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

Theemile wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Correct.

The RMN needs to maintain a tech advantage until everyone in the SL is over 8th Fleet's visit to Sol system. Keep in mind that a few SL systems have economies bigger than Manticore all by themselves.

However, the Manties and friends will still have several advantages.

1) Modern Experience - all the current Havernite sector Naval personnel have an incredible level of experience in naval combat. That professionalism will extend for some time in the future, even as new recruits cycle through the fleet.

2) Modern Tactics and strategic thinking - the Havenite Sector Navies have developed modern tactics through Darwinian trials - Not to say that there is nothing new to be used, but their military thinking is proven true.

3) Educational systems - the GA have schools with modern training regimes which can pump out recruits with modern thinking, and have rotated the best from the field to revamp the curriculum. This needs to be developed first, by trial and error, along with your doctrine.

3) Working modern designs - both in warfighting and construction, the Havenite sector navies have leading edge capabilities. Yes, that may erode, but everybody else needs to develop them first.

4) a Leadership mindset and knowledge of what a national warfighting stance takes. - Once again the Havenite navies already have a blueprint of what is needed to change to a wartime footprint - and plans to focus further portions of the economy to the war effort if necessary (you know the next several steps were planned even if no one enabled them) While this isn't an impediable hill, it takes time to develop, and works in fits and starts. (look at the time it took to redesign the French 75 for American service or the MG 34/43 to .30 Caliber.) The GA already has working plans.

Before UH actually came out, I was hoping that every battle against the SL wouldn't be a slam dunk, perhaps because of new tech rushed into battle by the League. Your #1 and #2 is what I had hoped would enable the Manties to prevail in a few close skirmishes. Close because of a huge difference in the order of battle, and or a surprise unveiling of SL tech similar to what the Havenites accomplished with the Triple Ripple. Now that I think about it, I suppose Hypatia delivered in that respect. Superior experience. Superior tactics.

Insightful post.

****** *

In a sense, the Manty tech advantage is already gone against the MA. The MA is not fighting a traditional war with traditional tech on a traditional playing field. Since the MA has the initiative, Manty tech may already mean absolutely diddly. And the Manties are not faring too well at all against the Malign.

In fact, I suspect erasing the advantage in Manty tech is part of the impetus behind Malign design. The author's mileage may vary.

Stepping away from our usual discussion of space fiction to convey my thoughts about whether the atomic decision was right or wrong from my life about 40 years back. I speak the language reasonably fluently, by the way, so you can take what I say next as absolutely correct and a statement of facts... though I am conveying what they said in English instead of "Nihongo".
--snip--

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

--end of snip--
Without going into too many specifics, I'd wager I am probably one of the only folks on the board who had the privilege to both meet a survivor from Hiroshima AND also met someone half a country away (in Northern Japan) who would have starved had the war continued.

Item #1: The lady from Hiroshima was actually aware that an American bomber had crossed over where they lived -- she thought it was one of those "itazura na hikoki" (irritating planes that she thought was essentially scouting for a later in the day a task force bombing. It was only later on August 6th -- when a brother returned home with badly-burned hands -- that she realized something else had happened. She was not a bit angry that the war ended because of those two bombs.

Item #2: The other survivor (near Fukushima city in the northeast section of the main island) was much more detailed, pointing out two things: (A) the Japanese military had confiscated ALL of the grain harvest, so the Japanese people WERE starving. (B) In Northern Japan the people were more afraid that the Russians would invade first. He was also not angry, thanking me deeply on behalf of "your fathers" because "I and my family survived because you Americans brought food".

Item #3: Little did he know that my father was one of those Americans, though Dad was stationed in Southern Japan. And that Dad traveled through Hiroshima some in early '47 and saw with some heartbreak that the people had pushed aside whatever remaining destruction they had to in order to start survival gardening in newly exposed dirt. Not one person accosted him with anger.

Actually I am going to add a "PS". On March 11, 2011, that same area in Northern Japan suffered that massive seaquake and tsunami that devastated the entire northeast coast. The American 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived within that first week to help again. Needless to say, our country is better than our current political leadership, and I hope/pray we always will be.

kzt wrote:Q: What do you think that every successful Haven and Manticoran officer did during the 5 years between the war?

A; Wrote a book about their experiences. Helped film moves about their experiences. Helped design games about their experiences.

Q: What do you think they will do now that the war is over?

And yet, if history is any guide, those books would be pretty good about stepping around or covering up items that are still classified.

A bunch of WWII histories and memoirs were shown to be, let's say, creatively incomplete when the code breaking work finally got declassified decades after the war. Some of that, sure, is because the authors were unaware of it - but others specifically concealed that their encounters were the result of classified intelligence putting them in a spot to ambush enemy forces.

(Though the Chicago Tribune did publish a slightly confused but fundamentally accurate account right after the Battle of Midway attributing a portion of the US success to being able to break Japanese code. I'm not sure at what point that the codebreaking, and the planted story about the water shortage, entered the mainstream history of that battle)


So while some gross outlines of modern tactics will be found in those books, movies, and games, most things the navies involved feel is still worth classifying will almost assuredly would not be found there. So those publications aren't going to let competing navies bring their skills, tactics, and strategies up to level of the GA forces -- though it may help them start closing the worst of the gaps.

kzt wrote:Q: What do you think that every successful Haven and Manticoran officer did during the 5 years between the war?

A; Wrote a book about their experiences. Helped film moves about their experiences. Helped design games about their experiences.

Q: What do you think they will do now that the war is over?

Jonathan_S wrote:And yet, if history is any guide, those books would be pretty good about stepping around or covering up items that are still classified.

A bunch of WWII histories and memoirs were shown to be, let's say, creatively incomplete when the code breaking work finally got declassified decades after the war. Some of that, sure, is because the authors were unaware of it - but others specifically concealed that their encounters were the result of classified intelligence putting them in a spot to ambush enemy forces.

(Though the Chicago Tribune did publish a slightly confused but fundamentally accurate account right after the Battle of Midway attributing a portion of the US success to being able to break Japanese code. I'm not sure at what point that the codebreaking, and the planted story about the water shortage, entered the mainstream history of that battle)


So while some gross outlines of modern tactics will be found in those books, movies, and games, most things the navies involved feel is still worth classifying will almost assuredly would not be found there. So those publications aren't going to let competing navies bring their skills, tactics, and strategies up to level of the GA forces -- though it may help them start closing the worst of the gaps.

Also it is alleged that the British historians writing just after WWI, were part of the British propaganda machine; pushing such ideas as that the assaults on the lines resulted in German casualty numbers as large as those of the attacking British or French.

And consider the campaign by David Beatty and his allies to minimize his failures at Jutland and smear his commander.

Why is it that the definitive book on Armor was written by an Infantry officer, and the definitive book on Infantry tactics was written by an Armor (Panzer) Officer?

They both came up though WW I and learned in combat. Armor as we understand it was evolving, and essentialy created, in WW I and those two men lived and worked with it. I remember a story about Patton before WW II being involved in a war-game (combined arms) in which he didn't have enough gasoline supplied to carry out the manuvers with tanks and other motor vehicles which he saw as needing to win. His solution: buy it from civilian sources out of his own pocket.

Both were creating what they did in WW II as they went along based on experience and input from other sources....hence the comment by Patton that he had read Rommel's book and having seen his opponents earlier thinking and conclusions as applied to what the man was now doing in the field, Patton found a way to use that against Rommel.

SharkHunter wrote:Stepping away from our usual discussion of space fiction to convey my thoughts about whether the atomic decision was right or wrong from my life about 40 years back. I speak the language reasonably fluently, by the way, so you can take what I say next as absolutely correct and a statement of facts... though I am conveying what they said in English instead of "Nihongo".
--snip--

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

--end of snip--
Without going into too many specifics, I'd wager I am probably one of the only folks on the board who had the privilege to both meet a survivor from Hiroshima AND also met someone half a country away (in Northern Japan) who would have starved had the war continued.

Item #1: The lady from Hiroshima was actually aware that an American bomber had crossed over where they lived -- she thought it was one of those "itazura na hikoki" (irritating planes that she thought was essentially scouting for a later in the day a task force bombing. It was only later on August 6th -- when a brother returned home with badly-burned hands -- that she realized something else had happened. She was not a bit angry that the war ended because of those two bombs.

Item #2: The other survivor (near Fukushima city in the northeast section of the main island) was much more detailed, pointing out two things: (A) the Japanese military had confiscated ALL of the grain harvest, so the Japanese people WERE starving. (B) In Northern Japan the people were more afraid that the Russians would invade first. He was also not angry, thanking me deeply on behalf of "your fathers" because "I and my family survived because you Americans brought food".

Item #3: Little did he know that my father was one of those Americans, though Dad was stationed in Southern Japan. And that Dad traveled through Hiroshima some in early '47 and saw with some heartbreak that the people had pushed aside whatever remaining destruction they had to in order to start survival gardening in newly exposed dirt. Not one person accosted him with anger.

Actually I am going to add a "PS". On March 11, 2011, that same area in Northern Japan suffered that massive seaquake and tsunami that devastated the entire northeast coast. The American 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived within that first week to help again. Needless to say, our country is better than our current political leadership, and I hope/pray we always will be.

I am in the middle of reading a ground shattering history right now of the Japanese nuclear program - if you can believe it, this book finds evidence that Japan detonated it's first experimental test bomb in a bay near Konan, N. Korea in the days between Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Supposedly they tried to destroy all their work, but the army group from Russia overran the base and took away everything they could, and became the basis of their Nuclear program. Supposedly, the leader of N. Korea's nuclear program worked with the Japanese and that is the Basis off N. Korea's nuclear program as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Japans-Secret-War-Provided-Groundwork-ebook/dp/B07ZVWMGW9/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=robert+k+wilcox&qid=1582660072&sr=8-1

So, while we do have text on “networks going dark” in the SEM and allies, it seems a bit much that a conspiracy that has literally directed decades or centuries of intergalactic relations from the shadows has, in the space of 18 months, suddenly become so thoroughly incompetent at espionage that they can’t even get their hands on production schema anymore. And since we don’t know but can assume they’re using the Renaissance Factor as an in play front, they may start actually using their full capabilities more openly.

Anyhow, I do wonder about the manty advantages listed above.

1) Superior Experience. Do they really? Their navy has always been a small (compared to the pop) professional force with very long service personnel. Very BEF. The first battle of Manticore wiped out unprecedented amounts of that navy, and OB couldn’t have helped their “shore” people. I have no doubt they can replace the losses, but when it takes forty years to make a captain or senior chief and half a dozen to make a junior officer or chief, by definition you can’t replace hundreds of thousands of people to same level in a couple years.

Just as the BEF was a very professional force in 1914, but by 1916 the Brits are using Kitchener’s Brigades, the Manty navy has limits on how much professional experience it can retain after a series of escalating battles of annihilation in the late havenkte wars.

And the SLN war probably taught people bad habits - stomping on the Zulus when they charge your maxims with spears rarely encourages excellent thinking about handling a modern opponent. Indeed, many in the modern US defense establishment are coming to the dawning realization that they let curb stomping old T-72s in the desert give them a false sense of security when thinking about fighting more advanced opponents in other parts of the world.

2) Tactics and Strategy. Since there was no need to evolve tactics versus the SL, and indeed we have evidence that “any havenite tac officer would expect X” throughout the battle, their tactics are known and old enough to be adapted or countered.

Strategically...well, how hard is it to strategically think about a war when literally every one of your light squadrons can cripple and enemy battle fleet at will, and you have Deus Ex Machina political infallibility?

GloriousRuse wrote:Superior Experience. Do they really? Their navy has always been a small (compared to the pop) professional force with very long service personnel. Very BEF. The first battle of Manticore wiped out unprecedented amounts of that navy, and OB couldn’t have helped their “shore” people. I have no doubt they can replace the losses, but when it takes forty years to make a captain or senior chief and half a dozen to make a junior officer or chief, by definition you can’t replace hundreds of thousands of people to same level in a couple years.

Just as the BEF was a very professional force in 1914, but by 1916 the Brits are using Kitchener’s Brigades, the Manty navy has limits on how much professional experience it can retain after a series of escalating battles of annihilation in the late havenkte wars.

And the SLN war probably taught people bad habits - stomping on the Zulus when they charge your maxims with spears rarely encourages excellent thinking about handling a modern opponent. Indeed, many in the modern US defense establishment are coming to the dawning realization that they let curb stomping old T-72s in the desert give them a false sense of security when thinking about fighting more advanced opponents in other parts of the world.

Their Navy was small, but their merchant marine was one of the largest; so you may be correct about combat experience, but they still have a reserve of people to handle a ship. With the surviving core of officers to train the next generation, what navy (not in the GA) comes close?

In the very first meeting of British and the Zulus, it was not the Zulus that got stomped. The Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom and was a major defeat for Great Britain.

The liberation of Kuwait was a battle that would be difficult to duplicate anywhere else in the world; the problem lies in the effort required to mass Abrams tanks, a C-17 can only carry one at a time (I believe). I thought that the DOD was going to come up with a middle weight to help airlifted troops, but I guess that the Stryker combat vehicle was the best that they could do. The only quick response has to come from aircraft, increasingly the combat drones.

GloriousRuse wrote:So, while we do have text on “networks going dark” in the SEM and allies, it seems a bit much that a conspiracy that has literally directed decades or centuries of intergalactic relations from the shadows has, in the space of 18 months, suddenly become so thoroughly incompetent at espionage that they can’t even get their hands on production schema anymore. And since we don’t know but can assume they’re using the Renaissance Factor as an in play front, they may start actually using their full capabilities more openly.

They'd also had centuries to infiltrate, with people that would pass all the background checks and with sufficient support networks so that any leakers would think they're helping maybe a rival team inside the military or a corporate cartel trying to get better tech, not the enemy. Once those networks and infiltrators are gone, reestablishing them will not be easy. The MAlign does not necessarily have expertise in doing so quickly.

Another aspect is that stealing schemas in peacetime is quite different from doing so at wartime, when security procedures are much more stringent and people are much more aware of enemy espionage. Even before knowing the MAlign existed, the RMN and the RHN did close their entire weapons development from the outside world, to hide from each other, not from the MAlign. Now that they know the MAlign exists, the wartime security procedures will continue, so re-infiltrating will continue to be difficult too.

I wouldn't say they're incompetent. I would say that they never had the necessary competency for this.

Anyhow, I do wonder about the manty advantages listed above.

1) Superior Experience. Do they really? Their navy has always been a small (compared to the pop) professional force with very long service personnel. Very BEF. The first battle of Manticore wiped out unprecedented amounts of that navy, and OB couldn’t have helped their “shore” people. I have no doubt they can replace the losses, but when it takes forty years to make a captain or senior chief and half a dozen to make a junior officer or chief, by definition you can’t replace hundreds of thousands of people to same level in a couple years.

The Manticoran armed services were 12 million people, according to Sir Lucien Cortez sometime in (I think) Honor Among Enemies. The First BoMa killed 600k. Oyster Bay did far more damage, but as you said it was to shore personnel. I grant you those are very different times: manning requirements were much bigger in 1910 and it was before the High Ridge demobilisation. But that very same demobilisation meant that a huge number of competent naval personnel were not affected by either Beatrice or Oyster Bay.

As they say, "those who cannot do, teach". And Saganami Island continues to be the premier military teaching institution in the explored Galaxy.

2) Tactics and Strategy. Since there was no need to evolve tactics versus the SL, and indeed we have evidence that “any havenite tac officer would expect X” throughout the battle, their tactics are known and old enough to be adapted or countered.

Strategically...well, how hard is it to strategically think about a war when literally every one of your light squadrons can cripple and enemy battle fleet at will, and you have Deus Ex Machina political infallibility?

That is a danger, indeed, but not a concrete problem yet. The fact that the war against the Solarian League was won with 7 ships lost (3 DDs in New Tuscany, 3 CAs and 1 BC in Hypatia) plus a number of LACs I can't recall could lead the GA to a sense of complacency.

In the short term, they will know not to let that fool them. The very fact that they fought a force that did fool itself will be in their minds. In the long run, we can't tell.

tlb wrote:Their Navy was small, but their merchant marine was one of the largest; so you may be correct about combat experience, but they still have a reserve of people to handle a ship. With the surviving core of officers to train the next generation, what navy (not in the GA) comes close?

Not that it strictly matters, but probably Frontier Fleet.

Yes, they spend a lot of time acting as 'heavies' for OFS, but it's implied they actually act as disavowable privateers on occasion and I would imagine - even if only to protect megacorp investments - actually will hunt pirates if they're in their neck of the woods. It's not a large-scale battle experience but at least in 'sub-battlecruiser' combat experience, Frontier Fleet (or those entities which used to comprise it) are probably pretty high up the tree for reservoirs of institutional experience, and - with SLN ships rather than Manticoran or Andermani - are probably used to confronting pirates without an eyewatering tech advantage, to boot.