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Old 01-23-2015, 02:07 PM   #10
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4

Quote:
Originally Posted by benz72 View Post
Here is the key to your answer...
Build as many of whatever type the construction crews are already familiar with and have timbers seasoning for. Don't try changing the design with a 60 day build window.
If it is only towed barges then so be it, but if you try to get fancy and introduce the 'newest greatest thing' as a last ditch defense against an invader who has got you on the ropes you are taking unnecessary risks, not least of which is construction delays while they figure out that bit that doesn't QUITE work.
The PCs are from another realm, far to the west over the local analogue of the Mediterranean, and arrived with a flotilla of ships. They have complete command of the ocean between their homeland and the realm being invaded. They also have significant mercantile contacts in some five or six large cities along the sailing route from their homeland to where the war is.

The invaders no longer have the country for which the PCs are fighting on the ropes, really. They still control 80% of the land area of the country they are trying to take over, but their logistics are falling to pieces, their fleets have gone down in sea battle after sea battle and one of their three field armies just suffered a catastrophic and shattering defeat after the dragonic vassals of a neighbouring power entered the war on the side of the PCs.*

If the PCs manage to take the two cities they propose to seize by seaborne assault, then the majority of the invading troops will be trapped without any way of resupply from the mother country except by a torturous overland route. Which effectively means that they will be unable to hold any part of the country north of those ports they still control. And they'll probably lose thousands, if not tens of thousands, during the retreat.

If the PCs fail to take these cities, it means that the war stalls for both sides. Unless the invaders can win some sea battles in the near future, however, they are not likely to make any more advances and are, in fact, likely to lose some of the territory they now hold, even if the amphibious landings fail.

The sixty day window is because the PCs are impatient to deliver a knock-out blow to the northern armies of the invaders. They want to claim credit for victories even more glittering than that recently achieved by the Wyrm Princess Shudu-Ab, Breath of the Red Ravager, High Priestess of Tiamat, and her dragonic allies.

The PCs could have bought boats abroad and transported them to the theatre of war, but for security reasons, they prefer to have local tribes prone to pirantical ventures construct them on an island where pirates congregate. They'll be used to building small, swift galleys used to raid coastal settlements and the local pirate specialty, a catamaran raiding galley design.

An ideal vessel would be capable of moving something like 50-70 men fairly swiftly, using perhaps 30 rowers, for a total capacity of 80-100 men. Move 3 would be very desirable, with higher Move even better.

*Well, their own side, really, but at the moment, they and the PCs have a joint interest in defeating the invaders before they come to blows over power in whatever post-war polity succeeds the ineffectual and anarchic patchwork of resistance figures.
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