Solomani Confederation (Military)

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Heavy Battle Riders

30. Low end starwarships are essentially meant to be disposable, of the cheap and cheerful kind.

31. While it's probably possible to design a cheaper primary armament, considering the limited numbers, probably not worth it to open up a separate production line.

32. So everything else around it would have to be picked out of the bargain basement bin, relatively speaking, or off the shelf.

33. The ironick hull is the cheapest, but you suddenly have to start removing about a fifth of the other components.

34. For spinal mounts, you would have to leverage lower teched larger size to a smaller but more expensive higher teched models.

35. Essentially, exchanging space for cost per tonne.

36. At this point, it becomes a question of having a cheaper but larger hull is actually less expensive than a smaller hull with more expensive components, but requiring less tonnage for the same performance.

37. Smaller engineering pays off with an overall less expense.

38. I assume there's some kind of structure that keeps the spinal mount in place, let's call it the cradle.

39. You probably would need a cradle in order to disentangle the spinal mount from the spine, unless you welded it to it.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Heavy Battle Riders

Sixty and three quarter kilotonne spinal mount cradle

Sixty kilotonne spinal mounted meson gun:

Mark One, technological level twelve, sixteen dice damage catastrophic, sixty kilotonnes, eight kilo poni power, eight gigastarbux

Mark Two, technological level thirteen, eighteen dice damage catastrophic, sixty and three quarter kilotonnes, nine kilo poni power, nine and nine tenths gigastarbux

Mark Three, technological level fourteen, eighteen dice damage catastrophic, fifty seven and three eighths kilotonnes, nine kilo poni power, ten and four fifths gigastarbux

Mark Four, technological level fifteen, twenty dice damage catastrophic, sixty kilotonnes, ten kilo poni power, thirteen gigastarbux

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Medium Battle Riders

Thirty three and three quarters kilotonne spinal mount cradle

Thirty kilotonne spinal mounted meson gun:

Mark One, technological level twelve, eight dice damage catastrophic, thirty kilotonnes, four kilo poni power, four gigastarbux

Mark Two, technological level thirteen, ten dice damage catastrophic, thirty three and three quarters kilotonnes, five kilo poni power, five and a half gigastarbux

Mark Three, technological level fourteen, ten dice damage catastrophic, thirty one and seven eighths kilotonnes, five kilo poni power, six gigastarbux

Mark Four, technological level fifteen, ten dice damage catastrophic, thirty kilotonnes, five kilo poni power, six and a half gigastarbux

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Light Battle Riders

1. Currently, the smallest spinal mount is twenty eight hundred tonnes.

2. That's above the five kilotonne limit that grants a minus eight protection against getting targetted by spinal mounts.

3. The smallest meson spinal mount is six kilotonnes.

4. That means only particle accelerator and railgun variants can qualify for the minus four protection, for hulls under ten kilotonnes.

5. Whereas a heavy battle rider is aimed squarely at wiping out the enemy's line of battle as rapidly as possible, and medium ones chip away at it, and hunt down cruisers and other spinal mount equipped combatants, the point of light battle riders is about the same as light cruisers, to scare off non spinal mounted vessels and annoy intermediate and heavy combatants.

6. If, as with a factor one meson spinal mount, the hull will have to be larger than ten kilotonnes, and lose that difficulty to target them.

7. At the same time, the next step would be better protection, which occurs at twenty five kilotonnes.

8. So there's this initial gap between fifteen and twenty five kilotonnes.

9. But outside of larger engines for a given expected performance, there would be an issue of how large a jump shuttle or battle tender you'd want to assign, for a given number and tonnage.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Light Battle Riders

10. Traditionally, monitors are littoral or riverine craft, rather slow moving, and by the time of the Great War, the larger ones were artillery platforms for obsolete or excess capital class guns.

11. This would be distinct from coastal battleships, which really would be considered what we would classify battle riders.

12. Heavy battle riders would be easier to configure, because they have the space and justification to have the best of everything.

13. Light battle riders would need to compromise with the costs involved, because it would have to justify that against the likelihood that a potentially more powerful and capable opponent would mission kill them before they fulfill their potential damage against the other side.

14. In terms of bang for buck, a light battle rider would be built around a factor one particle accelerator spinal mount.

15. I tend to think, besides functioning legacies, captured examples, and planetary navies building their own, the Confederation Navy would, for sheer logistical reasons, concentrate on just meson spinal mounts, which offer considerable destructive power against both space and dirtside targets.

16. The exception would railgun spinal mounts, due to their potential to hit dirtside targets at stand off ranges, and their lower cost of ownership, under the correct circumstances.

17. There really are only two worthwhile choices, the factor six variant, which would be installed in a medium sized hull, or the smallest possible spinal mount, the factor one.

18. The factor one railgun spinal mount is half the price of a particle accelerator, half the power requirement, is one technological level lower, but lacks radiation damage, needs physical ammunition, and is one range band lower.

19. But as I recall, you can't use a particle accelerator against an atmosphered target.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Terminology

(Solo)Man(i) o' War

Dreadnought - technological level twelve, one hundred kilotonnes plus, meson gun factor two, kristahl factor twelve, acceleration factor five, three parsec range

Dreadnought armoured cruiser - technological level twelve, one hundred kilotonnes plus, meson gun factor two, kristahl factor six, acceleration factor seven, three parsec range

Super dreadnought - technological level thirteen, one hundred fifty kilotonnes plus, meson gun factor three, kristahl armour factor thirteen, acceleration factor seven, three parsec range

Battle cruiser - technological level thirteen, one hundred fifty kilotonnes plus, meson gun factor three, kristahl factor nine, acceleration factor seven, three parsec range

Fast dreadnought - technological level fourteen, two hundred kilotonnes plus, meson gun factor four, superdense armour factor fourteen, acceleration factor seven, four parsec range

Super cruiser - technological level fourteen, one hundred kilotonnes plus, meson gun factor two, superdense armour factor nine, acceleration factor seven, four parsec range

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Trillion Credit Squadron

1. I was trying to figure what type of parameters could be used as a guide to the Confederation Navy Order of Battle.

2. Then I remembered this old adventure.

3. A quick check with High Guard indicates that a trillion credits gets you three Tigresses.

4. Or the traditional battle squadron of eight default battleships.

5. While pilots are supposed to be a limited commodity, that seems unlikely on the scale of interstellar operations.

6. If starships don't have organic refuelling capability, then you have to dedicate ten percent of total tonnage to that.

7. Supposedly, you ignore life support, payroll, fuel, and expendable munitions.

8. The modern Fleet Squadron nominally consists of six fast dreadnoughts, twelve escorts, two tankers, two tenders and six fleet couriers.

9. The escorts are supposedly smaller that equivalent Imperium Navy classes.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Trillion Credit Squadron

10. Three Tigresses weigh in at one and a half megatonnes.

11. Eight default Imperium Navy battleships would be one and three fifths megatonnes.

12. Six line of battle ships should in theory be about a quarter megatonne each.

13. Cost should be budgetted at about one hundred fifty megastarbux each.

14. Since you should find one class of ship and stick to it, ten percent mass production discount applies.

15. Also, ignore the naval architect's fee.

16. There's a leeway of about sixteen megastarbux each.

17. The escorts and the fleet couriers should not be counted.

18. The tankers, only if they are required for refuelling the battleships.

19. With the tenders, I don't really know.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Trillion Credit Squadron

20. Let's go with the bleeding edge of Confederation technology, since apparently there are technological level fifteen starwarships available.

21. Let's make the hull podular, which would allow some flexibility in fitting out, and probably in repairing combat damage.

22. The primary hull would be built around the sixty kilotonne factor ten meson gun.

23. That means nominally one hundred twenty kilotonnes.

24. I don't think it's established if you can place drives into pods, though power plants are a go.

25. Due to design rule consideration, you either have one, two or five tonne pods.

26. At least, for capital sized spacecraft.

27. Since, at least in damage control terms, pods are separate from the primary hull, you can adjust the amount of hull armour.

28. Not an option open to either modules or drop tanks, so far.

29. In fact, drop tanks are particularly vulnerable to damage.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Trillion Credit Squadron

30. The more expensive option would be a series of breakaway hulls.

31. The advantages would be that they are clearly described, and their drives can be used to enhance performance.

32. The downside is that you have to sacrifice two percent of total tonnage, and pay two megastarbux per tonne for the privilege.

33. Otherwise, you'd have a voltronesque Lion class dreadnought.

34. Assuming a quarter megatonne fast dreadnought, that would be twenty six five kilotonne pods.

35. Though you could increase the pod to twenty kilotonnes, which would allow the emplacement of a large capital turret.

36. For obvious reasons, only one spinal mount per starwarship.

37. Of you have the requisite minimum tonnage and enough hardpoints, you can build any number of capital turrets upto the hardpoint limit.

38. As long as the pods are configured to match, they could be of any technological level.

39. Combination fuel and torpedo pods would ensure high explosives are away from the main hull, and likely to be expended by the time the lines of battle converge.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Trillion Credit Squadron

40. Besides isolating the high explosives, placing physical ordnance in the pods would minimize the energy footprint.

41. This could easily take the form of railgun slugs, mass driver boulders, missiles or sand canisters.

42. Depending on the angle of an incoming attack, there's a possibility that the attack has to penetrate a pod before it can impact the primary hull.

43. You could modularize the pods.

44. That gets around however long it takes to cold swap them.

45. Which apparently is several weeks.

46. Though I think that should scale with tonnage.

47. Modules can be changed in minutes, if not hours.

48. It also isolates the extra cost of modularization to the pod, rather than the starwarship as a whole.

49. I wonder if you combine it with a breakaway hull?

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Army: Organization

1. Now, I'd like to clarify that I don't have that much interest in the Confederation Army.

2. Mostly, because there's not that much information on it.

3. I conceptualized them as being squarish rather than triangular, mostly because I came to the conclusion that they are well trained, and that their officers could easily control four primary combat subunits.

4. Also, that their principal unit would be a thirty thousand (Solo)wo/man(i) division, with all supporting units, whether combat engineers, artillery, reconnaissance, communications, medical, field intelligence, military police, civiian affairs, and so on.

5. The core would be two mechanized infantry brigades and two armoured brigades, each with four combat sub units.

6. The four brigade headquarters could mix and match, add to that another four divisional headquarters that specialize in various aspects of divisional operations.

7. Plus, auxiliary units could be subordinated to the division, whether planetary home guard, mercenaries, or specialized environment troops.

8. I thought I'd reiterate this, that I envisioned them more as a modern American armoured division plus.

9. In case anyone thought I was using the Soviet model, or god forbid, the current Russian one.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Authorized Volunteer Armed Long Range Yeomanry: Organization

1. I like mucking about with this concept, since I invented it.

2. Which means nothing published or publishing will contradict it.

3. Organization will tend to reflect what the Regimental Colonel of each regiment thinks will best suit the missions assigned to them, by either the Navy or high enough Confederation officials.

4. The basics remain the same.

5. Most of the time, a cavalry squadron under the command of a seconded Confederation Marine or Navy captain will be deployed.

6. Default number of personnel will never exceed two hundred and ninety nine, except temporarily.

7. If either the regimental and/or squadron commander figure that they have a better way to organize the troopers, they have the authority to do so.

8. Most tend to stick to the pattern that regimental doctrine tells them to do.

9. Originally, the model used was Colonial Marines.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Authorized Volunteer Armed Long Range Yeomanry: Organization

10. You always should have some base to start from.

11. I tend to think of the Confederation Army being squarish, Home Guard and planetary defence triangular to simplify See Three, and Confederation Marines as seemingly pentomic, being spread around so much, but probably at the higher tiers, more than five primary combat subunits.

12. CAVALRY would be cellular, defined by yours truly.

13. The cap for permanent assigned personnel being two hundred ninety nine, you could have ten more or less thirty men platoons.

14. You'd have to assign a subcommander for every three platoons, and make the tenth the headquarters platoon.

15. No organic transport, and really barebones support.

16. So you'd have to temporarily assign support personnel and units, boosting numbers over three hundred, temporarily.

17. The platoon has a lieutenant, a platoon leader, and three ten men squads.

18. Each squad would have a squad leader and three three men cells.

19. Each cell would have two recruits and led by an experienced trooper.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Authorized Volunteer Armed Long Range Yeomanry: Organization

20. Should be the stem cell from which the other CAVALRY squadrons evolve into.

21. Recruits reorganized into in the latter half of basic training, upto the authorized total permanent strength of two hundred ninety nine officers and troopers.

22. The role of the CAVALRY in the Solomani Confederation in general, and the Confederation Navy in specific, is to undertake secondary roles, missions and tasks as defined and determined by the Grand Admiral, and/or his authorized representatives.

23. Relieving unnecessary burdens of the units of the Confederation Navy and Confederation Marines, that they may be optimally deployed on their primary roles, missions, duties, and tasks.

24. In times short of a general war, officers would be chosen from serving Confederation Naval and Confederation Marine commissioned officers, seconded to the CAVALRY.

25. It is to provide on the job training and appreciation in dealing with substantial numbers of ground forces, and as a fast track to promotion.

26. Depending on the assigned mission and/or equipment provided, the Captain could be either a naval or marine officer of lieutenant rank onwards, with substantial seniority and/or experience.

27. During wartime, retired or reserve naval, marine or commissioned regimental non commissioned officers would be assigned as the commissioned officers of the CAVALRY squadron.

28. For the retired or reserve naval and marine commissioned officers, it would be seen as a refresher course, before being reassigned to a marine or naval unit.

29. Junior commissioned officers tend to be mostly Confederation Marine lieutenants, the balance junior officers from the Confederation Navy.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Authorized Volunteer Armed Long Range Yeomanry: Organization

30. Let's call this the Beta configuration.

31. Part of the problem is that I don't quite get what's the rate of skills acquired over a specific time period, especially one as intensive as the initial basic training.

32. As it's supposedly over a chunk of four years.

33. And the CAVALRY concept is that the contractual enlistment time is a year and a day.

34. Where at the lowest level you can quit at any time, relatively speaking without penalty.

35. And the Navy is responsible to get you back safely to your enlistment point.

36. Except if you happen to quit in the middle of combat.

37. Or a general war is going on.

38. Then it's best efforts.

39. So it becomes a question of what the recruit learns at what particular time during the course of their training and deployment.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Authorized Volunteer Armed Long Range Yeomanry: Organization

40. Two hundred ninety nine cap ingame reason is that Solomani Security really doesn't trust large numbers of interstellarly enabled combat units.

41. The Confederation Army tends to rely on Confederation Navy transports or Solomani Confederation chartered starships to get around, so there's that separation.

42. And the Confederation Marine Corps doesn't have large enough numbers to really control a critical mass of planets.

43. The CAVALRY Corps is sort of open ended, in that the Grand Admiral can determine the size by allocating as much money as he wants.

44. And recruitment is limited by the number of Confederation citizens that apply.

45. Which a large scale marketing campaign, or lack thereof, can influence.

46. Since one of the concepts is that anyone who is physically able to fight for the Confederation, is allowed to do so.

47. Without mucking up any of the other militarized services.

48. And those who prove to be, surprisingly, adept at it, can be invited to join, or transfer, to one of them.

49. Or finds out it's not for them, or have had their fill of military adventuristic life, which usually doesn't live upto expectations.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Authorized Volunteer Armed Long Range Yeomanry: Organization

50. Confederation citizenship isn't really a requirement, just that a citizen who qualifies, easily, cannot be turned down.

51. Non Confederation citizens, who are not part of an auxiliary or allied military unit, can apply, or be drafted.

52. In general, because of specific equipment requirements, or loyalty concerns, they tend to be steered towards CAVALRY units, let's call it equipped, to deal with their kind.

53. Solomani Security also tends to use the structure for Penal Battalions.

54. Whereas the CAVALRY Corps really wants Volunteers who want to be there, Penal Squadrons only can draw on the facilities that the CAVALRY Corps, or other Confederation institutions and organizations are obligated to provide for them.

55. And tend to be officered and supervised by Solomani Security officers and their internal security troops.

56. In theory, Solomani Security could easily go above the two hundred ninety nine men cap, they've found it a rather comfortable number to control.

57. There's a tension between the military services in transferring their convicted servicepersonnel to the jurisdiction of Solomani Security.

58. Since they would tend to emphasize in the redemption aspect, rather than the punitive one.

59. Unless the crime is beyond the pale and the convicted felon deemed irredeemable.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Authorized Volunteer Armed Long Range Yeomanry: Organization

60. The CAVALRY Corps is sort of an evolving set of concepts.

51. Compared to the Construction and Exploration Corps, since it's very obvious what their mission(s) are.

52. The CAVALRY Corps is meant to be a cheap way for the Navy to accomplish secondary missions, or missions that require the semblance of a reasonable use of appropriate force.

53. Which the sudden appearance of a Confederation Marine expeditionary force might appear overkill.

54. Or hint at an inordinate amount of interest by the Confederation.

55. By themselves, CAVALRY Squadrons can act as forward reconnaissance, routine patrols, security for Navy assets, and/or tripwires.

56. They can also act as protective details for Naval assets, whether personnel or objects.

57. Which could be accompanying a scientific expedition on a wilderness planet.

58. Or acting as the infantry element escorting a weapon system manned by more skilled personnel, whether a guided anti vehicular man portable missile launcher, or an armoured fighting vehicle (in an armoured personnel carrier).

59. Outside of securing secondary naval bases.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Monitor Class Monitors

1. Actually, I wanted to dub them Warrior class.

2. Then I realized that that would be the variant with an onboard jump drive and requisite bunkerage.

3. Which the Monitor class definitely lacks.

4. The Monitor class is the barebones weapons platform for the then largest spinal mount.

5. The twenty one kilotonne factor six railgun spinal mount.

6. Big Bertha.

7. I sort of juggled and compared the numbers between technological levels ten and thirteen.

8. To see if it would be a worthwhile attempt make it a modern variant of it.

9. And my conclusion was no.