Bit of Analysis: Honor Harrington

[Terralthra]

To an extent, the same thing happens to Manticore and Haven in the first part of their conflict. They're so used to old (obsolete) strategy that they spend a lot of time getting "defensive depth" and a frontier to defend that they don't realize until Buttercup, Thunderbolt, Sanskrit, and Beatrice how deep strikes can destroy such a strategy. The flip side, of course, is that Beatrice teaches them the other half of that lesson: deep strike against a foe who has enough strength in one place can risk a massive defeat.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes. The old broad-front strategy is, supposedly, the product of the League, which is casualty-averse but has overwhelming numerical superiority in any foreseeable conflict. Against a dispersed opponent, it really does make sense for them to advance slowly and fortify every system they take; "bite and hold" tactics are the most reliable way to avoid any unexpected military disasters by giving the enemy no soft targets to attack.

Also, Haven and Manticore wind up pursuing this strategy for one good reason, along with any 'obsolete thinking.' Haven is trying to secure jumping-off bases that will allow it to maintain its entire fleet for operations right around Manticoran space. Since its ships require relatively extensive support due to the way their maintenance organization works, that means building up naval bases at places like Seaford Nine and Barnett, close to the Manticoran homeworld- and ideally closer in yet, say at Masada.

So they NEED a broad frontier with interlocking, fortified positions.

Meanwhile, Manticore is trying to defeat this strategy, specifically to forestall a Havenite attempt to hit Manticore directly, by rapidly counterattacking those fleet bases in the event of war. Which means they need to spread out in turn and make sure their forces are ready to jump off and do that. That way, if Haven tries to strike straight for Manticore, without knocking out the RMN formations in their path, the Havenite bases will be destroyed and the Havenite ships will be doubly vulnerable in the event of a defeat or setback at Manticore proper.

[Ahriman238]

Was hoping to do the fight with Thunder in one sitting, but it's too long. Ah well.

Five days had passed since Apollo's departure. If the Masadans were going to try something more—and despite all she'd said to Venizelos about the insanity of their doing so, she remained convinced they were—she knew it would be soon. Yet, to her own surprise, she could think about it almost calmly. She'd reached a state of balance, of acceptance. She was committed. She'd done all she could to prepare herself and her people. All that remained was to meet whatever came, and once that was accepted, grief and guilt and hatred, like terror, had faded into a strange sort of serenity. She knew it wouldn't last. It was simply the way she adjusted to the waiting, but she was grateful for it.

Timeframe and Honor's adapting to waiting for nearly-certain death.

"RD Niner-Three just picked up a hyper footprint at extreme range, Ma'am, right on the fifty light-minute mark."

Honor felt the right side of her face turn as masklike as the left. A crack yawned in her serenity, but she schooled herself into calm. At that range, there was time.

"Details?"

"All we've got so far is the alert sequence. Troubadour's standing by to relay the rest of the transmission as it comes in, but—" He paused as someone said something Honor couldn't quite catch, then looked back at his captain. "Scratch that, Skipper. Commander McKeon says Niner-Two is coming in now, reporting a low-powered wedge moving across its range. Niner-Three has the same bogey and makes it right on the ecliptic. Looks like they're heading around the primary to sneak up on Grayson from behind."

Detection, Thunder translates out 50 light-minutes from the star Yeltsin.

"Still time to put you planet-side, Mark," she said, her voice low enough no one else could hear.

"This is my assigned duty post, Ma'am." His smile might be tense, but his voice was remarkably level. Honor's good eye warmed with approval, yet that didn't stop her from pressing the point.

"It may be your assigned post, but we're not going to be doing much liaising over the next few hours."

"Captain, if you want me off your ship, you can order me off. Otherwise, I'm staying. There ought to be at least one Grayson officer aboard if you're going up against those fanatics for us."

Honor started to speak again, then closed her mouth and gave a tiny headshake. She touched him lightly on the shoulder, then crossed to DuMorne's astrogation station to look down at his display.

D'aww. Seriously though, good of him to stay. Even though the GSN probably wouldn't be that happy if he left.

Thunder of God—or Saladin, or whatever she wanted to call the battlecruiser—was holding her acceleration down, but that was probably just a general precaution. She was over a hundred light-minutes from Grayson on her present course, and she was still over forty light-minutes out from Yeltsin, which put her well beyond any range at which any Grayson sensor array could possibly pick up her impellers.

Of course, her captain knew he was up against modern warships, but he certainly didn't see Fearless or Troubadour on his own sensors, nor would the heavily stealthed drones be visible to him. So assuming he didn't know they'd been deployed (which he couldn't) and about their detection range and FTL transmission capability, he had to believe he was undetected so far.

She rubbed the tip of her nose. It wasn't the way she would have proceeded, given the disparity in weight of metal, but he'd clearly opted for a cautious approach. By the time he crossed the outer edge of the Grayson sensor envelope, he'd be on the far side of Yeltsin, and he'd almost certainly cut his drive before he did. That would extend his flight time but bring him around the primary on a ballistic course, and without the betraying grav signature of his impellers, it meant he'd be into missile range of Grayson and firing before active sensors saw him coming.

But she'd already seen him. The question was what she did with her information, and she bent over DuMorne's panel and laid in a rough line for a shorter, tighter course that originated at Grayson and curved around the primary inside Saladin's projected parabola.

Again with the cautious approach.

The one thing she absolutely couldn't do was sit here and let the enemy come at her. With that much time to build her velocity advantage, Saladin would have every edge there was for the opening missile engagement, and she could overfly Grayson—and Honor's ships—with relative impunity.

To prevent that, Honor could meet her head-on by simply reversing the battlecruiser's course. Saladin couldn't evade her if she did, but their closing velocity would be high, severely limiting engagement time. They would cross the powered missile envelope in little more than four minutes, and energy range in barely seven seconds. Saladin would have to accept action, but her captain could count on its being a very short one.

Alternatively, Honor could shape her own, tighter parabola inside Saladin's. The battlecruiser would still have the higher base velocity when she detected Fearless and Troubadour, but they'd be on convergent courses, and Honor's ships would be inside her. Her ships would have less distance to travel, and the battlecruiser would be unable to cut inside them even if she stopped stooging along and went to maximum power on her wedge.

The drawback was that it would be a converging engagement, a broadside duel in which the battlecruiser's heavier missile batteries, bigger magazines, and tougher sidewalls could be used to best advantage. The very length of the engagement would give her more time to pound Fearless and Troubadour apart . . . but it would also give them more time to hurt her.

In essence, her choices were to go for a short, sharp closing engagement and hope she got lucky and Saladin didn't, or else go for a battering match.

Decisions, decisions. I'd talk more about it but-

And when she came right down to it, she couldn't risk the head-on interception, either. If that ship was irrational enough to press an attack now, then she had to assume its captain truly was crazy enough to nuke Grayson. That meant she couldn't engage hoping for a lucky hit when her failure to get it would let Saladin past her. It had to be the convergent approach.

Decision made.

She leaned back, rubbing the numb side of her face for a moment, and considered the way Saladin had chosen to come in. That was a cautious captain out there. Indeed, she was surprised to see such timidity, especially given that any attack on Grayson had to be an act of desperation. If the People's Navy had amassed one thing over fifty T-years of conquest, it was experience, but this fellow showed no sign of it. He certainly wasn't a bit like Theisman—not that she intended to complain about that!

But the point was that if she presented a cautious captain with a situation in which his only options were a fight to the death short of the planet or to break off, especially if she did it in a way which proved she'd been watching him when he'd believed it was impossible, he might just flinch. And if she got him to break away to rethink, it would use up hours of time . . . and every hour he spent dithering would bring the relief from Manticore one hour closer.

It'd work too, if it were still a Haven officer in charge and not a fanatical Masadan facing death by disembowlment if he goes home without nuking Grayson. Speaking of, let's check in on the opposition

It had taken over twelve hours to run down the circuits and find the lock-out in the command chair's arm rest. The sword was humiliatingly certain the infidel engineers could have done it much more quickly, but Mount and Hara were dead, Valentine, Timmons, and Lindemann had escaped the ship, and that ass Hart had shot down the one senior bridge officer they'd actually taken!

Yu had gotten clean away by the time they'd regained control of the ship's systems, yet there'd been no possibility of aborting the attack. Seizing Thunder had been a declaration of war on Haven; only God and success in Yeltsin could save the Faithful from the consequences of that.

Simonds paced more rapidly, unwilling to admit, even to himself, how much he'd counted on having Yu, or at least Manning, available. Lieutenant Commander Workman was doing an adequate job in Engineering, but Ash was the best tactical officer available, and his obsession with gravity anomalies at a time like this proved how poor a substitute for Manning he was.

Just as he himself was a poor substitute for Yu, a tiny, frightened voice whispered deep at the sword's weary core.

I believe the technical term is "suckers!" Again the FTL comm is detected, but not understood. Also, I'm liking Simon's explanation of Masadan culture more and more, Sword Simonds is definitely a bit tightly wound.

"You're our resident expert," she told the face on her small screen. "How likely are they to pick up the grav pulses?"

"Almost certain to, now that they're inside our drone shell," McKeon replied promptly, "but I doubt they'll figure them out. Until Admiral Hemphill got involved, no one on our side thought it was possible, after all."

Honor smiled sourly, and McKeon grinned at her. Both of them had reason to remember Lady Sonja Hemphill with less than joy, but Honor had to admit that, this time, "Horrible Hemphill" had gotten something right.

Credit where it's due. Starting to think Weber may be a bit over-dependent on italics for emphasis.

"Sir! Sword Simonds!" Simonds whipped around at Lieutenant Ash's excited cry. "Two impeller sources, Sir! They just popped up out of nowhere!"

-snip-

Simonds clenched his jaw and scrubbed at his bloodshot eyes. How? How had the bitch done this?! That course couldn't be a coincidence. Harrington had known exactly where he was, exactly what he was doing, and there was no way she could have!

He lowered his hand from his eyes and glared at the display while he tried to think. How she'd done it didn't matter. He told himself that firmly, even while a superstitious voice whispered that it did. What mattered was that she was inside him . . . and her vector was curving out towards him. The closure rate was twelve thousand KPS and growing; that meant she'd be into missile range in three hours, long before he would be able to fire on Grayson.

That rattled him a bit. Now what's the plan, Oh Mighty Sword of God?

"I don't believe it! The sorry son-of-a—" Andreas Venizelos caught himself. "I mean, he's breaking off, Ma'am."

"No, he isn't. Not yet, anyway." Honor steepled her fingers under her triangular chin. "This is an instinct reaction, Andy. We surprised him, and he doesn't want to get any closer than he has to while he thinks it over."

"She's accelerating directly away at four-point-seven-zero KPS squared, Ma'am," Cardones reported, and Honor nodded. She didn't expect it to last, but for now Saladin was headed in the right direction.

Well, you certainly live down to expectations, Simonds.

The range had opened to over twenty-four and a half light-minutes, yet Harrington knew exactly where they were. Thunder was able to see Fearless only through the drones Ash had deployed astern, but there was no sign of Manticoran drones. Unless Harrington's sensors were even better than Yu had believed, she shouldn't be able to see them at all, yet she'd adjusted to every course alteration he made! The implied technical superiority was as frightening as it was maddening, but the critical point was that he couldn't lose her and come in undetected on a new vector . . . and she'd already pushed him clear beyond the asteroid belt, far outside Grayson's orbit.

No wonder she was content to let him run! He'd wasted precious time trying to evade someone who could see every move he made, and by the time he killed his present velocity and came back into missile range—assuming she let him—over six hours would have passed since he'd first detected her.

He growled under his breath and kneaded his cheeks. What Manticoran ships had already done to the Faithful made him nervous about crossing swords with her, especially since Yu and Manning had been careful to preserve their own importance by seeing to it that their Masadan junior officers lacked their expertise. Ash and his people were willing enough, but they simply couldn't get the most out of their systems, and he could already feel their jagged tension as they, too, realized the enemy was somehow watching them at this preposterous range.

But that didn't change the fact that Thunder of God out-massed both his opponents more than twice over. If he had to fight his way through them, he could. Yet he also had to be able to carry through against Grayson. . . .

Yeah, you really have no idea how bad the technical disparity is.

[Simon_Jester]

Detection, Thunder translates out 50 light-minutes from the star Yeltsin.

Combining this with any information we have on the position of the recon drone platforms would give us a figure for hyper transit detection range. Do we have that information?

Again with the cautious approach.

With Masadan ships it'd be necessary, and Masadan ships are all the Sword knows.

I believe the technical term is "suckers!" Again the FTL comm is detected, but not understood. Also, I'm liking Simon's explanation of Masadan culture more and more, Sword Simonds is definitely a bit tightly wound.

Interestingly, Ash is entirely right to be obsessed with grav anomalies; he just lacks the background information to tell him what they mean. The grav anomalies in question are in fact the enemy's FTL comm, and if Ash were to figure those out, he would be able to give Simonds the vital information "oh shit they saw us coming."

Credit where it's due. Starting to think Weber may be a bit over-dependent on italics for emphasis.

Do you know, that may be where I get it from?

But that didn't change the fact that Thunder of God out-massed both his opponents more than twice over. If he had to fight his way through them, he could. Yet he also had to be able to carry through against Grayson. . . .

Yeah, you really have no idea how bad the technical disparity is.

To be fair, Simonds COULD fight his way through them, has a quite good chance of doing so, and doing it in good shape to beat Grayson. If his crew were only slightly less inadequate he'd pull it off; if Honor and Rafe Cardones were only slightly less skilled he'd pull it off. As it is... it's a tie. One ton of Havenite ship with a Masadan crew is worth 0.5 tons of RMN ship with the best crew available.

[SMJB]

I could have sworn there was more detail given to how badly the Peeps messed the ship up for the Massadans before they left. Oh, well.

[Black Admiral]

Again with the cautious approach.

With Masadan ships it'd be necessary, and Masadan ships are all the Sword knows.

Plus the psychological baggage of knowing that Honor and Fearless smashed just about all of the Masadan Navy - including their other Havenite built ship (which, Simonds knows, was manned by a crew who knew a hell of a lot more about getting the best out of it than his does) - over Blackbird, and having been in the last attempt to take Grayson as a junior officer. It'd be surprising if Simonds wasn't playing things cautiously (while in effect psyching himself up to commit to the attack).

[Batman]

Heck Madrigal ate about half the Masadan Navy even if she died in the process, and she was a mere destroyer. If I were used to Masadan ships and faced with the evidence of what a Manticoran ship can do to mine, I'd be a little hesitant about engaging too despite sitting on hardware that theoretically can kick the stuffings out of Troubadour and Fearless in passing. You know your own ships, and your own ships barely qualified as speed bumps for the Manties. If it weren't for the Havenite ships, Madrigal likely wouldn't have been touched, and neither would any of the Grayson ships accompanying her. That's how badly outclassed the Masadans are, and that's what they're used to. Yes, you're sitting on 850,000 tons of metal allegedly technologically on par with the Manties...except they apparently can follow your every move in realtime at FTL ranges?

[Ahriman238]

Honor nodded, then pressed a stud on her arm rest.

"Captain's quarters, Steward MacGuiness."

"Mac, could you chase me up some sandwiches and a pot of cocoa?"

"Of course, Ma'am."

"Thank you." She closed the circuit and looked at Venizelos. The Manticoran Navy tradition was that crews went into battle well-fed and as rested as possible, and her people had been at general quarters for almost five hours. "Stand us down to Condition Two, Andy, and tell the cooks I want a hot meal for all hands." She gave him one of her lopsided grins. "The way this jackass is maneuvering, there should be plenty of time for it!"

Across the bridge from her, Ensign Carolyn Wolcott smiled down at her console at the confidence in the Captain's voice.

Which makes sense if you can detect any hostiles several hours before you'll be in a position to shoot each other.

The command chair felt bigger, somehow, than it had looked when Yu sat in it, and Simonds' tired eyes burned as he watched his plot. Harrington had chosen to let Thunder close, but she was maintaining her position between him and Yeltsin. And when he'd reversed acceleration to slow his rate of approach, she'd matched him, almost as if she were hoping for a missile duel.

That worried Simonds, for Thunder was a battlecruiser. His missiles were bigger and heavier, with a significantly greater penaid and ECM payload. The Faithful had already seen bitter proof that Manticore's technology was better than Haven's, but did she believe her margin of superiority was enough to even the odds? And, far more frightening, could she be correct?

Uneasy seats the butt upon the better captain's chair. Of course Honor's not thrilled to be meeting him where he'll have such a margin of superiority, but she'll last better in a long missile-duel than a short energy-weapon exchange, all the little bits of technology like superior ECW will matter in the first one. Also, she's not letting him get a short engagement before he reaches Grayson.

"All right, Andy—take us back up to GQ," Honor said, and the howl of the alarm resummoned her people to their battle stations as she slid her hands into her suit gloves and settled her helmet in the rack on the side of her chair. She supposed she ought to put it on—though Fearless's well-armored bridge was deep at the ship's heart, that didn't make it invulnerable to explosive depressurization—but she'd always thought captains who helmeted up too soon made their crews nervous.

And captains who die wishing they had the breath to scream make crews nervous too. Well, I guess that's one way to project an air of calm invulnerability.

"That's hard to say, Mark. What he should have done the minute he saw us was come straight for us. There's no way he's going to sneak past us—the way we intercepted him should have proven that. All he's done so far is waste about six hours by trying to shake us."

"I know, Ma'am. But he's coming in now."

"He is, but not like he really means it. Look how he's decelerating. He's going to come just about to rest relative to us at six and three-quarters million klicks. That's extreme range for low-powered missile drives, which isn't exactly the mark of an aggressive captain." She shook her head. "He's still testing the waters, and I don't understand it."

"Could he be afraid of your technology?"

Honor snorted, and the right side of her mouth made a wry smile.

"I wish! No, if Theisman was good, the man they picked to skipper Saladin ought to be better than this." She saw the puzzlement in Brentworth's eyes and waved a hand. "Oh, our EW and penaids are better than theirs, and so is our point defense, but that's a battlecruiser. Her sidewalls are half again as tough as Fearless's, much less Troubadour's, and her energy weapons are bigger and more powerful. We could hurt him in close, but not as badly as he could hurt us, and even in a missile duel, the sheer toughness of his passive defenses should make him confident. It's—" She paused, seeking a comparison. "What it comes down to is that in a missile duel our sword's sharper, but his armor's a lot thicker, and once he gets in close, it's our sword against his battleaxe. He ought to be charging to get inside our missile envelope, not sitting out there where we've got the best chance of giving as good as we get."

In other words, bringing a cruiser and a destroyer against a BC isn't likely to end well. Sword Simond's inexperience is showing, and notice how the heroes react to the enemy acting like an idiot by worrying, at least a bit, while the villains always just assume the heroes are idiots and leave it at that?

"The enemy has returned fire." Lieutenant Ash's voice was taut. "Flight time one-seven-niner seconds. Tracking reports sixteen incoming, Sir."

Simonds nodded acknowledgment. Thunder had an advantage of two tubes, as well as his heavier missiles. He hoped it would be enough.

16 bird broadside from Fearless and Troub, and Saladin appears to have an 18 missile broadside.

Honor frowned as Ensign Wolcott picked off Saladin's first missiles. The battlecruiser was splitting her fire between Troubadour and Fearless, and that was the stupidest thing her captain had done yet. He ought to be concentrating his fire, not dispersing it! His opponents were lighter and far more fragile; by targeting both of them, he was robbing himself of his best chance to overwhelm them in detail.

Really, Simonds, I know it's your first outing in the new ship and all, but you were an officer before all this.

Ensign Wolcott missed an incoming missile. The heavy warhead detonated fifteen thousand kilometers off Fearless's starboard bow, and half a dozen savage rods of energy slammed at her sidewall. Two broke through, and the cruiser leapt in agony as plating shattered.

"Two hits forward! Laser Three and Five destroyed. Radar Five is gone, Ma'am. Heavy casualties in Laser Three!"

Making the score 5:1 Harrington.

"Missile Two-One and Graser One gone! Heavy damage in the boat bay and Berthing Compartment Seven-five!"

Simonds blanched. That was six hits-six!—and they'd scored only one in return! Powerful as Thunder was, he couldn't take that kind of exchange rate for long, and-

The battlecruiser bucked yet again, more crimson lights glared, and the Sword made up his mind.
"Starboard ninety degrees—maximum acceleration!"

Make that 6:1, and the Sword of God decides discretion is the better part of valor.

"You were right about the way he was fighting. That was pitiful."

"Yes, Ma'am." Venizelos scratched his chin. "It was almost like a simulation. Like we were up against just his computers."

"I think we were," Honor said softly, and the exec blinked at her. She unlocked her own shock frame, and he followed her over to the tactical station. She keyed a command into Cardones' panel, and they watched the master tactical display replay the brief battle. The entire engagement had lasted less than ten minutes, and Honor shook her head when it ended.

"I don't think that's a Havenite crew over there at all."

"What?!" Venizelos blushed at the volume of his response and looked quickly around the bridge, then back at her. "You don't really think the Peeps turned a ship like that over to lunatics like the Masadans, do you, Skipper?"

Well, it wasn't so much "turned over" as "had it snatched out from under them." but essentially, yes. Glad you caught on.

It didn't seem possible. Those hits would have destroyed any Masadan ship, yet for all the gaping wounds in Thunder's flanks, his broadside had lost only one missile tube and a single graser.

Simonds chewed his hate as his enemy executed her own loop inside his, matching him move for move, yet under his hate was a dawning comprehension of why Yu had been so confident he could destroy Fearless, for Thunder was tougher than the sword had dreamed. A sense of his own power, his own ponderous ability to destroy, suffused his tired brain . . . and with it came a sour appreciation for how clumsily he'd misused that power.

He checked the plot again. Two hours had passed since he'd broken off action, and the range was back up to sixteen and a half light-minutes. Workman assured him Missile Twenty-One would be back on line in another thirty minutes, but time was ticking away, and he was only too well aware of how he'd allowed Harrington to dictate the conditions of engagement. He had at least two days before anyone from Manticore arrived to help her, but she hovered stubbornly between him and Grayson, and he'd let her burn up precious hours in which he should already have been about God's Work.

He's not actually stupid, just fanatical and inexperienced in this sort of naval battle.

He knew Ash and his people were almost as tired as he was, and they'd had to run their analyses with reference manuals almost literally in their laps. That was one reason he'd been willing to waste time trying to outmaneuver Harrington. He'd been fairly certain the attempt would fail, but he'd had no intention of reengaging until Ash had time to digest what he'd learned from the first clash.

Ah, I've been there many a time with car or computer troubles. Though I'm pretty sure Haven is paperless too.

Yes, Sir." Ash drew a deep breath and consulted an electronic memo pad. "Sir, despite their missiles' smaller size, their penaids, and especially their penetration ECM, are better than ours. We've programmed our fire control to compensate for all of their EW techniques we've been able to identify. I'm sure they have tricks we haven't seen yet, but we've eliminated most of the ones they've already used.

"Defensively, their decoys and jammers are very good, but their counter missiles and point defense lasers are only a little better than our own, and we've gotten good reads on their decoy emissions and updated our missiles' exclusion files. I think we'll be able to compensate for them to a much larger extent in the next engagement."

Fields of Manticoran superiority to Have tech.

"Good, Lieutenant. But what about our own defenses?"

"Sword, we're just not experienced enough with our systems to operate them in command mode. I'm sorry, Sir, but that's the truth." Ash's assistants looked down at their hands or panels, but Simonds simply nodded again, slowly, and the lieutenant went on.

"As I say, we've updated the threat files and reworked the software to extrapolate from our analysis of what they've already done. In addition, I've set up packaged jamming and decoy programs to run on a computer-command basis. It won't be as flexible as a fully experienced tactical staff could give you, Sir, but taking the human element out of the decision loop should increase our overall effectiveness."

And here we go. Unable to run the EW portions as well as a proper crew, they set up several canned routines and a computer program to switch between them. It's tons less flexible, and as we'll see dangerously predictable, but it probably really was the best they could do to where the alternative was an inexperienced and largely clueless officer plinking randomly at computer keys.

Sadly for them, lots of semi-independent things, like drones, recon platforms and missiles, operate on canned routines in the absence of instructions from an operator, making "spot the pattern" a favored game of tactical officers everywhere.

"Even so, he probably learned a lot the last time, Alistair. If he has, he'll concentrate his fire as he closes."

"Yes, Ma'am." McKeon didn't say any more, but they both knew Saladin's logical target. Troubadour could take far less damage than Fearless, and her destruction would eliminate a quarter of Honor's launchers.

Making a 4-tube broadside destroyer, and giving the new Fearless 12.

The range fell to six-point-eight million kilometers, and Thunder of God spat missiles towards her foes, their computers crammed with every tactical improvement Ash had been able to think of. This time she went to rapid fire with the first salvo; a second broadside followed fifteen seconds later, then a third, and a fourth. Two hundred and sixteen missiles were in space before the first reached attack range, and Manticoran broadsides raced to meet them.

Not bad, not bad. Count yourself fortunate you threw down with Manticore before the AGe of the Missilegods.

Saladin carried far more ammunition, and she was using it ruthlessly. Honor longed to reply in kind, for Fearless mounted the new Mod 7b launcher, with a cycle time of only eleven seconds. She could have pumped out twenty percent more fire than Saladin—but only while her ammo lasted, and the range was too long for her to burn through it that way.

Though they're already upgrading their capability for rapid-fire.

He tore his eyes from that display to check missile defense, and his heart rose still higher. Ash's prerecorded ECM programs were performing much better than he'd hoped. Ten of the incoming missiles lost lock and veered away, seeking Thunder's own decoys, and counter missiles and lasers easily burned down the six that held their course.

And it lets his best people focus on the offense side of things. Still, there is that niggling disadvantage.

Honor winced as the laser ripped into Troubadour. Saladin had learned even more than she'd feared from that first engagement. Her ECM was far more efficient, her heavier, more numerous point defense stations burned down incoming fire with dismaying efficiency, and each hit she scored hurt far worse than the missiles that got through them hurt her.

She should have given Rafe his head earlier. She should have pursued Saladin before the big ship's inexperienced crew had time to adjust to their weapons, but she hadn't quite been able to believe her own suspicions then. And, she told herself pitilessly, she'd let herself be dissuaded not just by the need to stay between Saladin and Grayson, but by her own desire to live.

She bit her lip as another Masadan missile was picked off less than a second short of Troubadour. She'd lost her best chance to kill Saladin while she was still clumsy; now too many of her own people were going to die because of her failure.

Not exactly a great place for blame and self-loathing, Honor, get your head in the game! Still, she's probably correct that they could have ended Simonds before he clued in, if they'd been sure his incompetence wasn't a trick or a trap. Hindsight is both 20/20 and not terribly useful in this case.

The com link suddenly went dead, and her eye whipped to the visual display in horror as Troubadour's back broke like a stick and the destroyer's entire after third exploded like a sun.

And that's Troub out of the fight.

"We've lost the control runs to the after ring, Skipper!" Commander Higgins reported from Damage Central. "We're down to two-sixty gees!"

"Get those impellers back for me, James."

"I'll try, but we're shot clean through at Frame Three-Twelve, Skipper. It's going to take at least an hour just to run replacement cable."

Fearless twisted again as a fresh laser gouged deep.

"Direct hit on the com section!" Lieutenant Metzinger's voice was ugly with loss. "None of my people got out, Skipper. None of them!"

Fearless loses some impeller capability and comms.

Fearless staggered yet again as another laser head evaded Ensign Wolcott. The fresh blast of X-rays wiped away two more missile tubes, and Rafael Cardones tasted despair. He was hitting the bastards at least as often as they were hitting Fearless, but Saladin was so damned tough she didn't even seem to notice, and he was down to nine tubes.

And then he froze, staring at his readouts. That couldn't be true! Only an idiot would run his EW that way—but if the Captain was right about who was in command over there. . . .

The analysis flashed before him, and his lips thinned. Saladin's ECM was under computer control. It had to be, and the engagement had lasted long enough for his own sensors to spot the pattern. The battlecruiser was cycling through a complex deception plan that shifted sequence every four hundred seconds—but every time it did, it reset to exactly the same origin point!

There was no time to clear it with the Captain. His flashing hands changed his loading queues, updated his birds' penetration profiles . . . and slammed a lock on all offensive fire. He ignored the consternation around him as his fire ceased. His eyes were glued to his chrono, watching it turn over, and then he pressed the firing key flat.

-snip-

Nine missiles charged through space, and Thunder of God's computers blinked in cybernetic surprise at their unorthodox approach. They came in massed in a tight phalanx, suicidally tight against modern point defense . . . except that the three lead missiles carried nothing but ECM. Their jammers howled, blinding every active and passive sensor system, building a solid wall of interference. Neither Thunder nor their fellows could possibly "see" through it, and a human operator might have realized there had to be a reason Fearless had voluntarily blinded her own missiles' seekers. But the computers saw only a single jamming source and targeted it with only two counter missiles.

One jammer died, but the other two survived, spreading out, varying the strength and power and shape of the transmissions that baffled Thunder's follow-up counter missiles. They charged onward, and then, suddenly, they arced up and apart to expose the six missiles behind them.

Last-ditch point defense lasers swiveled and struck like snakes, spitting rods of coherent light as the computers finally recognized the threat, but the jammers had covered them to the last possible moment, and the attack missiles knew exactly what they were looking for. One of the six died, then another, but the final quartet came on, and an alarm screamed on Lieutenant Ash's panel.

The lieutenant's head whipped around in horror. He had less than a single second to realize that somehow these missiles had been programmed to use his EW systems, as if his decoys were homing beacons, not defenses, and then they rammed headlong into their target.

Once more, suckers! I do believe this is the series' first appearance of "Screamer" missiles that sacrifice warheads for the ability to throw up tons of interference and white noise, making counter-missile fire that much more interesting.

Fearless writhed as a fresh hit killed two more missile tubes, but then someone emitted a banshee shriek of triumph, and Honor stared at her repeater. It wasn't possible! No one could get old-fashioned nukes through the very teeth of a modern warship's defenses! Yet Rafe Cardones had done it. Somehow, he'd done it!

But he hadn't scored direct hits. Saladin's impeller wedge flickered as she staggered out of the fireballs, clouds of atmosphere and vaporized alloy streamed back from where her port sidewall had died, but she was still there, and even as Honor watched, the maimed battlecruiser was rolling desperately to interpose the roof of her impeller wedge against the follow-up missiles charging down upon her. Her wedge restabilized, and her drive went to maximum power as her vector swung sharply away from Fearless.

She accelerated madly, breaking off, fleeing her mangled opponent, and HMS Fearless was too badly damaged to pursue.

End round two, with Troubador out and both Fearless and Saladin/Thunder gravely wounded and fleeing the scene to come at this from another angle again. Tune in next time for the third and final round.

[Mr Bean]

Something I miss from the later series is as the battles grow in size the humanity of these small scale engagements gets lost. Here at least and later in Shadows we get that sense that things are happening. Each time a hit pounds in and wipes away a chunk of firepower. Each causality report means someone we "know" (Despite not knowing their names) is lost. It's something the last Harrington books totally like since the lead up to a fleet engagement is twenty pages, the fight itself less than two and it's over. There were less pages devoted to the second battle of Manticore than Honor's mother flirting with people in the same book.

[Batman]

In all fairness the second battle of Manticore was over the moment Honor was forced to return fire. The problem with the battles in the last books is they were Manticore vs the Solarian League, and those battles are so hopelessly one-sided (I give you 'Storm from the Shadows', where an understrength manticoran destroyer squadron eats a quartet of Solarian battlecruisers pretty much in passing) they're simply not interesting. The problem isn't just that they're big battles, 1st Manticore was about as big as it gets, and plenty of people we do know the names of died in that one (and I think Weber spend a goodly amount of pages on it too), they're boring battles. At least for the time being the Solarians can't touch a Manticoran ship so the only human interest aspects would happen on the Sollie side, where we know essentially nobody outside the madmen at the top, some of their supporting madmen, and (very recently) a few brave people way down the totem pole who think their superiors are positively nuts but are in no position to really do something about it.

[Ahriman238]

Combining this with any information we have on the position of the recon drone platforms would give us a figure for hyper transit detection range. Do we have that information?

Sadly we do not. We know they needed the platforms for 50 light-minute detection, and earlier could detect hyper-footprints at 30 light-minutes wihtout, so it's somewhere in-between those two figures.

Interestingly, Ash is entirely right to be obsessed with grav anomalies; he just lacks the background information to tell him what they mean. The grav anomalies in question are in fact the enemy's FTL comm, and if Ash were to figure those out, he would be able to give Simonds the vital information "oh shit they saw us coming."

I doubt the proper background would have helped, he only ever picked up a couple of pulses. Theisman and his people got far more data, and didn't make the connection either. Likely because it's so established in everyone's minds that FTL comm is impossible.

A quarter of her crew was dead or wounded, and Commander Brentworth had found a job at last. The Grayson officer manned the damage control net from the bridge, releasing Lieutenant Allgood, Lieutenant Commander Higgins' senior assistant, for other work, and Higgins needed him badly.

Fearless's entire after impeller ring was down, and her starboard broadside was reduced to a single graser and eight missile tubes. Almost worse, the combination of damaged magazines and seven minutes of maximum-rate fire had reduced her to less than a hundred missiles, and her sensors had been savagely mauled. Half her main radar, both secondary fire control arrays, and two-thirds of her passive sensors were gone. She could still see her enemy, but her best acceleration was barely a third of Saladin's until Higgins' vac-suited engineers restored her after impeller ring (if they could), and even then, she'd lost so many nodes she'd be down to barely two-point-eight KPS2. If the battlecruiser's captain guessed the truth, he could easily pull out and lose her. He'd already reopened the range to almost ninety-four million kilometers; if he opened it another two light-minutes, Honor wouldn't even be able to find him, much less fight him, without Troubadour to relay from the recon drones.

Extent of damage, casualties and ammo-depletion. We're not quite at the flying wreck stage, but getting there fast. Also, if I understand correctly she has no gravitics and can only spot a ship with radar within a 130 million km radius.

Sword Simonds held himself rigidly still as the medical orderly put the last stitch into the gash in his forehead, then waved aside the offer of a painkiller. The orderly retreated quickly, for he had more than enough to do elsewhere; there were over twelve hundred dead men in Thunder of God's hull, two-thirds of them soldiers who'd brought no vac suits aboard.

And Yu's crew is right in retrospect, it was still a stupid idea to bring so many people aboard with no ability to survive if the ship took a hit.

He clenched his jaw as the latest damage reports scrolled up his screen. Thunder's armor and the radiation shielding inside his wedge had let him live, but his port broadside had been reduced to five lasers and six tubes, and half of them were in local control. His maximum acceleration had been reduced twenty-one percent, his gravitics and half his other sensors—including all of them to port—were gone, and Workman's report on his sidewall generators was grim. Thunder wasn't—quite—naked to port, but spreading his remaining generators would weaken his sidewall to less than a third of design strength, and his radiation shields were completely gone. Simonds dared not even contemplate exposing that side of his ship to Harrington's fire . . . but his starboard armament and fire control were untouched.

He touched the stitches again, and his mind was cold and clear despite his exhaustion. The bitch was still there, still stubbornly defying God's Will, and she'd hurt him. But he'd hurt her, too, and he'd checked the Havenite data profile on the Star Knight class against her missile expenditures. Even if she hadn't lost a single magazine, she had to be almost dry.

Thunder's damage. Haven has some pretty decent files on RMN classes.

"How much longer to restore the port sidewall?"

"I'll have it up in forty minutes, Sir." Workman sounded weary but confident, and the Sword nodded.

"Astrogation, I want a straight-line course for Grayson."

Finally moving into the main event.

"Bring us around to your new course, Steve," she said. "Chief Killian, I want the belly of our wedge held towards Saladin."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

Fearless began her turn, and Honor turned to Cardones.

"We should be able to run a fair plot on Saladin with our belly radar, Rafe, but tracking missiles through the grav band will be difficult."

So it seems they can see out the belly band well enough to track a ship, but it's harder to run missile defense. And missiles don't have to throw themselves uselessly against thee belly band, a few degrees to one side and they're good.

"I intend to hold the belly of our wedge towards her all the way in. We don't have the ammunition to stop her with missiles, so we're going to close to pointblank range unless she shears off. Set up your fire plan on the assumption that I will roll to bring our port energy broadside to bear at twenty thousand kilometers."

Cardones simply nodded once more, but someone hissed. That wasn't energy weapon range; it was suicide range.

"She won't know exactly when we intend to roll," Honor went on in that same, calm voice. "That should give us the first shot, and at that range, it won't matter how tough her sidewalls are." She held Cardones' gaze with her single eye and spoke very softly. "I'm depending on you, Rafe. Get that first broadside on target, then keep firing, whatever happens."

The plan, it's not a great plan but it's the best hope they have for taking out a BC with a cruiser, before it gets close enough to nuke Grayson.

The warships slanted towards one another, and there was a finality in their movements. The challenge had been issued and accepted; they would meet at an invisible point in space, and one of them would die there. There could be no other outcome, and every soul aboard them knew it.

Bit dramatic, but that's okay.

Simonds turned back to his own plot and the crimson dot of the enemy ship with an inner sense of total certainty. Harrington wasn't going to roll for a missile duel. She was going to carry straight through and engage him beam to beam, and he felt a grudging, hate-filled respect for her. Her ship would never survive at that range, but if she reached it alive, the damage to Thunder would be terrible. He knew it, and he accepted it, for terrible or not, Thunder would live to attack Grayson. He knew that, too.

God would not permit any other result.

Just so everyone's on the same page.

Neither of the maimed, half-blind ships any longer had the capability to look beyond the other even if they'd wanted to. And because they didn't, neither of them noted the wide-spaced hyper footprints as sixteen battlecruisers and their escorts suddenly emerged from hyper 23.76 light-minutes from Yeltsin's Star.

___________

"That's it, My Lord," Captain Edwards said. "Tracking's got good reads on both impeller signatures. That's the battlecruiser at three-one-four; the one at three-two-four has to be Fearless. There's no sign of Troubadour."

The cavalry, which can track and identify both ships at some range. How much is imprecise, and I don't particularly feel like trawling back to see how far from the sun Grayson is.

Reliant's own division had come in with Grayson directly between them and Yeltsin, covering the most important arc of the half-circle, and the vectors projecting themselves across his plot told their own tale. Alexander's ships were not only ahead of the two warships on his plot but cutting their angle towards Grayson. That gave him an effective closing velocity of almost twenty thousand KPS, and the range to Saladin was barely twelve light-minutes, which meant Reliant would cross her course five-point-six light-minutes short of Grayson . . . and enter extreme missile range three minutes before that.

Ah, 12 light minutes range. At this point, there's no way Sword Simonds is going to manage to destroy Grayson, but he and Honor don't know that.

"Joyce."

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"I think I'd like a little music, Joyce." Metzinger blinked at her, and Honor smiled. "Punch up Hammerwell's Seventh on the intercom, please."

"Hammerwell's Seventh?" Metzinger shook herself. "Yes, Ma'am."

Honor had always loved Hammerwell. He, too, had come from Sphinx, and the cold, majestic beauty of her home world was at the heart of everything he'd ever written. Now she leaned back in her chair as the swirling strains of Manticore's greatest composer's masterwork spilled from the com, and people looked at one another, first in surprise and then in pleasure, as the voices of strings and woodwinds flowed over them.

HMS Fearless sped towards her foe, and the haunting loveliness of Hammerwell's Salute to Spring went with her.

Seems Honor likes a spot of classical, and has decided to share with the crew in their final minutes.

Hamish Alexander's frown deepened. Reliant had been in Yeltsin space for over thirty minutes, and still Harrington's course held steady. She was still boring in for her hopeless fight, and that didn't make any sense at all.

He had four battlecruisers, supported by twelve lighter ships, and there was no way Saladin could outrun them with their initial velocity advantage. With that much firepower bearing down on her enemy, there was no sane reason for Harrington to keep coming this way. The separation was still too great for Saladin to range on her, but unless she broke off in the next ten minutes, that was going to change.

"Dear God." The hushed whisper came from Alice Truman, and Alexander looked at her. The Commander had gone bone-white, and her lips were bloodless.

"What is it, Commander?"

"She doesn't know we're here." Truman turned to him, her face tight. "She never got your message, My Lord. Her communications are out."

And the penny drops. I must be getting slow in my old age, it never before occurred to me to link Saladin with, well, Saladin. Well, Saladin had a reputation for being quite civilized, far more so than the Crusaders he fought so that adds a bit of bitter irony to the Masadans taking her and renaming her Thunder of God, their instrument of nuclear vengeance.

"Bring the division ninety degrees to starboard. I want broadside fire on Saladin right now."

"But—" Edwards began in shock, and Alexander cut him off harshly.

"Do it, Captain!"

"At once, My Lord!"

Byron Hunter looked sidelong at his admiral and cleared his throat.

"Sir, the range is over a hundred million klicks. There's no way we can score at—"

"I know the range, Byron," Alexander never turned away from his own display, "but it's all we've got. Maybe Harrington will pick them up on radar—if she still has radar—as they close. Or maybe Saladin's suffered sensor damage of her own. If she isn't trying to break off because she doesn't know we're here, either, maybe she will if we let her know we are. Hell, maybe we'll actually score on her if she holds her course!"

He looked up at last, and his chief of staff saw the despair in his eyes.

"It's all we've got," he repeated very, very softly as Battlecruiser Division 17 turned to open its broadsides and went to rapid fire.

Missile spam, the universal greeting when comms are down. Actually a bit surprised he didn't try calling Thunder in the hope they'd break off.

Their damaged jammers and decoys fought to blind and beguile the incoming fire, and they'd learned even more about Thunder's offensive fire control than Lieutenant Ash had learned about theirs. Three-quarters of the first broadside lost lock and veered away, and computer-commanded laser clusters quivered like questing hounds, pitting their minimal prediction time against the surviving laser heads' acquisition time.

Rods of coherent light picked off targets with desperate speed, but Fearless couldn't possibly stop them all, and she didn't. Most of those which got through wasted their fury against her impenetrable belly band, but a few raced across "above" and "below" her to attack her sidewalls. Damage alarms wailed again, men and women died, weapons were wiped away, but the cruiser shook off the damage and kept closing, and there was only silence on her bridge. Honor Harrington sat immovable in her command chair, shoulders squared, like an eye of calm at the heart of that silence, and watched her plot.

Hopefully ONI can put all that data to good use later. Anyways, here we go on the flaming death ride, ship shot full of holes.

Fearless rocked as a pair of lasers slashed into her port side.

"Missile Six and Laser Eight gone, Captain," Commander Brentworth reported. "Dr. Montoya reports Compartment Two-Forty open to space."

"Acknowledged." Honor closed her eye in pain, for Two-Forty had been converted into an emergency ward when the casualties spilled out of sickbay. She prayed the wounded's emergency environmental slips had saved some of them, but deep inside she knew most of those people had just died.

Ouch.

A proximity alarm flashed on Lieutenant Ash's panel, a warning buzzer wailed, and a shoal of crimson dots appeared on his radar display.

The lieutenant gaped at them. They were coming in at incredible speed, and they couldn't be there. They couldn't be there!

But they were. They'd come over a hundred million kilometers while Thunder of God moved to meet them, and their very lack of drive power had helped them evade all of Thunder's remaining passive sensors. Ash's radar had a maximum range against such small targets of just over a half million kilometers, and that was less than five seconds at their velocity.

"Missiles at three-five-two!" he cried, and Simonds' head jerked towards his secondary plot.
Only five of them were close enough to attack Thunder, and they no longer had any power to adjust their trajectories—but Thunder had held her undeviating course for over two hours. They raced across her bow and rolled on attitude thrusters, bringing their laser clusters to bear down the unprotected throat of her wedge, and all five of them detonated as one.

Thunder of God bucked like a mad thing as half a dozen lasers ripped into her port beam, and Matthew Simonds went white with horror as he saw the second incoming broadside racing down upon him.

"Hard a starboard!" he shouted.

The coxswain threw the helm hard over, wrenching Thunder's vulnerable bow away from the new menace, and Simonds felt a rush of relief.

Then he realized what he'd done.

"Belay that helm order!" he screamed.

I confess, I feel Admiral White Haven's message was somewhat lacking in the art and subtlety I've really come to expect from him. Yet, it does seem he's gotten the Sword's attention. Oh, and FYI Oh Mighty Sword of God, the drive-dead missiles are a much lesser threat than the CH in energy range. Bet you Captain Yu wouldn't have panicked that way.

Thunder was too slow on the helm, and he'd compounded his original mistake. He should have completed the turn, gotten around as quickly as he could to interpose his wounded port sidewall while he rolled to block with the top or belly of his wedge; instead, his helmsman obeyed the orders he'd been given, checking the turn to come back to port in the same plane, and Thunder hung for a few, short seconds bow-on to Fearless.

The battlecruiser's forward armament spat fire, two powerful spinal lasers blazing frantically at the target suddenly square across her bow. The first salvo wasted itself against the belly of Fearless's wedge, but the cruiser was rolling like a snake. Thunder fired again, pointblank energy fire ripped through her sidewall, and armor was no protection at that range. Air and debris vomited into space, but then her surviving broadside came to bear.

Four lasers and three far more powerful grasers went to continuous rapid fire, and there was no sidewall to stop them.

Matthew Simonds had one flaming instant to know he'd failed his God, and then HMS Fearless blew his ship apart around him.

Oopsies. Well, tell our Sword what he's won. "He gets to be remembered by the next dozen generations of Masadans as a colossal failure, the man responsible for their occupation by a foreign power.

Her emotionless detachment had appalled him . . . but then the report came in that Commander McKeon had somehow gotten almost a hundred of his crew away in his single surviving pinnace, and the mask had slipped. He'd seen her turn away, trying to hide the tears in her good eye, the way her shoulders shook, and he'd stepped between her and his staff to block their view and guard her secret as he realized this one was special. That her armor of detachment was so thick because the pain and grief behind it were so terrible.

McKeon's alright, and he even saved some of his crew. Mind, I think going by the British tradition he'll have to answer to a court-martial for losing his ship, but I think they'll give him a by on it.

His memory flickered ahead to another day—the day she'd watched in stone-faced silence as the men who'd raped and murdered Madrigal's crew faced a Grayson hangman. She hadn't enjoyed it, but she'd watched as unflinchingly as she'd headed into Saladin's broadside. Not for herself, but for the people who would never see it, and that unyielding determination to see justice done for them had completed his understanding of her.

The guys from Blackbird are tried, sentenced, and dance a fine jig 'tween heaven and Hell. I'm sure the outcome of the trial was deeply shocking to all.

He envied her. He was twice her age, with a career to make any man proud, including the freshly accomplished conquest of the Endicott System, yet he envied her.

Yeah, Masada is going to be a Manticoran protectorate for the foreseeable future. Good luck with that, guys.

"Indeed. You see, Captain, there've been a lot of dispatches flowing back and forth between Grayson and Manticore. Including," he let his smile fade, "a rather sharp protest from the Honorable Reginald Houseman."

Her steady regard never flickered.

"I regret to inform you, Captain, that the Lords of Admiralty have placed a letter of reprimand in your personnel file. Whatever the provocation, and I grant there was provocation, there is no excuse for a Queen's officer's physically attacking a civilian representative of the Crown. I trust it will never be necessary for me to remind you of that again?"

Minore problems compared to what would come later, but really? The man was outright hysterical and raving.

"You're an outstanding officer." Her sharply carved face blushed, but she didn't look away. "But you have the vices of your virtues, Captain Harrington. Direct action isn't always the best policy, and there are limits. Overstep them too often, whatever the provocation, and your career will end. I would consider that a tragedy, both for you and for the Queen's service. Don't let it happen."

She seems to have mostly taken the lesson to heart in subsequent books. Ignoring Field of Dishonor.

"I also have to inform you that a certain Captain Alfredo Yu, lately in the service of the People's Republic of Haven, was picked up in Endicott. He's requested asylum from the Crown." Harrington straightened in her chair, her eye very intent, and he nodded. "I'll be sending him home aboard your ship, Captain, and I expect you to show him the courtesy due his rank."

Yu gets political asylum in Manticore, having been picked up by Ham's little invasion force in his pinnace with his escaped crew.

"That completes what I needed to say to you, but I believe Protector Benjamin has something to say." Alexander turned politely to Grayson's ruler, and she followed suit.
"I do, indeed, Captain Harrington," Mayhew said with a smile. "My planet can never adequately thank you for what you did for us, but we are keenly aware of our debt, not simply to you but to your crews and your Kingdom, and we desire to express our gratitude in some tangible fashion. Accordingly, with Queen Elizabeth's permission through Sir Anthony, I ask you to sign our draft treaty of alliance in her name."

-snip-

"Thank you," Mayhew said softly, then waved a hand. "There are, however, two other small matters. With the benefits of our new relationship with Manticore, we expect to expand our orbital farms—and population—at a much faster rate, and the Chamber has, at my request, authorized the Grant in Organization of a new steading on our southernmost continent. With your permission, we intend to call it the Steading of Harrington, and I ask you to assume the office of its Steadholder for yourself and your heirs."

Honor's name winds up on the Manticore/Grayson treaty, and she gets made a Steadholder, one of the great lords of Grayson who're practically monarchs in their own right.

"But I'm a Queen's officer, Sir. I have other duties, other responsibilities."

"I realize that. With your permission, I intend to nominate a regent to see to the day-to-day affairs of your steading, but your title will be very real, Captain, and documents will be forwarded to you from time to time which will require your signature and authorization. Moreover, Yeltsin and Manticore aren't that far apart, and we hope to see you here often, though the Chamber fully realizes it will be impossible for you to personally govern your people. But aside from the income—which will be substantial, in a few years' time, and which the Chamber earnestly wishes you to have—there is a much more pressing reason for you to accept. You see, we need you."

"Need me, Sir?"

"Yes. Grayson faces tremendous changes over the next few decades, political and social as well as economic. You'll be the first woman in our history to hold land, but you won't be the last, and we need you as a model—and a challenge—as we bring our women fully into our society. And, if you'll forgive my frankness, your . . . determined personality and the fact that you're a prolong recipient means you'll be a very strong model for a very long time."

So there's a cynical political manipulation in there too, but she did just save the planet and is getting rewarded with a title, land, wealth and power.

"Sir Anthony? Would this even be legal under Manticoran law?"

"Normally, no." The ambassador's eyes gleamed with unmistakable delight. "In this instance, however, Her Majesty has personally authorized it. Moreover, the House of Lords has determined that your dignities as a noblewoman of a sovereign ally of the Kingdom will equate to those of an earl of the realm. Should you accept them—and Her Majesty's Government asks you to consider doing so most seriously—you will become Countess Harrington as well as Steadholder Harrington."

And a Countess in the Manticoran Peerage.

Honor obeyed, and the Protector extended his hand to Admiral Matthews, who drew a blood-red ribbon from a small, velvet case and draped it across his palm. An exquisitely wrought, many-rayed star of gold hung from its end, and the Protector shook the ribbon out almost reverently to display it.

"Captain Honor Harrington, it gives me more pleasure than I can possibly say, to present to you, in the name of the people of Grayson, the Star of Grayson, for heroism in the service of our world."

Honor inhaled and came to attention almost automatically, and Mayhew rose on his toes to loop the ribbon about her neck. He adjusted it with care, and the star's bright glory shone like a flame against her space-black tunic.

"This medal is our highest award for valor," he told her quietly. "Over the years, it has been worn by some truly extraordinary men, but never, I think, by one more extraordinary than the woman who has received it today."

The Star of Grayson. On the one hand, they really are heaping on the rewards, then again she did just save their whole planet and civilization.

"Kneel, please, Captain." The ambassador gestured to the cushion, and she obeyed as if in a dream. Steel rasped as he drew the shining blade, and McKeon retired a half-pace behind him with the sheath and came to attention.

"By the authority vested in me as Her Majesty's Ambassador to Grayson and by Her express commission, acting for and in Her stead and as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of King Roger," Langtry said in his deep voice, "I bestow upon you the rank, title, prerogatives, and duties of Knight Companion of the Order of King Roger." The glittering steel touched her right shoulder lightly, then her left, then back to her right once more while she stared up at him. Then he smiled and lowered the blade once more.

"Rise, Dame Honor," he said softly, "and may your future actions as faithfully uphold the honor of the Queen as your past."

And knighted, which I thought was less of an honor than a comte. Oh well. That ends Honor of the Queen.

[Terralthra]

Honor frowned as Ensign Wolcott picked off Saladin's first missiles. The battlecruiser was splitting her fire between Troubadour and Fearless, and that was the stupidest thing her captain had done yet. He ought to be concentrating his fire, not dispersing it! His opponents were lighter and far more fragile; by targeting both of them, he was robbing himself of his best chance to overwhelm them in detail.

Really, Simonds, I know it's your first outing in the new ship and all, but you were an officer before all this.

Sorta, but remember that in battles in the last war, with chemdrive missiles and no sidewalls to speak of, in most cases, a hit was a kill. Even now, at Orbital 4, Blackbird and First Yeltsin, a single hit was enough to kill or mission-kill the average Masadan or Grayson ship. If your experience of war is "a hit is a kill," spreading fire makes perfect sense.

He knew Ash and his people were almost as tired as he was, and they'd had to run their analyses with reference manuals almost literally in their laps. That was one reason he'd been willing to waste time trying to outmaneuver Harrington. He'd been fairly certain the attempt would fail, but he'd had no intention of reengaging until Ash had time to digest what he'd learned from the first clash.

Ah, I've been there many a time with car or computer troubles. Though I'm pretty sure Haven is paperless too.

Reference manuals on datapads are still reference manuals.

Once more, suckers! I do believe this is the series' first appearance of "Screamer" missiles that sacrifice warheads for the ability to throw up tons of interference and white noise, making counter-missile fire that much more interesting.

Dazzlers, you mean?

A quarter of her crew was dead or wounded, and Commander Brentworth had found a job at last. The Grayson officer manned the damage control net from the bridge, releasing Lieutenant Allgood, Lieutenant Commander Higgins' senior assistant, for other work, and Higgins needed him badly.

Fearless's entire after impeller ring was down, and her starboard broadside was reduced to a single graser and eight missile tubes. Almost worse, the combination of damaged magazines and seven minutes of maximum-rate fire had reduced her to less than a hundred missiles, and her sensors had been savagely mauled. Half her main radar, both secondary fire control arrays, and two-thirds of her passive sensors were gone. She could still see her enemy, but her best acceleration was barely a third of Saladin's until Higgins' vac-suited engineers restored her after impeller ring (if they could), and even then, she'd lost so many nodes she'd be down to barely two-point-eight KPS2. If the battlecruiser's captain guessed the truth, he could easily pull out and lose her. He'd already reopened the range to almost ninety-four million kilometers; if he opened it another two light-minutes, Honor wouldn't even be able to find him, much less fight him, without Troubadour to relay from the recon drones.

Extent of damage, casualties and ammo-depletion. We're not quite at the flying wreck stage, but getting there fast. Also, if I understand correctly she has no gravitics and can only spot a ship with radar within a 130 million km radius.

She has no long-range gravitic receivers or comms. She can obviously still spot Saladin at current range on gravitic sensors, but she can't receive drone feeds.

Neither of the maimed, half-blind ships any longer had the capability to look beyond the other even if they'd wanted to. And because they didn't, neither of them noted the wide-spaced hyper footprints as sixteen battlecruisers and their escorts suddenly emerged from hyper 23.76 light-minutes from Yeltsin's Star.

___________

"That's it, My Lord," Captain Edwards said. "Tracking's got good reads on both impeller signatures. That's the battlecruiser at three-one-four; the one at three-two-four has to be Fearless. There's no sign of Troubadour."

The cavalry, which can track and identify both ships at some range. How much is imprecise, and I don't particularly feel like trawling back to see how far from the sun Grayson is.

Grayson orbits at around 13.5 LM. The hyper limit for Yeltsin's Star is 23.76. Since Harrington intends to stop Simonds short of missile range on Grayson, they must be aiming to intercept at least a light-minute or so short of Grayson, but behind it and further away from White Haven's ships, so call it 11-12 LM?

Reliant's own division had come in with Grayson directly between them and Yeltsin, covering the most important arc of the half-circle, and the vectors projecting themselves across his plot told their own tale. Alexander's ships were not only ahead of the two warships on his plot but cutting their angle towards Grayson. That gave him an effective closing velocity of almost twenty thousand KPS, and the range to Saladin was barely twelve light-minutes, which meant Reliant would cross her course five-point-six light-minutes short of Grayson . . . and enter extreme missile range three minutes before that.

Ah, 12 light minutes range. At this point, there's no way Sword Simonds is going to manage to destroy Grayson, but he and Honor don't know that.

Mwa ha ha maths.

I confess, I feel Admiral White Haven's message was somewhat lacking in the art and subtlety I've really come to expect from him. Yet, it does seem he's gotten the Sword's attention. Oh, and FYI Oh Mighty Sword of God, the drive-dead missiles are a much lesser threat than the CH in energy range. Bet you Captain Yu wouldn't have panicked that way.

Really, if he was that concerned about the drive-dead broadsides, the thing to do would've been to pitch up or down and try to take the follow-up broadsides on the top/bottom wedge bands, not yaw to take them on the sidewalls.

Thunder was too slow on the helm, and he'd compounded his original mistake. He should have completed the turn, gotten around as quickly as he could to interpose his wounded port sidewall while he rolled to block with the top or belly of his wedge; instead, his helmsman obeyed the orders he'd been given, checking the turn to come back to port in the same plane, and Thunder hung for a few, short seconds bow-on to Fearless.

The battlecruiser's forward armament spat fire, two powerful spinal lasers blazing frantically at the target suddenly square across her bow. The first salvo wasted itself against the belly of Fearless's wedge, but the cruiser was rolling like a snake. Thunder fired again, pointblank energy fire ripped through her sidewall, and armor was no protection at that range. Air and debris vomited into space, but then her surviving broadside came to bear.

Four lasers and three far more powerful grasers went to continuous rapid fire, and there was no sidewall to stop them.

Matthew Simonds had one flaming instant to know he'd failed his God, and then HMS Fearless blew his ship apart around him.

Oopsies. Well, tell our Sword what he's won. "He gets to be remembered by the next dozen generations of Masadans as a colossal failure, the man responsible for their occupation by a foreign power.

Of note, the helmsman was a dipshit, too. More of the "highly-stressed culture" Simon pointed out: in the RMN or similar culture where subordinates are expected to think for themselves, no helmsman would've obeyed that order, they would've said, "Uh, sir..." or just done the Right Thing(tm) themselves. Only in a culture where disobedience = treason = death is "follow an obviously wrong and mass-suicidal order" the right thing to do.

Her emotionless detachment had appalled him . . . but then the report came in that Commander McKeon had somehow gotten almost a hundred of his crew away in his single surviving pinnace, and the mask had slipped. He'd seen her turn away, trying to hide the tears in her good eye, the way her shoulders shook, and he'd stepped between her and his staff to block their view and guard her secret as he realized this one was special. That her armor of detachment was so thick because the pain and grief behind it were so terrible.

McKeon's alright, and he even saved some of his crew. Mind, I think going by the British tradition he'll have to answer to a court-martial for losing his ship, but I think they'll give him a by on it.

I don't think it's tradition to court-martial any officer for losing their ship while following orders to engage a superior foe. Board of inquiry might - might - sit, like we see them sit at the beginning of FoD, but they're not going to return an indictment.

"Indeed. You see, Captain, there've been a lot of dispatches flowing back and forth between Grayson and Manticore. Including," he let his smile fade, "a rather sharp protest from the Honorable Reginald Houseman."

Her steady regard never flickered.

"I regret to inform you, Captain, that the Lords of Admiralty have placed a letter of reprimand in your personnel file. Whatever the provocation, and I grant there was provocation, there is no excuse for a Queen's officer's physically attacking a civilian representative of the Crown. I trust it will never be necessary for me to remind you of that again?"

Minore problems compared to what would come later, but really? The man was outright hysterical and raving.

Physical assault on a civilian who is also the diplomatic representative of the monarch? Yeah, that's not ok. A letter of reprimand is, however, a very minor thing, compared to demotion, stripping of command, etc. It's a wrist-slap.

"Kneel, please, Captain." The ambassador gestured to the cushion, and she obeyed as if in a dream. Steel rasped as he drew the shining blade, and McKeon retired a half-pace behind him with the sheath and came to attention.

"By the authority vested in me as Her Majesty's Ambassador to Grayson and by Her express commission, acting for and in Her stead and as Knight Grand Cross of the Order of King Roger," Langtry said in his deep voice, "I bestow upon you the rank, title, prerogatives, and duties of Knight Companion of the Order of King Roger." The glittering steel touched her right shoulder lightly, then her left, then back to her right once more while she stared up at him. Then he smiled and lowered the blade once more.

"Rise, Dame Honor," he said softly, "and may your future actions as faithfully uphold the honor of the Queen as your past."

And knighted, which I thought was less of an honor than a comte. Oh well. That ends Honor of the Queen.

Oh, I'm sure in the grand scheme of things, a hereditary peerage is more of an honor than a knighthood, but being made a knight - specifically and explicitly for valor in battle and upholding her duties in the name of her Queen - is a bigger deal to Honor.

[Simon_Jester]

[Honor makes sure her crew has plenty to eat and is rested]

This is an interesting contrast to the situation aboard the Masadan ship. There's a passage later, during a break in the missile engagement:

Harrington had turned away enough to extend his closure time, and he gritted his teeth as the long, exquisite tension tore at his nerves. She'd played her games with him for fourteen hours now, and he'd been on Thunder's bridge continuously for forty-five, broken only by brief, fitful naps. Now his stomach was awash with acid and too much coffee, and he wanted it to end.

So yeah, this is yet another way that we see the difference between a competent, confident military commander and one who is making lots of mistakes. Harrington is making sure her crews are well taken care of, and that she herself is getting an adequate amount of rest and nutrition. Simonds is messing this part up, trying to stay awake, or unable to sleep which is just about as bad, and as a result he's pounding his own decision-making process into junk. His subordinate officers are probably doing more or less the same thing.

This tends to support my characterization of Masada as a 'high pressure' culture. The Manticorans know they're doing something very dangerous, but they also have the discipline and sense of perspective that they can relax so they'll be fit and ready when the real trial of skill comes. The Masadans... can't do that. They can't relax, even when that would help them achieve their goal, because it is Too Important that they Work Hard in the Eyes of the Lord.

And captains who die wishing they had the breath to scream make crews nervous too. Well, I guess that's one way to project an air of calm invulnerability.

In this case, there's no way Honor needs to suit up before the first missile gets within engagement range of her ship, and that's not going to happen for some minutes yet. It's actually very common in naval tradition for officers to knowingly expose themselves to the dangers the ship faces, simply to reassure the crew that they are calm and prepared to deal with it.

Honor does suit up when it's appropriate to do so, but not suiting up well ahead of time is a reasonable measure of theatrics in my opinion.

In other words, bringing a cruiser and a destroyer against a BC isn't likely to end well. Sword Simond's inexperience is showing, and notice how the heroes react to the enemy acting like an idiot by worrying, at least a bit, while the villains always just assume the heroes are idiots and leave it at that?

Could you expand on what you mean by that? I can imagine that being a flaw in Weber's story, but I need specific examples to sink my teeth into.

"The enemy has returned fire." Lieutenant Ash's voice was taut. "Flight time one-seven-niner seconds. Tracking reports sixteen incoming, Sir."

Simonds nodded acknowledgment. Thunder had an advantage of two tubes, as well as his heavier missiles. He hoped it would be enough.

16 bird broadside from Fearless and Troub, and Saladin appears to have an 18 missile broadside.

Hm. That's odd, I'd pegged Troubadour as a Chanson-class, three tubes according to the tech bible, and a Star Knight like Fearless has twelve. I must have been wrong about that part. The most likely explanation is that Troubadour is in fact a later (or earlier) class of destroyer with four missile tubes; in real life, just because the lead ship of a class is 'music-themed' doesn't mean all the others will be.

Heck, Troubadour might even be like Nike, a name that's been bouncing around the fleet indefinitely.

Really, Simonds, I know it's your first outing in the new ship and all, but you were an officer before all this.

Yes, but he's the equivalent of an infantry general trained to fight with blackpowder muskets, suddenly expected to adopt to a modern world of machine guns, artillery, radios, and precision-guided missiles. For an example of how badly this can go, see here:

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 9#p3306619

[The Salvation War stories have a lot of faults and are no longer exactly popular here on SDN, but this particular chapter was a good illustration of what happens when Robert E. Lee, master Civil War general returned from the dead, tries to fight in a modern military exercise. He gets his ass kicked. Repeatedly.]

While we're at it, I'm not sure Masada really has what we'd recognize as a military staff- their leadership structure may actually be more primitive, such that officer training is a bit haphazard. For a (possibly partly inaccurate but still interesting) take on how national culture can affect military competence, see "Why Arabs Lose Wars,", an article claiming to analyze the cultural reasons why Middle Eastern militaries have performed poorly since WWII. That's an example, mind you, not some kind of ironclad certain truth, but you get the idea.

Make that 6:1, and the Sword of God decides discretion is the better part of valor.

Seven to one; they got hit six times, then got hit again. Simonds should have bulled in, we've established that- but given his earlier decision to fight a missile engagement, it's actually reasonable that he'd break off. He needs time to reconsider his tactics, and since he's totally ignorant of modern weapons, he'll have to reason everything out from first principles... which is pretty much what he does, and he doesn't really do too badly given his (extreme) limitations.

He knew Ash and his people were almost as tired as he was, and they'd had to run their analyses with reference manuals almost literally in their laps. That was one reason he'd been willing to waste time trying to outmaneuver Harrington. He'd been fairly certain the attempt would fail, but he'd had no intention of reengaging until Ash had time to digest what he'd learned from the first clash.

Ah, I've been there many a time with car or computer troubles. Though I'm pretty sure Haven is paperless too.

For one, the Masadans aren't, so one of the first things they'd have done when training with the Havenites is print out the PDF-equivalents that the Havenites use for manuals, so they have something they're comfortable with to study. I imagine that Ash and people like him actually spend a lot of time studying paper manuals and so on, if they can manage it.

For another, having the manual up on a secondary screen or a laptop/pad/whatever while still operating the main tactical console still counts as "reference manual in your lap." Especially to someone like Simonds.

"Defensively, their decoys and jammers are very good, but their counter missiles and point defense lasers are only a little better than our own, and we've gotten good reads on their decoy emissions and updated our missiles' exclusion files. I think we'll be able to compensate for them to a much larger extent in the next engagement."

Fields of Manticoran superiority to Have tech.

Also, Havenite ability to adapt to Manticoran technical advantages. An experienced Havenite tactical crew would have been doing this on the fly; the Masadans needed to take a long break from the battle to figure everything out. This is probably one of the reasons Manticore couldn't steamroll Havenite fleets, even with their 'superior technology,' during the 1905-1912 timeframe. The better missile technology is nice and all, but it only goes so far, because the Havenites DO have their own computers and people who can figure out the Manticoran tricks. Even if they can't duplicate them, they can program their own systems to ignore them.

And here we go. Unable to run the EW portions as well as a proper crew, they set up several canned routines and a computer program to switch between them. It's tons less flexible, and as we'll see dangerously predictable, but it probably really was the best they could do to where the alternative was an inexperienced and largely clueless officer plinking randomly at computer keys.

Sadly for them, lots of semi-independent things, like drones, recon platforms and missiles, operate on canned routines in the absence of instructions from an operator, making "spot the pattern" a favored game of tactical officers everywhere.

Although realistically, the computers would be doing that spotting game better than humans, because a computer is much better than a human at going "hey, this complicated sequence of radar jamming signals resets to the same position every five minutes."

Privately I suspect that the canned routines were originally an emergency measure for the Havenite programmers that designed the ship's ECM systems. Basically, "in case of tactical officer having a heart attack, break glass," designed only to allow the ship to keep using its ECM at all for a few minutes while someone else restores human oversight.

Saladin carried far more ammunition, and she was using it ruthlessly. Honor longed to reply in kind, for Fearless mounted the new Mod 7b launcher, with a cycle time of only eleven seconds. She could have pumped out twenty percent more fire than Saladin—but only while her ammo lasted, and the range was too long for her to burn through it that way.

Though they're already upgrading their capability for rapid-fire.

Also, cruiserweight missiles are physically lighter and easier to sling around, so it's easier to make them rapid-fire weapons.

He tore his eyes from that display to check missile defense, and his heart rose still higher. Ash's prerecorded ECM programs were performing much better than he'd hoped. Ten of the incoming missiles lost lock and veered away, seeking Thunder's own decoys, and counter missiles and lasers easily burned down the six that held their course.

And it lets his best people focus on the offense side of things. Still, there is that niggling disadvantage.

Also note that even the 'crude' Havenite defenses, under suboptimal conditions with an inexperienced crew, are still quite capable of handling a sixteen-missile salvo and jamming away or shooting down every one of those missiles.

This sort of thing is why missiles were so widely viewed as indecisive in the 19th century PD. Any given ship had enough missile defense to block missile offense, even with the laser head in play. It was just plain impossible to score numerous, reliable missile hits, with the weight of fire available to an enemy of equal tonnage.

To beat that you need point defense saturation. Hm. If only there were a way to kick a whole boatload of missiles out into space, more of them than a given ship could have missile tubes, and fire them all at once...

Fearless loses some impeller capability and comms.

...That's the second book in a row that they lost the comm section. Somehow I suspect Weber does this partly, partly because comms are expendable during a battle as long as you can still see and shoot, so it lets him kill crewmen in big lots without impairing the ship's fighting power.

Although this time it has plot consequences.

Once more, suckers! I do believe this is the series' first appearance of "Screamer" missiles that sacrifice warheads for the ability to throw up tons of interference and white noise, making counter-missile fire that much more interesting.

This is pretty much the same trick Rafe pulled against Sirius in the last book- using the lead missile of a salvo (in that case, a salvo of two) to cover the approach of the other(s).

End round two, with Troubador out and both Fearless and Saladin/Thunder gravely wounded and fleeing the scene to come at this from another angle again. Tune in next time for the third and final round.

Note that the effects of the hit on Thunder give us a sense of how big and nasty a megaton-range nuclear strike is on an Honorverse warship (pretty darn nasty). Also, again, the observation that missiles have no chance of getting close enough to use such a warhead under normal conditions- hence the laser head, which allows the missile to strike with at least a few percent of its warhead's total power, from far enough away to have a prayer of getting into attack range intact.

[Forgothrax]

And this is the part where the books start showing the signs of jumping the shark, alas. Honor going from merely a truly talented and lucky commander to admired by most of the Graysons (except the designated antagonists) and possessed of multiple titles of nobility. It's not the first time that we're reminded that Honor is super-special, but this is the part where it starts to grate.

Mind you, it makes some sense IC, but when Honor in the future climbs the noble ladder with astonishing speed... my suspension of disbelief is not only overloaded, but it really starts to get irritating.

[Terralthra]

And this is the part where the books start showing the signs of jumping the shark, alas. Honor going from merely a truly talented and lucky commander to admired by most of the Graysons (except the designated antagonists) and possessed of multiple titles of nobility. It's not the first time that we're reminded that Honor is super-special, but this is the part where it starts to grate.

Mind you, it makes some sense IC, but when Honor in the future climbs the noble ladder with astonishing speed... my suspension of disbelief is not only overloaded, but it really starts to get irritating.

Err...after this book, Honor doesn't gain any titles of nobility, nor significant medals in the RMN until just after her return from presumed (and evidenced, in fact) death in Ashes of Victory. She also doesn't get promoted here, nor does she get promoted again in RMN service until In Enemy Hands. She gets a major promotion in Flag in Exile when she takes service with the GSN, but she's hardly unique in that. As late as Ashes of Victory, we see RMN junior-grade captains and commanders holding flags in the GSN (Rear Admiral Aristides Trikoupis, e.g.). She also receives another big medal in that book, I suppose, but hardly unreasonable in the circumstances.

In RMN service, she got promoted to Captain of the List at the end of On Basilisk Station and holds that rank from 1901 P.D. to 1911 P.D. Ten years in-grade is not a meteoric rise. In fact, it's a slow rise for someone who is in as many battles and comes out on top as often as she does. Many of her command-level compatriots earn their flag before she does.

Hm. That's odd, I'd pegged Troubadour as a Chanson-class, three tubes according to the tech bible, and a Star Knight like Fearless has twelve. I must have been wrong about that part. The most likely explanation is that Troubadour is in fact a later (or earlier) class of destroyer with four missile tubes; in real life, just because the lead ship of a class is 'music-themed' doesn't mean all the others will be.

Troubadour is a Chanson-class, with 3 tubes. Which is problematic, since Fearless is 100% a Star Knight-class heavy cruiser, with 12 broadside tubes, for a total of 15, of which Troubadour is 1/5, not 1/4. But the book clearly depicts 16-missile broadsides, so it's pretty obviously a mistake on Weber's part. We could rationalize it as a refit of an additional tube onto Troubadour, but it seems pretty glaringly in error.

[SMJB]

[The Salvation War stories have a lot of faults and are no longer exactly popular here on SDN, but this particular chapter was a good illustration of what happens when Robert E. Lee, master Civil War general returned from the dead, tries to fight in a modern military exercise. He gets his ass kicked. Repeatedly.]

I always rather enjoyed The Salvation War. Sure, it has all the drama of a wet sponge, but it's rather cathartic. It is, quite literally, a story of the forces of science, rationality, and humanity not just triumphing over the forces of superstition and fear but decimating them utterly.

[Simon_Jester]

So I went back through the tech bible, House of Steel, and I think the BuNine writers who handled it must have screwed up. The only RMN destroyer class with four tubes is the Noblesse-class, which is the oldest, smallest one still in service- over eighty years old as of 1903 PD, and of the same generation as the original Fearless. Do you recall any references to McKeon's destroyer being unusually small or old?

And Yu's crew is right in retrospect, it was still a stupid idea to bring so many people aboard with no ability to survive if the ship took a hit.

Debateable- having that bounty of troops ( ) aboard ensured a quick Masadan victory in the attempt to seize the ship, and may have provided additional semi-trained manpower for the Masadans to operate the ship. Sure, it means a lot of casualties, but honestly this is a do-or-die operation for their whole planet. So the loss of a few hundred more lives is practically meaningless if it gives them an even slightly greater chance of success.

The big Masadan mistake here was not providing vacuum suits for the commandos, but they may simply not have had time to fit and supply all those suits in the time available, since "OK, we grab control of Thunder and use it to wreck Grayson" is actually an emergency plan they're throwing together on short notice.

Thunder's damage. Haven has some pretty decent files on RMN classes.

Since Manticoran naval strength is a matter of public record because of the budget disputes, and since Haven can make pretty reliable guesses as to the physical size of the missiles and the physical size of a Star Knight's hull, it's not hard to make an educated guess about how many missiles the ship can carry. This isn't really different from Honor knowing what the Havenites' ground defense launchers are capable of.

So it seems they can see out the belly band well enough to track a ship, but it's harder to run missile defense. And missiles don't have to throw themselves uselessly against thee belly band, a few degrees to one side and they're good.

Right- although that forces them to pivot sideways and fire off their warhead during a very narrow window of time when the missile's nose is aimed at the enemy. This is inherently harder to do, and requires precise knowledge of the enemy's exact position within the wedge... which is hard to get when you're looking at them through the impeller bands.

The plan, it's not a great plan but it's the best hope they have for taking out a BC with a cruiser, before it gets close enough to nuke Grayson.

Also, this suggests that at such a range (comparable to the standoff range of a laser head) shipboard energy weapons are MUCH more effective than either the X-ray beam from a laser head, or even a point blank hit from a nuclear warhead.

Thunder's sidewalls and armor plate were enough to pretty well shrug off hits from Fearless's laser-head missiles (which I think we figured must be in the ~100-500 kiloton range). A couple of nuclear blasts (mid- to high megatons) pretty well burned away the side of the battlecruiser facing them, but didn't penetrate the core hull and wreck the power plants and control centers.

Fearless's lasers and/or grasers, on the other hand, are expected to do exactly that. Especially the grasers, I'm betting, which probably have better penetration characteristics against modern "face-mirrored" armor that I strongly suspect is anti-laser in character.

Note that this does NOT imply that the beam weapons carry more raw energy than a nuclear explosion; it could equally well mean that they are more tightly focused- a beam weapon that concentrates twenty kilotons of energy onto a circle a few meters wide is far more dangerous than a missile warhead that disperses twenty megatons of energy into a zone a kilometer across.

Nevertheless, we can safely say that Honorverse shipboard energy weapons are expected to penetrate an armored, shielded target more effectively than a nearby nuclear explosion would, although not necessarily better than a nuke would in direct contact with the enemy's hull.

"That's it, My Lord," Captain Edwards said. "Tracking's got good reads on both impeller signatures. That's the battlecruiser at three-one-four; the one at three-two-four has to be Fearless. There's no sign of Troubadour."

The cavalry, which can track and identify both ships at some range. How much is imprecise, and I don't particularly feel like trawling back to see how far from the sun Grayson is.

They may also be able to tap into the FTL comm network and sensor platforms Honor has seeded throughout the system, and they can certainly cross-reference between multiple sensor platforms among the sixteen ships of White Haven's command for the "do you see what I think I see?" stuff, and to act as a 'very large array' to improve sensor resolution.

Hamish Alexander's frown deepened. Reliant had been in Yeltsin space for over thirty minutes, and still Harrington's course held steady. She was still boring in for her hopeless fight, and that didn't make any sense at all.

He had four battlecruisers, supported by twelve lighter ships, and there was no way Saladin could outrun them with their initial velocity advantage. With that much firepower bearing down on her enemy, there was no sane reason for Harrington to keep coming this way. The separation was still too great for Saladin to range on her, but unless she broke off in the next ten minutes, that was going to change.

"Dear God." The hushed whisper came from Alice Truman, and Alexander looked at her. The Commander had gone bone-white, and her lips were bloodless.

"What is it, Commander?"

"She doesn't know we're here." Truman turned to him, her face tight. "She never got your message, My Lord. Her communications are out."

And the penny drops. I must be getting slow in my old age, it never before occurred to me to link Saladin with, well, Saladin. Well, Saladin had a reputation for being quite civilized, far more so than the Crusaders he fought so that adds a bit of bitter irony to the Masadans taking her and renaming her Thunder of God, their instrument of nuclear vengeance.

Other side-notes: Reliant is the class leader for the RMN's newest battlecruiser type, roughly 10% bigger and heavier than the (century-older) Redoubtables that still make up a plurality of the fleet. White Haven's got a plum assignment there.

Missile spam, the universal greeting when comms are down. Actually a bit surprised he didn't try calling Thunder in the hope they'd break off.

So am I, not that Simonds would have listened or even responded, I think. Does Thunder still have intact comms at this point in the battle?

"Acknowledged." Honor closed her eye in pain, for Two-Forty had been converted into an emergency ward when the casualties spilled out of sickbay. She prayed the wounded's emergency environmental slips had saved some of them, but deep inside she knew most of those people had just died.

Ouch.

Though good on them for having some kind of 'environmental slip' they can put around a patient's hospital bed to protect them from decompression, even if it has limits.

Thunder of God bucked like a mad thing as half a dozen lasers ripped into her port beam, and Matthew Simonds went white with horror as he saw the second incoming broadside racing down upon him.

"Hard a starboard!" he shouted.

The coxswain threw the helm hard over, wrenching Thunder's vulnerable bow away from the new menace, and Simonds felt a rush of relief.

Then he realized what he'd done.

"Belay that helm order!" he screamed.

I confess, I feel Admiral White Haven's message was somewhat lacking in the art and subtlety I've really come to expect from him. Yet, it does seem he's gotten the Sword's attention. Oh, and FYI Oh Mighty Sword of God, the drive-dead missiles are a much lesser threat than the CH in energy range. Bet you Captain Yu wouldn't have panicked that way.

It doesn't help that those missiles are hitting Simonds' port side, the one where the sidewalls and armor are pretty much toast because of Rafe Cardones nuking the hell out of them earlier. Simonds' entire engagement profile is based on protecting his badly damaged port side, and now it's getting mauled by invisible kamikaze attack missiles from nowhere.

McKeon's alright, and he even saved some of his crew. Mind, I think going by the British tradition he'll have to answer to a court-martial for losing his ship, but I think they'll give him a by on it.

As others have noted, I think it more likely that there will be a board of inquiry that finds no grounds for a court-martial.

Minor problems compared to what would come later, but really? The man was outright hysterical and raving.

Nevertheless, civilian envoy of the Crown. Have security escort him out, maybe. Have medical sedate him if he's uncontrollable, maybe. Smack him in the face? No.

The Star of Grayson. On the one hand, they really are heaping on the rewards, then again she did just save their whole planet and civilization.

The Star is entirely in order; it's the Steadholdership that's the real surprise. The main reason it can happen, I think, is the expansion of settled lands on Grayson which means that entire new Steadholderships can be carved out of the wilderness.

I actually wonder if there were any other new Steadholderships created during this period in Grayson history- there being several makes it more plausible that the Conclave would agree to grant one of them to Harrington, because the 'deserving' local candidates would also be able to get one.

And knighted, which I thought was less of an honor than a comte. Oh well. That ends Honor of the Queen.

It is, but it's a good capstone. Being knighted and being nobility are not the same thing, especially when it comes to being knighted in specific orders, which are often small, selective, and run by the monarch.

[Simon_Jester]

Sorta, but remember that in battles in the last war, with chemdrive missiles and no sidewalls to speak of, in most cases, a hit was a kill. Even now, at Orbital 4, Blackbird and First Yeltsin, a single hit was enough to kill or mission-kill the average Masadan or Grayson ship. If your experience of war is "a hit is a kill," spreading fire makes perfect sense.

Right. Basically, Masada and Grayson have at least rudimentary gravitic propulsion, but are entirely ignorant of modern industrial nanotech and what it implies for materials science. I wouldn't be surprised if a typical modern hull is an order of magnitude tougher than an equal-tonnage Grayson hull would be.

And this is the part where the books start showing the signs of jumping the shark, alas. Honor going from merely a truly talented and lucky commander to admired by most of the Graysons (except the designated antagonists) and possessed of multiple titles of nobility. It's not the first time that we're reminded that Honor is super-special, but this is the part where it starts to grate.

Mind you, it makes some sense IC, but when Honor in the future climbs the noble ladder with astonishing speed... my suspension of disbelief is not only overloaded, but it really starts to get irritating.

The signs are there- but if Weber had been careful he could have spun it out a lot longer without there being problems. The real moments at which things start going wrong are when Honor becomes an unstoppable warrior in personal combat, first in pistol duels (Field of Dishonor) then with swords of all things, which she is explicitly NOT trained for (Flag in Exile).

Even then, Weber showed signs of getting things back to sanity again in Honor among Enemies, and actually had the balls to show Honor LOSING (under unfavorable conditions) and the Peeps accomplishing something smart and dangerous in In Enemy Hands. Things started going irredeemably bad in Echoes of Honor, which is where we see the first signs fo the Unstoppable Manticoran Superweapon bug, and simultaneously where we see Honor developing truly absurd levels of plot armor to exploit rather contrived limitations in the setup of the prison camp she's busting out of.

After that, in Ashes of Victory and on, things go semi-irreversibly downhill, because she's now a national idol with wonderful luxurious homes on TWO planets, and with no real domestic enemies except those who are deliberately presented as useless spiteful idiots.

Troubadour is a Chanson-class, with 3 tubes. Which is problematic, since Fearless is 100% a Star Knight-class heavy cruiser, with 12 broadside tubes, for a total of 15, of which Troubadour is 1/5, not 1/4. But the book clearly depicts 16-missile broadsides, so it's pretty obviously a mistake on Weber's part. We could rationalize it as a refit of an additional tube onto Troubadour, but it seems pretty glaringly in error.

To be specific, if you ask me, the tech bible is wrong, because it was published nearly twenty years after Honor of the Queen.

If Honor of the Queen says that Troubador fires four missiles per broadside, then it's up to the tech bible writers (Weber possibly included, but he explicitly acknowledged a lot of help with House of Steel) to get it right in the much later book.

Or that's my approach.

[Ahriman238]

Something I miss from the later series is as the battles grow in size the humanity of these small scale engagements gets lost. Here at least and later in Shadows we get that sense that things are happening. Each time a hit pounds in and wipes away a chunk of firepower. Each causality report means someone we "know" (Despite not knowing their names) is lost. It's something the last Harrington books totally like since the lead up to a fleet engagement is twenty pages, the fight itself less than two and it's over. There were less pages devoted to the second battle of Manticore than Honor's mother flirting with people in the same book.

I know what you mean, from here on out it's all fleet engagements where that personal feeling is really lost.

Really, if he was that concerned about the drive-dead broadsides, the thing to do would've been to pitch up or down and try to take the follow-up broadsides on the top/bottom wedge bands, not yaw to take them on the sidewalls.

Man was pretty clearly panicking.

Dazzlers, you mean?

Right, those.

Also, Havenite ability to adapt to Manticoran technical advantages. An experienced Havenite tactical crew would have been doing this on the fly; the Masadans needed to take a long break from the battle to figure everything out. This is probably one of the reasons Manticore couldn't steamroll Havenite fleets, even with their 'superior technology,' during the 1905-1912 timeframe. The better missile technology is nice and all, but it only goes so far, because the Havenites DO have their own computers and people who can figure out the Manticoran tricks. Even if they can't duplicate them, they can program their own systems to ignore them.

Absolutely. Haven has numbers and if Manticoran tech is usually a bit ahead, largely because of miniaturization, Haven can usually counter and sometimes one-up every trick the Manties pull.

Although realistically, the computers would be doing that spotting game better than humans, because a computer is much better than a human at going "hey, this complicated sequence of radar jamming signals resets to the same position every five minutes."

My understanding of the process, both from here and the Service of the Sword, is the Tac officer goes "huh, something odd here." sets the computer to record/analyze. The computer confirms a predictable canned routine, and the officer exploits.

Privately I suspect that the canned routines were originally an emergency measure for the Havenite programmers that designed the ship's ECM systems. Basically, "in case of tactical officer having a heart attack, break glass," designed only to allow the ship to keep using its ECM at all for a few minutes while someone else restores human oversight.

It actually seems like the Masadans devised the canned routines during the break between rounds one and two, and based on their data from that fight. Likely a Haven officer wouldn't use the routines in the first place but could randomize the starting point if he did.

In other words, bringing a cruiser and a destroyer against a BC isn't likely to end well. Sword Simond's inexperience is showing, and notice how the heroes react to the enemy acting like an idiot by worrying, at least a bit, while the villains always just assume the heroes are idiots and leave it at that?

Could you expand on what you mean by that? I can imagine that being a flaw in Weber's story, but I need specific examples to sink my teeth into.

Having trouble with specific examples, but there are a bunch of points where the Manticorans do something seemingly moronic because they have a tech advantage the opposition doesn't know about, or a second fleet element lying doggo and the Havenites just dismiss it as panic or idiocy.

Operation Buttercup, when White Haven starts firing from well outside missile range. Second Yeltsin where Honor was trying to present the image of a moron with pod-heavy battlecruisers instead of a calculating opponent with souped-drive SDs. I'm sure there are a bunch more in the mid-to-late series but I'm blanking on the details. Oh, and any time a senior Sollie officer opens his mouth. Ever.

So yeah, this is yet another way that we see the difference between a competent, confident military commander and one who is making lots of mistakes. Harrington is making sure her crews are well taken care of, and that she herself is getting an adequate amount of rest and nutrition. Simonds is messing this part up, trying to stay awake, or unable to sleep which is just about as bad, and as a result he's pounding his own decision-making process into junk. His subordinate officers are probably doing more or less the same thing.

Five days ago Honor's physician had to sedate her so she'd rest. She does try to keep her crew rested, fed and ready, and Mac nags her into eating herself. Still, I doubt it's that easy to catch some sack time a few hours before a vastly more powerful ship enters weapon range.

Err...after this book, Honor doesn't gain any titles of nobility, nor significant medals in the RMN until just after her return from presumed (and evidenced, in fact) death in Ashes of Victory. She also doesn't get promoted here, nor does she get promoted again in RMN service until In Enemy Hands.

Well, after she returned from the grave they made her a Duchess, but really she lost the right to stand for her comte in book 4, and ELizabeth (who seemed happy just to tweak the noses of the people who barred her in the first place) claimed the upgrade was because they'd underestimated just how wealthy and powerful a Steadholder is and given her a lesser title than Grayson.

I always rather enjoyed The Salvation War. Sure, it has all the drama of a wet sponge, but it's rather cathartic. It is, quite literally, a story of the forces of science, rationality, and humanity not just triumphing over the forces of superstition and fear but decimating them utterly.

There were good moments. Mostly I remember groaning at the one angel who was able to secure a magically-binding promise from Michael that he'd :get what's coming to him." and didn't think that was an ominous turn of phrase at all.

I actually wonder if there were any other new Steadholderships created during this period in Grayson history- there being several makes it more plausible that the Conclave would agree to grant one of them to Harrington, because the 'deserving' local candidates would also be able to get one.

According to Protector Benjamin when he invests her, Harrington Steading is one of many new ones that will be arising with the help of Manticoran industry, but he wanted her to be first, so she could serve as a role model to Grayson woman and a symbol of the all the changes the Mayhew Restoration will be bringing.

As others have noted, I think it more likely that there will be a board of inquiry that finds no grounds for a court-martial.

Right, automatic board, not an automatic court-martial.

So am I, not that Simonds would have listened or even responded, I think. Does Thunder still have intact comms at this point in the battle?

It's not stated to be out. Still something to try, but the missiles worked out just fine and better than Ham probably could have hoped.

[Terralthra]

And this is the part where the books start showing the signs of jumping the shark, alas. Honor going from merely a truly talented and lucky commander to admired by most of the Graysons (except the designated antagonists) and possessed of multiple titles of nobility. It's not the first time that we're reminded that Honor is super-special, but this is the part where it starts to grate.

Mind you, it makes some sense IC, but when Honor in the future climbs the noble ladder with astonishing speed... my suspension of disbelief is not only overloaded, but it really starts to get irritating.

The signs are there- but if Weber had been careful he could have spun it out a lot longer without there being problems. The real moments at which things start going wrong are when Honor becomes an unstoppable warrior in personal combat, first in pistol duels (Field of Dishonor) then with swords of all things, which she is explicitly NOT trained for (Flag in Exile).

I'm not particularly annoyed by the sword-fighting. This is someone who's been intensely training in physical hand-to-hand combat for 30+ years when she picks up a Grayson katana for the first time (Academy from 1874-1848 PD, Flag in Exile takes place around 1907). People who have been studying martial arts under the tutelage of active-combat marines for multiple decades are dangeous, dangerous people. I really don't think it's that unreasonable for an extremely dangerous physical combatant with genetically enhanced reflexes, strength, and speed to be able to pick up a weapon and use it effectively.

After that, in Ashes of Victory and on, things go semi-irreversibly downhill, because she's now a national idol with wonderful luxurious homes on TWO planets, and with no real domestic enemies except those who are deliberately presented as useless spiteful idiots.

I find this interesting, because I think that the books after Echoes of Honor are where a lot of things get pretty interesting, because she's a political figure of some reputation on multiple planets. Her problems are not solvable by finding the largest nearby concentration of enemy ships and blowing them up, and her possible actions to address the problems are constrained by her public image (and the politics of the situation).

Also, (semi-spoilers) Honor was supposed to die in At All Costs. At Second Manticore, she was supposed to die, unretconably. From how Weber describes it, she was always going to die around then, and the Mesan antagonists introduced in later books were going to be taken on by her children some decades down the line. However, the use of the Mesans as antagonists in Crown of Slaves moved the timeline up enough that there was no plausible way to have her children be fighting them, so he rejiggered Second Manticore to have Honor survive. No doubt, there's some personal attachment to the character going on there as well.

Troubadour is a Chanson-class, with 3 tubes. Which is problematic, since Fearless is 100% a Star Knight-class heavy cruiser, with 12 broadside tubes, for a total of 15, of which Troubadour is 1/5, not 1/4. But the book clearly depicts 16-missile broadsides, so it's pretty obviously a mistake on Weber's part. We could rationalize it as a refit of an additional tube onto Troubadour, but it seems pretty glaringly in error.

To be specific, if you ask me, the tech bible is wrong, because it was published nearly twenty years after Honor of the Queen.

If Honor of the Queen says that Troubador fires four missiles per broadside, then it's up to the tech bible writers (Weber possibly included, but he explicitly acknowledged a lot of help with House of Steel) to get it right in the much later book.

Or that's my approach.

Agreed. The Tech Bible is, to me, like the TM of TNG. If it jives with the show, sure, I'll go for it. If not, sorry, but the show stands as is.

[Simon_Jester]

Although realistically, the computers would be doing that spotting game better than humans, because a computer is much better than a human at going "hey, this complicated sequence of radar jamming signals resets to the same position every five minutes."

My understanding of the process, both from here and the Service of the Sword, is the Tac officer goes "huh, something odd here." sets the computer to record/analyze. The computer confirms a predictable canned routine, and the officer exploits.

More realistically the computer would be doing this continuously, and the tactical officer's job is to weed out the false positives, which the enemy might well deliberately generate to fool you- say, deliberately repeating the same pattern three times, then breaking pattern on the fourth try to sucker you into attempting to exploit a vulnerability that isn't there.

Privately I suspect that the canned routines were originally an emergency measure for the Havenite programmers that designed the ship's ECM systems. Basically, "in case of tactical officer having a heart attack, break glass," designed only to allow the ship to keep using its ECM at all for a few minutes while someone else restores human oversight.

It actually seems like the Masadans devised the canned routines during the break between rounds one and two, and based on their data from that fight. Likely a Haven officer wouldn't use the routines in the first place but could randomize the starting point if he did.

Also possible. Or possible that the Masadans could have randomized, but didn't think to try, not being familiar with ECCM competent enough to analyze such a pattern and exploit a weak spot.

Having trouble with specific examples, but there are a bunch of points where the Manticorans do something seemingly moronic because they have a tech advantage the opposition doesn't know about, or a second fleet element lying doggo and the Havenites just dismiss it as panic or idiocy.

Operation Buttercup, when White Haven starts firing from well outside missile range. Second Yeltsin where Honor was trying to present the image of a moron with pod-heavy battlecruisers instead of a calculating opponent with souped-drive SDs. I'm sure there are a bunch more in the mid-to-late series but I'm blanking on the details. Oh, and any time a senior Sollie officer opens his mouth. Ever.

Sollies are just plain in denial, yes, it's kind of pathetic.

With Buttercup, well, we know White Haven is quite capable of wasting missiles by firing from extreme range, he just did that right in front of our eyes. And it's certainly conceivable that he'd use that as an opening ploy if he has lots of missiles on an ammunition collier or six. Ballistic missile bombardment of any static defenses and infrastructure could actually be a threat.

At Fourth Yeltsin (the one you're talking about), well, Thurston is exactly the sort of person who makes that mistake. He's got thintelligence; he's superficially clever, but his battle-plan revolves around forcing the enemy to do his will, and he isn't good at identifying evidence that things are happening exactly as he planned.

Hell, he might have known Harrington was in charge of the Grayson fleet and been MORE likely to assume he was looking at a huge battlecruiser formation with no capital ships. It wouldn't be the first time Harrington took a pathetically outgunned force on a death ride against a heavier opponent. It wouldn't even be the first time in that particular star system.

Five days ago Honor's physician had to sedate her so she'd rest. She does try to keep her crew rested, fed and ready, and Mac nags her into eating herself. Still, I doubt it's that easy to catch some sack time a few hours before a vastly more powerful ship enters weapon range.

OK, point, Harrington pushes herself too hard. But at least she does not thus push her crew.

I'm not particularly annoyed by the sword-fighting. This is someone who's been intensely training in physical hand-to-hand combat for 30+ years when she picks up a Grayson katana for the first time (Academy from 1874-1848 PD, Flag in Exile takes place around 1907). People who have been studying martial arts under the tutelage of active-combat marines for multiple decades are dangeous, dangerous people. I really don't think it's that unreasonable for an extremely dangerous physical combatant with genetically enhanced reflexes, strength, and speed to be able to pick up a weapon and use it effectively.

What's bothersome is that she can defeat someone who's allegedly one of the planet's greatest duelists, when severely wounded and exhausted, on minimal actual sword training.

It's not that it's impossible, it's that this ability to do quite well at whatever she turns her hand to is getting out of control.

I find this interesting, because I think that the books after Echoes of Honor are where a lot of things get pretty interesting, because she's a political figure of some reputation on multiple planets. Her problems are not solvable by finding the largest nearby concentration of enemy ships and blowing them up, and her possible actions to address the problems are constrained by her public image (and the politics of the situation).

Well, sorta- but at the same time, she personally is so surrounded by people who love her unconditionally that it's hard to get the sense that she faces real serious problems at these times.

[Jedipilot24]

What's bothersome is that she can defeat someone who's allegedly one of the planet's greatest duelists, when severely wounded and exhausted, on minimal actual sword training.

It's not that it's impossible, it's that this ability to do quite well at whatever she turns her hand to is getting out of control.

From my reading of that passage, the crucial difference between Burdette and Honor is that Burdette is duelist while Honor is a killer. Burdette went into that fight thinking that it would be the same as in the salle but Honor, who has actually killed people up close and personal, knows that real combat isn't like the salle.
Now combine Honor's killer instinct and martial arts training with the old cliché that she quotes in "The Honor of the Queen." "The world's best swordsman doesn't fear the second best; he fears the worst because he can't predict what the idiot will do." Taken together, I see no problem in Honor beating Burdette.

[Mr Bean]

We've had this talk before about Honor sword fight. And we had it before that, and Thanas once debated it for six pages in this thread a month or three back.

We all agreed it was silly but if you wanted it to be at least semi realistic the fight could has still ended in a single stroke but with Honor with Burdette sword in her ribs and her sword removing his head. He'd swing to point her as he is duelist while she would commit to murdering the fuck out of him do or die trying.

Instead she did it without taking a hit, after being tired, injured and on medication. She should have taken the hit.

[Connor MacLeod]

Lets not forget that by now Honor is basically a empath and all but telepath (or maybe she is an actual telepath now) both due to innate abilities (genetic engineering accident IIRC) and through her connection to Nimitz. She's supposed to have all sorts of uber-abilities because of this and I suspect Weber intended that to be the nexus of her 'super-duper good at everything' status, given that she can also add 'super-diplomat' to her title (and this explicitly because she's a psychic.) Extrapolating that to benefit her in other ways (a good leader/captain, good at teaching, good at fighting, whatever.) hardly seems unusual.

You can argue whether her being psychic made her over the top (because quite frankly it has) and you can bitch about how you personally find the excuse stupid (because sci fi debating is like 90% people arguing over whether a particular rationalization is stupid or not, and whose arguments are least stupid) but I think that as far as internal consistency goes Weber at least made an effort to rationalize it and it fits within the setting about as well as any rationalization in any other sci fi series does. Its certainly something no better or worse than some of the 'rationalizations' made in Star Wars, Trek or 40K.


(and honestly, if your personal SoD can't handle something being 'stupid' in sci fi then you probably should either stick ot the stuff that suits your preconceptions or just get out of ficton entirely. Sci fi having objectionable shit seems to be inescapable, at least in the context of how modern sci fi as a whole does it, and you're bound to find something that causes you to rage. And just so we avoid any possible arguments: it is possible to find something stupid, say it is, and still find it internally consistent as a rationalization. They are not mutually exclusive, because people can and are stupid about things.)

[Simon_Jester]

I think I'll go back to posting ship stats for a bit.

Let's roll forward to the ships designed prior to, say, 1890 PD: the ones that represent the culmination of Roger's buildup and the transition to Elizabeth's (far more intensive, as Haven intruded more and more on the Manticoran sphere of influence) buildup.

Javelin-class Destroyer
Mass: 87250 tons
Dimensions: 381 x 45 x 26 meters
Acceleration: 519.7 G
80% Accel: 415.7 G
Broadside: 6 missile tubes, 2 lasers, 4 countermissile launchers, 3 point defense
Chase: 2 missile tubes, 1 laser, 2 countermissile launchers, 2 point defense
Number Built: 65
Service Life: 1883-present

The Javelin-class destroyer is a contemporary of the Chanson-class but has a fundamentally different design philosophy. Where the Chanson focused on cramming as much defense as possible into as small a hull as possible, the Javelin favors a heavier offensive punch, at the cost of some defense. It was intended to serve mostly as a fast screening unit for battlecruiser squadrons and has seen less independent command than its more survivable cousin.

While in simulation it seems like a highly effective design, its heavy offensive punch came at a price. Magazine space to support the larger broadside was one limitation, and the fact that all six launchers shared only two magazines made the design particularly vulnerable to damage. Missile tubes and magazines also had to be placed nearer to the sidewall generator spaces than normal, and as a result the class has been plagued by feedback issues between grav drivers and sidewall generators for its entire service life. Compared to the Chanson and even the much maligned Culverin-class, the Javelins were never particularly popular among either RMN planners or their crews. Most of them were relegated to reserve duty by 1920 even though some much older Chanson-class hulls were still in active service.

Comments:
Roughly a 10% increase in tonnage over the Chansons, which were themselves about 10% larger than the Falcons. Although the Javelins are not that much bigger than the Havocs. I suspect that the Chansons simply represented a compromise design for the 1860s timeframe, one which sacrificed both bulk and firepower for defensive viability and ease of mass-production, to replace the (presumably) large number of aging, 18th-century destroyers the RMN would have had in service in the 1850s and '60s PD.

It is interesting to compare and contrast this to the Courageous-class cruisers, which are half a century older and nearly identical in basic armament layout. This is a great example of 'bracket creep' in Honorverse warships; to fulfill (one of) the intended missions of a destroyer in 1880 PD takes a ship that would have been a light cruiser in 1810 PD.

This also illustrates the practical limits of building an offense-heavy design: different parts of the ship's machinery interfere with each other, to the extent that you have to build up the raw size of the hull to engineer around the problem. The resulting ship is about as close to an 'attritional' platform as you'd get in the RMN: a LAC writ large, designed to rapidly flush a missile magazine and then get the hell out.

And another random thing, you will note that this is a very missile-heavy design compared to the relatively beamy Chanson. That pattern persists; light combatants are trending more and more toward missile combat. Personally I suspect this reflects two things. One, a realization that missiles are playing a larger role in combat, especially between light ships not armored to tank hits from a laser head. Two, a realization that shipboard energy weapons have gotten powerful enough that even a few can be adequately effective against a ship as lightly built as a destroyer or CL, so there's no point in mounting three or four on the broadside if it means sacrificing missile capability, where volume of fire is more likely to matter.



Apollo-class Light Cruiser (Flight IV Apollo)
Mass: 128750 tons
Dimensions: 441 x 46 x 35 meters
Acceleration: 517.7 G
80% Accel: 414.1 G
Broadside: 5 missile tubes, 4 lasers, 6 countermissile launchers, 4 point defense
Chase: 2 missile tubes, 1 laser, 3 countermissile launchers, 3 point defense
Number Built: 52
Service Life: 1886-present

After the Illustrious-class failed to live up to its intended capabilities, another flight of Apollos was ordered. Over the course of several years, almost all of the original Flight I hulls were stricken and replacements were commissioned with the same names as the originals.

Recent experience with the Talisman-class had emphasized the versatility of the basic Apollo hull form, and the decision was made to modify the class. Two beam mounts were removed from the broadside and replaced with a pair of counter-missile launchers and their magazines. This reduction in close combat ability was regrettable, but the new design was a welcome addition for task force commanders looking to thicken the defenses of their screen. Operational experience soon made it clear that the design was in many ways superior to the original Apollo-class, and a refit program was put into place to upgrade as many of the original hulls as possible.

At present, many surviving hulls of the original Apollo-class have been upgraded to the Flight IV standard. At the beginning of its service life, this class was often referred to as the Artemis-class, although officially they have always been carried on the Navy List simply as Flight IV Apollos. The distinction became irrelevant as the remainder of the older hulls were refitted to these standards.

Comments:
This is what Alice Truman would have commanded at Grayson- an updated version of the Apollo-class hull. Ironically, it has roughly the same firepower as the Illustrious, just on a lighter hull; the only reason the RMN is OK with this as far as I can tell is that doctrinally CLs aren't really supposed to get shot at by heavy (battlecruiser-grade or higher) weapons.

Also, we can see that the volume of antimissile firepower aboard Apollo would have made a real difference in the battle: despite being roughly half Fearless's size, she has fully 75% of the missile defense capability, in addition to adding another five launch tubes to Honor's salvoes and presenting a better chance of saturating the Masadan defenses. Theisman's actions at Blackbird, by mission-killing Apollo, therefore made a real difference to the outcome of Second Yeltsin (Honor's fight against Thunder of God).

One wonders if a (rather tougher) Illustrious-class CL might have been able to survive the damage Theisman did in Principality, and still contribute meaningfully to the later Second Battle of Yeltsin.


[no new battlecruiser or dreadnought designs]

Hm. Initially I had wondered about the lack of a new dreadnought class, but then I realized something: this is the timeframe of the upgrades to the Ad Astra-class! Since those were very far-reaching and complicated modifications, they would probably consume the same construction facilities as building brand-new dreadnoughts, making it kind of pointless to build a whole new capital ship class until those upgrades were taken care of. RMN dreadnoughts are usually the result of a budget compromise, so I'm betting someone pitched the Ad Astra refit as a cheaper way to get the same overall benefit as buying a whole knew capital ship.



Anduril-class Superdreadnought
Mass: 7506000 tons
Dimensions: 1324 x 192 x 179 m
Acceleration: 413.3 G
80% Accel: 330.6 G
Broadside: 29 missile tubes, 22 lasers, 24 grasers, 1 grav lance, 8 energy torpedo tubes, 24 countermissile launchers, 32 point defense mounts
Chase: 6 missile tubes, 7 lasers, 8 grasers, 8 countermissile launchers, 12 point defense mounts.
Number Built: 14
Service Life: 1889-1918

The Anduril-class was one of the shorter-lived designs of Roger's buildup, for two reasons. First, the older, cheaper Gladiator-class dreadnought had nearly the same capabilities for a considerably lower cost. Second, the Navy had come to the realization that missile combats were poised to become far more decisive than they had been at any time in the last two centuries, which moved the design trend towards more balanced combatants and away from brawlers like the Anduril.

While over four hundred thousand tons heavier than the King William, all of that extra tonnage was devoted to heavier armor and passive defenses. The Anduril's distinction as the most heavily armored warship in the history of the RMN came at the cost of the offensive (missile) and defensive armament the Navy had come to value.

In addition, the heavy armor and internal compartmentalization had a hidden cost in terms of maintenance and downtime. Many systems, while well protected, were difficult to maintain, with too few accessways for movement of personnel and repair parts Over the lifetime of the class, many pieces of equipment were simply abandoned in place rather than upgraded, due to the inability of shipyard workers to install the new systems without cutting through a significant amount of hull armor.

The difficulty in upgrades, during a time when the Navy was undergoing generational changes in weapons systems literally every few years, was a death knell for the class. The Andurils were one of the first ships decommissioned during the Janacek build-down, and a number of them were sold to Erewhon along with the King Williams.

Comments

Oops. If the Javelin-class destroyer is a cautionary tale on the price of building a ship with too many weapons, the Andurils show the opposite: too much armor. Note the emphasis on refittability, upgradeability, and modularity; this has been a serious problem for historical warships, especially in the modern era when hulls are expected to remain in service for fifty years or more, while electronics and missile designs change every ten or twenty.

Also, notice that being 'tough' doesn't just mean having a strong layer of armor plate on the outside of the ship; it means having lots of armored compartments in place to limit any damage which might occur if the main armor belt is breached.

I imagine that the Andurils would have done extremely well in a battle under 19th century PD conditions, with the armor to resist all but the heaviest enemy beam weapons, and firepower comparable to most normal superdreadnoughts of the era. However, they're not designed to cope with an environment where missiles must be shot down at thirty thousand kilometers or more to stop them from hitting the hull. Granted, their hull can tank a lot of hits from enemy missiles, but it will tend to take those hits nonetheless- and if nothing else, the weapon and sensor mounts are all on the ship's surface and cannot be entirely protected by armor plate.

On a side note, the Andurils might well be seen as the archetype for a Solarian superdreadnought: big, costly ships, built by a rich power with good engineers at its disposal, that are competently designed to face 18th and 19th century threat environments.