SLDF Warship Replenishment during the Amaris Civil War

[Alan Grant]

Liberation of Terra 1 does a great job explaining how the SLDF filled a lot of logistical gaps. Volunteers from everywhere coupled with some factories and training facilities set up particularly in the Rim Worlds Republic.

It does reference naval infrastructure somewhat, talks about Camelot Command and a couple Rim Worlds Republic dry dock facilities that were seized and put into use. The SLDF set up other facilities as well, that's how the station that became the Ruins of Gabriel came into existence.

But aside from repairs/resupply, I can't really find much at all on the topic of SLDF warship replenishment. A couple Combine warships end up in SLDF control, evidently nudged to do so by the Coordinator who was playing both sides a bit, and that's called out as the weird exception.

So evidently Great House warships don't make it into SLDF service. Some of Amaris's ships captured ships do, we know because there were some attempts to use them to foil the SDS systems early on in the drive toward Terra.

Beyond that though, I'm wondering if there were any other warship replenishment efforts. Or even plausible theories on what that might have been. Or might have looked like.

[Cannonshop]

The main problem is that any warship, in any era, is geometrically more difficult to replace than, say, ground warfare assets.  It's a massive capital investment.  You can compare the production time and cost for, say, a Gearing class destroyer to an equal number of Sherman tanks (both 1940's era designs and among the more produced examples in each range.)

THAT is the difference between replacing a Warship (or even a jumpship) and replacing 'mechs.  Not just the materials costs, but the lead time needed, if Kerensky started with the listed assets and began building ships right away he likely wouldn't have been able to replace more than a handful  of the lighter models (Corvettes, maybe Destroyers)Say, three or four,  by the time he called for Exodus...and that's if he started in 2767.

Bigger ships....would be an even bigger problem.  the issue isn't so much how long it takes to assemble them, it's how long, and how much infrastructure you actually need to assemble and have going before you've laid the keel.

Over the bulk of the conflict, Kerensky didn't have access to the main production yards, and taking the ones from Amaris by definition disrupted or destroyed teh supply lines necessary to actually USE them for anything more than repairs.

(and not all necessary repairs at that).

A big part of the reason for the Warship Extinction of the 1st and 2nd succession wars, was that supply chain disruption-and the fact it never really recovered in time to let business resume between conflicts.  The supply needs to get 'mechs, ASF, or even dropships are tiny comparitively, and in the environments of the Amaris coup and Succession wars, those goods would be higher priority by definition, thus leaving a situation where fleets reduced, but didn't manage to replace-first because of ordinary disruption, then because of the loss of key sections of your naval supply chain via apocalyptic bombardments.

in Kerensky's era, this was going on as well-both sides had to deny the other the abiiity to recover from losses, and both sides had to scramble to keep their supply chains at all.

but that job was a hell of a lot easier for the smaller, non-capital assets. (Dropships, fighters, 'mechs, tanks) so that's where the focus and effort went-because a gun you can't use until tomorrow is worthless if your opponent has guns he can use today...and you don't.

[AlphaMirage]

As above, you are kinda stuck with the Fleet that you have when a war starts out. In most cases ships take to long to be built particularly if there is a big draw on other resources.

The only reason the US was able to do it was relative resource abundance (oil, coal, steel, manpower), a massive multi-agency/multi-state concerted effort, immense and prior capital investment (since the Great White Fleet era), and mobilizing large numbers of former non-workers into the labor pool. None of those were true for Kerensky, he had lost the Terran Hegemony worlds to the Rim Worlds and had to improvise so his vast fleet was probably the one he started with. All maintained by purchases of spare parts from the Great House yards and likely very expensive cage-time for any damage that a NewGrange couldn't fix.

Theoretically a NewGrange is capable of building new Warships if you could source the components but it's not as efficient as the Titan Yards. Thus if any new ships came out it was from the bellies of NewGranges, Camelot, or Gabriel.

[Vehrec]

Well, there is an era where capital warships are actually less massive of a capital investment than paying the crew to man them.  Though you need to go back to BCE to find it. In the first Punic war, there are several cases where the romans loose a fleet and sigh loudly saying "Well, it's cheaper to build a whole new fleet than it is to keep the old one in service."  And despite bronze ship rams being so expensive that they require the personal signature of a senior treasury official on each and every single one, this does indeed seem to be the case!  It's cheaper to build a whole new fleet every year than to keep the old one in service through the winter months.  And when a roman consul is elected and declares "I will build a new fleet to attack Carthage." in October, by the time spring roles around, the fleet is complete.  Partly this was due to using green timbers without seasoning everywhere, partly it was due to the costs of manning each ship being very high because of the hundreds of oarsmen needed for each one.

I think for warships vs battlemechs though, the supply chain disruptions should bite backwards.  After all, Warships are only Tech C, compared to Tech D for modern battlemechs.  So the fact that Warships died out indicates that the industry for them was already deeply unhealthy, overly centralized and lacking in nodes to carry out even basic repairs and refits. Maybe because it had already baddly suffered durring the Amaris conflict.

[Cannonshop]

Well, there is an era where capital warships are actually less massive of a capital investment than paying the crew to man them.  Though you need to go back to BCE to find it. In the first Punic war, there are several cases where the romans loose a fleet and sigh loudly saying "Well, it's cheaper to build a whole new fleet than it is to keep the old one in service."  And despite bronze ship rams being so expensive that they require the personal signature of a senior treasury official on each and every single one, this does indeed seem to be the case!  It's cheaper to build a whole new fleet every year than to keep the old one in service through the winter months.  And when a roman consul is elected and declares "I will build a new fleet to attack Carthage." in October, by the time spring roles around, the fleet is complete.  Partly this was due to using green timbers without seasoning everywhere, partly it was due to the costs of manning each ship being very high because of the hundreds of oarsmen needed for each one.

I think for warships vs battlemechs though, the supply chain disruptions should bite backwards.  After all, Warships are only Tech C, compared to Tech D for modern battlemechs.  So the fact that Warships died out indicates that the industry for them was already deeply unhealthy, overly centralized and lacking in nodes to carry out even basic repairs and refits. Maybe because it had already baddly suffered durring the Amaris conflict.

The tech level difference isn't goig to do that, because that Tech D can be done on the ground, in a factory smaller than even a very small warship, using significantly less in terms of resources, knowhow, and materials, because you're comparing something akin to a WW2 battleship, to the production rates for an Abrams.

One of these, is a lot more sustainable, and it's not the low-tech option, because the tech difference reflects things like mission priority, design, materials, and engineering techniques that are fairly easy to retain versus the logistical train needed to keep even a very ight, small, simple warship from killing the crew via failure and malfunctions imposed by wear and tear (and running out of fuel, air, water, food...)

[Alan Grant]

Thanks all, that does make a lot of sense.

The only other potential piece of this I can think of is what the SLDF might have secured from Rim Worlds Republic shipyards. We know they got two unfinished Amaris class battleships and put them into service. I'm not sure what else (if anything) the Rim Worlds Republic was actively building at that time that they may have also gotten a few hulls of that they were able to finish.

[Liam's Ghost]

The SLDF also had a vast VAST reserve fleet to draw on, the fate of which was ambiguously defined.

To be honest, I don't think the SLDF was actually that concerned with replenishing WarShip numbers. As the mentions of Camelot Command, the Ruins of Gabriel, and the Rim Worlds shipyards note, they were struggling to keep up with the fleet they had. And after the War ended, they were still getting rid of ships . They discarded the entire Potemkin fleet after the war with the intent on scrapping them, and only reactivated some of them for the Exodus. And without going back to confirm, I think the SLDF capital ship fleet dropped about two hundred ships between the end of the Coup and the exodus.

I figure if they came across ships with useful performance characteristics, they'd take them, but for the most part they were relying on what they had lasting to the end.

[Daryk]

It's almost like TPTB were cribbing notes from the USN after WWII... ;)

[RifleMech]

I don't think Kerensky was too worried about replacing warships. He had so many that the yards he had during the civil war, had a hard time maintaining them. Plus there were all those still in mothballs, some where.

I also don't think building warships was a problem for the Terran Hegemony until after the civil war. They were building Volga's at a rate of almost 4 a year. That's just one class of ship out of many. The other Houses were more constrained as they didn't have the finances the Hegemony had but even the Periphery could build ships. It was the loss of infrastructure during the SL Civil War and Succession Wars that doomed Warships. Comstar, probably could have built new ones. They had to tech and money, to do so but chose not to. 

[Intermittent_Coherence]

Thanks all, that does make a lot of sense.

The only other potential piece of this I can think of is what the SLDF might have secured from Rim Worlds Republic shipyards. We know they got two unfinished Amaris class battleships and put them into service. I'm not sure what else (if anything) the Rim Worlds Republic was actively building at that time that they may have also gotten a few hulls of that they were able to finish.

i don't think a lot of new ships, if any at all, were built during the civil war itself. Even in the yards they seized in the RWR, I don't think there were a lot bigger than Pintos. Amaris had pretty much suborned the TH's industry by this point. If he needed new ships, he'd have it built there where institutional expertise was greater. The Amaris-class was more of a vanity project, which I think is why he contracted it to RWR shipyards. For anything intended to form a line of battle with, he'd have deferred to TH yards.

Not that I think he actually had TH yards build him a shiny new fleet. He didn't need it because he had the M-5 Caspar fleet to bleed the SLN on worlds he wanted to contest. The fleet he used to contest his newly seized territories were either stolen from active SLN rolls via mutiny, or secretly redirected from mothball and scrap yards. This may explain classes of ships that were supposedly scrapped to the last hull suddenly reappearing in the Exodus fleet or the Ruins of Gabriel.

[Wrangler]

It's almost like TPTB were cribbing notes from the USN after WWII... ;)

In the way they did, especially with the 3057 book. I personally was a Jane's Fighting Ships junkie when I was growing up cuz I love naval stuff. And frankly I noticed the change pre-1975 because instead of the nation's were all over the place. Just like in that 3057, frigates were big, destroyers were smaller.  That was literally United States Navy before 1975 when they changed everything to make it more uniform.

[Hellraiser]

As noted, a few captured RWR ships & a few "donations" from the houses is all the "new" ships he was likely all he got.

Maintaining that fleet after loosing the TH was going to be a massive chore.

This isn't just Titan we are talking about here, there were multiple shipyards in the Terra system.
Toss in New Earth,  Keid,  Graham, &,  Carver,  to name a few off the top of my head,  and that is a LOT of shipyards for maintenance.

Honestly, the only place I can think of where "new" warships might have come about in that era is maybe after Terra was recaptured, a new Texas or Black Lion class might have come on line and the only reason I mention that is there have always been some issues with the #s that "survived" the war & the total #s in service with the clans.  So that could be a tiny amount of new production in the years he was attempting to save the SL politically.

[Wrangler]

I'm honestly not holding my breath in getting new warships designs.  TPTB still are having issues balancing it and sorting out game rules.  Alpha strike system had potential of  sort things, but it didn't happen. (sigh)

Only new designs (not variant...) was the Republic's "flawed" Warspite.  Unknown classification, which promptly blew up as engaged in combat.  Also the canon rumored Leviathan III Heavy Battleship/Transport.

[RifleMech]

Unless the yards were destroyed, I don't think warship construction stopped in the TH while under Amaris. It was just slowed to a crawl do to sabotage. He probably only gained the ones that were about complete. Same with Kerensky in the RWR.

I'm honestly not holding my breath in getting new warships designs.  TPTB still are having issues balancing it and sorting out game rules.  Alpha strike system had potential of  sort things, but it didn't happen. (sigh)

Only new designs (not variant...) was the Republic's "flawed" Warspite.  Unknown classification, which promptly blew up as engaged in combat.  Also the canon rumored Leviathan III Heavy Battleship/Transport.

I think their biggest concern is ortillery. BT is mostly about ground combat and a space going warship provides a lot of aircover that can't be shot down by most ground units. To deal with warships, you need other aerospace forces preferable warships. That would turn BT into into a naval game. They also can't do away with ortillery as it's such a big part of BT's history. So they made warships be all but extinct and irreplaceable. I'm not sure that's the best thing but I can understand it.

[Wrangler]

Unless the yards were destroyed, I don't think warship construction stopped in the TH while under Amaris. It was just slowed to a crawl do to sabotage. He probably only gained the ones that were about complete. Same with Kerensky in the RWR.

I think their biggest concern is ortillery. BT is mostly about ground combat and a space going warship provides a lot of aircover that can't be shot down by most ground units. To deal with warships, you need other aerospace forces preferable warships. That would turn BT into into a naval game. They also can't do away with ortillery as it's such a big part of BT's history. So they made warships be all but extinct and irreplaceable. I'm not sure that's the best thing but I can understand it.

To me, to counter that you use a Warship, Thus the purpose of having them.   It gives us naval players a chance to play, dropships aren't warships.  There plenty room in the universe for both.  Folks being paranoid about Warships ruining the game is trouble some.

[idea weenie]

To me, to counter that you use a Warship, Thus the purpose of having them.   It gives us naval players a chance to play, dropships aren't warships.  There plenty room in the universe for both.  Folks being paranoid about Warships ruining the game is trouble some.

I could see it where the planet has enough ASF to engage a Warship if it is slowing down and carefully hovering to perform ortillery, but not enough ASF if the Warship is free to maneuver.

Of course the key problem is that currently you only need ~1% of a Warship's mass in ASF to kill a 'balanced' Warship, and that is without needing critical hits.

[Alan Grant]

We've drifted rather far off topic. Nobody was even really suggesting new classes. Not sure how we got onto that specifically. Just production of new hulls (aka replenishment).

Or whether or not warships have a place in Battletech. The era focus of the question was back on a time period in BT history where warships were actually quite numerous and prevalent. Arguably the high day of warships in BT history.

That's what we're talking about. Not the 3050s or 3150. Not about whether or not warships have a place. They definitely had a place during the Amaris Civil War and that's the era being discussed.

All that being said, does anyone have canon sources on what exactly the RWR shipyards were already capable of producing in this era? Besides the Amaris Battleship. I get the vibe that they were building some other stuff but I'm not sure what of their fleet is RWR new construction and what is hand-me-downs from other sources.

[eaglenine2]

So how fast can a Warship be made since with the resources that SLDF have with its hidden shipyards, captured RWR shipyards along with Newgranges?

[Intermittent_Coherence]

All that being said, does anyone have canon sources on what exactly the RWR shipyards were already capable of producing in this era? Besides the Amaris Battleship. I get the vibe that they were building some other stuff but I'm not sure what of their fleet is RWR new construction and what is hand-me-downs from other sources.

Pintos? Maybe a couple of others they could have licensed from the IS Houses?

I got the sense that production of the mainline Star League warship classes were tightly controlled and done only within the TH.

[Alan Grant]

So how fast can a Warship be made since with the resources that SLDF have with its hidden shipyards, captured RWR shipyards along with Newgranges?

I'm not even sure how long it would have taken the SLDF to build a warship from the word "go" to the ship being ready for shakedown cruises. In normal times before the Amaris Coup. Without knowing that it's hard to even speculate on how long it would take under these specific conditions.

I would definitely imagine they'd be slower at any rate. And as others have said, it might not have been much of a priority. But I still wouldn't be surprised if the SLDF hadn't finished a few more already-started hulls than just the Amaris Battleships we know about.

We know now that the SLDF had plenty of warships to get them through the whole war. That's with the benefit of hindsight. They didn't have that knowledge going into it though. And especially before they developed NIKE and had any means of countering the SDS systems, the general consensus among the SLDF was that each conquest of a system with an SDS was going to be a bloody slugfest in which they lost a lot of ships. I wouldn't be surprised if before the development of NIKE, but after the first major engagements with SDS systems, they had some ugly estimates that suggested they might need more warships than what they had.

They were even experimenting with bringing in captured RWR ships to try and confuse the SDS.

All I'm trying to say is I could see them trying to get a few hulls out of the RWR. Whether for rear-security, to free up more, better SLDF warships for front-line duty, or for assignment to mimic RWR ships to try and confuse SDS systems. At least before NIKE was developed. So that's why I'm curious about what could have possibly been built. I agree it was probably almost entirely smaller and older ship classes. But they had quite a few Lola Is and Rigas in the RWR fleet. Ships like that are nothing to sneeze at if the RWR shipyards were capable of building a few.

[Liam's Ghost]

The build time for a Monsoon and a Texas are mentioned in TRO 2750. Apparently it took eighteen months for a fully stocked Hegemony shipyard to build a Texas, but only nine months to build a Monsoon.

Without those facilities its harder to say, but it's going to depend on access to materials and other industries. The Yardship is only really useful for assembling the components. The components themselves would have to be manufactured elsewhere and shipped to the site if they aren't already in storage.

If you want hard rules on how long it might take though, assuming you have all the parts, you may be able to figure out something "reasonable" using the customization rules in Campaign ops. After all, is building an all new ship in a yardship really all that different from EXTREME CUSTOMIZATION!! :)

[Hellraiser]

So they made warships be all but extinct and irreplaceable.

I agree, & hate it.  They freaking killed them off for most factions.
Oh sure, a few Clans pack a few cruisers at this point but does the FedSuns have even a single Fox left?  If that?
I'm all for not going back to the full on SLDF era 2000 warships where every invasion has a full fleet of escorts feel if they wanted to.
But bombing the IS back to Succession Wars levels of Warships isn't the answer.
There was nothing wrong with the late 50's and seeing each house build up a fleet again in small #s.
The FCCW & Jihad didn't need to wipe out 4/5 Warships,  grr, so annoying.

[Hellraiser]

All that being said, does anyone have canon sources on what exactly the RWR shipyards were already capable of producing in this era? Besides the Amaris Battleship. I get the vibe that they were building some other stuff but I'm not sure what of their fleet is RWR new construction and what is hand-me-downs from other sources.

Pintos? Maybe a couple of others they could have licensed from the IS Houses?

I got the sense that production of the mainline Star League warship classes were tightly controlled and done only within the TH.

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Stefan_Amaris_(WarShip_class)
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Pinto_(WarShip_class)

Those are all that I can find as well, but for some reason I have this odd sensation that they were also making some old SLDF Destroyers, like Naga or Lola-1 but I can't find any reference to it, just back of my skull itch that I read it sometime in the past.

Maybe a reference from Field Report 2765: Periphery if you have that?

[Cannonshop]

I agree, & hate it.  They freaking killed them off for most factions.
Oh sure, a few Clans pack a few cruisers at this point but does the FedSuns have even a single Fox left?  If that?
I'm all for not going back to the full on SLDF era 2000 warships where every invasion has a full fleet of escorts feel if they wanted to.
But bombing the IS back to Succession Wars levels of Warships isn't the answer.
There was nothing wrong with the late 50's and seeing each house build up a fleet again in small #s.
The FCCW & Jihad didn't need to wipe out 4/5 Warships,  grr, so annoying.

you're shouting at the wind here, the FCCW's impact on them was a lot more comprehensive than just the ships-the writers destroyed all the yards and then wrote them not being replaced-something that would be catastrophic stupidity given these aren't continental landmasses where you can walk your army down roads to get to the border.

Basically fasanomics once again; the actual economics of what is laid out (relative difficulty of interstellar travel, the actual travel times in-system when you don't have inertial dampening or gravity control) and the structure of the factions shouldn't allow ANY faction without a vigorous shipbuilding industry to actually exist as a faction.

Especially after Gray Monday, when you not only have the trade bottleneck, but a basic bottleneck on every form of communication that would allow any faction (including multiworld periphery factions) to actually administrate and exist at all-never mind being able to 'stage an invasion or incursion'.

From my perspective, the writers became mono-focused on Orbital Bombardment and forgot what it is a Navy actually does, and how vital something like that is, when you aren't a landlocked continental power.

[RifleMech]

To me, to counter that you use a Warship, Thus the purpose of having them.   It gives us naval players a chance to play, dropships aren't warships.  There plenty room in the universe for both.  Folks being paranoid about Warships ruining the game is trouble some.

Which is where the concern comes from. If everyone is using Warships, they're not using BattleMechs. I do think there's room for both but balancing that is tricky because "I kills it with my battleship!"

I agree, & hate it.  They freaking killed them off for most factions.
Oh sure, a few Clans pack a few cruisers at this point but does the FedSuns have even a single Fox left?  If that?
I'm all for not going back to the full on SLDF era 2000 warships where every invasion has a full fleet of escorts feel if they wanted to.
But bombing the IS back to Succession Wars levels of Warships isn't the answer.
There was nothing wrong with the late 50's and seeing each house build up a fleet again in small #s.
The FCCW & Jihad didn't need to wipe out 4/5 Warships,  grr, so annoying.

Yeah. There's a lot of things that happened I didn't like. Killing Warships is one of them. I don't think we need huge fleets either but some warships would be nice. We still have the, "I kills it with my Warship!" problem. We can't get rid of ortillery completely but maybe it could be limited to specific ship sizes? If we need a Battleship to conduct ortillery the presence of Destroyers doesn't effect a ground game.

[RifleMech]

We've drifted rather far off topic. Nobody was even really suggesting new classes. Not sure how we got onto that specifically. Just production of new hulls (aka replenishment).

Or whether or not warships have a place in Battletech. The era focus of the question was back on a time period in BT history where warships were actually quite numerous and prevalent. Arguably the high day of warships in BT history.

That's what we're talking about. Not the 3050s or 3150. Not about whether or not warships have a place. They definitely had a place during the Amaris Civil War and that's the era being discussed.

All that being said, does anyone have canon sources on what exactly the RWR shipyards were already capable of producing in this era? Besides the Amaris Battleship. I get the vibe that they were building some other stuff but I'm not sure what of their fleet is RWR new construction and what is hand-me-downs from other sources.

Other than what was already in production, I don't think Kerensky, or Amaris, gained new warships outside of pulling ships out of mothballs. The yards would have been too busy repairing and maintaining existing ships to build brand new ones. In fact, I imagine a few ships that weren't too far along in their construction were scrapped just to gain yard space.

From my perspective, the writers became mono-focused on Orbital Bombardment and forgot what it is a Navy actually does, and how vital something like that is, when you aren't a landlocked continental power.

That's the feeling I get.

[Alan Grant]

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Stefan_Amaris_(WarShip_class)
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Pinto_(WarShip_class)

Those are all that I can find as well, but for some reason I have this odd sensation that they were also making some old SLDF Destroyers, like Naga or Lola-1 but I can't find any reference to it, just back of my skull itch that I read it sometime in the past.

Maybe a reference from Field Report 2765: Periphery if you have that?

Field Report 2765: Periphery calls out Finmark, home of their Finmark Air and Space Academy, as a place where Roe Weapon Systems drydock facilities serve as the primary factories and service stations for the Bonaventure and Pinto class warships.

I'm not at all convinced that's everything (the Amaris-class isn't mentioned at all here) but maybe that does speak to what they were doing in significant numbers. The fluff on the Amaris-class itself notes that Amaris himself had the RWR refocused on the navy and added more warships, some purchased from the Star League mothballs due to his relationships with Richard Cameron. Others were copies of existing ships, with almost all of them being less efficient and more problematic than their Star League manufactured cousins.

But it sounds like Bonaventure and Pinto for sure. Which I find somewhat underwhelming.

[Hellraiser]

From my perspective, the writers became mono-focused on Orbital Bombardment and forgot what it is a Navy actually does, and how vital something like that is, when you aren't a landlocked continental power.

I honestly don't know how anyone moves around on an national level anymore.
The LyrCom went from producing 2 WS & 4? JS Classes down to a Merchant yard.  1 JS, w/ 2 Collars, for an entire nation.
Its like they wanted to make all future stories less 4th SW/Warrior trilogy & more GDL Trilogy in scale.

And while I loved the GDL books, I see no reason not to have both.
I don't need to choose Pizza OR Steak for the whole week, it can be a different meal each night of the week.

[Intermittent_Coherence]

Field Report 2765: Periphery calls out Finmark, home of their Finmark Air and Space Academy, as a place where Roe Weapon Systems drydock facilities serve as the primary factories and service stations for the Bonaventure and Pinto class warships.

I'm not at all convinced that's everything (the Amaris-class isn't mentioned at all here) but maybe that does speak to what they were doing in significant numbers. The fluff on the Amaris-class itself notes that Amaris himself had the RWR refocused on the navy and added more warships, some purchased from the Star League mothballs due to his relationships with Richard Cameron. Others were copies of existing ships, with almost all of them being less efficient and more problematic than their Star League manufactured cousins.

But it sounds like Bonaventure and Pinto for sure. Which I find somewhat underwhelming.

It's not even 100% on building Bonaventures from the ground up.
Still, these would have to be built under license, and the Star League is notoriously stingy on their latest and greatest designs, so a light obsolete design being licensed out makes sense. Even the Capellans stealing the plans for the old Essex 1 was considered scandalous.

[Cannonshop]

I honestly don't know how anyone moves around on an national level anymore.
The LyrCom went from producing 2 WS & 4? JS Classes down to a Merchant yard.  1 JS, w/ 2 Collars, for an entire nation.
Its like they wanted to make all future stories less 4th SW/Warrior trilogy & more GDL Trilogy in scale.

And while I loved the GDL books, I see no reason not to have both.
I don't need to choose Pizza OR Steak for the whole week, it can be a different meal each night of the week.

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