Honorverse favorite one-liners

kzt wrote:Energy range fights are exceedingly rare and usually result in the destruction of or severe damage to all the participants. Particularly true at close range. For example, Honor did not expect Fearless to survive engaging Saladin at energy range, her hope was that she could inflict severe enough damage on the BC that it was crippled or destroyed.

In the particular situation, both sides had convinced themselves that they knew what was going on and both were wrong. It's jumping out of the closet to say Boo! and finding a SWAT team in your house.

Where'd you get that? The imagery is hillarious! The boo is on you!

Ok, still laughing, granted. But, it seems that that would not negate the need to teach officers those maneuvers, as a contingency, to at least increase chances of their command's survival. My father was a proponent of 'If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.'

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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?

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Dunecki came out of the IAN, and I'd have been surprised if their simulations didn't include the occasional close range energy combat. Although 1/5 the distance at which energy range combat becomes effective is really close range. (And Honorverse energy weapons seem to suffer fairly significant power loss at range; so moving closer means you're putting a lot more energy through the sidewall and into the target.)

But mostly I'd guess that Dunecki might have been intellectually trained to deal with close range energy combat; but that can be a far cry from being emotionally and viscerally prepared to keep acting while your ship is rapidly disintegrating around you.

Studying the correct actions, or even carrying them out in sims where umpires are taking 'destroyed' systems offline and tagging casualties doesn't mean that you can still quickly perform those actions correctly in the shock of brutal short range combat.

Another reason that this kind of combat is so rare is that in normal circumstances, one side or the other would have declined to fight it out and run like hell. The ships would never be this close together in the first place. In fact, one of the reasons that the chase armament is as heavy as it is, is to discourage people from chasing you after you start running on the one hand and to give you the best chance of crippling your enemy as you chase him on the other.

Changer of Worlds

Annika fought to answer her helm, clawing around in a desperate attempt to reacquire War Maiden for her broadside weapons, but Honor Harrington had just discovered that she could be just as merciless a killer as Anders Dunecki.

So this is where the killing began.
Dog got its first taste of blood.

Honor is a warm blooded killer.

From 1-10 what do you think Honor's chess playing skills are like? Funny RFC never mentioned Honor as playing chess. Seems she would be *awfully good at it.

*Like Yow commented on in an earlier post, American phrases are funny. How can something be awfully good and be considered good? If it's awful, then that is bad. Following that inference then awfully bad should be good, yet it's very bad.

I don't know how foreigners learn our sometimes crazy language.

Funny as hell??? I fail to see a damn thing funny about H-E-Double Hockey Sticks.

Catching up after an absence ...

roseandheather wrote:

Dca wrote:I didn't see Alistair as being about adoring his skipper, it's not a cult of personality for me at least. Maybe the series is, from an outside perspective. But I do see the characters inside focusing on the value of duty. maybe that's just my curmudgeonly view. I don't see myself posting on the Cupid thread anytime soon, although I do read it with amusement.

I think you need to re-read what I wrote - that was the moment when I started to adore him.

But then, as you just admitted, you're a curmudgeon.

I was wrong here, trying to find some abstract sense of duty is too curmudgeonly for me ... Sorry MaxxQ ... Maybe Victor can manage that, but I don't think many flesh and blood humans could. Loyalty is earned, and too few corporate entities (none?) are successful at that. Here, I think you were right, Rose. It is Honor's awesomeness that brings Alistair around. The RMN benefits all along from her awesomeness, and does its part to reciprocate. Mostly. The personal connection is why Honor was so relieved to find the Queen worthy of her loyalty.

Thank you for the push. I know I perform better when I'm around better performers. It really is personal. And you're right, this is where Alistair joins the team. That's why I picked the ONE LINER.

The implicit challenge to us as readers is, how well could we perform? What parts make us squirm, if you're willing to admit it publicly? That's probably off-topic for this thread, quite possibly not ... Engaging enough. I'm sure I squirmed more at other parts that somehow don't jump to mind.
Edit ... To be clear, I have a hard time trusting, so this whole area makes me squirm.

A nice little bit of Honor introspection on Queen Elizabeth early on (in FoD to be precise):

Elizabeth III was the woman to whom she'd sworn her loyalty as an officer and her fealty as a countess. She was the Star Kingdom of Manticore to Honor Harrington. Not an infallible, superior being to be venerated, but a living, sometimes quirky, occasionally exasperating human being who nonetheless represented all Honor insisted her kingdom be. Honor was sworn to lay down her life in the Crown's service, and while she had no particular inclination toward martyrdom, it was a vast relief to know Elizabeth Adrienne Samantha Annette Winton was worthy of that oath.

I liked the look into Honor's thoughts upon personally meeting her monarch.

cthia wrote:Changer of Worlds

"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!"

My niece asked me, "Uncle, why is it that emergency power is always available. No matter what starship (alluding to Enterprise) emergency power is always available. I never hear, 'Captain, emergency power is gone too me lad (she's imitating a Scottish accent-I'm telling you, this kid is funny). Why don't they just build the ship's main power out of whatever fuels emergency power. Then it'll never take any damage."

Remember the 80% limit on the engines? Same thing with every engine made. It has a limit to what it can with stand before it craps itself. We as a military the world over stay out that area for safety and for maintenance and longevity of service life of engine and structural integrity. Operators of ships and aircraft and spaceships only tap into extra zone for emergencies. It could have horrible consequences if tapped into. Its a risk versus gain decision on the person in charge.

Yow wrote:Changer of Worlds

"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!"

My niece asked me, "Uncle, why is it that emergency power is always available. No matter what starship (alluding to Enterprise) emergency power is always available. I never hear, 'Captain, emergency power is gone too me lad (she's imitating a Scottish accent-I'm telling you, this kid is funny). Why don't they just build the ship's main power out of whatever fuels emergency power. Then it'll never take any damage."

Yow wrote:
Remember the 80% limit on the engines? Same thing with every engine made. It has a limit to what it can withstand before it craps itself. We as a military the world over stay out that area for safety and for maintenance and longevity of service life of engine and structural integrity. Operators of ships and aircraft and spaceships only tap into extra zone for emergencies. It could have horrible consequences if tapped into. Its a risk versus gain decision on the person in charge.

Thanks Yow, for clearing that up. It is obvious now that she and I were confusing emergency power with backup power.

It seems that tapping into emergency power when there is so much system damage is an even higher risk.

Some HAE goodness:

The freighter shouldn't have been there.
The dead hulk drifted in the outer reaches of the Arendscheldt System, so far from the G3 primary no one should ever have found it...and she'd detected the wreck only by a fluke. And, Citizen Commander Caslet thought coldly, because my resident tac witch had "a feeling."

And, if I'm not mistaken, this is the first introduction we have to Shannon "Oops" Foraker!

Amaroq wrote:Some HAE goodness:

The freighter shouldn't have been there.
The dead hulk drifted in the outer reaches of the Arendscheldt System, so far from the G3 primary no one should ever have found it...and she'd detected the wreck only by a fluke. And, Citizen Commander Caslet thought coldly, because my resident tac witch had "a feeling."

And, if I'm not mistaken, this is the first introduction we have to Shannon "Oops" Foraker!

Actually, I believe it is in SVW, doing Argus pick up duty.