SPOILER: Post CoG prognostications; ONI & SIS near Talbot

The captured Solly FF ships were useless against 1st tier Manty ships and all of those captured Solly FF ships are better than the Solly BF ships that would most likely compose any attack force.

IF (and, to me, that's a big 'IF') the decision is made to do a crash training program in Talbot to form a self reliant defense force, it would be more logical to use 2nd or 3rd tier 'obsolete', mothballed MANTY ships. The training cadre would be intimately familiar with them, they are proven designs, all the bugs have been worked out of them, all their flaws are known, there's a plethora of knowledge and spares available, and they would still be far more effective than anything the Sollys have to throw against them. Anything that the Sollys could handle has already been destroyed by the Peeps or scrapped and replaced by more effective platforms by now. Remember, SLN ship design has been pretty stagnate for decades while the Havenites and the Manties have been innovating constantly for the same period. If the SLN was superior to the pre-Wars ships, the Manties are now generations beyond that tech level. If Nikes are good enough to be Solly SD killers, then what would Star Knight design generation Manty ships be like against their Solly equivalent if they are armed with late generation weapons? I figure they could still punch over their weight class across the board, just not to the level that the Nikes do.

Personally, I don't see the logic in even doing something like pulling the mothball fleet out of the wrecker's hands and manning them for local protection in Talbot. I think the best course- which is the route that RFC seems to be headed, as far as I can tell- is to educate and train the Talboters up to RMN standards and integrate them into the whole Navy. Setting up local SDF's can happen after you have a core of experienced spacers to transfer from the regular navy to the SDF's.

jtg452 wrote:IF (and, to me, that's a big 'IF') the decision is made to do a crash training program in Talbot to form a self reliant defense force, it would be more logical to use 2nd or 3rd tier 'obsolete', mothballed MANTY ships.

The decision was made some time back in Storm From the Shadows to use LAC squadrons as TQ System Defense forces -- along with a liberal dose of Apollo System Defense Missiles (cited elsewhere.)

Storm From The Shadows
Chapter Sixteen
wrote:"I certainly agree with that," Van Dort said firmly. "No pirate in his right mind is going to cross swords with a modern Manticoran LAC. Or, at least, not after the word gets around about what happens to the first couple of them to try it. And the LAC squadrons and their personnel are going to be seen by the locals as 'theirs' in a way hyper-capable ships aren't. They'll be the local police force, not the Navy that comes swinging through the vicinity to check on things every so often. And integrating local personnel into their complements is going to be the best way to start getting our people trained up on modern naval technology, as well."

"That's the Admiralty's thinking, Sir," Michelle agreed. "It won't be the same as running them all through basic training back home, but what they have in mind is more of an orientation mission. Each LAC detachment will have its own simulators for training, and running local personnel through them will give our people a chance to evaluate their general skill levels and basic competence, which aren't necessarily the same thing. Ultimately, BuPers is going to have to set up whatever remedial education is necessary in-house, since both the Admiralty and the PM have already made it clear that there are going to be Talbotters in the RMN and that they are not going to get stuck with some kind of second-class status. That means bringing their basic educational levels up to Manticoran standards, not trying to do some sort of rote training or 'enough to get by' training like the old Peep Navy used with its conscripts. That's going to require a lot out of them in terms of extra classroom studies, at least until we get the general education system out here up to Manticoran standards, but there's no way to avoid that, and I think the people who actually want to transfer to naval service will be willing to make the effort. In fact, that's probably going to be one of those Darwinian filters that help us recruit the cream of the crop.

There are certain SLN strategies (which we have discussed) in which LACs are nearly useless as a defense.

kzt wrote:There are certain SLN strategies (which we have discussed) in which LACs are nearly useless as a defense.

True, no system is perfect. That is why the TQ systems were allocated System Defense Apollo setups as well as LAC squadrons.

ONI & SIS don't need thousands of agents scattered about all SL planets near the Talbot quadrant, a few tens of thousands of dollars would do the trick, very cheap, to recruit /bribe local informants to pass intelligence to the SEM. An actual agent could be dispatched if any useful intelligence turns up.

If it was a low priority to develop intelligence sources inside the Solarian League near Talbot before, it certainly isn't now. Agents don't have to be randomly scattered throughout the,verge either. A bit of intelligence can be applied, artificial or otherwise, now that the Mesan plan to use agent provacateurs to stir up revolutions then abandon them is known. Doesnt take a lot of covert operatives, just an analyst or two that can profile the most oppressive verge regimes. Regimes likely to have resistance movements that are likely targets for the Mesan plan. If an obvious offworlder like Firebrand can be inserted into a verge planet with an oppressive totalitarian regime & make contact with the resistance, surely a good Manticoran agent can do the same.

When a Manty agent makes contact with a resistance movement & they seem confused by the appearance of another "Manticoran" agent, the real Manties can set a trap for,Firebrand or,others like him.

Sharp Claw wrote:When a Manty agent makes contact with a resistance movement & they seem confused by the appearance of another "Manticoran" agent, the real Manties can set a trap for,Firebrand or,others like him.

You've got roughly a billion people on a planet like the ones in TQ. If an outsider can trivially find a "resistance movement" guess who else can? Yes, the oppressive planetary government, who has essentially infinite resources. Including the ability to create false movements. There is a Russian proverb that goes something like "any time 5 people gather to plot, two are fools and 3 are secret police". So plan to lose a LOT of agents.

kzt wrote:

Sharp Claw wrote:When a Manty agent makes contact with a resistance movement & they seem confused by the appearance of another "Manticoran" agent, the real Manties can set a trap for,Firebrand or,others like him.

You've got roughly a billion people on a planet like the ones in TQ. If an outsider can trivially find a "resistance movement" guess who else can? Yes, the oppressive planetary government, who has essentially infinite resources. Including the ability to create false movements. There is a Russian proverb that goes something like "any time 5 people gather to plot, two are fools and 3 are secret police". So plan to lose a LOT of agents.

Didn't say any outsider could trivially find a resistance movement, those are your words , aka a straw man. For a highly skilled and experienced agent, such as Victor Cachat, or even firebrand or even an agent trained by Victor Cachat, with some field experience, however it would be a trivial task.

Think for a minute, where would resistance movements be located? Among the wealthy and privileged beneficiaries of the regime or among the oppressed and those who themselves or their friends and family members have suffered the abuses of said regimes? Just that step reduces the numbers considerably. Then think where would such groups be likely to meet? Now when a skilled Manty agent, who has done their best to blend in with the local population or establish a good cover identity, shows up at your hypothetical meeting what do they do? They take out their pulsar, shoot the three secret policemen and immediately establish cred with the two revolutionary fools, who can hopefully connect them with revolutionaries who are not fools or at least point them in the right direction. Another and better way would be to spot the regime agents who are watching for revolutionary activities, snatch one or more of them and persuade the regime agent to tell all they know about the objects of their survellience. Another way, if an agent is as skilled with computers as Anton Zilwicki or close to,that level of skill would be to hack a local enforcement database or, if not so skilled just break in
And steal the data. Either way you,can let the agents of the regime find the revolutionaries for you.

If you think it would be difficult for a skilled field agent to spot either the regime agents or the objects of their survellience , reread the seccy restaurant scene on Mesa where Cachat & Zilwicki immediately spot the Mesan agents and deal with them. If they had more time, they could have also dealt with the one person they were uncertain of, or if they planned to stay, interrogated or killed him. All a Manty agent would have to do would be to make contact with one cell of a revolutionary movement and convince them to put the agent in contact with the revolutionary leadership. This was not too difficult a task for Firebrand, why would anyone assume it would be an impossible task for a skilled Manty or Havenite operative?

Where to find revolutionaries? Among the children of the wealthy and privileged, and among the next layer or two down.

People who start and run rebellions and terrorists movements are almost always the children of the successful and connected, from middle-class to wealthy.

In countries with really oppressive governments most of these movements are infiltrated almost immediately by the government security organizations. The KGB and daughter agencies like the Stassi and Seguridad del Estado really are very competent at what they do. In some cases they will compromise the leaders, in other cases they will become the second or 3rd tier of the organization while monitoring the leaders. But anyone meeting people in these organizations will be noted and handled.

Sometimes the security services comprise the majority of secret organizations, and often they are the ones who make the organization work, doing the drudge work and paying their dues.

You can see this in the US, when the KKK financially collapsed when the FBI and other police agents stopped paying their dues after they decided the threat of violence had become minimal.

The haven forces has plenty of lower lech, but workable LAC . They could loan manticore them and possibly even carriers and supplies. The would be higher tech than the quadrant is used to but, not as high as manticore ones. even if less effective they could be deployed in greater numbers, and still be a threat to solly hyper craft, pirates and raiders will suffer greatly.
The alliance knows they will be facing raiding issues, so if they create those system defence systems, the havenite systems hybridised by the manticore gear, backed up by pods and LAC, would free up ships to go on patrols and counter actions.
The sollies might not be facing front line forces or top tier tech, but the advantages of the systems that can be brought to bare, ensure that any raiding would be extraoridarily costly to pursue.
Would frontier fleet be used to raid, even though they are already over worked? or would the forces of the battle fleet be sent?