Upcoming surplus of junior officers

Henry Brown wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:There will not be a crunch with a war on. A lot of ships get destroyed, people die, get wounded too badly to serve. As noted, the LACs are very expensive in terms of personnel. There are several officers on each LAC and one carrier has a hundred of the little vessels.

When the war ends is when there will be a real crunch. If things end on a real peace note, there will be far fewer jobs. Note the US after World War I and World War II.

On the other hand, if things are a bit dicey there may be more slots open but there will be slower promotion.

Normally you would be correct about combat casualties opening up slots for officers. But so far all engagements against the SLN have been one sided wipeouts where the RMN and GSN ships suffer little to no casualties.

Yet, if League space degenerates into a quagmire of dueling warlords, won't the protectorates and Indy Verge worlds look to signing on with the GA? Even if they only get export weapons systems of Havenite surplus LACs and missiles, the GA protection would be sufficient to keep the wear lords elsewhere for fear of the GA SDPs will visit their home world.

That incentive suggests the GA will expand their fleets even if the League Succession Wars never threaten the founding Grand Alliance members.

PeterZ wrote:Yet, if League space degenerates into a quagmire of dueling warlords, won't the protectorates and Indy Verge worlds look to signing on with the GA? Even if they only get export weapons systems of Havenite surplus LACs and missiles, the GA protection would be sufficient to keep the wear lords elsewhere for fear of the GA SDPs will visit their home world.

That incentive suggests the GA will expand their fleets even if the League Succession Wars never threaten the founding Grand Alliance members.

Oh certainly, the RMN will need to expand their fleet postwar. Not only due to the breakup of the SL, but because of all the new territory in Silestia and the Talbot cluster. But they can't build the ships right now. My point is that by the time they do start building new construction, there will be Ensigns and Lt (JG)s stacked to the bulkheads.

Then buy RN caste offs until their yards come back online. If I were Theisman, I would look at ways to defray their transition into the upgraded designs. Having the RMN endorse those surplus ships is a very good marketing tactic.

Henry Brown wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Yet, if League space degenerates into a quagmire of dueling warlords, won't the protectorates and Indy Verge worlds look to signing on with the GA? Even if they only get export weapons systems of Havenite surplus LACs and missiles, the GA protection would be sufficient to keep the wear lords elsewhere for fear of the GA SDPs will visit their home world.

That incentive suggests the GA will expand their fleets even if the League Succession Wars never threaten the founding Grand Alliance members.

Oh certainly, the RMN will need to expand their fleet postwar. Not only due to the breakup of the SL, but because of all the new territory in Silestia and the Talbot cluster. But they can't build the ships right now. My point is that by the time they do start building new construction, there will be Ensigns and Lt (JG)s stacked to the bulkheads.

Another possibility with all of Haven, Talbott, and now the Verge opening up to trade is an expansion of the merchant trade, with officers going reserve (or back to reserve) to man those ships. Of course, we don't know how much of that will be taken up by ships diverted from to Sollie trade; obviously things will take quite awhile to shake down!

Why do you think all the middies are planning full careers in the Navy? Admittedly most of our viewpoint characters are career Navy, but that's normal for military SF.

There's a war on; patriotic young Manties are signing up for Saganami Island. Doesn't mean they don't plan to become lawyers, foreign office wonks, diplomats, merchant spacers after the war is over.

Apart from Terenkhov, who was enjoying a career in the Foreign Office before his Reserve rank got reactivated, there's also Chief Wanderman, who was definitely aware that his naval training would allow him to slot into a civilian engineering job after the war, plus at least one Marine Lieutenant who was studying law in his spare time.

I dunno what the service obligation is after Saganami, but I'd suggest that while the Island is aimed at producing career officers in peacetime, they may well be currently accepting middies who are primarily in the navy 'for the duration'.

Bluesqueak wrote:Why do you think all the middies are planning full careers in the Navy? Admittedly most of our viewpoint characters are career Navy, but that's normal for military SF.

There's a war on; patriotic young Manties are signing up for Saganami Island. Doesn't mean they don't plan to become lawyers, foreign office wonks, diplomats, merchant spacers after the war is over.

Apart from Terenkhov, who was enjoying a career in the Foreign Office before his Reserve rank got reactivated, there's also Chief Wanderman, who was definitely aware that his naval training would allow him to slot into a civilian engineering job after the war, plus at least one Marine Lieutenant who was studying law in his spare time.

I dunno what the service obligation is after Saganami, but I'd suggest that while the Island is aimed at producing career officers in peacetime, they may well be currently accepting middies who are primarily in the navy 'for the duration'.

Good points, but remember they were talking about 11,000 for classes. That's a lot of officers. Clearly, many will go to LACs which are officer intensive (quite possibly foolishly). Putting a half dozen or even a dozen middies into ships for snottie cruises would require more than a thousand ships.

If the war ended finally...let's pretend that the whole League surrenders and we have an era of peace. There would be no need for 1000 ships. Given time it would not be that difficult to stop piracy in Silesia. After all, now pirates can be readily executed. Piracy flourished when it got protection from planetary leaders. I would guess the Manties and Andies would not be forgiving at all.

As I understood the deal at the end of ART, the Republic was going to be building warships for Manticore. That was one of the things that sending the r&d staff to bolthole was all about. If that is the case the RMN will continue to expand and will continue to experience shortages of commissioned officers, particularly after the hole that the first BOM annd Oyster Bay tore into both her enlisted and commissioned ranks.

What was specifically mentioned was building wallers in Haven yards and sending them to Manticore to install keyhole built in Beowulf. I hope we also see new hulls in the lighter classes.

Don

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Bluesqueak wrote:Why do you think all the middies are planning full careers in the Navy? Admittedly most of our viewpoint characters are career Navy, but that's normal for military SF.

There's a war on; patriotic young Manties are signing up for Saganami Island. Doesn't mean they don't plan to become lawyers, foreign office wonks, diplomats, merchant spacers after the war is over.

Apart from Terenkhov, who was enjoying a career in the Foreign Office before his Reserve rank got reactivated, there's also Chief Wanderman, who was definitely aware that his naval training would allow him to slot into a civilian engineering job after the war, plus at least one Marine Lieutenant who was studying law in his spare time.

I dunno what the service obligation is after Saganami, but I'd suggest that while the Island is aimed at producing career officers in peacetime, they may well be currently accepting middies who are primarily in the navy 'for the duration'.

Remember that Saganami Island is the Honorverse equivalent of the US Navy Academy at Annapolis (4 years of college with a heavy emphasis on military science, before serving in the Navy or Marines). I would expect the path that Wanderman or Ginger Lewis took would be much more common--first enlisted, and then promoted to higher rank, either as enlisted or to warrant or commissioned officer.

n7axw wrote:As I understood the deal at the end of ART, the Republic was going to be building warships for Manticore. That was one of the things that sending the r&d staff to bolthole was all about. If that is the case the RMN will continue to expand and will continue to experience shortages of commissioned officers, particularly after the hole that the first BOM annd Oyster Bay tore into both her enlisted and commissioned ranks.

What was specifically mentioned was building wallers in Haven yards and sending them to Manticore to install keyhole built in Beowulf. I hope we also see new hulls in the lighter classes.

Don

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It still doesn't add up. If thousands of middies are added to the fleet each year you need the vacancies. Manticore, which also trains Grayson cadets, has classes of 11,000 as of Ashes of Victory. Add to that Haven's trainees and you have a real lot of slots open.

Can they build ships THAT fast? You would need close to a thousand ships a year to handle that number of middies on their 'snottie' cruise. And, of course, after that as ensigns.

That would mean that each year they were producing as many ships as Manticore had at the Battle of Manticore. Each year.

Now granted that the LACs will take a very high percentage of the number, the problem in peacetime would become whether or not the shipbuilding nations would continue to build at that rate.

And, yes, a lot of the middies will serve a term and leave but I would guess they might go into the merchant marine, etc.

It is hard to get the people to support shipbuilding in peacetime. I know that the Conservative-Liberal coalition kept an Emergency going for the purpose of raising taxes but I would guess that might be harder in time of peace.

ldwechsler wrote:It still doesn't add up. If thousands of middies are added to the fleet each year you need the vacancies. Manticore, which also trains Grayson cadets, has classes of 11,000 as of Ashes of Victory. Add to that Haven's trainees and you have a real lot of slots open.

Can they build ships THAT fast? You would need close to a thousand ships a year to handle that number of middies on their 'snottie' cruise. And, of course, after that as ensigns.

That would mean that each year they were producing as many ships as Manticore had at the Battle of Manticore. Each year.

Now granted that the LACs will take a very high percentage of the number, the problem in peacetime would become whether or not the shipbuilding nations would continue to build at that rate.

And, yes, a lot of the middies will serve a term and leave but I would guess they might go into the merchant marine, etc.

It is hard to get the people to support shipbuilding in peacetime. I know that the Conservative-Liberal coalition kept an Emergency going for the purpose of raising taxes but I would guess that might be harder in time of peace.

Not all those 11,000 will graduate, or successfully complete their midshipman's cruise. Plus, newer construction requires a higher proportion of officer-grade staff.

Saganami Island did have a reduction in numbers when Erehwon left the original alliance (referenced in WoH).

Just as importantly, recall Helen Zwilicki's middy cruise, whereby the lack of middies on board is noted