Stratifying navies

Navies seem to be naturally stratified directly according to their financial sustainability. Even now on pre prolonged Earth. The USSR was defeated by this notion (though they seem to be displaying a new lease on life). Certainly, in light of their nation's savings after their naval budget died of natural causes for so many decades.

It isn't about how much a government can afford to pour into their navy but how long they can sustain it. A notion which is at the heart of the economic diplomacy against North Korea.

How does this notion play out in the Honorverse? The League's worlds allowed it to build an enormous navy -- though stunted by its arrogance and lack of a pace car. The size of the Havenite population allowed it to build a huge navy. Though its sustainability was threatened by breadcrumbs on its citizens' table fueling the expansion mentality which in turn fueled the need to sustain the navy. A circular problem, one begetting the other.

The size of the Manticoran's bank account itself sustained by the MWJ allowed it to build and more importantly sustain a huge navy. From whence does the Andermani get their sustainability?

I'm not sure how Grayson was financially able to continue its buildup effort as long as it did to make up for the High Ridge government's build down.

The League's sustainability wasn't tested because there were no real League wars. Perhaps the Andermani's sustainability is in the fact that they have had no real war? Can the Andermani sustain their navy in the face of a protracted war?

There's also the need to sustain the butcher bill. Certainly the population of the League has no problem there -- one may think if only given a cursory glance. But if one factors in the enormous manning requirements per ship in comparison to its enemies and the fact that their crew is protected by straw ships and impotent COs, well...

Where in God's creation did Bupers pull all of the much needed Manty asses out of a hat? Even considering that an average Manty crew is protected by significantly more than simply straw ships and COs.

The Havenites would have no real immediate problem with their butcher bill except for the cream of the crop -- well trained and experienced officers.

But Grayson, a single planet navy just doesn't have the meat for the butcher -- thus no manning sustainability to fight in the big league unless they can seriously protect the quarterbacks.

Doesn't matter how big your hammer is if there is no one to wield it. May as well be Thor's hammer.

We Americans have a saying "You have to bring ass to get ass." And Grayson simply has no ass. Noassatall. That's why they have loaner programs...

"Manticore, lend me some ass for the butcher."

Sigs wrote:Basically, losing Marsh costs them a base which they can recapture at a later date, losing Grendelsbane or Trevors Star cost them the chance to essentially double the RMNs SD(P) strength within 6 months to a year.

Grendelsbane had a full blown fabrication production system able to manufacture everything needed for ships. If I was in change I would have started building the missile and missile pods for the SD(P)s immediately as soon as it becomes obvious the war is back on. I suspect that having 30,000 Mk-23 pods in orbit around the complex would have made it just a bit more expensive to attack.

Sigs wrote:Yeah but now there are 1400-1600 LACs defending, 1-2 dozen more BCs and 20-30 Cruisers and destroyers.



Basically, losing Marsh costs them a base which they can recapture at a later date, losing Grendelsbane or Trevors Star cost them the chance to essentially double the RMNs SD(P) strength within 6 months to a year.

The point I'm getting at is, the forces at Sidemore weren't really enough to guarantee a different outcome for any of the other main battles during Operation Thunderbolt. Especially as Theisman had pretty good intelligence on their numbers and deployments - his mistake was not anticipating GSN intervention.

The only transfer that would've made any difference was the GSN fleet going to Grendelsbane instead of Trevor's Star. That does result in the probable loss of Trevor's Star and Third Fleet.

However, Grendelsbane is further from Grayson than Trevor's Star(by way of Manticore) is. Had they gone there instead, they might have arrived after the Havenite attack.

And then the Alliance really would be screwed.

PS: I made a slight error in my previous post - lumping the Protector's Own SD(P)s in with the RMN's when moving the Sidemore forces to Grendelsbane. Upon reflection, that's unlikely to be the case. So the podlayer ratio at Grendelsbane could be reduced to 13 vs 28.

kzt wrote:

Sigs wrote:Basically, losing Marsh costs them a base which they can recapture at a later date, losing Grendelsbane or Trevors Star cost them the chance to essentially double the RMNs SD(P) strength within 6 months to a year.

Grendelsbane had a full blown fabrication production system able to manufacture everything needed for ships. If I was in change I would have started building the missile and missile pods for the SD(P)s immediately as soon as it becomes obvious the war is back on. I suspect that having 30,000 Mk-23 pods in orbit around the complex would have made it just a bit more expensive to attack.

Not to mention a handful of extra firecontrol nodes, just to overwhelm anything incoming with missiles.

kzt wrote:

Sigs wrote:Basically, losing Marsh costs them a base which they can recapture at a later date, losing Grendelsbane or Trevors Star cost them the chance to essentially double the RMNs SD(P) strength within 6 months to a year.

Grendelsbane had a full blown fabrication production system able to manufacture everything needed for ships. If I was in change I would have started building the missile and missile pods for the SD(P)s immediately as soon as it becomes obvious the war is back on. I suspect that having 30,000 Mk-23 pods in orbit around the complex would have made it just a bit more expensive to attack.

The problem is that the only people who saw that war was a very distinct possibility were the Graysons and people not friendly to High Ridge. Adm Higgins would have been screwed if he went ahead, made more pods and was wrong. Still should have but...


What really confuses me is when Grayson when they clearly saw that war was coming decided to send the protectors own to defend a system of little value except for it's commander while not reinforcing a system which would have doubled the RMN's SD(P)s.

munroburton wrote:

The point I'm getting at is, the forces at Sidemore weren't really enough to guarantee a different outcome for any of the other main battles during Operation Thunderbolt. Especially as Theisman had pretty good intelligence on their numbers and deployments - his mistake was not anticipating GSN intervention.

If Trevor's Star attack follows the same pattern then there would have been around 92 SD(P)s there. If the RMN had deployed the SD(P) Squadron to Trevor's Star instead of Marsh and 2nd Fleet was attacked to the attack there as well the odds would been about right.

Some time after the outbreak of hostilities the RHN estimated that each Allied SD(P) is worth 1.25-1.35 Havenite SD(P)s. And taking 92 SD(P)s from Trevor's Star, adding 12 from 2nd Fleet and we get a total of 104 SD(P)'s for Haven. While the GSN and RMN would ~92 SD(P)'s of their own with Honor's Squadron. Using the 1.25:1 comparison they would have had the equivalent of 115 SD(P)'s plus the 52 old-SDs plus whatever number of BCs and below were deployed. Even if the RMN did not in fact send that squadron there the odds would be about even.

Whereas the odds in Grendelsbane increase either way. If the Protectors Own reinforced Grednelsbane and 2nd Fleet reinforced the attack on Trevor's Star the odds would be greatly in favour of the Alliance. It would be 19 Allied SD(P)s to 14 Havenite SD(P)s. Even if second Fleet went there the odds would be good especially considering the number of SDs present plus reinforcements of CLAC's that would come with the Protector's Own. Chances would be good that Trevor's Star would turn out the way it did an Grendelsbane would be either a complete victory for the Alliance or the RHN would withdraw without battle.

The only transfer that would've made any difference was the GSN fleet going to Grendelsbane instead of Trevor's Star. That does result in the probable loss of Trevor's Star and Third Fleet.

Not really, the Alliance still held a qualitative difference over the RHN which meant that the odds would be about even if 2nd Fleet went to reinforce the attack on Trevor's Star and Honor's Squadron went and reinforced Home Fleet or Grendelsbane.

However, Grendelsbane is further from Grayson than Trevor's Star(by way of Manticore) is. Had they gone there instead, they might have arrived after the Havenite attack.

If I am not mistaken the Protectors Own left for Marsh a lot earlier than the reinforcements for Trevor's Star did.

You keep ignoring one thing - Havenite intelligence had near-perfect numbers on RMN deployments, thanks to the raging debates over naval spendings in the Manticoran parliament.

It was impossible for any RMN strategical deployments to be unknown by Haven. That is the basis for my belief that the only possible surprise reinforcements comes from the GSN, barring the RMN Home Fleet sitting on top of the Junction(which they weren't).

Shuffling RMN SD(P)s squadrons back and forth does nothing to alter Thunderbolt's outcomes. That operation was precisely planned with the objective of destroying as many RMN SD(P)s as possible - which is the only reason why Second Fleet went to Silesia.

Furthermore, the GSN were only able to act on the eve of Thunderbolt because of specific intelligence gained in Silesia. Remember Tourville's dispatch destroyer? If the RMN SD(P)s had not been at Marsh, that destroyer would never have been in Silesia for Admiral Bachfisch to follow.

So when Thunderbolt happened, the GSN would have been sitting in orbit around Yeltsin's Star, of no use to either Trevor's Star or Grendelsbane.

Depending upon whether Honor Harrington accepted the Sidemore Station assignment with no SD(P)s to command, the Protector's Own would still be there to secretly back up the old SDs and DNs in case the IAN got too aggressive. But, as above, if there are no RMN SD(P)s, they would never face a Second Fleet.

The strategical importance of destroying Grendelsbane's unfinished ships is why I believe the RHN commander would have performed long-range MDM bombardments utilising ballistic coasting periods regardless of how many defenders there were. The Grendelsbane system has no inhabited planets, so no risk of an EE violation at all.

It costs him nothing but his missiles to do this. Even if twice the GSN reinforcements at Trevor's Star had shown up at Grendelsbane, Admiral Griffiths had the capability to launch a maximum-pod ballistic bombardment from beyond the hyper limit and flee before any return fire could reach him.

It wouldn't be as bad as Higgins' self-destruct order, mind you. But still bad.

No they don't. They might know where they were 6 months ago, but they don't know where they are now or where they will be next month. That is just not the granularity of data described. And even then, the turn around time on data is multiple months.

Sigs wrote:What really confuses me is when Grayson when they clearly saw that war was coming decided to send the protectors own to defend a system of little value except for it's commander while not reinforcing a system which would have doubled the RMN's SD(P)s.

Consider ... Protector Benjamin owes (in his view) little or no loyalty to the High Ridge government due to the scuzzy way Grayson had been treated since High Ridge became PM.

On the other hand, Admiral STEADHOLDER Harrington in his mind has earned and deserves all the respect and support he can provide, and he JUST HAPPENS to have this little fleet called "The Protector's Own" lying around, running the occasional exercise but not really doing anything useful at the moment, and it's Commanding Admiral has been "whining" that his people are losing their fine edge, so ...

So why not send these ships to reinforce Steadholder Harrington's thin line of ships, he thinks to himself. It provides him a way to both deliver a backhanded slap to High Ridge and Janasek and to provide The Protector's Own with a long deployment exercise as an excuse to get them to someone who might, just might need them if it all goes to hell (as it did.)