- Location
- Somewhere in the stacks
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] I've got to get over my fears - go find her.
[X] The impact of the Naval Arms Race, 1900-1913
[X] The impact of the Naval Arms Race, 1900-1913
Adventure in Academia - Art Quest
- Thread starter 4WheelSword
- Start date
- Original
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] I've got to get over my fears - go find her.
Round two, go!
[X] Air power and the Battlefield in the Great War
And I'm a bit biased, but this way lets us talk about ACDQ stuff more.
Round two, go!
[X] Air power and the Battlefield in the Great War
And I'm a bit biased, but this way lets us talk about ACDQ stuff more.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] I've got to get over my fears - go find her.
[X] Post Great War developments in armour
Trufax.
[X] Post Great War developments in armour
Trufax.
- Location
- New England, State of Confusion
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] I've got to get over my fears - go find her.
[X] Post Great War developments in armour
[X] Post Great War developments in armour
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] I've got to get over my fears - go find her.
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
[x] The impact of the Naval Arms Race, 1900-1913
I wanna see this! and it'd help inform stuff for Castles.
[X] I've got to get over my fears - go find her.
GIRL PRETTY
I wanna see this! and it'd help inform stuff for Castles.
[X] I've got to get over my fears - go find her.
GIRL PRETTY
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
[X] I've got to get over my fears - go find her.
[X] Air power and the Battlefield in the Great War
Mainly so I can make @4WheelSword write about the doctrine of the "Aerial fleet-in-being"
[X] Air power and the Battlefield in the Great War
Mainly so I can make @4WheelSword write about the doctrine of the "Aerial fleet-in-being"
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
I need two things.Mainly so I can make @4WheelSword write about the doctrine of the "Aerial fleet-in-being"
A copy of Douhets work.
For Xon to integrate an Angry react button.
ETA: Also, after 9 votes, the three options are... perfectly tied at 3 a piece.
I suppose people should try and convince each other.
Last edited:
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Post Great War developments in armour
Fine, we'll focus on novelty instead of studying best plane designer.
Fine, we'll focus on novelty instead of studying best plane designer.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Dammit I wanted to do boats
Ah well. That can come later. Update soon!
Pt 13 - A New Professor
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Sitting in your first lecture of the year was more than a little exciting; you were almost giddy the moment you took your seat. Standing at the head of the class was Professor Milton Ludwak, extremely influential strategic theorist and lecturer at New Kent College and today he was going to lead them on a tour of early armoured warfare in the post-Great War.
"The Great War." He stated, deep voice booming around the still quieting lecture hall, "It touched forty-seven nations directly and left no other untouched by its economic, cultural and political impacts. We saw the first widespread use of aircraft in combat, the first juggernauts took to the sea in anger and, most important to us, the widest use of armoured vehicles in combat ever by this point. But who was first?" He turned from writing on the chalkboard and glared intensely at the class. A few hands eventually rose uncertainly.
"Yes? You, near the back." he pointed a few rows behind you and you sank into your seat trying desperately not to be seen.
"Albia?"
"Wrong. Try again."
"Well, it was the first tank-"
"The what?" Ludwak snapped, bushy eyebrows somehow growing even bushier as he furrowed his well-line brow.
"The first tank, uh, Sir?"
"Define a tank."
"Uh… a… mobile… armed car? Sir?" The voice sounded utterly nonplussed. You had to give them credit for making an attempt at what was obviously an impossible trick question though.
"That's a very broad set of criteria. Does the Caspian wheeled monstrosity not count?" he held a hand up, waving whatever attempted answer the person had down, "It's foolish to try and find the first. We are not interested in first here. Certainly, it is thanks to the Albians that we know them as tanks at all, but our interest is not in the first, or the second, or even the first tank battle. We are here to talk about developments after 1918. In the course of this module, we will discuss three major elements;" He turned to write again as he spoke.
"The pedirail versus the track," He scrawled, his writing near illegible.
"The turret versus the casemate gun,"
"And the super-heavy, the infantry and other outlier tanks which were perhaps not as successful as others."
Your first lecture will cover:
[ ] Pedirail versus track
[ ] Turret versus casemate
[ ] Outlier designsa
"The Great War." He stated, deep voice booming around the still quieting lecture hall, "It touched forty-seven nations directly and left no other untouched by its economic, cultural and political impacts. We saw the first widespread use of aircraft in combat, the first juggernauts took to the sea in anger and, most important to us, the widest use of armoured vehicles in combat ever by this point. But who was first?" He turned from writing on the chalkboard and glared intensely at the class. A few hands eventually rose uncertainly.
"Yes? You, near the back." he pointed a few rows behind you and you sank into your seat trying desperately not to be seen.
"Albia?"
"Wrong. Try again."
"Well, it was the first tank-"
"The what?" Ludwak snapped, bushy eyebrows somehow growing even bushier as he furrowed his well-line brow.
"The first tank, uh, Sir?"
"Define a tank."
"Uh… a… mobile… armed car? Sir?" The voice sounded utterly nonplussed. You had to give them credit for making an attempt at what was obviously an impossible trick question though.
"That's a very broad set of criteria. Does the Caspian wheeled monstrosity not count?" he held a hand up, waving whatever attempted answer the person had down, "It's foolish to try and find the first. We are not interested in first here. Certainly, it is thanks to the Albians that we know them as tanks at all, but our interest is not in the first, or the second, or even the first tank battle. We are here to talk about developments after 1918. In the course of this module, we will discuss three major elements;" He turned to write again as he spoke.
"The pedirail versus the track," He scrawled, his writing near illegible.
"The turret versus the casemate gun,"
"And the super-heavy, the infantry and other outlier tanks which were perhaps not as successful as others."
Your first lecture will cover:
[ ] Pedirail versus track
[ ] Turret versus casemate
[ ] Outlier designsa
- Location
- Somewhere in the stacks
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Pedirail versus track
- Location
- Raleigh, NC
[X] Pedirail versus track
Abby Normal
High Clerk of the Ymaryn
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Pedirail versus track
P.B. Hurley, Treatise on Gayan Naval Warfare, Pt.1 The Battleship
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Picture the world. It is 1900. The world is filled with developed and developing nations which, upon being disabused of their notions of empire, are chasing the dream of global power. Without the opportunity to colonise, enslave and otherwise exploit the rest of the world1 they would have to look for new avenues to power - avenues that started (and for many, ended) at sea.
Trade exploded at the end of the 19th Century. Fair or unfair, advantageous or exploitative there were more ships than ever sailing the seas and oceans of the world and all of them needed protection. Thus began the first, largest industrial naval arms race the world has ever seen. With the construction of HMS Juggernaut in 1910, it should have ended. It lasted much longer than it should have. And, amongst all the other hundreds of reasons2, that was the reason for the Great War.
Prior to the arrival of the Juggernauts, the battleship dominated. From 1901 to 1906, Albia built twenty-three battleships armed with a mix of twelve to fourteen inch main guns. Each had a small, quick-firing secondary armament of standardised six inch guns, these 'mixed-calibre' battleships found ranging their weaponry difficult even with their high fighting tops and modernised directors. The problem lay in their shell trajectories. Two shells firing from different calibre guns would travel different trajectories to the target and then, upon reaching it, cause similar water funnels to be thrown up. Thus, it was difficult to know whether it was the main guns that were falling short of the enemy or if it was the smaller, less-effective weapons3.
Then what would later become known as the semi-juggernaut, or Motoko-type battleship found a four-year rule between the completion of the Hibernia and of the first all-big-gun HMS Juggernaut. These powerful ships combined a heavy primary armament, with a heavy secondary battery. In Akitsukini six of the Motoko class were built, fourteen inch turrets supported by eleven inch guns. While this change improved things, it was still impossible to tell the difference between the splash of a seven hundred kilo shell and a three hundred kilo one. Trajectories only matched when the gun calibre did. It did not take long for this problem to be overcome.
HMS Juggernaut was exactly that. The largest warship ever built when she slipped into the waves at Portsmouth, she carried twelve fourteen-inch rifles in six twin turrets and no other main guns at all. At 25,000 long tons, she exceeded the next largest Albian ship by four-thousand tons and her nearest competitor by similar margins. In the same fell swoop she sentenced every other battleship afloat to the scrapyards4. None could match her for accuracy with her unified battery and the finest director lenses at sea. Not even the Goeben who launched some time after the Juggernaut but to the older standard.
Of course as soon as Juggernaut put to sea it accelerated the arms race far beyond the desperate pace it had already been keeping. The Albian Royal Navy put ten in the water in the four short years between Juggernaut and the outbreak of war. The League of States, including Gallia and Otrusia, launched fourteen of their own, while the Central Concord (Dyskelande, Caspia et al) managed twenty-three. Akitsukini, a world away from most other great powers, managed just four but that was more than enough to threaten regional powers such as Cathay.
New Alleghany was an outlier in all of this. Separated from all but Vespucia itself by oceans and mountains, it had managed to ignore the 'exploits of Europa' for a long time but with the coming of the Juggernaut that changed. An injection of funding5 saw six Juggernaut-style battleships laid down within months of each other in 1910, and by 1913 and the outbreak of war, New Alleghany had fifteen at sea and another four under construction. It was, by all accounts, the construction of a navy at a breakneck pace. It was, by all accounts, as much a threat to global stability as the 1911 gathering at Stralsten turned out to be6.
P.B. Hurley's Treatise on Gayan Naval Warfare will be followed by Pt2: Aircraft at Sea and Pt3: The Battlecruiser in time.
Trade exploded at the end of the 19th Century. Fair or unfair, advantageous or exploitative there were more ships than ever sailing the seas and oceans of the world and all of them needed protection. Thus began the first, largest industrial naval arms race the world has ever seen. With the construction of HMS Juggernaut in 1910, it should have ended. It lasted much longer than it should have. And, amongst all the other hundreds of reasons2, that was the reason for the Great War.
Prior to the arrival of the Juggernauts, the battleship dominated. From 1901 to 1906, Albia built twenty-three battleships armed with a mix of twelve to fourteen inch main guns. Each had a small, quick-firing secondary armament of standardised six inch guns, these 'mixed-calibre' battleships found ranging their weaponry difficult even with their high fighting tops and modernised directors. The problem lay in their shell trajectories. Two shells firing from different calibre guns would travel different trajectories to the target and then, upon reaching it, cause similar water funnels to be thrown up. Thus, it was difficult to know whether it was the main guns that were falling short of the enemy or if it was the smaller, less-effective weapons3.
Then what would later become known as the semi-juggernaut, or Motoko-type battleship found a four-year rule between the completion of the Hibernia and of the first all-big-gun HMS Juggernaut. These powerful ships combined a heavy primary armament, with a heavy secondary battery. In Akitsukini six of the Motoko class were built, fourteen inch turrets supported by eleven inch guns. While this change improved things, it was still impossible to tell the difference between the splash of a seven hundred kilo shell and a three hundred kilo one. Trajectories only matched when the gun calibre did. It did not take long for this problem to be overcome.
HMS Juggernaut was exactly that. The largest warship ever built when she slipped into the waves at Portsmouth, she carried twelve fourteen-inch rifles in six twin turrets and no other main guns at all. At 25,000 long tons, she exceeded the next largest Albian ship by four-thousand tons and her nearest competitor by similar margins. In the same fell swoop she sentenced every other battleship afloat to the scrapyards4. None could match her for accuracy with her unified battery and the finest director lenses at sea. Not even the Goeben who launched some time after the Juggernaut but to the older standard.
Of course as soon as Juggernaut put to sea it accelerated the arms race far beyond the desperate pace it had already been keeping. The Albian Royal Navy put ten in the water in the four short years between Juggernaut and the outbreak of war. The League of States, including Gallia and Otrusia, launched fourteen of their own, while the Central Concord (Dyskelande, Caspia et al) managed twenty-three. Akitsukini, a world away from most other great powers, managed just four but that was more than enough to threaten regional powers such as Cathay.
New Alleghany was an outlier in all of this. Separated from all but Vespucia itself by oceans and mountains, it had managed to ignore the 'exploits of Europa' for a long time but with the coming of the Juggernaut that changed. An injection of funding5 saw six Juggernaut-style battleships laid down within months of each other in 1910, and by 1913 and the outbreak of war, New Alleghany had fifteen at sea and another four under construction. It was, by all accounts, the construction of a navy at a breakneck pace. It was, by all accounts, as much a threat to global stability as the 1911 gathering at Stralsten turned out to be6.
P.B. Hurley's Treatise on Gayan Naval Warfare will be followed by Pt2: Aircraft at Sea and Pt3: The Battlecruiser in time.
- W.B.Taylor, The End of Empire, pg. 194
- Autumn Matsuhara, The War To End All Wars, pg 177-201
- For a perfect example, look at the reports of the engagement between HMS Canopus and NAS New Kent, both of them pre-Juggernaut mixed battery ships.
- Every one that is, bar the other Juggernaut-style ships that were already under construction such as the Akistukini Mochizuki.
- Congressional Budget of 1909
- Autumn Matsuhara, The War To End All Wars, pg 84
This is all @open_sketchbook and @Artificial Girl fault
Pt 14 - Persistent, ain't she?
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
"The Pedirail was a glorious thing when it was first developed - it gave vehicles the ability to traverse rough terrain easily for the first time. Then came the later developments, the Michaelson-Walker and the Caspian derivatives of that. Of course, as we know today, that was not a direction of armoured development that lasted. The pedirail period of history would eventually come to a close and the track would come to dominate."
"But that was not guaranteed in the period after the Great War. Nations knew not whether it would be the wheel or the track that would bring about victory in future wars. Both offered advantages that the other did not of course. The track was more difficult to maintain but the lower ground pressure was advantageous in boggy or muddy areas. Meanwhile, with a proper provision of spares, a pedirail segment or even an entire wheel could be replaced much more quickly than the road wheel of a tracked vehicle."
"Then why, as we all know, did the track win out? Why not the easy to maintain segmented wheel that Albia had banked on for more than two decades? Why was the Mark 8 heavy the last pedirail tank designed, built and fielded? Who has an answer for me?"
You can't help but throw your hand up. It wasn't quite your dissertation topic but it was damn well close enough that you know the answer.
He doesn't pick you, of course.
"You, down front. Your answer?"
"Politics?"
"Ah, you've read a few books have you? Yes, the common claim in politics, that politicians killed the pedirail because it wasn't pretty enough or advantageous enough. But I'm looking for the truth, boy, the truth, not the expedient answer. Yes, you, the, uh... " He squints from behind thick glasses and it slowly dawns that he's staring you dead in the face, "The person there. Come on now, don't stall."
"Testing at Sarum Plain showed a greater number of faults and failures in a pedirail vehicle over time that, even with a faster turnaround per failure, would lead to a slower rate of strategic advance even if the tactical considerations were equivalent."
"Oh yes? And what were the Albian beasts tested against?"
"Uh. Alleghanian liberty tanks."
"Very good, yes. Good answer, you- What's your name?"
"Bailey."
"Yes, good answer, Bailey. So, the Pedirail dies a death in the late 1920's and the track comes to the fore. Soon every nation has tracked vehicles. But what differentiates some from the others? Suspension. The Hesperians got in on it first, adopting Isobel Christie's system to produce the type three, a fast cruiser tank with the same cast turret they'd utilised for the type one. It was a revolution in 1928, and it was still a revolution in 1934."
The rest of the lecture passed in a buzz. You'd not only answered a question correctly, but the man you respected so damn much had managed to dodge a misgendering shaped bullet. It left a wonderful little glow in your stomach even as you walked out of class and across the (somewhat cramped) campus where you spend your days.
Soon another shape fell in lockstep beside you. Allison Yu, she of the colour changing hair and the eyebrow piercing.
"Hey there. You running off so soon?" She asks with a wicked smile that promised the best worst things.
"I guess I had some reading I wanted to do. I managed to snag a copy of Matsuhara's work. It's basically impossible to get hold of unless you're, like, an archivist or something." It's not a rejection, not explicitly, but you really would like to get some reading done.
"Oh come on, Bailey, I've barely seen you since graduation."
Ah yes. Graduation. A day that had been going so well until your little sister had decided to play up in front of a girl you thought was hot. Eventually you'd promised to meet her later, made some excuse about getting your sister home and just about run for the damned hills.
"I guess I just get a little wrapped up in things…"
"Mhm. You sure do." There was a little sigh in her tone. "C'mon, just join me for coffee. One hour out of your schedule, then I'll deliver you back to your roomie safe and sound without anything on your mind but history and war. How about it?"
How about it huh?
[ ] Okay. An hour.
[ ] I really gotta go…
What's your next class?
[ ] The impact of the Naval Arms Race, 1900-1913
[ ] Air power and the Battlefield in the Great War
[ ] Submariners, 1890-1900
[ ] Write in
"But that was not guaranteed in the period after the Great War. Nations knew not whether it would be the wheel or the track that would bring about victory in future wars. Both offered advantages that the other did not of course. The track was more difficult to maintain but the lower ground pressure was advantageous in boggy or muddy areas. Meanwhile, with a proper provision of spares, a pedirail segment or even an entire wheel could be replaced much more quickly than the road wheel of a tracked vehicle."
"Then why, as we all know, did the track win out? Why not the easy to maintain segmented wheel that Albia had banked on for more than two decades? Why was the Mark 8 heavy the last pedirail tank designed, built and fielded? Who has an answer for me?"
You can't help but throw your hand up. It wasn't quite your dissertation topic but it was damn well close enough that you know the answer.
He doesn't pick you, of course.
"You, down front. Your answer?"
"Politics?"
"Ah, you've read a few books have you? Yes, the common claim in politics, that politicians killed the pedirail because it wasn't pretty enough or advantageous enough. But I'm looking for the truth, boy, the truth, not the expedient answer. Yes, you, the, uh... " He squints from behind thick glasses and it slowly dawns that he's staring you dead in the face, "The person there. Come on now, don't stall."
"Testing at Sarum Plain showed a greater number of faults and failures in a pedirail vehicle over time that, even with a faster turnaround per failure, would lead to a slower rate of strategic advance even if the tactical considerations were equivalent."
"Oh yes? And what were the Albian beasts tested against?"
"Uh. Alleghanian liberty tanks."
"Very good, yes. Good answer, you- What's your name?"
"Bailey."
"Yes, good answer, Bailey. So, the Pedirail dies a death in the late 1920's and the track comes to the fore. Soon every nation has tracked vehicles. But what differentiates some from the others? Suspension. The Hesperians got in on it first, adopting Isobel Christie's system to produce the type three, a fast cruiser tank with the same cast turret they'd utilised for the type one. It was a revolution in 1928, and it was still a revolution in 1934."
The rest of the lecture passed in a buzz. You'd not only answered a question correctly, but the man you respected so damn much had managed to dodge a misgendering shaped bullet. It left a wonderful little glow in your stomach even as you walked out of class and across the (somewhat cramped) campus where you spend your days.
Soon another shape fell in lockstep beside you. Allison Yu, she of the colour changing hair and the eyebrow piercing.
"Hey there. You running off so soon?" She asks with a wicked smile that promised the best worst things.
"I guess I had some reading I wanted to do. I managed to snag a copy of Matsuhara's work. It's basically impossible to get hold of unless you're, like, an archivist or something." It's not a rejection, not explicitly, but you really would like to get some reading done.
"Oh come on, Bailey, I've barely seen you since graduation."
Ah yes. Graduation. A day that had been going so well until your little sister had decided to play up in front of a girl you thought was hot. Eventually you'd promised to meet her later, made some excuse about getting your sister home and just about run for the damned hills.
"I guess I just get a little wrapped up in things…"
"Mhm. You sure do." There was a little sigh in her tone. "C'mon, just join me for coffee. One hour out of your schedule, then I'll deliver you back to your roomie safe and sound without anything on your mind but history and war. How about it?"
How about it huh?
[ ] Okay. An hour.
[ ] I really gotta go…
What's your next class?
[ ] The impact of the Naval Arms Race, 1900-1913
[ ] Air power and the Battlefield in the Great War
[ ] Submariners, 1890-1900
[ ] Write in
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
[X] The impact of the Naval Arms Race, 1900-1913
I WANT IT
I WANT IT