The picture painted by the intelligence reports on the war is terrible. But I hesitate to draw too many conclusions from it. It would be much like expecting WW2 to turn out like WW1, a mistake many strategists made in real life. Rather than the country-wrecking wars we see here with the Klingons and Romulans, a war with the Federation will be about the a superpower shaking off the chains of peace. I say that because the question of if you can conquer your way from Indoria to Sol or from Okatha to Amarkia is a nonstarter. The only option our potential adversaries have is strike fast and successfully, and sue for peace while the public is reeling. Going longer than two years will fail whether you're a spoonhead or a Horizonite.
That means that Starfleet's current ships can all be expended holding out for a mere two years, because the sheer scale of industry we can pull on to replace them is astonishing. We have over 100 frigate berths, I haven't counted 2mt+ lately but I wouldn't be surprised if we had 30+. And while Starfleet's peacetime production is concentrated in Sol, our wartime production is scattered to the four corners. There's no one system that can be smashed to end our industry in a total war scenario. That means that even if you wreck two full sectors deep we're still drawing from the other half of the Federation. A grindfest like we see the Klingons and Romulans involved in is fine for us so long as it doesn't cross the Tellar sector central spine one way or the other. The public reaction and member cohesion is another matter, one that will have to be carefully considered and managed.
That said, if we were involved in a full scale war, we can't half-ass it. The multiplied budget, pulling in member berths for war production and repairs, no-prototype fast-build war designs, preparing crew reserves in advance, we better do it all.
To help put some numbers behind this statement lets look at the various Federation economies:
Name - BR - SR - Infra - Off - Enl - Tech
Andor - 90 - 65 - 3.11 - 1.2 - 2 - 2
Vulcan - 55 - 60 - 2.08 - 1.75 - 2.75 - 2.5
Tellar - 95 - 80 - 3 - 1.65 - 2.75 - 2.15
Earth - 110 - 90 - 3.7 - 2 - 2.2 - 2.2
Amarki - 265 - 255 - 2.05 - 5.25 - 9 - 6
Betazoids - 50 - 60 - 1.35 - 1.45 - 1.8 - 1.45
Caitian - 75 - 85 - 2.14 - 1.5 - 1.5 - 0.8
Rigel - 80 - 60 - 2.25 - 3.4 - 3.75 - 3.75
Apiata - 165 - 155 - 2.29 - 0.5 - 6 - 3
Indoria - 80 - 60 - 1.33 - 1.25 - 2 - 1.25
Gaeni - 65 - 85 - 2.61 - 0.75 - 1.25 - 1.75
Orions - 60 - 50 - 1.37 - 1 - 2 - 1.5
Caldonia - 70-45-1.16-1.2-1.7-1.5
Qloathi - 105 - 85 - 1.83 - 2 - 3.5 - 3.5
Seyek - 115 - 95 - 1.84 - 2.5 - 2.5 - 2.75
Members - 1480 - 1330 - ? - 29.05 - 44 - 35.62
Starfleet - 1335 - 935 - ? - 21.6 - 31.34 - 26.15
Federation - 2815 - 2265 - ? - 50.65 - 75.34 - 61.77
Now while I certainly could do an analysis for all
fifteen races listed here that would take
forever. Instead I'm going to base my analysis on Starfleet and the combined economies of all member races.
The first thing that jumps out at me is that Starfleet has about the same economic might as all our members
combined. This makes sense since the whole point of Starfleet is to fulfill our member's space born needs so their own navel forces are going to have rather small budgets comparatively speaking.
The second is that even at current mobilization levels the Federation's economy is
scary. If we bring things up to Limited Mobilization then those numbers swell to:
Name - BR - SR - Off - Enl - Tech
Members - 2220 - 1995 - 43.58 - 66 - 53.43
Starfleet - 2003 - 1403 - 32.40 - 47.01 - 39.23
Total - 4223 - 3398 - 75.98 - 113.01 - 92.66
That's quite impressive considering it can be maintained
indefinitely with no economic, though almost certainly political, repercussions.
Still those are just numbers and it can be kinda hard to grasp how impressive, or unimpressive, numbers are without something to compare them against. So lets look at how many ships we can output per year. To make things simple I'll be using just three designs (Centaur-B, Renaissance, and Excelsior-A) as they are our most common type of ship.
Peacetime Mobilization (100% income):
Members: 1.5x Excelsior-A, 5x Renaissance, 5x Centaur-B = +55.5C
Starfleet: 2x Excelsior-A, 2x Renaissance, 3x Centaur-B = +36C
Federation: 3.5x Excelsior-A, 7x Renaissance, 8x Centaur-B = +91.5C
So we end up with a pretty Crusier heavy fleet compared to our current (1:2:5 for the Federation as a whole) fleet. Unsurpisingly the primary limiting factor for both Members and Starfleet is our Officer production. We actually end up with a surplus of 185br/365sr for Members and 405br/260sr for Starfleet. The most interesting thing is that over
six years of war the Romulans lost 347C worth of ships and the Klingons 360C. Peacetime Federation can match that in just four years.
If we switch over to Limited Mobilization :
Limited Mobilization (150% income):
Members: 3x Excelsior-A, 5x Renaissance, 10x Centaur-B = +86C
Starfleet: 2.5x Excelsior-A, 4x Renaissance, 5x Centaur-B = +57.5C
Federation: 5.5x Excelsior-A, 9x Renaissance, 15x Centaur-B = +143.5C
Well the first thing that jumps out at me is that during this last year, which has had crippling losses for both sides, the Romulans lost 114C and the Klingons 118C. So the Federation could keep up the kind of losses either side took
indefinitely. In fact we'd actually be
growing in overall combat.
This is important because the Klingons and Romulans are almost certainly at Total Mobilization (250% income). At that level the Federation is capable of matching
all the losses the Klingons have suffered (360C) in
six years in just
one and a half.
Still we can't just talk about income since all those resources are useless if we don't have berths to build the ships in. Here is our distribution of Berths:
Members: 12x Excelsior Berths, 61x Renaissance and Centaur-B Berths
Starfleet: 11x Excelsior Berths, 29x Renassiance and Centaur-B Berths
Federation: 23x Excelsior Berths, 90x Renaissance and Centaur-B Berths
Now lets look at the numbers required for our various levels of Mobilization:
Peacetime Mobilization:
Members: 6x (1.5 builds/yr x 4 years) Excelsior Berths and 27x (5 builds/yr x 3 years + 5 builds/yr x 2.25 year) Renaissance and Centaur-B Berths.
Starfleet: 8x (2 builds/yr x 4 years) Excelsior Berths and 13x (2 builds/yr x 3 years + 3 builds/yr x 2.25 year) Renaissance and Centaur-B Berths.
Federation: 14x Excelsior Berths and 40x Renaissance and Centaur-B Berths.
Limited Mobilization (-2Qtr build time):
Members: 11x (3 builds/yr x 3.5 years) Excelsior Berths and 30x (5 builds/yr x 2.5 years + 10 builds/yr x 1.75 year) Renaissance and Centaur-B Berths.
Starfleet: 9x (2.5 builds/yr x 3.5 years) Excelsior Berths and 19x (4 builds/yr x 2.5 years + 5 builds/yr x 1.75 year) Renaissance and Centaur-B Berths.
Federation: 20x Excelsior Berths and 49x Renaissance and Centaur-B Berths.
Total Mobilization (-50% build time)
Federation: 18x (9 builds/yr x 2 years) Excelsior Berths and 54x (16 builds/yr x 1.5 years + 24 x 1.25 year) Renaissance and Centaur-B Berths.
So regardless of our level of mobilization we have more then enough Berths. Especially since this doesn't take into account the effects of HIP.
