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Post by theexecuter on Sept 5, 2017 19:02:09 GMT -6
Information like that could still be classified. It is, after all, the best information on the ability to disrupt the western world's commerce...
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Post by Airy W on Sept 6, 2017 7:36:55 GMT -6
Note: if you examine the numbers for 1941, 1942 and 1943, and 1944, the German's were very close to 300 boats produced. My assessment is that the capability to produce the required boats was apparently there. Just my thoughts. Germany got those numbers by lowering it's quality control standards to the point where they were building non-seaworthy craft en masse. My assessment is that shows they didn't have the capability to produce those boats.
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Post by babylon218 on Sept 6, 2017 9:32:17 GMT -6
Necessity is the mother of invention. The US developed the modular construction method for the Liberty Ships (now a common practice in the shipbuilding industry, including the RN's modern Queen Elizabeth-Class Fleet Aircraft Carriers) because it needed massive numbers of merchantmen to replace losses during the Summer of 1942 (losses which could have been reduced, I would note, if the USN had adopted convoy tactics from the beginning, instead of learning Britain's WWI lessons all over again). Germany adopted the same techniques because they needed to rapidly expand the U-Boat fleet during the tonnage war and in 1943 replace large U-Boat losses as the Allies closed the air ASW patrol gap. Would Speer have introduced this system before the war, when Germany wasn't expecting war with Britain for another decade and U-Boat construction was already on target for that goal? Mass production requires an actual need for introduction, because it reduces the overall quality of the final product compared to traditional construction methods until techniques can be developed. That isn't something most militaries building up in peacetime want, but something that wartime militaries experiencing attrition need.
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Post by Airy W on Sept 6, 2017 9:55:59 GMT -6
In his book "Inside the Third Reich" Speer relates that he felt that production methods in Germany were old fashioned and he reorganized them around the method we used to produce Liberty ships. Speer is an extremely unreliable source. Case in point: Speer was the driving force behind the XXI uboats being produced in the fashion they were and it was an unmitigated disaster. How much attention did Speer's book draw to his choice to tell completely unqualified inland metal shops to make submarine hulls? This was a huge commitment of resources by Germany and it was done on his initiative. So in Speer's book about his own career, how much does he talk about his signature initiative. He did all kinds of accounting bullshit, shuffling rationing allotments and assignments around to create an illusion of "rationalization" when productivity gains were no different from before. This is how you end up with tank parts being labeled as belonging to the air force in order to be allowed onto the trains. That is hardly what you would expect from a "rational" system. And he did a good job of the classic CEO trick of trash the last CEO. It sounds very impressive that Speer tripled ammo production... until you realize that this was mostly amounted to ending the emergency suspension of many production lines they had been forced to enact by materials shortages. (The German military had demanded material allocations around the assumption the war with the Soviets would be short, this lead to a crisis when the pre-invasion stockpiles ran out.) This tripling would have happened without him but he probably got more self promotion out of that then everything else combined. Really, man, this is just basic common sense. Dont take the word of totalitarian governments for granted. There are a lot of lies in there. Would Speer have introduced this system before the war Oh man, I wish we had been so lucky! 98.6% of the uboats built under Speer's "system" were unseaworthy. He committed every classic blunder of subcontracting: poor vetting of the people given the subcontracts, bad communication of requirements, unsound QA procedures, perverse incentives, failing to test parts that needed to work together, making a hodgepodge of design changes between shops. If Speer had been in charge of uboat production before the war Germany probably would have had 600 uboats and 10 of them would be seaworthy.
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Post by bcoopactual on Sept 6, 2017 10:06:59 GMT -6
I've read Wages of Destruction and it did a pretty convincing job in my non-expert opinion of unmasking the Speer mystique as a fraud.
I'm curious, has anyone published a book refuting Wages of Destruction and defending Speer since Professor Tooze released his?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 6, 2017 10:26:42 GMT -6
As a service to this discussion, I have deleted the two posts using Albert Speer as a source. Enjoy your discussion.
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Post by eserchie on Sept 9, 2017 23:45:12 GMT -6
To return the discussion to it's origins, and as an arguable proponent of the super cruiser concept, since one of my designs is cited as an exemplar of the type - Why super cruisers?
Before the game that spawned the Spartiates, I had avoided the entire concept, much like OP, believing that cruisers should be fast, ranged, lightly armoured and affordable, based largely on reading real world history. The super cruiser is most definitely not most of the above. I did not enter upon the design as a battlecruiser alternative as such, but more a bizarre cross between a second rate battleship and a way of maintaining gun calibre edge over other cruisers. (remember, the spartiate was a 1905 design, and thus was in a pre-dread environment.) I expected the design to flop, or at best be a stop gap, especially as they were so slow by my cruiser standards. Following the Spartiate, I have ended up with many, many games that I tried the super cruiser idea in, these times as an actual design strategy. In some, it excelled, in others it proved no better or worse than any other broad class design, and in some it was a total catastrophe. So why does it sometimes work and sometimes not, and why didn't the real world see a similar concept?
I'm pretty sure the main answer lies in the games AI. The supercruiser gets selected and deployed, and more importantly reacted to by the enemy substantially differently to a BC. As an experiment I once made two virtually identical ship classes in the same game, one with 10" guns that classed as a CA, and one with 11" guns that classed as a BC. Both had four triple turrets and two double wing turrets, similar speed and armour, and displacemnent. The weight difference was shaved from secondaries and range. Both died horribly to enemy BCs, but the CA fared better against everything else, and saw more engagements. I suspect the AI underestimates the supercruiser, and will seek/ allow engagements with it that it would break off much more readily if facing a BC. I also suspect ammo selection comes into play. Heavily armoured supercruisers seem to be fired at with AP rounds from medium guns, rather than HE, even if they have battleship grade armour that a 6-8" gun won't scratch. Similarly, they tend to get selected for engagements at a much higher rate than battlecruisers do, due to being classed as a CA. The engagements are also less likely to be refused by the AI.
The other answer is a fundamental flaw in the Battlecruiser doctrine, made both by players in game and advocates of the BC in real history. The basic premise of a Fisher-style BC is speed is armour, more powerful than anything smaller, faster than anything bigger. Versus a battleship, run away. Versus a cruiser, pound it from outside it's guns range. Against a Supercruiser? pound it from outside it's guns range, right? the BC definitely has the range advantage, and the speed advantage to control said range. Except in practice, four times out of five, the BC does NOT have a range advantage. Theoretical maximum range on guns sure, but all too often range is limited by visibility to noticeably less than the range on the 10" gun, so both ships are inside the others range. And the armour to gun calibre (and thus penetration) tradeoffs on each side often end in a wash, even favouring the supercruiser if enough compromises were made to/for speed. And the supercruiser has more guns, faster fire rates on those guns, and on a lightly armoured BC, can often achieve significant damage with it's secondaries too. And the AI running the BC doesn't try and break contact until it is already in trouble, usually losing speed and the ability to flee effectively, presumably because it's 'only' a CA, even if said CA is more armoured and 5000 tons heavier.
Whenever a supercruiser has gone against a BC of equivalent age and cost/size in my games in good visibility, the supercruiser loses. Whenever a supercruiser or squadron thereof has faced off against battlecruisers in a large fleet engagemnt, the supercruisers have been coming off worse (either sunk, or rescued by torpedo runs or battle line.) Most of the times supercruisers have encountered battlecruisers, the supercruiser has won. They noticeably do better in the atlantic and north sea than in the pacific and mediterranean. Ultra-slow supercruisers tend to do much worse than ones that are only a knot or two slower than their opposition, as a ship with a slight speed disadvantage can stall until visibilty decreases. The superslow ones also tend to get shredded by med-fast BBs and fail to catch enemy cruisers. Mostly, the super cruiser tends to end up facing other cruisers, which it does about as well at as a BC (assuming it isn't slower than the cruisers - a good supercruiser is a BC that trades gun size for gun numbers and armour, without shedding too much speed) When it does fight BC's it often ends up facing them on favourable terms - both in terms of visibility, and often outnumbering the BC (either multiple supercruisers, or more commonly a CA or CL squadron and some DDs) I am unsure what causes this outnumbering effect, given the cost of the supercruiser, and that it occurs even when playing a nation that is outnumbered by it's opponent.
Supercruisers make a good design pathway and strategy if the AI isn't already ahead on BCs, they tend to fail if you try and use them to play catch-up. They tend not to work for Japan. They work best with gunnery and night-fighting training. They work better at about 2kts slower than opposing BCs late game. They work best early game if they are the same speed as any other top end CA/BC (effectivly being an early BC) They don't work well unless you have a good 10" gun. Maximizing forward firepower helps massively, allowing early crippling salvos against lighter ships. You will need a more conventional CA as well, unless you are Britain or the USA, and can afford to have a supercruiser for every enemy cruiser. Supercruisers tend to be an amazing way to kill pre-dreads.
In summary - why Supercruisers rather than Battlecruiser? a) The game doesn't assess them as a BC, so the AI underestimates them. b) When visibility is limited, rate of fire and armour trumps speed and gun calibre. c) They consistently see more engagements than BCs.
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Post by Airy W on Sept 10, 2017 7:33:48 GMT -6
There do seem to be a few places where the game simulation breaks down. You note that the CAs see more combat then the BCs and the wonky ammo selection.
Another might be that quantity of cruisers vs. quality doesn't really matter in force selection for cruiser engagements (or destroyer engagements). If one nation has 12 4000 ton cruisers and the other 6 8000 ton cruisers then you will still see a lot of 1 on 1 engagements. This is especially brutal for Italy (oh poor Italy) and beneficial to players since players tend to build for quality not price. A player is going to naturally gravitate towards a strategy that counters the AI cruiser builds and the AI can't respond with tactical doctrine changes.
Then with the big engagements, it's not really possible to use a fast support force effectively. There is the BC scouting force but you can't put all your newest, fastest CAs and CLs with the BCs and put all your slower ones with the BBs. So in fleet battles a lot of speed is wasted. On the other hand, it is understandable why they didn't give the player control over this, if you look at Jutland the British would have loved to be able to effectively position their fastest squadrons but failed to do so. A mix would be ideal but that would require some more complex mechanics.
Also there is the colonial tonnage requirements. Adding tonnage and armor to a CA somehow makes it more effective at patrolling a colonial empire even if the guns and speed stay the same. If anything you would think the reverse would be true since they now need to ship in more fuel...
I think these simulation "boundary cases" reward over armoring CAs compared to historical circumstances.
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