Solarian League Navy

The Solarian League Navy was the main spacefaring military force for the Solarian League.
Ships of the SLN used the prefix SLNS. Its uniforms were white. ()
== History ==
* 1410 PD – Commonly referred to as the 'Eridani Edict', Amendment 97 to the Solarian League Constitution was adopted. It was unilaterally enforced by the SLN five times. (, )
* circa 1600-1620 PD:
** The last war before 1921 PD took place, Battle Fleet was involved.300 years before the First Manticoran-Havenite War, some smaller-call war was waged. (, )
** The last time before 1921 PD, a Solarian warship was destroyed in combat. ()
* after 1700 PDAccording to HH7, approximately a little less than two centuries ago before beginning of the 20th Century PD; according to SI2, none of Battle Fleet's capital ships had fired a shot in anger in over two T-centuries; according to The Universe of Honor Harrington, the last major war before 1901 PD occured before 1759 PD. – The Solarian League fought a battle in the Farley's Crossing System, mainly with Frontier Fleet units. (, )
* 1831 PD – For the last time before 1921 PD, the Battle Fleet deployed anything larger than a squadron outside the borders of the Old League; this was also the first Battle Fleet deployment to the Verge in more than division strength in almost a century. (, )
* 1862 PD – Captain Josef Byng was officially reprimanded and moved back on promotion lists for harassing Manticoran shipping and imprisoning Manticoran crews without trial. ()
* before circa 1868 PD – For the last time until 1918 PD, a Solarian heavy cruiser was defeated in open combat.Probably a non-SLN unit; nobody ever beat four Solarian heavy cruisers at once with anything short of a dreadnought. ()
* after 1880 PD – Laser head missiles were implemented in the SLN (HHA5)
* since 1890 PD – Battle Fleet had conducted only three exercises which deployed more than fifty ships of the wall as far out as the Shell. ()
* 1905-1911 PD – First tests with FTL communication were started, but with poor effects as of 1921 PD. (, )
* before 1918 PD – Frontier Fleet units pacified the Boniface rebellion; Commander Luis Rozsak was awarded a promotion out of turn. ()
* 1921 PD:
** October – The Frontier Fleet's Maya Sector Detachment defeated the People's Navy in Exile in the Battle of Torch, after the PNE tried to destroy the Kingdom of Torch. ()
** October, 25th – Admiral Josef  Byng, in charge of Task Group 3021, ordered the destruction of three Manticoran destroyers in the New Tuscany System, causing a chain of events later called the New Tuscany Incident. ()
** November, 17th – In the Second Battle of New Tuscany, Task Group 3021 was disabled by the Manticoran Tenth Fleet. ()
* 1922 PD:
** February – In the Battle of Spindle, Battle Fleet Task Force 496 violated the territorial integrity of the Star Empire of Manticore's Spindle System and was decisively defeated by Admiral Gold Peak's Tenth Fleet. ()
** April
*** The Eleventh Fleet, a force of hundreds of ships of the wall under the command of Fleet Admiral Massimo Filareta, was dispatched to Manticore to demand the surrender of the Star Empire. ()
*** Battlecruiser Squadron 491 was decisively destroyed by Destroyer Squadron 301 of the Royal Manticoran Navy in the Battle of Saltash. ()
*** Battlecruiser Division 3065.2 attempted to escort a Solarian registered freighter through the Zunker Terminus of the Idaho Hyper Bridge after its closure by the Royal Manticoran Navy, leading to the Zunker Incident.
**June - The Eleventh Fleet was decisively defeated by the Grand Fleet in the Second Battle of Manticore. ()
**July
***SLN warships intervene in the rebellion of the Mobius Liberation Front in the Mobius System in support of the Solarian Gendarmerie, using kinetic strikes to destroy several cities and towns before the arrival of Manticoran relief forces.
***Task Force 783 assembled in the Dzung System in preparation to launch an Operation Buccaneer attack on the Cachalot System.
**August
***Task Force 783 successfully attacked the Cachalot System, leading to the complete destruction of the system's deep space infrastructure.
***Task Force 1027 attempted to launch an Operation Buccaneer attack on the Ajay System, but encountered Task Group 47.3 of the Royal Manticoran Navy at the Prime-Ajay Hyper Bridge, resulting in TF 1027's near complete destruction in the Battle of the Prime-Ajay Hyper Bridge.
***Task Force 1030 attempted to launch an Operation Buccaneer attack on the Hypatia System, but was almost complete destroyed by Task Group 110.2 of the Royal Manticoran Navy in the Battle of Hypatia.
***Cruiser Division 423.1 of the Frontier Fleet responded to a report of an insurrection in the Swallow System, an OFS protectorate. When it arrived, it encountered Task Group 10.2.7 of the Royal Manticoran Navy and was forced to surrender in the Battle of Swallow.
***The Madras Sector Detachment was defeated in the Battle of Meyers when the Tenth Fleet launched a preempitive strike on the system to remove the Madras Sector as a threat to the Star Empire's Talbott Quadrant.
***Elements of the SLN were defeated in the Golem System by Task Group 10.2.9 of the Royal Manticoran Navy.
***An SLN heavy cruiser and destroyer were encountered and defeated by Task Group 10.2.8 of the Royal Manticoran Navy in the Battle of Kumang.
***Battlecruiser Squadron 720 of Frontier Fleet encountered Task Group 10.2.9 of the Royal Manticoran Navy in the Battle of Włocławek and was defeated.
* 1923 PD:
**January
***Task Force 790 attempted to launch Operation Fabius against the Grand Alliance in the Sigma Draconis System, resulting in a pyrrhic victory for the Alliance and almost the complete loss of Task Force 790.
***In the Battle of Sol, the Grand Fleet of the Grand Alliance forced the surrender of the SLN, leading to the complete destruction of all SLN assets in the system.
== Organization ==
The Solarian League Navy was organized into two major branches: Battle Fleet, which was more prestigious, larger, and better equipped, and Frontier Fleet which was tasked with supporting the Office of Frontier Security. (, , )
=== Command structure===
The commanding officer was the Chief of Naval Operations, who was in essence the main military administrator under the Minister of Defense. Central Staff departments supporting the CNO were:
* Office of Strategy and Planning – CO Fleet Admiral Evangeline Bernard (HH12)
* Office of Naval Intelligence – CO Admiral Karl-Heinz Thimár until 1922 PD when he was replaced by Admiral Heinrich Bergman. (,)
* Office of Ship Design
* Office of Procurement
Some senior officers constituted the Strategy Board, the body that issued strategy recommendations for the CNO. (, , , )
=== Battle Fleet ===
The Battle Fleet was, like most navies, composed of many types of ships from fast couriers to ships of the wall, to a logistic train (repair, provisioning, ammunition, etc). They included a very large number of superdreadnoughts, dreadnoughts, and screening elements. Battle Fleet was the SLN's senior branch, so its commanding officers were entitled to precedence over those of the Frontier Fleet. This led to Battle Fleet having a deep contempt for Frontier Fleet and the Office of Frontier Security; thus, Battle Fleet rarely consulted with Frontier Fleet regarding its operations.
In 1921 PD, it had been over 90 T-years since Battle Fleet had deployed anything larger than a squadron outside the borders of the Old League.In 1921 PD, Fleet Admiral Sandra Crandall ran a training exercise in the McIntosh System (in the Talbott Cluster) for Battle Fleet, including a substantial logistic component from the Fleet Train, with over a hundred ships.
In April 1923 PD, a post-war review by Admiral Willis Jennings, chief of staff to Fleet Admiral Kingsford, recommended the disbanding of Battle Fleet and the integration of its responsibilities with that of Frontier Fleet to create a single, unified navy for the League. Further Jennings' review cited the need to scrap every Solarian ship of the wall, battlecruiser, and heavy cruiser as those platforms were rendered obsolete by multi-drive missiles. ()
The commanding officer of Battle Fleet around 1922 PD was Fleet Admiral Winston Kingsford. ()
=== Frontier Fleet ===
The Frontier Fleet, on the whole, emphasized lighter units more suited to the 'policing' actions which were its primary responsibility, along with piracy suppression and support of the Solarian Gendarmerieas well as other bureaucratic institutions operating along the fringes of the League (infodump). The SLN had a higher percentage of light units than the RMN or the People's Navy, largely because of Frontier Fleet's preponderance of such units. Frontier Fleet was held in contempt by Battle Fleet's senior officers; nevertheless, it was the more competent branch (engaging in combat far more regularly), and its senior officers were less blinded by assumptions of Solarian military supremacy.
The commanding officer of Frontier Fleet around 1922 PD was Fleet Admiral Engracia Alonso y Yáñez. ()
=== Reserve ===
The Solarian League Navy maintained a very large mothball fleet as a reserve. The proportion of superdreadnoughts and dreadnoughts in that reserve was larger than that of the SLN on active service, and the smaller classes in reserve would have been insufficient to provide an adequate screen for the ships of the wall in the reserve, should all be activated at the same time. The planning expectation seems to have been that the excess of lighter units in Frontier Fleet would be used (despite mutual dislike and even hostility) as screen for the Battle Fleet wall. As of 1921 PD, the majority of the ships of the wall in the SLN's reserve were significantly outdated to the point that two thirds of them continued to retain autocannon point defenses rather than the standard laser clusters widely in use everywhere else. (HH12)
=== Self Defence Forces ===
There were thousands of ships in the various system defense forces maintained for local security by several of the League's wealthier member systems. The League's constitution specifically permitted member systems to build system-defense forces, which could contain at least a small core of ships of the wall. These self-defense forces were technically part of the SLN during times of war or another state of emergency. The SDFs provided the bulk of the light forces required to prevent outbreaks of piracy in their own areas and could be tasked by the SLN as the senior service (with the "owning" government's concurrence) to extend their activities to neighboring member systems without SDFs. Some SDFs were substantial, being as big as the Manticoran Navy prior to King Roger III's development program. (, , )
The only known SDFs was the Beowulf System-Defense Force.
=== Tactical organization ===
Depending ultimately on size and subunit compostition, units of the Solarian League Navy would typically be commanded as follows:
* Battle Fleet Task Forces were commanded by Fleet Admirals
* Battle Fleet Battle Squadrons were commanded by Admirals
* Frontier Fleet Battlecruiser Squadrons were commanded by Rear Admirals
Recorded independent units:
* Battle Fleet Task Force 496
* Battle Fleet Task Force 891 -> Eleventh Fleet
* Frontier Fleet Task Group 3021
* Madras Sector Detachment, Frontier Fleet
* Maya Sector Detachment, Frontier Fleet
* Nolan Detachment, Frontier Fleet5 DD in 1922 PD.
== Strength ==
Before the de facto war against the Star Empire of Manticore began in 1921 PD, the SLN comprised:
* 2000 operable superdreadnoughts in full commission
* 300 superdreadnoughts in full commission, assigned to shipyards for regular overhaul and refit cycles - 13% of all superdreadnoughts in full commission
* over 8000 superdreadnoughts in reserve
* uncertain, but significantly smaller number of dreadnoughts
* probably more than 9000 lighter vesselsAccording to infodump the SLN had a higher percentage of light units than the RMN (81% in 1904 PD), which makes strange number 36 vessels per one protectorate world
== Duties ==
The primary security duty of the SLN, at the beginning of twentieth century PD, were commerce protection, border security, piracy suppression, and colonial pacification. In the twenty century PD, nearly all of those tasks were very likely performed by lighter units of the Frontier Fleet, there being very few pirates inside the Old League boundaries where Battle Fleet operated, and there being no colonies there either. (, , , )
:See also: the Office of Frontier Security
== Policies ==
* The SLN had no equivalent of the RMN's policy of switching out senior officers to make sure their experience remains current. The senior officers of the SLN were almost all well over a century old, with habits of thought and views of what makes an effective ship/fleet that were formed when they were in their thirties and forties (and which were formed in the institutional bosom of a fleet which hasn't been to war in centuries). (infodump)
* All SLN Battle Fleet procurement decisions were made through the demands of a three hundred year old doctrine, not the possibilities offered by new tech which had not yet been fitted into existing doctrineeg. the SLN didn't used as strong and long range missiles like ones at missile pods provided Monican Navy by Technodyne (SI2). (infodump)
=== Fleet 2000 programme ===
The Fleet 2000 programme was an initiative to modernize SLN hardware; it also had a very important public relations and appropriations purpose. The program was conceived by Battle Fleet (and later found support with Frontier Fleet) in response to the Haven-Manticore wars, which suggested that advances in naval hardware were being made outside the Solarian League. Fleet 2000 was essentially a PR campaign to ensure the public would demand more funding for the Navy, which, as always, was competing with other bureaucracies to increase its share of available funds.
Normally, Frontier Fleet units, some of which were much more likely to actually see action, were more carefully refitted than were ships of the wall and battlecruisers assigned to the Central Reserve or to Battle Fleet. Nevertheless, Frontier Fleet, afraid all the new funding would go to Battle FleetWith films such as "Our Fighting Navy" and "The Men and Women of the Fleet", Battle Fleet was heavily involved in a PR campaign. frontier Fleet fired back with its own "On the Frontiers of Freedom" and "First to Respond" On the other hand, the Battle Fleet ships of the wall had been more recently updated by the Fleet 2000 programme than the Frontier Fleet's battlecruisersLikely, even the Nevada-class.
In reality, the majority of the Fleet 2000 changes were purely cosmetic, making new bridge designs look like something out of an HD flick.The newer consoles were a non-trivial, but not extensive, improvement, providing more information and control than before. Fleet 2000 refits were also intended to accommodate "future" enhancements, and so were built on an improved modular conceptEg., the Nevada-class battlecruisers. (, , )
== Marines ==
The Solarian League Marine Corps served aboard Frontier FleetFor example, a battalion of the 887th Marines Regiment was assigned to Frontier Fleet's Maya Sector Detachment. (). and Battle Fleet ships, and recruitment for both the SLN and the SLMC was done by SLN recruiting officers.
== Personnel ==
By the 20th Century PD, the SLN command level included a number of centenarian or even supercentenarian flag officers who had much more experience in political infighting than in actual combat, let alone modern fleet combat.
The formal separation into Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet personnel led to a lot of competition and distrust between the two groups. ()
:See here for a list of SLN personnel.
== Problems ==
* Corrupted procurement
* Cronyism - First Families of Battle Fleet
* Rank inflation - Positions on staffs held by flag officers that would be held by normaly lower ranks in other navies.
== Solarian built platforms in other navies ==
Solarian platforms also served in other navies, like ships of wall and cruisers in the Erewhon Navy, light cruisers in the People's Navy, battlecruisers and probably other types in the Monican Navy, as well as very likely in the Mesan Space Navy.Light ships appeared in the Verdant Vista System. () The usual Solarian League policy was to provide a downgraded 'export level' hardware fittment in ships supplied to other navies, thus retaining a level of higher performance against any such ships which might come up against the SLN in future.
== References ==
==External links==
*David Weber's comments in the infodump
*Nevada-class battlecruiser scheme
Category:Solarian League
Category:Military
Category:Military of the Solarian League