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Post by dorn on Jul 2, 2018 0:43:43 GMT -6
I got the game a week ago. Have been doing research on tips and tricks, tutorials, etc beforehand already. Now I think I am ready for my first game. I started as Austria because I like playing underdogs. And I especially love playing nations that never had a big navy and then doing exactly that with them! Anyways, here is my first very own B design, the Franz Joseph I class! All those secondary and tertiary high caliber guns are probably way overboard but my doctrine is going to be fewer but stronger ships. Also I often see people with very high armor on their legacy ships but I instead choose to go for only 7 inch belt, turrets and conning tower and 2 inch everything else as that, accourding to the gun data, will protect against everything up to 12 inch guns as well as protect against splinters.
I just started my first game and yet cannot wait for Rule the Waves 2! I am so excited for it because with aircraft involved you have so many more design choices and then there are even more, non-aircraft related, things that add even more options! I will definitely play Germany and build a surface raider heavy fleet with few very strong surface raiders like the Deutschland-Class! Okay but enough talk now, here is the ship:
Nice ship, I do usually same strategy, not armoring these ships to much. When you design you ship you should put yourself several question as they are important before you start designing any ship. Questions:1. What is the role of the ship? 2. What enemy ships will she face and how many? 3. How long I expect for her to be in first line? 4. How long live I expect from this ship? 5. How she will cooperate with other my ships? You can see, after you have answers to these question you can start designing and you can get much better ship for her tasks than you build without this process. Some example for A-H1. first class battleship 2. enemy first class battleships and superior numbers of enemy warships 3. 7 years after that I expect new battleship will be ready 4. 12 years 5. She will be guarded by destroyers with focused on guns 6. How much funds am I able to allocate 7. Operation area If you have this basic strategy, you know that you need battleship with high firepower (first class battleship), medium armor (she is expected to be in first line only for 7 years) and overal only 12 years. You need fast ship (she will be operating against superior enemy) to be able withdraw. She need lighter anti-destroyer armament as it will be destroyers to counter that threat. As A-H I am short of fund so ship need to be cheap and design should be economical. She will be only in home waters. At this stage you start designing ship (with some alternatives): Armament:
main armament: maximum possible ==> 2x2x best caliber guns secondary armament: 18x6" guns - to achieve high firepower but not having flashfires (guns 7" and higher) tertiary armament: 18x5" guns - to achieve high firepower against heavy ships (5" are more effective than 3 or 4" guns and enemy torpedo attack will be thwarted by destroyers) Speed:
19 knots (20 knots possible) - she need to be fast as enemy ships, so 19 knots are minimal, over 20 knots are too expensive Range:
Short - as she will never leave the Med Crew accomodation: Cramped - it is enough as she will be operated in the Med and as saving measueres Freeboard:Normal or Low could be considered for savings however in case of bad weather the secondary and tertiary guns will be less effective Torpedoes:
As valuable to finish enemy ship 1-2 port and starboard torpedoes (forward and aft are almost useless). Armor protection: Deck protection: 1" deck and deck extended is sufficient for 7 years and can withstand hits even alter Secondary armament: 2" splinter protection or enough against secondary 7" guns with some reserve Conning tower: 9" as it is cheap Belt protection and armor scheme: There are several posibilities taking in consideration basic strategy notes. Turret armor: 9-10" and 2" on top a) standard protection - sloped deck, belt armor against main guns (about 8-9" for 7 years), belt extended against secondary armament and main armament over 5.000 yards - about 6" b) flat deck on top (better protected against HE but belt armor is not enhanced by sloped deck) - 9" belt, 6" belt extended c) flat armor with narrow belt coverage for full protection - belt and belt extended at 9" - is proto AoN armor By this process you will get exactly what you need and ship will get old in good way. As for your design others get nice ideas for you, you can use it quite well. Just summary to think about: - main armor scheme and belt, deck and turret armor - deck 2" is too much when your belt is only 7", at start of century 1" is enough, may be 1.5" of deck armor could be considered. 7" belt armor will not last 10 years at all - torpedoes - forward and aft are usually useless but try to experiment and you will se if you can use them - secondary armament - 7" with only 2" of armor is risk to flashfires (explosion of your ammo) - 6" are free of flashfires - short range and cramped accommodation is for A-H something to consider to save costs - turret top armor and turret armor - it is good point that the armor is a littler thicker than deck and belt armor (belt because in case of sloped deck configuration your belt armor has sloped deck increasing vertical protection, in case of turret top because your turrets is slightly sloped against fire decreasing protection against plunging fire. And it is usually good thing to amor your turrets more as if you get flashfire your ship will blow up) - speed - with 16 knots you will be slower than enemy and you have the weakest fleet so you will be in quite disadvantage But always try to experiment yourself what works for you. You will find on this forum that different people prefer to design their ship differently. Sometimes even some odd design comes through and could have some usage. But designing ships through the process I described at the beginning always helps.
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Post by dorn on Jul 2, 2018 0:58:02 GMT -6
I have finished my other designs. They are probably very crappy and I think I bought too many DDs and too few CLs and CAs but here we go: This is my destroyer class. It is called "Jäger" which means Hunter in german. It is designed to mainly screen the fleet. Pretty standard design as far as I an say. Next up is my light cruiser design, the Wien class. It is designed to screen the main battle fleet and not go on raiding duties, hence the short range.
And last but not least we got the Kaiser class CAs. Those are designed for long range raiding duty and as I am stripped for funds I opted for a heavy main battery of 10 inch so that I am able to outgun anything cruiser and smaller so that my very few CAs can raid without issue. However, I have built too many DDs. Right now my legacy fleet consists of 2 Kaiser Franz Joseph I class Bs, 20 Jäger class DDs, only 2 Wien class CLs and only one Kaiser class CA. Oh well, this is going to be bad...
Nice ships. I will just comments some ideas. But try yourself, experiment. Destroyer:- use remaining tonnage for something - decrease of speed and increase number of guns or torpedoes Protected cruiser:
Other possibilities: - engines tuned for speed - increase armor to 3" belt - more main guns - increase armor of turrets to 2.5" to have enclosed turrets (up to 2" armor guns are considered to have only protected shield) - having no armor on turrets and have a lot of them - secondary armament 3 or 4" Armored cruiser:- decrease caliber to 8 or 9" - increase armor - increase number of second caliber guns - engines to normal or speed configuration (this I would not only think it as consideration but suggest as you reliable engines takes a lot of tonnage and bring you almost no advantage for you - armored cruiser is too valuable ship to be raider outside home area especially for A-H) - range to short (same as previous point) - extended belt and deck armor - I would not go without this armor as even 3" guns could penetrate and do flotation damage. And you have not AoN armor so enemy can sink you just penetrating extended part of armor - 200 shells per gun - quite impressive - see in battle if you are actually using it not to have unused space
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Post by rimbecano on Jul 2, 2018 6:11:24 GMT -6
The best way to explain it is to refer you to the footage of Arizona blowing up at Pearl Harbor and say "that is a flash fire". Other ships lost to flash fires in combat include Indefatigable and Hood. Iowa survived a flash fire that failed to reach the magazine in 1989. Lion survived a flash fire at Jutland, and Seydlitz survived turret fires at both Dogger Bank and Jutland. Basically it's when gunpowder in the turret catches fire and lights other gunpowder near it on fire. Real life flash fires might be started directly in the magazine by a direct hit (as was the case with Arizona), in which case the ship was pretty much doomed, or they might start outside the magazine in which case they might or might not actually reach it. Other than Arizona (where the general trajectory of the bomb that hit her is known), it's not known how many flash fires that resulted in the loss of the ship in question started in the magazine versus starting outside it and reaching it because of unsafe powder handling (passing charges through open doors instead of keeping the doors closed and using ammunition scuttles, collecting extra powder outside the magazine to speed getting it up to the guns, etc), given that a flash fire is pretty much guaranteed to kill everyone in the affected spaces and destroy the evidence as to how it started. The British lost a number of ships to flash fires as their powder formulation was more sensitive than that of other nations. In game terms, flash fires only cover the type that starts outside the magazine and finds its way in, destroying the ship. Direct magazine hits are announced with a different message, but have the same effect (instant loss of the ship). Flash fires that don't reach the magazine aren't differentiated from other causes of turret destruction.
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Post by pashahlis on Jul 2, 2018 7:58:07 GMT -6
So again regarding the flotilla attack: When I order a flotilla attack with my lead division it will order all divisions under the lead division that are set on support or screen to do a flotilla attack?
Because I could not order a flotilla attack in the interface of my other divisions.
Edit: Also is there a reason to not go full speed apart from flooding?
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Post by aeson on Jul 2, 2018 8:33:20 GMT -6
So again regarding the flotilla attack: When I order a flotilla attack with my lead division it will order all divisions under the lead division that are set on support or screen to do a flotilla attack? Yes. Going at less than full speed tends to help keep the formation intact and allows the formation to recover more easily from disruption since ships will be able to out-run the formation to reposition themselves. Additionally, ships are more likely to suffer from speed loss events (bearings overheating, engine breakdowns, stokers exhausted if using coal-fired engines) the faster they go.
Most or all of what is visible in footage of the destruction of the Arizona isn't a flash fire, though it may be the result of one. This is an example of a flash fire.
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Post by cv10 on Jul 2, 2018 8:34:24 GMT -6
So again regarding the flotilla attack: When I order a flotilla attack with my lead division it will order all divisions under the lead division that are set on support or screen to do a flotilla attack? Because I could not order a flotilla attack in the interface of my other divisions. Edit: Also is there a reason to not go full speed apart from flooding? I: this threw me off for while before fredsanford explained it to me in my AAR thread. Here's how to order a flotilla attack II: Being at full speed has some other disadvantages. If you stay at top speed for a long enough period things can start to go wrong with your propulsion systems: your stokers become exhausted (only for coal burning ships), grates become clogged/fouled and need to be cleared. Also, you will burn through fuel, which is bad for raiders in areas where you lack a base (can lead to scuttling or internment).
The other thing is that the AI, particularly during the pre-dreadnought era, doesn't always do so well with divisions further back in the line of battle keeping up with the lead division, and your battle line can very confused. A few knots of "cushion" can go a long way towards keeping formations in tact.
Though if you are trying to disengage from a superior force or pursue a broken and damaged enemy, full speed is more appropriate. Also, bear in mind the speed differences between your ship classes when designing new ones. If you've got a 28 knot BC, you're gonna want some pretty fast destroyers to keep up with it. On the other hand, don't let that hamper you from building fast ships, particularly once engine tech goes up a few bounds.
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Post by pashahlis on Jul 2, 2018 8:41:58 GMT -6
What do rally, disengage and battle turn away do?
EDIT: Also I am appaled that my Bs only did light damage to their Bs even though I scored many many hits. I cant believe that is only because their Bs had a little bit higher armor and guns. Or can it? My ships were ordered to fire only HE unless the Bs are in short range. EDITEDIT: Why can I only set my light cruisers to screen and not my DDs?
EDITEDITEDIT: How does one lay mines? I saw that you can put mines on ships. Also, I jus had a second fleet battle where I had 2 Bs against their 5 and it went good for once:
Also I am under blockade.
BUT! I just finished researching 4 centerline turrets (and I already got X turret superimposed + triple turrets!!) which means I can now build fully fledged dreadnoughts! I will design one and lay down immediatly and accelarate the construction! Luckily my german allies are in this war too BUT one of their Bs got sink by a MS? LOL FRICKING LOVE THIS GAME!
TOO MANY EDITS: How do I have my submarines assist in battle?
I present to you the ship class that will hopefully be finished before the war ends and will win the war for me, the Viribus Unitis:
Changes from previous designs include upping the belt, turret and conning tower armor to suit the current requirements as well as two inches more to have it stay up to date. However that is only sufficient for the next 5 years probably. More was not in. Belt extended has also been upgraded from a mere splinter protection to actual armor sufficient to protect against secondary caliber guns (and opefully cruiser caliber guns) (main caliber guns will probably just go completely through anyways or do minor damage). The conning tower has been upgraded to have 1 more inch of armor than the belt armor to make absolutely sure that that important place is safe. Turret (and turret deck armor)armor was supposed to be 1 inch more as well for the same reason but that wasn't possible with the weight. Tertiary guns have been completely eliminated (I think having too many different calibers makes them aim worse?) and the secondary caliber guns have been made 12 3 inches to only protect against DDs to save on weight. The main armament consists of 12! 12inch guns in centerline turrets. That is probably the heaviest broadside of any ship design in the game right now, however first it must be built lol. Speed again is on the low side with 20 knots but that is to save on weight and the past two fleet battles (albeit I lost 1 B but that was because I was overly agressive) have proven that even with low speed I can escape by merely surviving the battle until nightfall.
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Post by aeson on Jul 2, 2018 11:12:05 GMT -6
You need to develop a specific technology in Fleet Tactics before DDs can be assigned to screen other ships. Minelaying is automatically performed by ships equipped with mines on the strategic layer. You cannot lay mines manually during engagements.
Your message probably said "during an engagement with Italy your ally's ship (type, name) and the Italian ship (type, name) were sunk," not "your ally's ship (type, name) was sunk by Italian ship (type, name)." A plausible scenario might be that your German allies raided the Italian coast with a battleship and some other vessels and sank an Italian minesweeper, but the battleship at the core of the German raiding force struck a mine and sank during the raid.
They show up occasionally as unmoving map features marked by a submarine icon, and if a ship passes close enough by a submarine icon the submarine might launch a torpedo or send out a contact report. Another way for submarines to assist surface engagements is for a ship to be torpedoed by a submarine as a post-battle event. Otherwise, submarines do not do anything during battles.
Order of damage is essentially: AP which fails to penetrate armor < HE which fails to penetrate armor < AP which penetrates armor < HE which penetrates armor. When your guns fail to penetrate the enemy's armor, cumulative superstructure damage and fire tend to be the big ship killers, insofar as gunnery engagements are concerned, and you'll inflict that damage faster and start fires more readily with many relatively light guns firing HE shells than with few relatively heavy guns firing AP shells. By 1907, though, the situation is changing and heavy guns firing AP shells are starting to reliably penetrate heavy armor at moderate engagement ranges and may even be penetrating heavy armor with HE shells at short ranges.
Also, it's worth mentioning that the damage dealt by a shell is proportional to the shell weight, and shell weight is roughly proportional to the cube of its diameter. 12" shells are approximately 30% heavier than 11" shells, so even without factoring in the generally superior armor penetration of the heavier shell you'd expect a ship to be more severely damaged by a number of 12" hits than by a similar number of 11" hits.
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Post by theexecuter on Jul 2, 2018 11:23:57 GMT -6
Re: B's not firing torpedoes
Check the speed and range of your torpedoes. Early ones are very short ranged (<2km) and very slow (10 knots). Nearly impossible to find a window to launch them in the midst of a fleet engagement. They really are only coup de grace weapons early on.
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Post by pashahlis on Jul 2, 2018 11:35:08 GMT -6
I am completely crazy! I had a convoy battle up with my 2 B fleet and the convoy was protected by 5 Bs. Nonetheless I charged right into the fray, into the middle of the enemy fleet and proceeded to sink 1 CA and all merchants with no losses! EDIT: I should really stop writing about every single thing in my game lol.
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Post by director on Jul 2, 2018 12:17:43 GMT -6
Sometimes audacity works... the problem (as I found) is that, if you settle on audacity as your go-to tactical answer you will shortly receive a face-full of torpedoes, rather in the manner of the dog who attacks the porcupine. In my play-through as Byzantium I lost a BC and nearly lost two others a dozen times or more before I changed my tactics away from just closing the range. It got so bad the crews began to refer to the battlecruisers as 'monsters who eat their young'. I remember my relief when I had my first engagement where they weren't wrecked by shells or hit by torpedoes... RtW battles are like poker, so my procedure is to ask myself at the start of the action, "What of this force can I afford to lose?" RtW is strategically more akin to baseball however: in the course of a season (war) you will play 162 games (one battle per month) and you will eventually succeed based on whether you win more than you lose. The strange turns of luck will, over time, tend to average-out. Nobody in baseball goes undefeated, and heavy hitters tend to eventually lose to good pitching, which in RtW I take to mean good fire control, good torpedoes and superior fleet position. Can I get across his route home and force him to fight me? Can I expose a small unit and lead him onto my battle-line? (It is so much easier to torpedo advancing enemies than retreating ones). Can I fall on one detachment of his fleet and crush it before the rest catches up to me? Can I feign a retreat to pull him forward? So in this way, RtW is similar to real-estate sales: position, position, and position are your three laws. Great: in one paragraph I've turned RtW into baseball, poker and real-estate. So... baseball players betting the house on a poker game? *My head hurts* LOL. 1) Rally, disengage and battle turn-away are pretty much self-explanatory except that the battle turn-away is a simultaneous 180-degree turn by your battleships. Doing this without collisions is evidence of good crew quality. 2) In the early game, the number of heavy guns is low, the aiming factor of gun control is low and the hitting power of shells is low compared to armor. This will (eventually) change and keep changing. An older-model dreadnought that gets hit by a 1920s-era 16" shell can be seriously hurt. For the rest, aeson and theexecuter have spoken well and truly. Your 'Viribus Unitis' class has some strong points, notably the heavy main battery, which would be good for longer-range engagements. The very light secondary armament is reminiscent of early British dreadnoughts and also indicates a ship intended to fight at long range. As against that, the belt and turret armor are quite good for the period and the belt extended armor is very heavy, and the deck armor quite light, which argue for a closer fighting range. My recommendation is that you use her at closer ranges and develop something like a heavily-gunned light cruiser to take care of enemy destroyers. I'm excited and happy for you, and don't intend for anything I say to dampen your enthusiasm. By all means, go to it - experiment, test, try - and let us know what you find. We are all interested in finding new design tricks and tips, and those only come from experimentation.
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Post by aeson on Jul 2, 2018 12:49:07 GMT -6
Replacing the 3" guns in armored casemates with unprotected 4" or 5" guns in a refit might also be worth considering. It's probably possible to get ~12 unarmored 5" or ~20 unarmored 4" guns for the ~200 tons that the casemated 3" guns with splinter protection cost, and while doing so would leave the secondary battery more susceptible to casualties it'd also give it a bit more range and punch. Once secondary turrets are developed for battleships, it might also be possible to replace the 3" guns in armored casemates with a similar number of 4" guns in armored triple or quad turrets without it costing too much additional tonnage.
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Post by pashahlis on Jul 2, 2018 18:05:56 GMT -6
Btw is there a reason to use CLs as scouts? They do not seem to have much more view range than other ships. Same with BCs? Like why not just use any ship as a scout? Why CLs and later BCs?
EDIT: How do I stop a blockade?
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Post by aeson on Jul 2, 2018 19:43:18 GMT -6
Btw is there a reason to use CLs as scouts? They do not seem to have much more view range than other ships. Same with BCs? Like why not just use any ship as a scout? Why CLs and later BCs? Historically, it's mostly because second-class, third-class, scout, and light cruisers are approximately the largest ships which don't require their own screening force and the smallest ships which have a reasonable combination of height, seaworthiness, and endurance. First-class or armored cruisers and battlecruisers make for less ideal scouts because they're valuable enough that they really ought to have ships to screen them against torpedo boats and submarines, but were at times used as scouts because they can, in theory, destroy the enemy's scouting force, or brush it aside to harass the van of the enemy battle line, or force the enemy battle line to choose between having their T crossed by ships powerful enough to matter or losing ground to your battle line.
Within the game, it's probably mostly because scouting for heavier ships is a traditional cruiser role and didn't really become a destroyer role until destroyers started to become as large as third-class and small second-class cruisers were at the turn of the century, but the economical and tactical considerations still apply.
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Post by ddg on Jul 2, 2018 19:43:44 GMT -6
I'm not sure it's been clearly articulated yet, but it's very difficult to torpedo a ship on a parallel course directly abeam. This is because the torpedo must angle forward to account for the headway of the target ship. This, coupled with the short range and low speed of early torpedoes, likely contributed to your battleships' failure to launch. People in this thread have given a lot of useful advice, but I'd strongly encourage you to try out all your own ideas, too. Across this board you'll find successful players who pursue incredibly different strategies. Some favor small, ultra-modern, quality-focused fleets and scrap everything within a few years. Others never scrap anything. Some even work to avoid wars. There are so many ways to play that just because one works is no reason to eschew experimentation. The one thing you absolutely should pay attention to is explanations of game mechanics. Collectively, we've put a lot of effort into learning how they work. aeson is a particularly good source, as you may have noted.
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