OBT Forum

Well I still say there is a Terran Battlecruiser class missing that contained the original Black Lion. Sorry to tack on.

Anyway it says in the Historical RW that the number of warships each state had was limited due to the tremendous amount of courier jumpships needed to maintain communication networks.

Also the SLSB and my FM Terran Republic both tell of the rapid deployment of BattleMechs in the HAF. Production was increased at the cost of all else including warship development and maintenance. Perhaps existing Terran warships were mothballed at this time to prevent their further degradation.

So you probably have to many Rigas and could safely reduce Terran numbers for those reasons. Activating them at a later date much as the Star League did.

The THS Kiev was also referred to as a Battlecruiser that Theodore Cameron commanded the strike on Oriente in the 2470s. Assuming its the same class as the Black Lion (which I did with our Hegemony in FM TR 2785) that is at least two and I doubt you get rid of an entire niche like Battlecruisers especially since they are known command vessels.

Here is that relevant quote on neglecting warships in favor of Mechs.

In 2461 a Draconis Elite Strike Team (DEST) performed the same feat against the Lyran facility on Coventry. Jacob accelerated ‘Mech production after learning that the Dragon now possessed the plans to construct their own machines. The Director put so much emphasis on building new BattleMechs that he risked damaged to the Terran economy. Even warship maintenance was sacrificed for an entire year in an effort to stay ahead of other InnerSphere militaries now fielding the ‘Mech.

Not a lot sounds right about the whole Historical RW to me but hey. Perhaps the Star League made the decision to favor ground forces over space thinking they had larger more capable ships they focused on controlling the ground by manufacturing overwhelming numbers of Mechs.

General Assumptions:
Just because ~255 ships were "transferred to SLN control" does not mean ~255 ships were put into service in the next 4 years.  With this as my basic assumption, I've not constrained myself to 252, and based on TRO 3057 Revised, I struggled to keep it under 400.  I did settle upon 385 (including transports).  I justify this with comments, below, but also on the fact that the writers of H:RW clearly didn't do their math or check their sources when they had the AFFS field more than 3 Davion I destroyers in 2577.  And that's just one example of where they went wrong, and not nearly as entertaining as some of the errors in Handbook: House Liao.

Ships:

Vincent: 36 
Sure, 530 would eventually be built, and it'd been in production for 100 years, but as the ships are worthless for anything but picket duty or convoy escort, the HAF has no need for large numbers; plus there will be 39 versions in 300 years of production, so despite H:RW calling them Mk 39s, RW-era Vincents are probably more like Mk 10s or 15s.  Worse for the numbers of the Vincent, the HAF is specifically said to use Frigates for picket duty, rather than corvettes (probably due to the poor performance of the early Corvette designs).  I could see actually see the HAF passing on this design entirely, with all Vincents in the original SLN fleet coming from the Great Houses, except that the Vincent profile does claim they replaced the Nightwing, Tracker, and et cetera crappy (or rather, crappier) corvettes.  There's plenty of time to build more when the SLN is responsible for internal security of the entire Inner Sphere later.

However, these unsophisticated ships would be prime contenders for something the HAF would be likely to export to other nations, so the SLN may have ended up with castoffs from other nations to boost the actual percentage of Vincents in the SLN. 

Essex: 24
There's so little known about this class that I feel justified in limiting its numbers. 

Baron: 48
"Over half" of the (surviving) examples of this class will be donated to the Great Houses in 2582, alongside the rebuilt Aegis cruisers.  But this didn't stop H:RW from deploying both Baron and Aegis class ships in the AFFS in 2577 for Case Amber...oops.

Lola I: 16
It's a heavy destroyer, seeming more along the lines of a flotilla leader than anything else, so it wouldn't need production levels on line with other destroyers.  I'd actually call it a light cruiser, myself.  But either way, it's clearly not replacing another ship class, just augmenting the fleet as a whole.

Avatar: 80
If there were 106 Aegis cruisers to retire, there were probably more like 120 built.  I'd rather build 120 of these for 1-to-1 replacement, but 2-for-3 will have to do because of the silliness of H:RW

Riga: 60
18 months to build, in production continuously for 102 years per TRO 3057, that gives us 68.  Assume 8 were lost in the Age of War.

Congress: 20
It's just entering production, and if it takes as long to build a Congress as it did a Riga (18 months per), only 20-25 would be in service with the SLN at the time of the RW. 

Quixote: 25
250 built, and 3057R says they were replaced by the Congress rather than the Riga.  10% still in service seems minimum, given the numbers of the Riga and how few Congress are in service; 60% is likely more realistic, but see comment to Avatar-class.

Monsoon: 48
"Only" ten were modified with LF batteries later, which suggests that it was a fraction of what the HAF/SLN had.  Let's call that fraction 25%, and assume some Monsoons were lost in the RW and Hidden Wars.

Farragut: 8
Not only are they said to replace the Dreadnought class (of 4 ships), but the Texas which followed them had a similarly small production rate.  There were 52 Texas-class and 280 McKennas, so I'm assuming a similar proportion between Farragut/Monsoon.

Carrack: 20
These are specifically mentioned as having been a HAF design, so it stands to reason some should be around.  The Star League probably manufactured more, but 20-ish would do a good job of moving military cargo without the need to rely upon civilian shipping.

This would break the structure of the Hegemony Navy down as follows:
Corvettes: 36
Destroyers: 88
Cruisers: 80
Frigates: 110
Battleships: 56
Transports: 20

Plus whatever they got from the Great Houses which was actually useable, which may or may not include the Davion Is, depending on how one interprets the profiles of the Whirlwind and Davion I.

Re: Battlecruiser designs, I do notice that the Quixote-class were supposed to be Battlecruisers. 

General Assumptions:
Just because ~255 ships were "transferred to SLN control" does not mean ~255 ships were put into service in the next 4 years.  With this as my basic assumption, I've not constrained myself to 252, and based on TRO 3057 Revised, I struggled to keep it under 400.

I'd just as soon ignore the whole - everyone transferred huge numbers of warships to the SLDF, but they made the decision they did when they wrote the book.

Vincent: 36 
Sure, 530 would eventually be built, and it'd been in production for 100 years, but as the ships are worthless for anything but picket duty or convoy escort, the HAF has no need for large numbers; plus there will be 39 versions in 300 years of production, so despite H:RW calling them Mk 39s, RW-era Vincents are probably more like Mk 10s or 15s.  Worse for the numbers of the Vincent, the HAF is specifically said to use Frigates for picket duty, rather than corvettes (probably due to the poor performance of the early Corvette designs).  I could see actually see the HAF passing on this design entirely, with all Vincents in the original SLN fleet coming from the Great Houses, except that the Vincent profile does claim they replaced the Nightwing, Tracker, and et cetera crappy (or rather, crappier) corvettes.  There's plenty of time to build more when the SLN is responsible for internal security of the entire Inner Sphere later.

I agree the Vincent is pretty useless but the HAF originally acquired it as a patrol ship for their borders- that is why I went with a large number- 36 feels low to me. I do agree that the ones that fought in the RW were not Mk 39s- maybe Mk 15s.  It's unfortunate that rather then refer to the ships simply as Vincents, the writers specifically decided to call it a Mk 39. 

However, these unsophisticated ships would be prime contenders for something the HAF would be likely to export to other nations, so the SLN may have ended up with castoffs from other nations to boost the actual percentage of Vincents in the SLN. 

That actually makes a lot of sense. 

Essex: 24
There's so little known about this class that I feel justified in limiting its numbers. 

Baron: 48
"Over half" of the (surviving) examples of this class will be donated to the Great Houses in 2582, alongside the rebuilt Aegis cruisers.  But this didn't stop H:RW from deploying both Baron and Aegis class ships in the AFFS in 2577 for Case Amber...oops.


Lola I: 16
It's a heavy destroyer, seeming more along the lines of a flotilla leader than anything else, so it wouldn't need production levels on line with other destroyers.  I'd actually call it a light cruiser, myself.  But either way, it's clearly not replacing another ship class, just augmenting the fleet as a whole.

Unfortunately the only Destroyer numbers we have are from the SL era when they built lots of destroyers (480 Lola IIIs, 300 Essex, 400 Carsons planned- production reduced because it sucked).  I view destroyers as the workhorse of the fleet, providing escort for the bigger ships, convoy escorts, fighter protection- so I always expect a lot of destroyers, but I can see in BT the numbers being lower since the class of ship has little to nothing to do with its role.

Avatar: 80
If there were 106 Aegis cruisers to retire, there were probably more like 120 built.  I'd rather build 120 of these for 1-to-1 replacement, but 2-for-3 will have to do because of the silliness of H:RW

While I agree with you are saying about the Aegis Battlespace says there were 106 built and that 106 were mothballed.  Its really stupid but it's what we have.  As for the Avatar the argument could be made that it is still in production at this point (it's only been about 40 years and in BT ships stay in production for a century or more).  On the other hand why would you retire all of the Aegis before you had replacements for them....

Riga: 60
18 months to build, in production continuously for 102 years per TRO 3057, that gives us 68.  Assume 8 were lost in the Age of War.

Congress: 20
It's just entering production, and if it takes as long to build a Congress as it did a Riga (18 months per), only 20-25 would be in service with the SLN at the time of the RW. 

On the Riga you are assuming they had only 1 building way.  Based on the numbers for the Quixote and the forthcoming Congress I would argue that the HAF & SLDF like lots of frigates for some reason.  As for the Congress I agree with what you have- which is why I originally suggested 25 ships.

Quixote: 25
250 built, and 3057R says they were replaced by the Congress rather than the Riga.  10% still in service seems minimum, given the numbers of the Riga and how few Congress are in service; 60% is likely more realistic, but see comment to Avatar-class.

Yeah I know

Monsoon: 48
"Only" ten were modified with LF batteries later, which suggests that it was a fraction of what the HAF/SLN had.  Let's call that fraction 25%, and assume some Monsoons were lost in the RW and Hidden Wars.

Farragut: 8
Not only are they said to replace the Dreadnought class (of 4 ships), but the Texas which followed them had a similarly small production rate.  There were 52 Texas-class and 280 McKennas, so I'm assuming a similar proportion between Farragut/Monsoon.

I agree with you on the Monsoon- I was a bit conservative on my numbers there.  As for the Farragut- there I think you are low- in the SLSB it says that in 2314 when James McKenna took over he had the Dreadnaught & 6 sister ships along with 20 lesser vessels (Darts? we don't know of anything else in production at the time)  That is where they came up with there only being 7 Dreadnaughts - the problem is that in the SLSB there is nothing to indicate that production of the Dreadnaught ended in 2314- just that they had only built 7 ships by then- a reasonable ship every 2 years.  I see what you are saying about the Farragut but I think 8 is way too low- I would go at least 15.

Carrack: 20
These are specifically mentioned as having been a HAF design, so it stands to reason some should be around.  The Star League probably manufactured more, but 20-ish would do a good job of moving military cargo without the need to rely upon civilian shipping.

I forgot the Carrack is HAF design.  But like the Nightwing, Tracker & Bug Eye I would not count these against the warship numbers. 

I do like the idea that the SLDF simply scrapped a lot of the ships they received but I don't know if I can sell it.  That would help a lot with the warship numbers though.


As an aside have you noticed how many warships the SLDF lost during the RW- They had 507 warships in 2575 and only 434 in 2600 for a loss of 73.  But then think they added 70 Aegis from mothballs to their roster in 2582, 3 dreadnaughts from reserves, a dozen Kimagures starting in 2582, probably some Vincents and Congress, possibly some Avatars. And those are just the ships we know about.  So when you factor in the ships that were returned from mothballs and any new production the SLDF lost 158 ships minimum and maybe upwards of 200.  Even if you take off 25 Barons that is still an impressive 133 ships. 

Re: Destroyer numbers

Yes, they often are the "workhorse of the fleet" but a curious thing about the lighter warships throughout history; navies repeatedly assume they can improvise & jury-rig something to fill their role in time of war, and therefore use what money they do have for building new warships to fund the bigger ships.  This happened to the USN and British Royal Navy leading up to both world wars, and frankly can be seen as far back as the 18th century with large warships being the only craft built between wars, and smaller frigates, sloops, and corvettes improvised when war erupts. 

As the Hegemony was so compact, the HAF has a much reduced need for destroyers on patrol compared to the SLN, which would need those hundreds of destroyers (and even crappy Vinnies) just to maintain a presence everywhere possible.  This is the same problem the Roman Empire ran into when it started annexing territories it had previously been allied with, as it became responsible for policing all the frontiers (which had not been the case in the era of the Republic or early Empire). 

Re: SLN ship numbers

I'm not saying the SLN had more than 507 ships in service in 2575; I'm just saying that they could easily have received the ~255 warships from the Great Houses and just mothballed them for the moment (especially the old & obsolete ships received from Liao).  The SLN can still start the war with 507 ships, but a larger percentage of them would be former HAF.  But ignoring a lot of things in H:RW seems the way to go.  And when I run a game, that's exactly what I intend to do.  The sourcebooks exist to provide ideas, not to constrain players.

While I agree with you are saying about the Aegis Battlespace says there were 106 built and that 106 were mothballed.  Its really stupid but it's what we have.  As for the Avatar the argument could be made that it is still in production at this point (it's only been about 40 years and in BT ships stay in production for a century or more).  On the other hand why would you retire all of the Aegis before you had replacements for them...

Actually, what Battlespace says is that 106 were built, and 70 were modernized for the SLDF.  No mention is made of ones going to the Great Houses in the RW, or even how many survived to be mothballed.  But Battlespace is also now, what, two editions out of date?  AT2 revised WarShip construction and produced TRO 3057, while StratOps has once again rewritten WarShip construction.  I'd say that Battlespace no longer need be taken as Holy Writ. 

On the Riga you are assuming they had only 1 building way.  Based on the numbers for the Quixote and the forthcoming Congress I would argue that the HAF & SLDF like lots of frigates for some reason.  As for the Congress I agree with what you have- which is why I originally suggested 25 ships.

If I didn't assume only one construction yard, we'd be multiplying our Rigas, because TRO 3057 says Rigas were "Produced until 2542" rather than "in service until 2542" and because I didn't want there to be too many frigates floating around, what with those 250 Quixotes. 

I agree with you on the Monsoon- I was a bit conservative on my numbers there.  As for the Farragut- there I think you are low- in the SLSB it says that in 2314 when James McKenna took over he had the Dreadnaught & 6 sister ships along with 20 lesser vessels (Darts? we don't know of anything else in production at the time)  That is where they came up with there only being 7 Dreadnaughts - the problem is that in the SLSB there is nothing to indicate that production of the Dreadnaught ended in 2314- just that they had only built 7 ships by then- a reasonable ship every 2 years.  I see what you are saying about the Farragut but I think 8 is way too low- I would go at least 15.

Yes, there were 7 Dreadnoughts rather than the 4 I was remembering, but the whole reason I went low on the number of Farraguts was to keep the HAF and SLN from being overrun with battleships.  Even though, under AT2 rules, the Farragut is about a billion C-bills cheaper than the Monsoon, despite claims of "high cost."

As an aside have you noticed how many warships the SLDF lost during the RW- They had 507 warships in 2575 and only 434 in 2600 for a loss of 73.  But then think they added 70 Aegis from mothballs to their roster in 2582, 3 dreadnaughts from reserves, a dozen Kimagures starting in 2582, probably some Vincents and Congress, possibly some Avatars. And those are just the ships we know about.  So when you factor in the ships that were returned from mothballs and any new production the SLDF lost 158 ships minimum and maybe upwards of 200.  Even if you take off 25 Barons that is still an impressive 133 ships.

They probably lost even more, since the SLDF also leased 22 Davion Is from the FedSuns.  Why didn't they keep building more ships while the war was going on?  Because, as has been true of the RW as far back as Battlespace, the naval portion of the war ended in 2587, and since the fighting lasted roughly another decade, but only on the ground, the SLDF clearly thought it was more important to fund the various ground wars than to rebuild lost warships at that point.  Notice the major post-war building efforts of ships like the Congress, Texas, Carson, Lola II, Naga, and Potemkin, and those are just in the 50 years immediately following the Reunification War.  Similar buildups would continue in the second half of the 27th century, particularly of large warships (presumably the destroyer designs were satisfactory and simply still being cranked out in their large numbers). 

Re: Destroyer numbers

Yes, they often are the "workhorse of the fleet" but a curious thing about the lighter warships throughout history; navies repeatedly assume they can improvise & jury-rig something to fill their role in time of war, and therefore use what money they do have for building new warships to fund the bigger ships.  This happened to the USN and British Royal Navy leading up to both world wars, and frankly can be seen as far back as the 18th century with large warships being the only craft built between wars, and smaller frigates, sloops, and corvettes improvised when war erupts. 

Yeah I know what you are saying - I just figure since there has been a fairly steady state of war the HAF would have more destroyers- then again given how pathetic the house navies are they don't really need them.

I'm not saying the SLN had more than 507 ships in service in 2575; I'm just saying that they could easily have received the ~255 warships from the Great Houses and just mothballed them for the moment (especially the old & obsolete ships received from Liao).  The SLN can still start the war with 507 ships, but a larger percentage of them would be former HAF.  But ignoring a lot of things in H:RW seems the way to go.  And when I run a game, that's exactly what I intend to do.  The sourcebooks exist to provide ideas, not to constrain players.

I'm starting to lean that way- maybe of the 250 ships they received only about 100 were put into service the rest were mothballed or scrapped.

Actually, what Battlespace says is that 106 were built, and 70 were modernized for the SLDF.  No mention is made of ones going to the Great Houses in the RW, or even how many survived to be mothballed.  But Battlespace is also now, what, two editions out of date?  AT2 revised WarShip construction and produced TRO 3057, while StratOps has once again rewritten WarShip construction.  I'd say that Battlespace no longer need be taken as Holy Writ. 

Actually the 30 ships going to the houses is in TR2750  (which is even older but as far as I know the fluff is still valid) and I thought TR3057R but I may be wrong about that.  What's interesting is that 6 ships are unaccounted for.

Yes, there were 7 Dreadnoughts rather than the 4 I was remembering, but the whole reason I went low on the number of Farraguts was to keep the HAF and SLN from being overrun with battleships.  Even though, under AT2 rules, the Farragut is about a billion C-bills cheaper than the Monsoon, despite claims of "high cost."

Somehow the HAF & SLN being over run with warships seems reasonable- I mean they did eventually build 280 McKennas....

I'm not saying the SLN had more than 507 ships in service in 2575; I'm just saying that they could easily have received the ~255 warships from the Great Houses and just mothballed them for the moment (especially the old & obsolete ships received from Liao).  The SLN can still start the war with 507 ships, but a larger percentage of them would be former HAF.  But ignoring a lot of things in H:RW seems the way to go.  And when I run a game, that's exactly what I intend to do.  The sourcebooks exist to provide ideas, not to constrain players.

Quote from: Irose

I'm starting to lean that way- maybe of the 250 ships they received only about 100 were put into service the rest were mothballed or scrapped.

Pretty much exactly what I was going with.  After all, a lot of those Great House ships should be crappy old Vigilants, and since House navies are being reduced to ~50 ships apiece, there's no reason for them to not pawn off all their old junk on the nascent SLN.  But the SLN is under no requirement to actually use this old crap.  Maybe the weapons were salvaged to save some production time and cost (HMS Vanguard, Britain's last battleship, was finished in 1946, but used turrets from HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious, built in 1915-1916, and placed in storage when those ships were converted to aircraft carriers in the mid 1920s).  But otherwise, a lot of what the SLN was given was doubtless crap, and not worth operating.

Actually the 30 ships going to the houses is in TR2750  (which is even older but as far as I know the fluff is still valid) and I thought TR3057R but I may be wrong about that.  What's interesting is that 6 ships are unaccounted for.

TRO 2750 also claims that the Vincent was produced "in the thousands" which is not supported by any other source I can find.  We could rationalize it as 530 Mk 39s were built, but that prior versions wore out quickly for one reason or another, much like the DroST.  The entire contingent of Vincents would thus be replaced on a 20-30 year cycle, which also gives an excellent reason for there to have been 39 major versions by 2765.  But it still doesn't explain the Mk 39s in 2577. 

Actually the 30 ships going to the houses is in TR2750  (which is even older but as far as I know the fluff is still valid) and I thought TR3057R but I may be wrong about that.  What's interesting is that 6 ships are unaccounted for.

Yes, 3057R backs up the 106 Aegis w/ 70 to the SLN and 30 to the Great Houses.  The missing six might have deteriorated so badly (despite being mothballed) that they were not economical to recover.  But 2750 merely says that 106 were retired (parroted by 3057R), it doesn't say how many were built; it's only Battlespace which insists the number originally built was 106, but which also fails to claim any were sent to Great Houses.  Given the round numbers on every other design built on the Aegis's scale, I was proposing 120 original craft to allow for Age of War attrition. 

Unfortunately I'd say you and I put more thought into the warships than TPTB but who knows.

This is the way things go in pretty much any fandom; the fans are more hard-core (and sometimes more knowledgeable) than the designers.