Jonathan_S wrote:JeffEngel wrote:Specialized dredging equipment may do wonders, but squadrons don't routinely sail with that.
They've got explosive shells and bags for prepping gunpowder. I doubt they had much specialized underwater demolition gear for the exercise. (Although it would have been mighty handy for blowing locks on the canals to stop the screw-galleys, too, if they'd been in time.) Underwater explosions near a ship, even an armored one, will be mighty dangerous - heck, if they weren't, the spar torpedo would be a non-threat.
Following this thought off on a tangent I'm wondering a few things.
1) (Succumbing to a tendency to play Monday Morning Quarterback) How vulnerable would the lightly constructed hulls of the screw galleys be to nearby underwater explosions? And would the high capacity shells carried by Charis's late model muzzle loaders fuse and explode effectively when they hit (or preferably shortly after they hit) water?
I think they have to hope for the best with such near-misses rather than rely on such performance or even aim for it and design for it.
Could their gallons attempt to drive off, disable, or sink screw galley through mining effect by firing at the water near them - rather than trying to pierce their armor prow?
That's likely asking a lot more aiming than is practical under the circumstances.
2) How improved in the underwater protection on the new King Haarahld class battleships? Was there enough foresight (or maybe more pertinently; a reasonable excuse) to slip in a real anti-torpedo defense. (Especially given that those were notoriously flawed in coal powered battleships due to the competing demand for reasonable passage of coal to the boilers)
I've been wondering more about whether or not or how they're giving thought to torpedo-boat destroyers. Mind you, that's going to be a response to effective torpedo delivery systems, which haven't come up yet and aren't likely to originate with the Temple side soon or easily.
The Temple could use automotive torpedoes and mines so much more, because they're hopelessly outclassed in the armor and gunnery fields, but the technical requirements for really good torpedoes are so far beyond them and the conceptual leaps aren't encouraged in their background. So-so torpedo delivery systems are another thing - the spar torpedo is already one such, and a Turtle- or Hunley-style submarine is one they could probably try. In any such case though, they'd need still or very slow targets near their harbors. Maneuvering and close night watches can provide a lot of protection that way before making demands on the design and construction.
3) What has the COGA or it secular allies been working on for improved harbor defense? Contact mines? Command detonated mines? Just improved coast artillery?
Screw galleys, really, as the primary tool, along with the spar torpedo. Mines do not seem to have emerged yet, but they're plausible in the future, when there is one. Improved coastal artillery is up there, but there are serious questions about how well it is going to be able to do against armored ships with long-range, fast-firing guns: the Temple harbor guns are getting huge, but that's so much time, metal, and expense there won't be many of them (and they suck resources away from naval and field gunnery), and they are very slow-firing still.
Implausibly exotic would be developing something like Louis Brennan's cable-powered guided torpedo. It would fall within Langhorns prohibitions, but it's complicated enough that odds are only Merlin and Owl could design it in a timely manner, and they and Charis likely don't have any compelling reason to radically advance underwater munitions.
And compelling reason not to expose the Temple to that kind of idea, yes. It's a risk in being too forward with anti-torpedo/mine techniques too - you don't want to suggest to the enemy the things you're worried about!
Which is too bad in a way because those are impressive mechanical designs that few people seem to know about. But were good enough the UK's Royal Navy adopted them for harbor defense in the 1880 and used them as such for over 15 years. There was no engine or battery onboard to drive the torpedo. Instead there were two spooled cables of very thin steel wire. When launched a shore station pulled in the wire and it's cable spools were mechanically linked to couterrotating propellers. Additionally the two spools were linked into a differential type gearing such that altering their relative rates of unspooling would alter the rudder angle. So the shore station both powered and guided the torpedo (a small indicator mast stuck above the water that could be used to track the torpedo and thus steer it into its target). Their range was limited based on the length of cable you could effectively use, but within that range of several thousand yards they evolved to make up to 27 knots.
Even with only a black powder contact warhead such a mechanical marvel could devastate the submerged wooden hull of any angle gun ship or iron clad; and might well endanger a 1st generation steel warship. If the COGA cracked or stole the recipe for dynamite it'd get even more dangerous.
But still, despite my enthusiasm for this device I'd expect that what we might more reasonable see in the way of underwater threats would be moored or floating mines of one kind or another.
Me too. The explosive raft expedient is already a primitive ancestor of that idea; heck, you could count a fireship as a much earlier one. I suspect those mines are going to see first use, not defending harbors, but frustrating the use of the ironclads on the rivers and canals.
