Last use for SL SD captured

Sigs wrote:If I am not mistaken, the goal that the GA has in mind is to get Haven and Beowulf as close to Manticoran standards of equipment as possible. Hell, even a Havenite SD(P) will still send the SLN packing. Haven's navy was estimated to amass a fleet of over 1200 SD(P)'s 2-3 years after resumption of hostilities, even accounting for around 400 SD(P)'s that were lost in battle before the BoM and during BoM that still leaves 800 SD(P)'s in active service or shortly to enter active service. Each Havenite SD(P) is many times more powerful than its SLN counterpart. Combined with Manticore, and Grayson SD(P)'s not to mention the Andermani because even though not actually members of the GA they will coordinate and if necessary protect the alliance and it's interest.

So the GA and it's clandestine allies may have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,200 SD(P)'s not counting the 500-600 Regular SD's that they have left which are still superior to SLN SD's.


The GA has more than enough ships to finish off the SLN and provide some degree of security in high risk systems.

Sigs wrote:

Duckk wrote:I have no idea where you're getting your numbers, but Haven most certainly did not have 1200 SD(P)s.

Wasent the whole theme of the second war that Haven had in commission, working up or would shortly have 1,200 SD(P)'s which meant that they would significantly outnumber the Manticore Alliance in total hulls?

I believe that the estimates in 1919 were that Haven had over 300 SD(P)'s in commission and a few hundred more estimated in Bolthole and another few hundred in their other yards.

They no longer have those 1,200 SD(P) because of Battle of Manticore and a few battles before hand but they should have them in full commission, working up or near final stages of completion.

If I am not mistaken the hope from the Manticore was that Haven would not have the means to finish all of those SD(P)'s.

first, that was 1,200 ships of the wall, not SDP's, so it would have been something closer to 900 SDP's and 300 CLAC's.

Next, they killed 60 SDP's at lovat, probably killed Other SDP's at other engagements both before and after lovat, then 400 SDP'a with the battle of manticore.

If I had to guess, I would have guessed that haven had between 400-500 SDP's, and another 100-200 CLAC's left after the BoM. Too bad Duckk beat me to the exact figures. That does mean that pritchart brought almost 1/3 of havens remaining wallers to face filerta.

Somtaaw wrote:So technically, it could go either way, that yes all their birds blew up good with the other more modern missiles, or that the older capacitor birds were in some equivalent of hazmat bunkers but weren't considered powerful enough to arm 8th/10th fleets let alone Home Fleet.

After all, they do have smaller warheads, and a much smaller engagement range than the Mk 23's. Would you have offered up using the old capacitor birds if you were in the Alexander Admiralty as an analayst, I sure would not have... but I may have suggested it for Verge and Shell defenses if it came up.

Um, the capacitor powered MDMs (Mk41s) have the same acceleration profile and powered range as the Mk23 fusion powered MDMs. And I don't remember ever reading that the basic warhead on the Mk23s was enlarged... (Though I doubt the older missiles have been refitted with the improved grav lensing, like the upgrade that make the Mk16 into the Mk16G, so that would lower their effective firepower compared to the most recent Mk23s)

The advantages of the Mk23s were:
1) Reduced size (microfusion + fuel takes up less volume than the capacitors for even a 2-drive missile; much less a 3-drive one like the Mk41 or Mk23)
2) Improved energy budget for ECM; Dazzlers & Dragon's Teeth (though capacitor powered version of those missiles existed as far back as Ashes of Victory)

(Also, though not stated anywhere, I guess it's possible that the FTL transmitter on a Mk23E might take too much power to be run by capacitors in a reasonable sized missile - but in any case whether or not that's true wouldn't have been a driving reason for switching from Mk41s to Mk23s since Apollo was still buried somewhere deep in R&D at that point.)

Sigs wrote:And more to the point, how many of those nations will show interest in fighting the League?

All of them?

If a system is willing to secede from the SL after the attack on Beowulf killed ten million (rumored) then I doubt that they expect to leave peacefully without fighting the SLN.

Weird Harold wrote:If a system is willing to secede from the SL after the attack on Beowulf killed ten million (rumored) then I doubt that they expect to leave peacefully without fighting the SLN.

I'm sure it's an accident.

If they wanted to kill a bunch people people they could have gotten at least 90% of Beowulf.

kzt wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:If a system is willing to secede from the SL after the attack on Beowulf killed ten million (rumored) then I doubt that they expect to leave peacefully without fighting the SLN.

I'm sure it's an accident.

If they wanted to kill a bunch people people they could have gotten at least 90% of Beowulf.

I'm sure that GA diplomats are going to stress the SLN's restraint.

Weird Harold wrote:I'm sure that GA diplomats are going to stress the SLN's restraint.

These things happen. Don't worry, the SLN has investigated and determined that it clearly is not an edict violation.

At All Costs:

When they are discussing the numbers it breaks down like this:

400-450 SD(P)’s at Bolthole(Guesstimate of Givens)
400 SD(P)’s in various yards outside Bolthole

~300 in active service during opening stages of second war.

They lost
-60 SD(P)’s in Lovat
-more than 300 SD(P)’s in BoM
-add say 60 SD(P) lost in other engagements


And after all that they still had 620 SD(P)’s in commission after BoM. So unless they build a ship and don’t lay down another we can expect that they have laid down another 600 SD(P)’s. So if they had ~800 under construction my view is that they would try to keep that a steady number so if they have 620 in commission there would be 800 under construction.


“That may be, Pat,” Hamish said, “but the thought of looking at twelve hundred SD(P)s in a couple of years doesn’t exactly fill me with joyous enthusiasm.” At all costs location:1673

They discuss the breakdown a little before that.

And as was pointed out in that very meeting, those were worst case estimates, by people who were blindsided by Theisman building an entire navy in secret, and whose intelligence assets aren't anything close to what they were before.

Secondly, the quote from Theisman is from before Beatrice. That is 620 SD(P)s before the First Battle of Manticore. The simply do not have, nor ever did have, 1200 SD(P)s, period.

Let us do the math.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/106/1

This fleet chart is for early 1920 PD. The RHN has 318 SD(P)s to start At All Costs. This is from an unquestionable, unimpeachable source: David Weber.

A year and a half later, prior to Operation Beatrice, they have 620 SD(P)s. This comes from an unquestionable, unimpeachable source: Thomas Theisman, who damn well should know exactly how many SD(P)s he has.

This is their peak strength. From 620, they lose almost all of the ~336 they commit to Operation Beatrice. 251 were flat out destroyed, 68 were captured, and <= 17 from Fifth Fleet may have escaped, but that is it. That leaves a total of approximately 284 SD(P)s available to the RHN as AAC ends.

So at no point does the RHN have anything close to 1200 podnoughts.

I think people are jumping on Sigs a bit much here. He never actually said that Haven, specifically, *currently had* 1200 SD(P). He suggested that Haven might have ~800 SD(P) operational *or soon to be completed*, based on estimates of Haven's construction programs, that Haven might *otherwise* have eventually reached 1200 SD(P) if it wasn't for the ~400 they lost (as suggested by those same estimates of construction), and therefore that the GA *as a whole* might have close to 1200 SD(P). Yes, that's probably still somewhat of an optimistic number, but not quite the same as saying that Haven alone has 1200 SD(P) in commission.

And while that's optimistic, personally I'm actually not sure it's optimistic by that much. Yes, Theisman's quote makes it clear that they would only have 620 SD(P) *currently in commission* before BoM, but that same quote also heavily implies that they're still producing *even more* SD(P)s since they'll be retiring older ships to provide crew - which makes sense, their shipyards didn't just finish those 600 SD(P) and then *stop*, after all. So, while Haven may have been back down to ~300 SD(P) after BoM, given that they already produced something like 400 SD(P) in the previous year and a half, by the time of second manticore they may well be close to replacing all of those losses depending on where their various shipyards were in their production cycles.

And so it doesn't seem too far fetched to me to postulate that by the time of the end of ART Haven might well be in a position to contribute 600 SD(P) to the GA forces in any future confrontations. That's not 800, but it's a lot more than 300. I'm not super familiar with how many SD(P) manticore and grayson got finished before oyster bay, but IIRC it was at least a couple hundred of their own, so the GA might well have north of 800 SD(P). Sure, ammo will be a concern for the manty/grayson portions, and the havenite portions don't have apollo, but that's still a mighty big club with which to smack around the sollies.