Gentlesophonts:
(Trying to post this a second time)
Cynthia Higginbotham [email removed] writes:
> I cannot believe that the Sword Worlds
> has only 42 total battleships, cruisers, carriers and escorts.
Hey, I was only using the best rationale I could come up with. Once y'all
get the *TCS* data maybe you can then address what appears to be a
discrepancy between that and the *RS* `1000 ships per sector'.
> Remember, the Confederation has been in the habit of taking on the
> Imperium; I suspect they run a much larger navy in proportion to their
> population than the Imperium does. Compared to the Navies of
> independent single worlds, the Imperium has an incredibly low (factor
> of 100 or more) naval strength in proportion to its population (based
> on my experience playing TCS).
This is a good point but it really boils down to whether the Sword
Worlds are more like the independent worlds of *TCS* or like the
Imperium doesn't it?
I guess what I'd rather have seen than just comments that this doesn't
make sense to you was some suggested alternative. I'm not very `attached'
to what I've developed for the Sword Worlds naval forces but a response
that basically just says "Un uh" isn't very interesting *or* useful.
The *RS* says that Imperial naval fleets, which are responsible for a
single subsector, consist of "50-200 ships". It goes on to explain that
these are battles, cruisers, carriers and some escorts. Given this I
don't see it as completely unreasonable that the Sword Worlds, drawing
from fewer than a complete subsector's worth of worlds, are only able to
raise 42 ships. Yes, they may be more militarized (due to their culture
and their Imperial experience) but they are also a frontier that is
more thinly populated than the `average' Imperial subsector. Sure,
they might have twice or three times that many ships so rather than just
saying the answer *isn't* 42 :-) please suggest some alternative and
provide a rationale.
> I would be hard put to imagine that a world with Regina's yard
> capacity and budget was restricted to 10 overgrown fighters, or that
> 10 oversized fighters would pose a serious threat to an invading
> fleet.
It may be hard to imagine but it's consist with canonical material. I
believe there was some stuff in *JTAS* that referred specifically to the
Regina SDBs as being the 400-ton variety (something in TNS about them
"vectoring toward Assiniboia"?). It's clear from *5FW* that SDBs depend
upon world population (although I couldn't find a clear pattern and I
played with the values from *5FW* and *S3:SM* for quite a while). I feel
Imperial military doctrine doesn't call for SDBs to be a significant
factor in a major war - that's the role of the Navy. SDBs are more for
dealing with raiders and pirates.
Kevin(?) McCarthy [email removed] writes:
> If want some basic info and/or help I have a good knowledge of US Army TOE
> and
> some relivent background, 4 years in the 82nd Airborne Div and 8 in the
> Special
> Forces.
Please, give us a sample.
I'd like to point out though that there are two levels of Regency military
development needed here. One is at the level of the battlefield, which
concerns unit organization, equipment, and the like - tactical issues;
and the other is at the subsector or sector level - resources to support
forces, deployment, command structures - strategic issues. It seems there
ought to be a great deal of variety at the tactical level (forces to assault
a TL 15 military facility from orbit vs. `peacekeeping' forces on a TL 8
balkanized world) but that there ought to be some coherent structure at
the strategic level (subsector HQs, troop levels, logistical structures, etc.)
Peace,
David Johnson
Houston, Texas, USA