SLN Ship improvement

pappilon wrote:
Yes and any work force of x competency and education level can be trained to y competency and educational level, maybe. There is the Peter Principle to butt up against. Some workers will not be able to make the transition.

And with a system population into the double digit billions you should be able to find enough competent people to start a modest shipbuilding program and research and development.

Which again comes back to how much time will this retraining take?

How much of an option do they have? If everyone around them is racing to build their defences what choice do they have if they want to remain independent?

How much time do we have? How much money will it take? Whose pocket does this money come out of? Does our fat happy populace have the determination to pay the costs? Is here some Conservative Association or Liberal Front in opposition to blockthe plotting of our fearless and forward thinking majority coalition in the government we are forming post SL deterioration?

Some will not have the determination, and they will quickly fall pray to conquest or piracy other systems will quickly find the determination once the shield of the SLN is gone. These core systems have considered themselves untouchable for centuries because they were members of the League and protected by the SLN but at the moment the SLN is no longer a viable option for protection and as a result they have to find the means to protect themselves or be conquered by a neighbour willing to spend the money, time and resources to get somewhere.

Sigs wrote:

n7axw wrote:The fly swirling around the olive in the martini here is not tech or building capacity. It is political will. These are worlds that have never experienced war and it might be hard to convince them to pay the price that readiness requires.

Don

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They have not experience a war YET because of the SLN's existence and reputation. Once that is gone their own population will demand for the government to do something, anything to make them feel safer.


And even if many don't have the will to do much of a buildup the first handful of core and shell worlds that get raided by pirates and/or conquered by some neighbour who had the foresight to start a build up will motivate the once that remain. Once the SLN is no more and their thousands of ships are spread throughout the league and beyond the core and shell worlds who depended on that protection will quickly find themselves out in the cold and will do almost anything to provide some level of defence.

So the GA comes around and offers Moriarity, a couple of squadrons of Shrikes, an economic pack opening new markets, use of the worm holes that have been closed to the League. So what will they choose? Why poor money down a rathole building ships on the basis of technology that is already demonstrated to be third rate when there is a less expensive, more effective alternative available?

Don

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The Star Empire of Manticore is offering to emplace enormously destructive weapons and ships in your system, which will be totally controlled and serviced only by them because "security". I'm sure that, once they have complete military dominance of your system, they would never take advantage of that, right? I mean, that would be pretty unimperial of them, right? Nor would succeeding SEM governments do anything like that, I mean it isn't like they have a tradition of abandoning their allies when it suits their domestic politics, like they did the Republic of Erewhon, right?

n7axw wrote:
So the GA comes around and offers Moriarity, a couple of squadrons of Shrikes, an economic pack opening new markets, use of the worm holes that have been closed to the League. So what will they choose? Why poor money down a rathole building ships on the basis of technology that is already demonstrated to be third rate when there is a less expensive, more effective alternative available?

Don

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1)Why would the GA do that for anything longer than the immediate future(6months to a couple of years)? I mean why would anyone expect the GA to pay for the LAC's, crews, pods, infrastructure to maintain and replace etc out of pocket? If you are not willing to spend the money and effort to protect yourself why should I send my citizens to die on your behalf?

2)How does the GA benefit when they end up with a couple of hundred systems and have to protect all of them and be dragged into a war every other week?

3)What is to stop them from becoming Frontier Security 2.0? I was under the impression that Frontier Security started out as a noble organization and morphed into what it ended up being.

4)Why should the GA's population accept Manticoran, Grayson or Havenite citizens dying in hundreds of systems due to pirates or minor squabbles?

5)The core worlds will be diplomatic and economic hostages at that point. If you have diplomatic relations with a system we don't like we pull our units out, if you trade with someone we don't approve of or you don't accept whatever trade deal we propose we pull out.

6)Most important of all is that Core worlds are used to looking at worlds that don't belong to the League as inferior(neobarbs), how long do you think it will be before they say screw it and go build their own assets?


7)What happens if 30 or 40 years from the end of the war another war breaks out between Manticore and Haven or Manticore and the Andermani or Manticore and anyone else? When the GA collapses and end up fighting each other over one reason or another? You end up in the same boat as you did at the collapse of the League, unarmed, without the means to build the ships you need and technological behind.

8)Would you like to live in perpetual fear that the nation protecting you will end up exploiting you? And you have no way to prevent it?

Sigs wrote:

n7axw wrote:
So the GA comes around and offers Moriarity, a couple of squadrons of Shrikes, an economic pack opening new markets, use of the worm holes that have been closed to the League. So what will they choose?

1)Why would the GA do that for anything longer than the immediate future(6months to a couple of years)? I mean why would anyone expect the GA to pay for the LAC's, crews, pods, infrastructure to maintain and replace etc out of pocket? If you are not willing to spend the money and effort to protect yourself why should I send my citizens to die on your behalf?
...

Who said anything about the GA providing a system defense installation for free -- extremely discounted in some cases, but not free. They're far more likely to provide surplus RHN Cimaterres than Shrikes. Moriarty and Cimaterre LACs are old tech, even in Havenite service. There would be little inadvertent tech transfer in training up local defenders to man a Moriarty/Cimaterre base and ERM System Defense missiles or pod based missiles from just about any arms supplier -- Cataphracts or monster SDMs such as were provided to Monica. The only tech that would need protecting is the Baffles for true Multi-drive missiles -- a cat that is already out of the bag in the Haven Sector and will eventually spread.

Weird Harold wrote:
Who said anything about the GA providing a system defense installation for free -- extremely discounted in some cases, but not free. They're far more likely to provide surplus RHN Cimaterres than Shrikes. Moriarty and Cimaterre LACs are old tech, even in Havenite service. There would be little inadvertent tech transfer in training up local defenders to man a Moriarty/Cimaterre base and ERM System Defense missiles or pod based missiles from just about any arms supplier -- Cataphracts or monster SDMs such as were provided to Monica. The only tech that would need protecting is the Baffles for true Multi-drive missiles -- a cat that is already out of the bag in the Haven Sector and will eventually spread.

In the end you end up with mostly similar problems. You are not a first class fleet, you have no reach beyond your system and you really don't have much in the way to stop a serious aggressor. You don't control the production of the LAC's, and you have no R&D of your own because you have no shipyards to introduce any new technologies in your fleet.

Most core worlds will view what happened to the SLN as a warning not to hand over their security to anyone else. Because what the Mandarins are doing will speak volumes to those who handed over their system security to the SLN and end up having the SLN come and pay them a visit when they disagree with a certain policy. Don't you think they will consider that if their own national government used the SLN to force them to do something they didn't want to do or keep them from doing something they wanted to do the GA may as well?


They may make some sort of arrangements with the GA, and may even buy some warships or designs from them as well as base some doctrine/training on GA militaries but I highly doubt industrialized systems will be happy being a third rate power depending on a bunch of "neobarbs" for protection. Successor Nations may centre around one of the SLN's existing major or any minor yards that they may have with other systems flocking to join the nation holding the yard out of necessity.


EDIT:

If you have only LAC's and missile pods what's to stop your neighbour from coming and crushing your handful of LAC's and conquering you? Because if many of the core systems depend on the GA's wall to protect them the GA would have to maintain thousands of SD(P)'s in commission to protect their own territory as well as provide a fire brigade for the rest of the galaxy. Paying for the LAC's is small maintain 2 or 3 times the SD(P)'s you actually need to protect people who have no desire to pay for them is another and one that the GA will not be willing to pay in the long term.

Weird Harold wrote:
Who said anything about the GA providing a system defense installation for free -- extremely discounted in some cases, but not free. They're far more likely to provide surplus RHN Cimaterres than Shrikes. Moriarty and Cimaterre LACs are old tech, even in Havenite service. There would be little inadvertent tech transfer in training up local defenders to man a Moriarty/Cimaterre base and ERM System Defense missiles or pod based missiles from just about any arms supplier -- Cataphracts or monster SDMs such as were provided to Monica. The only tech that would need protecting is the Baffles for true Multi-drive missiles -- a cat that is already out of the bag in the Haven Sector and will eventually spread.

Cimaterre have lots of new tech. None of it is as advances as the Shrike, but much of it is better than anything we've seen from the League.

Yes they're still using fusion plants, and the energy weapon is no amazing breakthrough. But they've got nodes more powerful than any non RMN/GSN LAC we've seen, paired with Havens most advanced inertial compensator - giving them accelerations of over 600 gees; where old-style LACs were limited to 409. And even the Alphas had FTL transmitters - where the League is still thinking you need something SD sized to fit them. The Betas add bow and stern walls. (Though admittedly those aren't that difficult to design once you have the idea and are willing to temporarily give up the accel; but they do apparently require new impeller node designs for compatiblity)

Don't sell their innovation short just because they're not quite as long endurance or deadly as a Shrike.

You could build an export version with weaker nodes (which would also eliminate the FTL transmitter and bow/stern wall compatibility; as both a part of the nodes) and an old-style compensator. But then they're nowhere near as useful. OTOH they also no longer contain tech that is a major puzzle piece towards the GA capabilities.

Sigs wrote:LAC's are an old design, I doubt that it would be all that complicated to find the designs for a LAC. And SLN SD's are if I remember correctly a couple of hundred years old so their SD designs can't be that big of a secret especially if you have some money for bribes.

Sure, LACs are old tech. Those are also a gret big pile of nothing, even pre-Buttercup. White Haven was so fixated on the old LACs that he couldnt see how the new LACs were so superior.

Old style-LACS used standard beta nodes and old style compensators, limiting them to significantly lower accelerations.

If we take the Highlander as a "state of the art" LAC, there's also a distinct lack of weapons systems. One Laser in each aspect (presumably in to 20-50cm range), one PDLC (maybe only a pair of emitters in each) per aspect, box missile launcher battery on each broadside. Note that they don't have counter-missile launchers.

Let's also remember that the sidewalls are significantly weaker, and there are no bow or stern walls.

There are very few reasons to build a LAC if you can build a Destroyer instead.


On to the SDs, again, you could...but if you already have the capability to build SDs, you already have the Scientist designs. If you don't already have the capacity, why are you spending time and money to acquire a design that is (a)unusable and (b)obsolete? Whilst building the capacity to build SDs, take the time to design a better warship in the first place.

Finally, the other point is, how many of the Core Worlds will want or need full up SDs? The majority of them will proabably look to funding a couple of squadrons of Battlecruisers with appropriate screening elements. Powerful enough to be a deterrent against most enemies and pirates.

WLBjork wrote:
Sure, LACs are old tech. Those are also a gret big pile of nothing, even pre-Buttercup. White Haven was so fixated on the old LACs that he couldnt see how the new LACs were so superior.

Old style-LACS used standard beta nodes and old style compensators, limiting them to significantly lower accelerations.

If we take the Highlander as a "state of the art" LAC, there's also a distinct lack of weapons systems. One Laser in each aspect (presumably in to 20-50cm range), one PDLC (maybe only a pair of emitters in each) per aspect, box missile launcher battery on each broadside. Note that they don't have counter-missile launchers.

Let's also remember that the sidewalls are significantly weaker, and there are no bow or stern walls.

There are very few reasons to build a LAC if you can build a Destroyer instead.

1)LAC's are cheaper to produce.

2)More importantly, in a battle if you lose 1 Destroyer you lose all of it's defensive weapons while if you lose a LAC you only lose a fraction of the defensive capabilities of a DD.

3)One does not exclude the other.

On to the SDs, again, you could...but if you already have the capability to build SDs, you already have the Scientist designs. If you don't already have the capacity, why are you spending time and money to acquire a design that is (a)unusable and (b)obsolete? Whilst building the capacity to build SDs, take the time to design a better warship in the first place.

The Scientist Class are a good design, they are just outclassed by the technology introduced in the war between Haven and Manticore. For you to design a better ship you have to research the technologies that would allow you to build better ships. If you wait until you have a viable SD(P) design to start building up your shipyards then you extend the position of weakness unnecessarily.

Finally, the other point is, how many of the Core Worlds will want or need full up SDs? The majority of them will proabably look to funding a couple of squadrons of Battlecruisers with appropriate screening elements. Powerful enough to be a deterrent against most enemies and pirates.

You just need enough core worlds to build SD's and their neighbours will follow suite. If I build 5 or 6 Squadrons of SD's or SD(P)'s once I get the capability do you think my neighbours will be satisfied with a few squadrons of BC's? If all the core worlds can be convinced not to build ships of the Wall then there MIGHT be a point to this but then they would also look at the Haven Sector and see a thousand or more SD(P)'s there and start building up their own fleet. Not out of desire to fight them but more out of the desire to present something of a deterrent.

My nation might not be able to match the GA in SD(P)'s 50 years from now but I would present a tough enough target to make them think twice.

Besides the cost of the SD(P)'s is great but it is not prohibitive. Beowulf has at least 36 SD's in commissions, if they can have those SD's without breaking their economy and while they also had the SLN's protection why can't another since system nation build 20 or so? And why can't a multi-system navy build even more?

Jonathan_S wrote:My claim is not that they had a fully built shipyard out there and did nothing with it (except maybe stockpiling components).

My claim is it took most of the first war to build that shipyard facility, so fairly few (if any) ships from there got added to their order of battle before Buttercup. But if they hadn't spent those years building it up they wouldn't have had the infrastructure to build their secret SD(P)s and CLACs during the ceasefire.

I would tend to agree with this. I'm pretty sure Bolthole started producing some limited quantities, but only late into the First War. Remember when StateSec seemed to start operating superdreadnoughts in 1914-1915? It shocked Tourville, even thought he'd spent time in close proximity to a StateSec battlecruiser.

Well, I think these ships were Bolthole's first crop. Only thirty or fifty SDs had been finished by the time Operation Buttercup launched and those had been scattered around in penny packets to keep an eye on the real People's Navy.