Ships of the wall

The league ship of the wall are just floating targets with the new weaponry, even if they do get it soon, the ships would need extensive refits. It might be quicker to just build new ships. So why not sell these ships on. The oldest first. lots of people may buy them with out realising they are no longer the ships needed for the line.
They really do need the funds.

SYED wrote:The league ship of the wall are just floating targets with the new weaponry, even if they do get it soon, the ships would need extensive refits. It might be quicker to just build new ships. So why not sell these ships on. The oldest first. lots of people may buy them with out realising they are no longer the ships needed for the line.

They really do need the funds.

But that would require the Solarian League Navy to admit that their wallers are essentially floating deathtraps. Which, in my considered opinion, renders this scenario extremely unlikely.

roseandheather wrote:But that would require the Solarian League Navy to admit that their wallers are essentially floating deathtraps. Which, in my considered opinion, renders this scenario extremely unlikely.

Kingsford's already pretty much admitted this. It might be better to sell them for scrap just so they don't end up in the hands of a wannabe warlord who might be smart enough not to annoy anyone with semi-modern or better wallers.

The question is whom to sell them.
The SL definitely doesn't want any warlords around, which only make trouble for the league, besides that a SD still needs 6k crew. The few star systems that are rich enough to afford a SD, are neither in the League or the GA will have still seen reports from 2nd Manticore and Spindle, so if they go around buying any SDs, they would more likely line up for GA surplusses.
The only use I can see for the reserve is scrap, and maybe a few of the components, although I wouldn't put up too much hope for that.

drothgery wrote:

roseandheather wrote:But that would require the Solarian League Navy to admit that their wallers are essentially floating deathtraps. Which, in my considered opinion, renders this scenario extremely unlikely.

Kingsford's already pretty much admitted this. It might be better to sell them for scrap just so they don't end up in the hands of a wannabe warlord who might be smart enough not to annoy anyone with semi-modern or better wallers.

Let's not forget that they are only death traps against Haven quadrant foes - against everyone else they are at worst largish, slightly outdated DNs. SDs are considered 100 year investments outside the HQ wars, and everybody who has SDs probably has something similiar to a Scientist in their inventory - even if their newest design is a Gryphon-peer.

The SLN may know their are outdated junk - but they don't want ANYBODY else to know that. Just the knowledge will start an arms race elsewhere, and the SL will loose all the Diplomatic leverage that their navy gives them - even if nothing has changed in the relative force capabilities of the parties involved.

To anybody but a HQ navy, the Scientist is still a dangerous SD design. This is not something you want to sell to a potential enemy. Despite their obsolesence, a pair of them can run over pretty much any FF force they run into, let alone any 3rd teir navy. The SLN doesn't want to create any problems it will have to clean up later or destabilize any situations that will distract it now. Selling Scientists to anyone but trusted SDFs would be a stupid move at this time. And even that is foolish - If you trust someone to have your back, you want him to be just as dangerous as you or he is your weak link and you can't rely on him.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can remember we only know of eight forces that have SDs at all:

- The Royal Manticoran Navy

- The Grayson Space Navy (including the Protector's Own, though I believe it's technically an independent force)

- The Republic of Haven Navy

- The Imperial Andermani Navy

- The Solarian League Navy

- The Erewhonese Navy (I'm not sure what the official name of this one is)

- The Beowulf System Defence Force

- The Mesan Alignment Navy (and no-one else knows the Detweiler-class exists, though if ONI, NavInt and Sword Intelligence aren't assuming that something like it does exist then they're all off my Christmas card list)

I have to wonder how many, if any, of the other SD-operating forces are outside the League. It wouldn't surprise me if they're all League member SDFs, in which case they're likely to be as good or better than SLN-standard, given some of RFCs comments, though perhaps without the Fleet 2000 upgrades like Halo. If that's the case, then the SLN is at or near the bottom of the tree when it comes to ships of the wall, and very much trading on its reputation.

Dafmeister wrote:If that's the case, then the SLN is at or near the bottom of the tree when it comes to ships of the wall, and very much trading on its reputation.

Not so much trading on reputation as trading on size. Given that even the most advanced SDFs will have technology mostly equivalent to what the SLN is fielding, the SLN can reliably overpower any SDF it wants to.

Dafmeister wrote:Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can remember we only know of eight forces that have SDs at all:

- The Royal Manticoran Navy

- The Grayson Space Navy (including the Protector's Own, though I believe it's technically an independent force)

- The Republic of Haven Navy

- The Imperial Andermani Navy

- The Solarian League Navy

- The Erewhonese Navy (I'm not sure what the official name of this one is)

- The Beowulf System Defence Force

- The Mesan Alignment Navy (and no-one else knows the Detweiler-class exists, though if ONI, NavInt and Sword Intelligence aren't assuming that something like it does exist then they're all off my Christmas card list)

I have to wonder how many, if any, of the other SD-operating forces are outside the League. It wouldn't surprise me if they're all League member SDFs, in which case they're likely to be as good or better than SLN-standard, given some of RFCs comments, though perhaps without the Fleet 2000 upgrades like Halo. If that's the case, then the SLN is at or near the bottom of the tree when it comes to ships of the wall, and very much trading on its reputation.

Didn't the Talbott system (not to be confused with the quadrant), one of the minor Manticoran Alliance members from the first war, have yards capable of at least repairing SDs?
I don't know that we were told they had any of their own, but it'd be unusual to have SD repair capability without SDs of your own.

That might be one more. (And based on the numbers RFC game at least a couple more SDFs should have SD; we just don't know with ones)

Dafmeister wrote:Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can remember we only know of eight forces that have SDs at all:

- The Royal Manticoran Navy

- The Grayson Space Navy (including the Protector's Own, though I believe it's technically an independent force)

- The Republic of Haven Navy

- The Imperial Andermani Navy

- The Solarian League Navy

- The Erewhonese Navy (I'm not sure what the official name of this one is)

- The Beowulf System Defence Force

- The Mesan Alignment Navy (and no-one else knows the Detweiler-class exists, though if ONI, NavInt and Sword Intelligence aren't assuming that something like it does exist then they're all off my Christmas card list)

I have to wonder how many, if any, of the other SD-operating forces are outside the League. It wouldn't surprise me if they're all League member SDFs, in which case they're likely to be as good or better than SLN-standard, given some of RFCs comments, though perhaps without the Fleet 2000 upgrades like Halo. If that's the case, then the SLN is at or near the bottom of the tree when it comes to ships of the wall, and very much trading on its reputation.

Good list: missed at least 2

Mannerheim SDF (Renaissance Factor): DNs seen guarding Felix in squadron size. Figure they have 25+

Talbott System Navy - that system between Manticore and Haven that was a Manticore ally in the 1st war. They have a SD class yard which does not have buttercup tech. They have at least a short squadron of SDs of their own - No data on # or design but figure they are Gryphon or Sphinx copies. They probably have 5-24 wallers.

and the maybe

Asgerd : They are the Thorn in the IAN's side. If the IAN has ~300 wallers, any "real" thorn has to have a sharp point of it's own - no details.

and the upcoming:

Maya - using new build Erewhonese SD(p)s next year.

There is supposed to be ~25 in the 25 wallers and over list and another ~25 in the 3-24 wallers list, and 50-100 in the 1-2 White Elephants list

Hmm, interesting idea but as someone else mentioned it comes down to who do you sell them to?

Also, I don't know if they would have the time to initiate any such massive ship movement project. Events (both known and unknown) are moving at a pretty good clip. If the SLN wanted to somehow try and sell most of their existing SDs and then use the money to attempt to build better wallers it would take a whole lot of time (and that's assuming they overcome all of the aforementioned problems to even get to the building-new-ships point). I know they have a huge number of yards to build the ships with but the SLN would be looking at basically trying to scrap and rebuild an entire battle fleet while the crisis is happening. That's a pretty tall order.