System Guard

Werrf wrote:

George J. Smith wrote:Maybe a court marshal is in order with a reduction in rank the penalty

<personal bugbear> Court Martial, as in military court.</personal bugbear> Sorry, I just get itchy fingertips whenever I see that one

Sorry, had a Homer moment

T&R
GJS

One problem is you would start to get the BF and FF effect between RMN and SG. Who would pay for it. The SEM or the local system. If the SEM then you would have fights just like the BF and FF leadership. If local then you would have Core vs Shell or Verge world between rich and poor systems.

SWM wrote:Okay, Skimper, now we have something we can actually analyze, though you haven't explicitly stated here what you want this System Guard to be composed of.

One really huge problem with your basic premise is that, by the time you can actually build the spaceyards in Silesia to build or refurbish the ships you want to use, it will be extremely obvious to the Solarian League that the System Guard is second-rate material. It will take at least a year or two just to build the construction yards. The League has already seen better technology in action. They know perfectly well that the cataphract is nowhere near as good as Manticore's missiles; you won't fool them by using cataphracts in your System Guard. They have already seen FTL comms transmitting full video and audio. They haven't seen all of Manticore's newest tech, but they've seen better than you are planning to put into the System Guard. By the time your proposed Silesian yards are putting out this System Guard, the Solarian League will have a pretty good idea what Manticore's capabilities are.

If your primary purpose in doing this is disinformation, it fails right from the start.

Time is not short in these space battles. It will take decades to fight the fight if not prolong generations.

The only tech the league has seen has been seen by people no longer in communication with the league. The only other tech they have seen has be supplied to them. They have no idea how it works. Only that it does work some how. They have no idea if it is a Morse code repeater with a visual interface workup by the local satellites / drones. Mp3 mp4 bit tech makes this all possible now. Except the FTL gravtech. Besides entangled tech would work better. Now.

Leaking wrong information about how the supposed tech is all arcane computer wizardry and carefully packaged to look so much better is entirely believe able. It might actually be how it works....FAWK

The range of missiles all that is known is that they can engage at 30 million klicks. A missile tech that suggests that a 9.5-10 million km per stage 3 stage capacitor (because all missiles are capacitor) missile was used. It makes sense. Same Morse code bittech can guide the missiles through the use of updated drones. Again they can do this, sort of. It explains stuff and works. Let's them feel good that it could work that way.

Fast Freighter unarmed Q ships or false FF(P) was hinted at. With the Raging Justice released conversation. Again all they know is the conversation. It could all be fiction. If the leaked info says it was staged clipped together very well. They will want to believe it. Yes the FTL com works but it isn'tas good as it seems on the supplied clips. Very well made movies none the less. Like the Honor amoung enemies clip movie made by then Haven. Very well made.

The expense of converting with carried modules of pre existing Fast Freighters, both Manty and Captured is minimal. The cost of parking and teaching / dismantling and building slips in Iocal systems would be SEM costs as part of the SEM, which the protectorates are and will transition from protectorate to full member status.

Cost for an unarmed "Q" ship. Unarmed Unarmoured, no armour. No weapons other than pods carried if any for use by the carried armed Highlander 2 LAC. Yes some leaking of info on this LAC will talk about improved systems. Series 282 compensators, Roland PD, and LERM or even Cataphract missiles. Pod capability firing after the are rolled by the unarmed FF(P). The unarmed ferry of weapons sf and ff pod laying freighters. And supplied by SEM Highlander 2 LAC. 72 per system plus 3 FF(P) especially a sidewall military wedge ferry no energy no CM no PD no weapon telemetry, just LAC's and System pods. Cataphract or Mk41.

As for verge shell systems they would lease said FF or SF "Q" ships and detuned LAC. All things they are used to dealing with and using.

Gryphon after refits, either Mk41 or smaller versions again LERM tech based missiles that fit their tubes, capacitor because they can't use mini fusion (why do you call it micro fusion?) Bad habit I've adopted now.

Gryphon with tubes can do whatever a podlayer can do with telemetry upgrades and internal automation - crew reduction... It is the missiles not what launches them and how many you can launch. A tube SD that can launch 200-300 missiles per salvo is just as good as a pod layer. Traditionally a SD launched out of aspect only. Chase broadside etc...

Nike shows this no longer need be. A gryphon refitted with capacitor MDM missile is as good or better than Mk16 armed Nike. And with twice the tubes and hitting harder further (powered) and the extra stage, extra missiles, armour with spacing... And bottom mounted LAC keyhole / Mycroft like control links. Similar to Nike defenses and a Guard level service.

The Guard is an alternate service for the defense of the home System. Not a branch of the RMN. Like the marines they will work with them and the army but a different service. They turn out to be an effective information leak and an effective against whoever they end up fighting System Guard Force.

Skimper, the League has plenty of evidence about Manticoran tech, and by the time you could build entirely new shipyards refit your ships, they will have plenty more.

They have direct evidence of the bandwidth of FTL comms--they witnessed it at Beowulf when they were prevented from transiting to assist Filareta. That scene also showed them how stealthy Manticoran drones are. Manticore has also released a number of prisoners who witnessed Manticoran tech first hand. There were also witnesses in Manticoran space during the Second Battle of Manticore. There have been a number of incidents at various wormholes. Your clumsy subterfuge will not stand up to the evidence that the League already has or will get over the next two years.

SWM wrote:They have direct evidence of the bandwidth of FTL comms--they witnessed it at Beowulf when they were prevented from transiting to assist Filareta. That scene also showed them how stealthy Manticoran drones are. Manticore has also released a number of prisoners who witnessed Manticoran tech first hand. There were also witnesses in Manticoran space during the Second Battle of Manticore. There have been a number of incidents at various wormholes. Your clumsy subterfuge will not stand up to the evidence that the League already has or will get over the next two years.

And from that data, the SLN's R&D has all it needs to get started on developing their own versions of said hardware. Nothing about the grav pulse generator or the MDM tech is truly groundbreaking, the basic parameters of those problems have been known for some time. It's, as sometimes happens in engineering, more important to know that something can be done, not how it was done.

The E wrote:And from that data, the SLN's R&D has all it needs to get started on developing their own versions of said hardware. Nothing about the grav pulse generator or the MDM tech is truly groundbreaking, the basic parameters of those problems have been known for some time. It's, as sometimes happens in engineering, more important to know that something can be done, not how it was done.

True MDMs require some pretty tricky tech to prevent the impeller rings from interfering with each other (it's easier the bigger you make your missiles, but still not easy for any practical size missile).

drothgery wrote:True MDMs require some pretty tricky tech to prevent the impeller rings from interfering with each other (it's easier the bigger you make your missiles, but still not easy for any practical size missile).

Given that the grav lance is directly linked to the the tech, is the grav lance a secret technology or is this something that is widely known? I'm not sure.

kzt wrote:

drothgery wrote:True MDMs require some pretty tricky tech to prevent the impeller rings from interfering with each other (it's easier the bigger you make your missiles, but still not easy for any practical size missile).

Given that the grav lance is directly linked to the the tech, is the grav lance a secret technology or is this something that is widely known? I'm not sure.

I thought the grav lance is fairly widely known (although much less widely implemented; even back in it's day).

But where are MDMs (or I assume their "baffle") linked to the grav lance? Did I miss that somewhere? (I don't see it in HoS where the "baffle" trick is described)

SWM wrote:Okay, Skimper, now we have something we can actually analyze, though you haven't explicitly stated here what you want this System Guard to be composed of.

One really huge problem with your basic premise is that, by the time you can actually build the spaceyards in Silesia to build or refurbish the ships you want to use, it will be extremely obvious to the Solarian League that the System Guard is second-rate material. It will take at least a year or two just to build the construction yards. The League has already seen better technology in action. They know perfectly well that the cataphract is nowhere near as good as Manticore's missiles; you won't fool them by using cataphracts in your System Guard. They have already seen FTL comms transmitting full video and audio. They haven't seen all of Manticore's newest tech, but they've seen better than you are planning to put into the System Guard. By the time your proposed Silesian yards are putting out this System Guard, the Solarian League will have a pretty good idea what Manticore's capabilities are.

If your primary purpose in doing this is disinformation, it fails right from the start.

If the league actually gets it's ass in gear and innovates, they can produce ship and missile designs to compare with Haven sector equipment in two years, for smaller warships. Larger warships will take more time because they take longer to build.

Remember that in the Solarian league, civilian tech has advanced beyond military tech, because they haven't fought a war in so long.

I have a difficult time believing there haven't been ship designers and tech weenies drooling over sample Manticore technology provided by Haven in exchange for Solarian tech for years now, reverse engineering it, modeling it with expert engineering software AI. Trying to sell that tech to the Solarian League surely hasn't happened yet, because the Solarian League were fat and happy.

The Solarian league could, with the correct impetus, become a lot like the United States in World War II, with Manticore as the Japanese and the Havenites as the Germans. US military designs really were pretty damn poor, for the most part, compared to German and Japanese hardware, when the US joined the war.

The Haven sector does NOT want to fight the Solarian League in a real war, they want it to fall apart, and starting a war of conquest would make that very unlikely.

It's hard to fathom how truly huge the Solarian League really is, and what a steamroller it could easily become. How many Solarian Boltholes might get started if Haven and Manticore start taking star systems, especially if they take core worlds?

Also, Beowulf has friends within the League, they aren't going to like it much if Manticore and Haven start annexing or conquering their friends, which is not an unlikely scenario if Beowulf's friends have other friends and they choose to defend one another.

This can get absurdly ugly really fast. Better to simply let the League tear itself apart.

Jonathan_S wrote:I thought the grav lance is fairly widely known (although much less widely implemented; even back in it's day).

But where are MDMs (or I assume their "baffle") linked to the grav lance? Did I miss that somewhere? (I don't see it in HoS where the "baffle" trick is described)

It's mentioned in HoS.