WesWorld

Hi!

I have run calculations to check how many sailors (officers and enlisted men) the RSAN needs as of OOB 31-12-1942. The result: 127,610

Has anybody else run similar calculations for his fleet? I wonder how the RSAN compares to navies of similar size?

France currently needs around 106,000 men to crew all of their current ships at wartime complement. I just use the second Springsharp figure given as 'wartime complement' and the first as 'peacetime complement' (which I have not calculated for France). That number uses SS2 numbers for auxiliaries, carriers, and subs. It is my belief that the number SS2 gives for carriers is low, and the number for auxiliaries and submarines is high. I figure it balances out.

Chile requires 30,900 men for full wartime complement.

Ireland needs 4,200 men at full wartime complement.

According to some figures I've heard - no cite, unfortunately - at the time of the Battle of Jutland, the Royal Navy had 115,000 men in the Fleet, 18,000 in the Royal Marines, 3,100 in the Coast Guard, and 9,500 in all other services.

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It is my belief that the number SS2 gives for carriers is low, and the number for auxiliaries and submarines is high.

I would have to look where the springstyle notes are, but IIRC that the sub crews needed to be divided by 2 and the crews of civilian ships (and also auxilliaries) needed to be divided by 10.
With a carrier, I think that the SS figure is only good for the number of people needed to run the ship as a ship and that figure would not include the men needed for all the flight related stuff.

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Originally posted by Rooijen10
I would have to look where the springstyle notes are, but IIRC that the sub crews needed to be divided by 2 and the crews of civilian ships (and also auxilliaries) needed to be divided by 10.
With a carrier, I think that the SS figure is only good for the number of people needed to run the ship as a ship and that figure would not include the men needed for all the flight related stuff.

Indeed. Although some of my auxiliaries probably have larger crews than -/10 would give: a civilian tanker and a military unrep ship are going to have different crew sizes. I've just never bothered to fiddle with the number changes.

I did this during my first stint here, but not since...

I use the same caveats as Brock for calculating the personnel strength of the Kriegsmarine.

On that basis, the peacetime complement of ships in commission is 98,184, while the wartime complement is 126,852.

I tend to think the numbers are inflated a bit due to the SS crew sizes on the auxiliaries, of which the KM has many. However, in the face of lack of consensus, I just leave them as they are.

And no, I don't really feel the need to come up with a system to calculate crew sizes by ship type.

Just sayin'

Here are the bits. I thought auxiliaries were also mentioned there, but it's not there.

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Also, for civilian merchant ships, divide crew and
damage survival values by 10 - they have small crews, and
lack the extensive compartmentation of naval ships. For
naval transports, divide crew by 5 but leave survival
values unchanged.

Quoted

Adjust your report file. Just delete all those
warnings about lack of seaworthiness - a dived sub
obviously isn't seaworthy by surface-ship standards.
Specify crew as about half the listed minimum.
Don't forget to list operational diving depth.

I agree with the above. My figures are wartime values also.

For subs and S-boats I used figures from historical examples. A 500ts sub with 71 crews is just unreasonable. However, these parts of the fleet are relatively small anyway.

For carriers I have used the upper figure SS2 provides w/o adding air crews. And: How do we define "air crews"? Flying personal only, or do we include mechanics etc.? Comparing SS2 values to historical figures I think something like wartime complement by SS2 plus 2x number of aircrafts would provide a reasonable result as a rule of thumb.

Regarding tenders and supply ships things are difficult too. Historical Altmark, pretty much a tanker and supply ship of 20000ts, had a complement of about 200. SS2 gives 500+ crew for a 6000ts tender with some flak guns. Neither division by 10 or 5 would result in something useful. Another hisorical example is Wilhelm Bauer, a submarine tender of 5600ts with a complement of 280.

As I have more tenders than carriers I think the total figure I presented really is the upper end, even under war time conditions.

But as Bruce already said: We don't need rules for that. It is just interesting to discuss.

Another issue: historical figures vary by a large margin also, depending on navy. Just compare 1400 men on Hood to 2200 on Bismarck - similar sized and armed ships. Or 1600 on Hipper versus 900 on a County. So it is a difficult field to discuss. But I am interested to hear your opinions.

I guess Sub Sim gives more accurate crew numbers, but relatively few subs in WW use that system.

I've never counted the RN personnel. I know I should, and have often thought about it, but it would take such a long time that I'd rather be doing something else!

I added mine up a while ago, so the numbers will be a little different now, but here is what I had (Note values are by class not individual ships):

Salamis BB: 2378 - 3092
Megas BB: 1515 - 1970
Lysandros BB: 2952 - 3840
Total BB: 6845 - 8902

Arkadia CV: 776 - 1009 (plus airgroup)
Thermopylae CV: 1155 - 1502 (plus airgroup)
Astraios CV(T): 708 - 921
Total CV: 2639 - 3432 (plus airgroups)

Helle CA: 1380 - 1794
Hydra CA: 1526 - 1984
Konstantinoupolis CC: 1552 - 2018
Ares CL: 1012 - 1316
Psara CL: 2370 - 3085
Eurybiades CL: 2637 - 3438
Total CL: 10477 - 13635

Karcharias DL: 844 - 1100
Total DL: 844 - 1100

E-type DD: 4238 - 5512
Narcissus DD: 320 - 418
Herakles DD: 2656 - 3456
Eptanisa DD: 1384 - 1800
Total DD: 8598 - 11186

Rhodos ML: 1266 - 1650
Seiren ML: 844 - 1100
Total ML: 2110 - 2750

Arethousa MS: 1176 - 1760
MS165 MS: 1512 - 2016
Total MS: 2688 - 3776

GB150 GB: 1456 - 1904
Total GB: 1456 - 1904

HL65 HL: 156 - 204
Total HL: 156 - 204

X-1 XC: 832 - 1088
X-201 XC: 104 - 136
SLC65 LC: 22 - 30
Total X/LC: 958 - 1254

Delphinos SS: 1343 - 1768
Nemesis SS(T): 98 - 128
Total SS: 1441 - 1896

Fleet Train: 7080 - 9210

Overall Total: 45370 - 59249

If anyone is interested, I've got a spreadsheet set to do the calculations for both peacetime and wartime complements. It plays off my detailed order or battle. If you'd be interested, ship me your email by PM and I will forward it.

I've considered doing such for the Dutch, but passed. The way I have Dutch history, there's a significant point of departure in the early 1900s, and the Queen's Ethical Policy speech had a bigger effect- plus Kongo. So they draw on a far larger population for their military than historically, so I haven't worried about manpower much. I just make sure Malay and African names pop up in my news to illustrate that.

Ed: The scary part is fleet light displacement is over 1,000,000 for the Dutch, though I am starting to scrap vessels instead of SLEP'ing them. As my fleet sheet groups the small ships (Coast guard alone is 75tx132 ships=9900tons) and skips the PT's (~20,000tons) its' a bit hard to add up the correct total tonnage.

Figuring out the tonnage devoted to coastal defenses would be a bear too, something like 21,000tons before you add in the guns taken off scrapped ships and those inherited with the position.

Working through the spreadsheet Bruce kindly provided, I have so far (there are a few auxiliary crew sizes to be found/ estimated, plus RFA crews to be added);

RN Peacetime: 147,179
RN Wartime: 194,576

According to wiki, there were 134,000 men in the RN in Sept 1939 and 865,000 in 1945. In 1930 were 97,000. Whether these figures include shore-based personnel isn't clear, whatever the case the RN probably will shrink a little by 1945 since I've got to free manpower for newer ships and many old 1919-25 types will go.

I shall post a fuller figure later including the RFA, Egypt and Iraq etc. Then I shall tackle the Argentine Navy!

Q4/42 is not a good quarter for the USN, just previously it has disposed of 20 of its destroyers, it has several cruisers undergoing refits which I don't count, and some of its big projects don't complete until this year.

So, using Springsharp numbers only, peacetime strength doesn't surpass 100,000 its 79,000 to be precise, whereas wartime strength is at 103,000.

Yes, the USN is roughly a tenth the strength it was IOTL. I know. But the peacetime Army is 10 times larger so that makes up some of the difference. Ain't no one invading the US anytime soon!

Ok folks here are the final figures (calculated as of Q4/44 but not including any reductions from sales etc. until then, but including ships commissioned by then).

Royal Navy
Peacetime: 147,260
Wartime: 194,771

Royal Fleet Auxiliary
Peacetime and wartime: 2,127

Royal Egyptian Navy
Peacetime: 671
Wartime: 751

Royal Iraqi Navy
Peacetime: 2,845
Wartime: 3,582


Argentine Navy
Peacetime: 28,532
Wartime: 36,966

Well, while the board was down I tinkered with this matter and updated my spreadsheet some. Still probably slightly off -guesses on aircrew, some ships building etc.

shipboard personnel are :
Peace : 71,775
Combat : 93,504.

Tonnage seems to be around 1,263,000