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Post by akosjaccik on Jun 25, 2019 9:27:26 GMT -6
To partially repay your kind attention (although I am starting to feel somewhat bad that in this "AAR topic" there is everything but AAR, then again, I "warned" you about this beforehand ), let's take a look at... An early Austro-Hungarian naval machine gun in three minutes The AI gave me two battleships currently under construction as part of the legacy setting. I have a feeling that I'll need those ships, since besides those the best gun I can field is a 9"[Q-1], although one can argue that in this period heavy guns actually have a limited impact. Either way, taking a look on these vessels my eyes got caught up on something. In most other saves I'd go "Oh, that's a bug." (I can't exactly recall, I might have generated the save with 1.02 or 1.03, definitely not 1.04.) Here I was all like "OOOH, lovely!" I could pass this through by saying "this is an experimental installation mainly against torpedoboats, though the mount can pivot up to a fairly high angle due to how the technical solution is implemented. But why would we ever need that, right? Right?" Now, however, a question arises. As the game will advance (I hope), more and more I'll run out of actual historical basis, and have to rely on my own thinking, with an impression of how I could "A-H-ify" the whole spiel. (Interestingly, though historical, or should I say material reality has "stopped" at one point for the Monarchy, the thinking did not require vast resources, so in a sense, we have an idea about a potential future.) At this point, even before my start, we are writing the date of 1900, in which the A-H not only exists, but there is "no reason why it shouldn't" (Indivisible and all... ). So, maybe it would be prudent to first and foremost take a look at history. Did the A-H Navy, or at least any organization of the state have a suitable weapon I could use on the Budapest-class? And this is where the one of the aims of my project came to realization (again): I learned something new! Turns out, the Habsburg Empire did in fact have an automatic weapon at their disposal, a domestically produced one, and to go even further, the Navy had their hands on them! We are talking about the Salvator-Dormus M1893: Salvator-Dormus M1893 machine gun [Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna]
At least one of these things went into actual combat according to the sources, when the S.M.S. Zenta cruiser's marines joined the international forces against the Boxer Rebellion. An interesting piece, and a perfect candidate to slap onto the Budapest-class! ...theoretically at least, as the scale doesn't make it practical to dump too much work into it, of course. Still, a quick ten-minute sketching after some sacrilegious "just eyeball it, it will be fine"-process, and we have our very first machine gun, which for the time being is dubbed as "AA-gun". So, there we have it!
It's fun to bring RtW2's more abstracted elements into just a tad bit more life. I plan to add this interesting piece to a kind-of-sort-of " research and development plus doctire plus equipment"-section, though at this point it might get cluttered, maybe I should divide it.
Also let's not talk about the fact that due to the MG being gravity-fed via a hopper, even a slight upward angle might be detrimential. Nothing a bit of redesign can't handle though!
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jun 25, 2019 12:17:26 GMT -6
I am finding it perilously difficult to withhold upending a fresh wheel-barrel of plaudits with every post you make my good sir. So please note this post is not complimenting your work or enterprise in Any Way What-So-Ever. Not a bit, nope. Nary a whit. Just idle typing here.
...not inspired by brilliance at all...
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Post by akosjaccik on Jun 26, 2019 17:14:08 GMT -6
I am finding it perilously difficult(...) Well, I have it somewhat easy, truth be told, because I have the tools, and (currently) I have the time. And besides, I hope I do not eat the air away from the other on-going, excellent AARs - the irony of the situation is that a (albeit small) part of the reasons why I am doing something different is that I did not, and still do not think I could do something they can on that level of quality! Although I will go on a brief hiatus tomorrow to enjoy the "W-s of summer", like Warmth, Water, Wine, Whor Wolleyball, Wfriends, Wgettingdrunkintheevening, so hopefully the colleauges like mycophobia will take the opportunity and stop slacking off, cough-cough!
Tonight however, I'll show the section I was working on, and to give just a bit more context for the (again, hopefully) upcoming campaign and the state of my preparations, the composition of the generated legacy fleet:
...but this much would be admittedly boring and I would rather not spam (even more ) the AAR section with not a lot of meat, so let me show you a "method" (I would only call it so inside quotation marks) I came up with. Leading Austria-Hungary and serving His Majesty, the Kaiser (and maybe a bit more the princess, don't blame me), we are behind. But by how much? A whole lot of interesting method could be developed to numerically represent a ship or class's capabilities in a form one could use for a rudimentary comparison; I looked for something that grants enough data to talk about, but isn't overy complex you know, like this entire project already is , I can quickly put up the numbers, and yet it still does contain valuable information at least to a disputable degree.
Take my three "starter" battleship-class as shown above, two in service, one under construction as an example:
Before everything, I defined a "gold standard": Imagine it being a very good, even excellent, but still somewhat reasonable first-class pre-dreadnought somewhere along the line of "It would be a stretch, but we could finance it". In practice, I went to the current best in the field (meaning Great Britain in this case), knocked on the door and called dibs on their plotting table. The result was a ship with parameters defined as "100%", or "best achievable capability". To put it simply, I compared my three ship class to a fourth. Now, I could've played with complicated and witty formulas at this point, but instead I tried to grab one single "good enough" parameter for my points of interests. - For speed, it was extremely easy. On full ahead, with the current technology the reasonable requirement could be 19 knots. Done. Now, while this is my reference parameter and top point, for the actual values if someone suffers from insomnia, some non-linear finesse could be implemented, so instead of stepping steadily up on the percentages, everything up to 16 knots could be unacceptable, and then a function could be drawn up according to one's preferences. As such, Budapest's 18 knots clanks trough the math to give back a simple "95%", but arguably the actual drawbacks of this one single knot (less chance to disengage, less speed reserve, maybe most importantly for all the fire-, and staying power she brings, she alone gimps the entire battle line's speed) are much more significant than that. Room for fine tuning, so to speak, is present, but let's not get bogged down.
- For secondary armament, I could, and so I did work with simply 6 inch guns, but to be cheeky about it, I took their weight as a basis. If one is perverted enough, outgoing shell weight per minute could be a stellar choice, if other parameters are constant or are presumed constant (fire control, no RoF disturbance by other ordnance present etc.)
- Armor is somewhat tricky. I could use for example weight percentage, but as thickness could vary with displacement at constant percentages while the AP shells only care about the thickness, I decided to go with overall armor weight. This of course brings it's own problems with it, but it does take displacement into account in an indirect way, which also has some connection with survivability.
- Finally, for main armament, there could be a whole ton of good slash arguable choices again. Personally I went for penetration in inches @ 5000 yards as a parameter, multiplied by the number of guns on the ship (this is significant because the E.F.F. is only equipped with three 9" rifles).
And there I have it! A simple package of colorful lines in rough proportion to the battle capabilities of the ships. If one takes cost into account, some similar ideas could be used to assess the rough viability of new design proposals.
As any statistician already committed suicide at this point, however, there is really no reason to stop here. All this above even might make some sense, so what I did is I took the mean of the percentages above for each ship (making some sort of "overall effectiveness number", if you are not feeling nauseous enough yet - just to curiosity's sake: Budapest: 93%, Wien: 79%, E.F.F.: 72%), and checked these according to their respective displacement.
Make no mistake, this above ^ has a nigh-zero practical usefulness for a multitude of reasons (for example, the model is fairly trash shaky at best to begin with, but also some of the parameters are fairly well linked to the displacement in the first place through weight generally, so woopty-do, "a correlation can be kicked into the slot, who would have thought?"), but I mean, who is going to stop me apart from moderation, maybe
Still, if for absolutely nothing else, it is interesting because the best correlation is not outright linear, still showing other factors at play. Achieving "reference battleship" thus takes more material and it would be even more interesting to take the money-factor into account as well. You could also make an argument (somewhat drunkenly), that the Wien-class is a bit of an underachiever compared to what it could be expected of it's displacement according to this questionable model (although the ship is overweight as it is already, so I don't feel like defending it too much...) Correlation does not mean causation, still, diving deeper into detailed data of said designs "manually" as well, it does seem like that while not the screwing around above, but the percentages even more above shows fairly decently that while I had the E.F.F. in my mind as "my worst battleship", it's actually not THAT worse compared to the Wien-class by a large margin.
Only by seven percent.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 5, 2019 6:21:20 GMT -6
Hopefully you'll have a fine weekend, gents! Some update here, got a telephone call:
Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino: We have received the drawings for the armored cruiser and... uh, are you sure these are the right plans? Me, who has nothing to do with the plans: Yes. STT: Donau-class. Me: Yes. STT: Overweight, unreliable and unnecessary two-gun turrets, 66mm quick-firing guns in casemates, 22 knots. Me: Yyyess. STT: ... Me: ... STT: Alright then.
Donau-class, under construcion.
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 8, 2019 12:41:46 GMT -6
As the earlier comment about slacking off makes me feel rather bad, I believe I will take some inspiration from this thread for my next AAR to justify slacking off After Im done with my current Russian AAR (Two more major wars to go), for my next AAR I will model every ship I use in From the Depths before commissioning them in a manner like this thread. Therefore I will be able to take a week or two before each update Also that's a great dock, this thread just gets better and better. Maybe the next update can come with a chunk of Budapest?
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 9, 2019 11:48:43 GMT -6
Mycophobia, it's actually not a bad idea for the river monitors to shell the city when unrest is skyrocketing, but the task is fairly daunting, so if I ever compose the S.M.S. Leitha into a diorama of some sort, best it will get is probably some mallards and a willow tree. Although I am kind of curious how could one build a stupidly elaborate bridge utilizing a 3D printer... but naah, even I am not that perverted. Probably. I do believe now that I think about it that Budapest legitimally built some wartime crafts which could also be a reason to show off the city, but off the top of my head I only remember of submarines, and even those were final-assembled in Fiume I think. Building a warship......is a team-effort. Because my new and shiny PC I built half a year ago checked out with a HDD failure and is now at the service with all my tools, 3D models, actual RtW2 licence and erotic pictures of questionable taste, no fancy presentation I'm afraid this time. Still, I grabbed Paint Shop Pro and took the opportunity to walk around the issue of domestic warship production in the Habsburg Empire in 1900 and later - in some cases, half a century later on. Of course, this barely scratched the surface, but for the sake of the campaign, it's good enough to give us some guidance on which firms can we rely on, without throwing in too much names. Overall, with some effort, we should be capable to produce domestic equipment of acceptable to excellent quality in almost every area, albeit in some cases pricing is a massive concern. Some smaller areas still prove to be problematic however, like for example manufacturing large-diameter propellers.
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Post by archelaos on Jul 9, 2019 14:56:15 GMT -6
Guys were are you based? I mean, I have a resin printer so I can print you some stuff like boats or guns in good quality. But if you are from the other continent (I'm from Poland) it would be too expensive to ship the prints.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 9, 2019 16:16:17 GMT -6
Guys were are you based? I mean, I have a resin printer so I can print you some stuff like boats or guns in good quality. But if you are from the other continent (I'm from Poland) it would be too expensive to ship the prints. While I might take up on your kind offering - but should I do so, not without sending something back in return - solely because I am able to model in STL, as such I have stuff to print in the first place; I also do have access to a worse quality, "entry-level" FDM printer, so I believe the absolutely right way for me is to pass this opportunity over first and foremost to anyone who can not print in any shape or form. By the way, Poland? A country with fascinating history and people, a friend of mine studies in Gdańsk, maybe one day I'll get to visit it myself as well. I am commuting between western Hungary and the capital, currently residing in the former. A fair distance, yet almost in the neighborhood, if I compare it to mycophobia's China or garrisonchisholm's USA if I recall correctly. Huh, I am using the web since a good fifteen years, but it still sometimes slaps me in the face how fascinating it can be, mainly due to the people on it and the ability to connect with them.
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 9, 2019 16:33:32 GMT -6
Guys were are you based? I mean, I have a resin printer so I can print you some stuff like boats or guns in good quality. But if you are from the other continent (I'm from Poland) it would be too expensive to ship the prints. Thank you very much for your offer , however as I am a Chinese-Canadian currently residing in Canada, shipping is probably going to be a lot of trouble. (Also since I use FtD to model my ships, I don't think it easily translate into a 3D-printable model) Also I believe Garrison had a very good polish AAR from RTW 1 that might be worth checking out I look forward to see what you and akosjaccik can work out however.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 12, 2019 13:38:14 GMT -6
...and so, the spamming continues. Apart from this, I hope you all have a reasonable day - in this region the entire summer seems to suffocate in the rain. Anyway - done some work again, this time on....
The black sheep of Cattaro
A strange cruiser, with a strange armament layout, a strange armor layout, severely overweight, and meant to carry almost five hundred men into danger. A strange cruiser - and yet, one we are in need of, as the class holds the capability of fighting hostile cruisers on an equal footing on at least paper almost solely.
Newly built armored cruisers "Sankt Georg" (left) and "Donau" (in front) underway Photohraphed from the escorting Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand battleship
The preliminary results of the trials are sobering. The deck armor is unreasonably thick and heavy, meanwhile large portions of the ship are virtually unprotected. Compartmentalization is problematic. Ship is notably overweight. Traversing the quick-firing guns is a far more cumbersome process than it has any right to be, and their firing arcs are limited, meanwhile the casemates are unarmored. The 6 inch turrets suffer from poor ventillation, are small and dangerously cramped, traverse too slowly, and their level of protection does not validate these drawbacks. The machinery meets the requirements, but does not accelerate the vessel above the foreign designs' speed values. They are, dare I say, borderline unfit for service.
But they are all we have. For now.
For the hardcore I&I connossieurs, I also uploaded a bit of treat on the main page of the homepage - just for fun!
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 12, 2019 13:50:25 GMT -6
I do hope the Donau somehow survives long enough to become an aircraft carrier as seen on your main page...and carry like, 6 planes.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 12, 2019 13:54:21 GMT -6
I do hope the Donau somehow survives long enough to become an aircraft carrier as seen on your main page...and carry like, 6 planes. A tale where the ugly duckling becomes... an ugly swan.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jul 12, 2019 14:39:50 GMT -6
Dear Sir. I must file a formal protest with the Navy Photography Department. The ensign who snapped that picture managed to get the deck rail neatly obscuring the deck-line of one of his two objectives. He should be made to develop his next photos in the Enlisted's Lavatory.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 13, 2019 4:40:13 GMT -6
Dear Sir. I must file a formal protest with the Navy Photography Department. The ensign who snapped that picture managed to get the deck rail neatly obscuring the deck-line of one of his two objectives. He should be made to develop his next photos in the Enlisted's Lavatory. First thing first, we have to check if the photographer isn't a member of the nobility or God forbid, connected to the royal family in any way, in which case we will take adequate measures, thank you for your vigilance and patriotic duty, Sir!
Come saturday, what I should have screwed around with are my two missing ships so I could start the actual game, and not bothering with the finished armored cruiser. What did I do? Bothered with the finished armored cruiser. Hobby is doing the same exact stupid and suboptimal things as per general, but now instead of others, I scream at me myself. But hey, it's fun!
Without too much commentary, basically just food for thought. For example, under normal circumstances I'd never pick the 9" gun-armed version, beause after spending far too much money and time the result would be a still staggeringly under-armored construction, and with an explosion bound to happen. Meanwhile, however cool the 9" turrets ("turrets" is a harsh word, in fact) look like (they are based on the historical S.M.S. Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia), their actual worth is dubious at best. Then again, I did begin the project with stating that the overall aim is somewhat different than as with the classic, somewhat min-maxy nature of the standard RtW flow, so who knows. Either way, I should really leave the Donau-class at that for the time being, otherwise I'll run out of materials before I even start the darn' game.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 13, 2019 16:02:58 GMT -6
Soon enough, I "have" to address the next batch of physical models now, that their digital models are ready for printing, and after / meanwhile that I have one final member of the starter fleet to work on: the Wien-class battleships, meaning I finally stop spamming the boards just for a little bit, and get on with the painting. Myself, the table, the goldfishes, sometimes the ship. Before that, though, I shall elaborate on that "digital models are ready"-part. One is, of course, the Donau. The other can be easily identified with the help of the fleet roster above; the last class of ships currently in active service that did not get any attention so far.
Even the road to Hell is paved with the cobblestones of goodwill - a relatively common saying in my country. Let's see if this stands for the... Tiger-class. The goal was improvement, the results are one step forward, one step backward. Question is, which step is more important.
Exactly why did we name the lead ship "Tiger" is somewhat beyond me, but oh well, tigers can at least swim fairly decently. Anyway, as you can see, I "interpreted" (more in an ""artistic"" than a technical manner) the class as a next iteration of the already existing Lussin design, considering that in my RtW2 save they... kind of are. The story behind them came out maybe a bit shaky, but I'm happy with it.
"You know, I mean... this is still better than the Landwehr!" (Tiger-class destroyers S.M.S. Leopard (leading) and S.M.S. Sebenico patrolling in a squall)
And with that, let the weekend continue, hopefully in bearable way!
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