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Post by dorn on Jun 29, 2019 15:46:38 GMT -6
There is need to decide what cruisers French Navy needs.
Foreign station requirements: West Africa, Indian Ocean - 4000 tons Variant A1 - 13.2M, 3200 tons, 29 knots, 1 a/c
Variant A2 - 13.7M, 3200 tons, 30 knots Variant A3 - 17.4M, 4000 tons, 30 knots, 1 a/c
Variant A4 - 17.5M, 4000 tons, 29 knots Caribbean - 8000 tons all variant Ax could be used Variant C1 - 30.9M, 7200 tons, 30 knots, 1 a/c
Variant C2 - 35.5M, 8000 tons, 31 knots, 2 a/c
Southeast Asia - 21000 tons Variant B1 - 13.2M, 3000 tons, 30 knots
Variant B2 - 24.4M, 5600 tons, 30 knots
Variant B3 - 23.5M, 5600 tons, 29 knots, 1 a/c
Variant B4 - 30.2M, 7000 tons, 30 knots, 1 a/c There is need to consiered that cruisers could be used as scouts, fleet cruisers, raiders, raider hunters and that having more options increase variablity of such cruiser. Some cruises would be need as general purpose cruisers or fleet cruisers.
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Post by skyblazer on Jun 29, 2019 18:20:36 GMT -6
Va1 light cruiser but may i suggest to drop down to 5in guns and put that weight back into 180 rounds of ammo and speed
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Post by aeson on Jun 29, 2019 19:19:40 GMT -6
Of the designs shown, I would prefer C2 as probably the best fleet cruiser of the designs shown, though C1 or B4 could do as slightly more economical alternatives; a 30- or 31-knot derivative of B3 would also be reasonable. I would further suggest including a catapult on the final design to avoid the inconvenience of having to stop to launch the seaplane.
Comments: Unless you don't have enough surviving Chasseloup Laubat-class cruisers, I don't really see a good reason to build ships for colonial service right now because the Chasseloup Laubats, while not exactly ideal for any of the colonial stations, are at least adequate for colonial service whereas to my understanding you don't have any cruisers either adequate or available for fleet service.
The idea of building a specialist class for each station strikes me as suspect; I don't think that you'll save enough on each station squadron's upkeep to pay back the design costs in a reasonable time frame compared to just accepting some slight inefficiencies like using a pair of B3s instead of a C1 or two A1s to cover the Caribbean.
Variant C2 is inadequate for single-ship coverage of the Caribbean and Variant B4 is inadequate for three-ship coverage of Southeast Asia - ships above 6,000 tons provide 4,000 + [design displacement]/3 tons towards colonial station requirements (plus 25% of the modified tonnage if fitted for colonial service), so C2 would only as a ~6666-ton ship and B4 would only count as a ~6333-ton ship for station tonnage requirements.
Speed priority on the engines leaves me suspicious of the viability of these designs for service as raiders even in sea zones with plenty of bases from which to operate, and only A1, A2, and B1 look disposable enough for me to consider using as raiders before they're obsolete in any other role or surplus to any reasonable requirements.
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Post by dorn on Jun 30, 2019 0:53:23 GMT -6
Of the designs shown, I would prefer C2 as probably the best fleet cruiser of the designs shown, though C1 or B4 could do as slightly more economical alternatives; a 30- or 31-knot derivative of B3 would also be reasonable. I would further suggest including a catapult on the final design to avoid the inconvenience of having to stop to launch the seaplane.
Comments: Unless you don't have enough surviving Chasseloup Laubat-class cruisers, I don't really see a good reason to build ships for colonial service right now because the Chasseloup Laubats, while not exactly ideal for any of the colonial stations, are at least adequate for colonial service whereas to my understanding you don't have any cruisers either adequate or available for fleet service.
The idea of building a specialist class for each station strikes me as suspect; I don't think that you'll save enough on each station squadron's upkeep to pay back the design costs in a reasonable time frame compared to just accepting some slight inefficiencies like using a pair of B3s instead of a C1 or two A1s to cover the Caribbean.
Variant C2 is inadequate for single-ship coverage of the Caribbean and Variant B4 is inadequate for three-ship coverage of Southeast Asia - ships above 6,000 tons provide 4,000 + [design displacement]/3 tons towards colonial station requirements (plus 25% of the modified tonnage if fitted for colonial service), so C2 would only as a ~6666-ton ship and B4 would only count as a ~6333-ton ship for station tonnage requirements.
Speed priority on the engines leaves me suspicious of the viability of these designs for service as raiders even in sea zones with plenty of bases from which to operate, and only A1, A2, and B1 look disposable enough for me to consider using as raiders before they're obsolete in any other role or surplus to any reasonable requirements.
Why do you prefer C2 as fleet cruiser. That cruiser is even 15 % more expensive than C1 and for just 1 knot, 1 aicraft and some torpedo tubes. I have noticed that somehow AoN disappered, it would save another weight.
The second thing is that I expect older cruiser will go to foreign station duty. Chasseloup Labaut class cruisers are really absolote, I have already rejects several colonial fights. So I think at least some of them should be replaced that they remain only in colonies without enemy presence.
The actual best cruisers are 2 these:
TOTAL tonnage for colonial services are 45000 tons. Any 2 cruisers of A1,A2,B1 design should have quite advantage above any foreign cruiser which means they can guard colonies for decades. So it seems to me to build 6xA1 cruisers for 84 M is quite reasonable.
After that I am thinking of fleet cruiser which could be later used to replaced old Chasseloup Labaut class cruisers in colonies. For that purpose 7200 tons cruiser fitted to colonial service seems good and reasonable. I do not think that 31 knots are needed now and building 3 cruisers of a little upraded C1 design seems reasonable. Having only 8000 tons cruisers seems to me quite expensive solution for all duties cruisers perform.
Relating to A1 design, I can change engines to normal for torpedo tubes, it could be reasonable solution. Another thing is having 1 seaplane without hangar.
Last question is why do not used B3 variant for fleet duty. This cruiser is still much superior any other cruiser and after some time this cruiser will be excellent for colonial duty.
May be, I should have explain in details all designs,what thinking was behind them. A1 - cheap colonial cruiser that can be good raider as having plane. This can still fulfill a lot of another roles as with several destroyers could be very dangerous in night battles. There can still fight a lot of foreign desing even if they are large. A2 - similar as A1 but with 1 knot of speed instead floatplane. A3 - combining advantage of both A1 and A2 designs into a little large cruiser. Another advantage is heavy AA guns. Still lacks armour. A4 - 5x6" guns, 3" belt armour, 29 knots means this cruisers is more adaptable to fight another cruisers because of armour. Seems to me interesting design B1 - very small cruiser, probably most fitted to raider duty and scout duty B2 - fast, cheap cruiser for fleet duty, later colonial duty. It is still more powerfull to any cruiser in world B3 - similar to B2, loosing 1 knot of speed for better firepower, better protection of turrets, 1 aircraft B4 - powerful cruiser, ideal for fleet duty, however have are not ideal for colonial duty C1 - general purpose 30 knots cruiser, with airplane, 6 torpedo tubes C2 - fleet fast cruiser 31 knots, can fullfil any duty but is the most expensive.
note1: it seems that AoN is not present in some design allowing another weight savings note2: 29 knots is because savings from 30 knots to 29 knots is in some cases enourmous
It seems to me that going with just one type of large 8000 tons cruiser is too expensive as these cruisers are too much powerfull to any other cruiser in the world.
Another possiblity is D1 design, very powerful. The 29 knots are here because increase of speed from 29 knots by 1 knot is quite expensive, much more than from 30 knots to 31 knots. It has one aicraft.
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Post by yemo on Jun 30, 2019 3:25:55 GMT -6
Imho all designs <31 knots are too slow. I d love to have smoother curves for everything (tonnage, speed etc.), but no matter how much weight it would save to go 29 knots, the enemy goes 30 or 31 knots. And those enemy speeds will not decrease over time.
On the 8000 ton CLs, that very much approaches CA territory. I do not know how developed Britain is with <9'' turrets, but they had great 7'' guns which would make for a powerful (compared to CLs) 8000 ton CA.
So I would set 31knots, 1a/c as a baseline for a new CL with at least 3 forward firing guns to hunt enemy raiders.
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Post by vasious on Jun 30, 2019 3:44:17 GMT -6
Sorry I haven't been contributing to any suggestions to the variants, I am not experienced enough to provide feedback but love the decision making process.
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Post by dorn on Jun 30, 2019 4:34:51 GMT -6
Imho all designs <31 knots are too slow. I d love to have smoother curves for everything (tonnage, speed etc.), but no matter how much weight it would save to go 29 knots, the enemy goes 30 or 31 knots. And those enemy speeds will not decrease over time. On the 8000 ton CLs, that very much approaches CA territory. I do not know how developed Britain is with <9'' turrets, but they had great 7'' guns which would make for a powerful (compared to CLs) 8000 ton CA. So I would set 31knots, 1a/c as a baseline for a new CL with at least 3 forward firing guns to hunt enemy raiders. It costs quite a lot, from D1 variant 25.5M going to 31 knots means 1400 tons more and costs 32.8M, 29 % more. And I am not convinced that future colonial cruiser need such speed. And fleet cruiser do not need to push speed to much as he can turn around and be covered by heavy division. So the situations speed matter most is when cruiser hunt another cruiser. In my experience, 1 knot is not an issue, 2 knots start to be more difficult however as I expect them to be fleet cruisers for only couple of years I do not think 29 % more of costs are acceptable.
Anonther option could be D2 variant for 26.2M with same tonnage 6000 tons, but 30 knots. For 1 knot more, price needed to be paid by decreasing belt armour by 0.5" but removing X turret.
note: I expect to laid down several cruisers with such a design and I expect that after about 5 years they will be delegated for colonial duties as new class for fleet cruisers would be ready.
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Post by dorn on Jun 30, 2019 4:41:12 GMT -6
If somebody would like to try to design cruiser, save is here:
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Post by aeson on Jun 30, 2019 11:24:01 GMT -6
And fleet cruiser do not need to push speed to much as he can turn around and be covered by heavy division. So the situations speed matter most is when cruiser hunt another cruiser. In my experience, 1 knot is not an issue, 2 knots start to be more difficult however as I expect them to be fleet cruisers for only couple of years I do not think 29 % more of costs are acceptable. Screening and scouting ships cannot maintain their proper stations during high speed maneuvers without at least a one-knot advantage, and an advantage of at least two or three knots would be greatly preferable. You have five capital ships - two 23-knot battleships, two 29-knot battlecruisers, and one 30-knot battlecruiser. A design speed of 29 or 30 knots is barely passable for a fleet cruiser operating with the battlecruisers - they can just about keep with the battlecruisers when holding a constant course, but they'll fall further and further out of position the longer your ships are engaged in high-speed maneuvers unless you limit the battlecruisers' speed to give the screening and scouting elements time to get back into position, and if you're ever in a position where you need to reverse course and steam at high speed the other way, for example during a coastal raid when you get a report that the enemy is attacking something 'behind' your force, the scouting elements will be way out of position without any ability to correct that - and while it's more than good enough for operating with the two battleships, a desire to replace the battleships with ships more comparable in speed to the battlecruisers has been expressed several times.
For a fleet scout or a general-purpose cruiser, paying the extra costs to get a 31-knot or faster ship is worthwhile because the additional speed gives the ship a much greater ability to keep station on and maneuver relative to the battle line while steaming at high speeds. It's the colonial cruisers, independent patrollers, and raiders that won't be operating with the battle fleet, or later on with the fast carriers, that don't really need to push speed - they don't need to worry about being able to maneuver relative to and keep station on the fast heavy ships, they just need enough speed to not be at too much of a disadvantage in a one-on-one cruiser engagement. Speed enough to easily force or avoid an engagement is nice, but it's not really necessary - I've sunk plenty of relatively modern 27-knot and faster light cruisers with antiquated 23-knot protected cruisers just because the old protected cruisers could pound the light cruisers to pieces in a slugging match and the computer was foolish enough to come within gun range, and I've had a fair number of 27-knot 3x2x4" raiding cruisers survive encounters with 31-knot heavy cruisers simply by running for all they're worth to keep the range as open as possible until they can escape under the cover of darkness. Some general purpose cruisers:
The catapults prevent the inconvenience of having to stop to launch the reconnaissance floatplane, and the 5" cruisers can probably fairly easily be refitted as AA cruisers in about ten years; any of these will give three-cruiser coverage of Southeast Asia or one-cruiser coverage of West Africa and the Indian Ocean when they're no longer needed in fleet service, though only the 7,200t cruisers would give one-cruiser coverage of the Caribbean.
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Post by dorn on Jun 30, 2019 12:57:54 GMT -6
And fleet cruiser do not need to push speed to much as he can turn around and be covered by heavy division. So the situations speed matter most is when cruiser hunt another cruiser. In my experience, 1 knot is not an issue, 2 knots start to be more difficult however as I expect them to be fleet cruisers for only couple of years I do not think 29 % more of costs are acceptable. Screening and scouting ships cannot maintain their proper stations during high speed maneuvers without at least a one-knot advantage, and an advantage of at least two or three knots would be greatly preferable. You have five capital ships - two 23-knot battleships, two 29-knot battlecruisers, and one 30-knot battlecruiser. A design speed of 29 or 30 knots is barely passable for a fleet cruiser operating with the battlecruisers - they can just about keep with the battlecruisers when holding a constant course, but they'll fall further and further out of position the longer your ships are engaged in high-speed maneuvers unless you limit the battlecruisers' speed to give the screening and scouting elements time to get back into position, and if you're ever in a position where you need to reverse course and steam at high speed the other way, for example during a coastal raid when you get a report that the enemy is attacking something 'behind' your force, the scouting elements will be way out of position without any ability to correct that - and while it's more than good enough for operating with the two battleships, a desire to replace the battleships with ships more comparable in speed to the battlecruisers has been expressed several times.
For a fleet scout or a general-purpose cruiser, paying the extra costs to get a 31-knot or faster ship is worthwhile because the additional speed gives the ship a much greater ability to keep station on and maneuver relative to the battle line while steaming at high speeds. It's the colonial cruisers, independent patrollers, and raiders that won't be operating with the battle fleet, or later on with the fast carriers, that don't really need to push speed - they don't need to worry about being able to maneuver relative to and keep station on the fast heavy ships, they just need enough speed to not be at too much of a disadvantage in a one-on-one cruiser engagement. Speed enough to easily force or avoid an engagement is nice, but it's not really necessary - I've sunk plenty of relatively modern 27-knot and faster light cruisers with antiquated 23-knot protected cruisers just because the old protected cruisers could pound the light cruisers to pieces in a slugging match and the computer was foolish enough to come within gun range, and I've had a fair number of 27-knot 3x2x4" raiding cruisers survive encounters with 31-knot heavy cruisers simply by running for all they're worth to keep the range as open as possible until they can escape under the cover of darkness. Some general purpose cruisers:
The catapults prevent the inconvenience of having to stop to launch the reconnaissance floatplane, and the 5" cruisers can probably fairly easily be refitted as AA cruisers in about ten years; any of these will give three-cruiser coverage of Southeast Asia or one-cruiser coverage of West Africa and the Indian Ocean when they're no longer needed in fleet service, though only the 7,200t cruisers would give one-cruiser coverage of the Caribbean.
Quite interesting that you use 3" belt with magazine box. I have good experience with 3" inclined belt for cruisers as it protect them quite well against 6" gunfire. Do you have no problems with speed without reasonable protection of machinery spaces?
Relating to fleet cruiser speed, you are completely right but I seldom use maximum speed all time. My usual cruising speed is between 20-25 knots and I increase speed to maximum only when it is really needed as getting into optimal firing distance or when I pursuit other ships. It helps engines in RTW2 (in RTW it was not needed) and with max speed vibration of ship decrease accuracy.
I thought before starting designing cruisers to achieve 30-31 knots but the cost are really high. I am still thinking to build first batch of cruisers with 29-30 knots. They will be used as fleet cruiser for short time so I do not expect to be too much limiting. Meantime focusing on technology that would help with better speed without so much increase of tonnage. And after 2 years build another batch of fleet cruisers with speed of 31 knots.
What is your experience with 5" guns cruisers? It seems to me they are usually no match for 6" guns cruisers.
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Post by yemo on Jun 30, 2019 13:18:48 GMT -6
AV Azizeh is unfortunately useless, I recommend immediate scrapping. I tested that concept in one of my games, and it seems the game mechanics do not consider AVs when assigned to trade protection. So it seems to be totally useless as a raider (AMC) interceptor. I should have checked the mechanics before building her. And for a raider, the much cheaper 1300ton version from this post is much more efficient: nws-online.proboards.com/post/53598/threadedit: removed the backseat gaming
Damn, those speed curve jumps are a real pain. I hope that gets fixed based on seawolf and oldpop2000 data.
I ve not much time, but I managed to do 2 "dilemma" designs.
The "cheap" version with 30knots (yeah, I eat my words) and 1a/c for raider interception. Went with (lots of) unshielded guns, but 3inch magazine protection. 4000 tons would allow twice the torps.
Britain still has unreliable turrets, but those juicy 7/+1 guns that can penetrate every CL with ease. I considered putting them in single mounts. 3.5'' armor and TPS2 give great protection against CLs and torps, resulting in a reliable CL raider hunter (1a/c for strategic use) and a sturdy fleet/CV shield with an ok usability for foreign stations. The 10x4'' secondaries provide help against aerial attacks. But it is classified as a CA.
edit: Messed up a bit, that should have been 2'' turret top armor.
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Post by aeson on Jun 30, 2019 14:47:34 GMT -6
What is your experience with 5" guns cruisers? It seems to me they are usually no match for 6" guns cruisers. 5" CLs are in my opinion a bit worse in one-on-one cruiser engagements but about equal or perhaps somewhat better than 6" CLs as fleet scouts and fleet screens. 6" guns hit harder, penetrate armor better, and out-range 5" guns of equal quality so they're better for fighting cruisers, but fleet scouts only really need to make and maintain contact with the enemy while screening cruisers are more meant to deal with destroyers and, later, air attack than to fight other cruisers. 6" guns are unnecessary for and possibly worse than faster-firing 5" guns against typical destroyers - certainly at the present time, when likely opponents don't have anything bigger than 1,100 tons and the heaviest destroyers in service or under construction are the French and American 1,500-tonners - and 5" guns can work against cruisers if you can bring enough of them to bear and handle the ship aggressively. I do not feel that shortchanging light cruisers on armor is particularly problematic. If they're operating with the fleet, they need to be fast enough to keep in the right position relative to the heavy ships more than they need to be resistant to 6" gunfire, and if they're operating on their own my feeling is that the engagement usually goes to the ship that can bring more firepower to bear rather than to the ship with slightly better armor - and if they happen to be unfortunate enough to engage a heavy cruiser that becomes even more true, because they're never going to be more resistant to the heavy cruiser's guns than the heavy cruiser is to theirs.
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Post by yemo on Jun 30, 2019 15:19:56 GMT -6
What is your experience with 5" guns cruisers? It seems to me they are usually no match for 6" guns cruisers. 5" CLs are in my opinion a bit worse in one-on-one cruiser engagements but about equal or perhaps somewhat better than 6" CLs as fleet scouts and fleet screens. 6" guns hit harder, penetrate armor better, and out-range 5" guns of equal quality so they're better for fighting cruisers, but fleet scouts only really need to make and maintain contact with the enemy while screening cruisers are more meant to deal with destroyers and, later, air attack than to fight other cruisers. 6" guns are unnecessary for and possibly worse than faster-firing 5" guns against typical destroyers - certainly at the present time, when likely opponents don't have anything bigger than 1,100 tons and the heaviest destroyers in service or under construction are the French and American 1,500-tonners - and 5" guns can work against cruisers if you can bring enough of them to bear and handle the ship aggressively.
Interesting on the 5'' CLs. Makes sense for fleet duty and as long as they are fast enough, they can run away when on foreign station duty. Will have to try that.
Messed up a bit on the second design above (the 7900ton one), that should have been 2'' turret top armor. To not risk pens/splinters with only 2 turrets.
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Post by dorn on Jul 1, 2019 0:37:12 GMT -6
5" CLs are in my opinion a bit worse in one-on-one cruiser engagements but about equal or perhaps somewhat better than 6" CLs as fleet scouts and fleet screens. 6" guns hit harder, penetrate armor better, and out-range 5" guns of equal quality so they're better for fighting cruisers, but fleet scouts only really need to make and maintain contact with the enemy while screening cruisers are more meant to deal with destroyers and, later, air attack than to fight other cruisers. 6" guns are unnecessary for and possibly worse than faster-firing 5" guns against typical destroyers - certainly at the present time, when likely opponents don't have anything bigger than 1,100 tons and the heaviest destroyers in service or under construction are the French and American 1,500-tonners - and 5" guns can work against cruisers if you can bring enough of them to bear and handle the ship aggressively.
Interesting on the 5'' CLs. Makes sense for fleet duty and as long as they are fast enough, they can run away when on foreign station duty. Will have to try that.
Messed up a bit on the second design above (the 7900ton one), that should have been 2'' turret top armor. To not risk pens/splinters with only 2 turrets.
I have already used them, this was reason I asked aeson about his experience. I will sum up my experience with 4800 tons, 8x5" DP, 31 knots cruisers: (-) Cruiser hunter - no match 1 vs. 1, you need more of them
(=) Scout fleet cruiser - cheap alternative but overall much prone to be disabled and sunk (it has nothing to do with 5" guns but more that these cruisers are smaller and thus able withstand less hits) (+) Carrier escort - nice AA fire over fleet for reasonable costs (?) Colonial cruiser - could be relatively cheap however cannot face any foreign cruisers usually starting 30s
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Post by dorn on Jul 1, 2019 1:40:53 GMT -6
Thanks for a lot of ideas. I finally decided to build cruiser which is more suited for colonial service with some adaptation to be temporarly fleet cruiser. The reason is that I will build another cruisers in about 3 years period and this means that this class will be used out of home area. For such reason main guideline is: - small cruiser - reasonable powerfull with at least 6x6" guns
- some torpedo armament (for fleet cruiser or night fighting, I found that for colonial cruiser torpedoes are not such important as for other roles) - 1 aicraft in hangar with catapult - reasonable AA suit (can be later stripped in case of colonial cruiser, as it is not so much needed) - magazine box is acceptable weight savings
This ship is tight and has only small margin for future refit but it should not be an issue as long as she will not serve as general purpose crusier. As colonial cruiser or cruiser hunter, AA guns are not as important and could be stripped. She can be even latter adapt as AA gun platform replacing her 6" guns to 4x2x5" DP guns, the costs should be less than 3M. The ships would be adaptable as long as there is no need to be general purpose cruiser.
I made some variants of 5600 tons cruiser which I will finally decide on: variant F1 - base variant, 30 knots, 6x6" guns with 3.5" turret face, 1.5" turret tops variant F2 - adding aft superimposed double turret for less armoured turrets variant F3 - higher speed for decrease armour of turrets variant F4 - adding aft superipmosed double turret for decrease belt protection variant F5 - adding aft superimposd double turret for no torpedo tubes, no hangar for aicraft, slightly thinner belt armour, 10 less shells per turret variant F6 - increased speed for no torpedo tubes, no hangar for aicrafts, slightly thinner belt armour
variants F1-F4: 1 aicraft in hangar with catapult variants F5, F6: 1 aicraft outside with catapult note1: all variant can be modified with inclined belt armour (i)
note2: some variants (F1, F3, F6) could have increased protection of connig tower to 4" (c)
note2: using X instead V turret is due to roleplaying
All thinking should be done around priority to be colonial cruiser with temporary to be fleet cruiser and cruiser hunter. For such temporary job comparision with actual foreign cruiser designs are required, no future designs need to be considered.
I will made final decision today around 19:00 GMT.
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