Post League Eridani

An interesting thought on proliferation. If you get a sample of a piece of tech you can reproduce it. Just erode it one atom at a time.

tlb wrote:Remember that the SLN was equivalent to the RMN or Haven technology at the time of The Short Victorious War and since then have added the Cataphract. So the SLN now is only out classed by a navy with experience in fighting and defending against pod warfare, and obviously the navy with Apollo and FTL communication. So basically there is no upstart in the Verge that can out class the SLN.

The SLN was not equivalent to the RMN at the time of SVW (aka the start of the first war). Manticore already had FTL comms, advanced missile pods, and all of its warships for the last two decades were designed for laserhead-era combat (though they still had a fair number of older ships in service). The tech gap wasn't big enough to be decisive against even Haven's numerical advantage, but it certainly existed and was significant even then. You have to go back to before King Roger's buildup really started to hit its stride before the SLN and RMN are at technological parity.

One of my good friends said it best . . .

"Along comes the MA, there goes the neighborhood."

tlb wrote:Remember that the SLN was equivalent to the RMN or Haven technology at the time of The Short Victorious War and since then have added the Cataphract. So the SLN now is only out classed by a navy with experience in fighting and defending against pod warfare, and obviously the navy with Apollo and FTL communication. So basically there is no upstart in the Verge that can out class the SLN.

drothgery wrote:The SLN was not equivalent to the RMN at the time of SVW (aka the start of the first war). Manticore already had FTL comms, advanced missile pods, and all of its warships for the last two decades were designed for laserhead-era combat (though they still had a fair number of older ships in service). The tech gap wasn't big enough to be decisive against even Haven's numerical advantage, but it certainly existed and was significant even then. You have to go back to before King Roger's buildup really started to hit its stride before the SLN and RMN are at technological parity.

True that the first use of FTL that we see in a mainline book is in HotQ, but it is only for information from the drones; not for missile control. But SVW was not fought with pods, which were first used in action in HAE.

Still it would have been better if I had said that the SL was almost equal in technology to Manticore and ahead of Haven at the beginning of the war, but the SLN did not show the benefits of that due to bureaucratic inertia. I still think that it is true that the SLN fell behind both when the war became pod intensive; because then it became unlikely that the SLN wall would survive to get into energy range. Wasn't the fight near the end of HAE, the last mainly energy weapon battle with Haven?

tlb wrote:True that the first use of FTL that we see in a mainline book is in HotQ, but it is only for information from the drones; not for missile control. But SVW was not fought with pods, which were first used in action in HAE.

Still it would have been better if I had said that the SL was almost equal in technology to Manticore and ahead of Haven at the beginning of the war, but the SLN did not show the benefits of that due to bureaucratic inertia. I still think that it is true that the SLN fell behind both when the war became pod intensive; because then it became unlikely that the SLN wall would survive to get into energy range. Wasn't the fight near the end of HAE, the last mainly energy weapon battle with Haven?

Wrong, we first see the Pod based alpha strike that will become standard doctrine for both sides in SVW. SLN equipment is at a rough parity with RMN at this time. The SLN doctrine is behind the times, but the only new thing that the RMN has at the time of SVW is pods that fire single stage capital ship missiles with the same initial velocity as ship launched missiles. That SLN doctrine results in them having less effective ECM than the RMN, but this is not obvious to anyone untill after the first few battles.

kzt wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote: Weber had yet to be educated by fans such as KZT and a certain NAMELESSFLY about the physics of missiles impacting planets at large fractions of Cee, so he presumed that the nuclear warheads were actually relevant.

That was well before I said anything. I’m not sure I’d ever met David before Honorcon. And to tell you the truth I didn’t pick it up on it the first time I read HotQ. Or in FiE.

I’ll still argue that the HotQ is the best book in the series.

I absolutely agree that HotQ is the best book in the series. The Shadow of Saginami comes in a close second but the short story In The Service of the Sword rivals it. This is not just because of the shower scene which featured not just one but two, naked, wet women! The idea of the young daughter of Steadholder Owens actually watching the hundreds of nuclear explosions from the battle between Honor Harrington's Cruiser and a Battlecruiser twice her mass, comprehending that a foreign born woman is fighting to defend her planet, and resolving to become a naval officer was quintessential Weber.

If I recall correctly, the first Honorverse book I ever perused was Echoes of Honor. The hammering of the square peg of space warfare into the round hole of Napleonic era ships of the line was so blatant that I laughed. Then I noticed some numbers on accellerations, times and velocities. Back then Barnes and Nubile had a large Science Fiction section that was well stocked with classic as well as new science fiction. The inside flap revealed that EoH was part of a series so I perused the earlier books. Fortunately; HotQ was the earliest book that was in stock because I didn't enjoy OBS that much.

tlb wrote:True that the first use of FTL that we see in a mainline book is in HotQ, but it is only for information from the drones; not for missile control. But SVW was not fought with pods, which were first used in action in HAE.

Still it would have been better if I had said that the SL was almost equal in technology to Manticore and ahead of Haven at the beginning of the war, but the SLN did not show the benefits of that due to bureaucratic inertia. I still think that it is true that the SLN fell behind both when the war became pod intensive; because then it became unlikely that the SLN wall would survive to get into energy range. Wasn't the fight near the end of HAE, the last mainly energy weapon battle with Haven?

Castenea wrote:Wrong, we first see the Pod based alpha strike that will become standard doctrine for both sides in SVW. SLN equipment is at a rough parity with RMN at this time. The SLN doctrine is behind the times, but the only new thing that the RMN has at the time of SVW is pods that fire single stage capital ship missiles with the same initial velocity as ship launched missiles. That SLN doctrine results in them having less effective ECM than the RMN, but this is not obvious to anyone untill after the first few battles.

You are right, I was writing based on faulty memory, thinking that the pods were one of the things Honor was telling off Whitehaven about in IEH, but talk was actually about a pod based war ship (for which the Wayfarer class was a test bed) and the new LAC and missiles. In that talk is a mention that Haven is probably using pods also.

So independent observers should have been able to see that the SLN was inferior to the RMN after SVW and then was inferior to Haven after EoH at the latest. By the time of Operation Buttercup that should have been obvious to any observer, so why weren't actions taken to improve the SLN? Obviously not by the SLN hierarchy itself, but forced by the Malign which was expecting that the war it planned would not be just a walkover.

tlb wrote:So independent observers should have been able to see that the SLN was inferior to the RMN after SVW and then was inferior to Haven after EoH at the latest. By the time of Operation Buttercup that should have been obvious to any observer, so why weren't actions taken to improve the SLN? Obviously not by the SLN hierarchy itself, but forced by the Malign which was expecting that the war it planned would not be just a walkover.

I think because it wasn't until Apollo that the qualitative difference was decisive. Sure, Ghost Rider and the SD(P) of Operation Buttercup would have taken out a lot of SLN SDs but the Reserve would have gotten to them in the end. Manticore needed the lethality upgrade of Apollo to reduce the effect combat power of the Reserve to zero.

tlb wrote:So independent observers should have been able to see that the SLN was inferior to the RMN after SVW and then was inferior to Haven after EoH at the latest. By the time of Operation Buttercup that should have been obvious to any observer, so why weren't actions taken to improve the SLN? Obviously not by the SLN hierarchy itself, but forced by the Malign which was expecting that the war it planned would not be just a walkover.

noblehunter wrote:I think because it wasn't until Apollo that the qualitative difference was decisive. Sure, Ghost Rider and the SD(P) of Operation Buttercup would have taken out a lot of SLN SDs but the Reserve would have gotten to them in the end. Manticore needed the lethality upgrade of Apollo to reduce the effect combat power of the Reserve to zero.

There is an interesting post on the SLN in the Pearls of Weber entitled: Status of the Solarian League Navy. There RFC makes the following point about the combat power of the SLN reserve:

I suppose I might also mention here one of the SLN's additional weaknesses (in the face of the actual threat the Haven Sector poses, as opposed to the perceived threat), and that is manning constraints. I can't recall whether this is something I've specifically addressed in comments here on the Bar in the past, but it's not just the physical activation of units from the Reserve which would pose constraints on how quickly Battle Fleet could begin actually deploying ships. They also have to find the personnel to man them, and by definition, these are all the old, manpower-intensive designs. Trust me, if Battle Fleet attempted to man the entire Reserve, or even a major fraction of it, on a genuinely emergency priority basis, it would soon discover that its personnel and manning plans are grossly inadequate to the job of doing so with any sort of rapidity.

noblehunter wrote:

tlb wrote:So independent observers should have been able to see that the SLN was inferior to the RMN after SVW and then was inferior to Haven after EoH at the latest. By the time of Operation Buttercup that should have been obvious to any observer, so why weren't actions taken to improve the SLN? Obviously not by the SLN hierarchy itself, but forced by the Malign which was expecting that the war it planned would not be just a walkover.

I think because it wasn't until Apollo that the qualitative difference was decisive. Sure, Ghost Rider and the SD(P) of Operation Buttercup would have taken out a lot of SLN SDs but the Reserve would have gotten to them in the end. Manticore needed the lethality upgrade of Apollo to reduce the effect combat power of the Reserve to zero.

I believe that The RMN would not have been seen as better than the SLN to outside observers untill after HaE. The clear use of better than SLN tech does not come untill the early ghost rider equipment starts to be deployed (operation Buttercup, or the end of the first Haven war). The SLN would probably have been able to steam roll the RMN eventually up untill the general deployment of Apollo. With the SLN having outdated doctrine and a head in the sand attitude toward any new developments, eventually could be after heads roll in Solarian intelligence due to having to explain the black hole so many of their ships disappeared into. Thus can the SLN get enough ships into action to finish off Manticore before Manticore can replace its losses.

Remember the institutional arrogance of the SLN is such that they are likely to lose the first fleet they send to Manticore any time after SVW due to their severe underestimating of the RMN, the question is how great are the losses going to be to the RMN. At the time of SVW, it is likely the second fleet to arrive would carry the day, by operation buttercup it would likely take 3-4, but how long would it take to assemble the third and fourth fleets.