Honorverse ramblings and musings

Grayson alone would have been more likely about #50 or lower in 1905. Every navy with a SD or two ranks higher and we know there are at least 25 of these (and probably more). Then you have those navies with with multiple BC squadrons, like the Confederacy. Plus decently equipped SDFs in the SL. And of the 1800 or so members I suspect there are a few of those.

kzt wrote:Grayson alone would have been more likely about #50 or lower in 1905. Every navy with a SD or two ranks higher and we know there are at least 25 of these (and probably more). Then you have those navies with with multiple BC squadrons, like the Confederacy. Plus decently equipped SDFs in the SL. And of the 1800 or so members I suspect there are a few of those.

It looks like Grayson received 2 squadrons of old RMN Redoubtable BCs in 1903, started building their Courvosier BC in 1904, and bought 3 Reliants in 1905. As of Hancock, they probably had 18-20 BCS in their inventory

With 2+ squadrons of BCs in their Pocket Grayson was probably solidly in the top 200 navies, though in a very top heavy manner, as they only had a few DDs, CLs and CAs to back the BCs.

I stand corrected on the 1905 Grayson fleet size, but I'll nitpick and say we can't include any of the SDF's outside of Beowulf, because we don't actually have data on any of them.

Yes, we have a few Mandarin fears in ART, that by calling Beowulf's succession intentions to be 'treason' could put other Core World's backs up, who also have 'substantial SDFs'... but we have no actual data on what they consider to be substantial. After all, they thought that Haven and Manticore hammering away with hundreds of wallers to be inconsequential, and that Beowulf's 36 superdreadnoughts were annoying, but ultimately too weak to stop the League Navy.

But outside of those fears, and general thoughts about neobarb navies, we don't have cold hard data anywhere except Beowulf. So those SDF's could be anywhere from 36 superdreadnoughts to being larger than SEM's entire fleet; regardless of the weapon systems being primitive compared to GA tech.

David has already said in several places that having a self defense force is anomalous by itself. Most League members don't see any reason to raise their own military force out of their own pockets. It's for the same reasons you don't see a state in the US operating its own carrier battle group - there's simply no need when you can rely on the larger governing polity to provide. Even those that do have their own fleets are usually battlecruiser sized or smaller. Very few would have squadrons of wallers like Beowulf, much less have fleets rivaling the Haven Quadrant powers at full wartime readiness.

Duckk wrote:David has already said in several places that having a self defense force is anomalous by itself. Most League members don't see any reason to raise their own military force out of their own pockets. It's for the same reasons you don't see a state in the US operating its own carrier battle group - there's simply no need when you can rely on the larger governing polity to provide. Even those that do have their own fleets are usually battlecruiser sized or smaller. Very few would have squadrons of wallers like Beowulf, much less have fleets rivaling the Haven Quadrant powers at full wartime readiness.

I will point out that the NYPD is somewhere around #50 to #60 in a list of the largest armies in the world.

A quick Google search says that the actual ranking is 96th, behind Kuwait, in terms of total bodies; and 72nd in terms of active personnel.

Somtaaw wrote:I stand corrected on the 1905 Grayson fleet size, but I'll nitpick and say we can't include any of the SDF's outside of Beowulf, because we don't actually have data on any of them.

Yes, we have a few Mandarin fears in ART, that by calling Beowulf's succession intentions to be 'treason' could put other Core World's backs up, who also have 'substantial SDFs'... but we have no actual data on what they consider to be substantial. After all, they thought that Haven and Manticore hammering away with hundreds of wallers to be inconsequential, and that Beowulf's 36 superdreadnoughts were annoying, but ultimately too weak to stop the League Navy.

But outside of those fears, and general thoughts about neobarb navies, we don't have cold hard data anywhere except Beowulf. So those SDF's could be anywhere from 36 superdreadnoughts to being larger than SEM's entire fleet; regardless of the weapon systems being primitive compared to GA tech.

No SDF is larger than the RMN fleet.

From HoS:

By the end of the century (1900pd), the RMN had become the third most powerful navy inexistence; arguably, today, it is the galaxy’s leading naval power in light of its numbers, technological superiority, and expertise.

Theemile wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:I stand corrected on the 1905 Grayson fleet size, but I'll nitpick and say we can't include any of the SDF's outside of Beowulf, because we don't actually have data on any of them.

Yes, we have a few Mandarin fears in ART, that by calling Beowulf's succession intentions to be 'treason' could put other Core World's backs up, who also have 'substantial SDFs'... but we have no actual data on what they consider to be substantial. After all, they thought that Haven and Manticore hammering away with hundreds of wallers to be inconsequential, and that Beowulf's 36 superdreadnoughts were annoying, but ultimately too weak to stop the League Navy.

But outside of those fears, and general thoughts about neobarb navies, we don't have cold hard data anywhere except Beowulf. So those SDF's could be anywhere from 36 superdreadnoughts to being larger than SEM's entire fleet; regardless of the weapon systems being primitive compared to GA tech.

No SDF is larger than the RMN fleet.

From HoS:

By the end of the century (1900pd), the RMN had become the third most powerful navy inexistence; arguably, today, it is the galaxy’s leading naval power in light of its numbers, technological superiority, and expertise.

But Grayson, even just armed with a few squadrons of Reliants, and her first home-grown Courvosiers is still a powerful force, and we have no data on the general Solarian SDF force. We simply know there are several that are nearly as powerful as Beowulf (36 SD's), but no hard data on that. Which is what I was saying, modifying my original 1905 estimate to put Grayson as in lock-step with the RMN, to "less powerful than IAN, but probably more powerful than just about anyone we don't have hard data on"

Knocked this up based on active SD and SDP numbers as of 1920 and averaging Theemile's figures from the antipiracy defense thread. Works out at approximately 3600 active wallers, being generous to the white-elephant navies with the definition of active.

Yes... I mislabelled the RHN. Initially started with 1905 numbers, but there are fewer hard data points.

Somtaaw wrote: Which is what I was saying, modifying my original 1905 estimate to put Grayson as in lock-step with the RMN, to "less powerful than IAN, but probably more powerful than just about anyone we don't have hard data on"

We know the GSN is weaker than the Confederacy navy then, and it is likely to be weaker than most of the other navies we have heard about without details. It's a decent neo-barb SDF, but not a significant force or one that has any significant power projection capabilities.