SPOILER end of the MA

I don't even understand why we're having this discussion. Its the Flagship TO arguing tactics with the Admiral- after the admiral has ended all discussion. The decision has been made at "the highest levels." Yes [b]every[/b] point sigs is making is 100% valid. they are also irrelevant. Why? because the queen herself has made the decision based on the political reality expressed by her newest BFF, chief political ally, and owner of the second baddest fleet in known existence.

Whether it is a decision that the entire kingdom will come to dread, rise up with torches and pitchforks to storm the bastion of King Michal's Tower with blood in their eyes, only the next installment of the serial will tell. Nonetheless, the decision has been made. The fleet shall step down from a wartime footing. Ships will cease being built. R&D will continue; new systems will be deployed; and, as needed, new iterations of whatever classes of ships are deemed needed will be laid down.

When the Storm emerges From the Shadow, we shall see just how well The GA has spent its intervening years. And The Ga will do what they can with what they have.

But no number of SD(p)s will prevent the smuggling in of Megaton range bombs in shipping containers from being delivered and detonated.

Until and unless a way to detect the Spider is found, invisible ships firing invisible missiles will decimate every fleet assembled to stand against the MAlign's invisible armada.

Sigs wrote:As the GA is forced to disperse technology to new allies the technology will eventually find it's way to both the SLN and the MA. It might not be frontline top secret technology but just those tidbits will allow both groups to make great leaps of progress in a relatively short time.

Keep in mind Haven caught up to Manticore repeatedly even though their basic technology is far behind that of Manticore. Both the League and I would hope the MA have the same basic civilian technology as Manticore. If the MA is behind in civilian technology then the League and Manticore then they deserve to lose their title as the galactic bad guy.

I expect the civilian side would see each group with some specific advantages of their own.

I don't know if their new allies--whether independents or secessionists--would get more tech than they had given Erewhon already. Mostly, they wouldn't need it, because most of them aren't necessarily the Mandarin Booster Society. And, because no one is raiding their system but pirates, and they can deal with those already. Verge worlds, on the other hand, would do well enough to buy from the League, for now; or would need to be happy with the equivalent of Star Knight tech. Enough to beat off chicken thieves, and OFS wannabees.

But, imo, Haven didn't catch up "repeatedly".

Starting the first war, their tech wasn't all that different in capability, and Haven had the numbers to win. But the coup (and St. Just) killed off their own senior officer corps. With competent leadership under McQueen, they used what they already had much more effectively (circa 1910-ish); Sollie tech infusions narrowed the gap in missile capability, but was irrelevant with the appearance of the MDM. But that improvement was bought, not developed by Haven. And it didn't actually close the gap. The real improvement in PRN performance was caused by combat experienced, competent officers. Better Manti tech just stalemated against the larger Havenite Fleet, until Buttercup.

And consider what they built: the Mars and the Warlord. The Mars was new in 1911, pre-dating the Saganami. So Haven built a 477-Kton, extremely heavily armored ship, with very large missiles (both to get more range, and better energy on target)--to compete with the Star Knight /Alvarez class. And still didn't quite outrange them, couldn't catch them, and had fewer missile launchers. Also, in an energy duel, the Mars only has lasers, no grasers. That is helpful in missile defense, but hard on the Mars when the Alvarez or a Saganami punches them out with longer-ranged grasers.

With Foraker in charge at Bolthole, they did catch up-- a lot. But their MDM was shorter ranged (w/o a ballistic phase), they never got an FTL recon drone, and never came close to Ghost Rider's capabilities. Still, it was enough for them to continue to play the game. And it is the only time they really did catch up. Well, imo, which isn't worth a lot.

Oh, and another real Havenite advantage between the wars was Janacek.

Regards,

Rob

Don't forget buying Erewhon tech after Highridge ticked them off.

PeterZ wrote:Don't forget buying Erewhon tech after Highridge ticked them off.

Wouldn't have been of immediate help == it was only a couple months after they left the Alliance that Thunderbolt kicked out. They got more from captured stuff in Thunderbolt, iirc.

Regards,

Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Don't forget buying Erewhon tech after Highridge ticked them off.

Wouldn't have been of immediate help == it was only a couple months after they left the Alliance that Thunderbolt kicked out. They got more from captured stuff in Thunderbolt, iirc.

Regards,

Rob

I believe the manuals Erewhon offered explained quite a bit of that captured tech.

PeterZ wrote:
I believe the manuals Erewhon offered explained quite a bit of that captured tech.

Sure, but the tech boost wouldn't have been deployable for some time after Thunderbolt. All the tech involved there, was built by Foraker before they got the manuals.

Rob

munroburton wrote:Added the underline. By "third-tier", I mean essentially every system under Manticoran flag which isn't a capital or doesn't have a terminus. Are you actually proposing 10-20 squadrons of SD(P)s for each of them?

What I am proposing is to have the ability to get a lot of firepower in one system or another at short notice. It allows you the ability to create Nodal forces like Haven did to ambush enemy fleets and protect their territory. Maintaining 10 SD(P) squadrons per system is unfeasible and unnecessary, being able to but 10 squadrons in one system without exposing the rest of your territory is a necessity no matter how invincible your fixed defences are. Having powerful nodal forces in Talbott and Silesia with a central reserve of SD(P)'s to reinforce them or be sliced off to protect allies in need is a necessity. Having a nodal force of 10 Squadrons in Talbott and one in Silesia eats up about 34% of the Available forces. Having Home Fleet with 60 SD(P)'s and 52 in yard hands at any one time ties down 66% of your forces. This leaves the other 34% ~120 SD(P)s to reinforce either nodal force, reinforce allies, be used in the attack of MA bases if they are discovered and meet the commitments of the alliance.

Having 140 SD(P)'s means that after 15% is taken off for maintenance at any one time you end up with 120 SD(P)'s in service. How do you split this strength? How much does Home Fleet get and how much does the GA get? How much strength do core/shell systems get for protection should they request to join the GA? They will after all be invaluable in rebuilding the GA's industry and building up Talbott and Silesia. With 120 SD(P)'s you cannot meet all of the commitments of the RMN in protecting it's territory let alone reinforcing the GA, protecting allies and hunting down the MA.

You clearly misunderstood me somewhere. I did not say the RMN shouldn't maintain a powerful nodal force at Talbott - in fact, I specifically listed it as the highest priority after Manticore(including the Junction and connected systems). A concentration somewhere in Silesia was third.

You cannot maintain a powerful nodal force if the available fleet strength barely allows for the protection of Manticore let alone the rest of the empire.

I just do not believe they can defend every system with enough strength to deter or defeat any possible attack at all times.

But they can have enough strength to be creative. RHN didn't have enough strength to protect all of it's potential target systems yet with their numerical strength they managed to come up with a creative solution.


Manticore just finished round two of a war where they were consistently at a numerical disadvantage so why on earth would they try for round three with an enemy they know practically nothing about?

n7axw wrote:There is really a quite a bit to what Sigs says. But what I am having trouble getting wrapped around is how ambigious his sense of limits seems. IIRC, his figure on the number of SD(s) is about 800. Seems like a pretty healthy chunk of firepower to me. Why is that figure inadequate? He suggests 1200 instead. Why does that figure look more comfortable? Maybe it should be 2400. What is it we are trying to accomplish or what is the mission?

That is 850 SD(P)s for the entire active GA fleet. Of that strength 68% is RHN, 18% GSN and 14% RMN. The 580 SD(P)'s in the RHN are probably in the upper limit of what the RHN can maintain without destroying their progress so far. They have close to 100 systems to defend which includes almost all of the GA's industrial capabilities, shipyards and R&D. The RHN has its own defence commitments to meet outside of the alliance so they cannot cut back too dramatically. What I am suggesting is that a good chunk of the SD(P)'s under construction go to Manticore and Beowulf. The GSN definitely does not need 150 SD(P)s to protect it's one system so a lot of those SD(P)'s go into RMN service or Grand Fleet manned by all the Ga member nations.

I am not advocating for the RMN to maintain 1,200 SD(P)'s, I am advocating for the GA to maintain 1,200 SD(P)'s and the RMN to maintain a sufficient SD(P) strength to protect itself and assist the GA in the war.

If what we are talking about is system defense, are oodles and oodles of SD(p)s even the best way of going about it? A squadron of Invictus class podnaughts would be 8 ships. IIRC, they carry 750 pods apiece using the latest flat pack pods. That would be 6000 pods before they are shot dry. Maybe you could accomplish the same thing with freighters and well defended keyhole 2s. And you could use the savings to add more pods. Add into the mix huge numbers of ghostrider drones and enough Katanas to provide some missile defense.

And how would you reinforce a threatened system? Do you take the freighters from one system and move them to another? If you found out the MA's base do you consolidate your freighters and attack with them?

And given the current situation, as long as the spiders are undetectable, what SD(s) really are is very expensive targets rather than warships. Solving that is really the most important priority at the moment.

Don

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Solving that problem should be #1 in everyones list. Building up the SD(P)'s should be #2...a very close #2. What are the chances that it would require completely redesigning SD(P)s for them to be able to detect spider drive? If that is the case the GA is screwed in every way because those DN/SDs that the MA has will wipe the GA off the map and the earlier they start the better for them.

PeterZ wrote:
They have budget and personnel limits. That's why they want to shift people from SDPs to Cruisers. Building enough SDPs to deploy anywhere a cruiser is required is a waste. Their current deployed Apollo SDPs can take out thousands of non-Apollo pod layers. All they need to do is see them. Building 1,000 more Apollo capable ships means they can destroy 10,000's non Apollo podnoughts. What chance is there that the MAlign can build 10,000 SDPs before the GA discovers how to detect the spider? None!

What are the commitments that the RMN has that require so many cruisers?

If the MAlign develops FTL fire control and deploys it before the GA can detect spider drives, it's all over no matter how many Apollo SDPs the GA deploys. Building SDPs fall a distant third behind R&Ding a spider detection system and deploying enough hulls to cover their new found expanded territory.

And whats the point of covering their newfound expanded territory if it's with light ships that will be used as target practice by any serious enemy? Eventually SD(P)'s will become common warships, building thousands of BCs and below and deploying them months from home means that you are maintaining a massive fleet yet it has absolutely no bearing on your defences of your home territory and worse does not allow you the opportunity to attack the MA should you find their base.

Oh, and man those hulls while expanding every other part of their economy at the same time to pay for those ships and the war debt.

The war debt is a non issue, first you worry about surviving and then you worry about paying debt you accumulated while you were surviving. Worrying about debt when an enemy is either trying to conquer your people or annihilate your people seems a little silly.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:
At the moment, a Manti Cruiser with the Mk-16G can kill a capital ship. A light cruiser with the Mk-36 can take down anything without the later-generation Cataphract (which cannot be fired from internal tubes), so anything smaller than the BC is going to have a Bad Day. So, until something comes along and starts killing your cruisers, you do not have any need for more active commission capital ships. Build some for a reserve and start combing your databases for indications of the Malign. And get the merchants back to collecting and reporting information for those databases.

And when something comes along that requires more than a cruiser to be dealt with it would be a little late to start thinking about building SD(P)'s. It would be like your house is on fire and you try to get insurance... it would be slightly late. If/when someone comes out with technologically equal or even technologically close SD(P)s of their own it might be too late for you do anything about it especially if it is the MA coming out with those SD(P)'s. You will be 2-3 years away from deploying the necessary SD(P)s but only 6 months away from getting destroyed by the MA.

I expect the building emphasis in the immediate future to be a combination of show-the-flag and escort duty (and recon). For relatively close systems, Wolfhounds or a replacement; for longer trips, the Avalon will do. Use a Saganami or Nike or Agamemnon for riskier jobs. System defense will be pod-based, but won't need SD(P)s.

That is until they need an SD(P) at which point it would be ever so slightly late to reevaluate your fleet priorities.