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[SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command

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[SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Sat Feb 11, 2023 1:10 pm

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I liked this story. It's Jan Kotouč's first contribution to the Honorverse; I don't know if it's his first story altogether, but if so it's a great start.

We finally see how Adm. Mark Sarnow, Admiral of the Red, is handling the integration of Silesia, though it's the early months. As we expected to see, lots of opportunists are attempting to carve a piece of the action for themselves.

The story also shows how one should not use a superdreadnought alone, unsupported. If you have your rational brain working, you'll go for supporting ships first, as a lone SD is vulnerable to swarming (a discussion that the first story, "Traitor," also mentions). Especially if there's a large technology gap, and DuQuesne-class SDs, like the SLN Scientists, became little more than targets after Operation Buttercup nearly 10 years prior to the story. They're also expensive to operate and require a large crew.

It does show why a non-strategist would choose a superdreadnought: the prestige, for one, but also the fact that it instils fear or at least reticence on opponents. A division of Star Knights without missile pods has the same range as a pre-pod SD and definitely don't want to get into energy range of the big ship. Their missiles may have been upgraded since Buttercup, but cruiser-class SDMs aren't meant to kill SDs, so they wouldn't tangle with the SD because they wouldn't come out unscathed.

Another good reason to use a single, large ship is that your subordinates can't get ideas about striking out on their own and going rogue. True, Bartoli was gathering more ships to his fleet so this might have happened anyway, but without the support of either his base of operations in Quatre Bras or any port willing to look the other way in the Confederation, ships going rogue would die on the vine.

BTW, the story also explains why Theisman thought no ship of the wall had fallen into warlord hands but Soult did. First, it's a StateSec SD, so the records of those may have been spotty and one could argue that Theisman's narrative was that no real Navy SD had. Second and more importantly, because Bartoli faked his own death and pretended to blow everything up, hiding his escape.
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Re: [SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Sat Feb 11, 2023 1:15 pm

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Yes, the HMS Fearless featured in this story is CA-286. Capt. Pankowski is shown thinking that "four Star Knights and one Broadsword-class cruiser were no match for any ship of the wall" despite knowing that "Duchess Harrington had engaged a Peep battlecruiser­—and won—with this very ship!"
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Re: [SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command
Post by Robert_A_Woodward   » Sun Feb 12, 2023 2:05 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
(snip by RAW)

BTW, the story also explains why Theisman thought no ship of the wall had fallen into warlord hands but Soult did. First, it's a StateSec SD, so the records of those may have been spotty and one could argue that Theisman's narrative was that no real Navy SD had. Second and more importantly, because Bartoli faked his own death and pretended to blow everything up, hiding his escape.


It is my impression that Theisman included the State Security SDs in this count (BTW, this was in _War of Honor_). While on surface, Bartoli's scam might explain why Theisman included the Soult in this list of accounted for SDs, I have doubts on how Bartoli could stage it (the absolutely necessary requirement would be that there were no RHN ships watching while the Soult traveled to the hyperlimit).
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Beowulf was bad.
(first sentence of Chapter VI of _Space Viking_ by H. Beam Piper)
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Re: [SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Sun Feb 12, 2023 2:34 am

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Robert_A_Woodward wrote:It is my impression that Theisman included the State Security SDs in this count (BTW, this was in _War of Honor_). While on surface, Bartoli's scam might explain why Theisman included the Soult in this list of accounted for SDs, I have doubts on how Bartoli could stage it (the absolutely necessary requirement would be that there were no RHN ships watching while the Soult traveled to the hyperlimit).


Agreed, it makes no sense that an SD impeller could go unnoticed. Even moving away from the shipyard on thrusters wouldn't work, because the incoming RHN ships would have their sensors and recon drones trained exactly there.

The only way this could have worked is if he'd have had advance warning and staged his SD already at the hyperlimit. He'd then transmit his defiance message from the shipyard that he did blow up, but neither he nor PNS Soult would have been anywhere near it. The explosion would also have needed to be massive enough to leave little to no identifiable parts. Mass in the form of refined metals would have been easy to stage.
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Re: [SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command
Post by Garth 2   » Sun Feb 12, 2023 3:14 pm

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Though the text implies that no ship of the wall disappeared, it is caveated with "as far as Tom and his staff could tell".

As far the witnessing of the yard destruction, all they had was a voice print that could have been recorded days ago.

To be honest the odd bit about the story is the location of his base. Which is described as galactic east of Silesia which would have put it on the "triangle trade route" before the war, which seems odd that merchant shipping wouldn't drop by on their way home to Manticore via Basilisk
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Re: [SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Sun Feb 12, 2023 6:54 pm

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Garth 2 wrote:Though the text implies that no ship of the wall disappeared, it is caveated with "as far as Tom and his staff could tell".


Indeed. And conveniently, it's also before Soult / Scimitar made an appearance in Silesia and reports of his sighting make it back to Nouveau Paris. Until the partitioning of the Confederation, he'd have operated very much behind the scenes, wary of the Havenite spies and because the RHN wouldn't have been occupied fighting anyone. Nor the RMN or IAN. He'd indeed have seen missions like Honor's to Marsh as a danger and stayed out of sight.

But once the Confederation and the SCN were dissolved and with the outbreak of war of all three navies, he'd have to move quickly to grab what he could.

Adm. Preston was stuck in Silesia waiting for transport, so his reports may not have arrived yet. They'd probably beat Tourville back because the reports could be sent "smuggled" aboard civilian, third-party freighters that did use the MWHJ, but it's still probably around 2 months.

As far the witnessing of the yard destruction, all they had was a voice print that could have been recorded days ago.


Right, and so long as he didn't make it evident through light lag that he wasn't there to respond to anything, the RHN may not have suspected.

To be honest the odd bit about the story is the location of his base. Which is described as galactic east of Silesia which would have put it on the "triangle trade route" before the war, which seems odd that merchant shipping wouldn't drop by on their way home to Manticore via Basilisk


I don't know if the maps we're used to are actually what they use in-universe. In those maps, we see Manticore in the centre or at least in the centre line with Sol. Even if the civilian freight maps do use this orientation given the outsized importance of the MWHJ (and in particular, maps used by ships making this triangle route), it's unlikely that it matches the actual astrography. So when they say "galactic east," it probably doesn't mean "the left side of the map we have."

To me, "galactic east" means spinwards, because North is defined by the direction of rotation. Whether you look at the Galaxy as a cross section with North pointing up (which is useful if you have six cardinal directions), or whether you look at it from "above" the disc with North pointing towards the centre of the Galaxy (which is useful for four directions), East means spinwards. This is valid for both the Galaxy as for a single system, BTW.

I've seen other authors talk about corewards, rimwards, spinwards and anti-spinwards. Glynn Stewart for the Castle Federation series (which has the "Marshall of the Rimward Marches") replaces the spins with clockwise and counter-clockwise, which I find more confusing. And then there's Jack Campbell in the Lost Fleet series who redefined "port" and "starboard" in a way that makes absolutely no sense.
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Re: [SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command
Post by kzt   » Wed Feb 15, 2023 3:00 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:I don't know if the maps we're used to are actually what they use in-universe. In those maps, we see Manticore in the centre or at least in the centre line with Sol. Even if the civilian freight maps do use this orientation given the outsized importance of the MWHJ (and in particular, maps used by ships making this triangle route), it's unlikely that it matches the actual astrography. So when they say "galactic east," it probably doesn't mean "the left side of the map we have."

To me, "galactic east" means spinwards, because North is defined by the direction of rotation. Whether you look at the Galaxy as a cross section with North pointing up (which is useful if you have six cardinal directions), or whether you look at it from "above" the disc with North pointing towards the centre of the Galaxy (which is useful for four directions), East means spinwards. This is valid for both the Galaxy as for a single system, BTW.

I've seen other authors talk about corewards, rimwards, spinwards and anti-spinwards. Glynn Stewart for the Castle Federation series (which has the "Marshall of the Rimward Marches") replaces the spins with clockwise and counter-clockwise, which I find more confusing. And then there's Jack Campbell in the Lost Fleet series who redefined "port" and "starboard" in a way that makes absolutely no sense.

There is a more detailed map of of Silesia in one of the game booklets, but I'm not willing to go looking for it now.
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Re: [SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command
Post by Garth 2   » Fri Feb 17, 2023 1:13 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
I don't know if the maps we're used to are actually what they use in-universe. In those maps, we see Manticore in the centre or at least in the centre line with Sol. Even if the civilian freight maps do use this orientation given the outsized importance of the MWHJ (and in particular, maps used by ships making this triangle route), it's unlikely that it matches the actual astrography. So when they say "galactic east," it probably doesn't mean "the left side of the map we have."

To me, "galactic east" means spinwards, because North is defined by the direction of rotation. Whether you look at the Galaxy as a cross section with North pointing up (which is useful if you have six cardinal directions), or whether you look at it from "above" the disc with North pointing towards the centre of the Galaxy (which is useful for four directions), East means spinwards. This is valid for both the Galaxy as for a single system, BTW.

I've seen other authors talk about corewards, rimwards, spinwards and anti-spinwards. Glynn Stewart for the Castle Federation series (which has the "Marshall of the Rimward Marches") replaces the spins with clockwise and counter-clockwise, which I find more confusing. And then there's Jack Campbell in the Lost Fleet series who redefined "port" and "starboard" in a way that makes absolutely no sense.



Though a more complicated interpretation is probably true in "real life" for the characters, within the books Haven has always been described as "North East of Manticore" and "Silesia to the west". Even in the prologue of OBS Admiral Parnell shows a projection to President Harris which describes to the read as the "PRH in the North East", "SL to South" and "Silesia to the West". So I think the "North, East, South, West" are based on our heroes the SKM being in the middle. :D
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Re: [SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:46 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:It does show why a non-strategist would choose a superdreadnought: the prestige, for one, but also the fact that it instils fear or at least reticence on opponents. A division of Star Knights without missile pods has the same range as a pre-pod SD and definitely don't want to get into energy range of the big ship. Their missiles may have been upgraded since Buttercup, but cruiser-class SDMs aren't meant to kill SDs, so they wouldn't tangle with the SD because they wouldn't come out unscathed.

While it isn't enough firepower to kill even an old Duquesne-class Commodore Chandler should have originally had 3 ships (later 4) with onboard ERMs that significantly outranged the old SD's missiles. So even without pods of MDMs the RMN squadron could have done some damage to the SD.

We're explicitly told Eve had one modern Avalon-class light cruiser, and picked up a second before first confronting the SD; and we know those carry a broadside of 10 Mark 36 LERMS and should be able to fire both at once for a 20 missile salvo.

Then the destroyer Wolfhound pretty much has to be the lead ship of the Wolfhound-class; meaning she'd carry a broadside of 6 LERMs of her own; and should also be able to manage a dual broadside.

And finally her flagship was noted as being a Saganami-B heavy cruiser. which should carry Mk 14 ERMs with warheads at least as powerful as the latest Mk 13 SDMs that could be carried by the Star Knights, Sag-As, or Reliants. And we know from HoS that they've got a broadside of 19 missiles -- and should also be able to pull off that dual broadside trick.

That means just those four more modern ships should be able to send salvos of 90 missiles! And a Duquesne-class's active defenses are "just" a broadside with 28 CMs + 24 PDLCs. That seems unlikely to be enough to stop 90 missiles screaming in at once (and at higher terminal velocity that anything she was originally designed to deal with. Though far less than the all up MDMs the class ended up facing during Buttercup)

Sure, the heaviest of those missiles carries no more than a CA/BC weight warhead, and most are DD/CL weight -- and none of those is going to do all that much against the sidewalls and armor of an SD. But while their magazines last they'll be getting hits, and from a range at which the SD literally cannot respond. Some of those hits are going to blast away surface emplacements like sensors, fire control and comms antennas, PDLCs, and with luck even individual impeller nodes. That might start crippling the ship, even if it can't kill her. (Maybe even enough to let the rest of the squadron, with their shorter ranged missiles, risk a fight where the SD can fire back.)


Ironically that seems to mean that if Evelyn had flipped her initial deployments and sent the more modern ships to secure the SCN ships for scrapping that the squadron there could have risked closing for some harassing fire against the SD and BC. Maybe even surprised them and been able to pick off some of the boarding shuttles...
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Re: [SPOILERS] WPV: Silesia Command
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Apr 13, 2023 5:14 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:That means just those four more modern ships should be able to send salvos of 90 missiles! And a Duquesne-class's active defenses are "just" a broadside with 28 CMs + 24 PDLCs. That seems unlikely to be enough to stop 90 missiles screaming in at once (and at higher terminal velocity that anything she was originally designed to deal with. Though far less than the all up MDMs the class ended up facing during Buttercup)


Indeed, but this is 1920, not 1913. There are 7 intervening years since then and the Havenites have conclusively proven they can update their tech. This is port-Thunderbolt, when Theisman unleashed SD(P)s, LACs, CLACs, FTL drones, the whole shebang. Their intel suggests this is an older, un-updated, StateSec-crewed ship that had absconded from Theisman, but intel can be faulty. They don't know if this isn't a second prong of official Havenite war policy, using refit DuQuesne, or if this admiral hadn't got his hands on such a unit. We do actually know that the Peeps had been learning all through the first war, so the DuQuesnes of 1913 were far more capable than their 1904 counterparts, much less their design specs.

So I agree that in a pinch, such a squadron could kill the SD. Done properly, they can even leave unscathed. But those aren't good odds, especially when they don't know if other units aren't in the area. No sane tactician flies a lone SD, after all, so the sane minds in those Manticore ships have to wonder if there aren't screens elsewhere that hadn't revealed themselves yet.

Sure, the heaviest of those missiles carries no more than a CA/BC weight warhead, and most are DD/CL weight -- and none of those is going to do all that much against the sidewalls and armor of an SD. But while their magazines last they'll be getting hits, and from a range at which the SD literally cannot respond. Some of those hits are going to blast away surface emplacements like sensors, fire control and comms antennas, PDLCs, and with luck even individual impeller nodes. That might start crippling the ship, even if it can't kill her. (Maybe even enough to let the rest of the squadron, with their shorter ranged missiles, risk a fight where the SD can fire back.)


"War is a democracy, even the enemy gets a vote"

The problem is that the SD would be attempting to close the range. Depending on the relative positions and velocities, closing it may be unavoidable.

Mk14 LERMs are good, but at their extreme range they're not so good, making the prospect of killing a ship they were not designed for all the more difficult.

Ironically that seems to mean that if Evelyn had flipped her initial deployments and sent the more modern ships to secure the SCN ships for scrapping that the squadron there could have risked closing for some harassing fire against the SD and BC. Maybe even surprised them and been able to pick off some of the boarding shuttles...


Risky.
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