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Post by oldpop2000 on May 14, 2019 14:11:44 GMT -6
I would prefer the game to as realistic as possible, not a fantasy but that is just me. It's not fantasy - that's the problem! It's perfectly feasible but only a reality with hindsight. That's why I want it included in the limited way I've outlined. Do you believe that the game will allow large carrier task forces or that you would have a reason to build them? Most nations had no use for them. They were mostly usable by Great Britain to guard convoys and as ASW hunter-killers or in the Pacific for the reasons I have already stated. Does Italy need them, Germany? France maybe, Japan possibly but she would not have the funds to build fleet carriers and those escort carriers. It all depends on the game.
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Post by dorn on May 14, 2019 14:31:57 GMT -6
First cruiser conversion to CVL.
Nice job to NWS team.
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Post by jwsmith26 on May 14, 2019 14:37:43 GMT -6
Judging by that belt armor I'd bet you've got a converted CA there.
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Post by janxol on May 14, 2019 15:02:33 GMT -6
The problem would come as aeroplanes became more advanced and less reliant on a close, sturdy carrier. When you're launching an attack from 100 miles away, there's no need to have an all-singing-all-dancing fleet carrier. You could just build attack squadrons of carriers from AMCs and rely on superior aeroplane designs. To remedy this, I suggest that only planes designed before 1930 can take off from an AMC deck due to the newer launch and recovery equipment required. That would mean they are possible but less desirable as the game progresses, similar to CA conversions. That makes sense. You're basically suggesting a simplified version of "faster, more modern planes need longer runways." According to the manual, there's already soemthing like this in the game. Fast planes are limited to light bomb loads if launching from carriers below certain displacement.
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Post by dorn on May 14, 2019 15:11:47 GMT -6
Judging by that belt armor I'd bet you've got a converted CA there. Exactly. The CA is best because: - CL is too small - BC has too much armour which is dead weight - There is no White Elephant to be converted to CVL.
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Post by aeson on May 14, 2019 19:10:07 GMT -6
A few British carrier conversions: - Kent showed up in the ships under construction at game start; it has a 3x2x10" (AQY) CA half-sister that I couldn't convert to a CVL despite Kent itself being in the yards for conversion at game start. Interestingly, the class name for the CVL shows up as Biter in the ship list, but Kent is the only CVL of its class and its half-sister is named Berwick. Both Kent and Berwick are listed as having commissioned in 1911.
- Aboukir and Drake were 3x2x11" (ARY) battlecruiser both commissioned in 1910 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1920.
- London and Illustrious were 2x2x12" predreadnought battleships both commissioned in 1901 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1921.
- The four Caesars were 2x2x12" + 4x2x9" semidreadnought battleships all commissioned in 1903 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1921.
- Good Hope and Leviathan were 2x2+4x1x8" (AY+FGJK) CAs commissioned in 1903 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1921.
- Amphitrite and Argonaut were 3x2x10" (AWY) CAs commissioned in 1905 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1921. - The four Cressys were 2x2+4x1x8" (AY turreted + FGJK casemated) CAs commissioned in 1905 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1921.
Standard air groups were 6 fighters and 8 torpedo bombers for the Good Hope- and Cressy-class CVLs, 8 fighters and 8 torpedo bombers for the Amphitrite-class CVLs, 9 fighters and 12 torpedo bombers for the London-class CVLs, 6 fighters and 16 torpedo bombers for the Caesar- and Aboukir-class CVLs, and 5 fighters and 4 torpedo bombers for Kent. I don't really know how well they'd work, but the one fleet exercise I ran returned a rather severe loss for the Battleship School - one of 'my' battleships sunk entirely by air attack without it ever engaging 'enemy' surface forces, two more sunk by a combination of air attack and surface action with the 'enemy' battle line, and a battlecruiser damaged by air attack in exchange for the sinking of Kent, this despite 'my' battlecruiser force sighting the 'enemy' carrier group almost immediately at the start of the exercise.
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Post by dorn on May 15, 2019 11:11:20 GMT -6
Reconstruction of CA to CVL.
CA was built for just one purpose. To be rebuilt into carrier.
What suprised me a lot are costs of this rebuilt as 1.6M is nothing and I can get 30 knots carrier with capacity of 44 aircrafts for price of CA+1.6M. I expect as I cannot confirm that it would be much better than reconstruction of capital ship to carrier.
EDIT: I did not check design after increasing number of aircrafts to 44. However there is max. 34 aircrafts. Still impressive. This means that CA needs to be 33 knots fast and I can get thereafter CVL with 33 knots and 34 aircrafts. Quite fast and impossible even for cruisers to catch. Just some destroyer screen and she is completely safe in good visibility.
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Post by dorn on May 15, 2019 11:20:28 GMT -6
A few British carrier conversions:
- Kent showed up in the ships under construction at game start; it has a 3x2x10" (AQY) CA half-sister that I couldn't convert to a CVL despite Kent itself being in the yards for conversion at game start. Interestingly, the class name for the CVL shows up as Biter in the ship list, but Kent is the only CVL of its class and its half-sister is named Berwick. Both Kent and Berwick are listed as having commissioned in 1911.
- Aboukir and Drake were 3x2x11" (ARY) battlecruiser both commissioned in 1910 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1920.
- London and Illustrious were 2x2x12" predreadnought battleships both commissioned in 1901 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1921.
- The four Caesars were 2x2x12" + 4x2x9" semidreadnought battleships all commissioned in 1903 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1921.
- Good Hope and Leviathan were 2x2+4x1x8" (AY+FGJK) CAs commissioned in 1903 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1921.
- Amphitrite and Argonaut were 3x2x10" (AWY) CAs commissioned in 1905 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1921. - The four Cressys were 2x2+4x1x8" (AY turreted + FGJK casemated) CAs commissioned in 1905 and were taken in hand for carrier conversion in 1921.
Standard air groups were 6 fighters and 8 torpedo bombers for the Good Hope- and Cressy-class CVLs, 8 fighters and 8 torpedo bombers for the Amphitrite-class CVLs, 9 fighters and 12 torpedo bombers for the London-class CVLs, 6 fighters and 16 torpedo bombers for the Caesar- and Aboukir-class CVLs, and 5 fighters and 4 torpedo bombers for Kent. I don't really know how well they'd work, but the one fleet exercise I ran returned a rather severe loss for the Battleship School - one of 'my' battleships sunk entirely by air attack without it ever engaging 'enemy' surface forces, two more sunk by a combination of air attack and surface action with the 'enemy' battle line, and a battlecruiser damaged by air attack in exchange for the sinking of Kent, this despite 'my' battlecruiser force sighting the 'enemy' carrier group almost immediately at the start of the exercise.
I find out that level bombing is useless, I hit only land target and once AMC. No warship was hit.
Torpedo attack is dififcult to however I was able at one battle make 4 torpedo hits by attack around 30 torpedo bombers. But usually no hit scored. No enemy ship has sunk but damage was severe.
My conclusion is that it is difficult to hit warships however when warship is hit the damage is severe. The main reason is that most of the fleet is quite old having minimal torpedo protection. I can compare to torpedo hit (by destroyer) to my modern battleships and battlecruisers and theyn just need a little time to stop flooding and there were no significant damage.
However at 20s AA fire is quite ineffective. Even my new cruisers about 8000 tons with good mix of heavy AA (4" DP guns) and light AA (max. possible) has difficulty to damage enemy aircrafts.
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Post by jwsmith26 on May 15, 2019 11:51:40 GMT -6
AAA is not very effective in the 20s. It gets much better later on. You should not necessarily judge effectiveness based solely on how many planes were damaged or destroyed. The most important thing is to make the planes miss. The results of disruption are hard to quantify but I suspect many aerial attacks are nudged just enough by disruption to cause them to miss. Torpedoes also improve considerably with time - attacks get more accurate and the torpedoes get more powerful. You should probably be careful about drawing too many conclusions about the efficacy of air attacks from experience in the 20s. Level bombing is indeed very inaccurate but don't expect your aviators to reject the technique just because it doesn't work. Some planes types that use level bombing in the 20s will eventually be able to develop skip bombing, carry out torpedo attacks, and possibly use guided missiles.
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Post by thesovietonion on May 15, 2019 11:54:29 GMT -6
I've had a lot of luck building huge AV's and converting those into CVLs when I don't have purpose built carrier technology yet.
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Post by dorn on May 15, 2019 11:57:37 GMT -6
AAA is not very effective in the 20s. It gets much better later on. You should not necessarily judge effectiveness based solely on how many planes were damaged or destroyed. The most important thing is to make the planes miss. The results of disruption are hard to quantify but I suspect many aerial attacks are nudged just enough by disruption to cause them to miss. Torpedoes also improve considerably with time - attacks get more accurate and the torpedoes get more powerful. You should probably be careful about drawing too many conclusions about the efficacy of air attacks from experience in the 20s. Level bombing is indeed very inaccurate but don't expect your aviators to reject the technique just because it doesn't work. Some planes types that use level bombing in the 20s will eventually be able to develop skip bombing, carry out torpedo attacks, and possibly use guided missiles. I agree with you. My conclusion is just about 20s.
Thanks for information about AA fire, it is good to know that there is something invinsible behind this that is working as it should. This is something which I like. In RTW we know about armour scheme and what works best or at least better. There are different aproaches but you exactly know direction. If AA effectivness is a little hidden it is good as it is more difficult to have direct opinion on it.
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Post by skyhawk on May 15, 2019 12:06:38 GMT -6
I've had a lot of luck building huge AV's and converting those into CVLs when I don't have purpose built carrier technology yet. I hadn't even thought of that. Good point! And probably cheaper than converting an old or purpose built CA.
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Post by thesovietonion on May 15, 2019 12:46:50 GMT -6
The only issue I ran into is that CVLs are limited to 34 aircraft. When i did my latest conversion it had tonnage to support 60+ aircraft, but I was not allowed to build full CVs yet. With only 34 aircraft I had too much excess tonnage to make the design legal, and could not add armor, enough engine or weapons to make up the difference. I would avoid 16,000 ton AVs and experiment with ~10-12,000 ton ones, or start them reasonably armored to make up the difference.
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Post by Fredrik W on May 15, 2019 13:32:58 GMT -6
Tip: You can build a suitable AV, then convert it into a carrier. It can feel a little cheesy, but it was done historically, and fairly well simulates taking a fastish support ship and converting it to a carrier.
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Post by cogsandspigots on May 15, 2019 14:01:55 GMT -6
Tip: You can build a suitable AV, then convert it into a carrier. It can feel a little cheesy, but it was done historically, and fairly well simulates taking a fastish support ship and converting it to a carrier. I think it’s kind of weird to have purpose built CVs behind a tech wall. I’m not sure it’s that much easier to strip all the guns and superstructure off a cruiser and slap on a flight deck than it is to just build a ship that has a flight deck.
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