New ship idea

Draken wrote:BSDF SD are flying and deadly junk, better for Manticore would be to put them into furnaces and use it to build new ships. Grayson would have shipyards coming online in next year or so. And of they will need to build ships very fast first Invictuses should be ready in three maybe four year period. Bolthole must be upgraded and that should take around three maybe six months and after that they should be able to be building around four or six hundred Invictuses at the same time.

BSDF SD are at least as good as the SDs they are likely to be facing, if not better, so they are not junk.

BSDF has had the advantage of working and exercising with RMN. I suspect that while the BSDF SDs are at least more capable than the counterparts in the SLN on a 1 to 1 basis, the crews are vastly superior.

I would not be surprised of SBDF has a number of things in-house and practiced with that the SLN is not going to like. Pods, with at least DDMs, come to mind. They have been paying attention to the Haven/Manticore war and watching the development of systems and tactics. They practice with RNM. Dedicated space supreriority LACs seem reasonable. They may not have CLACs but LAC screens in counter-missile role will certainly improve the survivability of the BSDF SDs. Comes to that, they can still be deploying their own minefields of pods with existing Beowulf shipboard and system defence missiles.

Brigade XO wrote:BSDF has had the advantage of working and exercising with RMN. I suspect that while the BSDF SDs are at least more capable than the counterparts in the SLN on a 1 to 1 basis, the crews are vastly superior.

I would not be surprised of SBDF has a number of things in-house and practiced with that the SLN is not going to like. Pods, with at least DDMs, come to mind. They have been paying attention to the Haven/Manticore war and watching the development of systems and tactics. They practice with RNM. Dedicated space supreriority LACs seem reasonable. They may not have CLACs but LAC screens in counter-missile role will certainly improve the survivability of the BSDF SDs. Comes to that, they can still be deploying their own minefields of pods with existing Beowulf shipboard and system defence missiles.

I know that it is interesting to speculate about Beowulf's SDs, but I suspect that it is irrelevant to the story arc. Beowulf will be armed with the same SDPs as everyone else since Haven's shipyards are soon going to be turning them out in job lots after which Beowulf's old designs will be mothballed.

Don

Unless Haven just gives Beowulf 25 or 30 new SDs along with all the weapons supplies and the BSDF crews have something like 6mo to a year to practice with them, there won't be enough time to have BSDF rearmed and proficient with them for the SLN "observer fleet" to show up for the referendum.

There has to be some large measure of difference between the Haven tech and what Beowulf already has even with transfer information and training from Manticore. These are hypercapable warships. While a lot of the basics are the same, the actual tech and the actual operating of the equipment and software is going to take some time to teach.

That doesnt' begin to deal with where Beowulf is going to get the NEW naval personel rather than having to lay up existing SDs to crew any Haven ships. Why, because they can't afford to take any ships out of commission until they have been able to replace them with operationaly ready new units. That includes some reasonable shake-down work to build a competent crew to effectivly fight the ship. The Haven ships don't have the manpower reducing automation of the RMN ships so you have to have a net increase in size of you navy to staff new ones and get them up to speed. Certainly that will include transfers of experienced officers, NCOs and tech to be the core of the new ship comp lent.

The window of vunerablity is perhaps through a month after the vote. Until the government of Beowulf has the referendum in-hand (in favor of leaving the League) and can make a formal treaty with Manticore, there is the POLITIAL issue of Manticore forcing,by putting warships inside the Beowulf system to compel Beowulf to leave the SL. The actual day of the vote is goiing to be very dangerous since I suspect the Mandarins would want to make the actual move on the system before the results are announced. Once SLN has posession of the system, to SAVE IT of course, what Manticore can do gets very messy.

Brigade XO wrote:Unless Haven just gives Beowulf 25 or 30 new SDs along with all the weapons supplies and the BSDF crews have something like 6mo to a year to practice with them, there won't be enough time to have BSDF rearmed and proficient with them for the SLN "observer fleet" to show up for the referendum.

There has to be some large measure of difference between the Haven tech and what Beowulf already has even with transfer information and training from Manticore. These are hypercapable warships. While a lot of the basics are the same, the actual tech and the actual operating of the equipment and software is going to take some time to teach.


That doesnt' begin to deal with where Beowulf is going to get the NEW naval personel rather than having to lay up existing SDs to crew any Haven ships. Why, because they can't afford to take any ships out of commission until they have been able to replace them with operationaly ready new units. That includes some reasonable shake-down work to build a competent crew to effectivly fight the ship. The Haven ships don't have the manpower reducing automation of the RMN ships so you have to have a net increase in size of you navy to staff new ones and get them up to speed. Certainly that will include transfers of experienced officers, NCOs and tech to be the core of the new ship comp lent.

The window of vunerablity is perhaps through a month after the vote. Until the government of Beowulf has the referendum in-hand (in favor of leaving the League) and can make a formal treaty with Manticore, there is the POLITIAL issue of Manticore forcing,by putting warships inside the Beowulf system to compel Beowulf to leave the SL. The actual day of the vote is goiing to be very dangerous since I suspect the Mandarins would want to make the actual move on the system before the results are announced. Once SLN has posession of the system, to SAVE IT of course, what Manticore can do gets very messy.

Hi Brigade XO,

Nice post. But I think we are on different pages. I'm in Lyonheart's camp in assuming that since Honor wasn't worried about the attack at the end of COG when she had her conversation with Zilwicke that either the attack didn't materialize or was beaten back and by that time, the window of vulnerability was past.

As for the rest, I don't think that Haven will be producing their old manpower intensive Havenite designs. After all Manticore's R&D teams have taken a leisurely trip to Bolthole. Although they won't be producing Invictuses right away, I suspect they will be closer to invictuses than not by the time they crank up and start turning things out.

As for what happens the day of the vote, if I'm wrong and the attack does succeed, I don't think Manticore hesitates. She sends in several squadrons of SDPs and not so cordially disinvites the SLN. The time for playing Mickey Mouse with these people is long past.

Don

We have a modern history of secession votes. They are defeated. An amusing possibility to confuse the plot would be to have the Beowulfers rejecting secession, the Solarian League not getting the word and attacking anyhow, and then there would be a fresh vote. Of course, that would require the author to do something unpredictable, and I am sure he would not do that.

phillies wrote:We have a modern history of secession votes. They are defeated. An amusing possibility to confuse the plot would be to have the Beowulfers rejecting secession, the Solarian League not getting the word and attacking anyhow, and then there would be a fresh vote. Of course, that would require the author to do something unpredictable, and I am sure he would not do that.

Oh no, he has never in the history of the world done something unpredictable , but I don't think this is it. With the polls running about 85% in favor, I don't think the secession vote is going to fail.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

phillies wrote:We have a modern history of secession votes. They are defeated. An amusing possibility to confuse the plot would be to have the Beowulfers rejecting secession, the Solarian League not getting the word and attacking anyhow, and then there would be a fresh vote. Of course, that would require the author to do something unpredictable, and I am sure he would not do that.

Oh no, he has never in the history of the world done something unpredictable , but I don't think this is it. With the polls running about 85% in favor, I don't think the secession vote is going to fail.

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Approx 1/3 of the SL Assembly voted against the motion directed against Beowulf.
1) I would be curious where these systems are geo-spacialy and whether they are close enough to provide a measure of mutual support or perhaps, form a Beowulf League or Beowulf Union
2) Might the SLN target "enforcement patrols" in or near these systems if they find the secession vote "true and valid" (read they didn't like targeting lidar hitting them outside their own range)

Only your RFC / MWW knows for sure.

-- Stewart

If Beowulf is so terrified about SLN ships, why don't just borrow ships from Manticore?

Draken wrote:If Beowulf is so terrified about SLN ships, why don't just borrow ships from Manticore?

1) Beowulf isn't particularly terrified about SLN Ships. Not on a one-to-one basis nor on the basis of pure numbers expected shortly after the secession vote. Especially given a healthy infusion of Manticoran Mk23 System Defense pods.

2) Borrowing ships from Manticore would be the same as inviting Manticore into Beowulf Orbit -- which the Mandarins could spin as Manticore intimidating voters.

3) Manticore ships would necessarily come with Manticoran crews; It takes time to train and work up to combat readiness even when personnel are already familiar with similar tech levels. Manticoran Crews would give depth to Solarian claims of collusion and voter intimidation.

4) See point #1; Beowulf doesn't need Manticoran ships, just Manticoran system defense missiles.