Build a Fleet!

15-25 generic wealthy core systems ought to be able to support a force roughly equivalent to that of Grayson, Erewhon, Maya (proposed/planned under Sepoy Option), or the Andermani, depending on how belligerent/threatened they feel.

The Andies, pre-Silesia, had 16? systems (I might be off on the number, but they didn't have that many), though they also had a couple wormholes to help, counterbalanced by the fact that they picked off and then built up weak and/or troubled systems.
Erewhon's a single system, but they have wormholes.
Maya ... is probably pretty similar to our nominal start point and base.
Grayson ... is perhaps the 5th largest (by total tonnage and hull numbers) out of the known navies, behind the SLN, Haven, Manticore, and the Andermani - I assume the IAN is larger than the GSN+Protector's Own as the Andies have a multi-system empire and a couple wormhole termini in their territory, so while the GSN has a disproportionately large waller force, the Andies are probably similar in absolute numbers, plus a much larger number of lighter units. Of course, in terms of actual capability, Grayson is right up there with Manticore. Grayson also has the living memory of having been repeatedly attacked at home, and having come uncomfortably close to being conquered in pre-prolong living memory, plus the massive war raging around them, and so have a rather large navy, and are unlikely to change that anytime soon. Grayson has a large navy by any measure, and is probably the largest single system navy by a fairly large margin.


Of course, if there are wormhole termini in our nominal sphere of control/influence, then we'll likely go heavier than if we don't have wormholes.

Keep in mind my assumption is based on a dozen heavily industrialized systems similar to manticore and 10-15 smaller/less industrialized systems. Each one of the industrialized systems would expect the fleet to devote sufficient strength to protect it as well as have sufficient strength to take the offensive. This would be based on the assumption that the new nation would have a warning should an enemy decide to build up significant forces of their own to counter this fleet and thus they can counteract any new construction with sufficient notice.

Strategic Assumptions
My strategic Assumptions are that this new nation is a portion of the now defunct Solarian League. Surrounded by a thousand or more single system nations and multi-system nations, many of them are in economic trouble after the collapse of the League. Some of those nations will turn to isolation, others will turn to form larger and powerful alliances as a means to defend themselves and yet others will be looking to expand and create empires or will unleash pirate raids on anyone who is deemed to be worth attacking. I am going to assume that there is no major power that is willing or able to play Galactic Policeman and as such there is no cavalry to be called upon. Technologically I am equal or superior to all of my neighbors and potential targets for the moment but I am assuming that any number of potential empire builders are trying to get the technological edge. My industrial muscle on the large side as I have over a dozen heavily industrialized systems and another 10-15 light to medium industry as such I have the ability to build, maintain and man anything up to and including SDs. As for wormhole terminals and junctions, I will assume that my nation has some but are not central to the economic wellbeing of the nation as a whole and its survival.


Strategic Goals

Defense and Security of the territory of my nation with emphasis placed on fortifying and defending the most industrial systems.
Protect Merchant Marine from pirates and in times of war.
Provide intelligence and scouting for all systems within my territory including those that are unoccupied by people to prevent enemies from establishing bases.
Enforce any and all foreign commitments made by my government.


Fleet Missions
For the protection of my territorial integrity I would have several military services.
Navy: This would be the senior service due to the importance of mission in relation to that of the other services. It is tasked with providing transport logistical support for its missions as well as those of the Army, Marines and Special Forces. This logistical support consists of a fleet train as well as heavily fortified bases and forward deployed bases.
Army: Would be the ground service that deals with occupation and protection of the actualy territory of nation, it’s mission is secondary to that of the Navy as the completion of the Army’s mission largely depends on the Navy completing its mission.
Marines: Their mission would be to conduct boarding action on to enemy ships, stations and fortifications as well as be the ground element for the navy should army units be otherwise unavailable.
Special Forces: This would be a tri-service component that would be drawn from the Army, Navy and Marines. Their entire mission is to do jobs that no one else is trained or equipped to do.

Due to the general fluidity of the situation post League collapse the fleet in question would have to be ready to fight on the defensive in home territory as well as on the offensive in enemy territory anywhere from single unit action to fleet action as well as convoy escort and unrestricted warfare against merchant ships of our enemies as such the fleet has to be versatile in order to be able to accomplish all of those missions.


The nations would be divided in to sectors and each sector will have a major base with SD’s pre-deployed to that base to protect the sectors as well as lighter units(BB’s and below) to forward deployed bases in frontier systems as well as allied systems or in to failed states that cannot guarantee security for our merchant marine in their territory.

Fleet Design

My fleet would be based around a large core of SD’s in active service as well as a force 2-3 times as large in reserve for emergencies. Reserve SD’s would be based in the heavily populated and industrialized systems while lighter units will be in less populated/industrialized systems.

The Capital ship component would be based around two ship classes, the superdreadnaught(SD) and the battleship(BB). The SD’s will be the main capital unit while the BB’s will used when the threat is lower.

Clarification: BB’s would be BC(P) reclassified as BB’s due to their size and firepower making them in my personal opinion too powerful for their current role.

Heavy Cruisers(HC’s) would be reclassified Cruisers class while Light Cruisers(CL’s) and Destroyers(DD’s) will be amalgamated in to one class called destroyers(DD’s).

Due to widespread use of modern LAC’s in my opinion having two classes of ships conducting fewer missions within the fleet seems wasteful.

So my order of Battle would be based around:
-Superdreadnaughts(SD’s)
-Battleships(BB’s)
-Cruisers(CL’s for ease of remembering on my part)
-Destroyers(DD’s)
-LAC’s


CLACs would be in the support role and as such I would not add them to the order of battle as I consider their weapons meant exclusively for self defense rather than to be used in the offensive.


I would have a reserve element that would be consistently modernized alongside the regular fleet so as to avoid a large reserve like the SLN reserve that is decades or centuries out of date.

Force Size

Superdreadnaughts:
Due to having a dozen heavily industrialized systems along with 10-15 light to medium industry systems I would calculate that I would need 500 SD’s.
Of those 500 SD’s, I would put 150 in regular service with the rest in reserve status and ready reserve meaning that a portion of the reserve SD’s could be quickly mobilized in an emergency.

Battleships:
I would go with a force of 700 BB’s with a force split of 400 in regular service and 300 in reserve and ready reserve. This split would be because during peacetime and low tension the BB’s would be the capital ship of choice.


Cruisers:
Cruisers would be build around 2 for 1 in battleships and thus would be 1,400 CL’s, 600 in regular service and 800 in reserve.

Destroyers:
These would be the work horse of my fleet, they would be the convoy escorts, fleet scouts as well as well suited for unrestricted warfare against the enemy merchant marine. Because they have so many jobs in peacetime as well as wartime their numbers would be large as well, over 1,600. The bulk of them, 1,200 will be in full time service

CLAC’s:
I will be basing my build up on these beliefs:
CL’s and DD’s are no longer the go to screens for the wall of battle, thus they are freed for other duties but LAC’s become the screen for SD’s and BB’s. Therefore each SD or BB Squadron would get an CLAC division.
As well I would have purely CLAC squadrons, squadrons that can bring thousands of LACs to bear on any enemy as well as reinforce pickets.
CLAC numbers would be greater proportionally because of the importance of LACs but their inherent limitations such as they restriction to one system and need to rearm during battle.

Therefore I would have somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 CLAC’s in regular service and 300 in reserve and ready reserve.

My fleet Break Down would be as follows:

Class Regular Reserve
SD 150 350
BB 400 300
CL 600 800
DD 1,200 400
CLAC 80 300

These numbers may be large but during the Battle of Manticore, Home Fleet had 90 SD’s in its order of battle alone, not counting 3rd or 8th Fleet. Thus for a nation that has a dozen systems that are in similar economic and industrial level as the Manticore system they would require a large SD component.

Assumption for me is that there would be a window for a buildup similar to that of Manticore if a threat is discovered but in the mean time the Fleet can hold it’s own.

Destroyers and Cruisers have large numbers because of the nature of the political structure of post League space. There are nations looking to gain through piracy, others through conquest while others are looking to settle a score therefore I would large force for protection of my merchant marine amongst other things.

Sigs wrote:Strategic Assumptions
...
I am going to assume that there is no major power that is willing or able to play Galactic Policeman and as such there is no cavalry to be called upon. ...

There is textev that this is a flawed assumption. The Renaissance Factor is expressly designed and intended to take over the central authority/defense functions of a crumbling league. They don't intend to start out in conquistador mode, but do intend to offer "protection" to demonstrate the advantages of joining the Factor.

I'm not sure how far ranging their offers of peacekeeping and protection will extend intitially, but they intend for it to eventually extend over "known space" and include all human occupied systems.

You're going to have to take into consideration the Renaissance Factors goal of enticing or coercing you to join up. Their either going to be the "Galactic Policeman" or they're going to be your biggest threat -- they're already one of the largest Navies in the galaxy, even if nobody knows that they are more than a dozen independent systems with SDFs.

PS: You're probably going to have to deal with MAlign agents playing "peacenik" and other anti-military types opposing every milli-cred spent on your navy. the bigger your Navy, the more obstructions, accidents, and misdirection (a la Jeune Ecole) along with the same kind of workforce and educational system sabotage Haven suffered.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:Strategic Assumptions
...
I am going to assume that there is no major power that is willing or able to play Galactic Policeman and as such there is no cavalry to be called upon. ...

There is textev that this is a flawed assumption. The Renaissance Factor is expressly designed and intended to take over the central authority/defense functions of a crumbling league. They don't intend to start out in conquistador mode, but do intend to offer "protection" to demonstrate the advantages of joining the Factor.

My assumption is post MA vs GA war…Once the dust settles I will make the assumption that the MA is defeated. I will also make the assumption that the war was economically hard on the GA and thus they are not able to take over the duties of Galactic Policemen.

Weird Harold wrote:I'm not sure how far ranging their offers of peacekeeping and protection will extend intitially, but they intend for it to eventually extend over "known space" and include all human occupied systems.

You're going to have to take into consideration the Renaissance Factors goal of enticing or coercing you to join up. Their either going to be the "Galactic Policeman" or they're going to be your biggest threat -- they're already one of the largest Navies in the galaxy, even if nobody knows that they are more than a dozen independent systems with SDFs.

PS: You're probably going to have to deal with MAlign agents playing "peacenik" and other anti-military types opposing every milli-cred spent on your navy. the bigger your Navy, the more obstructions, accidents, and misdirection (a la Jeune Ecole) along with the same kind of workforce and educational system sabotage Haven suffered.

Again, I am focusing on post war, when my assumption is that the MA and the Renaissance Factor are defeated and are a failed state.

This seemed like a straight forward scenario, I don't have to worry about a fifth column, nor did I have to worry about the any of the MA political and/or military organizations.

Sigs wrote:My assumption is post MA vs GA war…Once the dust settles I will make the assumption that the MA is defeated. I will also make the assumption that the war was economically hard on the GA and thus they are not able to take over the duties of Galactic Policemen.

You're starting a bit late in building your Navy in that case. Manticore will still have the Junction and Haven has only gotten economically stronger over twenty-plus years of war. If they carry through on the Harrington Doctrine, the GA will have a web on mutual defense and bilateral trade agreements, (which you apparently are not part of,) so they should be more than solvent and capable of at least contributing to a Galactic Police Force.

Sigs wrote:Again, I am focusing on post war, when my assumption is that the MA and the Renaissance Factor are defeated and are a failed state.

This seemed like a straight forward scenario, I don't have to worry about a fifth column, nor did I have to worry about the any of the MA political and/or military organizations.

I think you're probably overly optimistic about total annihilation of the MAlign and Renaissance Factor. The MAlign has centuries of practice "hiding in plain sight" and has sleepers in just about every human society. They may lose the "core" of the "Onion," but they'll still have the dispersal and penetration of human settled space to start over.

The Renaissance Factor is purposely designed to appear as the total opposite of the MAlign. Exposure of the MAlign connection may well result in "regime change" but the majority of RF citizens are not MAlign nor MAlign supporters. The MAlign influence might be (apparently) purged, but the RF should remain a power in post-SL human affairs.

FWIW, if you're waiting that long to build a Navy, MAlign technologies should be as generally available as GA quality tech. Spider drives, Graser Torpedoes, Streak Hyper-generators, Multi-stage missiles (in addition to multi-drive missiles) and who knows what unrevealed MAlign tech should be considered in your force structure proposal.

Strategic Assumptions:

Post GA/MA conflict
1) SL is gone
2) Successor states exist. Each world is roughly 3-7 Billion people.
3) Successor states still have superiority complex
4) Ex SL members are used to being King, they all have Prolong. Normally, the younger upcoming generation is more willing to bend to the new reality. The older generation? No they do not. This alone will spawn many succession wars. Fighting over who is in charge. Look at post colonial rule, for how many nations actually did not go through civil war, multiple civil wars at that. Not many.
5) Neighboring Successor states also are used to being King of the universe under the old SL paradigm.
6) Military Tech is held in the Successor states and not reliant on outside sources by and large. Spider drive is probably not spread about much. MDM alpha strike is king. Many do not have FTL control.
7) Keeping $$$ home and building at home(internal politics)
8) Successor states just got their nose wiped in their military inferiority by the GA AND the MALIGN.
9) Internal economies are stabilized in these new successor states.
10) All ex SL planets that were reliant on outside sustenance for survival, have adhered themselves to some local successor state.
11) Very few SL worlds will be independent. Most will be groups of planets larger than the 15-25 as proposed by the OP. There is no universal policeman, though I betcha Manticore comes closest due to their MMM and wormhole network, so Manticoran naval LAW will become the defacto rule of space. It is already quite prevalent and will only increase in its persuasion. Manticore while not a policeman, may become a defacto neutral party mediator.
12) Wars of aggression will be spearheaded by the big corporations bent on reclaiming their lost property and prestige. By leaning on the governments who all used to think they were King and those who now WISH to be KING, the big central corporations which defined SL life will create the nucleus around which the new successor states form. Economic warfare between large corporations that used to be limited by everyone belonging to the same “country”, the SL, now becomes national politics and rallying point of contention.
13) For the most part language and culture is the same so strife from these differences are rare. They do exist though. Anyone near one of these splits will require more defense due to fear alone.
14) I am also going to assume that most planets with a wormhole termini or junction will provide a central point for the successor states.
15) Information subterfuge and collection becomes far more prevalent by all “friendly” neighbors.

Strategic Goals:
Defense
Commerce Protection
Protecting star systems they are friends with, but not aligned politically

Fleet Missions
Defense/Offense as it is impossible for static defenses to hold against a determined foe. Must be able to move in and kick butt. Point pressure.

Fleet Design.
Heavy on the Heavies.

CLAC’s are based on Havenite design. 4 SDP: 1 CLAC
Total number is entirely dependent on their neighbors and how belligerent and expansionist they are. Need 160 SDP 40 CLAC or so minimum towards 1000 or so.

Light on medium units as their realm of influence is not far flung. No BCL/BCP unless penny pinching SDp in which case quite a few BCP. Now if they have a large merchant marine this operational stance changes. Only some successor states will have a large merchant marine. Lets assume this successor state does not.

Heavy on light units. Could include Ghost style spider drive scouts dropped off by “neutral” freighters. Assuming they have this drive.

kzt wrote:

BobfromSydney wrote:Your ammo ships will suffice for pushing smaller, weaker or lower tech opponents. They will not survive in war against an equal tech opponent. They could get nailed at extreme range by MDMs (Apollo style?), stealthy LACs or even a few spider graser torpedos. Thin hulled pod freighters are simply too fragile to survive in battle.

It is better to have a few squadrons of SDs, which would not be too great a burden for 15-25 well developed worlds to support. Consider that Haven doesn't have any wormholes and started off with a terrible economy and tech-base and they were still able to field hundreds of capital ships.

I have to point out that NOTHING survives for long in heavy combat. If I'm on the strategic defense and had a choice of deploying 400 ships with the firepower of a BCP and the defenses of a DD in 2 years vs 24 SDPs in 4 years I'll go with option A. Keep in mind that A does not exclude B, it just gives you something able to do something in the near term.

Good points. Also keep in mind that part of the goal is for my ammo ships in peace time to be filling up my systems with plenty of FTL sensors and even more MDM-based pod missile defenses. Set up properly, there's likely no forces that are going to get through to even approach fighting range of my core mobile defenders.

Weird Harold wrote:

Sigs wrote:My assumption is post MA vs GA war…Once the dust settles I will make the assumption that the MA is defeated. I will also make the assumption that the war was economically hard on the GA and thus they are not able to take over the duties of Galactic Policemen.

You're starting a bit late in building your Navy in that case. Manticore will still have the Junction and Haven has only gotten economically stronger over twenty-plus years of war. If they carry through on the Harrington Doctrine, the GA will have a web on mutual defense and bilateral trade agreements, (which you apparently are not part of,) so they should be more than solvent and capable of at least contributing to a Galactic Police Force.

Sigs wrote:Again, I am focusing on post war, when my assumption is that the MA and the Renaissance Factor are defeated and are a failed state.

This seemed like a straight forward scenario, I don't have to worry about a fifth column, nor did I have to worry about the any of the MA political and/or military organizations.

I think you're probably overly optimistic about total annihilation of the MAlign and Renaissance Factor. The MAlign has centuries of practice "hiding in plain sight" and has sleepers in just about every human society. They may lose the "core" of the "Onion," but they'll still have the dispersal and penetration of human settled space to start over.

The Renaissance Factor is purposely designed to appear as the total opposite of the MAlign. Exposure of the MAlign connection may well result in "regime change" but the majority of RF citizens are not MAlign nor MAlign supporters. The MAlign influence might be (apparently) purged, but the RF should remain a power in post-SL human affairs.

FWIW, if you're waiting that long to build a Navy, MAlign technologies should be as generally available as GA quality tech. Spider drives, Graser Torpedoes, Streak Hyper-generators, Multi-stage missiles (in addition to multi-drive missiles) and who knows what unrevealed MAlign tech should be considered in your force structure proposal.

1) What makes you think that in this case the fleet was started after the end of the war? The US Navy in World War II and the current order of battle are significantly different, just like the threat environment changed post WW2 then so would it change after the GA vs MA war. The parameters I am working with are the fleet I envision for a certain polity, I did not write down the history of that polity or it’s military. Therefore for the sake of this scenario the Fleet is presented as the ideal fleet for the organization to have after the end of the war, it does not mean that it’s existence starts at the end of the war nor does it get a history.



2)So you think that the GA will be able to police somewhere upwards of 2,000 former league systems? Granted they will make a special effort for those systems that represent potential trade partners but after many decades of a cold war with Haven, followed by two very hot wars with Haven and a war with both the League and the MA, I doubt Manticore would be in a mood to be policing anything and everything other than its new member systems however many they end up with. Same goes for Haven, they might grab some more systems or they might not but the end of the day, Haven has too many problems to be the Galactic policeman.


3) As for under estimating the MA and RF, I don't think so. They may very well have survived for centuries but it was only because no one suspected a thing but once it becomes common knowledge and more information becomes available they will not have the shield of ignorance all the while they will have everyone trying to hunt them down.

4) The whole purpose of the onion is to keep dangerous information from leaking, but with some luck killing the core of the onion or even enough of it to makes the rest of the onion impotent. I don't care how good or skilled you are, if you do not have the whole story you will not be able to accomplish your mission you might guess and you will likely guess wrong as you will not have access to the rest of the the MA infrastructure and network.

5)I am proposing fleet level based on the conditions being GA technology is availalble to me, I am not Mr. Weber and therefore I will not go forth and assume what he is planning to introduce as technology for the MA or the GA in future works. I work based on the technology posed by the OP.

Sigs wrote:1) What makes you think that in this case the fleet was started after the end of the war? The US Navy in World War II and the current order of battle are significantly different, just like the threat environment changed post WW2 then so would it change after the GA vs MA war. The parameters I am working with are the fleet I envision for a certain polity, I did not write down the history of that polity or it’s military. ...

If you're ignoring the legacy units surviving in your combined SDF, you're starting from scratch and you've stated your assumptions are post-war.

Sigs wrote:2)So you think that the GA will be able to police somewhere upwards of 2,000 former league systems?

No, I think the GA will have formed a web of inter-connecting bilateral mutual defense treaties that but them in the center of a multi-national Galactic Police effort. Possibly even a formal Galactic Police Organization. They will primarily be concerned with Anti-piracy/slaver patrols, like those they (used to) run in Silesia.

But the will have nodal forces similar to those commanded by HH-A in Marsh, with enough heavy firepower to take on your (or anybody else's) proposed Super-SDF. That will probably be a multi-national force.

Sigs wrote:4) The whole purpose of the onion is to keep dangerous information from leaking, but with some luck killing the core of the onion or even enough of it to makes the rest of the onion impotent. I don't care how good or skilled you are, if you do not have the whole story you will not be able to accomplish your mission you might guess and you will likely guess wrong as you will not have access to the rest of the the MA infrastructure and network.

The problem with destroying the infrastructure of the Onion is that you'll get numerous mini-onions forming and formulating their own long-term plans based on what they knew of the MAlign's Master Plan.

Sigs wrote:5)I am proposing fleet level based on the conditions being GA technology is availalble to me, I am not Mr. Weber and therefore I will not go forth and assume what he is planning to introduce as technology for the MA or the GA in future works. I work based on the technology posed by the OP.

The currently known, or deducible, MAlign tech should be part of your calculations. Especially, if you're assuming the MAlign is defeated. Otherwise, you're deliberately building an obsolete fleet from scratch.

Weird Harold wrote:No, I think the GA will have formed a web of inter-connecting bilateral mutual defense treaties that but them in the center of a multi-national Galactic Police effort. Possibly even a formal Galactic Police Organization. They will primarily be concerned with Anti-piracy/slaver patrols, like those they (used to) run in Silesia.

But the will have nodal forces similar to those commanded by HH-A in Marsh, with enough heavy firepower to take on your (or anybody else's) proposed Super-SDF. That will probably be a multi-national force.

This sounds exactly like what the SLN/OFS is meant to be. A galactic policing force(OFS/FF) backed up by a sledgehammer force(BF), formed out of multiple star nations under a central administration.

Indeed, that's what OFS started out as being and by all reports, they were honest and diligent about it in the beginning. The corruption came two centuries later. What will stop the Galactic Police from suffering a similar process?