Can a Roland carry Marines?

WLBjork wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:As well as to serve as a flagship for cruiser squadrons; most cruiser types don't have their own flag decks. That may be administratively messy since the commodore or rear admiral might not really want to have cis flag on a destroyer.

Light cruisers, yes. However, textev was clear that all Star Knights were also built as flagships due to the mess with the Crusader/Prince Consort programme.

Whether that extended to the Saganami's, I can't recall, though I'd expect those to be as well.

We know that "Commodore" Terekhov hung his hat on a Sag-C, so they have one as well.

Chances are all modern CAs in RMN service have a flag deck - the Prince Consorts notably stood out because they didn't have a flag bridge, a special design was made to accommodate the flags needed for them, and there were so darned many of them.

As long as they don't carry a beast. A Harkness.

WLBjork wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:As well as to serve as a flagship for cruiser squadrons; most cruiser types don't have their own flag decks. That may be administratively messy since the commodore or rear admiral might not really want to have cis flag on a destroyer.

Light cruisers, yes. However, textev was clear that all Star Knights were also built as flagships due to the mess with the Crusader/Prince Consort programme.

Whether that extended to the Saganami's, I can't recall, though I'd expect those to be as well.

I would guess that almost all ships built will have flag decks at about this time. It makes no sense not to have them. There's a huge amount of cubage and having the quarters could be valuable.

Remember that when Mike's ship had problems she moved her flag to another and I think Honor had that happen to her ship in SVW.

The most interesting element is how they work chains of command in larger fleets. After all, the commodore in charge of a destroyer flotilla has a staff and it makes sense for the second in command if there are a lot of ships to have one because they could be separated for duty.

So you have individual ship staffs, small group staffs, larger group ones, etc. Imagine what HH had to do when she was running hundreds of ships.

Can you imagine playing the game "telephone" with the top ops officer giving info to the large group ops officers and the having it more down in stages?

I would guess that's one reason why a lot of officers get staff positions. Chances are being an ops officer for a six or eight ship group gives experience to handle larger groups.

ldwechsler wrote:

I would guess that almost all ships built will have flag decks at about this time. It makes no sense not to have them. There's a huge amount of cubage and having the quarters could be valuable.

Remember that when Mike's ship had problems she moved her flag to another and I think Honor had that happen to her ship in SVW.

The most interesting element is how they work chains of command in larger fleets. After all, the commodore in charge of a destroyer flotilla has a staff and it makes sense for the second in command if there are a lot of ships to have one because they could be separated for duty.

So you have individual ship staffs, small group staffs, larger group ones, etc. Imagine what HH had to do when she was running hundreds of ships.

Can you imagine playing the game "telephone" with the top ops officer giving info to the large group ops officers and the having it more down in stages?

I would guess that's one reason why a lot of officers get staff positions. Chances are being an ops officer for a six or eight ship group gives experience to handle larger groups.

It been mentioned in text that there are specific flag variants of larger ships (BC and above). This is not to say that all members of the class don't have Flag spaces - but some have BETTER flag spaces. Whil all the Samothrace Class and Benjamin the Great Classes have large, top notch flag facilities in them, Reliants, Gryphons and Medusas (and probably Invictuses) had a flag subclass, where a broadside weapon or 2 was traded for a larger flag space - The normal Flag space might be comfortable for running a squadron or a small flotillia, but the specialized flag bridges would be needed for a Fleet station or large fleet.

Theemile wrote:It been mentioned in that that there are specific flag variants of larger ships (BC and above). This is not to say that all members of the class don't have Flag spaces - but some have BETTER flag spaces. Whil all the Samothrace Class and Benjamin the Great Classes have large, top notch flag facilities in them, Reliants, Gryphons and Medusas (and probably Invictuses) had a flag subclass, where a broadside weapon or 2 was traded for a larger flag space - The normal Flag space might be comfortable for running a squadron or a small flotillia, but the specialized flag bridges would be needed for a Fleet station or large fleet.

Which tracks with wet navy practice. Or at least I know that the USS South Dakota was built as a fleet flagship - she had an extra deck added to her conning tower for flag facilities and to compensate for that mass carried 2 fewer dual purpose 5" secondary turrets than her non-flag sister ships (8 twin turrets vs 10).

Although with a pod layer fleet flag variant you might give up a row or two of pods (shorter pod bay) to fit larger flag facilities. We do know that when Keyhole II was refit into the Keyhole I SD(P)s the additional computer support was installed in an armored plug at the forwards end of the pod bay, reducing the number of pods each converted ship could carry - so there's precedent for shortening the pod bay to fit necessary items.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:It been mentioned in that that there are specific flag variants of larger ships (BC and above). This is not to say that all members of the class don't have Flag spaces - but some have BETTER flag spaces. Whil all the Samothrace Class and Benjamin the Great Classes have large, top notch flag facilities in them, Reliants, Gryphons and Medusas (and probably Invictuses) had a flag subclass, where a broadside weapon or 2 was traded for a larger flag space - The normal Flag space might be comfortable for running a squadron or a small flotillia, but the specialized flag bridges would be needed for a Fleet station or large fleet.

Which tracks with wet navy practice. Or at least I know that the USS South Dakota was built as a fleet flagship - she had an extra deck added to her conning tower for flag facilities and to compensate for that mass carried 2 fewer dual purpose 5" secondary turrets than her non-flag sister ships (8 twin turrets vs 10).

Although with a pod layer fleet flag variant you might give up a row or two of pods (shorter pod bay) to fit larger flag facilities. We do know that when Keyhole II was refit into the Keyhole I SD(P)s the additional computer support was installed in an armored plug at the forwards end of the pod bay, reducing the number of pods each converted ship could carry - so there's precedent for shortening the pod bay to fit necessary items.

The problem is that we really don't know how large the staffs are. We know from textev for Manticore (a little more from Haven but we aren't talking about that here) and we know about the chief of staff, operations officer, intelligence officer (and maybe not always...would one need one of those if you were in Home Fleet?), astrogator, communications but not much besides that.

If is a serious flaw for RFC (just kidding, big guy). It makes it difficult on the rest of us. Shouldn't the staff of HH running the Home Fleet be larger than for Zavala with four destroyers or even Tremaine with a group of cruisers?

For those in BuNine, that would be a good project. Instead of telling us the tonnage of 200 year old out of action ships, why not a lit of the table of organization for the ship types and the staffs.

Not to mention how ships services are provided. Do human cooks provide food for the crew or it that only for the captain? Who cleans the ship? There are so many interesting questions.

ldwechsler wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Which tracks with wet navy practice. Or at least I know that the USS South Dakota was built as a fleet flagship - she had an extra deck added to her conning tower for flag facilities and to compensate for that mass carried 2 fewer dual purpose 5" secondary turrets than her non-flag sister ships (8 twin turrets vs 10).

Although with a pod layer fleet flag variant you might give up a row or two of pods (shorter pod bay) to fit larger flag facilities. We do know that when Keyhole II was refit into the Keyhole I SD(P)s the additional computer support was installed in an armored plug at the forwards end of the pod bay, reducing the number of pods each converted ship could carry - so there's precedent for shortening the pod bay to fit necessary items.

The problem is that we really don't know how large the staffs are. We know from textev for Manticore (a little more from Haven but we aren't talking about that here) and we know about the chief of staff, operations officer, intelligence officer (and maybe not always...would one need one of those if you were in Home Fleet?), astrogator, communications but not much besides that.

If is a serious flaw for RFC (just kidding, big guy). It makes it difficult on the rest of us. Shouldn't the staff of HH running the Home Fleet be larger than for Zavala with four destroyers or even Tremaine with a group of cruisers?

For those in BuNine, that would be a good project. Instead of telling us the tonnage of 200 year old out of action ships, why not a lit of the table of organization for the ship types and the staffs.

Not to mention how ships services are provided. Do human cooks provide food for the crew or it that only for the captain? Who cleans the ship? There are so many interesting questions.

Why wouldn't flags in Home fleet need Astrogators? We have at least 4 occasions that we know of where detachments of home fleet were sent with only a few hours notice to reinforce another fleet or support another fleet. Besides, Home fleet Green may need to microjump to the junction or support Home fleet Red at Gryphon.

In addition, each "senior" flag deployment may be special - Take, for example, Spindle. The Hercules's deployment there was originally intended to support the referendum of the Talbott Quadrant. In other words, show the flag, lots of liaising with the local potentaries and support of the referendum while controlling a flotillia sized force for policing duties, so heavy on analysts, intel guys and diplomats, while low in ops planners.

Theemile wrote:Why wouldn't flags in Home fleet need Astrogators? We have at least 4 occasions that we know of where detachments of home fleet were sent with only a few hours notice to reinforce another fleet or support another fleet. Besides, Home fleet Green may need to microjump to the junction or support Home fleet Red at Gryphon.

If I parsed that right he said Home Fleet might not need intelligence officers (presumably because ONI is located in the same system).

However your points about last minute detachments being split off is still valid. It's good to have someone on board to handle intel if you might get detached on very short notice. And of course if they're stationed in Manticore-B or out by the Junction ONI is hours to days away by radio. Hermes buoys and detaching ships to play jump courier between the systems cuts down that delay; but still.

And you'd need people at ONI working basically full time to customize the information the Home Fleet detachment commanders need; so those people might as well be with the ships where they can particulate directly with the rest of the staff.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:Why wouldn't flags in Home fleet need Astrogators? We have at least 4 occasions that we know of where detachments of home fleet were sent with only a few hours notice to reinforce another fleet or support another fleet. Besides, Home fleet Green may need to microjump to the junction or support Home fleet Red at Gryphon.

If I parsed that right he said Home Fleet might not need intelligence officers (presumably because ONI is located in the same system).

However your points about last minute detachments being split off is still valid. It's good to have someone on board to handle intel if you might get detached on very short notice. And of course if they're stationed in Manticore-B or out by the Junction ONI is hours to days away by radio. Hermes buoys and detaching ships to play jump courier between the systems cuts down that delay; but still.

And you'd need people at ONI working basically full time to customize the information the Home Fleet detachment commanders need; so those people might as well be with the ships where they can particulate directly with the rest of the staff.

Have you noticed that EVERY ship has an astogator? And in a lot of cases an assistant? Home Fleet at the Battle of Manticore had something like 300 capital ships meaning at least 600 of them just waiting in the system.

There's also the chance that you'll find a flag officer wearing 2 hats at the lowest levels of squadron command.

IE: the flag ships intel officer or quartermaster also acting as the flag one.