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Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War

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Re: Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War
Post by kzt   » Tue May 19, 2020 4:05 am

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You can't achieve very much in the way of decisive operations with 12.5%. You can attack the junction and get completely obliterated by 120 fortresses. You can attack Grendelsbane and have fun trying to reduce the fortresses. You can attack Manticore and get to fight home fleet, following which you have to fight your way through their not insignificant orbital defenses while RMN reinforcements are arriving via the junction.

All the critical targets are VERY well defended. You need to throw a huge fraction of your total forces at the them to accomplish anything other then dying spectacularly.

And if you know that your sources say that every month the PRN produces 20 vessels and you can only account for 18 being moved into the OB then clearly they are doing something with the rest. But 24 SDs isn't a war winning capability, particularly as it means they are barely replacing their losses in front-line units. Grayson, Talbot and Erehwon are also producing some new SDs, in addition to the RMN's Manticore and Grendelsbane yards.

As the PRN navy needs about a 2:1 margin of superiority to have a fair fight marginal changes isn't really a big deal. IF you let it go on for 20 years it might be problem, but in 20 years the war will have been over for a decade+.
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Re: Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War
Post by Sigs   » Tue May 19, 2020 8:32 am

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kzt wrote:You can't achieve very much in the way of decisive operations with 12.5%.
By 1910 you could because the RMN's Home Fleet had been stripped down to probably 60-70 SD's in order to reinforce everyone else and if the PN fights smarter than the original timeline then it becomes that much harder because now you might have the same amount systems to occupy if not more but you don't have parity with the RHN because they aren't throwing their SD's at the RMN to be destroyed for little to no return.



You can attack the junction and get completely obliterated by 120 fortresses. You can attack Grendelsbane and have fun trying to reduce the fortresses. You can attack Manticore and get to fight home fleet, following which you have to fight your way through their not insignificant orbital defenses while RMN reinforcements are arriving via the junction.
Having 100 SD's that the enemy cannot account for means you can quietly or not so quietly gather another hundred SD's for the attack and slice through anything Home Fleet can throw at you. By 1910 the RMN would still be fighting for Trevors Star, with the PN attacking the Alliance periodically to force them to disperse forces to the various members and you are left with a much reduced Home Fleet which would have a hell of time standing up to 200 PN SD's and whatever is stationed in Basilisk isn't going to change the equation by that much.



All the critical targets are VERY well defended. You need to throw a huge fraction of your total forces at the them to accomplish anything other then dying spectacularly.
So hitting Grendelsbane with 100 SD's would be a waste of time? What about Basilisk? What are the chances that the RMN launches a synchronized attack against the Home System and Basilisk? What about Grayson? Erewhon?

And if you know that your sources say that every month the PRN produces 20 vessels and you can only account for 18 being moved into the OB then clearly they are doing something with the rest.
How do you prove it? They produce 20 SD's a month and 4 of them never make it to the front but how are you so sure they aren't in one of the fleets, or in Capital Fleet, or in transit or just being intentionally misleading/faulty intelligence? What you are saying is that the RMN's ONI will be able to see that the PN produced 100 SD's in 1905 in say 5 systems and only 80 SD's made it to the front because they asked nicely? Took a head count of every base? Guessed?

But 24 SDs isn't a war winning capability, particularly as it means they are barely replacing their losses in front-line units.
You are right, its not. But it is a war winning capability when its (1905)20 SD's + (1906)20 SD's + (1907)20 SD's + (1908)20 SD's + (1909)20 SD's = 100 SD's.

They wont be barely replacing their losses because they wont be throwing their ships away in hopeless battles, fewer systems picketed by SD's means that those systems have a higher number of SD's and this means the RMN has to free up more SD's of their own to attacks because 6th Fleet would need to be reinforced if they were to face fewer key systems with heavier fleets. And the PN wont oblige the RMN by having those "You retreat or lose Ill shoot you and your family" orders, so when it looks hopeless the PN retreats rather than fights. Instead of losing 100 or more SD's while only taking out less than 20 RMN SD's in the first few years, the PN can conserve more of their fleet and make their fewer bases harder to crack and it would require more ships for 6th fleet to take them.




Grayson, Talbot and Erehwon are also producing some new SDs, in addition to the RMN's Manticore and Grendelsbane yards.
Probably not going to be producing 100 SD's/year until later on into the war...the MA is building SD's as well but at even into the 1910's they were still behind in construction and depended on technological edge and committee's stupidity to equalize the numbers.

As the PRN navy needs about a 2:1 margin of superiority to have a fair fight marginal changes isn't really a big deal. IF you let it go on for 20 years it might be problem, but in 20 years the war will have been over for a decade+.


It's a lot easier to sneak away a 100-150 SD's from the main fleet to reinforce the 100 SD's hidden away then it is to suddenly disappear 200-250 SD's for an offensive. Especially if the PN launches an offensive along the front drawing the MA to reinforce the front line systems, those 100-150 SD's will be lost in the shuffle.
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Re: Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War
Post by kzt   » Tue May 19, 2020 11:50 am

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One of the several major accomplishments of the revolution was to get a lot of people involved in industry. The PRH construction rates were not as low as the SLN, but they were clearly not able to scale them up from peacetime and they were not keeping up with losses. So the Committee launched and put a lot of effort into getting people to work for the revolution, by getting jobs at things like shipyards.

Manticore, once the stupid political crap was over, was committed to the war. And all 400,000 or so workers of the three billion people in the SKM were focused on building better ships faster and in large numbers. Without the Committee, the PRN will simply get attritted away by the MA building better ships with better crews in larger numbers than the PRN could.

Every year the quantitative advantage gets smaller and the quality disadvantage gets bigger. Eventually, and not that far in the future, the RPN just gets crushed even without MDMs.
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Re: Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War
Post by Sigs   » Tue May 19, 2020 1:04 pm

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kzt wrote:One of the several major accomplishments of the revolution was to get a lot of people involved in industry. The PRH construction rates were not as low as the SLN, but they were clearly not able to scale them up from peacetime and they were not keeping up with losses. So the Committee launched and put a lot of effort into getting people to work for the revolution, by getting jobs at things like shipyards.

Manticore, once the stupid political crap was over, was committed to the war. And all 400,000 or so workers of the three billion people in the SKM were focused on building better ships faster and in large numbers. Without the Committee, the PRN will simply get attritted away by the MA building better ships with better crews in larger numbers than the PRN could
So the assumption is that the Republic will stand around, watch their losses, watch the MA build more ships of higher capabilities and do nothing about it? The Legislaturalists might not want to give power to the average citizen but they aren't stupid to start a war and then not do what is necessary for victory. The Legislaturalists would be just as capable with propaganda and when the need came just as motivated to make changes and improve their industry.

The PN started the war technologically behind but numerically ahead, in the books they kept throwing SD's and BB's into battles with no hope of victory and consequently kept losing all those ships for little in the way of results.

Better strategy and willingness to retreat cuts their losses, yes they will lose ships but so will the MA, because the PN will not throw them away but will make the MA work for every ship they destroy. Having fewer bases with SD's in them will force the MA to clear the systems with BB's first because a base that might have 50 SD's would require 80-90 RMN SD's to clear the system without getting your fleet trashed in the process as well. That would require the RMN to uncover key systems thay had obligations to protect, Alizon, Zanzibar, Grendelsbane, Basilisk etc... and even in 1910 they would still be carrying the majority of the load in terms of wallers, so which system do they uncover to get the ships needed? Are they going to abandon one of their allies? Do they uncover one of their systems? Risk Basilisk? Take more from Home Fleet? Or do they wait until they have more ships to reinforce 6th Fleet and in the mean time clear systems with BB pickets... they go into a system and the picket decides if they can fight or not and act accordingly.



Every year the quantitative advantage gets smaller and the quality disadvantage gets bigger. Eventually, and not that far in the future, the RPN just gets crushed even without MDMs.
So the Legislaturalists will make absolutely no changes whatsoever to improve their situation? Most of the changes the committee made can be made by the Legislaturalists as well, the imports of technology from the SL can be made without the committee, you don't start the war with all of your senior officers executed and you wouldn't have to fight the war with Political officers watching over your shoulder and killing the officers and the families of the officers who dared to conserve their forces and retreated. The shipyards to build the ships were mostly there, the committee didn't magically double or triple the shipyards of the Republic over night and I dare say that if their entire senior civilian leadership, and their entire senior military leadership wasn't wiped out in the opening phases of the war they would make the necessary changes to get the job done even if it created nasty problems for them in the future.
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Re: Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War
Post by kzt   » Tue May 19, 2020 2:06 pm

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Everything the Committee did that was popular with the general population was popular because it was in open rebellion to what the previous, and hated, government had preached for a few hundred years.

So it's hard to see them doing this. It's like Stalin deciding to privatize Tank Factory 75 in 1942 because he thinks it would be more productive. Do you think this would be something that even entered his mind? What do you think would happen to anyone who suggested this to Stalin?
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Re: Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Tue May 19, 2020 10:01 pm

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Sigs wrote:It takes time to get wind of it, they have to get news that the SD(P)'s have left a particular system and then wait for the SD(P)'s to enter a different system. Besides, the 330 SD(P)'s represented only 30% of the total SD(P)'s of the RHN. There was a conversation between Pritchart and Theisman where the question was raised as to what would be left over if the attack failed, and it was somewhere around 600 SD(P)'s. They managed to concentrate that many ships because I doubt that 3rd Fleet was the only force laying a trap for 8th Fleet, so when 3rd Fleet was destroyed Theisman redeployed the other fleets to a target system for the upcoming offensive.


You can hide a large force for a short amount of time and you can hide a small force for a large amount of time. You can't hide a fifth or even an eighth of your total forces for 5 years. I agree it takes time to figure it out, but my argument is that it takes less time than what you're thinking.

The discrepancy will be building up, year by year. In the beginning, it'll be dismissed as "ships in transit, we couldn't find them." But by year 5, it'll have become obvious that ships are being diverted. What for they won't know, but they'll be aware of the discrepancy.

Besides, this is unrealistic. Parnell wanted a short victorious war. He's not going to secrete away a tenth of his forces in case the war lasts 10 times as long as what he had planned for. This goes against the entire training and doctrine the PN followed.
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Re: Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War
Post by Sigs   » Thu May 21, 2020 2:25 am

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kzt wrote:Everything the Committee did that was popular with the general population was popular because it was in open rebellion to what the previous, and hated, government had preached for a few hundred years.

So it's hard to see them doing this. It's like Stalin deciding to privatize Tank Factory 75 in 1942 because he thinks it would be more productive. Do you think this would be something that even entered his mind? What do you think would happen to anyone who suggested this to Stalin?

Do you think that there is one way and only one way to accomplish a task? Just because the Committee accomplished a task in one way doesn't mean that it was the only way.

The Propaganda that Manticore is the bad guy, that they are stealing from the people, it still can come into play. The committee used some methods and tools that will not be available to the government but it doesn't mean that there aren't other ways to accomplish the task.
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Re: Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War
Post by kzt   » Thu May 21, 2020 2:40 am

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Maybe it’s just David’s selection of viewpoint characters, but nobody in the PRH seemed to believe the PRH news. It was like the old soviet joke: “There is no truth in Izvestiya and there is no information in Pravda.”

This doesn’t mean they know what is really going on, I’ve read enough accounts of defectors to know that wasn’t true, but they certainly didn’t believe what the official media said.
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Re: Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War
Post by Sigs   » Thu May 21, 2020 3:06 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
You can hide a large force for a short amount of time and you can hide a small force for a large amount of time. You can't hide a fifth or even an eighth of your total forces for 5 years. I agree it takes time to figure it out, but my argument is that it takes less time than what you're thinking.
I think you can hide them almost indefinitely in a system nobody knows about. As long as you are careful it is entirely possible.


The discrepancy will be building up, year by year. In the beginning, it'll be dismissed as "ships in transit, we couldn't find them." But by year 5, it'll have become obvious that ships are being diverted. What for they won't know, but they'll be aware of the discrepancy.
Or maybe they will look at it and consider that there is an intelligence error, someone is feeding you faulty intelligence etc... IF you are missing that many ships and after 5 years none of them have surfaced it might just be written off as faulty intelligence.



Besides, this is unrealistic. Parnell wanted a short victorious war. He's not going to secrete away a tenth of his forces in case the war lasts 10 times as long as what he had planned for. This goes against the entire training and doctrine the PN followed.
Yes he wanted a short victorious war, and when the opening phases of that war ended up with him losing at least 77 SD's/DN's out of his 460 SD's/DN's he might have changed his mind. Especially if the Alliance lost lest than 10 wallers and a bunch of escorts and I am being generous with the 10 wallers.

The expectation was that the People's Navy can hit Grayson, destroy 4 squadrons(32 SD's), hit Hancock and crush the light picket and potentially go out and defeat one or more of the capital ship components before they joined with little loss. The Alliance had 5 battle Squadrons deployed in multiple systems with Admiral parks, and there were supposed to be 32 capital ships in Grayson. With a little luck and surprise on their side they should have been able to surprise Grayson with 2.75 to 1 odds in capital ships and the end would have been a massacre. If Admiral Rollins had waited until his 2 Battle Squadron reinforcement had arrived, he would have had between 45-53 SD's/DN's, if he captured Hancock and managed destroy one or two of the battle Squadrons of Task Force Hancock individually and forced battle on the rest this could have been a different opening scene for the war.

-32 SD's in Grayson
-16 SD's in Task Groups
-10 DN's from Admiral Denislav (BONUS)

That right there is 20% of the RMN's wall which means its damn near 20% of the Alliance's entire war. Even if he suffered 2 squadrons lost in the opening phases of the war, the odds go from 460 SD/DN's in the PN vs 300 SD/DN in the RMN to 444 SD/DN in the PN vs 242 SD/DNs in the RMN.

Odds go from a manageable ~1.5 to 1 to a not so manageable 1.84 to 1 against the RMN as well as the shock, if he managed to destroy the entire task force Hancock it would be even worse. An opening phase like this would be crushing to the Alliance, 2 crushing defeats, the loss of an ally and a major base that now threatens 3 alliance members in the region which will be begging for reinforcements. Instead they started the war by losing 77 SD/DN's while taking out less than 10 wallers and most likely half that. They went from 300 wallers vs 460 wallers to 295 vs 383 wallers.

If this is how the war started, I would be looking long term for victory since the short term isn't exactly feasible at the moment.
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Re: Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War
Post by Sigs   » Thu May 21, 2020 3:12 am

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kzt wrote:Maybe it’s just David’s selection of viewpoint characters, but nobody in the PRH seemed to believe the PRH news. It was like the old soviet joke: “There is no truth in Izvestiya and there is no information in Pravda.”

This doesn’t mean they know what is really going on, I’ve read enough accounts of defectors to know that wasn’t true, but they certainly didn’t believe what the official media said.

The defectors, or the people on the street? And would it even matter? Manticore is threatening the Prole's way of life simply by remaining independent, I don't think it should be too hard to get the point across that this is for their benefit as well. IF you throw enough dirt out there something will stick and if the republic manhandled the SL media the same way that committee did it shouldn't be too hard, yes the people might not believe the government but they can get the other side's story and they don't really care because the other side doesn't give them money the government does.
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