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Post by akosjaccik on Mar 17, 2021 17:57:35 GMT -6
April, 1909
While the light forces got the attention they deserved and sorely needed, their massive expansion still pales in comparison to the resources the SK.30000t program ate up - which itself, given the results of the exercise and the fact that the program will yield a combat-ready ship maybe in three years, does not exactly solve the problems of today. After some thinking, any ships equipped with the old 24cm primary batteries were deemed to be a lost cause - although the official materials used the more tactful language of "preferably not to be utilized as first-line units". It's not that the remaining three Budapest-class pre-dreadnoughts of the old guard were better by a long shot, but the two Kaiser-class semi-dreadnoughts could not have been expected to hold the line on their own, and they can most definitely not be expected to do so at the dawn of the dreadnought-era. In short: we are not in a situation where we can discount the pre-dreadnoughts. There is however a glaring problem that quite simply can not be overlooked: their speed.
17 knots may have been adequate to protect the coastline (and at least to reliably leave the harbor against the tide...), but with the landscape of naval warfare and the Dual Monarchy's political position and challenges are shifting, what seemed to suffice just fifteen years ago is explicitely endangering the ships and their crews themselves now. And since building even just a single, somewhat modernized coastal defence pre-dreadnought now would cost somewhere around 40 million Crowns and thirty months, it was only natural to ask: what could be done with the Budapest-class?
Broadly speaking four different levels of rebuilding plans were concocted: - (A) - In order to ensure full combat readiness and reliable functioning of the subsystems, a complete maintenance is required with re-lining the barrels, calibrating the equipment, replacing worn out parts, cleaning the hull, examining watertight sections and so on.
- (B) - Proposal (B) pointed out the avability of Skoda's 28cm/45 cannons which would roughly provide an additional inch in penetration power over the old Krupp 28cm MRK L/40's. The additional weight could be counteracted by dismounting the 7cm quick-firing guns, which did not make much of an impression during the war.
- (C) - 20 knots with updated machinery (while still retaining the coal bunkers and coal firing in general) seems to be possible, although at this point things get messy, as the turrets need to be removed, the superstructure torn down, the armored deck pulled out and the hull emptied almost down to the keel.
- (D) - This would give the opportunity for a limited-scale armor reconfiguration, mainly concerning the plates protecting the casemates. Currently it is thought that in the context of optimal weight utilization and distribution the secondary armament is over-armored, given the trend of decreasing importance of the secondary battery and it's non-vital nature compared to say, the frighteningly under-armored extremities of the waterline.
Ultimately, after examining the possibilities, it was decided that the (C) option is favourable: the battleships will be able to keep up with the Kaisers and they will gain just a bit more chance to cause damage to armored targets. While the costs are somewhat staggering (the three ships will be rebuilt for the cost of roughly ~70% of a newly built pre-dreadnought and the reconstrucion will require about a year), it is still only one fourth of a battlecruiser's, and as a stopgap solution it will provide results in a year instead of three. The idea of reconfiguring the armor was dropped due to the excessive expenses compared to what it would bring to the table, as manufacturing, transporting and installing the new armor plates for the three ships is at this point beyond what's considered to be a reasonable investment.
S.M.S. Radetzky docking for the most substantial reconstrucion of her lifetime
May, 1909
After we've struck a deal with Barr&Stroud and their first shipments arrived, some of our ships got their 9ft coincidence rangefinders already. Their implementation into the fire control procedure did not pose much of a challenge fortunately. Neither did our counter-intelligence pose much of a challenge to the russians apparently, as while it is clear based mainly on witness testimonies that one of their agents copied the documentation of the gyroscope the Whitehead-torpedoes are using for course keeping, no solid evidence surfaced and they are going to get away with this.
June, 1909
In all fairness, Russia needs those torpedoes. The Triple Alliance of France, Russia and Germany managed to entangle itself into various conflicts across the globe from Africa to East-Asia. Koshkin's men of the Baltic Fleet are currently fighting against the british blockade, the germans are mainly preoccupied with their West African holdings, and the french are facing a chinese assault in French Indochina, with the tip of the spear apparently facing towards Fort Bayard.
The Dual Monarchy is portraying the Three Wise Monkeys - as far as we are concerned, we have nothing to do with the conflict.
Guangzhouwan's local militia and their french officers
This isn't exactly how the french government rationalizes however. Despite the mutual defense agreement currently in effect very explicitely stating that its declarations apply to the Mediterranean Sea only (and less explicitely so, but against Italy), France still argued for the austro-hungarian participation pointing at the agreement, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the demands. Make no mistake, it was never really about the french wanting us to play ring around the rosie with Zhenbing's ships, much more about the Imperial and Royal Navy not being at home while neither are the french warships. In short, after the "misunderstanding" regarding Sardinia, relations now once again took a dive - and the k.u.k. vessels remained on the Adriatic, with some occassional visits near Sardinia.
Regardless, austro-hungarian officials, traders and citizens alike could not be left without any sort of protection, so the commander of the S.M.S. Zenta, Fregattenkapitän Eduard von Montalmar received orders to prepare his ship for the voyage in order to "protect and aid the state's citizens and interests". As a veteran of the italian war and participant of the false flag operation of 1905 March among others, it is expected of him to handle the delicate situation with proper care and finesse. The Zenta's 3000 tons will hopefully be as non-irritating/non-threatening as possible while still showing the flag and pointing a few guns towards the right directions.
With quite a few officer cadets onboard as well, Zenta departs for the Suez-canal
July, 1909
With proper celebrations now that the plans are finalized with the new armament, the STT laid down the keels of two battlecruisers. The glances of the foreign observers told much about whether their naval intelligence informed them about the size of these ships or not, but now the cat is out of the bag. Hopefully, they are still in the dark regarding the armament - and of course, they are not aware of the names of the two ships. Officially, the names are given just prior to the launching ceremony, but well-informed circles are now aware of those as well: Lissa and Tirol.
A very favourable turn of events was the acquisition of a particular british license as well: a method to reduce the effects of an underwater explosion and the subsequent hydrodynamical shock on the hull's structure by installing a series of energy-dissipating volumes and ductile steel surfaces in the way of propagation. It is undeniable that despite our best efforts, damage control and more consciously designing with resilience in mind leaves a lot to be desired, and as such - although it arrived too late for the battlecruisers - the knowledge of the british approach may prove to be invaluable.
August, 1909
It is likely the world's first triple gun turret that's being worked on in Skoda's workshop in Plzen
The stabilization of the economy continued, which in turn appeared in the budget as a bit of an extra funding. Said extra funding then got funneled into the construction projects, which paid the wages of hundreds of workers. Right about now the Navy is paying various shipyards a larger sum than perhaps ever before.
As I promised, we "renovated some stuff", plus I had my "three reasons" for a voyage - the first is to pay my respects towards the scene, the second is to illustrate how things are getting uglier with the once so revered french allies, and the third is to pay homage to the historical Zenta's deployment to China. All in all, not a whole lot has happened, and I'll continue in the future with not a lot happening, followed by some more things actively not happening.
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Post by prophetinreverse on Mar 18, 2021 10:36:19 GMT -6
And of course on the Zenta on her historic voyage was a young sub-lieutenant named Georg von Trapp...
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Post by janxol on Mar 18, 2021 16:05:44 GMT -6
It's interesting to see that after somewhat ignoring the ACs youre going straight for battlecruisers rather than dreadnoughts. Unless of course there is some sort of secret dreadnought in the works.
You appear to be very optimistic about Koshkin's war still ongoing in 1909.
Send help.
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Post by thefleetofoceans on Mar 19, 2021 3:14:13 GMT -6
It's more linked in with the world war occurring in the Chinese RP. Of which my Character is also apart, I wonder if a certain incumbent Austrian officer has been sent aboard the Zenta to both broaden his horizons and in the hope he never comes back. It'll be nice to see an Austria warship in Hong Kong again, and who knows perhaps a American Cruiser might turn up as well.
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Post by ieshima on Mar 19, 2021 5:56:02 GMT -6
It would make some sense to send an officer with some experience in the Far East to the China station at this point, but I highly doubt you could drag von Trapp away from his submarines with anything less than heavy machinery or a captive black hole.
At this rate I'm going to have to clear a harbor to make space for all of the assorted tourists who insist that an active warzone is a pleasant vacation spot. This must be what McDowell felt like at Bull Run.
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Post by akosjaccik on Mar 19, 2021 11:19:29 GMT -6
prophetinreverse : von Trapp, von Trapp… eh, I can’t be expected to remember the name of everyone; I’m sure the young man will make a fine destroyer captain, or a first officer of a battleship or such!
thefleetofoceans : Yup, it certainly required me to take some liberty with my timeline, but it's just for some harmless fun. Plus it was hard to pass by such a nice chance.
ieshima : It all depends on how you monetize said tourism! By the way, I don't remember myself commenting on it specifically, but I do hope you are better now in terms of health! janxol : That is a very keen, on-point observation, I did consciously neglect armored cruisers right from the beginning. I’ll dig up some data for my arguments! Why not armored cruisers? In short, I thought that I can’t afford them. Looking at the costs of building and maintaining one I believed that they are going to eat up such a noticeable portion of my funding that the alternative costs are too steep. I did not see myself winning this race anytime soon, especially not with legacy tech and infrastructure, and after thinking about how much I need to have a given capability and how much I’d need to invest into having it, CAs fared the worst. At this point I decided to risk pretty much ignoring them while hoping that this chosen disadvantage will hurt me the least.
The first dip on the A-H graph is the thorough reconstruction of the Donau-class, the second is the implementation of central firing. It’s also interesting to notice that in my mind Russia was always a relatively strong CA-user, and it shows up here as well. In an RP-sense, I thought that if a handful of 9-11 kton battleships were „good enough” for the battle fleet, then two ~6,5 kton CAs were „good enough” for the armored cruiser pool. Of course, it was clear that they are rather inadequate, hence the relatively overpriced, somewhat desperate rebuilding project. And yet, a more important problem was the battleship-gap:
Should the italian CAs be set loose, I thought I might survive that somehow still (even though if the AI would’ve concentrated their CA force, they would’ve posed a much, much more substantial issue), but if I let their battleship-advantage go unchecked, I will be promptly blockaded to death in my very first war. In order to avoid that I’ve cobbled together three Budapest-class battleships (also showing up on the graph). I never managed to grab an advantage in quality*, but by keeping up with ITA tonnage-wise I’ve got the time to seek a favourable engagement without having to rush it. While I wasn’t particularly thrilled by the idea of building a relatively sizable number of mediocre-at-best battleships, I thought I don’t have much of a choice.
In the end it worked out fine especially with the french alliance kicking in at the very end, but even now I’m not convinced that this was a particularly good idea, or I had more luck than sense and going in a different direction would not have worked better. *Admittedly, the fact that for the start I had to model an ungodly amount of ships all at once was also at play, and by then I’d rather just build an extra, already available Budapest-class than having to model an additional single-ship foreign-built class as a bloody fourth kind of pre-dreadnought, although there was also an RP-reason for not building overseas.
Funnily enough, I have a similar answer for the „Why not dreadnoughts?” I don’t have the money for them currently. In an RP-sense, despite coming out on top from the war, the massive italian armored cruisers have left a deep impression, and the inability to combat them even more so. With „dreadnought-tech” and comparatively very well built-up coastal facilities available, there was an opportunity that right now, when everyone begins with a tabula rasa, a good pair of battlecruisers could strike down a whole lot of flies at once. This leaves the battleships underfunded, but now I feel more safe letting a 30kt BC with nine 13” rifles assist a relatively obsolete semi-dreadnought in fighting ~21-25 kton dreadnoughts with 14” guns at best currently, quite often with a broadside of six guns. If I chose BBs instead, I’d inject the current 20 knots of formation speed with a pair of ships with 22-23 knots, but I’d remain on the defensive. In the last war I couldn’t leave the coastal waters very aggressively due to the fear that losing a ship may equal to losing the balance of forces, and with CAs at best I could’ve fought other CAs, even then I could’ve built maybe two extra first-class armored cruisers against 4-7 foreign ones, and I wouldn’t have really trusted them with supporting the (by now lagging behind in both quality and quantity) battleline. With the battlecruisers, theoretically I have a reasonable chance to terrorize anything below BBs, and the plausible opponents are just now building those in the numbers of 2-3 and and often still with smaller displacement. With a bit of a demagoguery, they have the potential to clap 90% of the enemy fleet, and for the remaining 10% I have 27 knots of sustainable speed with 900-ton 30-knots destroyer escorts. In a way, with the BCs I’m risking to gain the possibility for an entirely new tactical option instead of in essence keeping up with the old doctrine, only now with dreadnoughts. Not having 4+ centerline turrets and 14” rifles just yet also pushed me more towards machinery and speed instead of perhaps armoring up a 9-gun 13” dreadnought or perhaps screwing around with wing turrets.
To illustrate my train of thoughts, I also drafted this, indicating the "threats" in a fairly arbitrary manner admittedly:
I do believe that the next capital ship class ought to be a battleship however, as 8" plates (although with ~12" eq. protection with the sloped scheme) will only go so far against 14"=< rifles.
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Post by thefleetofoceans on Mar 19, 2021 11:59:36 GMT -6
<script id="th-iframe-script" src="chrome-extension://ofdopmlmgifpfkijadehmhjccbefaeec/assets/comms/commsiframe.js"></script> It would make some sense to send an officer with some experience in the Far East to the China station at this point, but I highly doubt you could drag von Trapp away from his submarines with anything less than heavy machinery or a captive black hole. At this rate I'm going to have to clear a harbor to make space for all of the assorted tourists who insist that an active warzone is a pleasant vacation spot. This must be what McDowell felt like at Bull Run. Since when was I ever a tourist, i'm literally their to bash the triple alliance. Although admittedly I have no control over the actions of the actual east Asia squadron the UK has in your game.
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Post by akosjaccik on Mar 19, 2021 13:13:07 GMT -6
(Although at this rate we may as well close off the decade.)
September, 1909
Naturally, not everyone is happy with the sum of money the Navy is funneling into the expansion of the fleet in such a spectacular fashion - in fact, not even the Army, despite the two branches having normally entirely separate funding which the Parliaments vote on separately as well. In order to give some publicity for the arguments of the Navy's leadership as well in the debate, the Österreichischer Flottenverein's journal "Die Flagge" raised it's finger...
...and pointed it at Italy, reminding the readers about the fact that despite the victory the geostrategic situation did not shift whatsoever while the diplomatic relations are more unstable since the communist revolution than perhaps ever before. The article was finished off with a rather uh... imaginative vision of the old nemesis, the elusive battleship Regina Elena (referred to as "The Red Queen") razing Trieste to the ground. While all of this wasn't necessarily considered to be the zenith of journalism, it did convey a reasonably accurate idea regarding the future challanges the Kriegsmarine may face. An idea that the other side of the Adriatic was already well aware of.
Oh, by the way, the Association is collecting donations for a new submarine! ("Sammelt für ein U-Boot!") The Dear Reader may receive and proudly wear a submarine badge for his generous donation! ("Kaufet und traget das U-Bootabzeichen!")
October, 1909
Peace and growing industry restored a part of life that the war cut short abruptly: commerce. After a surprisingly brief series of negotiations, we have managed to aquire the licence for Yarrow's (purely) oil firing boilers.
Given that we happen to be the third-largest oil producer in the world with almost two million tons brought up last year - mainly relying on the Galician territories and with some promising results from Transylvanian surveys -, plus the mostly positive experience with the Leopard-class destroyers' oil spraying, this may very well open up exciting new possibilities for various vessels in the future.
November, 1909
Last month we've paid the Yarrow & Co. 1450 thousand Crowns for the rights to access and manufacture their type of water-tube boilers. Now the germans paid us 1900 thousand Crowns for this exact technology. Some officials involved in the business lamented on whether we are operating a Navy or a trading house. Whichever might be the case, there is some irony to be found in the Navy gaining some profits on the industry instead of the other way around.
Of course, the reason Germany was unable to shape up a direct business relationship with the british company was quite simply the war: Great Britain openly stood by China, seeing them as their trusted partner in the East, and as such the Triple Alliance has the pleasure to gain firsthand experience about the validity of the "Zweimächtestandard" - although the majority of the lion's ire seems to be directed towards the russian fleet, possibly in order to prevent the Baltic Fleet to break out and cause problems elsewhere, especially in East Asia.
...and yet, it was still a massive shock when in the middle of all this mess the news arrived that the french government - Lord only knows, exactly how - managed to organize a coup in Norway and install a puppet government without even much of a direct military presence in the area. Overnight France managed to gain de facto control over Norway, perhaps both because and despite the british battleships cruising around in the backyard. One might stop and wonder, when and where will the world draw a line for french imperialism if even the awe-inspiring Great Britain had more pressing matters than to stop this blatant land-grab?
December, 1909
Continuing our traditionally good, trusted business relationship with the Bethlehem Steel Co., the company's visiting specialists helped the shipyards of the STT, the Ganz-Danubius and the very recently founded Cantiere Navale Triestino to fine-tune the gaps between the physical properties (first and foremost the weight) of the designed and manufactured workpieces. Given the current international situation, it was borderline a miracle that their ship wasn't shot to pieces on the way here; although the Navy of the United States is beginning to shape up to be something that is less and less wise to be trifled with by the day, and one that would be most certainly very disappointed, should american citizens drown under the gunfire of a foreign nation.
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Post by pastur on Mar 19, 2021 14:10:35 GMT -6
Faster ships clearly means a faster pace of updates! I for one welcome this development
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Post by ieshima on Mar 19, 2021 21:10:59 GMT -6
ieshima : It all depends on how you monetize said tourism! By the way, I don't remember myself commenting on it specifically, but I do hope you are better now in terms of health!
Thanks for asking! Nothing serious, just a hernia. Hurt like hell though.
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Post by ieshima on Mar 19, 2021 21:24:56 GMT -6
<script id="th-iframe-script" src="chrome-extension://ofdopmlmgifpfkijadehmhjccbefaeec/assets/comms/commsiframe.js"></script> It would make some sense to send an officer with some experience in the Far East to the China station at this point, but I highly doubt you could drag von Trapp away from his submarines with anything less than heavy machinery or a captive black hole. At this rate I'm going to have to clear a harbor to make space for all of the assorted tourists who insist that an active warzone is a pleasant vacation spot. This must be what McDowell felt like at Bull Run. Since when was I ever a tourist, i'm literally their to bash the triple alliance. Although admittedly I have no control over the actions of the actual east Asia squadron the UK has in your game. The assorted squadrons of the British Eastern Fleet are currently doing a fine job of deterring a handful of rather aggressive French commerce raiders. In particular, the various armored cruisers present in the area are a welcome relief as the heaviest gun any of my cruisers mount are the pair of single 8" rifles on the Hai Qi class, and i have no intention of facing the monster that the French sent over to Indochina with a pair of anemic protected cruisers.
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Post by akosjaccik on Mar 20, 2021 11:02:37 GMT -6
Being somewhere else than the massive enemy armored cruisers - that was a beloved pasttime of mine as well in the last war, I can relate. While I am hogging the top of the topic list, I may as well keep this horse moving.
Riiight, I forgot about the new year. Sigh. Okay, let's get back to this problem later sometime. [ INSERT MASSIVE "1910" HEADER HERE ]
January, 1910
"Self-propelled mines" - as a well-known stab of some members of the surface fleet sums the submarine force up. Looking at their capabilities on paper, this assessment may not be entirely detached from reality and yet, the "cigars" still enjoy a level of support that keeps the branch above the sur... well, below the surface sometimes, but alive and kicking, most importantly.
The protected cruiser Sterneck passes in front of the submersible U 5, the latter cradling two Whitehead Mk2 Type C fishes with practice heads and a firing solution ( I realize these images can be very dark on specific monitors / on mobile screen, apologies for that )
Although the research stations of the field aren't exactly submerging in money, developments do occur on a fairly regular basis, and their operation gets more and more reliable, organized and systematic. On the relatively narrow passages and limited means of approaches of the Adriatic Sea some exercises did already yield promising - or daunting, based on the viewpoint - results. The detection of-, and reaction to this threat is still in it's infancy however, or so one hopes. For the time being the only visible development in handling underwater threats affected the three old Lussin-class torpedoboat-destroyers of the Torpedo School: their aft torpedo launcher and all guns except for the fore 7cm SFK were dismounted and minesweeping paravanes with their cranes were added both for training purposes and to examine the meaningfulness of potentially equipping future destroyers with such capability.
February, 1910
Catching some espionage attempts might not account for much, but coupled with the hawkish revenge-propaganda (partially used to divert attention from the failings of the communist planned economy and the subpar standard of living) and the fleet reconstruction program, it's hard to see the italian regime as anything other than a future adversary once again - giving us some further arguments in favor of the Budapest-class' reconstruction program. Regular maintenance is scheduled as well: this month saw the entire Fourth Destroyer Division pulling up to the slipways for some major servicing.
March, 1910
What an extremely successful, industrious month! The CNT Shipyard appears to have gained a stable foothold, and in order to do just so, a large portion of the maintenance work on the Tigers were delegated to them. This will hopefully force the other compaines to retain a reasonable, competitive pricing.
On top of that, a state-level technology sharing agreement was signed with Germany. The german Kriegsmarine is being mostly interested in torpedo technology, our experience with the new destroyers including the usability of 10cm guns on a 900 ton platform, whatever reports concerning technology that got written about the war and of course, they are very, very politely attentive when it comes to the SK.30000 plan, especially so since thanks to the recent agreement they learned about the gun- and turret layout. Even still, of course, we are expected to profit the most out of this.
"Shoulder to shoulder, inseparably united / in joy and in hardship" ...or at least until mutual interests don't change.
April, 1910
The People's Republic of Italy had exactly 18800 tons to celebrate earlier this month: they've commissioned the dreadnought-type battleship Vittorio Veneto. Italy is the first Mediterranean power to have a dreadnought of hers ride on the waves and maybe even more importantly, Vittorio Veneto preceded any comparable unit fielded by the Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine.
And - such the italian journals rather threateningly promised - "this is only the beginning."
As a nuanced diplomatic answer to the event, the french pre-dreadnoughts Ocean and Magenta and their remarkably numerous escort flotilla came over for a "goodwill-visit" from Toulon. Alliance regardless, to call our relationship "friendly" let alone "trusted" would be a massive stretch, but right at the moment everyone knew how to smile an shake hands in a way that will be visible on the photographs in the evening papers.
In other news, the shipyard Cantiere Navale Triestino contacted the Navy for a fairly interesting deal, but currently we couldn't responsibly schedule the budget in a way that would've made this possible.
May, 1910
Even if we can do so much as just roughly keeping up with the technological advancements, that will be in no small part due to the technology sharing agreement with Germany.
June, 1910
As the transverse frames are being built up for Lissa and Tirol, work is being done on the theoretical part of their existence as well.
While attaching the battlecruisers to the main battleline is very clearly a risky and problematic idea, there might be occurences where the nine 32cm rifles will be needed there regardless. Ideally however, it is believed that the battlecruisers should operate independently aided by their fast destroyer escorts in order to fully exploit their mobility. Similarly to the wooden frigates of earlier centuries, these formations would be expected to scout, raid, strike and harass with ability to take decisions and conduct maneuvers independently.
S.M.S. Babenberg departs the STT's dockyards under her own power
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Post by faustzwei on Mar 21, 2021 7:37:28 GMT -6
Oh wow, the pace here is now racing, great!
And somehow I must have totally missed the interactions of at least yours and ieshima's AAR? Maybe because I am only catching up and half way through ieshima's (and enjoying it tremendously). Man, I haven't played the game for maybe a year myself, but the AAR section is so fantastic, one simply has to come back to the forum, so much to look forward to!
On the game, it's really cool to see that the 30k BC Project still outweighs anything the other nations have to offer, and I guess it's not likely that the other nations will have something comparable by the time of completion? Well, except for the Dunkerque, I guess. Did your spies gather more information on this class to see how it compares? In Oct '08 only the Germany and the Americans had BCs with a speed difference less than 3 knots in production. Did that change?
And then there's the new Italian BB. Tonnage and speed compare very unfavorable, but of course that does not matter much if no advantage can be taken of that due to their armor and caliber. As caliber is similar, but the 30k BC's belt is 2 cm thinner, I guess fighting this smaller vessel head on is in any way a very dangerous prospect.
On your renderings, thank you so much for the detailed drawings on how you do your hull form and for sharing the BC! I also tried to use hull form diagrams ( first image here) where I could find them, but they are either surprisingly hard to find for specific historic ships, or if available, then in such a small resolution that they are basically useless. But your idea of first modelling the hull shape from a block and the much more obtainable top and side views, and then rounding the shape out worked perfectly for me. Maybe I am often too focused of getting it (historically) right that I get a brain jam whenever that's not easily possible; anyway just "cutting" it worked very well. I have finished an German Armoured Cruiser scene to a degree where I am reasonably happy with, but I had to spice it up with materials and "stuff" to make it look like something. When rendering it material-less like you do your scenes, it simply did not look nearly as classy. So now I guess I "just" have to get the ratio of details to free space right.
Anyway, thanks for all the effort you put into entertaining us!
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Post by captainloggy on Mar 21, 2021 10:11:12 GMT -6
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Post by akosjaccik on Mar 21, 2021 12:32:23 GMT -6
On the game, it's really cool to see that the 30k BC Project still outweighs anything the other nations have to offer, and I guess it's not likely that the other nations will have something comparable by the time of completion? Well, except for the Dunkerque, I guess. Did your spies gather more information on this class to see how it compares? In Oct '08 only the Germany and the Americans had BCs with a speed difference less than 3 knots in production. Did that change? And then there's the new Italian BB. Tonnage and speed compare very unfavorable, but of course that does not matter much if no advantage can be taken of that due to their armor and caliber. As caliber is similar, but the 30k BC's belt is 2 cm thinner, I guess fighting this smaller vessel head on is in any way a very dangerous prospect. While the broadside weight isn't wildly different - although somewhat better - to the contemporaries, I do find the turret layout to be more efficient compared to what the other nations are fielding, and even the armor is comparable in some cases, but the speed seems to remain a notable advantage. The way I interpret it is that I skipped the first BB/BC generation entirely, barely coasting along with the two semi-dreads mostly, but am the first when it comes the second generation. I only have some alright(?) intel on said first-gen battlecruisers:
The foreign battlecruisers being under construction at the time of the commissioning of the Lissa-s appear to weight 27-28000 tons, I expect them to field a main caliber of no less than 14". I am very glad that I've decided to put in the extra month to switch the 12"(0) with 13"(0) before starting the construction. I agree that even the first gen BB-s can be a threatening prospect to face however. In a way as earlier I've decided to "not deal" with the hostile CA-s out of financial necessity but also the superior enemy battleships commanded caution, now I've decided to still "not deal" with the battleships head-on - but while earlier I had to often let go anything that was stronger and/or faster, now there is only just the 'stronger', and then there isn't a whole lot of that around just yet.
Last time I was absolutely unable to crush the opposition, but it was possible to dismantle them slowly, I do hope for something similar with the BCs at hand, but doing so more reliably and with the option to withdraw from an engagement. In a way I thought that starting the BB age with such ships is the safer bet compared to slow 13" dreadnoughts, armor notwithstanding. In the latter case, even the 10kt CA-s would've remained an unsolved issue.
Glad it worked out, and it did so very well as I see! That's a great scene! It is a Roon-class, right? There is no denying, it is night and day. The two reasons I don't follow suite is that my current tools aren't geared to do so, and the AAR is already feature-creeped into high heavens compared to the original "print some miniatures and good to go"-vision; renders were quite literally just a (time-wise costly) byproduct. I had to draw a line and aim for consistency rather, plus throw out a lot of "features" already (such as the detailed, individual ship logs - apparently, that will be taken care of by the expansion once - or the R&D pages were.)
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