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Post by goodpoints on Aug 22, 2015 21:54:34 GMT -6
...specifically pre-1900 legacy ships. I'd like to start off my games with the initial historical fleets, currently trying this with Japan first, but I'm running into some issues. I wonder if anyone might be able to provide some suggestions. First up, I'm trying to replicate the Fuji class Battleship:   So it's way overweight in-game. Even if I make the armor scheme (incorrectly) Protected Cruiser and it's still 1000+ tons over. Some questions and issues: - Did I set up the armor scheme correctly as per the plans? The guns are listed with 14" barbettes and 6" turrets, that would correspond to "turret" and "turret top", yes? As I understand from the manual, the belt armor factor should be the thickest area?
- What exactly is an extended deck? What's the precise definition of a narrow belt or low freeboard?
- The horsepower also does not match the historical class (13500) when I enter the correct speed, does this contribute to engine weight? Is there any way to edit the ratios the game uses?
- As I understand it, centralized fire control didn't emerge until WWI, yet I'm unable to change it to local (is this due to the ship type?)
- No way to specify certain secondary guns as casemated, as only 4 of the Fuji's 6" guns are casemated while the rest are on the deck.
- For secondary gun armor, should gun-shields or barbettes be factored in when the guns are neither casemated or turreted?
- Should guns less than 2" be disregarded? The 14 tertiaries here are 3-pounders (1.85", rounded up)
- Why are some ship types restricted to only submerged torpedo tubes? The Fuji class's bow tube was above the surface while the the 4 broadsides were submerged.
- What are the actual numerical values that are considered short, medium, and long ranges?
- Is there some way to edit the complements? It always seems to be too high.
Any suggestions on how I can make this work? This is kind of troubling because a lot of these issues will also prevent an accurate Mikasa from being designed. I don't yet own SAI: R-J War, how is it modeled in that?
What's the best way to model torpedo boats? They are considered within the scope of the simulation, yes? Yet, designing a Hayabusa class torpedo boat is impossible as the minimum displacement for Destroyer's is 200t, whereas they were 150t. I was really looking forward to experimenting with a more Jeune École IJN. :/
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Post by thecarthaginian on Aug 23, 2015 0:19:39 GMT -6
IIRC, the older pear-shaped barbettes often had thinner backs. Also, the armor on the turret doesn't sound like the top... more like a side or back.
An horsepower and weight calculations get progressively more inaccurate at the extreme ends of the scale. 200t was probably the lowest he could make work in any fashon.
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Post by Fredrik W on Aug 23, 2015 0:54:47 GMT -6
Fuji had Harvey armour, which needs to be recalculated for RTW. 18 should be maybe 10 in. As for the Mikasa, most sources I have seen give a 9 in belt for the Mikasa.
Note though that ship design and weight calculations is an extremely complex subject. RTW is a game, and while it does its utmost to simulate the subject, there are necessarily some simplifications in the calculations and it cannot recreate every historical ship.
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Post by baggers on Aug 23, 2015 0:58:51 GMT -6
The "barbettes" is the Belt under the main turrets: It a 18" belt at his thickness (middle ship?) that go slim 14" under the turrets turrets itselves have only 6" armor, probably no more than 1"-2" top. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuji-class_battleshipAccordingly to the "horse power" of her engines, it's more a 17knots max than a 18knots. Add only a more "historically accurate" 16" belt, and 1" casemated (shielded) secondaries, and you have a valide battleship. |
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Post by galagagalaxian on Aug 23, 2015 0:59:04 GMT -6
Overall, Fuji is a bit too old to have a reasonable facsimile created for it. If you're looking for strict historical accuracy, this game is unfortunately going to disapoint you. You're not gonna be able to build exact replicas of ships for quite a variety of reasons. That 14"-18" belt is definitely what breaks the bank. Did I set up the armor scheme correctly as per the plans? The guns are listed with 14" barbettes and 6" turrets, that would correspond to "turret" and "turret top", yes? As I understand from the manual, the belt armor factor should be the thickest area?
For example, the game just uses a generic "inches" for armor and doesn't differentiate between old Harvey Armor (what the Fuji used), Krupp armor, Krupp-Cemented Armor, or other armor materials. For example statistics claim that 10.2 inches of Krupp Armor could protect just as much as 12" of Harvey armor. In RtW armor research just reduces the weight of the armor, thus you should think of armor levels as "protect against this many inches of penetration" rather than thickness. What exactly is an extended deck? What's the precise definition of a narrow belt or low freeboard?
The manual mentions most of that. A narrow belt doesn't stretch as high above the waterline as a normal armor belt, with the skimped areas counting as extended belt, thus some shots might not hit the main belt and instead hit the extended belt. Extended Deck and Belts are the "Tips" of the ship. The main deck and belt protect the center of the ship, where all the vulnerable things are (ammo stores, steam boilers, engines, etc). The ends of the ship had less critical stuff and thus were typically lighter on protection to save weight. Here is a handy picture that might help explain the armor locations:  Low freeboard is a ship that sit "low' in the water. in game terms they have a strict speed limit of 23(?) knots and perform worse in poor weather due to the ship's inherent instability. They do free up weight though! The horsepower also does not match the historical class (13500) when I enter the correct speed, does this contribute to engine weight? Is there any way to edit the ratios the game uses?
Again, you're not gonna get a perfect replica. As I understand it, centralized fire control didn't emerge until WWI, yet I'm unable to change it to local (is this due to the ship type?)
The game will always use the best fire control system available for new designs. Though I had no trouble using Local. No way to specify certain secondary guns as casemated, as only 4 of the Fuji's 6" guns are casemated while the rest are on the deck.
Unfortunately you can't do that. The ship creator has to simplify some things. For secondary gun armor, should gun-shields or barbettes be factored in when the guns are neither casemated or turreted?
This is already considered. Turreted guns with 2" or less of side/top armor are considered to have gunshields rather than full enclosed turrets (with significant weight savings, a gun with 2" of armor weighs a great deal less than one with 2.5" of armor, but is also less protected than that half-inch might make you think). Should guns less than 2" be disregarded? The 14 tertiaries here are 3-pounders (1.85", rounded up)
The game simplifies gun calibers. I'd consider those 2" guns. Why are some ship types restricted to only submerged torpedo tubes? The Fuji class's bow tube was above the surface while the the 4 broadsides were submerged.
You can effectively consider the Fuji's bow tube "submerged" as it has the same fixed-arc limitations as the submerged tubes. All non-submerged tubes in RtW are swivel mounted on the deck. What are the actual numerical values that are considered short, medium, and long ranges?
There are none. That is a generic simplification. Short range ships cannot be used as raiders, nor can they move between regions during wartime. Meanwhile Long and Extreme range ships are more effective as raiders and less like to have to scuttle or intern in neutral ports in areas where they're not getting friendly base support. Is there some way to edit the complements? It always seems to be too high. Nope. The crew numbers, AFAIK, have no real effect. Anyways, here is a quick crack at creating something as close to the Fuji as I can. This would not be a good pre-dreadnought battleship in Rule the Waves. The protected scheme, while arguably accurate to the ship's design, is horrible for a heavy ship, and the turrets are incredibly thin for a pre-dreadnought. I'd be very worried about this ship blowing up from a magazine flash fire on a turret hit.  |
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Post by hschuster44 on Aug 23, 2015 3:34:22 GMT -6
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Post by goodpoints on Aug 23, 2015 13:45:58 GMT -6
Thank you all for your quick an informative replies. IIRC, the older pear-shaped barbettes often had thinner backs. Also, the armor on the turret doesn't sound like the top... more like a side or back. An horsepower and weight calculations get progressively more inaccurate at the extreme ends of the scale. 200t was probably the lowest he could make work in any fashon. That was my impression as well as far as the barbettes, though I wasn't sure exactly how the thicker front armor should be factored in-game. Since, as I understand it, the barbettes being thickest at the front was due to it facing the weaker bow/stern belt armor. But I suppose that all depends on what the game considered the "turret top". Unfortunately, experimenting with torpedo boats was one of the things I was looking forward to most when I got the game. I would think they might perhaps warrant their own ship type to be able to handle their particulars better. The "barbettes" is the Belt under the main turrets: It a 18" belt at his thickness (middle ship?) that go slim 14" under the turrets turrets itselves have only 6" armor, probably no more than 1"-2" top. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuji-class_battleshipAccordingly to the "horse power" of her engines, it's more a 17knots max than a 18knots. Add only a more "historically accurate" 16" belt, and 1" casemated (shielded) secondaries, and you have a valide battleship. I thought though that that was previously a distinction between "turret ships" vs. "barbette ships", a turret was a rotating fully-enclosed gun shield above the deck (e.g. USS Monitor or HMS Monarch) and a barbette was a stationary topless "wall" containing the gun mount like on the HMS Temeraire:  And then the HMS Majestic combined the two concepts to have a rotating hood on top of a barbette, which became the standard turret. Which you continue to see on the Dreadnought:  So what would the Dreadnought's barbettes be factored into in-game if the "turret" armor factor is only the side-walls of the actual turret? Fuji had Harvey armour, which needs to be recalculated for RTW. 18 should be maybe 10 in. As for the Mikasa, most sources I have seen give a 9 in belt for the Mikasa. Note though that ship design and weight calculations is an extremely complex subject. RTW is a game, and while it does its utmost to simulate the subject, there are necessarily some simplifications in the calculations and it cannot recreate every historical ship. Ah, ok. I wasn't sure if maybe armor improvements were considered automatic by certain years or not. Is there a particular ratio or method that was used for SAI: R-J War for Harvey armor that could be used in RTW ship design? I think though, that I'm just going to purchase SAI and have a look at how it's modeled there. Overall, Fuji is a bit too old to have a reasonable facsimile created for it. If you're looking for strict historical accuracy, this game is unfortunately going to disapoint you. You're not gonna be able to build exact replicas of ships for quite a variety of reasons. That 14"-18" belt is definitely what breaks the bank. Did I set up the armor scheme correctly as per the plans? The guns are listed with 14" barbettes and 6" turrets, that would correspond to "turret" and "turret top", yes? As I understand from the manual, the belt armor factor should be the thickest area?
For example, the game just uses a generic "inches" for armor and doesn't differentiate between old Harvey Armor (what the Fuji used), Krupp armor, Krupp-Cemented Armor, or other armor materials. For example statistics claim that 10.2 inches of Krupp Armor could protect just as much as 12" of Harvey armor. In RtW armor research just reduces the weight of the armor, thus you should think of armor levels as "protect against this many inches of penetration" rather than thickness. What exactly is an extended deck? What's the precise definition of a narrow belt or low freeboard?
The manual mentions most of that. A narrow belt doesn't stretch as high above the waterline as a normal armor belt, with the skimped areas counting as extended belt, thus some shots might not hit the main belt and instead hit the extended belt. Extended Deck and Belts are the "Tips" of the ship. The main deck and belt protect the center of the ship, where all the vulnerable things are (ammo stores, steam boilers, engines, etc). The ends of the ship had less critical stuff and thus were typically lighter on protection to save weight. Here is a handy picture that might help explain the armor locations: Low freeboard is a ship that sit "low' in the water. in game terms they have a strict speed limit of 23(?) knots and perform worse in poor weather due to the ship's inherent instability. They do free up weight though! The horsepower also does not match the historical class (13500) when I enter the correct speed, does this contribute to engine weight? Is there any way to edit the ratios the game uses?
Again, you're not gonna get a perfect replica. As I understand it, centralized fire control didn't emerge until WWI, yet I'm unable to change it to local (is this due to the ship type?)
The game will always use the best fire control system available for new designs. Though I had no trouble using Local. No way to specify certain secondary guns as casemated, as only 4 of the Fuji's 6" guns are casemated while the rest are on the deck.
Unfortunately you can't do that. The ship creator has to simplify some things. For secondary gun armor, should gun-shields or barbettes be factored in when the guns are neither casemated or turreted?
This is already considered. Turreted guns with 2" or less of side/top armor are considered to have gunshields rather than full enclosed turrets (with significant weight savings, a gun with 2" of armor weighs a great deal less than one with 2.5" of armor, but is also less protected than that half-inch might make you think). Should guns less than 2" be disregarded? The 14 tertiaries here are 3-pounders (1.85", rounded up)
The game simplifies gun calibers. I'd consider those 2" guns. Why are some ship types restricted to only submerged torpedo tubes? The Fuji class's bow tube was above the surface while the the 4 broadsides were submerged.
You can effectively consider the Fuji's bow tube "submerged" as it has the same fixed-arc limitations as the submerged tubes. All non-submerged tubes in RtW are swivel mounted on the deck. What are the actual numerical values that are considered short, medium, and long ranges?
There are none. That is a generic simplification. Short range ships cannot be used as raiders, nor can they move between regions during wartime. Meanwhile Long and Extreme range ships are more effective as raiders and less like to have to scuttle or intern in neutral ports in areas where they're not getting friendly base support. Is there some way to edit the complements? It always seems to be too high. Nope. The crew numbers, AFAIK, have no real effect. Anyways, here is a quick crack at creating something as close to the Fuji as I can. This would not be a good pre-dreadnought battleship in Rule the Waves. The protected scheme, while arguably accurate to the ship's design, is horrible for a heavy ship, and the turrets are incredibly thin for a pre-dreadnought. I'd be very worried about this ship blowing up from a magazine flash fire on a turret hit. How is it too old though? I thought the game really tries to present the concept that present ships will always be outdated by the time they're built. The Fuji was still in the Japanese First Division during the S-J War. Thanks a ton for that diagram, definitely clears up some confusion I was having about the game's terminology. Though regarding some of the guns being casemated, it would be nice to be able to customize guns individually more, especially when it comes to ships with more than 3 calibers of gun. Thank you as well for the clarification about secondary gun armor. Would it actually be considered to have a Protected Cruiser scheme in game though? What exactly is the game's definition for the schemes then? As far as ranges though, I understand their game function, I'm just unsure exactly what different historical ships in 1900 would be considered in-game. Also, minor curiosity, why/how is your deck a different color there? Cheers, I think I'll try that and will certainly try your fleet out for a Germany game. |
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Post by Fredrik W on Aug 23, 2015 14:22:12 GMT -6
Thank you all for your quick an informative replies. Fuji had Harvey armour, which needs to be recalculated for RTW. 18 should be maybe 10 in. As for the Mikasa, most sources I have seen give a 9 in belt for the Mikasa. Note though that ship design and weight calculations is an extremely complex subject. RTW is a game, and while it does its utmost to simulate the subject, there are necessarily some simplifications in the calculations and it cannot recreate every historical ship. Ah, ok. I wasn't sure if maybe armor improvements were considered automatic by certain years or not. Is there a particular ratio or method that was used for SAI: R-J War for Harvey armor that could be used in RTW ship design? I think though, that I'm just going to purchase SAI and have a look at how it's modeled there. There are standard formulas for comparing armour types on the internet. You don't need to buy SAI for that, much as I like sales to increase.  My 10 inches was off the top of my head, but that was wrong.
Anyway, as Galaxian explains, there are a myriad variables, and RTW simplifies some things in ship construction. It simply isn't possible to exactly recreate every historical ship in the game, and certainly not all ships outside the time envelope of 1900-1925.
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Post by galagagalaxian on Aug 23, 2015 15:04:41 GMT -6
Thank you as well for the clarification about secondary gun armor. Would it actually be considered to have a Protected Cruiser scheme in game though? What exactly is the game's definition for the schemes then? As far as ranges though, I understand their game function, I'm just unsure exactly what different historical ships in 1900 would be considered in-game. Also, minor curiosity, why/how is your deck a different color there? What I said about less than 2.5" armor = Gun shield applies to main battery weapons as well as secondary batteries (tertiary batteries are always considered to be unarmored). Nah, on further thought it would probably have sloped deck armor, since it actually does have belt armor. I dunno what I was thinking there. Of course, if you go with sloped deck scheme, my quickie design there falls apart because the armor gets much more massive. As for the game's definition of the armor schemes, the Rule the Waves manual that should be present in your installation folder explains the main differences between them. I really do suggest reading the Rule the Waves manual, as well as the STeam and Iron manual that is there as well, both contain useful information on the game. As for ranges, I'd use this quick rule of thumb. Does the ship have enough range that it could easily move between theaters without stopping to refuel? If "no" then it is short range. If it can travel quite a distance it probably deserves Long range. But this is seat of the pants, play it by ear, sorta stuff. As for the deck colors, you can set them in the game's preferences menu, along with quite a few other options (such as changing the color of the land/sea and removing the modern-day national borders on the map). I changed my decks as an aesthetic choice. I keep meaning to go along and look up what color each nation pained their decks (if they painted them) but I'm also lazy and forgetful.  |
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Post by baggers on Aug 23, 2015 15:27:47 GMT -6
Maybe I'm mistaked, but for me, the "barbette armor" can be depicted as an old anachronistic designation for the "belt armor under the turret" in your case of a Fuji main turret, if you will to match the actual "simplifications" make by the game (thanks for the pics): Pure old "Barbette" guns aren't featured in the game. (too old, I think), and belt + barbette armor on top + turret on top of barbette can probably be approximated by only belt + turret in the "game ship scheme". |
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Post by dickturpin on Aug 24, 2015 16:01:32 GMT -6
A few notes to assist: - - The belt of Fuji was compound armour not face hardened. 18" of Harvey armour would be way over the top to defeat period projectiles.
- Approximate equivalents (from Warrior to Dreadnought by DK Brown): 15" wrought iron is equivalent to (against uncapped projectiles) 12" compound or 12" steel or 7.5" Harvey or 5.75" Krupp. The figure of merit for Krupp armour would vary depending on thickness and quality.
- The belt on Fuji at 18 - 16" is fairly narrow at 8.5 feet compared to the 15 foot main belt of Majestic. The ends are unarmoured.
- Barbette armour protects the amunition trunk from magazine to the weather deck. It is not defined by the S&I ship editor. The en-barbette main gun arrangement included a protective rebout above the weather deck.
- The deck armour in Fuji consisted of two flat decks above the level of the 18-16" belt and thus this was not reinforced with a sloping deck behind.
- En-barbette gun arrangements allowed for the carrying of very large guns and/or high freeboard for improved seakeeping. Early turrets were very heavy and thus did not allow for high freeboard. The protection of en-barbette guns was improved by the addition of a roofed gunhouse; these were eventually described as turrets. The ship designer turret armour refers to the armour on such gunhouses and the gunhouse roof.
- Early armour schemes of this kind were vulnerable to quick fire (rapid fire) 6" guns due to the large area of the ship that was unprotected. Later armour schemes generally allowed for protection of a greater area and generally at the expense of relative thickness of protection; this was facilitated by the adoption of face hardened armour.
- En-barbette gun arrangements are included in S&I RJW; for example the Royal Sovereign class. The rebout is treated as the "turret" and the turret roof has nil armour.
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My 10 inches was off the top of my head, but that was wrong.