Dealing with the navies of the time period. Ships, fleets, cannons and so forth.

For engineer minded people I recommend reading Warrior vs Dreadnought. Its a rather technical read though. It discusses how technology was changing, the defence in a ship's design and so forth. Good for those armchair Admirals.

A short set of articles on 19th century ships and boats.

http://www.victorianweb.org/te...ogy/ships/index.html

1878 Diving Suit

http://imgur.com/wk3EOpP

A wonderful start for Steam Armour Suit

Pretty amazing naval fight. Technically 1905 toward the tale end of Victorian. However the ships used were often from the Victorian era.

This clip is just the action though with some annoying techno music added by the fan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uc3IrJwG7o

The movie it is from is

"Battle of the Japan Sea"

Seems the fight is also know as the Battle of Tsushima

The movie naval battle sequence is perhaps the best I've seen of the Victorian era battleships. Really get a sense of the size, how the side guns worked and so on.

Very neat movie clip, great showing of the smoke and confusion of a naval battle like that done without radar or spotting planes.

Bummer. I got "This video contains content from NHK, who has blocked it on copyright grounds."

You can try looking for the movie title mentioned above. Maybe find a viewable copy there. It was viewable at the time posted but things do change.

I had some questions about some of the airship technology in the last exile.  Anybody up for a discussion on that?

Do you have a link to the "Last Exile" Im not familiar with it but am generally up for tech talks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...t=PL6F4479F58ADB39B7

Okay some looks on a wikia

text on a small flyer
http://lastexile.wikia.com/wiki/Vanship



Claudia is there magic-onium
http://lastexile.wikia.com/wiki/Claudia

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So what in particular did you want to talk about? Some things that come to mind

The large ships appear to have a volume of an airship but I haven't watched far enough to know if they show a gas bag.

The van ship courier seems to be very swervy which is not common to displacement only lift (ie gas bag). There could be properties of the  Claudia or it could be aerodynamic services given that it is pretty fast.

The Claudia seems stable so a hit on a Claudia store won't cause a massive explosion. You might hit the alochol store to spill onto the Claudia causing a burning which could cascade into a mighty inferno. Alcohol tanks might have jettison valves to reduce this risk.

I expect most of their air vehicles to be VTOL. The fast couriers might benefit from a landing strip but it wouldn't always have to be there.

People need air to breath at high altitudes so either the anime skipped that detail or there is general limit to how high they go. I'd have to look that up.

The ships do come in various sizes with warships appearing to be armored. One is inclined to think that the steel structural strength is more a limiting factor on building than the Claudia. Doesn't seem that Claudia would limit unless it was used actively for lift. As a volume grows at ^3 the area only grows at ^2 so there can be a limit on something that needs area. Not what really Im seeing on the bottom of the big ships though. Could be an internal 2-d lifter plate. Again, haven't seen enough to say yeah or nay for sure.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:32, Fri 23 Sept 2016.

Watched a bit more now part way into episode 2.

In episode 1 it did show the small courier used aerodynamic control surfaces as aerilons. So they do understand aerodynamics. Seems their magic-onimum the Claudia is signficantly more effective.

In early episode 2 a large piece of machinery of a ship lifts upward tearing off structure, pops out and the ship slowly sinks. So apparently that is a major part of a ship's lift system.

Still not sure if that is a generator which is stored in gas bags. The ship did slink slowly so there was either at least a second unit or a store of "lift" somewhere. At this point I think the store of lift is more likely as that einsweller unit was a pretty big piece of volume and they said "the" not "a" unit when it popped out of the top.

The little van courier also had to refuel. I didn't hear with what.

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At this point my understanding is:

It does seem they have a lift-generator by using Claudia (a magic-onium) in a machinery  unit to generate a means of lift. An einsweller is more efficient than aerodynamics or hydrogen/helium lift. The lift ability can be stored short term, needs periodic refilling from the einsweller and is not explosive in storage. There are parts on the ship that burn perhaps the fuel for machinery or if the machinery is damaged. The machinery will continue to produce lift even without external power/control at least for a short time.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:38, Sat 24 Sept 2016.

In reply to Brygun (msg # 13):

Lol, just so long as I got you hooked on the show.  Seriously, there is a latter show that show the Claudia circulating through a round tube in the "engine" of the van ships.  I got the feeling it had some sort of enertial properties creating a gyroscopic affect for lift which explains some of the mother ship designs for the guild.  Yes, latter episodes insinuate that the Claudia is the "fuel" so somehow in the course of use it is consumed.

   The large ships of the other people [I forgot their names] is shown as an empty stricter using the narrow "Waist" of the ship as an air intake for the fans in the back.  There is no room for diridgable compartments so I have to assume it doesn't use any lighter than air compartments for lift.  I was just wondering if maybe someone heard something that could shed light on the subject

Well the lift generator or something else does produce steam for some of the systems. Heat management would be necessary. Real life steam ships don't need huge fans but they do have them. Those strange upside down L on ships is the water shield for air intakes.

I rather thought the fans were for propulsion.

This is what I meant by intakes on real ships

https://goo.gl/images/R99K6L

Oh, I understand now.  If we were to design an airship the intakes could be on the bottom out of the elements if it were not designed to land on water.  That said if I were to design it, I'd use cooling coils in front of the internal propulsion fans like the radiator on a car.