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Post by aardvark on Aug 7, 2019 6:43:23 GMT -6
I've made some observations on the utility of significant rebuilds of the legacy and early fleet. This discussion assumes that there is no Naval Treaty -- if there is, it may be useful to heavily modernize ships which one would normally scrap. This discussion is relevant whether or not you built your legacy fleet, but if you did there will probably be more ships where it will be worth a significant rebuild than if you didn't. I will start with the heaviest classes and work down.
Battleships and Armored Cruisers -- in general, these aren't worth sinking all that much into since they have terrible torpedo protection, and for the cost of modernizing two or three with upgraded guns you can buy a new dreadnaught. Normally I just improve fire control and, anti-aircraft, and gunnery elevation, if applicable. That said, one change which is often cost effective is to downsize the secondary battery if you have better but smaller guns. (For example, swapping out 6" guns for quality 1 5" guns. They are almost never worth even one refit if they have only single gun turrets.
An exception is for reasonably fast (22 kt or so) ACs. If you convert them from coal to oil, downsize their secondaries, and optionally swap double 10" turrets for triple 8" ones, you can usually get them up to 26 or so kts, especially if you also reduce the secondary battery armor, and possibly the number of secondary guns. They are now decently useful 2nd line heavy cruisers.
CLs (as in protected cruisers) -- other than the minimal (as for battleships), these are only worth upgrading if they have a uniform battery of 8-10 6" guns. The ones with only 4" guns, or 2X2 6" plus 4" secondaries are pretty useless. However, by swapping out coal-firing for oil, you can often end up with a cruiser with 27kts speed and a five or six gun broadside. Not quite as good as an actual light-cruiser with five center-line mounts, but worth it. Since CLs generally don't use torpedo protection, the lack of it in the initial build isn't a problem.
DDs -- these are where rebuilds really shine. Once you get double torpedo tubes, you can probably start converting (at least when they are due for a refit) all you old DDs of 500 tons or higher. Generally, I can replace the single tubes with doubles, increase speed to 30 kts, and sometimes add mines, a pair of 2-3" secondaries, and/or depth charges. This becomes especially useful for your first generation of 700-900 ton DDs with coal-powered plants. I've found that for DDs of size 1500 and up, it often makes sense to refit even oil-burners because the savings in weight enables an increase in the number of tubes per torpedo mount.
If anyone else has any insights, feel free to chime in.
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Post by aeson on Aug 7, 2019 11:51:57 GMT -6
CLs (as in protected cruisers) -- other than the minimal (as for battleships), these are only worth upgrading if they have a uniform battery of 8-10 6" guns. The ones with only 4" guns, or 2X2 6" plus 4" secondaries are pretty useless. However, by swapping out coal-firing for oil, you can often end up with a cruiser with 27kts speed and a five or six gun broadside. Not quite as good as an actual light-cruiser with five center-line mounts, but worth it. Since CLs generally don't use torpedo protection, the lack of it in the initial build isn't a problem. I don't know that I'd say it's worthwhile, but if you wait long enough - I think once you have twin turrets for CLs, though I'm not certain - you can start putting more turrets on the centerline, and if you use 5" or lighter guns then they can be in twin/triple turrets even if installed in an entirely new position. |
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Post by dorn on Aug 7, 2019 11:56:22 GMT -6
Battleships and Armored Cruisers -- in general, these aren't worth sinking all that much into since they have terrible torpedo protection, and for the cost of modernizing two or three with upgraded guns you can buy a new dreadnaught. Normally I just improve fire control and, anti-aircraft, and gunnery elevation, if applicable. That said, one change which is often cost effective is to downsize the secondary battery if you have better but smaller guns. (For example, swapping out 6" guns for quality 1 5" guns. They are almost never worth even one refit if they have only single gun turrets.
At time you have AA guns, all legacy fleet ships are totally useless and just costs you money. They are slow, underarmoured and undergunned.
Try to build new AC and compare costs and capabilities with one from legacy fleet but with rebuild. To get legacy fleet AC to 26 knots, you need spend a lot of money but guns and armour is still old. And maintenance costs are much higher than for new ships. And maintenance costs are important as usually ships lifetime costs are about 60 % construction costs and 40 % maintenance costs, mainly depends how long ship is active. This ratio is about 15 years of service including some part of war service and some time of reserve or mothball.
Guns, machinery are usually useless to refit as it costs to much compare to advantage you can get. It is much better to save costs for future new ship which will completely surpass old ship. How much cost you refitting with new machinery and double torpedo dubes in early 10s? Try to design brand new destroyer with same attributes you will find quite interesting comparison. But you have advantage that you can build your new destroyer faster, more powerfull ... Destroyers are usually good to refit with fire control, sometimes torpedo tubes but mainly to ASW.
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Post by mycophobia on Aug 7, 2019 12:07:37 GMT -6
One advantage of refit over new construction is that its comparatively quick, so if a war is looming, a refit can ensure you have superior and upgraded ships in time rather than having to wait 20+ months. This can be important if you want to take advantage of a time period before center key enemy ship enters play(e.g a particularly powerful BC)
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Post by dorn on Aug 7, 2019 12:52:06 GMT -6
One advantage of refit over new construction is that its comparatively quick, so if a war is looming, a refit can ensure you have superior and upgraded ships in time rather than having to wait 20+ months. This can be important if you want to take advantage of a time period before center key enemy ship enters play(e.g a particularly powerful BC) You are right but usually if you think ahead you do not need that. I get myself oncer per several games at that situation that I need such refit. As I scrap ship or refit it in peace time. |
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Post by mycophobia on Aug 7, 2019 13:24:50 GMT -6
One advantage of refit over new construction is that its comparatively quick, so if a war is looming, a refit can ensure you have superior and upgraded ships in time rather than having to wait 20+ months. This can be important if you want to take advantage of a time period before center key enemy ship enters play(e.g a particularly powerful BC) You are right but usually if you think ahead you do not need that. I get myself oncer per several games at that situation that I need such refit. As I scrap ship or refit it in peace time. Now that I realized the OP's question is more focused on Legacy fleet, I agree with your point that 95% of the time you are probably better off just building something new. Legacy CL don't need refit and can work as foreign station duty once they are no good for front line, Legacy Bs are almost always going to the scrapyard unless there is some kind of early treaty. CA is the only legacy ship I'd occasionally consider doing a large overhaul type rebuilding, simply because outside of treaties building new CAs isn't that economical, and the refitted CA can fill the role of a BC in some distant possession without actually needing you to actually send a BC there. |
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Post by JagdFlanker on Aug 7, 2019 16:44:00 GMT -6
i just can't ever consider justifying the cost of refitting an older ship, i keep looking into it and it always seems to cost an arm and a leg, if not more
also from what i understand there are some things a refit doesn't provide that a new construction does, like the latest damage control tech
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Post by dorn on Aug 8, 2019 0:44:22 GMT -6
i just can't ever consider justifying the cost of refitting an older ship, i keep looking into it and it always seems to cost an arm and a leg, if not more also from what i understand there are some things a refit doesn't provide that a new construction does, like the latest damage control tech I did use it. I build early in 20s battlecruisers with 12" inclined belt, 4" deck, 8x16" guns and speed of 30 knots. After 15 years of service these ships were still powerful but their deck armour was an issue. I did machinery refit, decrease speed only to 29 knots and add 1" of deck armour and there was still enough tonnage for AA guns without ship being overweight. The costs were still reasonable because od decreasing speed and thus requested HP. I refitted 4 ships in that class for total costs about 80 % of only 1 new ship with similar design. It was really worth the costs as 5" deck protect against long range gunnery and bombs much better than 4" deck. |
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 8, 2019 12:01:15 GMT -6
Battleships and Armored Cruisers -- in general, these aren't worth sinking all that much into since they have terrible torpedo protection, and for the cost of modernizing two or three with upgraded guns you can buy a new dreadnaught. Normally I just improve fire control and, anti-aircraft, and gunnery elevation, if applicable. That said, one change which is often cost effective is to downsize the secondary battery if you have better but smaller guns. (For example, swapping out 6" guns for quality 1 5" guns. They are almost never worth even one refit if they have only single gun turrets.
An exception is for reasonably fast (22 kt or so) ACs. If you convert them from coal to oil, downsize their secondaries, and optionally swap double 10" turrets for triple 8" ones, you can usually get them up to 26 or so kts, especially if you also reduce the secondary battery armor, and possibly the number of secondary guns. They are now decently useful 2nd line heavy cruisers. The only refits I make of legacy heavies are carrier rebuilds, and my current doctrine is to always refit obsolete heavies as carriers and never to build a keel-up carrier. As long as you don't overdo it on speed (mostly just add enough to meet the bare minimum for the carrier type you're building) it costs about a third as much as a keel-up carrier with the same air wing, and the refit only takes 12 months. It's a fairly crappy carrier, but the most important stat is the airwing size, and it's dirt cheap. |
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Post by chaosblade on Aug 8, 2019 18:50:51 GMT -6
Legacy fleets can be all sort of wonky, I have gotten a lot of overweight legacy ships and a lot of questionable designs, like three classes of battleship in the pipeline, all of them roughly the same and lemony in all sort of ways, and should have been one class to begin with.
But I do think keeping 900 T+ destroyers could be interesting, mothball them, and then, as needed, turn them into ASW platforms. specially if the AI decides to go all in in sub warfare
But by and large intensive refits are a bad idea, updating gunnery control? certainly, adding AA? yeah, playing with the secondaries? as long as they are 6" or smaller? for sure! but engines? main battery? not unless treaty limitations are in effect
Maybe there should be some event to encourage more intensive refits? related to R+D perhaps? naval engineering or better dockyards?
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