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Post by aeson on Jul 13, 2019 13:54:20 GMT -6
Let's look at a map: Say that I'm Russia trying to escort convoys through a French blockade, and that my ships can stay at sea for 5,000nmi regardless of how fast they're steaming (unlikely in the extreme, but whatever). Say that I need to escort convoys from the Skagerrak to the Orney-Shetland area to get them through a French blockade - roughly 300nmi. How many times can I do this in a single sortie? Well, I need to use ~1,100nmi of my ship's cruising range to get out of the Baltic and then back to port (possibly closer to 1,300 if I'm sailing out of, say, Riga), so that leaves me with 3,900, which is 13 300nmi trips; I have to give up one of those because my ships don't have the range to make the return trip. Assuming a convoy speed of 10 knots - which is fairly fast by WWI standards and still isn't too shabby by WWII standards - it'll take my ships about one day to escort a convoy across the North Sea, which means that I can escort three convoys in and three convoys out in a week, and then I need to return to port. That's if nothing happens that forces my ships back to port sooner. Due to the time taken to get from the Skagerrak to my nearest ports, I can only do this about every other week, at best, so if I have to escort convoys with a large part of my battle fleet then I can only escort about six convoys in and six convoys out per month. Next note that for a French blockade force based out of Brest, intercepting Russian merchant shipping between Britain and Iceland isn't actually all that much worse than intercepting Russian merchant shipping while it's in the North Sea - it's a ~750nmi transit to blockade stations in the North Sea or an ~850nmi transit to blockade stations between Scotland and Iceland, but it'd roughly double the distance that I'd have to provide escort to get convoys through the blockade, thereby halving the number of convoys that my fleet can escort while at sea.
This, mind you, is a very optimistic assessment of the number of convoys I can escort through the blockade zone with the bulk of my battle fleet - I will almost certainly have other things I need to do with my ships, and at some point the ships will need to be maintained and the crews will need to be rested even if nothing noteworthy ever happens at sea. I'm also ceasing to protect my convoys long before they could arrive anywhere but Britain, Germany, the Low Countries, or Scandinavia, and trade with Germany and a large part of Scandinavia wasn't going to be interdicted to any significant extent by a blockading force in the North Sea anyways. On top of that, typical convoys probably aren't averaging ten knots until at least the second quarter of the Twentieth Century even if you don't have problems with poor station-keeping or straggling merchants slowing the convoy down.
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tjri
New Member
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Post by tjri on Jul 13, 2019 16:14:16 GMT -6
Let's look at a map:
Say that I'm Russia trying to escort convoys through a French blockade, and that my ships can stay at sea for 5,000nmi regardless of how fast they're steaming (unlikely in the extreme, but whatever). Say that I need to escort convoys from the Skagerrak to the Orney-Shetland area to get them through a French blockade - roughly 300nmi. How many times can I do this in a single sortie? Well, I need to use ~1,100nmi of my ship's cruising range to get out of the Baltic and then back to port (possibly closer to 1,300 if I'm sailing out of, say, Riga), so that leaves me with 3,900, which is 13 300nmi trips; I have to give up one of those because my ships don't have the range to make the return trip. Assuming a convoy speed of 10 knots - which is fairly fast by WWI standards and still isn't too shabby by WWII standards - it'll take my ships about one day to escort a convoy across the North Sea, which means that I can escort three convoys in and three convoys out in a week, and then I need to return to port. That's if nothing happens that forces my ships back to port sooner. Due to the time taken to get from the Skagerrak to my nearest ports, I can only do this about every other week, at best, so if I have to escort convoys with a large part of my battle fleet then I can only escort about six convoys in and six convoys out per month. Next note that for a French blockade force based out of Brest, intercepting Russian merchant shipping between Britain and Iceland isn't actually all that much worse than intercepting Russian merchant shipping while it's in the North Sea - it's a ~750nmi transit to blockade stations in the North Sea or an ~850nmi transit to blockade stations between Scotland and Iceland, but it'd roughly double the distance that I'd have to provide escort to get convoys through the blockade, thereby halving the number of convoys that my fleet can escort while at sea.
This, mind you, is a very optimistic assessment of the number of convoys I can escort through the blockade zone with the bulk of my battle fleet - I will almost certainly have other things I need to do with my ships, and at some point the ships will need to be maintained and the crews will need to be rested even if nothing noteworthy ever happens at sea. I'm also ceasing to protect my convoys long before they could arrive anywhere but Britain, Germany, the Low Countries, or Scandinavia, and trade with Germany and a large part of Scandinavia wasn't going to be interdicted to any significant extent by a blockading force in the North Sea anyways. On top of that, typical convoys probably aren't averaging ten knots until at least the second quarter of the Twentieth Century even if you don't have problems with poor station-keeping or straggling merchants slowing the convoy down.
It would be sufficient to escort the convoy to a port in Great Britain and trade through intermediaries, would it not?
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Post by aeson on Jul 13, 2019 16:31:54 GMT -6
It would be sufficient to escort the convoy to a port in Great Britain and trade through intermediaries, would it not? You'd think that it'd be sufficient for Russia to do most of its trade overland through Germany and Austria-Hungary, but within the game it's not, so...
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Post by alsadius on Jul 13, 2019 17:10:00 GMT -6
It would be sufficient to escort the convoy to a port in Great Britain and trade through intermediaries, would it not? You'd think that it'd be sufficient for Russia to do most of its trade overland through Germany and Austria-Hungary, but within the game it's not, so... Or that trade is enough to let you keep fighting without collapsing immediately, but it's not as good as proper oceanic travel.
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Post by aeson on Jul 13, 2019 17:20:34 GMT -6
You'd think that it'd be sufficient for Russia to do most of its trade overland through Germany and Austria-Hungary, but within the game it's not, so... Or that trade is enough to let you keep fighting without collapsing immediately, but it's not as good as proper oceanic travel. Either way. Regardless, if you can avoid the blockade by trading through intermediaries, you could expose your merchant shipping to less risk by choosing intermediaries in, say, Germany, Denmark, or Sweden and not have to leave the Baltic, or the Ottoman Empire and not have to leave the Black Sea, or by going overland into Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and maybe British India and not have to put anything on a ship at all.
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Post by alsadius on Jul 13, 2019 19:36:50 GMT -6
But there's a reason you don't do that stuff in peacetime. It imposes major costs, of one form or another, and that will cause problems for your economy.
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Post by aeson on Jul 13, 2019 20:09:59 GMT -6
But there's a reason you don't do that stuff in peacetime. It imposes major costs, of one form or another, and that will cause problems for your economy. Sure, but transshipping in Britain to avoid a blockade isn't going to be much, if any, better than transshipping somewhere closer to home to avoid a blockade if your peacetime traffic normally goes to the Americas.
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Post by alsadius on Jul 13, 2019 20:39:03 GMT -6
But there's a reason you don't do that stuff in peacetime. It imposes major costs, of one form or another, and that will cause problems for your economy. Sure, but transshipping in Britain to avoid a blockade isn't going to be much, if any, better than transshipping somewhere closer to home to avoid a blockade if your peacetime traffic normally goes to the Americas. Ah, fair. Agreed. That said, trade with Britain has its own merits.
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Post by tortugapower on Jul 15, 2019 11:00:51 GMT -6
But there's a reason you don't do that stuff in peacetime. It imposes major costs, of one form or another, and that will cause problems for your economy. Sure, but transshipping in Britain to avoid a blockade isn't going to be much, if any, better than transshipping somewhere closer to home to avoid a blockade if your peacetime traffic normally goes to the Americas. Good points. Does that mean aeson that you would recommend changes to the blockade system? If so, maybe you can brainstorm here. I've always found it preposterous that only a 10% strategic ship point superiority could enable a blockade. Great Britain in her race against Germany sought to maintain a 60% higher number of dreadnoughts. It's strange to me that if I have 11 BBs and you have 10, I will blockade you, regardless the tonnage/quality of those ships. That's especially silly in light of the "declining battles still allows you to retain a blockade" game mechanic.
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Post by dorn on Jul 15, 2019 11:07:15 GMT -6
Sure, but transshipping in Britain to avoid a blockade isn't going to be much, if any, better than transshipping somewhere closer to home to avoid a blockade if your peacetime traffic normally goes to the Americas. Good points. Does that mean aeson that you would recommend changes to the blockade system? If so, maybe you can brainstorm here. I've always found it preposterous that only a 10% strategic ship point superiority could enable a blockade. Great Britain in her race against Germany sought to maintain a 60% higher number of dreadnoughts. It's strange to me that if I have 11 BBs and you have 10, I will blockade you, regardless the tonnage/quality of those ships. That's especially silly in light of the "declining battles still allows you to retain a blockade" game mechanic. There is already something.
Main issue is how to have system relatively simple and still give better results.
Blockade itself is maintained by light forces but you need heavy force to protect this light forces. But not matter of this heavy force, geographic dictate how much trade through put is possible even if blockading nation do not have heavy force. eg. Germany in WW1 will have still issue to break through blockade fully even if Royal Navy has only half of dreadnoughts and battlecruisers. (Germany will have no problem raid English coast, but breaking distant blockade is another thing).
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Post by Blothorn on Jul 15, 2019 11:41:18 GMT -6
RtW2's "decline" button is not the equivalent of just keeping the battleships in port but every last ship of the navy; I think it obvious that a blockade could not proceed under those conditions. That's simply not true: Clicking on "decline" on a fleet battle simply means that you aren't sending your fleet to meet the enemy's fleet. It doesn't say whether you're keeping them in port or not. You could very well be keeping your battle line in port while the cruisers enforce the blockade. An enemy fleet sortie is a bunch of ships all in one place, it can, maybe, run down a few of the ships enforcing the blockade, but it can't cover a lot of sea, so its overall effect on the blockade will be minimal. If you are keeping your cruisers at sea, why can't I fight them? The point is that if you decline all battles, the enemy *never* engages surface forces, aside from submarine and mine warfare. I agree that there is room for more fine-grained control, but RTW2 does not have it. And the way to beat a distant blockade is attrition; saying that because only a few cruisers might be run per sortie down the effect can be rounded down to zero is an egregious oversimplification.
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