Honorverse Top Ten Tacticians, Strategists

cthia wrote:There is no way Honor would have wasted an entire Alpha launch - of the new, limited superweapon - on a faint. And the fact that it was an Alpha Launch also implies that it was the superweapon. Besides, if Chin truly felt like Honor was bluffing, she could have hypered out anyway - evaded the Alpha launch in the process, just to be safe than sorry - then hypered right back in, with the tactical situation unchanged. For heaven's sake, it is the Salamander, you really want to bet against her on the veracity of some intel that has always been wrong? If someone shoots a bullet at you, and you think it won't reach, are you going to duck anyway?

The question is what Honor could have done. I can agree it she wouldn't fire on a feint, but who says it was a feint? If she had arrived 15 million km outside of the range of her weapons, what options did Honor have?

Hypering out and back in is a 20-minute job at a minimum, probably a bit more. The hypergenerators were at the ready to go out but took 3.5 minutes for an SD. But once they discharged and went out, recycling them for a new transition takes longer.

In 20 minutes, Honor can roll more pods unopposed. Her SDs can only move 4.2 million km, but that's nearly a third of the range she was supposedly outside of. If it's 30 minutes, then that ups to 9.5 million km. Kuzak's ships also move by that much against their base velocity vector. Moreover, assuming Kuzak was already speeding away from Chin (because she had been speeding towards Tourville), that makes Fifth Fleet hitting Third more difficult. And all the while, Tourville with 150 remaining SDs and still well inside the hyperlimit has no option but to surrender, since he's now faced against threats from three angles, though Home Fleet's threat is probably negligible.

If nothing else, that's 20 or 30 minutes that Third Fleet is not getting hammered. More, if you consider that the missiles in flight will be that much more ineffective. It's time to reform networks, conduct some emergency repairs, shift positions for better defence, etc.

So, no, I would not call a 20 or 30 minute lull in the battle "tactical situation unchanged."

cthia wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
She did because the Alliance had no such other formation of nearly comparable size. There was Home (First) Fleet, Third Fleet and Eighth Fleet. All the other numbered fleets were probably small formations patrolling some of the other termini or picketing some allies.

There was no way she could have mistaken the hypering in of a couple dozen SDs for anything but Eight Fleet.

What happened was that she and her analysts figured Honor arrived out of position due to the navigation difficulties with the Resonance Zone. They may have figured she did exactly what she did: a no-dogleg course, which is incredibly difficult. So, having arrived out of position, Honor couldn't afford to close to weapons range while Kuzak and Third Fleet were being decimated, and simply fired her Alpha launch, hoping to either distract Chin's Fifth Fleet, or make them blink and hyper out.

I'm pretty sure Chin knew it was 8th Fleet as well. I was giving her the benefit of the doubt. I'm even in agreement about Chin's thinking... because Chin was drinking gin.

There is no way Honor would have wasted an entire Alpha launch - of the new, limited superweapon - on a faint. And the fact that it was an Alpha Launch also implies that it was the superweapon. Besides, if Chin truly felt like Honor was bluffing, she could have hypered out anyway - evaded the Alpha launch in the process, just to be safe than sorry - then hypered right back in, with the tactical situation unchanged. For heaven's sake, it is the Salamander, you really want to bet against her on the veracity of some intel that has always been wrong? If someone shoots a bullet at you, and you think it won't reach, are you going to duck anyway?

It's alright to say it. Chin was drinking gin.

First - if Honor thought she could save the remains of 3rd fleet by bluffing Chin into withdrawing (even temporarily) she'd absolutely "waste" an alpha strike to chase off an enemy.

Second - 8th fleet is SD(P)s. That "Alpha strike" was just 3 minutes of rolled pods - and her Invictus-class can roll pods constantly for nearly 18 minutes. She can have another similarly sized alpha strike ready to go in far less time than it'd take Chin to return.

Third - Apollo isn't that limited a weapon at that time. This is pre-Oyster Bay so the production lines are still all up and running. She'll be restocked soon enough. And her Invictus-class SD(P)s carry over 1,000 pods -- over 9,000 Apollo attack missiles; she could afford to "throw away" 180 pods each in an attempted bluff.




And even if, like the follow-up strike against Tourville, Chin had been beyond Apollo FTL control range that doesn't mean the missiles would be totally ineffective -- so even if Chin "called her bluff" and not hypered away the Alpha strike would still have done damage and pulled Chin's attention away from further savaging Kuzak's 3rd fleet. Helping 3rd fleet chip away at Chin's forces would still have been a worthwhile activity even if Honor hadn't yet been within range to take full advantage of Apollo.
So a launch from beyond Apollo control range seems like it would have been a good gamble - it had a reasonable chance of at least temporarily driven off Chin and thus extracted the remaining 3rd fleet ships from the trap of being pinned between Chin and Tourville; and even if it didn't now Chin would have to divert her attention to missile defense and away from pounding on 3rd fleet. And Honor can always pause firing after one salvo, until she closes to Apollo FTL range.

Jonathan_S wrote:First - if Honor thought she could save the remains of 3rd fleet by bluffing Chin into withdrawing (even temporarily) she'd absolutely "waste" an alpha strike to chase off an enemy.

Second - 8th fleet is SD(P)s. That "Alpha strike" was just 3 minutes of rolled pods - and her Invictus-class can roll pods constantly for nearly 18 minutes. She can have another similarly sized alpha strike ready to go in far less time than it'd take Chin to return.

Third - Apollo isn't that limited a weapon at that time. This is pre-Oyster Bay so the production lines are still all up and running. She'll be restocked soon enough. And her Invictus-class SD(P)s carry over 1,000 pods -- over 9,000 Apollo attack missiles; she could afford to "throw away" 180 pods each in an attempted bluff.




And even if, like the follow-up strike against Tourville, Chin had been beyond Apollo FTL control range that doesn't mean the missiles would be totally ineffective -- so even if Chin "called her bluff" and not hypered away the Alpha strike would still have done damage and pulled Chin's attention away from further savaging Kuzak's 3rd fleet. Helping 3rd fleet chip away at Chin's forces would still have been a worthwhile activity even if Honor hadn't yet been within range to take full advantage of Apollo.
So a launch from beyond Apollo control range seems like it would have been a good gamble - it had a reasonable chance of at least temporarily driven off Chin and thus extracted the remaining 3rd fleet ships from the trap of being pinned between Chin and Tourville; and even if it didn't now Chin would have to divert her attention to missile defense and away from pounding on 3rd fleet. And Honor can always pause firing after one salvo, until she closes to Apollo FTL range.

Also, Honor's ships were not limited to Apollo pods. She could have loaded standard MDM pods to her bays or limpeted them to her hulls to extend her magazines (~500 per ship). or she could partially load Apollo and standard Pods.

So Honor could have fired several alpha launches of standard MDMs from beyond Apollo range to harrass Chin (Honor could have grabbed standard pods from the Junction stocks and limpeted them to her hulls prior to jumping to attack Chin), and held back her Apollo pods until she reached range.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:There is no way Honor would have wasted an entire Alpha launch - of the new, limited superweapon - on a faint. And the fact that it was an Alpha Launch also implies that it was the superweapon. Besides, if Chin truly felt like Honor was bluffing, she could have hypered out anyway - evaded the Alpha launch in the process, just to be safe than sorry - then hypered right back in, with the tactical situation unchanged. For heaven's sake, it is the Salamander, you really want to bet against her on the veracity of some intel that has always been wrong? If someone shoots a bullet at you, and you think it won't reach, are you going to duck anyway?

The question is what Honor could have done. I can agree it she wouldn't fire on a feint, but who says it was a feint?

You are implying that it was a feint, along with Chin if both of you feel that Honor fired an entire Alpha launch while she was out of range. If she fired while she was out of range, then it was a feint. A head fake to get Chin to flinch. Much as what Hamish attempted in the Basilisk System to save Honor. Although Hamish was also counting on a little luck. Unless you also feel Honor wasted an entire Alpha launch because she was feeling lucky.

The tactical situation wasn't rocket science. There were actually three questions.

3. What could Chin do?

Not a damn thing in the whole scheme of things. She could have risked her fleet by continuing to fool around in the system, after the cavalry arrived with her godawful superweapons, in order to further bully a beaten and battered Third Fleet.

Against the very same superweapons they were worried about in the first place. Weapons upon which they really had no reliable intel from a trusted source. What, someone had survived an encounter with them and they were sure the enemy showed them everything the weapon had? It isn't like navies hold back on the icing, is it? These two behemoths had been fighting each other for years, they were not green.

The only thing the Peeps knew incontrovertibly about this superweapon is that it kills efficiently with unerring accuracy.

After further beating up Third Fleet, Chin could have decided to take on the Salamander, the greatest tactician in the galaxy who has a superweapon. And you can bet the Salamander knows what that superweapon can do.

Charging a long-ranged Gatling gun whose range you are unsure of isn't the mark of a tactical genius.

After the Salamander arrived. Game over man. Game over. The Salamander with a new superweapon to play with???

The only smart option Chin had was to save her fleet and crew. She was already at the door. Hyper out.

2. What could Tourville have done?

Not a damn thing worthwhile.

Option #1. Get the hell out of Dodge before sundown. Sundown is when the Salamander gets in range.

Option #2: Risk a chess match with the greatest tactician ever known, eventually risking a bad move against enemy pieces whose strengths you are unsure of.

It is like playing chess against unknown pieces. Hmm, is that a Rook or a Pawn. That is a huge difference in range!

On second thought, it is more like playing Stratego. Is this your Flag? Or, BOOM!

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If she had arrived 15 million km outside of the range of her weapons, what options did Honor have?

1. What could Honor do?

She could attrit everything that was foolish enough to hang around in the system. I admit that I don't know for sure about Honor, but defeating the enemy in detail with her superweapon would have been child's play for the Salamander. (-:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Hypering out and back in is a 20-minute job at a minimum, probably a bit more. The hypergenerators were at the ready to go out but took 3.5 minutes for an SD. But once they discharged and went out, recycling them for a new transition takes longer.

In 20 minutes, Honor can roll more pods unopposed. Her SDs can only move 4.2 million km, but that's nearly a third of the range she was supposedly outside of. If it's 30 minutes, then that ups to 9.5 million km. Kuzak's ships also move by that much against their base velocity vector. Moreover, assuming Kuzak was already speeding away from Chin (because she had been speeding towards Tourville), that makes Fifth Fleet hitting Third more difficult. And all the while, Tourville with 150 remaining SDs and still well inside the hyperlimit has no option but to surrender, since he's now faced against threats from three angles, though Home Fleet's threat is probably negligible.

If nothing else, that's 20 or 30 minutes that Third Fleet is not getting hammered. More, if you consider that the missiles in flight will be that much more ineffective. It's time to reform networks, conduct some emergency repairs, shift positions for better defence, etc.

So, no, I would not call a 20 or 30 minute lull in the battle "tactical situation unchanged."

You can bet that Honor had already assessed the situation. So, after the Salamander arrived with an Alpha launch in tow, when I say the tactical situation would have been unchanged after 20 minutes, I ain't just whistling Dixie.

The Peeps only had one shot. Which involved catching Honor away from the hen house on operations. They rolled that one big DIE. And they did.

cthia wrote:You are implying that it was a feint, along with Chin if both of you feel that Honor fired an entire Alpha launch while she was out of range. If she fired while she was out of range, then it was a feint. A head fake to get Chin to flinch. Much as what Hamish attempted in the Basilisk System to save Honor. Although Hamish was also counting on a little luck. Unless you also feel Honor wasted an entire Alpha launch because she was feeling lucky.

In the actual combat that day Honor was in range. Apollo appears to have an FTL control range of at least 4.5 - 5 lightminutes (81 - 90 million km). So, on the day, Honor's launch on Chin at 73 million km wasn't a feint. (Though her later launch on Tourville at 143 million km was)

But then, as I said in my last post, I think Honor would have launched a strike from beyond Apollo FTL control range if she'd been beyond that range. (In some alternate universe where Apollo had a shorter FTL control range; or where her fleet got the microjump wrong and she ended up 130 million km beyond Chin)
So in that I guess I disagree with ThinksMarkedly.

(Though given what we learned in later books about Apollo's effectiveness beyond its FTL control range I'd argue that even a launch from beyond that range isn't just a feint -- it can also do significant damage)

cthia wrote:The Peeps only had one shot. Which involved catching Honor away from the hen house on operations. They rolled that one big DIE. And they did.

Actually they had two shots. Sure they'd have loved for Honor to have been out on a raid and let them defeat Home and 3rd fleets and capture Manticore, and thus end the war, without ever having to face Apollo. But that wasn't their plan.

Their plan was to lure Honor inside the hyper limit and then use Chin's fleet to jump her with overwhelming numbers from within effective RHN MDM range - so she'd be the one caught between Tourville and Chin, unable to hyper out, and hammered from both directions. They knew Apollo was far more effective than their MDMs -- and they knew Honor's new ships had much tougher defenses - and they brought enough force that if they'd caught her in that vice they though they could crush her anyway. (And they might even have been right)

cthia wrote:You are implying that it was a feint, along with Chin if both of you feel that Honor fired an entire Alpha launch while she was out of range. If she fired while she was out of range, then it was a feint. A head fake to get Chin to flinch. Much as what Hamish attempted in the Basilisk System to save Honor. Although Hamish was also counting on a little luck. Unless you also feel Honor wasted an entire Alpha launch because she was feeling lucky.

The tactical situation wasn't rocket science. There were actually three questions.

3. What could Chin do?

Not a damn thing in the whole scheme of things. She could have risked her fleet by continuing to fool around in the system, after the cavalry arrived with her godawful superweapons, in order to further bully a beaten and battered Third Fleet. Against the very same superweapons they were worried about in the first place. Weapons upon which they really had no reliable intel from a trusted source. What, someone had survived an encounter with them and they were sure the enemy showed them everything the weapon had? It isn't like navies hold back on the icing, is it? These two behemoths had been fighting each other for years, they were not green.

The only thing the Peeps knew incontrovertibly about this superweapon is that it kills efficiently with unerring accuracy.

After further beating up Third Fleet, Chin could have decided to take on the Salamander, the greatest tactician in the galaxy who has a superweapon. And you can bet the Salamander knows what that superweapon can do.

Charging a long-ranged Gatling gun whose range you are unsure of isn't the mark of a tactical genius.

After the Salamander arrived. Game over man. Game over. The Salamander with a new superweapon to play with???

The only smart option Chin had was to save her fleet and crew. She was already at the door. Hyper out.

Remember Beatrice was rushed to preform the coup de grace on Manticore before they roll their new weapons system out en mass. Prior, the system had only been seen on 12 new built Grayson Hulls.

There is a lot of calculus here

- Manticore will not get any new hulls for about 6 months.
- The Manticore SD(p) Fleet is 75% forward deployed and 27 are active with Home Fleet, leaving few available to be modernized
- Grayson is building only 2-3 hulls a month
- All Andermani ships have only been seen in rear guard positions, and all use older munitions. New Andermani builds have slowed.
- The Weapon has only been seen on 12 new built hulls
- The system is believed to require ships to be down for long periods to be installed, and may not be able to retrofit into older ships.
- the weapons was not seen on older ships
- the weapon was not seen in Home Fleet
- The weapon was not fitted on 50+ of Kusak's ships
- 1 squadron of the ships was with Kusak.

The whole play is a bid to knock Manticore out before it can make more ships and missiles. It's all been a numbers game whether Manticore can get the new weapon in play, and Beatrice was a gamble to get there first and up to this point seems to be as predicted. Honor having 37 SDs wasn't expected, (only ~18 had been seen with her fleet to date), but given 5-6 ships were seen with Kusak, she may have as few as 6 SD(p)s with the new weapons system.

Are six Known Apollo Wallers and 31 other ships really a threat against 100 SD(p)? That's the gamble.

Jonathan"S wrote:First - if Honor thought she could save the remains of 3rd fleet by bluffing Chin into withdrawing (even temporarily) she'd absolutely "waste" an alpha strike to chase off an enemy.

I am none too sure about that. It depended on Honor's read of the tactical situation. Honor's responsibility was to the Home System, first. If she really felt she could afford to waste an Alpha launch of Apollo pods on a head fake, then sure.

And we know for certain we can be sure that Honor didn't waste time rolling anything but Apollo pods. Even if the assumption was that her astrogator screwed the pooch, Honor didn't plan for him to screw the pooch. So those pods were Apollo pods for certain.

Now what does that imply. If Honor was willing to waste a full Alpha launch of Apollo pods, then that means that she didn't think she would have any trouble with Tourville, or with Chin if Chin hypered out and returned.

Tourville still had 150 SDs. If her magazines didn't hold all Apollo pods, I doubt she would have wasted them on a feint that may not have worked in the first place, because that would have left her facing both Chin and Tourville closing in on her with a limited supply of superweapons. (That would have been like making the same mistake of wasting limited missiles like Meghan Petersen forced the SLN to do. And Honor is smarter than a fifth grader.)

Jonathan_S wrote:Second - 8th fleet is SD(P)s. That "Alpha strike" was just 3 minutes of rolled pods - and her Invictus-class can roll pods constantly for nearly 18 minutes. She can have another similarly sized alpha strike ready to go in far less time than it'd take Chin to return.

But that was going to happen anyway, if she had enough pods. The RHN couldn't stop her from rolling pods. But the argument was that her Alpha launch was a feint composed of non Apollo pods.

Jonathan _S wrote:Third - Apollo isn't that limited a weapon at that time. This is pre-Oyster Bay so the production lines are still all up and running. She'll be restocked soon enough. And her Invictus-class SD(P)s carry over 1,000 pods -- over 9,000 Apollo attack missiles; she could afford to "throw away" 180 pods each in an attempted bluff.

If she could afford to throw them away then what does that say about the tactical situation for the RHN against a Salamander with a surplus of superweapons?

Jonathan_S wrote:And even if, like the follow-up strike against Tourville, Chin had been beyond Apollo FTL control range that doesn't mean the missiles would be totally ineffective -- so even if Chin "called her bluff" and not hypered away the Alpha strike would still have done damage and pulled Chin's attention away from further savaging Kuzak's 3rd fleet. Helping 3rd fleet chip away at Chin's forces would still have been a worthwhile activity even if Honor hadn't yet been within range to take full advantage of Apollo.
So a launch from beyond Apollo control range seems like it would have been a good gamble - it had a reasonable chance of at least temporarily driven off Chin and thus extracted the remaining 3rd fleet ships from the trap of being pinned between Chin and Tourville; and even if it didn't now Chin would have to divert her attention to missile defense and away from pounding on 3rd fleet. And Honor can always pause firing after one salvo, until she closes to Apollo FTL range.

Well that is more of a reason Chin should have hypered out. Why risk damage from weapons whose range isn't really known without a doubt. And whose effectiveness at that range isn't known. We're talking about an Alpha launch. The Peeps don't enjoy the same mutual CM defense.

It is obvious that I am correct because after it became obvious who had launched, there was panic and Chin was scrambling to flee the scene.

It shouldn't have taken so long. But Chin was drinking gin. And alcohol slows your thinking process.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:You are implying that it was a feint, along with Chin if both of you feel that Honor fired an entire Alpha launch while she was out of range. If she fired while she was out of range, then it was a feint. A head fake to get Chin to flinch. Much as what Hamish attempted in the Basilisk System to save Honor. Although Hamish was also counting on a little luck. Unless you also feel Honor wasted an entire Alpha launch because she was feeling lucky.

In the actual combat that day Honor was in range. Apollo appears to have an FTL control range of at least 4.5 - 5 lightminutes (81 - 90 million km). So, on the day, Honor's launch on Chin at 73 million km wasn't a feint.

I agree it wasn't a feint. I know that, and the entire RHN figured that out as soon as they realized who had joined the battle. Moreover, it wasn't a launch using regular MDMs.

Jonathan_S wrote:Though her later launch on Tourville at 143 million km was)

I recall Tourville asking her about that in the aftermath and Honor confirmed it was a bluff. But I think she only chose to bluff at that point to end the war, and because the entire RHN was shitting in their boots after witnessing Apollo. It is easy to bluff someone into accepting cheap bathroom tissue after you have made them shit their britches. But even if Tourville had not complied, there were plenty more Apollo missiles to go around.

Jonathan_S wrote:But then, as I said in my last post, I think Honor would have launched a strike from beyond Apollo FTL control range if she'd been beyond that range. (In some alternate universe where Apollo had a shorter FTL control range; or where her fleet got the microjump wrong and she ended up 130 million km beyond Chin)
So in that I guess I disagree with ThinksMarkedly.

See that other post for full reply. In a nutshell, only if the tactical situation warranted it, where she could still dispense with her duty of protecting the system, thus the planet.

Jonathan_S wrote:(Though given what we learned in later books about Apollo's effectiveness beyond its FTL control range I'd argue that even a launch from beyond that range isn't just a feint -- it can also do significant damage)

No, it wasn't a feint. That was obvious to me.
It wasn't just a launch either. It was an Alpha launch. And it wasn't just an Alpha launch. It was an Alpha launch of superweapons. They can do significantly more damage. Hyper out.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:The Peeps only had one shot. Which involved catching Honor away from the hen house on operations. They rolled that one big DIE. And they did.

Actually they had two shots. Sure they'd have loved for Honor to have been out on a raid and let them defeat Home and 3rd fleets and capture Manticore, and thus end the war, without ever having to face Apollo. But that wasn't their plan.

Their plan was to lure Honor inside the hyper limit and then use Chin's fleet to jump her with overwhelming numbers from within effective RHN MDM range - so she'd be the one caught between Tourville and Chin, unable to hyper out, and hammered from both directions. They knew Apollo was far more effective than their MDMs -- and they knew Honor's new ships had much tougher defenses - and they brought enough force that if they'd caught her in that vice they though they could crush her anyway. (And they might even have been right)

This is the perfect opportunity to teach the difference between strategy and tactics. Remember my young niece's definition of strategy and tactics?

Tierney Jenkins wrote:Strategy is what is formulated in the War Room on paper.

That would be the strategy to mousetrap Honor.

Tierney Jenkins wrote:Tactics are what is used on the spot to prevent your ass and your papers from catching fire.

After arriving in system and failing to pull off the strategy to mousetrap Honor because Honor was away from the hen house , there was only one tactical option left after she showed up unopposed. Die.

My young niece was trying to impart: Strategy is dreamt up before arriving to join battle. It is the best laid plans of mice and men.

Tactics are what you use to help you pull off that strategy. And things may not go as planned. Tactics are what is used to deal with the reality that you face when you actually join battle.

.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan"S wrote:First - if Honor thought she could save the remains of 3rd fleet by bluffing Chin into withdrawing (even temporarily) she'd absolutely "waste" an alpha strike to chase off an enemy.

I am none too sure about that. It depended on Honor's read of the tactical situation. Honor's responsibility was to the Home System, first. If she really felt she could afford to waste an Alpha launch of Apollo pods on a head fake, then sure.

And we know for certain we can be sure that Honor didn't waste time rolling anything but Apollo pods. Even if the assumption was that her astrogator screwed the pooch, Honor didn't plan for him to screw the pooch. So those pods were Apollo pods for certain.

Now what does that imply. If Honor was willing to waste a full Alpha launch of Apollo pods, then that means that she didn't think she would have any trouble with Tourville, or with Chin if Chin hypered out and returned.

Tourville still had 150 SDs. If her magazines didn't hold all Apollo pods, I doubt she would have wasted them on a feint that may not have worked in the first place, because that would have left her facing both Chin and Tourville closing in on her with a limited supply of superweapons. (That would have been like making the same mistake of wasting limited missiles like Meghan Petersen forced the SLN to do. And Honor is smarter than a fifth grader.)

Jonathan_S wrote:Second - 8th fleet is SD(P)s. That "Alpha strike" was just 3 minutes of rolled pods - and her Invictus-class can roll pods constantly for nearly 18 minutes. She can have another similarly sized alpha strike ready to go in far less time than it'd take Chin to return.

But that was going to happen anyway, if she had enough pods. The RHN couldn't stop her from rolling pods. But the argument was that her Alpha launch was a feint composed of non Apollo pods.

Jonathan _S wrote:Third - Apollo isn't that limited a weapon at that time. This is pre-Oyster Bay so the production lines are still all up and running. She'll be restocked soon enough. And her Invictus-class SD(P)s carry over 1,000 pods -- over 9,000 Apollo attack missiles; she could afford to "throw away" 180 pods each in an attempted bluff.

If she could afford to throw them away then what does that say about the tactical situation for the RHN against a Salamander with a surplus of superweapons?

Jonathan_S wrote:And even if, like the follow-up strike against Tourville, Chin had been beyond Apollo FTL control range that doesn't mean the missiles would be totally ineffective -- so even if Chin "called her bluff" and not hypered away the Alpha strike would still have done damage and pulled Chin's attention away from further savaging Kuzak's 3rd fleet. Helping 3rd fleet chip away at Chin's forces would still have been a worthwhile activity even if Honor hadn't yet been within range to take full advantage of Apollo.
So a launch from beyond Apollo control range seems like it would have been a good gamble - it had a reasonable chance of at least temporarily driven off Chin and thus extracted the remaining 3rd fleet ships from the trap of being pinned between Chin and Tourville; and even if it didn't now Chin would have to divert her attention to missile defense and away from pounding on 3rd fleet. And Honor can always pause firing after one salvo, until she closes to Apollo FTL range.

Well that is more of a reason Chin should have hypered out. Why risk damage from weapons whose range isn't really known without a doubt. And whose effectiveness at that range isn't known. We're talking about an Alpha launch. The Peeps don't enjoy the same mutual CM defense.

It is obvious that I am correct because after it became obvious who had launched, there was panic and Chin was scrambling to flee the scene.

It shouldn't have taken so long. But Chin was drinking gin. And alcohol slows your thinking process.

It seems to me that the reason Chin was reluctant to leave is that it would essentially be abandoning Tourville to his destruction. If she hypers out, unless she make a microjump towards Honor, it'll be close to an hour before she can get her forces back into the fight. By that point 8th fleet can combine with the remains of 3rd and collectively crush Tourville's battered survivors.

Then 3rd and 8th can move far enough inside the hyper limit to avoid being jumped at close range, so if Chin does come back they can use their superior acceleration to control the range and let Honor use Apollo to savage Chin's forces.

If Chin pulls out she's effectively writing off Tourville and conceding the battle. And Honor launched at about 50% further than Apollo had previously been observe to work, and further than Haven't naval intel thought it could work. So yeah, it takes Chin a bit too long to work out that Honor wasn't bluffing. But if Apollo had been no better than normal MDMs at 75 million km then Chin's forces could have easily weathered that strike and continued to tear 3rd fleet apart.

And it's not like the Peeps are unaware that Honor's had a history of bluffing - Theisman was quite sure she was bluffing with decoys in the aftermath of 3rd Yeltsin when her battered SDs turn towards his detached forces (and he was correct in that). If Honor could have won the battle by scaring off Chin's forces that'd absolutely be worth "throwing away" missiles, even "super-weapons" at well beyond their optimum range. And so Chin has to consider that Honor might well try to bluff - spending 15% of your missiles on a chance for an outright win by making the enemy withdraw seems like it would be a very reasonable gamble.

But, as it was, it was a gamble Honor didn't need to take.


(As an aside I think you're getting too caught up in the "Alpha launch" term. Now that we're got podlayers there's nothing especially magical about an alpha strike -- multiple salvo launches are the norm and the alpha strike is simply the first of them. In this case she spent 3 minutes rolling pods and so her alpha strike was about 18 salvos worth of pods. She had the pods to do 10 more strikes that size. Pre-podlayer, when all you had was towed pods, then okay the alpha strike was unique because you only got to use those towed pods once so it was by far your biggest strike, so you wanted to hold it as long as you could; but podlayers changed that calculus)

cthia wrote:

Jonathan"S wrote:First - if Honor thought she could save the remains of 3rd fleet by bluffing Chin into withdrawing (even temporarily) she'd absolutely "waste" an alpha strike to chase off an enemy.

I am none too sure about that. It depended on Honor's read of the tactical situation. Honor's responsibility was to the Home System, first. If she really felt she could afford to waste an Alpha launch of Apollo pods on a head fake, then sure.

And we know for certain we can be sure that Honor didn't waste time rolling anything but Apollo pods. Even if the assumption was that her astrogator screwed the pooch, Honor didn't plan for him to screw the pooch. So those pods were Apollo pods for certain.

Now what does that imply. If Honor was willing to waste a full Alpha launch of Apollo pods, then that means that she didn't think she would have any trouble with Tourville, or with Chin if Chin hypered out and returned.

Tourville still had 150 SDs. If her magazines didn't hold all Apollo pods, I doubt she would have wasted them on a feint that may not have worked in the first place, because that would have left her facing both Chin and Tourville closing in on her with a limited supply of superweapons. (That would have been like making the same mistake of wasting limited missiles like Meghan Petersen forced the SLN to do. And Honor is smarter than a fifth grader.)

Jonathan_S wrote:Second - 8th fleet is SD(P)s. That "Alpha strike" was just 3 minutes of rolled pods - and her Invictus-class can roll pods constantly for nearly 18 minutes. She can have another similarly sized alpha strike ready to go in far less time than it'd take Chin to return.

But that was going to happen anyway, if she had enough pods. The RHN couldn't stop her from rolling pods. But the argument was that her Alpha launch was a feint composed of non Apollo pods.

Jonathan _S wrote:Third - Apollo isn't that limited a weapon at that time. This is pre-Oyster Bay so the production lines are still all up and running. She'll be restocked soon enough. And her Invictus-class SD(P)s carry over 1,000 pods -- over 9,000 Apollo attack missiles; she could afford to "throw away" 180 pods each in an attempted bluff.

If she could afford to throw them away then what does that say about the tactical situation for the RHN against a Salamander with a surplus of superweapons?

Jonathan_S wrote:And even if, like the follow-up strike against Tourville, Chin had been beyond Apollo FTL control range that doesn't mean the missiles would be totally ineffective -- so even if Chin "called her bluff" and not hypered away the Alpha strike would still have done damage and pulled Chin's attention away from further savaging Kuzak's 3rd fleet. Helping 3rd fleet chip away at Chin's forces would still have been a worthwhile activity even if Honor hadn't yet been within range to take full advantage of Apollo.
So a launch from beyond Apollo control range seems like it would have been a good gamble - it had a reasonable chance of at least temporarily driven off Chin and thus extracted the remaining 3rd fleet ships from the trap of being pinned between Chin and Tourville; and even if it didn't now Chin would have to divert her attention to missile defense and away from pounding on 3rd fleet. And Honor can always pause firing after one salvo, until she closes to Apollo FTL range.

Well that is more of a reason Chin should have hypered out. Why risk damage from weapons whose range isn't really known without a doubt. And whose effectiveness at that range isn't known. We're talking about an Alpha launch. The Peeps don't enjoy the same mutual CM defense.

It is obvious that I am correct because after it became obvious who had launched, there was panic and Chin was scrambling to flee the scene.

It shouldn't have taken so long. But Chin was drinking gin. And alcohol slows your thinking process.

Jonathan"S wrote:It seems to me that the reason Chin was reluctant to leave is that it would essentially be abandoning Tourville to his destruction.

Exactly! But that is the gist of my point that the tactical situation would be unchanged if she had hypered out and back in again. Risking her fleet to further pick the bones of an already beaten and battered Third Fleet was irresponsible. So that wasn't her goal, per se.

Her real incentive was her misplaced pride and duty, at that point, about leaving Tourville high and dry. But it was misplaced! Because after Eighth Fleet arrived unopposed, the jig is up.

Déjà vu.

It was the same logic and misplaced pride that challenged Tsang's thinking when she continued to insist on trying to support Filareta even though the tactical situation had become hopeless. Chin should have made the big call at that point to cut all losses and run. The only thing she could hope to achieve at that point was to die like Tourville. Or surrender like Tourville. But she had an option to run. Chin should have fled the scene to save the lives and the ships of her fleet, and trusted that Tourville would have the common sense to try and do the same. Just as Tsang should have fled and trusted that Filareta had common sense too.

Jonathan_S wrote:If she hypers out, unless she make a microjump towards Honor, it'll be close to an hour before she can get her forces back into the fight. By that point 8th fleet can combine with the remains of 3rd and collectively crush Tourville's battered survivors.

Then 3rd and 8th can move far enough inside the hyper limit to avoid being jumped at close range, so if Chin does come back they can use their superior acceleration to control the range and let Honor use Apollo to savage Chin's forces.

None of that matters after the cavalry arrives, unopposed, un-mousetrapped, unencumbered, and indicating that it had those godawful superweapons to burn.

You agreed that the only two options they had was to either mousetrap Eighth Fleet, or pray she was away for "lunch." The thing to remember is that Theisman determined those were the only options available as well. So when both options had been flushed down the toilet, the only responsible thing left to do would be to flee or die.

1. The mousetrap was a bust.

2. Catching Honor out to lunch snacking on Havenite systems was a bust.

At that point the jig is up. Cut your losses and run. Contact Eighth Fleet and claim to be under the influence of alcohol. LOL

I suppose there was the one other option to continue to fight against all odds and at all costs and hope the Salamander makes a mistake.

Jonathan_S wrote:If Chin pulls out she's effectively writing off Tourville and conceding the battle. And Honor launched at about 50% further than Apollo had previously been observe to work, and further than Haven't naval intel thought it could work. So yeah, it takes Chin a bit too long to work out that Honor wasn't bluffing. But if Apollo had been no better than normal MDMs at 75 million km then Chin's forces could have easily weathered that strike and continued to tear 3rd fleet apart.

And it's not like the Peeps are unaware that Honor's had a history of bluffing - Theisman was quite sure she was bluffing with decoys in the aftermath of 3rd Yeltsin when her battered SDs turn towards his detached forces (and he was correct in that). If Honor could have won the battle by scaring off Chin's forces that'd absolutely be worth "throwing away" missiles, even "super-weapons" at well beyond their optimum range. And so Chin has to consider that Honor might well try to bluff - spending 15% of your missiles on a chance for an outright win by making the enemy withdraw seems like it would be a very reasonable gamble.

But, as it was, it was a gamble Honor didn't need to take.

Tourville was written off as soon as the superweapons had arrived unopposed, unencumbered and un-mousetrapped.

Jonathan_S wrote:(As an aside I think you're getting too caught up in the "Alpha launch" term. Now that we're got podlayers there's nothing especially magical about an alpha strike -- multiple salvo launches are the norm and the alpha strike is simply the first of them. In this case she spent 3 minutes rolling pods and so her alpha strike was about 18 salvos worth of pods. She had the pods to do 10 more strikes that size. Pre-podlayer, when all you had was towed pods, then okay the alpha strike was unique because you only got to use those towed pods once so it was by far your biggest strike, so you wanted to hold it as long as you could; but podlayers changed that calculus)

True. Alpha launches have somewhat changed. But they are still "Alpha launches" in the sense that the time it takes to roll them is erased. And time is still a factor because it takes time to roll your full load out. Which can be done time permitting. An Alpha launch still has the advantage of being pre-planned and - more importantly - arriving simultaneously. I would much rather deal with superweapons a few at a time. A salvo at a time. And do consider that Honor still thought it was important to roll pods. I suppose that the three minutes saved could have prevented a lot of deaths.*

BTW, is my memory playing tricks on me? I seem to recall Honor requesting a third of her pods be rolled. Is that scene bleed?

Late edit:
*Duh, three more minutes would have been all Chin needed to arrive at the correct conclusion in time to hyper out.

IOW, the pre-rolled Alpha launch was tactically effective in denying Chin the necessary time to figure out what was going on. Honor sucker punched her, she didn't give someone drinking gin the necessary time to think.

And people say she isn't good with math. LOL

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Oops, it was Tsang, not Crandall. Thanks for pointing out the errata. Errata always creeps into publishing.

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