Can a Roland carry Marines?

You could probably do comparisons between WWII APD's. These ships were old destroyers and newer destroyer escorts converted to carry troops for a short time (up to 3 weeks) the destroyer based APDs carried 4 LCVP landing craft and up to one company of troops for up to 21 days. The destroyer escort based APDs carried 2 LCVP and a platoon of troops for 14-17 days.

Theemile wrote:While I know KZT is just being rhetorical

Roland: 188750 tons
Length: 446 M 1463 feet
Beam: 54 M 177 feet
Draught: 45 M 148 feet

For Comparison:

Freedom Tower
Height: 1362 feet (Observation deck)
Length: 200 feet
Width : 200 feet

So even a Roland is .... Kinda big....

And it was noted by David that a significant reason for this hugeness was the flag facilities. Which rather strongly suggests is isn't 50 square meters of space but more like 8000 square meters, which would require ~6000 tons of "mass". That's almost two footballs fields. So yeah, I can't possibly think of how you could fit a platoon in two football fields and have them live for a couple of weeks without them going all stir crazy from the tight quarters.

kzt wrote:

Theemile wrote:While I know KZT is just being rhetorical

Roland: 188750 tons
Length: 446 M 1463 feet
Beam: 54 M 177 feet
Draught: 45 M 148 feet

For Comparison:

Freedom Tower
Height: 1362 feet (Observation deck)
Length: 200 feet
Width : 200 feet

So even a Roland is .... Kinda big....

And it was noted by David that a significant reason for this hugeness was the flag facilities. Which rather strongly suggests is isn't 50 square meters of space but more like 8000 square meters, which would require ~6000 tons of "mass". That's almost two footballs fields. So yeah, I can't possibly think of how you could fit a platoon in two football fields and have them live for a couple of weeks without them going all stir crazy from the tight quarters.

Problem is that most of the cruises go on for months. And marines are not used all that often. They are handy if you capture ships but quite often the original crews are dropped off somewhere and only a skeleton crew may be needed to get the captured ship home.

As I recall, the number of people in the crew of the Roland was pretty small. That means a real lot of automation. Chances are there are not many jobs to keep marines busy.

There may be a small number of marines on the ship anyway. Tradition has a marine guarding the captain's quarters. And, of course, if a mission is one that does need some troops, they can be taken along.

But if the ship is acting as a screen for a group of larger ships, there is no great need for a large number of marines.


You could, however, store a lot of extra supplies in that area. That could allow for the extension of missions. If the mission is to raid and capture enemy ships, take along troop ships.

It's pretty settled I think.
If you need to move a squad, or maybe even 2 depending on how much equipment you need to take, a short distance from planet A to planet B or similar, then yes you could use a Roland.

Being an infantryman in garrison is pretty boring according to the former infantrymen I know. A lot of show up at 6am, do the same pt you always do, eat breakfast, clean company area, a group gets sent off to something menial for bn or brigade, sit around while the leadership has meetings, have lunch, do some sort of class, sit around during the nco call that take 2 hours, have a formation and get released until pt in the morning.

So not so different. Better run units have less sitting around and more training, but it’s garrison training, not field stuff as actual field training is limited by demands for space.

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:
How large is a Rolland? How does that compare in size? And how big was the swimming pool and gym on the Nassau?

While I know KZT is just being rhetorical

Roland: 188750 tons
Length: 446 M 1463 feet
Beam: 54 M 177 feet
Draught: 45 M 148 feet

For Comparison:

Freedom Tower
Height: 1362 feet (Observation deck)
Length: 200 feet
Width : 200 feet

So even a Roland is .... Kinda big....

Let's keep something in mind, an ocean going surface ship doesn't have to provide breathing air for the crew while a submarine or a starship does. The Roland class may be physically as large as an earlier light or even heavy cruiser but the question is "how many bodies can her life support system handle safely for an extended period of time?"

Optimistically if an Honorverse ship is designed to operate with a crew of 1,000 humans, her life support systems could probably handle twice that but not for an extended period. And like a submarine most of the internal space inside that hull is going to be crowded with the equipment that makes her go, allows her to fight and, incidentally provide breathing air, gravity, berthing space and such for her designed crew allowance.

Mission first, crew comfort second in terms of priority.

Sans battle damage, life support isn't an issue for the squad level numbers we are talking about.

If it's happening despite battle damage then you're already so far in the shit that it doesn't matter.

Annachie wrote:Sans battle damage, life support isn't an issue for the squad level numbers we are talking about.

If it's happening despite battle damage then you're already so far in the shit that it doesn't matter.

It's not the size of a Roland that is key, it is the workings of the crew.

On the Tristam (Abigail's Roland), they have a captain, an XO,
a tac officer and assistant, an electronics officer, an engineering officer, a communications officer, an astrogation officer and a logistics officer (done by a warrant officer).

Since we know tac has an assistant, it is fair to assume that at a minimum engineering has one. It might well be more but we do not know.

That's ten right there. And it could be more. Is there an assistant in communications? Astrogation? Electronics?

On top of that, in tac, Abigail has not only her assistant, but at least two others working on the simulation plus the text implies there are others...the simulator is filled up.

We also know that Fonzarelli in Engineering and O'Reilly have departments because they are rated during the sim.

It is a reasonable guess that tac, astro, engineering have at least one person available for each watch and there are four of them.

Actually, it is likely that engineering has more than one at a time. There is always work to be done.

And there are probably specialists who work under the departments in ordnance. And somewhere you need people who cook for the crew, etc.

There's not a lot of room for others.

Also, Abigail's guard is said to have managed to integrate with the crew, not with Marines on board.

Another key point: Terekhov acts as commodore for sixteen ships. Chatterjee for four. Yes, Terekhov had a Chief of Staff. Would Chatterjee actually need one?

And 20 marines would add 25% to the crew. You would need cooks, etc., doing extra work for them.

I can see them being carried on a mission where they might expect to be needed but I am not certain there would be a way to carry them on a long mission.

Chatterjee was Commodore for a 8 ship squadron of Rolands. But he went with only one Division of them to New Tuscany (and hid one of them outside the limit) because 1) the RMN didn't know about the arrival of Byngs BCs at NT and 2) an 8-ship-squadron of Rolands appeared to be too much of a show of force against the New Tuscan Navy and the New Tuscan government. After all, Khumalo and Gold Peak intended to prevent a war - not to ignite one. And for anyone outside the Haven sector the Rolands look like Light Cruisers. And to send 3 of them to a system in the back of beyond to deliver a diplomatic note ...

Eagleeye wrote:Chatterjee was Commodore for a 8 ship squadron of Rolands. But he went with only one Division of them to New Tuscany (and hid one of them outside the limit) because 1) the RMN didn't know about the arrival of Byngs BCs at NT and 2) an 8-ship-squadron of Rolands appeared to be too much of a show of force against the New Tuscan Navy and the New Tuscan government. After all, Khumalo and Gold Peak intended to prevent a war - not to ignite one. And for anyone outside the Haven sector the Rolands look like Light Cruisers. And to send 3 of them to a system in the back of beyond to deliver a diplomatic note ...

Yes, but Zavala was in charge of four of those ships. Chatterjee probably had relatively little to do with those other four ships.

I would guess Zavala handled most of the chores with a Chatterjee approval.

Adding 20 more people to a crew of 80 is a huge increase.

Unfortunately we don't have crew specifications for the Manticoran navy. That might be far more interesting than some of the size elements.

I mean you would expect a good size engineering component. That would seem to be a requirement. But how many communication people do you need? Especially if you're one ship in a group?
And the comm officer on Roland is the same rank as the engineer and the tac officer.