Explore the 9 Tiers of Star Citizen's Space Navy Fleets
New operational domains for sideritime and aerospace forces need a new way of organizational thinking. But that doesn't mean we can't still learn a thing or two from traditional Navy organization. Below, we examine two real-world naval classification system types and how we can synthesize them into a practical classification system for fleets1 in Star Citizen.
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Real-world classification systems
The United States Navy has used the terms blue-water navy, green-water navy, and brown-water navy to distinguish between the presumed capabilities of different maritime forces. Blue-water and green-water navies can sustain operations in the deep waters of open oceans, and allow a nation to project power far from the home country. But only blue-water navies have the competency to operate across oceans on a global scale, while green-water navies are limited to the littoral zone and the ocean of their surrounding region. Brown-water navies are strictly limited to the littoral zone and can navigate much shallower and narrower waterways than blue- and green-water navies.
A more recent classification system emerged from former Blohm + Voss analyst Sarah Kirchberger in her book “Assessing China's Naval Power: Technological Innovation, Economic Constraints, and Strategic Implications”. Building on previous work from Todd & Lindberg, she organizes the world’s navies into just two categories: Blue-water, and Non Blue-water.
In Kirchberger’s system, the two categories are further split into ten total ranks. Each rank indicates a gradual increase in a maritime force’s capabilities. For instance, a Non Blue-water navy can exist as nothing more than a token security force, or can be large and capable enough to defend its nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). A maritime force is considered to possess a blue-water navy when it becomes powerful enough that it can begin projecting power outside of that EEZ, with the penultimate Blue-water navy able to conduct and sustain multiple power projection missions all over the world.
Translating it into Star Citizen
Whether using the United States Navy’s classification system or the one refined by Kirchberger, one thing remains clear: there is a distinction between a navy’s ability to defend their home waters and project power beyond it. Another—albeit unspoken—distinction lies in the assumption that a nation can exercise command of the sea in their nation’s region.
Therefor the lowest common denominator that can be used to define a maritime fleet’s status as a blue-water navy, non blue-water navy, or any kind of navy in between is based on how far from the shores of its home nation it can travel. We can easily translate the idea of shores to various domain boundaries within Star Citizen.2
A secondary consideration would be how long a fleet can sustain operations outside of its territory. In Star Citizen, this is currently determined by a player’s ability to log out properly without having to return to their home territory first. To log out properly, a player needs access to a bed.
Practical categories to measure your fleet by
By synthesizing the descriptions of environments in “Defining the Battlespace” with the tiered systems developed by the US Navy and Kirchberger, we can come to clear and well-defined fleet categorizations which would compose a sideritime force. They are: interspatial fleet, apsidal fleet, and Karman fleet. Each of fleet type is defined by its ability to defend its own territory while also being able to project power outside of its own territory.
An interspatial fleet is the equivalent of a blue-water navy. It can project power across multiple systems. The lowest-tier interspatial fleets can sustain one extra-territorial operation in a system other than their own. Mid-tier interspatial fleets can sustain multiple extra-territorial operations in one system other than their own. The highest-tier interspatial fleets can sustain at least one extra-territorial operation across multiple systems other than their own, concurrently.
An apsidal fleet is the equivalent of a green-water navy. It can project power across multiple planetary neighborhoods. Low-tier apsidal fleets can sustain one extra-territorial operation in their home system, while mid-tier apsidal fleets can sustain multiple extra-territorial operations in their home system. High-tier apsidal fleets can exercise space control across their entire home system.
A Karman fleet is the equivalent of a brown-water navy. Low-tier Karman fleets are limited to orbital and sub-orbital operations, while mid-tier Karman fleets are limited to sublight operations. High-tier Karman fleets can travel at faster than light speeds (FTL), but are for other reasons limited to operations in their planetary neighborhood.
Anything strictly limited to airborne operations within an atmosphere is more appropriately equated to an air force or army and is not explored in this article.
Editor’s Note — We’ve opted to use the term “fleet” over “navy” in our definitions due to the nature of sideritime operations, which can often resemble both those undertaken by maritime navies and air forces.
Anonymous. “Defining the Battlespace”, The Doctrine, 9 Jul 2021, https://doctrine.substack.com/p/defining-the-battlespace