Considerations about naval designs

fallsfromtrees wrote:Not me. There is going to be a limit to how fast you can catapult the gliders, which is going to severely limit the range, as you almost certainly won't be able to find thermal to extend your glider range.

The ship's stacks should provide enough thermal to give gliders an over-the-horizon range. The ship wouldn't even have to be a flat-top; battleships launched scout-planes from dedicated catapults about the same length as the main guns.

Weird Harold wrote:
[ship-launched gliders]

The ship's stacks should provide enough thermal to give gliders an over-the-horizon range. The ship wouldn't even have to be a flat-top; battleships launched scout-planes from dedicated catapults about the same length as the main guns.

If you were really serious about this, you could use solid-fuel rockets as additional boost to altitude, but I find myself wondering why?

You aren't going to get a significant cargo amount up there without fairly advanced aero engines; cargo gliders weren't capable of exploiting thermals, they were a way to land heavy equipment.

You're not going to get signals back from a spotting glider because you can't have radio. Making a glider pilot stand in the open cockpit and wave semaphore flags won't be especially successful. Little coloured fireworks for short and long? Five blue lights is 500 yards over? I'm not sure the glider pilot wants to be fussing with fireworks, either.

Goodness, gang. I hate pouring cold water on such wonderful flights of fantasy, but there really isn't any need for all of this.

On sea the EOC's lead is unchallengable in the time the COGA has left. Some sea worthy ironclads in the cruiser/destroyer range would be useful over time for power projection. But even now, according to the snippets they have those cities class ironclads for coastal work. Get enough of those ironclads to sea along with the King Haarahlds and the ICN will move into the Gulf of Dohlar and seize the only body of water still contested by the other side.

On land the Alliances lead is insurmountable as well with the introduction of the M96s, and perhaps even more importantly the breach loading cannon, the riverclads and more.

In short, the EOC/Siddarmarkians already have the tech they need for this war. They also between them have the manpower to finish the business. HFQ like LAMA will introduce some new wrinkles. But at the moment the real bottleneck is that the industrial plant is not yet producing in enough quantity to supply the armies as quickly as is really needed. So what needs to happen is for our good friend Howsmyn needs to continue to be able to expand without continuing interruptions that scramble his plans. It will be interesting to see how RFC works all of that out.

Don

It will be interesting to see if they will switch from steam to diesel when possible. What about commercial design of ships? We have strong enough industry to start building bigger cargo ships and when oil will be major resource we will need tankers. Is it possible with current tech to design ship in range of 50-100k tons? With diesel there shouldn't be any problem with power for them and they should be quite fast. Only bottleneck could be supply of Steel and iron, but it could be designed similar to our ships. Is there any device which could replace radar?

Weird Harold wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:Not me. There is going to be a limit to how fast you can catapult the gliders, which is going to severely limit the range, as you almost certainly won't be able to find thermal to extend your glider range.

The ship's stacks should provide enough thermal to give gliders an over-the-horizon range. The ship wouldn't even have to be a flat-top; battleships launched scout-planes from dedicated catapults about the same length as the main guns.

Harold: Older ex-Navy pilots, friends of my uncle's, flew off a few of those flight decks.
Job entailed launching from flight deck, doing recon, landing in water (these were sea-planes) and reporting in as the aircraft was craned onboard.
But back to a troop delivery glider.
A 12 man unit.
Catapult launches glider.
Merlin can recommend wing structure and such.
Glider achieves arc apogee and the tail rocketeer ignites four sidemounted rockets and hopefully the pilot guides the craft upwards.
There he hopefully catches a prevailing wind.

TN4994 wrote:Harold: Older ex-Navy pilots, friends of my uncle's, flew off a few of those flight decks.
Job entailed launching from flight deck, doing recon, landing in water (these were sea-planes) and reporting in as the aircraft was craned onboard.
But back to a troop delivery glider.
A 12 man unit.
Catapult launches glider.
Merlin can recommend wing structure and such.
Glider achieves arc apogee and the tail rocketeer ignites four sidemounted rockets and hopefully the pilot guides the craft upwards.
There he hopefully catches a prevailing wind.

Hopefully...

Don

n7axw wrote:

TN4994 wrote:Harold: Older ex-Navy pilots, friends of my uncle's, flew off a few of those flight decks.
Job entailed launching from flight deck, doing recon, landing in water (these were sea-planes) and reporting in as the aircraft was craned onboard.
But back to a troop delivery glider.
A 12 man unit.
Catapult launches glider.
Merlin can recommend wing structure and such.
Glider achieves arc apogee and the tail rocketeer ignites four sidemounted rockets and hopefully the pilot guides the craft upwards.
There he hopefully catches a prevailing wind.

Hopefully...

Don

I know that hopefully is not a word I like to include in my planning.

Draken wrote:About ships design what about taking Fletcher class hull and redesigning it? We really don't need guns bigger than breech-loaded 120 mm with AP shells and some of HEAT and HE. Even armor of Fletcher would be hard to destroy for CoGA ships.
About dreadnoughts and battleships: KGV was bad design, but for Charis it would be very good, also Hood would be very good design for them. Nice looking ship, good for shoving a flag, going after privateers, escorting cargo ships and fighting in normal battles. Ship design which is needed ASAP is small gunboat for river and canal operations, by canal you can get anywhere in Haven and Howard, if we could squeeze into it sea going capabilities, even for shallow seas, like gulf between Howard and Haven.

Right now Charis has triple expansion steam engines and have just produced its first large steel warships. This is all new technology and its going to have its bugs, new procedures for operation, logistics, etc. The Fletcher class was steam turbine driven and its design was refined from the original destroyers from 40 years prior.

I would go with a 700 to 1000 ton destroyer with triple expansion steam engines and 4 guns of 3" or 4" diameter. A lot of the early destroyers had top speeds of 26 to 29 knots. That speed with 4 guns would outclass any number of wooden ships anyone else could put on the water.

Economically it makes sense to develop something like this because. Each destroyer would be a force multiplier. Each one has a relatively small crew, easing manning issues. The combination of speed and firepower would make it out class all wooden warships currently on the water. Even ironclads would be totally outclassed by early destroyers.

As for more dreadnoughts I really don't think they are needed. Other than shore bombardment there really wouldn't be much for them to do. Cool idea, but I am a fan of the American Standard Class battleship from prior to WWI.
Riverboats, they already have a passable design that works well.
As for cruisers, it depends on what they can produce. Right now Charis is stretched to the max. They need to kick up production in their other provinces or they will be limited on what they can produce. If given a choice I would build destroyers as they are cheaper and there is nothing they don't currently outclass.

Besides this they need to make a small metal freighter that is triple expansion engine driven. Each one could do the job of several wooden sailing ships, do it faster and more safely and with far fewer crew per ship. I know their resources are stretched but they have to gear up iron and steel production elsewhere.

n7axw wrote:Goodness, gang. I hate pouring cold water on such wonderful flights of fantasy, but there really isn't any need for all of this.

On sea the EOC's lead is unchallengable in the time the COGA has left. Some sea worthy ironclads in the cruiser/destroyer range would be useful over time for power projection. But even now, according to the snippets they have those cities class ironclads for coastal work. Get enough of those ironclads to sea along with the King Haarahlds and the ICN will move into the Gulf of Dohlar and seize the only body of water still contested by the other side.

On land the Alliances lead is insurmountable as well with the introduction of the M96s, and perhaps even more importantly the breach loading cannon, the riverclads and more.

In short, the EOC/Siddarmarkians already have the tech they need for this war. They also between them have the manpower to finish the business. HFQ like LAMA will introduce some new wrinkles. But at the moment the real bottleneck is that the industrial plant is not yet producing in enough quantity to supply the armies as quickly as is really needed. So what needs to happen is for our good friend Howsmyn needs to continue to be able to expand without continuing interruptions that scramble his plans. It will be interesting to see how RFC works all of that out.

Don

Cayleb and Sharlayn both need to get production going in Chisholm and Emerald, one way or the other. Charis cannot handle the demand currently in place. There needs to be someone assigned to getting production rolling in Emerald and Chisholm. Someone who will knock heads, buy out people who are standing in the way, and get the job done. There are business men in both countries who realize how much money Howsmyn is making and would love to emulate him. They need to find someone who can find those people and give them the push and funding they need to get it started. Cayleb and Sharlayn do not have the time to monitor growing a new tech base in both countries. They need someone who could drive the process along and keep as much graft as possible from hampering the process.

As for my mention of destroyers and freighters, that of course is as they have time and resources to build those. As you said Charis is really stretched at the moment. But I would not build another sailing ship. If I build anything it would be a blue water capable steam ship of whatever type I needed.

Jeroswen wrote:

n7axw wrote:Goodness, gang. I hate pouring cold water on such wonderful flights of fantasy, but there really isn't any need for all of this.

On sea the EOC's lead is unchallengable in the time the COGA has left. Some sea worthy ironclads in the cruiser/destroyer range would be useful over time for power projection. But even now, according to the snippets they have those cities class ironclads for coastal work. Get enough of those ironclads to sea along with the King Haarahlds and the ICN will move into the Gulf of Dohlar and seize the only body of water still contested by the other side.

On land the Alliances lead is insurmountable as well with the introduction of the M96s, and perhaps even more importantly the breach loading cannon, the riverclads and more.

In short, the EOC/Siddarmarkians already have the tech they need for this war. They also between them have the manpower to finish the business. HFQ like LAMA will introduce some new wrinkles. But at the moment the real bottleneck is that the industrial plant is not yet producing in enough quantity to supply the armies as quickly as is really needed. So what needs to happen is for our good friend Howsmyn needs to continue to be able to expand without continuing interruptions that scramble his plans. It will be interesting to see how RFC works all of that out.

Don

Cayleb and Sharlayn both need to get production going in Chisholm and Emerald, one way or the other. Charis cannot handle the demand currently in place. There needs to be someone assigned to getting production rolling in Emerald and Chisholm. Someone who will knock heads, buy out people who are standing in the way, and get the job done. There are business men in both countries who realize how much money Howsmyn is making and would love to emulate him. They need to find someone who can find those people and give them the push and funding they need to get it started. Cayleb and Sharlayn do not have the time to monitor growing a new tech base in both countries. They need someone who could drive the process along and keep as much graft as possible from hampering the process.

As for my mention of destroyers and freighters, that of course is as they have time and resources to build those. As you said Charis is really stretched at the moment. But I would not build another sailing ship. If I build anything it would be a blue water capable steam ship of whatever type I needed.

They need it, but for that they also need a reason. It would make sense to start small arms factories andante one Norfolk size shipyards.