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Post by babylon218 on Aug 13, 2017 16:32:01 GMT -6
Just one thing about the side profile: The funnels are a little short: the crew on the mainmast and searchlight platform are gonna get lungfuls of smoke. The foremast is also a bit tall, but I think that's more a personal aesthetics thing then anything else (I also have a thing for tripods over pole masts). Otherwise, a really nice design! If you don't mind my asking, why 14" guns? I would have thought 12" would have been more than enough for a colonial guardship.
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Post by cv10 on Aug 13, 2017 17:01:47 GMT -6
That is a very cool ship design cv10 . Thanks!
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Post by cv10 on Aug 13, 2017 17:38:36 GMT -6
Just one thing about the side profile: The funnels are a little short: the crew on the mainmast and searchlight platform are gonna get lungfuls of smoke. The foremast is also a bit tall, but I think that's more a personal aesthetics thing then anything else (I also have a thing for tripods over pole masts). Otherwise, a really nice design! If you don't mind my asking, why 14" guns? I would have thought 12" would have been more than enough for a colonial guardship. That's a good point about the funnels, I went in and added extensions to them to help my searchlight crews and lookouts have healthy lungs. The main point of such a tall foremast was so that the flag could be seen even if the rest of ship was obscured (we must impress upon the colonials that the Union Flag is always in sight!), plus in a pinch, it makes a great sniper's nest (provided the swells are not rocking the ship). I forgot to explain in my original post: the rear bridge facing aft was to be used by the boat officer to oversee the proper lowering away of the boats and disembarkation of the men. The reason I went with 14 inch guns was that by the point at which they were launched, I wasn't sure if 12 inch guns could adequately penetrate enemy belt armor (the 14s could punch through 16 inches at 15000 yards, 12s could only go through 12 inches). To be sure, I had no intention of using them to take on enemy battleships, but best to be prepared if something came up. It worked out, as two of them sank a french battlecruiser.
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Post by Airy W on Aug 13, 2017 18:36:06 GMT -6
You could also scrap all the landing craft and turn it into a hybrid flattop.
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Post by cv10 on Aug 13, 2017 20:37:57 GMT -6
You could also scrap all the landing craft and turn it into a hybrid flattop. Integrated air cover for amphibious forces/shore parties, now there's an idea. Gentlemen, to the drawing board!
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Post by generalvikus on Aug 20, 2017 3:21:28 GMT -6
Hey guys, I'm new to the forums and immensely proud that I finally have good cause to post in this thread! Today I started my second proper playthrough, which like my first (which has been put on hiatus in 1914) is being played as the United States with small fleet size. It's January 1904 and I have just come out of my first war, with Germany. No songs will be written about this war on either side - it was really a pathetically one - sided affair, during which the only ship - to - ship actions consisted of my armoured cruisers mopping up enemy convoys, which the Germans had seen fit to escort with their 200 ton minesweepers. No German ship larger than a destroyer was ever encountered in battle. There was, however one ship that fought in this war whose actions are worthy of praise: This is the USS Raleigh, a protected cruiser commissioned in 1902 as the first and only ship of its class. It is, in every way, a rather unremarkable early cruiser design - completely standard armour, middling top speed, and fair armament. As far as I know, it surpasses most existing AI designs to - date, with an above average tonnage and price tag to match, but it was by no means expected to do great things. It was designed as a general purpose cruiser for fleet and cruiser actions, with sufficient speed to function as a suitable raider for the first few years of the game. Several months into the war, it was sent alone to raid German shipping in Northern European waters, and consistently managed to sink enemy ships every month without once being bought to battle by the German home fleet - such as it was. As the war was going very badly for the Germans after the first few months, unrest began to rapidly rise, with strikes and demonstrations breaking out throughout 1903. Eventually, I got a notification that Germany was experiencing food shortages due to raiding - evidently, the Germans hadn't been eating much in the first place. Just a few months after that message, the German government collapsed in revolution, the Kaiser was forced to abdicate, and the new government signed a Carthaginian Peace. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the USS Raleigh - in a war with no major battles, I have now credited it with single-handedly overthrowing the German government! Not bad for a little ship! I like to think that if Hitler comes to power in about twenty year's time and manages to get his revenge on a US government grown complacent by the ease of its early success, he will have the armistice signed on the bridge of this ship - and then blow it up.
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Post by ranger9000 on Oct 24, 2017 1:25:30 GMT -6
Aiming for both the Ugliest, and one of the better ship designs I ever made. Allow me to present a treaty limited cruiser that may or may not burn out your eyes. The Nisshin Class (1917 Fit) And its sister class designed and built at the same time. The much less ugly Kasuga class (1914 Fit as they were going through refits in 1917 to get Directors) I got hit with a rather painful 13,200 tonnage limit and nothing bigger then 8 inches, that lasted for 108 months (it kept getting extended.) It resulted in alot of madness for the AI ships, but these two classes actually served with me into the late game, and earned themselves a number of refits to keep them functional. By the end I had squeezed 32 knots out of the Nisshins and 28 out of the Kasugas which allowed them to be fairly solid raiders and support ships. At the time the treaty ended due to a war with the USA they were my main Capital ships, with only two 1899 Bs and a single 19,000 1907 BB that had squeaked out 2 or 3 months before the treaty hit. The Nisshin and its two sister ships racked up a very impressive kill count with those massed 7 inch guns. Slaughtering rival cruisers and destroyers in equal measure. They even claimed one US BB during the initial sneak attack by setting it on fire multiple times. Later on my general firing strategy switched to full HE shell use against bigger vessels and they turned into flamethrowers that burned out a number of ships into hulks. Out of the 5 Nisshins and 6 Kasugas I ended up building, only one Nisshin (IJN Asama) and two Kasugas (IJN Kasuga and IJN Tokiwa) were sunk by 1950 and Tokiwa was lost to a submarine. The other two were lost in gunfights with various BCs during anti-raider work.
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Post by dorn on Oct 31, 2017 13:06:48 GMT -6
There you can find 2 classes of heavy cruiser. I had situation in 1915 that I had colonies around the wordld except North and South Americ including Finland. I had 3 old armored cruisers and 6 old protected cruisers which were no more usefull and refit was too expensive and almost costs new ship. So my only usable force was 3 new light cruisers launched in 1909-1910. There were still top class and tougher than most of enemy light cruisers but 3 was not sufficient. I was in situation to build several cruisers that can fight enemy cruisers and even when they would be attacked by large numbers. Another request was that these ships need to be cheap. So I designed 2 classes of heavy cruisers. They fight quite well, none of them was sunk even in several occasions they were heavily damaged. But they can take even 3 light cruisers and still was cheaper. A built 2 of both classes than in 1920 I continued with modern light cruisers Furutaka class30 knots 3x2x8" guns with +1 quality, long range for better interception and 4" turret armor against 6" guns of light cruisers. Still they costs less than 40 M and monthly maintanence costs were 211k. Designed in 9/1916 and launched in 1918. Aoba classSome as Furutaka but a little better belt armor, torpedo protection and only medium range to save money. Costs of 36 M and monthly 195k was quite cheap. They were very succesfull ships and very cheap so cost effective. They were lucky not to met any new Italian heavy cruisers which were 14.000 tons, had 8x9" guns and 31 knots.
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Post by boomboomf22 on Nov 1, 2017 0:49:14 GMT -6
Ah the classic heavy cruiser with all of it's issues once it starts getting shot at by contemporary's.
Those are pretty nice designs for a tonnage minimizing design. Heck I have build less capable designs on a third more tonnage before.
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Post by eserchie on Nov 1, 2017 1:53:37 GMT -6
The Poltava Class Dreadnaught. A truly, truly terrible design for a ship. Except when it's 1908, in a 60% Tech game, and Russia has five of them in service. and the only other dreadnaught in the world is... This thing, which was started significantly later, but beat them to the water by three months. Britain responded by ordering four of... ...these, and a 24kton BB, which I haven't seen the details of yet, but is rumoured to carry 13" guns. (Invincible launched Mar 1909) Neither country even had central firing yet when the ships hit the water. Hilariously, when I designed the Poltava, I tried to build her in a British yard, to see if I could squeeze an extra knot from their larger yards and better tech. Great britain yard size at the time was 24kton (32 by time poltava launched) They didn't have V turrets. or Central firing. or Three centre-line turrrets. Somehow, Russia became world leaders in ship design overnight. I planned to take advantage of my new-found chance to 'win' the dreadnaught race by building a pair at an accelerated schedule, and laid down the first. The second was going to be laid down the next month, as the next of my expensive armoured cruisers cleared the balance sheet. The rest would be put on hold to grab this chance. Next month rolls around. "The Tsar demands we build three additional Battleships!" whelp, guess It's a class of four. Accelerate two, scrap all the cruisers on the ways to grab a little extra cash, and hope I don't plough into the red before the tsar is satisfied with progress enough that I can get away with halting one of the BBs intermittently. Next Month. "$50,000,000 has been raised to finance...." Hahahahaha! five battleships, three now on accelerated pace. I had to mothball and scrap some existing ships, and cancel all other building, but by mid 1908 Russia had five dreadnaughts and the rest of the world put together had.... one. Two years later, and Russia still has two thirds of the worlds supply by tonnage. Unfortuanatly, Unrest is High, funds are in the red, we're at war with france (and losing), and there is no real hope of building a successor class in a hurry. And Russia's docks haven't grown in the meantime, while everyone elses has. And I'm paying about three and a half million a month maintaining the existing five, from a 25 million budget.
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Post by boomboomf22 on Nov 1, 2017 3:50:41 GMT -6
Okay... I'm curious how bad is your weight saving tech? Cause I am playing a 80% game and just built basically the same thing in 1907 at 22,300 tons and 23kts... less turret armor tho.
Personally i would not have scrapped the building ships, just put them on hold and mothballed and reserve fleeted lots of stuff. It is just to me that the amount of cash from scrapping, especially building stuff just isn't worth the wasted money from those partially built ships. (note: I do advocate scrapping horribly obsolete ships tho)
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Post by aeson on Nov 1, 2017 11:31:20 GMT -6
I usually only include main battery guns on my protected cruisers, but I decided to experiment a bit in a 'silly' game and came up with this (well, not quite; this is after the 1903 refit for central firing) for the legacy fleet: I built 8 (I think) of them and only lost one before retiring the class from service in the late 1910s. They were the only second class (general-purpose fleet) cruisers in my fleet until 1913, when my first light cruisers started entering service. They lingered on in the fleet without refit for a few more years while I built up a sufficiently large force of light cruisers to be comfortable withdrawing the Zafreph class from service. Due in part to a rather late development of secondary directors, the 1903 refit was the only refit I ever gave them, but even so they performed acceptably well in their last war, seeing action against French cruisers in 1917-1918. I also decided to experiment a bit with third class raiding cruisers in that game, which lead to these: This is in the 1913 refit configuration, which reduced the armament from 8x1 5" AFGHIJKY to 6x1 5" AFHIKY, added cross-deck fire, and increased the speed from 23 to 26 knots. Surprisingly, these actually sunk a couple of cruisers in the 4000-5000t range (including one 4800t 2x1 6" + 6x1 4" 28kn cruiser with what the Almanac said was a 3" belt) during raider interception battles in the late-1910s war against France, and despite their advanced age, thin skins, and low (for the late 1910s) speed only two were lost, both after being brought back to the Mediterranean to clear the * status. All surviving ships of the class except for the one pictured were scrapped in the early 1920s after the end of the war with France, with this one going into mothballs as a 'museum ship.' With these events, you have a six-turn grace period to lay down the ships, counting from the turn before the event popped up - so if it's June when you hit 'end turn' and a "build me a battleship" event comes up in the interturn, you can lay down ships as late as December without failing the construction requirement. Of course, that means that you need to remember to lay down the ships within that six-turn period, which I don't always do, especially if for some reason I had to take a break from the game for a while between the event firing and becoming ready to build the ships.
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Post by eserchie on Nov 1, 2017 14:30:41 GMT -6
Okay... I'm curious how bad is your weight saving tech? Cause I am playing a 80% game and just built basically the same thing in 1907 at 22,300 tons and 23kts... less turret armor tho. Personally i would not have scrapped the building ships, just put them on hold and mothballed and reserve fleeted lots of stuff. It is just to me that the amount of cash from scrapping, especially building stuff just isn't worth the wasted money from those partially built ships. (note: I do advocate scrapping horribly obsolete ships tho) Before construction of the Poltava's? I don't think I had any . Maybe a few from machinery development, which was on high, and a single armor weight saver. Russia tends to be bad at research. launched 1907 or laid down? Because the Poltava's were laid down 1905. I got very lucky with picking up 3 centerline turrets, superimposed V, wing turrets and central firing in my first dozen or so techs. As of Nov 1909, can build a 23kt ship with 8 13" broadside and same armour / secondaries fro about 22k. I put the ships on hold and mothballs to start with, and only scrapped ships progressively starting with the worst when it came down to three choices - scrap something for cash, put a dread on hold, or run balance into the red in peacetime. Option two would have been the smartest, but having such a ridiculous edge in BB tonnage as one of the poorer nations was too much to give up. It's probably going to cost me the war with france though. They decline every battle that might feature battleships, and my cruiser fleet was inferior to theirs before I gutted it, so i have been getting spanked in those and raider battles. I don't have quite enough edge to blockade them, and their AMC's and light cruiser raiders keep adding steadily to their VPs. If I do win, though, I could now lay down a 25kton BB with 23kt speed, medium range and four improved triple turrets. Just need directors and it would pass for a 1920s ship. I'm curious as to how long I could keep Russia ahead of the US and Britain in this race.
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Post by archelaos on Nov 1, 2017 15:44:41 GMT -6
Before construction of the Poltava's? I don't think I had any . Maybe a few from machinery development, which was on high, and a single armor weight saver. Russia tends to be bad at research. launched 1907 or laid down? Because the Poltava's were laid down 1905. I got very lucky with picking up 3 centerline turrets, superimposed V, wing turrets and central firing in my first dozen or so techs. As of Nov 1909, can build a 23kt ship with 8 13" broadside and same armour / secondaries fro about 22k. I put the ships on hold and mothballs to start with, and only scrapped ships progressively starting with the worst when it came down to three choices - scrap something for cash, put a dread on hold, or run balance into the red in peacetime. Option two would have been the smartest, but having such a ridiculous edge in BB tonnage as one of the poorer nations was too much to give up. It's probably going to cost me the war with france though. They decline every battle that might feature battleships, and my cruiser fleet was inferior to theirs before I gutted it, so i have been getting spanked in those and raider battles. I don't have quite enough edge to blockade them, and their AMC's and light cruiser raiders keep adding steadily to their VPs. If I do win, though, I could now lay down a 25kton BB with 23kt speed, medium range and four improved triple turrets. Just need directors and it would pass for a 1920s ship. I'm curious as to how long I could keep Russia ahead of the US and Britain in this race. That's why I prefer BCs to BBs as a poorer nation - they can appear in cruiser battles and will dominate them, while BBs are of no use if enemy do not want to fight a Fleet Battle. Besides, I believe having good cruisers is extremely important to winning wars. If the French are not willing to fight, maybe you could put one or two of your BBs in reserve? If you believe you can win (or sink a few big ships and flee) with less ships than you have at hand it is often effective way to drag enemy to battle, as AI is not likely to engage if it do not have the slightest chance to win.
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Post by boomboomf22 on Nov 1, 2017 17:01:19 GMT -6
eserchie: Just booted up the game, so they were finished in 1911/12, which with the budget wrangling I had to do in the early game meant they were laid down in 1907ish. (the first Imperator Nikolai I had a 45 month build time). So fairness my tech was way better than yours. I had steam turbines. archelaos: the thing is as Russia you have trouble (at least I find) building worthwhile BCs compared to BBs, simply because how bad your engine weight-saving tech usually is. Heck I only went for 23kts because my allies the brits had sold me 4 engine techs in 5 months.
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