Post your best ship designs here

[night]

The Lexington-class, my traditional answer to the era of the bad dreadnoughts, when everyone just has 3 Centerline and 12 or 13-inch guns. They're lightly armored, somewhat slow, and that turret back there isn't actually superfiring it just looks like it. On the other hand they're cheap to build and cheap to modify, and I usually end up building several "Flights" of Lexingtons as alternate turret layouts become available. I find it's entirely possible to exceed even the RN in battlecruiser numbers and tonnage early on via the use of Lexington-like ships while they're busy trying to build four-turret cross-deck-firing 22k ton 13" gun monstrosities that are still vulnerable to Lexington guns. In the lategame with oil-firing refits and more speed, they make excellent standins for armored cruisers, and they're relatively expendable by that point. Across a half-dozen games the basics of the design, with 8"/7" belt, similar turrets, 6x2 12" guns, and 12/14 5" guns, and its philosophy of being slightly cheaper and much more numerous than similar ships have served me well.

[enderpig02]

Of course I made a design for a dreadnought of 13-15,000 tons and then a treaty was signed right after I started construction. They had 10 12-inch guns and a bunch of little 3-inch guns. Only 18-knot top speed but they had decent armor. The 2 I had building were cancelled, but then France declared war on me. I started building 3, now I want to build 2 more with an improved design with more speed and armor (this is a current game.)
Then my spies screwed it all up... They gave me a report of France building huge new super-ships of over 15,000 tons, carrying 12 to 15 14-inch guns. So, that leaves me with a problem. I have designed and started construction on 2-3 new battleships with 13-inch guns. I have also resolved to build 2 or so coast defense ships carrying 13-inch main guns. These will be slow, but have heavy armor to defend against enemy fleets. But I have not gone ahead with them yet, but probably will quickly draft a design.

[enderpig02]

Oh, and my Maine-Class AC's are getting old and outdated. They have a good main battery of 4 10-inch guns, but little secondary or tertiary guns. It has become a serious problem too. They have been in 2-3 battles and 2 have been sunk by enemy DD's and CL's because of torpedoes. I need to rebuild them and add a good amount of 3-inch guns and increase torpedo protection and speed.

[admiral]

The Tokiwa class was an oddball. Covered in a truly obnoxious amount of guns and around 4 millions dollars a turn to produce, it was a lonely family of armored cruisers in a world where 15-inch guns were standard. It may not have been as powerful (or as powerful for the cost) as a battleship, but I do consider it a very unique and successful design.

For all its quirks, they were justified: the Tokiwa class was built in response to a very specific strategic situation, and envisioned for a very specific tactical one. You see, my late-game as Japan resulted in very few battleship engagements. The reason was simple: with my nigh-complete domination of Asia, no enemy nation had the bases to meet me on equal terms, and it was very much the same case for me when it came to the enemy home regions. As a result, a war with Germany and France was marked by colonial invasions, small battles, and declined battles, with the ever present merchant raiding campaigns and interception battles. Battleships played basically no role in this war, with the brunt of the work being done by light cruisers, armed merchant cruisers, and submarines. While adequate against merchants, CLs and AMCs were too fragile in interception battles (especially against enemy CAs), and submarines (as I have now painfully learned) don't work in anything other than your home region.


As a result, I tried an armored cruiser, built specifically for this strategic situation. While very expensive, they didn't take away from battleships (since I had stopped building them anyway) and the up gunning and up-armoring from the CLs and AMCs was considered worth it. They weren't designed to replace CLs and AMCs, but to supplement and support them. More specifically, they were designed to confront and destroy enemy CAs, which my CLs and AMCs were helpless against. This is where all the guns come in: a Tokiwa would put up a hail of firepower to win 1-on-1 interception battles with enemy CAs, which in turn would allow the cheaper and more numerous CLs and AMCs to operate safely, now with a little extra help from Tokiwas on raider duty.

They came too little, too late to help in the first Japanese-German-French war, but when a second one came a few years later, they were ready. They performed as expected in merchant raiding duties, and won all but 1 interception battle. I lost about 5 of this class during the war (I built 18-ish). 1 was sent to the Mediterranean to raid merchants, but ran out of fuel and was interned. 2 were ambushed in a disastrous battle with a French BC, and 2 others were scuttled or interned while on raiding duties.

After those losses, I had to do something more. I extended the range and made the engines reliable (to reduce mechanical failure and running out of fuel) while up-gunning the ship to make it better in engagements with BCs. The result was this 32,000 ton abomination of an "upgrade", which was never built because it was more expensive than some of my battleship classes:

[joebob73]

Good thing you never built those. 24! 8" secondaries with only 2" armor? You're just begging for a magazine hit, and boom goes the super-ship.

[admiral]

Jun 9, 2016 13:40:29 GMT -6 joebob73 said:

Good thing you never built those. 24! 8" secondaries with only 2" armor? You're just begging for a magazine hit, and boom goes the super-ship.

I found myself blowing away the enemy before that magazine explosion. I knew the risk, but I was willing to take it, and it seemed to pay off.

[joebob73]

Jun 9, 2016 22:49:59 GMT -6 admiral said:

Jun 9, 2016 13:40:29 GMT -6 joebob73 said:

Good thing you never built those. 24! 8" secondaries with only 2" armor? You're just begging for a magazine hit, and boom goes the super-ship.

I found myself blowing away the enemy before that magazine explosion. I knew the risk, but I was willing to take it, and it seemed to pay off.

I guess I just had great luck blowing up AI ships with secondary hits.  One 18k ton  cruiser even took out a 50k ton battleship by detonating its 7" secondaries' magazine.

[boomboomf22]

Hey, I just found the forums and they are great. I just read all of this thread, and was wondering if anyone could link me the manual as I can only sem to find the one that has no appendixes. Thanks. Also does anyone know where the game is typically installed? I can't seem to find it

[admiral]

Jun 10, 2016 12:54:00 GMT -6 boomboomf22 said:

Hey, I just found the forums and they are great. I just read all of this thread, and was wondering if anyone could link me the manual as I can only sem to find the one that has no appendixes. Thanks. Also does anyone know where the game is typically installed? I can't seem to find it

Is this what you're looking for: nws-online.proboards.com/thread/335/rtw-rule-waves-information-downloads The page has links to two instruction manuals (one is about RTW, the other is for Steam and Iron*) and a link to buy the game.

* SAI was a WW1-themed naval combat game, simulating tactical level battles. Rule the Waves is a game about the naval arms race in the early 20th century, incorporating diplomacy, economics, and more, but it uses the SAI engine for its tactical battles. Thus, reading the SAI manual can be helpful.

[director]

The game is typically installed on your main drive (usually C:) as NWS.

[boomboomf22]

Thanks all, I found where it is installed before I read your post, but thanks anyway. Thanks for linking that page, like a total derp when I posted this I didn't have the newest version, and thus not the newest manual.
How do you add pictures?

[admiral]

Jun 11, 2016 18:44:47 GMT -6 boomboomf22 said:

Thanks all, I found where it is installed before I read your post, but thanks anyway. Thanks for linking that page, like a total derp when I posted this I didn't have the newest version, and thus not the newest manual.
How do you add pictures?

You add pictures as an attachment, the insert the pictures where you want. It's best to write all the text first, because it gets weird when you try to insert a picture and then press ENTER to type below it. It just doesn't work when you try to insert pictures and then write, so only insert pictures when you're done. 

[boomboomf22]

Well here is my contributions.  They are from my soon to finish game as France, and are my First and last class of Battle-cruiser as well as a hero battleship of mine.  As someone who knows history I am usually loathe to build them as they were historically a disaster but i figured a couple over-sized cruisers wouldn't be so bad to try.
1st is my Massena Class, commissioned in 1908, this one ship class of Battle-cruisers were an experiment into smallish heavy ships with 12" and 6" guns, and 10" belt armor.


At 19,400 tonnes she was relatively cheap, as well as fast to build. 6 months after she was commissioned she took on and sank the Japanese Tsukuba and Kongo, both Tsukuba class BC's weighing in at 22,500 tonnes.  During this battle she fired all of the ammunition present on board the ship  She received a refit in 1919 removing some of her secondary's in exchange for 2kt more speed, improved turret armor, upgraded 12" guns, better fire control, and additional main battery ammunition.  Sadly she is on her last legs in the ongoing French-Italian conflict.

The second contribution is the Pas-de Calais class of battle-cruisers, with 2 commissioned: the Pas-de Calais (1915), and the Lille (1918).  Two more were under construction when a Naval Treaty hit and scrapped all ships above 10,000 Tonnes under construction.  Following in the path of the Massena Class the have 12" guns, 10" belt armor, and a decent number of secondaries, though less and only 5".


The class weighs 21,100 tonnes and represents a continuing attempt to limit ship sizes, with the French Navy believing that limited tonnage would allow more ships to be constructed.  The class is overdue for a refit, but at present the is too much a need for ships to allow this.  Generally the class has been a disappointment as they do not perform very well as they have no torpedo protection and opposing battle-cruisers are almost entirely armed with 14" guns.

[boomboomf22]

And last is my Hero Battleship. The French Navies Battleship Courbet, Nameship, and only of it's class, as well as the first dreadnought manufactured by the French. Commissioned in 1908, sliding down the slipways at the same time as the Massena. She is armed with 14" low quality guns, as well as 8" secondaries, and has 12" belt. She also received a refit in 1919 as did many of Frances ship, as that is when the Naval treaty was in effect. The refit upgraded her fire control, added .5" of turret armor, and added increased elevation to her main guns.





She weighs 26,000 tonnes,which would be more or less the standard displacement of French dreadnoughts for quite a while. The hero battle came in 1915 during a war with Austria-Hungary, when leading the French battle line off of Algeria she sank two battle-cruisers, the 25,500 ton Prag, and the 29,000 ton Triest. She then went on to engage the main Austrian battle line and receive 73 12"-14" gun hits, as well as in excess of 100 hits from lesser size guns. Every gun on the ship was put out of action, but not before she left 3 Austrian pre-dreadnoughts and the sole Austrian dreadnought burning and dead in the water, waiting to be sunk by the rest of the battle line. By the end of the battle she was moving at a bare 8kts, and listing badly from a torpedo hit from a Austrian light cruiser torpedo attack that was chewed apart by her secondaries, which had been partially put back into action by that point. She was out of action for 8 months, by which point the war had been won.





Question to go with this, anything I could have done to improve these designs? Also I seem to have real trouble keeping my budget under control, and can never manage to build more then 2 battleships at a time, or 1+ some lighter ships. Tip muchly appreciated.

[wolfpack]

I say go with the hero ship doctrine you have going make super high quality ships that are a pain to sink be the mainstay of the fleet with a back up class off lesser ships drop guns to maintain armor and speed it's better to be fast and tough but punch lighlty then to be slow and weak and punch like a beast