Reserve Fleet

Theemile wrote:I would almost roll the lifespan into the capability calculation, but your point is so true. Sadly, so many concepts are studied to death (especially in peacetime) that when something is finally agreed on, it is too late to actually do the upgrades on the ships. Or a budget compromise during construction doesn't allow a (known) forward thinking technology or design element to be used later. Take the short hulled Essexes or FFG-7 Frigates as perfect examples. As a result, they had short lifespans when they couldn't adopt to new technologies.

I was thinking of ships like HMS Eagle (R05) which got a not-inexpensive refit in '66 only to be retired early in '72. Even HMS Ark Royal was refit in '69 and headed off to start the retirement process in '78

Though to be fair they basically knew they were stepping away from carrier based air before that - apparently her refit was party for political reasons; to keep dockyard workers employed.


But if the Royal Navy had wanted to keep a carrier presence they'd probably have been better off skipping expensive refits on the WWII design carriers and putting that money towards a couple new slightly larger and more modern designs planned from the keel up to support fast jets.

Jonathan_S wrote:"Theemile"]
I would almost roll the lifespan into the capability calculation, but your point is so true. Sadly, so many concepts are studied to death (especially in peacetime) that when something is finally agreed on, it is too late to actually do the upgrades on the ships. Or a budget compromise during construction doesn't allow a (known) forward thinking technology or design element to be used later. Take the short hulled Essexes or FFG-7 Frigates as perfect examples. As a result, they had short lifespans when they couldn't adopt to new technologies.

I was thinking of ships like HMS Eagle (R05) which got a not-inexpensive refit in '66 only to be retired early in '72. Even HMS Ark Royal was refit in '69 and headed off to start the retirement process in '78

Though to be fair they basically knew they were stepping away from carrier based air before that - apparently her refit was party for political reasons; to keep dockyard workers employed.


But if the Royal Navy had wanted to keep a carrier presence they'd probably have been better off skipping expensive refits on the WWII design carriers and putting that money towards a couple new slightly larger and more modern designs planned from the keel up to support fast jets.[/quote]

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Reality says a modern aircraft carrier (US Midway/Forestal class or newer) or Honorverse SD takes 3 to 5 years at a major shipyard -- this is for series production, not first in class.
Overhaul of an existing ship can be less than 1 year in a "less capable" yard.
Captured SLN Gladiator class CA's, one of the SL's newer classes as of Service of the Sword, would need install of FTL Comm; spares and armaments "could" be from supply ships captured in Spindle or Manticore.
Not cutting edge, but approx equivalent to early Starknight class CA's. Adequate stopgaps for Talbot local self-defense force or Silecian anti-piracy work until new Roland's, Sag-C's or Avalon's are built.
Work "could be done locally at Rembrant, Montana or Spindle yards.

Just a thought

-- Stewart

stewart wrote:
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There's 2 basic parts of any reserve program --
1) Personnel Training -- this is the "comparatively easy" portion -- on-going personnel training and hands-on familiarization with current hardware, doctrine and policies. Potentially all classroom and lab.

Just like the Army Reserve needs field time so does an RMN Reserve. They need to get on the ship and function as part of the crew periodically, be pretty hard to have a Captain who has only ever commanded in a simulation.

2) Equipment -- This takes on-going and initial design planning -- In the real world (ours) or the Honorverse (or any other), a fleet (whether ships, aircraft or armored vehicles) need to be designed with both on-going maintenance and internal system upgrades/replacements in mind. What you are basically designing is a framework/infrastructure that "parts" can be plugged into. There are always limitations -- a submarine built with 33 in tubes will not be able to fire torpedoes (or sub-launched Harpoon missiles) that are 44 to 48 in. ; An Avalon-Class light cruiser will not be able to support a Mk 16, despite being "newer".
There are missions a Spru-Can can do, there are missions a Burke-Can can due and missions a Zumwalt-Can can do.

-- Stewart

Ok, so what is the point? A 5.56 caliber Rifle can't fire 7.62 caliber round and a 9mm pistol can't fire arrows... Im a little confused why you are explaining that different classes have different ammunition types and needs while different classes have different tasks within the fleet.

stewart wrote:
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Added points --

4) Can the Conversions serve effectively in an area to free up other ships ?

5) What is the "Known Threat Environment" (possible moving target) for the Conversion ships assignment areas ?


Note -- Ships that might serve well in Silecia or Maya/Erewhon may be obsolescent in Talbott

-- Stewart

The whole point of having a reserve is to have the best ships that you can have, obviously post war with the League the RMN might have a reserve made mostly of SD's because those are the least useful ships in the fleet but still have some use, if the RMN made a fleet policy of having 500 SD(P)/SD's in the reserve then they start with what they have and go from there. Start Building the manpower to field 500 SD(P)'s which would take a while in and of itself and at the same time build up the reserve as fast as you can.

For every 4 SD(P)'s build for the RMN 3 would go to the Reserve and one would go to the full-time Navy to replace the oldest of the Regular Navy's SD(P)s. Retired SD(P) from he Regular Navy are put in to the Reserve, until the reserve is brought to the same standard as the regular navy. The idea of the reserve is that once its build up to the same standard as the regular navy it stays that way, keep it at its designated strength and make sure all ships are within the same level of upgrade as the Regular navy, if a ship class is retired from the regular navy it is retire from the reserve as well to avoid the hoarding mentality that leaves the reserve a useless mass of ships that are hundreds of years old. This keeps the RMN's (war)shipbuilding expertise and infrastructure at a sufficient level to be able to support itself during wartime.

A ship in the reserve that can function in Silesia should be able to function on the front lines of a war with a technologically equal enemy.

The point of a reserve is provide the ability to fairly rapidly mobilize additional combat units faster then you can build equipment and train people to man them.

Depending on what the decisions at the political/strategic level, you might well use one generation old equipment. This is what the people you are staffing the reserve are trained to use and its a low cost option. And realistically, people who are well trained in the past generation can much more rapidly be retrained to use more modern gear vs recruiting and training from scratch new recruits.

kzt wrote:The point of a reserve is provide the ability to fairly rapidly mobilize additional combat units faster then you can build equipment and train people to man them.

Depending on what the decisions at the political/strategic level, you might well use one generation old equipment. This is what the people you are staffing the reserve are trained to use and its a low cost option. And realistically, people who are well trained in the past generation can much more rapidly be retrained to use more modern gear vs recruiting and training from scratch new recruits.

Yes, and one thing I do not think I have seen discussed in this thread and is one reason many WWII ships who were okay from a hull structural perspective, were scrapped.

Reason: Once your reserve personnel are old enough, out of the service, long enough they cannot be quickly retrained and it is just as quick to train new guys/gals. Therefore, keeping the old ships which are more than likely obsolete and need a refit will not have a crew so half of the whole reason to have said reserve and save time/money, disappears. So, how does prolong effect this thinking? Obviously with more modern units, tactics have RADICALLY changed even though 100% of the personnel would still be young enough to work. But, sorry, if you have not done something for 30 years, you are essentially back at square one point one. Not quite 1.0 but darned close.

Addage, Old dogs do not learn new tricks..... you get set in your ways is very true, how does prolong address this problem.... hrmmm I think this is just handwaviumed....

If your reserve doesn’t actually conduct exercises, go the training schools and run the ships in the reserve then the utility becomes a lot less. This is a lot more expensive than just playing “let’s pretend we have a reserve”.

[Quote"stewart"]Overhaul of an existing ship can be less than 1 year in a "less capable" yard.
Captured SLN Gladiator class CA's, one of the SL's newer classes as of Service of the Sword, would need install of FTL Comm; spares and armaments "could" be from supply ships captured in Spindle or Manticore.
Not cutting edge, but approx equivalent to early Starknight class CA's. Adequate stopgaps for Talbot local self-defense force or Silecian anti-piracy work until new Roland's, Sag-C's or Avalon's are built.
Work "could be done locally at Rembrant, Montana or Spindle yards.

Just a thought

-- Stewart[/quote]

Star knights were solid ships but were always meant to be more of a interim step on the path to what became the Sag C, and so much has happened, the RMN has gone 3 generations of CA since the star knight was cutting edge.

The gladiator class was able to give a sag B a hard go of it in the only text ev we have of a one being in a real fight and that was being run by pirates; probably malign sponsored, but still only pirates. (yes the pirates needed 4 of them and still lost but i repeat those were pirates, proper navy crew would need less though the sag B has probably received some updates since then having gone through the second Haven war since that fight)

so if you can give the gladiator a good compensator and bow/stern walls, along with the same missiles a Sag B uses, then you have a very solid stop gap CA until the sag C yards are rebuilt, at least as good as a Sag A maybe close to a B, and for general peace time duties that would probably be good enough.

Sigs wrote:Ok, so what is the point? A 5.56 caliber Rifle can't fire 7.62 caliber round and a 9mm pistol can't fire arrows... Im a little confused why you are explaining that different classes have different ammunition types and needs while different classes have different tasks within the fleet.

There is a paradigm shift in the middle of things here. Before the deployment of SD(P)a everything before that suddenly became obsolete. up to that point there was near total stagnation, so that a homogeneous reserve could be built up over centuries.

It is a situation analogous to the invention of smokeless power and repeating rifles.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:Ok, so what is the point? A 5.56 caliber Rifle can't fire 7.62 caliber round and a 9mm pistol can't fire arrows... Im a little confused why you are explaining that different classes have different ammunition types and needs while different classes have different tasks within the fleet.

There is a paradigm shift in the middle of things here. Before the deployment of SD(P)a everything before that suddenly became obsolete. up to that point there was near total stagnation, so that a homogeneous reserve could be built up over centuries.

It is a situation analogous to the invention of smokeless power and repeating rifles.

The problem with building reserves is that the paradigm shift wasn't a simple swap of energy guns and missiles. It's a shift from stagnant design and doctrine policies lasting centuries to constant, radical innovations which could repeatedly turn everything upside down militarily every five to ten years.

This does present different problems for the main powers. Push too hard and they risk ending up in a Clarke Superiority scenario(where using the most advanced tech possible is fatally counterproductive), as Manticore almost did when they rolled Apollo out at Lovat, triggering not just the Battle of Manticore, but also Oyster Bay.

In the end, it's up to the storyteller how long the innovation paradigm continues to be sustained. It could very quickly atrophy after a few decades without any wars, making a reserve policy somewhat viable.