Budget for a planetary navy

[Xerxeskingofking]

it's ok. I can't bothered to do the maths.

speaking of maths i cant face crunching, what does the per month and annual costs of running this ship and support crews look like now? last figure i saw was somthing like 600,000 Cr a month.

 

[atpollard]

What if one used the 'carried craft' rules for crew and maintainence and viewed 'dinkyworld' (the planet) as a 'dreadnaught' and the navy as the carried craft and their crew...

... then you already have rules for maintenance staff, launch facilities, etc.

just a thought.

 

[Matt123]

I thought this was an interesting thread (ta Ranke), its been sitting in my browser now for a while till I had time to look at it

I have pinched some details from Navanods post on basic crew salaries. I'm sure/hoping he won't mind.

& my apologies for the length of the post. I did find the exercise intriguing though!

'*' notes I added after re-reading (Ranke's post number 10), where the scenario is adjusted to Dinkyworld being gifted the Type T. I had already done most of the work, so just added notes at the relevant parts.

Ship Costs (Book 2)
221.04 Cost of Type T Patrol Cruiser
016.00 Cost of Ships Boat
002.00 - Ships Boat Beam Laser, Missile & Sand
000.50 - Ships Boat, Emergency Low Berths (for 20) (5tn) I like ships to have lifeboats IMTU.
000.00 G-Carrier not present, garage space converted to Brig. Short term holding only, for long term the Type T carries 4 Low Berths.
240.00 TOTAL (rounded up from 239.54)

TCS suggests 10% for annual maintenance, or 24 MCr. If that is standard, I would expect a small navy to cost more. But where does this go? (Ranke's initial question).

I'm not concerning myself on where the funds come from, IMO thats a political decision and out of my scope.

There are I think six major components to this navies budget.

• Financing, depreciation & insurance
• Maintenance
• Salaries
• Fuel and expendables
• Base costs
• Training/Mission/Exercise costs

Financing/Depreciation/Insurance
I'll assume a 40 year life for depreciation purposes.
006.00 Depreciation annually (240MCr/40 years)
*This is in effect money put aside to replace the asset after 40 years, which is part of Rancke's amended scenario.
016.45 100% finance P&I over 40 years at say 6.3% (is roughly the commercial interest rate used in book 2).
*Finance is not part of Ranke's scenario, but I already worked this out so I'll leave it in & deduct it at the end.
Insurance. As with any large asset, the need for insurance is self evident. Especially if you consider financing, your financier won't be keen on you owing 240 MCr on a Patrol Ship blown away on its first mission out... All I can do is pick an arbitrary % figure and stipulate some policy exceptions (ie: excludes combat vs other worlds/nations and raids on established bases. Cover could be given in both cases, for vastly increased premiums.)
*Insurance should be part of Ranke's scenario, it would seem that without insurance, there is no way to replace the asset if it were to be lost or severely damaged in an accident (or other policy permitted activity). Short of begging for another hand-out.
004.8 Insurance at 2% (a wild-arsed guess, but it allows for say 1 in 50 similar ships undergoing similar patrol type tasks to be lost each year, or a collection of smaller claims. And lets face it, piracy suppression, search & rescue and customs work is reasonably high risk).
027.25 MCr for depreciation, finance & insurance

Maintenance
000.24 MCr (book 2 rate at .1%)(I'm picking the civilian rate is sufficient to contract out the maintenance program.)

Salaries
Salaries needs to cover Operations Crews and C3 staff.

A couple of differences from discussion already. The 8 combat troops IMTU would be seconded from the Army with that branch paying the wages and providing any specialized training and equipment needed. The squad would also be lead by a junior officer as on this world the assignment is rather unique.

The Patrol Ship should also have a permanent Ships Boat crew of 2 on board. In space combat the extra weapon batteries are handy and on boarding/inspection jobs the Ships Boat will be used by the boarders, under the watchful eyes of the standing off (& fully crewed) Patrol Ship.

I would have 3 crews, one on patrol, one on stand-down, one on stand-by/training etc. Only having one asset, the intent is to keep it on the job 24/7 conducting inspections, etc.

And the crew selected for this prestigious job, should be the best available. That means high skill levels (skill 3-5, salary is +10% per skill level) and high previous rank/achievements (another +10%, probably +20-30% for seniority). Say +50 to +70% on standard salaries. Definitely not budget salaries for skill-1 crew.

Standard Monthly Salaries for Operations Crews, per Crew
Pilot 6,000.00 per month
Astrogator 5,000.00
Chief Engineer 4,400.00
2 Engineers 8,000.00
Doctor 2,000.00
Chief Gunner 1,100.00
3 Gunners 3,000.00

Ships Boat Pilot 6,000 (seems a bit high, but is book 2 rate)
Ships Boat Engineer/Gunner 4000

2.275 Annual Crews salary (Crew salaries total 39,500Cr per month plus 60% for skill/seniority *12 months * 3 shifts)

plus a rotation of 8 Troops, including a junior officer, all from Army budget.

C3 Staff
Commodore/Commander
2IC
Unit Senior NCO
Intelligence Officer & NCO
Training Officer & Senior NCO
Liaison Officers x 3 (gofers liasing with Media, Police, Politicians, Customs, Immigration, Military, Commerce, High/Low Ports, etc)
Admin NCO's x 3
Catering NCO's x 2
Stores NCO & Private

001.00 17 C3 Personal (arbitrary 1 MCr annual salary)
003.275 Salary Total

Fuel & Expendables
Life Support (Assumes provisions included)
20 Ships Crew (Crew & Troops) @ 2,000 Cr each per fortnight
001.040 Annual Life Support (2000 * 20 * 26 Fortnights)

000.360 Munition Replacement 5,000Cr per missile * 6 missile racks * 12 reloads per year

Fuel, 40 ton per month for PP use, 480 tons.
Jump Fuel, for 3 outbound & 3 inbound J3 jumps at 120ton per J3, 720 tons. (Just arbitrarily picked 3 J3 trips as a useful number to work with.)
000.600 for 1200 tons of refined fuel (@ 500cr per ton) (prefer refined fuel to minimize maintenance issues. Would be cheaper though to have a Bk 5 purification plant on the dirtside base.)
002.00 Fuel & Expendables


Base Costs
All guestimates
000.200 Buildings, offices, mess hall and training rooms, leased from the main Starport Authority.
000.020 Transport, provided by & maintained by the dirtside Army. (1 staff car, 5 utility vehicles, 1 medium truck)
000.036 Berth, permanent secure Ships Berth (@ 100cr per day).
000.005 Utilities & Expendables, coffee, power, etc
000.261 Total Base Costs

Training/Mission/Exercise Costs
The slush fund for training or contingencies. Covering outside contracted training, extra missiles, minor repairs, the cost of diverting commercial ships to Search & Rescue duties, escorting VIPs, chartering civilian ships for various purposes (go scout that pirate base...), etc.

Say +20% on the total so far or 6.5 MCr.

Total Budget Dinkyworld Navy

• 027.250 Financing, depreciation & insurance
• 000.240 Maintenance
• 003.275 Salaries
• 002.000 Fuel and expendables
• 000.261 Base costs
• 006.500 Training/Mission/Exercise costs

40 MCr per annum (actually 39.526 MCr round up)
*(and less the finance costs per Ranke's amended scenario it becomes 23.094, rounded to 23 MCr.)

Assuming my numbers are ballpark ok (obviously not a given ) 40MCr is way off the 10% or 24MCrsuggested by TCS.

The differences tho may be in part due to the scale of the operation and in part that much larger, stable worlds with low inflation will be able to issue secure government bonds at a much, much cheaper interest rate.

Insurance then becomes redundant/optional, interest is cheaper, base costs & C3 staff become a much smaller proportion, refined fuel is provided by fleet tankers, Operations crew are dedicated to a ship (allow for say 150% crewing rather than 300%), many mission costs can be separated off to other agencies (eg: COACC, Customs/Immigration, Police, Army, etc) and most training is done in-house by experienced staff with many years of service.

Total Budget Large Navy

• 016.310 Government Bonds, 40 years at 3% & Depreciation.
• 000.240 Maintenance
• 001.138 Salaries (150% crewing for training, replacements, C3, etc)
• 001.500 Fuel and expendables
• 000.261 Base costs
• 002.000 Mission/Exercise costs

21.449, leaving roughly 2.5MCr as a reserve/slush fund likely partially used to fund the Marines, base security, Navy dedicated high ports, more Intelligence gathering and Special Forces. The balance used to fund important stuff like the Pilots Academy, the Staff College, the Admiral in Chiefs official residence...

24.00 MCr per Annum (with some padding )

If you made it this far well done. I hope you enjoyed (& followed my ramblings) as much as I did in pondering on it (it was a quiet weekend ). Feedback/criticism is most welcome.

Cheers
Matt

 

[HG_B]

Yes, but for a 21st Century modern, professional navy, the relative cost of hardware is MUCH lower than for a Traveller-type space navy. Take our sample patrol ship, for instance. It costs MCr221 and has a crew of 18. That's MCr12.3 per crewman. Per capita GNP for a TL15 world is between Cr22,000 and Cr30,000. Call it Cr25,000. That's about 490 times per capita income. Compare that to modern day ships and you come up with figures that are an order of magnitude lower.

(A ship like the Tigress costs MCr89.4 per crewman.)


Hans

You need to look at "GNP" GWP? not, per capita income.

 

[Matt123]

GNP = Gross National Product = sum of all goods & services produced by a nation = the production capability of a nation.
GNP per capita = GNP/population

It is not income for the population, it is the sum of the value of all goods & services produced by a nation and expressed as a GNP per capita figure to generate an economic strength figure to compare with other nations.

GWP is the same thing, and is more correctly GNP on balkanized worlds.

 

[rancke]

It is not income for the population, it is the sum of the value of all goods & services produced by a nation and expressed as a GNP per capita figure to generate an economic strength figure to compare with other nations.

The sum total of the value of all goods and services produced by a nation in a year IS the sum total of all income for citizens of that nation for that year. Someone will earn that money somehow.

GWP is the same thing, and is more correctly GNP on balkanized worlds.

As Matt says. GWP stands for Gross World Product. It's just like GNP except it's for a world rather than a nation.


Hans

 

[Matt123]

The sum total of the value of all goods and services produced by a nation in a year IS the sum total of all income for citizens of that nation for that year. Someone will earn that money somehow.

You are mixing GNP with GDP. The difference is;

GNP measures production of goods & services by national entities, no matter where they are. For example McDonald's in China counts towards the USA's GNP, whilst the activities of Toyota in the US counts towards Japans GNP. (indicative examples only, I don't know the ownership structures of these two corporations.)

GDP measures production of goods & services geographically, so all production within the US, regardless of who does it, counts towards GDP.

GDP can be determined by summing production or by summing income. So GDP per capita would be a good indicator average income.

Having said all that, the difference in Traveller terms where we deal with ballpark figures economically, doesn't generally warrant concern over the finer details of GNP vs GDP.

An example of where it might make a difference, is Dinkyworlds GWP would exclude the local activities of Imperial corporations, megacorps, shipping companies unless based on Dinkyworld, mining companies owned by Dodgyworld 2 parsecs away, etc.

None of this invalidates your Tigress example, which I thought made for an interesting comparison.

 

[HG_B]

The sum total of the value of all goods and services produced by a nation in a year IS the sum total of all income for citizens of that nation for that year.

Nope. That's not how it is currently figured. When a company sells (& receives) $500 for selling that product, all of that doesn't go into salaries or total pay. There is profit, investments that aren't income necessarily to anyone, taxes paid, etc., etc.

 

[Keep On Travellin']

Wouldn't Subsector kick in subsidies into SDB squadrons, Fighter Wings, or Planetoid Monitors? It wouldn't serve Subsector to have a break in the Dinkyworld trade web because it can't protect itself from stankotrons.

 

[Matt123]

Nope. That's not how it is currently figured. When a company sells (& receives) $500 for selling that product, all of that doesn't go into salaries or total pay. There is profit, investments that aren't income necessarily to anyone, taxes paid, etc., etc.

Funny how a thread can diverge so wildly from the topic

Profit goes to shareholders = shareholder income
investments purchased 'stuff' = 'stuff' sellers income
interest on debts = bankers income
taxes = governments income
raw materials = farmers, miners or suppliers income

This is a bit of a simplification tho' and it should be noted that GDP/GNP is concerned with the value adding activities of each producer. For example a farmers bushell of grain is sold several times before it gets to the consumer, it is the value added to the grain at every step that is measured. (ie: sale price - cost of materials purchased = value added in production or service)

Here's a Wikipedia article you may find interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gdp

 

[HG_B]

Profit goes to shareholders = shareholder income
investments purchased 'stuff' = 'stuff' sellers income
interest on debts = bankers income
taxes = governments income
raw materials = farmers, miners or suppliers income

Shareholders - ONLY if dividends are paid AND the company is public.
Investments - off world don't count as that planets GWP. ALSO, just putting profit in the bank as liquid asset doesn't count.
Interest of debts isn't counted either way.
Taxes - Gov treas income isn't figured into Income per capita so, irrelevant.
Raw materials from off world don't count.

So, as you can see, the two are not at all equal and thus, not interchangeable.

 

[atpollard]

So, as you can see, the two are not at all equal and thus, not interchangeable.

While per capita GNP and Income are different, most seemed to be within 2-6 percent of each other. Since the GNP varies by 3-5 percent from year to year, equating GNP and Income falls within the sampling error and can safely be disreguarded for this level of abstraction.

Put simply, why sweat a 2 or 3 percent diffence between GNP and Income compared to thousands of percent differences from place to place?

 

[Matt123]

Shareholders - ONLY if dividends are paid AND the company is public.
Investments - off world don't count as that planets GWP. ALSO, just putting profit in the bank as liquid asset doesn't count.
Interest of debts isn't counted either way.
Taxes - Gov treas income isn't figured into Income per capita so, irrelevant.
Raw materials from off world don't count.

So, as you can see, the two are not at all equal and thus, not interchangeable.

ok, you win. I'm not inclined to enter a debate on economics and accounting on a Traveller forum.

 

[HG_B]

While per capita GNP and Income are different, most seemed to be within 2-6 percent of each other.

It all depends on the gov type. The less gov control & tax, the closer they will be. Other factors come into play such as a country where its main GNP is minerals & such and it is exploited by some colonial power that just strips the resources and ships them out with little or no benefit to the local population.