from the Admiral's Log: planning of getting new ships

The new fleet organization clearly shows the need for some reinforcements. Now the fleet is much bigger than it used to be and, should events like the sabotage of the end of 2010 or a major engagement like the Battle of the Isle of Skye reoccur, we would no longer be left with just a few ships operational for extended periods of time.

Yet the bulk of the Home Squadron is still based on old, although powerful, ships, slow and with limited mobility. They can be still good to protect the home waters but it would be nearly impossible to dispatch them away should the need arise. The light battleship division has more mobility, but they are still rather old ships and they can't compete against the more recent vessels.

The third battleship division is a formidable formation and its line of battle can challenge any opponents. Supported by the second escort division , they make the High Seas Squadron Highly reliable for today's standards. If this is enough to be up to the challenge of the future it is still to be seen.

The Mainland Squadron is built around the first frigate division. It is adequate for the current objective of the squadron, yet it engages all the frigate class vessels and it  would be preferred to have also a frigate division available to support the ships of the line of the Home and High Seas Squadrons.

We need therefore to start planning at lest two new ships of the line and two new frigates, plus a number of smaller vessels, in order to be able to give more flexibility to the different formations and be able to exchange ships and divisions among squadrons should the need arise.

from the Admiral's Log:about Armada, Steelhead and the new ship of the line

This world of ours never stops to amaze me. I thought that with the burning of Armada all was over for that region and yet here we have a surprise. I got a report from the Star of Alurel, that briefly anchored in Steelhead, during her recent cruise in the waters separating elven lands from Steamlands. The report claims that a major Tsunami, powerful enough to displace sims, has caused to rip away the sim that used to be Armada, and brought it to crash against Steelhead, making it a part of this region. No other major damages were assessed, so I guess all is well.

On a different subject, the name for the new ship of the line has been decided at last:  she will be the Star of the Dawn

She will be assigned to the third Battleship Division and temporarily detached to support Special Ops in mainland waters. In the next days the new fleet organization will be released with the new structure and unit assignments.

from the Admiral's Log ...

Admiralty Island, January the 29th 2013

the new ship of the line has been delivered by the shipyards and the first tests on sea have been very successful. She's a beauty and a powerful lady, even if a bit difficult to turn. She must have a pretty good speed before turning into the wind otherwise it is very easy to end up "in irons".

 

She still needs a name and to be assigned to a squadron. The most natural choice would be to assign it to the third battleship division. It would be a perfect sister ship to the Star of Winterfell and the division would offer quite a formidable line of battle. On the other end, assigning a fifth capital ship to the third battleship division would make the division quite unbalanced, given that both the first and second division have two ships each (and the construction of Star of Spring is still month away). Might be a good opportunity to restructure the organization of the capital ships, even considering that retiring and moving the Star of Christmas into reserve is by now overdue.

For what concerns the name, no good ideas yet, but it must decided soon. The ship is already committed to a cruise to support the special ops division in the coming weeks, so must be made fully operational.

Concerning Special Ops, I am waiting for the new report from Fleet Intelligence. So much is going on and we still know so little. The recent loss of Armada has been painful, even if it is good that the Scoundrels have been able to fall back to a new base in the Blake sims. 

We will see what the future holds for us.