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Post by hschuster44 on Sept 15, 2015 12:39:57 GMT -6
Has anyone made some experiments with some sort of an early pocket battleship concept yet - faster than your stronger und stronger than your faster competitor?
The Belle Alliance design below is such a 1907 ff. attempt: It's based to a large extend on the contemporary historic CA Blücher design - but it offers increased speed (29 knts, 17500 ts), improved torpedo protection and colonial service accomodation but only two of the original four wing turrets. However I can't offer practical experiences so far, up to now the ship exists only on paper :
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Post by ccip on Sept 15, 2015 15:44:30 GMT -6
While not the exact same concept as a "pocket battleship" in the sense of being a powerful mid-tonnage raider, I've always had a good experience building "intermediate" battleships in the early-mid 1900s when playing for smaller powers - meant to be more powerful than any predreadnought of the period, and upgradeable enough to last in secondary roles. They're not "true" dreadnoughts, but can be had for pre-dreadnought prices and dock sizes while retaining useful capability for much longer. Sort of like this: The two ships of this class, by the way, served all the way from 1906 to 1925 (with their speed brought up to 22kt through upgrades later), and managed quite well in battles.
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Post by ccip on Sept 15, 2015 15:52:58 GMT -6
Interestingly, in the same game I caught the AI building this, which seems a lot like the concept you're describing: But they were mostly used as anti-raider ships.
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Post by gornik on Sept 15, 2015 16:13:36 GMT -6
My typical "Second rank battleship" looks like that: They are fast enough for 1903-1904 ships, and may be upgraded later. As battles shown, two such ships may sink lone B, and in fleet battles they form fast squadron to finish off stragglers, while rest of fleet chase enemy core. (If tech allows, 12-16x8 in secondaries should be in double turrets)
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Post by elouda on Sept 15, 2015 18:42:15 GMT -6
I posted these in an earlier thread - I built these as Japan in 1906 or so, and they gave good service all the way to 1920; They were later followed by this improved class around 1912;
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Post by hschuster44 on Sept 15, 2015 23:54:58 GMT -6
Thanks gentlemen! I’ll use the Belle Alliance design for "serial production" in a future German campaign (the original Blücher design is contained in the Kaiserliche Marine Game4 folder) and see how it works.
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Post by ccip on Sept 16, 2015 0:40:26 GMT -6
And my own favourite on late-game technology - which actually does have a true battleship-level protection... Meant as the ultimate fleet cruiser and raider-killer - no battleship-level armament, but it is "hard" enough to take even fairly heavy hits in a fleet scouting role, and can take out any other cruiser (except BCs) with barely a scratch. It is far from cheap, however. One thing I noticed is that the game's AI quite eagerly starts building modern CAs as soon as you introduce such ships.
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jma286
Junior Member
Posts: 97
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Post by jma286 on Sept 16, 2015 11:09:17 GMT -6
I have yet to build a true "Pocket Battleship", but I have made pocket battlecruisers in the early 20's to replace my old fast armoured cruisers from the early game. Designed to be relatively cheap yet shred or outrun any ship it comes across in colonial waters.
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Post by hschuster44 on Sept 17, 2015 23:45:52 GMT -6
First experiences with Belle Alliance designed ships in "real life" are a disappointment. In a two years war 1910 ff. with Russia I used six of them as raiders, two of them with modern fuel type oil, each of them with long ranges and well trained crews. Of course I expected a huge success. One of those two oil fired ships got interned instead. Ok, that can happen. But apart from that no single raider battle and no single raider success message! My ruling raiders were the completly outdated historic Hela, Victoria Louise and Irene designs instead. So similar to CP status the quality of a ship design seems to be quite irrelevant when it comes to success in raider status? Or is it just that the AI didn't like the class name in a war against Russia ?
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Post by sabratha on Sept 18, 2015 3:35:29 GMT -6
I posted these in an earlier thread - I built these as Japan in 1906 or so, and they gave good service all the way to 1920; They were later followed by this improved class around 1912; Ah yes, I made a decision to build some very similar ships back in 1906 in my own Japanese playthrough: Lower caliber guns than yours, but better armored. IIRC mine were also long range as they were to be raiders.
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Post by hschuster44 on Sept 18, 2015 9:17:18 GMT -6
Ok, thank you! But after my latest campaign experience as described above I'm still wondering whether it makes sense to use larger and modern CA designs for raider Status: Six modern CA raiders on different relevant oceans and not a single ship sunk during two years is a weird result. It seems to me that 1890-1900 AC/ CA designs, used as raiders can perform much better for unknown reasons/ under unknown circumstances. Anyway, Belle Alliance will get a second and last chance.
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Post by sabratha on Sept 18, 2015 10:06:03 GMT -6
Ok, thank you! But after my latest campaign experience as described above I'm still wondering whether it makes sense to use larger and modern CA designs for raider Status: Six modern CA raiders on different relevant oceans and not a single ship sunk during two years is a weird result. It seems to me that 1890-1900 AC/ CA designs, used as raiders can perform much better for unknown reasons/ under unknown circumstances. Anyway, Belle Alliance will get a second and last chance. Hard to say. Where the raiders located in areas with enemy bases? If you want just raiders, then perhaps go with fast, weakly armed and armored CLs. But if you want ships taht can raid, hunt enemy raiders and fight off potential pursuers, you will need CAs. Depends what doctrine you want to implement.
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krawa
Junior Member
Posts: 90
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Post by krawa on Sept 18, 2015 10:10:40 GMT -6
Is the Belle Alliance long or medium ranged? My experience is that long range is a lot more important than Speed.
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Post by hschuster44 on Sept 18, 2015 15:32:31 GMT -6
Here is her latest design:
The idea was to have a fast long range raider that wouldn't normally be intercepted and finished off ... But so far she doesn't bite.
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Post by genjeft on Sept 18, 2015 23:28:06 GMT -6
Here is my pocket battleship. Its 1919 and while I am not the only one with 15 inch guns the other countries only carry 10 of them on much bigger and more expensive ships (around 32,000 tons). I managed to fit 8 into this little sucker. Short range and cramped but that's fine, it will do the job. Its not meant to travel very far anyway. It exists to add some cheap hard hitting firepower to my fleets to counter the Russian fleet which usually outnumbers mine by a halfway decent margin. I think its closer to being a pocket battleship then some of the other stuff I see on here which does not have large battleship guns or armor worthy of a battleship. *Edit* Comparing fleets these things outgun everything in the Russian fleet. They might have more ships then me but with these combined with the Fuso battleships I will crush them in the next war. My Fuso's carry 18 14 inch guns.
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