Pirates of the Carribean, Return of the Tall Ships Options

[Cheops]

Was thinking while reading a Patrick O'Brian book that pirates in the Carib League would probably do pretty well with tall ships. There is a boom of magic in most Carib states, and a full blown houngan war, and a bust on heavy industry. This would make modern, metal ships very expensive. So expensive that magically-enhanced wooden ships may suddenly become competitive.

The object resistance of the components of a tall ship wouldn't be above 2 (worked wood, hemp, and cloth) or at most 3 (for cannons, ring bolts, other metal components). Use a steel bottom instead of the traditional copper. You could prepare the ship as a vessel and put a spirit in it. Or if that was too expensive you could inhabit specific components (air spirit in the sails, guardian spirit in the cannons, water spirit in the hull). Since the mage can easily help make the ship the threshold for enchanting stays low so anchoring can be done. Really ambitious mages could even bottom it with orichalcum!

And to take it one step further, you could make it the Black Pearl by using zombies and corpse cadavers to run the ship. You'd only need humans for the officers and warrant officers.

As I said 'though since magic should be pretty cheap and heavy, modern industry expensive, seeing something like this in a campaign should be believable.

[Serial_Peacemake...]

Well I do like the pirate aspect of shadowrun. However actual tall ships seems iffy. After all even if the carib itself has crappy industry ships are by definition mobile. I would be surprised if there were not ships in the waters all across the planet that were made in the north sea at a SK ship yard, the great lakes by Ares etc. However I am sure that the more magically active pirates do use things quite similar to what you propose. With wooden ships etc. However I think they would most likely be of a design and manufacture that would be somewhat alien to the traditional tall ship. If only so they could mount a more modern naval weapon.

[Thane36425]

You might see wooden hulled power boats. Those were quite common before fiberglass came along. Sailing ships could be used as recon, but they wouldn't stand much chance against a military vessel or an armed transport.

[PBTHHHHT]

Problem is that even making tall ships are rather resource intensive in terms of wood to make the hull, the cloth needed for the sails, the hundreds of feet of rope. It was a major endeavour back in the day to build the tall ships and I'm not sure if there's enough of the right kind of trees they need for the ships. England used up a lot of their forests (of oak and whatever trees they used) and I don't think the forests have ever recovered from that period.

Pirates will take what ships they can that are available and that's mostly modern day ships. Any tall ships they would pick up may be from museum pieces and private yachts they may come upon. The modern ships from the corporate shipyards would still be bought by the carib league.

[bibliophile20]

[PBTHHHHT]

Yes the forests are regenerating, but I can see certaing groups that would be unhappy if you start up with the massive deforestation project such as the amount needed for the tall ships. It all depends, it might be faster to build them now since there are now modern power tools to aid in making the ships, but then again, there's something to be said for being able to cast a hull from metal or plastic. The modern day tonnage capacity outstrips the tall ship designs.

By the way, I like the idea of tall ships running around, but I'm playing devil's advocate just to flesh out the feasibility and for what reasons/conditions that would allow for this to happen.

[Cheops]

Hate to burst your bubble but industrialization is what caused the deforestation of England...not the building of tall ships. What do you think they burned until they figured out better ways of using coal? Plus there's the need to clear forest to build, you know, cities and the farmland to support those cities.

Any pirate that goes up against a naval ship is a dumb-ass. Modern day pirates know enough not to do that so I figure that future pirates would also know that. The vast bulk of pirate activity is actually undertaken in port, not at sea, so you just need a lot of guys with knives and the willingness to kill someone for money. Also, tall ships become a lot more effective just by using explosive rounds instead of the old non-exploding shells. The guns that they used on the tall ships were actually as big, or bigger than the guns the Brits used to smash German tanks in WW2. As for defense, if you have magic you can make it as strong as modern ships. Pirates much rather take merchantmen and pleasure boats than a military vessel. Merchants have stuff that you can resell and you can use the boat too. Military vessels have nothing in them except a bunch of marines and big guns that can kill you.

The British had over 1000 tall ships on the list at the height of their naval deployment in the Napoleonic wars. Added to that were all the private men of war, who were private citizens who owned and outfitted a ship and sailed under a letter of marque. Some wealthy patrons even had small squadrons of privateers. This is back when these ships were modern and expensive.

Imagine nowadays. The spot price for US lumber is about 260 per tonne. Take for example, the Surprise (of Aubrey fame), which was a real ship that displaced about 350 tonnes (if I remember correctly) fully equiped and carried 28 guns (all of 9 lbs or bigger which can take out any of Pz series tanks up to the later IV models). That's roughly 78,000 USD to buy the equivalent amount of wood. Since we're building this thing ourselves we don't need to mark-up for construction etc. Probably wouldn't run you more than 100,000 or 120,000 just for the mundane, raw materials. And as stated the building time would be much lower due to power tools, AR overlays, modern construction techniques, etc.

A ship of that size would be more than a match for any merchantman or cruise ship, especially when magically enhanced. A Guardian spirit inhabited cannon is a scary thing.

[PBTHHHHT]

Burst my bubble, hardly, I love to read up on information and if I get corrected on it, that's fine. After the schooling I did, I know how much I do not know and welcome input from people who have info and thoughts on the matter.

One problem I do see is something like this would be a bit noticeable, especially to authorities. "Be on the look out for a large masted ship." Most of the piracy such as those occurring in the South Asian Straits are mainly by smaller fast boats that would go up and have the pirates board the ship. The problem is that you can't tell who the pirates are from the rest of the boats. The magical augmentation, while that's fine and such, what can they do to be less noticeable, especially from maritime patrol?

edit: btw, I do own the first book of the Master and Commander series, I bought it to read before the movie came out. I do love that day and age.

Oh, speaking of deforestation of england from the industrial age, yes, there is that from the need of charcoal. But there was definitely overharvesting of the mature wood needed for shipbuilding. Tell me, how much wood is needed for one ship? How much are also needed to help in forging of all the needed iron also? (which would be moot in the current shadowrun conversation since there'll be plentiful iron provided without needing to use wood as a power source for forging).

http://fubini.swarthmore.edu/~ENVS2/S2003/...orestation.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hampshire/content/art...y_feature.shtml
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals....3/mcneill.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation

[Crakkerjakk]

Fun fact:

Back in the day(1745-1844) the most successful pirate was a Chinese woman who took over her husband's fleet when he died. Controlled an estimated 2000 ships and over a hundred thousand sailors. The Chinese government at the time declared war on her, got their hoops soundly kicked, and went to foreign powers(Portugal and England, I think) for help. They agreed, and also got their tails handed to them. She finally got tired of pirating, and asked the government for a pardon, retiring to run a gambling den, and died a ridiculously wealthy old woman.

[PBTHHHHT]

Yup, read about her when I was looking up on chinese pirates, was curious about the one that Chow Yun Fat is playing for the third pirates of the carribean movie.

[knasser]

I tend to restrict the size and complexity of objects that can be possessed in my game by Force (e.g. "no - your little air spirit can't possess the entire house"), so this would take a high force spirit in my game (but there's no such restriction in the RAW): Possessing / Inhabiting the ship! Some of the downsides to a wooden ship are compensated for this way, e.g. a force 7 spirit would lend it 14 points of hardened armour against normal weapons. That's got to be equivalent to a metal hull. Movement power inherent and permanent, not to mention some of the more outlandish powers - need I point out that water spirits have Weather Control as an optional power?

And I can certainly see some spirits being more comfortable in an old fashioned sailing ship than some clanking, complex, computer driven monstrosity. Particularly some pre-existing Free Spirit. I picture the old sailor sitting on the dock watching the tides when the faint whisper is heard by him alone... "If you build it, I will come" :D

That's not to say it has to be a nice spirit. A powerful shadowspirit with Concealment and Movement could make for a deeply sinister ship. Give it a spirit pact with its chosen captain and voila - Flying Dutchman.

I don't see a big flock of tall ships. But in a setting where dark magic has returned, I can see that an old sea ghost story might have a bit more substance than you'd want.

-K.

[Thain]

The stealth capacity of a sailing vessel should not be underestimated, yes, it will show up on radar and visual scanning (i.e, guy with binoculars), but it is going to be quiet, have little heat signature, zero power consumption, et cetera.

I don't see many pirates using it, but a sigle possessed Flying Dutchman, definatly.

[nezumi]

Keep in mind, I don't think it would be financially feasible to make full sized frigates or brigs. These ships would be capping out as sloops, ships which are able to quickly sail at almost any point, which are light-weight, easy to make, almost invisible to radar and sonar. They won't be able to outrun any military ship and some freighters, but they'll be almost impossible to spot until they get within visual range. With magical support, they'll still be a threat to a freighter (or specifically, to its crew). The question is whether they take cargo by manning the freighter and bringing the whole boat back to sell, or by just taking the few tons their small ship can hold (two tons of cyberdecks would clearly pay for itself, but two tons of soy probably wouldn't).

[PBTHHHHT]

One thing for modern day pirates is they will take some of the crew has hostage and they'll try and rob the ship's safe. Yeah, if the cargo has a high value per weight/volume then I can see them taking some of the cargo. The other consideration is if they have a potential large scale port city nearby with questionable businessmen. Years ago, there was a Times article on a group of pirates that took a large cargo ship and they sailed it to China and IIRC the pirates managed to reap a profit... But, I think this was an extreme case.

Very cool though, the merchant ship's watch standing there on the bridge on a dark night, a shroud of fog comes out and envelops the ship. Then, the watch stares stunned as a 'ghost' ship silently coming out of the shroud of fog up close to a large modern day merchant ship. The grappels fly out and the pirates being swarming up on to the decks of the merchant ship (even better, a cruise ship), and the fun begins as those who are unluckly cry out as their body tasted steel from blades and bullets. After a relatively short time, the pirates scurry back onto their ship and the 'ghost' ship silently slips away into the night back into the fog... slowly the fog begins to dissipate around the merchant ship, leaving only the stunned survivors and the cries of those unfortunate...

[Cheops]

Spirits with concealment make for a deadly effective pirate ship no matter if it is modern. Fleets of these things will probably be pretty uncommon but imagine a Houngan building one or two full blown "ghost ships" and fighting the Houngan War that way! Would be a viable threat to the other houngans and the other pirates. And presumably some of those might respond.

These old ships are a lot sturdier and more able than people seem to be giving them credit. There is no fuel in these bad boys, only a magazine. This makes them a hell of a lot less vulnerable than an equivalent modern ship which uses hordes of fuel and therefore needs a lot of storage space for it. Ships only sink a few ways--hits below the waterline, taking in water through other holes, or a hit to the magazine or fuel tanks. I don't see many merchantmen willingly spending the thousands of dollars per shot for torpedoes, and how effective are assault rifle rounds against the barrier rating of 3' of wood? (not to mention possible hardened spirit armor). Plus you can't really demoralize Guardian spirit inhabited marine zombies...so watch out!

[PBTHHHHT]

How effective is it against mounted assault cannons, quad .50 caliber guns, grenade launchers, attack drones (air and water), hell maybe even flame throwers and incindiery rounds/grenades?

A response by the corporations hit a number of times by the Hougan fleet might be including Q-ships and such in their fleet (disguised merchantships), hiring runners and security details for ambushes, any number of things including mages/shamans they can hire.

edit: Anyway, I can see this being effective in hit and fade tactics. As long as they play it smart and avoid traps and such. Most of the merchant ships they'll face will be easy pickings, but if they make too large of dent in shipping and who they're hitting in particular, I can see a nasty response by whatever corp/nation.

[nezumi]

Modern torpedoes would be completely ineffective against anything but the largest tall ships. Freighters would have to defend themselves relying on small arms or rockets and missiles, with small arms probably being the most cost effective. Assault cannons and MMGs would be the word of the day. Unfortunately, with freighters running on the small skeleton crews they generally rely on, a small, quick sloop could probably close in pretty quickly and avoid most of the fire. It would be very, very dangerous, but quite possible.

[Jack Kain]

You do know that piracy thrives even today. Modern pirates use small speed boats possibly mounted with machine guns. They move in swiftly on large slow moving vessels. Oil Tanker's, Cargo Ships and Cruise Lines.
http://www.cargolaw.com/presentations_pirates.html
This little report should help out in under standing modern piracy.

Now lets look at some SR possibilities.

Using small boats would still be ideal. They are less likely to show up, magic can easily be used to disguise or even render the small ship invisible.

That being said, The Carribean likely has to many military vessels in the area for effective SR piracy. It be easier to strike the ship in port or wait until it travels into a nations waters that doesn't maintain a sizable navy.

A wooden sailing ship might be hard to track, but it wouldn't be hard to find once it makes port. It stand out in the modern world. And the Carribean would have to many military grade vessels anway. Be they real millitary or corp.

I'd imagine SR pirates to operate in much the same way as modern pirates in similar areas.

[PBTHHHHT]

With a rigger at the control of the freighter along with the host of devices/sensors that can be placed throughout the ship, add in remote gun drones and the ability to open and seal hatches and such. Who knows, it depends on how much the shipping corporation are willing to spend to outfit their fleet. If it's a very large cargo vessel with a good amount of valuable cargo, a megacorp can easily place some countermeasures especially for boarders.

edit: what Jack Kain said, but then again, I mentioned that earlier in my earlier post about fast ships that would blend with normal traffic.

[nezumi]

I doubt they'd go into public ports with it. They'd moor it in a cove somewhere, out of sight, then use another, modern boat to transfer gear. If they're based out of somewhere with an isolated village, they'd have all the materials needed to maintain a wooden sloop, they could disappear easily, and the money from a successful raid would more than make up the cost of services rendered by said village.

[PBTHHHHT]

[Mistwalker]

Interesting article Jack

I would see the Ghost Ship only appearing in fog (magical or mundane), with it's home port being somewhere where it cannot be observed. Maybe the underground anchorage from pirate novels, with a tunnel leading to a warehouse, where the pirated goods are loaded onto legit vessels.

If they take the whole ship, they set up a phantom ship, from Jack's article, with a hacker(s) inserting the new name and destination in various databases.

[Cheops]

[nezumi]

If we look at a sloop-of-war, that pretty well describes what I was thinking of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloop-of-war

10-18 guns.

Remember also, while the megas certainly have the resources to defend a ship, it's all a question of cost-benefit ratios. Putting $50,000 worth of equipment on every freighter quickly gets very, very pricey, especially if it almost never gets used. So certainly, any of the corps could blow this sloop out of the water if they knew to expect it. The primary benefit of the sloop is surprise.

I also imagine it's one of few ships that could attack freighters out at sea rather than in port. Small boats are generally limited by fuel, large ones are too easy to spot. A sloop is limited only by food for the crew (and of course, questions of profit, but if we have the village houngan running out of Guayana, their time is cheap). With a spirit's help, they don't have to worry about the environmental pressures that used to restrict small boats to more coastal areas. So they can cruise the shipping lanes a thousand miles out from shore, almost completely silent, catch their prey at night when they're hidden from radar, sonar and sight, then use the spirit's power to hide them again as they escape. They put-to somewhere on the Spanish main and use trucks to transport the goods from their little coastal village to Amazonia for sale. As long as the village supports them, they require only the cost of tools and a few odds and ends.

[Thain]

For what its worth, piracy occurs in the Carribean today, not just the horn of Africa.

Carribean pirates tend to be drug runners or human trafficers who happen across a rich American in a pleasure yatch, and decide to pull the nautical equivelent of carjacking a rich guy's Mercedes. Infrequent, mind you, but fairly profitable.

Beleive it or not, back in... oh... `03, I think it was, some thing similar happened on Lake Michigan. Drunk idiots decide to wave handguns at a nice Canadian couple, and steal their cabin cruiser... the Canadians radio the USCG from their dingy, and the drunk idiots get to stare down a fully armed cutter a few hours later. :eek:

I'm not exactly certain what became of those morons, but they were charged with piracy. I think we turned them over to Canada.

Here's a safe boating tip: do not run from the Coast Guard. You'll lose.