View Single Post
Old 01-23-2015, 02:25 PM   #11
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Landing Craft at TL2 to TL4

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
OK, things are becoming a bit clearer now, but there's an open question. Are these craft specialised for landing troops in a port, or on a beach? Or do they need to be able to do both? The latter makes it harder.
They are meant to take ports, but will assume that the enemy will make it extremely hard to land troops on the wharves themselves.

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:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
For landing on a beach, you want something like a Thames sailing barge. At 25x6 metres, they should be able to carry at least 200 men for several hours, and they're reasonably easy to beach and refloat, providedyou know how the tide behaves off the enemy coast. The TL4 version may not have the leeboard (retractable keel) which will limit their ability to sail fast, and against the wind. If this seems too advanced, something based on a Norfolk wherry will certainly be possible - they existed at the historical TL4.
Both look very nice for their purposes. They'd need faster assault craft to complement them, for the first wave of attackers, but these would do very nicely for landing the main force on a beach and along the river.

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Note that while these craft will do fine for narrow seas - the English Chanel and North Sea were their habitats - sailing them across large oceans in bad weather is not a good idea. I presume this is happening in summer, before the summer storm season?
It's spring, in seas fairly equivalent to the Meditarreanean around Alexandria, Egypt.

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
When dealing with sailing ships, weather is always the primary unpredictable factor. Do the PCs have weather magic? If so, they need to be planning around that.
Both sides have weather magic. There are reasons to assume that the seas will be fairly rough, but there won't actually be a storm.

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
If you want to sail into a port and capture it, the requirements on the ship are less severe, provided you know how deep the port is and what the tides are doing. You can use larger ships with proper keels, which are much safer in bad weather. You need to provide some defence for the troops on deck, and you need to be able to land them rapidly, and you can combine these requirements by mounting timber movable bridges along the sides of your ships, using them for the troops to hide behind on the way in, and then swinging them out to the shore or wharf for the troops to run down. Of course, you need to know what wharfs are where and how high they are: there are reasons why professional navies collect this kind of information.
The PCs already have some forty warlike sailing ships and around a dozen galleys that could enter a port which they have already seized. Add to that some twenty cargo ships for logistical purposes.

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.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote