Optimal Charisian Navy (IMHO)

Randomiser wrote:
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?

Hm... Really, colleague Randimoser, you have a point - frankly, i didn't think about that! And... considering all that we knew - that the Church turned to the Jeune Ecole's-style commerce raiding strategy and light units operations, AND the fact, that the Church already have at least some rifled artillery - they are really in one step of combining the numerous light raiders with the new rifled guns, thus making almost immediately a formidable naval force, pretty capable of nullify the Charis galleon fleets!

If they do this right, and would be able to quickly produce, for example, a hundred of relatively heavy rifles (it is possible, especially if you have a lot of low-cost but eager workforce and a few engineers to control) and put them on a hundred of fast sail raiders... They could easily force ICN to total retreat, and even gain a temporarely naval superiority, for God's sake!

Well, as i think about that, it could work pretty good!

Dilandu,

The Church has even less capacity to produce steel plate that Charis. Armoring small ships with Iron is foolhardy. The ship would need stronger bracing to support more weight in iron armour than steel armour. That means the ship must be some minimum size. Which argues for limited supplies to keep in the "small" range. Limited supplies means limited range. Destroy the bases and the small sailing ironclads are useless because the crews would not have enough munitions for a protected deployment. The crew would need to stay close to shore to have enough water and food. Because without sufficient storage those small sialing ironclads need to use more space for munitions rather than food.

The ICMM simply needs to avoid the enemy shore. The ICN flattens the bases and lets the sailing ironclads starve.

When all is said and done, I hope the mainland uses that strategy.

Dilandu wrote:

PeterZ wrote:With the KH VIIs they can and will threaten any port they wish to. The ICN does have a massive fleet of small ships. Heck, they have a massive fleet of the most powerful ships on Safehold NOT including the KH VIIs.

The fleet, that are enormously outdated, costly, and unfitted for the type of warfare they faced. If the Church managed to arm a significant number of even small fast sail gunships with one or two of the Church new rifled guns - all Charisian galleons would be usefull only as firewood. Even the primitive, Parrot-to-Brooke-style rifled guns enormously changed the balance in favor of smaller and more agile wooden ships.

Simply speaking - if the Church managed to produce a hundred of their new rifled guns, and placed them on a hundred of Deshnarina raiders (with Church guncrews, of course!) - the current RCN would be Absolutely Awesome Screwed. Not only their blockade squadron would be forced to retreat (or be annihilated), not only the Charisian communications lines would be devastated, but even the turnover of the naval situation is possible.

Think about it. The Charisian Navy currently have:

- Obsolete galleons, that are no more than floating targets and have no real use

- Old-type sail shooners in unsufficient quantites

- A few ridiculous sail ironclad floating batteries, even without auxilary engines

- A few river ironclads, completely uncapable to FIGHT in open sea (they would jus sunk immediatly if they try to open gunports).

- And a single KH's somewhere near launch

What could they do, if the Church would play Jeune Ecole, and unleash an armada of a hundred fast sail raiders, armed with new rifled guns? They would be pretty capable of gutting any galleon squadron, fight the schooners on their own ground, and simply flee from the few ironclads, that Charis may send against them. And hunting the hundred of raiders in Safehold oceans with the single KH's... Is next thing to the useless waste of money.

PeterZ wrote:Dilandu,

The Church has even less capacity to produce steel plare that Charis. Armoring small ships with Iron is foolhardy. The ship would need stronger bracing to support more weight in iron armour than steel armour. That means the ship must be some minimum size. Which argues for limited supplies to keep in the "small" range. Limited supplies means limited range. Destroy the bases and the small sailing ironclads are useless because the crews would not have enough munitions for a protected deployment. The crew would need to stay close to shore to have enough water and food. Because without sufficient storage those small sialing ironclads need to use more space for munitions rather than food.

Sigh...

Why are you talking about ironclads?!

ARE I EVER MENTIONED CHURCH IRONCLADS HERE?!!!

I mean WOODEN SHIPS. WOODEN SAIL RAIDERS. Deshnarian-style, but build for and armed with the one big Church rifle. The type, that could be build in any small port and take supplies from here.

Not ironclads, of course! Where did you get the idea that the armor is the neccecary part of the ships?! A majority of warships, that sailed the Earth oceans in 1850-1880th haven't got even a piece of armor onboard! Yes, the armor could be handy - but if the ship cheap enough to buiild a lot of them, it's make no sence to armor them, especially if standing the line isn't their function!

By the way, with the penetration power of the Charisian current guns, making the ironclads is make sence only if the Church would be able to make 18-20 inches armor plates, capable of stopping the shot from 8"-10" long gun. It is possible, but it should be the really big ships. Probably about 8000-10000 tonnes.

Now I am totally confused. The ICN has the best sailing ships out there. The EoC can produce the most rifled steel guns than every other polity combined. Mounting 2 swivel mounted breach loading rifled 6"-ers fore and aft to existing galleons solves the problem of wooden raiders, because larger galleons make a more stable firing platform than a nible schooner. Combine that new armament with convoy tactics and wooden raiders are useless.

Why give up the capability to threaten ports? Build the KH VIIs and the extra 6" RBLs and problem solved. The Jeune Ecole on Safehold right now is a solution without a problem to solve.

PeterZ wrote:Now I am totally confused. The ICN has the best sailing ships out there. The EoC can produce the most rifled steel guns than every other polity combined. Mounting 2 swivel mounted breach loading rifled 6"-ers fore and aft to existing galleons solves the problem of wooden raiders,

No. It isn't, because of the SIZE problems. Simply - galleon is too big and too vunerable. Even if it is more stable - and the actual difference isn't great, because it's pretty top-heavy - he is also is much, much bigger and easier to hit.

Simply speaking - this evaluation of wooden ships vs shells was historically solved in favor of gunboats.

Why give up the capability to threaten ports? Build the KH VIIs and the extra 6" RBLs and problem solved. The Jeune Ecole on Safehold right now is a solution without a problem to solve.

Because the one of the main ideas of Jeune Ecole is to replace the major battle with the "constant action".

I.e. the KH's would be pretty capable of destroying any Church raider squadron, that they meet. But because there are hundreds of Church raiders, and only one or two of KH's, and the Oceans is really big - what is the possibility that they even met?

Simply speaking - the Church could be able to build much more sail raiders, than KH's could possibly catch for the same time. To battle against the disperced raiders, armed with Church rifles, the Charisians would need the another fleet of small ships, capable of covering the ocean.

And another problem is, that the sail schooners would be only partly effective as counter-raiders. Simply because they are in the same league than the raiders... and the mainland wooden shipbuilding carpacity is greater than the Charisians. They now have a lot of trained shipbuilding workforce on the mainland. Now - when the galleon-building programm is stopped - the Church could easily use the thousands of expirienced workers to start a schooners mass productions in local ports, rivers, anywhere where it is possible. Of course, if would be wery hard to arm them all with rifles... but actually, the Church need only a handfull of rifle-armed raiders, to make Charisian life mizerable. The rest of the "wolf's packs" may be perfectly armed with smoothbores.

Why give up the capability to threaten ports?

And also because the major ports, currently used by Church as raider bases, are simply too shallow for the Kh's to make any real good. And send the KH's to bombard the fisher's villages from the long range (because she wouldn't be able to come closer!)... is just useless.

PeterZ wrote:Now I am totally confused. The ICN has the best sailing ships out there. The EoC can produce the most rifled steel guns than every other polity combined. Mounting 2 swivel mounted breach loading rifled 6"-ers fore and aft to existing galleons solves the problem of wooden raiders. Combine that new armament with convoy tactics and wooden raiders are useless.

Why give up the capability to threaten ports? Build the KH VIIs and the extra 6" RBLs and problem solved. The Jeune Ecole on Safehold right now is a solution without a problem to solve.

Dilandu is right about the vulnerability of the ICN's galleon fleet. Where his logic breaks down is the church is preoccuped with a land war it is about to lose. I don't think we are going to see any monster sized ultra modern COGA fleets in the near term future.

Still, at this moment, the EOC is not going deep into the Gulf of Dohlar out of respect for Thirsk's screw galleys. That will be resolved when Sharpfield gets the Harahlds and the cities ironclads. But it does underscore the vulnerability of the ICN's traditional galleons.

Don

Let's also not forget one thing about KH's. The majority of the mainlands ports are simply too shallow for her to actually go in. For obvious reasons, the mainlanders do not feel the urgent need to deepen the fairway

And with that, the ability of KH's to threaten the coastline is completely depended of is't ability to go near. The long-range bombardments from ship guns aren't very usefull, you know!

Dilandu wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Now I am totally confused. The ICN has the best sailing ships out there. The EoC can produce the most rifled steel guns than every other polity combined. Mounting 2 swivel mounted breach loading rifled 6"-ers fore and aft to existing galleons solves the problem of wooden raiders,

No. It isn't, because of the SIZE problems. Simply - galleon is too big and too vunerable. Even if it is more stable - and the actual difference isn't great, because it's pretty top-heavy - he is also is much, much bigger and easier to hit.

Simply speaking - this evaluation of wooden ships vs shells was historically solved in favor of gunboats.

Why give up the capability to threaten ports? Build the KH VIIs and the extra 6" RBLs and problem solved. The Jeune Ecole on Safehold right now is a solution without a problem to solve.

Because the one of the main ideas of Jeune Ecole is to replace the major battle with the "constant action".

I.e. the KH's would be pretty capable of destroying any Church raider squadron, that they meet. But because there are hundreds of Church raiders, and only one or two of KH's, and the Oceans is really big - what is the possibility that they even met?

Simply speaking - the Church could be able to build much more sail raiders, than KH's could possibly catch for the same time. To battle against the disperced raiders, armed with Church rifles, the Charisians would need the another fleet of small ships, capable of covering the ocean.

And another problem is, that the sail schooners would be only partly effective as counter-raiders. Simply because they are in the same league than the raiders... and the mainland wooden shipbuilding carpacity is greater than the Charisians. They now have a lot of trained shipbuilding workforce on the mainland. Now - when the galleon-building programm is stopped - the Church could easily use the thousands of expirienced workers to start a schooners mass productions in local ports, rivers, anywhere where it is possible. Of course, if would be wery hard to arm them all with rifles... but actually, the Church need only a handfull of rifle-armed raiders, to make Charisian life mizerable. The rest of the "wolf's packs" may be perfectly armed with smoothbores.

Why give up the capability to threaten ports?

And also because the major ports, currently used by Church as raider bases, are simply too shallow for the Kh's to make any real good. And send the KH's to bombard the fisher's villages from the long range (because she wouldn't be able to come closer!)... is just useless.

Actually there will be six KHs, but your point is stll valid.

Don

n7axw wrote:
Still, at this moment, the EOC is not going deep into the Gulf of Dohlar out of respect for Thirsk's screw galleys. That will be resolved when Sharpfield gets the Harahlds and the cities ironclads. But it does underscore the vulnerability of the ICN's traditional galleons.

Don

I completely agree with your analysis. Even in the part that the Church is preoccuped with land warfare. But, frankly, the idea of building a large fleet of rifle-armed fast raiders is so very near, that all that they need to do - is to present this idea to Clyntahn in such way, that he would be able to claim that it's his own idea. After all, both Clyntahn, Dushrain and Magwair perfectly understood, that without Charisian help, the Republic would be forced to lock in defense, possibly even retreat back. The most vunerable part of Charisian Empire currenly is their naval communications... and the Group of Four should have at least some data about Deshnarian raiders.

Actually there will be six KHs, but your point is stll valid.

Well, in some future - i agree. But I hope no one is THAT optimistic to think that Charis could build six late-XIX century battleships smutaneously?

P.S. Also, don't think that KH's are completely invunerable. Yes, they have good armor, and the Church have not so good guns, but even the best armor could be penetrated is the not-so-good gun is big enough.

I make some calculation, and the rifled muzzle-loading gun in size of 12,75" Blakley muzzle-loading rifle - 1863 design - would be able to penetrate the belt of KH's from the distance of about 1500-2000 meters.

https://markerhunter.wordpress.com/2013 ... ch-rifles/

They are cast-iron/bronze, so they could be made by the Church.

Of course, getting the 12,75" gun in effective range to KH's would be a really big problem... but it could be solved, evntually. And clearly, nothing would prevent from placing this kind of guns on concealed coastal positions, that KH's would be forced to pass close enough to get to some object.