Honorverse ramblings and musings

Is Alfred still looking into Nimitz' problem? Perhaps Nimitz can get some sort of transplant from another cat.

And why doesn't regen work on a cat?

Prince Justin was a scientist when he was dating Elizabeth. Did he just let that go? Has he had any scientific contribs to society or the Navy?

cthia wrote:From the beginning of the kerfuffle with the League, they continued to underestimate Manty hardware. Cruisers defeating BCs. BCs defeating SDs. All types of smaller ships winning battles the League would never have guessed! So hell, I was wondering what the destroyers were capable of if given a fair shake. I wondered that as early as my first read through!

As to the chances of a Roland or five against battle cruisers:

Torch of Freedom
Chapter Twelve wrote: They locked eyes, and despite her best effort, Dubroskaya couldn’t convince herself he was bluffing. He might be wrong—in fact, he probably was—but he wasn’t bluffing. If she didn’t accept his terms, he would open fire as soon as he was in range.

But she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t surrender four battlecruisers to only five light cruisers. She couldn’t…and not just because of Dueñas’ orders. Maybe the stories about New Tuscany, even the wild rumors coming out of Spindle, were true after all. But if they were, that only made it even more imperative that the Navy draw a line somewhere, stop the chain of humiliations and reclaim its honor.

And I will be damned before I let this arrogant little prick of a captain dictate terms to me, by God, she thought harshly. No. Not this time, Captain Zavala!

“Captain Diadoro.” She never took her eyes from Zavala’s face and raised her voice enough to be sure the Manticoran could hear her.

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“We will maintain this course and acceleration. Prepare to engage the enemy,” Vice Admiral Oxana Dubroskaya said, and cut the com connection.

The rest of the encounter between Five Rolands and Four SLN Indefatigables consumes the rest of that chapter, although the battle only really lasted one stacked salvo of 24 missiles/Roland. The other 72 missiles were just wasted.

I think the results inside energy range would be drastically different, but it would take something on the order of Adm Byng's paranoia to bring that about.

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:From the beginning of the kerfuffle with the League, they continued to underestimate Manty hardware. Cruisers defeating BCs. BCs defeating SDs. All types of smaller ships winning battles the League would never have guessed! So hell, I was wondering what the destroyers were capable of if given a fair shake. I wondered that as early as my first read through!

As to the chances of a Roland or five against battle cruisers:

Torch of Freedom
Chapter Twelve wrote: They locked eyes, and despite her best effort, Dubroskaya couldn’t convince herself he was bluffing. He might be wrong—in fact, he probably was—but he wasn’t bluffing. If she didn’t accept his terms, he would open fire as soon as he was in range.

But she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t surrender four battlecruisers to only five light cruisers. She couldn’t…and not just because of Dueñas’ orders. Maybe the stories about New Tuscany, even the wild rumors coming out of Spindle, were true after all. But if they were, that only made it even more imperative that the Navy draw a line somewhere, stop the chain of humiliations and reclaim its honor.

And I will be damned before I let this arrogant little prick of a captain dictate terms to me, by God, she thought harshly. No. Not this time, Captain Zavala!

“Captain Diadoro.” She never took her eyes from Zavala’s face and raised her voice enough to be sure the Manticoran could hear her.

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“We will maintain this course and acceleration. Prepare to engage the enemy,” Vice Admiral Oxana Dubroskaya said, and cut the com connection.

The rest of the encounter between Five Rolands and Four SLN Indefatigables consumes the rest of that chapter, although the battle only really lasted one stacked salvo of 24 missiles/Roland. The other 72 missiles were just wasted.

I think the results inside energy range would be drastically different, but it would take something on the order of Adm Byng's paranoia to bring that about.

Well, well, well. Harold, it seems Torch of Freedom has just been bumped up to the top of my next read queue.

And just what excuse is there for someone not informing me that there are battles in it?

No excuse I tell you. None!

A late Christmas present for ... me.

Thanks much Harold for the passage.


****** *


While walking around my home, cameras track me, or anyone on the property. It occurred to me that certain technological security measures are conspicuously missing from the Honorverse.

There are disruptors. Disruptor systems that track people could have been installed all over Protectors Palace. Every single person could be painted. During the Maccabeus coup, they could have been easily eliminated via computer control from a main security room.

Same system would have been effective aboard ship with Lt. Meares.

Too much power and responsibility for silicon brains?

Is there a stun setting to disruptors?

Or perhaps some advanced variation of tracking stun guns.

I'm very surprised Gustav Anderman doesn't deploy its equivalent.

cthia wrote:While walking around my home, cameras track me, or anyone on the property. It occurred to me that certain technological security measures are conspicuously missing from the Honorverse.

There are disruptors. Disruptor systems that track people could have been installed all over Protectors Palace. Every single person could be painted. During the Maccabeus coup, they could have been easily eliminated via computer control from a main security room.

Same system would have been effective aboard ship with Lt. Meares.

Too much power and responsibility for silicon brains?

Is there a stun setting to disruptors?

Or perhaps some advanced variation of tracking stun guns.

I'm very surprised Gustav Anderman doesn't deploy its equivalent.

There's a reference to stun rifles used by the RMMC. And StateSec and Mesan security forces have neural whips. I don't think being continuously tracked by such things anywhere would give me a high opinion of the people who refuse to see people under any other condition.

Putting much responsibility on silicon brains - or emphasizing it when it happens anyway - isn't really a part of the Honorverse. And the silicon brains Grayson had at the time of the Maccabeus Coup attempt were, well, up to playing Pong - not really a comforting thing to have controlling whether or not your five year old daughter's boisterous hug is categorized as an assassination attempt and leads to permanently crippling neurological damage on the merciful setting.

If any silicon brain is making that kind of call, I'd want it to be flippin' Dahak, not a Commodore 64!

JeffEngel wrote:

cthia wrote:While walking around my home, cameras track me, or anyone on the property. It occurred to me that certain technological security measures are conspicuously missing from the Honorverse.

There are disruptors. Disruptor systems that track people could have been installed all over Protectors Palace. Every single person could be painted. During the Maccabeus coup, they could have been easily eliminated via computer control from a main security room.

Same system would have been effective aboard ship with Lt. Meares.

Too much power and responsibility for silicon brains?

Is there a stun setting to disruptors?

Or perhaps some advanced variation of tracking stun guns.

I'm very surprised Gustav Anderman doesn't deploy its equivalent.

There's a reference to stun rifles used by the RMMC. And StateSec and Mesan security forces have neural whips. I don't think being continuously tracked by such things anywhere would give me a high opinion of the people who refuse to see people under any other condition.

Putting much responsibility on silicon brains - or emphasizing it when it happens anyway - isn't really a part of the Honorverse. And the silicon brains Grayson had at the time of the Maccabeus Coup attempt were, well, up to playing Pong - not really a comforting thing to have controlling whether or not your five year old daughter's boisterous hug is categorized as an assassination attempt and leads to permanently crippling neurological damage on the merciful setting.

If any silicon brain is making that kind of call, I'd want it to be flippin' Dahak, not a Commodore 64!

I see your point for sure. That is why I said "individually" painted and human activated from a control room. And with Honorverse tech, you wouldn't even be aware you're being tracked.

And little Mayhew being tased by friendly fire is a lot better than little Mayhew being shot by hostile forces.

--snipping--

cthia wrote:

Torch of Freedom Chapter Twelve wrote:They locked eyes, and despite her best effort, Dubroskaya couldn’t convince herself he was bluffing. He might be wrong—in fact, he probably was—but he wasn’t bluffing. If she didn’t accept his terms, he would open fire as soon as he was in range.
...
Well, well, well. Harold, it seems Torch of Freedom has just been bumped up to the top of my next read queue.

And just what excuse is there for someone not informing me that there are battles in it?

No excuse I tell you. None!

A late Christmas present for ... me.

Thanks much Harold for the passage.

Although you'd thank him more if he'd quoted that passage from chapter 12 in... Shadow of Freedom. But you oughta read Torch of Freedom anyway, otherwise there are spoilers.

SharkHunter wrote:Thanks much Harold for the passage.

[/quote]Although you'd thank him more if he'd quoted that passage from chapter 12 in... Shadow of Freedom. But you oughta read Torch of Freedom anyway, otherwise there are spoilers.[/quote]

Oops. My stupid fingers spelled "Shadow" as T O R C H.

cthia wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:As to the chances of a Roland or five against battle cruisers:

[snip]

The rest of the encounter between Five Rolands and Four SLN Indefatigables consumes the rest of that chapter, although the battle only really lasted one stacked salvo of 24 missiles/Roland. The other 72 missiles were just wasted.

I think the results inside energy range would be drastically different, but it would take something on the order of Adm Byng's paranoia to bring that about.

Well, well, well. Harold, it seems [Shadow] of Freedom has just been bumped up to the top of my next read queue.

And just what excuse is there for someone not informing me that there are battles in it?

No excuse I tell you. None!

Well, it's a book by David Weber; doesn't that kind of go without saying? The battles are mostly of the curb-stomp variety. Sometimes the Manties don't even bother to change into skinsuits.

cthia wrote:But do you really think there could have been a stand-up fight at knife range, 17 BCs against 4 destroyers? Remember, in the context, the destroyers were parked in orbit. Not much chance to maneuver.

A stand-up fight? That would have been a stand-up massacre, unless of course the destroyers were at least mobile. (IMO)

17 to 4, is too much of a mismatch while pinned in a corner unable to maneuver.

As 17 men against 4 in a cage unable to maneuver. IMO

Yes, I do. Look up the definition of stand-up, in the context of fight. For instance, at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/standup. You will see:

4. (of a fight) characterized by the rapid exchange of many blows with little attention given to defensive maneuvering.

So a battle where the ships are maneuvering defensively is not a stand-up fight. A battle where both sides just open fire without dodging is a stand-up fight. That's the definition.

I think you are thinking of a fair fight, not a stand-up fight.

cthia, Roland vs. 2nd tier or less BC...

Let's say Byng had opened fire at around 6MM-8MM Km, just for conversation. Per the Wikia, 3 fully armed and fighting Rolands would have been able to launch up to 750 total missiles, call it 675 attack/ 75 ECM depending on how long they survived. If they had limpeted pods, IIRC add around another 5 pods x 3 ships x 14 Mark16's = 180 shipkillers + ECM or so, so let's call it 850 total.

Based on later battle usage, the's 6-7 BCs mission killed, but if you drop the likely mission kill to say 80 missiles... they're handing out alot of hurt.

To counter that, Byng has 17 BC x 58 tubes times maybe two salvos before the -16G's return fire starts to arrive. For the sake of conversation, let's say that each BC (16 CM tubes + PDLC) stops four missiles in each of the first two stacked launches, so the Rolands have launched 120 ish shipkiller missiles. Likely that's a mission kill on Byng's flagship and probable hits on 3-4 more. Then the Rolands start independently maneuevering shooting stacked salvos to damage as many remaining BC's as they can.

Meanwhile the Rolands have (20 CM tubes + 30PDLC) x multiple CM launches across 3.1MM Kmm with relatively small targetable aspects.

So in SLN range, it would depend on how many launches the Rolands get off before they are mission killed. Outside of SLN range? say even at 10-12MM KM at New Tuscany, until they shoot themselves dry.

http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Roland_class
http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Indefatigable_class

Edited to make the MM's stand for millions instead of millimeters (mm)