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SPOILERS: Commentary and Speculationi for _To End in Fire_

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Re: SPOILERS: Commentary and Speculationi for _To End in Fir
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:25 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:I don't think they were limited in control links. The Galton defenders were talking about firing bigger salvos (and did), so it stands to reason there wasn't a limitation this early. So it really does sound like a mistake to fire something that isn't best Sunday punch but exposes

The Hastas are pretty self-sufficient and, by the time the missile launches from them, they're WAY past telemetry range from any non-FTL link. The Grand Fleet was sitting at the hyperlimit, about 10 light-minutes away.


They're beyond any precision control but missiles without guidance have a tendency to lose the target in the face of ECM and once a missile loses it's target it's not likely to find it again. Control links won't help them through the defenses but can keep them from wandering.

Oh, BTW, has anyone noticed how the Apollos now can be controlled at 10 light-minute range, but couldn't when Honor fired at Tourville at 8 light-minutes?


So, there's been some bandwidth upgrades since then. Honor could control them then, just not enough of them to count.

Galton had little reason for a huge sensor net like Manticore has.


I disagree. The fact that you've pulled this attack on someone means you should be prepared for it to be used on you. You can't call Dibs on the strategy.


Galton's only real defense was stealth. Once located it couldn't stand up to the GA anyway. Detecting the survey ship would have bought them some time, it wouldn't have changed the outcome.

Ouch, yup, you're right. She knew something was coming, wedges would be rolled.


And this is both interesting and disappointing. It's interesting that even graser missiles pushed by Hastas managed to make so comparatively little damage. And disappointing because later, mere Cataphracts did more damage.


He blew it badly with the Hastas. At the stated engagement range they would only have hit wedges and done nothing at all. The extended firing would have been very valuable indeed in an ambush scenario, completely useless against a fleet that knows it's under attack.

There shouldn't be anyone on Galton that knows about Darius. And blowing the habitats would reveal that there's another layer.


I don't see how that conclusion would follow. The fact that the remnants of the fortresses blew themselves up instead of letting be captured in Adebayo's Khan moment would be completely understandable for habitats too. The Alignment was perfectly willing to kill even their on on Mesa, which they needed to evacuate. Why not make collective suicide?

On the other hand, if they did blow themselves up, any survivors may be able to tell that. Whereas if Honor had returned fire, even if allowed under the rules of war, could be pushed by survivors as (another) atrocity.


The fortresses blowing doesn't prove anything, again and again we see that the MA won't let itself be captured and there are protocols in place to ensure that. One more such case means nothing. Houdini only suggests secrets and could perfectly well just be to ensure the people don't get caught even if the organization is gone. Blowing the habitats clearly would say there are secrets still hidden which would mean there's another layer to the onion.
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Re: SPOILERS: Commentary and Speculationi for _To End in Fir
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:27 am

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Relax wrote:DW has stated that due to the printing press and voice caches, English has remained roughly the same with some obvious discrepancies.


I don't think the printing press is relevant--there have been substantial changes to English since then. I do think English is pretty much frozen at this point, though, due to the huge amount of digital content that exists.
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Re: SPOILERS: Commentary and Speculationi for _To End in Fir
Post by Robert_A_Woodward   » Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:26 am

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(Most of earlier posts deleted)

Loren Pechtel wrote:
ThinksMarkedly wrote:


I don't see how that conclusion would follow. The fact that the remnants of the fortresses blew themselves up instead of letting be captured in Adebayo's Khan moment would be completely understandable for habitats too. The Alignment was perfectly willing to kill even their on on Mesa, which they needed to evacuate. Why not make collective suicide?

On the other hand, if they did blow themselves up, any survivors may be able to tell that. Whereas if Honor had returned fire, even if allowed under the rules of war, could be pushed by survivors as (another) atrocity.


The fortresses blowing doesn't prove anything, again and again we see that the MA won't let itself be captured and there are protocols in place to ensure that. One more such case means nothing. Houdini only suggests secrets and could perfectly well just be to ensure the people don't get caught even if the organization is gone. Blowing the habitats clearly would say there are secrets still hidden which would mean there's another layer to the onion.


Not necessarily. There are all sorts of posthumous revenge possibilities that could had been in play. For example, second guessing by the non-involved over all the civilian casualties and decades of fruitless labor by various governments looking for the non-existent layer to the onion.
----------------------------
Beowulf was bad.
(first sentence of Chapter VI of _Space Viking_ by H. Beam Piper)
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Re: SPOILERS: Commentary and Speculationi for _To End in Fir
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:14 am

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Relax wrote:DW has stated that due to the printing press and voice caches, English has remained roughly the same with some obvious discrepancies.


Well, sure. And like my example of Icelandic, it's possible the language remained sufficiently intelligible for the speakers in Honor's time, with just a little help. But technical terms may change a lot because the technology they reflect to changes. Words get adopted to mean different things.

Just thing about it. We call it "movie" because it opposes "still pictures." We call it "film" as a metonym replacing the medium carrying the work for the work itself. Be glad we've dropped the "talkies" term.

If you've been to France, you've probably seen the "Hôtel de Ville" in every city (and made the joke that it's a huge chain of hotels you can't stay at!). But those are actually the City Halls and the term "Hôtel" also appears in "Hôtel-Dieu." The word "hôtel" (earler "hostel") just meant a place where people were hosted (hence the name), much broader than the modern understanding of a commercial lodging establishment.

And what does the City Hall have to do with the hallway leading to my bedroom?
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Re: SPOILERS: Commentary and Speculationi for _To End in Fir
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Nov 02, 2021 5:06 pm

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Robert_A_Woodward wrote:
21) Graser Warheads Provide no Advantage over Laser Heads

The authors might claim otherwise, but at those closing velocities, having a firing duration of seconds means very little when most of your fire windows are measured in milliseconds. Let’s run some numbers: closing velocity of .5c (150,000 KM/sec) and wedge depth (average) of 115 KM. This results in a maximum time on target of only .8 milliseconds. Firing down the throat would be far better, since the wedge would allow about 30 degrees. Assuming a firing distance of 100,000 KM, the missile would have a possible firing angle for about a third of a second (but it would need to rotate very precisely to be on target that long). Note that this is a graser that is probably battle cruiser class against super dreadnought bow walls (do RMN super dreadnoughts have bow walls? RHN might not have upgraded its ships yet), which means the missiles should attempt to fire at a closer distance with a corresponding shorter fire window. If the missile was coming parallel to the long axis of the target, the numbers would be much better, but not even the Solarian League Battle Fleet would had been stupid enough to park its ships bow on to the inner system. True, the continuous fire means that more than one ship will be hit by one graser, but the dimension of the ships, combined with closing velocities, results in a dwell time measured in microseconds at best for each ship as a whole and picoseconds (femtoseconds?) for a particular square meter of hull armor. Rotating the graser could extend those times (against one ship), but the graser will have the same time limitations to get lined up as the laser heads.
I don't know if the RHN ships got buckler walls, but we know their LACs and Cruisers had the original 1st stage (full coverage; but no acceleration) bow walls. (In SftS they even discuss as to whether the pre-coup rogue Mars class-CA they come across might have been refitted with one - but decide it wouldn't because if it'd gotten a big enough refit to do that it would have gotten the dodgy fusion cores they detected replaced)

So I'd be shocked if any of Havens CLACs or SD(P)s lacked at least that 1st stage bow wall.

(And given the very narrow protected angles a buckler gives you if you know a missile strike is inbound you'd want to pop a full bow (or stern) wall anyway; so whether or not they've got a buckler is largely irrelevant to the attack profile you're discussing)
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