Military/Fleet composition ...

[Tellon]

I am looking at an overall look -- with an idea of trying to make a Navy for the personnel I got

so with the B877ADE-A -- it has 67 Billion people

9.6% Agricuylture -- 6.432 B
13.1% resources -- 8.777 B
73.3% Industry -- 49.111 B

- 49.4% Hvy
- 49.4% Construction
- 1.2% Light

4% Military -- 2.68 B (includes families, children, etc)
-- 1.6 % Wet Navy
-- 6% Near Space
-- .08% Navy (Space)
-- 92.3% Land forces

and for Wet + Space -- 75%+ are Minor & Support; 25%- are Major

so (including familes, dependanats, etc)
43 M (Wet Navy)
161 M (Near Space)
2 Mil (Space Navy)
2.474 B (Land forces)

so if we use a standard 1/3 for actual soldiers -- that leaves ~ 665,000 in the Navy, and not all are going to be ship-bound, as we have plenty of on-base personnel/admin types who never get into a ship

*note: I consider 'Near-Space' to be the large Stations, Highports, Fighter wings, Shuttles, Ship Yards, ect.

--

So question: Being TL A -- and unable to build anything "too" big -- I figure 50,000 dTons is as big as a society could get at that TL. and 67 Billion folks can roughly (economically) have 1M dTons protecting it -- due to the amount of trade that goes thru the ports per week.

So then -- with 1/4 being combat, thus 1000 dTons +, and 3/4 being minor/support ships (any size -- say a 25,000 dTon oiler, or a 5000 dTon hospital ship, or a 5000 dTon tender, or a 400 dTon SDB)

-- SO, What would you think would be a good fleet for a Fleet?

I could almost imagine for capital ships:
2 50,000 dTon BB's, 4 25,000 dTon Crusiers, 10 10,000 dTon Destroyers, 20 5000 dTon Frigates, 2 50,000 dTon Fleet carriers, 2 25,000 Escort Carriers

which would make (imho) a pretty solid 40 ship combat fleet -- taking up ~ 550,000 dTons w/ the minors/support taking up the other 450,000 dTons ...

any ideas? .. or should the ratios be tweaked.

 

[Matt123]

I liked the angle you started with, establishing the likely strength of Navy personal. But then you leap to measuring the fleet as 1 mill ton ???

I'm quite inerested in you following the crew aspect and breaking that down further. So far you have perhaps 100,000 Navy personal crewing 40 capital ships 50 kton or less. Perhaps break down the personal into departments & then look to give the personal the equipment to do the job.

 

[far-trader]

...Perhaps break down the personal into departments & then look to give the personal the equipment to do the job.

o:

I think that's... Brilliant! *

Instead of a made up budget to use to build (a Space Navy for example, only to find we can build a huge high tech fleet that the dozen primitive natives can't operate ) we start with the knowns of population and TL and from that derive (perhaps using other UWP facts) the percentage involved in a field (Space Navy for example). Then since the crewing of ships is pretty well figured out in the rules we can work back from that to see how much materiel can be properly crewed. And that gives us a (high end?) of the force in place from which to derive a truer budget when accounting for maintenance and the rest of it. As well as figuring out how many support personnel, the size of bases, starports and shipyards are needed.

BRILLIANT! *

I'm curious how close such an exercise would come to the other budgetary numbers, But not sure I want to tackle the work

* perhaps anyway It "looks" good but numbers have to be run to check it.

 

[stealth]

Frigates should be in the 1000 ton range.

Not just for the hit DM, but a well designed frigate should have a 10 ton launch, and a missle bay. You can build a 1500 ton frigate, 6-G, max. computer, and still carry sand, lasers, plasma, and still carry out routine naval operations with the launch. Perfect for peacetime and war.

Go to 2000+ tons, you lose the size to-hit modifier and now it's a destroyer.

Also, High Guard rules make this vehicle especially hard to stop, because you have to get over 20 weapon hits to scrub off the bay.

 

[Tellon]

I liked the angle you started with, establishing the likely strength of Navy personal. But then you leap to measuring the fleet as 1 mill ton ???

I'm quite inerested in you following the crew aspect and breaking that down further. So far you have perhaps 100,000 Navy personal crewing 40 capital ships 50 kton or less. Perhaps break down the personal into departments & then look to give the personal the equipment to do the job.

If I had a guage of % for each department, it would really help

I aint sure if there are any Navy folks here that could provide us with the info -- as that would help us break it down further --

 

[robject]

And a note about starship volumes based on TL. It's not a hard and fast limit; after all, there's a very nice trilogy of Traveller adventures by FASA (done by the Keith brothers) that center around a TL9 planetoid spacecraft (sublight I believe) which is on the order of 50 billion tons.

 

[Matt123]

If I had a guage of % for each department, it would really help

I aint sure if there are any Navy folks here that could provide us with the info -- as that would help us break it down further --

For what its worth, I think thats a strategic issue up to the player. If you like fighters, create a large fighter wing.

As for tooth to tail ratio, I'd start with say 1 in 10 are teeth. Altho' I'm very interested in the views others may hold. IMHO a 10:1 ratio should approximately cover logistics, combat support, training, admin, etc for most departments.

Going back to your 2 mill Navy including dependents. Say 2/3 are dependents (US military ratios are ???), leaving 650,000 Navy personal.

Say 65,000 teeth...

At roughly (very rough...)
400 crew per 50,000 ton Battleship or Carrier
150 crew per 20,000 ton Cruiser
30 crew per 2,000 ton destroyer
15 crew per sub 1,000 ton craft
2 crew per fighter

A lot depends on the nature of the threats being defended against. I'll assume a non-aligned system, surrounded by other non-aligned systems, Vargyr raiders and Aslan.

"Big Guns Win Battles" whilst not neccesarily true at this TL, they do generate a certain degree of interstellar respect. Held close to the home world are the BatRons (all squadrons have 4 ships). A third of available crew are dedicated to the BatRons, giving 8 Batrons needing 12,800 personal

Fighters tend to win battles at this tech level (TL10), making Carriers vital for power projection. 10 CarRons needing 16,000 personal

Cruisers protect the Carriers, Guard the flanks of Battleships & engage in goodwill visits and other operations. Whilst the Carriers & Battleships are always held close, the Cruisers are the visible arm of our Naval Diplomacy. You can never have enough Cruisers. 15 CruRons needing 9,000 personal.

Destroyers & Frigates protect the capital ships from nuisance attacks, escort merchants, hunt raiders & pirates and act as heavy SDB's in the defence of the Homeworld. Lots are needed. Say 40 DesRons needing 4800 personal.

Close Escorts, Customs, Patrol ships and SBD's make up the near defence of the Homeworld, heavy fleets, merchants, GG's and outlying system facilities. Scout & Communications ships also fall into this category. The largest share is dedicated SBD's. 100 varied Squadrons needing 6000 personal.

Fighters are the Elite branch of our worlds Navy, 20,000 fighters organized into 2,000 squadrons of single & dual seat fighters needing 32,500 personal (half the Navy personal).

The balance, some 2000 personal are allocated to the support ships, supply, repair, tankers, hospital, etc.

I've no idea what this all may cost, but it 'feels' too large IMHO. There must be alot of very large threats about!

Dunno, I like the concept, but has it got legs?