Scenario of War with the League

HB of CJ wrote:Simply excluding the proven nasty Mesa bad guys just for this thread does not signify. The evil Mesa bad guys exist. The next couple or three Honor books, if we are lucky enough to see them in print, should be very interesting. Patience they said. Difficult!

That exclusion is simply for the purposes of this hypothetical situation -- which also excludes podnoughts and MDMs and, although not stated, probably most of Ghost Rider beyond rudimentary FTL comm.

The scenario presented for this discussion is totally unrealistic militarily, but defeating the Solarian League has never been an option; destroying it is the only path to survival and that has to be primarily diplomatic in wedging the fracture lines apart.

The Sollies did have pods, they just might not have been Solly produced pods. Monica received a lot of pods "from Technodyne" and then later Fillerta gets all those nice Cataphracts and pods. And Fillerta noticed that the stuff he had been told to wait for- those pods etc- came from the Mesa system but rememberd that Technodyne didn't have any production facilities in the Mesa system and there was the open question as to where they were produced.
The speculation here has been that they actualy were being feed in by the Alignment. I don't think we have been told that SLN has been getting them from SLN contractor production, just that anybody who had been involved "knows" that they were produed by Technodyne. That might be very wrong. Of course, the RF might have pod and cataprhact production capabilities - again, something "licensed" from Technodyne be we haven't seen any of that written.

The whole rational of the Harrington Doctrine is that the League is going to get and be shattered into pieces before it can actually carry the war- effectively- to Manticore and now the GA. One of those nagging "little" pieces is just exactly how that was going to work!

Sure, Lacoon I and particularly II is going to cripple the League economically but that doesn't stop the League Government from ordering new warships....for a while anyway.

At the moment, the League hasn't been able to do anything more than just loose hundreds of warships and probably a couple of hundred thousand military spaces to primarily nominal POW status and is essentialy planning to hit at least Manticore by commerce raiding while it attempts to do something about the technical hole it is in.

Aside from the shipping crisis, the lack of revenue to support the government (and all that bureaucracy) etc from loss of fees, the Mandarins also are facing the very real and large political crisis of Beowulf's pending vote to leave the League. The can't afford to let that happen/stand if it is voted to leave because they know that it will be the 1st rock in the avalanche of systems (even other long term member systems) which will look to also break away.

The SLN CAN NOT both fight (or try to fight) the GA and maintain the status quo of of enforcement of SL regulations and political dominance by the SL over both it's member systems, protectorates and various client systems. This is a Catch-22 situation for the SL. It is about to lose it's ability to quietly compel restive systems to toe the line and behave within the framework of the SL. Sure, the SLN is still a massive force in terms of numbers and to use threat of force to make systems do what the Buracracy wants, but excercising that force and actually shooting up a system or bombarding planets THAT ARE LEAGUE MEMBERS will tear the League apart all the faster.

Short of the Mandarins coming to the realization that they really have to deal fairly with Manticore/GA (or SLN Senior Officers reaching the same conclusion and "convincing" the Mandarins of it as the only way to survive), things are just going to go down hill faster and faster.

Problem is, just how bad is it going to get before the League (and the SLN) shatters and the systems start sorting themselves into components that can survive both economicaly and militarily in the resulting chaos.

Brigade XO wrote:The Sollies did have pods, they just might not have been Solly produced pods. Monica received a lot of pods "from Technodyne" and then later Fillerta gets all those nice Cataphracts and pods. ...

A very good assessment of the state of the series, but NOT really relevant to this scenario. No MDMs -- as set out in the initial conditions for this thread -- means that Technodyne and the MAlign have no reason to look for extended range or multi-stage missiles.

Technodyne might have developed those massive system defense missiles anyway, but there wouldn't have been the need to provide them to Monica.

Monica may well have had a different outcome given the specification of no-mdm missiles, but the RMN force would still out-range the Solarian BCs but not by as much so they wouldn't have been able to get as much info on the Monican ECM.

Saltash would have been a resounding victory for Frontier Fleet. Zucker may well have been a bloody fiasco as well.

Militarily, the GA would be on VERY shaky grounds given the scenario detailed by Sigs. Without the MAlign also working to fragment the League, even the Harrington Doctrine is a shaky strategy. I'd say that with the handicaps Sigs has laid out, the SLN's traditional doctrine of ever-increasing overwhelming numbers would be viable and probably successful.

Weird Harold wrote:A very good assessment of the state of the series, but NOT really relevant to this scenario. No MDMs -- as set out in the initial conditions for this thread -- means that Technodyne and the MAlign have no reason to look for extended range or multi-stage missiles.

Technodyne might have developed those massive system defense missiles anyway, but there wouldn't have been the need to provide them to Monica.

Monica may well have had a different outcome given the specification of no-mdm missiles, but the RMN force would still out-range the Solarian BCs but not by as much so they wouldn't have been able to get as much info on the Monican ECM.

Saltash would have been a resounding victory for Frontier Fleet. Zucker may well have been a bloody fiasco as well.

Actually, I'm not sure the RMN would have the missile range advantage. It would depend on whether this alt-history had yet developed and deployed ERMs (and then further whether they had BCs designed or refitted to fire those ERMs -- something they never bothered with in the actual timeline).

From some details dropped in the books and by Duckk we know the performance numbers of the SLN Javelin missile's drive; and they're about 1.5% better than the pre-ERM missiles the RMN had. Manticore probably still had an edge in sensors and ECM, but not in raw drive.

Here's the latest RMN SDM I've got numbers on:
100% power 60s @ 92000g = burnout after 1,656,000 km at 0.18c
50% power 180s @ 46000g = burnout after 7,452,000 km at 0.28c

And for comparison the Javelin numbers:
100% power 60s @ 93400g = burnout after 1,681,200 km at 0.19c
50% power 180s @ 46700g = burnout after 7,565,400 km at 0.28c

Admittedly 1.5% better accel and range isn't much, but it certainly means they aren't outranged by RMN SDMs.

Jonathan_S wrote:From some details dropped in the books and by Duckk we know the performance numbers of the SLN Javelin missile's drive; and they're about 1.5% better than the pre-ERM missiles the RMN had. Manticore probably still had an edge in sensors and ECM, but not in raw drive.

Here's the latest RMN SDM I've got numbers on:
100% power 60s @ 92000g = burnout after 1,656,000 km at 0.18c
50% power 180s @ 46000g = burnout after 7,452,000 km at 0.28c

And for comparison the Javelin numbers:
100% power 60s @ 93400g = burnout after 1,681,200 km at 0.19c
50% power 180s @ 46700g = burnout after 7,565,400 km at 0.28c

Admittedly 1.5% better accel and range isn't much, but it certainly means they aren't outranged by RMN SDMs.

[quote=""Sigs]...no multistage missiles so missile technology is at around 1910 level ...[/quote]

I don't quibble about the details quite as much as some, but I'm pretty sure the RMN was using ERM and LERM missiles in 1910. Sigs chose his alternate history point to leave a tech advantage to the RMN, I just don't think it would be enough advantage to insure a "win" against the SLN.

darrell wrote:Remember the meyers sector. If one sector is planning to split away I will bet that there are others that are also actively planning for seperation. I will also bet that there will be additional sectors that will split off if they get the opportunity. So, forget C.

remember the 12 puppet systems of the alignment? forget B.

Remember Beowulf? forget the core worlds and A.

IMO the only question is if the SL hangs together long enough for honor to open fire on them.

Don't forget - it was not the war in the official timeline, but in an alternative timeline, without the meddling through the Renaissance Factor/Mesan Alignment, Sigs wanted to discuss. So - I remain in my opinion: without additional pressure from such a source - and should the Harrington-Plan (assuming there was such a plan in this alternate future) fail to success - the Grand Alliance is doomed in the long run.

Weird Harold wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:From some details dropped in the books and by Duckk we know the performance numbers of the SLN Javelin missile's drive; and they're about 1.5% better than the pre-ERM missiles the RMN had. Manticore probably still had an edge in sensors and ECM, but not in raw drive.

Here's the latest RMN SDM I've got numbers on:
100% power 60s @ 92000g = burnout after 1,656,000 km at 0.18c
50% power 180s @ 46000g = burnout after 7,452,000 km at 0.28c

And for comparison the Javelin numbers:
100% power 60s @ 93400g = burnout after 1,681,200 km at 0.19c
50% power 180s @ 46700g = burnout after 7,565,400 km at 0.28c

Admittedly 1.5% better accel and range isn't much, but it certainly means they aren't outranged by RMN SDMs.

[quote=""Sigs]...no multistage missiles so missile technology is at around 1910 level ...[/quote]

I don't quibble about the details quite as much as some, but I'm pretty sure the RMN was using ERM and LERM missiles in 1910. Sigs chose his alternate history point to leave a tech advantage to the RMN, I just don't think it would be enough advantage to insure a "win" against the SLN.[/quote]

One thing people forget is that most of the SL battle fleet is the unmanned "reserve" I am sure that the location of all the reserve ships are located.

From a military perspective, the first strike the GA should do is to kill the reserve. Should be easy enough to split the grand fleet and in a quick time kill all the reserve, and the GA equals the SL on ships of the wall.

Not sure about the political side though. If the GA destroys the reserve, does that demoralize the SL and cause it to fall apart faster, or does it put a backbone into the SL and make it harder to break up.

Sigs wrote:SLN Fleet:(Similar breakdown % of the Allied fleet below the wall)
~2,300 SD's
3,181 BC's
2,731 CA's
3,806 CL's
5,280 DD's

There is no way in this universe the SLN has that large a number of light units.

If they did:
#1 The books would not be littered to references for Frontier fleet having to scrounge around for units.

#2 Likewise there would not be all of the quotes about how bloated Battle Fleet is with all of its white elephant SD's that sit and eat $$$.

#3 Likewise, Battle Fleet has very few light units. Their light units were supposed to come from FF.

If one has 15,000 light units as postulated, with the vast majority in Frontier Fleet, they would not be worrying about patrolling all of the protectorates. Even if we assumed there were 5000 protectorates they would have 2-3 ships per protectorate planet on permanent station and nodal points would have over 100 ships. Instead we see at most ~1/6 that number with a far more realistic number of 1/10th.

#4 For instance in ToF, the Protectorate cluster over by Torch, was "special" it had 2 squadrons of DD's with a Cl... 17 ships... 17! For the entire FF nodal point. Not well north of 100.

I would postulate that the number of light units of FF/BF combined are under 3000 units. After all why should they have more? Everyone knows they have 2000+ SD's to kick the door down as backup. The SDF's usually have CL's, DD's as well to increase light unit numbers.

So, if you are going to do force projection, I would postulate that the SLN combined has no more than 5000 units active. Personally, I think it is lower than that by a wide margin due to the SL's availability of SDF's. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual number of active SLN(BF/FF) is 4000.

Weird Harold wrote:The scenario presented for this discussion is totally unrealistic militarily, but defeating the Solarian League has never been an option; destroying it is the only path to survival and that has to be primarily diplomatic in wedging the fracture lines apart.

Actually, showing up and blowing away all of the SLN ships is very easily doable. We have already gone through the numbers several times over. Could do so in a matter of 2 months. So, militarily defeating the SLN is quite simple. Defeating the SL on the other hand is an impossible task with their population base. Its like Singapore conquering all of the world.

Just to point out, for the folks discussing missile ranges, and whether Technodyne & the SLN would have had a variant of ERM/LERM missiles.


Technodyne only ever developed their Cataphract's and company in response to MANTICORE 'allegedly' fielding MDM's. They had their own observers, and while the SLN has their blinders "not invented here" syndrome, Technodyne doesn't and immediately set to work on figuring some way to copy it. That's just good business sense, if someone else is doing something that you cant and your usual high-volume customer refuses to acknowledge its even possible.... research it on your own time&dime, and then charge through the nose for being pro-active.