Civillian water craft
 

Targans post on the alternative fuels thread made me think of the water craft local to my Area. In Maine we have special fishing boats called Lobster boats which you can guess by the name are for lobsters fishing or "buggin" as they call it. Anyway these boats are extremely sea worthy craft! That can travel at high speeds if necessary to bring in the catch. They can also carry a large amount of traps (pots) and gear.

I can imagine these could easily be retrofitted with crew served weapons and be used as Patrol boats for blue or brown water.


check one out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acq2J...eature=related

Heh.. the Swiftboats used by the Brown Water Navy in 'Nam were based off of crew boats used in offshore oil work. It's not a stretch to see them armed and used for coastal-river patrol or raiding for that matter.

You're also in the area of schooners and sail. The two-masted schooner is my dream venture.

Grae

Check out Schoonerman.com for sailing vessels around the world

Usual operations for a tugboat in US domestic inland waterways (Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois Rivers & Intracoastal waterways) is to push a string of 15 barges (3 across, 5 long). A standard inland waterways barge is 195x35 feet and carries 1750 tons of dry bulk cargo (grain, ore, coal, scrap steel, etc) if a hopper barge or 27,500 barrels of liquid cargo (petroleum or chemicals).

For the recovery plan, I'm going to have a standard configuration for Milgov-controlled inland waterways of a tug (see Pirates of the Vistula for ideas what to do with a tug!) and a 15 barge string - 13 cargo barges and 2 deck barges (the front right and front left in the string) as gun barges, with an embarked security team and array of weapons to suppress resistance ashore. They will probably be accompanied by at least one smaller, faster converted civilian boat (or if it can be found) a police or coast guard patrol boat as an escort, scout and landing craft for the embarked troop's landing detachment.

The 13 barges will carry the equivalent of 208 railcars or 910 trucks (dry cargo) or 598 railcars or 1872 trucks (liquid cargo), using 39.5 gallons of diesel per mile (vs. 55.1 gallons by rail or 146.8 by truck).

And travel along the waterways would arguably be safer than by road or rail. All will require infrastructure work - clearing obstacles, fixing bridges and general maintenance (dredging/potholes/fixing rails). It takes a little more ingenuity for a marauder to become a pirate vs blocking a road or a rail line.

As always, Chico comes through. I love working out the logistics, probably moer so than the combat. Combat is secondary and only a necessary evil towards the endresults of recovery.

Grae

This is why, in the PbP I just joined, I'm hoping the GM will let us find some rivercraft, especially barges, on the upper Oder. We're scouting for battalion fleeing Kalisz, and that would be a smooth way back to Germany.