Honorverse Top Ten Tacticians, Strategists

With respect to Honor and others sitting about, and Honor explaining how to defeat the League, given that short-term it cannot defeat and occupy Manticore, Haven, or Grayson, that shows her grand strategic brilliance. Now, someone may say that other chess grandmasters will see the same thing as the player at the table, more or less, so why didn't Elizabeth etc see the Harrington plan? Because they couldn't. The Harrington plan was only seen by Harrington. What the author cannot readily show us in detail is the strategic blind spots of the other players.

The strategic blind spots of the other participants are revealed to the reader by inference, namely no one else came up with Harrington's plan. Presumably their life histories precluded them from doing so. Only the one heroine found the needed solution. [Edit switched last two sentences.]

cthia wrote:

Icarium wrote:
I'd put Honor at the top in Tactics. Possibly the -best-, but remember, she herself says that Theisman is as good as she is, so we can't be utterly sure. Theisman says the same in reverse, so heh. Near the top would be Tourville as well, as well as Terekhov IMO. I'm not sure Hamish Alexander would top this list, he's not bad, but it's not his thing really.

I give Honor the edge because she has "the touch," and the fact that her sixth sense tingles like a spider in heat. Other than that they are closely matched in tactics.

Icarium wrote:
Conversely, for strategy, I'd definitely not put Honor near #1. She's a great tactician. But the long-term strategy thing, while she's gotten better, isn't her forte. I'd put Hamish Alexander here, as well as Esther McQueen. Quite likely Caparelli as well. Honor would be here where Hamish is in Tactics...[snip]

This is where we part company. I put Honor near the top strategically as well. I know it isn't popular, and my niece is going to balk at how high I'm placing Honor strategically as well, and at one point I would have agreed, but, as you said Honor has come a long way. So far in fact, that she surpasses everyone else. The passage that seals the deal for me is when everyone was sitting around brainstorming. Elizabeth, Caparelli, Honor, Hamish...and Honor was the only one who saw how to defeat the League. It was Honor's sole idea of how to go about doing it and she expertly and confidently delivered that analysis to Elizabeth. In that moment, the student had become the teacher. Strategically. IMHO

In fact, and my niece and I are exchanging our own personal lists 'tactical' and 'strategy', the only person ahead of Honor on my list strategically is Caparelli, because of his tons of experience moving fleets around. Remember that tactics is also the implementation of your strategy, and Honor never had a problem absorbing either. I think Honor has raw strategic acumen as opposed to everyone else's learned.

Amaroq is brilliant herself, as she touched on Caparelli as well, as an excellent strategist. I'm trying not to put my two cents in until I'm ready. I have to deal with Tierney...and again my sister after inevitably disappointing my niece. Afterall I don't want her to think I'm, just because I was once a college student as well, a jackass too.

Honor Harrington
Thomas Carapelli
Thomas Theismas
Hamish Alexander
Esther McQueen
Lester Tourville
Aivars Terekhov
Mark Sarnow
Javier Giscard
Amos Parnell

Honorable Mentions to: Michelle Henke, Wesley Matthews, Alfredo Yu, and Alistair McKeon.

My only thing about all this series, and by extension their strategists, is his emphasis on R&D. Its a common thing in Weber's series. He likes to take a lot of experimental designs and techs and throw them from the drawing board into massive operations. Worse, he glosses over their acceptance trials and development difficulties to the point where his first real test is a massive operation. And of course, they have a 90-95% solution. My point is: it briefs great, but, as a serving soldier, I'm hesitant to put my life and the lives of my subordinates in the hands of some new experimental tech as the linchpin of my entire plan. That's just daring Murphy to screw you anally--without lube.

ChronicRder wrote:Honor Harrington
Thomas Carapelli
Thomas Theismas
Hamish Alexander
Esther McQueen
Lester Tourville
Aivars Terekhov
Mark Sarnow
Javier Giscard
Amos Parnell

Honorable Mentions to: Michelle Henke, Wesley Matthews, Alfredo Yu, and Alistair McKeon.

My only thing about all this series, and by extension their strategists, is his emphasis on R&D. Its a common thing in Weber's series. He likes to take a lot of experimental designs and techs and throw them from the drawing board into massive operations. Worse, he glosses over their acceptance trials and development difficulties to the point where his first real test is a massive operation. And of course, they have a 90-95% solution. My point is: it briefs great, but, as a serving soldier, I'm hesitant to put my life and the lives of my subordinates in the hands of some new experimental tech as the linchpin of my entire plan. That's just daring Murphy to screw you anally--without lube.

I completely agree about the . . . undesirability of issuing invitations to Murphy.

I think, however, that you are overlooking a few things. Like the fact that the "new weapons" deployed by Hamish Alexander and 8th Fleet were the product of a fifty-year R&D program and that they were all tested out using actual hardware in places like Silesia (HAE) and Manticore B (EoH). In other words, very little of the hardware the Manties are deploying against the Peeps is untested and unknown. In many cases, the degree to which it turned out to surpass their opponents' hardware was actually greater than they had assumed in any of their sims or field tests because they deliberately used pessimistic assumptions (even when their field tests suggested the opposite) until they'd actually seen them in action and evaluated them against "live" opposition. There's also the fact that Caparelli held them back until he was prepared to use them decisively rather than rushing them into service in a white heat. With Apollo he found himself in a rather different situation, because Manticore's back was against the wall and he had to get every weapon he had into service as quickly as he could. Even then, however, the system had been thoroughly tested before the first live rounds were issued to Honor's ships. Moreover, Apollo and Keyhole are both the result of very lengthy, ongoing R&D programs, and each stage of the hardware was thoroughly tested in simulations and training exercises before it was committed to action. I don't spend a lot of time writing about acceptance trails and field testing because I get enough complaints about info dumps away from the action as it is, but I have given actual examples of the process in the test and I promise it's going on in the background even when you don't see it.

Honest!

While I have to agree that Manticore's military tech development wizards and defense industry consistently seem to da a much better job than - say my own country's in RL - and I sometimes felt that picture to be painted a bit too optimistically I want to point out in the author's defense that the very first Honorverse book features a brand-new weapon system employed on the front line which turns out to be - suboptimal.

Hey, it worked PERFECTLY in the first test.

kzt wrote:Hey, it worked PERFECTLY in the first test.

Yes, it did. And they went on testing it instead of rushing it into combat, right? And when they did . . . .

Although, in fairness to Hemphill, it was less a new weapon than a new and radical application of an existing one.

runsforcelery wrote:

kzt wrote:Hey, it worked PERFECTLY in the first test.

Yes, it did. And they went on testing it instead of rushing it into combat, right? And when they did . . . .

Although, in fairness to Hemphill, it was less a new weapon than a new and radical application of an existing one.

More importantly, Fearless was a preproduction testbed that was intended to allow operational commanders to evaluate it in simulations or limited combat before employing the system in major combat. When Fearless was exiled to Basilisk, it was expected that Honor would never be doing anything beyond customs inspections. Engaging a pirate so close to the wormhole was a remote possibility and a death ride against an over gunned Q-ship was unimaginable.

Actually, as an weapon, it works fine. the problem that it had was requiring the replacement of more versatile weapons, and the tactics for its use being fringe case scenarios.

kzt wrote:Hey, it worked PERFECTLY in the first test.

Spacekiwi wrote:Actually, as an weapon, it works fine. the problem that it had was requiring the replacement of more versatile weapons, and the tactics for its use being fringe case scenarios.

kzt wrote:Hey, it worked PERFECTLY in the first test.

Don't worry. When tested, it will cause streak drives to blow up.

No Cachat, no Firebrand, no Detweiler?

As for weapons I still think a crippler should be installed in every commerce raiding ship. Let alone some kind of warshaski sail version.