Museum ships?

Henry Brown wrote:
Are you talking about civilian ships or warships? If you are talking about merchant steamers, then yes I agree with you that there will be a lot of them built.

But I think warship construction is going to slow way down. I think Charis will probably finish the ironclads already under construction. But after that I think they will build the bare minimum number of warships they need.

I see two issues here.
1) There is a crapload of folks in uniform that can't be released immediately. They have to be released back into the private sector incrementally to avoid a glut even the Charisian economy can't accommodate.

One answer is to invest in steamers for the navy. There are plenty of private sector shippers who will buy commercial steamers. Those working merchies will need to have a navy to protect them. That doesn't mean the navy needs to outnumber the merchies. It only means there are enough naval vessels to be visible whereever there is a Charisian merchie.

The merchant marine will be growing fast. The new steamers can print money schlepping goods to North Harchong to build their infrastructure. That population is huge and has no infrastrucutre to speak of. Anything they produce internally have to be moved by ship. Whatever they cannot produce has to be shipped in from the EoC.

That new navy looks like a squadron or two of dreadnought battlewagons and a whole heck of a lot cruisers to patrol areas where the merchies are. The patrols won't be to protect against pirates, but to keep the authorities on shore from doing something stupid to those merchies. That means even an ICN deploying 100 ships will need about 80-90 light cruisers and destroyers capable of patrolling the waters within the Empire, the Gulf of Dohlar as well as Hsing-wu's Passage. Besides the Haarald's, nothing the ICN has now can do that. They'll have to build them.

Relying on sailing ships won't work for the ICN because they have neither the punch to remonstrate with recalcitrant authorities nor the speed to whistle up an available battlewagon. The ICN needs those cruisers to support the growing merchant fleet and speed up their communications to better protect those merchies. Even with that need the ICN can steadily draw down the ICN personnel as each of those steam cruisers are deployed, since these ships can perform more tasks than each sailing cruiser.

In the end the ICN has to modernize to free up personnel into the private economy as well as improve its ability to protect the steamers being built for private shippers.

Think of it this way:

Any brown-water steamer is effectively obsolete. That is, Delthak her kin. Maybe Charis can find uses for them as re-fitted coastal defense pocket battleships in their important harbors, but that would be about it. Unless you stripped out most of their guns and armor, rebuilt their top sides to be more sea-worthy, and re-purposed the hulls and engines to introduce a type of coast guard unit/service to the Safehold. Which may make sense, as it would help Charis maintain a 'reserve' under a different name. Either way, nothing would be lost in having one (Delthak) or two (??) ordered to become museum ships in various important harbors of the kingdom. They would require minimal maintenance and crew (still some, tho), but would also serve to further expose the new technology to more people.

Also, any wood-hulled ironclad (steamer or not) is obsolete and the iron will likely be taken off and re-purposed to other means. If the supply of raw material is sufficient, why not send a few into museum status?

Keep in mind, Merlin and the rest are thinking about the long game. Nahrmahn (at least) is sure to stumble upon the importance of museum ships and memorials on Earth. Think about it. Charis is developing a 'modern' economy - one that will (if not already) have built in days off for workers and a growing middle class with free time and money to spend on non-necessities. While a lot of that will surely go to the new technologies and machines that make life easier, don't be surprised if Charis does seek to encourage to a small degree that it's citizens take vacations. Vacations = tourism (a brand new industry unheard of outside of visits to the Temple!), and with greatly quicker mobility people can actually take advantage of it.

Finally, one last note. Keeping museum ships (and other pre-Merlin forms of technology) intact will only serve to enforce the message Charis wants to send. For every doubter who clings to the Book of Langhorne and Chihiro, there will be nine people who look at these galleys, wooden galleons, and early ironclads that were cutting edge two or three decades ago and realize just how much better their life has gotten. It reminds them of everything that was kept from them that could have made their life better.

There is one ship that needs to be preserved over all others and I am stunned that it has yet to be mentioned.

HMS Destiny

'Nuff Said

BrightSoul wrote:There is one ship that needs to be preserved over all others and I am stunned that it has yet to be mentioned.

HMS Destiny

'Nuff Said

Not in Kings Harbor, but in Manchyr Harbor. Right next to the only Corisandian galley that returned home after the battle of Darcos.