Re: [GZG] The internal workings of Fleets

David Billinghurst wrote:

>US 5th Fleet under Vice-Admiral Spruance was set up to operate under
>Halsey's 3rd Fleet.  In 1944, the two fleets were combined for
operations in
>the Central Pacific with the title alternating between 3rd and 5th
Fleet,
>depending on who was in command - one admiral serving afloat for an
>operation while the other was ashore planning the next one.  This would
>indicate that the "Fleet" was actually the admiral and his staff and
>executive officers!
>
>  
>
That's correct, the same ships, divisions and squadrons served in both 
fleets. The command staffs changed. The really amazing part of this was 
the logistical effort to forward deploy hundreds of warships for over a 
year in continual combat operations. This is one of the signal 
accomplishments in military science.It neatly solved the problem of 
having a dual axis of advance and only one fleet. The Japanese did this 
too, but didn't have the resources to back it up. It did give them the 
advantage in the early sea fights though.

>I'm still trying to get my head around how this would work.  There
seems to
>be a 'continuity' gap here, or is it usual for a command chain to swap
>heads?  Not being a WWII or Moderns gamer, I guess I'm used to thinking
of
>units as building blocks that lead directly upwards towards an army, or
>fleet, commander, not as modules that can either operate individually,
or as
>part of this force or that force.
>
>  
>
The advantage of modern training and communications over the ancient 
systems you're used to is what's confusing you. Tactical units in modern

forces can be rearranged with much more freedom than on olden days. This

became necessary when 20th Century firepower forced a change to the 
"empty battlefield" mindset. Look at the German kampfgroup concept for 
another early example of flexibility designed into a force structure. 
The ability to do this depends on doctrine, practice, organization and 
communications. You have to plan for it, but it's good to do.

>Where all this is leading is that I'm trying to work out, at a
strategic or
>campaign level, how fleets would function in the future by considering
how
>they operate in the present.
>
>Are CruRons and DesRons to be considered 'units' in that the ships in
them
>usually serve together?  If Task Force Sigma is ordered to send four
FFs to
>Task Force Beta, does CinC TF Sigma send a DesRon or peel a FF off each
of
>four DesRons?
>
>  
>

It proved necessary in WW2 to keep tactical formations together. The 
confusion suffered by the USN's ad hoc formations in the early stages of

the Guadalcanal campaign are an object lesson. Cape Esperance could have

been a smashing US victory but for a lack of coordination between units 
that had never operated together before. As the first surface action 
since Savo, it would probably have had a dramatic effect on IJN 
strategy. If they had sent a a force and lost the whole thing the Tokyo 
Express would likely never have been run due to a lack of fuel for major

fleet elements to cover supply runs.

What will continue to happen is tactical units to be shuffled between 
operational and strategic formations as needed. Of course these 
groupings (TGs and TFs) are kept together as much as possible so that 
units can learn to work with each other. But a units can be split off 
for a particular mission as needed and the individual ships have drilled

with their neighbors. And, God help us, David Weber provides an 
excellent example of this in his Harrington series. Coordination of 
movement, fire and defenses are hard to do, so you have to practice as a

team. He provides numerous illustrations of the benefits of teamwork in 
space combat.

>There's also the issue of communications in the FT universe, which,
briefly,
>I think fall into a similar technological model as to those of, say,
the
>Dreadnought period on Earth.  Rapid comunications between Home and
Fleet
>Stations (via ansible or some sort of large, powerful, handwavium
>transmitters) with courier boats passing messages to patroling
detachments.
>
>  
>
It can be done either way. In Federation and Empire you have sublight 
communications so you have no comm lag and you can move any piece as 
freely as in chess. In Fifth Frontier War messages are carried by ships,

so there's a delay. In FFW you have to pre-plot fleet orders a number of

turns based on the admiral's ranking. You can game either way, but the 
FFW model is more interesting. It's also not the only way to do it.

>Can anyone tighten up on some of my surmises, here?  Am I heading
towards
>something useful, or is this level of detail irrelevant?
>  
>
No, this is good to think about. Anything to avoid another IGO-UGO game 
in space.

-- 
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade
and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are
hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of
our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are
willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we
intend to win, and the others, too.

http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/ricetalk.htm

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