SLN Future

Sigs wrote:

cthia wrote:What was frightening in UH is the speed in which the SLN implemented new systems. Now that their eyes are open to the new threat environment, we should be able to expect a leaner, meaner gorilla.

The Peeps stockpiled an abundance of BBs at Bolthole. If the SL can cut into the GAs range advantage and mostly concentrate on building one ship type, like the Peeps, thousands of them, can't they quickly get back on balance?

The SL can't have BBs coming out of Bolthole, but with their size, they can surely have BBs coming out of their butthole.

Quantity has a quality of its own.

What new systems did they implement during the war?

In UH, the CO in the hot seat at Hypatia commented on the SEM's worst fears coming true with the rapidity in which the SLN could implement new systems. Then he went on about it being something for those with a higher pay grade to worry about, and that for the moment he needs to be concerned with what they had in store for him. It was a result of the increased performance he witnessed out of the Cataphracts and the Donkey-like system they brought along with it.

Sigs wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Why would the SLN be operating under the authority of the GA in the first place?

Uhm… so what let them continue operating under Frontier Security? If the idea is to use FF to patrol the verge and protectorates I would hope at the very least someone from the GA is around to keep them honest. Letting them to continue business as usual without oversight seems like a terrible idea.

Honor told them to stay inside their borders otherwise they'd be hunted as pirates, so yes, if they are out in the Verge hunting pirates, they should only do so under GA supervision. Which means that a GF ship should be around to keep them honest.

SLN ship with nearby GF ship? Good.

SLN ship alone? Bad.

Easy to teach everyone. And if the GA presses it, that should also curtail the sale of ships to rogues and other planets: "any ship of SL manufacture we find in the Verge are pirates and are your fault".

I would be very vocal in distinguishing the two, yes it will redeem the navy's image in the future but it would be a very obvious division[cut]

Ok, so that's a PR problem of the entity as a whole, not an issue to individual people. If 99%% of the new entity is composed of people from the old entity, so long as they operate under good, honest rules, that should be fine.

They may also want to rename the entity, instead of "Navy". Call it the Argosy. Or High Guard. Or the Star Fleet.

She was wrong, but if she did not see it that way its even worse because the SLN handed 100 SD's and 65 escorts to an idiot who didn't grasp the right and privileges that the constitution grants League citizens and League member systems and was willing to murder 150,000+ BSDF members, League citizens due to ignorance, stupidity and laziness.

She was wrong indeed, but so were her immediate superiors, the SLN leadership and the SL leadership who ordered her around. And to be honest, I think you'll find it very difficult to identify officers who grasp the finer details of constitutional law. It's not their job to interpret the Constitution. And besides, there were plenty of lawyers and academics in the employ of the government who had interpreted the Constitution for them and gave the orders a legal basis. Why should she question that?

She, like the spacers under her, were at the pointy end of the stick.

That is not to say that "just following orders" is a justifiable excuse. But it's been used, often enough. That doesn't make her an idiot.

I can't speculate why they'd have SDs if they can't form a wall.

Prestige?

Very expensive way demonstrate it, but then again, isn't that the usual nature of prestige? So yeah, totally believable as a reason.

At the time of the Falklands War, the Argentinean Navy had a carrier (the General Belgrano), one of only two in the Southern Hemisphere. But it didn't leave port because they were afraid that RN subs would sink it. I can imagine all sorts of Shell systems with a hundred-year-old SD or DN that they keep but won't risk in a real fight.

For the New SLN.....WHAT CLACs?
The SLN doesn't yet have the tech for any of the RMN or RHN LACS. Not the LACS themselves of the missiles.
Not likely the GA or anybody like Grayson is going to sell them examples or give them the designs.

SD (Podlayers) ? Sure, the SLN could proably make up Podlayers but at the moment they would be using either a version of the Cataprhacts in them or versions that would use existing SLN single drive missles. Not sure they have quite the capasity to handle those in the same volumes the GA has been througing around but they could build the ships and pods.

That also raises the question of where the Cataphracts were being build. I mean the volume that was delivered to Filerta before he went off to Manticore. The lines at Yldson for Technodyne might not have that capasity.


We have NOT BEEN TOLD how the GA thinks all the systems that will have OFS and FF withdrawn from them are going to have protection or assistance in dealing with commerce raiders, various types of pirates or just warlords.

What we do know is that AT LEAST Beowulf and Mannerheim had SDF and that Beowulf was running anti-piracy/ commerce protection for it's merchant marine and out on the routes with it's major trading partners and daughter colonies. So there are some systems that can be a challange for anybody wanting to come grab stuff. Note that NONE of the systems that were mentioned in Operation Buccaneer were said to have an SDF. They had the equivelent of Search & Rescue and or Customs but nothting overtly military like an SDF with armed hypercapable ships
For that answer I guess we will have to see what the next books bring us.


The SLN isn't going to need or actualy be truly use as many SDs is it has left. While it does -in BF- have everthing from DDs through Crusiers and BC, a lot of that was supposed to be scouting and screening for BF SD squadrons. Some of those lighter ships are still around. FF had probably the bulk-but never enough- of the DD throug BC ships. With them all being pulled back (under pain of being destoryed on sight by GA warships) to the "revised" SL boarders- which are going to shrink even more as systems leave- that is where they will get most of the actual capasity to deal with commerce problems and fighting systems.
That is going to be a mess. Not much you can do about it except the GA may provide enough cover to let systems get some capasity to protect themselves and deter pirates.

Every core world can build a Beowulf scale fleet. Probably 25% could build a SKM 1905 sized fleet without a lot of issues.

Brigade XO wrote:That is going to be a mess. Not much you can do about it except the GA may provide enough cover to let systems get some capasity to protect themselves and deter pirates.

I’m absolutely sure the SEM will react to the sudden outbreak of peace by quadrupling the RMN budget and building thousands of light vessels and recruiting another 10 or 20 million to crew them. After all, massive increases in the military budget are what every democracy does after the end of logn, bitter and massively destructive war. </sarc>

cthia wrote:In UH, the CO in the hot seat at Hypatia commented on the SEM's worst fears coming true with the rapidity in which the SLN could implement new systems. Then he went on about it being something for those with a higher pay grade to worry about, and that for the moment he needs to be concerned with what they had in store for him. It was a result of the increased performance he witnessed out of the Cataphracts and the Donkey-like system they brought along with it.

I think the question is who implemented the new systems? Was it the SLN or was it the MA just handing them something and basically selling them on how awesome it is?

Sigs wrote:

cthia wrote:In UH, the CO in the hot seat at Hypatia commented on the SEM's worst fears coming true with the rapidity in which the SLN could implement new systems. Then he went on about it being something for those with a higher pay grade to worry about, and that for the moment he needs to be concerned with what they had in store for him. It was a result of the increased performance he witnessed out of the Cataphracts and the Donkey-like system they brought along with it.

I think the question is who implemented the new systems? Was it the SLN or was it the MA just handing them something and basically selling them on how awesome it is?

Both, I think. Filareta noted how his supply of Cataphracts were coming out of Mesa. Even if that is a metaphor and not an indication of physical delivery, it seems well established that the MAlign came up with the Cataphracts and used TIY as a front (and in the process "redeeming" Technodyne for the fiasco of Monica).

But once the war started and the R&D dept. at TIY got to work on them, they also started to improve on the Cataphracts. It's entirely possible that Mod C was their own, not the MAlign's. There was also the stealth missile delivery system they used in Beowulf, which was first demonstrated to the SLN leadership in the Sol System (name escapes me): that also seemed to be done entirely by the SLN and contractors.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Uhm… so what let them continue operating under Frontier Security? If the idea is to use FF to patrol the verge and protectorates I would hope at the very least someone from the GA is around to keep them honest. Letting them to continue business as usual without oversight seems like a terrible idea.

Honor told them to stay inside their borders otherwise they'd be hunted as pirates, so yes, if they are out in the Verge hunting pirates, they should only do so under GA supervision. Which means that a GF ship should be around to keep them honest.[/quote]But it defeats the purpose to send an SLN ships to do anti piracy when you have to send an equal number of allied ships to make sure they didn't become the pirates. It ends up with allied ships having to worry about pirates and about SLN ships deciding to "get even", its not likely but in the middle of nowhere, a couple of hundred LY from civilization I wouldn't be so secure.

Easy to teach everyone. And if the GA presses it, that should also curtail the sale of ships to rogues and other planets: "any ship of SL manufacture we find in the Verge are pirates and are your fault".

What is the GA going to do about it? Do they invade the League every time they destroy a ship of League origin in the verge? At what point does it piss of the League members enough to actually do something about it the first chance they have?

Ok, so that's a PR problem of the entity as a whole, not an issue to individual people. If 99%% of the new entity is composed of people from the old entity, so long as they operate under good, honest rules, that should be fine.

So long as the justice system brings down the hammer on anyone and everyone they can get their hands on from the SLN, punish them for the crimes during the war and get rid of the most corrupt officers very publicly. Once that is done start bringing everyone who is worth being brought over to the new organization and once corruption or nepotism rears its head hammer the responsible parties very hard and in a very visible manner. The problem is that the SLN might lose more than just 1% of their people, they would have to kick out quite a few of their officer corps for gross corruption, crimes, incompetence and stupidity.

They may also want to rename the entity, instead of "Navy". Call it the Argosy. Or High Guard. Or the Star Fleet.

They can call it whatever they want as long as it is significantly different.

She was wrong indeed, but so were her immediate superiors, the SLN leadership and the SL leadership who ordered her around. And to be honest, I think you'll find it very difficult to identify officers who grasp the finer details of constitutional law. It's not their job to interpret the Constitution. And besides, there were plenty of lawyers and academics in the employ of the government who had interpreted the Constitution for them and gave the orders a legal basis. Why should she question that?

When an officer reaches a certain rank I would hope they get the rudimentary things done and over with, like maybe understanding the difference between an illegal order and a legal order.

She, like the spacers under her, were at the pointy end of the stick.

She unlike the spacers under her was willing to order the massacre of League citizens, I mean at some point you have to double or triple check your position if you are about to open fire on your own people.

That is not to say that "just following orders" is a justifiable excuse. But it's been used, often enough. That doesn't make her an idiot.

The blind arrogance in the way she carried it out made her an idiot. I'm right, you are wrong and ill kill you to prove my point because I represent the SLN. At some point when you are about to start killing citizens you were sworn to protect you should take 5 and think real hard if it is legal, there are a lot of "woops" moments in life, many of them can be fixed but slaughtering 150,000+ of your citizens knowingly and willingly is not one of them.

Very expensive way demonstrate it, but then again, isn't that the usual nature of prestige? So yeah, totally believable as a reason.

Could also be shell systems further out form the core bases. If you know that the SLN SD's are at least a month to a month and a half away from you I would want some reassurance and having a SD or two would give me the reassurance. It's not enough to stop an adequate invasion but it gives you better chance of staying free until the SLN comes to your rescue.

kzt wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:That is going to be a mess. Not much you can do about it except the GA may provide enough cover to let systems get some capasity to protect themselves and deter pirates.

I’m absolutely sure the SEM will react to the sudden outbreak of peace by quadrupling the RMN budget and building thousands of light vessels and recruiting another 10 or 20 million to crew them. After all, massive increases in the military budget are what every democracy does after the end of logn, bitter and massively destructive war. </sarc>

If the GA wants to keep the SL out of the verge they will do what they must, what is their alternative? Leave the verge on its own devices? The verge is full of potential allies that would be worth any investment 30-50 years in the future as long as its handled properly.

It is the GA's responsibility, you can kick out the people keeping the peace, and then go home leaving the verge to fend for itself, that makes the GA morally responsible. Frontier Security might have had their foot on the throat of the verge with a pistol to their head but as shitty as it was for their victims it could get a lot worse in the years to come if the GA doesn't step up...that's how you end up with ISIS.

kzt wrote:Every core world can build a Beowulf scale fleet. Probably 25% could build a SKM 1905 sized fleet without a lot of issues.

Agreed. However I expect that most of the Core worlds that did have hyper capable units prior to UH went through cycles of 1> Prime Mincer Paranoiac has just replaced Prime Mincer Pollyanna. Paranoiac may have dreams of multiple squadrons of wallers driving his nations enemies before them, but first he needs to get the funds for them out of Parliament.
2> After 20 years Pollyanna's party retakes control of parliament and the net increase of the SDF amounts to 2 DDs, and 50 LACs. and plans for an unbuilt class of Cruisers. Average age of units has been significantly reduced and combat capability of all units has been increased.