a pickle. The girls bet us that the Denver Broncos would win. More interestingly, they bet that a pig could more accurately predict the winner than a bunch of men.

On the television show "Live With Kelly and Michael" they used their famous pigs to pick the winner of the upcoming game. Apparently, these pigs have a winning record and have accurately predicted several things now, by dressing the part and by whichever crosses the finish line in a race. The Denver Broncos pig crossed first, therefore the Broncos were going to win. The girls found out about this because one of their Aunts attended the show.

Puh-lease!

Of course, being guys and just knowing the Panthers wouldn't lose, we said it was absurd. So the bet was on. If the girls lost, they'd be our willing pets all of Valentine's Day. If we lost, we'd be theirs. Plus, if we lost we had to present a very special gift of love in the manner of "a girls best friend."

We lost, and paying the piper was a copper-plated "itch." The girls woke us up at 6:00 A.M sharp where they served US breakfast on the sofa. We had to "suffer" watching them, dressed in scanty lingerie while preparing breakfast. There was going to be an entire day of this, culminating into a lovely dinner in an even sexier evening gown. We had to endure teasing all day long. My wife changed lingerie a total of 14 times. I didn't get to unwrap my ultimate gift, a very sexy number from Amsterdam, until 11:PM. Then I had to chase her around the home.


You can now guess where I was "itching."


In the end, my wife and I both won.

'I wonder why she's sleeping late?' -- as he pulls the string and pats himself on the back, all itch free and satiated.

I presented her a matching set of D-Flawless fancy blue diamonds and a matching necklace -- which she wore all day long. The fancies almost shone as bright as her matching blue eyes. Flowers were delivered all day long. She's a very special woman. She doesn't like expensive gifts on Valentine's Day. She prefers the energy of romance, yet our egos wrote a check my arse had to cash.

If only the Panthers had won. lol

Oh, I've got breakfast in bed duty today. Whenever she awakens.

Most Powerful Navy

Ok, I've been known to be a bit anal at times. And one particular matter keeps bothering me. I've come across it quite a few times in various threads, stated either directly or indirectly.

The latest incident comes from Jonathan_S in another thread. No harm meant to Jonathan...

The GSN was arguably the 3rd or 4th most powerful Navy in known space as of Raging Justice, and at one point right after Thunderbolt - Manticore got way more benefit than cost from having them as a close ally (even ignoring their R&D contributions).

Shall we finally tackle this issue? Was Grayson, at times, the 3rd or was Grayson the 4th most powerful navy?

Certainly, to be sure, the GSN is ranked ahead of the League. The question then becomes was Grayson more powerful than the Andermani? Shall we take this outside and settle it already? lol

.

i think it would be hard to say. time period is going to be key.

Given the size difference in the two nations then the Andies are pretty much guaranteed to have a higher number of total ships then the graysons but from what i've read the andies (like the RMN prior to first haven war) have not been in a serious fight with anything other then pirates for a long time, so the andies quality of tech was not as high as graysons.

Remember after the andies joined the fight in the 2nd haven war it was mentioned that while their tech wasn't bad it was not up to RMN standards, in fact it was only slightly better then the new haven tech.

so as with a log of these questions it comes down to will the superior quality of Graysons ships overcome the greater quanity of the Andies.

by the time of Oyster Bay it would probably go to the andies as with the manties tech transfers they have received will have evened the quality putting grayson firmly in 4th place.

if we are talkng as of Buttercup then the grayson are 3rd (arguably second given the peeps were just targets at that point)

Dauntless wrote:i think it would be hard to say. time period is going to be key.

Given the size difference in the two nations then the Andies are pretty much guaranteed to have a higher number of total ships then the graysons but from what i've read the andies (like the RMN prior to first haven war) have not been in a serious fight with anything other then pirates for a long time, so the andies quality of tech was not as high as graysons.

Remember after the andies joined the fight in the 2nd haven war it was mentioned that while their tech wasn't bad it was not up to RMN standards, in fact it was only slightly better then the new haven tech.

so as with a log of these questions it comes down to will the superior quality of Graysons ships overcome the greater quanity of the Andies.

by the time of Oyster Bay it would probably go to the andies as with the manties tech transfers they have received will have evened the quality putting grayson firmly in 4th place.

if we are talkng as of Buttercup then the grayson are 3rd (arguably second given the peeps were just targets at that point)

Also, what is the Calculus? Most ships, most wallers, mass, ships per defensive obligation? tech? Forts? All that has to play a part in the calculus - and different people probably use different math.

Theemile wrote:

Dauntless wrote:i think it would be hard to say. time period is going to be key.

Given the size difference in the two nations then the Andies are pretty much guaranteed to have a higher number of total ships then the graysons but from what i've read the andies (like the RMN prior to first haven war) have not been in a serious fight with anything other then pirates for a long time, so the andies quality of tech was not as high as graysons.

Remember after the andies joined the fight in the 2nd haven war it was mentioned that while their tech wasn't bad it was not up to RMN standards, in fact it was only slightly better then the new haven tech.

so as with a log of these questions it comes down to will the superior quality of Graysons ships overcome the greater quanity of the Andies.

by the time of Oyster Bay it would probably go to the andies as with the manties tech transfers they have received will have evened the quality putting grayson firmly in 4th place.

if we are talkng as of Buttercup then the grayson are 3rd (arguably second given the peeps were just targets at that point)

Also, what is the Calculus? Most ships, most wallers, mass, ships per defensive obligation? tech? Forts? All that has to play a part in the calculus - and different people probably use different math.

My bad, I should never have expected a straightforward answer doing election season.

"What do you expect is the most powerful navy sir?"

"Well, it depends on the calculus used -- most ships, most wallers, mass..."

"Well, how about we use the "calculus" itself sir. The area under the curve of the most ships, the most mass, etc... because some of those things don't matter worth a gorilla's ass -- not even an 800lb gorilla's ass."



Stop being a politician Theemile.


Aside:
A recent poll denies that the US continues to house the most powerful military. I failed to catch who has claimed first place.

cthia wrote:Ok, I've been known to be a bit anal at times. And one particular matter keeps bothering me. I've come across it quite a few times in various threads, stated either directly or indirectly.

The latest incident comes from Jonathan_S in another thread. No harm meant to Jonathan...

The GSN was arguably the 3rd or 4th most powerful Navy in known space as of Raging Justice, and at one point right after Thunderbolt - Manticore got way more benefit than cost from having them as a close ally (even ignoring their R&D contributions).

Shall we finally tackle this issue? Was Grayson, at times, the 3rd or was Grayson the 4th most powerful navy?

Certainly, to be sure, the GSN is ranked ahead of the League. The question then becomes was Grayson more powerful than the Andermani? Shall we take this outside and settle it already? lol

It's messy, because of the incredible defensive and offensive enhancements of the SD(P) generation. Grayson got them first. I suspect there was a brief window when it was the most powerful navy in the galaxy - during Janacek's cuts and before Theisman's rebuild.

That's only if they had a missile stockpile large enough to take out Battle Fleet's 2,000 active SDs, of course. Ammo supply has to factor into the Calculus.

cthia wrote:My bad, I should never have expected a straightforward answer doing election season.

"What do you expect is the most powerful navy sir?"

"Well, it depends on the calculus used -- most ships, most wallers, mass..."

"Well, how about we use the "calculus" itself sir. The area under the curve of the most ships, the most mass, etc... because some of those things don't matter worth a gorilla's ass -- not even an 800lb gorilla's ass."



Stop being a politician Theemile.


Aside:
A recent poll denies that the US continues to house the most powerful military. I failed to catch who has claimed first place.

If you are going to use the calculus of the area under the curve, you also need to consider the ratio of that area under the curve to the area that it must cover.

You can have the biggest tablecloth of anybody, but if your table is even larger, some portions of the table will not be covered at all, or if you stretch the tablecloth out, insufficiently covered, assuming that the tablecloth does not tear giant holes in it while being stretched.

what about doctrine and training as well? the GSN has been in war with the havenites, while the andies havent, so howq much difference would battle tested doctrine make in terms of power? because a 5% improvement might be enough to make them the second as opposed to third best navy.....

Spacekiwi wrote:what about doctrine and training as well? the GSN has been in war with the havenites, while the andies havent, so howq much difference would battle tested doctrine make in terms of power? because a 5% improvement might be enough to make them the second as opposed to third best navy.....

The RMN and RHN are both ahead of the Grayson Navy, no matter how you parse things. Identical, or equivalent levels of technology, and the RMN is undoubtedly one of the most experienced navies, pre- or post-Haven wars in the known galaxy.


Size-wise, the Grayson's are going to be smaller than the IAN, and even though they got at least a partial tech transfer from Manticore, the Andermani may not necessarily have gotten everything. The original IAN MDM's were larger than RMN Buttercup capacitor MDM's, which they received to load their pods with to enhance their performance. The IAN also receieved the Keyhole-II upgrade, and compensator's because they were keeping up with RMN formations. I'm not entirely sure what else may have been given, but those are for sure.

Meanwhile, the GSN basically falls under the "if Manticore has it, so do we" rule, in addition to sending almost all their home-born officers to Saganami for RMN levels of training. Plus they poach shamelessly, so there's a considerable number of RMN officers who hold higher ranks in the GSN.

Is that experience, and mixed loaners/poached officers able to equal out the larger and almost as technically advanced IAN? I'm going to cop out, and say that the GSN and IAN come down to a tie. Unless we find out the exact details of the tech transfer to the IAN, which could edge them into a solid grip third most powerful navy and dropping the GSN to fourth.


Excluding the tie for fourth, there's also a pretty big battle royale going on for fifth to tenth slots of "Most Powerful Navy" list. The contenders in this battle royale is Erewhon, Torch, Maya sector, MAlign and the SLN. Personally I'm figure it boils down to something along the lines of fifth is Erewhon, then comes a tie between Torch, Maya and MAlign, with the SLN pulling dead last.

Torch really shouldn't be on the list, but since they have both Erewhon and Maya signed on for building their ships and/or weapons, Erewhon having 'Manticore-lite' technology, and Maya is running 'Manticore-copycat', they sort of get to qualify for the list despite being ridiculously tiny (right now).

Seeing as how they almost ended up shooting at each other I'd say that Beowulf is separate from the SLN, and has some Manty tech as well.