Congratulations! The war is over! Now what?

So why do they have multiple versions, since all the motors run for the same time and they would all have the same warhead and seeker?

HB of CJ wrote:David Weber will do what he will do. Remember that. And do not forget the Mesans. Whatever the Mesans have and did, consider the Sollies will be able to do. The GA does not have a chance in hell. Yep!. Less than 5 years.

Imagine 10,000, no, 100,000 small new construction high tech Mesan designed Sollie built death ships with Mesan stealthed kinetic impact weapons. One thousand per inhabited GA planet. Do the math. Yikes! Ouch!

You GA lovers need to burn through this pesky fact. The Sollies will roll over the Grand Alliance. The entire Manticore system will resemble a big burned out trash pile. Honor needs to consider a good bolt hole. Yep.

I think we already covered this earlier with you but it doesn't seem like you understood.

The Solarian League's strengths:
1)Has ~1,800 SD's in active service
2)Has ~8,000 SD's in reserve
3)Has unknown number of SDF's which would add to its total
4)Has hundreds of heavily industrialized systems
5)Has massive population advantage
6)Has I believe the largest economy in existence.
7)Has a lot of strategic depth
8)Has apparently equal civilian tech to Manticore
9)Has at least 9,000 light units


The Solarian League's weaknesses are:
1)Has ~1,800 SD's in active service that are worse than useless in this war.
2)Has ~8,000 SD's in reserve that are actually worse than those in active service so might as well shoot the crew's and save time.
3)Has unknown number of SDF's that are a. loyal to their government first b. likely as poorly equipped as the SLN c. might be actively planning against the SLN.
4)Has hundreds of heavily industrialized systems that have little to no loyalty to the central government and might actively work to secede from the League and use their industrial might to build up their own fleets.
5)The population advantage is less impressive once you factor in the fact that most of those people are not what I would call exceptionally loyal to the League, in fact many might not shed any tears if the League collapses.
6)The economy that might be in dire situation once the full effect of Manticore's withdrawal becomes apparent. And worse, the leadership cannot tap into the available resources because of restrictions that if they tried to get around might cause the Leagues demise all on their own.
7)Strategic depth does not count if the enemy has Wormholes that can hit virtually any part of your territory faster than you can warn/reinforce(if you had the means) and they can hit all of your core systems because they happen to have a door in your Core.
8)Equal civilian tech still leaves them decades behind current military tech. The only advantage is that their civilian tech and researchers might help speed the process to equaling Manticore's capabilities.
9)Has 9,000 light units that are about as useful as their SD's.
10)Has limited shipbuilding ability and experience.
11)Has a shortage of merchant ships because of Manticore's withdrawal and closure of all wormholes.
12)Civilian leadership that is criminally stupid and corrupt.
13)And military leadership that is if possible even more idiotic, incompetent and corrupt than the civilians.
14)Does not recognize the full threat(MA is after them)
15)The MA IS AFTER THEM.


The GA's Advantage:
1)Has ~850 SD's which can destroy everything the SLN has 3 times over.
2)Has hundreds of SD's under construction which will bring numerical parity with the SLN and double their combat capability.
3)Has more than 1,000 light units and more coming in service every month. Each of those units is significantly more powerful than their SLN counterpart.
4)Has shipyards that are building ships NOW and has experience building the ships.
5)Missile range is so grossly larger than the SLN that it is sad.
6)Has serious motivation to fight(on the MA hit list)
7)Population is loyal to their respective government and to the cause.
8) Not all the industrial systems are known to the enemy.
9)Far from the enemy.
10)Military leadership is battle hardened, competent and experienced.
11)Civilian leadership is competent and experienced.
12)Most systems are heavily defended that even the weakest one might require a squadron of SD's to breakthrough and most of those SD's will not be alive to see the victory.
13)Core systems are so well defended that if the Active fleet, reserve and all light units concentrated on one, they might cause casualties on the GA but suffer virtual annihilation.
14)At least know that the MA is out there.
15)Smaller number of systems.
16)No systems are forced into the GA.
17)Control majority of wormholes.
18) Has LAC's and CLAC's something the SLN has no counter for.
19)Shipbuilding heavily in favour of the GA. So even if the MA didn't exist, and the GA left the league alone, the shipbuilding advantage will be with the GA for at least 3-5 years and that assumes that the SLN takes that short a time to catch up technologically. Having the ability to build 1,000 SD's a year to the enemies 300 might sound great but if the enemies 300 can destroy 10,000 of yours the advantage is not yours.

GA's disadvantages:
1)Smaller population
2)smaller territory
3)time against them.
4)Not aware of the full danger of the MA, only small scraps.
5)Have to be careful how they get along with their war against both the MA and the League to avoid pushing the League's member systems closer together.
6)Lost a lot of industrial muscle when Grayson and Manticore were hit with OB.
7)Might be forced to spread strength to cover systems that were promised assistance to rebel against the League.
8)The MA IS AFTER THEM.

I would say the GA wins against the League and quickly unless they completely drop the ball or the MA does something extraordinary to assist the League.

The war against the MA will be trickier unless the MA get incompetent or unlucky quickly, or the GA gets incredibly lucky. Post League collapse has it's own share of problems that might take centuries to settle down.

kzt wrote:So why do they have multiple versions, since all the motors run for the same time and they would all have the same warhead and seeker?

Nope, it is explicitly stated that they have different warheads -- generally one class below the missile they're based on. I'm sure there are other differences in acceleration and mass based on the main-stage characteristics.

Weird Harold wrote:Nope, it is explicitly stated that they have different warheads -- generally one class below the missile they're based on. I'm sure there are other differences in acceleration and mass based on the main-stage characteristics.

So therefore the part that has the warhead and the seeker needs to be in front, where it can acquire the target and deploy the laser rods without something in front of it, right?

kzt wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Nope, it is explicitly stated that they have different warheads -- generally one class below the missile they're based on. I'm sure there are other differences in acceleration and mass based on the main-stage characteristics.

So therefore the part that has the warhead and the seeker needs to be in front, where it can acquire the target and deploy the laser rods without something in front of it, right?

Why don't we ask.

MaxxQ, have you done a render of a Cataphract yet?

darrell wrote:

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.

Where do you get the total number of inhabited systems is about 4,000? Please supply your citation.

The data for that was dropped in Crown of Slaves, I think. WEB Du Havel implies that there were around that many known systems. Not quite hard data, but Du Havel had political degrees from various universities for studying different political systems.

Somewhere else, it's said that there are between 10 to 100 unknown, lost, utterly worthless, secret, too-distant or simply too newly colonised systems to register for every one that is known.

Yes, most of you have covered this before and I suspect you will covering it again. That however, does not ignore the pesky fact that there is no way the GA can take on and defeat the Sollies.

What you have here is an arms race. Yep the GA has the advantage right now. But do not forget the Mesans. Their job is to destroy both the Sollies and the GA. How will they do this? By being nice?

Nope. Mesan tech given to the Sollies. Vast new Sollie new construction. They will out build the GA at least 100 to one. Again, do the math. The graphs cross in about one year. After that?

It will be all over for the GA. It will be all over for Manticore. The new tech Sollie builds will overwhelm and destroy the GA. This goes against the fuzzy feelie notion of HH always winning.

She will for awhile. She will try the Harrington Plan. Probably will not work. All she will do is piss off the 1700 industrialized Sollie planets. Plus all the verge Sollie controlled systems.

Yes this goes again the grain and false consensus here. Lots of hand waving. My analysis is based on real world potentials. Not science fiction. David may do anything. Be fun reading it.

Respectfully. I love this Forum.

kzt wrote:So therefore the part that has the warhead and the seeker needs to be in front, where it can acquire the target and deploy the laser rods without something in front of it, right?

And that part is explicitly called the "Sprint Stage" and by implication is the CM Drive powered stage. The size of the warhead is apparently more dependent on the size of the tubes the missile is fired from and not the power of the "Sprint Stage" drive.

[quote="HB of CJ » 05 May 2016, 21:20"
Yes, most of you have covered this before and I suspect you will covering it again. That however, does not ignore the pesky fact that there is no way the GA can take on and defeat the Sollies.

What you have here is an arms race. Yep the GA has the advantage right now. But do not forget the Mesans. Their job is to destroy both the Sollies and the GA. How will they do this? By being nice?[/quote]

You persist in comparing the Solarian League to the USA of WWII vintage, and that is just flat wrong. The Solarian League is most comparable to the League of Nations -- an organization that fell apart at the first signs of stress.

The Solarian League is NOT going to "pull together," it is going to fragment like cheap glassware frozen and dropped in hot water. The MAlign -- both covertly and via the Renaissance Factor -- is going to be working to help the League fragment and so is the GA.

Granted, the MAlign is going to be trying to make things as difficult for the GA as possible, but the GA doesn't have the fracture lines the league suffers from nor does it have the financial constraints the Mandarins and SLN have.

Weird Harold wrote:

kzt wrote:So why do they have multiple versions, since all the motors run for the same time and they would all have the same warhead and seeker?

Nope, it is explicitly stated that they have different warheads -- generally one class below the missile they're based on. I'm sure there are other differences in acceleration and mass based on the main-stage characteristics.

They also carry fewer lasing rods. The 2nd stage is a CM drive, but not exactly a CM missile body; even if it's smaller diameter than the main missile the larger base missile in the B and C variants of the cataphract mean the 2nd stage can be larger diameters than the A variant while still be constrained compared to the full diameter of the standard missile first stage.

Actually the way the terminal bus was described as size constrained is probably part of what caused me to originally visualize the cataphracts as having a stepped down diameter design with separate stages; like many multi-staged chemical rockets, though for different reasons.

Basically I envision them as starting with the base model standard missile (SDM with drive at rear; as normal) then stripping the sensors, warhead, lasering rods, etc off the front leaving the a shortened full diameter aft section with the drive and it's capacitors.
Now to fit it in (and again possible to be in a "quieter" zone reduce the diameter and build a detachable 2nd stage with a CM based drive as it's rear (but still ahead of the entire stub 1st stage) then its capacitors, a reduced number of lasing rods, a 1-class lighter warhead, and the best "onboard seekers, ECM, and penetration aids which could be stuffed into such a size-restricted terminal bus."


I could certainly be wrong, but if you're just grafting a CM drive onto the rear and pushing the standard missile ahead of it (at sprint speed) what's causing the size restriction on the terminal bus that forces you to economize on warhead strength, number of lasing rods, sensors, ECM, and pen aids?

Can you show what evidence leads you to conclude that the DDM version of the SLN missiles isn't exactly what the text says it is, the missile with a CM bolted to it?