In my games I have always just thought Imperial Navy Ships are built at Class A starports, while they might not be right there next to the terminal they are around someplace. Take a look at each individual world to see how big you think they might be able to build. For instance Mora, Glisten, and Trin are all class A ports and are industrial, so they should have a pretty major shipyard. Then there are places like Rhylanor which is not an industrial world so while they have a shipyard it's not going to be a major one.
Who Builds Imperial Navy Ships and Where Do They Do It?
- Thread starter Terry Mixon
- Start date
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
Any insight into who would be working at the depot yards? Would it be Navy personnel or civilian contractors? I don't just want to assume that it's done like in the US.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
Running off the build capacity data in Trillion Credit Squadron, that isn't the case. Rhylanor is just a tad less in the capacity from Glisten. It didn't take the IN category into consideration. I'm not sure the one in the World Builder's Handbook does either, but the maths make my brain shut down so I can't be sure.
FYI, that's not just "how its done in the US". That's just how it is done everywhere I am aware of. Even in China, the shipyards are run by state owned companies that are not part of the military itself. They are separate commercial entities.
It is simply extremely suboptimal to try to maintain a large tradesmen force as active duty military personnel.
It is simply extremely suboptimal to try to maintain a large tradesmen force as active duty military personnel.
Yeah, TCS's goal is to make all the class A starports into viable home locations for a player in a wargame. It literally only cares about population and government type.Running off the build capacity data in Trillion Credit Squadron, that isn't the case. Rhylanor is just a tad less in the capacity from Glisten. It didn't take the IN category into consideration. I'm not sure the one in the World Builder's Handbook does either, but the maths make my brain shut down so I can't be sure.
All that much math makes my brain hurt too. That is why I just give it a generalization for an RPG where its nice to know but the details are not important.Running off the build capacity data in Trillion Credit Squadron, that isn't the case. Rhylanor is just a tad less in the capacity from Glisten. It didn't take the IN category into consideration. I'm not sure the one in the World Builder's Handbook does either, but the maths make my brain shut down so I can't be sure.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
I think my problem with this is my preconceived notion of what a Naval base is. A huge sprawling affair. For a smaller staff and families, something smaller that is still technically a naval base would fit in my vision. Unless the Navy is manning it, I can't imagine a corporate shipyard will have a huge pile of Navy people on it.
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Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
I'm going to have to try to do the World Builder's Handbook version in a spreadsheet. I'm dreading it. Then we'll see what Mongoose really has in mind for shipyard capacity.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
A quango or QUANGO (less often QuANGO or QANGO) is an organisation to which a government has devolved power, but which is still partly controlled and/or financed by government bodies. The term was originally a shortening of "quasi NGO", where NGO is the acronym for a non-government organisation.[1]
Who can hire and supervise qualified technical personnel for naval construction.
If you really need civilians to build spacecraft at Depots.
Who can hire and supervise qualified technical personnel for naval construction.
If you really need civilians to build spacecraft at Depots.
See, I have lived in Hawai'i for 25 years now and I grew up in San Diego. So the way the Naval bases in the US work is second nature to me
But let's use Newport News. It is a town of about 180,000 people, of which something like 25, 000 work at the shipyard. It is surrounded by Joint Bases Langley-Eustis, Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, Naval Station Norfolk, Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Naval Air Station Oceana, Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Portsmouth Naval Hospital. There's about 85000 service personnel stationed at those facilities (plus families and civilian contractors).
On top of that, there is Huntington Hall Naval Berthing Facility, which is basically a barracks & residential complex close to the shipyard where the crews of ships in for refit can stay. It isn't *in* the shipyard, but public transportation runs between there and the shipyard.
Newport News Shipyard is run by Huntington Ingalls Industries Shipbuilding. On its own, it does not have that many military personnel assigned to it (if you ignore the crews of the ships in for reactor refueling or refits). NAVSEA stations about 50 actual military personnel and another 500 civilian DoD employees there to do all the coordination and oversight needed, separate from HII's workforce.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
That would work better for what I’m imagining. Thanks.See, I have lived in Hawai'i for 25 years now and I grew up in San Diego. So the way the Naval bases in the US work is second nature to me
But let's use Newport News. It is a town of about 180,000 people, of which something like 25, 000 work at the shipyard. It is surrounded by Joint Bases Langley-Eustis, Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, Naval Station Norfolk, Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Naval Air Station Oceana, Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Portsmouth Naval Hospital. There's about 85000 service personnel stationed at those facilities (plus families and civilian contractors).
On top of that, there is Huntington Hall Naval Berthing Facility, which is basically a barracks & residential complex close to the shipyard where the crews of ships in for refit can stay. It isn't *in* the shipyard, but public transportation runs between there and the shipyard.
Newport News Shipyard is run by Huntington Ingalls Industries Shipbuilding. On its own, it does not have that many military personnel assigned to it (if you ignore the crews of the ships in for reactor refueling or refits). NAVSEA stations about 50 actual military personnel and another 500 civilian DoD employees there to do all the coordination and oversight needed, separate from HII's workforce.
If we look at this from a historical perspective, you'll find a mish-mash of methodologies. Even from time of sail and rowers, you find a mix of private and government shipyards. Government shipyards are almost always building warships, while civilian yards do a mix. In times of peace the government (or the rulers) have built the warships, but in times of war or leading up to war you see civilian yards getting into the business of building them, too.
I don't know about the first paragraph as far as the megacorps / procurement / employment making for poor vessels. Most shipyards have always had a civilian workforce regardless of who owns them. Sailors are there to man the ships, but rarely are they the ones who build them.
There are indeed examples of private industry building a warship (or aircraft), it seems to be rather rare - especially in modern times when the cost is big and the potential downside is huge. I don't recall of top of my head the last jet aircraft built by Northrup(?) that was built on speculation and didn't manage to convince them to buy it. Even a megacorp could get a major black eye and hit to it's bottom line by building a one-off warship with no customer. It HAS happened, it's just getting less and less common as costs have gone up with more expensive prices to fitting one out. I'd imaging Traveller-esque warships would be even higher as they are more sophisticated.
Changing designs while production is ongoing to reflect operational experience or tech changes is pretty common - especially when you have a class of ships that is built over a period of time. Recent example is the Arleigh Burke (four types so far). During WW2 you saw this a lot, and at points the changes were so great they simply made a new class rather than keep calling it the same thing.
RAND corporation has published numerous papers on military procurement, and there are a number of books out there that slice and dice the right and wrong things done by states during wartime for procurement. The US vs Nazi Germany economies and how each approached their wartime footing through state-guidance and control show two very different methods.
Though unless you are a real nerd and get into this sort of thing none of it really contributes to the game. At best it is an interesting note, at worst it's just silly filler.
collins355
Cosmic Mongoose
I fished out my copy of Traveller's Digest 7, where the adventure is on the Depot in Lishun. At one point this appears:
The full page writeup on Depot operations in Rebellion Sourcebook doesn't mention new construction, just repair and refit.
I think it is fair to say that Depots *can* build ships, but the degree to which they do so varies over time depending on whims of the Admiralty and the Imperial court.
I think it is fair to say that Depots *can* build ships, but the degree to which they do so varies over time depending on whims of the Admiralty and the Imperial court.
collins355
Cosmic Mongoose
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Historically, I think it's Carthage, Venice, and maybe the Britain, who had a system extensively equivalent to the Imperium.
The Carthagians, apparently, invented modularity, and stored one hundred fifty warships inside covered shed in their secret inner harbour.
Venice had their Arsenal.
And the Royal Navy had so many warships, some just rotted away while in ordinary.
The Americans mothballed their extra destroyers.
Current events indicate that even older armaments become extremely useful, once conflicts turn attritional.
The Carthagians, apparently, invented modularity, and stored one hundred fifty warships inside covered shed in their secret inner harbour.
Venice had their Arsenal.
And the Royal Navy had so many warships, some just rotted away while in ordinary.
The Americans mothballed their extra destroyers.
Current events indicate that even older armaments become extremely useful, once conflicts turn attritional.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
CT to the rescue just for a change.
"NAVAL DEPOTS
Distinct from the naval base system is the naval depot. Comparatively few in number, these depots serves as focusses for naval efforts, supplying entire fleets, providing construction and repairs, and producing prototypes of new ships. Naval depots serve as huge harboring areas for ships, materials, and personnel. As depots cover large parts of a system, there is no distinction between orbital and ground berthing. As with a naval base, there is no limit to the number of ships that may be placed around it. Though capable of repair and maintenance, the depot's main function in peace is the testing and design of prototype ships. The design staff is the cream of the naval architects in the area, and they constantly strive to produce efficient ships, given always the constraints of budget, time, technology, and bureaucratic supervision.
Prototypes may be built at the depot prior to the letting of final construction contracts. In time of war, the depot's construction yards are often pressed into service for the production of military ships.
Security is vital at the depot. Toward this end, an extensive array of both entry and exit codes have been established and a large contingent of marines and security system defense boats are stationed with it.
Facilities and personnel exist at the level where they may handle large fractions of the fleet at any one time for repair and resupply. The naval depot itself can be isolated from outside contact for up to years at a time without serious setbacks.
There are no naval depots within the Spinward Marches."
"NAVAL DEPOTS
Distinct from the naval base system is the naval depot. Comparatively few in number, these depots serves as focusses for naval efforts, supplying entire fleets, providing construction and repairs, and producing prototypes of new ships. Naval depots serve as huge harboring areas for ships, materials, and personnel. As depots cover large parts of a system, there is no distinction between orbital and ground berthing. As with a naval base, there is no limit to the number of ships that may be placed around it. Though capable of repair and maintenance, the depot's main function in peace is the testing and design of prototype ships. The design staff is the cream of the naval architects in the area, and they constantly strive to produce efficient ships, given always the constraints of budget, time, technology, and bureaucratic supervision.
Prototypes may be built at the depot prior to the letting of final construction contracts. In time of war, the depot's construction yards are often pressed into service for the production of military ships.
Security is vital at the depot. Toward this end, an extensive array of both entry and exit codes have been established and a large contingent of marines and security system defense boats are stationed with it.
Facilities and personnel exist at the level where they may handle large fractions of the fleet at any one time for repair and resupply. The naval depot itself can be isolated from outside contact for up to years at a time without serious setbacks.
There are no naval depots within the Spinward Marches."
Commercial shipyards are at the whims of the market, so when the Navy needs they they might have a full order book (no doubt the shipbuilder can be persuaded to let the Navy cut the queue, but still). When the Navy doesn't need them the Navy might not want to be stuck paying for the excess capacity, so, if it is an economic downturn and there are no commercial contracts the shipbuilder can go bust. If that happens, the yard might not be there when the Navy suddenly needs to build ships for a war.
The Navy having its core building capacity at Depots solves this: there will be at least some level of shipbuilding capacity no matter what. In order to keep the capacity there, ships need to be constantly built and serviced there - otherwise the skilled workers will move away, where there is work. On the other hand, because it is cheaper, it makes sense for the Navy to contract out a lot of its building to other shipbuilders, as long as it can get good deals. During peacetime, you can wait your turn to start construction. So the model of having Depots build some ships while commercial shipyards build others is a compromise between maintaining capacity, and reducing cost.
IRL, shipbuilding involves lots of different private company subcontractors, both for military and civilian ships, because there is a vast number of different components. I'd assume a different company manufactures the meson gun than manufactures the coffee machine but both are equally important to military success. If you ask your meson gun manufacturer to make shower curtain rods, I think you will probably get some expensive shower curtain rods, though no doubt technically to the highest standard.
The Navy having its core building capacity at Depots solves this: there will be at least some level of shipbuilding capacity no matter what. In order to keep the capacity there, ships need to be constantly built and serviced there - otherwise the skilled workers will move away, where there is work. On the other hand, because it is cheaper, it makes sense for the Navy to contract out a lot of its building to other shipbuilders, as long as it can get good deals. During peacetime, you can wait your turn to start construction. So the model of having Depots build some ships while commercial shipyards build others is a compromise between maintaining capacity, and reducing cost.
IRL, shipbuilding involves lots of different private company subcontractors, both for military and civilian ships, because there is a vast number of different components. I'd assume a different company manufactures the meson gun than manufactures the coffee machine but both are equally important to military success. If you ask your meson gun manufacturer to make shower curtain rods, I think you will probably get some expensive shower curtain rods, though no doubt technically to the highest standard.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
Taking the CT quote above and adding a bit to it:
Depots serve as a focus for naval efforts, supplying entire fleets, providing construction and repairs, and producing prototypes of new ships, indeed the depot's main function in peacetime is the testing and design of prototype ships.
Prototypes may be built at the depot prior to the letting of final construction contracts, or they may be prototypes produced initially as concepts by megacorporation or planetary governments. In time of war, the depot's construction yards are often pressed into service for the production of military ships.
The final construction contracts are offered to megacorporation shipyards and in some cases to planetary government shipyards where it would benefit the local economy.
Depots serve as a focus for naval efforts, supplying entire fleets, providing construction and repairs, and producing prototypes of new ships, indeed the depot's main function in peacetime is the testing and design of prototype ships.
Prototypes may be built at the depot prior to the letting of final construction contracts, or they may be prototypes produced initially as concepts by megacorporation or planetary governments. In time of war, the depot's construction yards are often pressed into service for the production of military ships.
The final construction contracts are offered to megacorporation shipyards and in some cases to planetary government shipyards where it would benefit the local economy.
In our real world we can look at the Western nations and nearly all of them have aging naval infrastructure because maintenance isn't sexy. Of the major military powers only China has a real and robust naval infrastructure. But that's not necessarily a fair comparison as they have been coming from behind for the last few decades so none of their infrastructure is old enough to have this issue. The GAO recently published a report about the USN dire state of it's own dockyards and facilities and the USN began a 20yr / $20 Billion dollar program to upgrade and remediate them. Much of this is because, like everything else, maintenance and upgrades gets put on the back burner if it comes down to buying a new ship vs keeping your older stuff up to date.
Whether or not the Imperial navy depots would fall into the same malaise is debatable. It's fortunate that the Imperium is still fighting wars on it's boundaries so that it has the impetus to not fall into the same problems as organizations getting tired preparing for something that hasn't come. People and organizations tend to get a bit sloppy and myopic whenever there aren't any actual bullets flying around all the time. At least historically that seems to be the case. But whenever they are building up to something or actively fighting (or getting ready to) they seem to have a tendency to not do that.
As an aside I recently finished reading a book on China's air force and it's manufacturing challenges from the founding of the PRC and it's many, many, many challenges to getting to where it is today - from manufacturing to building up the necessary knowledge base on how to build things on their own vs. just trying to copy something by getting plans and taking things apart. Modern equipment is actually very complicated engineering and materials wise - probably even more so in the future.
Depots probably would not have the necessary infrastructure, industry or population base to build everything the Navy needs. That would require a massive investment in industry to build all the required widgets and gadgets that go into the parts that get assembled into a starship. As we've seen with modern airliners and other things, it takes entire industrial sectors spread out all over the world building all the parts and components that make up a modern piece of equipment. Its unrealistic to think a single system would have ALL of that in one place. No, I think it's a better concept to keep depots as storage and refurbishment points, with some ship building capacity and probably the ability to bring ships out of mothballs/reserve quickly (relatively speaking) when the balloon has already gone up weeks or months by the time the message gets back to them. Space blitzkreigs sound all cool and all, but every invader who is successful with them (and unless they are ponies and live off the land) you tend to outrun your supply lines. All the successful invaders of the 20th and 21st century have found that to be a truism.
Whether or not the Imperial navy depots would fall into the same malaise is debatable. It's fortunate that the Imperium is still fighting wars on it's boundaries so that it has the impetus to not fall into the same problems as organizations getting tired preparing for something that hasn't come. People and organizations tend to get a bit sloppy and myopic whenever there aren't any actual bullets flying around all the time. At least historically that seems to be the case. But whenever they are building up to something or actively fighting (or getting ready to) they seem to have a tendency to not do that.
As an aside I recently finished reading a book on China's air force and it's manufacturing challenges from the founding of the PRC and it's many, many, many challenges to getting to where it is today - from manufacturing to building up the necessary knowledge base on how to build things on their own vs. just trying to copy something by getting plans and taking things apart. Modern equipment is actually very complicated engineering and materials wise - probably even more so in the future.
Depots probably would not have the necessary infrastructure, industry or population base to build everything the Navy needs. That would require a massive investment in industry to build all the required widgets and gadgets that go into the parts that get assembled into a starship. As we've seen with modern airliners and other things, it takes entire industrial sectors spread out all over the world building all the parts and components that make up a modern piece of equipment. Its unrealistic to think a single system would have ALL of that in one place. No, I think it's a better concept to keep depots as storage and refurbishment points, with some ship building capacity and probably the ability to bring ships out of mothballs/reserve quickly (relatively speaking) when the balloon has already gone up weeks or months by the time the message gets back to them. Space blitzkreigs sound all cool and all, but every invader who is successful with them (and unless they are ponies and live off the land) you tend to outrun your supply lines. All the successful invaders of the 20th and 21st century have found that to be a truism.
