Solarian League Naval Strenght versus SLN Strength

Brigade XO wrote:The SLN sent News service DBs though into the Manticore wormhole and never thought to get any kind of information back before using ONE DB to be the notice that Fillerta had arrived and attacked? How tough to send a freighter with a powerful passive sensor array though about the same time as the DB and tight beam the readings from the sensors to the DB?

The DB isn't going to have much in sensor equipment even compaired to your average frighter. There are HOW MANY Forts in a very complicated dance around the Manticore Junction plus specifcaly assigned warships and shoals of mines. None of this is particularly hidden and the operating energy outputs of the Forts would be "interesting" even if they were in the stand-down portion of the long cycle to bring them through junction coverage.

I suspect that even to a Crusiers level of passive sensors, the sky around the Junction would have looked like the Union Army camped outside of Richmond at night as seen by a Confederate observation balloon.

Diplomatic couriers get special treatement, but I though I remembered that during the war Manticore was inspecting freighters for uncharactoristically capable sensors and ejecting them (presumably sans collected intel) when found (as well as banning foreign ships entirely from Manticore-B).

Now they were, then, probably focused primarily of keeping the Peeps from passive intel gathering through 3rd party flagged shipping - but I don't know that a freighter with improved sensors, even (or by then maybe especially) one with League registration would be allowed to proceed through with that it saw.


On the other hand, even the most basic pre-op surveillance would have shown that the Junction and system defenses did not appear to be destroyed. Even the dispatch boat should have been able to see many of the Junction forts, and pass that on to Tsang. And a freighter with even it's normal crappy sensors, should be able to see there were still a fair bit of RMN military ships around the system.

You have to remember that Twang had no reason to believe that her add-on briefing was wrong, nor that Rajani was willing to let her die.
The operation was approved, and her orders would have made no mention of the fact that she was supposed to back down in front of Beowulf's wishes. That should have been passed orally. Instead she had secret orders to seize the terminus. Now consider what she was hearing, the RMN would not open fire immediately, and that the junction defenses would annihilate anything if they open fire before being destroyed or captured.

No SLN officer could think of a reason why SDs were being thrown away, so obviously the estimate that the junction defenses would not engauge had to be on solid ground, particularly since the quintet had authorised the operation.

Henry Brown wrote:

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.

Time for another real time analogy... In this case let's NOT consider a country like say China or Israel. Instead let's think of a country like India or better yet, South Africa. There are of course a lot of caveats to the analogy; the biggest being America is the biggest arms dealer in the world and I am sure South Africa is a buyer of at least some armaments. But even if America has intelligence about the state of the South African military they wouldn't waste a second on it having any sort of international significance; it would all be about its regional implications. Not saying South Africa can be compared to Manticore but because they are such a regional player in a part of the world that we are rather dismissive about I believe WE would continue to be dismissive of them regardless of their capabilities as long they continued to stayed under the radar, as it were.

npadln wrote:Time for another real time analogy... In this case let's NOT consider a country like say China or Israel. Instead let's think of a country like India or better yet, South Africa. There are of course a lot of caveats to the analogy; the biggest being America is the biggest arms dealer in the world and I am sure South Africa is a buyer of at least some armaments. But even if America has intelligence about the state of the South African military they wouldn't waste a second on it having any sort of international significance; it would all be about its regional implications. Not saying South Africa can be compared to Manticore but because they are such a regional player in a part of the world that we are rather dismissive about I believe WE would continue to be dismissive of them regardless of their capabilities as long they continued to stayed under the radar, as it were.

Lets take that analogy, and stretch it by ignoring the US's previous involvement with the Panama canal. Exactly how willfully ignorant would the USN have to be to not be worried about being devistatingly attack attempting a forced transit through that canal? All your mobility is robbed, and your ships are hidiously vulnerable. You just sent a yaht through and didn't bother to ask if noticed whether there were artillery units, or mine, covering it canal locks!

Even if you were mostly sure that the aura of the USN would cow anybody from attacking you should still have major nagging dowbt or worried that some idiot might panic and hit the wrong button in a situation where any defenses firing can do grievous damage to your task force.

Jonathan_S wrote:

npadln wrote:Time for another real time analogy... In this case let's NOT consider a country like say China or Israel. Instead let's think of a country like India or better yet, South Africa. There are of course a lot of caveats to the analogy; the biggest being America is the biggest arms dealer in the world and I am sure South Africa is a buyer of at least some armaments. But even if America has intelligence about the state of the South African military they wouldn't waste a second on it having any sort of international significance; it would all be about its regional implications. Not saying South Africa can be compared to Manticore but because they are such a regional player in a part of the world that we are rather dismissive about I believe WE would continue to be dismissive of them regardless of their capabilities as long they continued to stayed under the radar, as it were.

Lets take that analogy, and stretch it by ignoring the US's previous involvement with the Panama canal. Exactly how willfully ignorant would the USN have to be to not be worried about being devistatingly attack attempting a forced transit through that canal? All your mobility is robbed, and your ships are hidiously vulnerable. You just sent a yaht through and didn't bother to ask if noticed whether there were artillery units, or mine, covering it canal locks!

Even if you were mostly sure that the aura of the USN would cow anybody from attacking you should still have major nagging dowbt or worried that some idiot might panic and hit the wrong button in a situation where any defenses firing can do grievous damage to your task force.

But the major difference between the Panama Canal and South Africa goes to my point. In Geo-politics the whole of the Western Hemisphere is and has been for quite some time now considered to be America's "sphere of influence", a tacit if unspoken agreement understood by Western and even Eastern powers. And because that sphere of influence is so large a country like South Africa which is not part of that sphere of influence can be overlooked. In other words it would be like the Panama Canal is part of the Verge and South Africa in the Talbot Sector or better still, is Grayson.

Hello Duckk, all;

I just finished reading the whole thread and am rather impressed with the many excellent comments and insights by almost everyone, to which I'd like to add a few of my own.

First, very interesting data, Duckk!

I attended the first Honor Con, but never heard such numbers bandied about, so I presume they came later or at other 'cons.

1000 combined SD's in the SDF's seems quite possible from my previously listed breakdown, assuming those navies with only a hundred hyper capable warships average closer to 8-10 SD's and those with 200 closer to 10% wallers than the 20% I usually credit them.

The ~20% figure came from the average of the RMN and PRHN fleets in the SVW appendix, which might have been based on the SLN's and the various larger SL SDF's waller ratio's before their arm's race generated a momentum of its own.

500 SD's seems too few, but RFC may be trying to trim the number of possible actors as he concludes this story arc.

Then we have the textev that BSDF's wall was deliberately kept relatively small to avoid attracting too much attention to it and thus the RMN, despite Beowulf having one of the largest merchant marine's in the SL, even bigger than the SKM's in the early textev.

I'd expect Beowulf to have its own evacuation plan for its merchant marine [given its long contact with the RMN], which ought to exacerbate the SL's severe lack of freighter hulls, but the mandarins haven't dwelled upon the economic effects of Beowulf withdrawing from the league at all, which should cast a larger economic pall than most members, even in the core, quite aside from the political etc.

Given RFC's old comment about the members with real navies [approximately a third] may have their own local priorities, and the slowness at which the SLN operates, most of the non-core SDF's, by the time they're contacted, may suspect the SL to be already well on the way to losing the war.

IE, they can't regain control of the wormhole network, can't fight stand up battles, not too mention have won a single battle yet, while the verge is too far away now to effectively control anymore [200-400 LY's away means 7-14+ weeks minimum round trip just for DB communication loop], so its either up for grabs or already lost to the GA.

Since both are the league's primary income sources, which the more clued in systems may be more aware of than the mandarins, and it might indicate why their financial institutions are charging the SL so much interest.

This assumes the mandarins are able to pass a declaration of war, since a quarter of the Assembly members supported Beowulf, despite the mandarins pulling out all the stops to humiliate her.

Granted that may be moot if the GA has declared war, but it then gives the various members with real SDF's an 'out' when the SLN tries to draft them.

Then if they have tech the SLN doesn't know about, they may be able to make it stick and sit this stage of the war out.

The ~600 SDF's with hyper warships might total 14-15,000 below the wall, or up to around 70-75% more than the FF, although we have no numbers for those controlled by BF [in the reserve etc], which might be useful replacing the FF BC's and CA's in the verge intended to raid the GA systems, but for most of them, who'll want to engage the GA?

Then there are all those members in the shells etc who see this as the chance to stop being exploited by the Mandarins for the core systems and follow Beowulf.

But if I was going to send the SL such a note, I'd see to it that the GA got such a missive rather sooner [via the wormhole network], and requested naval support among other things like resuming trade etc.

While the newer RMN BC's could deal with 2-3 BF squadrons, even old SD's with hundreds of pods would also work, and given their greater numbers, a pair or so to each system means hundreds can be accommodated, then sold to the locals for many times their cost...

Interesting times indeed.

L

Duckk wrote: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.

Hi NRellis,

Excellent points!

May I tweak some of them slightly?

Since the RHN lost 251 SDP's at BoMA or First Manticore, and was building 1200 the SKM knew about in mid-1920, their current total is 949 less the 85 now under repair [Chin's and Tourville's survivors] when those then known to be U/C are all completed this winter, while the GSN should easily top 200, and the RMN up to the 380 total Tom mentioned in SFtS besides the ~230 SD's that survived BoMA.

In the early textev, the RMN estimated the IAN was 2/3 its size [ie ~200 SD's] until HH returned from HAE with the news the
IAN was up to 3/4 of the RMN's now rather larger wall of battle due to the war construction, and that was ten years before the second war and the 130 SDP's it was constructing before joining the alliance [and any SD's built in between], the 1920 fleet strength chart putting it at 353 combined, NTM those contracted after.

Your missing textev sounds familiar, but contradicts the passage early in SFtS's chapter 37 that Crandall's TF is larger than 95% of all the real navies, which could mean those big enough to have hyper warships or just wallers, but RFC may now be trimming potential actors etc.

There's textev in SoS, CoS, etc mentioning by name 3-4 other major corporations building SD's etc for the SLN, among around 7 systems that can still build them in the league besides some SDF's who insist on making their own, however long that takes.

Mannerheim may be one such, but the level of Malign penetration may mean they were chosen for their coming role long before they built their modern navy.

Beowulf may have quietly developed, tested and produced its own MDM pods, say in a nearby dwarf star, but never let the SLN know, only practicing with them in joint annual exercises with the RMN beyond Manticore-B etc.

I suspect the Catafract is the public MDM, while the MASN's MDM's are now better, and given the Malign's resources paying for the development was never a problem.


Please keep the excellent posts coming!

L

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 dreadnoughts by comparison to Grand Alliance wallers (and conventionally-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'

Hi Henry Brown,

This was brought up years ago at the bar, that all the military modelers, geeks, gamers, and nerds besides the professionals etc, ought to have been watching the Haven sector war as well and shared what they found.

RFC shot that down, IIRC; that due to the poor to inept coverage by the newsies who were far removed from most of the action, ie worse or more ignorant than the MSM have been for the last several decades in our experience, coupled with the general solarian attitudes, was overlooked when the MAlign wasn't carefully spinning the official line that they were both inept neo-barb's in those military blogs etc.

L

Henry Brown wrote:

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.

Hi Duckk,

Then there's the IJN in WW2 who's staff war-games always restored all IJN losses to battle order ready for the next stage of the war while making all allied losses cumulative, so that even with some IJN ships sunk several times they were able to eventually outnumber the allies and their vastly superior building rates to win the 'war'.

Bureaucrats have their own view of reality.

I remember my brother telling me that it was the mandarins who invented the phrase "This too shall pass", to comfort the emperor despite all the foreign invasions and bad news, that their society would go on as before.

Not that it did, of course; but the bureaucrats were taking a rather long view...

Consider how far off the beam most socialist governments and their pet economists often veer before reality breaks in.

Then there's Whitehall's inept pre-war planning, kowtowing to the ignorant if not incompetent politicians, that almost cost England world war Two.

L

Duckk wrote:Ever hear of that wargame where the USN got spanked by speedboats and cruise missiles only for the results to be invalidated? Militaries come to conclusions they want to hear all the time. The Solarian League totally does that. Manticore and Haven are a lot better at not doing that because their existence hinged on getting it right. And even then, small scale cases of this still existed, like what happened during the Shrike tests.

Hi Duckk,

Kudos for your brevity!

L

Duckk wrote:

pnakasone wrote:For an arms race to occur you have to have an enemy you firmly believe can hurt you enough to defeat you. Warefare had been static for several centuries by the time the Havenite wars occurred. The problem is that SLN leadership did not believe it was even possible that the "neobarbs" could even develop any tech to match them let alone surpass them.

Exactly. Here's another real life case: smartphones. Back 10 years ago, no one had Apple on their radar. It was just Microsoft, Blackberry, and Nokia. Apple was just this quirky company that made Macs and MP3 players. And if you remember anything about the smartphones back then, they weren't very smart. When Apple dropped the iPhone like an atom bomb on the public, none of their engineers could believe the technological claims. They were fully entrenched in the ecosystem as they knew it. And where are all three now? Completely gone from the phone game.