Post by generalvikus on Dec 6, 2017 11:00:23 GMT -6
Hey Guys,
I've just completed my UK campaign that I have been talking about a lot on the forums, concluded (though not by resignation) in the year 1928. This is the second game in which I have reached the 1925 end date, and like the other one, this game ended with something of an anti-climax, as a great final struggle that had been building for many years came to naught.
My intention here is to provide an overview of the game, with a focus on the strategic design decisions I made along the way. Hopefully it will be a point of interest for some of you - but in addition to that, I would very much appreciate some discussion and advice regarding my ship design and strategic decision-making. Since this has the virtue of being a game that I have completed recently, and therefore one I have a clear memory of, hopefully this post can start a well informed and entertaining discussion that will improve my skills and knowledge of the game.
At some point, I may also write an AAR concerning the central feature of this game - my many wars with Russia. I have developed an interesting and (I think) quite plausible alternate history to fit the course of events, and I imagine that some people here might find it enjoyable to read a proper account. I don't feel that I have the time to write that down now, so I will instead relate the story in brief:
***
The Russian Empire was my strongest competitor in the pre-dreadnought age. While the American fleet was considerably larger, the Russians were closer and tensions with them were always higher. While both France and Germany had pursued balanced fleets with strong cruiser forces and effective raiding capability, Russia had invested heavily in its pre-dreadnought battle fleet and maintained all of its forces in Northern Europe at all times. The Russian navy of this period was built for decisive battle; large, well funded, and well designed. It would have been more than a match for any of its other Northern European contemporaries, but against the Royal Navy it could have no hope of success. The outcome of our first war was the Russian Revolution of 1909.
Shortly after the revolution, another insurrection followed - this time, in Ireland. The month after that, I got an event saying that the Russians were attempting to occupy Ireland, and so I decided to send an ultimatum, hoping that this was my chance to undo my embarrassing failure and pretend it never happened. It was not to be; Ireland was occupied. Determined to reclaim this prize, I fought a series of wars against the Russians (three more of them, from memory) but despite my attempts to repeat my early success and push the Russians once again to revolution, each war was cut short by the damn politicians, leaving me with only 4 conquest points - not enough to claim a single Russian possession, and not nearly enough for Ireland.
The story that I have developed attempts to resolve the implausibility of Great Britain and Russia going to war inconclusively three times in 18 years, and especially Britain's failure to reconquer Ireland despite naval superiority and geography. I decided that, following the Russian Revolution, the Irish civil war kicked off a little early (with the British distracted by war, as in real life.) As in Russia, the first rebellion established the Irish Republic in the south, but a second Revolution by the Marxists within the IRA established Communist rule in the Irish Republic while Britain retained Northern Ireland. Lenin would have seen Ireland as the gateway to Britain, and Britain as the gateway to world revolution. The next task was to complete the revolution in Northern Ireland. There, the Civil War would continue; the Bolsheviks would back the revolutionaries and Britain would attempt to retain control. What followed was a series of proxy wars between Britain and the USSR in the mould of the Vietnam war; most of the fighting would pit Irish guerrillas and international brigades against British forces, with the occasional involvement of the regular Irish troops. To sustain this proxy war, the Bolsheviks would need to ship supplies across the North Sea; thus, the stage was set for naval warfare. A single continuous conflict, reminiscent of the undeclared commerce war fought by the United States Navy against the Kreigsmarine in 1941, would be fought between the Royal Navy on one side and the Red Fleet on the other, punctuated by temporary truces which would then spiral out of control once more. This story seems to me to be much more plausible than what amounts to three world wars in rapid succession, and fits with the political climate of Europe following the Russian Revolution. I think it would be an enjoyable piece of alternate history to explore more deeply, and as I have said, I may move on to that at a later date. For now, though, I will leave this story behind and focus on the game.
***
My overarching strategy at the beginning of the game was essentially twofold. On one hand, strong battle fleets would be maintained at all times in Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and South-East Asia, with moderate forces on other important stations. These forces would respond instantly to any crisis, and be redistributed according to the balance of tensions around the world in order to be ready for any potential conflict. On the other hand, a specialized force of commerce protection cruisers and colonial gunboats would provide for the tonnage requirements on less important stations during peacetime and protect the trade lanes in wartime.
The design implications were drawn directly from the manual, where I found the recommendation to have dedicated commerce protection cruisers (with long range, reliable engines and slow speed) and fleet cruisers (medium range, speed optimized engines, and high top speed) as well as colonial gunboats. This resulted in three classes of ship: The Victoria Class commerce protection cruiser, the Singapore Class gunboat, and the Conquest Class fleet cruiser.
Of these three types, both the Singapore and the Victoria served without merit or loss, and so the concepts behind them remain relatively unproven. Of the 10 Victoria Class Cruisers, only one was ever called upon to fulfil its role, very late in its career, fighting a more modern raider in the Caribbean to a draw and retreating with moderate damage.
***
The Conquests, on the other hand, were in an entirely different league:
The Psyche, shown here, is the most distinguished of the bunch. They were comfortably the best legacy cruisers in the game, with a price tag to match. They are typical of my starting cruisers, except for the high speed. I came across their design philosophy – 3 inch belt armour, and a heavy secondary armament of 3 inch guns - playing as Germany fighting the Russians. I realized that, try as they might, my 4 inch armed starting cruisers couldn't make an impression on their Russian opponents. I could outrange these ships, for sure, but I found that I needed to get close to score enough hits to get through their armour. As soon as I did, I was torn apart by their smaller, faster firing weapons. I really like 3 inch guns early in the game; in an era when killing other ships is very difficult, they can at least maim them with great cost-effectiveness.
Though designed as fleet cruisers in accordance with the manual's recommendations, these ships were rarely called upon to fight in that capacity. Though cruiser to cruiser battles were expected to be the realm of the Victoria class commerce protection vessels, these engagements dominated the early wars in Europe while the Victorias enjoyed perpetual peace and quiet out on their far-flung stations. Fortunately, the Conquests turned out to be unparalleled cruiser-killers, time after time sinking their enemies in one to one duels while sustaining only minor damage. Above all, their long-range gunnery was superb.
Their engines proved very unreliable, but the high top speed kept them relevant for many years. Nevertheless, the length of their careers far outstripped their usefulness. The Dreadnought race, when it came, drained all of my resources. Even when the first light cruisers were commissioned in 1910, there was only enough money to replace the now-obsolete Victorias. The Conquests therefore received a small refit, replacing their fire control in 1912; the month after it was completed, the new fire control became obsolete. Nevertheless, these ships soldiered on, and continued to see action throughout their long careers. The four Conquest class ships which formed the core of the Mediterranean fleet were finally mothballed in February 1925. That story will be told in much greater detail later on, but for now it suffices to say that the Conquests very much earned the title of second favourite ship class from this game.
***
Ironically, the ship designed to perform the Conquest's role was considerably less successful at it. The Diadem class was almost a straight copy of a ship from the ‘best ship designs’ thread, klavohunter's 'Hansa.' No images survived, but these ships were sufficiently important to warrant a shot of the design page, though I prefer not to use these:
With long range and reliable engines, these ships were designed to be mutli-roled, the opposite of the highly specialized protected cruisers. They could be called in for commerce protection to deal with heavy enemy raiders - such as other CAs - and could serve as the flagships of foreign stations. Their main role, on the other hand, was to be cruiser vs cruiser engagements. My use of this design represented a considerable departure from my norms; they were slower and smaller than my usual armoured cruisers, with a light but numerous 4 inch secondary battery. There were a large number of them - six, from memory - and they proved adequate enough. However, they weren't quite fast enough to run down enemy cruisers in cruiser engagements, and several failed intercepts in a Mediterranean war with Italy revealed the inadequacy of the Diadems as commerce protectors and the even greater inadequacy of the Victorias for that role. Worse still, once their age began to show, the Diadems proved both impossible to rebuild and difficult to replace. Meanwhile, the Conquests bore the brunt of the cruiser actions. Overall, then, the record of this class is sketchy, but their only flaw, as far as I can see it, was the 22 knot speed, which seems to be quite standard for both players and the AI. Sacrificing their reliable engines and a little extra cost for a 23 or 24 knot speed would have increased both their early utility and longevity.
***
The early game saw a few easy wars against Italy and Russia, all of which were won by cruisers without the intervention of the battlefleet. The pre-dreadnoughts, of which I had three successive classes, were pretty standard offerings; eventually I built 15, which on large fleet size gave me a very comfortable lead. In order, the pre-dreadnought classes were:
Little needs to be said about these ships, since they never saw much action; the only time they ever fought, to the best of my recollection, was against the French battle fleet in 1912, where they performed well enough but were not called upon to go into a direct slugging match with their opposite numbers. A few notable observations are that these ships reflect a consistent doctrine of building battleships approximately 2,000 tons larger than the largest potential enemies, while simultaneously maintaining the two-power standard in battleship numbers.
Their impact on my logistical thinking was far greater than any lessons I learned from their design. As I have said, my initial doctrine was one of power projection - maintain separate battlefleets around the world at all times. As soon as the dreadnought race kicked in, I found this to be quite impossible. Mounting costs called for a complete rethink of my strategic doctrine in around 1905 - 1906; in peacetime, the battleships would have to all remain in Northern Europe, (save for one to make up the tonnage in the Mediterranean) and would only leave during periods of high tensions. Enough of them would be kept active to maintain a one or two ship lead over the power with the next highest number of battleships in the theatre; the rest would go into reserve. Meanwhile, the burden of peacetime 'flag showing' would be laid entirely at the feet of the dedicated colonial forces. As it turned out, I didn't have enough cruisers to comfortably pursue this doctrine - yet I also didn't have enough money to avoid it. The result was a serious shortage of cruisers which became an increasing concern throughout the middle years of the game, as the Diadem, Victoria and even the Conquest class all approached obsolescence.
***
Shortly before the advent of the dreadnought age, I was able to put into practice a long-awaited experiment: the super-cruiser. I hadn't tried this out since I hosted a large and lively debate on the topic a few months ago (I hadn't played the game since then) and now I was eager to test out its merits. When the ship designer suggested the name 'Spartiate' I took it as a sign:
My version was the nearest approximation I could get to eserchie's famous Spartiate class cruiser, which to the best of my knowledge is the origin of the super-cruiser trend. Since the exact design specifications have been lost to the mists of time, I couldn't be precise (the image he posted is no longer available) but for all intents and purposes, it was the same ship, except for one very big improvement: from the outset, my Spartiate could steam at the originally intended 25 knots.
Two of these ships were laid down, and their fates could not have been more different. Spartiate’s career was long and distinguished; she dominated my first war with Russia in 1908 – 09, in which she laid waste to Russia’s cruiser force. Her sister ship Ariadne, on the other hand, was torpedoed in the same war while attempting a night pursuit of a Russian armoured cruiser and her escorts, after which she suffered a slow and agonising demise, surviving until the end of the battle but being listed as sunk in the results screen. Thus, the super-cruiser had the unfortunate distinction of being the greatest British naval disaster of the game. Spartiate herself very nearly suffered the same fate several years later in the next war with Russia; she and her partner the Diadem class cruiser Argonaut successfully drove off the enemy battlecruiser, only for Spartiate to be hit by a torpedo as the enemy retreated. She survived – narrowly – thanks to my constant intervention in preventing her from switching to AI control and trying to return to port as fast as she could.
The next iteration of the super-cruiser concept, the Europa (named for a Diadem class armoured cruiser sunk in the same war) was as close an approximation as I could get to the original Spartiate’s successor, the Drake class:
Spartiate and Europa both received a refit to upgrade their fire control in 1913 and 1914 respectively, but any further work was deemed prohibitively expensive. Nevertheless, the cruiser shortage along with their respectable 25 knot top speed kept them in the active fleet long after all other armoured cruisers had been scrapped. Their later years were spent as the flagships of foreign stations, where they could meet peacetime tonnage requirements and hope to find ships of their own age in wartime. They were finally put into mothballs in the 1920s, but in a surprise twist they were recalled to active service in October 1925 to conduct ‘showing the flag’ operations in their old East Asian haunts while I refit the cruisers stationed there. A fitting end for these venerable ships – I’m glad I found good reason to take them for one last spin.
Overall, my experience this game is not enough to either vindicate or discredit the controversial super cruiser. Spartiate’s performance against enemy protected cruisers was predictably fantastic, but she was never able to test her mettle against enemy heavy ships as her namesake did. Furthermore, since I only ever built three of these ships, and only ever had two in service at any given time, I could not really determine how well a super-cruiser force fits into an overall force structure. More testing is required – and intended.
***
Now, with the early game out of the way, we come at last to the dreadnoughts, and the arms race they bought about. From here, I will relate the story of my other ship classes in more or less chronological order, with some reference to their foreign contemporaries, since as we all know these ships are very much products of their time and strategic environment, and raw designs without context tell you very little. All of this will be woven into the larger strategic narrative of the game, and so it will more closely resemble the traditional AAR format.
***
Naturally, Great Britain was the first to lay down and complete a dreadnought; that ship was HMS Centurion. She and her sister ship, Royal Oak, were commissioned in early 1907.
Centurion was a somewhat underwhelming entry into the Dreadnought age, owing to the extreme immaturity of her technology. My first dreadnought design, drawn up some time in early 1905, weighed in at an astounding 30,000 tonnes. This was within my dock size limit – just – but was judged prohibitively expensive, so I decided to wait for the technology to mature. However, when I reached the date at which HMS Dreadnought was actually laid down, I decided that I could wait no longer, and so I set about making compromises.
The result was a cross between Dreadnought and Nassau, which you might say combined the weakest elements of both ships; I insisted on at least having Dreadnought’s armour scheme (with the notable exception of the 2 inch deck armour, which was nonetheless judged to be adequate for the time) and her speed, and the uniform 3 inch secondary battery of Dreadnought is the standard for all of my early capital ships. However, Centurion was forced to take Nassau’s inferior gun layout, and her 11 inch guns – my 12 inch guns, while no worse in quality, were judged to be too heavy. The result was a battleship which, you may notice, was not necessarily better armed than the semi-dreadnought that preceded her – and yet she still weighed in at a very nearly prohibitive 25,000 tonnes.
Such was the price of being first – but being first was a valuable thing. The next dreadnought, the American Illinois, was not commissioned until 1909, and was decidedly inferior:
It was not until 1910 that the first dreadnoughts of Germany and Russia were rolled out; these were on about equal footing with Centurion, but lighter and cheaper. The German Preussen and the Russian Imperator Nikolai were almost identical:
Next up was my HMS Majestic, which was an incremental but substantial improvement:
The armour was exactly the same, but the armament was considerably improved, with 12 inch guns and a superior layout; I was particularly pleased with the early acquisition of the superfiring rear turret. She was completed in 1908, before any other dreadnoughts had showed up, and was slightly superior overall (though considerably larger) compared with the first-generation foreign dreadnoughts arriving two years later.
My offering for 1910, on the other hand, was in another league:
HMS Hood was the first real leap forward in dreadnought design, and the first ship I was really happy with. Taking advantage of an all-centreline armament, 14 inch guns, and 6 inch shielded secondaries, she immediately rendered the newly completed dreadnoughts of other nations quite obsolete. (Her name is something of a curiosity – I can only assume that I laid down two of these ships and then scrapped the name – ship, probably to make room for the battlecruiser.)
Nevertheless, as early as 1908, and certainly by 1909, I was becoming increasingly anxious. The source of my anxiety was the United States, which had become my principle naval challenger, and had adopted the dreadnought race with great zeal. Paltry as her initial Illinois class was, she had laid down three of them and completed them all by 1911. The fact that she had yet another battleship in the works, which was also completed by 1911, would have been frightening enough, but it became still more frightening when I got the blueprint:
I think that one could certainly make the case that this ship was superior to the Hood; inadequate protection, in my mind, but more firepower than anything ever completed this early in history. I still don’t know the deck and turret armour scheme, which could certainly be its downfall.
I also produced the world’s first battlecruiser – as any decent Royal Navy player should!
HMS Jupiter, completed in 1910, maintained the armour scheme which had been standard for all of my dreadnoughts so far, but dropped the Hood’s 14 inch guns to 12 inches. This gave her firepower and protection equal to or greater than any foreign ship afloat at the time of her completion, but with a 25 knot top speed.
Unfortunately, my lead in battlecruisers would not be nearly as great as my early lead in battleships. Very early on, it seemed, the other European powers had largely given up the dreadnought race as a lost cause, and had instead turned to battlecruisers as a way of evening the odds. By 1911, the United States, France and Italy each had a battlecruiser of their own, with a German and a Russian vessel well on their way to completion. None were as well armoured as the Jupiter, and all of them used an inferior cross-deck fire configuration – but there were a lot of them.
I now faced a very serious strategic dilemma. Tensions with the USA had remained very low since the beginning of the game, but they were clearly my only direct challenger, and by about 1910 it seemed they were already on the verge of overtaking me despite their much smaller budget. On the other hand, focusing on battleships to counter the American build-up would leave me vulnerable to the Europeans, who I was more likely to have to fight. On top of all that, recent experience with the Diadem class left me increasingly convinced that my Victoria class colonial cruisers, which could only make 22 knots and could not be easily refit, would need to be replaced very soon; the Conquests, while still performing well, could also not remain relevant for long in what was to be such a battlecruiser – rich environment.
My first priority, I decided, had to be battleships. It was that decision which bought about HMS Victorious:
I never expected great things from this ship. At the time she was laid down – some point in 1909 – I was waiting for the more effective oil-fired engines that would allow me to build a Queen Elizabeth – esque fast battleship, which I hoped would be enough to counter the emerging threat of the battlecruisers and the American battleships. However, this was the height of my race with the US, and I judged that I couldn’t afford to wait around for the technology to become available; Queen Elizabeth was, after all, ahead of her time. Meanwhile, I wanted to refit my Conquest class cruisers with better fire control and my new higher quality 6 inch guns, while at the same time I would finally begin replacing the Victorias with newly available light cruisers, which I felt I could no longer postpone. Victorious, then, was something of a placeholder; meant to simply tread water while I refit my cruisers and prepared to build the battleships I really needed.
To my mind, she was a solid ship, if a little under-gunned; still stuck with the same -1 quality 14 inch guns of her predecessors, and only having 8 of them. She was, of course, the first ship to use the AB / XY turret arrangement, which was no small improvement.
However, just as the first was being laid down, the race with the US kicked into high gear, and I was for the first time in real danger of being overtaken. The shipyard offered to build a second ship at a 10% discount; I had little choice. Then they offered a third; it could be squeezed into the budget, if only just. Then they offered a fourth; after a great deal of consternation, I decided that I would find the money, somehow.
And so it was that what had started out as a placeholder became my most produced class of capital ship. Producing all four simultaneously was enough to stretch my budget to the limit, and it certainly set back my hopes for modernizing the cruiser force, but I hoped at least that the extreme measure would be enough to buy me some breathing room. Victorious was completed in 1911, Agincourt and Trafalgar in 1912, and Hastings in 1913. (These were the only ships I named myself, having come up with the thematic idea at the last moment and hurriedly renaming the incomplete vessels.)
My crash building programme turned out very well; as it happened, my first major fleet engagement would be fought against the French in 1912, and the first three Victorious class ships had arrived just in time for that battle. Hastings, which was a little too late for this first fleet battle, was present at the two others I fought over the course of the game. Operating together in a single division, they formed the vanguard of my battle fleet, which went up against France’s two BCs, one BB, and several Bs. Perhaps a little ironically, these ships – which had been intended as the placeholders which I would build until I could find something that could properly deal with my rival’s battlecruisers – were mostly responsible for the destruction of France’s two new battlecruisers in that battle, greatly reducing the threat I had expected them to simply sidestep.
Nevertheless, I was still able to begin my long-awaited project of cruiser modernisation during the period of 1910 – 1912, with the 1912 refitting of the Conquests and, much more promisingly, the construction of my first pair of light cruisers, completed in 1910. Unfortunately, the results were entirely unsatisfactory:
The aptly named Perilous class managed to be too slow, too weakly armed, and too expensive all at the same time. Loosely based on the first variant of the Town class, these two ships were the first light cruisers in the world, but this didn’t make the need for them any less urgent; the Victorias had not been built to last. (Completing the Perilous class’ reputation for inadequacy, the computer chose to call the second ship of the class ‘Pelorus’, leading, I presume, to mass confusion.)
Their successors, the four ships of the Persian class, were more promising:
With a uniform 6 inch armament and 2 knots of extra speed, these ships (completed from 1914 - 1916) made for a much more satisfactory replacement, which I felt I would be able to trust for at least another decade. They set the pattern for the colonial cruisers that followed, with their most notable feature being the forward – heavy gun placement which optimised them for chasing down raiders.
The completion of the Victorious class created a temporary lull in the dreadnought race, as I took the opportunity to focus on other parts of the fleet while the American effort had, apparently, finally run out of steam. However, the period during which the four Victorious class ships were constructed was the era in which the battlecruiser threat really materialized. The French completed one in 1911 and one in 1912; (both were sunk at the aforementioned battle, but the French rather amusingly immediately laid down equally poor replacements) the Germans got one in 1913, and the Russians got one in 1912. The US, which had been the second power to build a battlecruiser, saw this and laid down two more of the same class.
The French battlecruisers destroyed in 1912 were what prompted my next move. This didn’t have much to do with the ships themselves, as you can see:
The first is okay for 1911, but to my mind the second is hilariously bad (it certainly fulfilled my low expectations in battle, with both turrets being swiftly knocked out of commission.) However, if it had a redeeming feature, it was the 26-knot speed, which had become the standard for the second generation of foreign battlecruisers. Despite being anything but refined, you can see that these ships had racked up a respectable number of battle stars, since I simply didn’t have the ships to match them and so had to simply stand – off and retreat when, on multiple occasions, Jupiter got the opportunity to engage them. This was a very concerning development.
As it was, I was in the middle of my much-needed cruiser modernisation programme, and my plans for new fast battleships had been superseded by the Victorious. I therefore decided I would build another dedicated battlecruiser to counter the growing threat, and that ship was HMS Indomitable:
Indomitable was a highly specialized design, meant to counter the current and future battle cruisers that I expected to cause me so much trouble. At 28 knots, she would be faster than any other battlecruiser in commission or under construction – designed to chase down and destroy her enemies, rather than just hold them off. Her protection was as weak as I dared make it, though not weak by foreign standards; her armament was equalled only by the under – armoured American Lexington class. In all, she would be the best battlecruiser in the world upon her completion, but her reign would be short-lived. Due to the extensive colonial cruiser replacement programme, which was now in full swing, only one of these ships was laid down.
Speaking of the cruisers - the three Cleopatra class vessels of 1917 turned out particularly well:
Exceeding their 27 knot design speed to reach a blistering 29 knots, they would for a time be immune to the battlecruiser menace. They were followed by another three ships of the Latona class in 1918:
Which unfortunately fell back to the 27 knot standard.
While this was underway, the dreadnought question was raising its head once more. My dilemma was now even more acute. France, Germany and Russia had abandoned dreadnought construction completely to focus on exploiting my weakness in battlecruisers, and – presumably – on countering one another. The USA, meanwhile, was ploughing ahead with its more balanced approach, with new battleships and battlecruisers under construction. These ones came in rather scary shapes:
Though I didn’t have the blueprints right away, I knew how heavy they were, and that was cause enough for concern. Most worryingly of all, my temporary hiatus to procure the sorely needed cruisers had cost me dearly. By 1915, when Indomitable was completed, the USA had 8 capital ships (5 BBs and 3 BCs) to my 10 (8 and 2). With these two new ships, they would equal me in numbers and surpass me in quality.
My solution was to revert to what I had intended to do as early as 1911 / 1912; fast battleships to counter the European battlecruisers and the American battleships at the same time. The opportunity for a Queen Elizabeth analogue had come and gone; the new ships would need to be faster to at least be able to engage the new foreign battlecruisers under construction, which were pushing up to 27 and 28 knots. To maintain a high enough speed while still being effective against enemy battleships, they would need to be big – I would have to finally abandon my doctrine of building a couple of thousand tons heavier than the nearest contender, and finally go all out. The result of these requirements was HMS Mars:
Mars set the pattern for every one of my capital ships that would follow. She was inspired, once again, by a set of designs from the ‘best ship designs’ thread – a line of ships by Klavohunter that began with a ship called Derfflinger. I say ‘inspired by’ because, unlike the Spartiate and Diadem, which were both replicas, Mars merely adopted the design philosophy of the Derfflinger line; proof the decks and turrets against all enemy fire, while maintaining a more standard AoN belt to save weight. The armour scheme was identical to the Derfflinger, but the main and secondary batteries and the speed were products of my game.
Completed in 1918, (after being much delayed, as far as I remember, by the cruiser programme,) Mars was by far the most advanced and powerful capital ship in the world, representing a quantum leap over both the Victorious and Indomitable classes. The new armour scheme, including the introduction of the AoN belt, the modern 3x3 16 inch gun layout, and above all the 26 knot speed made her vastly superior to any potential opponents; particularly, she was an excellent counter to the battlecruiser threat. (I later received an encouraging message from the USA, which asked me to sell them AoN armour several years into the 1920s, meaning that the newer US ships turned out to be considerably less dangerous than I had thought at the time.) The 4 3 inch guns were entirely accidental, but amusingly enough they were retained in all of Mars’ offspring for many years without me noticing. [EDIT: Wait, I know! I'll say they were meant to represent AA guns - that'll sound much better!]
Mars was followed by the two Neptune class ships, Neptune and Inflexible, which both arrived in 1920. Their only difference was pushing the speed up to 27 knots to contend with the new 29 knot BCs being produced by Germany and Russia:
Though my battleship construction was once again kicking into high gear, the Americans had gotten back to it sooner, and by 1920 they had 14 capital ships to my 13 – with yet more ships on the way. And so it was that the Royal Navy was overtaken, much to my displeasure.
Next up were the two Mercury class ships, Mercury and Invincible, both commissioned in 1922, and the Indestructible class ships Indestructible and Indefagitable, commissioned in 1924 and 1925. As you can see, little had changed through the years:
Collectively, I refer to the ships from Neptune to Indestructible as my ‘standard’ type fast battleships, since they are all almost identical. These ships received their first test in (I think) 1923, when all 6 British battlecruisers then in service (led by the newest, the Mercury class vessel HMS Invincible) engaged three German counterparts in my second major fleet engagement. The enemy ships – Goeben (1912), Lutzow (1918) and Motlke (1921) – were exactly the kind of ships my standard type had been designed to kill:
The new 16 inch armament proved a great asset, and inflicted accurate fire on the German battlecruisers at ranges in excess of 20,000 yards, at which their 12 and 14 inch guns could make little reply. 28 heavy hits was enough to put an end to the older Goeben, but I think the misery inflicted on Lutzow deserves a picture of its own:
While my war against the Germans was very successful, the Americans had not been idle in the meantime. The Yorktown class, the first of which was commissioned in 1921, was their answer to my standard type:
By the early 1920s, the Americans were solidifying their lead over me in dreadnought numbers; by the time of the war with Germany in 1922, they had 16 ships to my 15, and the construction of the Yorktown class ships meant they would soon outstrip me in tonnage as well. Their achievement was made still more impressive by the fact that they had also been constructing several modern light cruisers at the same time, and had done all of this on a considerably smaller budget than my own. I’ll discuss that issue in more depth at the end of the AAR.
Cruisers continued to occupy my attention at the dawn of the 1920s. Despite performing admirably in every war so far, the venerable Conquest class ships were very much outclassed by the latest generations of modern light cruisers, now being built by all navies. While I had managed to replace the inferior Victorias, this task, combined with the ongoing dreadnought race, had left no room for any new fleet cruisers. Two events added urgency to this issue. The first was the discovery – before 1920, as far as I recall – of an American ship design sporting double 6 inch turrets, which was far more advanced than anything I had on the drawing board at the time. The second event was a close call with one of my Conquest class ships, which ran into a more advanced enemy light cruiser (a Russian, I think) and escaped with moderate to severe damage. The first problem turned out to be a paper tiger; either my reports on the American design were inaccurate, or those ships were scrapped before completion. The French Cosmao class, three of which were commissioned in 1919, were typical of the foreign cruisers actually being completed at that time:
A cruiser scare set in, which prompted me to quite literally drop all other areas of research in order to focus everything on technologies that would improve my cruiser design – light forces, turrets and gun mountings, and ship design.
The first product of the cruiser scare was the Pearl class, commissioned in 1922:
These two ships – Andromache and Niad – were considered placeholders while I waited anxiously for double turrets, thought at the time to be inferior to what the Americans were already building. In actual fact, they were the best cruisers in the world at the time of completion. They were designed to be a direct replacement for the Conquest class, optimised for fleet duties with a design speed of 30 knots (they eventually turned out to be capable of 31) and heavy torpedo armament. They performed well in their first engagement, sinking two modern German raiders while escorting a convoy in the North Sea.
Next came the two Andromeda class heavy cruisers, Andromeda and Niobe, commissioned in 1923:
These were designed as multirole ships in the vein of the old Diadem class armoured cruisers. They were optimised for cruiser engagements, with 8 inch guns and speed focused engines which gave them a top speed of 30 knots, but I hoped their long range would allow them to function in the commerce protection role as needed. Despite their late arrival, they were the first heavy cruisers to be built in the world; their only foreign counterparts would be two Japanese vessels built in 1925 and 1927. Their armament was certainly excellent for their size. The 10,000 ton limit was self-imposed for cost-saving purposes, but the result was relatively weak protection. Since these cruisers only fought one action between them – Niobe participated in the 1923 fleet battle with the Germans – their efficacy of the design decisions could not be judged.
An unintended by-product of my great emphasis on light ship technology during this period was the Viking Class of destroyers:
Though I haven’t seen fit to show off any light ships so far, these ships – commissioned in 1924 – were real standouts, and far ahead of their contemporaries. Faster than any other destroyer afloat, with more than double the standard destroyer armament, all without sacrificing any torpedo tubes.
Finally, my favourite ships of the entire game; the three ships of the Champion class, completed in 1924 – Champion, Curacoa, and Comus:
The Champion class represents a break with my usual tradition of cruiser design; instead of asking ‘how cheap can I reasonably make these’, I asked, ‘how much can I possibly fit on these?’ Designed to outclass the projected American cruisers as well as all their other contemporaries, and to provide a worthy replacement for the decorated Conquest class, these ships were going to be fantastic before I found out that I could fit them with triple turrets. The realization that I could do so automatically put them in a class of their own, since at the time of completion nobody else had even managed double turrets on light cruisers yet.
My love for this class is not just theoretical, though. In the very first engagement of my final war with Russia, HMS Curacoa attacked a Russian convoy off the Irish coast, operating alone. She was engaged by no fewer than two enemy light cruisers of the Nadezha class and five destroyers. Despite missing with all twelve of her torpedoes, she engaged in a fierce running gun battle with the enemy cruisers, sinking both of them as well as a destroyer, almost emptying her magazines in the process. After nightfall, she found the convoy once more, and sank two merchantmen and an additional destroyer with gunfire before returning to port. The very next month, her sister ship sunk the modern Russian cruiser Vesta, in a one – on – one battle, scoring 43 hits on the enemy in return for only 2 and leaving Russia without a single cruiser still floating. For reference, Nadezha (1913) and Vesta (which was probably the second best cruiser in the world, completed in 1924) are shown below:
Having adequately dealt with my deficiency in light forces, I finally returned to the matter of dreadnoughts, and clawing back my position vis a vis the USA. In doing so, I was faced with my old dilemma once more; Italy and Russia were building new BCs that could exceed 30 knots, and at the time I received intelligence that either France or Germany was doing the same. The 27-knot line speed of my standard type was no longer going to cut it; the solution would require some deviation from the norm.
The strategy I chose was two-fold. In the ‘best ship designs’ post which spawned my fast battleships, Klavohunter had showcased an interesting idea for updating old dreadnoughts which I wanted to try out: replacing old 12 inch gun turrets with modern, single turrets, effectively giving them about half the broadside of a modern battleship for about 25% of the cost. While I was sceptical that the armour of these old ships could stand up in a modern engagement, I thought it was an interesting idea and at least worth a shot:
Both of the old Centurions got this treatment, and I initially intended to up – gun all of the 12 inch dreadnoughts in this fashion in order to gain a qualitative edge against the un-updated American ships, but as usual, the money ran out, and so only Centurion and Royal Oak were completed by the time I decided to end the game.
The second part of my strategy was, of course, to build new capital ships – I decided that I needed to have at least a couple of ships that could catch the new 30 + knot battlecruisers which I expected to proliferate rapidly in the coming years, but felt that I couldn’t make a fast battleship quite fast enough and still have it stand up to the heavy American vessels. Particularly, I was interested in countering Russia’s new Rymnik class, one of which had been completed in 1924 with several more under construction, since at that point the liberation of Ireland from the Bolsheviks was the last thing on my to-do list before I concluded the game:
Thus, I laid down my first dedicated battlecruiser since 1915 – HMS Incomparable:
She was, to my mind, a somewhat unsatisfactory solution to the battlecruiser problem, but one I felt I couldn’t go without. With a newly improved secondary armament configuration and other technological advancements over the standard type, she managed to retain armour protection that was nearly as strong, at 31 knots, but at the price of 14 inch guns. These, I felt, would at least be adequate for dealing with lightly armoured enemy battlecruisers. In this way, her design echoed that of my first battlecruiser, HMS Jupiter: strong protection, high top speed, but lower gun calibre. She was commissioned in 1927.
I also designed a new fast battleship – the HMS Majesty, also commissioned in 1927:
With the updated secondary armament and 29 knot speed (designed to keep pace with almost all battlecruisers then in service) she represented an incremental improvement over the previous standard type vessels.
The final ship crop of ships I laid down were another battlecruiser and a pair of two fast battleships. The former, HMS Illustrious, was almost identical to her predecessor:
Likewise, the new Valiant class fast battleships, Valiant and New Zealand, were almost identical to Majesty:
All three of these ships were still being built at the end of the game.
In the event, the Incomparable – Illustrious concept went untested, as the vessel did not see action during my final war with Russia. The most modern ships to see action in that war were the two standard type Indestructible class ships, which fought together in my final fleet action alongside an older 21 knot battleship division led by Hastings. That battle saw the sinking of two Russian battlecruisers, including the oldest, Izmail, and the newest; the 31 knot Rymnik that the Incomparable had been designed to counter. Ironically, she was sunk off screen in that very chaotic battle by the 21 knot Hastings and her AI – controlled division.
That war, like my two previous wars with Russia, ended with me not winning enough conquest points to retake Ireland or any other Russian possession. This was certainly not for lack of trying:
It was there that I decided to end the game. The Dreadnought race with the USA, unfortunately, was lost; though I had two Valiants and one Incomparable in construction at the end of the game, the USA still maintained a lead in current tonnage, 762,000 to my 643,000, (though the numbers may have been skewed by the rebuilding of my BC Jupiter) and in future tonnage, 1,002,000 to 809,000. An impressive feat, considering their final budget was 397 million to my 441, and had been relatively lower for much of the game.
***
Finally, then, we come to my reflections on the game. Overall, it was a success: the only major combat losses were two armoured cruisers, and I sunk a total of six enemy battlecruisers in return along with countless smaller ships. The lessons, as far as I can discern them, are as follows:
1. All early game cruisers must be built to last; the defining factor is speed. I believe that 23 knots should be a minimum for the legacy cruisers of nations that can afford it. In my opinion, Britain must have modern dedicated colonial and fleet cruisers at all times – replacing old colonial cruisers with fleet cruisers is not desirable, since colonial cruisers should ideally have both long range and reliable engines, whereas fleet cruisers can make good use out of the extra tonnage in their armament and armour, and may benefit from speed focused engines. In my next game as the UK, my legacy colonial cruisers will be large and expensive, so as to stay relevant past 1910, though they may make some sacrifices in either armament or armour in order to achieve the necessary speed as well.
2. I fell behind the USA in the dreadnought race despite my consistently higher budget; this was due largely to training and readiness. In the future, when play as countries that can aim for numerical superiority (such as the UK and US) I will not apply training in periods of low tensions, and I will keep a part of my battlefleet in the reserves during peacetime (perhaps maintaining the ‘one up’ doctrine as I did with the pre-dreadnoughts) to cut costs.
3. Not a single BB was sunk in the course of this game, compared to 6 BCs. This fact deserves some deeper analysis. What trends can be identified? First, all were sunk by heavy gunfire; torpedoes only ever finished them off. Of the six BCs sunk, three – including the two French ones in 1912 and the 31 knot Rymzik in 1927 – were sunk mostly or entirely by 21 knot BBs. In the battle in which Rymzik was sunk, the 21 knot, AI controlled squadron of Hastings also successfully engaged and pursued the 27 knot Izmail, slowing her to 20 knots before my fast battleships even intervened. Only two enemy BCs – Goeben and Lutzow in 1923 – were sunk entirely by fast battleships (with limited support from the two battlecruisers.) My own dedicated battlecruisers contributed very little, except for Jupiter’s successful luring of the two French BCs into my battlefleet, Jutland style, in 1912. When I first started playing RTW, armed only with my historical knowledge, I abstained from BCs altogether. Then, over time, accumulating some experience in the forums and getting a feel for the game’s mechanics, I began to warm up to them, believing them to be a necessary component of every major fleet. Any power which had none, I felt, would surely be at the mercy of an enemy who did; cruiser engagements, which are so prominent in this game, would result in heavy losses to the cruiser force, while large fleet engagements could simply be avoided by the battlecruisers. The record in this game, as in history, does not support this theory; not once were enemy battlecruisers able to even engage my cruiser force in isolation, let alone sink anything. When I get the opportunity, I intend to try a force structure which excludes dedicated BCs altogether; instead, 21 knot BBs will be replaced by fast battleships (perhaps ‘slow battlecruisers’ is a more appropriate term for the types I’ve used) at the earliest opportunity. With that doctrine, one might accept some losses to one’s own cruiser force in exchange for a high probability of destroying enemy BCs, while being able to more easily defeat or deter the enemy battlefleet and thus blockade the enemy.
To those of you who have made it all the way to the end: congratulations, and thank you for reading! I hope that you have enjoyed this very extensive AAR; please let me know if you would like me to do the same for my next game. This has taken me the better part of two days to write, but I enjoyed the process very much. Please leave your comments, questions and criticisms below; I very much enjoy a lively debate, and it is my hope that by sharing this story I can gain access to some new points of view which will improve my skill in this excellent game.
I've just completed my UK campaign that I have been talking about a lot on the forums, concluded (though not by resignation) in the year 1928. This is the second game in which I have reached the 1925 end date, and like the other one, this game ended with something of an anti-climax, as a great final struggle that had been building for many years came to naught.
My intention here is to provide an overview of the game, with a focus on the strategic design decisions I made along the way. Hopefully it will be a point of interest for some of you - but in addition to that, I would very much appreciate some discussion and advice regarding my ship design and strategic decision-making. Since this has the virtue of being a game that I have completed recently, and therefore one I have a clear memory of, hopefully this post can start a well informed and entertaining discussion that will improve my skills and knowledge of the game.
At some point, I may also write an AAR concerning the central feature of this game - my many wars with Russia. I have developed an interesting and (I think) quite plausible alternate history to fit the course of events, and I imagine that some people here might find it enjoyable to read a proper account. I don't feel that I have the time to write that down now, so I will instead relate the story in brief:
***
The Russian Empire was my strongest competitor in the pre-dreadnought age. While the American fleet was considerably larger, the Russians were closer and tensions with them were always higher. While both France and Germany had pursued balanced fleets with strong cruiser forces and effective raiding capability, Russia had invested heavily in its pre-dreadnought battle fleet and maintained all of its forces in Northern Europe at all times. The Russian navy of this period was built for decisive battle; large, well funded, and well designed. It would have been more than a match for any of its other Northern European contemporaries, but against the Royal Navy it could have no hope of success. The outcome of our first war was the Russian Revolution of 1909.
Shortly after the revolution, another insurrection followed - this time, in Ireland. The month after that, I got an event saying that the Russians were attempting to occupy Ireland, and so I decided to send an ultimatum, hoping that this was my chance to undo my embarrassing failure and pretend it never happened. It was not to be; Ireland was occupied. Determined to reclaim this prize, I fought a series of wars against the Russians (three more of them, from memory) but despite my attempts to repeat my early success and push the Russians once again to revolution, each war was cut short by the damn politicians, leaving me with only 4 conquest points - not enough to claim a single Russian possession, and not nearly enough for Ireland.
The story that I have developed attempts to resolve the implausibility of Great Britain and Russia going to war inconclusively three times in 18 years, and especially Britain's failure to reconquer Ireland despite naval superiority and geography. I decided that, following the Russian Revolution, the Irish civil war kicked off a little early (with the British distracted by war, as in real life.) As in Russia, the first rebellion established the Irish Republic in the south, but a second Revolution by the Marxists within the IRA established Communist rule in the Irish Republic while Britain retained Northern Ireland. Lenin would have seen Ireland as the gateway to Britain, and Britain as the gateway to world revolution. The next task was to complete the revolution in Northern Ireland. There, the Civil War would continue; the Bolsheviks would back the revolutionaries and Britain would attempt to retain control. What followed was a series of proxy wars between Britain and the USSR in the mould of the Vietnam war; most of the fighting would pit Irish guerrillas and international brigades against British forces, with the occasional involvement of the regular Irish troops. To sustain this proxy war, the Bolsheviks would need to ship supplies across the North Sea; thus, the stage was set for naval warfare. A single continuous conflict, reminiscent of the undeclared commerce war fought by the United States Navy against the Kreigsmarine in 1941, would be fought between the Royal Navy on one side and the Red Fleet on the other, punctuated by temporary truces which would then spiral out of control once more. This story seems to me to be much more plausible than what amounts to three world wars in rapid succession, and fits with the political climate of Europe following the Russian Revolution. I think it would be an enjoyable piece of alternate history to explore more deeply, and as I have said, I may move on to that at a later date. For now, though, I will leave this story behind and focus on the game.
***
My overarching strategy at the beginning of the game was essentially twofold. On one hand, strong battle fleets would be maintained at all times in Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and South-East Asia, with moderate forces on other important stations. These forces would respond instantly to any crisis, and be redistributed according to the balance of tensions around the world in order to be ready for any potential conflict. On the other hand, a specialized force of commerce protection cruisers and colonial gunboats would provide for the tonnage requirements on less important stations during peacetime and protect the trade lanes in wartime.
The design implications were drawn directly from the manual, where I found the recommendation to have dedicated commerce protection cruisers (with long range, reliable engines and slow speed) and fleet cruisers (medium range, speed optimized engines, and high top speed) as well as colonial gunboats. This resulted in three classes of ship: The Victoria Class commerce protection cruiser, the Singapore Class gunboat, and the Conquest Class fleet cruiser.
Of these three types, both the Singapore and the Victoria served without merit or loss, and so the concepts behind them remain relatively unproven. Of the 10 Victoria Class Cruisers, only one was ever called upon to fulfil its role, very late in its career, fighting a more modern raider in the Caribbean to a draw and retreating with moderate damage.
***
The Conquests, on the other hand, were in an entirely different league:
The Psyche, shown here, is the most distinguished of the bunch. They were comfortably the best legacy cruisers in the game, with a price tag to match. They are typical of my starting cruisers, except for the high speed. I came across their design philosophy – 3 inch belt armour, and a heavy secondary armament of 3 inch guns - playing as Germany fighting the Russians. I realized that, try as they might, my 4 inch armed starting cruisers couldn't make an impression on their Russian opponents. I could outrange these ships, for sure, but I found that I needed to get close to score enough hits to get through their armour. As soon as I did, I was torn apart by their smaller, faster firing weapons. I really like 3 inch guns early in the game; in an era when killing other ships is very difficult, they can at least maim them with great cost-effectiveness.
Though designed as fleet cruisers in accordance with the manual's recommendations, these ships were rarely called upon to fight in that capacity. Though cruiser to cruiser battles were expected to be the realm of the Victoria class commerce protection vessels, these engagements dominated the early wars in Europe while the Victorias enjoyed perpetual peace and quiet out on their far-flung stations. Fortunately, the Conquests turned out to be unparalleled cruiser-killers, time after time sinking their enemies in one to one duels while sustaining only minor damage. Above all, their long-range gunnery was superb.
Their engines proved very unreliable, but the high top speed kept them relevant for many years. Nevertheless, the length of their careers far outstripped their usefulness. The Dreadnought race, when it came, drained all of my resources. Even when the first light cruisers were commissioned in 1910, there was only enough money to replace the now-obsolete Victorias. The Conquests therefore received a small refit, replacing their fire control in 1912; the month after it was completed, the new fire control became obsolete. Nevertheless, these ships soldiered on, and continued to see action throughout their long careers. The four Conquest class ships which formed the core of the Mediterranean fleet were finally mothballed in February 1925. That story will be told in much greater detail later on, but for now it suffices to say that the Conquests very much earned the title of second favourite ship class from this game.
***
Ironically, the ship designed to perform the Conquest's role was considerably less successful at it. The Diadem class was almost a straight copy of a ship from the ‘best ship designs’ thread, klavohunter's 'Hansa.' No images survived, but these ships were sufficiently important to warrant a shot of the design page, though I prefer not to use these:
With long range and reliable engines, these ships were designed to be mutli-roled, the opposite of the highly specialized protected cruisers. They could be called in for commerce protection to deal with heavy enemy raiders - such as other CAs - and could serve as the flagships of foreign stations. Their main role, on the other hand, was to be cruiser vs cruiser engagements. My use of this design represented a considerable departure from my norms; they were slower and smaller than my usual armoured cruisers, with a light but numerous 4 inch secondary battery. There were a large number of them - six, from memory - and they proved adequate enough. However, they weren't quite fast enough to run down enemy cruisers in cruiser engagements, and several failed intercepts in a Mediterranean war with Italy revealed the inadequacy of the Diadems as commerce protectors and the even greater inadequacy of the Victorias for that role. Worse still, once their age began to show, the Diadems proved both impossible to rebuild and difficult to replace. Meanwhile, the Conquests bore the brunt of the cruiser actions. Overall, then, the record of this class is sketchy, but their only flaw, as far as I can see it, was the 22 knot speed, which seems to be quite standard for both players and the AI. Sacrificing their reliable engines and a little extra cost for a 23 or 24 knot speed would have increased both their early utility and longevity.
***
The early game saw a few easy wars against Italy and Russia, all of which were won by cruisers without the intervention of the battlefleet. The pre-dreadnoughts, of which I had three successive classes, were pretty standard offerings; eventually I built 15, which on large fleet size gave me a very comfortable lead. In order, the pre-dreadnought classes were:
Little needs to be said about these ships, since they never saw much action; the only time they ever fought, to the best of my recollection, was against the French battle fleet in 1912, where they performed well enough but were not called upon to go into a direct slugging match with their opposite numbers. A few notable observations are that these ships reflect a consistent doctrine of building battleships approximately 2,000 tons larger than the largest potential enemies, while simultaneously maintaining the two-power standard in battleship numbers.
Their impact on my logistical thinking was far greater than any lessons I learned from their design. As I have said, my initial doctrine was one of power projection - maintain separate battlefleets around the world at all times. As soon as the dreadnought race kicked in, I found this to be quite impossible. Mounting costs called for a complete rethink of my strategic doctrine in around 1905 - 1906; in peacetime, the battleships would have to all remain in Northern Europe, (save for one to make up the tonnage in the Mediterranean) and would only leave during periods of high tensions. Enough of them would be kept active to maintain a one or two ship lead over the power with the next highest number of battleships in the theatre; the rest would go into reserve. Meanwhile, the burden of peacetime 'flag showing' would be laid entirely at the feet of the dedicated colonial forces. As it turned out, I didn't have enough cruisers to comfortably pursue this doctrine - yet I also didn't have enough money to avoid it. The result was a serious shortage of cruisers which became an increasing concern throughout the middle years of the game, as the Diadem, Victoria and even the Conquest class all approached obsolescence.
***
Shortly before the advent of the dreadnought age, I was able to put into practice a long-awaited experiment: the super-cruiser. I hadn't tried this out since I hosted a large and lively debate on the topic a few months ago (I hadn't played the game since then) and now I was eager to test out its merits. When the ship designer suggested the name 'Spartiate' I took it as a sign:
My version was the nearest approximation I could get to eserchie's famous Spartiate class cruiser, which to the best of my knowledge is the origin of the super-cruiser trend. Since the exact design specifications have been lost to the mists of time, I couldn't be precise (the image he posted is no longer available) but for all intents and purposes, it was the same ship, except for one very big improvement: from the outset, my Spartiate could steam at the originally intended 25 knots.
Two of these ships were laid down, and their fates could not have been more different. Spartiate’s career was long and distinguished; she dominated my first war with Russia in 1908 – 09, in which she laid waste to Russia’s cruiser force. Her sister ship Ariadne, on the other hand, was torpedoed in the same war while attempting a night pursuit of a Russian armoured cruiser and her escorts, after which she suffered a slow and agonising demise, surviving until the end of the battle but being listed as sunk in the results screen. Thus, the super-cruiser had the unfortunate distinction of being the greatest British naval disaster of the game. Spartiate herself very nearly suffered the same fate several years later in the next war with Russia; she and her partner the Diadem class cruiser Argonaut successfully drove off the enemy battlecruiser, only for Spartiate to be hit by a torpedo as the enemy retreated. She survived – narrowly – thanks to my constant intervention in preventing her from switching to AI control and trying to return to port as fast as she could.
The next iteration of the super-cruiser concept, the Europa (named for a Diadem class armoured cruiser sunk in the same war) was as close an approximation as I could get to the original Spartiate’s successor, the Drake class:
Spartiate and Europa both received a refit to upgrade their fire control in 1913 and 1914 respectively, but any further work was deemed prohibitively expensive. Nevertheless, the cruiser shortage along with their respectable 25 knot top speed kept them in the active fleet long after all other armoured cruisers had been scrapped. Their later years were spent as the flagships of foreign stations, where they could meet peacetime tonnage requirements and hope to find ships of their own age in wartime. They were finally put into mothballs in the 1920s, but in a surprise twist they were recalled to active service in October 1925 to conduct ‘showing the flag’ operations in their old East Asian haunts while I refit the cruisers stationed there. A fitting end for these venerable ships – I’m glad I found good reason to take them for one last spin.
Overall, my experience this game is not enough to either vindicate or discredit the controversial super cruiser. Spartiate’s performance against enemy protected cruisers was predictably fantastic, but she was never able to test her mettle against enemy heavy ships as her namesake did. Furthermore, since I only ever built three of these ships, and only ever had two in service at any given time, I could not really determine how well a super-cruiser force fits into an overall force structure. More testing is required – and intended.
***
Now, with the early game out of the way, we come at last to the dreadnoughts, and the arms race they bought about. From here, I will relate the story of my other ship classes in more or less chronological order, with some reference to their foreign contemporaries, since as we all know these ships are very much products of their time and strategic environment, and raw designs without context tell you very little. All of this will be woven into the larger strategic narrative of the game, and so it will more closely resemble the traditional AAR format.
***
Naturally, Great Britain was the first to lay down and complete a dreadnought; that ship was HMS Centurion. She and her sister ship, Royal Oak, were commissioned in early 1907.
Centurion was a somewhat underwhelming entry into the Dreadnought age, owing to the extreme immaturity of her technology. My first dreadnought design, drawn up some time in early 1905, weighed in at an astounding 30,000 tonnes. This was within my dock size limit – just – but was judged prohibitively expensive, so I decided to wait for the technology to mature. However, when I reached the date at which HMS Dreadnought was actually laid down, I decided that I could wait no longer, and so I set about making compromises.
The result was a cross between Dreadnought and Nassau, which you might say combined the weakest elements of both ships; I insisted on at least having Dreadnought’s armour scheme (with the notable exception of the 2 inch deck armour, which was nonetheless judged to be adequate for the time) and her speed, and the uniform 3 inch secondary battery of Dreadnought is the standard for all of my early capital ships. However, Centurion was forced to take Nassau’s inferior gun layout, and her 11 inch guns – my 12 inch guns, while no worse in quality, were judged to be too heavy. The result was a battleship which, you may notice, was not necessarily better armed than the semi-dreadnought that preceded her – and yet she still weighed in at a very nearly prohibitive 25,000 tonnes.
Such was the price of being first – but being first was a valuable thing. The next dreadnought, the American Illinois, was not commissioned until 1909, and was decidedly inferior:
It was not until 1910 that the first dreadnoughts of Germany and Russia were rolled out; these were on about equal footing with Centurion, but lighter and cheaper. The German Preussen and the Russian Imperator Nikolai were almost identical:
Next up was my HMS Majestic, which was an incremental but substantial improvement:
The armour was exactly the same, but the armament was considerably improved, with 12 inch guns and a superior layout; I was particularly pleased with the early acquisition of the superfiring rear turret. She was completed in 1908, before any other dreadnoughts had showed up, and was slightly superior overall (though considerably larger) compared with the first-generation foreign dreadnoughts arriving two years later.
My offering for 1910, on the other hand, was in another league:
HMS Hood was the first real leap forward in dreadnought design, and the first ship I was really happy with. Taking advantage of an all-centreline armament, 14 inch guns, and 6 inch shielded secondaries, she immediately rendered the newly completed dreadnoughts of other nations quite obsolete. (Her name is something of a curiosity – I can only assume that I laid down two of these ships and then scrapped the name – ship, probably to make room for the battlecruiser.)
Nevertheless, as early as 1908, and certainly by 1909, I was becoming increasingly anxious. The source of my anxiety was the United States, which had become my principle naval challenger, and had adopted the dreadnought race with great zeal. Paltry as her initial Illinois class was, she had laid down three of them and completed them all by 1911. The fact that she had yet another battleship in the works, which was also completed by 1911, would have been frightening enough, but it became still more frightening when I got the blueprint:
I think that one could certainly make the case that this ship was superior to the Hood; inadequate protection, in my mind, but more firepower than anything ever completed this early in history. I still don’t know the deck and turret armour scheme, which could certainly be its downfall.
I also produced the world’s first battlecruiser – as any decent Royal Navy player should!
HMS Jupiter, completed in 1910, maintained the armour scheme which had been standard for all of my dreadnoughts so far, but dropped the Hood’s 14 inch guns to 12 inches. This gave her firepower and protection equal to or greater than any foreign ship afloat at the time of her completion, but with a 25 knot top speed.
Unfortunately, my lead in battlecruisers would not be nearly as great as my early lead in battleships. Very early on, it seemed, the other European powers had largely given up the dreadnought race as a lost cause, and had instead turned to battlecruisers as a way of evening the odds. By 1911, the United States, France and Italy each had a battlecruiser of their own, with a German and a Russian vessel well on their way to completion. None were as well armoured as the Jupiter, and all of them used an inferior cross-deck fire configuration – but there were a lot of them.
I now faced a very serious strategic dilemma. Tensions with the USA had remained very low since the beginning of the game, but they were clearly my only direct challenger, and by about 1910 it seemed they were already on the verge of overtaking me despite their much smaller budget. On the other hand, focusing on battleships to counter the American build-up would leave me vulnerable to the Europeans, who I was more likely to have to fight. On top of all that, recent experience with the Diadem class left me increasingly convinced that my Victoria class colonial cruisers, which could only make 22 knots and could not be easily refit, would need to be replaced very soon; the Conquests, while still performing well, could also not remain relevant for long in what was to be such a battlecruiser – rich environment.
My first priority, I decided, had to be battleships. It was that decision which bought about HMS Victorious:
I never expected great things from this ship. At the time she was laid down – some point in 1909 – I was waiting for the more effective oil-fired engines that would allow me to build a Queen Elizabeth – esque fast battleship, which I hoped would be enough to counter the emerging threat of the battlecruisers and the American battleships. However, this was the height of my race with the US, and I judged that I couldn’t afford to wait around for the technology to become available; Queen Elizabeth was, after all, ahead of her time. Meanwhile, I wanted to refit my Conquest class cruisers with better fire control and my new higher quality 6 inch guns, while at the same time I would finally begin replacing the Victorias with newly available light cruisers, which I felt I could no longer postpone. Victorious, then, was something of a placeholder; meant to simply tread water while I refit my cruisers and prepared to build the battleships I really needed.
To my mind, she was a solid ship, if a little under-gunned; still stuck with the same -1 quality 14 inch guns of her predecessors, and only having 8 of them. She was, of course, the first ship to use the AB / XY turret arrangement, which was no small improvement.
However, just as the first was being laid down, the race with the US kicked into high gear, and I was for the first time in real danger of being overtaken. The shipyard offered to build a second ship at a 10% discount; I had little choice. Then they offered a third; it could be squeezed into the budget, if only just. Then they offered a fourth; after a great deal of consternation, I decided that I would find the money, somehow.
And so it was that what had started out as a placeholder became my most produced class of capital ship. Producing all four simultaneously was enough to stretch my budget to the limit, and it certainly set back my hopes for modernizing the cruiser force, but I hoped at least that the extreme measure would be enough to buy me some breathing room. Victorious was completed in 1911, Agincourt and Trafalgar in 1912, and Hastings in 1913. (These were the only ships I named myself, having come up with the thematic idea at the last moment and hurriedly renaming the incomplete vessels.)
My crash building programme turned out very well; as it happened, my first major fleet engagement would be fought against the French in 1912, and the first three Victorious class ships had arrived just in time for that battle. Hastings, which was a little too late for this first fleet battle, was present at the two others I fought over the course of the game. Operating together in a single division, they formed the vanguard of my battle fleet, which went up against France’s two BCs, one BB, and several Bs. Perhaps a little ironically, these ships – which had been intended as the placeholders which I would build until I could find something that could properly deal with my rival’s battlecruisers – were mostly responsible for the destruction of France’s two new battlecruisers in that battle, greatly reducing the threat I had expected them to simply sidestep.
Nevertheless, I was still able to begin my long-awaited project of cruiser modernisation during the period of 1910 – 1912, with the 1912 refitting of the Conquests and, much more promisingly, the construction of my first pair of light cruisers, completed in 1910. Unfortunately, the results were entirely unsatisfactory:
The aptly named Perilous class managed to be too slow, too weakly armed, and too expensive all at the same time. Loosely based on the first variant of the Town class, these two ships were the first light cruisers in the world, but this didn’t make the need for them any less urgent; the Victorias had not been built to last. (Completing the Perilous class’ reputation for inadequacy, the computer chose to call the second ship of the class ‘Pelorus’, leading, I presume, to mass confusion.)
Their successors, the four ships of the Persian class, were more promising:
With a uniform 6 inch armament and 2 knots of extra speed, these ships (completed from 1914 - 1916) made for a much more satisfactory replacement, which I felt I would be able to trust for at least another decade. They set the pattern for the colonial cruisers that followed, with their most notable feature being the forward – heavy gun placement which optimised them for chasing down raiders.
The completion of the Victorious class created a temporary lull in the dreadnought race, as I took the opportunity to focus on other parts of the fleet while the American effort had, apparently, finally run out of steam. However, the period during which the four Victorious class ships were constructed was the era in which the battlecruiser threat really materialized. The French completed one in 1911 and one in 1912; (both were sunk at the aforementioned battle, but the French rather amusingly immediately laid down equally poor replacements) the Germans got one in 1913, and the Russians got one in 1912. The US, which had been the second power to build a battlecruiser, saw this and laid down two more of the same class.
The French battlecruisers destroyed in 1912 were what prompted my next move. This didn’t have much to do with the ships themselves, as you can see:
The first is okay for 1911, but to my mind the second is hilariously bad (it certainly fulfilled my low expectations in battle, with both turrets being swiftly knocked out of commission.) However, if it had a redeeming feature, it was the 26-knot speed, which had become the standard for the second generation of foreign battlecruisers. Despite being anything but refined, you can see that these ships had racked up a respectable number of battle stars, since I simply didn’t have the ships to match them and so had to simply stand – off and retreat when, on multiple occasions, Jupiter got the opportunity to engage them. This was a very concerning development.
As it was, I was in the middle of my much-needed cruiser modernisation programme, and my plans for new fast battleships had been superseded by the Victorious. I therefore decided I would build another dedicated battlecruiser to counter the growing threat, and that ship was HMS Indomitable:
Indomitable was a highly specialized design, meant to counter the current and future battle cruisers that I expected to cause me so much trouble. At 28 knots, she would be faster than any other battlecruiser in commission or under construction – designed to chase down and destroy her enemies, rather than just hold them off. Her protection was as weak as I dared make it, though not weak by foreign standards; her armament was equalled only by the under – armoured American Lexington class. In all, she would be the best battlecruiser in the world upon her completion, but her reign would be short-lived. Due to the extensive colonial cruiser replacement programme, which was now in full swing, only one of these ships was laid down.
Speaking of the cruisers - the three Cleopatra class vessels of 1917 turned out particularly well:
Exceeding their 27 knot design speed to reach a blistering 29 knots, they would for a time be immune to the battlecruiser menace. They were followed by another three ships of the Latona class in 1918:
Which unfortunately fell back to the 27 knot standard.
While this was underway, the dreadnought question was raising its head once more. My dilemma was now even more acute. France, Germany and Russia had abandoned dreadnought construction completely to focus on exploiting my weakness in battlecruisers, and – presumably – on countering one another. The USA, meanwhile, was ploughing ahead with its more balanced approach, with new battleships and battlecruisers under construction. These ones came in rather scary shapes:
Though I didn’t have the blueprints right away, I knew how heavy they were, and that was cause enough for concern. Most worryingly of all, my temporary hiatus to procure the sorely needed cruisers had cost me dearly. By 1915, when Indomitable was completed, the USA had 8 capital ships (5 BBs and 3 BCs) to my 10 (8 and 2). With these two new ships, they would equal me in numbers and surpass me in quality.
My solution was to revert to what I had intended to do as early as 1911 / 1912; fast battleships to counter the European battlecruisers and the American battleships at the same time. The opportunity for a Queen Elizabeth analogue had come and gone; the new ships would need to be faster to at least be able to engage the new foreign battlecruisers under construction, which were pushing up to 27 and 28 knots. To maintain a high enough speed while still being effective against enemy battleships, they would need to be big – I would have to finally abandon my doctrine of building a couple of thousand tons heavier than the nearest contender, and finally go all out. The result of these requirements was HMS Mars:
Mars set the pattern for every one of my capital ships that would follow. She was inspired, once again, by a set of designs from the ‘best ship designs’ thread – a line of ships by Klavohunter that began with a ship called Derfflinger. I say ‘inspired by’ because, unlike the Spartiate and Diadem, which were both replicas, Mars merely adopted the design philosophy of the Derfflinger line; proof the decks and turrets against all enemy fire, while maintaining a more standard AoN belt to save weight. The armour scheme was identical to the Derfflinger, but the main and secondary batteries and the speed were products of my game.
Completed in 1918, (after being much delayed, as far as I remember, by the cruiser programme,) Mars was by far the most advanced and powerful capital ship in the world, representing a quantum leap over both the Victorious and Indomitable classes. The new armour scheme, including the introduction of the AoN belt, the modern 3x3 16 inch gun layout, and above all the 26 knot speed made her vastly superior to any potential opponents; particularly, she was an excellent counter to the battlecruiser threat. (I later received an encouraging message from the USA, which asked me to sell them AoN armour several years into the 1920s, meaning that the newer US ships turned out to be considerably less dangerous than I had thought at the time.) The 4 3 inch guns were entirely accidental, but amusingly enough they were retained in all of Mars’ offspring for many years without me noticing. [EDIT: Wait, I know! I'll say they were meant to represent AA guns - that'll sound much better!]
Mars was followed by the two Neptune class ships, Neptune and Inflexible, which both arrived in 1920. Their only difference was pushing the speed up to 27 knots to contend with the new 29 knot BCs being produced by Germany and Russia:
Though my battleship construction was once again kicking into high gear, the Americans had gotten back to it sooner, and by 1920 they had 14 capital ships to my 13 – with yet more ships on the way. And so it was that the Royal Navy was overtaken, much to my displeasure.
Next up were the two Mercury class ships, Mercury and Invincible, both commissioned in 1922, and the Indestructible class ships Indestructible and Indefagitable, commissioned in 1924 and 1925. As you can see, little had changed through the years:
Collectively, I refer to the ships from Neptune to Indestructible as my ‘standard’ type fast battleships, since they are all almost identical. These ships received their first test in (I think) 1923, when all 6 British battlecruisers then in service (led by the newest, the Mercury class vessel HMS Invincible) engaged three German counterparts in my second major fleet engagement. The enemy ships – Goeben (1912), Lutzow (1918) and Motlke (1921) – were exactly the kind of ships my standard type had been designed to kill:
The new 16 inch armament proved a great asset, and inflicted accurate fire on the German battlecruisers at ranges in excess of 20,000 yards, at which their 12 and 14 inch guns could make little reply. 28 heavy hits was enough to put an end to the older Goeben, but I think the misery inflicted on Lutzow deserves a picture of its own:
While my war against the Germans was very successful, the Americans had not been idle in the meantime. The Yorktown class, the first of which was commissioned in 1921, was their answer to my standard type:
By the early 1920s, the Americans were solidifying their lead over me in dreadnought numbers; by the time of the war with Germany in 1922, they had 16 ships to my 15, and the construction of the Yorktown class ships meant they would soon outstrip me in tonnage as well. Their achievement was made still more impressive by the fact that they had also been constructing several modern light cruisers at the same time, and had done all of this on a considerably smaller budget than my own. I’ll discuss that issue in more depth at the end of the AAR.
Cruisers continued to occupy my attention at the dawn of the 1920s. Despite performing admirably in every war so far, the venerable Conquest class ships were very much outclassed by the latest generations of modern light cruisers, now being built by all navies. While I had managed to replace the inferior Victorias, this task, combined with the ongoing dreadnought race, had left no room for any new fleet cruisers. Two events added urgency to this issue. The first was the discovery – before 1920, as far as I recall – of an American ship design sporting double 6 inch turrets, which was far more advanced than anything I had on the drawing board at the time. The second event was a close call with one of my Conquest class ships, which ran into a more advanced enemy light cruiser (a Russian, I think) and escaped with moderate to severe damage. The first problem turned out to be a paper tiger; either my reports on the American design were inaccurate, or those ships were scrapped before completion. The French Cosmao class, three of which were commissioned in 1919, were typical of the foreign cruisers actually being completed at that time:
A cruiser scare set in, which prompted me to quite literally drop all other areas of research in order to focus everything on technologies that would improve my cruiser design – light forces, turrets and gun mountings, and ship design.
The first product of the cruiser scare was the Pearl class, commissioned in 1922:
These two ships – Andromache and Niad – were considered placeholders while I waited anxiously for double turrets, thought at the time to be inferior to what the Americans were already building. In actual fact, they were the best cruisers in the world at the time of completion. They were designed to be a direct replacement for the Conquest class, optimised for fleet duties with a design speed of 30 knots (they eventually turned out to be capable of 31) and heavy torpedo armament. They performed well in their first engagement, sinking two modern German raiders while escorting a convoy in the North Sea.
Next came the two Andromeda class heavy cruisers, Andromeda and Niobe, commissioned in 1923:
These were designed as multirole ships in the vein of the old Diadem class armoured cruisers. They were optimised for cruiser engagements, with 8 inch guns and speed focused engines which gave them a top speed of 30 knots, but I hoped their long range would allow them to function in the commerce protection role as needed. Despite their late arrival, they were the first heavy cruisers to be built in the world; their only foreign counterparts would be two Japanese vessels built in 1925 and 1927. Their armament was certainly excellent for their size. The 10,000 ton limit was self-imposed for cost-saving purposes, but the result was relatively weak protection. Since these cruisers only fought one action between them – Niobe participated in the 1923 fleet battle with the Germans – their efficacy of the design decisions could not be judged.
An unintended by-product of my great emphasis on light ship technology during this period was the Viking Class of destroyers:
Though I haven’t seen fit to show off any light ships so far, these ships – commissioned in 1924 – were real standouts, and far ahead of their contemporaries. Faster than any other destroyer afloat, with more than double the standard destroyer armament, all without sacrificing any torpedo tubes.
Finally, my favourite ships of the entire game; the three ships of the Champion class, completed in 1924 – Champion, Curacoa, and Comus:
The Champion class represents a break with my usual tradition of cruiser design; instead of asking ‘how cheap can I reasonably make these’, I asked, ‘how much can I possibly fit on these?’ Designed to outclass the projected American cruisers as well as all their other contemporaries, and to provide a worthy replacement for the decorated Conquest class, these ships were going to be fantastic before I found out that I could fit them with triple turrets. The realization that I could do so automatically put them in a class of their own, since at the time of completion nobody else had even managed double turrets on light cruisers yet.
My love for this class is not just theoretical, though. In the very first engagement of my final war with Russia, HMS Curacoa attacked a Russian convoy off the Irish coast, operating alone. She was engaged by no fewer than two enemy light cruisers of the Nadezha class and five destroyers. Despite missing with all twelve of her torpedoes, she engaged in a fierce running gun battle with the enemy cruisers, sinking both of them as well as a destroyer, almost emptying her magazines in the process. After nightfall, she found the convoy once more, and sank two merchantmen and an additional destroyer with gunfire before returning to port. The very next month, her sister ship sunk the modern Russian cruiser Vesta, in a one – on – one battle, scoring 43 hits on the enemy in return for only 2 and leaving Russia without a single cruiser still floating. For reference, Nadezha (1913) and Vesta (which was probably the second best cruiser in the world, completed in 1924) are shown below:
Having adequately dealt with my deficiency in light forces, I finally returned to the matter of dreadnoughts, and clawing back my position vis a vis the USA. In doing so, I was faced with my old dilemma once more; Italy and Russia were building new BCs that could exceed 30 knots, and at the time I received intelligence that either France or Germany was doing the same. The 27-knot line speed of my standard type was no longer going to cut it; the solution would require some deviation from the norm.
The strategy I chose was two-fold. In the ‘best ship designs’ post which spawned my fast battleships, Klavohunter had showcased an interesting idea for updating old dreadnoughts which I wanted to try out: replacing old 12 inch gun turrets with modern, single turrets, effectively giving them about half the broadside of a modern battleship for about 25% of the cost. While I was sceptical that the armour of these old ships could stand up in a modern engagement, I thought it was an interesting idea and at least worth a shot:
Both of the old Centurions got this treatment, and I initially intended to up – gun all of the 12 inch dreadnoughts in this fashion in order to gain a qualitative edge against the un-updated American ships, but as usual, the money ran out, and so only Centurion and Royal Oak were completed by the time I decided to end the game.
The second part of my strategy was, of course, to build new capital ships – I decided that I needed to have at least a couple of ships that could catch the new 30 + knot battlecruisers which I expected to proliferate rapidly in the coming years, but felt that I couldn’t make a fast battleship quite fast enough and still have it stand up to the heavy American vessels. Particularly, I was interested in countering Russia’s new Rymnik class, one of which had been completed in 1924 with several more under construction, since at that point the liberation of Ireland from the Bolsheviks was the last thing on my to-do list before I concluded the game:
Thus, I laid down my first dedicated battlecruiser since 1915 – HMS Incomparable:
She was, to my mind, a somewhat unsatisfactory solution to the battlecruiser problem, but one I felt I couldn’t go without. With a newly improved secondary armament configuration and other technological advancements over the standard type, she managed to retain armour protection that was nearly as strong, at 31 knots, but at the price of 14 inch guns. These, I felt, would at least be adequate for dealing with lightly armoured enemy battlecruisers. In this way, her design echoed that of my first battlecruiser, HMS Jupiter: strong protection, high top speed, but lower gun calibre. She was commissioned in 1927.
I also designed a new fast battleship – the HMS Majesty, also commissioned in 1927:
With the updated secondary armament and 29 knot speed (designed to keep pace with almost all battlecruisers then in service) she represented an incremental improvement over the previous standard type vessels.
The final ship crop of ships I laid down were another battlecruiser and a pair of two fast battleships. The former, HMS Illustrious, was almost identical to her predecessor:
Likewise, the new Valiant class fast battleships, Valiant and New Zealand, were almost identical to Majesty:
All three of these ships were still being built at the end of the game.
In the event, the Incomparable – Illustrious concept went untested, as the vessel did not see action during my final war with Russia. The most modern ships to see action in that war were the two standard type Indestructible class ships, which fought together in my final fleet action alongside an older 21 knot battleship division led by Hastings. That battle saw the sinking of two Russian battlecruisers, including the oldest, Izmail, and the newest; the 31 knot Rymnik that the Incomparable had been designed to counter. Ironically, she was sunk off screen in that very chaotic battle by the 21 knot Hastings and her AI – controlled division.
That war, like my two previous wars with Russia, ended with me not winning enough conquest points to retake Ireland or any other Russian possession. This was certainly not for lack of trying:
It was there that I decided to end the game. The Dreadnought race with the USA, unfortunately, was lost; though I had two Valiants and one Incomparable in construction at the end of the game, the USA still maintained a lead in current tonnage, 762,000 to my 643,000, (though the numbers may have been skewed by the rebuilding of my BC Jupiter) and in future tonnage, 1,002,000 to 809,000. An impressive feat, considering their final budget was 397 million to my 441, and had been relatively lower for much of the game.
***
Finally, then, we come to my reflections on the game. Overall, it was a success: the only major combat losses were two armoured cruisers, and I sunk a total of six enemy battlecruisers in return along with countless smaller ships. The lessons, as far as I can discern them, are as follows:
1. All early game cruisers must be built to last; the defining factor is speed. I believe that 23 knots should be a minimum for the legacy cruisers of nations that can afford it. In my opinion, Britain must have modern dedicated colonial and fleet cruisers at all times – replacing old colonial cruisers with fleet cruisers is not desirable, since colonial cruisers should ideally have both long range and reliable engines, whereas fleet cruisers can make good use out of the extra tonnage in their armament and armour, and may benefit from speed focused engines. In my next game as the UK, my legacy colonial cruisers will be large and expensive, so as to stay relevant past 1910, though they may make some sacrifices in either armament or armour in order to achieve the necessary speed as well.
2. I fell behind the USA in the dreadnought race despite my consistently higher budget; this was due largely to training and readiness. In the future, when play as countries that can aim for numerical superiority (such as the UK and US) I will not apply training in periods of low tensions, and I will keep a part of my battlefleet in the reserves during peacetime (perhaps maintaining the ‘one up’ doctrine as I did with the pre-dreadnoughts) to cut costs.
3. Not a single BB was sunk in the course of this game, compared to 6 BCs. This fact deserves some deeper analysis. What trends can be identified? First, all were sunk by heavy gunfire; torpedoes only ever finished them off. Of the six BCs sunk, three – including the two French ones in 1912 and the 31 knot Rymzik in 1927 – were sunk mostly or entirely by 21 knot BBs. In the battle in which Rymzik was sunk, the 21 knot, AI controlled squadron of Hastings also successfully engaged and pursued the 27 knot Izmail, slowing her to 20 knots before my fast battleships even intervened. Only two enemy BCs – Goeben and Lutzow in 1923 – were sunk entirely by fast battleships (with limited support from the two battlecruisers.) My own dedicated battlecruisers contributed very little, except for Jupiter’s successful luring of the two French BCs into my battlefleet, Jutland style, in 1912. When I first started playing RTW, armed only with my historical knowledge, I abstained from BCs altogether. Then, over time, accumulating some experience in the forums and getting a feel for the game’s mechanics, I began to warm up to them, believing them to be a necessary component of every major fleet. Any power which had none, I felt, would surely be at the mercy of an enemy who did; cruiser engagements, which are so prominent in this game, would result in heavy losses to the cruiser force, while large fleet engagements could simply be avoided by the battlecruisers. The record in this game, as in history, does not support this theory; not once were enemy battlecruisers able to even engage my cruiser force in isolation, let alone sink anything. When I get the opportunity, I intend to try a force structure which excludes dedicated BCs altogether; instead, 21 knot BBs will be replaced by fast battleships (perhaps ‘slow battlecruisers’ is a more appropriate term for the types I’ve used) at the earliest opportunity. With that doctrine, one might accept some losses to one’s own cruiser force in exchange for a high probability of destroying enemy BCs, while being able to more easily defeat or deter the enemy battlefleet and thus blockade the enemy.
To those of you who have made it all the way to the end: congratulations, and thank you for reading! I hope that you have enjoyed this very extensive AAR; please let me know if you would like me to do the same for my next game. This has taken me the better part of two days to write, but I enjoyed the process very much. Please leave your comments, questions and criticisms below; I very much enjoy a lively debate, and it is my hope that by sharing this story I can gain access to some new points of view which will improve my skill in this excellent game.
, however I am very much looking forward to digesting this after work. *thumbs up*_(edited)_Screenshot_(739).png?width=180&height=180&fit=bounds)
Thanks very much, I very much look forward to hearing what you have to say!
