GA-League War lessons learned

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Sigs wrote:But the SLN can deploy at insane numbers of SD(P)'s and escorts if they so choose and all without breaking the bank, they don't have to choose, they can have a lot of everything.

That assumption is not a given.

We know it wasn't true before the end of the war. The SL federal government could not tax directly and therefore their budget was limited. Even if they were efficiently collecting and using those funds, they'd still be limited.

They're writing a new constitution now. Whether the new one will allow direct taxation or not is unknown. I expect that it will either NOT allow direct taxation (thus limiting the federal budget) or it will cause a lot of systems to secede from the League (also limiting the federal budget). Or a third alternative may be a compromise that was acceptable to most wavering members to limit how much can be directly taxed, at least during peace time, but the end result is again that the federal budget is limited.

And as Theemile wrote above, we don't know when that will be ready either. Until then, the SL is broke.

There's always the possibility of one or more member systems picking up part of the R&D on their own. Even building on their own, and sharing the designs with other like-minded systems.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:But if you want a missile-defence escort, you have no template. What can they copy? What is the best displacement-to-missile throw weight ratio? How many tubes are sufficient? Where's the inflection point for when it's good enough but cheap enough?

I'm not saying making a Cimiterre knock-off is easy. I'm saying it's much easier than coming up with something radically new and not proven by anyone else before.

You're letting the perfect be the mortal enemy of the good enough. Especially given the potential of individual systems building destroyers in huge numbers. The "good enough" solution would be to rip all the offensive systems out of a War Harvest destroyer design and replace all of that tonnage with point defenses and CM tubes, with all the fire control and magazine capacity to store way more CMs on board than any LAC could ever imagine. It might not be ideal, but it would have the virtue of being able to rush through design and see the first hulls operational within a year or two - long before carriers could be built even if they had the LACs to put on them.

Plus, there's no reason to assume they're going to have to pick one solution instead of both. Dedicated anti-missile destroyers could be effective, or they could be nothing more than a stop-gap while the SLN works on all the various revolutionary techs needed to make effective screen LACs.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Sigs wrote:But the SLN can deploy at insane numbers of SD(P)'s and escorts if they so choose and all without breaking the bank, they don't have to choose, they can have a lot of everything.

That assumption is not a given.

We know it wasn't true before the end of the war. The SL federal government could not tax directly and therefore their budget was limited. Even if they were efficiently collecting and using those funds, they'd still be limited.

They're writing a new constitution now. Whether the new one will allow direct taxation or not is unknown. I expect that it will either NOT allow direct taxation (thus limiting the federal budget) or it will cause a lot of systems to secede from the League (also limiting the federal budget). Or a third alternative may be a compromise that was acceptable to most wavering members to limit how much can be directly taxed, at least during peace time, but the end result is again that the federal budget is limited.

And as Theemile wrote above, we don't know when that will be ready either. Until then, the SL is broke.

Of course it is a given. I don't think many people in the forum disagree with it being a given. Not even you, if your own post is taken to heart ...

ThinksMarkedly wrote:There are multiple reasons why they have to act quickly and not take their sweet time.

The first and most obvious is that neither their population nor their politicians will let them. They want results NOW. Yesterday, if possible. They've been humiliated and reduced to second-rate navy. They must restore their proeminence.

Second, the SLN itself knows it can't continue with a snail pace, otherwise it'll never catch up. It can't make long-term plans assuming the GA/Union will always be nice to them (it can't make short terms with that assumption either). They need to ramp up quickly.

Third, there will be some warlords and other navies trying to take advantage of the chaos. Right now, the only people with better hardware than the SL is the GA/Union and the GA has no intention of conquering systems from the League. But it won't be long before knock-offs start coming off the line somewhere. The SLN will need to develop something to defend its remaining systems with, lest the SL continue shedding members like dandruff.

And a special case of that is the MAlign, known to the SLN as "The Other Guys." Even if the SL and SLN leadership does not believe the GA's explanation of the MAlign's objective to destroy the SL, they know someone is out there. And they know this someone has technology in advance of theirs and none of their best interests in mind.

Fourth and finally, even if all of the above weren't true, they will be at war soon with the MAlign. We know that, even if they don't.

Which is on the money I might add. At any rate, how do you think the screaming citizen in the street will be appeased if the government as a whole pinches pennies until Lincoln screams? You said it yourself, the man in the street wants results. Results cost money. Besides, all of the members who would resist funding are long gone. All of the members who are left are the same members who are screaming bloody murder on the blurb of "To End in Fire." BTW, the blurb confirms that the purse strings will be loosed. The proud SL citizens will not stand idly by and remain a fourth-rate navy. No way.

Besides, any new Constitution which may limit taxation will have provisions for war. The SL, by your own admission, is still in a war... with time.

But, broke? You can't apply that term to the League. They aren't even experiencing cash flow problems. Maybe hiccups, but problems? No. Heck, they can drain the bank accounts of the incarcerated Mandarins and fund research for five years.

BTW, the purse strings were let loose at the end of UH. The Mandarins got their formal declaration of war. Heck, it would probably take five years to rescind the motion, even if they wanted to. They won't want to, nor will they rescind the motion. I'm not talking about continuing an actual war footing with the GA... but with time. The Gorilla needs a facelift. Cosmetic surgery is costly unless you consult with a quack.

Theemile wrote:Ture, true. In 10 years after they get their heads out of their posteriors, they can be a force to reckon with. The question is when will the Doctor reverse the Universe's largest Rectal-Cranial inversion?

Honor did that shortly after she entered the Sol System and gave that hell hole an enema.

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:Ture, true. In 10 years after they get their heads out of their posteriors, they can be a force to reckon with. The question is when will the Doctor reverse the Universe's largest Rectal-Cranial inversion?

Honor did that shortly after she entered the Sol System and gave that hell hole an enema.

Did she though?- Yes, she lit the fuse - but these are politicians we are discussing - they need to argue everything past the point it dies. As I mentioned, we know the Maya Crisis is coming (but nothing really about it other than it is considered a big crisis for the SL as seen from 25 years later, and it involves the Maya Cluster.) If it involves multiple systems succeeding as we suspect, it could paralyze the federal body or shred it before the SLN can be reformed and the new mandate set. Timing, as they say, is everything.

Dauntless wrote:Though I have doubts about the Sollies stealing any data. ONI was a joke and do we think the MAlign left the other intel agencies alone?

sure the Malign focused on getting idiots to high level positions who would ignore things when competent subordinates brought them things that disagreed with their view of the galaxy. even after a house cleaning it will take a while, probably a couple of years to get intel and intel black ops up to a decent level. assuming furry lie detectors in manticore etc don't make it even harder.

That's true and the furry lie detectors are extremely effective. That should stop most espionage in all levels. But the treecats will be focused not on detecting lies but on protection against compulsion. That means there may be other means of getting the data.

At this point, the SLN does not need the highest-level plans, the most classified ones, nor influence decision-making at a high level, like the MAN does. They can settle for the breadcrumbs, which middle management and lower echelons of the Manticore and Havenite bureaucracy may have access to. Grease some palms and the SLN gets some data.

You're completely right that the SLN intelligence is in shambles right now, but we've seen it was one of the first to begin to recover. Don't forget that al-Fanudahi and Teague are intelligence.

Jonathan's quick and dirty DD(E) or CL(E) while not as good as a platform designed from scratch, it will be a useful stopgap until the proper design can be designed and built.

A lighter light cruiser? That's dangerously close to... frigates.

BTW, an escort destroyer is "DE."

The idea of a keyhole type platform full or CM and PD might be the best of both worlds but have they seen it in action? most the data they have is data the GA gave them so will likely have been sanitised of things like Keyhole, assuming it was even spotted given only the ships that hit the MBS are about the only ones to have fired on ships equipped with Keyhole and THEY didn't send any data back and I don't believe the GA gave them the data from that encounter.

Actually, no. They did get first-hand data with Keyhole I from surviving ships from the only engagement we know of that SLN ships survived and returned home: Hypatia. RAdm Yountz led the handful of surviving battlecruisers from TF 1030 out of the system, after being threatened by a very angry Megan Petersen aboard a destroyer, but the engagement with the other RMN ships included HMS Phantom and that Nike-class BC was using a Keyhole I.

I'm not putting my faith in the quality of that data. The tactical officer in Adm. Hajdu's staff aboard SLNS Lepanto could hardly localise the RMN ships in the first place and could not tell the Loreleis apart from the real ships, so it's unlikely they got very good scans. But they must have some.

And knowing something is possible is 80% of the work.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And as Theemile wrote above, we don't know when that will be ready either. Until then, the SL is broke.

There's always the possibility of one or more member systems picking up part of the R&D on their own. Even building on their own, and sharing the designs with other like-minded systems.

That's true, but those are also the least likely members to share their findings with the SL federal government, I suspect, if Beowulf is any example. Another evidence is that the SLN was completely oblivious to what was happening in the Haven Sector for 20 years, despite our knowing that there had been observers from a lot of places. If there are any SL members with sufficient intelligence-gathering apparatus and R&D, those weren't sharing data with the SLN. Or were being ignored, which ends up causing the strained relationship and unwillingness to further share.

If Kingsford is smart and those SL members exist (and remain members), he should make a point of including them in his decision-making. So, another lesson learned here.

You're letting the perfect be the mortal enemy of the good enough. Especially given the potential of individual systems building destroyers in huge numbers. The "good enough" solution would be to rip all the offensive systems out of a War Harvest destroyer design and replace all of that tonnage with point defenses and CM tubes, with all the fire control and magazine capacity to store way more CMs on board than any LAC could ever imagine. It might not be ideal, but it would have the virtue of being able to rush through design and see the first hulls operational within a year or two - long before carriers could be built even if they had the LACs to put on them.

Plus, there's no reason to assume they're going to have to pick one solution instead of both. Dedicated anti-missile destroyers could be effective, or they could be nothing more than a stop-gap while the SLN works on all the various revolutionary techs needed to make effective screen LACs.

I'm trying not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough. My point was that there is a known solution for LAC, with a proven result in the wall of battle and operating independently. Whether the SLN can duplicate that is a different story, but that's engineering.

There isn't one for a DE or missile cruiser. They can build those more easily, but there's no goal towards which they can aim. They have to figure out what the proper sizes and proportions will be. So this is the opposite of the LAC case: it's not engineering.

And I am claiming that the latter is more difficult than the former. I may be wrong, but this is what I think.

cthia wrote:Of course it is a given. I don't think many people in the forum disagree with it being a given. Not even you, if your own post is taken to heart ...

There's only one worthy in this forum we can't argue with and that's David. He wrote in UH that the SL federal government was months away from being broke. That's why they had the emergency constitutional amendment going through that would allow them direct taxation. Agatá Wodoslawski was explicit in one of the Mandarins' meeting, when she said that the capacity of the SL government to borrow money would run out soon (because no one would lend them any) and they'd simply be unable to continue paying for the war.

Now, the war ended so the pressure on borrowing as fast as they were doing lessened. And commerce should hopefully pick up soon again, once Lacöon II withdraws and permits Solarian-flagged vessels to transit wormholes. But that doesn't change the short-term situation, which is that the Solarian League federal government is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Plus it has an uncertain future. That makes lenders wary.

So maybe saying they are broke right now is an exaggeration. But it's not far from the truth.

More to the point and to the assumption I was arguing against: the SL federal government does not have such a big budget to play with.

Which is on the money I might add. At any rate, how do you think the screaming citizen in the street will be appeased if the government as a whole pinches pennies until Lincoln screams? You said it yourself, the man in the street wants results. Results cost money. Besides, all of the members who would resist funding are long gone. All of the members who are left are the same members who are screaming bloody murder on the blurb of "To End in Fire." BTW, the blurb confirms that the purse strings will be loosed. The proud SL citizens will not stand idly by and remain a fourth-rate navy. No way.

They don't want to. Everybody wants everything, right now. But when asked to contribute to the effort, many will balk. "Give me a first-rate navy!" "Sure, give me the funding!" "Uh... let me ah... yeah, let me check what I can give you. I'll call you back in 6 months. Don't call, I'll call you"

Where did you see in the blurb that the purses are being loosened? The part that says "have regained control of their own economic destinies" was referring to the Outworlds (which BTW is not a designation we've heard before; so I assume that refers to the Verge and maybe portions of the Outer Shell and that also means there's a new political alignment coming up). It does say that the SL is "the largest, most economically powerful human star nation in existence" and no one doubts that, but the constitutional prohibition against direct taxation neatly prevents the SL federal government from being proportionately big. David had to introduce this limitation, otherwise it wouldn't be believable that the SL would have a navy that could be defeated this easily, despite everything else.

Besides, any new Constitution which may limit taxation will have provisions for war. The SL, by your own admission, is still in a war... with time.

That's a nice allegory but you're not going to convince any lawyers.

I think they will eventually be at war with the Alignment, yes. At that point the war provisions will kick in. But that's going to be a few years out.

But, broke? You can't apply that term to the League. They aren't even experiencing cash flow problems. Maybe hiccups, but problems? No. Heck, they can drain the bank accounts of the incarcerated Mandarins and fund research for five years.

I didn't say the League itself is broke. Ok, I did.

I meant that the SL federal government is near broke. Individual member systems are still prosperous (or not) as they used to be. They'll have felt the impact of the war, due to interstellar commerce shrinking if nothing else, but it's orders of magnitude of difference compared to what the federal government was feeling.

BTW, the purse strings were let loose at the end of UH. The Mandarins got their formal declaration of war. Heck, it would probably take five years to rescind the motion, even if they wanted to. They won't want to, nor will they rescind the motion. I'm not talking about continuing an actual war footing with the GA... but with time. The Gorilla needs a facelift. Cosmetic surgery is costly unless you consult with a quack.

And that war ended, with the SL surrender. There's no arguing on that point. Plus, I don't remember that they actually had the war declared: they couldn't have, since that required a vote they couldn't hope to win. One of the reasons they were in the financial situation they were in was because the Mandarins couldn't get the declaration of war that they needed. They were using the military in a war without declaring one.

And now they're writing a new Constitution. Under the eyes and guns of the GA. They have limited ability to perform shenanigans and they can't officially have a declared war.

forgot that they might have got something from the survivors of Hypatia that might have some data which might give them the hints for the SLN to do something similar to Keyhole 1.

I have doubts that the SLN will revive the frigate, even if just for missile defence. Torch is about the only place still using them (that we know of) and even then they are using them for raids against slavers and as training platforms as they build up their personnel before moving onto the ships from the leftover PNiE, assuming manticore doesn't give them mates rats on some older RMN destroyers or light cruisers.

now a FF(E) (if that is the designation) is in theory cheaper to build then the destroyer and slightly quicker to build as it is smaller, but is even more fragile (though presumably more survivable then the LACs at the trade off of being bigger and more detectable target but that could also apply to the DE/CL(E) idea) and it is hyper capable.

as I recall the arguments made to get manticore to finally scrap them was that you needed almost as many people, it cost almost as much as a destroyer to run and was only a little cheaper to build and carried less firepower.

I'd say that DD/CL already exist in the thousand so quicker and cheaper to refit some of them as a stop gap.

so on further though, further down the line they might go with frigates, it carries many of the pros of LACs relatively small and cheaper then destroyers to buy, though maintenance, crewing etc is about the same, hyper capable so that means money doesn't need spent on a carrier. though if it carries enough PD/CM to make it worthwhile there won't be any room for anti ship weapons, so it can't do anything other then protect the fleet. though for something the size of the SL, they can probably afford that better then SKM, though the SEM might be able to afford it, if they chose to abandon LACs.

of course such a ship will almost never do anything outside missile protection or courier duties. scouting if not done by drone will be destroyer work, anti piracy will be CL and CA work.

of course none of that touches on our other discussion (some time back) as to whether anything below a cruiser of about 500Kt is going to be worth building in the DDM/MDM era for those who want ships that are multi purpose rather then specialised.

Dauntless wrote:of course none of that touches on our other discussion (some time back) as to whether anything below a cruiser of about 500Kt is going to be worth building in the DDM/MDM era for those who want ships that are multi purpose rather then specialised.

Maybe the solution is not to build small, but going to the other end and building big. Think of a 500k tonne (counter) missile cruiser. They can be fast enough to keep up with the wall, they have enough hull volume to carry a lot of missiles, they have enough hull area to have a lot of launchers and to protect themselves. Additionally, they can use bigger and more capable CMs, which may offset the drawback of having fewer such platforms and thus less dispersed around the wall.

interesting idea.

different sizes for attack missiles have been referenced dozens of times but I don't recall different sized counter missiles ever mentioned.as far as I know an SD fires the same CM that a DD does.

Still the SLN may choose to change this and if bigger is more capable, as it so often is, then something the size of Sag C would likely make more sense then trying to squeeze a meaningful amount into something about a 100Kt, and a 500Kt sized cruiser will be able to take more punishment then frigate or destroyer.

Dauntless wrote:interesting idea.

different sizes for attack missiles have been referenced dozens of times but I don't recall different sized counter missiles ever mentioned.as far as I know an SD fires the same CM that a DD does.

Still the SLN may choose to change this and if bigger is more capable, as it so often is, then something the size of Sag C would likely make more sense then trying to squeeze a meaningful amount into something about a 100Kt, and a 500Kt sized cruiser will be able to take more punishment then frigate or destroyer.

There are two sizes of CM, but it's based on newer tech being available than strictly on the size of the ship carrying them. The Mark 31/Viper class CMs are substantially larger than the older generations of CMs, which is what gives them the additional range and independent targeting ability the older CMs lack. Only ships of the latest designs carry the Mark 31 - Katanas, Rolands, Sag-Cs, Nikes, carriers and SD(P)s. Avalons, Shrikes, Ferrets, and older ships still carry the standard CM type.