military budgets

[Ishmael]

Military Budgets:

The discussion of military budgets in the OTU is important in that it affects the consistency of the OTU. There are several instances of events in canon that are questionable because of this issue. Aslan Incursions, Vargr invasions, piracy and Corsair raids are all directly mentioned in OTU materials and there have been numerous heated arguments as to whether they are/were even possible. The main arguments against them come down to "fleet/military assets of the Imperium are so powerful and overwhelming that the pirates' or invading aliens' forces would be thoroughly crushed without effort".

The most common method of determining military budgets and force assets appears to be based on the TCS/Striker model where a world's GWP is figured using world population, various modifiers for trade classifications and exchange rates. From this GWP, military spending can be figured as well from a percentage of tax revenue. (Another method is to use Pocket Empires but the maintenance costs are more difficult to analyze and it often gives different values for the world's GWP than the TCS/Striker method).

Given an annual fleet budget, the standard practice of assuming fleet maintenance is 10% of the total cost of the fleet, gives a total amount that a player may spend on purchasing a world's fleet of 10 times the annual budget. If the annual budget is 1 Trillion Cr, then the world's ships are built using a budget of 10 trillion Cr in High Guard or some other comparable technology rule set. I feel that this is an oversimplification that has the unfortunate consequence of inflating fleet strengths to unrealistic levels that make piracy and invasions ridiculous.

Striker gives clues as to how such a situation should be handled.

In Striker, 'hardware' has a maintenance cost of 10% of the total cost of the hardware, but it takes the position that this is only *part* of the overall budget. The other 2 parts that Striker mentions are personnel costs and appropriation costs. The way I've seen military assets be determined here don't seem to take those two parts into account.

I've decided to use the US Navy's budget as a reality check because it seems to be the closest analog to a space fleet. This budget also includes the marines and marine assets.

http://www.finance.hq.navy.mil/fmb/09pres/books.htm

This document touches upon the 3 main aspects of fleet costs.

O&M would correspond to what TCS would call maintenance. Even assuming it remains at 10% of the total cost of the hardware, it would cut fleet assets by nearly 75%; a navy would be only about 1/4 the size given by TCS. However, for the sake of OTU continuity, I suggest the "10% of total cost" be brought in line with operational/maintenance costs of a free trade or type 's' of other starship. I confess that I don't know off-hand what that'd work out to be.

MilPers corresponds to Striker personnel costs. The numbers cited in the above document suggest that for every 1 person deployed/underway, there are 4 more in supporting roles. This is touched upon briefly in TNE World Tamer’s Handbook(pg 34, para 1) where there are 3 more persons for every man in actual combat (trooper). They all must be paid. Given the numbers cited, the average amount spent on each person is nearly double the per capita amount for the home country, thus the values given in Striker may be suspect as they would be underpaying drastically for each person. Striker does show that personnel costs have a direct influence on morale and usable skill levels. Therefore, personnel costs limit the number of spacers available to man the fleet without impacting crew quality.

Procurement is the other part of maintenance/Ops to be considered. This represents the costs of various supplies consumed, the costs of replacement parts, boats, ships, etc. and the financing of all new ships for a growing fleet. Ship upgrades come from this. Without this money being set aside, they will be NO new ships to modernize a fleet or to even replace ships lost to accident or combat.

I'm tired of typing for now...

I'll have to think about costs associated with high tech ships being maintained by lower tech worlds and vice versa.

I'll have to write up a typical world's fleet size based on this idea.
------------------------------------------------
This writing is about naval assets, but army assets should follow similar patterns.

 

[rancke]

I'm unable to figure out the total price of the USN's ships from the link provided. Could you spell it out? What's the cost and what's the maintenance figure?

BTW, if it's more expensive for the Imperium to maintain its ships, it would be equally more expensive for Aslans, Vargr, corsairs, pirates and other scalawags to maintain their ships.


Hans

 

[Gadrin]

Military Budgets:


I'll have to think about costs associated with high tech ships being maintained by lower tech worlds and vice versa.

Probably where ever the IN goes a hefty supply line goes with it
-- or follows.

But in general: yes the Imperium should dwarf most takers.

In my readings on the Reaver's Deep, the Aslans had a much bigger
stake in things than I originally thought of, some of the clans staking
their claim in the Deep had the resources of many worlds to draw
upon to expand their holdings.

Looking at the size of some of the ships the Aslan have in the books
makes me see that they're quite capable in the area of exploration
and expansion.


>

 

[Ishmael]

That link does not give the price of the actual ships. It gives the budget requested for operations and maintainence among other expenses for those ships, marines and associated support units. Given that Striker sets apart crew expenses and procurement from the 10% equipment maintainence cost, I figured that this should give an idea of how those expenses relate to the crew/procurement expenses in terms of size amounts. Also, the O&M/procurement numbers take bases into account as well, which TCS does not from the examples you've used in other threads. I haven't decided what to do with the research costs yet, except for my own spreadsheet ideas.

Yes, its true that the scallywags will have increased maintainence costs as well...however....
Piracy, I don't agree with, and considered that sort of thing to be trade-war commerce raiders who have some sort of power behind them, but nothing compared to the naval forces we are discussing here. Corsairs are just groups of pirates from an outside polity ( Barbary pirates maybe?...don't know...don't really care so much ).
The Aslan and Vargr will also have increased maintainence costs with my ideas, but they will also have actual fleet assets and not just ragtag groups of whatever ships can be thrown together from older source material.

If nothing else, I am beginning to like the idea of specifying the allocation of funds between upkeep, crews, and new equipment. You can keep maintain lots of ships, OR you can have a crack crew OR you can afford nifty upgrades, pick any 2 ( if that! ). Such allocations might help differentiate the navies from different polities too.
I'll work on this idea at...um....work tomorrow.

 

[rancke]

That link does not give the price of the actual ships. It gives the budget requested for operations and maintainence among other expenses for those ships, marines and associated support units.

I don't see the point, then. If you could show us that the USN spent X% on maintenance, Y% on crew, and Z% on procurement, we might be able to deduce something about the total expenditure from it. But merely showing the proportions between the three (and R&D) doesn't tell us anything about the total.

Given that Striker sets apart crew expenses and procurement from the 10% equipment maintainence cost, I figured that this should give an idea of how those expenses relate to the crew/procurement expenses in terms of size amounts.

Striker is also talking about the expense of running an army, not a navy. Even the figures that speak of the navies do so to establish the percentage that goes to the army. It is at the very least possible that the figures are different for armies and navies. After all, a navy's chief pieces of hardware (the ships) are far more expensive per crewmember than an army's hardware is per soldier.

Also, the O&M/procurement numbers take bases into account as well...

Where in Striker are bases mentioned?

...which TCS does not from the examples you've used in other threads.

Since TCS deals with pocket empires, there's distinct possibility that logistics would be more costly for a larger empire. But how much more?

I haven't decided what to do with the research costs yet, except for my own spreadsheet ideas.

R&D is another area that might reasonably be considered over and above normal maintenance. But how much does the Imperium spend on R&D? You can fund a LOT of research with less than a tenth of a percent of the Imperial naval budget.

The Aslan and Vargr will also have increased maintainence costs with my ideas, but they will also have actual fleet assets and not just ragtag groups of whatever ships can be thrown together from older source material.

The Aslan clans have actual fleets. Logically, Aslan ihatei fleets would mostly be ragtag groups of whatever ships can be thrown together from obsolete clan assets. Vargr governments have actual fleets. But Vargr governments need their fleets at home to defend themselves or impose upon their immidiate neighbors. (So do Aslan clans, BTW.)


Hans

 

[Ishmael]

I don't see the point, then. If you could show us that the USN spent X% on maintenance, Y% on crew, and Z% on procurement, we might be able to deduce something about the total expenditure from it. But merely showing the proportions between the three (and R&D) doesn't tell us anything about the total.

It shows the cost relationship between crew expenses and maintainence expenses. For the purposes of this argument, I'm still assuming that hardware maintainence is still 10% of total hardware cost. So if I decide to allocate, say, 28% of my total budget to that, then working backwards, I can find the total hardware costs for my fleet AND I can allocate a percentage to crew to give that total expense. The total crew expense divide by my crew requirements ( including the non-deployed and support crew which number 4 to 5 times the deployed crews by World Tamer or that document ) I can figure the cost per crewman and thus determine skill level and morale level. Separating Operation/maintainence expeses from crew expenses is how Striker does things anyways.

This exercise becomes more than arguing fleet maintainence costs and suggests a meta-game issue of resource allocation. Do you want a to be able to maintain a large fleet?...have exceptionally skilled, quality crews?...or be able to replace losses in a timely fashion? The percentages that you assign to each area will affect these things.

Striker is also talking about the expense of running an army, not a navy. Even the figures that speak of the navies do so to establish the percentage that goes to the army. It is at the very least possible that the figures are different for armies and navies. After all, a navy's chief pieces of hardware (the ships) are far more expensive per crewmember than an army's hardware is per soldier.

Where in Striker are bases mentioned?

If you were to look at expense lists for the US Army or Air Force that are like the link I originally provided, you'd see that the allocation percentages are similar enough to make only small differences. So I will not focus on the differences of running an army versus running a navy+marines. Its all about maintaining hardware, whatever it is.... paying for quality crews..... paying for replacements and upgrades as needed.

Striker mentions bases in an offhand manner on page 39, top paragraph; "This cost includes upkeep on all supporting facilities, salaries, civilian support personnel, pensions, training costs, etc."
I strongly disagree with the amounts given however. The US Navy spends double the local per capita earning amount on those things even without spending for bases...that's covered by O&M and MilCon costs in real life.

Since TCS deals with pocket empires, there's distinct possibility that logistics would be more costly for a larger empire. But how much more?

R&D is another area that might reasonably be considered over and above normal maintenance. But how much does the Imperium spend on R&D? You can fund a LOT of research with less than a tenth of a percent of the Imperial naval budget.

These things are unknown and left to the ref's, I think. I don't know of any rules that cover such things on the level we're discussing. Pocket Empires, maybe. I think logistics will be a tricky problem as any maintainence on a fleet asset of a higher tech level than a world where a base is located will have to import parts, etc. Because of that, I'm going to guess that navies will attempt to use technology that's compatible with that of the area the navy operates in. On the high end, of course, but not so high that costs increase too much because of it.

The Aslan clans have actual fleets. Logically, Aslan ihatei fleets would mostly be ragtag groups of whatever ships can be thrown together from obsolete clan assets. Vargr governments have actual fleets. But Vargr governments need their fleets at home to defend themselves or impose upon their immidiate neighbors. (So do Aslan clans, BTW.)

painfully obvious, but in most of the arguments I've heard concerning alien incursions and corsairs, these fleets are not mentioned and the impression is given that its only ragtag corsairs and second-hand ihatei fleets in use ( except for Dark Nebula, of course ).

In the end, I think I'll focus on the apparent meta-gaming aspects of military budgets as mentioned already.

 

[rancke]

It shows the cost relationship between crew expenses and maintainence expenses.

A relationship that almost certainly does not apply to space navies. Spaceships costs far more per crewmember than wet navy ships. Unless I've made a mistake somewhere, a Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier costs 2.5 billion dollars and has a crew of 4660 (http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=250&ct=4), or about half a million dollars per crewmember. A Tigress class dreadnaught costs 362.7 billion credits and has a crew of 4,054, or 89 million credits per crewmember. That's a difference of roughly a factor 170 (or more, depending on the relative value of the credit to the dollar, but as I can't figure out the year the dollar figure is for, I'm ignoring it here). Clearly the proportion of maintenance (and procurement) expenses to crew expenses is going to be far greater for a Traveller space navy than for the USN.

For the purposes of this argument, I'm still assuming that hardware maintainence is still 10% of total hardware cost.

An assumption that is not backed up by anything other than a rule about the army. There's no proof that it applies to the Navy, no real reason to suppose that it does, and some reason (the TCS rules) to believe that it doesn't.

So if I decide to allocate, say, 28% of my total budget to that, then working backwards, I can find the total hardware costs for my fleet AND I can allocate a percentage to crew to give that total expense. The total crew expense divide by my crew requirements ( including the non-deployed and support crew which number 4 to 5 times the deployed crews by World Tamer or that document ).

I use a ratio of 1:3 myself, but the difference is very small.

If you were to look at expense lists for the US Army or Air Force that are like the link I originally provided, you'd see that the allocation percentages are similar enough to make only small differences. So I will not focus on the differences of running an army versus running a navy+marines.

Is there a summary anywhere? Becaus eI'm not going to dig through all those pages to excavate the data.

But in any case, the figures are moot because the hardware cost to personnel cost is massively different for a space navy than for a wet navy.

Striker mentions bases in an offhand manner on page 39, top paragraph; "This cost includes upkeep on all supporting facilities, salaries, civilian support personnel, pensions, training costs, etc."

And all of it paid for by Cr100,000-180,000 per crew slot (3-5 shorebased personnel for every shipboard crew slot times an average of Cr30,000), a mere drop in the bucket compared to the ship maintenance.

I strongly disagree with the amounts given however. The US Navy spends double the local per capita earning amount on those things even without spending for bases...that's covered by O&M and MilCon costs in real life.

What exchange rate did you use between $US and Cr?

These things are unknown and left to the ref's, I think. I don't know of any rules that cover such things on the level we're discussing.

If you want to ignore those factors, I'm agreeable. But if you want to use them as an excuse to inflate operating costs, you have to provide a reasonable guesstimate. Otherwise it becomes impossible to block out the size of any navy from its budget.


Hans

 

[Ishmael]

A relationship that almost certainly does not apply to space navies. Spaceships costs far more per crewmember than wet navy ships. Unless I've made a mistake somewhere, a Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier costs 2.5 billion dollars and has a crew of 4660 (http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=250&ct=4), or about half a million dollars per crewmember. A Tigress class dreadnaught costs 362.7 billion credits and has a crew of 4,054, or 89 million credits per crewmember. That's a difference of roughly a factor 170 (or more, depending on the relative value of the credit to the dollar, but as I can't figure out the year the dollar figure is for, I'm ignoring it here). Clearly the proportion of maintenance (and procurement) expenses to crew expenses is going to be far greater for a Traveller space navy than for the USN.

Even if the relationship numbers differ, there is unquestionable *A* relationship between crew expenses and maintainence expenses.
The USS Gerald R.Ford cost $5.6 billion for research and development and detailed design. The first ship of the class will cost $8.1 billion, assuming no budget overruns. This gives an account for the importance or the Research/Development part of the budget, and the actual building shows the importance of allocating monies to the Appropriations part of a budget.
Once you take into account that the Tigress is 25 times the size of this carrier, the manpower cost differences can be largely explained due to the Tigress being at least 7 tech levels higher with much greater automation. The fact that the biggest point of this carrier is the cost savings due to lower manpower requirements should give an indication of how personnel costs affect operations and maintainence.

An assumption that is not backed up by anything other than a rule about the army. There's no proof that it applies to the Navy, no real reason to suppose that it does, and some reason (the TCS rules) to believe that it doesn't.

Real-world military budgets for the US armed forces ( navy/marines, army and air force ) are all broken down into Ops/Maintenance, Personnel, Appropriations, Research, and military construction which shows that such an idea is not dependent on any particular service branch....
AND this is basically how Striker breaks down military budgets where it assumes maintainence cost is 10% purchase price, which just happens to be what TCS says is the maintainence cost for ship hardware.

What you advocate is that there are different rules for different services which leads to inconstancies which get worse as tech levels rise and army AFV's become more and more like Orbital Fighters in their capability. You have not given arguments that are near good enough to support the idea of multiple rules when one rule can cover the bases, thus simplifying things.

While I understand your idea that manpower costs are absorbed into the 10% assumption, I feel that it is misplaced and valid less as tech levels go down and cheaper ships are built. If you have huge expensive ships with smallish crews, then its simpler to set your personnel budget to be smaller and give the difference to the O&M budget. The budget allocations don't have to be the same as with the US Navy as percentages of the total, but each area should have money allocated to it else how do you know what sort of troops you can field, or what sort of damage you can afford to repair/replace?

Is there a summary anywhere? Becaus eI'm not going to dig through all those pages to excavate the data.

But in any case, the figures are moot because the hardware cost to personnel cost is massively different for a space navy than for a wet navy.[\quote]

If you feel they are moot and not worth looking at then I shan't waste time mentioning how to google "air force budget" or "army budget". We have no proof of cost differences between wet navies and space navies other than comparing real-world data from one with made-up game data of the other. Nonetheless, even if they are massively different, hardware costs AND personnel costs both still exist and must be accounted for.

And all of it paid for by Cr100,000-180,000 per crew slot (3-5 shorebased personnel for every shipboard crew slot times an average of Cr30,000), a mere drop in the bucket compared to the ship maintenance.

What exchange rate did you use between $US and Cr?

I used no exchange rate as it had nothing to do with what I was referring to.
The personnel costs listed in the US Navy budget summary amounted to over $80,000 at a time when the per capita income in the US was a little over $40,000. Given that the per capita assumed for a tech 15 world is around 22,000 Crimps, then to obtain a crew with similar morale and skill levels as a typical US sailor (using Striker rules for such things ), the Imperium should have to spend around 44,000 Crimps, not 30,000. Also, that amount only pays personnel costs, not the costs associated with base ops/maint. which should also be 10% of the total cost of the base.

What I propose is simple.
1. determine the total budget for a given branch of service in whatever manner seems reasonable, applied to all worlds within a setting to ensure consistency.
2 within each branch's budget, allocate money as a percentage of the total to each; ops/maint, personnel, appropriations, and research. Assume the MilCon/etc. amounts are absorbed in one of the other areas.
3. determine equipment/hardware based on the ops/maint value you give. ( I'll use the 10% rule unless its even proven to be bogus)
4. determine the crew needed, assuming a 1:3 ration of deployed:support personnel and figure cost allocated per crewman and use that to figure crew quality for morale and skill levels
5. Use appropriations budget to purchase new equipment to replace damaged/destroyed equipment and to build new equipment to enlarge the force.
6. Use research to allow for new designs to be built as opposed to building only replacements and to allow for upgrading existing ships.

These series of steps would apply to any branch of service. Allocations within each branch's budget are changed once per year.

If you want to ignore those factors, I'm agreeable. But if you want to use them as an excuse to inflate operating costs, you have to provide a reasonable guesstimate. Otherwise it becomes impossible to block out the size of any navy from its budget.

Well..not really ignore so much as put off 'till later.
The research budget can be used to design new equipment as hinted at in the link you provided on the USS Gerald R Ford.
Issues concerning logistics tails would have an impact on shipping costs and thus the general trade rules, so I'll just leave it for now. I have a couple of ideas, but nothing solid.
A bigger concern than that is:
Should hardware maintainence costs be based on purchase price?
It seems to me that would penalize large expensive/high-tech equipment. But what else is there short of keeping track of a unit's service life? That'd be too much work. I guess it'd have to stay unless something better comes along.

 

[rancke]

Even if the relationship numbers differ, there is unquestionable *A* relationship between crew expenses and maintainence expenses.

Obviously, since both are correlated to the size and number of ships.

The USS Gerald R.Ford cost $5.6 billion for research and development and detailed design. The first ship of the class will cost $8.1 billion, assuming no budget overruns. This gives an account for the importance or the Research/Development part of the budget, and the actual building shows the importance of allocating monies to the Appropriations part of a budget.

The R&D for the Gerald R. Ford corresponds to two units (2.24). That would be a significant factor if you're planning to build four or six ships in all. But the Imperium buids ships by the score. There are 160 or more Tigresses (depending on how you interpret the statement "one squadron per sector" it could be as many as 224). 92 Azhantis were built. The Midu Agashaams are deployed in oversized squadrons of ten to twenty vessels. The number of Scout/Couriers extant (not the total number built) in 1107 is estimated to be between 15,000 and 30,000.

Don't get me wrong. I've no objection to separating out R&D for budgets. Especially for smaller navies it could be a significant factor (Though I suspect Imperial member worlds will tend to piggy-back on Imperial R&D instead of doing their own). But I object to having it contribute to the Imperial naval budget in anywhere near the proportion it contributes to the USN budget. The scale between an TL7 wet navy of a single world and the star navy of an empire of 15,000 worlds is, once again, far too different.

Once you take into account that the Tigress is 25 times the size of this carrier, the manpower cost differences can be largely explained due to the Tigress being at least 7 tech levels higher with much greater automation. The fact that the biggest point of this carrier is the cost savings due to lower manpower requirements should give an indication of how personnel costs affect operations and maintainence.

There's not that much difference between the manning levels of a TL9 starship and a TL15 starship of the same size (some, of course, but not much). But that's besides the point. It doesn't matter why the manning levels of starships are 50-100 times less (in this context) than the manning levels of surface ships. What matters is that they are.

Real-world military budgets for the US armed forces ( navy/marines, army and air force ) are all broken down into Ops/Maintenance, Personnel, Appropriations, Research, and military construction which shows that such an idea is not dependent on any particular service branch....

Agreed. And I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to break it down like that. I'm saying it's a bad idea to assume that because Personnel constitutes, say, 20% of the USN budget it will also constitute 20% of the Imperial Navy's budget.

AND this is basically how Striker breaks down military budgets where it assumes maintainence cost is 10% purchase price, which just happens to be what TCS says is the maintainence cost for ship hardware.

No, that's not what TCS says. TCS says that the maintenance cost for navies is 10% of total ship cost for everything except battle damage. This includes Ops/Maintenance, Personnel, Appropriations, Research, and peacetime military construction. And the fact that Striker says that the maintenance cost for armies is 10% equipment maintenance plus personnel plus replacement does not contradict that statement, because TCS is talking about space navies while Striker is talking about ground forces.

Mind you, I totally agree that the TCS rules are gross simplifications. But simplifications that does still provide a ballpark figure.

What you advocate is that there are different rules for different services...

That's because different factors apply to the different services. Most notably that equipment cost for space navies appear to be two orders of magnitude higher than equipment cost for armies and wet navies. If that doesn't warrant different treatment, I don't know what does.

...which leads to inconstancies which get worse as tech levels rise and army AFV's become more and more like Orbital Fighters in their capability. You have not given arguments that are near good enough to support the idea of multiple rules when one rule can cover the bases, thus simplifying things.

Well, if you want, we could change the maintenance rules for armies to 10% of equipment cost . It would create errors, sure, but nowhere near the kind of errors that applying army rules to space navies would.

While I understand your idea that manpower costs are absorbed into the 10% assumption, I feel that it is misplaced and valid less as tech levels go down and cheaper ships are built.

The difference in cost between TL9 ships and TL15 ships is not that great. Smaller ships, now, is a different matter. The cost to personnel ratio of a Scout/Courier is "only" MCr7,5/crew, "merely" 15 times greater than for the USN (Again, I haven't accounted for the exchange rate, which will increase that by a factor 3 or so). The ratio for patrol ships and Gazelles is MCr22 and MCr24/crew respectively. For Chrysanthemums and Fer-de-Lances, MCr45.5 and MCr53/crew respectively, for Sloans it is MCr83/crew, for the cruisers shown in Fighting Ships it ranges from MCr to MCr114, for the three carriers it's 57, 64, and 73, and for the two smaller battleships it's 88 and 103. so, yes, 170 is high-end, and the smaller the navy (and hence its ships), che more personnel costs will affect the budget. But for any navy big enough to field combat vessels, the effect will be comparatively small. Even for navies with nothing but patrol ships, it's going to be much proportionally much smaller than for wet navies.

If you have huge expensive ships with smallish crews, then its simpler to set your personnel budget to be smaller and give the difference to the O&M budget. The budget allocations don't have to be the same as with the US Navy as percentages of the total, but each area should have money allocated to it else how do you know what sort of troops you can field, or what sort of damage you can afford to repair/replace?

That's fine by me. What isn't fine is to arbitrarily change the final result from a blanket 10% to a range of 30-40% (or whatever). If you want to refine the figures from a blanket 10% to something more detailed, that's fine by me; I'd welcome it. But unless you can demonstrate (not just assert) that 10% is unrealistically low, you should aim for the more detailed results to wind up in the same ballpark as the only (semi-)canonical figure we have.

If you feel they are moot and not worth looking at then I shan't waste time mentioning how to google "air force budget" or "army budget".

It's really not a matter of my being unable to google (though my google-fu is, indeed, on the weak side), it's that I don't see why I should do the work of supporting your argument for you, especially as I don't think it's possible to dig up support for your argument.

We have no proof of cost differences between wet navies and space navies other than comparing real-world data from one with made-up game data of the other.

That's all we have, so that's what we have to use. And if there's anything implausible about those made-up figures, it's that they seem to be too high, not too low.

Nonetheless, even if they are massively different, hardware costs AND personnel costs both still exist and must be accounted for.

If you want to go down to a finer level of detail, then it certainly makes sense to separate out hardware costs and personnel costs. But I submit that the results should be, for example, hardware maintenance: 7%, personnel. 0.5%, procurement: 2.5%, R&D: 0.4% rather than, for example, maintenance: 10%, personnel: 18%, procurement: 12%, R&D: 8%

The personnel costs listed in the US Navy budget summary amounted to over $80,000 at a time when the per capita income in the US was a little over $40,000. Given that the per capita assumed for a tech 15 world is around 22,000 Crimps, then to obtain a crew with similar morale and skill levels as a typical US sailor (using Striker rules for such things ), the Imperium should have to spend around 44,000 Crimps, not 30,000. Also, that amount only pays personnel costs, not the costs associated with base ops/maint. which should also be 10% of the total cost of the base.

See, that's the sort of good, solid argument that's actually useful. That might serve as an argument for making the cost of each crew slot Cr175,000 or 200,000 or 225,000 (depending on the average number of ground-based personnel per crew slot).

I will point out, however, that evidence suggests that the Imperial Navy's pensions are remarkably low, which might indicate that the standard of living of IN crew may be less that that of citizens of TL15 worlds. Perhaps the IN recruit from lower TL worlds? Perhaps the cost of training and feeding a crewman with morale and skill similar to that of a typical US sailor is proportionally less in a TL15 society than in a TL7 society?


Hans

 

[skyth]

btw, R&D is included (Architect fees and the increased cost of the first run of any class).

The 10% probably includes crew costs, etc...As the maintenance on a Free Trader isn't 6-8 MCr every year...It's considerably less.

 

[Ishmael]

Mr.Ranke: I think we understand each other's position, and it seems that this would be a good time to agree to disagree. In order to try to remain constructive, I'll simply post a rough example of how I'd do things and continue to work with this idea.

I knew from the start that my idea would not follow canon very closely ( why I posted this in IMTU ), but then again, I felt the force levels in the OTU were too big, so the numbers I'll use make things more to my liking anyways. I am also working to make a general organizational budget such that the same methods can be used for any branch of service, and perhaps even merchant fleets. I also think that using different allocations can be assigned to different races' budget to give different flavors to the races' forces. Giving a low R&D allocation to the Vilani budget, for example. I'll make a couple of notes concerning ideas on how to use the various parts in my example.

keep in mind that the numbers/percentages I'm using are off the top of my head and are not ideal. Naturally, as this is an annual budget, the allocations can be changed each year as conditions warrant.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
B-877888-B pop mod=5
peacetime military 3%
non imperial and 60% of the military budget going to the navy
18,000*.65*5e8*.03*.60 = 105.300,000,000 Crimp

allocations:
R&D__________________7%.........7,371,000,000
Appropriations__________28%........29,484,000,000
Operations_____________33%........34,749,000,000
Personnel______________32%........33,696,000,000

....I'm thinking of using R&D as reasearch and devolopment of new equipment. This includes naval architect costs as well as costs for mock-up and evaluation. This amount might be split up among different contractors to produce prototypes for head-2-head comparisons before awarding a contract. An example of this would be the contest between the yf-22 and the yf-23.
....I'll figure that the research spending allows for the construction of 10 times the amount spent on any single project. So, for example, if you wish to upgrade the main gun on a ship that would cost 2,000,000,000Crimp, you'd use 200,000,000Crimp of R&D before you actually begin such an upgrade. This represents designing fittings and adapting things to a specific class of ship. If the costs for R&D to build a completely new class of ship, you'd have to spend this amount over a period of years until the costs are paid. If you wish to build a ship whose design already exists,then, as the R&D has already been paid already, you won't need to pay it again unless you are making a change/upgrade whereupon you'd only need to pay R&D costs for that change/upgrade.
Just because the R&D costs are paid does not mean the project has to be followed through upon... mbt70, Sgt York, AH-56 Cheyenne are examples of this.

R&D: 7,371,000,000 Crimps allows for the design of up to 73,710,000,000 of new construction and/or upgrading existing equipment.

Appropriations; 29,484,000,000 Crimp of new construction allowed for the year. If shipbuilding project costs more, then the payments continue with each year's budget until the full amount is paid.
This part of the budget is what pays for replacement equipment that is damaged or destroyed.

Operations; 34,749,000,000 Crimps allow for a fleet total cost of 347,490,000,000 given the idea that ops/maint is 10% of total unit cost.

Personnel; 33,696,000,000 Crimps... divided by 2* per capita for the tech of the owning world ( 18,000 in this case ) to give the total number of crew members and assuming a 3:1 ratio of support personnel to deployed personnel gives the total crew that are in the fleet/unit.
33,696,000,000/36,000 = 936,000 total manpower with 234,000 deployed in the fleet.
per capita * 1 are green crew
per capita * 2 are normal
per capita * 3 are experienced
per capita * 4 are elite
----------------------------------------

I'm hoping to work this sort of method out for all branches, including scouts and merchant fleets and perhaps even starports.
More later as I find time....

Hopefully, I can get my idea across without garbling it up too much.

 

[rancke]

I knew from the start that my idea would not follow canon very closely ( why I posted this in IMTU ), but then again, I felt the force levels in the OTU were too big, so the numbers I'll use make things more to my liking anyways.

You can do what you like in your own TU, of course. I just think that if you're going to do such a lot of work, it would be nice if the results were internally consistent, so that it would work in other TUs too.

Altohugh my main concern (next to my TU, of course) is the OTU, I'm not basing my disagreement on non-compability with the OTU but on the non-compatibility with any TU that seeks to be internally consistent.

Let's have a look at your example.

You have an operations budget of MCrImp34,749, allowing for a fleet total cost of MCrImp347,490.

Your personnel budget allows you a total manpower of 936,000, of which 234,000 are deployed in the fleet.

Assuming for purposes of argument that the entire navy is composed of Patrol Cruisers (Cost: MCr221, crew=10), you would have 1,572 of them for a total number of 15,720 crew slots, leaving you short 218,280 crew slots, and giving you a ship-based to shore-based ratio of 1:59. Any reasonable fleet composition will give you between five and ten times fewer crew slots.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Minor issues

B-877888-B pop mod=5
peacetime military 3%
non imperial and 60% of the military budget going to the navy
18,000*.65*5e8*.03*.60 = 105.300,000,000 Crimp

I take it that multiplying by 0.65 is to convert from local credits to to CrImp. The conversion factor for a starport B, TL11 world to CrImp (Starport A, TL15) is 0.55, not 0.65.

Converting to CrImps implies that the entire budget is spent on TL15 imports. Not only ships, but also crew salaries, uniforms, food, base construction, even the land the bases are built on.

Operations; 34,749,000,000 Crimps allow for a fleet total cost of 347,490,000,000 given the idea that ops/maint is 10% of total unit cost.

If the ships are imported, the cost of maintenance is increased.

per capita * 1 are green crew
per capita * 2 are normal
per capita * 3 are experienced
per capita * 4 are elite

Elites are usually somewhat fewer than 40% of the total manpower. In fact, I believe most wargames rules restrict the number of elites severely. Something about needing a large number of experienced people to draw the elites from. Likewise, 'normal' implies that this class would be the norm, i.e. that most of the men would fall in that category.

IIRC there are some guidelines for troop quality in Ground Forces.


Hans

 

[Starviking]

A relationship that almost certainly does not apply to space navies. Spaceships costs far more per crewmember than wet navy ships. Unless I've made a mistake somewhere, a Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier costs 2.5 billion dollars and has a crew of 4660 (http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=250&ct=4), or about half a million dollars per crewmember. A Tigress class dreadnaught costs 362.7 billion credits and has a crew of 4,054, or 89 million credits per crewmember. That's a difference of roughly a factor 170 (or more, depending on the relative value of the credit to the dollar, but as I can't figure out the year the dollar figure is for, I'm ignoring it here). Clearly the proportion of maintenance (and procurement) expenses to crew expenses is going to be far greater for a Traveller space navy than for the USN.

Crew expenses are not a function of the cost of the ship - they depend on wages, pensions, training and support issues. They can be a significant proportion of the cost of procuring and running a modern naval vessel, and are the main reason for the push to more automated ships nowadays.

 

[rancke]

Crew expenses are not a function of the cost of the ship - they depend on wages, pensions, training and support issues. They can be a significant proportion of the cost of procuring and running a modern naval vessel, and are the main reason for the push to more automated ships nowadays.

I really don't understand why I have to explain this over and over again. Crew expenses are not a function of the cost of the ship, true. But there is a correlation between them, because a given investment's worth of ships require a certain number of crew to run them. contrariwise, a certain number of crew is enough to run a given investment's worth of ships, and there's just not room for more! And the number of shore-based personnel has a correlation to the number of crewmen serving on the ships, so they correlate to the number of ships too.

Now, in the example I dug up for the USN, each crew slot costs around half a million dollars. It's possible that the Gerald R Fords are atypical, but since all I wanted was to demonstrate the order of magnitude of the difference between the USN and a Traveller space navy, I'm not going to worry about that.

In a Traveller space navy, each crew slot costs around 50 to 100 megacredits. This is, you know, more than half a million dollars. By a couple of orders of magnitude. It seems to me obvious that the relative cost of personnel would influence the budget of a space navy proportionally less. Please show me where my logic is flawed.

It's a basic fact of all TUs -- the OTU, my TU, your TU, Ishmael's TU, anybody's TU -- that each crew slot in a space navy requires tens of megacredits worth of ship. This is a logical result of the ship design rules. The only way to change that without creating collossal discrepancies is to reduce the cost of spaceships. This would not achieve Ishmael's goal of reducing the size of Traveller space navies.


Hans

 

[Starviking]

I really don't understand why I have to explain this over and over again. Crew expenses are not a function of the cost of the ship, true. But there is a correlation between them, because a given investment's worth of ships require a certain number of crew to run them. contrariwise, a certain number of crew is enough to run a given investment's worth of ships, and there's just not room for more! And the number of shore-based personnel has a correlation to the number of crewmen serving on the ships, so they correlate to the number of ships too.

Now, in the example I dug up for the USN, each crew slot costs around half a million dollars. It's possible that the Gerald R Fords are atypical, but since all I wanted was to demonstrate the order of magnitude of the difference between the USN and a Traveller space navy, I'm not going to worry about that.

Hans - the example you dug up from the USN was the cost of the ship, and you divided it by the crew to get a 'cost per crew'. That figure is meaningless. The ship's cost is what it costs to get her built and equipped. Crew costs are additional - wages, training, and social things like base accommodations, insurance, medical care, etc.

Correlation is not causation.

The cost per crewman on a Type 23 Frigate will be similar to the cost per crewman on a Type 45 Destroyer - but the costs of the vessels are very different 100 million vs. 1 billion pounds. The Type 23 has 181 crewmembers, the Type 45 190 crewmembers.

Crew costs are determined by how much a navy has to pay in order to attract the personnel they need. If ships are of similar complexity but differing tonnage you can correlate the crew numbers with tonnage - crew costs are more influenced by the market however.

 

[Ishmael]

You can do what you like in your own TU, of course. I just think that if you're going to do such a lot of work, it would be nice if the results were internally consistent, so that it would work in other TUs too.

Altohugh my main concern (next to my TU, of course) is the OTU, I'm not basing my disagreement on non-compability with the OTU but on the non-compatibility with any TU that seeks to be internally consistent.

I've outlined a single method for handling the budgets for ANY service branch and any non-military organization as opposed to using separate rules for each branch, which is the position you've taken. What could be more internally consistent than that? It certainly leads to more internal consistency than the OTU has. Although you say otherwise, most of your arguments have been that it doesn't fit TCS's model which you perceive to be OTU.

Let's have a look at your example.

You have an operations budget of MCrImp34,749, allowing for a fleet total cost of MCrImp347,490.

Your personnel budget allows you a total manpower of 936,000, of which 234,000 are deployed in the fleet.

Assuming for purposes of argument that the entire navy is composed of Patrol Cruisers (Cost: MCr221, crew=10), you would have 1,572 of them for a total number of 15,720 crew slots, leaving you short 218,280 crew slots, and giving you a ship-based to shore-based ratio of 1:59. Any reasonable fleet composition will give you between five and ten times fewer crew slots.

...You apparently did not look at the example closely as you would have read that I pulled the percentages out of thin air without concern as to whether they were 'reasonable' for a fleet. I was more concerned with providing an example for how different totals might be determined. You also seemed to have missed the statement that the budgets are changeable where you might input any percentages you like, such as 5% for personnel, if you liked, and adding more to O&M, or more to Procurements, should you wish to build more ships.
...As far as your problem with the personnel results of my example.... You could have reduced the Personnel portion of the budget as already mentioned, or you could have simply allowed for a higher allotment per crewman by using fewer crewmen, thus giving a higher crew quality. Marines are part of the Navy and are handled through the navy budget, so the total includes marine forces ( and in O&M, their equipment, etc. ).

I'm working to provide a framework that can be applied to any organization while being fully consistent across the various organizations, and you're complaining about specific numbers which can be ( would be ) changed...sheesh.

 

[Ishmael]

Elites are usually somewhat fewer than 40% of the total manpower. In fact, I believe most wargames rules restrict the number of elites severely. Something about needing a large number of experienced people to draw the elites from. Likewise, 'normal' implies that this class would be the norm, i.e. that most of the men would fall in that category.

IIRC there are some guidelines for troop quality in Ground Forces.

The tech level mistake was a typo caused by being distracted by the Devils Vs Lightning Hockey game.
The other was a stupid mistake on my part because of the method I usually use to determine GWP. I normally use 24,000 as my per capita value for local credits and not use any exchange rates until the last step to get CrImps.
The tables I used in an attempt to follow established methods for generating GWP had the per_capita already changed by tech-based exchange rates...funny thing though.... they're wrong.
100 credits at tech 10 have the purchasing power of 54.54 Crimps based on that table yet the other exchange table only shows it to have a the purchasing power of 50. Can this be evidence that the Imperium is rigged currency exchanges to siphon funds off the top?

As far as the issue mentioned for Elites, etc.
You'd say it was moot as you feel ground forces' rules should not be used with naval forces. There are no rules that handle crew quality in this fashion for the navy, so don't worry about it.
Otherwise, just go by troop quality numbers from Striker Book 1.
-------------------

There is no direct correlation being ship price and crew size.
Crew size is affect by component sizes and component tech levels, not cost.
Ship price is also affected by component size and tech .
This indirect link is useless to base anything on and keep any sliver of accuracy on.

 

[rancke]

Hans - the example you dug up from the USN was the cost of the ship, and you divided it by the crew to get a 'cost per crew'. That figure is meaningless. The ship's cost is what it costs to get her built and equipped. Crew costs are additional - wages, training, and social things like base accommodations, insurance, medical care, etc.

I'm not using the cost of the ship to get the annual cost of a crewman, I'm using it to estimate the investment needed to get a crew slot. There's a strong correlation between number of crew slots and number of crew, hence a correlation between number of crew slots and personnel cost, which, in turn, established a correlation between cost of the ships and the personnel cost.

Correlation is not causation.

Very true. Correlation is correlation.

The cost per crewman on a Type 23 Frigate will be similar to the cost per crewman on a Type 45 Destroyer - but the costs of the vessels are very different 100 million vs. 1 billion pounds. The Type 23 has 181 crewmembers, the Type 45 190 crewmembers.

Which means that the investment you need to get one crew slot is 0.55 million if your navy is composed entirely of Type 23 frigates and 5.26 million if your navy is composed of Type 45 destroyers. So in the first example, relative personnel costs are about ten times more important than in the second case, even though they be roughly the same in absolute terms.

Crew costs are determined by how much a navy has to pay in order to attract the personnel they need. If ships are of similar complexity but differing tonnage you can correlate the crew numbers with tonnage - crew costs are more influenced by the market however.

Nonsens. In a navy with 19 Type 23 frigates you'd have (almost) the same number of crew (and support personnel) as you'd have in a navy of 18 Type 45 Destroyers. And those two sets of personnel would cost exactly the same in absolute terms to recruit, since they're practically indentical in size. But in the first case the cost of the ships will be almost ten time lower than in the second case. Which means that personel cost will be almost ten time greater in relative terms than in the second case. Say that total personnel cost was 150 million. In the first case the personnel cost would be 7.9% of the total cost of the fleet; in the second case the personnel cost would be 0.83% of the total cost of the fleet.


Hans

 

[rancke]

I've outlined a single method for handling the budgets for ANY service branch and any non-military organization as opposed to using separate rules for each branch, which is the position you've taken. What could be more internally consistent than that? It certainly leads to more internal consistency than the OTU has. Although you say otherwise, most of your arguments have been that it doesn't fit TCS's model which you perceive to be OTU.

Correction. Which I percieve to provide ballpark figures for certain limited situations in any TU (which, of course, includes the OTU).

...You apparently did not look at the example closely as you would have read that I pulled the percentages out of thin air without concern as to whether they were 'reasonable' for a fleet. I was more concerned with providing an example for how different totals might be determined.

In that case, let me suggest you add a step: determining the size of the total personnel based on how many are needed to fulfil the functions the organization has to fulfil and then calculating personnel cost from that.

You also seemed to have missed the statement that the budgets are changeable where you might input any percentages you like, such as 5% for personnel, if you liked, and adding more to O&M, or more to Procurements, should you wish to build more ships.

But you can't just pull figures out of thn air. The numer of people your hire is not just related to how much it costs to pay them, it is also related to how much it costs to outfit them. Barring politically motivated distortions (e.g. makework), an organization is not going to hire people it doesn't have work for.

...As far as your problem with the personnel results of my example.... You could have reduced the Personnel portion of the budget as already mentioned,

And if I had, it would demonstrate what I've been arguing all along, that in a Traveller space navy, the contribution of personnel cost to the budget is minuscule, and nowhere near the contribution of personnel cost to the USN budget.

...or you could have simply allowed for a higher allotment per crewman by using fewer crewmen, thus giving a higher crew quality. Marines are part of the Navy and are handled through the navy budget, so the total includes marine forces ( and in O&M, their equipment, etc. ).

You lost me there.


Hans