So, I'd like to do some writefaggotry about some post-apocalyptic naval action in the Gulf of Mexico and Carribean. I'm assuming an unspecified breakdown of existing law and order, with a fractured United States.
I'm envisaging the main antagonists as Somalia-style trawler and speedboat pirates.
However, to add an element of style to the protagonists, I wanted to give them an ersatz aircraft carrier and escorts.
>Air Craft
Biplanes or something. I imagine something consisting of mostly like Fairey Swordfish clones, but those might be too sophisticated. More realistic is something like a Fiesler Storch with duct taped rocket launchers. Still thinking about what sort of planes one could use.
>Carrier
This might need to be a custom ship built after the apocalypse, but what sort of ship might be common enough to do a MAC-style conversion or ersatz Ryujo rebuild. Still need some ideas here on what would make sense.
>Attack submarine
An armed narco sub to serve as the eyes and ears. With most ships being poorly maintained merchant ships, even a jurry-rigged submarine might be able to keep up with the fleet and serve as its eyes and ears.
>Escorts
Armed fishing trawlers, but I'm not really sure how to arm them besides machine guns (which require a manufacturing base that might no longer exist). I've looked at Syrian propane cannons for inspiration, but I'm not sure how useful that would be.
>>29304213
Gay.
>>29304213
Converted cruise ships or cargo ships (more likely) which remain largely stationary due to fuel shortages.
Also mix oil rigs in their. There are a ton, pic related. Plus your ships will have to get fuel from somewhere.
>>29304456
And yes I know it has to be refined but you could still work it in. Like mad max Gas Town.
>>29304469
i'm sure you could burn the oil directly without refinement
>>29304383
I think that a handysize bulk freighter could work for a conversion, since they are fairly common and have the cranes to perhaps service aircraft elevators.
I also like the idea of having them, like MACs also carry cargo through dangerous waters.
This is more of a setting building thread, but the idea of escorting a convoy through pirate infested waters could make for a good story
>>29304499
To what extend could biofuels (like biodiesel) alleviate oil shortages? Maybe there are plantations dedicated to the biomass to make this fuel which serve as key players in this post-apocalyptic economy.
The pirates could also be slavers, bringing the labor necessary for these biofuel plantations to keep the sea trade going
>>29304499
Ship engines are good at that but it probably still needs to be filtered and ever well will be different.
>>29304456
I'm thinking of turning New Orleans (my hometown) into a wretched hive of scum and villainy since the apocalypse, well more than it already is
>>29304213
Navies require vast amounts of infrastructure so yeah you probably won't have aircraft carriers or battleships. Anything that's not sail powered is not gonna be running. The technical expertise to maintain and refuel these ships will be severely lacking. Also standard fuel goes bad in a few years, so take that into your calculations. Maybe a coal powered conversion from a really crude steam engine?
Floating gun flotilla's are probably how it would go, probably made to raid coastal settlements and steal as much booty as possible. I would limit aircraft to flying model airplanes that carry plastic explosives. Harder to hit, easier to maintain until they disintegrate into nothing.
>>29304656
I imagine that there would be sort of arms race to maintain (or the gargantuan task of building) non-sailboat freighters, to say nothing of warships.
How do Somali pirates get fuel? That might be an interesting model
>>29304213
Ryujo is more perflat than chihaya
>>29304549
Biofuels might be helpful in the short term to help landlocked or disadvantaged prospecting sailors get fuel to start off their fleets. However, once the initial crop gets used up, it's gonna be very difficult to produce anymore with the infrastructure being deteriorated as it is. And as this Anon >>29304456 pointed out, it would be easier to just pump out oil from a rig and refine it into fuel than waiting for bacterial cultures to produce ethanol from corn combs and other corn leftovers.
Further more, by biofuels I think ethanol, which produces less btus and has different combustion properties than the gasoline, kerosene and diesel that most ships are designed to use. Even if you can get the fuel to work on some types of robust engines, you're gonna run into problems if you want to fuel a shipping barge with ethanol. You'd probably be able to fuel a bunch of speed boats using gasoline engines, but you're gonna risk blowing those engines too.
>>29304943
>ethanol
>corn
Sorgum is better for US ethanol production, it's only the retarded corn lobby in the US that makes it the biomass of choice for ethanol.
However, I was thinking biodiesel for maritime applications more than ethanol (though it would have its place for speedboats).
I guess one of first things to figure it out is who has fuel, and manufacturing. I could see a Republic of Texas as its own power, perhaps greatest the regional power
>>29304604
Hey op. I'm from the norhshore. I was behind this post. >>29304456
I find this very interesting.
>>29305123
He who controls the oil rigs controls the Gulf.
The oil must flow
I guess one of the big things I would expect is that with the fragile apparatuses sending food around the nation, populations would disperse and a lot of people would starve.
Just as some silly food for thought, what about Baton Rouge being under the control of some sort of warlord, with Death Valley taking on a new meaning as it is used for public executions
Kind of off topic, but does anyone know what happened to the knave, it just dropped off and I haven't seen anything for a long time.
steam engines running on ethanol/driftwood fired boilers. Super easy to make, you can convert a lawn mower engine into one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVIATZk4cGE
pic related: Steam powered sidewheel paddle carrier that actually worked on the great lakes
What sort of naval guns do you think would be possible?
I could see bag-loading black powder guns, but I'm not sure if shellmaking technology would survive for most polities.
>>29305543
Thanks for the inspiration. I think any carriers would have to be converted from existing ships.
Haven't totally decided on what new construction of ships would look like. Maybe steel framed with wooden hulls.
>>29305675
The USS wolverine was converted from an existing ship. It started out as a passenger ship and was converted by moving the superstructure and laying a wooden deck:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wolverine_%28IX-64%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Sable_%28IX-81%29
>>29305713
I read that. I just wonder where one would get the engines.
My initial thoughts were using some sort of bulk freighter ~25000 DWT to work as a combination carrier and freighter.
I'm not sure about polities in this crazy world, but I was thinking of having a tanker-carrier travel from South America, carrier palm oil for biodiesel to the Gulf Coast. Along the way are pirates and a mysterious submarine attacker.
Just on this brainstorming session, I'm coming to sketching out some characters.
I think one character should be a older guy, who maybe participated in one of the battles of the Collapse. He might have had another ship sunk by the enemy submarine, so it's his "white whale." This might be better split into the grizzled veteran guy and the white whale guy. The grizzled guy could be the carrier captain and the white whale guy could be the skipper of the submarine that serves as the eyes and ears of the flotilla.
Another guy might be a young prince/aristocrat type who's only on the boat more because of his birth than merit. Not an entitled shit, just out of his depth.
Feel free to suggest ideas for other people on this boat
Bump in case anyone wants to discuss this more
Things like, how might the US break down into smaller governments
What guns to people use?
How to people make or maintain guns, or heavier weapons?
There was a pretty good thread almost identical to this one awhile back. One of the ideas that sprung from it was using electric gyrocopters, when not in use, tow them behind the carrier on tow/power cables to generate power
>>29308043
Beat me to it. Auto gyros are great for this, tow winch takes up little deck space, and the pilot acts as a crows nest. Not to mention being a raised gyro stabilized platform for shooting and can be launched from a deck with a smaller tow boat like a parasail from a beach.
>>29304656
Speaking of sails or anything with a sail. picrelated... Never underestimate a sewing machine.
>>29304213
Those water powered jetpacks are pretty easy tech and firehose deck sweeping, popup from out of no where flying frogmen is too cool.
Dont forget there is a lot of plastic and drift wood floating around.
Wood stove runs a generator "final video" make's …: http://youtu.be/_o5M6v1eD4I
>>29305543
USS Sable is my waifuship
>>29308735
you're waifu a nice
steam botes are best botes
>>29304604
Considering how chaotic it went during Hurricane Katrina it's not far fetched to imagine how awful it would become if there was a global disaster. Lots of potential there.
One interesting aspect of a SHTF scenario would be to imagine what happened in Somalia where warlords looted the harbors and basically dismantled all the equipment needed to unload ships and sold the scrap metal. So that could be an interesting aspect to add, other than the damage from whatever caused SHTF infrastructure would be fucked from looting, so even if you have ships you might not be able to load/unload or resupply them.
>>29309722
That's a good idea, I didn't think of it
>>29304213
OP...
> take the ferries from Bolivar
> flatten and extend the upper observation decks
> put light autocannons, M2s and mortars on them
> on the car deck, place salvage equipment, fuel tanks and storage
> modify the gates to extend out to river banks
Voila, you now have four salvage boats/weapons platforms for raiding as far away as the Mississippi.
>>29304213
Im an aircraft mechanic but have never fucked with props, but wouldnt a biplane not have enouvh runway to takeoff from any carrier currently on the water?
>>29311134
Sorry guise i guess i underestimated the size of carriers never mind.
>>29311134
They actually used to launch propeller planes from catapults, don't even need a runway.
>>29311134
If naval props existed as early as the 1930's i think with the right engineering and planning a naval biplane could be built.
OP, try watching "Gargantia on the Verduous Planet" for inspiration.
I actually think this is a cool idea. bit like mad max with boats
Let's say that SHTF in the current year. I really don't have a clear vision of why at the moment. The biggest impact of this apocalyptic event is that the arteries of commerce like truckers on the interstate no longer work, so any food has to essentially be local - with all the chaos and death this state of affairs would bring about.
Then, let's move things forward twenty years. The US still has no central government. International shipping is barely starting to return. A lot of infrastructure has crumbled under neglect.
I have a few things I'm trying to brainstorm about:
1) What sort of boats, vehicles, and guns could be built?
2) To what extend could pre-apocalypse things (like guns, boats, cars) be maintained
3) How would the Gulf Coast and Mexico break up into different small countries?
I've and others have already batted around stuff like biofuel plantations which require a slave trade to supply, skirmishes to fight over oil rigs, and a Republic of Texas as its own thing. However, I haven't thought that seriously about how other state governments would or would not survive. And what society would look like, besides Mad Max on a boat.
>>29304213
Trireme Oil Tanker Hulks :^)
Scary thing about a SHTF scenario in the gulf of mexico is the fact that there are over 20 million people on Hispaniola, 10 in Haiti and 10 in Dominican republic. Haiti is barely hanging on as it is, so if international trade would shut down there and food shortages begin an insane amount of people would probably try to make their way to Cuba or Florida with whatever ships they can find. And if they start flooding cuba the cubans would flee their island as well.
So between Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and Dominican republic alone there's like 35 million people who'd want to get to mainland USA or Mexico at any cost.
>>29311438
...so kinda like waterworld?
>>29311438
>>29312776
God fuck that movie was terribad.
>>29312546
dont forget the eating each other and fishing the surrounding ocean into a deadzone
>>29312546
These islands would probably be where a lot of pirates are coming from.
Florida might be divided into Northern ("American"-controlled) Florida and Southern part controlled by some warlord of nobody in particular.
Alternately, Florida could be bogan cunts and turn back the boats. Either way could be interesting
>>29312546
>>29312893
>>29313051
Cannibal Pirates of the Caribbean?
Voodoo priests on jet skis and Cannibal warboy suicide frogmen
>>29313051
I read a scifi book where big swaths of the gulf coast were turned into refugee camps for climate change refugees. They were fed soylent chock full of hi tech mood suppressants to keep them docile.
>>29313199
source?
>>29313237
Rifters trilogy by Peter Watts. I believe that bit is in the first installment. Alot of his writing is disturbingly believable.
It's free to read online.
>>29312893
Haiti is already getting deforested and the erosion is ruining the farmland. 20 years after SHTF it would probably be barren.
I don't think you've addressed nuclear sub's. There's a chapter in World War Z youd really like. Follows a nuclear sub traveling in the south pacific and south Asian islands, I think they also come across other ships/floating settlements. Can't remember the details but I think I'll give the chapter another read right now.
>>29315126
I feel like they would end up rusting away at port sorta like Russian subs after the fall of the USSR
Is an apocalypse that leaves enough infrastructure to support multiple navies really an apocalypse?
>>29317110
This is into the rebuilding phase
War would prolly be between helicopters launched off of cargo ships, and seaplanes as spotters.
![[ENGINEERING INTENSIFIES].gif](https://i.imgur.com/xTRaaYw.gif "[ENGINEERING INTENSIFIES].gif")
EVERYTHING IS EKRANOPLANS
I would rule the world.
>city sized ekranoplan cargoships
