Honorverse ramblings and musings

SWM wrote:I do understand what you have been saying. And I am saying that there was absolutely no rational reason for Byng's reaction. Even if he thought the Manticorans were about to do something tricky, he had no cause to fire without warning.

There was no reason to blow them away; all he had to do was talk to them. What Byng did was pure and simple panic combined with hatred.

Consider this scenario. Someone you hate[fear] walks in the room. You tell him to sit at the table, hands folded where you can see them, and don't move. He complies. You sit on the other side of the table from him with a gun aimed at his head. Something falls off a shelf. You think, "This guy is about to do something; maybe he can move things with his mind or fire lasers from his eyes!" and you blow his brains out. How is this any different from what Byng did? Can you justify it?

SWM wrote:Cthia, you keep changing what you are saying. It's hard to figure out what you are really looking for. It sounded at first like you wondered whether Byng had a good reason to fire. The answer is no.

Now you seem to be saying you only wondered whether he had some reason, rational or not, to fire. That seems like a silly question--of course there was a reason. Byng certainly didn't fire by accident or random choice, so by definition there was a reason. Panic, fear, hatred, anger, and insanity are all common irrational reasons that people fire weapons.

If all you were saying is that Byng had a reason (albeit a bad reason like panic or fear) to fire, then I'm not sure what your point is. It's a given--if there wasn't a reason, he wouldn't have fired. No one ever said he didn't have a reason--people said he didn't have a GOOD reason. And that is why people focused on the fact that the destroyers had no wedges, sidewalls, or weapons readied; if the destroyers had those things ready, Byng would have had a lot better reason to fire. Since they didn't have them ready, he had no good reason to fire.

I'm afraid I am confused about what your point is.

Panic, fear, hatred, anger, and insanity are all common irrational reasons that people fire weapons.

If all you were saying is that Byng had a reason (albeit a bad reason like panic or fear) to fire, then I'm not sure what your point is. It's a given--if there wasn't a reason, he wouldn't have fired. No one ever said he didn't have a reason--people said he didn't have a GOOD reason. And that is why people focused on the fact that the destroyers had no wedges, sidewalls, or weapons readied; if the destroyers had those things ready, Byng would have had a lot better reason to fire. Since they didn't have them ready, he had no good reason to fire.

SWM wrote:

cthia wrote:Hutch's post in the "stupidity" thread reminded me of a question I'd been meaning to pose.

Byng was stupid to fire on those destroyers in their state on readiness.

But would it have been smarter to fire on the destroyers with wedges and sidewalls up and energy batteries run out? May have been more decent. But smarter?

How well could those three destroyers have fared in a straight-up fight with seventeen Battlecruisers?

You make the assumption that those three destroyers would have put up their wedges and sidewalls. Byng didn't even try to communicate with the ships. Had he immediately demanded that the Manticoran ships remain powered down until someone determined what had happened, I imagine that they would have complied. Had they done otherwise, they would have been annihilated. Manticoran tech is good, but 3 Manticoran destroyers would not last more than a few seconds against Solarian battlecruisers inside graser range.

SWM wrote:Wait a minute, cthia, I see you've changed the question. Initially your question about how 3 Manty destroyers would fare against 17 Solly battlecruisers was in the context of what happened when Byng blew them away. In that case, as I said, the destroyers would have been destroyed within seconds even if the destroyers had their sidewalls up.

Now you are asking the question in the context of Byng threatening to destroy them as they are coming into the system. That is an entirely different question. First, under what circumstances are you suggesting that Byng would unilaterally threaten to start a war by destroying three ships peacefully entering a neutral system? After all, the Manticoran ships were carrying an ambassador to New Tuscany.

If they Manty destroyers were threatened by the Sollies before they approached the planet, I don't think they would have tried to fight. They would probably have stood off and negotiated. Negotiation was the entire reason they were sending an Ambassador in the first place.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Hutch's post in the "stupidity" thread reminded me of a question I'd been meaning to pose.

Byng was stupid to fire on those destroyers in their state on readiness.

But would it have been smarter to fire on the destroyers with wedges and sidewalls up and energy batteries run out? May have been more decent. But smarter?

How well could those three destroyers have fared in a straight-up fight with seventeen Battlecruisers?

That's really two questions.

Yea, guilty, and it has cost me. The first part was rhetorical. As I think it smart that Byng didn't take any chance at all with Manty super weapons.

1) Obviously if you're going to fight it's better, tactically, to do so when they're completely vulnerable.

My sentiment exactly!

But there was no need to fight. At the ranges Byng was at he should have been able to directly monitor the state of the DDs' nodes - and since it takes a lot longer to bring the wedge online than it does to blow away the DDs he absolutely should have ordered them to stand down. He could always vaporize them later if they refused or showed signs of getting ready to run.
(Ok, if the DD were suicidal they could inflict more damage on the SLN units before dying; but that's the best they could hope for)


2) Now lets look at what might happen if you magically put the DDs and Byng's force in an arena, with everything the same except everyone had had full wedges, sidewalls, and point defense up and said "fight".
The 3 Rolands "were attacked without warning or challenge, without wedges and with no time to raise sidewalls, at pointblank range, by the massed energy fire of seventeen Solarian battlecruisers and eight destroyers."
At that range, IMHO, even sidewalls wouldn't save the DDs; not even momentarily - so they'd be just as dead. But if they'd known the fight was coming they'd likely have gotten off some grasers, so some of the SLN ships would be damaged as well.

More interestingly would be if the DDs were rolled behind their wedges. That would still be a very disadvantageous position for missile combat - deep, deep, inside the range of 17 BCs. For that matter the SLN BCs would presumably attempt to envelop the Rolands to prevent them from imposing the wedge against all of them.

And even with the Rolands' acceleration advantage they almost certainly couldn't prevent someone from generating angle to score an energy shot through a sidewall or stern wall.

However, until someone lines up an energy weapon shot, it'd just be missiles (admittedly a lot of missiles. And each of the 3 Rolands does have up to about twice the anti-missile active defenses of a pre-war Homer-class BC. That should let them survive for at least a couple minutes, even against the massed (but very low velocity) missile fire, and the maneuvering BCs. Those minutes should let them land some Mk16 counterfire. (Though even those missiles would be damned vulnerable since they're launching within CM range, and possibly within PDLC range!!)


Basically I'm of the opinion that given the numbers and the miniscule stand-off distance, that the Rolands are doomed no mater what. But exactly how quickly they are doomed could change based on the specific scenario.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Hutch's post in the "stupidity" thread reminded me of a question I'd been meaning to pose.

Byng was stupid to fire on those destroyers in their state on readiness.

But would it have been smarter to fire on the destroyers with wedges and sidewalls up and energy batteries run out? May have been more decent. But smarter?

How well could those three destroyers have fared in a straight-up fight with seventeen Battlecruisers?

That's really two questions.

1) Obviously if you're going to fight it's better, tactically, to do so when they're completely vulnerable. But there was no need to fight. At the ranges Byng was at he should have been able to directly monitor the state of the DDs' nodes - and since it takes a lot longer to bring the wedge online than it does to blow away the DDs he absolutely should have ordered them to stand down. He could always vaporize them later if they refused or showed signs of getting ready to run.
(Ok, if the DD were suicidal they could inflict more damage on the SLN units before dying; but that's the best they could hope for)


2) Now lets look at what might happen if you magically put the DDs and Byng's force in an arena, with everything the same except everyone had had full wedges, sidewalls, and point defense up and said "fight".
The 3 Rolands "were attacked without warning or challenge, without wedges and with no time to raise sidewalls, at pointblank range, by the massed energy fire of seventeen Solarian battlecruisers and eight destroyers."
At that range, IMHO, even sidewalls wouldn't save the DDs; not even momentarily - so they'd be just as dead. But if they'd known the fight was coming they'd likely have gotten off some grasers, so some of the SLN ships would be damaged as well.

More interestingly would be if the DDs were rolled behind their wedges. That would still be a very disadvantageous position for missile combat - deep, deep, inside the range of 17 BCs. For that matter the SLN BCs would presumably attempt to envelop the Rolands to prevent them from imposing the wedge against all of them.

And even with the Rolands' acceleration advantage they almost certainly couldn't prevent someone from generating angle to score an energy shot through a sidewall or stern wall.

However, until someone lines up an energy weapon shot, it'd just be missiles (admittedly a lot of missiles. And each of the 3 Rolands does have up to about twice the anti-missile active defenses of a pre-war Homer-class BC. That should let them survive for at least a couple minutes, even against the massed (but very low velocity) missile fire, and the maneuvering BCs. Those minutes should let them land some Mk16 counterfire. (Though even those missiles would be damned vulnerable since they're launching within CM range, and possibly within PDLC range!!)


Basically I'm of the opinion that given the numbers and the miniscule stand-off distance, that the Rolands are doomed no mater what. But exactly how quickly they are doomed could change based on the specific scenario.

n7axw wrote:If we are talking about a contest with missiles at the Roland's missile range, the Sollys get hurt badly by the Mark 16s. Move into the Sollys range, the Mark 16s still hurt the Sollys, but if they manage to pop a missile past the Roland's superior missile defenses, the Rolands get hurt, although it is questionable that the Sollys get anything through. At energy range, the Rolands are toast.

Don

SWM wrote:Cthia,

Apparently I did misunderstand your initial question. It is not at all obvious that the question about how the ships would fare in a standup fight was completely separate from Byng's situation, because I believe you can have a standup fight at point blank range. If both ships are prepared and fire at each other, it is a standup fight. It would be an extremely short fight, as I described, but it would be a standup fight. And you brought up exactly that situation when you talked about the possibility of Byng letting the destroyers get their defenses and weapons ready before firing. So you confused me by not making it clear initially your two questions had nothing to do with each other. I apologize for not understanding what you were looking for earlier. We apparently have different definitions of standup fight.

cthia wrote:But be that as it may, the second part of my question, or main question, should have made it clear.

"Stand-up fight" to me means. A fight picked, for whatever reason, when they first entered the system. Johnathan_S totally understood what I was asking and answered accordingly.