Coal fired ships

[Olefin]

Some ideas for coal fired ships that could be used for transporting characters either on the Great Lakes or possibly for ocean voyages. These ships were in service at the time of the Twilight War (and still are today) and would make very good transports for both MilGov and CivGov with the lack of petroleum for ocean going transport.

SS Badger and SS Spartan - coal fired passenger and vehicle ferries that are still in use on the Great Lakes today. You could easily them being pressed into service as transports for either government, especially as they would be tailor made for carrying things like Hummers and other light armored vehicles.

They can carry 620 passengers and 180 automobiles and can take vehicles in size and weight up to commercial trucks and buses. They even have staterooms for sleeping in.

There were several other ferries but they were cut to barges by 1997. However the two that remain do offer a way to transport people around besides sail craft.

Will look into others - but gettting control of such a ship from a group of pirates or marauders (or even a rival govt) would be a good scenario for GM's looking for ideas for nautical adventures.

[dvyws]

U'd be a little suspicious of that 620 passengers for ocean going - the article I read on her stated that her normal voyage only lasted 4 hours - and what is acceptable for 4 hours most definately isn't for an Atlantic crossing [I think the "Staterooms" would only hold a very small percentage of the passengers, by the way]...

BUT, that doesn't mean she wouldn't be extremely useful, and wouldn't have a good capacity - she is a fair sized vessel, and, as you say, configured for vehicular cargo too.

I think there may well be a number of attempts to convert oil fired vessels into coal burners, although most of them would probably not be terribly successful.

One interesting side effect is that ships would become visible from a much greater range due to the plume of smoke they would emit. Think first world war ships, or, even better, pre dreadnoughts.

[Olefin]

For one a ship like her could explain how the CivGov forces in Albania and Yugoslavia are still able to fight - if you read the Albania article in Challenge Magazine those divisions are still combat effective and very much still in existence as divisions - but they would have had to have some kind of supplies (at the least ammo resupply) to do so

A single ship like that in the hands of CivGov could explain it - i.e. very occasional (as in a couple times of year max) trips that bring in limited ammo, medical supplies, possibly even reinforcements (i.e. and by that I mean a 100 to 200 men max level) that keep those three divisions barely still in the fight - and with how small those forces are thats probably all you would need

and there are very large supplies of coal in Eastern PA that would be relatively easy to bring to the seacoast for fueling one or two trips per year in this fashion

even if they were only used on the Great Lakes themselves thats a very effective transportation asset for getting supplies, men and vehicles back and forth and saving a lot of methanol to do it