Military Impersonating Civilians

So, something I've been wondering about Honorverse: is military personal/ships impersonating civilians and civilian ships kosher? Particularly, if they aren't just peacefully gathering intelligence, but use the ruse to attack military targets or civilians?

In particular I'm thinking of the Crown of Slave series. The Torch CiC went to Mesa the country they were at war with, posing as a civilian. Not only that she engaged in combat, and worse, the targets she was fighting were, as far as I could tell, civilians. Yes, they were a police force, but police forces are civilian.

In the great scheme of things, its nothing compared to the recent nuking, but it seems like the sort of thing that could be used as evidence for/against the good behavior of Victor, Thandi and co.

Then you have that whole deal with the Q-ship, although that maps pretty closely to historical usage. However, it seems like the sort of thing that would make a really great excuse for just opening fire on Manticorian civilian ships.

Similarly, you have the civilian amusement park, being used as a military base. Again a really good excuse for just opening fire on Beowulf's or Torch's civilian stations. Although they can make an argument that they were only hitting pirates and not actually participating in the war effort.

P.S. All of this ignores the actual morals of the situation. Saying you were just protecting innocent civilians might help with St. Peter, but in the mortal world people need to consider the precedent it sets.

There is a term for military members who do that. It’s spies. The penalty for being caught is death.

Individuals pretending to be civilians are spies and are not protected as legal combatants. In the present day, there are specific requirements to be classified as a legal combatant that include wearing some sort of identifiable uniform. A 'uniform' can be as little as an armband.

Like kzt pointed out, an illegal combatant can be, and have been in the past, summarily executed or tried, convicted and executed as a spy. Major Andre comes to mind as an example of the latter.

Military vessels pretending to be civilian ships was a common enough ruse. Look into the commerce raiders used by the Germans in WWI and WWII for some examples.

In the Age of Sail,flying a false flag initially was a common practice when meeting an unknown vessel. That was not frowned upon BUT you had to identify yourself with the flag of your true country before entering combat. You could lure them into closing in with you under false pretenses, but you had to announce your true identity before firing.

There is a difference between posing as a civilian to spy, posing as a civilian to hit military targets, and posing as a civilian to kill civilians. All of those are the sort of thing you get executed over if caught, but the first is the sort of thing you just expect countries to do. The second starts becoming iffy because it invites the enemy to fire upon civilians like they are enemy soldiers or at the very least be a lot less gentle with civilians. The third becomes even more questionable, and makes really good propaganda which has the benefit of truth.

Q-ships at least in honorverse are really meant for anti pirate work. Honor using one to destroy BCs was really not part of the design brief.

basically it comes down to pirates are after money, so they will go to great lengths to capture a ship. no ship no cash. a q-ship really just encourages them to go pick on someone else

enemy navy will like as not just want to deprive you of the cargo/ship, they will try to capture but really don't care if they have to destroy the ship. it being a q-ship would make no appreciable difference expect that the q-ship might be able to put some hurt on the enemy ship before going boom.

Dauntless wrote:Q-ships at least in honorverse are really meant for anti pirate work. Honor using one to destroy BCs was really not part of the design brief.

basically it comes down to pirates are after money, so they will go to great lengths to capture a ship. no ship no cash. a q-ship really just encourages them to go pick on someone else

enemy navy will like as not just want to deprive you of the cargo/ship, they will try to capture but really don't care if they have to destroy the ship. it being a q-ship would make no appreciable difference expect that the q-ship might be able to put some hurt on the enemy ship before going boom.

Not all Q-ships are used that way in the Honorverse. The Sirius, an Astra Class Q ship, was used as designed in OBS, to infiltrate systems in advance of an assault, both as a spec ops ship and to pre-position firepower. The PRN also has a smaller ~4 Mton Class known as the Trumbull it used for similar purposes. Both classes were similar to common cargo designs to disguise their true purposes. Ton for ton, they are massivle inferior to warships, but the ability to quietly slip a BC into someone's orbit is a massive advantage.

jtg452 wrote:Individuals pretending to be civilians are spies and are not protected as legal combatants. In the present day, there are specific requirements to be classified as a legal combatant that include wearing some sort of identifiable uniform. A 'uniform' can be as little as an armband.

Like kzt pointed out, an illegal combatant can be, and have been in the past, summarily executed or tried, convicted and executed as a spy. Major Andre comes to mind as an example of the latter.

Military vessels pretending to be civilian ships was a common enough ruse. Look into the commerce raiders used by the Germans in WWI and WWII for some examples.

In the Age of Sail,flying a false flag initially was a common practice when meeting an unknown vessel. That was not frowned upon BUT you had to identify yourself with the flag of your true country before entering combat. You could lure them into closing in with you under false pretenses, but you had to announce your true identity before firing.

False flag operations are still used in multiple countries. The most prevalent usage was during the age of sail. But was used several times by both sides as late as WWII. The German Navy during WWII used it instinctively with their HSK's (Commerce Disruption Cruiser) like Kormaran and Atlantis. The RN also used it. The most notable was HMS Campbelltown in the raid on St. Nazarene France to destroy the Normandie dock.

quite possibly a cat wrote:There is a difference between posing as a civilian to spy, posing as a civilian to hit military targets, and posing as a civilian to kill civilians. All of those are the sort of thing you get executed over if caught, but the first is the sort of thing you just expect countries to do. The second starts becoming iffy because it invites the enemy to fire upon civilians like they are enemy soldiers or at the very least be a lot less gentle with civilians. The third becomes even more questionable, and makes really good propaganda which has the benefit of truth.

The only legal difference is that the first two get you shot as a spy or saboteur that is out of uniform.

The third one gets you hung for war crimes.

Attacking civilians for the sake of attacking civilians- meaning that they are not collateral damage due to an attack on a legitimate target- isn't acceptable behavior according to the laws of war and opens the nation committing such acts up to reprisal attacks in kind.

jtg452 wrote:The only legal difference is that the first two get you shot as a spy or saboteur that is out of uniform.

The third one gets you hung for war crimes.

Attacking civilians for the sake of attacking civilians- meaning that they are not collateral damage due to an attack on a legitimate target- isn't acceptable behavior according to the laws of war and opens the nation committing such acts up to reprisal attacks in kind.

And as far as the dilapidated amusement park is concerned, it was basically taken over by slavers in the first place. And the beowulfers that "liberated" it are careful to take on only slavers. So, by the Cherwell Convention is perfectly legal.

Theemile wrote:

Dauntless wrote:Q-ships at least in honorverse are really meant for anti pirate work. Honor using one to destroy BCs was really not part of the design brief.

basically it comes down to pirates are after money, so they will go to great lengths to capture a ship. no ship no cash. a q-ship really just encourages them to go pick on someone else

enemy navy will like as not just want to deprive you of the cargo/ship, they will try to capture but really don't care if they have to destroy the ship. it being a q-ship would make no appreciable difference expect that the q-ship might be able to put some hurt on the enemy ship before going boom.

Not all Q-ships are used that way in the Honorverse. The Sirius, an Astra Class Q ship, was used as designed in OBS, to infiltrate systems in advance of an assault, both as a spec ops ship and to pre-position firepower. The PRN also has a smaller ~4 Mton Class known as the Trumbull it used for similar purposes. Both classes were similar to common cargo designs to disguise their true purposes. Ton for ton, they are massivle inferior to warships, but the ability to quietly slip a BC into someone's orbit is a massive advantage.

true. I had forgotten that that peeps liked to use that trick