OK KZT: What's wrong with AAC?

Star Knight wrote:This bit is an accurate microcosm of his failures as First Lord.
It’s simply not his job to get involved in the operational planning at all. According to the author the First Lord is responsible for the ‘overall coordination of naval policy as directed by Cabinet’, while the First Space in conjunction with the Second Space Lord focus on overall strategic direction, deployment and operational & tactical planning.

White Haven has no business whatsoever to get involved in moving Battle Squadrons around or to plan which system is wife is going to raid next. Frankly, his only job at that point it to support whatever Caparelli and Givens are coming up with while making sure that his brothers' Cabinets pushes the necessary legislation and executive decision to enable the naval forces to continue to fight the war. Nothing more, nothing less.

But White Haven never understood that the office of First Lord is a political and administrative position. It’s a civilian office to boot and very much not in the chain of command. The First Space Lord, not the First Lord has supreme command over all naval forces.
Interjecting himself in operational planning of the First and Second Space Lord and associated planning and strategy boards is a grass overstep of his authority and should have triggered the resignation of Caparelli and Givens.

But it doesn’t even end there, because apparently it’s also fine for the First Lord to hand over strategic planning to the command staff of a glorified task group.
This is so mind-blowingly absurd it’s hard to put into words. In real word terms, it would be something like the Secretary of War Henry L Stimson telling President Roosevelt that he will plan the invasion of Europe with George Patton and Eisenhower better play along because he knows what.

It’s no wonder Admiral Kuzak apparently harbored resentments towards Honor over this crap.

It only gets worse as the book and the war continues, but it wrote about all that before. Link at the top of the previous page.

If you want to know how the Admiralty and the war should have been run look no further than The Short Victorious War. It’s the best book in the series in my opinion and the antithesis to AAC.

This is a pretty interesting point, one that I had never thought about. Thanks for bringing that up.

I have no doubt that if the RMN would have been run the way it was at the start of the first war, Manticore would have conquered the Haven system instead of the Battle of Manticore.

Not so sure about that. The correlation of forces was pretty unfavorable. And the face that Haven was mousetrapping raids by the only offensive force the RNM could scrape together doesn't suggest that either.

Part of the issue you noted might just be narrative effect. There are a lot of supposedly smart people in the honroverse using stupidly obvious names for their secret codenames - which should have no correlation to the objective or anything about the operation.

Just call it 'Deindustrialize Manticore' instead of cute names that will logically lead anyone who hears it to the same place.

Not so sure about that. The correlation of forces was pretty unfavorable. And the face that Haven was mousetrapping raids by the only offensive force the RNM could scrape together doesn't suggest that either.

Yes, not without Apollo obviously.

Let's compare how White Haven handled Apollo with how Caparelli capitalized on the emergence of SD(P)s and CLACs during the first war.

Caparelli refused to let the cat out of the bag before the new construction made it to the frontlines in relevant numbers. His willingness to hold back successfully goated Haven into deploying against Grendelsbane and opened the way for an overwhelming attack of Eighth Fleet into the heart of the People's Republic.
His strategy resulted in Operation Buttercup and victory in the first war.

In comparison, the introduction of Apollo was a disaster, directly resulting in the attack on Manticore.
White Haven made the mistake Caparelli didn't make when he refused to rush the tech to the fronts.
The reveal of Apollo with Operation Sanskrit should never have happened. Not before the delay due to the resumption of talks and certainly not afterward.
While a success, Operation Gobi demonstrated that Haven was not ready for a decisive blow to end the war quickly. The worst that could happen would probably have been an offensive against Basilisk, Trevor or Yeltsin within a tyear.
Bad, but not decisive in the context of Apollo.
All that needed to happen was for Manticore to hold back for a couple of months more after the talks collapsed and everything would have been fine.
But apparently White Haven didn't even think about that. The Queen demanded action and White Haven offered her the months old Op Sanskirt and the pointless attack on Lovat.
Apollo either works or it doesn't. If it's not the gamechanger they hope it to be, the war is lost anyway. If it is, the only way to snatch defeat from the claws of victory is to reveal it before it's ready.

This is exactly what happened and it's entirely on White Haven. And his wife of course, but she's the attack dog, she's supposed to push the offensive approach. It should have been Caparellis and BuPlans job to actually consider every avenue.
But he wasn't even present at the fateful meeting when the Queen demanded to resume operations.

Star Knight wrote:Eighth Fleets operations were as ‘politically charged’ as Sixth Fleets operations during the First War when Caparelli, not Morncreek was directing fleet operations.

Good lord no. They are not even remotely comparable. Eighth Fleet was being used for targeted raids chosen specifically to shape the political climate to influence Haven's political decisions. Sixth Fleet was straight combat ops to take territory with a strategic goal of taking a specific territory.

But it doesn’t even end there, because apparently it’s also fine for the First Lord to hand over strategic planning to the command staff of a glorified task group.

Considering that glorified task group was the only formation which would be implementing that strategy, that is a reasonable decision to make.

Star Knight wrote:In comparison, the introduction of Apollo was a disaster, directly resulting in the attack on Manticore.
White Haven made the mistake Caparelli didn't make when he refused to rush the tech to the fronts.
The reveal of Apollo with Operation Sanskrit should never have happened. Not before the delay due to the resumption of talks and certainly not afterward.
While a success, Operation Gobi demonstrated that Haven was not ready for a decisive blow to end the war quickly. The worst that could happen would probably have been an offensive against Basilisk, Trevor or Yeltsin within a tyear.
Bad, but not decisive in the context of Apollo.
All that needed to happen was for Manticore to hold back for a couple of months more after the talks collapsed and everything would have been fine.
But apparently White Haven didn't even think about that. The Queen demanded action and White Haven offered her the months old Op Sanskirt and the pointless attack on Lovat.
Apollo either works or it doesn't. If it's not the gamechanger they hope it to be, the war is lost anyway. If it is, the only way to snatch defeat from the claws of victory is to reveal it before it's ready.

This is exactly what happened and it's entirely on White Haven. And his wife of course, but she's the attack dog, she's supposed to push the offensive approach. It should have been Caparellis and BuPlans job to actually consider every avenue.
But he wasn't even present at the fateful meeting when the Queen demanded to resume operations.

First, you're ignoring the time pressure the Solarian League situation was putting them in. They did not have the option of "treading water" for months while they built up their Apollo capable forces.

Second, it sounds more like you're objecting to the Queen interjecting herself into operational planning rather than White Haven doing so. She is the one that pushed Sanskrit, not White Haven.

"But what I seem to hear you saying," Grantville said intently, "is that whatever the League ultimately does, nothing it can do in the next, say, six months is going to have a significant impact on us?"

"That time estimate's probably a bit optimistic, assuming we take any heavy losses against Haven," Hamish replied. "Overall, though that's fairly accurate."

"Then it seems to me we've got to take the position that that six months--or whatever shorter period we actually have--represents our window for dealing with the Peeps," the Prime Minister said.

"Except for the fact that by the end of that window, their numerical advantage in SD(P)s will be on the order of three-to-one or even higher," Hamish said.

"Nothing we can do will change that," Elisabeth said flatly. We're building as quickly as we can; they're doing the same thing. The threat zone until the ships we've laid down can equalize the numbers is beyond our control...unless we can whittle the Peeps down."

"You're thinking about Sanskrit," Hamish said, equally flatly.

Most of the people in the Cabinet room had no idea what Sanskrit was. Grantville, Hamish, the Queen, and Sir Anthony Langtry did, and Elizabeth nodded.

"You just said Eighth Fleet has the new weapons. If we use them, if we can convince the Peeps we've got more of them--that we've reequipped with them across the board--that's got to affect their strategic thinking. It may force them to do what we wanted all along and fritter away their wall of battle defending rear area systems. Or it may even convince them they've gotten their sums wrong and they don't have sufficient numbers to offset our individual superiority. In which case, the bastards may actually have to sit down and talk to us after all."

"It's possible," Hamish agreed. "I can't predict how probable it might be. A lot would depend on how their analysts evaluate the situation after they run into Mistletoe and Apollo. They might not draw the conclusions we'd expect them to, since they won't have the same information we dhave about the systems' capabilities and availability. And I don't think anyone at Admiralty House would be prepared to predict exactly what their military reaction might be."

Star Knight wrote:

Not so sure about that. The correlation of forces was pretty unfavorable. And the face that Haven was mousetrapping raids by the only offensive force the RNM could scrape together doesn't suggest that either.

Yes, not without Apollo obviously.

Let's compare how White Haven handled Apollo with how Caparelli capitalized on the emergence of SD(P)s and CLACs during the first war.

Caparelli refused to let the cat out of the bag before the new construction made it to the frontlines in relevant numbers. His willingness to hold back successfully goated Haven into deploying against Grendelsbane and opened the way for an overwhelming attack of Eighth Fleet into the heart of the People's Republic.
His strategy resulted in Operation Buttercup and victory in the first war.

In comparison, the introduction of Apollo was a disaster, directly resulting in the attack on Manticore.
White Haven made the mistake Caparelli didn't make when he refused to rush the tech to the fronts.

The military situation was very different. Without the Buttercup-era new tech, the tactical situation leading up to Buttercup was pretty much a stalemate. Which was very much not the case leading up to Sanskrit; Haven had a pretty overwhelming advantage.

drothgery wrote:The military situation was very different. Without the Buttercup-era new tech, the tactical situation leading up to Buttercup was pretty much a stalemate. Which was very much not the case leading up to Sanskrit; Haven had a pretty overwhelming advantage.

Yep. Manticore might have been wrong - but the assessment (and not just from White Haven) was that after Grendelsbane the Peeps were going to have more SD(P)s and be adding additional unit to their fleet faster than the Manticoran Alliance was for at least a year.

If not distracted the Republic of Haven Navy would at a minimum overrun the vast majority of Manticore's allies, and probably inflicting additional disproportionate damage to the RMN fleet while doing so (unless the Star Kingdom chose to abandon their allies and pull all their heavy forces back to Trevor's Star and Manticore)

Pre-Buttercup it was pretty clear that the stalemate could continue for a least another couple years; providing time to amass an overwhelming force before revealing the crushing new technology. (Though even then the Mantie's neat assumptions were partially upset since in Silesia, Hancock, and Basilisk, their new toys were partially exposed to the Peeps. It's not impossible that a more credulous, or correctly paranoid, naval intelligence might have led to the Peeps having at least partial counters in place before Buttercup kicked off)

After Thunderbolt Manticore didn't feel they had the luxury of holding back their new toys until they could be decisive. They felt, quite possibly correctly, that without using them to throw Haven off balance that they wouldn't last long enough, as an effective combatant, to get the python lump of construction at Manticore or the refit Andie SD(P)s in service. They got a partial reprieve when peace talks were going to happen at Torch -- but not long enough to be confident they could hold without diverting the RHN's attention to their home front.

I can't necessarily fault them for attempting diversion - but clearly in hindsight the full Apollo capabilities were too good. Maybe, maybe, if they'd be able to scale down their effectivness they'd have gotten the delay they were looking for. But once Honor got mousetrapped they'd have had to sacrifice large parts of 8th fleet if they hadn't taken the full wraps off Apollo's offensive capabilities.

[hobby horse]
Well, you know, they could have tried arming the ships that kept getting ambushed by SDs with anti-SD missile pods instead of anti-cruiser missiles.
[/hobby horse]

kzt wrote:[hobby horse]
Well, you know, they could have tried arming the ships that kept getting ambushed by SDs with anti-SD missile pods instead of anti-cruiser missiles.
[/hobby horse]

You mean the Agememnon BC(P)s that were armed with Mk-16s?

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

kzt wrote:[hobby horse]
Well, you know, they could have tried arming the ships that kept getting ambushed by SDs with anti-SD missile pods instead of anti-cruiser missiles.
[/hobby horse]

You mean the Agememnon BC(P)s that were armed with Mk-16s?

Yes, exactly.

@Galactic Sapper

Good lord no. They are not even remotely comparable. Eighth Fleet was being used for targeted raids chosen specifically to shape the political climate to influence Haven's political decisions. Sixth Fleet was straight combat ops to take territory with a strategic goal of taking a specific territory.

The objective of the Cutworm raids was to influence the allocation of Haven naval forces, not politics. They were delaying operations, designed to keep the Republic’s Navy off balance to make it more difficult for them to mount decisive offensive operations.


Sanskrit was delayed because of the peace talk imitative at one point but again, this doesn’t magically shift planning and command authority from the First Space Lord to a civilian cabinet member outside the chain of command.

Considering that glorified task group was the only formation which would be implementing that strategy, that is a reasonable decision to make.

The reasonable decision would have been to follow the established process.

There’s the First Space Lord responsible for overall strategic direction. That’s Caparelli deciding how the Navy conducts defensive operations. Not Hamish, not the Crown. If they don’t like what he’s doing the Crown can ask for his resignation. Until then it’s his war to run.

Actual operational and tactical planning is the responsibility of the Second Space Lord heading the Bureau of Planning and the Strategy Board. That’s Givens deciding on what target Eighth Fleet is going to hit. Not Honors Chief of Staff. Givens planning groups may or may not ask for Eighth Fleets input, but the overall decision very much rests with the Admiralty, not the fleet commander. Eighth Fleets job is then to figure out how to attack the chosen target. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now of course, communication lag is a thing in the Honorverse so task force commanders may find themselves isolated and forced to make far reaching strategic decisions way outside their own immediate are of responsibility. This is very much not the case here though.

First, you're ignoring the time pressure the Solarian League situation was putting them in. They did not have the option of "treading water" for months while they built up their Apollo capable forces.

Second, it sounds more like you're objecting to the Queen interjecting herself into operational planning rather than White Haven doing so. She is the one that pushed Sanskrit, not White Haven.

I’m not ignoring the situation with the League. I just don’t think this situation should have any impact on the decision to mount the operation against Lovat and the rationale presented by White Haven in the fateful meeting with the Queen makes any sense.

We’re are talking about a delay of mere months to get Apollo ready and (if it works) win the war with Haven. There’s nothing happening with regards to the League that would have been influenced in any conceivable way by delaying the attack on Lovat.

The Queen can push what she wants. It’s White Havens job (really Caparellis, but he was not invited) to explain the situation to her and the ramification of her orders. And if necessary remind the Queen that while she may be the commander in chief of the armed forces, actual operational command is exercised by the First Space Lord.
Not that this was a problem in this case. The Crown demanded action. White Haven had nothing to offer but an outdated and ill thought out Sanskrit.
Compare is conduct to Theismans meetings with Pritchart. Night and day.



@drothgery

The military situation was very different. Without the Buttercup-era new tech, the tactical situation leading up to Buttercup was pretty much a stalemate. Which was very much not the case leading up to Sanskrit; Haven had a pretty overwhelming advantage.

All the more important not to reveal game changing technology before enough of it is deployed

Also, while Haven had an overwhelming advantage, they were not ready to mount a decisive operation against Manticore itself. Operation Gobi is proof of that. Theisman hit a tertiary target at best. His next attack wouldn’t have been on the Manticoran home system. At worst, he would have attacked Basilisk, Trevor or Yeltsin. Bad for the Alliance, but not disastrous in the context of Apollo.

We know that in actuality he would have attacked Alizon next. Another tertiary target, way short of the conceivable worst case scenario without the reveal of a paradigm shifting technology.

So Manticore had time. And nothing to lose by waiting. What did Lovat accomplish? What was the premature reveal of Apollo accomplish? Really, what was the goal by demonstrating Haven would surely lose the war within a tyear?

What would have been lost by waiting another couple of months, hitting them with four or five Apollo BatRons at Lovat and after that successful demonstration, immediately go on to attack Haven itself?