You have seen that, the 14th battlegroup basically fought the war it was ready for in the alternate dimension. And quite successfully in all accounts.
Indeed. For all the trouble the events of AoA caused the GTVA, those events DID provide excellent data on how the next generation of GTVA warships, craft, tactics, and technology would fare in a new war with the Shivans. As well as data on what the next tier of Shivan capabilities would look like--namely, the SSJ Dante (whose defeat I could only imagine happening through massive fighter and bomber assault to destroy its main beam cannons, followed by a massive assault by TEI warships...though even then, it'd be hard to prevent the Dante from just fleeing the system. Not sure how tough its engines are, but you'd have to disable those as well to ensure a kill).
Turns out, the TEI succeeded far better than anyone had predicted. Hell, this held true even BEFORE many components of the TEI could be fielded. I mean, imagine if the 14th BG had any of the TEI fighters beyond the Aurora and Kulas, or a Diomedes-class corvette? Being able to pilot a Draco would have made the situation in Forced Entry far easier, for instance, and the Nyx would have made taking out the main beams of Shivan destroyers far easier in that mission where the Temeraire (can't remember the spelling) faced three of them at once (and then another three on top of that).
But the sheer variety and depth of "testing" and experience the 14th got was astounding, in hindsight. You had a cruiser handle some fighters (and a bomber?) on its own, testing its point-defenses, as well as testing of its abilities to provide support to larger ships in major fleet engagements. You had thorough testing of the Aurora, including in nebula conditions. You had thorough testing of the Titan (anti-ship capabilities, mobility, carrier capabilities, shock-jumping, torpedo usage, how effective its secondary armament would be, its point defenses, and how well its armor stood up against Shivan beams) and Raynor (its rapid precision jumping, its speed, its ability to engage multiple Shivan warships simultaneously, how it could use its lesser carrier capacity to both soften enemy warships and launch precision strikes against an enemy's main armament before entering engagement range, how well its pulse turrets worked in an anti-ship role, and how well its point defenses and limited carrier capacity could work on defense) both. Shock-jumping doctrine was tested (the Temeraire, Labuchere, and Bretoniae shock-jumping a Demon and obliterating it in a single salvo, all vectored in by a single Aurora, was a pretty good demonstration of how damn efficient this tactic could be with the new TEI ships). Hell, the 14th even took on a Sathanas and won, with zero losses--using the design strengths of the Raynor-class, shock-jumping capabilities of the Titan, Chimera, and Bellerophon classes, as well as the newly reinforced doctrine of outmaneuvering and outrunning a Sathanas with warships while striking its beam cannons with fighters and bombers, THEN dog-piling the juggernaut with massive firepower. Additionally, you had thorough testing of the logistics ships, two of which keeping an entire battlegroup fully operational despite days (how long was it, exactly? A week? Two?) of intense combat, running and jumping everywhere, taking and repairing damage, etc. More than a battlegroup, actually, when you factor in the Sanctuary: a destroyer-sized, very old, very worn-down ship that sustained significant damage and had long-accumulated maintenance issues.
Really, if the Tev leadership wasn't intent on keeping the events of AoA completely secret, they would serve as a
massive morale boost (well, provided you left out the discovery of the SSJ Dante, or seeing dozens of Sathanas juggernauts again). You basically had the complete and utter vindication of the TEI, even when many of its components had yet to be fielded.
Really, the only major role the TEI still leaves unfilled (that even CAN be reasonably filled--I'm looking at you, warship-tank for destroyers/juggernauts) is 'heavy bomber'--important, because of how vital the role is when dealing with juggernauts. Well, that, and perhaps 'gunship', given how potent they've proven to be in the GTA-UEF war. I'm not sure how well the TEI covers the 'artillery ship' role, since we do actually see heavy beam artillery used in Her Finest Hour, but in that case it was mostly done by stationary beam cannon sentries, on defense, supported by two AWACS and three Auroras; I'm not sure whether a dedicated beam-artillery ship is needed to fill this role, or if existing ships can do it if supported by an AWACS or something. Anyway, Uriels can be godsend for de-fanging Shivan destroyers and even juggernauts before sending warships in to engage, and can make Shivan cruisers and corvettes non-threats to ships in short order. They're efficient and effective enough that they're quite practical to have even in small numbers, and the fact that they can also act as quasi-bombers if need be (given that they can carry light torpedoes, their gauss gun's respectable hull damage, good durability, presence of a turret, and the primary firepower's damage output and versatility) just ups their appeal.
Add in how well the Slammer addresses waves of Shivan bombers, how the Scalpel is versatile enough to be a viable supplementary weapon rather than an extremely niche "close-range subsystem killer", and how well the Durga both serves as a heavy bomber and fits the 'high-offense, high-DPS, high-mobility" doctrine the Tevs have going, and integrating those weapons/craft would bolster the TEI significantly. (With the Durga, I'm aware that it's quite expensive to produce and maintain--the idea would be that these are a strategic asset, very limited in quantity, but used carefully and sparingly when either needed or potentially extremely useful without significant risk involved; they'd basically be a vastly more effective Ursa, so there'd only be a few on each destroyer, at most.)
...I really wish the Draco was playable in AoA. Come to think of it, with the exception of Aristeia, every "cover a huge area from waves of fighters/bombers" mission in BP denies you the use of any of the new craft that are designed for this mission profile or capable of handling it well, annoyingly (though in Delenda Est's case, it's more that you have much more to worry about than just said role, so you
have to take a slow gunship instead of a fast interceptor). Not sure if the mission in Jupiter's atmosphere counts, though, given how you get to deploy a bunch of turrets and only have to actually defend a single point from big, well-defined waves of attackers coming from a single direction.
