Considerations about naval designs

Draken wrote:I was thinking about post-Treaty.

For what reason? What Charis really lack, is the light forces, not battleline. They need screw wooden sloops for convoy protection and patrol, and screw wooden gunboats for coastal operations. Their current advantage in armor and artillery would let them control the seas for at least a decade more.

doug941 wrote:

Draken wrote:So what about World War II heavy cruisers designs?

The answer to that question would depend on if you are talking about Treaty cruisers or post-Treaty cruisers.
The Treaty cruisers tended to be barely better off than a up-dated protected cruiser while post-Treaty were the evolutionary children of the armored cruiser. Compare the USS Pensacola and the USS Wichita.

I might consider WICHITA the last treaty cruiser, trying really hard for 10,000 tons and not quite making it; NO treaty gets you to DES MOINES, but also to something that's heavily affected by fear of air attack affecting designs derived from spending nigh-forty years worried about increasingly large fast hulls making torpedo attacks, which is why cruisers have to make better than 30 knots. If it's ok if your cruisers have a 25 knot top speed, you get a lot of hull back for things other than machinery.

Until someone else on Safehold builds a steam engine, pretty much nothing can threaten an ocean-going steel-hulled steamship. They don't even have to be armed, they can run away. Stick some 4" quick-firers on them if you feel nervous or naval.

Until someone else on Safehold invents steel breech-loading artillery with nitrocellulose propellants, aircraft engines, or the torpedo, neither naval, air nor torpedo attacks are problems and neither air nor torpedo is likely to be a problem pre-Post-Proscriptions. (Post-Proscriptions there are death rays.) Torpedoes are much more likely than effective aircraft -- no spark plugs makes aero engines difficult -- but what does the delivery platform look like? (Presumably either another cruiser or some sort of PT-boat for coastal defense.) Really long-range torpedoes aren't all that likely, but you're not going to have particularly long-range gunnery, either, due to no radar and no Admiralty-Table style fire control.

So until we see what the KING HAARAHLDs are needed to fight, I don't think we've got a clue where the surface navy designs are going to go. Much too different from historical models.

And in the meantime, move the merchies into steel hulls and oil-fired engines. Dazzle the world with your passenger liners. Move the perceived force requirements to take you on ever further and ever upward and always out of reach.

I will change topic a little. Civilian Navy was based on clumsy galeons and it's probably time for it to change? Is there anybody who could design/discover TEU and ship to transport it? They're much easier to carry around and transport even on ground. Designing ship to carry them shouldn't be that hard and they're very easy to build, we just need a hollow she'll and small control toward and engine inside it.

Draken wrote:I will change topic a little. Civilian Navy was based on clumsy galeons and it's probably time for it to change? Is there anybody who could design/discover TEU and ship to transport it? They're much easier to carry around and transport even on ground. Designing ship to carry them shouldn't be that hard and they're very easy to build, we just need a hollow she'll and small control toward and engine inside it.

The trouble would be the massive cranes needed at various ports of call. That is still the trouble with container vessels even today, while some are self-sufficient with cranes etc most aren't, and require whatever port they are calling at to have the requisite infrastructure already in place. Additionally, intermodal container-type transport arrangements are only good when the entire container is going to the same destination, it's going to be even more of a pain to break the contents of the container down when it reaches Siddar City because half of the container's cargo is leaving the city to 2 other destinations and the other half is staying in the city. Scale matters, and I'm not certain that Safehold has reached that scale yet. You may see some containerization/standardization of shipping containers for military purposes, but it would be on a scale far smaller than the TEUs we're used to, and it would be limited to shipments of large quantities of supplies all going to the same destinations: the main supply depot at Siddar City would be a good start. But again, it only makes sense to implement if all overseas military bases are going to be equipped with the infrastructure to handle it.


As to HMS Powerful, I used her design as a large convoy escort. Her job is to attack and harass, and shadow when necessary, enemy raiders. For which she needs speed and range. Yes some might be lost but most will perform their function of commerce protection quite well, until made obsolete by fast armored cruisers, and faster, upgunned light/protected cruisers.

Darman wrote:

Draken wrote:I will change topic a little. Civilian Navy was based on clumsy galeons and it's probably time for it to change? Is there anybody who could design/discover TEU and ship to transport it? They're much easier to carry around and transport even on ground. Designing ship to carry them shouldn't be that hard and they're very easy to build, we just need a hollow she'll and small control toward and engine inside it.

The trouble would be the massive cranes needed at various ports of call. That is still the trouble with container vessels even today, while some are self-sufficient with cranes etc most aren't, and require whatever port they are calling at to have the requisite infrastructure already in place. Additionally, intermodal container-type transport arrangements are only good when the entire container is going to the same destination, it's going to be even more of a pain to break the contents of the container down when it reaches Siddar City because half of the container's cargo is leaving the city to 2 other destinations and the other half is staying in the city. Scale matters, and I'm not certain that Safehold has reached that scale yet. You may see some containerization/standardization of shipping containers for military purposes, but it would be on a scale far smaller than the TEUs we're used to, and it would be limited to shipments of large quantities of supplies all going to the same destinations: the main supply depot at Siddar City would be a good start. But again, it only makes sense to implement if all overseas military bases are going to be equipped with the infrastructure to handle it.


As to HMS Powerful, I used her design as a large convoy escort. Her job is to attack and harass, and shadow when necessary, enemy raiders. For which she needs speed and range. Yes some might be lost but most will perform their function of commerce protection quite well, until made obsolete by fast armored cruisers, and faster, upgunned light/protected cruisers.

If you want Powerful as an escort, I would recommend that you look up RN Orlando class. To compare- HMS Powerful 14,200 tons, 500 feet long, 22 knots, 7,000 nm range, 894 crew, 2x9.2" 12x6" 12x3" 12x1.85" 4 torpedo tubes, armor 2-6" deck 6" barbettes and shields. HMS Orlando 5,600 tons, 300 feet, 18 kn, 10,000 nm@10kts, 484 crew, 2x9.2" 10x6" 6x2.25" 10x1.85" 6 tubes (1 bow, 1 stern, 2 port & starboard) armor 10" belt 12"conning tower. By cutting the belt and tower to 5-6" armor shielding could be added to the guns while still being able to fulfill any duty that the Powerful could do. In addition you could build and crew two Orlandos for each Powerful.

As to HMS Powerful, I used her design as a large convoy escort. Her job is to attack and harass, and shadow when necessary, enemy raiders. For which she needs speed and range. Yes some might be lost but most will perform their function of commerce protection quite well, until made obsolete by fast armored cruisers, and faster, upgunned light/protected cruisers.

It wouldn't work. Even on Earth, the big protected cruisers were considered useless and too costly.

For the functions, mentioned above, the big gunboat with steel artillery would be perfect, in Safehold conditions. There is completely no need to drag even more resources from Charisian industry to just a convoy escorts. The wooden screw sloops would do the trick.

Dilandu wrote:

As to HMS Powerful, I used her design as a large convoy escort. Her job is to attack and harass, and shadow when necessary, enemy raiders. For which she needs speed and range. Yes some might be lost but most will perform their function of commerce protection quite well, until made obsolete by fast armored cruisers, and faster, upgunned light/protected cruisers.

It wouldn't work. Even on Earth, the big protected cruisers were considered useless and too costly.

For the functions, mentioned above, the big gunboat with steel artillery would be perfect, in Safehold conditions. There is completely no need to drag even more resources from Charisian industry to just a convoy escorts. The wooden screw sloops would do the trick.

If you went with wood, make damned sure that the hull was copperclad. Borers and other sea life will eat your hull as well as causing a lot of drag. Safehold is likely to have the same kind of sea life as Earth.

doug941 wrote:
If you went with wood, make damned sure that the hull was copperclad. Borers and other sea life will eat your hull as well as causing a lot of drag. Safehold is likely to have the same kind of sea life as Earth.

Didn't really matter. If we could build something like KH, then we definitely could build scores of wooden screw gunboats or sloops per year.

Dilandu wrote:

doug941 wrote:
If you went with wood, make damned sure that the hull was copperclad. Borers and other sea life will eat your hull as well as causing a lot of drag. Safehold is likely to have the same kind of sea life as Earth.

Didn't really matter. If we could build something like KH, then we definitely could build scores of wooden screw gunboats or sloops per year.

The point is you have to beach or drydock every so often to clean the hull. Imagine what several hundred square feet of seaweed, barnacles etc will do to your speed. Without said cleaning, an enemy ship that you normally would run down will instead sail away into the sunset. And if a marine worm eats your hull, your vessel is out of business when it maybe the only one able to respond to the enemy.

doug941 wrote:
The point is you have to beach or drydock every so often to clean the hull. Imagine what several hundred square feet of seaweed, barnacles etc will do to your speed. Without said cleaning, an enemy ship that you normally would run down will instead sail away into the sunset. And if a marine worm eats your hull, your vessel is out of business when it maybe the only one able to respond to the enemy.

Please. It's a cheap, wartime-build gunboats and sloops. They are build for short service.