Congratulations! The war is over! Now what?

Weird Harold wrote:
Did you miss the bolded statement, or are you just willfully ignoring it?

Manticore gave missiles, LACs and blueprints to Zanzibar, Alizon, Erewhon, and who knows how many other members of the original Manticoran Alliance. They gave the technology to Grayson even before the Macabeans were rounded up and despite significant opposition in the Keys.

Why should they treat new treaty partners any differently than they treated old treaty partners? (if a former league member doesn't want to sign a mutual defense treaty, they don't get the tech directly and will have to pay black-market prices for it.)

Was Zanzibar and Alizon a former Havenite colony?

Weird Harold wrote:[(if a former league member doesn't want to sign a mutual defense treaty, they don't get the tech directly and will have to pay black-market prices for it.)

And even by your own admission there would be a black market for GA weapons, where o where do you think that black market would come from? Suddenly releasing those weapons to dozens if not hundreds of systems who only a month or two before were calling for the destruction of Manticore.


I am all for protecting treaty partners, but let them earn the weapons through loyalty rather than as a gift. What happens if they sign an alliance with the GA and then decide to go on their own merry way once the GA supplies them with modern weapons for defence?

As for Grayson getting tech before the alliance was signed? Different situation, if they had withheld the technology Grayson would have been defeated and probably destroyed and the base that Manticore was looking for would have vanished.

kzt wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:It's a little defensive minded, but by responding to provocations maybe you can avoid pissing off the hosting system or creating martyrs for the League to rally behind.

Have you heard of the period that the Kriegsmarine called "Second Happy Time"? That's what is going to happen to shipping in the SEM etc until they pull a lot of ships off of offensive roles. The SLN won't be really trying to capture ships, they will be trying to blow them up as expediently as possible. So I don't think they will organizing expeditions to attack 300 SLN bases a week.

The thing is, it seems to me that most people assume that the GA will sit on its butt and not anticipate the future actions of the SLN. The SLN might try and they might succeed, but with control of the Warmhole networks, the GA can respond to threats a lot faster than the SLN can redeploy.


And you guys are acting like there are thousands of systems who were just waiting for Manticore to pull out its ships from the League in order to open their markets to Manticore.


If there are a hundred, or a thousand or even ten thousand systems, those systems would be serviced by someone if there was a need, there wouldn't be a magical new set of markets that for Manticore to take advantage of.


Think about how the SLN and Frontier Fleet is deployed, frontier fleet even if it abandons the protectorates will have to consolidate in one location because they might not be able to reach those magical new markets if those magical markets were say physically closer to Manticore than to the league unless they wanted to try a Terminus assault. Besides, the second part of the commerce raiding plan was infrastructure-raiding. Now attacking defenceless merchantmen might be successful to produce some "victories" but Manticore and Haven have been fighting or preparing for the fight for decades, I'm sure somewhere somehow they can come up with a plan to cut the losses. Protect the most important independent systems, and the rest either ban freighters from entering or let them go at own risk.


If the GA deems the risk too great, how long do you think it would take them to lay down a few hundred destroyers and cruisers? Within a year to a year and a half they could have another 300-400 DD's and CL's and it would take a significant amount of time to redeploy the SLN so they might have the time with minimum losses.

Sigs wrote:If the GA deems the risk too great, how long do you think it would take them to lay down a few hundred destroyers and cruisers? Within a year to a year and a half they could have another 300-400 DD's and CL's and it would take a significant amount of time to redeploy the SLN so they might have the time with minimum losses.

Consider that most of FF is fairly modern. Like a few decades old. Consider that if it is actually anything like 15,000 ships, all that have been built in the last 30 years, their peacetime build capability is 500/year.

Sigs wrote:

kzt wrote:Have you heard of the period that the Kriegsmarine called "Second Happy Time"? That's what is going to happen to shipping in the SEM etc until they pull a lot of ships off of offensive roles. The SLN won't be really trying to capture ships, they will be trying to blow them up as expediently as possible. So I don't think they will organizing expeditions to attack 300 SLN bases a week.

The thing is, it seems to me that most people assume that the GA will sit on its butt and not anticipate the future actions of the SLN. The SLN might try and they might succeed, but with control of the Warmhole networks, the GA can respond to threats a lot faster than the SLN can redeploy.


And you guys are acting like there are thousands of systems who were just waiting for Manticore to pull out its ships from the League in order to open their markets to Manticore.


If there are a hundred, or a thousand or even ten thousand systems, those systems would be serviced by someone if there was a need, there wouldn't be a magical new set of markets that for Manticore to take advantage of.


Think about how the SLN and Frontier Fleet is deployed, frontier fleet even if it abandons the protectorates will have to consolidate in one location because they might not be able to reach those magical new markets if those magical markets were say physically closer to Manticore than to the league unless they wanted to try a Terminus assault. Besides, the second part of the commerce raiding plan was infrastructure-raiding. Now attacking defenceless merchantmen might be successful to produce some "victories" but Manticore and Haven have been fighting or preparing for the fight for decades, I'm sure somewhere somehow they can come up with a plan to cut the losses. Protect the most important independent systems, and the rest either ban freighters from entering or let them go at own risk.


If the GA deems the risk too great, how long do you think it would take them to lay down a few hundred destroyers and cruisers? Within a year to a year and a half they could have another 300-400 DD's and CL's and it would take a significant amount of time to redeploy the SLN so they might have the time with minimum losses.

Quote Wikipedia: In Operation Drumbeat and subsequent operations until August 1942, a large number of Allied merchant ships were sunk by submarines off the American coast as the Americans had not prepared for submarine warfare, despite clear warnings (this was the so-called Second happy time for the German navy).

The question I have is What clear warnings? How has bing, crandal and filarta warned the GA that the SLN is going to be attacking GA shipping?

It will probably take 2-3 years for the GA to realize that the SLN is raiding their shipping and do something about it.

Although it is possible for the SLN to blow away merchant shipping, I bet there is something in the denab accords that frowns on blowing away unarmed ships without giving them the chance to surrender.

kzt wrote:

Sigs wrote:If the GA deems the risk too great, how long do you think it would take them to lay down a few hundred destroyers and cruisers? Within a year to a year and a half they could have another 300-400 DD's and CL's and it would take a significant amount of time to redeploy the SLN so they might have the time with minimum losses.

Consider that most of FF is fairly modern. Like a few decades old. Consider that if it is actually anything like 15,000 ships, all that have been built in the last 30 years, their peacetime build capability is 500/year.

And those 500 a year will be nowhere near as capable as 300 GA DD's/CL's.

If you need 5 or more ships to take on one GA DD or CL with a chance of success, the 500 they might be able to build a year will be 1,000 short of what they need.

darrell wrote:
Quote Wikipedia: In Operation Drumbeat and subsequent operations until August 1942, a large number of Allied merchant ships were sunk by submarines off the American coast as the Americans had not prepared for submarine warfare, despite clear warnings (this was the so-called Second happy time for the German navy).

The question I have is What clear warnings? How has bing, crandal and filarta warned the GA that the SLN is going to be attacking GA shipping?

It will probably take 2-3 years for the GA to realize that the SLN is raiding their shipping and do something about it.

Although it is possible for the SLN to blow away merchant shipping, I bet there is something in the denab accords that frowns on blowing away unarmed ships without giving them the chance to surrender.

Manticore and Haven have been at all out war for close to 20 years. Both sides have had a chance to workout the kinks of commerce protection since both sides have had to deal with that particular problem.

The SLN does not need to warn them of anything, it is a logical step that the GA must consider and account for in their planning. But then again, didn't some of the contingency plans in the captured FF ships have a thing or two to say about piracy and infrastructure destruction? Is it that much of a leap?

Sigs wrote:1)A portion would be in refit, if we use the % of SDs in refit as a guide it could mean that ~1,300 light combatants should be in refit at anyone time.

2) There could be a requirement of having light warships in certain systems far in excess of their actual needs simply because of prestige reasons... eg having a 100 light warships in a system because it is more valuable than most or in some sectors.

3) More valuable sectors might prove to have more vessels.

4) There might be certain valuable systems that need protection(shipyards, training facilities, logistical strongpoints etc...) Wouldn't be a good thing if you had all of your munitions poorly defended so that someone can blow your munitions with little opposition.

5) Strategic reserve formations. Frontier Fleet might keep centralized formations in case some sectors need reinforcements.


It could be any combination of these 5 or any number of other reasons they don't deploy their strength properly.


In the series we have seen the League do some incredibly stupid things, so poorly deploying ships might be one of them.

After all the 25+ BC's that were deployed to Talbott under Byng even though only 17 participated in the second Battle of New Tuscany. Those ships had to come from somewhere, so maybe a central reserve area for the nearby sectors?

1) The total number of known inhabited systems is about 4,000. 1800 of them are League members, with "hundreds" of protectorates in the Verge.

2 & 3) If valuable systems/sectors get lots of ships to sit around and look impressive, then why did Maya only have 20 or 30 ships to cover a highly prosperous 20-30 system sector? Where are the other 30 or 40 ships they should have on a 'per system' basis?

4 & 5) Battle Fleet provides the SLN's strategical muscle, even without the Reserve. Its existence alone should free Frontier Fleet from covering these reqirements. Granted, FF may have exclusive facilities nearer to the Verge, but given the state of navies and such out there, they don't need much more than a handful of BCs.

And in the case of 5, they again did not supply Filareta with much of a screen. He initially had 250 at his staging point, with another ~175 scattered nearby in (twenty) squadron-sized penny packs. He only had 60 cruisers to screen all that by the time he got to Manticore.

We also haven't seen huge forces respond to Manticore's seizure of wormholes. Given that those are OFS' largest cash cows, I would think if Frontier Fleet actually had so many ships, we should have seen more than a squadron here and there.

Byng's BCs weren't normal business. That task group was pushed into place by Mesan arrangements and it drew quite a few raised eyebrows - including those of Commissioner Verrochio and Vice Hongbo.

munroburton wrote:
1) The total number of known inhabited systems is about 4,000. 1800 of them are League members, with "hundreds" of protectorates in the Verge.

So? How many unofficial protectorates? How many of the other 2,200 systems might be getting "protection" from the FF?

munroburton wrote:2 & 3) If valuable systems/sectors get lots of ships to sit around and look impressive, then why did Maya only have 20 or 30 ships to cover a highly prosperous 20-30 system sector? Where are the other 30 or 40 ships they should have on a 'per system' basis?

Isn't Maya one of the unique sectors that had negotiated a better deal for itself?

munroburton wrote:4 & 5) Battle Fleet provides the SLN's strategical muscle, even without the Reserve. Its existence alone should free Frontier Fleet from covering these reqirements. Granted, FF may have exclusive facilities nearer to the Verge, but given the state of navies and such out there, they don't need much more than a handful of BCs.

I am talking about a reserve of ships held in one system that can respond to a crisis in several sectors. Having a number of "reserve" locations around the verge allows frontier fleet to reinforce any sector that needs help without having to strip another sector of its fleet units.

And as for needing much more than a handful of BC's? The League doesn't need 8,000 SD's in reserve many of then being hundreds of years old but they still have them right?

The needs do not necessarily reflect reality, just because FF is perpetually short on ships doesn't mean they don't have the ships it means they might be mismanaging their ships. If someone comes up to you and says he is broke yet manages to net $2,500,000 a year would you think he is short on money or just and idiot who mismanages his money consistently?

munroburton wrote:And in the case of 5, they again did not supply Filareta with much of a screen. He initially had 250 at his staging point, with another ~175 scattered nearby in (twenty) squadron-sized penny packs. He only had 60 cruisers to screen all that by the time he got to Manticore.

Because Battle Fleet didn't warn FF about him, they might not have bothered to ask for the escorts and FF wouldn't have cared to send them out without request. The Light units in Spindle and Second Battle of Manticore are similar in strength even though the capital ship strength was significantly different. This might indicate that it was not lack of ships but lack of planning or concern on the part of Battle Fleet.

munroburton wrote:We also haven't seen huge forces respond to Manticore's seizure of wormholes. Given that those are OFS' largest cash cows, I would think if Frontier Fleet actually had so many ships, we should have seen more than a squadron here and there.

Yet.

munroburton wrote:Byng's BCs weren't normal business. That task group was pushed into place by Mesan arrangements and it drew quite a few raised eyebrows - including those of Commissioner Verrochio and Vice Hongbo.

Did it draw attention because of its presence or did it draw attention because of it's commanding officer and who that officer was commanding?

kzt wrote:It's likely to be fairly effective, at least at first. Commerce raiding doesn't require you close on the target, you can dump a pod of DDMs at it from 30 million km out and be pretty confident that the freighter is toast. It certainly is if you are willing to hang around until coast phase is done, but even a very dumb missile against a single target with no countermeasures or defenses is probably perfectly adequate.

There are certainly countermeasures you can take, but they take time to organize and have costs.

The SLN doesn't have coast-capable missile tech. Their DDMs are crude with nowhere near the range of GA DDMs.

munroburton wrote:1) The total number of known inhabited systems is about 4,000. 1800 of them are League members, with "hundreds" of protectorates in the Verge.

Which suggests the GA should be able to do a one-ship picket in every League system if they'll accept the long missions that would entail.

Even a DD could make life pretty miserable for shipping and kill anything less than a waller that came around. How long will the SLN have a fleet if they do that? And with trade at zero how long will the Solarian economy survive? And how many worlds would accept the leave-the-league-and-we-will-leave-you-alone offer?