Jonathan_S wrote:To be fair Haven was able to build all those in 5 years after the Peeps had spent the 8 years or so of the first war building Bolthole into a massive complex of shipyards, and training workers.Sigs wrote:If Haven can build 300+ SD's, tens of thousands of LAC's, carriers and DD/CL/CA/BC's from one system in 5 years why can't 10 or 20 core worlds build the same ability even if it is on a much smaller scale in similar time frame?
Why can't core worlds build shipyards that can build everything from SD's on down to LAC's in five years?
There are apparently only a few systems in the League that have any military shipyard at all. Even those that do maintain SDF seem to largely buy their ships from the few yards that exist. So unless your ABC nation of core worlds includes one of the 3-6 military yards they're really starting from scratch.
So the People's Republic had this massive shipyard and there was no evidence it existed and was pumping out hundreds of SD's in the first war? I'll grant you they existed but I doubt they were anything like what the Republic had otherwise there would have ben a big discrepancy when Manti intelligence started counting noses and couldn't figure out why they estimated Haven was building 200 SD's but somehow they ended up with 400 SD's.
And I doubt the committee would have sat on a shipyard like Bolthole and not utilized it if it had anywhere near the ability to build hundreds of SD's and below at the same time. But then again that is just me.
And as far as we know there would be a lot of core and shell worlds with at least limited shipyards. Maybe none would be military yards but when push comes to shove it doesn't matter because you can take your civilian yards and have them pumping out military warships in a couple of years.Heck they may not even have access to the plans and full specs of the SLN Scientist class. At least Haven had workforces that were experience in building heavy warships - that gave them a major leg up replicating that infrastructure and skills at Bolthole.
I'm not arguing that any core system can't work up to building squadrons of wallers. Just that between having to build the tools to build the tools, and having to stumble through more trial and error that Haven did, that the timeline is very likely longer than the 5 years you were suggesting. (Quicker if military suppliers like Technodyne are willing to sell plans, yard equipment, and provide training - longer if each group of systems is forced to learn more from scratch and reinvent the wheel.
I am suggesting that they would be able to start building LAC's in as little as 6 months, maybe not in large quantities but they would be able to start. With any shipyards on hand regardless if they are civilian or military and if they can build massive freighters or only in system mining ships it is a starting point.
And when I say build ships in 5 years I am talking about once again limited numbers. Within 15 years their abilities should expand dramatically but they have to start somewhere.
And when I read industrialized system I think of a system that has educated population, limited shipbuilding/ship repair facilities and extensive space infrastructure. So they won't be starting from scratch. And more then that the League is such a corrupt organization that I doubt it would be that hard for the core worlds to get access to ship designs for LAC's up to SD's. And when they start designing their own ships there would be problems but that is part of the process, overcoming the problems.
They have to start somewhere or hand over their defensive responsibilities to the GA which might in 20 or 30 years have different governments in office in it's members with different priorities and leave the core worlds unprotects. And they would ace the same exact problems.
Every former League system would face similar problems, the point is that if you start early and with proper enthusiasm for the task at hand you should be building some ships in a few years. And with some luck some ex-SLN ships enter your service along with their crew's to give you a solid core to build you navy around. If you have no luck you do the best you can with the resources on hand because if you don't even try you loose anyway to someone who put in the effort no matter how hopeless it looked.