Age of Sails forever

What would wars be like if every ship still had sails and broadside cannons?

For the scenario, let's say that dreadnoughts, Ironclads, and other ships that replaced sailing ships, were never invented. All naval ships are 18th-19th century ships such as the military Ship of the Line, or the Merchant's Clippers.

How would this effect the military and economic of countries? How would this effect modernization in China or Japan? What countries are best suited for this type of world? How would this effect certain wars, like the Russo-Japanese war or the Sino-Japanese war, ETC if ships were ship of the line?
 
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What would wars be like if every ship still had sails and broadside cannons?

For the scenario, let's say that dreadnoughts, Ironclads, and other ships that replaced sailing ships, were never invented. All naval ships are 18th-19th century ships such as the military Ship of the Line, or the Merchant's Clippers.

How would this effect the military and economic of countries? How would this effect modernization in China or Japan? What countries are best suited for this type of world? How would this effect certain wars, like the Russo-Japanese war or the Sino-Japanese war, ETC if ships were ship of the line?

For that to work, you need to butterfly high pressure steam engines. Once they are a thing, steam-powered ironclads are inevitable, since steam is more efficient at scale. What would an Industrial Revolution look like without steam?
 

trurle

Banned
Early effective torpedo weapons with magnetic fuse and induction-fused sea mines? Such technological deviation will disfavor most of metal-containing vessels, naturally increasing odds the wooden frigates will be built. They will have broadside cannons to fight similar wooden warships and torpedoes to sink anything with a large amount of iron. Of course, only until proper degaussing techniques..which give sailships may be 20-30 additional years at most.
 
Early effective torpedo weapons with magnetic fuse and induction-fused sea mines? Such technological deviation will disfavor most of metal-containing vessels, naturally increasing odds the wooden frigates will be built. They will have broadside cannons to fight similar wooden warships and torpedoes to sink anything with a large amount of iron. Of course, only until proper degaussing techniques..which give sailships may be 20-30 additional years at most.

Why would magnetic mines be adopted before the mass use of iron hulled steam ships made them even useful?
 
For that to work, you need to butterfly high pressure steam engines. Once they are a thing, steam-powered ironclads are inevitable, since steam is more efficient at scale. What would an Industrial Revolution look like without steam?

Wind and watermills as far as the eye can see; probably using clockwork compression systems (Springs and gears) as "batteries" of sorts. That, or if you're less efficient a large increase in the global oxen/yak/other "strong but steady" draft animal population to turn cranks using old fashioned muscle power.

But you're right about the economic impact of no steam vessels; without them, transoceanic trade is going to be entirely dependent on the trade winds, and ships aren't going to be able to carry the same proportion of freight to size as IOTL. This means naval warfare in general is going to lose something of its importance, as nations will have less of their economy tied to sea-based trade (Land based trade and self-sufficiency will be of greater importance), while naval assets/bases will shift in importance from distance from one another (for coaling) to strategic positioning (along the major trade lanes that exist). Naval Stores (Lumber, pitch, hemp, ect.) will also remain of greater importance, giving far more power to nations rich in those resources in the late 1800's/early 1900's (Like The United States, Scandinavia, ect.) while dramatically reducing the relative power of the island nations (Like the UK and Japan; the former being unable to turn its coal reserves into something useful). I expect the sea to be generally more contested, Asiatic colonization to be far slower (Though, Japan and China will also never get the kick in the pants to modernize; slow economic penentration of the former and having it transform into an India of sorts is more likely.).
 

trurle

Banned
Why would magnetic mines be adopted before the mass use of iron hulled steam ships made them even useful?
I was talking about induction-fused mines. These will react on sailships equipped with anti-fouling copper skin too. Induction fuse is easier for moored mine, while torpedo is likely to stick with more selective magnetic fuse.
 
For that to work, you need to butterfly high pressure steam engines. Once they are a thing, steam-powered ironclads are inevitable, since steam is more efficient at scale. What would an Industrial Revolution look like without steam?

You could also make coal more expensive somehow, so that ships still rely on sails for long-distance travel. Though the advantage given by steam engines in battle is great enough that I'd expect steam ships to be built anyway, using sails for travelling and steam for actual fighting. IOW, naval combat would probably be much like it was in the 1860s, with broadside ironclads the main type of battleship.
 
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