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Post by oldpop2000 on May 27, 2020 13:58:40 GMT -6
The Russian Design bureau requested a more practical design for production. Ask and Ye shall receive.
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lucur
Junior Member
Posts: 72
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Post by lucur on May 28, 2020 6:36:34 GMT -6
How do AoN BCs do for you? Do you use them as line ships? I tend to buid BCs with lighter guns, save on belt armor a bit and give them speed and reliable engines so they get away from BBs and big gun BCs and eat everything else up. This does require some BE armor though, so AoN is out of the question for these guys.
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 28, 2020 8:48:43 GMT -6
How do AoN BCs do for you? Do you use them as line ships? I tend to buid BCs with lighter guns, save on belt armor a bit and give them speed and reliable engines so they get away from BBs and big gun BCs and eat everything else up. This does require some BE armor though, so AoN is out of the question for these guys. You have assess where your battlecruisers are going to be used. Unfortunately the AI puts them into a separate combat formation as independent. But BC are primarily for scouting for the fleet until the advent of floatplanes and carriers. I don't build BC after the advent of lighter or heavier than air. My airships do the scouting until the heavier than air aircraft are in production. Basically, speed is critical with a battlecruiser, so you might try speed instead of reliable. AON is important. Remember the weakness of all ships is the ammunition storage. If it takes a hit, the ships gone, so IMHO protect it as much as possible and machinery also. If the ship can't move, it is just a target.
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Post by brygun on May 28, 2020 9:10:53 GMT -6
Two more Russian ship designs for the Council of Labour and Defense to examine and approve. Comments: Carrier: = No conning tower armor. We assign the Kaptains we do not like very much. = Over 100 planes. Repeat of the effeciency going down. However I will add that is AFAIK about staging times which is only a small component of the cycle time for attack groups. On the limit of strike size Im often using sequential strikes and various patterns anyway so thats not too much of detrement. In this game we end up with battle groups limited by the number of carriers. In such a system having oversized carriers actually has benefits. I usually dont go past 100 planes on a carrier myself with that being as a player preference. = Carrier speed 31 knots. Real world fast carriers were a thing though actually the need for that reduces with the invention of catapults and ski jumps. A slightly heavier catapult can add +3 knots to launch speed while taking that speed off the whole ship means a huge tonnage savings. Even if it was linear the 10(?) ton airplane is only a fraction of a percent of the size of a 40,000 ton carrier. Battleship: = Secondary are triple 5" changing to dual 5" allows for dual purpose = Not a fan of the late game big hulls but that is a preference and certainly worth of experimenting.
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Post by brygun on May 28, 2020 9:13:44 GMT -6
The Russian Design bureau requested a more practical design for production. Ask and Ye shall receive. On the turret armor: My general guideline is inches of armor equal to gun caliber (mine or expected to meet) with turret top 1/3 round up to halves. In this scheme I rarely if ever lose a ship to turret explosions. In this case 16" turret armor and 5.5 top. If this is late game you might want turret armor at 7.5 or 8 to stop the next level of AP bombs. Also... As presented your turret armor is 11" which is thinner than the belt of 15.5". Thats a bit odd.
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 28, 2020 10:36:56 GMT -6
Two more Russian ship designs for the Council of Labour and Defense to examine and approve. Comments: Carrier: = No conning tower armor. We assign the Kaptains we do not like very much. = Over 100 planes. Repeat of the effeciency going down. However I will add that is AFAIK about staging times which is only a small component of the cycle time for attack groups. On the limit of strike size Im often using sequential strikes and various patterns anyway so thats not too much of detrement. In this game we end up with battle groups limited by the number of carriers. In such a system having oversized carriers actually has benefits. I usually dont go past 100 planes on a carrier myself with that being as a player preference. = Carrier speed 31 knots. Real world fast carriers were a thing though actually the need for that reduces with the invention of catapults and ski jumps. A slightly heavier catapult can add +3 knots to launch speed while taking that speed off the whole ship means a huge tonnage savings. Even if it was linear the 10(?) ton airplane is only a fraction of a percent of the size of a 40,000 ton carrier. Battleship: = Secondary are triple 5" changing to dual 5" allows for dual purpose = Not a fan of the late game big hulls but that is a preference and certainly worth of experimenting. I will add conning tower armor but heavy armor isn't necessary. As a carrier it will stand off a distance and launch its aircraft. That's how carriers are used. They don't get into gun fights. Carriers must have speed to launch aircraft as the aircraft weight increases with time due to changes in engines, bomb loads, fuel, etc. They will need the speed. Some of my carrier designs were just for fun, not entirely serious. I like 100-120 aircraft as the carrier design research improves. I try, during actual games to build ships with a balance of armor, speed and firepower but it depends on the mission or missions for the ships. Each ship type will be somewhat different, but strive for balance.
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Post by epigon on May 28, 2020 12:56:11 GMT -6
What would be the role of this ship? It has 12x16 inch with 150 rounds per gun, the firing of which would take a rather long action time. Meaning a large battle with a lot of targets available. The problem is that the ship simply can`t remain under fire for the time needed to fire these rounds. Everything past 9 inch guns can cripple the engines due to a 8.5 belt, even at long ranges, not to mention the 2.5 inch deck. Turret armour doesn`t protect against heavy guns and would lead to a high chance of turret loss or even flash fire. The ship is exorbitantly expensive yet would only be good at hunting cruisers, in an era of aircraft domination. It has a rather weak secondary battery for a 55k capital ship - I guess MAA and LAA are substantial, though. Armouring secondaries with just 1 inch of armour makes little sense in-game. They are still vulnerable to splinters and direct hits by practically all guns. In-game, glass cannon philosophy should go full way. Either armour the ship to be resistant only to (heavy) cruiser guns in typical engagement ranges, or to be capable of resisting its own guns and making a true fast battleship. 9-11 inches of armour protects against no heavy guns yet is largely superfluous when engaging cruisers. The same is true for guns - 16 inch is not needed for cruiser hunting, nor are 150 rounds per gun needed for glass cannons.
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 28, 2020 14:04:55 GMT -6
What would be the role of this ship? It has 12x16 inch with 150 rounds per gun, the firing of which would take a rather long action time. Meaning a large battle with a lot of targets available. The problem is that the ship simply can`t remain under fire for the time needed to fire these rounds. Everything past 9 inch guns can cripple the engines due to a 8.5 belt, even at long ranges, not to mention the 2.5 inch deck. Turret armour doesn`t protect against heavy guns and would lead to a high chance of turret loss or even flash fire. The ship is exorbitantly expensive yet would only be good at hunting cruisers, in an era of aircraft domination. It has a rather weak secondary battery for a 55k capital ship - I guess MAA and LAA are substantial, though. Armouring secondaries with just 1 inch of armour makes little sense in-game. They are still vulnerable to splinters and direct hits by practically all guns. In-game, glass cannon philosophy should go full way. Either armour the ship to be resistant only to (heavy) cruiser guns in typical engagement ranges, or to be capable of resisting its own guns and making a true fast battleship. 9-11 inches of armour protects against no heavy guns yet is largely superfluous when engaging cruisers. The same is true for guns - 16 inch is not needed for cruiser hunting, nor are 150 rounds per gun needed for glass cannons. This ship, if actually had control would be a good raider although a little expensive for that mission, a good fleet scout force or independent fleet ship.
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Post by aeson on May 28, 2020 14:26:17 GMT -6
2" would be preferable for full protection against splinters, but 1" is still some splinter protection and the practical difference in protection against direct hits from enemy guns between 1" and 2" of armor is very minor - especially since something like this probably wants to fight around 20,000 - 25,000 yards going by the turret armor, where the guns against which the difference between 1" and 2" armor matters to direct hits barely if at all reach. I've used magazine box protection with similar levels of belt and deck armor on battlecruisers and fast battleships before and it's worked out well enough for me that I don't expect it to be particularly problematic for oldpop's Komintern class - though I will say that I tend to use it on smaller ships than this.
Also, while Magazine Box isn't ideal, dropping it from something like this without saving tonnage somewhere else means increasing the design displacement up to around 75,000 tons, and increasing the turret face armor to at least match the belt probably pushes that closer to 80,000 tons (though the tonnage cost for increased turret armor could probably be made up by dropping the main battery ammunition stowage to ~130 rounds/gun, which should still be plenty for most major engagements). Building one or two such ships would likely strain the budget even for the USA, and oldpop's playing the USSR - a middle-ish tier power with an expected budget maybe half that of the USA by this stage of the game.
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 28, 2020 14:51:16 GMT -6
One reminder, you cannot build a perfect ship or airplane. If you are trying then you are on the wrong planet trust me. But I believe that its a matter of trading armor for speed and firepower especially in the age of aviation. These ships are more vulnerable to aviation, than other ships.
I am currently using the old Russian game that I quit, as a building game. When I get all the nations to various timeframes, I will quit those games but keep them to build ships. It is really fun for me. I am coping these old games and putting them in another copy on my notebook. Its great fun.
I think splinter protection is vital and I am going to research it in my naval architecture and warship books to educate myself.
Update: in my book on British destroyers they talk about .25 inch plates to protect the main armament guns crews from splinter. They also used splinter mattresses around the Bridges, transmitting stations and light AA guns.
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Post by epigon on May 28, 2020 16:13:02 GMT -6
Here is something I snipped out of Nihon Kaigun. I like it because it's format and the weighting of each factor for battleships. I thought we could use this as a criteria for judging our ships. I put the link so all could review the details on each factor. www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htmDon't want to be a spoiler, but this is a terrible table, IMO. Littorio's Terni Cemented is at least equal to British Cemented, and they were followed closely by only marginally inferior German Cemented. Italian Homogenous was right at the top as well. American BB cemented armour plate was terrible due to too deep hardening, while Japanese was inferior, being roughly equal to 1920 British one. American Cruiser armour was best - while the Italians varied the hardened layer depth and achieved very good results in cruiser armour as well. Scaling effect doomed US BB cemented plate, Italians varied the cemented layer depth with plate thickness and avoided US scaling effects as a result. US Homogenous was top, so was German. The Americans ships had the advantage of lavish use of de facto armour grade steel (STS) as structural steel in the ships, as opposed to everyone else going cost cutting or strategic alloy savings route, so this shouldn't be discounted. The American designs, in particular SoDak, were arguably far ahead of others on a per-ton basis. Italian ship belt was the only one to incorporate the decapping 70 mm plate sufficiently spaced from main, angled 280 mm plate to ensure successful decapping and yaw induction, and backed by 2 spaced anti-splinter bulkheads. Putting Yamato's 410 mm angled belt and 200 mm deck as only slightly superior to Iowa or SD protection is bizarre. Not to mention putting Italian 381 mm railguns as inferior to German, French and British guns? I am aware of the quality control issues with ammunition, but it was a site issue, not system/design, and it was not universal, but incidental to one manufacturing plant. I simply can't understand how does Richelieu score better than Littorio in terms of protection (excluding TDS) and armament.
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 28, 2020 16:19:49 GMT -6
Here is something I snipped out of Nihon Kaigun. I like it because it's format and the weighting of each factor for battleships. I thought we could use this as a criteria for judging our ships. I put the link so all could review the details on each factor. www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htmDon't want to be a spoiler, but this is a terrible table, IMO. Littorio's Terni Cemented is at least equal to British Cemented, and they were followed closely by only marginally inferior German Cemented. Italian Homogenous was right at the top as well. American BB cemented armour plate was terrible due to too deep hardening, while Japanese was inferior, being roughly equal to 1920 British one. American Cruiser armour was best - the Italians varied the hardened layer depth, and avoided US scaling effects. US Homogenous was top. The Americans ships had the advantage of lavish use of de facto armour grade steel (STS) as structural steel in the ships, as opposed to everyone else going cost cutting or strategic alloy savings route. More importantly, Italian ship belt was the only one to incorporate the decapping 70 mm plate sufficiently spaced from main, angled 280 mm plate to ensure successful decapping and yaw induction, and backed by 2 spaced anti-splinter bulkheads. Putting Yamato's 410 mm angled belt and 200 mm deck as only slightly superior to Iowa or SD protection is bizarre. Not to mention putting Italian 381 mm railguns as inferior to German, French and British guns? I am aware of the quality control issues with ammunition, but it was a site issue, not system/design, and it was not universal, but incidental to one manufacturing plant. I simply can't understand how does Richelieu score better than Littorio in terms of protection (excluding TDS) and armament. No problem, I deleted the post. We move on. Thanks. P.S. www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm
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Post by epigon on May 28, 2020 16:37:08 GMT -6
2" would be preferable for full protection against splinters, but 1" is still some splinter protection and the practical difference in protection against direct hits from enemy guns between 1" and 2" of armor is very minor - especially since something like this probably wants to fight around 20,000 - 25,000 yards going by the turret armor, where the guns against which the difference between 1" and 2" armor matters to direct hits barely if at all reach. I've used magazine box protection with similar levels of belt and deck armor on battlecruisers and fast battleships before and it's worked out well enough for me that I don't expect it to be particularly problematic for oldpop's Komintern class - though I will say that I tend to use it on smaller ships than this.
Also, while Magazine Box isn't ideal, dropping it from something like this without saving tonnage somewhere else means increasing the design displacement up to around 75,000 tons, and increasing the turret face armor to at least match the belt probably pushes that closer to 80,000 tons (though the tonnage cost for increased turret armor could probably be made up by dropping the main battery ammunition stowage to ~130 rounds/gun, which should still be plenty for most major engagements). Building one or two such ships would likely strain the budget even for the USA, and oldpop's playing the USSR - a middle-ish tier power with an expected budget maybe half that of the USA by this stage of the game.
2x4x16 or 3x3x16 glass cannon of 31 knot can be built at half the displacement. Protection from cruisers and splinters. I believe I managed to build a 2x4x16 AB late BC of that layout at just over 24 000 t. Murders cruisers, relying on speed, FC and training to overwhelm enemy BCs (acquiring range and straddling them sooner) and even offers long range support behind BBs in fleet actions. Something that reaches to 20-25k yards won't be bothered by a 8.5 inch belt, or 2.5 inch deck, or even 5 inch deck and turret top. When facing 15+inch armed ships with late AP tech, having 8,9,10,11 inch protection might be even detrimental compared to having 2 inch anti-splinter - they might overpen or passthrough; while the medium armor will not stop them. A 55k ton, 200k ship is a huge investment which could potentially blow up from a single turret, turret top or magazine deck penetration, IMO. PS: oldpop2000 Apologies, didn't mean it that way, I should probably express myself better next time.
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Post by aeson on May 28, 2020 17:35:24 GMT -6
Something that reaches to 20-25k yards won't be bothered by ... even 5 inch deck and turret top. My experience is that ~5 inches of deck armor is sufficient for gunnery engagements out to ~25,000 yards against the guns you'll actually see in the game, and the in-game armor penetration tables support that: The 17", 18", 19", and 20" tables are included because I had access to them, but seeing as the computer pretty much never builds a ship armed with such weapons in the unmodded game I don't see any good reason to worry about them unless you're running with a mod that causes that to happen, and seeing as 5" deck armor is enough to exclude 15", 16", and even 17" shells out to about 25,000 yards I very much doubt if any lighter heavy gun would be a significant issue for it.
Those tables are from a 1963 save state with full research.
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 28, 2020 17:42:01 GMT -6
2" would be preferable for full protection against splinters, but 1" is still some splinter protection and the practical difference in protection against direct hits from enemy guns between 1" and 2" of armor is very minor - especially since something like this probably wants to fight around 20,000 - 25,000 yards going by the turret armor, where the guns against which the difference between 1" and 2" armor matters to direct hits barely if at all reach. I've used magazine box protection with similar levels of belt and deck armor on battlecruisers and fast battleships before and it's worked out well enough for me that I don't expect it to be particularly problematic for oldpop's Komintern class - though I will say that I tend to use it on smaller ships than this.
Also, while Magazine Box isn't ideal, dropping it from something like this without saving tonnage somewhere else means increasing the design displacement up to around 75,000 tons, and increasing the turret face armor to at least match the belt probably pushes that closer to 80,000 tons (though the tonnage cost for increased turret armor could probably be made up by dropping the main battery ammunition stowage to ~130 rounds/gun, which should still be plenty for most major engagements). Building one or two such ships would likely strain the budget even for the USA, and oldpop's playing the USSR - a middle-ish tier power with an expected budget maybe half that of the USA by this stage of the game.
2x4x16 or 3x3x16 glass cannon of 31 knot can be built at half the displacement. Protection from cruisers and splinters. I believe I managed to build a 2x4x16 AB late BC of that layout at just over 24 000 t. Murders cruisers, relying on speed, FC and training to overwhelm enemy BCs (acquiring range and straddling them sooner) and even offers long range support behind BBs in fleet actions. Something that reaches to 20-25k yards won't be bothered by a 8.5 inch belt, or 2.5 inch deck, or even 5 inch deck and turret top. When facing 15+inch armed ships with late AP tech, having 8,9,10,11 inch protection might be even detrimental compared to having 2 inch anti-splinter - they might overpen or passthrough; while the medium armor will not stop them. A 55k ton, 200k ship is a huge investment which could potentially blow up from a single turret, turret top or magazine deck penetration, IMO. PS: oldpop2000 Apologies, didn't mean it that way, I should probably express myself better next time. No apologies needed, it wasn't that important and maybe we can evaluate ships with our own data. Let's keep moving and enjoying building ships.
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