What is the |value| of captured enemy systems?

BINGO!

Excellent. Now that I've had a chance for a reread thanks to tlb, it also represents a case where a higher ranking officer was replaced. It is also interesting that it isn't necessarily because of anything wrong done by said officer being replaced. It is just like the case of Admiral Halsey replacing Admiral Ghormley (rank notwithstanding). Paraphrasing . . .

"Bull. Is it something that I did wrong."

"Why no. You did nothing wrong. You were just here first. And now I'm going to be given a lot of the credit that you started."

"Thanks Bull."

The reason for replacement in each case may fit other similar situations.

Both previous men were "by the book."

Admiral Ghormley and his retained staff officer - who's experience Halsey stated he'd be insane not to take advantage of - were both by the book. Which is what Park's command is replacing.

Halsey came in and addressed his Chief of Staff's and told them to "Throw away the book. The man who wrote it was never in a situation like this."

Halsey also showed that he is not incapable of taking his own advice. He shortstopped firepower in the form of manpower (25,000 men strong iinm) en route to support a nearby airstrip and diverted them to Guadalcanal. Much to the chagrin of the retained Staff Officer of the by the book Ghormley's who calls him on it, by the book.

The forces at Guadalcanal were losing ground. They were running days without sleep. Mistakes being caused by exhaustion.

"If Guadalcanal falls, that airstrip won't matter," says Halsey.

tlb wrote:After I read about WW2, then I moved to WW1 to try to understand the origins. Modern historians refuse to assign blame to the start of WW1, because they say there is enough blame to go around. When the only possible response to Russian mobilization is for Germany to invade France through neutral Belgium, I think that makes a strong case for war responsibility by the General Staff.

As much as any history is a progression of cause to effect (it isn't necessarily, but has the appearance thereof so it makes for a convenient shorthand), the origins of any one event have themselves origins even further back.

Trading philosophy for something a little more useful, most historians start the 'origins' of WWI in the Congress of Vienna.

Or, if you prefer something a little more immediate. Immediately prior, Europe had become a snarl of alliances, agreements, and treaties, some of them open, and some of them secret. France and Russia in particular were allied. Germany 'knew' it couldn't fight a two-front war and thought the only practical chance for victory would be to knock France out of the war entirely, and do so quickly enough that it could turn and do the same to Russia before its technologically antiquated army could spin up to something capable of steamrolling Germany.

The need, both among Central and Allie powers to get their war footing off first meant the diplomatic exchanges between Ferdinand being shot and Germany invading Luxemburg were traded at such a pace and with such...let's call it 'vigor,' that there was little practical opportunity for it to actually work.

On the other side of that though, was the Russo-Japanese War. And that had pretty much confirmed what land combat in very early 20th century would be like (including trenches). The need to get off an attack before the other side was fully prepared was necessary to minimize casualties for everyone. When armies in the field met they should try to exploit flanks rather than attack directly. (Those two sentences pretty much explain the western theater from Aug to mid-October 1914).

I watched the season 3 finale of Madame Secretary several weeks ago when it was rerun, and the following is almost as sadly perfect for the immediate causes of WWI as it was in its original context:

This is not a rational, deliberate process. It-it's the rote enactment of a prepared script that forces leaders to render decisions determining the fate of the planet and mankind under excruciating pressure.

Joat42 wrote:You say you see the problem in your head because you are a programmer.. You think a computer can't calculate a time accurate enough. What if I told you only need a 3D coordinate where the x, y & z values has 21 decimals accuracy to pinpoint a place in the Milky Way within 1 meter. A measurement of pulsars where you have an accuracy of 1ns needs 24 decimals of accuracy. An IEEE-754 128 bit float has ~34 decimals of accuracy and if you use a 256 bit float you get ~71 decimals of accuracy. And if you want to forgo binary fractions and use integer math you can have a 100 or a 1000 decimals places and run the calculations on a 50 year old computer without problems. It seems your beliefs in computers accuracy (or in-accuracy) is the typical programmers - only use the standard supplied libraries or frameworks with their limitations.

The computer certainly can be made to do the math with the required precision. Even now we have libraries to do math at any specified precision, albeit slowly.

The problem is the inputs aren't good enough. Few things can be measured past 12 digits of precision and most things not even that well. I don't care how good your computer, if your inputs are 12 digits then your outputs can't be better than 12 digits.

Kael Posavatz wrote:

tlb wrote:After I read about WW2, then I moved to WW1 to try to understand the origins. Modern historians refuse to assign blame to the start of WW1, because they say there is enough blame to go around. When the only possible response to Russian mobilization is for Germany to invade France through neutral Belgium, I think that makes a strong case for war responsibility by the General Staff.

As much as any history is a progression of cause to effect (it isn't necessarily, but has the appearance thereof so it makes for a convenient shorthand), the origins of any one event have themselves origins even further back.

Trading philosophy for something a little more useful, most historians start the 'origins' of WWI in the Congress of Vienna.

Or, if you prefer something a little more immediate. Immediately prior, Europe had become a snarl of alliances, agreements, and treaties, some of them open, and some of them secret. France and Russia in particular were allied. Germany 'knew' it couldn't fight a two-front war and thought the only practical chance for victory would be to knock France out of the war entirely, and do so quickly enough that it could turn and do the same to Russia before its technologically antiquated army could spin up to something capable of steamrolling Germany.

The need, both among Central and Allie powers to get their war footing off first meant the diplomatic exchanges between Ferdinand being shot and Germany invading Luxemburg were traded at such a pace and with such...let's call it 'vigor,' that there was little practical opportunity for it to actually work.

On the other side of that though, was the Russo-Japanese War. And that had pretty much confirmed what land combat in very early 20th century would be like (including trenches). The need to get off an attack before the other side was fully prepared was necessary to minimize casualties for everyone. When armies in the field met they should try to exploit flanks rather than attack directly. (Those two sentences pretty much explain the western theater from Aug to mid-October 1914).

I watched the season 3 finale of Madame Secretary several weeks ago when it was rerun, and the following is almost as sadly perfect for the immediate causes of WWI as it was in its original context:

This is not a rational, deliberate process. It-it's the rote enactment of a prepared script that forces leaders to render decisions determining the fate of the planet and mankind under excruciating pressure.

The problem is that people are often not rational. Also, the experts are too rational. Look at President Trump. He threatened to tear up NAFTA and all the experts lined up to tell him that our partners would never take part.

Yet the Mexicans leaped for it despite have leaders who have long criticized Trump and the Canadians went along.

We often get "facts" wrong.

tlb wrote:After I read about WW2, then I moved to WW1 to try to understand the origins. Modern historians refuse to assign blame to the start of WW1, because they say there is enough blame to go around. When the only possible response to Russian mobilization is for Germany to invade France through neutral Belgium, I think that makes a strong case for war responsibility by the General Staff.

Kael Posavatz wrote:As much as any history is a progression of cause to effect (it isn't necessarily, but has the appearance thereof so it makes for a convenient shorthand), the origins of any one event have themselves origins even further back.

Trading philosophy for something a little more useful, most historians start the 'origins' of WWI in the Congress of Vienna.

Or, if you prefer something a little more immediate. Immediately prior, Europe had become a snarl of alliances, agreements, and treaties, some of them open, and some of them secret. France and Russia in particular were allied. Germany 'knew' it couldn't fight a two-front war and thought the only practical chance for victory would be to knock France out of the war entirely, and do so quickly enough that it could turn and do the same to Russia before its technologically antiquated army could spin up to something capable of steamrolling Germany.

The need, both among Central and Allie powers to get their war footing off first meant the diplomatic exchanges between Ferdinand being shot and Germany invading Luxemburg were traded at such a pace and with such...let's call it 'vigor,' that there was little practical opportunity for it to actually work.

On the other side of that though, was the Russo-Japanese War. And that had pretty much confirmed what land combat in very early 20th century would be like (including trenches). The need to get off an attack before the other side was fully prepared was necessary to minimize casualties for everyone. When armies in the field met they should try to exploit flanks rather than attack directly. (Those two sentences pretty much explain the western theater from Aug to mid-October 1914).

I watched the season 3 finale of Madame Secretary several weeks ago when it was rerun, and the following is almost as sadly perfect for the immediate causes of WWI as it was in its original context:

This is not a rational, deliberate process. It-it's the rote enactment of a prepared script that forces leaders to render decisions determining the fate of the planet and mankind under excruciating pressure.

ldwechsler wrote:The problem is that people are often not rational. Also, the experts are too rational. Look at President Trump. He threatened to tear up NAFTA and all the experts lined up to tell him that our partners would never take part.

Yet the Mexicans leaped for it despite have leaders who have long criticized Trump and the Canadians went along.

We often get "facts" wrong.

Let's leave current events out of the discussion (since I disagree), because it will get the thread shut down. No matter how good the intentions when people start to argue about current US politics, it always devolves into a death spiral.

Bismarck left office having created a German state where the Army swore loyalty to the Kaiser and where there was a treaty between Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary. The Kaiser did not see the need for that treaty and so allowed France to build ties with Russia. With French investment Russia was making strides to build a modern industrial state. This gave the German General Staff nightmares, because the trends were such that if Russia could have a modern army supported by industry, then Germany was doomed in a two front war. The only way they could see forward was a preventative war before Russia was built up.
To counter the France-Russian threat Germany needed Austria-Hungary to stand firmly by its side. Austria-Hungary had its own problems with the Balkans. What A-H wanted was a free hand with Serbia, but for that they needed Germany to keep Russia from protecting a Slavic nation.
To recap the Germany General Staff wanted a general war, but needed Austria-Hungary to be allied. Austria-Hungary wanted a limited war, but needed Germany help to keep Russia from helping the Balkans.
In the crises before Sarajevo, both the Kaiser and Archduke Ferdinand had been restraining influences and had become friends. So when Ferdinand was shot the Kaiser let his ministers proceed.
One book that I have read says that the German staff saw an opportunity and urged Austria-Hungary to proceed as harshly as it wished and promised Germany would make every effort to keep other countries out (but limited itself to sending notes).
The fault that I find was that Germany had no plan to be defensive in the west and offensive in the east when Russia mobilized. Instead they hoped to knock France out of the war while Russia was engaged with Austria-Hungary, and then turn their forces to the east. But violating Belgium neutrality brought Britain into the war with a naval blockade.

cthia wrote:BINGO!

Excellent. Now that I've had a chance for a reread thanks to tlb, it also represents a case where a higher ranking officer was replaced. It is also interesting that it isn't necessarily because of anything wrong done by said officer being replaced.

What? No, Sarnow was lower ranking than Parks. Mark was high enough rank to construct the base, but not high enough to command it once it was operational.
I think you will not see many commanders being removed for cause, because they have already worked their way up through command responsibilities. Only very egregious behavior would cause someone to lose that position prior to their normal rotation. The best examples, which were not shown, occurred when the High Ridge government fell.

Completed the movie Gallant Hours. It includes the raid to kill Yamamoto because of an intercepted radio transmission of his itinerary.

The movie also includes a failed attack comprising two prongs of forces by Yamamoto. One prong suffered a miscalculation of the time of attack because of a simple time zone error, which puts an exclamation point on the galactic coordination of forces being little more than a pipe dream of the foolish.

Capturing an enemy system involves unconditional surrender. Like the RMN's capture of Masada. Another example is the unconditional surrender of Japan to America. Though that was referred to as an unconditional surrender, it wasn't. It included a proviso that the Emperor would retain his power and be unharmed.

I suppose unconditional surrender guarantees the conquering side unlimited access to all technologies of the conquered, for starters. Which may be how the US found out about the specially developed torpedoes engineered to work in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor.

Would it include an acceptance of the conquered to never wage war against the conquerors again? Where, a failure to comply with this condition even in the far future should make it unnecessary for a formal declaration of war before retaliating?

In the Honorverse, how would this apply to capturing an enemy's Home System? Like if the RMN had driven straight to Nouveau Paris and controlled the orbitals.

What comprises an unconditional surrender in the Honorverse?

Unconditional surrender, as it were.

The term was also used in the Potsdam Declaration issued to Japan on July 26, 1945. Near the end of the declaration, it said, "We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces" and warned that the alternative was "prompt and utter destruction."