It has been announced that 7th July 2026 will see the publication of the fifth novel in the "Manticore Ascendant" Honor Harrington universe prequel saga, which will be " A call to deception " by David Weber, Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope We are enormously looking forward to this as the "Manticore Ascendant" books have been some of the most entertaining in the "Honor Harrington" military SF series (or "Honorverse").  Originally the Honorverse companion book "House of Steel" stated that in 1538 PD (e.g. 3641 AD/CE) there had been an attack on the Manticore system by a force of mercenaries hired by a huge interstellar corporation called "Axelrod of Terra."  That book went on to say that, quote "Examination of one of the ships captured after the battle" then "revealed the true reason for the attack: Axelrod had realised the Manticore binary system was almost certainly home to a major wormhole junction....

This passage comes from the epilogue to Timothy Zahn 's novel, " Star Wars: Thrawn ." When Thrawn had been in exile from his homeland and serving in the imperial navy for some years, and had become an admiral, he sent his friend Eli Vanto to the Chiss Ascendancy to work with his old friend and former commanding officer, Admiral Ar'alani.  Effectively Thrawn and Eli Vanto had been exiled in opposite directions. Thrawn gave Eli Vanto his journal, and the passage on Friendship which he reads here is taken from that journal.  

Following on from this morning's post about the Grand Old Lady, HMS Warspite, here is another account of a British warship armed with 15 inch guns.  However,  HMS Roberts wasn't a battleship, she was a monitor - a specialised shore bombardment ship designed to get the 15 inch inch guns which could flatten any target on earth much closer to shore.