Question:
What would a " Fleet " should look like?
I mean I was watching the AHC history channel the other night about assigning a CVE with 4 DDEs and a Liberty or two to act as long range refuelers for the Convoy fleets " Support ".
What would this translate to in BTverse?
TT
DO you love paperwork? does the prospect of spending hours upon hours doing paperwork excite you?
Does the prospect of having to work up multiple databases the size of a mid-eighties urban phone-book get you all a-tizzy?
Navies operate on
Details. Details like logistics trains, allocation of resources, fuel, and personnel rotation, food...because you can't just pop out the airlock and go grab a to-go-order of eats at midnight in the middle of a patrol.
And warships, dropships, and jumpships don't generate their own food supplies...or air, or water.
Or fuel. (at least, not without equipment carried specifically to do it, and trained personnel who can identify the right cometary content...)
everything is finite. You have your ship, the air in that ship is all the air you get to have, your life support scrubbers and recycling are all that stand between you and turning bluish-purple as you suffocate.
water? same thing. Storage tanks and what recycling equipment you have, is all that keeps your tongue from swelling and spliting in your dry mouth as you die of dehydration.
which is one of the nastier ways you can die, just in case you're wondering.
Imagine your environment. You have 'inside the ship' (or station) and that's only safe and healthy as long as you have the power and the maintenance slack to keep it safe and healthy.
Outside, is millions to billions to infinite kilometers of one atom per cubic meter, which will kill you if you go out there without a suit.
This is a very different paradigm to 'mech combat, where being outside your mech is risky, but not instant death without full life support in most cases.
To build your navy, then, is to build a force that is operating in a supremely hostile environment, where mistakes or negligence will kill you faster than enemy action.
You're going to want to start with your logistics-the movement, and distribution of things like air, water, food, fuel, and spares.
It doesn't matter how many guns you have, if your crew is dead. Feel me here?
Everything is finite, everything must be actively maintained, or your crew dies and your ships become worthless.
SO, you begin with Logistics, but what you REALLY begin with, is training and selection, because while Petey-the-huge might be amusing when he mistakes the side of the barracks for an outhouse since he didn't grow up with running water, he'll kill himself and everyone else if he tries to go outside for a quick piss on the side of the ship (and leaves the door open).
automatics can solve some of that-if they're maintained. That's part of your training AND your logistics. (If you can't fix the door seals because you don't have the stuff, you can't fix the door seals and you'll run out of air pretty fast with a leak.)
Supply chain also counts as a Navy mission, since if your supplies can be easily destroyed or hijacked, you can't maintain a navy.
This is a critical-to-your-survival thing.
In general terms, you either want lots of colliers per active combat ship to provide those supplies, or you want big ones that can service several combat ships simultaneously. Either way, "Bulk Dropships are your friend", because you don't strictly NEED a warship to carry them, and lots of civilian jumpships can haul those supply mules around, or chain them forward for quicker resupply.
Now, you can't have your ships constantly on deployment. the lesson of the Kuznetsov is worth learning: if you have to run your power while docked, you're going to wear out your power generation gear, and end up breaking down when you actually go to sea.
Stations aren't invulnerable fortresses. They're highly vulnerable supply points and targets. Treat them accordingly, and protect them accordingly.
What you saw in 'Ilclan' or Kerensky's march on Terra? is what happens when a ground general (and political appointee) designs your Naval defenses and fails to understand that space is not only big, but three dimensional.
With vERy, very, very, long distances where you can be seen, but you might not see if you're not looking the right way.
Because competent spacers don't fall out of the womb pre-trained and grown in large lots, you're going to want to maximize your available officers to give the best coverage you can get.
This tends to NOT mean an emphasis on dropships, unless that's all you can build, in which case, your dropships are subordinate in value to the jumpship that hauls them.
Doesn't sound fair, right? the dropships/pocket warships have all the guns, after all...
but they lack the ability to go anywhere in a timely fashion, which is something you critically NEED with a Navy.
To put it in perspective for you, a 'hexmap' covering the earth/moon system alone, just itself, at 18,000 meters per inch hex?
You're getting into "cover the basketball court with one inch hexes" territory.
18,000
Kilometers and you're still exceeding the size of most large dinner tables (or living room floors!)
Space, is
Big.adequate patrol in just the Sol system would pretty much
require jumpships to cover it, or jump-capable combat ships. Most of whom will need 1 to 2 weeks each between hops.
BUT, a jump-capable force sitting at Titan's L1 can respond to an incursion or assault at earth/luna L1 weeks before a non-jumping ship can make the transit at closest orbital approach.
Hours instead of weeks.
Minutes instead of Hours for going from Earth/luna L1 to either close orbital Earth, or close orbit Luna-which is where your dropship shines, but if you don't protect that jumpship?
that's where your Dropships must remain until you can find a replacement-they're not going to be able to respond in a reasonable amount of time to a second force hitting the base at Titan after the diversion force has either left , or been defeated.
Jump capable with an LF battery can actually
do that-that is, react and deliver some power and violence upon the intruders in a reasonable span of time.
Up from there, is the offensive role...which is NOT hanging in low orbit to be shot down (FSS Lucien DAVION!!).
Offense roles include, but aren't limited to:
1. Recon-going to other places to look around before you risk your expensive ground units on a raid or attack.
2. Moving info: this is both an offense, and defense, function. HPG's down, you need to know about an attack? it's unlikely that the Dragaus or Overlord C or A3 or other PWS is going to be much good here, it can't leave the system on its own. a gunless jumpship CAN. Even an
explorer class rich-people-yacht is more useful in this role than a thousand pocket warships.
3. Raids and spoiling attacks, strikes and commerce raiding. These are bread-and-butter missions on the offense, and require strategic mobility to be of any value at all...even if both sides are in the same system on different moons or planets.
4. Ground forces/ Invasion insertion or extraction: the transport mission. "Bus-driver for BAttlemechs". This usually works better if you have good intel and scout ahead.
with the roles figured out, the equipment should be self-evident.
a few things to contemplate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSDtGXW7J7Ihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgIJEWv7Hdwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aX3fXVcQ-Q
