Affording Battlecruisers as Japan and Other Budgeting Issues

[dizzy]

Im confused. If I reactivate an RF to AF, does it now have increased maintenance costs forever?

[radiorobot]

Well, when you set it from AF to RF it had lower maintenance 'forever' but when you reactivate it just goes back to the same AF maintenance it had when you first built it unless there's a tech that changes maintenance.

[dizzy]

Oh, so there's no $$$ penalty to bring it out of RF to AF other than it returning to it's originally AF maintenance? It's not AF + 150% or something?

[JagdFlanker]

my rule of thumb playing smaller countries like Japan/A-H is i never have more than 2 classes of B/BB operational at once. as soon as a war ends i almost always retire an entire class of B/BB to free up cash to prioritize building my current class of B/BB before the next war

but i prefer a small advanced navy to pick away at the enemy.  i don't worry about blockading - that's what AMCs are for

[archelaos]

Jun 2, 2019 15:14:40 GMT -6 dizzy said:

Oh, so there's no $$$ penalty to bring it out of RF to AF other than it returning to it's originally AF maintenance? It's not AF + 150% or something?

No that I know of. They just return to normal wartime maintenance. You have higher budget in war, but higher maint too.

As to original question, radiorobot how many land batteries and airbases you have? How many aircraft and airships? What special training do you use (as it is costly to have training like gunnery or torpedo or night - you can have two, but with smaller navies I never used more than one due to the cost. Also, how many do you set for research? Each percent is worth a large ship maintenance.

But I'd say it's not battleships you have problems with - I would suggest building a lot more cruisers as 4 CLs and 2 scrapyard escapee CAs is hardly sufficient IMHO.

BDW, is Great Crisis modelled in game? Mabe that's what is happening?

[radiorobot]

This particular save I've actually mostly neglected to build batteries since I don't see them pop up too much just a 6in or two when I conquer a new territory.

300 airplanes total all active since I hadn't realized you could put them into reserves and 8 airships. They don't seem to cost any less when in reserves though? Just now realizing they're costing me 2300 per month so I should probably scale back on the airbases. Haven't really had much luck with them this early on anyway.

Training is set to gunnery and pilots.

Research is set to 12% so I could scale it back. I was rushing to get tech parity in guns and I'm just now getting 16in and some carrier research so nothing too pressing anymore.

I think on my next playthrough I'll just accept a small number of capitals and buff up my cruiser force as you say. They haven't played nearly as much of a role as I thought they would or have seen in others' playthroughs.

Edit: It also doesn't appear to be the historical interwar crisis since my economy has been steadily growing. While I still have the lowest naval budget in the game, I have managed to surpass Italy's base resources in I think 1927.
Also it seems I am at parity or inferior to the AI in aircraft so not sure what to do about that.

[AiryW]

Jun 2, 2019 9:10:02 GMT -6 radiorobot said:

Have been avoiding engine refits like the plague though and only really messing with their FC and secondary/tertiary batteries.

I dont think one should avoid engine replacements altogether.  The key thing IMHO is to pay attention to the fact that the smaller the engine, the more affordable the replacement.  So suppose you were picking between these ships:




Going with the smaller one saves you about 11 million.  If you later refit the engines on the smaller one to keep up with your fleet it will set you back about 15 million.  However the smaller one will save you about a quarter million in maintenance a year and the maintenance costs wont be paid during the refit which saves you another 2.5 million.  So if you keep the small design around for 6 years then refit it you've come out slightly ahead.  It might not seem like a lot of savings.  However the nifty thing is that you can always change your mind about the refit later.  You might decide that you want more engines to make your pre-dreadnought into a battlecruiser.  In that case refitting the smaller, slower ship will actually be cheaper then the ship that had the bigger engines up front.  Maybe your 12 inch guns stagnate so you need to mothball this ship and make a new one with the right caliber.  In that case you've saved yourself 12 million to use on the new design.  Refits wont work if you set out to make uberships from the start.  However if you are always trying to economize, refits give you tons of extra versitility.

[dorn]

Jun 2, 2019 14:39:59 GMT -6 dizzy said:

Im confused. If I reactivate an RF to AF, does it now have increased maintenance costs forever?

Mothball and reserve fleet maintenance costs are same no matter if you are war or if you are not.

Issue is that with large part of fleet mothballed the raise of the maintanence costs by reactivating fleet in war could be higher than increase of your wartime budget.
It could lead to thing that you have not enough budget to reactivate all your ships in fleet. In this case it means that these ships you have no budget to be reactivated should be scrapped eairlier as they are only burden to your budget.

Another point is if the ship has value with such high maintanence costs in war if it is not better to use funds for construction new ships.


I suggest to start 1920 as UK with very large fleet and you can see or the issues and needed decision quite quickly as UK need to maintan quite a large fleet.

[dizzy]

TY dorn

[dorn]

I will give just example.

Think you have 600M yearly budget as UK so monthly 50M

6M - 12 % research

24M  - maintenance costs of fleet (50 % fleet mothballed, so without mothballed fleet you would have about 40M maintenance costs)

1M - maintenance costs of airbases and guns

10M - maintenance costs of aircrafts

9M - construction cost

Monthly budget are 0.

Now you start a war increasing budget to 960 M, so monthly 80M

7.6M - 12 % research

60M - maintenance costs of fleet after reactivation all of mothballed ships (30M * 1.5)

1.5M - maintenance costs of airbases and guns (estimation as I do not know from mind and is insignificant number)

10M - maintenance costs of aircrafts

9M - construction costs

Monthly budget are 88.1M so you are now lacking 8.1M per month.

So something is wrong as you cannot have so huge fleet all the time all you need quite a reserve funds.

[JagdFlanker]

not that my way is the right way, but i never RF or MB any of my ships to maintain good crew quality during peace

after every war i scrap enough ships to afford my current fleet + at least 2 capital ships building (1 early game, 3-4 at a time later - depending on what country i'm playing of course)

it kind of feels 'crazy' at first to scrap ships that may have only been built 10 years earlier, but tech advances so fast in this game 10 year old ships are usually almost 2nd line ships by this point

it keeps my fleet 'clean' and elite. yes i'm always outnumbered, but i build faster ships so i can choose whether i want to engage or not in any battle, and with patience you can pick apart the enemy over time and dominate

the true objective of every war is to lead in VP - even if you only lead by 1 VP you are still winning, and you can keep picking 'crush the enemy' to gain big prestige over the war

[dorn]

Jun 3, 2019 16:29:58 GMT -6 JagdFlanker said:

not that my way is the right way, but i never RF or MB any of my ships to maintain good crew quality during peace

after every war i scrap enough ships to afford my current fleet + at least 2 capital ships building (1 early game, 3-4 at a time later - depending on what country i'm playing of course)

it kind of feels 'crazy' at first to scrap ships that may have only been built 10 years earlier, but tech advances so fast in this game 10 year old ships are usually almost 2nd line ships by this point

it keeps my fleet 'clean' and elite. yes i'm always outnumbered, but i build faster ships so i can choose whether i want to engage or not in any battle, and with patience you can pick apart the enemy over time and dominate

the true objective of every war is to lead in VP - even if you only lead by 1 VP you are still winning, and you can keep picking 'crush the enemy' to gain big prestige over the war

I find out that tech advance for battleship is not so fast after 1920.

Another thing is you need to fight blockade and for that some older ships could be used. I used in my 1920 game all ships with 15" guns at start. They were small only about 26700 tons however with 8x15" guns they have still quite a punch. And they  save my modern battleline in one battle. They are still quite a difference if you have in battle 45x16" guns or on top of it additional hulls with 32x15" guns.

There are more strategies and what is nice all of them work.

[snwh]

Doesn't maintenance cost go up slightly during war? I always thought it was.

Anyway, I don't suggest quite as agressive a pruning policy as JagdFlanker However, pruning older ships is always a good idea imo. B's can be somewhat useful for a bit after 1904, but only for a bit. I honestly get rid of them the second I think I have enough BB's to even barely handle things.

Same goes for older BB's, a BB made in 1906 with 2" of deck armor is going to be useless once ships with 14" 15" or especially 16" guns start proliferating. Heck against 15"-16", even a 3-1/2" deck is a liability IMO. The way I view it, if you don't scrap it, your enemy will, and you'll be losing VP for it too. (not to mention its costing you 500-700 a month)

So while I don't scrap capital ships at regular intervals, I do think long and hard about when they've outlived their usefulness.



That being said! Yeah, I have a hard time keeping up on BC's as well, as japan on historical settings. Usually I prioritize BB's over BC's, so I only have one or two BC's running around. But I don't think thats such a bad thing, it doesn't take that long to get fast battleships, which make BC's completely obsolete imo.

As long as you can keep up something even resembling battleship parity, I think your doing fine. Your battleships will cut through BC's like wet paper, any time they get in a fleet battle. So as long as your careful with cruiser engagements (or just keep a handful of BC's) you'll be fine :3

[mycophobia]

Jun 3, 2019 17:22:47 GMT -6 snwh said:

Doesn't maintenance cost go up slightly during war? I always thought it was.

Anyway, I don't suggest quite as agressive a pruning policy as JagdFlanker However, pruning older ships is always a good idea imo. B's can be somewhat useful for a bit after 1904, but only for a bit. I honestly get rid of them the second I think I have enough BB's to even barely handle things.

Same goes for older BB's, a BB made in 1906 with 2" of deck armor is going to be useless once ships with 14" 15" or especially 16" guns start proliferating. Heck against 15"-16", even a 3-1/2" deck is a liability IMO. The way I view it, if you don't scrap it, your enemy will, and you'll be losing VP for it too. (not to mention its costing you 500-700 a month)

So while I don't scrap capital ships at regular intervals, I do think long and hard about when they've outlived their usefulness.



That being said! Yeah, I have a hard time keeping up on BC's as well, as japan on historical settings. Usually I prioritize BB's over BC's, so I only have one or two BC's running around. But I don't think thats such a bad thing, it doesn't take that long to get fast battleships, which make BC's completely obsolete imo.

As long as you can keep up something even resembling battleship parity, I think your doing fine. Your battleships will cut through BC's like wet paper, any time they get in a fleet battle. So as long as your careful with cruiser engagements (or just keep a handful of BC's) you'll be fine :3

My experience is the exact opposite lol, I end up building four powerful BCs that I kept upgrading and used until the 50s. As long as you have something like 13in +1 or 14in guns, you should have no problem killing any BCs you come across, at the sametime you cant fight against BBs toe to toe anyway so no point bother. These ships can use the number advantage to beat enemy BCs who might end up fewer in number, and you can leave the BBs to air or torpedo force at night.

I found the problem with a batteline as japan is you cant really match most other major in number, and it is not easy to do so in quality either. So in a traditional battle line engagement you are unlikely to come clearly on top. Furthermore, AI opponent rarely sends their whole fleet to far east, as a result, there are rarely fleet engagement actions for dreads to be useful.

[brygun]

In my current Japanese game, historical funding, in an early war with Britain and Russia vs me and Italy I managed to stay alive, hold off and sink most of the Russian BBs and even repel a Russian landing attempt on Hokkaido. Lost every BC and BB I had. A few B were in different seas on guard duty or had been converted to carriers, fighting the Russians in those battles.

Trying to go through the rest of the game in the late 20s early 30s with a single pre-dreadnaught B was... concerning.

After finishing some conventional BC already under construction I had to do a major rethink.

No way could I build up to parity in BC and BB while also starting my CVF (CV Fleet, 72 or 100 planes, might have own armor-guns).

So my choice was to look at what sort of BC would be needed to play keep-away.

I settled on a BC of 12in x 5 gun (3 for, 2 aft), 30 knots, heavy turret armor and medium hull armor. There job is to keep the enemy gun line chasing them while the CVs do the main damage. Torpedo charges by DD could contribute by damage or by their feints making the enemy gun line turn around for a while.

It worked out okay in a blitz battle bringing the Imperial Japanese Fleet to Northern Europe. 2 of the 12in BC, 2 Fleet CV, ~ 12 DD and no CL/CA. Fought ~ 12 BC/BB plus a CVL and a handful of DD. Sunk from a Germans 1 x BC, 1 x BB with most of the rest at light or heavy damage.In trade one of my BC heavily damaged and lost 4 DD. A wide victory point margin and +2 prestige for me. From a role play stand point it was saying to Germany and all the world the IJN could reach out and smack you anywhere in the world, even in your own home waters.

The IJN fleet withdrew from Europe so the German propoganda could claim a victorious defense. It is true I couldnt sustain that fighting, espically with now only 1 BC in the field while the damaged one was repaired.

Next month the Germans settled for a no border change peace.

Within a year a war has broken out with France and now the reinforced IJN has sailed back to Northern Europe.

Get this...

the battle type is Invasion. Im escorting the Japanese army transports to land in Northern Europe.

Aw good times.