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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 10, 2018 0:14:14 GMT -6
The Alaska class "large cruisers" were ordered in September 1940... almost a year before Pearl Harbor. They were part of the Two Ocean Navy building program. The Navy had been considering these ships since 1938. They would have two missions: protecting the carrier strike groups against enemy cruisers and operate independently against enemy surface forces. The events in the war after Pearl Harbor, generally showed that such cruisers had no real use. They had a single rudder which would make them hard to maneuver and in the carrier battles, might make them a liability. The steel needed to build these ships was better used to produce escorts and landing craft. The only adversary that they could have faced... Japanese heavy cruisers were long gone after the Solomon's campaign. They were originally designed and built to combat the Japanese super cruisers which never materialized.
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Post by noshurviverse on Jul 10, 2018 0:15:38 GMT -6
Few questions I have based on the in-game image posted in the news thread. Firstly, I I see that Germany has lent a pair of DDs to the task force. Are foreign ships controlled by the player the same as in Captain/Rear Admiral mode, or are they somewhat autonomous? Secondly, I have a couple about the carriers.
Those guns, they seem to be mounted upon the flight deck, fore and aft of the superstructure. Assuming these are main battery guns, how many gun positions are possible for a carrier? Can these perform cross-deck fire? Does having them reduce aircraft complement? Are secondary guns simply arrayed along the sides of the carrier?
I notice that these carriers appear to have a pair of elevators on the flight deck. Is this purely visual, or something that actually comes up in designing a carrier?
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Post by Spaghet Shipwright on Jul 10, 2018 4:10:23 GMT -6
The thing about the Alaskas, Scharnhorsts, etc. is that because the naval treaties had set the world's navies back decades, they qualified as capital ships in terms of how they compared to the bulk of the ships then in active service in the world's navies, but in terms of the state of the art, what would have been a modern battleship at the time of their construction without the treaties, they were, I think, solidly in heavy cruiser territory. I am curious how RTW2 will handle the various treaties if starting from the later time period(1925?). It seems complicated to recreate the conditions that lead to classes like the Deutchlands, Dunkerque, and Scharnhorst. Especially with Germany, it is hard to quantify how much they lost in terms of brain-drain on their ship design bureaus following WW1. They went from innovative designs like the Derfflinger battlecruisers to retreads of old designs like the "O" class, Scharnhorst, and Bismarck. |
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Post by Airy W on Jul 10, 2018 11:21:50 GMT -6
The thing about the Alaskas, Scharnhorsts, etc. is that because the naval treaties had set the world's navies back decades, they qualified as capital ships in terms of how they compared to the bulk of the ships then in active service in the world's navies, but in terms of the state of the art, what would have been a modern battleship at the time of their construction without the treaties, they were, I think, solidly in heavy cruiser territory. One can't simply extrapolate the pre-treaty era forward because the pace of growth was clearly unsustainable. The generation that came to a halt with the treaty was already grievously expensive. Over the course of the cold war, the design philosophies of the world navies seem to have converged upon some pretty middle of the road warships. Except for the lone Russian battlecruiser, most of the warships in service today could be approximately described by simply saying submarine, destroyer or carrier. Cruisers and frigates are serving mostly the same role as destroyers and battleships are gone. I think that in the absence of the treaties, there probably would have been a similar convergence. Even before radar, improved communication and scouting would have meant the disappearance of the battlelines. Hopefully RTW 2 will allow the theory of design convergence to be tested. I'd like to test out massed dive bombers backed up with AA cruisers. |
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 10, 2018 12:14:52 GMT -6
It is my personal observation that without WW1, there would be no WNT. Now, I do not believe that WW1 was started by the Naval Race. It was caused by the deterioration of empires, social unrest and possibly some economic issues. The Naval Race prior to the war was just a side issue.
So, if we assume this and I am certain about the issue of what started the war, there might be a minor naval race but not anything extensive.
Now, without WW1, there might not have been the economic issues of the interwar period although we would have to explore the real causes of the depression more extensively. This might have allowed each nation to pursue bigger more extensive fleets.
We can also assume that without WW1, there is no WW2 except in the Pacific. I believe that Japan’s aggressive attitude and desire to be self-sufficient would have prevailed no matter what. However, we know that they learned much, from the Western Front in WW1, so that’s hard to add.
I believe that I have mentioned that when we explore a virtual history, we have to go the decision point, make the desired change and but go backward and examine the history of the events leading to the original decision. If we use the WNT as the decision point, then we must do an analysis of the background history to the decision. Why the decision to entered into the WNT, now do a retrograde analysis from the decision.
Just some of my random thoughts.
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Post by axe99 on Jul 10, 2018 13:23:33 GMT -6
It is my personal observation that without WW1, there would be no WNT. Now, I do not believe that WW1 was started by the Naval Race. It was caused by the deterioration of empires, social unrest and possibly some economic issues. The Naval Race prior to the war was just a side issue. So, if we assume this and I am certain about the issue of what started the war, there might be a minor naval race but not anything extensive. Now, without WW1, there might not have been the economic issues of the interwar period although we would have to explore the real causes of the depression more extensively. This might have allowed each nation to pursue bigger more extensive fleets. We can also assume that without WW1, there is no WW2 except in the Pacific. I believe that Japan’s aggressive attitude and desire to be self-sufficient would have prevailed no matter what. However, we know that they learned much, from the Western Front in WW1, so that’s hard to add. I believe that I have mentioned that when we explore a virtual history, we have to go the decision point, make the desired change and but go backward and examine the history of the events leading to the original decision. If we use the WNT as the decision point, then we must do an analysis of the background history to the decision. Why the decision to entered into the WNT, now do a retrograde analysis from the decision. Just some of my random thoughts. Some echoing random thoughts: Without WW1, Japan would likely have been unable to take on the RN and the USN in the Pacific (and would likely have struggled just against the RN - Japan's economy/shipbuilding eclipsing the British was still in the future) - that said, in a 'RtW' world, I'm confident there'll be no shortage of conflict without some very careful maneuvering on the part of the player! The end of the Cold War might provide one example of how an arms race might end peacefully (only one I can think of, although there must be others) - in terms of internal disruption/change of government/change of government type. Stepping off the pedal before the economic disruption became that severe would be a player/AI choice (as would going to war before they were unable to afford the race any longer, something I'm very glad didn't happen in the Cold War, but which was likely* an element of Japanese war planning against the US in WW2, as they knew that with the two-ocean navy act, long-term they were unable to keep up with US build plans). Would be pretty cool if in-game the AI could make some kind of decision along these lines and push for war if it thought one was going to happen, and it would be better off happening now than later. * I think I remember reading it was, but memory's super-hazy. |
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Post by rimbecano on Jul 10, 2018 13:55:13 GMT -6
One can't simply extrapolate the pre-treaty era forward because the pace of growth was clearly unsustainable. The generation that came to a halt with the treaty was already grievously expensive. The Yamatos, at least, fit the pre-treaty trendline, and the US and Britain, at least, had more money to spare for such ships than Japan. If the treaties had fallen through, navies would have been forced to build ships as big as they could, and to cut down numbers to compensate for the cost. This would have been a problem for Britain, and, I think *was* more of a problem for Japan than they wanted to admit once they withdrew from the treaties, and might have sidelined smaller powers like France and Germany entirely, but would not have been a huge problem for the US. The current force mix is determined by WWII and postwar technologies like carrier aviation, guided missiles, and nuclear weapons, not by interwar economic considerations. (If the enemy can bullseye you with a nuke at 500 miles, a battleship isn't much use). I do agree that the battle line would probably have disappeared, but the BB/BC would have remained dominant in one or two ship task groups until carrier aviation outstripped it sometime in the 30s. |
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Post by axe99 on Jul 10, 2018 17:15:36 GMT -6
One can't simply extrapolate the pre-treaty era forward because the pace of growth was clearly unsustainable. The generation that came to a halt with the treaty was already grievously expensive. The Yamatos, at least, fit the pre-treaty trendline, and the US and Britain, at least, had more money to spare for such ships than Japan. If the treaties had fallen through, navies would have been forced to build ships as big as they could, and to cut down numbers to compensate for the cost. This would have been a problem for Britain, and, I think *was* more of a problem for Japan than they wanted to admit once they withdrew from the treaties, and might have sidelined smaller powers like France and Germany entirely, but would not have been a huge problem for the US. The current force mix is determined by WWII and postwar technologies like carrier aviation, guided missiles, and nuclear weapons, not by interwar economic considerations. (If the enemy can bullseye you with a nuke at 500 miles, a battleship isn't much use). I do agree that the battle line would probably have disappeared, but the BB/BC would have remained dominant in one or two ship task groups until carrier aviation outstripped it sometime in the 30s. Worth keeping in mind the budget pressures that the US and Britain both faced - the US had treaty limits, but it didn't build up to them until well into the 1930s (I think - around then), and there was substantial budgetary pressure in Britain as well. Faced with a threat, they'd have been able to raise more money, but without a threat both the US and Britain have 'taken the foot off the pedal' in terms of defence budgets at times when there's been no great reason to spend big (which IRL is a perfectly sensible thing to do - but in RtW2 is blasphemy!) There's no doubt the US had the biggest shipbuilding capability, but it was also the most isolated and defendable of the three - with Japan and Britain both heavily dependent on seaborne trade, they may have had an easier time spending a relatively larger proportion of their GDP on defence for a given level of threat. |
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Post by director on Jul 10, 2018 20:01:11 GMT -6
My understanding is that Germany was running out of money for the fleet before World War I, and the Army was running out of patience since they wanted a lot more money for artillery and couldn't get it. I'm not sure how the Kaiser could have managed a graceful slowdown of naval construction - perhaps he wouldn't try, and the Reichstag would rebel? My impression is that the German monarchy was a tad unstable (not just the monarch), or at least deeply concerned about stability.
If World War I hadn't broken out, would the naval race have shifted to Britain and the US? Some form of naval treaty might have resulted in the 1920s if only because the major nations would have been running short of funds.
That's an unprovable counterfactual, so here's another: no large, fast BCs converted to CVs would be make for a significant setback for naval aviation in terms of aircraft size and power, and in the use of large numbers of planes in strike groups. Perhaps the 'Ark Royal' and 'Enterprise' and 'Shokaku' era carriers would have been built, or perhaps - given less progress in ops and aircraft - not?
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Post by Airy W on Jul 10, 2018 22:02:41 GMT -6
It does seem very likely that the aircraft carriers wouldn't have grown large so quickly without the battlecruiser hulls. I think with carriers there is less temptation to get in an arms race over speeds. You want to be fast but a couple knots of difference matters a lot more with another battleship that you can actually see then with a carrier that is somewhere hundreds of miles away. So I could see it being plausible that aircraft carriers remain small ships and maybe naval aviation focuses on being able to operate off shorter platforms, i.e. lighter bombers.
And if a 10 kTon carrier can sink a 30 kTon dreadnought, the name becomes rather embarrassingly unfitting. I wonder if that fear would put pause to construction.
An Anglo-American arms race would have been quite dangerous by virtue of geography. The Royal Navy was extremely well positioned to cut off American shipping off from Britain, a key trading partner for the Americans. Similarly the American Navy had bases extremely close to the chief ports of the United States, whose trade was just as significant for the British.
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Post by noshurviverse on Jul 11, 2018 2:08:58 GMT -6
An Anglo-American arms race would have been quite dangerous by virtue of geography. The Royal Navy was extremely well positioned to cut off American shipping off from Britain, a key trading partner for the Americans. Similarly the American Navy had bases extremely close to the chief ports of the United States, whose trade was just as significant for the British. I'm rather confused by this statement; the British Navy is well positioned to cut off US shipping from...Britain? |
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Post by Noname117 on Jul 11, 2018 3:13:02 GMT -6
An Anglo-American arms race would have been quite dangerous by virtue of geography. The Royal Navy was extremely well positioned to cut off American shipping off from Britain, a key trading partner for the Americans. Similarly the American Navy had bases extremely close to the chief ports of the United States, whose trade was just as significant for the British. I'm rather confused by this statement; the British Navy is well positioned to cut off US shipping from...Britain? And the American Navy is well positioned to cut off shipping from... America? |
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Post by alexbrunius on Jul 11, 2018 3:23:39 GMT -6
One can't simply extrapolate the pre-treaty era forward because the pace of growth was clearly unsustainable. The generation that came to a halt with the treaty was already grievously expensive. Over the course of the cold war, the design philosophies of the world navies seem to have converged upon some pretty middle of the road warships. Except for the lone Russian battlecruiser, most of the warships in service today could be approximately described by simply saying submarine, destroyer or carrier. Well something else to keep in mind is that a destroyer today like the USS Zumwalt displace 16000 ton and a Strategic missile submarine like the USS Ohio displace 17000 ton.
Both of them similar in size to most dreadnought battleships built around 1900, and have very little in common to a 500 ton DD...
If someone from 1905 would have looked at our warships today they would not have said that is a destroyer, they would have said that is a future battleship, and you can afford to build alot more of them then we could.
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Post by williammiller on Jul 11, 2018 8:46:11 GMT -6
DEVELOPERS UPDATE NOTICE:
I just added a new Developers Journal post showing something never before seen in the SAI or RTW series.  |
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Post by marauder on Jul 11, 2018 9:04:59 GMT -6
Amazing! Every time there's a new update, I look forward to the game a little bit more.
Just one little question, will planes eventually be represented with little sprites (like subs maybe) or is that not feasible due to how strikes are calculated?
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