Haven ships below the wall

Jonathan_S wrote:

Kytheros wrote:IIRC, Manticore also has some ERMs that could be launched from the newer pre-ERM construction's tubes. That is, first-generation ERMs could be launched from the newest existing tubes, but later generation ERMs used a different launcher.
It's quite possible that Haven might have gone for a first-generation ERM that existing tubes could handle, even if they could build a better second-generation ERM for newer construction and designs.

Hmm, I know that missile performance (primarily accel) inched up during the war which did lead to increased ranges. I'm not sure any of those were considered ERMs, despite having slightly better range than older single drive missiles (SDMs).

My personal 'breakpoint' between "just a better SDM" and a "ERM" is when they had a breakthrough in drive endurance; going past 60 seconds of full power operation (180 seconds of half power). Even a jump of 5 seconds of runtime would, to my mind, be categorized as an ERM.

I don't believe we had official mention of drive time in excess of 60/180 seconds until the Mark 14 ERM showed up [unnamed] in War of Honor (which appears to have around a 90/270 second runtime)

That's a fair and worthwhile distinction to make.
I think it's fair to say that Havenite subwallers all have, at minimum, an improved SDM in that vein, and I suspect that after the Erewhonese tech transfers, Haven started updating their designs and construction for full ERM capabilities.




As far as Havenite subwallers versus SLN subwallers, even without ERMs, my money is firmly on the Havenites. Their doctrine and hardware is designed to deal with RMN missiles and missile defenses. Which is to say that the Havenites have been playing against effectively the best there is, and while the SLN has decent hardware, their software is ridiculously obsolete. IIRC, it's been said that SLN missile and EW software is a few generations behind where Manticore was at the beginning of the first war - Haven is now far in advance of that level, and was significantly in advance of SLN software long before the first war ended, per the PNE using their software on supplied Solly-type hulls.
SLN subwallers might get a few hits in with the pod-based alpha strike, assuming they concentrated fire sufficiently. However, on just internal tubes, I doubt that SLN ships can get enough missiles through to reliably penetrate Havenite defenses. It would be somewhat similar to the fights in OBS and HotQ, only this time, the better defenses and hit ratios belong to the bigger, heavier ship, not the smaller.

And let's not forget ... Havenite missile launchers probably have a cycle time two to three times faster than that of SLN launchers. CM tubes doubtless have better cycle times as well.



The SLN can only really win against RMN units by running them out of ammo first ... and probably the RMN units need to be tied down defending something that can't escape and must be defended. Against Havenite subwallers, the SLN still needs a rather massive numerical superiority, but probably not to that same point of the Havenite units shooting themselves dry in defense of something that must be defended and cannot escape.

The E wrote:...the forces the SLN is likely to send out to raid Manty commerce are all going to be light enough that they can be supplied for some time using just normal fleet train capabilities.

The SLN almost has to send Frontier Fleet as their commerce raiders; they have most of the BCs and below. I suppose they could send Battle Fleet SDs out in penny-packets of two or four ship divisions but there's no fleet train available with spares for SDs out on the Verge (let alone in the "Haven Sector" where there is no support for Frontier Fleet either.)

In very short order, the League is going to need those SDs to suppress secessionist members and is going to need Frontier Fleet to suppress rebellions in the Protectorates. The SLN has a lot of ships, but they barely have enough to cover the commitments they had before they crossed Manticore; Lots of SDs, but lots of member systems to protect. (Not that they seem to have been too worried about protecting anyone.)

Kytheros wrote:Which is to say that the Havenites have been playing against effectively the best there is, and while the SLN has decent hardware, their software is ridiculously obsolete. IIRC, it's been said that SLN missile and EW software is a few generations behind where Manticore was at the beginning of the first war - Haven is now far in advance of that level, and was significantly in advance of SLN software long before the first war ended, per the PNE using their software on supplied Solly-type hulls.

The SLN has a decent base tech level. But it does not have decent hardware. Almost all of its warships are pre-laserhead designs (or incremental changes from pre-laserhead designs). First-war era Haven had better hardware despite lower general warship tech levels.

drothgery wrote:

Kytheros wrote:Which is to say that the Havenites have been playing against effectively the best there is, and while the SLN has decent hardware, their software is ridiculously obsolete. IIRC, it's been said that SLN missile and EW software is a few generations behind where Manticore was at the beginning of the first war - Haven is now far in advance of that level, and was significantly in advance of SLN software long before the first war ended, per the PNE using their software on supplied Solly-type hulls.

The SLN has a decent base tech level. But it does not have decent hardware. Almost all of its warships are pre-laserhead designs (or incremental changes from pre-laserhead designs). First-war era Haven had better hardware despite lower general warship tech levels.

I don't think you are aware of how much software can improve performance. A drafter can do a heck of a lot more with autocad 2016 than he can with autcad version 14, which was released less than 20 years ago and was 2d only.

I realize we are talking about the SLN here but they have just run into a couple of problems with Fleet Train units. They lost everything with Crandal. Surrendered.
We don't seem to know what happened to the Fleet Train units that should have been with Filerta. At best- for the SLN- Filerta left his logistics units parked somewhere either in hyperspace or out in the deep dark and there was a series of plans to either send them back to SL space or bring them forward. If they were captured with or later intercepted by GA units in their holding location, SLN is going to be short a lot of capacity to support it's fleets.

I suppose the SL can still afford to contract or purchase merchant ships as fleet aux. stuff them with the spares, weapons, consumables etc for whatever ships in any particular commerce rainding group and just send them along but it won't be efficient and they may be taining civiians on-the-fly abut un-rep or just handeling all those munitions etc. There is also the question about what they have left in the way of engineering and repair ships that could be at least forward deployed to support raiding groups if not actually acompany the groups into GA (mostly Manticorian) territory.

Things are going to start being in short supply and the logistics streams for the SLN could start getting difficult. There is also the difficulty that anything SLN pulls out of the SL merchant capacity is going to aggravate the already large problem caused by Lacoon I and pulling all the MMM back to Manticorian space.

Brigade XO wrote:I realize we are talking about the SLN here but they have just run into a couple of problems with Fleet Train units. They lost everything with Crandal. Surrendered.
We don't seem to know what happened to the Fleet Train units that should have been with Filerta.

I don't disagree with you in principle, and Solarian leadership have been known to ignore reality when making their plans, but the forward-deployed commerce raiding strategy using lighter units is the Strategy Kolokoltsov and Kingsford have agreed to pursue, as of the last time we've heard from them, AFAIK.

Therefore, in the absence of textev to the contrary, I think it's safe to assume that they're at least going to make a go of it, however badly we might expect it to turn out.

darrell wrote:I don't think you are aware of how much software can improve performance. A drafter can do a heck of a lot more with autocad 2016 than he can with autcad version 14, which was released less than 20 years ago and was 2d only.

Software can't give you more point defense clusters or counter missile launchers or make what you do have launch faster. It can make your target selection better for both offensive and defensive fire, but even captained and crewed by Honor Harrington, with Horace Harkness rebuilding the software from scratch, I wouldn't bet on an SLN ship against a twenty-years-older RMN ship captained and crewed by Elvis Santino.

drothgery wrote:I wouldn't bet on an SLN ship against a twenty-years-older RMN ship captained and crewed by Elvis Santino.

I'd take that bet if Santino was opposed by and aborigine with a boomerang.

drothgery wrote:

Kytheros wrote:Which is to say that the Havenites have been playing against effectively the best there is, and while the SLN has decent hardware, their software is ridiculously obsolete. IIRC, it's been said that SLN missile and EW software is a few generations behind where Manticore was at the beginning of the first war - Haven is now far in advance of that level, and was significantly in advance of SLN software long before the first war ended, per the PNE using their software on supplied Solly-type hulls.

The SLN has a decent base tech level. But it does not have decent hardware. Almost all of its warships are pre-laserhead designs (or incremental changes from pre-laserhead designs). First-war era Haven had better hardware despite lower general warship tech levels.

The designs aren't very good, true. The doctrine is terrible.
The implementation of the hardware is also not very good.
But, for a lot of things, the individual bits of hardware themselves are decent, and not being utilized to their full potential.

And, of course, a lot of the stuff the SLN has/is using is hampered by the need for backward compatibility with stuff well over a century old.


It also needs to be remembered that we're comparing the SLN and its hardware to the very best and most experienced navies there are.


I'd say first war Haven, aka Peeps, had better designs using often inferior hardware, but even more importantly, would have been using it better, even at their worst.


The biggest problem in terms of hardware and design the SLN is stuck with is that they hadn't realized that missiles could be a decisive weapon, because they've been stick in a SDM pre-laserhead mindset, where you're using contact nukes in relatively small salvo sizes.
And they've never really tried or even wanted to be innovative, because the status quo worked in their favor.
And even twenty years ago, they'd've been right. Oh, the SLN vs Manticore or Haven (or both) would've gotten the SLN hurt rather more than they were expecting, but they'd've rolled over Manticore and ground Haven down.
But Manticore was forced to be innovative and break the combat paradigm that was the status quo in order to survive, and Haven was forced to follow suit, as were their neighbors.

darrell wrote:

drothgery wrote:The SLN has a decent base tech level. But it does not have decent hardware. Almost all of its warships are pre-laserhead designs (or incremental changes from pre-laserhead designs). First-war era Haven had better hardware despite lower general warship tech levels.

I don't think you are aware of how much software can improve performance. A drafter can do a heck of a lot more with autocad 2016 than he can with autcad version 14, which was released less than 20 years ago and was 2d only.

As drothgery already said it basically depends on what the issues are. Better software can improve their point defense and ECM effectiveness by better handling known tricks RMN missiles can perform, or better utilizing the raw hardware capabilities of Halo, or even by removing code inefficiencies to process the data quicker.

But it can't do anything for an inadequate number of point defense installations (too few CM tubes and PDLCs). Nor for an inadequate number of missile tubes. It probably can't do anything for the fact that their missile launcher hardware has a cyclic rate over 4 times slower than the RMN's. Nor can it do anything about their compensator efficiency (acceleration rate). It might improve signal processing on missiles to ring more out of what their sensors see, but it can't improve the raw hardware sensitivity of their sensors. Nor can it improve a missile's powered range.

Some military capabilities are primarily software driven, and can be improved through updated code. But many others are hardware driven, you need to build and refit more capable hardware to get improvements there. And hardware updates are far far slower to install than software updates. (Though sometimes quicker to design and verify; depending on relative complexities)