"Obsolete SDs" Waste not...

WeirdlyWired wrote:The Mandarins are so far behind the Declaration of War curve, it is about to kick them in the arse. They finally managed to ask Rozak for more complete information about the encounter with the State-Sec ships at Congo/Torch.

I don't think the Mandarins had anything to do with the request for more information from Adm Roschak. That request probably came from Al Fanudahi or one of his co-conspirators in SLN Inteligence.

kzt wrote:That not unreasonable, but how many BatRons are you going to assign to each? Remember that you are really assigning 3 times the ships due to the need for rotation and maintenance. And they are then going to be nailed to that system.

There are certain systems that would be worth tying down significant forces.

There are at least 750 SD(P)'s in the alliance fleet and probably another 400-900 SD(P)s in various stages of completion and/or workup. Then there are Havenite missile pods that can be used to picket important systems.

The way it is portrayed in the books there is no need to tie down that many units. We are not talking about long term picket just something in the short term so that you can take advantage of their technology and they can take advantage of your protection.

Most if not all of the GA's systems are heavily defended by SLN standards and even the old-style SD's of the GSN, RMN and RHN can stand up one on one to SLN SD's. So that right there adds 300-400 SD's combined for the GA.

Using all of the SD's plus 200 SD(P)'s to picket any system that meets your requirements would be more then sufficient especially if the GA goes out and trashes the remainder of the SLN's SD's at the same time.

A squadron of SD(P)'s, plus a squadron or two of SD's and a thick deployment of missile pods would be more then sufficient to picket most of the systems that meet the requirement.

Brigade XO wrote:
That's the problem with sending Manticore flagged shipping anywhere near the Leauge or the area of the Protectorates and places where OFS/FF is to be found even if systems are not formarly under OFS. Where could you let them go or send them and not be worried about loosing them to FF and OFS partner regimes in various edges around the Verge?

Even if we are to assume that there was no new construction between 1920 and 1922 in lighter units and that those that were in service in 1920 took 25% loss there are still:

~470 DD’s
~340 CL’s
~240 CA’s
~280 BC’s
~34 BC(P)’s
~40 DN’s
~85 CLAC’s
~475 SD’s

And that is assuming that there was absolutely no new construction which is false since we know from the books that there was in-fact new construction. Picketing certain systems, patrolling entire regions and escorting convoys would not be that much of a problem when there are at least 1,000 CA's, CL's, and DD's in service with the GA if not double that. Those ships can deal with anything that FF can send short of all of their units. And this does not account for the experience all of those crew's and their officers have...something the SLN is very short on if it has it at all.

Brigade XO wrote:You might get away with sending ships to places like Hennesy but you are going to need a strong force to defend that end of the wormhole against BF showing up to try and secure that potential path for RMN/GA attacks via the Terra Haute-Erwhon-Joshua bridge. All sorts of stuff could be shipped out to Manticore and then distributed via the Junction but as soon as the Mandarins, any of the Transtellars or perhaps even just the Alignment get the idea that Manticore is getting "strategic materials and equipment" that way, they are going to try and shut it down. Of course that is probably going to mean that SLN would want to make the Joshua-Erwhon- Terra Haute transits to get there quickly rather than sending a task force through hyperspace to Hennessy directly and then trying to sit on the wormhole. If nothing else, Hennessy is a very convenient transhipment point for SL flagged shops (or flagged by "independent" systems) for movement thought the Junction to customers "beyond" Manticore from the SL. You are talking billions of dollars in goods and -for manticor transit fees as well on top of whatever items it can buy like machine tools as replacements for the Oyster Bay losses.

That should not be a problem, by the time the Mandarins realize that is happening there should not be any significant SLN formations for them to call on if they were dumb enough to try in the first place.

Brigade XO wrote:We haven't had any mention of that terminus in the goings on with Lacoon II.
Erwhon, for one, would be truly annoyed if the SLN showed up to "look for" Manticorian flagged or clandestine operations frighters at the junction it controls. We don't know if any part of OFS/FF other that the nominaly FF units attached to Maya are anywhere near Erwhon but if they are and are tasked to search for MMM shipping there, Erwhon may have to take the cover off it's new productions of warships.

Wasn't there a discussion about picketing both Erwhon and Maya with GA ships and pods? This would make it a very bad day for any SLN unit that moves in to do anything in that area and most likely will not be heard from by the Mandarins.

The odds are that the MA or SLN will somehow obtain plans for the Mk23 and Apollo in the not terribly distant future. Too many people have access to the data, the rewards are too damn high, and many of those people are outside the jurisdiction of Manticore. And the magic of Honorverse production says they can just start cranking them out in volume them from the plans, without any issues with the supply chain etc.

kzt wrote:The odds are that the MA or SLN will somehow obtain plans for the Mk23 and Apollo in the not terribly distant future. Too many people have access to the data, the rewards are too damn high, and many of those people are outside the jurisdiction of Manticore. And the magic of Honorverse production says they can just start cranking them out in volume them from the plans, without any issues with the supply chain etc.

Stating the obvious: Thee is a differential in Manticoran society not just educational that neither Darius nor the Solaran League can match. Albrecht Detweiler mentioned as much in ART.

Manticore knows the tech advantage is fleeting. Resumption of hostilities by Haven hammered that point home. But for textev SoV p 403 :

Michelle Henke: "...[T]here's nothing magical about our tech advantage.It's the result of the better part of eighty T-years of R and D and combat experience. That's not something the league's going to be able to duplicate in a heartbeat. ...

The Solaran League in particular is going to require a fairly long time to even start beause of the inertia built into their system. Its their basic combat philosophy, or more accurately, their lack of combat philosophy and combat experience.

Weird Harold wrote:

WeirdlyWired wrote:The Mandarins are so far behind the Declaration of War curve, it is about to kick them in the arse. They finally managed to ask Rozak for more complete information about the encounter with the State-Sec ships at Congo/Torch.

I don't think the Mandarins had anything to do with the request for more information from Adm Roschak. That request probably came from Al Fanudahi or one of his co-conspirators in SLN Inteligence.

Even as I wrote that, I knew it didn't come from McArtney. the SLN League navy is so far behind rhe Ga's Declaration of war,T is about to be lapped by it.

And only one department has made the request. And I'm just tpoo lazy to research which one.

But thank you for the correction.

kzt wrote:The odds are that the MA or SLN will somehow obtain plans for the Mk23 and Apollo in the not terribly distant future. Too many people have access to the data, the rewards are too damn high, and many of those people are outside the jurisdiction of Manticore. And the magic of Honorverse production says they can just start cranking them out in volume them from the plans, without any issues with the supply chain etc.

Even if the plans were to be handed over to the enemies of the GA and they started production immediately this would at worst dramatically improve the defences of the League in isolated systems. It would still not give them as much combat power as they need to stand up and fight the GA.

Sigs wrote:

kzt wrote:The odds are that the MA or SLN will somehow obtain plans for the Mk23 and Apollo in the not terribly distant future. Too many people have access to the data, the rewards are too damn high, and many of those people are outside the jurisdiction of Manticore. And the magic of Honorverse production says they can just start cranking them out in volume them from the plans, without any issues with the supply chain etc.

Even if the plans were to be handed over to the enemies of the GA and they started production immediately this would at worst dramatically improve the defences of the League in isolated systems. It would still not give them as much combat power as they need to stand up and fight the GA.

AND they would still lack the Command and Control ability to make more than "Blind Shots" at 30 million km> They would also have to develop FTL and. especially in the SLN, squeeze it into something smaller than an SD. ( Josef Bing ATR.)

Sigs wrote:Even if the plans were to be handed over to the enemies of the GA and they started production immediately this would at worst dramatically improve the defences of the League in isolated systems. It would still not give them as much combat power as they need to stand up and fight the GA.

Once they start producing missiles are the 10,000 per day that the RMN did, and do it on a thousand planets at the same time, they can make attacking a SL world extremely painful within a month. At the end of a year they are pretty much invulnerable to anything other than a huge concentrated offensive by the majority of the GA mobile units.

kzt wrote:

Sigs wrote:Even if the plans were to be handed over to the enemies of the GA and they started production immediately this would at worst dramatically improve the defences of the League in isolated systems. It would still not give them as much combat power as they need to stand up and fight the GA.

Once they start producing missiles are the 10,000 per day that the RMN did, and do it on a thousand planets at the same time, they can make attacking a SL world extremely painful within a month. At the end of a year they are pretty much invulnerable to anything other than a huge concentrated offensive by the majority of the GA mobile units.

Not really, they have not fought a war for the last 20 years while the GA has so chances are good that even if they mass produce the missile pods they will go through a lot of mistakes that both Haven and the Manticore alliance went through. And those missiles would still be useless at ranges past say 9-10 million km. Plus the alliance still has LAC's, both Havenite and Grayson/Manticoran that makes this a somewhat insignificant gain. They won't have the command and control capabilities to use the missiles as the Alliance uses, they wont have the Ability to use FTL to take full advantage of the missiles and at 30-40 million km they will be sitting ducks for Alliance PD.


If they were to make significant strides in EW and PD to cut back the Alliance advantage then that would be a problem. If they were able to improve their anti-missile protection significantly enough they would make their SD's a useful force once again, but by the time they do that, they should also have ships much more capable then their current gen.