MaxxQ wrote:
Okay, I can see what you're saying, but at best, you don't see anything new that could have even a minor chance of taking on the GA for a minimum of four years - or as much as six years (or more), using your time estimates above. Do the Sollies *have* that kind of time? I don't think so, but I could be wrong.
Especially since in that time, the GA will be cranking out 4th gen wallers, probably hybrids between Manty/Grayson and Havenite tech. The GA certainly isn't going to sit around waiting for the SLN to play catch-up. They'll probably also start constructing new gen ships below the wall - after all RFC has already said that ships such as the Roland are basically interim designs, and with Manticore having more or less a clean slate to start with, as well as combat experience with current designs, I'm sure they've already got a lot of the new design work fairly close to completion.
I give it another 6-8 months before new construction actually starts - and that's just at Manticore. There's a chance *some* new construction might start sooner at Bolthole, or other Haven yards.
Well, I wouldn't agree that the Solarians will be unable to contest with the Manties until they reach Phase IV.
What is it that currently makes the Manties such overwhelmly superior to the extent that Solarian fleets are good for little more than target practice?
MDM's.
Manty fleets and to a slightly lesser extent, Republican fleets can engage Solarian units at ranges far exceeding the Solarian's ability to reply. I could be mistaken but if I remember correctly the best current Solarian systems have approximately around 20% of the range which means they have to be CLOSE, almost knife fighting range before they can even think of shooting back.
Now if the Solarian's had a system that could match those ranges, you have suddenly eliminated the principal difference between your vessels being warships or simply being targets. There are other significant problems that need to be addressed as well, but if you don't solve this one, the rest don't matter.
The premise is that this can be done in some fashion using Solarian technology. I don't expect that this will initially be a MDM but more of a really BIG SDM with a second engagement stage. To save time I'd suspect the engagement stage would be the existing SLN Capital Ship Missle with the "booster" stage being something semi-new which can get the engagement stage into it's engagement envelope.
Once you have that missile then, in theory, all you need is to bring enough of them into your fleet engagement in enough numbers to challenge Manty anti-missile defenses.
Now, using the first flight version of this missile and Phase I upgraded SD's, you, as the Solly Commander, are going to need a huge numeric advantage if you're going to challenge a RMN or Republican fleet, but you also are in command of the one fleet in all known space that has a snowballs chance in hell of putting those numbers into service.
From that point forward, each progressive phase provides better systems and weapons which further reduce the gap and reduce the numeric superiority which you need to achieve in order to have a fighting chance.
Now, of course, both Manticore and Haven will be improving their systems at the same time, but Oyster Bay has put a huge crimp in Manty and Greyson capabilities which gives the SLN an fighting chance to begin getting it's feet back underneath them. But even if it hadn't it's probable that the SLN will improve faster than Manticore or Haven can advance.
Initially this will just be a matter of incorporating the technology that the League already has but which the SLN has ignored. After that, the League has far greater resources to expend on development and construction than the SEM or the Republic and they don't have to reinvent the wheel, all they need to do is figure out, in general terms, what the Manticorians and the Havenites have done and work on figuring out how to replicate it in some form. That's much easier and faster than breaking ground with entirely new research.
