The potential of 19th century start date

[Antediluvian Monster]

Making a new thread for off-topic from the nuclear propulsion thread.

Apr 30, 2019 12:59:34 GMT -6 archelaos said:

Apr 30, 2019 12:28:16 GMT -6 Antediluvian Monster said:

I think that would violate one of the basic principles of RTW series which is ship design. Perhaps there could be occasional public, political or internal navy pressure where you get forced with something truly silly, to get into the spirit of things. Obsolescence was only a bigger issue than in 1900-'10 when a ship languished under construction for better part of a decade (which did happen more often than it should have, granted). Overall you can identify few coherent development periods, and for most part they aren't really shorter than the reign of mature pre-dreadnoughts from circa Majestic class onwards.

While the mechanics may are already be in the game, the big problem is how to set the boundaries on what is legit and what not - RTW already makes some historical designs not legal due to enforce proper tech progression rather than player instantly going to most efficient designs.
For the period before 1900 it would be much, much bigger problem as all designs were tried and some worked while other did not, in fact some of those that worked later were initially refused due to luck or conservatives in rule, or lack of tech to capitalise on ideas. You may also add the wrong ideas from the last battle in this period (1866, Lissa) where more technologically advanced navy was soundly defeated.

To a degree yeah. The turret ship is particularly good example, already harkening to pre-dreadnoughs with as early example as HMS Devastation. The practical limiting factors would be the extreme topweight of the turrets (not barbettes with gunhouse as "modern" turrets are), this should probably enforce low freeboard (an issue as late as HMS Hood). And armament should have restricted arcs with sails, and sails should be needed for anything beyond short range cruising until sometime in the '80s. So while Austria might replace it's fleet of ocean going center battery ships with something more coastal (and really overall better for their needs, I never did get why they didn't do it more like Russia) those ocean going center battery ships and restricted arc turret ships like HMS Monarch should still be mainstay for the likes of Britain (IIRC, with these two types Reed made a case that there wasn't really weight difference even if the former had to ship guns for both broadsides).

As for rams, I'm not sure if they are even important. The potential to use them should be there, but I doubt these ships lost much from fitting a ram and never using it. And the purpose built rams seem for most parts like funky monitors.

[hoffmads]

I can see some other potentially thorny issues to work out, depending on the actual start date. For one thing, there would be the decision of whether to model still propulsion, and if so, how. For another, the modelling of funds would probably be tricky - for much of the period, smoothbore shell guns and rifled muzzleloaders were in use, often with extremely low rates of fire. Modelling engines could be complicated too, due to the transition from simple to compound to triple expansion engines. And, the United States and Japan only really got going on becoming real naval powers in the 1880s or so.

All of that being said, it would be fascinating to be able to simulate this period if it is feasible to do so.

[garrisonchisholm]

For my part I have always wanted a game that started in 1890, offering a longer "useful" (if that term can be applied) period with pre-dreads and also the varied states of early steam navies. However as pointed out above, those same varied states would lead to a much more complicated game, as simply dropping in worse guns & armor doesn't reflect the level of detail that Fredrik has put into making the game an accurate build-&-fight game.

All that being said, I would still love to play it.

[hoffmads]

I would think it would almost have to be either a standalone game or a major DLC. Another thing I thought of is that armor was really in a variable state in this period and that there would be everything from wooden-hulled vessels through Harvey steel armor. But, if such a game or DLC were offered, I'd certainly buy it. I don't think there's much room to push the end date out further, but this period would be a lot of fun. In particular, starting as the United States, Germany, or Japan with virtually no legacy fleet would be very interesting.

[avimimus]

I for one would like an excuse to build casement ironclads...

Maybe there should be a kind of restriction placed in RTW3? Like the requirement to build a certain number of cruisers, there could be a political requirement to have less than 25% of ships rely on turrets?

Btw. At what point did sail power largely cease to be relevant (1880?)? That would seem to be the threshold where major AI and gameplay elements would need to be rethought.

[hoffmads]

Some sail-powered vessels were still fighting in engagements during the American Civil War, such as the Cumberland and Congress at Hampton Roads, but I can't really think of any after that. Still, ships continued to use sails for movement outside of battle into the 1880s, if I'm not mistaken, since steam engines were unreliable and devoured coal, and I suppose they might be under sail realistically at the beginning of many of the types of engagements depicted in RTW. This could probably be abstracted away in game, but I think trying to represent the difference between an 11-inch RML of the 1880s and a breech-loading 11-inch gun of the 1900s or that between 12 inches of compound armor and 12 inches of Krupp steel would be the more difficult and complex issue, though I'm certainly not a computer programmer myself.

[Antediluvian Monster]

Sails would only *need* to a strategic consideration. AFAIK, the SOP was to actually hoist the propeller out of the sea (and the ships were provided with such functionality) when under sail as the drag it caused hindered the performance. I'm not aware of combined steam and sail having been much, if any, a thing.

The early stubby soda bottle naval artillery should be a completely different branch of development independent from the later smokeless powder guns and their quality variations, IMO (mainly to prevent their use past point of expiration). They reached enormous bore sizes since it was the only way their power could be increased due to the (black) powder used, a longer barrel would have actually degraded performance past a point.

For start dates, 1871 (i.e. after German unification) and late '80s or 1890 as proposed above (though I'm partial to symbolic 1889 as that's when Britain formally adopted two-power standard and USA made a decision to build a battlefleet) would work, but most dates between those sit in kinda awkward middle point where they need to still provide most of the functionality of 1871. 1860s were politically troublesome (ACW, Japanese civil war and Meiji restoration, Italian unification) and unnecessary for representing full span of the history of armoured steam warships. 1889 would allow cutting sails and broadside and center battery ships out, with legacy fleet of varied turret and barbette ships; it's also around the point cruising warships started to be faster than the battleline again.

[fifey]

I've previously advocated 1895 as a start date that might work, giving one a little more time with predreads with a startdate that might be possible to implement without too much trouble.

[Antediluvian Monster]

1895 would probably allow ditching of the turret battleships with centrally mounted cross-deck firing battery and the early AON protection associated with them. Which is fine, they are somewhat troublesome (though I think they could still be represented with special restrictions and vulnerabilities, in a 1871 date they would be in centerpiece as that next big thing you'd research after the start). 1895 would still need to represent barbette and turret ships in general I think, with mature predreads perhaps only allowed as ships under construction. There would also need to be some kind of rule to allow early wing mount singles, probably only if you are going entirely for battery of singles (there could be some kind of weight reduction from doing so, IIRC French went for singles since the hulls were too fine foward to take twin turret, some kind of compact hull modifier?). Ekaterina II can probably be ignored.

[AiryW]

Apr 30, 2019 15:13:15 GMT -6 hoffmads said:

And, the United States and Japan only really got going on becoming real naval powers in the 1880s or so.

I wouldn't put the US and Japan in the same boat. Kennedy's numbers indicate these warship tonnage and shape of manufacturing output in 1880:

UK 650 kT / 22.9%
France 271 kT / 7.8%
Russia 200 kT / 7.6%
US 169 kT / 14.7 %
Italy 100 kT / 2.5%
Germany 88 kT / 8.5%
A-H 60 kT / 4.4%
Japan 15 kT / Not listed but presumably a touch lower then Italy.

So while the US was punching below it's weight in terms of naval spending, it would be more comparable to Germany or Austria then Japan. It's very much a geopolitical dynamic, France and Italy lack security so massively overspend while the US and Germany are secure so they dont need to spend much on navies. And that would be pretty tricky to model because if we are talking about conflict that dynamic needs to no longer apply.

[Antediluvian Monster]

US completely skipped the "ironclad" period past Civil War and just maintained a commerce warfare fleet. For purpose of gaming it would be fine to assume they don't do so if there is a start date before '80s, particularly the latter half. As for Japan, perhaps they are going for battlefleet early rather than the jeune ecolish cruiser fleet. They should still have tiny budget though, if there is a start date before 1894 it would be nice to have Qing China as early competitor.

[rob06waves2018]

If we do get a 19th century start date, either as a DLC or in a future RTW 3 (here's hoping), how would it deal with the UK? 1900 is alright as the technology changes fast enough for smaller nations to catch up. However, from about 1855 onwards the ships were basically still variations on old age of sail ships. Yes, turrets and armour were around but not effective enough to mark a major change (turrets were unwieldy and armour basically consisted of an inch of iron backed by a foot of oak). Therefore, there wasn't enough advancement to keep established navies from maintaining massive semi-conventional fleets. At this point, Pax Brittanica was in its prime. No other navy had the remotest change. How well would this play in wars such as those in RTW after the turn of the century?

[Antediluvian Monster]

Britain barely overbuilt French in ironclads in '60s. Just like they did with steam ships-of-the-line in '50s. If anything Britain was less gung ho about any two power standards until it formally adopted it in 1889.

Iron armour was tremendously effective from very beginning, as was iron construction which allowed watertight subdivision and made the ship more resistant to fires. By my earliest proposed start date, unarmoured wooden ships were obsolete except as small traditional wooden cruising ships (sloops and such) for colonial policing and trade warfare (this needed tons of hulls before radio), by 1871 even the early iron armoured ships were becoming fast obsolescent with introduction of the center battery ships which concentrated the armour into small battery that included few big guns rather than spreading it all over to accommodate a traditional full deck battery of medium guns.

[thenewteddy]

My preference is 1880 but I understand this would add quite a bit of programming requirement to the game. That being said, the spanish american war comes close enough to 1900 that it could be modelled. I think that allowing a mod to set the date to 1898 would be good; but that having that as the official start date should not be make or break.

[charybdis]

I would also love an earlier start date, and wouldn't mind seeing it as an expansion. Especially if it modelled disgusting 80-ton muzzleloading guns as found on Colossus.