pd 1924 - Shape of Beowulf's fleet

OK,here's my next conversation starter:

It's 1924 and you are Beowulf's Chief of Operations and Planning , and you've been handed the responsibility of planning Beowulf's replacement fleet with "modern" technologies.

Conditions: you are designing the fleet with currently non-existent ships, but those ships that will have the rough capabilities of the last generation of Manticorian ships when constructed. All current ships will be upgraded or replaced as necessary. You have been instructed not to grow the size of the Wall at this time, because post-Galton, there are no war drums.

For this discussion, consider Beowulf to have 7 large, dispersed daughter colonies whose defense she is responsible for. (and will be paying into the coffers for their defense.)

Remember, we really have no data on Beowulf's navy other than it was the largest SDF, with ~34 SDs, and it had defensive responsibility over several large daughter colonies (Like Hypathia). It held it's technology to be level with the SLN's tech, though it regularly trained with the RMN.

So other than the conditions above, this is a clean slate.

What roles does the fleet need filled going forward, what ships would you build in what rough quantity to fill those roles?

Think about Fleet train, support, patrol, defense, offense, and scouting.

What's going to be a drain on your Wallet?

Don't the parameters change depending on whether Beowulf stays independent with sole responsibility for defending those affiliated systems versus Beowulf engages more closely with the Grand Alliance?

If the fleet's goals are primarily defensive then I'd think, after it built up to its assigned limit of SD(P)s, that it'd be investing in fixed defenses for those 8 systems -- forts, Mycroft, LAC bases, block ships, the best sensors and recon drone sweeps money can buy.

The question I have is whether Beowulf expects its merchant marine to be trading in dangerous waters. How much need to they have for long range escorts and anti-piracy patrols? Do they needs all those cruisers or big destroyers that the RMN had due to its needs to remotely policy Silesia?

And if so are they interested in economically meeting current threats and what pirates are plausibly going to get their hands on -- so more and cheaper units designed just to outmatch legacy vessels (so ERMs at most)? Or are they interested in more expensive ships that are better able to face front line and future combat, even if that means they can likely afford fewer of them for commerce protection?
The former might lead them towards something like an Avalon with the ability to carry a bit more peacetime crew for boarding parties and prize crews. The later might lead them towards the notional 300,000 ton minimum viable combatant or even a 2nd gen DDM heavy cruiser design.

Of course they're unlikely to go 100% towards either end -- but the question is which way would they weight their lighter unit procurement.

I'm not sure that they'd go in for BCs to anywhere near the level that the RMN did. Even Nike-class have a hard time raiding systems with decent pod-based defenses; so they seem like they might get relegated to escorts or heavy commerce raiding. And I don't know that Beowulf would be looking to raid convoys protected by DDM equipped escorts. If they view their BCs more as heavy escorts they likely wouldn't need as many of them and they might emphasize defenses even more than the Nike design does.

tlb wrote:Don't the parameters change depending on whether Beowulf stays independent with sole responsibility for defending those affiliated systems versus Beowulf engages more closely with the Grand Alliance?

In the Honorverse, currently a closer affiliation has been discussed, but no agreement has been signed for how that union will take shape - or if it even will.

So for this discussion, assume the current allied status with the RMN et al. to persist, but Beowulf as an independent political entity continues, with the continued responsibility for self protection.

This really will depend on what Ships are allready in the War Pipeline from the Joint forces builds. We know that the Beowulf's Fleet were expecting new vessels at the time of the SLN attack but beyond new SD(P)'s we don't know what or when.

Neither do we know if Hypathia becomes a dependant colony or not. For anti piracy duties existing SLN tech is probably good enough for the next 5~10 years or so. That said Hypathia is going to want DDM or MDM vessels in system politically following the Battle there. The other colonies are also going to want something as well.

So Yes the Colonies are going to want some form of fixed defenses but Beowulf will need a strong mobile fleet able to cover the area or at least make things unpredictable - A Bad actor can bring enough to overcome the fixed but if he does not know where the "sector fleet" might be he has to bring enough extra to overcome that as well which pushes the costs and risks well up. Also the Sector fleet becomes a retaliation threat that now has to be considered.

So the real questions resolve around what is already committed from the pipeline and what of the existing and prize fleets are worth retaining even if only as training vessels. Hypathia I am sure would like some BC and CA's from that pool to start a navy even if they eventually fold back into the BSDF.

The Premis that you have a clean sheet to start from is False.

So how scattered are the Daughter Colonies? i.e. in time to move a fleet between them rather than pure distance since Grav Waves and Tunnels make distance non linear for time.

What is the make up of the existing Fleet? 34 SD's but what else? What existing commitments do I need to carry forward and do the existing vessels cover that.

What Second Hand vessels are available? - Manti/Havenite/Grayson all being better than old SLN ships so probably better than existing BSDF ones but dependant on age? A "New" BSDF DD may actually be as good as a 5~10 year old Havenite one for instance. This of course depends on what Manti Tech was allowed to Leak into the smaller and less obvious vessels - better sensors and room to at least launch and handle the newer Manti RD's perhaps?

What is my manpower limits - do I need to reduce the size of the establishment now the war with the SL is over or increase it because we are now "independant". "Modern" ships may well need fewer crew than older ones which may well drive the moderisation requirement or just lead to a reduction in man power strength.

I Suspect that Hypathia will be sending a cadre of people off wanting to be "in the Navy" - not sure who's navy yet but officer candidates to the various allied schools would probably be a good first step.

Captain Golding wrote:What Second Hand vessels are available? - Manti/Havenite/Grayson all being better than old SLN ships so probably better than existing BSDF ones but dependant on age? A "New" BSDF DD may actually be as good as a 5~10 year old Havenite one for instance. This of course depends on what Manti Tech was allowed to Leak into the smaller and less obvious vessels - better sensors and room to at least launch and handle the newer Manti RD's perhaps?

I don't think it makes sense for Beowulf to buy anything but the last generation from the GA yards (which they are part of and contributing to!). There's no pressing need to upgrade from their own in-house designs, because the only entity whose ships are better than their own is the one who will be supplying the new ships anyway. Meanwhile, Mycroft, pods, and LACs have proven they can successfully defend against a massed pre-pod SD attack.

But it might make sense to buy ships of the last generation that were going to be put into mothballs. Neither Haven nor Manticore nor Grayson can afford to keep a combined SD fleet of 1200-1500 ships for the long term. At the end of UH, Queen Elizabeth was already talking about mothballing some ships. So as those ships of the wall and CLACs decommission from their home navies, they can be transferred to Beowulf and its daughter colonies for working up. That will get those navies familiarised with the what will be the common technology of the GA and the doctrine of pod combat, while keeping those ships in service and serviced.

Eventually, even those ships will be replaced with the unified design coming out of Bolthole and the Dynamic Duo. At that point, I see the Republic of Beowulf being no less than an equal partner and equipped with its own slice of everything and responsible for everything too. The only question would be quantities: if the premise is correct and the Republic will consist of the Sigma Draconis system and 7 daughter colonies, then the Republic will be roughly on par in size with the Andermani Empire prior to the annexation of Silesia. Even if the other colonies don't join the Republic, the Sigma Draconis system is wealthier, more populated, has more installations, and sees far more traffic than the Yeltsin System where Grayson is. If Grayson can field a half a dozen battle squadrons permanently, Beowulf could do no less. Heck, I'm not certain the Manticore Binary System has more traffic than Sigma Draconis, even if a great deal of said traffic is passing from one to the other via the Junction.

The only reason I think they only had 4 squadrons was that they were a member of the League, so they had 2000 ships of the wall on call if needed. They could build and operate far more without making a significant dent in the GDP of a system with 40 billion people. Now they will have the Manticore Home Fleet on call in a mutual-defence treaty, but Manticore probably would require Beowulf's First Fleet to be of similar capabilities.

So, in summary, my answer is: roughly the same the other members of the GA, with only minor variations for skills and need. Manticore will need more long-ranged ships for commerce protection (read: CLs) due to its larger merchant marine; Haven will need more short-ranged ships to patrol its greater quantity of member worlds (read: destroyers and auxiliaries). So I'd look at the Grayson or Andermani ship mix and multiply the numbers by a relative size ratio.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
The only reason I think they only had 4 squadrons was that they were a member of the League, so they had 2000 ships of the wall on call if needed. They could build and operate far more without making a significant dent in the GDP of a system with 40 billion people. Now they will have the Manticore Home Fleet on call in a mutual-defence treaty, but Manticore probably would require Beowulf's First Fleet to be of similar capabilities.

I think you are right on the wall size - it's important to remember that at the start of the series, fewer than 2 dozen navies (~1%) could field a single squadron of wallers, and Beowulf fielded the largest SDF of any SLN member. It's cradled right in the middle of the SL, and it's most vulnerable vector - the wormhole, had a navy on the other end which numbered ~25 wallers (with almost 1/2 being BBs, and only 3 being SDs from the late 1700s) as recently as 50 years before the series start.

For an historical perspective (and a galaxy wide lens), the BSDF is a powerhouse, only when compared to extremely recent Havenite sector navies, does it truely lapse.

Captain Golding wrote:<snip>

What Second Hand vessels are available? - Manti/Havenite/Grayson all being better than old SLN ships so probably better than existing BSDF ones but dependant on age? A "New" BSDF DD may actually be as good as a 5~10 year old Havenite one for instance. This of course depends on what Manti Tech was allowed to Leak into the smaller and less obvious vessels - better sensors and room to at least launch and handle the newer Manti RD's perhaps?

The Author has been on record as stating that while the BSDF was closely connected to the RMN, and even conducted regular exercises with them, the BSDF made the decision not to upgrade their ships with Manticorian tech, most likely to protect the RMN from the SLN.

We had hypothesized that Beowulf might have designed in "Secret Manty Mode" in it's more recent updates and builds, hiding their ship's true capabilities from SLN observers, until it was needed. Other posters stated this was wrong, that many of the RMN's breakthroughs were actually Beowulfian concepts, and Beowulf's ships should have the RMN's newer tech in them (before it was in manty ships).

But the Author said no to both ideas - all the warfighting advances are RMN (or Grayson) ideas, and the BSDF never installed any of the newer capabilities in their ships even if they had the specs on them - not even behind a secret switch or code to disguise them.

The current BSDF fleet is all stock 1915 SLN tech - not necessarily SLN designs, but still just SLN cutting edge tech from before 1920. So while superior to the hardware the PRN started the war with - any current RHN hardware probably is superior in a 1:1 contest with a BSDF unit.

Theemile wrote:I think you are right on the wall size - it's important to remember that at the start of the series, fewer than 2 dozen navies (~1%) could field a single squadron of wallers, and Beowulf fielded the largest SDF of any SLN member. It's cradled right in the middle of the SL, and it's most vulnerable vector - the wormhole, had a navy on the other end which numbered ~25 wallers (with almost 1/2 being BBs, and only 3 being SDs from the late 1700s) as recently as 50 years before the series start.

For an historical perspective (and a galaxy wide lens), the BSDF is a powerhouse, only when compared to extremely recent Havenite sector navies, does it truely lapse.

Manticore was already in the Top 1% because they had 3 SDs, 11 DNs and 16 BBs, but it was at the very low end of those at the time, with three squadrons of wallers headed by one SD only in each. However, it doesn't mean that everyone else who was in the Top 1% were also comparably smaller. We know from House of Steel that Manticore had turned itself inwards, aside from piracy hunting and commerce protection in Silesia. That need not be the same for everyone else who did have Tier 1 navies.

We don't know what the BSDF had at the time. My guess is that it was similar to what they did in 1920, just with whatever classes and what passed for state-of-the-art in the 1840s. That is, probably 4 squadrons of DN/SD and likely phasing out their DNs. I'm basing this also on a "blink and you'll miss" moment from the Manticore Ascendant series, which mentions Beowulf-built battlecruisers in the 1530s. That tells me that Beowulf had a history of shipbuilding as far back as then, so they would have had no problem keeping up.

We also know they took to building GA missiles with ease, so their installed technology base was no problem. In fact, we did hear in the early SL war that the Solarian League had no problem with access to technology and software; it was the SLN that failed to put the pieces together (and sucked in the doctrine department).

Theemile wrote:The current BSDF fleet is all stock 1915 SLN tech - not necessarily SLN designs, but still just SLN cutting edge tech from before 1920. So while superior to the hardware the PRN started the war with - any current RHN hardware probably is superior in a 1:1 contest with a BSDF unit.

And if they were superior to the PN design from 1905 and probably superior to current SLN tech, they were superior to everyone else's tech except the one from whom they're buying their new ships from. That's why I argued there's no need to rush: the 34 SDs they have defending their system and daughter colonies are more than a match to anyone, and they have the RMN Home Fleet just across the Junction in an emergency.

There's no need for an intermediate design.