Solarian warships/tech : "What is possible!"

John Prigent wrote:Oh really? What of the He 177, some of which used two engines in each nacelle, or the Focke Wulf Condor?

Cheers, John

The Condor was officially a Long range bomber/reconnaissance plane. It had the range of a heavy bomber, but not the payload capability or defenses.

Theemile wrote:

John Prigent wrote:Oh really? What of the He 177, some of which used two engines in each nacelle, or the Focke Wulf Condor?

Cheers, John

The Condor was officially a Long range bomber/reconnaissance plane. It had the range of a heavy bomber, but not the payload capability or defenses.

The FW 200 Condor was a converted passenger plane. It had a very limited bomb capacity (1 ton) versus the B-17 4 tons.

cthia wrote:Trump caused Lockheed Martin's stock to fall 4 % over a tweet he made that the F-35 program and costs were 'out of control.' Boeing's stock quickly recovered.

I wonder just how invasive and strangling corruption in the SL is to its military tech and whether even the right companies are receiving the research grants and contracts. It also makes one wonder whether or not the SL could recover at an insane rate if given time and the choke hold of corruption and arrogance is removed.

I doubt it--it takes time to build up research capability. The SL has almost no true military research capability.

phillies wrote:
We also copied the losing rather than the winning World War 2 engineering approach. The Germans made extremely sophisticated expensive designs, like the Tiger Tank adn the V-2 rocket, that barely worked and could be made in few copies. We and the Russians tended to make simpler designs that worked but could be made in large quantities. We won. The Germans lost.*

We now use the 'our tech is better' approach in answer to our opponents. After all, it worked so well last time.

The NATO alliance had to go with 'our tech is better' approach as they could not match the Warsaw Pacts numbers in men and equipment.

In story the Manticore alliance could not match PRH in terms of men and equipment so had to go with better tech and training. The GA is in the same position in respect to SL.

The whole quality vs quantity debate depends heavily on what the nation circumstances are.

pnakasone wrote:
We also copied the losing rather than the winning World War 2 engineering approach. The Germans made extremely sophisticated expensive designs, like the Tiger Tank adn the V-2 rocket, that barely worked and could be made in few copies. We and the Russians tended to make simpler designs that worked but could be made in large quantities. We won. The Germans lost.*

We now use the 'our tech is better' approach in answer to our opponents. After all, it worked so well last time.

German tech was great but it came along so slowly that it just didn't have the numbers to be as effective as it might. The OSS managed to limit the number of jets by destroying some key industries. Given more time, the number of bombers downed would have been so drastic there would have been real consequences.

In general, it takes time to get things off the ground. Most of the more advanced airplanes of WWII for the US were in the planning stage before the war.

The utter corruption of the SL combined with the problem that they have not been doing much research will create real delays. The key agencies involved in learning about enemy improvements are corrupt. And there don't seem to be any effective agencies that are working for major changes.

The focus for the League ships seems to be a better missile that is far inferior to what the GA has.

There will likely be a lot of infighting as transstellars battle over who gets the cash to do research followed by trying to find people who can get things done followed by getting them accepted by enemy transstellars, etc.

And the League will be collapsing and its trade, the source of the money to pay for research will be greatly diminished.




T

Loren Pechtel wrote:
I doubt it--it takes time to build up research capability. The SL has almost no true military research capability.

The US in 1939 had pretty much no military research capability. They did have a pretty good set of universities.

The SL has literally tens of thousands of research universities. And they pretty much fund the SLN out of pocket change.

I wouldn't take the attitude that 'the SL has no true research capabilities'. There's plenty of textev that says the league's general technologies are as good or better than anything the GA has before this last round of battles between RMN and RHN. Their tech isn't even crap where the military hardware is concerned.

Out of date, yes, and the software is piss poor. But software can be corrected pretty easily, all things considered,. Doctrine is severely lacking, but doctrine for battles can be learned and they won't have apoplectic seizures over missile storms or LACs destroying cruisers any more either. They can also tap into, now that they're admitting that the RMN and the Haven sector in general are way ahead in the military tech fields, those observers who were sent by their own star systems to watch the fighting.

With the blinders gone and the 'not created here' stigma knocked on it's ass, they can start doing something. They can pull from the defense forces that have been pursuing upgrades and modernization programs. They can also spread trillions of credits across the core worlds to finance the biggest possible research programs into every single possible idea. The result, if the SL lasts long enough, could be an even bigger boom in tech research (with the possibility of another game changing tech popping out) than has been seen even in the GA.

Fireflair wrote:I wouldn't take the attitude that 'the SL has no true research capabilities'. There's plenty of textev that says the league's general technologies are as good or better than anything the GA has before this last round of battles between RMN and RHN. Their tech isn't even crap where the military hardware is concerned.

Out of date, yes, and the software is piss poor. But software can be corrected pretty easily, all things considered,. Doctrine is severely lacking, but doctrine for battles can be learned and they won't have apoplectic seizures over missile storms or LACs destroying cruisers any more either. They can also tap into, now that they're admitting that the RMN and the Haven sector in general are way ahead in the military tech fields, those observers who were sent by their own star systems to watch the fighting.

With the blinders gone and the 'not created here' stigma knocked on it's ass, they can start doing something. They can pull from the defense forces that have been pursuing upgrades and modernization programs. They can also spread trillions of credits across the core worlds to finance the biggest possible research programs into every single possible idea. The result, if the SL lasts long enough, could be an even bigger boom in tech research (with the possibility of another game changing tech popping out) than has been seen even in the GA.

The problem is where are they going to get the trillions of credits from?

George J. Smith wrote:

Fireflair wrote:I wouldn't take the attitude that 'the SL has no true research capabilities'. There's plenty of textev that says the league's general technologies are as good or better than anything the GA has before this last round of battles between RMN and RHN. Their tech isn't even crap where the military hardware is concerned.

Out of date, yes, and the software is piss poor. But software can be corrected pretty easily, all things considered,. Doctrine is severely lacking, but doctrine for battles can be learned and they won't have apoplectic seizures over missile storms or LACs destroying cruisers any more either. They can also tap into, now that they're admitting that the RMN and the Haven sector in general are way ahead in the military tech fields, those observers who were sent by their own star systems to watch the fighting.

With the blinders gone and the 'not created here' stigma knocked on it's ass, they can start doing something. They can pull from the defense forces that have been pursuing upgrades and modernization programs. They can also spread trillions of credits across the core worlds to finance the biggest possible research programs into every single possible idea. The result, if the SL lasts long enough, could be an even bigger boom in tech research (with the possibility of another game changing tech popping out) than has been seen even in the GA.

The problem is where are they going to get the trillions of credits from?

Also time. Even if the nuggets of game changers exist out there ( and we know they do), they take time to flush out. Sometimes, money poured down the research hole is just that - you simply need to build multiple iterations and investigating dead ends before you find the workable solution.

Most of Manticore's tech breakthroughs (FTL comms, MDM/DDM, ERMs, bow/buckler walls, improved grav lenses, and presumably improved compensators) came from better manipulation of gravitational technology. (Not sure if the microfusion power plants are also grav based)

The Solarian League may be able to copy or replicate some of these, but what other areas might they make breakthroughs in?

Manticore improved the effective power of their laser heads by improving the grav lensing. But the SLN might make different breakthroughs there. They probably can't improve the raw fusion warhead yield much without simply making it larger (grav pinch direct fusion warheads are already extremely efficient) but they might be desperate enough to switch to anti-mater for the boom behind the laser rods. Still I doubt it, RFC hasn't don't that yet in the Honorverse and the safety risks are insanely high. Better to simply build a bigger missile to carry a larger fusion warhead. But better lasing rods certainly seem like a possibility - doing a better job of focusing the received energy. A laserhead with significantly more damage or standoff range could be a nasty surprise.

Breakthroughs in ship based energy weapons seem somewhat less useful, at least offensively. Nothing bigger than a LAC seems to make it into energy range of an enemy anymore. But improvements that, say, doubled or triple the range of PDLCs could be a defensive game-changer. Similarly any improvement that let you cycle PDLC emitters quicker would up your defensive firepower.

Sensor or stealth improvements are another non-grav based potential andvantage (well some of stealth - hiding your low power wedge is grav based)

Certainly ECM, missile sensors, missile 'smarts' can be a big help.

Better physical armor, though I'm not sure how big a breakthrough you can do there.

And I'm sure you all can think of other areas, beyond where Manticore's tech flowed, where the League might make a surprise field leveler; even without RFC blindsiding us with a total paradigm breaking tech (teleporters, tachion based weapons, etc).