HFQ Official Snippet #8

The building plans for the Charisian Navy are inspired by the strategic and tactical goals of the war.
The plans for the KH-VII battleships are from before the Sword of Schueler. They were intended to be the first steam powered, steel armored warships on Safehold. Initially envisioned as sail / steam ships, after the success of the ironclad riverboats redesigned without sails.

The development of the war in Siddarmark brought us the ironclad riverboats. Four improvised steam powered gunboats build to wreck the CoGA logistics. Their success led to the second generation of ironclad riverboats and the Eraystor coastal patrol ships.

This new thread imposed by the Desnairian schooners should lead to a new ship type added to the table of ICN steel ships. Corvettes designed for convoy escort duty.
See my previous post about such ships. http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?p=163636#p163636

I realize that the first impulse is to build what can be the fastest deployed, but the ICN should not invest in wooden sailing ships anymore.
If Maikelberg is producing enough steel, that sounds as an excellent place to start building these ships.

edit typos

True, but IIRC the snippet didn't call them privateers. These are navy commerce raiders.

pokermind wrote:Moi Druge, the whole point of being a privateer (a business like any other) is to capture the ship and cargo to sell thus make money pay crew etc. Just sinking is a navy option.

Poker

Dilandu wrote:
Colleague, you missed my point. I'm talking from the RAIDER position. The cargo ship - every Charisian cargo ship - from the point of Deshnarian raider is a target for destruction, not capture. So, they wouldn't bother themselves with any boarding actions; they simply cross the bow and fire a few salvos.

Tanstaafl wrote:The building plans for the Charisian Navy are inspired by the strategic and tactical goals of the war.
The plans for the KH-VII battleships are from before the Sword of Schueler. They were intended to be the first steam powered, steel armored warships on Safehold. Initially envisioned as sail / steam ships, after the success of the ironclad riverboats redesigned without sails.

The development of the war in Siddarmark brought us the ironclad riverboats. Four improvised steam powered gunboats build to wreck the CoGA logistics. Their success led to the second generation of ironclad riverboats and the Eraystor coastal patrol ships.

This new thread imposed by the Desnairian schooners should lead to a new ship type added to the table of ICN steel ships. Corvettes designed for convoy escort duty.
See my previous post about such ships. http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?p=163636#p163636

I realize that the first impulse is to build what can be the fastest deployed, but the ICN should not invest in wooden sailing ships anymore.
If Maikelberg is producing enough steel, that sounds as an excellent place to start building these ships.

edit typos

I totally agree. The ICN should not invest in wooden hulled schooners. That's why they hire those schooners as contracted auxiliaries. These ships will be financed, built and owned by private investors. The Crown hires them as to augment the ICN. If Cayleb offers contracts for 5 years or so, investors would be able to either fully recoup their investment or mostly recoup it. At the end of the contract, the ship will be either wholly or mostly paid off.

This assumes that there aren't sufficient resources to use 100% of the available ship builders to build the types of ships the ICN wants to own. That excess building capacity can build what they know how to build quickly and sell those ships as potential private auxiliaries.

Dilandu, how can even you say in one breath that the EoC is short of steam engines and in the next be saying they should be building hundreds of screw gunboats? There is something of a contradiction there, no? Also the textev is that the Desnairian privateers are in fact cutting cargo galleons out of convoys, not just sinking as many as they can.

PeterZ you do rememberthat the EoC doesn't have smokeless powder or HE just at the moment don't you? And the commerce raiding sounds to be a kind of urgent problem.

Which is also the difficulty of designing, from scratch, a whole new class of ships requiring scarce armour and engine resources in order to deal with these raiders, Tanstaafl.

Randomiser wrote:Oh Dear!

"Between our own galleons and Lieutenant Zhwaigair’s screw-galleys — and that other project of his — I think we’d have a pretty good chance of handing them a serious defeat if they were foolish enough to come out where we can get at them."

What other project would that be, I wonder? Mines aren't going to help in a battle and spar torpedoes would be an adjunct to the screw-galleys probably.

It's spar torpedo's, RFC let that slip months ago, see here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5254&p=129814#p129792

Tanstaafl wrote:The building plans for the Charisian Navy are inspired by the strategic and tactical goals of the war.
The plans for the KH-VII battleships are from before the Sword of Schueler. They were intended to be the first steam powered, steel armored warships on Safehold. Initially envisioned as sail / steam ships, after the success of the ironclad riverboats redesigned without sails.

The development of the war in Siddarmark brought us the ironclad riverboats. Four improvised steam powered gunboats build to wreck the CoGA logistics. Their success led to the second generation of ironclad riverboats and the Eraystor coastal patrol ships.

This new thread imposed by the Desnairian schooners should lead to a new ship type added to the table of ICN steel ships. Corvettes designed for convoy escort duty.
See my previous post about such ships. http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?p=163636#p163636

I realize that the first impulse is to build what can be the fastest deployed, but the ICN should not invest in wooden sailing ships anymore.
If Maikelberg is producing enough steel, that sounds as an excellent place to start building these ships.

edit typos

I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly.... provided the capacity is available. But in the meantime...tumtetumtum

Don

Randomiser wrote:Which is also the difficulty of designing, from scratch, a whole new class of ships requiring scarce armour and engine resources in order to deal with these raiders, Tanstaafl.

It is not really from scratch. They know how to build the KH-VII and the Eraystor. Something in between is not that hard a design problem.

If Howsmyn instructs his design board carefully and describes a corvette in functional terms, they can have a rough draft in 24 hours, blueprints in less than a month.

I think the difference in launching the first corvette or a schooner is measured in month, not in years. And a corvette is so much more valuable.

Randomiser,

The EoC does have smokeless powder as of LaMA. They are in process of developing true high explosives in usable quantities. AAMOF, the M96s are scheduled to use smokeless powder by summer 897. The Mahndrayn converts can't use smokeless rounds due to the increased pressures. I suspect by the time the KHVIIs commission, they will use smokeless powder to some degree.

Tanstaafl wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Which is also the difficulty of designing, from scratch, a whole new class of ships requiring scarce armour and engine resources in order to deal with these raiders, Tanstaafl.

It is not really from scratch. They know how to build the KH-VII and the Eraystor. Something in between is not that hard a design problem.

If Howsmyn instructs his design board carefully and describes a corvette in functional terms, they can have a rough draft in 24 hours, blueprints in less than a month.

I think the difference in launching the first corvette or a schooner is measured in month, not in years. And a corvette is so much more valuable.

Trouble is that a corvette has a steam engine to power it and a schooner doesn't. Sure they can build a wooden corvette about as quickly as a schooner. What projects will have be delayed to provide those corvettes with their engines?

If they use schooners financed by private investors built in yards that haven't been upgraded yet, they can build corvettes for the navy and get schooners protecting convoys quickly.

Tanstaafl wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Which is also the difficulty of designing, from scratch, a whole new class of ships requiring scarce armour and engine resources in order to deal with these raiders, Tanstaafl.

It is not really from scratch. They know how to build the KH-VII and the Eraystor. Something in between is not that hard a design problem.

If Howsmyn instructs his design board carefully and describes a corvette in functional terms, they can have a rough draft in 24 hours, blueprints in less than a month.

I think the difference in launching the first corvette or a schooner is measured in month, not in years. And a corvette is so much more valuable.

According to the snippet, they already have initiated a design called "cities" which is described as a coastal design much more seaworthy than the Delthaks which is already working on the commerce raiding problem.

I agree with your comment on the design issue. That part of it wouldn't be hard. Where I am skeptical of your proposal has to do with availability of steam engines and steel. The EOC is already going full bore on such things as rifles, artillery, and armored ships which as I understand it are referring to steam.

The merit of the schooners at this point is how quickly large numbers of the things can be built and large numbers are precisely what is needed right now. Eventually large numbers of the steam ships can be built too, but that is eventually. It seems to me to be wise to expand is an area where industrial capacity is not already stretched to the limit. The schooners could be built anywhere in the Empire.

Don