Converting or repurposing ships

[garychildress]

Saw mention of seaplane tenders in another thread about a slightly different topic and their conversion to carriers. What about converting existing ships (either already built or on the slips) into carriers? Could that be successfully modeled in a game like RTW or will it be modeled in RTW2? As we know many of the first major aircraft carriers were conversions from BCs and many more were conversions from ships such as seaplane tenders, oilers and merchantmen as well as light cruisers (Independence class). During a long drawn out war with an enemy nation, ships get repurposed in response to the fortunes of the war and from lessons learned during it. There really wasn't much ability to do that in RTW1 (and I don't think it was done quite as much during WW1 as it was done during WW2). 


Thoughts?


Thanks.

[halseyincarnate]

It's been confirmed that you will be able to convert ships into carriers in RTW2. As for how this works or if any other conversions are possible I don't know.

[garychildress]

Thanks for the info!

[jeb94]

The first carriers in the AARs in the developers journal are CVLs converted from ACs. It’s one of the things I can’t wait to do. I keep having visions of converting 20 knot 12000 ton legacy cruisers to something even more useful, at least early on. I’m curious as to how long a rebuild will take and if changing out the machinery would be worth it during such a reconstruction.

[ursamaior]

Sry just saw this topic. Should have posted here.

[garrisonchisholm]

In my recent (current, in a bug-resolution lag state) game, since the world was struck by a 1906 disarmament treaty that lasted 17 years, I eventually had to do Something with my old useless armored cruisers so went ahead and made then into CVLs. Worthless CVLs, that could only carry 6 planes. But it got me some experience with flight decks at least!

[dorn]

Jan 16, 2019 16:47:29 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

In my recent (current, in a bug-resolution lag state) game, since the world was struck by a 1906 disarmament treaty that lasted 17 years, I eventually had to do Something with my old useless armored cruisers so went ahead and made then into CVLs. Worthless CVLs, that could only carry 6 planes. But it got me some experience with flight decks at least!

Would be having some CVLs helping research as it was for USN, RN, IJN?

In real history, if you look on Germany, Italy, France building their own carriers they had a lot of problems as have no experience. It can be easily seen as all first carriers even of USN, IJN, RN has some flaws. New carriers from late 30s was more optimized and their main issue was only treaty limitation.

[garrisonchisholm]

That is exactly the reason I built them, and the reason to convert an early hull into a CVL. At present you are not allowed to raise Shipboard Aircraft Operations research to High unless you have an Active Fleet flight-deck.

[garychildress]

Jan 16, 2019 18:47:47 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

That is exactly the reason I built them, and the reason to convert an early hull into a CVL. At present you are not allowed to raise Shipboard Aircraft Operations research to High unless you have an Active Fleet flight-deck.

Very cool! I like that requirement. That seems like a very logical way to implement things. Well done! Looking forward to the game when it come out. 

[bcoopactual]

I love that idea. It would be nice to see it implemented wherever it made sense like in submarine research but regardless, I hope the idea works out.

[AiryW]

Jan 16, 2019 16:47:29 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

In my recent (current, in a bug-resolution lag state) game, since the world was struck by a 1906 disarmament treaty that lasted 17 years, I eventually had to do Something with my old useless armored cruisers so went ahead and made then into CVLs. Worthless CVLs, that could only carry 6 planes. But it got me some experience with flight decks at least!

6 planes seems awfully low.  How small were these cruisers?

[ursamaior]

Guess around the usual 9-10k tons.

IJN Hosho, and HMS Argus were around the same tonnage, with not so much more planes originally.

[garrisonchisholm]

Jan 17, 2019 10:32:46 GMT -6 AiryW said:

Jan 16, 2019 16:47:29 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

In my recent (current, in a bug-resolution lag state) game, since the world was struck by a 1906 disarmament treaty that lasted 17 years, I eventually had to do Something with my old useless armored cruisers so went ahead and made then into CVLs. Worthless CVLs, that could only carry 6 planes. But it got me some experience with flight decks at least!

6 planes seems awfully low.  How small were these cruisers?

6-8 k-tons.  They were the A H I Z 8 x 6inch layouts, and when I removed those small mains what with their relatively good speed there was just not much to play with.  Rest assured I have had other cruisers I could rework to carry close to 20 aircraft, so it was simply the fault of the ships I chose.

[noshurviverse]

Jan 16, 2019 16:47:29 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

In my recent (current, in a bug-resolution lag state) game, since the world was struck by a 1906 disarmament treaty that lasted 17 years, I eventually had to do Something with my old useless armored cruisers so went ahead and made then into CVLs. Worthless CVLs, that could only carry 6 planes. But it got me some experience with flight decks at least!

I donno, in my mind being able to put six torpedoes basically anywhere without having to send a squadron of DDs in is worth a few thousand tons of ship.

[skyhawk]

This will likely spur me to move away from the ultralight cruisers as my early game escort of choice since I doubt I can convert anything in the 2100-2500t range into any sort of useful flight deck.

Who knows though. Might be able to make light seaplane carriers out of them for early colonial aircraft use. I look forward to trying.