Andrew Moreton
Adventurer
This starts at the end of the period and I will be working backwards, as well as adding some more details. Where numbers are given for a ship they are taken from a comparable vessel in Conways all the world fighting ships 1860-1905 which coincidentaly is the same time frame between the launch of the Coaltongue and the theft of the 1st Danoran ironclad by King Aodhan. I have slighly slowed down progression compared to history as the Tinker Oddcog inspired superships are actually HMS Dreadnought which was built about the same time, the Danorans ships when I look at the will be slightly more advanced pre-dreadnought ships
Risuri Navy between the 4th Yerasol war and the Obscurati wars.
Both the Shale and Flint fleets were shaken by the effectiveness of the new Danoran navy during the war. Despite the best efforts of King Aodhan the failure of the the Shale fleet to absorb the new technologies had left it badly weakened and only its performance in the Battle of Rodney’s passage had left it with anything to show as an achievement from the war. The Flint fleet had tried to match the Danorans but the failure of their Central Battery Ironclads against the Turret ships of the Danorans had demonstrated the technical edge of Danor and the conflict between traditionalists and technologists had meant that the Flint fleet had been short of the magical equalisers that could have narrowed the gap. Both fleets responded in different ways in their post war construction
The Flint Fleet
Immediately after the way the Drakran ship interned during the conflict and reports on the Danoran navy ships were studied, efforts were made to hire several dwarven experts from Drakr and Governor Stansfield threw all his efforts behind a rapid development and increase in Flint Industry. The real reasons behind the governors enthusiasm are now well known but in the short term and despite endemic corruption and product loss he was able to build steel rolling mills to build armour plate comparable to that of the Danorans, The available gun works were also retooled producing the capability to finally build heavy breech loading naval rifles this was urgent as the use of smaller calibre rifled muzzle loaders in the war had been largely ineffectual and the complications of loading and firing the large muzzle loaders had crippled the rate of fire of the fleet.
These steps meant that within two years of the end of the 4th Yerasol war Flint was able to lay down its first class of armoured turret ships comparable to those of the Danoran fleet.
Kraken class Turret Ship
Displacement 9420t
Dimensions 325ftlength 68 ft beam
Machinery 2 Shaft engine generating 7500hp with a max speed of 16.5kts
Armour Citadel 18-14 inch sides, 16-13 inch bulkheads , turrets 16-14in, control tower 14in, decks 21/2 - 3in
Armament 4 12 in Breechloading rifles in twin turrets for and aft , 6 6in Breechloading rifles in single mounts along the sides of the superstructure
Notably these ships had largely steel structure and compound armour for the turrets and citadel made them much better protected and it was hoped resistant to the devastating 10 inch breech loaders of the Danorans ships.
The ships proved to be stable their rolling characteristics made them poor gunnery platforms in bad weather , the Flint navy tried to allow for this by assigning Druids to the ships to try and control the roll.
It was fortunate the design was a fairly good one as 4 of these ships were laid down and completed before the Obscurati wars , all 4 were lost in the ambush of the Flint navy outside the harbour, (Kraken, Sea Serpent, Underborer and Harpy)
There was some discussion with the Shale fleet leading to the construction of the Turret Ram Thunderchild
However the concept was not one the Flint fleet favoured and instead 4 improved Krakens were laid down. 2 of these ships were completed, the third was converted after the Keel was laid down into the famous Coaltongue , and once it became clear that vessel would be a success the 4th ship was cleared from its slipway to allow construction of the later improved Coaltongue class ships.
Improved Kraken
Scylla and Charybdis were the completed units and were able to survive the ambush and hide out along the coast during the reign of She Who Writhes over the seas. With the end of her Reign both ships were hurriedly fitted out and despatched to reinforce the Shale fleet and the Battle of the Axis of the World
Coaltongue
The improved Coaltongue class had 5 units laid down, of which 2 were close to completion when the Danorans attacked Flint and were sabotaged on the slipways leaving them wrecked and the other 3 had all their parts diverted to the King Aodhan class super battleships.
The class would have been larger than the Coaltongue with fore and aft turrets linked to the Capacitor and an increased range for the Brand.
The final phase of Battleship construction came for the Flint fleet with the innovations
Introduced by the notorious gnome Tinker Oddcog. His inventions included much improved propellent and explosives allowing much more powerful guns, electrical training for the guns linked to the first Analytical engines which for the first time in combination allowed long range fire from guns with a high elevation to be effective. His Planar energy powered turbines revolutionised propulsion and power for the magical defenses and capacitors of the ships. As would be proved when the ships finally saw action they had finally produced a vessel more powerful than anything Danor or Drakr could match, although the Pemberton Unions Great Wyrm class battleships came close to their capabilities.
As Risur realised the Obscurati wars were approaching every effort was made to accelerate the construction of the first 2 of the class the King Aodhan and the Queen Nevla. Unfortunately neither was available by the time of the Axis Island campaign only being completed during the Interregnum and being ready for the Succession wars.
The Shale Fleet
The Shale fleet learned that their wooden sailing ships with broadside gun armament had become deathtraps, fortunately they had learned this in time to avoid committing most of them to battle and so had preserved the sailors and magical specialists among those vessels. Unlike the Flint fleet which decided to play catch up with the Danorans the Shale fleet lacked the industrial base in Shale and the inclination to go down that route. Instead they learned from the successes of the Battle of the Rodney Passage. Stealth , Ambush and Ramming would be their weapons going forward fortunately their high level of magical support played into this strategy with clever use of illusions and weather control being developed to produce a workable set of tactics.
The only technical development they made use of was the Spa torpedo, a bomb on the end of a long pole out the front of a vessel, the Danorans had tried to use this weapon with their submersible the Hunley but it killed the crew. The Slate vessels would be on the surface and which combined with their more flexible wooden hulls protected the crew although it was expected some of the attack boats themselves would be destroyed. Even more fortunately by the time these weapons were used the crude firepowder warheads had been replaced with Tinkisite warheads with much greater explosive power.
The first class of vessels produced were Motherships for the short range attack boats, these were produced by cutting down the decks of the sail frigates and stowing the boats in place of the upper gun decks and fitting cranes to the rigging.
The attack boats were modified ships boats propelled magically by an Slipstream enchantment which moved the vessel along with its own wave , the enchantments were only charged for a couple of hours of operation but combined with transport to the operations area and the use of oars the vessels were tactically fast and maneuverable as well as hard to see with their low silhouette , most of them operated with an enchanted fog cloud effect around them and would try to take advantage of rain, natural fog or larger magically created fogs to make their attacks. They also deployed moored torpedo’s if planning an ambush to reduce the escape routes for the enemy ships or could float them down towards an anchored fleet.
These small attack boats were just about an acceptable solution in the tight waters of much of the archipelago or the coastal shoals and channels around Shale but would have been doomed in a more open battle. One solution was to provide some of them with Invisibility or masking illusion matrices making them less dependent of weather but this was expensive , the other solution adopted just before the Obscurati war was to carry some of the Ajax war rockets developed by Tinker , these weapons allowed a small boat to carry one or 2 salvo’s of weapons matching the punch of a capital ships guns although with shorter range.
The other solution to the limitations of the attack boats was the third class of vessels produced by Shale the Battle Rams. these turtlebacked vessels where protected by a combination of magical enchantments and an wooden shell transformed to Ironwood by druidic rituals, this process was expensive but provided solid armoured protection with out having to produce steel rolling mills and the techniques of building metal ships anathema to the community in Shale and their Duchess. These vessels were fitted with a collapsible sailing rig for strategic movement and a larger version of the slipstream matrices for battle. Armement was one or two large Rifled Muzzle loaders forward , at least 50 pounders running up to 100 pounders and one vessel with a single 150 pounder although it was decided that weapon was so low to fire it was of very limited value. The main weapon though was a heavy Ironwood beaked ram fitted to the front and usually rigged to a spell storage matrix capable of discharging a spell such as a fireball or lightning bolt into the enemy ship once the hull was breached although some vessels used a cloudkill effect.
At the time of the Battle of Axis island the slate fleet had Twelve battle rams, 9 motherships and 50 attack boats available
Risuri Navy between the 4th Yerasol war and the Obscurati wars.
Both the Shale and Flint fleets were shaken by the effectiveness of the new Danoran navy during the war. Despite the best efforts of King Aodhan the failure of the the Shale fleet to absorb the new technologies had left it badly weakened and only its performance in the Battle of Rodney’s passage had left it with anything to show as an achievement from the war. The Flint fleet had tried to match the Danorans but the failure of their Central Battery Ironclads against the Turret ships of the Danorans had demonstrated the technical edge of Danor and the conflict between traditionalists and technologists had meant that the Flint fleet had been short of the magical equalisers that could have narrowed the gap. Both fleets responded in different ways in their post war construction
The Flint Fleet
Immediately after the way the Drakran ship interned during the conflict and reports on the Danoran navy ships were studied, efforts were made to hire several dwarven experts from Drakr and Governor Stansfield threw all his efforts behind a rapid development and increase in Flint Industry. The real reasons behind the governors enthusiasm are now well known but in the short term and despite endemic corruption and product loss he was able to build steel rolling mills to build armour plate comparable to that of the Danorans, The available gun works were also retooled producing the capability to finally build heavy breech loading naval rifles this was urgent as the use of smaller calibre rifled muzzle loaders in the war had been largely ineffectual and the complications of loading and firing the large muzzle loaders had crippled the rate of fire of the fleet.
These steps meant that within two years of the end of the 4th Yerasol war Flint was able to lay down its first class of armoured turret ships comparable to those of the Danoran fleet.
Kraken class Turret Ship
Displacement 9420t
Dimensions 325ftlength 68 ft beam
Machinery 2 Shaft engine generating 7500hp with a max speed of 16.5kts
Armour Citadel 18-14 inch sides, 16-13 inch bulkheads , turrets 16-14in, control tower 14in, decks 21/2 - 3in
Armament 4 12 in Breechloading rifles in twin turrets for and aft , 6 6in Breechloading rifles in single mounts along the sides of the superstructure
Notably these ships had largely steel structure and compound armour for the turrets and citadel made them much better protected and it was hoped resistant to the devastating 10 inch breech loaders of the Danorans ships.
The ships proved to be stable their rolling characteristics made them poor gunnery platforms in bad weather , the Flint navy tried to allow for this by assigning Druids to the ships to try and control the roll.
It was fortunate the design was a fairly good one as 4 of these ships were laid down and completed before the Obscurati wars , all 4 were lost in the ambush of the Flint navy outside the harbour, (Kraken, Sea Serpent, Underborer and Harpy)
There was some discussion with the Shale fleet leading to the construction of the Turret Ram Thunderchild
However the concept was not one the Flint fleet favoured and instead 4 improved Krakens were laid down. 2 of these ships were completed, the third was converted after the Keel was laid down into the famous Coaltongue , and once it became clear that vessel would be a success the 4th ship was cleared from its slipway to allow construction of the later improved Coaltongue class ships.
Improved Kraken
Scylla and Charybdis were the completed units and were able to survive the ambush and hide out along the coast during the reign of She Who Writhes over the seas. With the end of her Reign both ships were hurriedly fitted out and despatched to reinforce the Shale fleet and the Battle of the Axis of the World
Coaltongue
The improved Coaltongue class had 5 units laid down, of which 2 were close to completion when the Danorans attacked Flint and were sabotaged on the slipways leaving them wrecked and the other 3 had all their parts diverted to the King Aodhan class super battleships.
The class would have been larger than the Coaltongue with fore and aft turrets linked to the Capacitor and an increased range for the Brand.
The final phase of Battleship construction came for the Flint fleet with the innovations
Introduced by the notorious gnome Tinker Oddcog. His inventions included much improved propellent and explosives allowing much more powerful guns, electrical training for the guns linked to the first Analytical engines which for the first time in combination allowed long range fire from guns with a high elevation to be effective. His Planar energy powered turbines revolutionised propulsion and power for the magical defenses and capacitors of the ships. As would be proved when the ships finally saw action they had finally produced a vessel more powerful than anything Danor or Drakr could match, although the Pemberton Unions Great Wyrm class battleships came close to their capabilities.
As Risur realised the Obscurati wars were approaching every effort was made to accelerate the construction of the first 2 of the class the King Aodhan and the Queen Nevla. Unfortunately neither was available by the time of the Axis Island campaign only being completed during the Interregnum and being ready for the Succession wars.
The Shale Fleet
The Shale fleet learned that their wooden sailing ships with broadside gun armament had become deathtraps, fortunately they had learned this in time to avoid committing most of them to battle and so had preserved the sailors and magical specialists among those vessels. Unlike the Flint fleet which decided to play catch up with the Danorans the Shale fleet lacked the industrial base in Shale and the inclination to go down that route. Instead they learned from the successes of the Battle of the Rodney Passage. Stealth , Ambush and Ramming would be their weapons going forward fortunately their high level of magical support played into this strategy with clever use of illusions and weather control being developed to produce a workable set of tactics.
The only technical development they made use of was the Spa torpedo, a bomb on the end of a long pole out the front of a vessel, the Danorans had tried to use this weapon with their submersible the Hunley but it killed the crew. The Slate vessels would be on the surface and which combined with their more flexible wooden hulls protected the crew although it was expected some of the attack boats themselves would be destroyed. Even more fortunately by the time these weapons were used the crude firepowder warheads had been replaced with Tinkisite warheads with much greater explosive power.
The first class of vessels produced were Motherships for the short range attack boats, these were produced by cutting down the decks of the sail frigates and stowing the boats in place of the upper gun decks and fitting cranes to the rigging.
The attack boats were modified ships boats propelled magically by an Slipstream enchantment which moved the vessel along with its own wave , the enchantments were only charged for a couple of hours of operation but combined with transport to the operations area and the use of oars the vessels were tactically fast and maneuverable as well as hard to see with their low silhouette , most of them operated with an enchanted fog cloud effect around them and would try to take advantage of rain, natural fog or larger magically created fogs to make their attacks. They also deployed moored torpedo’s if planning an ambush to reduce the escape routes for the enemy ships or could float them down towards an anchored fleet.
These small attack boats were just about an acceptable solution in the tight waters of much of the archipelago or the coastal shoals and channels around Shale but would have been doomed in a more open battle. One solution was to provide some of them with Invisibility or masking illusion matrices making them less dependent of weather but this was expensive , the other solution adopted just before the Obscurati war was to carry some of the Ajax war rockets developed by Tinker , these weapons allowed a small boat to carry one or 2 salvo’s of weapons matching the punch of a capital ships guns although with shorter range.
The other solution to the limitations of the attack boats was the third class of vessels produced by Shale the Battle Rams. these turtlebacked vessels where protected by a combination of magical enchantments and an wooden shell transformed to Ironwood by druidic rituals, this process was expensive but provided solid armoured protection with out having to produce steel rolling mills and the techniques of building metal ships anathema to the community in Shale and their Duchess. These vessels were fitted with a collapsible sailing rig for strategic movement and a larger version of the slipstream matrices for battle. Armement was one or two large Rifled Muzzle loaders forward , at least 50 pounders running up to 100 pounders and one vessel with a single 150 pounder although it was decided that weapon was so low to fire it was of very limited value. The main weapon though was a heavy Ironwood beaked ram fitted to the front and usually rigged to a spell storage matrix capable of discharging a spell such as a fireball or lightning bolt into the enemy ship once the hull was breached although some vessels used a cloudkill effect.
At the time of the Battle of Axis island the slate fleet had Twelve battle rams, 9 motherships and 50 attack boats available