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Post by Blothorn on May 17, 2019 16:46:11 GMT -6
And now that I think about it, in my one full demo game I wound up with no active-force CAs for most of the game, while my opponent had a small force--I had several cruiser engagements matching my CLs against their CAs. I think that if you don't want to build CAs, you either need to decline small-medium cruiser clashes or build CLs that can take on enemy CAs.
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Post by larryc on May 17, 2019 16:57:45 GMT -6
A Cleveland design utilizing the 6"/47 cal. has a rate of fire which equalizes the difference in size of shell. Quantity has a quality all its own. I think opposing CAs would find them their equal.
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Post by Blothorn on May 17, 2019 17:17:19 GMT -6
I tried that, 2v1 no less and with 2.5" belts all around--both my CLs were sunk while causing only superficial damage. The weight of fire evens out, but the 8" gun is more efficient at long range (more accurate due to better ballistics, and much more likely to penetrate). In a night engagement you are probably correct.
The comparison somewhat reminds me of the discussions that led to the USN moving to all-big-gun layouts--they calculated that the accuracy difference at expected battle ranges was so great that a 12" gun had a higher estimated hit rate (in hits/hour, not hit proportion) than a 6" gun firing five times as often. Rate of fire and throw rate only really matter at point-blank ranges.
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Post by ramjb on May 17, 2019 20:31:46 GMT -6
I tried that, 2v1 no less and with 2.5" belts all around-- That's tinclad cruiser protection level. I wouldn't even consider building anything with less than 3.5'' belt if it's intended to have a surface combat role at all. That thing said, with similar FCS, and a much larger number of resulting expected hits (same chance of per shot hit %, on top of more rounds per minute per gun, on top of more rifles to begin with, means a noticeably larger percentage of hits). The ability of the 8'' to pen armor at longer ranges than the 6'' is somewhat compensated by the % of 6'' hits that will work towards a soft kill (FC KOs, turret jams on non penetrating hits, general destruction levels on the superstructure, hits on funnels, the random scout plane blowing up in it's catapult, crew casualties, flooding on unprotected ship extremes, etc). Unless the 8'' scores something REALLY crippling early on, on the long term the cumulative soft damage of the 6'' will do the job, if not better, at least as reliably as the 8'' will. I personally, think that both weapons even out in a long range contest. Given that the closer the range the 6'' becomes increasingly a better option because volume of fire becomes increasingly devastating the closer you are, for me the 6'' is the gun to go. It isn't a class vs class fight anyway: cruisers will meet all kind of enemies in battle, not just cruisers. Against destroyers and smaller ships (not to mention unprotected merchants) 8'' guns are ridiculously overkill. Against anything with significant levels of armor, however (battleships and not-completely-garbage-protection-level BCs) 8'' is exactly as incapable of penning the armor at anything like survivable ranges as 6'' is, while lighter faster firing guns in bigger numbers will be more effective at working on unprotected areas of capital ships - a quite big consideration with, one expects, nations gravitating and normalizing towards AoN layouts for capital ships. Personally I strongly lean towards the 6'' gun cruiser doctrine for heavy cruisers. at least until (And I'm not even sure if it's a tech that's included) semiautomatic reload systems as the ones in the american MK.16 gun are invented for the 8''. Then it's a completely different playing field. |
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snwh
Full Member
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Post by snwh on May 17, 2019 20:42:56 GMT -6
I tried that, 2v1 no less and with 2.5" belts all around-- That's tinclad cruiser protection level. I wouldn't even consider building anything with less than 3.5'' belt if it's intended to have a surface combat role at all. That thing said, with similar FCS, and a much larger number of resulting expected hits (same chance of per shot hit %, on top of more rounds per minute per gun, on top of more rifles to begin with, means a noticeably larger percentage of hits). The ability of the 8'' to pen armor at longer ranges than the 6'' is somewhat compensated by the % of 6'' hits that will work towards a soft kill (FC KOs, turret jams on non penetrating hits, general destruction levels on the superstructure, hits on funnels, the random scout plane blowing up in it's catapult, crew casualties, flooding on unprotected ship extremes, etc). Unless the 8'' scores something REALLY crippling early on, on the long term the cumulative soft damage of the 6'' will do the job, if not better, at least as reliably as the 8'' will. I personally, think that both weapons even out in a long range contest. Given that the closer the range the 6'' becomes increasingly a better option because volume of fire becomes increasingly devastating the closer you are, for me the 6'' is the gun to go. It isn't a class vs class fight anyway: cruisers will meet all kind of enemies in battle, not just cruisers. Against destroyers and smaller ships (not to mention unprotected merchants) 8'' guns are ridiculously overkill. Against anything with significant levels of armor, however (battleships and not-completely-garbage-protection-level BCs) 8'' is exactly as incapable of penning the armor at anything like survivable ranges as 6'' is, while lighter faster firing guns in bigger numbers will be more effective at working on unprotected areas of capital ships - a quite big consideration with, one expects, nations gravitating and normalizing towards AoN layouts for capital ships. Personally I strongly lean towards the 6'' gun cruiser doctrine for heavy cruisers. at least until (And I'm not even sure if it's a tech that's included) semiautomatic reload systems as the ones in the american MK.16 gun are invented for the 8''. Then it's a completely different playing field. hmmm, I thought that you could only get up to 3" of protection on a CL, or am I remembering wrong? Very interesting analysis tho. not sure I agree, but definitely food for thought |
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Post by ramjb on May 17, 2019 20:45:34 GMT -6
hmmm, I thought that you could only get up to 3" of protection on a CL, or am I remembering wrong? Very interesting analysis tho. not sure I agree, but definitely food for thought Pre 1928 I don't think you can. But after the 8k ton limit is removed, yes you can. Besides the whole point of the debate is about a CA armed with 6'' guns...and you certainly can put a lot more than 3'' belts on CAs since the get go  . |
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Post by aeson on May 17, 2019 21:46:51 GMT -6
at least until (And I'm not even sure if it's a tech that's included) semiautomatic reload systems as the ones in the american MK.16 gun are invented for the 8''. Then it's a completely different playing field. 'Autoloaders for 7" and 8" guns' is one of the techs listed in ResearchAreas2.dat (c.1945 development), so it would appear to be a technology included within the game. How effective it will be I could not say. |
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Post by L0ckAndL0ad on May 18, 2019 13:09:43 GMT -6
For me, as USN fanboy, the question of cruisers in any WW2 themed naval game is always a deep one. I really like the idea of mass production and universal designs, so I did lots of research on the topic. At one point, when playing games like WITP AE or HOI, I thought that I should stick to using CAs exclusively. However, I came to realize that both CA and CL deserve to exist.
CL should be treated as heavy escorts, destroyer killers. Brooklyn-class with 15x 6in, Cleveland-class with 12x 6in, and even Atlanta-class (though somewhat philosophically different) with 16x 5in, provide both higher volume and rate of fire, which is much more suitable for dealing with small, fast and agile destroyers than 9x or even 12x 8 inch guns can possibly provide.
Destroyers are, generally, the most numerous, so it makes a lot of sense to have a weapon platform that's oriented specifically on dealing with them faster than other ships could.
CA on the other hand should, IMO, be treated more like ehm... 3rd rate fast ships of the line (with BC being 2nd and fast BB being 1st). When you can't have a proper fast BB in large numbers (or at all, due to treaty limitations), and good BC can be as costly as BB, CA makes sense as the fast ship of the line. Therefore the same rules as for BB should apply to their design (though downscaled, of course).
But yeah, it's a very interesting topic.
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Post by ramjb on May 18, 2019 13:54:46 GMT -6
For me, as USN fanboy, the question of cruisers in any WW2 themed naval game is always a deep one. I really like the idea of mass production and universal designs, so I did lots of research on the topic. At one point, when playing games like WITP AE or HOI, I thought that I should stick to using CAs exclusively. However, I came to realize that both CA and CL deserve to exist. I'm of a wholly different opinion. Yours makes sense within the context of the US Navy and the absolutely bonkers production numbers they could pump out of the shipyards in record time. Literally no navy of the time had such a luxury, their production was limited in scale and scope and decisions had to be made based on much stricter limits. If you're on a budget the prime idea is to standarize as much as you can with as little variation as possible to produce as much as you can within your possible limits. In that sense you want to go with the all-around, most versatile and effective vessel for as many scenarios as the ship can find itself into. For main fleet cruiser roles, that is the 6'' "heavy cruiser" (I'm sorry, the Cleveland or the Town classes were "light" only in designation, they were heavy cruisers with 6'' guns from my point of view and I class them as such), not the 8'' one. I honestly think the British got it right from the very beginning. Their interwar light cruisers were fantastic in all regards for what they were expected to do, they pretty much ditched the whole idea of the 8'' cruiser after their affair with the County class, and they ploughed into the war with two series of 12x6'' gunned cruisers that gave exceptional war records and served with distinction, and a smaller "AA Cruiser" which was a failure more because of the tools the british had at hand than because it was a conceptual mistake (the 5.25'' DP mount was pretty terrible for AA roles, and for a supposed anti-air specialization cruiser that's...well...that's pretty horrific). For fleet roles the 12x6'' ships proved to be far more than enough for any role they were needed to fill and in fact by the later stages of the war many of them lost one triple turret to make way for extra AAA as 9x6'' was judged more than enough for the roles they were expected to fullfit. Slightly different story with the USN. The Brooklyn class was, let's put it this way, a borderline design because of the fixation of the USN to match Mogami's 15 guns, but once toned down to 12 guns and remodelled for improved AA firing arcs it's hull proved the most worthwhile of the war as the Cleveland (And slightly evolved later designs based on it). Meanwhile, while there's little doubt that the best heavy cruiser of WWII was the Baltimore (Cleveland updated hull, different main battery), the fact is that the american 8'' guns didn't do anything a 6'' gun would've done equally well all through the war, while all the extra work to do the redesign and building of similar hulled ships but to different main batteries meant lesser total production. That for the USN was completely meaningless that duplicating the class branching it into 8'' and 6'' "half siblings" meant diverting resources into two different classes instead of standarizing on one, meaning less overall ships compared with a single class with standarized features, doesn't mean it would be VERY meaningful for any other nation. That was absolutely no problem for the US because of the beyond belief production capability it had: the Cleveland and variations are still today the cruiser produced in the largest number ever (and a good number of them were cancelled, not to mention those turned into CVLs), so whatever "cost" the extra effort put into the baltimores (another very large batch of cruisers, btw) was laughable all things considered. But THAT was an US Trait. They could churn out ships at a rate that boggles the mind. But they were alone in that. Britain couldn't come anywhere to DREAM they could come close to the naval construction production levels the US reached during WW2, and Britain's shipbuilding capabilities dwarfed those of any other of the nations of the world (bar the US) at the time. Literally, for ANY nation, but the US, forking a cruiser into two different "sibling classes" would've hurt production in quite noticeable numbers. So, again you want to standarize. If you just want one class of ship to do all the things a big fleet cruiser is going to be needed to do, then you want the one that's most effective in the most scenarios. And, once more, that was the 6'' cruiser. TL:DR: the US had the luxury to toy with 8'' CAs...but that was the exception and not the norm . |
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Post by hungaricus on May 19, 2019 5:59:04 GMT -6
If I remeber correctly the KuK navy used 10cm Skoda guns for their light cruisers I tried it once in RTW 1 but they are horrific.
Also what do you think about 7 inch guns? For my first cruiser in RTW 2 I decided to try out them as the AHM. You have no 8 inch guns wich is usually my go to "light cruiser" weapon choice.
Essentially I have a light protected cruiser with 2x2 7' (here I have usually 8') and 12x1 6' guns on secondary and 12x1 4' in tertiary positions. These cruisers usually dominates the enemy CL s.
My CA s are usually equipped with 2x2 10' guns and later its either 10 9' (3-2-2-3) or 12 8'. But those are essentially little BCs with close to 15-18kt mass.
Once I built a 21kT "CA" with 16 8' gun. It was glorious.
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Post by ramjb on May 19, 2019 6:44:08 GMT -6
If I remeber correctly the KuK navy used 10cm Skoda guns for their light cruisers I tried it once in RTW 1 but they are horrific. Also what do you think about 7 inch guns? For my first cruiser in RTW 2 I decided to try out them as the AHM. You have no 8 inch guns wich is usually my go to "light cruiser" weapon choice. Essentially I have a light protected cruiser with 2x2 7' (here I have usually 8') and 12x1 6' guns on secondary and 12x1 4' in tertiary positions. These cruisers usually dominates the enemy CL s. My CA s are usually equipped with 2x2 10' guns and later its either 10 9' (3-2-2-3) or 12 8'. But those are essentially little BCs with close to 15-18kt mass. Once I built a 21kT "CA" with 16 8' gun. It was glorious. They weren't the only ones. Until almost the beginning of WW1 (Actually, well into it) most german light cruisers were armed with 105mm guns. Let's say, that option didn't go very well for them. As for the light cruiser...seems tremendously overkill to me. 12x6'' is more than enough to deal with anything those ships are expected to fight. Adding four 7'' to that seems waaaaay overkill, that expensive tonnage should rather go for a bit more armor, some more speed, some more extra rounds for your primary guns...instead. At least that's how see it. My personal bet on very early CAs (Since RTW1) was to go with a 2x(8-10)'' guns, and a large set of 6'' secondaries, with a top speed of 23-24 (Which is very, very expensive in tonnage terms that early for a ship that large), and well armored enough to deal with self guns (the new "immunity zones" check is quite useful for this). Back in RTW1 those ships made splend raiders, raider hunters, and van scouts (they wiped the floor with any CL they found). As time went by new machinery could keep them very fast. I rarely built an armored cruiser that didn't last me the whole game, and 21 and 22 knotters usually are too limited to update later on for that goal. but a 24knot one is very very easy to bring up to 30 knots, again, making for amazing raiding and raider hunting tools in wartime. With the new conversion system I guess (haven't done it yet) those would be prime, and very useful, candidates for early CVL conversion. The tradeoff is that they were quite expensive for ships that weren't expected to be part of the core battleline being too lightly armed for that role. Yours seems an armored cruiser that probably would be great in the battleline until AP improvements make that too risky (ACs are excellent as ersatz predreadnoughts in the early 1900s, as the Russians found at Tsushima, because 12'' guns don't hit enough nor heavy enough to hurt them that much). But after that...with that speed they'd lose usefulness as quickly as AP caps get better and batteship guns far more dangerous. Without a place in the battleline nor the speed to be useful in scouting roles, "historical-like" ACs get obsolete as soon as predreadnoughts do. the 21000ton 16x8'' guns ... I tend not to build meme ships (lol). But yeah I'm sure that thing must've been hillarious...if damned expensive for what it was (the problem with meme ships ). |
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Post by L0ckAndL0ad on May 19, 2019 13:34:56 GMT -6
-snip- For fleet roles the 12x6'' ships proved to be far more than enough for any role they were needed to fill and in fact by the later stages of the war many of them lost one triple turret to make way for extra AAA as 9x6'' was judged more than enough for the roles they were expected to fullfit. -snip- the fact is that the american 8'' guns didn't do anything a 6'' gun would've done equally well all through the war Well, I object  6'' guns can't deal effectively with 6 inches of belt armor, can they? And, at longer ranges, how much deck can it hurt? NavWeaps article on 6''/47 Mark 16 doesn't have penetration tables and I can't find them anywhere for some reason. I'm not even sure if it's capable of dealing with 2.5 inch decks. 8'' is capable and needed to deal with enemy heavy cruisers. Case in point, Alaska-class were created specifically as cruiser-killers, for even greater effect. Or am I misunderstanding you in some way? |
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Post by ramjb on May 19, 2019 13:53:13 GMT -6
Which japanese ship had 6'' of belt armor the US 6'' needed to penetrate? . Heavy cruisers had 4 inch think belts (tops), the best armored of them topped 5.5'' covering the magazines (mogamis...but the mogamis had only 4'' covering the machinery areas). The next ships in line of protection were the Kirishimas who already had 8'' belts which the 8'' gun couldn't realistically do anything against unless at ranges where the 14'' japanese guns would've shredded them to bits. Yes, there's San Francisco's 8'' hit on the stern of Hiei that disabled it's rudder, but at that range a 6'' would've gone in just as fine as San Francisco's did. And...yeah...the Alaskas...no. They weren't created specifically as cruiser-killers. I really don't want to go there (that ship was a mess in almost every way and debates about it usually don't go very well XD), but it's origin and role was supposed to be a "RAIDER-Killer". As in a "Deutchland-destroyer", and ,for the time the US Navy thought the japanese B-65 project was a thing, as an anti B-65 too. For killing Takaos Alaska was absurdly overkill. You didn't need 12'' guns to pen those 5'' of magacine belt, much less to do work into the machinery areas, far less to rip open those turrets (25mm of face armor. Even destroyers could disable those without too much trouble), and 6'' guns would've done the job on them as fine as the 8'' . |
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Post by Antediluvian Monster on May 19, 2019 14:19:10 GMT -6
Which japanese ship had 6'' of belt armor the US 6'' needed to penetrate? . Heavy cruisers had 4 inch think belts (tops), the best armored of them topped 5.5'' covering the magazines (mogamis...but the mogamis had only 4'' covering the machinery areas). Tone had 145mm over magazines, that was thickest. But those magazine belts were barely above waterline at best of times. They were reduced height just like the magazines on Towns and US cruisers. These ships did not incorporate the concept of armoured raft, narrow AoN scheme would probably be the best representation in-game. |
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Post by ramjb on May 19, 2019 14:26:07 GMT -6
but you don't need to reach the magazines to destroy a Tone (or a myoko, or a Mogami) when the machinery is protected by 4 inches only, the turrets are popcorn and the command post has barely any armor worth calling itself such . 6'' guns would do a number on those kinds of ships with ease...while firing quicker and having more guns per ship per given tonnage . |
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6'' guns can't deal effectively with 6 inches of belt armor, can they? And, at longer ranges, how much deck can it hurt? 