Remaining holes in SLN intel

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:It is a big mistake to assume that because a small number of people within an organization know (or suspect) something, that the organization as a whole would actually be able to act as if it knew that thing.

A specific case in point. In the summer of 1990, the overwhelming consensus of US intelligence analysts was that Saddam Hussein would not invade Kuwait. There was a small group at the CIA and DoD that was convinced otherwise, but they were unable to get a fair hearing until hours before the tanks were rolling.

To expand on my earlier example, if a US military attache in Chile forwarded reports that the Chilean Air Force had an aircraft that could fly at Mach 30, with a 20,000 km range, and could take off and land vertically I very much doubt that report would be given much credence in Washington DC.

And it was powered by perpetual motion. Because the DDM were impossible. There was a definitive paper written centuries ago on it.

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:It is a big mistake to assume that because a small number of people within an organization know (or suspect) something, that the organization as a whole would actually be able to act as if it knew that thing.

A specific case in point. In the summer of 1990, the overwhelming consensus of US intelligence analysts was that Saddam Hussein would not invade Kuwait. There was a small group at the CIA and DoD that was convinced otherwise, but they were unable to get a fair hearing until hours before the tanks were rolling.

To expand on my earlier example, if a US military attache in Chile forwarded reports that the Chilean Air Force had an aircraft that could fly at Mach 30, with a 20,000 km range, and could take off and land vertically I very much doubt that report would be given much credence in Washington DC.

Absolutely!

Especially when the red-taped organization in question, is inefficient, riddled with arrogance and full of its own debris, err hubris.

Pair that with the fact that of the hundred and fifty people who actually stumbled onto the intel, saw only one of them with the balls to risk his reputation reporting such absurd findings, of a Mach 30 aircraft. One guilty of such idiocy, may be ordered to be evaluated and beached as a matter of principle.

Same with the UFO sightings... "Who me? I ain't see nothing!"

LOL

cthia wrote:Same with the UFO sightings... "Who me? I ain't see nothing!"

LOL

Funny you should mention that...

During a conversation earlier this week I argued that (for a lot of reasons) it is much more likely UFO sightings are the product of some group of humans who have blundered across some novel propulsion technique than extraterrestrials.

That might be a relatively small, inoffensive country that either isn't interested or from a practical standpoint couldn't use that technology for world domination, or (and more likely) some private group who is continuing to tinker with that novel propulsion technology.

The thought that some UFO sightings might be (basically) the equivalent of that guy with the balloons and lawn chair over LA so many years ago is deeply humorous to me.

Also, anyone who wants to run with that idea as the plot of a hilarious science fiction story has my blessings.

cthia wrote:

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:It is a big mistake to assume that because a small number of people within an organization know (or suspect) something, that the organization as a whole would actually be able to act as if it knew that thing.

A specific case in point. In the summer of 1990, the overwhelming consensus of US intelligence analysts was that Saddam Hussein would not invade Kuwait. There was a small group at the CIA and DoD that was convinced otherwise, but they were unable to get a fair hearing until hours before the tanks were rolling.

To expand on my earlier example, if a US military attache in Chile forwarded reports that the Chilean Air Force had an aircraft that could fly at Mach 30, with a 20,000 km range, and could take off and land vertically I very much doubt that report would be given much credence in Washington DC.

Absolutely!

Especially when the red-taped organization in question, is inefficient, riddled with arrogance and full of its own debris, err hubris.

Pair that with the fact that of the hundred and fifty people who actually stumbled onto the intel, saw only one of them with the balls to risk his reputation reporting such absurd findings, of a Mach 30 aircraft. One guilty of such idiocy, may be ordered to be evaluated and beached as a matter of principle.

Same with the UFO sightings... "Who me? I ain't see nothing!"

LOL

And hubris/idiocy is apparently a disease that those who gained their position in government/military due to their birth or who they know find very hard not to catch.

For real world examples, see just about everyone (there were a few exceptions) involved in government/military in the run-up to and during World War One. For those interested in history (WWI), The Great War YouTube channel shows just how much hubris/idiocy those in the government/military can openly display.

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:To expand on my earlier example, if a US military attache in Chile forwarded reports that the Chilean Air Force had an aircraft that could fly at Mach 30, with a 20,000 km range, and could take off and land vertically I very much doubt that report would be given much credence in Washington DC.

My suspicion is over the next 7 years or so some effort would be put into refining that detail.

But in the case of the SKM, there was NOBODY in Manticore charged with any of that. If neobarbs wanted to deal to the might SL they could get their asses to earth and do it there was the attitude. It's like the US having foreign embassies from 200 countries in DC and not having any embassies at all.

This is a deeply stupid attitude from a military intel PoV, but it is what it is.

[quotequite possibly a cat wrote:
drinksmuchcoffee wrote:
In all fairness to the SLN, how would the US intelligence apparatus handle reports that (say) Chile had developed super weapons?

If those reports were also at the end of a communications chain that was days (or weeks or months) in length I am not so sure they would be given very much weight.

Yup, discounting the early reports was perfectly reasonable. Hell, SDFs probably lie to Battle Fleet every so often for some reason or another. I'm sure Manticore would discount a report that Random Verge System 112 had ships that could ignore hyperlimits or random Solly System 43 had spherical impellers.

Regardless the Sollies probably should have realized they needed a reanalysis after the first two defeats. I can forgive discounting Bygn losing. That guy was a moron and could have screwed up, but twice? Somethings probably wrong.


Actually you are both wrong. We have military attaches in just about every country. Any country that is reasonably large will have one for each service with one of the officers selected as boss. It's not directly on seniority; services are charged with dealing with the countries and always take charge. Often creates issues. However, if Chile was developing weapons it would be just about impossible for our attaches not to know about it. Keep in mind that Manticore was not keeping its naval buildup a secret. Details were secret. But anyone paying attention would learn a lot.

The Sollie navy is huge. Lots of officers. It would not be difficult to have someone assigned to key nations not in the League. It was wildly negligent not to have people on Haven, Manticore, Grayson, Anderman, and other planets.][/quote]

Looks like you missed a important point: We are not talking about Developing weapons, the manticorians use better weapons and tactics.

It is one thing that you hear rumors that Northkorea is working on Nukes and another that they really tested one.

Maybe you have the opinion that manticore are Neobarbarians, but if you make a closer look? You all know how hard it hurts the sollies, that the Manticorians recall their trade fleet. Do you really think the trade fleet could be so sucsessful in solarian space if they don´t have the same tec Level as their solarian opponents? And you shouldn´t forget, the whormhole makes Manticore a close neighbor, a direct connection to a solarian core world.

That also count for news. The solarians maybe ignore conflicts far away, but a bigger conflict direct a their door? Even if the navy ignore the manticorian / haven war, does anyone think the news will ignore it? A conflict one jump away from Beowulf. Sex and Blood sells and a war delivers a lot of Blood.

UFOs and what they may or may not be has been around for longer than WWII.
By the way, I agree with the comment that the professional politicians, diplomats and other national leaders of multiple nations (many which don't exist now) were total idiots based on not only hindsight but what they were doing- and knew they were doing- to attempt to force other people do do what they wanted....but I digress.

Back at the start of WW II for the US, a great uncle of mine was an officer in the CT State Police and he got tasked to be part of a group of other police from CT and at least NY to investigage odd sightings of lights and flying things in western CT and the Hudson Valley. He never mentioned that to me but in doing other research (genealog) and using name searching in newspapers I came across a number of peices that talked about the ongoing investigation. This stuff read like serious reporters asking questions and giving somewhat iffy background from civilians in the general public that had "seen someting" and then condensed versions of what Bill or other police officals had to say on the matter. Essentialy nobody could prove or truly say they could prove or disprove anything and though the investigations seemed to run a couple of months before stopped showing up (at least what I could find in internet searches of papers available) it sort of died quietly with no resolution. I find that unusual. There was a war on. There was a lot of worry about spies and such. And here two State Police forces appear to just kind of said, "nothing to see here, move along". No assurances, no fuss (except running a joint operation) and then it dropped out of sight. He passed about a decade before I ran across this stuff so there wasn't anyone to ask (at time of passing he had been the oldest living trooper) even if they would have talked to me. Heck, it could have even been something as now mundane as Sikorski testing very early prototypes of helicopters (which dam few people knew about), but there was somenting that got people and at least the police interested.
But people come up with the oddest inventions and new (unexpected) applications to existing technology all the time. A couple of years ago there was another set of sightings of formations of lights in the Hudson Valley which ended up being put down to people flying recreational ultra-lights at night and getting -we were told- stern warnings etc from FAA and others about doing something so potentialy dangerous to other aircraft etc.
Military and industrial/commercial developent of new and different stuff plus "odd" thing happening is always things you should should check out

Maldorian wrote:[quotequite possibly a cat wrote:
drinksmuchcoffee wrote:
In all fairness to the SLN, how would the US intelligence apparatus handle reports that (say) Chile had developed super weapons?

If those reports were also at the end of a communications chain that was days (or weeks or months) in length I am not so sure they would be given very much weight.

Yup, discounting the early reports was perfectly reasonable. Hell, SDFs probably lie to Battle Fleet every so often for some reason or another. I'm sure Manticore would discount a report that Random Verge System 112 had ships that could ignore hyperlimits or random Solly System 43 had spherical impellers.

Regardless the Sollies probably should have realized they needed a reanalysis after the first two defeats. I can forgive discounting Bygn losing. That guy was a moron and could have screwed up, but twice? Somethings probably wrong.


Actually you are both wrong. We have military attaches in just about every country. Any country that is reasonably large will have one for each service with one of the officers selected as boss. It's not directly on seniority; services are charged with dealing with the countries and always take charge. Often creates issues. However, if Chile was developing weapons it would be just about impossible for our attaches not to know about it. Keep in mind that Manticore was not keeping its naval buildup a secret. Details were secret. But anyone paying attention would learn a lot.

The Sollie navy is huge. Lots of officers. It would not be difficult to have someone assigned to key nations not in the League. It was wildly negligent not to have people on Haven, Manticore, Grayson, Anderman, and other planets.]

Looks like you missed a important point: We are not talking about Developing weapons, the manticorians use better weapons and tactics.

It is one thing that you hear rumors that Northkorea is working on Nukes and another that they really tested one.

Maybe you have the opinion that manticore are Neobarbarians, but if you make a closer look? You all know how hard it hurts the sollies, that the Manticorians recall their trade fleet. Do you really think the trade fleet could be so sucsessful in solarian space if they don´t have the same tec Level as their solarian opponents? And you shouldn´t forget, the whormhole makes Manticore a close neighbor, a direct connection to a solarian core world.

That also count for news. The solarians maybe ignore conflicts far away, but a bigger conflict direct a their door? Even if the navy ignore the manticorian / haven war, does anyone think the news will ignore it? A conflict one jump away from Beowulf. Sex and Blood sells and a war delivers a lot of Blood.[/quote]

There are not that many planets that have real navies. Not checking them is ridiculous. Note that Sollie media have been reporting on things for years. The average reporter would tend to know more than the navy.

There were media people when Torch was founded and had to deal with the Mesan navy.

It is clear that the Sollies were directed away from doing basic research. I could learn more today about weapons research in a lot of places by using a computer.

Anyone reading media stories would know about the Manticoran navy. Note that the people on Smoking Frog and Erewhon certainly know. But the navy is in the dark.

If you want more bureaucratic stupidity try the U.S. Army General's during the ACW. They refused to purchase repeating rifles because soldiers would waste ammunition. IIRC it wasn't until Spencer had President Lincoln shoot a few rounds did they start to slowly (very) adopt the guns.

saber964 wrote:If you want more bureaucratic stupidity try the U.S. Army General's during the ACW. They refused to purchase repeating rifles because soldiers would waste ammunition. IIRC it wasn't until Spencer had President Lincoln shoot a few rounds did they start to slowly (very) adopt the guns.

Almost all those sort of stories are after the fact simplifications at best as to the actual reasoning being used by the person on the spot.

The reason innovation is frowned upon in the military is exemplified by the US Navy's innovation over the last 20 years. Which has produced:
1) the LCS, which is functionally unarmed, has no real combat capability, terrible sensors, terribly unreliable, enormously larger and vastly more expensive than the concept called for, requires a crew 50-100% larger than it was designed for and is basically a total failure as a warship.

2) The Zumwalt Class destroyer. Which cost 7.5 billion per ship and has guns without ammo, no volume air search radar (Which is OK as it apparently can't yet fire AA missiles until vast software rewrites are done), is mechanically unrelaiable ( though not as bad as LCS), and is also going to require a crew 50-100% larger than it ws designed for. It too is currently total failure, but has some hope of salvage. At 7.5 billion per it's a total fiasco.

3) Navy warships routinely go to see undermanned by 30% because innovation! We'll work smarter, not harder! The fact that this results in the average Navy sailor having a 100 hour workweek was just ignored.

4) The revolution in navy training. So it was noticed that both Enlisted and Officers spent many months at st school, so the geniuses in charge decided that they could cut most of that out and send them to the fleet to get trained in their copious free time, after their 100 hour workweek was done, by giving them a stack of CD-ROMs to study. It turns out, after a decade, that this doesn't actually work. I bet you're shocked.

3 & 4 resulted in the horrible McCain and Fitzgerald collisions, plus Lake Champlain collision, the grounding of the Antietam, and looks a whole lot like the Porter 5 years ago.