Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster Bay

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I see what you're saying and it all depends on whether there is a market and whether the RMN Admiralty will even let the blueprints to build Avalons, Wolfhounds and Rolands out of the Manticore System and the crown will invest in that expansion.

Aren't the Grayson Pauls local bulld versions of the Roland? Even if modified to suit Grayson doctrine where it differs from Manticoran, and especially Grayson mores (sex segregated berthing areas, for example), they still have over 85 per cent hull and compartment compatibility, and close to 100 percent technical compatibility with the Rolands. IIRC, HoS states that the Pauls hit space before the Rolands.

Fox2! wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I see what you're saying and it all depends on whether there is a market and whether the RMN Admiralty will even let the blueprints to build Avalons, Wolfhounds and Rolands out of the Manticore System and the crown will invest in that expansion.

Aren't the Grayson Pauls local bulld versions of the Roland? Even if modified to suit Grayson doctrine where it differs from Manticoran, and especially Grayson mores (sex segregated berthing areas, for example), they still have over 85 per cent hull and compartment compatibility, and close to 100 percent technical compatibility with the Rolands. IIRC, HoS states that the Pauls hit space before the Rolands.

Oops, you're right. I shouldn't have used colourful language. I simply meant to say there's nothing that Talbott can do to build those units if the Admiralty doesn't give them the blueprints, even if they had the yards ready.

Of course, now that you mention it, Protector Benjamin might have different ideas... nah, that's even less likely.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:<snip>

With those parametres in mind and assuming David doesn't change his mind (justifying it by saying the war ended and priorities changed, or something), I agree the most likely scenario is for those yards to be privatised, if they weren't private already, and generate / attract investment into the Quadrant economy.

<snip>

Would it be economically advantageous? Possibly, depends on factors we don't know and all indications are that investing in yards for export or even civilian models would make more sense.

Would it score political brownie points? Probably would, which means the crown will need to spend political capital to have them accept other types of yards.

<snip>

As far as we've been told, the main 3 shipyards in Talbott appear to be owned by the Rembrandt Union in some way shape or form, so they are essentially private, even though the Rembrandt Union was originally a mercantile league pushing to become a regional govt. Which means their leadership is smart, connected, and willing to do what is needed to move ahead when given an opportunity.

Now, I doubt the is a single shipyard in GA space or nearby that is bored. 1st you have all the repair traffic that normally was at the 3 Manticorian stations and Blackbird. All the Naval repair traffic for the RMN and GSN is now pushed to San Martin, Basilisk, the junction repair facilities, Hancock, and Marsh. All the commercial repair traffic at the 3 stations, Blackbird, San Martin, Basilisk, Hancock, Marsh and the junction has to go somewhere else. 2nd, Manticore is building 6 new stations, each the size of one of the original stations, Grayson is rebuilding Blackbird, Manticore is overseeing the rebuilding of New Tuscany's station, and Beowulf needs to repair rebuild their stations lost at the end of UH. and after UH, Earth, Mesa, and all the systems damaged by the SLN will need their infrastructure rebuilt. All those parts - all those subsystems need to be built somewhere. Even if all your building is Crew quarters, Space construction workers need to sleep and eat somewhere.

Large shipyards have probably dropping "makework" contracts to get bigger contracts to assist building parts for the Manty stations (think of the plumbing fixtures required alone....), allowing smaller, less advanced shipyards to scoop up said sub-contracts. Repair facilities probably have waiting lines, with ships accepting patchwork repairs just so they can jump to an advanced world on the far side of the SLN so they can get a full repair at a decent price/timeframe. Now, even that's going to be even more difficult.

Talbott will need to grow their shipyards to build more - not that they have an issue with that. And that growth will happen organically as money and opportunity allows - pumped with a good nudging by the TQ government. But the current situation is a boon for any shipyards with viable systems, and Talbott should take advantage of that.

kzt wrote:A perfectly logical solution is to a radiation hardened pod and install a power cable on the hull.

Though in theory shouldn't that affect peak acceleration exactly the way a "fat" hull does?

(One explanation for why CLACs, which are broader than the classic length to beam ratio of Honorverse ships, are listed as having a bit lower acceleration in HoS than you'd expect from their mass and age. And why a 'stubby' Sag-c derivative; a shorter hull with the same width gives no better acceleration)


Not usually a big deal when the external pods are simply to boost the throw weight of your first salvo; you get rid of them early and then have full acceleration back. And you can always sacrifice the bonus firepower if you need to chase down or flee from a particularly quick opponent. Much bigger deal if those pods are your entire primary missile armament. Plus you'd have concerns about a lucky hit, say on a missile with spun up reactor in one pod, chain reacting across a significant number of other bolt-on pods.

Coming up with a patrol endurance bolt-on pod to supplement internal launchers for a first strike makes some sense; relying on them as your main missile loadout, IMHO, does NOT.

kzt wrote:You have a volume of something like 300,000,000 cubic light years full of systems that are too poor to defend themselves that you are supposed to somehow mysteriously patrol. How many ships do you think it will take? Now triple that, since you typically can only have 1/3rd of your ships deployed.

If they're too poor to defend themselves then, by and large, they're also too poor for pirates to profitably raid. (But would be hideously vulnerable to state sponsored commerce or infrastructure raiding)

So mostly you don't need to patrol that vast area. Anti-piracy patrols are necessary where you have pirates, and pirates require a certain target density (as well as a number of other favorable factors) to stay in business.


Our views on Honorverse piracy are skewed because the Star Kingdom is situated near the most pirate infested area in the galaxy; thanks to the prosperity that Manticoran and Andermandi trade brought, to the politically driven prohibition on effective anti-piracy solutions, and to centuries of Mesan/Manpower/MAlign meddling. Most places are too well defended or too poor for piracy to flourish like that.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Difficult to tell when we don't understand the technology. RFC has said that if you have the blueprints, programming the factories should be easy in the short-term. That is, hardware is more or less common, software is the issue. But that statement is incongruous with Haven's inability to build some things: if it was the software, I'm sure InSec and StateSec would have got pirated/stolen copies from the SL.

Problem is miniaturizations, just because you have the blueprints on how to build the 3 stage missiles doesn't mean you can actually build them. The RMN put a lot of technology and a lot of firepower in small bodies which means you would need at least equivalent civilian technology to that of the SKM to be able to 1)decipher the blueprints and 2) and have any hope to build the equipment in a reasonable time. Bolthole has a lot of shipyards at least from what we can infer from the RHN's pre-war build up, yet they still will have to build the equipment to build the equipment that will build the equipment which will be able to produce the ships and missiles that the RMN and GSN produced.

I'm basing my assumption that the biggest hurdle to building a ship are the physical dimensions of the shipyard and the availability of the factories to manufacture each component. Those shipyards need to be upgraded/retooled anyway to a new design a couple of generations newer than what they were building. So I'd retool them all the way to modern designs, instead of stopping in the middle, producing some ships I've already plenty of, then retooling again.

As you are building the ships you are upgrading the yards and the spin off industries as well as those industries that directly work to produce the ships. I would rather it take me 8 years to start producing Rolands or the next generation of Rolands and build previous generations of DD's and CL's in the intervening time then to wait 6 years to start producing Rolands and do nothing productive in the meantime. In one scenario you have yards that have 8 years experience building ships, working out the kinks etc... in the other your yards have been upgraded for 6 years while your workers are employed building freighters that the GA doesn't need or worse nothing at all.

But that was before someone mentioned building ships to sell... if that market exists, then the decision would be based on how to allocate the resources to supply SEM's own needs.

It would be decades before the TQ/Silesia can produce warships for export unless you go to the 1850-1880 designs and provide a lot of influx of capital and experienced workers. The TQ might be able to produce a couple of destroyers a year in 1923, with only TQ resources invested they could build it up to 10-15 DDs/year within a decade.

Honestly their best bet would be to get the RHN designs and start pumping out the best copy of a RHN export LAC's for the training schools that the GA would need to create, man and equip for the newly independent verge systems.

I disagree. You need SD(P)s to face against ships of the wall. The RMN needs them in the MBS, Trevor's Star and maybe Spindle and one or two more. You don't need them in every Talbott and Silesia system. Assuming each system is going to get at least a few squadrons of LACs plus a shoal of system-defence pods, you'd picket the majority with DDs, CLs and in systems with a bigger population and spaceborne industry, a CA. Supplement that with nodal forces with BC squadrons, you can pretty much defend the entire territory against piracy.

I'm not talking about piracy. The RMN Needs SD(P)'s to be able to deploy to any one of their systems plus any allied system. Then there needs to be a force ready to deploy with the GA if/when the MA is found. Having 150 SD(P)'s deployed to MAnticore, Trevor's Star and a system in TQ and one in Silesia leaves the RMN unable to reinforce any of their other systems if the need should come. The RMN needs to have a reserve of SD(P)'s to reinforce any one or any dozen systems that might be threatened. Having every SD(P) spoken for and the RMN needing to rob one of the main bases or the HS to reinforce any other system in the Empire is asking for disaster. Basically you can have somebody with SD(P)'s of their own run wild in the SEM and the RMN wont be able to do anything unless the enemy hits one of the important systems and then those systems have what they have, there isn't a central reserve to reinforce threatened systems or force battle.

Then you add the extra-territorial needs: showing the flag, exercises with Grayson, Haven, and the Andermani, commerce protection. Without including patrolling the Verge, I think the number of ships might be bigger than the current mix, but the number of people inside them is smaller. That's what I meant when I brought up the SD(P)s going into mothballs.

Until the MA shows up with a force of 100 SD(P)'s of their own and destroys the RMN in detail. At which point the RMN will have to abandon all important systems but the HS to concentrate their meager forces or beg the GSN/RHN to reinforce them with a battle fleet of their own.

Also, I didn't come up with the idea of mothballing them. That's right at the end of UH.

Mothballing the SD's maybe, mothballing the SD(P)'s only if the author needs to weaken the RMN for the next struggle where they are so awesome but always the little guy.

I also disagree. Admirals and Commodores in the FF probably had cosy agreements with the OFS and the transstellars, none of whom will like the withdrawal requirements. And the transstellars aren't bound by the armistice agreement, since they weren't the belligerents. So why wouldn't a transstellar ask that those smaller units no one could keep track of anyway be "sold" to a local government it still controls, which in turn offers citizenship and tidy sums of money to the SLN crews?

Because when the RMN shows up and asks question it is only too easy to determine who the ships belong to and who the crew's really are... an it is even easier for them to then blow them into a billion pieces for being pirates.

You don't even need the crews. Just get the bureaucrats in the FF to "lose" some ships and the transstellars will find people for them. They won't be any good, but that's the norm for pirates and privateers.

And if I were the GA, the second I find out about such agreements I would make sure to send some marines and some warships to each system that those companies own and make sure that they no longer have a cent of investment. The GA can make policies and agreement with verge systems that allow some transstellars to maintain some of their investments and in fact continue to invest in verge economies under the watch of the GA. Who would like to lose their life and everything the company has for some verge systems.

Sigs wrote:As you are building the ships you are upgrading the yards and the spin off industries as well as those industries that directly work to produce the ships. I would rather it take me 8 years to start producing Rolands or the next generation of Rolands and build previous generations of DD's and CL's in the intervening time then to wait 6 years to start producing Rolands and do nothing productive in the meantime. In one scenario you have yards that have 8 years experience building ships, working out the kinks etc... in the other your yards have been upgraded for 6 years while your workers are employed building freighters that the GA doesn't need or worse nothing at all.

Sorry, I don't get it. I can summarise what I understood as "they can build ships while upgrading to level X, but not while upgrading to level Y". Anyway, I think the point is moot: so long as the Admiralty doesn't give those plans, it's not going to happen. And David decides what the government will decide.

Honestly their best bet would be to get the RHN designs and start pumping out the best copy of a RHN export LAC's for the training schools that the GA would need to create, man and equip for the newly independent verge systems.

Not that the RoH is likely to part with those designs, since it has plenty of shipyards of its own that will be competing for that market. The TQ shipyards had better form a consortium with some design bureaus in the Manticore Binary System and start producing those. They can be knock-offs of RHN designs and older Shrikes.

I disagree. You need SD(P)s to face against ships of the wall. The RMN needs them in the MBS, Trevor's Star and maybe Spindle and one or two more. You don't need them in every Talbott and Silesia system. Assuming each system is going to get at least a few squadrons of LACs plus a shoal of system-defence pods, you'd picket the majority with DDs, CLs and in systems with a bigger population and spaceborne industry, a CA. Supplement that with nodal forces with BC squadrons, you can pretty much defend the entire territory against piracy.

I'm not talking about piracy. The RMN Needs SD(P)'s to be able to deploy to any one of their systems plus any allied system. Then there needs to be a force ready to deploy with the GA if/when the MA is found. Having 150 SD(P)'s deployed to MAnticore, Trevor's Star and a system in TQ and one in Silesia leaves the RMN unable to reinforce any of their other systems if the need should come. The RMN needs to have a reserve of SD(P)'s to reinforce any one or any dozen systems that might be threatened. Having every SD(P) spoken for and the RMN needing to rob one of the main bases or the HS to reinforce any other system in the Empire is asking for disaster. Basically you can have somebody with SD(P)'s of their own run wild in the SEM and the RMN wont be able to do anything unless the enemy hits one of the important systems and then those systems have what they have, there isn't a central reserve to reinforce threatened systems or force battle.

That's where the shoals of system defence missile pods come in. A surprise attack with anything less than two squadrons of state-of-the-art SD(P) is unlikely to succeed. And besides, why would anyone attack the smaller systems first?

Until the MA shows up with a force of 100 SD(P)'s of their own and destroys the RMN in detail. At which point the RMN will have to abandon all important systems but the HS to concentrate their meager forces or beg the GSN/RHN to reinforce them with a battle fleet of their own.

The two squadrons of RMN SD(P)s assigned to the TQ are either going to be on patrol or in Spindle. If they are on patrol, finding them with a superior force is hard. If they are in Spindle, the most heavily defended system in the region, those 100 attacking SD(P)s may win, but they will be gutted.

Mothballing the SD's maybe, mothballing the SD(P)'s only if the author needs to weaken the RMN for the next struggle where they are so awesome but always the little guy.

We can check the precise wording, but I came out with the understanding they were going to mothball the Medusas and Invictus too. The problem is that the SEM cannot sustain wartime footing indefinitely. The taxes need to come down at some point and investments into infrastructure and the MMM are badly needed.

We don't know how long it will take to find Darius. We know (but the RMN doesn't) that the MAlign's plan is at least a decade away, possibly more.

You don't even need the crews. Just get the bureaucrats in the FF to "lose" some ships and the transstellars will find people for them. They won't be any good, but that's the norm for pirates and privateers.

And if I were the GA, the second I find out about such agreements I would make sure to send some marines and some warships to each system that those companies own and make sure that they no longer have a cent of investment. The GA can make policies and agreement with verge systems that allow some transstellars to maintain some of their investments and in fact continue to invest in verge economies under the watch of the GA. Who would like to lose their life and everything the company has for some verge systems.

There's a good chance the RMN won't do that. They want to be seen as "not the FF", so they won't intervene in systems unless they're threatening neighbours or commerce. So there's nothing they can or should do against some ships falling into local governments' hands. And it's pretty easy to get into grey areas of who's to blame.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Mothballing the SD's maybe, mothballing the SD(P)'s only if the author needs to weaken the RMN for the next struggle where they are so awesome but always the little guy.

We can check the precise wording, but I came out with the understanding they were going to mothball the Medusas and Invictus too. The problem is that the SEM cannot sustain wartime footing indefinitely. The taxes need to come down at some point and investments into infrastructure and the MMM are badly needed.

The exact wording doesn't seem that precice about what's getting mothballed. You'd need to cross reference it against the numbers of surviving capital ships in each class to figure out what's getting kept active and what's getting put into reserve.

Uncompromising Honor wrote:“Which is why we have to maintain a strong military posture. I don’t see any way in hell we could main-tain the fleet strength we have right now. There are megatons of totally valid domestic reasons to cut na-val funding now that the League’s not a threat and we’ve pretty much established we can kick anybody’s ass,” Elizabeth said bluntly. “Manticore has enough of a naval tradition, and enough interstellar commit-ments, that maintaining a powerful fleet won’t be that great a challenge. Maintaining one as powerful as the one we have now is likely to be impossible, though. Oh, we’ll keep a couple hundred capital ships in commission. A lot of the others can go into reserve—and unlike the Sollies we will rotate ships in and out to keep them up to date—but we’re going to need a lot more cruisers and battlecruisers than SD(P)s in our post-war fleet. And Haven’s navy will probably be under even more pressure to retrench.

All it says is the RMN will aim for 200-ish wallers in commission; and that in the short term they expect to need lots of cruisers and BCs.

I doubt the latest SD(P)s, the Invictus-class ships, as Manticore's current latest design will get put into reserve all that soon. Sure, at some point they'll get superseded by some post-war designs addressing the perceived shorfalls based on the 2nd war against Haven. But right now they're the most powerful ships in space.

I suspect all remaining legacy SDs are on the chopping block (even the few refit to fire MDMs). And then Manticore would make a priority to retire the early SD(P)s that lack any form of Keyhole. Whether any Keyhole equipped units go into reserve, or even whether all the pre-Keyhole SD(P)s do, would depend on how many Keyhole equipped ones there are today compared to that roughly 200 capital ship target[1].

But short term I suspect the Grand Alliance unified SD(P)s are initially going to go primarily to Beowulf and Haven; Beowulf because they don't have any SD(P)s and Haven because they're providing the bulk of the construction and because their SD(P)s are markedly inferior to what Manticore, Grayson, and the Andermani already have in service. Rolling out post-war improved classes to those three seems lower priority.

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[1] Also it's marginally possible that Grayson might have so many excess keyhole equipped SD(P)s that they'd prefer to sell some off to Alliance members rather than create an overlarge reserve. The Grayson and Manticoran naval tech is effectively the same, so Manticore shouldn't have significant problems maintaining any Grayson customized and build units. But that depends on how large a peacetime naval budget Benjamin and the Keys are willing to shoulder long term - and whether Manticore has too few Keyhole units to fill out their desired capital ship forces.

Jonathan_S wrote:All it says is the RMN will aim for 200-ish wallers in commission; and that in the short term they expect to need lots of cruisers and BCs.

I doubt the latest SD(P)s, the Invictus-class ships, as Manticore's current latest design will get put into reserve all that soon. Sure, at some point they'll get superseded by some post-war designs addressing the perceived shorfalls based on the 2nd war against Haven. But right now they're the most powerful ships in space.

I suspect all remaining legacy SDs are on the chopping block (even the few refit to fire MDMs). And then Manticore would make a priority to retire the early SD(P)s that lack any form of Keyhole. Whether any Keyhole equipped units go into reserve, or even whether all the pre-Keyhole SD(P)s do, would depend on how many Keyhole equipped ones there are today compared to that roughly 200 capital ship target[1].

But short term I suspect the Grand Alliance unified SD(P)s are initially going to go primarily to Beowulf and Haven; Beowulf because they don't have any SD(P)s and Haven because they're providing the bulk of the construction and because their SD(P)s are markedly inferior to what Manticore, Grayson, and the Andermani already have in service. Rolling out post-war improved classes to those three seems lower priority.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense. Mothball the oldest ones, the Gryphons and Sphinxes still in service, scrap the older ones like Khumalo's Samothrace-class HMS Hercules and standardise on Keyhole II-equipped Invictus. As new designs come online, mothball the Medusas and recycle the Gryphons. And so on.

The good thing about this is that for each Gryphon or Sphinx you decommission, you can equip 8 BCs, 15 CAs or 70 DDs.

Jonathan_S wrote:
The exact wording doesn't seem that precice about what's getting mothballed. You'd need to cross reference it against the numbers of surviving capital ships in each class to figure out what's getting kept active and what's getting put into reserve.

Uncompromising Honor wrote:“Which is why we have to maintain a strong military posture. I don’t see any way in hell we could main-tain the fleet strength we have right now. There are megatons of totally valid domestic reasons to cut na-val funding now that the League’s not a threat and we’ve pretty much established we can kick anybody’s ass,” Elizabeth said bluntly. “Manticore has enough of a naval tradition, and enough interstellar commit-ments, that maintaining a powerful fleet won’t be that great a challenge. Maintaining one as powerful as the one we have now is likely to be impossible, though. Oh, we’ll keep a couple hundred capital ships in commission. A lot of the others can go into reserve—and unlike the Sollies we will rotate ships in and out to keep them up to date—but we’re going to need a lot more cruisers and battlecruisers than SD(P)s in our post-war fleet. And Haven’s navy will probably be under even more pressure to retrench.

All it says is the RMN will aim for 200-ish wallers in commission; and that in the short term they expect to need lots of cruisers and BCs.

I doubt the latest SD(P)s, the Invictus-class ships, as Manticore's current latest design will get put into reserve all that soon. Sure, at some point they'll get superseded by some post-war designs addressing the perceived shorfalls based on the 2nd war against Haven. But right now they're the most powerful ships in space.

I suspect all remaining legacy SDs are on the chopping block (even the few refit to fire MDMs). And then Manticore would make a priority to retire the early SD(P)s that lack any form of Keyhole. Whether any Keyhole equipped units go into reserve, or even whether all the pre-Keyhole SD(P)s do, would depend on how many Keyhole equipped ones there are today compared to that roughly 200 capital ship target[1].

But short term I suspect the Grand Alliance unified SD(P)s are initially going to go primarily to Beowulf and Haven; Beowulf because they don't have any SD(P)s and Haven because they're providing the bulk of the construction and because their SD(P)s are markedly inferior to what Manticore, Grayson, and the Andermani already have in service. Rolling out post-war improved classes to those three seems lower priority.

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[1] Also it's marginally possible that Grayson might have so many excess keyhole equipped SD(P)s that they'd prefer to sell some off to Alliance members rather than create an overlarge reserve. The Grayson and Manticoran naval tech is effectively the same, so Manticore shouldn't have significant problems maintaining any Grayson customized and build units. But that depends on how large a peacetime naval budget Benjamin and the Keys are willing to shoulder long term - and whether Manticore has too few Keyhole units to fill out their desired capital ship forces.

You're missing 1 point - depending on the definition, CLACs and BCs are Capital Ships. I think we can say BCs are not part of those calculations, they actually could be used for patrolling and day to day operations - besides, the crews on the Agamemnons and Nikes are significantly smaller then pre-war CAs, making them very cost effective for what they bring to the game. About 26 Agamemons were known lost in the war and a single Nike in UC, leaving over 60 Agamemons and 17 known Nikes surviving the war. Combined with the Survivors of the 73 Reliant III/IVs, will give at least 150 ERM and DDM armed BCs - Any surviving Homers still in service will probably be sold or reclaimed - the survivors of the 95 completed Reliant I/II will probably be mothballed or sold as soon as conditions allow, but will probably be kept in service for the immediate future.

* Some of the 24 BC(p)s lost at BoMa might have been Grayson Courvousier IIs.

CLACS, likeways, are actually more useful than SD(p)s for day to day operations. 1st) they escort the Battle squadrons, freeing up escorts and pickets. I believe the ratio we figured previously was going to be 2 CLACs for each 6 ship SD(p) BattleSquadron. 2nd) A single CLAC is presence - if you want to own a system, 1 CLAC's wing will completely fill a system in a few hours. The same "eyes" can be had with a handful of system drones, but the LACs are visible. no other formation, besides a large destroyer Flotilla can do this. Every Fleetbase needs a responce CLAC or 2 just for this purpose. 3rd) Spec-ops: A CLAC on it's own can do alot of damage, and 4th) moving LACs around the empire. Of course, it seems this can now be done with the multipurpose FSVs.

Manticore had a little over 100 CLACs after BoMa's loses, and was still building more up through OB, so are probably fielding in the 120 region at the end of UC. Another 8 may be repaired or declared junk after BoMa. Regardless, some will be going into the Reserve; most likely all the surviving Minotaurs will find their way there, and probably a healthy dollap of the Hydras as well.

My calculations have 43-47 Manticorian SD(p)s surviving BoMa, with ~10 more that could be repaired in time. 20 of which are the non-Keyhole equipped Medusas with Henke. I think we can guarantee that these will definitely be mothballed, and (if economics allow) upgraded to KHII in the Future. The rest of the few surviving Medusas were upgraded to KHII, which reduceded their already limited podcore. Chances are any Medusa that is not a Command variant will be mothballed. Ungraded Gryphons will probably be kept in the reserve for now, most of the the rest will be scrapped. Of course the biggest variable (which we do not know) is the size of the Python Lump. Most likely it was ~200 ships, but it could have been 2-3x that. Up to seeing that comment, I would have said that it could also be just around 100 ships - but then the fleet limit comment would not make as much sense.

Once construction is resumed, assuming a new war has not started, we can expect new construction to push the oldest designs into the reserve and the oldest of the reserve to be sold or destroyed in turn. Ideally all the main fleet will be Mk 35/16/23 ships, with the Mk 14/41 ships filing the reserve.

It will be interesting to watch

PS, what do you think the chances are that David will give us a 1924 Fleetlist?

Please refrain from the itty bitty font size as a courtesy to those of us with terrible eyesight. Even on a full size monitor I had to screw with setting to be able to read that.