Honorverse favorite one-liners

The youthful senior-grade captain she’d been watching stiffened, and there was a sudden and complete silence. Her own smile slid into something much more serious, but she shook her head.
“No,” she said. “She wasn’t planning on attacking the system. In fact, unless something went very wrong, about three weeks ago she delivered a personal message from the Queen to President Pritchart. Apparently our discoveries about Manpower’s involvement out here in New Tuscany have inspired a certain rethinking of who might actually have been behind Admiral Webster’s assassination and the attack on Queen Berry. On that basis,” she drew a deep breath and looked around the table, “and in light of the worsening situation with the Solarian League, Her Majesty has decided to pursue a negotiated settlement with the Republic after all, and she’s chosen Duchess Harrington as her lead negotiator.”
“My God,” Captain (SG) Prescott Tremaine, CruDiv 96.1’s CO, murmured. Michelle turned her head to look at him fully, and he shook his head, like a man shaking off a stiff right cross, then gave her a crooked smile. “You were certainly right when you said you had a couple of things we might be interested in, Ma’am!”
“I thought that would probably be true, Scotty,” she said with a grin. “In fact, I should probably go ahead and admit I saved that particular little tidbit until I could watch your expression.”

“There’s a note somewhere in your personnel jacket that says we’re not supposed to break up Beauty and the Beast.” The captain’s lips had twitched at Tremaine’s expression. “Oh, you hadn’t heard that particular nickname, Captain Tremaine? I hadn’t realized it had escaped your attention.”

cthia wrote:

NortonIDaughter wrote:"I assure you all that I'm not trying to be melodramatic, and I don't think I'm allowing my megalomania or paranoia to get the better of me. On the other hand, I could be wrong about that."

"Well, Tom, I seem to remember an old saying. Something about sometimes even paranoiacs having real enemies. Of course, I can't speak to the megalomania question."

"How unwontedly tactful of you."

Tom and Lester... feel better now, Rose?

NortonIDaughter, would you mind identifying the originating star system these bogeys are from. Their transponders aren't broadcasting. Can't place them.

“The Solarian League can’t accept something like this—not out of some frigging little pissant navy out beyond the Verge—not matter what kind of provocation they may think they have! If we let them get away with this, God only knows who’s going to try something stupid next!”
—Fleet Admiral Sandra Crandall, SLN”

However badly the People's Republic might have distracted the Manticoran government, the RMN's response to what had happened here was as certain as the energy death of the universe.

But unlike whoever was in command over there, Honor could not afford a weapon-to-weapon battering match. Not against someone that big who had already demonstrated her capabilities so convincingly. And so she had no choice but to oppose overwhelming firepower with cunning.

"Helm! On my mark, give me maximum emergency power—redline everything—and execute my previous order!" She heard the helmsman's response, but her eyes never flickered from her plot, and her nostrils flared. "Now!"

Perhaps it wasn't really Dunecki's fault. The range was insanely short for modern warships, dropping towards one which could be measured in hundreds of kilometers and not thousands, and no sane naval officer would even have contemplated engaging at such close quarters. Nor had either Dunecki or Bachfisch planned on doing any such thing, for each had expected to begin and end the battle with a single broadside which would take his enemy completely by surprise. But whatever they'd planned, their ships were here now, and no one in any navy trained its officers for combat maneuvers in such close proximity to an enemy warship. And because of that, Anders Dunecki, for all of his experience, was completely unprepared for what War Maiden actually did.

cthia wrote:Changer of Worlds

Perhaps it wasn't really Dunecki's fault. The range was insanely short for modern warships, dropping towards one which could be measured in hundreds of kilometers and not thousands, and no sane naval officer would even have contemplated engaging at such close quarters. Nor had either Dunecki or Bachfisch planned on doing any such thing, for each had expected to begin and end the battle with a single broadside which would take his enemy completely by surprise. But whatever they'd planned, their ships were here now, and no one in any navy trained its officers for combat maneuvers in such close proximity to an enemy warship. And because of that, Anders Dunecki, for all of his experience, was completely unprepared for what War Maiden actually did.

Ok, RFC, this I don't understand. I realize that this situation is unique in that it is rare, but it seems inevitable. Sometimes the only tactical maneuver available is to close with the enemy ship, as Honor did in her deathride.

In all of an officer's training, and all of the class instruction and simulations driven into students, I can't imagine that these type maneuvers wouldn't be pre-requisites. It's akin to studying chess to become a grand master but ignoring the 'end game.' These such in-close proximity maneuvers should be freshman year Tactics 101. Intuitively, they seem the same type maneuvers as Top Gun--The United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program. Has the edge been lost?