Solomani Confederation (Military)

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Solomani Navy: Strategy

All remaining Zeus class battlecruisers and Midway class carriers (assuming they are now the same size as the Zeus class) are forward deployed along the Aslan frontier, as having the capability to make an impression on them, and simplifying logistics and maintenance. They also serve the function of a strategic reserve for reinforcing the inner Solomani Sphere, as they have enough time and distance to reorganize into powerful task groups, and move towards the Imperium. Since I don't see much point in trying to upgrade the tech level thirteen jump three battlecruisers into jump 4, or replace the DRF/13.

Anything classified as cruiser face inward to the Imperium ceasefire line, since any forward deployed units would likely be overrun in the even of a large Imperium surprise attack. Cruisers are large enough to deal with a reconnaissance in force probe, and maintain the sovereignty of Confederation space.

Still working out exactly what I think the Victory class should be doing or used for.

 

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Solomani Navy: Fast Dreadnoughts

I'm fairly sure that the Solomani Navy intent is to have individual capital ship units that would be larger than their Imperium counterparts, in order to make up for the tech level difference, which is why the Prometheus class is a quarter of a million tonnes.

I don't see them ever approving a Tigress class equivalent, as being wasteful of shipyard capacity and construction of requisite jump drives.

But seeing as they seem a little disappointed with the Prometheus class, it's likely successor would be three hundred thousand tonnes, which in classic game mechanics, prevented critical hits from spinal mounts.

All Solomani capital ships have a medium fighter contingent to act as a screen, and whatever the successor class to the Prometheus would be, still likely tech level fourteen, have about a hundred medium fighters and a Marine battalion.

And their jump drive would be used for the battle rider tender class, and possibly a super carrier.

 

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Solomani Navy: Hull Configurations

Most of the hull configurations chosen seem to be the wedge, with an occasional cone variant.

I suspect that reflects Solomani doctrine that all their ships must be able to easily refuel at gas giants or perhaps suck it up from the oceans, allowing them to tank up ASAP, and not require them to drag along dragging along or pre-positioning refuelling assets.

The flattened sphere would be an indication of the Solomani Army's requirement of finding a cheaper way for atmospheric operations that their ships would be expected to be capable of, including the assault carriers (or perhaps a spillover for that design specification).

Other configurations would be based more on economic considerations, or for special operations.

Catamarans would tend to use cylindrical hulls.

 

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Solomani Navy: Hull Configurations

What about spheres? I don't know, they are the most efficient use of materials, but may be too hard to park.

Cylinders are so classical, they and flying saucers may be the preferred commercial configurations, and you can always stick wings and fins on them.

Catamarans could be considered close structure configured, if the hulls close together and compatible; dispersed configuration could be for space and starships built specifically to economize construction, but might be considered rather fragile by most Solomani.

And then you have planetoids, which probably do need a minimum size in the rules, though I could imagine them driven around like jeeps. The Navy uses them as space stations, bases, and monitors, the Army doesn't favour them as transports. We know what Solsec uses them for.

 

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Solomani Army: Activating the Home Guard

Beyond the obvious joint training and operations in order to try maintain standards, commonality and ease any future integration into the Confederation command structure, the Army will activate five types of troops:

1. Troops from the more or less immediate region, specialized to operate in specific environments, like tropical jungle, Arctic conditions or mountains, where the Army can't quite leverage superior technology. These could include private military contractors.

2. Local Home Guard and/or loyalists, both for their local knowledge and to make up the numbers. The Army would attach special forces to largish formations.

3. Mechanized infantry who deploy with their own equipment, to bulk out the Army forces as medium infantry.

4. Motorized infantry, who are light infantry, that will be supplied with transport from local sources, and tend to act as light forces.

5. Private military contractors; the Army doesn't really like employing them beyond specific missions, and the mercenaries aren't enthused to be used as cannon fodder in other circumstances, which they suspect in any contract where they end up in lightish configuration.

 

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Solomani Navy: Engagement Doctrines

One thing that seems a little contradictory is the hit and run tactic advocated for their major, and minor combatants, and then mentioning their preference for beam weapons.

While investing in beam weapons, means you'd also have to invest in armour plating and other forms of protection, since you're going to be duking it out, and it's been lamented that Solomani capital ships lack armour plating.

With rapid fire spinal mounts (do they have them with mass drivers), I see them more as moving in and out of range every second round, and even if logistics get more complicated, I see the Solomani willing to close if their ships have railgun and torpedo armament.

 

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Solomani Navy: Expeditionary Ground Forces

Within the borders of the Confederation,there can be no dispute that you can deploy Army units anywhere, though usually as a reminder, or a sharp slap on the nose.

What's in question is deployment outside the recognized borders of the Confederation.

Client states can invite the Confederation to send assistance, but the issue might be time sensitive, in which case you have to send in the Marines, meaning that the Navy is suddenly directly involved in operations that normally the Army undertakes.

The Marines don't need Army advisers telling them what to do, they're short of numbers and heavy equipment. They'd have to recruit and train local self defence units and import mercenaries.

Interstellar power projection would be the task of the Navy, but I don't think the Solomani really want to militarily intervene with large forces outside their borders, preferring diplomacy, and if that fails, minimal investment in military assets.

Publicly sending large numbers of Army units, outside of their client nations, would be diplomatically tricky, as it would look expansionist, whereas as an application to join the Confederation would not. And resolves the issue of subsequent Army deployment.

Unless the Confederation is taken by surprise, SolSec should have done preparatory ground work, so that when a Navy expeditionary force suddenly appears above in orbit, and Marines carrying out surgical strikes, they can immediately cease the levers of state with local proxies, and create and control a loyal, hopefully competent, local security force, supplemented with regional mercenary forces.

 

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Solomani Navy: Bases

At this moment in time, there should be:

Naval Depots

My revisioning has three, in each military district, with the central one hosting both that district's strategic reserves, as well as the Navy's. They each pop out three dreadnoughts and a fleet carrier per year. Probably a battlerider as well.

Naval Bases

Likely one per subsecor, with the facilities to repair tech level fourteen capital ships. Regional headquarters.

Co-located Base

The Confederation contributes to the cost of building Home Guard Naval facilities and running, in return for allowing the Solomani Navy (and occasionally the Army) use them; also helps with integration into the Confederation command structure, technology transfer and training. And keeping track of what they are upto.

Starport Leased Facilities

The Navy leases space at the local Starport, in the event one of their vessels is transitting through the system, and they don't want the local Home Guard to have a too close look at it; includes the local branch of the naval courier and communications system.

Communications Waystation

Large, well defended space station, usually in the middle of nowhere, where the primary jump five couriers transition to, and secondary couriers then deliver passengers and communications to the local systems.

Mobile Forward Basing

Large logistics ships that bring naval repair and maintenance facilities to forward areas; also can act as a base for small task groups.

Secret Bases

Something that's done in cooperation with SolSec; includes advanced research and weapons testing laboratories. Also interrogation and holding black sites. Tend to be placed more rimward, though some daring directors believe in the concept of in plain sight.

Forward Bases

Mostly along the frontiers to support reconnaissance missions, though some have extensive facilities depending on the perceived threat in certain areas.

 

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Solomani Navy: Unit Identification

I'm sure there is a more appropriate title, but in Fighting Ships, squadrons tend to be given the names and co-opted histories of what appears to be mostly Terran ground units.

I'm pretty sure that the Solomani Army would have disputed this vigourously and with good cause.

Naval historical associations should be through their maritime equivalent ships, and there should be enough of them. Giving them to naval squadrons might work if the Solomani had a unified military, but they've clearly separated ground and space forces.

I also think that the Solomani would prefer to use mostly ad hoc squadron and task group numbers as unit identification, to obscure the exact deployment of their assets from Imperium intelligence services, they probably don't care if the Aslan know, except if they suddenly had to withdraw their major units from their spinward border.

Now, for their smallcraft squadrons, and possibly upto small ship grouped units, they may adopt the identifications of famous Air Force formations.

 

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Solomani Army: Formations

Since we tend to reflect on real life, we can note that most modern armies are reorganizing around the brigade level as the most practical formation, as opposed to the divisional one that stems back to the Cold War, and came into prominence during the Napoleonic one.

When you're attacking a planet with several billion sophonts, and then occupying it afterwards, you're going to need at least a million men, plus local collaborators, so I don't see the Army Group, nor Army, nor Corps, nor Division, becoming less relevant.

With improved command and control, and more support elements added, plus leveraging any technological edge, including death from above (the Navy), the brigade is likely the biggest formation that will be deployed, enlarged by one or two more combat battalions, with a divisional headquarters doing the coordinating that the corps or an army headquarters used to do, responsible for probably for the higher end of the 3-5 span of control.

But if you follow this line of reasoning, why can't this descend to the brigade being more coordination after a couple of thousand years more improvement in training and equipment? At that point you're moving into Gundam territory, or Space Marines at the company level.

Moving along, I think the Solomani Army would have an Army headquarters per subsector, and that most expeditions dealing with recalcitrant members would be a reinforced division for large worlds, using ortillery to destroy large enemy formations, so that they can mop up using superior mobility and concentrating bit sized enemy forces.

 

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Solomani Starships: Jump Drives and Standardization

Solomani seem to design their starships around an existing jump drive template, rather than designing jump drives to allow certain performances for any specific ship tonnage.

For the upper range, that means that the fifteen thousand tonne jump drive designed for the the current three hundred thousand tonne class of fast dreadnoughts, the Illustrious class, would allow them to jump four parsecs in a single transition, would be used to construct the accompanying fleet (super, in this case) carriers, and the battle rider squadron tender, and possibly be used for a jump three three hundred thousand seventy five thousand tonne commercial superfreighter, or one that shifts a half a million tonne load at jump two, or at a stretch, a three quarter million tonne load one parsec at a time. I don't think any example exists of a quarter million tonne vessel optimized to transition five parsecs at once.

This allows the Solomani Confederation to build up economies of scale on vital components, but it also straighjackets tonnages available for any given tonnage and performance.

Previous examples of trendmakers would be the Prometheus twelve thousand five hundred tonne jump drive, the Zeus six thousand tonne jump drive and the Victory four thousand tonne jump drive.

This would imply that the Normandy class is more likely eighty thousand tonnes, as the Victory jump drive is upgraded to tech level thirteen, and a deep strike cruiser could be built at sixty six thousand tonnes.

 

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Solomani Starships: Jump Drives and Standardization

Going a step down, you have the Minsk class at fifty thousand tonnes, which gets you two thousand tonne jump drive at jump three. Or jump four at forty thousand tonnes if you move up a tech level.

Or thirty three thousand tonnes at tech level five, which would give you a deep strike cruiser with a minimal spinal mount.

Now this is how I would try and manage military procurement, as the Solomani Confederation is four or five times smaller than the the Imperium, and it's implied they have manufacturing bottlenecks, so being super efficient would leverage that out and the tech level disadvantage.

It could be that the Confederation holds the patents and copyrights on the jump drives, but permits corporations to manufacture them without fees, but mandatory registration for each example.

 

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Solomani Navy: Aslan Frontier

I doubt that the Confederation believes that any true advance of their borders is possible here, but it may also be the active military frontier at a controlled level, with multiple small scale clashes as Aslan youngbloods actively probe for weaknesses, being mostly engagements of fighters, strikecraft and small ships.

The forward deployment of the Zeus class battlecruisers tends to allow a swift response to any member system that may no longer cope with Aslan raids, despite aerospace groups and small ship flotillas reinforcing the Home Guard.

The Solomani Confederation may superficially maintain a strict neutrality regarding the internal politics of the Hierate, so as not to give them a common enemy at a time they're more occupied amongst themselves, while favouring certain factions through trade deals, and making it clear their intent to try to protect Humaniti communities interests that settled beyond the current existing Confederation borders, Humaniti abroad in strategic enclaves.

 

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Solomani Navy: Buddy System

Despite the public perception of the bold naval captain and his intrepid crew, Solomani doctrine has that where possible, all warships are paired and deployed that way.

The primary reason is to overcome any technical shortcomings in any conflict with a higher teched warship through greater firepower. The secondary one is psychological, any solitary Solomani warship will have the observer wondering where the other one is.

Cruisers are usually deemed to be large enough to take care of themselves, and can be detached from their squadrons and task groups to undertake solo missions, though they might be accompanied by one or more escorts. Capital ships move in packs.

 

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Solomani Navy: Close Aerospace Support

It's not so much that the Solomani Navy begrudges providing ground units these life-saving missions, it's more that they'd rather invest their resources and train their pilots in operating space superiority fighters and fast strikecraft.

However, the compromise they've worked out is to activate Home Guard aerospace units that have, operate and specialize in close support light fighters, and use them in planetary assaults.

This helps in a number of ways, the ground troops are reassured that their backs are covered by people who know what they are doing, the Home Guard units get combat experience, and the Navy can continue to concentrate on space combat.

 

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Solomani Army: Hierarchy

I see the Solomani Navy as replicating the USN and/or Starfleet, but the Army might structure itself as the Wehrmacht, since it's branches would be so specialized, and my take on it being that medium mechanized and light motorized units would be mostly activated Home Guard units and/or mercenaries.

 

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Solomani Military: Awards

I'm on a working holiday, so my access to reference material is limited.

But I think the equivalent awards would likely be:

SEH: Confederational Medal of Honour

MCG: The Terran Cross

MCUF: The Solomani Star

Purple Heart: Wound Stripes

 

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Solomani Navy: Organization

Perusing through Solomani Rim, I notice that Strike Squadrons aren't mentioned as being part of the Solomani sector fleet, which makes sense if you assume the author has concluded that the Solomani Navy has absolutely no cruisers.

The Solomani Rim Sector Fleet consists of 12 FleetRons – equivalent to Imperial battle squadrons – two CarrierRons, two AssaultRons, and 12 PatRons.

Fleet Squadron (FleetRon): This is the equivalent of the Imperial BatRon. Following Solomani Rim War experience those in the marches are built around battleships plus a screen of light escorts intended mainly for scouting. Tanker and courier units are attached. A typical squadron has six battleships, 12 escorts, two tankers, two tenders and six fleet couriers. Solomani escorts are generally smaller than their Imperial equivalents and will rarely play a significant role in the battle line.

Carrier Squadron (CarrierRon): This is based around a large Fighter Carrier and will normally operate in conjunction with a FleetRon or AssaultRon. Carrier Squadrons are primarily valued by the Confederation Navy for support of AssaultRons and for strategic strike and commerce raiding. Solomani doctrine suggests that hundreds of fighters equipped with nuclear missiles would be used to target merchant vessels, ‘soft’ industrial targets and orbital stations and highports; a large swarm of fighters might present too many targets for system defence boats or planetary defences to adequately handle. The emphasis is on civilian targets, as military bases or ships would be protected by nuclear dampers and too heavily armoured for the small conventional weapons on a fighter. A typical CarrierRon is two fighter carriers with a total of 400 to 800 fighters, six escort ships, four fleet couriers, one fleet tanker and one fleet tender.

This somewhat contradicts my take on the Solomani Navy (which incidentally, I believe is far more effective), based on Fighting Ships.

Task Groups are based around major squadrons and allowing them the flexibility to treat them as modular units that can be switched around.

Fleetrons can be between two to four battleships or dreadnoughts, with four having an assigned fleet carrier, and two following doctrinally the buddy system, making precise assessment by opposing naval intelligence as to where major units are assigned rather trickier. Also smaller, it gives more flexibility in deploying two to four major elements, rather than six as described

Large fleet carriers based on the same fast super dreadnought hulls and engineering are easier to maintain and carry more fighters and strikecraft, making up for the lack of larger escorts. And there'd be more.

Strike Squadrons have always been rather ambiguous, especially as to make up, but they perform the same function as frigates in the age of sail, and cruisers in the ironclad one, though task groups based around what the Solomani Navy would define as cruisers could have between one (due to self sufficiency) to four (unlikely, due to lack of hulls, or perhaps creative definitions as to what constitutes a cruiser).

Smaller than usual escorts does fit in with the current canon, though when the new High Guard redefines ship size definitions, presumably, that may change depending on optimum utilization of the then prevailing shipbuilding rules.

Assault Squadron (AssaultRon): These are tasked for planetary assaults. Organization is similar to the Imperial equivalent, with a single large or two smaller assault transports, a dozen escort ships, four fleet couriers, four commando transports, a fleet tanker and a fleet tender. The assault transports carry numerous smaller craft. Unlike Imperial equivalents AssaultRons are associated with Solomani Army divisions rather than Marines. Commando transports are 800-1,200 ton vessels similar in role to the Broadsword-class of mercenary cruiser used as commando carriers for special operations.

Patrol Squadron (PatRon): Unlike other squadrons, Patrol Squadrons are primarily administrative units broken up into single or paired-vessels rather than operating as tasks forces. Their main duties are showing the flag, monitoring border systems, peacekeeping in low-population systems and piracy suppression, especially in low-population systems that cannot afford a proper Navy Home Guard. In time of war they are typically used for scouting and diversionary missions. PatRons usually consist of about 20 small combat ships, typically a mix of 200-ton close escorts and 1,000-ton patrol cruisers.

There are too few Assault Squadrons, since in my version there's about a hundred thousand tonne assault carrier per subsector, and you need a lot of shipping to transport the divisions, corps and armies that a full assault on the Imperial garrisons of the occupied worlds of the Solomani Sphere requires.

The Patrol Squadron does fit in with the generally understood operating procedure, though again, actual ships would depend on how you can optimally design such ships using the new High Guard.

 

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Solomani Military: Bases

In the Solomani Rim the Confederation Army’s main bases are co-located with those of navy bases. With no major ongoing contingencies and significant Home Guard forces available, the Confederation keeps a fairly modest Army force in the Solomani Rim. The usual deployment is a brigade or division of Confederation Army troops at those Confederation Navy bases that are currently hosting Assault Squadrons. Bases generally have a Commando battalion and a regiment of Confederation Marines at each naval base. Larger forces at divisional and corps level are held back in other sectors.

Not quite what I envisioned, though let's turn this around and say that there are naval facilities at Solomani Army bases to facilitate rapid embarkation of expeditionary forces.

Naval bases would be almost exclusively manned by Naval and Marine personnel, Commandos being drawn from the Marine Corps, and Army Special Forces would be based on Army bases.

Mostly.

 

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Solomani Navy: Small Starships and pilot/astrogator training

One benefit that the Solomani Navy can derive of getting the Scouting duties dumped on them and massive numbers of small starships, is that they can allow their pilots and astrogators to really hone their skills in these starships, taking risks that normally couldn't be contemplated in larger commands, since the loss of the small starships wouldn't be a serious issue, except to their crews.

That would allow the Solomani Navy to have highly trained pilots and astrogators that would be superior to their Imperium opponents making it harder to hit their capital ships, and allowing their task forces to precisely transit large formations to exactly where their task force's admiral wants them to go.