Intensive Nautical Training School
Our crews tend to be a little substandard due to poor education or some such. In order to correct that, we will be revamping the naval training course. After basic training as it presently happens, we'll be putting seamen trainees into a new, more hands-on and interesting run of training programs:
First up, are the training drydocks. These won't be normal repair drydocks, instead just being a controlled area that can be flooded or drained as necessary with the ability to set a ship in it, generally a hulk or decommissioned vessel. These are used for training damage control---holes can be knocked in the hull while the vessel is in the drydock, such that if a damage-control team fails the dock can be emptied without risk of actually losing the ship or its crew, since it's very easy to evacuate a handful of small teams if the only water intake is due to a handful of small leaks---or to just access and seal the leaks from outside the ship instead. Some drills are run with the entire crew on these ships, testing their ability to respond quickly and appropriately to reports of damage in their sector or other sectors, or abandon ship in a controlled and rapid fashion.
Next is the firing range, a dock where another decommissioned ship is found at-anchor, equipped with modern weapons of various calibers. This dock is placed such that it can fire broadsides on targets towed around the nearby ocean by a monitor-style heavily armored but unarmed tug adapted from our outdated ironclad vessels (I'm presuming we have had monitors of some description in the recent past, as they are basically the gold standard for "we want a navy but don't want/don't need/can't build an oceangoing navy"). A long chain is used for towing to keep the monitor away from likely impact points, and the shells are practice ammunition without explosives, detonators, or heavy armor-piercing caps, which burst into a spray of paint or dye on impact. This dock can also be used for engine training---engine crews can work on this ship to learn how to run the engines and propellers, as the ships we expect to use are still seaworthy even if too outdated to fight.
In this way, the crews can be trained for almost everything that they might face at sea, using otherwise nearly worthless vessels and providing a good way to dispose of our most outdated ships --- some can be used as targets, a couple as armored tugs, and more recent vessels to be used as a training platforms for new crews. Crews will thus be shipped out to sea already prepared for basic operations, and thus will take a reduced time to train up to advanced operations of their ships.
Second, the proving grounds. New ships will have a crew that has gone through the training schools, but needs training on a moving platform in rough weather, performing damage control, repairs, and gunnery practice against a moving target on a moving vessel. Luckily, new ships *also* need this time at sea near a friendly port in order to locate any problems with the ship and iron out those issues before going into combat, as well as giving time for engineers to finish the work on the vessel so it's truly combat-ready. Final training is thus intended to take place during shakedown cruises.
To make it extra obvious, this is meant as a training system for new members of the navy. The sort of people that fill a new ship's crew and fall under the direction of transferred or promoted experienced seamen from other crews and whatnot.
Effectiveness: 1 | Cost: 3 | Bugs: 2
The Intensive Nautical Training School is...well a bit too intensive, at least in the way it was implemented. Now, while it was being created there was some arguments by some politicians who want to meddle in the affairs of the navy, as well as a few admirals, that the INTS is needless as just putting the crew on a normal ship and having them working up there is good enough. Then, we actually told them what INTS could do and what the program was like in detail so they'd get off our back and let us do our work.
This was a mistake.
While the admirals accepted this, especially with the knowledge that the crews would have better damage control training, the politicians didn't. They proceeded to meddle further with our affairs and decided to make INTS from a good simulated training exercise for different people at different times and locations into what could best be described as the closest thing to combat without it being a war game while also being the furthest from reason in some cases, like the mess staff cooking while everyone else is doing their thing. The gunnery, damage control, and every other position in current edition have been forced to do their training at the same time as everyone else. And obviously, this causes major problems should the damage control teams fail and makes it difficult for instructors to actually calmly instruct the crew while everything else is simultaneously running at the same time.
Of course, we didn't like that and wanted to fix that, but thanks to these meddling politicians, they threatened to cut funding. Naturally, this was an empty threat especially with our nation requiring a grand navy, but their condemnation is likely more damning than their threats. Luckily, there is a way out of this, and that's simply get respected politicians on our side to tell these morons not to meddle in affairs they don't know about, and luckily an ex admiral in a governor position has our side, we might need to do a little more before we can make changes without political shenanigans getting in our way.
On the bright side, its likely to not be too costly, just a bit more than if the old ships we are using were working up or just running, as the repairs need to be done are fairly minor, unless something goes particularly wrong. Additionally, we have a request from the monitor crew's to armor them up a bit more as a few stray shells have been found to be able to punch through the armor, likely due to the fact we are using really old ships as the tugs. Though its not as major as the politicians, who know about as much as the navy as a hermit who never got an education and lived their entire live in the middle of the alps does, getting in the way.
It is now the Design Phase of Pre game Turn 2. You have 6 dice remaining to spend on Revisions or Save for the next turn.
Naval
Early 2/3/4/5/6/7/9/10/12 inch guns
Triple-expansion engines.
Steel hull construction.
Single Casemates.
Single and Double gun turrets.
Basic Steel making techniques.
Basic Damage control techniques.
Marines
Defensive guns (Uses same calibers as naval guns)
Rosemary 85 Rifle (Basic Bolt Action Rifle)
Holly 8 (Basic Revolver)
Nemorland Naval Academy's School of Nautical Engineering (Costs 7 PP Per turn to keep running)
Intensive Nautical Training School (Costs 5 PP per turn to keep running)
4,000 Displacement Dry docks.
Author
Topic: Refit and Repair, Nemorland, Spring, 1890, Production & Deployment Phase. (Read 22321 times)