?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote: Premise: If an LD gets a chance to bite Imperator, it will. It doesn't matter how the two will get into striking range of each other. Shit happens. And the LD may strike even if it has to abandon its current mission.

Yes, both ships die. I've already agreed (multiple times) that this is the outcome if the LD fires. I'm not certain it would in the first place.

My problem is not this conclusion, given the premises. This conclusion is uninteresting. It's the premise itself I have a problem with.

When I first read this, I did a double take. Like. WOE.

You do not think that losing Honor would be interesting? It would be interesting even if only for the hilarious number of pitchforks headed to South Carolina.

penny wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Yes, both ships die. I've already agreed (multiple times) that this is the outcome if the LD fires. I'm not certain it would in the first place.

My problem is not this conclusion, given the premises. This conclusion is uninteresting. It's the premise itself I have a problem with.

When I first read this, I did a double take. Like. WOE.

You do not think that losing Honor would be interesting? It would be interesting even if only for the hilarious number of pitchforks headed to South Carolina.

That's not what he said (or at least not what I understood him to say).

He said that the conclusion about the ship to ship combat was uninteresting. Best case (for the Malign) both die.


Losing Honor might lead the story in interesting directions - and that certainly was RFC's original plan.

But if the MAlign actually set killing Honor as their top strategic priority killing her aboard her flagship (odd, since she'd retired and wouldn't be aboard) using the deliberate sacrifice of a Lenny Det would be like 50th on their list of ways to do so. Because it's a bad combination of low probability of success, high cost (succeed or fail), and moderate likelihood of permitting reverse engineering of their naval crown jewels.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The remaining strategists and tacticians wouldn't be so incompetent as the lose the war for the US, not given the ridiculously lopsided industrial output and manpower.

Some numbers to give this context.

Between Dec 7, 1941 and Aug 15, 1945 the countries commissioned:
Battleships: Japan 2 | US 8
Fleet carriers: Japan 7 | US 17
Light carriers: Japan 1 | US 9
Escort carriers: Japan 10 | US 75
Heavy Cruisers: Japan 0 | US 9
Light Cruisers: Japan 8 | US 33
Destroyers: Japan 69 | US 272
Submarines: Japan 110 | US 145
And total aircraft produced: Japan ~85,000 | US ~273,000

Just utterly outproduced.

When the production differential is that lopsided (and there isn't some offsetting tech silver bullet) you don't need a strategic or tactical genus; even average middle of the road leaders can easily achieve victory.

Another issue was Japan didn't have a method to spin up more forces well. They never pulled their experienced people at the tip of the spear back to train new forces with the knowledge and experiences of successful warfighters. America had a cadre system which routinely broke up successful, experienced formations and used them as the nucleus of new units, transferring hard won knowledge from the warfront to new units.

This resulted in Japan losing at the "Great Mariana Turkey Shoot" (amongst other places) as hundreds of green Japanese Pilots were fielded against hardened American pilots. Most of the American pilots didn't have much more time in their cockpits than the Japanese did, but were lead by experienced leaders who had passed on lessons from the front during training; While The Japanese had kept their formations intact, and lost them (and their experience) as they were slowly whittled down in previous battles.

Manticore has done as the US did, successfully making successive generations of JR officers and non-coms who learned from their predecessors, passed that knowledge along to their juniors, and were ready to step up quickly into larger shoes without issue.

Losing a Sr. Admiral will always be a loss, but also an opportunity for a smart jr. officer to show what they learned and Shine.

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The remaining strategists and tacticians wouldn't be so incompetent as the lose the war for the US, not given the ridiculously lopsided industrial output and manpower.

Jonathan_S wrote:Some numbers to give this context.

Between Dec 7, 1941 and Aug 15, 1945 the countries commissioned:
Battleships: Japan 2 | US 8
Fleet carriers: Japan 7 | US 17
Light carriers: Japan 1 | US 9
Escort carriers: Japan 10 | US 75
Heavy Cruisers: Japan 0 | US 9
Light Cruisers: Japan 8 | US 33
Destroyers: Japan 69 | US 272
Submarines: Japan 110 | US 145
And total aircraft produced: Japan ~85,000 | US ~273,000

Just utterly outproduced.

When the production differential is that lopsided (and there isn't some offsetting tech silver bullet) you don't need a strategic or tactical genus; even average middle of the road leaders can easily achieve victory.

Another issue was Japan didn't have a method to spin up more forces well. They never pulled their experienced people at the tip of the spear back to train new forces with the knowledge and experiences of successful warfighters. America had a cadre system which routinely broke up successful, experienced formations and used them as the nucleus of new units, transferring hard won knowledge from the warfront to new units.

This resulted in Japan losing at the "Great Mariana Turkey Shoot" (amongst other places) as hundreds of green Japanese Pilots were fielded against hardened American pilots. Most of the American pilots didn't have much more time in their cockpits than the Japanese did, but were lead by experienced leaders who had passed on lessons from the front during training; While The Japanese had kept their formations intact, and lost them (and their experience) as they were slowly whittled down in previous battles.

Manticore has done as the US did, successfully making successive generations of JR officers and non-coms who learned from their predecessors, passed that knowledge along to their juniors, and were ready to step up quickly into larger shoes without issue.

Losing a Sr. Admiral will always be a loss, but also an opportunity for a smart jr. officer to show what they learned and Shine.

Absolutely. In fact even most people who are generally familiar with the pacific war don't realize Japan built that many carriers. Heck, until recently I'm not sure I'd ever heard of their Unryū-class carriers, because even though a few were commissioned during the war they weren't involved in any of the big carrier battles -- by the time they commissioned there weren't pilots for them (and may not have been much fuel for them).

So it wasn't just industry; but even if Japan had a training program that provided a steady stream of good enough servicemen the industrial mismatch would have still overwhelmed them.

And neither of us yet touched on their fuel issues. Taking out the big name carrier admirals wouldn't have saved Japan's merchant fleet from US subs (though maybe taking out Admiral Lockwood would have delayed the US fixing the Mark-14 torpedo; and slowed the destruction of Japanese shipping), and that's what did the bulk of cutting their forces (and refineries) off from their newly captured oil supplies in the Dutch East Indies.


So, so, many reasons war is more than just the big name leaders.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The remaining strategists and tacticians wouldn't be so incompetent as the lose the war for the US, not given the ridiculously lopsided industrial output and manpower.

Some numbers to give this context.

Between Dec 7, 1941 and Aug 15, 1945 the countries commissioned:
Battleships: Japan 2 | US 8
Fleet carriers: Japan 7 | US 17
Light carriers: Japan 1 | US 9
Escort carriers: Japan 10 | US 75
Heavy Cruisers: Japan 0 | US 9
Light Cruisers: Japan 8 | US 33
Destroyers: Japan 69 | US 272
Submarines: Japan 110 | US 145
And total aircraft produced: Japan ~85,000 | US ~273,000

Just utterly outproduced.

When the production differential is that lopsided (and there isn't some offsetting tech silver bullet) you don't need a strategic or tactical genus; even average middle of the road leaders can easily achieve victory.

Actually it is FAR worse:
USA completed an additional to your list:
1000 LST, Japan 0
400 DE's, Japan 0
2500 Liberty ships, Japan equivalent 125(January 1945, not middle of 1945)
500 Victory ships, Japan 0
60 additional Light Carriers for UK/France and Brazil???
USA ~100? Fast Oilers (what is diff between fast/slow? hyperwar site has them mixed so...)--> Japan 0 as they converted the ones they did or were building into carriers.

Not going to even count smaller under 1000ton boats.

So, an additional # ships over 1000 tons add to your list
USA ~4500 vrs Japan ~125...

This was closer to the SLN verses Manticore minus the population in reality. Any admiral with such gargantuan horrendous advantages would have won.

Relax wrote:
Actually it is FAR worse:
USA completed an additional to your list:
1000 LST, Japan 0
400 DE's, Japan 0
2500 Liberty ships, Japan equivalent 125(January 1945, not middle of 1945)
500 Victory ships, Japan 0
60 additional Light Carriers for UK/France and Brazil???
USA ~100? Fast Oilers (what is diff between fast/slow? hyperwar site has them mixed so...)--> Japan 0 as they converted the ones they did or were building into carriers.

Not going to even count smaller under 1000ton boats.

So, an additional # ships over 1000 tons add to your list
USA ~4500 vrs Japan ~125...

This was closer to the SLN verses Manticore minus the population in reality. Any admiral with such gargantuan horrendous advantages would have won.

IIRC a fast oiler (like the Cimatron-class) can make 18 knots, so it can keep up with the fleet cruising speed; while a slow oiler (like a, checks Wikipedia for a name, Kaweah-class) can only make 10-12 knots. A fast oiler can be part of the fleet train and often provider underway refueling while a slow tanker would slow down any naval force she was attached to and so is generally only useful at shuttling fuel to island bases and refueling ships moored in those harbors/lagoons.

So the fast ones are far more useful;l useful enough that even pre-war the USN had a program to subsidize some fast tankers that could be converted to oilers; basically paying the shipyard and commercial operators for the extra engines, boilers, and operating costs required for those extra 6-8 knots

Jonathan_S wrote:That's not what he said (or at least not what I understood him to say).

He said that the conclusion about the ship to ship combat was uninteresting. Best case (for the Malign) both die.


Losing Honor might lead the story in interesting directions - and that certainly was RFC's original plan.

But if the MAlign actually set killing Honor as their top strategic priority killing her aboard her flagship (odd, since she'd retired and wouldn't be aboard) using the deliberate sacrifice of a Lenny Det would be like 50th on their list of ways to do so. Because it's a bad combination of low probability of success, high cost (succeed or fail), and moderate likelihood of permitting reverse engineering of their naval crown jewels.

Thank you, that's what I meant and would have written in reply.

I really think "kill Honor" comes below "don't give Sonja and Shannon hardware samples" in the list of priorities. After all, the first rule of warfare is "don't help the enemy."

Honor can be replaced by a lesser-but-sufficiently-competent admiral. But giving the GA a tech break means any run-of-the-mill captain could go against an MAN spider ship and win, and the home systems would be impregnable to them.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:That's not what he said (or at least not what I understood him to say).

He said that the conclusion about the ship to ship combat was uninteresting. Best case (for the Malign) both die.


Losing Honor might lead the story in interesting directions - and that certainly was RFC's original plan.

But if the MAlign actually set killing Honor as their top strategic priority killing her aboard her flagship (odd, since she'd retired and wouldn't be aboard) using the deliberate sacrifice of a Lenny Det would be like 50th on their list of ways to do so. Because it's a bad combination of low probability of success, high cost (succeed or fail), and moderate likelihood of permitting reverse engineering of their naval crown jewels.

Thank you, that's what I meant and would have written in reply.

I really think "kill Honor" comes below "don't give Sonja and Shannon hardware samples" in the list of priorities. After all, the first rule of warfare is "don't help the enemy."

Honor can be replaced by a lesser-but-sufficiently-competent admiral. But giving the GA a tech break means any run-of-the-mill captain could go against an MAN spider ship and win, and the home systems would be impregnable to them.

Right, don't help the enemy. Blow their asses up. Stop worrying about them getting pieces of your tech. If they're dead, it doesn't matter. The GA certainly isn't concerned with the enemy getting pieces of its tech. They've got what, a thousand GR drones swanning around the system at any one moment?

Honor is not retired. If she is, then she bought what the MAlign are selling through Galton hook, line and sinker. She promised to see this thing through, if she is retired she can't do that. Le

Thus, hook, line and sinker.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:That's not what he said (or at least not what I understood him to say).

He said that the conclusion about the ship to ship combat was uninteresting. Best case (for the Malign) both die.


Losing Honor might lead the story in interesting directions - and that certainly was RFC's original plan.

But if the MAlign actually set killing Honor as their top strategic priority killing her aboard her flagship (odd, since she'd retired and wouldn't be aboard) using the deliberate sacrifice of a Lenny Det would be like 50th on their list of ways to do so. Because it's a bad combination of low probability of success, high cost (succeed or fail), and moderate likelihood of permitting reverse engineering of their naval crown jewels.

Thank you, that's what I meant and would have written in reply.

I really think "kill Honor" comes below "don't give Sonja and Shannon hardware samples" in the list of priorities. After all, the first rule of warfare is "don't help the enemy."

Honor can be replaced by a lesser-but-sufficiently-competent admiral. But giving the GA a tech break means any run-of-the-mill captain could go against an MAN spider ship and win, and the home systems would be impregnable to them.

Are you mad? Nobody can replace Honor. Not a single solitary soul. Especially over in the Attacking Darius thread.

Anyone other than Honor stick their head in that meat grounder is going to become hamburger. They might have become hamburger at Galton. Honor changed her tactics, but anyone else would not have. And died.

penny wrote:Are you mad? Nobody can replace Honor. Not a single solitary soul. Especially over in the Attacking Darius thread.

Anyone other than Honor stick their head in that meat grounder is going to become hamburger. They might have become hamburger at Galton. Honor changed her tactics, but anyone else would not have. And died.

So the author is mad because his original plan was kill Honor off at the Battle of Manticore? Whether someone dies is up to him. It would be rather poignant if Honor were the commanding officer in the attack that succeeds in capturing Darius, but she dies in the climax of the battle.

PS: I clearly missed the change in tactics at Galton that only Honor could have done. It seemed a simple brute force plan. Note that it was only plot armor that kept Honor from dying there.