Remaining holes in SLN intel

George J. Smith wrote:Saying the Sollies are morons is an insult to morons

Very true.

We are not sure exactly what League law enforcement entails other than the truly awful examples of the Gendamre and worst the OFS Intervention Battalions. We have the SLN with it's FF forces deep in a quagmire of graft and empire building as the enforcers for OFS.
League merchant shipping regulations? Like enforcing the Chartwell Conventions- selective at the best of times and would seem only where they are forced into it. Being somewhat skeptical, it often appears that the only enforced regulations are the unwritten ones about how big the "gratuity or fee" must be to do things.

Customs? Haven't heard of a League Customs Agency and Customs is, or appears to be, handled on an individual system basis. You bring things in or take them out of a system (or onto or off a particular planet or it's associated stations) and you deal with the local Customs officials who are enforcing LOCAL customs regulations and probably some that have been promulgated through the League Bureaucracy. FF has yet to be shown doing anything with smugglers. They may actualy chase pirates but from the sound of the story, they are more apt to either be the pirates (well, enforcers for the local gang leaders also known as the OFS Governors) or keeping people in line. Remember Case Buccaneer? Or any of that stuff over in the direction of Talbott?

Local governments are doing the bulk of anything that resembles customs work. FF is supposed to be the backstop for things they can't handle but they would have to actualy be around to do it.

The real question at Beowulf- not the important one about the plebecite about leaving the League- is if the League is going to violate their sovereignty by sending armed people down to stop them doing what became an actual problem when Fillerta came over the Hyperlimit and finally triggered a STATE OF WAR between not just Manticore and the League but brought Haven and anyone else in the now GA into it with Manticore.

Have you missed the point that there are litteraly HUNDREDS of freighters cycling back and forth beetween the SD terminus (and so to Manticore) carrying God knows what in the way of probable war materials as well as component parts and equipment to rebuild the Manticorian muntions productions, repair and build Manticoranian warships, as well as restablish (and train part of the workforce) and rebuild the destroyed orbital industries which for the last 20+ years have been churning out the most advanced military hardware in the known Human part of the galaxy along with the manufacturing and shipping juggernaought that was Manticore?

The Mandarins and the SLN can't have not noticed, they have a bunch of ships already out by Beowulf and all that shipping activity isn't even trying to hide.

Beowulf is litteraly not just selling strategic and military goods to Manticore, IT'S BUILDING THE STUFF TO SPEC IN CUSTOM ORDER LOTS TO THE TUNE OF BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF CREDITS LET ALONE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF TONS OF THE STUFF- AND THAT DOEN'T COUNT THE NOMINALY PURE CIVILIAN EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS MANTICORE NEEDS.

Manticore eliminated a 300 odd fleet of the SLN's 1st line SD. (OK, Haven helped) after their orbital infrastructuter and manufacturing was destroyed. They are BUYING replacement parts, the things they need to rebuild AND THE PARTS AND FULLY OPERATIVE WEAPONS AND COMPONENTS to repair and EXPAND their fleet. THE SL has started a WAR with these people and Beowulf is now their single largest supplier.

Havng a couple of shuttles float down on Beowulf with some suites carrying briefcases and perphaps a couple of "security" for their protection to serve warrents on a few manufactuing companies is not going to cut it. Beowulf can delay bureaucrats lacky's at any of the transfer station points before they get near the surface and sending these people to the Beowulf system in a SLN warship is EXACTLY the kind of problem with any Manticore warships nearby. You send a SLN WARSHIP into Beowulf orbit now and - it is truly hard to believe otherwise- you are making an overt threat that if they don't comply you are going to make them do so by force. Like you are so far withing the nominal defensive envelop of the planet that by the time anybody can react, you have devastated the planet (or major governmental centers along with other miltary targets) and shatttered the orbital stations. Yes, one "little" DD at point blank range with KEWs and antiship missles just ruins everything from that close even if everything you have in orbit has wedges and other shielding up.
The Mandarins aren't so stupid as to do that, let alone where do they find a ship's commander willing to essenetialy commit suicide to make it work?
Are they?
Their DESPERATE and if it works they blame everyting on the treaturous Beowulf Government and the Manties.

Well, it wouldn't be much of a story if the Mandarins and the SLN were not just content to teach a "lesson" to some otherwise peacefull system by trashing it because they were friendly and were engaging in general trade with Beowulf and Manticore. They have to stop the traitors (League Member Beowulf) from actualy building the weapons to be used to further defeat the League.....so send in some goat to die glorioiusly to save the League by eliminating Beowulf as a problem and cutting off Manticore's primary recovery effort and buy the League time to send another massive fleet to Manticore and subdue it.
I mean, really, how much can Manticore have left?

It's been a long week, I want the next book

Brigade XO wrote:We are not sure exactly what League law enforcement entails other than the truly awful examples of the Gendamre and worst the OFS Intervention Battalions. We have the SLN with it's FF forces deep in a quagmire of graft and empire building as the enforcers for OFS.
League merchant shipping regulations? Like enforcing the Chartwell Conventions- selective at the best of times and would seem only where they are forced into it. Being somewhat skeptical, it often appears that the only enforced regulations are the unwritten ones about how big the "gratuity or fee" must be to do things.

Customs? Haven't heard of a League Customs Agency and Customs is, or appears to be, handled on an individual system basis. You bring things in or take them out of a system (or onto or off a particular planet or it's associated stations) and you deal with the local Customs officials who are enforcing LOCAL customs regulations and probably some that have been promulgated through the League Bureaucracy. FF has yet to be shown doing anything with smugglers. They may actualy chase pirates but from the sound of the story, they are more apt to either be the pirates (well, enforcers for the local gang leaders also known as the OFS Governors) or keeping people in line. Remember Case Buccaneer? Or any of that stuff over in the direction of Talbott?

Local governments are doing the bulk of anything that resembles customs work. FF is supposed to be the backstop for things they can't handle but they would have to actualy be around to do it.

The real question at Beowulf- not the important one about the plebecite about leaving the League- is if the League is going to violate their sovereignty by sending armed people down to stop them doing what became an actual problem when Fillerta came over the Hyperlimit and finally triggered a STATE OF WAR between not just Manticore and the League but brought Haven and anyone else in the now GA into it with Manticore.

Have you missed the point that there are litteraly HUNDREDS of freighters cycling back and forth beetween the SD terminus (and so to Manticore) carrying God knows what in the way of probable war materials as well as component parts and equipment to rebuild the Manticorian muntions productions, repair and build Manticoranian warships, as well as restablish (and train part of the workforce) and rebuild the destroyed orbital industries which for the last 20+ years have been churning out the most advanced military hardware in the known Human part of the galaxy along with the manufacturing and shipping juggernaought that was Manticore?

The Mandarins and the SLN can't have not noticed, they have a bunch of ships already out by Beowulf and all that shipping activity isn't even trying to hide.

Beowulf is litteraly not just selling strategic and military goods to Manticore, IT'S BUILDING THE STUFF TO SPEC IN CUSTOM ORDER LOTS TO THE TUNE OF BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF CREDITS LET ALONE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF TONS OF THE STUFF- AND THAT DOEN'T COUNT THE NOMINALY PURE CIVILIAN EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS MANTICORE NEEDS.

Manticore eliminated a 300 odd fleet of the SLN's 1st line SD. (OK, Haven helped) after their orbital infrastructuter and manufacturing was destroyed. They are BUYING replacement parts, the things they need to rebuild AND THE PARTS AND FULLY OPERATIVE WEAPONS AND COMPONENTS to repair and EXPAND their fleet. THE SL has started a WAR with these people and Beowulf is now their single largest supplier.

Havng a couple of shuttles float down on Beowulf with some suites carrying briefcases and perphaps a couple of "security" for their protection to serve warrents on a few manufactuing companies is not going to cut it. Beowulf can delay bureaucrats lacky's at any of the transfer station points before they get near the surface and sending these people to the Beowulf system in a SLN warship is EXACTLY the kind of problem with any Manticore warships nearby. You send a SLN WARSHIP into Beowulf orbit now and - it is truly hard to believe otherwise- you are making an overt threat that if they don't comply you are going to make them do so by force. Like you are so far withing the nominal defensive envelop of the planet that by the time anybody can react, you have devastated the planet (or major governmental centers along with other miltary targets) and shatttered the orbital stations. Yes, one "little" DD at point blank range with KEWs and antiship missles just ruins everything from that close even if everything you have in orbit has wedges and other shielding up.
The Mandarins aren't so stupid as to do that, let alone where do they find a ship's commander willing to essenetialy commit suicide to make it work?
Are they?
Their DESPERATE and if it works they blame everyting on the treaturous Beowulf Government and the Manties.

Well, it wouldn't be much of a story if the Mandarins and the SLN were not just content to teach a "lesson" to some otherwise peacefull system by trashing it because they were friendly and were engaging in general trade with Beowulf and Manticore. They have to stop the traitors (League Member Beowulf) from actualy building the weapons to be used to further defeat the League.....so send in some goat to die glorioiusly to save the League by eliminating Beowulf as a problem and cutting off Manticore's primary recovery effort and buy the League time to send another massive fleet to Manticore and subdue it.
I mean, really, how much can Manticore have left?

It's been a long week, I want the next book

All of this is true but it is very unlikely a single vessel would be sent. As noted, it could be a suicide mission. I doubt any captain would go for it and I think his crew might mutiny.

It would be easy to have a half dozen very effective ships watching him at all times.

More likely it would be a lot of ships. But I don't know that there would be that major an attack. The mandarins may be fools but they are not morons. They have to know that Beowulf has a navy. And they have to know that they could make earth a target or possibly planets that are really important because of wealthy families.

Doing major damage to Beowulf could lead to a real big loss of property and life to key planets in the League. THAT would quickly get rid of the leaders.

They are far more likely to work around the edges a bit and pick up a few local victories.

Brigade XO wrote:We are not sure exactly what League law enforcement entails other than the truly awful examples of the Gendamre and worst the OFS Intervention Battalions. We have the SLN with it's FF forces deep in a quagmire of graft and empire building as the enforcers for OFS.
League merchant shipping regulations? Like enforcing the Chartwell Conventions- selective at the best of times and would seem only where they are forced into it. Being somewhat skeptical, it often appears that the only enforced regulations are the unwritten ones about how big the "gratuity or fee" must be to do things.

Customs? Haven't heard of a League Customs Agency and Customs is, or appears to be, handled on an individual system basis. You bring things in or take them out of a system (or onto or off a particular planet or it's associated stations) and you deal with the local Customs officials who are enforcing LOCAL customs regulations and probably some that have been promulgated through the League Bureaucracy. FF has yet to be shown doing anything with smugglers. They may actualy chase pirates but from the sound of the story, they are more apt to either be the pirates (well, enforcers for the local gang leaders also known as the OFS Governors) or keeping people in line. Remember Case Buccaneer? Or any of that stuff over in the direction of Talbott?

Local governments are doing the bulk of anything that resembles customs work. FF is supposed to be the backstop for things they can't handle but they would have to actualy be around to do it.

Well, we do know that the League Assembly was able to slap an embargo on selling military tech / ships to Manticore and Haven during the first war. (Defense firms did it anyway, but under the table and got slapped when caught). That implies that at least for certain sensitive categories of goods there is League level export rules (but of course we don't know if those rules get implemented / enforced by League level inspections or if they're simply handed down from on high as mandates for each local system's customs force to handle).


I certainly suspect that the League would have to have League wide rules clarifying that it's legal to ship goods through a system even when the goods aren't legal within that system. (Customs would seal the packaging if it had to be transferred in the system, but otherwise it's just riding in the cargo hold while the freighter makes an intermediate stop). Obviously that's a different scenario that shipping something that's illegal throughout the League.

But beyond that, the League was formed by a bunch of systems that had been sovereign nations for centuries and wanted to make darn sure the League government, or a collection of their neighbors, chouldn't impose their will on them - so I bet most stuff the League government is forbidden from sticking it's nose into (at least within the territory of full members)

Brigade XO wrote:Snipping
The real question at Beowulf- not the important one about the plebecite about leaving the League- is if the League is going to violate their sovereignty by sending armed people down to stop them doing what became an actual problem when Fillerta came over the Hyperlimit and finally triggered a STATE OF WAR between not just Manticore and the League but brought Haven and anyone else in the now GA into it with Manticore.

Quoting just a chunk:

The big thing is remember, there's still technically no war. The Bureaucracy can't actually make a war declaration, it needs the Assembly to do so.

Remember also the last act before Beowulf announced its plebiscite was to impanel "a special commission to investigate the alleged treason of the system government of Beowulf in aiding and abetting an enemy of the Solarian League".

I think until that commission was impaneled there was simply no mechanism to do such overt searches and seizures in an old core world like Beowulf without the permission of the planetary government.

Little things like legality and proper process don't seem to have a lot of impact on the Mandarins unless it appears to help them or lets them do something.
They are desperate people looking at not surviving what is comming down around them and are also concerned that if they can escape with their lives, it will not be with what they have accumulated in wealth or power.

Brigade XO wrote:Little things like legality and proper process don't seem to have a lot of impact on the Mandarins unless it appears to help them or lets them do something.
They are desperate people looking at not surviving what is comming down around them and are also concerned that if they can escape with their lives, it will not be with what they have accumulated in wealth or power.

At the current point, they are probably concerned but not worried. They are part of the (pardon the political phrase) deep state of the Solarian League. They run the show not the politicians.

But they have to know there are real issues. I don't know they'd really want to get that blunt with Beowulf which is an original member, which not only has a good navy but an alliance with Manticore and Haven, particularly with issues that now involve Mesa since Mesan fingerprints are really around everywhere.

Naval losses like Crandall's can be brushed aside. Filareta's was bad but they could play games. Being nasty to Beowulf could bring out nasty retaliation that would hurt. The GA could attack a few key worlds, including installations in the Solar System, that would really put on pressure. Much stronger pressure than they had faced before.

Note how accepting they were of Kingsford's proposal to NOT use large fleets. They knew they had to be cautious and that was because they could not afford big losses. I think they will for a while follow that.

Is the SLN also still in the dark about the stubbornness of Manty defensive fire?

Please forgive this question, but what is the hitting power of the new Cataphracts in comparison to Manty missiles or even pre-GA Peep hitting power? Tamaguchi seems to think they've got a very big bite if they can get them through.

cthia wrote:Is the SLN also still in the dark about the stubbornness of Manty defensive fire?

Please forgive this question, but what is the hitting power of the new Cataphracts in comparison to Manty missiles or even pre-GA Peep hitting power? Tamaguchi seems to think they've got a very big bite if they can get them through.

Depends on which Cataphract. They've got 3 version (and apparently 2 revisions, as Tamaguchi was carrying improved "flight Two" versions) - but in all the revisions that warhead is lighter than what that ship class would throw from normal SDMs from it's tubes. Somehow that's a trade-off that's necessary to squeeze in the CM derived 2nd stage (a less elegant engineering solution than the true dual/multi-drive missiles, which just cram a bit more power/fuel storage, an additional drive ring or two next the the original one, and the grav 'baffle' necessary to keep the additional rings from damage until ready for use)

Cataphract A is based on the warhead of the Spatha CL/DD missile , but can only be fired internally from a CA/BC.
Cataphract B is based on the warhead of the Javelin CA/BC missile, but can only be fired internally from an SD.
Cataphract C is based on the warhead of the Trebuchet capital (SD) missile, but is so large it can only be fired from pods.

Tamaguchi thought his Cataphract had very powerful warheads because they were the pod-launched C versions. So his BCs and DD were firing missiles with SD grade warheads. (Kind of like when Sarnow's BCs were firing capital SD missiles in SVW.

I don't recall a direct comparison between SLN and RMN warhead power/efficiency. But at a guess they're likely at least modestly more powerful than the warhead on the latest Mk16 Mod-G CA/BC missiles (said to be almost as powerful as the 1905-era pre-war RMN capital missile warheads) but noticeably less powerful than the latest Mk23 capital MDMs.



Still, more than strong enough to punch big nasty holes in the Charles Ward or her LACs if they landed a laserhead beam or two.

Jonathan_S wrote:Depends on which Cataphract. They've got 3 version (and apparently 2 revisions, as Tamaguchi was carrying improved "flight Two" versions) - but in all the revisions that warhead is lighter than what that ship class would throw from normal SDMs from it's tubes.
...

I don't recall a direct comparison between SLN and RMN warhead power/efficiency. But at a guess they're likely at least modestly more powerful than the warhead on the latest Mk16 Mod-G CA/BC missiles (said to be almost as powerful as the 1905-era pre-war RMN capital missile warheads) but noticeably less powerful than the latest Mk23 capital MDMs.

At the same time Helen Zilwiki compared the Mod G to capital missiles (with no ownership or time period specified,) she also wondered about the effect of adding the same sort of improved grav lensing and bigger warhead to ERM and LERMs.

If the RMN did add the "Mod G" improvements to DD/CL/LAC missiles, the RMN is throwing a class above the nominal weight associated with any given class. The SLN, otoh, is throwing a class below nominal weight when using Cataphracts.

Just one more way the MAlign is setting up the SLN for failure.