How many Star Nations are there with Ships of the Wall?

Let me start by apoligizing for my English. It`s not my first language. More like a third or fourth to be honest.


RFC has told us that there are 2 dozen Nations with one or more squadrons of the wall.

What I`m wondering is how many Nations there are with less than a squadron of the wall. And by ships of the wall i also include Dreadnaughts and Battleships

My thoughts go to a couple of honderd. These are my reasons.

1. According to RFC in a infodump: In the immediate aftermath of the decision to build superdreadnoughts instead of dreadnoughts, a large chunk of the dreadnoughts in the Reserve were disposed of, although the more modern dreadnoughts were retained. So if there are or were to be exact curently around 10.000 SD`s in the SLN then they propable had THOUSANDS of DN. I can`t imagine all of them going to the breakers. My guess is that a fair amount has been sold to various SDF in the League. Most SDF probably have 2 to 4 DN in their navy. They form the flagships of their navy. And with 4 DN you can have 1 DN in overhaul while 2 are in active duty and the fourth is working up to active status.

2. According to RFC no major or first tier navy had built an Battleship in two centuries except for the Peeps. So how many second or third rate navies do you think build or bought Battleships as their main line of battle or as flagships. If all your neighbours only have Battlecruisers as their biggest ships then you don`t need an SD or DN to be king of the hill. An Battleship is enough.

3. In all the books so far we only have seen navies that have multiple squadrons of the wall or none at all. I have trouble believing that this is the situation all around. There has to be navies with atleast a couple of ships of the wall.

4. The RMN had battleships and Dreadnaughts that were in service for more than 200 years. There has to be navies around who still have Battleships of DN in service that are that old or older.

It is difficult to say there are several factors.
1 The entire theory of the wall of battle is based on the interlocking of their defenses and agressive firepower, isolated wallers are vulnerable to being swarmed by BCs, BCs have the missile firepower to cripple isolated SDs, at equal weight yes they are probably not going to kill them with missiles, circa 1900PD, but they do have the energy weapons that can, think of how LACs worked during buttercup. Having less than a squadron or so of wallers runs this risk.
2 BCs can use the wall formation against BCs, remember BCs are capital ships, it is just that we've never seen this done, your form wall against concentrated forces or equals or lessers.
3 The RMN's retention of its battleships was due to a lack of anyone else nearby with anything simular, Haven's problems were not actually considered a public threat until Roger, the andermandi were not that powerful, and silesia was a joke, Erewhon did not work that way.
4 Most star nations with the resources to own wallers prefer forts. Wallers are more expensive for a given degree of protection for single system nations.

potter12 wrote:SNIP

4. The RMN had battleships and Dreadnaughts that were in service for more than 200 years. There has to be navies around who still have Battleships of DN in service that are that old or older.

I guess this reply is not quite on topic, but the loooong life spans did surprise me when I first saw them... rather as if HMS Victory was still being used in WW1 & 2!

potter12 wrote:Let me start by apoligizing for my English. It`s not my first language. More like a third or fourth to be honest.


RFC has told us that there are 2 dozen Nations with one or more squadrons of the wall.

What I`m wondering is how many Nations there are with less than a squadron of the wall. And by ships of the wall i also include Dreadnaughts and Battleships

Not very many, if any. Honorverse physics is set up so that wallers really aren't that useful except in squadron strength or more. And they're really too expensive for Honorverse governments to keep around purely for prestige (yes, real world governments kept around obsolete battleships for a long time; the Honorverse is not the real world, and ships of the wall are not wet-navy battleships).

drothgery wrote:Not very many, if any. Honorverse physics is set up so that wallers really aren't that useful except in squadron strength or more. And they're really too expensive for Honorverse governments to keep around purely for prestige (yes, real world governments kept around obsolete battleships for a long time; the Honorverse is not the real world, and ships of the wall are not wet-navy battleships).

Still, the idea of keeping an old dreadnaught or Battleship as a flagship for a task force sized navy does have some merit. That's pretty much what Manticore did in assigning HMS Samothrace(?) as Adm Khumalo's flagship in the Talbot Quadrant.

As for the original poster's questions: I don't think there are all that many obsolete wallers hanging around the Solarian League in SDFs, especially in the core worlds where we're told that there are only "25 or so" significant SDF navies. The rest of the core worlds (some 1600-1700 systems) have at most the equivalent of "coast guard cutters" for customs inspections.

Systems in the Shell worlds would have more need of anti-piracy capability but would generally be less able to afford the maintenance of anything bigger than a BC squadron -- they might be candidates for one or two "Battleships as flagships." I don't think I've seen a hard number for the number of shell worlds, so there's no way of knowing how many or how powerful their SDFs might be.

Protectorates wouldn't be permitted SDFs since they are "under the protection of Frontier Fleet and OFS."

Individual Verge systems are depicted as generally too poor to fund a navy of significant size.

That leaves the more prosperous "Verge" empires and solvent systems like Erewhhon. Erewhon doesn't have any former SLN ships AFAIK. The Empires, like Manticore, Haven, Anderman, Phoenix, and others merely hinted at, would be where significant numbers of ships of the wall might be found; although Manticore, Haven, and the Andermani have home-built modern wallers far superior to SLN surplus. That leaves non-players like Phoenix and others to buy up the SLN surplus and they probably won't be involved in either the war against the Solarian League or the MAlign.

drothgery wrote:Not very many, if any. Honorverse physics is set up so that wallers really aren't that useful except in squadron strength or more. And they're really too expensive for Honorverse governments to keep around purely for prestige (yes, real world governments kept around obsolete battleships for a long time; the Honorverse is not the real world, and ships of the wall are not wet-navy battleships).

True, of course. It does imply interesting things about engineering quality and also perhaps about the rate of change of such in the Honorverse, as though there was a long period of almost stasis in technical developments.

I guess this reply is not quite on topic, but the loooong life spans did surprise me when I first saw them... rather as if HMS Victory was still being used in WW1 & 2! [/quote]


There's a technology development where HMS Victory (or USS Constitution) does not parallel.

Structurally a Like Technology hull has not changed prior to development of DDM / MDM's and associated sensors. The older BB's / DN's were essentially large platforms for missile and energy batteries. Their linked defense was primarily the interlinking of the gravitic wedge forming a "wall".

A hull could be upgraded / refit with a newer generation of sensors and missiles.

HMS Victory (or USS Constitution), as wooden hulls, were not viable as warships after the 1850's; the naval actions in US Civil War demonstrated the ironclad as effectively impervious to the older generation's cannon fire.

In the Honorverse, ships' hulls, weapons and armor have had little change for 200+ years leading to a tactical stagnation, Note the long and energetic debate between Hamish Alexander and Hemphill.

A change, first in sensors (FTL) followed by fire control based on those sensors, then missile range changed the conditions and ended the debate.

A different comparison is Saltash, where, IF DESRON 301 had gotten within range of the SLN BC's, the heavier missiles and (especially) energy weapons would have destroyed the DD's.
A current 20th/21st Century parallel is 5 DDG-51's (or even 5 Spruance DD's) could take out a CA / BC vintage 1916 Jutland, if they used Harpoon at a 30+ mile range; If those same Burke's or Spruances got in a gunfight, the 8 / 10 / 12 inch guns on the Jutland era ships would win the day.
Zavala and Desron 301 won thru the weapons advancement that the SLN had refused to recognize. (they do now)

The older CA's / BC's and DN's are NOW obsolete (the CA's may have secondary duty as pickets and anti-piracy).

-- Stewart

Weird Harold wrote:Still, the idea of keeping an old dreadnaught or Battleship as a flagship for a task force sized navy does have some merit. That's pretty much what Manticore did in assigning HMS Samothrace(?) as Adm Khumalo's flagship in the Talbot Quadrant.

Not really. Manticore might use an old waller like Hercules in such a role, but that only makes sense because it's a subset of the much, much larger RMN which has hundreds of ships of the wall and can pay for the maintenance of one old waller out of petty cash. It certainly wouldn't have been sent anywhere they expected to have to fight anyone.

Weird Harold wrote:As for the original poster's questions: I don't think there are all that many obsolete wallers hanging around the Solarian League in SDFs, especially in the core worlds where we're told that there are only "25 or so" significant SDF navies. The rest of the core worlds (some 1600-1700 systems) have at most the equivalent of "coast guard cutters" for customs inspections.

I think you're misreading things there. There are maybe 25 SDFs with ships of the waller. There are likely scores with cruiser-level navies (not to mention that, as we've seen, properly-deployed LAC/fort/system defense missiles combos can be extremely effective defensive systems). Not very significant relative to someone like Manticore or Haven, but more than a 'coast guard' level force.

Weird Harold wrote:That leaves the more prosperous "Verge" empires and solvent systems like Erewhhon. Erewhon doesn't have any former SLN ships AFAIK. The Empires, like Manticore, Haven, Anderman, Phoenix, and others merely hinted at, would be where significant numbers of ships of the wall might be found; although Manticore, Haven, and the Andermani have home-built modern wallers far superior to SLN surplus. That leaves non-players like Phoenix and others to buy up the SLN surplus and they probably won't be involved in either the war against the Solarian League or the MAlign.

FWIW, Erewhon used to have some Technodyne-built wallers, but they were built new for Erewhon. They replaced those with Manticoran-built wallers while they were allied with Manticore.

drothgery wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:The rest of the core worlds (some 1600-1700 systems) have at most the equivalent of "coast guard cutters" for customs inspections.

I think you're misreading things there. There are maybe 25 SDFs with ships of the waller. There are likely scores with cruiser-level navies (not to mention that, as we've seen, properly-deployed LAC/fort/system defense missiles combos can be extremely effective defensive systems). Not very significant relative to someone like Manticore or Haven, but more than a 'coast guard' level force.

I'm talking about just the Core Worlds there, which have been described as "complacent" and as relying on the SLN for anything greater than customs patrols.

Weird Harold wrote:I'm talking about just the Core Worlds there, which have been described as "complacent" and as relying on the SLN for anything greater than customs patrols.

We have been told what the system navy of exactly one core world consists of, and that is Beowulf. It has multiple squadrons of SDs. Earth has a major SLN fleet base. So the textual record so far is ALL known core worlds have significant numbers of SDs on hand.