Creating an "interesting" GA v SLN naval battle

kzt wrote:

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:They had an elected government.

So did the Solarian League. Which in actuality had as much control over the bureaucracy as the late 19th century Belgian governments had on the Abir* Congo Company; i.e., none.

*aka Compagnie du Congo Belge

They actually had influence. The last president who tried to reform was assassinated along with most of her government in a coup from Mesa.[/quote]


**************

A bit off-track from a SLN vs GA naval battle but here goes.

1) The PDRK (N.Korea) has a nice democratic and republican name but the reality is another matter
2) G.A.Nassar's Egypt had regular elections with 98% participation, but a single slate of candidates and no other options
3) Soviet Russia and the Peoples' Republic of China have (or had) open elections for party members to elect the Politburo who endorsed the pre-selected Chairman's decisions.

In the Honorverse, the SL has delegates to the League Chamber, who have little actual influence in League Policy which is determined by the administrative bureaucrats.
Alfredo Yu described the Legislaturist PRH as producing "perfectly predictable honest votes".

Silecia (pre-partition) was an ongoing melt-down of a weak central government and corruptible (and bought) sector govenors.

The SL Verge and Protectorates were basically a colonial system without the offensive title acting as milk cows for the SL central core.

The statement "Democracies never go to war with each other" is more how you define the democracy and what the reality is for the individuals.

-- Stewart

I suggested one interesting idea for Solarian League to equalize the situation... just build unmanned drone ships, piloted by onboard AI's with FTL-com control. Since RFC stated, that FTL-com could not be jammed, there are no reason why you need crew onboard anymore. And getting rid of the crew would allow to drastically raise the compensator limits. Maybe not directly to the missile-grade, but even a few thousands of G's for dreadnought-size ship would be a game-changer - most missiles would probably be completely unable to lock on the target capable of such acceleration. And, of course, considering that the ship is unmanned, we could pack the hull MUCH tighter, allowing significant superiority over any manned SD's in armor, protection and beam weaponry. Since GA's missile defenses are so good, the best strategy to deal with them would be to close to beam distance (and since ships are unmanned, we could literally send them into one-way attacks).

Dilandu wrote:I suggested one interesting idea for Solarian League to equalize the situation... just build unmanned drone ships, piloted by onboard AI's with FTL-com control. Since RFC stated, that FTL-com could not be jammed, there are no reason why you need crew onboard anymore. And getting rid of the crew would allow to drastically raise the compensator limits. Maybe not directly to the missile-grade, but even a few thousands of G's for dreadnought-size ship would be a game-changer - most missiles would probably be completely unable to lock on the target capable of such acceleration. And, of course, considering that the ship is unmanned, we could pack the hull MUCH tighter, allowing significant superiority over any manned SD's in armor, protection and beam weaponry. Since GA's missile defenses are so good, the best strategy to deal with them would be to close to beam distance (and since ships are unmanned, we could literally send them into one-way attacks).

If unmanned, then why have a compensator at all? Admittedly it would put more stress on equipment. But isn't it the ship size that puts the ultimate limit on acceleration? That is why the super duper dreadnought idea is ridiculed. Or is the ship size tied to compensator effectiveness?

tlb wrote:If unmanned, then why have a compensator at all? Admittedly it would put more stress on equipment. But isn't it the ship size that puts the ultimate limit on acceleration? That is why the super duper dreadnought idea is ridiculed. Or is the ship size tied to compensator effectiveness?

If I'm not mistaken, "The Universe of Honor Harrington" clearly stated that it was only a compensator limit, not acceleration limit:

These accelerations are with inertial compensator safety margins cut to zero. Normally, warships operate with a 20% safety margin, while MS safety margins run as high as 35%. Note also that the cargo carried by a starship is less important than the table above might suggest. The numbers in Figure 2 use mass as the determining factor, but the size of the field is of very nearly equal importance. A 7.5 million-ton freighter with empty cargo holds would require the same size field as one with full holds, and so would have the same effective acceleration capability.

Note also that in 1900 pd, 8,500,000 tons represented the edge of a plateau in inertial compensator capability. Above 8,500,000 tons, warship accelerations fell off by approximately 1 g per 2,500 tons, so that a warship of 8,502,500 tons would have a maximum acceleration of 419 g and a warship of 9,547,500 tons would have a maximum acceleration of 1 g. The same basic curves were followed for merchant vessels.

So basically nothing fundamental (there might be some engineering limitation, of course, but they are details) prevent Solar League from deploying capital ship-sized unmanned drones, capable of closing with targets on thousand's-G acceleration and tearing apart all those nasty Monty's SD(p)'s with their pathetic human crews. Most importantly, such ships would cost only a fraction of SD(p)'s cost to operate, due to being unmanned.

Of course, sooner or later Monties would grew tired of their dauntless fleets & honorable crews being slaughtered by the descendants of automatic coffee makers, and would deploy their own robot warships. After which, the space warfare would quickly boil down to the "massively redundant command ships, hiding outside the system, control the armadas of robot ships, fighting each other."

But at least it would end the usual million-scale slaughter of Honorverse's large battles.

Dilandu wrote:

tlb wrote:If unmanned, then why have a compensator at all? Admittedly it would put more stress on equipment. But isn't it the ship size that puts the ultimate limit on acceleration? That is why the super duper dreadnought idea is ridiculed. Or is the ship size tied to compensator effectiveness?

If I'm not mistaken, "The Universe of Honor Harrington" clearly stated that it was only a compensator limit, not acceleration limit:

These accelerations are with inertial compensator safety margins cut to zero. Normally, warships operate with a 20% safety margin, while MS safety margins run as high as 35%. Note also that the cargo carried by a starship is less important than the table above might suggest. The numbers in Figure 2 use mass as the determining factor, but the size of the field is of very nearly equal importance. A 7.5 million-ton freighter with empty cargo holds would require the same size field as one with full holds, and so would have the same effective acceleration capability.

Note also that in 1900 pd, 8,500,000 tons represented the edge of a plateau in inertial compensator capability. Above 8,500,000 tons, warship accelerations fell off by approximately 1 g per 2,500 tons, so that a warship of 8,502,500 tons would have a maximum acceleration of 419 g and a warship of 9,547,500 tons would have a maximum acceleration of 1 g. The same basic curves were followed for merchant vessels.

So basically nothing fundamental (there might be some engineering limitation, of course, but they are details) prevent Solar League from deploying capital ship-sized unmanned drones, capable of closing with targets on thousand's-G acceleration and tearing apart all those nasty Monty's SD(p)'s with their pathetic human crews. Most importantly, such ships would cost only a fraction of SD(p)'s cost to operate, due to being unmanned.

Of course, sooner or later Monties would grew tired of their dauntless fleets & honorable crews being slaughtered by the descendants of automatic coffee makers, and would deploy their own robot warships. After which, the space warfare would quickly boil down to the "massively redundant command ships, hiding outside the system, control the armadas of robot ships, fighting each other."

But at least it would end the usual million-scale slaughter of Honorverse's large battles.

It has been noted, even in UH, that artificial intelligence had never reached true sentience. Would you set up a weapon that could possibly destroy a planet but had no real sentience behind it.

Recall the great Star Trek drama where two sides fought a war by computer. Not messy but killed. And think of all the movies we have where AI winds up killing loads of people.

Right now drones are piloted by people even if they're not inside. I could argue that navies could do that in the Honorverse but it is clear they already do. More than a bit of AI goes into the Apollo missiles. And computers run most of what goes on while they're racing towards the target. But there is a person on the ship firing them who can adjust or abort.

ldwechsler wrote:

It has been noted, even in UH, that artificial intelligence had never reached true sentience. Would you set up a weapon that could possibly destroy a planet but had no real sentience behind it.

...Do you mind to read my post firstly?

Honorverse have non-jammable FTL communication system. Period. We do not need sentient AI to fight a battle - we need AI only to manage ship functions while we providing tactical instructions through the FTL comm.

Right now drones are piloted by people even if they're not inside.

Which is linked to complexity of ground combat environment, where intuitive solutions are required. In naval warfare, for example, the computers run pretty much everything, and humans merely provide tactical decisions. No one manually aimed the SM-2 missile with the help of joystick; humans basically tell Aegis combat system what they want her to do, and computers do the rest. In space warfare, humans could ONLY do general tactical solutions; all the rest would be on computers simply because humans could not react fast enough.

To put it simpler - on the level of ground remote warfare, humans are in the positions of platoon leaders, who told machines what EXACTLY they should do.

In modern naval warfare, humans are in positions of lieutenants and majors. They give orders and make a decisions, but they do not control their fulfillment directly.

And in space warfare, humans are in role of colonels and generals only. They ONLY made global tactical decisions, and then machines do everything else.

Dilandu wrote: Honorverse have non-jammable FTL communication system. Period. We do not need sentient AI to fight a battle - we need AI only to manage ship functions while we providing tactical instructions through the FTL comm.

Right now drones are piloted by people even if they're not inside.

Which is linked to complexity of ground combat environment, where intuitive solutions are required. In naval warfare, for example, the computers run pretty much everything, and humans merely provide tactical decisions. No one manually aimed the SM-2 missile with the help of joystick; humans basically tell Aegis combat system what they want her to do, and computers do the rest. In space warfare, humans could ONLY do general tactical solutions; all the rest would be on computers simply because humans could not react fast enough.

To put it simpler - on the level of ground remote warfare, humans are in the positions of platoon leaders, who told machines what EXACTLY they should do.

In modern naval warfare, humans are in positions of lieutenants and majors. They give orders and make a decisions, but they do not control their fulfillment directly.

And in space warfare, humans are in role of colonels and generals only. They ONLY made global tactical decisions, and then machines do everything else.

Having messed up on my previous post, let me try again.

Right now the SLN does not have FTL communication, whether or not it can be jammed.
But let's assume they develop it. The counter to your suggestion is to find the command ship and destroy it; even if you only drive it into hyper, that breaks the command link.
I do not believe that a drone ship traveling slower than a missile is free from targeting; after all, missiles are targeted.

Yes! Someone else is pushing drones!

Although honestly you don't need true AI. Just enough AI to reproduce industrial ships, and have those industrial drones make giant combat drones. The combat drones only need to be able to tell the difference between civilian targets that are identifying themselves, planets and everyone else in a test environment. If things go wrong in a live environment, you can then blame the other guy. "Actually its your fault. Your missile damaged the Dreadnought Drones's sensors causing it to read your planet as empty space. You made it crash wedge first into your own planet. You murdered billions of your own people."

Alternatively you could just automate a MAD system. If the enemy crosses the hyperlimit (or whatever limit) the MAD system deploys automated ships to attack. The automated ships head over to near your system and unleash stealthy missiles from half a light year away at 0.2c. Note: Make sure you have a set of colony ships and seed ships to run like hell stashed away somewhere.

Bonus points if you leave behind enough missiles on your moon to completely shatter your planet's surface when the pirates* come for revenge.


*they stopped being a military upon their country's destruction, like the people's navy in exile

ldwechsler wrote:
It has been noted, even in UH, that artificial intelligence had never reached true sentience. Would you set up a weapon that could possibly destroy a planet but had no real sentience behind it.

Look, just take a nervous system apart molecule by molecule, simulate it, shove it in a simulated body, give it a simulated control station and you've replaced a person. Do that a few thousand times and you've replaced your crew. Do the same with some industrial ships, increase the rate of the simulation some, run a bunch of the sims in parallel and you'll be churning out ghost ships in no time! You can easily scale up since the growth is exponential.

This should not be a difficult problem with the Honorverse level of technology. They already have artificial neurons. Even neurons like in the eye, where you have a basic neural net. They just need to scale up a little.

The real issue is Neo-Neo-Luddites have been in charge for about a thousand years. The only hope is that some enterprising bio-hackers, hidden from the rest of humanity in the depths of space, break humanity free of their self-imposed chains!

Or if they're evil they can keep the goodies for themselves and strategically deploy a combination of lobbyists and corporate spies to suppress the rest of humanity.

tlb wrote:But let's assume they develop it. The counter to your suggestion is to find the command ship and destroy it; even if you only drive it into hyper, that breaks the command link.

The command ship did not need to participate in battle; it could safely stay far outside hyper limit, protected by additional squadron of drones and sensor platforms (and if I'm not mistaken, there is no way to triangulate the source of FTL signals?). And there could be quite a lot of redundant command ships, so even if the enemy managed to destroy one, the other would took the functions.

Dilandu wrote:

tlb wrote:But let's assume they develop it. The counter to your suggestion is to find the command ship and destroy it; even if you only drive it into hyper, that breaks the command link.

The command ship did not need to participate in battle; it could safely stay far outside hyper limit, protected by additional squadron of drones and sensor platforms (and if I'm not mistaken, there is no way to triangulate the source of FTL signals?). And there could be quite a lot of redundant command ships, so even if the enemy managed to destroy one, the other would took the functions.

Of course they can. At the very least you can get a bearing to the transmitter. Recon drones signals are detected in many situations, allowing the enemy to know approximately where the drones are but the FTL signal by itself isn't enough to get a target lock from.