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Post by Belfast1 on Dec 12, 2023 16:10:00 GMT -6
I'm curious about why the Hidden Design Flaws national characteristic is applied to Great Britain.
Having watched the excellent videos by Drachinifel, Dr. Alexander Clarke and others, on the Royal Navy ships of the period, they seem to have been well designed, capable ships. Serious flaws, which only became apparent after ships entered service or engaged in combat are not a regular feature of the videos. Indeed, off hand, I can't recall any.
Certainly the QE class did not achieve their planned design speed of 25 kts. However, Dr. Clarke also refers to evidence HMS Rodney could go faster then stated design speed. Some ships either not reaching or exceeding design speed is already catered for in the game mechanisms.
Is it included due to the battlecruisers at Jutland and HMS Hood? The problem is, from what I understand of contemporary analysis, the loss of the battlecruisers is now attributed primarily to poor ammunition handling practices and disabling safety measures in order to improve rate of fire, rather than some unknown defect. In RTW3 that scenario is catered for with the ROF enthusiast officer attribute. Could Great Britain have a greater propensity for officers with this attribute, particularly in above average or brilliant officers, for that 1900 to 1920 period?
The fact the ships' armour was penetrated in the first place, to then cause the flash explosions, is down to the conscious design decision to sacrifice armour for speed. The same could be said for HMS Hood, which also appears to have been hit in a vulnerable spot in just the handful of seconds that spot would have been vulnerable in the whole battle.
The characteristic certainly seems to mean playing Great Britain will likely lead the player to a Beattie moment but that doesn't really seem to fit with what we now know. It wasn't the ships but how they were deployed and handled that were flawed.
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iwst
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Post by iwst on Dec 12, 2023 17:49:23 GMT -6
Speaking of Hood: There are different theories on why it was penetrated. The Theory Drachinifel presented in his video on the topic is plausible, but not the only one. Also that spot in the theory would have been vulnurable for much much longer during the battle if it hadn't been hit 30 seconds after becoming exposed.
As for other hidden british flaws: The AP shells used by the British at Jutland were defective.
Also their 8 inch cruiser building programm during the 20s was plagued by design issues:
Torpedoe tubes mounted to high so the Torps didn't surivive impact with the water (Jordan, John: Warships after Washington. The Development of the Five Major Fleets 1922-1930. Barnsley 2011. page 130)
Main guns whose performance was far behind expectations as well as again, defective AP shells (Lisio, Donald J.: British Naval Supremacy and Anglo-American Antagonisms, 1914-1930. Cambridge 2014. p. 95-100)
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 14, 2023 8:04:20 GMT -6
Speaking of Hood: There are different theories on why it was penetrated. The Theory Drachinifel presented in his video on the topic is plausible, but not the only one. Also that spot in the theory would have been vulnurable for much much longer during the battle if it hadn't been hit 30 seconds after becoming exposed. As for other hidden british flaws: The AP shells used by the British at Jutland were defective. Also their 8 inch cruiser building programm during the 20s was plagued by design issues: Torpedoe tubes mounted to high so the Torps didn't surivive impact with the water (Jordan, John: Warships after Washington. The Development of the Five Major Fleets 1922-1930. Barnsley 2011. page 130) Main guns whose performance was far behind expectations as well as again, defective AP shells (Lisio, Donald J.: British Naval Supremacy and Anglo-American Antagonisms, 1914-1930. Cambridge 2014. p. 95-100) This article, by Bill Jurens, is, in my opinion, the most accurate. In historical analysis, one of the cardinal sins, as one author states, is "reductionism"- reducing causes or motives or effects to a single one. Its a way to pretend the truth. Its an attempt to simplify historical events. The loss of Hood was not a simple one problem event, it was a series of mistakes in construction, command etc.
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Post by jeb94 on Dec 15, 2023 8:31:23 GMT -6
The magazine explosions of the battlecruisers isn’t the only thing though it does expose flaws in anti-flash design and practices. Look up HMS Vanguard of the St Vincent class, HMS Natal, and HMS Bulwark are all examples of the explosive flaw in British cordite. German cordite tended to burn intensely while British cordite… . As for other flaws take a look at the losses of HMS Victoria in 1893 and HMS Audacious in 1914. The Royal Navy had some design and policy issues that got exposed later.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 15, 2023 9:27:32 GMT -6
The magazine explosions of the battlecruisers isn’t the only thing though it does expose flaws in anti-flash design and practices. Look up HMS Vanguard of the St Vincent class, HMS Natal, and HMS Bulwark are all examples of the explosive flaw in British cordite. German cordite tended to burn intensely while British cordite… . As for other flaws take a look at the losses of HMS Victoria in 1893 and HMS Audacious in 1914. The Royal Navy had some design and policy issues that got exposed later. All ships have design flaws, there is no way around it. However, you have to use good combat tactics to cover those flaws. Hood never should have been leading the fleet, Prince of Wales should have led. The admiral turned 20 degrees to starboard to close the range on Bismarck so her shells would have a flat trajectory and hit the belt armor. Unfortunately, Hood was firing at the wrong ship, she was firing at Prince Eugen. This left Bismarck free to shoot. Tactical mistakes can cost you and this one did. But the deck armor was too thin and everyone knew it. The British made the same mistakes at Jutland and it cost them at least three ships. |
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Post by director on Dec 29, 2023 22:58:46 GMT -6
Hood's deck armor was probably not a factor in her loss since the incoming shells were not plunging at a steep angle, and a deck hit does not fit the observed evidence. Bismarck's high-velocity shells were coming in at a relatively flat angle, so a deck hit would have to have come from Prinz Eugen, and none is known.
There are a lot of theories about the loss of the battlecruisers at Jutland. Lack of armor is probably not the issue (except in the case of Invincible) since their belt and turret protection were mostly adequate against German 11" and 12" shells. Unstable cordite is one theory. Cordite dust in the turrets and handling rooms is another - as noted by the gunnery officer aboard HMS Lion. Both could have been amplified by unsafe ammunition handling. Invincible was straight up a victim of armor that was not adequate for standing up to capital ships.
The problem is the same with the loss of Hood... we have persuasive theories, very little observation of the events and almost no remaining evidence. In short, while we can make informed guesses, we cannot know.
Other nations had issues - the Italian Leonardo da Vinci, the Japanese Mutsu and Taiho, the loss of USS Lexington, the burning of SMS Seydlitz, the explosion of Arizona, and on and on. Britain does seem to have had more of them - in part because they simply had the most ships, and in part because their failures were highly publicized.
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Post by epigon on Jan 9, 2024 9:55:00 GMT -6
Perhaps RTW aggregates propellant physical and chemical properties together with ship design. If we go by national traits, Underdeveloped ship industry and Poor education should be dynamic and removable with successful wars/victories and budget growth/reparations/large building program executions - bigger issues for me that I roleplay around.
I wouldn't consider 7-9 inch barbette and turret protection as sufficient against 11-12 inch German AP at combat ranges.
Indefatigable having 4-inch armor abreast of turrets A and Y never made sense to me, as 6 inches was chosen specifically to protect against common Armored Cruiser guns.
But a far more puzzling issue - mounting the spotting top behind the forward funnel on Dreadnought, St. Vincent, Colossus classes would definitely qualify as design flaw.
Blast damage from cross-deck firing preventing their use, while still complicating their design and forcing compromises - another design flaw IMO; of the same character as Nelsons suffering superstructure damage due to their own guns' firing a salvo.
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Post by t3rm1dor on Jan 9, 2024 10:59:51 GMT -6
Hidden flaws is definetly a reference to Jutland and the Hood, and it just make flash fires more likely up to a certain point (around 3 extra more, and can be triggered by CL). It isn't getting worst ships than desing, that merit is part of the underdevelop ship industry and affects Japan and Russia (the latter of the two which can't remove it).
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Post by dorn on Jan 9, 2024 11:17:00 GMT -6
The ship design is much more difficult thing. They were reasons for all of this things and if you mentioned spotting top, I can be reasonable for the first dreadought classes but it is really questionable for the latter classes. The Nelson is certainly not design flaw. They tried to push N3 battleship design (which was most advanced design compared to any nation) to 35000 tons limit with gettin max available. The Nelson were most powerfull battleships at the time. As time progress there were found some deficiencies and were remedied in the following class but it was price for having reasonable speed, excellent protection and firepower on such displacement. Were it worth it? Experience shows it was even with all the disadvantages it shows.
If you look at ship design it is about compromise. Think about catapult aft, British considered US practice to have aicraft aft as it brings some advantages however they turned it down because stowing hangar aft under that make large space very vulnerable. They have right as USS Houston experience showed. So it is very seldom only advantages it is much more complex and usually only disadvantages shown through experience or fatal experience is visible and discussed.
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Post by director on Jan 16, 2024 1:35:20 GMT -6
I agree that the game is probably conflating the propellant-handling and cordite dust problems into 'design flaws'. It's not really a design flaw if the crews are propping the flash doors open, but...
The Invincible class were not designed to face large caliber gunnery - they were supposed to use their high speed to hold the range open and beat down armored cruisers. The Indefatigables are a triumph of economy over prudence since Germany was laying down battle cruisers and the armor was, incomprehensively, even lighter than the Invinclibles. When the Lions were designed, Germany had standardized on an 11" gun, 9" belt armor was considered 'reasonable' protection and the ships did still have very high speed, which makes them harder to hit. The British were quite willing to take some damage if they could have superior firepower, and German battlecruiser armor is about as effective against 13.5" shells as 11" against the Lion class. What the British did not appreciate was that gunnery practice would be neglected, and that fuses and shells might not perform at spec.
The mainmast/spotting top was located behind the funnel for stability reasons. They tried moving it forward - there were lots of complaints and it was fully realized that smoke, heat and fumes made the top almost unusable - but in the end the designers and constructors decided the weight of the tubular steel tripod had to be moved back again. This wasn't a species of incompetence, it was an attempt to balance competing values. The Americans went to the cage mast for the same reason - striving to reduce top-weight.
Cross-deck firing is a direct result of having to use enormous amounts of ship space for the boilers and engines needed for high speed: there just wasn't anywhere else to put the guns. Improvements in boilers, adoption of super-firing turrets and increased ship length solved the problem.
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