Flag officers for two ship divisions?

Per http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/si ... ngton/59/1 in the RMN during and at least immediately following the Janacek Admiralty, a division of wallers or CLAC's consists of two ships.

Now... Does this division have:
a) a captain for each ship, and the senior one also commanding the division as such,
b) a captain for each ship, and a commodore (or possibly an officer of another rank: that specific is not the issue here) for the division,
c) sometimes (a), sometimes (b) - perhaps (a) more when the division is operating in a larger group consistently, perhaps (b) when the flag officer is also commanding additional smaller screening elements?

I'd gotten the impression that (b) was the case, but it seems like a tremendous waste of flag officers to have precisely two direct line subordinates. (The same applies in cases of two divisions to a squadron, one step up.) Granted, Janacek may have been happy to employ lots and lots of Conservative Association commodores and rear admirals, but the two-ship division level for wallers and CLAC's was not a Janacek innovation and he was called out in narration for the squadrons dropping from 8 to 6 for that possible purpose but not two ship divisions, so presumably even the narrator wasn't going to charge him with shenanigans for that.

So - is there some compelling reason to multiply levels of command that tightly? Or more specific reason to believe that the two ship division is most often commanded simply by the senior captain wearing two hats?

JeffEngel wrote:Per http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/si ... ngton/59/1 in the RMN during and at least immediately following the Janacek Admiralty, a division of wallers or CLAC's consists of two ships.

Now... Does this division have:
a) a captain for each ship, and the senior one also commanding the division as such,
b) a captain for each ship, and a commodore (or possibly an officer of another rank: that specific is not the issue here) for the division,
c) sometimes (a), sometimes (b) - perhaps (a) more when the division is operating in a larger group consistently, perhaps (b) when the flag officer is also commanding additional smaller screening elements?

I'd gotten the impression that (b) was the case, but it seems like a tremendous waste of flag officers to have precisely two direct line subordinates. (The same applies in cases of two divisions to a squadron, one step up.) Granted, Janacek may have been happy to employ lots and lots of Conservative Association commodores and rear admirals, but the two-ship division level for wallers and CLAC's was not a Janacek innovation and he was called out in narration for the squadrons dropping from 8 to 6 for that possible purpose but not two ship divisions, so presumably even the narrator wasn't going to charge him with shenanigans for that.

So - is there some compelling reason to multiply levels of command that tightly? Or more specific reason to believe that the two ship division is most often commanded simply by the senior captain wearing two hats?

I think that there was some suspicion that the Janacek admiralty went to six ship squadrons to make room for the appointment of political officers and cronyism.

But what I remember of two ship divisions is that the senior captain served as an acting commodore. More specifically in War of Honor when the Andies were ratcheting up the tension, there is a scene where a division of BCs bluffed its way out of a potential shooting situation by trailing drones pretending to be pods. That division was under the command of a captain.

I don't remember any scenes in which you had SDs or SDPs operating independently of fleet, so I can't comment to that.

Don

2 old-school SDs had about 12,000 personnel, or about the size of an army division that is run by a 2 star.

n7axw wrote:I think that there was some suspicion that the Janacek admiralty went to six ship squadrons to make room for the appointment of political officers and cronyism.

The move from eight ships to six was a "spin-doctor" change so the High Ridge Government could reduce the number of ships without reducing the number of squadron-command slots.

I'm not sure, but it would be consistent with the rest of Janacek policies for every nearly flag deck to be occupied even if not specifically required or traditionally filled -- i.e. Division Commanders of commodore/rear admiral rank where traditionally the senior office would wear two hats as ship's captain and division command.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:I think that there was some suspicion that the Janacek admiralty went to six ship squadrons to make room for the appointment of political officers and cronyism.

The move from eight ships to six was a "spin-doctor" change so the High Ridge Government could reduce the number of ships without reducing the number of squadron-command slots.

I'm not sure, but it would be consistent with the rest of Janacek policies for every nearly flag deck to be occupied even if not specifically required or traditionally filled -- i.e. Division Commanders of commodore/rear admiral rank where traditionally the senior office would wear two hats as ship's captain and division command.

It also was for public comsumption as well. Ala, 'Well see, the Navy still has 40 Battle Squadrons (Or whatever the number was) in service, so the opposition is wrong about our cutting the Navy to the bone.' Of which Honor and Hamish rightly pointed out that 40 squadrons of 8 SDs ea is 320, while 40 squadrons of 6 SDs each is 240 which is 25% less ships. Janacek really hated them for that.

On a side note, I believe the RMN is still using 6 SD BatRons, so what about adding two of the new battle CLACs, (the ones armored up to provide refueling/rearming to LACs) to bring the BatRons back to 8 and provide organic LAC support to each BatRon?

kzt wrote:2 old-school SDs had about 12,000 personnel, or about the size of an army division that is run by a 2 star.

I'm not going to object to assigning someone of considerable rank, seniority, poise, and skill to command one of them. In addition to the large crew, it's the most dangerous artifact in human history.

The odd thing is assigning someone of even more rank, seniority, poise, and skill to command just two of them, in addition to the entirely competent and senior commanders of each of them individually. Between the three of them, there's simply not enough (as I can see, anyway) for all three of them to do, and far too much officer value expended for it. Elsewhere, a commander in a given position commands three, four, six or eight smaller units, and it works out well.

JeffEngel wrote:Per http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/si ... ngton/59/1 in the RMN during and at least immediately following the Janacek Admiralty, a division of wallers or CLAC's consists of two ships.

Now... Does this division have:
a) a captain for each ship, and the senior one also commanding the division as such,
b) a captain for each ship, and a commodore (or possibly an officer of another rank: that specific is not the issue here) for the division,
c) sometimes (a), sometimes (b) - perhaps (a) more when the division is operating in a larger group consistently, perhaps (b) when the flag officer is also commanding additional smaller screening elements?

I'd imagine subwaller it'd usually be a. Anything smaller than the BCs rarely had flag officers for more than squadron command, and likely had individual captains wearing a second "hat" to command a division.

Wallers, you probably nailed it with c, because wallers never travelled alone after the outbreak of hostilities at Hancock. We saw evidence that RMN Dreadnoughts occasionally flew solo on a routine rotation back to Manticore. Swatted Admiral Pierre's two BC divisions without any support.

Aside from swatting Pierre, the next occasion we saw any waller movement of less than squadron level, was in Yeltsin, Admiral Harrington commanded Second squadron against Admiral something or another. I think he had a half squadron + screen, and was doing some joint Manty-Grayson exercises prior to joining Sixth fleet. And that was a Rear Admiral for the DN's, and while we have no specific evidence of a dedicated screen commander, we can assume a Captain of the List, or maybe a Commodore. Hancock we had a Rear Admiral for a single BC squadron (Sarnow), plus a Commodore for the CA's.

Somtaaw wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Per http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/si ... ngton/59/1 in the RMN during and at least immediately following the Janacek Admiralty, a division of wallers or CLAC's consists of two ships.

Now... Does this division have:
a) a captain for each ship, and the senior one also commanding the division as such,
b) a captain for each ship, and a commodore (or possibly an officer of another rank: that specific is not the issue here) for the division,
c) sometimes (a), sometimes (b) - perhaps (a) more when the division is operating in a larger group consistently, perhaps (b) when the flag officer is also commanding additional smaller screening elements?

I'd imagine subwaller it'd usually be a. Anything smaller than the BCs rarely had flag officers for more than squadron command, and likely had individual captains wearing a second "hat" to command a division.

Wallers, you probably nailed it with c, because wallers never travelled alone after the outbreak of hostilities at Hancock. We saw evidence that RMN Dreadnoughts occasionally flew solo on a routine rotation back to Manticore. Swatted Admiral Pierre's two BC divisions without any support.

Aside from swatting Pierre, the next occasion we saw any waller movement of less than squadron level, was in Yeltsin, Admiral Harrington commanded Second squadron against Admiral something or another. I think he had a half squadron + screen, and was doing some joint Manty-Grayson exercises prior to joining Sixth fleet. And that was a Rear Admiral for the DN's, and while we have no specific evidence of a dedicated screen commander, we can assume a Captain of the List, or maybe a Commodore. Hancock we had a Rear Admiral for a single BC squadron (Sarnow), plus a Commodore for the CA's.

In Flag in Exile, (Sir) Rear Admiral Alfred Henries commanded a full battle squadron--8 SDs (although they were on the small side compared to most of Manticore's SDs--which became an important plot point early in chapter 18 of FiE when they were identified as SDs, not as DNs--if they had been identified as DNs the Peeps would have thought that Grayson was still covered by the GSN SDs).

Vince wrote:In Flag in Exile, (Sir) Rear Admiral Alfred Henries commanded a full battle squadron--8 SDs (although they were on the small side compared to most of Manticore's SDs--which became an important plot point early in chapter 18 of FiE when they were identified as SDs, not as DNs--if they had been identified as DNs the Peeps would have thought that Grayson was still covered by the GSN SDs).

Good catch, I need to put it on a Post-It note on my screen to not post until I've had my morning litre of tea to wake up. But yeah, re-reading, I don't think I made any other incorrect references.

Its been a while since I've read the earlier books in the series, but my impression is that the size of a division has changed at least twice.

All of the following is IMO and may be based on a faulty memory of the books.

In the earlier books (before the 1st Havenite War started) a division was 2 ships and the senior of the two captains acted as divisional commander without a dedicated "flag" staff; e.g. Pavel Young became deputy squadron commander when HMS Necromancer joined Hancock Station. Only the squadron commander had a staff.

Since the war started the move was made to four ship divisions. For ships up to heavy cruisers, the senior captain of the 2nd division acts as commodore, and has a "flag" staff in addition to directly commanding his own ship's, e.g. Scotty Tremaine. For battle cruisers and up, the 2nd division is commanded by an officer of at least Commodore's rank who does not directly command a ship

In the inter-war years of the Janacek Admiralty when battle squadrons were formed with six ships not eight (its not clear to me whether all squadrons shrank to six ships or just battle squadrons), my impression is that divisions went back to two ships which had a divisional "flag" staff (whether or not the commodore directly commanded a ship), and its this that Michelle Henke was thinking about when she is considers "added flexibility", as well as providing greater number of positions for Janacek's political appointees.

As I say that's all just my memory/impression of what has happened and its not helped by the fact that DW isn't always consistent about how he writes things, and can and does change things just so that certain characters can be involved in the chain of command (why does Abigail Hernes go to the flag lieutenants' lunch meetings?)