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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jan 8, 2019 12:07:16 GMT -6
In my current game as Japan it is 1936, and I have been tremendously successful. Germany only holds North Korea as a possession in the entire Pacific, and I have taken a pair of colonies from France in SEA. However, oddly, thanks to 2 HORRIBLY timed arms limitation treaties and some Build These mandates, I am at war with Germany, France, & the USA and have only 6 BCs (generations '1' and [roughly] '3' types) and 4 converted CA's with 6 fighters each!
I also have a plethora of light and heavy cruisers, but only 8 of them would I think of using in a fight. It is a real non-IJN pickle!
Here's hoping the Germans only push forces to N.Korea piecemeal and I am allowed daylight actions in range of my air bases...
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Post by akosjaccik on Jan 8, 2019 12:48:46 GMT -6
Uurgh, I have a really poor intellectual capacity when it comes to visualizing written text, could you perhaps illustrate your situation with some screenshots? (...hey! Worth a try. )
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Post by ursamaior on Jan 8, 2019 14:04:54 GMT -6
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Post by jeb94 on Jan 8, 2019 17:46:10 GMT -6
Looks like the number one priority would be building a number of large carriers and as many cruisers as possible. Maybe throw in a half dozen or so more capable light carriers. Still looks like a very bad strategic situation. It would be bad facing one enemy but facing three, especially with one of those being the USA, not good. Send as many of the non-battle worthy cruisers out as raiders and do your best to hang on for peace or the arrival of the new carrier fleet.
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Post by aeson on Jan 8, 2019 18:03:53 GMT -6
Uurgh, I have a really poor intellectual capacity when it comes to visualizing written text, could you perhaps illustrate your situation with some screenshots? (...hey! Worth a try. ) How I would group historical battlecruisers: Generation 0-0.5: Late predreadnought-period or early dreadnought-period large first-class armored cruisers. American Pennsylvania and Tennessee, British Warrior and Minotaur, Japanese Tsukuba and Ibuki, German Blucher.
Generation 1: Invincible, Indefatigable, Von der Tann. Eight 11" or 12" guns in four twin turrets, two of which are in wing positions. Design speed around 25-26 knots, displacement in the neighborhood of 20,000 tons. - Generation 1.5: German Moltke and Seydlitz classes. Slightly larger and slightly faster than their predecessors, carry an extra pair of 11" guns in a centerline turret superfiring over the rearmost main battery turret.
Generation 2: Lion, Queen Mary, Tiger, Derfflinger, Kongo. Eight main battery guns heavier than used in the preceding generation (13.5" for the British, 12" for the German, 14" for the Japanese) in four twin centerline turrets with at least a superfiring pair forwards (Lion, Queen Mary) if not superfiring pairs fore and aft (Tiger, Derfflinger, Kongo). Design speed around 27-28 knots, displacement in the neighborhood of 27,000 tons.
Generation 3: Interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. Renown, Mackensen. Once again, notably faster (28-32 knots) and larger (~30,000 tons), and carrying heavier guns than the preceding generation (15" for the British, 13.8" for the German). Renown and Repulse might not count as 'proper' Generation 3 battlecruisers since they're wartime conversions of Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, and revisions due to wartime experience and several years of construction delays might have been enough to push the Mackensens into a Generation 3.5, not that there's really much else to go between them and Generation 2.
After that, things get a bit messy, partly for lack of ships actually completed due to wartime priorities and postwar economies. The Courageous class is a bit of a throwback, more like the large first-class cruisers of the predreadnought period than like a contemporary battlecruiser, and was what it was partly because in order to get it the Admiralty needed to circumvent a wartime prohibition on the construction of heavy ships. Hood, at about 45,000 tons, is enormous by comparison to preceding British battlecruiser and battleship classes but doesn't really improve on speed or main battery armament over the immediately-preceding generation of battlecruisers as was typical with other generation breaks, and in terms of armor protection is closer to older British battleships than to older British battlecruisers. Ersatz Yorck would have been a somewhat-enlarged Mackensen with 15" instead of 13.8" guns but to my understanding would have been good for only about 27 knots to the Mackensen's ~28 knots. Post-war, the American Lexington as finalized and the Japanese Amagi are throwbacks to the early battlecruisers in the vein of Invincible and Indefatigable, with high speed, heavy armament, and relatively light armor suggesting that they were meant for dominating cruisers rather than for engaging ships armed with similarly-heavy guns, while the British G3 was more like a fast battleship, and would probably be considered one if not for the even more heavily armed and armored but slower N3 battleships. Then you get to the ten-year "battleship holiday" imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty, during which no naval power of any consequence built a major capital ship such as a battlecruiser, and coming back from the holiday you get into the various fast battleships planned, laid down, and commissioned by the major naval powers, some or all of which may or may not be battlecruisers depending on point of view, a number of proposed or cancelled battlecruisers and large cruiser-type warships with guns heavier than 8", and the American Alaska-class large cruisers.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jan 9, 2019 1:07:38 GMT -6
Well as far as my current situation I am pretty much at the mercy of geography and land-based air. I have 2 ships worth anything, essentially G3s, as 1 of the 3 was just sunk destroying 3 German BCs. The first generation of DNs were wiped out by a 17 year, 15k & 10" treaty, so there was no reason to ditch my original Bs as they were the only heavy guns I could have for a while. Knowing I was in a bad spot I started an economy class of BBs, essentially 15" Nelsons, and those Also were wiped out by a treaty. When THAT treaty lapsed I wanted aircraft carriers, and my 4 Hiryu types were a few months from launching when THEY were killed by a treaty. Consequently, my only advantage is land-based air, which I developed during the treaties which left a world full of cruisers. Its a weird one! (I am able to post these because everything discussed here-in has been previously discussed or revealed.)
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Post by MateDow on Jan 9, 2019 1:30:09 GMT -6
Thank you for the pictures.
I do like the fact that there is a logical arrangement of secondary batteries on your Kongos
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Post by jeb94 on Jan 9, 2019 1:38:37 GMT -6
Yup, you're in trouble. Hopefully peace negotiations come soon without too much more in the way of losses.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jan 9, 2019 6:20:56 GMT -6
Well as far as my current situation (...) Thank you very much for the post! I'll look forward to how your situatioin will unfold in the future; maybe you'll be able to utilize land-based air support to a rather respectable degree while being cautious at surface actions at the same time. Some further stuff I found interesting: > Research budget: 12% > 8" deck armor! > As noted above, an interesting and sensible arrangement of secondary batteries. The design almost looks like an all-forward main armament type in it's philosophy, yet the conning tower complicates things.
> Fair amount of light AA installations on your Kongos, nothing else. Maybe this can be put parallel to an earlier DevJournal maybe, where LAA proved to be easily the most effective (at least at this timeframe?) > The redesigned Pacific area seems interesting, now the Japanese mainland isn't that closed off to the east.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jan 9, 2019 9:37:27 GMT -6
I love everything I'm seeing in these pictures. Except for your strategic situation garrisonchisholm . Better you than me there. I think the screenshot of the map is a good example of why I believe the selected Soviet ensign is too similar to the Japanese one at that resolution but that is the most trivial of concerns. Release day ( Der Tag) can't get here soon enough.
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Post by abclark on Jan 9, 2019 10:07:59 GMT -6
> As noted above, an interesting and sensible arrangement of secondary batteries. The design almost looks like an all-forward main armament type in it's philosophy, yet the conning tower complicates things. As Garrison mentioned, it’s supposed to be a G3esqe design, so its pretty correct in that.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jan 9, 2019 10:25:50 GMT -6
> As noted above, an interesting and sensible arrangement of secondary batteries. The design almost looks like an all-forward main armament type in it's philosophy, yet the conning tower complicates things. As Garrison mentioned, it’s supposed to be a G3esqe design, so its pretty correct in that. I noted that not because of the technical correctness of the design but for the implementation in the game, mainly talking about the location of the secondary battery here, which - to my knowledge - was not possible so far in RtW. I did some thinking out loud after that and did not clear things out correctly, true.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jan 9, 2019 17:46:49 GMT -6
Yes, the secondary battery placements have a lot more logic to them in RTW2, plus the additional draw lines, from 4 to 6. I have taken to "maxing" the tertiary and secondary batteries early on, knowing that eventually they will be dp. I suppose that's a bit "meta" though, I shouldn't look that far forward in 1909.
Side-view is still on the to-do list, hence why you haven't seen a tester post a side-view btw.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jan 9, 2019 17:51:53 GMT -6
I love everything I'm seeing in these pictures. Except for your strategic situation garrisonchisholm . Better you than me there. I think the screenshot of the map is a good example of why I believe the selected Soviet ensign is too similar to the Japanese one at that resolution but that is the most trivial of concerns. Release day ( Der Tag) can't get here soon enough. Your suggestion made it to the conversation Bcoop, I just don't know where it falls on that to-do list. :]
Yes, that is a crummy strategic situation brought about by Alpha Anomaly One; when you need to test Air, and can't build carriers, you build air bases. Unfortunately then the dice say everything else gets cancelled too, and there goes the picnic.
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Post by generalvikus on Jan 9, 2019 21:03:40 GMT -6
garrisonchisholm I notice that there is a relatively tight grouping in the budgets of the UK, USA, France, Germany and Japan. For reference, the historical figures are as follows: (These are taken from some old research and I didn't at the time see fit to record the currency, but from the purpose of the research I know that they are in constant dollars of a given year)
| UK | USA | France | Germany | Italy | Japan | 1936 | 1388 | 2072 | 517 | 1161 | 300 | 938 | 1937 | 1595 | 1866 | 444 | 1479 | 313 | 1056 | 1938 | 1878 | 2026 | 462 | 1796 | 339 | 1049 | 1939 | 2277 | 2872 | 724 | 2390 | 424 | 1256 |
I would hope that a typical playthrough of the release version of the game using historical resources would correspond more closely to the historical polarisation of resources. Do you care to comment?
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