Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:The British and American ships were doing just fine until the invention of the slow undetectable German U-boats.

MAlign ships are slow undetectable ships.

The MAlign just introduced submarine warfare to the Honorverse!


****** *

Wish I could take the credit 'cause it's funny as hell. But my niece's brain served this one up.

The renewed German campaign was effective, sinking 1.4 million tons of shipping between October 1916 and January 1917. Despite this, the political situation demanded even greater pressure, and on 31 January 1917, Germany announced that its U-boats would engage in unrestricted submarine warfare beginning 1 February. On 17 March, German submarines sank three American merchant vessels, and the U.S. declared war on Germany in April 1917.

Operation Oyster Bay, referred to by most non-Mesans as the Yawata Strike and by treecats as the Day of Sorrow, was a massive military assault on the Manticore System and the Yeltsin's Star System by the Mesan Alignment Navy.
It was carried out in February 1922 PD after a long phase of planning and preparation, and was a terrible blow to both star systems.

Contents[show]
Prelude Edit
The Alignment originally intended to strike in the Republic of Haven as well, but due to certain unexpected events in the Talbott Quadrant, and especially in light of the Battle of Manticore, Albrecht Detweiler decided to accelerate the operation and carry out only the Manticoran Alliance part with goals to destroy new generation Apollo-capable ships in shipyards and stop their missile production.
However, only the second goal was reached, as most of new ships had already left their building docks. (SI2)

Primary attacks Edit
There were actually six separate attacks on the Manticore System itself, one for each inhabited planet's orbital infrastructure, and each divided into two separate waves, although they were carefully synchronized to form a single, devastating blow. (HH12)
Results Edit
Military damage Edit
See here for a full list of Oyster Bay casualties.
Manticore Edit
Space stations
HMSS Hephaestus, the Royal Manticoran Navy's primary space station and home port, was hit by eighteen graser torpedoes and completely destroyed.
HMSS Vulcan was also completely destroyed.
HMSS Weyland was also completely destroyed, but the loss of life was minimal due to a surprise emergency evacuation exercise in effect at the time of the attack.
The loss of life aboard the space stations was estimated at 5.4 million.
Additional loss of life from the attacks on the orbital shipyards amounted to 396,000, with more being killed aboard small craft and private vessels that found themselves caught in the crossfire.
The majority of the dispersed orbital yards were destroyed[1]
Ships
There were also significant losses of ships, including:

Edward Saganami-C-class heavy cruisers:
HMS Jessica Rice (brand new vessel)
HMS Hexapuma (during repairs)
Roland-class destroyers completing their final fitting out, with almost their full complements embarked:
HMS Barbarossa
HMS Saladin
HMS Yamamoto Date
Two yard tugs in the HMSS Hephaestus area
Yeltsin's Star Edit
The Blackbird Yard was completely destroyed with almost 100 percent of the workforce. Because it was located far away from Grayson, there were no collateral casualties like at Manticore. However, High Admiral Wesley Matthews was at Blackbird at the time of the attack and was killed. (HH12)
"Collateral" damage Edit
Multiple fragments of HMSS Vulcan hit the Tannerman Ocean on the planet Sphinx. The resulting impact surge killed more than 10,000 people in dozens of small coastal towns, including Tanners Port, and inflicted billions of dollars worth of damage. Several fragments also hit the city of Yawata Crossing, destroying it completely.
The human death toll on Sphinx was approximately 7.448 million.[2] The treecat death toll was close to 9,000.

On Manticore only 200 people were killed. (HH12)

Aftermath Edit
Oyster Bay had catastrophic consequences for Manticore's economic and military strength: most of the workforce trained to build ships of war was gone, as was most of the missile-building capacity. More than 13 million people were killed, and no one even knew where the attack came from. Queen Elizabeth III, however, made it clear that she would not allow her Empire to fall before its enemies.
First Space Lord Thomas Caparelli assumed full responsibility for the Royal Manticoran Navy's inability to prevent the attack, and offered his resignation to both First Lord of the Admiralty White Haven and the Queen herself. They both refused to consider it; partially in the belief there had been no way to predict the sudden technology shift, partially because of the possibility of the media perceiving it as a desperate attempt to find a scapegoat.

Protector Benjamin IX recalled Judah Yanakov to Grayson to take over the position of High Admiral. (HH12)

cthia wrote:I've been brooding over a failed attempt to recruit my Romanian friends to the forum because I knew that they would have significant, entertaining, and even profound input. I recently gave up on the attempt. Sadly.

I received an email shortly ago. Seems a quite pregnant discussion broke out about the perceived cost of drugs in the Honorverse spurred on by the high cost of prolong. Some think medicine will potentially cost more. Some think that's crazy. These are all MDs, Surgeons, etc.

We missed that concert guys.

Yow wrote:

cthia wrote:
I've been brooding over a failed attempt to recruit my Romanian friends to the forum because I knew that they would have significant, entertaining, and even profound input. I recently gave up on the attempt. Sadly.

I received an email shortly ago. Seems a quite pregnant discussion broke out about the perceived cost of drugs in the Honorverse spurred on by the high cost of prolong. Some think medicine will potentially cost more. Some think that's crazy. These are all MDs, Surgeons, etc.

We missed that concert guys.

Where's the bootleg?

Harrington took command of a new battlecruiser, HMS Nike, in 282 AL, with Michelle Henke as her first officer. Nike was assigned as flagship for Rear Admiral Sarnow, commander of Battlecruiser Squadron 5 in Vice Admiral Park's Task Force Hancock.

After receiving a war warning from the Admiralty, Admiral Parks split up his forces, leaving Task Group Hancock 001 under Sarnow to defend Hancock. They soon found themselves forced to defend Hancock Station from a vastly superior Havenite armada. With the help of Harrington's unorthodox tactics, the task force was able to hold off the Havenites long enough for reinforcements to arrive. However, Sarnow was incapacitated, leaving Harrington in command. Captain Pavel Young's cowardice nearly cost many lives when he disobeyed orders and fled the defensive formation protecting the wounded Nike. Harrington managed to keep the rest of the formation together despite this, until she ordered them to scatter for safety when the pursuing force could no longer escape the Manticoran reinforcements. (HH3)

cthia wrote:

Harrington took command of a new battlecruiser, HMS Nike, in 282 AL, with Michelle Henke as her first officer. Nike was assigned as flagship for Rear Admiral Sarnow, commander of Battlecruiser Squadron 5 in Vice Admiral Park's Task Force Hancock.

After receiving a war warning from the Admiralty, Admiral Parks split up his forces, leaving Task Group Hancock 001 under Sarnow to defend Hancock. They soon found themselves forced to defend Hancock Station from a vastly superior Havenite armada. With the help of Harrington's unorthodox tactics, the task force was able to hold off the Havenites long enough for reinforcements to arrive. However, Sarnow was incapacitated, leaving Harrington in command. Captain Pavel Young's cowardice nearly cost many lives when he disobeyed orders and fled the defensive formation protecting the wounded Nike. Harrington managed to keep the rest of the formation together despite this, until she ordered them to scatter for safety when the pursuing force could no longer escape the Manticoran reinforcements. (HH3)

Why the heck did Parks split up his forces? That really pissed me off. He had Harrington and Sarnow telling him where they thought Peeps would strike, IIRC. I just don't understand why he chose to split his forces. And didn't he take the bulk of the task force with him? Parks simply disappointed me with his command ability 'onscreen'. His intuition sucks.

SWM wrote:I'm no strategist, but here is the way I've been looking at it.

He was doing exactly what his force was stationed at Hancock to do. His mission was always intended as a fast reactionary force to attack at one or more of the nearby inhabited systems; he was simply following through on his mission by moving his forces to counter. He had evidence of an impending attack, so he reacted. If there actually had been attacks on those systems, he would have split his forces to counter-attack--that's exactly what he was there to do.

He had full discretion on how to react. The War Warning had gone out, so he was fully authorized--indeed, required--to counter any attacks by Haven. Exactly how he reacted was up to his best judgment. Splitting his forces to counter multiple strikes was one of the options all along.

Now, it turns out that he was suckered, and he had been advised not to do it. But remember that Sarnow was only one of his unit commanders. He had other unit commanders as well. It is not unreasonable for an officer to choose his own plan rather than that of a single subordinate's. (Honor doesn't count, as she was an advisor to Sarnow rather than to Parks.) And Parks did listen well enough to Sarnow that he modified his plan to leave a force behind in Hancock.

Splitting his forces was well within the parameters of Parks' discretion, part of the options available to him from the beginning. It turned out to be the wrong decision, but there was nothing inherently wrong with splitting forces. In fact, if he was going to trap the attacks he thought were coming, splitting his forces was the only way to do it. That it was the wrong decision is a sign that Parks is not as good a strategist as Sarnow, not a sign that he actually did anything wrong.

SWM wrote:I'm no strategist, but here is the way I've been looking at it.

He was doing exactly what his force was stationed at Hancock to do. His mission was always intended as a fast reactionary force to attack at one or more of the nearby inhabited systems; he was simply following through on his mission by moving his forces to counter. He had evidence of an impending attack, so he reacted. If there actually had been attacks on those systems, he would have split his forces to counter-attack--that's exactly what he was there to do.

He had full discretion on how to react. The War Warning had gone out, so he was fully authorized--indeed, required--to counter any attacks by Haven. Exactly how he reacted was up to his best judgment. Splitting his forces to counter multiple strikes was one of the options all along.

Now, it turns out that he was suckered, and he had been advised not to do it. But remember that Sarnow was only one of his unit commanders. He had other unit commanders as well. It is not unreasonable for an officer to choose his own plan rather than that of a single subordinate's. (Honor doesn't count, as she was an advisor to Sarnow rather than to Parks.) And Parks did listen well enough to Sarnow that he modified his plan to leave a force behind in Hancock.

Splitting his forces was well within the parameters of Parks' discretion, part of the options available to him from the beginning. It turned out to be the wrong decision, but there was nothing inherently wrong with splitting forces. In fact, if he was going to trap the attacks he thought were coming, splitting his forces was the only way to do it. That it was the wrong decision is a sign that Parks is not as good a strategist as Sarnow, not a sign that he actually did anything wrong.