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Post by vonfriedman on Apr 20, 2023 2:07:51 GMT -6
I may have missed something from the previous discussions, but prior to the use of wireless aboard warships (around the time of the RJW), the main use of the smaller ships of the fleet (besides TB due to limited range) was to deliver messages from shore to ship and vice versa and between flagship and other vessels. I still don't quite understand how this aspect is covered in RTW3. Please note: together with the peculiarities of sailing, solving this problem in the game would pave the way towards simulating naval campaigns in the age of sail. Future Admiral Nelsons, step forward!
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 20, 2023 7:15:55 GMT -6
Has aerial mining been explored using heavy bombers and other bombing aircraft?
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Post by cormallen on Apr 20, 2023 7:59:28 GMT -6
The more mines your ships carry the bigger/better 'pre-battle' minefields your side will generate, along with a greater degree of operational-level minefields in the area the ships are stationed at. I notice that the number of actual mines carried is often much less than the more determined minelaying ships really carried. I presume that's to stop Mine Spam locking down the North Sea almost entirely! The RN's WW1 Northern and Channel barrages were enormous things compared to anything likely in game. Even the fairly small Abdiel class fast minelayers mentioned above carried 156 mines each and the "Light Battlecruiser" HMS Courageous carried over 200 at one point and the (still fairly small) French Pluton c.270 and the larger USS Terror 3 or 4 times as many! Most actual defensive minefields were laid by mercantile conversions though.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 20, 2023 13:59:41 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 22, 2023 9:59:57 GMT -6
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Post by blarglol on Apr 23, 2023 10:10:32 GMT -6
.... 3. Dedicated minelayers are nearly useless: We already have AMC's, DD's and CL's capable of laying mines - adding KE's to the mix is overkill But it's not about being useless or not, it's about historical force composition, particularly in the earlier eras, more important now in 1890 than before. The Russians had the first purpose-built, ocean-going surface minelayers in the Amur-class ships of 1898. These went on to see valuable service in the Russo-Japanese War. While you could model them as "early CLs with mines," the payload and composition don't quite do them justice in-game.
They had five 3in guns, which we can place, but 300 mines, much more than we can load on a design. I can't find info on Koru Maru, the Japanese minelayer which sank the Petropavlovsk, but I assume she also had a very large complement of mines. Even later-on, the Amiral Murgescu could carry over 135 mines, but this would be more a "destroyer with mines" as buildable in game, albeit not quite to that capacity.
Perhaps a way to do this properly would be in a similar manner to how a "fast battleship" comes about. There is no separate fast battleship design, but with certain characteristics, it is "unlocked" and is utilized operationally by the simulation in a different way than the old battleships. Perhaps, given a light enough armament, certain speed, a much higher than currently-available number of mines embarked, a CL/DD could be a "minelaying-CL/DD" respectively, that will be used operationally in a different capacity like how the fast BBs are. Basically, they will try and avoid fleet battles as they are unsuited for the line for many reasons.
At the very least, adding auxillary minelayers to the game would be interesting. I know you could say that is covered by AMCs, but I'm thinking of ships that are not meant to go after merchant traffic in an offensive capacity with guns at all. Temporary civilian conversions to minelayers were used by many sides in the decades we are playing through.
I guess this is basically my issue with how things currently work, as most of the vessels I would design for minelaying, I wouldn't want anywhere near hostile gunfire..
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Post by skyhawk on May 4, 2023 0:16:57 GMT -6
This topic is close enough for me to add this question in and get away with it I think...
Has anyone tested a missile corvette heavy navy once SSMs are developed? I imagine they're only likely to be useful in confined waters and I would think would make for a good option for Austria, Italy, and maybe western Russian fleets. Though with the way massive aircraft strikes happen in RTW2 I could see confined waters being a death sentence for such craft.
I'm guessing the easiest way to make them would be to use small DD hulls in the 500-900t range but I dont know if they'll still require torpedoes or not. With KE still not being controllable as far as I know in 3 I'm not sure they're worth building as KE even if you're able to do so...though surprise friendly missile strikes could be nice for convoy defense or bombardment prevention missions.
Any dev or tester able to comment or drop an image now that we're so close to release?
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Post by cormallen on May 4, 2023 3:55:11 GMT -6
This topic is close enough for me to add this question in and get away with it I think... Has anyone tested a missile corvette heavy navy once SSMs are developed? I imagine they're only likely to be useful in confined waters and I would think would make for a good option for Austria, Italy, and maybe western Russian fleets. Though with the way massive aircraft strikes happen in RTW2 I could see confined waters being a death sentence for such craft. I'm guessing the easiest way to make them would be to use small DD hulls in the 500-900t range but I dont know if they'll still require torpedoes or not. With KE still not being controllable as far as I know in 3 I'm not sure they're worth building as KE even if you're able to do so...though surprise friendly missile strikes could be nice for convoy defense or bombardment prevention missions. Any dev or tester able to comment or drop an image now that we're so close to release? Not sure about the missile bit but Corvettes do occasionally turn up under player control, I've only seen them a couple of times fighting raiders in far off corners when there were no cruisers on station to do the job though so it's probably a "bottom of barrel" job?
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Post by skyhawk on May 4, 2023 9:34:19 GMT -6
Not sure about the missile bit but Corvettes do occasionally turn up under player control, I've only seen them a couple of times fighting raiders in far off corners when there were no cruisers on station to do the job though so it's probably a "bottom of barrel" job? I've never seen one under actual player control. Even when they do show up on your side its just a bot. I can't say it doesn't happen but yeah...never happened for me. With Light SSM missiles supposedly in the Penguin size range I imagine they're not all that weighty and that you could potentially stack a lot of them on even a smaller sub-900t hull. Forgive me for wanting to know if its possible to pull off a Macross Missile Massacre/Itano Circus or Manticore Missile Massacre...I want my eggshells armed with sledgehammers.
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Post by wlbjork on May 4, 2023 12:03:25 GMT -6
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Post by skyhawk on May 4, 2023 12:35:22 GMT -6
Huh. And you had direct control of the Acorn?! If so that's a new one for me. Thanks for sharing! Even if controlling them is infrequent it still might be worth building KE with light SSM and SAM just for the random damage and kills such units could inflict. Maybe less so with the LSAMs since those are self defense and still weight a decent amount. Again this is all assuming you can actually arm KE with such weapons in RtW3
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Post by wlbjork on May 4, 2023 22:56:48 GMT -6
Huh. And you had direct control of the Acorn?! If so that's a new one for me. Thanks for sharing! Even if controlling them is infrequent it still might be worth building KE with light SSM and SAM just for the random damage and kills such units could inflict. Maybe less so with the LSAMs since those are self defense and still weight a decent amount. Again this is all assuming you can actually arm KE with such weapons in RtW3 Absolutely under my control - as you can see, she was the only British ship present. I'm actually still kind of shocked by that performance. 8 merchant ships and a CL sunk before she escaped - there's times I don't get that level of success out of better designed CLs! However, I'd point out that unless there have been changes, SAMs and Heavy AA only trigger if the unit is close enough to assist. So yes, they can indeed be useful additions but there's no high likelihood of using said weapons. Unless the team is working on air attacks between turns...
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Post by cormallen on May 5, 2023 5:17:06 GMT -6
I've not seen any small torpedo craft at all in any of the AARs that have surfaced covering the 1890 start and one chap did try and design a DD and got a "These have not been invented yet" message (technically true but...) so it looks like the whole Jeune Ecole thing is a bust!
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Post by TheOtherPoster on May 5, 2023 7:39:45 GMT -6
I think trying to develop a single naval warfare game where we could play all the way from ironclads to the guided-missile frigates and jets and helicopters must have been a massive undertaking. I’m sure of that. And the NWS team can only have my wholehearted admiration for daring to take such project. But these huge technological changes throughout the game may bring their own problems too.
I cannot say much about your comments as I’m also waiting for the release to play the game. Maybe the small craft are there somehow? or maybe they couldn’t make them compatible to the naval warfare in the late part of the game (hopefully that’s not the case. At the very least there shouldn't be a problem to have squadrons of TBs in our bases, the same way we have squadrons of MTBs in RTW2)
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Post by cormallen on May 5, 2023 12:46:47 GMT -6
I think trying to develop a single naval warfare game where we could play all the way from ironclads to the guided-missile frigates and jets and helicopters must have been a massive undertaking. I’m sure of that. And the NWS team can only have my wholehearted admiration for daring to take such project. But these huge technological changes throughout the game may bring their own problems too. I cannot say much about your comments as I’m also waiting for the release to play the game. Maybe the small craft are there somehow? or maybe they couldn’t make them compatible to the naval warfare in the late part of the game (hopefully that’s not the case. At the very least there shouldn't be a problem to have squadrons of TBs in our bases, the same way we have squadrons of MTBs in RTW2) I fully agree that it's a massive challenge (and they have my full respect in their endeavours!) and also that "Coastal Torpedo Squadrons" could be the best way to emulate their impact. The 19th Century boats were very short ranged so not likely to join in any likely fleet actions. It would be nice though, given they have chosen to offer an 1890 start, if they addressed these period aspects appropriately. I know these are late Beta games we are seeing though and hopefully the early era will get extra "Chrome" as the new game evolves through patching? There's a LOT of stuff around in the pre-pre-Dreadnought world to explore and play with... Everything from steam rams (Thunderchild!), Old full rigged ironclads, massive but terrible guns in echeloned turret ships, Assorted Torpedo Gunboats (really just small cruisers or corvettes allowed to have TTs?), Jeune Ecole concepts, Coastal Battleships (may need a variant category to get the AI to understand their limitations - I added quite a few to the "Quasi-Historical" fleets in my own games but they tended to get dragged into full fleet actions rather too often tbh.)and even weird and experimental things like Torpedo Boat Carriers and even Popovkas! I look forward to the future of this great game!
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