First Martian War: Thunder's Child class Ironclad Ram

[Liam's Ghost]

  The lead ship of the Royal Navy's latest generation of ironclads, the Thunder's Child was anchored in the Tamis when the invasion began, and with her boilers already lit, was able to raise steam pressure and get underway quickly as Goblin forces rampaged through the city and began moving against the royal docks. Moving as close to the shore as she dared, the Thunder's Child joined a squadron of sail powered ships in providing heavy gunfire support to beleaguered forces along the riverfront and covering the evacuation south across Lundein Bridge until two of the goblins' terrible war machines set upon her. These adamantine encased constructs seemed to be immune to the Thunder's Child's broadside batteries, and she struggled to bring the heavier 360 pounder rifles mounted forward to bear, but at the same time, the goblin war machines struggled to fight back, forced to wade into the shallows along the river's edge. The Thunder's Child's sail powered compatriots, lacking the heavy guns necessary to engage the Goblin Tripods and subject to wind and tide, were forced to withdraw down river after suffering heavy damage, and the Thunder's Child alone was hard pressed to defend Lundein Bridge and fend off the enemy's Tripods.
  The Thunder's Child's captain saw his chance to swing the battle in their favor when one of the Goblin constructs stumbled into deeper water, leaving itself almost completely submerged. On the captain's order' the Thunder's Child's rudder was thrown over to starboard and the ship's boilers were pushed to their limit as the ironclad accelerated towards the stricken tripod. While blasts from the second Tripod's heat rays punched through the Thunder's Child's armor deep into the bowls of the ship, the Goblins failed to prevent the ironclad from successfully ramming their struggling compatriot. What the guns of the Royal navy's finest ironclad had failed to accomplish after half an hour of fire, shear mass achieved instead, and the Goblin tripod was destroyed in the collision, though not before a catastrophic boiler explosion ripped through the Thunder's Child's hull. The ironclad would quickly roll onto her side and come to rest in the shallows almost on top of her victim.
  Though the battle of Lundein Bridge was ultimately a defeat for the United Kingdom, which forced Royal Artillery batteries on the south bank of the Tamis to destroy the bridge to prevent the Goblin hordes from crossing, the destruction of one of the seemingly indestructible Martian war machines boosted the spirits of Britannia's defenders, and the name Thunder's Child was a rallying cry for the entire kingdom as the conflict continued.

Thunder's Child class Ironclad Ram
Type: Large Naval Support
Mass: 8500 tons (template C)
Equipment Slots: 120
Structure (tech A, armored): 3468 tons
Engine (tech A, steam): 2448 tons   
Movement: 2/3
Fuel(2000 kilometer range): 1469 tons
Armor(tech A, Bar 3): 31 tons,  514 points
  fwd: 114/35
  fwd sides: 100/35
  aft sides: 70/35
  aft: 60/35
Minimum Crew: 79 crew, 13 officers
Full Complement: 199 crew, 33 officers

Equipment:
2 Field Kitchens, 6 tons
Quarters for 20 additional officers, 100 tons
Bunk Space for 120 additional crew, 12 tons
40 maritime lifeboats, 40 tons
Cargo Hold: 575 tons

Weapons:
3 Heavy Rifles (2 fwd, 1 aft) 24 tons, 9 slots
150 rounds of ammunition, 25 tons
40 light rifles (10 fl/fr/al/ar) 120 tons, 40 slots
3600 rounds of ammunition, 200 tons

[Liam's Ghost]

So this ship is loosely inspired by the concept devised by the youtuber Drachinifel, but it has been adjusted to fit the support vehicle rules and the quirks of my own First Martian War setting.

The short form is that the First Martian War is a DnD style alternate Earth (alternate solar system really), at a point in its history where the first industrial war and the first interplanetary war have kicked off at the same time.

Also goblins are from mars (high elves are from venus) and have battlemechs.

Also I chose the name based on a conceit of the setting, but I kinda hate how awkward Thunder's Child sounds.

[Giovanni Blasini]

I think the weight for one of the heavy rifle cannons got omitted.  Setting that aside, I like it, though I feel like the two forward guns should be bigger than her aft, based on the descriptions.  So, something like Thumpers for the 12” gun turret would work, IMO - that’s what I used for the main guns on my conversion of the Mikasa, which should be in this section somewhere.

But, yeah, either way, this was a fun one to read this morning.

[Liam's Ghost]

Thumpers probably would be a more faithful adaptation, but for the purposes of the setting artillery is something I'm staying away from so far. They haven't yet figured out such long range weapons.

And yeah, the weight for the third heavy rifle was something I forgot to add. I think I was originally going to mount a medium rifle aft and changed my mind, but forgot to account for a third heavy? I'll fix it.

[truetanker]

What about some Victorian Armored Blimps?

Or a Carrier version of Thunder's Child?

Also, Thunderchilde is a name...

TT

[Wrangler]

Would it be possible to have type of naval rounds for the artillery? I really think naval ammunition is different how field artillery guns work, especially the former has more sophisticate fire control vs someone spotting in the field many kilometers/miles from guns.

[Giovanni Blasini]

An Ironclad like this though really doesn’t have sophisticated fire control.

Case in point: even by 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War, engagement ranges were only up to 5.5 km, despite the guns being able to fire farther: fire control was just that primitive, and hit rate was atrocious by even WW1 standards.  The earlier 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War saw engagement ranges from even shorter, at 1.5 km, or around 50 hexes.

In retrospect, @Liam’s_Ghost pretty much had the right of it with using heavy rifles.

[Liam's Ghost]

Snubtillery would potentially be on the table though.

(of course in this setting they aren't quite to snubtillery yet, at least not the high explosive shells in snubtillery).

What about some Victorian Armored Blimps?

I have to say there would almost definitely be victorian armored blimps.

Also, Thunderchilde is a name...

So here's the reasoning behind the name. Nobody actually speaks modern English.

The "court language" of the realm is a strange hybrid of old Cornish and a Frankish dialect of Latin (similar to French?) with loan words mixed in from the various other Brittonic and pre-roman Gaulish dialects within their territory. The only people who are expected to actually learn the Court Language are high nobles. Everybody else speaks their own native language based on the region they grew up in. When they interact with people from other regions, they rely on magic (towns have a meeting stone which magically translates the speech of people in its vicinity, and there is a small portable magic item that does the same).

But magic only translates the literal meaning of a language. So Thunder's Child was originally named in the Court Language as all royal warships are, but for most people, it's just known by the literal translation of Thunder's Child or Child of Thunder, when the actual meaning behind it is a poetic reference to the Angleland deity Thunor (Thor).

(and it has to be a poetic reference rather than directly naming it for the deity, because that would possibly give said deity direct power over the ship bearing his name, and may anger him due to the presumption)

[Daryk]

Artillery Cannons are totally a way to go here!