Naval Ships and Tech discussion (LONG)

[Scott Cohan]

sc>   Well, had a successful game last night.  The party managed to fight
sc> off three   Athachs with only one member getting near death (An
sc> Athach bit his head).

     sa>Where you playing at your town which is?

     The party is currently in the Elder Mountains near Caldo.  They were
     looking for signs of Kotothi forces, since Caldo was attacked recently.
     They managed to sneak into an underground Daoine Sidhe stronghold, free the
     prisoners, and are making their way back to Caldo, under heavy pursuit.
     First they ran into some goblins and Daoine Sidhe, killed the goblins, ran
     off the DS; then they fled some more, and the DS, seeing how handily they
     handled the goblins, herded three Athach in their direction.  (This is
     still in the beginning of the game, so I'm slowly making combat more
     interesting and dangerous, so they'll get used to the system.)

     sa>I've never played with Athachs yet.  But my group online is battilng an
sa>ALAL (sorta).  He is riding toward them.  7 vs an alal should be equal
sa>right? :)  A new player and the wizard should be able to handle it
sa>hopefully or otherwise some damage might ensue (G)

  Kind of depends on the characters.  But 7 to 1 sounds about right.

sc> characters.  I   have a good character from a previous game that I
sc> think I could write up   (although I'd collaborate with the player).
sc> Would people like to see this?

     sa>That would be interesting to see sample characters..you could give them
sa>here if you want.

sc>   Also:  What is the tech of the Perilous Lands?  We have Plate
sc> Armor, which is   Late Medieval, we have no gunpowder, and
sc> shipbuilding skills seemed to have   stagnated in the trireme stage.
sc> Now, I'm no expert, but it seems to be that   it's a little
sc> unbalanced.  Does anyone out there have any good information on
sc> pre-gunpowder ships?  Besides triremes and dhows (a unireme), what
sc> else should   be around?  Old Roman cargo vessels?  It's definitely
sc> too early for sloops,   flytes, and galleons.      As far as
sc> apologistic arguments, I suppose we could assume that Armor tech
sc> has been prematurely advanced through the magical necessity to have
sc> totally   enclosed suits of armor.  Likewise, perhaps true sailing
sc> ships haven't been   developed because of the vast number of Climan
sc> Priestesses with Sea Powers   (Friendly Current).

sa>That's how the real world was to an extent.  Some areas were still brozne
sa> age and some still had iron and such.  So its sorta ok to me.  I basically
sa>have the ships viking style.  No gunpowder and maybe only catapult type
sa>weapons. That's one way to look at the ship situation.

  Well, but it's even more separated than in the 'real' world. Full Plate Armor
  is a fairly late development.  Brigandine armor doesn't arrive until after
  1350, and Full Plate doesn't become common (as common as this armor ever
  becomes) until about 1440, and reaches it's pinnacle (with fluting, gracile
  lines, and giant armored pointed shoes) about 1480.  Unfortunately, gunpowder
  was invented in 1260.  Admittedly, it wasn't really used for much until the
  early 14th cen.  In 1326, Florence purchased guns and cannon.  Also, in 1411,
  Duke John the Good of Burgundy had 4 thousand hand guns in his Ducal Armory.

  (Equipment people take note, I found some prices:  Gunpowder in England in
  1346 = 18 pence/pound.  In 1441, a suit of ready-made Milanese armor = 8
  pounds, six shillings, and eight pence)

  Also, while it is true that there was tech differences between cultures,
  certain areas should be the same.  In the Sea of Tears, for example, everyone
  should have _roughly_ the same tech, due to trading back and forth.  From the
  Culture book, we know some places have better metallurgical skill than others.
   We know that Rogizini weapons are poorly constructed, we know that Katai's
  weaponsmithing skills are poor, and we know that one tribe of barbarians (The
  Kameran) have superb weapons, although this is probably due to a good deposit
  of iron nearby (with perhaps a touch of phosphorous to improve the temper),
  rather than steel-making skill (as has been suggested).  I think it's safe to
  assume that every civilized nation in the Perilous Lands is safely in the Iron
  Age.


  But here's the problem I was having with the sea tech.  We've already
  established that the Armor and Weapon tech is roughly 1450 or so, with a
  curious lack of gunpowder.  However, the trireme was first built about 700 BC,
  and lateen sails have been in use since the 2nd century AD, although only on
  small craft until about AD 500.  Three-masted ships came into use around the
  3rd century BC.  Rudders come into play around 1200 or so, and became
  universal by 1400.  By 1450, we have three-masted ships with square-rigging,
  then quickly came superimposing sails.

  So we have weapon and armor tech about AD 1450 and sea tech still mired in the
  Classical Age.  (Of course, it's not as bad as say, Hercules and Xena, what
  with steel weapons in the Bronze Age, The presence of the Tomato, and Homer
  telling the story of Spartacus)  Also, we have Dechat, supposedly a great
  pirate base, described as using penteconters, which were rendered obsolete by
  the trireme back in 500 BC)

  Here's some trireme info, derived from the trials of the Olympias (a modern
  reconstruction of a 400 BC trireme)  Top Speed 8 knots, Cruising Speed 4
  knots, able to execute a 180 in an arc no wider than two and a half ship
  lengths.  They admit that their training was limited and that their oars were
  too heavy, so actual game speeds should be slightly higher, but this gives you
  a rough idea.  I'd guess 6 knots Cruising and maybe 12 for Top Speed.2
  Crew for a trireme:
  170 rowers (31 to a side in the uppermost position, 27 each in the other two)
  5 officers:  Captain (political appointee)
               Helmsman (who stopped steering around the fifth cen. BC)
               Timebeater (Once did exactly this, now cheif rowing officer)
               pentekontarchos (paymaster, purchasing & recruiting officer)
               Bow Officer (foredeck lookout)
  Also some others:
               Flautist
               Deckhands to manage the sails
               Ship's carpenter
               Quartermaster (did actually steering)
               And sometimes, a ship's doctor

  And roughly 12-16 marines, "14 or so"

  making the total complement around 200.

  Trireme's dimensions:
     Length: 120'9"
     Beam  : 17'9"
  On the waterline, it measured 105'8" by 12'

  Evidently, triremes lasted about twenty years.  They were hauled out of the
  water and into special sheds to help prevent waterlogging and marine gowth.

  Although the triremes were basically the same, there was some variation.  The
  Athenian navy favored ramming atttacks.  Since this required speed and
  maneuverability, they favored light hull with a minimum of marines, 10
  spearmen and three or four archers.  The Corinthians, however, emphasised
  grappling and boarding, and therefore built heavier vessels carrying more
  marines.
     Also, there were two other types of trireme, the "soldier-vessel", a troop
  transport, which was rowed only by the thranites (the top rowers), leaving the
  other two rows of benches free for passengers.  The other was the
  "horse-tranport".  The lower two levels of seats were removed and convered
  into stalls for thirty horses.

     Also, found that warships were NOT manned with slaves (except at a
  desperate point in the Peloponnesian War).  Rowers were paid a drachma a day,
  a craftsman's wage, considered a 'good' salary, but this profession was one of
  the few ways to escape their monotonous life.  And get this, Ships crews were
  fed by stopping at a town and having the crew buy their own supper at
  miscellaneous households.  Evidently, even with the simple diet of the Ancient
  Greeks (grain for porridge or bread, some legumes and a handful of figs or
  olives), a trireme could only carry supplies to feed the crew for a day or
  two, perhaps three at most.  So how do triremes get from Affea to Clima (560
  miles) without stopping anywhere?  (Since everyone hates them, I can't believe
  that they fight their way back and forth)  Even with Friendly Current and
  summoning wind to fill the sails, I can't see a trireme making over 180
  miles/day.  Ok, lets take the 4 knots figure above for cruising speed,
  increase it to 6 for experienced crews, then add oh, say 3 knots for magic
  additions (hull can only take so much), that gives us an impressive 9 knots.
  At 10 hours/day rowing (I think 12 would be a bit much), that's only 90
  miles/day.  I'm not including currents and winds, because whatever helped them
  one way would hinder them the other way.  Even assuming they never get lost
  (let's face it, it's an east-west trip, they can use the sun for navigation),
  it'll still take them more than 6 days to get there.  Either the Climans have
  their own version of Foyson theft, or some sort of portable hole, or
  cornucopias, so they can pack more supplies in, or they have better ships then
  triremes.  Now, if we consider magicians to be as common as carpenters, then
  every ship could have their own mage, who might be able to conjure up enough
  food for everyone as the tip continues.  Of course, then we'd need a new spell
  which almost everyone would have.  And also, mages would not be accorded any
  more respect than craftsmen if they were this common.  I'm not even going to
  consider the Lemasans and their trips to the Eastern Lands.

  Or perhaps the Climans have developed a way to greatly increase the payload
  and distance of the Travel Power: Teleportation.  Perhaps they have permanent
  sea gates so they can instantly travel from Clima to Fort Kira and back in
  only a single day.  Personally, I'd prefer to think that the ship tech is a
  little better than that stated.

  The information that I found was from two books:
  Ships and Seafaring in ancient times, by Lionel Casson
  &
  Arms & Armor of the Medieval Knight, by David Edge and John Miles Paddock


  Scott Cohan