World of Warships?

Dilandu wrote:

Henry Brown wrote:
No, Dilandu is right. The KHs are *WAY* more advanced than HMS Warrior or any of the other early historical armored ships. In fact, they are better than many of the real-world 1890s era ships.

If the KH's were a "Warrior"-type ironclad, or even "Admiral"-type battleship, i wouldn't be so furious about them. Both "Warrior" and "Admiral" are within the realistic Charisian capabilites - in case of "Admirals" they are on the very edge of their abilites, but they still have a realistic chance to build them, even if it took more that the decade just to prepare infrastructure for this.

I read the thread a while ago where you and RFC were debating the KHs. It was interesting and informative. Both of you are really knowledgeable about naval history and warship design. From that thread, it seemed to me that you were most upset by how advanced the KHs were.

I'm not as much of a naval historian as you or RFC are, but even I realized they were about 30 year jump compared to the real world development of ships. However, I don't have quite as much of a problem with the KHs as you do. Because thanks to Merlin and OWL, Charis has *LOTS* more information that England did when it built HMS Warrior.

Because, they know what works and what doesn't. So they can skip all the mistakes and the incremental stages of improvement and go straight to the finished product. And they have had this information for years now, so they have had time to plan this out. Within this context, the KHs don't seem that unrealistic.

Think about it this way: in the real world the British Empire launched HMS Warrior in 1860. Now imagine if they had been given all the information which Merlin and OWL have in 1856. With all that information and with several years to put it to use, what kind of ship could the British Empire have built by 1860? I'm not entirely sure, but I bet it would have been a hell of a lot better that Warrior. In fact, which that much information I bet the British Empire would have produced something closer to the KH than the Warrior.

Generally, my critique on KH's is based on several points:

1) They have no real, practical role in current conflict, exept the possible psyhological advantage (i.e. a giant moving scarecrow). To sunk the Church galleons and gunboats with KH's, is a typical example of hunting crows with anti-air-missiles. RFC generally hoped that their long-range artillery would be able to destroy Church fortresses from excessive range; I personally inclined to think that any long-range bombardment of that sort would be generally a awful waste of costly ammunition.

2) They are costly. Actually, they are enormously costly and consume a awful lot of resources. The iron and steel consumption of their building would consume the most of Charisian real output, and the iron works and mechanical works would consume all of Charisian trained workforce (simply because there are a very limited number of iron workers who have at least some ideas how to build an iron hull, and much more limited numbers of forgers and mechanics, who knew, how to build later XIX-century guns, armor plates and engines).

3) They haven't got any infrastructure for using. The only place, where they could be possibly docked or repaired, is the Old Charis. If the KH's, for example, hit the rock in the Gulf of Dochlar - and the incidents happens, especially whit the crews and officers, that never ever actually use a large steamships! - the KH's would be forced to lump half of the glube to ger repaired. And building the forward bases and industrial infrastructure for such ships would be actually more costly than the ships themselves!

So, my point - the MUCH cheaper and smaller wooden-hulled ironclad of 1870th would do the job better, and cost only a tiny fraction of KH's cost. The KH's isn't the kind of ships, that country, fighting a war to death, could aloow to build "just to have them". In current Charisian situation, it's like France in 1915 or Soviet Union in 1942 suddenly started to hastly build their laid down battleships, wasting money, still and workforce. They both have a better ways to spend the money and resources, and they really didn't need battleships during this war, because the Royal Navy & United States Navy were more than capable to control situation on the seas.

4) Even having all the data possible, the Charisians didn't have the infrastructure to build such kind of ships. They need a awful lot of specialised factories with specialised powered tools. And it took time to build, and a lot of money. Simply - shis ships are complex! In real XIX century, only the very few nations could build this kind of ships without relying on the foreign components - and even the Great Britain have ac lot of troubles just by producing the heavy guns.

So, to just build the KH's, they would have to spend at least a half of decade just building the plants and tools to do that. Moreover, given to the completely lack of any experience of the building crews, limited industrial resources... It would probably take about eight to ten years to build and fit the ships.

5) And the last problem is that the peoples who would build this ships haven't got any expirience, how to build them, Even with the best blueprints possible, there would be a awfull lot of incompetence, mistakes, delays and other stuff, usual where the eager but completely incompetent peoples work on something far beyond their usual functions. The much i could really grant to the fast iron battleship of 1890th, that was build by the country less than a few decades from Middle Ages - that the KH's would be able to move, probably wouldn't have a lot of structural integrity problems, and his guns would work sometimes, where they would not burst or jam.

For my point of view, the respected RFC is overly too optimistic, by positioning Charis on the same level as Great britain and France in the late XIX century. All blueprints of the world could not replace the real expirience. As you couldn't train a good sailor by just reading him a manuals - even a very good manuals - you couldn't train a working crew that should build a steel battleships just by having the detailed blueprints. The actual level of Charis industry should be much closer to late XIX-century Japan and Spain - with a awful lot of bottlenecks and mistakes.

Dilandu wrote:
For my point of view, the respected RFC is overly too optimistic, by positioning Charis on the same level as Great britain and France in the late XIX century. All blueprints of the world could not replace the real expirience. As you couldn't train a good sailor by just reading him a manuals - even a very good manuals - you couldn't train a working crew that should build a steel battleships just by having the detailed blueprints. The actual level of Charis industry should be much closer to late XIX-century Japan and Spain - with a awful lot of bottlenecks and mistakes.

Yes exactly, the Meiji restoration that turned a preindustrial nation into a first world military power in 30 years. They did it by importing designs and skills, and skipped all of the “learn by experience” nonsense. Any current nation that is growing faster than 5%, is doing the same thing today. The EOC was never as backward as pre- Meiji Japan. In addition, the major islands of the EOC probably have close to universal literacy. The EOC has not achieved the development that Japan did by 1905. So, if we cut the development of a real world country to about 20 years, to describe starting and ending technology, then it would be comparable to what the EOC has done in 7 years.

Ambitious, but not unreasonable. I will agree that Delthak is obviously not Huntington Ingalls Industries, but then the King Haarahld's are not the CVN 78. I think RFC was thinking about the WW II Victory ships that took about 38 days to build from start to finish. Those were all built by farmers and other non ship building labor.

James

JRM wrote:
Yes exactly, the Meiji restoration that turned a preindustrial nation into a first world military power in 30 years. They did it by importing designs and skills, and skipped all of the “learn by experience” nonsense.

One little problem. They imported. They send their engineers and mechanics to learn in Europe, they acquired the tools and machinery from europe, they have A LOT of european consultant and engineers to learn from.

And the first warships, build in Japan, was... less than satisfactory. They build their first large (relatively) warship - the unprotected cruiser "Takao" - only in 1886-1889. It took them THREE YEARS to build what was exactly the large fast gunboat of 1750 tonn! And they have no other than Emile Bretin to do the trick.

Dilandu wrote:

JRM wrote:
Yes exactly, the Meiji restoration that turned a preindustrial nation into a first world military power in 30 years. They did it by importing designs and skills, and skipped all of the “learn by experience” nonsense.

One little problem. They imported. They send their engineers and mechanics to learn in Europe, they acquired the tools and machinery from europe, they have A LOT of european consultant and engineers to learn from.

And the first warships, build in Japan, was... less than satisfactory. They build their first large (relatively) warship - the unprotected cruiser "Takao" - only in 1886-1889. It took them THREE YEARS to build what was exactly the large fast gunboat of 1750 tonn! And they have no other than Emile Bretin to do the trick.

I lost a reply, so I will keep this short. Of the 1905 Japanese fleet, Japan built 5 cruisers, 8 destroyers, and 10 torpedo boats. They did this within 30 years of being a preindustrial society. Charis started off as a manufacturing and maritime power.

The issue is how fast a country can absorb technology. If increasingly complex technology knowledge was freely available and a country had economic and political structures that promoted growth, how fast could the country grow? That has to be speculation because if a real world country's economic and political structures are correct, then the country is already a first world country and has growth limited by how fast technology is developed. If a country's technology is below world level, it is because the economic and political structures are or have been limiting the adoption of technology. The best we can do to answer this question in the real world is to see the growth rate of backward countries that correct their economic and political structures enough to allow growth.

James

JRM wrote:
I lost a reply, so I will keep this short. Of the 1905 Japanese fleet, Japan built 5 cruisers, 8 destroyers, and 10 torpedo boats. They did this within 30 years of being a preindustrial society. Charis started off as a manufacturing and maritime power.

They were capable of doing that fast ONLY because they were capable of importing the machines, tools, materials, engineers, ect. And Charis are incapable of doing it.

Let's make it clear: this discussion we have with RFC a lot of time, and eventually decided that we are both uncapable to persuade each other. It's highly unlikely that the definite experiment would be possible. So, i don't think that the repeating of the same arguments would do any good.

Henry Brown wrote:
SNIP

Think about it this way: in the real world the British Empire launched HMS Warrior in 1860. Now imagine if they had been given all the information which Merlin and OWL have in 1856. With all that information and with several years to put it to use, what kind of ship could the British Empire have built by 1860? I'm not entirely sure, but I bet it would have been a hell of a lot better that Warrior. In fact, which that much information I bet the British Empire would have produced something closer to the KH than the Warrior.

I will disagree. In 1860: The Second law of thermodynamics was close to 60 years old. The first law of thermodynamics, which was discovered second, was 15 years old. The English for the longest time stuck to low pressure steam engines as being superior to high pressure steam engines, even though the science said elsewise. The Great Eastern was supposed to be able to steam from the UK to Australia without refueling. With some caution, it could actually make it across the Atlantic. Well, most of the time. It failed to get there at least once.

Readers may find of relevant interest the first volume of Corelli Barnett's Pride and Fall tetrology, this being a historical work by the prior keeper of the Churchill papers.

Dilandu wrote:

JRM wrote:
I lost a reply, so I will keep this short. Of the 1905 Japanese fleet, Japan built 5 cruisers, 8 destroyers, and 10 torpedo boats. They did this within 30 years of being a preindustrial society. Charis started off as a manufacturing and maritime power.

They were capable of doing that fast ONLY because they were capable of importing the machines, tools, materials, engineers, ect. And Charis are incapable of doing it.

The paradigm we have been discussing is wrong, or at least incomplete. The correct paradigm is how fast can Merlin get Charis to grow given that he has centuries of technology advances available, and that he has the capability of unlimited interfaces.

In OAR, Merlin tells King Haarahld that he will use him. Merlin's first action after he has gained some authority was to create a conduit for knowledge through the Royal College of Charis. At the same time, he lays out the broad outline of revolutionary technology changes in the most important industries. It is like all of these leaders are in school. They have been given the broad answers, and the tools. Their job is to complete the detail design and then execute it. Merlin, through Owl, is reviewing their progress every step of the way, with hints and subtle suggestions should their progress diverge from Merlin's goal. Merlin may allow minor failures in the adoption of new technology because the errors teach a lot. Merlin hasn't allowed any major errors.

When Merlin talks to Howsmyn and lays out the idea of the ironclads, Howsmyn calls Merlin the puppet master and inquires if they are going to inform Caleb about the project.

There is no real world correlation, and because there isn't, about all we can do as readers is to compare the checklist of technology transfers that we would create against the technology transfers that RFC has placed in the book. Even that is a limited ability, because with every person admitted to the inner circle, Merlin adds another conduit for knowledge and skill transfer. Beyond the major changes, we can't know all of the transfers that have taken and are taking place.

James

Dilandu wrote:Generally, my critique on KH's is based on several points:

<SNIP>
5) And the last problem is that the peoples who would build this ships haven't got any expirience, how to build them, Even with the best blueprints possible, there would be a awfull lot of incompetence, mistakes, delays and other stuff, usual where the eager but completely incompetent peoples work on something far beyond their usual functions. The much i could really grant to the fast iron battleship of 1890th, that was build by the country less than a few decades from Middle Ages - that the KH's would be able to move, probably wouldn't have a lot of structural integrity problems, and his guns would work sometimes, where they would not burst or jam.

For my point of view, the respected RFC is overly too optimistic, by positioning Charis on the same level as Great britain and France in the late XIX century. All blueprints of the world could not replace the real expirience. As you couldn't train a good sailor by just reading him a manuals - even a very good manuals - you couldn't train a working crew that should build a steel battleships just by having the detailed blueprints. The actual level of Charis industry should be much closer to late XIX-century Japan and Spain - with a awful lot of bottlenecks and mistakes.

I agree.

It's not just the practical experience! (I.e. with no institutional experience, all maintenance is going to be "learn by doing". Which means that a LOT of steam engines are going to be run to death, because no-one knew what preventative maintenance was required).


It's also theoretical knowledge as well.

Think about it, all of the current waships have been at most two or three decks - with the decks pieced with large hatches to allow light and fresh air in to the lower decks.

With armour decks, that is no longer possible - and so such things as ventilation and lighting becomes issues.


Now let's consider damage control - a steel ship has different combustibles then a wooden ship, and so requires different fire fighting methods (for example, a wooden ship burning produces less toxic smoke then a metal ship).

Also, with a wooden ship, damage control is relatively easy as there are no sub-compartmentalisation - and so the water will all run to the one sump. However with a metal ship with sub-compartments, you have to design a pumping system to allow water to be drained from some areas, but not others. You also have to design a system to allow counter-flooding.


These are all non-trivial tasts that took hundreds of years in the real world. And yet there has been no mention of prototype/training ships (where practical experience may be gained), and we have the excuse that "OWL will look after it".

Unless OWL is able to tell every designer how to correctly design something that has never been done before (i.e. ventilation / lighting / counter flooding, etc) then the design is going to be a white elephant.

And unless OWL is going to sit on every construction workers shoulder, and tell them how to do the job properly, the inexperienced workforce/ships crew are going to make mistakes that will result in the ship being quickly sunk by its own crew....


(FYI - I work in a research nuclear reactor - which is a unique design (although based on two similar designs), and desipte nuclear reactors being around for over 50 years - we have still found design flaws where I work. Similarly, we have had to develop maintenance strategies from scratch as well - despite the reactor's designers being one of the best research reactor designers in the world..... I shudder to think what the first reactors were like!)