Alternate history: PRH-Solarian War

kzt wrote:When you are getting ground down by an enemy that is producing more and better ships than you are it’s going to be hard to explain how you allowed a fleet to get destroyed because ‘in a few years we’ll have enogh firepower to scare manticoran perimter control for a few hours.’

So Manticore lays down more ships immediately and automatically outproduces the Republic? Why on Earth were they worried about them if they outproduce them with ease? By 1910 the RMN should outnumber the PN right? The RMN starts with 75% of the wallers of the PN, they can produce more SD's that are of better quality of the PN's SD's. Why was the alliance worried?

In the books they repeatedly made references to the ability of the republic to build more ships due simply to the size of it's industry, they were not even close to as efficient as SKM yards but they were still outbuilding them due to the fact that they have more yards than the SKM.


The RMN starts with ~300 Wallers, the PN starts with ~460 Wallers not counting the BB's. Early in the war neither side was willing to go for the kill against the capital of the enemy so the Alliance was aiming for gradual defeat. The RMN had commitments in Grendelsbane, Grayson, Basilisk, Hancock,Zanzibar, Alizon, Talbot, and a dozen other systems not to mention protecting the Home System. All those commitments have to be made before the RMN can assemble an offensive force. The reason that 6th Fleet could take important systems and eventually take out Trevor's Star was because the PN was deployed to protect everything at once with it's SD's and that meant that rarely did the RMN face a battle with a concentrated fleet of SD's. If the People's Navy deployed their 390 remaining SD/DN's in a few strategically important systems and protect the rest with Task Forces built around BB's the RMN will have problems. Instead of covering 30-40 systems with SD's, the PN would cover no more then 6 systems with SD's and leave 90 in Capital Fleet. At the same time 2nd tier systems will get 2 squadrons of BB's as a picket.


For the systems with SD pickets the RMN would need to provide 1.5-1 to 2-1 of the SD's to guarantee victory with low casualties, because 1 vs 1 odds will still turn out an RMN victory but the price might be high enough that the RMN wont be able to sustain much of an offensive.

For the systems with BB's, the RMN would still want to send 2-1 odds even though they are BB's because repeating First Battle of Seabring a dozen times seems like a bad idea. There the RMN lost an DN, and 6 in the yards out of a force of 10 DN's against 10 BB's and 11 BC's. Even though they managed to destroy virtually the entire Havenite TF, they wont be able to sustain that for more than a battle or two.

As long as the PN has a couple of these strategic systems close to or in alliance space the RMN wont be thinking about Trevor's Star. Having 100 SD's in Seaford 9 or Clairmont or Seabring will put the RMN in a position where they cant advance until they deal with this threat, and for them to deal with that threat they have to virtually strip the alliance of wallers.

What the RMN did at the begginign of the war was send a fleet of 50 SD/DN's and hit system after system where the PN had a few SD's as a picket, they consistently destroyed SD's for little in the way of loss until they went up against a smart opponent or a surprise concentration of wallers...or they just got cocky and send to few ships.

A lot of the Republic's systems had been turned in to negatives in the preceding 50 years due to mismanagement, losing them doesn't hurt the republic as much if at all, they can recapture them at a later date, but when the RMN's only victories are against unprotected systems or with overwhelming force against a squadron of BB's it might not make their moral boost as impressive as before.

In the series, the republic lost all those systems anyway, but they lost them along with dozens or a hundred SD's. This way they lose the systems but the systems are lightly picketed if at all, same outcome but a stronger position.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
By "it" I assume you mean here Bolthole.

Under the Legislaturalists and the CPS, Bolthole wasn't producing anything. It was under the radar because there was almost no mail going there and hardly any transfers, as the entire workforce was already on site. And it wasn't producing anything that couldn't be explained.

Once it did, ONI clearly knew about Bolthole. They didn't know where it was, any more than it wouldn't know where your mystery fleet would be, but it knew it existed.

To build the yards, industry and everything associated with it they had to send equipment, personnel and under Saint Just they stockpiled SD components in Bolthole. At least that's what the RMN ONI determined had happened. It wasn't produced out of exclusively local resources and with local manpower and if it was the RoH should write a detailed manual how they did it and give it out throughout the verge, with a little help from the GA every system ca turn into a bolthole.

kzt wrote:
So I actually looked up the story again. Basically the Legislaturists dicovered it, but actual production capability was created by Pierre. The first SDs were being completed when Theisman said goodby to St Just. But they were all old-school SDs.


Oh, and if you want an idea of how much industrial capability the SL has, there is this quote, from 2016:

"Which was how, thirty-four T-years later, the Refuge System had come to be home to the Bolthole Complex, the biggest and most modern shipyard and industrial nexus of the entire Republic of Haven. Indeed, despite its still small population (by Core World standards), Bolthole’s capacity was superior to that of any Fringe World and at least a quarter of the League’s Core systems, and it was still growing."

So basically the most advanced and industrialized system in Haven has more industry than 1/4 of the Core Worlds of the SL. Which means that each of the remaining thousand or so of the SL Core Worlds, at a peacetime status, have more industrial capability than EVERY system in Haven, and probably more then every Manticoran and Andy system.

Which is why the GA spent a lot of effort avoiding going to war with the entire SL.

I dont think that it means 1/4 of all SL core systems, I mean it has heavier industry than 1/4 of the systems. Which means that each one of the 1/4 of the SL core systems have less industry and 3/4 of the SL core systems have more industry per system.

Sigs wrote:

kzt wrote:When you are getting ground down by an enemy that is producing more and better ships than you are it’s going to be hard to explain how you allowed a fleet to get destroyed because ‘in a few years we’ll have enogh firepower to scare manticoran perimter control for a few hours.’

So Manticore lays down more ships immediately and automatically outproduces the Republic? Why on Earth were they worried about them if they outproduce them with ease? By 1910 the RMN should outnumber the PN right? The RMN starts with 75% of the wallers of the PN, they can produce more SD's that are of better quality of the PN's SD's. Why was the alliance worried?

Because the MA wasn't fighting the Legislaturist, it was fighting the Committee. And the Committee managed to get a much higher level of mobilization and citizen investment in the war.

Hypatia is a core world, with a population of two billion. So they are not all heavily populated.

But David is somewhat sparse with the details on the SL. I vaguely remember the 1,784 number from somewhere, but I can't find it to verify. We went through this years ago, but the crappy software that run this board can't manage to keep historical posts around.

We know that there were 11,615 delegates voting, and Beowulf has a population of about 6 billion.

"Every system was entitled to a minimum of one delegate; additional delegates were apportioned on the basis of population. The majority of delegations consisted of no more than two or possibly three members. Indeed, almost a third of all delegations boasted only a single member. More populous systems, obviously, had a greater representation, however, and the Beowulf Delegation consisted of nine members, headed by Felicia Hadley."

kzt wrote:Because the MA wasn't fighting the Legislaturist, it was fighting the Committee. And the Committee managed to get a much higher level of mobilization and citizen investment in the war.

You are 100% right, there is only one way to accomplish everything and the Legislaturist couldn't do the one and only way that existed. They fought, they were overwhelmed and surrendered. It never occurred to them to mobilize the population, and even if it had they didn't know how, they were bumbling idiots while the committee was the epitome of genius and ingenuity as was Grayson and Manticore but god help them the Legislaturist didn't have the brain power or experience to fight a war.

Sigs wrote:

kzt wrote:Because the MA wasn't fighting the Legislaturist, it was fighting the Committee. And the Committee managed to get a much higher level of mobilization and citizen investment in the war.

You are 100% right, there is only one way to accomplish everything and the Legislaturist couldn't do the one and only way that existed. They fought, they were overwhelmed and surrendered. It never occurred to them to mobilize the population, and even if it had they didn't know how, they were bumbling idiots while the committee was the epitome of genius and ingenuity as was Grayson and Manticore but god help them the Legislaturist didn't have the brain power or experience to fight a war.

It's like Stalin deciding to privatize tank factory 75 in 1942. Just because he's losing the war doesn't mean he's going to do anything crazy.

kzt wrote:It's like Stalin deciding to privatize tank factory 75 in 1942. Just because he's losing the war doesn't mean he's going to do anything crazy.

Well why not? Your logic is that a government would ride the war down in flames rather than do crazy things? Crazy things like mobilize children to fight? Or old men?

I think Stalin and whichever leader you care to mention would do whatever it takes to win the war and would worry about the consequences of his decisions in the future.

Only an idiot would worry more about problems a year or 2 or 5 down the road when he is facing defeat in short term. There are a lot of ways to motivate the population, reforms, promises or whatever is necessary to accomplish the mission(s), victory over Manticore and the survival of their hierarchy.

Sigs wrote:

kzt wrote:It's like Stalin deciding to privatize tank factory 75 in 1942. Just because he's losing the war doesn't mean he's going to do anything crazy.

Well why not? Your logic is that a government would ride the war down in flames rather than do crazy things? Crazy things like mobilize children to fight? Or old men?

I think Stalin and whichever leader you care to mention would do whatever it takes to win the war and would worry about the consequences of his decisions in the future.

Only an idiot would worry more about problems a year or 2 or 5 down the road when he is facing defeat in short term. There are a lot of ways to motivate the population, reforms, promises or whatever is necessary to accomplish the mission(s), victory over Manticore and the survival of their hierarchy.

You'd think - but despite some internal calls for them to do so the Confederate States of America never enlisted the 38% of their population that was enslaved; despite lacking the necessary population to match armies of the size the Union could field (given it's larger population). As far as I can find there were no black soldiers in the CSA (though there were black laborers and servants working within their Army)

So clearly they weren't willing to do whatever might have been necessary to accomplish the mission; and were willing to ride the war down in flames rather than do that crazy thing. Keeping the black population suppressed was, demonstrably, more important to them than winning their separation from the United State.

kzt wrote:Hypatia is a core world, with a population of two billion. So they are not all heavily populated.

But David is somewhat sparse with the details on the SL. I vaguely remember the 1,784 number from somewhere, but I can't find it to verify. We went through this years ago, but the crappy software that run this board can't manage to keep historical posts around.

We know that there were 11,615 delegates voting, and Beowulf has a population of about 6 billion.

"Every system was entitled to a minimum of one delegate; additional delegates were apportioned on the basis of population. The majority of delegations consisted of no more than two or possibly three members. Indeed, almost a third of all delegations boasted only a single member. More populous systems, obviously, had a greater representation, however, and the Beowulf Delegation consisted of nine members, headed by Felicia Hadley."

1784 SL Members was said by WEB DuBoise in Torch of Freedom (~winter 1919).