Honorverse favorite one-liners

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:You really should look at the history of the USN intelligence vs the IJN prior to WW2. The IJN was the most likely opponent for the USN, and the USN really knew very little about the IJN's ships, training, operational traditions, weapon capabilities or leadership, and generally held them in total contempt.

This attitude paid off for the USN at Savo Island.

The "Knowledge" that a war was going to be in the Pacific started by a growing Japanese military was so prevalent at the time, that there was actually a book on the Subject written in 1926 - "The Great Pacific War" discusses a war between the US and Japan in the 1930s, quite realistically. It details The US being caught initially off guard and losing the intiial major battles, mostly with old WWI vessels. It tells of the US's industrial Might in response, Island hopping campaigns, amphibous warfare, the assendence of the Aircraft carrier and land based aircraft - all in all, quite an interesting book for being written 15-20 years before the actual event.

But it just underscores KZT's point on the USN's pre-war intel laxness - they should have know better and they... just didn't want to.

You have gotta be kidding me?
I know you're not, but...its incredible.
Perhaps suspension of belief shouldn't be so difficult.

And I'll place that material in my inbox to eventually read.
Thanx!

It's as if The Art Of War is...ignored!

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:
The "Knowledge" that a war was going to be in the Pacific started by a growing Japanese military was so prevalent at the time, that there was actually a book on the Subject written in 1926 - "The Great Pacific War" discusses a war between the US and Japan in the 1930s, quite realistically. It details The US being caught initially off guard and losing the intiial major battles, mostly with old WWI vessels. It tells of the US's industrial Might in response, Island hopping campaigns, amphibous warfare, the assendence of the Aircraft carrier and land based aircraft - all in all, quite an interesting book for being written 15-20 years before the actual event.

But it just underscores KZT's point on the USN's pre-war intel laxness - they should have know better and they... just didn't want to.

You have gotta be kidding me?
I know you're not, but...its incredible.
Perhaps suspension of belief shouldn't be so difficult.

And I'll place that material in my inbox to eventually read.
Thanx!

It's as if The Art Of War is...ignored!

Google Books has a copy of it available.

http://books.google.com/books?id=KOys6iShHT4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+great+pacific+war&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YVUrU6n1BILnqgGe4oCoBQ&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20great%20pacific%20war&f=false

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:The "Knowledge" that a war was going to be in the Pacific started by a growing Japanese military was so prevalent at the time, that there was actually a book on the Subject written in 1926 - "The Great Pacific War" discusses a war between the US and Japan in the 1930s, quite realistically. It details The US being caught initially off guard and losing the intiial major battles, mostly with old WWI vessels. It tells of the US's industrial Might in response, Island hopping campaigns, amphibous warfare, the assendence of the Aircraft carrier and land based aircraft - all in all, quite an interesting book for being written 15-20 years before the actual event.

But it just underscores KZT's point on the USN's pre-war intel laxness - they should have know better and they... just didn't want to.

You have gotta be kidding me?
I know you're not, but...its incredible.
Perhaps suspension of belief shouldn't be so difficult.

And I'll place that material in my inbox to eventually read.
Thanx!

It's as if The Art Of War is...ignored!

I read it a couple years ago and it was interesting to see what the author had predicted correctly and what he'd gotten wrong.

IIRC he was wrong about how the US would use submarines and predicted the use of poison gasses (not too surprising given their use in WWI). Also, because it was set in the early 30's, airplanes weren't as capable as they'd be a decade later; which significantly modified aircraft carriers' role in the conflict.

Theemile wrote:

kzt"[quote="cthia wrote:What navy fails to scout the opposing navy and its probable commanders?
How can the SL not have anything on Harrington?

You really should look at the history of the USN intelligence vs the IJN prior to WW2. The IJN was the most likely opponent for the USN, and the USN really knew very little about the IJN's ships, training, operational traditions, weapon capabilities or leadership, and generally held them in total contempt.

This attitude paid off for the USN at Savo Island.

The "Knowledge" that a war was going to be in the Pacific started by a growing Japanese military was so prevalent at the time, that there was actually a book on the Subject written in 1926 - "The Great Pacific War" discusses a war between the US and Japan in the 1930s, quite realistically. It details The US being caught initially off guard and losing the intiial major battles, mostly with old WWI vessels. It tells of the US's industrial Might in response, Island hopping campaigns, amphibous warfare, the assendence of the Aircraft carrier and land based aircraft - all in all, quite an interesting book for being written 15-20 years before the actual event.

But it just underscores KZT's point on the USN's pre-war intel laxness - they should have know better and they... just didn't want to.[/quote]
Actually they did but US Intell had dozens of handicaps.

1 Lack of Japanese translators both spoken and writing IIRC the USN had in 1940 40-50 Japanese speakers and 10-15 writers of the language

2 little if any knowledge of Japanese industrial areas and sites

3 Japan took extraordinary and extreme measures to hide various project such as the type 94 torpedo and Yamato.

saber964 wrote:Actually they did but US Intell had dozens of handicaps.

1 Lack of Japanese translators both spoken and writing IIRC the USN had in 1940 40-50 Japanese speakers and 10-15 writers of the language

2 little if any knowledge of Japanese industrial areas and sites

3 Japan took extraordinary and extreme measures to hide various project such as the type 94 torpedo and Yamato.

They didn't care to fix these issues. IIRC, they didn't do things like assign Japanese literate officers to the Naval attache position at the US embassy or pay any attention to what they did gather.

Forgive me my personal Honorverse one-liner but reading ART I can't resist as it keeps popping into my head, so I'll just...spit it out.

You old hands remember the old E.F. Hutton commercials?

When E.F. Hutton talks people listen.

When H.S. Harrington talks navies listen.

A cute (and accurate) thought from Honor soon after acquiring her permanent armsmen in FoD:

Somehow, without realizing it was happening, she'd acquired a MacGuiness with a gun, and she suspected her life would never be quite the same again.

ART

“It may be a dream, Oliver,” Vice Admiral Jennifer Bellefeuille said from her quadrant of the display, “but, frankly, the thought of fighting Sollies instead of Manties makes it more pleasant than quite a few I’ve had!”

Hey-la-day-la My Bellefeuille's back!

Honor to Filareta, of course.

“So has it occurred to you that things may not be quite as simple as you thought they were, Admiral Filareta?”

Tourville has gotta be glad the raggedy shoe is on someone else's foot!

The silence on Oppenheimer’s flag bridge was absolute.
They mousetrapped me. Filareta felt something like admiration even through his shock. They keyed the entire thing to my own approach. They showed me Tango Two’s impellers to suck in the recon platforms and keep me coming, then they timed Tango Three’s wedges to come on line only after I crossed the limit. And they had Tango Four waiting in hyper the entire time. They must’ve sent a courier across the alpha wall to alert their backdoor force…and they timed their hyper translation to catch me on the wrong side of the limit, too.

I like the icing on a cake!