[Scourge of Ages]

Well, I suppose that would be counted under "damage control."

[SpardaSon21]

Not necessarily, there's damage control (fixing what's busted) and there's taking over for busted computer controls (which would be stuff like gunnery, nav, engine monitoring).

[Paladin327]

we also dont know to how much automation is used on ships 200-400 years into the future. and how many destroyers do we know the crew of canonically, GTD Galatea, GTD Aquatane, NTD Repulse, and GTD Carthage. how many of them are flagships? at least 3. perhaps a standard destroyer compliment is around 5000-8000 with the extras working on fleet command duty? that might be a very bad estimate, but still

[TrashMan]

I also have been wandering about crew numbers.

On battleship, gun crews took a large portion of the crew (because there were so many guns). On carriers, the flight crew takes up half the crew.

But for FS2 ships..they seem very underarmed for their size. The number of guns is tiny compared to their size. Engine limitations for one, but one does have to wonder what exactly are all those thousands of people doing.

[karajorma]

I'm still wondering what those hundreds or thousands of people on a cruiser or corvette would be doing. Not counting damage control, what is there that couldn't be handled much more efficiently by sufficiently advanced computers and robots?

Why does the Nimitz need a crew of several thousand while an oil tanker can get by with a handful of people on the crew?

[Dilmah G]

Well the Nimitz is more or less a moving city...

I couldn't fathom a Fenris with a mini-grocery store and library onboard.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

On a cruiser? Unlikely, unless if it was meant to travel away from Allied space for a very long time.

On a destroyer or a corvette, though, there's a possibility.

[TrashMan]

A cruiser certanly has the volume for such things.

Larger ships have a tendancy to have areas for crew. A carrier has it's own TV station, barber shop, dentist, various shops and all kinds of things like that.
I belive the Iowa used to have a few such things too (but fewer, there's over 3 times less personell on board)

for refference:
Nimitz (332m)
Ship's company: 3,200
Air wing: 2,480

Iowa (272m)
151 officers, 2637 enlisted (crew number for the older, 158 guns variant. For the new one it's 1660.)

[IronBeer]

Also, lest we forget- starships in FS are very large.

Using those figures from the Nimitz as reference (yes, I know they aren't necessarily valid, but it is at least some kind of basis for estimation), we could easily figure the proportion of flight crew to ship's crew aboard an Orion. Now, we don't necessarily know whether that number of ten thousand includes flight crew, but it probably would not be too tough to fit another 7000ish people into a 2km-long city in space.

Assuming ten thousand counts everybody, a little math would produce an estimate of roughly 5500 crew for ship operation- a remarkably small figure for such a (let's face it) gargantuan vessel. Regardless of which crew count is correct, it is safe to assume some serious automation is in effect.

[QuantumDelta]

Spaceships and seaships are a bit different. Lifesupport systems that don't rely on Star Trek (Replicators) or Star Wars (non-existent?) technology are ........quite large.
As much as I hate the series, bab5 had a much more believable system for the station, for the fighters and cap ships though I still didn't really see anything.

[Droid803]

Star Wars has Lifesupport. Well, people mention it but it's just there as some generic subsystem.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Can it be said that Babylon 5 is America IN SPACE then?
 
Also, for some reason, I keep thinking about the Archangel in Gundam SEED DESTINY and its hot springs...

[SpardaSon21]

Well, it wouldn't be anime if it didn't have some kind of hot spring/bathouse scene in it.

[TrashMan]

Let's do some more calculation, shall we?
Nimitz (332m)
Ship's company: 3,200
Air wing: 2,480

For 80-90 fighters that the Nimitz carries that comes down to 2480/80 = ~ 30-27 crew members per plane



Iowa (272m)
151 officers, 2637 enlisted  (I'll assume a total of 2788, but I think I'm wrong here)

So, 2788 for 158 guns and 1660 for 73 guns...
That comes down to....roughly 1000 people for 73 guns? 10-13 crew members per gun.


That would put the air crew for 150 spacecraft at 4500 crew members. (and 3600 for 120 spacecraft)
By the same logic, 30 turrets would require 300-390 crew members.
So IronBears calculation for 5500 regular crew for a destroyer sound about right.

This is assuming similar requirements.

[Scotty]

Let's do some more calculation, shall we?
Nimitz (332m)
Ship's company: 3,200
Air wing: 2,480

For 80-90 fighters that the Nimitz carries that comes down to 2480/80 = ~ 30-27 crew members per plane



Iowa (272m)
151 officers, 2637 enlisted  (I'll assume a total of 2788, but I think I'm wrong here)

So, 2788 for 158 guns and 1660 for 73 guns...
That comes down to....roughly 1000 people for 73 guns? 10-13 crew members per gun.


That would put the air crew for 150 spacecraft at 4500 crew members. (and 3600 for 120 spacecraft)
By the same logic, 30 turrets would require 300-390 crew members.
So IronBears calculation for 5500 regular crew for a destroyer sound about right.

This is assuming similar requirements.

All of this ignores damage control, engineering, navigation, bridge crew, and the whole shebang that goes with a ship that possibly won't return to port for several months at a time.

[Droid803]

That's where the other 4500 people come in, of course

[Scourge of Ages]

A big difference between modern warships and FS warships is in the guns. You don't need 20 guys per turret. There's no ammo to load (except missiles and flak, and those would have auto loaders anyway), there shouldn't be anything that you can manually maintain or adjust while it's firing. I think there would at maximum be 3 people per turret, and everything else automated.
How many total weapons on an Orion? 20? 30? x3 guys x3 shifts = 270 guys for weaponry. Say 30-60 command staff (including communications). 10-30 for navigation (assuming some really complicated stuff). 100-300 engineers that keep the reactors and vital systems running. 300-800 crew for various support duties, including food, light maintenance, cleaning, etc.
1460 estimated crew plus however many for damage control, marines, and flight crew.

What duties would damage control have on an Orion? I really have no idea, which is why I don't put numbers for that.

And remember: Just because you have room for 20 thousand folks, doesn't mean you need to carry that many.

[SpardaSon21]

We already know how many crewmen are on an Orion though, Admiral Koth stated he had ten thousand men ready to die for Neo-Terra when he was preparing to ram the Colossus, and I don't think that's ever been contradicted.

[Scotty]

A big difference between modern warships and FS warships is in the guns. You don't need 20 guys per turret. There's no ammo to load (except missiles and flak, and those would have auto loaders anyway), there shouldn't be anything that you can manually maintain or adjust while it's firing. I think there would at maximum be 3 people per turret, and everything else automated.
How many total weapons on an Orion? 20? 30? x3 guys x3 shifts = 270 guys for weaponry. Say 30-60 command staff (including communications). 10-30 for navigation (assuming some really complicated stuff). 100-300 engineers that keep the reactors and vital systems running. 300-800 crew for various support duties, including food, light maintenance, cleaning, etc.
1460 estimated crew plus however many for damage control, marines, and flight crew.

What duties would damage control have on an Orion? I really have no idea, which is why I don't put numbers for that.

And remember: Just because you have room for 20 thousand folks, doesn't mean you need to carry that many.

Unfortunately, we have several canon numbers for Orion crew sizes.  That means some of these numbers are wrong.  I would like to know how you determined that there are only three gunners per gun.  Some of those guns are three or four times the size of your fighter, and I highly doubt all of it is automation and computers.

[Droid803]

There are several instances of Canon referencing the exact same number for the crew of a GTD Orion: Ten Thousand.