Hi JTG452,
I again grant the desire to use only RMN ships even those immediately intended for reclamation before OB, but if you were Krietzmann, with all the SLN ships in orbit, it would be idiocy not to use them if you could.
As Helen noted in CoS, while BF is pretty obsolete, FF was much closer to cutting edge tech.
You might want to review TSotS because the rather new Gladiator CA's were very very good even when crewed by pirates, quite comparable to the RMN's then current Sag-B CA's, and originally the same tonnage of 425 Kt, which changed in HoS, IIRC, for some reason.
We don't know what the name of the latest BF SD class is, and from what we've seen so far it doesn't matter; but the FF crews we've seen haven't been too worried about engaging common verge equivalent ships, so I think the TQG would be more than pleased to add them in lieu of not having any new RMN ships added for at least a 2-4 years, aside from local production, but 69 ships totaling around 21-22 million tons is probably at least a few years of such construction, and so very welcome indeed.
Being an internal matter of the TQG, I suspect the RMN officially isn't too concerned, since its essentially an internal TQ matter, NTM all education and training can be used eventually.
I suspect the SLN and SLN Marine standards aren't as high as the RMN's, so more of the TQ population ought to qualify, at least for the SLN Marines and thus the TQG GC.
Given Spindle's SLN POW's number around 387,000 from just the warships, a third being marines means ~129,000 are marines with roughly ~32,000 having powered armor, quite useful to the new TQG ground component, so that just over 8,000 volunteer troops from their armies or PPF's from each TQ member could quickly be equipped, ready to be sent out to help 10th Fleet surprisingly soon for Mike.
While skin-suits might be a personal item of equipment in the RMN, the RHN and I suspect the SLN adapt or modify ship's issue TO&E as needed in the ship's workshops or industrial modules, and the TQG could easily require the volunteers sent meet the required suit metrics for quicker fittings.
L
jtg452 wrote:The captured Solly FF ships were useless against 1st tier Manty ships and all of those captured Solly FF ships are better than the Solly BF ships that would most likely compose any attack force.
IF (and, to me, that's a big 'IF') the decision is made to do a crash training program in Talbot to form a self reliant defense force, it would be more logical to use 2nd or 3rd tier 'obsolete', mothballed MANTY ships. The training cadre would be intimately familiar with them, they are proven designs, all the bugs have been worked out of them, all their flaws are known, there's a plethora of knowledge and spares available, and they would still be far more effective than anything the Sollys have to throw against them. Anything that the Sollys could handle has already been destroyed by the Peeps or scrapped and replaced by more effective platforms by now. Remember, SLN ship design has been pretty stagnate for decades while the Havenites and the Manties have been innovating constantly for the same period. If the SLN was superior to the pre-Wars ships, the Manties are now generations beyond that tech level. If Nikes are good enough to be Solly SD killers, then what would Star Knight design generation Manty ships be like against their Solly equivalent if they are armed with late generation weapons? I figure they could still punch over their weight class across the board, just not to the level that the Nikes do.
Personally, I don't see the logic in even doing something like pulling the mothball fleet out of the wrecker's hands and manning them for local protection in Talbot. I think the best course- which is the route that RFC seems to be headed, as far as I can tell- is to educate and train the Talboters up to RMN standards and integrate them into the whole Navy. Setting up local SDF's can happen after you have a core of experienced spacers to transfer from the regular navy to the SDF's.
