How will the manties fare when their tech advantage is gone?

An open question.

We know, courtesy of Beowulf, that any moderately advanced economy can now completely copy and produce manty tech even without manty workforce - they all basically died in OB - as soon as you have the blueprints.

We know that the Malign has so successfully penetrated the manties that they literally have enough sleeper agents in place to smuggle nuclear weapons into all sorts of facilities. Presumably they can steal a blueprint.

We know the manties have not penetrated the Malign.

So, anything the manties bring to production is now an owned and producible tech for the malign after factory run ups - which again, Beowulf has demonstrated takes no time at all even from scratch and completely rerouting supply matrixes.

Missiles, components, systems, drones - the Malign has it months after the manties invent it if they just follow the Beowulf model. And they have their own stuff the manties aren’t in position to steal. Only ships have a long enough production time to not immediately be in Malign hands.

So, given the up coming war, how will the manties do against an opponent who actually matches or outclasses them? They’re so used to being on the top end of the tech totem pole, do they even know how to fight when they aren’t smashing the JV team? The original fleet maybe, but year of fighting haven culled most of that fleet. Every up and coming leader and officer has enjoyed tech superiority or supremacy that meant they could fool themselves into thinking they were much better than they actually are...

GloriousRuse wrote:An open question.

We know, courtesy of Beowulf, that any moderately advanced economy can now completely copy and produce manty tech even without manty workforce - they all basically died in OB - as soon as you have the blueprints.

We know that the Malign has so successfully penetrated the manties that they literally have enough sleeper agents in place to smuggle nuclear weapons into all sorts of facilities. Presumably they can steal a blueprint.

We have textual evidence that they can't. There are conversations between the Detweilers about how their agent networks have gone silent in Manticore and later in Haven and how their technical advances are still lagging behind Manticoran ones, especially the revolutionary technologies like the compact fusion bottles. We also haven't seen their missiles use baffles. However, knowing something is possible is half the problem solved.

As for smuggling nuclear bombs, note that the Beowulfan stations were civilian platforms, with civilian level of security. Inexcusably low, but still civilian. One has to assume that military sites are much better guarded. And given that neither Weyland personnel nor Bolthole have been penetrated, we have reason to believe the protection is that much better.

We know the manties have not penetrated the Malign.

So, anything the manties bring to production is now an owned and producible tech for the malign after factory run ups - which again, Beowulf has demonstrated takes no time at all even from scratch and completely rerouting supply matrixes.

Missiles, components, systems, drones - the Malign has it months after the manties invent it if they just follow the Beowulf model. And they have their own stuff the manties aren’t in position to steal. Only ships have a long enough production time to not immediately be in Malign hands.

So, given the up coming war, how will the manties do against an opponent who actually matches or outclasses them? They’re so used to being on the top end of the tech totem pole, do they even know how to fight when they aren’t smashing the JV team? The original fleet maybe, but year of fighting haven culled most of that fleet. Every up and coming leader and officer has enjoyed tech superiority or supremacy that meant they could fool themselves into thinking they were much better than they actually are...

I could accept for the sake of the argument that the MAlign can steal some critical blueprints and discuss a hypothetical scenario where the MAlign deploys MDMs of equivalent power as the GA, Loreleis or other ECM.

But a continuous stealing of technology is not going to happen. It's just not a realistic scenario.

Still, it wasn't that long ago that they were fighting a renewed RHN that, despite being technologically inferior, wasn't that inferior and did deploy quite a few surprises and innovations of their own. The SLN was a walk in the park, but the RHN wasn't. What the GA needs to do for the next few years is to keep war games between the four big components of the GA (RMN, GSN, RHN and IAN) so they don't lose their practice. At the same time, keep the innovation going in Sanctuary and Sphinx.

I think you are suggesting equal missile tech plus the spider drive on the side of Darius. But Manticore and all those allied against Darius will have a numerical advantage. Plus Darius's biggest advantage is also its greatest weakness: the secret location of the planet. What happens if it loses a ship with intact navigation computer? The spider drive ship is only good as a method of keeping the location hidden, but once a missile is fired that advantage is gone. If the fight is within the hyper limit then that ship has poor defense and no chance of escape, since the drive is slower and does not create a barrier.

You mean like if there's a rip in the fabric of the GA; more specifically, if the Leopard's spots return?

Then they're toast if the Havenites immediately go for the jugular. Instead of pussyfooting around gobbling up peripheral systems. If they linger, superior Manty R&D born from a superior education system will prevail.

cthia wrote:You mean like if there's a rip in the fabric of the GA; more specifically, if the Leopard's spots return?

Then they're toast if the Havenites immediately go for the jugular. Instead of pussyfooting around gobbling up peripheral systems. If they linger, superior Manty R&D born from a superior education system will prevail.

It did not sound as though the suggestion was that Haven would attack as the result of tech transfers; rather that Malign would steal all of the GA tech advantages.

Why would the GA break up before the Malign was defeated? In WW2 the Allies stayed together until all the Axis Powers were defeated. Is it because you still think of them as Peeps?

A this point, the RH/SEM stuff is really all personal relationships. They are one election or bomb from losing that.

Remember how the UK rewarded Churchill for leading them to victory over Germany? less than two months later, while WW2 was still ongoing, the voters replaced him with Attlee.

kzt wrote:A this point, the RH/SEM stuff is really all personal relationships. They are one election or bomb from losing that.

Remember how the UK rewarded Churchill for leading them to victory over Germany? less than two months later, while WW2 was still ongoing, the voters replaced him with Attlee.

Yes, certainly true; but the war in Europe was over at that point and the Pacific War was coming to a close.

Also true that if a bomb killed Theisman and Pritchart then there might be problems with not just the Alliance, but also the new government in Haven.

However the knowledge of a shared enemy should help to stabilize the relationship, just as the presence of Hitler stabilized the WW2 alliance.

At the end of UH the Naval development and presumably the Navy itself is completely intertwined, so there are relationships throughout the Naval establishments that exist; not just at the head of government level.

People forget that in early July 1945 the was wasn't over, or even close. There was still major combat on Okinawa, the war wasn't expected to be over until late 1946. Operation Olympic was tentatively planned for November 1945. Operation Coronet was tentatively planned for March 1946.

For Operation Olympic a Commonwealth Corps was assigned. Estimated casualties from Olympic ranged up to half a million Allied dead, official estimates were (from wiki):

Given a troop list of 766,700 men and a 90-day campaign, the US Sixth Army could be expected to suffer between 149,046 casualties (including 28,981 dead and missing) under the "European Experience" (0.42 dead and missing and 2.16 total casualties/1,000 men/day) and 514,072 casualties (including 134,556 dead and missing) under the "Pacific Experience" (1.95 dead and missing and 7.45 total casualties/1,000 men/day).[92] This assessment included neither casualties suffered after the 90-day mark (US planners envisioned switching to the tactical defensive by X+120[93]), nor personnel losses at sea from Japanese air attacks.[94] In order to sustain the campaign on Kyushu, planners estimated a replacement stream of 100,000 men per month would be necessary, a figure achievable even after the partial demobilization following the defeat of Germany.


There are no estimates for Coronet casualties that I'm aware of, though it was expected that up to half of Japan would have starved to death before the landing.

And the UK public still decided that Churchill had to go.

kzt wrote:A this point, the RH/SEM stuff is really all personal relationships. They are one election or bomb from losing that.

Remember how the UK rewarded Churchill for leading them to victory over Germany? less than two months later, while WW2 was still ongoing, the voters replaced him with Attlee.

Indeed, and with Roosevelt gone too, Stalin had the control of the Yalta Conference when he met with Truman and Attlee.

But taking a page from European history, when France and Germany figured they'd stop fighting if they integrated more deeply, by founding the EEC at the Treaty of Rome in 1957, that seems to be exactly the direction Elizabeth and Pritchart were talking about at the final passages of UH. Elizabeth was talking about having mutual citizenship (whatever that means) and deeper economic ties with Haven.

And let's not forget that Pritchart still has two more possible terms at her being president. I don't think there's much doubt she'll be re-elected for the second term, as her popularity right now is high; the third we can't tell, but if "it's the economy, stupid" rule applies in the RoH, those very economic ties with Manticore and the Andermani will probably help her there too. She also has enough supporters to follow her steps -- maybe a Pres. Ninon Bourchier in a decade?

Anyway, the OP wasn't talking about renewed hostilities with Haven, but that the MAlign might steal the blueprints. I posted above why I think that's unlikely, even for a handful of occurrences.

I also posted on how the GA could keep its edge. I think it would be nice if the next mainline book starts a few years down the line (not decades, so no Katherine or Raoul) with an up-and-coming officer of the RTN leading a squadron of allied ships in a war game trying to breach the defences of another ally. Or Abigail Hearns being given command of her first DD or CL and participating in such games, just like OBS started.

kzt wrote:People forget that in early July 1945 the was wasn't over, or even close. There was still major combat on Okinawa, the war wasn't expected to be over until late 1946. Operation Olympic was tentatively planned for November 1945. Operation Coronet was tentatively planned for March 1946.

For Operation Olympic a Commonwealth Corps was assigned. Estimated casualties from Olympic ranged up to half a million Allied dead, official estimates were (from wiki):

Given a troop list of 766,700 men and a 90-day campaign, the US Sixth Army could be expected to suffer between 149,046 casualties (including 28,981 dead and missing) under the "European Experience" (0.42 dead and missing and 2.16 total casualties/1,000 men/day) and 514,072 casualties (including 134,556 dead and missing) under the "Pacific Experience" (1.95 dead and missing and 7.45 total casualties/1,000 men/day).[92] This assessment included neither casualties suffered after the 90-day mark (US planners envisioned switching to the tactical defensive by X+120[93]), nor personnel losses at sea from Japanese air attacks.[94] In order to sustain the campaign on Kyushu, planners estimated a replacement stream of 100,000 men per month would be necessary, a figure achievable even after the partial demobilization following the defeat of Germany.


There are no estimates for Coronet casualties that I'm aware of, though it was expected that up to half of Japan would have starved to death before the landing.

And the UK public still decided that Churchill had to go.

I agree that Churchill was absolutely necessary when Great Britain and the Commonwealth faced the Axis alone, but after V-E Day he was replaceable. At that point there no longer was a direct threat to the British Isles and that continued until the Iron Curtain was in place.

The casualty estimates are precisely why Truman authorized bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.