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Post by golingarf on Aug 11, 2021 12:11:05 GMT -6
These are in no particular order, but the second one is the most important.
1. Quick-Firing Guns.
RATIONALE: At present, 2" guns are worthless and never used, 3" guns are highly questionable, and 4" guns are still inferior. Smart players simply pick the biggest available guns that won't cause an unacceptable risk of flash fires.
My understanding is that the low ROF of small guns in RTW is based on historical data from real combat, which showed that the high theoretical ROF of quick-firing guns was rarely obtained. While correct in its broad strokes, this overlooks the important point that such guns were indeed capable of high ROF for short periods of time, and the tactical consequences of this are enormous: specifically, close-range torpedo runs which would have been suicidal IRL are commonplace in RTW, to the point that DD:s are the main weapon against early battleships, and MTBs have to be limited to prevent spamming.
I will assume that the current system roughly represents the average rate of fire that might occur in combat (I haven't looked into this, but I assume it is based on sound research) and suggest a method of simulating the brief periods of rapid fire that could nevertheless occur, especially at very close range. This could provide actual motivation to choose small guns, as well as making super-aggressive torpedo runs less attractive.
SUGGESTION: When an enemy ship is hit or straddled by light guns (up to 6") at up to a range of about 2000, said guns should be able to enter "quick firing" mode. This means that, for the next 1-2 minutes, the following happen:
(1) ROF dramatically increases; say 10X for 2", 6X for 3", 4X for 4", 3X for 5", 2.3X for 6" guns. (These numbers come from my ass, and are only offered by way of example. Probably, this should be normalized such that 2" and 3" guns can briefly obtain, respectively, the approx. 30/minute and 20/minute theoretical ROFs quoted e.g. here: www.gwpda.org/naval/brassey/b1901o08.htm. But I don't know what the current rate of fire in game actually is except that it it much lower. The multiplier might also increase with gun quality.)
(2) Fire control becomes "local-only." (This large number of shots can't be kept track of, so the director cannot adjust the guns.)
(3) At the end of the 1-2 minutes, fire control has to reset, starting over with ranging shots.
SIDE EFFECT: Whereas historically, 6" guns were chosen for CL:s because they had a higher ROF in short range engagements (especially at night) than 8" guns, this isn't acually the case in RTW currently. (Edit: or at least, the ROF difference is insignificant.) With this rule, you might actually want to build CL:s with 6" instead of being forced to, so the arbitrary rule that connects the ability to use 8" guns to a particular armor scheme could be eliminated. 2. Please create an "Unbalanced Battles" game option.
RATIONALE: The battle generator currently tries to set up battles with equal numbers of ships, and then has a random chance of increasing the ships available if one side has superior numbers, and of giving an additional ship to the AI.
I don't like this for the following reasons:
I. It flattens design choices, rendering a Japanesey strategy of building superior ships in every class clearly the best one. If there were actually a tradeoff between quality and quantity, cheaper ships might be worth considering. But there isn't. It's barely an exaggeration to say that the following is a recipe for winning most everything but fleet battles: Step 1, build much better cruisers than the enemy; Step 2, maneuver those cruisers toward the enemy; Step 3, when the enemy's ships are sunk, click "exit."
What's worse, having older or cheaper ships around actually hurts you! It stops your real ships from appearing in battles. This motivates you to find ways of getting ships not to appear, such as setting them on TP or scrapping them. Scrapping 8 year old ships just so they won't stop better ships from showing up doesn't make me feel good about the game.
II. It hurts the AI very badly. The AI tends to build large amounts of quite imperfect ships. It's easy to defeat them over and over again in roughly equal-sized engagements. This isn't right: I shouldn't be able to play Japan and whittle down GB in one roughly equal engagement after another, simply by declining fleet battles or fighting in SEA. It's also boring.
III. It's not how war is. Going into an engagement, I don't want to know if I'm facing a smaller force, an equal force, or an impossibly superior force. Retrograde actions should be a thing.
SUGGESTION: When "Unbalanced Battles" is selected in game options, it should have the following two effects:
(1) Instead of (roughly) fixing a number and selecting that number of ships at random, the battle generator should give every ship which could participate a chance (either an equal chance, or see the additional suggestion) of appearing, possibly generating additional divisions in the process. This would result in battle groups with an average size in direct proportion to the number of ships in an area of a given type, but with considerable variance. Having more ships would not hurt a given ship's chances of being used.
(2) In the event that one side has a huge advantage (e.g. 3:1 or more) in ship types above a certain level in a given sea zone, that side's higher level ships should be able to appear in lower maxshiptype battles as though they were lesser ship classes. (But also, see the additional suggestion.)
For example, If you have 4 BB, 8 BC, 1 CL, 15 DD in an area versus the enemy's 1 BC, 4 CL, 4 DD, you shouldn't end up constantly fighting battles with just that 1 CL against the enemy's CL:s. Instead, in this situation, your BC:s should be available to do things a light cruiser would normally do. The same should be true even if you have 15 CL:s. And the same should be done by the AI to you, if you have the galaxy-brained idea of only building cruisers early on, because battleships hardly show up anyway.
With these rules, the virtue of CL:s would be that you can build a lot of them; without these rules, they are just a thing you have to have a few of (and not more than a few) because the battle generator wants them.
ADDITIONAL SUGGESTION: Even without such an option selected, you might consider adding the following functionality:
(3) Ideally (and I realize this is more work) you should be able to have some greater degree of control over what your ships do than just selecting AF or TP. There should be an intermediate setting for second string service, which increases the likelihood that a second-rate ship will appear in things like coastal defense and convoy defense but decreases the likelihood it will be selected for significant battles. Also, if rule 2 is used, the setting should affect whether a heavier ship takes on light cruiser duties.
Basically, you should at least be able to tell a ship "stay in the battle fleet," "act like a cruiser," or "act like a second-rate ship." These choices should significantly affect the chances of appearing in this or that type of engagement, without guaranteeing anything. 3. Coastal Artillery.
I just want to put in my peanut-gallery vote that I don't think coastal artillery is modeled well. I realize this has been brought up before and tweaks were made, but I don't think it was enough. I often feel like I want to extend battles so that I can steam to the enemy's ports and gun down their batteries; I can't see why one can't just go to an enemy's harbor and bombard his ships in port. I think that the real reason this rarely happened in history is that coastal artillery had superior range and vastly superior accuracy due to a stable platform and the opportunity to pre-plan fires. It also presents a much smaller target than a ship does, and can be better armored, perhaps with concrete. The team correctly notes that coastal artillery was rarely significant in actual battles, but I suspect that's probably just because commanders scrupulously avoided contact with it. Anyway, can it be made moddable if nothing else?
Also, can we have coastal guns of larger than 14" caliber? These were used by multiple powers. 4. I also want to put in my peanut-gallery vote that the AI scrapping ships in the late 1940s and overbuilding land based air is a pretty bad problem. I would actually like a failsafe option to just absolutely prevent the AI from scrapping ships younger than 20 years at all. (Hell, Ronald Reagan insisted the US Navy keep its battleships active in the 1980s, and that was possible because they were mothballed, not scrapped.) 5. I also want to put in my peanut-gallery vote for the possibility of having more than one battle per turn. 6. I also want to put in my peanut-gallery vote for having fleet battles in any sea zone, including colonial regions if opposing large fleets are present, and for having more different battles generally. And, especially, for an updated custom nation/battle editor that allows me to take care of that myself if I want to. Thanks!
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Post by nimrod on Aug 11, 2021 13:23:01 GMT -6
All around good points. QF I would personally limit to 4" and below along with put a pretty significant range limitation in place (8-15% or something of max range not to exceed xxx yards), but the general suggestion I believe is valid. I think this is being partially addressed from what I recall reading in the captain / squadron leaders DLC update. I agree on the limitations of AF, TP, RF, MB status. A post and reply on this can be found at: nws-online.proboards.com/post/77115/thread. I like the unbalanced battle suggestions, bringing in a strategic doctrine setting or fleet aggressiveness setting could tie into your suggestions as well. Historically coastal art was very significant in strategic planning / restricting ship movements as you note; but also generally inferior to a warship during actual battle. From my reading, the low effectiveness was generally due to low levels of funding (use of old guns, ammo, powder, fire control units, etc. that were salvaged from scrapped ships) and the stationing of low grade troops. From a game-play perspective, the art should probably be constructed pretty close to a port and or natural choke point, in peacetime the art should be effectively "MB" with associated low crew quality. Crew quality should probably stay pretty low during a long war - maybe restricted to Fair. Your best sailors and captains will generally be on the ships - some strategic points like Gibraltar, Panama, Malta and Suez might get some very good sailors / troops.
Agree on #4 but the DLC is starting in the 1800's now, so not sure if 20 years is the correct time-frame especially early game with the move from coal to oil...
#5 is generally agreed to by me; a battle option per sea zone has always made sense to me.
The only caveat I have is that big battles though tended to not happen very often, but you do see multiple operations in the same month - Aleutian Islands simultaneously with Midway, or Guadalcanal. I think this is really a question of are the small battles "fun" or "engaging" to the player... I'm hopeful that the new battle auto-reslove might change the developers views on the number of battles (Raider, DD, light cruiser or small coastal raid) that may occur per month.
Agree on #6.
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Post by director on Aug 11, 2021 13:54:59 GMT -6
*It is not important whether or not RtW2 guns fire at the theoretical maximum or not - it is important that they score about as many hits as historical records would indicate. **It is not important whether or not RtW2 guns fire at the theoretical maximum or not - because the AI would blow away its (and your) secondary ammo in a heartbeat and you'd have none left. Changes to the current system as you propose would be harder to program than perhaps you realize.
I just finished an engagement where the French had 9 DDs armed with 6x5" guns and I had 6 DDs armed with 8x4" guns. All 9 French DDs were lost (two to air attack) and I lost two. Once surface torpedo hit was scored in the engagement - on one of my DDs (one of the two he lost to air attack was to an aerial torpedo).
So my experience does not indicate that the 4" gun, properly employed, is always inferior. Prior experience with air attacks indicates to me that a lot of 4" guns (24 per capital ship, 16 per carrier or cruiser and 8 per DD) can provide good AA cover.
More and better battle scenarios is certainly needed, particularly after the introduction of carriers, and I think is in the works. Being able to set up your own OOBs and define mission types (IE, you form the AA cover) is desperately needed, and I think is coming. I strongly agree that the operational part of the game needs a mission-generator that offers options the player can select from, and which give the player the chance to select a response to what he is told the AI is planning. You'd need to model fuel and intelligence gathering and processing, and perhaps have over-used ships go 'in the yard' for minor damage, but it would really 'open up' the most-lacking part of the current game.
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Post by golingarf on Aug 11, 2021 14:34:21 GMT -6
*It is not important whether or not RtW2 guns fire at the theoretical maximum or not - it is important that they score about as many hits as historical records would indicate. **It is not important whether or not RtW2 guns fire at the theoretical maximum or not - because the AI would blow away its (and your) secondary ammo in a heartbeat and you'd have none left. Changes to the current system as you propose would be harder to program than perhaps you realize. I just finished an engagement where the French had 9 DDs armed with 6x5" guns and I had 6 DDs armed with 8x4" guns. All 9 French DDs were lost (two to air attack) and I lost two. Once surface torpedo hit was scored in the engagement - on one of my DDs (one of the two he lost to air attack was to an aerial torpedo). So my experience does not indicate that the 4" gun, properly employed, is always inferior. Prior experience with air attacks indicates to me that a lot of 4" guns (24 per capital ship, 16 per carrier or cruiser and 8 per DD) can provide good AA cover. More and better battle scenarios is certainly needed, particularly after the introduction of carriers, and I think is in the works. Being able to set up your own OOBs and define mission types (IE, you form the AA cover) is desperately needed, and I think is coming. I strongly agree that the operational part of the game needs a mission-generator that offers options the player can select from, and which give the player the chance to select a response to what he is told the AI is planning. You'd need to model fuel and intelligence gathering and processing, and perhaps have over-used ships go 'in the yard' for minor damage, but it would really 'open up' the most-lacking part of the current game. To point 1, I would say two things. *First, historical records would have to be examined for different engagement ranges, and while I haven't looked, I suspect you wouldn't find as many daring torpedo runs in the early 1900s as are commonplace in the game... because small ships have to actually fear, say, the tertiary battery of a B. Therefore, records of the hits might not reveal what would have happened had DD commanders adopted a kamikaze mindset. Right now, 3" guns don't really stop destroyers and I don't think that's right. **The second thing I would say is that it actually does matter if the ammo is depleted. But note that I am only suggesting this happen in a 1-2 minute burst, so it wouldn't be depleted "in a heartbeat" but rather over several close encounters.
Regarding 4" guns being inferior, I think they are clearly inferior to 5" guns against any type of ship. If you have DP on 4" but not 5" that is another story.
Regarding the fuel and intelligence and so on, I would love all that, but I also know it would become a different game, so I am limiting what I ask for. Maybe RTW3 will be all about protecting your actual shipping lanes and managing your merchant marine to ensure the national economy has access to necessary commodities, and will have detailed mission planning including colliers, oilers, and depot ships. I would love to see a game about logistics and operational planning because there are hardly any wargames like that. But RTW2 is what it is and I don't want to ask developers to reinvent it.
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Post by nimrod on Aug 11, 2021 15:00:09 GMT -6
Agreed Director. Suggestions on the low rate of fire on the 2" and 3" guns I think are worth noting. Personally, I don't have any issues with how the 4" and larger guns are implemented. I believe the OP's point is that we don't have a point defense weapon against MTBs or DDs (OP is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong) - historically the threat of the lighter guns was enough to generally keep them at bay and the lighter 2-6" guns generated a lot of interest in developing longer range torpedoes. Your points on ammo are valid. OP noted that the higher ammo rate would be for 1-2 minutes, which in my opinion would address issues of barrel heating, loader exhaustion, ammo supply drainage, etc. On that note, I'll add that I don't even think the 2" gets an autoloader; which really limit its functional usability vs upgraded MTBs. I think his suggested rate of what I'll call emergency fire was high, especially on the 5" and 6" guns. But I think the general idea was very reasonable - approximate autoloading for self-deffense, "just get the blankety blank to turn before it launches torps!". Basically, I read the OP as trying to address the lack of (actual historical) light gun usage by the player and help keep the MTB / DD swarms at bay to get to a more reasoned fleet approach. Regarding historical hit rates, you are not wrong here but I'm not sure you are fully correct... I'll state that a number of varied techs (varied tech option at start of the game) do change the hit rate and or effective range of the guns; so historical hit rates are not a mandate for the game. I will readily agree that historical approximation is a mandate for the base game, but not necessarily for the game as a whole (player has the choice to use varied tech, slow AC development, ships up to 90,000 tons, etc. and they are needed for replay value, experimentation, and general enjoyment). I'll humbly add, I highly suspect that the few key battles that occurred from the late 1890's through WWI were heavily determined by crew and ship conditions. Such that we really don't have a lot of good data to go with pre-WWI hit data, the British in WWI tended to focus on fire rate over accuracy as well which again skews the early data towards high ROF and low hit rates. The developer accurately notes that the fleet gunnery exercises don't give an accurate picture of battle accuracy. As such, I believe that the general hit rates are guesstimated pretty well in the game, but the sub 600 yard hit rate on early (pre-1914) DD's and lets say 1000 yards on later game DDs and MTB's does seem low and game-changing.
Interesting battle you had with the DD's, I hope you don't mind me asking, but what was the time-frame and rough displacements of the ships? I've found that the 4" can be made to work with and against DDs that top out around 1200-1500 tons. I have found the 5" to be pretty ideal for the DD and KE classes. The 4" just don't seem to do enough damage for me against ships above roughly 2000 tons (seen 50+ hits and they escaped at speed)... But that could be because I don't use them properly...
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Post by wlbjork on Aug 11, 2021 23:42:58 GMT -6
The 2" gun is in a very complex area. Consider that the UK fielded the 1 pounder pom-pom (37mm, land use only?), 1.5 pounder pom-pom (37mm, 2 cruisers), the 2 pounder pom-pom (40mm, widespread use), the Hotchkiss 3 pounder (47mm) and the 6 pounder (57mm) all of which can be covered by the 2" calibre.
Of those guns, the 2 pounder pom-poms became the dual purpose guns with the 3 and 6 ponders being used as AA guns but not, as far as I know, dual purpose weapons. In game is the opposite - 40mm calibre weapons are pure AA whilst 2" calibres are pure anti-surface.
The best solution I can think of for now would be to make the 2" guns 6 ponders and have "light AA" become machineguns with "medium AA" becoming pom-poms. Unlocking light AA allows the MGs to be used in the AA role, with dedicated mounts improving their efficiency - and have them upgrade as normal. Pom-poms also unlock much earlier, but aren't useful in the AA role without a suitable mount.
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Post by director on Aug 12, 2021 0:01:28 GMT -6
Yes, but getting the AI (which fires your guns too) to pick out those critical moments could be dicey. We are already seeing the robotic tactical behavior in which the AI will do absolutely anything to stay forward of your beam. Given how often my ships are torpedoed versus how often I can successfully torpedo the enemy, I am reluctant to let the AI decide when to switch my secondaries from slow to fast rate of fire.
I'll just say again that I am more interested in hits scored versus historical records than I am in whether or not the guns 'actually' fire at some theoretical maximum. Before I worry about that I'd like to have flooding damage affect pitch and roll, which the combat system does not do now.
One of the joys of RtW is that there are a lot of ways to achieve the results you want, and with some thinking you can usually come up with a way to win with the techs you have. Properly used, in quantity, the 4" is not inferior in the results it delivers (those are some big 'if's). The problems come when you can't use enough 4" to equal the effectiveness of a smaller number of 5", or when range is absolutely paramount (which hasn't happened to me yet). Given my choice I do prefer the 5" for range, hitting power and because I don't have to use as many of them, also assuming both weapons are + rated and DP. When they are not, the 4" usually is because development seems to run up from 3" to 4" to 5". But as I say the game can be won in a lot of different ways, so I'm happy you have a system that works for you.
The timeframe for that engagement was 1952. I'd not been able to get a 5" autoloading DP + gun, so I went with 8x4" which were all of those (given the enemy was French I assume the 5" they used were autoloaders, but I don't have that info). All ships on both sides were 2000-tonners.
I have been contending for a long time that RtW is a very good strategic and tactical game with no cream filling in the middle. I think it needs and deserves an operational game that lets players make decisions as to what their navies will do, an operational game as good as the strategic and tactical levels. In the operational area, the three resources that seem most important to me are fuel, wear-and-tear on ships and intelligence, so that's what I would concentrate on. I too want the RtW series to become better.
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Post by nimrod on Aug 12, 2021 11:05:38 GMT -6
I'd like to have flooding damage affect pitch and roll, which the combat system does not do now. One of the joys of RtW is that there are a lot of ways to achieve the results you want, and with some thinking you can usually come up with a way to win with the techs you have. I have been contending for a long time that RtW is a very good strategic and tactical game with no cream filling in the middle. I think it needs and deserves an operational game that lets players make decisions as to what their navies will do, an operational game as good as the strategic and tactical levels. In the operational area, the three resources that seem most important to me are fuel, wear-and-tear on ships and intelligence, so that's what I would concentrate on. I too want the RtW series to become better. Thank you for responding.
I would totally agree with what I quote you on.
Interesting DD battle there - thank you again for the details. I'll definitely keep that in mind, I'll likely run some fleet exercises... Honestly, I usually don't get 5" auto-loaders until the late 40's or early 50's, double turrets and DP main armament for DDs usually aren't researched by me until the early to mid 1940's. I just got VT fusing in 1954 in my current Japanese game, which seems to happen fairly often with the lower budget countries - Italy, Japan, etc. The last game was supper weird on the tech side; varied tech quirk 6 and the USA got SAM tech in 1948. My fighters didn't exceed 200 knots until 1947. I'm at the end of the game - Jan 1955 - and I still don't have a plane that exceeds 300 mph, but the USA has retrofitted or built most of my CL and larger ships to have SAMs...
To repeat my earlier post, I do not disagree with your hits over ROF.
I almost wrote something similar to the following in my earlier post; I think it might be of some value here...
I think this is getting into language choices rather than an actual disagreement, at least between us.
I would write what you stated as: I care about maintaining a functional historical relationship. The historical relationship from a ship design standpoint, covers ship speed and displacement with damage output (actual damage output is hits, pen vs armor and HE value) and ability to take damage. The functional historical relationship also covers tactics and how ships respond in battle; such as the launching (and preventing the launching) of torpedoes from light forces, the evolving air-power and AAA doctrines, invasions, submarine & raider usage, how screening & scouting are conducted (range from the primary division - multi-layered screening for ASW and AAA), etc...
The DD spam (along with submarine spam) by players including myself tends to be a bit outside of an acceptable historical relationship, their were proponents of it and their were a few times where they were very good deterrents - both strategically as well as tactically. One thing I have read, wish I could remember where it was to to quote it, basically said that the average torpedo boat captain (pre-1918) was unwilling to conduct close in torpedo attacks given the wall of fire coming from the Bs and CAs along with concerns on being run down by escorting DDs if they were released to pursue. To re-write the paraphrase for new players - coal power plants can provide a short bursts of speed but extended high speed usage was impossible. So to launch a torpedo at close range the attacking ships would use up their burst of speed and be sitting ducks on the egress. As such the DD / torpedo boat captains were much more likely to launch their torpedoes at range and deploy smoke to cover their retreat in an effort to drive off an enemy battle line (capital ship) rather than go in close for a hit.
As wlbjork notes the smaller caliber guns are a tricky area and I like his suggestion. I just don't ever use the 2" guns, AMCs and some dedicated TP ships will get he 3" for light usage, like keeping MTBs away in the Med. I am prone to DD / CL spamming at the start and it tends to runs from a 1900 start until the mid 1920's. As such, AI improvements won't address my gaming the system - some element of the DD vs capital ship dynamic warants changing. Improving the effectiveness of light guns (sub 4") seems like a valid route, and would make those otherwise unloved calibers of some early game use.
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Post by golingarf on Aug 12, 2021 16:14:32 GMT -6
Director, you are obviously right regarding the missing operational level, and what you are asking for would make a better game. I was just trying to make a more modest proposal: have some settings for ship role affect the odds of ships appearing in battles such as they are, and allow a game setting that makes fleet size proportionally affect combat power in engagements other than fleet battles. This isn't the most realistic or satisfying system, but it wouldn't require a reworking of the whole battle generator.
Regarding the light guns, I have seen you complain about torpedoes in other threads as well, and for some reason I have a different experience than you. Provided I have manual control of ships with torpedoes (in Captain or Rear Admiral mode) I usually score a lot of torpedo hits against the AI and take very few. I wonder what we are doing differently (unless you are just playing in Admiral mode?) I think the light guns being able to stop torpedo runs is important to make the game less easy. I also think it's realistic that these guns could fire at a rate similar to the manufacturer's quotes for a minute or two at very close range; that probably happened quite rarely in history, and my guess is that the reason it would have happened rarely is that enemy captains knew it could happen.
Nimrod, regarding my numbers being too high, okay! I did say I didn't really research them and only offered them by way of example. However, I'll note that when the USA was deciding how to arm its light cruisers in the early 1930s, the 6" gun won out over the 8" because it fired 10 rpm compared to the 8" gun's 3, and this was viewed as potentially decisive in short range night engagements. (Anti-aircraft considerations probably also played a role; I'm not sure.) So, at normal ranges, the 6" gun's high theoretical ROF would not be used, because it would reduce accuracy, not to mention depleting ammunition too fast. But I think it would have been capable of firing around 3X the rate of the 8" gun if it stumbled on a target close enough for what you call "emergency firing," and that seems tactically significant.
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Post by aeson on Aug 12, 2021 19:17:57 GMT -6
I might suggest that the 1930 Treaty of London, which limited the number of 8" cruisers in the US Navy to a total of 18 vessels with an aggregate tonnage not greater than about 180,000 tons standard, might have something to do with the decision to adopt 6" guns for the Brooklyn class and subsequent "light" cruisers. Moreover, given the continuance of 8" cruiser construction up until the treaty limit was reached and the fairly rapid resumption of 8" cruiser construction once the treaty limits were no longer relevant, I am less than convinced that in the absence of treaty limits the 8" gun would have been abandoned in favor of the 6" gun in mid- to late-'30s USN cruiser construction except possibly experimentally, quite possibly on a smaller cruiser analogous to the historical Atlanta class rather than on a vessel such as the historical Brooklyn class which in most respects is comparable to preceding and contemporary 8" Treatymax cruisers.
Perhaps you were thinking of Britain, which never built another 8" cruiser after the York class, resumed building ~10,000t cruisers with the Town class in large part because "everyone" else was building Treatymax cruisers rather than lighter vessels more comparable to the Leander and Arethusa classes, and tried to get Treatymax for 6" cruisers cut down to something more in line with the Leander and Arethusa classes in the 1936 London Naval Treaty?
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Post by golingarf on Aug 12, 2021 20:26:02 GMT -6
I might suggest that the 1930 Treaty of London, which limited the number of 8" cruisers in the US Navy to a total of 18 vessels with an aggregate tonnage not greater than about 180,000 tons standard, might have something to do with the decision to adopt 6" guns for the Brooklyn class and subsequent "light" cruisers. Moreover, given the continuance of 8" cruiser construction up until the treaty limit was reached and the fairly rapid resumption of 8" cruiser construction once the treaty limits were no longer relevant, I am less than convinced that in the absence of treaty limits the 8" gun would have been abandoned in favor of the 6" gun in mid- to late-'30s USN cruiser construction except possibly experimentally, quite possibly on a smaller cruiser analogous to the historical Atlanta class rather than on a vessel such as the historical Brooklyn class which in most respects is comparable to preceding and contemporary 8" Treatymax cruisers. Perhaps you were thinking of Britain, which never built another 8" cruiser after the York class, resumed building ~10,000t cruisers with the Town class in large part because "everyone" else was building Treatymax cruisers rather than lighter vessels more comparable to the Leander and Arethusa classes, and tried to get Treatymax for 6" cruisers cut down to something more in line with the Leander and Arethusa classes in the 1936 London Naval Treaty? I obviously did misremember this. (Actually, I thought that the London Naval Treaty established 8" as a maximum and I forgot the details. Yikes!) The US 6"/47 gun was only designed in 1932, after the treaty, and it did have a nominal rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute compared to 3 for the contemporary 8"/55.
"From the conflicting opinions given it is clear that both the six inch gun cruisers and the eight-inch cruisers have their particular uses. Answering the senators, Admiral Pratt said:
The eight-inch gun is a corker where you have clear weather and high visibility, but much of the time you have fog and all sorts of trouble, perhaps, ahead of you, and under these circumstances I would prefer the six-inch gun to the eight-inch gun.
To summarize, the six-inch gun cruiser is good for close-up work in resisting attacks from destroyers and submarines. Its guns can be fired twice as quickly as the eight-inch guns, they can be loaded by hand, and twelve guns can be mounted on each cruiser.
The eight-inch gun will shoot a greater distance, and in clear weather the eight-inch gun cruiser has the advantage in its longer range, but in thick weather when fighting is at closer quarters, the six-inch gun cruiser is better. Senator Reed stated that there had never been a shot fired in a naval combat at a greater range than twenty-thousand yards and a six-inch gun can shoot that distance. This may of course be changed since airplanes can locate the enemy vessels for the larger cruisers."
So, even before the development of the faster firing 6" gun, the Navy (or, at least, Pratt) thought that 6" guns would have twice the rate of fire of its 8" guns, which would make them more useful in close encounters.
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Post by TheOtherPoster on Aug 13, 2021 8:51:54 GMT -6
QF small guns and unbalanced fleets
I) QF small guns Thinking of the 1890 start, Golingarf's idea of short bursts of fire by small QF guns when an enemy ship is at short distance looks very good to me. Although I would limit it to just 2 and 3 in guns. A 2in gun from the 1890s could fire already 20 RPM but -for example- the 6in QF in the much later QE dreadnoughts were capable only of 5 or 6 RPM. I am not bothered about it being 10 times faster or more. Maybe 2 or 3 times faster than normal rate would be enough to do the trick without depletting our ammo too quickly.
This short bursts of small guns would accomplish 2 things: 1. It would mimic their historical purpose as defence against TBs and DDs torpedo attacks 2. It would also come closer to the "hail of fire at short distances" doctrine tipical of the naval theory in the 1890s (to damage unprotected areas and maybe making some fires in the enemy ship and hence hindering the command and effectiveness of the enemy ship)
II) Unbalanced fleets: I totally agree with what Golingarf says about the problem with the battle generator. With a balanced fleet generator as now, if we build the best ships of each kind (even if they are more expensive and we get fewer of them) we will probably win most of the battles and wars even against nations with much bigger fleets. In the end, this is boring. I guess the biggest problem when generating a battle is that we shouldn't go the other end and let a country with a much bigger fleet to show its unmatchable strength all the time because then wars would be unwinable for the smaller nation. It needs to be a way around it and I think Golingarf's proposals seem quite clever to me. But maybe you guys have also other interesting proposals to make. In any case, sea battles are a very important part of the game and I think the development of a new version of RTW must be a fantastic opportunity to address any issues with it.
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Post by nimrod on Aug 13, 2021 8:58:51 GMT -6
Regarding the light guns, I have seen you complain about torpedoes in other threads as well, and for some reason I have a different experience than you. Provided I have manual control of ships with torpedoes (in Captain or Rear Admiral mode) I usually score a lot of torpedo hits against the AI and take very few. I wonder what we are doing differently (unless you are just playing in Admiral mode?) I think the light guns being able to stop torpedo runs is important to make the game less easy. I also think it's realistic that these guns could fire at a rate similar to the manufacturer's quotes for a minute or two at very close range; that probably happened quite rarely in history, and my guess is that the reason it would have happened rarely is that enemy captains knew it could happen. Nimrod, regarding my numbers being too high, okay! I did say I didn't really research them and only offered them by way of example. However, I'll note that when the USA was deciding how to arm its light cruisers in the early 1930s, the 6" gun won out over the 8" because it fired 10 rpm compared to the 8" gun's 3, and this was viewed as potentially decisive in short range night engagements. (Anti-aircraft considerations probably also played a role; I'm not sure.) So, at normal ranges, the 6" gun's high theoretical ROF would not be used, because it would reduce accuracy, not to mention depleting ammunition too fast. But I think it would have been capable of firing around 3X the rate of the 8" gun if it stumbled on a target close enough for what you call "emergency firing," and that seems tactically significant. I'm enjoying this thread - if I get out of bounds let me know and I adjust tone or what was improper.
I have pretty good manually launched torp hit rates like you - I just started a 1910 Italy game and in my first three battles of the game 1901 against AH it seemed to be 40-50%; torps were against CL, CA and B.
Key for me in this conversation is: regarding the 6 pounder / 57mm in 1900 USN service - www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_6pounder_m1.php - "In December 1902 a BuOrd publication claimed that the 6-pdr (2.72 kg) would "limit the torpedo boat to 1,000 yards (910 m), as the penetration of the shell is over 2 inches (51 mm) at that range." From what I can see this is most assuredly not well represented in the game; I very rarely get a hit at that range in the early game with the 2-3" guns let alone a hit that does noticeable damage... I failed to get screen shots (I thought window button with print screen would place multiple screen shots in a my folder...), but in my new Italian game I tested my lightly armed 4" primary with 2 3" secondary DDs against the torpedoed enemy ships. At night and from 200-300 yards I was not getting noticeable numbers of hits on large stationary ships, same range on sinking enemy ships during the day was likewise abysmal. During the day against sinking enemy DDs, my CLs were scoring a hit or two every other turn with central firing and 6" guns from about 600-800 yards. But my DDs at 200-400 yards were not scoring any degree of significant hits - multiple turns with nothing to show from about 300 yards on a stationary non-firing hulk. I've seen the other side of this coin, my DDs don't get hit by the B and CA light guns that should keep them at bay and out of torpedo range.
Your numbers from a historical perspective are well within bounds. The point that Director made, and that I tend to agree with, is that the game provides a pretty good historical damage output / hit rate over time (for most guns). So adjusting the ROF on a large swath of guns could actually hurt game-play. Where most players tend to have issues are outliers like the 10" having the same penetration as the 9" with a lower ROF, so hits are more seldom and don't seem to do adequate damage for the caliber; i.e. the 10" is perceived as a downgrade. Or as we are discussing here the light guns. The light and medium gun value was in their high ROF and broadside weight over time, rather than taking into account single (one firing) broadside weight that doesn't take into account a time component.
These 2-6" guns have thus received a lot of examination and while their rates of fire are low compared to history, my personal opinion is that the 5-6" guns in the mid to late game don't seem out of line to me for hits / damage done over time. Part of this is the shell research tech tree advancement along with fire control advancements along with limitations on the ship design (CL's limited to 3" belt armor and DD's get nothing). I routinely take my 10,000 ton 9-12 6" gunned CLs against 8" or 10" armed CA's and I usually give as good as I get, it takes 10-15 minutes for things to start stacking up and a lot can go wrong in that time. 5" armed 1500+ ton DD's tend to perform to my demands as well. 4" guns I think could use some tweaking (but are basically sound) while the 2" and 3" guns are very poorly represented.
Personal opinion is that if the developers don't want to address ROF, than I would suggest taking a long hard look at providing a significant accuracy buff for shooting at or below 300-400 yards in the early game and maybe within 600-1000 yards in the mid to late game (at a given fire control tech). Personal opinion is that as things stand the non-fire controlled 2-3" guns don't hit enough to do damage especially before fire control comes of age. I suspect that the guns should be fairly deadly vs gun crews at very short range and in the 1890-1910 time range as some (not alot but some) case shot used in the 37mm-57mm / 2lb-6lb range along with machine guns and even individual rifle fire. USN 3" guns were pretty significant and were effective in the anti-air and light anti-shipping roles - for early game take a look at www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_3-50_mk27-33-34.php. Comparable 3" gun on subs were fairly effective (not great but decent) against merchant ships but as things stand I'm having issues hitting a stationary non-firing CA or B at 200 yards at night, or a 500 ton DD at 300 yards during the day. For late game / DLC take a look at: www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_3-50_mk27-33-34.php. 200-300 rounds of ready storage and 1200 rounds in the magazines. Or for the DLC alone as its a 1963 introduction date - www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_3-62_mk75.php - "One of the most popular naval guns ever produced..."
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Post by director on Aug 13, 2021 17:59:39 GMT -6
aeson - you are, I think, spot-on with your analysis: 6"-gunned cruisers would probably not have been as common has the treaties not reworked what was permissable. US Navy experience in WW2 amply validated Admiral Pratt's comments: in the dark or low visibility, and at close range, the faster-firing 6" gun is superior. No US 8"-gunned cruisers were used in surface combat after, I think, Tassafaronga, while the 6"-gunned variety saw a lot of use. The 8" shell does carry more punch than a 6" - unsurprising since it weighs twice as much - but given the armor a somewhat-treaty-compliant cruiser can carry, a 6" will do the job at most ranges and fire 50% faster (an 8" can maybe fire at 4 rounds per minute and a 6" perhaps hit 6, but in actual combat those RoF numbers may average quite a bit lower). I'm unsure which 6" gun fired 28,000 yards but I cannot think that light a shell had a hope of hitting anything smaller than a city block at any range past, say, 16,000 yards. The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory there is no difference but in practice, there is.
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Post by director on Aug 13, 2021 18:16:46 GMT -6
I'm not sure I can give a simple answer and I'm not sure we should veer off-topic enough for a full answer, but I'll try.
I play only in Rear-admiral mode as, for me, it provides the best fit between control and realism. I do complain about torpedoes, generally for two reasons: either I have gotten stung by pursuing an enemy who flees and never fights, or I've become weary of the robotic perfection with which the AI relentlessly refuses to let any enemy get forward of its beam. These two things - the refusal to fight unless it heavily outnumbers the human player, and the absolute mistake-free pursuit of position, do feel 'too perfect' to me. And, frankly, watching AI ships twitch away from my oncoming torpedoes when mine do not do the same, enrages me. In general, I find torpedoes mostly useless for the human player unless used against damaged ships, partly because my captains don't want to fire them, partly because the enemy will rarely let me have a firing solution, and because when my ships do launch torpedoes they all miss - and the enemy's don't. Your mileage may vary on this and if so then God bless you; I've been depending on gunfire for a while now.
We've plowed the field several times now over rate of fire versus rate of hits and damage so I won't repeat it here except to say that if you couldn't look at the RoF data, you might not know the guns weren't doing exactly what you propose. I don't need a grain-by-grain graphic depiction of a beach, I need a good-enough image to let me get on with playing the game (your needs may differ). I'd like to see scarce resources used elsewhere. I think it would be a lot of coding and computers have a lot of trouble correctly making judgement calls - so I'm opposed.
Light guns stopping torpedo runs? When and where? From what I know, torpedo attacks were usually not pressed home because of the threat of damage to the attacking ships, because target identification was confused or because the tactical situation required a feint, rather than because a majority of the participating destroyers were actually disabled or sunk. I've always viewed a secondary battery's job as being deterrence of destroyers and aircraft, not actual destruction - and they are fairly good at the first and not at the second. So if by 'stop' you mean deter then that's a function of the AI pressing forward its DDs without regard for casualties, and if you mean 'sink' then I think that is the wrong fix.
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