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Post by cabalamat on Mar 17, 2020 1:26:01 GMT -6
I think there should be a new ship type: monitors.
At the same time, there could be a new status of "shore bombardment" or SB. A ship put on SB status will try to conduct short bombardment missions, ideally on a region that is being invaded if there is one in that sea zone. The result of SB missions should help to determine whether the invasion succeeds or not.
Pre-dreadnoughts and slow battleships are ideal for SB missions (and for defending against them), so that would make these types of ships more useful.
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Post by sagaren on Mar 17, 2020 14:17:18 GMT -6
I think there should be a new ship type: monitors.
At the same time, there could be a new status of "shore bombardment" or SB. A ship put on SB status will try to conduct short bombardment missions, ideally on a region that is being invaded if there is one in that sea zone. The result of SB missions should help to determine whether the invasion succeeds or not.
Pre-dreadnoughts and slow battleships are ideal for SB missions (and for defending against them), so that would make these types of ships more useful.
I think this idea has some merit, I'd like to see it kicked around a bit and what people come up with.
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Post by wlbjork on Mar 17, 2020 14:31:48 GMT -6
It has been discussed before, we don't really need a new ship class as it can be covered by existing classes.
However, an increased chance of such ships being allocated to the bombardment role would be nice.
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Post by seawolf on Mar 17, 2020 15:21:38 GMT -6
It has been discussed before, we don't really need a new ship class as it can be covered by existing classes. However, an increased chance of such ships being allocated to the bombardment role would be nice. This is incorrect, I had to use exploits to create the monitors in my mods
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Post by cabalamat on Mar 17, 2020 18:28:37 GMT -6
It has been discussed before, we don't really need a new ship class as it can be covered by existing classes. However, an increased chance of such ships being allocated to the bombardment role would be nice. Maybe there could just be a shore bombarbment (SB) status that ships could be put on. British monitors were given large bulges to prevent against torpedo attacks, so if a ship is put on SB, it will likely get into shore bombardment fights, and might end up having to fight (e.g.) enemy destroyers and therefore be attacked with torpedoes.
This might be a use for old pre-dreadnoughts: fit them with bulges and have them do SB missions. As historically happened at Galipoli.
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Post by wlbjork on Mar 20, 2020 9:55:11 GMT -6
It has been discussed before, we don't really need a new ship class as it can be covered by existing classes. However, an increased chance of such ships being allocated to the bombardment role would be nice. This is incorrect, I had to use exploits to create the monitors in my mods Could have sworn I'd done this before. An expansion of the minimum tonnage of a B-class ship to say 5,000 should suffice, maybe a drop to 8" minimum armament would be needed as well. No new class needed. Once BBs are available, then these Bs can have an increase in priority for the bombardment missions.
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Post by aeson on Mar 20, 2020 12:33:42 GMT -6
I personally feel that the shore bombardment monitor is far too specialized a type of warship to be worth including as a distinct class. A more or less historical shore bombardment monitor is not really suitable for any role other than shore bombardment, but since the game's concept of depth is binary - water is either navigable for everything up to and including a 90,000t superbattleship or supercarrier, or it's not navigable for even so small a vessel as the 50t MTBs of the early MTB squadrons - there's no advantage to using a shallow-draft monitor instead of a deep-draft ocean-going warship with the same caliber main battery, and the deep-draft ocean-going warship likely has considerably more guns. Also, since historical shore bombardment monitors are typically slow (6-16 knots) and not particularly well armored (usually 6" or less belt armor and a couple secondary guns for defense against light littoral craft like PT boats, MTBs, and schnellboote), they'd likely be a serious liability during an opposed bombardment because they're too slow to run (especially problematic later on when land-based air power starts to become a significant concern during bombardment missions) and too light to fight well.
This is incorrect, I had to use exploits to create the monitors in my mods Could have sworn I'd done this before. An expansion of the minimum tonnage of a B-class ship to say 5,000 should suffice, maybe a drop to 8" minimum armament would be needed as well. No new class needed. Once BBs are available, then these Bs can have an increase in priority for the bombardment missions. I believe that the current minimum requirement for a B is 5,100 tons, 7" main battery, 6.5" belt armor, and four secondary guns:
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Post by wlbjork on Mar 21, 2020 12:03:45 GMT -6
Ah, it's that 6.5" belt armour that got me, I was recreating HMS Roberts/Abercrombie from WW2, so only had 4" belt armour. Got that completely wrapped round my neck!
A reduction in armour belt to allow Monitors under the B-classification?
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Post by sagaren on Mar 22, 2020 14:01:47 GMT -6
I personally feel that the shore bombardment monitor is far too specialized a type of warship to be worth including as a distinct class. A more or less historical shore bombardment monitor is not really suitable for any role other than shore bombardment, but since the game's concept of depth is binary - water is either navigable for everything up to and including a 90,000t superbattleship or supercarrier, or it's not navigable for even so small a vessel as the 50t MTBs of the early MTB squadrons - there's no advantage to using a shallow-draft monitor instead of a deep-draft ocean-going warship with the same caliber main battery, and the deep-draft ocean-going warship likely has considerably more guns. Also, since historical shore bombardment monitors are typically slow (6-16 knots) and not particularly well armored (usually 6" or less belt armor and a couple secondary guns for defense against light littoral craft like PT boats, MTBs, and schnellboote), they'd likely be a serious liability during an opposed bombardment because they're too slow to run (especially problematic later on when land-based air power starts to become a significant concern during bombardment missions) and too light to fight well. A fair enough point Aeson. I still think there might be merit in the idea mentioned above by Cabalamat of creating a Shore Bombardment status that you could assign to ships so they consistently show up in a bombardment force, which would ideally leave other units free for supporting roles.
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Post by nobody on May 27, 2020 1:41:45 GMT -6
Could have sworn I'd done this before. An expansion of the minimum tonnage of a B-class ship to say 5,000 should suffice, maybe a drop to 8" minimum armament would be needed as well. No new class needed. Once BBs are available, then these Bs can have an increase in priority for the bombardment missions. I believe that the current minimum requirement for a B is 5,100 tons, 7" main battery, 6.5" belt armor, and four secondary guns: You can also build a Monitor as a CL! Like a single 12" gun on a 2000t hull. Of course such a ship would be basically useless in any other battle as are things now. But being able to assign ship for roles and changing the odds would be nice. "Shore bombardment" sounds like a good step in that regard.
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Post by stevethecat on May 27, 2020 7:53:24 GMT -6
It's not the technical specifics fo the ship that is the issue, yes you can kind of build one if you squint a bit, it's the inability to set roles for ships that is the problem with monitors and other special ship types. The game sees you have a BB so the battle generator picks that BB, it doesn't care that you built it for a different role and any real Admiral wouldn't send it on that assignment.
Build a CL as a minelayer (which themselves don't get close to real ones) and all the game sees is a CL to throw to the wolves that the first opportunity.
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Post by buttons on Jun 23, 2020 16:59:48 GMT -6
It's not the technical specifics fo the ship that is the issue, yes you can kind of build one if you squint a bit, it's the inability to set roles for ships that is the problem with monitors and other special ship types. The game sees you have a BB so the battle generator picks that BB, it doesn't care that you built it for a different role and any real Admiral wouldn't send it on that assignment. I mean this is something that is needed in general. Would be good to not have your obsolete light cruisers go hunting for enemy commerce raiders that can cripple it in three volleys.
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Post by aeson on Jun 23, 2020 19:28:10 GMT -6
I mean this is something that is needed in general. Would be good to not have your obsolete light cruisers go hunting for enemy commerce raiders that can cripple it in three volleys. If you have obsolete light cruisers in your fleet but are entirely unwilling to risk them in combat, why do you have them in the fleet?
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Post by seawolf on Jun 23, 2020 19:42:31 GMT -6
I mean this is something that is needed in general. Would be good to not have your obsolete light cruisers go hunting for enemy commerce raiders that can cripple it in three volleys. If you have obsolete light cruisers in your fleet but are entirely unwilling to risk them in combat, why do you have them in the fleet? Plenty of navies kept around older ships for shore bombardment or escort duties that weren’t intended to face contemporary ships -See all the armored cruisers still around in WWII
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Post by buttons on Jun 23, 2020 20:45:25 GMT -6
I mean this is something that is needed in general. Would be good to not have your obsolete light cruisers go hunting for enemy commerce raiders that can cripple it in three volleys. If you have obsolete light cruisers in your fleet but are entirely unwilling to risk them in combat, why do you have them in the fleet? Presently I don't, I scrap every obsolete ship that isn't a destroyer or on foreign station as soon as new ships come out more or less, by 1910 I tend to have scrapped all of my pre-dreadnoughts and by 1915 all non-destroyer starting ships, however as was mentioned historically such ships remained in service for various roles and it would be nice if we could designate ships to specific roles or relegate them to a general line of service like "second line" and have them mostly carry out lesser tasks like convoy escorting and shore bombardment instead of having a 22 knot light cruiser hunting down heavy cruisers when it could be just escorting transports where its lower speed wouldn't be as much of a liability.
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