Commerce raiding

Relax wrote:Navy budget will be pinched. So, Vote buying is "jobs" --> Building new ships. But what gets cut? Training, Live fire exercises, Bonus pay, Maintenance, and ship upgrades. Right?

Well, we're told that the PRH's economy had a huge problem with unemployment because too many people lived on the Dole and did not want to work at all. Buying votes in the PRH wasn't about creating jobs, it was about keeping the jobless people happy. So this is worse than many of our current economies that can grow by massive boosts in infrastructure and construction projects (which can only be done so much, until you start to build bullet trains that connect Nowhereville to Northwest Nowhere).

However, even if this was a large proportion of the Havenite population (and worse in the older systems), even a small amount of working population could produce a lot. The PN did have 834 ships of the wall after all. So yes, I expect that the Harris administration did try to boost their economy with military expansion. It is, after all, the premise of the short, victorious war, in addition to the distraction to the population.

(Note: I wonder how many Google searches will find this forum starting next year if the US election next month goes the way of the Democrats...)

So, if you are deferring upgrades and maintenance what ships are MOST likely to have deffered maintenance and upgrades? An 100 year old design class that cannot stand in line of battle is what.
...
So are 50% of the BB's even available to start the war? Do they even have crews? No really? Do they? 300BB's sounds like a lot, and it is a LOT of a LOT, but we never see them until ~1910, 5 years later after war starts. Relegated to rear areas, and just worn out un upgraded junk with heaps of deferred maintenance.

One that isn't even needed for the line of battle, indeed. Those ships were needed for system command and control and should never expect to have any shots fired at them: the PRH controlled all anti-space ground defensive installations, assuming any planets still had them.

Those ships needed to be visible, not do much. Their mere presence is what kept the population in-line and prevented retaliatory raids from their former governments now in exile. From the ground, no one can tell if the ship is at full complement or if it has a skeleton crew.

I suppose the job of CO of one of those ships was very cushy for the well-connected Legislaturalist who was basically a coward. A Havenite Pavel Young, if you will - not even an Elvis Santino, who thought he could command in battle. The CO can sit in his/her cabin in luxury, having everything they need delivered to them and cozying up to InSec, while they keep the peace in the system they're in. Many COs probably spent their entire assignment without firing a single shot; others may have sent down a KEW or two. Once they've punched their ticket to the Admiralty, they get transferred back to a desk job at the Octagon in Nouveau Paris.

The PN did have a core of competent Legislaturalist officers who knew how to use their ships, but likely those were aboard the SDs and DNs and assigned to the more recently-conquered systems.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:One that isn't even needed for the line of battle, indeed. Those ships were needed for system command and control and should never expect to have any shots fired at them: the PRH controlled all anti-space ground defensive installations, assuming any planets still had them.

Those ships needed to be visible, not do much. Their mere presence is what kept the population in-line and prevented retaliatory raids from their former governments now in exile. From the ground, no one can tell if the ship is at full complement or if it has a skeleton crew.

I suppose the job of CO of one of those ships was very cushy for the well-connected Legislaturalist who was basically a coward. A Havenite Pavel Young, if you will - not even an Elvis Santino, who thought he could command in battle. The CO can sit in his/her cabin in luxury, having everything they need delivered to them and cozying up to InSec, while they keep the peace in the system they're in. Many COs probably spent their entire assignment without firing a single shot; others may have sent down a KEW or two. Once they've punched their ticket to the Admiralty, they get transferred back to a desk job at the Octagon in Nouveau Paris.

The PN did have a core of competent Legislaturalist officers who knew how to use their ships, but likely those were aboard the SDs and DNs and assigned to the more recently-conquered systems.

Eh, they're probably not that bad.

The naval conscripts aren't well trained by RMN standards, but I don't think the Republic (either under Harris or Pierre) was so short of them they'd be deploying ships with skeleton crews.

But in some ways the Triumphant-class seems a massively scaled up Broadsword-class Marine operations support cruiser -- except with a heavy enough broadside to expect to see off anything up to a (equivalent tech level) BC in short order; but designed more for internal pacification than for managing the assault of enemy planets or offensive combat.


After all, you've got a fair number of unhappy recent conquests. Any one of them might have had warships that escaped the surprise attack that took down their system, or offworld resources to fund buying new warships or hiring mercenaries for some retaliation. The BBs are being used to hold down those recent conquests, as well as defend other of your systems that might be targets for some grudge settling. And you'd want those big expensive pacification units to be competent to keep from being destroyed, and to prevent damage to the orbital elements of those system's industries -- which would damage the economies your government is trying to squeeze to fill their depleted coffers.

Disappointing your government's monetary expectations by letting said industry get wrecked is NOT going to be good for your carrier or life prospects, not under either the Harris or Pierre administrations! Fear of that should to focus most BB commanders enough to ensure their crew is reasonably competent.

Similarly you'd want the ground assault units based on the BBs to be able to quickly suppress riot and insurrection before it can wreck too much of the local industry or economy.

Jonathan_S wrote:After all, you've got a fair number of unhappy recent conquests. Any one of them might have had warships that escaped the surprise attack that took down their system, or offworld resources to fund buying new warships or hiring mercenaries for some retaliation. The BBs are being used to hold down those recent conquests, as well as defend other of your systems that might be targets for some grudge settling. And you'd want those big expensive pacification units to be competent to keep from being destroyed, and to prevent damage to the orbital elements of those system's industries -- which would damage the economies your government is trying to squeeze to fill their depleted coffers.

Another thing has just occurred to me: you don't want those Battle Squadron COs to turn into warlords, so you give them only battleships. Should any of them try to, you send an SD Battle Squadron.

The problem is they could hold that infrastructure hostage, meaning the SD flag officer's hands are tied. That would mean the BBs are seeded with InSec and later StateSec operatives to ensure loyalty. It's also possible that after the purges, the regular Navy personnel was transferred off of them to fill in the gaps in the front-line ships and they were crewed instead with new conscripts and mostly StateSec thugs.

We saw how good PNS Tepes was (not!).

The first Havenite war reminds me of Russ-Ukrain current war. IF Haven had simply gotten ALL its fleet repaired, upgraded trained for one big push to Manticore to begin with it ~probably would have been over. Same goes for the Ruskies... If they had bothered to just get their Gear together to begin with for certain everything East of Dnipro would be Russian. But no, they brought it online piecemeal. So did the Havenites.

Putin wanted a SHORT Victorious War. Abject corruption for decades of not repairing, maintaining, etc bites their arses. Will they eventually win? Maybe, but their reserves of tanks/apc/artillery is nearly empty.

Maybe send Putin SVW as a "gift". Maybe he likes space opera...gg

EDIT:
PS: Speaking of lack of maintenance from deferred funds and bad economics... USN Pearl Harbor. Or USN Spanish American so called 'war'--> read up on that hilarity of pure unadulturated hopeless "seamanship" and "gunner". Why did majority of those BB's sink at Pearl? Seals on all the hatches were bad. Bad training on the FEW seals which were ~ok as hadn't been out to sea etc. Why? Great Depression Economics. The GD was so bad the USA never had ANY tanks(not WWI hand me downs or 1 or 2 off test dummies) at beginning of the war. Did not have a single mechanized platoon let alone division or Brigade. People give the UK crap for being unprepared, at least they HAD tank designs and a production line. Ocean crossings makes great neighbor fencing. Back then the USN did have money out of any branch, but even they could not keep their seals maintaned. Was it better to have good carrier doctrine, practice, (some aircraft) than BB seals? Yes. Did they know this at the time? Maybe(I doubt it institutionally at the highest levels though).