Solly Fleet Advancements

biochem wrote:Another though re Alizon's super-armed commercial vessels. This strikes me as something a civilian shipper may build on their own. All the governments are likely to be in at least some disorder and politicians being politicians will be arguing about what to do to save their planet and whatever military building sites they do have will be building emergency additions to their SDFs etc. All of this leaves civilian shippers in the SL in a bind vs rising piracy. In this type of a mess I can see civilian shippers re-tooling merchant vessels to be armed and even building super-armed fast ones ones such as Alizon has described on their own to protect themselves since I doubt their governments (and the politicians who run them who will be able to argue among themselves forever without doing anything constructive) will be able to do anything about the situation in a reasonable amount of time.

It would make a lot of sense for you to see a lot of the major shipping cartels putting guns on their ships, actually. In the absence of a Frontier Fleet - who knows what commerce protection is going to look like in a post-Solarian League galaxy - and with pirates being the generally ruthless sons-of-bitches we've seen in Silesia, it would not be at all surprising for merchant cartels (and merchant captains) to shave off a few tons of cargo space for a SD graser or two.

It would not be easy, and putting armaments on merchantmen would represent a massive investment, so it's only going to happen if it appears that general disorder is going to be a lasting situation, and not a fleeting one.

Crown Loyalist wrote:It would make a lot of sense for you to see a lot of the major shipping cartels putting guns on their ships, actually. In the absence of a Frontier Fleet - who knows what commerce protection is going to look like in a post-Solarian League galaxy - and with pirates being the generally ruthless sons-of-bitches we've seen in Silesia, it would not be at all surprising for merchant cartels (and merchant captains) to shave off a few tons of cargo space for a SD graser or two.

It would not be easy, and putting armaments on merchantmen would represent a massive investment, so it's only going to happen if it appears that general disorder is going to be a lasting situation, and not a fleeting one.

Grasers are very, very large. Starting at 3000 tons. Which is in the vicinity of a missile pod... Which doesn't require nearly as much structural changes.

SWM wrote:Well, the purpose of the thread was to propose useful things that the Solarian League could try to develop. No one has said that no one anywhere would be fool enough to make frigates (especially since we know that some backwaters do).

I think things have strayed from what the SLN can do to survive to what individual league members might try. There is a big difference in what the SLN/League needs to survive and what individual systems need to survive when the League collapses.


What the SLN needs are more AMS, More Fire control channels, and longer ranged missiles.

What an individual system needs is Mycroft/Moriarty/MK23s system defense missiles and LAC/Frigate squadrons, Then Forts, and building to a GA Quality BC(L) squadron. Nobody needs anything bigger unless they plan to go outside their own system.

The GA can speed the breakup of the League by offering/providing system defense to individual systems.

SWM wrote:Alizon, if you really think that a destroyer is overkill for the kinds of missions you envision, perhaps you should explain exactly what missions you envision. Because I really can't think of any mission requiring hyperdrive that destroyers are overkill for.

You mention "the equivalent of picking up Cubans trying to float to Florida in rubber dingy's or dealing with pirates in a rowboat with a machine gun", but there is no equivalent of these situations in the Honorverse. The Coast Guard cutter equivalent in the Honorverse is an old-style LAC or pinnace. The Solarian League does not concern itself with those local issues--that is a matter for the local government. The Solarian League Navy is responsible for the defense of the League and its members, not for local customs duties. Stopping those Cubans in dingy's is the responsibility of the local system government. The local autonomy of the League members is enshrined in the League constitution. That's why those local governments have their own system defense forces.

Ok,

Well you do have something like the Cubans and rubber dingy's and rowboats with a machine gun parallel and as fate may have it, it's pretty much where the US Coast Guard spends it's time. It's the Frontier.

All along the League's borders is a semi explosive mix of League frontier worlds, protectorates and independent star systems which, up into recently, have been under the protection, guidance or threat of Frontier Fleet. It's something like a pressure cooker with FF holding the lid down while simultaneously taking out the best bits for itself.

That entire system is about to break down because the fleet that was the power behind making it all work is about to leave. The aftermath is, at least to me, fairly predictable.

While the border will not immediately erupt into chaos, a number of worlds or factions are going to see this as an opportunity. For some the opportunity will be to attempt to shuck off League influence or stop encroachments by the League. On other worlds, protectorates which have been propped up by Frontier Fleet are going to find themselves under a great deal or internal pressure. And for some the absence of Frontier Fleet will be see as an opportunity of another kind.

What you're going to end up with is a rolling explosive situation all across the Frontier regions and the few DD's and CL's that have been left behind simply aren't going to be able to be even a fraction of the places they need to be in order to keep it all from exploding in their face.

As this begins to happen, your going to see increasing disruptions into League space. Call it opportunists or something similar to todays Somalian pirates, people with a boat and an outboard motor who feel that they don't have much to lose.

First the Frontier worlds will begin to feel it as their trade begins to falter and outside elements begin to assert themselves into what had once been peaceful space. The peoples of these worlds will turn to the SLN and ask themselves where their protection is. Once again the few remaining Frontier Fleet vessels will be unable to be even a fraction of the places they need to be.

Now, individually, these FF fleet units will be more than capable of handling any individual threat or situation. A few of them could almost certainly take on all the raiders, scavengers and outright pirates in an entire sector and remove them in a few moments if they would just all bunch together for orderly disposal.

The problem is that it doesn't work that way. While you are at location dealing with situation X, nearby are situations A, B, C, D, E, F etc ... . There won't be enough hulls to go around.

As the situation along the frontier begins to unravel, opportunistic folks will reach the conclusion that the REALLY rich prizes aren't in the Frontier but further into League space. This will begin to create problems for systems further into the League especially amongst somewhat richer worlds which either didn't see the need or couldn't afford to acquire an adequate SDF of their own, instead depending on the presence of Frontier Fleet and the SLN to keep their spaceways peaceful.

Success here will encourage those deeper within the League to become more opportunistic themselves and probably with better resources than their Frontier brethren. It's not that they can't be stopped, it's that they will realize there is almost no one to stop them.

This will tend to create a vicious cycle which will probably be supported and encouraged by Alignment plans to assist in the disintegration of the League. The further the chaos penetrates, the more force it obtains.

Now, eventually this will all start to run up against really effective SDF's which will help create some protection for the areas immediately around them, but there are going to be any number of holes in this defense with systems which weren't as security conscious as their neighbors leaving open doors deeper into League space and disrupting trade and destabilizing the links between worlds even more.

This of course is simply one facet of the problem. The other will be the significant cessation of "gunboat diplomacy". However large the vessels employed, the League gets a lot of mileage just by having warships appear in systems to support a protectorate, destabilize a system for later absorption, to remind governments and residents who is really in charge and yes, to provide the comfort and protection that having a warship around will bring to some worlds.

So, what do you need to deal with this mess to either deal with it before it gets out of hand, or to at least slow it's progress. Do you need a Fleet Destroyer designed to fight and protect itself from other similar warships, that contains the best and most powerful technology the League has to offer an a price tag to match. Do you, in fact, need vessels with this type of capability to actually preform this task?

The answer, some of the time will be yes. There will be times when actual governments that have real warships will get involved in the mess and to deal with those, you need other comparable warships.

But most of the time, in the VAST majority of cases, the answer is no, you can do just fine with a LOT less.

That's the threat I see and the analysis of the situation I've made.

In response to kzt's response as to why do you need to worry about this kind of problem when you have the threat of GA MDM's breathing down your neck, well the answer is simple. Where are you going to find the stability to create these missiles and the vessels to carry them if you can't control the unraveling of the peoples and economies that you'll need and depend on to create them. Pretty much everything you're going to need to deal with the GA depends on maintaining a degree of stability within the League to allow all of the elements necessary for success to operate as you need them to.

In many ways, the GA isn't the primary threat the League faces at the moment, though it's the most obvious. It's the unraveling of the League itself from pressures outside and in that is it's most pressing danger. Compared to that, what the GA can reasonably do is fairly minor. If you ignore the unraveling of the League, it doesn't matter what kind of whiz bang missile you come up with.

What's clear to me is that something is needed to fill this gap and that if a solution isn't found the failure to find that solution will doom the League even if the GA doesn't attack a single League world or fleet. The vessels which have been reassigned need to be replaced.

Some of this will undoubtedly come from reactivation of the reserve, but I believe the number of lighter vessels there is significantly less than the number of SD's. Essentially the lighter vessels are likely to have seen harder use than Battlefleet SD's so fewer of them will have been deemed satisfactory for mothballing. Lighter vessels can also be sold throughout the League to SDF's, client states or independent worlds so the numbers available for reactivation are likely to be comparably small.

You can try to accelerate construction of current fleet designs however this will be somewhat hampered do to limitations in the supply of the state of the art components and specialized high performance systems these vessels need. In addition fleet warships will contain the most advances of defensive systems and will be built in such a way to be incredibly strong and have as many redundant systems as possible to allow for them to survive in the task they were built for, high intensity combat.

All of these factors tend to make construction of these kinds of warships extremely expensive and time consuming. This tends to limit your ability to produce them quickly and be able to pay for them when they are completed.

The alternative is the High/Low concept employed by wet navies today. Essentially you produce a design which represents the best quality most powerful and capable warship of it's time which can be constructed. These would be the Fleet Destroyers currently in production.

Then there is the Low portion of the formula. A vessel which does not have the same extensive capabilities as the High vessel but is built with the capabilities it needs for it's particular mission with the maximum ease of construction and the lowest cost possible.

I do not consider current DD designs built by the SLN to be the Low portion of this concept, they are instead the High portion. What is needed is the Low component which at this point does not appear to exist.

I submit that it will be, in part, the SLN's ability to find this Low option will be key to them being able to have the resources to effectively deal with the situation I've described.

Alizon wrote:I do not consider current DD designs built by the SLN to be the Low portion of this concept, they are instead the High portion. What is needed is the Low component which at this point does not appear to exist.

I think that's where your main error in logic lies. The SLN needs more capable ships that will push current DD designs to the Low end of capability -- and beyond.

The current generation of SLN DDs are capable of "keeping the lid on" as long as Aivars Terekhov doesn't show up. I don't think even a division of Scientist-class SDs would be enough in that case. What the SLN/League needs to expend its finite design and building capacity on is replacing existing Destroyers and Cruisers with more capable units so existing ships can be rotated into internal security jobs.

Alizon wrote:I submit that it will be, in part, the SLN's ability to find this Low option will be key to them being able to have the resources to effectively deal with the situation I've described.

The "Low Option" you describe is a moving target. Especially with the GA, Maya Sector, MAlign, and Renaissance Factor all working to counter your internal security measures.

What you now consider the "High End" is probably inadequate for the mission you propose -- essentially the same mission Honor coped with in OBS, where an under-gunned Light Cruiser was stretched extremely thin. It would take a division or full squadron of DDs to manage a system effectively, let alone efficiently.

A ship that is "more capable" than strictly necessary for the minimum tasking can still perform that minimum tasking, but a design "down-sized" to perform "only the minimum" is ill equipped to adapt to changing circumstances.

Alizon, how is your proposed solution supposed to deal with the most probable source of war material for any troublemaker, the SL itself?
FF Admirals going rouge, systems using their fleet of a few solly export ships to expand, pirates using stolen/blackmarket solly ships, liberation movements with hijacked FF ships, these are the threats I see right now besides GA raids.
All these will have DDs, cruisers or even the odd BC. For that you really want more, and not less capable units than current DDs, beside the aspect of design time, and that DDs are already a minimal solution.

The difficulty I see with Alison's analysis is that high end and low end are going to blend in together. Your average warship on patrol might be dealing with rowboat eqipped pirates in one system and a rogue warlord in the next. You are going to have to be able to respond to both scenarios.

I think I agree with Weird Harold here that the best starting point would be the War Harvest destroyers, an existing design and then focus on improving capability of smaller combatants rather than looking for ways of dumbing down. Of course if an allied fleet comes calling, all these units can do is to get out of the way.

The whole idea is dependent on the notion that the allies can't be everywhere, or even effectively cover more than a small percentage of the League's worlds.

Don

kzt wrote:

Crown Loyalist wrote:It would make a lot of sense for you to see a lot of the major shipping cartels putting guns on their ships, actually. In the absence of a Frontier Fleet - who knows what commerce protection is going to look like in a post-Solarian League galaxy - and with pirates being the generally ruthless sons-of-bitches we've seen in Silesia, it would not be at all surprising for merchant cartels (and merchant captains) to shave off a few tons of cargo space for a SD graser or two.

It would not be easy, and putting armaments on merchantmen would represent a massive investment, so it's only going to happen if it appears that general disorder is going to be a lasting situation, and not a fleeting one.

Grasers are very, very large. Starting at 3000 tons. Which is in the vicinity of a missile pod... Which doesn't require nearly as much structural changes.

I'm less worried about the hardware of the equipment, and more worried about putting in all the systems to permit effective command and control of that equipment.

The GA can assist the breakup of the SL by offering systems that secede slightly used, only surrendered once, SLN SDs along with at least skeleton crews that were from that particular system and will therefore be loyal.

Weird Harold wrote:

SWM wrote:Well, the purpose of the thread was to propose useful things that the Solarian League could try to develop. No one has said that no one anywhere would be fool enough to make frigates (especially since we know that some backwaters do).

I think things have strayed from what the SLN can do to survive to what individual league members might try. There is a big difference in what the SLN/League needs to survive and what individual systems need to survive when the League collapses.


What the SLN needs are more AMS, More Fire control channels, and longer ranged missiles.

What an individual system needs is Mycroft/Moriarty/MK23s system defense missiles and LAC/Frigate squadrons, Then Forts, and building to a GA Quality BC(L) squadron. Nobody needs anything bigger unless they plan to go outside their own system.

The GA can speed the breakup of the League by offering/providing system defense to individual systems.

Whitecold wrote:Alizon, how is your proposed solution supposed to deal with the most probable source of war material for any troublemaker, the SL itself?
FF Admirals going rouge, systems using their fleet of a few solly export ships to expand, pirates using stolen/blackmarket solly ships, liberation movements with hijacked FF ships, these are the threats I see right now besides GA raids.
All these will have DDs, cruisers or even the odd BC. For that you really want more, and not less capable units than current DDs, beside the aspect of design time, and that DDs are already a minimal solution.

Those FF Admirals going rogue with their ships and crews are the most likely genesis of an effective SDF that most SLN systems will have.