VOTGW-7

=Chapter 7=
==Vignettes of the General War==
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===Fleets of the Inner Sphere===
Approximate Capital Ship Strength and Projections, February 1, 2580:
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====Federated Suns====
The arms race began with the Federated Suns and Alexander Davion's proclamation of "Never again", and three years later, Prince Davion's commitment to that promise seems none the weaker. Though partly achieved by reactivating all but the most decrepit hulls in their mothball yards, House Davion has already managed to replace its losses from the Malagrotta War, and is rapidly accelerating naval construction. As their neighbors also lay down new ships and plan for many, many more, House Davion has likewise expanded the scope of its own building program. Even assuming that the older ships of the fleet are retired as planned, house Davion has a projected fleet strength of approximately five hundred ships by the end of the century. A number that is likely to only grow larger as time passes. 
Before and during the Malagrotta War, the Federated Suns navy organized its WarShips primarily into "strike squadrons" composed of around six ships each. The core heavy element of a squadron would be composed of two or three cruisers or frigates, sometimes with a Defender class battlecruiser or a Syrtis class carrier attached as a command vessel, and the balance made up of destroyers or corvettes, depending on the situation and the particular prestige of the squadron. In an offensive operation, several Robinson class ships may also be attached directly to the squadron, though the Robinson class was normally seen as part of the transport fleet rather than the battle fleet. Additional fighter wings and DropShip units were added on an ad hoc basis and frequently reassigned. Davion Strike Squadrons trained primarily in escort roles, focusing on securing the immediate battlespace around their vulnerable transports with little attention paid to a more fluid strategy. This inflexibility, combined with poor coordination with attached lighter formations, was a critical weakness that contributed to the heavy losses sustained during the Malagrotta War.
Reforms following the conflict have focused primarily on improving the Navy's flexibility and the integration between capital ships and their lighter support. Though mixed squadrons of capital ships remain the standard among the fleet, as new ships are launched the long term goal is to re-organize the capital ship fleet into more homogenous line, strike, and escort squadrons concentrating on only a handful of designs. The Line squadrons, mirroring to a degree Hegemony practices, will be built around the new Malagrotta class battleships (the first two of which have recently finished trials and been commissioned into service), with the much larger Uther Pendragon class serving as squadron command ships once they are available. Strike squadrons will serve as the medium combat element, and be composed of the upgraded Congress-D class, while the well regarded Davion II will dominate escort squadrons. The New Syrtis class is intended to be spread among the Line and Strike squadrons, with a single carrier eventually assigned to each Strike squadron and two assigned to each Line squadron. In addition, each squadron in the fleet will have additional squadrons of assault ships (Primarily the impressive Percival class) permanently assigned to them. These capital squadrons will in turn be grouped into larger March Fleets responsible for overseeing their respective territories. However, to avoid the sort of factionalism that contributed to the Davion Civil war, squadrons will be regularly rotated among the March Fleets, and personnel for these squadrons will be assigned equally from the entirety of the Federated Suns. Some in the Admiralty have expressed concerns that this policy may result in older ships and less experienced crews being assigned to high threat areas arbitrarily while newer ships and more experienced crews are rotated to rear areas, however the First Prince remains committed to this course, and believes the shear number of new ships being built will allow for obsolete hulls to be quickly retired back to mothballs. Only time will tell if he is correct. 
115 Active WarShips
2 Malagrotta class
6 Defender class (modernized)
6 New Syrtis class
10 Congress-D class
8 Congress-D class (block II)
10 Federation class (2470)
26 Davion II class
7 Davion class
2 Cruiser class
10 Sunburst class
20 Robinson class
8 Vigilant class
5 Reserve Warships
2 Federation class (2400)
2 Federation class (2470)
1 Cruiser class
68 Under Construction
6 New Syrtis class
12 Congress-D class (block II)
36 Davion II class
10 Malagrotta class
4 Uther Pendragon class
400 Authorized
40 New Syrtis class
140 Davion II class
100 Congress-D class (block II)
100 Malagrotta class
20 Uther Pendragon class
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====Draconis Combine====
A relatively weak economy and limited naval infrastructure has always hampered the Draconis Combine Admiralty's ability to expand their WarShip fleet, and has given the Combine the reputation of creating exceptional designs which suffer from poor execution. This is said to be exemplified by the flagship design of their fleet, the theoretically large, powerful, and fast Narukami class destroyer, which suffers from so many reliability issues that it spends more time in mothballs or in the repair yard than in active service. While the problems of the Narukami don't necessarily hold true for the Combine's other indigenous designs, they are also each significantly smaller and less powerful than the Narukami. The DCA is fundamentally a corvette navy, with a rather modest number of larger ships providing heavier firepower. Though this fleet makeup has its origins in the limitations on the Combine's industry, in the last two centuries it has taken root as standard doctrine, with the general philosophy that a larger number of smaller ships will generally be able to outmaneuver and overwhelm a smaller force of larger ships. 
The consistent problem the Combine has faced is that strategically it has only occasionally possessed enough WarShips to guarantee the sort of numerical superiority necessary for such a tactical doctrine. In the naval battles it has fought over the generations, it has instead been forced to rely primarily on maneuver and the mistakes of its enemies to achieve local superiority of isolated groups of enemy ships. In basic form, Combine naval strategies tend to mirror those used to such great success by the Taurian Concordat in the Malagrotta war, and the Taurian victory of that war has only solidified the hold that doctrine has over the Combine Navy, and dictated the form the Combine's own naval building program will take.
In terms of total ships authorized, the Combine's building program is on par with that of the Terran Hegemony. Of the slightly more than twelve hundred ships currently authorized, however, fully a thousand are the Inoshishi class, a very small, cheap to build, but fast and powerful corvette design intended for the kind of pack tactics the Admiralty is advocating for. The Ayanami and Samarkand class ships that make up the remainder are somewhat more impressive designs, but even they are still fairly small ships compared to what their neighbors have produced, and of the three new classes planned for the DCA, only the Samarkand possesses docking collars of its own, which will greatly limit the fleet's ability to operate alongside assault DropShips and small fighter carriers. Despite this limitation, the Combine has also begun mass production of a new large assault DropShip, apparently intended specifically to operate alongside the WarShip fleet. Exactly how it will do so when so few ships in the Combine fleet have docking collars remains to be seen. 
86 Active WarShips
10 Narukami class
5 Essex class
10 Skory class
4 Ayanami class
5 Cruiser class
2 Samarkand class
30 Tachibana class (2470)
20 Vigilant class
45 Reserve WarShips
5 Narukami class (2470)
4 Narukami class (2380)
5 Cruiser class
12 Tachibana class (2390)
13 Tachibana class (2470)
4 Bonaventure class
2 Bonaventure class (2317)
95 Under Construction or Refit
40 Inoshishi class
40 Ayanami class
10 Samarkand class
5 Narukami class (refit to modern standard)
1119 Authorized
960 Inoshishi
100 Ayanami
50 Samarkand
9 Narukami (refit to modern standard)
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====Lyran Commonwealth====
By all accounts, the Lyran Commonwealth has lagged considerably behind its neighbors in the arms race, having completed only one new ship, and laid down a (comparatively) modest number of additional hulls. To a degree, this was due to corporate infighting. The chance to get a piece of one of the most financially lucrative building programs in the history of the Commonwealth was too good for any major manufacturer to pass up, and the last three years has been a bitter war in boardrooms and the floor of the Estates General between corporate mouthpieces and their political allies over every single part of what the program would entail and who would get to supply which components for each individual hull. It took a positively herculean effort by the Admiralty and their own political backers just to ensure that each new ship in a class would be built to a common standard, and not subject to the specific whims of the various yards which received the contracts, and even then, the shear number of industries and firms that have managed to worm their way into the program has greatly delayed actual work. Even the relatively simple concept of an improved version of the existing Commonwealth class cruiser has required coordination and support from dozens of different material and equipment suppliers to ensure that the needed components are available, to the standards the Admiralty requires, and fully compatible with the components supplied by other manufactures, and where there have been problems, it has not been as easy as simply requesting corrections, but often triggers another small battle over exactly who's to blame and what is to be done about it.
So to a degree, the hesitancy of the Commonwealth to immediately commit to large scale production is understandable. While the problems getting the Commonwealth class Cruiser back into production have largely been shaken out, this process must now be repeated for the new Jager class destroyer and the frighteningly complex and expensive Archon class battleship, with the added problem that these are entirely new designs and thus every part of them remains up for debate. As such, only modest numbers of these two classes have been laid down so far while the Admiralty works through the painful process of getting everything worked out. This puts the Commonwealth in the interesting position of being the only great power that hasn't stretched its shipbuilding capacity to its absolute limit trying to keep up with the arms race. Instead, the Commonwealth has put its remaining production into the civilian market. With the other great houses so focused on capital ship construction, this has given the Commonwealth a magnificent opportunity to gain a strong foothold in the civilian JumpShip market, even enough to potentially challenge the Terran Hegemony's long dominants position in the next few decades. These efforts have led to speculation that the Commonwealth's long term goal is one of armed neutrality rather than seeking a dominant military position, possibly with the intention of supplanting the Terran Hegemony as the Inner Sphere's peacemaker. 
The Commonwealth's future naval strategy originally focused on creating a cruiser navy of relatively modest size, but benefiting from the greater firepower of each individual ship. This would have concentrated construction on two designs, the improved Commonwealth, and a respectable battle line of the massive Archon. This plan was quickly changed by 2578 however, due to intelligence coming out of the Draconis Combine about their own planned "swarm" strategy, focusing on large numbers of smaller, faster ships to outmaneuver and overwhelm their enemies. To counter this threat, the build schedule was revised to remove one hundred and fifty of the planned Commonwealth class cruisers and replace them with two hundred and fifty new fast destroyers, the Jager class, which had originally been rejected from the program as unnecessary. Even with the additional hulls this would entail, the Commonwealth is still currently on track to have one of the smaller navies (in terms of total hull numbers) of the Inner Sphere, though their more restrained approach may leave them in a better position to respond to future changes to the strategic situation.
86 Active Warships
25 Commonwealth class
1 Commonwealth class (2580)
10 Lola class
10 Essex class
15 Marsden class (2470)
10 Vincent class
15 Vigilant class
15 Reserve ships
5 Marsden class (2390)
10 Cruiser class
36 Under Construction
24 Commonwealth class (2580)
10 Jaeger class
2 Archon class
333 Authorized
75 Commonwealth class (2580)
240 Jaeger class
18 Archon class
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====Free Worlds League====
Despite the successes of the Taurian Concordat in the Malagrotta war, the Free Worlds League is regarded by most as the second greatest naval power of the Inner Sphere, and with good reason. While the Taurian Navy has generally been the larger force by a fair number of hulls and have clearly cemented their reputation for skill and professionalism in the wake of the Malagrotta War, the League still possesses a long and storied naval tradition, considerable experience, and a large fleet of powerful ships. 
This has not caused them to rest on their laurels, however. In fact, the League has been gradually modernizing and refitting their fleet since the end of the Third Andurien War. By the time of Alexander Davion's "Never Again" proclamation, the League had already added nine new Atreus class battleships to the fleet, as well as completely replacing their collection of antiquated corvettes with the more capable Dragon class and beginning work on upgrading their destroyer fleet to a more modern standard. The aftermath of the Malagrotta War didn't so much provoke the League into joining a new arms race but convince the Parliament to unleash Captain General Marion Marik. The Captain General had never forgiven House Liao for the death of her father during the Andurien War and had publicly stated her intention to see the Liao line wiped out. She couldn't, however, get her own parliament or the Admiralty onside for such an endeavor, and the investment of money and materials it would require to see it through. So while the Navy modernized, it did not appreciably expand, with large numbers of older ships moved to mothballs and slated for disposal... until Alexander Davion declared "never again".
With credible intelligence that the Lyrans were planning on a major expansion of the navy and the Capellans were desperately scraping together everything they had, the League Parliament finally acquiesced. Existing modernization plans were accelerated, dozens of new ships were laid down and hundreds more authorized, and the many older ships so recently sent to mothballs were pulled back out and handed over to the provincial fleets to bolster their strength.
The Free Worlds League has already taken the title of second largest active capital ship fleet from the Taurian Concordat because of these moves, and the fleet only continues to grow faster. Most recently the Captain-General pushed through parliament a resolution to fund the construction of an additional fifty Atreus class battleships, which would give the League a battle line of heavy WarShips approaching that of even the Terran Hegemony. Supplementing this are plans for new production runs of the Oriente class light cruiser and the League class destroyer, both built to new, modernized standards. Something of an odd duck in the program is the Dragon class corvette, originally built as an economy measure to replace the older corvette fleet without the expense of building a new destroyer class (as originally requested by Captain General Marik). Many in the admiralty have made no bones of their poor regard for the entire concept of corvette class ships, regarding them as not offering enough combat power for the cost of building, crewing, and operating them. And yet, the League government authorized one hundred and seventy additional Dragon class corvettes as part of the initial build program, and recently added another eighty to the production run. Even assuming that some of these ships are earmarked to reinforce the provincial fleets, this seems to be a very large number of ships that the Admiralty does not want, and it is speculated that the League may be planning to export the class to other powers.
As part of the doctrinal refinements of the navy, every new capital ship built carries docking collars, and is intended to be permanently assigned assault ship escorts in the same manner as the Taurian Navy (though League Admirals maintain that Taurian practices have no bearing on League planning). Though the new Tornado class is intended to serve as the standard WarShip escort, for the time being the venerable DroST IIb remains the most common assault ship available. As the League navy still fields roughly sixty destroyers that lack modern docking collars, this doctrine has yet to be universally implemented, and the majority of these older ships will be gradually rotated to territorial or provincial fleets as newer ships become available. The sole exception are fifteen older League class destroyers that have been or are in the process of being converted to fighter carriers, as their ability to bring over a hundred aerofighters into the fray is considered to outweigh their inability to transport assault ships.
159 active WarShips
30 Atreus class
5 Oriente class (2580)
5 Oriente class (standard)
30 League class (2575)
10 League class (carrier)
10 Essex class 
30 Dragon class
2 Cruiser class (APF)
6 Mercury class (APF)
2 Tarantul class (APF)
5 Vigilant class (APF)
4 Cruiser class (OPF)
1 Essex class (OPF)
6 Mercury class (OPF)
4 Vigilant class (OPF)
4 Cruiser class (RPF)
4 Essex class (RPF)
6 Mercury class (RPF)
5 Vigilant class (RPF)
0 Reserve WarShips
120 Under Construction or Refit
10 Atreus class
20 Oriente class (conversion to 2580 model)
5 League class (conversion to 2575 model)
5 League class (conversion to carriers)
40 League class (2581)
40 Dragon class
525 Authorized
50 Atreus class
5 Oriente class (conversion to 2580 model)
50 Oriente class (2580)
210 League class (2581)
210 Dragon class
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====Capellan Confederation====
The Capellan Navy was in dire straits even before the "Never Again" proclamation. The Third Andurien War not only cost the Confederation numerous precious capital ships and several worlds, Terrence Liao's decision to respond to very generous peace terms with a full scale attack cost the Confederation any sort of good will it had retained with its neighbors. With their fleet badly depleted and the new Captain General of the Free Worlds League openly calling for the extinction of the Liao line, The new Chancellor Ursula Liao struggled to rebuild the Confederation's defenses. Unfortunately, Capellan shipbuilding industries had been steadily atrophying for the last century as successive Chancellors had found it more expedient to purchase from Terran yards, a source that was cut off when Director-General Ian Cameron declared a fifteen year moratorium of arms sales to the Confederation as punishment for rejecting his carefully crafted peace treaty.
By the time the Malagrotta War was fought, the Confederation was still struggling to claw back to pre-Andurien war numbers, despite stripping their mothball yards of every usable hull and desperately trying to bootstrap their shipbuilding industry. Many in the Confederation initially cheered the decisive Taurian victory in the conflict, as it greatly weakened one of the Confederation's many potential opponents. Any celebration was temporary however, as Alexander Davion soon declared "Never Again" and the Taurians, riding the high of their victory against one Great House, began eyeing the Capellan Confederation and talking about "Taurian souls in Capellan chains."
Though the last twenty five years of rebuilding their shipbuilding industry has indeed paid off, the Confederation continues to struggle to get ships into service. At present the Capellan navy has managed to launch only twelve ships since the "Never Again" proclamation, and of these, ten are small corvettes, a slightly updated version of the venerable Capella Prime class. Unlike the Combine, where this focus on smaller ships is doctrinal, for the Confederation it is a matter of necessity. The Capellan Navy wants larger ships, and currently has fifty cruisers and destroyers laid down and under construction, but for the foreseeable future they must make do with what they can construct quickly. There had been hopes, now that the Hegemony's trade moratorium has run its course, that the Confederation could make up the difference with Terran built hulls, and overtures to the Hegemony had been made to procure entire classes of frigates and cruisers from the Hegemony's deep reserves. The Hegemony, however, has responded to the rapidly accelerating arms race in the Inner Sphere by shutting down all arms exports to every state, once again leaving the Capellan Navy high and dry as Taurian forces began their incursions into Capellan territory, resulting in the loss of another half a dozen precious capital ships. 
The Confederation is struggling so much to redress the numerical imbalance that there are those outside the reach of Capellan censors who believe that they have completely neglected to deal with other fundamental problems in their design and tactical doctrines. Capellan shipyards have gotten the production time for a Capella Prime class corvette down to roughly six months, though there are considerable questions of just how many corners they cut to achieve that. The Volga and Lancer class cruisers are much more impressive in theory, but both appear to have been built in accordance with the obsolete doctrine which led to the Du Shi Wang two centuries previous, a focus on end on firepower that allows for concentrated firepower in a single direction, but greatly limits maneuvering options otherwise. The Akula class destroyer appears on paper to be a capable, more conventional design, but this is primarily due to being a heavily modified (and unlicensed) variant of the Terran Essex class. In addition to potentially causing legal problems between the Confederation and the most powerful nation in the Inner Sphere, the Akula also lacks a docking collar, which potentially harms its ability to easily coordinate with assault DropShips. 
In addition to new builds, the Confederation is making some attempt to update existing ships, though once again they are subject to the limitations of their industries. Some successes have been the retrofitting of the oldest Capella Prime class ships kept in mothballs to something approaching a modern standard (though still behind the current builds). The refits of the Cruiser class, replacing the massive landing bays for a significant fighter complement, is likely to have a more significant impact in any future operations. The oldest, most substantial members of the fleet, however, the Du Shi Wangs, remain essentially stuck in limbo. Though authorized for upgrade, the shear demand of constructing new ships has continued to push the class further and further down the priority list, while the currently active threat of the Taurian Concordat has made it unlikely that any potentially useful ship will be taken off line for refit for the foreseeable future. 
In an attempt to make up for their weakness in capital ships, the Confederation has been investing more and more into cheaper supplementary solutions. Assault ships, small defense platforms, even the long discredited torpedo boats are being thrown together and seeded across Capellan worlds as quickly as they can be made available. Though these semi-static defenses were insufficient to really contest the Taurian blockade of five Capellan border worlds, the Confederation continues to deploy them along their borders, particularly along the Free Worlds League and Federated Suns borders, hoping to deter adventurism while the bulk of the Capellan Fleet moves rimward to face the Taurian Concordat.
76 Active WarShips
7 Du Shi Wang class
2 Lancer class
10 Cruiser class (carrier) 
8 Essex class
6 Ognevoy class
6 Vincent class
8 Vigilant class
19 Capella Prime class (2470)
10 Capella Prime class (2580)
0 Reserve WarShips
80 Under Construction
10 Lancer class
20 Volga class
20 Akula class
30 Capella Prime class (2580)
427 Authorized
7 Du Shi Wang class (Conversion to upgrade)
20 Lancer class
100 Volga class
100 Akula class
200 Capella Prime class (2580)
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====Terran Hegemony====
The Terran Hegemony has long maintained an air of comfortable invulnerability from aggression, despite numerous conflicts, both large and small, with its neighbors over the last two and a half centuries. A significant part of that security comes from its unbelievably massive navy, which as of 2577 counted over four hundred capital ships ready in all respects for service and approximately eighteen hundred ships in various levels of reserve. The Hegemony has, since the late 24th century, based its acceptable fleet strength on what it calls the "Five Powers Standard", which states that the Terran Hegemony Navy must have sufficient available fleet strength, both in terms of active ships and those which can be reactivated to service quickly, to engage in a full scale naval war with all five of the Hegemony's neighbors. Simultaneously. 
To achieve this goal, the Terran Hegemony has over the generations leveraged not only its tremendous industrial advantage, but also a degree of strategic ambiguity. The Terran Navy's capital ship strength can be broadly defined to fall into five groups. The first of these is the Active Fleet, which contains all of those ships which are currently manned and in active service. This is what is commonly seen by the public and the media of each state as the Terran Hegemony navy, and as of the end of the Malagrotta War, numbered some four hundred capital ships of various types, from the Farragut and Monsoon to the humble Vincent. 
The second group is the ready reserve, which is composed of ships which may be made promptly ready for service. These ships are fully operable and even have a full designated crew assigned, however they are not actively deployed, and their crews (with the exception of a small caretaker staff) are generally on temporary assignment elsewhere in their port of call. Terran doctrine dictates that ships in the ready reserve may be made ready for service in all respects within a day of orders to sail, and the Hegemony has become so proficient in this procedure that most strategic planners both within the Hegemony and without tend to regard the ready reserve as part of the Hegemony's active fleet strength rather than as a reserve force. To maintain overall competency among crews, ships regularly rotate between the active and ready reserve fleets, and as ships are periodically taken out of service for major overhauls, upgrades or other refits, additional ships from the third element of the Navy, the Fleet Reserve, are activated to temporarily take their place. 
The Fleet Reserve, possibly the largest single component of the Hegemony's capital ship fleet, is composed of ships kept "in ordinary", which is to say deactivated, but preserved for later use. Though the common assumption is that this reserve force is composed of older, now obsolete vessels, and this is largely true, as of the end of the Malagrotta War the fleet reserve was home to hundreds of the Hegemony's most modern front line designs, some of them going directly from the shipyards and into reserve. The theory behind this is that it allows the Navy to ensure an additional large reserve force of modern ships is available if needed, without the cost of keeping them fully manned and operational. This contingency would be fully utilized following the "Never Again" proclamation. 
The fourth element of the navy is the Deep Reserve, sometimes described as the "boneyards", composed of ships considered either so obsolete or so thoroughly worn out that the possibility of reactivation, even in extreme circumstances, is all but nil. Over the last half a century, the Hegemony has actually been trimming down this fleet of virtual relics. The last pre-dreadnoughts stored in the Deep Reserve were finally scrapped by 2550, and many other ships that have been kept for very shaky reasons have been steadily following them to the breakers. Accurate numbers of ships in this deep reserve are hard to come by, and it is even harder to quantify how many of these ships may somehow still be fit for service. While the Hegemony puts little effort into preserving these hulls, WarShips have in general proven surprisingly resilient to the ravages of time, and ships like the Cruiser, Dart, and the oldest examples of the Essex and Lola may still be available for service in the Hegemony's time of need. 
The fifth part of the Hegemony's capital ship fleet is its most ambiguous, as it is composed of those capital ships that the Terran Navy does not officially acknowledge. Ships like the Nightwing, Tracker, and other rumored designs are not found on Navy Rolls and may not be operated by navy personnel at all. As such, no data is available on the numbers or disposition of these ships.
With such an embarrassment of riches, one might be forgiven for assuming that the Hegemony is unconcerned by the events of the Malagrotta War and the "Never Again" proclamation. And indeed, Hegemony pundits have expressed little to no concern over what a naval arms race might mean to the Hegemony's own security... and endless concern over what it might mean for the Great Houses. Ian Cameron in particular has openly railed at the foolishness of indulging in such an expensive and destabilizing venture, predicting that if the Houses do not turn away from this destructive path, it will lead to sphere wide economic recession at best, or a truly cataclysmic war between houses at worst. He has made endless calls for arms reduction talks, build holidays, and the creation of a joint coalition to deal with the "destabilizing threat" of the Taurian Concordat. And as a measure of good faith, the Director-General has ordered the demobilization of several hundred ships from the active fleet, and the scrapping of what remains in the Hegemony's deep reserve, which on the surface represents the single largest reduction of arms in recorded history. 
Beneath the surface, the story is a bit different however. The Terran Hegemony had observers present aboard Davion ships during the Malagrotta War, and thus were front row witnesses to the disastrous defeats House Davion would suffer from the conflict. Even before the war had concluded, Admiral of the Fleet Jannisa Franklin had her staff gleaning every lesson they could from what they had observed, and she had already ordered a fleetwide audit of the Terran Navy in the light of these revelations. She would later describe the conclusions of these studies as "demoralizing". While it was determined that Hegemony fleet clearly retained its dominant position, the weaknesses in the Terran Monolith were already clear. The Navy's most modern ships, when compared to the fighting observed in the Malagrotta War, were universally deemed not fit to face modern threats (described as either lackluster, objectively insufficient, or criminally defective). The core of the fleet, the Battleships, was composed almost entirely of a class that despite the best efforts of yards and admirals to keep it current, was already two centuries old and fast approaching block obsolescence. The escort fleet was dependent on the modern Baron and the century old Vincent, both of which were now clearly insufficient for the task they were given, supported only by old Essex and Lola class ships which were reaching the end of their service lives. For mid grade ships the picture was a little better, but even there the expensive, modern Avatar suffered from clear systemic problems, and the Congress, while an exceptional picket ship, lacked the firepower to match against the mid sized capital ships currently being fielded by the other powers. Ultimately, it was determined that the Hegemony's only major advantage against its neighbors was shear numbers, and the margin was thin enough that the Navy was either dangerously close to or simply unable to meet the Five Power standard.
It was in this context that Ian Cameron observed Alexander Davion's "Never Again" proclamation. While Admiral Franklin argued for either a clean sheet rebuild of the Hegemony Navy, or a visible demonstration of the Terran Hegemony's power against one of their adversaries while those adversaries still fear that power, the Director General has adopted a more diplomatic path while simultaneously working to keep the Hegemony's lead over its neighbors. Thus, while publicly the Hegemony has moved several hundred ships out of the active fleet, it has also been quietly reactivating and manning every front line WarShip in the Fleet Reserve and moving them into the Ready Reserve (meaning the number of ships immediately available for any major conflict has actually increased despite the Director General's cuts). In addition, the Hegemony navy has embarked on a large scale modernization program with the stated goal of "streamlining and modernizing the fleet to reduce dependence on raw numbers". The catch is that despite "reducing dependence on raw numbers" this program reportedly includes authorization to build more than fifteen hundred additional ships for the Hegemony Navy, with thirty new ships already completed and another one hundred and eighty already laid down. The speed and efficiency of the massive Terran Yards is already clear, with an upgraded Baron class destroyer going from keel laying to commissioning in six months, and a new Congress or Avatar taking only nine months. Reportedly the biggest bottleneck the Hegemony is currently facing is meeting the need for trained crews for these new ships, and even that appears to be a temporary hiccup at worst. 
And there is the concern of what the Hegemony intends to do with its expanding fleet. Director General Cameron has repeatedly stated that if the houses are currently unwilling to consider stopping this arms race, then the next logical step is to remove the destabilizing influence that helped to spawn it. To that end, throughout 2579 he has made diplomatic overtures to the Hegemony's neighbors to form a coalition force to restrain further Taurian aggression, and if necessary bring them to heel by force. Responses to his call have been at best lukewarm, and in the case of the Free Worlds League, openly hostile. However, by all accounts, large numbers of Terran WarShips may still be on the move, whether the other Great Houses are willing to back their play or not. 
918 Active WarShips (including the Active Fleet and Ready Reserve)
18 Farragut class
90 Monsoon class
100 Avatar class
10 Avatar class (block II)
100 Riga class
80 Congress class
10 Congress class (block II)
300 Baron class
10 Baron class (block II)
100 Lola class
80 Vincent class (Mark 37)
20 Vincent class (Mark 37A)
1040 Reserve WarShips (Fleet Reserve)
3 Dreadnought class
30 Black Lion class
240 Quixote class
106 Aegis class
60 Riga class
100 Lola class
1 Hedgehog class
250 Essex class
240 Vincent class (Mark 37)
200 Vigilant class (2320)
50 Bonaventure class (2317)
240 Under Construction or Refit
10 Glorious class
30 Avatar class (block II)
60 Congress class (block II)
80 Baron class (block II)
60 Vincent class (Mark 37A conversion)
1410 Authorized
100 Royal Sovereign class
50 Glorious class
60 Avatar class (Block II)
50 Kimagure class 
130 Congress class (Block II)
300 Whirlwind class
210 Baron class (block II)
320 Vincent class (Mark 37A conversion)
200 Chatham class
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====Taurian Concordat====
The Taurians' decisive victory in the Malagrotta War may have been a curse rather than a blessing. While it established the Concordat as a dominant naval power, resolved the longstanding dispute over the Malagrotta system and allowed them to mandate a peaceful border with the Federated Suns, and raised their prestige among their neighbors, it was also one of the key impulses for starting the largest arms race in recorded history, and seems to have instilled the Taurian Government with enough confidence (or hubris) that they are willing to resort to war against another Great House to redress the century old grievances of the Rim War, a move that the Terran Hegemony has used to brand them as a clear belligerent and destabilizing threat to humanity.
While the Malagrotta War could rightly be seen as an example of House Davion using a flimsy pretext to launch a war of aggression against an otherwise peaceful neighbor, this comparison could also easily seem to apply to the Concordat's actions against the Capellan Confederation. At present, Taurian naval forces have moved to blockade five Capellan Worlds, each one originally conquered from the Concordat during the Rim War, and the Taurian Government has not only formally demanded the return of those worlds, but the relocation of any descendants of those worlds' original population which wish to "return to the Concordat", the so called "Taurian souls in Capellan chains." House Liao's initial attempt to break the blockade at Zanzibar resulted in the loss of several Capellan WarShips with relatively light losses to the Taurians, and caused the Capellan navy to pull back from any further conflicts with the Taurian fleet. This has only boosted the Taurian Government's confidence that they will be able to force Chancellor Liao to the negotiating table.
This hawkish attitude is not universal, however. Marshal Santos, supreme commander of the Taurian Navy and the architect of the naval campaign during the Malagrotta War, vocally opposed seeking war with the Capellans, and has proceeded with the operation under protest. A vocal minority in both the military high command and the civilian government have also voiced their opposition to the war, particularly now as tensions in the Inner Sphere are so high and the Concordat must devote so much of its economy to the growing arms race. Others argue that the arms race is exactly why the Concordat must settle things with the Capellans and establish themselves as a great power worth respecting now, before the Taurian Navy's edge in numbers begins to decline against the greater industrial power of their potential enemies.
Perhaps the most (on the surface) surprising action the Concordat has taken in response to the arms race was mothballing two dozen capital ships over the last two years, effectively giving up their spot as the Inner Sphere's second largest naval power at a time when nearly every other state is emptying their reserve fleets. At its heart, however, this is an entirely pragmatic gesture. Among every power in known space, the Concordat has devoted by a far margin a greater percentage of its GDP to naval construction and development. Despite having a large navy, the Concordat is a small economy on the scale of interstellar navies, and it seems to have realized that it must squeeze everything it can out of that economy to keep up. By retiring older ships, war prizes, and ships that simply don't perform up to the standards the Concordat needs, the high cost of operating and maintaining those ships is can instead go to newer, better performing, and more standardized designs that can be operated in larger numbers for the same price.
With this desire of getting as much bang for their bull as possible, and their stated goal of matching the Federated Suns in total numbers of hulls laid down, the Concordat's build program has concentrated entirely on only two classes of WarShip (as well as a subclass). The Concordat class Frigate will remain the core of the fleet, with fifty ships already under construction and another three hundred authorized. These ships will not only fill the roles they are already filling, but will also eventually replace the existing fleet of Pinto class corvettes, projected to be taken offline by the start of the next century. As a replacement for the larger Winchester and Wagon Wheel class ships, the Concordat has authorized the construction of one hundred and twenty of the new Independence class Heavy Frigates, a design which received its baptism by fire during the Malagrotta War and is currently on the front lines (albeit in small numbers) of the Capellan front. Though all of the Independence class ships currently laid down are the base model, the current build programs include authorization for twenty of the Rattlesnake subclass, an originally experimental long range design which has become the darling of the Taurian media and public due to the exploits of its lead ship during the Malagrotta War. The decision to build more of these complicated offshoots of the Independence has played well with the public, but some in the admiralty question if the extra expense and time needed to build them can truly be justified, and their voice has been sufficient that the Rattlesnakes are regularly bumped further and further back on the build schedule in favor of their less complicated sisters. 
Also of deep concern for the Taurian admiralty are support elements. Standard Taurian doctrine dictates that every WarShip be permanently assigned assault DropShips and fighter support, and an unspoken fact of the Malagrotta War is that while losses among Taurian capital ships were relatively light, the same cannot be said for their supporting forces, which in many engagements suffered losses comparable or even heavier than their Davion opponents. Between the need to replenish depleted assault ship and fighter numbers and to produce even more craft for the new ships coming into service, the navy's smaller craft are stretched thin. To combat this problem, the Concordat is once again concentrating on mass production of a few designs, such as the Hornet class DropShip and the Viper Aerospace Fighter, and the Concordat's manufacturers seem to be slowly catching up with the demands of their commanders, at least in this area. An area where it isn't is conventional JumpShip construction. The Taurian capital ship fleet relies heavily on conventional JumpShips, more than possibly any of their neighbors, to act as messenger ships, fleet tenders, and even as scouts. Many of the Taurian Concordat's victories, from the recent battle at Zanzibar all the way back to Case Amber at the start of the Malagrotta war, were due chains of scout ships and couriers observing and reporting on enemy movements and allowing the Taurian navy to quickly respond. At present, the current Taurian Fleet with its current area of responsibility is still has enough JumpShips supporting it to maintain this capability. However, as the WarShip fleet grows, and as the risk of a major war with the Capellan Confederation increases, there is a real chance that the number of JumpShips the TDF has access to will not be equal to the tasks put before them, and any deficit is unlikely to be made up while the Concordat's industries are so single-mindedly focused on capital ship construction. 
149 Active WarShips
1 New Syrtis class
10 Independence class
2 Independence class (Rattlesnake Subclass) 
6 Winchester class (2470)
20 Wagon Wheel class
80 Concordat class
30 Pinto class
46 Reserve WarShips
12 Winchester class (2470)
12 Dart class (2470)
1 Davion II class
5 Davion class
5 Cruiser class (2470)
9 Vigilant class (2470)
2 Vincent class (Mark 15)
70 Under Construction
20 Independence class
50 Concordat class
400 Authorized
80 Independence class
20 Independence class (Rattlesnake Subclass)
300 Concordat class
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====Magistracy of Canopus====
It was the first instinct of the Magistracy of Canopus to stay out of the mess brewing around them. By not taking a side and not indulging in a massive shipbuilding program they couldn't afford anyway, the hope was that the Magistracy would be able to continue business as usual. This hope died quickly, however, as reality set in. The Outwolds Alliance, despite being a threat to nobody at all, had been occupied by Combine peacekeepers since 2573, ostensibly to suppress piracy and recover contraband weapons. The Rim Word Republic's civil war seemed to have drawn the attention of both the Lyran Commonwealth and the Terran Hegemony, with each Great Power having picked a side to back in the hopes of gaining influence over the victor. And while the Concordat was currently doing an excellent job of being the aggressor in its conflict with the Capellans, it had not escaped the Magistracy's notice that the prior Malagrotta War had begun primarily out of Alexander Davion's desire to "humble" a state that he felt was acting above its station.
It had also not escaped the Magistracy's notice that they also bordered two of the Great Houses. While House Liao was in desperate straits and no immediate threat, the Free Worlds League was one of the strongest houses, and its own grievances against the Magistracy concerning trade, territory, and even that the Centrella line that ruled Canopus was directly descended from League deserters. It was now increasingly clear that regardless of whether the Periphery chose to involve itself with the Great Houses, the Great Houses were choosing to involve themselves with the Periphery, and whether it wanted to or not, the Magistracy had to prepare to defend itself.
Unfortunately, the Magistracy was the youngest and (bar the Outworlds Alliance) least developed of the Periphery states. They had absorbed some fairly wealthy worlds, both independent and from the Free Worlds League, over the years, and the considerable wealth brought in by the pleasure trade had allowed the capital world of Canopus IV to industrialize fairly rapidly, but by and large the Magistracy as a whole was largely an agrarian state with few developed mineral resources and limited spaceborn industry. The Magistracy had produced precisely two WarShips of its own in its fifty years of history, small cruisers based on a painfully obsolete Terran Alliance era design, and each had taken years from keel laying to entering service. To make up the numbers, the Magistracy had depended on foreign designs, Taurian built frigates and Rim Worlds built corvettes, and aside from receiving two ships built as part of a prior order from the Concordat, those sources had dried up as the Rim Worlds collapsed into civil war and the Concordat devoted the entirety of its shipbuilding industry to keeping up with House Davion.
So the Magistracy is doing what it can. Their shipyards are presently building three new Athena class ships to an allegedly improved design, though shortages in raw materials and finished goods have resulted in delays which appears to have pushed back the delivery date on the first hull to two years from now. The Taurian Concordat has also offered to sell the Magistracy their own fleet of Pinto class corvettes... with the first delivery being in ten years, once the Concordat has enough frigates to begin taking the class out of service. The Terran Hegemony, once the biggest source of surplus WarShips in the galaxy, has likewise rebuffed any offers, having ceased all sales of weapons sphere wide in order to slow down the pace of the current arms race. Despite these setbacks, the Magistrix is committed to expanding the fleet, and considerable outlays of money are going into both developing additional naval infrastructure, and finding a buyer willing to sell WarShips to the Magistracy, hopefully before a nation like the Free Worlds League begins to eye them too greedily. 
13 Active WarShips
2 Athena class
6 Concordat class
5 Pinto class
0 Reserve WarShips
3 Under Construction
3 Improved Athena class
Authorized
30-50 undetermined "small warships", assuming either yard space opens up or a seller can be found.
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====Rim Worlds Republic====
The Rim Worlds Republic has been embroiled in civil war since 2576, and a bloody, grinding stalemate since 2578, which has not only resulted in tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of lost lives, but has left the Rim Worlds Navy largely crippled. Currently the Loyalist Government claims control of twelve capital ships, along with five more currently under construction, however the truth is that only four of these ships are in any sort of operable condition, while the remaining ships of the fleet have been rendered non-operable either by combat damage or sabotage, which remains rampant throughout the fleet. Likewise, operations at the shipyards over Apollo, once one of the most productive shipyards in the Periphery, have ground to a halted due to widespread sabotage and critical shortages of materials. Of the five ships officially under construction at the yards, only two, a Vampire class destroyer and a Pinto class corvette, have had enough work done on them to truly constitute having been "laid down", with the others consisting only of some prefabricated structural supports or, in at least one case, consisting only of stored materials gathered in advance of construction beginning, some of which has been plundered so thoroughly for other uses that these ships are currently entirely hypothetical. At present, the primary use of two thirds of the Loyalist fleet's theoretical strength has been the donation of components to those ships that remain active, a situation that is unlikely to change.
At present, the entirety of the Loyalists' truly active capital ship fleet is dedicated exclusively to the close blockade of Apollo, which has been under rebel control since the civil war began. In addition to attempting to strangle the planet off from any outside source of supply, these WarShips, and a handful of large cargo carrying DropShips fitted with weapons pulled from the fleet's slowly growing collection of inoperable hulls, have also been used in "pinpoint" bombardment attacks against ground based military, government, and industrial targets. Though the fleet has limited its bombardment missions to conventionally tipped Barracuda capital missiles so far, these attacks have still caused large scale civilian casualties, and have been condemned by the Lyran Commonwealth and the Free Worlds League as flagrant war crimes, while the Loyalist government and the Terran Hegemony lay the blame instead on the Rebels for relying on "human shield" tactics and deliberately placing valid military targets among the civilian population. As the Rim Worlds Republic is not a signatory of the Ares Conventions, the international response seems to be uneven at best. While the Commonwealth has barred any transport of war materials to the loyalist regime through their territory, other nations, particularly the Free Worlds League and Draconis Combine, have not. This has allowed a steady stream of arms to continue to flow to the Loyalist Regime from the Terran Hegemony and Combine. One due to their close ties to the Amaris regime, and the other purely for financial benefit. 
Though they have been largely eclipsed by the size and actions of the loyalist fleet, the Rebels are not completely defenseless in the naval sphere. Reports indicate that the rebels have managed to retain hold of a single Pinto class corvette, renamed Efrimal Long in honor of one of the inciting incidents of the Rebellion. Like the loyalist fleet, this WarShip seems to be operating exclusively in and around the Apollo system, working to interdict supplies bound for the Loyalists while simultaneously trying to avoid detection by her enemies. Unlike loyalist forces, which operate under a unified command structure, the rebels on Apollo seem to have little direct contact with or control of the Efrimal Long, meaning there is frequently almost no coordination in their operations, and the numerical imbalance between sides means there is little to no chance the rebel ship will venture deeper into the system to directly confront the blockade. 
In addition to the Efrimal Long, it is believed the rebels also posses a second capital ship, an ancient Vigilant class corvette, but by all accounts this ship is of little use as anything but a parts hulk, and is currently hidden away somewhere deep within Rebel held space. In fact, both sides have become so strapped for naval resources that they have been raiding naval scrapyards throughout their respective territories and digging up anything that might conceivably be able to fight. Each side has apparently reactivated a small handful of pre-dreadnought gunboats of the Predator, Type 51, and Hanako classes, as well as small numbers of primitive civilian JumpShips (some seized from free traders) to arm as naval auxiliaries. Given the state of their active capital ship fleets, it is of no surprise that these auxiliaries tend to be in extremely poor condition, with many of them suffering critical system failures or outright lacking important components or weapons that had been stripped off for use elsewhere. Though these ships are (barely) sufficient to police the borders and "appropriate" materials from passing free traders, they are unlikely to prove effective in a serious naval engagement. 
4 Active WarShips (loyalist)
1 Dart class (2470)
1 Vampire class
2 Pinto class
1 Active WarShip (Rebel)
1 Pinto class
9 Reserve Ships (all damaged or otherwise non-functional)
6 Pinto class
2 Vampire class
1 Vigilant class (2320) (rebel hands)
2 Under Construction (work stopped)
1 Vampire class
1 Pinto class
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