SLN Logistics

Sigs wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:One F-16, probably not. A four-ship or full squadron in rotation, probably. ...

Again, can it be done? Probably... should it be done? Probably not...

Weird Harold wrote:...efficiently enough to be better than not delivering supplies at all.

Sigs wrote:...So if you are tying down your useless SD's anyway why not use them instead of sending out BC's?

Um.... Because the SDs are USELESS? The BCs are too, but they are more numerous and faster than the SDs so one or two might escape and encounter with the GA?

Sigs wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:efficiently enough to be better than not delivering supplies at all.

So you would tie down 1,000 SD's to support 250-500 BC's?

I don 't believe I've ever suggested that sort of ratio. Each SD load should re-supply at least a division if not a squadron of BCs or smaller.

The alternative would be to use the smaller ships as transports to re-supply raiding SDs. Using your numbers, supporting one SD is going to require 2-4 BCs or more smaller ships. To free up that 1,000 SDs would require 4,000 to 8,000 smaller ships (which may not be able to handle Capital missiles at all.)

Sigs wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:For logistics within the boundaries of the League, ...

Meaning what? The crew's would get the missiles with some assembly required?

Meaning detachments and bases within the boundaries of the League are less likely to need re-supply of missiles than they are to need spare parts and other consumables.

Sigs wrote:The wasted space is just that, wasted space. Just because there is a lot of it does not mean you can use it. If we were talking about transporting people yes you could put a lot of the wasted space to use but when you are talking about storing munitions and other supplies of all sorts of odd sizes.

When you have corridors twice as wide as RMN ships feature, you can stack a BUNCH of pallets and cases of MREs, Small Arms, Battle Armor, etc. When you have luxury apartments for flag officers, you have a lot of rooms you can put anything man-portable.

The key point here is "...better than not delivering supplies at all." If the SLN has other viable options for delivering supplies, I would expect them to be used first. But the Solarian League doesn't have enough transport capacity to maintain its economy or enough to support a "fleet train" effort for commerce raiders. It does have a large number of SDs that are otherwise useless against anything except other SLN formations.

SDs used as freighters may not be terrible efficient but the SLN has very few alternatives.

If they are built upon the BC size that the GA use, -and they have them available-, then mine layers might be the best thing the SLN can use to support the raiding task forces.

I am not sure that SLN logistics are all that bad. The two fleets mentioned in the series have roughly one support vessel per ten warships. That is better than most fleets.

SYED wrote:Since a great number of these giant ships are stuck in ship yards, could they be refitted to support fleet element and logistics?

They have a lot of armour inside and out, they are likely ridiculously hard to modify and to add insult to injury SLN yards likely work at significantly slower pace which ultimately means that they wont be able to modify them because it's hard, and their work ethic is on the slow side...

I wonder just how many supplies this navy has available. They are likely supposed to have plenty of supplies, but I bet records were smudged and they were sold on. They could always get more, but existing stores are likely widely spread amongst the league. So only do their need logistics to fuel their campaign, but they first need it to collect and gather the needed supplies.

Weird Harold wrote:...efficiently enough to be better than not delivering supplies at all.

Not in this case... sending 50 BC's with 5-10 freighters in tow can be kept quiet especially if the raiding force gets their orders directly from the top. Sending a train of SD's to constantly resupply the raiding force means you will put a giant bulls eye on any staging system close to or inside alliance space and you will have an alliance SD(P) squadron or two waiting for your raiding force and the SD "support" train.

Weird Harold wrote:Um.... Because the SDs are USELESS? The BCs are too, but they are more numerous and faster than the SDs so one or two might escape and encounter with the GA?

They are both useless against the GA, sending SD's with the BC's doesn't make sense, might as well send the SD's in especially when news of the defeats in the protectorates comes in where BC's get destroyed by DD's.

Weird Harold wrote:
I don 't believe I've ever suggested that sort of ratio. Each SD load should re-supply at least a division if not a squadron of BCs or smaller.

I doubt that they were designed with the idea of resupplying smaller ships in mind.

What is their endurance? How long can they go without needing resupply themselves? Can they make a 6 month journey and resupply a division of BC's and make it home or would they have to stack full of cargo just to make it out to the verge and back? Can you stack the magazines full of BC missiles and offload them when the BC's need them?

Weird Harold wrote:The alternative would be to use the smaller ships as transports to re-supply raiding SDs. Using your numbers, supporting one SD is going to require 2-4 BCs or more smaller ships. To free up that 1,000 SDs would require 4,000 to 8,000 smaller ships (which may not be able to handle Capital missiles at all.)

The Alternative would be to figure out if you can 1) get enough freighters to support your BC's and 2) can you spare the BC's in the first place.


Keep in mind the SLN has little if no experience resupplying ships far away from major bases, they have had no reason to do so in the past, those ships were likely not designed to allow the easy transport either plus they have a huge crew they need to support as well.

Weird Harold wrote:
Meaning detachments and bases within the boundaries of the League are less likely to need re-supply of missiles than they are to need spare parts and other consumables.

I am not talking about bases inside the League, those might be big enough to have fabrication capabilities in themselves or a big enough picket of active ships or even reserve vessels to allow for scavenging, what I am talking about is using SD's to support BC's.

Weird Harold wrote:
When you have corridors twice as wide as RMN ships feature, you can stack a BUNCH of pallets and cases of MREs, Small Arms, Battle Armor, etc. When you have luxury apartments for flag officers, you have a lot of rooms you can put anything man-portable.

Yeah, and how much food, small arms and battle armour do they need? And how much spare parts do they need? The BC's themselves can stack up enough consumables to last them for a long time, but how much in the way of spare parts can they stack inside their ships?

If your warships were designed from the ground up with the abilities you mentioned then it might work, but if they were not then what? What they will need if they have any hope of success is ammunition, spare parts for all major systems and some of those parts will require actual honest to god freighters.

As I mentioned before, to use the SD's as resupply assets they would need to have SD's with the strike force but also have a predetermined staging area where the follow on SD's would join the BC's to resupply them when the SD's with them exhaust their resources. Which means that the Alliance would know where the BC's are staging before the BC's even reach the area, they can sit on the staging system or even strengthen the surrounding area.

You might not suggest that 2 or 3 SD's would support one BC but that would be a reality. One SD might support 2 or 3 BC's but if they assume the mission has a chance of success they would have to send in follow up supply train of SD's to keep your attack force supplied. So that would have SD's on the way to the staging area, getting ready to get on the way or already at the staging are or on their way back. This means that when your nation is collapsing and you need SD's to force rogue member systems back into the fold those SD's would be months or years away if not already destroyed. And the SD's might be useless but how likely would it be for the Mandarins to reduce the Sol Systems picket fleet or even other core systems? Just because those ships are useless doesn't mean people will part with them willingly.

Weird Harold wrote:The key point here is "...better than not delivering supplies at all." If the SLN has other viable options for delivering supplies, I would expect them to be used first. But the Solarian League doesn't have enough transport capacity to maintain its economy or enough to support a "fleet train" effort for commerce raiders. It does have a large number of SDs that are otherwise useless against anything except other SLN formations.

Ding ding ding ding you win a cookie for that one, they are useless against anything but another SLN formation or an SDF... you know they are useful against the very people they want to keep in the League. So sending thousands of SD's and BC's means that the Alliance doesn't have to worry about picketing rebellious systems since they can just picket the staging area's and wipe out the SLN ships as they can. With 20 SD(P)'s plus fleet train spread out into the staging systems the Alliance can neutralize hundreds or thousands of SD's and BC's plus smaller screen without having to go into League bases and massacre them there since after all they will be coming to the Alliance.

Weird Harold wrote:SDs used as freighters may not be terrible efficient but the SLN has very few alternatives.

If they use SD's as freighters, they might as well tell the Alliance where to massacre the attack formations...

SYED wrote:I wonder just how many supplies this navy has available. They are likely supposed to have plenty of supplies, but I bet records were smudged and they were sold on. They could always get more, but existing stores are likely widely spread amongst the league. So only do their need logistics to fuel their campaign, but they first need it to collect and gather the needed supplies.

Since many of those ships might be decades if not centuries old they may have stockpiled significant spares but like you said they may very well be positioned far from the locations they are needed in.

Sigs wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:...efficiently enough to be better than not delivering supplies at all.

Not in this case... sending 50 BC's with 5-10 freighters in tow ...

Just where are they getting these freighters to drag around with them. Your initial premise was based on the lack of adequate freighter support for a proper "fleet train" so you pretty much eliminated those 5-10 freighters with your first post -- at least for anything more than the first five or ten raiding task-forces.

Weird Harold wrote:..efficiently enough to be better than not delivering supplies at all.

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Somehow, I don't know, I think this is just a re-hash of the discussion (on this board in fact), after the Battle of Spindle ....
You all remember the discussion ad nauseum of what to do with the surrendered SLN fleet.
Among other points was that the SLN SD's were useless even as personnel or materiel transports, primarily because even with the wasted interior space (and there is much), there are also few cargo hatches to access that space.

The SLN and the SL in general will realize that the vast reserve fleet of SD's is best used as refined scrap to make new ships.

-- Stewart (had to drop back in after lurking in the woodwork)

Sigs wrote:

SYED wrote:Since a great number of these giant ships are stuck in ship yards, could they be refitted to support fleet element and logistics?

They have a lot of armour inside and out, they are likely ridiculously hard to modify and to add insult to injury SLN yards likely work at significantly slower pace which ultimately means that they wont be able to modify them because it's hard, and their work ethic is on the slow side...

In addition to the physical problems the SLN would encounter in refitting them, the first problem is: Where is the SLN going to get the money to pay for the refits?