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Post by aeson on Jul 5, 2019 14:56:19 GMT -6
Why the 5" main battery?
Anyways, as to the variants proposed, D and especially E have in my opinion far too few aircraft unless perhaps we're planning for significant cutbacks on naval aviation while A's complete lack of armor leaves me slightly leery of it. I would probably prefer B to C and C to A in this set.
A question: What do the rest of you think of magazine box protection for carriers?
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Post by dorn on Jul 5, 2019 15:22:54 GMT -6
Why the 5" main battery?
Anyways, as to the variants proposed, D and especially E have in my opinion far too few aircraft unless perhaps we're planning for significant cutbacks on naval aviation while A's complete lack of armor leaves me slightly leery of it. I would probably prefer B to C and C to A in this set.
A question: What do the rest of you think of magazine box protection for carriers?
AA guns will need a lot of weight. I can either have free weight left or I can have 5" guns which will later be refitted to DP and 4" guns removed for more LAA and MAA.
I have still a little experience with carrier warfare as it is still difficult to get it with actual state of RTW2 howeve I can see issue with low armour as it seems to me that it does not help much.
It is question why you want armour for the first place. If it is just to protect magazines, than it is good. If you want to protect vitals, you do not want it. But as I mentioned earlier, my best experience is more CAP. In RTW2 you can have all time high level CAP, this is something which was not possible in real history in such high level.
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Post by Blothorn on Jul 8, 2019 9:42:43 GMT -6
I think the biggest threat to carriers, given the AI's generally ineffective use of air assets, is running into a destroyer at night. Also, TDS4 is far cheaper than the 5.5-6" of armor necessary to provide forward-looking protection from bombs--passive protection from some aerial attacks is better than not having it, even if you only cover one type. I will built new carrier probably in 2-3 months, this time no budget limitations, so 28000 tons.
What ship would you prefer, unarmored, slightly armoured or full armoured carrier? Would you prefer different speed or TDS protection?
All variants has: 8x5", 8x4" DP, 2 AA directors, 14 LAA, 18 MAA and TDS lvl 4, speed 30 knots
Variant A - 71M, unarmoured, 100 aicrafts Variant B - 75M, 3.5" belt, 1" deck, 4" CT, 82 aicrafts Variant C - 78M, 3.5" belt, 2.5" deck, 4" CT, 72 aicrafts Variant D - 81M, 1" belt, 1" deck, 4" CT, 3" FD, 1" HS, 60 aicrafts Variant E - 85M, 2" belt, 2" deck, 4" CT, 3.5" FD, 1.5" HS, 44 aicrafts
I'd normally go for 2-3" belt, 1" deck, no non-DP guns. If I had to choose between those I would probably go for B, but I would at least drop the 5" in favor of more aircraft.
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Post by dorn on Jul 8, 2019 17:11:40 GMT -6
Thanks all for some intersting discussion. My 5 years are over, you can find save here.
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Post by Blothorn on Jul 8, 2019 17:32:14 GMT -6
I think that means I'm up! I'll try to get started this evening.
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Post by Blothorn on Jul 10, 2019 15:47:25 GMT -6
Thoughts on what to do with my present predicament? (Request for three BBs with budget for zero). I think my options are: - Fail to build anything and take the hit. - Repeat the recent FBBs and cancel them all later. - Repeat the recent FBBs and cancel the two latest CVLs to free budget to complete one. - Design a new FBB and cancel the two latest CVLs to free budget to complete one. - Design a new cheap coastal battleship and cancel them all because they will not be useful. - Design a small BC and cancel two later; I think I could complete one and all three CVLs with only a few months of suspended building. (In particular, I wonder if it is possible to design a 6x11" BC that could be reclassified as a CA in a rebuild, potentially killing two birds with one stone.)
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Post by aeson on Jul 10, 2019 16:53:32 GMT -6
- Design a small BC and cancel two later; I think I could complete one and all three CVLs with only a few months of suspended building. (In particular, I wonder if it is possible to design a 6x11" BC that could be reclassified as a CA in a rebuild, potentially killing two birds with one stone.) I suspect a Deutschland-style ship would already be classified as a CA and that any 6x11" ship you can get classified as a battlecruiser will not be able to be reclassified as a CA later without rearming the ship with 10" or lighter guns, but it might be an interesting thing to try nevertheless.
As to what to do, I would suggest ignoring the build request as you can't build anything that's any good on your budget without canceling everything else, but if you really want to fulfill the build requirement without sacrificing what you had planned to build I can show you some extremely cheap legal "battleship" designs (under ~20M per ship or ~800k per month to build) that would be suitable for use as inexpensive station tonnage in the colonies.
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Post by Blothorn on Jul 10, 2019 18:27:37 GMT -6
I definitely hadn't planned to complete all three, but once the "happy with building the requested number of ships" event fires you can scrap the in-progress boats without penalty. That said, you are correct that I cannot get a ship that can switch classifications without changing main armament (I was hoping that a 12,000t 6x11" BC would be legal under both, but the game requires either the displacement or the armament to be heavier for a BC), and any ship large enough to match any foreign BC is too expensive to complete even one of--and it feels cheaty to fulfill the requirement a ship with no conceivable use only to scrap it.
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Post by aeson on Jul 10, 2019 19:07:06 GMT -6
I was hoping that a 12,000t 6x11" BC would be legal under both, but the game requires either the displacement or the armament to be heavier for a BC Try it with an 8" armor belt (probably use magazine box for tonnage reasons). I feel like I've had "the naval secretary will not permit the scrapping of ships at this time" messages when trying to cancel ships laid down to meet a build requirement for up to a year or so after the success/fail message pops up, but I might be misremembering things.
A ship along the lines of what I had in mind could conceivably be a floating battery or shore bombardment monitor of some kind, or perhaps a very, very heavy river monitor. Not really something that's useful within the game, granted, but it's a conceivable use present historically.
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Post by dorn on Jul 10, 2019 23:58:59 GMT -6
I definitely hadn't planned to complete all three, but once the "happy with building the requested number of ships" event fires you can scrap the in-progress boats without penalty. That said, you are correct that I cannot get a ship that can switch classifications without changing main armament (I was hoping that a 12,000t 6x11" BC would be legal under both, but the game requires either the displacement or the armament to be heavier for a BC), and any ship large enough to match any foreign BC is too expensive to complete even one of--and it feels cheaty to fulfill the requirement a ship with no conceivable use only to scrap it. You have no budget to build 3 reasonable capital ships even if you have nothing in construction (after agreement with USA, budget decreased even more but as France is quite behind the cooperation with USA is the most benficial than temporary decrease of budget. You can see your national resources in comparison to others and your budget in comparison and you can see that you have 170 % of Japan resource but only 122 % of naval budget). To start building such request and later scrap it means loosing dozens of millions. I think better is to take hit than loosing so much money.
To do it you will need to suspend aicraft carrier which you need much more.
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Post by dorn on Jul 11, 2019 0:03:42 GMT -6
What is your experience with light carriers in RTW2? I have not foud their meaning as soon as fleet carriers are available. They can do anything that can be one light carriers. note: in history they were used on the second theatres or anywhere where there was not expectation about heavy air opposition. And they were used ferrying aicrafts etc. This is not modelled in RTW2.
Relating to this options: CVL design studies: All have no main battery, roughly 15/20/3 AA, 34 aircraft, 2" belt, 1" deck, and 3" CT. - Variant A: 14,000t, 30 knots, TDS2, cost 39,763. - Variant B: speed increased to 32 knots: 16,000t, cost 48,950. - Variant C: 30 knots, TDS3: 15,000t, cost 41,414. - Variant D: 30 knots, TDS4: 15,500t, cost 42,129.
Variant A,C,D are all about half of the cost fleet carrier with 100 aicrafts, with worse protection, I do not see reasons why CVL is needed as it is less efficient. Comparison to Joffre: 32000 tons, 30 knots, TDS 4, 100 aicrafts, 2.5" belt, 1.5" deck, 4" CT, 4x4" DP guns, 4 director AA, 22 LAA, 22 MAA (technology has been already improved making possible add additional AA guns) with 360 free tons for future refits - costs 83,405.
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Post by dorn on Jul 11, 2019 0:30:24 GMT -6
With 32 knots, they will be best light cruiser for decade.
1 knot advantage of German heavy cruiser is not enough to catch your colonial cruisers. These type of cruisers are best dealt by tactics which was used historically, superior number of smaller cruisers and destroyers if available. And I expect that with such light armour 2 even Jean d' Arc has higher chance than this heavy cruiser and still being less expensive.
note: I have quite fun destroying such heavy cruisers by light cruisers and destroyers last campaign.
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Post by dorn on Jul 11, 2019 0:39:28 GMT -6
I would rebuild Espingole class to 6x5" guns by striping out side torpedo tubes and ammunition (as it takes 12 months it could be not right time). There are fast and rebuilt will be quite cheap around 1.4M and you get destroyer with 6x5" and 12 torpedo tubes and speed of 34 knots or later with 8 torpedo tubes but reloads.
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Post by yemo on Jul 11, 2019 10:10:53 GMT -6
I would rebuild Espingole class to 6x5" guns by striping out side torpedo tubes and ammunition (as it takes 12 months it could be not right time). There are fast and rebuilt will be quite cheap around 1.4M and you get destroyer with 6x5" and 12 torpedo tubes and speed of 34 knots or later with 8 torpedo tubes but reloads. Alternatively you could just do 2x2x5'' + 1x1x5'' for a total of 5 guns in 4 months for the Espingole class (in exchange for the side torps only).
The Framee class imho needs a fire control refit anyway, so I d ditch the side mounts and light AA in favor of a quad centerline torp mount.
If you are willing to risk doing it in UK, two mines are a low price for an even better fire control.
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Post by Blothorn on Jul 11, 2019 10:22:30 GMT -6
What is your experience with light carriers in RTW2? I have not foud their meaning as soon as fleet carriers are available. They can do anything that can be one light carriers. note: in history they were used on the second theatres or anywhere where there was not expectation about heavy air opposition. And they were used ferrying aicrafts etc. This is not modelled in RTW2. Their primary and incredibly important advantage is that they show up in cruiser battles where CVs don't. Two CVLs with 68 aircraft in-battle are infinitely more useful than a CV with 100 aircraft in port. I find a mix of CVLs and CVs is best, ensuring adequate strength in all battle types.
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