SPOILER end of the MA

Agreed Peter, I'm interested in how advanced Rembrant's ship yards are because it appeared he updated at least one of his vessel's weapons to SEM standards and I would think he did that in his own yard since I doubt the SEM had yard space for a freighter before the yawata strike and certainly doesn't have the space now.

ywing14 wrote:
You're talking about LACs I'm talking about DD and CLs. I'm just saying that it doesn't make sense to make anything in the DD to CL size that isn't hyper capable.

Well the first thing we need to know if we are going to argue either way is how much space the hyper generator and associated equipment takes. Would a Frigate sized ship have capabilities better then an SLN DD?

Then we need to figure out what the system needs for defence based on local criteria, if its a lightly industrialized system with 99.9% of it's industry inside the hyper barrier and/or near the populated planet then they don't need hyper capable ships. If they have one or two industrial platforms then it is more then manageable for them to maintain a detachment of LAC's in the vicinity of each industrial platform. If on the other hand they have multiple industrial platforms away from cover then they would need a different ship disposition. We are talking about SDF's whose main problem in the immediate future would be to keep pirates at bay and we are talking about systems which may not be all that affluent so they will likely not be attracting the strongest pirates either.

Giving system navies hyper capable ships only to see those ships becoming pirates would be self defeating besides it also comes back to a point I made previously, with potentially 1,000 or more verge systems you will multiple policies, to some it might make sense to have a dozen frigates that are non hyper capable because that is what they can afford and/or need to others FF's and LAC's would be seen as wasteful or not important. When you factor in the core and shell worlds that gain independence and come with deeper wallets the options expand dramatically. You can have one system with dozens of BB's while another with an equivalent tonnage of SD's, or you can have some that rely exclusively on Forts.

The GA should focus on bringing all to a certain level of training and professionalism and providing the ships those systems will need for their defence

I didn't say the GA would hand ships away. I said the Verge systems would make/purchase their own. I'm sure some of them would be capable of doing it. Lots of Verge systems have infrastructure it was just owned, operated, and used by the Transtellars who controlled their planet. With a lot of Verge systems nationalizing this stuff I think it's difficult to argue what these systems can and can't do.

Not as hard considering most of those systems do not have anything approaching a navy and the GA is the one offering the training cadre. Some verge system might decide to purchase a BB but if they have exactly 1,000 people with abilities to work on a ship and non of them have worked on anything larger then a 100,000 non hyper capable freighter then that nation has a problem.

The GA should not supply systems with ships that they obviously don't need, if a system decides to throw 60% of their GDP for the next 10 years just to buy an SD(P) when they don't have a pot to piss in the GA should not be encouraging that let alone supplying someone the ability to stifle progress in their nation for the sake of a bigger ship. If a verge nation has a navy with hyper capable ships and they need upgrading then great, upgrade them but if a system doesn't have a navy don't start off by giving them the biggest hammer they can handle which incidentally is also the hammer that will cause you the most headaches in the long term.

I'm not sure what you're saying in your last statement. I am not saying these verge systems need Fleets. I'm talking about a couple DD/CLs and probably a handful to a dozen LACs. That seems to be the standard in some of these areas.

If a verge system has say a navy of 5 DD's and 3 CL's then upgrade them if they need it, but if a system has a navy made up of a couple of 250 yearly LAC's then upgrading them immediately to DD' and CL's might not be in the best interest of the GA.

ywing14 wrote:
It took 4 years for the RoH to develop and field a significant number of SD(P)s with which to attack SEM. And that was mostly possible because the SEM was building down and didn't complete a significant number of SD(P)s. 4 years is a long time. The Core systems will be starting at a much higher tech level than RoH. The issues is their tech isn't optimized for war where the RoH is. If the Core puts there mind to it they could certainly do it.

And encouraging a large number of core worlds to build the capabilities to manufacture their own ships of the wall plus develop their own R and D is not good for the GA's long term security.

I think you're ignoring several things were already know. 1) There are a plethora of SDFs out there which indicates a military building capacity.

There is military building capacity and then there is MILITARY BUILDING CAPACITY. Having the ability to maintain a fleet of a handful of LAC's and a handful of DD/CLs doesn't mean you have the ability to build or operate SD's immediately and without significant investment in resources and industry. I think the GA should encourage those SDF's to purchase GA ships rather than encourage them to make significant investments in their own R and D and construction infrastructure. If the GA is selling SD's they may as well sell any they captured from the SLN and raid the reserve for more...they may be as useful as RMN SD's in the long run.

2) That foreign nations want to be dependent on other countries for their military hardware.

That is balanced between not wanting to be dependant and not wanting to invest a significant amount of money and resources to develop your domestic market. If someone offers your equipment that is good enough and promises regular upgrades then the nation might swallow it's collective pride and become militarily dependant and save itself a lot of money in the process, if on the other hand they are offered equipment that is already demonstrably obsolete they may bite the bullet and upgrade.

3) That planets aren't willing to invest in their own infrastructure to build ships of they don't already have the means.

That may be true but if I am giving you the option to buy SDs when everyone now knows there is no future with SD's and refusing to sell SD(P)'s might force them to take the plunge.

4) We've already seen what happens when other groups provide tech transfers to other groups. Like when the SL provided tech to the Peeps which allowed them to close the tech gap with SKM. That's essentially what you are advocating.

If you were the president/king/whatever of a newly independent nation and you wanted to buy a squadron of SD(P)'s for your heavily industrialized nation and the GA approached you with an offer to sell you SD's would you buy them? Knowing full well that they may have some life for the next 5 to 6 years but even then their life span is short basically so short that by the time they get delivered someone would have SD(P)'s in the pipeline already and ready to sell them.

What would likely end up happening is planets buying 1 or 2 ships, reverse engineering them, and then cutting the GA out. Why give up the advantage you already have.

Reverse engineering what? What is the huge secret to the SD(P)'s? How long do you think it will take those nations to build their own? You are basically giving them an SLN SD but in the configuration of an SD(P) with the ability to upgrade later on. You are not giving them a new technology... they can do what SD(P)'s do with freighters... how long would it take them to figure out that you can hollow out the core and put the pods INSIDE the ship? There is probably literature in the SKM, RoH and the AE that gives you the basics on an SD(P) I don't think it is that big of a secret. Given enough time and money the SLN could have come up with their own SD(P)'s within a couple of years, granted they would be only slightly better then their SD's but they would still have those SD(P)'s.

Additionally, what makes you think you can trust any of those systems you'd sell ships to not to use them to conquer other systems. In you previous response to one of my posts you argued they shouldn't sell DD/CLs to the Verge because they could be used as pirates but now you're cool with selling them to the Core/Shell because??

Because with core/shell worlds you have no choice, you give them arms or they will find another way but they are also where most of the money from trade will come through. It would benefit the GA to give those newly independent systems the ability to defend themselves so that the Legue can't just come back 20 years down the road and retake them by force.

I mean if there were any group I'd trust less than the Verge it would be the Core given the war they just fought with the GA.

How many of those core systems fought against the GA? I would say it was the mandarins who fought the war and the core/shell worlds were in for the ride as they hd little choice in the matter.

Not to mention if they did sell them you know who'd end up buying some? The RF which would be down right awful for the GA.

I am not talking about an RMN state of the art warship, I am talking about a scientist class SD with a hollow core... thats it. What would the RF learn from reverse engineering a ship like that that they can't learn from a visit to the library and a brief description of what and SD(P) is. The Schematics of the RMN's SD(P)'s might be sealed as secret but you can find quite a few people who are in the know when it comes to the concept.

Of course other places may develop new wrinkles and systems. But that's the nature of the beast. People are doing the now. The GA, the MAlign, the more competition the better if you ask me.

The fewer systems outside the GA that have the capabilities to build SD(P)'s of their own the better. The GA can build SD(P)'s by the hundreds and arm the rest of the galaxy and if war comes they have a highly efficient ship building industry to arm themselves while the rest of the galaxy doesn't or the GA builds only what it needs and others feel the gap for the former League worlds and the GA loses out.

runsforcelery wrote:
No, you are missing the point that the majority of industry, even in Verge systems, is located in space and that means infrastructure in their asteroid belt.

So then most of their industry would be outside the hyper limit?

Unless you have only a single planet to defend, with nothing of value located elsewhere in the system, you need hyper-capable ships. And saying that you are defending only against pirates is not an optimal situation is this means you are planning on defending against only singletons, you need hyper capability.

How common would squadron level attack be? More to the point how likely would even a squadron level pirate be to attack a system with 30-40 LAC's and a number of Frigates?

ywing14 wrote:
I think system security would be number one on every planets' mind. If you're worried about territorial integrity I personally don't think LACs are the way to go. I'm not sure where they're going to get missile pods. If it is still a secret I'd think the GA would want to keep fission piles on LACs a secret if possible.

You might be worried about territorial integrity and national defence but the options would be significantly different for Tanzania when compared to Germany, France or the UK. Tanzania might want destroyers, subs and carriers but maybe all they can afford is patrol boats and wanting and needing are different and should be weight accordingly.

Sigs wrote:

ywing14 wrote:
You're talking about LACs I'm talking about DD and CLs. I'm just saying that it doesn't make sense to make anything in the DD to CL size that isn't hyper capable.

Well the first thing we need to know if we are going to argue either way is how much space the hyper generator and associated equipment takes. Would a Frigate sized ship have capabilities better then an SLN DD?

Then we need to figure out what the system needs for defence based on local criteria, if its a lightly industrialized system with 99.9% of it's industry inside the hyper barrier and/or near the populated planet then they don't need hyper capable ships. If they have one or two industrial platforms then it is more then manageable for them to maintain a detachment of LAC's in the vicinity of each industrial platform. If on the other hand they have multiple industrial platforms away from cover then they would need a different ship disposition. We are talking about SDF's whose main problem in the immediate future would be to keep pirates at bay and we are talking about systems which may not be all that affluent so they will likely not be attracting the strongest pirates either.

Giving system navies hyper capable ships only to see those ships becoming pirates would be self defeating besides it also comes back to a point I made previously, with potentially 1,000 or more verge systems you will multiple policies, to some it might make sense to have a dozen frigates that are non hyper capable because that is what they can afford and/or need to others FF's and LAC's would be seen as wasteful or not important. When you factor in the core and shell worlds that gain independence and come with deeper wallets the options expand dramatically. You can have one system with dozens of BB's while another with an equivalent tonnage of SD's, or you can have some that rely exclusively on Forts.

The GA should focus on bringing all to a certain level of training and professionalism and providing the ships those systems will need for their defence

I didn't say the GA would hand ships away. I said the Verge systems would make/purchase their own. I'm sure some of them would be capable of doing it. Lots of Verge systems have infrastructure it was just owned, operated, and used by the Transtellars who controlled their planet. With a lot of Verge systems nationalizing this stuff I think it's difficult to argue what these systems can and can't do.

Not as hard considering most of those systems do not have anything approaching a navy and the GA is the one offering the training cadre. Some verge system might decide to purchase a BB but if they have exactly 1,000 people with abilities to work on a ship and non of them have worked on anything larger then a 100,000 non hyper capable freighter then that nation has a problem.

The GA should not supply systems with ships that they obviously don't need, if a system decides to throw 60% of their GDP for the next 10 years just to buy an SD(P) when they don't have a pot to piss in the GA should not be encouraging that let alone supplying someone the ability to stifle progress in their nation for the sake of a bigger ship. If a verge nation has a navy with hyper capable ships and they need upgrading then great, upgrade them but if a system doesn't have a navy don't start off by giving them the biggest hammer they can handle which incidentally is also the hammer that will cause you the most headaches in the long term.

I'm not sure what you're saying in your last statement. I am not saying these verge systems need Fleets. I'm talking about a couple DD/CLs and probably a handful to a dozen LACs. That seems to be the standard in some of these areas.

If a verge system has say a navy of 5 DD's and 3 CL's then upgrade them if they need it, but if a system has a navy made up of a couple of 250 yearly LAC's then upgrading them immediately to DD' and CL's might not be in the best interest of the GA.

The way I read your first point it basically ignores what RFC stated about Verge Infrastructure. The systems you're talking about would be the exception not the rule. To me designing and building an export non hyper capable frigate which will likely not be relevant to the majority of the Verge's situation doesn't make sense from an economic standpoint.

You're 100% correct that many of these systems don't have navies but then again some of them probably did before the FF moved in. But mostly, Verge, Shell, and Core worlds will have to do what most countries have done in this world and that's build a navy, create a tradition, and learn through trial and error. Given what's happened to Beowulf, Manticore, and RoH it think it's unlikely they could come up with the personnel to provide training cadres to very many worlds.

Finally, the GA should not dictate to worlds it's not at war with what it can or can's spend its money on. If the GA felt that their vessels would be used for nefarious purposes they should just chose not to sell them to that buyer. Though I'm not sure how this addresses my point as I previously stated the GA shouldn't sell SD(P)s to anyone. Not to mention what I stated was we don't know whether or not any of the Verge systems will be able to build their own vessels or not. As I've stated repeatedly I am talking about DDs and CLs. Given that many of these worlds have spent that last 100-200 years under the domination of the Frontier Security and the Transtellars, I can see why many of them might be interested in spending a high percentage of their GDP on defense. I don't necessarily think they'd be wrong to do so. Do I foresee the GA doing what Honor suggested and forming economic and military alliances with some worlds sure. But mostly I think the GA should do it's best to let these worlds stand on there own and make their own decisions for the first time in centuries. The GA does not need to become Frontier Security.

Sigs wrote:

ywing14 wrote:
It took 4 years for the RoH to develop and field a significant number of SD(P)s with which to attack SEM. And that was mostly possible because the SEM was building down and didn't complete a significant number of SD(P)s. 4 years is a long time. The Core systems will be starting at a much higher tech level than RoH. The issues is their tech isn't optimized for war where the RoH is. If the Core puts there mind to it they could certainly do it.

And encouraging a large number of core worlds to build the capabilities to manufacture their own ships of the wall plus develop their own R and D is not good for the GA's long term security.

I think you're ignoring several things were already know. 1) There are a plethora of SDFs out there which indicates a military building capacity.

There is military building capacity and then there is MILITARY BUILDING CAPACITY. Having the ability to maintain a fleet of a handful of LAC's and a handful of DD/CLs doesn't mean you have the ability to build or operate SD's immediately and without significant investment in resources and industry. I think the GA should encourage those SDF's to purchase GA ships rather than encourage them to make significant investments in their own R and D and construction infrastructure. If the GA is selling SD's they may as well sell any they captured from the SLN and raid the reserve for more...they may be as useful as RMN SD's in the long run.

2) That foreign nations want to be dependent on other countries for their military hardware.

That is balanced between not wanting to be dependant and not wanting to invest a significant amount of money and resources to develop your domestic market. If someone offers your equipment that is good enough and promises regular upgrades then the nation might swallow it's collective pride and become militarily dependant and save itself a lot of money in the process, if on the other hand they are offered equipment that is already demonstrably obsolete they may bite the bullet and upgrade.

3) That planets aren't willing to invest in their own infrastructure to build ships of they don't already have the means.

That may be true but if I am giving you the option to buy SDs when everyone now knows there is no future with SD's and refusing to sell SD(P)'s might force them to take the plunge.

4) We've already seen what happens when other groups provide tech transfers to other groups. Like when the SL provided tech to the Peeps which allowed them to close the tech gap with SKM. That's essentially what you are advocating.

If you were the president/king/whatever of a newly independent nation and you wanted to buy a squadron of SD(P)'s for your heavily industrialized nation and the GA approached you with an offer to sell you SD's would you buy them? Knowing full well that they may have some life for the next 5 to 6 years but even then their life span is short basically so short that by the time they get delivered someone would have SD(P)'s in the pipeline already and ready to sell them.

What would likely end up happening is planets buying 1 or 2 ships, reverse engineering them, and then cutting the GA out. Why give up the advantage you already have.

Reverse engineering what? What is the huge secret to the SD(P)'s? How long do you think it will take those nations to build their own? You are basically giving them an SLN SD but in the configuration of an SD(P) with the ability to upgrade later on. You are not giving them a new technology... they can do what SD(P)'s do with freighters... how long would it take them to figure out that you can hollow out the core and put the pods INSIDE the ship? There is probably literature in the SKM, RoH and the AE that gives you the basics on an SD(P) I don't think it is that big of a secret. Given enough time and money the SLN could have come up with their own SD(P)'s within a couple of years, granted they would be only slightly better then their SD's but they would still have those SD(P)'s.

Additionally, what makes you think you can trust any of those systems you'd sell ships to not to use them to conquer other systems. In you previous response to one of my posts you argued they shouldn't sell DD/CLs to the Verge because they could be used as pirates but now you're cool with selling them to the Core/Shell because??

Because with core/shell worlds you have no choice, you give them arms or they will find another way but they are also where most of the money from trade will come through. It would benefit the GA to give those newly independent systems the ability to defend themselves so that the Legue can't just come back 20 years down the road and retake them by force.

I mean if there were any group I'd trust less than the Verge it would be the Core given the war they just fought with the GA.

How many of those core systems fought against the GA? I would say it was the mandarins who fought the war and the core/shell worlds were in for the ride as they hd little choice in the matter.

Not to mention if they did sell them you know who'd end up buying some? The RF which would be down right awful for the GA.

I am not talking about an RMN state of the art warship, I am talking about a scientist class SD with a hollow core... thats it. What would the RF learn from reverse engineering a ship like that that they can't learn from a visit to the library and a brief description of what and SD(P) is. The Schematics of the RMN's SD(P)'s might be sealed as secret but you can find quite a few people who are in the know when it comes to the concept.

Of course other places may develop new wrinkles and systems. But that's the nature of the beast. People are doing the now. The GA, the MAlign, the more competition the better if you ask me.

The fewer systems outside the GA that have the capabilities to build SD(P)'s of their own the better. The GA can build SD(P)'s by the hundreds and arm the rest of the galaxy and if war comes they have a highly efficient ship building industry to arm themselves while the rest of the galaxy doesn't or the GA builds only what it needs and others feel the gap for the former League worlds and the GA loses out.

I am not even sure where to start. There are ways to mitigate those things like through economic alliances, preferred junction status, and a whole host of other advantages that doesn't including giving away your military technology. Not selling military vessels is not going to be the make or break it point. If the GA were smart it would be coming up with a may to mitigate the damage done when it pulled all of its merchant vessels from the SL.

I don't understand your focus on LACs. It is mentioned in the books that multiple Core worlds maintain significant SDFs similar to Beowulf in size. That means multiple SDs. That means multiple planets have already and can now build SDs. That's MILITARY CAPACITY right there. Second, where is the GA going to get the yard space to build these export SD(P)s. BEOWULF 43 Million dead and most of its orbital habitats destroyed. Manticore in the process of rebuilding its' entire ship building capacity. That leaves the RoH which can't even manufacture Manticore tech at the moment. I don't think they care about building ships or giving ships to anyone else at the moment. I think they care about being able to build their own. Also the entire SL knows the GA destroyed SL SDs with CAs easily... would be kind of patronizing to give them back for the Core to use. You see to forget that the GA destroyed most of the reserve so there really isn't anything to give from there. Most of the Core are at the same basic level of technology as the GA. It's not as expensive as you think. Some of the worlds have been around for 1000 years and have the Space infrastructure to go with it. It wouldn't be that hard for them to move to construct their own vessels.

Addressing point 2; So the citizens of these planets would probably prefer their planetary government to spend 100s of billions of dollars to purchase second rate GA equipment as opposed to spending that same money at home to build that capacity in there own system along with all the benefits that go along with it.

I'm not really sure what you're saying in 3 and 4... but yeah I am sure some of them might purchase SDs if they had to because they can still beat any SLN unit out there and likely any vessel in any of the other SDFs.

Selling weapons to the Core because otherwise they'll just get the weapons some where else seems like an awful reason to sell weapons to them, especially SP(D)s. If selling SD(P)s is the only way to keep the Core Worlds from attacking them then they've got a lot of more important problems to deal with.

How many of the Core Worlds of the SL fought against the GA.... Well that seems like a rather redundant question to me. ALL OF THEM! Since it was the SOLARIAN LEAGUE THEY WERE OR ARE ALL MEMBERS OF!!!! The same Solarian League who's navy attacked the GA in multiple locations. They were part of the system and chose to take no action. They allowed people like the current Mandarins to act accordingly and chose not to oppose them. Their lack of control over the Mandarins doesn't absolve them of the Mandarins actions.

What's secret about the SP(D)....we lets see... I don't know....everything.... Sure the SL knows that it's a ship that spits out pods. THAT'S LITERALLY ALL THEY KNOW. They don't know how the stealth works, how the inertial compensator works, the pod deployment system works, how the fire control works, how the ftl comm system works.... I could go on and on. If you can't see the errors in your own post I don't know how else to point them out to you. Knowing that an SD(P) is an SD built around a hollow core is not the same as knowing how to build it. It took the Manties like 16 months to design it and that was helped along by having a pod deployment system created for the Q ships. You make it sound like a child could design an SD(P). Other countries to it to the USA and Russia all the time. Hell China with Russian jet engines and North Korea with some of their SAM tech. Why wouldn't the same thing happen in Honorverse? The RoH did it was the Mantie Tech they got from the Erwhonese.


Your last argument..... Giving SD(P)s out to people just makes it easier to figure out the weaknesses in the SD(P)s. Building hundreds for planets that could one day be your enemies doesn't make any sense. Especially since there is no way possible the GA will be the only people manufacturing SD(P)s. The GA isn't going to make hundreds of SD(P)s for other worlds...That's just ridiculous. I see it in the news now.... Millions of GA Citizens killed by vessels they built themselves.

Sigs wrote:

ywing14 wrote:
I think system security would be number one on every planets' mind. If you're worried about territorial integrity I personally don't think LACs are the way to go. I'm not sure where they're going to get missile pods. If it is still a secret I'd think the GA would want to keep fission piles on LACs a secret if possible.

You might be worried about territorial integrity and national defence but the options would be significantly different for Tanzania when compared to Germany, France or the UK. Tanzania might want destroyers, subs and carriers but maybe all they can afford is patrol boats and wanting and needing are different and should be weight accordingly.

You build or buy what you can afford but that doesn't mean a bunch of LACs are better than a smaller number of hyper capable destroyers.

Whatever the GA build for sale to any system not in the GA should have the secret destruct protocols (à la PRH or Foraker) built in.

You want to turn against us? oooooops!!!!!!

Lets put it this way.

Terekov's first patrol around the Talbot sector.

Of the planets he visited, how many war ships did he encounter?

Nothing worth mentioning.

How many of the planets mentioned having any?
Same.

There's plenty of systems that have nothing but LAC's, and would be happy with better ones.