HFQ Official Snippet #8

Dilandu wrote:

gbabafan wrote:China has a new, plentiful andprobably effective littoral combat fleet of small, fast and stealthy warships designed essentially to deny access by US carrier groups to their coastal waters,

Er... For what reason the US carriers should go to the Chinese coastal waters?

As i recall, the combat range of F/A-18 is about 770 km, and it could be increased significantly with air refueling from the fellow F/A-18. And it isn't coastal waters at all.

These stealthy surface ships - ranging from PT-sized trimaran missile boats (like their type 022s) to DDGs (like their new type 052s and 054s) - are cheap to build in such numbers that they can sneak up on and swarm our larger, heavily and much expensive (valuable) warships.

Er... China's Type 052D is almost as big as the USN "Arleigh Burke". They definitely aren't cheaper.

Pound for pound, our larger and more expensive boats outgun their's, but they have more of them than we can reasonably hope to sink.

And so? The US naval aviation is perfectly able to sunk ANY number of small warships, as soon as they went outside the range of effective chinese aviation cover. Let's not forget, how effective is aviation against small boats with rudimentary air defense... As i recall, during the "Morvaird" operation, the pair of iranian F-4 took no more than 5 minutes to sunk 80% of Iraq navy (about ten missile and torpedo boats).

are cheap to build in such numbers that they can sneak up on and swarm our larger, heavily and much expensive (valuable) warships.

And the US have more than enough of even cheaper, smaller and effective anti-ship missiles to devastate the chinese navy. The problem is, that the small warships is extremely vunerable to air and missile attacks, because they haven't any effective air defense.

This is about asymmetric warfare to chase LCN ships from the Desnairian and Siddarmarkian coasts. If Charis attempts to respond by building more expensive ships to fight off their swarms, they'd be making exactly the same mistake the US is with the Independence LCS program. The better bet would be to empower Tarotians or Siddarmarkians with similarly low tech solutions and fight fire with fire. Either that, or occupy Desnair.

And let me make some things straight. What are you proposed is nothin more than the old "Jeune Ecole": the conception of replacing the big, costly warships with small, fast boats, and to replace the big naval battle with "continious attacks".

The problem is, that it wouldn't work. The small, fast "swarming" boats are too vunerable to weather and sea conditions, they have a mobility and range problems. And it's VERY hard to operate the large fleet of small units. Usually, the enemy ocean-going ships would just destroy the swarming fleet part by part, by concentrating the superior firepower on the few in any time.

My guess is 24 schooners or 12 schooners and 8 galleons per convoy.

PS Arm patrol schooners with two 4"/45s and send them after the privateers.

Tanstaafl wrote:There is a reason it is called asymmetric warfare.
The asymmetry is not only in power, but also in costs.

Imagine Desnair having one squadron of 20 schooners. The ICN can’t hunt them down with their galleons because schooners can sail closer to the wind than galleons. If Charis has five convoys en route between Charis and Siddarmark v.v., how many escorts do they need?

My guess is 24 schooners or 12 schooners and 8 galleons per convoy. If there are also convoys between Chisholm and Siddarmark v.v. and between Corrisande and Siddarmark v.v. you have to commit an awful lot of escort ships to protect against only 20 raiders.

That is the reason I think Charis needs an escort vessel that is (a lot) faster than a schooner, is invulnerable to the schooners cannons and can sink one easily. It should be the cheapest ship they can build within these specifications.

Assign two per convoy and the problem of the raider squadron is solved. If they are stupid enough to attack, they can defend together, and when the raiders try to flee, one can give chase while the other stays behind to protect the convoy.

This is cheaper and more effective than building hundreds of schooners.

Tanstaafl wrote:There is a reason it is called asymmetric warfare.
The asymmetry is not only in power, but also in costs.

Imagine Desnair having one squadron of 20 schooners. The ICN can’t hunt them down with their galleons because schooners can sail closer to the wind than galleons. If Charis has five convoys en route between Charis and Siddarmark v.v., how many escorts do they need?

Randomiser wrote:

Tanstaafl wrote:There is a reason it is called asymmetric warfare.
The asymmetry is not only in power, but also in costs.

Imagine Desnair having one squadron of 20 schooners. The ICN can’t hunt them down with their galleons because schooners can sail closer to the wind than galleons. If Charis has five convoys en route between Charis and Siddarmark v.v., how many escorts do they need?

About 20 schooners plus 10 galleons plus 2 or 3 SNARCs? This is also called asymmetric warfare.

AKA 'we just happened to get lucky, honest!' With reasonably superior force and exploding shells against commerce raiders it should be easier to catch all the ships in a sea battle and ensure that no-one gets home to contradict the ICN account.

jgnfld wrote:Happened to run across this recent dissertation http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4433&context=etd while looking at convoy tactics in the early 1800s. I'm not sure but what David hasn't read this dissertation recently!

Anyway, Baltic convoys to England often sailed in groups of 100-200. The Danes use oar-propelled armed galleys (!) to cause problems. The escorts, however were not numerous amounting to only a half dozen brigs or less per 100 ships.

One interesting action involving the warships and the galleys is recounted on page 167. I can almost see a variant of that action coming in HFQ!

PeterZ wrote:Ah! We have it. September 896 II Telesberg.

Dr. Lywys estimates that they won't be able to produce gun cotton filled cartridges for the m96 until late spring early summer 897. Producing gun cotton for infantry round propellent or repackaging it for naval rifles won't be difficult.