Fleets in the Spinward Marches anno 1105

[Garnfellow]

Well, the reasoning was that if we were going to change the population, we might as well do it properly.

"One might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb?"

Your rationale makes sense to me. Did you change the government type on Dyrnwyn from corporate controlled? (I've ordered a copy of Sword Worlds, but who knows when it will land.)

Is the increased estimate (x6) of the Gram and Joyeuse Fleets based on the population modifiers AND these updates?

 

[rancke]

Hans can you recap the pop mod origin and affects.

On the surface it sounds stupid, but I've learned not to doubt you.

Not much to tell. Originally population size was determined by the population level only. In The Spinward Marches Campaign (I think it was), a "second data cluster" of three digits was introduced. They indicated the population multiplier, the number of planetoid belt in the system (over and above the mainworld if that was an asteroid belt), and the number of gas giants in the system. The population multiplier made the population figure a bit more exxct, but if you don't account for it in inferences drawn from earlier material, you end up with worlds with multipliers of 9 having no more military forces than worlds with populations nine times smaller and worlds with multipliers of 1 having ten times as many forces as worlds with populations 10% smaller.

The last time I discussed this subject, someone (I think it was Chris) pointed out something about the populations in The Spinward Marches, but I can't remember what it was. Chris?


Hans

 

[rancke]

"One might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb?"

"Anything that's worth doing is worth doing well."

Your rationale makes sense to me. Did you change the government type on Dyrnwyn from corporate controlled? (I've ordered a copy of Sword Worlds, but who knows when it will land.)

No. Nothing in the canonical history indicated that it couldn't have a corporate government, and Paul did a great job of coming up with one.

Is the increased estimate (x6) of the Gram and Joyeuse Fleets based on the population modifiers AND these updates?

No, since Gram has a population in the billions, I just used its multiplier of 6 as the guesstimate and ignored the rest of the worlds that contributed to to the Gram Fleet. You're right, a population of 520 million extra and another of 200 million extra should propably make the guesstimate seven instead of six. OTOH, military budgets and spending patterns may be different, so once we get into this level of detail, a lot of fudge factors are involved. Also, I didn't want to get sidetracked by a discussion of the validity of GT material.


Hans

 

[Kilgs]

Just a quick nudge back to the original question, what are the leadership ranks of the various units?

Batron=?
CruRon=?

 

[rancke]

Just a quick nudge back to the original question, what are the leadership ranks of the various units?

Batron=?
CruRon=?

According to High Guard, the ranks between Captain (O6) and Fleet Admiral (O8) are:

Commodore (O7)

Captains command major ships. Fleet Admirals command numbered fleets. From that one might assume that junior commodores commanded CruRons and senior commodores commanded BatRons. Alternatively, commodores command CruRons and junior Fleet Admirals command BatRons.

However, background information refers to a number of rear and vice admirals. MT explained that by stating that rear admiral is an unofficial (or was it alternate?) form of Fleet Admiral and vice admiral for Sector Admiral. But the rear and vice admirals we've seen mentioned are all occupying positions below that of numbered fleet level (Vice Admiral Elphinstone, for instance, was commanding a task force of a couple of squadrons). So while a rear admiral might be a sub-species of Fleet Admiral, a vice admiral is unlikely to be a sub-species of Sector Admiral (Though I'm told it's concievable).

My preferred resolution would be to persuade Marc Miller to retcon in Rear Admiral, Vice Admiral, and Admiral as substantive ranks in the Imperial Navy. The IN really need more than 10 command levels (the first ten goes to fleets with lower-case 'f', i.e. several squadrons stationed in the same system, the equivalent of an army corps; after that you need subsector, sector, and Domain/Imperial levels). While the same rank can stretch over several command levels (there are a number of historical examples), I still think it's sloppy that a Fleet Admiral (O8) who commands all the forces in an entire subsector is the equivalent of a major general (army division level, the equivalent of a navy half-squadron).

A more messy solution is to say that the Fleet Admiral level is divided into three sections by seniority, and thar Rear Admiral is what a Fleet Admiral (Lower Third) is called, a Vice Admiral is a Fleet Admiral (Middle Third), and a Fleet Admiral is a FA (Upper Third). Of course, with such a setup, you'd expect fleet admirals to be the equivalent of a full general (O10) (Actually, the equivalent of an army marshal, but the army's O10 seems to extend to two command levels here .)

If you do that, you'd have commodores for CruRons, rear admirals for BatRons, vice admirals for single fleets, and fleet admirals for numbered fleets.

Note that this could be the rule of thumb, not necessarily so rigid that you can't have non-standard ranks commanding a given unit once in a while -- especially not during and just after a war.


Hans

 

[Hemdian]

The way I do it IMTU is detailed here, but in summary:

• Captains (O6) command capital ships and DesRons (where they exist).
  
  
• Commodores (O7) command CruRons and BatRons. While a BatRon has more firepower being in charge of a CruRon offers broader experience and thus better career advancement prospects in peacetime.
  
  
• Fleet Admirals (O8) command fleets. Duh!
  
  
• Sector Admirals (O9) command all fleets in a theatre (usually a sector, hence the name, but the Spinward Marches is a special case).
  
  
• The most senior admiral ranked officer (O7-O9) present is referred to simply as "Admiral". Subordinate Fleet Admirals present are referred to as "Vice Admirals" and subordinate Sector Admirals present are referred to as "Rear Admirals".
  
  
• There is only one Grand Admiral (O10) on active duty and he’s on Capitol.

 

[Easterner9504]

Grand fleet

Out of curiosity does anyone use Martin J. Dougherty's GRAND FLEET (Avenger Enterprises) which covers most of the background on the IN? Or is it just ignored as official non-canon?

 

[rancke]

The way I do it IMTU...

The way I do it IMTU is:

Commodores (O7) are the equivalent on Army brigadiers (O7).
Rear admirals (O8) are the equivalent of Army major generals (O8).
Vice admirals (O9)are the equivalent of Army lieutenant generals (O9).
Admirals (O10) are the equivalent of Army generals (O10).

The differences between the way navy units are organized and the way army units are organized means that commodores, rear admirals and vice admirals don't command the equivalent of the units brigadeers, major generals and lieutenant generals command (brigade ~ fleet division, army division ~ half-squadron, army ~ squadron). Instead they command squadrons of ships of increasing size. Admirals command fleets (usually all ships stationed in a single system and task forces of more than one squadron but less than half a dozen).

All Imperial fleets and armies in a subsector are called a Force or an F/A Force (short for Fleet/Army Force). This is more or less what canon calls a numbered fleet. A Force is commanded by a Force Admiral (O11).

All Forces in a sector are commanded by a Sector Admiral (O12). So are formations like the Home Fleet and the Corridor Reaction Force, what canon calls named fleets (IMTU they're called armadas).

All armadas in a domain used to be commanded by a Grand Admiral (O13). Since Arbellatra's time there has not been a Grand Admiral of outlying domains. Nowadays the emperors keep their grand admirals at Capital running the Admiralty.

There's an Admiral of the Navy, but I can't make up my mind if he's an O14 or an Very Important grand admiral. Probably the latter.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Hans:

To answer the issue with PopMults... they have a slight skew, for one, and further, the OOB's in 5FW are based upon PopMult=1 for all worlds, and the tables in MT and Striker don't account for them, either.

 

[DeusX]

Hi All

My first post, yay.

Out of curiosity does anyone use Martin J. Dougherty's GRAND FLEET (Avenger Enterprises) which covers most of the background on the IN? Or is it just ignored as official non-canon?

Being a newbie, I was about to ask the same question. I like it but the only canon issue I can see with Grand Fleet is that it's Sector Fleet TO&E appendix had BatRons with only 3-4 Dreadnaughts or BB, while CT Fighting Ships is pretty clear on 8 Tigresses or Kokirraks to a Squadron.

Since my campaign is set in 1083 4FW, I can wiggle by saying post 4th war, Spinward Marches BatRons were reinforced to double-strength.
An alternate play could be to argue that 8 is the total count, 3-4 are the most on active readiness, allowing for long periods of refit, training, crew rotation, etc. Similar to the US navy's carrier group deployments. YMMV.

Anyone else got strong views on Grand Fleet?

DX

 

[Whipsnade]

Anyone else got strong views on Grand Fleet?

DeusX,

Welcome to COTI.

Grand Fleet is a good book by a good author. How do you use it in YTU?


Regards,
Bill

 

[DeusX]

Welcome to COTI.

Grand Fleet is a good book by a good author. How do you use it in YTU?
l

Thanks for the welcome, Whipsnade.

Yes, I'm a fan of MJD and Comstar. IMTU I'm using Grand Fleet as the party's mutual naval background - we're starting in the 4th Frontier War with them all naval cadets rushed to the Front from Deneb Naval Academy. Playing 'One Crowded Hour' as battle damage - a Zho corvette commerce raider(from GAS 3) taking out their transport deep in Imp territory. Then we'll jump to 1105 with the older and wiser party meeting up again after diverse 1st careers, to buy that ship together they'd talked about as cadets. They'll be based in the County of Lanth - <Blue Planet crossover now Mongoose are republishing that too.>

DX

 

[drnuncheon]

To answer the issue with PopMults... they have a slight skew, for one, and further, the OOB's in 5FW are based upon PopMult=1 for all worlds, and the tables in MT and Striker don't account for them, either.

I keep seeing references to this or something similar - where does it come from? How do we know they're not based on, say, 5, for at least a median population if not the average?

 

[rancke]

I keep seeing references to this or something similar - where does it come from? How do we know they're not based on, say, 5, for at least a median population if not the average?

Each of the subsectors has a total population listed. Except for the Sword Worlds subsector (IRRC) it comes to either a pop multiplier of 1 for every single significant world in the subsector or one of 10 for every world, depending on which subsector (and maybe depending on which writer wrote the passage?)


Hans


Edit: added the word 'significant' to the phrase 'every single world'. The total pupulation is rounded to three or four figures, so technically only worlds with the three or four top population levels are counted.