SPOILERS ---- Speculation on Multiverse Naval Conflict

Long time lurker, first time poster

So at this point I've read the first half of RTH and I started thinking about what naval conflict might look like in the series. From the geography so far, this series is mainly about the land warfare, but the authors have gifted us with naval descriptions. Let's start with a catalog and speculate from there.

Sharona

Windtreader – Transatlantic liner with accommodations for 500+ first class, 450 second class, 600 third class. Speed 20+ knots. This corresponds quite well to the RMS Mauretania, although the number of third class berths has been cut in half (I guess Ternathia is a little bit more humane about how they pack them in).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Mauretania_(1906)

Ternathian Armored Cruiser (Duke Ihtrial & Prince of Ternathia) – 12,000 ton displacement, 4 x 9in guns in twin mounts, “broadside of 14 x 6in guns” (not sure if this means 14 total or in each broadside). Corresponds to the Duke of Edinburgh class armored cruisers (HMS Duke of Edinburgh & HMS Black Prince), although the armament has been switched around a bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_E ... ss_cruiser

Voyager Class Merchant Ship – ≈400ft length 55ft beam, modular construction, cargo ship with poor passenger accommodation. See Hog Islander or Liberty ships, albeit slightly smaller and using coal fired rather than oil fired boilers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hog_Islander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship

Sentient oceanic mammals – Dolphins, “Great Whales”, Orcas. Telepathic communication with human ambassadors. Described as being able to intelligently hung and break apart ships.


Arcana

Unnamed Warship - ≈400ft length ≈55ft beam (described as roughly the same as voyagers), wood hull, magic propulsion, eight gunports in each broadside (presumably) for field dragons.

Sea Drakes - Terrifying amphibious three headed hydra, “nearly ten times human size”, can be trained with a controller/rider (near suicide) or be turned loose feral, destroys ?non-sentient? whales and augmented sharks in combat. A single breeding pair and their brood took “a company of magisters” a month to hunt down. I'm a little bit uncertain of exactly how big these things are. 10 times human size might mean ≈1 ton (twice the mass of a horse) but the examples we see of swallowing a human head and tossing sharks around makes me think they might be somewhat larger than that.

Dragons & Griffins
We're all familiar with these, but I wanted to mention them.


And now, speculate away...

Seadrakes are not impervious to bullets and depthcharges. Although Emma vos Sidus might think Sharona is powerless against the beasts, a .54 caliber round fired from a Barrett-esque rifle in the cranial cavity housing the critter's brain will kill the center head. Two more rounds in the Dexter and Sinister heads kills the beast.

I strongly doubt that Sharonan frontiersmen would not have big caliber rifles. There are enough nasty animals that will survive a .30 cal hit long enough to kill a lone human that having the heaviest gun around would be attractive to Sharonan core universe emigrants. Even a bolt action buffalo gun or elephant gun would do the trick, if a shot has placed well.

What really intrigues me are Genies. I suspect they are the sources of Andrin's burning city vision. Furthermore, Genies are sentient and I suspect susceptible to Sharonan mental Talents. Since Sharonans are already accustomed to living with non-human sentients without needing to control them, the combination of Talent and experience with alien sentients will neutralize those magic using artificial intelligences. Perhaps do more that neutralize....co-opt maybe?

PeterZ wrote:Seadrakes are not impervious to bullets and depthcharges. Although Emma vos Sidus might think Sharona is powerless against the beasts, a .54 caliber round fired from a Barrett-esque rifle in the cranial cavity housing the critter's brain will kill the center head. Two more rounds in the Dexter and Sinister heads kills the beast.

I strongly doubt that Sharonan frontiersmen would not have big caliber rifles. There are enough nasty animals that will survive a .30 cal hit long enough to kill a lone human that having the heaviest gun around would be attractive to Sharonan core universe emigrants. Even a bolt action buffalo gun or elephant gun would do the trick, if a shot has placed well.

What really intrigues me are Genies. I suspect they are the sources of Andrin's burning city vision. Furthermore, Genies are sentient and I suspect susceptible to Sharonan mental Talents. Since Sharonans are already accustomed to living with non-human sentients without needing to control them, the combination of Talent and experience with alien sentients will neutralize those magic using artificial intelligences. Perhaps do more that neutralize....co-opt maybe?

Vos Sidus really wants to see sea drakes used for blockade or released feral as a self replicating area denial weapon. I agree that they're -way- more vulnerable to Sharonan tech than he could imagine. The kicker though is that you have to be able to find them to shoot them.

I posit that although we've been treated to discussion of Cetacean combat, the whales and dolphins are no match for drakes. Instead we would see them scouting for depth charge armed destroyers (or fast attack boats or whatever). This scenario would be nasty though if the drakes were trying to close with the cetaceans while charges are dropping into the water.

Attacking a machine gun armed warship is suicide for a drake. I doubt it can cause serious harm to a Sharonan warship before it dies. I agree that cetaceans will be most valuable as scouts. I also think that a pod of orcas that can improve teamwork with better communication can take out a drake.

If vos Sidus does think that a drake is dangerous to shipping, it might suggest that Mythalan naval ships might be easy targets for any ISN warships. Wooden ships that can resist fire and electrical damage might prove susceptible to explosive shells.

PeterZ wrote:Attacking a machine gun armed warship is suicide for a drake. I doubt it can cause serious harm to a Sharonan warship before it dies. I agree that cetaceans will be most valuable as scouts. I also think that a pod of orcas that can improve teamwork with better communication can take out a drake.

If vos Sidus does think that a drake is dangerous to shipping, it might suggest that Mythalan naval ships might be easy targets for any ISN warships. Wooden ships that can resist fire and electrical damage might prove susceptible to explosive shells.

The big shock the Arcanans are going to have when it comes to naval warfare with Sharona is that once the Sharonans get the facilities working they will be building very large ships (compared to Arcana), armed with very large guns. The Arcanans will probably max out with a ship of the line propelled by magic, with artillery dragons in place of guns. I believe that post Napolianic war ships of the line managed to max the practical size of wooden ships, Arcanans ships are unlikely to be larger than Nelson's HMS Victory. Think about Victory tangling with an ~WWI cruiser or Washington Treaty Cruiser. Default armor for the Sharonian protected cruisers would likely be impervious to a French 75 fired into the main belt from the dock the ship is tied up to, Armed with anything from 5 to 8 inch in bore.

Considering that Arcana employees levitation spells, I doubt they will allow the limitation of wood's structural strength inhibit the size of their ships. That doesn't mean that fortified wood would shrug a round from a real naval artillery rifle.

PeterZ wrote:Considering that Arcana employees levitation spells, I doubt they will allow the limitation of wood's structural strength inhibit the size of their ships. That doesn't mean that fortified wood would shrug a round from a real naval artillery rifle.

And in fact we have textev that the transport that Shaylar and Jathmar boarded was around 400ft long. HMS victory was less than 200. USS Constitution is just over 300. I don't think this represents overcoming the structural strength of wood though. If you don't have to account for rigging or heavy guns your ship can be bigger. Heck, with magic propulsion maybe you don't even need a rudder. We're also told that the charge needed to levitate a dragon transport pod for 24 hours would run a ship for a week. Constant levitation would be a huge resource drain if it was needed just to keep your ship intact.

I think the point about armament is more salient than ship size though. A 9in naval gun has a max range of over 25Km. Even if you say that your -effective- range is 5Km or less, you're going to outrange the field dragons. Judging from the descriptions of the actual flying dragons, the range of heavy magic weapons is less than 1Km. Arcanan weapons have shown no penetration ability either, so it's probably safe to assume they're not armored against it.

Come on oh wise canoer! RFC is setting up his version of carriers versus battleships. Not sure how he will make dragons able to survive pedestal guns and fast 4" inchers spreading shrapnel. Obscuring spells might do the trick to get dragons close but hardly enough to improve survival, just improve the odds of getting off the breath weapon.

As for effective range, I believe dolphin spotters and animal speakers guiding shots over the horizon to bypass any spells to obscure the target ships. Dolphins can see the splashes and the target ship's hull and Send back to the firing ships. I doubt Arcanans would obscure what their ships looked like from underneath.

Between dolphin scouts, predictive far seers, rifled artillery and more armour than artillery dragons can melt away those Mythalan ships had better keep their distance. That means they become carriers.

PeterZ wrote:Come on oh wise canoer! RFC is setting up his version of carriers versus battleships. Not sure how he will make dragons able to survive pedestal guns and fast 4" inchers spreading shrapnel. Obscuring spells might do the trick to get dragons close but hardly enough to improve survival, just improve the odds of getting off the breath weapon.

As for effective range, I believe dolphin spotters and animal speakers guiding shots over the horizon to bypass any spells to obscure the target ships. Dolphins can see the splashes and the target ship's hull and Send back to the firing ships. I doubt Arcanans would obscure what their ships looked like from underneath.

Between dolphin scouts, predictive far seers, rifled artillery and more armour than artillery dragons can melt away those Mythalan ships had better keep their distance. That means they become carriers.

I would say we're far more likely to see asymmetric sea battles, such as clearing out a sea drake infestation or fending off a deep strike dragon raid launched from a land base. Big head to head sea battles require that both sides have a large capable shipyard in a contested universe, which is certainly not the current case.

As far as keeping our distance, I've got a nasty idea... Arcana has 'blasting spells' capable of knocking down a fort wall. Unlike their other military spells that we've seen, they definitely have penetrating power. Arcana also has griffins. If it's possible to set a spell to trigger under certain conditions, pair the two and you get living cruise missiles.

Those spells require a fair amount of the Gift to detonate.

CanoeSage wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Come on oh wise canoer! RFC is setting up his version of carriers versus battleships. Not sure how he will make dragons able to survive pedestal guns and fast 4" inchers spreading shrapnel. Obscuring spells might do the trick to get dragons close but hardly enough to improve survival, just improve the odds of getting off the breath weapon.

As for effective range, I believe dolphin spotters and animal speakers guiding shots over the horizon to bypass any spells to obscure the target ships. Dolphins can see the splashes and the target ship's hull and Send back to the firing ships. I doubt Arcanans would obscure what their ships looked like from underneath.

Between dolphin scouts, predictive far seers, rifled artillery and more armour than artillery dragons can melt away those Mythalan ships had better keep their distance. That means they become carriers.

I would say we're far more likely to see asymmetric sea battles, such as clearing out a sea drake infestation or fending off a deep strike dragon raid launched from a land base. Big head to head sea battles require that both sides have a large capable shipyard in a contested universe, which is certainly not the current case.

As far as keeping our distance, I've got a nasty idea... Arcana has 'blasting spells' capable of knocking down a fort wall. Unlike their other military spells that we've seen, they definitely have penetrating power. Arcana also has griffins. If it's possible to set a spell to trigger under certain conditions, pair the two and you get living cruise missiles.