JumpShips in 3025

TL;DR? 920 Invaders, 540 Merchants, 225 Scouts (spread around 340 border systems), 160 Star Lords, 65 Monoliths, and 90 more obscure types. At most 14/36ths of a military's 'Mech regiments can be sent on planetary assault missions, and those missions require an average commitment of 1 jump collar per 4 'Mechs (to account for attack ships, continual supply and whatever else).

[Edit, 2019 Oct 6: better estimate here. /Edit]


Going back to the 1st edition RPG's unit generation tables with an estimated 387.44 (nominal; not full-strength) regiments operating in the Successor States (sheet here), I get 2942 'Mech detachments, ranging from 2 to 108 'Mechs in size. Attached to these 'Mech units I find:

7100 Aerospace Fighters
900 Leopard DropShips
2570 Union DropShips
96 Overlord DropShips
At least 470 JumpShips
At most 1140 JumpShips

JumpShips are assigned to 1143 'Mech detachments (or, 1143/2942 = .389 of all detachments).

The Succession Wars boardgame starts with enough Jump capacity to move 56 of the 145 army chits (or, 56/145 = .386 of all 'Mech forces).
The RPG (page 100) describes major campaigns as involving "a minimum of 10-20 regiments of 'Mechs per side." If we assume each House has about half their force on each border, then at the low end Liao would use 10 of 26.22 (26.22 = 52.44/2, estimated from the Liao sourcebook) regiments (or, 10/26.22 = .381 of the forces on that border) while at the high end Davion would use 20 of 59 (59 = 118/2, estimated from the Davion sourcebook) regiments (or, 20/59 = .340 of the forces on that border).

Maybe it's only coincidence that three different kinds of products have .38-something pop up as how much of a House military can go on campaign; but if so then it's a remarkably stable coincidence. I also notice that the fractions obtained from the generation tables and the boardgame (whose values involve the least guesswork on my part) are practically indistinguishable from 14/36ths (14/36 = .389).

 

Now, since large detachments get assigned JumpShips more easily than small detachments do, regimental Jump capacity comes out quite a bit higher than 39%; plus, cargo ships and attack ships need Jumping too. How does it all fit together?

Looking at the General Encounters Table, I see that an Assault force is twice as likely as a Garrison to receive new supplies or personnel, and (using my trick with assignment and encounter frequencies) a House with 14/36 regiments on assault/relief duty does almost twice as much fighting as it would under normal conditions.

So: assault missions seem to require twice a unit's normal Jump capacity.

algebra

If JumpShips attached to 'Mech garrisons normally help supply units on other missions, then House navies have about 20% extra KF capacity assigned to move cargo and attack ships; if garrisons don't help move supplies, then House navies must have about 56% extra KF capacity.

Which JumpShips Are They?

From DropShips and JumpShips:

Invaders (Common), 920 total, 51% state military, 17% merc, 32% civilian;
Merchants (Common), most privately owned;
Scouts (Uncommon), exclusive to state militaries;
Star Lords (Rare), few still in service, very few outside the largest organizations; and
Monoliths (Rare), exclusive to state militaries, only a few dozen still operate.

From other sources I also know that the Synguard trading cartel operates 3 Monoliths, Irian Technologies operates 12 Scouts (referred to as Explorer JumpShips), Curtiss Hydrosystems has 37 Iceships, the White Swan passenger line has 7 luxury liners, and I suppose Wolf's Dragoons would have 5 Monoliths. These constraints plus MW1e's 'Mech unit generator give me a fairly inflexible frame to work from:

PROBLEMS!

• MW1e unit generation skips from Invaders to Monoliths. It ignores Star Lords.
• The "navy" column is for state-operated ships that the MW1e unit generation tables didn't assign to 'Mech units. Obviously there'd be some give and take between the two columns.
• Unforeseeable oddball stuff, like the Dragoons operating Monoliths or Irian keeping a fleet of Scouts, means these figures are subject to tweaking.
• It is really hard to make room for Merchant class ships in the state military numbers.