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Post by vonfriedman on Oct 15, 2014 8:25:51 GMT -6
I think all of us are very interested in the "next development of the SAI series". Full speed ahead with this!
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Post by vonfriedman on Aug 1, 2014 7:41:03 GMT -6
The pre-dreadnought battleships Duilio and Dandolo the Italian Navy, built at the end of the XIX century, had an unusual ability. In the stern of these ships there was a compartment, which was accessed by means of watertight doors, for the housing of a small Thornycroft torpedo boat. I wonder if SAI engine could simulate the launching and the recovery of this torpedo boat. It seems to me that this issue is somewhat similar to the simulation of towing, which was commonly used to compensate for the reduced range of the torpedo boats.
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Post by vonfriedman on Jul 9, 2014 6:12:00 GMT -6
Thanks for your kind words. If my attempts will fail, I hope nobody will take it badly.
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Post by vonfriedman on Jul 8, 2014 3:39:15 GMT -6
I am very pleased that the editor needed to create the Adriatic campaign has been put on the network and sincerely thank NWS for that. I'm not sure to be able to implement all the factors and situations needed to create a realistic Adriatic campaign, and I hope that there is someone more capable than me. I agree with randomizer about the lack of interest of the Adriatic theater of war from the point of view of actions between large warships. I am aware of the difficulties of the SAI engine to manage the sailing of numerous ships in litoral waters with many small islands etc. It is a problem that maybe NWS wants to face and solve, if, for example, the battles around Guadalcanal in WWII are to be properly simulated. Regarding the MAS I wonder if the model used for the small steam torpedo boats of the beginning of 1900 can be adapted to simulate the mode of operation of the motor torpedo boats. I also agree with fredsanford about the interest of any simulation based on the classic question: "what if"? In this regard, in a hypothetical campaign the performances of the opposing warships could also be varied secretly in advance by the Scenario or campaing editor, so that the players do not know in advance that, for example, a German BC is always superior to a corresponding British BC.
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Post by vonfriedman on Jul 7, 2014 7:38:00 GMT -6
There are some another elements that should be simulated in a hypothetical Adriatic campaing. One is the supply at first and then the rescue of the Serbian army in 1915. Almost 200000 soldiers, with part of their equipment and several civilian refugees were embarked and transported from Albanian ports to Corfu or Brindisi by Allied shipping, mostly Italian. It was a major operation, with a lot of merchant ships and naval vessels involved. It had a relatively long duration (from December 1915 up to February 1916) and met some opposition by the Austrians. To simulate this in the proposed campaign the Allied/Italian player should manage a scheduled series of convoys and the Austrian player should operate some interception missions, while in the meantime carrying out both mine and submarine warfare. Moreover, in the latter part of the Great War the Italian Navy began to attack Austrian naval bases in the northern Adriatic, using both motor torpedo boat (MAS) both various types of innovative assault craft. For example, the ablest of the MAS aces, Luigi Rizzo (who later sank the dreadnought St. Istvan) entered the port of Trieste on December 9, 1917 with two MAS and sank there the predreadnought battleship SMS Wien. On February 10, 1918 with three MAS Rizzo sailed to Buccari harbour and sank there four austrian merchants. Are also noteworthy the repeated attempts in May 1918 to attack the main Austrain naval base in Pola (Rijeka) by using tracked electric torpedo boats ("barchini saltatori") which should crawl over the outer net defenses of the harbour. Primitive human torpedoes ("mignatte") at last succeded to sank there the Viribus Unitis dreadnought on October 1918. These and many other similar operations were screened by Italian naval vessels and this gave origin to some surface actions. There was also a plan to penetrate the outer net defenses of Pola by means of the predreadnought Re Umberto sailing at maximum speed. Following the breakthrough a large number of MAS would have been able to attack the Austrains ships at anchor. All in all, it seems to me that there are elements to make the simulation of an Adriatic campaign no less interesting than the Baltic campaign.
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Post by vonfriedman on Jun 30, 2014 11:42:29 GMT -6
I am putting forward some ideas to create an Adriatic campaign, if someone wishes to do so for the centenary of WWI. The repeated bombing of coastal targets in southern Italy led the Italian Navy to establish a garrison in the small island of Pelagosa that would act as an advanced sighting and observation point. The Austrian retaliation, conducted twice with a dozen ships, did not lead to any naval battle, as perhaps it might have happened if the Italian radio station on the island had not been destroyed at the beginning of one of these retaliatory operations. The second idea concerns the implementation of a plan that was developed by the staff officers of some Italian destroyers ("Piano I", as described in Admiral Da Zara book "Pelle d'ammiraglio"). It was based on a number of prearranged cruises that should be carried out by a large percentage of Italian and Allied light forces with the aim of intercepting the Austrians on the way home after a bombing mission. From 6 up to 8 cruises each month should be made on dates chosen at random. These cruises were to take place in the neighborhood of a point with coordinates 42 15 N 16 36 E. As the Austrians appeared off the Italian coasts at dawn, the sailing of the Allied ships from Brindisi was to take place at the beginning of the night. If the enemy had not been met, the intercepting force would quickly return to port in separate groups, not to alarm the Austrians.
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Post by vonfriedman on May 18, 2014 9:06:53 GMT -6
I finally got around to assembling the .zip files(busy semester...) for everyone to download. I made these ships when NWS announced that their next game after SAI would be based around the Russo-Japanese War. While I enjoy all naval combat, motoring around in predreadnoughts and armored cruisers didn't seem as fun to me as playing with the fantasy designs of the post-WW1 period. So I began to update the roster of each major nation to include dreadnoughts, superdreadnoughts, and battle cruisers which never made it off of the ways or even the drawing board. I focused heavily on the US and Japan, which had the most extensive postwar building programs, and for those countries designed every ship planned for launch through 1925(i.e. every capital ship designed before the Washington Naval Treaty). As for France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany, I designed only capital ships from the WW1 era, as none of these nations were seriously planning capital ships between the end of the war and the WNT. Britain was left mostly untouched because it had the largest roster of modern ships and its only legitimate postwar designs(the G3 battlecruiser and N3 superdreadnought) were horrifically ugly, had turret placements which are impossible to replicate on the ship design editor, and could not be fit into the WW1 window of the North Sea battle generator. The commissioning dates for all ships which were never commissioned historically are based on optimistic completion timetables(approximately 2-3 years from when construction began, depending on the nation) so as to get them into the game before it ends. In a discussion on the old forum it was debated the question of the horizontal protection of the Italian Caracciolo BBs. Someone said that is would be similar to that of the Queen Elizabeth class BB. Others - me also - were persuaded that it would be more or less similar to that of the Cavour type BBs, as originally designed. Which is the choice that have you have made on this matter? It is a pity that the British G3 and N3 "monsters" may not be included in your excellent work. It is not clear to me where the Hood BCs files may be found. Just another question: what about Fisher's HMS Incomparable?
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Post by vonfriedman on May 16, 2014 14:44:23 GMT -6
I would like to see this game system expand into WW2, but as aviation led to the demise of the battleship as the capital unit of the fleet, the addition of air power would destroy much of what this game offers in surface battles between individual ships, or fleets. Something like a stategic 'Thunder at Sea' element, with aircraft carriers, catapult launched aircraft from CAs and BBs, maybe even land based aircraft, providing an air search and attack capability, but with the tactical battle resolved in classic SAI form. The aviation element (ship/fleet sightings, inflicting damage, sinking and removing ships from the OOB) would be resolved before the SAI battle commences. Aircraft intervening in the tactical battle would make SAI/WW2 pointless, there are already several games that already do carrier warfare, such battles being resolved without fleets sighting each other. I almost completely agree with this position. However in some cases the aviation interfered with naval battles, during WW2, such as the attack of torpedo planes on BB Veneto during its daylight gun action ahainst the British cruisers near Gaudo, just before the night action off Matapan. Leyte battle reports give other examples of this. To deal with this kind of problem in SAI, some corrective factors, either random or not, may be introduced. They may go from a less effective gunnery, owing to the need of zigzagging etc, up to a complete loss of contact with the target.
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Post by vonfriedman on Feb 17, 2014 12:59:32 GMT -6
How did you put the armor and gunnery data for the Italian and British ships?
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Post by vonfriedman on Jan 3, 2014 7:16:09 GMT -6
Being able to simulate the flow of information in the time before the radio makes it possible to develop future games based on the age of sail, which would be very interesting. On this point we could continue the discussion elsewhere. However, I still think that NWS should in future reuse the best of Thunder at Sea and develop a new game on the 2WW.
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Post by vonfriedman on Jan 2, 2014 15:04:25 GMT -6
On December 1891 the Italian Navy's own magazine Rivista Marittima published an article on "The game of naval warfare" of the lieutenant A. Colombo. A simulation at operational level of the naval war is illustrated in detail with reference to a period where the heavy guns of the battleships were allegedly able to fire 5 rounds in an hour and a quarter at an effective firing distance of 2500 meters. The range of the torpedoes was estimated in 600 meters. The cruising speed of a battleship division was about 12 knots in fair weather. Beside the cruisers there were smaller "avvisi" (sloops, scout cruisers). They play an essential role in the game, being used in collecting and transmitting information to/from flagships and semaphore land stations. In this game the defending side has a lot of torpedo boats along its coastline. They have a very reduced autonomy (less than 10 hours). Towing is often used, partly because engine failures were frequent in all types of ships. Various other data are available from this source, that was used by Lieutenant Mc Carty Little in the early years of US Naval War College. I wonder how the basic SAI / RJW engine could be modified to deal with the operational side of the naval war of that period.
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Post by vonfriedman on Dec 23, 2013 13:07:47 GMT -6
In a sense it is a book similar to The Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-33 by Hector C. Bywater. While I would not find it difficult to imagine an operational SAI scenario set in 1931 I find it hard to imagine how the SAI engine would work in a 1895 scenario, without the radio.
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Post by vonfriedman on Dec 23, 2013 10:27:54 GMT -6
If someone want to simulate some imaginary naval warfare of the late Victorian period I would recommend reading on www.archive.org "The last great naval war. An historical retrospect" by Seaforth, A. Nelson, pseud. An Anglo-French war breaks out is on some year between 1890 and 1900. In that period communications could only occur via signals between ships and / or semaphores on the land. This situation, in my opinion, would emerge - at least in the case of smaller ships - even in the period considered by SAI RJW. I wonder if this is simulated in the RJW game.
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Post by vonfriedman on Dec 23, 2013 5:48:02 GMT -6
To complete the picture, I would add the web site www.naval-history.net/index.htm where you can read the five volumes of Corbett's and Newbolt's "History of the Geat War - Naval Operations" and much more. As a whole, an excellent source of information for those who want to develop custom scenarios not only in the main war theaters but also in various other parts of the world.
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Post by vonfriedman on Dec 23, 2013 5:31:32 GMT -6
I read in the book of Adm Scott "50 years in the RN" that in the battleships of Colossus and Orion classes (as well as in the Dreadnought) the mast became "red hot" while steaming at full speed against the wind, so that if was not possible to replace the lookouts. This problem, combined with the visual obscuration due to smoke, would have worsened the shooting of these ships. I wonder if there is any other evidence of it in the records.
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