A Question about Sandra Crandalls conduct in Meyers

quite possibly a cat wrote:
Also this brings me to another benefit of getting a surrender and capturing the Manties: Henke won't fire on Bygn if he has Manties on board!

I'm not sure I'm ready to go over this special bridge. After all, she had to try to convince him to surrender ... so in this case, maybe she would've opted for something like what happened later in Zunker: One salvo against all BCs but aimed at their wedges ... But if Byng would've been ready to surrender after such a demonstration we'll never know. Nor will we know if Mike would've been ready the risk of sacrificing their people in case Byng would've been remained unconvinced ...

Eagleeye wrote:

quite possibly a cat wrote:
Also this brings me to another benefit of getting a surrender and capturing the Manties: Henke won't fire on Bygn if he has Manties on board!

I'm not sure I'm ready to go over this special bridge. After all, she had to try to convince him to surrender ... so in this case, maybe she would've opted for something like what happened later in Zunker: One salvo against all BCs but aimed at their wedges ... But if Byng would've been ready to surrender after such a demonstration we'll never know. Nor will we know if Mike would've been ready the risk of sacrificing their people in case Byng would've been remained unconvinced ...

The rules of war do not really allow use of hostages like that. Had Byng done that, there might have been even more of a mess.

And if they were all on Byng's flagship, she could have taken out a couple of others. And in that situation easily have gotten away with it.

ldwechsler wrote:
The rules of war do not really allow use of hostages like that. Had Byng done that, there might have been even more of a mess.

First, there isn't a war in this case. Bygn is merely "helping" the local government with a piracy/terrorist problem.

Second, the rules of war absolutely allow capturing enemy soldiers and holding them on your ship.

ldwechsler wrote:
And if they were all on Byng's flagship, she could have taken out a couple of others. And in that situation easily have gotten away with it.

I doubt Bygn's flagship has capacity for all the Manties. If he has gotten a confession he might have released everyone except for a handful of key witnesses and the one's who confessed.

quite possibly a cat wrote:

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.

First off, New Tuscany had almost certainly empowered Bygn to intervene in case of piracy.

Regardless:

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.

It takes a long time to power up a wedge, and nothing else would do anything about energy weapons.

Also this brings me to another benefit of getting a surrender and capturing the Manties: Henke won't fire on Bygn if he has Manties on board!

Given the timing there is clearly no empowering by the local authorities and even if there is the options of the local authorities are to declare war on manticore or accuse the manty DD squadron of piracy. Either way the only other thing they can do is Persona Non Gratia the squadron and ask them to bugger off. Anything else is considered an act of war by Manticore.

If Byng had not immediatly opened fire the correct action from the DD squadron is to bring wedges and sidewalls online in case of further acts of terrorism as they KNOW they didn't cause it so they are left with the "parties unknown" who may be doing other things. I am certain that the Solly squadrons and the local forces would do exactly the same thing.

Finally the delay for demands and counter demands gives more time for analysis of the explosion by all concerned proving it was an internal explosion which makes it even harder for even an Idiot like Byng to justify somthing as incendary as attempting to impound the Manties. If nothing else other admirals and commodores in the force will be telling him to pull his horns in on the record to avoid a shooting incident when not needed.

A real world analogy would be 3 US destroyers and a Pakistani Frigate in Mogidishu Harbour when the harbour facilities blow up. How do you think the US commander would be treated if he insisted on impounding the Pakistani Frigate? Also is there any chance in Hell the Pakistani captain would acceed to those demands?

Silverwall wrote:

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

Given the timing there is clearly no empowering by the local authorities and even if there is the options of the local authorities are to declare war on manticore or accuse the manty DD squadron of piracy. Either way the only other thing they can do is Persona Non Gratia the squadron and ask them to bugger off. Anything else is considered an act of war by Manticore.

If Byng had not immediatly opened fire the correct action from the DD squadron is to bring wedges and sidewalls online in case of further acts of terrorism as they KNOW they didn't cause it so they are left with the "parties unknown" who may be doing other things. I am certain that the Solly squadrons and the local forces would do exactly the same thing.

Finally the delay for demands and counter demands gives more time for analysis of the explosion by all concerned proving it was an internal explosion which makes it even harder for even an Idiot like Byng to justify somthing as incendary as attempting to impound the Manties. If nothing else other admirals and commodores in the force will be telling him to pull his horns in on the record to avoid a shooting incident when not needed.

A real world analogy would be 3 US destroyers and a Pakistani Frigate in Mogidishu Harbour when the harbour facilities blow up. How do you think the US commander would be treated if he insisted on impounding the Pakistani Frigate? Also is there any chance in Hell the Pakistani captain would acceed to those demands?

Byng was selected for the spot BECAUSE he was an idiot and a Manticore-hater. Also, there was no reason to support the idea that Manticore had done anything. After all, if they were going to play games they would have pulled up their wedges and sidewalls before anything happened.

MAlign wanted an incident. That is simple.

Brigade XO wrote:The US "super frigates" were the USS Constitution (launched in 1797) & her sisters and that was War of 1812/Napolionic Wars.
The American Colonies did purpose build some warships during the Revolution but they were few, of conventional design, and the perponderence of the American ships engaged were along the lines of armed merchantmen acting under Letter of Marque. Most not much more than pirates in the view of the Crown as they were sent out by, at best, the individual colonies as commerce raiders or privateers. Still, they did cause the British Navy a lot of difficulty, mostly by picking off transports and supply ships and causing the Navy to have to send raiding attacks against suspected or known bases of operations.
Few wanted to go up against a British warship anywhere near the same capability in a stand-up fight but they played merry hell with most of whatever else they encountered. Major source of supplies for the Rebel Army.

Sorry, yes. I knew that and still somehow got my wars mixed up. Thanks for the correction.

quite possibly a cat wrote:

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.

First off, New Tuscany had almost certainly empowered Bygn to intervene in case of piracy.

Regardless:

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.

It takes a long time to power up a wedge, and nothing else would do anything about energy weapons.

Also this brings me to another benefit of getting a surrender and capturing the Manties: Henke won't fire on Bygn if he has Manties on board!

It's still an Act of War, this time by New Tuscany. Remember, just about everyone in the system except Byng knew perfectly well that the space station had NOT been destroyed by missiles. The system government KNEW, as soon as they got the scan data, that Manticore hadn't done it, and they had a pretty good idea who had.

You cannot demand the 'surrender' of a visiting warship if you have no evidence that it was involved in a recent terrorist incident. You cannot, especially, blow up a warship with an ambassador on board. Or take the said Ambassador hostage. Not unless you want to be a Solly protectorate, because Manticore's just declared you a 'rogue state' - and is probably about to come over the Alpha wall with blood in their eye, demanding the surrender of your entire planet.

Yes, it takes a long time to power up a wedge, but you're then in a Mexican Standoff between 'any attempt to board the ships of a sovereign star nation will be resisted' and Byng being sufficiently idiotic to essentially declare war on Manticore. Same situation as per the novels, if he does.

No, Mike Henke wouldn't have initially fired on a ship holding Manticoran hostages. She'd have given the pirate wearing Solarian uniform a warning shot. And if he didn't surrender, she'd have taken him out with an ops plan that involved boarding after the destruction of any means of controlling the warship, just as Terenkhov had done with his pirates.

If some Manticoran hostages get killed in the attempt, that's unfortunate, but after twenty years at war, most naval personnel are pretty tough minded.

Remember, until months after the event, the sensor records from both sides showed that the Manticoran warships were merely orbiting peacefully about the planet. The Mesan plan depended entirely on picking a complete idiot who loathed Manticorans. Combined with Solarian arrogance and corruption - which meant a Captain would accept blatantly illegal orders to blow three ships (who he knew had done nothing wrong) out of space - because his career would be ruined if he didn't.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:The US "super frigates" were the USS Constitution (launched in 1797) & her sisters and that was War of 1812/Napolionic Wars.
The American Colonies did purpose build some warships during the Revolution but they were few, of conventional design, and the perponderence of the American ships engaged were along the lines of armed merchantmen acting under Letter of Marque. Most not much more than pirates in the view of the Crown as they were sent out by, at best, the individual colonies as commerce raiders or privateers. Still, they did cause the British Navy a lot of difficulty, mostly by picking off transports and supply ships and causing the Navy to have to send raiding attacks against suspected or known bases of operations.
Few wanted to go up against a British warship anywhere near the same capability in a stand-up fight but they played merry hell with most of whatever else they encountered. Major source of supplies for the Rebel Army.

Sorry, yes. I knew that and still somehow got my wars mixed up. Thanks for the correction.

Another important point is the amount of the Royal Navy eventually employed in keeping the 5 Frigates at bay. By 1815, very major US port had at least 2 Liners (usually 70 guns, sometimes more), several 50-60 gun 4th rates, and a variety of 24-38 gun Frigates and Brigs offshore blockading the port. Every patrol had to be at least 3 ships, including 1 50-70 gun ship in it's formation, so if a super frigate did get loose, it couldn't run down a lone 24-38 gun ship that it ran across. This doesn't mention the fleet that was building up to strike New Orleans, or the Squadrons being deployed to the pacific to stop the Essex. Or the dozen or so 50-70 gun liners which were pulled out of service to be cut down to make Razees, that could (on paper) compete with a US super frigate on almost a 1:1 basis. I don't have firm numbers, but at least 30% of HRN was deployed to stop essentially 6 ship commands (and the dozens of other Privateers - but none of them could face a 38 gunner and survive)

As far as assymetrical warfare goes, The Super Frigates did their job, with each holding up ~10x their weight just on the fear of what a loose Super Frigate could do. Unfortunately, the RN could afford what it took to stop them - for a few years.

pnakasone wrote:One thing I think helped the RN was even at the best of time sailing ships where rough places to live and work. Every ship officer had to start as an midshipman at a what was young age even then.

That and truly incompetent officers often went over the sides during storms with or with out help.

Actually it was younger than that. IIRC a midshipmen started at about age 11 or 12 years old with some special cases age 10 (usually son of flag officer or noble or both) The RN also ran orphanages for foundlings and those children went to sea at age 8-9 years old as powder runners. The British military still maintains (IIRC) boy soldier and sailors where you can join at age 15. You go it the equivalent of a military prep school before going to either RMA Sandhurst or to the enlisted ranks.

munroburton wrote:

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?'

Sandra Crandall, the poor girl, was suffering from the many pinecones shoved up her bum. You would have wanted to just 'get on with it' or 'let's be about it' too. Crandall wasn't just angry at the Manties, she was angry at the entire phucking universe.

Decades earlier in his career, when he was a Captain, Byng was harassing merchant shipping. He impounded Manticoran merchantmen and their crews without trial on trumped-up charges of smuggling.

Then the Manticoran Foreign Office had the temerity to protest, which resulted in Byng being censured and knocked down the SLN's promotion lists by a few years.

I wonder if Byng actually did catch them smuggling? It could have been some of Hauptman's freighters.