Researching Imperial/subsector/colonial Navies

[Hemdian]

Originally posted by Hal:
Hi Peter,
I ran a comparison between the figures on your webpage regards to income and what GURPS GROUND FORCES lists for various pay grades. For example, in GURPS TRAVELLER, the pay scale for an O-10 is starting pay at 11,400 Cr per year up to 119,400 Cr per year (if the guy has been a general for 26 years!). This varies greatly with the figures you list on your site. Just out of curiosity, how did you arrive at the figures you give?
Also, as a perspective? I compared starting pay (ie pay for less than 2 years in a particular grade) against the US military. It varied across the board naturally, but the enlisted values for Traveller's pay scale were about 1/3rd those of the US values. US enlisted pay for E1's was 6 times that of Traveller E1 pay. E7's in the US were paid roughly 3.7 times that of the calculated GURPS TRAVELLER rates.

I calculated the figures from a formula in a JTAS article. I can't remember which issue ... somewhere between 12 and 24. From memory it gave:

basic pay = (N x terms) x rank
(where N was different for enlisted as opposed to officers)

Or it might have been:

basic pay = (N x rank) x terms
(where N was different for enlisted as opposed to officers)

These figures are certainly open to debate.

One possibility (thinking out loud here) is that US Navy personnel routinely return home (and thus may have a house, family, etc), whereas IN personnel are much more migratory during their service ... they would be able to save a much greater proportion of their basic pay and thus would need less. This would be less of a case for Army personnel (or Colonial Navy personnel for that matter).

Regards PLST

 

[Hemdian]

Originally posted by Hal:
What I'm going to need however, after all that good advice, are considerations of what a good ratio mix of escorts to main ships should be. For instance, if you have a CruRon of 2 Fleet Intruders - what kinds of escorts should it have? Should they be as fast as or faster than the ships they escort? Should there be an "official" ratio of 6 Fleet escorts for every 1 Destroyer? Should there be three Destroyers for every one Cruiser?

There's one canon description I know of and its in the Spinward Marches Campaign. I used it as a basis for squadrons IMTU. You can find an example of a fleet here.

 

[Hal]

Thanks Hemdian - that got printed out in a hurry along with Bont's Delphi fleets. Now all I need is that list regarding the Fifth Frontier counters and I think I can start to take a stab at things.

 

[BetterThanLife]

When I built the Glisten Subsector Navy here are the ratios I used.

A Squadron has 8 ships. (Be it BatRon, CruRon, DesRon whatever.)

Since this is a Subsector Navy most of the Capital Ships are going to be Cruisers. For each BatRon I had 6 CruRons. Of those CruRons 2 were generally based on Heavy Cruisers and 4 based on Light Cruisers. (Though the wound up off a little.) For each capital ship squadron there were 4 Destroyer Flotillas and 8 Destroyer Escort Flotillias and 8 Corvette Flotillas. I went very heavy on ships under 10,000 tons because every real Navy ever built has never had enough escorts.

Auxillaries. For every 4 Cruisers and every 2 Drednaughts there was one tanker, one Collier, and two couriers, plus an extra tanker at each BatRon and CruRon for the escorts. Each Naval Base in the subsector also had 8 couriers. There were also 8 Carriers which would count as an additional CruRon for escorts and auxillaries but because of use in my Navy get classified as Auxillaries. (And spread out.) There were also a class of ships in the Destroyer Escort Range, that were in addition to the DE Flotillias that were designed along the lines of the Kinunir for SEAL Team insertion, And transports to move Batalion Sized elements, and Regimental elements. A Batalion is the smallest element that is normally capable of limited duration independent operation. I didn't have a Division transport I figured that was putting too many eggs in one basket. There were also a host of 200T, 400T, 1000T and 2000T SDB/monitors, plus 15T and 50T fighters for local defense, customs and safety patrols and piracy suppression.

A note on sizes. The Drednaughts I purchased for this subsector fleet were on the small end, in the 200 Kton range but I did include a BattleTender with 6 30KTon riders. (So I had an industrial base for 30KTon Monitors and a way to move them about.) Heavy Cruisers were in the 60KTon to 75Kton range. Light Cruisers in the 30 to 50Kton range. Destroyers in the 3KTon to 8KTon range. Destroyer Escorts in the 1000 Ton range and Corvettes are in the 400 Ton range. Tankers and Colliers were in the 60KTon range and the 400ton courier was adopted as standard. Teh fleet was built to the Jump4 standard and most ships were Maneuver 6. (Though I did build a squadron of AHLs for fast reaction and I do like the Atlantic for heavy Cruisers.) The Tankers were capable of Jump-5. (Had the extra fuel capacity anyway.)

Now that I have all this again, perhaps I should go back and rebuild the Glisten Subsector Navy under T20.

(Especially since i can't find the Navy but remember the proportions.)

Originally posted by Hal:
All good advice Bhoins - thanks.

What I'm going to need however, after all that good advice, are considerations of what a good ratio mix of escorts to main ships should be. For instance, if you have a CruRon of 2 Fleet Intruders - what kinds of escorts should it have? Should they be as fast as or faster than the ships they escort? Should there be an "official" ratio of 6 Fleet escorts for every 1 Destroyer? Should there be three Destroyers for every one Cruiser?

What good is it to have a fleet if the fleet can't even find the enemy for which it must battle or guard against? One thing I intend to do is create using GURPS VEHICLES, some variant missiles currently not present in the GURPS TRAVELLER Universe. The "concepts" of such missiles already exist in CT via Mayday, and the special insert for JTAS #23(?). Remote control missiles are already included in the GURPS TRAVELLER books. What is not present are the missiles that home in on radio transmissions. There are no inertial guidance missiles that are programmed to run on ballistic trajectories for X hours and then turn on Infrared homing sensors to target the first craft they can find that meet its targetting criteria. Imagine being a crew of an oiler enroute between its gas giant and home world when suddenly, without any real warning, 20 homing missiles slam into the ship. Why did they do this? Becase the first step towards making freighters more vulnerable to commerce raiding is to force the system to depend either on gas giant resources or turn their own precious water into fuel. On some worlds, this is a viable option - use local water for fuel sorces. On others however, this will not be a viable option and it will force ships to refuel at gas giants. THIS is where convoy duties will become important in a traveller universe (I must add the statement of IMHO or IMTU).

 

[Hal]

Hey Hemdian? Just out of curiosity, the 214th fleet isn't showing any troop carriers for its 275 Battalions. Got any takes on that?

 

[Hal]

Just out of curiosity - what do you guys think about Escort Carriers? Good/Bad? If good, what would the stats on such a ship be in your opinion? Would it be Jump 4 to keep up with fleets, or would it be mostly slow for use with planetary bombardment in support of Marine landings?

 

[BetterThanLife]

One other quick point. BatRons are generally employed intact, or at worse in two divisions, due to their designed role, but CruRons tend to get deployed as smaller task forces. 2 to 4 Cruisers and a bunch of escorts on Piracy suppression patrols, Convoy escort, Scouting, Ferret Missions, Interdiction, etc. Wartime add Raids and Commerce Raiding.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Escort Carriers are useless. Fleet Carriers or nothing. Now a Cruiser that carries a few fighters, AHL for instance, is useful. I guess it depends on what your designed mission for the fighters is. But if the fleet standard is Jump4 then they should be J4 too. You can design ships with higher jump capability but anything less than fleet standard slows the fleet down. Once out of jump, because of the use of fighters or the mission of the carrier speeds of less than 6G are acceptable. Like the Battle Tender the Carrier isn't expected to get to grips with the enemy, that is why it is carrying things.

Originally posted by Hal:
Just out of curiosity - what do you guys think about Escort Carriers? Good/Bad? If good, what would the stats on such a ship be in your opinion? Would it be Jump 4 to keep up with fleets, or would it be mostly slow for use with planetary bombardment in support of Marine landings?

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Hal:
Thanks Hemdian - that got printed out in a hurry along with Bont's Delphi fleets. Now all I need is that list regarding the Fifth Frontier counters and I think I can start to take a stab at things.

I posted the colonial fleets a while ago, look at the bottom of the page

 

[mike wightman]

Here are the regular Batrons:
B2-PS, 5-1-3 BR780, BR890
B3-US, 2-2-2 BR648, BR667
B3-US, 4-4-4 BR642-646, BR649
B3-US, 8-0-4 BR501-505, BR507
B4-PS, 1-1-4 BR492
B4-US, 2-0-3 BR192, BR210, BR212
B4-US, 3-1-4 BR122, BR124, BR155, BR185
B4-PS, 3-1-7 BR493
B4-US, 5-1-7 BR190, BR191, BR203
B4-US, 6-2-8 BR123, BR154, BR186, BR187

 

[mike wightman]

Just in case it's not obvious
B3 = batron jump3
S = streamlined
PS = partial streamlining
US = unstreamlined
attack-bombardment factor-defence
squadron numbers

 

[Hal]

B3 = Jump 4?
So B4 would be Jump 5?

Or is it that the number preceding the B is the jump value?

 

[mike wightman]

And here are the CruRons:
C3-S, 3-4-6 CR356,358,359,363,381,893
C4-S, 3-4-7 CR83,91,94,98,99,751
C4-PS, 4-4-6 CR211-CR216
C5-PS, 1-1-3 CR504
C5-PS, 3-2-4 CR502
C5-PS, 5-4-6 CR501, CR503
C6-S, 4-2-8 CR460, CR470, CR480, CR490

 

[mike wightman]

Finally the miscellaneous stuff:
T3-PS, 0-0-4 TR10, TR11
A4-S, 0-0-6 TR26-TR33
S2-S, 0-3-4 SR54, SR63, SR76, SR96, SR123
S2-S, 0-8-8 SR53
S3-S, 0-8-4 SR497
S4-S, 0-5-6 SR321

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Hal:
B3 = Jump 4?
So B4 would be Jump 5?

Or is it that the number preceding the B is the jump value?

Nope, it's stupid me pressing the wrong "£$%^$$£$%
key
I've edited to correct it, the number should be the jump number.

 

[Hal]

*snickering in friendly amusment*

Ok, I can buy that. When I goof in the spelling or typing department, you have my encouragement to do the same to me

 

[PBI]

A word on CVEs. They may well be useless in fleet actions, but they can come in handy in space superiority/bombardment roles in small-scale conflicts. Additionally, they can be a viable alternative for assignment to anti-piracy operations. Finally, let's not forget their role as fighter transports/light cavalry; as a last gasp, they (and their fighter groups) can zip into the line to keep numbers up while the battered remnants of the main fleet valiantly bugger off

 

[BetterThanLife]

To break the ratio (Of what I designed as the Glisten Subsector Navy) down to the nuts and bolts. For every battleship/Drednaught there were 2xCA, 4xCL, 28xDD, 56xDE, 112xCorvette/Frigate.

Now each of these obviously weren't present with each battleship they were spread out performing various missions. The BatRons staying together with their escort groups as the reserve/combat power of the Subsector Navy at various Nodal systems (though they weren't static, they moved between these nodal systems).

A BatRon generally had two DesRons, 2 DERons (Pronounced DEE-Ron as opposed to DES-ron) and 2 CorvRons, 4 Fleet Couriers, 5 Fleet Tankers, 2-4 Fleet Colliers and possibly accompanied by a Carrier Group (A Carrier 4 Destroyers, 4 Destroyer Escorts, 8 Corvettes, a Fleet Tanker, a Fleet Collier and a Fleet Courier.).

The Imperial Navy, a more offensive oriented force, IMTU, would be arranged with less escorts and less Cruisers per Battleship.

The Glisten Subsector Navy has other concerns, Glisten is a border subsector in a border sector, at the edge of the Imperium. Glisten's Subsector Government and hence its Navy is responsible for, aside from the Glisten Subsector itself, Imperial interests in District 268 (subsector) and Pax Rulin subsector. There are Aslan Ihatei fleets to rimward of Imperial interests in Pax Rulin, There are Zhodani interests in the Eglin Subsector (Spinward of Pax Rulin and Rimward of District 268) and ther eis Imperial expansion interests in all three of these subsectors which would require Naval support. As these fall under the jurisdiction of the Glisten Subsector Government and the Duke of Glisten, They also fall under the mission parameters of the Glisten Subsector Navy. Also as most of District 268 and roughly half of Pax Rulin are outside of the borders of the Imperium it is a good place for pirates to base out of. So a large portion of the Glisten Navy's responsibility is Piracy Suppression and commerce protection. (Hence the very large percentage of Destroyer and smaller classes of vessels.) As I tend to take a proactive stance on Piracy suppression the Glisten Navy reflected that stance. Patrols went looking for Pirates and Pirate Bases. Included in the Glisten Subsector Navy, but not in the percentages above were a number of Q-Ships. The most successful designs being based on the SubLiner and the Type-S. Border protection was another major concern. So while sweeps were conducted, in force, of Eglin, Pax Rulin and District 268 Patrols were also conducted of all the systems in the Glisten subsector. (Which even with the ridiculus amount of cash generated by the Glisten Subsector according to the TCS rules still kept assets stretched and maintenance schedules were another neat trick.)

I am starting to get back into this. Thanks. I am definitely going to rebuild and revise the Glisten Subsector Navy again. Grand Admiral of The Marches (Retired), Grand Admiral of the Domain of Deneb (Retired), James McLachlan SEH, MCG, MCUF, Duke of Glisten, Marquis of Mertractor, Baron Pax Rulin, Knight Commander of the Emperor's Guard, Honary Commandant of the Spinward Marches Naval Academy, is going back to work.

 

[Hal]

I'm glad you're building up the steam Bhoins

 

[BetterThanLife]

Hal Is that what you were looking for as far as force ratios? Like I said, the ratios are going to be dependent on mission parameters. With the assumptions I had those force ratios seemed to work. Moving Coreward from Glisten puts you on the border with the Sword Worlds. (Which depending on YTU may or may not be hostile to the Imperium. And therefore a potential safe haven for corsairs. However since the Swordworlds is an organized (sort of) Interstellar Government with the Zhodani Consulate as an ally, the types of aggressive patroling is impossible so you would be in more of a defensive posture. With a higher escort and defensive patrol requirement than Glisten. You can't run a Ferret mission in force against a hostile power. However you have to be prepared to deal with their Ferret missions, etc. So keep that in mind as you design your force ratio.

Now to get the T20 book out and Create Grand Admiral (Retired) McLachlan, SEH, MCG, MCUF, Duke of Glisten et al. ANd then figure out the Naval budget and build the thing again.

(Oh and I am going to use TCS economics until someone else comes up with a way to calculate the budget.

Then I have to decide what force mix to use given the T20 combat rules and decide if I am actually going to use them or the patch I applied to keep Capital ships in the fight.

Just remember, 2 Cr per head goes to the Privy purse per year.