Question about the Battle of Darcos Sound in OAR.

Recently re-read OAR. One thing that struck me was that there should have been some newly constructed galleons available to augment King Haarahld's galley fleet. Cayleb sailed for Armageddon Reef with the initial galleon fleet in November 891. The Battle of Darcos Sound does not occur till March 892. The shipyards in Charis were already mobilized and in the process of constructing new galleons well before Cayleb left.

I realize that 4 months might not be enough time to build a new galleon from scratch. But surely there were some galleons already under construction that were not finished in time to depart with Cayleb's fleet. Shouldn't some of these ships have been completed during this 4 month window of time?

The lack of Galleons is not a shock even if they were completed. Darcos Straits is confined water (it is a strait), and Galleons are both sub-par to galleys in confined waters and have handling characteristics so different from galleys that attempting to use them in combination tends not to be very workable.

Castenea wrote:The lack of Galleons is not a shock even if they were completed. Darcos Straits is confined water (it is a strait), and Galleons are both sub-par to galleys in confined waters and have handling characteristics so different from galleys that attempting to use them in combination tends not to be very workable.

I am sorry. I made a serious typo in my initial post. It was the Battle of Darcos Sound, not the Battle of Darcos Strait. So the waters were not that confined. Sorry for misleading you. Going to see it I can edit that and correct it.

As to your 2nd point, that is a valid observation. Operating galleons in conjunction with galleys would have been an extremely difficult proposition. A much more workable idea would have been if Haarahld let the newly built galleons operate independently as a squadron.

Remember, there was a period of several 5 days before the final battle where Haarahld's fleet evaded Black Water's fleet by dodging repeatedly to the south, leading them away from Emerald Island to Darcos Sound. Had there also been a small squadron of Charisian galleons operating during this period, Black Water's options during this pursuit would have been limited. He would have probably taken serious losses since a well handled squadron of galleons could have picked off outlying groups of his galleys.

Henry Brown wrote:Recently re-read OAR. One thing that struck me was that there should have been some newly constructed galleons available to augment King Haarahld's galley fleet. Cayleb sailed for Armageddon Reef with the initial galleon fleet in November 891. The Battle of Darcos Sound does not occur till March 892. The shipyards in Charis were already mobilized and in the process of constructing new galleons well before Cayleb left.

I realize that 4 months might not be enough time to build a new galleon from scratch. But surely there were some galleons already under construction that were not finished in time to depart with Cayleb's fleet. Shouldn't some of these ships have been completed during this 4 month window of time?

But more importantly, the Safehold calendar is only 301 days. There is no December, and no January. So the time difference isn't 4 months, it's 2 months. Caleb departs in November. The next month is February, then March...

Henry Brown wrote:Recently re-read OAR. One thing that struck me was that there should have been some newly constructed galleons available to augment King Haarahld's galley fleet. Cayleb sailed for Armageddon Reef with the initial galleon fleet in November 891. The Battle of Darcos Sound does not occur till March 892. The shipyards in Charis were already mobilized and in the process of constructing new galleons well before Cayleb left.

I realize that 4 months might not be enough time to build a new galleon from scratch. But surely there were some galleons already under construction that were not finished in time to depart with Cayleb's fleet. Shouldn't some of these ships have been completed during this 4 month window of time?

Lack of experienced fighting crews?

isaac_newton wrote:

Henry Brown wrote:Recently re-read OAR. One thing that struck me was that there should have been some newly constructed galleons available to augment King Haarahld's galley fleet. Cayleb sailed for Armageddon Reef with the initial galleon fleet in November 891. The Battle of Darcos Sound does not occur till March 892. The shipyards in Charis were already mobilized and in the process of constructing new galleons well before Cayleb left.

I realize that 4 months might not be enough time to build a new galleon from scratch. But surely there were some galleons already under construction that were not finished in time to depart with Cayleb's fleet. Shouldn't some of these ships have been completed during this 4 month window of time?

Lack of experienced fighting crews?

This would be the main one, As I understand it crewing even a few galleons would have meant stripping the crews from a large number of galleys. Also the Chariasian navy had a chronic shortage of trained topmen to handle the sails at this stage. Charis as a whole had the manpower but it is spread all over the seas of safehold at this stage.

As WeberFan has pointed out, there is no December or January in the safeholdian calendar, so you only have a 2 month gap, not 4.

shayvaan wrote:As WeberFan has pointed out, there is no December or January in the safeholdian calendar, so you only have a 2 month gap, not 4.

Perhaps, but there are undoubtedly other constraints as well - lack of crews being one of them as stated. PERHAPS additional crews were already being trained.

But I think the issue would be less one of a lack of shiphandlers (remember, Charis has a [relatively] huge galleon trading fleet with lots of well-trained sailors to sail all those merchant galleons) and much more an issue of a lack of trained gun crews. And as His Celeryness states so well in a later book, gunnery from a galleon is as much an art as it is a science. Takes both time and lots of hands-on practice to build a well-functioning gun crew.

WeberFan wrote:

shayvaan wrote:As WeberFan has pointed out, there is no December or January in the safeholdian calendar, so you only have a 2 month gap, not 4.

Perhaps, but there are undoubtedly other constraints as well - lack of crews being one of them as stated. PERHAPS additional crews were already being trained.

But I think the issue would be less one of a lack of shiphandlers (remember, Charis has a [relatively] huge galleon trading fleet with lots of well-trained sailors to sail all those merchant galleons) and much more an issue of a lack of trained gun crews. And as His Celeryness states so well in a later book, gunnery from a galleon is as much an art as it is a science. Takes both time and lots of hands-on practice to build a well-functioning gun crew.

No doubt there were other constraints (although only having 2 moths would tend to exacerbate them), IIRC the biggest one was a lack of guns. They managed Cayleb's little fleet, by taking the guns off of the reserve. As for new guns being made after his departure, I doubt they could come up with enough guns to make a worthwhile number of galleons, so they put them on some of the galleys (IIRC at least some of them were so armed).

Well put, Shayvaan. IIRC, Charis was to the point of having to strip the cannons from the reserve galleys to provide enough metal for the new cannons, and each galleon had a LOT more cannon than any galley!