SLOC in the Sixth World, Control of the Seas Options

[Lynchmob]

So I'm apologizing in advance if anything is totally off base. Also, it's really long. I've been absorbing a lot of information over a short period of time so I've probably missed a few key pieces. Feel free to unfuck me as necessary.

My curiosity in this started when I started reading about the different corps owning aircraft carriers and reading some random fluff referring to sales numbers (I'm pretty sure I read that YNT had sold 16 carriers to various governments and corporations - for perspective there are currently there are currently 19 aircraft carriers in service 10 if which belong to the States which are all "super carriers" the other 9 being at best half the displacement of a Nimitz class example) This seemed odd to me because really in the hands of a regional power an aircraft carrier is more a prestige purchase than a practical platform. Carriers are all about force projection, they require a complement of combatants to protect them, and in the Sixth World there just doesn't seem to me like there are any nations that would be able to justify the cost. I'm not trying to get into an economical debate about military spending in Shadowrun I'm exploring the role of a navy.

So aircraft carriers are kind of silly for most of the world players in Shadowrun. If anybody wants to debate that point I'll entertain in for a bit but it's not really that important to my overall train of thought here. On the other hand competition to have a strong blue water navy makes sense. Really the whole reason to have a true blue water navy is control of the SLOC (Sea Lanes of Communication/Commerce) and without one true superpower policing the seas somebody or somebodies would have stepped into that vacuum. Currently around 95% of America's foreign trade comes in or out by water and every year around $5 trillion worth of trade goes through the South China Sea alone. As of 2006 only 1% of global communications were satellite based. (Awesome Chart ) Admittedly these numbers will probably change a lot in the future. We're starting to reach capacity of our current undersea infrastructure so it's not unreasonable for a larger percentage of communications moving to satellite. Really this is a very very hypothetical argument of cost effectiveness using Shadowrun 2070 technology in regards to how the percentage is going to shift. The trade percentages are probably not really going to shift. Obviously on a country to country basis it will change (UCAS has more land based foreign trade than USA because there are more nations sharing a continent with it) but the overall percentage of the world's economy probably won't change too much. So why will there be competition to control the seas? Whoever owns the oceans gets to decide where these SLOC are. Obviously this is also driven by economics but if you try to drive your cargo through unpoliced waters to save a couple hours worth of fuel it's your fault if something bad happens. (And nobody would call the captain a hero and make a movie about it ) You could also make assumptions regarding new underwater cabling being laid in support of the Matrix and any deepsea projects the corps are founding.

So the Corporate Court will probably maintain a joint task force to patrol the seas to keep would be pirates from ruining everyone's day. I imagine that the individual corps would probably jockey for control of the task force since while SLOC(s) don't really change overnight whoever had the most control of the sea would have the biggest influence on where it would be safe to start developing new sea lanes. You don't need carriers for this. You need destoryers, frigates, corvettes. You could justify cruisers as part of the jockeying between the corps. Not useful for controlling the SLOC but incredibly important for corporate power struggles would be nuclear submarines. While I'm not implying MCT is going to have a fleet of boomers as a nuclear deterrent I can completely understand an argument for corps maintaining at least a small fleet of fast attack submarines capable of at least limited strike warfare. Also if the corp wanted to start trouble somewhere submarines would really be the only way to do it unnoticed.

What about the governments? I can fully understand countries like the UCAS, CAS, Japan etc holding on to some remnants of a blue water navy out of pride and stubbornness. Realistically though they could only afford/justify a brown/green water navy that is designed to defend coastal waters. So think a lot of smaller ships and diesel submarines armed with ASCM and Anti-Surface Torpedoes. Probably a lot of mines too if you're coastal waters include a choke point of some type (Straits of Gibraltar, Suez Canal, Strait of Hormuz etc) None of the governments as listed seem capable of reaching out and touching someone the way America can today. The Military Restoration Act might change this for the UCAS (especially if they reunite with the CAS) but even if a nation decided that they wanted to be top dog of the seas it would take a long time and a lot of money to get their navy up to spec which means plenty of time for corporations to ruin their fun.

Where this dichotomy in power gets interesting is when you bring in the concept of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). The EEZ is basically how far out from your coast you get to control trade in. Mineral rights, commercial fishing fall under this. As of right now the "governing" body for this is the UN. The United Nation Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) laid out some incredibly vague rules for determining a nation's EEZ. In simplest terms it's 200 nautical miles. If this overlaps another country's claim then it gets sketch. UNCLOS offers some suggestions on how to resolve this (geographic expression, historical ownership etc) but it has been entirely ineffective in resolving any disputes. One of the reasons it has no teeth is that the US has not ratified it and since the US is the only true blue water navy there's no real physical threat against countries that ignore the rules. If you remember that dispute that China and Japan are having over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands then you are familiar with how ugly these disputes can get. Those islands in of themselves are pointless. However if either country gets recognized as the legal owner then their claim over the undersea gas fields northeast of the islands become much stronger. The South China Sea is another great example of conflicting claims.

Now the Corporate Court may or may not recognize a nation's claim to territorial waters. That would seem a little off flavor wise since the corps tend to play at least lip service to a nation's sovereignty - the whole reason they established and maintain extra-territorial status- so the corps could now use their control of the seas to resolve disputes in favor of whoever is going to award them the contracts. Again, more room for inter-corp competition. Add in the aqualogies and it gets even murkier.

So who are the winners? The Japanacorps (if they're united) probably own a good chunk of the seas. Since they tend to work closely with Imperial Japan they have the two pronged sword of AAA corp and national power. Depending on how closely aligned they are this could vary greatly. EVO owns YNT which I get the impression of being the premier shipbuilder but EVO is the most at odds with the "true" Japanacorps (Shiawase, Renraku, Mitsuhama). Saeder-Krupp probably has the tightest grip around Europe but they never struck me as a militant corp. Why buy a battleship when you have a dragon? Aztechnology is probably a huge winner in all of this. Similarly to the Japanacorps they can exploit any concepts of territorial waters but in their case they don't just work closely with the government they practically are the government. Add in the fact that they control the Panama Canal, which has probably become more important because goods moving by land from the east coast of North America to the west will now have to cross a few borders and possibly get taxed, and they have just gone through a war so they probably have the most disciplined navy.

Where are the hotspots? The South China Sea is probably still a huge clustercuss. With China fractured the matter would probably just be more complicated and while on one hand Japan may have just wholesale dominated the area Wuxing and Lung are probably doing everything they can to wrest control. The eastern Mediterranean leading into the Suez and extending all the way to the Persian Gulf is probably a battleground of sorts. With no clear national or corporate power in the Middle East everyone would probably be throwing in their hat to control the traffic heading through the Suez. The Gulf of Mexico(Aztlan) is probably another area of conflict. The CAS may not be able to directly compete with Aztlan but I'm sure they would do everything they can to at least prevent the Azzies from dominating the waters. I'm not sure what the state of the ice caps are in Shadowrun but the Arctic Circle is turning into an area of interest right now real world. The Northwest Passage is opening and suddenly the boundaries between Russia, Canada and the United States are becoming important. Real world the US doesn't have the icebreakers to beat the Russians to the punch though so Russia will probably walk away with the lion's share. Which means EVO is probably the biggest player up north. Unless you decide SK is playing the game which means more room for conflict.

This post is long enough but a final note is the Sea Dragon. Is she concerned at all about what metahumanity does out on the ocean? Where they do it?

I'm curious what everyone else thinks about this topic. So please tear me to shreds (gently) or just silently nod. And if you thought this was too long and you didn't read it don't tell me just go somewhere else.

[Slide]

Look at current trends in the navy, you have the 80 mega joule rail gun being developed. If i recall right at the moment it can fire accurately within 500 miles, at mach 8. Not as far as a cruise missile, but they are still developing the tech. The advantage of the Railgun is the sheer volume of rounds it can hold on board a boat.

Now to generate enough power to charge the capacitors in any sort of time, you would probably need a nuclear reactor. So at this point, why not go on and bust the Battleships out of mothballs. Heavy armor, lots of room, and firepower. Oh wait, lots of room. You know the first carriers were modded battleships? Well what they are really looking at for the future is UAVs that could fight a manned aircraft. So lets say in 2070 They have developed them, and they are around the size of a motorcycle, with a 1 missile payload and some MGs. Place this on the battleship in and you have literally have it all. (we use to get bored on watch in the engine room (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ) Anyways I could see a platform like that becoming prominent if Big Navy ever gets off it's ass and realizes that supper carriers are outdated. Lite carriers are they future.

The only thing that is really a threat to a battleship with full support is a sub. Nuc subs are noisy for reasons I won't get into. If you want dead silence, you go diesel. Germany developed subs that use liquid O2 for their diesel and compress the exhaust into liquid as well. Some other country has it too, but that slips my mind. Anyways those subs are similar to a nuc in that they can stay underwater for months without snorkeling. However the advantage of a nuc sub is they are much faster. But surface ships are typically faster, so good luck escaping.

I think Japan its self would still have a decent navy, as I recall they went back to trying to be the dominant power in the south china sea. All imperialistic and shit. Also they invaded San Diego (Francisco?) and then abandoned it to General Sato. Not sure what happened after that.

[T2-Keks]

Very interesting write-up. Almost like an extra piece of sourcebook. I wouldn't mind reading more of those or even more about naval stuff!

[shonen_mask]

One thing comes to mind when there is a discussion of Navy potential, or any Military potential in Shadowrun. the ability (not to mention the willingness) to strike anywhere on the globe from orbiting platforms. and without any formal warning at that... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

One thing comes to mind when there is a discussion of Navy potential, or any Military potential in Shadowrun. the ability (not to mention the willingness) to strike anywhere on the globe from orbiting platforms. and without any formal warning at that... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

Sadly, however, Orbital Platforms do not hold territory, nor do they project power. At least not in the classical sense. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Mach_Ten]

Sadly, however, Orbital Platforms do not hold territory, nor do they project power. At least not in the classical sense. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

yup, otherwise the threat of Global Nuclear war RIGHT NOW .. would have paralyzed many nations.

the problem with having a threat like that is you need to "demonstrate" your power for it to be effective.

not that I'm advocating that course of action,

but it's why the UK has sent a couple of battleships over to Gibraltar and the Falklands lately ...

it's why the USA, populating that island just off Korea keeps having the odd random "Look, we've got more military muscle on your door if you even blink at those nukes you think you have!"

[shonen_mask]

Sadly, however, Orbital Platforms do not hold territory, nor do they project power. At least not in the classical sense. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

True. But they do project fear. Kind of a power move in itself.
Maybe, some responsible actions like intergrating the system in to a national agenda (military?) will be a must.
At least you wont have to worry about some jerk with the 'monday blues' wiping out your city....

[BlackJaw]

Aircraft carriers? Nuclear Subs?

*Cough* Sea Dragon *cough*

[GloriousRuse]

Also, concerning orbital weaponry. Lets say you want to drop a rod of god onto someone's head. Great.

1) Weapon fires/release from orbital platform. Any powers that be see this. Depending on the orbit, theoretically half the world, or maybe just a continent, could have the the target.

2) Rod enters atmosphere, but without the ballistic orbit of a typical re-entry vehicle like an ICBM. Now, every Mega and nation with its eyes on the skies has mere minutes to figure out if they are the target. Commlinks are called. Key meetings interrupted, CEOs and prime ministers given sketchy briefing sin their bedroom and told their has to be a decision...RIGHT...NOW...because if you are the target, and who's to say you aren't with this balkanized SR world, the intercept window is closing. FAST. So fast, in fact, that you will probably need to make the intercept call...and potential retaliation call..before you can even verify the fact that you are the target. Of course, any shooting at someone's platform (where one rod drops, who's to say there won't be two) or knocking a projectile off course or into tiny hypersonic bits may be duly constituted as a sign of belligerence from whoever did it, even if they were not the original target. Imagine how Cold War America would have reacted if one of their ICBMs heading for Moscow over the ice caps got swatted by China. Instant assumption of alliance and immediate re-targeting to neutralize Chinese population and military centers centers. Plus those terminal velocity pieces are coming down somewhere.

3) A few minutes later, we know the target area...physics closes down the area our terminal velocity rod can possibly land...but everyone has already had to make their Shoot-Don't Shoot-Shoot Back call and pray to whatever God they believe in that they chose the right one. Automated defenses are surged in the impact area. THELs, spirits, drones, K-SAT fire, anything...but the rod is already moving with so much KE, that the best you can hope for is to turn it from a deep penetrator that hits you to a merely genocidal rain of pieces that will only scour life from the surface since at this point you are past the intercept phase where you can hope for orbital burn up.

So...firing an orbital weapon is very likely to be a decision that is the equivalent of opening up the Silos in the 1980s. The world is going to freeze, and perhaps end.

The only way to counter that, of course, is to let people with their own weapons and intercept devices know what the hell you are doing. At which point, that surprise element is lost. The politics begin.

So while Orbital Weaponry could physically be used very quickly, the political constraints on it would prevent any timely use. unless of course, you think you can win Armageddon. Or just want to have Armageddon for shits and giggles.

[Lynchmob]

Some of your points are pretty good and things I hadn't thought of. In regards to battleships carrying drones I would take that even one further and just argue that smallboys (cruisers, destroyers, frigates etc) would have complements of UAVs. Modern combatants if not equipped with a helo at least support landing/refueling.

The rail gun tech is still a few years out real life but it will be interesting to see how much it changes naval force distribution. Naval Fire Support (shelling land based forces/positions) doesn't really come up very often (it did happen during Desert Storm) since land attack missiles have such better range and control. They would let the small boys pack a bigger punch if they get into a knife fight with another ship and depending on how missile defense systems advance vs missile capabilities you could imagine less emphasis on missile boats and more emphasis on low profile faster stealthier ships. Kind of like what the LCS tried to be but failed miserably at.

The orbital weapons platforms actually support my idea/theory/argument of a more distributed defensive navy being prevalent. Who owns the keys to those weapons in SR? Regardless it's less money to invest in aircraft carriers and heavy fire support combatants. It does probably suggest that ballistic missile submarines would be more common than I had originally proposed. Part of a deterrent against these attacks.

Honestly I don't envision a lot of open ocean warfare. Tense situations and stand offs maybe but I'm not arguing that standard corp procedure is to open fire on rival ships. Maybe ignoring distress calls from ships with the wrong "flag". All out targeting of a particular AAA shipping/naval assets would be an Omega Order(? I'm actually a little unclear how extreme an Omega Order is supposed to be) that would be accompanied by blockades and matrix/magical/land based attacks. Sabotage is probably common. Particularly in the more disputed regions of the globe. Now because most governments would probably lack the naval assets to mount an offensive corporate blockade and convoy raiding against a nation state could be an interesting situation. EVO is pissed at Vietnam and sets up a blockade, Aztechnology says screw that noise and escorts in some cargo ships with their navy. Maybe even supplemented by Aztlan flagged naval ships. Does EVO open fire? Risk open war with another corp? Back down and lose face? Just thinking this through I'm leaning to the thought that it would take a Corporate Court decision to actually pull of a blockade.

How would a corp with a heavy share of the Matrix infrastructure react if another corp decides to get into the telecoms game and starts laying cables through international waters?

And yes the Sea Dragon. I'm curious where the meta-plot is planning to take dragon vs metahuman vs corp interests over the next few years. Were the Aztlan/Sirrurg and the Lofwyr/Alamais slugfests the climax or opening notes? If things start heating back up the Sea Dragon could cause some serious mayhem. Mostly because she would be even harder to take down that a typical Great Dragon. Torpedoes would have to be redesigned to target her. Tracking her would be damn near impossible and she could just tear apart shipping traffic and underwater communications.

[Wakshaani]

Here's an interesting thought that may turn some of this sideways.

Fuel.

Assorted petroleum products are all but vanished, which means that there's just not a lot of gas around for ships. Sailing's gone up quite a bit, and large enough vessels can run nuclear or, better, fusion reactors, but the little guys are kinda hurting. I'd lay odds that ships have gone up more towards super-carriers and super-tanker-style transports, which only teh megas and a few nations can afford, so that one ship can run on a fusion engine (scooping up seawater to power it when needed), which wouldn't be feasable with numerous smaller ships. You still have enough to run speedboats on electric (most likely) or faster boats with traditional engines, but the small-to-midsize ship is in danger simply because it's so expensive/difficult to power 'em. Destroyers are likely in short supply, ditto the smaller supporting ships, while cruisers have gained tonnage and battleships/supercarries are the norm, despite how well they attract missiles.

Heck, even today, there are some shipping companies looking at when it'll be economicly correct to shift modern fleets to sails. Just imagine today's oil tankers swooping across the ocean with rigging at full blown. Weird, but neat. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Voran]

I figured part of the limiting factors re: Naval forces was the existence of...well..sea monsters.

[Sengir]

The only thing that is really a threat to a battleship with full support is a sub.

Or to put it differently, capital ships without whole fleet of babysitters are practice targets. And even if you commit a significant part of your forces to protect a single ship it won't stop a biplane from scoring a chance hit on the rudder...

Capital ships are dead, and the advanced drone technology in Shadowrun will do little to revive the concept...

If you want dead silence, you go diesel. Germany developed subs that use liquid O2 for their diesel and compress the exhaust into liquid as well. Some other country has it too, but that slips my mind. Anyways those subs are similar to a nuc in that they can stay underwater for months without snorkeling.

You realize that diesel subarines merely use the diesel to recharge their batteries and not for propulsion?
And the "liquid oxygen subs" would be the 212 class, which uses fuel cells (powered by hydrogen and oxygen) along with the standard diesel-electric setup. Italy operates the same class, and some of the boats built for Israel to bankroll our notoriously broke shipyards express our special responsibility toward the jewish people also have the fuel cell technology.

[Slide]

yeah. i'm a submariner, and I'll tell you that until a diesel snorkels to charge it's battery you can't track it.

as far as Capital ships being dead, I've only seen a bit of the sea wiz defense system, but it's pretty bad ass. Not designed for biplanes but meh. It would probably still work (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Sengir]

I've only seen a bit of the sea wiz defense system, but it's pretty bad ass.

...and it fits on a corvette. Any tech that might improve capitals works the same for destroyers and below, and therefore won't close the gap.

[Lynchmob]

I tend to agree that for the foreseeable future capital ships in general will not be a common sight. Or at least our definition of capital ship may have to change. The biggest concern are not aircraft or missiles but submarines. Air and missile defense has done a very good job of keeping up. ASW has not. Submarines are becoming more and more popular across the globe as a reflection of this.

CIWS (sea wiz) is in fact totally bad ass. They also have adapted it to land in the C-RAM and adapted it to fire rolling airframe missiles in the SEARAM (yes those is two separate things pronounced see-ram) and it can fit on small boys without issue. Again this is kind of huge speculation on how technology would advance in favor of weapons or defense as to how effective the various missile defense systems are. Still no hope against a torpedo. Seriously torpedoes are scary. Youtube a mk 48 and you'll see what I mean.

As far as those AIP boats go you're both right. Earlier designs used various alternative fuels to prolong submerged endurance and the fuel cell variants are now replacing those older designs. These do not let them behave like nuclear boats though, they still have much lower endurance and are not able to sustain high speeds. Of course give it another 60 years of hypothetical advancement of how things go and they may compete better with their nuclear cousins. Yes Diesel submarines not running their engines are damn near silent.

I like the idea of petroleum scarcity forcing boats into one end of the spectrum or another. The U.S. Navy is already working on bio-fuel substitutes and mixtures to cut down fuel costs. You can fit nuclear reactors on smaller ships (the old California class cruisers were around 200 m long, the Russians have the Kirov which is closer to 300 m I believe) but obviously it instills a minimum size of some type. Have any of the books gone into much detail about fuel / power supplies in world? I don't think there is any obvious "green" answer to the power demands of a warship but it would be a fun mental exercise to design ships covered in solar panels, windmills and guns. Maybe towing a hydroelectric turbine or two. Any math geeks want to work out how many and how big the sails would need to be to push a 100,000 ton carrier?

Random other thoughts that are popping into my mind. A sea based Doc-Wagon type service. Merchant ships pay a service fee and then if they get hit by pirates they fire off the distress call - Calvary rolls in and tears apart the pirates. Obviously there are additional fees based on threat level of aggressors and the company is entitled to all salvage rights. Alternatively, a corp is unable to respond in time and third world pirates were able to make off with one of their tankers. So they hire runners to go in and make an example of the pirates. The ship gets written off as a loss, insurance covers it, the perception of weakness to the other corps is more damaging so the runners have to make a bit of noise. Not too much noise, but enough that everyone who matters knows what happened. Something that could lead into an entire campaign is having the Mr. Johnson hire the team to stir things up in one of the hot spots where everyone is claiming the same waters. Don't spell out the big picture to them, unless one of them actually has knowledge skill points in Geopolitics, and just see how they react when they finally realize that the tiny merchant ship they hijacked ended up leading to a full blown regional war.

[Tzeentch]

-- I believe the corporations have divested themselves of most heavy military hardware, Corporate Shadowfiles (p. 113) says:

Currently, no corporation fields more than a full regiment of military forces. In almost all instances, the battalion and larger units are combined-arms forces, incorporating air, ground, sea, and possible space elements.

-- Most nations have extremely limited force projection capability, and what they do have is largely confined to one or two large carriers. I doubt it was intended as such, but the Free Marine Corps from 10 Mercs actually has one of the largest, if not the largest, expeditionary military forces on the planet.
-- I think you're treading in dangerous canonical waters by assuming that the 2070 trade patterns and volumes bear much resemblance to the current day. Current sea transportation is extremely cheap because the US and other power guarantee the safety of the sea lanes. It's why people continue to float through Somalian waters and the Straights of Malacca, because even there the risk is small compared to the volume of goods being moved. There's no international power that guarantees the safety of the Shadowrun sea lanes, and a whole lot of new threats that extend across the globe - such as the Sea Dragon and her crew. Which means costs rise, possibly more than compensating technologies keep it down.

Obviously on a country to country basis it will change (UCAS has more land based foreign trade than USA because there are more nations sharing a continent with it) but the overall percentage of the world's economy probably won't change too much.

-- Citation needed. The Shadowrun world was falling apart in the 1990s, and the pieces only started being picked up during the 2040s. There's no real evidence that the majority of trade is sea based any longer, as evidenced by most of the coast of the CFS sinking and it not appearing to have affected anything. Presumably there's a lot of sea-based trade, but it's a background element that hasn't been discussed much (much like trade in general).
-- We can infer that some areas rely extensively on sea routes though. The Sixth World Almanac population of Hawai'i couldn't be supported without round-the-clock food shipments (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You could also make assumptions regarding new underwater cabling being laid in support of the Matrix and any deepsea projects the corps are founding.

-- There's quite a few arcologies and underwater mining platforms. They're just not particularly sexy adventuring locales.

So the Corporate Court will probably maintain a joint task force to patrol the seas to keep would be pirates from ruining everyone's day.

-- There's no real evidence of that. Some countries control their EEZs with an iron gauntlet and others don't even have a fishing boat to defend their waters. The corps (according to CyberPirates!) seem to rely on the threat of retribution to dissuade pirates. Going from Cyberpirates, the threat of piracy seems pretty overblown. The stuff in that book is mom and pop BS for the most part.

What about the governments? I can fully understand countries like the UCAS, CAS, Japan etc holding on to some remnants of a blue water navy out of pride and stubbornness. Realistically though they could only afford/justify a brown/green water navy that is designed to defend coastal waters.

-- If the corps can afford (and justify it to their shareholders) fleets why not the national governments? And the UCAS, CAS, and Imperial Japan have all gotten mileage about of their fleets in recent Shadowrun history.

This post is long enough but a final note is the Sea Dragon. Is she concerned at all about what metahumanity does out on the ocean? Where they do it?

-- Aye, this is talked about a bit in Clutch of Dragons. I like to think there's a balance of terror there, since everyone important knows the location of her nests and worse comes to worse they can drop nukes on her head.

[Tzeentch]

Submarines are becoming more and more popular across the globe as a reflection of this.

-- Which has driven a lot of R&D in detection. Including non-acoustic detection techniques. I discuss some of these in Transhuman Space: Under Pressure (p. UP82).

CIWS (sea wiz) is in fact totally bad ass. They also have adapted it to land in the C-RAM and adapted it to fire rolling airframe missiles in the SEARAM (yes those is two separate things pronounced see-ram) and it can fit on small boys without issue.

-- Probably antiquated in Shadowrun when you have point defense lasers and particle beams.

Still no hope against a torpedo. Seriously torpedoes are scary. Youtube a mk 48 and you'll see what I mean.

-- In Shadowrun you have counter torpedo torpedoes (e.g. Piranha, Arsenal , p. 125), supercavitating cannon rounds, and even spirits to counter a good chunk of underwater missile weapons (supercavitating themselves in many cases, like the Fiske, Arsenal, p. 125).

As far as those AIP boats go you're both right. Earlier designs used various alternative fuels to prolong submerged endurance and the fuel cell variants are now replacing those older designs. These do not let them behave like nuclear boats though, they still have much lower endurance and are not able to sustain high speeds. Of course give it another 60 years of hypothetical advancement of how things go and they may compete better with their nuclear cousins. Yes Diesel submarines not running their engines are damn near silent.

-- Nuclear submarines have a higher base noise because they have to keep running their water pumps continually. Diesel-electrics have relatively limited endurance on batteries. Both have crew and mechanical noise that they have to deal with, in addition to the cavitation noise from water moving along the hull and around the props or waterjet ducts.
-- Current nuclear subs also use highly-enriched fuel rods so that they have a good power curve for extended periods (remember the fuel has a half-life even if its not being brought to criticality). Shadowrun subs may have superior fabrication technologies to allow removable reactor cores so they could more readily use low-enrichment fuels.

Have any of the books gone into much detail about fuel / power supplies in world?

-- Rigger 3 is about as close as you get to a comprehensive look. Specifically, Rigger 3 (pp. 110-111)
-- Note that "nuclear" in Shadowrun refers to both fusion and fission.

-- You may also find GURPS Vehicles useful (Shadowrun being a roughly TL9-10 setting).

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yeah. i'm a submariner, and I'll tell you that until a diesel snorkels to charge it's battery you can't track it.

Not according to my Nuke Acquaintances. Quiet? Yes. Untrackable, No. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[StreetDoc]

Rods from God may never be a serious problem, as we actually are near to having (or have already) surface based missiles that can reach geosynchronous altitudes.

As soon as I see your payload of telephone pole sized tungsten rods going up... BLAM-O!... no more Rods. And by 2070, we'll likely be able to put such missiles on boats or subs, thus making it difficult to pin down exactly who made your rods go away before you even got them into a good orbit. And think of all the wasted rocket fuel you used to get them up there... Don't know how well that will go over at the next shareholder meeting (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tzeentch]

Cats a bit out of the bag on that, they already have an extensive orbital artillery network installed. I suppose you can try to shoot them down but they will probably have defensive countermeasures, and if they are in GEO that's a LONG ways to run the gauntlet at the same time you have to climb up the gravity well.

[StreetDoc]

Offense is usually cheaper than defense. Actually, I can't think of an exception to that rule.
But, I suppose if the Rods, or whatever are already up, that makes it a pain to get them back down.

Perhaps we need Anti-anti-missile-missile-missiles. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Lynchmob]

Tzeentch - To avoid quoting and responding to your points one by one because I'm lazy I hope this will suffice.

Thanks for the book recommendations. I've been working my way backwards from 5e (I played 3e years and years ago) so there's a lot I'm missing. My wallet hates me. As far as the specific weapons I mentioned yes I fully agree they would be obsolete 60 years from now. Most of them are already pretty old. The Phalanx CIWS system has been around since the 70s and while it's survived amazingly well at a certain point it will need to be replaced by something newer and shinier. Apparently lasers.

As far as the wild speculation I made in regards to military might and the world economy it was 99% pulled out of my ass. It was all just from me trying to grasp the balances of power in Shadowrun. Yes I am overthinking it. I'm putting together a campaign that will have absolutely nothing to do with naval engagements or sailing the high seas yet somehow I felt it very necessary to understand complex dynamics of geopolitics, trade, and military power. You argue that corps and nations would be about on par as far as military power goes and that's just not what I envisioned. I am probably way off base. I got the impression that due to extraterritoriality nation-states wouldn't have the kind of income that they used to. If corporate employees/citizens pay taxes to their corp as opposed to their nation then governments just took a big paycheck. I still envisioned nations as having much larger standing armies and probably better disciplined troops but the corps had better access to the hardware. The whole point I was making about corps splurging on naval assets was specifically in line with your point about nobody policing the seas. Somebody has to do it and if only one person steps up they can seriously reshape the worlds economy. I was just using modern figures to provide a frame of reference but unless I see some argument as to what would replace sea based trade then I'll have to assume it is still a very big slice of the pie. The part of justifying the expense to shareholders does give pause to my argument. The U.S. Navy has a hard enough time funding anything not "sexy" in today's environment. I am not overly familiar with how subsidiaries function in regards to megacorps. Could they "hide" their bigger guns and toys in a subsidiary so technically say Mitsuhama shareholders don't get to interfere with the business of violence.

Also I'm totally stealing the phrase "balance of terror".

And yes I am sorry if I'm the one breaking the news to any submariners out there but even when you turn off your engines and go real real slow, we can still hear you. It's just a lot harder.

[Tzeentch]

-- There should be ubiquitous satellite surveillance by all interested parties in the Shadowrun world, through a combination of satellites, airborne platforms, and ground sensors. This is a good justification for why the large naval platforms in Shadowrun are shifting to submersible and semi-submersible operational modes. You're not invisible underwater, but you're certainly less easy to detect, at the cost of significant design complexity, slower speeds, and cost.

[GloriousRuse]

The Rod of God in this case being the orbital dropped kinetic energy weapon. Or just a MIRV dropped form space would work too I suppose. Its not that they can't be killed...after all, even current PAC 3s have a decent PK against ballistic missiles on a re-entry. Its the fact that by already being in orbit, the human reaction time to make all those good "is that an WMD, and is it heading for us, and if so, who has the authority to start the MAD sequence?" gets cut from traditional missile launch timelines down into less than 15 minutes.