Paper 3/3202 : The Rebuilding of the Wolfer Royal Navy 3199-3202
3202.300

Introduction

Due to various cutbacks and a general disregard for the military services by a succession of governments, all the Commonwealth's armed services were in a poor state in 3199, but the worst of all was the Royal Navy.

Although the servicemen and women of the Commonwealth are recognised as the best in the human sphere, the equipment they were supplied with was woefully inadequate. In fact, the Navy's last three remaining capital ships were in such a poor state of repair, that they spent more time in space dock than on active service.

Despite the on-set of the Exterminator war and the threat that implied, the Commonwealth government of the time was content to carry on this policy of neglect and to let other larger polities fight the war on its behalf.

However, His Majesty King Stabilo was not happy with this state of affairs and commissioned a highly confidential independent report on how well the Commonwealth would be able to survive an Exterminator attack without assistance.

The report was damning and was widely read amongst parliamentarians. Its conclusion was that even Wolf359 itself would struggle to fight off a single Viking unit, with the probable loss of billions of lives before help could arrive assuming it actually did.

This report led directly to the liberal governments downfall in 3199 and the election of the progressive party, who immediately instigated an unprecedented program of military spending on all the services, but especially the Royal Navy.

There are rumours however, denied by the government, that during this prolific period of ship building, which seems to have slowed over the last year, a large number of vessels were rushed out of the ship yard, sometimes with ship yard workers still on board completing work.

A recent leaked report also suggests, that a large number of the new 'Victory' class carriers, now widely in service with the Royal Navy have numerous minor faults where corners were cut during construction.

The navy has stated that where faults have been reported, they will be rectified during the normal maintenance cycle and that nothing has been reported so far that would impair the operational efficiency of a vessel.

What cannot be doubted however is that no human navy in history has grown at the rate of the Commonwealth's over the last three years. Estimates put the increase in fighting power from 3199 to today at about one thousand percent.

Royal Navy Structure

The past three years has been a heady time, in the Royal Navy, where it was more important to get vessels in to space, than to worry about organisation and doctrine.

However, as the RN has now probably reached the limit of what is comfortable for the Commonwealth to support and is at least two times larger than it has ever been before, minds now appear to be turning towards how the Royal Navy in it's vastly expanded state should be structured.

The plan appears to be that the Navy will now organise itself in to 'Battle Fleets'. These fleets will have a mix of vessels, so that each fleet can be employed in a variety of tasks.

It is believed that initially at least, the RN will have three Battle Fleets, Black based at Wolf 359, Azure, based at Evangelou and Bronze attached to the Q5DF. The RN has also stated that it would like to have a fourth fleet in Q7 based at Prtoprnss and attached to the Q7DF, but currently the infrastructure and support are not available in that quadrant.

A Battle Fleet, assuming that no changes are made to the draft document currently doing the rounds, will consist of the following:

CVI 3
PBI 2
BBI 1
CAI 2
CMI 1
DDI 2
ALSI 1
LSSI 2
HSI 1

KPGK and the RN

The role of the KPGK that seems to have grown up over the last few years will continue for the future. i.e. the KPGK will continue to supply the static defences for Q0 systems, while the RN will continue to defend the outer quadrants and to provide large mobile forces.

Quadrant Fleets

The quadrant fleets will have the role of defending Commonwealth systems outside Q0 as well as supplying vessels to assist local police forces where requested.

In the past, vessels have been assigned to quadrant fleets on an ad-hoc basis, but the plan is that each quadrant will now have a standard minimum force consisting of the following:

CVI 1
CAI 2
ALSI 1
SSI 1
LSSI 1

DDI 1 per member world

Each fleet will consist of one central force based at the quadrant capital, which can be called upon as and when required.

Each system will also have a destroyer permanently on-station to act mainly in an anti-pirating role, but also to assist local police forces where required. (Where cruisers are currently assigned to a system, they will be replaced with destroyers as they become available and the cruisers will be re-assigned.)

Scouting Forces

Initially, each Battle Fleet will have it's own scouting component consisting of two destroyers. In future, this will be bolstered by a new dedicated service, the Royal Scouting Force. This new force will consist mainly of destroyers and scout ships. Its role will be to supply the Royal Navy with long range scouting forces as well as scouting of the outer quadrants.

However, it will be at least 3206 before this force can begin to be organised due to the already large number of vessels planned for the RN.

Home Defence Fleets

As has been previously mentioned, two new Battle Fleets will be created at Wolf359 and Evangelou. These will defend the Commonwealth's southern and northern member worlds respectively.

'H' Force

This multi-national force based at Haggai is seen as central to defending systems in the vicinity from Exterminator attack. The RN component of 'H' Force will consist of two carriers.

Reserve Fleet

This fleet will be based at Wolf359 and will consist of vessels not currently assigned or vessels that are only assigned to other fleets on a temporary basis. (Transports and salvage vessels for example.)

Combined Human Fleets

The RN will continue its commitment to the multi-national forces making up the QDF fleets. The Bronze Battle Fleet will remain attached to the Q5DF.
As resources become available, the forces allocated to the Q7DF will also be increased, but this is more dependent on the economic situation in Q7 rather than on the availability of vessels.

New Vessels

With the introduction of the Battle Fleets, the RN seems to be moving towards a strategy of long-range bombardment of the opposition. This could be due to the small size of the RN in relation to other polities and thus every vessel is valuable.

The evidence for this is the appearance of Heavy Missile Cruisers and Plasmatic Battleships in the RN. These new PBI's bare little resemblance to the old unreliable design as the RN's designers have heavily modified them to maximise the use of the available power.

This does of course leave the RN vulnerable at shorter ranges and it is believed this is why the longer range vessels are always accompanied by carriers whose RAF pacifiers can supply the close defence that these vessels otherwise would not have.

It's an interesting strategy, but only time will tell how effective it is. To be fair to the RN, they have stated that the main intention of these Battle Fleets is to be able to engage and destroy Exterminator vessels at long enough ranges that their huge number of HELL's cannot be brought to bear on human forces. Due to the fact that Exterminators have few mobile units and no missile capability, this strategy should be fairly sound against this type of opposition.

It has also been rumoured that the RN in conjunction with the RA are testing the use of Ram ships on ALSI's to more effectively deliver marines to target areas. This may well be useful when attacking large vessels like ESB's where one ALSI can attack a single vessel from multiple directions at the same time.

Summary

This has been an exciting time for the Royal Navy. It has grown in strength and ability and become truly a powerful fighting force, well able to defend the Commonwealth and finally meet all it's other commitments.

If funding continues to flow in, then the ambitious future plans of the RN authorities should lead to it becoming one of the most pre-eminent fleets in human space.

(thanks to Mike Young)