"Obsolete SDs" Waste not...

Sigs wrote: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.

Remind me again what the range was when 200,000 missiles obliterated home fleet? Was it 8 million km, or 9 million km?

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.

By that time, they will not like having Mark 29 missiles -- not yet designed -- fired at them. Those are the ones that the lead folks on Manticore and Haven co-designed.

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.

The request came from OFS Intelligence branch. The problem will be that the faked report that was generated just might end up in Al Fanudahi's hands. What he will do when he discovers that it is a fake is a question I want to see answered.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:The request came from OFS Intelligence branch. The problem will be that the faked report that was generated just might end up in Al Fanudahi's hands. What he will do when he discovers that it is a fake is a question I want to see answered.

Between himself and his very first co-conspirator they have Frontier Fleet and Battle Fleet covered. I'm pretty sure the report is going to get into his hands.

The report will be identified as fake about the same time as Maya openly secedes and blows away the SLN task force sent to chastise them.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote: [SNIP]
The request came from OFS Intelligence branch. The problem will be that the faked report that was generated just might end up in Al Fanudahi's hands. What he will do when he discovers that it is a fake is a question I want to see answered.

Depending on how well Ruth Winton is as a spook, it may be impossible to identify it as a fake. At least not without additional information to compare it to. All Barregos and Rozsak did was understate the tech transfer between Manticore and Erewhon, what erewhon could develop on its own and what it was willing to sell to the SLN's Maya sector. In other words how much is Erewhon willing to sell out its Havenite Allies to the SL with tech transfers?

Or is your question: If he discovers it as a fake will he rat them out to his boss? That is the intriguing question.

kzt wrote:

Sigs wrote: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.

Remind me again what the range was when 200,000 missiles obliterated home fleet? Was it 8 million km, or 9 million km?

So? Remind me again how getting missiles with the same range that you already have changes anything? When the GA can attack you from 15,20,30,40 million km this doesn't change anything. If they show up at a GA system with pods in tow and the GA picket starts sniping at them from 40 million km by the time they get to 9 million the only thing they have coming at them is life pods. Remind me how much good it did for 400+ SD's to fire off 50,000 + missiles they couldn't control at an enemy with a fraction of their number?

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:
The request came from OFS Intelligence branch. The problem will be that the faked report that was generated just might end up in Al Fanudahi's hands. What he will do when he discovers that it is a fake is a question I want to see answered.

There is a limit to who they can tell and what they can do with that knowledge. If they don't know who works for what organization and why then they don't know who they can trust.

Sigs wrote:So? Remind me again how getting missiles with the same range that you already have changes anything? When the GA can attack you from 15,20,30,40 million km this doesn't change anything. If they show up at a GA system with pods in tow and the GA picket starts sniping at them from 40 million km by the time they get to 9 million the only thing they have coming at them is life pods. Remind me how much good it did for 400+ SD's to fire off 50,000 + missiles they couldn't control at an enemy with a fraction of their number?

My base assumption is that you replied to is that they are building Apollo Mk23s using stolen plans from either a sympathizer on Beowulf or a greedy guy in the RHN or IAN. So can you explain why you think they won't be effective at long range?

kzt wrote:

Sigs wrote:So? Remind me again how getting missiles with the same range that you already have changes anything? When the GA can attack you from 15,20,30,40 million km this doesn't change anything. If they show up at a GA system with pods in tow and the GA picket starts sniping at them from 40 million km by the time they get to 9 million the only thing they have coming at them is life pods. Remind me how much good it did for 400+ SD's to fire off 50,000 + missiles they couldn't control at an enemy with a fraction of their number?

My base assumption is that you replied to is that they are building Apollo Mk23s using stolen plans from either a sympathizer on Beowulf or a greedy guy in the RHN or IAN. So can you explain why you think they won't be effective at long range?

To make use of the abilities of the Mk23E they need to have FTL comms at the required bandwidth, AFAWK the SLN don't have that, so unless the greedy guy sells them the FTL comms information as well....

Just some random thoughts.

To take advantage of any 1st line military technology captured from the GA, the SL first needs to develop the tools to analyze and understand how that hardware, the chips and so forth work.

To duplicate the capabilities of 1st line Grayson/Manticore warships even if they build knock-offs of the SDPs, BCPs or the Nike type large BC will take time. Time to design the weapons, time to design the ships or the modifications to existing ships as well as time to build the facilities to build the weapons and platforms (pods and ships.)

While it might only take the Manties, Grayson or Haven months to design new ships or ship modifications from scratch I suspect it would take the League 3 times as long ("we've never SEEN anything like this! Are you sure it works?")

I do suspect that taking an Honorverse warship (BC or DN for example) through a modification / rebuilding process isn't quite as difficult as some here suggest. You design and build warships with the understanding that they are going to get shot up, or maybe get old enough they need updating.

The side armor of an Honorverse warship is incredibly thick and tough, but the keels and topsides that are covered by the invulnerable Wedge aren't nearly so much.

I'll bet a dozen donuts that there would be ways designed into these ships for shipyards to open them up, do the work that needs to be done and then close them back up good as new. We overhaul and modify deep diving nuclear submarines today; open the pressure hulls, play around with the innards of the beasts and then seal them back up good as new, same principal.

Would Mr. Scott design the Enterprise so that he couldn't work on her, fix her up after Kirk breaks something or improve her?