Topic Actions

Topic Search

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 37 guests

GA-League War lessons learned

Join us in talking discussing all things Honor, including (but not limited to) tactics, favorite characters, and book discussions.
GA-League War lessons learned
Post by Sigs   » Wed Jul 14, 2021 10:48 pm

Sigs
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1446
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2015 6:09 pm

I have been thinking for a while now about the overall series and the lessons learned by individual nations and their militaries. The RMN and RHN had spend about 40 years knowing a war was coming, there was already a well established understanding that Manticore was technologically superior to Haven and that Haven was numerically superior to the RMN. Both sides had 40 years to build up to war and then spend 17 of the previous 22 years at shooting war with each other. Basically Haven had 17 years of progress and adjustment to Manticoran innovation and tactics and despite the size differences the two sides were relatively equal. Haven managed to fight Manticore from 1905 technology to 1922 technology and for the majority of the war they kept within shouting distance of the RMN mostly because of their size. Haven managed to learn the lessons one or two at a time over a 20 year period while starting relatively close technologically.

The SLN on the other hand started the war in 1921 with massive technological, intelligence, training, quality and experience deficit when compared to the RMN. The SLN started the war with the belief that they were technologically, numerically superior and had better leadership. The SLN started the war as the greatest, most powerful navy in the history of humanity and with their 10,000 SD's they were more powerful then every other navy in existence but in a short 6 months they managed to go from the belief that they are the greatest that ever was to the reality that they were at best the 6th most powerful navy and 2 of those navies are single system nations.

Knowing all of this, how does the SLN proceed from here on out? How do they work to get technological parity and numerical superiority without falling in the trap that they fell into the first time around? What lessons did the RMN/RHN/GSN/IAN/EN/MSDF learn from the war that would are important?

The league still had tremendous industrial, material, population and economic power behind it and if they manage to tap into the tax base that was previously denied to them the SLN could become a major power rather quickly. How does the SLN use the resources they can tap to improve not just technologically but quality of their people and training and leadership so that in 1940, the SLN can be a powerful force with 15 years of experience and training behind it along with its doctrine and institutional confidence in their abilities.

Basically what lessons and what effects does the 1923 SLN incorporate into their training doctrine and institutional identity to make the 1940 SLN a superpower once again?

For example, how does the sudden shift of missile wave density and technology at least from SLN point of view affect their LAC/CLAC doctrine? Considering when they start building their LAC and CLAC forces they will start with absolute garbage in terms of CLACs and LACs. I can see the SLN going overboard in their LAC doctrine and using much bigger numbers than the GA out of fanatical need to for adequate missile defense. The SLN went from being able to fire 42 missiles per SD to facing an enemy that can control 200 missiles per SD(P) and they did it over a few month span.

On the other hand what lessons does the SLN collapse teach the GA?

How does the GA reorganize to be able to face the SLN with a hope of survival in the coming decades after the SLN rebuilds?

How does the GA organize to be the most efficient they can be in the coming decades when once again the SLN becomes a superpower? Right now they are multiple separate navies with their own issues since they built up after 17 years of war.
Top
Re: GA-League War lessons learned
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Jul 15, 2021 12:32 pm

ThinksMarkedly
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4103
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am

Sigs wrote:I have been thinking for a while now about the overall series and the lessons learned by individual nations and their militaries. The RMN and RHN had spend about 40 years knowing a war was coming, there was already a well established understanding that Manticore was technologically superior to Haven and that Haven was numerically superior to the RMN. Both sides had 40 years to build up to war and then spend 17 of the previous 22 years at shooting war with each other. Basically Haven had 17 years of progress and adjustment to Manticoran innovation and tactics and despite the size differences the two sides were relatively equal. Haven managed to fight Manticore from 1905 technology to 1922 technology and for the majority of the war they kept within shouting distance of the RMN mostly because of their size. Haven managed to learn the lessons one or two at a time over a 20 year period while starting relatively close technologically.


And don't forget that the PN was actually fighting in those 40 years, something very few navies could claim to be doing. Lopsided fights against much weaker opponents, but they were still fighting. One of the things that greatly helped the Manticore Alliance against the PRH in the first war was that the Committee had done a purge of the Legislaturalist officer corp that had experience and compounded the mistake by shooting flag officers who lost battles.

Similarly, the RMN and the IAN were also fighting, though their targets were pirates in Silesia. Again, lopsided, but it did allow those officer corps to gain a lot of experience prior to the start of the war.

The SLN on the other hand started the war in 1921 with massive technological, intelligence, training, quality and experience deficit when compared to the RMN. The SLN started the war with the belief that they were technologically, numerically superior and had better leadership. The SLN started the war as the greatest, most powerful navy in the history of humanity and with their 10,000 SD's they were more powerful then every other navy in existence but in a short 6 months they managed to go from the belief that they are the greatest that ever was to the reality that they were at best the 6th most powerful navy and 2 of those navies are single system nations.


The SLN Battle Fleet, on the other hand, had had no experience at all for 3 centuries. True, the RMN had no experience in fighting capital ships either, since those SDs were sitting in the MBS and not getting sent to Silesia. But unlike the SLN, the destroyer and cruiser captains in the RMN were promoted into the capital ships; in the SLN, FF and BF officer corps didn't mix. So any and all experience that the FF gained fighting petty warlords, some pirates, and in any other ways it could have gained from its less-than-aboveboard operations with the OFS were not transferred to the BF.

Knowing all of this, how does the SLN proceed from here on out? How do they work to get technological parity and numerical superiority without falling in the trap that they fell into the first time around? What lessons did the RMN/RHN/GSN/IAN/EN/MSDF learn from the war that would are important?

The league still had tremendous industrial, material, population and economic power behind it and if they manage to tap into the tax base that was previously denied to them the SLN could become a major power rather quickly. How does the SLN use the resources they can tap to improve not just technologically but quality of their people and training and leadership so that in 1940, the SLN can be a powerful force with 15 years of experience and training behind it along with its doctrine and institutional confidence in their abilities.

Basically what lessons and what effects does the 1923 SLN incorporate into their training doctrine and institutional identity to make the 1940 SLN a superpower once again?


Good questions and we can debate this for a long time. Let me start with a summary, starting with the most obvious ones:

1) combat the patronage system, promoting instead people who are actually capable instead of the well-connected

2) remove the barriers in sharing of experience (merge FF and BF)

3) keep a robust R&D running basically forever and don't be afraid of obsoleting oneself

4) find allies and cross-pollinate ideas

For example, how does the sudden shift of missile wave density and technology at least from SLN point of view affect their LAC/CLAC doctrine? Considering when they start building their LAC and CLAC forces they will start with absolute garbage in terms of CLACs and LACs. I can see the SLN going overboard in their LAC doctrine and using much bigger numbers than the GA out of fanatical need to for adequate missile defense. The SLN went from being able to fire 42 missiles per SD to facing an enemy that can control 200 missiles per SD(P) and they did it over a few month span.


That's a knee-jerk reaction. You could be right. You're going to have a lot of baffled and inexperienced flag officers as well as politicians demanding action -- any action! And this is probably going to happen in some form, if not what you said. They will do something in the medium and short terms that will not help in the long run. They have to do something.

But long-term, the strategic planning needs to be thought out. They need to think two or three steps ahead, at least. That's like the existence of the Katana-class LAC: a logical consequence of the existence of LACs at all was that LAC-on-LAC fights would exist, so they made a space superiority asset, even before the RHN had deployed their own LACs.

What that is, I don't know. Clearly they need more CMs and more control links for those. That may not mean LACs; if they have a technological breakthrough that obviates the need to deploying forward, they could use dedicated CM barges. Similarly, if one can make up for CM quality with quantity, it may be a better idea to use light cruisers instead of LACs (remember the overhead of the CLAC).

How does the GA reorganize to be able to face the SLN with a hope of survival in the coming decades after the SLN rebuilds?

How does the GA organize to be the most efficient they can be in the coming decades when once again the SLN becomes a superpower? Right now they are multiple separate navies with their own issues since they built up after 17 years of war.


By not having to. They have to follow through on the Harrington Plan.

If the SL remains as big as it is and does go for revanchism, the GA or the Union will be in trouble.

The points I listed above for the SL also apply to the GA / Union. They have to keep R&D ahead of the others, for example. While the SL is catching up, they can continue to pull ahead.

But speaking of Union, there's a good question of what will happen to the separate navies. I think they'll remain separate entities, but the RHN, RMN and GSN will begin operating together very frequently. Smaller formations will get mixed squadrons; larger formations will get squadrons from each navy. And of course, officer exchange programs, that worked really well for the GSN.
Top
Re: GA-League War lessons learned
Post by Jonathan_S   » Thu Jul 15, 2021 3:05 pm

Jonathan_S
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 8269
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:01 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
For example, how does the sudden shift of missile wave density and technology at least from SLN point of view affect their LAC/CLAC doctrine? Considering when they start building their LAC and CLAC forces they will start with absolute garbage in terms of CLACs and LACs. I can see the SLN going overboard in their LAC doctrine and using much bigger numbers than the GA out of fanatical need to for adequate missile defense. The SLN went from being able to fire 42 missiles per SD to facing an enemy that can control 200 missiles per SD(P) and they did it over a few month span.


That's a knee-jerk reaction. You could be right. You're going to have a lot of baffled and inexperienced flag officers as well as politicians demanding action -- any action! And this is probably going to happen in some form, if not what you said. They will do something in the medium and short terms that will not help in the long run. They have to do something.

But long-term, the strategic planning needs to be thought out. They need to think two or three steps ahead, at least. That's like the existence of the Katana-class LAC: a logical consequence of the existence of LACs at all was that LAC-on-LAC fights would exist, so they made a space superiority asset, even before the RHN had deployed their own LACs.

What that is, I don't know. Clearly they need more CMs and more control links for those. That may not mean LACs; if they have a technological breakthrough that obviates the need to deploying forward, they could use dedicated CM barges. Similarly, if one can make up for CM quality with quantity, it may be a better idea to use light cruisers instead of LACs (remember the overhead of the CLAC).

That's a good point. The League, once it gets its act together, can support and finance far more ship production that Manticore or Haven could. And while the RMN strongly prefers generalist ships, which can do any job, the SLN might well opt to build dedicated AA escorts (shades of the WWII Atlanta class CLs). Instead of swarms of LACs they could go for DDs or CLs heavily optimized to the anti-missile escort role; even if that means that they're basically incapable of operating alone against conventional ships. They'd be larger targets than LACs - but somewhat offsetting that they could carry more and better decoys, a lot more PDLCs, and vastly more CMs in their magazines. If you delete almost all the offensive missile tubes and heavy energy mounts you should be able to fit very heavy point defense on that sized hull; possibly even rivaling many BCs.

And a dedicated anti-missile escort that's never supposed to operate far from the wall might be a place for the League to experiment with really radical levels of automation and crew size reduction.

If nothing else you might force an RMN force to "waste" much of its initial Apollo salvo on those escorts to make follow up salvos more effective.
Top
Re: GA-League War lessons learned
Post by cthia   » Fri Jul 16, 2021 9:56 pm

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

Interesting thread.

I would imagine doctrine has to follow technology. The SLN has to first produce new technologies and then form doctrine around those technologies. You can't put the cart before the horse.

I always screamed at them for spacing their ships too far apart for mutual defensive support. I couldn't believe that wasn't common in all navies. But if the hardware isn't up to it, the doctrine won't matter. SLN CMs should have been even better than the GAs considering SL doctrine.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
Top
Re: GA-League War lessons learned
Post by Jonathan_S   » Fri Jul 16, 2021 11:00 pm

Jonathan_S
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 8269
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:01 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

cthia wrote:I would imagine doctrine has to follow technology. The SLN has to first produce new technologies and then form doctrine around those technologies. You can't put the cart before the horse.

I always screamed at them for spacing their ships too far apart for mutual defensive support. I couldn't believe that wasn't common in all navies. But if the hardware isn't up to it, the doctrine won't matter. SLN CMs should have been even better than the GAs considering SL doctrine.

Depends rather on what you're meaning by technology.
The general technological capability to develop a weapons system does of course need to exist before it makes any sense to develop doctrine around it.

But the specific weapons systems a military procures nearly always follow only after doctrine has been developed. (Wartime expediencies are sometimes the exception; but even then they rarely work well until doctrine has been developed; which inevitably leads to wanting to revise or replace the equipment to better fit the new doctrine). The specific doctrine informs the development or procurement branch what features are most important to include in the design and which may be traded away to achieve those.


Look at the interwar armored tank exercises that the UK performed. The basic concept of a tank, or mechanizing infantry existed. But they didn't run out of buy all new tanks and APCs first thing. They used stand-ins to work out and trial doctrine; then as the doctrine solidified it informed them about what type of tanks, how many and what type of infantry transport vehicles, the amount of organic logistics, supply, and maintenance needed to be included in the units and thus the type and amount of vehicles necessary to achieve that. Only once that had been trialed out did they start writing specifications for those vehicles and trying to develop them. (Mind you that part didn't go brilliantly for the UK - but that's a different matter)


Doctrine can turn out be be flawed or erroneous, when put the the test of war, and thus the equipment procured to support it may not end up working out for you. But its far more likely to work that way than if you buy things without a plan first and only then try to work out the doctrine of what the heck you'll use it for.
Top
Re: GA-League War lessons learned
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Jul 16, 2021 11:14 pm

ThinksMarkedly
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4103
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am

cthia wrote:I always screamed at them for spacing their ships too far apart for mutual defensive support. I couldn't believe that wasn't common in all navies. But if the hardware isn't up to it, the doctrine won't matter. SLN CMs should have been even better than the GAs considering SL doctrine.


I'm pretty sure they thought they were as close as made sense and they probably even thought that they were in mutual-support range. Piloting ships that are performing random evasive manoeuvres much closer adds a large element of risk, which an untrained crew is not able to perform. And of course, all of this is controlled by software and AI, so if the SLN AIs don't support that, they can't do them either. We don't know how a pre-war mixed SD & DN wall would have separated itself, compared to an SLN wall.

As for support range, think about defending against a pre-war missile salvo that arrives at 0.2c. Now try to use the same doctrine to defend against a salvo that is 5x to 10x denser, more powerful, with better ECM, and is coming screaming at over 0.75c. Just the space contraction effect of relativity is going to cause an apparent contraction of the missiles by 1/3, at that speed.

Then there's the fact that, in the first engagements, the SLN formations didn't think they were in engagement range in the first place. They hadn't expected to be fired from 60 million km away and the missiles arrive in less than 9 minutes. Those formations may not have been battle-tight yet.
Top
Re: GA-League War lessons learned
Post by cthia   » Sat Jul 17, 2021 9:20 am

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

Jonathan_S wrote:
cthia wrote:I would imagine doctrine has to follow technology. The SLN has to first produce new technologies and then form doctrine around those technologies. You can't put the cart before the horse.

I always screamed at them for spacing their ships too far apart for mutual defensive support. I couldn't believe that wasn't common in all navies. But if the hardware isn't up to it, the doctrine won't matter. SLN CMs should have been even better than the GAs considering SL doctrine.

Depends rather on what you're meaning by technology.
The general technological capability to develop a weapons system does of course need to exist before it makes any sense to develop doctrine around it.

But the specific weapons systems a military procures nearly always follow only after doctrine has been developed. (Wartime expediencies are sometimes the exception; but even then they rarely work well until doctrine has been developed; which inevitably leads to wanting to revise or replace the equipment to better fit the new doctrine). The specific doctrine informs the development or procurement branch what features are most important to include in the design and which may be traded away to achieve those.


Look at the interwar armored tank exercises that the UK performed. The basic concept of a tank, or mechanizing infantry existed. But they didn't run out of buy all new tanks and APCs first thing. They used stand-ins to work out and trial doctrine; then as the doctrine solidified it informed them about what type of tanks, how many and what type of infantry transport vehicles, the amount of organic logistics, supply, and maintenance needed to be included in the units and thus the type and amount of vehicles necessary to achieve that. Only once that had been trialed out did they start writing specifications for those vehicles and trying to develop them. (Mind you that part didn't go brilliantly for the UK - but that's a different matter)


Doctrine can turn out be be flawed or erroneous, when put the the test of war, and thus the equipment procured to support it may not end up working out for you. But its far more likely to work that way than if you buy things without a plan first and only then try to work out the doctrine of what the heck you'll use it for.


I was going to disagree, or, only agree in part. But on second thought, I think you're right. I think I should have said that the "implementation of doctrine" has to depend on the delivery of the hardware/technologies. And, instead of using "hardware" I chose to substitute "technologies" to cover it all.

For instance, the SLN can develop a LAC doctrine, but it is useless without the LACs. And probably CLACs. Even the RMN couldn't implement LAC doctrine without developing the LAC first. And then determining whether or not their labors would support their doctrine. Obviously vice versa is also true, which is what you state.

After all, you can't develop a strategic doctrine without strategic weapons. Can we say 'an ICBM that functions, and has the range that can actually reach your enemy.' And, what good is a nuclear doctrine without nuclear weapons.

I read an article a number of years back which said military doctrine is the soul of warfare, and a force multiplier. I suppose that is in keeping with King Roger's doctrine of 'no retreat no surrender.' But, without the fruits of Project Gram, Roger and Co. would have been able to do little more than piss on enemy SDs. As the SLN can testify. Even Sonja Hemphill's doctrine of the Jeune ecole depended on her success in the garage.

Doctrine also depends on the theater of war. FF doctrine has to be different than Battle fleet. Who, and what you are facing shapes your doctrine. The SLN needs to study the Galaxy and what is being deployed before shaping doctrine. (This notion is fleshed out in ThinksMarkedly's post a klick upstream.) How can they achieve that when they are grounded?

An embassy on Manticore is a good start. And being able to swallow their pride and curb their arrogance are both prerequisites to success.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
Top
Re: GA-League War lessons learned
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sat Jul 17, 2021 1:34 pm

Jonathan_S
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 8269
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:01 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

cthia wrote:I was going to disagree, or, only agree in part. But on second thought, I think you're right. I think I should have said that the "implementation of doctrine" has to depend on the delivery of the hardware/technologies. And, instead of using "hardware" I chose to substitute "technologies" to cover it all.

For instance, the SLN can develop a LAC doctrine, but it is useless without the LACs. And probably CLACs. Even the RMN couldn't implement LAC doctrine without developing the LAC first. And then determining whether or not their labors would support their doctrine. Obviously vice versa is also true, which is what you state.

In practice it's a bit more iterative than I implied. And doctrine definitely evolves based on what your facing and how your current doctrine didn't meet that challenge as well as you'd like. (Or sometimes you simply adopt your enemy's doctrine and technology :D)


I'd certainly agree that a LAC doctrine without LACs is useless. But LACs acquired without at least a solid notion of your eventual doctrine are almost as bad.

Imagine the SLN just placed emergency orders at existing yards for 10,000 LACs without providing any input into how they intended to use them (because they hasn't even started plotting out, testing and revising, their doctrine). They'd almost assuredly get 10,000 old-style LACs because that's what the yards know how to build.

So you've got a LAC that can't even keep up with the current obsolete wall's acceleration, is 90% offense (huge, for their size, numbers of DD (or smaller) sized single-drive missiles carried in single-shot cell launchers, and minimal point defense.

They'd be hopeless in anti-LAC operations against GA LACs, they're too slow to keep up with the fleet, and carry too few point defense weapons to make a useful anti-missile screen even if the fleet slowed down to the point they'd keep up. They'd simply be wasted money.



Okay, having faced LACs (at least minimally) the League probably does know better. And when playing catch-up an initial doctrine of "we'll just do what they did to us" isn't necessarily a bad starting point. So now they're talking to their tech folks about what might be possible to develop, to designers about approximately what trade-off might be involved in optimizing for various roles. Then they go off an work up a more detailed initial doctrine and test it out in sims, or out in space using ersatz or mock-up units. For that they come up with a playbook of what they'd like to do and then feed that back to the designers, who coordinate with the tech folks, and figure out if its possible to provide what the navy wants -- and if so how much it would cost, and how long it'd take. And after a bit of back and forth they go off to make prototypes. Those get tested out to see how well they work, but also how well they can execute the planned doctrine.

To the extent that they can't everyone goes back and has a bit of a rethink. Does it make sense to adapt doctrine for what we can accomplish? Or does it make sense to spend more time and money and tell the developers to try again? (And it's often a bit of both)




And we saw that iterative cycle, or at least clues to it, on Manticore's side as well. The LACs Honor took to Silesia were still largely built to the old LAC doctrine, they just happened to have some tech breakthroughs that led to them being able to produce a far more powerful wedge (giving bonuses to both acceleration and sidewall strength). So they were faster and more survivable - but still mostly intended to be used like any earlier RMN LAC class (like the old Highlanders)

But between HAE and our introduction to HMS Minotaur and the Shrike's two books later in EoH the RMN had radically rethought LAC doctrine and then ordered prototypes of the first LAC carrier and the first LACs designed for this new doctrine. And I'm sure even before they were built they were subject to extensive computer sims to help refine the proposed doctrine and corresponding technical capabilities. Then in EoH we see ongoing space trials testing out that new doctrine using the prototype hardware. (Followed, quite unexpectedly, by its initial combat use)
But even before the combat use the full up trials had revealed some deficiencies in the proposed/developing doctrine as well as some shortcomings in the prototypes. (Hence the changes between those first Shrikes and the post-Hancock Shrike-B's; patching an unanticipated vulnerability to missiles overflying them and hitting from the rear by deleting the aft hanger and cutter and replacing them by aft pointing PDLCs and duplicated CM control links). But doctrine also evolved (and a new design ordered to match that doctrine) to include far heavier decoy and jamming support; necessitating a new LAC class, the Ferrets, to carry and launch all those support missiles.


And that's before doctrine had to change again after Haven introduced LACs of their own - pushing LACs (at least in major fleet actions) into defensive anti-missile screens rather than acting primarily as offensive units. Fortunately the LAC the GSN had designed to implement their anti-LAC doctrine (the Katana) was excellent at being repurposed for this evolving anti-missile screen doctrine.

BTW MWW has implied that that doctrine is causing Manticore and Grayson to look at potentially developing a new CLAC type to support their evolving anti-missile LAC usage - a more defended / survivable CLAC [with correspondingly few LAC bays] that will stay with the wall as it goes into combat (rather than getting detached) in order to give LACs on anti-missile patrol a place to fall back to to rearm their CMs.
So again we have a proposed doctrinal change pushing the development of new ship classes to implement that doctrine.


Wow, that got long (and hence I'll skip going off on a tangent on US vs USSR ICBM doctrine & tech)
Top
Re: GA-League War lessons learned
Post by cthia   » Sun Jul 18, 2021 9:32 am

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

Jonathan_S wrote:
cthia wrote:I was going to disagree, or, only agree in part. But on second thought, I think you're right. I think I should have said that the "implementation of doctrine" has to depend on the delivery of the hardware/technologies. And, instead of using "hardware" I chose to substitute "technologies" to cover it all.

For instance, the SLN can develop a LAC doctrine, but it is useless without the LACs. And probably CLACs. Even the RMN couldn't implement LAC doctrine without developing the LAC first. And then determining whether or not their labors would support their doctrine. Obviously vice versa is also true, which is what you state.

In practice it's a bit more iterative than I implied. And doctrine definitely evolves based on what your facing and how your current doctrine didn't meet that challenge as well as you'd like. (Or sometimes you simply adopt your enemy's doctrine and technology :D)


I'd certainly agree that a LAC doctrine without LACs is useless. But LACs acquired without at least a solid notion of your eventual doctrine are almost as bad.

Imagine the SLN just placed emergency orders at existing yards for 10,000 LACs without providing any input into how they intended to use them (because they hasn't even started plotting out, testing and revising, their doctrine). They'd almost assuredly get 10,000 old-style LACs because that's what the yards know how to build.

So you've got a LAC that can't even keep up with the current obsolete wall's acceleration, is 90% offense (huge, for their size, numbers of DD (or smaller) sized single-drive missiles carried in single-shot cell launchers, and minimal point defense.

They'd be hopeless in anti-LAC operations against GA LACs, they're too slow to keep up with the fleet, and carry too few point defense weapons to make a useful anti-missile screen even if the fleet slowed down to the point they'd keep up. They'd simply be wasted money.



Okay, having faced LACs (at least minimally) the League probably does know better. And when playing catch-up an initial doctrine of "we'll just do what they did to us" isn't necessarily a bad starting point. So now they're talking to their tech folks about what might be possible to develop, to designers about approximately what trade-off might be involved in optimizing for various roles. Then they go off an work up a more detailed initial doctrine and test it out in sims, or out in space using ersatz or mock-up units. For that they come up with a playbook of what they'd like to do and then feed that back to the designers, who coordinate with the tech folks, and figure out if its possible to provide what the navy wants -- and if so how much it would cost, and how long it'd take. And after a bit of back and forth they go off to make prototypes. Those get tested out to see how well they work, but also how well they can execute the planned doctrine.

To the extent that they can't everyone goes back and has a bit of a rethink. Does it make sense to adapt doctrine for what we can accomplish? Or does it make sense to spend more time and money and tell the developers to try again? (And it's often a bit of both)




And we saw that iterative cycle, or at least clues to it, on Manticore's side as well. The LACs Honor took to Silesia were still largely built to the old LAC doctrine, they just happened to have some tech breakthroughs that led to them being able to produce a far more powerful wedge (giving bonuses to both acceleration and sidewall strength). So they were faster and more survivable - but still mostly intended to be used like any earlier RMN LAC class (like the old Highlanders)

But between HAE and our introduction to HMS Minotaur and the Shrike's two books later in EoH the RMN had radically rethought LAC doctrine and then ordered prototypes of the first LAC carrier and the first LACs designed for this new doctrine. And I'm sure even before they were built they were subject to extensive computer sims to help refine the proposed doctrine and corresponding technical capabilities. Then in EoH we see ongoing space trials testing out that new doctrine using the prototype hardware. (Followed, quite unexpectedly, by its initial combat use)
But even before the combat use the full up trials had revealed some deficiencies in the proposed/developing doctrine as well as some shortcomings in the prototypes. (Hence the changes between those first Shrikes and the post-Hancock Shrike-B's; patching an unanticipated vulnerability to missiles overflying them and hitting from the rear by deleting the aft hanger and cutter and replacing them by aft pointing PDLCs and duplicated CM control links). But doctrine also evolved (and a new design ordered to match that doctrine) to include far heavier decoy and jamming support; necessitating a new LAC class, the Ferrets, to carry and launch all those support missiles.


And that's before doctrine had to change again after Haven introduced LACs of their own - pushing LACs (at least in major fleet actions) into defensive anti-missile screens rather than acting primarily as offensive units. Fortunately the LAC the GSN had designed to implement their anti-LAC doctrine (the Katana) was excellent at being repurposed for this evolving anti-missile screen doctrine.

BTW MWW has implied that that doctrine is causing Manticore and Grayson to look at potentially developing a new CLAC type to support their evolving anti-missile LAC usage - a more defended / survivable CLAC [with correspondingly few LAC bays] that will stay with the wall as it goes into combat (rather than getting detached) in order to give LACs on anti-missile patrol a place to fall back to to rearm their CMs.
So again we have a proposed doctrinal change pushing the development of new ship classes to implement that doctrine.


Wow, that got long (and hence I'll skip going off on a tangent on US vs USSR ICBM doctrine & tech)

Interesting post which holds water quite well.

Regarding the point I made about accessing the theatre of conflict before shaping or implementing doctrine. Might the RMN want to reconsider deploying a CLAC that remains with the battle when considering the existence of a warship ...

with the kind of stealth of a Spider?Image

BTW, do the Andermani have CLACs and LACs?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
Top
Re: GA-League War lessons learned
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Jul 18, 2021 9:56 am

Jonathan_S
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 8269
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:01 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

cthia wrote:BTW, do the Andermani have CLACs and LACs?

By now almost assuredly. Once they joined the Manticoran Alliance against Haven part of bringing their fleet up to scratch should have been ensuring they had LAC and CLACs of their own for screening.

But the more interesting question, to me, is whether or not they'd come up with their own new-style LAC design before they joined Manticore.

And I can't remember seeing anything about one way or the other about that[1], but it'd certainly be interesting to know about any new-style LAC design they'd build (or even been working on) before they got access to the RMN/GSN designs.



[1] The only new breakthroughs I remember from them were home grown ERMs, capital ship DDMs, and SD(P)s
Top

Return to Honorverse