Topic Actions

Topic Search

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 17 guests

Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA
Post by SYED   » Tue Sep 11, 2018 4:36 am

SYED
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1345
Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2011 11:03 pm

Is trellheim even a recognized country? The impression I got was that they were a bunch of ports established by a bunch of sea raiders. So the region is not truly settled or that developed.f those pirates knew what was good for them, they would be heading en mass to the unsettled lands nearer harchong. Do they even have sea defences worth mentioning? The empire could possibly simply sail in and declare control.
Top
Re: Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA
Post by jtg452   » Tue Sep 11, 2018 10:55 am

jtg452
Captain of the List

Posts: 470
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 3:46 pm

PeterZ wrote:
jtg452 wrote:There's no need to chase after that wild goose.

If She wants the pirates dealt with, a sweep by the ICN with a couple transports full of Marines will be all they need. A bunch of sloops with a few heavies and a couple bombardment ships for dealing with the strongholds (yes, that's overkill but you do want to send a message to the survivors) would scourge the seas clean of the pirates in short order.

NOTHING the Treilheimers have will be able to outsail those carronade armed Charisan sloops.

N O T H I N G.

Not in speed, not in handling and not in how close to the wind they can sail.

Galleys rowing dead in to the wind's eye may escape for the short-term since the sloops would have to tack and wear but the wind never tires and rowers most certainly do.

In other words, if they run, they just die tired.

All the sloop has to do is get close enough to open up with their Long Tom to put an end to the foolishness.

If they decide to engage instead of run, the results will be the same but would happen faster.

The larger forecastle guns of the galleys can be devastating but they are slow to load, fire and have a limited arc of fire. The long guns on the sloopsare mounted on a swiveling base, out range the forcastle galley guns, can fire explosive shells and have a higher rate of fire.

Don't even mention the broadside battery. Carronades are faster to fire than cannon and, being lighter, shorter guns, are usually MUCH larger bore than the ship would be able to carry in cannon. The 24pounder carronades weren't called 'Smashers' during the AoS for nothing.


Why bother sending obsolete sailing vessles against Trellheim? Send the City class ships backed up by Victory troop ships and be done.

Logistics and availability.

A complete conversion from sail to steam takes time and not enough has passed. The number of Cities or the follow on designs (because we both know that there are going to be more advanced designs coming out now the pressure and immediate needs of the war effort are removed) aren't going to be big enough to cover their current commitments much less a snipe hunt for galley rowing pirates.

If they kept up a wartime crash building program, sure, here would be enough hulls but that doesn't make economic sense and would be a diplomatic nightmare. You just won the war, why keep building like your survival depends on it? What nefarious scheme is afoot? Are they serious about peace or is it just a breather to restock and resupply?

Steam ships need coal, so that means colliers or coaling stations. You've got to either carry it in with you or presite log bases ahead of time. That just added an unnecessary level of complexity and cost to a straight forward anti pirate op.

I can see aux steam systems (sail driven most of the time with a steam engine available for emergencies) being retrofitted onto current vessels but you don't scrap the whole Navy because you have a handful or better vessels.
Top
Re: Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA
Post by evilauthor   » Tue Sep 11, 2018 3:31 pm

evilauthor
Captain of the List

Posts: 724
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:51 pm

jtg452 wrote:Logistics and availability.

A complete conversion from sail to steam takes time and not enough has passed.


Hasn't it? The Trellheim pirates are specifically noted for having a GALLEY fleet. As far as we know, they NEVER made the conversion to pirate galleons because those galleons would have required the production of a lots of new model artillery. And all that new model artillery got sucked up by the war with none to spare for Trellheim.

And not too long ago, the world was swarming with Charisian privateers. And quite alot of Charisian merchant galleons were armed with new model artillery.

So what we have is a situation where the Trellheim pirates are armed with obsolete galleys whose only prey these days are carronade armed galleons that would completely murderstomp any old style galley that gets too close to them.

So unless Trellheim builds its own iron production industry in order to mass produce the cannons required for its pirates to stay competitive, then Trellheim can't pirate anyone. But if Trellheim could build that kind of industry, then they'd be rich enough to not need piracy in the first place.

In short, Sharleyan and the Charisian Navy doesn't have to do one thing to solve the Trellheim piracy problem because they and the world have long since advanced past the point where Trellheim piracy is even a problem to them.

Note that late in the war, the primary threat to Charisian shipping didn't come from Trellheim. It came from Desnairan privateers. If Trellheim pirates were going to have any kind of last hurrah of relevancy, this would have been the time for it.
Top
Re: Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA
Post by Dauntless   » Tue Sep 11, 2018 3:38 pm

Dauntless
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1070
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2015 12:54 pm
Location: United Kingdom

have to agree with evilauthor and the others who said trellheim are long gone as any kind of threat.

With only 1 or 2 exceptions charis owned all the blue water on safehold for pretty darn the entire war. even if the church or more likely Hecktor wanted to keep them a threat to Charis, they had no way of helping them adapt to the tech change so any threat from those pirates simply vanished as soon merchant started carrying enough firepower to kill any one who tried their luck. not to mention the new sail plans made even catching the merchies much, much harder.
Top
Re: Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA
Post by Dilandu   » Tue Sep 11, 2018 4:28 pm

Dilandu
Admiral

Posts: 2536
Joined: Sat May 07, 2011 1:44 pm
Location: Russia

evilauthor wrote:
jtg452 wrote:Logistics and availability.

A complete conversion from sail to steam takes time and not enough has passed.


Hasn't it? The Trellheim pirates are specifically noted for having a GALLEY fleet. As far as we know, they NEVER made the conversion to pirate galleons because those galleons would have required the production of a lots of new model artillery. And all that new model artillery got sucked up by the war with none to spare for Trellheim.


For what possible reason they might need galleons? They are pirates. They do not even plan to fight sea battles.

They probably already switch to the schooners, thought. Or even created something like light corvette (after all, not only Charis could invent something new!)
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
Top
Re: Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA
Post by SYED   » Tue Sep 11, 2018 7:10 pm

SYED
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1345
Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2011 11:03 pm

I could see imperial privateers and traders installing themselves on Trellheim, their resources and wealth allowing them lee way over the territory. They could get royal favor by making the ports available for imperial use.
Top
Re: Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA
Post by jtg452   » Tue Sep 11, 2018 7:11 pm

jtg452
Captain of the List

Posts: 470
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2011 3:46 pm

Hey guys, I'm with you on a Trelheim expedition being unnecessary. Note the use of wild goose chase and snipe hunting references at the beginning of each post.

The OP suggested a big conquest like invasion. Others wanted to waste resources like City class cruisers and steam troop transports.

My posts were a suggestion for, if it became necessary, a more efficient use of available resources to get the job done and, in the last post, an explanation as to why sending steam ships to do the job would be unpractical, wasteful and unnecessarily complex.

Personally, I figure the Treilheimers live in mortal fear of seeing the Kraken and Doomwhale on the masthead of anything bigger than a rowboat.


As for Charisan domination of all things aquatic in the last war, I figure that stand up showers suddenly became vogue in the Temple Lands because they were probably certain that a tub full of water would be enough to hold at least one armed Charisan.
Top
Re: Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA
Post by evilauthor   » Tue Sep 11, 2018 7:25 pm

evilauthor
Captain of the List

Posts: 724
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:51 pm

Dilandu wrote:For what possible reason they might need galleons? They are pirates. They do not even plan to fight sea battles.

They probably already switch to the schooners, thought. Or even created something like light corvette (after all, not only Charis could invent something new!)


And... who is going to build these schooners? And more importantly, where are the guns to arm these schooners going to come from?

Sure, if you pool ALL the Trellheim pirate galleys together and you might be able to come up with enough (OLD MODEL) cannons to arm one or two schooners... which would then be blown out of the water by the first Charisian merchant galleon armed with New Model carronades that it comes across.

Do remember that what the Trellheim pirates have is what was available BEFORE Merlin showed up in Charis: galleys that have maybe one or two cannons. Cannons that are slow firing because they use meal powder poured into their barrels with ladles rather than prebagged charges, lit fuses instead of percussion caps or even flintlock for firing mechanisms. And I'll lay odds that they don't even use metal cannonballs, but carved stone balls because those would be cheaper than using expensive metal.

And their seamanship and gunnery is probably crap as well because they're pirates, not a professional military.

Without help from Charis or one of the other industrializing powers, I think the best that Trellheim could do to update would be a fishing boat with a broadside of old model cannons. And that any Charisian merchant galleon would laugh at such a thing while to blows the tub apart.
Top
Re: Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA
Post by Isilith   » Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:49 pm

Isilith
Captain (Junior Grade)

Posts: 310
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 11:58 am

jtg452 wrote:Hey guys, I'm with you on a Trelheim expedition being unnecessary. Note the use of wild goose chase and snipe hunting references at the beginning of each post.

The OP suggested a big conquest like invasion. Others wanted to waste resources like City class cruisers and steam troop transports.

My posts were a suggestion for, if it became necessary, a more efficient use of available resources to get the job done and, in the last post, an explanation as to why sending steam ships to do the job would be unpractical, wasteful and unnecessarily complex.

Personally, I figure the Treilheimers live in mortal fear of seeing the Kraken and Doomwhale on the masthead of anything bigger than a rowboat.


As for Charisan domination of all things aquatic in the last war, I figure that stand up showers suddenly became vogue in the Temple Lands because they were probably certain that a tub full of water would be enough to hold at least one armed Charisan.



:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Top
Re: Trellheim, Sharleyan and the ICA
Post by Isilith   » Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:50 pm

Isilith
Captain (Junior Grade)

Posts: 310
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 11:58 am

Seriously, Charis should be buying favor, or literally buying, the larger Trellheim holdings. Just like they should be doing with the Raven Lords.
Top

Return to Safehold