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Post by dorn on Apr 17, 2019 0:48:22 GMT -6
Congratulation Balsa construction for awarding design Queen Elizabeth. Runner up: Pallas B, Pallas A, Variant HThis was very close, I consider 4 these designs almost equal. The designs with 3" deck armour were discarded as they are not balanced as much as other designs. Design J was nice cheap variant but not overall balanced with only 14" belt armour and design King Edward VII limits firepower too much for increased armour.
From the remaining very good designs, Queen Elizabeth wins because of best balance between firepower, protection, speed and costs. Variant H was very close but 4" turret top armour was something to be a little worried. Pallas A increase slightly firepower, protection but with increase of costs, Pallas B on top increase speed for additional costs. Both designs were very good but I prefer better balance of QE.
To be mentioned: Variant I for the highest firpower. I would probably choose 17" guns if design is better balanced and sacrifaces some guns for better protection. The 1x3x17", 2x2x17" guns are considered better to 3x3x15" guns.
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Post by dorn on Apr 17, 2019 4:29:22 GMT -6
Royal Navy during peace times
3/1919 – HMS Queen Elizabeth laid down by Balsa Construction 3/1919 – HMS Invincible is commissioned into the navy 4/1919 – Improved director invented 5/1919 – New German cruiser has just arrive on visit to Plymouth and press is only eager to report on all of its advanced features. One reporter approached First Lord for comment. First Lord replied that if this is best Germany has we have nothing to fear from them. 5/1919 – Balsa construction has increased dock size to 39000 tons 6/1919 – Improved design calculation invented 6/1919 – French guns manufactures advertising 16“ guns. Our navy bought one for testing and find out that French guns are better than ours 7/1919 – Buchanan Iron Works has increased dock size to 40000 tons 8/1919 – Germany has commissioned battleship Hindenburg (35900 tons, 27 knots, 10x14“ guns, 10.5“ belt armour) 8/1919 – We have bought better torpedo protection system from Germany 9/1919 – Improved depth charge racks invented 12/1919 – Improved ballistic cap invented 1/1920 – We have bought quadruple turrets technology from Italy 1/1920 – Intelligence reports were able to obtain blueprints of American San Francisco class cruiser under construction (4900 tons, 28 knots, 5x6“ guns, 3“ belt armour, 30 mines) 1/1920 – all forward guns arrangement has come to mind of chief designer 2/1920 – Enhanced pressure bottle invented 3/1920 – A revolution in an African country has left some of our nationalists stranded. Prime Minister decided to send a strong squadron of battlecruiser HMS Indefatigable and cruisers HMS Delhi and HMS Dragon to bombard the capital until our citizens are released 7/1920 – First Lord has insisted on using a windfall in tax revenues for strengthen the navy 7/1920 – France has laid down battleship of Caiman class (34100 tons) 8/1920 – Improved power training and elevation for medium and small turrets invented 8/1920 – USA has commissioned battleship of Delaware class 8/1920 – A spy from Japan has been discovered, Prime Minister gives it maximum publicity. 9/1920 – Double guns mounts for destroyers invented 9/1920 – Avarege quality of new 16“ guns tested
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Post by dorn on Apr 17, 2019 4:42:23 GMT -6
There are a lot of discussion on the next construction program. There are even more than 2 opinions in Admiralty.
Actual funds: 24.8M Monthly budget: +3.2M - from that: 0.6M budget for refits of battlecruisers for 16 months Budget for construction: 5M maximum
1. capital ship consruction program - to build additional battleship to have advantage over Germany
2. cruiser construction program - to build new modern at least 29 knots cruisers to counter new German and American designs
3. destroyer construction program - to build new modern destroyers with higher firepower and torpedo tubes
Admiralty asks follow Admirals on their opinions as there are several opinions that Royal Navy should be ready to fight any 2 navies in the world.
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Post by yemo on Apr 17, 2019 7:02:19 GMT -6
I know that I skew on the heavy armour side, but I d like to understand your armour preferences/experiences. Eg about the belt armour = turret armour, which was selected in the last? battlecruiser competition as well. Another question would be the secondaries, mounted in triple turrets with 1'' of armour. The entire secondary battery could be lost with 3 near hits, or 3 small caliber hits. dorn: You stated that you would prefer 2x2x17'' over 3x3x15'', but would that not incur quite some "low gun number" penalties for negligible penetration benefits? I would probably go for new cruisers, since the new british BCs are just faster, more powerful battleships compared to foreign navies. And faster cruisers provide a bigger advantage (compared to an additional BB) against the nations which have high tensions towards britain at the moment.
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Post by aeson on Apr 17, 2019 10:24:53 GMT -6
As with yemo, I am inclined towards a cruiser program. Amphion is becoming quite old, and while it remains a powerfully-armed cruiser even by modern standards its speed is decidedly lackluster and its contemporaries have for the most part been removed from service. It's still adequate for colonial service, at least at present, but, given the choice, I'd probably want it out of service by the time it's ready for another machinery overhaul. Danae and Persis, meanwhile, are probably at a disadvantage against the larger, faster American and German 6" cruisers, and will all be needed for the colonial squadrons whenever the Amphions are withdrawn, which would leave the battle fleet rather short of supporting cruisers.
As to a destroyer program, I don't really see a strong need for one right now; our existing 900t destroyers are for the most part disadvantaged only in size by comparison to the 1,100t destroyers in service with other powers and the 1,100t Usk-class destroyers still have the most potent gun armament of any known destroyer. It would not be a bad thing to have a few more modern destroyers, but it's not something urgently needed.
As to another battleship, another would be nice but isn't really needed except possibly against Germany and maybe France, and even then only really to give the current battleship force a better chance of either defeating the German and French battleships unaided or holding out against the German and French battleships long enough for the battlecruisers to come up in support of the battleships. I think 1x3x17", 2x2x17" should be taken as 1x3x17" + 2x2x17", so seven guns rather than four.
Myself, I think 17" guns and ammunition are too much heavier than 15" and 16" guns and ammunition to be preferable to either except when building battlecruisers and ducking the 12" belt // 31 knot limit, or maybe when building something near the maximum displacement allowed by the game. A design needs either eight guns or three turrets to qualify as a dreadnought battleship, and unless you're building something very large 17" guns don't really have enough of a practical advantage over 15" and 16" guns in range, penetrative power, and damage potential to justify the tonnage costs, at least in my opinion. Especially this late in the game, the computer's unlikely to build anything armored well enough to resist 15" gunfire at practical engagement ranges, and in my experience a well-armored 3x2x15" battleship or 2x3x15" battlecruiser is reasonably capable of defeating anything that the computer will build. More and heavier guns are nice, of course, but they're not really necessary. For a given level of armor protection and a given number of guns, fewer turrets means lower tonnage costs. Additionally, realistically speaking, while spreading the secondary battery out over a greater number of gun emplacements means that you'll lose fewer guns to each hit on the secondary battery, it also makes it more likely that the secondary battery will be hit (a single triple turret is a much smaller target than three single turrets), though I do not know to what extent this is modeled within the game. It should also be remembered that the secondary battery is usually not capable of stopping a determined destroyer before it can launch torpedoes at this stage of the game - ~1000-ton and heavier destroyers aren't nearly as likely to be crippled or sunk by a handful of 5" or 6" hits as their smaller predecessors were to be sunk by a handful of 4" or 5" hits earlier in the game. Escorts - not the secondary battery - are a capital ship's most effective defense against destroyer-launched torpedo attack; speed is probably the next-best defense, as it significantly affects the size and shape of the region in which a torpedo needs to be launched in order to hit the ship and as higher speed makes it more difficult for an attacking destroyer to get into a good launching position (maneuverability would be up here as well, but my impression is that the game doesn't really model differences in maneuverability between similarly-sized ships to any significant extent). The secondary battery and the torpedo defense system are basically last-ditch defenses. Furthermore, if your capital ship is exchanging fire with a hostile capital ship, destroyer-launched torpedo attack is probably a secondary concern, especially this late in the game. Heavy-caliber gunfire is more than capable of sinking a ship without requiring torpedoes to finish the job, and even the largest secondary battery with the greatest degree of redundancy and armor protection feasible is very unlikely to successfully ward off torpedo attacks on cripples.
A lot of my mid- and late-game capital ships have only six or eight secondary battery turrets. My experience with them is that it's unlikely for a ship to lose all the secondary guns on a side before taking enough damage to be at serious risk of sinking.
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Post by dorn on Apr 17, 2019 11:39:18 GMT -6
17" vs. 15" guns I consider 7x17" (1x3,2x2) slightly better than 3x3x15" guns as they weight only slightly more (almost negligible) than 15" guns but have more than 10 % higher broadside and better penetration. I do not consider 17" as nessesary but it seems to me that they are a little better.
Battleships design Main point is that battleships do not operate separate they operate as battle line so the most important is power of whole battleline with forward ships has a little more importance as going to engage first. For this reason there is no need for superbattleship but battleship which can hold the line. In case of any of battleships get pounded heavily she can withdraw and battleline can still continue fighting covering wounded battleship.
Because of that as I mentioned I prefer balance design with costs taken into account. And QE was optimized well and well balanced. Their armour protection was exactly at what is expected protection thus any other battleships considered brings some improvements in some area for additional costs. But no other battleship provide improvement in firepower and armour in balance way. Variant H was most close as it increase firepower by 16" guns and armour by increasing protection of turrets to 16" but only turrets top of 4" put it in disadvantage. Both Pallas designs bring better armour but almost no improvement of firepower as I consider 3x3x15" only slightly better than 4x2x15" for battleline. But the costs was much higher so I prefer QE. But as I stated I consider all 4 design almost equal but I need to choose. Think it more as both 4 designs were runners on 100 m but QE was just 0.01 sec faster. I was thinking that additional armour is good but just too expensive and would not probably be used.
My opinion has changed during last year from "there is not enough armour" to more reasonable armour scheme. Battleship is large and should even withstand several penetration hits so there is no need to have super armoured battleship, it is needed to have battleship which have armour enough to withstand hits but in some bad situation some shells can penetrate if battleship can more likely penetrate enemy ships. As long as there is no hit that blow a ship than it is ok if armour is a little compromise. So my actual principle is more like calculated risk as battleship is part of battleline so even if there is bad luck she can withdraw.
Battlecruiser design (competition 13)
It depends what you expected from battlecruisers and can change from game to game even through the game. I stated that british battlecruisers should be able to operate alone even against heavy capital ships so I prefer battlecruisers which are powerfull so costs are not as important as evaluating battleships. There are several ways how to do it. One is prefer armour over firepower. But this has weakness especially for ships without AoN scheme (this is reason I choose narrow belt with thick armour from bow to stern for the first battlecruiser) as armour does not protect "speed" meaning uptakes and extended part of hulls which if damaged can slow ship significantly. The other option is increase firepower and use long range gunnery. It gives you advantage that ship is designed for that and that ship can witdraw much more easily in case things do not go well. For that purpose if armour is reasonable than additional tonnage could be used for firepower. And Indefatigable has much higher firepower than other design expect G7 which was completely inadequatly armoured. They were better armoured designs for long range duels (Courageous, Inflexible, Variant E) but all designs has firepower only about 2/3 of Indefatigale. I consider about 50 % of increased firepower better than a better protection.
Construction design I agree with both of you, I prefer this variant but I would like to know your opinion and argumentation.
Secondary armament I would think that secondary armament is not as important as battleships fighting in battleline meaning that torpedo attack on battleline could be targetted by several battleships. On top of that why battleline have screens? And in this late part of game even secondary guns can engage in large distance. On opposite your secondary guns cannot be protected against main guns. So there is question of probability. Low probability of large decrease of secondary guns firepower vs. high probability of low decrease of secondary guns firepower. In this stage of game your main defence against torpedoes is luck and zig zagging.
For battlecruisers it is a little different as their main advantage is speed. Thus I consider 4" guns as sufficient for battlecruisers as defense against destroyers. But I think it is more of personal preference how each player plays.
I have just finished reading aeson comment I agree with him. In my opinion even battleship without secondary guns does not compromise defence against torpedo attacks too much.
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Post by dorn on Apr 17, 2019 12:04:29 GMT -6
SEPTEMBER 1920
COMPETITION 1920/15/CL - 3 light cruisers - powerful cruiser to fight new foreign designs - it is expected to be more powerful than foreign designs - it is expected the costs be reasonable
GENERAL CONDITIONS:- any shipyard can provide up to 3 designs (the third design need to distinguish itself from the first two designs) - any shipyard will provide design picture and design file (*.40d) - any shipyard are recommended to provide explanation of design futures Evaluation will be done based on overall firepower, protection, speed and costs. Deadline for proposals - the 24th of April however I close the competition as soon as I get your designs. If you need more time, just mentioned it. note for calculation of broadside (b) and turret firepower (f) f1, f2, f3, f4 ... turrets firepower b = f1+f2+f3+f4 fi = q * k * n * c ^ 3 for each turret n ... number of guns in turret c ... guns caliber k = 1 for double turret, k = 0.95 for triple turret q = 1 for Q0 guns, 0.9 for Q-1 guns, 1.1 for Q+1 guns
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Post by yemo on Apr 17, 2019 12:34:03 GMT -6
Thank you both for your thoughts.
One question remains, the belt armour = turret armour thickness of Indefatigable and QE class. From my perspective, either the belt is too thick or the turret armour is too weak for a 7+ inch gun turret due to the risk of magazine explosion. Especially when the design is not at the tonnage limit. Just curious for the next capital ship competition, if the added turret armour of my designs is worth the tonnage.
For the current CL competition: Is it intended to be a special raider hunter class (high speed, good forward firepower, long range) or a more economical general fleet CL (eg ~29knots, medium range)?
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Post by dorn on Apr 17, 2019 13:16:16 GMT -6
Thank you both for your thoughts. One question remains, the belt armour = turret armour thickness of Indefatigable and QE class. From my perspective, either the belt is too thick or the turret armour is too weak for a 7+ inch gun turret due to the risk of magazine explosion. Especially when the design is not at the tonnage limit. Just curious for the next capital ship competition, if the added turret armour of my designs is worth the tonnage. For the current CL competition: Is it intended to be a special raider hunter class (high speed, good forward firepower, long range) or a more economical general fleet CL (eg ~29knots, medium range)? At this stage of game turret flash fires should have very low probability so it is more about loosing turret. Relating to thickness of belt and turret armour. It is more complicated. I do not know how game work with the angle in case of turrets. I think it was told that angle play role in armour penetration. Belt effective armour thus is increased by angle of ship relative to firing ship. This is not exactly true for turret faces.
However my overall principle is that if turret armour is at least equal it is OK. But it is true that more balanced approach would be that turret armour has higher thickness even at time of AoN armour.
Some IZ graphs - I do not know how it is realiable but it seems it uses facehard. However what I would like to show you is how immunity zone changes relative to angle of ship.
Relating to CL competition I do not know yet as I just decribe what is needed I have not do analysis what is best yet.
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Post by aeson on Apr 17, 2019 13:18:13 GMT -6
Thank you both for your thoughts. One question remains, the belt armour = turret armour thickness of Indefatigable and QE class. From my perspective, either the belt is too thick or the turret armour is too weak for a 7+ inch gun turret due to the risk of magazine explosion. So far as I am aware, the game considers a given thickness of turret face armor to be as effective as an equal thickness of belt armor, unlike with turret top and deck armor. As such, if the belt armor is adequate for the range at which you want to engage, then equally-thick turret face armor is also adequate. I personally prefer to have a larger zone of immunity on the turrets than on the rest of the ship, but as long as the zone of immunity on the turrets is at least as large as the zone of immunity on the rest of the ship I would not consider the turrets to be inadequately armored.
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Post by yemo on Apr 17, 2019 15:01:23 GMT -6
Beardmore Shipbuilding is pleased to present three designs for the light cruiser competition.
edit: If one of the designs is not different enough for the 3 designs stipulation and/or you can dismiss one of them outright due to narrowed mission parameters, I ll probably be able to provide an alternative design over the weekend.
Persephone A Analysis of foreign designs shows that 6'' guns are the prevalent modern light cruiser and capital ship secondary armament. Due to current AP technology, armour below 3'' (6'' AP penetration near maximum range of 12k yards) seems to be of minimum value against those 6'' guns. On the other hand, the second most common caliber, the 4'' detroyer armament, can only penetrate 2'' of belt armour under ideal conditions below ~8k yards.
We therefore went for a 2'' belt and 1'' deck AoN protection scheme. Two fire control positions offer redundancy, while the conning tower is protected by 5'' of armour and thus immune to rapid 6'' fire well below 8k yards at minimal costs.
To reliably defeat light cruisers, we economically maximised armament and went for a speed of 29knots. A frontal firepower of 3*6'' guns is ideal to chase raiders and a broadside of 7*6'' guns is at least 40% greater than foreign designs can muster.
An upgrade for colonial service allows her to fulfill the foreign stations requirement in conjunction with a modern destroyer.
Persephone B
Due to the uncertain mission requirement, we offer another, more expensive version with triple torpedo launchers on each side. The increased tonnage allows for the fulfillment of foreign station requirements in conjunction with a 1100 ton DD.
Persephone C
Another option would be a long range variant of Persephone at a slight cost increase, giving her a better chance to catch raiders.
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Post by aeson on Apr 17, 2019 22:23:04 GMT -6
Given the choice between submerged torpedo tubes and no torpedo tubes, do you have a preference?
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Post by dorn on Apr 17, 2019 22:52:58 GMT -6
Given the choice between submerged torpedo tubes and no torpedo tubes, do you have a preference? I cannot see value of submerged torpedo tubes for a such fast cruiser.
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Post by aeson on Apr 18, 2019 9:28:42 GMT -6
Balsa Construction is pleased to present for the Admiralty's consideration the following light cruiser proposals: 1920/15/CL.1: Nike Nike carries nine 6" guns in three turrets on the centerline and is well-armored to resist 6" gunfire with a 3.5" belt and 4" turret faces. A design speed of 29 knots and a forward-arc firepower of no fewer than six 6" guns makes Nike well suited to pursuing even the most powerful foreign light cruisers while the all-forwards main battery configuration simplifies the arrangement of the machinery spaces and the magazines.
1920/15/CL.2: Spitfire Designed for maximal firepower, Spitfire carries no fewer than sixteen 6" and seventeen 4" guns for a maximum broadside of twelve 6" and nine 4" guns, making it easily the most heavily armed light cruiser in the world. While its crowded decks leave no room for torpedo tubes, the ship does have provision to carry sixty mines on internal rails.
1920/15/CL.3: Curacoa A more modest proposal, Curacoa carries six 6" guns moderately protected against 6" gunfire arrayed so as to allow five to bear on the broadside and three to bear on the forward arc. Four torpedoes in above-water swivel mounts and fifty mines on internal rails complete the armament.
Attachments:proposals.zip (94.93 KB)
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Post by dorn on Apr 25, 2019 5:45:27 GMT -6
I have right now no time to continue till next week.
I will get @matdow time to the 30th of April if he like to propose something.
Still a lot of time to finish game before RTW2.
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