Starship fleets, some thoughts

Now, we've a bit hamstrung when deciding the strength of our fleets of combat starships by the numbers in "Invasion", and also the reference in "Ships of the French Arm" (SotFA) about the French Arm being far more militarised than the others due to the standoff between Germany and the Conservative Powers (France, Japan, maybe Britain) and the ongoing Kafer threat which pulled very significant fleet elements onto the arm to defend themselves against an alien invasion (which they did in Invasion, after a fashion).


Combat starships aren't in the same price bracket as a modern wet navy frigate, and indeed prices in 2300AD are deceiving. I'll expand on this.


2300AD gives us three sets of data. The first is a general conversion of cost of goods vs the 1980's USD (then $3 = Lv1, now on the order of $6 = Lv1). It also gave wages, and the very high end skilled workers are earning on the order of Lv10,000 per annum. Finally E/CS (Earth/Cybertech Sourcebook) says employment levels are very low, as most jobs are automated. When we sum these together national incomes are surprisingly low, typically on the order of MLv100,000's. a MLv100 frigate/destroyer is an investment on the level of a Nimitz class Supercarrier to the US. Only truly rich nations can afford the things at all, and then not many.


This isn't that surprising. The primary long range weapons used are miniature automated starships with nuclear warheads. Consider this quote from the 2300AD core rules:



Missiles and Drones are, of course, miniature stutterwarp ships in their own right. As such they are extremely expensive pieces of equipment.
The two tend to be used in conjunction with one another in combat. A vessel will send out drones to detect the enemy at a distance so that it can send its missiles to attack without having to approach the enemy itself.
This means that drones are often targeted during combat. Sometimes this is because they are mistaken for missiles, but more often the enemy simply wants to deprive the missile ship of the information the drones transmit, forcing the ship to close distance itself.
When considering the fact that every time a detonation missile explodes or a regular missile or a drone is destroyed by fire, another small stutterwarp engine is lost, it becomes obvious that such battles are very expensive, even if the main military vessels themselves are never hit.

- Page 78, 2300AD Directors Guide, 2nd edition

This is why nations built non-detonation missile weapons, however the probability of them surviving multiple rounds in close contact with is pretty low since any hit is an automatic disabling hit. Apparently the rules were written with the expectation of armoured missiles. Nothing really stopping armouring of missiles except their low surface area: volume ratio meaning the mass of armour to get reasonable protection is large compared to the missile mass (armour 5 would typically more than double the missile mass and slow it down). Hence the apparent supremacy of detonation missiles.


Possibly one way of stopping this being such a problem would be adding a rule giving a to hit penalty vs fast moving targets. Regular missiles would act as fighters, making fast passes. Anyway, enough digression.


When designing our fleets we have to think about what we want them to do. Arguably there are only two functions we need to worry about, the battle fleet and trade warfare. Planetary defence is very much the province of fighters, minefields (in wartime) and a battle fleet (if available).


The battle fleet is entirely relative. There are no concerns about areas of space to be patrolled or absolute minimum numbers to cover colonies and trade routes. It simply has to be capable of taking on and defeating the enemy fleet. If a nation has no hope of building a battlefleet capable of defeating the projected foe then there is no logic in trying. Why should, say, Argentina spend vast resources building a couple of capital ships (cruisers say in 2300AD terms) for a potential war with Britain when the British have over a dozen such heavy ships and will simply defeat them in no time flat. The resources would be better spent on trade warfare. Even the USA has gone down this route, none of the ships presented in canon (which are pretty exhaustive) are designed for a fleet to fleet encounter. The Kennedy is definitely a high end trade warfare ship. In canon only three nations seem to possess full battlefleets, France, Britain and Germany. The Japanese and Ukrainians have a few capital ships but both are solid French allies, and the ships are French built. This is an example of French burden sharing rather than Japanese or Ukrainian imperialism.


The lack of battlefleets works because of the French Peace. The French say "no-one can drop nuclear warheads on Earth from orbit" and have their battlefleet there to prevent it. Their allies Britain, Bavaria (before the German annexation), Japan* and the Ukraine backed them up in this. Invasion gives 19 heavy capital ships (exc/ German, who whilst being one of the revisionist powers may still contribute here) in Earth space. Even if only a third are in Earth defence orbit at any one time then  any starship approaching to deliver a nuke will be smashed, and any ballistic missile launches will be shot down (and conversely they can deliver nukes without challenge should a nation contrive to drop a rock on another). If the French peace broke down then a totally different power dynamic would occur, with the great powers preparing for a massive melee in the area of Earth, but this would push the powers to deploy large numbers of "Sentinels" (nuclear mines) in Earth orbit. Assumidly the conservative powers do the same at Tirane (which stops an Argentine-Brazilian arms race in Tirane orbit).


This means warfare conducted between great powers is restricted to trade warfare. These need more ships, and smaller ones suffice. As far as a colonial planet is concerned if a nation has a single reasonable frigate/ destroyer standing off it then it is blockaded. They can mount self-defense quite cheaply with sentinels, and might be able to drive off a frigate with a group of starfighters, but such vessels are more vulnerable than full starships, and liable to destruction if pulled away from a planet (for example, a frigate could bait patrolling starfighters into Sentinel fields quite easily). Earth is highly dependent on imports from the colonies (4 tons imported for every ton exported), mainly minerals and even foodstuffs and so denying an opponent access to imports is a good war strategy, but blockading Earth is complicated by transshipment (what if colonial produce is shipped to a neutral nation on Earth on neutral shipping?). Thus blockading an enemies colonies and taking their merchantman is probably the main effort between great powers off Earth (unless full blown invasions of each others colonies is possible).


To accomplish this we need large numbers of reasonably sized ships with sufficient armament, protection and endurance (which means having a large cargo bay, "life support" in SC is atmosphere only). This means prettymuch a typical trade warfare ship (either defensive or offensive) needs either a MHD turbine and a really big gastank (and solar arrays) like the small US ships, or a nuke plant (with ~ 50 MW being the high end, at 75 MW a 150 MW fusion plant takes over as more mass and crew efficient, and you've got a different beast). The ultimate expression of the trade warfare type are the "light cruisers" of the Kennedy or Ypres class. It's no coincidence that many smaller colonial nations (like Australia) have a Ypres as their "flagship".


At the very bottom end merchantman may be fitted for their own self defense. Installing combat systems on a starship isn't a huge issue (although the electronics is more problematic). At the high end longhauller merchantmen like the Shenyang is armed would make a pretty darned effective frigate. These ships are shown to be quite common in the scenarios in SC.


Hence, outside of the major battlefleet nations there is no need of big capital ships. Unless critical mass is achieved (which involves challenging the French and allied conservative powers) a big cruiser or battleship is an absolute waste. The leading non-battlefleet power, America, is now building extremely powerful trade warfare raiding ships like the Kennedy. These can overwhelm any smaller cruising ship and (hopefully) outrun heavy units but will come to no good if they accept battle with a heavy unit (as USS Sanchez found out). When designing fleets not detailed in canon (say Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Manchuria etc.) the need to stick to a raiding strategy should be emphasised.




* By canon the Japanese force at Elysia is the bulk of their force. Looked at from another PoV it is essentially a French fleet by the backdoor as a counterweight to Germany in a place where the French can't legitimately deploy forces.