Solly Fleet Advancements

If you are running the SLN, the trick is to survive long enough to matter. Political issues aside (which are really as or more important that military - but out of scope) my main initial objective would be to get every SL core system to start building the best missiles I can get plans for and also to start building military shipyards. At the same time trying to come up with some sort of distributed fire control system would be a high priority.

A core system can produce an absurd number of missile pods without a significat hit to their economy. Absurd numbers of not so good missiles still means that the GA needs serious firepower to deal with the system.

MAD-4A wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:I think the main problem with the idea is bunkerage and magazine space. Frigates just aren't big enough for both to be adequate for offensive expeditions.

that's why you dumb their offensive stores to just 1 chase launcher and a handful of missiles (just incase)

I think you're underestimating the tonnage/space requirements of a hyper generator and sails. Not to mention the space required for fire control links.

MAD-4A wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:A squadron of frigates would have to be accompanied by a tanker and probably by a missile collier as well. ...

no more than a LAC or CLAC. they can (if they survive) reload from other larger ships, ...

The point is that a CLAC combines everything required to keep LACs in service into one mother-ship. CLACs are designed so that LACs can dock and undock while underway -- other ships types would have to "lighter" supplies or shut down their wedges and sidewall to resupply LACs.

MAD-4A wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Frigates as Anti-missile/anti-LAC support is possible, but it doesn't fit with the conservative mind-set of the SLN. ...

I think their whole mindset has met a 10.0 on the Richter scale even a new BB would take (at least) close to a year to get into service they need something "now" the smaller it is the faster they get it & the smallest hyper capable is the FF. ... "as much AMS as we can get - as fast as we can get it!" should be first on their mind, ...

Your also forgetting the design time required for a totally new design. (see the discussion about building new RMN dreadnoughts and design lag offsetting building times.) The SLN doesn't have any starting point for building a Frigate. The SLN does have existing plans for Destroyers. It would take less time to "insert a plug" in the middle of the current destroyer design and fill it with AMS than to design an AMS Frigate from scratch.

MAD-4A wrote:

Potato wrote:and frigates have zero advantages above and beyond hyper capability

that IS their advantage - they can travel with the fleet on their own without the need for a carrier - yes they are a little more expensive but the SL won't care about that

Yes, the SLN WILL care about cost; Case Lacoon has played havoc on their economy, especially the portions of the economy that directly funds the Navy.

As for cost, which costs more? One hundred Hyper Generators and Warshawsi Sails or one converted merchantman/CLAC hypergenerator and warshawski sails.

HMAMC Wayfarer was hastily converted to carry 12 LACs in addition to other weapons and her pod rails. It would have been little more difficult to convert all offensive capability to LAC bays and LAC support.

MAD-4A wrote:Exactly - dirt cheap & quick to build - faster than a DD & way faster than any capitol ship ...

Pearls of Weber #88
www.davidweber.net/posts/88-heavy-attack-craft-(hac).html
wrote:There's no point in flogging this particular deceased equine. I cannot conceive of any tactical or operational circumstances under which it would make sense to invest funds and yard capacity in a so-called "heavy attack craft." Either build LACs, or else build hyper-capable units; don't waste your industrial resources and manpower on building and crewing hybrids which will lack the flexibility of either.

I think that argument applies to the SLN as well as GA members that were the focus of the Pearl.

I think people are avoiding the best example of how hide bound the SLN is. Crandall (and Filareta?) were using the same canned ECM routines as Byng. These should have been replaced on an ongoing routine basis, likely requiring nothing more than one or two competent code monkeys per revision, and with independent routines for each command.

While we have touched on the amount of time it will take any commerce raiding force to actually get to some place they can operate, there is another side to their actions. What is the reaction going to be when the SEM starts issuing press releases that start out "Four Solarian BCs attempted to attack a merchant convoy in the Talbott Quadrant. They were destroyed with all hands." This will become especially important when the SL will not be able to respond with any claims of success. Even if the SLN does manage a successful intercept, it will be months before they can report it. By the time any victory could be announced, there will have been months of negative reports. Any positive reports will by that time look like lies or at best a face saving gesture on the part of the Mandarins.

The very best the SL can hope for out of a commerce raiding strategy is to redirect light units for convoy protection. With the switch to LACs as the primary screening units for battle fleets both in the SEM and the RH, there are now a larger number of first line escorts available than anyone thinks. Between the three major members of the GA, there are probably in excess of 1,000 such ships available. Yes, some are still needed as fleet screening units. Some will be used to take and hold Lacoon II objectives. Still more will be used in the effort to free and pacify the Verge and Shell areas, but that still leaves many to be used for convoy duty if necessary. This becomes especially true once the RMN and RHN begin to integrate their forces. After all, the RHN relies more heavily on light units for their screen. Once that screen is freed up by new LACs, they will be available for all of those duties, too.

Actually Filareta was not a bad admiral. He significantly improved the SLN defenses against missile attack.

From non existent to ... we didn't see the numbers to know the extent. But to be honest it must have been a lot otherwise there would have been no survivors at all. Good luck quantifying that. Spent the odd tens of hours contemplating it and got nowhere. <Shrug>

But going by Crandall and the Battle of Spindle at 3 times the range with better RMN Fire control. ...

Have a good day,
T2M

Castenea wrote:I think people are avoiding the best example of how hide bound the SLN is. Crandall (and Filareta?) were using the same canned ECM routines as Byng. These should have been replaced on an ongoing routine basis, likely requiring nothing more than one or two competent code monkeys per revision, and with independent routines for each command.

Alizon wrote:Now to an analysis of the strategy of the SLN.
[snip]
Early Phase I:
[snip]
In doing this, disperse your yards. The GA will likely raid some important facilities so you can't put all your eggs in just a couple of high profile baskets. One advantage you do have here however is GA arrogance. The GA knows you can't build a warship capable of challenging them so they are likely to not assign your yards as their top priority to begin with.
[snip]

This assumed 'arrogance' seems optimistic. Shipyards are a prime target for the GA, precisely because they are necessary for the SLN to acquire a modern fleet. Taking them out delays that effort while giving the host system a demonstration of the SLN's impotence. And, if the raiders can give enough time to evacuate, without causing enormous casualties and the consequent PR damage to the GA.

Castenea wrote:I think people are avoiding the best example of how hide bound the SLN is. Crandall (and Filareta?) were using the same canned ECM routines as Byng. These should have been replaced on an ongoing routine basis, likely requiring nothing more than one or two competent code monkeys per revision, and with independent routines for each command.

Why?

To begin with, these canned ECM routines are probably far better and more than sufficient to meet any threat that the League would be expected to reasonably encounter. If you discount the nations of the Haven sector and the advancements they've made, then you still have no reason to make such a change.

Even with Byng's information, you have to remember that Henke didn't reveal her full capabilities to Byng and there's a big difference between the ability to take out a few BC's and lighter vessels and doing the same to a fleet of SD's with supporting elements.

And yes, from where we're sitting the SLN discounted the evidence that Byng's destruction did reveal but that's because we, the reader, know what the real score is. The SLN doesn't know much of anything for sure and in an environment, they followed their preconceived notions and reached the wrong conclusions.

Now that the fate of Crandall's task force is known and when the fate of Filerta's surrender is absorbed, there's going to be only a precious few people who are so thoroughly self deluded to believe that they aren't in serious trouble.

In such an environment you are going to see three typical reactions. The first will be those who now believe that the sky is falling by estimating GA technology is far greater than it truly is. These people are the folks who will think Manty laser heads have the punch of capital ship grasers or that they can be fired over the wall from hyperspace to accurately targets vessels in the inner system. If they panic then these people will be largely useless. A more useful reaction will be the "we need to start tackling this as of a century ago" and start working on finding solutions (who knows, in the process they may actually figure out how to do these things).

The second, probably more common reaction is to still discount the reality somewhat. These people will believe that there is a balance that needs to be redressed but that it's not as severe as it actually is. These people will take measures to redress the balance but since they underestimate the GA's actual advantage, these measures will not be sufficient.

Then there is probably the smallest on the mainstream groups and those will be the people who come pretty close to the general mark of what the situation truly is. This group will grow as the SLN gains more experience with the GA until they become the majority opinion. In the meantime this group will probably be allied with the sky is falling group in their attempts to effect change.

Lastly, in a small minority probably consisting mostly of highly prejudiced individuals or high ranking people who are more firmly insulated from reality than most, the reaction will be denial that anything so preposterous could ever be true. This will probably include many of the Mesan traitors. This group will have an impact entirely out of line with their numbers because many of them are likely to hold important positions in the bureaucracy of the League but at a certain point there will be too many people who see enough of the light to begin pushing this group aside.

Actually, I think there are ways to go about commerce raiding which can work decidedly to the SLN's advantage.

The first of these is that you have to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of your enemy and match them against your strengths. If you're careful with how you deploy your forces, you're not going to send 4 BC's into a situation where they are likely to be destroyed, commerce raiders survive and propser by avoiding those situation.

In system intercepts can be tricky if there are strong in system LAC forces which can effectively intervene which means that when a raiding force approaches a system instead of dropping the entire force into normal space, you send in a destroyer or even one of those oft discussed frigates into the system to look around and when you do drop your force in system you keep then near the hyper limit and use your reaction thrusters and grav plates to move around unless you're really sure there aren't any powerful forces waiting for you.

In addition, if your raiding force is strong enough, it can overcome LAC's if the system is insufficiently guarded and it's going to be difficult to guard everything as well as you want to especially with Manticorian and Greyson production seriously impacted. I'm not even sure that the Andermani's have effective LAC's of their own so this might be as much of a consideration in their space as elsewhere.

But even in combat with LAC's you can win. Even the best LAC's lack the weapon that SLN crews should fear the worst, MDM's. BC's and CA's are formidable opponents to LAC's especially in force and chances are the best LAC designs aren't garrisoning backwater Silesian planet X. If you do determine that there is a LAC squadron operating in this system, a clever commander might even be able to catch a LAC force napping by dropping a DD to operate around the hyperlimit and then having the TF drop out of hyper unexpectedly to mousetrap the LAC's.

Anyway if a large LAC force does appear you go to the one place they can't follow, hyperspace. For LAC's to really be fully effective, there need to be enough of them and they need to either catch you with your pants down (a couple of experience of that will tend to cure survivors of letting it happen again) or you have to come into the system far enough that you can't just run back to the hyperlimit and disappear.

This also reveals the safest and most potentially rewarding strategy the SLN raiding forces can adopt, hyperspace intercepts.

Hyperspace intercepts are difficult to achieve especially when you're going after warships, but in this kind of situation you're going after the merchants and their escorting force which will tied to the maneuvering capabilities of their flock.

Convoys also travel along fairly predictable paths which means figuring out the general area to perform an intercept isn't horribly difficult and you have the numbers to spread a pretty effective net.

Yes there are challenges to hyperspace combat, but the elimination of LAC's and MDM's from the picture should be awfully appealing to any SLN raiding force commander.

Such intercepts eliminate the effectiveness of garrisoning LAC squadrons and forces warships into the one area of combat where the SLN is going to be their equal if not their superior, close range energy weapons engagements with Graser and Lasers.

In this case, the SLN can use the GA tendency to depend on LAC in the commerce protection role against them. If the only real advantage you have over a LAC squadron in your hyperdrive, use it. It's a feature that GA commanders are likely to undervalue somewhat so use it to your advantage.

And don't discount the morale effect of even an minor naval victory. During the war of 1812 the US Navy had a handful of frigates matched against the most powerful navy in the world. But the handful of victories which those frigates won carried a significance all out of proportion to their actual impact on the war. Even in defeat, the courage of the bravery of the sailors of the USS Chesapeake and the last words of her Captain "don't give up the ship" has echoed in history.

In this case, if the enemy seems to be all powerful, even a small victory can tell your people, even those in your armed forces, that no, they aren't invincible after all, their just hard to beat but you can do it. A brave defeat spitting defiance in the eye of the enemy can also serve.

For the League to defy the GA, they need to find and cultivate that defiant spirit and even small victories can serve to fuel that defiance. They aren't going to get those victories against the GA's primary fleets, at least not in the early phases of the conflict so if you want to find them, it's going to be the raiding forces that find them for you.

Oh, btw, the time lag doesn't matter as much as it might. It might be news that's months old, but when it arrives it's new news to the general public most of which won't look beyond the headlines. Even if they do, who is to say Commodore X hasn't won even greater victories that we just don't know about yet so the time lag can actually work for you in a lot of ways.

Hope spring eternal after all.