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SLN Reserve

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SLN Reserve
Post by Sigs   » Sun Feb 19, 2017 5:20 pm

Sigs
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Through out the series all the characters seem to see the SLN and it’s reserve as some sort of force not to be messed with but we ultimately see that it is technologically inferior, unprepared for actual combat and ultimately poorly organized.
Over and over throughout the series the total number of SLN SD’s is stated as if it actually matters, because the breakdown is about 2,000 SDs are in active service at any one time, 300 are doing various refits at any one time and another 8,000 are in the “reserve”. Now my issue is that even before the RMN completely and thoroughly defeated the SLN in a few battles the SLN and made their entire inventory of SDs nothing more than expensive paper weights, the SLN had an actual strength of only ~2300 SDs while the 8,000 SDs in the so called reserve would take several years at the very least to mobilize even IF they had all been of the same quality technologically as those of the active fleet which they were not. Having ships but no crews for them means those ships are next to useless, yes if you are fighting a technologically equal opponent those ships give you the advantage of only requiring to train the crews for them but even then it is a small advantage.

The SLN reserve is useless because the 8,000+ SDs were anywhere from a few years to a few centuries old thus even in glacial pace of innovation during that time this still would require significant upgrades to some of those ships before they can be of same capabilities as the Active ships of the SLN. Plus there is the not so minor fact that the reserve should it be required to mobilize would require up to 48,000,000 people to man all those ships, people that I doubt the SLN keeps around in case they need to mobilize the reserve. So even in case of fighting a technological equal what is the value of the SLN reserve?

So my question is this, how would you organize a reserve of any major navy in the series in order to make it useful in relatedly short timespan against a technologically equal enemy?

-Where would you keep the personnel for those ships?
-How would the reserve be distributed? Would it be clustered in a few systems or spread out to different systems requiring the system to man them?
-What plan would you put in place to keep the reserve current? Would you periodically update the reserve or would you wait until war comes to do one refit all at once?
-How much ammunition would you keep on hand? Would it be for the entire force, active and reserve or would you expect to manufacture ammunition once war starts, so you keep enough munitions for the active component etc?


How would you maintain a reserve force that is capable of putting SD’s on the frontline within months of being mobilized rather than years?
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Re: SLN Reserve
Post by Maldorian   » Sun Feb 19, 2017 5:47 pm

Maldorian
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Maybe the reserve is "up to date" like the Sd´s in Service, on the paper.

We know how corrupt the League is, the solarian battlecruiser´s are a good example. The last moderisation, the "fleet 2000 Project" was a whole fake. No technological inovations, only the same tec as the previous ships with an more modern look.

Could be possible, that the solarian Navy has all the ammonition an Crew for the reserve, on the paper, but in reality some People take took the Money for it into their own pockets.

We don´t really know, what strenght the solarian navy has on the paper and in reality. What we know is, even if the navy had it´s "paper strenght" they would be outclassed.
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Re: SLN Reserve
Post by kzt   » Sun Feb 19, 2017 6:47 pm

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Sigs wrote:So my question is this, how would you organize a reserve of any major navy in the series in order to make it useful in relatedly short timespan against a technologically equal enemy?

-Where would you keep the personnel for those ships?
-How would the reserve be distributed? Would it be clustered in a few systems or spread out to different systems requiring the system to man them?
-What plan would you put in place to keep the reserve current? Would you periodically update the reserve or would you wait until war comes to do one refit all at once?
-How much ammunition would you keep on hand? Would it be for the entire force, active and reserve or would you expect to manufacture ammunition once war starts, so you keep enough munitions for the active component etc?


How would you maintain a reserve force that is capable of putting SD’s on the frontline within months of being mobilized rather than years?

You do what the US does with guard units. You have crews (paid a decent stipend and holding other jobs full time) for one or more squadrons on a planet and the ships are deployed there and the crews regularly train on them and do the typical housekeeping and light maint. You either swap out (and ship to central yard) or use a mobile maint facility to do heavy maintenance and upgrades every x years.
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Re: SLN Reserve
Post by Theemile   » Sun Feb 19, 2017 8:22 pm

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kzt wrote:
Sigs wrote:So my question is this, how would you organize a reserve of any major navy in the series in order to make it useful in relatedly short timespan against a technologically equal enemy?

-Where would you keep the personnel for those ships?
-How would the reserve be distributed? Would it be clustered in a few systems or spread out to different systems requiring the system to man them?
-What plan would you put in place to keep the reserve current? Would you periodically update the reserve or would you wait until war comes to do one refit all at once?
-How much ammunition would you keep on hand? Would it be for the entire force, active and reserve or would you expect to manufacture ammunition once war starts, so you keep enough munitions for the active component etc?


How would you maintain a reserve force that is capable of putting SD’s on the frontline within months of being mobilized rather than years?

You do what the US does with guard units. You have crews (paid a decent stipend and holding other jobs full time) for one or more squadrons on a planet and the ships are deployed there and the crews regularly train on them and do the typical housekeeping and light maint. You either swap out (and ship to central yard) or use a mobile maint facility to do heavy maintenance and upgrades every x years.


To further the above concept, you could have 2x the crew as Guard units at planets, allowing fuller strength crewing at any time, as well as a heightened alert status. (I would assume the senior officers and NCOs would be "regular" full time slots, and the rest would be filled by rotating reserve crews). When the fecal matter hits the rotary turbine, the extra crew can be moved to a central reserve depot, to man any ships there.

From the story...

If memory serves, the SLN actually has a full command crews and Leadership support structure (Admirals and Staffs) for all the ships in the reserve. David has said some of the reserve IS updated to modern standards. A portion of all new construction is placed in the reserve every year, and the oldest portion of the active fleet is updated and rotated into the reserve as new construction replaces it. In addition, there is a drive to update the oldest ships in the reserve to modern standards, but it is underfunded and a constantly moving target, as technology improves. So any ship placed in the reserve or updated in the last 3-4 years is probably in the shape to be "instantly" brought into the fleet. This would, of course, require at least 6 months to reactivate, provision, and spin up a ship in perfect order. We have no details, but I estimate 50-300 ships are in top shape, or close enough to it to be able to reactivate with little extra yard time.

Of course, there are the admiral's kickbacks and graft to be considered, so many of the ships may never have received the updates they supposedly received, or they were so haphazardly done that extensive yard time is required to repair the original work. We do know that 2/3rds of the reserve Fleet still have autocannon as defenses (which is not necessarily the same as a ship having no PDLCs, just that some autocannon on the ship still have not been swapped out.) So we can pretty much assume that ~5500 ships in the reserve are not even close to having a full modern (post 1870 tech) upgrade, and are not even worth considering - most likely new construction would be available before they probably could be, so why waste time thinking about them. The other ~2500 ships are either close enough to modern to activate now, or may be able to be upgraded to a usable configuration within a year or 2, but we are still talking about a completion standard that is hopelessly obsolete by current standards.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: SLN Reserve
Post by Sigs   » Sun Feb 19, 2017 10:16 pm

Sigs
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1446
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2015 6:09 pm

Maldorian wrote:Maybe the reserve is "up to date" like the Sd´s in Service, on the paper.

We know how corrupt the League is, the solarian battlecruiser´s are a good example. The last moderisation, the "fleet 2000 Project" was a whole fake. No technological inovations, only the same tec as the previous ships with an more modern look.

Could be possible, that the solarian Navy has all the ammonition an Crew for the reserve, on the paper, but in reality some People take took the Money for it into their own pockets.

We don´t really know, what strenght the solarian navy has on the paper and in reality. What we know is, even if the navy had it´s "paper strenght" they would be outclassed.



Ok, but it seems like a whole new level of incompetence and corruption to miss the fact that 80% of your capital ships have little to no crew but you are paying for their crews and ammunition.
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Re: SLN Reserve
Post by Sigs   » Sun Feb 19, 2017 10:28 pm

Sigs
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1446
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2015 6:09 pm

kzt wrote:
Sigs wrote:So my question is this, how would you organize a reserve of any major navy in the series in order to make it useful in relatedly short timespan against a technologically equal enemy?

-Where would you keep the personnel for those ships?
-How would the reserve be distributed? Would it be clustered in a few systems or spread out to different systems requiring the system to man them?
-What plan would you put in place to keep the reserve current? Would you periodically update the reserve or would you wait until war comes to do one refit all at once?
-How much ammunition would you keep on hand? Would it be for the entire force, active and reserve or would you expect to manufacture ammunition once war starts, so you keep enough munitions for the active component etc?


How would you maintain a reserve force that is capable of putting SD’s on the frontline within months of being mobilized rather than years?

You do what the US does with guard units. You have crews (paid a decent stipend and holding other jobs full time) for one or more squadrons on a planet and the ships are deployed there and the crews regularly train on them and do the typical housekeeping and light maint. You either swap out (and ship to central yard) or use a mobile maint facility to do heavy maintenance and upgrades every x years.



Do you think there is a limit to how much of your fleet can be in reserve? Having 20% of your fleet in Active service and 80% in reserve to me is lopsided. For example, the US army has ~50% in regular service and ~50% split between the National Guard and the Army Reserve.

Part of the question I did not make clear was what split would you have? In my view, I would have a split where the reserve is equal to or less than the regular units. With a good intelligence apparatus and competent leadership you can increase both the regular and part time units should threats emerge but there is a limit to the usefulness of a reserve when you have 8,000 SD's with limited ship yard space.
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Re: SLN Reserve
Post by pnakasone   » Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:00 pm

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I believe the general consensus is that the SLN ship reserve grew way beyond the original plans for it. They also lacked any adversary that was a credible enough threat to keep them sharp.

A good reserve size would cover the time period it would take to get both your ship production and training programs up to war time levels.
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Re: SLN Reserve
Post by kzt   » Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:04 pm

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It's extremely difficult to have them as good as people who do this for a living 365x24. It's possible to make them capable of functioning effectively at the squadron level if you provide effective initial training and maintain extremely high unit integrity. So your teams have literally been working together for 10 years and work really well together.

Operation of larger units will take actual time post mobilization.
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Re: SLN Reserve
Post by Fox2!   » Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:46 pm

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kzt wrote:It's extremely difficult to have them as good as people who do this for a living 365x24. It's possible to make them capable of functioning effectively at the squadron level if you provide effective initial training and maintain extremely high unit integrity. So your teams have literally been working together for 10 years and work really well together.

Operation of larger units will take actual time post mobilization.


One of the comments I have seen about the USAF Reserve and Guard forces is that their members have been doing their assigned jobs in support of their assigned missions for years, working on the same teams for much longer than their active duty counterparts. Aircrews and maintainers have been working together for 5 or 10 years, vs. the 3 or 4 for Active Duty. Reserve force members have opportunities to train, work and fight with their active duty counterparts.

it is much more difficult to achieve this skill and experience level when you do not have regular access to your assigned equipment. Does the SLN have reserve ships in orbit above Core worlds, which presumably have the greatest part of the reserve personnel, at least to give some hands-on time? Or are all of the reserve hulls collected in great armadas of ghost ships, with captains and admirals logging "space" duty while sitting at the local equivalent of Duffy's Tavern?
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Re: SLN Reserve
Post by pnakasone   » Mon Feb 20, 2017 12:07 am

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Fox2! wrote:it is much more difficult to achieve this skill and experience level when you do not have regular access to your assigned equipment. Does the SLN have reserve ships in orbit above Core worlds, which presumably have the greatest part of the reserve personnel, at least to give some hands-on time? Or are all of the reserve hulls collected in great armadas of ghost ships, with captains and admirals logging "space" duty while sitting at the local equivalent of Duffy's Tavern?


It probably started out as former but over time degraded to the latter. The SLN lacked a threat they had to be ready to meet on a short notice. So why keep the reserves at such a readiness level when no one could ever challenge or seriously hurt what you have active anyway?
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