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Post by Airy W on Apr 11, 2018 21:56:55 GMT -6
The Orion drive proponents are generally sane enough to think you should already be in space before you start the thing up. I believe that it wouldn't actually be capable of working in an atmosphere. Nope. Initial design studies actually assumed a ground-up launch. My impression is that was their intention but that's not what excites the fans. The fans are excited because it's the most plausible means of interstellar travel yet proposed. The Orion drive proponents are generally sane enough to think you should already be in space before you start the thing up. I believe that it wouldn't actually be capable of working in an atmosphere. Nah, it would totally work in atmo, you can even use smaller bombs in atmo, 0.35kt at the outside instead of 15kt, the fallout can be mostly negated with higher latitude launches on graphite launch pads. and it was built from the ground up as a space launch system I was more alluding to the performance then the fallout. In orbit an Orion drive could theoretically give much higher performance then anything else. In an atmosphere it's not as good and there are ideas that are much better. A nuclear scramjet for instance could give many orders of magnitude better performance and the nuclear scramjet was patented before the Trinity test. (Much to the chagrin of Richard Feynman). It seems rather adequate to me. Honestly, I think we might all be overarmoring our predreadnoughts. Super-cruisers are surprisingly effective in the late game, perhaps teacup battleships need more consideration in the early game. The belt armor isn't exactly terrible. The problem is more that in order to make the armor and the guns fit on the displacement, the ships had to be designed with low freeboard, short range, cramped accommodations, flat deck over belt armor scheme, and (in most cases) speed priority on the engines, and are also slightly slow even for late-predreadnought period battleships. The secondary batteries are also rather lackluster, especially now that DDs of around a thousand tons are starting to show up. How much speed and seaworthiness does a navy really need?
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Post by aeson on Apr 11, 2018 22:58:25 GMT -6
The belt armor isn't exactly terrible. The problem is more that in order to make the armor and the guns fit on the displacement, the ships had to be designed with low freeboard, short range, cramped accommodations, flat deck over belt armor scheme, and (in most cases) speed priority on the engines, and are also slightly slow even for late-predreadnought period battleships. The secondary batteries are also rather lackluster, especially now that DDs of around a thousand tons are starting to show up. How much speed and seaworthiness does a navy really need? Enough to not be at a significant tactical disadvantage, or at minimum to not be sunk. It's a very objective and clear metric, I know. That said, I don't think there's realistically any way I could have built 20 first-class battleships on Tropico's budget without cutting some significant fraction of the four small first class (heavy) cruisers, twenty second class (light) cruisers, thirty-six third class (raiding) cruisers, sixty-four destroyers and torpedo boats, forty-eight minesweepers, and eight coastal submarines I have in service or under construction. If El Presidente cannot have out-sized ships, then at least he can have an out-sized navy. Granted, a not insignificant number of those ships are approaching obsolescence, if they haven't already reached it, but such is the fate of a minor power's fleet. I also kind of want to try them for an A-H, Italy, France, or maybe Germany game to get a shot at testing them in an early war against more typical first-class battleships, but it's a little late for that in this game, and Tropico isn't exactly well-situated for it anyways, what with the USA being the only power to share a home sea zone with them (although maybe I could have done it, since I had 12 "battleships" to their 14 by 1906; their first dreadnought, a 6x13" battlecruiser, commissioned in 1907, and another seven battlecruisers and five dreadnought battleships followed in the time it took me to build my next four predreadnoughts, however, and they have three dreadnought battleships and another dreadnought battlecruiser under construction to my four mini-dreadnoughts, so I'd say that the window of reasonable opportunity for that gamble has already closed, especially since the armor on the first twelve of my battleships is no longer really sufficient to protect them against their own guns).
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Post by rycoba on Apr 22, 2018 14:55:03 GMT -6
This is what happened when faced with BC spam in 1939, with a terrible budget and 12k tonnes yards Attachments:
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Post by cuirasspolisher on Apr 22, 2018 16:06:24 GMT -6
This is what happened when faced with BC spam in 1939, with a terrible budget and 12k tonnes yards I'd hate to face that monster. There are entire navies that mount fewer torpedo tubes than your "destroyer."
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Post by rycoba on Apr 23, 2018 2:58:15 GMT -6
Hilariously, I actually managed to succeed in the face of adversity, with a fleet consisting of 60% DDs, 20% 5000 tonne CLs, 15% 9000 tonne CLs, and a handful of 12000 tonne CAs, pretending to be BCs. Yay, Fleet in (not) being tactics work!
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Post by mobeer on Apr 23, 2018 16:00:27 GMT -6
This is what happened when faced with BC spam in 1939, with a terrible budget and 12k tonnes yards Looks like the 1939 version of the real 1917 Kitakami
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Post by vonfriedman on Apr 24, 2018 8:58:51 GMT -6
On 1879 Rivista Marittima published some articles of Lieutenant Domenico Bonamico about the policy to be followed in shipbuilding. He suggested to build several cruisers (3-4000 ton, 18-20 knots) with just two guns and a lot of torpedo tubes. They would have to operate especially at night against enemy landing vessels. Their speed would have allowed them (hopefully) to avoid to be engaged by superior forces.
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Post by noshurviverse on May 4, 2018 11:52:52 GMT -6
"Sir, I urge you to reconsider." Attachments:
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Post by serger on May 4, 2018 12:33:59 GMT -6
Holy mackerel!
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Post by Noname117 on May 4, 2018 13:07:07 GMT -6
That thing could kill a fleet with it's turret flashfire. Maybe that's how you're intending on using it.
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Post by gornik on May 4, 2018 13:39:46 GMT -6
*brokenly trying to find any rational way to use her* Well, it's good concept of AA battleship - shockwave from her full broadside should destroy any aircraft in sight, as well as incoming bombs and, probably, torpedoes. *thinking bit more* And if we'll use cluster munition (board-made, filling with common 4" shells), she may kill convoys from safe range, just carpet-shooting them. *I should stop here, really *
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Post by rimbecano on May 4, 2018 13:56:23 GMT -6
You can hardly land a shell on that ship without hitting a large caliber turret that isn't even adequately armored against splinters. I think the best use for such a vessel is exploding messily.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on May 4, 2018 14:08:17 GMT -6
But, just imagine that first broadside when you catch someone at night unawares! ...and don't imagine any further than that, it gets messy...
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Post by director on May 4, 2018 15:02:52 GMT -6
You made one error that is easily fixable: replace the 6" with as many 16" as the ship can carry. With a broadside like that, smaller caliber guns for defense against smaller ships are obsolete and unnecessary - the waterspout created when all those 18" and 17" shells land would swamp a cruiser, much less a DD flotilla.
I don't really understand why you have a 3" belt unless it's for structural purposes. If you're going to do something like this, go all the way! I suggest "Tigre di carta" for the class name, with "Tigre fiammeggiante" for her sister-ship.
The builder's bid includes a life-insurance package for all officers and crew, so you're good.
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Post by noshurviverse on May 4, 2018 16:43:53 GMT -6
So then, unsatisfied with the amount of firepower the first generation brought to the table, I decided to attempt to push naval engineering entirely past what any reasonable person would consider acceptable. Additional main guns were mounted along the centerline, armor was thickened and added to certain areas and the speed was increased to the maximum possible. With our changes complete, this powerful new class of Battle-Cruiser can bring a broadside of 42 capital size guns to bear. However, further research was required. The question remained, just how much firepower was being leveled at the unlucky bastards on the target ship? Let's find out. The first step was to calculate the weight of the ammunition. As RtW simply gives the overall weight of the ammo carried, I would need to calculate how much weight was projectile and how much was propellant. I chose to take the weight of an AP shell of the Type 95 naval gun (Japanese 18" gun mounted on the Yamoto) and compare it to the overall weight of each round carried in game. Each in-game round of 18" ammo weighs 5,400lbs, and the AP shell of the Type 95 weighs 3,218lbs or roughly 60% of the total weight. Using this number as a reasonable baseline, we multiply that weight by 30 and add it to our subtotal. Next, I compare the overall weight of 17" ammo to 18" ammo. This shows that 17" ammo weighs about 83% that of 18" ammo, or roughly 2670lbs for each projectile in the air. Again, this number is multiplied by 12 and added to the subtotal. Finally, we get the results: A single broadside of this class is capable of throwing a theoretical 128,591lbs of angry weight at a target. However, I realize only now that I've been using short tons to calculate with. If RtW uses long tons, this number would increase to (brace for impact) 144,021lbs. To build, this will cost 9.1 million each turn for a grand total of 300 million dollars. It's upfront cost is over 16 million. It's maintenance cost is nearly one and a half million each month. But when you really think about it, you're blessed with a ship carrying an entire battle line worth of firepower, so is it honestly that expensive? Attachments:
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