Optimal Charisian Navy (IMHO)

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:
But I think that as severely stretched as the ICN is stretched at the moment, I agree with Dilandu's basic argument that it would have been better to come up with a design for a smaller less capable ship that would still be head and shoulders above the opposition, but could be quickly produced in large numbers.

Don

Exactly. The KH's aren't well adapted to the primary coastal type of warfare, that are dominating the Charisian strategy now. They simply too big to operate near coastlines, and the most farvatters currently in existence on Safehold simply isn't ready for such big ships.

I think the thought is that the Haarahlds can destroy coastal fortresses that stand guard over important cities...the Safehold equivalent to "shock and awe."

Of course, they could still flatten the coastal fortresses from safe distance... But the Church probably already realized the power of rifled artillery, and would simply switched to the disperced gun emplacements, protected by individual earthworks and camouflaged. Against this kind of coastal defense, the KH's would be unable to do any significant good - the long-range bombardment is good when the targets are areas, but not the individual guns.

I would think that their camouflage would be pretty well blown the first time they fired, wouldn't you? You make the Haarahlds work at it a bit harder, but the mission would still be doable. The old Iowa was used in Nam for similar work with success.

The Haarahlds will domimate anything they can reach and see. And what they can't reach and see will have been withdrawn so far inland as to be useless for coastal defense and the responsibility for dealing with it will be transfered to the army.

Don

Hello Dilandu.

I see your agreement. And I halfway agree. You're right, the KHs *are* currently overkill for anything they are facing. But the key word is "currently." But think about how rapidly technology advanced during the real world age of steam.

Some examples: USS Monitor was launched in early 1862 during the American Civil War. It was a short-lived ship she sunk in a storm in December of that year. However by the end of the conflict in 1865, there were considerably more advanced monitor based designs in production. Had she not been lost at sea, I think USS Monitor would have been considered obsolete by the end of the Civil War. HMS Warrior was launched in 1860, but was considered obsolete by 1871.

And then later in the steam age, HMS Dreadnaught was the most formidable, most advanced ship afloat when she was launched in 1906. In fact, HMS Dreadnaught was so influential that she changed the way all future capital ships were designed. To this day, naval historians talk about ships in terms of whether or not they were pre-dreadnaught design or post-dreadnaught design. Despite all this, by the time of the Battle of Jutland in 1916, only 10 years after Dreadnaught was commissioned, she was considered obsolete.

Given this, I wonder if the KHs are as inefficient as you think they are. Nobody is disputing that they are going to cut through any potential opposition like a hot knife through butter in the short term. But so could less capable ships. So I agree with you that Charis could have built smaller, less expensive ships that would have also done the job in the short term.

But think about the long term view. The KHs are so powerful compared to anything else that they might remain state of the art for a considerable period of time. In the real world, nations would commission a new class of dreadnaughts/battleships and within a few years they would be surpassed by more advanced ships. But I am not sure if this will happen with the KHs. And if Charis can use the KHs to help win the war *AND* can get another 10 or 15 years of post-war service out of the design, then wouldn't the KHs be more efficient in terms of long-term costs than a cheaper, less capable design that would become obsolete much sooner?

Henry Brown wrote:...You're right, the KHs *are* currently overkill for anything they are facing. But the key word is "currently." But think about how rapidly technology advanced during the real world age of steam.

Considered from a strictly military perspective, the King Haralds are indeed far more than is necessary. But a military perspective is not the only thing driving Charisian advances. There is Merlin's "secret plan" to force the COGA to "become what they fight against;" The King Haralds will force bigger leaps of technology to counter them and further mire the COGA in exceptions and dispensations that it will find hard to retract in peacetime.

Henry Brown wrote:Considered from a strictly military perspective, the King Haralds are indeed far more than is necessary. But a military perspective is not the only thing driving Charisian advances. There is Merlin's "secret plan" to force the COGA to "become what they fight against;" The King Haralds will force bigger leaps of technology to counter them and further mire the COGA in exceptions and dispensations that it will find hard to retract in peacetime.

That is probably the best point of all. A single Dreadnought sitting in your harbor laying waste to your city, knowing you cannot hurt it would do wonders to crushing the spirit.

Henry Brown wrote:

But think about the long term view. The KHs are so powerful compared to anything else that they might remain state of the art for a considerable period of time. In the real world, nations would commission a new class of dreadnaughts/battleships and within a few years they would be surpassed by more advanced ships. But I am not sure if this will happen with the KHs. And if Charis can use the KHs to help win the war *AND* can get another 10 or 15 years of post-war service out of the design, then wouldn't the KHs be more efficient in terms of long-term costs than a cheaper, less capable design that would become obsolete much sooner?

I think what Dilandu is getting at, is that Charis is in the middle of a fight for suvival...granted at the moment they have been routing the AoG, but tides do change occasionally. I think the critical message here is that Charis should not be putting all their eggs into 1 basket and justify it on overkill firepower and "they will be great for another 10 years after we win." I don't think it is the proper mindset to be looking at how much use you will get out of a ship once you finally win, you need to be focused on the here and now..

A lot of men will die before the end of the fighting, and the question will become how many of them COULD have been saved if Charis had instead made smaller more mobile gun ships instead of the massive KHs. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be a fly on the wall to see Clyntahn's face when these behemoths come waltzing into a bay and turn the coastline in to a hole for the bay to flow into.

ChaChaCharms wrote:A lot of men will die before the end of the fighting, and the question will become how many of them COULD have been saved if Charis had instead made smaller more mobile gun ships instead of the massive KHs. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be a fly on the wall to see Clyntahn's face when these behemoths come waltzing into a bay and turn the coastline in to a hole for the bay to flow into.

This does assume that those other roles aren't adequately covered by all the other ships the ICN has or is building, including what may plausibly be under construction or already working off-screen. It also assumes that the resources poured into the King Haarahlds could be used for those alternatives.

The second assumption is one I'd grant for at least plenty of possible ships. The first one may call for an actual defense though.

ChaChaCharms wrote:
I think what Dilandu is getting at, is that Charis is in the middle of a fight for suvival...granted at the moment they have been routing the AoG, but tides do change occasionally. I think the critical message here is that Charis should not be putting all their eggs into 1 basket and justify it on overkill firepower and "they will be great for another 10 years after we win." I don't think it is the proper mindset to be looking at how much use you will get out of a ship once you finally win, you need to be focused on the here and now..

Exactly! Currently, the Charisian is gaining the upper hand; but this situation still isn't completely secure, and the opposite side is clearly started to act more and more unexpectedly. They may not be able to actually defeat Charisians, but they are perfectly capable of turning the war in the poinltess statlemate.

In this situation, spending an awful lot of resources on the "one backet"-type, with the aim for the distant future or psychological warhare... is a VERY unwise for them.

And, actually, the KH's are counterproductive in therms of technology development! The logic behind their design would be hard to grasp for the Safeholdians; for their oint of view, something as perfectly designed as KH's may be only the unnatural origine. We definitely wouldn't have the Charisian engineers to start to pray more in search of "divine knowlege", instead of thinking by their own!

The one assumption I can't agree with is that Charis' survival at greater risk with the KH VII's.

Prior to the Sword of Sheuler, Charis had secured the seas. The jihadis could not reach the Empire. The EoC had secured the Island Kingdoms they wanted and traded only with Siddermark and Silkiah. The ICN had sufficient ships to guard the number of merchies carrying that trade. What they couldn't do was to sail into Gorath harbor and flatten the defenses without suffering prohibitive damage.

The threat the KH VIIs pose to mainland nations is sobering; Charis can sail into ANY harbor and flatten its defenses with relative impunity. Coupled with the ICAs demonstrated superiority, and the jihad becomes a decidedly unsafe proposition to join. That would not be the case without the KH VIIs.

JeffEngel wrote:

ChaChaCharms wrote:A lot of men will die before the end of the fighting, and the question will become how many of them COULD have been saved if Charis had instead made smaller more mobile gun ships instead of the massive KHs. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be a fly on the wall to see Clyntahn's face when these behemoths come waltzing into a bay and turn the coastline in to a hole for the bay to flow into.

This does assume that those other roles aren't adequately covered by all the other ships the ICN has or is building, including what may plausibly be under construction or already working off-screen. It also assumes that the resources poured into the King Haarahlds could be used for those alternatives.

The second assumption is one I'd grant for at least plenty of possible ships. The first one may call for an actual defense though.

A number of thoughts

For whatever reason production of steam engines seems to be a lot slower than we might have expected by this time. There isn't currently the capacity to produce even 'basic' engines for hundreds of gunboats.

Because of the lack of fire direction equipment the theoretical range advantage of rifled cannon is currently much less use at sea on Safehold than Dilandu seems to assume.

I'm not an expert in naval warfare, perhaps those who are could comment, but the idea that you could replace 74 gun galleons on a one for one basis with gunboats which have exactly 5 guns total, only one of which is any longer ranged than the opposing galleon's weapons seems ludicrous.

Little wooden gunboats are going to be, relatively speaking, eggshells and deathtraps with very little survivability. How effective can that be?

Is it honourable for the ICN to produce such fragile new ships and ask people to serve in them when there are other options available?

Dilandu IIRC keeps complaining elsewhere that the whole situation is too Mary Sue and the Charisiasns get everything too easy. Maybe their naval building strategy is one of those places RFC promised us where they would actually get things wrong?

The River and City class ships which are about to be deployed are going to do much of the brown water work,

Re WW2, escorts were certainly needed, but the war in the Pacific would have been lost without the carriers, i.e. capital ships, so the historical precedent is nowhere near as one-sided as Dilandu makes it out to be.

PeterZ wrote:

The threat the KH VIIs pose to mainland nations is sobering; Charis can sail into ANY harbor and flatten its defenses with relative impunity. Coupled with the ICAs demonstrated superiority, and the jihad becomes a decidedly unsafe proposition to join. That would not be the case without the KH VIIs.

I feel the need to disagree here. The EoC has already proven it can flatten a coastal city with likes of HMS Volcano, granted the angle guns were on wooden hull galleons.. but the concept still stands, replace the rifled breech-loading guns on the iron clads with angled breach-loaders and you will have the same effect from small mobile steam powered ships vs the shock and awe of massive ships of the line.

It will not be nearly as impressive to see the little black boxes float into the harbor compared to the massive KH, but it will get the job done.

If however the AoG develops a weapon capable of penetrating the hulls of the iron clads, it will be only a matter of time until they penetrate the KHs... which would show how much better off the EoC would be if it had focused on the quantity of quality ships instead of the quality of overkilling fire power.