Solomani Confederation (Military)

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Hulls, Tonnage Range, and Symmetry

111. Armoured dual cockpit weighs in at two and three quarters tonnes, two escape capsules at a tonne, reactor at one tonne, and fuel at another tonne; five and three quarters, balance four and a quarter for minimum ten tonnes.

112. Two tonnes would be enough for a military grade sensor.

113. If you can keep the weight down to ten tonnes would be great, since ideally you'd want to have a third volume of the thirty five tonners, so twelve tonnes, and about a fourth of the cost, whatever that would be estimated at.

114. That's the ideal solution, not necessarily what happens in real life, where salami slicing cost cutting creates something that's one third cheaper, with one third of the capability.

115. The next step to consider is whether to have afterburners, if only to take advantage of the mandated fuel tank size.

116. Point defence fighters don't really need one, or at least, not one with an extended duration, as compared to an actual interceptor, or what they used to call pursuit.

117. The opposition is moving towards the objective that you're defending, so basically closing the distance, you don't have to chase them down.

118. Essentially, you only have to activate the afterburners once you get into a dogfight, where six minutes is converted into a sixty six second rounds, which would be about factor ten over six minutes with a ten percent fuel tank.

119. Factor ten reactionary rocket would be twenty percent, and technology level ten, well within three levels of fuel efficiency.

 

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Confederation Navy: Hulls, Tonnage Range, and Symmetry

120. So, what's going on?

121. You can design it as smaller and cheaper, but if it's supposed to be something that the Confederation Navy would want to train their pilots, and have a secondary purpose as either light or ground attack, you have to invest some volume and cash.

122. As well as make it survivable, despite the number of times I like to refer back to the TIE fighter.

123. We hop from ten to fifteen tonnes, which is still less than half of thirty five.

124. Two and three quarter tonnes armoured dual cockpit, one tonne escape capsules, two tonnes reactor, one tonne fuel tank; total six and three quarter tonnes.

125. Eleven point two percent factor fourteen armour plating, nine percent manoeuvre drive, twenty percent afterburner; forty point two percent equals six point zero three tonnes.

126. That leaves enough space for a two tonne military grade sensor, and zero point two three tonnes spare.

127. Emergency power would take up zero point two tonnes; thirty kilogrammes could be personal belongings.

128. I'm sure reactor size can be refined downwards, opening up some space for batteries; firmpointed fixedly mounted weapon systems take up no space, not even external torpedoes.

129. And that, I think, would be a more accurate design of the light fighter concept.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Hulls, Tonnage Range, and Symmetry

130. Out of curiousity, I did a little research, and it seems the last version of the Rampart happens to be fifteen tonnes.

131. So it would look like the Confederation has established, or at least my take on it, fighter tonnages for light fifteen tonnes, medium carrier borne thirty five tonnes, medium base based forty nine tonnes, heavy one hundred ninety nine tonnes.

132. There's also one for the smallest viable tonnage at ten tonnes, but it's going to be heavily compromised in one way or another, so it's not worth listing, but variations of that platform exist.

133. Having established the targetted tonnages, the premium tier would be designed that would be fully optimized at technological level fourteen.

134. The secondary tier would be models that try to maintain the same performances, but subject to as much cost cutting as possible.

135. The third tier would be export models, where you assume the customer is really looking at the price tag.

136. Most obvious characteristics would be the use of hull configurations.

137. The premiums would all be streamlined.

138. The secondaries are likely to be spheres.

139. The tertiaries are likely to be spheres scooped out of iron nickel planetoids.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Hulls, Tonnage Range, and Symmetry

140. Back to the commercial side.

141. Or, more precisely, utility, being more specific to the Confederation Navy.

142. Commercial more in the sense that tonnages are standardized, for hangar and docking facilities.

143. Utility serves two purposes, transportation of troops, personnel and supplies, and as a platform for equipment that for a variety of reasons fighters wouldn't be really suitable for.

144. They can also be armed, whether as deterrence, support, or gunships in their own right.

145. In most cases, agility isn't that much of an issue, so you could actually have had the larger ones weighing in at fifty, one hundred, and two hundred tonnes.

146. As mentioned before, standardizing them at forty nine, ninety nine and one hundred ninety nine is to have uniform hangar and docking facilities, as well as in theory to use the same hulls as the fighters, odd as this may seem with the design rules.

147. Since volume is at a premium within a spaceship, the thirty five tonners supposedly try to duplicate anything that the forty niners have been designed to, which wouldn't normally be carried.

148. Therefore, assault shuttles tend to be of the thirty five tonne variety.

149. Fifteen tonnes would be the standard light transport, considering that anything smaller is unlikely worth it for the allocation of space and a pilot.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Bridging The Gap and Armoured Holographic Dual Cockpit

1. I looked at the costs, and it seems obvious that for operational, maintenance, procurement and personnel reasons, that all spacecraft of the Confederation Navy between fifteen and two hundred tonnes would be automatically outfitted with:

2. An armoured bulkheaded dual cockpit with holographic controls.

3. The dual cockpit takes up two and a half tonnes and costs fifteen kilostarbux.

4. The holographic option adds an extra three and three quarters kilostarbux.

5. The armoured bulkead weighs in at a quarter of a tonne, and costs fifty kilostarbux.

6. Total two and three quarters tonnes, and sixty eight and three quarters kilostarbux.

7. Vanilla single cockpit at ten kilostarbux and one and a half tonnes, would be the economy option, or when space becomes premium, at ten tonnes.

8. Though, it would be an option from ten to fifty tonnes.

9. Presumably, it could be the small bridge option for fifty one to two hundred tonne spacecraft.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Bridging The Gap and Armoured Holographic Dual Cockpit

10. Hundred to two hundred tonne hulls can be retrofitted with jump drives.

11. Dual cockpits can completely control these starships, except for probably two functions.

12. We'll assume that the balance of seven and a half tonnes from the default ten tonne bridge control these two functions.

13. Astrogation calculation and direct control of the jump drive from the bridge.

14. You could send an engineer to input commands and control the jump drive directly at the source.

15. Astrogation would probably just need access from your iPhone to the ship's sensors; and probably cloud computing to the local astrographical database.

16. One step downwards would be the small six tonne bridge, with a minus one penalty to carrying out tasks.

17. Since ten tonne bridges were default smallest starship ones, six tonnes would be default small bridge.

18. Which makes a six tonne small bridge eligible for a specific function, jumping, with a plus one bonus.

19. I'm going to assume it would include astrogation function, as well as control of the jump drive.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Bridging The Gap and Largely Command

1. To simplify bridge crew orientation, the Confederation Navy only installs only eighty tonne command bridges.

2. Sure, it's more expensive, but with the cruiser gap, and the need to squeeze out every advantage, and probably coordinating a flotilla of attached forces, each, standardization of command bridges makes sense.

3. Spacecraft upto two hundred tonnes would be principally controlled by a dual cockpit, or multiples thereof.

4. Optionally, six tonne jump specialized sub command centre, though as outlined above, not sure if this would be a requirement for starships, but the additional plus one bonus would cut down on possible misjumps.

5. This leaves us with spacecraft between two hundred plus to one thousand plus tonnes.

6. Because space would probably be at a premium, they'd get a twenty tonne bridge.

7. Forty tonne bridges would be used as small bridges or sub command centres.

8. Arguably, you could isolate the fleet command, control, communications, intelligence, etcetera of fleet coordination in a forty tonne sub command bridge.

9. Size and utilization of pods might determine if additionally different sized sub command centre small bridges are included.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Bridging The Gap and Largely Command

10. Looking over the oft neglected space station design sequence, whose bridges probably were better equipped for internal security and life support, but rudimentary controls for manoeuvring, and none at all for jumping.

11. Command bridges fpr space stations do not increase in size, and only cost an additional hundred kilostarbux.

12. Compared to a fixed size and an additional quarter of a million starbux more.

13. You could clamp a five hundred tonne satellite to the hull of any ship, or park it in the hangar, and have a ten tonne fleet command centre.

14. Or even a twenty tonne satellite.

15. And it would cost only two hundred kilostarbux.

16. With the volumes usually involved, the size of the space station bridges isn't really relevant.

17. The real value of space station bridges is their cost, which is only twenty percent of that of the default spaceship bridges.

18. Ironically, anything smaller than two hundred tonnes could be cheaper using spaceship design sequence, in terms of controls.

19. On a sidenote, space stations can built around breakaway hulls.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof

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1. That was my take on them, too.

2. Okay.

3. Yeah, I came to the conclusion, that the Confederation Navy shows a remarkable similarity to Starfleet.

4. Again, the similarity is uncanny.

5. In direct pressure and Section Thirty One.

6. This is new, but I always thought non standard command areas would be more likely, though I had them in four regional commands divided by an ecks, where the top one would be for administration of liberated space and the combat forces assigned there.

7. I thought so, too, but I was thinking more in terms of proportionate response along the Aslan front, and keeping an eye on the Hivers along that border.

8. Pragmatic.

9. Fleet Operations: we have orders.

10. Internal Security - seems schizophrenic, and I'd have used monitors as guardships; also something I would have pushed on Solomani Security, outside of patrolling and commerce protection.

11. Support Operations - would have split off couriers under their own command.

12. Survey and Exploration - I'd borrow starships from Internal Security for the Survey function, and for Exploration, it would depend on the priority of the mission.

13. Base and Reserve - I'm pretty sure my take on Confederation Navy bases veers wildly, but keeping close contact with Reservists, former personnel and retirees chimes in with my view.

14. Administration and Training - I would have split up some of these functions into separate command, unless the intent is to obfuscation of some of their operations, and maybe it is more efficient, everything under one roof.

 

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Confederation Marines: Chartered State Thereof

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1. I tend to think they spend most of their time training, and for base security, they form the inner circle; rapid reaction strike and protected environment assault forces seems right; short deployments and naval support. I'd include assault shuttles, ortillery and ground support aerospacecraft.

2. I'd have given them all battle dress, to address the technological imbalance with the Imperium; jumped the gun. Speaking of jumping, capsules can include supplies.

3. I'd refuse to wear a red shirt.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Marines: Commentary

1. While it's probably not practical, divisions would be largely regional commands, headquarters concerned with keeping tabs where their personnel were and training, three established, one in abeyance awaiting the Day of Liberation.

2. Exception would be one established in the Home system, with brigade sized garrisons in the Capital, on the Rock, nearest gas giant and the Wolfe's Lair, major insystem naval base and semi depot, plus a large training establishment.

3. Each Fleet Squadron is assigned a reinforced Marine Brigade, each fast dreadnought and super fighter carrier a battalion.

4. The reason the Confederation Marines are gung ho in boarding currently incapacitated enemy vessels, is to distract them, as well as to ensure that they can't be brought back on line; secondary considerations would be gaining intelligence, technology transfer, and maybe recommissioning the warship as a Confederation Navy unit.

5. Generally speaking, they'll concentrate on capital ships and important looking cruisers, member world navy Marine forces board everything else.

 

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Confederation Army: Chartered State Thereof

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1. Vague; expeditionary, presumably counter insurgency, garrison. What's the opposite of federalizing militia? Okay, so there are Twelve Great Fortresses that the Confederation Army mans, and many smaller ones? What's the difference between secondment and cooperation?

2. I'd go more with blitzkrieg, defence happens when the Imperium starts pushing back; space assets are the preserve of the Confederation Navy, and apparently aerospace connectors. Considering the the Army is supposedly technological level fourteen, they'd have an extensive collection of anti gravity vehicles, maritime may be a specialized branch, much in the sense that they would have specialized troops for non temperate environments. Navy (assault) carrier may be retained as the headquarters for Army commanders and their staff, though I got the impression that the Army is carried by transports, with possibly warships configured for planetary assault used to launch aerospace connectors.

3. Regiments; West of Hono(u)r covers this, with a provisional battalion, graduating to a regiment, and allowing (presumably) ambitious junior officers to get advancement.

4. Guards divisions, the scale is interstellar, and you don't have to limit them to just nine battalions. You're going to have permanent army commands, or at least military districts.

5. Square is not three and one; compare binary as two and one.

6. Independent, reinforced, combat team, legion?

7. Presumably, maintenance and supply concentrated at brigade level.

8. Infantry - non temperate environments, tropical, arctic, urban, underground, and so on.

9. Cavalry - rocket pack troops? I interpret this as updated dragoons, hobilars, or huscarls. Possibly panzer grenadiers.

10. Commando - Special forces, pretty much what you'd expect. Infiltration.

11. Heavy infantry - assault panzer grenadiers; alternatively, what we might term as vanilla grenadiers, more defensively orientated, and equipped with heavy weapons to knock out armour.

12. Jump infantry - paratroopers.

13. Light infantry - I think we call this leg infantry; bounce troops as ersatz Confederation Marines is new.

14. Protected forces - more permanently assigned forces to environments that require extensive protective equipment.

15. Combined arms force, plus support, and let's say aerospace and orbital defence.

 

[Condottiere]

Sword World: Ground Forces

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1. Elite forces use anti gravity vehicles, regulars are wheeled, and militia make do.

2. Have they tried pentomic divisions?

3. Katyushas.

4. Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge.

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&feature=youtu.be&v=3YOYlgvI1uE&ab_channel=Andronicus011

6. Coordination might be a nightmare, equipment standardization should minimize that for logistics, unless something isn't kosher.

7. Bicycles.

8. Sounds like corps or army level units, assigned as required.

9. Grav armoured - Knights of the Old Republic.

10. Grav Cavalry - combat team; would think this means they're the glue that holds the entire apparatus together.

11. Grav Recon - reconnaissance is supposedly not to get into a fight; alternatively, armoured reconnaissance.

12. Grav assault - all arms shock troops, apparently.

13. Grav support - prioritized mobility, which again, I suspect, is assigned by a higher level headquarters.

14. Lift infantry - ad hoc; however, I suspect in peacetime, units are rotated in for training and familiarization of tactics.

15. I think the French use a lot of wheeled units, and you certainly can place heavy artillery on large trucks; armoured fighting vehicles may be more tank destroyers and armoured cars.

16. Urban combat - in absence of elevators, air/rafts will be useful as transports and tacticals; consider underground as another dimension.

17. Anti armour - I suspect an armour piercing guided missile may be more useful, and Sturmgeschütz.

18. Aerospace defence - deterrence, unless dug in and heavily fortified.

19. Fortress - in this sense, implies a large contingent of combat engineers.

20. Security - I'm more inclined to think of partisan suppression.

21. Intelligence assault - T-Force was the operational arm of a joint US Army-British Army mission to secure designated German scientific and industrial technology targets before they could be destroyed by retreating enemy forces or looters during the final stages of World War II and its immediate aftermath. Key personnel were also to be seized, and targets of opportunity exploited when encountered. The effort was a business and technology-oriented parallel of sorts to the Monuments Men pursuit of art and financial treasure.

The program was designed to loot the defeated Germany's intellectual assets and impede its ability to compete in the postwar political and economic spheres while giving a boost to the nations conducting it.[1] Though unacknowledged at the time, the T-Force mission also included preventing advanced Nazi technology from falling into the hands of the Soviet Union—destroying whatever could not be seized and hauled away before Soviet troops arrived. As such, T-Force activities can be seen as the beginning of the Cold War. Operations in Germany were often heavy-handed, and sometimes amounted to kidnapping.[1] Publicly available information on the unit's activities remains scarce.

Comprising some 3,000 "investigators"[2] plus thousands more in entire attached battalions of infantry and combat engineers,[3] T-Force activities were among the largest Allied "exploitation operations".[4] T-Force was also tasked with preventing damage to infrastructure such as telephone exchanges that would be useful to occupying forces and in the rebuilding of Germany.

22. Naval infantry - shipboard security.

 

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Sword World: Ground Forces

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23. Volunteers - veterans not in reserves?

24. Mercenaries - dogs of war.

25. Freikorps - vikings.

26. Jaegers - band of brothers.

27. Militias - neighbourhood watch.

28. Penal units - societal penalty box.

 

[Condottiere]

Sword World: Ground Forces

Formations - Surprisingly traditional (or modern, depending on your point of view), using the triangular system of a headquarters and three line sub units.

Battalions seem to be designed to be self sufficient, and likely to remain consistent in, what's the term for it, organization and equipment?

As far as possible, brigades seem to be organized into specific types, while divisions seem to be more administrative units with a specific role.

I get the implication that commanders don't expect their formations, especially corps and armies, to remain cohesive after contact with the enemy, so it becomes more a question of giving the surviving battalions and brigades a structure they can attach themselves to, the strategy being to gain control of enemy territory and try to hold it, using the populace as deterrence against massive retaliation.

 

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Confederation Army: Chartered State Thereof

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16. Mission commander.

17. Confederation's intelligence service - MI6?

18. Rump battalion: likely motorized infantry company, military police company, aerospace defence platoon; going by movie tropes, the army commander won't interfere with the operation of the mission, until security concerns become paramount.

19. Brigades can be commanded by full bird colonels.

20. Brigades - Confederation ground forces are large and well equipped enough that you're most likely to run into specialized type brigades, despite being all or combined arms.

21. Division - At this stage of technological development, more likely an administrative unit; however, considering interstellar polity scales, may actually revert back to being specialized type.

22. Corps - For Napoleon, they were mini armies that were easier to coordinate and manoeuvre, and supply.

23. Armies - continental command area.

24. Marshal of the Confederation - As far as I know, this is new in canon.

 

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Confederation Home Forces: Chartered State Thereof

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1. Equipped to the same standards as Confederation military, and trained to operate alongside them; apparently, tends to be mostly lip service.

2. Maintain sovereignty; strategic subsidization. Hessian option and Special Relationship.

3. Space Patrol. Royal Canadian Navy? Finger in the wind to see if you can poke any bears.

4. Riot control, no knock warrants, border patrol, and aerospace defence. Seems voluntary service, and training shortcuts.

5.

Confederalized Home Guard.

6. Balancing political and military power, by at least giving a fig leaf to planetary defence, so that the Confederation military can concentrate its forces instead of getting defeated in detail.

7. Veteran employment programme; also likely monitors from Solomani Security and military intelligence.

8. Loyalty Ships: Mutsu, Australia, New Zealand, Malaya, and I believe that French cities funded ships of the line.

9. Cadre militia? Define Reserves, planetary or Confederation?

10. Define medium sized Imperium or Aslan forces. This is where Sword World doctrine comes in.

11. Defence in depth (ironically, the Confederation hasn't got strategic depth), partisans, guerrillas, francs tireurs.

12. Three dimensional or multilayered robust communications, logistics and supposedly energy infrastructure, I suspect on the political, military and commercial levels. To be fair, residents of Pompeii would have appreciated evacuation drills.

13. A less advanced military is unlikely to be able to outrun and outfight a more advanced one, which is why we have heavily armed grenadiers to cover retreats, and skirmishers to keep the enemy unsettled.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof

Exploration and Survey

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1. Starfleet meets SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.

2. Private contractors; consultants are the ones they send to clients to show them which end to point at others, or do the job themselves.

3. Specific role and mission contracts; I don't think you can draw a pension on that. Obviously, wouldn't work with the Marines or Starship Troopers.

4. Command and control for "communication assets" somewhat vague; unless the idea is that once they have delivered their message, cargo or passenger(s), they have to immediately return to the parent ship. Because, time lag.

5. Survey - I think that routine patrolling opens up opportunity for normal surveying, so it might just be easier to have a Survey department onboard a patrol ship; except for the frontiers, they wouldn't be expecting trouble.

6. Diverting from normal escort duties would lend a tad of uncertainty to patrol patterns.

7. So it does create plausibility, if the survey mission is cover for something more clandestine.

8. Exploration - One platform, mission modules.

9. Short range can easily use repurposed patrol vessels; long range could be an older cruiser.

10. Converted light carrier? Maintenance aerospace carrier. Jump frogs.

11. Okay.

12. Lost In Uncharted Space.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof

Naval Doctrine And Deployments

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1. Hit hard and run.

2. Bltzkrieg; commerce raiding. Defeat in detail.

3. Mobile reserves stiffening frontier planetary forces, while fleet task groups cut Imperium lines of communication.

4. Break the Imperium's will to continue the conflict.

5. Powerful battleships, large battlecruiser force, strike destroyers. Concentration of force. Battlecruiser paradox.

6. Strike destroyers armament either torpedoes or fusion guns; operate in flotillas or battlecruiser support as strike and rapid reaction forces. Fleet cruiser armament presumably energy weapon turrets and missiles.

7. Lots of battle riders; tenders are battle taxis. I'll discuss my opinion of the given doctrine later.

8. Specialized role vessels designated as cruisers. Carriers are multirole.

9. Cruisers supposedly available for patrol duties, but we know the budget allocation is used as a slush fund for capital ships and the black budget, unlikely for destroyers. Heavy cruisers have a spinal mount, light cruisers don't. System control ship revival.

10. Fleets and flotillas are administrative units within an expedient area of operations. Squadrons, flotilla and task forces.

11. Shell game.

 

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Solomani Security: Chartered State Thereof

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1. Dogma arbitration and security force; I guess they needed to talk softly and use a big stick against dissenters.

2. Homeland Security.

3. Stasi.

4. I suppose developing psionic agents would be next.

5. Office of the Coordinator - seems a pretty streamlined organization.

6. Inquisition.

7. Think tank(s).

8. Sp(h)acebook.

9. SolSec Directorates - large staffs.

10. Solomani Security presence scales with importance of region.

11. Internal Directorate - has at least one office in very starport rated Ai through Dee, or member world with a population of at least a thousand. Sp. presumably, anything that has less than a thousand inhabitants have at least one monitor or covert agent, which means if there's no one openly wearing a Solomani cockade, there's is an agent among us.

12. Artificial intelligence. No one is innocent.

13. Define loyalty.

14. Populists and influencers.

15. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes.

16. Counter intelligence and operational security. Better safe than sorry.

17. Solomanization, collaborators and minders.

18. Public Safety Officers.