Solarian Military Catchup Attempts

IN several of the Pearls of Weber posts about various future weapon/tech advances(some dating back quite a way) our dear Author noted or hinted a few times that some solutions might be attempted by the Solarian League when they finally took notice of Manticores military prowess.

Now with a long chain on military screw-ups under their collective belts it is about time for some of those to start appearing as the SLN tries to close the technological gap.

While it is very unlikely that they will succeed in any meaningful way to ensure their own survival (the MA is going to see to that), what we might see is some rather innovative if very crude methods to emulate Manticoran tech. Since I doubt the SLN is going to remain stable enough to pull this off we are more likely to see the attempts come through the Self Defense forces of the various spin-off nations or prototypes developed by the SL transtellers rushed into service.

DW has already (rather firmly in some cases) closed the case on certain pieces of tech or development principles, but this was often from Manticore/Haven/Graysons perspective. Do any of you people out there have any theories about where the SLN/SL spin-off might go?

(Think back on some designs/concepts that were made up during the years of WW1 and WW2, very esoteric if not plain weird in many cases. Some worked, others did not, some eventually laid the foundation for modern warfare, others died out leaving very large holes in the ground. - Let some imagination out.)

For those wondering which Pearl Quote I am talking about it was in a mini essay about Powered Missile Pods back in Sept 2004 (meaning their is quite a lot of time for him to have changed his mind and story direction).

Quote: From an email posted to Baen's Bar Honorverse dated September 14, 2004

One thing the Royal Manticoran Navy's BuWeaps and BuShips have insisted upon from the get-go is that the systems they actually deploy, for all their technological sophistication and innovation, eschew any avoidable bells and whistles. This is a navy which is undertaking a major technological revolution in the midst of a war for its survival. That lends a certain brutal practicality to its viewpoint, and the RMN both believes very strongly in the KISS principal and understands that "best" is the enemy of "good enough." And what's true for the Manties is even more true for Shannon Foraker's Havenites. They have no choice but to use "good-enough-to-get-by" concepts and hardware because they can't build anything else. Even if they could, however, Shannon is hardheaded and practical enough to strongly discourage unnecessary ruffles and flourishes.

It's nice to have capabilities the other side doesn't have, but unless those capabilities are sufficient to provide a pronounced, or preferably decisive, tactical advantage, then complicating your life (and compromising your "standard" combat capability) to build them in is counterproductive. I think I've commented in previous posts on the fact that many of the proposals which appear to be coming up are more those which I feel would appeal to a war game designer than to a practical naval analyst or planner in the "real world."

One of the things which I have very deliberately done in assessing the new technology I introduce into the Honorverse is to attempt to apply the test of pragmatism as I go along. That's the lesson which Sonja Hemphill had to learn before she became a truly effective innovator, and it was one which Shannon Foraker grasped from the outset. It's not a yardstick I propose to abandon at this point… although I suppose it might just turn out that someone in another, possibly arrogantly overconfident navy, might just possibly fall prey to the Arthur C. Clarke "superiority" school of thought when the realization of just how badly outclassed his fleet is finally percolates through his skull…

Interesting thoughts, Valen.

In the realm of the 'practical', we have already seen deployment of longer-ranged missiles (although not in the Manties' league) and pod-based combat. I expect development to focus on improvements in both.

Also, in Storm from the Shadows Byng makes note that the Sollies have been working (apparently slowly and with limited success) on their own FTL communications, and it wouldn't surprise me if they manage to field something (albeit I expect it will be very large, unreliable and in the end not an effective force multiplier).

As for the 'less practical", things like the "Crippler" and other such devices will probably be rushed to the front..and prove just as useful as they did in the referenced story by A.C. Clarke.

I wonder if Charles is doing any marketing with the SLN....

Biologicals? Kinetic high "Cee" planetary strikes? Suicide strike teams? Chemical weapons? Terror weapons of all types and descriptions? Oh yeah, if the Sollies really want to, they could absolutely ruin most/all of the GA planets. The question is how badly do they want to destroy the GA? Anything could go. No limits. No morality. No rules of warfare. Very scary. It is not so much what a bad enemy may do, but what they are capable of doing. Just me. Nasty. HB of CJ (old coot) Cm.

HB of CJ wrote:Biologicals? Kinetic high "Cee" planetary strikes? Suicide strike teams? Chemical weapons? Terror weapons of all types and descriptions? Oh yeah, if the Sollies really want to, they could absolutely ruin most/all of the GA planets. The question is how badly do they want to destroy the GA? Anything could go. No limits. No morality. No rules of warfare. Very scary. It is not so much what a bad enemy may do, but what they are capable of doing. Just me. Nasty. HB of CJ (old coot) Cm.

I wouldn't expect morality to stop this sort of thing. But expectation of reprisals might. The GA, after all, has a lot nastier hammer right now than the Leaque.

Don

n7axw wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:Biologicals? Kinetic high "Cee" planetary strikes? Suicide strike teams? Chemical weapons? Terror weapons of all types and descriptions? Oh yeah, if the Sollies really want to, they could absolutely ruin most/all of the GA planets. The question is how badly do they want to destroy the GA? Anything could go. No limits. No morality. No rules of warfare. Very scary. It is not so much what a bad enemy may do, but what they are capable of doing. Just me. Nasty. HB of CJ (old coot) Cm.

I wouldn't expect morality to stop this sort of thing. But expectation of reprisals might. The GA, after all, has a lot nastier hammer right now than the Leaque.

Don

Actually morality and ethics might stop this thing, since the crews of those ships who will be asked to undertake these missions, have been tasked for the last several hundred years to stop them.
That's a big ask.

Also we have seen, especially in BF, how the crews are becoming annoyed with their political superiors (the trans-stellar) and its not that far from annoyance to deliberate disobedience, to civil war.

The interesting question really are:
How much faith do the SDFs/system governments actually have in the SLN to protect them?
How many of the SDF/system governments have been making contingence plans for this very day (it can't just be Beowulf)?
What sort of overt and covert R&D projects do the various system governments maintain?
and finally,
what sort of independent intelligence services do the various system governments maintain (after all Beowulf had one)?

The interesting question really are:
How much faith do the SDFs/system governments actually have in the SLN to protect them?
How many of the SDF/system governments have been making contingence plans for this very day (it can't just be Beowulf)?
What sort of overt and covert R&D projects do the various system governments maintain?
and finally,
what sort of independent intelligence services do the various system governments maintain (after all Beowulf had one)?

After the last few sausage machines the SLN has stuck its pudgy little fingers in with Manticore over the last little while, I predict two versions of reactions.
One is various SDFs and planetary governments who are a bit more bold, cynical, and ticked off for all slights are going to start to assert there own authorities in various ways (probably with MA help in the first few cases).
And the other is a panicked reaction from various public ivory tower people who are suddenly hearing the foundations are crumbling.
Another would be more of the Sollies famous state of denial, but as the SLN is finding out you can only live in Wonderland for so long before reality smacks you in the face.

I would actually say only a couple of hundred of the leagues 1700 plus worlds (most of them in the Core) actually have SDFs of any real size and power. Beowulf is making the most noise due to its strong connections with Manticore. Most of the rest we have on book authority been largely ignoring the Haven Sector developments. While is suspect we may see some new planets raising their heads and causing trouble at the MA's direction i don't think there will be too many really large ones. It would be a case of adding many new players/characters into the story without much in-story development.

What we are likely to see in my mind is a return to the style of broadside inter-ship combat that was prevalent in the early novels before the MDM and pod based combat started to take over. As the League falls apart these old style battles are likely to re surge as new sectors start to squabble and fight. Its during and after these that we may begin to see the Solarian splinter factions start to experiment with new weapons and strategies. And given what happens when you rush new ideas without working them out carefully, its likely to cause some disasters.

The new systems are focused in Manticore/Havens corner of the galaxy, although its possible that some of the MAlignments new toys maybe forced to take centre stage as they try to control the chaos. Albercht has already said he wants to keep the Spider drive fleet as the ace in the hole, but i wonder how long that will last and weather it is whats going to at last blow the Alignments cover completely.

n7axw wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:Biologicals? Kinetic high "Cee" planetary strikes? Suicide strike teams? Chemical weapons? Terror weapons of all types and descriptions? Oh yeah, if the Sollies really want to, they could absolutely ruin most/all of the GA planets. The question is how badly do they want to destroy the GA? Anything could go. No limits. No morality. No rules of warfare. Very scary. It is not so much what a bad enemy may do, but what they are capable of doing. Just me. Nasty. HB of CJ (old coot) Cm.

I wouldn't expect morality to stop this sort of thing. But expectation of reprisals might. The GA, after all, has a lot nastier hammer right now than the Leaque.

Don

But isn't that what the Mandarins apparently want? They control the spin and so THEIR citizens don't get the full truth (if any) about THEIR atrocities but they sure will hear about any apparent atrocity on the GA's side. Twisted thinking I know but by my eyes the only hope the SL has is to be able to rile up and convince the "man on the street" (be he civilian or military) to such a degree that he would be okay being mere cannon fodder in a strategy of quantity over quality where upon wave after wave of military numbers so vast that even the technical advantage of the GA could be overwhelmed. With their backs against the wall it would be quite simple then as long as you were prepared for huge losses of material and men (perhaps with an eye towards post war reparations to make the costs easier to swallow) positioning your forces to hit with the broad front of a hurricane rather than the narrow focus of a tornado; in multiple places in a system AND multiple systems at a time. So, win win?

A pertinent passage from MoH:

Nonetheless, the fact that al-Fanudahi had been right all along couldn't be completely ignored. Not any longer. And so the despised prophet of doom and gloom had suddenly found himself presenting briefings flag officers actually listened to. Not only that, but the Office of Operational Analysis was finally being asked to do what it should have been doing all along. Of course, its efforts were a little handicapped by the fact that it had been systematically starved of funds for so long and that ninety percent of its efforts had gone into feel-good analyses of Battle Fleet's simulations and fleet problems instead of learning to actually think about possible external threats to the League. Of which, after all, there had been none. Which meant, preposterous and pathetic though it undoubtedly was, that the only two people it had who were actually familiar with those threats happened to be in Teague's office at that very moment.

To be fair, at least some of their colleagues were immersed in crash efforts to familiarize themselves with the same data, but most of them were still running about like beheaded chickens. They simply didn't know where to look—not yet—and Teague felt grimly confident that they wouldn't figure it out in time to avoid an entire succession of disasters.

Not, at least, if the idiots in charge of the Navy didn't start actually paying attention—really paying attention, as in processing the information, not simply ackowledging it—to al-Fanudhi. Which, even now, they seemed remarkably disinclined to do.

The sheer inertia of how the Navy's upper management have done things for so long is going to work against them every step of the way. Even though it is stated here that people are beginning to see the light and listen to those people (like Al-Fanudahi and Teague) who know anything there is still resistance. How long it's going to take for anything to trickle down into the actual R & D and production of anything new is anyone's guess. The SLN isn't known for making any decisions quickly; even with the impetus of the GA's formation and war-fleet the mechanisms for quickly changing anything aren't there and will have to be made from scratch.

The system defense fleets of various League worlds could be a big help but we don't know anything about their basic tech levels nor their numbers aside from some bits and pieces of information here and there. Potentially some of those could be part of Mesa's plans (like Mannerheim) and therefore not available to help the SLN. Then there is the SLN's attitudes towards any other fleets. They're derisive and condescending within their own navy (BF vs FF) never-mind SDFs. Those frictions are going to make cooperation and tech-sharing between the SLN and any SDFs difficult.

Back to the original intent of the thread:

One thing I think we might see tried, at least in a system defense role, may be some very large guided weapons. And by very large, I mean VERY large. Think 500-1000T+ craft/torps, but with no human crews to limit the accel.

Brute force, with the space & power budget for very robust drives, wedges, and sidewalls of their own. Possibly big enough and robust enough to shrug off most CM wedge fratricide, but accel'ing hard enough to make the missile targeting more like attempting to target another missile rather than a small craft. Throw in a true drive, that could be turned on and off to frustrate gravitic tracking, and to allow a multitude of programmable (? or remote guided ?) attack profiles.

I could easily see something like this being a defense development for someone/someplace like Yilden.

Ok, tear it apart.

But I would like to request of the community that in addition to ripping up my flaws, forgotten bits of Honorverse HW physics, etc, you try to say how the concept COULD be improved/made workable, at least as a desperate SL-in-chaos 'make do'

dreamrider