What did Captain Zavala do next? and the SL's reaction.

Torlek wrote:

If the rescue wasn't led by someone with combat experience and tactical training assisted by her bodyguard, the former Marine, you might well be right as well. ...

True but that does not constitute a competent hostage rescue team.

Unfortunately, Roland-class Destroyers don't normally carry "a competent hostage rescue team" I don't believe ANY warship, R/W or Honorverse, carries a dedicated Hostage Rescue Team, but The whole situation in Saltash highlights the problem with small warship crews without a marine contingent. At least Cdr Kaplan and Capt Zavala had enough foresight to find the best qualified people and provide some training in normal Marine functions, like boarding actions and hostage rescue.

Torlek wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:The success of a siege would depend on what kind of supplies the Gendarmerie had; and how long the hostages could survive when deprived of those supplies to feed the Gendarmes.

On a space station there is lot of vital things you can run out fast. Just disabling the cooling system alone could make could make the living conditions very uncomfortable.

If the hostages were being held by spacers, or were being held on the ground somewhere, you might well be right. They weren't though. The hostages were held by poorly trained thugs whose main job was to intimidate planetary populations -- eg NOT spacers.

Complete amateur hostage takers, without any training whatsoever or even the first clue what they are doing manage, manage to get hostages killed. It is not like shooting hostages is all that hard. Especially in a situation, where the rescuers were unable to secure the hostages immediately.
The Gendarmes had military arms and SOME training.

If the rescue wasn't led by someone with combat experience and tactical training assisted by her bodyguard, the former Marine, you might well be right as well. Also, ASTR, that the rescue team had received some training in boarding operations from Matteo in anticipation of the lack of Marines forcing sailors into that role.

True but that does not constitute a competent hostage rescue team. Two people who had some tangential skills and had a little time to instruct the others??? Actual hostage rescue people train for months and years.

The actual rescue operation made use of the fact the Gendarmes weren't spacers and tended to think of the outside of the space station as inhospitable and deadly; sort of a moat or river securing their flanks. It was a tactic that wouldn't occur to ground-pounders, but was glaringly obvious to spacers.

True, they had still plenty opportunity to try something stupid.

Very interesting disucussion. And torlek, don't feel you have to abandon your opinion because most of us disagree with you; I hold the minority opinion that the GA should raid the Sol sytem and Wierd Harold once took on most of the forum in regards to using the captured Solarian SD's as trauma centers for the Talbott Sector. So holding a minority opinion on something in the Honorverse is simply a mark of a good Forumite.

Of course, you're still wrong...

As to the above, all that I can add is that the Gerdamine fought...well, stupid. Instead of setting up ambushes or confronting the Manties directly, where they could inflict casualties, they in effect hid behind doors with limited visibility and firing ranges and were simply blown out of the way either by anti-tank rounds or "Denny".

When they finally did think to fight smarter and deploy in an area where they would have the advantage, that is when Abigail pulled off her 'flanking' move.

Now, what Mateo and she would have done if they hadn't had the Damage Control pad is a matter for speculation.

I think that they would have come up with something suitably nasty....

Torlek wrote:Looks like I have to retread my position in light of the overwhelming opposition

I am still of the opinion that a hostage rescue operation carried out by sailors, who are untrained for that sort of mission, had little time to plan and prepare and against well armed, prepared and entrenched opponents with some military training, SHOULD have ended in a general bloodbath (including death hostages). Think Munich 1972.

How about laying siege to the Gendarmes section of the space station instead and waiting until the run out of necessities and come out.

I don't think any of think that the rescue operation was a great idea, or that it wasn't inherently dangerous to both the rescuers and the hostages.

The problem is that Zavala had only a few options.
A) Send in those poorly trained spacers on a rescue operation.
B) Lay siege to the Gendarmes section of the station.
C) Fire lasers at the Gendarmes section and carve it into pieces, and hope you don't hit the hostages.

None of these are good options. In a siege, you can be certain that the hostages would end up in even worse condition than the Gendarmes. Merely cutting off food and water takes more time than Zavala could afford to spend, so a siege would have to cut off something even more vital like air or heating or cooling. That becomes dangerous for the hostages very quickly. It has to be considered a bluff, because it will kill the hostages at the same time it kills the Gendarmes. If the Gendarmes call your bluff, you are right back to where you started--or you end up killing the people you came to rescue.

When the sailors started the rescue, they fully expected to take heavy losses. They were willing to make that sacrifice. Fortunately, they obtained detailed blueprints which let them strike more effectively than they expected.

You should also remember that the entire assault by half-trained sailors was just a feint, a diversion to allow Zavala to strike directly through the hull to rescue the Manticorans. If you look at it that way, the assault makes a lot more sense.

No one is saying that the assault was a good option. We're saying there was no good option. I can't say whether a siege would work better or not. To me it looks like a toss-up, but a siege runs a rather big risk of harming the hostages.

Weird Harold wrote:Unfortunately, Roland-class Destroyers don't normally carry "a competent hostage rescue team" I don't believe ANY warship, R/W or Honorverse, carries a dedicated Hostage Rescue Team, but The whole situation in Saltash highlights the problem with small warship crews without a marine contingent. At least Cdr Kaplan and Capt Zavala had enough foresight to find the best qualified people and provide some training in normal Marine functions, like boarding actions and hostage rescue.

I am not trying to argue, that they did not do a good job. I am arguing that hostage rescue is incredible difficult and that people who are not hostage rescue experts are extremely likely fail at it and get hostages killed. Therefore you should not attempt a hostage rescue, if you do not have hostage rescue experts but find another solution for your problem. That they succeed means that they were very lucky (or characters in a book ) but a prudent military commander should not rely on luck to such a degree.

As to the above, all that I can add is that the Gerdamine fought...well, stupid. Instead of setting up ambushes or confronting the Manties directly, where they could inflict casualties, they in effect hid behind doors with limited visibility and firing ranges and were simply blown out of the way either by anti-tank rounds or "Denny".

When they finally did think to fight smarter and deploy in an area where they would have the advantage, that is when Abigail pulled off her 'flanking' move.

Nor should a prudent military commander rely on his opponents stupidity especially in a hostage rescue operation. Real hostage rescue groups as far as I know ascribe an extremely high level of competence to their opponents until proven otherwise.

SWM wrote:

Torlek wrote:Looks like I have to retread my position in light of the overwhelming opposition

I am still of the opinion that a hostage rescue operation carried out by sailors, who are untrained for that sort of mission, had little time to plan and prepare and against well armed, prepared and entrenched opponents with some military training, SHOULD have ended in a general bloodbath (including death hostages). Think Munich 1972.

How about laying siege to the Gendarmes section of the space station instead and waiting until the run out of necessities and come out.

I don't think any of think that the rescue operation was a great idea, or that it wasn't inherently dangerous to both the rescuers and the hostages.

The problem is that Zavala had only a few options.
A) Send in those poorly trained spacers on a rescue operation.
B) Lay siege to the Gendarmes section of the station.
C) Fire lasers at the Gendarmes section and carve it into pieces, and hope you don't hit the hostages.

Which kinda brings us back to what option D might be.

None of these are good options. In a siege, you can be certain that the hostages would end up in even worse condition than the Gendarmes. Merely cutting off food and water takes more time than Zavala could afford to spend, so a siege would have to cut off something even more vital like air or heating or cooling. That becomes dangerous for the hostages very quickly. It has to be considered a bluff, because it will kill the hostages at the same time it kills the Gendarmes. If the Gendarmes call your bluff, you are right back to where you started--or you end up killing the people you came to rescue.

Some have argued for an assault by saying, that the Gendarmes are thugs, who will cut and run after their first taste of battle harden Manticorian steel (I am paraphrasing). If that is so why would Gendarmes suffer through an even moderately uncomfortable siege, where their vital needs a meet but things are as unpleasant as possible. That would not make it (much) worse for the hostages or do you think the brigs are luxury accommodations? I would start with an interior temperature, that alternates between 40 and -15 degree Celsius.

Edit: That would be a good idea even, if your intention is to assault. Just to soften up the other side.

When the sailors started the rescue, they fully expected to take heavy losses. They were willing to make that sacrifice. Fortunately, they obtained detailed blueprints which let them strike more effectively than they expected.

You should also remember that the entire assault by half-trained sailors was just a feint, a diversion to allow Zavala to strike directly through the hull to rescue the Manticorans. If you look at it that way, the assault makes a lot more sense.

No one is saying that the assault was a good option. We're saying there was no good option. I can't say whether a siege would work better or not. To me it looks like a toss-up, but a siege runs a rather big risk of harming the hostages.

They got lucky (not that they did not contribute to their good fortune).

Torlek wrote:Some have argued for an assault by saying, that the Gendarmes are thugs, who will cut and run after their first taste of battle harden Manticorian steel (I am paraphrasing). If that is so why would Gendarmes suffer through an even moderately uncomfortable siege, where their vital needs a meet but things are as unpleasant as possible. That would not make it (much) worse for the hostages or do you think the brigs are luxury accommodations? I would start with an interior temperature, that alternates between 40 and -15 degree Celsius.

Edit: That would be a good idea even, if your intention is to assault. Just to soften up the other side.

Some have argued that--I have not.

I don't have a problem with the idea of playing with their temperature controls or whatever. The problem is that the Gendarmes know perfectly well that, while it may get uncomfortable, the Manticorans are not going to do anything actually dangerous with the controls because it will kill the hostages at least as easily as it will kill the Gendarmes. And the Manticorans have no idea what condition those hostages are starting at. I don't think the Gendarmes would give up just because the temperature starts to swing.

One other problem you have not considered is that the I think life support for the Gendarme module is imbedded inside the Gendarme module. I would expect each module to be self-contained, so that it could operate even cut off from the other station modules. Manticore would have to get people inside there whether they wanted to assault the Gendarmes or alter their life support. Abigail's people were met by the Gendarmes just inside the module lift entrance.

SWM wrote:

Torlek wrote:Some have argued for an assault by saying, that the Gendarmes are thugs, who will cut and run after their first taste of battle harden Manticorian steel (I am paraphrasing). If that is so why would Gendarmes suffer through an even moderately uncomfortable siege, where their vital needs a meet but things are as unpleasant as possible. That would not make it (much) worse for the hostages or do you think the brigs are luxury accommodations? I would start with an interior temperature, that alternates between 40 and -15 degree Celsius.

Edit: That would be a good idea even, if your intention is to assault. Just to soften up the other side.

Some have argued that--I have not.

I don't have a problem with the idea of playing with their temperature controls or whatever. The problem is that the Gendarmes know perfectly well that, while it may get uncomfortable, the Manticorans are not going to do anything actually dangerous with the controls because it will kill the hostages at least as easily as it will kill the Gendarmes. And the Manticorans have no idea what condition those hostages are starting at. I don't think the Gendarmes would give up just because the temperature starts to swing.

During the assault the commander of the Gendarmes was to find the moment, when he had enough pretext to overrule his orders. A couple of days of rough living, made sound horrible enough in the official report, some creative ambiguity in the official orders and a judgement call or two and there is your pretext for handing over the hostages.

One other problem you have not considered is that the I think life support for the Gendarme module is imbedded inside the Gendarme module. I would expect each module to be self-contained, so that it could operate even cut off from the other station modules. Manticore would have to get people inside there whether they wanted to assault the Gendarmes or alter their life support. Abigail's people were met by the Gendarmes just inside the module lift entrance.

I would not expect to much engineering stuff in the (former) VIP section. In fact I would expect the engineering stuff to be as far away from the VIP section as possible, just to lower the danger of some peon bothering important people.

Torlek wrote:snip
I would not expect to much engineering stuff in the (former) VIP section. In fact I would expect the engineering stuff to be as far away from the VIP section as possible, just to lower the danger of some peon bothering important people.

I would expect it, as VIPs expect to have their safety considered above all else, and having a separate air quality control section as part of the VIP section would make sense, even if the Gendarme's had not insisted on having one inserted when they took the VIP section over.

Torlek wrote:

SWM wrote:Some have argued that--I have not.

I don't have a problem with the idea of playing with their temperature controls or whatever. The problem is that the Gendarmes know perfectly well that, while it may get uncomfortable, the Manticorans are not going to do anything actually dangerous with the controls because it will kill the hostages at least as easily as it will kill the Gendarmes. And the Manticorans have no idea what condition those hostages are starting at. I don't think the Gendarmes would give up just because the temperature starts to swing.

During the assault the commander of the Gendarmes was to find the moment, when he had enough pretext to overrule his orders. A couple of days of rough living, made sound horrible enough in the official report, some creative ambiguity in the official orders and a judgement call or two and there is your pretext for handing over the hostages.
[quote]
Exactly how could Zavala know that? I certainly wouldn't expect that given the reaction that Pole makes. There is no reason to believe that simply making them uncomfortable would cause the Gendarmes to give up the Manticorans. And in fact, I don't think it would. The way I read Pole's reaction is that he isn't going to make a pretext to give up the Manticorans until he proves that it would be costly to the Manticorans to force their way in. Giving up just because it gets uncomfortable is not going to work--Pole has to make them pay for it or Duenas won't be satisfied.

As I said before, I can't say whether siege or assault would work out better, but siege is not the obvious best choice that you are portraying. I'm not going to try to convince you that assault is the better choice; I'm just saying that Zavala's choice is not obviously the worse choice.

Another thing mitigating a 'siege' or 'wait them out' effort.

Zavala had already experienced one bad surprise by finding four Sollie BC's in the system when he had no reason to believe that there was anything larger than a DD there. It had to be in the back of his head that if those four were there, maybe something larger and more numerous (like a SLN BatSqd) might hyper in sometime soon.

Far-fetched, but Jacob Zavala had been at Spindle and knew that someone had managed to get 9 squadrons of SD's out this way....who's to say a tenth wasn't proverably around the corner?

And while Rolands are indeed very tough customers, he had shot off about 40% of his ammo (8 of 20 rounds per tube, IIRC) at the BC's, so his ability to sustain combat would have been limited.

So not knowing what else might be coming over the Hyper limit would have worked against a 'long-term' stragety.


IMHO as always. YMMV.