He closed his eyes, feeling a monumental headache coming on. “Explain this to me,” he sighed, rubbing his closed eyes.
“First, we have to settle within the navy the question of emphasis. Do we go for the larger ships to match the battleships of the Kazan, or do we build aerosteamer carriers? The first path will take at least eighteen months to launch the first vessel. We had rough designs and calculations worked out. The Suzdal yard could be converted to handle two of them within six months, and two more within a year. I’m proposing as well the expansion of the yards at Roum and Cartha. That should lower the political heat a bit.”
He nodded.
“If the aerosteamer scheme actually works, and the war nevertheless continues, remember the old formula, that for every offensive maneuver a defense will be found. If they have both the heavy ships and aerosteamer carriers a year from now, we are trumped. I’d suggest both.”
“What I figured you’d say.”
“Then to the second point. The controlling of fire.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cromwell said something that stuck with me. I asked Petronius and even he agrees. Our guns can fire to over fifteen thousand yards. On rock-solid land they could expect to hit a stationary target the size of a Kazan battleship at that range. But put those guns on a ship, even one sailing in a dead calm, and all bets are off. Right now we’re lucky to hit at a mile, and Cromwell estimated they were hitting at three thousand yards. If we could figure out a way to control the firing out to maximum range, we would have them.”
He could sense the edge of excitement in her voice. “Go on.”
“Working with several of my naval gunnery team, I’ve come up with several basic problems that have to be solved.
“First there is range finding. That is simple enough and might explain those pagodalike towers Cromwell said are on their battleships. If you knew precisely, to the inch, the distance between those two towers you would have a base line.” As she spoke she traced out a triangle on a sheet of paper.
“Once you have the baseline, you measure the relative angle to the target from the top of the two towers. You know the width of the baseline, you know the angles. Combine that knowledge and you can figure the range.”
“So then you shoot. That sounds easy enough.”
Several of the men and women sitting around Varinnia chuckled softly. “That’s the easy part. We need to coordinate all the guns together, then rig them to a single trigger. I’m thinking of some sort of liquid mercury switch. You have to fire when the ship is level in its pitch and roll, because the mercury inside the tube completes the electrical circuit only when it is precisely level, and then the guns fire.”
“I suspect there’s more,” Andrew announced.
She smiled crookedly. “We’ve just started. The farther away we are from the target, the longer the shell takes to get there. At ten thousand yards it’s over twenty seconds. In that time, the target could move a couple of hundred yards. Add into that the relative angle of travel of the target in relationship to you. What we need to be able to then do is calculate where the target will be, not where it is at, when the shells land. There are some other factors as well, wind speed, for example, and then finally our own motion and angle of direction in relationship to the target. If two ships are running parallel to each other, it isn’t all that bad, but both will be maneuvering, turning, and thus relative angles and distances will change second by second. We’re calling it the rate of change, and that component makes it very difficult to predict. All of that has to be calculated within seconds, then recalculated again, and yet again, while at the same time observers are calling down the splashes and correcting the range.
“You want to build a machine to do this, don’t you?”
“Sir, it is the only way. I doubt if I could explain this to most of the senators on the appropriations committee- they’ll have to trust me, or you, on it-but I can tell you it might take years and it will cost money, lots of money. But if we can figure this thing out, if we can shoot at ten thousand yards and they can’t, we have them. Also, there’s an advantage to hitting at greater ranges.”
“And that is?”
“Plunging fire,” Theodor interjected. “Ships have always had their heaviest armor on their sides. But when you start hitting them out at ten thousand yards the guns are at maximum elevation. That means the shell travels a couple of miles high, pitches over, then comes screaming straight down, through the more vulnerable top part of the deck.”
“What about just making old-fashioned monitors? They’re low to the water, and difficult to hit.” But even as he asked the question, he could see the heads shaking.
“That might work here on the Inland Sea, but this is the Great Southern Ocean. Even on a good day you’ve got six-foot seas. Any kind of blow, and it’s suddenly twenty-five-foot seas. No monitor can survive that.”
“All right then,” he sighed, “what else?”
“Improved shells, harder tipped for penetration. We’ve been talking about researching this new type of explosive refined from boiled cotton. It’d make our guns a lot more powerful, and the bursting charge in shells would be devastating.
“There’s a lot more. Our experiments in making laminated armor, both for ships and the newer class of land ironclads, recoil absorbers for artillery, new rations that are packed in cans, it’s all there.”
“You’ve dredged up everything you could think of over the last five years, haven’t you?”
“And a few new ones besides.”
“Varinnia, I almost think you are enjoying this.” Though her burned features were a mask, he could see a flash of anger and instantly regretted his foolish statement.
‘ “I want this country to survive. Last time around it was men my husband’s age who were doing the fighting. Now we have boys. It’s far harder now watching them go out.”
“I know,” Andrew sighed.
“We’ve got to get to work, Mr. President. Theodor is sailing with the Shiloh. I want to check some last-minute details. Will I see you down at the naval yard later?”
“I’ll try to make it. I’ve got meetings with congress all afternoon, but I’ll try.”
As the group stood, the door to the office opened. Andrew looked up, annoyed, wondering who would be barging in. Kathleen stood in the doorway, features pale, a piece of paper in her hand.
She saw who was there, but couldn’t contain herself. “One of the telegraphers from the War Office brought this over,” she announced, her voice tight, struggling for control.
Andrew took the sheet of flimsy paper, slowly read it, read it again, then stuffed it into his pocket.
“What is it?” Varinnia asked.
“Our son’s regiment,” Andrew whispered. “Half of the regiment was surrounded yesterday. Last report indicates they were wiped out. Abe was with them.”
“A lovely sight, my emperor.”
Emperor Yasim nodded in agreement. He looked over at Hazin, who had come up to the railing, and like him was leaning over, hands clasped. The two of them were alone on the imperial bridge, the rest of the watch respectfully having withdrawn to the starboard side. Hazin had transferred over to the emperor’s flagship the day before, and the emperor was obviously nervous about him being aboard his own ship.
The fleet of the Red Banner seemed to fill the ocean.
Looking astern, Yasim could see the other seven battleships following in the wake of their flagship, each one perfectly positioned a quarter league astern of the next. Flanking outward, encircling the battleships, were the dozens of cruisers and frigates.