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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jul 1, 2017 9:57:07 GMT -6
I think it boils down to seriously bad gunnery. Just going by the log, in 18 minutes of action before the critical blow to her engine room at 19:03 she had managed just 2 hits, and one of those was only a near miss. Her watertight construction should also be seriously questioned, given 2 waterline hits- one of them only a 4" shell - had apparently done her in. This has a bit more data. But if you thought *that* was an AI botch, wait 'til you read June!
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jul 2, 2017 1:36:22 GMT -6
Chapter 41.
The following month the commerce war stepped up in intensity for both sides. OP 37 & 38 were operating together in support of the fleet off the Dodger Bank and managed to put a torpedo a French light cruiser, sending it back to port trailing oil. Unfortunately shortly thereafter neither sub was again heard from and presumed lost- the Navy's two newest remaining boats. On the French side, 10 more freighters were sunk by submersible and an additional one added by a raider. All told that meant that 36 of the Commonwealth's original 320-strong merchant marine had already been sunk in 3 months of war. To top it all off, the light cruiser Minsk was torpedoed and sunk in the Gulf of Riga, and the Lipawa was put in dock for 4 months by a mine missed from the field which had laid-up Warszawa. For all this, one French sub was sunk in exchange.
On June the 23rd came the month's dose of good news, as the cruiser Lublin came upon the French raider Chateaurenault attempting to break out into the North Sea. Chateaurenault was an 'early' modern light cruiser, making the same 30 knots as Tage but only mounting 3 twin turrets rather than 4. The French cruiser still had the tonnage advantage however, and so closed aggressively on the slower Wilno. The result was if anything worse for the French than what had befallen Tage.
The French cruiser managed only a single 6” hit and 2 near misses, while in their 40 minutes of battle before Chateaurenault broke off action Lublin had scored with a dozen 4” hits and 7 from her 7” mains.
The French cruiser raced away burning heavily, her fires fanned by her hasty withdrawal, but she eventually slowed and capsized from uncontrolled flooding out of sight of Lublin. Her crew went un-recovered, and the Commonwealth seemed to be establishing quite a fine track-record over her foe.
In July the pace of affairs slowed, as only 3 merchantmen were lost thanks to a French re-prioritization of her submarine assets, one of which was lost to Commonwealth ASW work. Alexsandr at month's end had his battle-fleet out to challenge the French, but they declined to sail. The blockading forces seemed to have the French defeated at their piers, so much so that in early August the French approached with an offer of peace that was very much in the Commonwealth's favor, but the Prime Minister's negotiators pressed for hard measures to punish the French aggression and the talks bogged down. 11 more Commonwealth freighters were sunk that month, 2 of those to a raiding cruiser, with 2 French subs destroyed, though unfortunately also with the loss of OP4. It was at this juncture that the most significant action of the war so far occurred.
On August 11th two of the three RCN battle-cruisers with escorting destroyers were patrolling far to the west of Brest with dawn about an hour and a half away. A convoy was attempting to break through the blockade to deliver vital supplies, but had earlier stumbled into a cruiser squadron and turned south to avoid it.
At first contact, Commodore Hans Hoffman thought he saw an opportunity- the lead enemy ship was ahead of his battle cruisers and slightly behind the destroyers, so a turn to the southeast would not only cross their T but drag his escorts through the enemy formation as they raced to take up their new positions. It seemed very likely to provide good opportunity for torpedo launches and allow for the safety of his cruisers as well.
Unfortunately, as his ships committed to the turn, 1 minute later the picture changed.
They had originally sighted not the van of the enemy formation, but rather their right wing. Hoffman saw nothing for him to do but order full ahead and try to complete his turn in the face of unknown enemy vessels, and ordered his escorts to attack.
The longest contact lasted for any Commonwealth vessel was 17 minutes, but they were terrible. 301 shells of all sizes were fired by his 4 ships, but they scored only 14 hits, at least 4 of which must have been near misses by Praga's heavy guns for the 'hit' destroyer survived. Minimal damage was scored by the chaotic fusillade, and all 12 of the torpedoes they had managed to fire missed any mark.
The Commonwealth ships were not nearly so lucky however, as they discovered that the French convoy was escorted by at least 6 destroyers and 4 battle-cruisers. French fire smothered the foremost deployed destroyer, and their torpedoes were unerringly more accurate. Praga took 3 port-side hits, and Grunwald 2 more. Praga immediately slowed and developed an alarming list, while one of Grunwald's hits was close enough to the rudder to force it over and compel her captain to continue turning away from Praga. The rudder resolved its control once she slowed in her long turn, but Grunwald and Praga were now irrevocably separated.
Commodore Hoffman was extremely concerned for his force- Grunwald was retiring unescorted at a seemingly unwise speed to the north-west, the destroyer Kurlanczyk lay burning behind him in the night, and he and the remaining escort stole away at only 9 knots to the westerly with dawn only an hour away. He did not like their chances, but fortunately for them the priority for the French was getting their convoy into port. When twilight opened across the waters no ships were seen, and as the sun climbed into the sky and it seemed the French were left far behind he slowed their pace and focused on damage control for his stricken vessel.
It was a near-run thing, but the torpedo protection her architects had designed worked just as it said on the can. While her namesake had succumbed to 2 nearly simultaneous port-side hits within a single minute, the 3 hits absorbed by the 2nd Praga were very damaging but *just* within the ship's capability to control. Internal torpedo bulges and dense compartmentalization allowed the damage to be contained, and counter-flooding by both buoyancy tanks and shifting fuel bunkerage brought her list close enough to level to allow her to weather the long trek around the Isles to the nearest harbor, after the maximum allowed 24 hour call in Liverpool for emergency repairs. While there Hoffman learned that the Grunwald had proven similarly robust and was making for Norway with little reported concern.
Alexsandr read the radioed report with a sinking feeling in his chest, but he reminded himself it could have been far worse. At least he had not lost either ship, but they would be laid up for a good little while. He suspected too that had they been German torpedoes the outcome might have been different.
The fate of the blockade might be in doubt, and now he rather doubted whether they might be receiving quite so favorable peace offers from the French in the near future. Commodore Hoffman he never-the-less gave high marks for delivering his cruisers back safely, & though the loss of the first Makrela was an unfortunate price to pay it had been her final torpedo salvo that had turned the French pursuit about.
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Post by konstantinua00 on Jul 2, 2017 13:10:11 GMT -6
Use don't think i've ever seen "UI"designation in all my games...
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jul 2, 2017 21:11:40 GMT -6
You must have been very fortunate in your encounters then, to not run into any 'unidentified ships'; unless there is a setting to disable 'fog of war' which might be ticked...
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Post by babylon218 on Jul 2, 2017 21:26:52 GMT -6
In my game, it always appears as 'Unidentified Ship', not UI.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jul 2, 2017 21:34:33 GMT -6
Huh. ...could it be my Ship Names filter on TYPE?...
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Post by babylon218 on Jul 2, 2017 22:00:21 GMT -6
I just checked and I can't see any options to affect in-battle target classification, and from your screenshots I can't see any differences other than that UI designation. What version are you using?
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jul 2, 2017 23:54:25 GMT -6
1.34b1, the latest as far as I know.
Well, that's a puzzler, but I will need to let this stew for a day or two while I consider how next to move forward the narrative of the game.
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Post by konstantinua00 on Jul 3, 2017 9:45:40 GMT -6
Babylon, there is an option It is called "ship names" and is on top panel of battle generator
And yes, unidentified ships somehow get letter I in their short version
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Post by boomboomf22 on Jul 3, 2017 14:34:00 GMT -6
UI probably stands for UnIdentified, ship is left out or assumed I would think. And yes that second cruiser engagement was even worse. I don't know how their gunnery is that bad, they are crew quality 0 and improved directors, it boggles the mind. Were they turning and maneuvering excessively? Cause that is the only thing I can come up with that could cause gunnery to be so bad.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jul 3, 2017 21:51:54 GMT -6
If you want me to try to parse down the results I can try, but I guess the short answer is they did maneuver a lot.
My CLs are smaller, so the AI CL becomes the aggressor. Once I am sure contact will occur I steer as close to favorable as possible on the wind gauge and leave my ship on that heading until changing course is mandatory to maintain broadside bearing. My ships have heavier guns and longer range, so they start firing and find the range first. About the time the enemy finds the range my ships start hitting, which seems to provoke them to change course thus throwing off their aim. A CL can only take a few hits before their performance is affected, and once the decreasing effectiveness spiral is started down the results seem to not be in its favor.
That's my best guess.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jul 5, 2017 1:13:56 GMT -6
Chapter 42.
Grunwald and Praga were flooded into the two largest docks in Gdansk, and repairs immediately begun on their gaping wounds. Alexsandr had ordered a 3rd Hetman-class CL be started before either battle-cruiser had entered Polish waters, as getting time converted to tonnage was the state's direst need at war, but both battle-cruisers would receive the most frenzied efforts to be made ready for sea- in fact Praga would be flooded out to sea in only 3 weeks and be available for action in September, the damaged compartments simply made watertight and sealed. They would be repaired at an opportune time, not when they were needed for blockade patrol.
Alexsandr met with Commodore Hoffman both to reassure him he had done all he could and to discuss the action and lessons that could be learned. Later that September orders were written outlining that in future encounters at night without Absolute and unerring intelligence on the enemy dispositions the first move will always be to act to disengage major fleet units with extreme haste. Any opportunities lost in such an engagement will be more than made up for by the prudence of protecting major fleet units from unacceptable losses.
On September 8th another French raider was intercepted off Brest, this time by the Zytomierz, and the encounter was another victory for the design which was created at the turn of the century and showing remarkable persistence.
The French vessel closed and was picked apart, though it did manage to damage the Wilno before being brought to a halt and pummeled. Staff analysis later assessed the matter of so many cruisers of foreign nations having a 3-turret main format as opposed to 4 and concluded that it was in fact perhaps the Commonwealth's own mass production of a 2-turret design which might have affected foreign building patterns. Never-the-less the fast French raiders when choosing to engage were faring quite poorly.
Wladyslawowo's staff analysis also took a look at the current French building program, and saw that a great deal of fortune would be very welcome, for they had quite a bit building on the ways, including over 20 submarines.
However, Alexsandr opened his office door on October 2nd and found that someone had dropped off a fresh bouquet of fortune. The note attached to the flowers laid out the identities of an apparently impending French negotiating team, ...and the details as to the precise buttons to push with each of them. “Bonne chance,” it concluded.
On October 5th a French negotiating team arrived in Warsaw with a proposal to cease hostilities without border changes. 6 hours later a bewildered French negotiating team, their every personal indiscretion seemingly somehow alluded to by their Commonwealth opposites, agreed to a cessation of hostilities which had been their maximum allowable fallback condition; the treaty was signed, and included the French giving up both the Antilles in the Caribbean and the French colony of Kwang-Chou-Wan just southwest of Hong Kong on the China coast. The Commonwealth's ally, America, claimed the French outpost of Djbouti on the Horn of Africa.
The Commonwealth and America celebrated, and the usual swift draw-down was conducted to keep the books balanced. There had been a healthy number of merchant losses in September, but remarkably the RCN had acquitted itself quite well. Norway and Denmark were both thanked for their assistance, and it was hoped inroads might have been made for a closer relationship in the future.
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Post by Enderminion on Jul 5, 2017 9:47:05 GMT -6
Djbouti lol
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jul 7, 2017 14:30:45 GMT -6
Chapter 43.
France had entered this war without a real plan for completing it. Had they successfully occupied Sweden it is possible they might have accepted a fleet action or been able to force a blockade of their own, and even -if they became roused enough- perhaps a long build-up to land troops on the Latvian coast. However, their initial gambit failed. They had no “plan B”. They were built to fight a war by the long attrition of commerce warfare, but they had lacked the fortitude to endure the slow application of such measures, as their Nationalistic political masters demanded action to preserve their place in power. After 6 months they saw they would not survive their coming elections without peace before they could act to change their constitution, and the resolutions of that then mandatory peace only ensured their downfall. Some would in fact face criminal charges.
The return to European peace allowed Alexsandr to start thinking about the future. The Navy was old and in need of refitting and renewal, and it was time he try to carve out just such a niche for it to do so. After discussions with the Prime Minister, King, and Navy Minister, Alexsandr made the rounds with his European neighbors attempting to set in motion a number of initiatives focused on giving the Royal Commonwealth Navy that time.
However others too were taking actions to capitalize on the European peace. England, concerned with Norway's place in the recent 7 month war and also with a ground swell of pro-Aryan feeling amongst some of the Norwegian populace who despised being 'bullied and used' by the continental powers, held rather stiff negotiations with Oslo throughout November. At last in early December came the quite unexpected announcement that Norway would be joining the British Commonwealth.
Many raised an eyebrow at this considering England's empire-expanding activities over the past 30 years, however the PLC did not utter a word beyond a blithe desire for Norway's security to be successfully represented. Alexsandr's complete silence to the affair came at a surprising price however, for he won a technology sharing agreement to start the following February, and as well private consent on the part of England to attend the disarmament conference which he was organizing for 18 months hence.
Throughout 1941 Alexsandr left more and more of Wladylawowo's work to his subordinates while he crisscrossed Europe and the Atlantic seeking the certainty that the Warsaw Conferences would transpire. There was disorder in Greece in June, but nothing immediately serious, though Balkan stability became one of the platforms which would require nailing down before the conference could move forward as scheduled. Plenary sessions were in fact set for May of '42, prior to June's conference.
Those sessions were to nearly collapse however as the Austrian delegate was murdered before he could leave the country. Fingers were pointed to nearly every party and it took all the diplomacy and art they possessed for Alexsandr and the Prime Minister to assure that next month's proceedings would proceed, with France very nearly pulling out. However in the end they succeeded, and all the delegates gathered to discuss naval disarmament on the 2nd of June.
There were many discussions and debates, quite a few of them begun by correspondence weeks before the event, but everyone was in favor of a building holiday for new capital ships provided their unique concerns were fully aired and addressed. The tact in diplomacy is often allowing people to think they are getting what they really are not, and many discussions were had which to some might have been quiet assurances but to others were mere willow wisps. None-the-less, in the end at last an agreement was reached to which all assented, though some based their 'yea' on a proviso represented in some alternate treaty. The end result though was what Alexsandr desired; an end to new building by the major powers, for a period of 7 years.
The Warsaw Conference limited new building to no vessel larger than 12,000 tons or mounting a weapon greater than 10” in bore, defining in form for the first time the maximum extent of the Heavy Cruiser. The Commonwealth by foresighted expectation had no ships building at all, and thus was unaffected. Other states across the world had a total of 23 projects terminated;
Austria 1 BB
Germany 3 BB
Russia 2 BB 1 CA
France 1 BB 3 BC
England 2 BB 2 BC 1 CA
America 6 BB 1 BC
The American sacrifice was in fact immense, a whole class of six 50,500 ton fast battleships mounting twelve 16” guns, set to be the most powerful ships in the world. The tit-for-tat agreements to gain their signature were numerous from all parties, but it was finally done. At the signatory agreement all and sundry spoke of a new era of peace for the world, and Alexsandr rightly considered the treaty his magnum opus.
As a coda however before his retirement, he requested that the Commonwealth's “treaty cruiser” observe the preferences he had originally ingrained in all their designs, augmented firepower over her rivals. The Krol Dawid would be laid down 15 months later, following the completion of the whole-sale re-conditioning of the fleet.
The Krol Dawid and her 3 sisters would serve in distinction in that future conflict which would confront all the world's nations, but for Alexsandr that would be a plow for another team to pull. He had done his part.
Aged more than 70 years, Alexsandr quietly accepted his retirement, but when announced to the public the nation demanded its opportunity to bid him farewell. At the ceremonies to commemorate his career the Fleet sailed in review, old and new alike, from the ancient Wilnos to the modern Ukraina. Alexsandr had left an indelible mark upon both the Royal Commonwealth Navy and the way she would design her forces in the future, though within a decade all the world's navies would change drastically as air-power became the undeniable wave of the future.
The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth had continued to grow in strength and global influence during his 50 years in the service. Her colonial states had been defended earnestly and added to, and East Prussia restored to the fold in perpetuity. She held strong, positive relations with all the western Democratic states, and hoped to be able to be a strong influence for other states to evolve further along representative lines. It was a story which, for now, ended well for both Alexsandr and the Commonwealth, and that hopefully became a story worth telling to new generations of Crownlanders across the ages.
fin.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Oct 11, 2017 22:52:24 GMT -6
Epilogue.
The story of the PLC navy has long deserved a more complete closure, however the story simply never felt compelling enough to record following Alexsandr's retirement in July of 1942. However before I began to undertake a new AAR I wanted to at least lay its relevant facts and details to the record. Here then is the abridged history of the last 3/4's of the 1940's for the PLC.
As we can see, that era was most unkind to the Commonwealth. In 3 climactic battles, NAZI Germany rendered the RCN impotent. Its older battleships were too prone to the heavy 16" guns which Germany had available, and the tried-and-true tactic of steering a constant course and letting gunnery win the day at last failed. With the war approaching it 4th year, the RCN had been reduced to only 2 battleships & 3 pre-dreadnoughts.
The battles were brutal and wrenching, and only the Wir & Wlady V's superior armor allowed them to escape their own bitter ends. Germany's fate would likely have been sealed by the English and allied forces, as in our world, but the Commonwealth's Navy would not have contributed much to the win. The Commonwealth Army would have borne the burden, spending all its strength to stave off the mechanized assault of Germany.
Whether Alexsandr lived to see the war won or lost this tale does not tell, but he surely would have seen the end of the navy he had built.
I am sure the curious can deduce the exact battles with the 'sunk' dates provided, but I do have the notes preserved if they should be by any desired.
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