2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1

[madd0ct0r]

An electric railway
just what a country without sufficent power generation needs.

will have fun with this, but currently on trip for work. will have more time in few days.

[Siege]

I know right? Luckily, Acheron Energy will gladly build you all the powerplants you need, too!

[Simon_Jester]

[reads Fin's post]

Well, there goes any residual guilt I might have over the Umerian Comet fighter.

I should wrap up the missile test and do a 'government response' post, I'd like to fill out a few more ideas.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

[reads Fin's post]

Well, there goes any residual guilt I might have over the Umerian Comet fighter.

I should wrap up the missile test and do a 'government response' post, I'd like to fill out a few more ideas.

The UOCSR (and San Dorado) have always had an interest in long range high MACH interceptors with High MACH BVR missiles because of the great land/sea area they have to cover.

[Simon_Jester]

I am in no way disputing this.

Also, Mach numbers are not normally capitalized in English; they are not an abbreviation or acronym, they're a man's name.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Orion's response to the battleship proposals are up. We're purchasing five of the standard Derfflingers. It seems the big-gun dreadnought age has passed. Sniff.

Oh well.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, what has really ended in my opinion is the age of armor plate.

Even relatively modest antiship weapons (i.e. one ton munitions, which a lot of jets can carry like six of and which a destroyer-sized warship could fairly easily carry a hundred of) have the potential to penetrate a meter or more of armor plate. Trying to counter this with exotic materials and composites realistically means that costs spiral up into 50-100 billion dollar range, at which point your enemies can produce such an obscene, comical numerical advantage over you that you're helpless to fight back because he outnumbers you dozens to one.

The consensus seems to be that it's far more cost effective to limit the ship's armor protection to something that will minimize damage caused by heavy weapons (i.e. splinter protection) and use the tonnage thus saved on:

1) More and better weapons, so you can hit them first.
2) Especially more and better sensors and electronic or other countermeasures, so you can see the enemy coming, react to threats, and neutralize them.

Which is why basically no modern warship mounts anything like WWII armor belts and has at most a few inches of armor plate over key areas.

The trend was already headed in this direction with the "all or nothing" armor schemes of WWII battleships, in which large portions of the ship were deemed nonessential and therefore not armored, so that there'd be enough tonnage to spare for putting a significant amount of armor over the useful bits. Since armor-piercing weapons got so much more effective in the 20-30 years after WWII... well, it gets to the point where the 'box' of hull protected by enough armor to matter is so tiny that the ship will be totally wrecked and sunk by shots striking other parts of the hull even if the armor keeps that little box safe.

You might be able to gin up a way to make big guns semi-relevant, but you can't gin up a way to make big armor semi-relevant.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well you guys are certainly persuasive in that regard.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Hm. Ballistic missiles. I have thought about ICBMs but given that one could spam lots of stealth cruise missiles for the price of one ICBM, I picked the cruise missile. Granted the hypersonic ones are more expensive to make. ..

[Simon_Jester]

Well, the Umerians have definite strengths and weaknesses. I actually put some thought into it and outlined it below...
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Strengths:

1) The Umerian military as a whole has a pretty darn good staff organization; this was the main advantage that allowed the current regime to win the Civil War. Their troops weren't as experienced or numerous as the warlords', they often had little or no technological advantage (except, toward the end, in artillery). But what they did have was well organized and the flow of information was very well managed to allow their commanders to get the best use out of their forces, while the warlords' troops were poorly coordinated and poorly supplied. Since then, the effective management of staff organization has been seen as the main responsibility of Umerian generals.

The Umerian military staff is not necessarily "network-centric" in the sense that might be promoted by, say, US Department of Defense contractors (or OGRE Solutions). But they would understand the reason why information-superiority is valued even if they dispute whether network-centric warfare is the best way to obtain information superiority on the battlefield.

2) The Umerian Army's artillery is well equipped and extremely well-drilled; it's the most prestigious combat arm for reasons dating back to the Umerian Civil War. This also results in them having a fairly competent air defense network (though not all that special), because SAMs are classed as artillery.

3) So are ballistic missiles, so the Umerians do operate a noticeable ballistic missile force- conventional-tipped, obviously. Haven't worked out exact size yet. Ballistic missile forces are something the Umerians try to leverage on both land and sea; this was (obviously) a test of sea-launched ballistic missiles.

4) The Umerian Air Force has a few hundred hellafast interceptors (which we just recently saw in the recon variant, the Comet-R), derived from a Tianguonese design. Also a few hundred 'Revenant' stealth strike aircraft (which are definitely bombers, not air superiority planes, more like Son Of F-117 than anything else. either F-22s or F-35s would easily surpass them in sheer air to air killiness).

Weaknesses:

1) The army's frontline combat services- infantry, armor, amphibious troops- mostly use relatively dated equipment and tactics. The staff may be good, the operational planning and supply lines are efficient, but at the sharp end they're at a disadvantage compared to truly first-line combat troops.

2) Anemic heavy bomber arm- they have four modern heavy bombers and about 60-70 archaic ancient Tu-95-oid things.

3) No really satisfactory multirole fighter- they have a multirole fighter, the Chariot, and they have lots of it, but each individual plane carries three tons of munitions so it takes twenty of them to do the same amount of bombing that ten F-something-teens could do.

4) Shortage of modern escort ships. They're working on this, but the atomic rocket cruisers made a huge dent in the budget for most of the 1990s and 2000s, and they're only now revving up production of modern AEGIS-equivalent ships to replace the older '70s-era designs. The same problem of having a 'gap' in construction imposed by the budget applies to the submarine arm, which is the main reason they're still operating those Type 209s with the broken-dishwasher loudness.

5) Mediocre naval aviation. The actual aircraft designs date back to the '80s with only moderate updates, there is no equivalent to the F-35 on the horizon, and the carriers themselves are considerably smaller and less capable than the nuclear supercarriers a lot of you guys seem to be throwing around.
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Of course, there's lots of areas where they're just, well, 'average.' Those, I did not mention here.

[The Romulan Republic]

Apologies for my lack of participation lately.

I sent a message to Shinra's embassy. I'm hoping to post some more on Corona's domestic politics soon.

[Simon_Jester]

...Wait, Beo, your guys are suing Orion?

Huh?

Oh, I think I get it. The theory being that they said they'd take three months to make up their minds and in fact did not, and/or bought a ship that was not in keeping with their own stated requirements?

[TimothyC]

...Wait, Beo, your guys are suing Orion?

Huh?

Oh, I think I get it. The theory being that they said they'd take three months to make up their minds and in fact did not, and/or bought a ship that was not in keeping with their own stated requirements?

Yep. It's a common tactic these days in the US when you lose a contract (KC-X Tanker, Offshore Patrol Cutter). The major difference here is that the Orions actually didn't select the design that met the RFP.

[Beowulf]

...Wait, Beo, your guys are suing Orion?

Huh?

Oh, I think I get it. The theory being that they said they'd take three months to make up their minds and in fact did not, and/or bought a ship that was not in keeping with their own stated requirements?

Timothy got it... It's more that the selection was of a design that did not even approximate the RFP requirements. If Jiangnan was aware that they didn't have to try to meet the listed requirements, they could have put in a proposal that matched the apparent requirements better. Specifically, the RFP had a gun battery requirement listed, which was essentially outright ignored. Additionally, the specification was for a battleship, not a nearly unarmored battlecruiser.

[Steve]

I think it's also the case that people think like players, not organizations with legal teams. E_F decided he was swayed by arguments and dropped the battleship idea, but in-universe the appropriate actions would have been to cancel the program first, and then announce the alternative.

Granted, the Tianguoese shipyard would probably have sued anyway, but they wouldn't have the same case as "they gave us a certain set of standards and then ordered something outside of them, which was not fair to our bid".

[Skywalker_T-65]

Any Arcadian ships are likely to be homebuilt/home-designed, for that reason and the fact that the (four or so) shipyards are very nationalistic and probably would raise a major storm if a foreign design were used. Of course, any future ship would be a lightly armed, relatively speaking (12in most likely) BCs instead of BBs. With, of course, a bigger focus on missiles with the guns as a more 'we're too damn stubborn for our own good' thing.

Incidentally, apologies for the lack of posts. First my computer gives up on internet for a week, and then I have to play catch-up on other projects. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things now.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, it's not like E_F really suffers any serious consequences. Worst case, his navy has to pay out a settlement which, granted, could be rather large- but over long periods of time.

So while it may be uncharitable, it's not unreasonable. It's not like Beowulf's declaring war or anything.

[Beowulf]

Granted, the Tianguoese shipyard would probably have sued anyway, but they wouldn't have the same case as "they gave us a certain set of standards and then ordered something outside of them, which was not fair to our bid".

Probably wouldn't have sued, actually. Jiangnan was just really ticked off that the RON didn't pretend to follow their requirements. What the want is for the RON to choose either a design that meets the requirements, or to issue a new set of requirements that better matches what they intend to buy. Oh, and attorney's fees. And it's not as if the RON didn't already know about the Derfflinger class. There's at least 2 in commission already.

[Steve]

I don't have to really worry about this, thankfully. Cascadia has an active and vibrant shipbuilding industry, and any attempt to buy a foreign ship as anything but a target practice hulk would probably result in massive outrage and Congressional opposition.

No, for us the big question is whether to pursue a BCGN program or not.

[Siege]

... in-universe the appropriate actions would have been to cancel the program first, and then announce the alternative.

It is not in any way apparent that this did not happen. The only thing Orion did so far is notify Rheinland Schiffbau that they want to buy their Derfflinger. They didn't explicitly say they're buying them as fulfillment of their tender, nor did they say they wouldn't buy anything else.

I'd say the suit is highly premature at best: for all you know they did cancel the program, or they didn't, this is an incidental purchase and the original tender is still on. In fact as far as I can tell Orion didn't even publicly announce this acquisition, which makes me wonder how the Tianguonese even knew they weren't selected to begin with.

[Steve]

I think Beo's post presumed that the deal was made public. To be fair, I don't think it was explicitly stated to be private.

[Siege]

Nonsense. It is a communique from the Orion Admiralty to the Board of Directors of Rheinland Schiffbau. I don't see any reason to presume such a thing would be public, not before verifying with the player who wrote it first.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, the idea of the lawsuit is amusing from a certain point of view. Including mine.

But I think Siege is, strictly, right. Unless Orion publicly announced the closing of bids or unless the Tianguo shipyard is well-connected enough to figure out what's going on with respect to the Rheinland shipyard, the RON might be able to conceal that it had secretly made up its mind before the end of the procurement phase and decided to buy a ship that doesn't meet its own specifications.

Although if the Tianguo shipyard ever does find out, I think they do have grounds for a lawsuit; as Beowulf points out, if they'd known that ships not meeting the requirements were eligible, they'd probably have offered something more like the Derfflingers in their own right.
_______________________________________

I mean, the Umerian Navy almost certainly wouldn't have offered a repeat Guard-the-North (the ship class that just did that missile test in the Antarctic). But they COULD have, if they'd known the RON would decide in the middle of procurement that the gun and armor requirements don't actually matter. It is open for debate whether the Guard-the-Norths are equal to, inferior to, or superior to, the Derfflingers, as each has different strengths and weaknesses... but they're at least competing designs, with broadly comparable capabilities.

[I would be dearly interested to know how Thanas managed to make the ship armored against 500 kg bombs and Harpoon hits. Sounds cool.]

Anyway. The Umerians could have offered a repeat Guard-the-North if they'd wanted to get in the bidding war. Except that the Umerian Bureau of Construction didn't even offer. Not only because of aversion to restarting production of atomic rocket cruisers, but because they couldn't think of any way to fit the requirements. That would take, at best, turning a ship with two triple 180mm into a ship with two triple 305mm guns, which would have been fairly difficult.

Ironically, the Guard-the-Norths have (drastically) more gun armament than the design that appears to be winning the bid.

So from their point of view, this is a major 'Hmph!' moment, because the Orion Navy announced that it was shopping for a product they couldn't supply, and then changed its mind and bought something they could have supplied.
_________________________________

By the same argument, the Tianguo shipyard would have good grounds to sue (with hilarity ensuing) if they ever find out what happened (which they will eventually because the Rheinland shipyard's bound to start building those Derfflingers). And/or unless the RON does some kind of ass-covering legal dance.

For that matter, they'll probably sue even if the RON does do the ass-covering legal dance, but Siege is right that this is probably a premature moment at which to do so in my opinion.

[Siege]

Here's the thing: governments change their minds all the time. As a consequence specifications on government projects are modified all the time, tenders get called off all the time, and governments decide to buy something else entirely all the time.

I am a proponent of assuming basic competency. None of us are going to write out every admiralty board procurement meeting, every budget meeting with the comptroller general, and every session of government where the political and geostrategic implications of a major foreign purchase are discussed. But we implicitly assume these things take place anyway, because that's what happens in government.

Likewise then it makes sense to assume that if midway through the procurement process the government becomes aware that details of their tender are unrealistic and they decide to modify or call off the whole shebang, they then consult their chief legal counsel or what have you to ensure the situation is resolved properly.

Now there may be a story to be had in this not having adequately happened, but frankly the choice on whether that flies or not is E_F's and E_F's alone. I'd make allowances for assuming suboptimal decisions are implemented if it were some unique high-pressure split-second geopolitical crisis, but that's clearly not the case here. To just out of the clear blue sky assume that some player's government hasn't competently resolved something as straightforward as a cancelled or modified tender, especially on grounds as wanting as this, is unvarnished bullshit.

Note that my complaint is not so much with Beo's guys suing E_F's guys in-universe (that's fine by me and can be explained a multitude of ways), but rather with some of the reactions in this particular thread, where some appear to automatically assume that the Orions are at fault, because they assume that the Orions didn't go through the proper motions, and they therefore assume there's grounds for a lawsuit under Orion law.

Guess what, that's a fuckload of assumptions, none of which are warranted as far as I'm concerned. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. You people should know better.

[Simon_Jester]

Here's the thing: governments change their minds all the time. As a consequence specifications on government projects are modified all the time, tenders get called off all the time, and governments decide to buy something else entirely all the time.

Agreed.

I am a proponent of assuming basic competency. None of us are going to write out every admiralty board procurement meeting, every budget meeting with the comptroller general, and every session of government where the political and geostrategic implications of a major foreign purchase are discussed. But we implicitly assume these things take place anyway, because that's what happens in government.

And agreed.

Now there may be a story to be had in this not having adequately happened, but frankly the choice on whether that flies or not is E_F's and E_F's alone. I'd make allowances for assuming suboptimal decisions are implemented if it were some unique high-pressure split-second geopolitical crisis, but that's clearly not the case here. To just out of the clear blue sky assume that some player's government hasn't competently resolved something as straightforward as a cancelled or modified tender, especially on grounds as wanting as this, is unvarnished bullshit.

Note that my complaint is not so much with Beo's guys suing E_F's guys in-universe (that's fine by me and can be explained a multitude of ways), but rather with some of the reactions in this particular thread, where some appear to automatically assume that the Orions are at fault, because they assume that the Orions didn't go through the proper motions, and they therefore assume there's grounds for a lawsuit under Orion law.

Guess what, that's a fuckload of assumptions, none of which are warranted as far as I'm concerned. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. You people should know better.

That's a fair point, and I'll try to be mindful of it in the future. I normally assume reasonable degree of intelligence and competence when I write other people's nationals doing something. I tend to be less... appropriate in showing proper consideration for decisions made at the national policymaking level, come to think of it.

Speaking for myself, I was mostly just trying to understand the grounds of the Tianguonese shipyard's lawsuit, which took me a minute in my first post on the subject.