Longest serving ship

[RvT (Dickie)]

This blog post warandsecurity.com/2020/12/16/falklands-flagship-to-be-scrapped/

Paying tribute to the 57 year history of the carrier and Falklands veteran HMS Hermes / INS Viraat - 1959-2020, made me wonder:

• what's the longest you've kept a ship in operation?
• have you managed the full 56 years, from 1900 to 1955?
• what was it's history?

(Not counting corvettes and old destroyers, which are always useful)

I managed a pre-dreadnought battleship that got modernised several times for about 30 years, leading a charmed life at the back of the battle line. Almost certainly uneconomic, but full of character.

RvT

[rimbecano]

In a couple games, I've kept nearly all of my legacy Bs and CAs as CVL conversions to the end of the game. I also tend to keep destroyers for a long time as TP vessels, to avoid the micromanagement that results from MSes autoscrapping, and the poor performance of MSes in gun duels with subs.

[dia]

In a Japan game I played, my oldest ships in service as of 1969 are a couple of legacy predreads that I converted into CVLs that I kept on TP. Very uneconomical I know. But they didn't do too much so it wasn't all that special. They did participate in an unfortunate battle during the 1940's that pitted my back line ships, these CVL's included, against a German battle group in northeast Asia while my front line forces were in SEA. They all survived though. They also participated in some surprise attacks which is a lesson that you should never mobilize your TP or backline ships for a surprise attack because the battle generator will move ships to other sea zones, short range ones included.


In my current Italy game it is 1963. I still have some legacy CL's that are on raider status until they die. But the real special girl here is the Leonardo da Vinci built in 1909 as my first dreadnought and only ship of her class. As you can tell she wasn't well armored and never had her casemates replaced with turrets. She was originally built with 9 13" guns and a speed of 21knts. She didn't do much in her early career because my battlecruisers took most of the battle spots and the Austrian's only had battlecruisers. By the time I fought other powers she was several generations behind and only participated in a few fleet battles never really doing anything of note. Jump to the present and I am now coming on seven years into a World War (that admittedly I've been file editing to keep it going and getting other powers involved) that has me, USA, and Germany vs first the Soviets and French and later AH and Great Britain.

Due to my later philosophy with Italian capital ships, from the third generation BB/BCs on were designed with short range. I didn't start moving away from this philosophy until the 1940s when I captured more colonies from the French outside the Mediterranean including the South Pacific. When the world war started in 1957 I had to keep my newer medium range capital ships in the Mediterranean. The French refused to deploy and at this point I already owned every non-neutral province in the Med. So I decided to start invading French colonies in the South Pacific. To boost my force strength, I sent my legacy CLs and the Leonardo da Vinci. Long story short, the Leonardo da Vinci was seeing more combat than any of my latest generation ships. Granted she was fighting mostly shore bombardment targets and corvettes, but I had a lot of fun in those battles. Things changed once the British and Austrians joined the war and her feats were quickly overshadowed. She came home briefly for some yard time, but as of the turn I am currently on she just arrived back in the South Pacific. I'm probably going to let the war end in the next month or two. Only GB is left and she is on the brink of collapse.
When the war ends she'll be coming home and get mothballed. I don't intend to scrap her, but I don't really intend to continue this campaign either.

Attachments:

[buttons]

For frontline duty? Probably like 20 years, reserve/mothball and activate for wars. For secondary duties I kept a line of protected cruisers in service from my legacy fleet until the end of the game. Put them on colonial service and rebuilt them periodically, they even had a few engagements in that time, 4x8" and 8ishx6" is pretty lethal against other light cruisers if you keep gun model and FCS upgraded. By the end of the game they were down to two ships due to slowly being thinned out from losing encounter battles every now and then. I like to imagine that the IJN makes it a tradition to keep them in service in perpetuity, imagine a modern 21st century naval operation supported by a pair of 19th century protected cruisers.

[oldpop2000]

There are a lot of factors that have to considered before scrapping a ship. One of them is who you are playing and the geography its fleet has to serve. Another factor is of course, age. Can you cost effectively rebuild the ship and use it for other missions. Case in point, light cruisers. If you can rebuild the cruisers, improve director fire and guns, move to oil possibly add bulging and speed, then you could use this ship as a raider or move it overseas to one of your possessions. This is good for the British and French. Cost always plays a part. I always at the start of the game, scrap cramped ships especially destroyers and cruisers. Then I replace them.

I don't personally believe that ships should be maintained beyond thirty years. However, I play with realistic history in mind, this is not a game to me, but a test platform.

[buttons]

My personal opinion is that capital ships should generally be scrapped fairly quickly after they are finished simply due to the rate of obsolescence. A heavy cruiser can be kept lethal with simply FCS and speed improvements, but a capital ship will find their outdated design and poor armour a massive liability in direct confrontations against enemy heavy ships and later aircraft, especially because the AI likes using your oldest battleships to lead divisions in my experience leading to them taking more fire than the newer, better protected ships.

[oldpop2000]

I was thinking about a simple cost/benefit analysis that we could use to weight rebuilding or designing a new ship.

Light cruiser Apollo - built 1899 -current year is 1935

total cost was 11,603 - cost of replacing machinery and converting to oil reduced the cost of her to 10,368
Improve fire control increases cost to 11,405
Improve main guns - no change from above cost
Improved secondary guns - no change
Remove tertiary guns - reduced cost to 11,061
Add ten light AA guns and 5 medium AA guns along with one AA director - cost increased to 11,267
Add bulged, cost increased to 11,565
Increased speed from 20 knots to 25 knots -cost went to 14,708
Cost per month to rebuild is 554 for 19 months. Cost to rebuild is 10, 526

Now, I design a new light cruiser - Displacement of 8400 ton, twelve 6 inch guns, 11 light AA and 9 medium AA and 4 directors. Magazine, inclined belt and unit machinery added. Six torpedoes in two triple mounts. torpedo defense of 2. No tertiary or secondary guns. 30 mines added.

Total cost is now 33,645. Cost of development is 2713 for 2 months

Now, monthly building cost is 1770 for 19 months.

You might disagree with my choices on the new ship, but remember this is just a simple cost analysis.

Ok, So the new ship is going to cost almost three times what the older ship will cost to rebuild.

Question: is it worth rebuilding or scrapping and building the new one. 

[kriegsmeister]

Dec 17, 2020 18:09:47 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

I was thinking about a simple cost/benefit analysis that we could use to weight rebuilding or designing a new ship.

Light cruiser Apollo - built 1899 -current year is 1935

total cost was 11,603 - cost of replacing machinery and converting to oil reduced the cost of her to 10,368
Improve fire control increases cost to 11,405
Improve main guns - no change from above cost
Improved secondary guns - no change
Remove tertiary guns - reduced cost to 11,061
Add ten light AA guns and 5 medium AA guns along with one AA director - cost increased to 11,267
Add bulged, cost increased to 11,565
Increased speed from 20 knots to 25 knots -cost went to 14,708
Cost per month to rebuild is 554 for 19 months. Cost to rebuild is 10, 526

Now, I design a new light cruiser - Displacement of 8400 ton, twelve 6 inch guns, 11 light AA and 9 medium AA and 4 directors. Magazine, inclined belt and unit machinery added. Six torpedoes in two triple mounts. torpedo defense of 2. No tertiary or secondary guns. 30 mines added.

Total cost is now 33,645. Cost of development is 2713 for 2 months

Now, monthly building cost is 1770 for 19 months.

You might disagree with my choices on the new ship, but remember this is just a simple cost analysis.

Ok, So the new ship is going to cost almost three times what the older ship will cost to rebuild.

Question: is it worth rebuilding or scrapping and building the new one. 

What was the original displacement of the Apollo? As well as armament? Judging from the ~11k original price tag I would hazard to guess that it is a small ~3000 ton ship with only a handful of 6in or 5in. Which if that is the case, replacing it with that new 8400 ton ship is very substantial and the cost comparison a little out of proportion.


As for my longest serving ships it is generally my legacy fleet colonial light cruisers that pretty much stay on station till they die, and if they end up somewhere like west Africa which sees very little action they will just kinda chill. Might even go an extra few years with the (o) tag before being refit. I did once have a circa 1910 British built dreadnought that started off with 6x twin Q-2 13in guns survive up until the mid 60s after being refitted with 6x single 16in guns.

[oldpop2000]

Dec 17, 2020 18:24:43 GMT -6 kriegsmeister said:

Dec 17, 2020 18:09:47 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

I was thinking about a simple cost/benefit analysis that we could use to weight rebuilding or designing a new ship.

Light cruiser Apollo - built 1899 -current year is 1935

total cost was 11,603 - cost of replacing machinery and converting to oil reduced the cost of her to 10,368
Improve fire control increases cost to 11,405
Improve main guns - no change from above cost
Improved secondary guns - no change
Remove tertiary guns - reduced cost to 11,061
Add ten light AA guns and 5 medium AA guns along with one AA director - cost increased to 11,267
Add bulged, cost increased to 11,565
Increased speed from 20 knots to 25 knots -cost went to 14,708
Cost per month to rebuild is 554 for 19 months. Cost to rebuild is 10, 526

Now, I design a new light cruiser - Displacement of 8400 ton, twelve 6 inch guns, 11 light AA and 9 medium AA and 4 directors. Magazine, inclined belt and unit machinery added. Six torpedoes in two triple mounts. torpedo defense of 2. No tertiary or secondary guns. 30 mines added.

Total cost is now 33,645. Cost of development is 2713 for 2 months

Now, monthly building cost is 1770 for 19 months.

You might disagree with my choices on the new ship, but remember this is just a simple cost analysis.

Ok, So the new ship is going to cost almost three times what the older ship will cost to rebuild.

Question: is it worth rebuilding or scrapping and building the new one. 

What was the original displacement of the Apollo? As well as armament? Judging from the ~11k original price tag I would hazard to guess that it is a small ~3000 ton ship with only a handful of 6in or 5in. Which if that is the case, replacing it with that new 8400 ton ship is very substantial and the cost comparison a little out of proportion.


As for my longest serving ships it is generally my legacy fleet colonial light cruisers that pretty much stay on station till they die, and if they end up somewhere like west Africa which sees very little action they will just kinda chill. Might even go an extra few years with the (o) tag before being refit. I did once have a circa 1910 British built dreadnought that started off with 6x twin Q-2 13in guns survive up until the mid 60s after being refitted with 6x single 16in guns.

Here is the original design. Next is an attempt to design an Apollo replacement attempting to keep it with the same tonnage etc. Cost of replacement is approximately 13800. This replacement is still 3000 more than a rebuild but 8 knots faster, has four 6 inch guns, and two center mounted triple torpedo tubes and light/ medium AA guns. It uses a magazine box and inclined armor belt. Is this design worth the money or is the other design a better choice?

[kriegsmeister]

Dec 17, 2020 18:44:08 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

Dec 17, 2020 18:24:43 GMT -6 kriegsmeister said:

-snip-

Here is the original design. Next is an attempt to design an Apollo replacement attempting to keep it with the same tonnage etc. Cost of replacement is approximately 13800. This replacement is still 3000 more than a rebuild but 8 knots faster, has four 6 inch guns, and two center mounted triple torpedo tubes and light/ medium AA guns. It uses a magazine box and inclined armor belt. Is this design worth the money or is the other design a better choice?


View Attachment

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I would argue yes, while on the Apollo if you removed the secondary battery as well for a larger homogeneous battery of 6in guns, it might be more tempting to keep around. But even for the 30% increase in cost, I believe the Cricklade's higher speed and much better modern armor protection would be well worth it. You also still have 150 tons of unused displacement bnb on the Cricklade. You could fit another twin 6in gun turret to further improve the design, or drop the overall displacement by 1-200 tons to save more money.

[oldpop2000]

Dec 17, 2020 19:30:17 GMT -6 kriegsmeister said:

Dec 17, 2020 18:44:08 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

Here is the original design. Next is an attempt to design an Apollo replacement attempting to keep it with the same tonnage etc. Cost of replacement is approximately 13800. This replacement is still 3000 more than a rebuild but 8 knots faster, has four 6 inch guns, and two center mounted triple torpedo tubes and light/ medium AA guns. It uses a magazine box and inclined armor belt. Is this design worth the money or is the other design a better choice?


View Attachment

View Attachment

I would argue yes, while on the Apollo if you removed the secondary battery as well for a larger homogeneous battery of 6in guns, it might be more tempting to keep around. But even for the 30% increase in cost, I believe the Cricklade's higher speed and much better modern armor protection would be well worth it. You also still have 150 tons of unused displacement bnb on the Cricklade. You could fit another twin 6in gun turret to further improve the design, or drop the overall displacement by 1-200 tons to save more money.

I actually agree, provided you have reasoned out the mission or missions of the light cruisers. Over time the light cruiser missions will evolve, does the first design prove to be a better fleet scout and escort. Does the second design serve better overseas and as a raider. These are the questions that have to be answer. He who will defend everything, defends nothing. In other words, you have decide on the old missions and new missions. You have to examine the cruisers of your opponents and see how you match up. It's complex. 

[buttons]

Dec 17, 2020 18:09:47 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

I was thinking about a simple cost/benefit analysis that we could use to weight rebuilding or designing a new ship.

Light cruiser Apollo - built 1899 -current year is 1935

total cost was 11,603 - cost of replacing machinery and converting to oil reduced the cost of her to 10,368
Improve fire control increases cost to 11,405
Improve main guns - no change from above cost
Improved secondary guns - no change
Remove tertiary guns - reduced cost to 11,061
Add ten light AA guns and 5 medium AA guns along with one AA director - cost increased to 11,267
Add bulged, cost increased to 11,565
Increased speed from 20 knots to 25 knots -cost went to 14,708
Cost per month to rebuild is 554 for 19 months. Cost to rebuild is 10, 526

Now, I design a new light cruiser - Displacement of 8400 ton, twelve 6 inch guns, 11 light AA and 9 medium AA and 4 directors. Magazine, inclined belt and unit machinery added. Six torpedoes in two triple mounts. torpedo defense of 2. No tertiary or secondary guns. 30 mines added.

Total cost is now 33,645. Cost of development is 2713 for 2 months

Now, monthly building cost is 1770 for 19 months.

You might disagree with my choices on the new ship, but remember this is just a simple cost analysis.

Ok, So the new ship is going to cost almost three times what the older ship will cost to rebuild.

Question: is it worth rebuilding or scrapping and building the new one. 

My personal reason for rebuilding is often less cost and more time honestly. Sure I could just replace my cruiser, but that takes nearly two years with development time, just replacing the FCS takes like 3 or 4 months IIRC and upgrading the guns in addition to that only makes it like 6 months IIRC. If I upgrade I get the "new" ship much faster than if I designed and built a new series from scratch, with the main loss just being maximum speed due to hull form. Battleships meanwhile even ignoring speed limitations, armour issues, and lesser gun calibres (15 inch guns going up against 18 inch guns is a bad deal even if the former is +1) slowly gain numerous ship design bonuses throughout the years and a 1910 battleship will likely be far more limited in terms of possible lethality due to new technologies like secondary turrets, all forward armaments, and quadruple turrets. Put simply I would rather have an upgraded 1900 cruiser going up against a 1930 cruiser than an upgraded 1910 dreadnought going up against a 1930 dreadnought.

However, in practice I tend to replace cruisers pretty quickly anyway because of losses, when I am down to 3 CLs and need to build another 6 to replace losses I often just replace those remaining 3, mothball, and eventually scrap them if I don't need them for colonial duty. I will also comment that I'm not a historical purist outside of generally doing historical budgets and not using 14"+ guns until 1910ish, so I'm not gonna claim that my actions are historical, simply what I tend to find efficient.

[oldpop2000]

I wanted to pursue this idea of upgrading versus new design. I wanted to approach it from what would increase the cost of the ship. Based on the game, it was speed which would mean machinery. I have duplicated an actual ship in springsharp, the HMS Arethusa. Now her actual speed was 25 knots with about 18,000 HP. I've posted her actual distribution of weight. As you can see, the two highest percentage of tonnage was Hull, fittings and equipment at 60.7 %, the next was machinery at 22%. In the game, unless we increase the total tonnage, I don't think we have control over hull etc. But we do have control over speed which of course means machinery. I've increased the speed and cost goes up naturally because the machinery cost goes up. In my design with Springsharp, if I increase the speed to 30 knots, the power is 38,772 hp. This increase in power, does increase the total cost, in fact in it increases it from .906 million to 1.348 million. That is a fair increase.

My point is that the game appears to work properly and does simplify the whole issue. It also shows, IMHO, that if you want to upgrade a ship, don't increase the speed and possibly it will be cost effective. If you want more speed, it will be expensive. I might be wrong, but that is what I believe. If you want the whole report from Springsharp, I have it.


Armament: 53 tons, 1.6 %
- Guns: 53 tons, 1.6 %
Armour: 233 tons, 6.9 %
- Armour Deck: 194 tons, 5.8 %
- Conning Towers: 39 tons, 1.2 %
Machinery: 737 tons, 22.0 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 2,034 tons, 60.7 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 293 tons, 8.8 %
Miscellaneous weights: 0 tons, 0.0 %

[buttons]

Dec 18, 2020 16:51:53 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

My point is that the game appears to work properly and does simplify the whole issue. It also shows, IMHO, that if you want to upgrade a ship, don't increase the speed and possibly it will be cost effective. If you want more speed, it will be expensive. I might be wrong, but that is what I believe.

I mean that seems to be the case in my experience. Has made me consider how I might try to build a navy around rebuilds. This would be my theory

BB: 12" guns, 22 knot speed universally until the 1930s when you start switching to CVs. You will be under-armed and slow in the 1920s, but your entire battle line will be the same speed and have the same gun range, you won't have to worry about your older ships being target practice unable to effectively engage the enemy or having your new ships get dangerously close so the older ships can engage.

BC: Since they aren't going to be fighting on the main line of battle your main concern here is keeping your ships relatively fast without needing to replace machinery.

CA/CL: Long range, when they get old put them on colonial service or mothballed in peace and use them as surface raiders when at war. 

DD/KE: Has anyone ever rebuilt one of these? I would probably have these as the one thing I don't rebuild and use torpedo boats as a major strike arm of my navy mid game before carriers come into prominence

Practically speaking I think the best country is one who might want the extra fleet size in order to blockade enemies or avoid being blockaded, sure your battleships are by and large inferior but you have far more, so I think it is pretty useless for the US, UK, and Japan who don't share home regions with credible threats. With quad turrets I think France is the best off to try this. As for tech focus, torpedoes and AP ammo, set guns to low once you have +1 12" guns.

[oldpop2000]

Dec 18, 2020 19:50:53 GMT -6 buttons said:

Dec 18, 2020 16:51:53 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

My point is that the game appears to work properly and does simplify the whole issue. It also shows, IMHO, that if you want to upgrade a ship, don't increase the speed and possibly it will be cost effective. If you want more speed, it will be expensive. I might be wrong, but that is what I believe.

I mean that seems to be the case in my experience. Has made me consider how I might try to build a navy around rebuilds. This would be my theory

BB: 12" guns, 22 knot speed universally until the 1930s when you start switching to CVs. You will be under-armed and slow in the 1920s, but your entire battle line will be the same speed and have the same gun range, you won't have to worry about your older ships being target practice unable to effectively engage the enemy or having your new ships get dangerously close so the older ships can engage.

BC: Since they aren't going to be fighting on the main line of battle your main concern here is keeping your ships relatively fast without needing to replace machinery.

CA/CL: Long range, when they get old put them on colonial service or mothballed in peace and use them as surface raiders when at war. 

DD/KE: Has anyone ever rebuilt one of these? I would probably have these as the one thing I don't rebuild and use torpedo boats as a major strike arm of my navy mid game before carriers come into prominence

Practically speaking I think the best country is one who might want the extra fleet size in order to blockade enemies or avoid being blockaded, sure your battleships are by and large inferior but you have far more, so I think it is pretty useless for the US, UK, and Japan who don't share home regions with credible threats. With quad turrets I think France is the best off to try this. As for tech focus, torpedoes and AP ammo, set guns to low once you have +1 12" guns.

Beware of the idea that Battlecruiser are going to fight in the mainline, the British had that theory and lost three of them when they were not supposed to be in the main line...