Future Naval sizes

Sigs wrote:My point is that what the SLN could or could not do with the reserve is irrelevant. The League members will be looking at the SLN from the point of view that even if the SLN reserve was 100% modern ships with 100% of the crew accounted for it would still take time to mobilize them and still would leave the League exposed. The core and shell systems would have to be looking at the SLN from the point of view that they could not protect 90%+ of the League. If they initiated a war before mobilizing the reserve the SLN would be tied down protecting the helpless reserve leaving the rest of the League with the vast majority of the League defenceless aside from what they have in their SDF if they have one.

I would certainly be demanding an SLN that has the ability to protect my system and reinforce the picket or I would be building a force that I can count on and making agreements with neighbours and bypassing the League and the SLN all-together.

And I have no doubt many members will be doing just that. From their point of view, they'd be totally right to do so.

And equally, I have no doubt no such thing will happen. The SLN will not grow to protect every single member world with an SD squadron or more. The theory behind the SLN's previous operating stance actually makes sense. It was deeply flawed in its execution, and cold comfort for those that did get attacked before it could respond, but it was an effective deterrent. And it's actually better for it to have peer powers now, because the SLN cannot be a bully any more.

After the war with the GA, the League would have to rethink that. The League members post war would demand protection from the SLN or invest heavily on their own defence negating the need for the SLN. Pre war they thought the mighty SLN could protect them by reputation, post war they want actual ships in their systems. It does help a core system to have the SLN smashing Manticore and Haven if the two nations can read the situation and decide to let their fleets loose within the League rather than fight the war the way the SLN expects by sitting in your home system and waiting for them to arrive.

They're free to invest heavily on their own defence, out of their own system's GDP. But if they want to keep being members of the League, then they'll also pay for their share of the SLN's costs, whether they have their own forces or not. This means you'd be taxing your citizens more than other systems would. It's a political question.

So your choices are to forge ahead with this plan, secede from the League, or not have such a big force. If the SLN-as-a-deterrence plan works, then all systems in the League are equally protected on average, but some of them devoted less resources to the military and may have thus been able to get a leg up in their economy.

Quick note: you don't need to devote that much resource to cease being a target. Between two equally interesting targets, any rational military will attack the least defended one. So it's like putting your running shoes on while a bear is coming to attack you... you don't have to outrun the bear, only your companions.

The failures of the war will have long term effect for the League members, people will remember how helpless they felt knowing that the GA could sail into their system and wreak it and there was nothing they could do about it. What happens in 1920-1923 will have a massive impact in the thinking to he SLN for decades after the war.

I also dispute this, because they'll also remember that it barely affected them at all.

It could have been a lot different, but it's a strategy the GA knew it could not afford, because it would cause exactly what you're saying: revanchism. All those systems that felt weak and threatened in 1920 would by 1965 be wielding a navy the size of what Manticore was in the late 1890s, with a few of them with much bigger ones than the RMN itself. Maybe none of them can take on the RMN individually, but if you got 10 or 50 of those to band together (and that's only 2.5% of the pre-war League!), they'd smash you.

Sigs wrote:My numbers are based on the fact that we know a hard number for BC's and in almost every engagement we have seen in the series where we get a breakdown of the order of battle the CA/CL/DD are fewer than the BC's involved. Whats more the SLN uses BC's as their workhorse in the verge and protectorates even though most of those systems were completely defenceless and a CL/DD can do the job just fine.

Operationally, most of those Verge operations may require a CL or higher, just for the extended duration of it. They're going to really the boondocks, with no good port for resupply, so they had better bring everything they need. So I'd have expected a force consisting mostly of CLs and CAs.

What probably happened was political. All those Admirals with Commodores for comm officers would be demanding nothing smaller than a BC as their flagship, and an upgrade when the new class came out. And since they were already skimping so much money off of building SDs, Technodyne and the other contractors would be happy to build BCs for 200% the list price too.

Brigade XO wrote: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.

My question isn't what they can do with the existing fleet, we can safely assume that every ship of the SLN is obsolete when compared to RMN/GSN/RHN/IAN.

The question is how does the fleet disposition in 1905 was very dangerous, the SLN can win a war against Manticore or Haven and even win a war against both but the cost of winning the war would have been extremely expensive. Citizens of the 1,700 member systems would have to go back and see how exposed they were, its the difference of Manticore sating "screw it" and sending their 300 DN's/SD's to wreak havoc in the League and splitting them into 70 task groups built around 4 SD/DN's with escorts and hit 70 exposed targets, then hit 70 more before the SLN even knows what's happening. Thats 8% of the League member systems getting their spacebar industry wiped from space before the SLN can do anything about it. While the SLN is dithering on what to do the attackers could hit another 8% of the Leagues member systems.

The SLN has 4 options:
1) Disperse their SD's to every member system which means that there would be ~1.5 SD's/system and ~3 BC's per system. this is the worst option because the SLN will be unable to stop anything at all since they would still be outnumbered in every engagement.

2) They disperse their SD's and BC's to the most heavily industrialized systems and all the shipyards and leave the rest to their fate which means that they could potentially leave up to 99% of their member systems.

3) They could also defend the most industrialized systems and shipyards while deploying traps like the RHN did to the RMN but with such a huge territory to cover and the need to cover their core territories as well its an impossible task.

4) Abandon all defence and send everything to Manticore hoping to conquer Manticore/Haven before the enemy can destroy the bulk of the SLN.


All those options leave the League with massive damage and disintegration as a nation, their only chance of victory with little in the way of losses is if the enemy whoever it may be is to attack them by complete surprise, if the enemy fights on the SLN's terms or if the enemy is so poor that they can't field SD's and BC's in any number to threaten the League and can't produce the ammunition to do much damage to the League.

Basically the League may win in the end but it will be a pyrrhic victory and it will definitely not be worth the cost of victory.

After Crandall shows up at and gets her butt handed to her by Mike, we see the SEM figures it has to handle the SL......break it up into manageable chunks without letting the SLN take the MBS. Lacoon I and II are ways to do that short of war and although the SL Mandarins are effectively sitting an any Diplomatic Notes from Manticore complaining about the aggression (idiocy) of various SLN commanders, even the Mandarins think it's a bad idea to actually be in a shooting ware with SEM. Of course that doesn't stop them from carrying out an undeclared war.

When SLN is finally sent directly at MBS, it's too late. Not only do they have a massive intelligence failure, they are operating under the very wrong assumption that RMN is mangled (Haven's attack on the home system, Oyster Bay) and -mostly because they don't believe the reports the few SLN people who get sent back to SOL after defeats, nor any other information except the misdirection they are being fed the Alignment. Having Republic of Haven throw in with Manticore was just icing on the cake.

Manticore probably wasn't ever going to go with assaults by RMN on SL systems. Haven, on the other hand, might have. It's that whole "we have a very narrow window and we may be able to do enough damage so that SL sues for peace." The Harrington Plan is mostly an economic maneuver enforced by strong blocking components. It also depended on enough people in power or authority within the SL realizing that things are only going to get worse if the SL doesn't stop screwing around and solve it's own problems,. That, of course, didn't happen,

I don't recall seeing a total set of number of the BSDF, at best we see what is the force that will deny the SLN SD and screen the transit of the Beowulf terminus.

Just how big is the BSDF (not including the Beowulf Biological Survey) and beyond the SDs and screening force stationed around Beowulf, what did they have. More importantly, why did they have the rest of it.
I can understand Beowulf wanting and needing a significant navy to protect their end of the terminus, and the Beowulf System. But they have a large set of trading partners (some of whom we got to see were working to grab off large portions of that trade) but you aren't going to use SD for that. It is the DD through BC levels of commerce protection and presence that would be the larger numbers. Sure, their daughter colonies (none are mentioned as having SDFs) but where are they and how many are within at least the present Core of the League. How many are in the Shell? How many are Independent but allied with Beowulf and/or are either non-League members inside the amoeba of "League" space or are out on the Fringe and may or may not have any coverage from FF?
We are not told. We don't know how much commerce protection Beowulf runs- anywhere- to protect it's own merchant fleet of needs to lend such a presence to areas outside the League like Manticore has had to do in Silsea our out in Asgard or Matapan....or Hennesey.

Such information could shed light on what is going to be needed going forward as Beowulf had that BSDF before the late unpleasantness and they will need more of it (even if they are going to be changing up to RMN tech.

Sigs wrote:The question is how does the fleet disposition in 1905 was very dangerous, the SLN can win a war against Manticore or Haven and even win a war against both but the cost of winning the war would have been extremely expensive. Citizens of the 1,700 member systems would have to go back and see how exposed they were, its the difference of Manticore sating "screw it" and sending their 300 DN's/SD's to wreak havoc in the League and splitting them into 70 task groups built around 4 SD/DN's with escorts and hit 70 exposed targets, then hit 70 more before the SLN even knows what's happening. Thats 8% of the League member systems getting their spacebar industry wiped from space before the SLN can do anything about it. While the SLN is dithering on what to do the attackers could hit another 8% of the Leagues member systems.

The SLN has 4 options:
1) Disperse their SD's to every member system which means that there would be ~1.5 SD's/system and ~3 BC's per system. this is the worst option because the SLN will be unable to stop anything at all since they would still be outnumbered in every engagement.

2) They disperse their SD's and BC's to the most heavily industrialized systems and all the shipyards and leave the rest to their fate which means that they could potentially leave up to 99% of their member systems.

3) They could also defend the most industrialized systems and shipyards while deploying traps like the RHN did to the RMN but with such a huge territory to cover and the need to cover their core territories as well its an impossible task.

4) Abandon all defence and send everything to Manticore hoping to conquer Manticore/Haven before the enemy can destroy the bulk of the SLN.


All those options leave the League with massive damage and disintegration as a nation, their only chance of victory with little in the way of losses is if the enemy whoever it may be is to attack them by complete surprise, if the enemy fights on the SLN's terms or if the enemy is so poor that they can't field SD's and BC's in any number to threaten the League and can't produce the ammunition to do much damage to the League.

Basically the League may win in the end but it will be a pyrrhic victory and it will definitely not be worth the cost of victory.

I believe it was Uncompromising Honor that said that the warplan, in case of attack, was for the Frontier Force BCs to rush to do their best to slow and contain the attacking force ‘like white blood cells’ while Battle Fleet pulled together their retaliatory strike on the attacker’s home systems.

Spilting the RMN into 4 SD groups means that odds are they’d be expected to lose to a 64 BC opposing force. So mobbing enough FF BC squadrons into their path of advance might start slowing or defeating the attack; while BF launches their strike on Manticore.

While it is true no one other than DW knows the numbers of CA/CL/DD, we do know there are vastly more numerous CL/DD than BC in the SLN. I think that quote is where??? I cannot recall. So while my number I typed up is the maximum IMO, assuming only a couple thousand CL/DD is also absurd. You are right that we also have a quote saying the SLN was heavy on the BC's, but that was only in comparison to the Peoples Navy at the time I do believe who used 350 Battleships. I think that quote was in SVW?

Likewise your postulate that we only see BC's is also inadequate. Madras sector had zero and had nothing to do with Byng or Crandall coming through and taking them as we have quotes that vast majority of systems have no presence at all but occasionally have squadrons/divisions of DD/CL come through. Only reason we see mostly BC's is No one, not even the SLN are stupid enough to send CL/DD instead of BC's.

As for overabundance of lighter units... you assume we know how many systems SLN controls. We have no idea. If we had 10,000 + systems this would make more sense for how DW has also laid out the Merchant marine in the HV and importance and flow through numbers of the MWHJ.

So, while I believe my number is the ceiling, we also have a floor and I cannot see fewer than 10,000 light combatants.

Sigs wrote:

Relax wrote: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.
SNIP = 34,000 light combatants.

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

My numbers are based on the fact that we know a hard number for BC's and in almost every engagement we have seen in the series SNIP defenceless and a CL/DD can do the job just fine.

I don't see a scenario where the SLN has 34,000 lighter combatants

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.

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.

Im not talking about specifics, my question is how does the League balance the needs of its member systems vs the potential for an arms race. There are ~1,700 member systems, they will want to be protected and adequately protected not just nominal protection for 90%+ of the League and only a few systems getting adequate protection. The SLN and more importantly the League member systems will have to review and see that 2,300 SD’s are nowhere near enough to protect the SLN and even the 10,000 SD’s are nowhere near enough of a force to protect the League if an enemy force of a few hundred SD’s manage to get loose within League space.

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.

Because the vast majority of them are far from the borders of the League and depend on the mighty SLN to protect them without actually ever having to worry about defence. The SLN would have enough ships to guarantee that piracy isn’t a concern but also the conditions for piracy aren’t really there in the territory of the League. The majority of the league member systems are so insulated from the rest of humanity that defence concerns aren’t a thing for them.

[quote]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. [/quote[

2,300 SD’s @ ~6,000 people per ship is 13,800,000 people
4,600 BC’s @ ~2,000 people per ship is 9,200,000 people
1,000 CA’s @ ~1,100 people per ship is 1,100,000 people
4,000 CL’s @ ~ 500 people per ship is 2,000,000 people
4,000 DD’s @~ 400 people per ship is 1,600,000 people

For a grand total of 27.7 million people with a fleet of 15,900 combat ships of all classes.

For DD’s I used a Bastogne Class ship because I couldn’t find the crew numbers for the SLN equivalents but I assume they would be similar.
For CL’s I used Illustrious Class because I couldn’t find the equivalents for the SLN
For CA’s I used Broadsword Class for the same reasons as above
For BC’s I used Indefatigable Class ships
For SD’s I used Scientist Class @ 6,000 people but its likely they are somewhat higher.

This doesn’t account for support ships like logistics and marine transports and assault ships. The SLN has their SD’s along with a number of BC’s, CA’s, CL’s and DD’s in Battle Fleet while the bulk of their BC’s, CA’s, CL’s and DD’s deployed with Frontier Fleet. Frontier Fleet wasn’t responsible for the protectorates only, they had to have presence in systems that are not officially protectorates but are in fact protectorates in every but in officially.

Also the SLN has to have lighter ships in anti-piracy patrols in its core and inner shell but in much greater numbers the further away from the League core one gets. If there aren’t any piracy patrols pirates might see the outer League as a juicy target and they have quite the target rich environment to choose from.Chances are that at least 3-4 thousand lighter combatants(BC and below) are deployed in the League itself to combat any piracy problems before they start.

The rest of the 150,000,000 SLN personnel are Marines, SLN support personnel ad Gendarmerie. If I remember correctly the RMN had ~ 30,000,000 personnel in 1905, using the above numbers the RMN would have had:

300 SD’s @ ~6,000 people per ship is 1,800,000 people
200 BC’s @ ~2,000 people per ship is 400,000 people
333 CA’s @ ~1,100 people per ship is 333,000 people
295 CL’s @ ~ 500 people per ship is 147,500 people
485 DD’s @~ 400 people per ship is 194,000 people

300 Forts @ 10,000 people per fort is 3,000,000 people for a grand total of 5,874,500 out of a force close to 30,000,000 total strength. And keep in mind that this is using 300 SD’s @ 6,000 people per ship but the RMN had 121 DN’s and and 186 SD’s and the RMN also had smaller crew for those ships if King William Class and Majestic Class are representative of the crew requirements for RMN SD’s and DN’s. Also I am overestimating the number of forts and overestimating the crews for forts.

The Gendarmerie seems to have offices not just in protectorates but in League core and shell systems which might represent more of a federal police force as well as force to crush the protectorates and verge systems when they step out of line.

Theemile wrote:To add - remember this is the universe where 300 million people live in space in the Manticore B system and virtually none of them are in the manufacturing, construction, or shipbuilding/maintaining fields. A handful are in the resource extraction field or it's immediate support roles, the rest are poets, painters and cafeteria workers.

The SKM is a center for international trade, so all those people that support that aspect of the industry live in space and then their families live there requiring medical, schools, shopping, restaurants, higher education, maintenance for those facilities and supporting the shipbuilding/maintaining, manufacturing, construction and resource extraction. The workforce might be in space for a long time and therefore it is easier to have their families in space with them. Those families require all the confronts of life and that requires people who provide services and who also come with their families.

Sigs wrote:Im not talking about specifics, my question is how does the League balance the needs of its member systems vs the potential for an arms race. There are ~1,700 member systems, they will want to be protected and adequately protected not just nominal protection for 90%+ of the League and only a few systems getting adequate protection. The SLN and more importantly the League member systems will have to review and see that 2,300 SD’s are nowhere near enough to protect the SLN and even the 10,000 SD’s are nowhere near enough of a force to protect the League if an enemy force of a few hundred SD’s manage to get loose within League space.

I still dispute that, especially if we consider the 1930s.

The League doesn't need a squadron of SDs in each of 1500 systems, for a total of 12000 SDs. It needs system defence missiles and LACs. The same doctrine we talked about for Talbott and Silesia for the RMN applies to the League. Assuming technological parity, one squadron of SD(P) can fight one other squadron of SD(P). But you only need a defensive missile constellation to outfight the same squadron of SD(P), with a much less manpower-intensive solution, much more cheaply and, crucially, in a way that can hardly be abused to project force.

That leaves an attack by a navy that has more than a few SD(P) squadrons, because presumably they would leave a couple at home too. That reduces the number of potential attackers in the Galaxy from "too many" to "a handful" and you can keep an eye on a handful. You can know whenever a chunk of their wall of battle leaves "for exercises." And they also know you know, meaning that your exercise turned out to be an attack somewhere, you won't be able to get away with it.

And the number of those with which you're currently at precarious diplomatic conditions with should be counted with at most one finger, if you're doing your job right.

Because the vast majority of them are far from the borders of the League and depend on the mighty SLN to protect them without actually ever having to worry about defence. The SLN would have enough ships to guarantee that piracy isn’t a concern but also the conditions for piracy aren’t really there in the territory of the League. The majority of the league member systems are so insulated from the rest of humanity that defence concerns aren’t a thing for them.

The vast majority of them are also not worthy to be attacked in the first place. That would make zero tactical or strategic sense.

Lashing out, like you proposed before, doesn't either, but that's revenge, not winning. Attacking the least important systems of your enemy is not even that.

This doesn’t account for support ships like logistics and marine transports and assault ships. The SLN has their SD’s along with a number of BC’s, CA’s, CL’s and DD’s in Battle Fleet while the bulk of their BC’s, CA’s, CL’s and DD’s deployed with Frontier Fleet. Frontier Fleet wasn’t responsible for the protectorates only, they had to have presence in systems that are not officially protectorates but are in fact protectorates in every but in officially.

And more importantly, they'd have business in the systems that are actually League members, in the Shell. We've never visited them in the books.