Solomani Confederation (Military)

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Solomani Security: Chartered State Thereof

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19. The Monitor Programme - At best, would have a certain inhibited interaction with a known one; pretty sure they have an office in Starport class Dee.

20. The Germans had one in every block; the Chinese appear to have grannies (old aunties who'd be grannies by now).

21. Chaplains; assistant cooks.

22. Enforcers.

23. External Directorate - monitoring Solomani tourists; it's possible that all Solomani living outside of the Confederation are the equivalent of pandas. Non-intelligence (gathering) black operations, which is either influence pandering, sabotage and/or assassination. Controlling proxies.

24. Espionage; competes with Confederation Naval Intelligence and Office of Diplomatic Intelligence. Clandestine sophont intelligence asset recruiting, panda herder.

25. Intelligence in depth; infiltration, presumably sleeper cells.

26. Technical Directorate - technical support.

27. Amazon Web Services.

28. Big Brother.

29. Life Under SolSec - (un)focus(ed) groups.

30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StTqXEQ2l-Y

31. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrT9tcAyMMY

32. The higher up you are, the more under the loop you are.

33. Let sleeping enforcers lie.

34. Freedom of Speech - Newspeak.

35. You can complain about the local mandarins, but only appeal to the Son of Heaven's better nature.

36. SolSec Field Forces - Security detachments, anti riot units, hostage negotiators.

37. Surgical strike groups specializing is seizing hubs and centres of power, whether infrastructure or personnel, or protecting them.

38. They operate a fleet of starships, probably mostly clandestinely.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Strike Destroyers

1. As Grand Admiral Schrodinger explained to the High Council, it does and does not exist.

2. I never thought it was realistic, but came to appreciate the concept as having nothing between two and hundred kay tonnes frees the designer to concentrate on the light and heavy ends of the spectrum.

3. Due to design rules, I sort of missed five kay tonne hulls, as it allows the embedding of sensor arrays.

4. The (re)introduction of strike destroyers was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

5. The first thing I would do with them would be to replace all the fleet frigates in Fleet Squadrons with them, giving them more bite, and with embedded sensor arrays, really excel as being fleet pickets and advanced scouts.

6. As I did design the current fleet frigates around the factor five jump drives, doing so for the strike cruisers just gives more room to play with.

7. At five kay tonnes, strike destroyers would be large enough to operate independently behind enemy lines, raiding enemy commerce and disrupting lines of communications.

8. They would be armed well enough to act as fast transports for very important persons.

9. It's probably easier to design an escort carrier around five thousand tonnes, than two.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Strike Destroyers

10. Design rules allow one or more command bridges to be integrated in a five kay hull.

11. This could allow strike cruisers to act as command ships, whether as a destroyer leader, flagship of a flotilla, cat herder of Home Guard naval and attached units, or forward fighter controller.

12. Being large destroyers, the equivalent of the Tribal class, would allow them to be used aggressively, where a cruiser or capital ship would necessitate some degree of caution.

13. The Tribals acted as substitute light cruisers due to the lack of light cruisers, caused by either budgetary or arms limitations.

14. They would be multirole ships, being able to accompany fleet units, act as forward scouts, protect commerce, and in mobs, overwhelm most large commerce raiders.

15. In large battles, they can act as close escorts, capital ship screens and flanking elements probing for weaknesses.

16. You can use them as diplomatic couriers, making the point that you don't need to send a larger warship, as it's large enough for the dignity of an envoy of the Solomani Confederation and protect itself, with the implication that if anything untoward happened to either the ship or it's passenger, something larger would be coming.

17. And then you have to reflect that for the Confederation Navy, definition of cruisers is quite loose, a light cruiser being a starwarship with probably a minimum tonnage, that doesn't have any spinal mounts.

18. And of course, you can make modular and podular, if you need it to perform a very specialized role or mission.

19. And then there are breakaway hulls: essentially, command bridges can control any tonnage.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Hilfskreuzer

20. The difference in the Confederation Navy context between a light and heavy cruiser appears to be the inclusion of a spinal mount.

21. This might have been inspired by the Fighting Ships of the Solomani Confederation, where the light cruisers are too small to be armed with spinal mounts.

22. The Texas class weighs in at eight thousand tonnes, and is technological level twelve.

23. The Madrid class weighs in at ten thousand tonnes, and at technological level fourteen, the most advanced.

24. The Yarmouth class is listed at fifteen kay tonnes, and is technological level thirteen.

25. This is where my comparison between this definition and strike destroyers becomes relevant.

26. If you can get a five thousand tonne hull to more or less carry out the roles and mission of one that's slightly larger to three times, you're far more likely to substitute the smaller hull, and reallocate the resources used for the larger hulls to something with more priority.

27. The Madrid was designed to escort the Normandies and the Prometheusii, so essentially the most advanced warships then commissioned, which would be the equivalent of the current Fleet Squadrons, which essentially with strike destroyers would fulfill that role.

28. Outdated by the time of the War of Imperium Aggression, it was used for commerce raiding, and I suspect commerce protection, more in the sense that the Confederation Navy was pressing into service anything that can float and can fight.

29. Exceptionally, the Yarmouth does list a meson spinal mount, but if you use the current design rules, that pretty much would take up half of it's volume; I'm not quite sure what it's role was supposed to be but I'm guessing it was to impress the locals with it's presence, really close presence, at the planetary downport.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Hilfskreuzer

30. Analysis of the antebellum Confederation Navy order of battles indicates that at least in fleet service, the primary role for light cruisers is as destroyer leaders.

31. If so, command bridges onboard strike destroyers would both make them a natural for this role, and distributed networking.

32. I wondered if light cruisers would be named after cities, but Texas would include provinces.

32. Next up would be the Beijing class deep strike cruisers at forty kay tonnes and technological level fourteen.

33. I'm going to take a wild guess, and the naming convention would be for capital cities.

34. The Yamamoto class is fifty kay tonnes and technological level thirteen.

35. Naming convention likely Terran fleet commanders.

36. My guess is that it's a general purpose cruiser, and perhaps the analogue to Ghalalk armoured cruiser, having a particle accelerator spinal mount.

37. Likely used widely in all cruiser roles and missions, replaced by the Normandies as Prometheusii since they lack factor four jump drives.

38. At sixty kay tonnes and technological level thirteen, you have the Minsk class.

39. No idea how the naming convention differentiates itself, maybe it's battles.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Hilfskreuzer

40. Probably not, since the Normandies are named for presumably Terran battles.

41. Speaking of which, Normandies weigh in at eighty kay tonnes, and technological level fourteen.

42. If there was a differentiation between Confederation cruisers armed with spinal mounts, it might be between strike and heavy cruisers, with the cut off being around fifty kay tonnes.

43. The difference between the Minsk and Yamamoto classes might be a more powerful meson spinal mount, and I get the implication a heavy cruiser would be expected to closely support, if not take it's place, in the Confederation line of battle.

44. I think the preference is for a Minsk class heavy cruiser to accompany two battlecruisers, whereas a Yamamoto strike cruiser is more of a second choice, with Normandies replacing them as they become available.

45. Described as bearing the brunt of the fighting, implies that it's meant to stand in the line of battle, and that they probably are trying to mass produce them.

46. In the field, when not escorting capital units, strike and heavy cruisers are organized in two unit Heavy Strike Squadrons, with supporting elements and escorts.

47. I wouldn't describe strike cruisers as having the firepower of a heavy cruiser, so I suspect they'd be mostly used in the strike role, while the heavy units would act as the mentioned mini Fleet Squadrons.

48. Deep Strike Squadrons are built around factor five jump capable task groups around a Beijing class unit, though apparently the Dingir class destroyers appear to have technical difficulties, leading to a two unit deep strike cruisers task group.

49. Did the Confederation Navy have more cruiser classes? Probably, but these may be limited runs or one offs, while they mass produced standard designs that they felt were successfully filling their given roles, considering the run up to hostilities, and the likely squeeze on resources during it.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Hilfskreuzer

50. So, you may be wondering what this preamble is all leading up to?

51. What actually would be the point of the Confederation Navy building light cruisers, if they don't have spinal mounts?

52. I don't think they actually do.

53. There is little point in building any cruiser below twenty five kay tonnes, if only to exploit the hull point boost.

54. You can't retroactively add either hull armour or a spinal mount to an existing hull.

55. So, if the Confederation Navy does commission light cruisers, they are either existing commercial hulls requisitioned, or limited run classes for a specific purpose, that use off the shelf equipment and can be fast and cheaply manufactured.

56. The light part being light hull construction, since they're not really expected to duke it out with another starwarship.

57. On the other hand as a bombardment or guided missile cruiser, where you expect to have some form of stand off distance, and scoot when the magazines are near empty.

58. You could easily utilize as them as trade protection, and marginally as colonial cruisers.

59. And send them to go raid enemy commerce and disrupt their lines of communications.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Hilfskreuzer

60. Repurposing commercial hulls, and rejigging and disguising their armament, would turn them into clandestine warships.

61. Obviously, something that Solomani Security is likely to be very interested in.

62. This is where the term Hilfskreuzer comes in.

63. If you translate it, it comes out as auxiliary cruiser, though in the Anglosphere it's usually armed merchant cruiser.

64. Armed merchant cruiser tends to imply that commercial ships were requisitioned and armed.

65. Though the Admiralty could grant subsidies to shipping companies that had hardpoints embedded in the hull during construction.

66. It's at this point you'd have to discuss how a specific navy would utilize them, in which real life or science fictional accounts would be cited.

67. For the Royal Navy, they just needed additional hulls as commerce protection.

68. A specific variant would be a Queue ship, designed to honey pot German raiders or submersibles.

69. For the Kriegsmarine, or it's Kaiserliche predecessor, there wasn't really any merchant ships left to defend outside of the Baltic Sea, so it's more of a case of sending out a disguised commerce raider, well, basically a Queue ship, with the solo difference that it tends to shoot first.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Hilfskreuzer

70. Yulius Fuchik played a prominent role in the 1986 techno-thriller Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy and Larry Bond. In the novel, she was disguised as the American-flagged Seabee carrier Doctor Lykes and used to transport Soviet troops to Keflavik, Iceland. In order to conform with the slightly different silhouette of the Lykes Lines ship, parts of her superstructure were removed and the shape of the funnels was altered with prefabricated parts. Furthermore, the twenty-foot Interlighter markings on the side of the ship were painted over and replaced with "Lykes Lines," and the white L on a blue diamond of the Lykes Brothers Steamship Company emblem was added on the forward superstructure.[1]

71. Onboard, was the first regiment of a Soviet paratrooper division, who planned to drop in unexpectedly on an understrength and surprised garrison.

72. Sounds like something the Confederation might come up with.

73. From the Honorverse, the first example would be the People's Merchant Service Ship Sirius, that was seriously constructed using warship standards as a Queue ship.

74. Basically, everything except in our case would be a spinal mount, which unlikely could be disguised, though I have a theory about that.

75. Since merchant ships, for the sake of economies of scale, would be as large as a capital ship, this would seem to me a waste of resources.

76. Except, as in the second example, the modified Manticorean Caravan class Queue ship, Her Majesty's Armed Merchant Cruiser Wayfarer and her sisters, since their purpose was basically fooling commerce raiders into trying to attack them.

77. What they did have was additionally a large armament of missiles and acted as a mothership for twelve Light Attack Craft.

78. Since it's unlikely that in Traveller you will have capital sized freighters waltzing around chartered space acting as armed merchant cruisers, cruiser sized ones are about as large as you will get.

79. Or, in other words, likely the basis for what would be described as commissioned Confederation Navy light cruisers, and any specialized variants.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

System Control Ship

80. Outside of light and heavy, the following descriptors have been applied to Confederation Navy cruisers.

81. System control ship, described as more of a revived concept for a cruiser sized vessel combining the capabilities of a cruiser and a small carrier ... with a proportion of new built vessels redirected from the patrol forces to fleet and support deployments.

82. Not including the Invincible class through deck cruiser, the other four examples I can think of are Chakri Naruebet (which happens to be my favourite carrier), Príncipe de Asturias, Kiev class, and arguably helicopter centric carriers, such as amphibious assault ships.

83. The carrier role can be built in or modified in most sized hulls, the cruiser role depends very much on your definition of it.

84. You could put a flight deck on container ship, and install weapon systems that have inbuilt weapon systems.

85. You could stuff ten Harriers into the Chakri's hangars, or fortyish into the Kiev or America classes.

86. The what I assume is the Imperium Navy default light carrier has eighty heavy fighters and weighs in at twenty nine kay tonnes.

87. The Imperium Navy strike cruiser has a factor two meson spinal mount, one hundred heavy fighters and is fifty kay tonnes.

88. The Azhantis have enough room for a spinal mount, eighty light fighters, and sixty kay tonnes.

89. The strike carrier has a considerably sized meson spinal mount, eighty light fighters and a rather hefty seventy five kay tonnes.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

System Control Ship

90. So you have a starwarship that combines supposedly the best elements of a light carrier and cruiser.

91. Considering the Confederation Navy context, would that be a light or heavy cruiser?

92. With heavy, you'd have to incorporate some form of a spinal mount, together with a fighter complement.

93. With light, I highly suspect it would be primarily a missile and/or torpedo centric armament.

94. Antebellum pocket carriers have a complement of around thirty to fifty fighters.

95. Some cruisers could have a complement of ten to twenty fighters.

96, It seems unlikely that the Confederation Navy would hybrid a light carrier and a heavy cruiser.

97. So that leaves whatever they define a light carrier and a light cruiser.

98. Minimum size would be twenty five tonnes, and considering it's supposed to stay put, strategic range might only be two parsecs.

99. This is just me, but eighty times thirty five tonnes looks doable, plus some utility craft.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Cruisers

100. So far, the following categorizations, besides light and heavy, have turned up: strike, bombardment, fleet and battle (which deserves specific attention).

101. It's quite possible light and heavy are general descriptors, and that the vessels themselves are always referred to by their specific category.

102. Fleet cruisers are described as principally being roled for escort and support, and armed with light beam weapons and missiles.

103. This would indicate they don't have a spinal mount, which would make them light cruisers, and make them more of an anti smallcraft platform, or flak ships, constructed to military standards.

104. I've always assumed that by the current timeline, Confederation Navy strike cruisers would be what was previously termed deep strike cruisers.

105. By now, really large vessels equipped with a factor five jump drive and a spinal mount, made in preference to all other cruiser types as it allows rapid response to any crisis and becomes a major disruption if employed as a commerce raider, especially considering the limited number of actual cruisers getting commissioned.

106. For bombardment cruisers, I had imagined one with a railgun spinal mount, that can stand off and just throw stuff at planetary surfaces, complemented with a large missile and torpedo arsenal.

107. Which would be the heavy cruiser types for me, strike for rapid reaction, and bombardment for support, since I suspect the current Fleet Squadrons can look after themselves.

108. Light cruisers could be anything that can be cheaply hobbled together, for whatever role or mission requirement is foreseen in the short term.

109. Though heavy cruisers by themselves, may be the primary fleet units for Confederation member world navies.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Battlecruisers

110. The latest example of what a battlecruiser would look like is the Sword Worlds Denisov class.

111. At eighty kay tonnes and a factor one meson spinal mount, it might more accurately be categorized as a heavy cruiser.

112. Under current design rules, constructing a ship larger than eighty percent of the next hull size multiplier is kinda pointless.

113. The Victory class appears to be the first attempt by the Confederation Navy to build a capital ship, and designated as a battlecruiser.

114. Weighing in at one hundred and thirty thousand tonnes, and originally manufactured at technological level twelve, but later modernized to technological level thirteen.

115. Acceleration factor five seems a tad slow, though it's possible that would be revised.

116. I'll assume factor ten hull armour would be acceptable.

117. Acting as a weapons platform for probably the largest meson gun they could fit onboard.

118. Backed by a large number of particle accelerator bays.

119. The design was well over a century old by the time the War of Imperium Aggression started.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Battlecruisers

120. Finally, we get to the Zeus class, coming in at one hundred fifty kay tonnes and technology level thirteen.

121. I'll assume that that was eventually upgraded to technological level fourteen, since it's mentioned.

122. At this point, the Confederation Navy concentrates on building technological level fourteen fast dreadnoughts, that are almost double the size of their battlecruisers.

123. Ambitious Solomani plans to re-equip half the FleetRons in the Navy with the Prometheus are viewed with derision by Imperial Naval Analysts. The Confederation simply does not have the economic capacity to undertake such a building program.

124. They've had a century of peace to figure out how to do that.

125. If we assume that the (Solomani) battlecruiser concept arose out of the final phases of the Interstellar Wars, where the Terrans had clear technological superiority over the Vilani, than constructing technological level twelve highly manouverable, heavily armed, but rather thin skinned capital ships makes sense.

126. Let's term them dreadnought armoured cruisers, for continuity.

127. They have strategic range to hoover up all the commercial shipping and the firepower to blow away all the cruisers that the opposing party to the conflict can muster.

128. The two flaws in the concept was if the opposing party starts building their own battlecruisers to counter them, and the temptation to attach them to the line of battle.

129. Arguably, that never happened in real life.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Battlecruisers

130. Depending on how you would categorize His Majesty's Ship the Hood.

131. The Hood was the bleeding edge of battleship technology post Jutland, being redesigned to absorb all the lessons thereof.

132. The Hood was certainly due for another midlife extension by the time she met up with the Bismarck, a battleship twenty years her junior.

133. The Kongos had practically been hollowed out, and armour protection was increased.

134. More armour in the right place might have prevented the sudden death outcome of that duel.

135. Arguably, in the Twenties, the Hood would be considered a fast battleship; by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, she would be an intermediate battleship.

136. Modernization would probably have added more weight that would have slowed down even a completely new set of engines.

137. But, it likely would have allowed a more even match up with the Bismarck.

138. Battlecruisers formed the core of Beatty's vanguard force in the lead up to Jutland.

139. Had things turned up more favourably for the Royal Navy, they certainly would have been despatched to cut off the Hochseeflotte's escape route, and hunted down the remaining German capital ships.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Battlecruisers

140. Battlecruisers were the natural evolution of first class armoured cruisers, and counterparts to the new dreadnought type of battleships.

141. Hence, dreadnought armoured cruisers.

142. In the Traveller context, first class armoured cruisers might have been hundred kay tonnes, same as technological level eleven battleships, assuming battleships in that era were built to that tonnage.

143. The difference between first class armoured cruisers and battleships would be prioritizing speed and range over armour and firepower, basically mission killing other cruisers roled as commerce raiders, if not outright destroying them.

144. By the time of the Great War, armoured cruisers performed poorly in the frontline, though given adequate support, probably would have served well in secondary roles, allowing the concentration of more modern warships in critical theatres.

145. Ironically, when battlecruisers proved to be dead end developments, the super cruiser could have been an updated first class armoured cruiser, but far more efficient at hunting commerce raiders, without requiring the heavy armament of the current battlecruisers.

146. Armoured cruisers were seen by the Japanese (and who knows who else might have considered it) as ersatz battleships, to make up the numbers in their line of battle, and as their fast squadron.

147. Whether intentionally, or unintentionally, it's likely that battlecruisers would get dragged into that role.

148. With naval treaties limiting the number of capital hulls, the Americans scrapped theirs under construction, while the Japanese got around to converting theirs into intermediate fast battleships.

149. Eventually, the Royal Navy kept three, though they were more intermediate fast battleships, the Hood certainly, and the Repulse and Resolution were repurposed battleships modified as battlecruisers during construction.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Battlecruisers

150. The heyday of the battlecruisers would be just prior to Jutland, where they had proved at Jutland one of their primary roles, disposing of armoured cruisers, and another one of intercepting German raiding parties.

151. This would be as the Splendid Cats, built to complement the new superdreadnoughts, the Kongos, and the German take on the concept, came online.

152. The Germans intended to operate primarily in the North Sea, so could prioritize protection and speed over range and firepower.

153. They sort of got shot up as badly as the British, but their better protections allowed them to survive twelve and thirteen and a half inch shells, or at least stay afloat, which might not have been the case with the newer fifteen inchers.

154. This would correspond with around technological level thirteen, but I suspected that somehow the Confederation leapfrogged this earlier than expected to technological level fourteen, and made themselves aware of the inadequacies of the battlecruiser concept.

155. That would be why they were willing to invest that much in the new Prometheus class fast dreadnoughts, that were described as capable of holding its own in the line of battle, the Dreadnought’s light armor means the ship will try to use its high agility to maneuver into superior firing solutions, though I'm not quite sure how you do that in open space, unless you can catch the combat units of the opposing fleet being somewhat dispersed and unable to support each other.

156. I kinda suspect that you could actually squeeze factor fourteen armour on a quarter million tonne hull.

157. Given the preceding evidence, I wouldn't have thought the Confederation post bellum would have bothered to build more battlecruisers, especially facing a superior foe in both technology and numbers.

158. As more fast dreadnoughts would be commissioned, I would have consigned the remaining battlecruisers along the the Aslan frontier, which would be a proportionate application of force in chasing off trespassing nomading feline wagon trains.

159. And probably donated the surviving cruisers to bolstering the newly established Home Guard navies and client states.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Battlecruisers

160. In the Interwar years, artificial restrictions on the tonnage and gun sizes of the cruiser and capital ships, plus an imposed battleship holiday, stagnates development of any warship between ten and thirty five kay tonnes for the major powers.

161. In the meantime, taking up the slack in their allowances, are the Germans and French.

162. Creative interpretation of the Treaty of Versailles allows the Germans to squeak in with three half sisters of the Deutschland class, sometimes termed as pocket battleships with their triple turreted eleven inch guns, but the Germans had it correct with panzerschiff, or armoured cruiser, since neither tonnage, speed, protection nor firepower would be upto the standard of would be then either a battlecruiser or a battleship, miniaturized or otherwise.

163. Some might consider the follow up Scharnhorst class battlecrusiers, at worst with thirty two kay tonnes they might be well armoured light fast battleships seen in context with the forty eight kay tonne Iowas and the seventy kay Yamatos, as there were plans to upgun to fifteen inches; they were certainly within spitting distance of thirty five kay tonnes.

164. The twenty six kay tonne Dunkerque class was built in response to the Deutschlands, with thirteen inch guns, nine inch armour, and a tad short of thirty knots.

165. It's labelled as a fast battleship type, but it seems much more of battlecruiser; the Scharnhorsts were built in response to the Dunkerques.

166. And both were probably a mistake, which is the problem with reactions.

167. To counter the Deutschlands, and a rumoured supercruiser class the Japanese were supposedly developing, the Americans built the Alaska class at thirty kay tonnes, thirty three knots, twelve inch guns and nine inch armour.

168. For some reason, the category of large cruiser was coined, possibly in recognition that the day of the battlecruiser had passed.

169. Arguably, when compared to the proposed Montanas, the Iowas would be the world's largest battlecruisers, though by now, the amalgamation would be complete as the fast battleship concept.

 

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Confederation Navy: Chartered State Thereof, Doctrine and the Cruiser Gap

Battlecruisers

170. In conclusion, technological level fourteen and fifteen would be a hostile environment for capital ships constructed as battlecruisers.

171. Super cruisers would be more efficient practitioners of cruiser hunter killers, as they don't need capital sized weapon systems to accomplish their missions, nor would they need the same amount of infrastructural support as a battlecruiser.

172. Commerce protection is more of having sufficient capabilities to act as a deterrent.

173. It's sufficient for starwarships assigned search and destroy missions of commerce raiders to be able to mission kill them; which means having the range and speed to catch up to them, and enough firepower to slow them down, and by locating them and pinning them, allowing other fleet units to go in for the kill.

174. By technological level fourteen, ship components had been sufficiently miniaturized to minimize compromise between mobility, protection and firepower at the capital ship level.

175. I would say that in Jutland, the separate battlecruiser vanguards acted as reconnaissance in force, pushing aside weaker opposing squadrons until they sighted the enemy's battle fleet.

176. It's pretty hard to hide anything that large in open space, which means you don't have to kick open the door to have a look inside.

177. It's hard to imagine Confederation Navy strategists have come up with a hit and run operational concept, because there's no mystery to the Imperium what their goals and how they plan to get there.

178. At best, hit and run will only work in the opening stages of the next conflict, as the Imperium then proceeds to thicken it's defences, ensuring that losses might outweigh any gains made.

179. Repairing badly damaged ships might be more practical for the Confederation, than believing it can replace poorly protected ones and losing their experienced crews.

 

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Confederation Navy: Officer's Revolver

1. Apparently customized, and even handmade.

2. Considering the given price range, there's likely a much cheaper version that the Navy keeps in it's armouries, for junior officers and when the expensive one isn't available.

3. It's quite possible that really expensively crafted versions are awarded or gifted by either the Admiralty, the Secretariat, prominent Solomani personalities, and/or Confederation member governments, in recognition of the officer's valuable contribution(s) or specific deeds.

4. Might be based on customary standards, rather than regulations, so the number of chambers might vary from five to seven, and ammunition from what I presume is eight millimetre standard to something heavier.

5. At technology level twelve, might be caseless.

6. Considering it's a revolver, there might be a technological level five variant.

7. Non standard ammunition might require the owner to provide for himself.