CL designs over 10000 ton´s and 3in belt.

[senpaifu]

Right now. CL´s can only be build with up to 6-in armament,
a max belt of 3-in and up to 10000 ton´s of displacement (after 1928).
In my opinion these limitations should be changed.

Why?: 
    - with 10000 tons of displacement you cannot build a CL that is both fast and protected against its own guns and still have the utility demanded of an CL.
    

    - "just build it as a CA"
      while Cl´s and CA´s historically, due to treaty restrictions, were rather similar, in RTW2 they are not.
      In RTW2 a CA can be a 10-in armed monster displacing up to 19900 ton´s 
      so, just building your 6 in cruiser as a CA is stupid !
      who wants to fight a "cruiser battle", against a 10-in cruiser, with a 6-in cruiser ?

What i would like to see:
    - after 1920 Cl´s should be build up to 10000 ton´s, 6-in guns and 4-in belts.
    - after 1928 Cl´s should be build up to 13000 ton´s, 7-in guns and 6-in belts. 
    - CA´s should no longer be build to 19900 ton´s
       i would lower that to 18000 ton´s
       building a 4x4 gun 10-in cruiser (~1935) that is well protected, fast and has plenty of utility is a bit nuts. 



      
    

[rimbecano]

Feb 22, 2020 3:12:34 GMT -6 senpaifu said:

while Cl´s and CA´s historically, due to treaty restrictions, were rather similar, in RTW2 they are not.

Part of the problem here is that the game conflates armored and heavy cruisers (which the USN did historically in using the CA designation for heavy cruisers). Historically, *armored* cruisers and CLs were two entirely different types. "Heavy cruiser", on the other hand, was just the heavier end of the CL type until the London treaty drew an artificial distinction within the type. In fact, the US Pensacola class and the first half of the Northampton class were originally designated as CLs, as the London treaty was not yet in force. I believe the British considered the pre-Washington Hawkins class to be CLs when first built, I'm less certain about the County and York classes, which were built post-Washington but pre-London. The Japanese called their light cruisers "keijunyõkan" and their heavy cruisers simply "junyõkan", so I'm inclined to wonder if they weren't all "junyõkan" until the London treaty was signed. (That should be an o-overbar, not o-tilde, but my phone isn't giving me o-overbar).

Without either treaty, we probably would have just seen non-British light cruisers grow into the 15000 ton, eight inch range (possibly toward 10-inch, 20000 ton by WWII, if not into the 12-in range, like Alaska) while still being called CLs, which would have put the British in a pickle as they couldn't build enough cruisers of that size to meet their colonial needs, which was the whole reason they pressed for the London treaty in the first place, to limit the number of 8-inch cruisers everyone else could build, and to further limit the allowable size of 6-inch cruisers. CLs built as destroyer leaders would probably have gotten their own designation (as they already did in some navies), and when anti-aircraft CLs became a thing, they probably would have been classified as DLs.

who wants to fight a "cruiser battle", against a 10-in cruiser, with a 6-in cruiser ?

Well, the British certainly didn't :-). But there's nothing that guarantees that a 6-in cruiser won't face off against a CA, or even a 20-in BC or fast BB in a cruiser battle, just because it's designated as a CL. My mid-game cruiser strategy is all about getting enemy 6-in CLs into fights with my 8-10 in CAs. The CLs that I do build are for anti-destroyer and AA work, and I make sure that they're faster than enemy CAs.

[mobeer]

Extra belt armour would be very useful. It would be nice to armour a light cruiser to be adequately protected to keep out 4" and 5" destroyer guns.

[mjm4444]

I'd like to second the CL displacement suggestion, especially seeing as the largest class of CL's weighed 11900 t standard displacement.

[nobody]

I don't see a reason to increase the displacement limit (we don't even know what kind of displacement that is! normal, standard, full, construction etc.), but the 3 inch belt armor limit is silly. It is insufficient even in 1900! Plus ships like Cleveland had what, a 5 inch belt?

The fact that the game does not distinguish between protected, unprotected, small and light cruisers on the one hand, and armored, large and heavy cruisers on the other hand, does not help either. Except for battlecruises which have other annoying and varying limitations imposed on them.

[smrfisher]

The ship design displacement is full displacement.

[aeson]

May 26, 2020 9:14:17 GMT -6 nobody said:

Plus ships like Cleveland had what, a 5 inch belt?

Cleveland is an example of a 'light' cruiser which is a heavy cruiser in pretty much everything but name, just like every other US Navy light cruiser that was built after the 1930 London Naval Treaty and wasn't part of the Atlanta-Oakland and Juneau classes, the Japanese Mogami class as built, the British Town classes of the 1930s, or the Italian Duca degli Abruzzi class.

The historical 1930s-1940s cruisers that the game's light cruisers are meant to model are the ones that aren't effectively just heavy cruisers with 6" instead of 8" guns. For example: the American Atlanta-Oakland and Juneau classes; the British Leander, Arethusa, and Dido classes; the Japanese Katori, Agano, and Oyodo classes; the German Konigsberg and Leipzig classes and probably also the cancelled M class and the Spahkreuzers; the Italian Capitani Romani and Condottieri classes with the exception of the Duca degli Abruzzi group; the French Jean d'Arc and Emile Bertin; or the Dutch Tromp, Java, and De Zeven Provincien classes and De Ruyter.

[protomolecule]

CL tonnage limitation goes to 12000tons. Happened in my last game, although I don't remember the exact year.