01-23-2015, 02:25 PM | #11 | |||||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4
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The plan calls for landing troops on a nearby beach, bombarding the barracks from the air by magical means, dispatching summoned aquatic monsters and swimming polymorphed commandos to clear port defences and finally sending in several 'forlorn hopes' of boat-borne assault troops to seize the various floating docks, wharfs and natural landings along the river that runs through the port city. Lightly equipped volunteers led by PC superheroes and magically-aided commandos will storm the walls of the city from the inside, after landing on the docks. Then they propose to seize a gatehouse and let the troops that landed outside the city in. Quote:
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But until the most powerful mechanical artillery pieces are seized or destroyed, it is extremely risky to sail such ships into the narrow confines of a port. Not to mention that aquatic monsters or swimming magic-users could sink them easily. So the most valuable ships will not enter the harbour until volunteer assault troops in less valuable landing craft have cleared the way and stopped artillery from sinking them.
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01-23-2015, 03:54 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4
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The PCs have two large horse transports that are converted medievalish galleys and two more should be ready when the attack is launched.
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01-23-2015, 05:32 PM | #13 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4
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They'll be used in the assault againt the larger city, landing a cavalry force of around 100 men on a beach outside the city, meant to screen the advance of the army that lands outside. They'll probably be packed with men as well, as many as can fit on them, as they'll only be sailing a distance of 25 miles to make the landing. Quote:
I'm principally interested in what kind of Move one can expect, with maybe 12 rowers for the smaller versions, up to 30 for the largests.
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01-28-2015, 07:32 AM | #14 |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4
Some of the best landing craft look to be captured galleys and the light coastal raiding vessels of local pirates, largely because they are already purpose-designed for landing warriors to loot and pillage.
However, the PCs most likely do not have enough of those to land all the thousands of troops that they need. Assuming that you can get several carpenters and an infinite supply of semi-skilled labour to work on each craft, what is a reasonable vessel to build in 60 days? How long does it take to build a TL2 galley like the bireme or any other type that's fairly simple to build (i. e. not the huge polyremes)? What about the earlier heroic Greek penteconters, which are essentially just long open-decked boats? Or a typical Age of Sail ship's boat, like the cutter or longboat? And how much does it change stats to make the galley or boat wider, enough so it could hold maybe as many passengers as rowers? That would obviously slow them enough to make them useless in ship to ship combat, but these are landing craft, not fighting ships. How many passengers could one transport with 30 rowers while still attaining Move 3? What kind of vessel would you use? If I want to transport ca 5,000 soldiers and not need more than 2,000 rowers and sailors*, but I want Move 3+ for at least a thousand of them and at least decent pace of landing for the rest, what size of boats, open-decked galleys or barges do I want? *For the actual landings. The rest of some 10,000 sailors and about a hundred ships will be busy with the logistics that allow the landing and keeping enemy ships away by controlling the seas.
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01-28-2015, 08:02 AM | #15 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4
There doesn't seem to be much written up on shipbuilding for 4e. The nearest thing I can find is this sidebar in High-Tech for 3e:
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01-28-2015, 08:04 AM | #16 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4
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In a highly cinematic setting, or one where humans can be superhuman thanks to magic, it might be appropriate to allow very strong rowers to function as though the ship had more systems than it does. That is, if you have a 30 ton ship with 4 ST 20 rowers, each of those rowers is functionally equal to 3 normal rowers (they double BL 20 twice), so the ship has Move 1/5 as though it had three systems. If the above ship did have three systems, and each of the 12 rowers had ST 20, they'd count as 36 rowers. That's 9 systems, for something like Move 1/11. Last edited by Varyon; 01-28-2015 at 08:13 AM. |
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01-28-2015, 09:24 AM | #17 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4
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I can't help but notice how excessively favourable it seems, compared to real life, though. First of all, why would there be 144+ rowers on historical rowing ships, going up to 420 rowers or so for the biggest galleys that can't be explained as hyperbole in ancient sources, if 120 rowers could attain the maximum speed for a ship up to 300 tons in weight? And why would the sole historical war galley design to demonstratably attain Move 5 use significantly more than 120 rowers (170) and weigh less than a third of 300 tons (less than 80 tons fully loaded)? Also, what prevents a SM +8 ships from having oars, given that GURPS already gives the vast majority of historical galleys SM +8? Except the SM +9 'turtle ship', of course. Quote:
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01-28-2015, 09:31 AM | #18 | |
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Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4
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This would seem to allow the building of penteconters or even more advanced models of war galleys in quite a short time. Good for the PCs now, as it means that their allies in Messemprar will have been able to make use of the months while their control of the sea ensured plentiful shipping to Messemprar to import as much wood as they require and basically build as much of a navy as they can afford. Pretty bad for them later since it means that the empire they are facing will require about one third of the time I had estimated to put out a new fleet to replace ships they have sunk or captured. Spending a few dozens of GURPS $ millions on new galleys won't even cause them to blink, their annual naval budget is already some $60,000,000 and that was while they were winning the war and used naval ships just to defend their grain ships from pirates. Of course, being able to build them quickly won't help the enemy man their ships, as they already suffer from not having had much of a native tradition of seamanship, ocean voyaging, seaborne trade or sea warfare* before this war. Most of their foreign trade for the past century or two has been transported in foreign hulls and their navy has always been low-prestige and neglected compared to their army. The fact that several nautical disasters and some defeats at sea killed off some 80% of their experienced navy men a few years before the start of this war didn't help. *At least within the past few centuries.
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01-28-2015, 10:14 AM | #19 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4
I suspect there's a limit to the number of men you can use on a given size of ship. Also, there's the question of the availability of seasoned timber. That doesn't matter much for ships that are expected to be expended in a current conflict, but it is important in peacetime shipbuilding, because seasoning takes months to years, depending on the kind of wood.
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01-28-2015, 10:42 AM | #20 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4
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Of course, it is highly plausible that triremes or other very fast galleys are actually higher quality than simple cargo ships of comparable tonnage, requiring more hours of work and a higher proportion of skilled man-hours to unskilled. Quote:
For the PCs' allies, it merely means that good warships (as opposed to rafts or scaled-up boats from green wood) require fairly expensive imports of seasoned wood, which imposes the above limit of 'as much of a fleet they can afford'. Being able to trade with all the Inner Sea means not having to cut and season your own lumber, especially as you control rich mines, irrigated plains, coastal land, river valley, huge lake, hills and mountains, but no significant forests.* The Empire on the other side, however, has already been using all the sources of seasoned timber that they can tap for the last five years. Huge building projects, exponential growth in naval tonnage, truly frightening amounts of ox carts, massive demand for bows, spears, arrows, scorpion bolts, etc. Any more wood they import would need to be transported through quite a lot of sea lanes controlled by the enemy or alternatively, transported overland for a thousand miles or more. I've already estimated that a lot of their emergency naval building will use green wood and they've also been scavenging wood from less vital sources to turn out sorely needed hulls to replace losses. Of course, imperfect raw materials means heavy, slow and clumsy galleys, which leads to further losses at sea. *The land has been settled for almost 4,000 years, they've all been utilised already.
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