Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War

kzt wrote:But if the Peeps had started to win, do you think that the SKM isn't going to consider all their options instead of just waiting for the axe to fall?

Of course they are. And they have a lot of money and some important friends who know people with lots of guns.

Unless the war started to deteriorate and then the PN decided on an all out attack on the SKM capital, they may still have a lot of fight in them but suddenly having a few hundred SD's come to Manticore against a weakened Home Fleet it could end in an afternoon. The Republic has a hell of a lot of real-estate and no real need to defend all of it, if the PN fought smarter and bled the RMN a lot more for Trevor's Star while retreating when they were losing it could have changed the war. Force them to occupy more systems, push back their maintenance schedules and basically bring up the problems they had in 1911-1913 when they had a significant portion of their fleet down for maintenance. The SKM could appear to be winning the war, but in reality if the RMN is drawn out of position, forced to occupy a lot of real estate and bring down up to 25% of their wallers for refit a quick strike by a few hundred SD's could have ended it.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:League involvement might have been necessary if all else failed. But the later that happened, the bigger concessions the SKM would need to make. Worse, they'd find at the worst time possible that the SLN was obsolete and needed a massive upgrade.

The SLN might have been behind in technology, doctrine and training but in 1910 they still had the quantity is a quality of its advantage, that evaporated only at the introduction of MDM's and SD(P)'s. A fleet of 500 SD's backing the RMN would be enough unless the RMN was reduced to a handful of ships. As long as the RMN didn't lose a large chunk of their fleet without inflicting similar casualties in the PN a fleet of a few hundred SLN SD's would be more than sufficient reinforcement, if the RMN was crushed the SLN would need a but more than that.

kzt wrote:RMN ships are very difficult for Peeps to maintain. They assume a much deeper technical education among ratings than most senior PRN NCOs had. Much more maint, to a much deeper level, was intended to be routinely done by RMN crews on-station than by PRN doctrine.

Not to mention that I think they use a different written language, and I would tend to doubt the RMN has translated much of their technical documentation into French or even has any other language as an option on consoles, etc.

So sure, in theory. In practice perhaps not so much.

Ok, the language thing I don't know about, if there is a written language difference that would make everything that much more complicated. But for the rest? Like I said it would decrease the efficiency of the forts, and it sure as hell would tax the rear maintenance units but if dimwitted religious fanatics can operate a BC to a certain degree the PRN can learn to operate the forts, I mean how much different can they really be?

PN techs might be parts changers, but they can be parts changers on RMN forts just as well as a PN SD. Again, efficiency is in the crapper, those forts would be much weaker than when operated by the RMN but with training they should be able to increase efficiency.

kzt wrote:Well, to join the SL as a separate star nation requires a vote by the assembly iirc. So what the SKM is doing is becoming part of Beowulf. And my guess is the Beowulf won’t go that far out on a limb for a handshake.

The League wants the MWHJ, if Beowulf agreed to a union with Manticore, I hardly think that anyone in the League would complain. We aren't talking about a third world backwards barbarian system that is just discovering the wheel, we are talking about an advanced system with something that the League wants, all without a war to get it and if a war does happen they have an industrialized system with naval facilities to for the war. If Beowulf came out and formed a union with the SKM, I would think the mandarins might take the idea, run with it and tell everyone it was their idea to begin with.

There seems to be a lot of dislike, envy and outright hatred of Manticore in various SL functionaries we have encountered. And with this deal the WHJ is now for Manticore and Beowulf to control, not a SL controlled thing. And time you are dealing with an ancient and deeply corrupt bureaucracy, speed at making decisions isn’t something they are usually good at.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:But the Peeps were not willing to take that risk. Instead they committed fighting a long war of attrition, which they had no experience with and their military was not designed or trained for. And they lost.

Well, that wasn't their first option (q.v. "Short Victorious War"). But you're right, once the their usual way failed, they didn't know how to prosecute the war. The Pierre Coup and the purge of the officer ranks did not help. It's possible that the old, experienced officer corp could have adapted in time and done exactly what you said.

The Short Victorious War plan was still a war of attrition - not the single bolt from the blue against the enemy capital that had been the Legislaturalist method before this. (Admittedly they expected it to be a much shorter attritional war than occurred. But it was still set up as a series of engagements where Haven would be able to bring local superiority of forces)


Parnell thought that, thanks to the Argus network and the element of surprise, Haven's forces would be able to start the war with a series of lopsided victories against the dispersed forces of the Manticoran alliance. The disproportionate losses that would inflict should tilt the balance of force fairly decisively in Haven's favor and let them plan and execute series of follow-up strike to grind away Manticore's forces faster than Haven lost theirs. But it didn't sound like even the second strike would be against Manticore.
Unfortunately for Haven things didn't go exactly as expected.

But if Parnell had been convinced, and sold President Harris, of the idea that despite the risks Haven's best bet was to go straight for the jugular... Well White Haven's bright idea to try to mousetrap them as Grayson would be a trap set for nobody and would have only had the effect of reducing the forces at Manticore just before the decisive battle. Oops.


But I believe kzt's point is that even with a fast attritional war (rather than the many year near stalemate we actually got) Manticore has a few months to realize the balance of force is turning irrevocably against them and to attempt a final alternative of putting themselves under League protection as a candidate member to avoid outright surrender to Haven.

Sigs wrote:The SLN might have been behind in technology, doctrine and training but in 1910 they still had the quantity is a quality of its advantage, that evaporated only at the introduction of MDM's and SD(P)'s. A fleet of 500 SD's backing the RMN would be enough unless the RMN was reduced to a handful of ships. As long as the RMN didn't lose a large chunk of their fleet without inflicting similar casualties in the PN a fleet of a few hundred SLN SD's would be more than sufficient reinforcement, if the RMN was crushed the SLN would need a but more than that.

MDMs would be useful but they aren't critical.

Wayfarer showed how much damage even a SDM armed podlayer can do and that was based on a merchie hull, so a proper SD(P) even with only SDMs would likely be more then enough to give the RMN an edge.

Dauntless wrote:MDMs would be useful but they aren't critical.

Wayfarer showed how much damage even a SDM armed podlayer can do and that was based on a merchie hull, so a proper SD(P) even with only SDMs would likely be more then enough to give the RMN an edge.

But either way, it's likely the RMN was much closer to the MDM concept by 1910 than an SD(P). The Medusa class was still in blueprints when Honor got captured. If the RMN was forced to retreat, convincing the SLN to build SD(P)s would be a much tougher sale than building MDMs to arm the existing ships or to deploy from pods.

On the other hand, the SLN with SD(P)s would be a much less dangerous future adversary than one with MDMs.

MDMs were the highest priority project of the RMN. They got built as soon as they could roll them out. So at this point they are years from design completion, possibly still dealing with nailing down the theory.

So they can’t appear earlier than they did, unless you go to a hack solution.

Jonathan_S wrote:
But I believe kzt's point is that even with a fast attritional war (rather than the many year near stalemate we actually got) Manticore has a few months to realize the balance of force is turning irrevocably against them and to attempt a final alternative of putting themselves under League protection as a candidate member to avoid outright surrender to Haven.

IF the RMN was pushing the PN back, and the PN wasn't throwing their ships into the fire for no return I can see them being able to peel off a couple of hundred SD's they can surprise the RMN in a decisive battle. The RMN could be winning the war but that by itself would increase the demand for forces on the front while the People's Navy would be conserving their forces and fighting only where they can. By not throwing their SD's and BB's into battles with little to no chance of success they can conserve their strength and build up their forces. If the Republic can build 100 SD's/year and at the same time slow the losses as much as possible by fighting intelligently they can gather a fleet that the RMN might not be able to find. By 1909 the RMN would be stretched too thin and Home Fleet would probably be stripped to the bear bones, instead of a fleet of 128 wallers like in 1905 it could be half that. A force of 100 SD's that the RMN knows nothing about backed up by a force from the front of another 100 SD's can overwhelm Home Fleet in a day while the RMN is winning the war.