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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2014 22:29:45 GMT -6
Since Fredrik released the campaign editor I've been thinking about a campaign involving the US. A bit of reading turned out that while the Brits and Germans are fighting it out striving for dreadnought numbers, the yanks' standard type BBs have been stepping up quality, starting with the Nevadas in 1916 using all or nothing armor and thick decks. The quick clashes in the battle generator show them indeed to be very powerful designs with good protection and firepower. It'd be great to see them in campaign action I thought, hence comes the idea: What if Britain lost the North Sea joust and the US started getting involved, while Japan seizing the opportunity to confront a future opponent decides to send its fleet to Wilhelmshaven? Bit of a long shot yea but sure would hugely reduce my workload and ensure the Oppo side has enough BB numbers to fight with (40+ German Japan combined, so almost equal with Brit's 50+ at ww1's end). At the moment I need some help with US and Japan's navy order of battle circa 1920... especially the non-capital ship divisions like CLs and DDs. Apparently sources on the net on this period is rather scarce and I know very little about naval history before buying this game. While extended google search will likely turn out results, it will cost trunks of time. So if someone has existing docs, that would be great. Thoughts and ideas too. Links found so far en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BatDivpacific.valka.cz/forces/admin.htmwww.naval-history.net/WW1Navy-US_Navy_WW1.htmjackpot(ish) - proves again that a successful google search depends on the correct keyword. www.fleetorganization.com/ |
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Post by fredsanford on Nov 14, 2014 9:01:28 GMT -6
Personally, I don't really see this as a plausible 'alt history' campaign. Japan was allied with Britain in the SAI era, and at any rate I don't really see why Japan would denude its home waters to send their battle fleet to the other side of the world, regardless of whose side they're on.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2014 10:31:11 GMT -6
Hi fred, yea the story is far fetched as said. Purpose is cram as many BBs in the north sea as possible:D since nobody else has that many of them as britain, so whether it be "war plan orange" or "anglo american war" or any of the derivatives will do. still familiarizing with the camp editor myself atm, still a-ways to go...
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Post by julianbarker on Nov 14, 2014 12:02:05 GMT -6
A campaign in 1915 based on the US assisting the Germans in breaking the North Sea blockade is more plausible of you are trying to get more dreadnoughts into the North Sea. The US fleet at the time had a growing force of dreadnoughts, but was very poorly served by cruisers and was short of modern destroyers. Assuming all the older older battleships are left in the US to protect the coast from the inevitable Royal Navy raids, and nearly all the cruisers being too slow to keep up with dreadnoughts so being used for convoy and coastal work, a reasonable strong Dreadnought force to appear in the North Sea might look like -
Eight BB in two squadrons of four or six in a single squadron -
Delaware class
(BB-28) Delaware
(BB-29) North Dakota
Florida class
(BB-30) Florida
(BB-31) Utah
Wyoming class
(BB-32) Wyoming
(BB-33) Arkansas
New York class
(BB-34) New York
(BB-35) Texas
Three Scout Cruisers
Chester class
(SCR-1) Chester
(SCR-2) Birmingham
(SCR-3) Salem
When the US entered the war in 1917, most of the destroyers were used for convoy escort and coastal protection roles rather than screening the BBs as the RN had plenty of DDs by then. The same might happen if the Germans are the US ally, especially as the US coast and merchant traffic would be very vulnerable to the large force of old cruisers the RN would have available for attacking trade. If the US force needs destroyers then a dozen Paulding Class would probably be appropriate.
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Post by randomizer on Nov 14, 2014 15:37:57 GMT -6
I agree that the idea of an German-Japanese alliance at this time is about as probable as the deployment of fire-breathing dragons or shooting magic beans for projectiles but US-UK relations were potentially adversarial throughout much of the period.
One way to add the USN to a campaign might be to piggy-back the situation onto a copy of the Germany Stronger campaign.
Copy all four campaign files into a separate working folder and rename them all to read something like Germany and the USN or whatever, retaining the file extensions. Move the files back into the Scenarios\Campaigns folder.
You should now be able to open the new campaign in the editor and the British and German OOB, deployments and AI activity is already programmed. Now add the USN to taste.
Suggest that you consider basing the USN in Iceland since occupying small nations becomes a habit for big powers during global wars. This should allow US forces operating from there to reach the British blockading units from the west within a 4400-turn campaign scenario. There is considerable scope to add objectives for both sides and now the Admiralty is facing a two-front war.
I cannot be more specific with regards to executing this in the Campaign Editor since my main computer has failed and I need to reinstall all SAI games and files and it may take some time to get sorted out. Am writing this from memory so apologize in advance if there's an error or omission above.
Good luck, it is an interesting idea.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2014 22:46:49 GMT -6
Hey thanks for chiming in guys, so... anglo american war it is!
I'm gonna tune the details. just hit the 199 division limit last night, so it's probably gonna be US takes on all kinda event, composing of a few Batdivs and the supporting lights. also gonna do up plan views and pictures for some american ships. atm i'm experimenting with large land based search zones.
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Post by julianbarker on Nov 16, 2014 12:36:37 GMT -6
Looking forward to seeing it.
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Post by stratos on Nov 18, 2014 14:27:47 GMT -6
This campaign will fit perfectly in the late 20's, early 30's, but of course we need planes for that, and I think is not on the plans of the producers.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2014 17:36:57 GMT -6
I've came down with flu so stayed at proof of concept stage. Firstly re-drawn the plan view of nevada, pennsylvania and new mexico. The original drawings have quite bulky superstructure and looks kinda fugly in SAI. The tennessee and colorado class in the mod by jma286 already looks pretty good so gonna keep those. i admit i ain't no artist, this task really requires a "one-stroke-draw" master:D but oh well. Secondly been testing the US all-or-nothing armor values, mostly Belt Extended armor. Always suspected that SAI will have difficulty modelling this because in the era the game simulates, this was not a design adopted by either navy. We even have the real life example of SMS Lutzow, who was heavily flooded in the bow and eventually sank, which would not happen if it had a raft body design. and so after a few dozen SAI battle gen test runs, I've finally got a solid example where BE armor pen resulted in catastrophic flooding. And based on this it seems the US BBs will need relatively thick BE. Luckily it doesn't have to be "uber" same thickness as main Belt, from the numerous test runs i guestimate some coefficient is applied to BE during penetration calculations. Thirdly large land based search zones. They're quite successful in providing constant intel reports in all weather/time of day and should be a good help for frequenting capital ship engagements. Lastly some OOB research. Indeed while a part of the US BB fleet was ahead of its time, the light forces are lackluster, there wasn't even a CL that's worth mentioning!.. until the Omahas in 1920s that is. Gonna have to use the german CLs as substitutes. This campaign will fit perfectly in the late 20's, early 30's, but of course we need planes for that, and I think is not on the plans of the producers. Yeah... we have a plethora of arcade style ww2 naval/air games, like the battlestation series etc. Nothing out there like SAI created for the more serious type of gamers and grognards. The closest I can think of is "war in the pacific" by matrix games, tried the demo and the hexes failed me. It seems the arcade ww2 stuff is easy to do well commercially tho, i reckon in economic terms "why cream the top if you can tap the masses"  |
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Post by Fredrik W on Nov 19, 2014 12:46:46 GMT -6
Yes, the damage calculations are assuming ships have WW1 style armour schemes. That will change in RtW.
Planes - well there might well be in the future, but there is only so much time for developing SAI. The development of RtW will introduce some elements from the 1920s, which might lead to more aviation, eventually maybe even W2 carriers.
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Post by stratos on Dec 2, 2014 8:56:02 GMT -6
Yes, the damage calculations are assuming ships have WW1 style armour schemes. That will change in RtW. Planes - well there might well be in the future, but there is only so much time for developing SAI. The development of RtW will introduce some elements from the 1920s, which might lead to more aviation, eventually maybe even W2 carriers. Now that's something really interesting. Looking forward to see more, thanks! |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2014 10:37:24 GMT -6
Yes, the damage calculations are assuming ships have WW1 style armour schemes. That will change in RtW. Planes - well there might well be in the future, but there is only so much time for developing SAI. The development of RtW will introduce some elements from the 1920s, which might lead to more aviation, eventually maybe even W2 carriers. Now that's something really interesting. Looking forward to see more, thanks! indeed, I could get used to the idea of bringing along an AV ship that acts as a mobile tondern zeppelin base for spotting ships or something like that. (apparently it already happened in jutland just the radio msg from the plane didn't reach the fleet?) P.S. latest find, "B" command in .crf file (i.e. B1=70): capital ships have a chance to blow up at anchor! |
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Post by fredsanford on Dec 16, 2014 16:20:31 GMT -6
I made a maximum BB modified 1916 campaign based on the German Stronger 1916 in stock. I called it "Arena of Steel- 1916-1919". Look for the separate post.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2015 12:40:52 GMT -6
I made a maximum BB modified 1916 campaign based on the German Stronger 1916 in stock. I called it "Arena of Steel- 1916-1919". Look for the separate post. fredsanford, impressive work indeed as I've taken a look at the vast array of ships that come with. Heck I never knew there were so many what if ships out there. Busy with other stuff atm and cancelling this USN campaign... the amount of work needed is much more than I thought and a campaign engine with more replayability than the current SAI CE would then be worth the free time investment. Hence I wait for RtW! |
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