Build a Fleet!

munroburton wrote:Indeed, that's what OFS started out as being and by all reports, they were honest and diligent about it in the beginning. The corruption came two centuries later. What will stop the Galactic Police from suffering a similar process?

OFS/BF/the SLN went corrupt in large part because there were no methods for legitimate funding sources. Also because there was/is no apparent tradition like the "Shadow of Saganami."

Tradition hasn't completely eliminated corruption in the RMN, but it does occasionally inspire honest commanders to root out the worst offenders.

Honestly, there is no guarantee that the hypothetical Galactic Police won't become a corrupt tool of a resurgent MAlign or Transtellar Corporation. A lot can be done to make it less likely, but corruption can't be eliminated completely without eliminating the human element of any organization.

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:Indeed, that's what OFS started out as being and by all reports, they were honest and diligent about it in the beginning. The corruption came two centuries later. What will stop the Galactic Police from suffering a similar process?

OFS/BF/the SLN went corrupt in large part because there were no methods for legitimate funding sources. Also because there was/is no apparent tradition like the "Shadow of Saganami."

Tradition hasn't completely eliminated corruption in the RMN, but it does occasionally inspire honest commanders to root out the worst offenders.

Honestly, there is no guarantee that the hypothetical Galactic Police won't become a corrupt tool of a resurgent MAlign or Transtellar Corporation. A lot can be done to make it less likely, but corruption can't be eliminated completely without eliminating the human element of any organization.

Not exactly. The OFS went corrupt in large part because the OFS was responsible for bringing in one of the few legitimately available sources of funding*. You know the saying "the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy"?
*The League is allowed income from basically two sources, one of which I can't remember offhand (but I believe is trade related), and the other is "protectorate service fees". This is because the League isn't allowed to tax its actual members.

Also ... all the bureaucracy that's actually responsible for running the League? Technically not actually supposed to have the authority it has, but took on that authority in order to actually get anything done in the way back when. And once the people running things realize that what they're doing is actually technically illegal, it's easy to step from there to winking at other illegalities, first minor ones, and then gradually greater and greater ones, until you get the cesspool that it has become.

Kytheros wrote:Also ... all the bureaucracy that's actually responsible for running the League? Technically not actually supposed to have the authority it has, but took on that authority in order to actually get anything done in the way back when. And once the people running things realize that what they're doing is actually technically illegal, it's easy to step from there to winking at other illegalities, first minor ones, and then gradually greater and greater ones, until you get the cesspool that it has become.

There's also no effective political or other oversight for the bureaucracy. With a legislature that cannot do much without unanimity, it's ineffective for checking the bureaucrats; with the executive split between a president without even much nominal power and a PM and cabinet subject to the revolving-door of the impotent legislature, there's no executive power to check them either. I take it the League judiciary is effectively another arm of the bureaucracy.

There may be some scope for the League bureaucracy as so constituted to self-regulate, but when the whole thing is at best quasi-legal and something the public will only follow with extraordinary care and specialist knowledge, you can't hope for any outside pressure to make them keep their house in order. They end up with the transtellars as their constituents because they've got the bribes. The Mandarins do stop short of baby-eating, probably mostly because there's not enough money in it.

kzt wrote:

BobfromSydney wrote:Your ammo ships will suffice for pushing smaller, weaker or lower tech opponents. They will not survive in war against an equal tech opponent. They could get nailed at extreme range by MDMs (Apollo style?), stealthy LACs or even a few spider graser torpedos. Thin hulled pod freighters are simply too fragile to survive in battle.

It is better to have a few squadrons of SDs, which would not be too great a burden for 15-25 well developed worlds to support. Consider that Haven doesn't have any wormholes and started off with a terrible economy and tech-base and they were still able to field hundreds of capital ships.

I have to point out that NOTHING survives for long in heavy combat. If I'm on the strategic defense and had a choice of deploying 400 ships with the firepower of a BCP and the defenses of a DD in 2 years vs 24 SDPs in 4 years I'll go with option A. Keep in mind that A does not exclude B, it just gives you something able to do something in the near term.

I agree that survivability in heavy combat is a big issue.

You are introducing a few assumptions into this scenario:
1. Known threat with a time frame between 2-4 years
2. 400 Ammo Ships would be comparable in cost to 24 SDPs
3. Ammo Ships are effective in combat against an opponent that operates on a squadron/task force/fleet level with SDPs.

1. Earlier in the thread the scenario was described as a wealthy 15-25 star polity with no known enemies. Since it is technically 'peace time' I think it is better to build units that have long build times such as SDPs. If an emergency were to manifest then supplementary 'Ammo Ships' could be introduced to beef up fighting power, since they don't take as long to build. If you flipped things the other way around the Ammo Ships might be lost in the first few engagements (due to fragility) and then you would be defenceless until you built replacements.

2. I think it has been mentioned elsewhere to cost of the missiles (MDMs) is starting to outweigh the cost of the platforms (ships). This seems to imply that putting really expensive missiles in cheap fragile containers is a false economy. It also seems to imply that 400 loaded Ammo Ships may be equal in cost to a far larger number of SDs (100+?).

3. Multi-megaton, unstealthy, poorly protected Ammo Ships are vulnerable to one tactic that would not work against SDPs: Alpha Strike + Hyper Translation.
The attacker turns up, launches an Alpha Strike against the Ammo Ships and then Hypers out. If only 5-20 hits will [mission-]kill a ship rather than 250 for an SDP then this would be quite effective.

BobfromSydney wrote:2. I think it has been mentioned elsewhere to cost of the missiles (MDMs) is starting to outweigh the cost of the platforms (ships). This seems to imply that putting really expensive missiles in cheap fragile containers is a false economy. It also seems to imply that 400 loaded Ammo Ships may be equal in cost to a far larger number of SDs (100+?).

Big, expensive SD(P)'s will also have better computer support than smaller, cheaper ammo ships. That computer support is the thing Apollo missiles are distinguished for being able to use far downrange for unnatural effectiveness. Super missiles backed by mediocre computers are almost as much a waste as expensive missiles blown up with an eggshell ammo ship.

There may be a role for ammunition ships behind a wall of battle though, handing off more missiles to the wallers. The ammo ships would be less exposed back there, and the missiles would still be able to benefit from the SD(P)'s computers. It's a variation on the Maya Detachment arrangement, only using wallers instead of Marksman CL's. There's still concern about protecting the ammo ships, of course - if this isn't enough to minimize that, then it won't work.

Manticore is going to need to build a massive amount of LACs in various designes both the provide for the compliment of the CLACs (and pairs) plus system defence LAC squadrons of it's member systems and other holdings. in "other holdings" I include the various wormhole termini withthe Junction and any other worm hole it annexes as a leftover piece of Lacoon II in to police and enforce things like customs inspections.
While LACs around the various termini are not in the league of defence as the combination of Forts, pod fields and hypercapable warships stationed as mobile guard force, they can (and should) still be armed with a variety of weapons that make them a threat to at least minor (or damaged) warships. Certainly armed to the level of leathal force against merchant shipping if there are "problems".

Manticore is also going to need to expand the size of it's Astro Control forces. That is not just personnel but physical stations and the tugs that are used to manuver ships near planetary orbits and around the various infratructure of the termini and commercial platforms.

All of this is going to compeat with other needs for both resources and people.

BobfromSydney wrote:You are introducing a few assumptions into this scenario:
1. Known threat with a time frame between 2-4 years
2. 400 Ammo Ships would be comparable in cost to 24 SDPs
3. Ammo Ships are effective in combat against an opponent that operates on a squadron/task force/fleet level with SDPs.

Sure. There LOTs of assumptions. Like the idea that you could produce 24 SDPs in 4 years. I suspect that you could produce one in 3-4 years for testing, then start serial production at a slow rate. So 24 would probably take 8-10 years starting from scratch. But at the end, if that was what you planned, you would have a pretty effective build process with 2 year build times.

Otherwise you can end up with series production of nearly useless stuff the like the LCS. Building lots of them doesn't help.

Then there is the MDM issue.

I'm assuming you can do a conversion from a freighter to an armed freighter that can drop pods in a fairly low risk way, particularity as it isn't designed for long-range operations away from bases. This might be wrong.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:1) What makes you think that in this case the fleet was started after the end of the war? The US Navy in World War II and the current order of battle are significantly different, just like the threat environment changed post WW2 then so would it change after the GA vs MA war. The parameters I am working with are the fleet I envision for a certain polity, I did not write down the history of that polity or it’s military. ...

If you're ignoring the legacy units surviving in your combined SDF, you're starting from scratch and you've stated your assumptions are post-war.

Yes I am starting from Scratch, the Legacy SDF units are irrelevant. My scenario deals with a post war IDEAL fleet that does not include "warships" that have probably the same survivability in combat as the Soyuz capsule. The fleet would have been build up during the war and as the war wined down it would have been restructured to post war realities.

Again the way I understood the OP, his desire is to see IDEAL fleet rather than the history of the GA vs MA war and/or the history of the envisioned IDEAL fleet.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:2)So you think that the GA will be able to police somewhere upwards of 2,000 former league systems?

No, I think the GA will have formed a web of inter-connecting bilateral mutual defense treaties that but them in the center of a multi-national Galactic Police effort. Possibly even a formal Galactic Police Organization. They will primarily be concerned with Anti-piracy/slaver patrols, like those they (used to) run in Silesia.

But the will have nodal forces similar to those commanded by HH-A in Marsh, with enough heavy firepower to take on your (or anybody else's) proposed Super-SDF. That will probably be a multi-national force.

And where would they get the money, resources, manpower and willpower to maintain tens of thousands of ships and hundreds of bases?

What happens when the protectorate nations collapse in chaos? Does the GA send in the Marines? Or what happens when core and shell worlds form hundreds of nations that end up warring with each other? You seem to be convinced that the GA can form a Galactic Police to take care of over 2,000 planets when the US with the most powerful military machine does not have the willpower and financial power to do it on one single planet. Once the war is over it would be damn near impossible to justify keeping tens if not hundreds of millions of people in uniform to police thousands of planets some of which are hundreds of light years from home.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:4) The whole purpose of the onion is to keep dangerous information from leaking, but with some luck killing the core of the onion or even enough of it to makes the rest of the onion impotent. I don't care how good or skilled you are, if you do not have the whole story you will not be able to accomplish your mission you might guess and you will likely guess wrong as you will not have access to the rest of the the MA infrastructure and network.

The problem with destroying the infrastructure of the Onion is that you'll get numerous mini-onions forming and formulating their own long-term plans based on what they knew of the MAlign's Master Plan.

Or you will get dozens of tin pot dictators who will try to “formulate” their own plans, many of which will probably involve making themselves more powerful and rich.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:5)I am proposing fleet level based on the conditions being GA technology is availalble to me, I am not Mr. Weber and therefore I will not go forth and assume what he is planning to introduce as technology for the MA or the GA in future works. I work based on the technology posed by the OP.

The currently known, or deducible, MAlign tech should be part of your calculations. Especially, if you're assuming the MAlign is defeated. Otherwise, you're deliberately building an obsolete fleet from scratch.

And why should I do that? We know all of probably 1% of the MA technology, which means that anything said in this thread even if using all known tech from all sides would still be inadequate. In that case I would suggest you stop reading this until we get some more information about MA technology in order to incorporate it in here.

Sigs wrote:Yes I am starting from Scratch, the Legacy SDF units are irrelevant. My scenario deals with a post war IDEAL fleet

And where would they get the money, resources, manpower and willpower to maintain tens of thousands of ships and hundreds of bases?

Once the war is over it would be damn near impossible to justify keeping tens if not hundreds of millions of people in uniform to police thousands of planets some of which are hundreds of light years from home.

To start with, history has shown, over and over, when an Empire falls, the end result is massive numbers of wars for the next half century following in its collapsed wake as those left behind struggle to create a new identity while also fighting off those who wish "yours" to become their identity. Now add in Prolong to this mix, and the power struggle combatants will only prolong this death knell.

It would not be difficult for the Manticore Empire or Havenite Empire to place a Billion people in Uniform 20 years down the line. Havenites could already do so with 150 worlds at their disposal. No, this number of uniformed men and women will not be ground forces. That is not what they would need to do. Garrisoning a planet is not needed for the most part. Need to do is stop those planets that intrinsically hate you, to stop spreading this hatred to other planets and therefore creating an anti GA core with 100 Billion people at their disposal to start the major wars up all over again. Policing its sky's on the other hand is would keep them suppressed long enough for the local states to figure things out without the intrinsic hatred coloring their initial galactic policies.

There most certainly will be such planets 20 years post GA/MA conflict. There will be such places probably 100 years afterwards due to prolong. Hatred and political ambition takes generations to die down, not years. Masada on a political level. Would not be surprised if they would need to do this to around 100 planets. This by itself will cause the GA to continue fielding vast armada of ships and soldiers.

Then add in that by default due to Manticoran Junction, the new galactic order is going to congregate around the Wormhole Junctions. Foremost among them will be Manticore. Uh, who will hold jurisdiction over the 2nd largest wormhole network that the Malign is currently hiding? Can't see Manticore NOT having an extremely large influence over this new 5 junction wormhole. Long term their influence will wane as local folks take control, but 20 years from now, post GA/MA conflict? Oh yea. Still there. This will set "international law". To uphold this law requires force, otherwise it withers quickly.

See, talking about ship totals, your tens of thousands stated(larger than the SLN...) and types etc for this discussion are completely pointless as ones strategic assumptions dictate the force structure. Manning the ship totals under the new low crew sizing, is brutally easy. 10,000 x 1000 would only be 10,000,000. A single planet would have no problem doing this by itself with a population of 3-5 Billion. GA empires are now well north of 50 planets each and in 20 years all of them will probably be closer to 200. So, to be a true strain on these new burgeoning empires, would require a force of 100,000 ships or so in manning requirements.

Manning is not the issue. Rather political climate and direction IS the driving factor. If there are multiple ex SL Core segments of around 50-100 planets who do not like you very much(Extremely high probability) and I say there most certainly will be, these planets will be going balls to the wall to increase their own military strength. This essentially will create a cold war atmosphere. Yea, the GA saved their asses from the Malign, but if truth be told, the SL Core was probably a lot closer aligned with the MALIGN, than you. There will be little thanks going your direction. That is for sure.

Sigs wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:...But the will have nodal forces similar to those commanded by HH-A in Marsh, with enough heavy firepower to take on your (or anybody else's) proposed Super-SDF. That will probably be a multi-national force.

And where would they get the money, resources, manpower and willpower to maintain tens of thousands of ships and hundreds of bases?

What part of "Multi-national" do you have trouble with?

They will get the ships and personnel from participating treaty partners. Perhaps even you will be asked to provide a "Galactic Police" detachment for a nodal force.