Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:There was one fight at Zanzibar (already referenced upthread as the anomaly) where a Peep force hypered out, met up with colliers and reloaded their pods, then came back before the defending RMN force could overcome it's vector and return in-system. But that's the only example of tactical reloading that I can recall.


Strategic reloading on the other hand is what White Haven was doing. To avoid having to come back to base between systems he brought colliers along to rearm after the fight was over and the Peeps had been blown away. (He might have reloaded in the captured system or might have had a rendezvous in deep space or an unoccupied system on the way to his next target; but in any case all indications are that he was reloaded between fights to be topped up for the next one; but not to reenter an already started tactical fight)

Except that I was referring to his single campaign against Trevor's Star. During that campaign, Trevor's Star was the only objective. Rearming from colliers in that instance could be a tactical maneuver as well - seeing as though McQueen didn't get reinforcements, IIRC.

But perhaps the tactical edge is lost if the rearming process was painfully slow. It seems that perhaps the RHN was ahead of the RMN there. Which intensifies my curiosity as to how the RHN accomplished it as opposed to the RMN. Or more succinctly, how did the Peeps accomplish it at Zanzibar?

I suppose some mysteries shall remain.

Sorry, the McQueen reference wasn't enough of a hint to me that you were referring to the conquest of Trevor's star. I'd slipped my timeline and was thinking Hamish vs McQueen as CNO (of course she was dead by the time Buttercup kicked off; but like I said I messed that up). Of course by the time of the battle at Trevor's Star McQueen was recalled, so it wasn't Hamish vs McQeen.

In the Trevor's Star Campaign (which would include a series of tactical battles in the various systems around it; followed by the decissive battle (w/ wormhole assault) that captured the system. Can you point to the text-ev you were thinking off that had White Haven rearming mid-battle?


I can't recall one and failed to find text for it; though I even went back to RFC's detailed description of that final battle at Trevor's Star, in his 16-Jul-2012 post in More from David on Wormhole Assults.
I also checked the plan for the assault laid out in Ch 1 of HAE. It talks of "crushing the systems which supported it one by one, simultaneously isolating his true objective and positioning himself to launch converging attacks upon it, and then bringing up Home Fleet itself in support" but no mention of reloads.

Though unwritten it seems pretty mucha given that after crushing each system he'd top off his ammo from the fleet train.
But while that's reloading mid-campaign, it's not mid-battle.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:There was one fight at Zanzibar (already referenced upthread as the anomaly) where a Peep force hypered out, met up with colliers and reloaded their pods, then came back before the defending RMN force could overcome it's vector and return in-system. But that's the only example of tactical reloading that I can recall.


Strategic reloading on the other hand is what White Haven was doing. To avoid having to come back to base between systems he brought colliers along to rearm after the fight was over and the Peeps had been blown away. (He might have reloaded in the captured system or might have had a rendezvous in deep space or an unoccupied system on the way to his next target; but in any case all indications are that he was reloaded between fights to be topped up for the next one; but not to reenter an already started tactical fight)

Except that I was referring to his single campaign against Trevor's Star. During that campaign, Trevor's Star was the only objective. Rearming from colliers in that instance could be a tactical maneuver as well - seeing as though McQueen didn't get reinforcements, IIRC.

But perhaps the tactical edge is lost if the rearming process was painfully slow. It seems that perhaps the RHN was ahead of the RMN there. Which intensifies my curiosity as to how the RHN accomplished it as opposed to the RMN. Or more succinctly, how did the Peeps accomplish it at Zanzibar?

I suppose some mysteries shall remain.

Johnathan_S wrote:Sorry, the McQueen reference wasn't enough of a hint to me that you were referring to the conquest of Trevor's star. I'd slipped my timeline and was thinking Hamish vs McQueen as CNO (of course she was dead by the time Buttercup kicked off; but like I said I messed that up). Of course by the time of the battle at Trevor's Star McQueen was recalled, so it wasn't Hamish vs McQeen.

In the Trevor's Star Campaign (which would include a series of tactical battles in the various systems around it; followed by the decissive battle (w/ wormhole assault) that captured the system. Can you point to the text-ev you were thinking off that had White Haven rearming mid-battle?


I can't recall one and failed to find text for it; though I even went back to RFC's detailed description of that final battle at Trevor's Star, in his 16-Jul-2012 post in More from David on Wormhole Assults.
I also checked the plan for the assault laid out in Ch 1 of HAE. It talks of "crushing the systems which supported it one by one, simultaneously isolating his true objective and positioning himself to launch converging attacks upon it, and then bringing up Home Fleet itself in support" but no mention of reloads.

Though unwritten it seems pretty mucha given that after crushing each system he'd top off his ammo from the fleet train.
But while that's reloading mid-campaign, it's not mid-battle.

Are you certain that McQueen and Hamish didn't go up against each other until she was recalled? IIRC, she was recalled after Hamish received technological upgrades that she wouldn't be able to equal. She spanked Hamish's ass for quite a while. He even commented that she was a better tactician.

But my point was that after Hamish's campaign reached Trevor's Star then his missile colliers would likewise be utilized to rearm for continued offenses against McQueen's defensive posture in the same battle. Since McQueen had a tactical advantage of the interior position at Trevor's Star, it seems likely that Hamish would seek every advantage of his own. Quick rearming and going back in before McQueen could lick her wounds and reset seems quite palpable.

Honor's father has promised to search relentlessly for a cure for Nimitz. I assume that he is up to his elbows and ears in research.

Is it too far a stretch to think that treecats will someday have the opportunity to regenerate?

And from there would prolong be made available? Would treecats even want a prolonged life greatly beyond their current lifespan?

I think they'd certainly go for regeneration.

I certainly hope RFC ends the series with Nimitz getting his mojo back.

cthia wrote:Are you certain that McQueen and Hamish didn't go up against each other until she was recalled? IIRC, she was recalled after Hamish received technological upgrades that she wouldn't be able to equal. She spanked Hamish's ass for quite a while. He even commented that she was a better tactician.

McQueen and White Haven never directly faced each other in battle, as far as I recall. McQueen was based at Barnett, and controlled the front line from there. I don't think she led any attacks out of Barnett; that was handled by her other admirals. White Haven did not attack Barnett until McQueen was already gone.

But my point was that after Hamish's campaign reached Trevor's Star then his missile colliers would likewise be utilized to rearm for continued offenses against McQueen's defensive posture in the same battle. Since McQueen had a tactical advantage of the interior position at Trevor's Star, it seems likely that Hamish would seek every advantage of his own. Quick rearming and going back in before McQueen could lick her wounds and reset seems quite palpable.

There is no textev that White Haven used missile colliers to rearm in battle. The description David has given of the battle does not say anything about missile colliers being present at the Battle of Trevor's Star at all. Given the way the battle evolved, it does not seem possible that he could have rearmed from missile colliers at any point. At no point did White Haven withdraw any of his ships from the battle.

SWM wrote:

cthia wrote:Are you certain that McQueen and Hamish didn't go up against each other until she was recalled? IIRC, she was recalled after Hamish received technological upgrades that she wouldn't be able to equal. She spanked Hamish's ass for quite a while. He even commented that she was a better tactician.

McQueen and White Haven never directly faced each other in battle, as far as I recall. McQueen was based at Barnett, and controlled the front line from there. I don't think she led any attacks out of Barnett; that was handled by her other admirals. White Haven did not attack Barnett until McQueen was already gone.

McQueen did command at Trevor's Star in between Stalking Horse and prior to her recall to Haven. That recall was before the First Battle of Trevor's Star, when the CPS saw that Trevor's Star was doomed and did not want to lose their best admiral there.

There were operations around Trevor's Star before that last one, and I believe White Haven was the admiral on Manticore's side for them. Certainly he was on point for the campaign around it prior to First Trevor's Star, and for that battle itself, though that one was after she'd been recalled. Given that that campaign was all around Trevor's Star, as the Trevor's Star commander she could possibly have been commanding in one or more of the fights in the systems approaching it. (If you're commanding the defense of X, and X's defense is currently hot at the approach system Y, Y is a place you may usefully be.)

So there's a time period in there where a McQueen-White Haven faceoff is plausible. Before Stalking Horse, White Haven bounced off PH forces at First Nightingale. The Peep admiral there isn't listed and (for all we know) could have been McQueen.

JeffEngel wrote:

SWM wrote:McQueen did command at Trevor's Star in between Stalking Horse and prior to her recall to Haven. That recall was before the First Battle of Trevor's Star, when the CPS saw that Trevor's Star was doomed and did not want to lose their best admiral there.

There were operations around Trevor's Star before that last one, and I believe White Haven was the admiral on Manticore's side for them. Certainly he was on point for the campaign around it prior to First Trevor's Star, and for that battle itself, though that one was after she'd been recalled. Given that that campaign was all around Trevor's Star, as the Trevor's Star commander she could possibly have been commanding in one or more of the fights in the systems approaching it. (If you're commanding the defense of X, and X's defense is currently hot at the approach system Y, Y is a place you may usefully be.)

So there's a time period in there where a McQueen-White Haven faceoff is plausible. Before Stalking Horse, White Haven bounced off PH forces at First Nightingale. The Peep admiral there isn't listed and (for all we know) could have been McQueen.

Tom Theisman was the leader there prior to replacing McQueen at Barnet. I don't know if He was in command at 1st Nightengale, but he was at 2nd Nightingale and a few later battles, where he blunted and bloodied White Haven by using several squadrons of BBs to bolster his forces.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Sorry, the McQueen reference wasn't enough of a hint to me that you were referring to the conquest of Trevor's star. I'd slipped my timeline and was thinking Hamish vs McQueen as CNO (of course she was dead by the time Buttercup kicked off; but like I said I messed that up). Of course by the time of the battle at Trevor's Star McQueen was recalled, so it wasn't Hamish vs McQeen.

Are you certain that McQueen and Hamish didn't go up against each other until she was recalled? IIRC, she was recalled after Hamish received technological upgrades that she wouldn't be able to equal. She spanked Hamish's ass for quite a while. He even commented that she was a better tactician.

But my point was that after Hamish's campaign reached Trevor's Star then his missile colliers would likewise be utilized to rearm for continued offenses against McQueen's defensive posture in the same battle. Since McQueen had a tactical advantage of the interior position at Trevor's Star, it seems likely that Hamish would seek every advantage of his own. Quick rearming and going back in before McQueen could lick her wounds and reset seems quite palpable.

By the Time Hamish reached Trevor's Star itself McQueen had already been recalled; so that particular battle wasn't Hamish vs McQueen.

She was calling the shots (as far as allowed by her People's Commisioner) for the overall defense of Trevor's Star, including how the surrounding systems were defended. It's possible that she was personally commanding some of the Peep fleets that Hamish's 6th fleet tangled with in one or anther of the systems around Trevor's Star; but there's no direct text-ev either way (at least not that I can think of).




As for the major technical upgrades, those came later. There were some of course, but 6th fleet wasn't receiving them in any systematic way because they were holding off on sending SDs back for refit, major maintenance, and upgrade, in order to keep the numbers at the front up.

Here's what HAE had to day about McQueen's skill

Honor Among Enemies; Ch 1 wrote:if political commissars truly were degrading the performance of officers like McQueen, White Haven could only be grateful. He'd begun getting a feel for the woman over the last few months, and he suspected he was a better strategist than she. But his edge, if in fact he had one, was far thinner than he would have liked, and she had ice water in her veins.
[...]
she was giving as good as she got. Losses had been very nearly even since she took over, and Manticore simply couldn't afford that.

Good enough to force almost a 1:1 loss ratio; which strategically Manticore couldn't afford; but I'm not sure if that quite counts as spanked Hamish's ass. (Heck in early WWII Wildcat fighters managed about a 1:1 loss ratio against the more agile Japanese Zeros; but most people don't consider that to be kicking ass)

RFC post on the fight in Trevor's Star is pretty clear than White Haven sucked the defenders into a trap, putting them into a fight with 6th fleet (which had at most a slight combat superiority to them) and then hitting them with "three and a half full battle squadrons" Home Fleet detached through the Terminus behind them.
Nothing in that description makes it sound like the fight lasted long enough for any of the wallers to run out of ammo and need a reload (and these were all tube wallers; which take much longer to deplete their missile reserves than podlayers).

I think I'd have to agree here. Support craft are usually very susceptible to damage - they aren't warships themselves, basically freighters with some enhanced drives and compensators, so they couldn't be too close to any battle. Indeed, you wouldn't even want them to be anywhere an enemy could detect them, since even a single destroyer could wreak significant havoc should it get within range.

Not to mention that star systems are *big*. It takes quite a bit of time to accel/decel and travel in a system. For replenishment, you probably actually need to be at relative rest. Ships, or squadrons, would be out of battle for significant time periods. That might not be too bad if one side had a large numerical advantage, but, realistically, that wasn't exactly the case here. If anything, numbers probably went to the Peeps. Unfortunately, their tech capabilities trimmed that back to near parity.

So I seriously doubt any replenishment went on during any particular battle. The Peeps probably couldn't afford to stay put long enough, even if they had supplies much closer to hand, and the Alliance probably couldn't afford the travel time to get to their support vessels and back.

OrlandoNative wrote:So I seriously doubt any replenishment went on during any particular battle. The Peeps probably couldn't afford to stay put long enough, even if they had supplies much closer to hand, and the Alliance probably couldn't afford the travel time to get to their support vessels and back.

Agreed, with one exception--we know they did it at Zanzibar. But that is the only place we know they did it, and probably the only time it happened during the entire war.

cthia wrote:Honor's father has promised to search relentlessly for a cure for Nimitz. I assume that he is up to his elbows and ears in research.

Is it too far a stretch to think that treecats will someday have the opportunity to regenerate?

And from there would prolong be made available? Would treecats even want a prolonged life greatly beyond their current lifespan?

I think they'd certainly go for regeneration.

I certainly hope RFC ends the series with Nimitz getting his mojo back.

I too hope that a way to heal nimitiz is found. regen for 'cats would be great, prolong? fine for non bonded cats but given that this will be the first generation in which humans with prolong are likely to live longer then a 'cat i don't see the bonded cats choosing to extend its life even more given the tendency for cat to follow their partners into the black