Author Topic: Steele vs. Lopez  (Read 10870 times)

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The loss of the Carthage (whether you decide to destroy it or not) should not be underestimated: in an era wherein almost all GTVA ships are glass cannons, with tremendous firepower but low survivability (just look at the quickness with which that Chimera gets pulverized in "The Plunder", or at how Serkr team has to leg it to avoid annihilation in "Aristeia"), a sturdy ship like the Carthage is likely the keystone to any serious battle plan because, contrarily to almost all the other ships employed by the GTVA, it can get in a prolonged brawl with other ships and survive.

Any other ship would have to either rely on shock jump tactics (the primary intended purpose of their design) or slowly approach a blockade of Narayanas armed with their ridiculously long-range weapons. Even in that case, the Carthage would make an excellent punching bag, capable of distracting UEF vessels for quite some time. I mean, in "Her Finest Hour" the Carthage takes A LOT of beating before her hull gets hammered seriously enough for Lopez to surrender her ship: we're talking of minutes spent soaking the strikes from two Narayanas and (provided you called them in) at least 2 wings of durga bombers armed with redeemer cannons and a squadron of custos armed to the teeth with torpedoes (and said squadron is usually capable of vaporizing a single deimos surprisingly quickly, as long as you disable the Deimos' guns).
We've hardly seen any of the new GTVA destroyers in an actual battle though, and I doubt they'll be significantly less durable than Carthage when we do...

Quote
Lopez's stubborness cost the GTVA a very valuable asset indeed, not to mention the complementary vessels (Rhadanite, Deianira, Iolanthe, McAuliffe, Gallant) with their veteran crews. The loss of the Carthage was, to the GTVA, such a felling blow that they had to recall at least three other destroyers in Sol in order to cope with the Carthage's loss.
... and I don't think the newly arrived destroyers are just a replacement for the Carthage and her battlegroup.
But yeah, I do agree with your general point - it is a huge loss (even if Steele managed to actually leverage it to get more destroyers? I mean did he? not really sure as to what happened there...) and Lopez definitely shouldn't have done it.



As for Steele and Lopez in general, one of the first things we hear about Steele - or at least one of the first I found resonant - is not how ruthless or cold he is, but that he 'hates the loss of life'.
Even if we're speaking who's in the right morally, I think that's something you can respect.
On the other hand, I don't know how fair it is to judge him on this, but one could say that Steele's failure to inspire enough loyalty in his subordinates, or to account for them being a breaking point of his plans is at least partially his fault as a commander. For example, I think Lopez's men trust her a lot more than she trusted Steele in that moment.
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.

 

[a lot of intelligent stuff written down]



Thanks for the welcome, appreciated   :)

We've hardly seen any of the new GTVA destroyers in an actual battle though, and I doubt they'll be significantly less durable than Carthage when we do...

Both the GTD Messana and GTD Phoenicia (ergo the ships called in after the Carthage's loss) are Hecate-class destroyers (they are SSI-era destroyers which were either shown in actual missions, or mentioned), and they don't really fare well in any ship-to-ship engagement, unless it's a frontal battle. Even in that case, their performance is sub-par. It is a well-known fact that Hecates are unfulfilling vessels in the ship-to-ship role, unless they deploy lots of bombers. Heck, even a Karuna could potentially wreck an Hecate if its gauss cannons get a lucky hit and disable the frontal guns!

But yeah, I do agree with your general point - it is a huge loss (even if Steele managed to actually leverage it to get more destroyers? I mean did he? not really sure as to what happened there...) and Lopez definitely shouldn't have done it.

After "Her Finest Hour", Steele managed to convince the GTVA Council to give him complete control over the war effort. This basically means that he is the man in charge of the whole GTVA now.

 

Offline crizza

  • 210
Are you mixing things up?
The Requiem was ambushed in Sol as far as I'm aware and was forced to retreat before the Carthage was attacked around Saturn...
The Vengeance and Phoenicia have been called in after the loss of the Carthage, as well as the Implacable(Titan) and Agamemnon(Erebus).
The Hecates are not considered front line combatants, but rearline ships used to launch their strikecraft. When they enter combat, they do that with their battlegroups, but never alone.
But you're right that they do not perform well enough in combat situations, if unsupported.

 

Offline Luis Dias

  • 211
What is interesting in all of this war is how it so much resembles the same dillemas that europeans faced in world war one, namely how to end the slow but assured death toll that kept going up while all the war objectives were so slowly won and so costly in terms of human lives (and many times, easily lost shortly thereafter). The theoretical answer was then that the shorter the war was, the less lives would be culled. The slow machine of death would be stopped by a quick blade. A lot of people would die in a swift way, but that would prevent 10, 20 times the human losses in the long run.

This is the mindset that was used as an excuse to bomb german cities to smithereens in the second world war, and, of course, the usage of the atom bomb in Japan. Both of these decisions had this argument for saving human lives (as well). It seems to be Steele's mindset as well. For intance, he's being accused of bringing the concept of "total war" to this GTVA UEF conflict, including some bombing runs in Luna and so on.

This runs a bit deeper. We can easily recognize that all these wars have spared the big majority of the populations of any burden (other than economic), because we are all in space and most people are not spaceships. It's an historical reversal of the trend that started in the Napoleonic wars where every man was given a weapon and turned into a soldier and peaked in WW2's mass grave of cannon fodder. Already in Vietnam the american military saw that this was an obsolete paradigm, and now we have specialized, non-drafted military doing all the work while we remain playing our XBones and drinking Coke at peace. In all of this space war story we can already see a similar escalation from gentile, gentlemanly, specialized "war" to a more brutal, merciless, total war, all in the name of ending it quickly, all in the name of human lives being spared.

Where is Steele ready to go? Clearly, more than anyone else. Huge war crimes might follow here.

 

Offline Aesaar

  • 210
Strategically, Hecates are significantly more capable destroyers than Orions.  Their bigger air wings give them much better force projection capabilities, and they're more receptive to upgrades.  Orions are capable ship-to-ship combatants, but against the UEF, their weak point defenses make them very vulnerable.  What Orions are left in the GTVA fleet are first in line for replacement.

 

Offline Gee1337

  • 27
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the UEA
The what now?

You mean the UEF, the United Earth Federation?

Haha... yes... i was going from memory and I was in work as well! You pedantic so 'n' so :p

xx
I do not feel... I think!

 
Strategically, Hecates are significantly more capable destroyers than Orions.  Their bigger air wings give them much better force projection capabilities, and they're more receptive to upgrades.

The Vengeance and Phoenicia have been called in after the loss of the Carthage, as well as the Implacable(Titan) and Agamemnon(Erebus).
The Hecates are not considered front line combatants, but rearline ships used to launch their strikecraft. When they enter combat, they do that with their battlegroups, but never alone.

Of course (to you both). I was referring to an Hecate's ship-to-ship capability, not to the strategic capabilities such a specialized vessel carries with all its fighter complements. Point of my post was, the Carthage was probably the best slugger the GTVA had, and Lopez's mutiny ultimately removed that asset from the roster.

Orions are capable ship-to-ship combatants, but against the UEF, their weak point defenses make them very vulnerable.  What Orions are left in the GTVA fleet are first in line for replacement.


Do you mean there are still a few Orions left in active service apart from the Carthage?


 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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the Carthage was probably the best slugger the GTVA had
Is there anything in canon to support the idea that the Carthage was a better "slugger" than an Erebus?
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<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

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* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

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Offline CT27

  • 211

Of course (to you both). I was referring to an Hecate's ship-to-ship capability, not to the strategic capabilities such a specialized vessel carries with all its fighter complements. Point of my post was, the Carthage was probably the best slugger the GTVA had, and Lopez's mutiny ultimately removed that asset from the roster.

Wouldn't the Atreus be a good slugger?

 
Is there anything in canon to support the idea that the Carthage was a better "slugger" than an Erebus?

I'm basing what I'm saying on what I've seen so far, since I have yet to see the Erebus (nor do I know its specifications) to know for sure whether would it be a better brawler than the Carthage (the luck of being a forum newbie, I guess  :)). Now that I think of it, it's already the 5th time I hear the Erebus being mentioned. Could you, or someone else, please give me a summary of the erebus' specs?

Wouldn't the Atreus be a good slugger?

I think the Atreus, while certainly being lethal, is not as sturdy as the Carthage, at least from what I've seen in "Darkest Hour", wherein two Narayanas manage to drop the Atreus' health by a good 8-10% before the ship's departure (or at least, that was the amount of damage they inflicted last time I played that mission).

It certainly seems to have less hit points than the Carthage, despite having a wider turret coverage and better point defenses.

 

Offline crizza

  • 210
The Atreus, while classed as Raynor ingame, is in fact the lead ship of the Erebus class...long story...
http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/GTD_Raynor

And we cannot take the simple stats as consideration as to how a ship performs in BP, since these stats don't show ECM capabilitys and so on.

 
The Atreus, while classed as Raynor ingame, is in fact the lead ship of the Erebus class...long story...
http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/GTD_Raynor

So the GTD Raynor is/was in fact the GTD Erebus, and both names are interchangeable when referring to them via forum? Well, good to know!

And we cannot take the simple stats as consideration as to how a ship performs in BP, since these stats don't show ECM capabilitys and so on.

True, simple stats aren't everything, but is the Raynor/Erebus actually capable of ECM without having to rely on a Charybdis? Tech room so far isn't particularly clear on the matter. All I have seen so far after about 7 playthroughs of the WiH campaign, is that the Atreus looks somewhat fragile despite its substantial firepower, as Darkest Hour has shown me time and time again.

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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And we cannot take the simple stats as consideration as to how a ship performs in BP, since these stats don't show ECM capabilitys and so on.

True, simple stats aren't everything, but is the Raynor/Erebus actually capable of ECM without having to rely on a Charybdis? Tech room so far isn't particularly clear on the matter. All I have seen so far after about 7 playthroughs of the WiH campaign, is that the Atreus looks somewhat fragile despite its substantial firepower, as Darkest Hour has shown me time and time again.
IIRC, all capital ships in BP have ECM/ECCM capabilities. Also, the damage the Atreus takes from a pair of artillery frigates while focusing on jumping out as quickly as possible has no bearing on how it would perform in a ship-to-ship duel.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline Aesaar

  • 210
I don't think there's any engagement in which an Orion would perform better than an Erebus.  The Erebus is significantly more heavily armed, has more sophisticated armor, better ECM/ECCM, and carries a host of active protection systems which even upgraded Orions don't have.  It's also faster through subspace, it's systems don't strain its power grid anywhere near as much (so it has more to give in combat), and it carries a bigger air wing.

And yes, all ships in BP have some degree of ECM/ECCM capabilities.  AWACS are just specialized in the role.  An example: in Aristeia, the Medea jams the Wargods long range comms on its own.  The Arethusa and Indus to it to each other in What Binds Us.  The Katana in TBI jams beams.   Electronic warfare is a major component of the modern battlespace, and all ships can do it to some extent.

Do you mean there are still a few Orions left in active service apart from the Carthage?
Yes.  6 of them, all of which have been fairly well upgraded.  The Messana is right on the other side of the node, as a matter of fact.  It's the other half of the Requiem's BG, on node protection duty.  But the Orion has reached the limits of its spaceframe, and is very much on its way out.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2014, 06:49:08 pm by Aesaar »

 
The Atreus, while classed as Raynor ingame, is in fact the lead ship of the Erebus class...long story...
http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/GTD_Raynor

So the GTD Raynor is/was in fact the GTD Erebus, and both names are interchangeable when referring to them via forum? Well, good to know!

Not quite, what happened was that the team decided they didn't like the name Raynor and so they renamed the class, but they haven't yet released an update with all the names formally changed.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline Aesaar

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What Phantom said.  When the Director's Cut gets released, the name will change along with the model.

 

Offline Drogoth

  • 28
The Atreus was also seen slugging it out with the Toutatis at the beginning of Act Three. I somehow doubt that Darkest Hour is a good measure (see the ECM comments above) if the Atreus can stand up to an extended brawl with a Solaris class Destroyer.
TC 2 Fan club for Life

 
The Atreus, while classed as Raynor ingame, is in fact the lead ship of the Erebus class...long story...
http://hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/GTD_Raynor

So the GTD Raynor is/was in fact the GTD Erebus, and both names are interchangeable when referring to them via forum? Well, good to know!

Not quite, what happened was that the team decided they didn't like the name Raynor and so they renamed the class, but they haven't yet released an update with all the names formally changed.

Also, they're re-modelling it and the weapons are going to change completely. http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=85900.0

 

Offline CT27

  • 211
Assuming Lopez survived the engagement, what do you think her feelings are about Steele now?

Does she hate him and think he's a monster?

Does she wish she would have listened to him?

Or somewhere in between?