LAST EDITED ON Dec-21-12 AT 03:17 AM (EST)
 
This is a question I've been pondering for awhile now.

That's not to say, naturally, that I don't have guesses or speculations. (For example, I speculate that TacFleet is mostly destroyers, cruisers, and battlecruisers, and is primarily involved with patrols and acting as a quick-reaction force, while StratFleet is mostly battleships and carriers, and represents the WDF Navy's "mailed fist," as it were.) However, at present, guesses and speculation are all they are, and it nags at the technical-manual-perusing fanboy in me. ;)

Also, speaking of clouded issues, is the WDF responsible for Zeta Cygni's defense? I seem to remember Daver making such a claim in A Day of Infamy, but I might be remembering wrong. I know the WDF isn't Zeta Cygni's national military (although I suspect a number of in-universe political observers might view that as a flimsy legal fiction), but given the longstanding ties between the two (and the fact that the WDF's HQ, training facilities, and shipyards are in the ZC Dyson sphere), it would seem only logical.

My thanks to anyone who could shed a little light on these questions for me.

>This is a question I've been pondering for awhile now.
>
>I speculate that TacFleet is mostly
>destroyers, cruisers, and battlecruisers, and is primarily involved
>with patrols and acting as a quick-reaction force, while StratFleet is
>mostly battleships and carriers, and represents the WDF Navy's "mailed
>fist," as it were.

That was more or less the way it seemed to me when I put together the ancient WDF tech readout, but more recently it's occurred to me that I kind of had it backward. It strikes me that long-range, long-term activities like patrolling are more strategic than tactical, and conversely, the big ships with instantaneous spacefold drive, with their capacity for nearly instant response, are more inherently tactical. In practice, I doubt the distinction even works operationally, which is why more recent works (such as the last scene in Second Chances Are Illogical) refer to color-coded squadrons.

>Also, speaking of clouded issues, is the WDF responsible for Zeta
>Cygni's defense? (...) I know the WDF isn't
>Zeta Cygni's national military (although I suspect a number of
>in-universe political observers might view that as a flimsy legal
>fiction), but (...) it would seem only logical.

There is a separate and official Zeta Cygni Defense Force, but it's much smaller and geared mainly toward domestic tasks like patrolling the Sphere, customs enforcement, and whatnot. The WDF is under contract to do the heavy lifting, as it were.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>That was more or less the way it seemed to me when I put together the
>ancient WDF tech readout, but more recently it's occurred to me that I
>kind of had it backward. It strikes me that long-range, long-term
>activities like patrolling are more strategic than tactical, and
>conversely, the big ships with instantaneous spacefold drive, with
>their capacity for nearly instant response, are more inherently
>tactical. In practice, I doubt the distinction even works
>operationally, which is why more recent works (such as the last scene
>in Second Chances Are Illogical) refer to color-coded
>squadrons.

Wow, thanks for the quick and detailed response. :) Yeah, I can see your reasoning, and how if the TacFleet/StratFleet distinction was retained,it would probably deal more with operational deployments and demands than specific ship types. Are the color-coded squadrons composed of multiple ship types, like the CFMF carrier task forces? (And do you know where I could find a copy of this tech readout? It sounds like fascinating reading, even if it's no longer canon.)

>There is a separate and official Zeta Cygni Defense Force, but it's
>much smaller and geared mainly toward domestic tasks like patrolling
>the Sphere, customs enforcement, and whatnot. The WDF is under
>contract to do the heavy lifting, as it were.

That would make sense; there's lots of precedent, both in UF and throughout military SF, for local star-system defense fleets. And it also tracks for the WDF being available to reinforce the ZCDF if needed.

Thanks again.

>And it also tracks for the WDF being available to reinforce the ZCDF if
>needed.

And this is probably where most in-universe politically minded sorts do consider it to be a "flimsy legal fiction" regarding the WDF and Zeta Cygni. And no small number of outfits trying to cry "unfair advantage" in terms of wanting to be the one who serves that contract as opposed to the WDF.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-21-12 AT 08:09 PM (EST)
 
>>And it also tracks for the WDF being available to reinforce the ZCDF if
>>needed.
>
>And this is probably where most in-universe politically minded sorts
>do consider it to be a "flimsy legal fiction" regarding the WDF and
>Zeta Cygni. And no small number of outfits trying to cry "unfair
>advantage" in terms of wanting to be the one who serves that contract
>as opposed to the WDF.

Well, it's a very long contract, and at the time when it was concluded the only other sufficiently large mercenary space force (the CFMF) didn't bother bidding, but technically it was an open process. Not that the critics are wrong about the flimsy legality part. It may not be flimsy, but it's certainly the product of a fairly obvious dodge. :)

I suspect - I haven't really bothered considering it in great detail, because the political structure of things doesn't interest me that much, but - that the WDF's legal status vis-à-vis the Republic of Zeta Cygni is similar to that of an airline which is a country's "flag carrier": that is, that the Zetan government does own an interest in the company, but not a controlling one, and certain diplomatic niceties are encoded in the contract such that it's legal for the WDF to act as an instrument of Zetan national policy. (This is particularly true of the Colonial Forces, which is the state navy of the Zetan territory of Colonia, but is also officially a branch of the WDF for abstruse legal reasons that go back to the Galactica's original arrival in the Cygnus sector.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>I suspect - I haven't really bothered considering it in great detail,
>because the political structure of things doesn't interest me that
>much, but - that the WDF's legal status vis-à-vis the Republic of
>Zeta Cygni is similar to that of an airline which is a country's "flag
>carrier": that is, that the Zetan government does own an interest in
>the company, but not a controlling one, and certain diplomatic
>niceties are encoded in the contract such that it's legal for the WDF
>to act as an instrument of Zetan national policy.

This raises a question in my mind, though -- why not just go the distance, and formally make the WDF Zeta Cygni's national military? Many political observers see it as such in a de facto sense, the fine print of its contract allows it to act as such, and Zetan politics seem to be aligned with those of the WDF high command. Even the WDF's contract to support the Federation wouldn't seem to be an issue, unless the Federation was insistent that it not serve to further Zetan interests at the expense of the Federation's (and if that was the case, neither the WDF nor Zeta Cygni would seem to have much reason to participate in the Federation).

Of course, there may be other factors I missed, and the last sentence of the above paragraph might in of itself be sufficient cause...

>This raises a question in my mind, though -- why not just go the
>distance, and formally make the WDF Zeta Cygni's national military?
>Many political observers see it as such in a de facto sense, the fine
>print of its contract allows it to act as such, and Zetan politics
>seem to be aligned with those of the WDF high command.

There is an admittedly small but nonzero chance that someday, the policies of the Wedge Defense Force and those of the Republic of Zeta Cygni may find themselves at variance - and I mean severely at variance, to the same degree as, say, the WDF's and those of the provisional "post-monarchist" government of Salusia following the 21st-century assassination of King Jerka (see Rite of Passage). Were that to happen, it would be less awkward if the resulting confrontation was technically not an internal military coup d'état. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>There is an admittedly small but nonzero chance that someday, the
>policies of the Wedge Defense Force and those of the Republic of Zeta
>Cygni may find themselves at variance - and I mean severely at
>variance, to the same degree as, say, the WDF's and those of the
>provisional "post-monarchist" government of Salusia following the
>21st-century assassination of King Jerka (see Rite of Passage).
> Were that to happen, it would be less awkward if the resulting
>confrontation was technically not an internal military coup
>d'état. :)

Oh, a little thing like that... ;)

Yeah, that makes sense. It just struck me that, however much the WDF's rep has been rehabilitated, its onetime reputation as "an impartial force for good" has been too tarnished (albeit by those with an agenda that requires said tarnishing) to be taken at face value anymore, especially given where it falls in the Federation's current political divide.

>Yeah, that makes sense. It just struck me that, however much the
>WDF's rep has been rehabilitated, its onetime reputation as "an
>impartial force for good" has been too tarnished (albeit by those with
>an agenda that requires said tarnishing) to be taken at face value
>anymore, especially given where it falls in the Federation's current
>political divide.

Did I mention earlier that I haven't really bothered considering it in great detail, because the political structure of things doesn't interest me that much? If not, that was terribly remiss of me, given that I haven't really bothered considering it in great detail, because the political structure of things doesn't interest me that much. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Duly noted. :)

>Yeah, that makes sense. It just struck me that, however much the
>WDF's rep has been rehabilitated, its onetime reputation as "an
>impartial force for good" has been too tarnished (albeit by those with
>an agenda that requires said tarnishing) to be taken at face value
>anymore, especially given where it falls in the Federation's current
>political divide.

It may well be more for the benefit of WDF personnel, rather than for outsiders. Declaring a contract forfeit for good cause is one level of moral decision-making. Committing treason against one's country, especially when you've given your oath to defend it, is quite another.

There's also the matter of people who won't--or can't--swear fealty to Zeta Cygni, yet wish to serve in the WDF. For an obvious example, I doubt many of Asrial's subjects would be willing to give up their Salusian citizenship to serve in a foreign navy.

>It may well be more for the benefit of WDF personnel, rather
>than for outsiders. Declaring a contract forfeit for good cause is one
>level of moral decision-making. Committing treason against one's
>country, especially when you've given your oath to defend it, is quite
>another.
>
>There's also the matter of people who won't--or can't--swear
>fealty to Zeta Cygni, yet wish to serve in the WDF. For an obvious
>example, I doubt many of Asrial's subjects would be willing to give up
>their Salusian citizenship to serve in a foreign navy.

Now that's a good point, and one I hadn't considered.

>Wow, thanks for the quick and detailed response. :) Yeah, I can see
>your reasoning, and how if the TacFleet/StratFleet distinction was
>retained,it would probably deal more with operational deployments and
>demands than specific ship types. Are the color-coded squadrons
>composed of multiple ship types, like the CFMF carrier task forces?

Yes, they're basically just a way of breaking the navy up into several smaller navies to simplify operations. (The real-world Royal Navy used to do something similar, which is where I got the idea.)

>(And do you know where I could find a copy of this tech readout? It
>sounds like fascinating reading, even if it's no longer canon.)

I thought it might be in the Dustbin on the FI page, but it appears not. I'll see if I've got a copy kicking around on one of my local drives and put it there. If not, I imagine someone's still got it lying around and could hook you up. Come to think of it, it's from the days when UF stuff always got posted to Usenet, so it's probably in a rec.arts.anime.creative web archive somewhere, and/or on Google Groups.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I saved several copies, back in the day, if that helps.

>>(And do you know where I could find a copy of this tech readout? It
>>sounds like fascinating reading, even if it's no longer canon.)
>
>I thought it might be in the Dustbin on the FI page, but it appears
>not. I'll see if I've got a copy kicking around on one of my local
>drives and put it there. If not, I imagine someone's still got it
>lying around and could hook you up. Come to think of it, it's from
>the days when UF stuff always got posted to Usenet, so it's probably
>in a rec.arts.anime.creative web archive somewhere, and/or on Google
>Groups.

Well, I was able to find this copy on the web:

http://webspace.webring.com/people/xt/the_devillin/wdf-technical-readout.txt

Original site I ran across it has apparently disappeared beneath the waves of internet history, so I had to do a little digging.

Just what I was looking for. Thanks to everyone who responded, especially Gryph for the expanded clarification. :)

>Just what I was looking for. Thanks to everyone who responded,
>especially Gryph for the expanded clarification. :)

Beware: Almost everything in that file is wrong. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

...Brother, you weren't kidding. But such was the case with the non-canon tech manuals for Star Trek in the 80s and 90s, and I still enjoyed reading them. I got what I wanted out of it.

>Original site I ran across it has apparently disappeared beneath the
>waves of internet history, so I had to do a little digging.

It's entirely possible that it was this one; I seem to recall having it up for a while, but taking it down for its egregious inaccuracy before the idea of the Dustbin occurred to me. I've put it back now, with a big warning not to take it seriously. (I should probably put another such warning in the file itself, but I can't be arsed right now; I'm quite ill and should really have been in bed hours ago.)

Thanks for digging it up for me. I'm pretty sure I have a local copy somewhere on my desktop machine, but the power is unreliable in the Podunk Valley tonight, so I've got that machine shut off for its safety. Laptoppin' it from the living room.

Interesting trivia: My neurologist forbids me to get vaccinated against the flu. In previous winters this has worked out OK. This one? Not so much. Going to take some more of the industrial-strength cough syrup and crash now.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-26-12 AT 07:50 PM (EST)
 
Hahaha.

Omega Class torpedos.

Personal Wave Motion Rifle.

------
Jon Helscher

Oh God, it was me. I was the grognard all along.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-27-12 AT 02:58 AM (EST)
 
>
>Personal Wave Motion Rifle.

Heh, yeah, that does strain credulity, even for a setting like UF, huh? I suppose if "wave motion rifle" was a nickname for a high-powered energy weapon, sure....

>>
>>Personal Wave Motion Rifle.
>
>Heh, yeah, that does strain credulity, even for a setting like UF,
>huh? I suppose if "wave motion rifle" was a nickname for a
>high-powered energy weapon, sure....

I love this document. It's awesome.

------
Jon Helscher

Oh God, it was me. I was the grognard all along.

>>
>>Personal Wave Motion Rifle.
>
>Heh, yeah, that does strain credulity, even for a setting like UF,
>huh? I suppose if "wave motion rifle" was a nickname for a
>high-powered energy weapon, sure....

Yeah, that's canon. Kei and Yuri fielded that waaay back in UF1. I think they blew up Alden Hall with it or something.
--rR

>Hahaha.
>
>Omega Class torpedos.
>
>Personal Wave Motion Rifle.
>

The last I heard, the Omega Class torpedoes were still in-universe, but not WDF ordnance.

As for personal wave-motion rifles, I'm pretty sure that the "WMR" referenced in Code Name: Ultra isn't a Wide-Mouthed Refrigerator.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

>Hahaha.
>
>Omega Class torpedos.
>
>Personal Wave Motion Rifle.

General rule of thumb is, for every weapon of mass destruction, two schools of thought will be born. The first looks at it and thinks "If we apply this to every weapon in our arsenal, we'll be even more effective!" The second looks at it and thinks "If every soldier could carry one, there's nothing they couldn't defeat."

Then everybody realizes that lobbing these things everywhere might end the war faster, but that's because everybody will be dead from the fallout.

>>This is a question I've been pondering for awhile now.
>>
>>I speculate that TacFleet is mostly
>>destroyers, cruisers, and battlecruisers, and is primarily involved
>>with patrols and acting as a quick-reaction force, while StratFleet is
>>mostly battleships and carriers, and represents the WDF Navy's "mailed
>>fist," as it were.
>
>That was more or less the way it seemed to me when I put together the
>ancient WDF tech readout, but more recently it's occurred to me that I
>kind of had it backward. It strikes me that long-range, long-term
>activities like patrolling are more strategic than tactical, and
>conversely, the big ships with instantaneous spacefold drive, with
>their capacity for nearly instant response, are more inherently
>tactical. In practice, I doubt the distinction even works
>operationally, which is why more recent works (such as the last scene
>in Second Chances Are Illogical) refer to color-coded
>squadrons.
>
>>Also, speaking of clouded issues, is the WDF responsible for Zeta
>>Cygni's defense? (...) I know the WDF isn't
>>Zeta Cygni's national military (although I suspect a number of
>>in-universe political observers might view that as a flimsy legal
>>fiction), but (...) it would seem only logical.
>
>There is a separate and official Zeta Cygni Defense Force, but it's
>much smaller and geared mainly toward domestic tasks like patrolling
>the Sphere, customs enforcement, and whatnot. The WDF is under
>contract to do the heavy lifting, as it were.
>
>--G.
>-><-

Sounds like the Difference between the US Navy and the US Coast Guard. Different sphere's of influence that fill two vastly different needs with little overlap. WDF (NAVY) takes care of national defense and all that it entails, while ZCDF (USCG) takes care of inter-sphere security, safety boardings (inport and underway), and regulation enforcement and if necessary civil defense.

>Sounds like the Difference between the US Navy and the US Coast Guard.
> Different sphere's of influence that fill two vastly different needs
>with little overlap. WDF (NAVY) takes care of national defense and
>all that it entails, while ZCDF (USCG) takes care of inter-sphere
>security, safety boardings (inport and underway), and regulation
>enforcement and if necessary civil defense.

Yes, that's a fair comparison. In a similar vein, I imagine ZCDF has priority on in-system SAR as well. There's probably some standard radius from a system's primary star which is the starfaring equivalent of the nautical 12-mile limit - 50 AU (the distance to the Solar system's Kuiper cliff) or something like - within which such things are customarily handled by forces that don't need to be equipped for long-haul interstellar travel (though you'd obviously still want FTL capability at those distances from HQ). Which is not to say a WDF ship - or anybody else - wouldn't answer a distress call within such a boundary. Unwritten spacers' code and all.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Yes, they're basically just a way of breaking the navy up into several
>smaller navies to simplify operations. (The real-world Royal Navy
>used to do something similar, which is where I got the idea.)

Speaking of, do you have any idea what the WDF's fleet strength is at present, roughly (not looking for precise numbers)? I've seen the writeup for the Salusian armed services in the Featured Documents; I was just curious how the RSN and WDFN compare.

>Speaking of, do you have any idea what the WDF's fleet strength is at
>present, roughly (not looking for precise numbers)?

It's hard to tell, but most analysts figure the WDF and the RSN are of roughly equivalent strength in the early 25th century. The WDF has more ships, the RSN's ships are (on average) a bit bigger, so most authorities reckon it about evens out, such that either one would have a hard time taking the other in a fight.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Okay, that gives me a pretty clear mental picture. Thanks again.

>The WDF has more ships, the RSN's ships are (on average) a bit bigger, so most
>authorities reckon it about evens out, such that either one would have
>a hard time taking the other in a fight.
>
>--G.

Which means, if you really want an easier time taking over the known galaxy, get these two super powers to fight it out for a couple of months. Then swoop in with a clean up force.

Now mind you getting the WDF and RSN governing bodies to get to the point where they'd fight, is probably harder than defeating their combined forces.

But if you could...yeah..

Phantom.

"When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

>>I speculate that TacFleet is mostly
>>destroyers, cruisers, and battlecruisers, and is primarily involved
>>with patrols and acting as a quick-reaction force, while StratFleet is
>>mostly battleships and carriers, and represents the WDF Navy's "mailed
>>fist," as it were.
>
>That was more or less the way it seemed to me when I put together the
>ancient WDF tech readout, but more recently it's occurred to me that I
>kind of had it backward.
>
>In practice, I doubt the distinction even works
>operationally, which is why more recent works (such as the last scene
>in Second Chances Are Illogical) refer to color-coded
>squadrons.
>

Maybe it did work operationally prior to Sonfall, but if that was the case, it probably became clear that it was an outdated system shortly after the WDF was re-established. If so, it's likely that the revision happened sometime after Gryphon got back from putting out all the fires that rose up after Largo's death.

I'm not saying that it necessarily took a long time, just that he probably ended up splitting the fleet three or four ways to deal with everything, and decided that this might be a good long-term plan.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.