SPOILER end of the MA

Joat42 wrote:Sigs, why would Beowulf need to rebuild their industry? They lost one nanofarm and 3 civilian stations?

Michael Everett wrote:One Nanofarm, yes, but the three civilian stations were their largest (and oldest) stations, measuring in the kilometers. Stations that size have to have industrial sections even if only for maintenance purposes and given the whole workforce travel issue, I would be shocked if the three stations in question did not boast quite a few non-military manufactories.
I do agree that the military manufacturing stations would be completely separate from the three destroyed stations (different orbits at the very least) but Beowulf lost a huge chunk of their population and general manufacturing abilities when the MAlign pulled their Evil Plan (TM) using their throwaway agent.

J, I think that your question is sorta like saying "Why would America need to rebuild their industry? They only lost everything in California and Texas, they still have another 48 states to draw upon..."

(US State Manufactoring statistics link here)

More like "OMG! we just lost the manufacturing of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas". And having 5 or 6 members in the Chamber of Stars, its population should be in excess of 10 billion. Not making light of the loss of millions, but it's not a large chunk of the total population.

I can see Sig's logic and find it hard to refute. But there are a couple of things that do need further consideration.

First of all, we all need to remember that militaries tend to plan for the last war. That would be a mistake. The conflict with the Alignment will not be like the wars with Haven and the League. Enough has already happened to make that obvious.

Huge numbers of SD(s) are not going to necessarily going to enhance security. Unless the stealth issue is resolved, those ships will only be targets for the Lenny Dets. Right now the only thing I can see to do is englobe high value targets such as Beowulf with ghost Rider drones laid as thickly as possible in Hope of providing at least some warning against an attack.

No Navy is going to be able to provide equal level security for all its member systems. What will be done is evaluate the most high value systems for an enemy to strike at and provide those systems with level one security and defend the others in a way to make the cost of attacking higher than any possible return from such attacks. In Talbott, LACs and system defense pods were the answer.


Finally, technological parity probably will take longer to come than we might be assuming. Gram is still very active with it's highly experienced and competent researchers even though it's been moved to Bolthole. Nobody does pressurized wartime R&D better and teamed up with Shannon Foracker and crew, I would wager that the surprises will keep coming.

I would love to see what our favorite tac witch makes of the recordings of the latest attack on Beowulf...

Don

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It’s very difficult for a democracy to maintain a wartime mentality without an actual war. Particularly as it’s supposed to be 20 years or so. 20 years is the difference between the near military dictatorship of 1917 to 1937, when the US Military wasn’t exactly world class. Or between the hollow military of Jimmy Carter to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

kzt wrote:It’s very difficult for a democracy to maintain a wartime mentality without an actual war. Particularly as it’s supposed to be 20 years or so. 20 years is the difference between the near military dictatorship of 1917 to 1937, when the US Military wasn’t exactly world class. Or between the hollow military of Jimmy Carter to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

There is an actual war going on, a war in which Beowulf and Manticore alone have lost billions in damage to industrial capacity and millions of lives lost.

The relevant question now isn't whether or not there is a war, but how to wage that war and come to grips with an enemy that seems able to strike at will with impunity.

Don

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Joat42 wrote:Sigs, why would Beowulf need to rebuild their industry? They lost one nanofarm and 3 civilian stations?

I am assuming that there was quite a lot of industry in the 3 stations. Aside from research and educational facilities my assumption is that there was some form of industry...that is unless they segregated their industry to a high level and kept it all off of the civilian stations. Manticore lost 3 Stations out of 3, what are the chances that beowulf would have 46 million people in space and that doesn't represent a large % of their industrial workforce?

Weird Harold wrote:The GA has more cruiser-level commitments than SD(P) commitments. LAC/Apollo/Mycroft will suffice for heavy system defense and Cruisers with MK-16G or improvements will suffice for any power-projection needs.

I would beg to differ, the GA has at least 160 to 200 commitments closer to home. There is no point defending anyone else if your systems are uncovered.

The Current MK-16G is as destructive as pre-war or SLN Capitol Ship warheads with twice to three times the powered range.

So? How long before the SLN gets weapons of similar capabilities? Or the MA/RF? Or some other nation that might have the desire to redraw borders?

There's no reason that incremental improvements should stop and limit the GA to MK-16 Mod G Technology for warheads, but just spreading that technology to all missile types would make the ships more dangerous than they are now.

There has to be a practical limit where the technological advantage would plateau. As it is, there is a practical limit to missile combat which even FTL comms might not be able to compensate for. When other navies start developing their own counter-missile doctrine those missiles might become significantly less deadly.

While the MAlign scrambles to match UH level GA (and Andermani) tech the GA and Andermani are going to be doing at least incremental improvements and learn to detect Spider Drives.

And? The MA catches up to the GA and the GA can see them come...so what? I would say that would be more beneficial for the MA than for the GA.

If the Tech Levels advance in incremental stages from known tech levels -- with the spread of FTL, MDM and LAC tech -- the MAlign inflicts fewer casualties and still loses.

The MA knows where the GA is, they can plan attacks on the GA to disrupt their industrial build up or they can go into hiding and plan for round two. They can bid their time and attack the GA at the worst possible time. If they decide to play a long term game they can recover their position rather quickly. As long as the GA does not know of Darius the MA is safe. As long as the GA does not know of the RF the MA is safe.

If the MA can keep Darius and the relationship with the RF secret from the GA eventually the GA will lose focus leaving them exposed.

SDs and SD(P)s are going the way of the Big Gun battleships in the real world -- to mothballs and scrap-yards.

How so? You still haven't presented any evidence how the SDs and SD(P)s would become obsolete once technological parity is achieved.

pappilon wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Sigs, why would Beowulf need to rebuild their industry? They lost one nanofarm and 3 civilian stations?

Michael Everett wrote:One Nanofarm, yes, but the three civilian stations were their largest (and oldest) stations, measuring in the kilometers. Stations that size have to have industrial sections even if only for maintenance purposes and given the whole workforce travel issue, I would be shocked if the three stations in question did not boast quite a few non-military manufactories.
I do agree that the military manufacturing stations would be completely separate from the three destroyed stations (different orbits at the very least) but Beowulf lost a huge chunk of their population and general manufacturing abilities when the MAlign pulled their Evil Plan (TM) using their throwaway agent.

J, I think that your question is sorta like saying "Why would America need to rebuild their industry? They only lost everything in California and Texas, they still have another 48 states to draw upon..."

(US State Manufactoring statistics link here)

More like "OMG! we just lost the manufacturing of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas". And having 5 or 6 members in the Chamber of Stars, its population should be in excess of 10 billion. Not making light of the loss of millions, but it's not a large chunk of the total population.

It doesn't need to be large % of the total population, it just needs to be focused on industry they need the most. Even if the 3 Stations represented 30-40% of the industrial capability of Beowulf it would still be crippling in the short term. There is still the need to rebuild both Manticore and Grayson, modernize Havens industry and at the hight of demand a large % of the industry and leading educational institutions of Beowulf were wiped out. It will leave a mark one way or another.

n7axw wrote:
First of all, we all need to remember that militaries tend to plan for the last war. That would be a mistake. The conflict with the Alignment will not be like the wars with Haven and the League. Enough has already happened to make that obvious.

But if the best you can do it is plan/prepare for the last war, it is still much better then nothing.

Huge numbers of SD(s) are not going to necessarily going to enhance security. Unless the stealth issue is resolved, those ships will only be targets for the Lenny Dets. Right now the only thing I can see to do is englobe high value targets such as Beowulf with ghost Rider drones laid as thickly as possible in Hope of providing at least some warning against an attack.

Building the fleet you can right now and trying to figure out a way to detect the enemy and build a fleet after you have the way. Sometimes good enough really is good enough. Unless the MA comes up with a complete set of weapons and systems that make all GA ships obsolete overnight those SD(P)'s will still be useful.

No Navy is going to be able to provide equal level security for all its member systems. What will be done is evaluate the most high value systems for an enemy to strike at and provide those systems with level one security and defend the others in a way to make the cost of attacking higher than any possible return from such attacks. In Talbott, LACs and system defense pods were the answer.

But Talbott joined the SEM with the belief that the RMN will protect them. Having esentialy fixed defences on all your systems in Talbott plus light combatants will not do much to endear the people to the empire considering the whatever number of SD(P)s remain a large % of them will be deployed in Home Fleet. With a fleet of 140 SD(P)'s 15% likely would be in yard hands at any time will mean that the other 85% would have to form Home Fleet, a central reserve for the empire and fleets for both Silesia and Talbott plus whatever other commitments are heaped upon them.


There is a difference between not being able to protect every system equally and not being to protect every system at all.

Finally, technological parity probably will take longer to come than we might be assuming. Gram is still very active with it's highly experienced and competent researchers even though it's been moved to Bolthole. Nobody does pressurized wartime R&D better and teamed up with Shannon Foracker and crew, I would wager that the surprises will keep coming.

I would love to see what our favorite tac witch makes of the recordings of the latest attack on Beowulf...

Don

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When you are facing the wrong end of a technological disparity you become very motivated. Just because you have great people for your R&D doesn't mean that there isn't a team that is just as capable and far more motivated than yours.

kzt wrote:It’s very difficult for a democracy to maintain a wartime mentality without an actual war. Particularly as it’s supposed to be 20 years or so. 20 years is the difference between the near military dictatorship of 1917 to 1937, when the US Military wasn’t exactly world class. Or between the hollow military of Jimmy Carter to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

There is a war on and I would be greatly surprised if Manticore, Grayson and Beowulf of all nations forgot that minor fact.

n7axw wrote:

kzt wrote:It’s very difficult for a democracy to maintain a wartime mentality without an actual war. Particularly as it’s supposed to be 20 years or so. 20 years is the difference between the near military dictatorship of 1917 to 1937, when the US Military wasn’t exactly world class. Or between the hollow military of Jimmy Carter to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

There is an actual war going on, a war in which Beowulf and Manticore alone have lost billions in damage to industrial capacity and millions of lives lost.

The relevant question now isn't whether or not there is a war, but how to wage that war and come to grips with an enemy that seems able to strike at will with impunity.

Don

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Sure and after 5 years of nothing else people will start to ask questions. And they get more intense every year and election.

Eventually it’s like deciding to run for president on a platform of a military buildup to “defeat the space nazis”.