Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:I considered that Honor may not be on the need to know list as well. But I quickly dismissed it.

I felt the need to consider the actual war effort. For instance, when Hamish was getting his head handed to him at Trevor's Star by McQueen. I would imagine that he'd be told, if only to keep up morale, despite the asskicking he was presently getting, that things look better over the horizon.

Same for Harrington, who, it seems, was always going on the offensive with 25 % of the required order of battle.

Seems also, there'd be a need to begin pondering the manifold shift in tactical thinking, and how to best use the new systems - therefore certain officers would be given a heads-up and a leg-up. Especially with an attritional war fought with a numerically superior opponent as Haven was.

But perhaps you're right after all. That's why I ask you military types.

kzt wrote:There is a huge chain of changes needed to deploy a really different weapon. For example, Apollo required kh2, which required very significant changes to ships, which delayed the availability of new shops that were needed really badly today. So while a lot of the people building the ships don't need to know the details, you needed to get approval at a very high level to make those changes. So they need to be convinced that this will work. You also need to do the training for these ships, and the obvious point to do this is when you start doing the KH2 mods. Since kh2 requires some sort of dedicated tactical section they need to be trained, the regular tactical and command crew need to be trained, the techs who are supposed to manage, maintain and repair the systems need to trained, etc.

It's a huge undertaking, with probably many thousands of RMN, GSN and AIN members needing to know at least some of the classified details about the system, plus the people involved in production and install.

cthia wrote:Perhaps a few more people should be allowed in-on the process even now, it seems, then the A-10 Warthog abortion would've been ... aborted? (shrugs shoulders)

SharkHunter wrote:--snipping

cthia wrote:Perhaps a few more people should be allowed in-on the process even now, it seems, then the A-10 Warthog abortion would've been ... aborted? (shrugs shoulders)

Except for one minor detail... Ground troops are actually quite fond of the Warthog's ability to get in close and kick the ever living h--- out of any force nearby, from armor, to mortar units, infantry, etc. and to stay low and slow long enough to make a difference.

Attack helicopters, on the other hand which seem to be a nice big ticket item -- have fared poorly in battlefield loitering capabilities, because they're mechanically a lot easier to spot and shoot down.

I'd fly the "abortion" in support of my troops any day of the weak over an Apache / Blackhawk, etc.

cthia wrote: For your eyes only' technology has to be tested. Where is Manticoran test space?

cthia wrote:...
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Back from commercial break ...

'For your eyes only' technology has to be tested. Where is Manticoran test space?

Echoes of Honor wrote:...which was why BuShips and BuWeaps liked building and testing prototypes at Weyland. The Office of Naval Intelligence still couldn't guarantee secrecy, but at least the Fleet didn't have to worry about which putatively neutral freighters in the area were actually spying for the Peeps"....

SWM wrote:BuShips would definitely have to be involved before the decision to deploy. BuTrain wouldn't need to be involved until they start preparing to manufacture the deployment version.

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:BuShips would definitely have to be involved before the decision to deploy. BuTrain wouldn't need to be involved until they start preparing to manufacture the deployment version.

Training involves a lot of major custom stuff (like what the production gear will look like), plus design of curricula for the trainers, selecting the trainers, getting them to the traing site (since they are mostly in the fleet) then training the trainers. Reworking the curricula, and starting classes. training for high tech positions can take months too. So I'd guess a year out before you intend to start ship level (as in training the ships crew as an integrated team) training.

All the people who are not on the sharp end still have really important jobs to do, and they need time and resources to do those jobs.

SWM wrote:

cthia wrote:I considered that Honor may not be on the need to know list as well. But I quickly dismissed it.

I felt the need to consider the actual war effort. For instance, when Hamish was getting his head handed to him at Trevor's Star by McQueen. I would imagine that he'd be told, if only to keep up morale, despite the asskicking he was presently getting, that things look better over the horizon.

Same for Harrington, who, it seems, was always going on the offensive with 25 % of the required order of battle.

Hamish wasn't told about Ghost Rider and CLACs until it the decision was made to move it from development to deployment. Despite the fact that Hamish had been fighting to get Trevor's Star for so long.

Seems also, there'd be a need to begin pondering the manifold shift in tactical thinking, and how to best use the new systems - therefore certain officers would be given a heads-up and a leg-up. Especially with an attritional war fought with a numerically superior opponent as Haven was.

That is the job of BuPlan. And I don't think they would be involved until the weapon is near the end of the development phase. You're right, though, I forgot to include the upper echelons of BuPlan.

If BuPlan decided they needed the input of officers on the front lines, they might bring some in for consult. But their entire job is to formulate strategy and tactics with the weapons available. That's what they do, and I don't think they need to call in consultants very often. I imagine that they already have a constantly changing roster of officers with recent combat experience who have been rotated into BuPlan for some period of time, specifically to provide that perspective.

But perhaps you're right after all. That's why I ask you military types.

Well, I'm not a military type either. I'll happily defer to anyone else with actual military knowledge.

SharkHunter wrote:With my up-front caveat... I hope they don't name it the Achilles system... Sorta ended badly for the hero in question and quite a few ships with that name over the ages have not necessarily fared well either.

Probably the best example we have from RFC is how used the HMS Minotaur in Echoes of Honor, where a huge amount of the LAC and ghost-rider testbed development took place, off in an area where "the enemy" can't see what you are doing. For now I'd presume that once Hemphill and Foraker get together, they'd come up with some truly remarkable cross weapons systems "fertilizations", to be further developed at Bolthole.

Likely the unholy trinity of the Harrington, Jaruwalski, and Bellefeuille and their tactical minions would have fun duking it out in sims to work out the pre-production kinks, and then in real-space with prototype ships while the rest of the new systems go into mass ship/weapons production/upgrading, etc.,
then prepared for command handoff to the admirals and commodores who are going to be using the systems in battle.

Poisonally... (personally pronounced badly but intentionally... aka poisonous to the evil overlords of the universe), and grafting in from the POV threads. Wouldn't you just love to put a camera on their faces when the next big tactical wrinkle makes it's appearance on the Honorverse stage?