Battle of the Fleets

In the "discussion" ("flames" is starting to be a better word) of fleet
sizes, bear in mind that you are talking about two different sets of
numbers.  TCS has budgets based on population and governments, and this
figure covers _everything_.  The fleet sizes in Rebellion Sourcebook and
elsewhere are _not_ everything.

The figures in Rebellion Sourcebook only include cruisers, carriers,
battleships and some escorts; they omit entire squadrons like AssaultRons
(which I think explains a good point that someone made about how all the
invasion forces could be carried by the number given for ships available
to Dulinor).  I would imagine that the figure would certainly only be
operational ships, and so would exclude ships in mothballs or "ordinary".

The figures in Rebellion Sourcebook are internally inconsistent anyway.
Even if you interpret the 1000 ships figure as being each for numbered
and numbered reserve fleets, it still seems small; 16 minimum size
numbered fleets of 50 ships is 800 ships, which leaves little leeway.  If
you don't believe that the 1000 ships is each for numbered and numbered
reserve fleets, it is even further out.

To further explain the apparent inconsistency, there is the maintenance
overhead aspect of the TCS rules (10% for operational ships and 1% for
ships in ordinary).  Both the economics of shipbuilding and published
sources surely show that there would be many ships in ordinary.  I have
not seen this taken into account in some of the discussions.
(Incidentally, does anyone know why these are so high? Operational
civilian ships only need 0.1%).

Anyway, if you take Glisten as an example, it has an annual military
budget of about TCr4.  Even if it had the biggest yards in the galaxy, it
could still only build TCr40 worth of operational ships, as maintenance
of these would soak up the entire military budget.  In Fighting Ships of
the Shattered Imperium (which I know is not the best source of designs in
the world, but it is official), TCr40 doesn't buy all that many _big_
ships; Battleships and Dreadnoughts are commonly TCr1 or more.

Even when you add in the taxation income from the rest of the subsector,
the figures do not grow by orders of magnitude (particularly if you
reduce the value of the money by starport/TL), since Glisten dominates
virtually every other world in the subsector.

Anyway, it looks to me that GDW have always been deliberately vague about
definitions of numbers, to avoid apparent contradictions like this.  So
you are all free to some extent to interpret the numbers how you like.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Grant Sinclair               The difference between a politician and a
[email removed]              snail is the snail leaves its slime behind
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------