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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 4, 2017 17:17:52 GMT -6
Just thought some actual data might be interesting. Note: my prestige was not exactly 40 but close, it was late. I am not certain that Japan isn't the only nation that you could accomplish this feat with, maybe Spain because I almost made it with Spain. So Pops, you didn't build a DN at all, or were they scrolled off the top? - and my other curiosity, were there any Disarmament Treaties involved in that 25 year run? There was a Disarmament Treaty which I subscribed to, for nation like Japan that doesn't have the natural resources and industrial capacity, the best thing you can do is keep other nations at a lower level to give you a chance. My apologies but what kind of ship is a DN?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 4, 2017 17:25:49 GMT -6
I am an old guy, too. I started playing a Hunt of the Bismark in the 60s, by means of a strange device, which allowed the UK and German players to rapidly transfer their plots under the eyes of an umpire, who decided whether any sighting was made, and so on. Regarding RTW: how realistic is the knowledge (or ignorance) that the human player has about the ships actually available by the enemies or neutrals? Before or without aerial photo-reconnaissance, it should have been quite difficolt to get information about the secretive, far distant Japanese Navy. On the contrary, it should have been rather easy for Austria to get info about the Italian Navy and viceversa (many AH sailors were native italians). I used to play the board game Jutland on the floor of the NCO barracks at Fallon AFS in the early '70's with my buddy, we had a great time. As to intelligence about other nations ships, the physics of the movement of ships is probably available to all so there are no real secrets there. The best secrets and they are available also, is the propulsion systems. Generally, all nations used the same types of propulsion with some advantages for small tube boilers, oil power, and better metallurgy for the steam turbines but those are not that secret either. Weapons are generally easy to determine by simply taking a photograph of the barrel and from that, you can derive generally everything you need. All in all, there are not many secrets that can be hidden about ships except maybe submarines. This will change with RTW2. Germany did lots of testing in Russia, although the Allies had good information about the kinds of aircraft that were tested. I will say the Japanese did a remarkable job of hiding the capability of the Zero until the Koga Zero was found in the Aleutians. Geography will play a part in the intelligence ability of any nation, so yes Italy and Austria-Hungary along with France should have good ideas about each nations capability but it isn't fool proof. Its the doctrine and training that can be hidden and come to the forefront during a war.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Oct 4, 2017 17:54:07 GMT -6
So Pops, you didn't build a DN at all, or were they scrolled off the top? - and my other curiosity, were there any Disarmament Treaties involved in that 25 year run? There was a Disarmament Treaty which I subscribed to, for nation like Japan that doesn't have the natural resources and industrial capacity, the best thing you can do is keep other nations at a lower level to give you a chance. My apologies but what kind of ship is a DN? Sorry, I aggregate BC's and BB's as DNs, dreadnoughts. My bad. >.<
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 4, 2017 18:20:22 GMT -6
There was a Disarmament Treaty which I subscribed to, for nation like Japan that doesn't have the natural resources and industrial capacity, the best thing you can do is keep other nations at a lower level to give you a chance. My apologies but what kind of ship is a DN? Sorry, I aggregate BC's and BB's as DNs, dreadnoughts. My bad. >.< I started construction on one battleship but it was scrapped by the Disarmament treaty.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Oct 4, 2017 20:56:31 GMT -6
I find that when I think a disarmament treaty is terrible because of the ships I lose, oftentimes those games go on to be the most interesting.
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Post by bcoopactual on Oct 5, 2017 12:15:58 GMT -6
I am an old guy, too. I started playing a Hunt of the Bismark in the 60s, by means of a strange device, which allowed the UK and German players to rapidly transfer their plots under the eyes of an umpire, who decided whether any sighting was made, and so on. Regarding RTW: how realistic is the knowledge (or ignorance) that the human player has about the ships actually available by the enemies or neutrals? Before or without aerial photo-reconnaissance, it should have been quite difficolt to get information about the secretive, far distant Japanese Navy. On the contrary, it should have been rather easy for Austria to get info about the Italian Navy and viceversa (many AH sailors were native italians). I used to play the board game Jutland on the floor of the NCO barracks at Fallon AFS in the early '70's with my buddy, we had a great time. As to intelligence about other nations ships, the physics of the movement of ships is probably available to all so there are no real secrets there. The best secrets and they are available also, is the propulsion systems. Generally, all nations used the same types of propulsion with some advantages for small tube boilers, oil power, and better metallurgy for the steam turbines but those are not that secret either. Weapons are generally easy to determine by simply taking a photograph of the barrel and from that, you can derive generally everything you need. All in all, there are not many secrets that can be hidden about ships except maybe submarines. This will change with RTW2. Germany did lots of testing in Russia, although the Allies had good information about the kinds of aircraft that were tested. I will say the Japanese did a remarkable job of hiding the capability of the Zero until the Koga Zero was found in the Aleutians. Geography will play a part in the intelligence ability of any nation, so yes Italy and Austria-Hungary along with France should have good ideas about each nations capability but it isn't fool proof. Its the doctrine and training that can be hidden and come to the forefront during a war. The Japanese did a good job of hiding the size of the Yamato's as well. In that I think they were aided by the fact that war was declared against the West before they were commissioned. All it would've taken was one port visit where Western Intelligence could take pictures using the crew and small boats along side for comparison to figure out the scale of the ship and what she was armed with. In reality the USN didn't know for sure about their size and 18 inch guns until after Leyte Gulf.
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Post by rimbecano on Oct 5, 2017 13:30:14 GMT -6
Though really, Japan could have afforded to build the Yamatos to the tonnage and armament of the Iowas and put the difference into R&D for fire control radar. With the day being ruled by aircraft, battleships were only useful at night, and without fire control radar, all of Japan's BBs were just an expensive liability.
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Post by Enderminion on Oct 5, 2017 13:50:21 GMT -6
whoever can scout can win, it doesn't matter if you have 900 torpedo bombers if they don't know where to go
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 5, 2017 14:00:41 GMT -6
I used to play the board game Jutland on the floor of the NCO barracks at Fallon AFS in the early '70's with my buddy, we had a great time. As to intelligence about other nations ships, the physics of the movement of ships is probably available to all so there are no real secrets there. The best secrets and they are available also, is the propulsion systems. Generally, all nations used the same types of propulsion with some advantages for small tube boilers, oil power, and better metallurgy for the steam turbines but those are not that secret either. Weapons are generally easy to determine by simply taking a photograph of the barrel and from that, you can derive generally everything you need. All in all, there are not many secrets that can be hidden about ships except maybe submarines. This will change with RTW2. Germany did lots of testing in Russia, although the Allies had good information about the kinds of aircraft that were tested. I will say the Japanese did a remarkable job of hiding the capability of the Zero until the Koga Zero was found in the Aleutians. Geography will play a part in the intelligence ability of any nation, so yes Italy and Austria-Hungary along with France should have good ideas about each nations capability but it isn't fool proof. Its the doctrine and training that can be hidden and come to the forefront during a war. The Japanese did a good job of hiding the size of the Yamato's as well. In that I think they were aided by the fact that war was declared against the West before they were commissioned. All it would've taken was one port visit where Western Intelligence could take pictures using the crew and small boats along side for comparison to figure out the scale of the ship and what she was armed with. In reality the USN didn't know for sure about their size and 18 inch guns until after Leyte Gulf. In 1937 when construction was being prepared, the secret police swept the areas of foreign workers and security was increased. The blueprints were under guard. In 1938 a blueprint went missing and they determined that a blueprinter had swept the document into the trash. He was given a prison sentence. They were a mystery throughout the war to the US Navy.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 6, 2017 0:26:45 GMT -6
Though really, Japan could have afforded to build the Yamatos to the tonnage and armament of the Iowas and put the difference into R&D for fire control radar. With the day being ruled by aircraft, battleships were only useful at night, and without fire control radar, all of Japan's BBs were just an expensive liability. I think one has to look at the situation pressed upon the Japanese in the early 1930's to understand their superbattleship strategy. There was no way the Japanese could compete with the US or Great Britain quantitatively, so they had to proceed qualitatively. The plans for the superbattleships in the 1930's was not an obsolete idea. The aircraft at this time were not the low winged, monoplanes with big engines and large bomb loads that we see in WW2, they were flimsy aircraft with small ordnance loads. They posed no threats to the battleships. There was no way for the designers of the Yamato class superbattleships to know about the future technological developments that occurred in their country and the Allies. They had no idea that the end of the battleship naval design had been reached. The real problem for the Japanese navy was maintaining their overseas sea routes and protecting them, which they never did. The design and construction of the Yamato's had nothing to do with this failure, it was an organizational failure by the Imperial Japanese Navy.
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Post by vonfriedman on Oct 6, 2017 2:41:05 GMT -6
How successful were the Japanese in hiding the development of their long-lance torpedoes?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 6, 2017 8:26:08 GMT -6
How successful were the Japanese in hiding the development of their long-lance torpedoes? I don't believe we had any good information on the weapon but on the other hand, its dud rate was not very good and their tactics did not achieve the hit rate they expected. At best their hit rate was less than 10% possibly because they fired them at a range that even with its speed, allowed the opponent to avoid them. Had they launched from closer ranges, the opponent would not have had the time.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 6, 2017 8:28:19 GMT -6
The Japanese nation had a much smaller population base from which to draw scientists and had been at war since 1937 in China. This combat operation caused heavy casualties and hence, more recruits were needed. This drew possible scientific oriented students into the meat grinder in China, thereby reducing the available scientists. The Yamato battleships did not actually cause the lack of electronic technology that was lacking in their weaponry. It did divert the IJN's attention and the national resources from other requirements that were more pressing. It would have been better to have used those scarce resources in men and material in the development and protection of carriers, convoy escorts and the like, which might have been more helpful in the war effort.
One last comment about this situation. After WW1, all nations now understood the new "total war" concept. It meant the dedication of all national resources to the war. For the Japanese, a resource poor nation, this meant that they had to develop self-sufficiency to fight future conflicts. The only way for them to accomplish this "autarky" was to conquer areas like Korea, Manchuria, China, and the South Pacific areas like Borneo, Philippines, Indochina, Malaya and Dutch East Indies. However, in attempting to develop autarky, they initiated the very war they were attempting to prepare for, a total war. So, in the end, they failed to gain autarky because the war prevented its completion and they lost their national security. Interesting.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 8, 2017 21:08:01 GMT -6
Ship construction in the game tends to be centered around building a battleship, cruisers and destroyers etc. But in the real world, you need to build fleets. In other words, one or two battleships will need at least two flotillas of about four destroyers with a destroyer leader, a light cruisers, for each flotilla. So if you think that way, then when you start to build your ships, think fleets. If you have the funds to build two battleships, then you must build eight destroyers per battleship, or sixteen destroyers. You will also four cruisers to provide the destroyer leader.
Now, from there, you should be able to plan your fleet structure depending on how many battleships you can afford. You will also need some independent cruiser-destroyer groups for other purposes in the game that won't include your armored cruisers, battleships or battlecruisers.
I point this out because over the years, as I have read about naval construction programs, it appears that just building a battleship or any large capital ship isn't simple. The naval construction program now has to include the destroyers, cruisers and later, heavy cruisers to accompany the battleships. Now this doesn't change with carriers, it still works the same. You can see how this affects building programs by examining the Japanese 8-8 construction program. It wasn't just simple building eight battleships, it had to include everything else including support ships like tankers, repair ships, cargo ships for victuals. This is what caused the Japanese some definite financial issues when attempting to match the US.
Anyway, I hope this helps.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 13, 2017 16:27:08 GMT -6
On 29 August 1916 the US Congress authorized the construction of 162 warships to be built between 1916 and 1919. These included 10 battleships, 6 battlecruisers, 10 cruisers, 50 destroyers and 67 submarines. Now, this was in addition to the 1915 program of 6 battleships. The goal was to proved 60 battleships and battle cruisers by 1925.
Being an old guy and curious(yes, we old people are curious) I decided to play the US with this size fleet. I have built ten battleships, 10 light cruisers and 30 destroyers. Many more are on the way.
Off we go!
As an aside; when the US Congress in 1938, passed Naval Expansion Act which called for an across-the-board increase of 20 percent increase in the US Navy fleet strength; and at least three others over next two years providing the US with a Two Ocean Navy, this put the Imperial Japanese government on notice, do it now or forget it. In other words, either start a war before these acts overwhelm you or sit back and shut up. We know what they did.
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