SPOILER end of the MA

Weird Harold wrote:
About the same amount of time the GA takes to develop even more powerful and more compact MDMs.

So the GA would remain technologically ahead forever? There is no chance that the MA will catch up?

First, the opposition has to crack Manticore's miniaturization tech, and micro-fusion tech, etc.

So? What is possible for one is possible for all, eventually the GA will loose their technological edge.

As long as the GA keeps moving the goalposts, they can stay ahead of anyone trying to match their military tech. You seem to assume that the GA can't move the goalposts.

So there would be no end to the GA's technological revolution? It would be a lot easier for the MA to do something they know is possible than for the GA to create a new technology. Eventually the MA would have roughly equivalent technology just like the SLN will eventually have Equivalent technology.

If what you said was true then the GA wouldn't have been all that worried about the SLN since whatever the SLN does to catch up the GA will invent new things always in order to remain the same.

Not if they keep playing the "Invisible Enemy" -- urging greater effort to detect and destroy attackers and keeping the War on the front page headllines.

How did that workout for the Manticore Alliance? They were at was with Haven and spend several years trying to find Bolthole with no success, the only reason they found is because Haven gave them the coordinates.

Conversely, you haven't presented any evidence that SD(p)s can be in more places than one. You harp on the number of places that need protection but refuse to believe that Mycroft and LACs provide sufficient defense. Even with the MAlign's help in knocking out the Mycroft platforms, the SLN got trashed when the attacked Beowulf.

That's proof of what? That the SLN was so outclassed that even if they had outside help they still couldn't succeed?

The difference between what I am suggesting and what you are suggesting is realism. If we were to take your suggestion and go all BC(L)'s, CA'c and DD you would be destroyed by an equal tonnage of a balanced fleet.

Sag-C has 355 people on board and is 483,000 tons while a medusa B has ~1,000 people on board and is 8,554,750 tons.

So if we assume that the Invictus followed the same trend, for a Sag-C formation to face off 1 Invictus they would need more than 15 Sag-C's with combined crew of 5,325 and combined tonnage of 7,245,000 and that is assuming that the Sag-C is significantly more powerful ton for ton than an Invictus. So you end up with 5,300 people and 15 ships vs ~1,000 people and 1 ship.

If we assume that you need 15-1 odds to get one Invictus for a fleet of 350 SD(P)'s you would need 1,863,750 people and 5,250 CA's vs 350 SD(P)'s and ~380,000 people.

If you build a fleet of BC(L)'s like the Nike class you would be fielding ~2,200 people and 3 BC(L)'s for every SD(P) with a crew of ~1,000 people.

So for a hypothetical fleet of 350 SD(P)'s and ~380,000 crew members you would have to field 1,030 BC(L)'s 770,000 crew.


And The calculations assume that the ships are either equal ton for ton with an SD(P) or stronger ton for ton with an SD(P). But the same consideration that go for BBs vs SDs apply here. You will be facing an opponent with heavier armour, heavier weapons who can take more punishment than your ships. And let's face it, what is the difference between sending 15 Sag-C's to defend a system or sending 1 SD(P)? If the ships are lost the only difference is that with the Sag-Cs you loose 5 times as many people compared to a SD(P).

SD(P)s are only needed -- if at all -- for force projection or status symbols. BC(L) and BC(p) provide nearly as much fire-power and with a source of pods can take on even an SD(P) of end-of-war-RHN vintage with no better than 1.5:1 odds.

Do you have any examples of where 2 BC(P)s or BC(L)'s took on an RHN SD(P) 2 vs 1 and lived to tell about it? In a straight up fight those BC(P)'s would be dead meat. Not nearly the same strength armour and not nearly the same caliber of armament. If the BC(P)'s had to field the same missiles as an SD(P) I would venture a guess that they would be able to bring only a fraction of the number along to play with.

Even incremental improvements to automation, missiles, ECM, Pen-AIDS, stealth, etc, will make post-UH cruisers and destroyers better than anything in space at the end of UH.

The same incremental improvements would apply to the SD(P)'s as well. And at the moment they have a dramatic advantage in manpower AND firepower.

How well did the Maginot Line work for the French in 1939? The Maginot Line was worse than nothing, because the French sank millions of Francs into building it instead of building and training tanks and airplanes to match what the Germans showed off in the Spanish Civil War.

The Allies had more Tanks than Germany, more Guns than Germany and more divisions than Germany and they had the Maginot Line that the Germans couldn't Breach if I am not mistaken and they still lost. Building powerful defences and having powerful forces do not make up for poor leadership, planning and execution.

The English at least survived to learn from their inter-war deficiencies and innovate enough to eventually win (with a lot of help from Russia and the US.)

They survived because of Geography more then anything else.

"Preparing to fight the last war" is a losing strategy that is worse than nothing. Even the best result costs outrageous casualties.

I will still have the manpower, shipyards, training and doctrine to survive to learn. You will have expanding cloud of debris in a hundred systems where you used to have ships.

n7axw wrote:Not having read the book, I'm going to frame the next as a question: is there a reason to believe that additional SD(p)s would have enhanced Beowulf's security? I think probably not. But I don't know.

Secondly, is there a reason to believe that the MA has advantages in warfighting ability that go beyond their stealth to give them an advantage?

Don

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They wouldn't have enhanced the security of Beowulf, but if Beowulf was attacked conventionally then SD(P)'s would definitely enhance the security of the System.

n7axw wrote:With reference to Sigs response to my post:

I didn't say that you you didn't protect your systems. I did say that you have to allocate your resources according to known and potential threat levels with systems that are primary targets receiving level one security. Assigning LACs and system defense missiles to secondary systems certainly would not qualify as not defending them. For example, you don't assign SD(p)s to Split or Nuncio. The sector capitol probably does warrant some SD(p)s as the political nerve center of the Quadrant.

Let's say that the RMN prioritized that 3 systems in Talbott and 3 Systems in Silesia need enhanced protection. Then add Trevor's Star, Manticore System and Basilik that leaves preciously little for anything else that pops up.

That is 9 systems out of 60 that get SD(P) defences and the others are all on their own. If their fixed defences are not enough to stop the enemy the RMN will have very little to reinforce them with if they have only 140 SD(P)'s with only 120 SD(P)'s deployable at any one time. Manticore will get 40 SD(P)s for Home Fleet, Trevor's Star gets say 10-15 SD(P)'s and the other 65 SD(P)'s get split amongst two separate concentrations of Manticoran territory. So 32 In Silesia and 33 in Talbott. If any one area is threatened then no-one can be protected. Having 140 SD(P)'s defending 60 systems even by prioritizing leaves the RMN weak everywhere while having 350 SD(P)'s allows the RMN to protect vital systems and have a central reserve in Manticore to be deployed to any threatened area within the empire or outside the empire.

The reason for not commiting to an infinite program of building SD(p)s is that they absorb both resources and manpwer that is needed elsewhere.

Again I have never said anything about infinite building program. The GA has 1,200 SD(P)'s in service or under construction. Those ships should be utilized to the best of their abilities. The GA should build new SD(P)'s when they have the means to make a significant improvement over the RHN designs, until they have the technological capabilities to do that they should build lighter combatants.

Resources, both human and otherwise, are always finite. For the concrete jobs that need to be done, I would have to vote to increase the number of smaller hulls, bcs and down rather than increasing the number of capital ships much beyond where they are at. By my count the GA has 700 to 800 SD(p)s currently including new build construction coming out of Bolthole. That should do for now.

By my count the GA has 850 SD(P)'s in commission and a further 400-800 under construction. Complete what is under construction and man what you build... that is what I am suggesting. For the GA to finish the SD(P)'s under construction and mothball a large % of them would be insane as that would leave them weak and exposed.

pappilon wrote:
Building more SD(p)s that cannot see the spider drive is not going to be particularly beneficial to the GA. Building more SD(p)s without improving the quality and range of the sensor net will not increase system security. Deploying Mycroft without addressing its newly exposed vulnerabilities is as useless as not addressing the sensor net issues.

Scrapping the SD(P)s already under construction with decrease security. Mothballing SD(P)s when they are completed will also not improve the GA's defensive stance.

Joat42 wrote:

pappilon wrote:I kind of disagree with that. They showed a concept at Beowulf. Send in Mannerheim and the other RF forces with a fwe Lenny Ds leading the way and your defenders will be against the wall in short order. Yes, as long as there is no way to detect the Spider at ranges longer than light nanoseconds.

In my opinion the only thing the spider drive is useful for are sneak attacks and the silver bullets is a weapon that have very specific use cases on top of that. Regarding the Lenny Ds, as soon as an attack turns into a regular naval battle their survival rate drops to almost nothing unless they just shoot and scoot.

Anyway, from the MAligns viewpoint - persecuting active naval operations against the GA is stupid since it increases the risk of exposure and the possibility of MAlign tech falling into the GA:s hands.

Then again the MA can build up it's fleet at leisure and work off of their own timeline. The GA has to honour the threat that the MA is ready fr round two at any time.

PeterZ wrote:Agreed. However, if the GA spent 15-20 yeas devoting the majority of their industrial production on SDPs without the ability to detect Spyders well enough to engage effectively, then they will be in the same position as the SLN leading up to Honor's visit to Sol. The GA will have a lot of expensive targets waiting for the RF and the MAlign to launch their bid at galactic domination.

Or you know they can FINISH the SD(P)'s under construction and man them. They should build new SD(P)'s only when they have the technological base to improve on the existing SD(P)s or build Invictus level ships.

Those targets will also mean that there will have been too few lighter units deployed to engage those newly independent systems in ways to expand their network of allies. There will be too few lighter units to adequately protect their allies and protect their merchant fleet. At that point in the conflict, the MAlign could strike at the vulnerable SDPs and leave the GA unable to either attack the RF directly, protect their allies against an RF expansion or protect their merchant fleet from conventional attack under any guise the RF chooses.

And at what point does the GA start building SD(P)'s again for round two? Do they guesstimate a possible MA timetable? Does the GA give the MA 10,15 or 20 years before they start building Capital Ships?

Sigs wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Agreed. However, if the GA spent 15-20 yeas devoting the majority of their industrial production on SDPs without the ability to detect Spyders well enough to engage effectively, then they will be in the same position as the SLN leading up to Honor's visit to Sol. The GA will have a lot of expensive targets waiting for the RF and the MAlign to launch their bid at galactic domination.

Or you know they can FINISH the SD(P)'s under construction and man them. They should build new SD(P)'s only when they have the technological base to improve on the existing SD(P)s or build Invictus level ships.

Those targets will also mean that there will have been too few lighter units deployed to engage those newly independent systems in ways to expand their network of allies. There will be too few lighter units to adequately protect their allies and protect their merchant fleet. At that point in the conflict, the MAlign could strike at the vulnerable SDPs and leave the GA unable to either attack the RF directly, protect their allies against an RF expansion or protect their merchant fleet from conventional attack under any guise the RF chooses.

And at what point does the GA start building SD(P)'s again for round two? Do they guesstimate a possible MA timetable? Does the GA give the MA 10,15 or 20 years before they start building Capital Ships?

After they solve the detection issue or other visible powers develop SDPs that can challenge their existing battle fleet.

The British had the 10 year rule before World War 2, they saw what was happening in Germany, Italy and Japan and still couldn't get ready before war broke out. What some people here expect is for the GA to get ready when the time is right and they don't even know where the enemy is, how big their fleet is, how big their industry is or their timetable.

The SKM increase their territory by something like 6,000% since 1905 but the plan is to maintain only 35% of the wallers they had in 1905... I too can't see a problem with having a third of your fleet when you have to defend 60 times the real-estate.

PeterZ wrote:


And at what point does the GA start building SD(P)'s again for round two? Do they guesstimate a possible MA timetable? Does the GA give the MA 10,15 or 20 years before they start building Capital Ships?

After they solve the detection issue or other visible powers develop SDPs that can challenge their existing battle fleet.[/quote]

So leave 400-800 SD(P)'s partially complete until then?

Sigs wrote:The British had the 10 year rule before World War 2, they saw what was happening in Germany, Italy and Japan and still couldn't get ready before war broke out. What some people here expect is for the GA to get ready when the time is right and they don't even know where the enemy is, how big their fleet is, how big their industry is or their timetable.

The SKM increase their territory by something like 6,000% since 1905 but the plan is to maintain only 35% of the wallers they had in 1905... I too can't see a problem with having a third of your fleet when you have to defend 60 times the real-estate.

They don't need to post SD(P)s everywhere. It's already established that most systems are adequately defended by LAC wings and shoals of pods scattered all over the place. Adequately defended against all but the heaviest attacks, that is, which would presumably be capable of blowing away a squadron of SD(P)s in addition to Mycroft, a hundred thousand pods(which doesn't need Mycroft to be devastating), a thousand LACs and any forts.

With the new system-defense doctrine, the only thing they need SD(P)s for is offensive power. For that, they don't need enough to sit a few in every system under their flag - they just need a few concentrated nodal task forces.

Think of how Haven defended itself against Honor's raids. The few locations they lost were ultimately irrelevant to Haven's overall warfighting capability. They still had Haven and Bolthole and others. It might be harsh, but the truth is that kind of expendability currently applies to many of the SEM's newest members.

IMO, their overall security is actually enhanced if it is known to all that the SEM has a battle wall which can be dispatched from Manticore with minimal delays. It's basically the same doctrine which worked successfully for the League for centuries. The trick to maintaining it is making sure one's battle wall does not become obsolete.

Staying modern is easier with a smaller battle fleet, lest they fall into the trap of a Vast Reserve which acts as a motivation to resist innovation.