The Navy of God against Charis naval superiority

Okay, so what advantages South Harchong could muster against Charisian constant cheating, er, I mean, Imperial Charisian Navy?

* First of all, of course the range. Charisian major ships are forced to be capable of trans-ocean voyages, which means that they are forced to carry MUCH more fuel and supplies. While Harchong ships only need enough fuel to operate in the Gulf. The difference here is roughly like the difference between Royal Navy and Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine.

* Secondly, the seakeeping. Charisian warships are forced to have a high freeboard and be stable enough to survive prolonged heavy seas. Harchongese ships do not need that. They would be perfectly fine with low freeboard & limited seakeeping ability.

* Thirdly, the question of auxilaries. Charisian Navy seems to be fully locked in paradigm "do not build anything that have no sea battle value". They used their costly cruisers for patrol missions. Which basically means, that in case of any conflict, they would have utter lack of auxiliaries, especially shallow-draft ships, capable of operating in coastal water - as well as lack of aviso, coastal units, patrol forces... basically of everything.

* Fourthly, the Harchong Navy would have ALL their major bases and facilities on the theater. Which means, that they would be able to perform all required maintenance in shortest possible order. While Charisian ships would be forced to traverse oceans for any serious repairs. I.e. Harchongese warship, damaged in combat, would return to service MUCH faster than Charisian (yeah, RFC would probably invent all kind of magical Charisian workers, to not allow such terrible inconvenience to exist... But logistic is stern mistress; it is always simple to repair ships at home, than on forward bases)

* Fifthly, the Charisian Navy would clearly took time to concentrate significant forces in one place. It is not exactly easy to move battleships on large distances; especially with the assumption that they might need to fight immediately after deployment. On the other hands, Charisian could not also afford to just remove their forces from the region and wait till reinforcements arrive; they need to protect their forward bases (otherwise their navy would have no forward support to rely on)

So... it's not like its all just gloom and doom for South Harchong) With some good thinking, they could easily demonstrate the mightiest navy on Safehold, how dangerous is to underestimate Japanese... sorry, Harchongese)

P.S. Of course, Merlin would probably immediately cheat to ensure, that his precious human toys... er, friends, would not have their ability to decide "what is good and what is bad" on world's scale be questioned.

Dilandu
good points!


and some of them I think make the idea of South Harchong and others using naval mines as a tactical and strategic tools, even more likely/effective

the Inner Circle's cover would become thread bare if they tried warning Charisian captains where mines were that kept being laid especially by stealth/good planning, before it was likely for even Seijins to be able to give an alert....

SilverbladeTE wrote:
the Inner Circle's cover would become thread bare if they tried warning Charisian captains where mines were that kept being laid especially by stealth/good planning, before it was likely for even Seijins to be able to give an alert....

Please, this never stopped Merlin before. He become really good in finding excuses for basically everything.

Dilandu wrote:
Please, this never stopped Merlin before. He become really good in finding excuses for basically everything.

hey, he's only Human you know
(meant in a good way actually, you'd be pretty damn sensitive about losing those you care for after the Gbaba etc)

a thought:

It should be obvious to the IC and Charisian navy that they DO need a LOT more light combatants especially "Up front"
the examples of what happened to Gwyllym Manthyr's fleet in Gulf of Dholar and of Britain in World War 2 are glaring proof of the need for a lot of small escorts/scouts

So, if I was them, I'd give the North Harchong and Dholaran's a full set of plans for the hulls, engines and weapons for corvettes, frigates and minesweepers!
In fact I'd also give them plans for all guns up to at least 4" calibre maybe 6"
AND...a class of light cargo ship
~~

#1 This would allow them to build quickly a fleet of light escorts/scouts, which are absolutely vital
as noted, their enemies will almost certainly begin low level harassment attacks, mining, piracy coastal raids etc
designing ship and weapon systems takes a hell of a lot of time/money North Harchong simply doesn't have, and Dholar needs help as well as their first steam ship hasn't gone well
~~

#2 This helps with the over all plan to industrialise Safehold
they will thus soon gave modern shipyards, work for their people etc
~~

#3 it takes time to educate, integrate, work out bugs etc such complex systems
it also takes time for naval training and traditions etc
reducing time is vital for Charis' long term interest
Mahry's is especially not "letting grass grow under his feet"
it would be very bad if Charis left Dholar and especially North Harchong without such help!
~~

#4 Such moves help cement friendly alliances
they will be less worried about Charisian dominance if they have their own nascient modern fleets.
Once they have confidence in construction they can design their own larger ships
~~

#5 a common series of vehicle, engine and weapon systems, exactly like NATO and Warsaw pact, is highly desirable not only for supply issues, but, in the event of conflict with former allies, you KNOW their weapons capabilities and can thus plan accordingly
I wasn't being silly about South Harchong maybe developing weapons to propel chemical weapons, when your enemy doesn't have an obvious path, they will take their own, which may prove less effective, or very problematic indeed

Of course, Charis may decide to never share the secrets of smokeless propellants and thus, control munitions
there's pro and con on offering that technology to allies
Allies can still certainly use black powder if they must
~~

#6 A common cargo ship design, ala, "Liberty" or "Victory" ships, but smallerthat is reliable, cheap, easy to produce is of extremely useful
benefit for everyone, especially if it has been designed so it can be easily altered into say, a "tank landing craft" or other uses
Logistics is #1 priority

SilverbladeTE wrote:
It should be obvious to the IC and Charisian navy that they DO need a LOT more light combatants especially "Up front"
the examples of what happened to Gwyllym Manthyr's fleet in Gulf of Dholar and of Britain in World War 2 are glaring proof of the need for a lot of small escorts/scouts

Well... it should be obvious, yeah. But:

1) RFC did not like units, not fitted for general sea battle (If I recall correctly, once he argued that resources, spend on escort ships and escort carriers during World War 2 should be better spend on more heavy carriers and full-scale destroyers)

2) Because of that, Charisians never even tried to build screw frigates or steam gunboats - they immediately pulled all their resources in large ironclads, which led to hilarious situation when they operated sail-driven ironclads (which basically make as much sense as tank on large inflatable tires) and used their sail-driven galleons against retreating Dohlar navy.

3) The "bigger is better" mindset is very hard to get rid off, especially now, when Charisians have examples that hey, it is working! Even if Inner Circle would suddenly start to worry about escorts and light units, most of Charisian admirals & parliamentarians would just brush this aside, preferring instead to build the Safeholdian equivalent of "Yamato".

4) It is not likely that Merlin really understood naval warfare. Nimue only military experience was of space one, and space is NOT ocean. She may knew theoretically, but practically it would be like to put tank division general in command of the naval fleet; he would be constantly trying to adjust his own perception to the completely different matters.

SilverbladeTE wrote:#1 This would allow them to build quickly a fleet of light escorts/scouts, which are absolutely vital
as noted, their enemies will almost certainly begin low level harassment attacks, mining, piracy coastal raids etc
designing ship and weapon systems takes a hell of a lot of time/money North Harchong simply doesn't have, and Dholar needs help as well as their first steam ship hasn't gone well

Well, for example, Royal Navy stubbornly argued against convoys (and escort ships for them) up until 1917. Despite the fact that losses mounted, and UK allies were quite worried that something is not right, the Royal Navy still saw any convoys as "dispersion of the fighting force": admirals wanted to have as much warships as possible concentrated in preparation for some "glorious action", rather than use them for more mundane but practical purposes.

(Also they feared, that convoys would be attacked, and thus need to be relieved by naval forces - which would means that their precious dreadnoughts would be forced to leave the protected anchorages and venture into the dangerous waters)

It's pretty interesting to notice, how this mindset completely eroded by World War 2: in 1941, the RN was even willing to trade a pair of their newest battleships to USA in exchange for more escorts

SilverbladeTE wrote:#2 This helps with the over all plan to industrialise Safehold
they will thus soon gave modern shipyards, work for their people etc

In theory yes.

SilverbladeTE wrote:it would be very bad if Charis left Dholar and especially North Harchong without such help!

Frankly, IMHO but it would be rather good if Dohlar would went out of Charis orbit. Dohlar was basically the only state that could really challenge Charis in therms on inventiveness, and turning them into another bunch of faceless good-guy-minions (like Haven's essentially became in Honorverse, losing absolutely any individuality) would... not be interesting.

SilverbladeTE wrote:Of course, Charis may decide to never share the secrets of smokeless propellants and thus, control munitions

Somebody else would figure that out. It is impossible to contain the knowledge about large-scale industrial processes for any long time.

Dilandu
when I was a kid, I loved King Tiger tanks and big battleships, like most kids....
Hey I was young

Now, I'd take a snot load of small and medium carriers with long range destroyers and light cruisers (and gun boats and submarines...shore bombardment ships like British naval Monitors though still have uses but you don't need many of them)
and
tons of Sherman tanks, or hell, Centurions!
Plus of course even more importantly, the cargo ships and trucks to *supply them*

Wisdom can sink into even the thickest heads over enough times!
Well, usually....
*raps his own skull*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dholar situation:
True, it would be better for Dholar to maintain some distance
As example, UK has alas become America's "poodle" (to use a polite term) alas and it's to no one's advantage, relaly, not just national pride, it's caused a great weakening of all kinds of things
reliable allies are great, but weakened, frustrated and angry ones are not

but, giving them some help with boiler design and *standardised* measurements and armaments might be a very good idea

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The "Big battles" in earlier Safehold books were awesome good fun
but now we're into "industrial warfare"...which is a different kettle of fish to "The Age of Sail"

Hell, I ADORED films and books like "Captain Blood"
It's pretty obvious to me that Merlin is Errol Flynn's heroic, debonair, humorous pirate come to life once more, and I LIKE IT!
Much much better than the "Pirates of the Caribbean" stuff, lol

Industrial warfare...sigh, well ancient warfare in ways was grimmer, but there's less romance with battleships than sailing ships, and bloody none with mechanised infantry
always the "Poor Bloody Infantry" that gets overlooked and crapped on :/

Yamato was useless and got sunk by little bitty planes dropping bombs torpedoes and napalm

So "heroism" is best shown in the Industrial Era, for me as a reader, by smaller, more "intimate" actions:
raids, mine clearance, gun boats, destroyer actions and gutsy, "innovative" things like the "X Craft" or Italian "charioteers", etc for naval combat
Also, "Big ship" fights are extremely rare and usually pretty bloody catastrophic.
Loss of H.M.S. Hood was a major demoralizing blow

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

yeah eventually knowledge of nitration will get out
but, developing systems to create reliable nitrocelluose propellants was VERY tricky
sure espionage and Human Nature will leak parts of the process but will still take many years to develop a safe manufacturing process and reliable propellant
instead of 30+ years it make take 10

but as I said, giving/selling how to make dynamite is absolutely essential to the over all plans of the Inner Circle, as large scale earth moving, mining etc is so critical to industrialisation and for the the benefit of Humanity

for example, Safehold already has extremely good roads
but our world having good roads meant food was delivered faster, which meant fresher, which meant less people, especially children, dying of bad food

It may seem funny when I often talk about how amazing toilet paper is and how much of a nuisance diarrhoea is (on other forums and about RPG gaming and fiction), but the truth is, dysentery and related illnesses, plus rotten meat, trichinosis, etc were and still are in places, ENORMOUS killers and wreckers of health
Folk get overly fixated on terrorists and other threats, which while heinous, are tiny in numbers harmed compared to plain old salmonella etc
To me, people who build good roads and fresh water systems are near saintly, literally.
(I often joke that the best way to make money near the typical fantasy "dungeon", would be to set up a stall selling toilet paper and flavoured or spicy pemmican, deals with both ends of the "fuel cycle", )

My own favourite "under appreciated and near miraculous invention", is the FRESNO SCRAPER
appalling that very simple earth moving device was never invented earlier, sigh, colossal improvement in the ability to make roads, canals, foundations etc
could have saved millions of lives and made civilisation a whole lot easier

SilverbladeTE wrote:

Dilandu wrote:
Please, this never stopped Merlin before. He become really good in finding excuses for basically everything.

hey, he's only Human you know
(meant in a good way actually, you'd be pretty damn sensitive about losing those you care for after the Gbaba etc)

a thought:

It should be obvious to the IC and Charisian navy that they DO need a LOT more light combatants especially "Up front"
the examples of what happened to Gwyllym Manthyr's fleet in Gulf of Dholar and of Britain in World War 2 are glaring proof of the need for a lot of small escorts/scouts

So, if I was them, I'd give the North Harchong and Dholaran's a full set of plans for the hulls, engines and weapons for corvettes, frigates and minesweepers!
In fact I'd also give them plans for all guns up to at least 4" calibre maybe 6"
AND...a class of light cargo ship
~~

#1 This would allow them to build quickly a fleet of light escorts/scouts, which are absolutely vital
as noted, their enemies will almost certainly begin low level harassment attacks, mining, piracy coastal raids etc
designing ship and weapon systems takes a hell of a lot of time/money North Harchong simply doesn't have, and Dholar needs help as well as their first steam ship hasn't gone well
~~

#2 This helps with the over all plan to industrialise Safehold
they will thus soon gave modern shipyards, work for their people etc
~~

#3 it takes time to educate, integrate, work out bugs etc such complex systems
it also takes time for naval training and traditions etc
reducing time is vital for Charis' long term interest
Mahry's is especially not "letting grass grow under his feet"
it would be very bad if Charis left Dholar and especially North Harchong without such help!
~~

#4 Such moves help cement friendly alliances
they will be less worried about Charisian dominance if they have their own nascient modern fleets.
Once they have confidence in construction they can design their own larger ships
~~

#5 a common series of vehicle, engine and weapon systems, exactly like NATO and Warsaw pact, is highly desirable not only for supply issues, but, in the event of conflict with former allies, you KNOW their weapons capabilities and can thus plan accordingly
I wasn't being silly about South Harchong maybe developing weapons to propel chemical weapons, when your enemy doesn't have an obvious path, they will take their own, which may prove less effective, or very problematic indeed

Of course, Charis may decide to never share the secrets of smokeless propellants and thus, control munitions
there's pro and con on offering that technology to allies
Allies can still certainly use black powder if they must
~~

#6 A common cargo ship design, ala, "Liberty" or "Victory" ships, but smallerthat is reliable, cheap, easy to produce is of extremely useful
benefit for everyone, especially if it has been designed so it can be easily altered into say, a "tank landing craft" or other uses
Logistics is #1 priority

A common cargo ship design, ala, "Liberty" or "Victory". Would the "Hog Islander" from WW1 fit what you are thinking of? Without the turbine power of course.

doug941 wrote:A common cargo ship design, ala, "Liberty" or "Victory". Would the "Hog Islander" from WW1 fit what you are thinking of? Without the turbine power of course.

Yeah, something like that would be great
Leave larger designs to Charis, or at least, for some time, and engage in much needed trade and logistics ship building.

If the vessels are designed with strong points for light defence guns those can be added if needed.

And some for beach landing with openable bows, shallow draft, protected rudder propellers etc, useful for some cargo work but give experience for what would be tank landing craft.

SilverbladeTE wrote:Dilandu
when I was a kid, I loved King Tiger tanks and big battleships, like most kids....
Hey I was young

Now, I'd take a snot load of small and medium carriers with long range destroyers and light cruisers (and gun boats and submarines...shore bombardment ships like British naval Monitors though still have uses but you don't need many of them)
and
tons of Sherman tanks, or hell, Centurions!
Plus of course even more importantly, the cargo ships and trucks to *supply them*

Wisdom can sink into even the thickest heads over enough times!
Well, usually....
*raps his own skull*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dholar situation:
True, it would be better for Dholar to maintain some distance
As example, UK has alas become America's "poodle" (to use a polite term) alas and it's to no one's advantage, relaly, not just national pride, it's caused a great weakening of all kinds of things
reliable allies are great, but weakened, frustrated and angry ones are not

but, giving them some help with boiler design and *standardised* measurements and armaments might be a very good idea

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The "Big battles" in earlier Safehold books were awesome good fun
but now we're into "industrial warfare"...which is a different kettle of fish to "The Age of Sail"

Hell, I ADORED films and books like "Captain Blood"
It's pretty obvious to me that Merlin is Errol Flynn's heroic, debonair, humorous pirate come to life once more, and I LIKE IT!
Much much better than the "Pirates of the Caribbean" stuff, lol

Industrial warfare...sigh, well ancient warfare in ways was grimmer, but there's less romance with battleships than sailing ships, and bloody none with mechanised infantry
always the "Poor Bloody Infantry" that gets overlooked and crapped on :/

Yamato was useless and got sunk by little bitty planes dropping bombs torpedoes and napalm

So "heroism" is best shown in the Industrial Era, for me as a reader, by smaller, more "intimate" actions:
raids, mine clearance, gun boats, destroyer actions and gutsy, "innovative" things like the "X Craft" or Italian "charioteers", etc for naval combat
Also, "Big ship" fights are extremely rare and usually pretty bloody catastrophic.
Loss of H.M.S. Hood was a major demoralizing blow

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

yeah eventually knowledge of nitration will get out
but, developing systems to create reliable nitrocelluose propellants was VERY tricky
sure espionage and Human Nature will leak parts of the process but will still take many years to develop a safe manufacturing process and reliable propellant
instead of 30+ years it make take 10

but as I said, giving/selling how to make dynamite is absolutely essential to the over all plans of the Inner Circle, as large scale earth moving, mining etc is so critical to industrialisation and for the the benefit of Humanity

for example, Safehold already has extremely good roads
but our world having good roads meant food was delivered faster, which meant fresher, which meant less people, especially children, dying of bad food

It may seem funny when I often talk about how amazing toilet paper is and how much of a nuisance diarrhoea is (on other forums and about RPG gaming and fiction), but the truth is, dysentery and related illnesses, plus rotten meat, trichinosis, etc were and still are in places, ENORMOUS killers and wreckers of health
Folk get overly fixated on terrorists and other threats, which while heinous, are tiny in numbers harmed compared to plain old salmonella etc
To me, people who build good roads and fresh water systems are near saintly, literally.
(I often joke that the best way to make money near the typical fantasy "dungeon", would be to set up a stall selling toilet paper and flavoured or spicy pemmican, deals with both ends of the "fuel cycle", )

My own favourite "under appreciated and near miraculous invention", is the FRESNO SCRAPER
appalling that very simple earth moving device was never invented earlier, sigh, colossal improvement in the ability to make roads, canals, foundations etc
could have saved millions of lives and made civilisation a whole lot easier

Yamato almost destroyed our invasion of the Philippines, but the Japanese captain fortunately had morale failure. The IJN was extremely fond of complicated multipart plans, and that was one time the complicated plan almost worked.

Talking of the IJN I'm wondering there's there's a possibility of some form of aircraft carrier (in this case I assume it would be a base for dirigibles)entering the Charis navy. I mean it would be a shock to get suddenly bombarded by airborne 2,000 pound bombs, if you aren't expecting it. Plus the advantages of rapid deployment of troops and re-supply via air as they demonstrated by re-supplying the Chynduk Valley with the newest model of rifle,ample ammunition and mortars,plus instructors to teach them how to use the things.