The next steps in gunnery w/ gunboats and Canals

THe thing is with canal conflict, is that the church will rather destroy locks and other key positions rather than loose them to the good guys. SO advance in to enemy teritory will be limited. I think the best they can hop for in the south is force the men of hte church down into hte dohlar canal system. If htey unable to use the canals, then they would be forced to use the high roads, and it is doubtful the army is capable of the logistical support to keep a new army supplied, if limited to a road way.
THat way potentially in the future assualt Dairnyth, while they wont be able to send their ocean going ships via that route, they can secure it as a logistical route to aid their fleet actions over there. I doubt that port is prepared for the canal war boats, and the heavy artilery they can bring.
Also, striking here ensure that the isolated church forces in the republic are permanently cut off from future support. THose forces would be less prepared than the port to defend against a heavy canal assualt from their supply lines. If dealt with, it would free up forces inthe rebulic to either go north to the other more isolated church force, or go sout ht ot dohlar front lines. It is more likely they would go north, as that is the last true chruch strongpoint in the republic, and will pave the way to push the church out of hte republic in the north for good.
The church can not truly survive how their holy jihad failed and pushed back into their own territiories. If it was truly a good holy war then god would have ensured their victory.

Syed is making my point for me with respect to the need to rebuild and expand the canal system as the Reformist Forces move farther inland. Water traffic is MUCH more efficient at moving large quantities of goods with minimal effort; until the advent of the railroad, nothing else even comes close, and even railroads cannot beat the efficiency of water transport. There is a reason that we still use canals and river transport today; the tonnage of barge traffic in the Mississippi River system is staggering.

However, I doubt that the advance into enemy territory will be 'limited', nor need it be, as long as you control the logistics. "Lieutenants study tactics, Majors study strategy, Generals study logistics." Logistics are key to this war, something that RFC pays close attention to, and part of what makes this series interesting.

There are a variety of strategic options available once indirect fire and rapid canal construction is available to the CE.......I will be most interested to see what the author develops.

SYED wrote:THe thing is with canal conflict, is that the church will rather destroy locks and other key positions rather than loose them to the good guys. SO advance in to enemy teritory will be limited. I think the best they can hop for in the south is force the men of hte church down into hte dohlar canal system. If htey unable to use the canals, then they would be forced to use the high roads, and it is doubtful the army is capable of the logistical support to keep a new army supplied, if limited to a road way.
THat way potentially in the future assualt Dairnyth, while they wont be able to send their ocean going ships via that route, they can secure it as a logistical route to aid their fleet actions over there. I doubt that port is prepared for the canal war boats, and the heavy artilery they can bring.
Also, striking here ensure that the isolated church forces in the republic are permanently cut off from future support. THose forces would be less prepared than the port to defend against a heavy canal assualt from their supply lines. If dealt with, it would free up forces inthe rebulic to either go north to the other more isolated church force, or go sout ht ot dohlar front lines. It is more likely they would go north, as that is the last true chruch strongpoint in the republic, and will pave the way to push the church out of hte republic in the north for good.
The church can not truly survive how their holy jihad failed and pushed back into their own territiories. If it was truly a good holy war then god would have ensured their victory.

lmwatbullrun

Both Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholicism survived the failure of the crusades and Islam survived having most of its population under the control of European(i.e. majority Christian) nations. Also you have the problem of the treacherous Jews and communists stabbing the church in the back. Simply put, the majority of mainlanders may not believe that they actually were defeated by a superior force, but rather by 'treachery and incompetent leaders'. Unless they actually occupy Harchong you have many of the same problems encountered in post WWI Germany. No foot set on our soil(Desnair and Harchong), those at home not seeing the war themselves(Bombing campains in WWII), and massive disbelief that they the most powerful nation on earth could have been defeated(They really were close to this position, nothing like the U.S., but they were the most powerful single land power, and before the war they were closing the gap on Britain's sea power, for the church this also applies plus, the god let us fail because we weren't pious enough)




On the subject of bigger guns, I must point out that they aren't needed. The biggest(functional) guns were used on warships and they weren't put there to bombard land targets. They were put there to penetrate the massive armor of super dreadnaughts, the church will almost certainly not build even a single battleship much less a super dreadnaught.

I also must point out that while a bigger boom is always welcome when destroying fortifications, especially ones built of dirt and other loose material, what really kills people is shrapnel and bigger shells might produce bigger explosions, but they don't produce a proportionately bigger amount of shrapnel. I will concede though that large enough explosions tend to throw splinters of whatever they hit, so there is some extra benefit.

Highjohn wrote:(SNIP)

On the subject of bigger guns, I must point out that they aren't needed. The biggest(functional) guns were used on warships and they weren't put there to bombard land targets. They were put there to penetrate the massive armor of super dreadnaughts, the church will almost certainly not build even a single battleship much less a super dreadnaught.

I also must point out that while a bigger boom is always welcome when destroying fortifications, especially ones built of dirt and other loose material, what really kills people is shrapnel and bigger shells might produce bigger explosions, but they don't produce a proportionately bigger amount of shrapnel. I will concede though that large enough explosions tend to throw splinters of whatever they hit, so there is some extra benefit.

There is a benefit to better penetration if we are talking about trenches.

During WW1, the ratio of heavy guns to field arty increased dramatically throughout the war, for a number of reasons:

1) Higher range;
2) Larger damage radius (while not proportional to size of the shell, it is larger....);
3) More penetration.


The last one is the most important, as if you have personel bunkers located 3+ meters underground (as was common in areas where there wasn't a high water table), only the heavy guns are able to damage them.....

Similarly concrete bunkers (i.e. the various Hindenburg lines) are also very safe from field artillery, and require heavy artillery to destroy.

So if you are facing heavily entrenched forces, heavy guns are needed to dig them out.


A final caveat is, that the definition of "heavy guns" differs depending on where they are based. On land, any gun 120+ mm (such as the French Canon de 155mm GPF, the British 60 Pounder and the German 15 cm sFH 13) is considered a "heavy gun" - whereas they would only be considered "medium" guns (at best) if mounted on naval vessels.....

do canals really need to be bigger? the boats dont have to be huge. with steam ships, more boats can simply be linked together as they will be under power.
while canals were potentially to be contested, the new river artillery is beyong imagining, it is heavy sea artileery equivalent. If they move quick enough, the enemy wont be able to make a deensive stronghold on the waterways at all.

MWadwell wrote:During WW1, the ratio of heavy guns to field arty increased dramatically throughout the war, for a number of reasons:

1) Higher range;
2) Larger damage radius (while not proportional to size of the shell, it is larger....);
3) More penetration.

I suspect another factor was that, given entrenched positions across the entire Western Front, the mobility of field guns was no selling point in their favor versus heavy guns. Given the still fairly small armies, high mobility (based on canals, roads, dragons), and more than any other factor, the vast land masses involved (combined with vast accessible shores), Safehold isn't going to see lines like the Western Front and the war(s) will remain mobile.

Well Charis has some pretty good pneumatics so I see no reason why they could not use a pneumatic system to send the fire single to all of the guns once the gyroscopes say that the ship is level. To make this work all the guns would need would be some sort of perfusion fireing system that a pneumatic piston can hit to fire the gun once the ship is level.

captinjoehenry wrote:Well Charis has some pretty good pneumatics so I see no reason why they could not use a pneumatic system to send the fire single to all of the guns once the gyroscopes say that the ship is level. To make this work all the guns would need would be some sort of perfusion fireing system that a pneumatic piston can hit to fire the gun once the ship is level.

How about something as simple as a lanyard hooked onto the pneumatic piston?

DennisLee wrote:

captinjoehenry wrote:Well Charis has some pretty good pneumatics so I see no reason why they could not use a pneumatic system to send the fire single to all of the guns once the gyroscopes say that the ship is level. To make this work all the guns would need would be some sort of perfusion fireing system that a pneumatic piston can hit to fire the gun once the ship is level.

How about something as simple as a lanyard hooked onto the pneumatic piston?

That works I just am not sure how the real life electric fire control system fires the guns but I see no reason that the solution you proposed would not work