Reserve destruction

Somtaaw wrote:Indeed, and in keeping with the general thread, its potentially viable to steal anything that's physically present in the Reserve.

They're out of date ships, built for the wrong kind of war... I believe that many to most of the Reserve superdreadnoughts are still armed with auto-cannon defenses, and very few (if any) have point-defense lasers, because they were designed and built centuries prior to laserhead missiles that have stand off attack range rather than contact warheads. The Reserve BC's would be similar, but still have greater mobility and lower crew requirements than the SD's do.


But all that is only valid when fighting against a Grand Alliance opponent. Against anyone else, those ships are still perfectly viable either for active operations, or as a scarecrow threat to scare off would-be aggressors. Solarian League member state politicians are going to be desperate to be seen as "doing something", regardless of whether it's a good something or not. By buying, bribing, stealing, or commandeering Reserve ships, they're achieving that something that would keep them voted into government.

Think Aleksandra Tonkovic from the Talbott Cluster convention, she did her heel-dragging because she honestly thought she could manipulate things her way, regardless of whether it was for the better good of the talks or not.

Weird Harold wrote:Per Admiral Kingsford, the new CNO of the SLN, they won't be reactivating any of the reserve because they don't have the money, they don't have the people, they don't have the time, and the Reserve ships are the wrong ships for the kind of war they have to fight.

Any discussion of the Reserve thus has to be of systems grabbing parts of it to beef up, or form from scratch, their SDFs. Whether it is current or former members of the SLN or Verge systems who think they see an opportunity to grab some serious fire-power on the cheap, There are going to be numerous problems to be overcome in getting a reserve SD activated, armed, and moved to its new home.

In the final accounting, a reserve SD is going to be a very expensive scarecrow that does very little to improve military capability.

Loren Pechtel wrote:The reserve is useless against the GA--they wouldn't reactivate it for that.

The issue is other systems turning rebellious--even without Mesa stirring the pot this is going to happen and I doubt the Mandarins are anticipating it.

A Rising Thunder
Chapter Thirty-one wrote:“It’s probably worse than that, frankly, especially with Haven added to the equation,” the acting CNO said unflinchingly. “For all intents and purposes, the Reserve has just become several billion tons of scrap material. The superdreadnoughts we have mothballed are the wrong ships for this war, and I don’t see any way the existing hulls could be refitted to turn them into effective combatants.”
Well, that’s a kick in the head, Kolokoltsov thought dourly. On the other hand, if Omosupe and Agatá are right, we won’t have the cash to reactivate the Reserve, anyway. Of course, that leaves the little problem of where we’re going to find the cash to build new wallers if we can’t even de-mothball the ones we’ve already got!

Castenea wrote:I think stealing some of the sub waller ships from the reserve is practical for a desperate remnant of the league to increase their SDF. This though runs into the problem that it is the smaller ships that were much more likely to go walkabout before the league collapse, and that there were much fewer of those ship types in the reserve to begin with. The SLN doctrine calls for much fewer escorts that any of the Haven sector navies consider prudent.

Brigade XO wrote:I would speculate that the best thing the SLN can do with the ships above BC rate would be to sell them to either League members who might be getting nervous about the going on or to some of the nominally more stable systems in the Shell and get money for them as bolstering the systems defense. The money would probably be of more use to pay for the new stuff the SLN is going to TRY and build and there might even be "commissions" (graft) available in the deal for various SLN people. Techondyne may or may not have a use for the materials for that buliding but they certainly would like the potential profit of refitting surplus ships for League Member systems SDF.
Of course that presumes that more than one or two of said systems might actual believe that the reserve ships could actually be helpful. More in the line of somebody on Earth like Equador getting a couple to attempt to cow Chile or Columbia (except that newer, smaller ships would be a better buy in covering territory and doing more than being harbor queens.)

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I would speculate that the best thing the SLN can do with the ships above BC rate would be to sell them to either League members who might be getting nervous about the going on or to some of the nominally more stable systems in the Shell and get money for them as bolstering the systems defense. The money would probably be of more use to pay for the new stuff the SLN is going to TRY and build and there might even be "commissions" (graft) available in the deal for various SLN people. Techondyne may or may not have a use for the materials for that buliding but they certainly would like the potential profit of refitting surplus ships for League Member systems SDF.
Of course that presumes that more than one or two of said systems might actual believe that the reserve ships could actually be helpful. More in the line of somebody on Earth like Equador getting a couple to attempt to cow Chile or Columbia (except that newer, smaller ships would be a better buy in covering territory and doing more than being harbor queens.)

Maldorian wrote:

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I would speculate that the best thing the SLN can do with the ships above BC rate would be to sell them to either League members who might be getting nervous about the going on or to some of the nominally more stable systems in the Shell and get money for them as bolstering the systems defense. The money would probably be of more use to pay for the new stuff the SLN is going to TRY and build and there might even be "commissions" (graft) available in the deal for various SLN people. Techondyne may or may not have a use for the materials for that buliding but they certainly would like the potential profit of refitting surplus ships for League Member systems SDF.
Of course that presumes that more than one or two of said systems might actual believe that the reserve ships could actually be helpful. More in the line of somebody on Earth like Equador getting a couple to attempt to cow Chile or Columbia (except that newer, smaller ships would be a better buy in covering territory and doing more than being harbor queens.)

You know how currupt the solarian Navy is? Do you think there would be a credit left to buy/build any ships after dozens of admirals have take their amount of the cash?

Weird Harold wrote:The League is NOT going to reactivate any SDs from the reserve. The probably aren't going to reactivate any of the smaller ships either, but that would be a spit in the ocean against what they need.

A Rising Thunder
Chapter Thirty-one wrote:“It’s probably worse than that, frankly, especially with Haven added to the equation,” the acting CNO said unflinchingly. “For all intents and purposes, the Reserve has just become several billion tons of scrap material. The superdreadnoughts we have mothballed are the wrong ships for this war, and I don’t see any way the existing hulls could be refitted to turn them into effective combatants.”
Well, that’s a kick in the head, Kolokoltsov thought dourly. On the other hand, if Omosupe and Agatá are right, we won’t have the cash to reactivate the Reserve, anyway. Of course, that leaves the little problem of where we’re going to find the cash to build new wallers if we can’t even de-mothball the ones we’ve already got!

Loren Pechtel wrote:

A Rising Thunder
Chapter Thirty-one wrote:“It’s probably worse than that, frankly, especially with Haven added to the equation,” the acting CNO said unflinchingly. “For all intents and purposes, the Reserve has just become several billion tons of scrap material. The superdreadnoughts we have mothballed are the wrong ships for this war, and I don’t see any way the existing hulls could be refitted to turn them into effective combatants.”
Well, that’s a kick in the head, Kolokoltsov thought dourly. On the other hand, if Omosupe and Agatá are right, we won’t have the cash to reactivate the Reserve, anyway. Of course, that leaves the little problem of where we’re going to find the cash to build new wallers if we can’t even de-mothball the ones we’ve already got!

That's talking about using them against the GA--something we have repeatedly said isn't going to happen. The issue is using them against rebellious systems. The fewer ships the Sollies have the more rebel trouble they will have especially if the GA takes to picketing such systems.