David Weber - How firm a foundation

“When I approached him about the notion of hanging iron armor on the outside of the ship, however, he told me immediately that he didn’t think a wooden hull was going to be very practical. I’d already expected that response, so I asked him what he thought about going to a ship that was wooden-planked but iron-framed. Frankly, I expected him to think the notion was preposterous, but it turns out he’d already been thinking in that direction, himself. In fact, his suggestion was that we should think about building the entire ship out of iron.”

Rock Point’s eyes widened, and this time his surprise was genuine. Not at the notion of iron or steel-hulled vessels, but at the discovery that Sir Dustyn Olyvyr was already thinking in that direction.

“I can see where that would offer some advantages,” he said after a moment. “But I can see a few drawbacks, too. For example, you can repair a wooden hull almost anywhere. A shattered iron frame member would be just a bit more difficult for the carpenters to fix! And then there’s the question of whether or not even Master Howsmyn could produce iron in quantities like that.”

“Oh, I agree entirely, Sir. I was impressed by the audacity of the suggestion, though, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more I have to say I believe the advantages would vastly outweigh the drawbacks-assuming, as you say, Master Howsmyn could produce the iron we needed. That’s for the future, however. For the immediate future, the best we’re going to be able to do is go to composite building techniques, with iron frames and wooden planking. And the truth is that that’ll still give us significant advantages over all-wooden construction.”

“I can see that. At the same time, I’d be very reluctant to simply scrap all the ships we’ve already built-not to mention the ones we’ve just captured-and start over with an entirely new construction technique.”

“Yes, Sir. As an intermediate step, we’ve been looking at the possibility of cutting an existing galleon down by a full deck. We’d sacrifice the spar deck armament and completely remove the forecastle and quarterdeck. That should save us enough weight to allow the construction of an iron casemate to protect the broadside guns. We’d only have a single armed deck, but the guns would be much better protected. And we’ve also been considering that with shell-firing weapons we could reduce the number of broadside guns and actually increase the destructiveness of the armament. Our present thinking is that we might completely remove the current krakens and all the carronades from a ship like Destroyer, say, and replace them with half as many weapons with an eight- or nine-inch bore. The smaller gun would fire a solid rifled shot somewhere around a hundred and eighty to two hundred pounds. The shell would probably be about half that, allowing for the bursting charge. In an emergency, it could fire a sixty-eight-pound round shot, which would still be more destructive than just about anything else currently at sea.”

“Rate of fire would drop significantly with that many fewer guns,” Rock Point pointed out, and Mahndrayn nodded.

“Absolutely, Sir. On the other hand, each hit would be enormously more destructive. It takes dozens of hits, sometimes hundreds, to drive a galleon out of action with solid shot. A handful of hundred-pound exploding shells would be more than enough to do the job, and just to indicate how the weapons would scale, a rifled thirty-pounder’s shot would weigh about ninety pounds, which would give you a shell weight of only forty-five or so, so you can see the advantage the larger gun has. Of course, the smoothbore thirty-pounder’s shell is only around twenty-five pounds, and its bursting charge is proportionately lighter, as well. And if both sides start armoring their vessels with iron, anything much lighter than eight inches probably won’t penetrate, anyway.”

“That sounds logical enough,” Rock Point acknowledged. “We’ll have to think about it, of course. Fortunately it’s not a decision we’re going to have to make anytime soon.”

“I’m afraid we might have to make it sooner than you may be thinking, Sir,” Seamount put in. Rock Point looked at him, and the commodore shrugged. “You’re talking about the possibility of beginning production and stockpiling weapons, Sir,” he reminded his superior. “If we’re going to do that, we’re going to have to decide which weapons to build, first.”

“Now that, Ahlfryd, is a very good point,” Rock Point agreed. “Very well, I’ll be thinking about it, and I’ll discuss it with the Emperor as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Seamount smiled. “In the meantime, we have a few other thoughts that should be more immediately applicable to our needs.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You may have noticed Commander Mahndrayn’s hand, Sir?”

“You mean that fathom of gauze wrapped around it?” Rock Point asked dryly.

“Exactly, Sir.” Seamount held up his own left hand, which had been mangled by an explosion many years before. “I think Urvyn was trying to do me one better. Unfortunately, he failed. All of his fingers are still intact… more or less.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. Exactly what bearing does that have on our present discussion, however?”

“Well, what actually happened, Sir,” Seamount said more seriously, “is that we’ve been experimenting with better ways to fire our artillery. The flintlocks we’ve gone to are far, far better than the old slow match-and-linstock or heated irons we used to use. That most of our new prizes’ guns are still using, for that matter. But they still aren’t as efficient as we could wish. I’m sure you’re even better aware than we are here at the Experimental Board of how many misfires we still experience, especially when there’s a lot of spray around or it’s raining. So we’ve been looking for a more reliable method, and we’ve found one.”

“You have?” Rock Point’s eyes narrowed.

“Actually, we’ve come up with two of them, Sir.” Seamount shrugged. “Both work, but I have to admit to a strong preference for one of them over the other.”

“Go on.”

“Doctor Lywys at the College gave us a whole list of ingredients to experiment with. One of them was something called ‘fulminated quicksilver,’ which is very attractive, on the face of it. You can detonate it with a single sharp blow, and the explosion is very hot. It would reduce lock time significantly, as well, which would undoubtedly improve accuracy. The problem is that it’s very corrosive. And another difficulty is that it’s too sensitive. We’ve experimented with ways of moderating its sensitivity by mixing in other ingredients, like powdered glass, and we’ve had some success, but any fuses using fulminated quicksilver are going to tend to corrode over time, and according to Doctor Lywys, they’ll lose much of their power as they do. For that matter, she says at least some of them would probably detonate spontaneously if they were left in storage long enough. They do have the advantage that they’re effectively impervious to damp, however, which would be a major plus for sea service.”

“I can see where that would be true,” Rock Point agreed.

“We’ve pushed ahead with developing those fuses-for the moment we’re calling them fulminating fuses, after the quicksilver, although Urvyn is pushing for calling them ‘percussion’ fuses, since they’re detonated by a blow-but I decided we should explore some other possibilities, as well. Which brought me to ‘Shan-wei’s candles.’”

Rock Point nodded. “Shan-wei’s candles” was the name which had been assigned to what had once been called “strike-anywhere matches” back on Old Terra.

“Well, basically what we’ve come up with, Sir, is a tube-we’re using the same sort of quills we’ve been using with the artillery flintlocks at the moment, although I think it’s going to be better to come up with a metallic tube in the long run; probably made out of copper or tin-filled with the same compound we use in one of Shan-wei’s candles. It’s sealed with wax at both ends, and we insert a serrated wire into it lengthwise. When the wire is snatched out, friction ignites the compound in the tube, and that ignites the main charge in the gun. As far as we can tell, it’s as reliable as the fulminating fuses even in heavy weather, as long as the wax seals are intact before the wire’s pulled. It’s less corrosive, as well, and it lets us dispense with hammer lock mechanisms, completely. For that matter, we could easily go directly to it on existing guns which are already designed to take the quills we’re using with the flintlocks.”