Ex-Havenite defectors returning home.

Somtaaw wrote:

munroburton wrote:I have the impression sometimes that White Haven's skill is perhaps a little overstated. His reputation probably has as much to do with the way he mostly stayed away from political games and the greater dedication to his duty and mastering his trade(successfully) he showed than, say, that Admiral Young on Earth or Edward Janacek.

Maybe I just count First Nightingale against him too heavily - but had that Bogey Two CO held their nerve a few minutes longer, White Haven would have been snared and for good. And of course, Honor's later lecture made some pretty valid points.

This is true, but Honor also stressed to her midshipmen during one of her dinner parties, that an enemy lying doggo is one of the hardest to guard against (I think thats the lecture you were noting, right?). Which is what nearly happened at First Nightingale, except the second Peep commander jumped the gun because of inexperience. White Haven himself, at the time, mused that if that Peep commander had had a little more experience, he would have accepted the losses to Commander 1, and waited until White Haven had no choice instead of jumpin the gun to "save" his co-commander. And the hostile lying doggo was also the reason Honor got captured in Adler, otherwise she would have gotten clear because the one hostile she could see, couldn't stop her even towing pods.

From every other battle, White Haven didn't exactly make that sort of mistake, and even Caparelli differed to White Haven's being a better tactician than he. Which is also a point in his favor, Caparelli had the strategy of moving the correct ships & formations to the general areas they needed to be. But tactics is taking those assigned forces and using them effectively on the spot.

i could see an argument that White Haven, with a whole wall to play with, maybe should have probed the area ahead of him more heavily with recon drones. Especially once the Peeps were behaving atypically, not shedding injured units and not curving away from the fight.
Prince Adrian had less time, and less drones, to try to sanitize the space in front of them. Plus a single CA is harder to spot than a whole wall lying doggo.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:This is true, but Honor also stressed to her midshipmen during one of her dinner parties, that an enemy lying doggo is one of the hardest to guard against (I think thats the lecture you were noting, right?). Which is what nearly happened at First Nightingale, except the second Peep commander jumped the gun because of inexperience. White Haven himself, at the time, mused that if that Peep commander had had a little more experience, he would have accepted the losses to Commander 1, and waited until White Haven had no choice instead of jumpin the gun to "save" his co-commander. And the hostile lying doggo was also the reason Honor got captured in Adler, otherwise she would have gotten clear because the one hostile she could see, couldn't stop her even towing pods.

From every other battle, White Haven didn't exactly make that sort of mistake, and even Caparelli differed to White Haven's being a better tactician than he. Which is also a point in his favor, Caparelli had the strategy of moving the correct ships & formations to the general areas they needed to be. But tactics is taking those assigned forces and using them effectively on the spot.

i could see an argument that White Haven, with a whole wall to play with, maybe should have probed the area ahead of him more heavily with recon drones. Especially once the Peeps were behaving atypically, not shedding injured units and not curving away from the fight.
Prince Adrian had less time, and less drones, to try to sanitize the space in front of them. Plus a single CA is harder to spot than a whole wall lying doggo.

I can concede that, he certainly should have. But First Nightingale was also still early in the war, well before Ghost Rider, although the very first iteration of FTL RD's were used for Second Yeltsin. I think First Nightingale was really a wash, by the time he could have decided to throw out more RD's, the Peep commander would have jumped the gun already, RD's of the time didnt have the acceleration to have picked out the ambushers.

But he did seem to learn from that mistake, he used a lot of RD's when he smashed out Barnett and had detailed information on everything deployed throughout the entire Barnett system. And since we never did get the Battle to take Trevor's Star, we have to base our entire judgement on White Haven's skill from how others think of him, and the two battles of Nightingale and Barnett.

Y'all who are wondering about White Haven's strategic battle sense -- go back and realize how many decisions he unofficially had a hand in or where his follow-up is decisive. Here's my count.

1) Backs Harrington to the First Space Lord in OBS.
2) Hypers back to Yeltsin at top but not crazy speed in HotQ

(offstage) conquers Endicott (admittedly not an equal fight)
3) Correctly advises Caparelli on setting a trap at Yeltsin in
SVW, and placing Sarnow and Harrington at Hancock.
4) Supervises the trial in Field of Dishonor, and though Young slips the knot, still gets Pavel out and then owns his mistake in trying to get Honor to not kill him.
5) ...asks Harrington to come back, successfully (HoE)
(offstage) Helps capture Trevor's Star
6) Gets his forces out at the beginning of Flag in Exile when by all accounts they were outnumbered 2:1
7) Gets fed humble pie in the first part of In Enemy hands but by Echoes of Honor has backed ALL of the new concepts, one of which (Minotaur) saves Hancock.
8) Saves Basilisk with a double transit from Trevor's Star
9) Buttercup (Ashes of Victory), including the coordination of Grayson forces and treating them as equal allies.
10) Political opposition to the idiot's brigade in War of Honor
...political yadda yadda yadda...

...and finally works with Honor to set up Filareta's Folly, which would have forced the surrender of 400 SD's without firing a shot.

Any doubts on his strategic abilities ought to be moot about now? Even if much of his action has been offstage.

SharkHunter wrote:Y'all who are wondering about White Haven's strategic battle sense -- go back and realize how many decisions he unofficially had a hand in or where his follow-up is decisive. Here's my count.

1) Backs Harrington to the First Space Lord in OBS.
2) Hypers back to Yeltsin at top but not crazy speed in HotQ

(offstage) conquers Endicott (admittedly not an equal fight)
3) Correctly advises Caparelli on setting a trap at Yeltsin in
SVW, and placing Sarnow and Harrington at Hancock.
4) Supervises the trial in Field of Dishonor, and though Young slips the knot, still gets Pavel out and then owns his mistake in trying to get Honor to not kill him.
5) ...asks Harrington to come back, successfully (HoE)
(offstage) Helps capture Trevor's Star
6) Gets his forces out at the beginning of Flag in Exile when by all accounts they were outnumbered 2:1
7) Gets fed humble pie in the first part of In Enemy hands but by Echoes of Honor has backed ALL of the new concepts, one of which (Minotaur) saves Hancock.
8) Saves Basilisk with a double transit from Trevor's Star
9) Buttercup (Ashes of Victory), including the coordination of Grayson forces and treating them as equal allies.
10) Political opposition to the idiot's brigade in War of Honor
...political yadda yadda yadda...

...and finally works with Honor to set up Filareta's Folly, which would have forced the surrender of 400 SD's without firing a shot.

Any doubts on his strategic abilities ought to be moot about now? Even if much of his action has been offstage.

Never said a thing about White Haven's strategy. That's obviously pretty good. My criticism is more that his tactical successes... don't seem to be there.

Endicott, he had 14 BCs against whatever Masada had left after Courvosier and Honor tore their navy up.
Third Yeltsin, we know Parnell performed supremely well.
Chelsea, WH took without firing a shot.
First Nightingale, only Peep inexperience saved him.
First Seabring, we know White Haven later promoted an ONI Ensign for disagreeing with him and a full ONI Commander. The consequence of WH's earlier decision led to another RMN reverse.
Trevor's Star, was apparently reinforced with the temporary diversion of three Home Fleet battle squadrons... sent through the wormhole. McQueen and Theisman also put up a respectable effort in slowing him down.
Basilisk, the counter-ambush at the terminus wouldn't have been such a sledgehammer if not for the GSN's first batch of podlayers and the Peep's astrogator dropping a decimal point.

Buttercup was no measure of tactical nous. With the tech imbalance, a command team led by Janacek, Santino and Young could have mopped up the entire People's Navy even if it had Saganami, D'Orville and Harrington helping it. Somewhat ironically, such a jackass team might have cavalierly disregarded maintenance/repair needs and pushed harder to attack Lovat and Haven, before news of the Cromarty Assassination halted Eighth Fleet's operations. Note: I'm not saying White Haven should have pushed harder - those were unforeseeable circumstances.

And Buttercup wasn't even White Haven's work either - Honor, Alice and Andrea put it together.

Good strategists can easily compensate for being 'merely' average or slightly above average tacticians, especially when their enemies make mistakes and they learn from theirs. In that respect, Hamish is stellar.

munroburton wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Y'all who are wondering about White Haven's strategic battle sense -- go back and realize how many decisions he unofficially had a hand in or where his follow-up is decisive. Here's my count.

1) Backs Harrington to the First Space Lord in OBS.
2) Hypers back to Yeltsin at top but not crazy speed in HotQ

(offstage) conquers Endicott (admittedly not an equal fight)
3) Correctly advises Caparelli on setting a trap at Yeltsin in
SVW, and placing Sarnow and Harrington at Hancock.
4) Supervises the trial in Field of Dishonor, and though Young slips the knot, still gets Pavel out and then owns his mistake in trying to get Honor to not kill him.
5) ...asks Harrington to come back, successfully (HoE)
(offstage) Helps capture Trevor's Star
6) Gets his forces out at the beginning of Flag in Exile when by all accounts they were outnumbered 2:1
7) Gets fed humble pie in the first part of In Enemy hands but by Echoes of Honor has backed ALL of the new concepts, one of which (Minotaur) saves Hancock.
8) Saves Basilisk with a double transit from Trevor's Star
9) Buttercup (Ashes of Victory), including the coordination of Grayson forces and treating them as equal allies.
10) Political opposition to the idiot's brigade in War of Honor
...political yadda yadda yadda...

...and finally works with Honor to set up Filareta's Folly, which would have forced the surrender of 400 SD's without firing a shot.

Any doubts on his strategic abilities ought to be moot about now? Even if much of his action has been offstage.

Never said a thing about White Haven's strategy. That's obviously pretty good. My criticism is more that his tactical successes... don't seem to be there.

Endicott, he had 14 BCs against whatever Masada had left after Courvosier and Honor tore their navy up.
Third Yeltsin, we know Parnell performed supremely well.
Chelsea, WH took without firing a shot.
First Nightingale, only Peep inexperience saved him.
First Seabring, we know White Haven later promoted an ONI Ensign for disagreeing with him and a full ONI Commander. The consequence of WH's earlier decision led to another RMN reverse.
Trevor's Star, was apparently reinforced with the temporary diversion of three Home Fleet battle squadrons... sent through the wormhole. McQueen and Theisman also put up a respectable effort in slowing him down.
Basilisk, the counter-ambush at the terminus wouldn't have been such a sledgehammer if not for the GSN's first batch of podlayers and the Peep's astrogator dropping a decimal point.

Buttercup was no measure of tactical nous. With the tech imbalance, a command team led by Janacek, Santino and Young could have mopped up the entire People's Navy even if it had Saganami, D'Orville and Harrington helping it. Somewhat ironically, such a jackass team might have cavalierly disregarded maintenance/repair needs and pushed harder to attack Lovat and Haven, before news of the Cromarty Assassination halted Eighth Fleet's operations. Note: I'm not saying White Haven should have pushed harder - those were unforeseeable circumstances.

And Buttercup wasn't even White Haven's work either - Honor, Alice and Andrea put it together.

Good strategists can easily compensate for being 'merely' average or slightly above average tacticians, especially when their enemies make mistakes and they learn from theirs. In that respect, Hamish is stellar.

White Haven's tactical acumen is clearly lacking. That was one of my points in the "Honorverse Top Ten Tacticians, Strategists" thread. White Haven didn't fare too well, earning tactical criticism from many posters and completely failing to make the tactical list at all, of several posters.

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