Solarian League Naval Strenght versus SLN Strength

Eagleeye wrote:They did; but it shouldn't matter. Even if Buttercup was not the eye-opener it should've been - the press conference, where Theismann declared the existence of havenite SD(P) and multidrive-missiles should've done that. Because there's no reason at all, why (1) no first-rate solly news service should've attended that press-conference to cover it and (2) why someone like the RHN should acknowledge the existence of Podlayers and MDMs if they not need them to force Manticore (remember, at that time, that means High Ridge and his cronies) to finally start negotiating seriously. And anyone with at least the intelligence God gave a cockroach should have concluded, that the RMN and their allies already had the abovementioned tech and that Haven used that press conference to publicly level the playing field.

So, the SLN should've know about the existence of SD(P)s and MDMs for - what? 5-10 years or so, before Byng proved to be such a tactical genius.

But the only way to put new insights into a solarian (or at least a SLN/Mandarin) head ist to shoot a hole into it ...

War of Honor, Chapter 29 wrote:There was no point even trying to suppress this information, he realized. It wasn't an agent report, or an analyst's respectfully-phrased disagreement with his own position which could be ignored or conveniently misfiled. In fact, it was little more than a verbatim transcript of Thomas Theisman's own news release. The high-speed courier the agent-in-charge in Nouveau Paris had chartered to get it to him as quickly as possible couldn't have beaten the normal news service dispatch boat by more than a few hours. Perhaps a standard day, at most. Which meant that if he didn't report it to Sir Edward Janacek—and thus to the rest of the High Ridge Government—they would read about it in their morning newsfaxes.
He shuddered at the thought. That prospect was enough to quash any temptation, even one as powerful as the auto-response defensive reaction which urged him to "lose" this particular report the way he'd lost others from time to time. But this one was different. It wasn't merely inconvenient; it was catastrophic.
No. He couldn't suppress it, or pretend it hadn't happened. But he did have a few hours before he would be forced to share it with his fellow space lords and their political masters. There was time for at least the start of a damage control effort, although it was unlikely to be anywhere near as effective as he needed it to be.
The worst part of it, he reflected, as his brain settled into more accustomed thought patterns and began considering alternative approaches to minimizing the consequences, was the fact that he'd assured Janacek so confidently that the Peeps had no modern warships. That was what was going to stick sideways in the First Lord's craw. Yet even though Jurgensen could confidently expect Janacek to fixate on that aspect of the intelligence debacle, he knew it was only the very tip of the iceberg of ONI's massive failure. Bad enough that the Peeps had managed to build so many ships of the wall without his even suspecting they were doing it, but he also had no hard information at all on what sort of hardware they'd come up with to put aboard them.

Rincewind wrote:Actually, reading the posts on this topic, I am beginning to wonder how many of the SDFs actually predate the formation of the SLN. It also brings up the question of how the SLN was first formed; i.e. from contingents of the members own SDFs much like proposals for the creation of a European Army.

Thoughts anyone?

Vince wrote:

Eagleeye wrote:They did; but it shouldn't matter. Even if Buttercup was not the eye-opener it should've been - the press conference, where Theismann declared the existence of havenite SD(P) and multidrive-missiles should've done that. Because there's no reason at all, why (1) no first-rate solly news service should've attended that press-conference to cover it and (2) why someone like the RHN should acknowledge the existence of Podlayers and MDMs if they not need them to force Manticore (remember, at that time, that means High Ridge and his cronies) to finally start negotiating seriously. And anyone with at least the intelligence God gave a cockroach should have concluded, that the RMN and their allies already had the abovementioned tech and that Haven used that press conference to publicly level the playing field.

So, the SLN should've know about the existence of SD(P)s and MDMs for - what? 5-10 years or so, before Byng proved to be such a tactical genius.

But the only way to put new insights into a solarian (or at least a SLN/Mandarin) head ist to shoot a hole into it ...

Theisman's press conference announced the SDPs, not the MDMs aboard them:

War of Honor, Chapter 29 wrote:There was no point even trying to suppress this information, he realized. It wasn't an agent report, or an analyst's respectfully-phrased disagreement with his own position which could be ignored or conveniently misfiled. In fact, it was little more than a verbatim transcript of Thomas Theisman's own news release. The high-speed courier the agent-in-charge in Nouveau Paris had chartered to get it to him as quickly as possible couldn't have beaten the normal news service dispatch boat by more than a few hours. Perhaps a standard day, at most. Which meant that if he didn't report it to Sir Edward Janacek—and thus to the rest of the High Ridge Government—they would read about it in their morning newsfaxes.
He shuddered at the thought. That prospect was enough to quash any temptation, even one as powerful as the auto-response defensive reaction which urged him to "lose" this particular report the way he'd lost others from time to time. But this one was different. It wasn't merely inconvenient; it was catastrophic.
No. He couldn't suppress it, or pretend it hadn't happened. But he did have a few hours before he would be forced to share it with his fellow space lords and their political masters. There was time for at least the start of a damage control effort, although it was unlikely to be anywhere near as effective as he needed it to be.
The worst part of it, he reflected, as his brain settled into more accustomed thought patterns and began considering alternative approaches to minimizing the consequences, was the fact that he'd assured Janacek so confidently that the Peeps had no modern warships. That was what was going to stick sideways in the First Lord's craw. Yet even though Jurgensen could confidently expect Janacek to fixate on that aspect of the intelligence debacle, he knew it was only the very tip of the iceberg of ONI's massive failure. Bad enough that the Peeps had managed to build so many ships of the wall without his even suspecting they were doing it, but he also had no hard information at all on what sort of hardware they'd come up with to put aboard them.

Boldface is my emphasis.

Rincewind wrote:

Nico wrote:Well, that's the point I was making. Of all those League members whose SDF's include ships-of-the-line, only Beowulf had any inclination of what the Havenite wars meant for military tech. Everyone else suffers (suffered) from the general Solarian not-from-here syndrome. Everyone else deluded themselves that no 'neobarb' polity could possibly develop superior tech to that of the League, so they were confident that their current ships were top of the line.

Actually, that is not necessarily true. From the text we know that several SDFs did send observers to both sides & they did report on the new weapons they had seen. Whilst their reports to the SLN might have been filed it does not mean that their reports to their own SDFs had been. Remember, in Shadow of Victory Michelle Henke specifically refers to several of the larger SDFs being more innovative than the SLN. Also, later on in the text RFC refers to the SLN being inferior to the SDFs. So it is possible that some of them have started their own R&D programmes.

Rincewind wrote:

Nico wrote:Well, that's the point I was making. Of all those League members whose SDF's include ships-of-the-line, only Beowulf had any inclination of what the Havenite wars meant for military tech. Everyone else suffers (suffered) from the general Solarian not-from-here syndrome. Everyone else deluded themselves that no 'neobarb' polity could possibly develop superior tech to that of the League, so they were confident that their current ships were top of the line.

Actually, that is not necessarily true. From the text we know that several SDFs did send observers to both sides & they did report on the new weapons they had seen. Whilst their reports to the SLN might have been filed it does not mean that their reports to their own SDFs had been. Remember, in Shadow of Victory Michelle Henke specifically refers to several of the larger SDFs being more innovative than the SLN. Also, later on in the text RFC refers to the SLN being inferior to the SDFs. So it is possible that some of them have started their own R&D programmes.

ChronicRder wrote:I'm trying to think of examples Henke brought up, because I must have missed that part in my reading the earc.
Even still, the various SDFs may be more innovative than the SLN or even the SL in general is, but how quantifiable is that?
They can be as innovative and adaptive as they want, but even their observers wouldn't have been able to see everything. In fact I can't remember a battle in which Solarian observers (official or otherwise) were there. Most of those SDFs, even the Core Worlds SDFs would be largely backwaters compared to that war. Sure, they can start running some numbers, even generate some missiles to wargame with, but they wouldn't have the doctrines or expertise to use them.
Notable exception, of course, is Beowulf, but they always had a de facto alliance with Manticore anyway...
And those same SDFs, if and once they had that tech, why wouldn't they be biding their time to break from the League, much like Maya is doing, and use their modern tech as their insurance policy?

'...For that matter, some of the League members' system defence forces have been a lot more innovative than the SLN'S senior officer corps for as long as anyone can remember. There's no telling what some of them have been up to, or how quickly any little surprises one of them may have developed for us could have gotten into general service once we bloodied the SLN's nose a time or three. And some of the SDFs are damned near as big- or bigger- in their own right than our entire Navy was before Uncle Roger started his buildup.'
Storm from the Shadows Chapter 4 page 68 Hardback edition.

'...For all its preeminent position, the SLN was a second-rate power, inferior even to many of the Solarian system-defence-forces it had derided as "amateurs" for so many decades.'
Storm from the Shadows Chapter 45 page 643 Hardback edition.

Rincewind wrote:Actually, reading the posts on this topic, I am beginning to wonder how many of the SDFs actually predate the formation of the SLN. It also brings up the question of how the SLN was first formed; i.e. from contingents of the members own SDFs much like proposals for the creation of a European Army.

Thoughts anyone?

Somtaaw wrote:And shortly after the second passage you quoted, Janacek also points out that just because they have podlayers doesn't mean they have the same range as Manticoran podlayers.

Vince wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:And shortly after the second passage you quoted, Janacek also points out that just because they have podlayers doesn't mean they have the same range as Manticoran podlayers.

I thought about including that part as well, but I didn't because:

1) Janacek should have known that Haven, having been on the receiving end of MDMs, would make it a emergency crash program to develop, produce, and be ready to deploy them at all costs,
and
2) Haven wouldn't have announced the existence of their SDPs as the announcement would provoke Manticore (even though Theisman's announcement deliberately understated the numbers they had built to attempt to avoid provoking them too much as well as having the numbers available in case Manticore did react by immediately resuming hostilities) unless they had the range to effectively shoot back (otherwise they would simply be more targets for the RMN to engage).

That means Haven had to have MDMs, and Janacek was either criminally stupid in assuming they didn't, or criminally negligent in making the point he actually did to the other members of the Manticore government--and himself as well (giving assurance that Haven didn't have MDMs). Or both at once.

Mission of Honor, Chapter 30 wrote:"In the meantime," the First Lord continued, "and having admitted that, for whatever reason, we've suffered an Intelligence failure of the first magnitude, I would like to point out two things. First, the only source we have for the number and capabilities of the Peeps'—I mean, the Republic's—new ships is Theisman's own news conference. There is absolutely no independent confirmation of any of his claims at this time. Second, the mere fact that they may possess pod-superdreadnoughts doesn't necessarily equate to anything like equal capabilities in combat."
-snipped-
"Whatever their intentions, though," he continued, "the second point I raised is probably the more important one. In the final analysis, ships of the wall are only platforms for weapons. What really matters is the weapons those platforms carry, and at the moment nothing we know suggests that the Republic has somehow managed to overcome the technological gap between our capabilities. While Theisman and Pritchart may have managed to build a shipyard complex somewhere that we didn't know about, the mere fact that a yard exists says nothing about the sophistication of its technical capabilities. It's going to take longer for us to develop that sort of information, but Admiral Jurgensen's technical people have been running continual threat update assessments of the Republic's technology."
-snipped-
"By their most pessimistic estimates, the Republic's R&D is still years from matching our capabilities. In that regard, it's significant that Theisman hasn't claimed that they've managed to put any CLACs into commission. Building the carriers themselves isn't any more difficult than building SD(P)s. In fact, it's a simpler problem in naval design. So the fact that they apparently don't have any of them may well be an indicator that their tech base still isn't up to the task of producing a LAC design good enough to justify building carriers to put it on.
-snipped-
"Relatively unimportant," he corrected in a voice just barely on the warm side of frosty. "Obviously that's not the same thing as 'insignificant,' Marisa. But as Eighth Fleet demonstrated in Operation Buttercup, capability trumps simple numbers. To put it in its simplest possible terms, if our ships can kill their ships at twice their effective range, then it really doesn't matter if they have more hulls than we do. All it does is give our fire control crews more targets."