Solarian League Naval Strenght versus SLN Strength

Hi Duckk,

Quite right, and thanks for the reminder!

L

Duckk wrote:Attacking Beowulf would be the quickest form of suicide for the Peeps, and they know it. Beowulf is still a member of the League, even if it also acts like a sovereign nation. Violating the territorial integrity of the Core would be a fully justified use of the emergency war powers that the Mandarins are currently abusing. The Peeps had no intention of jumping on that land mine circa 1900-1915, any more than North Korea would want to invade California today.

Hi MunroBurton,

That's an interesting idea, but 36 SD's totaling 200 million tons for a single transit means they average only 5.55 M tons each- pretty small SD's, smaller than the average RMN DN's at the beginning of the first war, even if only 4 were in the yards, they'd still be pretty small SD's.

Other posters have pointed out how unlikely Haven would ever risk the SL's ire by attacking a member.

The suggestion of going after just the wormhole has far more merit, since the peeps could always claim they got the idea from the SL, and the reduced fees and kickbacks would ensure the mandarins support for the legislaturists, but it also means the BSDF SD's could be much larger.

It's more likely the 36 figure is a long standing one [38-39 is more likely to keep 32 in 4 squadrons operational] and the BSDF is probably replacing the older ones on a one for one basis, especially given the revolutionary nature of the laserhead, but taking decades to complete.

Now the idea of the BSDF being a guard or relief force foe the SKM well before King Roger's build up seems quite possible given how close Beowulf and Manticore are in terms of intermarriage and trade etc.

Given the last peep BB's were "very missile heavy" according to the textev, I doubt Jayne's, given the many contradictions with the textev is correct, ie they were built rather later as some other textev implies, to take advantage of the laserhead; certainly RFC would have caught it if he'd had more time to peruse the text.

L

munroburton wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi George J. Smith,

I don't believe there's any textev to confirm that, rather the BSDF is above average size because its missions have probably included rooting out any manpower or pirate nests it finds, mainly in [or out of] the league, as well as intimidating any system it finds who might consider permitting Manpower to rent an unpopulated nearby dwarf star etc, which it can do since genetic slavery is officially banned in the SL.

we don't know how old the BSDF's 36 SD's are, but against the 412 the peeps began the war with, plus their 48 dreadnoughts; being outnumbered 11-13+ times was too great a margin to stop the peeps.

Rather they were fairly confident from their own intel that the RMN would at least stop them, so increasing their fleet wasn't necessary, which also reinforced the solarian preferred perception that there was nothing to see, 'just a couple of neo-barbs bashing each other'.

L

I think it's no accident that the BSDF happens to mass approximately as much as a maximum transit through the terminus. Maybe a little more or less, depending how big their SDs are.

Given what we know of wormhole transit mechanics, such a force on the defensive can fend off many times its superior in numbers before succumbing and additional fortifications starting with minefields leading up to fortresses only increase this imbalance.

Duckk is right that the Peeps would never have violated Solarian territory with a more conventional invasion of Beowulf. That leaves a quick smash and grab, so the Peeps can get into orbit of Beowulf and secure the system before SLN reinforcements show up. The BSDF's relatively large battle wall neutralises that threat, however unlikely, particularly in case the Peeps rolled over Manticore's capital with relatively light losses and decided to go for all the other termini.

This would have been a stronger possibility in the mid-to-late 1800s, before Manticore's build-up really hit its stride. According to HoS, they had ~100 wallers in ~1883 when San Martin was invaded, ~150 wallers in ~1890; by 1900 they had ~250.

Jaynes' suggests the last Peep BB class was commissioned in 1823 - so they probably had those 300-400 BBs available throughout this period.

And the possibility they also used their SDF to keep OFS away from their terminus. "Sure you don't want a detachment of 100 BF SDs seconded to FF stationed in your system as long as those neobarbs are pounding on each other? Of course, we will need to collect a small fee for the administrative costs associated with such a large ongoing operation."

lyonheart wrote:Adding a third of the new construction every year to it meant the reserve's newest third was probably if not inevitably more modern than most if not all those of the SDF's.

A minor -- or possibly not so minor -- quibble: Newer does not necessarily mean more modern. The BF reserve contains mostly Scientist-class "SDs" with only minor differences between those 2-3 centuries old and those 2-3 months old.

The one major "upgrade" we've been shown, the "Fleet 2000" upgrade, is presented as a cosmetic, "stage dressing" modification that actually makes operations less effecient that unmodified SDs -- So "Modern" does not necessarily mean "better" in the SLN.

lyonheart wrote:Hi MunroBurton,

That's an interesting idea, but 36 SD's totaling 200 million tons for a single transit means they average only 5.55 M tons each- pretty small SD's, smaller than the average RMN DN's at the beginning of the first war, even if only 4 were in the yards, they'd still be pretty small SD's.

Other posters have pointed out how unlikely Haven would ever risk the SL's ire by attacking a member.

The suggestion of going after just the wormhole has far more merit, since the peeps could always claim they got the idea from the SL, and the reduced fees and kickbacks would ensure the mandarins support for the legislaturists, but it also means the BSDF SD's could be much larger.

It's more likely the 36 figure is a long standing one [38-39 is more likely to keep 32 in 4 squadrons operational] and the BSDF is probably replacing the older ones on a one for one basis, especially given the revolutionary nature of the laserhead, but taking decades to complete.

Now the idea of the BSDF being a guard or relief force foe the SKM well before King Roger's build up seems quite possible given how close Beowulf and Manticore are in terms of intermarriage and trade etc.

Given the last peep BB's were "very missile heavy" according to the textev, I doubt Jayne's, given the many contradictions with the textev is correct, ie they were built rather later as some other textev implies, to take advantage of the laserhead; certainly RFC would have caught it if he'd had more time to peruse the text.

L

When I said Beowulf's wall was approximately equivalent to one maximum mass transit, I didn't mean to suggest they might be a reserve for Manticore. The idea is Beowulf had to maintain enough to counter other people's max-mass transits to guarantee its local security, in conjunction with the ponderous SLN's background presence.

As for the BBs, from HoS:

By the time the Navy began its expansion under King Roger III, the People’s Republic of Haven had over two hundred battleships already in commission; and Roger flatly refused to build a warship that was qualitatively inferior to anything Haven had in service at the time. The last of the RMN’s small battleship force was decommissioned in 1868, when sufficient dreadnoughts had been built to replace them.

The laserhead was invented in ~1800, but largely ineffective against large armoured targets until ~1860. Contact nukes were in use pretty much forever, using chemical rockets before impeller drives could be fitted to missiles.

Consequently, it does make sense the People's Republic would build a missile-heavy waller meant to smash cruiser squadrons at distance, before such vessels could close to effective energy range or even ram, given their intended opponents.

Hi lyonheart

Actually the Germans used their own tank in WWI, the A7V, as well as captured allied ones, even fighting the first tank versus tank battle in the 1918 offensive, although their tactics, organization and doctrine sucked wind

With a total production line of 20 vehicles, you don't really have enough to develop any tactics or doctrine.

while the Russians built some experimental ones including a 3 wheeled "land battleship", so the concept wasn't that new to the soviets, although they insist they started fresh.

Thanks, I was totally unaware of this. I need to do some reading. Can you assist, please?

while Britain and France had more tanks with thicker armor

it was unfortunate that they were built in the technological blind alley labelled the 'infantry tank'. While they had the occasional success in battle, their on- and off- road speed was half that of the mark III and the 38(T). They just couldn't get to the battle with the Germans. The nasty description "mobile pillbox" (frustratingly, I can't remember who tagged them with it) sums up their deficiencies beautifully.

While RFC has suggested a couple of times that a competent SLN commander would probably be found in FF as opposed to BF, it's too late to save the SL as we currently know it.

Agreed, but the two would have an epic bitchfest!

wyrm wrote:Hi lyonheart

Actually the Germans used their own tank in WWI, the A7V, as well as captured allied ones, even fighting the first tank versus tank battle in the 1918 offensive, although their tactics, organization and doctrine sucked wind

With a total production line of 20 vehicles, you don't really have enough to develop any tactics or doctrine.

while the Russians built some experimental ones including a 3 wheeled "land battleship", so the concept wasn't that new to the soviets, although they insist they started fresh.

Thanks, I was totally unaware of this. I need to do some reading. Can you assist, please?

while Britain and France had more tanks with thicker armor

it was unfortunate that they were built in the technological blind alley labelled the 'infantry tank'. While they had the occasional success in battle, their on- and off- road speed was half that of the mark III and the 38(T). They just couldn't get to the battle with the Germans. The nasty description "mobile pillbox" (frustratingly, I can't remember who tagged them with it) sums up their deficiencies beautifully.

While RFC has suggested a couple of times that a competent SLN commander would probably be found in FF as opposed to BF, it's too late to save the SL as we currently know it.

Agreed, but the two would have an epic bitchfest!

One major advantage that German tanks had was they where all radio equipped. If I recall correctly they also had more radios available to their infantry, artillery, and other supporting units then the British or French units had.

Howdy Rincewind,

I'm also a big Terry Pratchett fan!

I also think you're quite right that some SDF's probably predate the SLN, since pirates probably invented the first hyper warships, however crude they may have been at the time.

From 'The Universe of HH' in More Than Honor, pages 355-6 [PB], we learn that respectable corporations financed filibustering expeditions to steal whole planets and systems, with at least 11 colonies changing hands in the first 50 years of the Warshawski Sail era, which provoked the creation of Navies to police the trade lanes etc.

While quite successful in ending the pirate menace, the navies continued as new contentions arose which required the navies assuming the same kind of duties as on Earth a 1200 years earlier.

We have no clue whether the SL constitution included forming a navy [it seems unlikely given how very limited its scope was] or it was added later in a popular amendment, so it's possible that the larger more numerous system forces donated ships and crews to the new fledgling, but because of a vastly bigger budget the SLN grew quickly.

I've suggested before the sizes of ship classes might have been influenced by the number of SL members, as in 200 to 500 K-ton battle cruisers when that number of members was reached, and perhaps million ton BB's when 500 or 1000 members had joined.

Unlike most empires the SL has never faced a peer competitor until now when its own corruption is increasingly driving its collapse, but the vast military inferiority it's beginning to recognize is too great to overcome before its fractured if not destroyed.

Interesting times indeed.

L

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?

Hi Wyrm,

You shouldn't need any special books to read up on the early Russian tanks experiments, almost any decent book will mention or even have pictures.

I think you're victim of a couple of misconceptions, a "mobile pillbox" was often used in WWI to describe tanks, and in both the French and American Armies during the inter-war years only the Infantry was authorized to have any and all tanks, by law so thus all tanks were 'infantry'.

Since heavy tanks were generally considered 'infantry tanks' and 'mobile pillboxes', and were used a s such in WW2 and the wars since,

Since the primary purpose of tanks in WWI had been infantry support despite the exploitation role claimed in "Plan 1919" with the earliest 'cavalry' tanks; its understandable that the infantry, the largest part of almost all armies in troop numbers, budget, officers particulary at staff and headquarters positions would secure that technological plum soon after the peacetime retrenchment began.

In both armies, the cavalry had to call any tracked vehicle they were allowed to play with an armored car or some other euphemism, even when their armor was minimal etc.

Again the French built hundreds of 'cavalry' tanks and as well as fast 'scout' tanks that were superior to the German panzers and equipped and was equipping several divisions and brigades with them which were developing similar tactics to the Germans but the out of touch French army high command [the commanding general's HQ had no radios only phones and was up to 48 hours behind what was actually happening, that alone arguably doomed the French] had a defensive mindset that doomed itself once it committed its only mobile force NTM reserves into the German trap when they crossed the Meuse.

The Panzer Mk III's gun was rather inferior to the allied ones, there were fewer of them and the Mk IV's than the allied tanks with 37mm guns or bigger, but the Luftwaffe's air dominance that had already achieved a psychological victor-defeated attitude in both sides was probably more important, besides the limits of the French smaller turrets, lack of radios, etc already mentioned.

L


[quote="wyrm"]Hi lyonheart
[quote]Actually the Germans used their own tank in WWI, the A7V, as well as captured allied ones, even fighting the first tank versus tank battle in the 1918 offensive, although their tactics, organization and doctrine sucked wind[/quote]With a total production line of 20 vehicles, you don't really have enough to develop any tactics or doctrine.
[quote]while the Russians built some experimental ones including a 3 wheeled "land battleship", so the concept wasn't that new to the soviets, although they insist they started fresh.[/quote]Thanks, I was totally unaware of this. I need to do some reading. Can you assist, please?
[quote]while Britain and France had more tanks with thicker armor[/quote]it was unfortunate that they were built in the technological blind alley labelled the 'infantry tank'. While they had the occasional success in battle, their on- and off- road speed was half that of the mark III and the 38(T). They just couldn't get to the battle with the Germans. The nasty description "mobile pillbox" (frustratingly, I can't remember who tagged them with it) sums up their deficiencies beautifully.
[quote]While RFC has suggested a couple of times that a competent SLN commander would probably be found in FF as opposed to BF, it's too late to save the SL as we currently know it.[/quote]Agreed, but the two would have an epic bitchfest![/quote]

im the OP

i got the answer to my question completeley in the first 5 posts

but i do like how this is developing

keep at it

Hi Weird Harold,

We don't know what the latest SLN SD classes are by name or size, but it isn't still the Scientist class, which might have ended production 40-50 years ago.

The Scientist class is much older, belonging to the early 19th century, initially equipped with autocannon [probably for 3-4 decades], and eventually replaced by the Vega series later in the 19th century that basically had an extra pair of missile tubes and the corresponding lasers and grasers in its broadside weapon decks; we also don't know if that slight extension added 100,000 or 200,000 tons to the SD's mass to bring it up to 6.9 or 7 M tons.

Its quite possible that the SLN has at least one newer class of SD's beyond the Vega, possibly two; though we have no textev I lean towards two.

The switch from DN's to SD's provides another example of the SLN's extremely conservative approach to ship construction and equipping the reserve; early SD's weren't that much bigger or better armed than the earlier dreadnoughts, but they were much better armored according to RFC's old post [at the bar, IIRC] and it took BF centuries to dispose of all the DN's, in part because the numbers were so great BF could build almost 3 DN's for the cost of 2 of the newer SD's, which it apparently did for decades until the superiority of the SD made itself quite apparent.

Where and when that happened we don't know, but presumably it was by way of a SDF that was more advanced than the SLN.

It would be more than a little humorous if it were Beowulf that demonstrated that point, but the odds are against such serendipity.

Other nominees, besides Mannerheim?

L

Weird Harold wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Adding a third of the new construction every year to it meant the reserve's newest third was probably if not inevitably more modern than most if not all those of the SDF's.

A minor -- or possibly not so minor -- quibble: Newer does not necessarily mean more modern. The BF reserve contains mostly Scientist-class "SDs" with only minor differences between those 2-3 centuries old and those 2-3 months old.

The one major "upgrade" we've been shown, the "Fleet 2000" upgrade, is presented as a cosmetic, "stage dressing" modification that actually makes operations less effecient that unmodified SDs -- So "Modern" does not necessarily mean "better" in the SLN.