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Sail/Steam Powered Navy for USE?

Alternate history buff? Wander on over for a discussion about Eric Flint's 1632 series!
Still May Be Too Much Too Soon?
Post by HB of CJ   » Sat Jun 28, 2014 7:56 pm

HB of CJ
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May still be too much too soon. Where is all the iron going to come from? Yeah, you can gleen existing infrastructure, but then you are robbing Peter to pay Paul? Again, any iron steam ships may be too much too soon.

Again....concentrate on what you can build now quickly. It does not have to be perfect...just light years better and ahead of what the other guys have right now. Thirty three meter WOOD hulls with a good modern fore and aft sail plan.

Top sail schooners. Maybe some improved modern type cast iron black powder cannons...circa 1860. Rifled maybe, probably muzzle loaders. Primitive but doable exploding shells. That the Admiral can build right now in quantity and still win.

Just me. HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm. Wood sailboat building is fun. Still requires lots of old time job skills.
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Re: Sail/Steam Powered Navy for USE?
Post by robert132   » Sun Aug 03, 2014 5:26 pm

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Have to agree HB, iron hulled warships are going to compete with other pressing needs for still scarce iron resources. Railroads and other steam plants are iron intensive.

It isn't mentioned in other posts that I've read, but the Warrior and other Brit "Channel Snakes", while fast (up to 15 knots under steam OR sail) they weren't all that manuverable because of that long, fine hull.

I would recommend instead a 3 masted, square rigged ship with that triple expansion engine as her auxiliary (no, I haven't read "Commander Cantrell" yet.) She wouldn't need to be even as large as the Constellation sloop of war moored in Baltimore, perhaps between half and 2/3rds her size and displacement. Armament would necessarily be limited, perhaps to a pair of long heavy pivot guns, perhaps one on the foc'sl and the other aft. Broadside weapons would be the tried and true 32lb carronade, perhaps 3 per side for close in work.

Admiral Simpson would probably have available knowledge of construction techniques in advance of early 17th century and would include "diagonal riders" similar to those specified by Joshua Humpreys in his design for Constitution. These would help stiffen the hull fore and aft and mitigate the "hogging" normal in most larger wooden ships. He could produce a class of fast ships designed to go in harm's way.
****

Just my opinion of course and probably not worth the paper it's not written on.
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robert132 Has It Exactly Correct
Post by HB of CJ   » Thu Aug 07, 2014 12:06 am

HB of CJ
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Joined: Thu Jul 11, 2013 10:46 pm
Location: 43N, 123W Kinda

The Admiral is no dummy. I for one am kinda surprised he at first was beat down to secondary importance. Just me, but if he had been placed in charge from the get go, things NOW would be looking much better for the Hillbillies....if they had survived at all. Fictional series of novels.

Yep. Use the materials that come to hand. Wood hulls. Modern designs. Modern building techniques. Try to use copper bolts. Hardwood pegs where you have too. Diagonal internal bracing. Auxiliary propulsion lifted from pickup trucks. Just rifles and shotguns for guns...for now.

Retractable centerboard keel type smaller barge like river craft. Make something now and in quantity. Worry about the high teck later. Try to establish sea power in the Baltic at first, then later in the North Atlantic...then the world. Who controls the seas controls the world. HB of CJ (old coot) Cm.
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