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Post by RNRobert on Oct 30, 2015 12:05:53 GMT -6
Of course, if you have the NWS game Steam and Iron (which RTW is based on), you can create ships for different nations in the game's ship editor, and then use the scenario editor to fight them.
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 29, 2015 8:33:56 GMT -6
Naval engagement that occurred during the during the Franco-Thai War. At dawn on 17 January 1941, a French naval squadron consisting of the light cruiser Lamotte-Piquet and four avisos engages a Thai naval detachment near the Koh Chang anchorage, sinking two torpedo boats and forcing a coast defense vessel aground. It was a decisive victory, but the end of the month saw an armistice between France and Thailand (mediated by the Japanese) which resulted in France ceding some of its Cambodian provinces to Thailand. I thought this would be an interesting scenario for WC-NAW, although a bit of a challenge as only one of the ships that took part in the battle is present in the database. The largest Thai vessel in the battle was a coast defense vessel, the Thonburi. She was built in Japan and was 2,265 tons with a speed of 15 ½ knots. She carried four 8-inch guns in two twin turrets (the same that were used by the IJN’s heavy cruisers) and four 3-inch guns. I decided to use the German Schleswig class pre-dreadnought to represent them-not an ideal choice, as these ships were larger and more heavily armed and armored than the Thai vessel, but I felt nothing else in WC-NAW really came close. I also reduced her speed from 18 knots to the 16 knots of the Thai vessel. The two torpedo boats ( Chonburi and Songhkla) were Trad class torpedo boats, about 470 tons displacement, with a speed of 32 knots, with three three-inch guns and six 18-inch torpedo tubes (two twin and two single mounts). They had been built in Italy and based on that nation’s Spica class torpedo boats, and for that reason I had considered using the Italian Sella class to represent them. However, in the end, I decided that the smaller Wickes-40, with its weaker 3” armament, and carrying the same number of torpedoes as the Thai warships, was the better fit. For the French, the Lamotte-Piquet was a Duguay-Trouin class light cruiser, which made that simple. Of the four avisos, the two Bougainville class ( Dumont d'Urville and Amiral Charner) were the largest, about 2600 tons full load, with a speed of approximately 16 knots and three 3.9-inch guns. I decided to use the Pluton class CLs to represent them, as they had the same caliber main gun battery. They were much larger than the avisos, and had a secondary 3” battery which the Bougainvilles lack, but I figured that could be used to represent the two smaller avisos ( Tahure and Marne) which were also present. I also reduced their speed to that of the avisos. The scenario is perfectly balanced point-wise, although in playing it, the French seem to have the edge (even though all crews are average). KOH CHANG.txt (1.47 KB)
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 24, 2015 8:41:40 GMT -6
Thanks, Dennis. So it seems my guess about the antennas being different was on the right track...
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 23, 2015 19:37:50 GMT -6
I know that air search radars are used for detecting aircraft, and that surface search radars are used for detecting ships and land masses. I also know that some British shipboard air search radars during WWII had a rudimentary surface search capability. But what I am trying to figure out is what distinguishes them. I'm assuming it has something to do with the antenna array, but my online searches haven't shed much light on the subject.
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 23, 2015 17:39:56 GMT -6
This month is the 75th anniversary of Operation Menace, the unsuccessful attempt by Great Britain to capture the Vichy French port of Dakar by landing Free French troops under Charles De Gaulle. Therefore, I have decided to create two scenarios for WC-NAW based on this event. Part I- Cruiser Action, 18 September 1940: A few days before the attack on Dakar, the heavy cruisers Australia and Cumberland spotted three French La Galissoniere class light cruisers en route to Dakar from Toulon. Two of the cruisers slipped away in the dark, but the Gloire had engine trouble and was compelled by the British warships to sail for Casablanca. Part II- Assault on Dakar, 23-25 September 1940: Over a two day period, The British battleships Barham and Resolution traded shots with the French battleship Richelieu and shore batteries. The Richelieu had one of her main gun turrets knocked out, and the Barham suffered a couple hits from the shore batteries. The French submarine Bévéziers torpedoed the battleship Resolution and damaged her so badly she had to be towed back to Cape Town. The cruiser Australia scored hits on the destroyer L'Audacieux and damaged her so badly she had to be beached. In the end, the stiff resistance by the Vichy forces and the reluctance on the part of General De Gaulle to have French soldiers killing their countrymen resulted in the invasion force being withdrawn. This attack, and the attack on Mers-el-Kebir two months earlier (Operation Catapult), strained relations between Great Britain and Vichy France (Vichy French airplanes bombed Gibraltar in retaliation), and caused De Gaulle to lose standing among the Allies. For Part II I did a few things for the sake of play balance: 1) In early July, a torpedo bomber from HMS Hermes scored a hit on Richelieu, causing severe damage. Emergency repairs were made, but Richelieu was used primarily as a floating gun platform. However, in this scenario, she has her normal speed. 2) On the RN side, I left out one CA, two CL and seven DD that were part of the invasion force. On the French side, I used two L'Adroit class destroyers to represent the Bouganville class avisos (basically, small unarmored cruisers about 2,000 tons displacement, 17 knots, three 5.5" guns) and other light forces present. I adjusted their speed to reflect the actual speed of the avisos. The destroyers carried torpedoes, which the avisos, didn't, but I figured they could represent the torpedo attacks made by the submarines present. OPERATION MENACE PART I.txt (1.23 KB) OPERATION MENACE PART II.txt (3.12 KB)
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 21, 2015 12:33:32 GMT -6
Tsingtao, 16 October 1914: The German torpedo boat destroyer S90 flees Tsingtao and that night torpedoes the old Japanese protected cruiser Takachiho before being run aground the next day further southwest on the Chinese coast. The German S90 class is not in the game, so I decided to use the German G169 class (which is what I did for them in my “Action off the Thames” scenario). They are smaller and slower (I edited the speed in the scenario file) than the G169 series, and have a weaker gun armament- three 50 mm versus two 88 (3.5”) - but the torpedo outfit is the same- three 18” torpedoes, which is the important part. I had thought of using the Austrian Magnet class, as they are the same size and similar speed, her gun armament is closer to that of the S90, but the torpedoes are slightly weaker and have a greatly decreased range (1Kyds for the Austrian ship, versus 4Kyds for the Germans), so I decided to remain with the G169 as the proxy. The two sides are evenly matched point-wise, but I would say the odds favor the IJN side due to their superior gun armament. I recommend playing from the German side and treating it as a hit-and-run mission- get in close, launch your torpedoes, and then skedaddle before the Japanese guns can connect. Morto Bay, 13 May 1915: The Turkish destroyer Muâvenet-i Millîye (commanded by a German officer) eludes a British destroyer screen and entered Morto Bay, where the pre-dreadnoughts Goliath and Cornwallis, which were providing gunfire support for the Gallipoli landings, were anchored. The destroyer fired her torpedoes at the Goliath, and all three struck home. The Goliath capsized and sank, taking 570 of her 700 crew to the bottom with her. The Turkish destroyer in this scenario was one of four G169 class destroyers purchased from Germany (they were originally named S165 thru S168, and the German government ordered four more with the same name to replace them). Some sources I’ve read said that the Turkish ships had 75 mm guns installed instead of the 88 mm, but the difference in game terms is negligible. The Goliath has her speed set to 0 to reflect the fact that she was anchored. I created two versions of this battle. One includes just the Turkish destroyer and the Goliath. However, to make things more interesting, I created a second one which includes two of the five destroyers (HMS Beagle and HMS Bulldog) that were part of the screening force. They are placed at the bottom of the map (the Turkish ship is assumed to have successfully evaded them during the ingress, as she did historically), and the object is to make your attack on the battleship, then attempt to slip past the British destroyers as you disengage to the south. More enterprising players may want to play around with the starting locations to see if they can successfully evade the British screen on the ingress as well. I had thought of adding the Duncan class battleship Cornwallis, which was also present, but decided to leave it out as the British already have superior firepower. The British side is set as surprised in both scenarios. TSINGTAO.txt (730 B) MORTO BAY.txt (748 B) MORTO BAY WITH SCREEN.txt (1.09 KB)
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 18, 2015 13:44:01 GMT -6
On the morning of 6 June 1944, the German 5th Torpedo Boat flotilla consisting of the torpedo boats T28, Mowe, Falke, and Jaguar sortied from their base at Le Havre. Approaching the eastern portion of the D-Day invasion force, they launched torpedoes which missed the battleships Warspite and Ramillies but scored a hit on the Norwegian destroyer Svenner (a British 'S' class DD) before disengaging and heading for home. The T28 was a 1939 Flottentorpedoboote, a small warship of about 1800 tons with four 4.1" guns and six torpedo tubes (almost as powerful as some of the older pre-war Allied destroyers). The other three torpedo boats were smaller, in the 900-1100 ton range, with three 4.1" guns and six torpedo tubes. As these vessels are not in the game, I had to improvise. I used the smaller Italian destroyers to represent these vessels (I did the same thing in several other WC-NAW scenarios that portrayed battles that these vessels participated in). I had to do a little digging to find out what other ships were in the area at the time of the battle. As the destroyer HMS Swift was recorded as rescuing survivors of the Svenner, I included her in the OOB. A couple accounts recorded the British battleships Warspite and Ramillies as being almost hit by torpedoes, so I added them as well. However, I found the battle was heavily sided in favor of the Allies, even when I made them surprised. So, I decided to create an alternate scenario without them that was slightly more balanced- I removed the battleships and added HNoMS Stord (another British 'S' class destroyer operated by Norwegians) and the Free French light cruiser Georges Leygues, both of which took part in the landings. Even without the battleships, the odds still favor the Allies. I recommend playing this scenario as the Germans (side 1). It should be played as a hit-and-run mission- get in, launch your torpedoes, then bug out.The fact that the German ships were able to approach within torpedo range of the Allied invasion force, sink one of their warships, and then run home unscathed I find pretty amazing, especially when you consider that the U-boats sent to engage the invasion force came up empty, and another destroyer force that the Germans sent from Brest three days later to attack the landings was savaged by a force of British, Canadian and Polish destroyers off Ushant. D-DAY ENCOUNTER NO BB.txt (1.78 KB) D-DAY ENCOUNTER.txt (1.68 KB)
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 18, 2015 3:41:45 GMT -6
I'm finding that my ships, from CLs to BCs, are being hit at medium-to-long range even when travelling above 30 knots. Tends to happen from the early 20s 'onwards. Is that realistic or historic? I'm reminded of a line from the movie "Battle of Britain" where one of the veteran pilots tells the rookies "never fly in a straight line for more than 30 seconds in the combat zone." In playing various naval sims over the past 15 years- Fighting Steel, Warship Combat- Navies at War, and SAI/RTW, I have found that steaming on a straight course for a prolonged period of time is a recipe for disaster. For that reason, I will make occasional course changes or turn away maneuvers to reduce the chance of getting struck by torpedoes, especially if enemy destroyers are close by.
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 17, 2015 5:31:04 GMT -6
Armored Cruisers were in fact the alternative to the battleship. And for a decent margin of time during the turn of the century there was a quite wide following of the AC as the main capital ship. It's all easier to understand when you remember that at that time guns larger than 10 inches were horribly cumbersome, had a laughable rate of fire and were in general unlikely to hit much. The main damage dealers were the high rate of fire medium sized guns, which would compensate the difficulty of hitting anythign at sea with their ability to fire very fast. I read somewhere that at the battle of Santiago in 1898 during the Spanish-American War, all of the hits on the Spanish ships were from secondary batteries, not the main guns.
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 16, 2015 8:40:39 GMT -6
On 23 April 1891 during the Chilean Civil War, the Balmacedist torpedo gunboats Almirante Lynch and Almirante Condell entered Caldera Bay and engaged the Congressionalist armored frigate Blanco Encalada. The two ships fired three torpedoes that missed and one that was a dud before the fifth torpedo struck home, sinking the frigate in a matter of minutes. It was the first ironclad warship to be sunk by a locomotive torpedo, and the action spurred the growth of torpedo boats in other navies of the world. I thought this would be an excellent battle for WC-NAW using the Russo-Japanese War era vessels present in the WW1 database. The Japanese Tatsuta class CLs are fairly close to the torpedo gunboats in terms of size and armament (although the Chilean ships had three 4.7" guns, not two, and 5 torpedoes tubes instead of 4). The Blanco Encalada was a bit harder. She carries muzzleloading guns (her sister Almirante Cochrane would be modernized a few years later with modern breechloaders). In the end, I decided to use the Russian AC Dmitri Donskoi represent her, as she was of similar size and vintage. I edited the speed values of all the ships to reflect those of the Chilean vessels. The torpedoes carried by the Japanese ships only have a range of 600 yards (which is probably about the same as the ones carried by the Chilean torpedo boats), so getting in close enough to launch can be a challenge. CALDERA BAY.txt (954 B)
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 13, 2015 9:42:46 GMT -6
I keep my old 400 and 500 ton DDs on hand for ASW patrol in war time, placing them in reserve during peace time.
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 12, 2015 13:00:04 GMT -6
The battlecruiser seemed to me to be sort of an anomaly in naval warfare. Historically, warships fought other warships of the same size. For example, in the era of fighting sail, ships-of-the-line fought other ships-of-the-line, frigates fought frigates, and so on. In the late 19th century, this was still the case. Battleships were designed to slug it out with other battleships, and cruisers were designed with an eye toward potential enemies (for instance, the British Powerful class cruisers were built to counter the Russian Rurik). The torpedo boat and its replacement, the torpedo boat destroyer, bucked this trend as it was a vessel designed to take on larger vessels (however, it was small and cheap, which meant you could built a lot of them, and they were expendable). However, the battlecruiser was not designed to fight other battlecruisers- it was basically an uber-cruiser designed to kill enemy cruisers- as thecarthaginian pointed out a few replies back, the only time these ships were used in their proper role was at the Falklands. At Jutland, when used as part of the battle line, they suffered dearly (while the Germans only lost one BC to Britain's three, the survivors were heavily damaged, and had British AP shells worked like they were supposed to, they might have lost more). John Keegan in his book on World War 1 argued that the Royal Navy should have used the resources used to build the battlecruisers to build a larger number of smaller cruisers instead.
It could be that the desire for speed, plus the realization that better protection was needed, that led to the development of the fast battleship.
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 12, 2015 12:34:30 GMT -6
In designing battleships, I rarely install torpedoes on them (In playing WC-NAW, I find that getting close enough to score a hit with a torpedo also means putting my ship at increased risk of being torpedoed myself, unless I'm finishing off a cripple). When rebuilding legacy battleships, I will sometimes remove tubes to save weight for other things. I occasionally put a couple on my CAs. Once, I even built a 2,000 ton CL with eight submerged tubes, just for the heck of it.
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 4, 2015 10:21:51 GMT -6
I recalled reading in Robert Massie's "Dreadnought" that Kaiser Wilhelm had an idea for a cruiser bristling with torpedo tubes. Navy staff designated this design "Homonculus," and they were eventually able to talk the Kaiser out of it. Just for the heck of it, I decided to try my hand at such a design: It was built for speed, with eight submerged TT. In its first action, it was able to torpedo and sink two enemy cruisers, although it should be pointed out that these ships had already been crippled by the guns of my larger cruisers operating with her. However, in her second action she was all by herself, and suffered a fatal magazine explosion before she could get the enemy within torpedo range.
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Post by RNRobert on Aug 27, 2015 19:40:36 GMT -6
Possibly I'm confusing SAI with the preceding WC:NAW which originally didn't have US ships included. As I said, I've been missing for a bit. Thx for the responses. WC-NAW has had the WW1 era US ships for sometime. On the WC-NAW page, you can download the scenario pack which includes a number of WW1 scenarios featuring American warships.
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