Post-Yawata Strike Yeltsin

First thing that's going to happen post OB/Filerata's folly is that -- if they weren't pissed enough already, the Grayson(s) are going to rebuild their fleet-building capacity, both for defensive purposes and to keep their economy growing.

Remember: they were building freighters and parts for the RMN at a significant discount due to labor. They also used the excess profit to keep building, and hello -- sky domes is still a profit generating enterprise, and HHA is seriously pissed, with Protector Benjamin likely even more so. You think they're going to wait around to get back up to full lethality? Heck, I'd think Torch would be glad to have the Protector et. al as an ally / supply partner if they could pull it off.

If they were wiser, you think the overall MAlign should worry about the IAN compared to the GSN? Seriously?

SharkHunter wrote:Remember: they were building freighters and parts for the RMN at a significant discount due to labor. They also used the excess profit to keep building, and hello -- sky domes is still a profit generating enterprise, and HHA is seriously pissed, with Protector Benjamin likely even more so.

Sure, if they had parts. Which were built at blackbird. And if they didn't have to pay death benefits for the staff who got killed at blackbird. But as soon as they replace their entire industrial infrastructure and train an entirely new staff to operate this they can go right back into operation. How long do you think that will take? And who pays for it?

SharkHunter wrote:If they were wiser, you think the overall MAlign should worry about the IAN compared to the GSN? Seriously?

Part of what allowed the GSN to expand so much in the first place was the lower wages Graysons were prepared to accept, along with massive investment from Manticore. That free ride should be over by now. All said and done, Grayson is a single star system without any inherent economic bonuses(such as Torch's plants, Montana's beef or a wormhole termini). I expect they'll rebuild, of course, but won't reach their previous peak for many years and their current fleet strength will last that long anyway.

Contrast with the Andermani Empire, which had at least twenty systems before they added their share of Silesia. Don't have to deal with an Oyster Bay setback. Whose navy is probably itching to fight - they missed out the first war with Haven, barely skirmished with Manticore over Silesia and barely encountered Haven in the second war. And finally know who perpetrated the Hofsculte Incident.

Frankly, that's the problem for the Alignment. They've pissed too many different parties off to survive being unmasked. Beowulf, Haven, Manticore, Anderman, Grayson, Erewhon and Torch just off the top of my head, all of which have their own various intelligence services redeploying to meet the Alignment threat. And worse, coordinating even if not acting in unison.

For that matter, they've also pissed off four mid-level Solarian intelligence types. Once more of them wake up and smell the coffee, they'll have another enemy after them.

--big snips, for a purpose--

SharkHunter wrote:If they were wiser, you think the overall MAlign should worry about the IAN compared to the GSN? Seriously?

munroburton wrote: Part of what allowed the GSN to expand so much in the first place was the lower wages Graysons were prepared to accept, along with massive investment from Manticore. That free ride should be over by now. All said and done, Grayson is a single star system without any inherent economic bonuses(such as Torch's plants, Montana's beef or a wormhole termini). I expect they'll rebuild, of course, but won't reach their previous peak for many years and their current fleet strength will last that long anyway.

Given that the GA IAN aren't going to tangle with each other, the GSN force superior to everyone else. But they need to rebuild to get into the force projection game.

We agree about "peak", but I'd add a 21st Century analogue:

There is exactly ONE navy in the world that would be able to go toe to toe with the Royal Navy in a stand up fight, the USN. I doubt there's more than a handful of "special forces" world wide that would want to tangle with the British SIS commandos.

Think "pissed off Britain gets back into the ship building game at WWII levels, and then goes head hunting" somewhere on Planet Earth as each squadron of ships is formed up and trained.

Protector Benjamin now has an entire planet, billion citizenry level supply of pissed-off citizens, not just a single minor population level single island.

interesting comparison aside from the SAS/SBS Royal marines then i doubt our Navy could do much against the USN.

you are right that tech level/equipment means we stand a decent chance but shear numbers alone means that we'd get stomped very quick.

SharkHunter wrote:Protector Benjamin now has ...

...a personal Navy bigger than most star nations, The Protector's Own. A personal Navy that has a demonstrated ability to deploy to the far side of Silesia and function for an extended period out of deployed resources.

That doesn't take into account any GSN resources that might be stockpiled -- a large portion of the GSN has been on extended deployment with Eighth Fleet and other RMN formations and will have appropriate spares and such deployed with them.

Grayson quite probably is in a better situation to operate at full pre-Oyster Bay levels than the RMN is.

Weird Harold wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Protector Benjamin now has ...

That doesn't take into account any GSN resources that might be stockpiled -- a large portion of the GSN has been on extended deployment with Eighth Fleet and other RMN formations and will have appropriate spares and such deployed with them.

Grayson quite probably is in a better situation to operate at full pre-Oyster Bay levels than the RMN is.

Aye, Grayson lost, in a worst-case scenario, between 5 and 20 SD-size ships that were under construction. Their fleet(s) were pretty much untouched, it was just their construction that was the whole point of OB.

Any benefits, like refits, and just unfortunately timed docked, was a bonus, Which we know from one or another WoH mini-book, was mostly various cruiser level ships.


The only true benefit to Grayson's building, was it probably played merry hell on planning OB. We know the MAlign went slightly heavier on missiles, rather than the graser torps, specifically because Grayson building was so spread out. We also know the Blackbird got hit hard, and prior to Buttercup had at least 8 of the first-generation Medusa's and several Argonaut-class freighters, excluding lighters.


I'm still unsure if Grayson will go back to their primarily dispersed yards, after all a solar system is a pretty damn big place to spread out. Or will they go the Manticore/Haven route now, and build in a well condensed "super yard".


To address a point from earlier, Blackbird was for all intents the same as Weyland/Gryphon space. No civilian traffic, period. I don't quite think Manticore had Shoot-On-Sight orders for any civilian craft going there, but Blackbird Yards could. It's about 30 LM outside Yeltsin's hyperlimit, which means anything not 'scheduled' to be approaching is probably a hostile force. And especially after the assassin of Cromarty, and attempted assassination of both Benjamin and the Queen/Empress, which also consisted of ghost signatures? Shoot first, then ask questions, especially if it's coming in stealthed and not the gravitic equivalent of a marching band and cheerleader squad

I have not gone back to look but I thought Harrington's Sky Domes was in operation close by Grayson in the same general area as the farms. It was NOT building weapons or ships, it was building the pieces needed to install new enclosed cities on Grayson plus a lot of the equipment going into those cities. I believe also newer alternatives to the orbital farms and the equipment for those. Basicly a civilian operation which would be sourcing materials from the system mining/resrouce extraction industries.

The question about how much (percentage/numbers) Grayson lost in the shipbuilding /weapons industries vs Manticore which lost not only the shipyards and weapons manufacturing but also much of it's commercial/consumer orbtial production and workers has been kicked around but I don't think compleatly answered.
Grayson MAY still have a significant number of trained and experienced people who give them a major jump in bootstraping their way back to industrail production and replacing what was lost. They may also still have a signicant advantage in relative labor costs, its just that now they have to apply so much more of it to replacing and upgrading their own base.

Have you considered how the Yawata strike presents itself to Grayson. This is not someone who has attacked them because of who they are or what they believe. This is the Alignment attacking them because, like Manticore, they are at the leading edge of technology and ARE IN THE WAY OF PLANS TO DESTROY BOTH THE SOLARIAN LEAGUE AND ANYBODY WHO COULD INTERFERE. Grayson has made itself strong to defend itself- Haven was the 2nd biggest problem after Massada. The Alignment "only" needed to cripple Grayson and Manticore to let (they thought) somebody else (Haven) destroy and subjagate both Grayson and Manticore to remove them as pawn from a galactic wide chessboard.
Since the Alignment plan intends to ultimatly replace all these "normal" people with "improved" humans of their own designs and lead by their "Star Lines", everybody on Grayson and Manticore- and everywhere else- are just so many ants to be crushed as thought nessisary to make the PLAN work. They are just so much expendable trash.

You could look at many of the people on Grayson looking on this as a TEST. Not exactly the way you want to frame that to a Grayson when you have just murdered hundreds of thousands of their co-religionests to make it easier to kill or enslave the rest of them, let alone the rest of Humanity.

A couple random thoughts:

In the short term (5-10 T-years or however long it takes to defeat the MAlign and get some form of order in Solly space) I see Grayson rebuilding their Blackbird yards with potentially some design tweaks to allow for improved defenses. Beyond that, I see them building more commercial oriented yards that can be easily switch to a military purpose as dispersed yards around Grayson itself. Think one major military yard and then a ton of 3-5 slip yards and fabrication facilities in orbit. That provides both the economic advantages of a single, purpose built yard for military purposes as well as the safety in numbers of multiple other small yards that can be easily re-fitted for multiple ship types or even other tasks.

In the long term, I see Grayson politically going one of two ways. The first, and most likely outcome, is that they scale back their military to something that is certainly larger than they need but not near the size of the SEM/Haven/Andies. Think 3 or 4 Squadrons of Wallers (8 each) along with 5-6 Squadrons of BCs, 2-3 Squadrons of CLACs (which would largely be kept in stand-down reserve status unless needed), and plenty of whatever takes the place of the DD/CL/CA plus thousands of LACs. That would be the Grayson 'Home Fleet', while the Protector's Own would be of comparable size. When fully combined, that would be around 60 of the wall plus another 40 CLACs and all of the support ships. Way more than Grayson really needs as a single system in peace time, but not so large as to run them into financial trouble. Plus, provided they have the money I could easily see Grayson only keeping this many ships in active service while they continually work on new designs while keeping 2-3 times their active fleet in reserve status as long as the reserve remains technologically relevant.

The second thing (and less likely, although I would love to see it) would be to see Grayson actually JOIN the SEM (along with Beowulf) as "Senior Members." Basically, both Grayson and Beowulf would enjoy increased autonomy from the Federal Parliament while being members of the SEM. The Grayson Navy would be folded into the SEM while the Protector's Own remained a separate force, funded solely by Grayson. Grayson would have the right of secession (along with Beowulf) and would be guaranteed certain rights and privileges that the Federal Parliament (under a new version of High Ridge) would be unable to trample upon.

munroburton wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:If they were wiser, you think the overall MAlign should worry about the IAN compared to the GSN? Seriously?

(redacted)

Contrast with the Andermani Empire, which had at least twenty systems before they added their share of Silesia. Don't have to deal with an Oyster Bay setback. Whose navy is probably itching to fight - they missed out the first war with Haven, barely skirmished with Manticore over Silesia and barely encountered Haven in the second war. And finally know who perpetrated the Hofsculte Incident.

Frankly, that's the problem for the Alignment. They've pissed too many different parties off to survive being unmasked. Beowulf, Haven, Manticore, Anderman, Grayson, Erewhon and Torch just off the top of my head, all of which have their own various intelligence services redeploying to meet the Alignment threat. And worse, coordinating even if not acting in unison.

We still don't know who owns the "at least a dozen of the wall" (IIRC) that popped in at Mesa towards the end of CoG. Is it Michelle (who is taking about three dozen of the wall sized ships, counting CLACs (and probably Nikes) with her from Maya? Or is it Chien-Liu? I don't think we've seen a good Order of Battle for the IAN. How many wall sized ships is his cousin likely to let him take off with to avenge their nephew?