New Hypatian Navy.

Jonathan_S wrote:

drothgery wrote:
They have laserhead missiles, but were not designed to face them (the Scientist is a pre-laserhead design and the Vegas are basically repeat Scientists with minor tweaks). And they clearly did not have tactics designed for even the pre-MDM but post-laserhead missile environment.

Agree; mostly. The basic Scientist design (which the Vego largely inherited) is a couple centuries old; and thus predates adoption of laserhead missiles. As as such its armor scheme and basic design is optimized around resisting burn/boom nukes and broadside energy weapons.

Now, to be fair, the in-service ships have been fairly heavily refit over time, making them vastly more survivable in the, say 1905-1914 PD laserhead era, than their un-refit counterparts lingering in the Reserve Fleet. But they're still in large part stuck with many of those original design choices driven by pre-laserhead combat. And thus assumed to be, ton for ton, significantly less capable of facing even that obsolete combat environment than the RMN's far newer Sphynx or Gryphon-class SDs, or even their Bellerophon-class DNs; with which they entered original Havenite war. The Scientist/Vega is also undoubtedly less capable than if the SLN had been given the ability to do a clean-sheet design in the late 1800s, based around that newer combat paradigm.

If the errata is correct, Manticore used it's Manticore class SDs to discover what laserhead combat did to older SDs - and how to adjust their designs to combat it. Not certain where or how they did this, but the survivability of the post laserheaad Victory/Sphinx/Gryphon line (fewer than 14 losses in the first war out of 266 ships constructed) reaffirms the work done.

Mesan ships are more modern than SLN ships?

Where does this come from? The text actually states that the Mesan Navy was purpose built (by the MAlign) to be a showy clown of a navy. The MAlign wanted the Mesan navy to be viewed as a joke by Beowulf, Haven, Manticore, and any other polity that actually took genetic slavery seriously.

There is no evidence that Mesa itself has tech that is even equal to the SLN. More likely Mesa would bribe Solly contractors and bureaucrats with overly expensive orders for SLN exports.

Do not confuse the MAlign with Mesa. The MAlign was very well (compared to most) informed about the advances in tech Manticore was pushing. Mesa itself, on the other hand, was largely clueless because the people that actually controlled Mesa - the Malign - wanted them that way.

Theemile wrote:If the errata is correct, Manticore used it's Manticore class SDs to discover what laserhead combat did to older SDs - and how to adjust their designs to combat it. Not certain where or how they did this, but the survivability of the post laserheaad Victory/Sphinx/Gryphon line (fewer than 14 losses in the first war out of 266 ships constructed) reaffirms the work done.

That might also explain why 2 of those 3 SDs were not in service at the beginning of the war while SD-01 was. We've also established that all DNs ever built, including the Ad Astra ones that were 100 years older than HMS Manticore, were in service.

Erls wrote:Mesan ships are more modern than SLN ships?

Where does this come from? The text actually states that the Mesan Navy was purpose built (by the MAlign) to be a showy clown of a navy. The MAlign wanted the Mesan navy to be viewed as a joke by Beowulf, Haven, Manticore, and any other polity that actually took genetic slavery seriously.

There is no evidence that Mesa itself has tech that is even equal to the SLN. More likely Mesa would bribe Solly contractors and bureaucrats with overly expensive orders for SLN exports.

Do not confuse the MAlign with Mesa. The MAlign was very well (compared to most) informed about the advances in tech Manticore was pushing. Mesa itself, on the other hand, was largely clueless because the people that actually controlled Mesa - the Malign - wanted them that way.

David has called the SLN "Conservative". They installed the best hardware they could afford, but they avoided game changing technologies and actively squashed them. WHY? The SLN had Thousands of ships with conventional technologies; causing a change in the existing weapons paradigm would require the replacement or refit of the entire fleet to compete.

So the SLN is usually late or at least hesitant to adopt any technology. It doesn't want to install quickly invalidated technology or obsoleted technologies, only to have to refit or replace otherwise new ships. It will wait until a tech is tested, matured, and adopted by competitors before it installs it on their ships.

In addition, the vast size of the SLN means that ships are used for years and have a lengthy, but stilted, refit schedule. Just like the current US Navy, front line ships have system that were last upgraded 30 years ago. For example, think about the US Aegis cruisers - the Aegis battle system on them is based on custom computer hardware and OS, built in the 1980s. In the early 2000s, the Aegis system switched to industry standard Wintel hardware - it was now easier to get hardware spares, trained techs, training for users, and a (cheaply) secured upgrade path. While possible to upgrade the older ships to this standard, it has not happened due to the cost and outage time.

We know that Honor insisted that all of the R&D and records of the SLN at Ganymede Base be turned over to the GA intact along with the equipment and samples. So the GA should have a vast amount of information about what was current and being explored as far as equipment and weapons and tactics. Specificaly mentioned was the Technodyne work.
The thing that did not come up was if the GA send or is sending a force to Yildun and taking at least temporary posession of the major warship yard for the SL and many other star nations.