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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jan 24, 2020 10:20:57 GMT -6
Beautiful. Really makes the Erzherzogs look like lesser beasts.
When the time comes for an 800-foot BC, will you be able to model it in the same scale, or will it need to shift?
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Post by dorn on Jan 24, 2020 10:21:40 GMT -6
I hope you will not sign treaty to be forced scrapping her into trash.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jan 24, 2020 10:22:31 GMT -6
I hope you will not sign treaty to be forced scrapping her into trash. THAT would be a CRIME and is NOT ALLOWED.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jan 24, 2020 14:40:52 GMT -6
dorn: The possibility did occur to me, and I shrudder to the thought. garrisonchisholm: The printer's bed has a nominal area of 200x200 mm, so if I rotate the ship diagonally, 200*sqrt(2) -> ~280mm seems to be the theoretical maximum, so in this 1:1000 scale this is a ship with an overall length of 280m. ...on paper, at least. In practice, I'm a bit sceptical about that, but 250-260mm should be doable without headbutting the limit switches, so I'd say up to a good ~850, 800 feet the slips can take the job. Potentially one can just slice up the model and print it in multiple parts if it's larger than that, giving me the limit up to "whatever time and amount of plastic I am willing to sacrifice for the cause", but I am rather worried that joining the parts would require a fair amount of filling and even then it may or may not work out as desired. It probably would after some work, but, eh. Originally I was thinking in the classic modeling scale of 1:700, but went with 1:1000 exactly because this puts me close to being able to build a Yamato-class, prrrobably even an Iowa-class ship in one step. Chances are I'll not use this option in my game, knowing myself, but the option is there. We are good up to about ~70,000 tons, but then things start to get really shaky.
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Post by mycophobia on Jan 25, 2020 1:17:31 GMT -6
The new model is really gorgeous and is making me really regret missing the semi-dread era , maybe I will consider slower tech for next playthrough. I wouldn’t worry too much about size since 260m looks to be quite solid for most practical builds in game. If anything having a somewhat realistic “dock limitation” can make designing even more fun at times
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Post by akosjaccik on Jan 29, 2020 8:48:58 GMT -6
This has been a long year, dotted with sacrifices, tragedies, heroism, pressing uncertainty and bookkeeping. War, in short. I am seriously honored that you enjoyed the road so far and all of your responses always encouraged and motivated me. Thank you, gentlemen! In the past few weeks I had some IRL things (plus the modeling, cough-cough) to attend to, but also managed to rework the SHIP LOGS section into something uuh... less boring and work-intensive, to be perfectly honest, while also not sacrificing much of the original vision, which was to give credit to the "working class" of the fleet - even if sometimes, hell, often times they are not the shiny, big capitals. Enioch helped me much with his research and ideas, I have to thank him for his assistance once again!
And now, to finish off 1905...
October, 1905
Once again, a calm month. This gave us an opportunity to address some organizational matters. First and foremost, the Armored Cruiser Division returned from the North Sea, after the allied squadron failed to intercept the italian cruiser reported in the area. Although the french welcomed the Donau and the Sankt Georg in a rather polite and generous manner, sharing information and cooperating in general showed some signs of, if not distrust, but perhaps a tad bit of disdain. The two cruisers' presence is a fairly clear and cynical reminder for the french to their lack of coordinated and robust support in the mediterranean region. At the same time, it is undeniable that french men bravely fought and died in this year against the Regia Marina. Perhaps not in a wise manner, but they did, and not without any success either. Yet, one can't escape from the thought that if the french swallow their pride and actually make a coordinated effort with us instead of throwing their men out to die one by one, the war would perhaps be over by now.
Then again, the same way it's unwise to waste so many words to a way the war did not happen, and start taking care of the way it did.
Instead - let's carry on, and let's do so with a hopeful news indeed. The Third Cruiser Division is reporting full combat readiness and is at the HQ's disposal. Fortunately there was no need to disturb the standard workup-process, so effectively from next month we can fully count on the newly formed unit in the operations. Their task is not something that one should envy - they are expected to go toe to toe with the world's best protected cruisers, and building upon the legacy of their forerunners to carve a reputation for themselves on their own right. The original cruiser force was never outright meant to be the elite of the Kriegsmarine, that is a title that they fought for fiercely in combat, and a title that won't be handed out freely for the 3rd CRUDIV either.
Born under the war ensign: S.M.S. Sterneck and S.M.S. Wimpffen cruising in diagonal formation
November, 1905
In a "masterful" balance between power demonstration and retaining a reassuring level of squadron speed on the 12th of November cruiser-, and destroyer divisions alike left their harbors to strike a land-based target in the vicinity of Pescara. The plural form in this case means every single one.
For now, the 3rd CRUDIV was divided up and assigned to the Zenta and Aspern respectively, so their possible trial by fire would be assisted by veterans of the Navy. Although the possible presence of italian heavy guns on the water could not be ruled out, morale was extremely high. Fortunately, it turned out that there was every reason to feel upbeat.
The operation - lead this time by the Sankt Georg - went smoothly and without any sort of complication. The targets specified by the order were identified and sufficiently damaged, the italian fleet was nowhere to be found, and what little presence they were able to put up was simply swept away with ease. Most notably, the namesake of the Nembo-class destroyers was sent to the bottom as an optional pastime. While certainly not an event one should think too much into, having the better half of the Navy experience that they are free to do as they please while they are almost touching the italian coastline certainly does wonders to the faith in victory.
December, 1905
Once again the First Battleship Division set out to patrol the waters almost dangerously, but most certainly irritatingly close to italian naval bases - and once again did so unopposed, despite the fact that the RM's battleships are still largely intact and, credit where credit is due, frightening enough. The blockade is still in effect. Overall, the situation seems better than it has any right to do so, given at the current state of the opposing forces. Why the passive behaviour on the other side? A mystery. What will happen if or when the stillness of the water surface explodes into a cacophony of chaos? An even larger mystery. For now, we can turn the calendar to the next year in a relative peace and silence, after a quick summary of the conflict. After a year of bloodshed it feels like we are not closer to some sort of conclusion by one step than when we just lobbed the first grenades over to the italian battleline. Yes, we do uphold a blockade, but it is extremely fragile, and both navies are in decent shape still.
The graph below contains the losses only regarding the events described above, so does not deal with merchant ships, auxiliary cruisers, submarines or men lost on either side in the engagements concerning our french ally. Austro-hungarian mortality can mainly be attributed to direct combat damage and smoke inhalation. On the italian side the greatest tragedy was the sinking of the Marco Polo: although it happened relatively near to the coast, in the darkness people were disoriented, and neither side attempted a rescue. We did not do so as the italian side remained in control of the area, and Italy did not do so fearing the same fate as it was the Marco Polo's own. Conversely, while the Marco Polo took more souls down with her than it was "necessary", the battleship Leonardo da Vinci had all the more luck sinking in broad daylight, well inside visual range of their home shores. What turned out to be a disastrous event for the italian war propaganda, was a blessing for the ship's survivors, and the majority of the crew was able to reach safety.
Overall, despite a whole year of armed conflict at sea, one can argue that the loss of life is moderate so far - well, unless we count the merchant ships. While we do not track any data beyond a rough, semi-reliable number of lost merchant vessels, the difference in methods is still strikingly apparent. Our trade is, despite our best efforts, constantly harassed by lone raiding (generally large armored) cruisers. In fact, our AMC-s were built for the same purpose originally, but until the blockade is able to persist they are relegated to trade protection duty. In comparison, the italian losses were realized solely in pre-planned convoy attacks. All of them can be considered successful, even the one instance when the First Cruiser Division had a rather notable uphill struggle against a Marco Polo-class in August. The lull in the open combat is also apparent in the second half of the year.
Ultimately, we can try to make some assumptions and predictions regarding next year: - As long as the blockade remains intact, time is on our side, and no need to act in a haste or without proper care.
- In case the blockade gets broken, six AMCs and potentially the 1st CRUDIV is ready take up raiding. This is clearly something to be avoided, but it can be done and is still vastly more preferable to the third option, which is...
- Arriving back to esentially the starting position of two relatively evenly-matched fleets opposing each other. A potential fleet battle is still to be approached in a very cautious manner, as there isn't a good chance to win big - on the contrary, more chance to lose a large amount of the initiative and our presence with the destruction of even just one or two of our battleships, however modest their combat capabilites are. Experience shows however that if Italy ever decides to truly press on with their battle fleet, our options are severely limited. If all else fails - in torpedoes we trust.
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Post by mycophobia on Jan 29, 2020 17:12:32 GMT -6
Just gotta say I love the new medal system, that is indeed a very effective and characterful way to track worthy ships over their career without doing too much note taking. I am curious if these are all historical medals or are some created based on the event of the AAR? (The phoenix comes to mind) All very cool in either case
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Post by akosjaccik on Jan 30, 2020 10:36:23 GMT -6
Just gotta say I love the new medal system, that is indeed a very effective and characterful way to track worthy ships over their career without doing too much note taking. I am curious if these are all historical medals or are some created based on the event of the AAR? (The phoenix comes to mind) All very cool in either case Three of the five is an actual, historical medal, after I thought "I can't possibly do a better job at this than the people a ~century ago who put a lot more work and talent into this", so those I repurposed and "oversized" in my mind. The wreath is a generic symbol for a tad bit generic, although extremely valuable trait ("be very 'gud "), and the phoenix is, of course, more specifically tailored than most standard "crosses and coins and swords" medals. I still have to work on that section, and preferably address my screw-ups, but at least the basic idea seems viable. I also brought more AAR, so you can't say I'm just living off of welfare and whiskey. But I will just copy-paste the webpage header for this year instead of making one specifically for the forum, because even work has it's limits, hah
SPOILER: In the next update February will feature one of my favourite battles so far, that on the other hand will be very, very boring by some standards.
January, 1906
Apparently we are going to have to begin the new year with some nuisances. The spanish government, not being overly happy about a potential trespass on their territorial waters, discreetly passed over information about a possible armed merchant operating not far off of the Balearic Islands. So far we have knowledge about three raiding cruisers: CA Vettor Pisani sunk 2 of our merchants, CL Taranto one and CL Brindisi once again one. Unaccounted for are three more armored cruisers (plus one is under construction) and three AMC-s (two more under construction). Looks like the Regia Marina committed itself to raiding warfare - this is, given the blockade, not without any sense or reason, but it might also explain partially why their Navy did not accept fleet-on-fleet engagements in the past months.
In anycase, we had a fly to swat. Now, the distance is not exactly small, and there were or perhaps still is at least one (potentially three) hostile armored cruiser and one protected cruiser in the area, meaning we required something able to get rid of the latter, and steer clear of the former. This sure looked like an excellent training opportunity for the Third Cruiser Division! Although all captains volunteered for the task, S.M.S. Dahlerup was selected to neutralize the threat, after resupplying at Toulon. Why not just delegate the issue to the Marine Nationale, as it would be logical? Because there weren't any french warships south of La Rochelle for which to delegate anything.
"They were anything but cowards. Not that it helped them one bit."
According to the Dahlerup's logs, finding and identifying the culprit did not make for a very compelling story. The actual engagement - perhaps even less so. One could argue that the "engagement" was more of a slaughter than a battle to begin with: from the moment visual contact was estabilished, in 90 minutes the auxiliary cruiser Matteo Renato Imbriani was just ripped to shreds without any resemblance of fair play.
Ammunition usage in the engagement
Yes, the objective was fulfilled, and yes, the crew of the Dahlerup was commended for it, also the survivors were brought onboard, yet there was nothing sweet or simply just relieving in this victory - just pointless carnage. One can only hope that in the end all of these acts will find some meaning. Or at least an opportunity to draw lessons from. Because for now, the only lesson we have the luxury to draw is that the Dahlerup needs her magazines restocked.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jan 31, 2020 10:04:21 GMT -6
February, 1906
Barely did the ink dry on the approval for the new HE shells featuring improved explosive filler when radio message informed HQ about "Two large ships in formation bound possibly for Pola at 16 kts, ETA 1200". ...which was most unfortunate as our battleships were either on blockade duty near the strait of Otranto at best, or - in case of the Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand - stationed in Cattaro, with cold boilers. For this reason, all cruiser formations responded to the threat bar the Zenta, currently under maintenance. Notably, the 2nd DESDIV was also present in full force, and five Tiger-class destroyers.
By the time the squadron formed up and arrived to the scene, the 15cm coastal battery No.13 was already in a firefight with the enemy. They opened fire not because of hoping to achieve any hint of actual success, but with the intent of hindering the italian attackers, reported to be two Benedetto Brin-class battleships. Not something anyone needs for his afternoon tea - regardless, the coastal guns did win enough time for the cruiser squadron to catch up.
...which came with the classic case of "now what?" Looking at the clock it seemed that our best bets are nighttime torpedo attacks. For the remaining two hours the objective was not to keep the battleships out - they were already "inside", after all - but keep them where they are, close to our own shores. The islands would prove to be a prime environment for the destroyers to hide behind of, but even if that would not be achievable, the more time we gain, the longer the distance they need to sail at night on their way back.
Once the italian BATDIV noticed the numerous ships heading from the south towards them and flanking to their aft, an interesting game started to take place. Our cruisers did not feel like testing the Benedetto Brin's close-range firepower, but the battleships were not seemed to be too fond of the idea of attempting a breaktrough in presence of two DESDIV worth of torpedo-carrying destroyers either. A very long-ranged, very ineffective and as such, not at all intense gunnery duel started to shape up, while the two sides sailed alongside the coastline towards southeast.
An attempt was even made to lure the battleships to the mines which the First Coastal Defense Division's ships tended to with such a care, but it seemed that Fortuna is a roman god for a reason, after all. The battleships carried on unharmed. As frustrating this was, our squadron was intact still as well. Besides, one newcomer of the fleet, the S.M.S. Sterneck achieved a record hit from a distance of 10124 yards. Not that it did anything of course, but still. Finally, after the sunset, the squadron was ordered to close distance.
This was indeed the point of the battle which can be interpreted as a fault on the austro-hungarian side. Perhaps too much caution resulted in losing visual contact just long enough for the italians to slip by. While it was still possible to order torpedo attacks, there was not much sense in trying to suicide ourselves one after the other while trying to catch up to the battleships from their aft, giving their secondaries and quick-firing guns ample time to zero in on us.
With that said, the italian engines showed an impressive performance and reliance. Despite our efforts, the search failed to locate the enemy, and the search screen wasn't able to fan out properly in fear of losing friendly contact, or worse, commencing friendly fire after a misidentification. The squadron was ordered to discontinue the pursuit at roughly 19:00.
Yet, we still had one chance: this year marked the first time the early submarines were employed in combat ops.
The early tests were anything but promising. We had issues with the ballast tanks, the batteries, lost two boats to accidents, and overall it looked very much so that the subs themselves mean the most imposing sources of danger for their crews. Still, they were officially allowed to be sortied in fleet support role, as the crews argued that they rather go down because of an italian destroyer than wait for a faulty valve to bring them down, while their comrades are out there fighting and taking casualties at sea. So it happened that submarine number four was out there that night with live armament in her tubes, and so it happened that the italian battleships had a presumed path that lead them very, very close to the submarine waiting in ambush. The cruisers and the destroyers turned back towards Pola empty-handed, the coastline was still on fire far off on the horizon, three of our merchants got sunk, and Italy very clearly took this raid home in the bag. "But perhaps U 4 will come home with surprising news", we thought. U 4 however did not report back at dawn next day, nor in the morning, so right after noon minesweepers Mahmudie, Chamäleon, Stambul and Elleno departed from Pola to check the coastline, meanwhile destroyers Turul and Csikós left the port at high speed to sweep trough the area of the sub's last known position for whatever daylight we still had left. However, they did not find anything - no oil on the surface, no debris, no air bubbles. Nothing. Just the empty, calm sea.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jan 31, 2020 11:45:58 GMT -6
January, 1906
Ammunition usage in the engagement
One can only hope that in the end all of these acts will find some meaning. Or at least an opportunity to draw lessons from. Because for now, the only lesson we have the luxury to draw is that the Dahlerup needs her magazines restocked.
4.375% hits, vs an AMC, in Clear weather, and Dead Calm conditions. "I would hope the Dahlerup's Captain was, if pleased with the result, not content with the style of game his team put in play." - OberCommandant zur See Wilhelm Klink
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Post by mycophobia on Jan 31, 2020 15:36:41 GMT -6
with the submarine given much attention in the latest update I was full expecting it to bag the escaping dreadnoughts in the end.
Instead I feel like watching the start of one of those BBC murder mystery Documentary XD.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jan 31, 2020 16:12:35 GMT -6
Come on now, 4% in '06 is serviceable for a freshly-minted ship with average crew. @ myco: That was partly because I was able to talk about the subs this way, and partly because I really liked how this battle and it's events could be chained up to a relatively compelling narrative IF I took the opportunity to do so. I mean, frankly, in a worse mindset I could've been summarizing it like so: "I've been screwed by the battle generator, then I got screwed by RNG, then I once again got screwed by RNG." I enjoyed playing with the thought, since the alternative would've been a cynical "...really?" once I've seen the final pop-up.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jan 31, 2020 17:51:31 GMT -6
Come on now, 4% in '06 is serviceable for a freshly-minted ship with average crew.
Well, but look at it the other way- 306 shells missed shooting at a freighter- it just feels like a regrettable inefficiency.
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Post by Adseria on Mar 3, 2020 11:02:58 GMT -6
Come on now, 4% in '06 is serviceable for a freshly-minted ship with average crew.
Well, but look at it the other way- 306 shells missed shooting at a freighter- it just feels like a regrettable inefficiency. Not necessarily; it could have been a converted liner
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Post by akosjaccik on Mar 6, 2020 6:31:09 GMT -6
So, I assume noone else can see the images on the board either anymore, which implies that my (to be fair, free, which is coincidentally the exact amount if money I can shell out for) webhosting service perhaps figured out to axe direct linking of the uploaded material. Just peachy. If that's the case I'll have to look for an external image upload page - in the meantime, the webpage works as intended still, fortunately, so strictly speaking the AAR is not lost. Regarding the AMC-shenanigans, I have an interesting counterpoint (and a bit of a "spoiler", but that's okay ) for you gentlemen. In july, a very similar engagement will take it's place, and the Admiral-class cruiser will opt for a far more aggressive approach. By looking at purely the hit ratios, the improvement is extremely favourable! ...was it worth it, though? Arguably not, as the return fire in this case forced the Spaun into repairs for one month. So, there is the other side of the coin, and a bit of argument for why I was statisfied with the original ~4% or such. It did the job, and noone got hurt - well, on our side. Additionally, to test an image upload page, and also to bog down the topic's download speed with more and more images give the topic a bit more color, allow me to show you a model stand I whipped up on last weekend:
Edit: Jesus, sharing some dinky images on the internet shouldn't suck so hard in 2020. Third time is the charm.
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