Name Fix

[navalperson]

Is their a way for the auto generator for ship names if it’s a destroyer of the V15 class let’s say only generate a name with a V as the first letter and then go in order of the ship of that class last produced. The reason I bring this up is for Germany not sure what other nations have this but since the destroyers as number named the auto generator like’s to skip a number so you could have the V27 class and order 3 and have 27,29,30 but not 28 even though 28 hasn’t been used as well as giving maybe the V27 class a ship called G8. Don’t meant to rant just was curious if anyone has come across this and find it a little confusing with sorting destroyer classes.

[aeson]

The letter prefixes on the large (ocean-going) torpedo boats, or destroyers, of the Imperial German Navy indicate the builder, and as the ships are typically grouped according to the specification to which they were built it is not historically inappropriate for a single 'class' of German destroyers to contain vessels with two or three different prefix letters. For example, the V1 or Type 1911 torpedo boats include V1 through V6 and G7 through G12, built for the 1911 program, and S13 through S24, built for the 1912 program, as well as a second V5 and a second V6, added to the 1912 program to replace the initial V5 and V6 after those vessels were sold to Greece.

Regardless, if you would like to use a single letter and sequential numbering system for all ships of a given class, the easiest way to do so would be to open XShipNames.dat, delete all the names between [DD] and whatever the next entry is, and change the entry after [DDPrefix] to whatever you want the prefix to be; if there is not a [DDPrefix] block, create one and it should work. If you want to reset the hull number each time you change prefixes, there is a counter in RTWGame#.bcs in each [Nation#] block; the player nation is [Nation0], and I believe that the counter you want is DDNumber=N, where N is whatever the hull number of the next generically prefixed destroyer should be.

[wlbjork]

Historically, ships do get numbered out of sequence. Sometimes it's to be misleading, other times it's due to orders being cancelled.

[navalperson]

Thanks for the clarification didn’t know that the prefix was the builder just thought it was part of the class name. Is their a historical reason why they weren’t named in order?

[rimbecano]

Apr 21, 2021 5:19:11 GMT -6 navalperson said:

Thanks for the clarification didn’t know that the prefix was the builder just thought it was part of the class name. Is their a historical reason why they weren’t named in order?

Well, in Aeson's example with the Type 1911 class, they *were* named in order (except for the last two that we're replacements for boats that had been sold). It's just not an order you or I would consider logical. Note that there's a complete sequence from 1 to 24, just with different starting letters according to builder.

It's somewhat, but not exactly, like the way that CV and CVN in the US navy use the same numbering sequence (though I don't think there's been a non-nuclear fleet carrier in quite a while).

[rimbecano]

Another example comes from aviation: Since the F-18, the only US fighters introduced (AFAIK) have been the F-22 and F-35.

[wlbjork]

Apr 21, 2021 5:19:11 GMT -6 navalperson said:

Thanks for the clarification didn’t know that the prefix was the builder just thought it was part of the class name. Is their a historical reason why they weren’t named in order?

Quite simply to make enemies/potential enemies think a class is bigger than it is. After all, if they have a V-21, V-22, V24 and V-25 surely there's a V-23 as well? Plus it's generally less painful to slightly over-estimate than under-estimate an enemy.

This could happen with all military formations.

There are other possibilities as well, for example during WW2 British military aircraft were given their mark numbers during development. If they weren't then ordered into production, the aircraft would still retain that mark number - the Hawker Tempest is a very notable example of this, with the Tempest V (Sabre II engine) being in production before the Tempest II (Centaurus IV engine); whilst the Tempest I (Sabre IV engine), Tempest III (Griffon IIB engine) and Tempest IV ((Griffon 61 engine) were not ordered.

[aeson]

Apr 21, 2021 7:35:45 GMT -6 wlbjork said:

Apr 21, 2021 5:19:11 GMT -6 navalperson said:

Thanks for the clarification didn’t know that the prefix was the builder just thought it was part of the class name. Is their a historical reason why they weren’t named in order?

Quite simply to make enemies/potential enemies think a class is bigger than it is. After all, if they have a V-21, V-22, V24 and V-25 surely there's a V-23 as well? Plus it's generally less painful to slightly over-estimate than under-estimate an enemy.

As far as I am aware, the Imperial German Navy for the most part used a single sequence for the hull numbers of its main series of torpedo boats, with the main exceptions being in the 1880s (which seems to be before the naming convention was fully set) and after 1911 (when the sequence was reset to 1 and many of the remaining older vessels were redesignated in a T series for small / coastal torpedo boats or taken out of service). I do not believe that any numbers in this sequence were intentionally skipped.

Also, superstition can be another reason for a number to be skipped - for example, there's no F-13, YF-13, or XF-13 in the American Tri-Service Aircraft Designation System.

Since the F-18, the only US fighters introduced (AFAIK) have been the F-22 and F-35.

F-20 was assigned to a further development of the F-5 which never went into production, F-21 was assigned to some Kfirs which were purchased by the US for dissimilar air combat training, and (Y)F-23 was assigned to the Northrup/McDonnel-Douglas competitor to the Lockheed-Martin F-22.

[director]

And don't forget that sometime in the early 100's (post-F-111) the US reverted back to zero, hence the F-4 coming later than the F-104.
Ships frequently are renumbered when reclassified or rebuilt, as with the cruiser conversions to guided missile ships.

But most likely if the numbers aren't sequential it is because they were ordered sequentially but built and commissioned out of order.
Anyway, the DD-Prefix section of the ship name file is what you want. RtW will also number new construction with the hull numbers of sunk or scrapped ships, which can be a little confusing.

[rimbecano]

Apr 21, 2021 10:00:54 GMT -6 director said:

And don't forget that sometime in the early 100's (post-F-111) the US reverted back to zero, hence the F-4 coming later than the F-104.

And then you've got the fact that the Navy had an entirely different scheme before the numbers were restarted. (The F4H and F8U, as well as the AD and A4D, "coincidentally" ended up with Tri-service designations very close to their original Navy designations. Fun fact, and probably more of an actual coincidence, if the Navy scheme had been continued, the Tomcat would have been the F14F).

The F-111 was the last fighter numbered "properly" under the old USAF numbering. Everything after that was either a Soviet aircraft being used for analysis and for dogfight training against the real thing, or a secret project misnumbered for secrecy (the F-117 designation apparently covered two separate types, both secret projects, though only one went into actual production).