Training Ships

The E wrote:Jesus Christ Skimper, have you not realized yet that Q-Ships aren't going to happen?

I'm reminded of the running gag in the movie Mean Girls, where one girl is trying to make the phrase "that's so fetch" a new catchphrase. It goes over as well as you expect.

Somwhere, RFC is evilly chuckling over adding the following line to a future book:

Antoine had just finished the latest letter from Helen, now a Commander with the Mobile Training Command. Her first ship was the bastard hybrid of a Q-ship, tactical simulator bank, and training academy, but it was important and came with a white beret, which was good enough for Helen. Not to mention it should keep her out of combat for at least a little while.......






Patentmike

System Guard it is the Honorverse coast guard. Paramilitary units without full military ships. Armed with sub craft, LAC and some missile backups a few cannons and guns.

Add in training for all the protectorates with a 5 year training active duty term, trained in Manty Military process procedure ... Latest and greatest weapons, and fully familiar with all the latest ships. From LAC to SD(P) and everything in between.

As to critics they need to address the training of enough crew without enough crew training space. Or doing so on old tech ships. They can say no but there just are not enough crew slots for them to train in.

Lord Skimper wrote:System Guard it is the Honorverse coast guard. Paramilitary units without full military ships. Armed with sub craft, LAC and some missile backups a few cannons and guns.

Add in training for all the protectorates with a 5 year training active duty term, trained in Manty Military process procedure ... Latest and greatest weapons, and fully familiar with all the latest ships. From LAC to SD(P) and everything in between.

As to critics they need to address the training of enough crew without enough crew training space. Or doing so on old tech ships. They can say no but there just are not enough crew slots for them to train in.

Skimper, you have ignored the fact (again) that it will be years yet before a large number of new Talbott crewmen come out of ground-based training. All RMN crews go through years of training on the ground before they ever step foot onto a ship. By the time these new crewmen are ready to do space-side training, there will be plenty ships coming out of Manticore's yards for them to board.

There is no need for trainng ships.

SWM wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:System Guard it is the Honorverse coast guard. Paramilitary units without full military ships. Armed with sub craft, LAC and some missile backups a few cannons and guns.

Add in training for all the protectorates with a 5 year training active duty term, trained in Manty Military process procedure ... Latest and greatest weapons, and fully familiar with all the latest ships. From LAC to SD(P) and everything in between.

As to critics they need to address the training of enough crew without enough crew training space. Or doing so on old tech ships. They can say no but there just are not enough crew slots for them to train in.

Skimper, you have ignored the fact (again) that it will be years yet before a large number of new Talbott crewmen come out of ground-based training. All RMN crews go through years of training on the ground before they ever step foot onto a ship. By the time these new crewmen are ready to do space-side training, there will be plenty ships coming out of Manticore's yards for them to board.

There is no need for training ships.

It would depend on which system the recruits are coming from. Recruits from Rembrandt or Flax would probably have an easier time of it than someone from Nuncio.

saber964 wrote:

SWM wrote:Skimper, you have ignored the fact (again) that it will be years yet before a large number of new Talbott crewmen come out of ground-based training. All RMN crews go through years of training on the ground before they ever step foot onto a ship. By the time these new crewmen are ready to do space-side training, there will be plenty ships coming out of Manticore's yards for them to board.

There is no need for training ships.

It would depend on which system the recruits are coming from. Recruits from Rembrandt or Flax would probably have an easier time of it than someone from Nuncio.

I'm not talking about the education levels in the Talbott Cluster. I'm talking about Basic Training, which takes place at groundside facilities. Even recruits from Manticore go through a couple years groundside before working on a ship. And Manticore will be producing new ships in one year. When recruits from the Talbott Cluster are ready to board ship, there will be new ships for them to board.

SWM wrote:I'm not talking about the education levels in the Talbott Cluster. I'm talking about Basic Training, which takes place at groundside facilities. Even recruits from Manticore go through a couple years groundside before working on a ship. And Manticore will be producing new ships in one year. When recruits from the Talbott Cluster are ready to board ship, there will be new ships for them to board.

I agree that Manticore should have new ships coming on line (whether built entirely in the home system or as part of the Alliance cooperative construction strategy mentioned in ART) before the first classes of Talbott Cluster spacers finish basic.

But it occurs to me that even if something did delay the availability of new ships it's probably possible to absorb the first class of two of Talbott Sector spacers by playing games at BuPers. Increase the class sizes are various advanced technical schools, and at the crusher, and select a slightly broader group of personnel for that advanced training across the fleet. That would open enough slots to move/promote people up (just a little ahead of schedule) and create room at the bottom for more first deployment sailors.

It's not like Manticore can't use all the graduates of those schools it can get as the fleet expands again.

Jonathan_S wrote:I agree that Manticore should have new ships coming on line (whether built entirely in the home system or as part of the Alliance cooperative construction strategy mentioned in ART) before the first classes of Talbott Cluster spacers finish basic.

I don't.

You need to build the physical structure. You then need to install all the fabrication equipment (which is presumably going to be made by Beowulf and the Andies to Manticoran specs) and run extensive tests on it to ensure it is working correctly. During this process you need to train all the people who will run the fabrication gear, and do QC on the product. Hint, this isn't any easier than learning how to run a spacecraft.

Now that you have the gear installed and people trained in using it you now need to actually build gear per the existing plans and find out whether it really works or if there were some tweaks known only to the now very dead manufacturing staff. Like the story of FOGBANK.

Once your QC people are convinced you are producing designs per spec you need to make some and give it to the RMN for acceptance tests on the components that are being turned out. Once they agree that the major components are good then you can build a few prototype ships/missiles/recon drones/etc using the new fabrication systems to verify that everything is working as planned (Remember the fusion reactor cracks in tSVW?) and run them through acceptance testing. Only then you can start serial production.

You can skip steps, but it would kind of suck to have to deadline and rebuild lots of ships when, for example it turns out there is a serious defect in the grav plates control circuit as built that results in them very occasional going to -30g.

While reading this thread it occurred to me that one of the problems we run into is the fact that there are two different groups of people involved. There are those who have military experience, either from actual service or long term civilian contact with the military and those who have had little or no contact with the military, but read one series or the other because they are good stories. Those who have not had much exposure to the military do not realize just how much time is spent in training someone for deployment.

Anyone who has an idea of what they want to do in the service goes through basic training and then is sent on to further schooling for that choice (anywhere from 6 months to two years) depending on their choice. Those who have no idea about what they want to do are sent to the fleet as basically gofers for on the job training in a non-technical field. If they decide on a possible career path, they are then sent on to school. The other possibility is that the school that they wanted only has one or two classes per year. They are then sent to the fleet as gofers until their school is ready for them. In the Honorverse, there are no non-technical gofer jobs for those new recruits to fill. I can think of no job on a space ship that does not require extensive training to do properly. Therefore, school, and lots of it is required, prior to shipboard assignment.

To KZT and Jonathan_S:

You are both right in your approaches to this topic. But I think KZT is over-estimating the time required and Jonathan_S is under-estimating the time. We are already 6 months into rebuilding the infrastructure with the first results of that due out in the next three to six months. Another year from now to finish that rebuilding to the point that Manticore is ready to start building ships again. 2 years or less after that to start rolling out the first ships. Call it 3 1/2 years from the Yawata Strike to the first new DD or CL, four years for the first CA or BC and five for the first SD. That includes all the time for testing the production lines and QC.

As for the personnel from the Talbott Quadrant. Most of them will need some remedial schooling after basic to get up to speed to understand what they are learning in technical classes. Say a years worth. Then they will have another two to three years of tech school. So again we are at four years. If Manticore starts right now, they will be turning out the people they need from Talbott at about the same time that they need them.

As for how much time it takes, I would point out Aubrey Wanderman's musings in HAE. It took him nearly two years to get through school after he finished Basic, and he already understood the basics of his chosen field.