Royal Yorkshire Navy Build Thread

[James]

Well the Royal Yorkshire Navy is under construction....

• HMYS Leeds – Leeds class Heavy Cruiser (Sister ships; York, Sheffield – Total in class = 3). Airfix 1/600 County class Heavy Cruiser HMS Suffolk.


• HMYS Ripon – Ripon class Light Cruiser (Sister ships; Wakefield, Hull – Total in class = 3). Airfix 1/600 Town class Light Cruiser HMS Belfast.


• HMYS Scarborough – Castle Class Guided Missile Destroyer (Sister ships; Helmsley, Knaresborough, Richmond, Conisbrough – Total in class = 5). Airfix 1/600 County class Guided Missile Destroyer HMS Devonshire.
• HMYS Smeaton – Pioneer class Frigate (Sister ships; Johnson, Cook, Priestley, Bramah, Brearley, Bateson – Total in class = 7). Airfix 1/600 Leander class Frigate.


• HMYS Skyrack – Wapentake class Frigate (Sister ships; Anisty, Claro, Holderness, Gilling, Ewcross – Total in Class = 6 ). Airfix 1/600 Type 21 Frigate (HMS Amazon).


• HMYS Wharfedale – Dale class fast mine-laying Cruiser (Sister ships; Wensleydale, Swaledale, Coverdale – Total in Class = 4 ) Airfix 1/600 Abdiel class mine-laying Crusier (HMS Manxman)

And I'm pushing the boundaries of Patchwork World here but;

• HMYS Queen Elizabeth – Monarch class Battleship. Airfix 1/600 Queen Elizabeth-class Battleship (HMS Warspite).


• HMYS Quarry Hill – Parliament class Battleship. Airfix 1/600 Iron Duke-class Battleship (HMS Iron Duke).

I'm very unsure on the size of navies in PW, but with Yorkshires interests out at sea, the relationship with the nations of Scandinavia and its size for a PW nation, then they would need a substantial force.

Btw, here is a brief explanation of the Pioneer Class:

• John Smeaton - civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses...
• Amy Johnson – aviator...
• James Cook – first Yorkshire Captain to tour Australia...
• Joseph Priestley - physicist and chemist...
• Harry Brearley - Sheffield inventor of stainless steel...
• William Bateson - geneticist; first to use term genetics...
• Joseph Bramah - invented the hydraulic press...

As the vessels are completed, I shall put them up individually, including details on their performance and armament.  I hope you will like them! .......

[tigercat]

Looks forward to developments.

[NARSES2]

I think there may be an arms race developing between Yorkshire and the Anglian Federation ?  Now this is likely to stretch both sides finances...so want to boorow some money from the City of London, good terms ? 

Seriously I'm not sure at all about the ecconomics of all this but what the heck it's fun 

[tigercat]

Anglia has some Sugar Beet futures its willing to trade

[James]

I think there may be an arms race developing between Yorkshire and the Anglian Federation ?  Now this is likely to stretch both sides finances...so want to boorow some money from the City of London, good terms ? 

Seriously I'm not sure at all about the ecconomics of all this but what the heck it's fun 

I've got a kit of HMS Victorious, HMS Nelson, HMS Hood and Bismarck if things get a bit tasty. 

I'm worried about finances, but given the size of the Yorkshire population (6m plus 5m in the American colonies), its abundance of natural resources – coal, oil, gas, and the Norse Alliance with Scandinavia and those in the Americas with the Dutch City States, the Kingdom could afford to operate what I've suggested. 

[NARSES2]

The problem as I see it is given the nature of PW population levels wouldn't be anything like they are in the real world. I just can't see these small countries which are continually at odds with one if not all of their neighbours having a long enough period of stability and peace to get a sound manufacturing base going ? Yes they've got a defence industry but given the resources that takes there wouldn't be enough left for a large consumer goods industry.

The other problem is that the rest of the world is constituted in the same way I assume ? Therefore I can't see anybody having the consumer based manufacturing industries, they are too busy preparing to defend themselves from greedy neighbours ? Yes you will get trade in commodities, raw materials and food, but thats about it ? So without trade in consumer goods you don't generate the wealth necessary to sustain population growth. Yes you can sell arms but given the political state of PW would you really want to sell to much of your latest gear ? Population movement would be restricted on the basis that neighbour would fear neighbour ?

I just see this in an almost tribal light, as if the Ancient tribes of Europe had never been consolidated into nation states and are having to maintain themesleves on an almost constant war footing so as to put off avariscious neighbours ? There could be colonies or at least trading posts in the same way the Vikings established them but any colonies would soon achieve a level of independent action purely because they to are surrounded by neighbours who are not always friendly and the homeland just dosn't have the resources to protect them ?

I think we forget that a lot of the industrial progress made in our world came about after the formation of nation states and couldn't really have been made before that ? Now we have a situation where even most nation states cannot sustain large manufacturing industries and what we have are global trans national corporations. In PW you would never get a company large enough to benefit form ecconomies of scale.

I know small is beautiful but it has never really worked in the post industrial world, indeed given the nature of a Global PW I struggle with it having anything approaching industrialisation as we know it. I just can't get this nagging thought out of my mind that PW would never have got much beyond the 18th Century in terms of development. Sure there would have been advances but at a far,far slower pace then we actually saw.

Don't meant to be a spoilsport as I'm enjoying these threads it's just that it keeps nagging at me 

[Weaver]

Narses is absolutely right in strictly logical terms, although it's worth remembering that PW is an excuse to build cool planes with odd markings, not a strict exercise in comprehensive alt.history. On the other hand, we don't have a "real" secondary reality to test it in, so any theories about how PW would really develop are just that: theories. Actually, I suspect that a "real" PW would be utterly unrecognisable by now. Another thing going through my mind was to illustrate the profound disadvantages of this kind of separatism, following a series of depressing conversations with various Scottish and Welsh folk who were falling over themselves to get their respective territories out of the UK with no thought as to the consequences.


I think I wrote a piece on the main thread that shed some light on living standards in PW? If not, I apologise: it must still be in my head. Living standards and technology standards in PW are seriously behind the real world, and I suspect that I'm being generous there. The cutting edge of military technology is about 1970 standard, but much of it is anything up to 40 years behind that, particularly once you get away from elite and technology dependent units. Civilian technology is generally behind that again, so most people are living at a level which varies from 1930s to 1950s. In Cheshire, (a pretty good place by PW standards), most working class people don't own a car or their own house. Only about half of them own a TV. Mains gas is only available in the biggest cities and mains electricity only a certain radius from towns. Many rural villages are off the grid entirely for power and communications other than mail (they might have local generation, of course IF someone's willing and able to pay for it). Most people go to whatever school is within walking distance of home: only those who can afford it can commute to a better one. Most working class people live within walking/cycling distance of their work. Most district doctors are private, with a very limited range of services paid for by the state. Hospitals are for emergencies only.

[GTX]

If it hasn't already been touched upon, where do the USA, Commonwealth (or at least those countries that currently make it up) and Europe sit within all this?

Regards.

Greg

[Weaver]

If it hasn't already been touched upon, where do the USA, Commonwealth (or at least those countries that currently make it up) and Europe sit within all this?

Regards.

Greg

None of those things actually exist as political entities in PW. There's been some work done on North American states on the main PW thread, along with the Dutch City States (a world-wide network of independent polities linked by common culture) and various side comments about the rest of Europe.

[tigercat]

If I lived in Lincolnshire I'd be getting very nervous about now

[NARSES2]

If it hasn't already been touched upon, where do the USA, Commonwealth (or at least those countries that currently make it up) and Europe sit within all this?

Regards.

Greg

In my view PW is global Greg. Therefore Europe is a hotchpotch of small city/regional states and alliances. Not sure how you deal with PW the farther East you progress because of the vastness of the land and the paucity of population. Once you hit SE/Southern Asia then you have some historical precedent to formulate ideas from given the number of prince/rajahs/nawabs etc that have historically ruled. As for the America's I know almost nothing about pre-Colombian history so find it difficult to extrapolate other then to endorse the view of coastal states/cities formed by trading companies from Europe in the west and possibly S Asia in the East ?

I don't think you can have large confederations/empires because it totally unbalances the concept ? Which as Weaver reminds me is meant to be fun and stimulate builds rather then be a real alt history. And it is fun as well 

[James]

Due to other commitments at the moment, my model building has been put on the back burner for a while. I hope to have my first vessel ready before August and my trip to Austria and Germany. In the mean time, I'll give you some info on her...

HMYS Scarborough – Royal Yorkshire Navy – Patchwork World
Castle Class Guided Missile Destroyer (Sister ships; Helmsley, Knaresborough, Richmond, Conisbrough – Total in class = 5).

Displacement: 6,850 tons
Speed: 31.5 knots
Complement: 470

Armament:
1× YAC Sea Slug twin-arm SAM launcher(36 missiles)
2× YAC Sea Cat twin-arm SAM launcher(60 missiles)
4x YAC Exocet missiles (4 missiles)
2× 4.5 inch guns (1× twin gunned turret)
2× 20 mm AA guns
2× 3 12.75 inch torpedo tubes

[Joe C-P]

James, that is a _lot_ of steel for a Patchwork World land. I propose the BBs are overkill, being manpower and resource intensive and unlikely to face anything even close in size and power.

Go read the full thread about the Patchwork World, and you'll be inspired. 

[James]

I know Joe, but I just couldn't resist them.... 

[tigercat]

They are tempting. Of course once they exist then their is a temptation for other nations to build something to match them