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Navy "workhorse"

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Navy "workhorse"
Post by Alistair   » Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:29 am

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What (if any) ship is Charis building as a "workhorse?" I guess what we would call today a Corvette/ Frigate/ destroyer /light Cruiser.

I can't imagine Charis building a 100 King Harald's to just do escort duty picket show the flag etc.
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Re: Navy "workhorse"
Post by PeterZ   » Thu Apr 03, 2014 9:22 am

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OK, here are my 2 cents.

The workhorse will be the KH VIIs and variants on that basic hull. The ICN will continue building ships to very edge of their technical capabilities. That means there will be no large number of any single class of ships.

The idea is to instill the near instinct of building the best ship possible and then continue innovating and improving on that design. By the time Safehold resumes its active war against the Gbaba, the core Space Navy well adapted to a quickly changing tactical and strategic enviorment.

To get there I see a couple of things that need to be accomplished right out of the gate.

1) The ICN will as mentioned above need to build better and better ships. At first they need to innovate for innovations sake until the habit becomes almost an instinct.

2) The ICN needs to build large numbers of complex weapons systems and platforms. The more people that they can train and expose to the idea of large interconnected weapons and support systems, the easier the transition to a space navy becomes.

3) Keeping that in mind, I foresee the "workhorse" naval unit as a bit larger than was used on Terra with similar tech.

That logic suggests to me that the base naval ship will be a cruiser between 11,000-15,000 tons. I suspect that there will be destroyers between 7,000-9,000 tons. Following my logic further takes us to the BBs, DN, and SDs. The first post KH VII capital ship will likely be BBs in the 15,000-18,000 ton range and gradually build up to the 30,000-35,000 monsters. They would build bigger but I doubt there will be time before The Truth is revealed.

Anyway, this assumes a Cold War and another part of the reason for building bigger and better is to force competing nations to expand their capabilities as well. I believe that the Inner Circle will eventually come to believe that it is better to wait for the Awakening rather than risk triggering the OBS to strike.
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Re: Navy "workhorse"
Post by Starsaber   » Thu Apr 03, 2014 1:15 pm

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PeterZ wrote:That logic suggests to me that the base naval ship will be a cruiser between 11,000-15,000 tons. I suspect that there will be destroyers between 7,000-9,000 tons. Following my logic further takes us to the BBs, DN, and SDs. The first post KH VII capital ship will likely be BBs in the 15,000-18,000 ton range and gradually build up to the 30,000-35,000 monsters. They would build bigger but I doubt there will be time before The Truth is revealed.


Given their resource limitations and the fact that most of their purpose-built wood-hulled ships are already experiencing problems from the inadequately seasoned wood used in their construction, they need to be looking toward moving to an entirely metal-hulled and steam-powered navy. For the time being, I think they're better off making a larger number of smaller ships since they would still be powerful enough to take on a much larger Go4 fleet and could be more places at once.
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Re: Navy "workhorse"
Post by Rafan   » Thu Apr 03, 2014 2:26 pm

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In this topic page 6 RFC wrote about something like that

http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4116&hilit=king+harald+VII&start=50

It may be helpful now.
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Re: Navy "workhorse"
Post by AClone   » Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:54 pm

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RFC already addressed this, in one of his shipbuilding posts last year. He said that it wouldn't make any sense to build anything smaller than a cruiser (apparently right now), because they wouldn't have the cruising range necessary of Safehold.
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Re: Navy "workhorse"
Post by Starsaber   » Thu Apr 03, 2014 6:22 pm

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AClone wrote:RFC already addressed this, in one of his shipbuilding posts last year. He said that it wouldn't make any sense to build anything smaller than a cruiser (apparently right now), because they wouldn't have the cruising range necessary of Safehold.


I don't think it would make sense to build anything much bigger at the moment either given their margin of superiority.
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Re: Navy "workhorse"
Post by PeterZ   » Thu Apr 03, 2014 7:20 pm

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The ICN's margin is huge against other Safehold polities. Against the Gbaba, the ICN is laughable. Building bigger and better prepares them better to eventually field a space navy.

Starsaber wrote:
AClone wrote:RFC already addressed this, in one of his shipbuilding posts last year. He said that it wouldn't make any sense to build anything smaller than a cruiser (apparently right now), because they wouldn't have the cruising range necessary of Safehold.


I don't think it would make sense to build anything much bigger at the moment either given their margin of superiority.
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Re: Navy "workhorse"
Post by Alistair   » Thu Apr 03, 2014 10:01 pm

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If they won't build anything smaller then what ship will do escort duties for the next few years then?

Sail powered armoured ships like the Rottweilers?

or steam/sail powered Cls?

or even just the current wooden ships?

It seems to me silly to keep the existing ships on as they are all now obsolete as the Galleys were when the Galleons were introduced and need to be replaced in the next few years by steam armored ships (shrug) but I'm no expert!
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Re: Navy "workhorse"
Post by PeterZ   » Thu Apr 03, 2014 10:17 pm

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I believe they will build steam ships of 7,000-9,000 tons at minimum. They will build enough DDs and CLs/CAs of 11,000-15,000 tons to provide escorted duties. Besides, the ICMM will be moving to steam freighters just as the ICN is moving to steam warships. Good luck to pirates chasing steamers into the wind with schooners.

Alistair wrote:If they won't build anything smaller then what ship will do escort duties for the next few years then?

Sail powered armoured ships like the Rottweilers?

or steam/sail powered Cls?

or even just the current wooden ships?

It seems to me silly to keep the existing ships on as they are all now obsolete as the Galleys were when the Galleons were introduced and need to be replaced in the next few years by steam armored ships (shrug) but I'm no expert!
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Re: Navy "workhorse"
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Thu Apr 03, 2014 10:31 pm

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Things to consider

While Charis has major advantages in producing iron or steel over the other nations of Safehold, they do have limits on how much iron or steel they can produce so IMO they couldn't replace all of their wooden sailing ships with armored ships quickly.

In addition, IIRC Charis couldn't build steam powered ships (even ones with sails) in enough numbers to replace all of their wooden sailing ships.

Even though in theory, one armored steam powered warship is "worth" several pure sailing (armored or otherwise) warships, Charis still needs a large number of warships so they can be powerful in several locations globally.

Finally, your comment about Galleys vs Galleons has one error. Charisian wooden sailing ships won't be facing steam powered warships in the near future. IMO until they are likely to face them, they still are very useful warships until Galleys.


Alistair wrote:If they won't build anything smaller then what ship will do escort duties for the next few years then?

Sail powered armoured ships like the Rottweilers?

or steam/sail powered Cls?

or even just the current wooden ships?

It seems to me silly to keep the existing ships on as they are all now obsolete as the Galleys were when the Galleons were introduced and need to be replaced in the next few years by steam armored ships (shrug) but I'm no expert!
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Sometimes The Dragon Wins! [Polite Dragon Smile]
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