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Post by Noname117 on Jun 3, 2019 19:57:09 GMT -6
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 I'd say the best time to prune ships is always right after a war. Warships are only useful in war, and as such your navy is going to be near-useless between wars. If you don't want to have a ship for the next war, it makes no sense to keep that ship for part of that interwar period, where it eats up funds for awhile while being useless and then is scrapped. That's months or years of maintenance funds gone to waste. For timing, I generally say that you should scrap your first Bs sometime around maybe 1910; although after the end of a war taking place sometime around then. I'd typically suggest scrapping the later pre-dreads and semi-dreads in the mid to late teens, again, at the end of a war. First gen dreadnoughts should go in the early to mid 20s probably.
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snwh
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Post by snwh on Jun 3, 2019 20:24:55 GMT -6
I'd say the best time to prune ships is always right after a war. Warships are only useful in war, and as such your navy is going to be near-useless between wars. If you don't want to have a ship for the next war, it makes no sense to keep that ship for part of that interwar period, where it eats up funds for awhile while being useless and then is scrapped. That's months or years of maintenance funds gone to waste. For timing, I generally say that you should scrap your first Bs sometime around maybe 1910; although after the end of a war taking place sometime around then. I'd typically suggest scrapping the later pre-dreads and semi-dreads in the mid to late teens, again, at the end of a war. First gen dreadnoughts should go in the early to mid 20s probably. While In an idealworld, yeah pruningundeeded ships right after a war is best, that doesn't always happen. If you have high tensions with another country, you might not have time to build a replacement for that BB you just scrapped, which can leave you in quite the bind. I usually leave them alone until I know I can get the replacement out before the next war. assuming they aren't already so obsolete as to be worthless. There's also the question as to wether they are actually obsolete or not. If your building your ships to last, or your wars are coming and going relatively fast, a ship might not be obsolete even after a couple of wars. As someone mentioned, they also tend not to to go obsolete more slowly the later in the game it is. I was mainly trying to point out that building a new set of capitals after every war might be a bit too enthusiastic for my tastes :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. That's an interesting strategy, and I won't deny it's one I can see working pretty well. However if we're talking fleet battles, I tend to prefer BB's and I'll explain my reasoning :3 For one, AI BC's on either side of a fleet battle tend to pull in way too close to the battleline. This makes them rather easy pickings early, and its not unheard of to take one out before the enemy battleline catches up, without even taking significant damage to your BB's. Even if your completely outmatched, taking out a BC and then disengaging can and will give you a pretty hefty VP lead for the battle, and its not usually that hard to disengage in a fleet battle. Second is that a well designed smaller fleet can actually do pretty well. The largest bulk of an AI fleet is usually going to be hopelessly obsolete BB's. It's not impossible to convincingly win a fleet battle with less BB's, if yours have 14" guns and theirs 12", and you with a large immunity zone, and them without. Even if you ships are about the same, if you can position the lines in such a way to concentrate fire, you can cripple an enemy ship, and use that opening to cut them off from the line, usually sinking them. Rinse and repeat until night comes, or your own ships are too battered. I won't deny that BC fleets can work. Especially because you don't have to worry about what kind of missions you take. But I think there's also something to be said for battleship heavy fleets. Especially since fleet battles, and things like fleet battles tend to be more common in rtw2 (or at least it feels like it) They also give you a way to break blockades :3 (also, you can't torp the BB's at night!) oh, my rational on BB's having more longevity than BC's is mainly two parts. BC's get faster quite quickly an early BC might be 25-5kt, whereas a late one could be 30 or more kt. But more importantly, and what I mainly meant, is that a fast battleship, which can start showing up in the late 20's or early 30's, pretty much does the BC's job. Showing up in cruiser battles, shore raids and the like, but is strong enough to be in the main line in a fleet setting as well. They both cost roughly the same, unless your making a smaller cruiser killer I spose, but one can stand int he battle line and the other can't. Which is why, to me, it feels like after the early 1930's they're mostly obsolete. (that being said, that's just my way of looking at it. and in this game, there is most definitely more than one way of doing things. I might give them a try soon, as CV screens. Though the main focus would most liekly be to distract the enemy from the CV's and run away. Like big CA's.)
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Post by invictus on Jun 3, 2019 20:47:05 GMT -6
Have played a few runs of Japan from 1900 to around 1920-25 with Large or Very Large fleet, and I've been finding that I can never afford to build any BCs as Japan even with game budget. I also have almost no CAs compared to the AI. Usually just the couple from my legacy fleet and a small class in the early 1910s. These have been very effective with decent primaries and heavy secondaries at engaging other CAs, CLs, and DDs. They usually end up getting vaporized by enemy BCs in convoy raids once the Europeans bring them over. I've only dipped my toes into carrier game play with little success from my max capacity CVLs but I think that's an issue of early technology and subpar mico on my part. Completely forgoing BCs I find myself still relatively behind on BBs but that's been okay because the European AI doesn't seem to send many of their own BBs to the Pacific. When they do our capital ships almost never engage. However when I do find myself in BB engagement the AI usually wipes the floor with my own battleline usually with 1.5x to 2x as many BBs facing a mix of my own early BBs and legacy Bs. My CLs and a strong DD force end up being my primary combatants and in that they've done very well sinking multiple BCs and a few BBs with torpedo runs. Is this just the optimal strategy for Japan budget and technology wise? Due to the lacking performance from my BBs I'm thinking of starting a new game with a philosophy of few very heavy armored BBs to soak damage when I'm forced into full fleet engagements. The rest of my capital budget would go towards BCs with heavy secondary batteries until CVLs come along since the AI seem to constantly bring them into cruiser engagements. The rest of the budget would go towards a very large fleet of 1100 ton DDs and supporting CLs. Tips and criticism on my strategy appreciated. If anyone wants to see the designs I'm fielding I'll put them up tomorrow. I have the same issue at the start I was up on B class ships and even with CA-CLs- DDs ect but just 5 yrs in the game Im out gunned several times over in each class and my ships are getting chewed up.On the other point in the thread if you mothball your fleet I think the crew quality goes down Hmm my post didn't show. I start the game even but by 1905 Im out gunned by 2-3 times in each class. When you mothball fleets I think your crew quality goes down
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Post by mycophobia on Jun 3, 2019 20:47:30 GMT -6
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. That's an interesting strategy, and I won't deny it's one I can see working pretty well. However if we're talking fleet battles, I tend to prefer BB's and I'll explain my reasoning :3 For one, AI BC's on either side of a fleet battle tend to pull in way too close to the battleline. This makes them rather easy pickings early, and its not unheard of to take one out before the enemy battleline catches up, without even taking significant damage to your BB's. Even if your completely outmatched, taking out a BC and then disengaging can and will give you a pretty hefty VP lead for the battle, and its not usually that hard to disengage in a fleet battle. Second is that a well designed smaller fleet can actually do pretty well. The largest bulk of an AI fleet is usually going to be hopelessly obsolete BB's. It's not impossible to convincingly win a fleet battle with less BB's, if yours have 14" guns and theirs 12", and you with a large immunity zone, and them without. Even if you ships are about the same, if you can position the lines in such a way to concentrate fire, you can cripple an enemy ship, and use that opening to cut them off from the line, usually sinking them. Rinse and repeat until night comes, or your own ships are too battered. I won't deny that BC fleets can work. Especially because you don't have to worry about what kind of missions you take. But I think there's also something to be said for battleship heavy fleets. Especially since fleet battles, and things like fleet battles tend to be more common in rtw2 (or at least it feels like it) They also give you a way to break blockades :3 (also, you can't torp the BB's at night!) oh, my rational on BB's having more longevity than BC's is mainly two parts. BC's get faster quite quickly an early BC might be 25-5kt, whereas a late one could be 30 or more kt. But more importantly, and what I mainly meant, is that a fast battleship, which can start showing up in the late 20's or early 30's, pretty much does the BC's job. Showing up in cruiser battles, shore raids and the like, but is strong enough to be in the main line in a fleet setting as well. They both cost roughly the same, unless your making a smaller cruiser killer I spose, but one can stand int he battle line and the other can't. Which is why, to me, it feels like after the early 1930's they're mostly obsolete. (that being said, that's just my way of looking at it. and in this game, there is most definitely more than one way of doing things. I might give them a try soon, as CV screens. Though the main focus would most liekly be to distract the enemy from the CV's and run away. Like big CA's.) BC does have to be designed with longevities in mind, otherwise you are totally right in that they get relegated to CA bully once your past the 30s. But, as long as you equip them with 13-14incher than can reliably pen most later BCs, and give them enough potential to make 30 knots with later engine refit, they will remain valuable well into the 40s if you don't be overly greedy with them. Although I have to admit I do this mostly because when I played Japan I never had a single true fleet battle since the pre-dread age. Ai just don't send large fleet over, the only one that did(Russia) got their BB fleet annihilated in a pearl-harbor style surprise attack on Vladivostok. So I am used to dealing with 1-2 newer BCs with my 3-4 older,refitted BCs in the latter part of the game. Also once you get radar before your enemy, a BC's firepower and speed make them very deadly opponent at night when you have a vision advantage. You are absolutely right that BB line are actually pretty decent when AI mismanage their BCs, my main problem with a BB line approach is that for a poorer country like Japan, any loss will be pretty dearly felt, and you cant always dictate engagement compared to BC. Though again I have to admit I've been exceedingly lucky with my 3 1917 Kongos in my Japan playthrough, my Russian BCs fared much worse x.x
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snwh
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Post by snwh on Jun 3, 2019 22:19:07 GMT -6
BC does have to be designed with longevities in mind, otherwise you are totally right in that they get relegated to CA bully once your past the 30s. But, as long as you equip them with 13-14incher than can reliably pen most later BCs, and give them enough potential to make 30 knots with later engine refit, they will remain valuable well into the 40s if you don't be overly greedy with them. Although I have to admit I do this mostly because when I played Japan I never had a single true fleet battle since the pre-dread age. Ai just don't send large fleet over, the only one that did(Russia) got their BB fleet annihilated in a pearl-harbor style surprise attack on Vladivostok. So I am used to dealing with 1-2 newer BCs with my 3-4 older,refitted BCs in the latter part of the game. Also once you get radar before your enemy, a BC's firepower and speed make them very deadly opponent at night when you have a vision advantage. You are absolutely right that BB line are actually pretty decent when AI mismanage their BCs, my main problem with a BB line approach is that for a poorer country like Japan, any loss will be pretty dearly felt, and you cant always dictate engagement compared to BC. Though again I have to admit I've been exceedingly lucky with my 3 1917 Kongos in my Japan playthrough, my Russian BCs fared much worse x.x You know, I hadn't actually thought about using 12-14" guns for BC's past say, 1920. That's a really interesting idea. I think your right that a 14" gun probably could pen most late game BC's, as well as being super effective on CA's. But more importantly, makes for a much lighter, cheaper ship than 16". Your also very right about losses being felt. You gotta be really careful going that route. Because in say an early japan v russia war, if you take out four of their old BB's for one of your new ones... that's not a worthwhile trade. Same as taking out B's while losing a BB. The engagment range is a good point too, though I feel its usually less important. Usually the AI is happy to let you more or less dictate distances I think. Especially once you've gottena few rounds into them, they like to stay far away (which is usually my best engagment range) That said, I did have russia charge me once. They had something like double the heavy ships, so it scared me so bad lol. we had a line, and then they all just turned at once and charged. Luckily they didn't have superfiring turrets or triples. So I was able to beat them off with weight of fire, but if it had happened in a later period, it would have been really bad.
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Post by mycophobia on Jun 3, 2019 22:43:10 GMT -6
BC does have to be designed with longevities in mind, otherwise you are totally right in that they get relegated to CA bully once your past the 30s. But, as long as you equip them with 13-14incher than can reliably pen most later BCs, and give them enough potential to make 30 knots with later engine refit, they will remain valuable well into the 40s if you don't be overly greedy with them. Although I have to admit I do this mostly because when I played Japan I never had a single true fleet battle since the pre-dread age. Ai just don't send large fleet over, the only one that did(Russia) got their BB fleet annihilated in a pearl-harbor style surprise attack on Vladivostok. So I am used to dealing with 1-2 newer BCs with my 3-4 older,refitted BCs in the latter part of the game. Also once you get radar before your enemy, a BC's firepower and speed make them very deadly opponent at night when you have a vision advantage. You are absolutely right that BB line are actually pretty decent when AI mismanage their BCs, my main problem with a BB line approach is that for a poorer country like Japan, any loss will be pretty dearly felt, and you cant always dictate engagement compared to BC. Though again I have to admit I've been exceedingly lucky with my 3 1917 Kongos in my Japan playthrough, my Russian BCs fared much worse x.x You know, I hadn't actually thought about using 12-14" guns for BC's past say, 1920. That's a really interesting idea. I think your right that a 14" gun probably could pen most late game BC's, as well as being super effective on CA's. But more importantly, makes for a much lighter, cheaper ship than 16". Your also very right about losses being felt. You gotta be really careful going that route. Because in say an early japan v russia war, if you take out four of their old BB's for one of your new ones... that's not a worthwhile trade. Same as taking out B's while losing a BB. The engagment range is a good point too, though I feel its usually less important. Usually the AI is happy to let you more or less dictate distances I think. Especially once you've gottena few rounds into them, they like to stay far away (which is usually my best engagment range) That said, I did have russia charge me once. They had something like double the heavy ships, so it scared me so bad lol. we had a line, and then they all just turned at once and charged. Luckily they didn't have superfiring turrets or triples. So I was able to beat them off with weight of fire, but if it had happened in a later period, it would have been really bad. So the idea with 13/14in(I did 13in on my, but would've liked 14), is that early on, they are gonna outclass any BC from the same period, later on, they remain deadly in ideal conditions. BCs being BC, can always press in those conditions. You are definitely correct that AI tends to be more conservative when your hitting them, but the main problem is that BBs cant press that advantage. I learned it the hard way in my Russia game where my BB line, though vastly superior to the Japanese BB line, have a very hard time killing the Japanese BCs since they just ran.(If these BCs are poorly protected, you usually slow them enough to finish them off, but later on AI BCs does get a bit more armour that helps them in escaping). Being cheap is also very important like you said. I was able to get 4 13in BC with 27 knots building at once in 1916(Large fleet size), I played around with 2x5 16in BCs and I can only manage 2 building at once. the 16in ships don't really outperformed their 14in counterpart in most roles until fast BB became a thing, and even then you don't want a BC to fight a FBB. Later on, as I said, at night with radar advantage BCs are absolute beasts, AI cant run from them, they can close to short distance where 14in gun will be effective against even BBs(I have sunk bbs this way), and at day battle you can either opt to retreat, or gang up on long BCs where number of barrel matter more than caliber. Granted I think that effective period is probably just 2-3year and I happen to catch it, and new FBBs would be objective a better choice without considering the budget. Anyways the BC strat for Japan is probably still a pretty risky proposition, and I think I was also just extremely lucky. But seeing 3 ships serve from 1916-1955, and sinking no less than 10 capitalships over their career, including 1940+ capital ships is just way too inspiring for me.
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Post by gorthaff on Jun 9, 2019 13:42:32 GMT -6
It's just the set value of maintenance I think not a reactivation cost. So for any given ship, you're going to have different maintenance cost for Peacetime AF, Wartime AF, Peacetime RF, Wartime RF, and Mothball. Plus an adjustment for Home Waters or Overseas. (I don't think mothball cost changes during a war but AF and I think RF both do.) Mothball is 1/5th of Peacetime AF according to the poster above but it's 1/(7.5)th of Wartime AF. So if you bring a ship out of mothballs during a war then it's maintenance cost is 7.5 times what it used to be and will remain so until you change it to some other maintenance state by either achieving peace, moving it, or changing its readiness. Your language suggested something completely different. What you wanted to say is that your budget will be in the red in war if its maxed out in peacetime. This much is obvious, and people deal with it by suspending construction. Thre is NO REACTIVATION COST. so you should have all ships mothballed you do not intend to be making hits and sinking enemes in the next war. Simple as that.
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Post by Noname117 on Jun 10, 2019 0:04:24 GMT -6
It's just the set value of maintenance I think not a reactivation cost. So for any given ship, you're going to have different maintenance cost for Peacetime AF, Wartime AF, Peacetime RF, Wartime RF, and Mothball. Plus an adjustment for Home Waters or Overseas. (I don't think mothball cost changes during a war but AF and I think RF both do.) Mothball is 1/5th of Peacetime AF according to the poster above but it's 1/(7.5)th of Wartime AF. So if you bring a ship out of mothballs during a war then it's maintenance cost is 7.5 times what it used to be and will remain so until you change it to some other maintenance state by either achieving peace, moving it, or changing its readiness. Your language suggested something completely different. What you wanted to say is that your budget will be in the red in war if its maxed out in peacetime. This much is obvious, and people deal with it by suspending construction. Thre is NO REACTIVATION COST. so you should have all ships mothballed you do not intend to be making hits and sinking enemes in the next war. Simple as that. And heck, if you reactivate your ships a few months prior to war they'll be worked up to decent crews by the start of the war. You've probably got an extra battleship or a couple extra cruisers with the saved budget at the start of the war.
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Post by director on Jun 10, 2019 0:26:08 GMT -6
I've run a game or two with the 'house rule' of not using any gun larger than 14". My 9x14" battlecruisers were OK, but the 12x14" battlecruisers worked quite well. And my 15x14" BBs were simply amazing; the penetration might not be all you'd want but when you are landing five or six hits from each firing ship each turn, who cares about penetration? Wreck'em and leave them for the destroyers.
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Post by jorgencab on Jun 10, 2019 5:48:04 GMT -6
I've run a game or two with the 'house rule' of not using any gun larger than 14". My 9x14" battlecruisers were OK, but the 12x14" battlecruisers worked quite well. And my 15x14" BBs were simply amazing; the penetration might not be all you'd want but when you are landing five or six hits from each firing ship each turn, who cares about penetration? Wreck'em and leave them for the destroyers. Yes, I agree... you should not underestimate the rate of fire of less powerful guns. They will make the enemy hit less and you will hit softer spots in their armour frequently enough to matter. This work to a certain degree though so the difference in size versus penetration can be too great though, but 14" and 15" work great in the later part of the game just fine... especially if you manage to get high quality guns of a certain calibre I have no problem to go with a smaller calibre over a larger one by a few inches.
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Post by rob06waves2018 on Jun 10, 2019 6:17:21 GMT -6
I've run a game or two with the 'house rule' of not using any gun larger than 14". My 9x14" battlecruisers were OK, but the 12x14" battlecruisers worked quite well. And my 15x14" BBs were simply amazing; the penetration might not be all you'd want but when you are landing five or six hits from each firing ship each turn, who cares about penetration? Wreck'em and leave them for the destroyers. Call me a traditionalist but I prefer 16" guns. With later stage fire control, they can put 14" turrets out of action before the 14 inchers can even fire the range. And a ship without a main battery is otherwise known as DD torpedo marksmanship practice. That said, I do like the 14" on BCs, provided enough speed to run away from the monster BBs.
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Post by director on Jun 10, 2019 9:22:11 GMT -6
rob06waves2018 - let me be absolutely clear: I love the 16" and would rather have that than the 14". I was simply carrying out a 'test-case' to see if rate and volume of fire could compensate for penetration. My conclusion was that, yes, it can - but it helps to have a lot of guns and great fire control. The same was true for the 15x7" heavy cruisers I built but to an even greater degree because the AI rarely armored its cruisers well. At the bottom 'ridiculous' extreme were the 18x4" light cruisers; they tended to die rapidly unless they could get in range quickly, but once in range it was like having machine-guns against rifles. So, yes - I greatly prefer the 16" for main caliber, 8" and 6" for cruisers and 4" or 5" for secondary (whichever gets to +1 status first). But smaller guns absolutely can work. One of the joys of the RtW system is that there are a lot of ways to do it 'right' (and a lot of circumstances where you might wish you had done it differently).
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Post by alsadius on Jun 10, 2019 9:45:49 GMT -6
I've run a game or two with the 'house rule' of not using any gun larger than 14". My 9x14" battlecruisers were OK, but the 12x14" battlecruisers worked quite well. And my 15x14" BBs were simply amazing; the penetration might not be all you'd want but when you are landing five or six hits from each firing ship each turn, who cares about penetration? Wreck'em and leave them for the destroyers. Yes, I agree... you should not underestimate the rate of fire of less powerful guns. They will make the enemy hit less and you will hit softer spots in their armour frequently enough to matter. This work to a certain degree though so the difference in size versus penetration can be too great though, but 14" and 15" work great in the later part of the game just fine... especially if you manage to get high quality guns of a certain calibre I have no problem to go with a smaller calibre over a larger one by a few inches. I'm still only in 1915, but even with 15" unlocked I'm still putting 12"/+1 on my new-build BBs. Their range and pen are basically equal, their rate of fire is way higher, and they weigh like half as much. Yeah, there's fewer modernization options down the line, and the damage per hit is lower, but I can put basically a whole extra turret on. It's hard to say no to that. Given the choice between 12"/+1, 13"/0, 14"/-1, and 15"/-1, I'll stick with the 12".
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Post by mycophobia on Jun 10, 2019 11:58:39 GMT -6
Yes, I agree... you should not underestimate the rate of fire of less powerful guns. They will make the enemy hit less and you will hit softer spots in their armour frequently enough to matter. This work to a certain degree though so the difference in size versus penetration can be too great though, but 14" and 15" work great in the later part of the game just fine... especially if you manage to get high quality guns of a certain calibre I have no problem to go with a smaller calibre over a larger one by a few inches. I'm still only in 1915, but even with 15" unlocked I'm still putting 12"/+1 on my new-build BBs. Their range and pen are basically equal, their rate of fire is way higher, and they weigh like half as much. Yeah, there's fewer modernization options down the line, and the damage per hit is lower, but I can put basically a whole extra turret on. It's hard to say no to that. Given the choice between 12"/+1, 13"/0, 14"/-1, and 15"/-1, I'll stick with the 12". You can always try to fit your 12in guns in triples where possible so that they can be Up-gunned to 15in doubles by the time 12in is way too underpowered. Since with low caliber guns you likely want more barrels to begin with.
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Post by alsadius on Jun 10, 2019 12:09:41 GMT -6
I'm still only in 1915, but even with 15" unlocked I'm still putting 12"/+1 on my new-build BBs. Their range and pen are basically equal, their rate of fire is way higher, and they weigh like half as much. Yeah, there's fewer modernization options down the line, and the damage per hit is lower, but I can put basically a whole extra turret on. It's hard to say no to that. Given the choice between 12"/+1, 13"/0, 14"/-1, and 15"/-1, I'll stick with the 12". You can always try to fit your 12in guns in triples where possible so that they can be Up-gunned to 15in doubles by the time 12in is way too underpowered. Since with low caliber guns you likely want more barrels to begin with. Yup, that's what I've started doing with my latest generation. And heck, even if I wasn't thinking of future increases, a triple turret is the right size for most purposes anyway.
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