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Post by ccip on Jul 22, 2015 17:52:54 GMT -6
I'd also be cautious with that on the early ships - later battleships indeed did get rid of them, but at the start of the game they can be a handy trump card, because basically you don't have effective gun armament for the first few years of the game. With battleships it might be possible to justify deleting them, but with cruisers I'd definitely recommend keeping a pair of tubes because they will often end up in situations where they can use them. In fact, up until the second half of the campaign, I'd say cruisers account for about as many torpedo kills as destroyers.
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Post by brucesim2003 on Jul 22, 2015 17:58:04 GMT -6
I just find the risks and vulnerabilities are just not worth the payoff. Still, that's the point of the game: try out different things and see what works. Practically every S&I battle I've played ends up in SOMEONE getting hit in the torpedo room. As I see it, it the torpedo room isn't there, it cant be hit. The counter to it of course is that I tend to build LOTS of destroyers. Why have 10 when 50 will do. Cheers Bruce
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Post by elouda on Jul 22, 2015 17:58:04 GMT -6
I'd also be cautious with that on the early ships - later battleships indeed did get rid of them, but at the start of the game they can be a handy trump card, because basically you don't have effective gun armament for the first few years of the game. With battleships it might be possible to justify deleting them, but with cruisers I'd definitely recommend keeping a pair of tubes because they will often end up in situations where they can use them. In fact, up until the second half of the campaign, I'd say cruisers account for about as many torpedo kills as destroyers. Agreed - I also advice switching the underwater ones for deck tubes as soon as you can. Doing this I was able to give some of my CLs a new life in the late 1910s - these started off in 1908 as 27 knot, 8 x 6in CLs with two underwater tubes, and when the deck tubes became available, traded a pair of 6in guns and the submerged tubes for the deck ones. Very impressed with the result as a night-combatant;
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Post by brucesim2003 on Jul 22, 2015 18:01:27 GMT -6
I see you are using single mounts....I've been experimenting with twin 6" fore, aft, port and starboard on my CL's. Seems to work fine till superfiring arrives.
Cheers
Bruce
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Post by ccip on Jul 22, 2015 18:07:08 GMT -6
Also to echo what you said, I totally agree - this wouldn't be half the game that it is if you couldn't make a decision and experiment with the possibilities. I've been going the other way with my later cruisers myself... ...but I have to admit that it hasn't paid off so far, mostly because the AI keeps them out of torpedo range most of the time. I suspect someday they'll have their moment!
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Post by elouda on Jul 22, 2015 18:14:55 GMT -6
Also to echo what you said, I totally agree - this wouldn't be half the game that it is if you couldn't make a decision and experiment with the possibilities. I've been going the other way with my later cruisers myself... ...but I have to admit that it hasn't paid off so far, mostly because the AI keeps them out of torpedo range most of the time. I suspect someday they'll have their moment! Out of curiousity, how fast is that and what year is it? It seems a very hefty CL for such relatively light (apart from the torpedoes) weaponry.
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Post by ccip on Jul 22, 2015 18:19:53 GMT -6
Late game (1920-21); it runs 29kt, thus the heftiness. It was built specifically as a torpedo warfare cruiser, with everything else secondary - but it still works well enough as a fleet scout, as long as it's mixed with some 6in cruisers that can drive away the heavier enemy scouts.
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tc27
Junior Member
Posts: 68
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Post by tc27 on Jul 23, 2015 2:41:30 GMT -6
Strangely enough I have found the Torpedo batteries really useful on the early Bs mainly as Elouda says for finishing off crippled opponents (particularly as early gunnery is so impotent)
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Post by eisenengel on Jul 23, 2015 2:53:56 GMT -6
I'm not denying there historical accuracy, I just have a severe aversion to having a huge, vulnerable compartment below the waterline. In all honesty, they weren't effective on capital ships at all....I guess I'm using a bit of 20/20 hindsight. Cheers Bruce I do the same, honestly. Plus you only get to use them if you are going less than 20 knots, which I am proud to say most of my ships would never do. The only purpose they serve is to annoy me when a crippled enemy ship decides to put one into my ship when it closes for the kill, turning what was a clear victory into a draw or a defeat. As a matter of course, survivors from such ships are not rescued.
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Post by elouda on Jul 23, 2015 3:09:27 GMT -6
I do the same, honestly. Plus you only get to use them if you are going less than 20 knots, which I am proud to say most of my ships would never do. The only purpose they serve is to annoy me when a crippled enemy ship decides to put one into my ship when it closes for the kill, turning what was a clear victory into a draw or a defeat. As a matter of course, survivors from such ships are not rescued. Its 25 knots for underwater tubes, so its not that bad. If it was 20, then I agree they would be much less useful.
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sage2
Junior Member
Posts: 56
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Post by sage2 on Jul 23, 2015 16:49:56 GMT -6
I do the same, honestly. Plus you only get to use them if you are going less than 20 knots, which I am proud to say most of my ships would never do. The only purpose they serve is to annoy me when a crippled enemy ship decides to put one into my ship when it closes for the kill, turning what was a clear victory into a draw or a defeat. As a matter of course, survivors from such ships are not rescued. Its 25 knots for underwater tubes, so its not that bad. If it was 20, then I agree they would be much less useful. Do regular tubes have a launch speed limit?
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Post by elouda on Jul 23, 2015 19:34:56 GMT -6
Its 25 knots for underwater tubes, so its not that bad. If it was 20, then I agree they would be much less useful. Do regular tubes have a launch speed limit? Not that I've seen referenced anywhere, and 34 knot destroyers certainly seem happy to fling them at that speeds.
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Post by ccip on Jul 23, 2015 19:49:04 GMT -6
Yeah, I think the only restriction is on the mount positioning (limits on centerline/wing mounts depending on type and tonnage).
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Post by gornik on Jul 24, 2015 14:13:05 GMT -6
Some new designs: Legacy battlecruiser? Why not? Kaiserin Augusta was built at 1899 as her 3 sisters and was at first line for 25 years, fighting and winning countless battles. Light cruisers? Pair of armoured cruisers? Single predreadnought? She may deal with all them in same time before her ammo is out (200 shells per gun). And enemies may only pray for golden shell or torpedo. She was built by the price of battleship, but that worth all money. Ideal legacy raider? Here it is! three Forban-class cruisers had decent speed for 1900, and their guns may deal even with CA, especially after invention of good AP shells and firing control. Forban's largest prey was Japanese armoured cruiser 12000 ton large with 9 inch guns. Good addition to her usual merchant diet! You want to build average dreadnought in 1904, but still only 3 centerline turrets invented? Add more boosters powerful secondaries! Charles Martell may fight with two predreads at once and overgun both of them! And only imagine, what 10-inch shell may do with destroyer stupid enough to attack this French madness fortress!
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Post by ccip on Jul 26, 2015 3:02:11 GMT -6
Oh wow, I really like the Kaiserin Augusta idea of the two end-on turrets, I'll have to try that - that's practically a dreadnought before its time. Very cool! *** Meanwhile, here is a study in modern CA design - I think like a lot of players, I've been finding CAs very useful. This one's basically a series that began in 1913, and I hadn't built a battlecruiser since. Because of how blazingly fast these are, they have more than proven themselves. This was actually a stock design suggested by the game that I altered just slightly by beefing up the guns. I originally built the Aso class to specifically hunt down and kill enemy raiders, but it's more than proven itself in fleet roles, although would often take some very heavy hits from the enemy line. The problem carried over into the successor class... Which was basically the same ship, but blown up to 20,000t and nearly twice as heavily armed. To address its tendency to take nasty hits from enemy guns, the Tokiwa was substantially more armored And finally this - a drop down in armament, but so blazingly fast that it now has no weak points as a fleet scout either, and is very unlikely to get taken out of action by an errant shot. Interestingly, none of these "killer cruisers" was lost, despite participating in as many as 4 fleet battles. They're probably way too extravagantly expensive for what they are, but they've done so well in combat that I can't help but love these. Funny enough, my enemies immediately started building the same sorts of ships for themselves, so I had to have more of them. *** And, for something different, here is my "ultimate" all-around fleet CL design for late in the game: It's not outstanding at anything at particular, but can do everything that could possibly be required of a CL pretty well - scouting, raiding, minelaying, hunting down raiders, taking out DDs, launching torpedoes. It's a bad idea for it to go taking heavy hits, but nothing on it will be easily knocked out by splinters. The 3in guns are very improved and therefore would probably put up an excellent hail of fire against any approaching DD, and would hypothetically work as AA guns too
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