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The Short Victorious War

Join us in talking discussing all things Honor, including (but not limited to) tactics, favorite characters, and book discussions.
Re: The Short Victorious War
Post by cthia   » Wed Mar 02, 2022 12:38 pm

cthia
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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
cthia wrote:The glaring problem with your thoughts is your consistency in erroneously attributing normality to this enemy. This is not your normal enemy. They are alien. Your criminal profile still needs much work. This enemy does not accept humanity's formal rules of war; which were born out of the more traditional morals, scruples, and values.


The point I'm trying to make is that the conventional rules of war would have required them to. They're obviously not adhering to that, and never wanted to (and I never assumed that they were). Meanwhile, the Japanese were at least trying to keep the semblance of following the rules of war. That's why I was saying that the comparison is flawed.

Again, my point. Any comparison is meaningless because war itself is flawed. The MA tried as well to keep too much damage away from the planet.

When you are the biggest and baddest navy on the block, you can afford such luxuries as niceties and formalities.

BTW, did a strict adherence to the conventional rules of war blind us to the tactics of the kamakaze, the submarine and the Kaiten?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: The Short Victorious War
Post by tlb   » Wed Mar 02, 2022 2:05 pm

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cthia wrote:BTW, did a strict adherence to the conventional rules of war blind us to the tactics of the kamakaze, the submarine and the Kaiten?

The short answer is no; for example, the tactics of the submarine had been well worked out in WW1 and in WW2 by the time of the Reuben James incident; before the formal entry of the US into the war. It was the stupidity of Admiral King (and his possible dislike of the British) that resulted in the "Second Happy Time".

In the Pacific War, the USA took much more benefit from the submarine (after the problem with the torpedoes was solved), than the Japanese ever contemplated. The US submarines were the greatest single threat to the Japanese merchant fleet; while the Japanese never attempted to cut the flow of supplies between the US mainland, Hawaii and Australia.

Whereas the tactics of the Kamikaze, while unexpected, did not require any different defense than was already being used against either dive bombers or torpedoes. It was a tactic of weakness brought on by the fact that trying to attack an Allied fleet was already tantamount to a suicide mission at that period of the war.
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Re: The Short Victorious War
Post by Jonathan_S   » Wed Mar 02, 2022 3:42 pm

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tlb wrote:The short answer is no; for example, the tactics of the submarine had been well worked out in WW1 and in WW2 by the time of the Reuben James incident; before the formal entry of the US into the war. It was the stupidity of Admiral King (and his possible dislike of the British) that resulted in the "Second Happy Time".

In the Pacific War, the USA took much more benefit from the submarine (after the problem with the torpedoes was solved), than the Japanese ever contemplated. The US submarines were the greatest single threat to the Japanese merchant fleet; while the Japanese never attempted to cut the flow of supplies between the US mainland, Hawaii and Australia.

Whereas the tactics of the Kamikaze, while unexpected, did not require any different defense than was already being used against either dive bombers or torpedoes. It was a tactic of weakness brought on by the fact that trying to attack an Allied fleet was already tantamount to a suicide mission at that period of the war.

I'd quibble slightly. King did obviously make the wrong decision. But he was working under the belief that a convoy without a significant escort was simply handing the uboats an all you can eat buffet.
He was wrong; but I'm not sure the operational impact, and decreased overall loses, of unescorted or poorly escorted convoys was entirely understood by early '42.

So I grant that he honestly believed, with the lack of escorts he felt he could make available, that instituting unescorted/barely escorted convoys on the eastern seaboard would have made things worse, not better. AFAIK, at that time there wasn't yet definitive proof that he was wrong in that belief; though with the benefit of hindsight we believe he was.

I'd also quibble about Kamikaze not requiring different defenses. Their higher probability of hit, and tendency not to break off when taking fire, drove at least two changes to defenses.
One was the radar picket concept -- putting destroyers down the threat axis to provide both early warning and fighter direction to allow the (enlarged) CAP to begin engaging further from the fleet. Could be hard on those destroyers, but their risk and sacrifice helped keep the rest of the fleet, and amphibious forces, safer.
Also this need for increased air defense distance drove experiments, under Project Cadillac, of the first proto-AWACs (though the control wasn't actually airborne, the modified avenger sent the image of its radar screen down to the carrier and only acted as a radio relay for the afloat fighter directors who acted on what it saw).
Second was widespread replacement of 20mm Oerlikon aa guns with 40mm Bofors; the larger shell being more likely to inflict sufficient damage that a Kamikaze would break up and hit the sea short of its target. And even that wasn't seen as sufficient and the US rushed development of an even more effective replacement for the Bofors, a radar directed dual automatic 3"/60 Mark 27 AA mount with proximity fuzed shells; however even rushed development didn't have them ready before the end of the war -- and with the urgency relaxed the USN extended their development program, releasing them to the fleet in 1948.

So Kamikaze didn't require radically new defenses, but by being higher threat that previous air attacks they caused the USN to adjust its tactics and seek to deploy and develop defenses that were better suited to this somewhat different threat. (Said defenses, of course, would also have been more effective against conventional air attacks)
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Re: The Short Victorious War
Post by tlb   » Wed Mar 02, 2022 5:39 pm

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tlb wrote:The short answer is no; for example, the tactics of the submarine had been well worked out in WW1 and in WW2 by the time of the Reuben James incident; before the formal entry of the US into the war. It was the stupidity of Admiral King (and his possible dislike of the British) that resulted in the "Second Happy Time".

In the Pacific War, the USA took much more benefit from the submarine (after the problem with the torpedoes was solved), than the Japanese ever contemplated. The US submarines were the greatest single threat to the Japanese merchant fleet; while the Japanese never attempted to cut the flow of supplies between the US mainland, Hawaii and Australia.

Jonathan_S wrote:I'd quibble slightly. King did obviously make the wrong decision. But he was working under the belief that a convoy without a significant escort was simply handing the uboats an all you can eat buffet.
He was wrong; but I'm not sure the operational impact, and decreased overall loses, of unescorted or poorly escorted convoys was entirely understood by early '42.

So I grant that he honestly believed, with the lack of escorts he felt he could make available, that instituting unescorted/barely escorted convoys on the eastern seaboard would have made things worse, not better. AFAIK, at that time there wasn't yet definitive proof that he was wrong in that belief; though with the benefit of hindsight we believe he was.

But isn't it true that the British offered the loan of escorts and King refused? So his rationale for not forming convoys was self inflicted, because he had refused the offer of those escorts.

Of course, the other problem was not immediately implementing a blackout on coastal cities, offering the submarines a clear silhouette of their targets at night.

But none of this (or the problem of intercepting the "Divine Wind") had anything to do with being blinded by "a strict adherence to the conventional rules of war".
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Re: The Short Victorious War
Post by Brigade XO   » Thu Mar 03, 2022 11:06 am

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cthia wrote:Again, my point. Any comparison is meaningless because war itself is flawed. The MA tried as well to keep too much damage away from the planet.


Not really. The only trying they did was to keep actual weapons from hitting the planets to skirt around the edges of the EE so the League was not having to get involved.

One could argue that despite the challenges that delayed the Japanese diplomats from delivering a formal declaration of war before the 1st bomb fell in Hawaii, the timing seems to so tight that there was effectively on time for the US Government to notify Hawaii or any installation in the Pacific that war had been declared. The Japanese strike force was already underway before the Japanese embassy started typing up the "diplomatic note" of declaration of war.

Then it was really clear, once the airstrike arrived that this was Japan - clearly marked aircraft with uniformed members of the Japanese Navy (when bodies were recovered). There were also that nagging little challenge of Japanese miniature submarines (which were conveyed by larger submarines as they didn't have all that much range) attempting to penetrate Pearl Harbor before the airstrike

The Alignment had only ONE interest in not using weapons to attack the surface of the inhabited planets in the SEM home system. That was a tactic to keep the SL or anybody else out of getting involved , not a concern for physical damage and loss of life on the 3 home system inhabited planets.

The text talks about physical debris of the stations (and from a practical standpoint debris of anything else damaged or destroyed in the attack) NOT QUALIFYING AS AN EE EVENT. It's collateral damage, not deliberate targeting. The Alignment provided a fig leaf to allow the SL (as manipulated by the Alignment agents etc) to not send anyone. Nobody knew who attacked Manticore (or Grayson).....no ships seen, no declaration given, no demands made, nothing. The book is very clear about that.
The Alignment takes great pains to remain hidden. Then why did they run Oyster Bay? You should remember that this was a very rushed operations- was supposed to be a much larger set of attacks LATER, AFTER THE LDs WERE READY (timing is not given) because Manticore and Grayson had seriously disrupted the Alignments's long range plans to destroy the SL and were clearly going to keep messing up plans further if not stopped. So blast the orbital infrastructure, "let" Haven then come swooping in and take over Manticore--and then keep manipulating Haven and the SL into conflict. Great. Nice bunch of .....whatever you want to call them.


By the way, I don't remember any mention of humanitarian aid coming from the SL as a Star Nation

So a faceless, unknown attacker has devastated the orbital infrastructure of two star nations, using unusual weapons and apparently ships which could not be detected and almost nobody- certainly not the senior member of the SL government-. The Alignment has long since declared war on the "normal" humans but nobody knows it. Body count of Normals don't matter, only The Plan. Besides, the Alignment can literally manufacture clones to- eventually- replace any losses in worker population it needs, so what do they care?
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Re: The Short Victorious War
Post by n7axw   » Thu Mar 03, 2022 12:02 pm

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tlb wrote:
tlb wrote:The short answer is no; for example, the tactics of the submarine had been well worked out in WW1 and in WW2 by the time of the Reuben James incident; before the formal entry of the US into the war. It was the stupidity of Admiral King (and his possible dislike of the British) that resulted in the "Second Happy Time".

In the Pacific War, the USA took much more benefit from the submarine (after the problem with the torpedoes was solved), than the Japanese ever contemplated. The US submarines were the greatest single threat to the Japanese merchant fleet; while the Japanese never attempted to cut the flow of supplies between the US mainland, Hawaii and Australia.

Jonathan_S wrote:I'd quibble slightly. King did obviously make the wrong decision. But he was working under the belief that a convoy without a significant escort was simply handing the uboats an all you can eat buffet.
He was wrong; but I'm not sure the operational impact, and decreased overall loses, of unescorted or poorly escorted convoys was entirely understood by early '42.

So I grant that he honestly believed, with the lack of escorts he felt he could make available, that instituting unescorted/barely escorted convoys on the eastern seaboard would have made things worse, not better. AFAIK, at that time there wasn't yet definitive proof that he was wrong in that belief; though with the benefit of hindsight we believe he was.

But isn't it true that the British offered the loan of escorts and King refused? So his rationale for not forming convoys was self inflicted, because he had refused the offer of those escorts.

Of course, the other problem was not immediately implementing a blackout on coastal cities, offering the submarines a clear silhouette of their targets at night.

But none of this (or the problem of intercepting the "Divine Wind") had anything to do with being blinded by "a strict adherence to the conventional rules of war".


I've read that King,though a competent officer, was an anglophobe who didn't take advice coming from the British gracefully.

Don

-
When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: The Short Victorious War
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Mar 03, 2022 2:53 pm

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Brigade XO wrote:By the way, I don't remember any mention of humanitarian aid coming from the SL as a Star Nation


It was coming with Filareta. Or after Filareta opened the Junction for SL ships.
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Re: The Short Victorious War
Post by Theemile   » Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:19 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Brigade XO wrote:By the way, I don't remember any mention of humanitarian aid coming from the SL as a Star Nation


It was coming with Filareta. Or after Filareta opened the Junction for SL ships.


In the holds of his Marine Assault Ships? With 500,000 Marines trained to hand out relief packages?
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: The Short Victorious War
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Mar 03, 2022 7:42 pm

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Theemile wrote:In the holds of his Marine Assault Ships? With 500,000 Marines trained to hand out relief packages?


Maybe they were "relief" packages. Like the "humanitarian aid."

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Re: The Short Victorious War
Post by Brigade XO   » Fri Mar 04, 2022 10:23 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Brigade XO wrote:By the way, I don't remember any mention of humanitarian aid coming from the SL as a Star Nation


It was coming with Filareta. Or after Filareta opened the Junction for SL ships.


Yeah.....and I have (well had) a bridge you might like to buy and you forgot the Mandarin/ SLN to gently persuade SL and non-SL members to give up any and all trade with the SEM. Something about Buccaneers and perhaps killing nits before they become lice? :)
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