Brigade XO wrote:Honor got sandbagged, by a bunch of ego brushed Senior Officers.
She a got a Lt Cruiser - which was her #2 hyper capable command. Her 1st assignment with Fearless was to finish the "modifications" which crippled her ship and then demonstrated that a CL could "kill" an SD with it.
All of which she did.
The problem.........TWTSNBN is a one-trick pony in a platform as light as a CL (and an old one at that) and you have to wonder at the considerations given to it's survivability in an actual combat situation. Ok, she got close enough to the SD to use it......and though the shock and surprise managed to get away. But what happened in EVERY OTHER ITERATION of the War Games was clear enough that the concept was flawed.
Let me count the ways...
1) Perhaps- in a real battle- a CL MIGHT work it's way into "that weapon" range of an SD but would at least one system on the SD then try to target the really really close enemy CL that had just shot the SD?.....this is energy range. She got a way the 1st time because they were shocked....shouldn't anybody on the SD been taken to task for not at least attempting to ream the CL? Was the SD theoretically either destroyed or fully incapacitated?
2) Said CL doesn't actualy have the armor and probably the shielding to survive much of what an SD would throw at it....and Fearless was mercilessly and relentlessly swatted (as well as specifically targeted) in what seemed as deliberate payback for the initial success having blindsided the command staff who were not (it's a surprise, cann't spoil that) told about The Weapon nor how it could be used.
3) Honor did her job.......but being forced to try and replicate the attack EVERY time for the multiple times the War Game was run and then being "beaten" every time and having to endure repeated failure when EVERYBODY involved at higher levels knew after the 2nd round of the Games/Problem saw what was happening and yet she was essentially ordered to commit suicide time after time ....not only were her targets waiting for her, they figuratively obliterated her the moment she came anywhere in range of their weapons.
4) Senior staff felt they had to get Fearless out of sight, ok, that makes at least a little sense if they need to evaluate the results of the "tests" but instead of getting congratulated on making it work- at least the 1st time, having been ordered to keep doing it again and again against people who are specifically looking for you by name (HMS Fearless, - Harrington, we read you IFF), the sent her to a what was considered a "punishment" station.
Heck, they COULD have sent her right back out to Silesia and had her go looking for and killing pirates for several months....what pirate in their right mind would want to go up against even an older RMN CL? She could have been USEFULL. The Crew would have been able to get over the drubbing they took and they would have been being USFULL and doing something "normal" and needed in a place where they would be of use. How many tubes and how many missiles in Fearless's magazine were left after the tore her up to make the "modification"? Convoy duty in Silesia? Anti-piracy duty in Silesia?
She did her dam job- and did it well. Just what glory did the SD cover itself with after the that 1st round when they were sucker punched? I suspect it wasn't a lot (other than rub Hemperhill's nose in her failure once it was a surprise). So because some Admirals and Captains got their egos bruised they sent Harrington (and her entire crew) off on punishment duty.
Ok....plot driven.
IIRC Fearless got the first kill by basically turning herself into a stationary minefield and having
Hemphill maneuver her fleet to lure D'Orville within GL range of Fearless.
Then the surprise of popping her wedge online, bought her enough time to notionally blow D'Orville's flagship away, and the surprise of that bought her time to roll wedge and escape instead of getting mobbed by the missile broadsides of his surviving ships; or chased down by a DesRon or something.
I'd argue it only succeeded because D'Orville's fleet failed to properly scout their path. If they'd been punching RDs steadily down their course or even had their screen pushed out and paying attention they'd have seen Fearless before coming well within energy range of her. (And that's probably plot driven)
Once they'd had their little wake up call they did a better job sanitizing nearby space and pushed CLs high enough up their priority list that they'd divert missiles to kill any that even twitched their way. (So in some respect it was a good lesson to learn from the war game. Sure Fearless was just a one-trick pony -- but if Hemphill could lure the other fleet to within ~250,000 km of Fearless she probably could have lured them into an actual deep-space minefield (as Sarnow did later at Hancock)
As for duty in Silesia, Fearless probably could have done that but she'd be undergunned if she ran across an independence movement that got its hand on a proper CL or CA. I'm not sure if her tech edge would have been enough to hack that.
The refit left her with
On Basilisk Station wrote:the thirty-centimeter laser mounts, two in each broadside, plus the missile launchers [2 per broadside]. After refit, we'll have the grav lance and fourteen torpedo generators, as well, and the chase armament is unchanged: two missile tubes and the sixty-centimeter spinal laser.
. So she'd lost 5 missile tubes and 2 grasers per broadside. However I believe she retained her full defenses, what there were of them; 3 CMs and 3 PDLCs per broadside, plus 2 CMs and 2 PDLC on each end covering fore and aft)
Having fewer broadside tubes than even a destroyer of her era, and less than half the tubes of a modern destroyer, is going to hurt if you go up against anything of decent size with a half competent crew. OTOH most pirates in Silesia are crappy little obsolete ships; and Fearless can probably still take them thanks to significantly outclassing their defenses.
Still based on RFC infodump on this I'd see the most likely alternative to deployment to Basilisk being immediately sent to the breakers. (Maybe held around in Home Fleet for a little while to avoid making that look like a punishment for the war games -- but it was never going to be cost effective to restore her to her pre-testbed configuration) He specifically says that normally it would have been First Space Lord Webster who'd have overruled Janacek and prevented Fearless's deployment to Basilisk; but because he didn't expect anything to happen there he instead horse traded and let Janacek sweep the embarrassment under the rug; in a boring safe dumping ground of a posting. But if Janacek had instead tried to have Fearless posted to Silesia, where untoward things are absolutely expected to happen, Webster probably would have refused to do that and at that point in all likelihood Fearless would then have gone to the breakers. (Which probably would have looked worse for Honor, and been even more depressing for the crew, than being sent to Basilisk)
