Solomani Confederation (Military)

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Organization

The third leg after the flag squadron and the Logistics Squadron in subsector fleets is the Patrol Squadron.

There's this curious phenomenon in that the Solomani Navy has mostly stopped manufacturing all major combatants except assault carriers and deep strike cruisers, and those at a curiously slow rate, so that legacy classes have to be retained to make up the numbers instead of being retired to the mothball fleet or disposed off to client states or member worlds.

Imperial Naval Intelligence believe that this is due to a once in a lifetime confluence of political, economic and military agendas. The Solomani Secretariat and their electorate believe that the Solomani Navy need the capability to meet the Imperium armed forces on more or less equal terms, and feel this can only be achieved by having more capital ships; the Naval Staff agrees, but budget limitations ensure that this would be at the expense of some other capability. Member polities agree to approve greater numbers of capital ships, but cut back on the construction of all cruisers, with the exception of jump factor five light and deep strike cruisers, and compensate with greater numbers of escort units.

Naval Staff come up with the perfect dreadnought, large enough to stand in battle line and have a considerably large organic fighter and strikecraft complement, eliminating the need for fleet carriers. They also designate frigates and corvettes as escorts, ranging from six hundred to two thousand five hundred tonnes in displacement.

So what was going on? For the interstellar polities, they were disinclined to have uncontrolled warships wandering around their backyards, but naval doctrine ensured that if these were capital ships, their deployments would be halved, as they would have to grouped in pairs, at a minimum, whereas this was only a desirable option with cruisers. Cruisers could be easily be sent on independent cruises, and turn up at any time on their doorsteps. While not nearly as powerful as a dreadnought or a battlecruiser, there would be a lot more of them nosing around.

Strictly enforcing jump factor five range capability, ensured that the Navy would use them as rapid reaction forces, moving from one recognized trouble spot to another.

While having more frigates and corvettes prowling around a subsector, on the look out for anything unusual, when not countering piracy, protecting trade routes, and accompanying convoys, local naval Hone Guard units should be sufficient to prevent any interference in system affairs by these forces.

A typical Patrol Squadron would consist of fifteen divisions of two corvettes, with six frigates that would be earmarked to act as flotilla leaders, usually leading a task group of three corvette divisions.

The frigate would be accompanied by appropriately sized tender and tanker, and two Marathon class couriers.

The PatRon commander has at his disposal six Marathon class couriers, and two fleet couriers.

PatRons operate on the principle of zonal defending. That means that each PatRon is responsible for the security of merchantmen, convoys and fleet trains as they pass through their subsector, handing off those responsibilities as these ships cross the border to the next subsector.

Ships assigned to the flag squadron tend to have specific missions, while PatRon divisions have a tendency to roam around.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Capital Ships, Major Combatants and the Victory model jump drive

If you think about it, fifty six thousand cubic metres is a helluvalot of space to try to squeeze in the most sophisticated gadgetry that will let you enter another dimension, get you out at the other end, and keep you alive during the entire time.

Four thousand tonnes seems to be the largest jump drive that at tech level twelve can be buil and/or controlled. Can you build larger ones? Maybe, but you won't be able to control them.

Having done so, the Solomani haven't tried to build a larger module, until the Vanguards.

I thought about it, and there had to be a reason for all those large tubes at the back end of the Star Destroyers.

Also, commonality.

And reliability, since the Solomani developed it from the very start of the Confederation, there's nothing their engineers don't know about it's bugs and quirks, which they've eliminated over the centuries, and any ship's captain who has one of these babies installed on his vessel, is pretty confident that he'll arrive precisely where he wants to, on schedule.

So playing around with this idea, we put two Victory models in harness, at tech level thirteen we can have the Zeus class battlecruisers weighing in at one hundred sixty thousand tonnes, but with an increased range of four parsecs. That skips the development of a specific jump drive for an intermediate class, and gives them strategic mobility, which I think is what battlecruisers are supposed to have, and of course that breaks with canon.

With the Midways, you could retain the jump factor three range, and bring them back up toa rather astounding two hundred kay tonnes for a fleet carrier, or give them jump factor four mobility.

If we go for jump factor four, this completely changes the equation as to how they'd be used, though it would explain the battlecruisers fragile nature. Which, to be fair, they are supposed to have.

The Prometheus class would have three Victory model jump drives, at a cost of an additional half percent coupling mechanism, and be slightly lighter at two hundred forty thousand tonnes.

With the Victory model still in production and widely used by the military and commercial interests, and research and development costs, minus those for a tech level fifteen variant, pretty much amortized a very long time ago, and if you add a government subsidy for pre-approved corporations whose employment of the drives will increase GDP, the Victory models should be a real bargain for either the military or shipping companies.

This allows all those legacy ships, the strike and battle cruisers, as well as the Beijings and the Midways, to continue to perform as designed (plus modernization), since they'll always can replace their worn out jump drives with the more or less original model or compatible variant.

I considered boosting the Vanguards to three twenty kay tonnes, and giving them four modules, but zero point seven five percent seems a little much to waste for the couplings, unless they actually took up a lot less space. So the Vanguards get a new model, which is okay, because they are hundreds of them around, so manufacturing cost shouldn't be abnormally high. But there might be only a few plants capable of making them, compared to the Victories, which can be produced from tech level twelve onwards.

Having a standardized engine means that naval architects have to design ships at predetermined volumes.

 

[Condottiere]

So your boys built the galaxy's largest meson weapon system. Congratulations, Jordan.

Now, you want me to use my limited budget to authorize building a suitable mobile platform for it? It can't fit in a Vanguard, I don't believe you can emplace it on a semi-meg. A battle station? How about we hollow out a small moon?


Elijah Drummond, Grand Admiral

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Organization

I've always wondered where this idea that smallcraft squadrons were ten each came from.

The Solomani Navy would revert back to the more traditional twelve spacecraft assigned to each squadron, not counting those undergoing repairs and replacements, which bureaucrats make an allowance for an additional four craft. There may also be one or two extra training spacecraft.

Since unless the spacecraft has been shot full of holes, maintenance is really routine and fast, allowing a fast turnover. As such, twenty four crews are assigned per squadron, that allows one crew to rest while the other is deployed. More morbidly, assuming normal attrition of both crew and craft during combat, the squadrons have replacement personnel on hand.

Fighter squadrons are divided into three flights, of four spacecraft; these are additionally divided into two divisions of two craft each.

Torpedo bombers would be organized into three spacecraft flights, as the ideal attack formation are three bombers launching a spread of torpedoes simultaneously. Usually organized as three flights per squadron.

Transport squadrons expand and contract as spacecraft are assigned to them, or just are flyable.

Reconnaissance squadrons consist of long range, long endurance patrol smallcraft, whose role is surveillance and early warning, rather than control, except in the absence of a more suitable, survivable warship.

On more cramped ships, fighter squadrons can be shrunk to three divisions.

While unusual, composite squadrons exist, consisting of all types of smallcraft.

Squadrons are organized into wings, normally three plus a headquarters squadron and support personnel.

Wings are organized into groups, and groups into Space Forces.

 

[Condottiere]

Happy Bellerophon Day

Honouring our Merchant Marine that make possible our consumerism

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Capital Ships and jump range

Solomani strategists must have pondered over their dilemma, were they fighting in the Pacific or the Atlantic?

Fighting in the Atlantic would mean trying to break though the gathered might of a battle fleet that they couldn't hope to equal in numbers, and technological edge might be rather iffy. But it also meant that range could be largely dispensed with as a factor in their battle line, as voluntarily or involuntarily, their area of operation was pre-chosen for them by their opposing counterparts concentrating almost every modern, and some less modern, capital ship and major combatant, in order to bottle up their Navy in a very constrained area, and hopefully getting them to come out and play in force.

Solomani war aims appear to be limited in the War of Imperium Aggression, the recovery of prodigal systems that appear to have jumped ship to the Imperium. More likely, Naval Staff would have advocated advancing through border Sectors, to establish both a tighter defensive line and create a buffer zone; only the most optimistic might have toyed with the idea that the Imperium would collapse in face of the collective might of the Solomani Confederation military, and that their battle fleets would conquer the Capitol.

While the Solomani operated from interior lines of communication the capability to move entire Fleet Squadrons four parsecs on each transition cannot be discounted.

At tech level thirteen, Zeus class battlecruisers are rated a jump factor three. Breaking canon, and giving them a jump factor four drive would further explain their fragility, and allow them to be the hammer, together with the Prometheus class fast dreadnoughts and strike cruisers, to the anvil of the slower moving factor three Victory battlecruisers, and the two hundred thousand tonne Midway supercarriers, accompanied by member world naval units that can also achieve factor three range, and behind them, factor two jump range units that would try to catch up.

If Solomani strategists thought they were fighting in the Pacific, which may seem a more measured assessment of their military position, they would need to ensure that their major units have the range to operate that far, and may be tempted to build the largest capital ships that their industrial base has the capacity to manufacture, to confront and overawe the remnants of any surviving naval units, and ambush arriving reinforcements.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Available jump drives

1. Vanguard model
- 15'000-tonnes
- tech level 15
- maximum jump factor 6
- remarks: not available commercially, currently undergoing a shakedown cruise

2. Victory models
- 4'000-tonnes
- tech levels 12-14
- a. maximum jump factor 2; commercial, two hundred thousand tonne freighters
- b. maximum jump factor 3
- c. maximum jump factor 4
- d. maximum jump factor 5
- remarks: widely available

3. Eclipse models
- 600-tonnes
- tech levels 11-14
- a. maximum jump factor 2
- b. maximum jump factor 3
- c. maximum jump factor 4
- d. maximum jump factor 5
- remarks: widely available

4. Warrior models
- 100-tonnes
- tech levels 9-15
- a. maximum jump factor 1
- b. maximum jump factor 2
- c. maximum jump factor 3
- d. maximum jump factor 4
- e. maximum jump factor 5
- f. maximum jump factor 6; not available commercially, and presumed secret
- remarks: while not the oldest Terran jump drive design, the original design dates back to the very start of the interstellar era, and propelled the largest hulls then capable of transitioning hyperspace, allegedly, it's near impossible to misjump with Warrior jump drives; tech level 9 variant is open sourced; Imperium Naval Intelligence believes the Solomani used the Warrior model as their initial breakthrough to tech level fifteen hyperspace technology

5. Capital models
- 40.02-tonnes
- tech levels 9-14
- a. maximum jump factor 1
- b. maximum jump factor 2
- c. maximum jump factor 3
- d. maximum jump factor 4
- e. maximum jump factor 5
- remarks: smallest possible capital class jump drive

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Budgetary Constraints and Technological Parity

Having survived the War of Imperium Aggression battered but in a cohesive condition, the Solomani Navy knew that in any future conflict with the Imperium, at least half their battle fleet needed to be at the same tech level as the Imperium.

Under the leadership of their former commander, the Navy accepted the fact that their needs must remain subservient to the economic recovery and renaissance of the Confederation as a whole, and that while relatively well funded, their budget would not extend to a complete re-armament necessary to meet the Imperium Navy on more or less equal terms.

Furthermore, Wolfe had in secret clauses agreed not to upset the military balance in the Solomani Rim, so that an absolute number of major combatants (in which Imperium negotiators included light cruisers) and capitol ships, rather than capping tonnage, as the Imperium Naval Intelligence did not believe that the Confederacy could match their (Imperium's) industrial capacity, the Confederacy's being mostly destroyed and that they'd always have a technical advantage over the Confederacy's military.

The Solomani Navy reorganized and licked it's wounds. Outside of the Imperium, the only other prevailing threat was from the Aslan, and the Solomani enjoyed a technical edge and better organization over them.

Naval High Command and the Solomani High Council came to an agreement.

The Navy would retain and maintain as many of their legacy ships as possible, if only to keep up the numbers. They would adopt a new doctrine that would ensure victory over the border fleets of the Imperium, and overawe the Aslans, basically emphasizing the battle line at the expense of intermediate and major combatants.

The Navy would share the naval Black budget with SolSec, which would be fed partially from what would have been the Navy's cruiser allocation; SolSec would build ships that allowed them to infiltrate the Imperium, while the Navy built up an industrial base and capacity that would allow them to build tech level fifteen dreadnoughts.

This meant that what remained of the Naval budget had to be carefully husbanded, yet at the same time, they had to maintain and demonstrate a capability to deter open aggression against the Confederacy.

The Zeuses and the Promethii had proved somewhat of a disappointment, but performance of the Midways and their carrier aerospace groups had scared the Imperium enough to impose a specific limit on fleet and super carriers. The Shinano class was the solution.

The Solomani Navy had already coupled together two Victory model jump drives to provide the Zeus and Midway classes with hyperspace propulsion. They used a triple variant to do the same for the Prometheus class. In each case, they saved time and money that would have been required for the research, development and opening up a production line for new jump drives.

They decided to couple together four Victory models at a cost of zero point five percent volume dedicated to the coupling mechanisms, for a newly designed fast dreadnought that had enough capacity to host five wings of fighters and strikecraft.

While the Shinanos weren't seen as a golden bullet against Imperium technical and number superiority, though they were designed to be fifty percent larger than the normal Imperium battleship, they did ensure that no one saw the Solomani Confederacy as easy meat.

The Beijings were considered to have performed outstanding services in the War, and have become the premier major combatant of the Solomani Navy, and continue to be the only one that's still being manufactured.

The Dingirs don't qualify as light cruisers under the terms negotiated with the Imperium, though the Solomani term them as such to keep up the illusion of a balanced force composition. They are the only true warships that the Solomani manufacture in the intermediate range.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Imperium Definition of Major Combatants and Capital Ships


I don't believe that you can verify an arms control treaty over interstellar distances, certainly not with the Traveller travelling times.

But it may have suited Wolfe to agree to these terms for a continuing armistice, since it ensured that the Imperium would have no cause to attack the Confederacy, and it would remain secret, thus avoiding any loss of face, and this would give the Solomani time to recover and rebuild for what everyone was sure would be the next round in recovering their lost territories.

Imperium negotiators would have been aware of this train of thought, so they'd probably insist on a limited number of major combatants being commissioned at any one time in the Solomani Navy, that replacing them would require scrapping rather than disposal unless they were over a certain age, and that limited number could only be manufactured per year in any event.

The Imperium may have deliberately not differentiated between cruisers and capitol, in order to force the Solomani to count both as one number, and that may have just decided them to build capital ships in preference, if it wasn't going to make a difference.

The agreement might have specified that anything that has a jump drive and carries a spinal mount would be effected.

That left a loop hole for battle riders and carriers, and member world navies.

As such, fleet carriers would be defined as starships that devoted more than five percent of their hull volume to launch, hangar and smallcraft handling facilities, and hosted more than one hundred fifty smallcraft, of which the Confederacy may have only ten in commission at any one time.

Starships hosting between fifty or more smallcraft would be counted as major combatants.

The Confederacy may only have ten battle rider tenders in commission at any one time.

This of course, forces the Solomani into trying to figure out ways to circumvent the agreement, whose mostly resulting stabilization of the border and conflict benefited them even more than the Imperium, because it gave them time and space to recover and rebuild.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Imperium Imposed Restrictions

Mileage will vary, especially if there was ever any canon on actual navy compositions, either during the Imperium Aggression or now.

But let's assume the Imperium Navy believed that the Solomani one would have a technical range of tech level twelve, twenty five percent, tech level thirteen, fifty percent, and tech level fourteen of twenty five percent into the foreseeable future, from their perspective of the Millennium teens.

Divided into more or less five sectors inclusive any assets allocated to the strategic reserve or mothball fleet, the Solomani could have only one hundred fifty ships rated major combatant or greater.

That would be two fleet carriers, and two battlerider tenders.

Then twenty assault carriers. Basically for internal security.

Cruiser composition would be a little iffy, but let's say that lightish and heavyish units were equal in number, and maybe a quarter more than capital ships. No restriction for warships ten thousand tonnes and under.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Does the US navy continue to construct WW1 era destroyers?

Traveller navies have got to be built at the maximum TL. A 1 TL disadvantage requires a hefty numerical superiority to overcome, a 2 TL disadvantage is probably suicide.

 

[Condottiere]

No, but it put a whole bunch of them in mothballs and traded them to Churchill for a bunch of Caribbean bases.

Just to clarify, the above is an intellectual exercise that skirts through published material and tries to arrive at the canonical fact that why the Solomani Navy willingly gave up their cruiser component.

Just because Imperium Navy Intelligence analysts believed that the Solomani Navy would have a collection of tech level twelve ships might not be hard to phantom; they didn't realize that Wolfe, a former Navy CinC, had decided to prioritize economic recovery at the expense of military expenditure. If the Aslan have only tech level thirteen, they too would have a mix of tech level eleven to thirteen warships, and the Solomani can support patrol their frontier with them with a mix of tech level twelve to fourteen warships.

The situation facing the Solomani is similar to that facing the participating navies in the nineteen twenties and thirties; they couldn't really build a lot of new ships, so they modernized their old ones.

The Solomani realized that starting another war with the Imperium wasn't realistic until they had some form of technological parity, which is where the Vanguard class comes in, which will be completely built at tech level fifteen, and slowly replacing the older capital ships, of which there was no point to actually dispose of them beforehand, until the Solomani had tech level fifteen dreadnoughts. The Solomani Navy's primary purpose was to deter open aggression against the Confederacy and remain a fleet in being.

Tech level twelve by itself gives you jump factor three, and that enough for ships with non combat roles; tech level thirteen gives you jump factor four, which is what the Solomani are aiming at to provide strategic movement for most of their combat forces.

By not breaking openly the terms of their (secret) agreement with the Imperium, they avoid a war, that if they don't lose it, they certainly can't win it.

The Shinanos are a harbinger of what the Vanguards are to be, but built at tech level fifteen from the keel up. The Shinanos would be withdrawn squadron by squadron, and their bay and turret weapons, plus all electronics would be modernized to tech level fifteen, making them a potent threat, though their armour remains at factor fourteen. Since the Premthii are also tech level fourteen, they'll get a similar upgrade.

Eventually, if there's time, the modernization programme will extend to the Zeuses and the Victories, if they haven't been disposed off.

The Solomani are waiting to establish a tech level fifteen industrial base that can manufacture dreadnoughts for their navy; they don't face any serious threats that would require them to place their legacy ships in major refit programmes, so they can save that money.

They can't place their old ships into the mothball fleet, nor give them to their member worlds, since it would still be counted towards the total, so they don't have a mothball fleet, and they might as well keep running the ships hard until they wear out. This gives their crews valuable experience.

They only need to manufacture under the restricted categories fast dreadnoughts, assault carriers and deep strike cruisers, each of which occupies a specific niche, that of line of battle, internal security/planetary assault, and rapid reaction force.

The Imperium may not like how the Confederation has interpreted their agreement, but since the military balance of forces remains stable, they aren't too concerned.

Until the Vanguards arrive on the scene, the Imperium realize they're looking at tech level fifteen three hundred thousand tonne dreadnoughts, and that most of the Solomani major combatants and capital ships are so old that the Confederation has every right to replace most of them within a generation, without breaking any agreements made.

 

[Condottiere]

Personally, I find the one thousand ships a more elegant figure, but a fifty six/seventy two battleship/cruiser composition follows more closely Sector Fleet, and with their tech advantage and fluctuating readiness level and possible squadron availability, makes seven hundred a comfortable number for them to deal with.

Assuming the Solomani had followed the script faithfully, which they won't.

It's a given that they'll need something awesome enough to keep the subsectors in line, and one hundred and fifty smallcraft mix of fighters and assault shuttles puts them in the major combatant class in any event.

The wedge configuration could be as much as an aesthetic choice by the Solomani, as subsequently a requirement in order to identify all combat ships larger than ten thousand tonnes.

The Confederation is boxed on on three sides, which means they can't really hide anything, unless they relocate it deep into rimward wilds, but their lack of military and political control means that indigenous could gossip about unusual goings on at any particular system, that would eventually percolate back to Imperium Intelligence.

To compensate for the number restriction, tonnage isn't capped, but that in itself is a poisoned chalice, as trying to build Tigress or larger equivalents runs into the law of diminishing returns, as it ties up capital and industrial capacity.

The other concession is no restriction on ships of ten thousand tonnes and less.

So the Solomani officially classify ten thousand tonne ships as light cruisers, and has the remaining cruisers actively engaged everywhere, as far as possible, so that no one notices the declining numbers, and StrikeRons exist only on paper, because despite naval doctrine of the buddy system, all cruisers are mostly on their own carrying out their missions.

The bright side, such as it is, maintenance can be carried out quickly on most starports for major ship systems, since only the Beijings, Normandys and Dingirs were built at tech level fourteen from the keel up, and the Promethii and the Shinanos.

If we're going with the Star Destroyer theme, you could discard the assault carrier concept as well, and impress the natives with their very own in each subsector.

da da da, da dada da dada ...

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Naval Limitations Agreement

To summarize:

1. The Solomani Confederation as a whole can't maintain more seven hundred (700) major combatant warships.

2. A major combatant is any ten thousand (10'000) tonne or larger starship that has the capability of exceeding two parsecs per hyperspace transition and has any of the following features or capabilities:
a. is equipped with a spinal mount
b. devotes five (5) percent or more of it's volume to facilities for hosting, launching or recovering combat orientated smallcraft
c. hosts more than fifty combat orientated smallcraft in readiness

3. Major combatants can be replaced once they are fifty years or older, from the date of their launching.

4. Major combatants that are a hundred years or older, from the date of their launching, but have not received a major refit within the last fifty years, nor will receive one, may be kept and no longer count towards the seven hundred limitation.

5. In case of loss or accidental destruction of major combatants, they may immediately be replaced by new construction subject to prevailing limits.

6. The Solomani Confederation is permitted to build and launch twenty major combatants per year, but total numbers may never exceed seven hundred in commission.

7. Major combatants must be visibly identifiable through hull configuration, specifically wedge shape.

8. Cannot maintain more than ten (10) major combatants who have the facilities to host more than one hundred fifty smallcraft in readiness.

9. Cannot maintain more than ten (10) ten thousand tonne or larger starships who have the capacity to host more than four spinal mount equipped vessels.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Naval Limitations Agreement

The Solomani Confederation and it's Navy is now in a dilemma; they bought themselves peace, but at the cost of limiting their capability to really power project, since any major attempt to do so would leave their territories under defended, and possibly subject to multiple revolts. Not that they had any serious plans to do so, at that time.

They understood the loophole that didn't place a limitation on ship tonnage, but also knew it was a deliberate honey trap to lure them to build larger ships than they could afford to maintain, at a tech level that would always be one lower than the Imperium's. For now.

With a building rate of twenty major combatants per annum, their priorities would be one deep strike cruiser, one assault carrier, and eighteen fast dreadnoughts. Once they had managed to reconstruct their shipbuilding tech level fourteen base to cover about minimum sixty spaceyards or so required for that programme over the more or less three year construction period.

They'd also have to time it that they can retain their century old hulls after replacement, avoiding major refits by preventive maintenance, and by field repairs through the easy swapping out of engineering modules.

Since the accords would be secret, this can't be explained to the electorate, nor most of the Secretariat who might be more enthusiastic about increasing the size of their Navy, so the impression is created of a larger sized one up keeping the ships heavily deployed, but regularly switching out crews. The remaining cruisers would especially be sent all over the place, and most of their exploits widely reported on.

What the Imperium had in mind was an opponent that might waste resources on some large prestige superdreadnought classes, and supported by legacy capital ships and major combatants, and constructions of light cruisers and light carriers to make up the numbers.

Instead, the Solomani Naval Staff determined that while building superdreadnoughts was at gut instinct an attractive proposition, it was also a financial and resource intensive black hole. Intermediate sized combatants as whole would be abandoned, already evidenced by the tonnage deflation in light cruisers, and small spinal mounts would no longer be researched, nor manufactured, concluding that bay weapon systems were easier to upgrade. Legacy spinal mounts would continue to be maintained as far as it was feasible. Only really large spinal mounts would continue to be developed, that could equal or exceed those of the Imperium.

Auxiliary cruisers and ten thousand tonne light cruisers would be used, since their characteristics would fall outside the agreement. So would pocket carriers, which normally would have a complement of below fifty smallcraft. To help fill up the remaining void, lots of frigates and corvettes, as any jump capable warship below that, the Solomani Navy felt, would not be adequate.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Army: Organization

A battle group tends to be something below brigade size, though according to the website being maintained by Wookies, it's the Empire's equivalent of a division, specifically designed to break up any lingering parochial loyalties. Or at least ensure that the mix of units assigned to it can't use the fact that they are from the same planetary recruiting pool to mutiny.

GURPS seemed to reflect, at least for the Imperium, the modern concept of modular brigades. The Empire, seems to like regiments. Both like square configurations.

It's a large galaxy, and any interstellar polity is going to have a large number of soldiers.

With the active promotion of Home Guard militias to defend member worlds, you don't really need to garrison planets unless they have or contain something of some strategic value to the Confederacy. Or are just revolting.

I don't think the Solomani Army can be controlled through three military districts, because it's too vast, and the Army would lack direct access to the express boat system, so that would be purely a naval thing.

The Army would probably establish five major commands based on each Sector, and divide them up internally into four regions, and those regions into more or less their component four subsectors.

Each subsector would have an Army Group, and in theory, a group of related systems would have an have an Army, and most likely each system has a Corps assigned to it.

By tradition, regiments are flexible, they can raise any number of battalions and inculcate the institutional values of the unit they've joined into their recruits, and that would make them more administrative units, so their battalions are assigned to brigades, optimized, or at least structured,to carry out certain mission types, and organized under a divisional command.

Yes, battle group, is a little hard to swallow, and sounds better in German.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Crewing

By the nature of their different approaches to conflict resolution, the Solomani Army would be much larger in terms of personnel than the Nay. After all, the Army are people persons, and like to get up real close and personal.

Automation will ensure that you can run ships with a minimum crew, but do you want to? Assuming that the seven hundred major combatants that the Navy has have an average of two thousand personnel onboard, that's one and a half million, not counting ship's troops and the frozen watch, which is not a lot, considering the potential recruiting pool. Then, if you assign three crews per ship, you get to four and a half million.

I'd speculate the reason that the cruiser gap extended way into destroyer and frigate territory, restarting it again at two kay tonness, was due to the Adventure class design process, which makes it an interesting game mechanism, but probably unrealistic.

While it might be fun to have the Solomani Navy operating teeny tiny boats to make up the numbers, especially considering they're doing all the scouting stuff as well, that seems unlikely. The Solomani are more likely looking for redundancy in their crews, so if anything goes wrong, someone is there to fix it or take care of it. Also, SolSec may not be that keen to spread their political officers that far out, since accidents happen to people in confined spaces with irritated companions.

That's one reason I thought a ten thousand tonne general purpose ship with a hundred fifty monkeyspeheric odd crew seemed more capable of carrying out it's mission. And you could have ten thousand of them, which equals the crews of the major combatants. You could practically park one in every parsec, occupied or empty.

Ten thousand may be unrealistic from the game perspective, but two thousand shouldn't be, and they could be each accompanied by their own posse of three two kayish tonne frigates, which may be more specialized.

And then a bunch of six hundred tonne corvettes.

Even with three shifts, the combat branch of the Solomani Navy doesn't look like it would exceed much over ten million.

The communications branch might not exceed a million personnel.

Confederation Marines and Naval Security is a little trickier; to make the Marines a viable force, they may need ten million of them, while Naval Security might only have five million.

Base personnel requirements are somewhat vague, and made foggier by the fact that bases are likely to be shared with Home Guard navies or the Solomani Army. Private contractors can vacuum up a lot of maintenance contracts.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Marines: Organization

A Corps may be the largest gathering of Marines you'll ever witness, and for the Solomani, there may be only five such areas where this occurs, the three regional naval depots, the strategic reserve naval depot, and Home.

For the depots, they're responsible for ground security of the entire system, though SolSec has their representatives, but are dissuaded from bring in anything larger than a couple of companies of their internal security troops; the Army is just disinvited. The depots are not black sites and the Army can DARPAize somewhere else.

The Home based Marine Corps would be responsible for the security of the Secretary General, as well as in system Naval facilities.

Corps would consist of the normal four Marine divisions, with permanently assigned Naval aerospace groups consisting of squadrons of fighters and assault shuttles. The Corps are also the primary training units for the Marines.

There's a battalion assigned to each major combatant, and a company to anything light cruiserish, a platoon per frigate and a squad per corvette.

For bases that they lease, or at least part of, like orbital starports, a company of Marines provides security;primary communications waystations get a platoon, secondary ones are usually tied up with starports.

Fleet tankers get assigned a platoon, as do fleet tenders

FleetRons are considered brigade commands, subsector divisional ones.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Strategy and Doctrine

Making your entire navy over emphasize on capital ships is either very smart or very dumb. Very smart, since my believe has always been that you build capital ships before a war, not during it, and very dumb, if you don't have technology parity, at the very least.

I used the crutch of a naval limitations agreement to allow the situation to develop, and that the Solomanis estimated they needed a century to (secretly) build an research and subsequent tech level fifteen industrial base, in order to build new warships that could take on the Imperium head on. Not uncoincidentally, these research and industrial bases were built up in the four Solomani naval depots. SolSec probably does have some secret research centres, while the Army hires private corporations to do that for them.

Going by the numbers, even building a new deep strike cruiser per year may be too much, spaced over a period of a century, but by the start of the twelfth century of the Third Imperium calendar, all surviving legacy ships from the War of Imperium Aggression could be added to the Solomani Navy without counting to any limitations, and in theory, with a twenty new launches, they'd be able to replace their entire inventory in thirty five years, so a century would mean three cycles.

But they'd still be stuck with tech level fourteen, and having them accumulate capital ships would make the Imperium antsy.

So you'll have a hundred plus deep strike cruisers, hundred plus assault carriers, and five hundred odd Shinano class fast dreadnaoughts, plus hundred year old ships that don't count towards the total, like the Midways, who are only effected by the cap on fleet carriers, not major combatants.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Confederation: Public Transportation and Heighliners

Public transportation eases the flow of supplies, and probably makes it cheaper, if time isn't an issue. Encouraging interstellar public transportation will facilitatate commerce.

The Solomani Confederation could subsidize favoured trade routes by arranging to have large dispersely configured freight ships cruise along them, charging minimal shipping rates for spaceships that they clamp to their sides. The navigator-pilot would be a dolphin. They'd all be in a Union.

Heighliners are supposed to be twenty klicks long, which may be a tad too much even for Traveller. I'm thinking in the ten to hundred thousand range, though this would seem to be a perfect candidate for the semi-megs.

The Heighliner, is of course, an upscaled version of my car/shuttle interstellar ferry.