1924 PD - Rebuilding the Solarian League Navy

cthia wrote:But those Shrikes were not capable of being produced in horrendous numbers, in the tens of thousands.

Remember, the SLN is a G I A N T that is no longer sleeping.

Think twenty to thirty thousand Shrikes.

Actually Shrikes almost assuredly were build in at least the (low) tens of thousands.

Just filling the LAC bays of the 148 CLACs listed in House of Steel would require 16,648 LACs. And that doesn't count spares, replacements for LACs lost in combat, LACs assigned to all the system defense LAC bases, etc. etc. etc. - And production of CLACs continued past that point (heck for Hydra it just says 94+)

Manticore and Grayson probably built at least 50,000 LACs and probably over 1/3rd of those were Shrikes.



Still, your point that the League could afford to build many many times as many is true. You were simply out a couple orders of magnitude in the number

Joat42 wrote:The only thing that makes sense in regards to new LAC's are that they can be used as in-system defense/anti piracy which could free up older ships and manpower and any money saved there could be funneled into R&D.

and

tlb wrote:Without guessing what the funding situation will look like after the new constitution, I assume most members will want to support system defense and the best way to do that is to build a League standard LAC that will be manned by Solarian Navy reserves at each planet. Not only does each planet get support, but also every planet with the capacity will receive building contracts.

Those arguments are exactly why the SLN, or the SL itself, should focus on LACs. Free up personnel, shore up system defence with purely defensive units, then use the money to research what really matters.

It's not, as I'd said before, what I think they will do.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Joat42 wrote:The only thing that makes sense in regards to new LAC's are that they can be used as in-system defense/anti piracy which could free up older ships and manpower and any money saved there could be funneled into R&D.

and

tlb wrote:Without guessing what the funding situation will look like after the new constitution, I assume most members will want to support system defense and the best way to do that is to build a League standard LAC that will be manned by Solarian Navy reserves at each planet. Not only does each planet get support, but also every planet with the capacity will receive building contracts.

Those arguments are exactly why the SLN, or the SL itself, should focus on LACs. Free up personnel, shore up system defence with purely defensive units, then use the money to research what really matters.

It's not, as I'd said before, what I think they will do.

The thing is, the current crop of SLN ships are good enough for system defense if we ignore the whole money and personnel issues so the need to fast track replacing them with LAC's seems a bit premature - especially considering the SLN need to actually come up with a new design incorporating tech that is somewhat on par with what the GA are currently fielding. There is no point in building LAC's if they haven't upgraded tech - because that's just burning money on something that's already obsolete.

We also have to consider why they would need to build LAC's in massive numbers, what is the reason that could drive such a build up? Offensive action against the GA? That just mean they'll get another visit from a GA TF wrecking the building slips.

Joat42 wrote:We also have to consider why they would need to build LAC's in massive numbers, what is the reason that could drive such a build up? Offensive action against the GA? That just mean they'll get another visit from a GA TF wrecking the building slips.

As I said before, there's no single technology that can be developed that will give the SLN a massive leg up against the GA so it could go face to face. Especially not in the timeframe of the original post.

If the objective is to fight the GA in the short term, they've lost. If the objective is to fight in the medium term, they need more than one technology. Therefore, it can't be about fighting the GA.

My point on LACs is that they require breakthroughs in compensators and compact power sources, the latter of which probably exists in the civilian side of the SL. They serve a two-fold purpose: first, shore up system defence against (mostly imagined) outside threats, which helps keep those systems happy and funnelling money to research. But second, it drives the research on what they truly need, at least right now. It buys them time with the politicians while doing useful research.

tlb wrote:Without guessing what the funding situation will look like after the new constitution, I assume most members will want to support system defense and the best way to do that is to build a League standard LAC that will be manned by Solarian Navy reserves at each planet. Not only does each planet get support, but also every planet with the capacity will receive building contracts.

The economics of hte honorverse are absurd, but I suspect that it's still a whole lot cheaper to mass produce LACs at several large plants building hundreds per day than build them by hand in a few thousand places that build one per week or month.

tlb wrote:Without guessing what the funding situation will look like after the new constitution, I assume most members will want to support system defense and the best way to do that is to build a League standard LAC that will be manned by Solarian Navy reserves at each planet. Not only does each planet get support, but also every planet with the capacity will receive building contracts.

kzt wrote:The economics of the honorverse are absurd, but I suspect that it's still a whole lot cheaper to mass produce LACs at several large plants building hundreds per day than build them by hand in a few thousand places that build one per week or month.

I doubt that they would be built by hand in any of the major worlds in the Solarian League and those would be the worlds with the clout to get the contracts. Perhaps it would be cheaper to use only a small number of plants building all of the LACs, but that might NOT be the best political solution.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:My point on LACs is that they require breakthroughs in compensators and compact power sources, the latter of which probably exists in the civilian side of the SL. They serve a two-fold purpose: first, shore up system defence against (mostly imagined) outside threats, which helps keep those systems happy and funnelling money to research. But second, it drives the research on what they truly need, at least right now. It buys them time with the politicians while doing useful research.

Don't forget the beta-squared nodes, or a derivative thereof. Even first-gen Shrikes at Hancock whose live-fire combat effectiveness showed the need for the Ferrets and eventual Katana's had a considerably more powerful wedge strength.

Thanks to the beta-squareds, any GA LAC has a wedge strength more powerful than that of a Solly destroyer, and iirc to a certain extent wedge strength/power influences compensators.

So if the SLN could come up with beta-squared nodes, and they applied it equally from as small as LACs, and as large as SD', they'd automatically gain a not inconsiderable acceleration curve boost. Or they could have improved compensators which only truly affect existing starships, because their LACs simply wouldn't have powerful enough wedges to damp well.


But they can't easily see the enlarged & improved beta nodes, they aren't as flashy as other technologies, so it'd take decades before the SLN cracks those nodes.

To make SLN LACs or any that were built to SLN specs for MEMBER Systems of the SL.2 useful are going to have to work though the improvements in compensators and the lower volume/higher efficiency power plants. Won't begin to get into and SL developed FTL systems to push communications inside systems.
Why? Because if you intend for them to stand up to even the current (up to Uncompromising Honor) SLN hyper capable warships, you are going to need a lot more acceleration and endurance. Even a moderately old SLN DD would eat a dozen present SLN LACs for a snack and raise havoc in a system without other hypercapable ships (or serious system defense scheme with lots and lots of pods)

You can't compare Manticore shipping LAC Wings (with our without pre-fab orbital basing by freighter along with the delivering CLAC) to any system in Talbot to outfitting a SL Member system with new built SLN LACs with existing deigns.

SLN is going to have to practically porto-type out designer of each call of hyper capable warship as they get a bit (or a lot) further along with R&D. Quite possible that they will go with the systems used in the US and other places of letting out funding for development based on designed submissions and see who comes up with the "best" design.

What do you bet that Technodyne will want a crack at that and how the heck is the GA (or anybody else) going to keep Techondyne from passing information back to the Alignment. If Manticore hasn't already figured out that Technodyne is/has been a conduit for Alignment tech to SL and a rescue for what the League R&D has been doing, they probably will shortly.

I will concede that the SLN is going to have to contract out building "some" ships now (just not SDs) to try and keep other shipyards in business but they sould go for the designs that performed best (a very relative term vis the GA) in the recent confrontations.

We shall see.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:My point on LACs is that they require breakthroughs in compensators and compact power sources, the latter of which probably exists in the civilian side of the SL. They serve a two-fold purpose: first, shore up system defence against (mostly imagined) outside threats, which helps keep those systems happy and funnelling money to research. But second, it drives the research on what they truly need, at least right now. It buys them time with the politicians while doing useful research.

Somtaaw wrote:Don't forget the beta-squared nodes, or a derivative thereof. Even first-gen Shrikes at Hancock whose live-fire combat effectiveness showed the need for the Ferrets and eventual Katana's had a considerably more powerful wedge strength.

Thanks to the beta-squareds, any GA LAC has a wedge strength more powerful than that of a Solly destroyer, and iirc to a certain extent wedge strength/power influences compensators.

So if the SLN could come up with beta-squared nodes, and they applied it equally from as small as LACs, and as large as SD', they'd automatically gain a not inconsiderable acceleration curve boost. Or they could have improved compensators which only truly affect existing starships, because their LACs simply wouldn't have powerful enough wedges to damp well.

But they can't easily see the enlarged & improved beta nodes, they aren't as flashy as other technologies, so it'd take decades before the SLN cracks those nodes.

We have no idea it will take for the Solarian League to acquire improved compensators and nodes, because the Solarian Navy had never been interested in improving what they had. However they have an enormous technological research base in their universities and if the new Navy can begin providing research funding, then surprising results might occur. For example: if someone asks how node shape is related to wedge efficiency and strength and people actually start doing the research, then the Beta squared shape or something equivalent might appear in a few years rather than decades.

The fission reactor is not really needed, the designs from Haven came close with a nuclear reactor.

Somtaaw wrote:But they can't easily see the enlarged & improved beta nodes, they aren't as flashy as other technologies, so it'd take decades before the SLN cracks those nodes.

Improved nodes and compensators are actually the technologies most likely to make a transition to civilian use the soonest. We'd already seen a civilian liner by Hauptman with the full package minus offensive. It's a way for those construction combines to make money right now, before the SL cracks it on their own, which they eventually would.

But once those civilian designs start shipping, someone is going to reverse engineer them.