JeffEngel wrote:Henry Brown wrote:I didn't have an issue from Thunder running aground from a storytelling point of view. They were in foreign waters, it was night, and stuff like that really happens. Fair enough.
What I wonder about is: why did the ICN only send 2 Rottweiler-class ironclads in the first place? I understand that the original steam powered ironclads are operating in coastal waters and rivers in Siddarmark. And the newer, improved City-class ironclads have been detailed to hit the Desniarian coast in order to suppress the privateers. But on the other hand, the Dohlaran navy is the only serious high seas opposition left. Since all the steam powered ironclads are busy elsewhere, why not send *ALL* the Rottweilers to the Gulf of Dohlar?
A forum search for "Rottweiler"-including posts from RFC has a LAMA excerpt mentioning six of Thunderer's class. It's possible some others of those have been lost or decommissioned since, but unlikely that that accounts for four if any.
Forces moving up Hsing-Wu's Passage would need a lot of range too - certainly coming into its western end, and it'd still be mightily convenient from the east.
On the subject of getting around though - Getting the screw-galleys around by canal is clearly possible, for at least some canal routes. Haven and Howard are full of them, although some of them may not be in service or usable by the RDN just now. Dohlar to South Harchong's coast isn't necessarily the only route they could take - they could make for a horrible surprise for the squadrons reducing Desnair's privateer building and supporting ports.
It's not an explanation that would account for the missing Rottweilers already, but in the future, the need to have something like that in support may be relevant to future deployments in Desnair, more distant parts of South Harchong (including whatever those regions in southwest Howard are), and until the canal routes between Dohlar and the Border States get in Allied hands, up into them, the Temple Lands, and North Harchong.
Yes, there were multiple
Rottweilers, six of which were earmarked for conversion. Another handful weren't. (Indeed, if you go back and look at the passage in which they rescue the survivors en route to the Temple, one of the un-converted ships is present in Sarmouth's squadron.) Of the 6 earmarked for conversion, 2 were sent with Sharpfield to take Claw Island. They were supposed to hold the island long enough for the
City-class ships to be completed and join them there (if you'l recall, there were actually several colliers with cioal attached to his fleet in order to build up stockpiles for the anticipated arrival of the steam-powered ironclads). The pair of ironclad
galleons were sent because they were immediately available (they'd been stationed in Chisholm as part of the class's initial deployment plan) and were supposed to be primarily fortress breakers for taking the island despite its batteries. The conventional galleons and schooners (all shell-armed and, for the most part, more powerful than anything they might encounter, at least on a class-for-class basis) were supposed to establish a presence in the
western Gulf only until the
Cities got there.
Of the remaining 4 ironclad conversions, one was permanently stationed at Tellesberg as the core of a mobile reserve covering Charis, Tarot, and Emerald against the (very remote) possibility of a threat from the rag tag remnants of the Imperial Desnarian Navy and in case she was needed to deal with any coastal bombardment missions that might come up. Two were stationed at Siddar City to be available for operations deep into Hsing-Wu's Passage (I believe the expedition in which a coaling station was set up inside the Passage is mentioned in the book, and those galleons were the core of the covering/bombardment force for that operation while the
Cities were still busy farther south.) And the fourth was also in Tellesberg undergoing routnine maintenance when the battle in the narrows took place. Her repairs were about finished at the time, and it was her and the one assigned effectively to "Home Fleet" which Rock Point references when he says he can send two of them immediately to reinforce Sharpfild. He can send them
at once because he doesn't have to get orders to them, as he would the ones in the Passage. I believe he also talks about how soon the
Cities (or at least some of them) can be released from Desnarian waters and/or completed and worked up and dispatched in their wakes.
In other words, under the original game plan, all of the ironclad galleons were accounted for doing various important things (including repairs) and a full third of the ICN's blue water armored ships had been dispatched to take Claw Island
and then simply hold the ring until the Cities
and the King Harahlds
became available as well. Those deployment plans were disupted when it became necessary to send the
Cities to Desnair, instead. Had that diversion not become necessary, then the pair of
Rottweilers would have been relieved by far more capable ships long before the Kaudzhu Narrows happened.
I think it's unreasonable to have expected the ICN to have sent a greater proportion of its blue water ironclads on what was basically a preliminary "setting up" operation when — as they demonstrated rather conclusively — the pair of them would have been equal to dealing with virtually the entire Royal Dohlaran Navy if they had been operating together. Don't forget that the only reason Captain Ahbaht was running the operation with only a single ironclad was that
Dreadnought had suffered damage a loft in a gale which had not yet been made completely good (as far as he knew) when his window of opportunity was defined by the information he possessed. Had both
Rottweilers been sent on the operation, the situation would've been very different after
Thunder went on to the mud bank, and so would the outcome.
