Convoy escorts - SPOILER for SNIPPET 8 of HFQ

OK so if Charis is starting to experience convoy raiding what can they do to stop it. Is it the mix of ships? The tactics need change? Are some form of faster convoy escort needed. I mean they're still using Galleons and Sloops for escorts according to the snippet, should they go up to to Brigantine's? (I quote from wiki here "The brigantine was swifter and more easily maneuvered than a sloop or schooner, and was hence employed for purposes of piracy, espionage, and reconnoitering, and as an outlying attendant upon larger ships for protecting the larger ship, or for supply or landing purposes in a fleet of ships. The brigantine could be of various sizes, ranging from 50 to 200 tons burden. The brigantine was generally larger than a sloop or schooner but smaller than a brig."

Or would the use of armed Barquentine's as the cargo carriers escorted by the traditional mix be useful? (Again from Wiki "The advantages of a smaller crew, good performance before the wind and the ability to sail relatively close to the wind while carrying plenty of cargo made it a popular rig at the end of the 19th century.")

Or is it time for Frigates (Say something like the British Perseverance class) to make there appearance? It seems to me there's a sharp limit on the number of steam vessels Charis can build, and lots and lots of experience with sailing vessels in the Charisian and associated navies. While all the new fancy steam ships may have caught the eye of the inner circle possibly they can get more mileage by building advanced sailing vessels that are better than whats raiding them. Lots of shipyards around the EOC (And in Siddermark for that matter) might not have the first clue about steamship construction, but could build more advanced sail ships.

And yes I have lost track of just how many new classes and innovations the EOC is putting into ship building and design so there may already be textev on this.
So I throw it open. What can Charis do quickly to protect against this hit and run Desnarian commerce raiding?

I await the replies of you more nautically inclined gurus.

Larry

Larry wrote:OK so if Charis is starting to experience convoy raiding what can they do to stop it. Is it the mix of ships? The tactics need change? Are some form of faster convoy escort needed. I mean they're still using Galleons and Sloops for escorts according to the snippet, should they go up to to Brigantine's? (I quote from wiki here "The brigantine was swifter and more easily maneuvered than a sloop or schooner, and was hence employed for purposes of piracy, espionage, and reconnoitering, and as an outlying attendant upon larger ships for protecting the larger ship, or for supply or landing purposes in a fleet of ships. The brigantine could be of various sizes, ranging from 50 to 200 tons burden. The brigantine was generally larger than a sloop or schooner but smaller than a brig."

Or would the use of armed Barquentine's as the cargo carriers escorted by the traditional mix be useful? (Again from Wiki "The advantages of a smaller crew, good performance before the wind and the ability to sail relatively close to the wind while carrying plenty of cargo made it a popular rig at the end of the 19th century.")

Or is it time for Frigates (Say something like the British Perseverance class) to make there appearance? It seems to me there's a sharp limit on the number of steam vessels Charis can build, and lots and lots of experience with sailing vessels in the Charisian and associated navies. While all the new fancy steam ships may have caught the eye of the inner circle possibly they can get more mileage by building advanced sailing vessels that are better than whats raiding them. Lots of shipyards around the EOC (And in Siddermark for that matter) might not have the first clue about steamship construction, but could build more advanced sail ships.

And yes I have lost track of just how many new classes and innovations the EOC is putting into ship building and design so there may already be textev on this.
So I throw it open. What can Charis do quickly to protect against this hit and run Desnarian commerce raiding?

I await the replies of you more nautically inclined gurus.

Larry

Personally, I'd love to see a small Diesel powered gunboat with a Hotchkiss revolving gun and a gatling/gardner gun or 2 with incindiaries. Unfortunately, it's probably 5-10 years away, but a "little" boat of 150-300 tons so it has moderate seakeeping capabilities and the next step of propulsion and weapondry, would be "fun" to see in action against cruisers and schooners. Incindiary rounds in the Gatlings would make it look like they were spitting fire and be useful against sails and upperworks. A 3 pounder revolving Hotchkiss with exploding shells would make mince meat out of light wooden hulled ships. The only issue would be making them seaworthy and longlegged enough to be effective (oh yes, and creating a petroleum industry.)

Screw ships. They need screw ships. The best way to solve the problem, it to convert to steam some military galleonsm that they have in sufficient quantities and organise the mass production of screw sloops and gunboats.

The 700-800 tonnes screw (probably twin-screw) gunboat, as "ninety-days type", armed with 1-2 rifled breechloaders and capable to steam at 10-15 knots (with additional sail) would be:

- cheap enough to mass-produce

- powerfull enough to outgun any Deshnarian light raider

- fast enough to catch any sail raider

- able to destroy any Church sail galleon (even armed with rifled guns) simply by keeping distance and attacking from bow or stern

- have a draft that make her able to operate in coastal water and rivers

Seems like a job for a ma-deuce. A couple of those on deck, maybe with some incendiary rounds, and they wouldn't have to worry about having enough elbow room, especially considering how much penetration a .50 BMG would get vs wooden hulls. Comparatively light, easily built and served, they'd definitely make a dent in privateers.

Dilandu wrote:Screw ships. They need screw ships. The best way to solve the problem, it to convert to steam some military galleonsm that they have in sufficient quantities and organise the mass production of screw sloops and gunboats.

The 700-800 tonnes screw (probably twin-screw) gunboat, as "ninety-days type", armed with 1-2 rifled breechloaders and capable to steam at 10-15 knots (with additional sail) would be:

- cheap enough to mass-produce

- powerfull enough to outgun any Deshnarian light raider

- fast enough to catch any sail raider

- able to destroy any Church sail galleon (even armed with rifled guns) simply by keeping distance and attacking from bow or stern

- have a draft that make her able to operate in coastal water and rivers

Sounds an awful lot like the corvettes I have been proposing. But why convert galleons? The production bottleneck is with the engines.

Tanstaafl wrote:

Dilandu wrote:Screw ships. They need screw ships. The best way to solve the problem, it to convert to steam some military galleonsm that they have in sufficient quantities and organise the mass production of screw sloops and gunboats.

The 700-800 tonnes screw (probably twin-screw) gunboat, as "ninety-days type", armed with 1-2 rifled breechloaders and capable to steam at 10-15 knots (with additional sail) would be:

- cheap enough to mass-produce

- powerfull enough to outgun any Deshnarian light raider

- fast enough to catch any sail raider

- able to destroy any Church sail galleon (even armed with rifled guns) simply by keeping distance and attacking from bow or stern

- have a draft that make her able to operate in coastal water and rivers

Sounds an awful lot like the corvettes I have been proposing. But why convert galleons? The production bottleneck is with the engines.

I appreciate all the suggestions, but the existing schooners, with regular Navy crews, are thoroughly adequate as convoy escorts, guys. The problem is numbers, and even there I'm seeing some very high numbers estimated per convoy.

When Rock Point thinks about tying down half the navy, he's talking about numbers of hulls, not tonnage, and so long as the attackers and the targets are wind powered, there's really no need to add screw-driven ships to the mix. Would they be nice to have? Sure they would! Are they necessary? Not so much.

Escorts have to be big enough to make success against them problematical for the raiders. They don't have to be able to defeat the raiders easily; they have to be a sufficient threat that the raider can't be confident of defeating them easily. Add 10-12 carronades to, say, one merchy out of three in each convoy as a backup threat to the raiders, and the problem gets a lot more manageable. Now, if Desnair gets to the point of sending out full-scale galleons (which are basically 19th century double-banked frigates) things get a lot messier. And, of course, there's always the logistical problem of organizing convoys in the first place. It's much more efficient to sail ships individually on an "as needed" basis than it is to hold them in port until you have enough of them going to Point A for the Navy to decide the convoy to Point A will be big enough to justify providing it with proper escort.

The biggest problem here from the Navy's perspective --- and the reason the Navy is going to favor large convoys over small ones --- is that every ship committed to commerce protection can't be used anywhere else, not that Charis doesn't have the proper ship types to do the job, and they are working on getting on top of the problem in several ways. At the moment, steam and armor are more vital to the ships expected to engage shore targets or enemy "line-of-battle" ships, and that's where their emphasis is likely to be placed for the foreseeable future.

Tanstaafl wrote:

Dilandu wrote:Screw ships. They need screw ships. The best way to solve the problem, it to convert to steam some military galleonsm that they have in sufficient quantities and organise the mass production of screw sloops and gunboats.

The 700-800 tonnes screw (probably twin-screw) gunboat, as "ninety-days type", armed with 1-2 rifled breechloaders and capable to steam at 10-15 knots (with additional sail) would be:

- cheap enough to mass-produce

- powerfull enough to outgun any Deshnarian light raider

- fast enough to catch any sail raider

- able to destroy any Church sail galleon (even armed with rifled guns) simply by keeping distance and attacking from bow or stern

- have a draft that make her able to operate in coastal water and rivers

Sounds an awful lot like the corvettes I have been proposing. But why convert galleons? The production bottleneck is with the engines.

This has been my point all along in the other thread where this has been dicussed.

I would vote with Dilandu in a heart beat if I thought they had the capacity to manufacture the steam engines in sufficient numbers. But I don't think they do in the near term. In the intermediate to long term, yes. But the response to this situation needs to be as close to now as possible.

So I would continue to advocate for schooners. The slips for building them are there. The shiprights are available. And the Empire still has sources from which to recruit seamen for sail powered vessels. I thnk they need to get at it.

Don

runsforcelery wrote:

When Rock Point thinks about tying down half the navy, he's talking about numbers of hulls, not tonnage, and so long as the attackers and the targets are wind powered, there's really no need to add screw-driven ships to the mix. Would they be nice to have? Sure they would! Are they necessary? Not so much.

I disagree. The sail ships is always controlled by wind, so they have (from the steamships point of view) enormous problem with maneuvr. The lesser quantity of screw ships would do the job of much greater number of sailing units.

And after all, the screw gunboats are nessesary for coastal operations. You may go in coastal war without battleships. But without gunboats? No, no and with all respect - no.

Add 10-12 carronades to, say, one merchy out of three in each convoy as a backup threat to the raiders, and the problem gets a lot more manageable.

Er, against the Church long guns (possibly with shells)? With all respect, the carronades became useless as soon as shell guns appeared and make possible to destroy the wooden ships with only long-range hits.

Escorts have to be big enough to make success against them problematical for the raiders.

Er, for what reason? One screw gunboat with a few of rifled guns would be able to deal with almost any number of sail shooners or galleons.

At the moment, steam and armor are more vital to the ships expected to engage shore targets or enemy "line-of-battle" ships, and that's where their emphasis is likely to be placed for the foreseeable future.

Well, probably this is inevitably for any navy, that live on principle "let's put all eggs in one big backet" - for example, a KH basket - instead of building a reasonable number of middle and light units first.

(Please, forgive me that pun, but the situation was so magnificent, than to miss the opportunity would be unthinkable )

As i recall, in Crimean War the Russian Empire definitely wasn't a industrial superpower, and in therms of productional capabilites was probably no more than Charis. But... she was able to build forty screw gunboats in less than a year.

Don't forget that detection is based on visual range. Even knowing the route a convoy will take, there is no certainty of detection and interception. If you are willing to add a few sailing days to reach your destination you can add thousands of square miles of area to be searched.

runsforcelery wrote:I appreciate all the suggestions, but the existing schooners, with regular Navy crews, are thoroughly adequate as convoy escorts, guys. The problem is numbers, and even there I'm seeing some very high numbers estimated per convoy.

When Rock Point thinks about tying down half the navy, he's talking about numbers of hulls, not tonnage, and so long as the attackers and the targets are wind powered, there's really no need to add screw-driven ships to the mix. Would they be nice to have? Sure they would! Are they necessary? Not so much.

Escorts have to be big enough to make success against them problematical for the raiders. They don't have to be able to defeat the raiders easily; they have to be a sufficient threat that the raider can't be confident of defeating them easily. Add 10-12 carronades to, say, one merchy out of three in each convoy as a backup threat to the raiders, and the problem gets a lot more manageable. Now, if Desnair gets to the point of sending out full-scale galleons (which are basically 19th century double-banked frigates) things get a lot messier. And, of course, there's always the logistical problem of organizing convoys in the first place. It's much more efficient to sail ships individually on an "as needed" basis than it is to hold them in port until you have enough of them going to Point A for the Navy to decide the convoy to Point A will be big enough to justify providing it with proper escort.

The biggest problem here from the Navy's perspective --- and the reason the Navy is going to favor large convoys over small ones --- is that every ship committed to commerce protection can't be used anywhere else, not that Charis doesn't have the proper ship types to do the job, and they are working on getting on top of the problem in several ways. At the moment, steam and armor are more vital to the ships expected to engage shore targets or enemy "line-of-battle" ships, and that's where their emphasis is likely to be placed for the foreseeable future.

More like you need the Charisian equivalent of a East Indiaman during the 18th century. These ships were fairly well armed with 10 to 15 gun broadsides, though they were often lighter guns than those carried by warships eg 18# vs 24# or 12# vs 18# they could more than hold there own against most pirates.