Solly Fleet Advancements

I am re-reading COG and I found an interesting discussion on Torch's experience with frigates and the difficulty Torch's navy faced coming up with qualified people for the Peep warships bequeathed to them by Luis Rozak plus some comment on navies and small, poor star nations generally. It is toward the end of chapter 11 on pages 93-100 in the electronic edition I am reading with my nook. In light of some our discussions, I thought it was interesting stuff.

Don

n7axw wrote:I am re-reading COG and I found an interesting discussion on Torch's experience with frigates and the difficulty Torch's navy faced coming up with qualified people for the Peep warships bequeathed to them by Luis Rozak plus some comment on navies and small, poor star nations generally. It is toward the end of chapter 11 on pages 93-100 in the electronic edition I am reading with my nook. In light of some our discussions, I thought it was interesting stuff.

Torch is TINY.

Consider that the average SL member seems to about 2 billion population, with a fair number in the 8-10 billion range. Heck, Talbot had 20 billion, so about billion per system. Manticore (the SEM) has a population of 3 billion. Manticore seems to be able to man more then a few rowboats. I'd suggest that manning a fleet 5% of the size of Manticore is probably practical for someone with a population equal to 2/3rds of Manticore.

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:I am re-reading COG and I found an interesting discussion on Torch's experience with frigates and the difficulty Torch's navy faced coming up with qualified people for the Peep warships bequeathed to them by Luis Rozak plus some comment on navies and small, poor star nations generally. It is toward the end of chapter 11 on pages 93-100 in the electronic edition I am reading with my nook. In light of some our discussions, I thought it was interesting stuff.

Torch is TINY.

Consider that the average SL member seems to about 2 billion population, with a fair number in the 8-10 billion range. Heck, Talbot had 20 billion, so about billion per system. Manticore (the SEM) has a population of 3 billion. Manticore seems to be able to man more then a few rowboats. I'd suggest that manning a fleet 5% of the size of Manticore is probably practical for someone with a population equal to 2/3rds of Manticore.

Torch is comparatively well off. Manticore is quite wealthy. The problem is not number of warm bodies, but available resourses to be devoted to building a navy. A Nuncio or Dresden is probably too poor to pony up for what is a very expensive project. Far more systems are like Dresden than like Manticore or Torch.

Don

n7axw wrote:Torch is comparatively well off. Manticore is quite wealthy. The problem is not number of warm bodies, but available resourses to be devoted to building a navy. A Nuncio or Dresden is probably too poor to pony up for what is a very expensive project. Far more systems are like Dresden than like Manticore or Torch.

Hmm. let me quote you:

n7axw wrote:the difficulty Torch's navy faced coming up with qualified people for the Peep warships bequeathed to them by Luis Rozak plus some comment on navies and small, poor star nations generally.

So is it people or money?

What is the per capita income of a SL world compared to Manticore? My impression is that while Manticore is wealthy it's not insanely wealthy on a per capita basis. It's more Qatar vs Italy than Qatar to Zimbabwe. (It's also explicitly noted that certain SL systems have a larger GSP than Manticore - just not on a per capita basis) So yes, you only have 1/3 of 2/3rds of the economy available. That doesn't produce 0.1% of the money that Manticore has available, it produces about 20% of the money. So yeah, you need to think about what you are doing, but you can still build and man a very significant force if you choose to do so.

Hi Alizon,

Sorry for not getting back to this sooner but the weekend has been busy.

Evidently we're going to have to agree to disagree.

This is a ridiculously long post, so answering it in a single post might create objections from the moderators, NTM other posters.

But please read the pearls regarding how inept and incompetent the SL truly is all the way through, and I regret we don't have a similar collection of RFC's posts on the SL's soon to be fate.

So I'll add my comments below yours in stages.

Alizon wrote:

lyonheart wrote: Hi Jonathan_S,

Excellent points!

The PRHN intercept of Helen Zilwicki was largely due to rather exceptional intelligence, the specific kind that's not going to be easily had right after the SLN raiders show up.

It's going to take a while, weeks if not month's, to monitor the system, find ways to get to the planet without attracting lethally dangerous attention, unless the raiders brought slow tramp freighters or db's to pretend to be media ships [oh, wait the GA knows all about that trick] etc with them to act as spies which would delay things ever further, all the while intercepting HD broadcasts etc regarding all the other SLN failures and disasters that occurred during their transit and scouting periods that might affect their willingness to commit suicide.

Actually I don't believe that's going to be the case. There are shippers within the League that are going what the shipping routes our, in general what kind of ships are going to be carrying what general type of cargo to where. The known location of the grav waves and the least time transit course from them to any given system give you the basic information you need. Essentially 90% of the ships you are looking for are probably going to traverse a known area of space.


*Are you referring to SL space?

Because that's where the majority of SL shipping, what there was of it spent most of its time, because that's where most of the money was and is at the moment.

You're assuming this data regarding shipping routes is all at the fingertips of the SLN HQ on earth; when commerce raiding, especially beyond the verge, has never been a SLN strategy or doctrine though it's been a tactic of the OFS against single planets, we have no textev that SL shippers provide the SL any such data nor do I believe any commercial shippers would willingly provide such, especially given its privately profitable nature nor the free enterprise tradition of the SL constitution, so I don't see it getting past the EC given all the transtellars' objections among others; I suspect they'll have to collect such information now after they decided they need it all of a sudden; furthermore, because they don't know who has gone where etc, it will take quite a while.*


What you aren't necessarily going to know are some details like what the hyperspace conditions are typically in the area, what kind of defenses the systems have that might convince you that a hyperspace intercept is your best option. That information you're going to have to figure out when you arrive and you can scout out the general situation. But from that point on, you have the basic information you need to figure out how to approach the problem.


*Other posters have pointed out hyperspace interceptions are rather rare, if not minute.

Basing your whole strategy on something so elusive is an excellent way to ensure and facilitate failure.

Remember too that the commerce raiding strategy isn't supposed to work, it's just to show that the Mandarins are doing something, ie they're truly helpless as Kingsford explained in ART, but the appearance is more important politically than the actual effectiveness.

Where have we heard that before?

Suppose again that Beowulf intelligence sources discover memoranda etc that prove its just a political smokescreen.

Imagine that news along with reports of the SL breaking up, starting with a third to a quarter of the SL allying themselves with Beowulf at least, aside from however many crew members aboard those nominally raiding FF warships possibly being from those systems; if not all the protectorates and most of the shells joining the GA given how the mandarins deliberately hurt them to the advantage of the core.

Furthermore, the locals will be far more aware of any so called choke points, and with LAC's and system defense pods in system, Admiral Sarnow's hyper units [hundreds in SoS means at least 2-300] besides the local IAN helping to hunt down any pesky pirates that might [probably will] attack their shipping, will be watching those.

Unlike Nolan or Zunker, I doubt they're going to provide any warning to FF BC's etc when they show up.*


Certainly intelligence can make all of this easier and exact information on ship movements would be highly useful but you don't need that information to begin
causing trouble.


*Explaining and further defining your perspective is important [as I'm trying to do here], and again I'm curious if you would provide an estimate on the size and makeup of your commerce raider force, and what do you consider 'trouble' compared to the usual background of piracy in the ex-SC for example?

Because of the political nature of this strategy losses are secondary to the political importance of being seen to be doing something however fruitless, do you feel a rough 1-1 or even 1-2 loss rate is acceptable to the FF if not the SLN?

Leaving aside the relative cost of a freighter versus a warship [a large freighter in HAE of ~6.7 Mt was worth about M$ 1 B versus several billion for a FF BC etc], given how few merchant spacers are aboard each freighter, and FF BC's have 40-50 times that many, is it an exchange that helps the FF, the SLN or the SL in the long run if there's no one left to train let alone man the new fleet you think they have time to build or all the refitted ships with nonexistent hardware.

Please note nobody in old Chicago knows of any quick fixes that will help in the next few years, as they continue to take a long view that is way too long.

The Mandarins know the water is running down hill; because of the protectorate and shell's expected reactions to Filaretta, Lacoon 1&2, NTM admiral Tsang and Beowulf, nor its humiliation (though it was supported by a quarter of the EC); yet they don't think it will reach bottom for some time yet, although they admit their excuses are only intended to last a few month's at most.

So expecting their house of cards to be collapsing pretty soon shouldn't be a surprise.*

lyonheart wrote:
It may be the FF BC's that are sent out for commerce raiding become the last remnants of the SLN, if they don't attack, because almost everybody back in the SL is destroyed or surrenders in 6 month's to a year.

That probably isn't going to happen, at least not that quickly.

There's a lot of factors that come into play.

1) The most critical of these is the complete shutdown of Manti and Greyson missile production means you simply don't have enough missiles to do as you suggest.


*If you recall ART where HH explains to Filaretta that she has over 250,000 MDM pods, and these are less than 10% of those available to her, which probably excludes those in Nolan, Zucker, or the RoH etc, the GA probably has at least 3 million pods averaging close ten MDM's each [given all the pre-Apollo Mk-23 pods with 12 each] so the GA has around 350 pods per FF ship [~8500?] for roughly 40 times the overkill required to obliterate the entire FF, not just to neutralize it or render it ineffectual [destroy or capture half or 2/3?], and around 30 times the overkill if what's left of BF is included; so yes I think the GA has plenty of missiles.*


2) The GA has something that's a greater threat than the SLN and they know it. A lot of Manty resources are going to go into determining where that threat is and how to counter it. Because of the uncertainty factor and the way the attacks were carried out, the GA can't afford to commit the number of ships that such a sweeping attack would entail. Major elements of all fleets are going to need to stay in close proximity to major population and industrial centers until the threat can be better quantified.


*Given the 4000+ ships of the GA, since the RMN built over 400 ships since the 1920 Fleet chart, while the RHN completed over 400 SDP's from Bolthole alone [the other 400 from Haven and 2-3 other system's are completing now] not including the probable additional couple hundred CLAC's after it's initial 800 SDP's were built, or the probable hundreds of new escort classes, plus all the new SDP's etc that Grayson has built easily replace the IAN's ~820 warships, I suspect they can spare at least a third if not half or more to eliminate the SLN.

Remember Pritchart's warning to her cabinet that Elizabeth was likely to remove the easiest threat ASAP?

Given how compatible Eloise and Elizabeth are, the SL is toast while they look for the MAlg.

A third to half of its SDP's etc could easily be spared if it were required, and even 25 TF's [each with a squadron or two of SDP's] would make very short work of the SLN in the old league; all its bases, 'anchorages' and infrastructure, along with any perspective SDF allies the GA considered worth bothering with; again plus what's left of the FF beyond the core tries to cope with the rest of the GA TF's, when its always been overwhelmed by its too big job with too little resources now faces being wiped out by a relatively huge [far larger than anything the SLN has ever dreamed of confronting] force, NTM much better organised, far deadlier enemy with little warning.

The FF only averages around 3.5 ships per SL member and protectorate before 15% are dropped for repair and refits, so of those three, only one is probably actually on station in the shells [the others in hyper in transit one way or the other], protectorates and verge, before addressing the huge weapons inequality.

In other words you should be much more concerned with FF's survival than its raiding assignment, which again is to get its most powerful units out of the way of the MAlg, because it might engage in some Eridani type violations on 'minor' planets in the protectorates or shells by 'pirates' [if the FF under OFS orders could act as pirates, why can't Mesa] to panic people into joining the RF?

Are you familiar with Mussolini's "pirate" submarines during the Spanish civil war?

What really ticks Albrecht Detweiler off is that the MAlign plan for the RF to offer refuge and protection to all the helpless SL systems will be more easily assumed by the GA, with its bigger fleets and far better weapons.

Given a third or even just a quarter of the GA fleets, ie 1000-1350+ warships at present [which ought to climb steeply as more RHN SDP's and escorts commission this summer and fall], their vast combat superiority etc, how long would it really take to hunt down and effectively destroy most of FF, besides rendering it irrelevant in maintaining the SL's control in former SL space?

So yes the GA is going to look for the MAlg, and protect their own systems, but their combat superiority and numbers is so great they can easily destroy the SL while they do the other things.*


3) The League is vast. If you're looking just at shipyards you can't just go after those which have military contracts, you need to go after any shipyard which could be used for military production which should pretty much be all of them. You're going to have to go into hundreds of worlds and basically do to them what the Mesan's did in Oyster Bay.


*You think the league is monolithic, which is quite strange given all of RFC's warnings on the subject {in the pearls; ["Misconceptions about the League" from 2006], which if you haven't read, can be found at the at Joe Buckley's infodump Pearls of Weber at fifth imperium.

From SFtS when HH points out the SL's vulnerabilities all of the others can see other ways to fracture it further, to ART and SoF where various characters' ruminations and reflections on why the SL is screwed such as Ottweiler to Filaretta and Kolokoltsov.

You should read ART again where the mandarins, Kingsford and captain soon-to-be admiral Gweon mention in passing that it will take years for the SL to build replacement freighters [ie years that it doesn't have], including that the GA will probably match the SL economically in 10-15 years or less using rather optimistic assumptions for the SL, plus that RFC has made it plain that converting civilian commercial shipyards to military ones is neither easy or quick, especially given how little time the SL has.*


3) Like the Solly reserve, a lot of the thousand Wallers you have are not operational and you probably need a well equipped shipyard and a few months to bring them back into service. This presupposes you have the personnel to man them considering that the reserve forces are going to be those with heavy crew requirements. You've also just lost a LOT of the shipyards and trained personnel you need to activate them so even with your best efforts, you probably won't see many of these vessels available before the end of the 6 month period you specified.

*According to who?

Granted there will be 15% refitting, but there are all the refit yards in San Martin [Trevor's Star] and across the MA, and there is no textev that that's a concern yet; probably because between Beowulf and the RHN they ought to be able to handle refits until that capability is restored in Manticore.

All of the RMN and GSN reserve SD's were activated back in 1920, see AAC; while the RHN SD's were to be mothballed as the crews transferred to the SDP's, but I suspect losses may have encouraged considerable recruiting, and given the far reduced threat of the SLN manning them with retired sailors thanks to prolong to season new crews ought not to be that difficult.*


4) The Manties and Greysons have also just lost a LOT of their ability to construct the spare parts and components needed to keep the ships they do have operational. A large portion of what was available for this purpose probably was on the orbital infrastructure when Oyster Bay arrived. There are some resources to help with this but not only do they have to replace the ready supplies that have been lost, they also have to keep ahead of ongoing failure and destruction of existing parts while attempting to build new infrastructure, missles, actually just about everything. You're most capable fleet units have just become ones that you're going to want to protect since you can't replace them, it's hard to maintain them and even harder to fix them if they get damaged.


*RFC dealt with this almost 4 years ago, its in the pearls under "Production implications of OB".*


All of these problems are going to impact the Republic and the Andy's as a good portion of their production shifts to help rebuild Manticore and Greyson. Their fleets won't be operating under the same problems but there will be some tightening of the belt and we're talking about the least capable units in the GA.

In other words, a grand tour through the League by a grand armada of ships laying to waste the industry of hundreds even thousands of worlds just isn't going to happen. As superior as the GA fleets are, they just don't have those kind of resources at this time.

*Stretch your mind, please.

The shadow of the SL isn't that dark or bleak.

Imagine how many FF bases, shell and protectorate systems just a pair of RHN SDP's as part of a typical TG including MDM supply ships could visit eliminating the FF, OFS and obviously SL control; then what 50-100 such TG's could do without risking some GA system's defenses.*

lyonheart wrote:Guys, the basic premises of trying to fix the SLN founder in the face of what we do know, so this thread is again pointless.

That sort of depends on what we know.


*I guess it does, but whether you've read the pearls and past RFC forum posts yet or not, pay attention to the ART and SoF textev; the SLN doesn't have the time even assuming it knew what to do with it to fix what's wrong and Duad al-Fanudahi knows it because he's yet to find or have an intelligent fighting admiral show up.

lyonheart wrote:
Even including SDF shipyards, from my previous post, there are probably less than 150-300 SLN targets worth attacking in the first place, including all the military shipyards in the SL; very easy meat for approximately a dozen TF's for the old league core and another 12-20 TG's going after the FF in the shells, verge and protectorates.

The GA has over a thousand SDP's (1200+ by fall), well over a hundred CLAC's (2-300?) besides 2000 plus other warships.

Already discussed this above. But I bet that there are probably a good 100+ worthwhile targets in the Republic of Haven for an enemy if you want to think about it and Haven is less than a drop in the bucket compared to the League.


*The RoH has some 135 systems [or 5.5%-7.5% of the SL depending whether the protectorates are included, a bit more than a drop in a bucket], just over 3 dozen are industrialized or on the 'plus' side of the RoH economy, about the same again are 'neutral', while another approximate quarter is 'negative', with the remainder having tiny populations, being colonies for future resource exploitation or for strategic reasons; so please share your '100+ target list', I'm very curious to know.

At most I doubt there are a thousand SLN 'bases' etc, probably more like less than half that many at most, possibly just a couple hundred; if there are 25-50 TF's and TG's with 2 to 2 squadrons of SDP's, how long till all the SLN bases are toast?

Can you seriously come up with a bigger list?*

It's actually a bit doubtful that 6 months would even be enough time if you tried to sprint to the furthest reaches of the League provided you didn't stop to shoot at stuff or resupply or refuel or do anything other than just move.

Missiles are great, really, but they are also expendable munitions without which you really aren't going to romping anywhere. Penetrating deep into League space is going to require logistics with a capital L. Not only are you going to need those logistics, you're going to have to protect it from SLN medium and light forces which grossly outnumber your own. Even if GA vessels are individually better, they can only be in one place at one time.

The further you penetrate into League Space, the more effort you're going to have to place into keeping those essential supplies moving forward. If you could actually fully call on the forces you've listed to do nothing but launch this assault, which you really can't do, you might be able to pull what you're describing off in a year or two, unless you just want to translate to Earth and end matters that way.


*I wonder if we're reading the same series since RFC has made the point repeatedly that the second Haven war was essentially one deep raid after another, ie both the RMN and the RHN have learned how to conduct deep raids, the kind needed to penetrate and destroy the SLN's bases and shipyards etc.

So without realizing it, they are doctrinally and tactically prepared, both armed with the kind of MDM weapons needed besides having the logistic fleet trains required.

The GA has the ships, they have millions of MDM pods [just how many MDM pods does the RoH produce every day?], they have the capability, they can destroy the SL quickly and rebuild something better in its place.*

The apparent reference to the $6M man was deliberate.

I think I should end this section now.

SNIPPED 4 BREVITY

High KZT,

I think the SL average is more than 2 billion people; at least 6 B, since those in the verge average more than that despite being far 'younger' as system civilizations.

The core old league includes several dozen systems with over 30 billion people, according to WEB in CoS.

Previous attempts at the bar to find the range of the SL's population, 2/3 of the human race; were hampered by RFC's deliberate obfuscations, which are fully understandable for a writer, but his admitted range was in the low several billion per system, closer to 11-13 trillion for the whole SL, IIRC.

So the whole human race was well under 20 trillion.

Manticore's population in 1900 PD was 3.4215 billion according to UHH, which is why his recap of only 3 billion in recent textev was passing strange.

Given just a 1% annual growth rate, the SKM should have reached ~4 billion by 1920, but it's water under the bridge now.

Regarding wealth there is the rumination by High Ridge in WroH regarding the relative per capita of Manticore's poorest to the average Solly, Grayson, Andie and Havenite, several times theirs', IIRC.

While there are a few SL members that do have bigger system GDP's than Manticore, they also have 9-10 times or more the population, using the UHH figures.

RFC has commented in the past that the SKM/SEM was actually richer than most comparisons made by fans, but didn't provide much detail, again for obvious reasons.

L

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:I am re-reading COG and I found an interesting discussion on Torch's experience with frigates and the difficulty Torch's navy faced coming up with qualified people for the Peep warships bequeathed to them by Luis Rozak plus some comment on navies and small, poor star nations generally. It is toward the end of chapter 11 on pages 93-100 in the electronic edition I am reading with my nook. In light of some our discussions, I thought it was interesting stuff.

Torch is TINY.

Consider that the average SL member seems to about 2 billion population, with a fair number in the 8-10 billion range. Heck, Talbot had 20 billion, so about billion per system. Manticore (the SEM) has a population of 3 billion. Manticore seems to be able to man more then a few rowboats. I'd suggest that manning a fleet 5% of the size of Manticore is probably practical for someone with a population equal to 2/3rds of Manticore.

Hello Alizon,

Part II!

SNIPPED 4 BREVITY

Let's begin here.


[quote="Alizon"][quote="lyonheart"]

[quote="lyonheart"]

Given MDM's, has anyone figured out an exchange rate that somehow permits the SLN to close with the GA, let alone occasionally win one?

[/quote]

There is none. Unless you just run out of missiles or are just Byng like active stupid, there is no likely set of circumstances where a SLN Battle Fleet can deal with MDM's in a normal n-space engagement.

Until SLN mobile units can find a system which matches the range of GA MDM's SLN forces in n-space are only good for target practice.

Of course this presumes that the SLN admirals are going to play the game the way the Manties want to play it and you aren't going to win much doing that.

So, if you're dead meat at range in n-space, you figure out a way of giving yourself a chance at not fighting under those conditions. One of the options that has been discussed in for SLN forces to attempt to intercept GA forces while they are still in hyperspace. In hyperspace sensor range is severely degraded which means that engagement ranges will tend to shorten. The same things which make hyper intercepts difficult could also effectively reduce engagement ranges to those which give SLN fleet units a fighting chance.


*Regardless of the 'shrinkage' involved in operating "inside all the folds" for hyperspace, there is no textev or post that suggests it shrinks enough for energy weapons to match missiles as some have suggested, so eliminate that false hope right now.*


Other strategies could be to attempt to estimate the location of a GA's fleets hyper translation to n-space and place your fleet in that location in the hopes that the GA vessels will enter n-space in close proximity to your own. Not likely but better than just sitting around waiting to become scrap.


*First please remember Kingsford's admission to Kolokoltsov; Battle Fleet couldn't fight the GA period full stop.

In fact, he stated the GA's known new missiles were the greatest paradigm shift in warfare since the machine gun, and that's just one weapon in the G's arsenal.

He's not going to even try hyper space ambushes like you describe above, so for someone with his 60+ years of experience, even if you won't accept RFC's judgement, such a tactic simply won't work.*


[quote="lyonheart"]
If an old DD with 100 MDM's (in 10 tractored pods) can easily destroy a BC of ten times its tonnage, or 5-6 DD's at 40 M km or beyond, at what point does the SLN begin to think its going to win?

Right now the casualty exchange rate is well in excess of a thousand to one in favor of the GA, and no suggestion I've seen seriously challenges that.
[/quote]

Doesn't really matter. I mean it does but if your the SLN it's not coming up with all the reasons why you can't win, it's about figuring out how you can.

You have the very short term. What do you do right now.

For SLN heavy units facing GA heavy units, you have one overriding fact. If you fight at range within the hyperlimit you are dead. As such, you don't allow that to happen. If you're going to fight GA heavy units you need to be up close and personal where the range of their MDM's doesn't count for anything. If you can't achieve that, you need to run.

Either way, hyperspace is your friend. Whatever you do, you don't park your fleets deep inside a gravity well, until you have a long range missile response in place, it's suicide.


*Yup, but everything of value is in normal space, so somebody has to stay there to patrol or picket, and there's not much slack in the FF to start putting too many TF's into hyper.

Given HH has been using TF's in hyper to ambush invaders since WroH, over 2 years ago in the honor-verse, more than ten in our time, and copied by the RHN, NTM used against Filaretta, I doubt the GA is unaware of the risk of a energy range engagement from hyper after they come out to attack a system.

Now we may see a FF CA etc actually attack a GA TG/TF, dropping into the formation's middle from hyper, but the number of suicidal FF crews are I suspect rather few; that's not what they signed up for, so if given the chance over weeks of endless waiting to ruin themselves they may seek new commanders etc.*


[quote="lyonheart"]
Keep in mind, the GA has with its old SD's about as many SD's as BF has left in commission; then after Beowulf, I'm sure its SDP's alone will outnumber what's left of BF's before they're all destroyed rather soon after.[/quote]

As I said, I tend to question those numbers somewhat and how many of those GA SD's really are currently in active commission. I'm betting the actual number of serviceable deployable GA SD's is somewhat less.

I'm also fairly confident that a lot of the SD's which are available are going to have other things to do. After all, the Manticore bianary system has just been devastated by a strike from an unknown force with little understood capabilities. I'm betting that until the threat can be adequately quantified and understood, there are going to be so many warships with sensors peeled at every major center that someone in a skin suit will be able to do interplanetary travel just by jumping from hull to hull.


*Regarding the MAlg threat, there is no textev the GA consider the situation to be that grave, or the system defense forces that huge, indeed the GA seems eager for a return match now they have some idea what to look for.*


You've just had this happen to Manticore and Greyson, what you can't afford to do is let this happen to Capital or San Martin or any number of other vital systems. You can't afford to have any more major population centers suffer millions of casualties. And it [i]will[/i] happen again if you let it. Whoever launched this attack, you're not going to stop them by beating up on the SLN.

What you're going to do is you're going to send out forces you can afford to detach with the primary purpose of keeping the League off balance. They will be powerful and their attacks will be painful for the League, but they won't be the unstoppable avalanche of Wallers that you're portraying.

Hence, the League will have time. Not time in huge big chunks but certainly a lot more time that youre estimate allows for.


*I'm curious as to what you distinguish as painful as opposed to dead, as in a couple of head-shots, which as Commodore Zavala said in SoF, won't hurt a Solly because he doesn't have enough brain cells to notice.

Apparently you're still unaware that RFC has stated that even if the SLN knew how to build an SDP right now, it'd take around five years to build the first one, and the SL doesn't have 5 years.

That's the perspective I've been trying to share here.

If BF is effectively eradicated, ie the entire reserve destroyed along with all active fleets and TF's, shipyards and bases etc; leaving perhaps a few squadrons or single ships desperately fleeing away in hyper, out of contact with any SL command authority, NTM dedicated to avoiding action with any GA unit and even any notice or contact by any system or civilian ship that might report their passage etc [for who will have them?] until they consider honorable surrender.

Knowing if they attempt piracy, they'll be toast sooner or later.

However, given BF crews don't expect to get killed in job lots for 1000-1 exchange rates, I believe most BF crews will emulate the German High Seas fleet in mutinying before they face GA SD's again [since HH never mentioned SDP's they still don't know the difference], so what's left will encourage their officers to see sweet reason rather than fleeing forever.

Not that might might make an interesting short story for somebody in a future anthology.

If FF is also effectively eliminated as the SL's police and corporate fireman; again all bases, shipyards, fleets, TF's, TG's etc; so only scattered tiny remnants that know they cannot engage the GA are left, and flee or go rogue, become warlords etc, they can no longer act in the name of the SL.

Then what's left for the FF remnant to fight for?

If the bulk of the former SL join the GA for obvious reasons, the shells, the protectorates, NTM a number in the core besides Beowulf as Kolokoltsov well knows, ie 90-95% of the former members and protectorates have some form of friendly relations or association with the GA, will what's left be willing to support the meager remnants of the SLN, in the face of GA hunter-killer type TF's?

Given the decades if not centuries of abuse by the OFS and the SL to the shell systems and protectorates, who of them won't throw off their oppressor?*


[quote="lyonheart"]

Before the SLN can start making plans to refit with the wonderful new tech it doesn't know it needs, it needs a base safe from the GA, ie at least one, but no one has bothered to point where it might be located and why the Ga can't destroy it.
[/quote]

Well, that's not entirely true. The League does know it and if they didn't know it before, when news gets back to the League that Filareta's entire fleet surrendered without so much as scratching the paint of a Manty revenue cutter, they'll figure it out then.

And who's going to tell them? Well there are any number of sources but the most likely is the Star Empire of Manticore. They're going to go to great lengths to tell everyone with enough factual data to make them believe that what has happened has actually happened.

It's going to take someone who it way far gone to try to explain that away to sunspots or a few big missile pods.

No at that point, it's not going to take a huge amount of work to figure out that all those wild reports that have been coming out of the Haven sector aren't all that wild after all. And beyond technical hard data that you'd like to have, there's going to be tons of public domain information available right at the League's fingertips to give them a FAR better appreciation of what they face than they have had to date.

It's not as if the Manties have been a secret closed society. They have a free press, they have all sorts of civilian technical journals and talking heads, and they've had High Ridge and years of peace trumpeting the superiority of ... wait for it ... Manty pod laying missile ships with MDM's and killer LAC's which are going to keep us safe forever and evers as we scrap the rest of the fleet for profit.

The SLN and the League government might have ignore all of this, but I'm betting that you could walk down to what passes for a library on Old Earth and get all of this information in a handful of seconds. All that's necessary to have one of those "oh shit" moments is to realize that those wild claims are all mostly true. If Jane Doe can get that info, I'm betting SLN intel can too.

*Actually this has all been brought up before almost ten years ago [including by guess who], regarding all the military hobbyists, including retirees etc throughout the honor-verse [H-V] space, who would obviously drool over tracking down every crumb of open data about such revolutionary weapons and tech, with all sorts of clubs, E-magazines, even media ships seeking war stories etc, but RFC killed any such data source for the SLN.

Now when it rains it pours, and once the SLN starts to honestly seek out such data, which their HQ hasn't yet, it may indeed be overwhelmed with data, but Daud doesn't expect that to happen for at least a while, and he certainly hasn't found all that much [you ought to read his description of how easily he thinks the SL can shatter in ART's chapter 30 again] since he was orders of magnitude off as to how bad it was going to be.

It may very well be the SDF's who did send better observers than the dumb ones from the SLN to the Haven wars are keeping their data secret for good reasons, so getting any from them is slight given their probable familiarity with SLN incompetence, especially in Old Chicago.

While you may think HH gave up a lot of 'secret stuff', try thinking of all she didn't mention; like mini-fusion plants which the MAlg has known for years but still can't come close to duplicating.

You still didn't explain where the SLN was going to safely build all this great new gear that doesn't exist.

Did you notice in the pearls where RFC explains why the SLN doesn't and won't have any Bolthole type system?*


[quote="lyonheart"]
If BSDF intelligence is still operating, the GA will know about the commerce raiding strategy long before the raiders reach GA territory.[/quote]

Ok, and that is a huge problem why? If the people at ONI haven't figured out that something along these lines isn't likely to happen then they need to find new jobs. This isn't going to be a surprise strike like Oyster Bay or Tourville's arrival at Manticore.

It's like saying you're going to war and then being surprised that people are shooting at you. Of all the elements of the SEM, it's most vulnerable is it's merchant marine. The SLN has LOTS of light vessels that are going to do precious little good in a MDM environment so it makes sense to send them off to do something useful in what is probably a pretty light MDM environment. Even with the GA forwarned, raiders are probably going to be facing older vessels with SDM's that SLN forces can actually deal with. If the GA is forced to redeploy MDM armed vessels to counter the raiders, that's a SLN victory and one of their probably goals.


*Again, the raiding strategy is supposed to fail, you keep trying to claim there are ways it will work; given the GA knows its coming and has far more actual experience, consider how they can best frustrate it, even with legacy ships.*


[quote="lyonheart"]
Given how long it will take to recall and assemble them, then arm them with Cataphracts besides assembling their supporting supply TF's, and sending them all off, there could be plenty of time to alert and prepare all the GA systems.
[/quote]

Ok, systems will be altered. Beyond the resources already deployed to them and making them aware that "we're in a conflict with the League and they may be sending ships her to prey on our commerce" what else is going to change. The GA will attempt to protect their commerce using the fewest resources possible and still be effective. The SLN will try to force them to commit more resources than the GA wants to while disrupting and damaging commercial trade.

Now, knowing exactly what ships are coming and where extacly they are going, now that would be useful but just knowing that they are coming, not so much.

Given the details Beowulf had concerning Filaretta and "Raging Justice", I'll bet the GA will know lots more than just 'they're coming'; such as who, what, when, and where [why's no longer a question] as they did before, especially if Kingsford's staff was working on it for weeks if not month's before Rajampet's supposed suicide.*


[quote="lyonheart"]
Remember too that the MAlg expects them to fail, having probably war-gamed this scenario repeatedly.
[/quote]

Well one of the great things about simulations, they're always wrong, the only question is by what margin. Oh, don't get me wrong, the Alignment has done a masterful job so far, but you can already see their design tattering around the edges somewhat and one thing about really complicated plans, if one thing goes wrong, it tends to take other things with it.

The question is whether enough of the Alignment plan survives long enough to achieve the Alignment's ends. The Haven/Manty alliance has just made that much less likely as has the Manty's resilience.


*Given how well the MAlg knows the SLN inside and out, I strongly doubt they're going to overestimate their performance, while their ignorance of the GA navies is still considerable as they readily admit; given how badly their estimate of Filaretta's nominal performance was off, betting on the raiders' failure seems obvious, which from the MAlg's PoV is fine of course.*


[quote="lyonheart"]
Because they want the FF BC's and CA's away from the SL to give the RF its shot; the opening offer of protection after the foolish mandarins have sent off the best most modern powerful part of the SLN at the worst possible time. [/quote]

Yes, you have that right except for the "most powerful" part. But that will be a useful tool for the RF. Of course, someone is going to recognize that you can't send all of FF off so there's going to be something left, just not enough. That's another challenge that SLN will have to face, but it's going to take longer than your 6 months to fully develop.


*Really?

How or why?

If only FF DD's and CL's are left to face the GA, how are they going to last longer?

You seem to have forgotten the the SL is only 300-400 LY in diameter, which without a wormhole terminus can be crossed in >37-50 days at 3000C; given all the wormholes the GA now controls, dozens apparently, transit times for GA TF's and TG's as Commodore Magellan demonstrated in ART (chapter 26) will be rather quicker than 5-7 T-weeks.

Indeed, if a map of all the wormholes in the SL was available I wonder just how much of the SL would be more than 7-10 days from a wormhole.*


[quote="lyonheart"]
Outside of Omosupe Quartermain, I don't expect the mandarins to last much longer; within 6-12 month's or possibly less, ie when the public realizes what fools they've been after the SLN is destroyed and there's no one to protect them any more; what's likely to happen won't be pretty.

The GA general assault on SLN bases may even happen before the commerce raiders or at least some of them leave in the first place. [/quote]

Like I said, I seriously don't think that there will be something like a "general assualt" anywhere in the SLN's immediate future. There will undoubtedly be some "not so grand" ones that will hurt and rock the League, but they will be survivable in the short term.

I mean look at how long Robert Pierre kept control of the People's Republic using nothing but lies and not a lot of naval victories.


*No wonder you're so out of touch, you're almost ten years behind the times.

Now, look how long Saint Just lasted after Buttercup started, ie less than 6 month's.

Just how long will it take when every SLN ship are such easy still clueless targets?

The BF reserve will be obliterated ASAP, so its threat will no longer intimidate all those sick of the SL.

With that hammer gone, the fear the mandarins have of shedding systems won't be just a trickle or a small stream, but rather a raging torrential hurricane.

The real motto of every revolution is 'why wait?'

For centuries the FF has relied upon the the obvious hammer of the BF to ensure its orders were kept, even if they were given by a single old DD.

How many verge systems will seek better terms with the GA by taking out as much of the local FF as they can?

Very soon now that old DD [by Haven sector standards] will either flee, surrender or die.

The FF has yet to come to grips with the reality that even old GA legacy DD's can kill FF BC's, NTM the slightest idea what GA LAC's can do.*


[quote="lyonheart"]
Between Moriarty's, Mycroft's, lots of system defense pods and LAC's, NTM almost 20 years experience and training involving far tougher commerce raiding; the SLN FF raiders will be so far behind the learning curve, their casualties will be militarily prohibitive by any rational measure, though they won't know that, since communication even with db's with other TF's or TG's will take too long and the MAlg intends for them to be as isolated and ignorant as possible so they are wiped out easily.
[/quote]

Well, I guess it all depends upon how inventive SLN commanders are likely to be. If they just wade in excepting everyone to surrender because they are the Solarian League then yes, it will work out exactly the way you've described.

Apply some common sense, which a number of SLN personnel have (to bad they haven't been in charge so far) and a little bit of ingenuity, the idea that the SLN raiders are just walking into a meat grinder might be overstating the case. They'll have to learn and a number of those lessons are going to be expensive no doubt. But people who are getting shredded have a tendency to stop doing the things that are shredding them and find new ways to approach problems.

And once again, if you're the SLN you can't fight by the GA's rules, you have to find ways to change the game or you're going to die. Since people with a brain don't want to die, they're going to start figuring things out.


*Given how deep in the hole the SLN is, how ignorant of the GA they still are, the learning curve is so steep the smart ones [or at least the survivors] will be those who surrender ASAP.*


[quote="lyonheart"]]
Think about it; the BF will be effectively destroyed, including the reserve and shipyards (~7?) within a couple of weeks to a month on the outside when the GA attacks, probably not long after Beowulf.

FF bases and shipyards in the old league will also be hit in that time plus hostile SDF's and their shipyards etc within 6 month's, while smaller TG's hit FF bases in the shells, verge, and protectorates.

So what will be left of the SLN in a year?

Not much at all.

The SLN is still grossly ignorant of all the GA weapons, which the MAlg has been trying to replicate for a decade with poor or slow success, so the idea the SL can in a year or two come up with something new, then make millions is just bizarre.

All it appears to know at the moment is that it needs longer ranged missiles, ie DDM's with around a 30 M km range; which is so pathetic compared to the multi armed juggernaut they face including the LAC's which despite all of HH's testimony regarding them, hasn't apparently moved the SLN HQ at all.
[/quote]

No, the SLN will not be able to replicate Manty technology for some time, but while that would be nice they don't need to.

What the SLN needs to do is make inventive use of what they already have. The SLN doesn't have MDM's so building an MDM with range is a long range goal not a short term one. So the question then becomes, how do you build a missile with adequate range without using MDM technology that you don't have, and how to you do it using stuff that's already largely available.

It's questions like that you have to start answering.

And why can the League do something which the Alignment hasn't been able to.

That one's easy. Because the Alignment have the resources or a couple of worlds to draw on, the League has thousands and an industrial and research capacity that dwarfs the rest of known space combined. They don't have all of the nifty toys that Manticore has because they feel they haven't needed them. They've just discovered that they were wrong about that.


*First of all, the league doesn't have 'thousands of worlds' to rely upon given the way it abuses the protectorates and shells, so I doubt little helpful R&D will be forthcoming from either, which knocks the SL back to the core, ie roughly those within ~49 LY of Sol, only a few dozen.

Secondly, the MAlg has been looking for weapon advances for around 500-600 years [though Manticore has significantly overtaken them in several areas in just 50-60 years apparently] while being rich enough to provide top quality research support, NTM penetrating every possible market nook searching for anything new, so they've probably snapped most of the promising independent developers that come up with the 'out of the box' solutions.

Thirdly, the bulk of the old league core don't have hyper warships, ie relying on the SLN they didn't need it [why $pend the money?] and haven't been doing any military R&D for centuries according to RFC.*


It might take the League a few years to catch and overtake the SEM but there should be no doubt about whether they can do precisely that. In the end, it's just a numbers game that the GA can't win in the long term.

*That depends on what you call long term, NTM assumes the SL rump or remnant can still compete with the GA in 10-15 years or sooner [when he expects the GA to match the SL's GDP], which as Captain Gweon points out in ART's chapter 30, is based on two rather optimistic assumptions; that the SL will have the financial resources [~70% from trade customs, ~30% from OFS protectorate fees] to support the war, and is more cohesive than the GA, which you ought to know by now is exceedingly doubtful on both counts.

The RMN R&D effort has spanned some 6+ decades so far, the SL isn't going to make that up in 4-5 years; no matter how many monkeys you put in the room they aren't going to write any Shakespeare.

Consider how important the Maya Sector is going to be with just 27 heavily industrialized systems [as opposed to 80-90 in the 'old league core'] according to the future book detail in ToF; apparently they will tip the conflict's balance, possibly because they've already got a 2+ year head start in naval construction, while the SL core is still at the gate, which may be just critical of an edge.

Or it just could be outproducing the MAlg.

We shall see.*


The idea here is the League doesn't need THE ANSWER today, it needs part of the answer today and another part tomorrow. It doesn't need Manty tech to fight, it just needs tech good enough so that they can make their numbers tell.

Now, your 6 months isn't enough of any of that to happen. If things will work as you claim they will, there's nothing the League can do about it. But I believe that the Alignment and Oyster Bay have given the League that brief measure of breathing space they need by forcing the GA to focus most of it's attention and efforts elsewhere.


*Possibly, but you have yet to explain how the SL stops the GA from taking it apart ASAP.

Your concern about MAlg attacks on GA systems isn't matched by the textev.

The SL assault on Beowulf may be the starting flag to take down BF and all the SLN infrastructure, while thanks to the wormhole network most of FF finds out when they're asked to surrender.

Thus on to the more difficult conflict with the MAlign!*
End of Part II

SNIPPED 4 BREVITY

Alizon wrote:**quote="lyonheart"**

SNIPPED 4 BREVITY

On to Part III:

lyonheart wrote: We've all seen the cartoon of the man falling off the 100 story building saying "so far so good" or "Ignorance is bliss" etc, yet that's pretty much the attitude we've seen so far of the SLN senior staff compared to what it should be.

Its too late for the SLN to make such suggested ridiculous phased improvements when it will never have the time for such nonsense because 4 or 5 years is simply far too late.

Sure they can, mostly because 4 to 5 years is when you begin to reach technological parity. But the actual place where SLN units can erase enough of the GA advantage to actually fight them in defense of their systems is a lot closer to a year out.


*Why do you think the GA will wait a year?

Just because you want them to?

Again you don't make up a 60 year lead in 4-5 years when all your researchers are starting at the same point, NTM communication and coordination with anyone who does make a 'breakthrough' is going to be somewhat problematical at best.

You're going to fight them a year out with what?

Do you mean you think the SLN can come with some kind of equalizer in a year?

Really?

Again, given how many month's it took to assemble Filaretta's fleet, just what breakthrough are you expecting in just a year from a dinosaur like the SL and Navy?*

lyonheart wrote:Do you seriously think all our GA admiral heroes are going sit back and let the SLN try to close the gap?

No, they aren't going to want to wait, but I'm betting they want to deal with the people behind Oyster Bay and protect their people from them even more.


*Again please provide any textev by anyone who's that worried about an another attack.

If you don't recall, the Manticore system is patrolled by at least several thousand LAC's, far faster than the sharks or spiders, and RMN sensor tech is much better than the MAlg's.

The analysis after OB that it was a shoestring operation was quite correct, besides they now have some excellent intel on what to look for while HH among others is more concerned at the moment about what the SLN might do to Beowulf.*


Strange as it sounds, I'm pretty sure that the SLN is not #1 on their priority list. Defending and then going after the people who wiped out Manticore and Greyson probably is.

I mean, you said it yourself, the SLN at the moment is hardly in any shape to defend itself much less pose a credible threat to any of the GA partners. As an offensive force, even with the Leagues best efforts, that's probably years in the future.

So, honestly, what are you going to do? Go after the people who at the moment are zero threat to you but may become one in the future or concentrate on the people who penetrated probably the two most well defended systems in known space and destroyed 90% of their infrastructure and millions of lives?


*We're going to have to differ here.

Recall Elizabeth's and Eloise's conversation in MoH, ART and SoF etc; they know the MAlg's HQ is somewhere other than Mesa, they know it will take time to find, in the meantime its called clearing the decks, ie getting rid of all other distractions.

Obviously the SLN is a threat to Beowulf, now part of the GA, and if you don't recall what Theisman, Truman and HH have boldly declared to BF admirals, getting rid of the SLN is indeed a very high priority on the GA's list, NTM they already know where to find all of BF and FF, and you think they're going to wait a year?

What will they be waiting for?

Again please remember Pritchart's warning about Queen Elizabeth III to her cabinet; ie if faced with two threats, she'll take out the one she knows she can ASAP.

Remember KISS?

The sooner the easier.

Given the pretext of the attack on Beowulf, why would they delay?

To give the SLN more time to get ready to defend themselves?*

lyonheart wrote:
One reason HH mentioned the LAC's, demonstrated the FTL.com, etc is because she knows the SLN doesn't have time to do anything about the GA's tech edge.

Again RFC has made this point repeatedly, so the idea of the SLN somehow recovering and eventually overcoming the GA boggles the mind.

L

Well actually this entire scenario was generally mapped out by Admiral White Haven in his analysis of the military situation should war develop between the League and the SEM. This was before the devastation of Oyster Bay by the way, when the SEM and Greyson still had all of their massive construction infrastructure solidly behind them rather than having it largely consist of orbital debris.

Somehow I can't imagine that losing the two dominant industrial infrastructures in known space where all of these amazing weapons are made, maintained and created will have changed White Havens analysis in a positive way.

*Essentially, his report of the admiralty's view was based on flawed assumptions which have dramatically changed.

Do you recall what Terekhov said to Yucel in SoF, chapter 31?

Basically:

'If 2 GA SD[P]'s could kill 70 BF SD's, and the GA has only 500 they could kill all of BF including the reserve 3 times over.'

Which is inaccurate or a typo in the important detail of 900 SDP's actually being needed to triple kill all of BF including the reserve, but the gist is quite correct.

While the GA will need Manticore's industrial infrastructure restored, it doesn't need it to destroy the SLN, so 'why wait?'

Given the addition of the RHN roughly doubling the RMN's firepower if not more, it can be done even faster than Hamish then thought, NTM they have twice the patrol capability, and their strategy has changed thanks to HH's insight, since breaking up the SL is far far easier than treating it as a monolith which is what you continue to do.

So again, I ask why wait?*

I'm afraid that it is much closer to the Qatar to Zimbabwe comparison than to Italy which however poorly managed is closer to first world than third.

We are talking true hard scrabble here. Lack of good education. Remember that you need qualified people to run your fleet. Lack of infrastructure to build or maintain your ships. Some of these systems were reduced to near barbarism. Add into this the reality that for a large number of these systems, OFS has been sucking them dry for decades.

For such systems a navy makes no sense. They would be better off under the GA's protective umbrella, although that raises the troubling question of how much of this sort of burden Manticore can afford to assume. For that I have no answer.

Don

Lyonheart,

Thanks for the response. It was a bit hard to read but you obviously took a great deal of time to put into it which I greatly appreciate.

I've read a number of infodumps and such but I don't claim to have read them all. What I'm basing my points on are what appears to make sense given the basic information we have from the books and the sources I've seen. Now, if RFC says the GA is going to send it's fleet out to wipe the SLN off the face of the cosmos, we'll he's the author so he can make whatever he wants to have happen happen.

On the other hand, I'm not trying to read RFC's mind or attempt to determine what he is going to write. In this thread and others I'm exploring various situations which could reasonably arise and in this thread and the Hyperspace thread I've decided to step out of the fairly common aspect of looking at the situation through the eyes of the Manticorians and others in the Haven sector and attempt to look at the situation as if I were a member of the SLN attempting to deal with the situation I find myself in and determining how I might be able to work to salvage the situation.

If you're goal is to do this, you need to have a plan that gives you an reasonable chance to do this.

Some of what I have presented isn't from the mouth of RFC. For example, you asked what piece of text or post from RFC or others do I have that makes me think that the GA worlds are deeply concerned about how to defend their worlds against a attack on their worlds similar to the one that just gutted Manticore and Greyson ...

I don't have one. On the other hand, do I really need one. Someone has penetrated possibly the two most heavily guarded systems in the entire Haven sector, destroyed practically all of their shipbuilding and heavy industrial infrastructure not to mention a few million people. Better yet, you really don't know who launched the attack and you didn't even see it coming until it was well inside your defenses.

I'm sorry, I don't have to have RFC post a data dump about this to tell me that this represents a huge problem for the GA powers and I can make that evaluation because I have a working brain.

Now one of the responses could be to fling your forces against whoever perpetuated the attack, except you don't know who it is or where they come from. It should be obvious that whoever it was, they aren't the SLN. It makes zero sense to put your main efforts against the League under these circumstances. Now this is just a conjecture but it's one based on pretty valid information.

Now, honestly, I don't know what RFC has planned. If I did, there would be no need for this thread or pretty much any of the other threads on this site.

I think you are right however, we're probably going to disagree because we are approaching this subject from very different starting points. I do however appreciate your input, if everyone agreed on everything well, where's the fun in that?