Late Game Cruiser Philosophy and Responding to a Long Treaty

[garrisonchisholm]

I am currently play-testing a mod for cv10 , and in the course of that game I've had a fairly interesting situation occur, and I thought my measured response concisely encapsulated my game philosophy and might make for a briefly engaging aside.

Playing as Holland your economy mandates you build wisely and fight prudently.  My second DN was delivered from England in 1913, my 4th in 1921.  My largest domestic build until 1945 was an 11,000 ton 24-knot AC.  I fought 3 wars with Japan which ended in zero territory being exchanged (they even re-took North Korea after I funded the locals to drive them out, which was kind of cool to see), and a war with Russia where-in I employed very Fabian tactics in the west while pushing the East Indies pre-dreadnoughts up to Japan and securing the occupation of Kamchatka before yet another white peace.  I accepted nearly every building instruction I was offered to advance my budget, resulting in numerous destroyers and submarines, and actually (drum roll please) scrapped my first 4 local yard 10,000 ton pre-dreadnoughts after I recalled them from colonial service.  All in all I had to count it a success so far.

Then in 1929 came the Washington Treaty limiting ships to 10" armament and 12,000 ton heavy cruisers for 10 years.  In a highly unusual occurrence, this treaty lasted its Entire natural lifetime.  This is what the world looks like 7 years on.

Heavy cruisers proliferate.  2 states have more cruiser tonnage than capital ships.  Battleships have begun to be laid down again, but many old designs still exist.

Now, as a small state I will clearly be avoiding ALL fleet actions, and if forced into one we will turn around and sail away with high prudence.  I am there-fore not worried about numbers, so during the treaty period I built no cruisers, only destroyers, subs, and upgrading my existing fleet.  What I am worried about are the Cruiser actions which I *will* be able to fight, actions where I will have 2-4 ships vs 2-8 of the enemy.  So quality will be the trump card I need, not quantity.


My 2 old battle-cruisers might be small enough for the game to include in a cruiser engagement, and they would certainly win, but they are only 2 ships and that is a small percentage of an "engagement pool" to draw from.  That means I need new ships, strong enough to defeat a 12x9" HC, fast enough to outrun a battle-cruiser, and yet able to be built both swiftly and economically.  This was my answer.

(Warning to young and infirm, on a lark I decided to use Mountbatten Pink for this game)

A CA that can be built swiftly, armored to survive 10" gunnery at range, and a ship which fortuitously came up with the "easily exceeds designed speed" trait on her trials.  I have managed to build 6 of them in the last 6 years, and in their first action they met a superior number of enemy heavy cruisers and sank four, while surviving heavy damage in return.

If this means anything, I would call it a thesis upon treaty limitations.  Building "to the max" on a treaty hull is probably only a good idea if you have a huge economy and can build many ships.  Smaller states should avoid the Treaty Trap, build other ships, and then plan to exceed enemy performance in the post-treaty world.

[boomboomf22]

Personally I do build cruisers during treaties, but this is sub optimal play for enjoyment. I do it because I want to see what I can design within the limitations of the treaty.

[director]

I assume these were built after the treaty expired, to counter the masses of cruisers built while the treaty was in force?

Regardless of which nation I play, I believe in quality over quantity - the one exception might be for Great Britain (which I never play) who needs masses of cheap cruisers. Otherwise, I find a small number of superior ships, well-handled, will win the cruiser actions that make up the bulk of the attainable victory points.

I've had good luck with CAs as varied as 9x8", 12x8" and 18x7", with the latter being spectacularly effective against standard enemy CAs. My preferred light cruise design is a 12x6" or 9x6" ship of 8000 tons. That said, I'd hate to run into your Ghigny.

[bcoopactual]

Is it me or does the late game AI when it does build CA's (usually in response to a couple I build of my own for experimental reasons) usually stick with 10 inch guns? Mine when I build them are usually 8x8" or 9x8" 14,000 ton early Baltimore types but the AI likes to stay at 10" guns (or move up to them if his early designs were 9 inch gunned ships.

Maybe that's not a problem but it seems at first thought that the 10 inch gun is kind of a no-man's land caliber in the late game. It's over penetrating for light cruisers and heavy cruisers because of the limits on their armor thickness and probably not enough for penetrating late game battleships and battlecruisers. If those two hypotheses are true then 10 inch guns represent a waste of tonnage because 8 or 9 inch guns can do against a CL/CA and nothing they carry is going to work against a typical player BB/BC unless they get lucky and surprise one at close range at night or bad weather. I'd be interested to hear what others think.

[joebob73]

Sept 2, 2017 6:30:36 GMT -6 bcoopactual said:

Is it me or does the late game AI when it does build CA's (usually in response to a couple I build of my own for experimental reasons) usually stick with 10 inch guns? Mine when I build them are usually 8x8" or 9x8" 14,000 ton early Baltimore types but the AI likes to stay at 10" guns (or move up to them if his early designs were 9 inch gunned ships.

Maybe that's not a problem but it seems at first thought that the 10 inch gun is kind of a no-man's land caliber in the late game. It's over penetrating for light cruisers and heavy cruisers because of the limits on their armor thickness and probably not enough for penetrating late game battleships and battlecruisers. If those two hypotheses are true then 10 inch guns represent a waste of tonnage because 8 or 9 inch guns can do against a CL/CA and nothing they carry is going to work against a typical player BB/BC unless they get lucky and surprise one at close range at night or bad weather. I'd be interested to hear what others think.

I've actually noticed that 10" guns are very effective on cruisers, to the point where I don't even bother building CAs with 8" or 9" guns. Sometimes the AI likes to up-armor its ships, and 8" guns start having penetration issues against that. Some games, the armor they put on CAs gets so thick that even 10" can't reliably penetrate, so I designed a class of cruisers capable of taking dual 13" guns in a refit from triple 10". That ended up working, because no armor that can be reasonably put on a cruiser has a chance against 13" AP. Loading a decent portion of SAP shells for 10" or 13" gun cruisers made them significantly more effective, sometimes sinking the lighter enemy CAs in 4-5 hits from the 13".

[garrisonchisholm]

Sept 2, 2017 6:30:36 GMT -6 bcoopactual said:

Is it me or does the late game AI when it does build CA's (usually in response to a couple I build of my own for experimental reasons) usually stick with 10 inch guns? Mine when I build them are usually 8x8" or 9x8" 14,000 ton early Baltimore types but the AI likes to stay at 10" guns (or move up to them if his early designs were 9 inch gunned ships.

Maybe that's not a problem but it seems at first thought that the 10 inch gun is kind of a no-man's land caliber in the late game. It's over penetrating for light cruisers and heavy cruisers because of the limits on their armor thickness and probably not enough for penetrating late game battleships and battlecruisers. If those two hypotheses are true then 10 inch guns represent a waste of tonnage because 8 or 9 inch guns can do against a CL/CA and nothing they carry is going to work against a typical player BB/BC unless they get lucky and surprise one at close range at night or bad weather. I'd be interested to hear what others think.

I actually agree with you B-coop.  In my example on top, and apparently joebob73 's game, if the world is flooded with 13200 ton 12x9's or 9x10's then you pretty much need a 10.  However in my current game, having fallen in love with the super-heavy cruiser in the OP I tried to make it too early, and since it was UN-lucky and was SLOW on trials can only 26 knots.  This is terrible.  What's even more terrible was my decision to go ahead with the design during a treaty period.  Now I have 6 of them, and every action I am flirting around at the edge of sighting range for half the scenario trying to guess UI ships IDs by their behavior because if they're going to run away from a 29 knot fast BB they will need every bit of 30,000 yard's head start to make it to dusk.

If I am in love with 15 guns (and I am), 8.1" guns would have been better, I bet the ship might have been 2 knots faster.


"I assume these were built after the treaty expired, to counter the masses of cruisers built while the treaty was in force?"  Correct director, as soon as the treaty lapsed I started building the Charles' to deal with the 140+ heavy cruisers in the world through quality over quantity.  In my current game though I tried to build it in 1920 as a 20,000 ton treaty ship.  Not enough tonnage for 1920.  I should have built CL's.

[archelaos]

Hmm, at 20k tons I'd rather build 6x11 BC Either AY or maybe even AB. Besides, your CAs are not really cheap, at 86-90mln, in fact small BC could be 10mln cheaper.

Besides, a 22k ton, 210m long ship is a BC IMHO. It's like modern ships that are "class downgraded" to get politicians to vote navy budget (For example the only reason to call Zumwalt a destroyer is political one IMHO)

BDW, I fear the Y turret would be constantly underwater if the ship was running at max speed

[joebob73]

Sept 2, 2017 9:47:42 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

Sept 2, 2017 6:30:36 GMT -6 bcoopactual said:

Is it me or does the late game AI when it does build CA's (usually in response to a couple I build of my own for experimental reasons) usually stick with 10 inch guns? Mine when I build them are usually 8x8" or 9x8" 14,000 ton early Baltimore types but the AI likes to stay at 10" guns (or move up to them if his early designs were 9 inch gunned ships.

Maybe that's not a problem but it seems at first thought that the 10 inch gun is kind of a no-man's land caliber in the late game. It's over penetrating for light cruisers and heavy cruisers because of the limits on their armor thickness and probably not enough for penetrating late game battleships and battlecruisers. If those two hypotheses are true then 10 inch guns represent a waste of tonnage because 8 or 9 inch guns can do against a CL/CA and nothing they carry is going to work against a typical player BB/BC unless they get lucky and surprise one at close range at night or bad weather. I'd be interested to hear what others think.

I actually agree with you B-coop.  In my example on top, and apparently joebob73 's game, if the world is flooded with 13200 ton 12x9's or 9x10's then you pretty much need a 10.  However in my current game, having fallen in love with the super-heavy cruiser in the OP I tried to make it too early, and since it was UN-lucky and was SLOW on trials can only 26 knots.  This is terrible.  What's even more terrible was my decision to go ahead with the design during a treaty period.  Now I have 6 of them, and every action I am flirting around at the edge of sighting range for half the scenario trying to guess UI ships IDs by their behavior because if they're going to run away from a 29 knot fast BB they will need every bit of 30,000 yard's head start to make it to dusk.

If I am in love with 15 guns (and I am), 8.1" guns would have been better, I bet the ship might have been 2 knots faster.


"I assume these were built after the treaty expired, to counter the masses of cruisers built while the treaty was in force?"  Correct director , as soon as the treaty lapsed I started building the Charles' to deal with the 140+ heavy cruisers in the world through quality over quantity.  In my current game though I tried to build it in 1920 as a 20,000 ton treaty ship.  Not enough tonnage for 1920.  I should have built CL's.

The issue I was having wasn't enemy CA gun caliber, but the sheer amount of armor they were using.
 
10" guns just weren't reliable at any kind of sane combat range.  My ships could still handle them, but even a ship such as this one often took unacceptable levels of damage in the process.
 

So I went and added more gun, like so

8 months of refit later, and I had a ship that would blow their CAs out of the water, usually not taking any hits in return.

[director]

I think I'm missing the point. Early on, I get very good use of armored cruisers - I've even sunk battleships with them. And if I can get a couple laid down with cross-firing wing turrets, 8" or 10", I can refit them with better engines later on and squeeze 30 years of life out of them.

But very soon the focus shifts to battlecruiser and light cruiser actions with an occasional fleet scramble. If I spend my money on CAs then they end up not seeing much action - if overseas, they are not called upon and if at home they are AI-run independent divisions that contribute, frankly, very little other than forcing the enemy to use up shells and forcing me to repair them.

It is only in the post-1925 period that I have the money and interest to build more CAs, and then they almost never get into action. At one point I tried not building any CLs, but the mission generator doesn't step up to CAs or BCs but down to DDs instead.

So... CAs are cool, and I get that. I love them! But I end up making lots of designs that never see construction, or building ships that never see action. Of course, I never ever have accepted any treaty limitation other than "discuss and don't commit", so perhaps that's why. I'm always building capital ships and I can't bear to scrap them.


I will say that my ship-design theories have shifted to emphasize number of guns over caliber. If I have a choice, say, between 8x16" or 12x14" I will take the latter; as engagement ranges open up and deck hits become more common the size of the projectile seems to matter less than how many I can throw, and as the range drops I can smash the superstructure and funnels, leaving the (Bismarck, anyone?) remains for my DDs. In my last game (as the US)  I moved away from the traditional BC and went back to a smaller, lighter and cheaper 30k-ton design with 15x11" guns. These were amazingly effective at dispatching cruisers.

joebob73 - I know the game calls that an armored cruiser but then again so was USS Alaska. I know a battlecruiser when I see one LOL.

[joebob73]

Sept 2, 2017 12:36:30 GMT -6 director said:

I think I'm missing the point. Early on, I get very good use of armored cruisers - I've even sunk battleships with them. And if I can get a couple laid down with cross-firing wing turrets, 8" or 10", I can refit them with better engines later on and squeeze 30 years of life out of them.

But very soon the focus shifts to battlecruiser and light cruiser actions with an occasional fleet scramble. If I spend my money on CAs then they end up not seeing much action - if overseas, they are not called upon and if at home they are AI-run independent divisions that contribute, frankly, very little other than forcing the enemy to use up shells and forcing me to repair them.

It is only in the post-1925 period that I have the money and interest to build more CAs, and then they almost never get into action. At one point I tried not building any CLs, but the mission generator doesn't step up to CAs or BCs but down to DDs instead.

So... CAs are cool, and I get that. I love them! But I end up making lots of designs that never see construction, or building ships that never see action. Of course, I never ever have accepted any treaty limitation other than "discuss and don't commit", so perhaps that's why. I'm always building capital ships and I can't bear to scrap them.

That's the other reason I like my 13" gun CAs.

If you get them in a fleet action, they can do useful damage to capital ships.

[director]

joebob73 - maybe so, but I find that aggressive use of CAs and BCs tends to get them swamped under battle-line fire.


Forgot to say - I have used fast, powerful long-ranged CAs as very successful commerce raiders. Assuming I have a port in that sea-zone, I know I can accept all those raider interception battles and crush anything but a BC.

[joebob73]

Sept 2, 2017 12:44:43 GMT -6 director said:

joebob73 - maybe so, but I find that aggressive use of CAs and BCs tends to get them swamped under battle-line fire.

Yes, that tends to happen. 
I find that getting the best use out of them requires leaving them trailing my own battle-line to provide support fire. 

But sometimes, when you get *just* the right scenario, things can happen.

6 of
and a slightly larger version with 32 knot speed, 22k tons, 10" belt for my BC against
4 40k+ ton BCs and a monster 50k ton BB, all armed with 10 15-16" guns.

Ran into them in the fog, my battlecruiser got its ass shot off in the first 5 minutes.  Then the CA squadron, all legacy ships, proceeded to sink 4/5 British heavy combatants.

[bcoopactual]

Sept 2, 2017 8:53:42 GMT -6 joebob73 said:

I've actually noticed that 10" guns are very effective on cruisers, to the point where I don't even bother building CAs with 8" or 9" guns. Sometimes the AI likes to up-armor its ships, and 8" guns start having penetration issues against that. Some games, the armor they put on CAs gets so thick that even 10" can't reliably penetrate, so I designed a class of cruisers capable of taking dual 13" guns in a refit from triple 10". That ended up working, because no armor that can be reasonably put on a cruiser has a chance against 13" AP. Loading a decent portion of SAP shells for 10" or 13" gun cruisers made them significantly more effective, sometimes sinking the lighter enemy CAs in 4-5 hits from the 13".

Hmmm. I would say you are probably right. I was thinking that CA's were limited to 6.5 inches of belt armor but maybe that's either an early game thing (where I build most of my CA's) or maybe I'm just wrong altogether. I just designed an 8 inch belt for a CA in my current game in 1909 and the game didn't try to kick it up to a B.

8 inch guns definitely wouldn't deal with those cruisers that recently got posted above but director is right. Those are Alaska/B-65 style cruisers that blur the line and more importantly, the cost, of true battlecruisers. When I build CA's in the late game I'm looking for something that fills the gap cost wise between large light cruisers and my fast battleship style BC's. Preferably on the lower end of the scale so I can have more light cruiser killers without crippling my budget to build capital ships. 8 inch guns will definitely fit the role I intend for them. I guess I would have to designate battlecruisers to deal with those CA's above if they started wrecking my smaller CA's overseas or whatever. It's an interesting strategic choice.

[joebob73]

Sept 2, 2017 17:57:58 GMT -6 bcoopactual said:

Sept 2, 2017 8:53:42 GMT -6 joebob73 said:

I've actually noticed that 10" guns are very effective on cruisers, to the point where I don't even bother building CAs with 8" or 9" guns. Sometimes the AI likes to up-armor its ships, and 8" guns start having penetration issues against that. Some games, the armor they put on CAs gets so thick that even 10" can't reliably penetrate, so I designed a class of cruisers capable of taking dual 13" guns in a refit from triple 10". That ended up working, because no armor that can be reasonably put on a cruiser has a chance against 13" AP. Loading a decent portion of SAP shells for 10" or 13" gun cruisers made them significantly more effective, sometimes sinking the lighter enemy CAs in 4-5 hits from the 13".

Hmmm. I would say you are probably right. I was thinking that CA's were limited to 6.5 inches of belt armor but maybe that's either an early game thing (where I build most of my CA's) or maybe I'm just wrong altogether. I just designed an 8 inch belt for a CA in my current game in 1909 and the game didn't try to kick it up to a B.

8 inch guns definitely wouldn't deal with those cruisers that recently got posted above but director is right. Those are Alaska/B-65 style cruisers that blur the line and more importantly, the cost, of true battlecruisers. When I build CA's in the late game I'm looking for something that fills the gap cost wise between large light cruisers and my fast battleship style BC's. Preferably on the lower end of the scale so I can have more light cruiser killers without crippling my budget to build capital ships. 8 inch guns will definitely fit the role I intend for them. I guess I would have to designate battlecruisers to deal with those CA's above if they started wrecking my smaller CA's overseas or whatever. It's an interesting strategic choice.

Building ships like mine also kind of fucks with the AI, because when it sees you building a lot of CAs it slows down the clone-BB spam somewhat.  Really only the US can get away with building them, due to the MASSIVE amounts of money you get thrown at you after 1910-ish.  The main reason I built them was to clean out the massive CA count that the AI was building up without being at too much risk themselves.  Didn't hurt that they were around half the cost of one of my heavy BB/BC designs, which is usually all I build once I get 52k ton docks.

director I also run on captain's mode with support forces disabled.  So I get control of all of my ships, and can coordinate them pretty well.  Also, the AI in my games tends to make BCs just as large as their BBs, so if I made the lighter BCs that you get so much use out of, I would lose them really quickly for no use at all.  My commerce raiders tend to be CLs, because 2 fast CLs costs about as much as a single CA, and they can actually outrun the 32-33 knot derp-BCs that I usually have to fight. In my early game, that 4 13" gun CA is the backbone of my fleet, mostly because I can refit them to be actually useful late-game, while the early Bs just can't handle it even with upgrades.  And I've had the opposite experience with caliber, the heavy ships with larger numbers of small guns tend to not be able to mount enough turret armor or deck armor for how I use them.  Meanwhile, hit rates for both 12*14 and 8*16 tend to be similar enough that I prefer the heavier shells of the 16". 

[director]

joebob73 - I wouldn't say that I only build light BCs. In that last game I went to a 27-knot battleline speed and had about 15 capable of that. My big BCs weren't getting called on for battle (12x14" and 9x15") so I went with a fast, lighter-tonnage and lightly-armed ship for the next build. They did see action against big European BCs and they worked out just fine - what they couldn't shell into submission they could outrun.

For myself I only run on RA mode - for all that I sometimes scream invective at the AI, it is more true to life.