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Manning the SLN Reserve

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Re: Manning the SLN Reserve
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Wed Dec 24, 2014 2:34 am

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kzt wrote:
Castenea wrote:I doubt you could get a response from any naval veteran that did not include profanity if you suggest the serve on a ship where less than 50% of the crew had more than 1 year in service.

You should look at USN in WW2. Explosive growth.

you not only had officers that were 90 day wonders, there wee also the 60 day miracles.
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Re: Manning the SLN Reserve
Post by phillies   » Wed Dec 24, 2014 11:19 am

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An advantage of computerized simulation modules is that people are paid to show up at point A, do something that shows they know how to reload the gatling point defense cannons, operate a zero G toiler, etc. and if they know all this they get a paycheck. It has to pay slightly better than unemployment. Some segments are completely faked on some planets, but at a guess a chunk of the reserve...perhaps three hundred million people counting ground support staff...are ready to go.

My recollection is that someplace the author mentioned that refits are done starting with the oldest ships in the reserve fleet and working forward, so some part of it is up to date by SLN standards.
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Re: Manning the SLN Reserve
Post by SharkHunter   » Wed Dec 24, 2014 1:05 pm

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I think the reason that the reserve is so big is that building SD's is profitable for key families, and with 1800 worlds to patrol, good golly we might need them someday. Can't have our whole fleet tied up in the Laurentian system when the Narada comes to play. Oh wait, wrong series.

It would be like if the USN kept every battleship built since the Spanish American war operational, and called that the Naval reserve, when in fact most of them would have been nothing but rusting hulks by now. Of course, in space, it doesn't rust, and only battle fleet has been upgraded recently, because "even frontier fleet didn't get the Fleet 2000 upgrades, and they know that even that was mostly window dressing.

Meaning that "the reserve" is a joke of epic proportions that has soaked up money for no good reason for centuries.
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Re: Manning the SLN Reserve
Post by JeffEngel   » Wed Dec 24, 2014 1:14 pm

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phillies wrote:An advantage of computerized simulation modules is that people are paid to show up at point A, do something that shows they know how to reload the gatling point defense cannons, operate a zero G toiler, etc. and if they know all this they get a paycheck. It has to pay slightly better than unemployment. Some segments are completely faked on some planets, but at a guess a chunk of the reserve...perhaps three hundred million people counting ground support staff...are ready to go.
That's reason to believe that they could have at least the components of reserve crews nominally ready to go. It does assume that they have been bothering to keep up such programs, keep them modern and thorough enough to be relevant, and can bear to tear those reservists away from their current positions, economically and politically.

It would still leave, even then, working them up as complete crews, getting the ships out of mothballs, and having any reason to be confident they're not death traps.

My recollection is that someplace the author mentioned that refits are done starting with the oldest ships in the reserve fleet and working forward, so some part of it is up to date by SLN standards.


Yep yep - refits work from the most distantly refitted upward, and there are a tiny amount of new builds too. There remain the problems that the SLN standards are 20 years out of date, of course. And those training programs may not be up to current standards - being mindful of the details isn't a common virtue in the SLN.

If they're lucky, the reservists train with SDF's that are a bit more mindful of the realities of warfare in this decade and do sweat the small stuff.
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Re: Manning the SLN Reserve
Post by saber964   » Wed Dec 24, 2014 5:47 pm

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kzt wrote:
Castenea wrote:I doubt you could get a response from any naval veteran that did not include profanity if you suggest the serve on a ship where less than 50% of the crew had more than 1 year in service.

You should look at USN in WW2. Explosive growth.



The US started its buildup years before Pearl Harbor, for example

June 1940 US Army federalizes 28 29 36 41 42 45 infantry divisions from the National Guard. In September 4 more divisions are federalized. Mid 1940 National Service Act passed (The Draft) The Two Ocean Navy act passed.

Between 1935 and 1940 the USN built or started
6 BB 2 North Carolina class built 4 South Dakota class laid down late 39 and early 40 class completed by mid 1942.
4 CV Built 3 Yorktown class 1 Wasp class 6 Essex class CV started late 40. Essex completed Jan 43, next 5 complete every other month during 1943
7 CA Built 7 Astoria class
7 CL Built 7 Brooklyn class
4 CLAA Built 4 Atlanta class
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Re: Manning the SLN Reserve
Post by n7axw   » Wed Dec 24, 2014 5:57 pm

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The difference being that the US knew the difference between it's elbow and it's arse and had a reasonable chance of finding the latter if it reached back with both hands! :mrgreen:

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Manning the SLN Reserve
Post by Brigade XO   » Wed Dec 24, 2014 6:53 pm

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First you have to find either retired or discharged (preferabley honorab) personal with at least some experience and either reactivate or convince them to come back into the service. Then you have to bring them up to speed on what they are supposed to be doing in their respective areas of expertise.
Then you have to convince a LOT of people who have never been in the navy before to sign up before you start to train them both how the military works and then the technical aspects of the job(s) you presently want them to do.
You are talking a while.
good luck with that when the mass reports of SLN ships destroyed and hundreds of thousands taken prisoner start making the headlines along with the clear picture that if the SLN doen't attack the GA or its ships, nobody gets killed.

Of course getting those ship in the reserve fleet actually ready to receive new crew, putting the crew together and moving them out to begin training is going to take a long time.

Oh, wait, the SLN Sr. Command already knows the Reserve SD's are not only deathtraps, they are a compleat waste of time to crew as the only ships that are going to be of any use are the BC and lighter that could actually used on something like commerce raiding. And how long to prep the ships of those classes and to train crews for them? Might be more effective to take crews off SDs currently in commission and start working up the reserve BCs and below if you can even take them out of the reserve fleet now
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Re: Manning the SLN Reserve
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Wed Dec 24, 2014 7:08 pm

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Have we ever been given counts on the number of BCs and CAs are in the SLN reserve? Or even have many are in current service with either BF or FF?
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The only problem with quotes on the internet is that you can't authenticate them -- Abraham Lincoln
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Re: Manning the SLN Reserve
Post by Weird Harold   » Wed Dec 24, 2014 7:17 pm

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Brigade XO wrote:Then you have to convince a LOT of people who have never been in the navy before to sign up before you start to train them both how the military works and then the technical aspects of the job(s) you presently want them to do.


Not to mention getting recruiters to all of the member worlds and getting the recruits back to wherever the reserve fleet is being reactivated. :roll:

From the numbers being bandied about in this thread, it looks like each member world would have to cough up around a million warm bodies each to fully man the reserves -- without worrying about skilled spacers that would be problematic.

Add in the need for cadre to train new recruits, and you're looking at a reason to consider secession for a lot of League Members.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: Manning the SLN Reserve
Post by JeffEngel   » Wed Dec 24, 2014 7:25 pm

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fallsfromtrees wrote:Have we ever been given counts on the number of BCs and CAs are in the SLN reserve? Or even have many are in current service with either BF or FF?


From this pearl:
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/si ... gton/202/1

"Since that time, all new ships-of-the-wall added to the SLN's active units and the Reserve have been superdreadnoughts, and that type constitutes the enormous majority of the Reserve's hulls. The Reserve does also contain battlecruisers and cruisers as screening elements, but nowhere near what its ships-of-the-wall would require in the event of all out hostilities. The plan has always been for the Frontier Fleet's active units to provide the entire SLN's light forces requirements in such an unthinkable event, although there's been virtually no detailed planning for how all of that would be managed."

I don't think we've more than that.

So - figure out how many screening BC's and CA's/CL's a wall typically needs. (I'd draw figures from very early in the First Havenite War to get a traditional figure, generally including just those assigned to fleets in a given operation/system, and not all the cruisers going about far more distant business.) Figure out the size of the Reserve in wallers - what, 4-6 times the active fleet, I think, which runs about 2000 of the wall? Then figure that the Reserve includes maybe... 1/5th of the screening units that quantity of wallers would demand, the remainder intended to come from FF. That 1/5th figure is my guess at the "nowhere near" requirement figure - other guesses may vary from it considerably. If that 1/5th figure threatens the SD count's remaining the "enormous majority" of the Reserve, jack it down a lot.
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