SLN Ship improvement

Jonathan_S wrote:

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?

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.
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.

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.

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.

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.

Sigs wrote:

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.
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.

My claim is not that they had a fully built shipyard out there and did nothing with it (except maybe stockpiling components).

My claim is it took most of the first war to build that shipyard facility, so fairly few (if any) ships from there got added to their order of battle before Buttercup. But if they hadn't spent those years building it up they wouldn't have had the infrastructure to build their secret SD(P)s and CLACs during the ceasefire.

Sigs wrote: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.

I wouldn't be surprised if even many core worlds didn't have more that a minor repair yard; even on the civilian side there doesn't seem to be enough construction volume to support hundreds of small yards.
But either way there are some major technologies you have to figure out how to build to make a useful warship that no civilian design needs[1]. None of it is impossible for a good science and engineering establishment to work out - but that takes time.
Far different than Haven, who already had all that knowledge and equipment, replicating it in a new system.

It can be done (probably with some major errors / learning experiences along the way) but it'll take time.

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[1] Just a few of them are: armor effective against both energy weapons and nuclear blast; grav lenses for energy weapons, high output lasers and grasers, ECM programming, higher quality hardened sensors, fire control links, higher performance impellers, higher performance hyper generators, sidewall generators, software for tactical computers, missiles (sensors, special missile impellers & CM impellers), recon drones, etc, etc, etc)

You need less of those for a LAC, but still need better than civilian impellers, sidewalls, CMs, PDLCs, sensors, tactical computers, fire control links - and a much smaller fusion plant than any civilian design.

So, what you are saying is 1) a coalition of Core worlds the size of the Talbott Quadrant. With whatever shipbuilding facilities vanDort's RTU has but built to "modern Solly Standards" (2) been core worlds for centuries knowing for centuries they had nothing to worry about militarily because they were under the umbrella of "the only real navy in the 'verse" 2) At least one of these worlds has a military base with SDs floating in orbit with their crew planet-side soaking up pretty much eternal R&R having to make the few days a month duty as maintenance and station keeping require. 3) The bulk of whom are citizens of Alliance XYZ and who are ready to 4) abandon their commissions to the SLN pirate BF ships and merge them into the various possibly existent SDFs into a unified navy. 5) having sent observers from their various SDFs to actually observe and report the "ridikkulus" acelleration, stealth capability, EW, huge missile swarms, LAC missile defense. etc.

THEN Being core world governments they had 6)the foresight to realize that when Beowulf seceded and Filareta got his head handed to him the end was near and 7) Contacted the various and sundry Defense contractors near and far for design specs, blueprints, etc for all classes of warship, LAC, RD, offensive and defensive system then 8) launched a pilot program to build Something-anything ... a LAC, perhaps; as proof-of-concept. then 9) jump to turning out LACs and SDs, all the components and armament 10) not to mention ugrading your node manufacturing from commercial to military grade 11) complete redesigns for the concepts your observers claim you need (like pods) through trials and into production in 2 years from BoM 2. Did I get that right?

That is a lot of assumptions. 1)The political astuteness to recognize that the sky is falling and the 600 pound gorilla is in its death throes as soon as Filareta's Folly.2) Convincing Jane Q Public that her home world's only chance for survivalis to(A) follow Beowulf's lead into secession and (B) do a Talbott (WHO????)quadrant into (C) XYZ confederation 3) Start paying a modest tax surcharge to this new confederation of planets to defend ourselves fro the Zombie Apocalypse we see coming. for a massive military buildup. D)Surrender/subsume your vauted SDF into the Confederacy Navy.

That is a lot of heavy lifting to go through for systems that have never even seen a prate attack. I think your political timetable is off which has to impact almost any shift of yard production from civilian to military footing. Your ed system may be SL good, but textev says Manticore's is better and their work force is the absolute best. I think you underestimate the differences between civilian and military specs which impact construction which impacts learning curves and retraining. Your from scratch first time ever military ship build, trial, work out all the bugs to acceptance is way off by a factor of at least 4.

The manticore workforce is dead.

kzt wrote:The manticore workforce is dead.

Except for the 35.000 Grendelsbane ship dogs Eloise Pritchard repatriated gratis as a show of good faith. Its society is till relatively intact as is its educational system.

EDIT or are we rehashing "1,001 uses for obsolete Solly POS SDs"?

pappilon wrote:That is a lot of heavy lifting to go through for systems that have never even seen a prate attack. I think your political timetable is off which has to impact almost any shift of yard production from civilian to military footing. Your ed system may be SL good, but textev says Manticore's is better and their work force is the absolute best. I think you underestimate the differences between civilian and military specs which impact construction which impacts learning curves and retraining. Your from scratch first time ever military ship build, trial, work out all the bugs to acceptance is way off by a factor of at least 4.

You may have some point, but there are three issues you are avoiding.

1. Many of these systems are not starting fat dumb and happy. I suspect many did not have large or extensive research programs, but I believe that many of the SDFs that sent observers to the Manticore - Haven wars, were able to at least get some additional funds for R and D. These R and D programs will have had 10+ years to show some results. Given how the Observer reports were treated by the SLN, how likely is it that any results from SDF research programs got anything but binned in the round file drawer by the SLN.

2. there is no need to be stronger than the GA now, just strong enough to make trouble makers think your neighbors are easier targets (you didn't like those heathens anyways)

3. Any space based manufacturing facilities can be repuposed. Any apocraphal story is that Goering claimed the the US could only build refrigerators and razor blades, Adolf Galland responded "wish we had such razor blades".

Castenea wrote:

pappilon wrote:That is a lot of heavy lifting to go through for systems that have never even seen a prate attack. I think your political timetable is off which has to impact almost any shift of yard production from civilian to military footing. Your ed system may be SL good, but textev says Manticore's is better and their work force is the absolute best. I think you underestimate the differences between civilian and military specs which impact construction which impacts learning curves and retraining. Your from scratch first time ever military ship build, trial, work out all the bugs to acceptance is way off by a factor of at least 4.

Castenia wrote:You may have some point, but there are three issues you are avoiding.

Not, perhaps, avoiding as much as not quite disagreeing with.

castenea wrote:1. Many of these systems are not starting fat dumb and happy. I suspect many did not have large or extensive research programs, but I believe that many of the SDFs that sent observers to the Manticore - Haven wars, were able to at least get some additional funds for R and D. These R and D programs will have had 10+ years to show some results. Given how the Observer reports were treated by the SLN, how likely is it that any results from SDF research programs got anything but binned in the round file drawer by the SLN.

I have no idea how to quantify many and, therefore how to shoehorn that into your mystical XYZ Alliance. many not starting from scratch. I woild imagine far more in the core worlds are starting from scratch as they have been wrapped in the cocoon of the SL and the SLN for nearly a millineum Probably more of the shell worlds would qualify as they have been sheltered for less time,have less FF protection from piracy and incursions from verge planets that could manage more than a pot to pee in.

Same for observers. Mostly shell worlds again no firm numbers, again. Not sure anyone besides TIY [textev lacking] has done anything but generate off-the-shelf parts and pieces with marginal improvements. NO need to push R&D budget when your main market doesn't want to push the envelope because there is no threat and, therefore, no reason to.

Castenia wrote:2. there is no need to be stronger than the GA now, just strong enough to make trouble makers think your neighbors are easier targets (you didn't like those heathens anyways)

No Argument here. I accept your premise. But it does beg the questions: "Do we want obviously obsolete SL tech as our standard [full stop, forever]" "Do we start with obsolete BF POS and retool as we go along, and can we fiscally and militarily afford not to?" "Do we start from scratch building something better based on the reports of our[assumed]observers? can we. again afford to?"

3. Any space based manufacturing facilities can be repuposed. Any apocraphal story is that Goering claimed the the US could only build refrigerators and razor blades, Adolf Galland responded "wish we had such razor blades".

Yes and any work force of x competency and education level can be trained to y competency and educational level, maybe. There is the Peter Principle to butt up against. Some workers will not be able to make the transition. Which again comes back to how much time will this retraining take? How much time do we have? How much money will it take? Whose pocket does this money come out of? Does our fat happy populace have the determination to pay the costs? Is here some Conservative Association or Liberal Front in opposition to blockthe plotting of our fearless and forward thinking majority coalition in the government we are forming post SL deterioration?

We've been explicitly told SDF observers have noted what's going on, that information seems to have gotten to fairly high level SLN people as well, even if they've managed to dismiss it as absurd. We've also been told that some Solly SDF forces have pulled ahead of the SLN.

Honestly, the best comparison for a core world that is observing the fight and keeping its SDF up to par would be the Andermani Empire. Yes, the empire has a few more worlds, but I don't think those worlds are at the level of say... Manticore or a built up core world. Neither the Core worlds nor the Andermani have had a real war. The Andermani have fought pirates, but a core world could always send its ships pirate hunting for xp. Beowulf would be an example of that.

This doesn't mean that a lot of worlds won't be further behind. A particularly dedicated system could even be further ahead. If their is a Mafia world why not a Starship Trooper knock-offs world or something? A group of core worlds that is planning to emulate the Maya sector could be similarly scary.

kzt wrote:The manticore workforce is dead.

No, Manticore's workforce is not dead although it has been drastically pruned back in size. Vulcan's workforce survived OB and 50,000 shipyard workers from Grendelsbane have been returned by Haven. Nothing like before, but still a start to build on.

Don

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Jonathan_S wrote:My claim is not that they had a fully built shipyard out there and did nothing with it (except maybe stockpiling components).

My claim is it took most of the first war to build that shipyard facility, so fairly few (if any) ships from there got added to their order of battle before Buttercup. But if they hadn't spent those years building it up they wouldn't have had the infrastructure to build their secret SD(P)s and CLACs during the ceasefire.

I dont agree with that but you might very well be right.

I wouldn't be surprised if even many core worlds didn't have more that a minor repair yard; even on the civilian side there doesn't seem to be enough construction volume to support hundreds of small yards.

Sucks for them, they still need to build up their shipyards though. Use people from repair ships, those that maintain space stations or ally with those who have shipyards... you get their help setting up your industry and you help them with something else. Everything will be so confusing and hectic that everyone will be looking for allies especially if you already have functioning shipyards and you want to keep them rather than have someone else capture them from you along with your nation. I can't believe that there would be 1,700 League members and only 6 shipyards between them.

There must be companies that have entire fleets of repair ships...sort of like the tow truck of space it is not much but it is better than nothing.

But either way there are some major technologies you have to figure out how to build to make a useful warship that no civilian design needs[1]. None of it is impossible for a good science and engineering establishment to work out - but that takes time.
Far different than Haven, who already had all that knowledge and equipment, replicating it in a new system.

And time they have, it's not like they have much in the way of option other than stick their collective heads in the sand and pretend nothing is going on or ask to become members of another nation that is willing to put in the time and effort to build a fleet.

You need less of those for a LAC, but still need better than civilian impellers, sidewalls, CMs, PDLCs, sensors, tactical computers, fire control links - and a much smaller fusion plant than any civilian design.

LAC's are an old design, I doubt that it would be all that complicated to find the designs for a LAC. And SLN SD's are if I remember correctly a couple of hundred years old so their SD designs can't be that big of a secret especially if you have some money for bribes.


Unless heavily industrialized means something other than what I understand it to mean those systems should individually have the means to build quite a shipbuilding capability. Also don't Search and Rescue as well as customs and police employ LAC's in many systems? If many verge systems have the limited ability to build minor warships why couldn't a heavily industrialized core world develop that capability? Especially with proper motivation?