Stratifying navies

Iirc, most of 8th fleet was IAN ships.

Fox2! wrote:Have we seen enough of the Andy fleet to definitely place it in the first tier, rather than at the top of the second tier? Sure, they can run rampant in Silesia, and even contribute SD(P)s to a joint action. But are there enough SDs, both old and new style, to protect the Imperial core, and to be able to take on Grayson, never mind Manticore or Haven? Consider how many SD(P)s Haven threw at Manticore in the ultimately ill-fated Operation Beatrice. Honor was ultimately able to take 8th Fleet to Haven only because so much of the RHN orbited Manticore A in ruins or captivity. White Haven could have taken Haven as the culmination of Buttercup because the PRN didn't have SD(P)s or advanced LACs.

kzt wrote:Iirc, most of 8th fleet was IAN ships.

the IAN had enough podnought to double Eighth Fleet's podnought count just after Solon. We don't know exactly how many (if any) lesser ships, but they committed at least 2 to 3 full (8 ship) squadrons to Honor's order of battle.

That was on top of whatever they kept for their portion of Silesia, figure 1 or 2 squadrons there. And then the main Imperial core, figure at least another 4 squadrons and a possible Home Fleet to protect their capital, figure at least another squadron or two there, since they aren't directly threatened and protected by distance.


That sums up to a guesstimated 8 plus squadrons, or the entire Grayson fleet including the Protector's Own as a minimum figure. Quite probably they're actually twice that size, because they're a multi-system Empire and Grayson is a single system that's still heavily staffed by RMN loaners.

But without a doubt, the IAN is classed a first tier navy, alongside the RMN and RHN, or even against the old People's Navy.

Oops, my previous post was in error. Honor's order of battle was 2 podnought squadrons prior to Solon, and going in to punch out Lovat she had 3 podnought squadrons.

If I recall right (still searching for the passages in question), the Andermani pulled their technicians off around 50% of their podnoughts they earmarked for serving against Haven to focus on a third, which yielded 40 podnoughts immediately prior to Honor attacking Lovat. Most of the rest of those refit IAN podnoughts stayed with RMN Home Fleet. By that math, the IAN earmarked somewhere between 70 to 100 podnoughts to serve with the RMN, not counting what they kept at home.

In my previous post, I guesstimated they kept 1-2 squadrons for Silesia, upto 4 spread over the Imperial core, and 1-2 for their own form of Home Fleet. Which ups the total IAN podnought count to approximately 200, spread over three theatre's, two after the Grand Alliance formed and the Andermani didn't enter it.


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Ok, found the passage:

At All Costs, Ch 54 wrote: "Fourth, there's the Andermani. The Manties and Graysons have lost about twenty superdreadnoughts—twelve of them pod-layers—since Thunderbolt wrapped up. That's about seven percent of their total podnoughts. But the Andies are still out there somewhere, and so far, we've seen very few of their capital ships. There are at least a couple of squadrons of them assigned to the Manties' Home Fleet, but that's about it. By our estimates, they should have somewhere around a hundred and twenty pod-layers by now—just about a third of the Manticoran Alliance's total—and we haven't seen them yet. We know they aren't at Trevor's Star, and intelligence suggests there's still some technical problem with them. We know they were conducting a major refit program on the Andy wallers, and we're assuming that explains their continued absence.

So the IAN has at least 120 podnoughts, and that's just what Haven could confirm. It's possible they missed some, that have been kept for service in purely Andermani territory, so it's possible they have a couple extra squadrons.

somtaaw wrote:
So the IAN has at least 120 podnoughts, and that's just what Haven could confirm. It's possible they missed some, that have been kept for service in purely Andermani territory, so it's possible they have a couple extra squadrons.

Look at the 1920 Fleet List. As of March 1920 pd, The IAN had 42 SD(P)s, 193 SDs, and 18 DNs in active service, with 30 SDs in reserve and 70 DNs in reserve.

The IAN was planning on building 120 Adler SD(p)s, which fired massive capacitor DDMs; when they entered the war, the RMN modified the existing 42 ships to fire RMN pods with the older capacitor 3 drive mk 41 MDM missiles. The remaining 80ish SD(p)s still under construction were modified to fire pods with mk 23 fusion missiles and hold Keyholes on their flanks.

Upset with their progress, the Emperor focused construction on 1/2 the ships under construction, getting those focused ships to Honor's eighth fleet for BoMa. The last ~40 ships were supposedly completed after BoMa.

Traditionally (from SITS), the IAN has not assigned SDs or DNs to their Silesia Fleet Base (Fleet sector 5), that may have changed after the annexation, but the SCN never fielded anything larger than a small BC, so ships larger than a BC are unnecessary for pacification efforts.

Theemile wrote:
Traditionally (from SITS), the IAN has not assigned SDs or DNs to their Silesia Fleet Base (Fleet sector 5), that may have changed after the annexation, but the SCN never fielded anything larger than a small BC, so ships larger than a BC are unnecessary for pacification efforts.

Use of SD(P)s by the Andies in Silesia may not be necessary but to the military mind, if you have it available show it off because nothing intimidates a potential foe like Overkill. Nothing makes a potential nail keep its head down better than a bigger hammer.

On the other hand those same "bigger than they need to be" warships making the rounds periodically can also comfort nervous subjects and citizens, making them feel like the folks in the front office actually do care (even if they really don't.)

The subject is not only complex but convoluted. Manticore, all through this series, was at a numerical disadvantage against both Haven and the Sollies.

But numbers clearly do not say all. Remember that at the start of WWII, the US Navy was not THAT far behind the Japanese navy in terms of number of capital ships. Of course, the US lost 7 battleships the first day. And the Japanese carriers, particularly their aircraft, were far in advance of what the US had at the very start of the war.

But the US could produce far more warships and by 1943 it was pushing back the Japanese even through some of the weapons were not as good (torpedoes) and others were only gaining superiority.

In the Honorverse, at the start of the war the Manties were probably a generation ahead of Haven and the HAvenite systems were a real mess in terms of education and manufacturing.

The Andermanni were always considered by Manticore essentially on the same level.

The Solarians were feared so much for their numbers that few seemed to notice that their ships were generations behind. It takes time to catch up. So they might be considered a top tier navy but not when they have to fight a tough opponent.

There are a huge number of variables. Shannon Foraker turned into a major variation all by herself. Haven ships quickly grew dangerous. But we tend to forget that all of this took place over years. DW didn't write a lot of books with Janacek in charge. But he was there for years messing things up and allowing Foraker's changes to life Haven back into the top tier.

Will the Sollies have the time to upgrade? Will they let the talent go or prefer to pay off the big shots? And will the Mesalliance allow them the time?

kzt wrote:What made Grayson highly dangerous was their allies. Committing the scale of forces needed against them offers the possibility that your allies will attack them while you are occupied in your operation against Grayson. The actual bestdown of Grayson might take 48 hours, but it takes at least a month where a big chunk of your forces are committed to the operation, and probably more like 2+ months.

As was mentioned earlier, how much you have to protect matters, but also who your allies and enemies. If you have a known enemy that you have to continually guard against then your freedom of action is constrained. If you don't have any enemies like that, have no need to garrison againt revolts and have lots of allies around your important areas it makes your ability to project power much greater than someone in the reverse situation with the same size military.

robert132 wrote:

Theemile wrote:
Traditionally (from SITS), the IAN has not assigned SDs or DNs to their Silesia Fleet Base (Fleet sector 5), that may have changed after the annexation, but the SCN never fielded anything larger than a small BC, so ships larger than a BC are unnecessary for pacification efforts.

Use of SD(P)s by the Andies in Silesia may not be necessary but to the military mind, if you have it available show it off because nothing intimidates a potential foe like Overkill. Nothing makes a potential nail keep its head down better than a bigger hammer.

On the other hand those same "bigger than they need to be" warships making the rounds periodically can also comfort nervous subjects and citizens, making them feel like the folks in the front office actually do care (even if they really don't.)

The Andermani were stationing wallers to Silesia at two main times, first in HaE we saw Honor requesting Andermani wallers to go hit Warnecke (they weren't available in the timeframe she planned so she went in solo, but that means they were there). Second the IAN started deploying (additional) wallers to Silesia in WoH, when the Emperor was getting ready to conquer Silesia and muscle the RMN out.


Additionally, the RMN stationed almost 2 full SD squadrons to Marsh, prior to the Andies getting ready to annex Silesia. Those RMN wallers were stationed primarily to stop Haven from getting grabby, but given the distance from Haven to Silesia, and the two Manticoran terminii they didn't really need to station full-time wallers there either; but they did.

If the RMN could afford to station more than 1 SD squadron out to Silesia on a full-time basis, despite being so far from it, the IAN definitely would.

Also annexing Silesia like they did has the Solarian League pretty pissed off, only the League is allowed to conquer other nations like that. And if both IAN/RMN were deploying wallers in the area for a form of super anti-pirate display even before they actually owned the space, both will definitely commit some wallers to protect space they've formally annexed.

There's probably an agreement now between the RMN & IAN now, that due to Andermani proximity, they'll provide a little more wallers than they really need to function as aid to RMN forces. They were doing that sort of thing in HaE, Chien-lu Andermani Herzog von Rabenstrange himself informed Honor:

Honor Among Enemies wrote:Our merchant marine is far smaller than yours, and in order to avoid any impression of provocative behavior, we've somewhat reduced our own presence in the Confederacy. At present, we're restricting ourselves to providing escorts for our own shipping and maintaining light forces only in the most important nodal systems. Naturally, your larger merchant fleet is much more exposed than our own, just as your available units are stretched more tightly. His Majesty wishes me to say that in those areas in which we are maintaining an IAN fleet presence, our captains have been instructed to provide protection to your vessels, as well as our own. Should your Admiralty wish to redeploy its available strength in light of those instructions, we will watch your back for you when you do so.

I imagine that between WoH and ART, the IAN was operating in a similar manner, helping the RMN to a point with some overlap over systems that are close to each others borders. Which would let the RMN continue taking the war to Haven properly, while the IAN wallers were being refit, until it turned into the Grand Alliance against the League.

But since the IAN is sitting out of that war, for the moment, they very well might (again) operate like in HaE, and watch the RMN's back while said RMN continues using the SLN like a round-bottom doll. This would also give those Solarian battlecruiser raiders a chance to actually inflict damage, since the IAN isn't quite as experienced, or as advanced tech as the RMN.

Somtaaw wrote:
If the RMN could afford to station more than 1 SD squadron out to Silesia on a full-time basis, despite being so far from it, the IAN definitely would.

If I remember correctly, the RMN stationed 1 Squadron of SD(P)s and 4 SD squadrons because of the IAN units in the region. The Protector's own was send in secret to reinforce Task Force 34 because there was suspicion that Haven might attack but the RMN send their units because of the IAN.

robert132 wrote:

Theemile wrote:
Traditionally (from SITS), the IAN has not assigned SDs or DNs to their Silesia Fleet Base (Fleet sector 5), that may have changed after the annexation, but the SCN never fielded anything larger than a small BC, so ships larger than a BC are unnecessary for pacification efforts.

Use of SD(P)s by the Andies in Silesia may not be necessary but to the military mind, if you have it available show it off because nothing intimidates a potential foe like Overkill. Nothing makes a potential nail keep its head down better than a bigger hammer.

On the other hand those same "bigger than they need to be" warships making the rounds periodically can also comfort nervous subjects and citizens, making them feel like the folks in the front office actually do care (even if they really don't.)

Yes, but they don't have it available. Manticore just lost the vast majority of it's Industry as did Grayson. The SLN and an enemy of unknown strength are at was with the GA. As it stands the Andies can lose their portion of Silesia and it would not impact their industrial capabilities. Deploying SD(P)s to a region where they are not needed might be an option when you are at peace, but when you are potentially at war with the unknown party and might soon be at war with the League you would be best advised to protect your industrial core.

Sigs wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:
If the RMN could afford to station more than 1 SD squadron out to Silesia on a full-time basis, despite being so far from it, the IAN definitely would.

If I remember correctly, the RMN stationed 1 Squadron of SD(P)s and 4 SD squadrons because of the IAN units in the region. The Protector's own was send in secret to reinforce Task Force 34 because there was suspicion that Haven might attack but the RMN send their units because of the IAN.

I'm not sure if it was just because of the IAN starting to get frisky, it was also as a deterrent to Haven to try using raiding battlecruisers ala Giscard again.

It wasn't until Honor's Task Force arrived that the RMN officially shifted from anti-piracy and discouraging Havenite operations to specifically include the IAN. Rear Admiral Hewitt had 3 Superdreadnought squadrons and 5 battlecruiser squadrons for that anti-Haven, and anti-pirate work.

Honor then later arrived with orders to discourage IAN friskiness with 5 additional BatRons, 4 standard SD's and 1 podnought, and the understrength CLAC's. But the pre-existing ships, including wallers were definitely not there just to stop the IAN.