Budgeting for a fleet

[vegas]

...given the lack of corrosion in a vacuum.

At a minimum, ships go through a lot of thermal cycling.

Entering and exiting jumpspace and hi-G manuevers may not be a stress-free either. Also, there are perhaps micrometeorite/space garbage strikes (depending on your view of Beltstrike.) Add combat operations and I don't think we have to assume such long ship lives.

 

[Condottiere]

Don't forget that all of those mustering out benefits, in cash and kind, have to be paid for.

Bureaucracy.

Shrinkage.

Outside of pensions, no after market service care.

 

[kilemall]

[FONT=arial,helvetica]I wonder how that would change in a wartime replacement situation.

[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica] If Rhylanor’s fleet engaged in a fleet action and had to replace even a small percentage of their forces they might not necessarily have 4 years in which to do so. At which point does the 3I (or any other multi-stellar polity) start to make warships (or parts thereof) at Class C ports or seizing civilian shipyards.[/FONT]

The TCS answer was that you banked a certain percentage of your budgeted fleet as laid up, then rapidly refurbished/refitted those ships at a greatly accelerated rate over new builds.



Your wartime yards therefore would be doing a lot more refit/repair work then new builds, and the smaller capacity yards nearer the front would be cranking out a lot of the small escort ships that never seem to be enough of.

 

[flykiller]

At a minimum, ships go through a lot of thermal cycling.

not to mention neutron embrittlement.

 

[Condottiere]

Maintenance cost is still at one thousandth of listed price, per annum.

 

[Dagrill]

that would be like telling la guardia or los angeles international, "hey, build some f18s" - they're just not set up for it.

On the same lines you need to take into account Tech Level, not every world id Rhylanor with TL15 industry. Lanth, for example is only TL11, to build decent Spaceships they would need to import most of the components, which in war time would require more resources for Escort...

Regards

David

 

[Graham2001]

Another thing to consider, are they buying new, or getting someone elses obsolete ships, as good an example as any being the situation in FASA's 'Sky Raiders Trilogy'/'Stazhlekh Report' where the Descarothe Hegmony is building it's fleet out of obsolete Zhodani vessels, the maintenance requirements are going to be different, you may have to reverse engineer spare parts, identify local substitutes if that's not possible.

 

[Graham2001]

I have a related question, is there a formula that can be used to take existing data and work out just how large of a fleet a particular state can field?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I have a related question, is there a formula that can be used to take existing data and work out just how large of a fleet a particular state can field?

CT Striker and GT Far Trader has GDP calculations for worlds from the UPP, from which a naval budget can be derived.

Trillion Credit Squadron has a similar, but slightly simpler system, as Striker.

T4 Pocket Empires has an abstract system based on squardon factors.

 

[Tamuz]

The problem, I am starting to realise, with calculating a naval budget from gdp is that a lot more needs to be taken into account than just the cost of ships, maintenance, and crew.
Training, ground facilities, reserves, strategic staff, etc all need to be taken into consideration, and that is before you even begin to get into the naval vessels themselves.
How much gets siphoned for patrol vessels? Scout craft? Early warning systems?
This gets complicated quickly.
I am unconvinced that ship building capabilities would be a limiting factor, since surely of there was more budget than could be spent it would be used to increase the ship building infrastructure (or to buy extra ships from other sources)

 

[whartung]

CT Striker and GT Far Trader has GDP calculations for worlds from the UPP, from which a naval budget can be derived.

Trillion Credit Squadron has a similar, but slightly simpler system, as Striker.

T4 Pocket Empires has an abstract system based on squardon factors.

However, these just give raw $$$ (well, Cr) numbers, not ship counts, nor ship sizes.

I don't know how useful it is to say that Japan has a $20B fleet.

More important how that $20B is spent.

 

[tjoneslo]

Rule of thumb I’ve seen applied is Mcr1 per ton for warships, so 200,000 tons of ships. Then apply a ratio of 1:3 to 1:5 for the smaller ships. So a battleship, would be supported by 3-5 cruisers, in turn supported by 9-25 escorts, and 3-5 support ships of various types.

200, 000 tons isn’t a lot, so you probably have 1 aging cruiser, 5 escorts, a matching set of fuel tanker and cargo haulers, and two dozen patrol craft.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on doctrine and policy.

The modern Solomani Confederation Navy has a distinct cruiser gap, but is top heavy with capital ships.

 

[mike wightman]

No it doesn't

They build heavy cruisers, carriers and battleships - see Solomani and Aslan.

 

[Condottiere]

No cruisers, or what we would understand as cruiser classes, are mentioned in the current orders of battle.

Remember, cruiser gap doesn't mean no cruisers are being built by the Confederation, as I'm pretty sure they tend to be the heaviest classes of starwarships for Solomani member world navies.

However, any cruiser budget allocations by the Confederation are treated as slush funds by the Naval Staff to build more capital ships, and the Solomani Security for their clandestine fleet, that's doing all sorts of stuff they don't want anyone to know about, such as slipping in stealthed sleeper starwarships into occupied territory, especially the Solar System.

I once did an estimation where for every ten cruisers the Imperium sent Rimwards, the Confederation commissions one publicly.

 

[mike wightman]

Where ever you are getting this current order of battle from is canonically incorrect - MgT is it?

 

[Condottiere]

Mongoose is the current edition.

When there's a new one, I'll examine that.

While at first I was somewhat perturbed, there are three interesting aspects to it:

1. It allows a difference in doctrine between the Confederation and the Imperium.

2. It actually makes sense, assuming it's less of a rejection of small, intermediate and large combatants, and more building up the battle line in anticipation of the soon anticipated liberation of occupied territories, because you build capital ships before a conflict, and complete those begun during it.

3. In the meantime, you call up the regional militias to fill in any gaps, who get the chance to exercise with the professionals.

 

[Tamuz]

Well, construction capabilities are more important than raw cash. Are there rules about how much construction capability a system can have though?
As far as I can see, the best way we have of determining a systems industrial capacity is by its GDP?
Of course population is important as well, but as that informs the GDP it is already taken account of.


When you give a ratio of 1:3 or 1:5, are those small ships scouring the larger directly? Or are they separate, ie detatched patrol groups etc? Also is that radio by number of ships? Or by tonnage?

If there is a way to (easily) determine a systems industrial capacity without just relying on its GDP then I should love to hear it.

Please note I am not just talking about the imperium here - I am thinking in general terms. So i am not concerned by how many starbases have been built on the official map, so much as how much ship building capability could theoretically be built and maintained.

 

[whartung]

1. It allows a difference in doctrine between the Confederation and the Imperium.

Unfortunately, I don't believe any of the actual games that model combat are flexible enough to let those doctrines show their strengths (or weaknesses) at either the tactical or strategic level.

 

[Condottiere]

I've been playing Deadlock, and two properly handled Jupiter Twos with appropriate support tend to eat through any number of Toasters, since both sides are capped at eighty hundred points.