Vs Honor Harrington

[MeklorIlavator]

Seeing how there's vs threads for almost everything, I decided to make one myself, based on a series I recently started reading. My question is who do you think would be on the same level as the nations in the Honorverse. Here's a link to some info on there weapon's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_technology_in_the_Honorverse.
I know that the WH40K universe wouldn't break a sweat, but what about some of the other universe's, like Star Wars(though it might be on the powerful side as well), Star trek, Halo, ect.

[Foeofthelance]

Against the Honorverse? Not much, really. The nations of the Honorverse have several things going for them.

1) Bow, Stern, and Sidewalls that give any ship shields that can only be breached by very powerful weapons at very close range. Bomb-pumped Lasers are essentially the only thing short of a graser to punch through them in combat, and the missiles have to close to what, 40,000 kilometers before going off? Nukes don't even work until the walls have been taken out, and energy weapons are considered close range weapons. (I think later model ships have pretty much taken out all of them by At All Costs) This is considerable, since the Battle of Marsh was fought at a distance of about 40 million kilometers. This doesn't even factor in Impeller Wedges, which are impentratable. (They only cover the top and the bottom of a ship though)

2) As mentioned above, the Honorverse doesn't worry about visual ranges. Starwars, Startrek, and most other visual media SF forces engage at ranges well below what a dreadnaught or superdreadnaught would think of as knife fighting range. At the end of At All Costs, if I read it correctly, the battle was fought between forces with a distance of close to an AU between them. (Granted, the MC cheated in that one.)

3) Gravity based sensors which operate at FTL. They can't communicate so well over distance with them, but in a battle scenario ships and sensor platforms communicate at speeds greater than c. The sensors are also a mix of visual, radar, and gravity dependent, making them very hard to spoof.

4) Pod class ships. The modern vessels use missile pods, towed on tractor beams. Each pod, depending on who is firing what, carry anywhere between 8-12 missiles. These missiles travel at .8 c, and are a mix of warheads, EW platforms, and in the case of the newer ones, FTL communications platform for constant updates by the ship's computers. An average salvo for a battlecruiser is about 100 missiles. Fleets have fired upwards of 500,000 missiles in single salvos.

5) LACs. This is important against the fighters of the various navies. LACs are essentially carrier deployed vessels, comparable to small patrol craft. Except they operate like fighters, are armed like battlecruisers, and can take on Capital ships. They can be used for either close in attacks, to finish off enemy vessels, or to serve as an antimissile escort for their fleet.

6) Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider is an EW system capable of extreme stealth, antimissile logisitics, as well as the ability to present itself as allied ships of various tonnage. It can replicate a battlecruiser as well as a superdreadnaught, at least as far as the enemy sensors are concerned.

Let's assume, for a moment, that the GE sends the Death Star to take out Manticore A, homeworld of the Manticore Alliance. (SW fans are particularly fond of the Death Star, despite only two were built, and neither was particularly successful)

Well, as soon as the Death Star enters the system, everyone knows it. Homefleet goes on alert, and the system forts work up, and the Junction is cleared so that Third Fleet can return from Trevors Star. (Since pitting Honor Harrington against them is a sure win, we'll assume she and Eigth Fleet are off on manouvers. Main Characters always beat Plot Devices) Homefleet moves to within 40 million kilometers, maximum range, and proceeds to open fire. At this point the only weapon the Death Star has that can range is the Superlaser. I'll assume that the folks piloting the DS aren't entirely idiots, so they fire as well, at one of the superdreadnaughts. Scratch one dreadnaught, DS takes a beating as the missiles hit pretty much unchecked, as the DS shows no signs of anti-missile capability. The missiles hit about half way through the recycle sequence, assuming this is the DS II. So there are about 2 shots for every missile salvo fired. IIRC, the Homefleet can fire off about a total of six salvos. After the first shot the Honorverse ships roll their bellies, showing their wedge to the DS. This protects them against the third or fourth salvo fired, while they continue to fire missiles from the pods they're dragging behind them.

At this point Homefleet is missile dry, but the sruface of the Death Star should be sufficently wrecked that firing the superlaser again should be problematic. At this point about twenty minutes has passed, and Third Fleet has arrived. Granted, the Death Star is still an operational battlefort, so I'm going to assume its continuing to close, most likely to try a simple bombardment or landing on Manticore.

Homefleet moves to engage at top military speed, meaning close to .8c. Third Fleet moves out from the Junction, and proceeds to open fire with its missile salvos. As Homefleet closes the Death Star deploys TIEs, and the Homefleet carriers deploy LACs, which meet up with the system defense LACs. There's about 500 hundred of them, all total. The Pod-superdreadnaughts originally hang with the formation, at least to add their own anti-missile systems to the formation, but it soon becomes clear that the DS has no such cabilities, and they fall back. The dreadnaughts continue to close, turning back on their wedges to present their full broadsides.

The LACs reach and engage the TIEs, which find that not only are they no longer the fastest thing around, but their weapons are non-effective as well. They simply can't break through the various 'walls and wedges of their opponents, who are opening fire long before the TIEs are. The Dreadnaughts in turn begin to pound the surface of the DS. Considering its size outright destroying it is probably impossible, but they can render the weapons useless. Third Fleet opens with its own barrage, while its dreadnaughts cruise in to open fire.

Now, assuming the Death Star hasn't had enough (Vader's in control, and we all know how well he plans) it has reached the orbital forts. Which, at this point, have had close to an hour to roll pods of their own. They open fire, smashing even more of the battered battlefort. The LACs, having now defeated the TIEs in detail, add their own grasers to the weight of the dreaadnaughts, as well as making sure any ship trying to depart the Death Star fails.

At this point, even Vader has to realize he's lost. Either they abandon the DS, or the Imperials suffer through trying to take it back out of the system. I'm not going to try and figure out which is worse.

The problem with fighting the Honorverse is that David Weber stressed the Science aspect of Science fiction, and coupled it with, for the most part, characters who have actualy knowledge of how a military fights. Joined by the various technological advances made continously through the series, this makes the Honorverse rather formidable. Their infantry is battlearmored based, much like WH40K (which would win, nonetheless, if through sheer numbers) and the Manties have treecats, which are just as sensitive as Jedi. The series is written to cover all the good aspects of SF, while trying to avoid as few of the mistakes as possible.

[factotum]

Sounds a lot like the Culture could give them a run for their money. They engage at huge distances too, and their shielding is good enough that their ships can hide in the surface layers of suns. As for destructive power, they were certainly capable of annihilating a spinning hoop fourteen million kilometres across--that also gives some idea of the strength of Culture materials science; a hoop that size spinning to create one standard gravity on the surface would be under incredible tension.

[Sundog]

Sounds a lot like the Culture could give them a run for their money. They engage at huge distances too, and their shielding is good enough that their ships can hide in the surface layers of suns. As for destructive power, they were certainly capable of annihilating a spinning hoop fourteen million kilometres across--that also gives some idea of the strength of Culture materials science; a hoop that size spinning to create one standard gravity on the surface would be under incredible tension.

I'd have to agree - the Culture has the defensive edge.

I can't recall - does the Culture have trans-lightspeed weapons? Any race possessing such cannot be defeated by any that does not.

[Foeofthelance]

Culture would win, though I admit I'm not to familiar with them. Actually, most of the ones that could trump SW would probably be an even match, if not win outright. Part of it is that the Honorverse isn't really very big, only containing a portion of our galaxy and no real alien species. So numbers might pose a slight problem, though this is probably made up for by the Solarian League, which hasn't announced how many ships it has. It also tends to run more for conventional weapons rather than superweapons, so it doesn't have much to bust planets, save for missiles traveling near c.

[factotum]

I'd have to agree - the Culture has the defensive edge.

I can't recall - does the Culture have trans-lightspeed weapons? Any race possessing such cannot be defeated by any that does not.

I don't know if it's ever explicitly stated, but one assumes they must have such things--you simply wouldn't be able to hit anything at a range of millions of kilometres with a weapon restricted to lightspeed, due to the long delays between firing the weapon and it arriving at the target area. Certainly the gridfire they used to destroy the Orbital I mentioned is a hyperspatial phenomenon, so one assumes that also is superliminal.

[LordVader]

Trans-lightspeed?
...

This is where we go beyond the "cheesy and slightly disbelieveable" of 40k and SW to the just plain "?????"

Really, you can't even claim SW developers just think of giant numbers and SUPAH POWAHZ after looking at a race like the Culture.:smalltongue:

[Eita]

@Energy weaponry being removed by At All Costs: No. Just no. They actually increased the number of energy mounts and increased their power by At All Costs so a few BCs could take on a SD at energy range and be able to tell about it.

Also, the Honorverse use nukes as their primary weapons. The Empire uses energy weapons that release the power of multiple nukes. Therefore, we can assume that capital ship turbolasers unleash far more power then even a single SD(P) can unleash in one salvo.

The Death Star was built to withstand and destroy fleets of ships who's main weapons are thermonuclear reactions.

[LordVader]

I'd just like to point out that the thermonuclear-yield weapons are obviously a fallacy, seeing as unshielded ships can shrug off hits from them with virtually no damage, but then are crippled when a floating rock rams into the bridge.

[MeklorIlavator]

Also, the Honorverse use nukes as their primary weapons. The Empire uses energy weapons that release the power of multiple nukes. Therefore, we can assume that capital ship turbolasers unleash far more power then even a single SD(P) can unleash in one salvo.

The Death Star was built to withstand and destroy fleets of ships who's main weapons are thermonuclear reactions.

Yet when a weapon is fired in the atmosphere, or at the ground, there's only a small bit of scarring. Really, if the energy weapons are producing that kind of yield, then you need a single star destroyer to wreck a world. That kind of power and the way the Star wars galaxy is portrayed should be mutually exclusive.

[Eita]

Yet when a weapon is fired in the atmosphere, or at the ground, there's only a small bit of scarring. Really, if the energy weapons are producing that kind of yield, then you need a single star destroyer to wreck a world. That kind of power and the way the Star wars galaxy is portrayed should be mutually exclusive.

Actually, one could do that. Base Delta Zero. Three are normally used, but one could do it.


I'd just like to point out that the thermonuclear-yield weapons are obviously a fallacy, seeing as unshielded ships can shrug off hits from them with virtually no damage, but then are crippled when a floating rock rams into the bridge.

The bridge is quite possibly the weakest spot on Imperial ships.

Point for the Honorverse for being smart enough to put their bridge under kilometers of armor.

Also, we didn't see anything else with that particular ship, so saying that it was crippled is pure conjecture.

[Foeofthelance]

Also, the Honorverse use nukes as their primary weapons. The Empire uses energy weapons that release the power of multiple nukes. Therefore, we can assume that capital ship turbolasers unleash far more power then even a single SD(P) can unleash in one salvo.

And the Honorverse doesn't use nukes as their primary weapons. Nukes are clumsy compared to the bomb-pumped X-ray laser missiles. The Haven Cimetteres were chucking nukes around for no more purpose than to mess with the Manticoran sensor suites and to kill inbound missiles, and even this became useless by the battle of Lovat. The Manticorans responed to Foraker's Triple Ripple by programming their missiles to climb or dive around it. And while yes, the cruisers were packing in more energy broadsides to deal with LACs, the dreadnaughts and superdreadnaughts were doing everything they could to pack in more pods/LACs.

Then there is of course the matter of range. SW fleets operate in visible ranges. Honorverse fleets operate light minutes apart. Even if the Stardestroyers do have bigger guns, they're utterly useless if they can't find a target to hit. As for the Honorverse ships, their crews are going to be wetting their pants laughing as they fire at big, slow, defenseless targets.

[MeklorIlavator]

Then there is of course the matter of range. SW fleets operate in visible ranges. Honorverse fleets operate light minutes apart. Even if the Stardestroyers do have bigger guns, they're utterly useless if they can't find a target to hit. As for the Honorverse ships, their crews are going to be wetting their pants laughing as they fire at big, slow, defenseless targets.
Also, if a Star Wars fleet send in its fighters, they will be completely annihilated, because the point defense on the Honorverse ships is used to fireing at objects going faster and at larger distances. Imagine going from shooting flying sparrows from 20 yards, to doing the same with sloths.

[LordVader]

Is it even possible to have faster-than-light weapons?

God, these Sci-Fi universes are broken.:smalltongue:

[Lord Iames Osari]

Is it even possible to have faster-than-light weapons?

God, these Sci-Fi universes are broken.:smalltongue:

If it's possible for a ship to travel at FTL speeds, then yes, it is possible for a weapon to do the same, provided that your weapon is large enough to mount a hyperdrive or whatever piece of Applied Phlebotinum (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum) lets you go FTL.

[Eita]

In the Honorverse, missiles can't go to hyperspace and energy weapons are constrained to relative light-speed.

[Lord Iames Osari]

Oh, I know that. I was speaking about other universes. And in Honorverse, it's at least theoretically possible that they could miniaturize a hyperdrive to the point of being able to include one in a missile.

[Eita]

True. And if anyone could do it, it's those sneaky Manties!

[Lord Iames Osari]

Or the crazy Graysons~!

[Eita]

Or both working together!

Speaking of which, curse the
Janecek Admiralty for canceling the dual research projects.

If it weren't for that, they could've had Apollo quicker and
Home and Third fleets along with Alistair might not have been destroyed.

[Sundog]

In the Honorverse, missiles can't go to hyperspace and energy weapons are constrained to relative light-speed.

Actually, missiles can be used in hyperspace in the Honorverse. They can't change band, but they're just as effective inside a band as in normal space.

The problem is, a lot of hyperspace travel uses gravity waves to speed things up, and nobody has ever made Warshawski Sails for a missile. So they can't be used there - their grav drives would be vapourized instantly.

By trans-lightspeed weapons I mean ones that can strike a normal universe target. Ones that can only hit other objects travelling FTL are less useful.

[Foeofthelance]

If it weren't for that, they could've had Apollo quicker and Alistair wouldn't have died.

(Doesn't really need to be Spoilered. At All Costs is no out in paperback)

The amusing bit about that is that David Weber was originally trying to kill Honor. Except his wife won't let him unless he kills Nimitz as well, and he won't kill Nimitz. So poor Alistair perished instead...

[Eita]

(Doesn't really need to be Spoilered. At All Costs is no out in paperback)

The amusing bit about that is that David Weber was originally trying to kill Honor. Except his wife won't let him unless he kills Nimitz as well, and he won't kill Nimitz. So poor Alistair perished instead...

Yeah. I always found that funny. Also, Nimitz can't die. He's Nimitz.