"King Haarahld VI"-class, paint art

Dilandu wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:
Cool!

Thanks!

runsforcelery wrote: You're still putting the main battery in turrets, though; they're in barbets with shields to save top weight.

Er, no: they are barbettes with cylindrical shields, like 1890th US monitors.

Okay, part of the problem here is that the shields I have been describing are basically face shields with side protection, no protection to the rear, and no overhead protection. That's what folks in the US usually mean when they use the term "shield" rather than "turret," whatever the technical meaning might be, and I apologize for not being more specific.

runsforcelery wrote:
Also, bear in mind that they're using water tube boilers, not fire tube, which means they aren't going to need as many boilers as you might think.

Dilandu wrote:And so? All french armoured cruisers used fire-tube boilers; and they have pleny of boilers. To reach 24 knots on the only two screws and triple-expancion machines even temporarely, you need A LOT OF boilers. Especially if they are first boilers even build in more than thousand years, on the industry, build for less than two years. Better to put more of them just in case that you workers - who never ever build something like that -may made a mistake.

I'm not sure what the fact that the French used fire tube boilers has to do with ships which specifically don't have them. The Charisians went directly to water tube boilers (except in the locomotives they are currently developing) and these are about the fourth generation of marine engines/boilers they've built. Without access to the notes on my home computer I can't give you the exact psi, but it's up around 1914-1920 levels.

runsforcelery wrote:And, finally, they have a transom stern and a forward-angled straight bow.

Dilandu wrote:Without ram? For the civilisation that just discover steam and it's mobility advantages? It's just impossible: especially for the navy, that have galleys as a main unit just a decade ago.

That's your opinion, and it's wrong.

runsforcelery wrote:No one in Charis sees any reason to make them look any more like something from the 1890s than works with their requirements.

Dilandu wrote:No one in Charis have any reason to build them, first of all. Exept for the demonstration of technological superiority and gaining the expirience to the shipyards. So they may include some elements that maybe not ideal, but gave a engineers and construction crews a great expirience of "how to do" or "how NOT to do" somethings.

runsforcelery wrote: They have a single military mast forward of the funnels

And if it would be hit and destroyed? Two mast is the rational minimum for observation and battle control, especially without electricity. But ok, i could replace the rear mast with something loghter...

They aren't thinking in terms of hits that take out the mast, and even if that happens, they aren't thinking in terms of long range gunnery. If they were going to be fighting peer warships, that would be a factor. They aren't, so it isn't.

Okay, part of the problem here is that the shields I have been describing are basically face shields with side protection, no protection to the rear, and no overhead protection. That's what folks in the US usually mean when they use the term "shield" rather than "turret," whatever the technical meaning might be, and I apologize for not being more specific.

Ok, here i actually misunderstood you. I'll try to fix it.

That's your opinion, and it's wrong

Please, since the steam power were applied, EVERY fleet were working with rams. It's simply logical; for Charis it's more than simply logical, because they have a galley fleet not so long enough. And after all, the ram would be usefull for breaking the underwater obtackles wothout damagind the hull.

They aren't thinking in terms of hits that take out the mast, and even if that happens, they aren't thinking in terms of long range gunnery. If they were going to be fighting peer warships, that would be a factor. They aren't, so it isn't.

Forgive me, but you started to contradict himself. They build a warship with many parameters oriented to battle with similar-class warships - high speed, armor-penetrating long guns with rotating reloading systems - and the others are simplified just "because they weren't going to be fighting warships". Well, in that case they didn't really need high speed, they really didn't need hevay guns, reloading in every train (and it would be the real weight economy!) and they didn't need two heavy gun calibre at all. They may be better against wooden ships and fortifications with uniformed 8" or 10" guns.

And i started to suspect that the main reason for KH in their current description is simply that they look cool for you. Am i not completely wrong?

Hmm, RFC, steam pressure some where between 300 and 500 PSI.

These are coal burners most water tube boilers are oil burners often in pressurized fire rooms for forced combustion. Unless you are using something like pulverized coal air mixture used by UPRR to run their experimental coal fired turbines of the 1950s might work, note the fly ash doomed the UPRR turbines and won't do the water tubes much good either, but just filling the grates in a good bed won't produce that much steam as coal burns slowly, and even forced draft won't help that much.

Just wondering when you get back to your notes.

Poker

PS do you see a basket weave mast or a pole mast on the King Harold VII?

Hi Dilandu,

You seem to be seriously claiming the French Navy was some how obviously superior than the RN in 1896.

From what I've read and just checked, that personal opinion would have seriously surprised the French Navy Government and public at the time, NTM decades before or after.

Please feel free to express your opinion but please don't claim it as an inarguable fact.

You may feel their ships might have been individually superior in some particular ways, and may even be right in some ways, but it doesn't mean that's a universal opinion or totally accurate.

Certainly the French didn't feel they had naval superiority over the RN, according to what Google books found looking for 1885 french torpedo [Preparing for blockade 1885-1914: Naval Contingency For Economic warfare by Dr Stephen Cobb] including the fact that the Niger River and Fashoda crises of 1898 demonstrated how much further they had fallen behind the RN in mobilizing what they did have [ie well over a month].

Regarding French ship design, their late 18th century sailings ships were indeed superior to the average British as some British then bragged "most of the best British ships were built by the French and Spanish" ie their better design didn't stop them from being captured by the poorer designed RN ships for obviously other reasons and served it long and well.

The French built only 12 battleships of very different types [shall we say experimental?] in the ten years between 1886-1896 often using Harvey steel not Creusot, as anything older was grossly obsolete compared to dozens by the RN [whole squadrons all of one type etc], and the 1897 Spithead review by their own admission clearly demonstrated just how far behind the RN they had fallen.

The French 1885-1896 torpedoes seem rather worthless because I can't get anything good on Google regarding their details while others are [perhaps you should write a wiki article on them] NTM apparently some of the French torpedo boats built then were completed without torpedoes, while the various listed torpedoes only start mentioning those from 1899 as evidently being any good.

The RN had built a torpedo boat in the 1877 but fount the state of the art left a great deal to be desired, continued researching and testing but wisely didn't yet base their naval power on such things.

Having a ram on warships for a generation was a result of the mistaken lessons of the battle of Lissa, where the Italians had bigger or better rams, but the Austrian navy demonstrated again it was the men, their morale courage, determination and training and superior leadership of course, that decided the battle, not the popular design attributes and numbers that seemed to favor the Italians.

L

Dilandu wrote:

lyonheart wrote:not that they were that much of a threat to the RN in the first place, given the Jeune Ecole's preferences, NTM the politicians, for cheaper solutions than building one for one with the RN.

Well, actually they were stronger than Royal Navy in 1898. Their guns have longer barrels and could be reloaded in any train angle, their shells were filled with more powerfull explosives, their tactic were greatly superior and they could put all avaliable ships in sea for 48 hours (in 1896, the Royal Navy needed more than a month to mobilise just the part of reserve). And their torpedo tactics... well, they have torpedo tactics. RN haven't.

Hi Dilandu,

Are you seriously suggesting 25 pounder smooth-bores have the same range as rifled 8"or 10" guns?

Please.

When the range for the explosive shells was counted in dozens of yards?

500-2000 yards is quite possible for the KG VII's, sending galleons against such after knowing their capabilities is suicide, and no worthy CO would expend his men so uselessly.

The main problem the KH VII's will have is ensuring their fuzes work before they penetrate through both sides of the galleon.

If RFC were so unsporting as to have the galleons with only fighting sail because all they see are the ICN's war galleons or suffer a dead calm, while the KG VII's bear down from behind and up sun few would escape, although i expect some will be deliberately let go, just to spread the terror

L

Dilandu wrote:

BobG wrote:
I'll be curious to see how many of the CoGA ships continue to attack when they are brought under accurate fire at several thousand yards.

-- Bob G

I really doubt that any CoGA ships would be operationg outside coastal waters against that ships. They would attack at night, or in straits and gulfs, were the space is limited. So, the range advantage of KH would be more or less theoretical, than the effect of 8-inch shells on unarmored wooden ships.

Hi Dilandu,

You really aren't paying any attention are you?

There's no textev the KH VII's are experimental, you just want to have it your way despite RFC patiently explaining how wrong you are.

It's time to move on to other attributes, please.

L

Dilandu wrote:It's just appeared to me: the KH's are expetrimental ships, after all?

So, it's quite possible that this definite unit (on the art) is the second, or third ship of the class, with certain differences from the original. That's why it have six smoke stacks, two masts and others. After all, even if the Inner Circle IS convinced that they build the optimal design, the simple sea engineers and officers couldn't knew that.

So, it is pretty possible that the KH's would be really different from each other "in hope to find the optimal solution".

lyonheart wrote:Are you seriously suggesting 25 pounder smooth-bores have the same range as rifled 8"or 10" guns?

Of course not. Where did you find it?

The main problem the KH VII's will have is ensuring their fuzes work before they penetrate through both sides of the galleon.

I think the main problem would be to found the enemy galleon in situation, when the KH VII would be able to attack it. Surely, the Dohlar commanders aren't stupid enough to do something like that.

There's no textev the KH VII's are experimental, you just want to have it your way despite RFC patiently explaining how wrong you are.

How could the iron-hulled battleships, build on industry, that simply didn't exist less a decade ago be NOT experimental? Where they could find the experienced construction crews for this project? You missed my point; they are experimental in the meaning of experience for constructors and engineers, that NEVER BUILD SOMETHING LIKE THAT BEFORE.

Dilandu wrote:

Okay, part of the problem here is that the shields I have been describing are basically face shields with side protection, no protection to the rear, and no overhead protection. That's what folks in the US usually mean when they use the term "shield" rather than "turret," whatever the technical meaning might be, and I apologize for not being more specific.

Ok, here i actually misunderstood you. I'll try to fix it.

That's your opinion, and it's wrong

Please, since the steam power were applied, EVERY fleet were working with rams. It's simply logical; for Charis it's more than simply logical, because they have a galley fleet not so long enough. And after all, the ram would be usefull for breaking the underwater obtackles wothout damagind the hull.

They aren't thinking in terms of hits that take out the mast, and even if that happens, they aren't thinking in terms of long range gunnery. If they were going to be fighting peer warships, that would be a factor. They aren't, so it isn't.

Forgive me, but you started to contradict himself. They build a warship with many parameters oriented to battle with similar-class warships - high speed, armor-penetrating long guns with rotating reloading systems - and the others are simplified just "because they weren't going to be fighting warships". Well, in that case they didn't really need high speed, they really didn't need hevay guns, reloading in every train (and it would be the real weight economy!) and they didn't need two heavy gun calibre at all. They may be better against wooden ships and fortifications with uniformed 8" or 10" guns.

And i started to suspect that the main reason for KH in their current description is simply that they look cool for you. Am i not completely wrong?

Sigh.

Look, the only reason the ram was as popular as it was --- for the relatively brief time it was --- was the fact that armor was winning the gun-armor race. When people were thinking in terms of "wracking" the armor (basically pounding it until it broke up, rather than penetrating it), managing to ram an enemy ship offered an opportunity to get around the armor by inflicting fatal underwater damage. A ship like CSS Virginia offered an opportunity to ram effectively because (a) many of her opponents would be sail-powered, meaning she could move under conditions when they could not, and (b) her armor would permit her to bore in through the fire of their broadsides with relative impunity, which meant she could drive her ram home. The ram survived as a theoretical weapon primarily because it was "grandfathered into" tactical and design thinking and because of Tegetthoff's success at Lissa, which was certainly a one-off achievement accomplished in the midst of a highly transitional period in engineering and naval design.

The KH VIIs certainly have the speed and the armor protection to do the same thing (that is, they have an ability to run down and ram slower, sail-powered opponents which is far greater than Viorgnia's at Hampton Roads or Erzherzog Ferdinand Max's at Lissa), but why should they risk hull damage (which happened a lot in ramming attacks, as at --- oh, I dunno . . . Lissa and' Hampton Roads, perhaps?)) and put up with the chance of sinking friendly ships with accidental ramming attacks (which happened considerably more often than deliberate ramming attacks) when they can do the same thing with guns with equal impunity? Of course they could always adopt the ram as an attempt to lead opponents down technological and tactical dead ends, but that isn't really their objective.

The provision of a second fighting top is not remotely necessary to what I have told you --- repeatedly --- is their primary function of driving any potential enemy into pushing back against the Proscriptions in order to match their capabilities. The other features of her design --- speed, armor, gun power, operating radius --- are all easily observable and quantifiable advantages any opponent will need to match them; the extra observation post aloft is not, any more than the provision of underwater torpedo tubes (something almost as useful as a ram, in real life experience --- i.e., useful as teats on a boar hog). These ships are not designed for long range gunnery in the sense it was applied post Tsushima and they do not require the sort of observation and range finding/plotting of even our own 1890-1900. Nor, without a peer opponent capable of matching the performance of their guns, is there going to be any opportunity to demonstrate the possibility of such gunnery to any present or future adversary. Yes, that sort of potential will have to be demonstrated eventually to attain their true strategic (rather than your own invincibly tactical thinking bound) goals, but there is absolutely no need or reason to lay that particular card on the table at this point.


The "penetrating long guns" are part of the "push the envelope" parameters, but they also serve a highly useful function against shore targets. The Brits didn't mount surplus battleship guns on coastal monitors in 1914-1918 because they needed them to fight off the High Seas Fleet. The Charisians are building a very small number of very high capability platforms wiith the operational range they need to self-deploy across distances nothing else they have can match. Their purpose is to brazenly engage targets even their Eraystor class ironclads would hesitate to take on, to provide a core force of unmatchable range and flexibility, and to challenge any future opponent to follow them into "technological heresy" if those opponents are to have any chance at all of contending with them at sea.

And before you tell me again about how they would "inevitably" repeat the technical/tactical dead ends/Really Bad Ideas of real life designers and engineers feeling their way into unknown territory, remember that their chief designer is a member of the inner circle well before the final design is worked out. He would be provided with all the logical arguments he could ever need to kill Really Stupid Ideas in design conferences, and there would be no need for him to Get Everything Exactly Right in features which weren't of core importance to the "break the Proscriptions" emphasis of the design.

I really wish you could find it remotely possible to accept that I have a very clear idea of why these various design features are present, why others are absent, and the reason the ships were ever designed or conceived in the first place. You continue to persist in trying to fit these into the real world progression of a world (ours) which had entirely different starting parameters, inputs, influences, and military experience/history and then informing me that anything I do which violates those constraints (rather than the ones I created when I created the planet, the culture, the planetary history, and the social/political/religious factors shaping that history and its future) is "illogical" or "impossible."

Do me the courtesy of assuming I know the internal constraints and logic of the actors in a fictional world of my own creation at least a tiny bit better than you do.

Ok. I'll try to fix the painting.

Hi Dilandu,

Please try to pay attention.

There is no other fleet applying steam power to ships on Safehold.

Got it?

RFC has told you repeatedly Safehold is unique, and the ICN isn't making all the same mistakes navies on earth did, in fact they're avoiding most of them.

Regarding rams, they weren't the primary weapon of the RCN's galleys, it was the marines who took enemy ships by boarding, please reread the textev in OAR if you have to, and accept you're simply wrong.

Rams haven't been the primary weapon of the Charisian navy for decades, so there is no school or old officers arguing to bring it back, so drop it now.

What underwater obstacles do you have in mind that a ram will plow through without damaging the hull of the ship?

Historically the rammer often had almost as many problems as the ramee, from the collision which had to done very carefully if the rammer wasn't going to sink himself, and even then getting stuck in the ramee and sinking with it still happened all too frequently.

You need to review what the textev regarding the KH VII's is in MTaT, LaMA, as well as RFC's posts here, before you start accusing RFC of making something inappropriate to his world creation, because he thinks its cool.

If you don't remember, it's been a gradual process the original KH VII's were going to be a steam and sail ship with a wooden composite hull, but after the great canal raid, the designers were so impressed with the river ironclads performance, particularly the engines reliability, they dropped the combo version and went to all steam power, though I hope a few of the steam and sail ships were completed unarmored etc, as transports for troops, cavalry, food and coal etc, to be commercial technology demonstrators, being far more economical that straight steam.

You're the only one infatuated with your picture, so change the bow, stern and tumble home as RFC told you; if you don't change it to fit what RFC has always described it as being, you're simply demonstrating again how ridiculously stubborn you are in the face of all the other facts.

L

Dilandu wrote:

Okay, part of the problem here is that the shields I have been describing are basically face shields with side protection, no protection to the rear, and no overhead protection. That's what folks in the US usually mean when they use the term "shield" rather than "turret," whatever the technical meaning might be, and I apologize for not being more specific.

Ok, here i actually misunderstood you. I'll try to fix it.

That's your opinion, and it's wrong

Please, since the steam power were applied, EVERY fleet were working with rams. It's simply logical; for Charis it's more than simply logical, because they have a galley fleet not so long enough. And after all, the ram would be usefull for breaking the underwater obtackles wothout damagind the hull.

They aren't thinking in terms of hits that take out the mast, and even if that happens, they aren't thinking in terms of long range gunnery. If they were going to be fighting peer warships, that would be a factor. They aren't, so it isn't.

Forgive me, but you started to contradict himself. They build a warship with many parameters oriented to battle with similar-class warships - high speed, armor-penetrating long guns with rotating reloading systems - and the others are simplified just "because they weren't going to be fighting warships". Well, in that case they didn't really need high speed, they really didn't need hevay guns, reloading in every train (and it would be the real weight economy!) and they didn't need two heavy gun calibre at all. They may be better against wooden ships and fortifications with uniformed 8" or 10" guns.

And i started to suspect that the main reason for KH in their current description is simply that they look cool for you. Am i not completely wrong?