Crew numbers for BB's are too low

[tbr]

Here a massive BB as well as the CA scouting for it. The crew numbers for the BB and CA show what I mean. The CA has a similar layout to the BB, smaller main guns and no tertiary battery, is less than half as big (albeit with the stronger powerplant) yet has 90 more crew at 963! I would expect the BB here to have around twice the crew of the CA, if not more, due to the heavier main guns, tertiary battery and larger hull, so around 1750-2200 crew.

[jdkbph]

The BB complement seems to be missing a leading "1". 1873 would be more appropriate for a ship of that size and armament.

JD

[tbr]

If I play around with the designer and delete all secondaries and tertiaries as well as reduce the main gun calibre to 2inches, without changing anything else I get a complement of "-45". There is definitely something off here.

[Rasputitsa]

The crew figures posted are obviously in error, but the differences between these bigger classes of ships don't have to be too great, just a quick look at 'Wiki'. HMS Warrior (CA) - crew 712 .... HMS Temeraire (BB) - crew 733 (similar engine power, both coal fired boilers), both at Jutland 1916.

OK, not an extensive survey, but many tasks are the same on each ship, whether your are punching out 9.2" shells, or 12", there are still the same levers to pull and same fire control work.  If you have installed a similar turret plan, the gun crew requirement could be similar, it is things like engine room crew where the size starts to have an effect, if you are still using coal.

The crew requirement rising towards 2000 comes with WW2 ships, where there is much more technology to handle and with an AA gun fit, as the bigger hulls have more guns, sometimes many more.

Example, the BB posted above is oil powered, whilst the CA is producing more HP on coal, which will need a much bigger engine room crew in the CA.  The turret plan is similar, so the gun crew requirement will be similar.

So the figures are wrong, but they don't have to be that far apart on these big ships, of the same time period.

HMS Agincourt has 7 main armament turrets and over 1200 crew.

By 1919 HMS Hood has a complement of 1400, for a similar armament as the 'Queen Elizabeths' that started with about 950.

[Fredrik W]

I am aware the crew numbers are somewhat on the low side, but as Rasputitsa says, they are not that far below actual WW1 numbers.

In the game, the number is used to allocate crew space tonnage, other than that it is chrome. I could raise the numbers slightly and reduce the crew space requirement by the same ratio, but that would be purely cosmetical.

[tbr]

Oct 17, 2015 1:27:51 GMT -6 Rasputitsa said:

The crew figures posted are obviously in error, but the differences between these bigger classes of ships don't have to be too great, just a quick look at 'Wiki'. HMS Warrior (CA) - crew 712 .... HMS Temeraire (BB) - crew 733 (similar engine power, both coal fired boilers), both at Jutland 1916.

OK, not an extensive survey, but many tasks are the same on each ship, whether your are punching out 9.2" shells, or 12", there are still the same levers to pull and same fire control work.  If you have installed a similar turret plan, the gun crew requirement could be similar, it is things like engine room crew where the size starts to have an effect, if you are still using coal.

The crew requirement rising towards 2000 comes with WW2 ships, where there is much more technology to handle and with an AA gun fit, as the bigger hulls have more guns, sometimes many more.

Example, the BB posted above is oil powered, whilst the CA is producing more HP on coal, which will need a much bigger engine room crew in the CA.  The turret plan is similar, so the gun crew requirement will be similar.

So the figures are wrong, but they don't have to be that far apart on these big ships, of the same time period.

HMS Agincourt has 7 main armament turrets and over 1200 crew.

By 1919 HMS Hood has a complement of 1400, for a similar armament as the 'Queen Elizabeths' that started with about 950.

You miss the huge secondary battery of the BB in the example and that there is a huge difference between the crew requirements for a 10inch turret and a 16inch turret. Also, both these ships are at the same tech level.

HMS Warrior was significantly older in technology terms (if not in years) than HMS Temeraire. The less numerous secondary and tertiary battery and the turbine plant of Temeraire were huge crew savers in comparison to Warrior, outweighing additional crew requirements of the primary armament (if any as those turrets would also have better rammers and hoists).

WWII crew levels would probably be too excessive as the huge AAA armament those WWII BB's were refitted with will not be present in the current RTW tech timeline. Still, a 52kton "super-duper" Montana-like BB with such high numbers in secondary and teritiary guns still would have around 2000 crew, which is about 800 less than Iowa's WWII complement.

[Rasputitsa]

Oct 17, 2015 8:49:03 GMT -6 tbr said:

Oct 17, 2015 1:27:51 GMT -6 Rasputitsa said:

The crew figures posted are obviously in error, but the differences between these bigger classes of ships don't have to be too great, just a quick look at 'Wiki'. HMS Warrior (CA) - crew 712 .... HMS Temeraire (BB) - crew 733 (similar engine power, both coal fired boilers), both at Jutland 1916.

OK, not an extensive survey, but many tasks are the same on each ship, whether your are punching out 9.2" shells, or 12", there are still the same levers to pull and same fire control work.  If you have installed a similar turret plan, the gun crew requirement could be similar, it is things like engine room crew where the size starts to have an effect, if you are still using coal.

The crew requirement rising towards 2000 comes with WW2 ships, where there is much more technology to handle and with an AA gun fit, as the bigger hulls have more guns, sometimes many more.

Example, the BB posted above is oil powered, whilst the CA is producing more HP on coal, which will need a much bigger engine room crew in the CA.  The turret plan is similar, so the gun crew requirement will be similar.

So the figures are wrong, but they don't have to be that far apart on these big ships, of the same time period.

HMS Agincourt has 7 main armament turrets and over 1200 crew.

By 1919 HMS Hood has a complement of 1400, for a similar armament as the 'Queen Elizabeths' that started with about 950.

You miss the huge secondary battery of the BB in the example and that there is a huge difference between the crew requirements for a 10inch turret and a 16inch turret. Also, both these ships are at the same tech level.

HMS Warrior was significantly older in technology terms (if not in years) than HMS Temeraire. The less numerous secondary and tertiary battery and the turbine plant of Temeraire were huge crew savers in comparison to Warrior, outweighing additional crew requirements of the primary armament (if any as those turrets would also have better rammers and hoists).

WWII crew levels would probably be too excessive as the huge AAA armament those WWII BB's were refitted with will not be present in the current RTW tech timeline. Still, a 52kton "super-duper" Montana-like BB with such high numbers in secondary and teritiary guns still would have around 2000 crew, which is about 800 less than Iowa's WWII complement.

The 'Warrior' and 'Temeraire' were both coal burners and, although 'Temeraire' had turbines, they were fed from coal fired boilers and it is the stokers which provide the majority of the engine room crew.

Why is there a 'huge difference between the crew requirements' for 10" and 16" turrets, once you are above the calibre for manhandling the shells, the machinery is similar, except for scale and the introduction of newer and more efficient equipment changing crew requirements over time. The turret configuration has an effect, with triple turrets being more economic on manpower than dual turrets, for the same number of guns. The 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 – United States Naval Gun triple turret required a crew of 79 men to operate, obviously direct comparison with much earlier weapon systems is difficult

I was mainly pointing out the difficulty of quantifying crew numbers from ship features and noted twice that the reported crew numbers were in error.  I was indicating that crew numbers are difficult to pin down, as there appears to be a doubling of crew numbers in some capital ships over a short time period, from the 'Temeraire' in 1916, to 'Hood' in 1919.

Temeraire

5x2 - BL 12 in (300 mm)/45 cal Mk X guns

11 × BL 4 in (100 mm) Mk VII guns

2 × 4 in (100 mm) AA guns

2 × 3 in (76 mm) AA guns

4 × 3-pounder (47 mm (1.9 in)) guns

2 × submerged 18 in (460 mm) torpedo tubes

Hood

4 × 2 – BL 15-inch Mk I guns

12 × 1 – BL 5.5-inch Mk I guns

4 × 1 – QF 4-inch Mark V anti-aircraft guns

6 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes

Just looking at the stats, with Hood being an oil burner, how do we quantify a doubling of crew numbers, when the number of armament elements does not seem much different, unless we know the crew requirements for each type of weapon configuration. Logically it can't be just mere size (Hood - 46k tons), as there must be more to take into account (note : 'Furious' large hull, but originally planned with just 2 main calibre guns), but 'Hood' is twice as big and has twice the crew, is it really as simple as that ?

However this is all semantics, as it has little effect in the game. 
 

[tbr]

Oct 17, 2015 13:34:46 GMT -6 Rasputitsa said:

Oct 17, 2015 8:49:03 GMT -6 tbr said:

However this is all semantics, as it has little effect in the game. 
 

At that we can agree. The biggest effect of crew numbers, if accomodation effects are neutralized, might be the potential for ging score by rescuing survivors, if the crew number has any relation to the survivor number.

As to heavier turrets needing more crew it is not just the battle-stations crew but the attendant onboard maintenance needs. Heavier shells need more power, more power means more machinery in turn needing more maintenance.

Sheer crew size is also needed to maintain the ship's hull, the bigger it is the more crew you need. Regardless of whether you do it like the RN today, where every non-officer grade is responsible for maintaining a part of the hull (painting, rust sraping etc.) or like other navies where even nowadays between 5-8% of the crew are "deck gang" for seamanship in maneuvers, boat crews, small arms guncrew and, not in the last nor least, painting and rust scraping. That figure used to be a bit over 10% in earlier ships like my first one, a steam turbine DDG. In that one propulsion engineering, that is without systems, electrics and weapons engineering, crew was another 16% IIRC.