Convoy escorts - SPOILER for SNIPPET 8 of HFQ

I had thought it was a little odd that you were up this early in the morning; judging by when you usually post I'd figured you for a night owl.I certainly hope you get to feeling better soon. I'm sure that Megan's surgery will go well, but I definitely understand the apprehension. If being a little cranky on the boards is the only way that fatigue, pain, and worry manifests itself for you, then you're a better man than I am, and I promise I won't hold it against you

Umpf. Sorry I missed the intent. Been up all night, severe back pain (which makes me cranky), due for a visit to the pain management specialist Friday to do something (hopefully!) about it, and just found out Megan will be having oral surgery next week, the day before my birthday. All of it, I can legitimately claim, not exactly designed to make me a little ray of sunshine or properly observant of posters' intent.

Thanks for the explanation. Use a big enough clue stick, and even I catch on sooner or later.

Question: Why can't Church raiders carrying shell firing weapons? I mean TECHNICALLY. I realize that politically, Church leaders (aka Clyntahn) may not want to "waste" limited shell production on raiders, but what TECHNICAL reasons are there that would stop raiders from carrying shells?

I mean, we've seen that even the Church can produce shells for some pretty small artillery pieces. And you don't need many shell firing guns to total a wooden ship.

So if the Church is more interested in destroying Charisian ships rather than capturing them, shell firing guns would be absolutely ideal for that purpose.

There may be a lower limit to how small of a projectile they can fill and fuse and still get a useful boom out of. Bear in mind that the walls of the shell need to be thick enough to withstand the impact of slamming into a wooden hull.

There's no text ev I'm aware of that points to them making rounds the way modern explosive rounds are made, ie a cross section of an APIE round for a .50 BMG looks like a maze, and when the bullet hits something the binary components mix to make the boom we all know and love.

evilauthor wrote:Question: Why can't Church raiders carrying shell firing weapons? I mean TECHNICALLY. I realize that politically, Church leaders (aka Clyntahn) may not want to "waste" limited shell production on raiders, but what TECHNICAL reasons are there that would stop raiders from carrying shells?

I mean, we've seen that even the Church can produce shells for some pretty small artillery pieces. And you don't need many shell firing guns to total a wooden ship.

So if the Church is more interested in destroying Charisian ships rather than capturing them, shell firing guns would be absolutely ideal for that purpose.

evilauthor wrote:Question: Why can't Church raiders carrying shell firing weapons? I mean TECHNICALLY. I realize that politically, Church leaders (aka Clyntahn) may not want to "waste" limited shell production on raiders, but what TECHNICAL reasons are there that would stop raiders from carrying shells?

I mean, we've seen that even the Church can produce shells for some pretty small artillery pieces. And you don't need many shell firing guns to total a wooden ship.

So if the Church is more interested in destroying Charisian ships rather than capturing them, shell firing guns would be absolutely ideal for that purpose.

It due to the small size of the shot being fired off the raiders. I do not have perfect recall but if I am not mistaken the AoG 30 pounders only have 2 pounds of gunpowder in their shells. Scalling this down to a 12 pounder would mean the shell having less that one pound of gunpowder which would be almost worthless.

Seawolf509 wrote:

evilauthor wrote:Question: Why can't Church raiders carrying shell firing weapons? I mean TECHNICALLY. I realize that politically, Church leaders (aka Clyntahn) may not want to "waste" limited shell production on raiders, but what TECHNICAL reasons are there that would stop raiders from carrying shells?

I mean, we've seen that even the Church can produce shells for some pretty small artillery pieces. And you don't need many shell firing guns to total a wooden ship.

So if the Church is more interested in destroying Charisian ships rather than capturing them, shell firing guns would be absolutely ideal for that purpose.

It due to the small size of the shot being fired off the raiders. I do not have perfect recall but if I am not mistaken the AoG 30 pounders only have 2 pounds of gunpowder in their shells. Scalling this down to a 12 pounder would mean the shell having less that one pound of gunpowder which would be almost worthless.

Maybe no impact/percussion fuzes available?

Seawolf509 wrote:

evilauthor wrote:Question: Why can't Church raiders carrying shell firing weapons? I mean TECHNICALLY. I realize that politically, Church leaders (aka Clyntahn) may not want to "waste" limited shell production on raiders, but what TECHNICAL reasons are there that would stop raiders from carrying shells?

I mean, we've seen that even the Church can produce shells for some pretty small artillery pieces. And you don't need many shell firing guns to total a wooden ship.

So if the Church is more interested in destroying Charisian ships rather than capturing them, shell firing guns would be absolutely ideal for that purpose.

It due to the small size of the shot being fired off the raiders. I do not have perfect recall but if I am not mistaken the AoG 30 pounders only have 2 pounds of gunpowder in their shells. Scalling this down to a 12 pounder would mean the shell having less that one pound of gunpowder which would be almost worthless.

runsforcelery wrote:The Desnairian raiders are light craft. That means schooners and brigs, not galleons, and that means that they are not going to be armed with long guns capable of firing explosive shells. They don't have the displacement to carry them. So that means that they are going to be firing either carronades (which means they have to come into range of other carronades) or else they're going to be firing solid shot from long range, probably from 12-pounders or lighter, and not even the Charisians have produced explosive shells for smoothbore muzzleloaders that like. They might — might — have one or two heavier long guns, but they aren't going to be any heavier than, say, 24-pounders, nor do they have to be any heavier than that to deal with most merchantmen.

BTW best wishes/prayers for RFC and his family. Back pain is no fun at all and oral surgery doesn't sound very pleasant!

runsforcelery wrote:
Umpf. Sorry I missed the intent. Been up all night, severe back pain (which makes me cranky), due for a visit to the pain management specialist Friday to do something (hopefully!) about it, and just found out Megan will be having oral surgery next week, the day before my birthday. All of it, I can legitimately claim, not exactly designed to make me a little ray of sunshine or properly observant of posters' intent.

Thanks for the explanation. Use a big enough clue stick, and even I catch on sooner or later.

Back pain can be awful. I hope your specialist is successful in helping and you feel better soon.

As i recall, the problem with a small-calibre shells for naval guns was mostly of their inadequate penetration power. The shells from light smoothbore guns simply failed to penetrate the wooden boards of naval ships, and without penetration no detonation would be truly effective. The Paxian solved the problem by using a very large shell gun, with very heavy shell, that was able to have enpugh kinetic power to penetrate the board.

That means schooners and brigs, not galleons, and that means that they are not going to be armed with long guns capable of firing explosive shells.

In boardside - yes. But what about of chase/retreat guns? Yes, the fire arc would be limited and the salvo would be small, but we may place even on them guns big enough to deal with merchant ships, armed with carronades.

I learned something from RFC's posts, namely that Charis already has lots of schooners for commerce protection which makes my concern that they were short handed a lot less critical than I thought.

I do have a couple of questions about that... not argument, but idle curiousity. One if we have oodles and oodles of schooners to cover, why are the cities class iron clads involed in anti raider activity off the coast of Desnair? I think I know the answer to that, though. They are involved dealing with land batteries and burning shipyards, tasks for which the schooners aren't suited.

My other question would be about those shipyards "in all the Empire's member states" that are already going full steam... At this point is Corisande included in that?

Don