Havenite midshipmen

kzt wrote:The Soviet Union had multiple military schools (academies are for already career officers) for the Soviet Army, not just one like is typical in the West. IIRC, they were generally branch specific. And yes, there were professional officers, but you didn't volunteer to be in the military, every male who wasn't medically disqualified served in some form. IIRC, things like the Border Guards were filled by conscription too, so it wasn't just they typical military.

Anyhow, as the the idea of sending Haven midshipmen to the RMN academy, I really doubt it. The academy is more than a place to learn tactics and basic engineering, it's part of the indoctrination and evaluation process. In Haven's case teaches you how to think and behave like a Republic of Haven Naval Officer. This ignores the language issue, which I think exists to at least some extent.

Sending a US HS graduate (who happens to be fluent Russian speaker) to a Russian officers school, like the Moscow Military Commanders Training School, is not going to put out a graduate who can smoothly move into the training pipeline to run a US infantry platoon. They won't understand the US army, they understand the Russian army and how it works, and they are not the same thing.

Nor would a Russian graduate of West Point be ready to be assigned to a position in the Russian Army, no matter how fluent they are in English.

There is a place for this, and it's once you are in service and established.

For example, while I was in the Field Artillery Basic Officers Course we had two foreign officers with us. One was a captain in the Colombian army (and seemed pretty useless), the other was a lT in the Honduran army and was pretty hard core. But this was to teach people how to be FA officers in an army using US type weapons and doctrine.

Also Yes and no, on Soviet military academies. Military and Party elites could send their children to better schools. They were oftentimes sent what were essentially military prep schools. In rare cases a political nobody could gain access elite schooling if someone hire up the food chain took notice and had the connections to do so.

Like you said in your post about foreign officers going to U.S. service schools the same thing happens with the U.S. military all over the place the RN RAN RCN RNN RNoN and FN frequently attend each others service schools FYI Prince Harry learned combat tactics of the AH-64D at Nellis AFB. Also my brother attended the German Army Mountain Leader School. It's equivalent of the U.S. Armies Ranger School.

Somtaaw wrote:

munroburton wrote:
Indeed, Pierre wouldn't have been so worried about Parnell's popularity after the Cerberus Break if most of Caslet's graduating class had left the service. Most of the non-Legislaturalists amongst them would have become captains or commodores by the time Parnell returned from the dead.

So Havenite midshipmen would be expected to serve decades - definitely send them to Saganami if they can.

The Peep Navy relied on conscripts for the bulk of their officer corps, and it was well under a decade for the time between Parnell's "execution" and his reappearance. Lieutenants and Ensigns started out with Parnell as CNO, and were now Commodores and Admirals with Pierre (and then Theisman).

It might have been the outbreak of the war that delayed Caslet's class leaving, or maybe that was simply the class of semi-professional "lifers" I can't quite see Parnell showing up to take the oaths of a bunch of conscripts that would leave after a decade or so of service. I think it was in Echoes of Honor on the ground on Cerberus that describes the Peep officer corp (I originally thought it was Kevin Usher in tSVW assassinating Constance, but it wasn't so digging up the relevant quotes)

But I do recall very firmly that Haven has few mustangs, a very small professional officer corps (where you'd get Middies from), and pretty heavy on conscripts that "barely stay long enough to operate the existing equipment, let alone learn to service it themselves. It's that "not learning to service" thing that damns the Peep officers as "very high turnover, low service time".

Cite for this please. My memory and understanding was that the enlisted ranks relied heavily on conscripts, not the officer ranks. And that the officers performed most of the duties that were performed by NCOs in the RN.

George

If you don't think that someone like Theisman, who readily understood all of the traditional disadvantages the RHN faced due to their personnel policies, would not have sought about correcting that in the inter-war years you give the man no credit. Just like he split up 12th fleets command teams and had Giscard and Tourville take on new staffs to train out of the recognition that the RHN needed more than 2 or 3 good command teams.

I can all but guarantee that Theisman would have attempted to make the RHN's officer corp (and the enlisted) more professional in every possible way, up to and including the creation of an Advanced Officer Course and a bigger focus on their naval academy (and don't kid yourselves, they certainly had one). Besides, its not like the Havenites were 'bad' officers who needed the RMN to teach them about war - its that their equipment, nepotism, overall conscript education level, and then executions severely distressed the RHNs ability to allow its good commanders to fight on anything approaching equal terms.

White Haven - Parnell
D'Orville - Rollins
Webster - McQueen
Kuzak - Chin
Harrington - Theisman
Yanakov - Giscard
Sarnow - Tourville

Think of the difference between Soviet officers and American officers in the 70s.. Sure, in the junior ranks you would have a great disparity in average skills in favor of the Americans, due to the differences in the number of career officers. But, the higher up the chain of command you went the better the overall quality of both nations would be (once you take into account the political/technological/etc differences). Basically, the average Soviet senior officer (who didn't get there solely due to politics) was likely as professional and competent as the average American senior officer.

Now, could I see the RMN, RHN, and GN (and perhaps Beowulf) setting up a joint academy where, say, promising 1st/2nd LTs would go for an intense, but short, course before they took on their first assignments as Tactical Officers or Executive Officers? Short of a 'Crusher-Lite', that had as a secondary purpose throwing former enemies together to help build relationships and professional respect among those officers identified early on as promising and full of potential? Certainly.

To continue the comparison, the Soviet Army had a bunch of thing it did differently that the US or the West. The focus on operational art, deep operations and diversionary forces (aka spetznaz), the historical emphasis on artillery (the Red God of War) were certainly not part of the US army's focus in the early 80s. The integration of ground and air is easier, as there is no separate air farce yearning to only do cool things, but instead frontal aviation was clearly part of the army.

Due to these things the Soviet Army was trained and equipped differently. Equipment was designed with much less operational lifetime, so it was used much less in exercises than US gear was (when the US had money). But in a high intensity war things get destroyed rapidly, so if they could go say 500 km forward that was good enough, other forces would come in keep up the advance. Their use of conscripts simplified tactics, but they understood them and presumably could execute them well enough.

It's unclear how things would have actually worked in a war, but they were a very serious opponent.

I think the members of the great alliance should think more about the Details of their alliance.

Think of the NATO:

The united states Forces don´t work exactly as the Forces from great Britain or Germany, but they have create Standard so that they can work together.

I think it would be a good idea to send experieded officers to other academies of the allince.

The manticorian officers can maybe learn something about the Havenites, surely the can understand their Background better with such a Exchange.

Maldorian wrote:I think the members of the great alliance should think more about the Details of their alliance.

Think of the NATO:

The united states Forces don´t work exactly as the Forces from great Britain or Germany, but they have create Standard so that they can work together.

I think it would be a good idea to send experieded officers to other academies of the allince.

The manticorian officers can maybe learn something about the Havenites, surely the can understand their Background better with such a Exchange.

Exchanges for the Crusher course and the RHN version of it for those that passed their navy's version? That's a good idea. Having Academy teachers from the various allied navies circulate between each other's academies is also a good idea.

Actually having experienced officers retake academy classes? Not so much.

PeterZ wrote:

Maldorian wrote:I think the members of the great alliance should think more about the Details of their alliance.

Think of the NATO:

The united states Forces don´t work exactly as the Forces from great Britain or Germany, but they have create Standard so that they can work together.

I think it would be a good idea to send experieded officers to other academies of the allince.

The manticorian officers can maybe learn something about the Havenites, surely the can understand their Background better with such a Exchange.

Exchanges for the Crusher course and the RHN version of it for those that passed their navy's version? That's a good idea. Having Academy teachers from the various allied navies circulate between each other's academies is also a good idea.

Actually having experienced officers retake academy classes? Not so much.

Think of it as more of an "OpFor" concept... Promising mid-level officers (Senior Captains and Commodores) could have a 'detached duty' assignment where they rotate to the other's Academy for the final ~20% of the term. They would sit in on some classes to gain appreciation for the others' tactics/concepts/etc, and then play the role of the "OpFor" in simulations for the soon to be graduates.

That would have two major advantages:
1- You would get to have your officers closest to reaching Admiral spend some intense time with a key ally, learning at their Academy about their navy and meeting some of their promising officers. They would also get to go against them, with the thought that different traditions will approach the same situation differently so broaden the visiting officers horizons.
2- Your students, at your Academy, will have the chance to switch "OpFors" at the very end of their term and have to throw away every tendency/pattern/etc they may have begun to notice. Their minds will get stretched further with the experience as well.

Both navy's end up with mid/senior officers who have faced a wider array of simulations, personally know officers from the other navy (not a small thing with former enemies), and are likely more well-rounded. That's a win.

First point, were Soviet officers conscripts? The following is from my sometimes error prone memory. The ranks from Lieutenant and higher were professional officers. The ranks of Michman, equivalent to US Warrants, were promoted from the enlisted ranks.

Second, while not a cross-national school issue, the USS Winston S. Churchill is famous for having a PERMANENTLY assigned RN officer as a crew member.

If every male is required to perform military service as an enlisted man or officer then the choice of being in the military isn't voluntary. You are just choosing whether to perform your mandatory service as an enlisted man or officer.

Once you have fulfilled the mandatory part, choosing to stay in the military makes you a professional, whether as an officer or not.

Henry Brown wrote:Now that Manticore and Haven are allied, do you think there will be Havenite students at Saganami Island? Other Manticore allies such as Grayson and Erewhon (back when they were still part of the alliance) send students there. So there is a precedent.

I'd have to say no. The RHN is probably 2 or 3 times the size of RMN in terms of manpower, and because of the side effects of the People's Republic's educational system so has an even more unbalanced ratio of officers. Sending that many officer cadets to Saganami Island would be impossible