SLN reserve possibilities

Cyn wrote:A simple enough way to save the yards would be to move them further out of the system and hide them outside ship board sensor range. The shipyards would simply need reinforcing between the attached structures and to hold the structure close enough to the deformation tolerances and most of the moving of these shipyards could be done ballistically with very low accelerations. Using the Sol system as an exampleany of the gas giants would be an ideal hiding place, I'd personally choose Netune because of its proximity to the Kuiper Belt adding a huge potential of raw material extraction. If they opt to simply create a Grayson style shipyard and not bother reinforcing most of the structure and just take the equipment, the local system governments or corporations owning the stations could likely be convinced to pay the cost of doing this because if they're raided, they're the one who is going to be in the hole not the Permanent Senior Undersecretaries. That said I kind of stole this idea from another book I've read though.

I would assume if this was started in as many places as possible as fast as possible any GA raiding forces wouldn't be able to get them all the League is just too big for that.

You can't hide shipyards that way. Shipyards require a constant flow of ships carrying raw materials, manufactured equipment, and manpower. It would be easy to identify the locations of any shipyards simply by looking for all the impeller wedges moving to and from the location.

SWM wrote:You can't hide shipyards that way. Shipyards require a constant flow of ships carrying raw materials, manufactured equipment, and manpower. It would be easy to identify the locations of any shipyards simply by looking for all the impeller wedges moving to and from the location.

Yeah, the only way to actually hide a shipyard complex is to do what Haven did and hide the entire infrastructure used to build and operate them. Placing it in out-of-the-way areas of an already inhabited and well-trafficked system just means you'll generate a bunch of anomalous traffic to said area, which any halfway competent intelligence agency will quickly pick up on.

Cyn wrote: I'd personally choose Netune because of its proximity to the Kuiper Belt adding a huge potential of raw material extraction.

This is hilariously wrong. Funny thing about the Kuiper Belt: It's made up of the same stuff that makes up comets. Mostly water ice with a few impurities, to be precise.
Which is not really what you want to build ships.

I would assume if this was started in as many places as possible as fast as possible any GA raiding forces wouldn't be able to get them all the League is just too big for that.

Problem is that the League is too bureaucratic to make a swift decision like that. Another problem is that very few systems actually have the infrastructure to make that work (as in, raw material extraction/refining industry, large enough pool of space-trained shipyard workers), and finally, the biggest problem the SLN has in rebuilding its forces is that they simply do not have a competitive design that these shipyards would be building that would help them against a GA battle fleet. Sure, they can get a Podlayer built soon; they have useful pods and missiles for them, but given that it takes even Manticoran shipbuilders most of a year from project start to production start, there's a big chance that if these ships actually do get built, they may not be operational in time to actually have an effect.

This is hilariously wrong. Funny thing about the Kuiper Belt: It's made up of the same stuff that makes up comets. Mostly water ice with a few impurities, to be precise.
Which is not really what you want to build ships.

The second coming of pykrete ships!

The prelued to Oyster Bay, not to mention several descriptons in earlier books of DDs scouting systems tell you why you can't just move shipyards to hide them. Essentialy if you are using fusion plants to power major industrial sites and impeller wedges for moving ships (with materials etc) you end up with a traffic and activity map of a system in fairly short order. Sure, your scout might even be light hours out but you still get information from really strong passive sensors such as you would find on a modern starship and just charting ship movements withing a system would give you areas of high interest. Those you could take a closer look at with stealthed passive recon drones.


It is quite possible that some people in the SLN can come up with useful and, at least on a limited basis, asymmetrical warfare tactics to use against the GA but to this point that isn't going to work against the long-term problem of the Alignment.

That the Mandarins have stomped right past their best option of negotiating in good faith with SEM is now moot. Between the upcomming SLN visit to Beowulf to "observe and protect" the referendum and the growing awareness withing the SL and surrounding area that the SL/SLN can't actually protect them if the GA and this Alignment decide to move against their systems, the League is going to start fracturing quickly. That will go in three general modes.

First is systems strengthing agreements with existing partners in trade and other things.
Second is systems beginning to be agressive in moving against those who the now or have traditionaly had a problems with to either eliminate them from some compeition or take them over.
Third systems decide to opt out of supporting the League in favor of pursueing thier own agendas. That would include making direct contact with SEM/GA and others to open communications and just not supporting directives that will come down from the SL buracracy. Sell consumables to SLN ships, sure. And then pass along SLN traffic and other data to people who are interested. Ignore requests (or more specifically tell specific people within thier systems to ignore or seriously delay) for manufacturing or construction requests from the SL bureaucracy in favor of "other work". There would also be a refusal to shift an SDF assets (people or ships or stratigic materials) to the SLN.

What exactly is the SL going to do about this. Sending one or more SLN ships to force a company or system to comply is fraught with political problems for the SL buacracy since it shows them for exactly what they are attempting to avoid.

SWM wrote:You can't hide shipyards that way. Shipyards require a constant flow of ships carrying raw materials, manufactured equipment, and manpower. It would be easy to identify the locations of any shipyards simply by looking for all the impeller wedges moving to and from the location.

The evidence of Manticore says that you can run a full blown massive modern shipbuilding infrastructure in the honorverse with less then 5 million people, plus crew for the ships.

But you can't easily hide it in a system. You'd need to be somewhere where people with decent sensors you don't know won't wander within a few light months.

Building that infrastructure out in the middle of nowhere isn't going to be easy or cheap. But you can do a large amount of bootstrapping if you are willing to trade off time for money.

kzt wrote:The evidence of Manticore says that you can run a full blown massive modern shipbuilding infrastructure in the honorverse with less then 5 million people, plus crew for the ships.

I think you meant to say "less than 5 billion people. The infrastructure isn't just the people at the sharp end, it's also the millions of people dirtside who do all the other tasks a modern tech base needs.

The E wrote:

kzt wrote:The evidence of Manticore says that you can run a full blown massive modern shipbuilding infrastructure in the honorverse with less then 5 million people, plus crew for the ships.

I think you meant to say "less than 5 billion people. The infrastructure isn't just the people at the sharp end, it's also the millions of people dirtside who do all the other tasks a modern tech base needs.

Nope. How many people were killing in destroying the entire manufacturing infrastructure of Manticore a & b? That also included all the support infrastructure for all the shipping/transhipment functions and the rather extensive RMN elements on the stations. And David explicitly said, multiple times, that what they blew up was >99% of what Manticore had. There is NOTHING else dirtside. Manticore literally can't make repair parts for their agricultural planting and harvesting equipment, much less anything for warships.

Hi all,

It's just that given the League's sheer size along with the size of the SLN, what's a few shipyards or collections of SDs to loose track of... Chances are that no one even knows where all the stuff is!

Don

n7axw wrote:Hi all,

It's just that given the League's sheer size along with the size of the SLN, what's a few shipyards or collections of SDs to loose track of... Chances are that no one even knows where all the stuff is!

Don

Except that most of the stuff that has beenlost was probably broken up and sold on the black market to line some bureaucrat's pocket. I suspect an honest audit of the reserve fleet would show some major discrepancies between what is on the books, and what is actually mothballed.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi all,

Except that most of the stuff that has been lost was probably broken up and sold on the black market to line some bureaucrat's pocket. I suspect an honest audit of the reserve fleet would show some major discrepancies between what is on the books, and what is actually mothballed.

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Above bolding mine --

Why do I find the concept of the SLN and a "honest audit" to be an oxymoron ?

But I basically agree -- like the BF Admirals with their un-manned and un-maintained fleets, they are much like the Silesian non-existant fleets and squadrons.

I suspect that many of the SL DD's / CL's and older CA's are in the hands of "privateers" scattered about the verge and protectorate belts or in non-aligned regions.

-- Stewart