A Question about Sandra Crandalls conduct in Meyers

Daryl wrote:Don't forget that RFC is a Naval Historian, and his books take their cues from the interesting period between HMS Victory and Jutland and beyond.
I'm not totally sure about the RN's Admirals but know that the British Army's Generals were described as "Donkeys leading Lions". Family pedigree and connections were much more important than competence, so it is reasonable to assume that this applied to many in the RN as well. The RN just knew that they had the best ship technology, and this proved to be a problem at Jutland.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Daryl wrote:Don't forget that RFC is a Naval Historian, and his books take their cues from the interesting period between HMS Victory and Jutland and beyond.
I'm not totally sure about the RN's Admirals but know that the British Army's Generals were described as "Donkeys leading Lions". Family pedigree and connections were much more important than competence, so it is reasonable to assume that this applied to many in the RN as well. The RN just knew that they had the best ship technology, and this proved to be a problem at Jutland.

I'm hardly an expert but from that I've read I got the impression that by and large the UK's Royal Navy Admirals were a far slight better than their Army counterparts. The Army could afford to be a aristocratic playground because it was the navy that kept the country safe; whereas the army was mostly used for colonial expeditionary warfare.

Now there are screw-ups in any service. And the some Admirals did seem to believe that hearts of oak could overcome surprising disadvantages in speed or firepower (See the court martial, though later acquittal, of Tourbridge for refusing to charge a battlecruiser with four older, and slower, armored cruisers). But buy and large their RN's sense of superiority didn't rise to the level of delusional or significantly impair their fighting capabilities.

Go back in time a while, and look at their Revolutionary War skirmishes with the USN's "super frigates". Yeah, a couple British frigates got beaten, which was humiliating, but their Admiralty quickly gave orders for frigates to avoid engaging their USN counterparts one-on-one. And not long after that the RN battle squadrons largely hard the USN blockaded into port. Some captain's hubris caused them to attack larger and more heavily armed ships, but the navy quickly slapped behavior down after they learned of the losses.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Daryl wrote:Don't forget that RFC is a Naval Historian, and his books take their cues from the interesting period between HMS Victory and Jutland and beyond.
I'm not totally sure about the RN's Admirals but know that the British Army's Generals were described as "Donkeys leading Lions". Family pedigree and connections were much more important than competence, so it is reasonable to assume that this applied to many in the RN as well. The RN just knew that they had the best ship technology, and this proved to be a problem at Jutland.

I'm hardly an expert but from that I've read I got the impression that by and large the UK's Royal Navy Admirals were a far slight better than their Army counterparts. The Army could afford to be a aristocratic playground because it was the navy that kept the country safe; whereas the army was mostly used for colonial expeditionary warfare.

Now there are screw-ups in any service. And the some Admirals did seem to believe that hearts of oak could overcome surprising disadvantages in speed or firepower (See the court martial, though later acquittal, of Tourbridge for refusing to charge a battlecruiser with four older, and slower, armored cruisers). But buy and large their RN's sense of superiority didn't rise to the level of delusional or significantly impair their fighting capabilities.

Go back in time a while, and look at their Revolutionary War skirmishes with the USN's "super frigates". Yeah, a couple British frigates got beaten, which was humiliating, but their Admiralty quickly gave orders for frigates to avoid engaging their USN counterparts one-on-one. And not long after that the RN battle squadrons largely hard the USN blockaded into port. Some captain's hubris caused them to attack larger and more heavily armed ships, but the navy quickly slapped behavior down after they learned of the losses.

saber964 wrote:The RN had a long tradition of excellence. But they also had a tradition of rising on your merits. It was not uncommon for a relative nobody to go quite high in the nobility. IIRC several RN admirals became Counts Earls Barons and even a few Dukes. In the British Army they had a practice of selling commissions up through (IIRC) Major.

jtg452 wrote:
No captain of a warship- of ANY nation- worthy of holding that position is going to roll over and show his belly like that.

You don't strike your colors (or, in the Honorverse, your wedge) and submit to being boarded and 'inspected' by a foreign navy in a neutral port or anywhere else. Just having the temerity to make such a demand is a good way to end up getting shot at on general principle.

The only difference in the outcome would have been the Manty destroyers' wedges would have been building up when Byng fired instead of being completely down and their backstopping ship would have gotten a recording of a Solly admiral making such outrageous demands.

Come to think of it, the Manties are good enough to have probably gotten off a few shots, too, before they were destroyed.

cthia wrote:Byng wasn't just an idiot, he was riddled with intense hatred for all things Manticoran. You almost wanted to ask him 'What the hell did the Manties ever do to you?'

WLBjork wrote:

saber964 wrote:In the British Army they had a practice of selling commissions up through (IIRC) Major.

Pretty sure it's Colonel, as you purchase a commission in a particular regiment, the highest rank being Colonel.

jtg452 wrote:

quite possibly a cat wrote:Byng was terrible! I wanted to smack him for being so stupid. He could have gotten such perfect revenge against the Manties, and he blew it!

1) He should have ordered all non-SLN ships to come to a nice orbit, declare themselves and power-down as soon as possible. Any other assets they have in space need to be declared and powered down as well. If the manties cooperate you can just skip to "4", since refusal to cooperate proves guilt.

2) Assuming you get compliance, you can then start the investigation. First you need to secure any armed ships. This means the crews will have to get out, but you do have some spare space in the brig. You'll also obviously need full control and access to every ship. The civilian ships should be cleared pretty quickly because they don't randomly carry nukes or stealth tech. That leaves the Mantie military ships.

3) The investigation would find nothing amiss with any ship at all, except one of the probes that the Manties super stealthy probes they supposedly launched is missing. Not there. So weird. Didn't find anything at the spot they declared a drone was at. Of course, after searching the reports you find an example of Manties using nuke armed stealth drones as a weapon. It fits their MO. They can't account for the drone. And this is the star nation that stiffed them. You have means, motive, opportunity, them lying, and it matches tech only they have.

4) Finally you finish up by interrogating a Manty captain who has been steeped in the Saganami tradition. Obviously there will be assorted people to observe so you don't mistreat the Manty captain. After you point out that the Manties are pirates since there wasn't a declared war, and unless there is evidence that the rest of the crew is innocent you'll execute them all, he'll confess to the whole thing and say his crew had nothing to do with it.

At this point you seize the ship from the captain that confessed and now have all the fancy Manty tech.

Either way, you have proof the Manties did it, and you have a confession. Case closed. Manties just murdered over forty thousand civilians as far as anyone else knows.

As a free bonus, TIY will pay a ton for your prize ship. And your intelligence service will probably be pretty happy about getting to examine the probe you didn't find.

No captain of a warship- of ANY nation- worthy of holding that position is going to roll over and show his belly like that.

You don't strike your colors (or, in the Honorverse, your wedge) and submit to being boarded and 'inspected' by a foreign navy in a neutral port or anywhere else. Just having the temerity to make such a demand is a good way to end up getting shot at on general principle.

The only difference in the outcome would have been the Manty destroyers' wedges would have been building up when Byng fired instead of being completely down and their backstopping ship would have gotten a recording of a Solly admiral making such outrageous demands.

EDIT

Come to think of it, the Manties are good enough to have probably gotten off a few shots, too, before they were destroyed.

Silverwall wrote:Exactly just demanding they surrender while in 3rd party space can only be interpreted in one of two ways by Manticore - An Act or War or an act of piracy. You CANNOT demand a sovreign warship surrender in such a situation - especially when it is not even your soverign space. Even back in OBS Honor is well aware she may well be starting the Havenite wars by attacking the Q ship.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Byng was friends with the local government AND Manticore had just destroyed one of the New Tuscany freighters (as far as New Tuscany was concerned). At most it would take a minute or two to launder the request through the local government. Who absolutely has the authority to order such.

Silverwall wrote:Either way the correct Manticoran action is to attempt to withdraw with all defensive systems spun up and if the Sollies fire on them they are the aggressors and things proceed as per now but with a much higher chance of Manty survivors. As soon as Spindle gets the news Michelle Henke goes collecting scalps and things proceed as usual.