Fleet Management - Refit and Replacement Scheduling

[dougphresh]

Just wondering if anyone has tips for managing fleet refits and replacements?

I'm balancing building new ships while keeping older ones refitted or planning their replacement. I seem to run into an issue where I am not prepared for the cost of designing replacement ships and starting production or I run into the issue of keeping ships on station while an entire class is undergoing refit. Ideally, I'd like to have a plan so say over 10 years I can keep a run of 12 destroyers up to date, while planning their replacement at the end of that time, but I have been unable to pull it off.

I believe I read the US Navy has a formula which has iirc the number of ships in a class, their estimated service life, and from this a schedule to refit or replace them. 

What techniques are you using to keep old ships running and up to date, while introducing newer designs? 

[arminpfano]

For me the most important thing is to get the big new capitals build in time. I try to build whole classes at once, before they get outdatet too much. For this I accumulate the funds to the max, just before the army grabs it. Then I spend all the incoming money and the funds for the new ships and do nothing else, until they are commissioned.

The refits I find relatively easy, because they take only some months and little money in most cases. So I get roughly a circle of:

- 3 years only building new capitals
- 1 year for neccessary smaller refits (directors and the like)
- 1 year for a new DD class
- 2 years for a new CL or CVL class
- 1 year for some more refits (ASW stuff for old DDs and such)

In RTW2 bigger refits rarely pay, methinks. I never rebuild the machinery, it is just too expensive. New guns only if I can go from -1 to +1, and only in specific cases. Cheap and advisable is the conversion of old CA or BC in CVL or CV - just take off the turrets and mount a flight deck, not much more. So you have to plan speed stages in advance. Normally I try to get the capitals at 27 knots as soon as possible and stay with this for quite a long time.

[JagdFlanker]

since the end of one war to the end of the next war very rarely exceeds 10 years, the moment a war ends i refit every single ship in my fleet (except very recently launched new classes)

at the end of every war scrap an entire class of B/BB - no class of ship should ever fight more than 2, very most 3 wars

B/BBs have big maintenance costs, so keep fewer but more capable capital ships in your fleet to free up the budget to keep building even more advanced ships to stay on top

[jorgencab]

I don't tend to scrap ship that much actually. I always tend to find stuff for them to perform over time. I also think it depends which nation you play. I have basically only played Japan with historical resources and a some bonus AI resources. This means I have to cram everything from my ships and save and turn every penny. My old pre-dreadnought tend to live for a very long time if not fo just prevent me being blockaded during wars. There are usually no chance for me too keep up against most opponents in terms of capital ships.

At the same time need to have my ships up to date as much as possible so I can meet the enemy with quality.

This means that I need to have this in mind when I plan my ships from the start. I know that I will probably have to live with a particular class for a long time so I need to make room for future refits, It is better to have more up to date of slightly inferior quality than a very low and few ships. This means I can have more ships of quite good quality faster than I otherwise would and my fleet are generally more up to date.

This means I have to plan for one or two engine refit during allot of ship classes during its life and some ships even make it from 1900 to almost the end of the game.

My 16000t pre-dreadnought that start as "fast battleships" at 21 knots become BC during its first refit, then they become raider hunters when they don't cut it as battle cruisers and lastly they get refitted to light carriers roughly around 1930-35. This is just one type of ship and its general service life.

The bigger the ship the more likely it is that I will retain them for a very long. Ships like destroyers and very small cruisers are the most likely to get scraped after a relatively short service life.

The important thing I think is to have a general plan for what you want your ships to do during its general service life. Doing regular and smart refits to fit the evolving changes of fleet warfare is very important if your intention is to save resources over time. Not all types of ships might be valued to keep around but most are to some degree. It is also different for every type of ship when and how they are refitted. I think there is now hard fast rule you can go after in general.