Question about Beowulf tactics

n7axw wrote:I'm sure you are right about the Mycroft control centers being able to handle the pre-Apollo missiles. Still, the point about the limited availability of Apollo is worth making.

Don

JeffEngel wrote:
As others have noted (teach me to sleep, interferes with forum participation...), it's not a projection of BF's size, it's an example of how large BF would be if the League could/wanted to arm itself as much as Beowulf (while nominally under the SLN's protection!) does arm itself. It's also one example of a powerful SDF. I don't take it as a representative example of a League member system's self-defense - an SDF IS after all a bit of a weird luxury in the League - and Mesa as a target does, as you say, represent a special circumstance for Beowulf that way. (Mesan Alignment membership represents a special circumstance for Renaissance Factor systems.)

Anyway - whether or not systems with Reserve Fleet concentrations and/or SLN shipyards in them have SDF's to get in the way is an open question, rather than a clear "no". On the other hand, chances are any of them are small. 36 SLN-standard SD's in some SDF in the target system, for example, would after Second Manticore quite reasonably stand down when asked politely rather than get between a GA raiding squadron out to destroy a mothball fleet or shipyard that's just in their star system rather than belonging to it.

So - your point ends up being reconstructed and SDF's in the systems with League targets may well be kept out of the fighting.

Something that the waller ratios bring up though - The League, as the League, is stupendously underarmed for its size. It can't afford much of a fleet (for its size), and it doesn't try to keep the capital ships all that modernized (in terms of effect, rather than chrome). It's been running, for its whole history, on the fact that it's just so huge that trivial armament, proportionately, gets the job done because it would be still a ton of bricks falling on anyone messing with it because its very thin (always, for its size) armament is still vastly larger than anyone else's and it can deploy that attritionally to bury whomever. And the sheer reputation for that leaves them not needing to do that - or any longer genuinely prepared to do so.

It's too late for the League, but in the years to come, there is tremendous room for the League's successor states to arm themselves before they feel the pinch. Consider the fleets that Manticore and Grayson fielded, as single star systems. Granted, Manticore has three habitable planets (even if Gryphon is only "habitable") and stupendous wealth, but still, it's got a smaller population among 2.Gryphon habitable worlds than many single Core Worlds and Grayson does what it does with a smallish population, only recent prolong, only recently modern industry and education, and having a hard time getting around to fully employing 3/4's of its adults.

n7axw wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Something that the waller ratios bring up though - The League, as the League, is stupendously underarmed for its size. It can't afford much of a fleet (for its size), and it doesn't try to keep the capital ships all that modernized (in terms of effect, rather than chrome). It's been running, for its whole history, on the fact that it's just so huge that trivial armament, proportionately, gets the job done because it would be still a ton of bricks falling on anyone messing with it because its very thin (always, for its size) armament is still vastly larger than anyone else's and it can deploy that attritionally to bury whomever. And the sheer reputation for that leaves them not needing to do that - or any longer genuinely prepared to do so.

It's too late for the League, but in the years to come, there is tremendous room for the League's successor states to arm themselves before they feel the pinch. Consider the fleets that Manticore and Grayson fielded, as single star systems. Granted, Manticore has three habitable planets (even if Gryphon is only "habitable") and stupendous wealth, but still, it's got a smaller population among 2.Gryphon habitable worlds than many single Core Worlds and Grayson does what it does with a smallish population, only recent prolong, only recently modern industry and education, and having a hard time getting around to fully employing 3/4's of its adults.

Hi JeffEngel,

Remember that in the case of both Manticore and Grayson, there were clear threats to their survival. Manticore, or at least King Roger understood the threat from the People's Republic and was able to initiate a naval buildup to counter it. In Grayson's case, the repeated threat of conquest by first Masada and then Haven provided the incentive to support a buildup.

In both cases Samuel Johnson's dictum about how the prospect of being hanged concentrates the mind summarizes the situation nicely.

Don

JeffEngel wrote:Yes, yes. I'm not going to come down on the League or its members for not pouring lives and wealth into floating cannons in space to defend against threats that hadn't existed. In a lot of ways, we're looking at the end of a golden age, in which so much of humanity could opt out of violence. (Although the jackboots on the protectorates' necks, the genetic slaves everywhere and the conquests of the People's Republic of Haven represent pretty huge blights in absolute terms.) But looking forward... well, with plenty of things to fear coming down the pipe - including everyone else, once they're afraid of you - humanity can "afford" to arm themselves on a staggering scale, with weapons that don't respect the old classic formalism, and without the 800 pound gorilla guaranteed to come down on planet-whacking.

fallsfromtrees wrote:IIRC, David had a line in one of the anthologies (I think) that the birth of HH came at the end of a long period of relative peace - a Pax Solara so to speak. I suspect that there is not going to be another long period of peace, even after the MAlign is defeated, until something similar to the SL arises again - an 800 lb gorilla that can enforce the peace. It is possible that Haven and Manticore together can do so for a period of time, but I expect that alliance to break down sometime after the MAlign is defeated - not to go back to war with each other, but because there is no longer a reason for the alliance, at least in the minds of the populations of the two nations.

Castenea wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:IIRC, David had a line in one of the anthologies (I think) that the birth of HH came at the end of a long period of relative peace - a Pax Solara so to speak. I suspect that there is not going to be another long period of peace, even after the MAlign is defeated, until something similar to the SL arises again - an 800 lb gorilla that can enforce the peace. It is possible that Haven and Manticore together can do so for a period of time, but I expect that alliance to break down sometime after the MAlign is defeated - not to go back to war with each other, but because there is no longer a reason for the alliance, at least in the minds of the populations of the two nations.

I would suggest even after(if?) the formal peace treaty(s) between Haven, Erewhon, Manticore, and Anderman breakdown, unless the big boys are competing for something specific there will likely be an informal understanding that will keep the mayhem to a minimum in many areas where any of them are active. A good example would be South America where from 1820 till now with a few exceptions, a combination of US and British power kept Outside interference and even international wars down (the exceptions are just that exceptions). Even if for the first ~80 years despite US bombast it was the UK that actually kept the peace.

StealthSeeker wrote: I think the only thing that can fit a Mark-23 is a ship designed from scratch that can accommodate it's size.

StealthSeeker wrote:
So,... if Beowulf is installing "mycroft" platforms for defense, wouldn't the only missiles they would be interested in producing be the Mark-23 and Mark-23E versions???