Future Naval sizes

The SLN is portrayed as this super power for the vast majority of the series, a number of times it was brought up that the SLN has an active force of 2,300 SD’s and 8,000 SD’s in reserve. We don’t know if the SLN has an actual reserve manpower for those 8,000 SD’s or they hoped to have enough time to train additional people but ultimately it doesn’t matter. The SLN is per capita the weakest fleet in 1905 even if we assume technology is equal, they have a nation that is over 1,700 member systems but have a fleet that can deploy no more than 1.35 SD’s/system which means that if they face an opponent with a few dozen SD’s the league will be defenceless unless the reserve is mobilized and worked up pretty quickly which is dubious at best.

Between The MA and Haven, there were no more than 150 inhabited systems more likely 80-90 systems. More importantly by 1905 the MA and republic had been preparing for war for over half a century and as a result many of the vital systems were heavily fortified with at least forts which would be more than most League systems had.

In 1905 the RMN had the following fleet strength:

-181 SD’s
-121 DN’s
-199 BC’s
-333 CA’s
-295 CL’s
-486 DD’s
Also at least 124 Forts

Total Mobile Fleet: 1,616 ships


At the same time the People’s navy had:

-412 SD’s
-48 DN’s
-374 BB’s
-81 BC’s
-210 CA’s
-354 CL’s
-627 DD’s

Total Mobile Fleet: 2,106 ships

Unknown # of forts.

The SLN in turn had the following strength:
-2,300 SD’s + 8,000 in reserve that were of dubious quality, technology and unknown manpower.

-5,052 BC’s (4,412 BC’s Active/460 BC’s refit/180 BC’s Reserve) According to Uncompromising honour

-6,000 lighter units(Estimate), now if I remember correctly the SLN focused more on the DD class for lighter units and as a result had fewer CA/CL’s in service

If we use DD heavy Proportions as a benchmark we are left with the following breakdown:


-~1,000 CA’s
-~2,000 CL’s
-~3,000 DD’s

SLN total lighter units ~11,052 light combatants

Wether facing a GA(3,722 ships), only Manticore(1,615 ships) or only Haven(2,106 ships) the SLN was not built for this war especially considering that they would be facing 2,300 SD’s vs 762 GA SD’s and DN’s as well as 374 BB’s.


Let’s take a scenario of a war between a 1905 GA(Manticore and Haven) vs the League where the League is the aggressor and has started to mobilize and organize for an attack forcing the GA to launch a preemptive strike. The SLN’s SD’s are likely concentrated in a handful of systems most likely no more than 20 bases on the high end. Likely colocated with the reserve sites and naval yards as well as some of the oldest and most prominent League Members. The battle fleet would likely be more concentrated while frontier fleet would be significantly more dispersed due to their duties in the protectorates and the verge.

There are an unknown number of System Defence Forces some of them being as strong as the RMN pre King Roger build up. The RMN at the time had by my estimate 3 SD’s, 11 DN’s and 11 BB’s. So I’m going to assume that most SDF’s had nothing bigger than CA/CL but the majority of SDF’s having mostly light units predominantly having DD’s while ~10 had 10-16 wallers in service.

The SLN has a fleet that cannot defend its territory and needs to send the majority of its SD’s in service to attack the GA if they have the hope of winning they have to attack Manticore first to capture the junctions and open supply lines between core League bases and the Haven sector. If they attack Haven they run the risk of being months or depending on the damage suffered years away from League space. The problem for the SLN is that the GA could easily deploy 56 DN’s, 320 BB’s, 160 BC’s, 320 CA’s, 320 CL’s and 640 DD’s while leaving the bulk ~700 SD’s/DN’s, 120 BC’s, 223 CA’s, 329 CL’s and 473 DD’s to defend Haven sector. Basically they have enough to attack the GA if they strip the League of defences but they have no hope of successfully defending even a fraction of their territory against one let alone both nations.

The SLN would need to concentrate some of their lighter units since most are likely very disposed and workup their heavier units before they can send them to battle, most of the lighter units would be split throughout league space as well as the protectorates and the verge. On preemptive strike the bulk of the league is lightly defended or not defended at all and worst of all there would be plenty of intelligence to know where the SLN is based, where the strongest SDF’s are and which systems at lightly defended or undefended at all. Before the SLN can react to the GA, the offensive fleet can wreak havoc in dozens if not hundreds of core and shell systems, force them to redeploy to cover important military, political or industrial systems weakening themselves everywhere, sitting in their bases while mobilizing the reserve and letting the poorly defended or defenceless League member systems fend for themselves or dispatch the bus of the SLN wall to attack Manticore to open the junction. Even if they end up winning they would surrender the league and lose $20 of industry for every $1 they destroy,


This is all a long winded way to bring me to my point and that is the new post war SLN. After the war the League is likely to have 1,600+ members, all of them will be able to do the math on how poorly defended the league was before and during the war even if we remove the vast technological difference. Every system would be heavily fortified with system pods, forts and system defence centres but they will also demand a mobile component for their defence especially the bigger core and shell systems. Major systems would not be satisfied with a couple of SD(P)’s and will either expect the SLN to be able to deploy ships to protect them or will build a sizeable fleet of their own that belongs exclusively to themselves to avoid being stripped by the SLN during wartime. Even if we assume that the average can be 20-40 SD(P)’s per system that would be between 32,000 SD(P)’s and 64,000 SD(P)’s. Then add in lighter combatants(wether they go with CLAC’s and LAC’s or not is not important) likely the lighter combatants would number twice as many if not 3-4 times as many as the wallers.

How does the SLN provide security to its member systems without engaging in an arms race with the GA? Because presumably 1955-1965 the GA would have rebuild Beowulf, Manticore and Grayson as well as added neutral systems build up their industries and any that leave the League. Haven would be Brought up to technological parity with Manticore and their industry greatly improved and the GA would be able to maintain a sizeable force themselves. The bigger the SLN the bigger the GA fleet has to be and to throw another wrinkle into the equation a lot of League members might be weary of giving the SLN and the central government that much power based on the last war and how the mandarins used the fleet against league member systems and neutral systems.

How do you build a fleet that satisfies the needs of the member systems when they want the defence but may not trust you to turn around and use that fleet to oppress them. How does one do that without also forcing the GA into building a sizeable force of their own and considering that with Beowulf in the GA they have a door right into the core of the League as well as the Lynx and Joshua approaches the SLN will need significantly more to defend from multiple potential axis of approach.

What kind of force would the SLN field in 1960-1965 and what kind of force would the GA field in 1960-1965.

By the way I am assuming that the GA would also include the Andermani, Erewhon, Maya and many verge/former protectorates and neutral systems that will abandon neutrality having experienced how good that was during the last war.

The RMN is limited by manpower. It is so written that they cannot expand, apparently because they need every single interpretive dancer, feminist theorist, and rap artist working as hard as they can every day - Manticoran civilization will simply collapse without them. They just cannot expand their navy.

So if the RMN wants to get into a build competition with the three trillion population SLN, well, go for it. I think I know how this ends.

Sigs wrote:The SLN is portrayed as this super power for the vast majority of the series, a number of times it was brought up that the SLN has an active force of 2,300 SD’s and 8,000 SD’s in reserve. We don’t know if the SLN has an actual reserve manpower for those 8,000 SD’s or they hoped to have enough time to train additional people but ultimately it doesn’t matter. The SLN is per capita the weakest fleet in 1905 even if we assume technology is equal, they have a nation that is over 1,700 member systems but have a fleet that can deploy no more than 1.35 SD’s/system which means that if they face an opponent with a few dozen SD’s the league will be defenceless unless the reserve is mobilized and worked up pretty quickly which is dubious at best.

Between The MA and Haven, there were no more than 150 inhabited systems more likely 80-90 systems. More importantly by 1905 the MA and republic had been preparing for war for over half a century and as a result many of the vital systems were heavily fortified with at least forts which would be more than most League systems had.

In 1905 the RMN had the following fleet strength:

-181 SD’s
-121 DN’s
-199 BC’s
-333 CA’s
-295 CL’s
-486 DD’s
Also at least 124 Forts

Total Mobile Fleet: 1,616 ships


At the same time the People’s navy had:

-412 SD’s
-48 DN’s
-374 BB’s
-81 BC’s
-210 CA’s
-354 CL’s
-627 DD’s

Total Mobile Fleet: 2,106 ships

Unknown # of forts.

The SLN in turn had the following strength:
-2,300 SD’s + 8,000 in reserve that were of dubious quality, technology and unknown manpower.

-5,052 BC’s (4,412 BC’s Active/460 BC’s refit/180 BC’s Reserve) According to Uncompromising honour

-6,000 lighter units(Estimate), now if I remember correctly the SLN focused more on the DD class for lighter units and as a result had fewer CA/CL’s in service

If we use DD heavy Proportions as a benchmark we are left with the following breakdown:


-~1,000 CA’s
-~2,000 CL’s
-~3,000 DD’s

SLN total lighter units ~11,052 light combatants

Wether facing a GA(3,722 ships), only Manticore(1,615 ships) or only Haven(2,106 ships) the SLN was not built for this war especially considering that they would be facing 2,300 SD’s vs 762 GA SD’s and DN’s as well as 374 BB’s.


Let’s take a scenario of a war between a 1905 GA(Manticore and Haven) vs the League where the League is the aggressor and has started to mobilize and organize for an attack forcing the GA to launch a preemptive strike. The SLN’s SD’s are likely concentrated in a handful of systems most likely no more than 20 bases on the high end. Likely colocated with the reserve sites and naval yards as well as some of the oldest and most prominent League Members. The battle fleet would likely be more concentrated while frontier fleet would be significantly more dispersed due to their duties in the protectorates and the verge.

There are an unknown number of System Defence Forces some of them being as strong as the RMN pre King Roger build up. The RMN at the time had by my estimate 3 SD’s, 11 DN’s and 11 BB’s. So I’m going to assume that most SDF’s had nothing bigger than CA/CL but the majority of SDF’s having mostly light units predominantly having DD’s while ~10 had 10-16 wallers in service.

The SLN has a fleet that cannot defend its territory and needs to send the majority of its SD’s in service to attack the GA if they have the hope of winning they have to attack Manticore first to capture the junctions and open supply lines between core League bases and the Haven sector. If they attack Haven they run the risk of being months or depending on the damage suffered years away from League space. The problem for the SLN is that the GA could easily deploy 56 DN’s, 320 BB’s, 160 BC’s, 320 CA’s, 320 CL’s and 640 DD’s while leaving the bulk ~700 SD’s/DN’s, 120 BC’s, 223 CA’s, 329 CL’s and 473 DD’s to defend Haven sector. Basically they have enough to attack the GA if they strip the League of defences but they have no hope of successfully defending even a fraction of their territory against one let alone both nations.

The SLN would need to concentrate some of their lighter units since most are likely very disposed and workup their heavier units before they can send them to battle, most of the lighter units would be split throughout league space as well as the protectorates and the verge. On preemptive strike the bulk of the league is lightly defended or not defended at all and worst of all there would be plenty of intelligence to know where the SLN is based, where the strongest SDF’s are and which systems at lightly defended or undefended at all. Before the SLN can react to the GA, the offensive fleet can wreak havoc in dozens if not hundreds of core and shell systems, force them to redeploy to cover important military, political or industrial systems weakening themselves everywhere, sitting in their bases while mobilizing the reserve and letting the poorly defended or defenceless League member systems fend for themselves or dispatch the bus of the SLN wall to attack Manticore to open the junction. Even if they end up winning they would surrender the league and lose $20 of industry for every $1 they destroy,


This is all a long winded way to bring me to my point and that is the new post war SLN. After the war the League is likely to have 1,600+ members, all of them will be able to do the math on how poorly defended the league was before and during the war even if we remove the vast technological difference. Every system would be heavily fortified with system pods, forts and system defence centres but they will also demand a mobile component for their defence especially the bigger core and shell systems. Major systems would not be satisfied with a couple of SD(P)’s and will either expect the SLN to be able to deploy ships to protect them or will build a sizeable fleet of their own that belongs exclusively to themselves to avoid being stripped by the SLN during wartime. Even if we assume that the average can be 20-40 SD(P)’s per system that would be between 32,000 SD(P)’s and 64,000 SD(P)’s. Then add in lighter combatants(wether they go with CLAC’s and LAC’s or not is not important) likely the lighter combatants would number twice as many if not 3-4 times as many as the wallers.

How does the SLN provide security to its member systems without engaging in an arms race with the GA? Because presumably 1955-1965 the GA would have rebuild Beowulf, Manticore and Grayson as well as added neutral systems build up their industries and any that leave the League. Haven would be Brought up to technological parity with Manticore and their industry greatly improved and the GA would be able to maintain a sizeable force themselves. The bigger the SLN the bigger the GA fleet has to be and to throw another wrinkle into the equation a lot of League members might be weary of giving the SLN and the central government that much power based on the last war and how the mandarins used the fleet against league member systems and neutral systems.

How do you build a fleet that satisfies the needs of the member systems when they want the defence but may not trust you to turn around and use that fleet to oppress them. How does one do that without also forcing the GA into building a sizeable force of their own and considering that with Beowulf in the GA they have a door right into the core of the League as well as the Lynx and Joshua approaches the SLN will need significantly more to defend from multiple potential axis of approach.

What kind of force would the SLN field in 1960-1965 and what kind of force would the GA field in 1960-1965.

By the way I am assuming that the GA would also include the Andermani, Erewhon, Maya and many verge/former protectorates and neutral systems that will abandon neutrality having experienced how good that was during the last war.

1) we know the SLN reserve cannot be manned, with active personal, they might be able to man a couple hundred more ships, but the rest will require calling up retired reserves - which the SLN has no contingency plans for <head scratching>

2) most of the ships in the reserve were paper tigers, even in 1900. The reserve has been adding SDs for 250 years or so, and the process is to slowly update them. Each year, 1/2 of new construction goes directly into the reserve, the other 1/2 of new construction sends the oldest active ships to the reserve, but they are updated first, and the oldest SDs in the reserve are updated to modern standards. We know 33% of the reserve still mounts some auto cannon, so these ships were useless, even in 1900. Doing some rough math, considering only ships updated inside the laserhead era (1875-) as slightly viable in modern warfare, fewer than 2500 ships in the reserve were viable for activation without extensive upgrades.

3) Battle fleet is not a defense fleet. It is a retribution fleet. It's mandate to to smash anyone who attacks the SL with overwhelming force. In modern military terms, it is a "Fleet in Being", it's mere existence is the deterrence, not it's presence. Frontier fleet is the SL's presence fleet, it's units don't have to be individually strong, powerful, or insanely high tech- they are the tripwire that will bring hell on anyone who dares face them.

4) how does the SLN provide security? Fear. The rest isn't their job.

5) 1965, or in 40 years, there will be a Different GA facing off with a different SLN, despite prolong. It would be foolish to ascribe the failings of the 1920 SLN to what will reconstitute in 40 years, as will it be to ascribe the successes of the 1924 GA to their successors in 1965.

Sigs wrote:The SLN is portrayed as this super power for the vast majority of the series, a number of times it was brought up that the SLN has an active force of 2,300 SD’s and 8,000 SD’s in reserve. We don’t know if the SLN has an actual reserve manpower for those 8,000 SD’s or they hoped to have enough time to train additional people but ultimately it doesn’t matter. The SLN is per capita the weakest fleet in 1905 even if we assume technology is equal, they have a nation that is over 1,700 member systems but have a fleet that can deploy no more than 1.35 SD’s/system which means that if they face an opponent with a few dozen SD’s the league will be defenceless unless the reserve is mobilized and worked up pretty quickly which is dubious at best.

David Weber's said that the League in fact did not have the reserve manpower to activate its reserve; nor any good plans for rapidly training crew for them.

You're technically correct that their low SDs/system makes them defenseless -- in that they're incapable of successfully sitting on the defensive and having enough force to defeat attacks. However that's why they adopted their strategy of going directly for the enemy's homeworld. The same strategy that you also said they'd need to follow.

With their 2,000 or so active SDs they can defensively cover a few key systems, including Sol, and still send a thousand SDs at the enemy's home system.

Against only a few dozen SDs, assuming the entire enemy battle line had concentrated in defense of their home, you'd need a hell of a tech edge to overcome numerical inferiority of up to 20:1. And once the enemy's home system is occupied and its remaining industry and yards are under League control any SDs that might try to operate as a fleet in exile aren't going to last long -- not without sources of supplies, yards for repair, etc. (And that's assuming they're willing to violate the rules of war by continuing the fight after their government surrenders)


We've debated before, but the consensus seems to be that probably up until about 1910 (so, much of the way through the first war with Haven) the active SLN Battle Fleet could have defeated the RMN; if they didn't fritter away their numerical advantage by repeatedly sending forces that were too small.
Even with the advantage of an initial towed pod salvo an RMN Gryphon-class SD probably can't take on Scientist-class SDs at any more than a 4, or maybe 5, to 1 numerical inferiority -- and the League could easily have sent more than that. The Gryphons could run (despite their larger size) but running doesn't much help when you're the only thing between the enemy and Manticore itself.

Now if for some reason the Harris or Pierre governments aligned with Manticore against the League then the numbers, as you noted, change. However neither Manticore nor Haven is going to be willing to leave their respective homeworld undefended -- not when they know the League strategy is to go straight for the head. Still, the League probably wouldn't be able to take both of them combined in 1905; especially if they struck before the coup and so before the Peeps temporarily crippled their own navy. But that didn't seem a plausible scenario.



Going forward though will be interesting. On the one hand most League systems suffered nothing more from the war than a disruption of trade due to the withdrawal of Manticore's shipping and closure of the wormhole network -- so its not clear how much they'll be screaming for extra defenses. But on the flip side they did see what the SLN did to some of it's own systems. So if they're rational they may have as much concern of a powerful SLN as over the GA doing something nasty. If they truly have that concern that would push them to build up a powerful system defense force -- capable to deterring the GA or any future body who thinks relaunching Buccaneer is a good idea. Because the SDF would be their citizen, answering to them.

And the core worlds could certainly each afford to build an SDF around the size of the pre-war RMN. They don't have the revenue from the Junction, but even with that Manticore in 1905 didn't have the highest system GDP, a few of the core worlds outstripped it and others weren't far behind. Now that would be a major change in their government spending, and that'd be on top of the new direct taxes going to the League and its navy, so their citizen might not appreciate the costs of doing so -- but the raw economic muscle and manpower to do build and sustain such a defense force does exist.

Sigs wrote:
The SLN in turn had the following strength:
-2,300 SD’s + 8,000 in reserve that were of dubious quality, technology and unknown manpower.

-5,052 BC’s (4,412 BC’s Active/460 BC’s refit/180 BC’s Reserve) According to Uncompromising honour

If we use DD heavy Proportions as a benchmark we are left with the following breakdown:


-~1,000 CA’s
-~2,000 CL’s
-~3,000 DD’s

1) Uncompromising Honor has said Active SLN personnel is 27,000,000 with a total of 155,000,000.

2) Each SD uses ~7000people/SD I think even said 7500 in Mission of Honor? 2200* 7500 = 16,500,000
3) Each BC uses ~2400people/BC 4400*2400 = 10,560,000

Erm...
16,500,000 + 10,560,000 =~27,000,000 Uh... Houston we have a problem. But we are told 1/2 are not really active but in reserve. But, we do know that in UH, all SD's have been decomissioned minus 150 of them and all personnel transferred to BC's and lighter units.

4) We have no idea number of CA, CL, DD, but we do know there are vast numbers of them greater than number of BC.

4A) CA ~ 1200, CL ~400, DD ~300 personnel each respectively.
5) SLN is BC HEAVY. So few CA's
5a) So out of every 10 light units probably only 1 is a CA
5b) 10 units = 1CA + ~9*(CL + DD)/2
10 = 1200 + 9*350 = ~4500/10 light ships ~450/light ship

[16,500,000 - 150*7500]/450 = 34,000 light combatants.

Very Roughly SLN had: 2200SD, 4400BC, 1000CA, 16500 CL, 16500 DD with more working up etc.

The SLN has several problems with what it can and may want to do with it's navy

1st, a very large number of SLN active duty personnel are now/still POWs (with an iffy may be pirate/may be POS we haven't decided of Crandall's force) but all the survivors of Crandall's fleet and Filerta's fleet (and the people who couldn't get away from Hypatia). After Mike smacked Byng's force, she left the SLN people there- still don't know if more than a couple who were filing reports have made it home. Also don't know the final disposition of those that Mike captured at Myers. Same at Beowulf.
The crew of EVERY SLN ship and station in the SOL system is now on Earth...and no ships.

EVERY SLN ship in the SOL system was either blown up with the launch on the SLN Reserve Fleet by Jupiter or scuttled per Harrington's orders. Well, there's whatever Kingsford had to use to get to meet with Honor. They don't even have ANY ships that could try and recover significant parts of the former Reserve fleet or scuttle ships -or any of the thousands of stations of work platforms that Honor had destroyed in visiting Buccaneer on SOL. They can't even reclaim any of those ships or platforms.

Every ship of Crandall's flee and Fillerta's fleet was either destroyed or moved (or significant pieces were moved to parking orbits and are being stopped for stuff and reclamation by SEM. The SL is not getting any of those back. Nor the ships they lost at Beowulf that could be repaired. I mention that because mostly they would be reclaimed but now not be SL

So....SLN has lots of people but their surviving SDs are deathtraps. They CAN use the existing ships below the wall within the SL but they are mostly going to be very busy dealing with "internal" problems, any rise in piracy or problems between those system that remain in the League or with systems that have left.

Sure, SL has all those systems but what do they have to:
1) maintain the remaining below-the-wall, let alone upgrade them to anything they may have in improvements. Designs, yard conversion, yard build from scratch? Technodyne may have a few problems just now.......political, monetary, etc. 2) When the screaming about who's going to protect SL systems now that the SLN has been "made aware" of its many and massive shortcomings and will HAVE to go back to providing security rather than swanning around in SD.

Gonna have to cut loose a lot of OFS and Frontier Fleet people- those they don't (particularly OFS) bring to trial on several things. But that brings up "retirement" and pensions of all those people, particularly the vastly bloated senior staff of SLN who's services will no longer be needed (incompetence, truly bad decisions in their jobs under the former state of affairs, outright criminal conduct now to be run down and prosecuted etc) and just deciding now would be a good time to cash out. Ah, Pension Debt of the SL......
And Reparations of the SL to those systems they inflicted Buccaneer on.........

Gonna be a lot of unhappy people who don't want to be stuck with the bill for the Mandarins, OFS, and so much other stuff. Also will be very very very expensive.

Sigs wrote:
Between The MA and Haven, there were no more than 150 inhabited systems more likely 80-90 systems.

NIT: RoH has 150 systems by itself. I forget which book it is mentioned, one of the early books. Manticore Empire now has 50 by itself and are we counting the Manticore alliance systems as well? That gives another ~20 systems.

As for rest of your post regarding future naval sizes... This truly becomes problematic as we have no idea number of inhabited systems. We are also told there are a couple dozen star systems with SD squadrons and we have never seen more than 8 parties.

Then we have serious problems: SL has 1800 core worlds + Shell + protectorates, yet we are told vast majority have nothing more than Forts/LAC's in orbit.

Now via my crude calculation in previous post, SLN had roughly 30,000-->40,000 active ships. We also have Madras sector out by Talbott Quadrant with nearly NO ships at all. Where the Hell was the SLN? What Rabbit hole swallowed up 30,000 ships??? 20,000 ships? Where? I mean, even if we assume EVERY planet had 2 permanently stationed 2 DD/CL[1 active and 2nd down for repair/crew rotation], that is still more than 10,000 planets, yet we are told most had nothing except a DD passing through occasionally. This must require number of protectorates to be several multiples greater than 10,000.

Then one must have a map of the wormholes as they play a FAR greater aspect on the astrography" of Human space than a star chart. Without this chart one is a bland man as this determines nodal concentrations, travel times, etc.

Sorry, a cop out answer really to your detailed post, but, simply waaaaaaaayyyyy too much we do not know.

Relax wrote:

Sigs wrote:
Between The MA and Haven, there were no more than 150 inhabited systems more likely 80-90 systems.

NIT: RoH has 150 systems by itself. I forget which book it is mentioned, one of the early books. Manticore Empire now has 50 by itself and are we counting the Manticore alliance systems as well? That gives another ~20 systems.

I guess interwar era or early first war is an 'early' book now ...

/the PRH claimed something like 400 systems, IIRC, but many of those were basically empty

kzt wrote:The RMN is limited by manpower. It is so written that they cannot expand, apparently because they need every single interpretive dancer, feminist theorist, and rap artist working as hard as they can every day - Manticoran civilization will simply collapse without them. They just cannot expand their navy.

So if the RMN wants to get into a build competition with the three trillion population SLN, well, go for it. I think I know how this ends.

Also while the military drawing disproportionately from the most productive part of society was certainly true in WWII, Manticore is not mid-20th century AD earth and I really don't get why that would be true there.

Basically everyone has prolog (excepting immigrants who were too old to get prolong), and basically no one with prolog (even 1st-gen) is old enough to be more than physically middle-aged. So there's really no problem with signing up 40-year-olds, or even 80-year-olds.

There's basically no sexism. You can sign up all the women you want, for any role they can do, and they will have been educated as well as the men.

You've got 20th century PD medicine, so there are very, very few people with disqualifying injuries or medical conditions.

drothgery wrote:Also while the military drawing disproportionately from the most productive part of society was certainly true in WWII, Manticore is not mid-20th century AD earth and I really don't get why that would be true there.

Basically everyone has prolog (excepting immigrants who were too old to get prolong), and basically no one with prolog (even 1st-gen) is old enough to be more than physically middle-aged. So there's really no problem with signing up 40-year-olds, or even 80-year-olds.

There's basically no sexism. You can sign up all the women you want, for any role they can do, and they will have been educated as well as the men.

You've got 20th century PD medicine, so there are very, very few people with disqualifying injuries or medical conditions.

It doesn’t matter. That is David’s position. Despite the fact that less than a million people produced the entire RMN and all it’s weapons…

And this includes the army and marines, so if you put three companies of marines on a ship that is one less battle cruiser or 5 DDs you can man. They all come out of the same limited pool of people.