Post-Fabius RMN Admiralty

Maldorian wrote:Sarnow and Khumalo are good at their jobs and that is the problem:
Who will replace them in Talbott and Silesia?

Never repair a running system! Replace them could get you problems there.

Goldpeak is a good battle commander, but are she good with logistics and diplomacy? Don´t know if she has the abilities to replace Khumalo. Why not call her into Navy Leadership instead??

I don't think Gold Peak is senior enough to be in the admiralty just yet. But she may be in the staff soon, given RMN's policy of rotating people between staff, teaching and field. Not now, because she's needed where she is. She's just captured an entire sector and an enemy capital without losing a single ship!

As for Sarnow and Khumalo, I disagree. Sarnow was in Silesia to pacify, but it's been a few years now. If he's been at all successful, then the situation has changed, allowing someone else with a different skillset to assume. They will need station commanders for patrol and anti-piracy in most regions, plus politicians and business leaders to integrate Manticoran Silesia into the Empire.

Khumalo is also in a changing condition. he was sent to Talbott when that was expected to be a relatively quiet and backwater region, with the goal of helping the political transition. True, he's shown he can bring more to the table, but that's exactly what would make him good at the Admiralty. Besides, his Samothrace-class SD flagship needs to go home, most likely for scrapping.

I think those two are ideal, individually or as a pair. For example, Sarnow as Third Space Lord and Khumalo as First, or Khumalo as First Lord of the Admiralty and Sarnow as First Space Lord.

Fox2! wrote:

saber964 wrote:Here is what I see for Anton Zilwiki. He will head the Joint Intelligence Command searching for the Alignment. Second the Empress will very quietly and very black take him off half pay and promote him to Read Admiral. Remember he and Cachet brought out an intelligence asset so profound it's right up their with the braking of the JN-25 code or the capture of an enigma machine during WWII.

Just hope he has a better future than Commander Joseph R. Rochefort, USN, Commander of Station Hypo, did. Of course, his direct report is to Elizabeth, not a jealous superior who insisted that all good ideas came out the head office.

Rochefort had the audacity to be right when everyone else was wrong. And proved that the pea brains in D.C. Were a bunch of morons.

drothgery wrote:

Maldorian wrote:Sarnow and Khumalo are good at their jobs and that is the problem:
Who will replace them in Talbott and Silesia?

Terekhov in Talbott seems like it would work (already a Commodore; knows the area; foreign service experience... also would let them deploy a less experienced combat commander as his second because Terekhov can handle that himself).

That's a hell of a seniority jump; Tenth Fleet is currently a Vice Admiral slot and Talbot Sector command is a Vice Admiral or Admiral slot. That would be a promotion to rival Harrington's when she returned from Hades and she had the advantage of already serving as a full admiral in Grayson service.

saber964 wrote:

Maldorian wrote:Sarnow and Khumalo are good at their jobs and that is the problem:
Who will replace them in Talbott and Silesia?

Never repair a running system! Replace them could get you problems there.

Goldpeak is a good battle commander, but are she good with logistics and diplomacy? Don´t know if she has the abilities to replace Khumalo. Why not call her into Navy Leadership instead??

Here is what I see for Khumalo. He will be placed on the retired list at his current rank and become Deputy Viceroy and Lieutenant Governor of the Talbott Quadrant. Goldpeak will take his place as CO Talbott Station with Torville taking over as CO Tenth Fleet.

I would assume that after the BoM and OB the admiralty is short on senior experienced officers and in a worse way than the civilians who have a larger pool to draw from. Khumalo might not be a great battle tested leader but he has been described as a great administrator which could be of great use in position such as 3rd, 5th or 6th Space Lord. Those positions would require more of an administrator than a combat proven leader.

Sigs wrote:I would assume that after the BoM and OB the admiralty is short on senior experienced officers and in a worse way than the civilians who have a larger pool to draw from. Khumalo might not be a great battle tested leader but he has been described as a great administrator which could be of great use in position such as 3rd, 5th or 6th Space Lord. Those positions would require more of an administrator than a combat proven leader.

I agree with your conclusion about Khumalo, but not with your reasons. The BoMa did indeed wipe out quite a few battlefield admirals, but not Oyster Bay. That wiped some staff admirals (Third Space Lord Anton Toscarelli, for example, was aboard Hephaestus) and we know the RMN had been foregoing the rotations it usually did because of the war.

I don't see admirals being retired. Only those that want to retire, now that their nation no longer desperately needs them, like the Alexander-Harringtons.

But then again, we know the wall will be trimmed down in size, so some of the full Admiral billets will cease to exist. Those will probably rotate to staff & teaching. Commanding BC squadrons are Rear Admiral slots (Sarnow was RAdm when he was flying his flag on HMS Nike BC-413), though maybe a squadron of Nikes may warrant a Vice Admiral. I'm not seeing much for a full Admiral to do in the field, aside from a maybe a dozen task forces roving around and the ten fleets.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
I agree with your conclusion about Khumalo, but not with your reasons. The BoMa did indeed wipe out quite a few battlefield admirals, but not Oyster Bay. That wiped some staff admirals (Third Space Lord Anton Toscarelli, for example, was aboard Hephaestus) and we know the RMN had been foregoing the rotations it usually did because of the war.

I don't see admirals being retired. Only those that want to retire, now that their nation no longer desperately needs them, like the Alexander-Harringtons.

OB wiped out senior officers who were on leave, in conferences, training, etc etc etc because both stations that were lost had a lot of naval activity associated with training, personnel and construction and also were a nexus for transferring personnel from ships to the planet and vice versa so basically it wiped out the people who you would draw from for the 3,5 and 6 space lord positions along with a lot of flag officers who were just passing through. Add to that the fact that the Beowulf Strike wiped out the very senior leadership and maybe some of their deputies and we can see that the people who would be promoted to fill the positions vacated by the dead space lords are also dead from the 2 previous mass casualty events.

Sigs wrote:OB wiped out senior officers who were on leave, in conferences, training, etc etc etc because both stations that were lost had a lot of naval activity associated with training, personnel and construction and also were a nexus for transferring personnel from ships to the planet and vice versa so basically it wiped out the people who you would draw from for the 3,5 and 6 space lord positions along with a lot of flag officers who were just passing through. Add to that the fact that the Beowulf Strike wiped out the very senior leadership and maybe some of their deputies and we can see that the people who would be promoted to fill the positions vacated by the dead space lords are also dead from the 2 previous mass casualty events.

I agree that the natural successors would be staff and were wiped out.

I was disagreeing that there would be forced retirements and that a significant chunk of battlefield commanders had been wiped out at OB. We know that a good chunk of the Python Lump had just left the building slips for work up exercises, so most of those battlefield commanders were out and away.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Sigs wrote:OB wiped out senior officers who were on leave, in conferences, training, etc etc etc because both stations that were lost had a lot of naval activity associated with training, personnel and construction and also were a nexus for transferring personnel from ships to the planet and vice versa so basically it wiped out the people who you would draw from for the 3,5 and 6 space lord positions along with a lot of flag officers who were just passing through. Add to that the fact that the Beowulf Strike wiped out the very senior leadership and maybe some of their deputies and we can see that the people who would be promoted to fill the positions vacated by the dead space lords are also dead from the 2 previous mass casualty events.

I agree that the natural successors would be staff and were wiped out.

I was disagreeing that there would be forced retirements and that a significant chunk of battlefield commanders had been wiped out at OB. We know that a good chunk of the Python Lump had just left the building slips for work up exercises, so most of those battlefield commanders were out and away.

Unfortunately, we have examples of completed ships (under the wall) whose leadership was on one of the stations for a conference during OB and were killed as a result. Most of the Python lump were at Trevor's Star working up, but any number of their command structure (or that of any ships in Manticore) could have traveled to Manticore and been aboard a station for a variety of reasons, as well as visitors from the admirality on planet. In addition, a large # of officers were assigned to the command structure on the station (Buships and Buweaps were probably heavily represented on the stations.) Many of said officers were on a station rotation from fleet positions.

While it would be wrong to insist that the fleet commands were destroyed in the OB attacks, they certainly have holes in them at need fixed. Meanwhile, good portions of the support leadership probably got turned to Swiss cheese.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

drothgery wrote:Terekhov in Talbott seems like it would work (already a Commodore; knows the area; foreign service experience... also would let them deploy a less experienced combat commander as his second because Terekhov can handle that himself).

That's a hell of a seniority jump; Tenth Fleet is currently a Vice Admiral slot and Talbot Sector command is a Vice Admiral or Admiral slot. That would be a promotion to rival Harrington's when she returned from Hades and she had the advantage of already serving as a full admiral in Grayson service.

Eh; it's only a VAdm slot because they wanted to keep Khumalo senior to Mike. With 10th Fleet mostly not in the TQ, I don't think that's necessary anymore, and RAdm would just be a regular (and well-deserved) promotion. Without hostilities from the League to worry about, it seems unlikely the RMN is going to keep battle squadrons on-station in the TQ.

Khumalo and Good Peak got their last promotions because so many Vice Admirals were assigned to Tenth Fleet that were senior to them. You are also overlooking other flag officers we haven't seen in a while like VADM Yancey Parks and ADM Aristophones Georedis. You might also see senior RHN personnel like ADM Tourville and ADM Chin take secondary command positions as they try to combine the RHN and RMN. They could also recall retired Admirals for Administration and training commands. Remember VADM Jonus Adcock he served until he was over 100 T-years old.