|
Post by corsair on Jan 5, 2019 16:24:33 GMT -6
Regardless, you don't need more than two or three to shutdown the enemy's operation of their main fleet. You just park them at a forward base and then when you get a sighting report of the main enemy fleet from conventional submarines or aircraft, they zip out at flank speed (23 knots top speed is 283 nm/day) and within a couple of days they go to work. Look at the damage that two pairs of conventional submarines achieved during the battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. Now replace them with nuke boats that the Japanese fleet can't just outrun to escape from. It would look something like the movie Predator (without the hero winning in the end) where Arnold's people got picked off one by one without ever really seeing where the kill shot was coming from until it was too late. Surface ships are faster than 23 knots but that can't hear at that speed (the line from the movie Hunt for Red October where the American CVN captain tells Ryan that the Russians were moving so fast and noisy they could run over his daughter's stereo and not hear it) and they are going to need to slow down to refuel their destroyers or abandon them to their fate and the capital ships aren't going to be steaming out again until those escorts are replaced (if they can be). Nuke boats are just too OP, particularly if submarines are abstracted like they were in RTW1. A sharply increased arbitrary and random pain (losing ships in events) for the player that they have no recourse for. Or if the player has the nukes, you start sinking all of the AI's ships a few at a time with every click of the turn button which isn't very satisfying either.
Regarding your first paragraph, I would point out that isn't any different from what conventional USN subs did during WWII. They'd use radar to detect a Japanese fleet, then run on the surface at flank speed to an estimated interception point based on the detected fleet's course, submerge, and lie in wait. But in order execute an attack, the sub needs to move slowly to remain undetected and to allow its own passive sonar to detect the enemy. The faster a submerged submarine moves, the more it makes detection by enemy surface ships easier and the more it reduces the sub's ability to detect enemy surface ships. (If I recall correctly, passive sonar becomes unusable at speeds underwater above 20 knots.)
As to the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Letye Gulf, I would point out the IJN wasn't particularly adept at ASW work, certainly nowhere near as good as the Allies became in the Atlantic combating U-boats.
Lastly, I would point out, as with most technological developments, for a measure developed there are countermeasures. Nuclear propulsion greatly increased the submarine's capabilities, but that in turn spurred development into better ASW equipment and techniques.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 5, 2019 16:28:10 GMT -6
Yes. And they were basically all of the nails in the coffin. The nuke point is a theoretical point. If only the US had nuclear weapons, even aircraft carriers would be obsolete and with them battleships. This actually happened during the late 40s when only the US had nuclear weapons. If there was a war, the enemy fleet could be put out of action as soon as it was in range of a strategic airbase. At this point battleships would have immediately become obsolete.
Except that atomic (nuclear) weapons quickly fell under political jurisdiction rather than military jurisdiction.
Really, ....Hmmmmm
|
|
|
Post by bcoopactual on Jan 5, 2019 18:28:40 GMT -6
Regarding your first paragraph, I would point out that isn't any different from what conventional USN subs did during WWII. They'd use radar to detect a Japanese fleet, then run on the surface at flank speed to an estimated interception point based on the detected fleet's course, submerge, and lie in wait. But in order execute an attack, the sub needs to move slowly to remain undetected and to allow its own passive sonar to detect the enemy. The faster a submerged submarine moves, the more it makes detection by enemy surface ships easier and the more it reduces the sub's ability to detect enemy surface ships. (If I recall correctly, passive sonar becomes unusable at speeds underwater above 20 knots.)
As to the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Letye Gulf, I would point out the IJN wasn't particularly adept at ASW work, certainly nowhere near as good as the Allies became in the Atlantic combating U-boats. Lastly, I would point out, as with most technological developments, for a measure developed there are countermeasures. Nuclear propulsion greatly increased the submarine's capabilities, but that in turn spurred development into better ASW equipment and techniques.
Traditional ASW tactics for fleets were to locate and then make the sub dive which limited its speed and situational awareness and sped up its clock for battery endurance and air. At that point you've effectively fixed its location so that one or two escorts can attack it while the rest of the fleet moves on at a speed that the submarine can't follow. That doesn't work against nuke boats. USS Nautilus' exercises in 1955 weren't against Japanese ASW but "modern" American hunter-killer groups and their ASW doctrine was wholly inadequate. The counter for nuclear submarines are another nuclear submarine* with guided torpedoes or maritime patrol aircraft with sonobuoys and MAD. Surface ships' best ASW weapon is the helicopter armed with dipping sonar, sonobuoys and torpedoes to provide standoff distance. Guided torpedoes existed in the RTW2 time frame but were still relatively rare. The rest are technologies even further outside of the timeframe than nuclear power. A line needs to be drawn somewhere. I'm not the one that makes that call but I don't see what adding nuclear power adds to the player's experience so it makes sense to draw it prior to adding nuclear submarines. *in defensive and littoral situations, conventional submarines are superior in some ways to nuclear boats but they wouldn't be effective escorts for a carrier battle group in a large scale WW2 type battle.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 5, 2019 18:45:20 GMT -6
|
|
AiryW
Full Member
Posts: 183
|
Post by AiryW on Jan 5, 2019 19:30:01 GMT -6
Simply because weapons finally won the war with armour somewhere between the end of WW1 and start of WW2. Against the best anti-tank cannons, sure, but combat rarely featured the best armor and best AT squaring off in a fair contest. The single most important battle of the war was Sedan and there the primary French AT gun for the two divisions in that sector was unfortunately the WWI vintage 37mm infantry support gun which was barely adequate against a Panzer II let alone a Panzer III. Operation Uranus was the pivotal point of the most famous battle on the eastern front and the Romanians were in a similar situation. I would say that it wasn't until the start of 1943 that it stopped being possible to have armor outclass canons in the western hemisphere. I can attest to the fact that nukes can ruin a ships day. I have an original Operation Crossroads book signed by Admiral Blandy and scientists, for Bikini. The damage to those ships was something to see. Independence was crushed, my dad's carrier, the Saratoga had her keel split and it sank before they could beach her, and I have a photo, original, of the mushroom cloud with a dark spot on the side. The dark spot was the USS Arkansas. My dad stated that the underwater explosion simple crushed the hulls of the ships. The Nevada was very badly damaged but salvageable. Most of the ships had to be washed extensively to board, when he took the scientists into the Lagoon. What a sight! The thing that I get caught up on here is that neither battleship was actually sunk by the explosions. Certainly a direct hit would have been enough to sink them but a direct hit is no small order. Bombers would need to attack from high altitudes against battleships which would presumably be evading at flank speed and firing surface to air missiles at the bomber. A cruise missile wouldn't have the AA problem but hitting a moving target with a cruise missile over the horizon isn't a trivial task without complete air supremacy. These were also old battleships and the newer breed seemed to be quite hardy. South Dakota got savaged by 14 inch rounds and only spent 2 months in the repair yard. So if the older ships could survive with damage I think it's quite possible the newer ships would be very hard to kill off. Massed bombs in a pattern would guarantee a kill but weapons grade uranium is in short supply at this point so that wouldn't really be plausible. I would assume that environmental controls would prevent the fallout issue, a warship is already nearly a sealed environment and has ready access to water. I dont understand the death of the goat in the turret. Depending on the energy of the radiation something like an inch to half an inch of steel should have been sufficient to absorb half the gamma radiation. The goat should have had at least 10 inches of steel protection and most likely more depending on exact location and angle. That should have reduced the radiation by upwards of 99.9%. As I understand it that type of bomb didn't cause much neutron radiation.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 5, 2019 20:02:52 GMT -6
The thing that I get caught up on here is that neither battleship was actually sunk by the explosions. Certainly a direct hit would have been enough to sink them but a direct hit is no small order. Bombers would need to attack from high altitudes against battleships which would presumably be evading at flank speed and firing surface to air missiles at the bomber. A cruise missile wouldn't have the AA problem but hitting a moving target with a cruise missile over the horizon isn't a trivial task without complete air supremacy. These were also old battleships and the newer breed seemed to be quite hardy. South Dakota got savaged by 14 inch rounds and only spent 2 months in the repair yard. So if the older ships could survive with damage I think it's quite possible the newer ships would be very hard to kill off. Massed bombs in a pattern would guarantee a kill but weapons grade uranium is in short supply at this point so that wouldn't really be plausible. I would assume that environmental controls would prevent the fallout issue, a warship is already nearly a sealed environment and has ready access to water. I dont understand the death of the goat in the turret. Depending on the energy of the radiation something like an inch to half an inch of steel should have been sufficient to absorb half the gamma radiation. The goat should have had at least 10 inches of steel protection and most likely more depending on exact location and angle. That should have reduced the radiation by upwards of 99.9%. As I understand it that type of bomb didn't cause much neutron radiation. There were two test at Bikini-Able was an air burst with USS Nevada as the target ship and Baker, an underwater blast. USS Arkansas and IJN Nagato were both sunk by Test Baker. Nevada, Pennsylvania and New York all survived although heavily damaged. The battleships, except for Nevada were not that close to either blast. The Test Baker is the burst that really did all the damage but the pressure wave dissipated rather quickly. All this information and more including a complete study of some of the damaged ships at Pearl Harbor helped the US Navy with later designs and modifications to the ships.
|
|
|
Post by corsair on Jan 5, 2019 20:25:35 GMT -6
Traditional ASW tactics for fleets were to locate and then make the sub dive which limited its speed and situational awareness and sped up its clock for battery endurance and air. At that point you've effectively fixed its location so that one or two escorts can attack it while the rest of the fleet moves on at a speed that the submarine can't follow. That doesn't work against nuke boats. USS Nautilus' exercises in 1955 weren't against Japanese ASW but "modern" American hunter-killer groups and their ASW doctrine was wholly inadequate. The counter for nuclear submarines are another nuclear submarine* with guided torpedoes or maritime patrol aircraft with sonobuoys and MAD. Surface ships' best ASW weapon is the helicopter armed with dipping sonar, sonobuoys and torpedoes to provide standoff distance. Guided torpedoes existed in the RTW2 time frame but were still relatively rare. The rest are technologies even further outside of the timeframe than nuclear power. A line needs to be drawn somewhere. I'm not the one that makes that call but I don't see what adding nuclear power adds to the player's experience so it makes sense to draw it prior to adding nuclear submarines. *in defensive and littoral situations, conventional submarines are superior in some ways to nuclear boats but they wouldn't be effective escorts for a carrier battle group in a large scale WW2 type battle.
Reiterating, if a later time frame is possible, either included directly or modded in, that 1950-60 period is interesting because of its transitional nature. The early nuclear-powered subs are a part of that. If one wishes to make those early boats very expensive to keep their numbers down and accessible only to the most wealthy of nations, I'm perfectly fine with that.
If the game is going to have a hard cut-off of 1950 in technological terms, then little post-WWII technology is going to seen in the game. So while rudimentary, early generation guided missiles, homing torpedoes, and jets will be (barely) available, later things such as nuclear propulsion, supercarriers, angled flight decks, effective surface-to-air missile naval batteries, etc., wouldn't be. Personally, I think being able to experiment with those later things in ship designs would be interesting to recreate (as stated in the post of mine I linked to above).
Ultimately, it's the developers choice. I think pointing out the possibilities of going a little further than a hard 1950 cut-off is worthwhile, even if it is not eventually adopted (or allowed by modding).
|
|
|
Post by akosjaccik on Jan 6, 2019 3:53:25 GMT -6
(...) Personally, I think being able to experiment with those later things in ship designs would be interesting to recreate (as stated in the post of mine I linked to above). A respectable viewpoint. As for myself, however, I am on the opinion that I'd rather see the current scope of the game implemented as complex and interesting as possible and not worry to much about assets that were (arguably) in their infancy at best when it came to practical use. It's purely a personal preference: I'd rather put resources into what we currently have instead of somekind of RtW 2.5 Also very personal, but if anything, I'd rather see a far more fleshed-out resource, base and fleet management than even more tech giving subs +16 reliability.
|
|
|
Post by williammiller on Jan 6, 2019 9:32:12 GMT -6
Traditional ASW tactics for fleets were to locate and then make the sub dive which limited its speed and situational awareness and sped up its clock for battery endurance and air. At that point you've effectively fixed its location so that one or two escorts can attack it while the rest of the fleet moves on at a speed that the submarine can't follow......
........ If the game is going to have a hard cut-off of 1950 in technological terms, then little post-WWII technology is going to seen in the game. So while rudimentary, early generation guided missiles, homing torpedoes, and jets will be (barely) available, later things such as nuclear propulsion, supercarriers, angled flight decks, effective surface-to-air missile naval batteries, etc., wouldn't be. Personally, I think being able to experiment with those later things in ship designs would be interesting to recreate (as stated in the post of mine I linked to above).
Actually, angled flight decks will be possible to develop in RTW2...
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 6, 2019 10:03:04 GMT -6
........ If the game is going to have a hard cut-off of 1950 in technological terms, then little post-WWII technology is going to seen in the game. So while rudimentary, early generation guided missiles, homing torpedoes, and jets will be (barely) available, later things such as nuclear propulsion, supercarriers, angled flight decks, effective surface-to-air missile naval batteries, etc., wouldn't be. Personally, I think being able to experiment with those later things in ship designs would be interesting to recreate (as stated in the post of mine I linked to above).
Actually, angled flight decks will be possible to develop in RTW2...
Ahh, don't forget hangar deck catapults for open hangar carriers and flight deck edge extensions for parking birds out on the edge farther to provide room for more launches.
|
|
|
Post by corsair on Jan 6, 2019 14:19:38 GMT -6
........ If the game is going to have a hard cut-off of 1950 in technological terms, then little post-WWII technology is going to seen in the game. So while rudimentary, early generation guided missiles, homing torpedoes, and jets will be (barely) available, later things such as nuclear propulsion, supercarriers, angled flight decks, effective surface-to-air missile naval batteries, etc., wouldn't be. Personally, I think being able to experiment with those later things in ship designs would be interesting to recreate (as stated in the post of mine I linked to above).
Actually, angled flight decks will be possible to develop in RTW2...
Interesting. So what exactly is the cut-off year for technology being included in the game? My understanding is that the angled flight deck was a response to the demands of operating jets off of carriers. A quick online check finds the concept was first raised in 1944-45, but it took another nine years of development and testing the idea out in practice before it was proved, and not actually incorporated into carrier design (either as a refit or purpose built) until 1954-55. (I'm looking more at when a given technology enters actual service versus when it was first proposed. An idea may look great on paper, but until it's demonstrated in practice it remains theoretical.)
|
|
|
Post by axe99 on Jan 6, 2019 17:21:55 GMT -6
........ If the game is going to have a hard cut-off of 1950 in technological terms, then little post-WWII technology is going to seen in the game. So while rudimentary, early generation guided missiles, homing torpedoes, and jets will be (barely) available, later things such as nuclear propulsion, supercarriers, angled flight decks, effective surface-to-air missile naval batteries, etc., wouldn't be. Personally, I think being able to experiment with those later things in ship designs would be interesting to recreate (as stated in the post of mine I linked to above).
Actually, angled flight decks will be possible to develop in RTW2...
Now this is an angle on the game I can get behind .
|
|
|
Post by jeb94 on Jan 6, 2019 17:32:36 GMT -6
USS Antietam CV-36 became the world’s first angled deck carrier in 1952. She was used extensively for testing the concept and training both US and British aviators in operating from the angled deck. She remained a training carrier until she was replaced by USS Lexington CV-16 and decommissioned in 1963. She was an interesting looking ship as she never received a rebuild other than the angled deck mod so her appearance was largely unchanged.
|
|
|
Post by jeb94 on Jan 6, 2019 17:47:49 GMT -6
The problem with nuke subs being included in the game is simple. With the advent of nuke subs there became just two kinds of vessels at sea. Any submariner can tell you there are only submarines and targets. Granted that distinction has become more noticeable with modern torpedoes, silencing, passive sonar systems, and submerged launch of cruise/anti-ship missles.
|
|
|
Post by rob06waves2018 on Jan 6, 2019 18:51:36 GMT -6
The problem with nuke subs being included in the game is simple. With the advent of nuke subs there became just two kinds of vessels at sea. Any submariner can tell you there are only submarines and targets. Granted that distinction has become more noticeable with modern torpedoes, silencing, passive sonar systems, and submerged launch of cruise/anti-ship missles. And this point is completely independent of my grandiose nuclear weapons arguements!
|
|