Solarian League Naval Strenght versus SLN Strength

According to the books the Beowolf system defense force has 32 SD, i asume it allso has Battlecruisers cruisers destroyers and LAC. If it take this as a baseline , with Beowolf being an old and rich member of the SL having an exeptional large System defense force i think that the average SL system defense force would be smaller but still have at least 1 or 2 squadron of SD.
i can t remember the exact nummber of SL members, but even 5000 systems with 16 SD each would amount to a total number of SD in the SL of 80 000.

with the War declared, by the GA at least, wouldn t the SLN be able to deputize all these ships ?

what would 80 000 SD or even 40 000 SD mean ?

Beowulf is incredibly anomalous in the Solarian League for having a system defense force that contains capital ships. Very few systems have more than LACs or a couple of moldering destroyers.

For some more info, see:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/181/1

Thank you didn t know that.
question is how many SD would that leave? more like 1000 or more like 10 000 ? while 1000 obviousely would be useless i would think 10 000 would be a force that would be usefull, especially controling the protectorates and uprisings.

svenhauke, textev from several books indicates that Battle Fleet had (pre-Spindle and Manticore), a bit over 2,000 SD's in service, several hundred in the yards for maintenance/upgrade, and about 8,000 in Mothballs.

They have lost about 500 SD's (or 25% of their in-service strength) due to Crandall and Filareta, and we've had textev from A Rising Thunder that they aren't even going to try and man their reserve fleets (for both economic--no funds and military--personnel problems plus the ships are uselsss against the GA).

As for SDF's, we know of two that have Wallers (Mannheim and Beowulf), but those systems are very scarce and I doubt that there are more than 200 SD's or DN's in the SDF's...and they may be very reluctant to support any Battle Fleet actions...

We shall see, eventually...still working my way through Shadow of Victory.

1. Certainly below 1000, and probably below 500.

2. The Solarian League cannot take control of system defense forces unless there is a declared state of war. And it is very much an open question whether or not they would actually release the units even if a war declaration was made.

Keep in mind the fact that the RMN statement is that ONE BC(p) undetected -- could cause all of the damage to a star system that the Mesan Alignment caused in the "Oyster Bay"/Yawata strike on Manticore. Until the missile pod and MDM, the active SD's which the Solarian League possessed were well more than enough to crush any other space Navy. Manticore 40 years earlier included. The fear of that weight of metal made the SLN the 800lb. gorilla, but also resulted in centuries of complacency, and effectively an open trough for military-industrial corruption.

In the Honorverse, those SD's are now mostly the equivalent of a "ship of the line/first order" sailing ship (100 cannon+ with fairly short ranges, guided by semaphore flags) going up against an "iron navy" cruiser that can fire explosive shells from over the horizon using radar to guide the shots.

The two probable exceptions are Beowulf, due to Manticore, and Mannerheim, due to the Mesan Alignment.

There is a throw-away line in one of the more recent books (that I can never find when I need it) to the effect that "possession of even one squadron of ships-of-the-wall elevated a navy to the top dozen or so navies in existence".

Therefore we know about almost all the navies with wallers.
In order of size:

1- SLN (10,000+ *)
2- Republic of Haven Navy (1000 SD(P)s when their build programme is complete)
3- RMN (4-500 SDs and SD(P)s)
4(?)- GSN (1-200 SDs and SD(P)s)
5(?)- IAN (100+)

others:
Beowulf (36*)
Mannerheim (largest Mesan Alignment fleet*)

* all the SLN and League member SDF "Superdreadnaughts" are probably built by Technodyne (or another company very like them) and would be considered dreadnaughts by comparison to Grand Alliance wallers (and contentionally-armed obsolescent ones at that).


Spoilers/WAGs:

Apart from Haven and Grayson all of these have Wormholes which have presumably been the springboards for the creation of large merchant fleets which have in turn necessitated the building of large navies to protect them.

I don't think it is a coincidence that Mannerheim (as a Mesan Alignment member), has ships of the wall. I think Mannerheim was subverted because it already had a first rank navy.

If we follow the same thinking for the other Alignment members we have probably swept up almost all navies with wallers.

Whatever local improvements Solarian SDFs apply to their wallers are IMO not likely to be of great significance, as we have the comment concerning Beowulf: "It had been decided not to apply Manticoran-style improvements to the BSDF in case it got into the hands of SLN". The Alignment is likely to have been especially sensitive to this point, the last thing it wants is for the SLN Battle Fleet to carry out systematic improvements to all its equipment.

Having said this last point however, now that the League has become aware how obsolete its weapons and ships are, IMO the Alignment are hoping the League can turn the "Technodyne Cataphract" into a true MDM: 'let someone else pay for the R&D and we'll steal the results'

Hutch wrote:svenhauke, textev from several books indicates that Battle Fleet had (pre-Spindle and Manticore), a bit over 2,000 SD's in service, several hundred in the yards for maintenance/upgrade, and about 8,000 in Mothballs.

They have lost about 500 SD's (or 25% of their in-service strength) due to Crandall and Filareta, and we've had textev from A Rising Thunder that they aren't even going to try and man their reserve fleets (for both economic--no funds and military--personnel problems plus the ships are uselsss against the GA).

As for SDF's, we know of two that have Wallers (Mannheim and Beowulf), but those systems are very scarce and I doubt that there are more than 200 SD's or DN's in the SDF's...and they may be very reluctant to support any Battle Fleet actions...

We shall see, eventually...still working my way through Shadow of Victory.

Definitely money and manpower for the SLN to reactivate the SD's in the reserves. I once figured it would probably take between 50 and 60 million personnel to reactivate the ships. That doesn't include problems that would crop up in reactivating the ships like training on obsolete and outdated equipment, missing equipment, damage done while in mothballs, lack of spare parts in inventory (are parts still being manufactured?), obsolete equipment replacement, are weapons still being built for missile launchers, etc

nrellis wrote:There is a throw-away line in one of the more recent books (that I can never find when I need it) to the effect that "possession of even one squadron of ships-of-the-wall elevated a navy to the top dozen or so navies in existence".

Therefore we know about almost all the navies with wallers.
In order of size:

1- SLN (10,000+ *)
2- Republic of Haven Navy (1000 SD(P)s when their build programme is complete)
3- RMN (4-500 SDs and SD(P)s)
4(?)- GSN (1-200 SDs and SD(P)s)
5(?)- IAN (100+)

others:
Beowulf (36*)
Mannerheim (largest Mesan Alignment fleet*)

* all the SLN and League member SDF "Superdreadnaughts" are probably built by Technodyne (or another company very like them) and would be considered dreadnaughts by comparison to Grand Alliance wallers (and contentionally-armed obsolescent ones at that).


Spoilers/WAGs:

Apart from Haven and Grayson all of these have Wormholes which have presumably been the springboards for the creation of large merchant fleets which have in turn necessitated the building of large navies to protect them.

I don't think it is a coincidence that Mannerheim (as a Mesan Alignment member), has ships of the wall. I think Mannerheim was subverted because it already had a first rank navy.

If we follow the same thinking for the other Alignment members we have probably swept up almost all navies with wallers.

Whatever local improvements Solarian SDFs apply to their wallers are IMO not likely to be of great significance, as we have the comment concerning Beowulf: "It had been decided not to apply Manticoran-style improvements to the BSDF in case it got into the hands of SLN". The Alignment is likely to have been especially sensitive to this point, the last thing it wants is for the SLN Battle Fleet to carry out systematic improvements to all its equipment.

Having said this last point however, now that the League has become aware how obsolete its weapons and ships are, IMO the Alignment are hoping the League can turn the "Technodyne Cataphract" into a true MDM: 'let someone else pay for the R&D and we'll steal the results'

I'd argue that Asgard also likely has a few ships of the wall. Its apparently a major trading partner of the Andies, has a wormhole and multiple systems, and considered the Andies a military threat but one which could be deterred.

nrellis wrote:There is a throw-away line in one of the more recent books (that I can never find when I need it) to the effect that "possession of even one squadron of ships-of-the-wall elevated a navy to the top dozen or so navies in existence".

Therefore we know about almost all the navies with wallers.
In order of size:

1- SLN (10,000+ *)
2- Republic of Haven Navy (1000 SD(P)s when their build programme is complete)
3- RMN (4-500 SDs and SD(P)s)
4(?)- GSN (1-200 SDs and SD(P)s)
5(?)- IAN (100+)
****SNIP****

You know, if this list is correct it makes the Sollie intelligence failure even worse. I mean, it means they managed to totally ignore a 20 year war involving the #2, #3, and #4 navies in existence. And those rankings are just size. It doesn't include the SLN's failure to recognize the technological advances the RHN and RMN have made. But, lets set that aside for a minute. Even if the Sollie assumption that the ships of the RMN and RHN were technologically equal to their own HAD been correct, shouldn't they have still been interested in what the other really big navies in the galaxy are up to? I mean, even if you have completely failed to recognize how advanced they are, wouldn't you still want to know what really big fleets of warships are up to? Just on the basis of their size if nothing else.