Warships...

Darth Angelus

Darth Angelus

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Hello, folks!

In my WiP, I have intended to have a section with a naval battle.
To give a rough idea of the era, at the point in the story when this would be, my fictional world would be in a stage of technological development comparable to the middle of the 19th century on Earth. This is not set in stone, as different worlds might have somewhat different rates of technological progress in different areas, but at least it is a rough guideline.

Googling on "19th century warships" I have gotten a variety of results, including the Wikipedia article on warships, but I am not entirely sure it will give me the information I need.
The Wikipedia article is not detailed enough, for sure. Still, it seems it would be "the age of sail" or "steel, steam and shellfire", as those topics are described in the article, that I should be aiming for.

Basically, I would want a decent overview of naval warfare in those eras, at least enough to give a reasonably credible fictional description of what those ships would have been capable of and how such a battle would be for the people involved, even though there will be a fictional twist to it.

Any idea where I should start my research?

Thanks in advance!
 
Have a look at HMS Warrior (1860) which (briefly) made everything else obsolete. As far as I remember from my own research into a slightly later period, the mid-19thC was a period of rapid technological change but almost no naval engagements. It was largely an arms race between Britain and France.

Also look up Spar Torpedoes, which I think were a serious danger to warships; it was this threat that Torpedo Boat Destroyers were eventually designed to combat, leading to the destroyers of today.

(BTW, although steam-powered warships of the time had masts, I read they were mostly for show, because naval traditionalists couldn't bear to leave the romance of sail behind.)
 
The mid-19th century is a particularly interesting period for warship fans, as there was that transition from sail and broadsides, to steel, steam and turret guns, in quite a short period. I've visited "Warrior" at Portsmouth, and also a beautiful ship at Chatham dockyard whose name I can't recall right now.
Writing a battle for 'transition' warships could be fun, as so far as I recall, few of them ever fired a shot in anger. For the British navy in particular, it was a long period of peace, in which shiny brass became more important than gunnery skills.
 
Yes, the battle of Trafalgar was such an overwhelming victory for the RN that a long period of stagnation in warship evolution set in - it wasn't until Jackie Fisher (one of my all-time personal heroes) started the all-big-gun-ship revolution in the Edwardian era that development really got kick-started. But I really love the pre-dreadnoughts, and some of the most fantastical designs in battleships date from that time.

French Battleship Le Masséna (1898)

[URL=http://s460.photobucket.com/user/pyanfaruk/media/fr_massena_top-1.jpg.html][/URL]

French Cruiser Dupuy de Lôme(1888)

[URL=http://s460.photobucket.com/user/pyanfaruk/media/fr_dupuy_anchored_sepia.jpg.html][/URL]

Cosmic Geoff said:
...and also a beautiful ship at Chatham dockyard whose name I can't recall right now.
Click to expand...

HMS Gannet?
 
Please please please, don't even start writing this until you have read some CS Forrester. You can't do a naval battle any justice from a wiki page, and pretty much any of the Hornblower series will give you everything you need.

His book, Sink the Bismark is another great source you should use.

If you try and do this after doing a few googles, it will be really obvious to so many people. I see it all the time in SciFi and it really annoys me...

Happy to help fill in any gaps if you need to know more, I am an absolute naval warfare nut and live a couple of miles away from Portsmouth Historic Dockyard :) (as does Pyan! We should meet up!)

Luke
 
Lat297 said:
Please please please, don't even start writing this until you have read some CS Forrester. You can't do a naval battle any justice from a wiki page, and pretty much any of the Hornblower series will give you everything you need.

His book, Sink the Bismark is another great source you should use.

If you try and do this after doing a few googles, it will be really obvious to so many people. I see it all the time in SciFi and it really annoys me...

Happy to help fill in any gaps if you need to know more, I am an absolute naval warfare nut and live a couple of miles away from Portsmouth Historic Dockyard :) (as does Pyan! We should meet up!)

Luke
Click to expand...
No, I assure you, I take my WiP too seriously to do sloppy research. If I feel unable to attain satisfactory understanding to do it properly, I will not do it. It is not a very cruicial part of my story, and can be skipped.

And thanks for the information!
 
I wish I'd seen this earlier!

There is a series on (I think it is H2) at the moment called 'The Ships that made Britain' and the episode earlier this week was all about these types of craft.

In my WIP I use a ship based on Brunel's Great Eastern, and one thing that jumped out was that the sails could not be used in conjunction with the steam paddles as they would catch fire! There were lots of other interesting facts about it such as it didn't need staged refuelling, etc, so if your ships have to travel far distance, this could be a beneficial point you might bring up.

pH
 
Of course, the O'Brian fans will huff and say Forrester was sloppy. And ... fight!

Here's a tangential recommendation: Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea. Can be had electronically for free. It's not a novel, it's a compilation of articles he wrote. It's early 20thc, but his heart was with the sailing vessels. His descriptions of docking along the Thames, explanation of raising anchor, of how sailors lived, are vivid. You won't learn much about naval tactics, but you'll gain some color you won't get from the technical books.

He'll also cause you to despair of ever being able to write genuinely great prose, but that's another thread, isn't it?
 
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