Topic Actions

Topic Search

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 41 guests

RHN hardware vs SLN

Join us in talking discussing all things Honor, including (but not limited to) tactics, favorite characters, and book discussions.
Re: RHN hardware vs SLN
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:30 am

ThinksMarkedly
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4105
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am

Jonathan_S wrote:Remember that the PNIE, hardly technical geniuses, generated a major upgrade in the effectiveness of the ex-SLN units they were given simply by overwriting the tac software with their out of date, off-the-shelf, standard Peep software.


My guess would be that before of the Legislaturalist regime, before the embargo went up, Havenite and Solarian software was mostly the same. They'd be trading all the time, and knowing the state of the educational system in the PRH, the Legislaturalists would have focused on importing what they could, if only to learn from it. Besides, we know that civilian Solarian software was pretty good, Manticore-level, by the 1920s.

The difference must have laid in doctrine. Unlike the SLN, the PN did actually fight with their ships. So they would know how to use the software and, as Jonathan and Relax said above, tweak it and adapt it to their hardware. The pre-war PN SDs like the DuQuesne class were already bigger and badder than what the SLN would field 20 years later, so there's no reason to think their software wasn't comparably more effective too.

Once the embargo went up, however, that channel was lost. I'm sure the PN and StateSec stole lots of copies of software, but without the technical people to teach them how to install and deploy whatever they'd got, they'd be stumbling blind. It could be done... in fact, it was probably done. The R&D kicked up in the PRH side and that in turn generated innovations that didn't come from the SLN and SL in general.

Then there was Darwin. The war with Manticore quickly weeded out what worked from what didn't. That and stealing Manty technology (soft and hard) was fed back into the PN R&D efforts. And since the embargo was up, the PN wasn't feeling in the mood of sharing any way. By the time the war ended and Pierre's reforms were part-way, they had a much better fighting force than the SLN as we've discussed.

Interesting thought: had they noticed how they pulled ahead of the SLN? The RMN was used to developing everything on its own, so they had little basis for comparison, and wouldn't tempt fate before it was necessary. But the PN had had this backchannel contact and had been receiving some SL tech; did they not notice how they left the SLN in the dust?

Oh well, I guess by the time Theisman and Honor could compare notes, the RMN had already had Byng and Crandall pay visits.
Top
Re: RHN hardware vs SLN
Post by Theemile   » Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:39 am

Theemile
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 5060
Joined: Sat Feb 27, 2010 5:50 pm
Location: All over the Place - Now Serving Dublin, OH

Daryl wrote:I suspect that much of the military tech that Haven purchased surreptitiously wasn't being used by the Solarian fleets.
Several reasons, inertia, wrong connections or bribes in BF, not seen as needed by the biggest gorilla.
However the Sollies may have been trying to avoid the trap which the British fleet fell into twice in OTL. Decades apart, but each time the British came up with a game changing ship, HMS Warrior, then later HMS Dreadnought, they effectively went from having the most effective number of ships of the line by far, to only having one ahead of the other powers.


It had also been said that the SLN had been deliberately not pushing the tech envelope, because if a tech race started, it would have to update it's massive navy so it was strong everywhere. Instead, they adopted a policy of slow progression just behind the frontrunner, assuming the tech would not be that game changing, and their numbers would more than make up for any insignificant tech difference.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
Top
Re: RHN hardware vs SLN
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:05 pm

ThinksMarkedly
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4105
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The difference must have laid in doctrine. Unlike the SLN, the PN did actually fight with their ships. So they would know how to use the software and, as Jonathan and Relax said above, tweak it and adapt it to their hardware. The pre-war PN SDs like the DuQuesne class were already bigger and badder than what the SLN would field 20 years later, so there's no reason to think their software wasn't comparably more effective too.


Storm from the Shadows, ch. 43 wrote:"I'd say the individual platforms probably aren't quite as capable as what we've been seeing out of the Havenites lately, but their combined capability is actually better."
[...]
"Oh, no, Ma'am." Abigail never looked up from her displays and telemetry, and her smile could have frozen a star's heart. "Not that much better. In fact, I'd say their hardware is better than their doctrine. Either that, or their helmsmen are a little shaky. The interval between their units is at least three times anything the Havenites would accept, and that means the other ships' decoys are too far from the target to give it much cover."
Top
Re: RHN hardware vs SLN
Post by Relax   » Tue Aug 30, 2022 12:10 am

Relax
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 3106
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:18 pm

Theemile wrote:
Daryl wrote:I suspect that much of the military tech that Haven purchased surreptitiously wasn't being used by the Solarian fleets.
Several reasons, inertia, wrong connections or bribes in BF, not seen as needed by the biggest gorilla.


It had also been said that the SLN had been deliberately not pushing the tech envelope, because if a tech race started, it would have to update it's massive navy so it was strong everywhere. Instead, they adopted a policy of slow progression just behind the frontrunner, assuming the tech would not be that game changing, and their numbers would more than make up for any insignificant tech difference.


Ah, this reminds me. Hydrofoils. Back at the beginning of the super carriers(60's), the USN had a MASSIVE problem. Its Destroyers could not keep up even though they had already MASSIVELY increased in size. Needed something different. The solution was found: Hydrofoils. As this allowed a ship of equivalent tonnage to use a fraction of the fuel necessary and therefore range or time at station on said carrier could be increased by 100% or thereabouts. But, due to slight teething issues which were later fixed, the hydrofoil Destroyer program was dropped. The problem was bearings which would not last. This was later solved in the late 70's and is now found in bridge infrastructure around the world of any moving bridge near saltwater. Today, the USN STILL does not have Destroyers which can stay on station around a nuclear carrier for more than a VERY short period of time before they have to refuel. The USN is so pig headed and full of hubris and arrogance they have forgotten this basic lesson everyone knew was a problem back in the 60's which was never solved and instead everyone pretends carrier groups are not HIGHLY vulnerable to running out of fuel as to kill a strike group all you have to do is sink or damage the resupply ship. ... And with a mere 60 Destroyers in inventory, the USN can't even use relay's of destroyers either between the resupply ship and the CSF.

On reason given for dropping the program? Would turn obsolete all previous ships not nuclear powered and the USN at the time still had HUNDREDS of old WWII ships many of which were not retired until the late 80's and early 90's.

All I hope is the USN's hubris won't get slapped in their face in my lifetime.
_________
Tally Ho!
Relax
Top
Re: RHN hardware vs SLN
Post by cthia   » Tue Oct 04, 2022 8:04 am

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

Joat42 wrote:Aside from missile-tech, compensators and FTL communication it's mentioned that there's not that a big difference in tech in the later books between the different powers. What is remarked on in regards to Solly tech is that it is poorly utilized due to bad software plus they have been training and setting up doctrines that have been steadily diverging from dealing with real world scenarios.

Of course, they had a lot of outdated ships that had no real business being in a battle against a modern navy (ie Manty, RHN).

Good point joat. The SLN had no realistic doctrine for the threat environment because they were totally ignorant of it. Developing appropriate technology to combat the environment without realizing the scope of it was almost impossible. Heck, the SLN failed at even the most basic but important tactical change for the new environment. A mutual point-defense defense. The ships in their formations were so far apart, I think they were being defeated in detail. LOL

So even if they close the technical gap, I wonder about the tactical and strategic gap.

At any rate, for all practical purposes, doesn't Technodyne represent the private sector?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
Top
Re: RHN hardware vs SLN
Post by cthia   » Tue Oct 04, 2022 8:31 am

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

You know what is inconspicuously missing from text? The SLN's BuWeaps. Has text ever mentioned BuWeaps in SL space? Not even a member of it as I recall. So, who is the SL's doppelgänger to Shannon and Sonja?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
Top
Re: RHN hardware vs SLN
Post by tlb   » Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:01 am

tlb
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 3854
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:34 am

cthia wrote:You know what is inconspicuously missing from text? The SLN's BuWeaps. Has text ever mentioned BuWeaps in SL space? Not even a member of it as I recall. So, who is the SL's doppelgänger to Shannon and Sonja?

There is mention of viewing a test run of Hasta for use in the attack on Beowulf. That would be where their weapons research was run and where Honor grabbed all of their prototypes and research. Ganymede?
Top
Re: RHN hardware vs SLN
Post by Robert_A_Woodward   » Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:34 am

Robert_A_Woodward
Captain of the List

Posts: 538
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 10:29 pm

cthia wrote:You know what is inconspicuously missing from text? The SLN's BuWeaps. Has text ever mentioned BuWeaps in SL space? Not even a member of it as I recall. So, who is the SL's doppelgänger to Shannon and Sonja?


A "System Development Command" is mentioned in _Uncompromising Honor_ (also referred to in _A Rising Thunder_). It appears to be the equivalent of BuWeaps, but it didn't produce anything until after Kingsford purged the command staff.
----------------------------
Beowulf was bad.
(first sentence of Chapter VI of _Space Viking_ by H. Beam Piper)
Top
Re: RHN hardware vs SLN
Post by Somtaaw   » Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:48 am

Somtaaw
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1184
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:36 am
Location: Canada

tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:You know what is inconspicuously missing from text? The SLN's BuWeaps. Has text ever mentioned BuWeaps in SL space? Not even a member of it as I recall. So, who is the SL's doppelgänger to Shannon and Sonja?

There is mention of viewing a test run of Hasta for use in the attack on Beowulf. That would be where their weapons research was run and where Honor grabbed all of their prototypes and research. Ganymede?



Ganymede itself was closer to Weyland, and acted as the Solly headquarters for taking research and actually applying it to hardware, thus coming up with things like Hasta. And the location being already a near-100% military production facility, much like Weyland, could produce the newer hardware for physical tests more securely.


From what I can parse, the Solly's don't seen to have a dedicated BuWeaps. It's at best a sub-division of either Office of Technical Analysis, or Office of Operational Analysis which would put Solly BuWeaps under their version of a Patricia Givens and not under a Shannon or Sonja.

All the main Solly ONI were headquartered on Earth, and specifically it seems New Chicago, all those conversations of the Ghost Hunters, Daud and company, and that one Gendarme General who finally took it to Kingsford apparently kept looking out on Chicago and its weather.

Kingsford, if he's still in charge of the League Navy, might establish a dedicated BuWeaps. If he does, then to the best of our knowledge Daud or Irene, are probably his best bets at first. Not because they're a good thinker like Shannon or Sonja, but because they were willing to admit SLN isn't the best and actually do research to prove it.

Daud would merely be a better starting point to figure out how much they don't actually know, and how much their potential adversaries have shown that they know, so his successor could dive down the rabbit holes he had determined to exist for a better rate of return on research efforts.
Top
Re: RHN hardware vs SLN
Post by cthia   » Mon Oct 10, 2022 2:04 am

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:
cthia wrote:You know what is inconspicuously missing from text? The SLN's BuWeaps. Has text ever mentioned BuWeaps in SL space? Not even a member of it as I recall. So, who is the SL's doppelgänger to Shannon and Sonja?


A "System Development Command" is mentioned in _Uncompromising Honor_ (also referred to in _A Rising Thunder_). It appears to be the equivalent of BuWeaps, but it didn't produce anything until after Kingsford purged the command staff.

If there isn't something equal to BuWeaps and someone equal to a Shannon or Sonja, how could the SLN ever have hoped to dissect and digest the information coming in about super missiles? No wonder they couldn't grasp the new threat environment.

I didn't think Project Gram was located on Weyland or either of the space stations. So, I wouldn't expect BuWeaps to be located on Ganymede. Although I could be wrong about Gram's physical location.

At any rate, I don't recall a BuWeaps in Grayson or RHN space either.

But out of the long history of the SL, Technodyne would not have been their major supplier of R&D or hardware. That's impossible and ludicrous in the face of classified information. So, where does the brunt of SL R&D occur? And who heads it up? The possibility of Manty superweapons was never passed by a SL version of Sonja.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
Top

Return to Honorverse