Information I'd love to know

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Aside: Can anyone remember why Fearless herself was chosen to be a testbed for the grav lance? Was it her age, availability, or some quirk of CL's in general?

I ask because, if a CA was used and raped, it would still retain the firepower of at least a CL?

IIRC, from discussions on TWTSNBN, a CL was the smallest ship that could power a grav lance, a destroyer being too small. Since that was only a prototype that probably half the fleet thought would go nowhere, they didn't give Hemphill anything larger. Fearless was 80 years old and served almost no further purpose. It if it hadn't been for the grav lance mods, she would have been decommissioned.

Thanks. And, of course, she wasn't supposed to see any action.

I was simply curious if a CA had been used, if she'd at least retain the firepower of a CL, instead of a CL being reduced to the firepower of a destroyer. Survivability notwithstanding.

Of course, not being a techie, I could be way off about the firepower she still had.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Don't blame yourself. The only story we know about her time on Hawkwing was the raid on Casimir, told in a short story, not a full book. As for LAC 113, it was only mentioned in SVW, but we don't know anything happened then. LACs are not hyper capable, so she was stuck in the Home System.

Yeah, aside from the Hawkwing is only mentioned as back story. She's mentioned in the early chapters of OBS (as is the LAC command, but its number isn't given there) as a contrast to HMS Fearless and an example of how rushed Honor's appointement to her was.

On Basilisk Station wrote:When she'd been given Hawkwing, she'd known two months in advance; this time, she'd been literally snatched out of the ATC graduation ceremonies and hustled off to Admiral Courvosier's office with no warning at all.

But I remember Hawkwing best from her fight to the death in defense of the armed passenger liner Artemis and the ad-hoc convoy in HAE. Honor is shocked when Captain Fuchien mentions Hawkwing was the DD that was destroyed.

Honor Among Enemies wrote:"I know," Fuchien said. "They must've been lying doggo under tight EmCon when we blundered right into them. If they weren't, Hawkwing should've seen them even if we—"
"What did you say?" Fuchien frowned in surprise, for Honor's face had suddenly gone paper-white. "Did you say Hawkwing?" she demanded harshly.
"Yes, Milady. Hawkwing, Commander Usher. Did . . . did you know the Commander?"
"No." Honor closed her eyes, and her nostrils flared. Then she shook her head. "No," she repeated in a low voice, "but I knew Hawkwing. She was my first hyper-capable command."
"I'm sorry, Milady," Fuchien said softly. "I don't know what to—" It was her turn to shake her head. "I know it's not much, Milady, but she and Commander Usher are the only reason we even had a chance to run. My tac officer . . . doesn't think there were any survivors."

That, and it's commented that her uniform has 5 stars, one for each independent hyper command she's held: Hawkwing, Fearless, Fearless 2.0, Nike, and Wayfarer.

a stock Courageousness class CL had a broadside of 7M, 2G, 2L, 3CM, 3PD.

Truncheon class CA is about the same age and had a broadside of 5M, 5L, 3G, 2CM, 6PD.

assuming that the refit to fit TWTSNBN removed the grasers and two thirds of the missile tubes like they did to Fearless, then you would have a stronger energy broadside but you would still have about the same fire power for the predominately missile fight that Fearless fought with Sirius.

of course that assumes they would gut a ship nearly 3 times (223K) Fearless size to the same degree. a lot of that extra tonnage is tied up in things like armour and better sidewalls etc that probably can't touch, but having so much extra mass and presumably space to work with I would hope they could have squeezed in the energy torpedoes without gutting the missile broadside to the same degree. Just 2 extra missiles per broadside would have helped Honour a lot.

as other have said, even just as proof of concept it didn't really belong on anything smaller then a BC, and even that is likely pushing it.

Galactic Sapper wrote:That, and it's commented that her uniform has 5 stars, one for each independent hyper command she's held: Hawkwing, Fearless, Fearless 2.0, Nike, and Wayfarer.

Don't confuse the hypercapable stars with her admiral stars. Those 5 stars are because she's a Fleet Admiral. And those are the stars we see on the cover of the English edition of Uncompromising Honor.

House of Steel wrote:Collar insignia are worn on the tunic's collar, and the same insignia are worn on an embroidered patch on the left chest of the blouse, immediately above the pocket. Medal ribbons and qualification badges are worn on the left breast of the tunic, and a nameplate is worn on the right with any unit ribbons worn below the nameplate. Above their other ribbons officers wear one star, embroidered in a gold thread, for each hyper-capable command they have held.

Dauntless wrote:a stock Courageousness class CL had a broadside of 7M, 2G, 2L, 3CM, 3PD.

Truncheon class CA is about the same age and had a broadside of 5M, 5L, 3G, 2CM, 6PD.

assuming that the refit to fit TWTSNBN removed the grasers and two thirds of the missile tubes like they did to Fearless, then you would have a stronger energy broadside but you would still have about the same fire power for the predominately missile fight that Fearless fought with Sirius.

of course that assumes they would gut a ship nearly 3 times (223K) Fearless size to the same degree. a lot of that extra tonnage is tied up in things like armour and better sidewalls etc that probably can't touch, but having so much extra mass and presumably space to work with I would hope they could have squeezed in the energy torpedoes without gutting the missile broadside to the same degree. Just 2 extra missiles per broadside would have helped Honour a lot.

as other have said, even just as proof of concept it didn't really belong on anything smaller then a BC, and even that is likely pushing it.

Thanks. I was wondering if the size of a CA would negate the need to gut so extensively. And provide more carrying capacity for missiles so Honor wouldn't have had to be so frugal with her return fire.

well the Homer class BC, about 40 years newer then Fearless but still about 40 years PRIOR to OBS, [i]did[/i] have TWTSNBN, along with a small battery of 4 energy torpedoes. as this was a battle cruiser massing almost 10 times a Courageous CL at 834K they still managed to squeeze in 20M, 8G, 8L, 9CM, 9PD.

still not sure BC is the right platform for it, but at least it could be mounted along side a respectable conventional weapons fit.

interesting to note is that the Reliant class BC (Honor's Nike) on roughly 40K more tons, dropped 2 energy torps, the GL and 2 grasers for 2 more missile tubes and another CM and PD. the Reliant is 30 years newer then the homer design and clearly there has been a rethink about the TWTSNBN.

of course HoS reflects what these ships looked like as of their last standard refit as of 1921PD, and there is a note that the TWTSNBN was added to later flights of the Homer, so the early model clearly didn't have it. still it would be nice to know exactly when they stopped building Homers.

The Relaint arrived in 1896, and was deemed an excellent design, so much so that 20 years later (well 1915 to be exact but what is a year between friends) when they wanted a better BC they just tweaked the Reliant design (added 60K tons, new compensator and modified the weapons loadout a little (dropped 4L for 2 more M and 8 more CM and PD))so if any Homers came straight from the builders with TWTSNBN then it was probably no later then 1900 or so.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:That, and it's commented that her uniform has 5 stars, one for each independent hyper command she's held: Hawkwing, Fearless, Fearless 2.0, Nike, and Wayfarer.

Don't confuse the hypercapable stars with her admiral stars. Those 5 stars are because she's a Fleet Admiral. And those are the stars we see on the cover of the English edition of Uncompromising Honor.

House of Steel wrote:Collar insignia are worn on the tunic's collar, and the same insignia are worn on an embroidered patch on the left chest of the blouse, immediately above the pocket. Medal ribbons and qualification badges are worn on the left breast of the tunic, and a nameplate is worn on the right with any unit ribbons worn below the nameplate. Above their other ribbons officers wear one star, embroidered in a gold thread, for each hyper-capable command they have held.

Yes, and a certain Denver Summervale decided to use one of those embroidered stars as an aiming point (although FoD specifies she had three when she should have had four).

Galactic Sapper wrote:Yes, and a certain Denver Summervale decided to use one of those embroidered stars as an aiming point (although FoD specifies she had three when she should have had four).

Maybe it's the number of previous hyper-capable commands, not counting the current one. Since at the time she was still commanding HMS Nike, there were only three previous hyper-capable commands.

On Basilisk Station, Ch. 1 wrote:A light cruiser simply wasn't a lieutenant commander's billet, but Harrington was almost five years—almost eight T-years—younger than he. Not only was she a full commander, not only did the breast of her tunic bear the embroidered gold star denoting a previous hyper-capable command, but she looked young enough to be his daughter.

(emphasis mine)

Note the current cover on Amazon does not show any stars, but it could be behind her hand caressing Nimitz's true hand.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:That, and it's commented that her uniform has 5 stars, one for each independent hyper command she's held: Hawkwing, Fearless, Fearless 2.0, Nike, and Wayfarer.

Don't confuse the hypercapable stars with her admiral stars. Those 5 stars are because she's a Fleet Admiral. And those are the stars we see on the cover of the English edition of Uncompromising Honor.

House of Steel wrote:Collar insignia are worn on the tunic's collar, and the same insignia are worn on an embroidered patch on the left chest of the blouse, immediately above the pocket. Medal ribbons and qualification badges are worn on the left breast of the tunic, and a nameplate is worn on the right with any unit ribbons worn below the nameplate. Above their other ribbons officers wear one star, embroidered in a gold thread, for each hyper-capable command they have held.

No confusion. HAE, long before Honor earned the star of Fleet Admiral, specifically mentions that she'll have 5 command stars once she officially takes command of HMS Wayfarer.

Honor Among Enemies: Ch 4 wrote:She turned to the mirror and placed a black beret carefully on her head. The white beret which denoted a starship's commander was still packed away, waiting until she officially assumed command of her new ship, and she brushed the four gold stars on the left breast of her uniform. Each of them represented command of a hyper-capable vessel of the Queen's Navy, and despite all her ambiguity, she felt bone-deep satisfaction at the thought that she would shortly add a fifth.

Honor Among Enemies: Ch 39 wrote:"I see." Honor had commanded five starships. Now the second had been scrapped, the first had been destroyed, and the last was about to die with her.

1st - HMS Hawkwing (DD-1213) [destroyed in the previous chapter]
2nd - HMS Fearless (CL-56) [scrapped; due to age and damage from Basilisk]
3rd - HMS Fearless (CA-286)
4th - HMS Nike (BC-413)
5th - HMS Wayfarer

The only question is whether her later honorary Captaincy of HMS Unconquered entitled her to a 6th command hyper command star (in addition to making her the only flag officer in the RMN that can wear the white beret of command).