Fortress Command

ChronicRDer wrote:Also, who commands a star fort? I can't see it being below a Captain (SG), but I'm wondering if we have textev anywhere.

JeffEngel wrote:I don't recall any textev either but I'm confident of the same conjecture.

This is interesting. Does it imply that these Captains may be pulled from a ready pool of RMN officers? If so, then perhaps at some point they could be rotated back out? Where the lovely Stephania Grimm could find herself back on a ship?

Nah. That'd never happen, 'cause I'd like it too much.

Late Edit:
Checking Grimm's personnel file, she did begin life in the RMN.

Biography

Stephania Grimm was a Manticoran citizen and an officer first of the Royal Manticoran Navy and later the Royal Manticoran Astro-Control Service.

Grimm reached the rank of Captain (SG) in the Navy before transferring to the ACS. After rising to the rank of Admiral, she was in command of the Manticore Wormhole Junction's traffic control service by 1921. While she and her core crew were celebrating her birthday aboard HMSS DaGama, the Republic of Haven Navy attacked the Manticore System as part of Operation Beatrice.

The Admiral initiated Case: Zulu, alarming all RMN ships and stations that an invasion of the capital system was imminent. She then declared Condition Delta, clearing the junction of all traffic and issuing orders to have Junction Defense Command prepare for the Battle of Manticore.

cthia wrote:

ChronicRDer wrote:Also, who commands a star fort? I can't see it being below a Captain (SG), but I'm wondering if we have textev anywhere.

This is interesting. Does it imply that these Captains may be pulled from a ready pool of RMN officers? If so, then perhaps at some point they could be rotated back out? Where the lovely Stephania Grimm could find herself back on a ship?

Nah. That'd never happen, 'cause I'd like it too much.

Fortress Command is a portion of the RMN. The RMN's got hyper-capable ships, hyper-incapable small craft (LAC's), hyper-incapable monster ships (fortresses), and hyper-so-incapable stations. It's all RMN. Fortress Command is somewhat specialized, but I doubt it's got a personnel pool that is walled off on either side from the more mobile portion of the Navy.

I'm sure it works in close coordination with Astro Control at the Junction, but ACS has plenty of work for Admiral Grimm and will growl at anyone trying to take her.

I could see A single officer commanding a unit (squadron? division?) of forts being a Captain SG, but I'd imagine most of them actually being Commanders. Possibly of the variant that had been reviewed by the dreaded "not fit for independant command" tag.


They're not fit for independant command, which would always put them under command of someone else, and I believe there was reference to planetside or desk posts. A fort being non-hyper capable would be an almost ideal place to put them. Technically a desk and planetside post, will almost always put them as a subordinate to a higher rank who IS qualified for independent command.

Misplaced by books, but the XO of one of the ships that went to relieve Terekhov at Monica (wasn't it the XO of the superdreadnought?) who kept calling Terekhov a hothead. His captain tried to reason with him, and eventually shook her head, sat back and mentally thought she just killed his career.

Given the size and firepower (and crew) a fortress is prety much guarenteed to have a full captain (SG) as a unit commander with several commanders acting as department chiefs.

Even if they are modern reduced crew units they will have close to 700-800 crew and that is a Captains command.

Somtaaw wrote:I could see A single officer commanding a unit (squadron? division?) of forts being a Captain SG, but I'd imagine most of them actually being Commanders. Possibly of the variant that had been reviewed by the dreaded "not fit for independant command" tag.


They're not fit for independant command, which would always put them under command of someone else, and I believe there was reference to planetside or desk posts. A fort being non-hyper capable would be an almost ideal place to put them. Technically a desk and planetside post, will almost always put them as a subordinate to a higher rank who IS qualified for independent command.

Misplaced by books, but the XO of one of the ships that went to relieve Terekhov at Monica (wasn't it the XO of the superdreadnought?) who kept calling Terekhov a hothead. His captain tried to reason with him, and eventually shook her head, sat back and mentally thought she just killed his career.

It's not an independent command, no, but it is a command of the single most powerful units in the RMN. Maybe it may be filled by officers whose habits and attitudes aren't suited to making decisions that bind the Star Empire far out and away from anyone more senior; the fortress commander won't be in that situation. But they're going to have a rank - and a general tactical and administrative competence - commensurate with the value and crew complement of the unit under their command.

It'd be a waste for a Salamander, but still nowhere you'd want a Santino or a Young.

A fortress is still a combat command, at least it is one in which you should be competent to engage as a commanding officer in combat.
A fortress doesn't go looking for trouble, neither is it going to be sailing around out of contact (theoretically) from local higher command authority.

On the other hand, it is charged with the fairly boring duty of maintaining a position or rotating in and out of various positions in concert with other commands and having to react and defend- probably with zero notice- against an attack against the home system or a major straigic asset of the SEM (The Junction, one of the Junction termini, a planitary system such as Basilisk etc).

So, you need a competernt leader who can manage a substantial naval unit (these ARE capable of movement and that movement can be both repeditive (such as on & out of rotation as a terminus guard point) and station keeping. It has to maintain competence of it's crew and equipment and be able to go from standby to General Quarters &/or Battle Stations in essentialy the blink of an eye. If you are in the 1st line (or second or third) of the forts defending the incoming lanes of a terminus, you are going to have to react- correctly- really fast because the ship(s) comming at you out of the wormhole are going to be capable of killing you really quickly. If you are on the outer layers of a terminus defense (say around the Terminus at Beowulf or Lynx) you would have to react (at worst case) to an enemy cutting the drop out of hyperspace just short of the limit and comming in on a good preplanned attack trajectory and having a fair idea of where you might be in relation to wherever they had planned to drop in. So you have to get your defences all the way up, free you weapons (fully chaged and cycled ready to fire) and engage before you can be hit by any fire aimed you way- even if the attacker is going to blow by your position at extreem ranges (like a planitary system, you have to defend 360/360 around a sphere even if the "normal" approch vectors are much more limited.

At minimum you are going to have a Commander but some one who is going to be capable of doing the job. The scene described it the Admiral as the Commanding Officer of the Astro Control at the Junction. She switched gears (from a birthday party for her to repelling an attack on Home System) with no noted difficulty and brought ALL of her forces (including the ones off-duty/out of standup rotation) to Case Zulu and notified everybody, plus cleared the junction's traffic -in anticipation of combat and whatever else might be needed to be done if requested by the system command including Commander- Home Fleet.

The Admiral would appear to have been at least competent at her varioius jobs during her career. When Haven attacked, she also appears to have done exactly what she was supposed to do in good order.

Brigade XO wrote:A fortress is still a combat command, at least it is one in which you should be competent to engage as a commanding officer in combat.
A fortress doesn't go looking for trouble, neither is it going to be sailing around out of contact (theoretically) from local higher command authority.

On the other hand, it is charged with the fairly boring duty of maintaining a position or rotating in and out of various positions in concert with other commands and having to react and defend- probably with zero notice- against an attack against the home system or a major straigic asset of the SEM (The Junction, one of the Junction termini, a planitary system such as Basilisk etc).

So, you need a competernt leader who can manage a substantial naval unit (these ARE capable of movement and that movement can be both repeditive (such as on & out of rotation as a terminus guard point) and station keeping. It has to maintain competence of it's crew and equipment and be able to go from standby to General Quarters &/or Battle Stations in essentialy the blink of an eye. If you are in the 1st line (or second or third) of the forts defending the incoming lanes of a terminus, you are going to have to react- correctly- really fast because the ship(s) comming at you out of the wormhole are going to be capable of killing you really quickly. If you are on the outer layers of a terminus defense (say around the Terminus at Beowulf or Lynx) you would have to react (at worst case) to an enemy cutting the drop out of hyperspace just short of the limit and comming in on a good preplanned attack trajectory and having a fair idea of where you might be in relation to wherever they had planned to drop in. So you have to get your defences all the way up, free you weapons (fully chaged and cycled ready to fire) and engage before you can be hit by any fire aimed you way- even if the attacker is going to blow by your position at extreem ranges (like a planitary system, you have to defend 360/360 around a sphere even if the "normal" approch vectors are much more limited.

At minimum you are going to have a Commander but some one who is going to be capable of doing the job. The scene described it the Admiral as the Commanding Officer of the Astro Control at the Junction. She switched gears (from a birthday party for her to repelling an attack on Home System) with no noted difficulty and brought ALL of her forces (including the ones off-duty/out of standup rotation) to Case Zulu and notified everybody, plus cleared the junction's traffic -in anticipation of combat and whatever else might be needed to be done if requested by the system command including Commander- Home Fleet.

The Admiral would appear to have been at least competent at her varioius jobs during her career. When Haven attacked, she also appears to have done exactly what she was supposed to do in good order.

I don't get the feeling that Astro Command is a Siberia posting either. It demands the best of the best. An Elvis Santino would not have his people well oiled and drilled. What's the use of having forts if the crew is inadequate, slow to respond, can't think on their own and cannot function in unprecedented circumstances? Like my sweetheart Stephania the Grimm reaper.

Instead of being ordered to that post, I would think that the brightest and best-fitting officers are approached and asked to volunteer. Much like Truman and Abigail. It's too important a posting.

pnakasone wrote:
Ah but remember that until the fall of the High Ridge government that in the SKM the House of Lords controlled the purse strings it had more then enough "liberal or insular conservative" members to severely limit the spending on more SDs.

Was the limit on ships or military spending in general? I think the political aspect is a little overplayed. Granted it would have been hard but I don't think ultimately impossible. From my understanding the fight was military spending period rather than allowing spending for forts but no spending for mobile ships.

jchilds wrote:Isn't the MWJ in that lovely gray area of being near Manticore but not strictly in Manticoran space?

If so, Manticore needed to provide a solid, near-permanent armed presence to depress the ambition of everyone to stop by and lay a claim, not just the Peeps. Using mobile units to provide that presence would risk it not being there when it was needed, or indeed having it deceived into uncovering the Junction at the right/wrong time.

Again though, a mobile force would allow you to picket the Junction with a permanent force of SD's but this also provides a reserve for Home Fleet. Think about the planning process for an attack on the Home System if the enemy( whoever it may be) had to consider to powerful mobile forces where one could very well pin any attacking force against the either the Junction Mobile Fleet or Home Fleet.

Having fixed or semi- fixed stationary defences could mean that you have substantial firepower in multiple locations without the means of supporting each other. And let's be fair, the biggest threat would not be from a mass transit from Trevors Star because a mass transit would send an inadequate force without the means of getting back home. The biggest threat would be from someone sending a fleet to the junction through other means than any of it's terminals.

boballab wrote:
The simple basic reason that they went with Forts over mobile units is politics plain and simple. All the reasons about how those ships are now obsolete didn't apply in the late 1800's. This was explained in OBS about how combat became ritualized and it also explains how the SLN remained top dog. The SLN had 11,000 SD's (around 2000 active and around 9000 in reserve) and there had been no big changes in combat in hundreds of years so no one in their right mind was going to take those odds on.

So lets recap the political situation prior to the war, to get the majority in the House of Lords and be able to form a government the Duke of Cromarty had to make a deal with the Conservative Association. Part of that deal was to make Janacek First Lord of the Admiralty and cater to the Conservative Associations position of nothing hinting towards expansion or as they put it "antagonize their neighbors". Also at the same time the Liberals and Progressives would not pay for "big ticket" military items which and SD is. This was explained in On Basilisk Station Chapter 2.
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Forts that can't hyper out, following that logic, are not "antagonizing to their neighbors", however 200 SD's that can attack, capture and annex another planet is alarming so the Conservatives would veto it and Cromarty would lose his coalition and the government would collapse just as he was fearing the war was about to start.

Janacek did the same thing when High Ridge took over and he once again was First Lord. He canceled all the new SD's being built at Grendlesbane and only let the ones being built at the Manitcoran yards continue because it was a jobs project to their coalition partners and it was visible to the home planet.

Opposing big ticket military budgets means something different than opposing SD's specifically.


As for the policy under the High Ridge government, that was pure and simple arrogance. They though they had the technological edge and needed the funds to buy off their supporters.