HFQ Official Snippet #8

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:
Hi Dilandu,

I suppose it would depend on whether it would be better for the ship to be destroyed or taken. In a normal war this would be a valid question.

But this is jihad. Any heretics taken are subjeect to the punishment. Then too, would Charis rather see its cutting edge military supplies in Desnair or Davy Jones' locker?

Don

Hi,Don.

The problem is, that the Q-ships must ambush the enemy, take him by surprise.

And in Charisian situation it simply wouldn't work. Deshnarian raiders would just fire on any Charisian ship they met; they probably wouldn't even bother to try to take it, especially in convoy attack.

So... it really didn't matter, are you used a Q-ship, or simply armed your merchants.

There's also the minor matter that Q-ships are inherently less efficient in terms of manpower, expense and coverage than properly organized convoys.

Hi RFC and Dilandu,

Considering this as a mental exercise rather than telling David how to write his books, my vote all along has been for arming the merchant men with something heavy enough to make the privateers pay a price along with more schooners.

As I understand privateers, they're in it for a profit rather than a fight. Naval vessels would be a different dynamic, of course.

Don

n7axw wrote:Hi RFC and Dilandu,

As I understand privateers, they're in it for a profit rather than a fight. Naval vessels would be a different dynamic, of course.

Don

The problem is, that it isn't a standart privateers. This is the Church privateers - more like raiders. They may be more interested not in the capture, but in simple destruction.

Considering this as a mental exercise rather than telling David how to write his books, my vote all along has been for arming the merchant men with something heavy enough to make the privateers pay a price along with more schooners.

The problem is - where we could find enought shell guns to do that, and at least somehow trained guncrews. Well, in theory we may use carronades (in the age on rifled shell guns they are pretty useless as military weapons) but they would have a serious range disavantage against Church raider's long guns.

IMHO, it should be a complex way to deal with raiding.

1) Refit as screw at least some military galleons, to gave the convoys the adequate cower with superior mobility

2) Take off the carronades from military ships and gave them to merchants as an additional protection.

3) Started a series of blockade&destruction operations against Deshnarina coast, to slow the raider operations

And Charis definitely need MORE screw warships that the ICN already have. One of the reason, that i'm so opposed to the KH's, is that they swallow a awfull lot of constructional resources, that may be used to bild literally a dozens of screw frigates and corvettes and hundreds of screw gunboats. With all respect, but the production of steam engines in Charis is undoubtedly limited - and in current situation of full-scale raider and coastal warfare, Charis would need A LOT OF screw ships.

runsforcelery wrote:
There's also the minor matter that Q-ships are inherently less efficient in terms of manpower, expense and coverage than properly organized convoys.

Absolutely. It would be much simpler to just arm the merchants (carronades! Now useless carronades! ).

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi RFC and Dilandu,

As I understand privateers, they're in it for a profit rather than a fight. Naval vessels would be a different dynamic, of course.

Don

The problem is, that it isn't a standart privateers. This is the Church privateers - more like raiders. They may be more interested not in the capture, but in simple destruction.

Considering this as a mental exercise rather than telling David how to write his books, my vote all along has been for arming the merchant men with something heavy enough to make the privateers pay a price along with more schooners.

The problem is - where we could find enought shell guns to do that, and at least somehow trained guncrews. Well, in theory we may use carronades (in the age on rifled shell guns they are pretty useless as military weapons) but they would have a serious range disavantage against Church raider's long guns.

IMHO, it should be a complex way to deal with raiding.

1) Refit as screw at least some military galleons, to gave the convoys the adequate cower with superior mobility

2) Take off the carronades from military ships and gave them to merchants as an additional protection.

3) Started a series of blockade&destruction operations against Deshnarina coast, to slow the raider operations

And Charis definitely need MORE screw warships that the ICN already have. One of the reason, that i'm so opposed to the KH's, is that they swallow a awfull lot of constructional resources, that may be used to bild literally a dozens of screw frigates and corvettes and hundreds of screw gunboats. With all respect, but the production of steam engines in Charis is undoubtedly limited - and in current situation of full-scale raider and coastal warfare, Charis would need A LOT OF screw ships.

Given the opposition, 30 pound smooth bore on the merchis would probably be fine, perhaps 10 per side. At any rate, avoid putting on so many that you get hogging and other safety issues. No doubt the gunners would have to be trained. But that is certainly doable, perhaps by cross posting navy and merchant personnel.

As for your first paragraph, both from the standpoint of the cargos if we are dealing with military transport and from the standpoint of the crews after the rather graphic lesson the inquisition gave Safehold after the surrender of Manthyr and his crew, I imagine destruction and loss of a ship with all hands would be preferable to capture.

Don

n7axw wrote:As for your first paragraph, both from the standpoint of the cargos if we are dealing with military transport and from the standpoint of the crews after the rather graphic lesson the inquisition gave Safehold after the surrender of Manthyr and his crew, I imagine destruction and loss of a ship with all hands would be preferable to capture.

Don

Colleague, you missed my point. I'm talking from the RAIDER position. The cargo ship - every Charisian cargo ship - from the point of Deshnarian raider is a target for destruction, not capture. So, they wouldn't bother themselves with any boarding actions; they simply cross the bow and fire a few salvos.

Moi Druge, the whole point of being a privateer (a business like any other) is to capture the ship and cargo to sell thus make money pay crew etc. Just sinking is a navy option.

Poker

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:As for your first paragraph, both from the standpoint of the cargos if we are dealing with military transport and from the standpoint of the crews after the rather graphic lesson the inquisition gave Safehold after the surrender of Manthyr and his crew, I imagine destruction and loss of a ship with all hands would be preferable to capture.

Don

Colleague, you missed my point. I'm talking from the RAIDER position. The cargo ship - every Charisian cargo ship - from the point of Deshnarian raider is a target for destruction, not capture. So, they wouldn't bother themselves with any boarding actions; they simply cross the bow and fire a few salvos.

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:As for your first paragraph, both from the standpoint of the cargos if we are dealing with military transport and from the standpoint of the crews after the rather graphic lesson the inquisition gave Safehold after the surrender of Manthyr and his crew, I imagine destruction and loss of a ship with all hands would be preferable to capture.

Don

Colleague, you missed my point. I'm talking from the RAIDER position. The cargo ship - every Charisian cargo ship - from the point of Deshnarian raider is a target for destruction, not capture. So, they wouldn't bother themselves with any boarding actions; they simply cross the bow and fire a few salvos.

Maybe and maybe not. Wouldn't a nice cargo of M96s and the good baron's latest angle guns be a great thing for the Desnairians?

But taking it your way, I say arm the ships. Probably don't even need shells. Straight ball and canister would do. You are dealing with light combatants such as schooners after all. Shells would probably be overkill...although now that I think about it, overkill is not a bad idea.

Don

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi RFC and Dilandu,

As I understand privateers, they're in it for a profit rather than a fight. Naval vessels would be a different dynamic, of course.

Don

The problem is, that it isn't a standart privateers. This is the Church privateers - more like raiders. They may be more interested not in the capture, but in simple destruction.

Considering this as a mental exercise rather than telling David how to write his books, my vote all along has been for arming the merchant men with something heavy enough to make the privateers pay a price along with more schooners.

The problem is - where we could find enought shell guns to do that, and at least somehow trained guncrews. Well, in theory we may use carronades (in the age on rifled shell guns they are pretty useless as military weapons) but they would have a serious range disavantage against Church raider's long guns.

IMHO, it should be a complex way to deal with raiding.

1) Refit as screw at least some military galleons, to gave the convoys the adequate cower with superior mobility

2) Take off the carronades from military ships and gave them to merchants as an additional protection.

3) Started a series of blockade&destruction operations against Deshnarina coast, to slow the raider operations

And Charis definitely need MORE screw warships that the ICN already have. One of the reason, that i'm so opposed to the KH's, is that they swallow a awfull lot of constructional resources, that may be used to bild literally a dozens of screw frigates and corvettes and hundreds of screw gunboats. With all respect, but the production of steam engines in Charis is undoubtedly limited - and in current situation of full-scale raider and coastal warfare, Charis would need A LOT OF screw ships.

The same calculus holds for schooners as it would hold for KHVIIs and lighter combatants. At one point more schooners can be built, armed and manned than steam powered escorts. Putting a shell firing rifled breach loader on each schooner gives the escorts a range advantage in most engagements over the raiders. Should those rbls fire HE filled shells using smokeless powder, any unarmored raider is in a world of hurt.

This is of course a short term solution. A prime benefit would be to reduce the requirements on steel production. The biggest demand on EoC resources is on smaller caliber naval guns. No additional demand on steam engines or steel for composite construction techniques. As production increases in more places in the Empire, those schooners will be replaced by steam powered ships. Until then such schooners are sufficient to beat back smoothbore armed raiders.

Thanks RFC for the snippet - and thanks to all the rest of you on the forum who can conjure so much interesting speculation from it.