Worldbuilding Military Q&A

[Orc Knight]

Question 10: What type(s) of ships is (are) used for naval warfare in your world?

Given naval warfare isn't one of my better points, I'm not sure what I can give you on this. I just call them warships and the like. But there's subs and even full steel battleships. And naval warfare isn't even limited to ships as is. But, it happens, I just don't know all the technical stuff for them.

 

[Insolent Lad]

Question 10: What type(s) of ships is (are) used for naval warfare in your world?

In my most recently finished novel, the naval battles are between the large dugout outrigger canoes (some up to seventy or eighty foot long, and some double-hulled) of the Mora versus the boxy boats of the Kohari, made of kuru (breadfruit) wood planks 'sewed' together with palm fiber and calked. These are rarely even half the size of the largest Mora canoes and clumsier in terms of hulls and sails. They are definitely slower moving in a straight (or nearly straight) line but their size and flat bottoms give them some advantages in maneuverability. Also, higher sides provide more protection when arrows are exchanged. But nothing can protect them when a big dugout plows into one.

 

[Aldarion]

In my most recently finished novel, the naval battles are between the large dugout outrigger canoes (some up to seventy or eighty foot long, and some double-hulled) of the Mora versus the boxy boats of the Kohari, made of kuru (breadfruit) wood planks 'sewed' together with palm fiber and calked. These are rarely even half the size of the largest Mora canoes and clumsier in terms of hulls and sails. They are definitely slower moving in a straight (or nearly straight) line but their size and flat bottoms give them some advantages in maneuverability. Also, higher sides provide more protection when arrows are exchanged. But nothing can protect them when a big dugout plows into one.

So basically prehistorical naval battles? Sounds interesting.

 

[Miles Lacey]

Question 10: What type(s) of ships is (are) used for naval warfare in your world?

Because of the restrictions of the Treaty of Chur'Bro signed in 7424 that ended the Great War the Tarakan Imperial navy cannot operate outside of its territorial waters and the ban on conscription means that the Imperial government needs to have a navy whose vessels can operate with relatively few personnel.

The preference of the navy is for fast ocean going vessels that can carry soldiers and their equipment so there is a preference for amphibious warfare vessels, frigates, destroyers and patrol boats (which include armoured riverboats). Submarines similar to German U-Boats have been developed but there's not a lot of them at the moment because the Empire is in the midst of an economic depression.

One of the more unusual types of vessels used by the navy is a naga hunter. Naga hunters are similar to whaling ships but they have to be heavily armoured because nagas (sea serpents) can wrap their tentacles around small to medium sized vessels and crush them. Their engines are very powerful because they have to be able to break out of the clutches of a naga's tentacles.

 

[Pemry Janes]

Question 10: What type(s) of ships is (are) used for naval warfare in your world?

A mixture of longships and galleys, depending on the nation involved. Nobody really braves the open ocean for long on account of the territorial creatures related to dragons that call those waters home.

So war at sea, if it happens, is mostly boarding actions.

 

[Insolent Lad]

So basically prehistorical naval battles? Sounds interesting.

Yes, essentially Polynesians and Proto-Malays at a neolithic level of technology. Of course, the differences in the vessels didn't matter so much when the Kohari called up a sea-serpent to help them.