antipiracy defense

What people end up building or buying depends on a lot of things, not the least of which is money. We have the example of Torch buying purpose-built Frigates for their "SFD" while having been gifted the former PRHIE warships- which had damage and needed too much crew to operate at the time and would need to be "reconditioned (and checked for self destruct charges) before Torch would have enough people to crew even one of them.

Against pirates, it would depend on what you are likely to face. If somebody turns up in a former SLN Crusier or BC, your SDF of two frigates and a 50yr old retired (before the war with the GA) SLN DD your SDF is going to be in a hard place and may not survive if they engage. Of course said CA could likely start charging your system for "protection" unless you find someone like Manticore to show up and resolve the issue (by capturing or destroying the CA) If it was someone other than Manticore or Beowulf or Haven, you might (or might not) have a new "fee paid" protector.

For most normal pirate- merchant with a weapon or two added- a Frigate and some LACs are probably enough to patrol the usual and customary approch vectors to your system agains lightly armed merchant pirates. Its the neighbors with visions of Empire that they then have to worry about

Torch was given the frigates. They pretty much have no ability to pay for anything bigger then a shuttle.

And if you have a couple of frigates and a dozen LACS, hiring a BC to hang around would be a pretty good idea. (Even more so if the other alternative is extortion or worse.) How much it will cost and where you can get spares and such would likely be an issue.

kzt wrote:Torch was given the frigates. They pretty much have no ability to pay for anything bigger then a shuttle.

Well - not cash up front, anyway. The prospects for pharmaceutical wealth are good, so they may be able to get favorable loans on that basis - if the absence of a credit history and reasonable concerns that they are going to get pasted before being able to pay up don't put a kibosh on that.

And if you have a couple of frigates and a dozen LACS, hiring a BC to hang around would be a pretty good idea. (Even more so if the other alternative is extortion or worse.) How much it will cost and where you can get spares and such would likely be an issue.

If your fleet has been limited to a couple frigates and a dozen LAC's by wealth, skilled personnel, or support infrastructure, you'll have a beast of a time with a BC. A mercenary one that brings its own crew and maybe even support structure would help two of those, but only by making the ongoing wealth requirement tighter.

For anti-piracy work, all you need is numbers, bare armament and defense, and sensor coverage. Traditional frigates were ideal for that. The problem is just that the fleet's anti-pirate ships had to be viable warships too given the expenses associated with them, so they've crept up in size and expense far over that traditional frigate floor.

If you're not going to worry about power projection, if you're only trying to defend a single system, you've got it a lot better now: you can use modern LAC's, system defense missile pods, a good sensor network, and a handful of hyper-capable units to mind the periphery and you're set when it comes to pirates at least.

JeffEngel wrote:
If you're not going to worry about power projection, if you're only trying to defend a single system, you've got it a lot better now: you can use modern LAC's, system defense missile pods, a good sensor network, and a handful of hyper-capable units to mind the periphery and you're set when it comes to pirates at least.

But if you're on the far side of the SL, don't have the infrastructure to build or support the aging frigates, DD and LACS you have, how are you going to get the money to buy super-LACS and missile pods, and get the GA's attention to sell them to you? Those massive salvos of missiles that SDs from Haven and Manticore threw at each other cost as much as the ships throwing them - even with wartime paring of costs of such items.

Is Manticore going to loan the hardware to them or lease it? What about the other 2-3000 polities requiring the same defenses? Super-LACS and Missile pods can't be dropped as the panacea for all problems - yes, it is a solution - for those who can afford it and convince the GA to give/sell it to them.

And just how many 3rd party systems have acquired an all up Manty missile storm and Super-LAC wing?

The answer to date is none, not even Torch sported that. Only direct members of the Manty alliance received Manty owned defenses for the war effort.

This is similar to the Flint, MI water problem - The simple solution is leave Flint - just get a job and/or home elsewhere. But how many people in Flint can do that? Those fortunate enough to own their own home can't sell theirs - no one wants it because of the water problem, so they can't buy another home elsewhere. Most of the poorest residents can't even afford the bus fair to move an hour away.

So the simple solution - isn't a solution that works for most. So what else is available?

Theemile wrote:But if you're on the far side of the SL, don't have the infrastructure to build or support the aging frigates, DD and LACS you have, how are you going to get the money to buy super-LACS and missile pods, and get the GA's attention to sell them to you? Those massive salvos of missiles that SDs from Haven and Manticore threw at each other cost as much as the ships throwing them - even with wartime paring of costs of such items.

Well the exact answer would be, any existing system that has trouble building, manning, and maintaining a few handful of LAC's is pretty well screwed the moment even a single pirate drops over the hyperwall. Think essentially the Marsh system when Andre Warnecke came calling... there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop him, and both sides knew it.

There's also many systems that have 'powerful' SDF's, although we don't have any real specifications. There is notes in ART that Beowulfe is 'among' the more powerful SDF's with its, what 50-ish superdreadnoughts?

Since Beowulf is only one of many, that implies other systems and not just wormhole owners, have rather powerful fleets too. And when The Collapse happens, I would expect many of those powerful SDF owners to basically copy Frontier Security and extend... protection to their neighbours too poor and unprepared for events to defend themselves. Whether they are just trying to forcibly expand, or honestly protecting their neighbours is really irrelevant, either way outsider pirates will be chased off by heavier forces than the system in question could normally drive off. Maya and the RF are both already preparing to do exactly what I've said, although for different reasons, so there's going to be even more.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/181/1

Beowulf's SDF only has a confirmed 36 SDs in service, deployed against Admiral Tsang's task force. If the SDF had 10% down for maintenance, that'd make 40(five full battle squadrons).

IIRC, there are approximately 25 navies or SDFs with a battle wall. 25 have a squadron plus or minus a few hulls. Another 25 have white elephant singletons or pairs.

So, that's ~75 out of ~1,800 in the League and two or three thousand systems outside. Apparently two thirds of the League don't bother with more than LACs, relying on Battle Fleet for long term security.

munroburton wrote:http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/181/1

Beowulf's SDF only has a confirmed 36 SDs in service, deployed against Admiral Tsang's task force. If the SDF had 10% down for maintenance, that'd make 40(five full battle squadrons).

IIRC, there are approximately 25 navies or SDFs with a battle wall. 25 have a squadron plus or minus a few hulls. Another 25 have white elephant singletons or pairs.

So, that's ~75 out of ~1,800 in the League and two or three thousand systems outside. Apparently two thirds of the League don't bother with more than LACs, relying on Battle Fleet for long term security.

It was stated that the 36 Beowulf SDF SDs were the full waller force of the BSDF. Either nothing was in maintenance or it's just understood that the BSDF only fields 36 SDs at a time. However 36 is 4 squadrons of 8 + 4 ships, and gives a good "normal" maintenance ratio of 11%, with 4 full active squadrons.

As for the navies, you are close - The statement was that there are roughly 25 navies (~1%) that can field 1 8 ship squadron of wallers or more. Roughly another 25 fielded forces shy of a squadron, or 3-7, and iirc 25-50 fielded 1-2 White elephants. This was NAVIES, not just SDFs, and we know of ~10 navies in the 1st group already (Manticore, Anderman, Grayson, Haven, Erewhon, Beowulf, Solarian League, Mannerheim, and presumably Asgerd and Talbot.) We're presuming that the majority of the remaining ~15 top tier navies are SDFs, as well as the rest, but really have no proof, other than that the SLN has the majority of the money, and David said the Haven sector was "special" for the verge.

Also note, nothing is said about the size of the ships (they could be smallish BBs like the RMN's ancient Thorstens or the SLN's DN sized SDs.),the age of the ships, nor their actual condition. In addition, Forts are not part of this calculation.

That's the rub. Are you going to have to deal with the freighter with some weapons or are you going to have to deal with warships which are now privately operated?

I don't think Manticore and Haven(or Grayson) are going to suddenly become arms dealers to Human Known Space. That is aside from Manticore and Grayson havaing to rebuild their orbital manufacturing with all it will require.

Even the systems that decide to start taking over others (excepting the RF) or new mercenary groups (former SLN etc) are going to become known in some short time frame. Short of taking and holding every freighter that shows up at your new aquisition, word is going to leak out.

We may find that some systems will make trade deals and treaties with "close" systems which may already have some hypercapable SDF to keep the majority of single or pair units of former SLN ships off their necks. It's one option and probably works out better for both. Actually taking over a neighbor is going to mean enforcing you control which- in addition to a warship in orbit to be an orbital platform with a big stick- you are going to have to put troops and administrators on the ground to get things done. Messy.

We shall see.

I think that there will be some friendly acquisitions - which is, after all, how the Republic of Haven originally expanded - and not just in the RF. When the people you're taking over want you there, you don't have nearly the administrative burden, and they generally put some effort into making it worth your while to be there. Some of them will work nicely, some will turn out to have been over-ambitious, some will end up as disasters for some or all concerned. About the same set of outcomes as you would expect for the places that try going conquistador - although "works nicely" won't be nearly as common for that lot.

Brigade XO wrote:That's the rub. Are you going to have to deal with the freighter with some weapons or are you going to have to deal with warships which are now privately operated?

I don't think Manticore and Haven(or Grayson) are going to suddenly become arms dealers to Human Known Space. That is aside from Manticore and Grayson havaing to rebuild their orbital manufacturing with all it will require.

Even the systems that decide to start taking over others (excepting the RF) or new mercenary groups (former SLN etc) are going to become known in some short time frame. Short of taking and holding every freighter that shows up at your new aquisition, word is going to leak out.

We may find that some systems will make trade deals and treaties with "close" systems which may already have some hypercapable SDF to keep the majority of single or pair units of former SLN ships off their necks. It's one option and probably works out better for both. Actually taking over a neighbor is going to mean enforcing you control which- in addition to a warship in orbit to be an orbital platform with a big stick- you are going to have to put troops and administrators on the ground to get things done. Messy.

We shall see.