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Post by Adseria on Aug 18, 2019 20:37:47 GMT -6
IIRC, Hidden Flaws can also increase the chance of getting a negative event after building a new ship, such as being overweight or below the design speed. No idea if this is true, though.
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Post by aeson on Aug 18, 2019 21:04:55 GMT -6
IIRC, Hidden Flaws can also increase the chance of getting a negative event after building a new ship, such as being overweight or below the design speed. No idea if this is true, though. I wouldn't consider the negative traits that can show up in commissioning events to be 'hidden' flaws - they're visible enough to be noted on the ship's acceptance trials. A hidden flaw, to me, would be something that only really becomes apparent after long experience with the ship or when the right conditions show up to reveal it, rather than being an issue that gets noted pretty much the first time that a crew takes the ship to sea.
Also, Poor Education and Undeveloped Shipbuilding Industry increase the chances of getting negative design events
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Post by Adseria on Aug 19, 2019 8:22:29 GMT -6
IIRC, Hidden Flaws can also increase the chance of getting a negative event after building a new ship, such as being overweight or below the design speed. No idea if this is true, though. I wouldn't consider the negative traits that can show up in commissioning events to be 'hidden' flaws - they're visible enough to be noted on the ship's acceptance trials. A hidden flaw, to me, would be something that only really becomes apparent after long experience with the ship or when the right conditions show up to reveal it, rather than being an issue that gets noted pretty much the first time that a crew takes the ship to sea.
Also, Poor Education and Undeveloped Shipbuilding Industry increase the chances of getting negative design events
True, but it was still hidden long enough that, by the time it was noticed, it couldn't be easily removed.
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Post by axe99 on Aug 19, 2019 16:57:34 GMT -6
I've always found the 'hidden flaws' for the UK a bit 'on the nose', as it's not as if all navies didn't have their design (or crew procedure, if we're looking at Jutland) issues. While I'm far from an expert, in my reading I haven't come across anything to suggest the UK had a particular issue here. It's pretty small beer though, so other than the times you have 2-3 well-armoured ships flash up in one small battle (happened to me at least a couple of times - it's like Jutland on 'roids when it comes to 'something wrong with our ships today') I don't find it too bad. I'm always a bit nervous playing as the UK when I don't get a few flash fires early though, as I know (and it usually happens) I'll be getting late-game 50K monsters going boom! There's a button to turn increased flash fire risk off. It was poor safety procedures that doomed the British bc, not any particular design flaw. Well, that and exceptionally touchy powder. The USN ran some tests comparing British and American powder in WWII and found that British powder would ignite much further from the vent they were using to deliver the flash, enough so that, in a magazine, about 80 times the amount of powder would light from a given ignition source with British powder. Most of the British powder used in WWII wasn't the same powder used at Jutland. At Jutland, as best I understand it, Cordite MD was the powder in use, which was phased out (based on Naval Weapons of WW2) in 1927. It was initially replaced by Cordite MC (phased in from 1917, iirc in response to Vanguard's explosion - which unlike Jutland was (at least based on what I've read) most likely a cordite stability issue) and then Cordite SC in 1927 (I think both MC and SC were in use in WW2, although don't have the info to hand). At least accordingly to Campbell, the safety of the US (NC) and UK (Cordite SC) were broadly similar in WW2, and later in WW2 (1944) the US started using Cordite N (British NF - although it was sourced from Canada) due to it being a good flashless powder. There's a good article by Campbell in the early Warships on the safety (or otherwise!) of early British powder. Been a while since I read it though, so don't have it's gist off the top of my head, other than "it wasn't great, but got better" with a lot of the work happening during WW1. Well, that and exceptionally touchy powder. The USN ran some tests comparing British and American powder in WWII and found that British powder would ignite much further from the vent they were using to deliver the flash, enough so that, in a magazine, about 80 times the amount of powder would light from a given ignition source with British powder. British cordite (powder) tended to burn much more violently than others, such as the Germans. You see this not just with the British BCs that blew up at Jutland while the German BCs turrets burned but with the armored cruiser HMS Natal, and dreadnought HMS Vanguard. Both were destroyed while at anchor. HMS Barham which blew up as she was capsizing and of course HMS Hood. The IJN also used British type cordite and suffered similar disasters. The cruiser Tsukuba, pre-dreadnought Mikasa (salvaged and rebuilt), dreadnought Kawachi and the Mutsu. Yamato blew up as she was capsizing much like Barham. Judging by the condition of the wreck the Musashi also blew up as she sank. At least based on an interesting article in Warship 2019, the Japanese issues with exploding ships weren't to do with the powder's 'touchiness' (but the violence was an issue - they all went 'boom' quick enough) but on poor handling and security procedures, combined with a culture that was a bit more pro-suicide than most. However, there were definitely stability issues with the early cordite-type propellants.
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Post by bobert on Aug 19, 2019 17:08:34 GMT -6
But with the flash doors open and charges stacked throughout the turrets for faster firing, wouldn't those ships (Invincible, Queen Mary etc.) have gone up regardless of the powder being used?
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Post by decourcy2 on Aug 20, 2019 17:36:11 GMT -6
Except for the shells they used I find hidden flaws to be a trope rather than having anything to do with actual problems. The German better training was only compared to the battle cruiser fleet run by a incompetent, didn't have a training advantage against the DN fleet. And the British made a conscious choice to keep ammo hoist doors open, or to remove safety features to increase their fire rate. The loss of the BCs at Jutland was do to these decisions and not listening to Fisher who labeled the BCs large armoured cruisers. But, they also brought armoured cruisers to a dreadnaught fight.
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Post by bcoopactual on Aug 21, 2019 9:37:47 GMT -6
Except for the shells they used I find hidden flaws to be a trope rather than having anything to do with actual problems. The German better training was only compared to the battle cruiser fleet run by a incompetent, didn't have a training advantage against the DN fleet. And the British made a conscious choice to keep ammo hoist doors open, or to remove safety features to increase their fire rate. The loss of the BCs at Jutland was do to these decisions and not listening to Fisher who labeled the BCs large armoured cruisers. But, they also brought armoured cruisers to a dreadnaught fight. It wasn't just Beatty and the battlecruiser fleet. After the battle of Dogger Bank, Adm. Jellicoe issued a gunnery order pressing for a higher rate of fire and for commencing fire earlier in the battle. Instructions had to be issued to both fleets (Grand and Battlecruiser) post Jutland that any ship which had removed their flash tight doors should replace them at once. [Source - Norman Friedman's The British Battleship 1906-1946] So both Beatty and Jellicoe are equally culpable for allowing the poor practices to occur. I'm not sure if this was the point you were trying to make or not but if you were making the argument that the problem wasn't the British designs, it was the practices of the sailors in the ships then I entirely agree with you. The captain of HMS Lion (Captain Chatfield) refused to relax magazine regulations and Lion survived a flash fire in one of its turrets during Jutland. This is actually represented in game as well. The increased risk of flash fire caused by the Hidden Flaws trait is associated with the operating nation (UK in an unmodded game since I think they are the only nation with the trait) not the building nation. So a British built ship being operated by a foreign navy effectively doesn't have the Hidden Flaws trait where as a foreign built ship being operated by the Royal Navy would be as susceptible to the problems of the Hidden Flaws traits as a home built one. The tidbits file cut and pasted Fredriks quotes so I'm not sure if this is from one post or two but they are related so I will put them together. I missed the second part when I quoted it in my previous post.
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 21, 2019 15:14:35 GMT -6
But with the flash doors open and charges stacked throughout the turrets for faster firing, wouldn't those ships (Invincible, Queen Mary etc.) have gone up regardless of the powder being used? In the double turret fire on Seydlitz at Dogger Bank, flash actually reached the magazines and powder in the magazine did ignite, but only bagged powder outside of the magazine cases. IIRC part of the powder for each round for Seydlitz's guns was bagged, and part was in a cartridge. None of the bagged powder still in its case ignited, nor did any cartridge powder. It's a good bet, though, that this would not have been the case with British powder, and Seydlitz would have been lost. EDIT: On the other hand, in the case of a full shell/bomb penetrating directly to the magazine and detonating there, as with Hood or Arizona, the detonation of the entire magazine is assured, regardless of the powder used.
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Post by decourcy2 on Aug 23, 2019 15:55:39 GMT -6
Those were both excellent posts, I guess you are correct and it is WAD. I just get annoyed when I talk to armchair historians who feel British ships were designed horribly.
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 23, 2019 17:10:56 GMT -6
Those were both excellent posts, I guess you are correct and it is WAD. I just get annoyed when I talk to armchair historians who feel British ships were designed horribly. Well, pre-Jutland, they really were. AI BCs built along British lines in RTW pop routinely without the hidden flaws trait, and, from a more real-world perspective, even if better powder handling and better powder prevented turret fires from spreading to the magazines, or taking hold when they reached the magazines, they were still vulnerable to Hood-style direct magazine penetrations, which, as I noted above, would be unsurvivable with any powder. And the pre-Jutland British BCs, unlike Hood, were underarmored in their own day. A common excuse made for the British BCs is that Fisher never intended for them to fight other capital ships, but even so, he should have expected other nations to copy the concept and that his BCs would have to fight other BCs, and realized that 6" or 9" of protection against 11", 12", and heavier guns is quite the gamble to take with a ship of that tonnage. But that, I guess, falls more under "overt flaws" than "hidden flaws".
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Post by bobert on Aug 23, 2019 18:36:30 GMT -6
I think Fisher was thinking about protecting Britain's overseas trade from raiders and cruisers with the Invincibles, not battling ships of their own kind. Falklands was definitely proof of concept. Of course once German cruisers were gone from the high seas their lack of heavy armour became glaring in a fleet battle. But the Lions and Tiger seem like well balanced ships.
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Post by decourcy2 on Aug 23, 2019 19:19:14 GMT -6
And you are using hindsight glasses; shortly before WW1 Fisher, IIRC, helped get rid of pike drills. The last naval fights had been at close range with flat trajectory guns. Fisher, in 1904, not realizing combat was going to be at ranges that were unheard of when he was a cadet are forgivable in my eyes.
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Post by bobert on Aug 23, 2019 20:50:15 GMT -6
I can't think of anyone who saw the future of naval warfare as well as Fisher. I'm sure he would have been a huge proponent of carriers interwar.
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 23, 2019 22:57:33 GMT -6
And you are using hindsight glasses; shortly before WW1 Fisher, IIRC, helped get rid of pike drills. The last naval fights had been at close range with flat trajectory guns. Fisher, in 1904, not realizing combat was going to be at ranges that were unheard of when he was a cadet are forgivable in my eyes. I never said anything about range, and, in fact it was vertical protection where the British battlecruisers were lacking, which would mean they would have been most vulnerable at the ranges where previous engagements had taken place. And Fisher's problem wasn't failing to anticipate the ranges at which future combat would take place; that trend was a large part of the rationale behind his ideas. His problem was that he worked out what the effect of his designs on existing fleets would be, but not what would happen when the rest of the world started building similar ships.
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Post by axe99 on Aug 25, 2019 16:16:57 GMT -6
And you are using hindsight glasses; shortly before WW1 Fisher, IIRC, helped get rid of pike drills. The last naval fights had been at close range with flat trajectory guns. Fisher, in 1904, not realizing combat was going to be at ranges that were unheard of when he was a cadet are forgivable in my eyes. There's a fair bit of evidence that Fisher was thinking of trade protection when he pushed the BC. My main impression of this is from Friedman's Network-Centric Warfare, which talks about Fisher's concept of using BCs as the core of a BC and scouting cruiser line to protect trade.
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