Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:Personally, I think all of you are a bunch of cthia buzz killers.

Has RFC written himself into a battle corner? I like missile engagements and things that go boom into the dark of space. For the most part, I can't wait for the next main-line(pun intended) installment, but I'm a bit leery, because absent ship to ship conflict, makes for a bit boring storyline. Surely everyone doesn't think the League is just going to throw in the towel? Come on! The giant just sleeps!

There will be smaller actions. With the right circumstances and numbers, the SLN could generate fair or even favorable fights - somewhere, and to little or no strategic benefit.

But the gripping fights ahead are likely to be against the MAN, not the SLN. The League is just a big patsy now. It's less an enemy than a failed state - failed superpower! - the disintegration of which calls for management. The Alignment, it's an enemy.

Which brings me to questioning, whether against the League, if LACs are a bit redundant. Doesn't Manticore enjoy the advantage of missile range? (Not sure about the Cataphract's impact.)

You could build a ballistic stage into a Cataphract for stupendous range, but without any form of FTL control, and just the single additional stage, and the limited duration of the final stage, it doesn't deliver an effective answer to DDM or MDM ranges with FTL comms.

Haven enjoyed missile ranges on a par with Manticore, as a result Manty LACs, in their defensive roles, made sense. But it doesn't seem that a far-forward deployed anti-missile LAC threat is needed - against the League. (Bracketing limited Manty missile stock.)

If the SLN had a ridiculous advantages in warships, and got a GA force into powered missile range, then LAC help for missile defense could have a role, far-forward or not. But no, that's not likely to occur, except in places where the GA force is too small to have a CLAC on hand anyway.

I suppose I question putting LACs in harms way against the League. They don't seem to be needed. Unless the League rolls the dice and sends another juggernaut, which you all surmise won't happen.

Well, the League hasn't seen how stealthy or dangerous LAC's can be yet, so reprising Operation Buttercup style attacks on them with LAC's is an option. The amount of harm they are likely to come in for in that case can be minimized. And if a single CLAC can do what a BC division could for a medium-sized fleet base, then you've got 6-8 BC's that can split up to do other things instead.

Can SLN rear area raids carry the next novel?

Nah. Don't expect them to. Politics, revolution, espionage, and maneuvers by and against the Alignment, these are the likely meat of that. The SLN will be twitching for awhile. That's about all for them.

But getting back to Johnathan's point. Since the League isn't fully aware of the LAC threat, R&D probably isn't being channeled there.

However, if they are aware of the threat, or will become aware of the threat (because Solarian NavInt didn't seem to be the problem. Assimilation was), then perhaps Solarian tech base could easily produce a counter LAC design. We're talking about Old Earth. They were playing with the tech before man walked on the moon.

They haven't had institutional experience developing military hardware in response to realistic threats since... ever. Manticore has been working on it with a lot of care, focus, and bloody experience for about 50 years. The stuff inside the makes these things work - the miniaturized power systems, beta-squared nodes, Grayson-derived inertial compensators, the baffle for MDM's - none of it is obvious from what the SLN has seen. They've got a fine general tech base, an excellent one, but putting it to this sort of use is foreign to them, it takes time, and they do not have it.

Basically, I have a problem with the huge juggernaut just rolling over. Was the League just a big coward of a bully, that upon its first bloody nose, it simply runs home crying to mother?

It's huge. Really, really huge. No one disputes that. But if you cannot strike back, if you're trading hulls for missiles, you really have to have doubts about what you're doing this for. And the League is nothing anyone is going to die for. Die of, absolutely. But not die for.

It's also large enough that people won't realize that immediately. Not after New Tuscany, not after Spindle, and only kinda dimly after Second Manticore. But at this point, it's coming to looking for other ways of handling the GA. They won't work either. Then there's other ways of organizing the League, so that, for instance, it's not reliant on trade and wormholes it cannot control and protectorates it cannot keep for cash. You can expect that to be a no-sell too. This can be followed by numb stupefaction - the League's been a fact of life, like gravity, for too long, for even overwhelming evidence that it's collapsing to quite make it through to everyone's head and heart.

But its day is over; its time, come. Quit looking for a fight out of it.

kzt wrote:This assumes that everyone in the SLN is an illiterate idiot. Which is a schtick that is wearing kind of thin for me.

Didn't mean to ruffle any feathers here, and I'm certainly not planning any petition claiming inherent Solarian ignorance. Apparent maybe, but not inherent. What I'm alluding to, is age-old arrogance of a Solarian mindset of its own invincibility.

'We are the Solarian League, and ultimately impervious to defeat.'

That single tenet has been central to the entire storyline and has been employed to explain unreasonable, illogical, and ill-founded Solarian agression throughout its life cycle, before, up to, and including its current conflict with the Haven sector. I simply think it's unreasonable to expect the League to so quickly reverse its course from a well traveled, familiar path that is all they've known, and paramount to its existence. I also attempt to take into account how human nature works, that Senior SLN officers do not operate in a vacuum. There are other officers, entities, and Earth's patriotic constituents. And the argument that the League aren't a bunch of idiots, also argue that they will be able to conceive of other ways to battle the new kids on the block. Or at least put forth a valiant effort.

I think there's a real danger in underestimating the industrial power of the League, the R&D might, resourcefulness, determination and the grit that made the League into the formidable juggernaut in the first place. The fact that they rested on their laurels and became complacent within their own arrogance does not belie the potential of the League.

'Damned if we do. Damned if we don't. But we won't go quietly into that good night.'

JMO.

cthia wrote:I think there's a real danger in underestimating the industrial power of the League, the R&D might, resourcefulness, determination and the grit that made the League into the formidable juggernaut in the first place. The fact that they rested on their laurels and became complacent within their own arrogance does not belie the potential of the League.

'Damned if we do. Damned if we don't. But we won't go quietly into that good night.'

JMO.

Grit? What grit? No grit was required. The Diaspora happened; many worlds made their own way, created self-sufficient great societies; Old Earth maimed itself; the kids came back to help put things in order and set up a treaty organization to make for a more peaceable interstellar order. The grit, determination, and resourcefulness were never the League's property - they belonged, and still do, to all those systems that chose to organize the League.

It was meant to do good things, consistent with leaving the members practically alone. Alas, it meant that the League Assembly left the working government practically alone too. It had a job to do, and it went to work by extra-legislative means. And became a monster - and not the gritty, determined, resourceful kind, either. As an institution, it's a dull-witted thug dressed up in a tattered disguise as a generous humanitarian organization. As individuals, it's got the whole range of human vice and virtue. But that's not how it functions.

Jeff Engel wrote:But its day is over; its time, come. Quit looking for a fight out of it.

But I can't Jeff. I just can't. Owe it in part to my intellectual shortcomings.

I suppose the other part is the buildup, that a certain writer is responsible for, in my head, of this looming super juggernaut, that in the end, just doesn't deliver, and even fails to put up a respectable fight.

And the fact that the League never went to the drawing board and actually planned an assault. Every single battle was instigated by the Malign, not planned by the League. Not saying it'd make a difference. Still.

But okay, you all grow weary of my wishing well. So I'll attempt to keep my wishes to myself ...

But they still exist. Still ... exist.

drothgery wrote:

cthia wrote:It's also a point that irked me about the role of LACs. How they so quickly morphed away from offensive to defensive roles. It just seemed to me a waste of their capabilities.

I'd remind people here that LAC's role didn't change, the kind of engagements we were seeing changed. In battles with large numbers of wallers on both sides, LACs have always been in a mostly-defensive role. It's just that we saw them first in smaller-scale actions.

They tried in BOM. They lost 1400 of 1600 engaging the SDs. And achieved NOTHING. They should have just rolled behind their wedges and skimmed the formation.

cthia wrote:

Jeff Engel wrote:But its day is over; its time, come. Quit looking for a fight out of it.

But I can't Jeff. I just can't. Owe it in part to my intellectual shortcomings.

I suppose the other part is the buildup, that a certain writer is responsible for, in my head, of this looming super juggernaut, that in the end, just doesn't deliver, and even fails to put up a respectable fight.

And the fact that the League never went to the drawing board and actually planned an assault. Every single battle was instigated by the Malign, not planned by the League. Not saying it'd make a difference. Still.

But okay, you all grow weary of my wishing well. So I'll attempt to keep my wishes to myself ...

But they still exist. Still ... exist.

I agree cthia. There are numerous mentions in the books to support the SLN getting its act together.

1. First Lord Alexander saying that the RMN could run wild, until the SLN developed the same tech and then rolled them over.

2. Cpt al-Fanudahi explaining to Cpt Teague that while the SLN may be behind the times, that doesn't mean the SL is in terms of R&D. (end of Storm From the Shadows).

3. Haven keeping within shouting distance of the Manties, every time it looked like the Manties had the knock-out punch.

4. The numerous times the Darwinian nature of combat, where you learn or die, are mentioned in the books. The SLN now has a lot of personnel who have seen the elephant. And not all of them are prisoners in Spindle or Manticore.

5. For a historical analogy, besides Hamish Alexander as Adm Yamamoto, the US military at the beginning of WWII wasn't in the best of shape. The military equipment in general deployment was outdated compared to the Axis and the doctrine was lacking. The landing and campaign in North Africa started badly and there was a learning curve for the US Army. The same can be said for the US Navy in the Atlantic and Pacific at the beginning of the war. But the US learned and translated that learning to the new soldiers.

Sure, the SLN hasn't had to fight a real war in centuries and SL population is living in a cocoon. But cocoons can open and one thing the bureaucracy of the SL has not wanted to do according to their statements in the books, is to wake up the populace as to how things are really working. Pressure from the various civilian governments could force change on the SLN.

I have a distinct feeling that Adm Crandall and Adm Byng are the exception rather than the rule for SLN flag officers. Adm Filareta had a brain, which is why the MAlign had setup Adm Daniels to push the button on the SLN attack on Manticore. All three were put into place by the MAlign, so I would not infer their competence on the rest of the SLN. Lt Maitland, Cpt Mizawa, Cpt Irene Teague would be more like what I expect the average SLN officer to be. Expecting that the SLN is the premier navy, but intellectually honest enough to learn otherwise.

6. The SDFs sent observers to the Haven Sector all during the wars. We don't know what some of them have been developing on their own.

7. And 6 leads right into the Maya sector. Who knows what other sector governors have been doing with or without the help of some of the SDFs.

Do I think the SL will do a 180 and save themselves from destruction? No, but I don't see the SL being an easy pushover either. RFC hasn't written that way in the past and I don't see him changing.

JeffEngel wrote:But the gripping fights ahead are likely to be against the MAN, not the SLN. The League is just a big patsy now. It's less an enemy than a failed state - failed superpower! - the disintegration of which calls for management. The Alignment, it's an enemy.

That would be quite fine with me too Jeff and in the past I have expressed a desire for said confrontations in the next installment. Except that most everyone thinks that the Malign are best served by staying in the shadows.

So, if you all think the Malign are going to remain hidden and that the SLN are pansies, then I guess there's no one left to fight but the Stilties.

Can't have your cake, lick the icing and eat it too.

cthia wrote:

Jeff Engel wrote:But its day is over; its time, come. Quit looking for a fight out of it.

But I can't Jeff. I just can't. Owe it in part to my intellectual shortcomings.

I suppose the other part is the buildup, that a certain writer is responsible for, in my head, of this looming super juggernaut, that in the end, just doesn't deliver, and even fails to put up a respectable fight.

And the fact that the League never went to the drawing board and actually planned an assault. Every single battle was instigated by the Malign, not planned by the League. Not saying it'd make a difference. Still.

But okay, you all grow weary of my wishing well. So I'll attempt to keep my wishes to myself ...

But they still exist. Still ... exist.

Kizarvexis wrote:I agree cthia. There are numerous mentions in the books to support the SLN getting its act together.

1. First Lord Alexander saying that the RMN could run wild, until the SLN developed the same tech and then rolled them over.

2. Cpt al-Fanudahi explaining to Cpt Teague that while the SLN may be behind the times, that doesn't mean the SL is in terms of R&D. (end of Storm From the Shadows).

3. Haven keeping within shouting distance of the Manties, every time it looked like the Manties had the knock-out punch.

4. The numerous times the Darwinian nature of combat, where you learn or die, are mentioned in the books. The SLN now has a lot of personnel who have seen the elephant. And not all of them are prisoners in Spindle or Manticore.

5. For a historical analogy, besides Hamish Alexander as Adm Yamamoto, the US military at the beginning of WWII wasn't in the best of shape. The military equipment in general deployment was outdated compared to the Axis and the doctrine was lacking. The landing and campaign in North Africa started badly and there was a learning curve for the US Army. The same can be said for the US Navy in the Atlantic and Pacific at the beginning of the war. But the US learned and translated that learning to the new soldiers.

Sure, the SLN hasn't had to fight a real war in centuries and SL population is living in a cocoon. But cocoons can open and one thing the bureaucracy of the SL has not wanted to do according to their statements in the books, is to wake up the populace as to how things are really working. Pressure from the various civilian governments could force change on the SLN.

I have a distinct feeling that Adm Crandall and Adm Byng are the exception rather than the rule for SLN flag officers. Adm Filareta had a brain, which is why the MAlign had setup Adm Daniels to push the button on the SLN attack on Manticore. All three were put into place by the MAlign, so I would not infer their competence on the rest of the SLN. Lt Maitland, Cpt Mizawa, Cpt Irene Teague would be more like what I expect the average SLN officer to be. Expecting that the SLN is the premier navy, but intellectually honest enough to learn otherwise.

6. The SDFs sent observers to the Haven Sector all during the wars. We don't know what some of them have been developing on their own.

7. And 6 leads right into the Maya sector. Who knows what other sector governors have been doing with or without the help of some of the SDFs.

Do I think the SL will do a 180 and save themselves from destruction? No, but I don't see the SL being an easy pushover either. RFC hasn't written that way in the past and I don't see him changing.

Thank You.

I could not have articulated it any better.

JeffEngel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:They basically have plans for really crappy old-style lacs (as you acknowledged in a later post)

And, as of yet, the SLN doesn't have the impetus that Haven did to blunt the RMN/GSN LACs.

Haven was worried about they because they'd only seen them as "super-LACs" tearing up (carefully selected) targets during Buttercup with scary powerful grazers and really good stealth.

Well, to be clear, Haven's LACophobia came in two stages. First, after Second Hancock, there were the reports from Diamato about the Minotaur's LAC's and what they did. But the data were sketchy and political winds made going on about a big jump in Manticoran technical superiority that way impossible to do in public. Second, during and after Buttercup, super-LAC denialism became impossible but just what these things were and could do became clear. They demanded recognition and response, yes, but not throwing up your hands and saying game over. That role was played by MDM's, particularly from podlayers. (MDM's from external pods would probably have been quite bad enough.)

The key thing that Theisman realized about the LAC's at least was that they were most devastating as a surprise. Once you knew about them, they "only" mean that the enemy has an ability to put out remarkably fast, hard-to-hit subwaller screening units in-system in CLAC-wing lots for far less crew and cash commitment than before. But like the podlayer and unlike the MDM, that's the sort of thing that you can make up for with a massive quantitative advantage.

I get that, and it's a good point about the 2 phases. But I still think Haven overestimated the effect Shrikes might have on wallers. They weren't just using CLACs to provide counter-LAC screen on BC raids. During Thunderbolt they were bringing along lots of LACs to screen their podlayers; to deter Manticore from sending their LACs against the wall (something that we know Manticore would do only in desperation - and with minimal effect even if no screen was present.

Even Haven's pre-war sims had Manticoran Shrikes and Ferrets attempting to blow through the screening Cimeterres to engage the Havenite wall. That's still (to my mind) overrating the threat LACs pose to an intact wall.


In Thunderbolt I think the only times Mantie LACs even tried to engage podnaughts was systems that had nothing else, and Grendelsbane. Both desperation scenarios. Even at Sidemore Honor possitioned them so Haven had to honor the threat of LAC strikes; but declined to expose them to the defensive fire of a wall (though they were able to go after cripples)

So I think Thunderbolt would have been virtually as successful even without every developing a CLAC/counter-LAC doctrine. But their LACs do have obvious advantages for discouraging CLAC raids of tertiary systems; or to keep defending LACs off of BC or cruiser raids. And even pre-Thunderbolt they'd realized the missile defense advantages all those LACs could provide.

cthia wrote:That single tenet has been central to the entire storyline and has been employed to explain unreasonable, illogical, and ill-founded Solarian agression throughout its life cycle, before, up to, and including its current conflict with the Haven sector. I simply think it's unreasonable to expect the League to so quickly reverse its course from a well traveled, familiar path that is all they've known, and paramount to its existence. I also attempt to take into account how human nature works, that Senior SLN officers do not operate in a vacuum. There are other officers, entities, and Earth's patriotic constituents. And the argument that the League aren't a bunch of idiots, also argue that they will be able to conceive of other ways to battle the new kids on the block. Or at least put forth a valiant effort.

There's something to that. Nothing teaches lessons like defeat. Go in and fire a bunch of officers that can't cope, and promote the SOB (be they ever so unlikable, poorly connected, or politically tone-deaf) who can - and given a little time you can work miracles.

The question, in some ways, is:
1) has the League been hurt enough to learn from? (Enough to shake up not just the active battlefleet; but the R&D firms, the contractors, the people holding the purse strings and letting the contract)
2) have they been hit by enough things to learn from? (or are there other critical capabilities that they are, as yet, unaware of)
3) are they cohesive enough to avoid simply shattering while they try to rebuild and restructure based on what they've (so painfully) learned.


I guess we'll have to see. But I would like some more good space battles.