Tarawa vs. Victory

Winner:

  • Tarawa

    Votes: 12 46.2%

  • Victory

    Votes: 14 53.8%
  • Total voters
    26
floundericiousMI said:
I thought he mostly worked on drinking himself under the desk....:p
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O'Brian is a poor guy, really - even for a generic background "bad" character he got an extremely bad deal from the writers. We're supposed to sympathise with Bear, so everything was done to O'Brian to make him as weak, annoying and unlikeable as possible - they were even so cheap as to make him unable to remember Bear's name, just in case the reader missed the point about him being soooo incompetent.

The thing is, if a guy as weak and incompetent as O'Brian is made out to be could rise in Confed to command an escort carrier (and indeed, to help design it!), that would suggest Confed had completely run out of competent personnel. So, personally, I would imagine that whatever the book's bias, O'Brian does have some competence as a military officer.
 
Quarto said:
So, personally, I would imagine that whatever the book's bias, O'Brian does have some competence as a military officer.
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Well he certainly had the concept of "retreat" down pat.

At the same time, the book alludes to the fact that he was put into his position because they knew of the Tarawa's mission and wanted him out of the way, while also giving him the command he had earned with his time in the service. It was something that both sides thought would work out for them.
 
O'Brian is a poor guy, really - even for a generic background "bad" character he got an extremely bad deal from the writers. We're supposed to sympathise with Bear, so everything was done to O'Brian to make him as weak, annoying and unlikeable as possible - they were even so cheap as to make him unable to remember Bear's name, just in case the reader missed the point about him being soooo incompetent.
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I'm sure we all know people like that, but End Run lays it on *very* thick (the 'clammy' handshake is what did it for me). The odd thing about O'Brian is that his background seems to change shortly after his introduction.

When Bear first meets him he's someone who feels put out by the fact that the transport command doesn't get any glory - he's spent twenty years commanding transports and isn't happy to be dealing with a warship full of war hero fighter pilots.

By the time we reach the Concordia he's a "political climber" (and apparently a coward) who needs a combat command to rise through the ranks. (His rank seems to change, too. He introduces himself as Commodore Thaddeus O'Brien... and is them promoted to "acting commodore of this strike force" by Admiral Banbridge.) I'm left wondering if someone went over the first draft and pointed out that having the reader wish death upon the blue-collar transport captain simply because he wasn't a big hero might not be appropriate...

(Also: Tolwyn says: "Right after [O'Brian] graduated from the Academy he dinged a destroyer in a docking maneuver and they pulled him off to transport command where he's been ever since." I believe Paulsen gets a very similar backstory in the TPoF novelization - does anyone know what actual event this refers to?)
 
They DO lay it on thick to make you dislike O'Brien...

Frankly, I always saw O'Brien as one of those middle-manager-for-life type of mediocre leaders who never impresses, manages to make some friends, and tries desperately to stay out of high-pressure situations. For me, the part that sorta wears thin is the part where O'Brien leans in to Bear and says "But we'll never see that kind of action, I've got the inside scoop on that!" and we're supposed to despise him.

If he's been commanding transports for 20+ years, why on earth would he suddenly be jonesing for a chance to go tangle with Kilrathi Fleet CVs?!? His assignment as commodore of that mission to me, strains the credibility to the breaking point...an op put together so close to the jumping off date that you "couldn't find someone to take charge?"
 
I think that O'Brien was put in command of the Kilrah expedition because somebody at HQ was hoping that he would not come back.
 
Ijuin said:
I think that O'Brien was put in command of the Kilrah expedition because somebody at HQ was hoping that he would not come back.
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Never happens - you don't put somebody in command of several hundred people on a mission critical to the war effort in the hope that he won't come back.

(also, when O'Brien was put in charge of the Tarawa, the Kilrah operation had not yet been planned)
 
Well maybe not "won't come back" so much as the higher-ups at HQ considered O'Brien to be expendable--i.e. losing him would be much less of a loss than sending a decorated veteran commander who had years of experience as a carrier commander.
 
Never happens - you don't put somebody in command of several hundred people on a mission critical to the war effort in the hope that he won't come back.

(also, when O'Brien was put in charge of the Tarawa, the Kilrah operation had not yet been planned)
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Tolwyn specifically says that he believes this is what happened, though.
 
The Victory is a dedicated carrier that can launch multiple fighters at once off of it's large flight deck (including bombers) and has a dedicated defensive suite vs. bolted on weapons. It also has some artillery support for fleet action in the form of a capship missile launcher.... the Yorktown may be wayyyyy uglier, but I am firm in my conviction as to which one is the better carrier- 5 more fighters won't do you a lick of good if you can't launch them fast when needed.
 
Spertallica said:
The Victory is a dedicated carrier that can launch multiple fighters at once off of it's large flight deck (including bombers) and has a dedicated defensive suite vs. bolted on weapons. It also has some artillery support for fleet action in the form of a capship missile launcher.... the Yorktown may be wayyyyy uglier, but I am firm in my conviction as to which one is the better carrier- 5 more fighters won't do you a lick of good if you can't launch them fast when needed.
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I dunno man, I always believed that speed and mobility were the most deadly advantages, and the Tarawa clearly posses those..
 
floundericiousMI said:
If he's been commanding transports for 20+ years, why on earth would he suddenly be jonesing for a chance to go tangle with Kilrathi Fleet CVs?!?
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What I understood from the book is that O'Brian is convinced that the sole purpose of the escort carriers is to ferry starfighters around and to escort convoys on rear echelons where you'd never see a cat - and that is exactly why he came on board the Tarawa - a combat command with no combat - or so he thought -
He never really understands why Bear is so "enthusiastic" about training all the pilots - it's not like their gonna see any action anyway.

It never occurred to him that he might actually be tangling Kilrathi CVs.

The attack on Vukar Tag makes him quite uncomfortable, and the Kilrah raid - simply pushes him over the edge! - He cannot believe they are doing it to him - TO HIM! the "invaluable" commodore O'Brian!

It does look to me like he was just "punching him ticket" so he can move along on the rank scale, probably becoming a high ranking pencil pusher who retires early and enjoys a (very) fat pension plan.

The army is has quite a few of these types.

(BTW - the "Commodore" mix-up mentioned by LOAF might hint that O'Brian's
shoulder rake is Commodore, but up to the point where he is name acting Commodore of task force Valkyrie, him official status is Commodore of the Tarawa, with no other attached ships)

(also, there are several other rank mix-ups in the book, IIRC).
 
The battle would be close all the way to the end, but I think the Vicotry would come on top. Both carriers have comparable compliments, speed, and weaponery. Being a dedicated carrier, the Victory was built to take more pounding, which would give it the edge to pull out the victory. This victory would be by a slim margin. In fact, any error from either crew would shift the outcome to the other carrier.
 
Meson said:
Being a dedicated carrier, the Victory was built to take more pounding, which would give it the edge to pull out the victory.
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Are you sure about that? The Victory is from a Pre-War class of ships, while the Tarawa Refit is on a transport hull that could be much more modern.

Experience is sure to be an issue as well - Eisen states repeatedly that the Victory is falling apart and has been giving poor assignments as a result. The Tarawa meanwhile, has a battle-tested crew that had to fight through hell and high water just to get back into Human Controlled space.

There's just no substitute for the kind of skill that comes from being tested in the harshest of conditions.
 
I presumed each carrier had an equally-experienced, average crew, taking in to account that the crews we see may not be the crews taking part in the conflict.
 
I don't see how the Tarawa's slight edge in speed would give it that much of an advantage over the Victory- it's still not going to be able to outrun a Longbow, and, unlike the Tarawa, the Victory won't get hulled with a single torp hit.

The other major disadvantage the Tarawa has is that it would take forever to get a scramble off the deck or to rearm fighters due to it's one fighter at a time entrance/exit- the Tarawa is far more prone to downtime between flights (look what happened to the Japanese carriers at the real Battle of Midway), and it can't carry as diverse a fighter wing as a Yorktown. For a stopgap carrier, it's not bad, but it isn't going to be anywhere near as durable or versatile as a dedicated carrier.
 
If 4 torps can kill or cripple anything short of a supercarrier, 1 torp should easily be able to hull a pre-war class of light carrier. and Tarawa and the other escort carriers didn't seem to any problems deploying their fighters in a hurry during the Second Battle of Hell Hole or the Battle of Terra.
 
RogueBanshee said:
Tarawa and the other escort carriers didn't seem to any problems deploying their fighters in a hurry during the Second Battle of Hell Hole or the Battle of Terra.
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Worth noting (in Victory's defense) that both those battles were fought while flying Landreich colors...and the Landreich are known for having rather...lenient...safety measures.
 
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