Ship Types - CA vs. BC

[cwemyss]

So I'm finally getting to the late game, with zero treaty restrictions, and I have a couple questions about the heavier end of the Cruiser family.  I understand the term "Heavy Cruiser" didn't really come into use until the London treaty, but that's basically what I'm trying to build:  bigger punch and better armor than a CL, but less expensive and quicker to build than a BC so I could put more in service.  In the ship designer I usually start with a blank BC template ("clear all") and go from there... put on 3 x 3 8-10" guns, I don't remember which I was messing with, it definitely wasn't BB main gun size; put on a bunch of 5" secondaries, give it 29 or 30 knot speed and adequate armor, then reduce the displacement to the minimum to handle all that.  I ended up somewhere around 16-17000 tons.

I don't remember the break point, but at some point I shrunk it far enough that the game suggested (required) changing the designation to CA in order to save it.  I was ok with that, I've always thought these were super cool ships: Baltimore Class (CA-68).  And this way I'm ready to put missile launchers on it for the upcoming expansion that ties RTW to CMANO.  :-)

It did lead me to a few questions about how the game handles CA and BC types, since the 1905-style CA was pretty thoroughly obsolete by 1920.

Question 1:  In generating combat scenarios, are CA and BC types treated differently?  Lets say I have a 16000-ton CA in an area, along with a CL and a few DDs.  Am I going to get different missions than if I have a 17000-ton BC with the same light forces?

Question 2:  Once the combat is entered, are CA and BC inherently any different?  Assuming identical armor design, other than the displacement difference is a 16k-ton CA weaker or stronger than a 17k-ton BC?  Is the armor assumed to be distributed differently and so incoming fire isn't treated the same, or are there differences assumed in ship stability or sea-keeping, that sort of thing?

[Sven]

Armoured Cruiser (CA)
Displacement must be more than 4000 and
speed greater than 19 knots. It must have more
than 2 inches of belt armour but no more than
12 inches. Main guns must be at least 6 inches
calibre and cannot be more than 10 inches.

Battlecruiser (BC)
Must have main gun calibre larger than 10
inches and speed more than 23 knots, or three
main gun turrets and speed more than 21
knots. In some borderline cases armour
thickness can be the difference between a BC
and a BB. Speed requirement rises with time, as
fast battleships develop.

from the 1.10v2 manual (appendix 1)

[Fredrik W]

1. For mission generation, BC and CA are in most cases treated as the same.

2. The only way they are treated differently in combat is in some size dependent characteristics like turn radius and speed loss from turning. Also BC suffer somewhat less from the sea state. The main difference is how the AI treats them, where it will generally assume that CA are more fragile than BC.

[cwemyss]

Aug 10, 2015 9:23:01 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

1. For mission generation, BC and CA are in most cases treated as the same.

2. The only way they are treated differently in combat is in some size dependent characteristics like turn radius and speed loss from turning. Also BC suffer somewhat less from the sea state. The main difference is how the AI treats them, where it will generally assume that CA are more fragile than BC.

Awesome... so it sounds like there's no penalty for being a "cruiser" instead of a "battlecruiser", and you get them several months faster.

Thanks for answering so quick!

[gornik]

Aug 10, 2015 9:47:28 GMT -6 cwemyss said:

Aug 10, 2015 9:23:01 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

1. For mission generation, BC and CA are in most cases treated as the same.

2. The only way they are treated differently in combat is in some size dependent characteristics like turn radius and speed loss from turning. Also BC suffer somewhat less from the sea state. The main difference is how the AI treats them, where it will generally assume that CA are more fragile than BC.

Awesome... so it sounds like there's no penalty for being a "cruiser" instead of a "battlecruiser", and you get them several months faster.

Thanks for answering so quick!

I think, sort of penalty is main calibre. From my experience difference between 10 in and 11 in is more than between, say, 9 in and 10 in. So 11 in BC has good chance to cripple or even sink B/early BB staying afloat, while 10 in CA may do this only with very good luck. And battle between such ships surely will occur in favour of BC unless she is one of that British thin-skinned "pyrotechnic ships"

Also if there are some "true BC" in fleet, I usually see CA appear with B and BB, where they are much less effective, while BC form independent scout force.

[hschuster44]

In my German campaigns (see KM thread) I tend to use the historic CA Blücher design, amended to colonial service, for my most important overseas stations. Until 1918 that seems ok in order to cope with most surprises and other foreign ships related to raiding.  

[dang]

Aug 10, 2015 9:47:28 GMT -6 cwemyss said:

Aug 10, 2015 9:23:01 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

1. For mission generation, BC and CA are in most cases treated as the same.

2. The only way they are treated differently in combat is in some size dependent characteristics like turn radius and speed loss from turning. Also BC suffer somewhat less from the sea state. The main difference is how the AI treats them, where it will generally assume that CA are more fragile than BC.

Awesome... so it sounds like there's no penalty for being a "cruiser" instead of a "battlecruiser", and you get them several months faster.

Thanks for answering so quick!

Sure there's no penalty, but don't forget the battlecruiser obsoletes the old heavy armored cruiser concept pretty hard. Even a light 1908 battlecruiser will tear contemporary CAs to shreds. Late game I like building "heavy light cruiser" CAs that are fast enough (30 kts) to escape a cruising BC but can kill CLs easily. I believe that's what happened to the CA historically as well.

[cwemyss]

Right, that's what I was after too. Just wanted to make sure there isn't an inherent penalty for calling it a "CA" instead of a "BC".

[cwemyss]

So new problem... not a bug exactly, but still frustrating. I've got a 7-year treaty limiting all ships to 15000 tons and 10" guns. When I design a 15000 ton ship with 10" guns and reasonable 1903 armor, I've got enough tonnage left over that I could have a 20-knot ship. But pre-dreadnoughts can't be 20 knots... so the designer re-IDs it as a CA. If the treaty lasts a couple years, but I haven't got enough centerline turrets to build a BB, I'm going to be REALLY frustrated.

Might be worth tweaking that particular event so that the gun size is limited to 11 inches, not 10 inches. The extra tonnage on armament prevents fitting enough horsepower to get to 20 knots in a pre-dread.

[gornik]

Aug 15, 2015 21:00:15 GMT -6 cwemyss said:

So new problem... not a bug exactly, but still frustrating. I've got a 7-year treaty limiting all ships to 15000 tons and 10" guns. When I design a 15000 ton ship with 10" guns and reasonable 1903 armor, I've got enough tonnage left over that I could have a 20-knot ship. But pre-dreadnoughts can't be 20 knots... so the designer re-IDs it as a CA. If the treaty lasts a couple years, but I haven't got enough centerline turrets to build a BB, I'm going to be REALLY frustrated.

Might be worth tweaking that particular event so that the gun size is limited to 11 inches, not 10 inches. The extra tonnage on armament prevents fitting enough horsepower to get to 20 knots in a pre-dread.

Hmm, strange. I built several 20 knot legacy pre-dreads, and 15kt, 10", 20 knot ship I just designed treated as B...


Can you post your design to see, what's wrong with identification?