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Post by joebob73 on May 30, 2017 14:42:13 GMT -6
They usually make their BCs with Short range and Cramped quarters, which saves around 2k tons of weight. Pain in the ass to fight, but useless as a war prize for anyone but France or Italy. I just had the happen to me as well, got a nice 14 inch armed dreadnought from the French as the USA and decided that I couldn't keep it because it was short ranged and I almost always have to travel (strategically) to get to the fight when I'm at war. So in my latest game, it's the end of 1916, I finally got France to collapse after being at war with them for the third time in the first 13 years of the game. 1916 saw the commissioning of the last of my 14 inch armed California class BB's, my only 14 inch armed capital ships. I've recently researched the last of the 1916 Machinery/Armor/Hull Techs so I don't think I'll complete another weight saving tech for another 18 months or so and I also just got Increased Elevation. All of that means it's a good time to begin my next class of BB. I've decided that the max displacement for the new ships will be in the 34,000 ton range because that is a little larger than most of the rest of new constructions going for the other naval powers and I want to be able to build four of these. The General Board (me) initially wanted a balanced design with 14 inch guns so that they can share ballistics with the California's on the battleline so this is what I came up with. Design 1916BB A1 View AttachmentHowever, the ace in my hole cards is in June 1916, the Bureau of Ordnance introduced the 16 in/50 Mark 2 gun (+1 Quality). As much as I wanted a balanced design that could work with the California's, that 16 in (+1) is a ship wrecker. So I went back and put pencil to paper and came up with this. Design 1916BB B1 View AttachmentShe essentially has no immunity zone from her own weapons but she's carrying eight of the world's best can openers. The Brits are the only other nation I'm aware of with 16 inch guns and they are my allies right now. [Edit - In this game I haven't been able to research, buy or steal Secondary Turrets for BB's yet so that is why my secondaries are still casemated.] Here is the 1914 penetration page for comparison. The max range is low because I have Increased Elevation but the penetrations numbers are actually spot on in-game right now. View AttachmentThe 1916BB B1 design will be commissioned as the USS Alabama. Why do you use the 6" secondaries? 5" works just as well, fires faster, and takes less weight.
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Post by joebob73 on May 26, 2017 16:42:02 GMT -6
Hmmm, I might put my money on the Germans. That many turrets on a British battlecruiser is like a Plinko board where all the slots say Flash Fire!! Of course Agincourt's deck armor is nothing to sneeze at. I assume the turret tops are at least equal to that so depending on what the Germans did with their deck armor you might stand a good chance at distance. What year is that? How the heck did they manage an 8x14", 29 knot battlecruiser with a 13" belt on 32,100 tons? Was there a mod active in this game? They usually make their BCs with Short range and Cramped quarters, which saves around 2k tons of weight. Pain in the ass to fight, but useless as a war prize for anyone but France or Italy.
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Post by joebob73 on May 10, 2017 4:45:53 GMT -6
Just an opinion here - but the Royal Navy officers outside the 'Fishpond' (the group of Fisher's supporters and devotees) seem to have been every bit as blinkered and blimpy as the army officers of the same period. Having wounded ships go down because their AI captains insist on driving them under at high speed is one of my absolute worst peeves about RtW (or in this case the SAI-part of RtW). I hope that gets a look during the RtW2 process. I've settled on always keeping wounded ships in sight by slowing the entire fleet down - and paid for it with a sub strike once or twice, too. That's why I play on Captain's mode. No "Hey lets drive my heavily flooding battlecruiser at FLANK SPEED until it sinks" or **** like that to deal with. Just an opinion here - but the Royal Navy officers outside the 'Fishpond' (the group of Fisher's supporters and devotees) seem to have been every bit as blinkered and blimpy as the army officers of the same period. Having wounded ships go down because their AI captains insist on driving them under at high speed is one of my absolute worst peeves about RtW (or in this case the SAI-part of RtW). I hope that gets a look during the RtW2 process. I've settled on always keeping wounded ships in sight by slowing the entire fleet down - and paid for it with a sub strike once or twice, too. This so much. Just 8ish mere hours ago I lost a fine new 10*13" Dreadnought to a Russian sub as the germans. The worst part was I have torp protection 2 on those ships, but the AI flooded it to death and I had slowed the fleet down for a semi-dread and one of my BCs. In any other game that would have caused me to save scum, but the scenario autosave makes that impossible. Autosave can be turned off if you like... Also, that's incredibly unlucky to lose a ship with TDS lv2 to a single torpedo. Some of my legacy fleet ships have survived endgame torpedoes despite not having any form of torpedo protection.
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Post by joebob73 on May 7, 2017 18:52:41 GMT -6
I'm having an issue with bombardment targets in the most recent version of the game, they are spawning too far inside a minefield area or too far inland to even see, much less shoot. When even a battleship armed with 18" cannons can't get into range of the target, there's a problem with placement. Also, some of my ships that got the "exceeding design speeds" event are actually going to lose speed if refit to oil firing, despite multiple engine tech advances after building. It's nice to have the speed, but I would much prefer having oil firing so they can maintain speed longer. That first problem is one of the more frustrating things that happen in game. It's fortunate that it is specific to only one type of mission and doesn't happen every time I get that mission. For the second, I don't think that's a bug. You should have the available tonnage to add that additional knot of speed back in when you replace the machinery. That additional knot came from some combination of boilers, engines and/or hull form being more efficient than was expected. When you replace the machinery, it is assumed that you are replacing the boilers and engines so you can't guarantee that the new combination will be as efficient as the old and outperform it's rating. So to get the same speed you need to put in new machinery that's rated for the older, more efficient speed. i.e. if you designed a ship at 29 knots and it made 30, when you replace the machinery to go to oil firing you need to install machinery rated for 30 knots to get that same speed. If you just put in oil fired machinery rated for 29 knots then you are saving weight but you shouldn't expect the same 30 knots as before unless you get lucky again. In real life it's possible that the reason the extra speed was there was because you ended up with a significantly more efficient hull form than was calculated but for that to carry over in game after replacing the machinery (without putting in the higher rated machinery or just getting the lucky bonus knot event again) the game would have to track why you ended up with the extra knot during speed trials. It would need to track bonus knots due to engines and bonus knots due to hull form. That's probably a lot of extra programming for such a specific detail. What I mean is that I didn't have enough extra weight to reach the same speed even though it was a ship built before unlocking steam turbines. The weight reduction from that single tech is usually enough to add 3-4 knots on a BC/CA, but not this time.
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Post by joebob73 on May 7, 2017 13:23:41 GMT -6
I'm having an issue with bombardment targets in the most recent version of the game, they are spawning too far inside a minefield area or too far inland to even see, much less shoot. When even a battleship armed with 18" cannons can't get into range of the target, there's a problem with placement.
Also, some of my ships that got the "exceeding design speeds" event are actually going to lose speed if refit to oil firing, despite multiple engine tech advances after building. It's nice to have the speed, but I would much prefer having oil firing so they can maintain speed longer.
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Post by joebob73 on May 4, 2017 15:24:48 GMT -6
I've been looking to do one of these eventually. Using ships designed by someone else would be an interesting challenge.
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Post by joebob73 on Apr 25, 2017 14:36:30 GMT -6
If you're willing to "cheat" a little bit you can build this as a legacy ship. Once you unlock oil firing+steam turbines you can refit for 27-28 knots to keep up with modern cruisers. Once equipped with modern fire control and +1 13" guns, it'll out-shoot any cruiser you'll run into. Refitting the secondaries to 5" guns with less armor is also useful to clear out enemy DDs.
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Post by joebob73 on Apr 22, 2017 14:57:50 GMT -6
I thought the method to getting such CAs was triple turrets then replacing them, no clue how the game lets you build them with 13" guns from the start. As long as the speed is 22 knots or less and the belt armor is 6" or less you can build them as legacy CAs. Every game I have them sink at least one ship more than twice their displacement, so definitely a good investment.
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Post by joebob73 on Apr 22, 2017 13:46:14 GMT -6
How'd you get 13" guns on a legacy CA? Built her in a British shipyard with 22 knot speed and 6" belt. Any more on either of those values and you get a BC or a B. But a CA with such weaponry is absolutely devastating, and a squadron of them, later in that same game, sunk a British 1930's tech BC squadron while sustaining no losses itself. Enemy ships were armed with 10*14" guns, and were around 40k tons each. My cruisers were 16k tons each, and armed with 4*13" guns. 4 modern battlecruisers vs 6 ancient cruisers, and the old cruisers pull out an almost perfect victory-a 5th British BC escaped.
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Post by joebob73 on Apr 22, 2017 13:27:00 GMT -6
So, I was in a late-game battle against Russia, and they still had one of their early-game dreadnoughts sitting around. Somehow, when I reloaded the game from a save, one of my own legacy fleet CAs was on a full-speed collision course with it. They collided, and the Russian dreadnought sank within 5 minutes, while my cruiser, 4k tons lighter, continued on with minimal damage. The ship that took the hit Yes, part of the damage log is missing, but that's due to a save bug.
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Post by joebob73 on Feb 11, 2017 18:52:24 GMT -6
Built USS Constitution in a British shipyard. Sacrilege. Yes, I agree. However it is fun to turn around and use said ships to stomp the Brits in a war. And I prefer to avoid using French shipyards because they tend to seize them in the event of war with another power, even when tensions are low.
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Post by joebob73 on Feb 11, 2017 17:57:38 GMT -6
Well, I'm definitely getting more than enough use out of my super-CAs. One of them decided during a night battle that RAMMING an unidentified Russian dreadnought was a good idea. The BB promptly sank, leaving my cruiser with minimal damage. This is the BB that got rammed. how the hell did you build that as an ac ? Built it as a legacy fleet ship in Britain with 22 knot speed. A refit after unlocking several engine techs, including steam turbines and oil firing, increased the speed to 27 knots. Guns were replaced with a not-useless 13" model as well as replacing the original battery of 7" casemates with 5" dual turrets. Late game they were absolutely brutal in night actions, with 6 of them sinking 4 battleships for no losses.
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Post by joebob73 on Feb 11, 2017 1:09:27 GMT -6
Same battle. Apparently, my spotters aren't any better at math than fighterpilots... Tangentially reminds me of my particular humourous curse in RtW: I've never built a BC Invincible that didn't explode. It must be at least 6 of the poor things now in various RN playthroughs that have bought it via detonations. It's gotten to the point where I now make a point of not letting any of my BCs be named it, such poor luck they've had. I've got a similar thing going on, but in a good way. Whenever I name one of my starting CAs Constitution, it will always sink at least one battleship, and never get more than medium damage from gunfire. Haven't lost one of them in 7 games, except to submarine spam. Most recent iteration got the BB kill via ramming, taking only minimal damage in return. One of them was also the ship with the most battle stars I've ever seen, with around 27.
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Post by joebob73 on Feb 9, 2017 14:03:16 GMT -6
Well, I'm definitely getting more than enough use out of my super-CAs. One of them decided during a night battle that RAMMING an unidentified Russian dreadnought was a good idea. The BB promptly sank, leaving my cruiser with minimal damage. This is the BB that got rammed.
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Post by joebob73 on Feb 9, 2017 11:49:31 GMT -6
I opened up a save file and found an old, fast ship: my 1905 rebuilt Brooklyn class in a 1913 game. Replacing the engines and increasing the speed from 27 to 29 would cost 44 million. Saving the rebuild as a new design and building that would cost 52 million plus development costs. It is slightly cheaper to rebuild the ship but it's almost as expensive as building a new ship. Very large engines have very large price tags. Yes, it can be expensive. But you get a ship to fill a role in less than half the time, which can actually matter in a war. And when I have Germany repeatedly declaring war on me with less than a year between each, I don't have time to build all the new ships I want to have.
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