War with the Solarian League?

Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but "deowll" <deowll DeleteThis @bellsouth.net>
wrote on Sat, 12 May 2007 20:42:48 -0500 in alt.books.david-weber :
>
>"pyotr filipivich" <phamp DeleteThis @mindspring.com> wrote in message
>news:38pb43d8s0orng8lk98nhg1lfsudafqb5j@4ax.com...
>>>Not if you have the muscle to get your ships through. Manticore is a huge
>>>trader inside the League.
>>
>> I'm not talking about needing the muscle to get the convoy through, I'm
>> talking about the lack of someplace to get the convoy _to_ economically
>> speaking. E.g. In 1939 there was no need to escort merchants ships enroute
>> to post Civil War Spain. But there wasn't a whole lot of reason to go to
>> Spain anyway.
>> Why process materials if there is no buyers? (that you can see?) How
>> many of the Core planets grow all their food, (how many can?)?
>> Secondly is the issue of diversion of resources: to system defenses at
>> the minimum, to "active system defenses" (aka preemptive retaliatory
>> strikes.)
>>
>> Likewise with a convoy arriving at a planet which has just had the orbital
>> facilities knocked out.
>
>
>Doesn't matter if you are hauling your own surface to ground unit.

True, which means you've gone from "modern" commercial shipping, to
"tramp freighter serving the back of beyond" even if it used to be the
equivalent of France. Civil Wars, on this scale. open up all sorts of cans
of worms. There you are, a ordinary merchant, hauling "ordinary cargo"
suddenly being challenged by the a ship claiming to be from the "Legitimate
/ Provisional / Revolutionary / Restored Government of Inner Outer
Mudball", and you are told stand to for inspection. Then told that your
cargo is contraband, or you are supplying Traitors, or "the Wrong Side" in
general. You're lucky, you just get impounded for a while, then the cargo
confiscated, and you are sent on your way "with a warning". Bad news is
that "commerce raiders" are interdicting this system, and you're in the
wrong place at the wrong time. And nobody knows what happened to your ship
and shipment.

Or you arrive at a system, only to discover they no longer have need
for your cargo, all such uses having been declared redundant, reactionary,
excessive, or counter revolutionary.

Or there is nobody able to offload.

The other side is that Planet X, which could still use your cargo,
can't afford to order any, as the shipment of components they needed
haven't arrived from Mudball. Just as well, the economy tanked due to War
jitters, and all available resources have gone off to The War. Unless, of
course, you are willing to take a check drawn on the Last Nationalized Bank
of Freedonia ...

That's the other side of the economic chaos I'm talking about. As the
web of commerce inside the League is disturbed by secession, fragmenting
and any civil/regional wars, there will be less commerce to go outside the
League. Think in terms of the Silesian Confederation, writ large.

Yeah, there will always be room for blockade runners 'naughty men
slipping round the edges". But they are also as likely to be bringing in
luxuries as supplies. High markup items to make the risks worthwhile.

tschus
pyotr

--
pyotr filipivich
The two oldest cliches in the book are "The Good Old Days were
better." and "After all, these are Modern TImes."

On Sat, 12 May 2007 20:40:16 -0500, "deowll" <deowll.DeleteThis@bellsouth.net>
wrote:

>> But for everyone who wants to go into business as a pirate, there will
>> be others who decide to make their money by charging fees to become
>> convoy escorts. (Now that I think about it, I'm surprised that no one
>> tried that in Silesia. Privateers operating as convoy escorts could
>> make a reasonable profit, without running the risks of piracy.)
>
>But the merchant has to pay a lot of cash and the merc has to stand and
>fight. Not every cargo is worth the cost on the other hand some cargos to
>some locations would be.

Actually, no. Remember that the incentive for piracy is to take the
goods--finances, not military conquest.

So long as your escort force is powerful enough to make it uneconomic
to go after the cargo it's safe.

So long as it's clear that the escort is powerful enough to inflict
such damage there's not going to be any battle.