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Post by mycophobia on Jul 8, 2019 23:09:35 GMT -6
From The North - A Canadian AAR Made with RTW and From the Depth
By now I am sure many around the forum have seen akosjaccik 's amazing model-based AAR. If you haven't, I strongly encourage you to check out his amazing website and models over at the Indivisible & Insignificant thread . This AAR is inspired by the amazing work put out by akosjaccik. In short, my aim with this AAR, as with that of Indivisible & Insignificant is to create a RTW AAR supplemented by 3D ship models to make up for the some what limited graphical component of RTW2. While writing my previous AAR(Which I will still work on, do not worry guys ), I realized that a lack of graphical presentation definitely made writing more difficult. While RTW's side view generator are great for adding imagery to any AAR, I felt I needed something more "Alive". akosjaccik's Budapest arsenal project was already catching my interest, and after seeing how his AAR site came along, I knew what I had to do. Please use the table of content below to navigate this AAR, I've divided ship info post and AAR post for ease of access.
However you can always just go through the threads the good ol' way and most things will be in chorological order. House Rules
This AAR will be a fairly standard RTW 2 playthrough using Laffeychan's Canada nation mod, with Large Fleet Size and otherwise standard settings. The only house rule, as with Indivisible & Insignificant, is that any ship except AMCs and KEs and possibly AVs, must be built in From the Depth before they can enter service in RTW. These FtD creations will then be used to set up battle scenes and dioramas to supplement any battle scenes from the RTW portion of the AAR. Aircrafts, buildings, coastal installations may also be made depending on my free time and interest to further supplement the ships. While I have played around with FtD for a very long time, I am not an expert builder nor an expert on naval construction&engineering. Thus I am sure to make some mistakes and mess things up, but I will try my best to make things presentable. Furthermore, I will try my best to make things "Work" in FtD as well, so that they will not merely be hallow shells that appears like a ship. That is not to say I will go through full interior detail, but I will give every ship internal subdivision, armor layout, engine/magazine compartment etc to make them work as similarly as possible with their RTW counterpart. But, given even a modded version of FtD is not the perfect tool to recreate naval designs, "looks" are still the priority here. At the bare minimal, the design will float, move, and shoot so they can reenact RTW engagements in 3D. Some larger ship maybe slightly scaled down so that spawning more than one of them does not totally trash my CPU. I will try to hide these variations the best I can but you may notice some proportion issues if ships are compared side by side. I most likely will not have the time to work on enemy ships, so generic place holder that are roughly similar to AI designs will be used instead( I have made a lot of random ships over the years). Particularly notable enemy vessel may get the honour of having a model made and then smashed up Table of Content
[/font][/b] Point of Divergence[/div][/font][/ul] 1900-1904 - The Anglo-German War 1904 - 1911 The Great War
[/a][li] 1923/1924 Refit Plan[/li][li] 1924 - Taking the Fight to Them[/li][li] 1924 - 1925 - The Home Islands - Part 1[/li][li] 1924 - 1925 - The Home Islands - Part 2[/li][li] 1925 - The Battle for Convoy BH-92 (Pt 1)[/li][li] 1925 - The Battle of Convoy BH-92 (Pt 2) 1925 - A New Generation of Battleships
[/li][/ul] 1932 - The Second Great War
e [/div][/li][li] [/li][/ul]
[/div] Battleships/Battlecruisers
Aircraft Carriers Cruisers Destroyers Misc
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 8, 2019 23:55:01 GMT -6
Canada before 1900
Point of Divergence
In 1866, disappointed over British inaction to protect its colony from the Fenian raids during the American Civil war, and weary of American expansionism, the British North American colonies gathered at London to negotiate terms of confederation and seeking additional British military protection. The United Kingdom at this point is unwillingly to provide further security to its North American Colonies in face of obligations in Africa and Far East. Frustrated, the North American colonies determined to take matter into its own hands and seceded from the dominion in 1867, forming the independent state of Canada. Only Newfoundland remained under British rule. In the next 30 years, the former British North American Colonies prospered as a nation. However, it remained vigilant towards its southern neighbor. Canadians had wearily observed the Mexican-American war and the more recent Spanish-American war. Further, Canada's relation with its former overlord is uneasy at best, with many Canadian believing that Newfound Land should be freed from British rule. Thus at the turn of the century, Canada was a fairly prosperous nation that faces challenge from two of the most powerful power in the world, a challenging time indeed. The Canadian NavyAt Confederation, Canadian Navy is virtually non-existent, having long relied upon the royal navy for protection. Nevertheless, many Canadians had served in the Royal Navy chose to return to Canada at confederation, brining much needed knowledge with them. While Canada had no warship building experience to speak of, the need to defend the budding state clearly requires a strong navy. The Canadian east coast and St.Lawrence valley had been major center of civilian ship building in the 19th century, and while inexperienced in warship construction, Canadian architects wasted no time learning and absorbing knowledge from around the world. By 1900, while no match for the major navy of the world, Canada had came a long way. The Canadian Fleet, while modest in size, have ships to fulfill any role the budding navy might require. The backbone of the fleet is a pair of coastal defence battleship ordered from France, with a third ship being constructed. Canada, given its underdog position against the major naval powers, are naturally attracted to a light force of torpedo boats. Nevertheless, there still exists a large gap to fill if the Canadian navy is to one day stand toe to toe against European powers.
Lake Cowichan Class Destroyer
The Lake Cowichan Class is the first Canadian attempts to build a large sea-going torpedo boat. However, relative inexperience with this new type of ship resulted in a middling design. The relatively bulky hull slowed her speed and required a rather large engine assembly to reach a speed of 27 knots. As a result of this large engine space, she is very cramped and makes for a horrible ship to live on, despite a reasonable sailing range for such a small ship. The ship carries a single 3in Gun at its bow. To cover her flank against similarly sized ship, 4 2inch Guns were evenly distributed along her flank, leaving space for two centerline torpedo tube that can fire 60 degrees off from the bow to either direction. Stern of the ship, the boats are located at the rear to make space for the torpedo tubes on the already crammed vessal. Rough interior layout of the Lake Cowichan Class - I probably botched this completely, but you get the idea.
Anyyyway, the little 400 ton destroyer is the first test run of this project. I hope everyone enjoyed it so far, and I will do my best to provide some new updates once in awhile. Also, can anyone give me some suggestion as to possible name ideas for Canadian weapon manufacturers? Since making whole ships takes sometime, updating weapons and gun subassemblies will allow me to provide some interesting update as I construct the larger ships. Attachments:
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Post by DeMatt on Jul 9, 2019 1:38:32 GMT -6
Also, can anyone give me some suggestion as to possible name ideas for Canadian weapon manufacturers? Since making whole ships takes sometime, updating weapons and gun subassemblies will allow me to provide some interesting update as I construct the larger ships. Historically, Canadian arms manufacturing tended to be subsidiaries of British companies, so you can borrow British or Scottish names and not sound out-of-place. The history you've started off with suggests that these Canadians would have closer ties with the USA, so you could borrow their names too. Some specifically Canadian names: - Hamilton Powder Co, Dominion Cartridge Co, Acadia Powder Co, Ontario Powder Co, Standard Explosives Co, Western Explosives Co and Victoria Chemical Co -> merged in 1910 to form Canadian Explosives Co -> renamed in 1920's to Canadian Explosives Ltd -> nowadays Canadian Industries Ltd "C-I-L"
- Ross Rifle Co (made Ross rifle for WW1)
- National Steel Car (makes railroad rolling stock since 1912)
- Montreal Locomotive Works (made Ram and Grizzly tanks for WW2)
- Victory Aircraft (made British aircraft for WW2) -> A. V. Roe Canada in 1945 -> Avro Canada (Avro Arrow forever!)
- Canadian Vickers Ltd (subsidiary of UK Vickers) -> Canadair Ltd (1944) -> Bombardier Aerospace (1986)
- Saint John Shipbuilding (in New Brunswick, made a few Flowers)
- Marine Industries Ltd (in Quebec, made Flowers)
- Halifax Shipyard (in Nova Scotia, made four Tribals)
- Burrard Dry Dock (in Vancouver, British Columbia)
- Yarrows Ltd (in Esquimalt, BC; subsidiary of Scottish Yarrow Shipbuilders)
While there's small arms, vehicles, aircraft, and shipbuilding... it's interesting to see that artillery isn't there. Canada still orders its cannons abroad. You could use A.G.L McNaughton's name for a fictitious artillery manufacturer - he was an artillery officer in WW1.
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Post by alsadius on Jul 9, 2019 8:55:17 GMT -6
Cool project. I approve. If you're naming artillery manufacturers as homages, might I suggest Blackburn?
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 9, 2019 10:24:16 GMT -6
I was definitely looking for artillery manufacturers in particular since that is most relevant as far as RTW weapon goes. I would avoid British/American subsidiaries as I can see myself going to war with either, and that I'd prob reserve those company if I every purchase gun designs from one of them.
That said, I am currently leaning towards CIL as they were the main manufacturer for shells and explosives during the world wars, and I can see them taking on a bigger role in gun production as well in this time line.
As for Blackburn, there is the slight concern that it conflict with the British Blackburn aircraft, which I believe is one of the possible manufacturer for aircrafts in rtw2?
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 9, 2019 11:11:06 GMT -6
Ohhohoo, very neat, my friend! While I am excited to see where your road will lead you, I am also glad to hear that the Tzar can also still count on you. For the first glance it was very nifty to see that you encountered the same problem I had with the 400t destroyer, namely how we tried to stick to RtW's top-down drawing and general layout, but had to seek space for the boats. Although on a very basic level, it is still very cool to suddenly think about "planning a ship" in a bit more complex way or at least in a different framework than RtW demands it. And those are only the boats! I will be also curious to see how you'll handle for example refits. For now, keep it up and for the Holy Maple, go forth! For the technicalities, aaah, yes. I also stopped at one point and asked from myself "How am I going to organize all this stuff?", which resulted in the barely functional website, but I believe one can easily get away without overcomplicating it that way, and the key in my mind is the fact that you can - I think - edit your posts any number of times. As such, you could make and constantly refresh the first post into a table of contents / register, and simply list/link (like this: Lake Cowichan-class) whatever you deem necessary, so it should be easy to refer to say, a specific model for a given class, even if it is posted on the n+1. page. You can grab the links for the posts with the little cog-icon on their top right corner!
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 9, 2019 11:23:34 GMT -6
Ohhohoo, very neat, my friend! While I am excited to see where your road will lead you, I am also glad to hear that the Tzar can also still count on you. For the first glance it was very nifty to see that you encountered the same problem I had with the 400t destroyer, namely how we tried to stick to RtW's top-down drawing and general layout, but had to seek space for the boats. Although on a very basic level, it is still very cool to suddenly think about "planning a ship" in a bit more complex way or at least in a different framework than RtW demands it. And those are only the boats! I will be also curious to see how you'll handle for example refits. For now, keep it up and for the Holy Maple, go forth! For the technicalities, aaah, yes. I also stopped at one point and asked from myself "How am I going to organize all this stuff?", which resulted in the barely functional website, but I believe one can easily get away without overcomplicating it that way, and the key in my mind is the fact that you can - I think - edit your posts any number of times. As such, you could make and constantly refresh the first post into a table of contents / register, and simply list/link (like this: Lake Cowichan-class) whatever you deem necessary, so it should be easy to refer to say, a specific model for a given class, even if it is posted on the n+1. page. You can grab the links for the posts with the little cog-icon on their top right corner! Thank you very much , Now I can use each of my AAR to justify my procrastination in the other one. The recommendation about the table of content+link is excellent, and I think that is probably how I will organize this post once I have enough entries. And yes, RTW's tendency to stick stuff too close to funnels and such in their top down drawings definitely caused a bit of headache for me with a small 400 ton ship. Now imagine if they toss me one of those centerline BBs with turret on the funnel.... With From the Depth there is the additional concern that the ship I end up making maybe horribly unstable (as is the case with cowichan, but that design was both low free-board and overweight, fitting I'd say ) Refits are fairly easy on my end as I can simply load up the design, delete stuff I don't want and add stuff I need. Reworking superstructure and secondaries should be very easy(especially if I pre-design the weapon/turrets as sub assemblies), anything that does not require me to cut open the hull and move stuff around is going to be much easier than making a new ship. (This is, surprisingly realistic....)
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 9, 2019 12:07:27 GMT -6
This is one of the reasons why I love/hate the AI-rolled legacy fleet, but mostly love. It's interesting to work with potentially suboptimal starting conditions without having everything handed over on a silver platter, plus the mental image of an overweight small destroyer with decks constantly awash with seawater, clapping it's *ss on the seabed is admittedly hilarious. - "Are the torpedoes on swiwel-mounts on the deck or submerged?" - " Yes."
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 9, 2019 12:29:43 GMT -6
This is one of the reasons why I love/hate the AI-rolled legacy fleet, but mostly love. It's interesting to work with potentially suboptimal starting conditions without having everything handed over on a silver platter, plus the mental image of an overweight small destroyer with decks constantly awash with seawater, clapping it's *ss on the seabed is admittedly hilarious. - "Are the torpedoes on swiwel-mounts on the deck or submerged?" - " Yes." Wait till I get to the Creston-Class.... I made the mistake of not saving my game so I had to restart and go through legacy fleet builder to recreate my fleet as seen above, and I realized that Creston design would be 30 ton over weight based on the AI-generated loadout.... I had to cut it down to 27 knot to even make the design legal. But yes, that ship will definitely have something submerged at some point when I get to it.....
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 10, 2019 0:04:36 GMT -6
Creston Class Torpedo Boats
Not quite satisfied with the Lake Cowichan class, the Canadian Admiralty commissioned a larger class of torpedo boats in 1899. Not designed to engage other destroyers, the Creston Class are able to allocate more space to achieve a longer range and better living environment for the crew. Doing away with the almost all guns also reduced number of crews needed to man the ship (81 for Creston vs 82 for the smaller Lake Cowichan) Despite these advantages, the ship remains overloaded and fares poorly in rough weather, with very low freeboard and stability in rough seas. As a result, the Canadian navy had been careful in their training sessions to avoid rough weather, but some officers worry that accidents are due to happen with these ships. The Creston class only carries two 47mm guns for self-defense, and it is envisioned that the Lake Cowichan class will engage enemy light ships while the Creston class carry out torpedo attacks. The Creston Class carries an additional torpedo tube fore of her conning platform, giving her a good arc of fire with her torpedo. The Creston Class have mounts a pair of search lights beside her conning tower to assist with night time actions, but like all other torpedo boats of this time, have no fire control tools to speak of. Creston Class are only equipped with two 47mm Gun, located fore and aft. Creston Class ships maneuver off New Brunswick, note the dangerously low freeboard and stability due to the rough sea.
Anyways, since destroyers are fairly easily made, I was able to cook up my other starting class of destoryer. This leaves me with a Battleship, Armored Cruiser, and Protected Cruiser to go, which will probably take a bit longer to produce. Until next time then
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 10, 2019 22:55:21 GMT -6
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 13, 2019 17:54:14 GMT -6
The weekend is probably the best time to get started on the larger ships of the fleet, this is my first attempt in making tumblehome pre-dread and I have to be say I'm happy to realize they have their historical issues (very cramped internal, very stable in good water but very limited reserve buoyancy). Also the pain of trying to fit 12 3in gun into that little deck space x.x...the fact that 3in guns in FtD probably ends up a bit bigger than IRL does not help either Canada Class Battleship
While Canadian shipyards have been hard at work to adopt latest naval technology, at the end of the 19th century they still lacked the relative expertise to construct a fully fledged battleship that can serve as the core of their budding fleet. Canadian admiralty had to search abroad for a nation that can produce the much needed battleships for the navy. The relationship over the U.K had been strained due to ongoing dispute over Newfoundland, U.S shipyards were contacted but it was the French that won the bid for the ship that would become the Canada Class. As the Canadian fleet is focused on coastal defense at this point, the ships are not required to have long range or high speed. On the other hand, the admiralty does require good protection and decent armament on a relatively affordable hull. The French tumblehome design are well placed to meet these requirements. The resulting ship is extremely well armored, sporting at least 5in of steel over its belt edge and secondary battery, with the thickest portion of the belt being 10in thick. The ship also have a 2inch thick armored deck to catch any shell splinter from damaging its magazine and machinery space. Armament choice was on the light side, since the Canadian lacked ability to domestically produce large caliber guns, having long relied on British support in the past. The newly formed Canadian Munitions Ltd. (C.M.L) are able to provide lighter 3-6inch designs for the Canadian navy, but lacked the expertise with larger weapons. As a result, Canada had to secure a production license for the French 250mm/40 Model 1897 Gun to arm the new battleship. (The French 250mm gun are designed for the large armored cruiser Admiral Charner, the French are unwillingly to sell their standard battleship 305mm gun design to the Canadians). To give the ships some chance against heavier foes, a pair of broadside torpedo tubes is located just midship. To fit all the above into a 12,400 ton hull, speed and habitability was sacrificed, and the ships can only make a pitiful 16 knots. The tumblehome hull further made the interior of the ship very cramped, but as they are designed for coastal duties, this was considered an acceptable trade off. Despite all this, the final design remained overweight, which, coupled with its tumblehome design made the ship extremely unstable and wet in poor weathers. The forward 3in casemates are usually inoperable given the ship's tendency to dip under waves and instability. Further, The part of the main armored belt is submerged deeper under the waterline. Despite all these misgivings however, the Canadians were extremely proud to finally possess battleships of their own, and two additional ships, Quebec and Nova Scotia were ordered in 1899 to make for a full squadron of these coastal battleships. Nevertheless, the Canadian Admiralty is already acknowledging the need for a more modern design, but are sadly limited by funding from the parliament and the lack of domestic yards capable of producing larger ships. Canada and New Brunsick cruising off Nova Scotia, 1899, photo taken from a civilian fishing trawler.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 15, 2019 10:25:52 GMT -6
I love tumblehome pre-dread designs. While I unerstand why they are getting the flak they get, they still are my guilty pleasure, from the Masséna to the Borodinos, and now the Canada. That 16 knots however, ouch - talk about win or die. The armor does seem to be fairly decent though, and the secondaries are also up for the task. That 305mm is not too much of a loss either probably, a bird chirped to me that they stictly ordered to reduce the propellant charge weights used under all circumstances, including wartime usage, which does imply something isn't going according to the plans with those rifles. So who knows, maybe there is a somewhat different reasoning behind the embargo in reality!
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 15, 2019 11:53:32 GMT -6
I love tumblehome pre-dread designs. While I unerstand why they are getting the flak they get, they still are my guilty pleasure, from the Masséna to the Borodinos, and now the Canada. That 16 knots however, ouch - talk about win or die. The armor does seem to be fairly decent though, and the secondaries are also up for the task. That 305mm is not too much of a loss either probably, a bird chirped to me that they stictly ordered to reduce the propellant charge weights used under all circumstances, including wartime usage, which does imply something isn't going according to the plans with those rifles. So who knows, maybe there is a somewhat different reasoning behind the embargo in reality! I am a fan of the tumbholme design as well, even if they have all their issues, they just feel so....chubby and cuddly in their own way The 16 knots are going to be especially painful because Canada will likely fight in a disadvantage in many battles. For all the shenanigans with French guns they still have bigger guns than what we have ourselves, as a result I will probably end up ordering another class of pre-dreads from foreign yards after the two other Canada class are completed, and if they happen to be French I will get to do some more tumblehome .
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 16, 2019 1:45:05 GMT -6
So here goes my last starter class of ship, I will formally start the first year of the AAR tomorrow as its getting late here. Hopefully people enjoy the AAR so far and any suggestions are welcome Montreal Class Armored Cruiser
While the Canadas are fairly powerful, modern battleships, they lacked the range to conduct long range missions or operate in the less-based Canadian west coast. As a result, Canada decides to create a smaller, faster class of armored cruiser to fill this gap. Thus the Montreal class became the first armored cruiser class built by Canadian naval yards. ArmamentThe ship's armament are essentially a scaled down version of the Canada class. Lacking large caliber gun designs at the time, Canadian designers opted for the licensed French 250mm/40 guns in single mount(which is only matched by 3 other cruisers from France and Russia). The 250mm guns are mounted in Canadian designed single turrets which have slightly better training and aiming rates than the French twin turrets. The secondary armament are adequate but carry less guns than most comparable designs. ArmorThe ship is protected by 5in of belt armor that tapers to 2.5 in towards the ends of the ship. This is heavier than most contemporary cruisers(except American and French designs). The turret is particularly heavily armored to ensure the main battery is not knocked out.
Speed/Range
Designed with longer cruises in mind, the Montreal class took care to improve seakeeping and habitability. The ship's range is moderate at best, but are good sea boats and not cramped liked the Canada class. The Montreal class can make a reasonable 20 knots of speed, but is below average(every nation except Japan all have faster ships between 21-22 knots). Overall, the ship is adequate for the role, especially considering the limited experience of Canadian yards in constructing larger warships. Her powerful gun may be a threat against other armored cruisers, but gunnery trials have shown that she has trouble scoring hits. The class' slow speed is the most worrying factor, since she can barely outrun some of the faster battleships in service of other nations. As of 1900, Toronto serves as the flagship of the Canadian Pacific squadron while the Montreal is based in New Brunswick to support the two Canada class ships. Canadian Naval Review of 1900 in New Brunswick
The Canadian Fleet on standby as it prepares for the naval review, photo taken from nearby hill. Poor weather of the day nearly lead a few collision between Canadian torpedo boats. Photo taken from Creston Class Torpedo Boat, Comox near the front of the column. Two Red Deer class cruiser visible to the port side, the armored cruisers and battleships are faintly visible off the stern in the distance.
And here is the entire starting fleet, I will try to do a couple more review of the fleet as it grows, but I think by the 1910s it will be too much for my computer to render the entire fleet, but I will enjoy it while I can.
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