Columbiad Republic

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[Just getting ready......]

[KWorld]

3905 - Edvin Jangers, a scion of the steel-baron Jangers family, has flown the third of his
"framed balloons", the J-3.  The light-metal framing helps to shape the balloon, giving
it shape, controllability, and a structure from which to hang the engines that allow it
to fly through the skies like a ship sails the seas.  The J-3 is approximately the same
size and power as it's predecessor, the J-2, being powered by two internal-combustion
engines and capable of lifting up to 1 ton of crew and fuel.  However, this new craft
adds small wings at the rear of the ship, that are expected to aid in controlling and
stabilizing it in it's flights (the J-2, in it's 3 flights before it's unfortunate
crash, was reported to roll excessively).

[KWorld]

Columbiad Republic Coastal Artillery

The Coastal Artillery of the Columbiad Republic is a branch of the Columbiad Republic Army (CRA), responsible for the protection of coastal ports and facilities of the Republic from external enemies.  The Coastal Artillery has evolved over the years from manning masonry or stone forts armed with muzzleloading smoothbore cannon through the same forts armed with smoothbores and rifled muzzleloaders to new earth and concrete fortifications armed with rifled blackpowder guns to the current state, where they man earth and concrete fortifications armed with modern breech-loading smokeless powder guns and submarine torpedos, often overlooking minefields (at least in time of war).

The Coastal Artillery is unusual in the CRA in the modern era that it generally uses guns developed by the CRN, though in mountings of its own devising to suit the different circumstances it's guns find themselves in.  This is because the roles are obviously different: the CRA has little need, in general, for armor piercing projectiles capable of plowing through inches of hardened steel armor, while the CRN uses such weapons as a matter of course.  The guns in current use are of 10cm, 15cm, 25cm, and 30.5cm bore, along with a 30.5cm mortar of its own design.  The 10cm gun is a small weapon, used primarily to protect the minefields from sweeping while also being valuable against torpedo boats and destroyers and capable of damaging smaller cruisers.  The 15cm gun is a larger weapon, capable of useful service against ships as large as cruisers while still firing fast enough to be of use against minesweepers, torpedo boats, and destroyers.  The 25cm gun is a heavy weapon, best used against cruisers and battleships, its lower rate of fire making it less useful against destroyers and torpedo boats (though it's more than capable of sinking a minesweeper with a single hit).  The 30.5cm gun and the 30.5cm mortar are both intended for use against larger vessels, such as larger cruisers or battleships.   However, beyond their intended targets, the two designs diverge widely: the 30.5cm gun is a high-velocity weapon, firing on a relatively flat trajectory,  generally at targets that the battery can see, to a greater distance than the 30.5cm mortar.   The 30.5cm mortar, on the other hand, is a short-barrelled weapon, invariably dug into the ground behind a rise in the ground between the battery and the sea (for protection against both observation and shell fire), which fires its shells on a very high trajectory to come crashing down on the deck of the target.  The 30.5cm gun is a standard CRN naval weapon, mounted in a Coastal Artillery carriage, while the 30.5cm mortar is a weapon that originated with the Coastal Artillery (and is a development of older 25cm brown-powder coastal mortars, since retired, and even older, black powder CRA siege mortars).

The Coastal Artillery dispositions it's guns generally in 2 gun batteries of a given size, and mounts its weapons primarily in open shielded mounts, with the magazines and loading crews protected by concrete faced with heavy earthen berms and the gun shields mounted on the gun itself.  The Coastal Artillery spent several years in the early 3890s experimenting with the disappearing gun concept, focusing on the then-new 25cm/40 gun, but came away disappointed in the cost and complexity of the mounting and the lower rate of fire imposed by it, and no interest has been evidenced in the idea since.   The coastal mortars are mounted totally differently, of course, since they are used totally differently.  They are mounted in twin concrete or brick-lined pits, positioned on either side of a concrete and earth covered magazine and control room.  As yet, the Coastal Artillery has not mounted any modern weapons in naval-style turrets, or in enclosed concrete fortifications.   As the batteries are open to the sky, anti-bird mountings are standard, with the new multiple 13.5mm HMG mountings replacing the old multi-barrel 35mm guns firing canister.