Upcoming surplus of junior officers

ldwechsler wrote:

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.

1) we know from the Universe of Honor Harrington, that her early career was the end of a Galactic age of peace and prosperity. In short, what is coming is an age of constant turmoil. Will there be a chance to downsize? I doubt it, the conditions that existed prior to 1850 will never come again.

2) The RMN has 50+ new worlds to bring into the union. That will mean larger SDFs, fortifications, and fleet bases, all of which require more manpower.

3) The RMN has to find the manpower to man the stations that replace the 3 stations lost - and the 3 new stations it plans to add to the home system.

4) all the ships working up or stationed at Manticore during OB ended up deploying undermanned, due to losses of people off ship during the strike. And Bupers probably stripped home fleet and shore offices in order to deploy those ships in a workable state.

5) we will have upward momentum, with people moving into more senior positions, and other people getting killed, injured or retiring, which need replaced.

6) the first ships being built will probably be LACs and DD/ CLs. There are thousands of LAC bays that need filled. Yes, production will be slow at first, but the RMN has every reason to get those production numbers cranked up, fast. And that will eat bodies...

What surplus of junior officers?

By real world standards whereby hightech forces generally have approximately a 5-1 enlisted/officer ratio. (Check the current US armed forces numbers on wikipedia if you don't believe me.)

We know for a fact that the RMN must have a total personell in the multiple millions Even if each of the current ~400 Super dreadnoughts currently only need 1000 personell instead of the old standard 5000 that still represents 400,000 personell minimum + all the other ships + shore instalations and repair depots and all the other crap it takes to run a modern efficient navy

I can't remember the exact numbers (if they exist) from House of Steel and Honor Amongst Enemies but lets assume that the RMN is super efficient and has 5mil personell total and manages a 10-1 enlisted/officer ratio (twice as lean as the current US army or navy manages) accross the force.

This still requires 500000 officers at any one time and 11,000 a year represents only about a 2% replacement rate. This would be low for a peace time navy let alone one in active combat/conflict.

Something else to consider is that many of the officers currently in uniform came out of the RMMM. Officers on reserve status. Those people could easily be let back to civilian service and open up a great many places for officers on the active roles.

IIRC, the RMN is about 2 million people. Not sure where I got that, but that's what I remember.

kzt wrote:IIRC, the RMN is about 2 million people. Not sure where I got that, but that's what I remember.

That is definately WAAAAAAYYYY low and even my guess above was light.

The numbers give in Honor amongst enemies for Naval commitments were:

150,000 on loan to allies such as Grayson.
1.5 million crewing the wall of battle
1 million crewing the junction forts
2.5 million in the rest of the fleet
then there are the marines and the rest of the shore side infrastructure

All up.. "We have somthing on the order of 11 million people in naval or marine uniforms" P91 in my paperback edition (near the start of chapter six)and as this is the head of bupers Admiral Cortez we have to take these figures as gospel.

Silverwall wrote:What surplus of junior officers?

By real world standards whereby hightech forces generally have approximately a 5-1 enlisted/officer ratio. (Check the current US armed forces numbers on wikipedia if you don't believe me.)

We know for a fact that the RMN must have a total personell in the multiple millions Even if each of the current ~400 Super dreadnoughts currently only need 1000 personell instead of the old standard 5000 that still represents 400,000 personell minimum + all the other ships + shore instalations and repair depots and all the other crap it takes to run a modern efficient navy

I can't remember the exact numbers (if they exist) from House of Steel and Honor Amongst Enemies but lets assume that the RMN is super efficient and has 5mil personell total and manages a 10-1 enlisted/officer ratio (twice as lean as the current US army or navy manages) accross the force.

This still requires 500000 officers at any one time and 11,000 a year represents only about a 2% replacement rate. This would be low for a peace time navy let alone one in active combat/conflict.

There are several key phase points (this is based on US military practice, so your mileage may vary) in an officer's career:

Completion of initial service obligation (which normally coincides with the O-2 to O-3 promotion point) (pilots and others may have additional service obligations from advanced training).

Some number of O-1s and O-2s leave the service because, in the final analysis, they are not suited to military service. Which can only be discovered after they are commissioned, despite the best efforts of the academy staff and Officer Candidate Training Officers.

O-3 to O-4 promotion point, if an "Up or Out" system is in effect

O-4 to O-5 promotion point (this is also close to the high year of tenure for O-4s not selected for O-5. In the US military, an officer can not be forced out for non-promotion after 18 years of service, so they will be able to retire at 20 years service.

(Commander (O-5) to Captain, Junior Grade promotion point, which has no equivalent)

Captain, Junior Grade to Captain (O-6, Captain of the List)

Family, personal, academic, or business opportunities which induce an individual to revert to Reserve status, or terminate their relationship with the military entirely, may occur at any point after satisfaction of "obligated service". Injury or disease, even in peace-time, force some number of people to separate or retire for medical reasons. One often heard complaint is that the airlines come recruiting pilots away from the services at the 8 to 10 year point, when they have paid Uncle back for their wings. And just as they are beginning to filter into wing or higher level staff positions.

All of which must be replenished from the stock of middies who are commissioned as Ensigns five, ten, 20, or with prolong, even 50 or 60 years earlier. Some of the losses may be made up by recalling reservists to active duty, either for a specified period of time, or for "the duration plus six months." And of course, some number die of natural causes, or are killed by accidents, disease, or, yes, combat.

But the total pool of officers is limited by the years past production of Saganami Island and OCS. Is there any textev for the equivalent of Reserve Officer's Training Corps in the SKM?

Of course, "the needs of the service" always outweigh the wants or needs of the service member.

Silverwall wrote:All up.. "We have somthing on the order of 11 million people in naval or marine uniforms" P91 in my paperback edition (near the start of chapter six)and as this is the head of bupers Admiral Cortez we have to take these figures as gospel.

Ok. I remember the 11 million figure, but I though that was everyone including the occupation forces that sucked up manpower.

kzt wrote:

Silverwall wrote:All up.. "We have somthing on the order of 11 million people in naval or marine uniforms" P91 in my paperback edition (near the start of chapter six)and as this is the head of bupers Admiral Cortez we have to take these figures as gospel.

Ok. I remember the 11 million figure, but I though that was everyone including the occupation forces that sucked up manpower.

Valid or invalid assumptions: (1) Whomever is running Saganami Island does not have the common sense to contact Admiral Cortez and find out how many brand spanking new middies he will be needing. (2) has not the brains or authority to slow the academic load to its original level thus stretching out the time of deployment. (3) A while shipyard of new construction got sent to Tevor's star for workup just before OB/Yawata Strike. That will take up some of those slots. (4) None of the next flight of construction from Haven can/will be sold to Manticore and Grayson. (5)Snotty cruises MUST be taken immediately following graduation. No reason they can't be used to make the installations of Keyhole platforms, work crews building the new orbitals, etc. then when nslots are available, make their cruise and start climbing their career ladders.

I realize it will slow them down but if they can't take a joke they should never have enlisted.

There is the other consideration in that not all RMN jobs are ship based military. Even for those jobs we think of as shipboard- like engineering and medical- there is both a lot of additional training in the specialties often not on ships. Sure, most of the middies would go out on that 1st deployment but while getting cross training in other things (all sorts of basic things for being an officer including standing other than bridge watches) they would be assiged per their specifies or areas of concentration. How many officers does it take to run the fusion plant(s) of starships and what do you need to do to give them the experience? How about possibly 1st needing to send them to various orbital locations or repair commands to gain the practical experience. The RMN still needs (and needs to expand the scope of) it's repair ships and station support.

We tend to see just the warship operations. Somebody has to be doing the care and feeding of all that stuff like LAC powerplants both in systems (any of the systems) and on CLACs.

Henry Brown wrote:We know from textev that class sizes at Saganimi Island have grown to the point where every year thousands of new officer candidates graduate. They do a middy cruise and then (most) of them are promoted to Ensign. After a year or 2 as an Ensign a promotion to Lieutenant (JG) would normally follow.

This was fine when the RMN and GSN were building ships as fast as they could because every new ship built opened up new positions for personnel. However, due to OB that is no longer the case. And the hiatus in new ship construction is going to be quite long due to the need to first rebuild orbital infrastructure and then build the ships. I'd estimate a minimum of 3 or 4 years post OB before any new ships are finished. And those will be small ships such as LACs, DDs, or CLs. Larger ships such as BCs or SP(P)s will take longer to construct.

My point is: if the RMN and GSN continue to create large numbers of new junior officers every year but are not producing any new ships, won't they reach a point where every available shipboard slot is already filled and there are no positions available for the newly graduated Ensigns?

I doubt that would be a problem. The RMN and the GSN are part of the GA and the GA is fighting the biggest and most powerful nation in history. Ignoring the current shortcomings of the SLN the GA has to know there is a good chance that the League might recover even if it is in a much reduced size but even 40-50 core worlds would represent a lot of power concentrated in the League. So for a war that might last decades in one form or another they will need consistent and ongoing expansion of their navies.

And that is not even counting the MA. They know next to nothing about the MA’s plans or probable industrial, economic or military strength. So they know that likely they will need all the people in uniform they can get within a few years so keeping their training systems pumping out new officers and NCMs allows them to be ready for the new ships when they get there but more importantly they also have a lot of other responsibilities to deal with.


The SEM for example has Talbott and Silesia to integrate in their navy, so establishing training schools to bring them up to RMN standards would be one of their top priorities. If there would be a period of time where the training system produces more people than the ships available then this is one of the upsides, it allows the RMN to bring in both new territories into the fold by recruiting from their population and expanding their potential for when the ships start coming in.

Also there are now protectorates and verge systems that are gaining their independence with or without GA assistance. For every system that the GA liberates they would need to provide security. In the short term there is little they can do to offset that problem but one of the best ways to offset the problem in the long term is to get those systems to provide recruits and train them in the Talbott and Silesia training systems.

It is not likely that Verge or protectorates would be able to field SD squadrons for a couple of decades but using the excess of GSN and RMN manpower to help them start up their own navies even if the heaviest units end up being CA’s would be ultimately beneficial to the GA.