Paris Temps

[Borys]

The Habsburg Government wishes to reassure all interested parties, that both Mezoamericans and East Indians taken to Parana will be provided with abode and adobe in equal measure - and either in lavish amounts.

[maddox]

The French parliament aknowledges the Habsburger humanitarian intend, and support their application for Green Cross support.


If the Green Cross accepts the quest, France will send Chavlier Rouge and 2 Ville Class cruisers to protect these vessels against potential Pirates and Privateers.



An unrelated message to the New Swiss consulate in Madrid from acting Premier Dupuytren.

"Don't even think about repeating Terrible and Indomptable"

[maddox]

Concerning the Crusades against the Ottoman Empire. The Pope Pius X makes this speach.

In these enlightened days of modern life we cannot but reflect with horror on the mistakes Mother Church has made in the past. My predecessors may have deemed themselves infallible, yet the Holy See must admit that mistakes have been made and the endorsment of the Crusades was surely one of our darkest. Not satisfied with murdering the Moors, the crusaders of the time have also blooded their hands with the numerous deaths of innocent Christians. The tragic fate of Constaninople springs to mind, the direct reason the Muslims could conquer this Chrstian city, but likewise the horrors that befell people of all faiths in Jerusalem, the Holy City Itself.
The mind shudders at the thought of our Brethern in the Faith launching themselves into a new Crusade, a renewal of the killings of yore but with the modern weapons of mass-killings. We have but to remind ourselves of the horror that befell Hong-Kong, Shanghai, or more recently, Fortress Bugio - which had been so terribly struck by the most insidious of modern weapons: poisoned gas.
No, this new religious fervour that poisons the mind of our Brethern in the Faith is misplaced. The Holy See beseeches them to reject this way, brought on by the power-mongering and Devil-inspired inhumanity of some. Surely our modern days can bring forth better solutions that reverting to barbarism ?
May the Lord Almighty bless the innocent and enlighten the minds and hearts of those who seek a solution to the current crises.

[maddox]

Le Monde, Front page.

" Who to believe?
An old diddering man believing he's the messenger of an invisible, unproven almighty being, or the inbred bunch of Habsburger royalty.
We must admit, the pope's speech for peace appeals more than the warmongering of the Habsburgers. But isn't there a grain of truth in the royal rebuke of the Holy See. Is the pope not a paid propagandist for the French government, a very well payed one to boot? Why are we, the French taxpayers, paying for such an antiquedated, against the Republican spirit institute?
All in all, messured with modern means, the words of both are just lies to camouflage their own greed, the lust for power.
And our own government, now with Premier Paixhans in hospital, isn't doing anything. Again we see the truth of our politicians. The No War In Europe Promise is broken with the first serious fighting in decades. And what does Paris do? Sitting on thumbs-or lager for added pleasure- and squeezing us for more taxes.
It's time to let Liberté ,Fraternité et Egalité rule again, as in the early days of the first republique. 

[Sachmle]

Somewere in a Parisian, posh restaurant.

The Famous NUS ship builder, Diego Juarez y Hernandez, and the French Admiral Geon are having a talk.


And Diego, what do you think of the Crusader/Muslim seabattle at Cyprus. Strange results if you ask me

I must admit, their gunnery was rather exceptional, concidering the range and the anitquated nature of most of their battleline, but without the hits necessary to force Alphonse IV and Sigilia out of line, I feel the Muslims would have fared much worse. What is you impression of the rather impressive feat of gunnery on the part of both sides, Admiral Geon?

The ranges are far over what I would see as engagement distances, and if this will become a standard, we'll have to rethink naval warfare.
I see a revival of the heavy Protected Cruisers then, like the previous Gloire Class

Yes, rightly so. I also wonder what effect shells falling from that angle would have on most current armour schemes?

The belts would ignore it, deck armor on the other side , except the most modern BB's will be like hot butter

I have already witness the doubleing of deck armor in Unionista ships from the Independencia's to the new Islas Malvinas. The only advantage of fighing at such long distances is that the torpedo will be much less usefull in such line vs line battles.


Bah, Torpedo's are a coupe de grace weapon, but I wonder how the Ottomans achived such fantastic gunnery? I know during the Malthese war, that Magenta achived a pure luck hit on a sailing Man-O-War on 12K yards, but Magenta still is our best gunnery ship, because her captain exhausts his crew on that.

Yes, quite impressive. The Austrians were one of the pioneers of long range gunnery and fire control, so their exploites could easily enough be contributed to some new adjustments in their FC equipment, but the Turks, as far as I know, have no FC equipment at all. The reports I've seen from the last two battles that that quite impressive Turk cruiser were in, it almost looks like another ship was shooting, or at least another crew who were much more skilled in gunnery.

Hmm, this Chateau neuf du pape wine is rather solid. Should we order another bottle?

I don't see why not, and perhaps some more quiche, it's quite impressive.

Good idea

You say something.... There wasn't enough time between the 2 incidents for the Turks to buy and instal Fire Control.

I would say not, that kind of improvement takes months.

Normaly it does, but I can assure you, men driven to a certain point can achive miracles.

Possible, but it would have almost have had to have been installed prior to the first engagement, and just not operational yet.

As for a  second Yavuz, where should that come from?

I'm not rightly sure. Obviously not from us..

Hmmm, and who supplied the fire control, if the Muslims have it? According to my date, they didn't have an own research program on it and if I look to our programs, we're not even close to installing it. One of the issues is integration with the other battle data collection.

Yes, our data indicates the same. I would suspect any one of the current not-so-neutral neutrals, but that may be a red herring.

Who has FC , and is willing to provide the Turks? And was capable to build it on Yavuz in that short time?

The Confederates, in their infinate wisdom, sold those useless PDNs to the Zionites, who obviously resold them to the Turks. Perhaps they sold FC units to the Turks directly. They have a habit of helping backwards, dangerous countries. Just look at those two battleships being built in MesoAmerica. Godless heathens..

Or was the ship at Crete Yavuz? Maybe she wasn't Yavuz at all.

NOT YAVUZ AT ALL! That would be quite a feat for the Turks to pull off.
I dare say, selling out-dated warships to the Turks is one thing, my God we did it ourselves unfortunately, but selling a new modern armoured cruiser to those blasphemers? I should hope not.

It would have cost the Ottomans their left nut. 

Why yes, I suppose one could put it that way. Rather crude, but to the point.
What could they possibly have to offer....  LAND?

The Ottomans would offer people. The CSA is begging for population.

But  the CSA is Christan, and the Ottomans Muslim.

Oh, the Muslims claim they worship the same God as the Jews and the Christians, but that they have the newest ruleset.

Blasphemy!
As far as the Turk selling people to the CSA for a ship or equipment, that plays if one thinks about it hard enough.

It depends. I'm not a scholar in religion, but I have a lot of muslim crewmembers. Most of them are in the black gang, as they don't have any mechanical aptitude, and without the right motivation, they even won't shuffle coal at any speed. But food and water, and their rituals are good motivators.

I must wonder, how do they know which way is East down in the engine room?

Oh, another providence I gave them, and can revoke if they don't do what I command, I have set up a compensated compass on the poop deck, and they can store their carpets in a 140mm ammo locker I have had set up. Of course they aren't allowed to pray in the fire rooms.

As far as the Confederates selling technology to the Turks in exchange for population, it would make their "Humanitarian Effort" to except those "refugees" seem a little convienient, wouldn't it?

That is why I muse about it. But what about the Dutch, the stunt they pulled with the wireless...

True, but if that was the case, what could the Turk offer them? They have plenty of people, masses of resources in the DEI, and no real interest in the Middle East except for making sure their Muslims can get to the "Holy Land".

The Dutch and Religion... It is just convenient for them. Maybe they did it to get the Iberians into a war. And they have a large muslim population too

And I'm sure they still think the Austrians left them hanging in the last war.
And the impression I get is that they think the Iberians are snot nosed little children trying to play with the big kids.

The Iberians, with the consolidation of Portugal and Brazil... are big boys.

True, but I don't think the Dutch see them that way. And rest assured that IF the Dutch try to bully our ships in the Indian Ocean area to get at the Iberian Philippines, they will find out we may not be the biggest kid on the block, but we hit hard..

To be continued.........

[Desertfox]

Hmm, volunteer experts in long range gunnery... I'm surprised they didn't mention the Swiss. They have both the training and experience in that sort of stuff, and would do it for money.

[P3D]

Hmm, volunteer experts in long range gunnery... I'm surprised they didn't mention the Swiss. They have both the training and experience in that sort of stuff, and would do it for money.

I am not surprised at all. Rangefinders and fire control that were introduced in the New Swiss Navy in 1912.

[Guinness]

As it happens, the young, handsome Confederate naval attache in civilian dress was entertaining a very beautiful, if somewhat vapid young woman at a certain posh Parisian restaurant the same night a south American gentleman and a certain famous French admiral were also having dinner there. He didn't overhear all of their conversation (mostly because he needed to at least feign interest in the nice young woman across the table from him) but he heard enough to go very early to the embassy in the morning.

FROM: CSA Naval Attache, Paris
TO: CSA Admiralty, Richmond

RUMORS OF DIRECT CSA ASSISTANCE TO OTTOMANS STOP CLAIMS BASED ON EFFECTIVE LONG RANGE FIRE AT BATTLE OF CRETE STOP EXPECT FRENCH TO INQUIRE AS TO VERACITY SOON STOP

The Admiralty didn't seem completely surprised:

FROM: CSA Admiralty, Richmond
TO: CSA Naval Attache, Paris

RUMORS OF DIRECT CSA ASSISTANCE TO OTTOMANS FALSE STOP INFORM ALL WHO INQUIRE TO THAT EFFECT STOP CSA HAS NO NAVAL OR OTHER ADVISERS ASSISTING OTTOMAN EMPIRE STOP PRIVATELY NAVAL INTELLIGENCE BELIEVES RUMORS BEING SPREAD BY ALLIES OF IBERIANS AND HABSBERGS FOR THEIR OWN ENDS STOP N I BELIEVES EXTRAORDINARY LONG RANGE GUNNERY FIRE BY OTTOMANS AS MUCH A PRODUCT OF CLEAR WEATHER AND SMOOTH SEAS AS ANY OTHER FACTOR

[maddox]

RUMORS OF DIRECT CSA ASSITANCE TO OTTOMANS FALSE STOP INFORM ALL WHO INQUIRE TO THAT EFFECT STOP CSA HAS NO NAVAL OR OTHER ADVISORS ASSISTING OTTOMAN EMPIRE STOP PRIVATELY NAVAL INTELLIGENCE BELIEVES RUMORS BEING SPREAD BY ALLIES OF IBERIANS AND HABSBERGS FOR THEIR OWN ENDS STOP N I BELIEVES EXTRAORDINARY LONG RANGE GUNNERY FIRE BY OTTOMANS AS MUCH A PRODUCT OF CLEAR WEATHER AND SMOOTH SEAS AS ANY OTHER FACTOR

Richmond, French Embassy.

Monsieur l'embassadeur, what do I do with this?

I don't know Lavache. What do you know about these rumors?

Non at all Monsieur. It seems the confederates know more than the marine nationale does.
I'll have to inquere, and I hope minister Dupuytren can answer this. But I believe that if this is correct, we'll have an escalation on hands. And I vote for the CSA, not those backstabbers over in Europe

LAVACHE, it's not your task to get opinions, it's your task to inform me how to form mine.

***************************************************************************************
OOC
Desertfox, P3D, as you can see on the end of that colorfull conversation, Admiral Geon and Monsieur Diego aren't even close to the end of their conversation.

[The Rock Doctor]

Quaint - considering how long the primary battle lasted, and the condition of the Hapsburger/Iberian capital ships at its conclusion, I wouldn't have expected to see a phrase such as, "EXTRAORDINARY LONG RANGE GUNNERY FIRE BY OTTOMANS".

[miketr]

Quaint - considering how long the primary battle lasted, and the condition of the Hapsburger/Iberian capital ships at its conclusion, I wouldn't have expected to see a phrase such as, "EXTRAORDINARY LONG RANGE GUNNERY FIRE BY OTTOMANS".

Some mental math using Seekrieg IV as a base.  Considering the size of the ships, guns and range.  Here is one example of what I suspect occured.

SMS Siligia is about a 900 Damage Point ship.  At 15% damage we are looking at 135 DP, 11" fire does 48 DP if it defeats armor and 16 DP if it doesn't.  So thats 2.8 - 8.4 hits...  Assuming I am within the ball park here, 8 hits from a eight broad side 11" gun'd ship in nearly an hour of battle is rather poor shooting.   

[P3D]

These sims tend to underestimate hit chances at closer ranges. Some hit chances against stationary targets, as determined by probability theory obtained by magic follows:



WWII hit chances calibrated by more or less known US figures. Navalism chances are calibrated by calculated Jutland hit chances.

[Guinness]

SMS Siligia is about a 900 Damage Point ship.  At 15% damage we are looking at 135 DP, 11" fire does 48 DP if it defeats armor and 16 DP if it doesn't.  So thats 2.8 - 8.4 hits...  Assuming I am within the ball park here, 8 hits from a eight broad side 11" gun'd ship in nearly an hour of battle is rather poor shooting.   

How many rounds per gun do you figure were fired during that engagement? If you figure an average of one per gun every 2 minutes for 60 minutes, then you get 240 total fired, and if you figure 8 hit, then you arrive at a 3.33% hit rate. That would be pretty good shooting if P3D's mystical charts are to be believed.

I guess this key is just how good the ROF was during the battle.

[P3D]

Looking at my excel tables, the hit chances there are worse than Jutland (2/3rd or so), say reflecting no fire control. With a 10% error (standard deviation) of range. And against stationary targets.

Against moving targets, for ships with FC, I'd add 500yards to the range for every 5kt speed of the target (and 1000 for every 10kt speed of the shooting ship, whichever is larger). For No FC, I'd add double - i.e. 1000yards for each 5kts.

That would make hit chance to be 1.37% for a 20kts target.
Austrians firing with FC against 20kts ships the hit chance would be 2.57% (different table).

[Sachmle]

Quaint - considering how long the primary battle lasted, and the condition of the Hapsburger/Iberian capital ships at its conclusion, I wouldn't have expected to see a phrase such as, "EXTRAORDINARY LONG RANGE GUNNERY FIRE BY OTTOMANS".

The conversation revolved more around Yavuz massive improvement in shooting between the last engagement and her dismantling of Pizzaro. The Allies landing good hits @ 14kyds wasn't as much a surprise as the Ottomans landing any, especially the 2 luck shots on Alphonse IV and Siliglia. One must also remember, Diego is the former lead naval architect for NUS, and there are reasons he's former.