HEAVY CRUISERS (CA)
The GSN built its first heavy cruisers in the light of the realization that their new Havenite opponents had something the Masadans lacked: a dependence on an extended, potentially vulnerable trading network. The GSN recognized that their light cruisers were capable of conducting commerce attacks but wanted a platform capable of operating for long periods of time hundreds of light-years away from support. The same endurance characteristics that enabled heavy cruisers to hunt down merchantmen on distant stations naturally helped them convoy merchantmen to and from those same stations.
Battlecruisers could have been used, as in the RMN, but the desired characteristics of a deep raiding battlecruiser differed substantially from the fleet support battlecruisers the GSN already had in mind and would have necessitated the construction of two different classes. At this point, the necessary number of yards big enough to produce the desired number of battlecruisers of two types simply were not available when the need arose. Making a virtue of necessity, the Grayson heavy cruiser has thus come to fulfill much the same role as the battlecruiser in Manticoran service and has acquired the same romantic aura: long-range independent deep-space commands both beyond help and absolute master of their own destiny.
Berilynko-class heavy cruiser
(for specification, see RMN Warrior-class CA)
Number Donated: 3
Service Life: 1904–present
These three old Manticoran Warrior-class heavy cruisers marked for disposal were diverted to Grayson in 1904 as part of the Technological Exchange Program. While these ships appear to be named after a Grayson steading, they are actually named after a famous army general who made notable contributions during the Civil War.
Analysis of both Manticoran and Grayson experience with laser heads clearly demonstrated that the primary shipkiller had become the missile, but the traditional energy-range combat scenario clearly could not be ruled out, as Captain Honor Harrington’s engagement at Blackbird Base and against the Masadan battlecruiser Thunder of God indicated. Both the GSN Office of Shipbuilding and Doctrine and the Office of Training Command concluded that the high volume of fire which had been a major requirement in pre-laser head capital ship design had become far less relevant than sheer hitting power, however. Missiles had become even more effective at knocking down sidewalls before the energy engagement, improving targeting resolution and capability during the energy engagement, which reduced the need to saturate the potential target zone in order to secure hits. This led to the conclusion that the graser was a superior choice for shipboard energy mounts, despite the weapon’s mass and volume penalties in comparison to the laser, given its greater destructiveness and range, and the Grayson Space Navy conducted extensive simulations to test that conclusion. The simulation analysis was validated in operational practice and played a major role in the GSN’s preference for an all-graser broadside armament in everything from cruisers to superdreadnoughts.
Alvarez-class heavy cruiser
Mass: 319,500 tons
Dimensions: 531 × 64 × 54 m
Acceleration: 508.6 G (4.988 kps²)
80% Accel: 406.9 G (3.99 kps²)
Broadside: 14M, 5G, 8CM, 8PD
Chase: 3M, 1G, 5CM, 5PD
Number Built: 12
Service Life: 1904–present
The Alvarez-class CA is similar to a Star Knight-class CA, with specific GSN changes, most notably the all-graser broadside offensive beam armament. An even larger missile broadside and armor features better designed to counter laser heads also figure in the class’ larger mass. The emphasis on the missile as opposed to beam combat is taken by some as an indication that the GSN was quicker than the RMN to recognize the family of technologies which, combined, ultimately revolutionized space warfare during the Manticore-Havenite Wars. This view gives the GSN too much credit. The Star Knight, of course, is widely recognized now to be a revolutionary but transitional design, and the Grayson designers had the advantage of the better part of a full decade in deployable technology, plus the benefit of the hard-won combat experience both they and the Royal Manticoran Navy had amassed since the Manticoran class was first designed. The Alvarez design merely advances down the path Star Knight began, incorporating far heavier grasers in her reduced energy armament and using individually more capable point defense laser clusters.
The Alvarez-class CAs were the first locally built Grayson heavy cruisers and the largest mobile space structures the Graysons had built at the time of their completion. The importance of the heavy cruiser in Grayson service, similar to the RMN’s battlecruisers, makes the choice to name this class after a foreign officer a poignant reminder of the respect with which Commander Alvarez’s sacrifice is viewed.
Alliance-class heavy cruiser
(for specification, see RMN Star Knight-class CA)
Number Purchased: 5
Service Life: 1904–present
These were Star Knight-class ships directly purchased from Manticoran builders. They were largely unmodified in Grayson service and often served in mixed squadrons with the Alvarez class.
Protector Adrian-class heavy cruiser
(for specification, see RMN Edward Saganami-class CA)
Number Built: 36
Service Life: 1908–present
Originally on the books as simply the Alvarez II, this class was formally named the Protector Adrian class once the lead unit was commissioned. The RMN learned a lot from Grayson’s experiences with the Alvarez class, and the design for the Saganami/Adrian classes was a joint RMN/GSN project. These units represent in many ways the peak of cooperation between the RMN and GSN shipbuilders and were identical to the RMN Edward Saganami class in most respects. They are the largest production run of heavy cruisers in Grayson history at the time of this writing.
As built, these vessels corrected the biggest problem that the GSN had with the Alvarez/Star Knight line in operational service: their acceleration. Improved compensators, and the more powerful nodes required by a larger hull improved acceleration by nearly ninety gravities. This change shifted the balance of GSN heavy cruiser deployments, with the older Alvarez CAs moving into convoy escort roles and the Flight II’s forming the bulk of independent deep-raiding squadrons toward the end of the war. Remarkably, the number of GSN cruiser losses decreased during this period, due almost entirely to the nimbleness of the Adrians.
Proselyte-class heavy cruiser
Mass: 477,250 tons
Dimensions: 607 x 73 x 61 m
Acceleration: 501.1 G (4.914 kps²)
80% Accel: 400.9 G (3.931 kps²)
Broadside: 11M, 12L, 12CM, 10PD
Chase: 3M, 3G, 4CM, 6PD
Number Captured: 4
Service Life: 1913–present
These four Mars-class heavy cruisers were part of the StateSec forces that Admiral Harrington captured during her escape from the Cerberus system. While too antiquated to serve in a frontline role in an age of multi-drive missiles and too heavily built to be economical to refit, the four together were renamed the Proselyte class and have served for several years in the Protector’s Own.
Larger and more modern than any of the early captured specimens of Havenite hardware, they have reportedly received special Grayson-designed inertial compensator upgrades. This, ironically, makes them the only units of the Mars class to receive the necessary compensation hardware to make use of the full power capability of their impeller drives. Substantial performance gains have been made, though Grayson technicians report that the ships remain difficult to maintain. Unfortunately, most of the captured hardware consists of early production run units and extensive computer modeling and new plant operating software were required to bring the ships’ notorious Goshawk-Three fusion reactors up to GSN acceptance specifications. Nothing short of complete replacement could render the reliability of the plants completely satisfactory, however, and the expense has been too great up to this point. In the meantime, the fusion plants are reportedly known as “the Bombs” by their crews.
Burleson-class heavy cruiser
(for specification, see RMN Saganami-C-class CA)
Number Built: 17+
Service Life: 1921–present
Named for one of the first GSN captains to conduct an attack on the Endicott System, this class is an indigenously produced version of the RMN’s Saganami-C-class CA. While there have been some positive reports from the Manticorans on this design, none of the Burlesons have yet seen combat.
BATTLECRUISERS (BC)
GSN doctrine uses battlecruisers very differently from the RMN. This is one area where the two nations’ disparate strategic and operational needs clearly show in their tactical decisions. Independent of the need to protect a far-flung trading network and desperate to add mass to their wall of battle, the GSN initially saw battlecruisers as the centerpieces of heavy strategic and tactical scouting/antiscouting formations. As envisioned, battlecruiser missions included coordinating subordinate formations of cruisers and destroyers, concealing the exact makeup of the wall of battle using their powerful electronic warfare suites, hunting down and destroying enemy scouting forces attempting to determine that formation, and finally thickening the wall’s offensive or defensive firepower after battle had been joined. Twenty years of warfare have not fundamentally altered this doctrine, though the introduction of the pod battlecruiser has been seen by some as a move in a new direction, towards short, intense combat and limited individual survivability.
Tomkin-class battlecruiser
(for specification, see RMN Redoubtable-class BC)
Number Purchased: 16
Service Life: 1903–present
The RMN donated two full squadrons of old Redoubtables between 1903 and 1906 PD to bolster Grayson’s local defense forces. Like the smaller ships provided at the same time, these were refitted with modern electronics before delivery. Experience with the mixed laser/graser offensive energy battery in simulation and GSN fleet exercises helped form the Grayson opinion that mixed energy armaments were not optimal for their uses, in light of their requirement for battlecruisers to augment the wall and conduct heavy screening duties. In the Grayson view, quickly overwhelming a smaller target’s sidewalls with massed graser fire was more valuable than the theoretical antimissile capabilities of a dual-purpose laser weapon unable to fire fast enough to repel the salvo densities common in wall-of-battle engagements in even the early 1900s.
Like all imported ships, these were renamed upon delivery. GSN battlecruisers are named for deceased admirals and war heroes: Admiral Isaiah Tomkin died repelling the first Masadan hypership invasion in the last century.
Courvosier-class battlecruiser
Mass: 903,750 tons
Dimensions: 719 × 91 × 81 m
Acceleration: 514.7 G (5.048 kps²)
80% Accel: 411.8 G (4.038 kps²)
Broadside: 26M, 8G, 16CM, 16PD
Chase: 4M, 2G, 6CM, 6PD
Number Built: 47
Service Life: 1904–present
The Courvosier class is in many ways a clone of the RMN’s Reliant class. It is somewhat larger, mounts a somewhat heavier broadside, and has greater defensive capabilities. Like other GSN designs, it cut the beam broadside almost in half in terms of mounts, but those that remained were grasers with larger plasma beam emitter diameters and more powerful grav-lenses than previously installed on a battlecruiser in any navy.
The Courvosier class was in many ways as revolutionary for a battlecruiser as the Manticoran Star Knight was for a heavy cruiser. Uncompromisingly optimized for what was then regarded as high-volume missile combat, these ships have proven themselves to be powerful units, and they have clearly set the pattern for the GSN and the Alliance as a whole when it comes to smaller combatants. Although they have become much more vulnerable in an era of pod-based missile salvoes, they have served well throughout the war. With the resumption of hostilities, an emergency construction program ordered another four squadrons of this well-tried, reliable class, the last of which was delivered in late 1920.
The lead ship of this class, GNS Raoul Courvosier, was built with a slightly reduced broadside to free up mass for a flag staff and full-scale fleet CIC and communications network. She served for several years as the flagship of the Grayson Space Navy until eventually supplanted by GNS Vengeance, the first of the refitted Duquesne-class superdreadnoughts.
Hill-class battlecruiser
(for specification, see RMN Reliant-class BC)
Number Built: 3
Service Life: 1905–present
Like the Star Knight and Redoubtable classes, a few Reliants were purchased from the Star Kingdom outright while the Grayson shipyards retooled to produce large modern warships. The trio has been seen as the “odd men out” in Grayson service. They tend to operate alongside the Courvosiers most of the time, given their similar performance characteristics in missile combat, yet their mixed laser/graser beam fit is ill-suited to GSN doctrine. All three of these ships are attached to the Protector’s Own Squadron where their unique characteristics are closer to the nature of their operational deployments. These ships are typically and (for Grayson) uniquely often employed as flagships for small independent detachments.
Convert-class battlecruiser
Mass: 918,750 tons
Dimensions: 723 x 92 x 82 m
Acceleration: 487.4 G (4.78 kps²)
80% Accel: 389.9 G (3.824 kps²)
Broadside: 26M, 6L, 6G, 16CM, 12PD
Chase: 6M, 2G, 6CM, 6PD
Number Captured: 5
Service Life: 1913–present
Five of these units, all older first-generation Warlords, came back from Cerberus and were taken into service with the Protector’s Own Squadron. Along with the ex-Mars-class units and the material they brought along with them, the GSN had enough spares to keep these ships operational, though they are decidedly second-class units today and are earmarked for early retirement.
Courvosier II-class pod battlecruiser
Mass: 1,763,500 tons
Dimensions: 817 × 118 × 110 m
Acceleration: 678.4 G (6.653 kps²)
80% Accel: 542.8 G (5.323 kps²)
Broadside: 6M, 6G, 26CM, 24PD
Fore: 4M, 3G, 8CM, 12PD
Aft: 4MP, 4CM, 12PD
Pods: 360
Number Built: 40+
Service Life: 1919–present
The Courvosier II class is a Grayson pod battlecruiser, the first unit of its type developed by any Navy. Its conventional missile broadside is reduced by eighty percent to allow it to mount superdreadnought-sized energy weapons. Under GSN doctrine, the massive salvo size of the pod battlecruiser serves to augment the all-important first salvo in an engagement, after which the BC(P)s retreat to less exposed positions in the formation. The ships then support the wall’s missile defense and continue to augment its offensive salvoes while coordinating the hunt for opposing scout platforms throughout the engagement. In more recent fleet problems, the GSN has reportedly experimented with tying CLACs and BCs together to provide improved protection for both.
Almost double the mass of previous battlecruiser classes, they are also among the first Grayson units to benefit from the wholesale use of automation to reduce crew size and can operate with as few as three hundred spacers. In addition to their central missile cores, these ships also mount broadside missile tubes.
The GSN has been criticized for the decision to retain broadside mounts as an unusual act of conservatism on its part which compromises the pod-laying function, and this criticism would appear to be justified. It does, however, provide at least some limited self-defense missile capacity following exhaustion of the type’s limited pod capacity as well as a backup in the event of a mission kill of the pod core. Development of the ability to fire off-bore missile from broadside tubes has also allowed broadside fire to be integrated with pod salvoes, and Grayson practice has been to use the broadside weapons to augment and replenish EW platforms used to aid in penetrating enemy antimissile defenses.
LAC CARRIERS (CLAC)
While there is no doubt that early experience with the prototype HMS Minotaur drove some of its design decisions, the GSN began to reevaluate LAC carrier (CLAC) design with its customary independence by looking at commercial impeller drive asteroid mining operation ships. These ships hosted numerous subordinate mining craft and were a natural place to look for inspiration when designing a LAC-carrying ship. The GSN designers quickly realized, however, that a large mobile hangar could not reasonably be made survivable and decided early on that the LAC carrier had no place in the wall of battle. Thus, Grayson doctrine declares that a GSN CLAC’s primary offensive weaponry is carried by its LACs, and the offensive armament on planned Manticoran designs is wasted space. They designed their first and only CLAC to date with this doctrine in mind.
Minotaur-class LAC carrier
(for specification, see RMN Minotaur CLAC)
Number Purchased: 6
Serice Life: 1914–present
While the GSN was heavily involved in the original design of the Shrike-class LACs, they let the RMN take the lead on initial carrier design. Six Minotaur-class carriers were ordered from 1914–1915 PD while the Covington class was still working up.
Covington-class LAC carrier
Mass: 6,244,250 tons
Dimensions: 1135 × 189 × 175 m
Acceleration: 476.7 G (4.675 kps²)
80% Accel: 381.4 G (3.74 kps²)
Broadside: 30CM, 28PD
Chase: 12CM, 10PD
LAC Bays: 124
Number Built: 30+
Service Life: 1915–present
While only slightly more massive than a Minotaur, foregoing all offensive missile and energy armament allows the Covington class to carry almost twenty-five percent more LACs. The Office of Shipbuilding decided that the increased operational flexibility was desirable, even if doctrine required two squadrons of LACs to be held back to protect the carrier. The professional disagreement between GSN and Manticoran designers applies only to offensive armament, as the Covingtons retain defensive capabilities fully comparable to the Manticoran counterparts and, if necessary, can protect themselves quite well.
In 1917 PD, several of the Flight I Covingtons underwent minor refits to their ammunition handling machinery to rearm and service the new Katana-class LACs with the Mk9 viper anti-LAC missile. The Flight II units are being constructed from the keel out with new ammunition handling machinery to more efficiently store both the shipkillers and counter-missiles for the Shrikes as well as the Vipers carried by the Katanas.
SUPERDREADNOUGHTS (SD)
The GSN is not unique in using its superdreadnoughts for one thing and one thing only: controlling the space around its stars and the stars of those who would oppose it. As with their battlecruiser force, the differences between Manticoran and Grayson strategic problems can be seen in several areas. Lacking numerous wormhole termini and distant stations to protect, the GSN opted for concentrated combat power in its purest form. The GSN is alone amongst Alliance space forces in never having built battleships or dreadnoughts. Their first true power-projection force consisted entirely of captured, donated, and newly built superdreadnoughts.
Manticore’s Gift-class superdreadnought
(Note: Specification reflects base class only)
Mass: 7,187,250 tons
Dimensions: 1305 x 189 x 176 m
Acceleration: 417.5 G (4.094 kps²)
80% Accel: 334 G (3.275 kps²)
Broadside: 36M, 12L, 12G, 28CM, 24PD
Chase: 10M, 4L, 6G, 12CM, 12PD
Number Captured: 28
Service Life: 1906–present
The original eleven units of this class were DuQuesne-class superdreadnoughts captured at the Third Battle of Yeltsin, turned over to the GSN by Admiral White Haven and heavily refitted on a crash basis, using a mixture of cannibalized parts from wrecked Havenite ships and Alliance equipment. As a result, their specifications differ from the original People’s Navy configurations, and the haphazard nature of their refits resulted in eleven unique units, each with a slightly different weapons fit.
The units that survived the Fourth Battle of Yeltsin were refitted to a more consistent standard between 1910 and 1911 as the early Steadholder Denevski-class SDs were being commissioned.
Seventeen more ex-Havenite superdreadnoughts were added in 1917 PD when the remainder in RMN service were decommissioned by the Janacek Admiralty. Despite tensions between the two navies, Second Lord of the Admiralty Houseman was more than willing to defray expenses in that year’s budget by selling them to Grayson for scrap value.
These ships are remarkable in that their spacious designs made them relatively easy for the Graysons to repair, maintain, and modify, especially after they had been refitted with compact Alliance equipment. As a result, they frequently act as testbeds for new GSN equipment. The hulls still in service have been split equally between Systems Command for use as testing platforms and System Defense Command as part of the ready reserve squadrons.
Steadholder Denevski-class superdreadnought
Mass: 8,352,250 tons
Dimensions: 1372 × 199 × 185 m
Acceleration: 402 G (3.942 kps²)
80% Accel: 321.6 G (3.154 kps²)
Broadside: 37M, 34G, 28CM, 30PD
Chase: 9M, 8G, 10CM, 10PD
Number Built: 22
Service Life: 1908–present
The Steadholder Denevski-class superdreadnought represents a uniquely Grayson take on capital ship design, much like their versions of smaller ships. The original pattern was the Manticoran Gryphon class which, at the time, was the most advanced superdreadnought in service anywhere in space. The most notable Grayson change included the complete elimination of all lasers on the broadside, in favor of additional grasers.
Built with the advantage of several years of battle experience, these ships were designed with a full understanding of the combat environment they were likely to face. They are some of the best-protected ships in space, with area and point missile defenses fully adequate to the pre-pod laser head threat. Intense study of Havenite weapon characteristics allowed the armor designers to take full advantage of face mirroring techniques designed to better protect against the known X-ray wavelengths.
Incorporation of new technology as a result of all this recent combat experience had at least one unintended consequence. The construction of two of the Denevskis was delayed by eight months when critical parts were diverted to meet construction deadlines for the first unit of the Honor Harrington-class pod superdreadnought. Along with the RMN Gryphon class, they are considered the best pre-pod SD design in existence, although they have been relegated increasingly to secondary duties, particularly since the Havenite acquisition of multidrive missile capability.
Benjamin the Great-class command superdreadnought
Mass: 8,517,750 tons
Dimensions: 1381 × 200 × 186 m
Acceleration: 468.3 G (4.592 kps²)
80% Accel: 374.6 G (3.674 kps²)
Broadside: 38M, 32G, 30CM, 34PD
Chase: 9M, 8G, 10CM, 10PD
Number Built: 3
Service Life: 1911–present
This class was originally designed as an advanced variant of the Denevski class, but with the secret SD(P) program already starting up, the ships were modified after laydown into dedicated command ships. The hull was extended an additional nine meters, and two grasers were removed from the broadsides to accommodate an advanced command deck, room for flag staff, larger and more sensitive sensor arrays, more extensive communication equipment, and a significant increase in active defense.
While they have, arguably, the finest flag deck of any ship in commission anywhere and are still highly sought after in the GSN, they are beginning to show their age, and dedicated command variants of Harrington-class pod superdreadnoughts have begun to supplant them.
Protector-class superdreadnought
(for specification, see RMN Victory-class SD)
Total Purchased: 34
Service Life: 1917–present
This class consists of all of the remaining RMN Victory-class ships scheduled for disposal after the First Manticore-Havenite War. Protector Benjamin took a personal interest in the acquisition of these units because he was convinced that the RMN under the Janacek administration would find itself critically short of capital ships if hostilities resumed. As with the Havenite superdreadnoughts in Manticoran service, Janacek was convinced that maintaining these ships was a waste and was more than happy to sell them to Grayson for their material reclamation value.
The original intention was to place the ships immediately in mothballs as a ready reserve for both Navies, since the GSN lacked sufficient crews to man them at the time. However, when the war resumed and the Janacek Admiralty collapsed, instead of transferring any back to the RMN, the Office of Personnel and BuPers arranged to loan Manticoran crews as they came back from civilian life to supplement the GSN crews who were themselves returning to active duty. While all of these ships officially fall under the GSN, operationally they are part of the Alliance fleet and serve under RMN and GSN command as necessary.
POD SUPERDREADNOUGHTS (SD(P))
While the Grayson Space Navy was the first fleet to place pod-laying superdreadnoughts in commission, the SD(P) actually originated as a top-secret project of the Royal Manticoran Navy.
The GSN, lacking a huge long-term investment in a traditional wall of battle and already engaged in a revolutionary rethinking of established tactical doctrine, were more able and more willing than even the RMN to quickly adopt a technology that would radically challenge current practices. In short, the GSN had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Moreover, their procedures for authorizing new construction were more flexible and adaptive than Manticore’s because they had so recently created a modern fleet effectively out of nothing. The combination of those factors allowed the GSN to lay down the very first “podnoughts” and to complete its first units a full year ahead of Manticore. This speed in turn pushed the pace of Manticoran construction of its own Medusa class.
The essential technological elements enabling viable podnoughts are the laser head, the multi-drive missile, and the missile pod itself. Operationally, the pod superdreadnought fulfills much the same role as the superdreadnought. It simply relies on a different main battery weapon to control the space around it.
Some theorists regard the retention of energy weapon batteries as wasteful, given the primacy of missile warfare. In the Alliance’s eyes, however, it provides a degree of security in the admittedly unlikely event of an enemy attaining energy-range in an “ambush” scenario, as well as providing at least limited ship-to-ship combat capability once the SD(P)’s ammunition has been exhausted. In addition, it is seen as providing a highly useful anti-infrastructure and space-to-ground capability. Expenditures of missiles against infrastructure targets are wasteful, less precise, and carry more risk of collateral damage than energy weapon fire. Additionally, the frequency and power of a graser beam give it substantial through-atmosphere capability against ground targets once a ship controls the high orbitals. Kinetic strike weapons are, of course, preferred because high-power space-to-ground beams require direct line of sight to the target. The ability to select the yield of a graser strike, however, has proven useful.
Harrington-class pod superdreadnought
Mass: 8,629,250 tons
Dimensions: 1387 × 201 × 187 m
Acceleration: 498.5 G (4.889 kps²)
80% Accel: 398.8 G (3.911 kps²)
Broadside: 32M, 22G, 54CM, 52PD
Fore: 10M, 8G, 18CM, 22PD
Aft: 6MP, 6G, 18CM, 22PD
Pods: 492 Mk11/798 Mk17
Number Built: 104
Service Life: 1913–present
The Harrington class is the Grayson counterpart of the RMN’s Medusa class. In addition to a huge increase in offensive firepower, it is far more automated than pre-pod superdreadnoughts, requiring smaller crews. The chassis and pod rails are identical to those of the Medusa class, but the broadside and chase armament reflect the GSN preference. While the RMN still includes a mix of lasers and grasers, the GSN accepts fewer, but more powerful, grasers and more missile launchers. This power actually improves the utility of the broadside batteries in their secondary space-to-ground role, in addition to the anti-shipping role. The benefits of this arrangement were not lost on the RMN, which subsequently adopted it for its follow-on Invictus-class pod-layers.
As with LAC carriers, the professional difference of opinion between Manticoran and Grayson designers is largely limited to offensive armament, with the defensive armament of the Harrington class being identical to the Medusa’s.
GNS Honor Harrington, the lead ship in this class, had the distinction of being the galaxy’s first warship designed from the keel out as a pod-layer, commissioned one year to the day after the reported death of Admiral Harrington. The GSN’s Office of Shipbuilding actually has a policy forbidding the naming of ships after living persons, which produced some consternation after Harrington’s return from Cerberus. An official exception was adopted and the class retained the name, much to the her reported embarrassment.
During the interwar years, while the Janacek Admiralty was rapidly cutting back on the RMN’s own SD(P) construction, the GSN was accelerating its program, a fact that proved prescient after the Haven sneak attack when the Alliance’s “junior” member had more of these ships in service than Manticore.
Harrington II-class pod superdreadnought
Mass: 8,779,250 tons
Dimensions: 1395 × 202 × 188 m
Acceleration: 561.9 G (5.511 kps²)
80% Accel: 449.5 G (4.408 kps²)
Broadside: 24M, 24G, 64CM, 62PD
Fore: 12M, 6G, 16CM, 24PD
Aft: 6MP, 6G, 16CM, 24PD
Pods: 984 Mk17
Number Built: 61+
Service Life: 1919–present
This design is similar to the Invictus class and, like the Invictus, it carries a Keyhole II platform and can launch Apollo missiles. Unlike the Invictus class, however, this design sacrifices some pod-core volume in order to retain internal missile tubes on the broadside. The RMN built the Invictus with only beam mounts and no integral missile launchers at all, but the GSN was concerned by the potential for catastrophic loss of combat capability if a single attacking missile successfully completed a stern-aspect attack that breached and crippled the pod core. Internal armored doors in the pod core were considered but were found to slow down pod deployment, consume mass, and complicate the arrangement of engineering systems in the after taper to an unacceptable degree. Hence, the GSN gave the second flight Harringtons internal tubes and modest ammunition storage for them.
The Grayson Army
The Grayson Army can trace its roots back to 1337 PD, the date young Benjamin Mayhew rallied the shattered remnants of the other Steadholders’ Guards in Mackenzie Steading and forged them into the army that defeated the Faithful. When the Constitution was ratified after the war was over, those units formed the core of the Grayson Army, operating under the direct command of the Protector.
Prior to the fourteenth century, each Steadholder’s Guard had owed personal and direct allegiance to its own Steadholder, answering to no higher authority and hence representing a perpetual and serious check to any Protector’s power. Benjamin’s creation of a unified Grayson Army was thus also intended as part of a comprehensive package of reductions in the Steadholders’ collective power vis-à-vis the Sword. The next reduction in their power was to limit a Steadholder to a maximum of fifty personal armsmen, referred to as the Steadholder’s Own. The older Steadholders’ Guards continued to exist, at least in theory, but now consisted of those fifty armsmen plus all members of the Steading’s police and emergency services and included no regular military units at all. The Steadholder’s Own, despite its small size, remains extraordinarily powerful, as its members are exempt from the legal consequences of any act performed at their Steadholder’s order; the other members of the Steadholder’s Guard, however, are not. In addition, all member of the Steadholder’s Guard other than the Steadholder’s Own hold regular commissions or enlisted ranks in the Grayson Army as well, allowing the Protector to summon all of them to active Army service in the event of a conflict.
In addition, while a Steadholder remains in direct command of any other Army units based in his Steading, by longstanding policy the Army has made an effort to rotate units, and avoid situations where the majority of personnel in a given Army unit come from the Steading in which the unit is based. This assures that, even with the possible defection of the Steadholder’s Guard, the Protector will still be able to take control of the garrisoned troops. In addition, the oaths of all members of the Grayson Army and Navy are directly to the Protector, whose military authority is supreme and overrides that of any Steadholder. Thus Steadholders act as the Protector’s deputies and their orders may be countermanded by him at any time.
The primary mission of the Grayson Army has always been planetary defense, with secondary focus on the traditional roles of emergency services, disaster relief and occasional police duties. Prior to the Manticoran Alliance, few Army units served aboard regular Navy ships, though some specialized units were trained for boarding actions and were carried on specialized transports.
When Manticore began providing the GSN with warships, the Navy realized that it was unable to provide the troops necessary to fill the traditional role of the RMMC onboard a Manticoran warship. Instead, they revised the berthing arrangements and duty stations to split apart the traditional roles. On-mount crew, corpsmen and damage control teams traditionally filled by Manticoran Marines were assigned to naval crew, while a much smaller core of Army troops were embarked purely as shipboard security and boarding parties. The Grayson Navy has always taken an active role in boarding parties, and the expectation was that naval troops would fill any gaps where necessary. This transition has not been without its rough spots, but overall the process has been a success.
The Army has never been tasked with force projection, heavy planetary combat or occupation duties, as until recently Grayson’s only foreign policy related to Masada, and no military planner had ever seriously suggested occupation of Masada as a viable post-war policy.
Organization
The Army is primarily a light infantry force, with a large Corps of Engineers and a much smaller mechanized force. Its heavy armored cavalry units have been drawn down in the centuries since the civil war, though they have been slowly building up that capability in the last few years. In the Grayson Army, the term “mechanized” is used for any vehicle-embarked infantry, while the archaic term “cavalry” is still used for tanks. “Armored” infantry now refers to battle-armored infantry units. These differences in terminology and usage have caused some confusion with other Alliance ground forces, who typically adopt Manticoran customs, but the Grayson Army still has refused to change in this respect.
A standard Army rifle squad consists of thirteen men: sergeant, three corporals, six riflemen, one grenadier, one plasma gunner, and one tribarrel gunner. The squad is divided into three fireteams, which serve as independent maneuver units. Each fireteam is led by a corporal and carries one of the three heavy weapons. The sergeant is in overall command. A heavy weapons section consists of nine to twelve men armed with heavy crew-served tribarrels, plasma cannon, mortars or man-portable SAMs.
Three rifle squads and a command section combine to form a rifle platoon. A rifle company consists of a command element, three rifle platoons, a heavy tribarrel section and a number of additional mission-specific heavy weapons sections. The most common configuration adds a mortar section attached to the command element but antiair or antiarmor sections are added when required, all cross-attached from the battalion’s heavy weapons company.
An armored infantry company is equipped with battle armor and is organized like a standard rifle company. A mechanized infantry company retains the same basic organization, but each squad is carried in two lightweight counter-grav-equipped infantry fighting vehicles.
From the battalion level on up, the organization follows Alliance standards. A command element, three rifle companies, and a heavy weapons company make up a battalion; three battalions plus a headquarters unit form a regiment. Most of the cavalry units are organized into companies of thirteen tanks and cross-assigned much like their heavy weapons companies on the battalion level where needed. Air units are likewise considered to be cavalry units and are organized accordingly.
Equipment
The Grayson Army, like the Grayson Navy, uses Manticoran equipment almost exclusively, a state of affairs that lasted up until the High Ridge cease-fire. During the interwar years, development was started on a new pulse rifle, compatible with Alliance magazines and power cells but of Grayson design. The PR-18 is a conventional design similar to the Army’s pre-Alliance rifle and has seen limited service in some ground units since 1918 PD, but widespread rollout was delayed indefinitely with the resumption of hostilities. The majority of the Army’s weaponry, battle dress, skinsuits and battle armor are all current Manticoran issue, with the exception of the M136 light tribarrel (no longer in service with the Royal Manticoran Army) and the Grayon Army’s standard sidearm, a locally produced variant of a Manticoran civilian-designed pulser.
The M136 is a man-portable light tribarrel firing the standard 4 x 37 mm darts used by the PR-18 and M32 pulse rifles. Capable of a sustained rate of fire of up to two thousand rounds per minute while the ammunition in the backpack-worn ammo tank holds out, it is a devastating light support weapon. Given the weight of the weapon, it is designed to be fired from the hip with a stabilized harness, the weapon’s range-finding and sighting system feeding directly into the operator’s helmet display. While used in some Manticoran units, the Royal Manticoran Army has been phasing out the M136, and most of the inventory was sitting in a warehouse when the Grayson Army made their request for the weapon.
The Manticoran M11 grav tank and related variants are in service in a limited capacity, but the Army has designed its hybrid infantry fighting vehicle to meet their needs, with a design that is faster than the M13 but carries fewer troops. Stingships and trans-atmospheric transport are all Alliance issue, however, as are the pinnaces and assault shuttles operated by the Navy. The Army lacks any kind of interstellar transport, and the few times units have been deployed in support of Alliance occupations they have traveled on Manticoran hulls.
Afterword
Building a Navy in the Honorverse
David Weber and Christopher Weuve
Introduction
Building a navy is a complicated endeavor, whether one is bending steel or turning phrases. Doing it right depends on understanding a set of key parameters that will define the structure of the navy. These parameters can be broken into six major areas:
1. Strategic Assumptions
2. Strategic Goals
3. Fleet Missions
4. Fleet Design
5. Force Size
6. Force Management
Each of these major categories builds on the one preceding it; conversely, a failure at a later step may require rethinking earlier steps, because sometimes “you can’t get there from here.” Each of these areas can be broken down into sub-topics.
By answering the questions implicit in all of these topics, you can define a navy. In this essay, David Weber teams up with a naval analyst formerly on the faculty of the US Naval War College to do just that.
Strategic Assumptions
The Strategic Assumptions are the essential starting place, the place where you define the context in which a navy operates. There are two essential parts—the Security Environment (the general threats to be countered) and the Fiscal Environment (the resources available to pay for it).
The nature and laws of interstellar warfare had evolved over several centuries, following the invention of the Warshawski sail, which made interstellar commerce—and warfare—practical. The weapons available were easily capable of sterilizing any inhabited planet and, with some disturbing episodes from the early days of interstellar warfare as examples, the “rules of war” reverted to an earlier model which attempted to limit the incredible destruction “total war” could wreak upon inhabited worlds. Planetary combat power per se was effectively insignificant in the conflicts that emerged; all hinged upon the space-going naval power available to the combatants, since any fleet that controlled a planet’s orbital space was, in fact, in a position to destroy any target upon that planet. The rules of war therefore required a planet to surrender when a hostile fleet had established control of the volume of space around it. If it failed to surrender, the enemy fleet was entitled to use kinetic or other bombardment against military targets on the surface of the planet until the planetary government yielded. Genocidal attack, attacks on nonmilitary targets, and “demonstration” attacks or terror attacks on population centers were forbidden, although it was accepted that in attacking military targets, collateral damage might well result to nonmilitary targets, as well. These rules were designed to protect planetary populations from indiscriminate attack, but the attacker was allowed a substantial degree of flexibility in the event that surrender was not forthcoming, on the theory that he was not obligated to suffer avoidable casualties among his own personnel if the defenders defied the accepted customs of war. The use of biological, lethal chemical, and weaponized nanotech attacks against inhabited planets were also precluded, however, and “legitimate military targets” did not create any exemptions for those weapons classes under any circumstances.
To at least a limited extent, the Solarian League (see below) also exercised a general interstellar peacekeeping function, in the form of the “Eridani Edict,” to see to it that the rules of war were observed. Incorporated into an amendment to the Solarian League Constitution, the Edict obligated the Solarian League Navy to punish—effectively, to destroy—the government of any star nation guilty of genocidal attack (including any use of proscribed biological, chemical, or nanotech weapons) or planetary bombardment of nonmilitary targets. In the case of pirates or brigands guilty of the same offense, the Eridani Edict classified them as “general enemies of all mankind” and authorized SLN warships and officers to summarily execute the offenders. In the case of “rogue states,” the government responsible for authorizing the Eridani violation was to be dissolved and replaced with one overseen and administered by the Office of Frontier Security until such time as the League could be confident the offense would not be repeated. Individual members of the government that authorized the violation were subject to arrest and prosecution in Solarian courts, and faced imprisonment and even execution. By 1800 PD, many non-Solarian star systems had come to the view that the Solarian League was utilizing its role as guardian and enforcer of the Eridani Edict as a tool to empower its own imperial expansion. The League, needless to say, rejected that view.
The tools of naval warfare had likewise evolved over that same period, but along a remarkably stable, incremental track. Navies were built around ships of the wall, the heaviest combatants in space, considered capable of “lying in the wall” of battle against their foreign counterparts and armed primarily with heavy, relatively short-ranged energy batteries, backed up by much lighter missile armaments. The wall was seen as the queen of battle, and it was commonly accepted that the only thing that could stop a solid, energy-armed core of dreadnoughts or superdreadnoughts was an equivalent force of the same classes of ships. Missiles were relatively ineffective against ships of the wall with properly designed and coordinated antimissile defenses, and the nature of the ships’ propulsion had a marked effect on combat in general. Since the ships impeller drive created an “impeller wedge” whose stress bands were impenetrable to any known weapon, it had become traditional by the early eighteenth century PD for a wall of battle which realized it was outclassed to break off the action, roll to present the impenetrable aspect of its impeller wedges, and retreat behind that shield before taking crippling damage. As a consequence, tactics had become increasingly sterile and the art of naval warfare focused on strategies by which an opponent could be compelled to retreat rather than on tactics that might permit an opponent’s destruction.
Lighter warships—battlecruisers and below—possessed lighter armor and weaker antimissile defenses and, due to their smaller size, were far less capable of absorbing damage. Those lighter classes made much greater use of missile armaments, particularly with the emergence of the laser head in approximately 1872 PD. The laser head significantly increased the damage missiles could inflict and simultaneously increased the standoff range at which they could attack their targets, making them much more difficult to intercept before they inflicted damage and thus far more dangerous. Even so, it was generally accepted in 1900 that ships of the wall remained effectively invulnerable to missile attack due to their massive defensive capabilities.
Warships smaller than destroyers (that is, generally massing less than approximately eighty thousand tons) were no longer regarded as effective combatants and were in the process of being rapidly phased out of all first-line navies. Systems and particularly valuable point targets, such as wormhole junctions or termini, might be further protected by permanently deployed fortresses (in effect, massive, slow-moving, sublight vessels with defenses and armament heavier even than ships of the wall could mount) and/or minefields (permanently deployed short-range missiles equipped with heavy contact nuclear warheads—or the more recently developed laser heads—which could be programmed to automatically attack any vessel not positively identified as friendly). Planets were seldom if ever armed, given the constraints of the accepted laws of warfare, but might be protected by orbital weapons platforms and/or minefields.
From the perspective of the Royal Manticoran Navy, the security environment (pre-1850 PD, approximately) was characterized by a large, central sphere in which the Solarian League (as the paramount economic, industrial, and military power of the explored galaxy) reigned supreme and security threats consisted primarily of pirates and the occasional “rogue state.” Pirates were regarded as a police function, rather than a truly naval function, and “rogue states” (normally consisting of independent star nations within the Solarian League’s sphere) were dealt with by Frontier Fleet and the Office of Frontier Security. The Solarian League was distant, overwhelming, and largely stabilizing, and as a result the Solarian League and its navy did not really factor into the SKM’s security calculations.
Outside the Solarian League, the security environment was divided between a relatively small number of multi-star system polities and a very large number of single-system star nations, the result of various colonization expeditions. The Star Kingdom of Manticore lay in the area that the Solarian League had labeled “the Haven Sector,” because the Republic of Haven (consisting of the Haven System itself and a handful of Haven’s daughter colonies) had by the seventeenth century PD become the center of a wealthy, dynamically expanding cluster of inhabited star systems anchored and supported by access from the Solarian League via the Manticoran Wormhole Junction. Unfortunately, by the middle of the nineteenth century PD, the situation in the Haven Sector had changed considerably.
From the Star Kingdom’s perspective, the significant political entities in a position to affect its security and strategic interests were, in order of size and/or military/industrial power (and exclusive of the Solarian League):
1. The People’s Republic of Haven
2. The Andermani Empire
3. The Republic of Erewhon
4. The Silesian Confederacy
Taking these in reverse order, the Confederacy was, in fact, larger in both spatial volume and population than the People’s Republic of 1850, but its central governing authority was essentially defunct, turning it into a “failed state” on an interstellar scale. Incapable of policing its own internal volume, it represented no direct threat to its neighbors except in so far as its weakness invited exploitation that might bring competing neighboring star nations into collision.
The Republic of Erewhon was a Solarian ally, although beginning to move away from that alliance in the face of the People’s Republic’s expansion and an Erewhonese perception that the Solarian League was unlikely to protect it against Havenite aggression, given the current relationship between the Solarian League and the People’s Republic. Erewhon’s uneasiness with the Office of Frontier Security’s increasingly open encroachment on independent star nations within the League’s self-defined sphere of interest also played a part in the progressive chill in Erewhon’s relations with the Solarians. The Republic’s military capability was restricted primarily to that of a system defense force, with a significant amount of firepower and access to current-generation, export-grade Solarian military technology, but without a significant power projection capability of its own.
The Andermani Empire, relatively removed from immediate proximity to the Star Kingdom of Manticore, was nonetheless a competitor with Manticore for influence, trade, and potential territorial expansion into the Silesian Confederacy as it crumbled. Its naval power was smaller than either the People’s Republic’s or the Star Kingdom’s, but still significant; it had a potent military tradition; and its location on the opposite side of the SKM from the People’s Republic lent its military capabilities a disproportionate strategic weight as a dangerous distraction from the primary threat.
The People’s Republic, after more than two T-centuries of disastrous economic policies and political corruption, had embarked upon an ambitious policy of interstellar expansion (under the so-called “Duquesne Plan”) in an effort to acquire the resources and economic muscle required to support its tottering, statist economy. Although the Haven System lay over 250 light-years from the Manticore Binary System, the Star Kingdom’s wealth and the strategic prize of its wormhole junction (see below) meant that Manticoran strategists must consider the threat which the expanding borders of the People’s Republic posed to their own security. The People’s Navy, despite several significant internal weaknesses (see below), was by far the largest and most experienced navy in the Haven Sector. Moreover, by 1900, it possessed a “tradition of victory” and confidence in its own capabilities bolstered by almost sixty T-years of steady, uniformly successful expansion through conquest.
The Star Kingdom itself was unique in the explored galaxy: a single-system political unit with no less than three inhabited planets and the location of the largest and wealthiest wormhole junction known to exist. Although its population density remained low, the Manticore Wormhole Junction conferred upon it a wealth and a political and economic “reach” which were quite astonishing. The Manticoran merchant marine was the largest single-system merchant marine in the galaxy, and in the mid-nineteenth century PD, it was expanding at a rapid rate. The Junction also turned the Manticore Binary System into a primary financial hub, supporting a very robust banking industry and stock market, backed by an extensive and sophisticated manufacturing sector. The Star Kingdom’s per capita income and standard of living were actually higher than those of the Solarian League’s core worlds, which explains what might make it a tempting target for Havenite expansion.
In terms of relative industrial and economic power, the People’s Republic of Haven and the Star Kingdom of Manticore were clearly the two preeminent star nations of the Haven Sector. On a per capita basis, there was no comparison between the output and economic strength of the two star nations, yet the sheer size of the People’s Republic meant that despite its relative economic inefficiency, its total industrial capability—and, particularly, the percentage of its industrial capability devoted to military purposes—was significantly greater than that of the Star Kingdom. Nonetheless, Manticore was in a far better position than any other non-Havenite star nation to match the power and strength of the PRH’s military establishment. Manticore also possessed a significantly more developed and capable domestic technology base than Haven, which, combined with the leadership of the House of Winton, made the Star Kingdom the logical focus for any interstellar alliance and/or collective security agreement aimed at restricting or limiting future Havenite expansion.