OOC Note: As a reminder for the benefit of the reader, the agenda and attendance for the Naval Conference can be found in the first post of Chapter XXI and may be of some use to keep track of the various personalities involved as well as to be apprised of upcoming topics of discussion - about which speculation is as always encouraged!----
22 May 40090800: Session on Fleet and Naval Doctrine, Duranium Legion Naval ConferenceIn the days leading up to the Naval Conference, during which session agendas had been carefully planned by the appropriate sub-department deep in the halls of the Legion high command, the first Doctrinal session had been approached with the greatest care. Simply put, the challenge of such a session was the attendance: with sixteen Lords Admiral in attendance, it was a certainty that sixteen distinct and irreconcilable doctrines would be submitted to the assembly. The quick realization that this number would in fact only be fifteen, as the Lord Admiral Imperator was not permitted to participate, was of little comfort to the Conference planners. Neither did any member of the planning sub-department hold out hope that the assembly would be able to reach a doctrinal compromise from scratch; as every point was likely to be contentious there would be no common ground on which to build a consensus. The solution was almost tautological in its statement, if not in its execution: in order to reach a compromise, a compromise would be needed.
Specifically, the structure on which the planning sub-department had settled would require a set of initial doctrinal proposals to be submitted by teams of at least three Lords Admiral apiece. These would form the basis for following discussions conducted by breakout sessions of four or five Lords Admiral apiece, with each breakout group consisting of representatives from the four previous teams. The goal of the breakout sessions would be to reconcile the various plans, with the hope that the reconciliation proposals would find enough common ground to allow the proceedings to move forward to a series of final votes on the remaining differences. While the majority of the Lords Admiral, in fact a supermajority of all of them, objected to being forced to engage in group work which they had collectively been glad to see the last of after graduating from the Legion Military Academy, ultimately all agreed that this would be the most feasible approach. The smaller groups of Lords Admiral would be more likely to reach some form of consensus at each stage of the process, while limiting the selection of proposals before the full assembly to only a few instead of fifteen would permit reconciliation in a reasonable timeframe. While some might have argued that the planning sub-department was perhaps too optimistic regarding the ability of the Lords Admiral to reach any form of amicable agreement, on the whole this was considered the approach most likely to return any usable result at all.
With this settled, the initial teams had been determined prior to the start of the Naval Conference, and indeed each team had held meetings ahead of the main event to hammer out the rough outlines of their proposals, which would be finalized in a preparatory period at the beginning of the session to account for the previous day’s discussions. To open these proceedings, Lord Admiral Criasus acting in his capacity as Speaker of the Assembly would first present a fleet doctrine labeled simply as “Mark II”. This was intended not as a serious proposal, but rather as a presentation of how the status quo would look were the Legion Navy to continue adhering to its existing doctrinal basis, with following discussion planned to highlight shortcomings which the initial team proposals should aim to overcome.
A firm believer in the efficacy of visual aids, Lord Admiral Criasus accompanied his brief presentation with a clarifying diagram of the “proposed” fleet organization:
As this fleet organization was hardly different from the existing (theoretical) one, the Lord Admiral wasted little time in reviewing the doctrine in detail. Indeed, the only change of substance was the transition of the light cruiser class from
Defiant to
Invincible, though this did in fact have deep ramifications for what was superficially the same doctrine.
Briefly, Lord Admiral Criasus noted the following salient points:
- The transition to Invincible-class light cruisers forced a reduction of the fighter complement from four to one, with the AR-56 Osprey selected to replace the venerable R-56 in this fleet organization. Were this doctrinal approach to be maintained, the loss of fighter reconnaissance would likely not be too deeply felt, due to the long-ranged sensor capabilities of the Bellerophon class (likely a Mk II variant).
- Doctrinally, the detachment of the frigate squadron in any close-range beam combat scenario would be formalized to preserve the numbers of Bellerophons in service.
- Similarly, the existing policy of Hellfire squadron attachment as specialist units rather than regular fleet units would be formalized as well, this being in addition to the de facto status quo a compromise position between the Hellfire advocates (who wished the class to continue in service as a Mk II variant) and the opposition (who wished to limit the role of the class so as not to supplant railgun-centric doctrines).
- The effect of transitioning to the Invincible class would improve point defense, but not offensive firepower in terms of the number of 152 mm batteries brought to bear. Thus, the Mark II plan would offer no meaningful increase in firepower over the original fleet organization of 1 Jan 4000.
- As a thought experiment, a “Mark II-B” plan consisting of two light cruiser squadrons escorted by a single destroyer squadron and the same frigate squadron could be proposed. The main idea of such a concept, the Lord Admiral explained, was to show that the same point defense capability could be maintained for a single fleet while doubling offensive firepower. In practice, of course, this ratio of light cruisers to destroyers would be entirely impractical, and the plan was not to be seriously considered.
Little discussion was raised from the assembly, as of course all present were familiar with existing Legion Naval doctrine and the various teams were more eager to finalize their own proposals than spend time discussing the doctrinal relics of the past. Therefore, from 0830 to 0945 team meetings were held to finalize proposals, followed by a brief break during which light refreshments were served ahead of the actual presentations.
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1000: Presentations of Initial-Stage Legion Navy Doctrinal ProposalsAs the members of the assembly resumed their session having been suitably refreshed, Lord Admiral Criasus called the assembly to order and issued instructions for the upcoming presentations. Each team in turn would briefly present their proposed doctrine and fleet organization, summarizing the key elements and any particularly noteworthy divergences from existing doctrine. After this a brief comment period would be allowed, similarly to how the previous day’s session had proceeded. Lord Admiral Criasus was quite emphatic, given the strong opinions regarding certain classes of vessel, that the comment period was to be restricted to broad doctrinal topics without any assessment of the value of individual ship classes. These would be considered in the following days, after which a final session would see the finalization of the future Naval doctrine incorporating the results of those sessions.
The first team to present their initial doctrinal proposal consisted of:
- Lord Grand Admiral Thanatos Adrastus, Training High Command
- Lord High Admiral Hilaera Antilochus, Survey Command
- Lord Admiral Glycon Limos, Duratus Naval Corps
- Lord Admiral Caerus Priapus, Cmdt. Duratus Military Academy
These four Lords Admiral collectively represented the most conservative elements of the Legion Navy, and as such presented a doctrinal proposal aimed at addressing the most salient concerns raised in the previous day’s Naval Review session, but otherwise diverging as little as possible from established Navy practices which had after all proven quite successful.
The so-called Conservative Team highlighted several points to demonstrate that serious thought had gone into their proposal besides determining how to do the least amount of work:
- By replacing the Bellerophon squadron with a second light cruiser squadron, overall fleet firepower was increased compared to the original fleet organization of 1 Jan 4000. Due to the introduction of the versatile Invincible class, this was accomplished with an improvement in point defense capability as well.
- The pair of destroyer squadrons would be maintained as previously, having proven eminently capable and quite necessary against large missile-armed fleets.
- It had been noted in the discussion on fighter reconnaissance during the Naval Review that while the fighters were useful in theory - and admittedly in practice - opportunities for their use had proven elusive and in most cases the tonnage used to mount fighter bays on the Defiant class could have been better used. As only the Judgment Day class possessed such facilities, the pair of cruiser squadrons ensured that both passive and active reconnaissance capability would be present, without compromising the combat ability of the Invincible class.
- Both the Bellerophon and Hellfire classes were to be relegated to attachment-only roles, with no designated place in the standard fleet organization. This would ensure that the basic Legion battle fleet was optimized for combat ability, while maintaining the frigate squadrons as supporting forces when necessary during a given campaign.
- The 3+1 formula of combat and jump ships was maintained from existing doctrine. This was done primarily to ensure operational flexibility, i.e., to ensure that a Legion battle fleet could transit a jump point regardless of whether it had been previously stabilized. Lord Admiral Limos noted that this would have a secondary benefit of ensuring as seamless of a transition as possible between the old and new doctrines, as the change could be affected in practice by simply replacing the frigate squadrons (these barely being extant in any case) with new cruiser squadrons as they were commissioned.
This proposal being rather far from groundbreaking, the discussion of the comment period was not particularly extensive, certainly the following proposals would generate considerably more interest. In the main, the remaining Lords Admiral of the assembly expressed the general sense that the proposal was sound enough, and certainly addressed the most pressing failures of previous battles, but was otherwise uninspiring and hardly even an evolutionary step for the Legion Navy. Among others, Lord Grand Admiral Tethys Argyron questioned whether this proposal might encourage stagnation of the Legion Naval establishment, this being a salient concern for many among the assembly who feared to be found resting on their laurels by a future opponent.
Not unnoticed, however, was a crucial change made in a proposal which had otherwise abhored change, this being the realignment of the
Hellfire squadrons to include organic jump capability, thus reducing the actual beam firepower of the squadrons. Leading the objections was Lord Admiral Palaestra Abderus, who noted that the full firepower of four
Hellfires had been proven crucial in previous engagements to fully overpower the Belaire beam cruisers, and that reducing this firepower would likely have caused greater damage and even losses of railgun-armed vessels to the surviving
Sovremennys. Lord Admiral Priapus countered this comment rather less than diplomatically, stating that as every other ship class in the Legion Navy had been successful while fighting in jump-capable squadrons, the
Hellfire class ought to be held to the same standards. At this, both Lord Admiral Abderus as well as Lord Grand Admiral Argyron retorted with sincere questions regarding the fitness of Lord Admiral Priapus for his rank. Seeking to pacify the quarrelsome factionalists, Lord Grand Admiral Adrastus interjected, noting that while the opinion of his colleague was not entirely without rational basis, the intention had been to bring the
Hellfire squadrons into line with existing doctrine with regards to jump capability and the resulting operational flexibility, noting that an updated version of the class would likely address any firepower concerns derived from previous experiences. At this, Lord Admiral Criasus thanked the Lord Grand Admiral for his statesmanlike composure and instructed the assembly to move along.
Taking a tangent to the previous discussion, Lord Admiral Niobe Chryson questioned whether the addition of a cruiser squadron was sufficient to make up for the firepower deficit incurred by an adherence to jump-capable squadron doctrine. Lord Admiral Limos suggested that this was likely to be the case, given that previous Legion fleets had certainly not felt a lack of firepower. Additionally, commenting from the assembly Lord Admiral Gaia Pandia noted that the point defense fire available from the
Judgment Day class would ensure that it was not dead weight in a battle, unlike the
Grand Cross class of which Lord Admiral Chryson’s hatred was well known.
Aside from a few final requests for clarification, this concluded the presentation of the first initial doctrinal proposal. Lord Admiral Criasus thus instructed that the assembly move on to consider the second proposal, presented by the firebrand team of:
- Lord High Admiral Jack Macaria, Home Fleet Command
- Lord High Admiral Aeneas Chalcon, Industrial Command
- Lord Admiral Niobe Chryson, Construction Corps
From this team certainly a bombastic idea was expected, and the presented proposal did not disappoint. While not differing in spirit too greatly from the conservative doctrine proposed by the previous team, this proposal sought to address the question of sufficient firepower by means of introducing the first capital ship class in Legion Naval history, a 20,000-ton heavy cruiser class which would be armed with 203 mm railgun batteries to easily overpower any opponent the Legion Navy could conceive of fighting.
Author’s Note: The label “ex.” here indicates an “experimental” ship class, which at this time would not have even begun development beyond conceptual sketches (the designation as “experimental” in this case may be considered optimistic), and as such would not have yet received a formal letter designation from which ship names could be taken.Appropriately, this team would become known as the Capital Ship Team after the centerpiece of their doctrinal proposal. The Capital Ship Team highlighted a number of further points they considered relevant, notably in contrast to the preceding proposal of the Conservative Team:
- The key distinction, naturally, would be the squadron of 20,000-ton heavy cruisers (plus jump cruiser) forming the core of the battle fleet. These would be competitive with ships similar to the Belaire Kirov-class strike cruiser, though still a bit undersized compared to the 27,000-ton Mongolican Timurad-class battlecruisers.
- Aside from heavy firepower, the major impact of the heavy cruiser squadron would be to redefine the roles of the Invincible-class light cruisers. While these would still maintain independent operational capabilities and deliver significant close-range firepower in battle, the light cruiser role in a full battle fleet would be that of a heavy escort to preserve the superior heavy cruisers.
- The destroyer squadron role would not change much in the positive sense, however under the capital ship doctrine the role would be formally constrained to an escort and point defense role, whereas light cruiser squadrons would be formally considered a detachable asset to carry out secondary missions such as commerce raiding.
- As an additional doctrinal change, the proposed 20,000-ton class of jump cruisers would be commanded by a Lord Captain, making clear the overall command of a battle fleet as the number of Captain-commanded cruisers doubled and also providing opportunities for Lord Captains to lead from the front lines rather than in administrative roles as had been the case for the Invasion of Belaire.
Naturally, as the heavy cruiser concept was not only a new ship design but an entirely new class, many of the assembly members were curious as to how such a ship might look. This interest had been anticipated, and Lord Admiral Chryson presented an abstracted conceptual design suggesting what the key characteristics might be:
Experimental Heavy Cruiser Proposal
20,000 tons 600 crew 1016 mm (8x127 mm) Composite Armor Captain, Executive Officer
4000-ton Heavy Cruiser Engine (2) 5000 km/s Range 20 billion km
203 mm Heavy Weapons Battery (10x4) Range 160,000 km ROF 15 sec
102 mm Defense Battery Mk IV (10x4) Range 40,000 km ROF 5 secShockingly, at least to the members of the capital ship team, there was significant pushback from the Lords Admiral against this new concept of a heavy cruiser class. This pushback was roughly delineated, albeit not chronologically during the comment period, into three generalized categories of, speaking politely, feedback:
First and least concerningly, several comments were made concerning the design proposal itself, which were by far the most welcomed parts of the larger discussion. Lord Admiral Gaia Pandia expressed some concern regarding the number and size of engines proposed, suggesting that while mounting more smaller engines might be less fuel and therefore space-efficient the benefits of smaller explosion risks and generally an increase in redundant capability in battle would improve the practical battle record of the class. Other Lords Admiral readily concurred, as while this point had not been considered to date the loss of half a ship’s propulsion from a single penetrating shot had often hampered the Legion Navy in battles. Several other Lords Admiral disagreed as to the number and type of guns which should be mounted, with most recommending an increase in heavy batteries at the expense of the defense batteries or vice versa. Notably, Lord Admiral Palaestra Abderus suggested that the promise of “heavy firepower” would better be suited by using half-size 152 mm batteries in place of the 102 mm defence guns, which would permit the rapid fire necessary for point defense while providing an overall far more powerful secondary battery. While intriguing to some, this idea was broadly panned with Lord High Admiral Macaria accusing Lord Admiral Abderus of completely misunderstanding how “point defense” was supposed to work.
The second, and by far most numerous, category of comments were however those dismissing the idea of a heavy cruiser class entirely. The comments made by Lord Grand Admiral Tethys Argyron can be considered representative of this sentiment; a larger ship class would be expensive, time-consuming to build, logistically-demanding particularly in terms of shipyard and maintenance requirements, and did not seem to offer any tangible advantages over a light cruiser-sized hull, which had already proven highly survivable in the face of enemy fire. If more firepower was truly necessary, there was no reason why heavier weapons could not be mounted on an
Invincible-type hull instead. Against this comment particularly, Lord High Admiral Macaria fired back, observing that the objective of the Legion Navy was not merely to be “survivable” but rather to achieve total dominance in battle. In his view, a heavy, well-protected capital ship would be capable of bringing that dominance to the battlefield, particularly against a more capable opponent than the hapless Belaire Navy had been. After the Lord Grand Admiral had retorted by accusing her subordinate of being more concerned about phallic symbology than practical performance, Lord Admiral Criasus was forced to step in and end this line of discussion, which nevertheless resurfaced several more times throughout the comment period -
usually with a more subdued tone being taken.
A final set of viewpoints expressed on the heavy cruiser proposal were those of a minority who questioned whether the 203 mm railgun batteries truly represented “heavy firepower” being only an incremental upgrade over the 152 mm batteries in terms of damage output. Particularly, a trio of Lords Admiral, led in spirit by Lord Grand Admiral Argyron and including Lords Admiral Abderus and Hydra, expressed the opinion that a true heavy weapon would be an upgraded particle beam cannon of some sort. Lord Admiral Agamemnon Hydra put forth one of the more well-reasoned arguments along these lines, noting that if the railgun-armed destroyers and light cruisers were to serve in an escort role it would make sense for the capital ships of a fleet to deliver long-range firepower to cripple an enemy force, preserving the escorts until mopping-up duty was called for. Lord High Admiral Macaria’s response to this logic, not fit for printing, was it suffices to say on the opposite end of the rationality scale. Seeking as much to prevent a brawl on the Conference floor as to provide a rational counterpoint, Lord Admiral Chryson interjected ostensibly seeking to “clarify” her superior officer’s comments. On one hand, she noted, the particle beam concept was still while not untested considered unproven by the major part of the Lords Admiralty, and the inaugural capital ship class of the Legion Navy should be reliant on well-proven technologies. On the other hand, the core fighting doctrine of the Legion Navy called for closure to close range, an approach notably well-suited for challenging jump point assaults into the teeth of the enemy, and particle beams were at the present time considered ancillary, at most, to this central doctrine. At this, Lord Admiral Criasus hurriedly thanked his comrade in arms for her valuable contribution, and recommended that the comment session proceed towards another topic.
This recommendation was taken by Lord Grand Admiral Argyron, but not in the manner which the Speaker had hoped. Following from the previous discussion, though assuredly on a separate tack, the Lord Grand Admiral inquired as to the conspicuous absence of
Hellfire squadrons in the selection of attachment-only squadron types which was thus limited to
Bellerophon squadrons only. Once again, Lord High Admiral Macaria responded, stating that while the
Hellfire class had proven occasionally useful in combat, it was certainly not necessary and the advent of a heavy cruiser class which could confidently advance against enemy beam fire would render the Hellfire unnecessary in any case. After the Lord Grand Admiral replied indicating that she could hardly see how a 20,000-ton phallic symbol was anything but unnecessary, the Lord High Admiral offered to assist his superior officer by demonstrating the necessity of a phallic symbol, at which point the record appears to indicate that a brief period of unrest among the assembly was settled by the peacekeeping actions of the Imperial Guard detachment.
Following these peacekeeping actions, Lord Admiral Criasus called the comment session to a close and invited the next team to present their initial doctrinal proposal. Based on the roster for the next team to present, the reader can understand why this was not expected to go well:
- Lord Grand Admiral Tethys Argyron, Fleet High Command
- Lord Admiral Palaestra Abderus, Mining Corps
- Lord Admiral Agamemnon Hydra, Terraforming Corps
This team in fact consisted of the Legion Navy’s foremost particle beam advocates, and thus the basis of their doctrinal proposal, though couched in weaseling terms of “mixed armaments”, surprised absolutely no members of the assembly.
While this team would likely have preferred to be known as the “Mixed Armaments Team”, in practice they quickly picked up the more controversial moniker of the “Beam Team”, along with one or two less savory names once again not fit for print. Despite vociferous opposition to the unveiling of their beam-centric doctrinal plan, the Beam Team soldiered onward, attempting to provide additional points of emphasis for the consideration of the less rabidly-opposed members of the assembly:
- From the outset, Lord Admiral Abderus attempted to head off the harshest dissenters by indicating that, while her team strongly believed in the doctrinal concept being proposed, the controversial position of the Hellfire class in the present-day Legion Navy establishment was well known, and the proposal being presented was intended to provide an alternative viewpoint for consideration in the later discussions rather than as a thorough upending of Legion Naval tradition.
- Lord Admiral Hydra additionally noted that the proposed battle fleet organization was not a novel contribution, as in fact First Fleet had fought at least one major engagement using the same basic configuration aside from the type of light cruiser used in the battle.
- The bulk of the presentation duties fell to Lord Grand Admiral Argyron, herself by now no stranger to the limelight of controversy. The chief rationale behind formalizing a particle beam-based doctrine, she stated, was to ensure that a Legion battle fleet was prepared to fight any enemy at a moment’s notice, whereas the present Bellerophon-including fleet pattern retained a weakness against enemy long-ranged beam firepower. Future enemies, she pointed out, could not be presumed to have only a few beam cruisers mixed among missile-armed ships, and the capability to counter a beam-heavy enemy fleet without having to retreat towards reinforcements was critical to hold frontier systems.
- Additionally, the Lord Grand Admiral brought attention to a proposed new class of specialized warships, the beam monitor class. These would be cruiser-sized warships mounting the heaviest particle beams the Priapus Energetics Laboratory could design, with the aim of providing heavy beam fire support on a heavily-armored hull against particularly challenging targets. In contrast to the heavy cruisers of the previous proposal, she noted, these monitors would represent an actual new capability rather than simply a bigger gun on a bigger hull.
- Finally, noting that particle beam warships were not well-suited to a jump point assault, the Beam Team had designed the Hellfire and beam monitor squadrons without a dedicated jump vessel, as outside of a jump point assault mission these ships would be adequately transported through jump points by a Judgment Day-class jump cruiser or similar.
As the Beam Team concluded their presentation, Lord Admiral Criasus quickly raised a point of interest, hoping to lead by example and set a positive tone for the comment period. He noted that the proposed beam monitor class, aside from any other uses, would likely be of great help in assaulting a heavily-defended planet such as Belaire Prime, since it could be used to eliminate surface-based gun emplacements without closing to point-blank range and risking effective return fire.
Surprisingly, the Conference records indicate that the reaction of the assembly at large to this proposal was markedly subdued, with relatively few heated objections raised. The records also rather conspicuously note the presence of the Imperial Guard detachment in close quarters among the assembly, likely a preemptive deployment wisely ordered by the Lords General commanding the detachment. Amusingly, Lord High Admiral Macaria is recorded at having stood and prepared to deliver a particularly bombastic comment, but is only recorded as having thanked the Beam Team for their interesting proposal; it seems likely that the Lord High Admiral had noticed the positioning of the Imperial Guards and chose to revise his comment in the moment.
This is not to say that no substantial comments were made. Lord Admiral Chryson noted, perhaps with tongue in cheek, that the suggested beam monitor class would likely be expensive, time-consuming to build, logistically-demanding particularly in terms of shipyard space which would be diverted from building main-line light cruisers at the same tonnage mark, and did not seem to offer any tangible advantages over a frigate-sized hull. Lord Grand Admiral Argyron responded by pointing out that the monitor squadron would be an optional attachment used only for special mission profiles, thus would require a far lesser investment of resources than, for example, a large heavy cruiser fleet. At this juncture, Lord Admiral Criasus noted the subtext of this exchange and recommended that the points raised by both speakers be considered in the later discussions and proposals.
Perhaps the most insightful comment was received from Lord Admiral Gaia Pandia of the Logistics Corps, who first inquired as to whether this proposal, appearing to call for a four-
Hellfire squadron in every battle fleet, would require a significant increase in
Hellfire production. Upon receiving an affirmative answer, she pointed out that particle beam weapons required a nontrivial mass of corundium to produce, this being currently the most stressed resource stockpile for the Legion economy, and attempting to massively increase
Hellfire production while also building up a beam monitor force would likely stress these stockpiles beyond the current mining capacity of the Legion. Lord Admiral Abderus, despite being an originator of the mixed armaments plan, was forced to concede this point as commander of the Mining Corps, marking a rare moment of humility amidst the chaos and controversy of the day’s debates.
On this note, Lord Admiral Criasus was glad to order the fourth and final doctrinal proposal team to present their ideas, confident that nothing could be more controversial than a
Hellfire-based proposal. This confidence was unfounded.
The fourth doctrinal team consisted of:
- Lord High Admiral Geras Makedon, Training Command
- Lord Admiral Adrien Agamemnon, Survey Corps
- Lord Admiral Pothos Aleus, Training Corps
- Lord Admiral Gaia Pandia, Logistics Corps
These four proposed what would turn out to be the most drastic revision of Legion Naval doctrine yet presented. In fact, the very concept of a doctrinal fleet organization would be completely eschewed in favor of a so-called “modular fleet system”, under which a battle fleet would consist of no permanent organization except for a command squadron providing command, control, and reconnaissance capabilities, while every other squadron-level asset would be hand-selected for the specific mission at hand. It would take several minutes for the uproar among the assembly to be calmed down, fortunately only requiring the
threat of Imperial Guard intervention as motivation.
With order restored, the team quickly set about offering justification and defense for their highly novel modular fleet concept:
- The modular fleet doctrine, explained by Lord High Admiral Makedon, had two principal goals. The first of these was to reflect the way Legion Navy battle fleets had been organized and used in practice, rather than trying to prescribe a new doctrinal organization which may or may not actually be followed in practice. As in practice, Legion Navy fleets had seen their composition varied based on mission profile and ship availability, formalizing this variance in doctrine seemed a good, adaptive solution.
- The second goal was to address the weakness of jump vessels in squadron composition. To this end, the modular fleet doctrine would collect jump-capable assets in a separate pool of ships to be assigned to a fleet as necessary to carry out a jump point assault. For normal jump transit into uncontested space, the new command cruiser class would provide standard jump transit capability for the fleet.
- This brought up the new class, which was presented chiefly by Lord Admiral Agamemnon. The concept of the Command and Control Squadron was to serve as the permanent “core” of a battle fleet, providing not only jump capability but also long-range sensor capabilities and reconnaissance assets, which could be deployed or held in reserve depending on the mission requirements - notably, this would explicitly encode in Legion Naval doctrine the Bellerophon class as a reconnaissance asset which should not be engaged in a pitched battle, preventing the sort of losses seen in previous encounters. The command cruiser class itself was roughly sketched out as follows:
Experimental Command Cruiser Proposal
20,000 tons 500 crew 762 mm (6x127 mm) Composite Armor
Hangar Deck Capacity 500 tons
Captain, Executive Officer, Chief Engineer, Flag Officer
2000-ton Fleet Cruiser Engine (4) 5000 km/s Range 20 billion km
Fleet Gravity Drive Max Ship Size 20000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Fleet Long-Range Array Range 102m km Resolution 7500 tons
Fleet High-Resolution Array Range 41.3m km Resolution 500 tons
Fleet Missile Warning Array Range 19.1m km Resolution 50 tons Missile Detection Range 1,723k km
Fleet RF Wave Array Nominal Range 67.1m km
Fleet Infrared Array Nominal Range 67.1m km- An additional impetus for the design of a command cruiser class was to provide a platform for Lord Captains to command fleets in battle at the tactical level, in a similar manner to the proposed heavy jump cruiser class advocated by the Capital Ship Doctrine but on a considerably less incapable platform.
- Lord Admiral Pandia briefly discussed the logistics of the proposal. On one hand, the Legion Navy’s stock of jump-capable ships would need to be upgraded to be capable of jumping four combat vessels in a squadron transit to carry out jump point assaults, although in the near term this could be handled by temporarily disrupting the squadron organization to create ad-hoc groups of three combat ships.
- On the other hand, the modular fleet team had anticipated some pushback against the lack of organic jump-capable assets in a battle fleet. Lord Admiral Pandia noted that in practice, the Legion Navy had never - and was unlikely to have ever - conducted a jump point assault without an extended planning and preparation period, which would in practice allow ample time to redeploy jump assets as needed for these rare and special missions. As the command cruiser provided standard fleet jump capabilities, fleet mobility would in practice be unhindered in any realistic tactical situation.
- Finally, Lord Admiral Aleus presented an additional major advantage of the modular fleet doctrine, pertaining to fleet training. Previously, Legion Navy practice had been to engage in fleet training exercises on the fleet level only, leading to disparate outcomes where come ship crews would be fully-trained while other crews on more recently-commissioned vessels would require much additional training. The modular fleet doctrine would allow training exercises to be run chiefly on the squadron level, ensuring that ship crews would have much more uniform levels of experience across the fleet while not wasting time over-training experienced crews aboard older vessels.
The fourth and final team had clearly anticipated many counterarguments to their highly novel proposal, and their presentation had been easily the longest and most rigorous of the morning session. Even so, the members of the assembly had no difficulty finding areas of commentary to explore in a stimulating discussion period.
Surprisingly, the Lords Admiral were generally approving of the command cruiser concept, in large part due to the abiding interest in placing the Lords Captain closer to the front from where it was believed they would be more effective commanders than behind a desk in Kuiper 79. Notably, Lord High Admiral Macaria noted that the command cruiser was likely a better answer to this particular question than the heavy jump cruisers his own team had proposed, not least as the optics of placing a commanding officer on a third-rate warship were problematic to say not too much on the subject. Other Lords Admiral noted that the command cruiser would neatly solve the
Bellerophon problem, providing the same long-range sensor capabilities on a far more durable hull.
Less well-received was the central role afforded to the
Bellerophon class itself, forming the remainder of the four-ship command squadron with ships of such a controversial class would of course not be taken well. For many of the Lords Admiral, the doctrinal role of the ships as explicitly-detachable assets in the face of pitched battle had been rather lost, notably Lord Admiral Chryson objected to including such a fragile, combat-incapable vessel as central to the otherwise modular fleet. Amidst a sea of critical voices, Lord Admiral Pandia replied by reinforcing the detachable nature of these assets, and particularly noting that the Bellerophons could be detached outside of battle, in-theater, to provide not only distant reconnaissance but also to open up opportunities for commerce raiding. By giving a practical example, the Lord Admiral did help some among the assembly to comprehend the detachable aspect of the new
Bellerophon doctrine, and while the assembly remained overall divided over the role of the class the dissension was somewhat muted after this point.
As no new objections were raised regarding the inclusion of
Hellfire-class frigates in the proposal, it suffices for the reader to be made aware that the same old objections were repeated and countered with renewed vigor, to the point where Lord Grand Admiral Argyron and Lord High Admiral Macaria were briefly escorted from the Conference chamber by members of the Imperial Guard detachment, albeit temporarily having not yet been formally ejected by Lord Admiral Imperator Valance.
Far more edifying discussions were held on the subject of the inorganic jump assets concept. Lord Admiral Glycon Limos argued that while a full-scale jump point assault required months of preparation, the capability to immediately execute a jump point assault against an inferior force as part of a pursuit operation should not be neglected. Several of his fellow Lords Admiral agreed, voicing the opinion that it would be illogical to remove this option from those available to a commanding officer in the midst of a battle or operation. Lord High Admiral Makedon attempted to defend against this argument, noting that jump-capable assets could certainly be forward-deployed to an active theater of operations. The assembly found this counter-argument to be quite weak, as even waiting several hours for a jump ship detachment to reach a jump point could be sufficient to render any pursuit operation infeasible. Lord Grand Admiral Thanatos Adrastus noted an additional weakness in the inorganic jump assets plan: as the jump-capable vessels would see only rare combat action, they would be seen as even less prestigious postings than they already were, likely causing discontent amongst the lower command officer ranks and morale deficiencies more broadly among the crews.
Upon her return to the chamber, however, Lord Grand Admiral Argyron had perhaps the most insightful objection yet raised to the modular fleet doctrine. On a basic level, she argued, the modular system would reduce fleet flexibility compared to any other approach which attempted to design a general-purpose battle fleet. A fleet designed for a particular mission, if confronted with a different tactical or operational situation in the field, would be less adaptable, particularly if composed of specialized ships such as
Hellfires and
Bellerophons, to say nothing of any exotic designs which might be added to the Legion Navy ship roster in the future. Lord Admiral Aleus attempted to make a counter-argument to this, claiming that since the core of a fleet would likely be made up of relatively flexible ships such as the
Invincible and
Charybdis class, concerns about a loss of flexibility were overblown. However, Lord Grand Admiral Argyron replied, if this was the case why not formalize these ships as the core of a flexible battle fleet and treat specialized ships as optional attachments - exactly what the previous three proposals attempted to do? This rhetoric gained the Lord Grand Admiral much support from the assembly, despite further efforts from the modular fleet team to justify their own approach.
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As the final comment period of the morning session finally petered out, Lord Admiral Criasus offered a brief summary of the various proposals. While there were many disagreements, the Speaker sought to identify the common ground shared by each proposal to provide a basis for cooperative work in the afternoon session. All four proposals, he noted, had enshrined the squadron as the basis of fleet composition, affirming years of Legion Naval tradition. Furthermore, it was clear that the destroyer and light cruiser classes would continue to serve as the major basis and workhorse hull types for battle fleets for the foreseeable future. While each proposal had been distinct from every other, Lord Admiral Criasus emphasized that every proposal had given some idea which many, perhaps the majority, of the assembly had received positively, in spite of the sometimes acrimonious debates which had dominated the session. The Lord Admiral therefore urged his fellow Lords Admiral to consider these positive ideas carefully during the break to follow, before coming back to the afternoon session ready to work together to determine a cohesive doctrine for the future of the Legion Navy.
After this the Naval Conference was adjourned for a light luncheon.
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OOC Notes: And the next update is finally published! My original plan to publish the entire session in a single chapter has perhaps rather predictably been frustrated, and rather than wait to publish the full session as a two-part update I have decided to publish this first half separately. If nothing else this provides the readership with something to read in their spare time, and any additional thoughts on the proposed doctrines may have a non-zero chance of being considered in the second part of this session. As for this offering, I do worry that perhaps I have finally gotten too wordy and self-indulgent for my own good, but we shall see what the readership thinks as thus far such wordiness has been well-received.
