BardicHeart
SOC-12
McPerth and Rancke already touched on some conclusions I was drawing while reading up.
This is where my current thinking is. I'll throw it out for discussion.
The Imp Navy has big ships... really big ships. Current naval tactics seem to be along the lines of WW I naval combat... lines of battleships slugging it out (this is out of various sources, I kind of raised an eyebrow at it, but I can live with it). The big fleets are mainly there for interstellar wars... Imps vs Aslan, Imps vs Zho, Imps vs K'kree, Imps vs each other. The idea of these ships being used to patrol for pirates seems silly to me. You just do NOT use a 500,000 dT battleship to patrol for a 400 dT pirate corsair... the expense of deploying just one of those ships (much less its battlegroup of escorts and support vessels) would be more than what that corsair could steal in a year! But... borrowing from real world navies, we do know that during the Cold War when the US, UK, USSR, etc navies were at their peak, piracy dropped to almost nothing because of just their presence (since they've all scaled back in the last decade, piracy is on the increase). I would assume having these ships doing routine navy stuff would have the same effect. That is, a BatRon and its support might move along a major sector lane going from naval base to naval base. This would be part of routine training, maneuvers, transporting personel and equipment, and so forth same as real world sea navies do. Just by being there the pirates stay away (cause even if it isn't cost effective to kill a corsair with a cruiser, that's really not much comfort to the pirate who just got obliterated by said cruiser :rofl: ). Off the main trade lanes (sector wide and sub-sector wide lanes, cf Merchant Prince) the navy doesn't normally venture, which is where piracy becomes a problem.
That gives me a reasonable basis for explaining where those big ships are and what they normally are doing.
Then there are planetary fleets. Personally, I don't see most planetary fleets having anything larger than a 5,000... maybe a 10,000 dT ship. McPerth and Rancke already touched on some of the reasons why. Most of the wealthy worlds that could really afford big ships are likely already on a major trade lane and see the Imp Navy come through regularly (if they aren't stationed there, if you have a Imp BatRon stationed in system, do you really need to build your own?). For them piracy isn't going to be much of a problem and invasion isn't much of a worry either... so why spend the megacredits on big ships when it could be spent on wellfare programs to get votes, or a new governors palace, or infrastructure, or some other such. Planets off the major trade lanes are less able to afford such big ships, let's say such a backwater planet could afford 5 100,000 dT cruisers... which is better, those five big ships or a larger and more flexible fleet of smaller patrol ships... the smaller ship fleet in most cases makes more sense to me. The exception to this might be border areas or areas with a lot of unrest, they might want a "beefier" defense fleet for obvious reasons.
So then I thought about what a planetary fleet might look like. I concluded that for most worlds the backbone would actually be a 400 dT patrol cruiser (if I could just remember which book I saw it in) for the following reason... its the "squad car" in space. That is, if the Imp Navy takes care of the big stuff and the Imp Army takes care of big ground wars... most planets really don't have to invest in major defense... the Imperium does that for them. So what they do have to worry about are things like piracy, smuggling, kidnapping, reckless piloting, navigational hazards, disabled ships in distress, etc. A patrol cruiser is fairly fast, carries a squad of marines for inspections, boarding, arrests, etc. Being smaller and much cheaper a planet could afford to have perhaps several hundred of these ships patrolling in shifts. With far more of them, they can effectively patrol a larger portion of the solar system than could say 5 big cruisers, and the patrol cruiser in most cases has about all the firepower they'll typically need. They'd be doing checks on incoming traffic, cargo inspections, watching for trouble, etc. This seems like a much more effective and cost efficient way for an individual system to handle local piracy. They might have some larger 2k-5k "cutters" or "frigates" for dealing with major problems and serving as the space equivalent of SWAT. If something comes up that needs more than that, they call the Imp Navy to deal with it.
Again, the exception would be worlds under threat, such as border worlds or worlds with civil unrest, balkanized governments, etc. These might each try to field their own "navies" going for as much tonnage as they can afford. But such worlds would be the exception, not the rule.
There it is, a rough outline of what I'm developing for my own use about who has what tonnage ships, why and what they do with them.
As always, constructive commentary, ideas, suggestions, etc. are welcome.
This is where my current thinking is. I'll throw it out for discussion.
The Imp Navy has big ships... really big ships. Current naval tactics seem to be along the lines of WW I naval combat... lines of battleships slugging it out (this is out of various sources, I kind of raised an eyebrow at it, but I can live with it). The big fleets are mainly there for interstellar wars... Imps vs Aslan, Imps vs Zho, Imps vs K'kree, Imps vs each other. The idea of these ships being used to patrol for pirates seems silly to me. You just do NOT use a 500,000 dT battleship to patrol for a 400 dT pirate corsair... the expense of deploying just one of those ships (much less its battlegroup of escorts and support vessels) would be more than what that corsair could steal in a year! But... borrowing from real world navies, we do know that during the Cold War when the US, UK, USSR, etc navies were at their peak, piracy dropped to almost nothing because of just their presence (since they've all scaled back in the last decade, piracy is on the increase). I would assume having these ships doing routine navy stuff would have the same effect. That is, a BatRon and its support might move along a major sector lane going from naval base to naval base. This would be part of routine training, maneuvers, transporting personel and equipment, and so forth same as real world sea navies do. Just by being there the pirates stay away (cause even if it isn't cost effective to kill a corsair with a cruiser, that's really not much comfort to the pirate who just got obliterated by said cruiser :rofl: ). Off the main trade lanes (sector wide and sub-sector wide lanes, cf Merchant Prince) the navy doesn't normally venture, which is where piracy becomes a problem.
That gives me a reasonable basis for explaining where those big ships are and what they normally are doing.
Then there are planetary fleets. Personally, I don't see most planetary fleets having anything larger than a 5,000... maybe a 10,000 dT ship. McPerth and Rancke already touched on some of the reasons why. Most of the wealthy worlds that could really afford big ships are likely already on a major trade lane and see the Imp Navy come through regularly (if they aren't stationed there, if you have a Imp BatRon stationed in system, do you really need to build your own?). For them piracy isn't going to be much of a problem and invasion isn't much of a worry either... so why spend the megacredits on big ships when it could be spent on wellfare programs to get votes, or a new governors palace, or infrastructure, or some other such. Planets off the major trade lanes are less able to afford such big ships, let's say such a backwater planet could afford 5 100,000 dT cruisers... which is better, those five big ships or a larger and more flexible fleet of smaller patrol ships... the smaller ship fleet in most cases makes more sense to me. The exception to this might be border areas or areas with a lot of unrest, they might want a "beefier" defense fleet for obvious reasons.
So then I thought about what a planetary fleet might look like. I concluded that for most worlds the backbone would actually be a 400 dT patrol cruiser (if I could just remember which book I saw it in) for the following reason... its the "squad car" in space. That is, if the Imp Navy takes care of the big stuff and the Imp Army takes care of big ground wars... most planets really don't have to invest in major defense... the Imperium does that for them. So what they do have to worry about are things like piracy, smuggling, kidnapping, reckless piloting, navigational hazards, disabled ships in distress, etc. A patrol cruiser is fairly fast, carries a squad of marines for inspections, boarding, arrests, etc. Being smaller and much cheaper a planet could afford to have perhaps several hundred of these ships patrolling in shifts. With far more of them, they can effectively patrol a larger portion of the solar system than could say 5 big cruisers, and the patrol cruiser in most cases has about all the firepower they'll typically need. They'd be doing checks on incoming traffic, cargo inspections, watching for trouble, etc. This seems like a much more effective and cost efficient way for an individual system to handle local piracy. They might have some larger 2k-5k "cutters" or "frigates" for dealing with major problems and serving as the space equivalent of SWAT. If something comes up that needs more than that, they call the Imp Navy to deal with it.
Again, the exception would be worlds under threat, such as border worlds or worlds with civil unrest, balkanized governments, etc. These might each try to field their own "navies" going for as much tonnage as they can afford. But such worlds would be the exception, not the rule.
There it is, a rough outline of what I'm developing for my own use about who has what tonnage ships, why and what they do with them.
As always, constructive commentary, ideas, suggestions, etc. are welcome.
