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Post by L0ckAndL0ad on Feb 24, 2020 10:52:17 GMT -6
As far as I know, the list which I copied earlier is the definitive account of the impact of long range, since it came second - hand from Fredrik himself, and I've never heard it contradicted; therefore, unless you're either operating in a zone with inadequate basing (in which case your destroyers need to be either long ranged or rotated) or working on TP to intercept and thwart raiders, there is no other benefit to be gained from long range. However, you make an interesting point about speed - tuned engines; I'll have to keep an eye out for that. Oh, yeah, of course I meant the cases when the ship travels over areas with insufficient basing. Happens to me sometimes, when ships are going on detours when ordered to move several areas. Mine often go via SoPac or Europe when transit to Southeast Asia, for example. As for speed-tuned engines affecting presence, this is just my hunch. This could also be the result of enemy having less destroyers and cruisers and the game balancing it out. I'm not really sure what's been happening behind the scene. As for the question of quality vs quantity - most players would agree that the game in the current state favours the former over the latter. That said, destroyers tend to appear in large numbers, meaning that a numerical superiority is more likely to be felt to a greater extent in combat. That carries two major advantages: first, superiority of firepower; second, superior redundancy. No matter how big it is, a destroyer hit by the sort of bombs commonly used in the mid 1940s (or - god forbid - a torpedo) is likely to be disabled or sunk, so having fewer but less capable ships means you lose less combat power per hit. From a strategic point of view, they tend to be lost and badly damaged at a higher rate than other types of ships, (whereas in a typical battle, the majority of cruisers and larger ships will not be so badly damaged as to be confined to port afterwards) so it's useful to have more. Yeah, with bigger aerial bombs (especially AP), better torpedoes and +1 guns with newest AP ammo, only battleship grade protection can offer some degree of safety. Even then, a lucky hit may very well be a critical one. Also, even if the ships get damaged but not sunk, they'll be unavailable for some time due to need of repairs. That being said, the bigger the ship, the harder it is to sink. Crew experience + good Damage Control tech + decent tonnage + Unit machinery = survivability. If you do the math, you may find that at certain speeds, a 1,600 ton design will give you more HAA firepower per dollar than a 2,000 design. All else being equal, a greater number of 1,600 ton destroyers would also provide greater deck space for MAA and LAA as well as a greater number of targets, though in practice this may not be true, because as you said the heavier double mounts which can be better afforded on such displacements conserve deck space. Either way, I believe that four 1,600 ton destroyers likely going to be harder to kill than three 2,000 ton destroyers, for the above reasons. Certainly a very large destroyer would be necessary if you wanted to make use of the long range you've already put on most of your capital ships, so I would seriously consider such a very heavy option. Uhm. For your first argument re: HAA - maybe. For the second re: MAA/LAA - it should not be compared the same way as HAA, because it only works for the ship it's on, so the more the better. Larger amount of MAA/LAA mounts spread over larger force does not produce better protection for singular ships. As for your argument that 'if this was any other navy, sure' - there's a profound and interesting debate to be had there. For my part, I believe that, in war, quality is the poor man's substitute for quantity. Whether or not the battle generator reflects this at present is an open question that I'm currently looking into, but at the very least, I feel that if quantity is not currently as desirable as it should be for a rich navy, then it is even less desirable for a poor one. Well, it depends, I guess. If you have to match ship for ship in some cases, then it's gonna be different. But it rarely goes this way, or there's no actual need to match enemy's numbers. However, as my CVLs showed, they are less cost effective than bigger CVs. I'm not entirely sure about "medium" CVs (~35.000 tons) vs supercarriers, though. Especially in missiles era. In the particular case of destroyers, vanilla speed curves make it quite prohibitive to make larger vessels go fast (if I recall correctly) so you may find that much of the extra displacement on your 2,000 ton ship is going into horsepower, especially without speed focused engines. For these reasons, I would suggest that you at least throw together a ~ 1,600 ton design to compare with the others; since there are already so many proposed variants, surely one more wouldn't hurt! Oh, yeah. Here you go. Here's the Allen M. Sumner I ended up going with. 1900 tons @ 34 kts, 7.4 mil USD per ship. And this is almost exactly what you were asking for, except for engine tuning. Here's the thing. Making my Allen M. Sumner go 1 knot faster (35) increases the total costs by 20%! I decided to settle with 34 kts because of that. That's just too much for one knot.
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Post by L0ckAndL0ad on Feb 24, 2020 11:23:44 GMT -6
Japan strikes again! November 1944This is kinda embarrassing. Japanese managed to surprise attack Pearl Harbor once again. This happened while ALL of my heavy cruisers were away for refit (EO FCS, mostly). Japanese used two forces: Carrier Force struck from 150 nm, and then went further west, escaping my reach. Japanese Main Force comprised only outdated cruisers, covered by 1 CV and 2 CVLs. My fast BBs were present and managed to decimate their assaulting force. Japanese Carrier Force was not touched, however. I've lost CV Yorktown in the harbor area. CV Hornet and Enterprise were damaged, as well as both of my North Carolina class battleships. They've lost only a handful of worthless CAs, 1 CV and 2 CVLs. Technically, the combat resulted in Minor USA victory. Strategically, I think I lost. They will enjoy local force superiority for several months, and that's good enough for them to be considered as a "win". VPs awarded for this battle: USN 11251, Japan 7684. That's more than they ever achieved in total during the previous war, actually. Japan now has 7 CV (+ 1 building), plus 7 CVLs. One of their new CVs, Taiho class, is a very decent design: 32k tons @ 33 kts, 95 a/c, 6.5'' belt, heavy AA armament. The one they're building is a second Taiho class. USN currently has: 2 Yorktown class CV, 3 Fly class, 6 Essex class (+ 3 more building), for a total of 11 flat tops. Only 9 are currently operational, and only 2 are in the Pacific right now. CVLs wise, I'm still having 4 Indies, 2 per ocean (Pacific/Atlantic).
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Post by L0ckAndL0ad on Feb 24, 2020 14:57:28 GMT -6
February 1945Ehm.. I'm not even sure how to put it... I guess it's easier to list all the events in the order of them happening. - Germany invades Greece in January 1945.
- USA finally declares war on Germany.
- Japan shifts majority of its forces to Southeast Asia where USN only has several destroyers and corvettes and launches the invasion of Hainan.
- Ad hoc combined task force of USN and RN ships (2 CL 6 DD) fails to prevent the invasion of Hainan by IJN (2 BC 4 CV plus various escorts). Allies lose 2 CL and 4 DD, while sinking 4 enemy transports during their unloading.
- Axis powers call for white peace.
- Allied politicians ACCEPT the peace treaty. Germany leaves Greece, while Japan retreats from recently invaded Hainan.
- War ends just after four months!
- ....
- No profit?! Except for helping out Greece, I guess?
Ugh... These politicians are so frustrating....
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Post by generalvikus on Feb 25, 2020 21:30:43 GMT -6
You can always edit the save to turn the wars back on!
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Post by L0ckAndL0ad on Mar 1, 2020 9:19:28 GMT -6
April 1949I'm at war for 22 months now, against Germany and Soviet Union. I'm having a case of severe war weariness (me personally, not in game), so I'll keep it short. USN has 18 fleet and 4 light carriers, with 13/2 of them operating in the Atlantic. Germany operates 12 11 fleet carriers and 4 CVLs. Soviets have 7 fleet and 5 light carriers, which is a weird thing to say out loud. Other ships are more or less non-factor now. Enemy carriers stay in Northern Europe, supported by lots of land based air. I pay them visits occasionally. Biggest problem is that Scout Force sucks most of the heavy cruisers during carrier battles and they frequently go far enough away from each other to lose mutual AA support at some points, until I re-position them again. I have to decline many smaller battles near enemy shores, and lose VPs for that for some reason (which is weird, because they're suicidal cruiser missions). But my recent carrier duel gave me some decent VP bonus. Small description of the battle. I had 6 CVs, 300 nm West of Norway. My first strikes at dawn targeted four closest enemy airbases, with limited results, though, it seems. Then I switched to attacking enemy carrier force of 5 CVs with some heavy escorts, 180 nm away, closer to Norwegian shores. They kept on coming, both in terms of strikes and surface forces, but I managed to keep all of my ships alive and evaded their surface attackers. I feel like if all of my heavy cruisers were on station within Carrier Force, I would've been able to cover my carriers much effectively. But whatever... German CV that was sunk was of Grünow class fleet carrier, 32k tons displacement, rated for 100 a/c. A good kill. Took 2 torpedo and 5 1400 lb AP bomb hits to sink. We're now at 12.8k vs 4.4k VP-wise. The enemy proposed a white peace recently, but this time President was convinced to keep fighting. Not sure how long it'll last this time.
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Post by L0ckAndL0ad on Mar 1, 2020 10:53:01 GMT -6
January 1950The war was going well, until it ended with me gaining... nothing. I guess it's a good time to end this AAR. Here are the losses of various navies over the course of the last 30 years. United States Navy: 3 CA 1 CV 12 DD 12 KE Royal Navy: 2 CL 2 DD Kriegsmarine: 7 CA 1 CL 1 CV 4 AMC 4 DD 5 KE Soviet Navy: 4 CL 2 DD 3 KE Imperial Japanese Navy: 1 BB 7 CA 4 CL 4 CV 3 CVL 1 AMC 1 AV 3 DD 3 KE I'm retiring with USN having in its inventory a total of 6 fast battleships, 18 fleet and 4 light carriers, 26 heavy and 12 light cruisers, 140 destroyers, 54 corvettes, 77 submarines, and 2268 Navy aircraft. Unfortunately, the fascists weren't defeated. Our politicians have failed us with their appeasement policies. This AAR is concluded, but we can still have Q&A if there are any questions.
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Post by L0ckAndL0ad on Mar 1, 2020 12:45:06 GMT -6
A word on my cruisers/carrier escorting overall experience in 1.17.
5 inch DP light cruisers are worthless in surface combat. I made 50+ hits on outdated, barely armored enemy CL and it was able to run away from me nonetheless. 6 inch light cruisers are good at dealing with enemy light cruisers, however. But going DP on 6'' is not advisable, because in carrier battles you need a LOT OF AA AMMO. Going with bigger DP secondary battery is a better option instead. I was glad with the performance of my 8'' heavy cruisers against battleships in training scenarios, also.
Biggest problem I faced was that Scout Force takes away a lot of CAs, leaving carriers mostly with CLs. And you can't be sure if your BBs go to form the Main Force or join carriers in their own force. Ultimately, I think that fast battleships are a waste of money, and good CAs with heavy (16-20 or even 24 5'') DP secondary battery is absolutely sufficient to win over the enemy. CAs can survive aerial attacks when properly protected by TPS and have "Unit machinery" setup not to become sitting ducks.
If I had an option to disable Main Force and Scout Force in battles with my carriers present, I'd do so gladly. But before then - bringing light cruisers to ensure decent amount of cruiser escorts in Carrier Force is a key.
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