Solarian League Navy Personal

It will be fun waiting to see how Mr. David Weber handles the aforementioned valid discussions regarding future loyality behavior of both Frontier and Battle fleet Sollie navy personel.

If he chooses to use naval history as a guide, we might find that most, (but not certainly all) of the ships and crews will stick it out to the very end. WW2 Japanese navy and German U boats.

Or ... he might use the world war one model, (Germany and Russia) and have wholesale lots of men and ships up anchoring and maybe boggieing out of Dodge City while the running and living is good.

Which way will it go? Thank you Mr. Weber. Sometimes one person can make a difference. I for one think Frontier and Battle fleet will stick around and shoot it out until the end. Honor, duty, pride.

But ... even the small fraction of crews and ships that do mutiny and go rogue or pirate will still be enough in overall number totals to make interstellar commmerence very iffy in the league.

Some or a few of the commanders will be rich and connected. I for one wonder what specific type of Sollie warship(s) they will take with them? Then what will they do? Turn pirate? Yikes indeed.

Just me. I love this forum. HB of CJ (old coot)

HB of CJ wrote:It will be fun waiting to see how Mr. David Weber handles the aforementioned valid discussions regarding future loyality behavior of both Frontier and Battle fleet Sollie navy personel.

If he chooses to use naval history as a guide, we might find that most, (but not certainly all) of the ships and crews will stick it out to the very end. WW2 Japanese navy and German U boats.

Or ... he might use the world war one model, (Germany and Russia) and have wholesale lots of men and ships up anchoring and maybe boggieing out of Dodge City while the running and living is good.

Which way will it go? Thank you Mr. Weber. Sometimes one person can make a difference. I for one think Frontier and Battle fleet will stick around and shoot it out until the end. Honor, duty, pride.

But ... even the small fraction of crews and ships that do mutiny and go rogue or pirate will still be enough in overall number totals to make interstellar commmerence very iffy in the league.

Some or a few of the commanders will be rich and connected. I for one wonder what specific type of Sollie warship(s) they will take with them? Then what will they do? Turn pirate? Yikes indeed.

Just me. I love this forum. HB of CJ (old coot)

Up-anchoring or DOWN-anchoring? I thought many naval mutinies involved the sailors refusing to leave harbour.

It is remotely possible that a mutiny might have crew refusing to leave orbit except to defend the system or something like that. Often there are 'ringleaders' who have specific demands. If those demands are satisfied or if the mutiny is 'broken up' then it may be back to business as usual.

I don't think any armed forces allows personnel to arbitrarily 'quit' during a war. If anyone leaves the SLN it may be counted as desertion.

BobfromSydney wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:It will be fun waiting to see how Mr. David Weber handles the aforementioned valid discussions regarding future loyality behavior of both Frontier and Battle fleet Sollie navy personel.

If he chooses to use naval history as a guide, we might find that most, (but not certainly all) of the ships and crews will stick it out to the very end. WW2 Japanese navy and German U boats.

Or ... he might use the world war one model, (Germany and Russia) and have wholesale lots of men and ships up anchoring and maybe boggieing out of Dodge City while the running and living is good.

Which way will it go? Thank you Mr. Weber. Sometimes one person can make a difference. I for one think Frontier and Battle fleet will stick around and shoot it out until the end. Honor, duty, pride.

But ... even the small fraction of crews and ships that do mutiny and go rogue or pirate will still be enough in overall number totals to make interstellar commmerence very iffy in the league.

Some or a few of the commanders will be rich and connected. I for one wonder what specific type of Sollie warship(s) they will take with them? Then what will they do? Turn pirate? Yikes indeed.

Just me. I love this forum. HB of CJ (old coot)

Up-anchoring or DOWN-anchoring? I thought many naval mutinies involved the sailors refusing to leave harbour.

It is remotely possible that a mutiny might have crew refusing to leave orbit except to defend the system or something like that. Often there are 'ringleaders' who have specific demands. If those demands are satisfied or if the mutiny is 'broken up' then it may be back to business as usual.

I don't think any armed forces allows personnel to arbitrarily 'quit' during a war. If anyone leaves the SLN it may be counted as desertion.

No, Bob, but they could resign....

I was thinking more about this while mowing my lawn last night, and here's a possible scenario:

You're the Captain of a FF Battlecruiser, and you are considered to be reasonably competent, well-liked by your crew, and have good, if not great family connections that will get you to Admiral in another 10-12 years or so. But right now you are worried.

You know about Spindle and you've just heard about Pyun's adventures, and are waiting to hear (with more than a little trepedation) about Filareta and you are coming to the realization that fighting the Manties is a very risky business. You'd like to discuss it with your XO, but..

..he's been in sick bay trying to convince the Doc that he is suffering from a rare malady that requires he be sent to the nearest FF hospital...40 ly away. Given his connections with the local Transtellars and FF heirarchry (better than yours), he'll probably get away with it.

Well, there's always your highly competent Engineering Officer...but she's from Beowulf, and has already told you she plans to resign at the end of her tour (in about 2 months) and return home. For that matter, the eleven other Beowulfer's in the crew have said the same thing. Oh, they are doing their jobs as well as ever, but still...and crewmembers from a dozen other systems are follwoing the news from Sol much more closely than before.

And then there are the SLN Marines. The LTC in charge is hard-line SL, for sure, but a full company of his troops are from a nearby Protectorate system called Orlando, which is on a hair-trigger towards rebellion. The rest of the troops are following, with much apparent delight, the stories about General Palane on Torch and at least some are wondered about when their terms of service end.

So...nothing remotely like munitiny, but you (as a good captain) can see things are breaking down, that the high morale and teamwork you've worked to develop is breaking down....

And then you get called to the Rear Admiral's briefing, where you (1) Find out about Filareta (2) Find out your mission is to raid a system in Talbott against 'undetermined' Manty opposition and (3) On the way stop at Orlando and 'support' the Gerdarmine and the OFS President for Life, with KEWs if necessary.

Multipy that by thousands of ships and....

Interesting times, folks.

damn Hutch that is a scary and all to likely scenario.

Hutch wrote:So...nothing remotely like munitiny, but you (as a good captain) can see things are breaking down, that the high morale and teamwork you've worked to develop is breaking down....

And then you get called to the Rear Admiral's briefing, where you (1) Find out about Filareta (2) Find out your mission is to raid a system in Talbott against 'undetermined' Manty opposition and (3) On the way stop at Orlando and 'support' the Gerdarmine and the OFS President for Life, with KEWs if necessary.

Multipy that by thousands of ships and....

Interesting times, folks.

Yeaaaah. I have the sneaking suspicion that the Free State of Orlando is about to start life with an SDF of one battlecruiser.

It's a great account of how things can break down short of (or before) outright mutiny.

JeffEngel wrote:Yeaaaah. I have the sneaking suspicion that the Free State of Orlando is about to start life with an SDF of one battlecruiser.

It's a great account of how things can break down short of (or before) outright mutiny.

Seems more like a "they can't be THAT stupid" moment to me. Why would OFS deploy troops into an area where they might be called upon to invade their own home system?

For that matter, why would they recruit entire units from planets and keep them together?

The E wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Yeaaaah. I have the sneaking suspicion that the Free State of Orlando is about to start life with an SDF of one battlecruiser.

It's a great account of how things can break down short of (or before) outright mutiny.

Seems more like a "they can't be THAT stupid" moment to me. Why would OFS deploy troops into an area where they might be called upon to invade their own home system?

For that matter, why would they recruit entire units from planets and keep them together?

There's a lot to be said for both points. Still, sometimes OFS may screw up; the current environment is exceptional and produces problems/opportunities they've not had to worry about before; and when those Marines can, so many of them, tell similar stories about similar worlds, they may not have had to come from the same place to feel much as though they had for similar results, given this sort of pressure.

The E wrote:Seems more like a "they can't be THAT stupid" moment to me. Why would OFS deploy troops into an area where they might be called upon to invade their own home system?

For that matter, why would they recruit entire units from planets and keep them together?

Yeah, I moght have been reaching a bit on that.

Then again, maybe not. OFS and FF Command (back on Sol, remember) might not even bother to care about such things, after all, they are 'merely' neo-barbs, and who cares about where they come from?

Having them grouped together...yeah, that might be a thing or not, I don't know if the SL Marines (who appear to have their act together, if no one else in the League does) would allow a group that enlists from the same planet to stay together. They might, if the group was large enough and perhaps had (language/cultural) differences that made it easier to group them together.

So OK, I'm reaching. But I think the principle that sven hauke started with, that within the SLN there are going to be some internal problems, is justified.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

Hutch wrote:

The E wrote:Seems more like a "they can't be THAT stupid" moment to me. Why would OFS deploy troops into an area where they might be called upon to invade their own home system?

For that matter, why would they recruit entire units from planets and keep them together?

Yeah, I moght have been reaching a bit on that.

Then again, maybe not. OFS and FF Command (back on Sol, remember) might not even bother to care about such things, after all, they are 'merely' neo-barbs, and who cares about where they come from?

Having them grouped together...yeah, that might be a thing or not, I don't know if the SL Marines (who appear to have their act together, if no one else in the League does) would allow a group that enlists from the same planet to stay together. They might, if the group was large enough and perhaps had (language/cultural) differences that made it easier to group them together.

So OK, I'm reaching. But I think the principle that sven hauke started with, that within the SLN there are going to be some internal problems, is justified.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

Yeah, I agree. There are going to be internal problems. In specific cases, what you outlined sounds realistic. What I am not buying into is the notion that these problems are going to be to such an extent as to cause the disintegration of the SLN.

Don

n7axw wrote:

Hutch wrote:So OK, I'm reaching. But I think the principle that sven hauke started with, that within the SLN there are going to be some internal problems, is justified.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

Yeah, I agree. There are going to be internal problems. In specific cases, what you outlined sounds realistic. What I am not buying into is the notion that these problems are going to be to such an extent as to cause the disintegration of the SLN.

Don

The camel's got a lot of straws on its back. Crew reliability - even absent the officers who are working for Detweiler - is one more. That's all.