Has anyone else decided to root against Manticore?

kzt wrote:The implied solution to people not following the conventions is that those who did would shoot them out of hand. But we don’t do that anymore and find ourselves being over run by people who ignore them.

Our solution these days is an air/drone strike. Which can cause other problems when we, or our allies, do not distinguish between a terrorist gathering and a wedding party.

tlb wrote:

kzt wrote:The implied solution to people not following the conventions is that those who did would shoot them out of hand. But we don’t do that anymore and find ourselves being over run by people who ignore them.

Our solution these days is an air/drone strike. Which can cause other problems when we, or our allies, do not distinguish between a terrorist gathering and a wedding party.

No one says the world or universe has to be fair. But when one side is forced to fight with one hand tied behind its back...

ldwechsler wrote:

tlb wrote:No one says the world or universe has to be fair. But when one side is forced to fight with one hand tied behind its back...

In what ways has, say, the war against ISIL been hampered by the GC? If anything, they're flagrant transgressions against any semblance of the behavior encoded in those conventions has turned every hand against them.

There are specific circumstances where the GC pose a problem - mainly situations like Israel's, but those are conditions that don't apply to most countries.

You get people talking about how they were not allowed to shoot peopl because they didn’t have visible weapons. Just shovels and wheelbarrows doing late night road construction work outside the base. Planting mines.

Or a previous president who wouldn’t allow the Air Force to attack the fleet of tankers that they used to haul oil into turkey, which was where most of their funds came from.

A quote from a lawyer on related issues:

MILITARY JUSTICE IS KIND OF LIKE CAMPUS JUSTICE: Navy Acknowledges Railroading of Marine Operator Falsely Accused of War Crimes.

"A Marine Special Forces officer has been promoted in retirement after the Navy acknowledged that he was falsely accused of war crimes for leading his men through a terrorist ambush.

"The Board for Correction of Naval Records admitted that Marine Maj. Fred Galvin was railroaded when he led the Corps’ first special operations unit (MARSOC) into Afghanistan. In March 2007 his unit was attacked by a suicide bomb followed by small arms fire from terrorists. Galvin and his men returned fire, killing 12 enemies, only to see senior military leaders and investigators accuse his men of massacring civilians."

This war has had too much lawyering from the very beginning, which may be why we didn’t win.

kzt wrote:A quote from a lawyer on related issues:

MILITARY JUSTICE IS KIND OF LIKE CAMPUS JUSTICE: Navy Acknowledges Railroading of Marine Operator Falsely Accused of War Crimes.

"A Marine Special Forces officer has been promoted in retirement after the Navy acknowledged that he was falsely accused of war crimes for leading his men through a terrorist ambush.

"The Board for Correction of Naval Records admitted that Marine Maj. Fred Galvin was railroaded when he led the Corps’ first special operations unit (MARSOC) into Afghanistan. In March 2007 his unit was attacked by a suicide bomb followed by small arms fire from terrorists. Galvin and his men returned fire, killing 12 enemies, only to see senior military leaders and investigators accuse his men of massacring civilians."

This war has had too much lawyering from the very beginning, which may be why we didn’t win.

There's also an officer up on charges of first degree murder for killing a bomb maker.

My cousin's son who served in Iraq told me that over and over troops were prevented from taking action by the lawyers. That's one reason he decided to retire. He thought the generals no longer had the back of their soldiers.

Quite a lot of special operations people have left thanks to the lawyers.

Seems as though we are getting too deep into current events (sorry about my push in that direction) and should refocus on what is bad, or good, about the way Manticore's fortunes have advanced since Byng's adventure as the only SLN officer to have an initial success against the RMN.

tlb wrote:Seems as though we are getting too deep into current events (sorry about my push in that direction) and should refocus on what is bad, or good, about the way Manticore's fortunes have advanced since Byng's adventure as the only SLN officer to have an initial success against the RMN.

It's boring.

"James, have the machine gunners mow down those tribesmen with spears. Then have the attack helicopter battalion bombard their village, white phosphorous rockets should deal with their grass huts. And have my chef serve lunch in 15 minutes, this intense battle builds up a man's appetite."

tlb wrote:Seems as though we are getting too deep into current events (sorry about my push in that direction) and should refocus on what is bad, or good, about the way Manticore's fortunes have advanced since Byng's adventure as the only SLN officer to have an initial success against the RMN.

kzt wrote:It's boring.

"James, have the machine gunners mow down those tribesmen with spears. Then have the attack helicopter battalion bombard their village, white phosphorous rockets should deal with their grass huts. And have my chef serve lunch in 15 minutes, this intense battle builds up a man's appetite."

As of OBS or HotQ, the SLN (despite it problems) could have mowed down whatever challenger came out of the Haven War, despite the beginnings of FTL communication. By Flag in Exile the RMN was implementing the improved compensator. I believe it was the missile pod introduction in Honor among Enemies that really started the reduction of the SLN to a second rank navy; the arrival of MDM and Apollo completed the relegation.

The SLN lagged in both offensive and defensive throw weight. If the Malign had forced the SLN to pay attention to the tactical importance of the new missile pods, would the SLN have had a better chance? Or would they be so self-satisfied with their predominance in Super Dreadnoughts that not much would change in the final result?

After a slight pause (no current time to answer in full), tlb, I think that while theoretically things like eating up the RMN's maintenance budget while kept at high readiness, or Elizabeth facing opprobrium as a female ruler, and so on are bad, the issue is that they pragmatically do nothing. Particularly once the Sollies come in - no matter what descriptive text Weber writes, the strategic and tactical outlook he creates become increasingly one sided. With Haven it usually takes the form of "clever just wasn't clever enough, because manty", but at least they get SOMETHING. With the Sollies it becomes watching a rigged game.

Add to this that essentially the Manties are painted as paragons of flawless virtue. And often times their rigged success is directly attributed to said lofty ideals and persons.

It adds further and and further to "Mary Sue is the best at everything and is perfect in her outlook on life and how she behaves (and even when she maybe is not, we paint this as natural justice), and even more being the best and character flawless as I see it are indeed self-reinforcing features"


If Honor were Alexander the Great, or Grant, or Caesar, or Guderian, Patton, Monty, Zhukov, really...any of the greats.. I would still be rooting for Manticore. Instead the entire Manty side is given divine blessings of permanent victory.