SLN, and MAlign playing catch up with Manticoran superiority

So the Solarian League, and to a slightly lesser extent MAlign's technical engineers have a fairly signicant ways to go before they can begin to match what the Manticoran's are capable of doing today. They have at least one thing going for them....they know what the Manties can already do. And knowing that something can be done is a very big advantage to them in figuring out how to do it for themselves.

What remains to be seen is whether they concentrate the majority of their R & D on matching the Manticoran's or on developing something new. Which is not to say that they can't (or won't) do both, but I think that they would be smart to emphasize on matching the Manties, and spend a little less time on blue sky research.

Now, the Mantie's R & D have a certain amount of advantages going for them to an extent. They know what they're doing, and they can have a smaller percentage of their researchers working on improving their existing tech, while concentrating the majority of their research on new ideas and concepts.

They have a lot of experience in using the tech that they have, which is also something that the other side won't have even after they develop it. In addition the other side can't be sure what exactly the Manties are doing. They can theorize that the improvements in missile range, penetration aids, drone endurance, etc, are PROBABLY a result of micro fusion plants, but they can't be sure of that.

So it seems to me that Manticore has a slight edge in maintaining and advancing the tech imbalance, plus they have a proven pair of outside the box thinkers to work on new groundbreaking discoveries, (Shannon, and Sonja) it remains to be seen on how willing the "bad guys" are to find their own tech gurus.

Also that doesn't count all the people that the GA have been training to think outside of the box, after 20 years of wartime r & d

I am enough of a Manticoran fan boy to believe we can stay on top and at the forefront in the weapons/technology race, but as Microsoft proved to Sony, resting on your laurels can be dangerous. Of course you CAN come back from mistakes like that too. Hopefully that won't be a problem in Manticore's (the GA's) case.

Wartime was a time of innovation. Human history has proven that time and again.

When your back is against the wall, spending money like water on R&D is an easy sell to those holding the purse strings.

The Manty problem is that:

A. The war's over and there's going to be a return to pre-war normalcy in the budget- starting with a huge defense spending cut.

It's gotta happen. The level of disruption to the economy that the SEM faced in the latter part of the war is not sustainable even before you factor in the economic blackhole of bringing Talbot and Silesia up to the level of the rest of the Empire.

Lots of relatively new ships- especially wallers- are gonna get laid up and placed in ordinary. It's gotta happen because there's no need for them AND there's not going to be enough money to keep them manned and running.

Speaking of manning, there's going to be a huge downsizing in the Manty Navy. Lots and lots of folks are going to end up on the beach due to the RIF (reduction in force). There again, it's gotta happen. Between the merchant trade and the industrial sector needing to be rebuilt, the demand for a trained workforce is tremendous. The exact sort of folks that are in the Navy right now.

B. They won through their tech.

'Victory disease' strikes NPC's as much as it hits denizens of message boards. They 'know' their tech is superior- never mind that everybody else is going to be playing catch up with a vengeance- that sort of complacency will delegate further R&D to a much lower priority in many a bean counter's mind.

Considering all of that, it's going to be an uphill battle to have the funds and bodies to keep their proverbial foot on the gas when it comes to R&D development.

jtg452 wrote:It's gotta happen. The level of disruption to the economy that the SEM faced in the latter part of the war is not sustainable even before you factor in the economic blackhole of bringing Talbot and Silesia up to the level of the rest of the Empire.

Lots of relatively new ships- especially wallers- are gonna get laid up and placed in ordinary. It's gotta happen because there's no need for them AND there's not going to be enough money to keep them manned and running.

Speaking of manning, there's going to be a huge downsizing in the Manty Navy. Lots and lots of folks are going to end up on the beach due to the RIF (reduction in force). There again, it's gotta happen. Between the merchant trade and the industrial sector needing to be rebuilt, the demand for a trained workforce is tremendous. The exact sort of folks that are in the Navy right now.

Does the merchant fleet need to be rebuilt? It seems that there are a large number of merchant ships, idled by the war with the Solarian League, that are just waiting for people released from the Navy.

Manticore still has the wormhole junction with the longest reach in all human habitation. Even for freight moving from one point of the League to another, that will result in money going into the Treasury that was not available when traffic was blocked.

What are the costs of Silesia and the Talbot Quadrant? Making sure there is the same educational and medical standards (including the use of Prolong) across the Empire. Plus the continued Naval presence in Silesia. The biggest costs there are the Navy and Prolong, but both those costs could come down in just a few years.

Yes, there are challenges; but nothing insurmountable. Much of the continued costs of R & D will simply be a matter of keeping educational standards high. If the the other nations do catch up to the standards of the Grand Alliance, that would not ordinarily be a problem - given a peaceful galaxy (if it weren't for the Malign).

jtg452 wrote:Wartime was a time of innovation. Human history has proven that time and again.

When your back is against the wall, spending money like water on R&D is an easy sell to those holding the purse strings.

The Manty problem is that:

A. The war's over and there's going to be a return to pre-war normalcy in the budget- starting with a huge defense spending cut.

It's gotta happen. The level of disruption to the economy that the SEM faced in the latter part of the war is not sustainable even before you factor in the economic blackhole of bringing Talbot and Silesia up to the level of the rest of the Empire.

Lots of relatively new ships- especially wallers- are gonna get laid up and placed in ordinary. It's gotta happen because there's no need for them AND there's not going to be enough money to keep them manned and running.

Speaking of manning, there's going to be a huge downsizing in the Manty Navy. Lots and lots of folks are going to end up on the beach due to the RIF (reduction in force). There again, it's gotta happen. Between the merchant trade and the industrial sector needing to be rebuilt, the demand for a trained workforce is tremendous. The exact sort of folks that are in the Navy right now.

B. They won through their tech.

'Victory disease' strikes NPC's as much as it hits denizens of message boards. They 'know' their tech is superior- never mind that everybody else is going to be playing catch up with a vengeance- that sort of complacency will delegate further R&D to a much lower priority in many a bean counter's mind.

Considering all of that, it's going to be an uphill battle to have the funds and bodies to keep their proverbial foot on the gas when it comes to R&D development.

No one has mentioned the largest issue - Project Gram was built upon sifting the Galaxy's techs, papers and patents looking for gems in the rough that had not been capitalized upon yet for warfighting. Eventually someone else will stumble on the paper named "A better way to make a fusion reactor using non-dairy creamer and bailing wire", or realize that that products for people who are "Gravity flux Sensitive" can shield drive nodes from each other.

Gram is in part built on "stolen" research, just used in novel applications. So almost every one of it's children are just a "V8 Smack" away from being discovered.

jtg452 wrote:Wartime was a time of innovation. Human history has proven that time and again.

When your back is against the wall, spending money like water on R&D is an easy sell to those holding the purse strings.

The Manty problem is that:

A. The war's over and there's going to be a return to pre-war normalcy in the budget- starting with a huge defense spending cut.

It's gotta happen. The level of disruption to the economy that the SEM faced in the latter part of the war is not sustainable even before you factor in the economic blackhole of bringing Talbot and Silesia up to the level of the rest of the Empire.

Lots of relatively new ships- especially wallers- are gonna get laid up and placed in ordinary. It's gotta happen because there's no need for them AND there's not going to be enough money to keep them manned and running.

Speaking of manning, there's going to be a huge downsizing in the Manty Navy. Lots and lots of folks are going to end up on the beach due to the RIF (reduction in force). There again, it's gotta happen. Between the merchant trade and the industrial sector needing to be rebuilt, the demand for a trained workforce is tremendous. The exact sort of folks that are in the Navy right now.

B. They won through their tech.

'Victory disease' strikes NPC's as much as it hits denizens of message boards. They 'know' their tech is superior- never mind that everybody else is going to be playing catch up with a vengeance- that sort of complacency will delegate further R&D to a much lower priority in many a bean counter's mind.

Considering all of that, it's going to be an uphill battle to have the funds and bodies to keep their proverbial foot on the gas when it comes to R&D development.

Okay, I'll buy that. But I don't believe that the taps will be completely shut off. The US is not, and has not been, on a wartime footing since forever (not even a cold war) and there js still a considerable amount of r & d for military purposes. And for pretty much the same reasons for the US as exist for the GA, former enemies still existing that might one day become an active threat again.

I'm not sure what you meant by victory disease (well, I know what victory disease is, just not NPC?) but I'm pretty sure there isn't any real likelihood of that happening in the GA's case. After what they've observed in the SLN's attitudes, I sincerely doubt that that will become a major problem. Oh sure it already happened to Manticore on High Ridge's watch, but if anything that will be an even bigger reason that it won't happen again, at least not as far as the people in the know are concerned (navy, and other high ranking goverment positions) For instance I doubt if Elizabeth will ever let that happen again, and she is in a position to see to it that it won't. Or Benjamin either.

I also agree that a lot of the wallers and many of the BC's (not all, that's for sure) will be mothballed in a reserve, but as you also point out, Silesia and Talbot need developing and policing which means building up a decent amount of smaller warships, destroyers and light and heavy cruisers for that. Not to mention commerce protection in the other regions.that GA merchant ships will be operating in.

So, overall I have no doubt that the GA will be able to maintain at least some advantages over the SLN at the very least, there is MAlign though, and they ARE (I think) considering themselves to be on a wartime footing. So things may be a little more iffy there. Still not all gloom and doom though, they still have a ways to go.

And come to think of it, there just may be cause for them to be a bit complacent in their thinking in terms of military superiority, after all they are genetic supermen with the spider drive, and graser torpedos, and their being a hidden power and all. Certainly that attitude may cause them to not feel any urgent need to spend vast amounts of time and money on things right away. And THAT may just turn around to bite them on the ass.

jtg452 wrote:'Victory disease' strikes NPC's as much as it hits denizens of message boards.

Mycall4me wrote:I'm not sure what you meant by victory disease (well, I know what victory disease is, just not NPC?) but I'm pretty sure there isn't any real likelihood of that happening in the GA's case.

JTG452 was talking about multi-player online games and comparing to us on message boards. An NPC is a non-player character in one of those games: Free Guy is a recent movie where a NPC (played by Ryan Reynolds) begins to take action on his own volition (instead of just responding to moves by the players). In the first Jumanji movie that starred Dwayne Johnson, the fellow that drove the Land Rover to welcome the players was also a NPC and exhibited all those limitations.

But outside of the movies, NPC's do not get "victory disease", because they do not think nor act; only react.

Oh yeah, I thought of one last thing to add to my previous reply, let us not forget that it's not just one star nation that is funding advanced military r & d for the GA but four, that will most certainly spread the financial burden for that research around. Or even better, have each polity contribute the maximum amount their budget can produce, which would, I think, be at least equal to any one polity's wartime expenditure. Certainly at least as much as MAlign will be spending. Although maybe not as much as the SLN can put together. Because the same multiplicative equaiion would apply to the SLN as it does to the GA. Except the SLN has the possibility to have more than four contributers. Still they'd still have to all get together and agree to pull in the same direction.

Sorry to bring a smidgen of reality to this discussion, but it all depends of RFC. He is this universe's creator, and has not just the final say, but all says.

jtg452 wrote:Wartime was a time of innovation. Human history has proven that time and again.

When your back is against the wall, spending money like water on R&D is an easy sell to those holding the purse strings.

The Manty problem is that:

A. The war's over and there's going to be a return to pre-war normalcy in the budget- starting with a huge defense spending cut.

It's gotta happen. The level of disruption to the economy that the SEM faced in the latter part of the war is not sustainable even before you factor in the economic blackhole of bringing Talbot and Silesia up to the level of the rest of the Empire.

Lots of relatively new ships- especially wallers- are gonna get laid up and placed in ordinary. It's gotta happen because there's no need for them AND there's not going to be enough money to keep them manned and running.

Speaking of manning, there's going to be a huge downsizing in the Manty Navy. Lots and lots of folks are going to end up on the beach due to the RIF (reduction in force). There again, it's gotta happen. Between the merchant trade and the industrial sector needing to be rebuilt, the demand for a trained workforce is tremendous. The exact sort of folks that are in the Navy right now.

B. They won through their tech.

'Victory disease' strikes NPC's as much as it hits denizens of message boards. They 'know' their tech is superior- never mind that everybody else is going to be playing catch up with a vengeance- that sort of complacency will delegate further R&D to a much lower priority in many a bean counter's mind.

Considering all of that, it's going to be an uphill battle to have the funds and bodies to keep their proverbial foot on the gas when it comes to R&D development.

Though Manticore had a major R&D focus for decades before the war -- admittedly for much of that staring at the looming possibility of war with Haven.

Still, while I'm sure they'll cut back some on R&D, if anything given how they won based on revolutionary tech I think they're more at risk of over-focusing on potential new tech and shortchanging deploying useful ships with newer tech.

I think the majority of the defense cuts are going to come from the active fleet. They're almost certainly going to place into reserves, or scrap, any waller that isn't Apollo capable.

Though the small ships are more interesting -- in some ways their legacy designs are more useful for the immediate post-war peacekeeping use or patrolling their new Talbott territory; just due to the larger crews and larger marine contingents. Yet they're least capable of winning a fight against a modern opponent or a track using pods of Cataphracts or even SDMs.

The best thing to do is to design and build some new cruisers and destroyers which give a blend of that extra manning and the latest warfighting tech. But there's a real risk, to my mind, that those will be victims of the peace dividend and the RMN end up operating a mix of existing, but sub-optimal, cruisers and destroyers for decades.

And at least for the moment the yards (which mostly aren't in Manticore's territory -- "thanks" Oyster Bay) are going to stay busy producing modern SD(P)s and CLACs, and presumably modern BCs and lighter -- if for no other reason than to equip Haven and Beowulf's fleets. So even if Manticore cut their shipbuilding budget to zero the alliance isn't going to immediately going to lose the capability of designing and building the most modern combatants.

CA up designs are fine, lots of older SD's to mothball or scrap, but BC and CAs are good barring maybe a few more crew for prize crews or rescue ops. Both Sag-C and Nike designs have shown great promise and can slowly replace anything before a Sag-B/flight 4 reliant.

As has been discussed before, the big gap they need to fill is a light ship that has the range and bite of a Roland and can do everything an Avalon can do, to replace the hundreds of DD and CL that are getting more and more obsolete.