RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
I was unaware that bay weaponry in and of itself was restricted. Meson bays, of course, would be. But the other types?
Fleet Structures & funding
- Thread starter Hal
- Start date
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
What about Marquis and Viscount?
Ultimately, I suspect that the ban on weaponry would have to depend upon IMTU of each GM.
In my Traveller Universe, point defense laser weapons are treated as common vehicle defense systems for civilians. The reason for this is that point defense lasers do not have all that much extra power to damage another ship in an offensive manner. Regular ship lasers (ie standard lasers for GURPS TRAVELLER) tend to be commonplace enough. But heavy lasers (Lasers that take up three dtons of space) are strictly the domain of Military weapons. The Imperium strictly reserves Heavy Lasers on up for the domain of military ships.
This way, the Military is still more or less retains the monopoly on large scale mayhem.
In my Traveller Universe, point defense laser weapons are treated as common vehicle defense systems for civilians. The reason for this is that point defense lasers do not have all that much extra power to damage another ship in an offensive manner. Regular ship lasers (ie standard lasers for GURPS TRAVELLER) tend to be commonplace enough. But heavy lasers (Lasers that take up three dtons of space) are strictly the domain of Military weapons. The Imperium strictly reserves Heavy Lasers on up for the domain of military ships.
This way, the Military is still more or less retains the monopoly on large scale mayhem.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
The feudal system is, IMO, primarily embodied in the sworn oaths system of the nobility, and the partial Imperial Mandate granted to them by the Emperor to carry out their tasks as "commanders of all Imperial Personnel" in their Government District.
I don't think the medieval system of providing troops in time of war carries into the Imperium in exactly the same way it worked in historical times. The closest it gets is the Subsector Navies being indirectly controlled by the Sector Dukes in peacetime (via the Subsector Dukes), and directly during wartime. And possibly the contribution of various noble's Huscarles units. Those "contributed" Huscarles units probably wouldn't get controlled or deployed in quite the same way as ordinary IM units. Can you imagine explaining to your Sector Duke why you sent his prize Huscarles unit into a suicide attack that caused it to take 80% casualties?
The Dukes and Subsector Dukes are already in command of the Sector and Subsector Navies. When war occurs, their forces are already functioning in the chain of command. When the Sector Duke gives orders, they are carried out, or legal/covert trouble follows immediately for the errant subordinate.
Each Sector and Subsector Duke, of course, has variable wealth. The Sector or Subsector Navy under their command, of course, is based partly on the wealth of the Sector and Subsectors.
However, that does not tell the whole story, as the Imperium itself provides funds to the Sector Navies based on local need.
Example: The Spinward Marches is one of the poorest Sectors in the Imperium. But it has a substantial force on hand in the Jewell Subsector in order to provide a toe-to-toe deterrent against the Zhodani and Vargr both. The Imperium itself largely pays for this, as The Spinward Marches itself couldn't hope to pay for it all.
They get their support from lower levels via taxes. It's far easier to turn direct monetary taxes into useful and useable military power than it is to call up local troops (and the Sector Dukes already face that exact problem interfacing the Sector and Subsector Navies, no need to vastly complicate the problem by attempting to take on Plaentary Navy forces).
Maybe. But that leads straight back to the "too many different and non-integrateable" forces to be useable problem.
The Sector Navy of The Spinward Marches is undoubtedly built in Rhylanor, Mora, Trin, Glisten, and possible a couple of Deneb Sector worlds. They are maintained in forward locations by A & B starports, which can do annual maintence regardless of the TL of the vessel (or, you could declare that mobile repair yards/vessels could do the annual maintenence).
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
What about merchant ships operated with a government subsidy?
They can be called up in times of war to serve as naval auxiliaries.
Now an empty bay can carry cargo as well as a cargo hold, by which I mean a 50t bay can carry 50t of cargo, so it would be well worth subsidised bulk freighters being fitted with "cargo bays"
Megacorps could probably get away with the same, all they'd have to do is register the "merchant" as subsidised by one of the worlds they own.
Bit tricky to explain away spinal mounts, but then I've always been a small ship heretic
They can be called up in times of war to serve as naval auxiliaries.
Now an empty bay can carry cargo as well as a cargo hold, by which I mean a 50t bay can carry 50t of cargo, so it would be well worth subsidised bulk freighters being fitted with "cargo bays"
Megacorps could probably get away with the same, all they'd have to do is register the "merchant" as subsidised by one of the worlds they own.
Bit tricky to explain away spinal mounts, but then I've always been a small ship heretic
The Oz
SOC-14 1K
IMTU larger merchant ships often equip themselves with an empty bay or two to qualify for special "subsidized" merchant loans. Of course, this is not the kind of thing your average PC gets to take advantage of. In wartime those "subsidized merchants" are mobilized, armed, and used as self-escorting fleet supply ships.
From real life, the larger British (and German) passenger liners of the pre-World War One era were equipped with mounting positions for naval guns up to 152mm caliber. The shipping lines got subsidies (tax breaks, I think) to pay for it and the ships were subject to mobilization in wartime. Most of the British ships blockading the North Sea were like this, called "Armed Merchant Cruisers" or AMCs. The Germans planned to use their AMCs as commerce raiders. Such armed merchies saw a fair amount of action, and there was one famous battle where a German AMC and a British AMC fought each other.
From real life, the larger British (and German) passenger liners of the pre-World War One era were equipped with mounting positions for naval guns up to 152mm caliber. The shipping lines got subsidies (tax breaks, I think) to pay for it and the ships were subject to mobilization in wartime. Most of the British ships blockading the North Sea were like this, called "Armed Merchant Cruisers" or AMCs. The Germans planned to use their AMCs as commerce raiders. Such armed merchies saw a fair amount of action, and there was one famous battle where a German AMC and a British AMC fought each other.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
If the Duke Farhurl has only an income of 1 MCr/year, they his superiors can make any claim they want about what vessels he has, but that's all that it will be, claims.
Also, since Dukes rule over Subsectors, their personal income is measured (depending on the Subsector, of course) in the tens to hundreds of billions of credits per year. In some cases, it's over a trillion credits per year. Subsector Dukes really can afford Tigresses. However, I think it would be passingly unlikelly that they'd be allowed to build them. The Emperor would be far more likely to demand the credits, and then build the Tigresses for the regular IN directly.
The value can be guesstimated. I think the annual maintenence cost of a vessel is .001 of it's original value? I think military vessels are more expensive to maintain, and cost .005. This means its a lot more expensive to maintain military forces. By working up some ship designs, their maintenence cost can be calculated.
The cost of each "sailor/marine" can be pinned to some abstract annual cost to include all salary, training, equipment, medical, insurance, and pension costs, etc. Just make up a number, and go with it.
Take the annual maint. costs of the vessels and the annual costs of the total crew, and there you have it, an abstract cost of your Huscarles unit.
To make it more accurate, you could vary the crew cost by their equipment and training-quality levels. Battledress & FGMP-15 assualt troopers are a little more expensive than your Cloth/Guass Rifle equipped door-guard.
And thus our many and varied discussions of the subject.
I don't follow here. Why would a crew only have a 3 month obligation? Terms are for 4 years.
Basic Term Activity Management In the Sector and Subsector Navies:
A 1-term short-timer gets 6 months basic, and is shipped out to the fleet as a bottom level rating. They will serve 3 to 3.5 years, approximately. As their assignments vary, so do their exact postings. As they serve in their last 6 months, standard Pesonnel Management will rotate the sailor out of duty, and put them onto another vessel (other warship, transport, courier, or whatever) heading back to their homeworld (or other reasonable chosen world of Mustering Out; the world would have to be within the Navy's operating area, of course).
This is pretty much going to be repeated for multi-term careers. In the last 6 months, the Personnel department will begin to move the sailor/marine back home.
Personnel will also be delivering replacement into the field.
Pesonally, I suggest abstracting the whole process. Efficient management of Personnel in an far-flung interstellar navy is going to be a complicated supply-chain process. The software alone that runs it will be hugely complicated, and likely be a lucrative source of money to the Megacorporation that supplies the product (I'm willing to bet that All Sector Navies use the same one; and possibly their might be regulatory enforcement on the Subsector Navies to use the same product, granting a near monopoly).
Yes, and reservists going home mean new reservist will be coming up.
Except that I do not view the Subsector Navy as a "reserve" unit. It is a fully trained and professionally (one would hope!) managed military unit, where the people in it are serving their career terms just like anyone in the Sector Navy does. Just because you serve 6 Terms in the Subsector Navy does not make you a part-time reservist.
"Reserve" forces might be available for both Sector and Subsector Navies, but it would be a separate pool of ships managed as a distinct sub-force of each Navy. This would concentrate the part-timer problems you are going over to severely restricted groups of ships and personnel.
There is no way an entire Subsector Navy is going to be composed of "reservists". It just wouldn't work.
I agree, in general, with the exception of the "limited sub-force" proposition I made above.
Yes, yes. I agree completely. I have no problem with that.
The TL-14 crewperson isn't going to be able to do that. That's why activated reservists would be serving aboard their specific "reserve" vessels that they'd been original trained on during their part-time reserve activations, from the limited sub-force of elderly, but still-useable vessels, within the main Navy. This sub-force of reservists and reserve ships would be given strictly secondary duties, like transport, picket/garrison, etc., in order to free up ships of the line.
I'm not 100% sure, but I'm thinking that even TL13 vessels are a wee bit more reliable than the TL-8 ships we have today. They'll be more resistant to sitting around for a couple of months doing nothing. Instead of months to "prep", I'd give them only a couple of weeks.
Former SN and SuN personnel sign up for reserve status.
If they do, they must chose to settle on certain worlds where the reserve forces are maintained.
One weekend/month, the reservist is called into the base. Each weekend, different groups are on the base. Each group does maintenence on their vessel, and a little on-the-side training. A lot of time is spent keeping things in top level maintenence conditions, an having things look spic and span so that commanders can make positive inspections and check of the right boxes on their electronic handcomp forms (so they look good in front of their commanders).
One month per year, all groups for a vessel are a assembled into a complete crew. A week of intensive maintenence and checking is done aboard the vessel, about 8 hours a day. Another eight hours a day is spent with spent with the crew in simulators, working up ordinary manuevers and problems. After this week of hell, the ship sails out of port (hopefully!), and jumps for a nearby system. It flies around that distant system for several days, refuels, and jumps back. The cruise is carefully pre-planned. If the commanders are ambitious, several other vessels could be participating simultaneously, and simulated fleet action could even take place.
When the ship(s) get back, their crews spend the last day or two cleaning everything until it shines for final inspections, and then the month is over. The reservists disembark and go home. (Some will be back for more maintenence on the next weekend).
I'd agree that the Imperium can exercise extraordinary authority in wartime. But, in most cases, if the Sector and Subsector Navies can't deal with the problem, then the Planetary Navies (for the most part fixed in their starsystems), will not be able to do much. Even wealthy worlds like Mora, etc., will find their collection of a hundred heavy monitors crushed (because the enemy will be using meson weapons, and I find it unlikely to the point of laughability that the Imperium would let it's wealthist worlds build fleets of meson-armed monitors).
Well, we can only hope that the taxation is reasonable!
However, I do agree with the above. Taxes that are too heavy brake the economy.
In my taxation system, I do not believe the Imperium's tax to be too heavy.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
Vessels of a TL are built on at a shipyard on a world with that TL.Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
I don't doubt he has good reason, but a TL12 (or worse still, the original TL10) Reginal is at the wrong end of the exchange rate
It will cost an absolute fortune to build and maintain troops and fleet elements several TLs above that of the world.
Maintaining them can be done at A & B starports, regardless of the world's TL.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
I must disagree. Running an entire Subsector's Navy as a reservist operation . . . well, I wouldn't contemplate it. And I can't imagine why the Subsector Duke would, either. Especially when he almost always has the funds for a full-time professional force.
The SN has numerous important rules to play, including general patrol of star systems. This requires, IMO, an full-time force/operation.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
Wait . . .
Now I'm confused. The SN cannot be both unmobilized reservists, and full-time active at the same time.
It could be I'm not understanding because of the CT/MT organization break.
IMO, MT's IN organization is not a "reorganization", it is a retcon that replaces the previous . . . but then, well . . . I'm not going there.
However, as mentioned before, I ignore the MT organization system.
Given that Hal's primary point is a SN/SuN/PN differences/operations discussion, I don't thing the MT system fits onto it very well.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
This is another one of those things that has always seemed a bit odd to me.
A TL15 Battleship can be fully overhauled and maintained at a type B starport on a TL 5 world?
This is at odds with the CT Library Data entries for Naval bases and Naval depots which suggest/imply that military ships are maintained only at those facilities.
Still, it could me reading it how I want it to be
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I must disagree. Running an entire Subsector's Navy as a reservist operation . . . well, I wouldn't contemplate it. And I can't imagine why the Subsector Duke would, either. Especially when he almost always has the funds for a full-time professional force.
The SN has numerous important rules to play, including general patrol of star systems. This requires, IMO, an full-time force/operation. </font>[/QUOTE]You missunderstand me, and what I mean by reserve (or rather what MWM et al used the word for).
As I said, reinforcements would be better.
The Colonial Reserve/reinforcements squadrons in FFW are, IMHO, the active duty Colonial/subsector forces of subsectors K,L,O&P plus those from nearby subsectors in Deneb.
These forces would be mobilized at the orders of the Imperial navy.
They are not reactivated or crewed by part timers. They are the best ships and crew those subsectors can afford.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Ah, it's that MT reoganization of things that's causing the confusion.
When I use the word reserve I mean reinforcement, or tactical reserve, rather than reservist (which to me means part time, weekend warriors, that sort of thing
). There are a few options for the MT system:
ignore it
assume it models the reorganisation of the Navy following the Fifth Frontier War
assume it replaces the CT model (retcon)
ignore it
You can probably tell which is my preferred option
According to High Guard you could serve seven or more terms in a Planetary Navy and be active duty for the full twenty eight year hitch, similarly for the Subsector Navy and Imperial Navy, you roll on the same assignment table
Which suggests that a lot of his forces aren't TL15.
In actual fact, the only unit we know that is definitely TL15 are his Huscarles. That's nothing - a single (large) regiment. That's easily affordable.
There is also a hint of other forces being around - supposedly the reserve fleets largely consist of obsolescent vessels handed down from the regular fleets. These would mainly be TL15 or TL14, given the slow rate of technological advancement in the Imperium.
Presumably the infrastructure to support them would be associated with the regular navy bases.
It would also make sense for these higher tech forces to be supplemented with lots of cheaper elements, so the lower tech forces will be there as well. A fuel tanker, or a patrol boat doesn't really need to be TL15, although the latter might want TL15 electronics!
---
As for the vexed question of subsector navies versus reserve fleets:
My approach is that they are one and the same.
To put it simply, I don't believe that the writers in question intended them to be distinct.
The subsector navies can be, and are, taken into Imperial service in war time. Therefore, they are Imperial reservists.
They do not serve in the Imperial navy full time, but are "mobilisation only" forces.
The fact that they serve as a regular military force for the subsector governments when not called up is irrelevant.
A major part of the argument that the reserve and subsector fleets are distinct lies in definitions of the term "reservist" or "reserve". The truth is that these terms are not so precisely definable. They may have one meaning in one context, and refer to something else in another. Using them to refer to the subsidiary forces that can be taken into Imperial service in a crisis is legitimate.
Here is a question: what is a "legion"? What does a "division" consist of? What is a "grenadier"? Does a "lancer" necessarily carry a lance?
My point is that different terms - even technical terms - hold different meanings in different contexts, times, places and military services.
The reserve fleets are the second-line forces of the Imperium - regardless of their actual origin, status or duties when not mobilised.
In many cases, not necessarily all, they serve as the naval forces of the subsectors from which they were recruited.
Historically, I suspect that this situation arose when the Imperium was absorbing pocket empires. The PEs had their own fleets who could only partially be absorbed into the regular Imperial forces. This is pretty well explicitly stated in a T4 source.
Presumably the presence of such forces became institutionalised and systematised.
If this structure looks like a dubiously rational compromise, well, that's my image of how the Imperium works.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
I was unaware that bay weaponry in and of itself was restricted. Meson bays, of course, would be. But the other types? </font>[/QUOTE]The 24 bays on the original AHL class were all 50 ton missile bays. For the commercial ships all, but the one previously mentioned, had to have their bays removed before being allowed into civilian service. Supp-5 pg. 9 item j. "Five ships were declared surplus and sold to commercial concerns in the period 1008 to 1035. All weaponary was removed by the recipient in compliance with demilitarization regulations and ordinances." Pg. 13, "Azhantis converted to commercial service lost their spinal mounts and main weaponary, but prudently retained the self-defense armament necessary for protection against piracy and other hazards." So the Spinals and Bays went away but some of the turrets were retained. The Scout Service vessels retained their spinals and bays but converted the bays to repulsers and meson bays so apparently the Scout Service is allowed Capital Ship weapons but Megacorps are not.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
What about Marquis and Viscount? </font>[/QUOTE]Well the practical difference between Marquis and Baron, according to Supplement 11, Library Data (N-Z) was that Marquis or Viscount was responsible for a single world with a Class A or B Starport. So they would fit at the Baron Level. The reason to have a seperate level at Count is that they are responsible for a cluster of worlds (same source says 2-3). Then Dukes are each responsible for a Subsector. Now I have always, IMTU, considered the Sector Duke as first among equals so they don't get any additional financial advantage for holding the position.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Well from the same Supplement 5, the Auxillarys converted from AHL class Cruisers also lost their bay weapons. (And were armed the same as the commercial version of the AHL. Since they are still owned by the Navy why plate over the bays? After all they are already there so it would be cheaper to actually retain them. Apparently the Imperial Navy would prefer to keep Bay and Spinal weapons in the combat vessels instead of on Auxillaries.Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
What about merchant ships operated with a government subsidy?
They can be called up in times of war to serve as naval auxiliaries.
Now an empty bay can carry cargo as well as a cargo hold, by which I mean a 50t bay can carry 50t of cargo, so it would be well worth subsidised bulk freighters being fitted with "cargo bays"
Megacorps could probably get away with the same, all they'd have to do is register the "merchant" as subsidised by one of the worlds they own.
Bit tricky to explain away spinal mounts, but then I've always been a small ship heretic
Admiral Morgan
SOC-7
Both the 100 ton and 50 ton bays do not hold thier listed tonage as cargo but a reduced amount. I want to say a 100 ton bay can hold 50 tons of cargo and a 50 ton bay 25 tons of cargo according to book 5.
The AHL cruisers can't lose it's bays since they are built right into the hull of the ship durring construction according to book 5. The weapons systems can be removed from the bays though.
Admiral Morgan
The AHL cruisers can't lose it's bays since they are built right into the hull of the ship durring construction according to book 5. The weapons systems can be removed from the bays though.
Admiral Morgan
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Welcome aboard Admiral
Sorry, I have to disagree with the first part of your post.
According to High Guard 2nd edition page 30 an empty bay only wastes half its tonage if carrying vehicles or small craft. It can therefore use its full space for carrying cargo or deadfall ordnance for planetary bombardment.
I agree completely with the second part though.
