How would magic interact with late TL5 naval warfare? & Campaign idea

[ehrbar]

Note that if you've got late TL5 power plants, you've got Draw Power and Teleport Other to teleport bombs. 4,345 hp worth of engine not used for something else will feed a mage 9 energy/second to first cast Air Vision (thus negating any hiding behind smoke, fog, etc.) and then launch 49-lb bombs (likely lightweight cases around more than 40 lbs of HE) to a range of up to 10 miles (dependent, of course, on the height of the mage's optics and thus visual horizon).

Teleport Shield enchantments are of no real use; you have to pay through the nose for height, so the Teleport Other side just aims a bit higher and sets the bomb to fall before detonating.

That, of course, will eliminate small torpedo boats. A torpedo launching platform will have to be big enough to be armored against battering by multiple 49-pound bombs to have a chance to fire its torpedoes.

Against armored vessels, the problem for the teleporters is that even though 40+ pounds of HE is a decent explosion, the teleport doesn't get you through armor. So you're limited to damaging stuff on the ship that's outside the armor. One potentially-useful approach here is teleporting bombs just behind the ships, so they blow up in the water right next to the inherently hard-to-armor propellers and rudders.

[RGTraynor]

It'd have pretty much the same impact as on any other era of naval history up to that date. Simple spells give you position, Communication keeps you in touch with fleet command, as well as with other ships in a squadron. Long-distance vision spells give a better idea sooner of the nationality of vessels ... never mind the myriad uses of Divination. Create and Purify Water are real game changers for extending the range of vessels, as well as sharply reducing storage needs. Test and Purify Food greatly enhances a crew's diet. Enchanting chase armament with +1 Puissance and Quick Aim?

And all that was stream of thought that took me little more time to think of than it took me to type it.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

And all that was stream of thought that took me little more time to think of than it took me to type it.

Myself if the campaign is truly 1890's tech...expensive as it would be...a torpedo boat (or more if it can be done in the setting)...enchanted with Reverse Missiles.

Right up there with 'I found a spaceship in the back 40 and its calling me Captain.' on the fantasy fun meter.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by ehrbar

Note that if you've got late TL5 power plants, you've got Draw Power and Teleport Other to teleport bombs. 4,345 hp worth of engine not used for something else will feed a mage 9 energy/second to first cast Air Vision (thus negating any hiding behind smoke, fog, etc.) and then launch 49-lb bombs (likely lightweight cases around more than 40 lbs of HE) to a range of up to 10 miles (dependent, of course, on the height of the mage's optics and thus visual horizon).

Teleport Shield enchantments are of no real use; you have to pay through the nose for height, so the Teleport Other side just aims a bit higher and sets the bomb to fall before detonating.

That, of course, will eliminate small torpedo boats. A torpedo launching platform will have to be big enough to be armored against battering by multiple 49-pound bombs to have a chance to fire its torpedoes.

Only if you also have good enough magic to negate the fire control problem - you'll need a fairly exact range, speed, and bearing for the target (relative to your ship), or you miss. Tell Position only gives the first.

If the GM doesn't like this they can also rule that it's very hard (or impossible) to teleport into open air, because you can't 'see' the exact spot, and you need to teleport onto something visible.

Also, you're casting at a -6 to skill, and that means unless you've got a very skilled caster there will be many bombs ending up who-knows-where. As it's a common theme for mis-teleports to go to similar-seeming places, I don't think I'd want to be on friendly ships when this form of attack was underway.

Given that IQ13, Magery 3 mages are most likely quite a rare commodity, I don't think this is the best use of their talents.

Wizard Eye, used to create an eye that's sent straight up will let a ship see much further, especially with other vision enhancing spells. There are many other knowledge spells that would be very useful as well. I think that this sort of magic will be a more useful of mages' talents than direct offensive uses.

[johndallman]

The 1866 Battle of Lissa is a good example of naval warfare at this TL, and shows how disastrous wilful player characters in charge of a fleet can be.

The naval part of the War of the Pacific was on a fairly small scale, but illustrated the unchanging parts of naval warfare.

The Battle of Santiago de Cuba is early TL6, without many of TL6's innovations, and is also worth a look.

Originally Posted by seasalt

Maybe throw in an aircraft carrier equivalent which serves as a hangar for dirigibles and/or a roost for flying beasts of war like dragons or griffins?

The beasts are actually easier to believe in. Dirigibles are really large and quite fragile. Getting them in and out of a hangar at sea, where there's always a wind and truly calm seas are very rare will be very hard, and accidents extremely destructive. A dirigible that can lift significant weaponry is larger than any sane ship.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The beasts are actually easier to believe in. Dirigibles are really large and quite fragile. Getting them in and out of a hangar at sea, where there's always a wind and truly calm seas are very rare will be very hard, and accidents extremely destructive. A dirigible that can lift significant weaponry is larger than any sane ship.

Never mind non-existent. The cargo capacity of the largest zeppelin ever built was 15 tons. They were also insanely dangerous; of the US Navy's five airships, the Los Angeles was the only one that survived to be decommissioned. As far as the "really large" bit goes, just for comparison, a Ford-class aircraft carrier is only half again as long as the Los Angeles was, and the longest ship ever built was a little over twice as long. I admit myself to a touch of "But zeppelins are cool!", but that ain't gonna fly, Orville. As John says, aircraft carriers toting dragons isn't a whole lot more fantastic.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

Never mind non-existent. The cargo capacity of the largest zeppelin ever built was 15 tons. They were also insanely dangerous.

But an enchanted zeppelin with magically strengthened frame, Armor spells and magical materials which replace flammable hydrogen with gravity repelling gas could fly and might be viable.

Heck, cut out the middleman and have flying ironclads like Space:1889.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The beasts are actually easier to believe in. Dirigibles are really large and quite fragile. Getting them in and out of a hangar at sea, where there's always a wind and truly calm seas are very rare will be very hard, and accidents extremely destructive. A dirigible that can lift significant weaponry is larger than any sane ship.

One...a dirigible never 'landed' on a carrier...there were ships built with docking masts and a floating hanger or two attempted, personally I would not bother.

Of course Base Magic has quite a bit of weather magic. If your dirigible has a weather mage or six as the officers...quite a bit of historical incidents with weather might be avoided.

A offensive/defensive arms race around weather magic might develop if dirigibles and other forms of airships come to be.

Without higher TL powered aircraft, the dirigible is hands down the best fleet scout that can be had. Superior range, superior speed, superior visible horizon; if the weather problem can be solved. With communication magic to relay observations to the fleet the concept might be workable.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Only if you also have good enough magic to negate the fire control problem - you'll need a fairly exact range, speed, and bearing for the target (relative to your ship), or you miss. Tell Position only gives the first.

Tell Position gives exact range, azimuth, and altitude relative to the caster, according to my copy of GURPS Magic. It doesn't give speed, but you can plot the range from two successive castings of Tell Position and determine speed from the change in position over time (and there's helpfully Tell Time to get accurate time stamps).

Accurate fire from naval artillery at long distance - or for casting Teleport Other spells at moving targets, I suppose - still requires all the machinery of a mechanical range keeping calculator, but historically, the hardest part was getting the range readings correctly and rapidly. Tell Position and Tell Time can be enchanted in jewelry with a Power enchantment, and then anyone (they're not mage only items) with the jewelry can be providing constant but correct ranges. It's not quite as good as late WWII radar, because it doesn't provide blind-fire capability, but it's supremely better than the early optical rangefinders.

Somewhat fortunately, Scryguard is a relatively cheap enchantment for large ships (500 energy * 1 + SM) and protects against Tell Position.

I'm mixed on the effects of 40 lb LE teleport bombs. They're trivially easy to make, and even at a 25% hit rate they are significantly more accurate than late TL5 and early TL6 naval artillery. They have to be teleported outside of the armor, but 40 lbs of LE can still wreck a ship's superstructure. On the other hand, Teleport Shield isn't that expensive for covering 30-50 yards of radius, which should be enough to cover the most vulnerable parts of the superstructure. So they end being closer to 6" or 8" non-armor piercing explosive shells, and well made ships survived a surprisingly large number of such hits.

It looks like it would be possible to use Water Vision to see under a ship, and if water doesn't count as a solid object, that would be where I would be sending my teleport bombs. Preferably larger ones - 250 lbs of LE would be a decent torpedo warhead until the start of the 20th century.

Though re-reading the failure effects of Teleport make me think teleport bombs are not going to work. A 25% chance of success is a 75% chance of failure, and having 2/3rds of the bombs going somewhere is not really acceptable.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Though re-reading the failure effects of Teleport make me thing teleport bombs are not going to work. A 25% chance of success is a 75% chance of failure, and having 2/3rds of the bombs going somewhere is not really acceptable.

No idea off the top of my head -- this sort of thing is Witchking's wheelhouse -- but what's the hit ratio of naval gunnery generally? I can't imagine the percentages are that outrageously different.