SLN Logistics

stewart wrote:

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, ...

The big difference is that Manticore has far more freighters available than they need after Lacoon called every Manticoran Flag from League space. The League OTOH is lacking all of the Manticoran Flagged freighters that used to haul all of their peace-time logistics.

Manticore doesn't need to use captured SDs as transports because because they have a million or so freighters without cargoes.

The League has about a million civilian loads begging for ships to haul them and the SLN has SDs and pretty much nothing else to haul its fleet logistics. Most of their dedicated fleet train was captured at Spindle and Filareta's Folly.

What else does the SLN have to resupply commerce raiding task forces?

stewart wrote: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.

Adm Kingsford has already made that decision: they are NOT going to waste time and money reactivating anything from the reserves.

Vince wrote: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?

Where did Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan get the money to pay for aircraft and ammo in 1944? Do you think they were considered a good credit risk by Zurich and London?

kzt wrote:Where did Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan get the money to pay for aircraft and ammo in 1944? Do you think they were considered a good credit risk by Zurich and London?

Not really a good comparison. The Solarian League isn't a autocratic government with a fiat economy. The SLN has to deal with a couple thousand different economies as well as the overall "league economy."

In many ways, the Solarian League is much like the League Of Nations after WWI or the modern United Nations; it depends on every member paying their dues and collecting regulatory fees.

What resource the the Solarian League lacks the most is not money but time.

Weird Harold wrote:

kzt wrote:Where did Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan get the money to pay for aircraft and ammo in 1944? Do you think they were considered a good credit risk by Zurich and London?

Not really a good comparison. The Solarian League isn't a autocratic government with a fiat economy. The SLN has to deal with a couple thousand different economies as well as the overall "league economy."

In many ways, the Solarian League is much like the League Of Nations after WWI or the modern United Nations; it depends on every member paying their dues and collecting regulatory fees.

And who is going to stop them from ignoring the fact that they are not legally allowed? What might happen to someone who insists on pointing this out?

How thorough do you think the investigation of his death via sudden deceleration following his accidental fall out the 327th story window of Taketomo Kunimichi will be?

kzt wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Not really a good comparison. The Solarian League isn't a autocratic government with a fiat economy. The SLN has to deal with a couple thousand different economies as well as the overall "league economy."

And who is going to stop them from ignoring the fact that they are not legally allowed? What might happen to someone who insists on pointing this out?

That depends on who and where. The UN's chronic problem of getting the US (and others) to pay their dues is an example of the League's problem. They league cannot enact direct taxation of the members and if they did, they'd be encouraging secession instead of raising revenue.

The League doesn't have a big enough Navy to run rough-shod over all of its members; with a war going on and no freighters available for fleet train duties, they probably can't bully more than 10% of members directly. The probable outcome of their attempt to bully Beowulf is going to make the shortage of ships even worse, and fail to intimidate the other members into accepting "emergency measures."

There is ample textev that the Solarian League is being strapped financially and doesn't have any way to compensate for lost revenues caused by Lacoon I and II.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:
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.

From Right here in the initial post:

Sigs wrote:
And if the SLN sends it's limited logistical resources on a raid of GA territory that would leave little to support it's missions to prevent systems from seceding. So if the GA manages to get large groups of systems to change sides the SLN would be hard pressed to stop them or prevent them from doing so.

I am not saying they don't have a fleet train remaining, I am saying the fleet train they do have will not be enough for the attack against the GA and the suppression of rebellious systems.


They might have the ability to support 500 BC or 8 squadrons of the wall but not both... so how would you go about deciding.

Vince wrote:

Sigs wrote:

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?

The first system that tries to secede from the League that the SLN can actually get to get's milked for all their wealth. Not that it would make any difference in the end.

Weird Harold wrote:

kzt wrote:
And who is going to stop them from ignoring the fact that they are not legally allowed? What might happen to someone who insists on pointing this out?

That depends on who and where. The UN's chronic problem of getting the US (and others) to pay their dues is an example of the League's problem. They league cannot enact direct taxation of the members and if they did, they'd be encouraging secession instead of raising revenue.

The League doesn't have a big enough Navy to run rough-shod over all of its members; with a war going on and no freighters available for fleet train duties, they probably can't bully more than 10% of members directly. The probable outcome of their attempt to bully Beowulf is going to make the shortage of ships even worse, and fail to intimidate the other members into accepting "emergency measures."

There is ample textev that the Solarian League is being strapped financially and doesn't have any way to compensate for lost revenues caused by Lacoon I and II.

What's to stop them from printing money? And how many core systems will willingly accept taxation by the League? There are ~1,700 League members and likely a small number will agree to direct taxation if they see it as their only option. So 10 core systems plus 10 shell systems represents a tremendous source of income. That would represent a little over 1% of the League membership and I doubt there would be too much of a problem to getting that many panicked system government to contribute to a common defence... How much it will help is a different question.

First, even if some people in the SLN (who are back in the SL not in a POW camp) have a reasonable idea of what a modern RMN / RHN LAC can do, they don't appere to be getting the word about LACs out to FF.
Any Commerce Raiding force that makes a pass at a system defended by - amoung other things- modern LAC is going to get a nasty surprise.

Even should the SLN grab off a bunch of civilian freighters to haul supplies for it's raiders, they have a bunch of sever limitations. 1st they are slower- they don't have the overall speed, the compensators nor the particle shielding so they are not going to be able to keep up with warships. Sure, there could be rendezvous points but the raiders still have to get there- as do the supply ships. 2nd the freighters are not already pre-configured to deliver stuff to warships. That convers missile weapons, spair parts, food and other consumables. Sure, you could package stuff in less than standard shipping container size, but you still have to deliver it to your end-user. That means handling equipment (shuttles, the equivelent of spacebar fork-lifts, little tender tugs to move the stuff around. Then you have the need to be able to load - from a non-military supply ship- weapons to the warships. Just pulling them out of a magazine container by "hand" and feeding them into the magazine loading system for the warship is going to be compicated and cumbersome.

Then there is repair and service needs. Does the SLN have enough repair &/or maintenance ships to support the volume of raids it would probably need? Again, they have to follow the warships but stay out of the fighting plus unless you are planning on repairing a damaged warship in a foreign star system which may get a visit from a GA warship, you are going to have to try and get your warships out and someplace (anyplace) that they won't be stumbled across while doing repairs. Anything that would keep a warship from going to hyper is a big problem.

If what you were talking about wasn't SLN SD's then you probably could use SDs as raiders- just have them carry a couple of squadrons of LACs as parasites on the hull and blow the snot out of any shipping in a system that they want to stomp through. Dam little is going to in most Verge systems is going to attempt to take on a SD. Besides, the idea is to crush GA related shipping, particularly from "allied" and traiding partner systems.