Convoy escorts - SPOILER for SNIPPET 8 of HFQ

pokermind wrote:Nautical terminology changes, the left side of the ship facing the bow was once called larboard, the right side starboard. These terms from the old days of the right mounted steering oar. Steer-board became starboard and the left was larboard the side without the steer-board. About the end of the seventeenth century the British navy dropped larboard for port, you tie up on the side without the steer-board.

Poker

All I can say is that it's a good thing they switched to port instead of larboard, LOSH sounds much worse than POSH (Port out, Starboard Home) which described the preferred cabin locations for British travelers to and front India.

n7axw wrote: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

I suspect that Corisande is building merchant ships. Merchants will buy from anyone with a slip and the ability to build a reliable sailing ship especially if the non-Corisandian ship builders are building schooners for the ICN. They might or might not have been building schooners or have armed the ships they did build prior to Hektor swearing fealty to the Imperial Crown. They should be doing so soon if not already.

Either way, they are building ships that Charis will need to win the logistics war.

Dilandu wrote:

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.

Unless I'm mistaken you were the guy who was arguing about (or at least commenting on) the difficulties of maneuvering under sail. I point this out simply because bringing your chase guns to bear on a target which really doesn't want you to can be a nontrivial challenge. It can be done even if the other guy doesn't want you to, but that's frequently at the expense of forcing you onto a course you really don't want to be on. And, of course, there's a reason for the old saying that "a stern chase is a long chase." If you are a commerce raider with a maximum speed under sail in current wind conditions of, say, eight knots and your intended victim has a speed of only six knots and is eight thousand yards out of your effective range from the chase begins, it will take you four hours just to bring them into cannon shot, during which time all sorts of unfortunate things can happen.

More to the point, however, chase guns are almost universally lighter than the mounting ship's broadside guns if there is any difference between the broadside weapons and the chases. The reason for this is simple enough: the foredeck and the quarterdeck of a sailing vessel tend to narrow as you get towards the extreme ends of the ship. This both reduces the buoyancy of that portion of the hull, which makes heavy deck weights less than desirable and imposes a severe strain on the structure of the ship (leading to hogging and potential structural failure) if those weights are placed aboard anyway, and restricts the amount of space available in which to work the guns. This means that you can't put, for example, a thirty-pounder (5,000 pounds with a 9-foot tube and a 12-man crew) into the bows of a 16-gun schooner or brig, and the finer the lines of the ship in order to increase its speediness (sort of a necessary component of designing an effective commerce raider), the more severe those problems become. It's more practical, in some ways, to put heavier stern chases onto the quarterdeck, because the quarterdeck tends to be wider than the forecastle (which at least provides more space in which to work the guns), but the buoyancy issues remain and so do the structural strain factors. In addition, of course, it's sort of difficult to chase a merchant ship stern-first, especially in a sailing vessel.

The preferred chase gun for British 38-gun frigates was only a 9-pounder, mostly because of the issues above but also because the long 9-pounder was considered one of the most accurate guns in RN service. I'm not sure, but I think the chase guns on the big American 44's were 12-pounders or (at the outside) 18-pounders, when they carried 24-pounders or 32-pounders on the gundeck, and one of the big Americans probably had at least 2 to 2.5 times the displacement of one of the big Charisian schooners. That makes it . . . rather unlikely the aforesaid schooner could come anywhere close to carrying a gun that heavy that far forward, and for reasons of agility, shallow draft, speed of construction, and the ability to build where Charisian shore parties will find it hard to reach and burn the shipyards, the Desnairian raiders are going to be smaller than the Charisians, not larger. Given the fact that the preferred pivot gun for the Charisian schooners is a long 14-pounder (carried on the centerline, abaft the foremast where the hull's buoyancy is actually maximized, rather than on either side of the bowsprit on a narrow, cramped forecastle), it seems unlikely to me that the Desnairians are going to manage to put a pair of 28-pounders (the smallest Church naval gun currently capable of firing explosive shells) into the bows of a smaller (and less buoyant) brig or schooner.

Trust me, I've considered it at some length. And, if it should happen that in fact it was possible to put such heavy metal into the chase positions aboard the commerce raiders, it would be equally possible to put guns just as heavy (or heavier) into stern ports aboard the armed merchantman selected to carry the naval gun crews. In fact, it would be a much more practical proposition for the merchies than for the raiders because merchant hulls are designed for cargo capacity — carrying capacity — first and speed only second or third. This means they have greater reserve buoyancy than warships and that they seldom have runs and ends as fine as those used by small, fast cruisers. Which, in turn, means that they have wider decks, giving them someplace to put the heavy guns you're talking about. Or, they would have someplace to put them if there was any reason to mount them in the first place . . . which there isn't.

RFC, I thought we had established that you didn't know anything about YOUR universe!!!

Don't you mean Daivyn swearing fealty to the Imperial Crown?

Seriously, I agree that Corisande could have been building merchant ships.

The restriction would be against them building Navy ships.

Note, there may be a thin line between building merchant ships and navy ships but I suspect Charis kept an eye on such matters.

PeterZ wrote:I suspect that Corisande is building merchant ships. Merchants will buy from anyone with a slip and the ability to build a reliable sailing ship especially if the non-Corisandian ship builders are building schooners for the ICN. They might or might not have been building schooners or have armed the ships they did build prior to Hektor swearing fealty to the Imperial Crown. They should be doing so soon if not already.

Either way, they are building ships that Charis will need to win the logistics war.

Bother! Yeah, Daivyn.

DrakBibliophile wrote:Don't you mean Daivyn swearing fealty to the Imperial Crown?

Seriously, I agree that Corisande could have been building merchant ships.

The restriction would be against them building Navy ships.

Note, there may be a thin line between building merchant ships and navy ships but I suspect Charis kept an eye on such matters.

PeterZ wrote:I suspect that Corisande is building merchant ships. Merchants will buy from anyone with a slip and the ability to build a reliable sailing ship especially if the non-Corisandian ship builders are building schooners for the ICN. They might or might not have been building schooners or have armed the ships they did build prior to Hektor swearing fealty to the Imperial Crown. They should be doing so soon if not already.

Either way, they are building ships that Charis will need to win the logistics war.

runsforcelery wrote:
More to the point, however, chase guns are almost universally lighter than the mounting ship's broadside guns if there is any difference between the broadside weapons and the chases. The reason for this is simple enough: the foredeck and the quarterdeck of a sailing vessel tend to narrow as you get towards the extreme ends of the ship. This both reduces the buoyancy of that portion of the hull, which makes heavy deck weights less than desirable and imposes a severe strain on the structure of the ship (leading to hogging and potential structural failure) if those weights are placed aboard anyway, and restricts the amount of space available in which to work the guns. This means that you can't put, for example, a thirty-pounder (5,000 pounds with a 9-foot tube and a 12-man crew) into the bows of a 16-gun schooner or brig, and the finer the lines of the ship in order to increase its speediness (sort of a necessary component of designing an effective commerce raider), the more severe those problems become. It's more practical, in some ways, to put heavier stern chases onto the quarterdeck, because the quarterdeck tends to be wider than the forecastle (which at least provides more space in which to work the guns), but the buoyancy issues remain and so do the structural strain factors. In addition, of course, it's sort of difficult to chase a merchant ship stern-first, especially in a sailing vessel.

Must admit, that i forgot about that. Thanks!

Some of the privateers are going to be patriots or zealots, but a bunch are going to be motivated by a desire to house and feed themselves and possibly (since it's more of a young man's job) their families.

If I was Cayleb (well, I'be be dead, but never mind...) I'd have those broadsheets put out that the crew of any privateer who surrenders without firing can get a nice lucrative mining job, a new pair of boots, and free housing for the first year, housing offer to include families, word of the Emperor of Charis.

There aren't that many Inquisitors, that they can put everyone's families under continuous watch. As soon as defections started the Church of God would have to try to suppress the commerce raiders. Or post an Inquisitor per vessel, and accept not getting all of them back.

If I were the Inquistition trying to stop the privateers from defecting, I'd make sure that the families of all of the crew & officers would be guests of the Inquistition.

Seriously, I doubt that the Inquisition would have to do that.

It would be very unlikely for the officers and crew of a given privateer ship to have no family that they'd want to permanently leave.

It would be "interesting" for a defecting crew to go back for or send for their families to join them in Charis.

About the only way IMO for a crew and their families to defect would be for them to load their families onto the ship before it left harbor.

I'd think that would be noticeable.

Graydon wrote:Some of the privateers are going to be patriots or zealots, but a bunch are going to be motivated by a desire to house and feed themselves and possibly (since it's more of a young man's job) their families.

If I was Cayleb (well, I'be be dead, but never mind...) I'd have those broadsheets put out that the crew of any privateer who surrenders without firing can get a nice lucrative mining job, a new pair of boots, and free housing for the first year, housing offer to include families, word of the Emperor of Charis.

There aren't that many Inquisitors, that they can put everyone's families under continuous watch. As soon as defections started the Church of God would have to try to suppress the commerce raiders. Or post an Inquisitor per vessel, and accept not getting all of them back.

In response to me suggesting the Empire of Charis make it known they'll pay good wages to privateers willing to do something else in the Empire

DrakBibliophile wrote:If I were the Inquistition trying to stop the privateers from defecting, I'd make sure that the families of all of the crew & officers would be guests of the Inquistition.

Seriously, I doubt that the Inquisition would have to do that.

It would be very unlikely for the officers and crew of a given privateer ship to have no family that they'd want to permanently leave.

It would be "interesting" for a defecting crew to go back for or send for their families to join them in Charis.

About the only way IMO for a crew and their families to defect would be for them to load their families onto the ship before it left harbor.

I'd think that would be noticeable.

You really want me to believe a privateer crew made up of fishermen from scattered small ports can't get their families on board? Historically, that was quite common, just as historically various small harbours had traffic the central government knew very little about. (West Country smuggler's harbours or the practice of selling the British supplies throughout New England during the War of 1812, for example.)

Fighting the ICN is hard and not very rewarding work, and Desnair is not the sort of culture that really makes a fisherman feel valued. The opportunity to do some silver mining and then have some capital in an expanding maritime empire isn't a bad deal. Or maybe just supply fresh fish to the miners, it's not like thousands and thousands will defect.

You don't need that, though, you just need it to be a sincere offer, to take the people who do defect on the terms you specified, and for the Inquisition to go nuts trying to suppress the possibility.

There are only so many Inquisitors and the rule about not giving orders you know won't be obeyed applies to the Church, too. If the Inquisition starts burning fishing villages down because a ship doesn't come back, and there's no telling why not -- weather and the enemy are always possibilities, after all -- that weakens the Desnarian economy and it certainly weakens the privateers and the authority of the Chursh so that's a win from the Charisian side.

It also does a lot of harm to the moral authority of the Church of God and makes the Empire of Charis look benevolent and reasonable because they're actually trying to be. There were several remarks in LAMA about how effective that approach is.