Navy "workhorse"

lyonheart wrote:Hi Henry Brown,

Yup, I believe the Maikelburg was the consensus on that thread.

L

Sorry if I was beating a dead horse. In my defense, I missed that thread somehow, so it was new to me.

Alistair wrote:Yeah i think you are right

I wonder how many Maikelburg they can build?

need around 40-80 if you want to have 1-2 per convoy and still have a few spare for concentrated fire brigades.

Seems like Maikelburgs would currently be overkill for convoy escort, since all of Charis's transports are currently galleons. I mean you really don't need a high speed steamship to keep pace with a bunch of sail driven merchant ships. Furthermore, aren't all the privateers, small wooden sloops and such? For the time being, I think the old style wooden war galleons would suffice.

Also, a Maikelburg would have several times the combat power of a wooden war galleon. So for example if Charis was to assign 6 Maikelburgs to one of their primary fleets and simultaneously remove 12 old wooden galleons from that fleet, then I think the combat power and capability of that fleet would still increase considerably. And this exchange would free up 12 hulls for convoy escort, rather than the 6 hulls they would have if they used the Maikelburgs as the escorts.

I suspect the ICN finds itself much like the SLN did in the Honorverse. Their superior numbers gave them an unassailable superiority until the RMN began innovating away that advantage.

The ICN's superiority is such that 1 Maikelberg class cruiser can destroy multiple squadrons of galleons if not entire fleets. The only limiting factor is ammunition for her guns. Stay to windward and blow the crap out of any sailing ship with impunity. No sane nation will attack a Charisian flagged ship whether it is protected or not after they see the KH VII in action. The EoC's spy network has a reputation of being almost clairvoyant. Raiders will be discovered. Privateers will simply be giving the ICN a reason to flatten a port city or two of the nation issuing the letter of marque.

That being the case, escorting cruisers are not as important as big boys capable of going toe to toe with modern fortresses with shell firing rifled guns of their own. So I believe the KH VIIs and her dreadnought descendants will be steam powered work horses of the ICN.

Given the superioraty of the Imperial Navy in technology, their limitations of manpower and the need to control vast areas of the sea, then light or medium cruisers are probably the best compromise for a "workhorse" design.

The SMS "Emden" of Great War fame shows what can be done with good sailing skills and agressive leadership, she cruised the Indian Ocean for two months, capturing almost two dozen ships, raiding oil storage facilities in Madras, India and the harbour at Penang, sinking two allied warships, and keeping a multitude of British and Allied warships tied up searching for her. Subtract any effective naval counterforce and a light ICN cruiser would bottle up any CoGA shipping and threaten all but the most powerful harbour forts.

For comparison, here are the stats for the SMS EMden, if you want to compare her to RFC's cruiser designs:

Class & type:

Dresden-class cruiser

Displacement: 4,268 metric tons (4,201 long tons)

Length: 118.3 m (388.1 ft)

Beam: 13.5 m (44.3 ft)

Draft: 5.53 m (18.1 ft)

Installed power: 13,500 ihp (10,100 kW) 12 water-tube boilers

Propulsion: 2 triple-expansion steam engines

Speed: 23.5 kn (43.5 km/h; 27.0 mph)

Range: 3,760 nmi (6,960 km; 4,330 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)

Complement: 18 officers
343 enlisted men

Armament: 10 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/40 guns
2 × 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes

Armor: Deck: 80 mm (3.1 in)
Conning tower: 100 mm (3.9 in)
Gun shields: 50 mm (2.0 in)

Smaller ships like the US "4 Stacker" destroyers or Flower class corvettes cold conceivably provide more hulls, but start running into limits of habitability and the amount of weapons and munitions they could carry (a Flower class corvette might run out of shells after a brisk action against a commerce raider, and would have serious difficulty against even limited fortifications close to shore).

The ICN will have to do the calculus and balance building capability, the ability to man and service the ships, the amount of ocean that needs to be covered and what they see as the primary job of the Navy and threats to protect against to come up with the right mix of ships.

Henry Brown wrote:

Alistair wrote:Yeah i think you are right

I wonder how many Maikelburg they can build?

need around 40-80 if you want to have 1-2 per convoy and still have a few spare for concentrated fire brigades.

Seems like Maikelburgs would currently be overkill for convoy escort, since all of Charis's transports are currently galleons. I mean you really don't need a high speed steamship to keep pace with a bunch of sail driven merchant ships. Furthermore, aren't all the privateers, small wooden sloops and such? For the time being, I think the old style wooden war galleons would suffice.

Also, a Maikelburg would have several times the combat power of a wooden war galleon. So for example if Charis was to assign 6 Maikelburgs to one of their primary fleets and simultaneously remove 12 old wooden galleons from that fleet, then I think the combat power and capability of that fleet would still increase considerably. And this exchange would free up 12 hulls for convoy escort, rather than the 6 hulls they would have if they used the Maikelburgs as the escorts.

I agree.

Alternatively, once the armouring of the wooden galleons gets under way (and significant numbers are converted), the armoured galleons could be used as convoy escorts instead.

Thucydides wrote:Given the superioraty of the Imperial Navy in technology, their limitations of manpower and the need to control vast areas of the sea, then light or medium cruisers are probably the best compromise for a "workhorse" design.

The SMS "Emden" of Great War fame shows what can be done with good sailing skills and agressive leadership, she cruised the Indian Ocean for two months, capturing almost two dozen ships, raiding oil storage facilities in Madras, India and the harbour at Penang, sinking two allied warships, and keeping a multitude of British and Allied warships tied up searching for her. Subtract any effective naval counterforce and a light ICN cruiser would bottle up any CoGA shipping and threaten all but the most powerful harbour forts.

For comparison, here are the stats for the SMS EMden, if you want to compare her to RFC's cruiser designs:

Class & type:

Dresden-class cruiser

Displacement: 4,268 metric tons (4,201 long tons)

Length: 118.3 m (388.1 ft)

Beam: 13.5 m (44.3 ft)

Draft: 5.53 m (18.1 ft)

Installed power: 13,500 ihp (10,100 kW) 12 water-tube boilers

Propulsion: 2 triple-expansion steam engines

Speed: 23.5 kn (43.5 km/h; 27.0 mph)

Range: 3,760 nmi (6,960 km; 4,330 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)

Complement: 18 officers
343 enlisted men

Armament: 10 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/40 guns
2 × 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes

Armor: Deck: 80 mm (3.1 in)
Conning tower: 100 mm (3.9 in)
Gun shields: 50 mm (2.0 in)

Smaller ships like the US "4 Stacker" destroyers or Flower class corvettes cold conceivably provide more hulls, but start running into limits of habitability and the amount of weapons and munitions they could carry (a Flower class corvette might run out of shells after a brisk action against a commerce raider, and would have serious difficulty against even limited fortifications close to shore).

The ICN will have to do the calculus and balance building capability, the ability to man and service the ships, the amount of ocean that needs to be covered and what they see as the primary job of the Navy and threats to protect against to come up with the right mix of ships.

Of course the SMS Emden didn't have to cope with satellite or long duration drone surveillance - the ICN would be unlikely to let a commerce raider set sail and given the Armageddon Reef precedent I can see it meeting a full battle fleet before its sea trials are completed.

Steel is in limited supply.

I don't think there will be any conversions of existing Galleons to the Rotweiler design. I think they will be phased out entirely, as will the Rotweilers eventually. Also rember that much of the Galeon fleet was made with green lumber. As a result its life cycle is almost finished.

I think that once the Coaling Stations are established we will start to see some truly massive Steam Freighters, posibly even Container Ship style cargo ships sometime soon. The only question in my mind is how much steel will be avilable to this project? Which will limit haow large a Ship can be constructed. If wood needs to be used in the primary hull form then they won't be of modern size anytime soon.

Let us not forget many Galleons were made with green timber with a way shorter service life due to the press for ships. Thus they are probably not worth converting

Poker

As I recall steel is limited largely because of bottlenecks in iron mining. The introduction of steam assisted machines, railed ore cart systems, better explosives and a host of new innovations will increase production significantly. Just how much iron ore will potentially be made available annually is still unknown. What we do know is that much more will be available than is now.

PeterZ wrote:As I recall steel is limited largely because of bottlenecks in iron mining. The introduction of steam assisted machines, railed ore cart systems, better explosives and a host of new innovations will increase production significantly. Just how much iron ore will potentially be made available annually is still unknown. What we do know is that much more will be available than is now.

Agreed.

However it does seem that whatever the eventual Iron & Steel production figure are there will always be a greater demand then there is a supply. Just think about the iron demand that a rail line will need. The 1632 serries gives some good paralels for how demand for industrialization and its products does nothing but grow. EoC is no where near where they want to be yet with regards to resource and manufactored goods production. They're working on it, in fact they'll still be working on it up to the defeat of the Gaba.