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Remaining holes in SLN intel

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Re: Remaining holes in SLN intel
Post by cthia   » Tue Jan 09, 2018 12:43 pm

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There has been a number of prisoners taken aboard GA ships from SN forces. Surely they would have noticed the sparseness of Manty crews?

When did Havenite ships begin to enjoy the same level of automation?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Remaining holes in SLN intel
Post by Theemile   » Tue Jan 09, 2018 1:28 pm

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cthia wrote:There has been a number of prisoners taken aboard GA ships from SN forces. Surely they would have noticed the sparseness of Manty crews?

When did Havenite ships begin to enjoy the same level of automation?


Yeah, but how many went home? 2 or 3 of them? In disgrace? can anything they say be trusted?
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Remaining holes in SLN intel
Post by Dauntless   » Tue Jan 09, 2018 1:40 pm

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cthia wrote:
When did Havenite ships begin to enjoy the same level of automation?


I don't think they do.

Haven is much bigger then manticore (at least a dozen heavily populated planets compared to manticore's 3 with decent population but hardly bulging at the seams like Novueru Paris) which meant that they they never had the issue with staffing that the manties did.

once the Talbott Quadrent is sorted out and Silies made to understand honest work for honest pay (though to be fair most the corruption has always been in the politicians not the normal people) then a lot of the reasons for automation will go out the airlock.

be intresting to see if the next generation of ships goes manpower heavier then the current designs. maybe back up to 60% of pre war levels instead of 40%. %50 extra bodies for things like damage control and boarding parties would likely be very useful.
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Re: Remaining holes in SLN intel
Post by pnakasone   » Tue Jan 09, 2018 1:43 pm

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Do remember any good Intel the SLN is getting has to swim up stream against a heavy downstream current of denial.
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Re: Remaining holes in SLN intel
Post by cthia   » Tue Jan 09, 2018 5:39 pm

cthia
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pnakasone wrote:Do remember any good Intel the SLN is getting has to swim up stream against a heavy downstream current of denial.

Interesting. You just compared SLN intel to Salmon, who swim upstream to their birth place to lay the eggs of their labor. These eggs are called alevin. They have a mortality rate as high as 85 %. No wonder SLN intel never hatches. LOL

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Remaining holes in SLN intel
Post by Hegemon   » Tue Jan 09, 2018 7:04 pm

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phillies wrote:"In any military endeavor, there are only two possible outcomes: operational success or intelligence failure."


I'm curious: is this a quote from a known person ?
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Re: Remaining holes in SLN intel
Post by cthia   » Wed Jan 10, 2018 12:27 am

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Hegemon wrote:
phillies wrote:"In any military endeavor, there are only two possible outcomes: operational success or intelligence failure."


I'm curious: is this a quote from a known person ?


I was curious as well and googled the quote...


snip

“It is refreshing to see things in their proper order--intelligence driving operations, instead of operations driving intelligence....As a consequence, we have been able to maintain a constantly high tempo of productive operations.”


In April 1993, the now Maj. Gen. Van Riper became the Marine Corps Director of Intelligence (DirInt). He then initiated studies into his perceived “weaknesses” of Marine intelligence: "A First Look" and "A Second Look" were products of that initiative. A First Look contained the following observation:


“...the root cause of [operators'] negative attitude [toward intelligence] appears to be that Marine Corps operators never really learn what intelligence is, what it can do, and how to use it. They receive little training on the intelligence function and rarely get much realistic practice with intelligence during peacetime.”

snip

United States Marine Corps Intelligence:

snip

A Second Look “validated” that observation.

About this time, Maj. Gen. Van Riper, published the following statement:

“There are only two possible outcomes:
Operational success or intelligence failure.”

His second attempt at publicizing his views on intelligence caused further malaise in the intelligence community:

"The first time I saw the General's statement, I was surprised and very disappointed. It implies that commanders do not make mistakes, and that any mission not accomplished should be attributed to faulty intelligence. It neglects to take into account those so-called 'intelligence failures' which were actually situations where intelligence assessments were accurate, and warnings were conveyed in a timely manner, but were either ignored or not acted upon in a timely enough manner. To me, the statement is indicative of a general lack of understanding of -- and appreciation for -- intelligence.”

Lt. Col. Denis Eaton, USMC (Ret)

snip

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Remaining holes in SLN intel
Post by Fireflair   » Wed Jan 10, 2018 12:39 am

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I can't remember where it's at, but there was a scene that discussed the obvious improvements in automation and the reduced crew sizes it allowed. I believe Prichard was involved in the discussion with some other cabinet members because they were discussing RMN manning practices and available personnel.

During the conversation they commented that the automation was far heavier than anything that the RHN had embraced.

Going back to earlier books there are other things which would keep the RHN from automating. One: Education levels. They don't have a large technically savvy and educated work force. Even though they've started turning things around, gotten rid of the dole and put the proles to work, it takes more than a decade to fix the education system. Their ships still rely on a lot of plug an play modules that lower skilled techs can swap out in the field without repairing them. The really skilled people are back at depots or shipyards. This requires the RHN to have larger installations for the same task as the RMN.

Two: Being behind the RMN tech curve, especially in miniaturization effects this too. Again, it keeps their installations larger, and the same automated tools would take up more space for them than it does for the RMN.

Three: As noted previously, Haven doesn't have the population issue that the RMN does. They go in for larger crew sizes with lower skill sets to get the job done. It's what they've got so they make it work.

And my fourth reason they don't have automation (besides the fact that it hasn't been mentioned outright) is that putting in the automation at the sort of level the RMN is using would require a significant redesign of the interior of the ship. It's probably possible in small ways through out the ship, using a ShipAlt system like the USN uses. However it wouldn't be a major reduction in personnel and big upgrade in automating without a lot of redesigning. I might even go so far as to say that it would require a whole new ship design. The RHN hasn't done that, not for their main combatants. We'd have seen mention of a change in ship classes during the battles when some character wondered about the new design vessel they were facing.
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Re: Remaining holes in SLN intel
Post by Weird Harold   » Wed Jan 10, 2018 1:19 am

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Fireflair wrote:One: Education levels. They don't have a large technically savvy and educated work force. Even though they've started turning things around, gotten rid of the dole and put the proles to work, it takes more than a decade to fix the education system. Their ships still rely on a lot of plug an play modules that lower skilled techs can swap out in the field without repairing them. The really skilled people are back at depots or shipyards. This requires the RHN to have larger installations for the same task as the RMN.


It seems to me that this would be a factor driving the RHN towards more automation than away from automation. If you can reduce the operations manual to "Move power switch to 'ON'" you reduce the level of education required to operate a ship as well as maintain it.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: Remaining holes in SLN intel
Post by lcdrdata   » Fri Jan 12, 2018 7:02 am

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cthia wrote:
snip

“It is refreshing to see things in their proper order--intelligence driving operations, instead of operations driving intelligence....As a consequence, we have been able to maintain a constantly high tempo of productive operations.”


In April 1993, the now Maj. Gen. Van Riper became the Marine Corps Director of Intelligence (DirInt). He then initiated studies into his perceived “weaknesses” of Marine intelligence: "A First Look" and "A Second Look" were products of that initiative. A First Look contained the following observation:


“...the root cause of [operators'] negative attitude [toward intelligence] appears to be that Marine Corps operators never really learn what intelligence is, what it can do, and how to use it. They receive little training on the intelligence function and rarely get much realistic practice with intelligence during peacetime.”

snip

United States Marine Corps Intelligence:

snip

A Second Look “validated” that observation.

About this time, Maj. Gen. Van Riper, published the following statement:

“There are only two possible outcomes:
Operational success or intelligence failure.”

His second attempt at publicizing his views on intelligence caused further malaise in the intelligence community:

"The first time I saw the General's statement, I was surprised and very disappointed. It implies that commanders do not make mistakes, and that any mission not accomplished should be attributed to faulty intelligence. It neglects to take into account those so-called 'intelligence failures' which were actually situations where intelligence assessments were accurate, and warnings were conveyed in a timely manner, but were either ignored or not acted upon in a timely enough manner. To me, the statement is indicative of a general lack of understanding of -- and appreciation for -- intelligence.”

Lt. Col. Denis Eaton, USMC (Ret)

snip


That's very interesting - I myself never knew where the quote came from, and the timing is right. I also agree with Lt Col Eaton's analysis, although I would give it a slightly different slant. The key phrase is "... any mission not accomplished should be attributed to faulty intelligence." [emphasis added] In other words, in practice, "intelligence failure" becomes an automatic scapegoat when things go wrong - regardless of the available intel actually said - while "operational success" gives the credit to the Commander. :roll: Not exactly the best way to encourage either good intelligence analysis or commanders that know how to use it, which I think was MG Van Riper's point. A point, moreover, which is repeatedly biting the SLN and is unlikely to change rapidly enough to make a real difference for them.
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called "research" - Albert Einstein
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