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Post by seawolf on Jun 14, 2020 20:52:15 GMT -6
Historically, one of the major parts of fleet logistics was supplying heavy ammunition. If you were the French, and had 8, 12, 13, 13.5, and 15 inch guns it was harder to supply your ships than say the Americans, with only 8, 14 and 16 inch guns.
It would be cool if for guns over a certain caliber, say 8" and up, having similarly armed classes helped you, and differently armed classes hurt ships. Say, a slight increase in maintenance and decrease in ammunition for having more than maybe 4 differently armed heavy ship classes
This would give incentive to the historic trend of keeping your ships similarly armed
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Post by aeson on Jun 15, 2020 0:51:19 GMT -6
the Americans, with only 8, 14 and 16 inch guns. Arkansas might have a bone to pick with you over this claim; its duties in the '30s might have mostly been relegated to training cruises and gunnery exercises, but - unlike Wyoming and Utah - it retained its full armor and armament throughout the Treaty period and, like many of the US Navy's other old battleships, would go on to provide naval gunfire support for a number of amphibious assaults in the Second World War. Once you include Alaska and Guam, which decommissioned into the reserves at about the same time as the 14" battleships and very slightly outlasted the last of them bar Texas in terms of when they were scrapped/expended as targets/sunk, there's not really any period where the US Navy has to worry about providing 8", 14", and 16" but not 12" shells to its major warships.
It's also worth mentioning that it is not necessarily the case that two ships using the same caliber of gun can use the same shells - for instance, Colorado and North Carolina both carried 16"/45s, but the 2,700-pound 16" AP Mark 8 shells issued to North Carolina were too long and too heavy for the shell handling equipment on Colorado, and I wouldn't be surprised if something similar were true for Arkansas and Alaska, which both carried 12"/50s, as the 12" AP Mark 18 issued to Alaska was 1,140 pounds whereas the 12" AP Mark 15 issued to Arkansas was only 870 pounds. Whose logistics are more complicated is a more involved question than a simple survey of major gun calibers in service at any given time would suggest.
Beyond that, there is a potential game balance issue with this in that it would most likely disproportionately affect weaker powers if implemented realistically, because economies of scale would suggest that providing a production chain capable of supplying a given amount of ammunition to each of two battleships armed with 15" guns is relatively more expensive than providing a production chain capable of supplying the same amount of ammunition to each of ten similar battleships armed with 15" guns, and on top of that wealthier powers are more likely to develop 'desirable' guns earlier and can more likely afford to replace ships armed with 'undesirable' guns sooner than poorer powers; thus, the powers with the most money are the least likely to be affected. I would also question whether the game really needs any further incentive to standardize gun calibers, as between the inflexibility of the ammunition doctrine settings and the desirability of having tactical uniformity within formations there's little good reason to use dissimilar calibers on contemporary classes, especially later in the game as battleships and battlecruisers become more and more interchangeable.
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Post by polygon on Jun 16, 2020 12:45:25 GMT -6
the Americans, with only 8, 14 and 16 inch guns. Arkansas might have a bone to pick with you over this claim; its duties in the '30s might have mostly been relegated to training cruises and gunnery exercises, but - unlike Wyoming and Utah - it retained its full armor and armament throughout the Treaty period and, like many of the US Navy's other old battleships, would go on to provide naval gunfire support for a number of amphibious assaults in the Second World War. Once you include Alaska and Guam, which decommissioned into the reserves at about the same time as the 14" battleships and very slightly outlasted the last of them bar Texas in terms of when they were scrapped/expended as targets/sunk, there's not really any period where the US Navy has to worry about providing 8", 14", and 16" but not 12" shells to its major warships.
It's also worth mentioning that it is not necessarily the case that two ships using the same caliber of gun can use the same shells - for instance, Colorado and North Carolina both carried 16"/45s, but the 2,700-pound 16" AP Mark 8 shells issued to North Carolina were too long and too heavy for the shell handling equipment on Colorado, and I wouldn't be surprised if something similar were true for Arkansas and Alaska, which both carried 12"/50s, as the 12" AP Mark 18 issued to Alaska was 1,140 pounds whereas the 12" AP Mark 15 issued to Arkansas was only 870 pounds. Whose logistics are more complicated is a more involved question than a simple survey of major gun calibers in service at any given time would suggest.
Beyond that, there is a potential game balance issue with this in that it would most likely disproportionately affect weaker powers if implemented realistically, because economies of scale would suggest that providing a production chain capable of supplying a given amount of ammunition to each of two battleships armed with 15" guns is relatively more expensive than providing a production chain capable of supplying the same amount of ammunition to each of ten similar battleships armed with 15" guns, and on top of that wealthier powers are more likely to develop 'desirable' guns earlier and can more likely afford to replace ships armed with 'undesirable' guns sooner than poorer powers; thus, the powers with the most money are the least likely to be affected. I would also question whether the game really needs any further incentive to standardize gun calibers, as between the inflexibility of the ammunition doctrine settings and the desirability of having tactical uniformity within formations there's little good reason to use dissimilar calibers on contemporary classes, especially later in the game as battleships and battlecruisers become more and more interchangeable.
I have a quibble with the idea that BCs and BBs become interchangable in the late game. Early BCs evolve into fast battleships and replace both roles, yes; but I've found great success with maintaining a group of ~20kt ton, 11-12" gunned Dunkirks/Alaska/Baby Scharns. They're about half the price of a late game 16" armed fast battleship, but still perform the original "hunt cruisers, screen the fleet, annoy the enemy BBs" role of BCs admirably. |
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Post by aeson on Jun 16, 2020 13:48:21 GMT -6
~20kt ton, 11-12" gunned Dunkirks/Alaska/Baby Scharns. A ~20,000t ship is hardly any more comparable to a ~30,000-ton (standard) Alaska than it is to a ~32,000-ton (standard) Scharnhorst, and even Dunkerque's about six thousand tons bigger than that by standard displacement.
As to the value of such ships, I consider them marginal for the cost. If you want a big cruiser hunter-killer, a ~15,000t CA with eight or nine 9" or 10" guns is more than good enough to beat pretty much any CA that the computer will build and costs less than a ~20,000t BC with eight or nine 11" or 12" guns would; if you want a distraction for enemy battleships to shoot when your carrier force blunders into them, a battlecruiser that's built like a battleship would be much more resilient and far more threatening while a ~15,000t CA would be cheaper and unlikely to die all that much faster. Additionally, the battle generator tends to match like classification against like classification, so from the 1930s onwards a 20,000t "battlecruiser" armed with eight or nine 11" or 12" guns is liable to go up against ships that are more than half again its displacement and carry a similar number of 14" or 15" or 16" guns, placing it at a serious disadvantage despite the computer's tendency towards relatively thin capital ship armor unless it has a friend or two backing it up while the opponent does not. Such ships are not unusable, but I'd much rather have one ship that can fight a peer-by-classification opponent on equal terms than two ships that cannot.
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Post by thorthemighty on Jul 7, 2020 8:52:17 GMT -6
Historically, one of the major parts of fleet logistics was supplying heavy ammunition. If you were the French, and had 8, 12, 13, 13.5, and 15 inch guns it was harder to supply your ships than say the Americans, with only 8, 14 and 16 inch guns. It would be cool if for guns over a certain caliber, say 8" and up, having similarly armed classes helped you, and differently armed classes hurt ships. Say, a slight increase in maintenance and decrease in ammunition for having more than maybe 4 differently armed heavy ship classes This would give incentive to the historic trend of keeping your ships similarly armed The French didn't use 13.5s they used 13.4s. The British used 13.5s. |
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Post by aquelarrefox on Sept 4, 2020 17:25:34 GMT -6
~20kt ton, 11-12" gunned Dunkirks/Alaska/Baby Scharns. A ~20,000t ship is hardly any more comparable to a ~30,000-ton (standard) Alaska than it is to a ~32,000-ton (standard) Scharnhorst, and even Dunkerque's about six thousand tons bigger than that by standard displacement.
As to the value of such ships, I consider them marginal for the cost. If you want a big cruiser hunter-killer, a ~15,000t CA with eight or nine 9" or 10" guns is more than good enough to beat pretty much any CA that the computer will build and costs less than a ~20,000t BC with eight or nine 11" or 12" guns would; if you want a distraction for enemy battleships to shoot when your carrier force blunders into them, a battlecruiser that's built like a battleship would be much more resilient and far more threatening while a ~15,000t CA would be cheaper and unlikely to die all that much faster. Additionally, the battle generator tends to match like classification against like classification, so from the 1930s onwards a 20,000t "battlecruiser" armed with eight or nine 11" or 12" guns is liable to go up against ships that are more than half again its displacement and carry a similar number of 14" or 15" or 16" guns, placing it at a serious disadvantage despite the computer's tendency towards relatively thin capital ship armor unless it has a friend or two backing it up while the opponent does not. Such ships are not unusable, but I'd much rather have one ship that can fight a peer-by-classification opponent on equal terms than two ships that cannot.
does the game increase the mantenance of the fleet for having varied calibers guns in the fleet? In thery should have a more complex logistic chain |
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Post by dia on Sept 4, 2020 17:43:26 GMT -6
does the game increase the mantenance of the fleet for having varied calibers guns in the fleet? In thery should have a more complex logistic chain No it doesn't. I once had a campaign where I built ships with 12", 13", 14", 15", 16", and 17" guns (I think it was back when gun development was slower and granted the lesser armed ships weren't really part of the battle line anymore). Didn't really think about how ridiculous it was until too late. So no it doesn't, but it should. |
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