Future Naval sizes

drothgery wrote:

Daryl wrote:I agree. Previously I've said that I don't get the message of a sovereign entity fighting for its existence. It all seems to be business as usual.

... even though in fact Manticore (pre-expansion) had a far larger percentage of its population under arms than anyone but Grayson. I always thought it was weird that people got that impression Haven was digging deeper than Manticore; Manticore had a way, way larger percentage of its population and of its GDP committed to the military than Haven did. And the League spent peanuts per capita on the SLN (which despite being huge in absolute terms, was tiny per capita even compared to the RHN).

And both statements are still laughable. Even if we add up 100% of ALL Navy/Marines/Army/Workforce assembly + manufacturing we are still describing 1% of the population if we assume 30 million(WAY above what the books represent) in RMN service. If you use 1% of working age population that in effect means you are fighting a "WAR TO THE DEATH" using ~1% of GDP. Pull the other leg.

I just go with his earlier book GDP numbers when describing Grayson/Endicott in Honor of the Queen for the real status and his numbers regarding number of hulls in service and assembly/manufacturing are complete hooey. Of course DW originally also had his ships VASTLY +4X bigger than they are currently until the great resizing, so this should also play into why we see a LARGE discrepancy, though this should mean even more workers, but apparently it is too difficult to build robots which build the ships as it is quite apparent from number of humans present in the manufacturing process, human hands do not touch these ships in the construction phase.

Just an FYI, there are half a million plumbers in the USA and Half a million electricians and a half million HVAC for a population of 300,000,000. Vast majority of whom are in NEW construction, something that will be absent in a prolong society and these guys who are interested in working with their hands would 100% be available for building ships/manning them in the HV. Even if we assume 1/3 are for maintenance, still frees up 1 Million. This on a population of 300M. Project this number of freed up people to 3Billion(Manticore) and we get 10Million free There are roughly 10 million Oil and Gas workers most of whom would be out of work in the future due to fusion energy and solar collectors with beamed power from space. Translate this to 3Billion would be 100Million available. Heavy construction is another 1M in USA translates to 10 Million available in HV. 2 million in USA in Aerospace translates into 20 Million available in HV. 2 Million in USA in Vehicle production translates into another 20 million available. Etc etc etc. And another 1.5M+ in the Military and from these numbers alone Manticore should have 15Million available when at peace.

Manticore should have hundreds of millions available in peace time for building/manning its ships even if we assume a society without prelong. Manticore with prelong should literally have 1 Billion people available in peace time for heavy manufacturing industry with relevant capabilities, skills, for war time production

So, either humanity is the lazyiest bunch of uneducated idiots in 10,000 years of human history or economics in the HV are complete.....

Relax wrote:And both statements are still laughable. Even if we add up 100% of ALL Navy/Marines/Army/Workforce assembly + manufacturing we are still describing 1% of the population if we assume 30 million(WAY above what the books represent) in RMN service. If you use 1% of working age population that in effect means you are fighting a "WAR TO THE DEATH" using ~1% of GDP. Pull the other leg.

I just go with his earlier book GDP numbers when describing Grayson/Endicott in Honor of the Queen for the real status and his numbers regarding number of hulls in service and assembly/manufacturing are complete hooey. Of course DW originally also had his ships VASTLY +4X bigger than they are currently until the great resizing, so this should also play into why we see a LARGE discrepancy, though this should mean even more workers, but apparently it is too difficult to build robots which build the ships as it is quite apparent from number of humans present in the manufacturing process, human hands do not touch these ships in the construction phase.

Just an FYI, there are half a million plumbers in the USA and Half a million electricians and a half million HVAC for a population of 300,000,000. Vast majority of whom are in NEW construction, something that will be absent in a prolong society and these guys who are interested in working with their hands would 100% be available for building ships/manning them in the HV. Even if we assume 1/3 are for maintenance, still frees up 1 Million. This on a population of 300M. Project this number of freed up people to 3Billion(Manticore) and we get 10Million free There are roughly 10 million Oil and Gas workers most of whom would be out of work in the future due to fusion energy and solar collectors with beamed power from space. Translate this to 3Billion would be 100Million available. Heavy construction is another 1M in USA translates to 10 Million available in HV. 2 million in USA in Aerospace translates into 20 Million available in HV. 2 Million in USA in Vehicle production translates into another 20 million available. Etc etc etc. And another 1.5M+ in the Military and from these numbers alone Manticore should have 15Million available when at peace.

Manticore should have hundreds of millions available in peace time for building/manning its ships even if we assume a society without prelong. Manticore with prelong should literally have 1 Billion people available in peace time for heavy manufacturing industry with relevant capabilities, skills, for war time production

So, either humanity is the lazyiest bunch of uneducated idiots in 10,000 years of human history or economics in the HV are complete.....

Army and Navy were supposed to top at 30 million at the height of the first war - so construction personnel would drive that to ~40 million.... but we're still discussing tenths of a percent of the original Star Kingdom population.

For perspective, the ~325 million US population in 2018 had 2.2 million active members of the Boy Scouts of America, with 800,000 volunteers supporting them, or ~1% of the US Population. Girl Scouts accounted for an additional 1.5 Million active members and 500,000 volunters. So between the 2, >1.5% of Americans were active in US Scouting programs.

drothgery wrote:

Daryl wrote:I agree. Previously I've said that I don't get the message of a sovereign entity fighting for its existence. It all seems to be business as usual.

... even though in fact Manticore (pre-expansion) had a far larger percentage of its population under arms than anyone but Grayson. I always thought it was weird that people got that impression Haven was digging deeper than Manticore; Manticore had a way, way larger percentage of its population and of its GDP committed to the military than Haven did. And the League spent peanuts per capita on the SLN (which despite being huge in absolute terms, was tiny per capita even compared to the RHN).

The entire series reminded me of the picture of the whiteboard in Iraq.
America is not at war
The Marine Corps is at war
America is at the mall

That wasn't what David was trying to do, but it's what the effect is.

Even after everything in orbit got blowed up there wasn't a sense of desperation even as people talked about how awful it was. The RMN not changing how it operated to reflect that if you lose a recon drone, there is no spare. There are no spare missiles at base. Wear on the nodes means your ship can end up not working. And then poof, not so bad at all.

kzt wrote:The RMN is limited by manpower. It is so written that they cannot expand, apparently because they need every single interpretive dancer, feminist theorist, and rap artist working as hard as they can every day - Manticoran civilization will simply collapse without them. They just cannot expand their navy.

So if the RMN wants to get into a build competition with the three trillion population SLN, well, go for it. I think I know how this ends.

I believe the explanation was that at ~1% of the population being in the military was the limit for Manticore before it started negatively affecting civilian life. In a democracy facing a life or death war losing your political power base in favour of someone not willing to arm the military because of ideological beliefs and would be bad for everyone so the government would have to work within the constraints rather than risk alienating their voters and losing control and losing the war before it started.

Theemile wrote:
1) we know the SLN reserve cannot be manned, with active personal, they might be able to man a couple hundred more ships, but the rest will require calling up retired reserves - which the SLN has no contingency plans for <head scratching>

My point is that what the SLN could or could not do with the reserve is irrelevant. The League members will be looking at the SLN from the point of view that even if the SLN reserve was 100% modern ships with 100% of the crew accounted for it would still take time to mobilize them and still would leave the League exposed. The core and shell systems would have to be looking at the SLN from the point of view that they could not protect 90%+ of the League. If they initiated a war before mobilizing the reserve the SLN would be tied down protecting the helpless reserve leaving the rest of the League with the vast majority of the League defenceless aside from what they have in their SDF if they have one.

I would certainly be demanding an SLN that has the ability to protect my system and reinforce the picket or I would be building a force that I can count on and making agreements with neighbours and bypassing the League and the SLN all-together.

3) Battle fleet is not a defense fleet. It is a retribution fleet. It's mandate to to smash anyone who attacks the SL with overwhelming force. In modern military terms, it is a "Fleet in Being", it's mere existence is the deterrence, not it's presence. Frontier fleet is the SL's presence fleet, it's units don't have to be individually strong, powerful, or insanely high tech- they are the tripwire that will bring hell on anyone who dares face them.

After the war with the GA, the League would have to rethink that. The League members post war would demand protection from the SLN or invest heavily on their own defence negating the need for the SLN. Pre war they thought the mighty SLN could protect them by reputation, post war they want actual ships in their systems. It does help a core system to have the SLN smashing Manticore and Haven if the two nations can read the situation and decide to let their fleets loose within the League rather than fight the war the way the SLN expects by sitting in your home system and waiting for them to arrive.

4) how does the SLN provide security? Fear. The rest isn't their job.

Maybe I didn't word my question the right way but my point is that post war League members will be reviewing the pre war SLN and finding exactly how weak they were. Post war they will be looking back, seeing the weakness and know that things could have ended really badly for the League even with an RMN that has technological parity. The SLN can absolutely crush the 1905 RMN but the RMN knows that as well and there is nothing stoping them from wreaking the League because those 300 wallers and support ships can cripple the League and destroy the space-born infrastructure of 90%+ of the League.

5) 1965, or in 40 years, there will be a Different GA facing off with a different SLN, despite prolong. It would be foolish to ascribe the failings of the 1920 SLN to what will reconstitute in 40 years, as will it be to ascribe the successes of the 1924 GA to their successors in 1965.

The failures of the war will have long term effect for the League members, people will remember how helpless they felt knowing that the GA could sail into their system and wreak it and there was nothing they could do about it. What happens in 1920-1923 will have a massive impact in the thinking to he SLN for decades after the war.

Jonathan_S wrote:David Weber's said that the League in fact did not have the reserve manpower to activate its reserve; nor any good plans for rapidly training crew for them.

My point is that even if they had 100% of their reserve made up of modern ships and crews for 100% of them it would still leave the League greatly exposed and assuming they can mobilize it quickly before hostilities commence.

You're technically correct that their low SDs/system makes them defenseless -- in that they're incapable of successfully sitting on the defensive and having enough force to defeat attacks. However that's why they adopted their strategy of going directly for the enemy's homeworld. The same strategy that you also said they'd need to follow.

And that strategy depends on the other side playing by your rules. The RMN/RHN can read the situation and if they figured that they will lose the war going toe to toe with the SLN what to stop them from going to the League and wreaking 90%+ of the infrastructure in retaliation? What good does capturing the junction and destroying Manticore and Haven be to the 1,500 league member systems that were wreaked while the SLN was busy attacking?

With their 2,000 or so active SDs they can defensively cover a few key systems, including Sol, and still send a thousand SDs at the enemy's home system.

a few key systems out of 1,700 member systems and that's assuming that the enemy whoever it may be decides to play by the rules that the SLN is playing.

Against only a few dozen SDs, assuming the entire enemy battle line had concentrated in defense of their home, you'd need a hell of a tech edge to overcome numerical inferiority of up to 20:1.

Again that's assuming that your wall is concentrated. But what happens when the enemy doesn't play by those rules? What happens when they read the situation as hopeless and decide that if they are going down they will make the League pay dearly for attacking them

The SLN strategy only works if the other side patiently waits in their home system to be destroyed, what do you do about those nations that realize they are screwed either way and decide to make the League pay dearly for attacking them? Its not like the League had a great reputation for how they treat people who they conquer, if I know my people will suffer either way I might decide to pack up my entire fleet and sail for League territory and there the 1,000 SD's can't do anything.

The RHN could have wreaked a huge part of the League with their battleships leaving their 460 SD to defend Haven. What good is defeating Haven when the League suffered 600 times more in damage?

And once the enemy's home system is occupied and its remaining industry and yards are under League control any SDs that might try to operate as a fleet in exile aren't going to last long -- not without sources of supplies, yards for repair, etc. (And that's assuming they're willing to violate the rules of war by continuing the fight after their government surrenders)

They don't need to operate in exile, they can attack the League while the SLN is on the move. If the SLN is sending 500+ SD's its most definitely not to have a chat and go home, so sending the RMN to to the League means they can destroy large segments of the League while the remaining SLN units sit and watch, if they move to do something about it the RMN can wreak their bases too.

We've debated before, but the consensus seems to be that probably up until about 1910 (so, much of the way through the first war with Haven) the active SLN Battle Fleet could have defeated the RMN; if they didn't fritter away their numerical advantage by repeatedly sending forces that were too small.

Im not talking on a toe to toe battle, Im talking about sending a fraction of the total force keeping the rest concentrated in defence. A force of 56 DN’s, 320 BB’s, 160 BC’s, 320 CA’s, 320 CL’s and 640 DD’s could wreck a good chunk of the League and do it rather quickly unless there are a lot more SDF's with wallers than we are led to believe.

Whats more the SLN can't send overwhelming forces to the Haven sector and defend Sol and other core systems adequately. Who is to stop say the GA with the 1905 strength from sailing directly to SOL and forcing the League to surrender?

Say the GA was able to get their expeditionary force to League space before the SLN can leave their bases and waits around for the SLN to leave and be a few weeks away before capturing the Beowulf terminal and sending their fleet through to capture Sol? The SLN might be in Manticore system but they have to fight their way through the junction forts and then through the fortified Beowulf terminal while the GA has free reign in League space.

The SLN can defeat the RMN and the RHN individually and they can defeat them together with 1910 tech and 1905 numbers but that's assuming that the GA would fight the way the SLN expects them to. What good is deleting Manticore and Haven if by the time the SLN comes back into League space the League has lost 90+% of their space born industry? And that's assuming that they don't resort to space to ground bombardment in Manticore or Haven at which point they can come back to the smouldering ruins that used to be the League.

Relax wrote:Just an FYI, there are half a million plumbers in the USA and Half a million electricians and a half million HVAC for a population of 300,000,000. Vast majority of whom are in NEW construction, something that will be absent in a prolong society and these guys who are interested in working with their hands would 100% be available for building ships/manning them in the HV. Even if we assume 1/3 are for maintenance, still frees up 1 Million. This on a population of 300M. Project this number of freed up people to 3Billion(Manticore) and we get 10Million free There are roughly 10 million Oil and Gas workers most of whom would be out of work in the future due to fusion energy and solar collectors with beamed power from space. Translate this to 3Billion would be 100Million available. Heavy construction is another 1M in USA translates to 10 Million available in HV. 2 million in USA in Aerospace translates into 20 Million available in HV. 2 Million in USA in Vehicle production translates into another 20 million available. Etc etc etc. And another 1.5M+ in the Military and from these numbers alone Manticore should have 15Million available when at peace.

Manticore should have hundreds of millions available in peace time for building/manning its ships even if we assume a society without prelong. Manticore with prelong should literally have 1 Billion people available in peace time for heavy manufacturing industry with relevant capabilities, skills, for war time production

Sorry, this makes no sense. You can't say that 33% of your population is available for a job that didn't exist yesterday. That would mean that these people are either unemployed, retired, or otherwise superfluous to your economy. That's describing what Haven under the Legilasturalist Regime should have looked like: the majority of the population on the Dole and doing nothing. Manticore is described as having a robust economy, which means an unemployment rate at healthy levels.

Besides, if those jobs you're describing won't exist in 50 years from today, then no one will be doing them in 2050 years from today in the first place. If you meant that they should have comparable jobs that the economy could do without, I agree in principle, but not in the numbers you presented, nor that it could be immediately available without consequence.

Sigs wrote:I believe the explanation was that at ~1% of the population being in the military was the limit for Manticore before it started negatively affecting civilian life. In a democracy facing a life or death war losing your political power base in favour of someone not willing to arm the military because of ideological beliefs and would be bad for everyone so the government would have to work within the constraints rather than risk alienating their voters and losing control and losing the war before it started.

I'm with Sigs here, even though there are still lots of flaws in the model.

The Manticore economy is a healthy and modern one, and the armed services have been expanding for most of the last T-century. We don't know what the population growth rate is in the 19th century PD, but I suspect they grew faster than the overall population. Once war breaks out, you can count on patriotism to drive up enlistment rates. But you can't simply move 10 to 20% of your population into work they weren't doing without an impact on your economy.

For one thing, you need that tax base. Just imagine how much it costs to fire those huge missile salvos, and build a hundred wallers. It can't be cheap to build an 8- to 9-million tonne warship (or any warship, for that matter), because otherwise everyone would be doing it and in considerably higher numbers. And likewise committing a bigger proportion of their population as military.

Of course, this isn't a perfect explanation. Far from it. For one thing, we're told that the SKM drove a significant portion of its revenue from the Junction and its related off-system business, like warehousing, shipping, financial services, information and news services, etc. None of those would suffer from a war-time footing of the economy and shifting of employment.

Still, this is the explanation that makes most sense: the SKM never felt that its existence was so threatened that it needed to institute something like the draft. It did just fine, in fact, with the population in military service it did have. Sure, Sir Lucien Cortez would have liked to have more people, but that was politically unacceptable. And like everyone in the military, "you fight with the weapons you have, not the weapons you wish you had."

Up until Oyster Bay. For that, I'd search for a different explanation, one we're right now very familiar with: Supply Chain problems. Just look at what a single ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal did to the world economy. Look at the "chip shortage" news. And imagine what would happen if suddenly the TSMC production of chips became unavailable.

Sigs wrote:

Theemile wrote:
1) we know the SLN reserve cannot be manned, with active personal, they might be able to man a couple hundred more ships, but the rest will require calling up retired reserves - which the SLN has no contingency plans for <head scratching>

My point is that what the SLN could or could not do with the reserve is irrelevant. The League members will be looking at the SLN from the point of view that even if the SLN reserve was 100% modern ships with 100% of the crew accounted for it would still take time to mobilize them and still would leave the League exposed. The core and shell systems would have to be looking at the SLN from the point of view that they could not protect 90%+ of the League. If they initiated a war before mobilizing the reserve the SLN would be tied down protecting the helpless reserve leaving the rest of the League with the vast majority of the League defenceless aside from what they have in their SDF if they have one.

Reserves are useful because they typically cost about 25% of the cost of having the ship be fully operational. If the bill-payers want to pay the bill of having an operational BatRon+escorts per system plus mobile fleets, well, that's their choice. And their bill to pay.

It's certainly a viable option for the SLN to do that.

Relax wrote:
1) Uncompromising Honor has said Active SLN personnel is 27,000,000 with a total of 155,000,000.

2) Each SD uses ~7000people/SD I think even said 7500 in Mission of Honor? 2200* 7500 = 16,500,000
3) Each BC uses ~2400people/BC 4400*2400 = 10,560,000

Erm...
16,500,000 + 10,560,000 =~27,000,000 Uh... Houston we have a problem. But we are told 1/2 are not really active but in reserve. But, we do know that in UH, all SD's have been decomissioned minus 150 of them and all personnel transferred to BC's and lighter units.

4) We have no idea number of CA, CL, DD, but we do know there are vast numbers of them greater than number of BC.

4A) CA ~ 1200, CL ~400, DD ~300 personnel each respectively.
5) SLN is BC HEAVY. So few CA's
5a) So out of every 10 light units probably only 1 is a CA
5b) 10 units = 1CA + ~9*(CL + DD)/2
10 = 1200 + 9*350 = ~4500/10 light ships ~450/light ship

[16,500,000 - 150*7500]/450 = 34,000 light combatants.

Very Roughly SLN had: 2200SD, 4400BC, 1000CA, 16500 CL, 16500 DD with more working up etc.

My numbers are based on the fact that we know a hard number for BC's and in almost every engagement we have seen in the series where we get a breakdown of the order of battle the CA/CL/DD are fewer than the BC's involved. Whats more the SLN uses BC's as their workhorse in the verge and protectorates even though most of those systems were completely defenceless and a CL/DD can do the job just fine.

I don't see a scenario where the SLN has 34,000 lighter combatants because we would have seen evidence of their over abundance of lighter units. The mandarins would have easily pulled ut all of their BC's from the protectorates and the verge leaving the CL's and DD's to do the job that BC's vacated and still have 20,000 lighter units to back up the BC's.

Sigs wrote:My point is that even if they had 100% of their reserve made up of modern ships and crews for 100% of them it would still leave the League greatly exposed and assuming they can mobilize it quickly before hostilities commence.

That's correct, but only if they actually need that reserve too quickly. With an active fleet of 2500 wallers, the theory was that they could afford to take the time. 2500 wallers should have been able to fight everyone at the same time without uncovering critical nodes too much.

If they had had a plan to reactivate and crew those ships, it would probably have phases, meaning some 500 should be ready to go within 3 months. In relative terms, that's only 20% more, but in absolute terms, we're talking about adding as many ships as the second largest navy had. And then 6 months after that, another 1000 would be ready for battle.

And that strategy depends on the other side playing by your rules. The RMN/RHN can read the situation and if they figured that they will lose the war going toe to toe with the SLN what to stop them from going to the League and wreaking 90%+ of the infrastructure in retaliation? What good does capturing the junction and destroying Manticore and Haven be to the 1,500 league member systems that were wreaked while the SLN was busy attacking?

You don't commit atrocities for fear of retaliation in kind, or escalating beyond what you've done. Your main job is to protect your population and you can't do that if the juggernaut comes to your system and smashes everything you have.

This of course breaks down when there is no peer or superior power to deliver that punishment. If the RMN or RHN has the power to wreck 1500 systems before they're defeated, that means the disparity in capabilities is so great that they cannot effectively be kept in check. In fact, I have a hard time believing they could wreck 1500 systems and still lose the war in the first place, short of major strategic blunders.

Again that's assuming that your wall is concentrated. But what happens when the enemy doesn't play by those rules? What happens when they read the situation as hopeless and decide that if they are going down they will make the League pay dearly for attacking them

If the League had been paying attention, that situation would never have developed, at least not critically so. Any enemy that decided the situation was hopeless would have been too small to "make the League pay dearly."

The situation now is a bit different, and will continue to be so even after the SLN has recovered. There will be peer powers that can do damage. But this goes back to the point above: if you lash out, then everyone combines against you and you lose that much more quickly, and that much more thoroughly.

The SLN strategy only works if the other side patiently waits in their home system to be destroyed, what do you do about those nations that realize they are screwed either way and decide to make the League pay dearly for attacking them? Its not like the League had a great reputation for how they treat people who they conquer, if I know my people will suffer either way I might decide to pack up my entire fleet and sail for League territory and there the 1,000 SD's can't do anything.

Which is exactly why no one would have wanted to attract the League's attention in the first place. No one could do so much damage to the League that they had a hope in winning. And the first rule of warfare is that you don't start a war you can't win (you may delude yourself into thinking you can, but that's another story).

The RHN could have wreaked a huge part of the League with their battleships leaving their 460 SD to defend Haven. What good is defeating Haven when the League suffered 600 times more in damage?

I really question that number. Just how was the PN going to do 600 times more damage to the League with battleships than what the League would do to Haven once it crossed the hyperwall with 1000 SDs?

The PN had 374 battleships, or just over 45 squadrons. Let's say they go in squadron-strength at 45 targets. What are those targets? They're definitely not the SLN Core systems with anchorage, because those have battle fleets of multiple SD squadrons. They're probably not going after the Frontier Fleet nodal bases either, because why pick a fight with battlecruisers? That means the juicier targets to wreck would be the Core systems with poor defences, like Hypatia. Only that means the message gets to Sol much more quickly, while the travel time for those BBs gets longer. Or they could attack Shell systems that are closer by, but the damage there is much lesser.

So they may do considerable damage to 90 or 135 systems, which is ~7% of the number of systems in the League, and probably less than 5% of the League's industry. The cost for that is losing ALL of Haven and all of the Tier 1 colonies. The People's Republic would effectively cease to exist and would be occupied by a military government -- 100% loss.

Im not talking on a toe to toe battle, Im talking about sending a fraction of the total force keeping the rest concentrated in defence. A force of 56 DN’s, 320 BB’s, 160 BC’s, 320 CA’s, 320 CL’s and 640 DD’s could wreck a good chunk of the League and do it rather quickly unless there are a lot more SDF's with wallers than we are led to believe.

No, it couldn't, not without the ability to refit and resupply multiple times. If the RMN decided to do that, Beowulf would block the terminus -- treaty or no treaty -- so they'd have to go the long way. And the PN would have had to go the long way too, because the Bolthole wormhole doesn't help that much.

And don't forget everyone else. If the RMN or PN decided to start committing atrocities, the other one would take action. And the IAN too, plus a good chunk of the other three dozen Top Tier navies.

Whats more the SLN can't send overwhelming forces to the Haven sector and defend Sol and other core systems adequately. Who is to stop say the GA with the 1905 strength from sailing directly to SOL and forcing the League to surrender?

At that time, if the GF sent everything it had, it would have sent just short of 600 SDs plus 169 DNs. The SLN detachment at Sol was 400-450 SDs, plus what we have to assume are fixed defences. Without MDMs, that battle would have been inconclusive, with either the attackers withdrawing or suffering horrendous losses before getting to Earth orbit.

They'd also have needed to leave some forces behind to protect the terminus near Beowulf, unless the BSDF was on their side too.

And what would really happen to the other 1500 SDs if they manage to control Earth orbit and demand the League surrender? By this time, the GA would be composed of at best 100 SDs effective. How are they going to keep 750 of them from coming to each of their home systems and wrecking them?

And that's if they don't all get news that the Imperial Andermani flag has been raised above Landing and Erewhon has smashed the Haven system's industry.