Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

Time to retire this thread? Dunno. Not my call. Each captured Sollie ship represents potential energy, either for good or evil. The surrendered crews can only remain aboard so long. Life support and food will not last forever.

So? How about recycling the bulk of the captured ships, packing to the deck heads the remainers with POWSs and just returning them to a suitable Sollie Verge or Core planet? That with an oath not to fight Manties again.

The rest of the captures get recycled. If possible for cheap available parts, if not, then off to the crushers. But ... shift through the captives first to see if anybody would want to stay with Manticore? Turn their coats?

Just me. HB

The main thing you know about a turncoat is that when the situation got difficult, they betrayed their people at the offer of a better deal. This probably isn't a one time thing...

Sigs wrote:The only reason that Bolthole happened at all the way it did happen was because of internal politics that overthrew the previous regime. If the RMN had not released those POW they would have seen the exact same weapons in action in Eighth Fleet offensive and the people responsible for the R&D in Bolthole had nothing to do with the ceasefire at all. If the ceasefire and overthrow had happened on schedule but the PN members had not witnessed anything they would still have had enough data to start at Bolthole.

My point is that the political circumstances are going to change very rapidly and unpredictably over the next few years. Just as the RMN could never have predicted Pierre's coup, McQueen's failed coup or Theisman's restoration and their repercussions, there's no way to predict what'll happen to the League or any post-breakup successor states. The RMN also failed to detect Bolthole and never found it until Haven told them where it was after a military alliance had been signed. The problem isn't going to be this war - it's preventing the next one.

Bill Woods wrote:Most of the Sollies aren't 'tac witches'. Hanging on to any who might be makes sense, but out of an SD's 6,000-spacer complement, there's got to be lots who don't know anything that the Manties themselves haven't already told the Sollies.

I picked Shannon as the scariest example of what can be accomplished when someone gets home with new information and experiences, then is finally allowed to put it into practice, even if it takes five, ten, twenty years to do so.

Now, there may not be any Solly tac witches at all. But there's something to be said for hundreds of tac personnel(of many flavours - ship's TOs, ATOs, flag staffers, even skippers and flag officers themselves, etc.) showing up on Sol with detailed post-battle reports evaluating every aspect of the Solarian Navy and its shortcomings against the Alliance's navies. They're not all drooling idiots either.

munroburton wrote:

Bill Woods wrote:Most of the Sollies aren't 'tac witches'. Hanging on to any who might be makes sense, but out of an SD's 6,000-spacer complement, there's got to be lots who don't know anything that the Manties themselves haven't already told the Sollies.

I picked Shannon as the scariest example of what can be accomplished when someone gets home with new information and experiences, then is finally allowed to put it into practice, even if it takes five, ten, twenty years to do so.

Now, there may not be any Solly tac witches at all. But there's something to be said for hundreds of tac personnel(of many flavours - ship's TOs, ATOs, flag staffers, even skippers and flag officers themselves, etc.) showing up on Sol with detailed post-battle reports evaluating every aspect of the Solarian Navy and its shortcomings against the Alliance's navies. They're not all drooling idiots either.

Few to none of them are drooling idiots. The whole League isn't, contrary to popular belief, stupid. They're just privileged by their circumstances into not having to think tactically or strategically in a military vein - or have been.

That's changed.

It's certainly changed for those POW's, every one of whom has had a perfect wake-up call. Any one of their commanders, tactical officers, and senior NCO's in a related track may rise to the occasion and be a late-blooming Shannon Foraker. I don't think the League has the time left to do all that Foraker could with the Republic's Navy, but a few critical changes could make for a lot of force multiplication (or reduction of SLN force division anyway), such as better electronic warfare programming and sheer realistic threat appraisal. And you can't practically sort POW's out for brilliance or clarity of perspective and send home the rest.

On the other hand - It's not a morale shot per se, but those POW's do have the real story of Second Manticore to tell to the League's public. The Mandarins could still smear them - "clearly Manticore sent home only those willing to lie for them!" - but there's some hope that actual Solarian naval personnel telling their own first-hand accounts out of captivity may make some impact.

Some interesting thoughts there, HB.

HB of CJ wrote:Time to retire this thread? Dunno. Not my call. Each captured Sollie ship represents potential energy, either for good or evil. The surrendered crews can only remain aboard so long. Life support and food will not last forever.

Some threads are destined never to die. This one apparently still has some legs.

I think the crews have been removed already, IIRC they are now occupying the same camps the Havenites had been in after 1st Manticore. I doubt they'd leave any Sollies on board, even if the ships are surrendered.

So? How about recycling the bulk of the captured ships, packing to the deck heads the remainders with POWSs and just returning them to a suitable Sollie Verge or Core planet? That with an oath not to fight Manties again.

I tend to stand with the folks in the last two pages in that returning the POWs in total probably is not a good idea.

However, those worlds that break off from the SL (let's say Kenichi (mentioned as considering it in ART) may have personnel returned under parole not to take up arms against the GA until formally exchanged. That would give some worlds added impetus to break away, and cause division and suspicion within the SLN, and destroying morale is just as critical as destroying ships.

The rest of the captures get recycled. If possible for cheap available parts, if not, then off to the crushers. But ... shift through the captives first to see if anybody would want to stay with Manticore? Turn their coats?

Just me. HB

Turncoats are often not worth the coats they wear. Oh, sometimes they are (see Yu and Caslet). But to borrow from Jeremy X, I wouldn't trust them farther than I could throw them..when I was a baby.

But yeah, strip them out and feed the rest to the recyclers and use the hulks as target practice.

kzt wrote:The main thing you know about a turncoat is that when the situation got difficult, they betrayed their people at the offer of a better deal. This probably isn't a one time thing...

Depends on the motivation/reason for the defection... many people who come from those systems that are recipients of Frontier Fleet justice and Protection might be very motivated to jump ship and for all the right reasons.

munroburton wrote:

Sigs wrote:The only reason that Bolthole happened at all the way it did happen was because of internal politics that overthrew the previous regime. If the RMN had not released those POW they would have seen the exact same weapons in action in Eighth Fleet offensive and the people responsible for the R&D in Bolthole had nothing to do with the ceasefire at all. If the ceasefire and overthrow had happened on schedule but the PN members had not witnessed anything they would still have had enough data to start at Bolthole.

My point is that the political circumstances are going to change very rapidly and unpredictably over the next few years. Just as the RMN could never have predicted Pierre's coup, McQueen's failed coup or Theisman's restoration and their repercussions, there's no way to predict what'll happen to the League or any post-breakup successor states. The RMN also failed to detect Bolthole and never found it until Haven told them where it was after a military alliance had been signed. The problem isn't going to be this war - it's preventing the next one.

Political circumstances will definitely change, that is a fact of life. What did Shannon Foraker learn just before her captivity and during her captivity? Was it the reason why Bolthole was successful? Releasing POW's had no bearing on the existence of Bolthole, it had a bearing on the efficiency of the shipyards and R&D not of their existence, if she had died someone else would have gotten the job and done it... maybe not as efficiently but it would have been done.

And no the problem is this war, there is no point worrying about next war when you have an enemy whose strength, intentions, capabilities or even membership you do not know and a rotting empire that is hell bent on your destruction for selfish reasons but one that cannot prevent its own collapse. If the Star Empire is to worry about the next war then they should probably shoot all the POW's just to be safe they don't let a tech wizard go...

munroburton wrote:I picked Shannon as the scariest example of what can be accomplished when someone gets home with new information and experiences, then is finally allowed to put it into practice, even if it takes five, ten, twenty years to do so.

Now, there may not be any Solly tac witches at all. But there's something to be said for hundreds of tac personnel(of many flavours - ship's TOs, ATOs, flag staffers, even skippers and flag officers themselves, etc.) showing up on Sol with detailed post-battle reports evaluating every aspect of the Solarian Navy and its shortcomings against the Alliance's navies. They're not all drooling idiots either.

Shoot the prisoners and the problem is solved...

Whether you release them a few weeks after the Battle of Manticore, or you release them 50 years after the Battle of Manticore you will still have to release them. The only difference is that if you release them a few weeks after the Battle of Manticore you get away from having to support almost 2 million POW's for a prolonged period of time while your economy is in turmoil after withdrawing the merchant marine and the destruction of the Home System Infrastructure.

Plus dumping them in a Solarian system that may not be able to support them might for the League to divert freighters they cannot afford to divert.


They may not be drooling Idiots but the Star Empire has been sending the Solarian League detailed recordings and data after each battle so what would they get from those Tac officers other than the fact that they are really screwed?