Stratifying navies

ldwechsler wrote: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.

Not quite on the IJN battleships on December seventh.
The U.S. had around twenty battleships in commission and four nearing competition and four under construction versus the IJN ten battleships in commission and one fitting out and one under construction.

IIRC the breakdown goes as this
IJN
Ise class x2
Fuso class x2
Kongo class x4
Yamato class 1 fitting out 1 under construction

USN
Wyoming class 1
New York class x2
Nevada class x2
Pennsylvania class x2
New Mexico class x3
Tennessee class x2
Colorado class x3
North Carolina class x2
South Dakota class 4 nearing competition
Iowa class 4 under construction

saber964 wrote:
Not quite on the IJN battleships on December seventh.
The U.S. had around twenty battleships in commission and four nearing competition and four under construction versus the IJN ten battleships in commission and one fitting out and one under construction.

IIRC the breakdown goes as this
IJN
Ise class x2
Fuso class x2
Kongo class x4
Yamato class 1 fitting out 1 under construction

USN
Wyoming class 1
New York class x2
Nevada class x2
Pennsylvania class x2
New Mexico class x3
Tennessee class x2
Colorado class x3
North Carolina class x2
South Dakota class 4 nearing competition
Iowa class 4 under construction

Unlike the Japanese however the USN was split between the Atlantic Fleet and Pacific. Even using the Panama Canal redeployment would take time.

Most of the Pacific Fleet battleships were at Pearl Harbor but at least one, Colorado was refitting on the US West Coast.

Of the ships you list, North Carolina and Washington wouldn't be ready for combat deployment immediately and South Dakota herself was still fitting out IIRC.

NC and SD would see first combat off or near Guadalcanal. Washington would first spend time with the Royal Navy at Scapa Flow helping cover the Murmansk convoys and then redeploy to the Pacific and join SD in a night action against a Japanese surface force built around battleship Kirishima.

2 additional Iowa's, Kentucky and Illinois were laid down but never completed. 6 even larger Montana class battlewagons were designed and ordered but were cancelled before the first steel was cut or keel laid.

Sorry, I sometimes get going and don't know when to stop.

robert132 wrote:

saber964 wrote:
Not quite on the IJN battleships on December seventh.
The U.S. had around twenty battleships in commission and four nearing competition and four under construction versus the IJN ten battleships in commission and one fitting out and one under construction.

IIRC the breakdown goes as this
IJN
Ise class x2
Fuso class x2
Kongo class x4
Yamato class 1 fitting out 1 under construction

USN
Wyoming class 1
New York class x2
Nevada class x2
Pennsylvania class x2
New Mexico class x3
Tennessee class x2
Colorado class x3
North Carolina class x2
South Dakota class 4 nearing competition
Iowa class 4 under construction

Unlike the Japanese however the USN was split between the Atlantic Fleet and Pacific. Even using the Panama Canal redeployment would take time.

Most of the Pacific Fleet battleships were at Pearl Harbor but at least one, Colorado was refitting on the US West Coast.

Of the ships you list, North Carolina and Washington wouldn't be ready for combat deployment immediately and South Dakota herself was still fitting out IIRC.

NC and SD would see first combat off or near Guadalcanal. Washington would first spend time with the Royal Navy at Scapa Flow helping cover the Murmansk convoys and then redeploy to the Pacific and join SD in a night action against a Japanese surface force built around battleship Kirishima.

2 additional Iowa's, Kentucky and Illinois were laid down but never completed. 6 even larger Montana class battlewagons were designed and ordered but were cancelled before the first steel was cut or keel laid.

Sorry, I sometimes get going and don't know when to stop.

The old battleships in the Atlantic fleet was IIRC Arkansas Texas New York and the three New Mexico class. The North Carolina class was having engineering problems and were being worked on in Atlantic coast NSY's. Also IIRC after Pearl Harbor the three New Mexico's were transferred to the Pacific to serve in TF 1 with the hastily completed Colorado and the lightly damaged Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Pennsylvania and Tennessee would serve in that capacity until September and November 1942 when both would be refitted stateside.

Somtaaw wrote:

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.

They were still there for the IAN. They might have been there to discourage piracy to a degree but that would have been a job for the BC's not the SD's.

The RMN had 1/4 of their obsolete SDs there while only about 8% of their SD(P)'s.

Somtaaw wrote: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.

I'm not entirely sure that the RMN was discouraging Haven from doing anything in the region. Tensions had been building up with the IAN in the previous few years and Haven had stayed out of the are for the entire time. Their fleet was there only in secret meaning the RMN couldn't know they were there to discourage them in the first place.

Somtaaw wrote: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.

That would be an awful big hammer for such a small nail. You don't discourage piracy with SDs or DNs. The RMN under High Ridge was obsessed with light combatants so sending cruisers and destroyers backed by LACs would have been more their speed than SDs and BCs if it was simply a piracy suppression. And if they were suppressing piracy with SDs and BCs they would not have kept them in one consolidated position but rather spread them out across the region.

Sigs wrote:

Somtaaw wrote: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.

I'm not entirely sure that the RMN was discouraging Haven from doing anything in the region. Tensions had been building up with the IAN in the previous few years and Haven had stayed out of the are for the entire time. Their fleet was there only in secret meaning the RMN couldn't know they were there to discourage them in the first place.

That was the overall mission, think back to Honor Among Enemies, when Honor took the first generation LAC's aboard the Wayfarer HMAMC's. Haven tried once to distract the RMN by using Silesia, so it makes sense that Manticore would commit more units there to prevent Haven from even thinking about a second try.

And since Giscard advocated using battlecruisers and even battleships, as part of his lecturing on the topic of commerce raiding, that means the RMN had to commit wallers as part of the "discourage Haven from thinking of trying round 2". At the time of HaE, the RMN didn't [i]have[i] the ships to spare, particularly because they were still trying to capture Trevor's Star.

Somtaaw wrote: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.

That would be an awful big hammer for such a small nail. You don't discourage piracy with SDs or DNs. The RMN under High Ridge was obsessed with light combatants so sending cruisers and destroyers backed by LACs would have been more their speed than SDs and BCs if it was simply a piracy suppression. And if they were suppressing piracy with SDs and BCs they would not have kept them in one consolidated position but rather spread them out across the region.[/quote]

Normally, you are right using SD's to swat pirates is stupid. But those wallers were stationed in Silesia long before the tensions with the IAN started. Otherwise they would have deployed with Honor, based off the meeting where Janacek, Chakrabarti and Jurgensen

"Yes, Sir. But if we're going to reinforce Sidemore on the scale I think the threat levels we'll be assuming are going to require, then we'll also have to pick somebody to command those reinforcements. Rear Admiral Hewitt, the station's present commander, is actually on the junior side for what's already assigned to it. He's much too junior to command what's about to become one of our three largest fleet

And only a page earlier

We have no indications as yet that Emperor Gustav is contemplating any sort of operations against us, although that possibility can never be completely discounted. It seems more likely, however, that what he has in mind—so far, at least—is basically to put on a show of force."

The IAN was only just beginning it's show of force and Hewitt was already deployed with multiple SD squadrons. And since at the time all this was happening, was post-Buttercup truce negotiations, and the IAN hadn't (yet) begun flexing, unless you have a better suggestion what 18 RMN wallers were doing in Marsh/Silesia, the only thing I can think of is sitting around waiting for a threat to go smash.

Except, again, those threats would have been pirates/slavers, 200 IAN superdreadnoughts, or Haven. Nobody else (at the time) had interests or reason to be in Silesia.

Somtaaw wrote:Normally, you are right using SD's to swat pirates is stupid. But those wallers were stationed in Silesia long before the tensions with the IAN started. Otherwise they would have deployed with Honor, based off the meeting where Janacek, Chakrabarti and Jurgensen

"Yes, Sir. But if we're going to reinforce Sidemore on the scale I think the threat levels we'll be assuming are going to require, then we'll also have to pick somebody to command those reinforcements. Rear Admiral Hewitt, the station's present commander, is actually on the junior side for what's already assigned to it. He's much too junior to command what's about to become one of our three largest fleet

And only a page earlier

We have no indications as yet that Emperor Gustav is contemplating any sort of operations against us, although that possibility can never be completely discounted. It seems more likely, however, that what he has in mind—so far, at least—is basically to put on a show of force."

The IAN was only just beginning it's show of force and Hewitt was already deployed with multiple SD squadrons. And since at the time all this was happening, was post-Buttercup truce negotiations, and the IAN hadn't (yet) begun flexing, unless you have a better suggestion what 18 RMN wallers were doing in Marsh/Silesia, the only thing I can think of is sitting around waiting for a threat to go smash.

Except, again, those threats would have been pirates/slavers, 200 IAN superdreadnoughts, or Haven. Nobody else (at the time) had interests or reason to be in Silesia.

The RMN forces at Sidemore at this time seem to be aimed at discouraging the Anderman Empire from getting ideas about annexing parts of Silesia. Note that: although the RMN had not built back up its light forces in Silesia to prewar levels, RMN force levels at Sidemore Station were not quite at the level of multiple squadrons of SDs before Honor arrived:

War of Honor, Prologue wrote:By rights, the RMN should by now have reverted to its prewar stance throughout the Confederacy. It hadn't, and in some ways, the situation was even worse than it had been before the war. The Manticorans hadn't built their light forces back up to their traditional levels, which meant piracy continued to flourish largely unchecked in much of the Confederacy. Worse, some of the "pirates" out here had acquired rather more capable ships. None of them were bigger than cruisers, but so far the Manties and the IAN between them had destroyed at least three of those which had . . . left the service of the People's Republic of Haven and fled to find greener pastures elsewhere. That meant that not only had the level of lawless activity increased, but so had its scope, with more planetary raids added to run-of-the-mill piracy. Intelligence's most recent estimate was that as many as a quarter million Sillies had been killed in the last year alone. A pinprick against the total population of something the size of the Confederacy, but a horrifying number when it was considered in isolation.
But if the Manties hadn't built their light forces back up, they had established a treaty relationship with the Sidemore Republic in the Marsh System. Over the past eight T-years, Sidemore had been built up into a fairly powerful fleet base, despite the Manticorans' need to concentrate most of their effort against the Peeps. The Marsh System's location, just outside the somewhat amorphous borders claimed by the Confederacy and on the flank of the Empire-to-Confederacy leg of the Manties' "Triangle Route," made it an ideal logistics base for the RMN's operations throughout southwestern Silesia.
Other than a certain desire to do it for himself, Glockauer had no objection to watching the Manticorans swat pirates. And their Marsh-based flotillas had enabled them to do a remarkable job of pacifying something like a tenth of the entire Confederacy. But they'd done it by establishing a Manticoran presence in an area in which they had persistently refused to countenance an Andermani one. If any star nation had a legitimate interest in controlling the situation in Silesia to protect its own borders and territorial integrity, that nation was the Andermani Empire . . . not the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Worse, the Manties had based an entire task force, two understrength squadrons of the wall, with battlecruiser and cruiser support, at their new Sidemore Station.

Italics are the author's, boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.

two understrength squadrons of the wall

The maximum strength of wallers this could be would be 15 units and if Janacek had already downsized the squadron levels, (8 units per squadron under the old establishment, 6 units per squadron under Janacek' new establishment) it could be only as high as 11 wallers.

Somtaaw wrote:
That was the overall mission, think back to Honor Among Enemies, when Honor took the first generation LAC's aboard the Wayfarer HMAMC's. Haven tried once to distract the RMN by using Silesia, so it makes sense that Manticore would commit more units there to prevent Haven from even thinking about a second try.

And all of that happened a decade earlier. You don't discourage piracy with capital ships larger than BCs. A pirate is just as dead if he meets a CA so having an SD there for anti piracy seems to be extreme overkill. Haven was encouraging the Andermani to be more aggressive, and it was likely a two to tree year venture rather than a couple of months. So just because things heated up requiring Task Force 34 the RMN kept a force there to mind their interest.

Somtaaw wrote:And since Giscard advocated using battlecruisers and even battleships, as part of his lecturing on the topic of commerce raiding, that means the RMN had to commit wallers as part of the "discourage Haven from thinking of trying round 2". At the time of HaE, the RMN didn't [i]have[i] the ships to spare, particularly because they were still trying to capture Trevor's Star.

That was before Haven actively went back to war with Manticore. When the RMN did not have enough ships to defend Gredelsbane, Manticore or Trevors star, I doubt they would deploy wallers for anti-piracy.

Somtaaw wrote:Normally, you are right using SD's to swat pirates is stupid. But those wallers were stationed in Silesia long before the tensions with the IAN started. Otherwise they would have deployed with Honor, based off the meeting where Janacek, Chakrabarti and Jurgensen

Tensions with the Andermani did not go from zero to 100 in months, there would have been a buildup which would have required a response.

Somtaaw wrote:The IAN was only just beginning it's show of force and Hewitt was already deployed with multiple SD squadrons. And since at the time all this was happening, was post-Buttercup truce negotiations, and the IAN hadn't (yet) begun flexing, unless you have a better suggestion what 18 RMN wallers were doing in Marsh/Silesia, the only thing I can think of is sitting around waiting for a threat to go smash.

1)You are making an assumption on the time line. We don't know how long any of the SD's were there...it could be 6 months or 2 years. Manticore could have had nothing bigger than a BC there a year prior but with escalating tensions it required a proper response and they build up their strength. There is zero reason for them to fear Haven post Buttercup and before the announcement of Havenite SD(P)s.

2)There is no logical reason to post SDs into a region as anti piracy and keep them concentrated at your base. Pirates will not be discouraged by SD's if they know those SDs are tied to the base. And if those SDs are not discouraging piracy they must be doing something else. And if they are not there to discourage Haven that leaves only the IAN.

Sigs wrote:2)There is no logical reason to post SDs into a region as anti piracy and keep them concentrated at your base. Pirates will not be discouraged by SD's if they know those SDs are tied to the base. And if those SDs are not discouraging piracy they must be doing something else. And if they are not there to discourage Haven that leaves only the IAN.

Not unless the ally you are supporting was recently rescued from a squadron of rogue "freedom fighters" (who were supporting themselves by piracy in squadron strength.)

The SDs were on Sidemore Station to support, protect, and train the Marsh Navy. The biggest threat at the time of the treaty and establishment of Sidemore Station was "pirates" out of Silesia with Andermani expansionism a distant second.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:2)There is no logical reason to post SDs into a region as anti piracy and keep them concentrated at your base. Pirates will not be discouraged by SD's if they know those SDs are tied to the base. And if those SDs are not discouraging piracy they must be doing something else. And if they are not there to discourage Haven that leaves only the IAN.

Not unless the ally you are supporting was recently rescued from a squadron of rogue "freedom fighters" (who were supporting themselves by piracy in squadron strength.)

The SDs were on Sidemore Station to support, protect, and train the Marsh Navy. The biggest threat at the time of the treaty and establishment of Sidemore Station was "pirates" out of Silesia with Andermani expansionism a distant second.

And what was the heaviest warship that committed those acts in Marsh? I believe it was a heavy cruiser, you don't need a squadron or two of SD's and DN's to protect a system from a bunch of pirates with nothing heavier than a CA.

Sigs wrote:And what was the heaviest warship that committed those acts in Marsh? I believe it was a heavy cruiser, you don't need a squadron or two of SD's and DN's to protect a system from a bunch of pirates with nothing heavier than a CA.

What Warnecke and his minions had is irrelevant. What some other Independence Group or deposed dictator might have in the future is relevant. A Dozen SDs both show the Sidemoreans that Manticore is truly committed to defending them and are proof against ANY possible force that might come out of Silesia.

Not so much proof against any Andermani aggression but still a serious trip-wire that would force the Andermani to bring their "A-Game" so they can't dismiss it as a rogue officer's fault.

Two Squadrons of SDs is undoubtedly over-kill for most threats in the area, but there's a good bit of politics and PR involved, too.