Solly Fleet Advancements

I don't know if this is a subject that's been brought up before. I know that the general consensus opinion is that the vessels of the Solarian fleet are hopelessly outdated in combat with either the SEM or Havenite fleets and we've beat to death the fact that the Solly SD's are useless as combat vessels to the SEM.

But let's turn this analysis around. You're the Commander of the Solarian League Navy. What can you do to make your ships something other than targets. You have an overwhelming tech and industrial base, what are you going to ask it to produce for you that will narrow the gap. What can you do right now, a year from now, two years from now. What new innovations do you think the SEM will be dealing with when it meets your fleet in combat again?

I'll presume I can get unlimited funding even though in reality the SLN is severely financially constrained (there's plenty of wealth in the League, it's just the League government can't get at it).

Right now, I'd be building Moriarity knock-offs and ungodly numbers of system defense missile pods. Sorry, Technodyne, you are handing over specs for the Cataphracts. We need more than you can build yourself. Station them in any system with a shipyard of consequence. You won't be able to stand up to a serious Grand Alliance attack that way, but you can force them to commit wallers rather than destroyers.

I'd abandon the commerce raiding strategy before it gets started because I need my light warships to do their real job with the Alignment stirring up rebellion along the Verge and a cursory examination of the history of the Havenite wars and the Manticore-Silesian trade suggests Manticore is much more familiar with commerce protection than the SLN is with commerce raiding.

A year out, even though it's not really a good option, I'd have some arsenal ships ala what Maya has and some new light cruisers with lots of extra fire control. Two years out, BC(P)s. Three and a half years out, SLNS First Podnought commissions. If we haven't figured out Grayson-style compensators and fit FTL comm in a recon drone by then, I'll stop trying.

Buy the rights for the Technodyne missiles. Distribute the plans to all SDFs in the SL along with the pod designs. Start work on distributed system defense networks using these.

Encourage and fund the construction of modern SD capable yards in every system you can. For those that can't or won't you want them to build the most capable yard they can.

Look at the RMN missile info and start determining how you can improve the existing hardware/software and them what you can produce. Look at both 1:1 replacements of existing equipment and what you want to produce for new construction.

Dig out all the reports on the RMN and RHN. Find all the government reports, budget discussions, newspaper reports, personal memoirs etc and start figuring out what the real capabilities are. Find people who know more. like military enthusiasts who kept track of all this. given a few trillion people there are bound to be at least a dozen who have enough money and interest to have a lot of data. Hire them and put them in positions where they can be effective.

Offer a LOT of money for real MDMs, designs, or even tech manuals. Arrange for this to be widely known in GA space and see how many scumbags there are. If someone shows up, pay them publicly (think big lottery winners) and ensure they are kept safe. Fake some if nobody shows up.

Find any ex-RMN, RHN or IAN people and see if they are willing to talk and what they know and can tell you.

Find out who submitted proposals to the SLN to produce MDMs and were ignored (there must be at least one). Find them and hire them. Also find who are the best researchers on the academic side and hire them too.

Offer lots of money to all the various defense contractors who have proposed advancements that were ignored but now seem useful. Offer open ended RFPs for "cool combat technology" and see what people propose.

Offer x-prize style prizes for technology, concepts ,etc that are useful.

Find who are the best researchers for gravitic FTL stuff and hire them to work on communications and jammers.

Find the best fusion researchers and hire them to build micro-reactors.

Remember, we have only seen the SLN. Lots of the member planets have their own SDF and many of them sent observers to the Haven Quadrant. Just because the SLN kept the blinders on, doesn't mean the SDF's did as well.

Kizarvexis wrote:Remember, we have only seen the SLN. Lots of the member planets have their own SDF and many of them sent observers to the Haven Quadrant. Just because the SLN kept the blinders on, doesn't mean the SDF's did as well.

Sure. I understand the majority of the SDFs that sent observers are planning on announcing something called the Renisance Association or something like that soon....

kzt wrote:

Kizarvexis wrote:Remember, we have only seen the SLN. Lots of the member planets have their own SDF and many of them sent observers to the Haven Quadrant. Just because the SLN kept the blinders on, doesn't mean the SDF's did as well.

Sure. I understand the majority of the SDFs that sent observers are planning on announcing something called the Renisance Association or something like that soon....

Renaissance Factor, the Renaissance Association is a whole different thing. And I don't think that the RF members were the majority of the SDFs sending observers to the Haven Wars, its only a dozen systems out of the hundreds with significant SDFs and them being the majority of the ones that were observing would be suspicious which the Alignment would want to avoid

Hi Drothgery,

My first post was lost, so here's the second attempt.

RFC has stated the SLN can't get pod naughts in less than 5 years (more like 10 IIRC) so this thread is rather moot.

The idea that you could field something game changing within two years, especially when you don't know where to start is rather silly; including the fact the SLN has no clue regarding even the existence of "Moriarty's", NTM the whole concept of a pod-naught, and system defense pods are a local system defense problem not a league wide naval improvement, so arsenal ships are still conceptually unknown unknowns as far as the SLN is concerned, while what the GA doesn't know about Cataphracts by now is 'darned little'.

If you review what the SLN supreme command really knows about the GA's military advantages, you'll realize it's truly darned little compared to what they don't know, which ought to frighten them if they weren't such irrational rationalizing b-#$@%*#& etc.

Keep in mind the SLN HQ, especially BF's, makes the Desnari IDA and its aristocratic hierarchy look quite efficient; the main question being who's more ignorant of their true incompetence?

The MAlg's been trying to create MDM's or true DDM's for perhaps a decade, so the idea the SLN can create one or both almost overnight seems a bit of a stretch, still feel free to spread the Cataphract's around but the word they're actually Mesan might give some SLN personnel pause to wonder if the GA is right after all.

The SLN is a dinosaur that's dying because it takes too long for the messages from its skin to reach its brain, and its brain stopped bothering to listen centuries ago, while the rats and vermin have been tunneling through it flesh for some time.

When it takes over two month's for a message in the verge to reach Terra, over four month's for a rapid response, there is no way that animal can survive against a faster reacting predator armed with better weapons etc.

Everything the SLN has out in the verge, let alone a month or more from Terra, is probably already too exposed, too out of the loop, to be saved by some wonder weapon that no one has yet imagined in the almost ten years since RFC first explained this shift to the SL.

Personally, I suspect whatever tech secrets the SLN might have had once upon a time were stolen or sold decades ago, so don't get your hopes up in that regard.

I realise you don't want the SLN to just be targets, but just trust RFC; as a story teller, has he ever let you down?

BTW, do you think that's what the MAlg is for?

Someone might consider a better thread to be what might various system defense forces have that might be a surprise to either or both the SLN and the GA.

L

drothgery wrote:I'll presume I can get unlimited funding even though in reality the SLN is severely financially constrained (there's plenty of wealth in the League, it's just the League government can't get at it).

Right now, I'd be building Moriarity knock-offs and ungodly numbers of system defense missile pods. Sorry, Technodyne, you are handing over specs for the Cataphracts. We need more than you can build yourself. Station them in any system with a shipyard of consequence. You won't be able to stand up to a serious Grand Alliance attack that way, but you can force them to commit wallers rather than destroyers.

I'd abandon the commerce raiding strategy before it gets started because I need my light warships to do their real job with the Alignment stirring up rebellion along the Verge and a cursory examination of the history of the Havenite wars and the Manticore-Silesian trade suggests Manticore is much more familiar with commerce protection than the SLN is with commerce raiding.

A year out, even though it's not really a good option, I'd have some arsenal ships ala what Maya has and some new light cruisers with lots of extra fire control. Two years out, BC(P)s. Three and a half years out, SLNS First Podnought commissions. If we haven't figured out Grayson-style compensators and fit FTL comm in a recon drone by then, I'll stop trying.

The SLN top brass should consult with all of the low level staff weenies in intelligence and weapons development who have been ignored because they are alarmists or advocate new dangled ideas.

The SLN should review all of it's files on new weapons technologies that had been offered to it by the various Transtellers but rejected as either unneeded given the SLN's vast fleet of SDs or incompatible with established, tactical doctrine. Remember the conversation between Honor and Hammish in IEH? Also, remember the stealth missiles that were used in AoV?

Keep in mind that the SLN's mentality and motivation is comparable to that ofthe RMN right before the transition from wooden man of war sailing ships to steam powered ironclads. Great Britain had the technology to build the new ships but refused to begin a new arms race because it would negate their HUGE advantage in legacy warships.

Consult all of the various SDFs about new weapons technologies that they might have fielded or
have underdevelopment.

Consult all of the various Transtellars about technologies that they might have under development.

Even if every armaments manufacturer in the League received the plans for the cataphract and the missile pods to go with it tomorrow and started immediate production they wouldn't be able produce enough pods to cover more than a handful of League systems before the Alliance's first wave of attacks go in.

Also at the moment the cataphract pods need large numbers of ships of the wall to control their fire and so Battle Fleet will be staying home doing the citadel defence while Frontier Fleet gets sent out to die in large numbers.

This will be the most sensible division of labour from the SLN's perspective: FF with its more competent officers continues to do the real work while the useless drones of
BF stay out of the way. However, the result will cause increased bitterness and division between the two fleets. BF will see large numbers of FF dying and it will reinforce their opinion that FF are "amateurs who couldn't get into a real navy", while FF will see they are even less appreciated than before.

We know the Mesan Alignment has primed dozens of OFS sector governors to secede like Orrevil Barregos (but without the long term preparation to do so successfully). How many governors will tell their FF contingents to ignore their orders and stay home (especially after the first wave of defeats)?: "I'll be King and you can be Prime Minister", and how many FF commanders will be thinking "I'll be King, and you'll be the tyrannical despot I overthrew to liberate the citizens"

Also, SLN's officer corps and enlisted ranks could easily come unglued when large numbers of League systems start seceding, if they see the kind of brutal measures used to keep them (the seceding systems) in line they will start thinking "I'm going home to stop that happening to my world"

The Alliance knows that a swift victory against the League is the only one that has a realistic chance of working, so their priority targets will be every major shipbuilding hub and armaments manufacturer and the accompanying nodal defence fleets. If the war against the League drags out as long as the first Havenite War they risk the league being able to develop the tech to regain balance, inflict attritional losses with a favourable ratio, suck up the losses and win. That simply can't and won't be allowed to happen. If we consider Operation Buttercup and Operation Thunderbolt both of which used much smaller numbers of SD(P)/CLACs than the Alliance currently has available and were totally victorious in weeks to months, and only failed to be completely decisive due to factors that won't apply to the League.

The Alliance knows their survival depends on destroying the League so they can find the real opponent, the Mesan Alignment, who pose a much greater threat to their long term survival. The Alignment deliberately targeted systems with large SDFs and manufacturing capability to form the Renaissance Factor and its both unfortunate for them, and ironic, that Alliance attacks which occur against Solarian naval forces protecting armament hubs will be destroying the real opponent as well as just the smoke screen in front of it.

Probably the best thing the SLN can do is a delaying tactic, as has been noted by the GA Brass. the GA wants a quick war to prevent innovation, so what the SLN needs are delaying tactics.

Do what they can to build system pods and reactivating the reserve ships enough to act as a simple moriarty-esque fire control for the system pods. yes they are no better than scrap metal as ships, but there must be some recently decommed ships with the ability to be quickly reactivated, and although outdated, quantity sometimes has a quality all of its own. They may not be able to build podnaughts or carriers, but they can build system defense networks for the major systems. Grab the Technodyne missiles and pods for this as well, and start spreading them around. its not as good as GA tech, but its better, and reduces the gap.

order a handover and full assessment of ships from the SDF's to try and find usable improvements, that can bide you over for the first year or two of the war, and get a recheck of all data handed in by ONS with the assumption its true, and if so, how to get that tech for yourself.

Accept that systems will be lost, and begin prioritising defense to shipbuilding systems and important resource or nodal systems. However, use the FF as a harrassment force to slow down the advance into your systems by doing probe raids around GA systems, and eventually the captured systems, to force resource diversion.


Continue firebrands work, but at a lesser scale, and in a way that allows the resistance to be rolled up easily in systems still wanting to stay in the league. A false flag operation that 'shows' the manties are trying to break up the league, but aimed at relatively happy systems, could further drive them towards ensuring the league stays whole, instead of emulating beowulf and splitting. The public backlash we have seen due to anti manty propaganda is usable, but it needs to be at more than just core systems. if you can persuade the verge or outer shell systems its still better to stick with the league, this may help a bit.

Slow and delay the manties as best you can with what you have basically, while buying time for your tech to catch up even a bit, and try to bind the league tighter.