_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lHi All,
Am enjoying painting my little space ships at the moment and am very grateful
to all the people who have posted various articles on all sorts
of subjects on the various sites of the Full Thrust Web-ring over the
years. There's some very good stuff there.
I was particulary interested in 'Indy's' Unofficial Fleet Lists. Is this
project still going, or has Indy moved on to other things? The last updates
seem to be 2002ish.
While I've read a lot on Napoleonic Naval, I know next to nothing about modern
Naval tactics or operations. To have someone suggest Fleet OOBs is a great
starting point towards planning one's fleet (every fleet
can't have 10 SDNs after all, no matter how much we'd like to - the MUCr
75,000 would begger the state for starters).
Indy's lists seem to follow modern naval useage (or as much of it as I
understand) in that there are Destroyer and Cruiser Flotillas that do the bulk
of the patrolling and showing the flag, and 'Heavy
Units'/Strike Units which, like modern US Carrier Groups (for instance),
are deployed from base areas to where the serious fighting is.
What I would like to know is how the command structure works when a Destroyer
flotilla (for example) is attached to a Strike unit to augment it's patrol
strength. Would the commanding officer of a Destroyer flotilla (a senior
captain or commodore, I guess) suddenly find his unit broken up and deployed
as the admiral of the Strike Unit sees fit? Or would the admiral's orders come
to the Commodore to be relayed to the units of the Destroyer Flotilla?
The latter seems more cumbersome and more likely to induce errors or delays.
In the former case, is it just part of the way 'things are done' that a chap
(or chapess) should expect his lovely little command to be deployed as the
Admiral sees fit, perhaps split between divisions of a fleet (do modern fleets
still divide their ships into divisions under subordinate admirals or senior
captains or is everything run by the admiral?) and perhaps lost to him if the
admiral deploys one of the
fleet divisions away in a multi-system fight?
Regards
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lHi, David,
> On 8/22/05, David Billinghurst <davebill@clear.net.nz> wrote:
The project is kinda stalled at the moment. There are some individual ship
design correction that I need t o make yet, and at some point I'd like to
revisit the other powers to flesh out some general fleet compositions for
them. But time is a commodity that keeps being filled with too many other
things as of late. :-(
While I've read a lot on Napoleonic Naval, I know next to nothing about
> modern Naval tactics or operations. To have someone suggest Fleet OOBs
*nod*
Yes, my lists were designed pretty much as you ascertained.
What I would like to know is how the command structure works when a
> Destroyer flotilla (for example) is attached to a Strike unit to
> deployed as the Admiral sees fit, perhaps split between divisions of a
I say...write something up! :-)
Mk
Others with 'real knowledge' will have to cover this for me, but my impression
was that current navies tend to deploy single ships of whatever
size is necessary for patrols and the like, and that squadrons and/or
flotillas tend to be mostly administrative functions, save for occasional
excersises.
Where you have large groups, they tend to be set up that way, so that a
carrier will have assigned, and integrated, a range of assests, and the
interworkings of ships is managed with electronic communications.
Do we have anyone currently naval to tell me how much is of the above is
accurate, and how much whole-cloth flack?
The_Beast
David wrote on 08/22/2005 03:53:21 AM:
> Indy's lists seem to follow modern naval useage (or as
Thanks Indy, Mike and Mr Beast,
> From: Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com>
I hear you, work is the curse of the gaming classes:)
<snip>
> I say...write something up! :-)
Well, since you mention it, I'm seriously thinking of doing some notes. Wanted
to get some info straight first so I don't sound like a complete prat
:)
Mike's comments on the RAN were informative and tally with what I know of the
RNZN's operations in places like the Gulf. Modern fleets seem to be very fluid
constructs with ships passing through operational areas, being picked up and
handed off to other areas constantly. Would this be the case in a full blown
naval shooting war?
I found an interesting History of the US 5th Fleet (while looking for the
website of the NAC 5th Fleet) which indicates that this may very well be the
case. The US began numbering their Fleets in 1943 as "a basis for task force
designations and for specific geographic areas".
US 5th Fleet under Vice-Admiral Spruance was set up to operate under
Halsey's 3rd Fleet. In 1944, the two fleets were combined for operations in
the Central Pacific with the title alternating between 3rd and 5th Fleet,
depending on who was in command - one admiral serving afloat for an
operation while the other was ashore planning the next one. This would
indicate that the "Fleet" was actually the admiral and his staff and executive
officers!
I'm still trying to get my head around how this would work. There seems to be
a 'continuity' gap here, or is it usual for a command chain to swap heads? Not
being a WWII or Moderns gamer, I guess I'm used to thinking of units as
building blocks that lead directly upwards towards an army, or fleet,
commander, not as modules that can either operate individually, or as part of
this force or that force.
Where all this is leading is that I'm trying to work out, at a strategic or
campaign level, how fleets would function in the future by considering how
they operate in the present.
It would appear from what Mike indicates as an ex-RANer, that the basic
naval unit is the ship (land equivalent, the battalion or regiment), and to
the average service person, this would be where their immediate
loyalty/feeling of group lies. Formations larger than ship are
ephemeral as they seem to be more for OrBats and accounting purposes and are
constantly subject to change. Having said that, some formations do seem to
acquire
longevity and a sense of history - DesRon 50, a part of US 5th Fleet,
seems to claim descent from a Desron of that number from the Pacific War, even
though the WWII DesRon 50 was dis-established in 1945. The modern
DesRon 50 is stationed in the Gulf where it seems to form the central core of
5th
Fleet, co-ordinating elements from the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets as
these are sent to the Persian Gulf, in the absence of a Carrier Battle Group
(this info seems prior to Gulf War II, so I have no idea what the current
situation is).
How would this work at a command level? It seems that general mission
requirements originate from the Admiralty or equivalent Naval Headquarters.
These are passed down to area commands (CENTCOM in the US for instance) where
the actual orders for the formation of a Task Group and where they are to be
deployed are drawn up. The area command must be able to tell the local
commander what ships to expect to accomplish his mission, and to tell another
area command which type of ships he needs to pass over to the operational
commander. I'm guessing they would be by class, rather than
specific ships - though it is possible that specific ships might also be
ordered to go. Otherwise, the local commander might be tempted to play
silly-buggers and send off his worst ships and most refractory captains.
Are CruRons and DesRons to be considered 'units' in that the ships in them
usually serve together? If Task Force Sigma is ordered to send four FFs to
Task Force Beta, does CinC TF Sigma send a DesRon or peel a FF off each of
four DesRons?
There's also the issue of communications in the FT universe, which, briefly, I
think fall into a similar technological model as to those of, say, the
Dreadnought period on Earth. Rapid comunications between Home and Fleet
Stations (via ansible or some sort of large, powerful, handwavium
transmitters) with courier boats passing messages to patroling detachments.
Can anyone tighten up on some of my surmises, here? Am I heading towards
something useful, or is this level of detail irrelevant?
Regards
> David Billinghurst wrote:
> US 5th Fleet under Vice-Admiral Spruance was set up to operate under
That's correct, the same ships, divisions and squadrons served in both fleets.
The command staffs changed. The really amazing part of this was the logistical
effort to forward deploy hundreds of warships for over a year in continual
combat operations. This is one of the signal accomplishments in military
science.It neatly solved the problem of having a dual axis of advance and only
one fleet. The Japanese did this too, but didn't have the resources to back it
up. It did give them the advantage in the early sea fights though.
> I'm still trying to get my head around how this would work. There
The advantage of modern training and communications over the ancient systems
you're used to is what's confusing you. Tactical units in modern
forces can be rearranged with much more freedom than on olden days. This
became necessary when 20th Century firepower forced a change to the "empty
battlefield" mindset. Look at the German kampfgroup concept for another early
example of flexibility designed into a force structure. The ability to do this
depends on doctrine, practice, organization and communications. You have to
plan for it, but it's good to do.
> Where all this is leading is that I'm trying to work out, at a
It proved necessary in WW2 to keep tactical formations together. The confusion
suffered by the USN's ad hoc formations in the early stages of
the Guadalcanal campaign are an object lesson. Cape Esperance could have
been a smashing US victory but for a lack of coordination between units that
had never operated together before. As the first surface action since Savo, it
would probably have had a dramatic effect on IJN strategy. If they had sent a
a force and lost the whole thing the Tokyo Express would likely never have
been run due to a lack of fuel for major
fleet elements to cover supply runs.
What will continue to happen is tactical units to be shuffled between
operational and strategic formations as needed. Of course these groupings (TGs
and TFs) are kept together as much as possible so that units can learn to work
with each other. But a units can be split off for a particular mission as
needed and the individual ships have drilled
with their neighbors. And, God help us, David Weber provides an excellent
example of this in his Harrington series. Coordination of movement, fire and
defenses are hard to do, so you have to practice as a
team. He provides numerous illustrations of the benefits of teamwork in space
combat.
> There's also the issue of communications in the FT universe, which,
It can be done either way. In Federation and Empire you have sublight
communications so you have no comm lag and you can move any piece as freely as
in chess. In Fifth Frontier War messages are carried by ships,
so there's a delay. In FFW you have to pre-plot fleet orders a number of
turns based on the admiral's ranking. You can game either way, but the FFW
model is more interesting. It's also not the only way to do it.
> Can anyone tighten up on some of my surmises, here? Am I heading
No, this is good to think about. Anything to avoid another IGO-UGO game
in space.