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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2017 23:33:54 GMT -6
medium size coastal raid or, david "popcorn" beatty is back... another 2 big battles before this. one jutland fleet battle. managed to single out 1 BC and 2 BBs from the main herd and pound them to submission. but still needed to rely on torps to kill them, low ammo load was really a phuck up on my end this round as ships yet again all ran dry:X it was not as tough as the first fleet battle, the enemy less a few capitals certainly played a part and also i was prepared for a more prolonged than usual engagement ala really pound them before splitting my forces or launching flotilla attacks to attempt to sink ships. yet it was touch and go for a while as it appeared the enemy was able to retire to scapa flow unscathed. it seems that before fire control became really up to par you just gotta spot the chance to pull the "nelson" maneuver and cut into their line to single out a small group of capitals. but this cannot be rushed because if too early or too close there's the risk of being torped which did happen before... the harwich coastal raid was right after the fleet battle. something was happening there more akin to the SAI campaign expansion, in that the damaged ships in the previous turn is unable to take part in the battle in the next. (since SAI CE can be detailed to 1 week per turn it is a more glaring element whereas RTW is 1 month turn) since a majority of the brits got badly mauled in the fleet fight they only got in 2 BBs and 5 BCs, and deployed in a funny way: 1 BB and 3 BCs in the main force, 2 BCs in the scout force, 1 BB in the support force. what this ends up is the AI is basically split into 4 groups, as the BCs in the main force are in "independent" mode and don't exactly stick to their BB force leads - i usually change them to core, and ideally BCs really shouldn't be in the main force. and the BBs that got in were 2 really old one, Prince of Wales class, 8x13" Q-2 guns on non superfiring turrets. the BCs were the usual Indomitables. my forces spawned 5 BBs and 4 BCs. naturally it's divide and conquer, we probably got the support force BB first,then the 2 Indomitable BCs later, and the BB from the main force last. the 3 main force BCs only briefly showed themselves when they were heading south all the way towards the english channel while the BB was being sandwiched between my main and scout force and going in the NW direction prolly trying to return to harwich. it in the end was forced away from harwich as i placed the scout force port side, pushed it north and it ran outta real estate stuck on the land edge and was torped. - in this case a port side "block" was doable because the enemy BB only had a single DD escort... if they had more the block could be dangerous as there'd be no path to turn away from torps... mostly i'm just glad that we got the 2 BCs since they're the really dangerous ships. anyway, more interesting battle was the top mentioned coastal raid, raid force was 2 BCs, Goeben and Von der Tann, and the opfor was naturally 2 Indomitables. luck is on me side again as i had a support force of Seydlitz and Moltke. (Hindenburg was still being repaired, not sure if it would spawn in even if wasn't tho) recalling the ever first convoy attack night battle i knew this wasn't something doable in a 2v2 stand up fight, Von ter Tann is only 11 inch gunned so this is even worse!..... so had to drag the enemy to the support force. which was still farawayz off towards the south doing who knows what! and lo and behold when the 4 BCs met the enemy was substantially out gunning me. he scored the very 1st hit, maybe i'm a bit superstitious but it'd never been a good sign:X on the plus side despite B* and BE* pens no serious flooding happened this time. and so was just hanging on by a thread, attempting to drag south while the enemy was constantly trying to push into me and offsetting to SW. 'twas a big relief when support force finally decided to make an appearance from the ideal position even. we were thus able to yet again sandwich them... the enemy turns a 180 and attempts to return to port. but before long david "popcorn" beatty pays them a visit and 1 Indomitable goes up in flames... i started laying really heavily on the remaining Indomitable but a repeat of the night convoy attack happened, in that no meaningful hits were scored. Goeben got his A turret knocked out which made things worse as the enemy constantly turns away no longer wishing to go broadside, so pretty soon it degraded into a stern chase. i pull 90 offset check turn together to go side by side to bring Von der tann's forward guns to bear but didn't help. - btw tis exact reason why late game ships got triple even quadruple superfiring forward turrets because it really needs good amount of forward firepower to chase down fleeing ships, especially BBs as they're slower - but suddenly the enemy just disappeared.... apparently Seydlitz from the support force on the other side also got a critical hit and the 2nd Indomitable went up in flames as well. it's just there's no sound effect and pop-up window if it was done in by the AI controlled ship so a weird moment. ironically these explosions always happen when i got the tactical advantage, when things go well they go better, but when they do not there's no turning around either. hmmm. after this i basically followed Seydlitz/Moltke to make sure they don't do anything stupid and that was it. also good news that we are starting to invade burma and already won a a coastal bombardment land combat support. got 3 Bs stationed AF in indian ocean plus 3 CAs doing raiding. intentionally did not send any DDs, so when the ships spawned it'd be the Bs, and the enemy spawns 2 600 tonner DDs. got rid of them both, just gotta avoid their torps, sank a TR and destroys the land target and got out to avoid mines. the old Bs and CAs doing something good there.
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Post by konstantinua00 on Mar 7, 2017 5:10:15 GMT -6
have you managed to mod the game that we can mount more than 1 forward superfiring gun?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2017 14:22:10 GMT -6
^not yet but will see!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2017 19:41:02 GMT -6
one large cruiser battle and one enemy coastal raid. the battles are getting easier now. the cruiser battle is again 3v3, i spawn Hindenburg, Seydlitz, Moltke; the enemy spawns one Indomitable, two Invincible. these are the only 3 BCs they have left at the moment - i'm relieved but not completely, as their Illustrious class will start to come online 1 year later, the war can very well drag on til then, i'm just imagining the 8x14" guns trample over the frail Goebens while our 12" shells bounce off that 19" turret face. but atm we have the complete upper hand as the Invincibles are only 4x12 semi-dreads. the enemy knows this and attempts to run away to the south, which is not exactly great for us as the indomitable scored a 14" hit on Hindenburg while we're stuck on the stern chase with low hit rate. sensing the bad position i do a 90 deg east to bring the ships broadside. good thing the enemy is not absolute in his resolute and turns into us to engage. somehow the Indomitable got separated from the rest of the group, and proceeded to go up in another plume of smoke... one of the other Invincible was damaged in the broadside engagement and couldn't run away fast enough. we caught up to it and obliterates it at close range. the last invincible was harder to deal with however as the lead of the group, he has mega escort DDs and was doing his top speed at 27kts heading straight to scapa flow. i called off the chase. at the end of this battle i am no longer blockaded, and the enemy is already converting his CAs to raiding duty. in the coastal raid he spawns 2 BBs and the one remaining Invincible BC, we got the 2 Nassau class BBs, and 4 BCs, 2 in the main force, 2 as the scout force. it was a night battle but we managed to maintain contact throughout, caught the old Glory class without escort and again obliterates it from the stern. when day time breaks the remaing Renown class BB is in flat out fleeing mode, straight to Harwich. it is built with the Kaiser template, but somehow the rear X turret is changed to W, likely they've yet to have the tech. they're building more ships on this design, but i believe their 13" is still quality -2. well, good for us. i let the BCs take lead in the main force and proceeded to sandwich it between the 2 BC groups. the running engagement lasted all the way to the entrance of the british port. i order flotilla attack on both forces, and the destroyers tangle - it's good to thin out the screening ships. but, yes, another turret flash fire ended it. honestly i'm not surprised at this point! it doesn't really matter in these situations however, flash fire or not. well we save some ammo in any event.. we were ready to return to port when the scouting CLs spotted another group in the distance. apparently it's the enemy scout force with the lone invincible. another prolonged chase. time-of-day returned to night.. this is a long battle, coastal raids are 1000 mins default but absolute limit is twice of that if opposing ships are in contact, so we're definitely in over time now. there's some interesting maneuvers with both sides doing "scissors", the Invincible doing the scissors to try to break away from the pursing force and my pursing BCs doing scissors to avoid his torps and keeping broadside on. whenever my one side is pulling away, the other side turns head on to close the distance. eventually we boxed him in and ended it with close gun duels. no flash fire this time! in the end, the pop up window prompts us the british have no more ships at sea and the battle automatically ends. well can't have better than that. back to the main UI, we are now blockading the enemy. he has 7 BBs and no more BCs. we have 6 BBs and 5 BCs. might do some ship shuffling to keep the force ratio close so he wouldn't decline too many future battles and we'd have more chances to sink his ships. will see... other good news is oil had been discovered in Madagascar since we took it from the french. lady luck RTW's random dice roll smiles on us again. just commissioned the first ever oil firing, sloped deck, 4 centerline turret 8 gun broadside 29 knot CL. it's also on 5" secondary as Q0 5" was researched. the latest oil fired BBs, 2 Helgoland class is 2 months away. essentially up armored and faster Nassaus. 52k tons.. there's the 10% research.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2017 21:49:52 GMT -6
we sank another 3 BBs in a convoy attack. the enemy is now left with 4 BBs, 2 oldies and 2 Howe class 12x14 very potent ones. but they're certainly firmly blockaded. i'm sending the 2 11" gunned BBs out, one to west africa, one to indian ocean; Von der Tann and Moltke to northeast asia to try some invasions. after they turned down a land combat support mission, Burma is now in our hands. with the Helgolands commissioned the budget is freed up to lay down a new BC class. since the scientists are now researching improved quadruple turrets, might as well utilize that. so new Bavaria class with 4x4 12" AVXY turrets. - still no 5 centerline turrets or superimposed B turret tech. as an attempt to rectify the low ammo problem, it is loaded to 140RPG. edit: and 2 months later superimposed B turret researched. arrrrggggggh.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 0:53:22 GMT -6
the sinking of Hindenburg it was the last fleet battle of the war. the enemy spawned all 4 remaining BBs, the 2 threatening Howes, 1 Queen and 1 Prince of Wales class. the mission was the Texel battle. i managed to shuffle my ships so capitals remaining in Northern europe was also 4: the 2 Nassaus, Goeben and Hindenburg. the rest all moved out to other seazones. optimally it's better to leave the Helgolands in N europe but move out the 2 Nassaus as they're older, but Nassaus were built short ranged. i spent a few turns baffled as to why the enemy kept turning down capital ship battles, usually they should accept if capital ship numbers are on equal terms, and again battled by why the Nassaus remained in N europe despite being ordered to move to west africa. the capital S was staring right at me in the face! it's still OK though, since everyone except the new Helgolands are now on elite status, and the british had been suffering mutinies and protests so definitely suffering crew stat drops. their unrest was high entering the war and it never came down from that, the blockade just made it skyrocket. at the time of battle the new Illustrious class were also commissioned, 'twas feb. 1922 and the almanac listed them being commissioned as of 1922 so i hoped they were still working up. indeed we never encountered a separate scout force. when the 2 fleets met Goeben and Hindenburg started a gunnery duel with the 2 Howe class, 12x14" mega dreads, and our BCs are even winning. goes to see how much impact the mutinies are affecting the british crew - the Howes have no superfiring turrets, but in a broadside fight this doesn't really matter. i dragged the enemy east to the main force and turned the scout force around over left port 180 to follow the 2 BBs. seeing we're substantially out shooting the enemy i decided to split early. scout force essentially does a 300 deg turn and head SSE towards the enemy's rear attempting to get on the other side of the enemy force - interestingly since the BCs are faster, they usually end up doing lots of maneuvers and getting in tougher fights rather than the BBs, so speed really does matter, to a degree, but digress... meanwhile the enemy group is in disarray and 1 Howe is separated from the group, battle damage, jammed rudder.. not sure. so scout force is tasked to pound this ship and so they did. main force proceeded to duel with the 3 enemy BBs, Posen received a penetrating Belt hit and started minor flooding, but it was soon stopped. suddenly a huge bang happens, ya know it is fine when this happens in a smallish fight as you pretty much expects who it is that explodes, yet in a big engagement it could be easily one of ours. but thankfully it is not as the british Prince of Wales went up in flames. again. pressing on with the advantage i launch flotilla attacks tying down the few british destroyers, and the 2 remaining british BBs soon stopped dead, one of them eating at least 2 torps - there were many more after, but pretty sure those were post mortem as corpse whipping is one of AI captains' favorites. with the british capital ships all dealt with we proceeded to clean up the leftover DDs. they don't even have CLs at this point, probably all committed to raiding duty where we sank quite a batch during interception. there was a sense of lightheartedness as the ships sail with the flags of victory. a 2 DD division attempts to flee south and the scout force surely charges in guns ablaze, surprised that there are still enemy DDs alive after the very successful flotilla attack where our DDs are definitely winning in gunnery. but the DDs suddenly turns into the BCs, whose screening ships are still at the back, doing their corpse whipping. i order the BCs straight on in a "who cares" attitude - subconsciously recalling the experiences on a previous game where we charged fleeing destroyers, eating a fish but didn't even flood, decimates the DDs and went home for sausages and medals, completely forgetting that those were mega-super-ultra dreadnoughts with TPS 4 or at least bulges, and Hindenburg promptly eats a torp. well yes this never fails to happen when attacking destroyers are ignored. ok fine, detaches it, full stop, hold fire, hold torps, and Goeben soon got rid of the 2 offenders. when the smoke settled and night time came everybody proceeded to return to Emden except Hindenburg, who is still dead stop trying to fight the flooding to no avail. the flooding was stuck at 57 and never stopped. Hindenburg, a war veteran who took part in many victorious battles with a very experienced crew, thus sank due to progressive flooding after receiving 4 heavy hits and 1 torpedo. adm skwabie pretty much held himself in the brig for about a month gritting his teeth with a purple green face. the taxpayers surely are somewhat displeased by the mishandling of their national assets. the kaiser is still happy though, he's probably just content that the once mighty british lost 4 capitals and is now at zero capital ship strength, so said "what the phuck dude", walks away laughing and awards the 2 prestige points nonetheless! anyway that was that. to my comfort these BCs will pretty much be obsolete in the next war to come so, less maintenance for them in the inter war years. yes mate, keep up with the always positive attitude! but that was really the beginning of the end as 'twas just raider intercept one after another thereafter, and a few turns later the 1st war against britain came to a close. decided to take ireland and weihaiwei. we were invading zanzibar for quite many turns, but it unfortunately was never completed. we'd been eyeing ireland for quite some time, but also knew that ireland is prone to rebel as their underground resistance is all so famously dangerous, and tapped the matrix to root out their rebellious genes beforehand. with this chapter turned over the next round of the dreadnought race commences....
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 4:23:08 GMT -6
apparently britain came back for more. it is apr. 1928 and we are at it again. our scientists managed to research 13" guns. caveat: quality -1. compared to 12" +1, mostly useless:x however good news is improved quadruple turret tech was done in the interium, and our ships would no longer be plagued with the constant turret jams which was all so persistent in the 1st war. during the 6 inter-war years i managed to get 8 capital ships built: 2 Bavaria class BC, as listed earlier; 2 Kaiser class BB, 16x12" in ABVY quadruple turrets setup which would be a constant theme in the new dreadnought line. 2 Derfflinger class BC, i can finally build using the derfflinger template since researching superimposed B turrets. also it is rebuilt immediately after commissioning with anti-torp bulge, since we didn't have TPS 2 yet and seeing what happened to the Hindenburg, TPS 1 is no longer adequate. -> this makes think i should rebuild the BBs with bulges as well, hmmm. 2 Friedrich der Grosse class BB, almost the same config as Kaiser, except 0.5" thicker turret, 1" thicker CT, and sec guns in single turrets. it's kinda ugly, but phuck it, it is more effective. currently in construction are 2 Hindenburg class BCs tribute to the lost ship ofc. 20x12"(!) in 5 quadruple turrets, TPS 2 at last, AON armor scheme and single turret sec guns. they are still 19 months away, the brits will likely have 15" guns when they're commissioned so this is the only way i can match their firepower. when building this class i delayed a couple months on finalizing the design which i usually don't because the scientists reporting close to AON research. i guess this time it's worth the wait. and so this is the 1st class on AON and it was able to up armor considerably on the belt. also built a few CLs and DDs. the first Stralsund class post war was over weight on arrival so not very successful, intention was a torpedo cruiser but not very fast considering the circumstances. since researching 5+ centerline turrets it is having 7 centerline and 2 side turrets remaining 8 gun broadside plus 24TT. on the Rostock class i got rid of 2 torp mounts and 4 sec guns in exchange of 1 knot. whether it's worth it... will see. the latest Elbing class is still working up. speed up to 31kts, everthing else same as Rostock. lastly managed to "marginally disrupt" ahem revamp the destroyer fleet building some more 1100 tonners and 1500 tonners after research. the latest is 3x5 12TT 33 knotters. had yet to research superimposed DD gun mounts at time of building, but is researched now. the problem now is a shortage of funds. spending close to 12 mil a month in the red with everyone on AF plus enhanced training, not counting DD/CL war loss replenishments we'll run dry in just 4 months with this using the 57mil cash reserve. could pause the Hindenburgs construction but with 19 months out they do have a chance of getting into this war's action. already scrapped the Schlesian BBs and Seydlitz, but it's still not enough. i guess this is the consequence of building 2 81k ton BCs costing close to 10mil a month per. first battle of war, medium sized coastal raid. ever since tension hit orange i put everything on AF so after some actual pondering it was accepted. indeed, Derfflinger and Lutzow 2 ships of the same class got in. Plus one old Munchen 25 knotter CL. i must've forgotten to send it out during the messy rebuild shuffle. oh well! gonna see how it goes.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 5:10:52 GMT -6
coastal raid went well. i think our tech dev finally caught up to the brits, the gun caliber still lacks behind but the quadruple setup more than makes up for it in firepower. what they spawned was 2 of these, one Inflexible class, one Inconstant class, same tonnage same spec, the AI somehow built 2 into different classes. we managed to squeeze them onto the land mass and the 1st one was soon gonners after getting hit by a few torps. the second one started running away, with 3 of my screening DDs all damaged to bits and 1 sunk, and him still having a few escorts the only way is gun duel at close range from the stern. suddenly i realized the first enemy BC despite stationary was still alive, so sent Munchen in for a torpedo run. it sent in 3 more torps and the enemy ship was no longer firing. post battle debrief showed it ate a total of 6 torps and 10+ heavy hits, all legit non post mortem. bastards probably already have TPS 2 on them! definitely need to refit the BBs with bulges nowww! the second BC went down after receiving a total of 59 heavy hits at close range. listed here as 61 but 2 post mortem. we ran a huge torpedo risk getting very close to his escort destroyers but luckily there were no screw ups. basically we were able to out gun them, and armor is also good enough on the derfflingers, one of them managed to bounce a 14" AP 5500 yards engine room B hit. the enemy apparently also had a support force consisting of one BB tiger class. we exchanged a few shots but nobody got any hits before he eluded us in the dark and luckily was never encountered again after day break. if we did, it wouldn't be good, as both BCs were down to ~10% ammo after battling with the enemy BCs, and surely the forward guns are all empty if not only on HE rounds at least. i think the 140RPG load is borderline satisfactory.. back to main UI and we are blockading them, which is interesting as line of service capitals are surely in shortage compared to the brits. apparently they'd send out quite a few BCs to foreign colonies and have yet to pull them back. i suspect we'll be blockaded soon enough.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 7:03:14 GMT -6
the battlecruiser Lutzow put to the ultimate test a repeat of the previous coastal raid, but this time the battle generator gives me Lutzow, one, single, BC. "aww phuck" is the first reaction because i'm pretty sure the enemy will gang up on me 2v1. not surprisingly upon sighting, there are 2 of them. one Illustrious, one Inconstant, both of which i'm already familiar with and packing a total of 17 14" guns. well gotta be prepared for a tough fight and keep the distance. we have the better armor but it won't matter if range gets close. and so the running engagement has Lutzow constantly a few clicks bow away dragging the enemy while keeping the forward guns within their firing arc, targeting mainly the Illustrious as it's the enemy lead ship. from the looks of things we are slightly on the better edge of gunnery because we're at least scoring more hits, but who knows what those pea shooter 12" guns are doing at this range! - post battle analysis shows not much, apparently, not until the range closed to within 15000 yards. B, D and especially T hits all bounced off outside that! the Illustrious template really is used for end game tech level and that 19" turret face is used against 16"+ guns on full AP research, it is hugely overpowering when brought to the 10% research play, but maybe that is a good challenge! packing more tubes really has reached diminished returns at this point and we really need higher caliber guns, just.. please, not the -1 quality category. meanwhile Lutzow received a couple of BE hits which started minor flooding but were soon stopped, thankfully damage control is finally better. but again, post analysis shows no flooding for the enemy caused by ranged 12" hits. need higher caliber guns dammit! the ships run towards the land mass, it is a coastal raid afterall. there's a small half-island pertruding from the english coast. ships on 2 sides are heading for opposite sides of the island, and knowing the AI's path finding or lack thereof, i decided to utilize the island to hold the enemy off from getting closer and closer, which they are. after hitting land edge they came to a full stop, slowly turned around and so did i, still keeping the bow slightly away, successfully opening up the distance in the process. gradually the enemy started semi disengaging doing the typical BC maneuver of getting outside firing range, then getting back in again, and so we played the cat mouse game. their 14" Q0 guns slightly out range the 12"Q1 but only by a small amount. the option to disengage and run away presented itself at the moment as even if i'd somehow chase them down, the ammunition may not be sufficient to capitalize on anything, but seeing that we have the slight upper hand i decided to press. soon TOD changes to night. in a stalemate any change is better, it seems. the enemy is gradually heading towards their home port with Lutzow shifting between their 9-7 o'clock pos. finally, a lucky critical hit, maybe damaged machinery, or perforated uptakes (debrief shows the former), and the Illustrious slowed down significantly, while the enemy screening ships followed the Inconstant as their division lead must've changed leaving Illustrious in the back naked. FLOTILLA ATTACK NOW! and so the DDs change to support, line ahead, max speed, smoke on, torp hold, split off from Lutzow and head to the other side of the Illustrious. the Illustrious naturally turns away from the onslaught DDs but becomes head on to the guns of Lutzow, then turns away from Lutzow but back into the DD torps firing arc. the 16x12" finally has the firepower upper hand at close range and scored more than 20 good hits at this stage, the DDs after firing a total of 24 torps scored 2 hits. the Illustrious finally sank after this. started to gather up everybody to... well GTFO. the Inconstant was last spotted heading back to port already inside the protective minefield, but came back for some more. both sides disengaged upon sighting. post dbrf - the Illustrious received 44 heavy hits and 2 torps. the other 4 torps received post-mortem. it was built during the previous war so could be TPS 1 only. edit: well i peaked. TPS 2. phuck me. Luztow received 11 heavy hits but no serious damage. the Inconstant received no hits. on the operational side i also scrapped the Nassaus. they're short ranged and can't be used as invading force anyway. so we'll definitely be blockaded, but that's better than running outta funds. we're still in the deep red however, one of the Hindenburgs will have to be paused. "it is inevitablllle", so sayz agent smith.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2017 9:23:47 GMT -6
many more battles after that and didn't bother to "record". it is ofc another british goverment collapse after about 40 months. our biggest loss: BB Friedrich der Grosse, the latest dreadnought, sank to a mine, after taking part in just 2 battles. i have nothing to say about it, except wtf. when the Hindenburg sank, it was upsetting, but totally acceptable, as i know what happened and what caused it - my complete carelessness. but this, is not. some strategical event is not something i can relate to. this is why i also completely disabled subs. strategical events be damned. our victory was not as devastating as the 1st war. in the end the british still had 4 BBs in their inventory compared to the previous 0. mostly because i made some less than optimal tactical decisions. but it's not all that bad because the 4 BBs left are all 8x14" ships which will be eaiser to sink if another war comes. on fleet management. i scrapped Goeben as soon as our capital numbers surpassed that of the enemy due to their battle loss. it was getting old and is becoming more and more of a liability in battles. imagine what would happen if only the Goeben spawned in a coastal raid against 2 enemy BCs. i can use it as an invader but already have Von der Tann and Moltke for that, they are afterall cheaper and takes up fewer base points in foreign colonies. for new ships the Hindenburg and Prinz Eitel Friedrich was (resurrected) commissioned . the 2 ships took part in 1 or 2 battles, they did well, but not as if to hell and back like Lutzow. i didn't really have the extra funds to lay down any more big ships during the war except CL and DDs. we managed to invade 3 british colonies this time around. Yemen, zanzibar, and nigeria. Nigeria is a 4 point colony so doing great with invasions in this war. a large reason is i spent quite some cash on building up colony seazone's base capacities so that they can accommodate dreadnoughts - at this point all 4 seazones are 600-700 capacity. on victory reparations, i decided to get into the Med. usually do this a lot later, but in this play thru i'm a lot more aggressive in taking colonies, i usually leave taking ireland for very late in the game for example but we already have it now. one more reason to get into the med: Italy somehow managed to take over egypt by some fluke of luck... egypt ofc firstly declared independence from the brits, then internal upheaval came and italy is intent on taking it over, the event asked me if i wanted to issue ultimatums. our fleet was mobilizing to get into war vs the brits at the time and didn't wanna risk fighting a 2 front war, there's no way to fight italy properly now ever since we took over eritrea in the indian ocean. and so italy successfully controlled egypt. this whole thing makes it more inviting to fight them as a result to control the passage from N europe to indian ocean. you can just easily go via west africa, but my end goal is ofc war vs usa, and more routes = less chance encounter against their massive fleet and more seazones for raider spam. plus we don't need to take those budget/prestige hits in case italy does wanna play. and so we now have gibraltar, malta and cyprus from the hands of the british. ofc, am building up base points on those colonies. on research, 2 major breakthrus happened. 1 is director firing, it was done while the fleet is still at war and i began to rotate ships in and out of rebuilds while maintaining the blockade on the brits. the other is TPS 4. it is funny, more often than not i find the research just jumps over TPS 3 entirely. we are also completely in the lead in this area, taking chance of low tensions after the war settled, i fired up design ship and checked TPS levels on all other nations. they are all on TPS 2, except USA still stuck at TPS 1. i'm sure they'll catch up soon enough, with intel espionage and whatnot. we STILL don't have better naval guns. even feeble italy is sitting pretty at 13" Q1!! with 13" guns, i feel the throw weight can finally mean something. i built some very successful and hard hitting ships with 15x13" ships in the previous play thru. naval gun research just isn't in our favor this round. otoh britian already possesses 15 Q0 guns. all of their ships except the 4 leftover BBs will be on this caliber now. i can just think to jutland where the QE trolls every 12" german ship with their massive 15 inchers. therefore my ships will continue to use 20x12". if they can't have the caliber, at least they'll have volume of fire. i know they're pea shooters at long range, but well that's the best one can do with what's at hand. also can build them very big now, dock yard size is at 89000 tons, so the ships will be very well protected. i will probably finalize the design and lay it down couple of turns later, but this is what came up on a trial run. AoN, 19" belt 4" deck, TPS 4, director firing. they are designed against the british 15" guns, by checking their gun data this protects against it from 12k-20k yards, so it's good enough. btw just because it says 18.4 on 12000 yards doesn't mean it is a fixed number, from my observation penetration values have a huge random margin, on this 18.4 i only take it as the statistical median center. it is completely normal for the 19" belt to be penetrated at 18000 yards, if the randomness factor is in the enemy's favor. so what does this mean? to me it means armor can only protect the ship so much. if you take a sufficient number of hits, it will sink nonetheless. heck the BE and DE section is unarmored, those eventually also will start flooding despite AoN being more resistent, have seen it. therefore raw tonnage becomes a major factor in protection. more tonnage = more hit points. ofc tis only game wise. if i can't have the tonnage, then more firepower, if nobody is protected, just gotta make sure the other guy is hurt more. anyway, that's the Konig class. a very funny ship like the M1 Abrams tank, a big vehicle carrying a (few) small gun(s). but that's the 10% research... nothing major happened in the light ships area. we can now build 3k ton destroyers, but i'll stick to the 1500 tonners for now to save budget. the british however is indeed building some 1700 and 1600 tonners. but we're sitting pretty at 85 DDs + 16 building while they only have 11 left from the war, so can't have it better than that. the latest V2 class, ABY 3x5" 12TT surpassed design speed to 34 knots. gonna get 20+ of them. that's all for now. will see what can be done about a new BC class, when there's enough budget and hopefully, better guns. edit and so Konig and Markgraf laid down. dropped turret armor to 21" and upped CT to same, RPG upped to 146. 10 mil a month per. we are mothballing to the limit, so breaking even with nothing else building atm.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2017 10:38:03 GMT -6
and great news strikes. 8 months after the Konigs are laid down, 14" Q1 guns researched. we entered tech sharing with USA and that also helped. next the british sold us improved triple turrets. i think our new BC class can finally use some proper gun setups. and so with the Konigs 2 months away and 8mil+ in the green budget wise the new Mackensen class is designed. made two configs, 1st one is the standard 12x14" in triple turrets. 2nd one sacrifices 1.5" belt, adds 0.5" to turret armor and 2 more tubes on the forward firing turrets. gonna go with the 2nd config as it's more firepower centric and the 96k tonnage can withstand some shots. had done 12x14" BCs before, they definitely will go up against british 16 inchers and was struggling. also tried the A-B-V-Y 4-3-3-4 config, which frees extra weight for.. 4 more RPG. would rather have more tubes in the front. don't think i ever used so many quad turrets before! in the end, sodded them both. gimme more guns. 16x14" in 4 quad turrets. belt drops down to 14.5". turret face ups to 22". 132 RPG. everything else same. the belt is now cheese. britain's 15" Q0 can do 14.2" at 20,000 yards and it'll only do better as AP research progress, but we need that firepower to stay on equal or better terms when facing future 16 inchers. building of Mackensen and Graf Spee thus commences.
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Post by konstantinua00 on Mar 9, 2017 15:09:49 GMT -6
nice
hm.. have you tried modding speed limit? is it possible to get faster than 36 knots (35+lucky)?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2017 15:17:45 GMT -6
well what do ya know. it is december 1935, 5 years after the previous war, and britain is at it with us AGAIN. declined every engagement in the first turn to get the fleet ready and more time to work up. next turn gets a battleship engagement. we deploy all 5 BB and 4 BCs in our possession. the enemy deploys 6 BBs and 6 BCs. it was quite brutal in that the 14 and 15" guns out range us by a big margin and hits extra hard. any belt/BE penetrations would result in flooding. also submerged torp mount hit sets 300+ flooding to ships without TPS 4 as evident on Derfflinger. i had to drop it down to 5 kts and hold fire/torps to get the flooding quickly controlled, which fortunately it did. the new Konig class did well. Konig received 14 hits yet only 1 click of flotation damage. Markgraf was in slightly worse shape due to a B* pen flooding, but they were still doing 25kts at the end of the engagement. the Kaisers and Prinzregent Luitpold (Friedrich der Grosse class) not so much however and received a severe beating. my typical tactical stance is slightly ahead and away from the enemy battle line, somehow i feel the Rtw/SAI combat engine always awards better hit rates to the battle line shooting back over the shoulder. but this stance puts extra pressure often on the last division in the line because the enemy would prioritize them to get their broadside on. Prinzregent Luitpold, Kaiser and Kaiserin are in the 2nd/last div, while Konig/Markgraf in the lead div. Prinzregent Luitpold had to be detached and sent home, after receiving 23 hits, got 2 outta 4 turrets destroyed, max speed dropped to only 18kts, and about 1/4 of flotation damage. Kaiser and Kaiserin's max speed dropped down to 23kts but they stayed. it could be worse: as both lines are engaging each other, the second div was lagging significantly behind the 1st div, due to their battle damage and reduced speed. i gradually slowed down Konig/Markgraf eventually to 20kts and the 2nd div was still unable to catch up. at the time the scout force was ahead of the main force essentially leading the line. usually as the enemy BB line closes in they would receive heavier and heavier damage eventually turning away from our line attempting to flee, whereby i would use the scout force to press on and the main force reversing the direction intending to sandwich the enemy on both sides. but this time they did the complete opposite.. they started to turn in to us more and more, to the point the 2nd BB division was about to be cut off from the 1st div. so extremely dangerous situation. i decided to turn the scout force around to reinforce the 2nd BB div, which worked. the enemy started turning away. - i think BCs are quite useful like this when they provide these extra options with their better mobility. at that point night time came and it just became a hectic mess. we faintly spotted an enemy capital stopped dead in the water. we did not deal any devastating damage to a single enemy BB so pretty sure it was a critical hit disabling the electrical power. but it is nonetheless a good opportunity for a torpedo run, which scored 7 torp hits. 6 more fish followed later post mortem. thus sank the 1st BB. i kept the flotilla attack running and 1 Collingwood class was hit once. it sank a few hours later due to progressive flooding to 18 hits and 1 torp. the 18 12" hits are nothing, so mostly the torp. torpedo tech has advanced so much that even TPS 2 is inadequate now for a 40k+ ton ship. the Collingwood class. i didn't take any pics from the battle, this was loaded from a 6hr autosave just to look at the specs so by battle's end it was still afloat. it has relatively low belt, good turret and exceptional deck, as i'd expect from a Colorado template intended to be used as one of the end game designs.. we sank another 2 BBs, both by close range gunnery. it now takes ~80 12" close range hits to completely destroy a capital ship. this one shows receiving 84 htis and 2 torps, 2 hits and the torps are post mortem. also despite the close ranges shots non of the turrets are destroyed which is amazing considering how often turret hits are in this game. probably jamming them is the best the 12" pea shooter can do now. our losses are 5 destroyers, but they're all 1100 tonners so can't really complain. the latest DD class is already 2100 ton with 3x6" guns. light forces research is all but done sans the torp six shooter. btw we still can't mount double 5/6" turrets on CL/DD or capital ship secondaries. the damn scientists researched the very last tech in turret and gun mountings first, which does nothing but saves some turret weight, and is now going back to this one. i'm sure we'd get the ever so important increased elevation tech till the very last:x i wouldn't be surprised if the research department is consisted of the two man team newton and gottlieb! we are now blockading the enemy, but capital ship numbers are equal: i have 5 BB + 4 BC, the enemy 4 BB + 5 BC. the blockade is largely due to my CL/DD fleet which numbers 23 with another 7 (re)building in CL, they only have 5 + 5 building. i have 100+ DD and they've 25. current worry is BC fights again. they've 4 Indefatigable class, with 9x15" guns. the other 1 is 8x15". to our 12" gunned BCs those are nuclear shells. the Mackensens are 6/7 months away. plus working up time, 10 months minimum. outcome of war would be decided by then. timing is just off. we are still bottle-necked by gun caliber.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2017 18:40:56 GMT -6
enemy coastal raid at helgoland bay one of those typical coastal raids. the annoying thing when i started playing the game was the "helgoland port" was setup on the outward island and my ships would automatically switch to rtb mode when they got close. edited the files to move the port closer to wilhelmshaven, and that is now much better. anyway, deployed Konig, Markgraf, Defflinger, Lutzow in the main force, Hindenburg and Seydlitz (renamed from Prinz Eitel Friedrich, which will be used for later BCs) in the scout force, 2BB + 4BCs. contact was made 1hr50min from night time so knew this was gonna be mostly a night battle - heck, it is the north sea. if it ain't night, it's raining. the enemy consisted of 3 BBs, which was all the BBs they had left for the other one was sunk in a previous hectic harwich coastal raid. since we outnumber them 2 to 1, we definitely had the advantage and out gun them rather quickly pushing them to turn away and flee. but where is their scout force? i'm pondering this because am considering splitting the scout force. chased them for a few turns in a single battle line but their scout force is still no show, well to hell with it, we are splitting. the enemy BBs are actually faster than us, top speed 28 knots, and so my main force is stuck at their 7 o'c, scout force stuck to 5 o'c trying to catch up. we are scoring some good hits, but like said the pea shooters at long range don't do much. they are still merrily sailing in a pretty fast pace, so this went on for quite some time. when we finally caught up somewhat broadside on, night time struck. actually, come to think of it,, the majority of the sinking of enemy ships are at night for these past few wars. and the brits have now lost over 40 capital ships in all these. damn you, north sea. nonetheless the enemy sensing the bad position began turning away from the main force heading towards my 2 BC scout force which was still lagging a tad behind. i order a flotilla attack on my scout force trying to push them away using both screening DDs and gunnery. well, the 2 lead BBs did evade, but not the 3rd BB, a Collingwood class, which kept on coming and not turning until we are very close. well, i thought since we are 2v1, might as well. and so a close range dogfight is started. we are scoring mega hits, but again, pea shooters, no stopping power. it actually took quite a few turns to do in the Collingwood. the DDs are surely in on the action spreading their torps, but i didn't manually control them and there's a lack of cooperation between my capital ships, and the torp lobbing DDs. none of the torps hit when the Collingwood was still mobile as it was doing a good job avoiding all of them, while a torp probably launched in LOW mode hit Seydlitz. sigh. i spotted them and turned away, but 'twas too late. extremely luckily, there was no flooding, thank god the bulge was added during refit. woot! but Seydlitz did suffer some flotation damage and a max speed drop of 2 knots to 26. hey, could be worse. meanwhile on the other side of the battlefield, Konig and Markgraf got in their own duels with the 2 enemy BBs, a Tiger and a Glorious class, a 8x15" gunned BB. we were winning scoring mega hits, of course, but it was not good enough as Konig got a belt pen and started some flooding. those 15" are tough. we were then caught in a bad position as a lone single british DD showed up from front and forced us turning away from the enemy, exposing the stern to their broadside. the enemy's position is exactly what i try to get into when chasing a fleeing ship! thankfully, they did not score any meaningful hits, probably the damage received was too great beforehand, but still this shouldn't last too long, my BBs are just hanging on as well. as the saying goes longer nights bring more nightmares. at this moment the newly built light cruiser Brummer showed up close to the enemy - good thing i changed all CL divs to screen after IDing contacts during the day battle, and good thing that the british fleet have so few screening DDs at this point probably diverting all funds to dreadnought building. the Brummer has 8 torps on each side, it'd be a waste not to manual control it for torp runs. however it missed the line up shot and got the Glorious bow on. nevertheless, i launched the first 4 torp spread and got 1 hit. the AI auto launched another 2 which missed, but the next manual launch got 2 for 2. 3 torps plus all those heavy hits is enough for a BB without TPS 3 or 4. with the Collingwood dealt with in the back, i pulled my BCs in to reinforce the main force. they ran into the Tiger who separated from the Glorious during the 4 BB dogfight. another gunnery duel. this one went relatively quickly due to prior work done by the Konigs and his lack of DD escort. thus sank all the BBs in the british fleet. series of screen grabs of the night dogfight night time is relatively short in august and pretty soon we hit daybreak. i still ponder about the absence of the enemy scout force and send my scout force to the direction of harwich in case they went home, and sent the main force towards helgoland, in case they're still lingering in the bay. suddenly gun fire erupted from somewhere and the coastal patrol minesweepers were sending intel reports. some ships encountered at our previous battle position, just NW of emden. i turn both my forces around. when the main force arrived at the reported position there was no enemy. and so i knew they were going back towards my scout force. indeed, the enemy was sighted, 2 BCs, and the engagement started between the 4. my BC forces were heading towards the land mass edge which was not ideal since we would need to turn, reducing gunnery effectiveness, but decided to force it towards my BBs, because both BCs have sustained battle damage and may need assistance. the enemy, however, have other ideas. they are running away. i am baffled, for they're not damaged. nevertheless fine, we give pursuit, trodding along at 26kt snail speed for a pair of battlecruisers, striving for broadside shots much as we could. the Indefatigable class at the back slowed down, miraculously, far as i am concerned, and was subsequently gunned down. this last sinking was quite a surprise tbh, but i'm glad that we got a BC. if they can't be dealt with in a fleet size action, our BCs will have to do extra work in the risky cruiser battles. checking the debrief, 80hits per sunk ship is still evident. with torps this decreases. a torp hit is about 6-10 heavy hits. and it turns out the Indefatigable's slowing down is due to a BE* hit causing flooding. very interesting. the enemy has now only 4 BCs left. i will move some capitals to indian ocean and SE asia to force some invasions - the brits no longer have a holding in the med, or west africa. in the latter all of their colonies were lost due to invasions. but the intention of moving out capital ships from northern europe never really is to invade the colonies, that's just a side benefit. the main reason is the enemy would simply decline battles if player side has the capital ship number advantage. we certainly need the AI to accept them, increasing our victory margin. and the only way to do this is to match their naval strength. if they only have 4 capitals left, i would also only keep 4 or 5 capitals in N europe. the others, either move to other colonies, or straight up RF. since we have the funds this time to keep them all on AF, to foreign colonies it is. we are now 10 months into the war and the Mackensens are commissioned. if they were in construction for 1 more month, we'd be outta funds. eh. Mackensen will finish working up next turn.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2017 8:32:25 GMT -6
nice hm.. have you tried modding speed limit? is it possible to get faster than 36 knots (35+lucky)? not yet, will see!
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