The (un)Necessity of Mine Sweepers.

[garrisonchisholm]

In all the games I have played I have developed a few personal proclivities, some of which have been publicized in the most ignominious fashion.


nws-online.proboards.com/thread/1211/aar-admiralty-debates


However, as most of us who have weathered the teething troubles of our first 5 games of so have discovered, many policies can lead to victory.  One of my early decisions, aside from a gross reluctance to scrap ANYTHING, was to not construct MS class ships.  Whether 200 or 1700 tons, the first time I had one of these decommissioned from underneath me because I missed a refit I immediately soured on them.  To me the exchange of this game is time, and I hated the thought of spending time to build anything only to see the opportunity cost of its construction lost.  If I have built MS class ships, it has been almost always as a novelty enterprise in the final decade of my play.

Having a "no MS" policy seems a significant departure from the way most people play, so it seemed to me that the data should exist in my completed games to disclose whether this is a good idea or a poor one.  I present below the data from my 10 available completed saves, and will analyze afterwards what might be revealed by this.

Ship Type	BB/BC	B	CA	CL	DD	MS
Lost to Torp & Mine	2	5	6	16	164	6
Lost to Mine	0	1	2	6	78	2

Per 10-year increments, these are the "casualty" rates across the 10 games to Mines;

BB & BC                    0%

B                            2%

CA                            4%

CL                            12%

DD                            156%  (meaning, ~ 1.5 DD's are lost to mines every 10 years in my games)

MS                            4%


Now, interpreting this data, it is clear the most hazardous posting in my games is on a destroyer- but then, destroyer sailors know the risks.  I generally have 30-50 destroyers active with my fleet, and I always shoot for a 3-1 ratio for my Coastal Patrol.

Whether my DD's are screening the fleet very effectively and dutifully taking the torpedoes of intruding subs or just being picked by random lot from a large pool of ships, is I think answered by the data as well.  In some of these 10 games I had a remarkable (for me) number of battleships and battle cruisers, ~20.  If a fleet of 8 large ships (DN/CA/CL) were being screened by 30, it might mean the DD's were losing by random lot.  However, if a fleet of 40+ DN/CA/CL's still has the DDs come up as the victims, then I feel strongly that it is the Destroyers doing their duty which is the answer.

Also of note, while the cost to mines is high, my DDs are bearing the brunt.  Now the question becomes, how many less DDs would I lose if I maintained 15-30 mine sweepers across the world?  Is the cost of those DDs worth the hassle (to me) of fretting over missing their refit timers?  So far, I'd say the answer is yes.  My capital ships are protected, and at least 1/2 of all those lost destroyers I would term "useless" in a fleet engagement, being from the 1st or 2nd generation of construction.

To sum up, if you are willing to build destroyers, I do not feel you need to build mine sweepers at all.

This (obviously) has been only my opinion, so if any others wish to Interpret the data feel free to do so.  I welcome the conversation.  I can also provide other data from those 10 saves if anyone is interested.

[rimbecano]

I'll note that another explanation for DDs taking so many more losses than heavier ships is that they are more easily sunk by mines. How many mine *strikes*, resulting in either sinkings or repairable damage, are you getting per ship type?

[garrisonchisholm]

Feb 26, 2018 23:28:52 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

I'll note that another explanation for DDs taking so many more losses than heavier ships is that they are more easily sunk by mines. How many mine *strikes*, resulting in either sinkings or repairable damage, are you getting per ship type?

This is an excellent question, and unfortunately I have no hard data to answer it.  If ships only had a universal log that was persistent throughout the game.  My "general recollection" though is that in an operational sense, about half the time my capital ships are not at full strength.  This doesn't allow for the other means by which ships are "down for repairs" though, with condenser issues or what-not.  I will try to be aware of this for future note, however I do not have the sense that I am being plagued by mines, else I would definitely have begrudgingly concluded that I needed mine sweepers.

[director]

I have a partiality to a mixed approach - I keep a smaller DD class for CP/ASW (12-16 ships) and I build lots and lots and lots of MS. Why? because of money and time - MS are cheaper to build and maintain than DDs. That's also why I don't keep DDs much beyond the 20-year mark: maintenance costs soar and its not cost-effective to regun/reboiler them.

Now sometimes I do build a 'DE' class of DDs - 24 knots, 4" main gun, limited torpedo rack and some mines - but that's generally to help win the gunnery battles and give some teeth to my patrols. For the money, I think you can't beat the MS cloud approach.

[garrisonchisholm]

That is of course another valid point. When I play the game, quite frequently my only economic considerations are "can I afford this or not." I have no notion of escalating costs over time, and the game is so darn click-addictive that I am Never going to take the time to keep a spread-sheet running so I can follow such things (at least, playing on my own).

[ddg]

You inspired me to take a look at my current game, present date January 1932.

	BB	BC	B	CA	CL	DD	MS
In service	13	5	0	12	19	150	58
Total losses	3	1	1	5	9	48	37
Mined	0	0	0	1	0	8	2
Torpedoed (SS event)	0	0	0	0	1	15	7

This is a slightly atypical fleet structure for me, as I'm experimenting with large WWII-style CAs. As an aside, they're doing fairly well for me. The only loss has been the single mined CA, and they've participated in large-scale fleet battles, sometimes absorbing multiple main-battery hits from enemy capital ships. I also scrapped almost my entire capital ship fleet around 1925 to replace with modern construction, which explains the relatively low number of capital ships (for reference, I am playing the United States with a current budget of 1,241,820,020).

Over 32 years, I have lost roughly 4% of my total DD construction to mines (one every four years), along with about 2% of my total MS (one every 16 years) and almost 5% of my total CA (just one, but much swingier due to comparatively low production numbers).

I am currently at war with Japan (30 months), which has 35 submarines remaining and is building 56. Among foreign fleets, only Germany's is not sub-dominated. Consequently, I am running 141 of 24 ships on CP, which appears to be far in excess of anyone else I've heard. I typically sink about as many submarines as I lose merchants to them in a given month. Additionally, as far as I can tell, if you roll the "minesweeper sunk in a spirited gun duel" event more than once in a month, only the first minesweeper actually gets sunk.

[fredsanford]

So how many DD's do you have in order to keep a 3-1 ASW ratio, and provide escorts for your fleet? My gut reaction is that this is an expensive way to provide ASW patrols.

[garrisonchisholm]

Standard ASW is 60-90 I would suppose (by 1920), and most of those are the original 500 or 600 tonners that are relatively useless in a fleet action, so no new construction needed. If you never scrap your destroyers, your CP simply becomes all of your old destroyers.

Here is an interesting snapshot from two games.  In both games I finished with 100+ destroyers and as well 20+ BB/BCs, but my budgets were very different;








As both of these games were decidedly "successful", and I could maintain a respectable fleet and my destroyer arm, I can't conclude I made a poor choice to maintain so many DDs.  Now, most recently I have been playing cv10 's Holland mod to great enjoyment, and there the economics are of course quite different.  If I finish a game with 6 BB/BC that is a successful game, and I still maintain a 100 destroyer arm.






The above game would have also been deemed a success by the Crown, I wager, and I am quite pleased with it.  ^.^

[fredsanford]

My last German game.  34 BB/BC. I had a bunch of DDs, too, and 66 MS not shown. 


 

[garrisonchisholm]

Well, 14 BB/BC can't be bought with only ~ 50 DDs, so obviously you play better than I do, but the paramount fact remains; there are many paths to a successful game, and MS's are not "necessary" to have a successful game.

Much the same as, I wager, a successful game could be had without building any 1 of the various class types. It is a remarkable game in its flexibility.

[cv10]

You sure painted the Western Pacific orange in that game!

[joebob73]

I gave up on building MS when my 1700 ton, 2” belted gunboat MS started losing gun duels with subs.

I can understand the usual 200 ton MS losing that, but a 1700 ton ship with a 5-gun broadside of 5” shouldn’t be.

I had been using such ships with the colonial service box checked to take care of overseas tonnage requirements, freeing up cruisers for raiding and countering raiders, but I guess that isn’t such a good idea.

[splatterdemalion]

Feb 28, 2018 16:07:51 GMT -6 joebob73 said:

I gave up on building MS when my 1700 ton, 2” belted gunboat MS started losing gun duels with subs.

I can understand the usual 200 ton MS losing that, but a 1700 ton ship with a 5-gun broadside of 5” shouldn’t be.

I had been using such ships with the colonial service box checked to take care of overseas tonnage requirements, freeing up cruisers for raiding and countering raiders, but I guess that isn’t such a good idea.

I don’t understand this, either. I also don’t understand why my 86 DDs and MSs on CP/ASW only able to sink 1-3 enemy subs per turn (of 20 in commission), while the 10 enemy DDs & MSs in existence somehow sink 1-2 of my 20 subs per turn - meanwhile the enemy subs are sinking more ships per turn than mine.

[garrisonchisholm]

It seems to me that CP is scripted to limit the success of enemy subs, rather than sink them. I have never been able to "pin" my opponent's submarine arm. Even if you take them to the mat, once the game decides subs are a priority the vector always points up. Certainly they (CP) seem to protect capital ships from sinkings.

[dorn]

I do not know logic in this game related to submarines but we should be aware that only 1/3 of submarine fleet is on patrol in reality.

So if you have 20 submarines, than 6-7 submarines are on patrol. Increasing ASW patrol considerably for such a small number of enemy submarines should not help a lot. So sinking 1-3 submarines compare to 1-2 submarines is quite a difference and it seems to me quite logical.