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Post by vvwulfen on Mar 16, 2021 13:11:50 GMT -6
Hello all. Could I get some feedback on my B and CA designs please. also, how do the "Superstructure" and "CACX3" tick boxes effect ship design? On B St4 is ticked but nothing on my CA? My Setup options Germany 1900 Fleet size - Very small Non historical resources Research rate - 50 Standard technology Harsher peace deals No AI advantage Slow Aircraft development Maximum airbase size - 60 Manual build legacy fleet. ![]()   |
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Post by wlbjork on Mar 16, 2021 14:15:29 GMT -6
Superstructure allows you to draw superstructure for your ship to appear on the design. The tick box determines whether is is a line or a solid outline.
If you look at the B, you have three light grey pieces of superstructure that will be St1, St2 and St3, and are intended - I believe - to represent above deck structures. St4 refers to the line that comes down from the bows, almost to the stern and returns, and can be considered to be a section where the deck itself is raised.
The CA has only 2 sections of superstructure and are all solid.
Your "CACX3" - which looks to me like "CA0X6" - is a strange and changing designation. I suspect it has something to do with the internal design classification. The section itself however, deals with the funnels with a tick in the box using oval funnels in place of round funnels.
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Post by vvwulfen on Mar 16, 2021 14:18:50 GMT -6
Superstructure allows you to draw superstructure for your ship to appear on the design. The tick box determines whether is is a line or a solid outline. If you look at the B, you have three light grey pieces of superstructure that will be St1, St2 and St3, and are intended - I believe - to represent above deck structures. St4 refers to the line that comes down from the bows, almost to the stern and returns, and can be considered to be a section where the deck itself is raised. The CA has only 2 sections of superstructure and are all solid. Your "CACX3" - which looks to me like "CA0X6" - is a strange and changing designation. I suspect it has something to do with the internal design classification. The section itself however, deals with the funnels with a tick in the box using oval funnels in place of round funnels. Much appreciated, may thanks, sir. |
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Post by hawkeye on Mar 16, 2021 14:51:13 GMT -6
As for the designs: B -Ammo is on the low side. With the early firecons, you won't hit a lot and 100 shells per gun is probably not enough to sink a similar opponent -Belt armor is also a bit weak. Sufficient currently but could become a problem later on, when AP tech improves - depending on how long you want to use the class. -VERY fast, which is a good thing, but that also makes them quite expensive. Not sure I would go for 21 knots, I usually go for 19 or, at the most, 20 knots for legacy Bs Other than that, it looks fine. CA -Ammo is _definitely_ too low. The smaller guns have a higher ROF and you _will_ run out of ammo halfway through a fight -Why are you building the CA not domestically? The 10" guns isn't much of an improvement over the 9" but quite a bit heavier and while the 7" _is_ an improvement over the 6", it is also quite bit heavier _and_ is more likely to give you a flashfire/magazine explosion. Personally, I'd build it domestically and change the armament to: 4 x 9", 16 x 6" and 16 x 4" As for ammo in general, my rule of thumb for minimum ammo-loads is 11/12" - 125 9/10" - 145 7/8" - 160 5/6" - 175 Anything smaller - 200 And if you have some tonnage left and don't know what to spend it on, adding a little more is never a bad thing  |
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Post by vvwulfen on Mar 16, 2021 15:19:59 GMT -6
As for the designs: B -Ammo is on the low side. With the early firecons, you won't hit a lot and 100 shells per gun is probably not enough to sink a similar opponent -Belt armor is also a bit weak. Sufficient currently but could become a problem later on, when AP tech improves - depending on how long you want to use the class. -VERY fast, which is a good thing, but that also makes them quite expensive. Not sure I would go for 21 knots, I usually go for 19 or, at the most, 20 knots for legacy Bs Other than that, it looks fine. CA -Ammo is _definitely_ too low. The smaller guns have a higher ROF and you _will_ run out of ammo halfway through a fight -Why are you building the CA not domestically? The 10" guns isn't much of an improvement over the 9" but quite a bit heavier and while the 7" _is_ an improvement over the 6", it is also quite bit heavier _and_ is more likely to give you a flashfire/magazine explosion. Personally, I'd build it domestically and change the armament to: 4 x 9", 16 x 6" and 16 x 4" As for ammo in general, my rule of thumb for minimum ammo-loads is 11/12" - 125 9/10" - 145 7/8" - 160 5/6" - 175 Anything smaller - 200 And if you have some tonnage left and don't know what to spend it on, adding a little more is never a bad thing Many thanks for the feedback sir. I will start another game and re-design them taking your advice into account. They are fast as I intended them to last some time as I save every penny for newer tech etc. I do wish there was a save game ability during legacy fleet construction. Starting a new game every time you make a mistake at this stage is not very user friendly |
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Post by aeson on Mar 16, 2021 15:24:30 GMT -6
21 knots is quite fast and expensive for a predreadnought battleship, especially one forming part of the legacy fleet; 18-19 knots would be more typical. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you are more likely to find yourself at a numerical disadvantage because of it, especially since your CA also isn't cheap.
Using 7" (or heavier) secondary guns leaves your ships vulnerable to a potentially ship-killing critical hit, and so for them I would be inclined to call three or four inches of armor at best marginally adequate.
7" guns are not well-suited to engaging destroyers - especially small, early-game destroyers - and will probably concentrate fire on heavy targets, so your battleship might prove to be a bit vulnerable to destroyers and perhaps also light cruisers in battle. On the other hand, early-game torpedoes tend to be relatively unthreatening, your battleship is relatively fast, and you'll hopefully have escorts, so this may not be a significant issue until the ship's nearing the end of its useful service life. The armored cruiser may also have issues with destroyers as at this early stage of the game 5" guns are more of a compromise between anti-cruiser and anti-destroyer performance than a gun you take because you specifically want to engage destroyers with it; it may be better off with a larger battery of 4" or even 3" guns, especially as an eight-gun tertiary battery only gives you four guns on each broadside.
I personally feel that ~100 rounds per gun is a bit light for main battery ammunition stowage, especially on the cruiser; nonetheless, as it is likely comparable to the ammunition stowage on many of the computer's legacy ships it should not be entirely inadequate.
As you are playing Germany, it may be worth considering using Short Range and Cramped Accommodations to save a bit of cost or tonnage on your designs; your colonial empire isn't very important, your three main opponents share your home sea zone, and Italy, Japan, and the USA are inconvenient opponents due to basing issues and distance, so the drawbacks of short range and cramped accommodations are relatively minor.
Speed probably isn't a good way to give an early-game battleship a longer service life; high speed is very expensive in both tonnage and money, and a fast predreadnought battleship will be little more use in an engagement between dreadnoughts than a slow one would have been, especially if the slower battleship had meaningfully superior armor protection, or if you could've had three slower battleships for every two fast battleships you actually built.
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geroj
Junior Member
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Post by geroj on Mar 16, 2021 15:32:36 GMT -6
Hello all. Could I get some feedback on my B and CA designs please. also, how do the "Superstructure" and "CACX3" tick boxes effect ship design? On B St4 is ticked but nothing on my CA? My Setup options Germany 1900 Fleet size - Very small Non historical resources Research rate - 50 Standard technology Harsher peace deals No AI advantage Slow Aircraft development Maximum airbase size - 60 Manual build legacy fleet. ![]() View AttachmentView Attachment21 knot battleship and 23 knot CA ...Fisher would be proud |
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Post by vvwulfen on Mar 17, 2021 12:59:11 GMT -6
I have now updated my ship designs taking into account the feedback.  |
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Post by hawkeye on Mar 17, 2021 22:42:08 GMT -6
Only two things I'd do different personally: 1. Secondary armor is (IMO) needlessly strong. Secondary guns of up to 6" can't detonate, so I rarely go above 3" if armor on them. 2. I'd use the freed tonnage to up the 3" tertiary battery to 4", since I find the 3" to be pretty useless, even vs. early DDs and maybe try to get the deck-extended to 2" to make it splinter-proof? Oh, ok, make that 3 things You have 132 tons of tonnage free. While having a bit of tonnage (around 30 tons seems to be a good number) left over is good, since it allows you to add better firecons once you develop them, 130 is a bit much on a legacy ship (later on, it can pay off, as it allows you to add AAA on capital ships or mines to DDs and CL but pre-dreads are _very_ unlikely to still be in service by that time), so you can either reduce the overall tonnage a bit, add half an inch of armor somewhere or (my personal preference) add some submerged torpedo tubes (later on I don't like them on capital ships, but early on, combat ranges are very short, so they come in handy every once in a while) |
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Post by dorn on Mar 18, 2021 2:55:27 GMT -6
Relating to that ship, my experience is that 2" of deck armour 1.5" on extended part is waste of tonnage and better use elsewhere. During pre-dreadnought period and early dreadnought period the gunfire is relatively short range and deck penetration is really very low. So even 1" of deck protect ship against penetration. Certainly there can be penetration of splinters but that chance is still very low. So some comprimesis there does not decrease protection so much but it does save quite a lot of tonnage up to several hundreds of tons that can be used elsewhere. Pre-dreadnoughts has very short life and their usefulnes in battle ends as soon as you have enough dreadnoughts which is around 1907-10. After that pre-dreadnoughts can be still useful but mainly as support vessels and coastal patrols in distant areas or supporting invasions. For such tasks usually most important is medium range and costs, so having large pre-dreadnoughts are not cost wise. For such reason I would lower your deck armour, thinking to distributing it elsewhere or making ship smaller and thus cheaper. Some other ideas: a) upgrading 5" guns to 6" guns to get them more punch b) upgrading 3" guns to 4" guns to get them more punch versus destroyers c) increasing thickness of exteded part of belt as 3" of armour does not protect even against armoured cruisers and damage on extended parts can slow ship, make a lot of flooding lowering her ability to continue fighting d) using flat top on deck armour scheme and slightly increase belt armour to cover more space (pre-dreadnoughts are usually disabled not by penetrating citadel but destroying superstructures, fires etc.) e) casemates armour as mentioned by hawkeye as for 5" guns it is quite heavy armoured. If you upgrade guns to 6", it can have some sence to have more armour but main question you should give yourself is "Against which guns do I protect secondary battery?" |
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geroj
Junior Member
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Post by geroj on Mar 18, 2021 2:56:57 GMT -6
I really hate torpedo tubes on large ships because one hit and you have large hole under the water line and its not that rare to get hit there
3" BE is really thin for dred, any gun above 5" is going to poke a hole into it
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Post by rodentnavy on Mar 19, 2021 3:32:15 GMT -6
I really hate torpedo tubes on large ships because one hit and you have large hole under the water line and its not that rare to get hit there 3" BE is really thin for dred, any gun above 5" is going to poke a hole into it The thing is though that while your point makes real world sense in the game I for one find having the radius for torpedo range really useful for letting me know when my ships must take precautionary manoeuvres. Odd I know because there are a lot of ships I would happily strip out the torpedoes on especially as player ones rarely fire against live enemies (though sometimes you get lucky) but knowing when you are in the torpedo threat zone is too useful to give up. |
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Post by wlbjork on Mar 19, 2021 4:38:08 GMT -6
I really hate torpedo tubes on large ships because one hit and you have large hole under the water line and its not that rare to get hit there 3" BE is really thin for dred, any gun above 5" is going to poke a hole into it I find it pretty rare that hits to torpedo flats do in fact cause major damage. However, there is a way to have your cake and eat it in this case: have a single submerged torpedo tube in the bow. |
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Post by eaterofsuns on Mar 19, 2021 8:38:28 GMT -6
I really hate torpedo tubes on large ships because one hit and you have large hole under the water line and its not that rare to get hit there 3" BE is really thin for dred, any gun above 5" is going to poke a hole into it I find it pretty rare that hits to torpedo flats do in fact cause major damage. However, there is a way to have your cake and eat it in this case: have a single submerged torpedo tube in the bow. I used to be of the same mind on submerged tubes, but then I broke down and tried captains mode and massive early torpedo spam, and had tons of fun. Early guns suck, torpedo flat hits don't seem any more likely with 6 submerged tubes than 2, and early damage control is so stinking bad that a single torpedo can doom a CA or a B.
My Italy game that I tested with featured B's with 2 tubes, proto-BC CA's with 6 tubes, and fairly cheap CL's with 6 tubes. I hardly even bothered with DD's. I managed to get an early war going with Britain, and even with historical budgets I could match them well. I would spend a couple of months under blockade, have a big fleet battle where I murdered a couple of B's with torpedo spam and then have a month or two of respite from the blockade. All the while my surface raiders were tearing up northern Europe. Between the raiding and the ever increasing VP imbalance from going 4 or 5 to 1 in capital ship losses, I ended up winning with a 20 point total collapse and owing nearly the whole med in 1905.
All that said, I wouldn't add submerged tubes to designs much after 1905, once DD's start getting good capital ships are too vulnerable when maneuvering dangerously close to the opposing lines, and CL speeds start climbing beyond 25kts.
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