A Mighty Fortress (93 page)

“Dr. Mahklyn”— Rock Point glanced at the head of the Royal College, who’d accompanied him to Helen Island—“has been keeping us up- to- date on his own evaluation of your work, as well. Of course, he’s been more interested in placing what you’re accomplishing in context with everything else than in individual, specific ideas, but in some ways, that’s been even more useful.”

This time Seamount only nodded, and Rock Point smiled and turned his attention to Mahndrayn.

“I was particularly struck by your conclusions from the artillery tests, Commander. I have to say that when Commodore Seamount first described your proposals to us, I hadn’t realized just how exhaustive you intended to be.”

Which, Rock Point admitted to himself, was an understatement. He had no idea how many rounds Mahndrayn had fired off in his various tests, but he knew it had run to literally thousands of round shot and charges of grape, as well as over a hundred of the new shells Seamount was about ready to put into production. The commander’s tests had considered ballistics; differences in powder quality; the effectiveness of large, heavy shot compared to smaller, faster moving shot; the effects of humidity; better carriage designs; ways to increase rate of fire; how many shots a given gun of a given weight was good for before the barrel simply wore out or broke; how to prevent round shot from rusting; the best ways to store cartridges at sea; how far windage could be reduced before it reached a point at which fouling
reduced
rate of fire.... He’d even had life- size sections of hull built on land—sections of everything from a traditional galley to one of the Navy’s schooners to standard merchantmen to the Navy’s heaviest galleons—and then methodically blown them to bits, stopping after each discharge to examine and evaluate the damage that shot had inflicted. And instead of the straw- stuffed dummies which had been used in Seamount’s original demonstration firings, Mahndrayn had hung sides of meat from cattle and hogs inside the targets to evaluate the wounding effects of the various combinations of ammunition.

According to Merlin, no one had gotten around to conducting such exhaustive trials back on Old Earth until artillery had been in ser vice literally for centuries, and the amount of information the commander had accumulated was astounding.

“I have to admit I’d already suspected that we were overgunning,” he said now, “although it’s good to have confirmation of it.” He grimaced. “It would be even better if there were a quick fix, of course.”

“I agree, Sir.” Mahndrayn’s voice was a melodious tenor. “We actually need to give each of them about a foot more clearance on either side. As it is, we’re too crowded for the maximum rate of fire—people are getting in each other’s way. About a foot.” He grimaced. “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but—”

“Oh, I believe you!” Rock Point waved one hand. “In fact, the main reason I stuck with
Gale
as my flagship all the way through the Armageddon Reef and Darcos Sound campaigns, despite the fact that she mounted only thirty- six guns, was that her gunnery drill always seemed just a tiny bit sharper than anyone else’s. Which, as your report points out, was probably because she had almost thirteen feet of gundeck per gun, instead of ten and a half, like
Destroyer.
”

“Exactly, Sir!” Mahndrayn grinned. “She had that extra foot, but we squeezed it down in the new designs to mount the most guns we could.” His grin turned into something more like a grimace. “I suppose it would’ve been silly to assume we’d get everything right when we were making such radical changes in our armament and how we mount it.”

“Of course,” Rock Point agreed, “and Sir Dustyn’s already altered the plans for
Sword of Charis
and her sisters. It’s just unfortunate that it’s so much easier to alter the port spacing on a ship that hasn’t been built yet than to do the same thing on ships that are already in commission!” He frowned. “One point you didn’t address, though, Commander, was whether or not it would help to go to lighter guns. Would reducing the
size
of the guns have the same effect—or some of the same effect—as spacing them farther apart?”

“We did think about that, Sir,” Seamount put in. “The problem is that the
carriage
dimensions are effectively identical, unless you want to go to
much
smaller and lighter pieces. Given the difference in effectiveness of heavy shot versus light shot, it seemed better to us to continue with the slightly less than optimum rate of fire. The difference in rate is mea sur able, especially in sustained firing, but not great enough to justify going to guns which are going to inflict so much less damage with each hit actually scored.”

Rock Point nodded. He’d been fairly confident that was what they were going to say before he’d asked the question, so he moved on to the next point.

“I was also struck by your observation that a uniform armament of shell-firing guns would be much more effective than a mixed battery, firing round shot
and
shell.”

He cocked an eyebrow at Mahndrayn, inviting the commander to expand upon that point, and Mahndrayn shrugged ever so slightly.

“As our report indicates, Sir, we discovered fairly early on that the most effective combination of shot weight and velocity was that which would
just
breach the vessel’s hull. As I’m sure you’ve discovered from your own experience, it’s much harder to sink a ship outright than we’d originally hoped.” He shrugged again, a bit harder. “I suppose that was inevitable, too. After all, we didn’t have very much experience with
trying
to sink ships with artillery, since no one’s guns had been good enough to make them the primary weapon.

“Now that we’ve had an opportunity to evaluate combat reports and conduct our own experiments, it’s obvious—and should have been obvious to us
ahead
of time, if we’d bothered to really think about it—that round shot punch relatively small holes. Not only that, wood is . . . elastic. It tends to let the shot through, then tries to snap back into its initial shape. So the holes aren’t very large, which makes it relatively easy for the ship’s carpenter to plug them. Even worse, from the perspective of sinking somebody, most of the holes are above the waterline, since that’s the part of the other ship we can actually hit. We managed to sink several galleys with gunfire at Rock Point and Crag Reach, but it took the fire of up to a dozen galleons to do it, and they were Dohlaran ships. Their planking and
framing
were a lot lighter than ours or the Tarotisians, and from my own evaluations, I think what happened was that the frames themselves broke up under the pounding, which resulted in much larger hull breaches.

“But what our captains’ reports make clear is that defeating an enemy vessel depended much more on destroying its
crew
than on destroying the fabric of the ship itself.” Mahndrayn’s eyes were intent, and he leaned forward slightly, hands moving in eloquent (if unconscious) gestures. “It was casualties which rendered a ship unable to continue to fight or maneuver, more often than not, Sir. Galleons are going to be more vulnerable to damage aloft than galleys, but galleys are more vulnerable to personnel losses among their rowers, and neither of them can
fight
effectively if they lose too much of their crews.
That
was the decisive factor in almost every combat report I’ve been able to examine.

“So, instead of trying to sink the ship, it’s more effective to concentrate on using the ship’s
hull
to inflict casualties on the ship’s
crew.
” He raised both hands, palm uppermost. “Our tests indicate that a large, heavy shot, moving just fast enough to punch through the scantlings on one side of the hull but
not
fast enough to continue clear across and punch out through the other side, or simply embed itself, will produce the most casualties. It will produce the most
splinters
on its way through, and clouds of splinters, spreading outward from the shot hole, are going to produce maximum casualties. And if the ball doesn’t continue clear out of the ship or embed itself in its timbers, it will be available to ricochet around the gundeck and inflict additional direct casualties.”

Rock Point nodded slowly. A part of him couldn’t help being just a little appalled at Mahndrayn’s cold- blooded approach to the best way to inflict the maximum number of casualties—how to kill or maim the most human beings possible—per shot. At the same time, he knew that was foolish of him. The object of any commander worthy of his men had to be finding ways to kill as many of their enemies in exchange for as few of
them
as possible.

“On the basis of our tests,” Mahndrayn continued, “mounting the heaviest possible guns, taking into consideration factors such as how quickly they can be served and the effect their weight has on the ship’s structure, should provide the most effective armament. Fewer hits would be scored, but each individual hit would be far more effective.

“That’s true for round shot, but our tests also indicate it’s even more true for shell- firing guns.” The commander shook his head, his eyes intent, as if gazing at something Rock Point couldn’t see. “We haven’t had many shells to experiment with—we’re still basically manufacturing them one at a time as needed for the tests, and Master Howsmyn tells me it’s going to be several months before we could go to any sort of volume production. But even with the relative handful we’ve been able to test, the difference between a single hit from a thirty- pounder firing a solid shot and a thirty- pounder firing a
shell
is . . . profound, Sir. As I say, a round shot punches a relatively small hole in the hull; a shell, especially if it lodges in the ship’s timbers, blows a
huge
hole. By our mea sure, the holes a thirty- pounder’s solid shot produces are only about five inches in diameter. Actually, they’re a little less than that, allowing for the wood’s elasticity. The holes a shell
blows
through the same hull are up to three and even six
feet
in diameter. One of those below the waterline, or even simply between wind and water, would be almost impossible for a carpenter to patch. One or two might be survivable, if the ship could fother a sail across the hole quickly enough, but several of them would send the biggest galleon in the world to the bottom.

“In addition, shells are far more destructive to a ship’s
upper
works, as well. Not only do they tear holes in the side, they also produce more splinters in the process and destroy the ship’s structural integrity far more rapidly and effectively than round shot, as well.
And
they have a powerful incendiary effect.” The commander shook his head again. “By any standard, Admiral, a shell- firing armament is going to be enormously more destructive than one firing round shot.”

“I see.” Rock Point gazed at Mahndrayn for a moment, then walked back across to the window and gazed down upon his flagship once more. “And what about the manufacturing problems your report mentioned?”

“We’re working on those, Sir,” Seamount responded. “As Urvyn says, Master Howsmyn is making progress—in fact, he’s building an entirely new facility at his main foundry expressly to make them. We don’t want to interrupt the production of our existing, standard projectiles, and casting a
hollow
shot is going to be both more complicated and more time- consuming than casting
solid
shot. That means we won’t be able to produce shells as rapidly as round shot even when he has his new facility up and running, especially since we need to produce fuses for them, as well. Each shell for Commander Mahndrayn’s evaluation was basically special- made for him. If we’re going to produce them in adequate numbers, we need to get them up to a production rate which is at least half, let’s say, the rate for round shot, and we’re still a long way from that. As I say, Master Howsmyn’s making progress, though, and I think he’ll be able to begin large- scale production, if not at the rate we’d prefer, by, say, October. After that, it will take us several months—more likely at least a half year—to produce enough of them to replace our magazine allotments of round shot on a one- for- one basis.”

“I see,” Rock Point repeated, never taking his eyes from
Destroyer.
He tried to imagine what a deluge of explosive shells would do to his flagship and her crew. Then he decided he didn’t want to imagine that, after all.

He shook himself, glanced at Mahklyn out of the corner of one eye, and turned back to Seamount and Mahndrayn.

“Obviously, you’re authorized to proceed, Ahlfryd. And I’m sure I don’t need to remind you or any of your people about the need for absolute secrecy. Our best estimate right now is that sometime next spring or early next summer, the Group of Four’s navy will be ready—or as close to ‘ready’ as it’s ever going to be—to come after us. When that happens, we’re going to need every advantage we can get to even the odds. Including your infernal exploding shells. And we need those advantages to come as surprises to the other side.”

“Yes, Sir. Understood.” Seamount nodded soberly, and Rock Point nodded back. Then he inhaled deeply.

“Which brings us,” he said, “to your rifled artillery pieces.”

“Yes, Sir!” Seamount’s eyes brightened visibly. “Ahlfryd and Commodore Mahndrayn have accomplished some really remarkably accurate shooting, Sir Domynyk,” Rahzhyr Mahklyn put in helpfully.

“Indeed we have, Admiral!” Seamount beamed. “In fact, Urvyn and his crews, firing a rifled thirty- pounder, have been able to score hits regularly at ranges of over six thousand yards. In one test, they registered eight hits out of ten shots fired at a measured range of sixty- five hundred yards on a target the same length and height as one of our schooners!”

Rock Point nodded, and he was just as impressed as his expression indicated. One of the new- model thirty- pounder smoothbores could throw a ball six thousand yards, given enough elevation, but the probability of hitting anything as small as a ship at that range was essentially non ex is tent. And that was true even when the gun was firing from solid land, as Mahndrayn’s crew had been doing in the test- firing Seamount had just described.