[@Willy Vereb]

Hmm, my Kerbal Space Program knowledge lets me know that jets engines are effing awesome and can run for really long times. I think the lack of jet planes is to prevent OP air forces from flying across the hemisphere, bombing the crap out of something, and then coming back. Aircraft carriers were around by this time, though.

And seeing as my nation just lags behind the rest of the world, I was going to try to go for an American Civil War-esque situation, with shiny weapons that they just began to import, but antiquated tactics. Of course this will be leading to horrendous casualties until they figure out how to effectively use their new technology.

So I guess tactics don't matter to me so much as what would be reasonable to have in terms of weapons. Voltus set a somewhat high standard. I mean, look at how specific this is: 

"The vessel is also equipt with 12 40mm cannons , 6 in the front on swiveling mount for 360 degree fire, 2 on either side and 2 on the back. It's speed and light weight allows it to speed along side larger boats and shoot at it point blank..."

I guess the obvious solution is for me to just be a bit more vague when describing stuff that I don't know very much about.