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Post by aeson on Nov 11, 2017 12:21:41 GMT -6
I don't know that I've seen cruisers that big that early out of the computer, but in my first USA game I saw some big computer-designed cruisers show up in the fleets of three foreign powers in the late 1930s and 1940s. That's a total of eighteen ships across eight classes, of which I believe only one saw action, presumably only once since it's in the list of ships sunk and lacks any battle stars. I'm not sure that Roon actually was sunk by American battlecruisers - or American anything - because that game ended 7 months ago, but based on the American loss list there was a war against a Franco-German alliance in the mid-40s (lots of American minesweepers torpedoed by German submarines or lost to gunnery duels with "American" submarines with suspiciously French or German submarine names from early 1945 to late 1946), which seems to have been the last in a long string of wars in which essentially the entirety of the French and German overseas empires became American. Possibly there was an older cruiser that kicked off that series of cruisers, but no examples of such remain in service nor were any apparently lost, so as I'm not all that interested in digging through the roughly 2000 design files in that save game to find out we shall never know.
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Post by archelaos on Nov 11, 2017 14:17:17 GMT -6
Not one of mine and I can't even post a picture yet because they just laid it down this turn but WTH?!? No idea if that is unusual for other players but I'm pretty certain that's the largest armored cruiser I've ever seen built in any of my games. My largest ACR's in this game are 11,800 tons so Japan didn't build it in response to them. France had the previous two largest classes of ACR's at 14,000 and 13,600 tons so 15,600 tons is quite the statement. I wonder if it's a response to my little 14,000 ton pre-dreadnought " battlecruisers" that I laid down? I haven't commissioned any of them yet but I'm assuming that the AI's have a chance to steal copies of ship designs like we do so they wouldn't necessarily have to wait until I commissioned one of the Memphis'. Nation data says Japan has access to 11 inch guns and medium wing turrets (2 levels of Ship Design) so if it is a response to my "BC's" I'm not sure why they wouldn't build one of their own. I kinda want to ramp up my Intel against Japan to increase the chance of stealing that ship's plans but I'm already fighting two nations with a third thinking about it so no need to go looking for additional trouble. Here is the current game situation in May 1904. Medium wing turrets allow you to build dreadnought cruisers, and this may be one of such designs. In one game I've seen AI build a class of 4 "mini-BCs" to SMS Von der Tann plan, with 4x2 10in guns. Edit: aeson - those 5x2 10in CAs are quite common in late game. I had seen a few of them too. I even found the pic of that french VdT CA:
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Post by ddg on Nov 11, 2017 15:30:47 GMT -6
No idea if that is unusual for other players but I'm pretty certain that's the largest armored cruiser I've ever seen built in any of my games. My largest ACR's in this game are 11,800 tons so Japan didn't build it in response to them. France had the previous two largest classes of ACR's at 14,000 and 13,600 tons so 15,600 tons is quite the statement. I wonder if it's a response to my little 14,000 ton pre-dreadnought " battlecruisers" that I laid down? I haven't commissioned any of them yet but I'm assuming that the AI's have a chance to steal copies of ship designs like we do so they wouldn't necessarily have to wait until I commissioned one of the Memphis'. Nation data says Japan has access to 11 inch guns and medium wing turrets (2 levels of Ship Design) so if it is a response to my "BC's" I'm not sure why they wouldn't build one of their own. I kinda want to ramp up my Intel against Japan to increase the chance of stealing that ship's plans but I'm already fighting two nations with a third thinking about it so no need to go looking for additional trouble. Here is the current game situation in May 1904. I tend to build large armored cruisers as the US especially (14,000 tons plus) and I frequently see equally large AI designs. My guess is that will end up something like 4x10 16x7 23-25kts with 5-6" belt. I'd be interested to see if it turns out much different.
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Post by bcoopactual on Nov 11, 2017 16:42:01 GMT -6
Do you have the End-game ships designs mod installed Bcoop? That might adjust the algorithms somewhat. I noticed some interesting diversification in designs even from early on after I added that one. No, the only mod I use is a modified ship name list. I should probably take another look at that one though. Thanks for the responses. aeson, that's an interesting group of ships. I wonder if they would have been typical of "heavy cruisers" historically if there had never been the limits of the Naval treaties or if more likely the Alaska and B-65 would have been more typical and common by then.
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Post by eserchie on Nov 11, 2017 18:25:49 GMT -6
I don't know that I've seen cruisers that big that early out of the computer, but in my first USA game I saw some big computer-designed cruisers show up in the fleets of three foreign powers in the late 1930s and 1940s. That's a total of eighteen ships across eight classes, of which I believe only one saw action, presumably only once since it's in the list of ships sunk and lacks any battle stars. I'm not sure that Roon actually was sunk by American battlecruisers - or American anything - because that game ended 7 months ago, but based on the American loss list there was a war against a Franco-German alliance in the mid-40s (lots of American minesweepers torpedoed by German submarines or lost to gunnery duels with "American" submarines with suspiciously French or German submarine names from early 1945 to late 1946), which seems to have been the last in a long string of wars in which essentially the entirety of the French and German overseas empires became American. Possibly there was an older cruiser that kicked off that series of cruisers, but no examples of such remain in service nor were any apparently lost, so as I'm not all that interested in digging through the roughly 2000 design files in that save game to find out we shall never know. I find it amusing that all those ships have the exact same primary turret layout, secondary turret layout, funnel layout, superstructure designs, and approximate size. They would have been a recognition nightmare for lookouts - "So is that a German cruiser, one of the seven identical looking british ships, or one of the four classes of japanese ships that also look exactly the same?" "Dunno, but if it's not german we shouldn't shoot at it."
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Post by aeson on Nov 19, 2017 1:14:03 GMT -6
Not something I've actually built (at least not yet), but this is apparently an armored cruiser that can be built: With these techs: Maybe others here already knew about this, but apparently there isn't a main battery caliber limit on armored cruisers of 10,000t or less as long as they don't have more than two turrets, even after Ship Design reaches level 2. Stumbled across this while trying to create a 10,000t "battlecruiser" at Ship Design 2 with neither main battery wings nor more than two centerline turrets and decided to try to do it in some other savegames that I have from later in the game (this particular example was made in a 1926 post-game save, but I was able to make something like it in a standard-research 1914 Japan savegame as well). If you don't overgun it quite so ludicrously, you can even put halfway decent armor (for a 10,000t cruiser) onto it, maybe even without going overweight.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Nov 19, 2017 8:55:18 GMT -6
For a while I built my pre-dreadnoughts with a planned up-gunning to 4x2 with 12 or 13" guns, but I didn't know you could build a CA from scratch with that speed and battery. Its feels like the "keyhole" to make the game accept that must be mighty small. :\ So, ANY CA, if limited to 2 turrets, could potentially have no caliber limit? I suspect there is a further factor actually, but that won't stop me from gleefully testing.
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Post by aeson on Nov 19, 2017 10:49:16 GMT -6
So, ANY CA, if limited to 2 turrets, could potentially have no caliber limit? I suspect there is a further factor actually, but that won't stop me from gleefully testing. Any CA with a design displacement 10,000t or smaller. As soon as the design displacement is 10,100t or larger, the game decides that anything carrying 11" or heavier guns is either a battleship or a battlecruiser, at least with Ship Design 2+ (prior to Ship Design 2, you can build CAs of presumably any size with 11" or heavier guns as long as the design speed is no more than 22 knots, or something like that).
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Post by JagdFlanker on Nov 19, 2017 11:42:31 GMT -6
So, ANY CA, if limited to 2 turrets, could potentially have no caliber limit? I suspect there is a further factor actually, but that won't stop me from gleefully testing. Any CA with a design displacement 10,000t or smaller. As soon as the design displacement is 10,100t or larger, the game decides that anything carrying 11" or heavier guns is either a battleship or a battlecruiser, at least with Ship Design 2+ (prior to Ship Design 2, you can build CAs of presumably any size with 11" or heavier guns as long as the design speed is no more than 22 knots, or something like that).
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Post by aeson on Nov 19, 2017 11:59:38 GMT -6
I'm not sure what your point is.
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Post by boomboomf22 on Nov 21, 2017 15:15:20 GMT -6
So, ANY CA, if limited to 2 turrets, could potentially have no caliber limit? I suspect there is a further factor actually, but that won't stop me from gleefully testing. Any CA with a design displacement 10,000t or smaller. As soon as the design displacement is 10,100t or larger, the game decides that anything carrying 11" or heavier guns is either a battleship or a battlecruiser, at least with Ship Design 2+ (prior to Ship Design 2, you can build CAs of presumably any size with 11" or heavier guns as long as the design speed is no more than 22 knots, or something like that). Interestingly enough, even after ship design 2+ you can build them if they follow the rule of: 4*11' or bigger and 22kts OR 3*11" or bigger and 23kts
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Post by skyblazer on Nov 21, 2017 16:40:19 GMT -6
Not something I've actually built (at least not yet), but this is apparently an armored cruiser that can be built: View AttachmentWith these techs: View AttachmentMaybe others here already knew about this, but apparently there isn't a main battery caliber limit on armored cruisers of 10,000t or less as long as they don't have more than two turrets, even after Ship Design reaches level 2. Stumbled across this while trying to create a 10,000t "battlecruiser" at Ship Design 2 with neither main battery wings nor more than two centerline turrets and decided to try to do it in some other savegames that I have from later in the game (this particular example was made in a 1926 post-game save, but I was able to make something like it in a standard-research 1914 Japan savegame as well). If you don't overgun it quite so ludicrously, you can even put halfway decent armor (for a 10,000t cruiser) onto it, maybe even without going overweight. The other conditions for a super CA is 22knots with i believe no tonnage limits.
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Post by aeson on Nov 21, 2017 19:08:31 GMT -6
Interesting; I didn't realize that, though it seems to me that with a 22-23kn speed restriction there would only be a very short window of time in which such a cruiser was useful or worth building, at least in a standard research game. Not that I'd really consider the 10,000t version to be all that much better off in regards to the window of time in which building it makes any kind of sense despite its lack of a speed limit before being reclassified to some other type of ship.
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Post by Airy W on Nov 21, 2017 19:36:20 GMT -6
This 12RW34 gun layout isn't the weirdest thing ever but it's counterintuitively effective. Because it only has two centerline turrets, you dont need light cruiser armor. I think you can build this layout as soon as you have 3 centerline turret tech, which is way sooner. It gives you the same four gun broadside and two gun forward fire that you otherwise wouldn't get until you have B turrets for CLs, a good decade and a half later. The weight from an extra pair of deck guns isn't the much. It's sort of like cross-deck fire, it's a development dead-end and not as efficient as the later naval architecture but it does still give you an edge for a generation. Are there any historical examples of cruisers using this kind of layout?
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Post by boomboomf22 on Nov 21, 2017 19:59:41 GMT -6
Interesting; I didn't realize that, though it seems to me that with a 22-23kn speed restriction there would only be a very short window of time in which such a cruiser was useful or worth building, at least in a standard research game. Not that I'd really consider the 10,000t version to be all that much better off in regards to the window of time in which building it makes any kind of sense despite its lack of a speed limit before being reclassified to some other type of ship. It is really just interesting from a design rules perspective. The 11" or 12" armed AC is just useful in a early game niche role. Thus they should only be legacy or under construction at game start.
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