What the heck do all those fleets do?

[LeperColony]

We know that each subsector in the Imperium has both a regular and a reserve fleet. For border sectors, it makes sense to garrison every subsector with that kind of naval strength. But what about the inner sectors? What do the regular fleets of Core sector spend their time doing? Why does the Imperium garrison every subsector with two fleets, when it seems the majority of them wouldn't need that much strength and the remainder would have real uses for the ships?

 

[BytePro]

Politics, of course...

 

[aramis]

show the flag, keep the local systems in line, blow up local fleets that get uppity, delete significant portions of local worlds' naval budgets....

 

[LeperColony]

Seems like all those things can be accomplished by the reserve fleet. In fact, the reserve fleet would probably still be overkill.

I mean, I'm not a military expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I would be shocked to learn that the US military is evenly apportioned over the 50 states.

 

[Hemdian]

It's like a giant game of "Risk": you have to put at least one army on each territory you control.

 

[MCEvans]

Subsector reserve fleet raised by the systems in the subsector and can be seconded by the Imperium like the National Guard.
Active Imperial fleets in the core areas I see for training with the subsector reserve fleet to keep up on current tactics, also as a strategic reserve to border areas or other areas of conflict. More likely a chain fill example: Marches needs help gets fleets from Deneb, Corridor fills their gaps Vland theirs and, a core sector, Dagudashaag fills theirs, if Dagudashaag needs active fills it can come from Core or Massila.

 

[LeperColony]

Subsector reserve fleet raised by the systems in the subsector and can be seconded by the Imperium like the National Guard.
Active Imperial fleets in the core areas I see for training with the subsector reserve fleet to keep up on current tactics, also as a strategic reserve to border areas or other areas of conflict. More likely a chain fill example: Marches needs help gets fleets from Deneb, Corridor fills their gaps Vland theirs and, a core sector, Dagudashaag fills theirs, if Dagudashaag needs active fills it can come from Core or Massila.

Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium seems to indicate that the Imperium maintains both the active and reserve fleets. Ships raised by individual worlds are colonial squadrons, and they can be attached to the reserve fleet.

 

[Dragoner]

A fleet's base is not necessarily where it is at the time. Also, after the earlier civil war, the Imperium became reticent to put too many fleets in one place (ie the Spinward Marches) in case the Admiral wants to promote themselves to an Emperor of the Flag.

 

[LeperColony]

A fleet's base is not necessarily where it is at the time. Also, after the earlier civil war, the Imperium became reticent to put too many fleets in one place (ie the Spinward Marches) in case the Admiral wants to promote themselves to an Emperor of the Flag.

Except that huge sections of the Imperial Navy are loyal only to the geographical region in which they happen to be stationed anyway, as per MT. Thus making it somewhat irrelevant, from an internal security standpoint, whether you have ships in Ilelish's 16 subsectors or just 16 fleets in 1 subsector.

I get what you are saying about a nominal base being different from a deployment area, and I could certainly see if administratively each subsector were responsible for one active and one reserve fleet, but I don't get the feeling that the fleet deployments described in canon are purely administrative.

 

[rancke]

Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium seems to indicate that the Imperium maintains both the active and reserve fleets. Ships raised by individual worlds are colonial squadrons, and they can be attached to the reserve fleet.

Shattered Ships of the Fighting Imperium is an MT book. In CT, subsector navies (navies, not fleets) were raised (presumably by the subsector government) to fill in the gap between the Imperial Navy and the planetary navies. In MT, this was retconned; subsector navies became subsector fleets and became part of the Imperial Navy. The writers copied much of the old CT texts and did a search-and-replace of 'subsector navy' to 'reserve fleet'.

If you want to reconcile the MT version with the CT version, you can reintroduce the subsector navies (though I like to call them duchy navies instead):

Imperial Navy

Regular fleets
Reserve fleets​

Duchy navies
Planetary navies​

Just say that duchy navies are there all along in the Rebellion, they're just never mentioned.


Hans

 

[LeperColony]

While that is a fine way to resolve a canon dispute, it adds yet more ships to an already stuff subsector! What are all these ships doing?!

 

[aramis]

While that is a fine way to resolve a canon dispute, it adds yet more ships to an already stuff subsector! What are all these ships doing?!

Routine patrols and combat readiness exercises in order to eat local funds.

Seriously, one of the goals of a large imperial military usually has been to justify a large imperial tax on the locals... preferably, large enough to lower their ability to raise competitive force levels.

The very idea of a required contribution being equal to about 1/6 your local fleet budget is enough to dampen local fleets and make any world's fleet small by comparison of tonnages. The real limitation on fleet sizes is available crews... and, due to prestige and ability to go further, the bulk of the cream will likely go to the Imperial forces. A few of the top potentials will realize they can have more real authority sooner in the local fleet. And actually do more that matters to the local world.

A Duchy/subsector fleet likely is the near the bottom of the barrel - as in ideologues and washout territory - as the best split themselves between high prestige low authority IN and low-prestige high-authority system navies. Duchy navies are big enough to slow authority gain, and low enough on the totem pole to be little more prestige than the local forces, except in the most noble-phillic or lowest population subsectors. But, like state highway patrols, the SS Navy, if it exists, is likely the one that does the bulk of the real anti-piracy work, despite the much more prestigious IN presence... the IN is likely in hulls too big to actually do much anti-pirate work save base-busting. And the System navies are unlikely to be allowed to deal with it across systems.

 

[rancke]

While that is a fine way to resolve a canon dispute, it adds yet more ships to an already stuff subsector!

No, it doesn't. It just organizes the ships differently. The regular IN fleet would be raised and manned at the sector level and moved around as needed. The reserve IN fleet would consist of obsolescent ships and mostly manned by locals and near-retirees. It would also be a lot smaller than the regular fleet. The duchy navy would be raised and manned at the duchy level. The planetary navies would be raised and manned at the planetary level.


Hans

 

[LeperColony]

No, it doesn't. It just organizes the ships differently. The regular IN fleet would be raised and manned at the sector level and moved around as needed. The reserve IN fleet would consist of obsolescent ships and mostly manned by locals and near-retirees. It would also be a lot smaller than the regular fleet. The duchy navy would be raised and manned at the duchy level. The planetary navies would be raised and manned at the planetary level.


Hans

Right, but all those things exist in FSotSI except duchy navies. If you're saying it doesn't add any ships, then logically the ships in the duchy navies must already have been in either the active, reserve, or colonial fleets already. So where are they located in MT terms?

 

[rancke]

Right, but all those things exist in FSotSI except duchy navies. If you're saying it doesn't add any ships, then logically the ships in the duchy navies must already have been in either the active, reserve, or colonial fleets already. So where are they located in MT terms?

That's not how retcons work. In CT there were duchy (subsector) navies. In MT there weren't any and there never had been any. With my proposed fix to reconcile CT and MT sources, it turns out the duchy navies were there all along after all. Before the MT retcon, the available funds were divided in somwe unspecified way between the Imperial Navy, the duchy navies, and the planetary navies. After the retcon, the funds were divided (probably in the same proportions) between the regular Imperial fleets, the reserve Imperial fleets, and the planetary navies. With my fix, the funds would be divided between the Imperial Navy (with a fairly small percentage going to the reserve fleets), the duchy navies, and the planetary navies.

And that's how they'd always been divided.


Hans

 

[LeperColony]

That's not how retcons work. In CT there were duchy (subsector) navies. In MT there weren't any and there never had been any. With my proposed fix to reconcile CT and MT sources, it turns out the duchy navies were there all along after all. Before the MT retcon, the available funds were divided in somwe unspecified way between the Imperial Navy, the duchy navies, and the planetary navies. After the retcon, the funds were divided (probably in the same proportions) between the regular Imperial fleets, the reserve Imperial fleets, and the planetary navies. With my fix, the funds would be divided between the Imperial Navy (with a fairly small percentage going to the reserve fleets), the duchy navies, and the planetary navies.

And that's how they'd always been divided.


Hans

Yeah, so hence my question. In FSotSI you have a pie divided 3 ways. In YTU you have a pie divided 4 ways. You're saying no "new" ships exist, so clearly the same number of ships are now spread thinner or, in other words, the pie is the same size. So where did they come from? Or, in other words, what is smaller in YTU than in FSotSI?

 

[rancke]

Yeah, so hence my question. In FSotSI you have a pie divided 3 ways. In YTU you have a pie divided 4 ways. You're saying no "new" ships exist, so clearly the same number of ships are now spread thinner or, in other words, the pie is the same size. So where did they come from? Or, in other words, what is smaller in YTU than in FSotSI?

Since we don't have exact figures for any of the versions, I don't see what it matters. But as I said, I think that in my version the Imperial reserve fleets would get a fairly small percentage of the Imperial Navy's cut. Exactly what that amounts to is difficult to say.

According to Striker, planetary militaries get 70% of the budget and the Imperium gets 30%. Planetary budgets are split between their navies and their armies according to local conditions, so that varies, but the figure mentioned for worlds with breathable atmospheres is 40% to the army. So planetary navies gets 60% of 70% or 42%. How the Imperial funds are split is not mentioned anywhere, neither the split between regular forces and subsector forces, nor the split between navy and army.

One possible split is half to the duchy and half to the regular forces. The regular Imperial Army's cut would be relatively small, perhapd 15%. The split between duchy forces would vary from duchy to duchy.


Hans

 

[LeperColony]

Since we don't have exact figures for any of the versions, I don't see what it matters. But as I said, I think that in my version the Imperial reserve fleets would get a fairly small percentage of the Imperial Navy's cut. Exactly what that amounts to is difficult to say.

According to Striker, planetary militaries get 70% of the budget and the Imperium gets 30%. Planetary budgets are split between their navies and their armies according to local conditions, so that varies, but the figure mentioned for worlds with breathable atmospheres is 40% to the army. So planetary navies gets 60% of 70% or 42%. How the Imperial funds are split is not mentioned anywhere, neither the split between regular forces and subsector forces, nor the split between navy and army.

One possible split is half to the duchy and half to the regular forces. The regular Imperial Army's cut would be relatively small, perhapd 15%. The split between duchy forces would vary from duchy to duchy.


Hans

It only matters in that I was interested in how you see naval budgetary allocation, and I was trying to get you to elaborate on how it plays out in YTU. Obviously how the pie is divided will go a long way to determining the relative effectiveness, functionality, and prestige of the different naval entities.

 

[rancke]

It only matters in that I was interested in how you see naval budgetary allocation, and I was trying to get you to elaborate on how it plays out in YTU. Obviously how the pie is divided will go a long way to determining the relative effectiveness, functionality, and prestige of the different naval entities.

I see. Well, the information we have on fleet sizes (in Rebellion Sourcebook) only specifies combat vessels (cruisers, carriers, riders, and battleships) with the auxiliaries barely mentioned. I'd simply assume that the reserve fleet counted as auxiliaries for budgetary purposes and that the fleet sizes remained the same (8 to 10 squadrons of 6 to 8 combat vessels each, average of 62.5 combat vessels and an unspecified number of auxiliaries per fleet; distribution of CruRons to Batrons 3:1).


Hans

 

[LeperColony]

I see. Well, the information we have on fleet sizes (in Rebellion Sourcebook) only specifies combat vessels (cruisers, carriers, riders, and battleships) with the auxiliaries barely mentioned. I'd simply assume that the reserve fleet counted as auxiliaries for budgetary purposes and that the fleet sizes remained the same (8 to 10 squadrons of 6 to 8 combat vessels each, average of 62.5 combat vessels and an unspecified number of auxiliaries per fleet; distribution of CruRons to Batrons 3:1).


Hans

Both active and reserve fleets have BatRons and CruRons, but it was sort of my impression (though it very well may be mistaken) that Colonial forces rarely built ships of those sizes. Do you see the Duchy navies as being tasked for a similar role as reserve fleets? Or are they more of an upjumped colonial squadron?