SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!

Loren Pechtel wrote:The MAlign doesn't even have last year's war to replay. They have zero experience in anything resembling modern combat.

tlb wrote:Also there is one surviving officer of the Mesan Alignment Navy that has actual combat experience in the attack on Torch; unfortunately she is a captive as of the last book.

In addition there are the Ghost and Shark crews from Oyster Bay!

Loren Pechtel wrote:Which makes them irrelevant.

They never engaged in combat. They dropped off sensors and weapons--nothing that involved an intelligent opponent.

You said that they were NO soldiers with combat experience and I pointed to one; which you then said was "irrelevant". It is not irrelevant, in the sense that it disproves the null case. Let me put in simple terms:

If we know of NO examples of a thing, then it is possible that the thing does not exist; however if we know of a least ONE example of a thing, then is it possible that more things exist.

Let me see if I understand your second point. Since we know from chapter 9 of Mission of Honor that the Ghost scout ships had to dodge patrols within the hyper-limit of the systems that were attacked; you seem to be saying that since no shots were fired, then they were not combat soldiers. So artillery spotters and pilots for photo reconnaissance missions, such as the SR-71 and U-2 planes (with the exception of Gary Powers, since he was shot down), were not combat soldiers. In addition, no member of a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol was on a combat mission, unless shots were fired?

tlb wrote:If we know of NO examples of a thing, then it is possible that the thing does not exist; however if we know of a least ONE example of a thing, then is it possible that more things exist.

Indeed, and the MAN may have performed actions under the guise of another navy (the MSN and the Mannerheim ones come to mind) to train their officers. And as proposed earlier, imported officers from the Mannerheim navy, which they had thoroughly infiltrated anyway. The problem is still that the number of opportunities is very small and those are also going to be very minor in scope.

Yes, it's possible they performed a clandestine takeover of some system out in the Verge. They've probably also performed boarding actions in the stations that the Jessyk Combine used to transport the slaves, whenever things got out of hand, then killed everyone who had an idea of who had done anything. The Galton navy officers probably did a bit of that indeed. But again, limited in scope, because otherwise word would leak out that there's a navy out there conducting operations.

Let me see if I understand your second point. Since we know from chapter 9 of Mission of Honor that the Ghost scout ships had to dodge patrols within the hyper-limit of the systems that were attacked; you seem to be saying that since no shots were fired, then they were not combat soldiers. So artillery spotters and pilots for photo reconnaissance missions, such as the SR-71 and U-2 planes (with the exception of Gary Powers, since he was shot down), were not combat soldiers. In addition, no member of a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol was on a combat mission, unless shots were fired?

I don't think that's what's being suggested.

I think it's an issue of scope. Performing clandestine operations against very weak opponents, or even anti-piracy operations (or pro-piracy operations, as the case may be), don't qualify one to fight a major engagement against a peer or better opponent. It's definitely better than nothing, but it's a far cry from enough.

Until the Manticore-Haven wars, NO ONE had fought a superdreadnought war (IIRC). There had been actions where SDs participated, but never against peers with SDs of their own. And then of course the whole concept changed from an energy-range engagement to a long-range missile engagement, which was a completely new concept. There were exactly two sets of personnel with experience in fighting said wars and they both banded together to give the SLN a beat-down, which meant the SLN never learned the lessons either. There's been no opportunity for the Galton or Darius officers to learn on the job how to fight the Grand Fleet or even import anyone who's got a clue.

I'm not saying they're stupid or green. I'm saying they may (will most likely) have gaps in their training because it's based on incomplete data. The simulations are also based on incomplete data, so garbage in garbage out may have caused self-reinforcing feedback loops of garbage solutions too. The Battle of Galton was a major opportunity to correct any mistakes in the assumptions. Also the only one for the foreseeable future.

tlb wrote:Let me see if I understand your second point. Since we know from chapter 9 of Mission of Honor that the Ghost scout ships had to dodge patrols within the hyper-limit of the systems that were attacked; you seem to be saying that since no shots were fired, then they were not combat soldiers. So artillery spotters and pilots for photo reconnaissance missions, such as the SR-71 and U-2 planes (with the exception of Gary Powers, since he was shot down), were not combat soldiers. In addition, no member of a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol was on a combat mission, unless shots were fired?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I don't think that's what's being suggested.

I think it's an issue of scope. Performing clandestine operations against very weak opponents, or even anti-piracy operations (or pro-piracy operations, as the case may be), don't qualify one to fight a major engagement against a peer or better opponent. It's definitely better than nothing, but it's a far cry from enough.

Until the Manticore-Haven wars, NO ONE had fought a superdreadnought war (IIRC). There had been actions where SDs participated, but never against peers with SDs of their own. And then of course the whole concept changed from an energy-range engagement to a long-range missile engagement, which was a completely new concept. There were exactly two sets of personnel with experience in fighting said wars and they both banded together to give the SLN a beat-down, which meant the SLN never learned the lessons either. There's been no opportunity for the Galton or Darius officers to learn on the job how to fight the Grand Fleet or even import anyone who's got a clue.

I'm not saying they're stupid or green. I'm saying they may (will most likely) have gaps in their training because it's based on incomplete data. The simulations are also based on incomplete data, so garbage in garbage out may have caused self-reinforcing feedback loops of garbage solutions too. The Battle of Galton was a major opportunity to correct any mistakes in the assumptions. Also the only one for the foreseeable future.

Scouting missions into the Manticore and Yelsin Systems are not "clandestine operations against very weak opponents"; so we are NOT talking a matter of scope.

We have her statement:

“The project I headed up,” she continued, naming no names, “was devoted to the study of naval tactics. Which, for anyone with a brain—that excludes pretty much the entire officer corps of the Sollies’ Battle Fleet, of course—means constant and careful analysis of the Manty-Haven war."

The problem with simulations is that you might be feeding last year's war into them; but if we take her statement at face value, then they should have been running simulations with what would be close to the present capabilities of the Grand Alliance. That is why she despaired of defending Galton with their current weapon mix.

I do not think the Detweiler Plan failure was due to the Mesan Alingment Navy's lack of knowledge of the state of the Solarian League Navy. I think the analysts could have predicted the result from what they knew before the attack on Galton ended as they expected. Instead the failure was that the plan was run by the political group who were locked into their desired outcome and had never known that adjustments were needed based on military knowledge. Oyster Bay was a panicked reaction to the dawning knowledge that Manticore had a major technological advantage and did not yield the result desired.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:True, but, come on. No access to any real ships? Heck, not even any boarding experience? Quite a while ago, I suggested that they might train with some contingent of the RF, somehow. Or, Darius would certainly have traditional warships in which to at least wargame. Wargaming has its issues, as well, but only academic instruction without at least setting foot on a warship just sounds crazy to me.

Going out on a limb. Once upon a time, I considered that the MA - having so much time on their hands - could actually adopt a truly live fire exercise. If people died they can just replace them. If injured, they can regenerate. I thought that missiles with weaker warheads could be used in wargames to dish out actual battle damage. And I can imagine that the OpFor in MAN SIMS are really difficult.

Note that many sims in the Honorverse are run from the normal bridge, tactical, etc. consoles of their real ships. Just because the combat is simulated does not mean the folks involved haven't set foot aboard real ships.

Many are run from the bridge, in every navy except the MAlign, and that is my point. Where would they get the ships? At Galton, those warships that were present could have been used for wargaming. I expect that they were. But where would the officers at Darius obtain SIMS aboard warships? So, are we to assume that there are warships with wedges to be found at Darius?

One of the main reasons that experience is so important is exposure to varying kinds of tactics, and exposure to different kinds of hardware. IOW, even your SIMS are garbage if you don't know to allow for much greater acceleration curves because you have met the enemy - or the enemy's enemy - on the battlefield. And, of course, Gail Weiss herself comments that her experience isn't exactly hands on. What does that mean? But I agree, at least Gail would know about the GA's accel advantage. But still.

Jonathan_S wrote:(Now, sure, there are school or academy sims which aren't ship based -- and cadets would be exposed to those before graduating and being allowed to serve on a real ship. But those aren't the sims that actual naval officers, serving aboard real ships, would be using most frequently)

Agreed, which is also my point. That seems to be the upper limit of MAlign instruction.

Jonathan_S wrote:Also, be the MAlign ever so callous of human life (and they definitely are), I still can't see them adopting routine deaths in their training. Doing so would almost assuredly have significant and measurable negative effects on crew cohesion and performance, and even if they didn't care about that each crewman or officer is still a significant investment of the navy's time and resources. Instructors can only teach and train so many at a time, and it takes somewhere between 1-4 years of post-high school education and training to get most crew positions and officers up to even minimally acceptable standards. And while there are genetic clones in the Honorverse they're not magic; they're born as babies and grow at the normal rate, and have none of the knowledge or skills of their clone-parent -- so the MAlign can't just punch out a replacement every time they kill off a crewman or officer. (Sure, they'll have some extras in the system as replacements; and they could scale up their naval schools and academies to produce enough new crew each year to replace additional attrition. But that's still more expensive, and you've still got the negative impact on crew performance of unnecessary deaths during training.

I agree. I wasn't suggesting that deaths be the norm, but that an occasional death will be the result of rancid stupidity. Weed the Betas out of the Alphas.

At any rate, I always thought missiles could have a live-fire setting. Just enough to shake up the ship and cause minor damage.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I don't think anyone had realised just how outmatched the SLN was until the first shorts were fired (and landed with barely any defence). The SLN was so arrogant and corrupt that not only did it believe its own lies, it was too good at convincing others. So the MAN analysts had no way to know the real capabilities of the SLN.

It also looks like the MAN severely underestimated the GA RMN capabilities too. The RMN knew how good it was and approached the problem with caution, until it had data, though. But for both I guess it was difficult to simulate just how the direct encounters would be, because the RMN wasn't fighting anyone of SLN's capabilities.

Probably.

Note that many of the upgrades that had been made to SLN ships in the past decade had been much more to be impressive than to increase effectiveness.

Like the 1941 USN, they believed their own propaganda. And then came Salvo Island and everyone woke up.

cthia wrote:Many are run from the bridge, in every navy except the MAlign, and that is my point. Where would they get the ships? At Galton, those warships that were present could have been used for wargaming. I expect that they were. But where would the officers at Darius obtain SIMS aboard warships? So, are we to assume that there are warships with wedges to be found at Darius?

Yes.

The MAN may be the newest Navy in the Galaxy, but I doubt that the MAlign left their home hideout system completely undefended for 180 of its 190 years of existence (or so). First, they must have brought some lighter ships through the wormhole, probably stolen off Technodyne or from some other frontier planet. I doubt they brought ships from Galton, except very early on before they decided to set up a complete firewall between the two systems in one direction. But Galton must have provided the blueprints for everything.

And as we've said time and again, the spider drive is too new. The Darius system must have been building conventional ships up until 1915. It probably is still building some. In fact, given the issues with spiders we've pointed out, it's quite likely they're building new impeller ships.

And in any case, they can now train aboard the Sharks, which are pretty big anyway.

I agree. I wasn't suggesting that deaths be the norm, but that an occasional death will be the result of rancid stupidity. Weed the Betas out of the Alphas.

At any rate, I always thought missiles could have a live-fire setting. Just enough to shake up the ship and cause minor damage.

There are indeed training missiles. Travis used one to protect HMS Casey CL-01 during the Battle of Manticore.

But even training missiles and firing grasers at 0.1% power can have a golden BB effect if they hit an unprotected throat or kilt and find an unexpected vulnerability. Though one could also argue it's best to learn that from a training accident on one ship than to have the enemy discover it during battle.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:They're looking from a distance, they're not really seeing or they would have known the SLN was out of it.

I don't think anyone had realised just how outmatched the SLN was until the first shorts were fired (and landed with barely any defence). The SLN was so arrogant and corrupt that not only did it believe its own lies, it was too good at convincing others. So the MAN analysts had no way to know the real capabilities of the SLN.

It also looks like the MAN severely underestimated the GA RMN capabilities too. The RMN knew how good it was and approached the problem with caution, until it had data, though. But for both I guess it was difficult to simulate just how the direct encounters would be, because the RMN wasn't fighting anyone of SLN's capabilities.

I do agree that nobody knew how overwhelming the difference is. However, we saw how devastating the MDM was against Havenite single drive missiles. It should be apparent that the only way for a SLN fleet to hit Manticoran wallers would be to eat their whole magazine--and when attacking a Manticoran system that would also mean eating anything colliers could carry.

The only surprise was how little of the magazine is needed.

tlb wrote:You said that they were NO soldiers with combat experience and I pointed to one; which you then said was "irrelevant". It is not irrelevant, in the sense that it disproves the null case. Let me put in simple terms:

They were never in a position to react to an opponent. It's basically a live-fire exercise, not combat.

Let me see if I understand your second point. Since we know from chapter 9 of Mission of Honor that the Ghost scout ships had to dodge patrols within the hyper-limit of the systems that were attacked; you seem to be saying that since no shots were fired, then they were not combat soldiers. So artillery spotters and pilots for photo reconnaissance missions, such as the SR-71 and U-2 planes (with the exception of Gary Powers, since he was shot down), were not combat soldiers. In addition, no member of a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol was on a combat mission, unless shots were fired?

I forgot about those--yes, that's a bit of combat. I don't think it's very useful, though. I was picturing it that they came out of hyper and simply drove sideways so there was no actual hiding from the patrol.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Until the Manticore-Haven wars, NO ONE had fought a superdreadnought war (IIRC). There had been actions where SDs participated, but never against peers with SDs of their own. And then of course the whole concept changed from an energy-range engagement to a long-range missile engagement, which was a completely new concept. There were exactly two sets of personnel with experience in fighting said wars and they both banded together to give the SLN a beat-down, which meant the SLN never learned the lessons either. There's been no opportunity for the Galton or Darius officers to learn on the job how to fight the Grand Fleet or even import anyone who's got a clue.

I'm not saying they're stupid or green. I'm saying they may (will most likely) have gaps in their training because it's based on incomplete data. The simulations are also based on incomplete data, so garbage in garbage out may have caused self-reinforcing feedback loops of garbage solutions too. The Battle of Galton was a major opportunity to correct any mistakes in the assumptions. Also the only one for the foreseeable future.

It's not just SD war, I don't think anybody else has engaged in substantial fleet actions. Think of the battle long ago attempting to take the Manticore wormhole before they knew what they had--it was "fleets" but they it was basically ships acting virtually independently. Everyone who had engaged in fleet actions is now part of the GA.

tlb wrote:The problem with simulations is that you might be feeding last year's war into them; but if we take her statement at face value, then they should have been running simulations with what would be close to the present capabilities of the Grand Alliance. That is why she despaired of defending Galton with their current weapon mix.

They know the basic capabilities of GA weapons. That doesn't mean they have anyone with practice in fleet actions. In infantry terms think of an army with nothing above sergeants.

I do not think the Detweiler Plan failure was due to the Mesan Alingment Navy's lack of knowledge of the state of the Solarian League Navy. I think the analysts could have predicted the result from what they knew before the attack on Galton ended as they expected. Instead the failure was that the plan was run by the political group who were locked into their desired outcome and had never known that adjustments were needed based on military knowledge. Oyster Bay was a panicked reaction to the dawning knowledge that Manticore had a major technological advantage and did not yield the result desired.

Their basic failure was realizing that triggering a very long war between Manticore and Haven would drive military advancements. They expected weapons to get better but not that they would get so powerful to be able to swat the SLN aside easily.

And when they saw the MDM they didn't change their plans. They should have reacted by ceasing all operations and redoing their plans pretty much from scratch.