Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose?

Quadibloc wrote:
> But the Solarians have technology that is far advanced of that of the
> Manticorans, and they have much greater resources. So they should be
> able to defeat Manticore and Haven united against them as a common
> enemy. At least, that's how I understood the books. (But while they
> may have the best ships... they are likely to have the worst *crews*
> in the universe.)
>

Ships? Economic inertia. The Solarians /could/ field a superior fleet
out of pocket change (and pocket change is about all that will be left
available after the corrupt politicians get done grabbing what they
can), but it's still going to take time for the orders, funds, and ships
to get in play, unless one of the local governors takes some serious
short cuts involving metaphorical clubs.

Quality of crew? Analogy from fiction: The average for the Keldara is
somewhere around the 99th percentile of the human race, both physically
(aside from Mouse) and mentally (aside from Shota <G>). Total population
around a thousand, and they can only field about 100 active troops, with
all eligible men striving to enter.

The US has to rely on the higher extreme of the bell curve to match
troop quality and has to compete with professional sports for men, yet
has many times as many troops equal to the Keldara troops.

The Solarian League is large enough to have more officers and enlisteds
equal to or better than both Manticore and Haven, but it's going to take
time for the less able to get killed off so the competent ones can reach
the battlefield.
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

In article <CtydndvMY6oByzLanZ2dnUVZ_qygnZ2d.RemoveThis@scnresearch.com>,
Offbreed <offbreed_106.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Quadibloc wrote:
> > But the Solarians have technology that is far advanced of that of the
> > Manticorans, and they have much greater resources. So they should be
> > able to defeat Manticore and Haven united against them as a common
> > enemy. At least, that's how I understood the books. (But while they
> > may have the best ships... they are likely to have the worst *crews*
> > in the universe.)
> >
>
> Ships? Economic inertia. The Solarians /could/ field a superior fleet
> out of pocket change (and pocket change is about all that will be left
> available after the corrupt politicians get done grabbing what they
> can), but it's still going to take time for the orders, funds, and ships
> to get in play, unless one of the local governors takes some serious
> short cuts involving metaphorical clubs.

The Solarians have the potential to make better ships, given a few years
to ramp up production, but they don't have them now. Their military has
been resting on its laurels, secure in the knowledge that they are the
best around, and haven't really noticed that folks like Manticorans,
Havenites, and Andermanie have been leap frogging ahead of them.

They don't have the new compensators, or the fission powered LACs, or
SD-Ps, or anything that can match the capabilities of Apollo, or Ghost
Rider. They might have research labs working on those sorts of things,
but they haven't been deployed to the fleet yet. Their fleet is still
pretty much in the state it was in back before Manticore and Haven
started shooting at each other. Any current Solarian fleet that tried
to go against a Mantie, or Havenite fleet is going to get is ass handed
to it, unless they have an overwhelming numerical advantage, and are
able to pin down the opposing fleet, and force it to come into the
Solarian's attack envelope.

--
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Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:33:58 -0500, Don Sample <dsample RemoveThis @synapse.net>
wrote:

>The Solarians have the potential to make better ships, given a few years
>to ramp up production, but they don't have them now. Their military has
>been resting on its laurels, secure in the knowledge that they are the
>best around, and haven't really noticed that folks like Manticorans,
>Havenites, and Andermanie have been leap frogging ahead of them.
>
>They don't have the new compensators, or the fission powered LACs, or
>SD-Ps, or anything that can match the capabilities of Apollo, or Ghost
>Rider. They might have research labs working on those sorts of things,
>but they haven't been deployed to the fleet yet. Their fleet is still
>pretty much in the state it was in back before Manticore and Haven
>started shooting at each other. Any current Solarian fleet that tried
>to go against a Mantie, or Havenite fleet is going to get is ass handed
>to it, unless they have an overwhelming numerical advantage, and are
>able to pin down the opposing fleet, and force it to come into the
>Solarian's attack envelope.

And the Sollies will never get to deploy the new tech even if they
develop it.

One cruiser per star system. It carries only recon drones and
Mistletoe missiles. It drops out of hyper a month out and coasts
through the system at absolute minimum power. The first the Sollies
will know that anything is wrong is when the missiles do their final
sprints. The shipyards capable of producing the heavies go boom.

If the Sollies have any sense they will surrender after that.
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

In article <47afa78e$0$25418$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>,
Loren Pechtel <lorenpechtel.TakeThisOut@hotmail.invalid.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:33:58 -0500, Don Sample <dsample.TakeThisOut@synapse.net>
> wrote:
>
> >The Solarians have the potential to make better ships, given a few years
> >to ramp up production, but they don't have them now. Their military has
> >been resting on its laurels, secure in the knowledge that they are the
> >best around, and haven't really noticed that folks like Manticorans,
> >Havenites, and Andermanie have been leap frogging ahead of them.
> >
> >They don't have the new compensators, or the fission powered LACs, or
> >SD-Ps, or anything that can match the capabilities of Apollo, or Ghost
> >Rider. They might have research labs working on those sorts of things,
> >but they haven't been deployed to the fleet yet. Their fleet is still
> >pretty much in the state it was in back before Manticore and Haven
> >started shooting at each other. Any current Solarian fleet that tried
> >to go against a Mantie, or Havenite fleet is going to get is ass handed
> >to it, unless they have an overwhelming numerical advantage, and are
> >able to pin down the opposing fleet, and force it to come into the
> >Solarian's attack envelope.
>
> And the Sollies will never get to deploy the new tech even if they
> develop it.
>
> One cruiser per star system. It carries only recon drones and
> Mistletoe missiles. It drops out of hyper a month out and coasts
> through the system at absolute minimum power. The first the Sollies
> will know that anything is wrong is when the missiles do their final
> sprints. The shipyards capable of producing the heavies go boom.
>
> If the Sollies have any sense they will surrender after that.

Yeah, they "surrender" but then they start their own version of
Bolthole, only a hundred times over, and a few years later they drop
their own hammer on Manticore.

--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:33:58 -0500, Don Sample <dsample.RemoveThis@synapse.net>
wrote:

>In article <CtydndvMY6oByzLanZ2dnUVZ_qygnZ2d.RemoveThis@scnresearch.com>,
> Offbreed <offbreed_106.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Quadibloc wrote:
>> > But the Solarians have technology that is far advanced of that of the
>> > Manticorans, and they have much greater resources. So they should be
>> > able to defeat Manticore and Haven united against them as a common
>> > enemy. At least, that's how I understood the books. (But while they
>> > may have the best ships... they are likely to have the worst *crews*
>> > in the universe.)
>> >
>>
>> Ships? Economic inertia. The Solarians /could/ field a superior fleet
>> out of pocket change (and pocket change is about all that will be left
>> available after the corrupt politicians get done grabbing what they
>> can), but it's still going to take time for the orders, funds, and ships
>> to get in play, unless one of the local governors takes some serious
>> short cuts involving metaphorical clubs.
>
>The Solarians have the potential to make better ships, given a few years
>to ramp up production, but they don't have them now. Their military has
>been resting on its laurels, secure in the knowledge that they are the
>best around, and haven't really noticed that folks like Manticorans,
>Havenites, and Andermanie have been leap frogging ahead of them.
>
>They don't have the new compensators, or the fission powered LACs, or
>SD-Ps, or anything that can match the capabilities of Apollo, or Ghost
>Rider. They might have research labs working on those sorts of things,
>but they haven't been deployed to the fleet yet. Their fleet is still
>pretty much in the state it was in back before Manticore and Haven
>started shooting at each other. Any current Solarian fleet that tried
>to go against a Mantie, or Havenite fleet is going to get is ass handed
>to it, unless they have an overwhelming numerical advantage, and are
>able to pin down the opposing fleet, and force it to come into the
>Solarian's attack envelope.

Even there, it's still going to be a "defeat" for the Solarians. Going
in with an overwhelming advantage, and then suffering major losses in
the course of that 'victory' is likely to do quite a lot more in
damage to the Solarian's confidence, "will to fight", as well as
dealing with the political repercussions and public recriminations.
You're sending a force X times larger than you /think/ you'll need,
consisting of "the best ships of the best navy in the galaxy," against
a "bunch of neobarbs." You end up winning, but you've lost most of
those ships you sent. It doesn't take much imagination to think about
what would happen after that. Loss of confidence. Politicians
demanding heads. People wanting to know just what the hell you're
doing, and why did so many have to die. It also would shatter the
"aura of invincibility" which has prevented a lot of various regions
from seceding, and kept a lid on a number of potential hotspots.
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

On Feb 7, 5:11 pm, Willowhugger <charlie_the_cat_po....DeleteThis@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> > I think Manticore could lose a war... but not against Haven. Against
> > the Solarians. Then there could be several exciting books tracing the
> > exiting and difficult adventures of Honor Harrington as she starts
> > over again and reverses that great a defeat!
>
> actually, I don't think I could take Manticore seriously if they lost
> to the Solarians. They've been pretty much established by David Weber
> as having the worst ships in the universe at this point. Personally,
> I also think the Havenites have a right for payback.
>
>


While the SLN has poorer ships, crews and weapons on a ship for ship
basis than the RMN, the simple fact that they have more ships than the
RMN has missile pods and more ship building slips than the the RMN has
hulls makes a sollie victory over the starkingdom a foregone
conclusion. The tyranny of numbers suggests that there are some
highly capable officers sprinkled about the SLN, even in places where
they might accomplish something. Solarian League vs. the Starkingdom
of Manticore really is a situation where quantity is a quality all its
own. The entire Haven sector (Haven, Manticore, and the Andermani)
would have to band together to halt a determined advance from even a
fragment of the League.
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

On Feb 10, 3:33 pm, Don Sample <dsam....DeleteThis@synapse.net> wrote:
>
>
> They don't have the new compensators, or the fission powered LACs, or
> SD-Ps, or anything that can match the capabilities of Apollo, or Ghost
> Rider. They might have research labs working on those sorts of things,
> but they haven't been deployed to the fleet yet.

They do have the Crippler. One of the things that always bugged me
about it was that it had to be good for something, or it would never
have progressed as far as it did to a deployable system. The league
is not adventurous enough to include commerce raiding among the things
it expects its navy to do. For the Crippler to be developed, at all,
there had to be a specific purpose in mind, corporations spend very
little money pure research. As the Crippler is a very large and
cumbersome system, the original purpose may have been for a smaller
and less powerful device.

What would a small, less powerful Crippler cripple?

Missiles.

Missiles, like merchants, only have a single wedge. While the
missile's wedge is much more intense than a merchant's, it is also
much less powerful. Depending on how small you could make one, the
Crippler may be the bees' knees of point defence. As its effects
extend over an area, you do not even need to aim it precisely. Who
cares that the SLN missiles are single drive missiles, the RMN
missiles lose impeller power and become easy pickings for counter
missiles and defence clusters.

Another possibilty comes from the heterodyning effect of the Crippler
on a twinned wedge. If this effect can be initiated at long range,
and the heterodyning is detectable, the device is a transmitter for a
long range, active gravitic detection system. As it induces
unexpected fluctuations in affected wedges, it might play merry hell
with shipboard stealth systems.

That it might be capable of doing both (if not at the same time) does
not bear thinking.
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On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:15:11 -0500, Don Sample <dsample DeleteThis @synapse.net>
wrote:

>> And the Sollies will never get to deploy the new tech even if they
>> develop it.
>>
>> One cruiser per star system. It carries only recon drones and
>> Mistletoe missiles. It drops out of hyper a month out and coasts
>> through the system at absolute minimum power. The first the Sollies
>> will know that anything is wrong is when the missiles do their final
>> sprints. The shipyards capable of producing the heavies go boom.
>>
>> If the Sollies have any sense they will surrender after that.
>
>Yeah, they "surrender" but then they start their own version of
>Bolthole, only a hundred times over, and a few years later they drop
>their own hammer on Manticore.

And they're going to be able to pull it off? After they surrender
Manticore will certainly insist on observers.
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

On Feb 10, 6:40 pm, Loren Pechtel <lorenpech....RemoveThis@hotmail.invalid.com>
wrote:
> On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:33:58 -0500, Don Sample <dsam....RemoveThis@synapse.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> >The Solarians have the potential to make better ships, given a few years
> >to ramp up production, but they don't have them now. Their military has
> >been resting on its laurels, secure in the knowledge that they are the
> >best around, and haven't really noticed that folks like Manticorans,
> >Havenites, and Andermanie have been leap frogging ahead of them.
>
> >They don't have the new compensators, or the fission powered LACs, or
> >SD-Ps, or anything that can match the capabilities of Apollo, or Ghost
> >Rider. They might have research labs working on those sorts of things,
> >but they haven't been deployed to the fleet yet. Their fleet is still
> >pretty much in the state it was in back before Manticore and Haven
> >started shooting at each other. Any current Solarian fleet that tried
> >to go against a Mantie, or Havenite fleet is going to get is ass handed
> >to it, unless they have an overwhelming numerical advantage, and are
> >able to pin down the opposing fleet, and force it to come into the
> >Solarian's attack envelope.
>
> And the Sollies will never get to deploy the new tech even if they
> develop it.
>
> One cruiser per star system. It carries only recon drones and
> Mistletoe missiles. It drops out of hyper a month out and coasts
> through the system at absolute minimum power. The first the Sollies
> will know that anything is wrong is when the missiles do their final
> sprints. The shipyards capable of producing the heavies go boom.
>
> If the Sollies have any sense they will surrender after that.

Are you sure that the RMN has enough cruisers?
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

In article <47b10ae6$0$25400$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>,
Loren Pechtel <lorenpechtel DeleteThis @hotmail.invalid.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:15:11 -0500, Don Sample <dsample DeleteThis @synapse.net>
> wrote:
>
> >> And the Sollies will never get to deploy the new tech even if they
> >> develop it.
> >>
> >> One cruiser per star system. It carries only recon drones and
> >> Mistletoe missiles. It drops out of hyper a month out and coasts
> >> through the system at absolute minimum power. The first the Sollies
> >> will know that anything is wrong is when the missiles do their final
> >> sprints. The shipyards capable of producing the heavies go boom.
> >>
> >> If the Sollies have any sense they will surrender after that.
> >
> >Yeah, they "surrender" but then they start their own version of
> >Bolthole, only a hundred times over, and a few years later they drop
> >their own hammer on Manticore.
>
> And they're going to be able to pull it off? After they surrender
> Manticore will certainly insist on observers.

How many observers will it take to keep a watch on thousands of worlds?
Manticore doesn't have that many people.

--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:04:51 -0800 (PST), "rlbell.nsuid@gmail.com"
<rlbell.nsuid.RemoveThis@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Feb 10, 6:40 pm, Loren Pechtel <lorenpech....RemoveThis@hotmail.invalid.com>
>wrote:
>> On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:33:58 -0500, Don Sample <dsam....RemoveThis@synapse.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> >The Solarians have the potential to make better ships, given a few years
>> >to ramp up production, but they don't have them now. Their military has
>> >been resting on its laurels, secure in the knowledge that they are the
>> >best around, and haven't really noticed that folks like Manticorans,
>> >Havenites, and Andermanie have been leap frogging ahead of them.
>>
>> >They don't have the new compensators, or the fission powered LACs, or
>> >SD-Ps, or anything that can match the capabilities of Apollo, or Ghost
>> >Rider. They might have research labs working on those sorts of things,
>> >but they haven't been deployed to the fleet yet. Their fleet is still
>> >pretty much in the state it was in back before Manticore and Haven
>> >started shooting at each other. Any current Solarian fleet that tried
>> >to go against a Mantie, or Havenite fleet is going to get is ass handed
>> >to it, unless they have an overwhelming numerical advantage, and are
>> >able to pin down the opposing fleet, and force it to come into the
>> >Solarian's attack envelope.
>>
>> And the Sollies will never get to deploy the new tech even if they
>> develop it.
>>
>> One cruiser per star system. It carries only recon drones and
>> Mistletoe missiles. It drops out of hyper a month out and coasts
>> through the system at absolute minimum power. The first the Sollies
>> will know that anything is wrong is when the missiles do their final
>> sprints. The shipyards capable of producing the heavies go boom.
>>
>> If the Sollies have any sense they will surrender after that.
>
>Are you sure that the RMN has enough cruisers?

You only need to smack the big yards, not every world.
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:33:22 -0800 (PST), "rlbell.nsuid@gmail.com"
<rlbell.nsuid.RemoveThis@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Feb 10, 3:33 pm, Don Sample <dsam....RemoveThis@synapse.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> They don't have the new compensators, or the fission powered LACs, or
>> SD-Ps, or anything that can match the capabilities of Apollo, or Ghost
>> Rider. They might have research labs working on those sorts of things,
>> but they haven't been deployed to the fleet yet.
>
>They do have the Crippler. One of the things that always bugged me
>about it was that it had to be good for something, or it would never
>have progressed as far as it did to a deployable system. The league
>is not adventurous enough to include commerce raiding among the things
>it expects its navy to do. For the Crippler to be developed, at all,
>there had to be a specific purpose in mind, corporations spend very
>little money pure research. As the Crippler is a very large and
>cumbersome system, the original purpose may have been for a smaller
>and less powerful device.

Or maybe it was a line of research that failed because they couldn't
cope with the double wedge of warships.
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose? 

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:55:42 -0800 (PST), "rlbell.nsuid@gmail.com"
<rlbell.nsuid RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:

>On Feb 7, 5:11 pm, Willowhugger <charlie_the_cat_po... RemoveThis @yahoo.com>
>wrote:
>> > I think Manticore could lose a war... but not against Haven. Against
>> > the Solarians. Then there could be several exciting books tracing the
>> > exiting and difficult adventures of Honor Harrington as she starts
>> > over again and reverses that great a defeat!
>>
>> actually, I don't think I could take Manticore seriously if they lost
>> to the Solarians. They've been pretty much established by David Weber
>> as having the worst ships in the universe at this point. Personally,
>> I also think the Havenites have a right for payback.
>>
>>
>
>
>While the SLN has poorer ships, crews and weapons on a ship for ship
>basis than the RMN, the simple fact that they have more ships than the
>RMN has missile pods and more ship building slips than the the RMN has
>hulls makes a sollie victory over the starkingdom a foregone
>conclusion. The tyranny of numbers suggests that there are some

How do you reach this conclusion? The Sollies have a lot but I don't
see them having anything like this number.

And remember that Sollie warships vs Apollo will be one pod taking out
one ship. The Sollies would probably have to send 50,000 ships of the
wall to Manticore to take it out with it's current defenses (once
Honor reloads her magazines.)

Note another aspect of Apollo: the magazines can be virtually
anywhere. You don't have to deploy the pods in the way of the enemy
anymore. In fact, forget about pods, lets try a different tactic:

Build a few missile bases. They are sort of like the wormhole
fortresses but under normal operation they have no sidewalls or wedge
up. What they do have is a huge number of missile tubes. They do
*NOT* have fire control for them, however.

Send a SD out to meet the enemy fleet. It has no missiles on board,
just countermissiles. Once the SD is within Apollo control range of
the enemy the missile base starts firing off salvoes--each salvo has
as many missiles in it as the SD can control. The SD maneuvers to
keep the range open, it's role is simply to guide the missiles in. The
missiles might be drifting 100Mkm or more, so what?
 >> Stay informed about: Anybody interested in seeing Manticore lose?