The Navy of God against Charis naval superiority

n7axw wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Then the Church has to produce enough armour plate to make a significant number of these armoured warships, something even Charis has had difficulty doing. (Their metallurgy is way behind Housemanns so they need about twice the weight of armour to do much good.) Just enough power to move is not sufficient. Have you been reading the naval battles? Mobility is an absolute requirement. They have to do all this in an innovation averse environment with severe competition for all the resources required and they have to do it all in about 7 or 8 months tops before the King Haarahld class ships come calling and destroy their one remaining naval centre. NO chance.

They did manage to steal one of Housymn's latest formulas for steal at the same time they got the description for steam engines, but I'm not sure how much it helps them out.

Don

I thought they just got some plans on how to make a better furnace. Machinery to hammer all that steel and the Housmynnising process for face-hardening armour plate is something else again.

If this information is still valid,

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4116&hilit=King+Haarald

The mighty "King Haarald"'s is pretty useless.

One thing to remember with large steam engines is there is a lot of hand fitting involved in the parts, IE not exactly interchangeable. There are shims to adjust for wear and other adjustments to tune the engine. Remember that a large steam engines has a lot of reciprocating heavy parts that create vibration, can you say metal fatigue?

Poker

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:They did manage to steal one of Housymn's latest formulas for steal at the same time they got the description for steam engines, but I'm not sure how much it helps them out.

Don

Well, at least they have a starting point to work for. And don't forget - they KNEW ALREADY that the steam engine would work and work good. So they have more than Earth inventors have.

I agree, it would be a awful lot of work on standartisation and production, but i think they could produce at least the industrial-type steam engines - like early Watt or Polzunov machines - in a few years. True, they would be not ideal, but they would be an enormous help with the Church industrialisation.

After all, the Merlin main goal is to bring progress in minds of all Safeholdian' not just Charisian's. If the Church started to experimenting with steam engines, it would be so giant leap in the ultimately right direction, that he may even help them a little (after all, Charis already have a triple-expansion machines!)

Dilandu wrote:

IMO, the interest of dreadnought-style warships (which is what the KH are, more or less),

They aren't; they are the 1880th type sea-going ironclads, as i could see. And i'm not shure they are wery practical even in that function.

You are right, of course, I meant the pre-drednought style, but lost the pre somewhere between my hands and my keyboard...

Dilandu wrote:If this information is still valid,

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4116&hilit=King+Haarald

The mighty "King Haarald"'s is pretty useless.

Unless they want to literally drive the Haaralds onto the beach, there is nothing about the Haaralds which would prevent them from engaging coastal fortifications. The sublittoral zone has more than enough depth to accommodate an ironclad.

OlorinNight wrote:You are right, of course, I meant the pre-drednought style, but lost the pre somewhere between my hands and my keyboard...

A, i understood. But the problem is they are completely inessicient to the function of coastal warfare. They are too big, too sluggish and too vunerable. The british attack on Alexandria in 1882 clearly demonstrated, that even superior artillery and better crews could not guarantee victory for ocean-going ships against fortifications. After more than 1700 shots from 203-406 mm guns and much more from the light cannons, the british fleet - eight ironclads and seven unarmored ships - were able to bring down only TEN rifled guns.

Potato wrote:
Unless they want to literally drive the Haaralds onto the beach, there is nothing about the Haaralds which would prevent them from engaging coastal fortifications. The sublittoral zone has more than enough depth to accommodate an ironclad.

Engage - maybe. Do something usefull - i doubt that. Oh, they undoubtly would be able to do an impressive waste of ammunition, by trying to bombard fortifications from long range, but to actually hit anything? They would be forsed to came clother, and the Church arlillery would be able to damage at least their unarmored part (and italian attack on Lissa clearly show, that even old-type coastal guns could ironclad with enough hits).

Dilandu wrote:If this information is still valid,

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4116&hilit=King+Haarald

The mighty "King Haarald"'s is pretty useless.

Well you may think so, but I suspect RFC has a different opinion and it will work out his way in the books!

You just keep picking the situations where they would be sub-optimal and assuming those circumstances apply to the places they would be used on Safehold. Their first job is to ensure Charisian deep water naval dominance over anything the CoGA can produce in the foreseeable future, specifically they are an insurance policy against a CoG navy with exploding shells and some kind of protective armour. There may be some coastal situations they can't reach (that's partly what the River class are for) but there will be plenty they can. Similarly bombardment of selected port/coastal forts/defences seems to have worked just fine so far, why should it stop now when the King Haarahlds will have heavier guns?

'Not too maneuverable' compared to what? A galleon under sail? Please! 'Pretty useless' compared to what? It is the fastest toughest, most hard hitting warship Safehold has ever seen. If you gave Thirsk a half dozen you would be his friend for life. Are they invulnerable? No. What is? But they will swat Thirsk's gunboats an awful lot more often than they will be seriously damaged by them.

IIRC the subject of "disappearing" gun mounts came up in a recent discussion of the effects of "modern" Charisian artillery on conventional fortifications. The increased rates of fire for Charisian guns mean any disappearing gun is going to have to do its appearing/disappearing pretty quickly. This will require a very robust hydraulic or pneumatic capability which I don't believe the Temple boys have even begun to think about. I have no doubt we'll see this development but not in this war.

Another difficulty the Church will have with doing anything with gunboats and improved coastal artillery is the question of where they're gonna build 'em. Any construction efforts will have to be on the water and therefore subject to raids by either gunfire or Marines. We've already seen Charisian efforts against the construction of the small raiding schooner construction. When the war is over, it's not unreasonable to believe the ICN will monitor all Church naval construction.

Mines could be used against the ICN, especially in restricted waters, but they could also be used by the ICN to shut down harbors or to restrict any Church naval maneuvers. We haven't heard of it yet but I find it hard to believe that somewhere in the bowels of the ICN someone isn't working on mine construction AND removal. Maybe even establishing a School of Mine Warfare.

Let's also not forget that once we start passing ironclads through the Salthar Canal Thirk's screw gunboats are toast. Come to think of it, Thirsk might be planning on mining the exit channels from the Canal.

Not too maneuverable' compared to what? A galleon under sail? Please! 'Pretty useless' compared to what? It is the fastest toughest, most hard hitting warship Safehold has ever seen.

I don't argue with that. I just pointed, that all this could be obtained cheaper, more effective and faster with the ironclads, adapted for coastal operations. The ocean-going ironclads against coastal defense... well, you could do this, but FOR WHAT?!