Should This Game Actually Start in like . . . 1890 or 1885?

[anthropoid]

Given the techs, designs, colonial dispositions, budgets, relations and all: shouldn't this game really pretty much begin in like 1890 or maybe even 1885? I'm no naval history expert, but I keep seeing references to things on wiki which are techs or designs that are acquired at least a while after game start (at least for Germany the only position I've played) but apparently had existed already as early as the 1890s.


Maybe GB and USA start with some of these techs already and that is what accounts for it?


For example, Krupp Armor
, Armor Level 1:

Krupp armour was a type of steel armour used in the construction of capital ships starting shortly before the end of the nineteenth century. It was developed by Germany's Krupp Arms Works in 1893 and quickly replaced Harvey armour as the primary method of protecting naval ships, before itself being supplanted by the improved Krupp cemented armour

Lyddite Bursting Charge
, Explosive Shells Level 1:

British explosive shells filled with Lyddite were initially designated "common lyddite" and beginning in 1896 were the first British generation of modern "high explosive" shells. Lyddite is picric acid fused at 280 °F and allowed to solidify, producing a much denser dark-yellow form which is not affected by moisture and is easier to detonate than the liquid form. Its French equivalent was "melinite", Japanese equivalent was "shimose".

Submarines and torpedoes

The submarine became a potentially viable weapon with the development of the Whitehead torpedo, designed in 1866 by British engineer Robert Whitehead, the first practical self-propelled or 'locomotive' torpedo.[20] The spar torpedo that had been developed earlier by the Confederate States Navy was considered to be impracticable, as it was believed to have sunk both its intended target, and probably H. L. Hunley, the submarine that deployed it.



Discussions between the English clergyman and inventor George Garrett and the Swedish industrialist Thorsten Nordenfelt led to the first practical steam-powered submarines, armed with torpedoes and ready for military use. The first was Nordenfelt I, a 56-tonne, 19.5-metre (64 ft) vessel similar to Garrett's ill-fated Resurgam (1879), with a range of 240 kilometres (130 nmi; 150 mi), armed with a single torpedo, in 1885.



A reliable means of propulsion for the submerged vessel was only made possible in the 1880s with the advent of the necessary electric battery technology. The first electrically powered boats were built by Isaac Peral y Caballero in Spain (who built Peral), Dupuy de Lôme (who built Gymnote) and Gustave Zédé (who built Sirène) in France, and James Franklin Waddington (who built Porpoise) in England.[21] Peral's design featured torpedoes and other systems that later became standard in submarines.

"All" (or at least Mostly" Big Gun "Dreadnoughts"
If I play as Japan or GB maybe I'll see things differently, but based on what Japan brought to the table in the war we fought I'm guessing that in game that position isn't really in a position to get the designs some of the designs they used at Tsushima? Can Britain build something along the lines of HMS Dreadnought by 1905 or so?

[wlbjork]

Yes, a number of techs could be available earlier than occurs in-game, tough exactly when can be tricky.

For example, Germany built ships using Krupp Armour from 1893, but other nations were still using Harvey Armour as late as 1898, the technology wasn't adopted that rapidly.

With regards to submarines, it isn't just a case of building such vessels, but those ships being practical war ships. It took until 1896 for Holland to develop the forerunner of the modern submarine, Holland VI, plus such vessels were very different in construction to surface vessels, so took longer to build initially.

HMS Dreadnought is buildable by 1905 if the technology tree pans out. The required technologies are:
3 Centreline Turrets
Main Battery Wing Guns
Steam Turbines
Central Firing
9ft Rangefinder
Automatic Range Transmitter
Mechanical Fire Control Computer

Strictly, it should also have Plotting Tables, which aren't available until 1908, and Extended Double Bottom, which isn't available until 1910. However, it isn't just when the technology was invented/first used but also widely adopted/useable.

[oldpop2000]

I think it is difficult to put a firm date on the start of modern naval warfare and that is what the team faced when designing the two RTW games. Most naval historians put the start of modern naval warfare as the Civil war. This is due to the use of steam powered ships with screw propulsion, armor using iron, and more powerful guns although they were muzzle loaders in most cases with black powder. The war also saw the introduction of the turreted gun. However, I don't subscribe to that idea. The Civil War naval actions were riverine, except for the naval blockade which the South, in fact never really challenged. They did have one or two raiders like the Alabama but that does not mean this was modern naval warfare. It was a transition era, but not the start.

I believe that modern naval warfare began during the Sino-Japanese war of 1894 especially the Battle of the Yalu River. The next modern set of naval battles would be during the Spanish-American war at Manila Bay and Santiago De Cuba. After this the next modern naval battles would be during the Russo-Japanese war. There were others like the wars by Italy, Bulgaria, and the Greeks against the Ottoman's in 1913.

The real beginning would be, of course, WW1. This was where all the new technological innovations were applied. This was the war where strategic and tactical innovations also played an important part.

If we average the dates of the Sino-Japanese and Spanish-American wars with the Russo-Japanese war, then we arrive at around 1899 for the average date. So, 1900 is a very good starting point.

Technology does drive naval warfare as it does land warfare. However, navies and armies must adapt their strategy, operations and tactics to these new innovations and inventions. To me, when this occurs, then a new era of warfare has begun.

One point: the first British warship to use Krupp armor was the HMS Canopus. She was commissioned on 5 December 1899. This would also be a key to the 1900 date. For the German's, I believe it was the SMS Friedrich Carl commissioned in 1903.

Although Whitehead did invent the self-guided torpedo in 1866, it was his son John who, at the turn of the century, added the gyroscope to turn that weapon into the world first self-guided missile. That is 1900.

Just my sentiments.

[stevethecat]

Personally as a history nerd I would love a earlier start, essentially at the birth of the pre-dreads which is kind of around 1890. Although give how frustrating early game can be in terms of low accuracy(*) and speed I might be amongst the few in regards to wanting to get into the swing of things a bit earlier.



*With the exception of the US who develop satellite guided homing shells in 1901.

[oldpop2000]

I would support a third version of RTW starting in the late 1860's and moving towards 1900. This could be an addition that you could start at that point or not.

[anthropoid]

Oh YES. An RTW 3 (or DLC or whatever) starting immediately after American Civil War would be SO SWEET. The transition from wood and sail to steel and steam is something which I think was already partly underway by that time, but not yet fully completed right? It would neat to play a game (besides Civilization!) with wooden or armored sailing ships with sail and/or steam motors AND ironclads, AND pre-dreads. Maybe even throw in some Quinqueremes . .

[trenton59]

A start in ~1860 would be nice, but I imagine the furthest back you could push the start without reworking a large part of the engine would be ~1880-1890 so as to avoid needing to handle sailing ships too much.

[axe99]

I think the 1900 start works well - if it goes back much earlier, then the ship design engine has to cope with the range of quite exotic designs that occurred between the 1860s and 1880s, while the various navies were finding their feet in terms of battleship design. It was only in the late 1880s/early 1990s that designs started to settle on the fore-and-aft turrets with large calibre guns, and the smaller calibre quick-firing guns in support - I've seen the Royal Sovereign class (first of which was completed in May 1892) mentioned as the first of the 'pre-dreadnoughts', and these ships had barbettes instead of turrets (and, as far as I know, the game doesn't have a damage model for the main fore-and-aft guns on a pre-dreadnought being barbettes rather than turrets). So a game starting in 1890 would need to cope with a legacy fleet of turret rams, the older 'turret ships' with their two turrets amidships instead of fore-and-aft, and of iron armour as well as the more modern stuff (which would create it's own UI issues, as the thickest armour by far in the game would be on the legacy ships, which had great wads of iron armour (up to at least 24in thick in the citadel) protection.

If it were to be taken back, then from a 'gameplay curve' perspective, it might be even more interesting going back to 1860, where we see the birth of the ironclad warship, and give players the experience of working their way through all those interesting designs as they find their way to pre-dreadnought and then dreadnought designs. It'd be a heap of extra work though, but if the team wanted to give it a crack, I definitely wouldn't complain

[chaosblade]

problem with a post ACW start is the battle of Lissa and the ram prow fetish that it generated *shudder*

a 1890 start date can avoid the ram prows, more or less

[tbr]

Jan 11, 2020 17:02:27 GMT -6 axe99 said:

I think the 1900 start works well - if it goes back much earlier, then the ship design engine has to cope with the range of quite exotic designs that occurred between the 1860s and 1880s, while the various navies were finding their feet in terms of battleship design. It was only in the late 1880s/early 1990s that designs started to settle on the fore-and-aft turrets with large calibre guns, and the smaller calibre quick-firing guns in support - I've seen the Royal Sovereign class (first of which was completed in May 1892) mentioned as the first of the 'pre-dreadnoughts', and these ships had barbettes instead of turrets (and, as far as I know, the game doesn't have a damage model for the main fore-and-aft guns on a pre-dreadnought being barbettes rather than turrets). So a game starting in 1890 would need to cope with a legacy fleet of turret rams, the older 'turret ships' with their two turrets amidships instead of fore-and-aft, and of iron armour as well as the more modern stuff (which would create it's own UI issues, as the thickest armour by far in the game would be on the legacy ships, which had great wads of iron armour (up to at least 24in thick in the citadel) protection.

If it were to be taken back, then from a 'gameplay curve' perspective, it might be even more interesting going back to 1860, where we see the birth of the ironclad warship, and give players the experience of working their way through all those interesting designs as they find their way to pre-dreadnought and then dreadnought designs. It'd be a heap of extra work though, but if the team wanted to give it a crack, I definitely wouldn't complain

Yes, the 1900 start date avoids needing to face all the issues with legacy ships from before 1890 that would need introduciton of nes game concepts. Our legacy 1900 start date fleet is actually an 1890's fleet that has just gotten rid of the last pre1890 stuff...

[oldpop2000]

Jan 11, 2020 18:13:14 GMT -6 chaosblade said:

problem with a post ACW start is the battle of Lissa and the ram prow fetish that it generated *shudder*

a 1890 start date can avoid the ram prows, more or less

Well, the ram bow or inverted bow was actually used because it increased the length to beam ratio. Engines in the late 19th century could not provide enough power, so they modified the bow and inverted it to gain the necessary speed increase using LtoB. The inverted bow has made a comeback, in the Zumwalt Destroyer class. 

[anthropoid]

Ram bow? Is that like the thing on SMS Brandenburg? I'm no naval architect, so I have no clue what the hydrodynamic implications of such a thing are. But damn that thing is sexy. Bit like a "Retrousse tit" (see r/retroussetit).



Sadly, the "ram" graphic in the profile generator doesn't seem nearly that pronounced

I think Brandenburg class might be my interim favorite, just from a visual appeal standpoint.

ADDIT: for some reason it makes me think "Low Rider" . . .


Which is, of course, completely incongruous for a bunch of highly-disciplined Prussian hair shirts . . .

[rs2excelsior]

No, not a ram-like structure for hydrodynamic purposes, a literal ram meant for, well, ramming enemy ships.

Ram bows had been used on at least a few ships in the American Civil War (such as the CSS Virginia, which rammed and sank USS Cumberland the day before her famous duel with USS Monitor). The Battle of Lissa was fought in 1866 between the Austrian and Italian navies, where several ironclad ships on both sides made ramming attacks on one another as gunfire proved ineffective. This led to navies adding ram bows to their ships for a good while into the 1800s, despite guns getting more powerful and accurate and ramming attacks rarely ever proving successful again.

EDIT: There were ram-like structures to improve hydrodynamics later on, and I think that picture is an example. They weren't meant for literal ramming.

[anthropoid]

Hmmph. Not retroussetit-like at all. More like fembot murder nipples

[aeson]

Jan 12, 2020 8:37:25 GMT -6 rs2excelsior said:

EDIT: There were ram-like structures to improve hydrodynamics later on, and I think that picture is an example. They weren't meant for literal ramming.

Wikipedia indicates that the bow on Brandenburg is in fact a ram bow. I think you're thinking of the bulbous bow, which mostly wasn't adopted until the 1920s and later.