Scenario of War with the League

[quote="Sigs"
Because if you are a core system that has a lot of industrial potential but no ship yards you are looking at having to train the ship yard workers, design the ships from the ground up with potentially little to no experience in warship designs and build the ship yards before you even get to construction. And then you get to start training the naval crew for each and every ship, if the SDF had 20,30 or 50 SD's then you have an experienced core of navy personnel with a solid logistic and training base but if you start with 50 LAC's how would you turn the 500 person navy into a one that has 500,000 or a million personnel in only 3 or 4 years?

And how would you do all that military and industrial expansion while a significant portion of the transport capability that the League depends on vanishes?[/quote]
Why would you expect they don't have shipyards? Name me a modern 1st world nation with a port that don't have a shipyard.

Relax wrote:

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.

I don't remember where, but I read that the SLN had proportionally a higher number of lighter units in their fleet than either the RMN or the RHN.


I personally doubt that Battlefleet is exclusively SD's and to me it must have its own light combatants element integrated. What Frontier Fleet has is in my opinion envisioned to be the screen for the "reserve".

Plus keeping in mind that some % of the lighter units will be in yard hands at all times and some systems will require significant presence in the protectorates, shell and core that number seemed like as good a guesstimate as any.

And since a large % of the reserve is obsolete even by SLN technological levels and unless I am way off base, 8,000 SD's will require somewhere in the neighbourhood of 36million men and women as crew even at 75% manning and I doubt that the SLN has 36million people sitting around doing nothing waiting for that day the Reserve is mobilized.

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.

Why would it be unrealistic? I'm limiting certain technologies because the more I think about it the more it seems to me that even if the technological gap was much narrower the SLN specifically and the League in general will not survive it.

At the end of the day the League is getting defeated, whether it is defeated in battle after battle and conquered bit by bit or it is defeated through the use of diplomacy at the end of the day it makes no difference to the league as it will cease to exist in it's current form.

kzt wrote:[quote="Sigs"
Because if you are a core system that has a lot of industrial potential but no ship yards you are looking at having to train the ship yard workers, design the ships from the ground up with potentially little to no experience in warship designs and build the ship yards before you even get to construction. And then you get to start training the naval crew for each and every ship, if the SDF had 20,30 or 50 SD's then you have an experienced core of navy personnel with a solid logistic and training base but if you start with 50 LAC's how would you turn the 500 person navy into a one that has 500,000 or a million personnel in only 3 or 4 years?

And how would you do all that military and industrial expansion while a significant portion of the transport capability that the League depends on vanishes?

Why would you expect they don't have shipyards? Name me a modern 1st world nation with a port that don't have a shipyard.[/quote]


The problem isn't finding welders - it's retraining welders to be plasma welders. It's upgrading the 500 ton crane to 3500 tons. It's changing presses and hardware which handles 3" steel to handle 15" face hardened armor steel.

The industrial strength is there, but it's converting plants that make autos into ones that make planes and tanks. Unfortunately that retooling and retraining takes time, but not that much. Given enough time, every sewing machine factory will be making heavy machine guns.

BTW, David said most planets are economically self-sufficient. They grow sufficient food to feed their population, Most 1st world planets have their own electronics industries, auto industries etc.

The trade is the top 10-20% of the economies - usually. Today, in the US you can buy a US made motorcycle - but people pay more for a Bugatti. American Champaign - why but French? American Beef - why buy Kobe? Sometimes it's because its better. Sometimes it's because you can source it there $.05 cheaper and make a profit in bulk. The Economies may take a hit initially - no more imported Lexus's and No Catapiller diesel tractors being sold offworld - but at their core the local economies will mostly go on and heal over a short period of time.

kzt wrote:[quote="Sigs"
Because if you are a core system that has a lot of industrial potential but no ship yards you are looking at having to train the ship yard workers, design the ships from the ground up with potentially little to no experience in warship designs and build the ship yards before you even get to construction. And then you get to start training the naval crew for each and every ship, if the SDF had 20,30 or 50 SD's then you have an experienced core of navy personnel with a solid logistic and training base but if you start with 50 LAC's how would you turn the 500 person navy into a one that has 500,000 or a million personnel in only 3 or 4 years?

And how would you do all that military and industrial expansion while a significant portion of the transport capability that the League depends on vanishes?

Why would you expect they don't have shipyards? Name me a modern 1st world nation with a port that don't have a shipyard.[/quote]

And how many shipyards does the US have? Or Russia? or China?

If the
US was to fracture tomorrow into 50 independent nations, how many of the coastal states would have shipyards being able to cargo ships or warships?

Let's say that there are in fact 500 core systems that are all as industrialized as Manticore, are you going to suggest that all of them have shipyards? Or hell even 25% of them having shipyards? And if they had the shipyards how big are they and what can they produce?


And if all 500 have shipyards that can produce CA and above, how many will be interested in building a fleet to compete with the GA and hand over more and more of their independence to the central government(Bureaucracy) of the league and how many would be more than willing to build a fleet strong enough to protect themselves and get away from the league.


The League does not have the same degree of loyalty from its member systems as say the SKM or even the new systems that make up the SEM. And they don't have the same loyalty as many of the Republics core systems.

So this means that the second the weakness becomes apparent many systems will start plotting their exit from the League and if they have any old scores to settle they might decide now is the perfect time.

So yes, they might be able to start building SD's as early as 4 or 5 years, and yess they might be by some miracle technologically equal to the GA's but how long do you think it would take for one system no matter how industrialized to go from building 0 SD's and having 0 SD's to building a fleet of hundreds of SD's?

kzt wrote:[quote="Sigs"
Because if you are a core system that has a lot of industrial potential but no ship yards you are looking at having to train the ship yard workers, design the ships from the ground up with potentially little to no experience in warship designs and build the ship yards before you even get to construction. And then you get to start training the naval crew for each and every ship, if the SDF had 20,30 or 50 SD's then you have an experienced core of navy personnel with a solid logistic and training base but if you start with 50 LAC's how would you turn the 500 person navy into a one that has 500,000 or a million personnel in only 3 or 4 years?

And how would you do all that military and industrial expansion while a significant portion of the transport capability that the League depends on vanishes?

Why would you expect they don't have shipyards? Name me a modern 1st world nation with a port that don't have a shipyard.[/quote]

And how many shipyards does the US have? Or Russia? or China?

If the
US was to fracture tomorrow into 50 independent nations, how many of the coastal states would have shipyards being able to cargo ships or warships?

Let's say that there are in fact 500 core systems that are all as industrialized as Manticore, are you going to suggest that all of them have shipyards? Or hell even 25% of them having shipyards? And if they had the shipyards how big are they and what can they produce?


And if all 500 have shipyards that can produce CA and above, how many will be interested in building a fleet to compete with the GA and hand over more and more of their independence to the central government(Bureaucracy) of the league and how many would be more than willing to build a fleet strong enough to protect themselves and get away from the league.


The League does not have the same degree of loyalty from its member systems as say the SKM or even the new systems that make up the SEM. And they don't have the same loyalty as many of the Republics core systems.

So this means that the second the weakness becomes apparent many systems will start plotting their exit from the League and if they have any old scores to settle they might decide now is the perfect time.

So yes, they might be able to start building SD's as early as 4 or 5 years, and yess they might be by some miracle technologically equal to the GA's but how long do you think it would take for one system no matter how industrialized to go from building 0 SD's and having 0 SD's to building a fleet of hundreds of SD's?

Sigs wrote:
I don't remember where, but I read that the SLN had proportionally a higher number of lighter units in their fleet than either the RMN or the RHN.


I personally doubt that Battlefleet is exclusively SD's and to me it must have its own light combatants element integrated. What Frontier Fleet has is in my opinion envisioned to be the screen for the "reserve".

Plus keeping in mind that some % of the lighter units will be in yard hands at all times and some systems will require significant presence in the protectorates, shell and core that number seemed like as good a guesstimate as any.

And since a large % of the reserve is obsolete even by SLN technological levels and unless I am way off base, 8,000 SD's will require somewhere in the neighbourhood of 36million men and women as crew even at 75% manning and I doubt that the SLN has 36million people sitting around doing nothing waiting for that day the Reserve is mobilized.

We do know that the Reserve does have some BCs in it, as they were being refreshed with Nevadas, and the Active BF also has some BCs, as part of Byng's forces was new BF Nevadas. We also know that the PRH purchased some obsolete Liberty class CLs from the Reserve as the basis of their Charles Wade Pope class CLs in the late 1800s, but we do not know the makeup of the reserve.

However, we have also been told that the main plan, upon BF deployment or reserve activation is for FF to provide the bulk of the screen. A plan which has not been revised in quite some time and is seen by any who consider it to be foolish and unrealistic.

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:[quote="Sigs"
Because if you are a core system that has a lot of industrial potential but no ship yards you are looking at having to train the ship yard workers, design the ships from the ground up with potentially little to no experience in warship designs and build the ship yards before you even get to construction. And then you get to start training the naval crew for each and every ship, if the SDF had 20,30 or 50 SD's then you have an experienced core of navy personnel with a solid logistic and training base but if you start with 50 LAC's how would you turn the 500 person navy into a one that has 500,000 or a million personnel in only 3 or 4 years?

And how would you do all that military and industrial expansion while a significant portion of the transport capability that the League depends on vanishes?

Why would you expect they don't have shipyards? Name me a modern 1st world nation with a port that don't have a shipyard.

The problem isn't finding welders - it's retraining welders to be plasma welders. It's upgrading the 500 ton crane to 3500 tons. It's changing presses and hardware which handles 3" steel to handle 15" face hardened armor steel.

The industrial strength is there, but it's converting plants that make autos into ones that make planes and tanks. Unfortunately that retooling and retraining takes time, but not that much. Given enough time, every sewing machine factory will be making heavy machine guns.

BTW, David said most planets are economically self-sufficient. They grow sufficient food to feed their population, Most 1st world planets have their own electronics industries, auto industries etc.

The trade is the top 10-20% of the economies - usually. Today, in the US you can buy a US made motorcycle - but people pay more for a Bugatti. American Champaign - why but French? American Beef - why buy Kobe? Sometimes it's because its better. Sometimes it's because you can source it there $.05 cheaper and make a profit in bulk. The Economies may take a hit initially - no more imported Lexus's and No Catapiller diesel tractors being sold offworld - but at their core the local economies will mostly go on and heal over a short period of time.[/quote]

So your point is that they are essentially a couple of hundred self sufficient systems with little or nothing tying them to the central government wants the SLN starts getting defeated in battle after battle.

Your response isn't more convincing if you make it 5 times.

Theemile wrote:

Sigs wrote:
I don't remember where, but I read that the SLN had proportionally a higher number of lighter units in their fleet than either the RMN or the RHN.


I personally doubt that Battlefleet is exclusively SD's and to me it must have its own light combatants element integrated. What Frontier Fleet has is in my opinion envisioned to be the screen for the "reserve".

Plus keeping in mind that some % of the lighter units will be in yard hands at all times and some systems will require significant presence in the protectorates, shell and core that number seemed like as good a guesstimate as any.

And since a large % of the reserve is obsolete even by SLN technological levels and unless I am way off base, 8,000 SD's will require somewhere in the neighbourhood of 36million men and women as crew even at 75% manning and I doubt that the SLN has 36million people sitting around doing nothing waiting for that day the Reserve is mobilized.

We do know that the Reserve does have some BCs in it, as they were being refreshed with Nevadas, and the Active BF also has some BCs, as part of Byng's forces was new BF Nevadas. We also know that the PRH purchased some obsolete Liberty class CLs from the Reserve as the basis of their Charles Wade Pope class CLs in the late 1800s, but we do not know the makeup of the reserve.

However, we have also been told that the main plan, upon BF deployment or reserve activation is for FF to provide the bulk of the screen. A plan which has not been revised in quite some time and is seen by any who consider it to be foolish and unrealistic.

But my point is that the reserve is not truly a reserve. It's like saying that the US has 100,000 tanks in reserve but they do not have crew's for those tanks and they don't have the logistical muscle to support activating those tanks.

As for the light combatants of Battle Fleet, I don't think it is specifically mentioned but both Eleventh Fleet and TF 496 had BF Screen supported by some FF light combatants but it was not exclusively FF Screen.