Considerations about naval designs

PeterZ wrote:

n7axw wrote:You are raising valid points, Peter. My only objection is that the EOC is already stretched to the limit for resources and in financing the cost of the war. That silver is no magic cure for dealing with that. Issue too much silver or too many promissory notes and you get inflation.

Also given the skilled labor shortage and the reality that building slips are being used to produce warships, I remain unconvinced that coming up with lots of designs producing a small number of ships each would be a wise allocation of all that. Far better to come up with a "liberty ship" design that would be large enough to be used both for military purposes and later converted to civilian use. Then set up the assembly line and start cranking them out rather than changing the design and forcing a constant redo of the building process.

Don

I actually agree with you on the Liberty Ship for merchant shipping. The Empire sponsors a simple but well made design and offers financing, preferably a lease to own. The idea is to make a basic steamer design available for anyone wanting to upgrade their merchant sailing ship.

Troop transports are another matter. Build these babies for Imperial use first. Lease them out after hostilities with a provision that they can be recalled into Imperial service at a set fee with notice. I just think that troop transports should be optimized at the design level to carry troops. Letting the more experienced building crews build these for the navy might be best.

I do agree that setting up an assembly line for ships and training building crews would be best with one simple design. Let the crews get experienced with that design first before trying different and more complicated designs.

I'd go with the Victory ship. It corrected several problems the Liberty ship had, mainly propulsion and hull fractures. The Liberties were too slow for convoys and an improved engine (steam or diesel type) with a turbine made the ship fast enough to make it easier to outrun u-boats. They also spaced out the frames of the ship. The Liberties were too rigid and tended to suffer cracks in the hull by that lack of rigidity. The Victories widened the space between the frames and eliminated most of that problem.

PeterZ wrote:

n7axw wrote:
I actually agree with you on the Liberty Ship for merchant shipping. The Empire sponsors a simple but well made design and offers financing, preferably a lease to own. The idea is to make a basic steamer design available for anyone wanting to upgrade their merchant sailing ship.

Troop transports are another matter. Build these babies for Imperial use first. Lease them out after hostilities with a provision that they can be recalled into Imperial service at a set fee with notice. I just think that troop transports should be optimized at the design level to carry troops. Letting the more experienced building crews build these for the navy might be best.

I do agree that setting up an assembly line for ships and training building crews would be best with one simple design. Let the crews get experienced with that design first before trying different and more complicated designs.

I'd go with the Victory ship. It corrected several problems the Liberty ship had, mainly propulsion and hull fractures. The Liberties were too slow for convoys and an improved engine (steam or diesel type) with a turbine made the ship fast enough to make it easier to outrun u-boats. They also spaced out the frames of the ship. The Liberties were too rigid and tended to suffer cracks in the hull by that lack of rigidity. The Victories widened the space between the frames and eliminated most of that problem.

Besides the Liberty and Victory ships, there was also the WW1 Hog Islander which was in many ways a better ship than the Liberties.

We need cargo ships similar to our world designs, there's no real need for Liberty type ship, risk of any privateer/pirate is near 0% and CoGA and friends have their yards destroyed.
What about digging canal through land which connect Charis to other part of it?
Is there any possibility to create proper support vessels? Hospital ships and few other types.
Charis really needs small and fast gunboat capable of travelling through sea and through canals in Siddamark Delthak was good, but it isn't the greatest design and has several flaws and it can't operate on open sea.

Draken wrote:We need cargo ships similar to our world designs, there's no real need for Liberty type ship, risk of any privateer/pirate is near 0% and CoGA and friends have their yards destroyed.
What about digging canal through land which connect Charis to other part of it?
Is there any possibility to create proper support vessels? Hospital ships and few other types.
Charis really needs small and fast gunboat capable of travelling through sea and through canals in Siddamark Delthak was good, but it isn't the greatest design and has several flaws and it can't operate on open sea.

A sea level canal across the neck between Howell Bay and the Cauldron is approximately 85 miles. If you attempt to cut through the mountain range shown on David's map, its about 38 miles, but you are going up and down a mountain range, and there are no rivers shown, so it is not clear if there would be sufficient water available to run the locks required to support the canal. As the maps provided by RFC do not have topgraphic information, it really isn't possible to estimate what elevation change is required for either route. What is a little odd is that Shan-Wei would not have cut such a canal during the terra forming process, given that she did select the site for Tellesburg.

The major advantage to the Delthak was that it was available when it was desperately needed. A better design that was 4 weeks later would have resulted in the almost certain destruction of the Siddarmark and Charis armies in place, as they were being steadily pushed back. And you weren't going to produce a better design in only 4 weeks.

Edited 1 times by fallsfromtrees

fallsfromtrees wrote:

Draken wrote:We need cargo ships similar to our world designs, there's no real need for Liberty type ship, risk of any privateer/pirate is near 0% and CoGA and friends have their yards destroyed.
What about digging canal through land which connect Charis to other part of it?
Is there any possibility to create proper support vessels? Hospital ships and few other types.
Charis really needs small and fast gunboat capable of travelling through sea and through canals in Siddamark Delthak was good, but it isn't the greatest design and has several flaws and it can't operate on open sea.

A sea level canal across the neck between Howell Bay and the Cauldron is approximately 85 miles. If you attempt to cut through the mountain range shown on David's map, its about 38 miles, but you are going up and down a mountain range, and there are no rivers shown, so it is not clear if there would be sufficient water available to run the locks required to support the canal. As the maps provided by RFC do not have topgraphic information, it really isn't possible to estimate what elevation change is required for either route. What is a little odd is that Shan-Wei would not have cut such a canal during the terra forming process, given that she did select the site for Tellesburg.

The major advantage to the Delthak was that it was available when it was desperately needed. A better design that was 4 weeks later would have resulted in the almost certain destruction of the Siddarmark and Charis armies in place, as they were being steadily pushed back. And you weren't going to produce a better design in only 4 weeks.

Edited 1 times by fallsfromtrees

It's more practical to think in terms of a railroad for that stretch, I think. Given the terrain, it would probably be a bearcat to build, but it's probably doable.

Don

Zakharra wrote:
I'd go with the Victory ship. It corrected several problems the Liberty ship had, mainly propulsion and hull fractures. The Liberties were too slow for convoys and an improved engine (steam or diesel type) with a turbine made the ship fast enough to make it easier to outrun u-boats. They also spaced out the frames of the ship. The Liberties were too rigid and tended to suffer cracks in the hull by that lack of rigidity. The Victories widened the space between the frames and eliminated most of that problem.

The whole concept of the liberty ship was less about the specific design of the liberty as it was with coming up with a basic ship design and mass producing it, in this case with the idea that said design properly applied could be a one size fits all for a fairly wide variety of applications.

We don't face the problem that the allies did with the war in the Atlantic. The EOC just needs an efficient way of transporting troops and supplies. What we were talking about was the best way of going about that at the same time honoring the need to be prudent in the use of resources.

Your comment on the specfics of the design is a welcome addition to the discussion.

Don

n7axw wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:A sea level canal across the neck between Howell Bay and the Cauldron is approximately 85 miles. If you attempt to cut through the mountain range shown on David's map, its about 38 miles, but you are going up and down a mountain range, and there are no rivers shown, so it is not clear if there would be sufficient water available to run the locks required to support the canal. As the maps provided by RFC do not have topgraphic information, it really isn't possible to estimate what elevation change is required for either route. What is a little odd is that Shan-Wei would not have cut such a canal during the terra forming process, given that she did select the site for Tellesburg.

The major advantage to the Delthak was that it was available when it was desperately needed. A better design that was 4 weeks later would have resulted in the almost certain destruction of the Siddarmark and Charis armies in place, as they were being steadily pushed back. And you weren't going to produce a better design in only 4 weeks.

Edited 1 times by fallsfromtrees

It's more practical to think in terms of a railroad for that stretch, I think. Given the terrain, it would probably be a bearcat to build, but it's probably doable.

Don

You are probably correct. Looking at the latest map I've been able to find (MT&T), it appears that the mountain range covering the neck stops north of Tellesburg, and that the shortest track from Tellesburg to the Cauldron Coast is about 200 miles, but that path appears to be moderately flat.

n7axw wrote:The whole concept of the liberty ship was less about the specific design of the liberty as it was with coming up with a basic ship design and mass producing it, in this case with the idea that said design properly applied could be a one size fits all for a fairly wide variety of applications.

I think the more important concept for the Liberty Ships was "We can build them faster than the enemy can sink them."

I agree that the Victory Ships would be a better model, but there's no real need for uniformity or mass production of steel ships. By the time production could be ramped up, the wartime pressure would be gone, and Charis can start demonstrating the variety of shape and size possible with steel ships.

PeterZ wrote:I am not so sure the Imperial Purse ought to be tight fisted in the near term. Charis has to provide the currency for the new Empire as well as Siddermark. The new mines won't produce one gold piece for years yet. Charis needs to issue quite a few of gold production promissory notes. The notes will trade but for the most part they will act to shore the newly created wealth. That will allow the existing gold coins to function primarily as a wealth transfer mechanism by circulating faster.

Hi Peter,

You might revise your timeline for several reasons.

First, this isn't the Pebble Mine trying to submit an application to the EPA, that the EPA has already spent two years coordinating with anti-mining groups to obstruct.

RFC compares the new mine to the Comstock Lode. The news of the lode got out in 1859, and in 1860 ore started to flow from the mines.

If you look at the gold rushes of the 19th century, you won't find one where it took over a year to start producing paying ore.

Second, ore from Comstock was originally transported by mule train. Safehold has draft dragons. How long do you think it will take to build an unpaved road from the coast to the mine?

LAMA mentions issuing the interest bearing promissory notes in September, and in the same section says that it will take months for the first shaft to be sunk. I would expect ore to start flowing some time in the second half of 897.

James

I'll take hour word for it, Bra. Increasing the amount of money in circulation in less than 2 years makes things simpler. I would imagine Charis still relying on promissory notes to some extent even after new coins enter circulation.

JRM wrote:
Hi Peter,

You might revise your timeline for several reasons.

First, this isn't the Pebble Mine trying to submit an application to the EPA, that the EPA has already spent two years coordinating with anti-mining groups to obstruct.

RFC compares the new mine to the Comstock Lode. The news of the lode got out in 1859, and in 1860 ore started to flow from the mines.

If you look at the gold rushes of the 19th century, you won't find one where it took over a year to start producing paying ore.

Second, ore from Comstock was originally transported by mule train. Safehold has draft dragons. How long do you think it will take to build an unpaved road from the coast to the mine?

LAMA mentions issuing the interest bearing promissory notes in September, and in the same section says that it will take months for the first shaft to be sunk. I would expect ore to start flowing some time in the second half of 897.

James