SPOILER end of the MA

n7axw wrote:
I am presuming that even though Simoes was not in on the specifics of how the spider was developed, that he can in a general way describe how it works. I am wondering if Hemphill's kids can take that description and work through the math and develop a prototype spider of their own. If they could figure out how to build one, it would seem to me to be a giant step to figuring out how to detect the thing which would go a long way toward overcoming the MA's basic advantage.

How much did Oppenheimer know about the detailed internals of radar, jet engines or the B36?

Simone’s has NEVER seen the actual hardware of a streak 2 drive. He knows virtually nothing about the engineering challenges and solution. He probably doesn’t know as much as we know about the spider.

The MA compartmentalises like mad.

PeterZ wrote:They have a few years.

They may assume they have a few years but they cannot rely on that. They have no hard evidence either way and as a result they have to honour the threat that the MA has a fleet in active service, near completion or under construction.

This assumes they can devise a detection system. Without a detection system, the MAlign can roll up the GA fleet as soon as they build enough Lenny's and the GA can't do squat no matter how many SDPs they have deployed. With a detection system, their current SDPs can swamp the defenses of at least an equal number of enemy SDPs.

You cannot wait for the method to discover the enemy to be build in order to build up your forces. If Haven can build a large shipyard from scratch in secret over 39 years then I would assume the MA can do much better with a system no-one knows exists while having hundreds of years of undisturbed preparation time.

The semi-complete SDPs are Havenite, not SEM. Those ships will have Apollo but will be Havenite construction in all other systems. They will be personnel hogs. Use more people to man the beasts and the assign them to cruisers' tasks? Very inefficient use of personnel.

An SD(P), even a Havennite SD(P) can do the job of a cruiser if the need arises, the reverse is not true when both sides are within shouting distance of technological parity. And just because you have SD(P)'s does not in any way mean you cant build CA's and CL's for the duties that require them.

Better retool and build RMN spec light units with the attendant automation to better use the limited personnel and expanded responsibilities.

And how many cruisers do they need? And what will they do with those cruisers? Is the SEM to become the new Frontier Security? The League is still around and the SLN is still the largest navy in existence, their ships are good enough to deter pirates and anything that the SLN can't deal with I would rather have SD(P)'s to send to deal with it.

ywing14 wrote:


And yet again you're still 100% wrong. If you called in a bomb threat and I responded by posting 1000 Guards around the building would that prevent you from carrying out a bombing of the building? Not necessarily.

You are 100% right... but in this case the bomb threat is called and you send the specialists in this case you have 50 of them. You send 5 to find the bomb if it exists and defuse it, and you leave the rest for another bomb threat if it arrives. Now for a city with potentially 100 targets that is manageable, for a city with potentially 10,000 targets not so much. When I call in 20 bomb threats you have to honour all of them but you will be stretched thin, if I call 100 threats you lose.


Same applies for SD(P)'s, you have 150 of them to respond to threats with as well as keep them in reserve incase you find the enemy base of operations. If you have to create 2-4 Nodal forces in Talbott like Haven had to in response to 8th Fleet you might be ok but you have stripped the cupboard of deployable assets. Now if you have to maintain 2-4 Nodal forces in Talbot, 4-8 in Silesia and Home Fleet and defences in Trevors Star, Basilik as well as maintain your portion of defences in Bolthole and commitments to other allies you are pretty much screwed. Having 150 SD(P)'s to defend up to 5 targets is manageable when you are forced to defend 15 or more targets simultaneously you are forced to choose.

The GA has been investigating the MA attacks and they all point to the fact that the MA clearly has a small fleet.

Assuming that the MA thinks and behaves like the GA. The only evidence that the GA has for the MA having a small fleet is that they have forced the League in confrontation with the SEM rather than coming out and confronting both of them in the open. They may have political reasons for doing that, they may have military considerations for that or they may have reasons the GA cannot even imagine for that. An assumption like that means that the GA will have to assume that the MA does not have shipyards to build more ships and find the people to crew those ships. The GA might be right that the MAN is small, but how long does it take them to build a SD sized warship? How capable are they? How many of them do they have and how many can they build simultaneously? If the MA has 50 SD(P)'s of their own and can build 150 SD(P)'s a year would the GA be right to assume that the MA is a non threat militarily?

All of the characters including Henke and Honor make this point in the books. The MA as to this point excelled at asymmetrical warfare yet you continue to want to respond by building conventional warships. I don't understand why you think SD(P)s are going to make a difference?

Because eventually it has to come up to open warfare. If the MA wanted to simply murder billions or trillions of people they can do it with small number of ships. But if their plan involves conquering the galaxy in one form or another they have to come out in the open.


They have perfected asymmetrical warfare as you pointed out in order to not have their existence exposed, now that they are it might change.

And it would be fairly easy to divide up fleets at the moment. You keep a large fleet in Spindle and a large fleet in Manticore. That's pretty much it. It's unlikely the quadrant could even handle a significant number. There you go. You don't need hundreds more.

And I attack Silesia... then what? You have to take ships from one of the two systems in order to form a third nodal force. Then Haven asks why they are the only once providing security for Bolthole so that takes a 4th fleet. Hypatia becomes an important system for the GA rebuilding effort with it's infrastructure and industry so that requires some SD(P)'s. Throw in a couple of more core systems and your commitments just became more numerous then your 150 SD(P)'s can handle.

You're right they don't know, but in the last 3-4 years they found out a lot more than the previous 600. Most of the MA doesn't even know what the plan is. The citizens of Darius surely don't.

They found out more... true but that is relative. If I know absolutely nothing about you and I find out your hight or age or skin colour I know infinitely more then I did before but in the grand scheme of things it means nothing because it is useless information.

The GA knows the MA exists and they have some advanced technology... they don't know how many bases the MA has. They don't know how many ship yards they have and how big/capable they are. They don't know the end goal of the MA. Logic and outlook are relative, what is logical to you might not seem so logical to someone else because of their experiences.

How is protecting their commerce a number 3 or 4 priority? It's commerce is the entire reason it was able to stand up to the Peeps and the SLN.

So protecting your income is more important then protecting your people, territory and industry?
1)Protecting the SEM's territory, industry and population.
2)Protecting the SEM's allies and meeting allied commitments
3)Protecting their commerce.

If you cant do 1 and 2 then number 3 is irrelevant.

Now after a large portion of it's space manufacturing has been destroyed, it has pissed off hundreds of worlds with its seizure of worm junctions, set of a chain of events that will likely turn the protectorates into a giant Silesia, and ran the SEM into 20-30 years of debt; you think it's a good time to ignore protecting its merchant fleet?

I never said not protecting the merchant ships. I said protecting the merchant fleet takes a lower priority then protecting the territorial integrity of your empire, the population and the industry of the empire.

In a prolong society with lifespans in the 200-300 years somehow I doubt 20-30 year debt would be earth shattering.

The GA has told the SLN it has to stand down its fleet. I don't see how they'll suddenly now be able to police commerce.

The SLN had to withdraw to member systems not stand down and likelihood of the League remaining united at a reduced size is high. Thus the GA won't have to police thousands of former League member systems. What's more the SLN can be tapped for anti piracy patrols under GA control in order to get them to start taking responsibility and trying to clean up after their own mess.

Furthermore do you think any of the protectorates or even shell systems want to see SLN ships doing anti piracy patrols????

Probably not, but then again if the SLN knows the GA is watching over the SLN they might be amendable...since they would have no means to deal with the pirates all by themselves.

The GA published all of the SLN's secret plans were they used their own vessels as pirate vessels as a pretext to invade sovereign star nations. I'm not advocating the GA become the SLN. I'm advocating they act similar to the way they acted in the confederacy for years prior to the outbreak of war with Have. They ensure Cargo Ships get from Point A to Point B in one piece. By making money they can afford to build all those big beautiful SD(P)s you want.

And in the process they would have to tie down thousands of their own cruisers and destroyers for decades to police an area many times the size of their own nation hundreds of light years from home. Just the logistics of that would drive the SEM into a few hundred years of debt. Imagine having to build and maintain dozens of major bases within the former protectorates and verge systems in order to supply and service the ships doing the commerce protection. Those ships will therefore be out of the RMN order of battle for emergencies close to home.

munroburton wrote:
I already answered that point - if the attackers are powerful enough to break through third-tier fixed defenses, they are powerful enough to smash a squadron or two of SD(P)s.

What about 10 Squadrons? Or 20?

The reason the RMN should be concentrated at Manticore is due to the wormhole - from there, they can quickly reinforce Beowulf, Talbott, Haven, etc.. The SEM doesn't need more than... three? major concentrations. Manticore, Talbott and Silesia. Perhaps retain Eighth Fleet as a "ready reaction force", but in peacetime it'd be effectively part of Home Fleet.

If the RMN doesn't have at least some forward deployed assets the few months it would take the request for help o get to Manticore and the reinforcements to reach the system(s) in question would be too late.

Time and time again we have examples in history of impregnable defences being overcome with far less in terms of firepower than the owners of those defences expected. Having a Nodal force a few days to a couple of weeks away is so much better than having one a few months away. If someone develops a technology that limits the effectiveness of your defences or outright eliminates them having a large number of mobile assets to reinforce the system(s) needing reinforcement might come in handy.

Don't forget, the RMN has lots of BC(P)s. Those are what they should split up into penny packets.

How long does that last? How long before other navies start deploying ships capable of overpowering BC(P)'s? Wouldn't it be nice to have 10-15 SD(P) squadrons in Talbott ready to reinforce any system(s) in need? Or Silesia? Or any one of the GA members and peripheral allies?

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.

Doesn't matter if it is anticipated... if it comes to match the GA's technology it is irrelevant if the GA saw every step of the way ahead of time. The SLN needs to catch up to the GA or at least be within shouting distance of them technologically before they start working on ways to surpass them.

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.)

And the SLN still ends up with SD(P)'s of their own and comparable technology to the GA. Just because someone knows how you get there doesn't mean that they aren't screwed when you do get there. When push comes to shove if the League can fix it's major finding problems and build up it's shipyards then they can outbuild the GA in warships and the GA knowing the path will not matter one little bit.

n7axw wrote:
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.

You have to consider that a lot of the end products from gram were incorporated into most navies like the laser head if I am not mistaken. This to me means that the League starts at a much later technological point because of GRAM. They might not have paid much attention to the RMN and Haven but even they got some if not many of the early technology out of GRAM when it became public knowledge.

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

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As the GA is forced to disperse technology to new allies the technology will eventually find it's way to both the SLN and the MA. It might not be frontline top secret technology but just those tidbits will allow both groups to make great leaps of progress in a relatively short time.

Keep in mind Haven caught up to Manticore repeatedly even though their basic technology is far behind that of Manticore. Both the League and I would hope the MA have the same basic civilian technology as Manticore. If the MA is behind in civilian technology then the League and Manticore then they deserve to lose their title as the galactic bad guy.

Sigs wrote:

munroburton wrote:
I already answered that point - if the attackers are powerful enough to break through third-tier fixed defenses, they are powerful enough to smash a squadron or two of SD(P)s.

What about 10 Squadrons? Or 20?

Added the underline. By "third-tier", I mean essentially every system under Manticoran flag which isn't a capital or doesn't have a terminus. Are you actually proposing 10-20 squadrons of SD(P)s for each of them?

How long does that last? How long before other navies start deploying ships capable of overpowering BC(P)'s? Wouldn't it be nice to have 10-15 SD(P) squadrons in Talbott ready to reinforce any system(s) in need? Or Silesia? Or any one of the GA members and peripheral allies?

You clearly misunderstood me somewhere. I did not say the RMN shouldn't maintain a powerful nodal force at Talbott - in fact, I specifically listed it as the highest priority after Manticore(including the Junction and connected systems). A concentration somewhere in Silesia was third.

I just do not believe they can defend every system with enough strength to deter or defeat any possible attack at all times.

There is really a quite a bit to what Sigs says. But what I am having trouble getting wrapped around is how ambigious his sense of limits seems. IIRC, his figure on the number of SD(s) is about 800. Seems like a pretty healthy chunk of firepower to me. Why is that figure inadequate? He suggests 1200 instead. Why does that figure look more comfortable? Maybe it should be 2400. What is it we are trying to accomplish or what is the mission?

If what we are talking about is system defense, are oodles and oodles of SD(p)s even the best way of going about it? A squadron of Invictus class podnaughts would be 8 ships. IIRC, they carry 750 pods apiece using the latest flat pack pods. That would be 6000 pods before they are shot dry. Maybe you could accomplish the same thing with freighters and well defended keyhole 2s. And you could use the savings to add more pods. Add into the mix huge numbers of ghostrider drones and enough Katanas to provide some missile defense.

And given the current situation, as long as the spiders are undetectable, what SD(s) really are is very expensive targets rather than warships. Solving that is really the most important priority at the moment.

Don

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Sigs wrote:

PeterZ wrote:They have a few years.

They may assume they have a few years but they cannot rely on that. They have no hard evidence either way and as a result they have to honour the threat that the MA has a fleet in active service, near completion or under construction.

This assumes they can devise a detection system. Without a detection system, the MAlign can roll up the GA fleet as soon as they build enough Lenny's and the GA can't do squat no matter how many SDPs they have deployed. With a detection system, their current SDPs can swamp the defenses of at least an equal number of enemy SDPs.

You cannot wait for the method to discover the enemy to be build in order to build up your forces. If Haven can build a large shipyard from scratch in secret over 39 years then I would assume the MA can do much better with a system no-one knows exists while having hundreds of years of undisturbed preparation time.

The semi-complete SDPs are Havenite, not SEM. Those ships will have Apollo but will be Havenite construction in all other systems. They will be personnel hogs. Use more people to man the beasts and the assign them to cruisers' tasks? Very inefficient use of personnel.

An SD(P), even a Havennite SD(P) can do the job of a cruiser if the need arises, the reverse is not true when both sides are within shouting distance of technological parity. And just because you have SD(P)'s does not in any way mean you cant build CA's and CL's for the duties that require them.

Better retool and build RMN spec light units with the attendant automation to better use the limited personnel and expanded responsibilities.

And how many cruisers do they need? And what will they do with those cruisers? Is the SEM to become the new Frontier Security? The League is still around and the SLN is still the largest navy in existence, their ships are good enough to deter pirates and anything that the SLN can't deal with I would rather have SD(P)'s to send to deal with it.

They have budget and personnel limits. That's why they want to shift people from SDPs to Cruisers. Building enough SDPs to deploy anywhere a cruiser is required is a waste. Their current deployed Apollo SDPs can take out thousands of non-Apollo pod layers. All they need to do is see them. Building 1,000 more Apollo capable ships means they can destroy 10,000's non Apollo podnoughts. What chance is there that the MAlign can build 10,000 SDPs before the GA discovers how to detect the spider? None!

If the MAlign develops FTL fire control and deploys it before the GA can detect spider drives, it's all over no matter how many Apollo SDPs the GA deploys. Building SDPs fall a distant third behind R&Ding a spider detection system and deploying enough hulls to cover their new found expanded territory. Oh, and man those hulls while expanding every other part of their economy at the same time to pay for those ships and the war debt.

n7axw wrote: What is it we are trying to accomplish or what is the mission?

If what we are talking about is system defense, are oodles and oodles of SD(p)s even the best way of going about it? A squadron of Invictus class podnaughts would be 8 ships. IIRC, they carry 750 pods apiece using the latest flat pack pods.
SNIP

And given the current situation, as long as the spiders are undetectable, what SD(s) really are is very expensive targets rather than warships. Solving that is really the most important priority at the moment.

Don

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Nit: 798 is the number of flat-packs the original Medusa or Harrington carries, the Invictus is listed for 1074 pods.

And your point about the mission is dead on. People are just arguing about what the mission is, and what will best serve to get it done.


You have to decide what you need to do, before you decide what to build. And while we don't have much on Sarnow's 9th Fleet, we do know he has the largest part of 175 Avalons, and was going to get more of the new ships (prior to Monica, anyway.) In any case, not one of the systems there has an economy worth attacking in the first place--although they are closer to it than Talbott.

At the moment, a Manti Cruiser with the Mk-16G can kill a capital ship. A light cruiser with the Mk-36 can take down anything without the later-generation Cataphract (which cannot be fired from internal tubes), so anything smaller than the BC is going to have a Bad Day. So, until something comes along and starts killing your cruisers, you do not have any need for more active commission capital ships. Build some for a reserve and start combing your databases for indications of the Malign. And get the merchants back to collecting and reporting information for those databases.

I expect the building emphasis in the immediate future to be a combination of show-the-flag and escort duty (and recon). For relatively close systems, Wolfhounds or a replacement; for longer trips, the Avalon will do. Use a Saganami or Nike or Agamemnon for riskier jobs. System defense will be pod-based, but won't need SD(P)s.

Even the RMN may decide to back off on the automation some--the biggest problem they had (aside from not always having Marines) was the lack of manpower for detachments, and for damage control after combat. They will be able to make some changes, given their population boost; and Haven probably doesn't have enough trained specialists for such automated ships yet. After all, with their compensator advantages, building a bit bigger for additional crew space and life support wouldn't cost much more.

YMMV, though.

Rob