"David Weber - In the Navy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

"All right, Eddie," he sighed. "I'm sure I'm going to regret this, but why is 'Captain General Gars'
going to need ironclads so badly?"
"Because he doesn't have railroads," Eddie replied. "That's why rivers and canals are so important
to his logistics, Mike. You know that."
Mike nodded slowly. Eddie was certainly right about that, although the youngster hadn't been
present for the meetings at which he and Gustavus Adolfus had discussed that very point.
"Without railroads," Eddie continued, "the only way to move really large quantities of supplies is by
water. That's why successful seventeenth-century military campaigns usually stuck so close to the lines of
navigable rivers. I know we're talking about building steamboats and steam-powered tugs for that very
reason, and that should help a lot. But the bad guys are just as well aware of how important rivers are as
Gustav Adolf is. When they figure out how much more efficiently he's going to be able to use them with
our help, they're going to start trying really hard to stop him. And the best way for them to do that is to
attack his shipping on the water, or else build forts or redoubts armed with artillery to try and close off
the critical rivers." The teenager shrugged. "Either way, seems to me that something like an ironclad
would be the best way to . . . convince them to stay as far away from the river bank as they can get."
The kid had a point, Mike realized. In fact, he might have an even better one than he realized. The
major cities of most of Gustavus Adolfus' so-called "vassals" and "allies" also happened to lie on
navigable rivers, and altogether too many of those vassals were among the slimiest, most treacherous
batch of so-called noblemen in history. Which meant that in a pinch, an armored vessel, heavily armed
and immune to said cities' defensive artillery might prove a powerful incentive when it came to honoring
their obligations to the Confederated Principalities of Europe and their Emperor.
None of which changed a single thing where the incredible difficulties of Eddie's proposal were
concerned.
Eddie started to say something else, then closed his mouth with an almost audible click as he
realized Mike was gazing frowningly down at the sketch.
The vessel it depicted would never be called graceful. It was an uncompromising, slab-sided, boxy
thing which sat low in the water, and its gun ports and a thick, squat funnel were its only visible external
features.
"You're right about how important river traffic is going to be," Mike admitted as he ran one blunt
fingertip across the drawing. "But this thing would be an incredible resource hog."
"I know that," Eddie acknowledged. "That's why I'm only suggesting building three of them. God
knows we could use as many as we could get, but I knew going in that there was no way you were going
to give up enough rails to armor more than that."
"No way in the world," Mike agreed with a grin which held very little humor. "Quentin would
scream bloody murder if I gave you enough rails for one of these things, much less three! And he
wouldn't be alone, either. It's going to take years and years for us to develop an iron industry that can
produce steel that good. But that part I could handle . . . if I thought we'd be able to build the damned
things in the end."
"Look," Eddie said, "I admit that a lot of that plan is based on the best guesstimates I could come
up with from my reference books. At the same time, some of those books are pretty darned good, Mike.
I spent a lot of time researching this period when Jeff and Larry decided we just had to do a Civil War
ironclads game." He chuckled. "I always was the navy specialist when it came to game design.
"But that's not important. What matters is that it's a starting point. If you can find someone else,
someone better qualified to take my notes and my reference books and turn them into something we
canbuild, I'll be delighted to turn them over. You're right. I don't have the least idea how to figure
displacements or allow for stability requirements, and I know the designers screwed up the displacement
calculations big time for a lot of the real ironclads built during the Civil War. There was one class of
monitor that would've sunk outright if they'd ever tried to mount their turrets! So maybe my enthusiasm
did run away with me. But it's more important that this gets done and that it work than that it gets done
my way."