Last use for SL SD captured

Fox2! wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:I just came up with a wonderful use for those SDs, that is unfortunately too large to write in the margin of the book (oops, I don't write in books.)

Put them in parking orbit and turn the problem over to the House of Lords. That will keep the Lords out of worse mischief for a while.

That would be devilish. Elizabeth would love it, if she wasn't in the middle of a war with the largest, most powerful polity in human space.

That is so funny. Especially considering that waste would rub the Lords worse than it rubs us.

OTOH, it could backfire after causing them to be stuck in a loop as we are on this matter. If the hard numbers of captured ships are laid out before them, could cause them to digest it incorrectly.

"We should cut the naval budget if we are so far ahead of everyone else that we can capture this many ships intact so easily."

"Oops!"

"Dammit Shannon!"

cthia wrote:

Fox2! wrote:
That would be devilish. Elizabeth would love it, if she wasn't in the middle of a war with the largest, most powerful polity in human space.

That is so funny. Especially considering that waste would rub the Lords worse than it rubs us.

OTOH, it could backfire after causing them to be stuck in a loop as we are on this matter. If the hard numbers of captured ships are laid out before them, could cause them to digest it incorrectly.

"We should cut the naval budget if we are so far ahead of everyone else that we can capture this many ships intact so easily."

"Oops!"

"Dammit Shannon!"

Or they could donate them to Reginald Houseman. With a card: Best wishes always, HH

cthia wrote:

Fox2! wrote:That would be devilish. Elizabeth would love it, if she wasn't in the middle of a war with the largest, most powerful polity in human space.

That is so funny. Especially considering that waste would rub the Lords worse than it rubs us.

OTOH, it could backfire after causing them to be stuck in a loop as we are on this matter. If the hard numbers of captured ships are laid out before them, could cause them to digest it incorrectly.

"We should cut the naval budget if we are so far ahead of everyone else that we can capture this many ships intact so easily."

"Oops!"

"Dammit Shannon!"

So, take a leaf out of Terry Pratchett's Lord Vetinari's book:

Set up a sub-committee, with no real influence on setting the budget or naval policy to handle the issue. Ideally staff it with the various pains that tend to be... disruptive.

Just costs for the tea and biscuits.

cthia wrote:
That is so funny. Especially considering that waste would rub the Lords worse than it rubs us.

OTOH, it could backfire after causing them to be stuck in a loop as we are on this matter. If the hard numbers of captured ships are laid out before them, could cause them to digest it incorrectly.

"We should cut the naval budget if we are so far ahead of everyone else that we can capture this many ships intact so easily."

"Oops!"

"Dammit Shannon!"

Just remind them of the results of the Peep's Operations Bagration and Beatrice, and the cost of not keeping up with your own technology and building programs, regardless of the (intelligence assessed) state of your (potential) opponent's state of the art and naval programs. What is the RMN ONI's assessment of Battle Fleet, based on open source material on "Fleet 2000"?

The E wrote:In that situation, does it make sense to buy ships that are as powerful as the ships that are going to be used against you? No. You want a defensive force that can conceivably hold off an SLN task force, which means buying tech that is one or several steps beyond what the SLN is fielding right now.

No, what you want is whatever you can get your hands on right NOW, not some pie-in-the-sky, can I get something better latter when it won't matter, super tech. That's what Hitler did when they showed him the ME-261 'it can't bomb, I what a bomber' Why they have bomber and they're pasting your country daily, take what you have now and defend yourself. anyway...

The E wrote:Yes, selling these ships off to former League worlds is a thing you can do. However, the number of systems that can actually afford to buy these things and put them into service is strictly limited, and none of the Verge systems qualify. .

I didn't say break-away League worlds - though they would also be possible (like Maya perhaps) what makes you think that Verse systems can't? they have a population, they (mostly) have Space travel technology (or they wouldn't be there in the first place). Zanzibar can, why can't others? Certainly the GA can spare a few dozen (or even a few 100 old, ex officers from the various factions)to act as 'technical advisors'. There's no reason to think they can't (perhaps not all of them, but the majority can.)

munroburton wrote:As soon as any Frontier Fleet raiding force notices their Verge target has two/eight/twenty-four/one hundred ex-BF SDs, what do you think will happen?

I think the FF raiders would run away and fetch the nearest Battle Fleet formation of superior numbers...

for what? To attack a system they are not currently at war with, and from where? from the fleets being mobilized to deal with the overwhelmingly superior enemy they are currently at war with? that might be a concern for the receivers - at some time in the future, but not now and not a concern for the GA not to offer them. It would be up to those systems to decide whether they wants some (or 1). Look at Turkey, they never had the ship building or technical capacity of the British Navy, didn't stop them from asking for 2 brand new SDs, did it (or receiving and maintaining - more or less - a German BC). Was offering to sell to them any skin off England's nose? (at the time) No, in-fact it helped them in the long run.

WeirdlyWired wrote:.. it would be easy to post ads in whatever Manticore merchant marine uses for crews to ferry Obsolete Pieces of Crap in unknown state of disrepair to the SL.

Why would you do that, what part of they come to get them is not being understood? GA does nothing but offer them, you want it, you come and get it.

MAD-4A wrote:They wouldn't be, what part of they aren't facing the Manti/GA fleet is so hard to comprehend?
- they would be facing the Solarian League - Frontier Fleet it would be like taking the Connecticut (or Lord Nelson) class and giving them to Poland to face the Deutschland Class. or more aptly (as these are SDs) taking the Captured König class and giving them to Greece to face the German Moltke Class (Goeben). Ok, yea, they're not Colorado or Nagato class, but Turkey (cer. 1930s) doesn't have them either.

I was responding to this.

MAD-4A wrote:

munroburton wrote:As soon as any Frontier Fleet raiding force notices their Verge target has two/eight/twenty-four/one hundred ex-BF SDs, what do you think will happen?

I think the FF raiders would run away and fetch the nearest Battle Fleet formation of superior numbers...

for what? To attack a system they are not currently at war with, and from where? from the fleets being mobilized to deal with the overwhelmingly superior enemy they are currently at war with? that might be a concern for the receivers - at some time in the future, but not now and not a concern for the GA not to offer them. It would be up to those systems to decide whether they wants some (or 1). Look at Turkey, they never had the ship building or technical capacity of the British Navy, didn't stop them from asking for 2 brand new SDs, did it (or receiving and maintaining - more or less - a German BC). Was offering to sell to them any skin off England's nose? (at the time) No, in-fact it helped them in the long run.

You yourself said give them to targets Frontier Fleet would attack. Why would this not result in Battle Fleet units being dispatched?

MAD-4A wrote:[No, what you want is whatever you can get your hands on right NOW, not some pie-in-the-sky, can I get something better latter when it won't matter, super tech. That's what Hitler did when they showed him the ME-261 'it can't bomb, I what a bomber' Why they have bomber and they're pasting your country daily, take what you have now and defend yourself. anyway...

Problem is that the only systems that can make a snap decision to buy new SDs and have a reasonable chance to use them are already operating SDs, and are thus already at the bottom of anyone's target list.

I didn't say break-away League worlds - though they would also be possible (like Maya perhaps) what makes you think that Verse systems can't? they have a population, they (mostly) have Space travel technology (or they wouldn't be there in the first place). Zanzibar can, why can't others? Certainly the GA can spare a few dozen (or even a few 100 old, ex officers from the various factions)to act as 'technical advisors'. There's no reason to think they can't (perhaps not all of them, but the majority can.)

To use a real-world analogy: You're talking about selling off a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier to a country like New Zealand. Sure, NZ has a navy, they even have a few pilots, but that doesn't mean that they can use a Nimitz.
A random Verge system whose Navy consists of, at best, a couple LACs and maybe a few Cruisers or Destroyers isn't capable of operating an SD except as an improvised orbital fort. The only systems who actually can conceivably find a use for a Superdreadnought that aren't already using them are systems that already have a substantial Navy (and all the support structures that implies) and a core of reservist personnel (like, people who served in the SLN for a couple years before coming home); this pretty much excludes the typically sparsely populated Verge systems.

Your assertion that all you need in order to use Superdreads is "a population and some space travel tech" is not supported by the text of the books or the supplementary material.

They typical verge system seems to be as sparely populated as Manticore. Which means a few billion people. It's not New Zealand, it's more India.