Building the BSDF into the Beowulf Space Navy

kzt wrote:

Maldorian wrote:"Wallers are political instruments, and Cruisers are the every day working horses".

Apparently most SL Core worlds couldn't stop a cruiser squadron (anyone's cruisers) from rolling in and seizing their orbitals.

To square everything.....

SL ~ 250LY in radius if you count the Shell/Protectorates.
Assume even distribution of habitable stars.
Volume ~65,000,000 LY^3
If 1800 core worlds, 3000 shell + ~10,000 protectorates would equal roughly 20LY between habitable star systems.

Ships are not solo riding, MADRAS protectorate sector had? 1 squadron BC's, 2 squadrons DD's? Or was it 3? I think it was 3. Total number of ships was??? 20+ right? Total number of star systems = ? I do not believe we were ever told, but just from the number we know it is at least 10, but more than 20 upwards of 50 seems more likely as given roughly 20 ships and they were ***lucky*** to have BC's at the time, so 2 squadrons of 8 seems more likely of DD's. This would place MORE planets to "protect" than they had ships and then combine need for concentration = most planets in protectorates have NO SLN ships present.

Yes, ~15,000 habitable SL planets or so as we have statements that frontier fleet does NOT have enough ships to go around. Pretty much indicates there MUST be more planets than ships. After all 1 ship in orbit throwing Kinetic energy strikes should be sufficient to "keep the peace" Frontier Fleet style...

Has ~2000SD's, 4000+ BC's... CA=??? CL = ??? DD = ???

Now we also know that the RMN favored the BC just as the SL did and I believe the RHN did not, I believe we have statements elsewhere that not many CA's are in SL service. Memory... Service of the Sword??? So, maybe only 1000 of them? SL lacks a gargantuan merchant marine, but does have LOTS of protectorates so, 8000? CL/DD? for Frontier fleet and another 2000 for battlefleet? Probably fewer light ships than stated for battle fleet as even later battles were made up by frontier fleet.

So, if the above is true, that would put frontier fleet at roughly half the BC's ~2000, 1000CA, 8000 CL/DD = 11,000 ships, but 10,000 protectorates and frankly 3000 shell systems they have to be looking over their backs at. Also, aren't the major SLN bases right on the edge of SL space before the Shell? Not in the Shell? I think there is an RFC statement about that somewhere when Filaretta attacked.

Anyways... just some observations for the structure of the argument for why no ships in core SL space other than LAC's. There are ships, they just are not in SL space or only in major SLN shipyards. The question is... how many forts are there?

Empires: Yesterday, Today, and future.

Someone made a map of all the worlds empires. From the capital of said empire they drew lines in terms of days of travel.

Everything within 1 weeks day of travel is roughly speaking able to become the core of said empire and stays in tact over centuries. Then ever outward the lines appear until one gets to about 2 weeks travel time. In every case, 2 weeks travel time is the outter edge of any viable empire and anything beyond this point said empire occasionally surges outwards to but within ~100 years loses and generally speaking retracts backwards to about 1 weeks travel time from capital.

Today, there is no limitation due to ~modern communications. Only reason the Brit Empire lasted as long was due to massive technology imbalance and it still failed.

In the Honorverse, empires, sphere of influence etc, I see extending to about the historical mean of about 1 week from a capital to 2 weeks travel time. So, anything within a week of the MWJ, will become defacto part of the Manticore core empire. A few exceptions will be had of course, but I do not see Beowulf being one of them nor Hypatia.

So, in terms of What they build? Well, they will become defacto part of the Manticore Empire and there will not be a BSDF per se. Short term yes and will be mostly light units. Long term? No.

Relax wrote:To square everything.....

SL ~ 250LY in radius if you count the Shell/Protectorates.
Assume even distribution of habitable stars.
Volume ~65,000,000 LY^3
If 1800 core worlds, 3000 shell + ~10,000 protectorates would equal roughly 20LY between habitable star systems.

We're told there were about 2000 systems in the SL. Your numbers are off by 10x.

I also think there's a difference between "Core World" and "world in the Core." Hypatia is in the Core, but does not count as a Core World.

Ships are not solo riding, MADRAS protectorate sector had? 1 squadron BC's, 2 squadrons DD's? Or was it 3? I think it was 3. Total number of ships was??? 20+ right? Total number of star systems = ? I do not believe we were ever told, but just from the number we know it is at least 10, but more than 20 upwards of 50 seems more likely as given roughly 20 ships and they were ***lucky*** to have BC's at the time, so 2 squadrons of 8 seems more likely of DD's. This would place MORE planets to "protect" than they had ships and then combine need for concentration = most planets in protectorates have NO SLN ships present.

Sounds about right.

Yes, ~15,000 habitable SL planets or so as we have statements that frontier fleet does NOT have enough ships to go around. Pretty much indicates there MUST be more planets than ships. After all 1 ship in orbit throwing Kinetic energy strikes should be sufficient to "keep the peace" Frontier Fleet style...

Since it had 2000 member systems, it could on average have one SD per system. Of course, that's a very poor distribution of forces.

One imagines the SL had at least as many BCs as it did SDs, so I'm guessing 4000 BCs and 10000 DDs. That's sufficient to patrol the full SL.

So, if the above is true, that would put frontier fleet at roughly half the BC's ~2000, 1000CA, 8000 CL/DD = 11,000 ships, but 10,000 protectorates and frankly 3000 shell systems they have to be looking over their backs at. Also, aren't the major SLN bases right on the edge of SL space before the Shell? Not in the Shell? I think there is an RFC statement about that somewhere when Filaretta attacked.

The Shell is part of the SL. Or was...

The protectorates didn't need patrolling. The FF was there to enforce the SL/OFS's will, not to patrol them. So it did not need to have an effective force in all systems, only in nodal points. Plus, the protectorates were poor by themselves, so there wasn't much to attract attention. A small deterrent force would suffice against pirates.

We are told there are ~1800 systems that vote and are the CORE worlds, 700 original members 700 years ago. The Shell, do not vote IIRC and we have no idea how many of them exist though some of them are now core worlds? We really do not have any definitions and RFC is rather wise to NOT nail his feet to the floor in this manner, though by the size of the SLN we can assume some things.

Ergo why there have to be roughly 10,000+++ Shell + protectorates to not "have enough ships". If there were only the ~2000 as you stated, then Every Single planet could have its own BC + DD's with many to spare in orbit as we are told ~4000BC in UH.

Not really on topic, just something that's bugged me for years now: Why would it necessarily be called the Beowulf SPACE Navy? Is there any other sort in that day and age? I sorta doubt that a Sea Navy would be taken seriously. Can we just call it the Beowulf Navy?

Relax wrote:We are told there are ~1800 systems that vote and are the CORE worlds, 700 original members 700 years ago. The Shell, do not vote IIRC and we have no idea how many of them exist though some of them are now core worlds? We really do not have any definitions and RFC is rather wise to NOT nail his feet to the floor in this manner, though by the size of the SLN we can assume some things.

Ergo why there have to be roughly 10,000+++ Shell + protectorates to not "have enough ships". If there were only the ~2000 as you stated, then Every Single planet could have its own BC + DD's with many to spare in orbit as we are told ~4000BC in UH.

Of course the Shell votes. All full members are allowed to vote. Are you confusing the Shell (SL member systems) with the Verge (non-member systems beyond the SL)?

The Solarian League is also said to have a population around 1 trillion. With 15000 members, that would be an average of a mere 66 million per system, which is not believable, for systems that are mature enough to have achieved SL membership. In fact, 1 trillion in 1800 core systems would be only 555 million per system and I'd say that's at least 5x too little.

PS: above I said that Beowulf would have a population comparable to all of the SEM, but the Wiki lists its population as only 6 billion. Beowulf has been populated for 1800 years, so if the colony ship had 100,000 colonists, that means on average it took more than 110 years for the population to double. I had expected its population to be 40 billion.

Relax wrote:Empires: Yesterday, Today, and future.

Someone made a map of all the worlds empires. From the capital of said empire they drew lines in terms of days of travel.

Everything within 1 weeks day of travel is roughly speaking able to become the core of said empire and stays in tact over centuries. Then ever outward the lines appear until one gets to about 2 weeks travel time. In every case, 2 weeks travel time is the outter edge of any viable empire and anything beyond this point said empire occasionally surges outwards to but within ~100 years loses and generally speaking retracts backwards to about 1 weeks travel time from capital.

Today, there is no limitation due to ~modern communications. Only reason the Brit Empire lasted as long was due to massive technology imbalance and it still failed.

In the Honorverse, empires, sphere of influence etc, I see extending to about the historical mean of about 1 week from a capital to 2 weeks travel time. So, anything within a week of the MWJ, will become defacto part of the Manticore core empire. A few exceptions will be had of course, but I do not see Beowulf being one of them nor Hypatia.

So, in terms of What they build? Well, they will become defacto part of the Manticore Empire and there will not be a BSDF per se. Short term yes and will be mostly light units. Long term? No.

That seems to be overstating the historical case significantly (or at least understating how long further stretches' of empire were held). During the Roman empire the fastest trip from Rome to Londinium (not even the furthest expanse of their empire) apparently took 27 days - nearly 4 weeks. And while Britain was an overreach, and they eventually abandoned it, they still held England for nearly 400 years.

Pretty sure the Eastern Roman empire had holding even greater travel time from their capital -- and it held some of those for about 200 years.

Don't know about travel times but various Chinese empires held relatively far flung territory for long stretches of time.

And I'm pretty sure the ancient Egyptian empire had holding more than a week's travel from their capital -- and it lasted thousands of years.

Ok, I was wrong on the population. I found textev.

Crown of Slaves, Chapter 4 wrote:"Even with San Martin added, your total population does not exceed six billion. There are five times that many people living in the Solar System aline—or Centauri, or Tau Delta, or Mithra, or any one of several dozen of the Solarian League's inner systems. The 'Old League,' as it's popularly known. The Solarian League as a whole has an official membership of 1,784 planets—that's not counting the hundreds more under Solarian rule in the Protectorates—which exist in a volume of galactic space measuring between three and four hundred light-years in diameter. [...] No one has any idea what the total population may be. The Old League alone has a registered population of almost three trillion people, according to the last census—and that census grossly undercounted the population. No serious analyst even tries to claim they know how many more trillions of people live in the so-called Shell Worlds or the Protectorates."

(Emphasis mine)

The text makes a distinction between Shell Worlds and Protectorates, so they can't be the same. The Shell Worlds are members, part of the 1784 total. The SL does have sufficient ships to station one or several in each system, if it wanted or needed to. But like the discussion on whether the RMN Home Fleet should divide itself to protect Sphinx, it doesn't make sense for the SLN to divide itself too thin. It invites defeat in detail.

The text doesn't say how many systems are in the Old League. If it is 200, that means an average population of 15 billion per system, which is less than the 30 billion said to live in Sol and a dozen other systems. So that's a reasonable number of Old League systems.

Which means that both Beowulf and Hypatia are seriously underpopulated compared to the average.

zuluwiz wrote:Not really on topic, just something that's bugged me for years now: Why would it necessarily be called the Beowulf SPACE Navy? Is there any other sort in that day and age? I sorta doubt that a Sea Navy would be taken seriously. Can we just call it the Beowulf Navy?

Probably folks just following the pattern that David set in the books. He didn't use the term "Beowulf Space Navy"; because it isn't yet; it's still the Beowulf System Defense Force.

However there's a long list of "space navies" to be found scattered through the books; starting the the Grayson Space Navy (GSN). Though since Grayson had reestablished a space capability not hugely long before their civil war the GSN might well have overlapped with a real, combated experienced, ocean going navy.

However the GSN is far from the only "space navy".
"Elysian space navy" [EoH], [AoV], [MoH], & [HoS]
"late of the Lowell Space Navy" [EoH],
"the San Martin Space Navy" [EoH] & [HoS],
"Alizon Space Navy—CO" [AAC],
"Zunker Space Navy" [ART],
"the “Limbo Space Navy”" [ART],
"the newly created Prism Space Navy" [Changer of Worlds],
"the Mesan Space Navy" [CoS] & [ToF],
"Erewhonese Space Navy" [ToF],
"the Erewhon Space Navy" [SoV],
"the Spindle Space Navy" [SftS],
"the Montana Space Navy" [SftS],

Plus "Once the 'StateSec renegades' had attacked Verdant Vista and carried out a flagrant violation of the Eridani Edict, every space navy's hand would be turned against them" [ToF] implying that space navy is the normal in-universe term.

Now the "Elysian space navy" could have had its name directly modeled on the GSN; given that Honor "founded" it while wearing her GSN hat -- but that explanation doesn't fly for the others.

Still BSN is just a convenience for the posters, and while space does fit this repeated naming convention is also serves to provide a nice 3rd letter to the acronym; thus fitting in with other forces like the RHN, RMN, IAN, GSN, and SLN. Somehow just calling it the BN seems wrong.

Jonathan_S wrote:Still BSN is just a convenience for the posters, and while space does fit this repeated naming convention is also serves to provide a nice 3rd letter to the acronym; thus fitting in with other forces like the RHN, RMN, IAN, GSN, and SLN. Somehow just calling it the BN seems wrong.

There was the People's Navy...