SPOILER end of the MA

Theemile wrote:Of course the SL and it's suppliers have backups - that's not my point.

The GA knows that Javelin -j almost in production will have this updated seaker and it's drive will be tweaked and extra 100Gs, and the planned -k model will feature this planned warhead upgrade and another 100gs if the plan works.

So the GA will know the SL's near term upgrade paths, and can forecast their upcoming paths (and be able to build counters & integrate the interesting tidbits into their own hardware.)

The SL will need to find other R&D paths to get a leg up on the GA or else everything they do for the next few years will be anticipated.

Slneezy wrote:
Something being anticipated doesn't mean it'll be countered. The SLN can follow the RMN's exact path and doctrines and still be vastly ahead of where it was. Indeed getting to pre-Appolo Manticore/pre-GA Heaven stage is probably the one thing can do with their current tech base, no extra research needed (beyond the most basic how do I build a SD(P) stuff). Sure that's not enough to go for one on one with the Manty navy - but enough non FTL-controlled birds can have the same effect as smaller numbers of FTL controlled missiles. Any SD(P) is going to be orders of magnitude more effective than the old Scientists because the later could deploy exactly ten pods per ship and had poor fire control and point defense to boot.

Actually, they could go as far as having a non-FTL control missile for their pod launched missiles. That would improve their accuracy vastly more than single missiles at extreme ranges. So the New SLN can have capacitor MDMs (assuming the baffles get solved) guided by light speed control missiles launched from SDPs with upgraded fire controls and defenses.

That is much more powerful than the pre-Apollo RHN. That sort of SDP would give the current Nike class BCs a run for their money. I still think that ton for ton the Nike is till more powerful than those sorts of SDPs, but not necessarily ship for ship.

PeterZ wrote:Actually, they could go as far as having a non-FTL control missile for their pod launched missiles. That would improve their accuracy vastly more than single missiles at extreme ranges. So the New SLN can have capacitor MDMs (assuming the baffles get solved) guided by light speed control missiles launched from SDPs with upgraded fire controls and defenses.

That is much more powerful than the pre-Apollo RHN. That sort of SDP would give the current Nike class BCs a run for their money. I still think that ton for ton the Nike is till more powerful than those sorts of SDPs, but not necessarily ship for ship.

Not sure how having a light speed control missile works better for accuracy at 30-50 million km. I mean other than having their [dubious] AIs chattering back and forth to get a better overview of the targets; unless they're also chattering with the follow-up launches on EW etc. Which is putting a lot on the AI.

Re-read the description of the defense of Hypatia. The Apollo control birds add a significant advantage even without light speed com. They also allow for the leverage of a ship's fire control by a factor of 10. Having them would allow for the development of FTL com in their recon drones to feed into their missiles' attack solutions. No reason why the SLN 2.0 shouldn't develop control missiles a sap.

PeterZ wrote:Re-read the description of the defense of Hypatia. The Apollo control birds add a significant advantage even without light speed com. They also allow for the leverage of a ship's fire control by a factor of 10. Having them would allow for the development of FTL com in their recon drones to feed into their missiles' attack solutions. No reason why the SLN 2.0 shouldn't develop control missiles a sap.

No pods were used at Hypathia by the RMN forces, I think you mean Beowulf.

Theemile wrote:

Sigs wrote:Just because the GA has it doesn't mean that the SLN cannot use it as a starting point for their technological revival.

Of course the SL and it's suppliers have backups - that's not my point.

...

So the GA will know the SL's near term upgrade paths, and can forecast their upcoming paths (and be able to build counters & integrate the interesting tidbits into their own hardware.)

The SL will need to find other R&D paths to get a leg up on the GA or else everything they do for the next few years will be anticipated.

The problem of Solarian R&D and military development is pretty much irrelevant to this thread because it is vastly different than MAlign military development.

The Solarian League, even a reduced SL post-UH, has orders of magnitude more resources -- both physical and intellectual -- than the MAlign and Renaissance Factor combined. They have more of both than The the entire "Haven Sector" combined.

It is certainly a good thing that The League and GA reached a peace treaty at the end of UH.

The MAlign is another story: They are still the "Invisible Enemy" that nothing solid is known about, they are definitely hostile to the GA, SL, and Anderman Empire (as they have committed acts of war against all three.)

Sigs doesn't have the right solution in his reliance on SD(P)s, but he does have a lot of good points about preparing for an enemy with unknown capabilities; The GA knows about the Streak and Spider drives, the assassin nano-tech, the Mesa/Manpower connections, and a few other fragile threads, but they don't know what else the MAlign might have or be working on.

Sigs is also correct that the MAlign is the only real threat that the GA has to counter by maintaining its tech edge.

The Solarian League is going to quickly match GA tech and should provide a continuing stimulus to GA R&D that an "Invisible Enemy" can't provide without exposing itself.

Weird Harold wrote:
The problem of Solarian R&D and military development is pretty much irrelevant to this thread because it is vastly different than MAlign military development.

The Solarian League, even a reduced SL post-UH, has orders of magnitude more resources -- both physical and intellectual -- than the MAlign and Renaissance Factor combined. They have more of both than The the entire "Haven Sector" combined.

It is certainly a good thing that The League and GA reached a peace treaty at the end of UH.

The MAlign is another story: They are still the "Invisible Enemy" that nothing solid is known about, they are definitely hostile to the GA, SL, and Anderman Empire (as they have committed acts of war against all three.)

Sigs doesn't have the right solution in his reliance on SD(P)s, but he does have a lot of good points about preparing for an enemy with unknown capabilities; The GA knows about the Streak and Spider drives, the assassin nano-tech, the Mesa/Manpower connections, and a few other fragile threads, but they don't know what else the MAlign might have or be working on.

Sigs is also correct that the MAlign is the only real threat that the GA has to counter by maintaining its tech edge.

The Solarian League is going to quickly match GA tech and should provide a continuing stimulus to GA R&D that an "Invisible Enemy" can't provide without exposing itself.

Militarily, I believe kzt has it right. Once the spider drive becomes dectectable and targetable, the rest is a matter distance, time, velocity and numbers. The equations will become pretty obvious to all concerned. An Apollo SDP that can see a spider at a great enough distance will eat it for lunch.

The nano tech s another matter. I do believe that's when the Princess of Beowulf comes into her own in the stories. Allison is one of the preminent geneticists in the galaxy. Nano-tech might not be genetics based, but the Mesan nano-tech is. That means it is something Ally can get her splendid mind around quite comfortably. Between she and her mother, they can get the answers readily enough.

The Princesses of Beowulf can do what Beowulfers do best! They can research biosciences to solve the MAligns nanotech advantage. One suspects one of the three Alexander-Harrington kids will chip in to that side of the family business.

Theemile wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Re-read the description of the defense of Hypatia. The Apollo control birds add a significant advantage even without light speed com. They also allow for the leverage of a ship's fire control by a factor of 10. Having them would allow for the development of FTL com in their recon drones to feed into their missiles' attack solutions. No reason why the SLN 2.0 shouldn't develop control missiles a sap.

No pods were used at Hypathia by the RMN forces, I think you mean Beowulf.

A pox upon my fragmented memory! I do indeed.

PeterZ wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
The problem of Solarian R&D and military development is pretty much irrelevant to this thread because it is vastly different than MAlign military development.

The Solarian League, even a reduced SL post-UH, has orders of magnitude more resources -- both physical and intellectual -- than the MAlign and Renaissance Factor combined. They have more of both than The the entire "Haven Sector" combined.

It is certainly a good thing that The League and GA reached a peace treaty at the end of UH.

The MAlign is another story: They are still the "Invisible Enemy" that nothing solid is known about, they are definitely hostile to the GA, SL, and Anderman Empire (as they have committed acts of war against all three.)

Sigs doesn't have the right solution in his reliance on SD(P)s, but he does have a lot of good points about preparing for an enemy with unknown capabilities; The GA knows about the Streak and Spider drives, the assassin nano-tech, the Mesa/Manpower connections, and a few other fragile threads, but they don't know what else the MAlign might have or be working on.

Sigs is also correct that the MAlign is the only real threat that the GA has to counter by maintaining its tech edge.

The Solarian League is going to quickly match GA tech and should provide a continuing stimulus to GA R&D that an "Invisible Enemy" can't provide without exposing itself.

Militarily, I believe kzt has it right. Once the spider drive becomes dectectable and targetable, the rest is a matter distance, time, velocity and numbers. The equations will become pretty obvious to all concerned. An Apollo SDP that can see a spider at a great enough distance will eat it for lunch.

The nano tech s another matter. I do believe that's when the Princess of Beowulf comes into her own in the stories. Allison is one of the preminent geneticists in the galaxy. Nano-tech might not be genetics based, but the Mesan nano-tech is. That means it is something Ally can get her splendid mind around quite comfortably. Between she and her mother, they can get the answers readily enough.

The Princesses of Beowulf can do what Beowulfers do best! They can research biosciences to solve the MAligns nanotech advantage. One suspects one of the three Alexander-Harrington kids will chip in to that side of the family business.

I feel they'll likely come up with an effective counter to this similar to the anti interrogation protocols the military members receive.

PeterZ wrote:Militarily, I believe kzt has it right. Once the spider drive becomes dectectable and targetable, the rest is a matter distance, time, velocity and numbers. The equations will become pretty obvious to all concerned. An Apollo SDP that can see a spider at a great enough distance will eat it for lunch.

Once any MDM equipped ship -- including Rolands with MK-16Gs -- can detect a spider drive at any sort of range, it can eat the spider drive for lunch. There might be a problem with a Lenny Det's (implied) armoring, but holding the range open should be trivial against a max acceleration of ~~100 Gs.

Sigs wrote:

n7axw wrote:My comment had more to do with R&D. I did not intend to imply that R&D would never equalize. I merely intended to state the if Gram is continued at Bolthole in a pressurized way, the GA can slow the rate of closure and remain ahead of its competitors for a long time. An established and experienced R&D organization has a running start over one just getting its feet on the ground.

Don

-

On the other hand people who are facing the wrong end of a technological imbalance are also going to be quite motivated. And it would be easier to figure out how to do something once you know it can be done and that weapon system gets dispersed far and wide, that would allow different organization to get their hands on tidbits that help their progress.

There are serious limits to this. Knowing that is can be done does shorten the time needed for actually doing it.

But by how much? Gram has been doing its thing for 80 years knowing that the fate of the Star Kingdom was at stake. Are the other guys going to be able to duplicate what they know about in 5 years? 10 years? I am going to make a WAG and suggest 20 years. I think my guess is very generous.

But in the meantime, Gram goes on. There are still lots of stuff that as of the Yawatta Strike that was still on the drawing boards as yet needing to be produced. And they are still working merrily away at Bolthole on both basic and applied research that as Manticore's industrial base is restored and Haven's is upgraded, you could see a flood of this stuff finding its way into the navy that no one has to this point seen.

That doesn't mean that Manticore will remain ahead forever. Not at all. The other guys will eventually come up with wrinkles of their own as the streak and the spider rather vividly illustrate. But what it does mean is that the rate of closure between the GA and its opposition will be slowed and the tech gap will be around for a while, unless, of course, Manticore decides to sit on its laurels.... something I don't see happening for a long time.

Don

-