Logistics in the Pacific during WW2

[Condottiere]

Maginot Lines would need a pretty thick satellite belt.

First off, the breakthrough weapon for the Solomani was the meson gun.

Undoubtedly, they built as many battle or heavy cruisers with the smallest variant as they could, however you defined those classes back in the day.

That means you're going to have a lot of technological level twelve meson spinal mounts hanging around.

This is what you would call a sunk cost.

Secondly, maintenance is only one thousandth per annum of the manufactured cost of equipment.

So once you have a meson gun, it only costs peanuts comparatively to keep it in service, though that's true for almost all of our naval and spacetime hardware.

So, the Solomani sphere is likely liberally sprinkled with these examples.

And since the Imperium Navy has a standard technological level of fifteen, they'll probably dispose of their twelve and thirteen technological level meson guns.

 

[PsiTraveller]

Phavoc wrote that:

But getting back on topic a bit, logistically navies in the 52nd century seem to have relatively short legs. While you can frontier refuel and extend your operating radius, I don't see any of the published designs wirh much cargo storage for food, parts, supplies, etc. Some of which could be handled by a fleet train, but since logistics isn't sexy we really don't see much of this anywhere in the materials.

I look at travelermap.com and the Jewell and Efate areas in the Spinward Marches. If a TL 14 Navy wants to operate in that area their supply chain to a TL 14+ world for whatever high tech equipment they need is at Rhylanor, 20 Parsecs away. That is 5 Jumps at Jump 4, and 50 days of travel time (assuming a 10 day per jump cycle, this ignores the 2 Jumps a month average that is mentioned in the Core Book).

The siege of Efate in the 5th Frontier war would need high tech gear brought in from the same spot, a distance of 16 Parsecs.
Now the Navy could stockpile extra supplies all over at bases, Depots and have them on ships. The distance to replace those items once used is the issue. There are no production facilities in most Sectors to actually maintain a TL 14 Navy.

As Phavoc pointed out, the ability to refuel in the wild is a huge increase in mobility. As talked about earlier in this thread the fuel dump at Hawaii was left untouched and proved to be instrumental in getting the U.S. back into the area. All their fuel had to be brought in and stored and moved from tanker to ship. This is a huge achilles heel in operations. Ships in the 52nd century can live off the land in terms of power. If all the fuel had to be brought forward with them the logistics would be a nightmare.

Sidenote: This is what is happening in the Sindal Sector and the fuel dump near Theev. The price of fuel should be at least 2500 a ton at the fuel dump. 500 for the fuel, 1000 for the hauling in of the fuel, and 1000 for the ship jumping out empty and not earning anything. But in essence what the fuel dump is doing is a fuel supply chain to link 2 groups of worlds together. It can be done, but there is a cost to it.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

One question is who pays for the meson sites?
I think it would be local economy which means, to me, local TL tech support and local credits for builds and maintenance. The Rim might be the historical birthplace of the meson gun as Condottiere points out, but I suggest not every place seems to have one. Corridor Sector comes to mind. Historically, once Corridor fleets moved during Rebellion, the Vargr swept in and took the Coreward portion away from Deneb/Vilani/Imperial control. The Vargr have lower tech and are moving away from their maintenace and supply . So there is something up. Less sites due to local tech or population (i.e. economics)? Are planet based meson sites not as effective as thought? Were there THAT many Vargr ships?

 

[Rick]

One question is who pays for the meson sites?
I think it would be local economy which means, to me, local TL tech support and local credits for builds and maintenance. The Rim might be the historical birthplace of the meson gun as Condottiere points out, but I suggest not every place seems to have one. Corridor Sector comes to mind. Historically, once Corridor fleets moved during Rebellion, the Vargr swept in and took the Coreward portion away from Deneb/Vilani/Imperial control. The Vargr have lower tech and are moving away from their maintenace and supply . So there is something up. Less sites due to local tech or population (i.e. economics)? Are planet based meson sites not as effective as thought? Were there THAT many Vargr ships?

I think sometimes we ignore a lot of the political aspects in the game - just because the tech is available, we tend to think that everyone will want it, sort of a galactic game of 'keeping up with the Joneses', we look at the population and industry in a system, work out a rough idea of GDP and assume that they can afford to buy the tech. If you look at modern day political/military spending, it's never that simple - social programs (education and welfare), improving infrastructure, govt and military running costs, public services all have to be factored in before a system can splash out on new defence projects. Add to that the political will to divert money away from other possible projects to spend on it and those in power will need to justify the need to their voters before they can act. It's no wonder that a lot of systems don't have meson gun sites, even if they have access to that level of tech.

 

[phavoc]

Fixed defenses aren't as an efficient use of funds as mobile ones. The Imperium is organized more along a confederation line, with each planet it's own entity and responsible for it's own planetary defense. So the Imperium would pay for the major fleets, while each planet would have to pay for it's own defenses. Some help may come via SDB's (and really, SDB's should come larger than 400 tons) that the Imperium might shuttle around between systems, but planets need to pay the lion's share of their own defense.

That means many are most likely NOT going to pay for expensive deep-site planetary meson guns - especially if they are nowhere near where an enemy might strike them. Poorer planets simply won't have the resources, so they will concentrate on other defenses that can serve multiple uses. Major military sites, especially Imperial, will most likely spend the funds on heavier defenses. One important question is do you spend money on multiple smaller and cheaper meson sites, or would you want to invest in larger ones to take out the larger and more heavily defended ships? A mix seems best, but costs still will stack up quick.

Getting back to the logistical side of things, what is the majority opinion on the spread of supply bases and repair centers? Should they be more like an onion, where you have nodal supply and reapair points every 4-6 weeks from enemy lines, with the more important bases a few months away from the front lines? That's not always practical, but it seems relatively prudent. Though one would have to assume those weeks would be at the standard (old?) of 4 parsecs per jump for major combatants. So that would put the first line of depots about 16 -24 parsecs away. That's an entire subsector, so that might be a bit too much. And depots would be distributed based upon the enemy and risks.

If we assume something like that, would major fleet repair docks be more mobile? So instead of having stations would they be more along the lines of Fleet Repair Docks? Obviously fuel is a no-brainer, but some tank-ron's would exist for support. I'm thinking fleet trains would be more along the lines of having USN-style supply vessels that stocked spares, food and ammunition all in one hull. You would probably have cargo ships or merchant-carriers running behind with replacement fighters and small craft. No need to devote a full carrier to the job.

 

[Condottiere]

If it takes place, the massive, and it would have to be massive, invasion by the packs going avargring through Corridor, probably does need some retconning.

The Vargr polities might have had a massive demographic surge simultaneously, that squeezed individual worlds to the point of economic collapse and civil strife, so they commandeered everything that can hop, skip and jump interstellarly and headed south.

The Confederation is surrounded on three sides, plus a massive indentation though it's centre, by an expansive species, an empire it's still at war with, and some orange creatures with weird plans and a disconcerting handshake.

The Confederation has no strategic depth, and encourages guarding the home fires, and tolerates a certain amount of vigorous competition amongst it's members.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

The retcon should not be Vargr population growth per se. It is the pressure of the hordes of survivors as by 1120 the on-coming Empress Wave has entered Ngathksirz Sector.

1105 Map with 1120 Empress Wave overlaid

 

[locarno24]

According to the original rules, SDB's lurking in a gas giant's atmosphere could play holy hell with refueling ships, not just the tankers. Which is where the term High Guard came about. But just how and why a refueling ship is more vulnerable has never been published.

The closest they've come is the depth/piloting difficulty/damage table in Secrets Of The Ancients - we don't know how deep a refuelling 'dive' is, but if it gets down to any depths like that, being forced to evade under power (using up thrust and putting 'reaction' DMs on your piloting checks) is going to make the already irritating piloting checks into a continuous source of damage until/unless you can break clear of enemy fire.

At the same time, I agree that - given it's an iconic enough element of naval warfare for one of the three most important sourcebooks to be named after the bloody thing, having a few more details would be nice!

To be honest, I think the best thing you could probably have is a "fifth frontier war" campaign - Secrets of the ancients/pirates of drinax style - because the individual "missions" with a medium-ish warship would give you opportunities to explore in a scripted/rules explained/narrative effects discussed way things like high guard vs SDBs, fleet jumps and emergence procedure, detection range with 'emplaced' sensors, the effectiveness of deep-sited meson guns, mobile defence against fast-moving strikes/intercepting fleets at interplanetary speed, and so on.

As Phavoc pointed out, the ability to refuel in the wild is a huge increase in mobility. As talked about earlier in this thread the fuel dump at Hawaii was left untouched and proved to be instrumental in getting the U.S. back into the area. All their fuel had to be brought in and stored and moved from tanker to ship. This is a huge achilles heel in operations. Ships in the 52nd century can live off the land in terms of power. If all the fuel had to be brought forward with them the logistics would be a nightmare.

Absolutely. When - as people noted in the SDB/'true' warship comparison earlier - 40-50% of your ship can be bloody fuel, the logistics pipeline would be ridiculous, because you'd need multiple capital ship sized tankers to service one equivalent class warship (plus one another) without the ability to fuel from gas giants. Trying to turn a basic jump-3 strike into the black buck raids will fall over under its own complexity.

If we assume something like that, would major fleet repair docks be more mobile? So instead of having stations would they be more along the lines of Fleet Repair Docks? Obviously fuel is a no-brainer, but some tank-ron's would exist for support. I'm thinking fleet trains would be more along the lines of having USN-style supply vessels that stocked spares, food and ammunition all in one hull. You would probably have cargo ships or merchant-carriers running behind with replacement fighters and small craft. No need to devote a full carrier to the job.

Definitely. When you're dependent on a full refuel to be able to retreat after you move into another system, a big organic logistics capability is vital, and "drydocks"/ammo ships would be vital too. I'm not sure what proportion of Imperial warships have a meaningful ordnance load, but as you noted, fighters are an expendable asset, and where a capital ship is missile armed, it can potentially expend hundreds or thousands of missiles in the course of a half-hour engagement.

 

[Condottiere]

The Kinunir class suddenly makes sense.

Tankers can bring in enough fuel to keep a fleet running operationally in system, but providing enough to jump out in a strategic manoeuvre would require a massive commitment.

 

[phavoc]

The Kinunir class suddenly makes sense.

Tankers can bring in enough fuel to keep a fleet running operationally in system, but providing enough to jump out in a strategic manoeuvre would require a massive commitment.

I think the Kinunir class only made sense when you only had the first 3 LBB's. After that it was canon, but it made no economic or military sesnse.