Lessons Learned/Question/Suggestion

[cleveland]

I sallied with the pride of the Russian Pre-Dreadnoughts in a rainstorm, probably a mistake as German destroyers got in close and hit two of them with torpedos, one of them sunk.  When it rains, get your big ships home- I was itching for battle and got it, unfortunately.

Are Russian B's worth more than German B's?  In that turn I sank a German B and damaged four others and lost a major victory (I lost one B and got three others damaged, I sank three DD's and a CL while losing the same amount myself).  I am playing on hard.  Where do I find what each ship is worth, victory point wise?

I would like a speed between slower and very slow for Christmas if possible.

Great game btw- one of my favorites of 2013. 

[randomizer]

At the end of the scenario the Statistics window provides the relative point value but only after the ship is sunk. Torpedoes do tend to dominate in actions where visibility is poor, which is why admirals tended to try and keep the big ships out away from enemy destroyers.

Thanks.

[vonfriedman]

From what I have read about on Thiess' Tsushima large ships had primitive wireless apparata. I assume that several smaller units did not have them, as in the case of various PN Italian torpedo boats during the early years of WWI. These could convey news only by approaching a semaphore station on the ground or another ship.
I'm curious to know how this issue is treated in RJW.

[oldpop2000]

I wasn't certain about the best location for this suggestion, but here it is. In the realm of virtual history, has anyone given consideration to building armored floating batteries or monitors for the Japanese to bombard Port Arthur instead of the battleships. These ships are nothing but armored hulls with one turret, preferably high angle guns of at least twelve inches. They could be as slow as ten knots, escorted the short distance from Japan, placed in position to bombard the docks, repair yard or those area targets well suited to such weapons. This would hamper or eliminate repairs or anything else, possibly some ammunition storage facilities could be hit. This was effective from the land side, but not from the sea side. High explosive ammunition could really cause some real problems. I know in the Crimean War they were used to great effect.

If we built three single  turret monitors, with 2 x 12 inch guns. At the rate of one round per gun every five minutes, in four hours we could send about 250 shells into the docks and yards. I leave the details of the fire control to Randomizer. Observation of fire would be difficult but it might be interesting to game and see the results. They would have to be protected by DD's.

I am working on the design in Springsharp. The ship is 330 feet long, 90 feet wide with a draught of 14.5 feet. The engines are coal fire boilers simple reciprocating engines with geared drive with a range of about 1000 miles, two shafts. Maximum speed is 10 knots, cruising is 5 knots.  No armor has been decided and freeboard is about 12-15 feet. The seas between Sasebo and Korea are not usually that heavy so this ship will not have difficulty making the trip, but it will be slow. Total tonnage is about 3500 tons, without armor. I will post the final report on the historical discussions section for SAI, if you are interested.

Update: I've done some checking on the routing. It's about 628 miles from Sasebo to the area outside of Port Arthur. Based on a speed of five knots for 24 hrs., they could reach Port Arthur in five days. Sea state about this time of year, is about 2-5 feet daily, less as you near the coast. This is for the Yellow Sea. It's a little higher around Tsu-shima. If we assume 12"/40 caliber rifles on the ships, with an HE shell of 850 lbs., bursting charge of 85 lbs., elevation max. of 15 degrees, we should be able to shoot 15,000 yards. If we can shoot about 200 to 250 rounds per ship, that's a substantial amount of damage, hopefully. It might disrupt the Russian sailors heading to the ships, and dock procedures would be disrupted. Panic might be good. Period documents and books say that a 100 lbs. shell has an effective radius of about 60 feet. I am not qualified to verify that, but if true, we could do some serious damage.  

[alex]

In original SAI game I found the strange value of top turret armor in Bluher cruiser (TT=-1). Is it a mistake or a special feature?

[oldpop2000]

Although protected cruisers had no armor belts, they did have coal bunkers along the sides and 2 feet of coal was equal to 1 inch of steel, according to D.K.Brown. Is it possible to include that equivalency in the game or is that already included.