The Navy of God against Charis naval superiority

Hi SYED,

Kudos, that's an excellent alliance strategy!

Depending on how soon such a force could arrive and march or steam up [towed by river type ironclads] the Sabana River to the Langhorne canal.

Which might not be until summer.

Sharpfield only brought 8,000 marines to garrison Claw Island and perhaps do some coastal raids etc.

Right now, the only ICA forces large enough left at the moment are the Corisande & Zebediah garrisons.

While it appears they can now be spared from their police duties, or perhaps half for now, I don't think they're up to current ICA equipment and doctrinal standards, especially the tactics we've seen in Siddarmark because they were so short handed as police.

So far we don't know if the entire Corisande and Zebediah garrisons [~30,000 troops each], the only remaining ICA combat units left outside the Siddarmark theater, or perhaps only half will follow Sharpfield, possibly even accompany the KH VII's to Claw Island for such direct operations against the BS or Fairstock in Malansath, which is only ~1300 miles from Lakeview by wyvern as Earl Coris learned in HFaF.

The main problem is the Corisande garrison's duties didn't let it train nor did it seem to be equipped with the latest weapons, since they weren't needed.

So will the garrisons require retraining to bring them up to the rest of the ICA's standards?

Zebediah's garrison may need less, but given the shortage of mortars and Mahndrayns etc, I suspect it will need some important refresher training.

Of course the Zebediah and Corisande volunteers will need at least a year if not more until they can be ready at the earliest.

So unless the C&Z garrisons start getting some refresher courses now it might be late summer or fall before they see action in southern Haven.

Another front for the alliance!

L

SYED wrote:If they can act in the gulf of dohlar they could attack one end of the langhone canal, so mess up their supply logistics for this army. NO supplies, and the army will be a danger to the border states more than the republic.

I started to theoritise: IF Dohlar or other major anti-charisian power survive the current war intact, and their industrialisation wouldn't take long enought (let's gave them a credit, shall we?) what type of ships they may be able to create as a counterpart of KH's?

Firstly, let's presume that the main point for the Dohlar navy would be the defense of the Gulf. So, the Dohlaran's ship may not be oceanworthy and have a limited range. They would still be suffucient to defense the area from the Dohlar bank and easter.

We must counclude, that some sort of low-freedoard warship would be sufficient.

Firstly, we need adequate protection from the Charisian 10" long guns. Let's assume that the Charisian guns were at least as good as the USN 10"/40 Mark 3 (from the "Tennessee" armored cruisers) and may be able to penetrate 11" Harvey plate on the distance of 5000m.

If we assume that the Dohlar would be able to produce compound-type iron-steel composite plates, so we need something like 16"-18" compound belt for the citadel. That would protect the magazines and machinery from the charisian guns more or less adequately.

For the ends of the ship, the protection against 8" would be adequate. If we may use sloped deck, we may even go without ends belt at all. But let's assume that the armoured desk is flat. It may be weight-saving to let the ends be without vertical armour... but not with the perspective of Charisian HE shells.

So, our ship must have about 16"-18" in citadel and at least 10" at ends. It would be sufficient to deal woth charisian 10" in realistic conditions (the armour ALWAYS work better in real battle )

Next: weapons. For my point of view, the optimal configuration would be to bet on the middle-caliber artillery with a few heavy pieces. Let's remember, that a large part of KH's freeboard is unarmoured at all. So, the middle-sized shells would be a perfectly good weapon to pound the KH, so she would be unable to retreat in open sea. For my opinion, the 6" would do the job. Of course, Dohlar probably wouldn't be ablt to build the really quick-firing 6", so we just put a lot of them to do the job.

And we definitely need a few heavy guns, that would be able to penetrate the armour. Of course, they wouldn't be too effective against KH's in sea battle (they would be inferior in therms of range, and reload time, and probably the penetration power), but they should be: our light 6" wouldn't be able to penetrate armour at all, so they wouldn't be able to reach the vital parts of KH's. And besides KH's, there are plenty of Charisian river, and coastal ironclads and other ships with armour to deal with.

It looks like that for the Dolhar would be possible to build something like large Canet guns of 1880th. Let's not forget, that this guns were build (under license) by Spain in the middle 1880th, and the Spain in XIX was totally not a industrial giant. So, let's stuck with two 280-330 mm Canet-type guns in bow and rear mounts. They would be mighty enough, to penetrate KH's armour on rational distances, and discourage the Charisian about the idea of long-range battle. We may probably go with only one gun at all, but two would work better.

How du we arrange our artillery? Whell, the big guns (let them be 300 mm) should be placed in barbette mounts on centerline. The barbettes MUST have a heavy armoured cylindrical turret-like tops, that would be able to protect them against Charisian 8". I think that the 400mm armour on barbettes and 250mm armour on shields would be sufficient.

The secondary - or in our case primary - 6" armament i would like to place in diffetent levels. I'm thinking about six 6" guns on the gun deck (three per broadside) in casemate mounts, four in the superstructure corners (two per boardside, two as chase. two as retreat) and another four 6" on the superstructure, in offset-diamond pattern (the bow 6" shifted to the port, the rear shifted to the starboard, to avoid problems with a superfiring guns over the main battery). So, we would be able to have eight 6" per broadside, five as chaser and five as retreat, and all six-inch are distributed well enought.

What about speed? Well, it depends of what possible engines would be avaliable fo Dohlar. If we would have triple-expansions, i presume we would be able to have about 18 knots on three to four screws. That would not only lessened the intension per shaft and machine, but also make our ships more maneuvrable.

So... low freeboard, moderate speed, two heavy guns for armour penetration and fourteen 6" for the main work. With 18" compound belt in citadel and 10" in the ends, i think, we could place it in 8000 tonnes, sacrificing the range. Look like some handy, this... "Malikai"-class coastal ships?

(All rights reserved for the RFC aka David Weber)

There is an interesting segment in LAMA in whick BVG is reflecting on the size of the Alliance forces. By spring the RSA will have 370,000 men armed with modern rifles and artillery. The EOC currently has 300,000 men in the Republic, which makes for a total of 670,000 men not counting militias that still need training and modern rifles.

That is roughly at parity with the Harchongese who have been armed with rifles, excluding such things as bows, arbalasts and slings which really do not belong in the current combat environment. It also doesn't include what Dohlar and Desnair have left or the AOG.

Don

Hi Dilandu,

So what will the ICN have in the 5-10 years minimum needed for this rather limited ironclad?

Given what they've already accomplished, I suspect steel battleships, possibly if not probably a dreadnought or super-dreadnought.

After all, RFC did say he'd designed one of the latter with 12 16" guns, around 76-77,000 tons as I recall.

L

Dilandu wrote:I started to theoritise: IF Dohlar or other major anti-charisian power survive the current war intact, and their industrialisation wouldn't take long enought (let's gave them a credit, shall we?) what type of ships they may be able to create as a counterpart of KH's?

Firstly, let's presume that the main point for the Dohlar navy would be the defense of the Gulf. So, the Dohlaran's ship may not be oceanworthy and have a limited range. They would still be suffucient to defense the area from the Dohlar bank and easter.

We must counclude, that some sort of low-freedoard warship would be sufficient.

Firstly, we need adequate protection from the Charisian 10" long guns. Let's assume that the Charisian guns were at least as good as the USN 10"/40 Mark 3 (from the "Tennessee" armored cruisers) and may be able to penetrate 11" Harvey plate on the distance of 5000m.

If we assume that the Dohlar would be able to produce compound-type iron-steel composite plates, so we need something like 16"-18" compound belt for the citadel. That would protect the magazines and machinery from the charisian guns more or less adequately.

For the ends of the ship, the protection against 8" would be adequate. If we may use sloped deck, we may even go without ends belt at all. But let's assume that the armoured desk is flat. It may be weight-saving to let the ends be without vertical armour... but not with the perspective of Charisian HE shells.

So, our ship must have about 16"-18" in citadel and at least 10" at ends. It would be sufficient to deal woth charisian 10" in realistic conditions (the armour ALWAYS work better in real battle )

Next: weapons. For my point of view, the optimal configuration would be to bet on the middle-caliber artillery with a few heavy pieces. Let's remember, that a large part of KH's freeboard is unarmoured at all. So, the middle-sized shells would be a perfectly good weapon to pound the KH, so she would be unable to retreat in open sea. For my opinion, the 6" would do the job. Of course, Dohlar probably wouldn't be ablt to build the really quick-firing 6", so we just put a lot of them to do the job.

And we definitely need a few heavy guns, that would be able to penetrate the armour. Of course, they wouldn't be too effective against KH's in sea battle (they would be inferior in therms of range, and reload time, and probably the penetration power), but they should be: our light 6" wouldn't be able to penetrate armour at all, so they wouldn't be able to reach the vital parts of KH's. And besides KH's, there are plenty of Charisian river, and coastal ironclads and other ships with armour to deal with.

It looks like that for the Dolhar would be possible to build something like large Canet guns of 1880th. Let's not forget, that this guns were build (under license) by Spain in the middle 1880th, and the Spain in XIX was totally not a industrial giant. So, let's stuck with two 280-330 mm Canet-type guns in bow and rear mounts. They would be mighty enough, to penetrate KH's armour on rational distances, and discourage the Charisian about the idea of long-range battle. We may probably go with only one gun at all, but two would work better.

How du we arrange our artillery? Whell, the big guns (let them be 300 mm) should be placed in barbette mounts on centerline. The barbettes MUST have a heavy armoured cylindrical turret-like tops, that would be able to protect them against Charisian 8". I think that the 400mm armour on barbettes and 250mm armour on shields would be sufficient.

The secondary - or in our case primary - 6" armament i would like to place in diffetent levels. I'm thinking about six 6" guns on the gun deck (three per broadside) in casemate mounts, four in the superstructure corners (two per boardside, two as chase. two as retreat) and another four 6" on the superstructure, in offset-diamond pattern (the bow 6" shifted to the port, the rear shifted to the starboard, to avoid problems with a superfiring guns over the main battery). So, we would be able to have eight 6" per broadside, five as chaser and five as retreat, and all six-inch are distributed well enought.

What about speed? Well, it depends of what possible engines would be avaliable fo Dohlar. If we would have triple-expansions, i presume we would be able to have about 18 knots on three to four screws. That would not only lessened the intension per shaft and machine, but also make our ships more maneuvrable.

So... low freeboard, moderate speed, two heavy guns for armour penetration and fourteen 6" for the main work. With 18" compound belt in citadel and 10" in the ends, i think, we could place it in 8000 tonnes, sacrificing the range. Look like some handy, this... "Malikai"-class coastal ships?

(All rights reserved for the RFC aka David Weber)

So what will the ICN have in the 5-10 years minimum needed for this rather limited ironclad?

In realistic condition - nothing much more than KH's in sufficient quantities.

In Mary-Sue type conditions - they may have anything, as long as factories, plants, skilled crews and industrial equipment simnply appear by the will of Langhorne from the air.

But in that case, why we can't simply presume that something like that happened in Dohlar and they would miracliously obtain everything exept the ideal solutions?

So i take the more realistical approach: that the Merlin wouldn't play the "deux ex machina" type, and the Charisian economy still have limits and wouldn't be interested in the building dreadnoughts in situation where there is no naval threat.

P.S. And i doubt that without electricity the "Dreadnought"-type warships would be effective. I don't think you could build a effective long-range fire control withiut them.

The hypothetical ships the Dohlar navy might want to build would probably have many of the features of the German "High Seas Fleet" which was really expected to operate at short range out of the North sea:

They should be heavily armoured and heavily gunned
They do not need long cruising range
They do not need crew accommodations for extended cruises
They don't need to be particularly fast, so long as they ccan approximate the expected speed of their enemy counterparts.

Of course, Dohlar will ned a very modern industrial plant to build these sorts of battleships.

Hi Dilandu,

"Always with the negative waves, Moriarty" -"Kelly's Heroes", 1971.

Considering your suggestion of the Brennan torpedo requires not only steam engines, electricity, rather fine wire, and all sorts of specialized machine tools and mature technologies Dohlar doesn't and won't have for some time, ie at least a decade if not more, then suggesting the Dreadnought is beyond the EoC's ever increasing technological capabilities 5-10 years from now, given how far they've come in less than 7, just because it may not have an electric based long rang range fire control system in the next 5-10 years is not only pathetic but more than a bit ridiculous.

Get over it.

I did, when RFC first broached the improved KH VII's almost a couple years back.

Then he preceded to lower the boom on me, chapter and verse.

It's time to move on, or you can decide to stop reading RFC's riveting stories, and dwell in your own little pond as the biggest fish.

Your suggested Dohlar design was interesting but you didn't provide any evidence of prior development for almost everything, unlike RFC who has littered the books with all sorts of references to bigger rifled guns, improved armor and ever more powerful steam engines, especially the last three, that have all led to the improved KH VII that you are evidently blind to.

L

Dilandu wrote:

So what will the ICN have in the 5-10 years minimum needed for this rather limited ironclad?

In realistic condition - nothing much more than KH's in sufficient quantities.

In Mary-Sue type conditions - they may have anything, as long as factories, plants, skilled crews and industrial equipment simnply appear by the will of Langhorne from the air.

But in that case, why we can't simply presume that something like that happened in Dohlar and they would miracliously obtain everything exept the ideal solutions?

So i take the more realistical approach: that the Merlin wouldn't play the "deux ex machina" type, and the Charisian economy still have limits and wouldn't be interested in the building dreadnoughts in situation where there is no naval threat.

P.S. And i doubt that without electricity the "Dreadnought"-type warships would be effective. I don't think you could build a effective long-range fire control withiut them.

Considering your suggestion of the Brennan torpedo requires not only steam engines, electricity, rather fine wire, and all sorts of specialized machine tools and mature technologies Dohlar doesn't and won't have for some time, ie at least a decade if not more, then suggesting the Dreadnought is beyond the EoC's ever increasing technological capabilities 5-10 years from now, given how far they've come in less than 7, just because it may not have an electric based long rang range fire control system in the next 5-10 years is not only pathetic but more than a bit ridiculous.

I proposed NOT the geniune Brennan torpedo, but SOMETHING on the same basic principle. Please, be more accurate.

All i'v done, is make a few initial assumptions to work with:

So i take the more realistical approach: that the Merlin wouldn't play the "deux ex machina" type, and the Charisian economy still have limits and wouldn't be interested in the building dreadnoughts in situation where there is no naval threat.

Nothing more than that.

If you couldn't comprehend with position, that someone may not been persuaded and the peoples may have different points of view, then maybe you should

dwell in your own little pond as the biggest fish.

- ?

No offense.

Dilandu wrote:

Considering your suggestion of the Brennan torpedo requires not only steam engines, electricity, rather fine wire, and all sorts of specialized machine tools and mature technologies Dohlar doesn't and won't have for some time, ie at least a decade if not more, then suggesting the Dreadnought is beyond the EoC's ever increasing technological capabilities 5-10 years from now, given how far they've come in less than 7, just because it may not have an electric based long rang range fire control system in the next 5-10 years is not only pathetic but more than a bit ridiculous.

I proposed NOT the geniune Brennan torpedo, but SOMETHING on the same basic principle. Please, be more accurate.

All i'v done, is make a few initial assumptions to work with:

So i take the more realistical approach: that the Merlin wouldn't play the "deux ex machina" type, and the Charisian economy still have limits and wouldn't be interested in the building dreadnoughts in situation where there is no naval threat.

Nothing more than that.

If you couldn't comprehend with position, that someone may not been persuaded and the peoples may have different points of view, then maybe you should

dwell in your own little pond as the biggest fish.

- ?

No offense.

Don't pick on Dilandu!

Sure, he ticks me off sometimes, always with the Mary Sue stuff, and he and I obviously disagree on how quickly the tech base to build the ships I've stipulated can be achieved. I continue to think that's because he underestimates (1) the starting point, (2) the degree to which the entire Empire of Charis is driving the development of the Delthak Works (Krupp on steroids), amd (3) the difference that being currently engage in a war for survival will make as compared to the pace of industrialization during the real world 19th century. Having said that, his views are based on a mostly very accurate and informed view of actual naval developments of the 19-20th centuries. I don't agree with him about all of his opinions, including the superiority of French design and developments in the 1880s (if I have the date range right; I'm responding from memory), but he is one of the very few posters to this site (or any other) who has a genuine in-depth knowledge of his period. I've enormously enjoyed his comments, and if he's irritated me upon occasion I'm sure I've irritated him right back.

He's also right about a couple of the components of the King Haarahld design being overkill even for the purposes of "Proscription busting" I've laid out. For example, the face-hardened armor really isn't necessary against relatively low velocity cast-iron shot. Wrought iron/steel shells with heat-treated armor piercing noses are nowhere on the Church's horizon, and even if the Church had already figured out in theory how to make them, actually developing the processes for them would be extraordinarily difficult anywhere outside Charis, even with the beginning infrastructure I'm assuming for the planet. Without such a threat, face-hardened armor isn't really needed and I could have gone with simple steel armor and still gotten the saving in thickness (and hence weight) that I wanted. I chose not to because it was my playpen and I got to make the rules. Also, on a slightly more serious note, because the inner circle fully intends to "leak" the basic theory behind this sort of armor at an opportune time (just as they intend to leak the basic theory on how to make genuine armor piercing shell) in order to help push the tech race on the Mainland.

I do disagree with him about the advantages of a dreadnought battleship for Safehold. There's a lot of evidence that in his own initial design Jackie Fisher was looking less at long-range gunnery than at overwhelming weight of fire at short to moderate range. (It's worth noting that for all of his accomplishments, Fisher wasn't prescient across the board. For example, he thought 15" canister would be more effective at dealing with torpedo boats than a battery of 6" secondary guns.) The ability to bring the concentrated fire of 8-12 heavy caliber guns to bear on a single target under the control of a single director even at relatively short range would be devastating. It would also greatly decrease the manpower/platform costs of putting that many guns at sea under armor, albeit at the cost of building fewer platforms which would leave you with fewer units to deploy to multiple locations simultaneously. And, unlike Dilandu, I can come up with some ways to make centralized control work without electricity. Not work as well as it would work with electricity, mind you, but work.

My point in this instance, though, is that Dilandu knows his stuff, and as long as he's willing to accept that the naval developments on Safehold are going to follow the path of my choosing, my skin is thick enough to tolerate an occasional "Mary Sue" reference.

As long as he keeps it within decent limits, of course.

There's a lot of evidence that in his own initial design Jackie Fisher was looking less at long-range gunnery than at overwhelming weight of fire at short to moderate range.

Hm. Itn't it was Cuniberiti? Yes, Fisher liked big guns, but as i recall, initially (in XIX century) he thought that the "Renown" with her 10" guns were the perfect type. And frankly, the overwhelming weight of fire on short distances wasn't a "Dreadnought" strong side: the "Danton", or "Andrey Pervizvanny" or "Satsuma" were much more suitable.

(It's worth noting that for all of his accomplishments, Fisher wasn't prescient across the board. For example, he thought 15" canister would be more effective at dealing with torpedo boats than a battery of 6" secondary guns.)

Doesn't knew that at all. Thank you, RFC, for the valuable information!

My point in this instance, though, is that Dilandu knows his stuff, and as long as he's willing to accept that the naval developments on Safehold are going to follow the path of my choosing, my skin is thick enough to tolerate an occasional "Mary Sue" reference.

Thanks! I'll try to not go off the borders.