The next steps in gunnery w/ gunboats and Canals

IIRC, Howsmyn specifically makes the point that he built his canal using current plans from Siddarmark for the locks, and that the barges converted into Delthak & Co. would _not_ pass through older post-creation canals. For all practical purposes they're restricted to operations in Siddarmark and _maybe_ the Salthar Canal. I believe they can operate on the Langhorne and, presumably, Bedard and Schueler canals as well as any Shan Wei had put in in western Haven, but there aren't really all that many of those, and the link to Lake Pei is probably not one of them.

Theemile wrote:

RunsInShadows wrote:If we use the Erie Canal, as it was when the first enlargements were finished in 1862, as an example, we can expect 70ft wide and 7ft deep. I'm guessing that the safehold canals are actually a bit different than this, given the canals that were created upon colonization of the planet. Present day Erie Canal is 120ft wide and 12ft deep, though I'm guessing safehold locks couldn't handle that volume of water.

These canal sizes would allow for a good size boat to pass. Make a gunboat with about a 30ft max beam, and a shallow draft of 6ft or so. Length would be limited by the length that could be reasonably turned around in the canal(I'm guessing that there are places that are specifically made for turning around, though I have no textev to support this).
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The later Miami-Erie canal had a minimum depth of 4 feet and could accommodate boats up to 90 ft (27 m) long and 14 ft (4.3 m) wide. It was designed for 2 way traffic (though the locks were usually singletons). The Ohio Portions (side branches went into Indiana and were less regulated since they were not bound by the Ohio laws which created the main Canal) were at least 40 foot wide, with wider turn arounds every 10 miles or so.

Remember, the original Safeholdian canals are considerably smaller then the newer ones. Knowing the size of the "Volunteer" at the Providence locks in Ohio, I'd imagine that the existing ironclads couldn't use the Ohio system - which makes me wonder about their useability in the older canals.

Note this important quote from MTAT:

The newer canals mostly have bigger locks to let them use bigger barges for purely local traffic, but one of the really old trunk lines—like the Langhorne—can’t accept outsized barges.

except that the actual dimensions given in LAMA show that it _can_ take barges almost as big as the ones used locally on the NN, and significantly larger than later pre-gunpowder construction can handle.

SWM wrote:Note this important quote from MTAT:

The newer canals mostly have bigger locks to let them use bigger barges for purely local traffic, but one of the really old trunk lines—like the Langhorne—can’t accept outsized barges.

isaac_newton wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Nope, they're bigger than older, pre-gunpowder, canals, but NOT bigger than the oldest canals dug by the terra-forming crews.

Hmmmm - I dunno. I think that quote could be read either way quite legitimately. So the size order could be

Terra formed
New Northlands
First hand made

Note, Charisian canals are the biggest, but aren't relevant to a discussion of canals in the war zone.

If one applies a little logic and considers the technology involved, the Terraformed Canals are the straightest and widest -- probably wide enough to allow traffic in two directions -- followed by Canals dug with gunpowder or other high explosives, followed by canals dug with muscle power alone.

The investment in time and manpower to dig canals with nothing more than muscle power -- i.e. pick, shovels, and wheelbarrows -- is too high to try to duplicate the size of canals dug with TF Tech or explosives. Any canal dug between creation and about 70 years ago when gunpowder was introduced has to be in the smallest group of canals.

Charisian canals -- such as those discussed in the textev above were built with the advantage of gunpowder and the knowledge/innovations available to Merlin and the Inner Circle.

Captain Igloo wrote:

Like A Mighty Army wrote:“Anyway, because of the lock size we chose, our barges are a hundred and forty feet long and forty-five feet in the beam with a draft of about six and a half feet”

Merlin and Howsmyn about the first ironclads in MTAT

Just to put that into perspective - assuming that we keep similar dimensions, if the barge was turned into a gunboat, it would be similar in size to the CSS Tuscaloosa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Tuscaloosa_(ironclad)).

RunsInShadows wrote:

MWadwell wrote:
And for that you need better fire correction - not fire direction.

I.e. you need to develop a system, where a distant observer can correct fire onto a distant target.

Remember, even the smaller calibre guns (i.e. 4 inch) have a range of nearly 10 miles - which is a LOT further then can be corrected from on board the ship.

The range of the KH is sufficient for almost ALL current indirect fire needs - but without the use of a forward observer, it is going to be blind-fire.


One last point - while you are correct in that a lot of Safehold is within a relatively short distance of water - remember that a majority of the water transport routes are relatively small canals. It is going to be difficult to get anything larger then an 8" gun on a canal-base warship.

I think fire correction falls under the purview of fire direction.

With all due respect, I disagree.

To me Fire direction is using ONLY the ability mounted on the ship, and is limited to direct fire.

Fire correction is where you use a third party to aim indirect fire.

RunsInShadows wrote:Fire Direction is definitely doable from aboard just about any ship if you could get high enough. IIRC, the old WWI four stacker destroyers had a viewing platform on a mast right behind the bridge that was used for Fire direction, among other things, because they couldn't depend on air or satellite recon for marine tageting. That said however, directing fire to land targets is a bit more challenging given topology, so one might have to go even higher and/or maneuver to get a view.

First - "maneuver to get a view" - in a CANAL?????

Next, you are still only able to dire in direct fire mode, and can be made incredibly inaccurate by folds in the ground, slight hills, trees/bushes, houses, smoke/fog/dust/rain, etc. If you truly want to fire in indirect mode, you will need a way to have local spotters, and a means of communicating to and from the ship.

RunsInShadows wrote:I agree that most ships won't be able to go into the canal systems, thus gun boats capable of taking a couple medium sized cartridge loading guns on turrets would be preferable. 4"/50s have about a 9mile range, and use cartridge ammo, so rate of fire is insane compared to the enemy. problem is, I don't know if charisian steel is up to the standards needed for the 4"/50 yet least of all the powder.

I agree - a 4"/50 or 4”/45 (that is to be mounted on a KH) would be plenty enough for a gunboat.

MWadwell wrote:
With all due respect, I disagree.

To me Fire direction is using ONLY the ability mounted on the ship, and is limited to direct fire.

Fire correction is where you use a third party to aim indirect fire.

I think we'll have to agree to differ. Fire direction and correction occurs for both direct and indirect fire. And the real fire corrections occur shipboard using data from observers be they squids or ground pounders.

MWadwell wrote:First - "maneuver to get a view" - in a CANAL?????

I was thinking more along the lines of fighting near a city where you may have to maneuver to avoid buildings that may be in the way or trees/small hills in the country.

MWadwell wrote:Next, you are still only able to dire in direct fire mode, and can be made incredibly inaccurate by folds in the ground, slight hills, trees/bushes, houses, smoke/fog/dust/rain, etc. If you truly want to fire in indirect mode, you will need a way to have local spotters, and a means of communicating to and from the ship.

You are forgetting the balloon, direct sighting by balloon shouldn't be too bad at higher altitudes, but one of the bigger things is the possibility of temporary communications to forward scouts or ground forces. Signal flags? Lamps at night? Something else I haven't thought of yet?

Thanks to the rest of y'all for the info on the canals. I'm running on audiobooks at the moment, but I'm getting the paper versions soon. So, I don't have a good way to skim for and bookmark good info.

Is there a safehold wiki site that we could use to organize this type of info?

RunsInShadows wrote:You are forgetting the balloon, direct sighting by balloon shouldn't be too bad at higher altitudes, but one of the bigger things is the possibility of temporary communications to forward scouts or ground forces. Signal flags? Lamps at night? Something else I haven't thought of yet?

Heh - that's exactly what I'm talking about when I talk about fire control - the ability to use the gunboats gun for indirect fire.

In fact, to go back to my first posting in this thread....
"I.e. you need to develop a system, where a distant observer can correct fire onto a distant target.

Remember, even the smaller calibre guns (i.e. 4 inch) have a range of nearly 10 miles - which is a LOT further then can be corrected from on board the ship.

The range of the KH is sufficient for almost ALL current indirect fire needs - but without the use of a forward observer, it is going to be blind-fire."

RunsInShadows wrote:Is there a safehold wiki site that we could use to organize this type of info?

I tend to use this wiki when looking for Safehold info: http://safehold.wikia.com/wiki/Safehold_Wiki

I don't know if it's the best, but its enough for me to find what I need.....

Weird Harold wrote:Note, Charisian canals are the biggest, but aren't relevant to a discussion of canals in the war zone.

If one applies a little logic and considers the technology involved, the Terraformed Canals are the straightest and widest -- probably wide enough to allow traffic in two directions -- followed by Canals dug with gunpowder or other high explosives, followed by canals dug with muscle power alone.

The investment in time and manpower to dig canals with nothing more than muscle power -- i.e. pick, shovels, and wheelbarrows -- is too high to try to duplicate the size of canals dug with TF Tech or explosives. Any canal dug between creation and about 70 years ago when gunpowder was introduced has to be in the smallest group of canals.

Charisian canals -- such as those discussed in the textev above were built with the advantage of gunpowder and the knowledge/innovations available to Merlin and the Inner Circle.

The text contradicts you. It says that new canals on the continent are built bigger to handle the modern outsized barges. It also says that the Langhorne _cannot_ handle the outsized barges.

Yes it's quite surprising, but if you look at Captain Igloo's post of 6 Mar
LAMA Says
1)Holy Langhorne is built to accept barges 130x35 ft
2)later 'pre-gunpowder' canals are limited to no more than 110x10ft

MTaT says
3)Mainland really long haul barges are limited to about 125 ft
4)New Northland locks = Delthak locks can cope with 140x45 ft

So it looks like New Northland > Holy Langhorne > pre-gunpowder canals and the Delthaks can't operate on the Holy Langhorne. Except that 3) seems to contradict 2), so we may have a continuity error about the relative sizes of the canals between the books.