Shipbucket

Hello again!

Now completing the battleship roster for WWI with three pre-dreadnoughts.

LT Poblacht



The newest of the three was the last battleship the Thiarians ordered abroad; like all her predecessors, she was built on a french private yard (FCM in her case). She was an upgraded variant of the contemporary french Republique class with two more 195mm guns and reduced superstructure for added stability and seaworthiness. Named LT Poblacht (Republic), she had a building period of four years (faster than the ships built for the french navy at that time, probably because the Thiarians paid more regularly and demanded fewer redesigns than the various french governments) and came but a few months too late for the 1907 war against Brazil. During the first world war, she belonged to the reserve squadron, and although she was a very advanced pre-dreadnought design, she quickly developed a reputation as a bad luck ship. She hit a friendly mine on the return from her very first sortie and had to be beached. After repairs, she was torpedoed by HMS J2 in February 1917 on her second trial run and barely made port. Shortly after re-commissioning in July 1917, she suffered from a magazine explosion under one of the 195mm turrets and sunk on an even keel. Salvage and reconstruction took till August 1918; by that time it was too late for her to have any impact upon the Thiarian war effort. She was unceremoniously scrapped in 1921.

The next two had much more active careers. They were the Thiarian Navy's mainstay and won the war of 1907 against Brazil practically all by themselves. The two units - based upon the French Suffren-class, but with a beamier hull, more secondary guns all in turrets and better horizontal protection - were ordered in 1898, one to be built on a french yard and the other - for the first time for a Thiarian capital ship - on a domestic yard, in this case the Nuatearman Naval yard. The french-built ship was delivered after four and a half years in 1903, the domestic-built ship took over seven years to build and was commissioned late in 1905. Both had much less pronounced tumblehome than contemporary french battleships and were considered much better seaboats; their outer apperance was typically french however. They were named Neamhspleachas (Independence) and Saoirse (Freedom).

LT Neamhspleachas





Neamhspleachas was fleet flagship from 1903 through 1909. She led the Thiarian fleet in both major engagements of the 1907 war against Brazil; when the Thiarians annihilated the Brazilian coastal squadron in the harbour of Naomh Seoirse (Sao Jorge da Mina at that time), Neamhspelachas destroyed the coast defence ironclad Barroso without taking any hits themselves. The battle against the Brazilian oceanic squadron two months later saw Neamhspleachas pitted against the Brazilian flagship Amazonas, whose crew managed to score five hits; Neamhspleachas answered with 11 main gun hits, plus 27 from her secondary battery, shooting Amazonas up beyond all recognition. During the first world war, she belonged to the reserve and training squadron. After the battle of Tristan da Cunha, the reserve squadron was employed to intercept british convoys; Neamhspleachas took part in the sinking of HMS Prince George in November 1916. In April 1917, Neamhspleachas escaped unscathed when HMS Warspire destroyed the Thiarian flagship Bunreacht. Afterwards, Neamhspleachas was kept in the Bauaine to guard it against possible british incursions, and was torpedoed by HMS G2 in February 1918, but could be brought in. After the war, she was declared redundand and scrapped in 1921.

LT Saoirse





Saoirse's career closely mirrored that of her older sister; both ships operated together practically all the time. During the Brazilian war of 1907, Saoirse first sunk the coast defence ironclad Tamandare and then the old battleship Riachuelo. During the first world war, she was damaged by HMS Prince George (7 hits) in November 1916, but destroyed the huge british AMC Gigantic in March 1917. Unlike her sister, she was still in prime condition in November 1918 and was retained as a gunnery training ship till 1938. She was slated for scrapping, but when Thiaria entered the second world war, she was retained for possible use, which however never materialized. After the war, she rotted in a remote bay near Coleraine till the mid-fifties; then she was towed to Carriolar harbour and refurbished as a memorial. She remains there to this day.

Wow! Great quality work! I'm loving your ships.

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Salide - Denton - The Interrealms

I am not very active on the forums anymore, but work is still being done on my AUs. Visit the Salidan Altiverse Page on the SB Wiki for more information. All current work is being done on Google Docs.
If anyone wishes for their nations to interact with the countries of the Salidan Altiverse, please send me a PM, after which we can further discuss through email.

These look really great, especially the splinter scheme on the Saorise.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Excellent drawings however your backstories don't exactly appear to meet the reality of such times. In these ships in particular you give mention of scoring many hits whilst the enemy could not land such. The reality of the times is that these ships did not have centralized Fire Control at the time and spotting fall of shot, especially at range was tough. The average hit rate for navies before centralized control was under 3% (as was the case during the Spanish-American war). Granted you did not state the battle ranges for these engagements but I'm skeptical that Thiarias gunners could have such successes in the days before optics no matter the training they receive.

The drawings however are truly excellent. I agree with hood in that the Splinter/dazzle scheme is particularly effective.

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

Fantastic work. It's becoming one of the best AU threads here.

Hello again!

I have to admit that I did not develop a minute report of the fictional battle, although it was a quite lopsided engagement pinning 3 Thiarian ships (the two mentioned plus a half-sister of the spanish Pelayo I have yet to draw) against four Brazilian ironclads (one ex HMS Renown, the other three 1870s vintage ships refurbished with 23,3cm guns), giving the Thiarians a three-knot speed advantage allowing them to close in and fire from 2.000 or 3.000 meters distance. I used the hit quote scored by the Russians at Tsushima as a reference for Thiarian gunnery: The Russians hit Mikasa 40 times (among them about a dozen 12-inch hits), Fuji 12 times, Shikishima 9 times and Asahi 6 times, and they were not exactly crack shots; most of these hits were scored early in the battle at ranges exceeding 5.000 meters.

Greetings
GD

Ah yes I do suppose pitting multiple modern vessels against older, less efficient designs count account in part for that along with the closer range. The other big contributing factor is the weather and the crews knowledge of the battle area. If its near the home waters of the enemy, the enemy will be more free to navigate as they would know of any mine positions and underwater hazards. The attacking fleet will likely not have such information available and will have to make allowances for it. Time of day also will affect the results, having the enemy backlit by a rising or setting sun potentially makes them easier targets whilst if it's a night engagement, you would need to consider use of starshells and searchlights to locate the enemy and track them, whilst also maintaining your own fleets communication and organization. At Tsushima one of the key causes for the Russian loss was the loss of the command ship early in the engagement that lead to confusion and disorganization swiftly. Even a loss of a signalling lamp or signal flags can make your chances of success slimmer.

Only real reason I mentioned it is because I have been doing a lot of research into naval engagements between 1900-1950 to use for my own AUs battle logs against the Japanese fleet in the North.

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

before the "free Norway from the union with Sweden.... time" Norwegian Navy, and specially the Tordenskjold class had firing exerciser ... I just queote the text:
how close they was to their target, and how many shoot they fired... is an good question.

It's a good AU so far and certainly going to something that I'll be watching, a quick question about your population levels though, given that Thiaria would be a free nation with already a significant Irish population at the time of the Great Famine, would there be more movement to Thiaria rather than the OTL nations, possibly enlarging your population numbers?

Something I will be paying attention to though

Hello again!

Moving back further on the timeline, this is LN Oireachtas (named after the designation for the common assembly of both houses of the Thiarian Parliament), a pre-predreadnought barbette ship obviously based upon the spanish Pelayo, but with more engine power for 18 knots of speed, +secondary guns, more extensive superstructure and two heavy military masts.



She was ordered in 1888 from the FCM yard (which built every Thiarian battleship ordered in France), launched 1890 and delivered 1892; by that time, her main armament of two 320/35 and two 275/35 guns mounted in open barbettes was quite obsolete. She nevertheless was far and away the most powerful ship in the war between Thiaria and Brazil in 1894 and should have won it all by herself, but unfortunately struck a mine when bombarding Brazilian positions on the New Portugal archipelago, lost most of her bow, almost foundered and had to be towed home. The other three Thiarian battleships - another barbette ironclad, two cruisers with a single 320mm gun each and two 1870s vintage central battery ironclads carrying only light armament - were battered by a force of five Brazilian battleships in the Battle of Sao Jorge da Mina (Naomh Seoirse in Gaelic) and roundly defeated. Before Oireachtas was repaired, the Thiarian attempt to invade New Portugal had faltered, and the war was over. Oireachtas remained fleet flagship until 1903; during the Boer war, she almost was caught by HMS Collingwood, Rodney and Camperdown, but could escape due to her superior speed of 18 knots. She took part in the 1907 war against Brazil but achieved not much. In 1910, she was placed in reserve and scrapped in 1915.