Hot Air and the start of Flight

Dilandu wrote:And let's not forget about the general population reaction for a aerial bombing (or even the simply leafet's drop).

For millenia, the ultimate rule for civilian in warfare was, that if you stay far enough of the frontlines (and coasts), that your would be sufficiently safe. At least, not until the frontline would go near you.

The aviation break this rule. The aviation could possibly strike anywhere in their range. No place is really safe. No city could be considered "far enough", especially if the real combat range of the enemy aircraft is unknown.

The United Kingdom was greatly hurt by zeppelins attack in 1915-1917. The direct damage wasn't big, but the morale damage was incredible. The zeppelins was able to hit any Englishman anywhere on islands; the Royal Navy couldn't stop them, the royal army couldn't stop them. Anyone suddenly found itself in danger. And the fear and panic was great.

Generally speaking, the "all mighty Britannia" era was ended by zeppelins. They demonstrated, that even on their islands, the population of Britain would not be safe anymore. And this shatter all.

For the Safehold situation, the morale damage would me far, far greater. There are would be riots. There would be whole towns evacuated, the population flee from air attacks, even if they wouldn't be directed against them. And that would be a LOT of problems for the CoGA.

I agree with everything you said, and the effects would likely be everything you postulated. The CoGA would likely denounce anything that flies as "demonic," which Merlin and the EoC would like to avoid, but the day will come when Clyntahn won't approve some bit of tech developed by Charis, and at that point charges of demonic weapons might actually stick because Clyntahn cannot approve a technology the church can't duplicate. The EoC has been charged with using demonic weapons before when they first developed exploding shells, until the church learned how to make the things themselves and Clyntahn gave shells the "Inquisition's Seal of Approval."

However, if the CoGA can't develop dirigibles and steam engines, Clyntahn will declare that the EoC is violating the Proscriptions even though hot air to provide lift is just wind, which is permitted, and he's going to approve the steam engine, which is also based on wind, now that the church has partial plans and notes on how to build one.

No reformist is going to care one bit what Clyntahn thinks of things that their honest inquisitor has approved under the Proscriptions, and Paityr Wylsynn still has room to stretch the Proscriptions until they scream, as long as the war continues and the CoGA is desperate.

However, Merlin has a huge say in what gets developed and how it's used, and for him, (and therefore the rulers of the EoC) innocent civilians are off limits!

Merlin would have no problem with dropping leaflets on towns, although if the sight of an airship incited terror and people were trampled and killed running away when the airship posed no real danger, he'd put a stop to it. OWL's broadsheets already share the EoC's propaganda with the world, and it has the advantage of being true!

Allowing the EoC to bomb civilian targets simply won't happen - although the CoGA would love to be able to bomb the EoC! (Remember the Rakurai attacks?) Merlin's conscience is tying him in knots already, which is one reason he approved the creation of Nimue. She gives him the opportunity to face Safehold as the innocent person he was before he kicked the anthill and sped up the looming war, and got so much blood on his hands in the process, real or imagined. Since he's already sick to death of all the killing and suffering, he won't add to it with "terror weapons" that affect civilians.

Which in a way is unfortunate Dilandu, since you have some clever ideas of how effective an air campaign would be on Safehold, and how to best use airships even if they aren't used in a military role. It's Merlin's (and now Nimue's) struggle to break the church and return mankind to the stars though, and they have veto power. Cayleb and Sharley will agree, since they're into destroying their enemies with kindness and winning hearts and minds, and as one of their former foes noted, Safehold hasn't developed defenses against that sort of unscrupulous behavior!

McGuiness wrote:RFC actually jumped in and gave a pretty extensive explanation of the origins of gunpowder. Someone in North Harchong wanted to build canals to rival those in Siddarmark - or at least to get the goods to market from western Harchong to the east a lot cheaper.

Exactly how the canal builder stumbled across gunpowder escapes me at the moment, but yeah, there was a REALLY large bribe included - so big that the entire canal project went broke and was abandoned. It's rather ironic that the ONE substance that was guaranteed to upset the social matrix was introduced by the Harchongese, who are the model of a static society. Of course China had gunpowder for centuries and pretty much only used it for fireworks, so from that example it's clear that just because an invention becomes available, it won't necessarily be used in violent ways in the society where it was invented.

It is estimated that the Chinese invented gunpowder in the 9th Century, They forbade the exportation of charcoal and sulpher in 1067, to limit it's use, and definitely had hand-cannons during the 1200's.

McGuiness wrote:Allowing the EoC to bomb civilian targets simply won't happen - although the CoGA would love to be able to bomb the EoC!

The good things about the airships, is that they could drop bomb with certain accuracy. They could basically stall in air, to reduce the impact of their own movement almost to zero.

So, with airships we could bomb precisely what we need to hit. Armories, shipyard, warehouses, factories. I would n't say that we would be able to completely go without collateral damage, but it wouldn't be significant. But even if the peoples would knew, that the population itself would not be attacked, they would still be in fear and anger.

P.S. The zeppelin bombig in World War I was never "terror" bombing. They always at least tried to hit some military target - factory, dockyards or warehouses. They didn't just "drop the bomb on any target", actually, their crews were forbidden to make indiscriminate attacks.

Dilandu wrote:

McGuiness wrote:Allowing the EoC to bomb civilian targets simply won't happen - although the CoGA would love to be able to bomb the EoC!

The good things about the airships, is that they could drop bomb with certain accuracy. They could basically stall in air, to reduce the impact of their own movement almost to zero.

So, with airships we could bomb precisely what we need to hit. Armories, shipyard, warehouses, factories. I wouldn't say that we would be able to completely go without collateral damage, but it wouldn't be significant. But even if the people knew that the population itself would not be attacked, they would still be in fear and anger.

P.S. The zeppelin bombing in World War I was never "terror" bombing. They always at least tried to hit some military target - factory, dockyards or warehouses. They didn't just "drop the bomb on any target", actually, their crews were forbidden to make indiscriminate attacks.

I don't disagree that any building or area that supports the CoGA's war effort is a valid military target, and if the civilian workers in the factories that produce the supplies for the CoGA's armies knew and accepted that they were valid military targets, Merlin might not exercise veto power over bombing such targets. On the other hand, is the Inquisition going to make working in those factories optional? I rather doubt it...

Even with the ability to basically park over a target, a zeppelin would need to be at a sufficiently high altitude to preclude taking enemy fire - which it would eventually be unable to do once anti-aircraft guns are developed, and it wouldn't be difficult to change an angle gun to be able to shoot a shell filled with flak and explosives nearly straight up. Even before those guns are developed, the winds below the zeppelin would make dropping bombs somewhat inaccurate.

The U.S. used the same top secret bomb sight from WW II all the way through Vietnam, and although it was the best thing available until computer targeting and smart bombs were invented, the results of its targeting were far from precision bombing, although they were better than anyone else could do from 5,000 feet or higher - and 5,000 feet was considered to be flying dangerously low. (And it certainly was!)

Consider the ICN's attack on Iythria the example of how the EoC will deal with military targets. They managed to get the Desnairan commanders to surrender, evacuate all the military buildings, shipyards, etc, and then the ICM burned them all. Nobody was hurt after the initial battle, although the commanders would have been put to the Question if they hadn't suddenly found urgent reasons to emigrate to Charis with their entire families!

McGuiness wrote: , and it wouldn't be difficult to change an angle gun to be able to shoot a shell filled with flak and explosives nearly straight up.

Wouldn't difficult: but wouldn't work either. In early years of World War I there were attempts to use conventional artillery as anti-air; after first experiments, they all rushed to develope the purpose AA gun.

Simply speaking - to fire in general direction of airship and to hit the airship is two completely diffrent tasks. The CoGA may place thousands of rifled guns as AA - assuming that they would be able to desing the AA mount in short time, and assuming that they would be able to divert so many guns from frontlines - but they would be still insufficient as air defense.

the winds below the zeppelin would make dropping bombs somewhat inaccurate.

Of course. But SOME collateral damage, regretfully, is always unavoidable on wars.

Dilandu wrote:

McGuiness wrote: , and it wouldn't be difficult to change an angle gun to be able to shoot a shell filled with flak and explosives nearly straight up.

Wouldn't difficult: but wouldn't work either. In early years of World War I there were attempts to use conventional artillery as anti-air; after first experiments, they all rushed to develop the purpose AA gun.

Simply speaking - to fire in general direction of airship and to hit the airship is two completely different tasks. The CoGA may place thousands of rifled guns as AA - assuming that they would be able to design the AA mount in short time, and assuming that they would be able to divert so many guns from front lines - but they would be still insufficient as air defense.

Wow, that's really interesting. I expected that aiming the gun and setting the timers on the shells to coincide with the altitude of the zeppelin would be difficult, but I didn't realize that the results would turn out so poorly.

If nothing else, having a zeppelin show up now and then to drop a few bombs on very large military targets would cause the CoGA to spend a huge amount of research, time, money, and resources to create an effective AA gun, and then they'd have to surround all their major military bases and manufacturing facilities with them. Given the state of the church's finances, that would go a long way to pushing them into bankruptcy for a minimal investment! Not to mention all the artillery that wouldn't be manufactured for the armies in the field. Somebody ought to plant this bug in RFC's ear - but since he reads these forums, he'll probably see our discussion.

Of course by now if he was planning to use zeppelins or something similar, the decision is made so we aren't giving him any ideas he didn't already have. The fun is in anticipating correctly what we may see later on. Listing the guesses we got right when a book comes out is one of the greatest joys on these forums - assuming we get anything right of course given RFC's innate sneakiness!

McGuiness wrote:Wow, that's really interesting. I expected that aiming the gun and setting the timers on the shells to coincide with the altitude of the zeppelin would be difficult, but I didn't realize that the results would turn out so poorly.

Yes, it's difficult. For example, first you must at leas approximately knew the altitude of flight. Second, you need a really reliable mechanical time fuze; the powder-burning fuses were completely useless in this role (especially the crude burning fuses, that CoGA could produce). And third - just hit airship with shrapnel isn't going to destroy it immediately; there were a lot of cases, when the airship, damaged with shrapnel, was able to return to base. Even the direct hit isn't lethal, until the hydrogen isn't set aflame.

And the airships didn't need to stall for more that a very short time to drop the bomb accurately. And by dropping bomb airship immediately gaining altitude, going out of AA gun range.

If nothing else, having a zeppelin show up now and then to drop a few bombs on very large military targets would cause the CoGA to spend a huge amount of research, time, money, and resources to create an effective AA gun, and then they'd have to surround all their major military bases and manufacturing facilities with them.

And it would be WERY costly.

Given the state of the church's finances, that would go a long way to pushing them into bankruptcy for a minimal investment! Not to mention all the artillery that wouldn't be manufactured for the armies in the field. Somebody ought to plant this bug in RFC's ear - but since he reads these forums, he'll probably see our discussion.

Exactly! The CoGA ability to produce artillery is limited; especially the high-tech rifled artillery, that is neccecary to AA functions.

I'm reminded of a conversation Earl Hanth had while observing the enemy from atop his observation tower. paraphrased: Any good sailor equates observation hight with military advantage.

I believe a hot air balloon used for forward edge of battle observation and artillery Spotting/Coordination would be very usefull. And if used tethered/towed from ships could greatly increase fleets or convoys scouting capabilities.

Hot air balloons as a first step are well within the tecnical capabilities of the charisian manufactoring industry. Additionally it sounds like Sea Dragon Oil which is already mass produced would be a succesful fuel source.

And once something so incredably simple as a hot air balloon is utilized more complex systems could quickly follow.

packhunter wrote:I'm reminded of a conversation Earl Hanth had while observing the enemy from atop his observation tower. paraphrased: Any good sailor equates observation hight with military advantage.

I believe a hot air balloon used for forward edge of battle observation and artillery Spotting/Coordination would be very usefull. And if used tethered/towed from ships could greatly increase fleets or convoys scouting capabilities.

Hot air balloons as a first step are well within the tecnical capabilities of the charisian manufactoring industry. Additionally it sounds like Sea Dragon Oil which is already mass produced would be a succesful fuel source.

And once something so incredably simple as a hot air balloon is utilized more complex systems could quickly follow.

Actually, far enough behind the front lines to be out of reach of enemy fire would be better. You would still want it close enough to be able to conduct observation, but far enough back not to be a target.

I remember from one of Eric's books in the 1632 series in "Russian Games" (I think) that an observation balloon did get shot down. I know this isn't the Safehold universe, but the concern still seems valid.

Don