TL3+1 Mechanical Artillery

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Jerron

...steam cannon are an excellent possibility, one which was attempted during the American Civil War. All reports indicate it was fairly successful, just not as good as gunpowder.

Didn't Mythbusters do a steam powered machine gun? Using centripedial force rather than a cannon / piston arrangement?

[Tommi_Kovala]

Originally Posted by martinl

I'm thinking a trebuchet would be significantly more effective with some combination of improved pivots, standardized lead ammo, and reliable&repeatable shot release.

Ooh, and a clockwork fine aiming mechanism that says "click-click". Also, give the engineers a set of TL4 optical tools and they'll score bullseyes at extreme range. Beats having to eyeball and adjust by hand every time you want to shoot.

[Tommi_Kovala]

Originally Posted by Icelander

So, ideally, I'd need a stone thrower that does not need to be tall to function.

This might be a silly idea, but what if the stone throwers were mounted on a lower deck? All decks above them would have a hole that could be spanned by a removable gangway when the weapons are not in use. This could be covered altogether on the weather deck to keep seawater out.

[Sabaron]

What about rubber? I don't have any idea how much more force you could get out of it but I don't see any reason why your FR ships couldn't get access to rubber. Cured rubber is TL 1 (the Mayan ball game used a rubber ball), it ought to be usable. You could even have an alchemist figure out vulcanization if you wanted.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Sabaron

What about rubber? I don't have any idea how much more force you could get out of it but I don't see any reason why your FR ships couldn't get access to rubber. Cured rubber is TL 1 (the Mayan ball game used a rubber ball), it ought to be usable. You could even have an alchemist figure out vulcanization if you wanted.

For some reason that summons up some strange images for me... a chariot race in a Roman-style circus, with rubber-tired chariots... the drivers firing at each other with steam-driven repeating crossbows... a giant clockwork scoreboard ticking down the laps...

[Agramer]

In Fantasy world Calligulas Nemi ships could even be viable war ships.

With Golems,undead rowing,essential wood and hardiness(or like spells) for added integrity and few water elementals/mages.
They could be real floating artillery behemonts,lobbing alchemical ordanance from trebuchets,with balistaes/scorpions on lower tiers.

I think poster before has hit a mark,when he said that European ships and ship developement was heavily influenced by cannon,gun carriges..etc(Nature of broadside streamlined developement of ships in single direction)....and looking at rest of worlds ships of period may give more precise meterstick.

Maybe Korean turtle ships would be more widespread with magic to help,as warships.

Merchant ships wouldnt have such stout timber hulls as warships.

With so many mages,developement of ships,sails and whole science in shipbuilding would evolve more slowly.

Good stonethrover could breach any Galleys hull,while same would bounce from lowly Frigate.

So figure first how ships evolved,and than how mechanical contraptions can be used to fight that,and than adapt(specialise) war ships some more.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Kraydak

I expect the two big reasons are that it is hard to project incendiaries very far (but see LT's Heated Shot) and that, more, the massively timbered Age-of-Sail ships that can resist cannon fire also don't catch fire that easily. Once they get going, they will be hard to put out, yes, but there are a lot of crew available to smother initial small burns caused by stray incendiaries.

War galleys, on the other hand, are glorified racing shells, and a lot of effort went into keeping the wood as dry (and light!) as possible.

Age of sail ships did catch fire easily. Not the hull, of course, but in combat in a sunny day they had immense lengths of tarred riggings and immense surfaces of cloth sails; the running riggings used fats as lubricants. Not to mention the fact that on a combat deck, there will be powder, to propel all those balls out of all those barrels.

At this time, fireships were an extremely effective weapon, especially against a fleet surprised at anchor.
Battle stations preparations on sailing ships included extinguishing down the galley's stoves and ovens, in fear that a shot hitting there could spread a fire.
As to heated rounds, I don't own Low Tech so I don't know what it says about them, but they were used by coastal batteries - firing positions that could include a stone or brick building that could be used as a furnace, or an all-metal furnace that would, nevertheless, not be in contact with wood, but rather, again, with stone or bricks or earth. I don't know of cases in which rounds were heated aboard a ship.

I suspect no admiral in his right mind would want a fire-siphon device aboard one of his ships. He'd think that it was more likely to destroy that ship than any enemy one.

That leaves coastal installations, of course; but there is the issue of range.

[Anaraxes]

a chariot race in a Roman-style circus, with rubber-tired chariots... the drivers firing at each other with steam-driven repeating crossbows...

We'll be all set, just as soon as they finish the long-awaited Low Tech supplement for Car Wars.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Michele

As to heated rounds, I don't own Low Tech so I don't know what it says about them, but they were used by coastal batteries - firing positions that could include a stone or brick building that could be used as a furnace, or an all-metal furnace that would, nevertheless, not be in contact with wood, but rather, again, with stone or bricks or earth. I don't know of cases in which rounds were heated aboard a ship.

It doesn't seem to say anything about the infrastructure needed for heating other than that they are "heated red-hot on a fire". Of course, age of sail ships didn't tend to carry any sort of fire into battle that they could possibly do without.

Originally Posted by Michele

I suspect no admiral in his right mind would want a fire-siphon device aboard one of his ships. He'd think that it was more likely to destroy that ship than any enemy one.

A fire-siphon ship might be far more effective than a conventional fire-ship, if the siphon remains operable long enough to get in range of the enemy. Of course, you've got the minor problem that it needs to have a fighting crew aboard for the entire run, rather than a skeleton crew that can abandon as they close in.

[teviet]

Historically "Greek fire" was also fired from catapults. Mechanical improvements would increase the effective ranges of both catapults and siphons, but probably more the former than the latter. Fusing of projectiles would also improve with TL, but apparently was adequate even at TL3.

TeV