Solly Fleet Advancements

For the SLN to build warships is fairly pointless, unless they think they can build warships faster than Haven can build matching numbers of missiles. The League is effectively at war with Haven, which has a completely intact industrial base, even though its fleet recently took considerable losses. The available data suggests that the RHN should be able to beat up on the Solarian League adequately effectively, especially after they get better missiles in production.

phillies wrote:For the SLN to build warships is fairly pointless, unless they think they can build warships faster than Haven can build matching numbers of missiles. The League is effectively at war with Haven, which has a completely intact industrial base, even though its fleet recently took considerable losses. The available data suggests that the RHN should be able to beat up on the Solarian League adequately effectively, especially after they get better missiles in production.

Alison has not tried to bring back frigates but instead mentions frigates as a possible answer to a certain need at the same time expressing openness to other alternatives such as destroyers to fill the same role.

As for whether or not the League can match building capacity with Haven's missle capability is really beside the point. The League is huge and even the combined navies of the GA don't have enough hulls to be everywhere. In addition to that, factoring out the tech issue, the League has many times more hulls than the GA, but still cannot cover everything either.

The flaw in this is whether or not the League has the time or is able to muster the resourses to recover its balance and implement something like Alison's idea. My own belief, like that of a majority of posters, is that it probably doesn't.

But, if we embrace the notion that the League will have both time and resourses to pull it off, the problem Alison describes is real and his proposal on how to rapidly ramp up the available number of hulls to deal with it seems to me to be well reasoned, provided that he remains flexible on how that might be accomplished.

Don

Duckk wrote:My god, it's like with Cheopis all over again. David not only says no, but emphatically, no holds barred no, yet some people can't get the hint. David has spent a whole novella's worth of words has been dissecting the idea of frigates reemerging. They are not coming back.

Well, if I were talking about frigates then I guess this admonishment would be well taken. Instead I find myself in the position of defending something which I have not proposed.

So let me try and make this clear at least one last time. I do not know what the size of the vessel would be that I was proposing above. That would depend entirely on the size of the vessel upon which the design would ultimately be based. I'm pretty sure I could build a small CL sized vessel sourced from a civilian design that would be both less expensive and faster to build than the current SLN production model DD that would have the needed capability.

Most likely the vessel would be in the size range running from a small DD to a small CL rather than in the range of what would constitute a traditional Honorverse FG.

In fact, I believe that a vessel the size of a traditional FG hull may well be too small for this mission but a lot would depend on the capabilities I feel I would need and what kind of base hull I'd choose to best carry out the mission.

If you want to argue that a FG built to be a front line warship compares badly to the typical DD or small DD then fine, you're free to make that argument and you'll be supported by large amounts of information in infodumps and elsewhere. There are some holes in the reasoning I've seen but by and large there's a lot of good information there as well.

But what at least I am talking about here is a vessel much closer to an armed fleet auxiliary whose mission is internal security. In fact, it's mission is very much like that of the "gunboats" which were common in the late part of the 19th and early 20th centuries and wherein the term "gunboat diplomacy" was derived.

I think it would be foolish to argue that the SLN doesn't already practice a lot of "gunboat diplomacy" throughout large portions of it's border areas, it's just about to lose the vast majority of it's gunboats at about the time it's going to need them most.

You're going to have a tough time building enough fleet destroyers to make up the difference so you have some unpalatable choices, accept the fact that you're not going to have enough and live with the consequences or build something you can construct in quantity faster and at a lower costs.

Now, you could just go the armed merchant cruiser route. Take straight merchant hulls and give them things to shoot with, probably not along as sophisticated as what the RMN gave Wayfarer but the same general idea. Problem is that ships like this aren't going to have the impeller nodes to actually maneuver as well as will be needed. There are going to be times when you need to chase down the bad guys and a AMC isn't going to be the answer.

What would be better is something in between a front line warship and an armed merchant cruiser. Something that's fast enough to deal with pirates and similar threats, enough firepower to fend off most raiders and have the "guns" that are needed for "gunboat diplomacy", which has better subdivision and toughness than a freighter but still build generally to commercial standards where possible to speed construction times, reduce costs and to use yard space not ordinarily used for military construction.

As far as I know, nobody, including DW, has uttered one word on something like this and using the refrain "DW says empathically no" leads me to ask the question, just what is DW saying no too. My impression is that he has been saying no to something very different that what I've been proposing.

If you really want to get right down to it, I'm talking about a smaller, faster, tougher version of an Armed Merchant Cruiser. Is this what DW has been saying no to?

n7axw wrote:

phillies wrote:For the SLN to build warships is fairly pointless, unless they think they can build warships faster than Haven can build matching numbers of missiles. The League is effectively at war with Haven, which has a completely intact industrial base, even though its fleet recently took considerable losses. The available data suggests that the RHN should be able to beat up on the Solarian League adequately effectively, especially after they get better missiles in production.

Alison has not tried to bring back frigates but instead mentions frigates as a possible answer to a certain need at the same time expressing openness to other alternatives such as destroyers to fill the same role.

As for whether or not the League can match building capacity with Haven's missle capability is really beside the point. The League is huge and even the combined navies of the GA don't have enough hulls to be everywhere. In addition to that, factoring out the tech issue, the League has many times more hulls than the GA, but still cannot cover everything either.

The flaw in this is whether or not the League has the time or is able to muster the resourses to recover its balance and implement something like Alison's idea. My own belief, like that of a majority of posters, is that it probably doesn't.

But, if we embrace the notion that the League will have both time and resourses to pull it off, the problem Alison describes is real and his proposal on how to rapidly ramp up the available number of hulls to deal with it seems to me to be well reasoned, provided that he remains flexible on how that might be accomplished.

Don

Thanks

Alizon wrote:So let me try and make this clear at least one last time. I do not know what the size of the vessel would be that I was proposing above. That would depend entirely on the size of the vessel upon which the design would ultimately be based. I'm pretty sure I could build a small CL sized vessel sourced from a civilian design that would be both less expensive and faster to build than the current SLN production model DD that would have the needed capability.

Most likely the vessel would be in the size range running from a small DD to a small CL rather than in the range of what would constitute a traditional Honorverse FG.

How many hyper capable ships have we seen that are not warships and are also larger then FF and less then a Megaton? They seem kind of rare in the Honorverse.

Whitecold wrote:

Alistair wrote:I think that there would be PLENTY of people wanting to hold the league together.

Many core worlds (even the "good" democratic ones) would have plenty of reasons to see a reform of the league or maybe a replacement that does the same thing better, rather than its destruction.

Think about it the core worlds have had to pay just a pittance of there G.S.P on defence and foreign affairs because of the existence of the league.

If the league breaks up into scores of succession states that "free ride" on defence ends.

An analogy could be given of the U.S.A and my home country New Zealand

Since World war 2 NZs defence spending has steadily dropped in real terms and we don't even have any combat aircraft anymore why?

Answer in part U.S Naval supremacy our exports can go on ships protected (indirectly) by the U.S Navy.

So while in NZ there are plenty of people on the streets who (sadly) don't like America those in power know that America supremacy gives stability and is better than its replacement (China?).

Same for the league in honourverse

If I were a good democrat on a core world despite the many, many grievous faults of the SL I would not be eager to simply join everyone in throwing the SL under the train because despite the SL sins it still has given stability and interstellar peace for literally thousands of years!!

I would use the current situation to either reform it or create a replacement that still leaves the League in top dog place.

In essence just as WW2 finished off the league of nations and paved the way for the United nations. the current war could finish off the league but many of the key players will want to see a replacement that gives them the advantages of the current regime.

And they would rather stick with the league then have it replaced by interstellar "dark age" where successor states routinely nuke planets and every core world planet has to have large fleets of SDs just to protect its existence.

The problem with that line of logic is that it is all League-wide, long-term thinking. If they stick together, they have a chance, a good one, but only if.
Individual planetary governments don't think about future defense budgets, and even if they do, it is easier for each and all to let the others burden the load of the war, and make a separate deal.
Sticking your head out for the SL seems like a good to invite a Manty raiding fleet, and once the first begin to flee the league, the rest will follow out of panic.

No, you don't need all of the League to have that kind of thinking, you just need enough of the League to think that way. Fortunately, the worlds which are most likely to take this view are going to be the key core worlds which are the ones you need the most. They are the worlds that have the most wealth, the most industry and all of the things you need to remain a viable political entity. The worlds most likely to take the route that is popularly espoused are the frontier worlds which benefit the least for their association with the League but which are also the worlds which, when you come down to it, are less valuable to the Leagues survival as well.

Depending on how the League handles this, or fails to handle it, you'll start to see the frontiers begin to unravel followed by the next layer etc until you begin to reach those worlds which really do benefit significantly from the League and which point the erosion will begin to slow. GA efforts may push these worlds into taking the same course as the frontier, but most of these will need to be pushed and there are a LOT of them and some of them will be willing to push back.

Further into the League the next layer of worlds which benefit even more greatly are going to be less and less willing to simply splinter apart and more will be willing to risk short term loss for the chance at long term security.

At the very core, I doubt that many of the core worlds will simply break away as these are the worlds which benefit the most from the League and their leaders know it. Some will of course, but most won't.

What you are left with is really a collection of worlds ranging from the more prosperous outer colonies to the core of the League which will resist the disintegration of the League to the best of their ability.

As I've spoken to earlier, the destruction of the League will likely not be the GA's primary objective. The GA didn't come into existence because of the League's actions but because of the actions of some mysterious power out there which they have just now realized has been trying to destroy them for well over a century.

In fact, the GA may have a vested interest in preserving the League if they determine that the destruction of he League is one of the goals of their true enemies.

These factors taken in conjunction with the need now to defend significant home systems from an unseen and powerful enemy will tend to minimize both the power and the scope of GA attacks on the League in the short to mid-term which will substantially reduce the impact of these attacks on the actual survival of the League.

This is really where the Alignment's plans miss a major beat. They need the GA to plaster the League and cause the disintegration that your analysis and their plans call for. I don't think the GA is going to take that bait to the extent that many here believe it will.

If we were talking about the League vs the GA and that's all that was going on, I think that the argument that the League doesn't have time would be a lot stronger. As it is, I think the League is going to get hurt before it's going to be able to defend itself again, but it's going to have that time if they can get their act together enough to do it.

kzt wrote:

Alizon wrote:So let me try and make this clear at least one last time. I do not know what the size of the vessel would be that I was proposing above. That would depend entirely on the size of the vessel upon which the design would ultimately be based. I'm pretty sure I could build a small CL sized vessel sourced from a civilian design that would be both less expensive and faster to build than the current SLN production model DD that would have the needed capability.

Most likely the vessel would be in the size range running from a small DD to a small CL rather than in the range of what would constitute a traditional Honorverse FG.

How many hyper capable ships have we seen that are not warships and are also larger then FF and less then a Megaton? They seem kind of rare in the Honorverse.

Well, most of what we see are bulk freighters, but there are going to be smaller vessels for fast transport of important cargos and/or important passengers within the League. Vessels like this do appear in the various books, normally as slightly shady smugglers or actual pirates. Some of these might be a little small for the purpose being actually closer in apparent size to the much derided Frigate but their existence implies that they were converted or derived from actual commercial vessels in service elsewhere in known space.

This probably means though that there are classes of similar vessels in commercial service and that they fill a niche within the various merchant fleets. It's quite possible that we don't seen them more because they haven't been all that key to any of the storylines except in their relatively shady underworld roles.

The ideal starting point design would be possibly a small starliner or mixed passenger and cargo packet where speed is an important factor. I can see there being a need for these on runs to systems which do not rate a really large passenger vessel but which have enough people to warrant making a fast ship to deliver people and/or high value cargo to it. I can also see the same kind of design working out well for corporations with high value and possibly perishable cargos that need to get from point A to point B quickly, or simply to provide flexibility in their ability to distribute key products quickly.

There are just a lot of jobs out there in the Universe for with big starliners and bulk carriers just aren't suitable for.

In our world, these kinds of vessels once existed but they were replaced by a new technology, the airplane. Since there is no equivalent technology in the Honorverse, it stands to reason that vessels of this type also exist, perhaps not in the profusion of the large bulk carriers but in numbers and in capabilities suitable for this purpose.

Low volume specialty ships do not appear suitable for this purpose. They have the exact same problem as SLN SDs, in that they are rarely built, and then only by a small number of yards with special skills and equipment. You really need your base ship to be widely built.

Alizon, the size of ship necessary to do what you are talking about is what is called in the Honorverse a destroyer. And all that the rest of us have been saying is that it would have to be a destroyer, not a frigate. If you are not in fact arguing that it is a frigate, then we are all agreed, and can stop any further mention of frigates.

Solarian destroyers are already on the small end. So there is no point in the League trying to produce a new smaller destroyer. They can simply pump out more of their current destroyers to meet the needs you outline.

SWM wrote:They can simply pump out more of their current destroyers to meet the needs you outline.

Well, they could, if they have all the long lead-time parts already and the few yards that build them are able to expand in some way.