League Survival

Sigs,

When the RF was being set up, Haven and Manticore did not have super-advanced fleets that could walk all over the rest of the galaxy. In addition, the plan was for both Haven and Manticore to be destroyed during the fight with the League. So there would not be any giant behemoth to worry about. The Renaissance Factor would end up among the largest military forces remaining in the galaxy. Their SDFs would be quite adequate to provide feudal protection over neighbors, especially if they planned to pick up some of the surviving SLN forces.

That was the plan. The plan is broken, but the Alignment could not predict that. When they were setting this up, they believed that the forces they were building would be adequate to the purpose. They do not have the huge fleet that you postulate.

SWM wrote:Sigs,

When the RF was being set up, Haven and Manticore did not have super-advanced fleets that could walk all over the rest of the galaxy. In addition, the plan was for both Haven and Manticore to be destroyed during the fight with the League. So there would not be any giant behemoth to worry about. The Renaissance Factor would end up among the largest military forces remaining in the galaxy. Their SDFs would be quite adequate to provide feudal protection over neighbors, especially if they planned to pick up some of the surviving SLN forces.

That was the plan. The plan is broken, but the Alignment could not predict that. When they were setting this up, they believed that the forces they were building would be adequate to the purpose. They do not have the huge fleet that you postulate.

But when it became apparent that the plan had gone off the rails, they should have adapted and postponed. Now they have the league collapsing but the GA looking under every rock for the MA and it's associates. Basically their plan is now gone and they have to adapt but while they are adapting to the situation others will have similar ideas and it would be hard to convince them to join the RF when they have their own security arrangement. And if the RF stats trying to unite the post League nations under it's banner, it is bound to raise some suspicions if they are the only once who are not really affected by whatever plan they use to force systems into the waiting arms of the RF.

Let's go over what has been established and make some reasonable assumptions

There are something on the order of 800 core worlds. These all are very advanced and have the industrial and economic potential to do all sort of stuff. They all do not have a military shipyards, in fact very few of them have one. They probably have at least some minimal shipbuilding capability even if they don't build many ships.

The other roughly 800 member of the SL are not as advanced and as capable as the core worlds, as they are generally less populated and were settled in the not so distant past. (So they play Grayson to Manticore as the core. )

There are said to be several dozen SLN military yards and a small percentage of SL members with a significant SDF. If one assumes that 2.5% is a small percentage then there are 40 (core?) systems with a significant SDF and presumably the current ability to build complete warships, plus say 30 members with SLN yards. So less than 10% of the core and less than 5% overall.

(I'm assuming that if you are choosing to have a significant SDF despite being in the middle of the SL - which has basically been at peace for 1000+ years - you have some trust issues with the SLN and others and are not going to depend on them to provide you military hardware.)

Then lets assume that 10% of the rest of the SL has some sort of hyper-capable navy. Maybe a dozen older DDs and a couple of CLs, but something. So 180 systems.

The rest essentially have at most only one or two hyper capable "warships" (whose combat capability might be nominal) and some sort of LAC based police/customs/rescue capability. Presumably they also don't have extensive fixed defenses because "the SLN". The vast majority (about 1550) of systems fall into this category.

Based on the example of Manticore post OB is seems safe to assume that a core world can produce a military shipyard capability in two years if they decide to do it. We'll ignore issues of ship design and supplying trained crews for right now, so in not more than two years they can start producing modern (for some value of modern) warships from LACs to SD(P)s, with the initial ships being in service in a time ranging from months to say 3+ years depending on ship size.

In significantly less time they can start to produce military ordinance like missiles and missile pods if they have a design to produce.

Does anyone seriously disagree with this?

kzt wrote:[summary of military status of League worlds]
Does anyone seriously disagree with this?

I would say you are being generous with the number of systems with naval shipyards, but I don't have serious quibbles overall.

Sigs wrote:

SWM wrote:Sigs,

When the RF was being set up, Haven and Manticore did not have super-advanced fleets that could walk all over the rest of the galaxy. In addition, the plan was for both Haven and Manticore to be destroyed during the fight with the League. So there would not be any giant behemoth to worry about. The Renaissance Factor would end up among the largest military forces remaining in the galaxy. Their SDFs would be quite adequate to provide feudal protection over neighbors, especially if they planned to pick up some of the surviving SLN forces.

That was the plan. The plan is broken, but the Alignment could not predict that. When they were setting this up, they believed that the forces they were building would be adequate to the purpose. They do not have the huge fleet that you postulate.

But when it became apparent that the plan had gone off the rails, they should have adapted and postponed. Now they have the league collapsing but the GA looking under every rock for the MA and it's associates. Basically their plan is now gone and they have to adapt but while they are adapting to the situation others will have similar ideas and it would be hard to convince them to join the RF when they have their own security arrangement. And if the RF stats trying to unite the post League nations under it's banner, it is bound to raise some suspicions if they are the only once who are not really affected by whatever plan they use to force systems into the waiting arms of the RF.

Yes, they should have adapted and postponed. In fact, they believed they were adapting. They thought they could get things back on track. Moving up Oyster Bay was one of the adaptations they thought would help. If they had caught the Python Lump, they might have been right.

It only became apparent in the last five years that the plan was seriously off the rails. There were signs before that, but the Alignment thought they could get things back on track. There has not been enough time for the Alignment to build a huge fleet after they realized there was a problem.

Yes, they should have postponed things. There have been numerous discussions on this forum about the mistake the MA made by not postponing things and hiding under a rock until they could strike properly. But they didn't, and the end result is that they do not have the huge fleet that you think they should have.

As for the Renaissance Factor, they were never supposed to protect other systems from Manticore. Even under the revised plan they are not supposed to protect other systems from Manticore. The RF is likely to want to be friends with Manticore. The plan is and was for the RF nations to be the nuclei around which new interstellar confederations would start to grow.

Yes, most League members could build their own naval shipyards if they tried. And some undoubtedly will. But the RF systems already have navies, which makes them the natural leaders in organizing other systems. I expect that the RF systems will each appear to act independently, gathering together neighbors. Systems hat don't have navies can use RF navies for protection; systems that want to build their own can enter defense treaties with the RF systems. Ultimately the RF systems and their allies would probably unite in a single large alliance or confederation. Only then would the name Renaissance Factor become known.

Nobody ever said that the RF nations would appear to be immune to the depradations that force other systems into their arms. In fact, a lot of us believe that the mysterious attacks will hit (or appear to hit) RF navies as well as other people. But the RF systems will appear to be better able to defend itself simply because they do already have navies while most of the others don't. There will be no reason to suspect them.

This plan does not require massive navies. But the plan is rapidly shredding.

Sigs wrote:

From: http://www.davidweber.net/posts/196-art ... -with.html

(12) The warship-building capacity of the SLN is concentrated in perhaps a couple of dozen major nodes. There are any number of star systems within the League which could become major warship-building centers, but they haven't been developed. This has two major implications. (A) The warship design and building industry is very much a "closed community." Not only that, but certain building centers specialize in certain types of construction and maintenance. Eighty percent of the existing yards doing active construction specialize in supporting Frontier Fleet, and build nothing heavier than battlecruisers.

Some League members have ship yards for their own SDF's, other have ship yards for civilian construction, just like it seems that the SKM didn't have problems switching between producing civilian ships and military ships then it shouldn't be too much of a problem in the grand scheme of things for a system to start pumping out light combatants at first while they build up their capability of building Ships of the wall.

That's not what the quoted pearl-of-weber says. It says there are "a couple of dozen" yards capable of building warships and "The warship design and building industry is very much a 'closed community.'"

That implies that 98.2 of the SL's systems do NOT have the plans for SLN ships and do NOT have any experience in designing or building warships. (the percentage is based on a very liberal three dozen systems building warships instead of "a couple dozen.")

20% of 36 systems building warships that build anything bigger than battlecruisers (BB, DN, or SD. Mostly SDs) is 7.2 systems. That's 0.36% of the Solarian League that knows how to build SDs or 1993 systems that would have to start from scratch with absolutely no idea of how warships are built.

Being very generous, that is probably six months of just getting ready to begin designing warships and 36 months of learning to build one. that's three and half years before your first SD launches and another year (according to RFC) for it to work up to combat capability from scratch. Less if you can scrape up some former SLN crew as cadre, but they won't have any real combat experience.

Undoubtedly, most successor states can build warships given enough time to learn how and retool or build shipyards, but time is something that is going to be in very short supply for the Solarian League and its successor states.

I suspect most successor states are going to be looking outside of the Old League to buy any warships they need -- or hiring former FF formations that have turned mercenary.
Former SLN suppliers are going to be competing with Erewhon, Alizon, Zanzibar, The Andermani, Grayson, Manticore, and Haven. All of the latter build better ships (even if just "Manticore Lite" export versions) and build them faster so the former SLN suppliers are going to be scrambling for buyers.

SWM wrote:Yes, they should have adapted and postponed. In fact, they believed they were adapting. They thought they could get things back on track. Moving up Oyster Bay was one of the adaptations they thought would help. If they had caught the Python Lump, they might have been right.

And now that Oyster Bay has effectivly failed overall it throws the rest of the plan and RF’s mission out the window. By failed BTW I mean it failed to get the goal it wanted as opposed to failing in the technical portions of the mission.

SWM wrote: It only became apparent in the last five years that the plan was seriously off the rails. There were signs before that, but the Alignment thought they could get things back on track. There has not been enough time for the Alignment to build a huge fleet after they realized there was a problem.

Which means that the part that the RF is to play is not possible anymore. If the RF does not have a fleet that has the means to fight the GA then pretty much anything it does can draw negative attention to itself. And worst of all from their point of view is that they might be discovered by the Andermani, the GA or the super spy team when they go hunting for more clues, so basically the RF/MA has to build a fleet as fast as possible but do it in such a way as to not draw attention.

SWM wrote: Yes, they should have postponed things. There have been numerous discussions on this forum about the mistake the MA made by not postponing things and hiding under a rock until they could strike properly. But they didn't, and the end result is that they do not have the huge fleet that you think they should have.

To me, this is the plan b they should have had in place from the start. It seems that their plan rested on alot of “if’s” and at anyone point the plan would have failed and there would need to be a plan B. Right now they cannot fight the GA openly and a repeat of Oyster Bay might verywell not work either because of precautions by the GA which means that the MA is up a creek without a paddle,

SWM wrote: As for the Renaissance Factor, they were never supposed to protect other systems from Manticore. Even under the revised plan they are not supposed to protect other systems from Manticore. The RF is likely to want to be friends with Manticore. The plan is and was for the RF nations to be the nuclei around which new interstellar confederations would start to grow.

But systems that have a major SLN shipyard, or a shipyard from their own SDF would have a similar idea as well. So either the MA leaves them alone and a bunch of successor states rise up from the League with their own shipbuilding capabilities and their own fleets or people start asking why others keep getting their stuff blown up while nothing happens to the RF.

SWM wrote: Yes, most League members could build their own naval shipyards if they tried. And some undoubtedly will. But the RF systems already have navies, which makes them the natural leaders in organizing other systems. I expect that the RF systems will each appear to act independently, gathering together neighbors. Systems hat don't have navies can use RF navies for protection; systems that want to build their own can enter defense treaties with the RF systems. Ultimately the RF systems and their allies would probably unite in a single large alliance or confederation. Only then would the name Renaissance Factor become known.

That doesn't exclude the fact that maybe dozens of other nations with their own shipyards and SDF’s or shipyards inherited from the League will not do the exact same thing.

So just because the RF is uniting a portion of the core it does in no way remove the opportunity for other systems with the means to build their own nations and the MA can do very little about it without drawing attention to the RF members.

How long is 5 years?

It's August 1939 and you notice that things have become a bit uncomfortable in your Central European neighborhood. You can have a reasonable military capability built in a mere 5 years. Or you can sign up with someone who already has a military.

kzt wrote:How long is 5 years?

It's August 1939 and you notice that things have become a bit uncomfortable in your Central European neighborhood. You can have a reasonable military capability built in a mere 5 years. Or you can sign up with someone who already has a military.

Try starting some time closer to 33~35 for central europe. The US was a little later to start arming for WWII and we started designing the ships ~1935, with the big buildup coming in a supplemental appropriation in 1938. I believe all of the major combatant in WWII started arming for war between 35 and 38 depending on proximity to Europe and budgeting cycles of the governments involved.

So you really think the league will last 5 years? Really? What makes you think that? I would predict that it will either collapse or be involved in a war to the knife with the GA in a 2-12 months, sparked by the actions taken to prevent the secession of Beowulf.

So in my opinion the time to start building a military expired about 4 years ago. If you don't already have a real military and facilities to build more combat vessels right now you are about to find yourself as a victim unless you cut a deal with someone with substantial military force.