August 11, 2000 note: This was originally posted in late November 1999, but has been rewritten extensively for this website. I have also added my current best guess of a production table.

I have made an attempt to estimate the size of the Grayson fleet at various times. First, I made my best guesses on about when various events took place:

The war starts in late 1905PD
Honor becomes an Admiral in Grayson service (FiE-6) in Jan 1907PD
Honor Among Enemies starts in the latter part of 1909PD
In Enemy Hands starts around Aug 1911 PD
Admiral Caparelli visits the Blackbird yard (EoH-21) in Dec 1912PD
Ashes of Victory starts November 22, 1913PD

Next I tracked down every mention of Grayson ship counts (or production) that I could find. I only found two: in HaE, the GSN had 3 newly constructed SDs; in EoH, chapter 21, the GSN had about 23 SDs (or equivalent) and change under construction.

Then I set up a production schedule for SDs. I started the first one in September 1906PD. I assumed that a new SD production "line" would initially start every seven months, but the rate would speed up over three years to a new "line" every three months (actually I put in a few delays in the first year as a consequence of repairing the ships damaged in 4th Yeltsin). Each SD takes 14 months to build (production was stretched for the first 6). Once a ship is finished, the next one in the line will start in 2 months (clean up, planning, maintance of gear). From November 1911PD to Feb 1912PD, every line that finished a ship lost its production crew to the Blackbird Yard rather than start a new ship. Also, two lines that would had started were actually started at Blackbird. Starting in May 1912PD, every line that was stopped is restarted (one every 3 months). Also, Blackbird builds one additional ship each batch.

The results are (at start of book unless noted):

FiE (chapter 6, c. Jan 1907PD) - 11 rebuilt DeQuesnes, 1 SD under construction
HaE - 10 rebuilt DeQuesnes, 3 new SDs, 6 SDs under construction
IeH - 10 DeQuesnes+15 (16) new SDs, 12 SDs under construction (any combat losses?)
EoH (chapter 21) - 10Dqs+30 (31) new SDs, 21 (22) SDs under construction
AoV - 10Dqs+48 (50) new SDs, 24 (26) "SDs" under construction (including carriers?)

I suspect that a few SD divisions, even an entire battlesquadron of the GSN was involved in the capture of Trevor's Star. If any is lost is known only to DW.

And one final comment about GSN carriers. If they are named after USN aircraft carriers in WWII, I don't want to hear about it before reading AoV (including teaser chapters).

August 11 note: I have added my entire revised table below. The numbers in black are the months for start and end. For the first 2 ships, the numbers in parentheses was the final months after delays due to repairing ships damaged in 4th Yeltsin. The numbers in red are hull numbers (assumed to be numbered from 12 in order of construction start). I do not have any starts after month 105 (May 1915 PD) because that is about when AoV ends (or so I guess).

* One of these is the flagship of the 8th Combined Fleet, "Benjamin the Great"
** "Honor Harrington"
I would be happy if David Weber ever identifies these ships by hull number, but I am not holding my breath.

Feb 9, 2003 note: David Weber finally gave a number for the size of the GSN towards the end of War of Honor, but 76 SDs (plus an unknown number, but probably less than 25, in the shops for maintenance) is less than I would have estimated. Even if 40 or more SDs had been retired (supposedly, the "Benjamin the Great" was one of the very few non SD(P)s left in service), that still means that I have overestimated their build rate by at least 50%.