RRC News 1913

[Logi]

February 6, 1913
On the 3rd floor of a newly renovated building in Macau. The sign out front reads "Main Executive Branch".

A aged old man, with his lack side crippled due to war sit alone in his office. A younger, informal man enters through the door.

"Jiang, you need to hear this!" the younger man excalims without a moments hesitation.

"Yun, I told you to address me as the President Jiang Zhiqing." the aged man replied as if it was a everday occurance, "What's so important that I have to hear?"

Yun Ming: "The war's over, the Imperials decided to leave us alone. We signed a ceasefire agreement yesterday."

Jiang Zhiqing: "That's great but must I remind you? The hardest part comes next..."

Yun Ming: "Rebuilding... Hong Kong was razed, we should start with that."

Jiang Zhiqing: "Acknowledged. We also need to start rebuilding our docks. Unlike the Imperials, we rely on sea trade. Now we just need to convince the Sifa Duan"

Yun Ming: "Leave convincing those old farts to me, anything else you need?"

Jiang Zhiqing: "Ah yes, is the Daimaekma completed yet? We need assurance of our security and orders."

Yun Ming: "Unfortunaely, not yet. It is only halfway done. We don't exactly have a lot of code makers."

Jiang Zhiqing: "That will be all, you may leave."

Yun Ming exited the room, leaving Jiang Zhiqing to gather his thoughts.

[Logi]

June 15, 1913
At the Hong Kong shore, a celebration was hosted, the rebuilding of Hong Kong was under way. There was no shortage of people wanting to move back to their birthplace, in just a few weeks, ~1 million people settled in. The newly opened ports of Central Hong Kong and Aberdeen Harbour were sites of celebration. No reformist citizen could be prouder. After the celebrations ended, the Hong Kong people returned to their normal lives.

Elsewhere....
Somewhere along the coast of Shantou, Yun Ming was relaxing, fishing at the empty dock. Yun Ming turned around as he heardheavy footsteps coming towards him. A messanger took a moment to catch his breath before delivering the message.

"The President requested for your presence immediately."

Yun Ming sighed, he really needed longer vacations. It was harder enough to find a place where he could relax without having people trying to find him every minute. This had better be good.

[Logi]

June 20, 1913

At 6:30 am....

President Jiang Zhiqing paced around his office, glancing at his watch. Yun. A moment later, Yun walked in breathelessly,

Yun Ming: "What's so urgent that you needed to see me immediately?"

Jiang Zhiqing: "Here read this."

Jiang handed over a crumpled letter to Yun. Unfolding and reading it, Yun was suprised at the contents.

Yun Ming: "So he's alive?"

Jiang Zhiqing: "Yes, we are currently sending his some aid to get him out of there."

Yun Ming: "Damn.... He has the worst luck ever, getting lost at sea and being found in Beijing. We got to get him back fast or who knows what they could do to him if he's found out."

Jiang Zhiqing: "So you understand. I want you to go to Shanghai, and embark on Zongqi. He will meet with your ship at 200nm SE of Qingdao on a merchant ship. I trust you won't lose your way."

Yun Ming: "Roger that, I'll go immediately."

Jiang Zhiqing: "Best of luck to you."

[Logi]

July 30, 1913
After meeting and exchanging passengers under the cover of darkness, the Reformist merchant ship went back to port. Safetly under the protection of the ship Yongqi, the two men converse.

Yun Ming: "What happened to you?"

Gen Zin Wa: "I was aboard one of the vessels sunken by the Imperials. Luckily, we were close to shore and I got there. Unfortunately, I was in Imperial terriotory so I sneaked into the city and acted as a citizen. I couldn't inform you of this because of the ongoing war. I had to wait a while after the war so that my cover wouldn't be blown. But, it all doesn't matter now, I'm warm and safe next to my idiot friend."

Yun: "And the idiot saved your ass. How about a word of thanks?"

They spent the remainder of the night conversing...
Looking up at the night sky, Yun happens to mention a unsual idea to Gen.

Yun: "You know what would be a nice addition to the fleet? A couple of carriers."

Gen: "What do you mean?"

Yun: "Well, you know how ships have to have visuals to target a ship accurately? I was thinknig how we could extend that range so we could hit targets with deadly accuracy even from far distances out of our sight. Well I thought of airplanes, they are relatively small and hard to detect, they could make pretty good scouts. Those airplanes need to have an airfield to fly off of, so I was thinking of building carriers, floating ships with airfields as their top."

Gen: "But you forget the size of an airfield. To big such huge ships for just scouting would be a massive waste of materials. Its a good idea, but you miss on some points. In order for such a thing to be pratical, the planes must be able to takeoff a much shorter distance and for the planes to be able to do more than scouting. Maybe in the future when airplanes are improved, but carriers will never dominate this decade."

Yun: "....You make good points. I guess we should start with experimental carriers, see how far it goes."

Gen: "Good luck getting them Republicans to agree with it. You'll be lucky to even get to present your idea."

Yun and Gen retired to their respective beds after concluding their conversation.

[Tanthalas]

Question how would they even know what a carrier is? The only one that curently exist is the Italian one (im doubting either has seen it) and its usefullness is Questionable at best (seriously I viewd it as an Experimental ship at best hence its carying 8" guns).  At this point honestly Aircraft arnt realy all that suited to offencive operations, especialy against defended targets (read ships). 

As for spoting for surface combatants both in OTL and the Nverse the tech just isnt there, Comunication is a HUGE issue (I have already buged the mods about this multiple times) OTL the first air to ground comunications with a wireless set didn't happen till 1917.  While im a Huge fan of Naval Airpower (us ground pounders mostly are) we just arnt to the point that we should even be considering it yet (and likley wont be for several more years).  Now these are just my opinions, but for now the Battleship is the master of the waves, why invest a large amount of Capital in a ship of Marginal (if any) use?

GAH that sounds like me being a noncontriversial Player... (seriously im usualy for this kind of stuff but well there are just to many problems with carriers atm)

[Kaiser Kirk]

/quote]

Generally in agreement.

Once, long long ago, in the waning days of the last century,
"
I read a book on the SMS Konigsberg and her guns. What I recall is that the British crammed a wireless into the spotter plane they had.
An abortive poking about on the web did not yield confirmation, best I could find is a reiteration that they used a spotter plane to aid gunfire, bu that was July 6, 1915.
This site at least mentions the wireless : http://www.xomba.com/the_rafiji_air_force_vrs_the_konigsberg

An hour later the Caudron, manned by Watkins and Lieutenant
A.G. Bishop, came up to direct a last half hour of fire onto the Konigsberg. Watkins and his observer could tell the German ship was finished. Her middle funnel had been blown away and her aft was enveloped in flames. The Mersey, accepting direction from the Caudron began scoring direct hits with her third salvo. After twenty-five more the Konigsberg was burning from stem to stern; a total wreck."

[Tanthalas]

/quote]

Generally in agreement.

Once, long long ago, in the waning days of the last century,
"
I read a book on the SMS Konigsberg and her guns. What I recall is that the British crammed a wireless into the spotter plane they had.
An abortive poking about on the web did not yield confirmation, best I could find is a reiteration that they used a spotter plane to aid gunfire, bu that was July 6, 1915.
This site at least mentions the wireless : http://www.xomba.com/the_rafiji_air_force_vrs_the_konigsberg

An hour later the Caudron, manned by Watkins and Lieutenant
A.G. Bishop, came up to direct a last half hour of fire onto the Konigsberg. Watkins and his observer could tell the German ship was finished. Her middle funnel had been blown away and her aft was enveloped in flames. The Mersey, accepting direction from the Caudron began scoring direct hits with her third salvo. After twenty-five more the Konigsberg was burning from stem to stern; a total wreck."

http://www.corp.att.com/attlabs/reputation/timeline/17air.html this is what I was refering to kirk.  I havent seen the 1915 mention before, but I wouldnt doubt it in the slightest.

[Logi]

Question how would they even know what a carrier is? The only one that curently exist is the Italian one (im doubting either has seen it) and its usefullness is Questionable at best (seriously I viewd it as an Experimental ship at best hence its carying 8" guns).  At this point honestly Aircraft arnt realy all that suited to offencive operations, especialy against defended targets (read ships). 

They don't know what a carrier is, just a purpose of clarity I used the term. Yun is just throwing an idea out (that is similar to a carrier). Gen is dismissing it saying it would be impractical and quite honestly, a waste of cash and materials.

As for spoting for surface combatants both in OTL and the Nverse the tech just isnt there, Comunication is a HUGE issue (I have already buged the mods about this multiple times) OTL the first air to ground comunications with a wireless set didn't happen till 1917.  While im a Huge fan of Naval Airpower (us ground pounders mostly are) we just arnt to the point that we should even be considering it yet (and likley wont be for several more years).  Now these are just my opinions, but for now the Battleship is the master of the waves, why invest a large amount of Capital in a ship of Marginal (if any) use?

You just repeated in essence what Gen was saying.

GAH that sounds like me being a noncontriversial Player... (seriously im usualy for this kind of stuff but well there are just to many problems with carriers atm)

I see, I'm going clear up the dialogue by adding one more line so its easier to tell than Gen thinks Yun's idea is stupid.

[Kaiser Kirk]

That AT&T info is interesting. 
The Gen would seem to have risen by merit :)
As a futher snippet of information, I was just looking a monitors.  At least according to wiki, the Ambercrombie class, laid down Dec 1914, was designed for a seaplane gunfire spotter.
She was also a fast build, laid down Dec 12, sailed for the Dardenelles June 24 of the next year.

[P3D]

China does not have much long-range naval gunfire experience (and essentially no dreadnoughts), so they do not have any spotting difficulty that'd really necessitate the development of naval spotting planes.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Well the odd thing is both examples I furnished were gunfire spotting for monitors, not open sea combat. The first was for merely 6" guns firing upriver towards SMS Konigsberg, the other for monitors bombarding the Belgian coast. 

Since hills, trees or bluffs can make direct observation difficult at far shorter ranges, and given both the RR artillery park and the extensive river system for gunboats, one could make the case that there is certainly a use for such aircraft there.

[Borys]

She was also a fast build, laid down Dec 12, sailed for the Dardenelles June 24 of the next year.

The guns were already there, that's why she was built so fast. If you order a ship, guns included, it takes longer. A Big Gun takes months to make.
Borys

[maddox]

The twin 14"  turrets of the Ambercrombies were finished in full by the US yard Bethlehem Steel, for the never finished German build Greek Salamis.  When WWI started, it was clear that the delivery to Germany would be a politicaly less than solid idea, as that would mean the use of a blockade runner and that in turn, would pull the US in a war they didn't want to participate in.

Later the turrets were sold to the UK- I wonder how germany reacted to that?

The UK bought them, and wanted those in use as fast as possible.
The rushed design to float these turrets made second choise ships, but these did the job.

Another reason -outside the wish for rapid deployment- the UK didn't build a BB or BC with these turrets was the totaly different caliber. The UK made the jump from 13.5 to 15" for their capital ships.

[Borys]

Yes and no about calibre - British industry manufactured 14" for foreign buyers - Russia and Chile.
I suppose it was more a case of having only 8 such (atypical) barrels.
Also, the RN had enough battleships.
Borys

[The Rock Doctor]

With respect to Hong Kong (and Shanghai):  These cities were utterly destroyed about a decade ago and not subsequently rebuilt to any large degree while under MK jurisdiction.  While there's no reason Reformist China can't rebuild them, it should be a more gradual process than adding a million people in a few weeks.  That's just a big tent city - with enormous challenges of creating infrastructure, importing supplies, and exporting waste.

Specific issues of content aside, I think you're off to a good start with your news postings and look forward to more.