The mandarins

kzt wrote:

saber964 wrote:Weyland probably had a prototyping production line. A pro pro line is used to iron out potential problems in production of new systems like whether a part should be installed in step 76 or step 150 or module 16 installed in step 543 or in step 746.

The problem is that when you go to build this somewhere else every single part on your parts list doesn't exist. For example, you can't buy the pump that circulates liquid hydrogen to cool your antenna array because the plant that built it blew up, along with the machine tools that made it, the people who ran the machine tools and the people who designed the pump. It's perfectly possible that there are no existing design documents for that pump.

And that pump wasn't a random selection, it was carefully selected (and then that selection was verified by a highly experienced design engineer) from the universe of cryo pumps to both fit in the space, power and vibration budget, it was made by a reliable supplier and and was made by process that could supply huge numbers that were going to be reliable and made to spec.

Then that pump was extensively tested to determine that it actually would work under a wide range of possible situations, then it was tested as part of the antenna array, then the entire antenna array was tested as part of the guidance module, then eventually the entire completed missile, composed of thousands of these parts, was then extensively tested to ensure it worked under a wide range of storage conditions (temperature, vibration, gravity shocks, EMP, etc), operating environments, and under the kind of intense radiation you get in combat.

So now you have to select another model of pump, made by a range of vendors on another planet. What kind of relationship do you think the RMN and contractor design engineers have with the industrial supply base on Beowulf compared to the one on Manticore that has been obliterated? Who are the reliable vendors? How long will it take to find another pump that has all the correct specifications, can be produced in huge numbers soon, and will it be within spec? Then it has to go through the entire qualification process.

This goes on for every single part of the missile. It's why we can't build a Saturn V today.

JohnRoth wrote:That's quite true for today's manufacturing capability. In two thousand years, might manufacturing have learned something? Like massive improvements to 3D printing that would make building lots of things as simple as loading the files, pushing a button and waiting for the result to come out?

Eagleeye wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:Good point. There simply was no need to fire Manticoran missiles at Second Manticore. The amount of damage we saw could have been inflicted entirely with towed Havenite pods. They did expend a goodly number of Manticoran countermissiles, though.

Problem: If my reading of that scene proves correct, Filareta fired directly at Honor. So, simple for self defense reasons (and to make sure, that the sollie missiles did not accidentally destroy some of the deployed pods, for example) she had to fire not only in a defensive mode at the incoming missiles, but at the Sollie-SD's, too. After all, her 40 SD(P)s were the force nearest to Filareta, so the potential danger was the greatest for her part of Grand Fleet. I doubt, that the Sollie OPS officer had any time to adress the missiles to the other targets suddenly available (even if he had the intention to do so)

kzt wrote:People build and code their missiles to make them very difficult for enemy ships to use or control them. It's like Russia giving the US Navy a couple of hundred containerized P-800s for use next Tuesday. Nothing on a USN ship can connect to them for any purpose. The bolt patterns are different, the connectors will not match, even the voltage and frequency of outside power will be different. And once you build all the hardware to get a physical connection you then need to write a huge bunch of code to integrate the fire control systems so you can you feed them targeting data, then extensively test it to ensure it really works like you expect, as having a mach 2.5 missile get a bit confused as to the target would probably work out badly. The most effective way you could use them offensively next Tuesday would be to drop them from cargo helicopters onto enemy ships.

kzt wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:That's quite true for today's manufacturing capability. In two thousand years, might manufacturing have learned something? Like massive improvements to 3D printing that would make building lots of things as simple as loading the files, pushing a button and waiting for the result to come out?

In which case, you have the plans, you can make the gear. So a stolen Mk23 blueprint is all you need for mass production.

JohnRoth wrote:To build that Mk23 missile, you'd have to have the plans for a lot of special-purpose (or at least advanced versions of existing) fabricators as well, recursively down to common technology. Then you'd have to have the procedures for putting the parts together.

kzt wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:To build that Mk23 missile, you'd have to have the plans for a lot of special-purpose (or at least advanced versions of existing) fabricators as well, recursively down to common technology. Then you'd have to have the procedures for putting the parts together.

Given that Manticore doesn't have any equipment to build anything (having everything blown up) and all the engineers and designers for the fabricators would have been commercial entities and hence have blown up too, it seems unlikely Beowulf could have implemented multiple generations of equipment and gotten things tested and debugged in the very short period of time given.

JohnRoth wrote:I seem to remember that Beowulf already had the plans, which would have included the plans for the fabricators needed. They hadn't put them into production because they didn't want the SL to get wind of that.

Given that Manticore doesn't have any equipment to build anything (having everything blown up) and all the engineers and designers for the fabricators would have been commercial entities and hence have blown up too, it seems unlikely Beowulf could have implemented multiple generations of equipment and gotten things tested and debugged in the very short period of time given.

Maldorian wrote:Nobody said, that the companies who build the production maschines were at the space stations.