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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 8, 2019 11:14:08 GMT -6
If the same number of people were used to build both then that would probably be true but I doubt that was the case. Size isn't a reliable indicator of time to complete. In fact all of the Tennessee-class armored cruisers (14,500 tons) took just over three years from keel laying to commissioning (except Washington which was just under three years. The almost twice displacement Nevada (27,500 tons) took 3 years and 4 months. Economics, the available budget of the navy and the maturity of the shipbuilding industry have more effect than just size.
The US is probably catching a break in-game when it comes to shipbuilding times. They were hamstrung in naval shipbuilding for most of the time period of the game by a very frugal and isolationist Congress. One of the reasons the Standards all have the same tactical performance (speed, turning radius, etc) is because Congress wouldn't generally authorize more than two a year so the US had to put different classes in the same squadron to operate unlike the British who would lay down four or five a year and so could build an entire squadron's worth of ships every year. The US had the shipbuilding capacity to match that but not the political will. At least not until 1916.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 8, 2019 8:52:43 GMT -6
Heavy caliber guns (11 inches+) can be used on casemates in the secondary. Heavy caliber guns in secondary casemates have a 10% rate of fire penalty and must be smaller than than the main gun caliber.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 8, 2019 8:32:33 GMT -6
Greetings to all RTW players. New to the discussion board and looking forward to RTW2. While there is a well-known tendency for the AI to keep building BCs in mid to late game in RTW to the point that BC:BB ration may reach 2:1, is the same bug/ feature also responsible for AI scraping all earlier CAs and not building 1920s-1930s tech level CAs? Putting role-playing and historical authenticity aside, is it common for players to just avoid building CAs in mid to late game to save budget for building capital ships? Grateful if anyone can clarify this matter, as that affect how I develop my fleet. Welcome to the forum barrybull . As was pointed out above the armored cruiser was made obsolete by the "dreadnought" armored cruiser (HMS Invincible) that later became known as battlecruisers. So after battlecruisers make their appearance it wouldn't make sense for the AI to lay down new armored cruisers. The later generation of treaty cruisers that the USN gifted with a confusing ancestry by deciding to reuse the CA designation are totally unrelated to the armored cruiser. They were a response to the building holiday of capital ships. They were the largest class of ship that could be built without regard to numbers of ships built or total tonnage, only individual limits on tonnage and gun caliber. Excluding the British "Elizabethans" of the Hawkins-class which formed part of the basis of the 10,000 ton, 8in caliber limit, most of the first generation of treaty cruisers weren't laid down until right before the end of the game's original time frame (Jan 1926) or after. County-class (UK) first unit laid down Sep 1924 Duquesne-class (France) first unit laid down Oct 1924 Trento-class (Ita) first unit laid down Feb 1925 Myōkō-class (Jpn) first unit laid down Oct 1924 Pensacola-class (USA) first unit laid down Oct 1926 So the treaty cruisers probably weren't considered heavily when the developers were programming the AI because most weren't commissioned until after the game's original time frame. It's interesting to consider where cruisers would have gone without the Washington treaty. The US was looking at 10,000 tons to be the minimum for an acceptable scout cruiser that had the range to patrol the pacific. (One of the other main driving forces for the 10,000 ton limit in the treaty.) The Hawkins-class was sitting there outclassing every other light armored cruiser in the water at the time. However, there was still a lot of pushback against the 8 inch gun on cruisers because their rate of fire was considered too slow until later developments in shell and powder hoists for 8 inch guns. Plus obviously, 10,000 ton cruisers are significantly more expensive than 6-8,000 ton cruisers. I don't know for sure because it's hypothetical. I'm willing to believe that the developers have spent some time discussing what 1920-30 cruiser development would look like without the treaties there.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 7, 2019 5:13:53 GMT -6
Gun quality means a roughly 10% increase in range and belt penetration from -1 to 0 and from 0 to 1. Deck penetration is mostly unchanged and weight and damage for penetrating hits is unchanged by gun quality. I've updated my original range and penetration tables. They have data for every two game years to take into account increases in Fire Control and AP Projectile tech levels. That will allow you to compare gun qualities of different calibers to help make a decision between a lower caliber, higher quality gun and a higher caliber, lower quality gun. As aeson pointed out earlier, the link to the applicable thread is in my signature. Personally, I'll usually pick a smaller +1 gun over a larger -1 gun but once I have at least 0 quality I'll go with the larger caliber because of the extra damage.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 6, 2019 18:32:15 GMT -6
One thing I would like to see is the transition from open gun mounts on destroyers to gun shields to enclosed, splinter proof mounts. As it stands in rtw1, you can't put any armor on destroyer turrets since they can't have belt armor. Based on jwsmith26 's logbook entry there doesn't seem to be any armoring of the gun mounts yet for destroyers. I looked up the mounts for the Fletcher-class' 5 in/38 on the Navweaps website. It states that the shield for the Mark 30 mount for destroyers was only 1/8 inch thick (3.2 mm). That's well below the threshold that the RTW series uses for armor protection. It's note 14e towards the bottom of the page. Comparatively, the 5 in/38 twin mounts on battleships had 2.5 inch (63.5 mm) thick shields. That's just for the US Navy though. I don't know if other navies armored their destroyers' gun mounts significantly.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 6, 2019 8:33:13 GMT -6
Yes, but I think I can find some common ground with imryn . There is a point in the game where the AoN scheme might be premature. AoN is nominally a 1911 tech to match when the first American battleship designs using the concept were finalized. Improved directors, where if I recall, you see a considerable jump in long range accuracy is a nominal 1918 tech. So you probably won't see ships in the game equipped wit it till mid-1918 or a little later. So there is a middle period where the distributed, turtleback design might still be superior because fire control accuracy isn't yet ready to take the fight to longer ranges. I can't remember if I read it earlier in this thread or on reddit in the last couple of days but someone quoted Dr. Friedman's book on American battleships in which he stated that the AoN scheme was in some ways ahead of its time. He may have only been referring to it being conceived pre-Jutland but it might also apply in-game in RTW1. The difference is that Improved directors, higher barrel elevations and such was pretty easy to refit to existing ships. Citadel armor layout was almost impossible to change, so if you want those 1911 Battleships to not become obsolete 10 years down the line it might still be a good idea to opt for the AoN armor scheme. Arguing that Turtleback still was a superior armor scheme in WW2 as imryn does is not a reasonable argument to make IMHO. Haha, yeah, I just edited my previous post with that very question. Sorry about that.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 6, 2019 8:25:36 GMT -6
Add in the advantage against progressive flooding and there is no reason to consider the non-AoN schemes superior unless you are going to restrict your fighting to at night or only in areas that have a high percentage of bad weather like the North Sea. Indeed. No one here denies that a Turtleback armor scheme was superior for point blank or short range engagements. That is not a fight battleships of WW2 were built to participate in though ( except for the German ones ). Turtleback leave the ship vulnerable to bomb hits from aircraft, long range plunging fire as well as ( depending on the design ) flooding over the citadel. Yes, but I think I can find some common ground with imryn . There is a point in the game where the AoN scheme might be premature. AoN is nominally a 1911 tech to match when the first American battleship designs using the concept were finalized. Improved directors, where if I recall, you see a considerable jump in long range accuracy is a nominal 1918 tech. So you probably won't see ships in the game equipped with it till mid-1918 or a little later. So there is a middle period where the distributed, turtleback design might still be superior because fire control accuracy isn't yet ready to take the fight to longer ranges. I can't remember if I read it earlier in this thread or on reddit in the last couple of days but someone quoted Dr. Friedman's book on American battleships in which he stated that the AoN scheme was in some ways ahead of its time. He may have only been referring to it being conceived pre-Jutland but it might also apply in-game in RTW1. The question might become in 1912 do you want to build a sloped-deck design for a war in the next four-six years or do you want to try to future-proof your ships so they are effective for ten-twelve years or so. Just something to consider.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 6, 2019 7:40:33 GMT -6
I have to disagree that the concern of long range fire is negligible in RTW. Late game, I have plenty of fights in good visibility where I'm getting hits at over 20,000 yards. Sure, there are plenty of fights at shorter range as well but the other thing you are neglecting in your comparison is that the belt armor for the AoN design (for ships of the same tonnage) is going to be thicker than the belt armor of a distributed design. The picture above with Tirpitz and KGV demonstrates that perfectly despite KGV giving up 10,000+ tons. So AoN designs will generally see fewer belt penetrations to begin with. Add in the advantage against progressive flooding and there is no reason to consider the non-AoN schemes superior unless you are going to restrict your fighting to at night or only in areas that have a high percentage of bad weather like the North Sea.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 5, 2019 17:25:01 GMT -6
It was probably just an expediency to treat the shore batteries as ships and use the same general systems and damage code minus the flooding so the developers could devote their time and effort to more important things rather than making an entire separate damage resolution system for a very minor component of the game. It does make for some humorous damage reports though. Like that scene in Operation Petticoat where they sunk a truck.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 5, 2019 17:16:31 GMT -6
Thanks oldpop2000 for the reference. It states that the spray shield was .118 inches (3 mm) of sheet steel. Doesn't seem like it would provide much protection from splinters and none from shells. I don't think it was intended for that, just to protect the crew and firing/training mechanisms from sea spray and the elements as the name describes. Perhaps from blast effects as well as cwemyss described above.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 5, 2019 7:34:33 GMT -6
I don't know for sure. Some of the internal mechanics of the game have never been described in detail because the developers want to protect those aspects of their IP but in general I would say yes. Certainly you will sometimes see notes added to the ship's log indicating that a shell that hit the ship caused splinters that damaged the hull and presumably some subsequent flooding. There is no reason to think that a shell that strikes the BE area (as an example) and penetrates couldn't cause both flooding damage and structural damage (the two kinds of damage that are tracked like hit points in an role playing game).
With destroyers, a lot depends on the size of the ship and the nation's damage control tech level. Early game it sometimes only takes one hit from a 6 inch gunned cruiser to sink a 500 ton destroyer. Later, larger destroyers can take more damage but since they are unarmored they are still susceptible to lucky shots that take out the feedwater system or electrical system. If the BB is using AP though the shell will have a good chance of just passing through without exploding.
In general, I don't see a lot of battleship caliber gun hits on DD. There is an accuracy penalty for large calibers against small DD for starters and I'm pretty sure the AI is programed to not use the capital ship main guns against destroyers if any larger targets happen to be visible so as to not waste main gun ammunition.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 3, 2019 19:25:30 GMT -6
Your first statement is irrelevant and there is no argument. People should be free to use this forum without being subjected to stereotypical slurs towards their ethnic background regardless of historical usage. You should have already edited your first post to remove it.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 3, 2019 17:58:08 GMT -6
Most of the statement is a bunch of bollocks but this isn't the place to get into it.
Bottom line is the term is pejorative. There are members of the forum who are Japanese or of Japanese descent who shouldn't have to deal with seeing that on this forum in 2019.
No arguing it was a popular term in the past. Respectfully, let it stay there.
Hopefully having gotten that out of the way, yes, I've had countries ally together to contain my country's "aggression" after winning a few wars. I actually prefer that in most cases to them joining after the war is started because it doesn't reset the victory points like a nation joining part way through does.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 2, 2019 1:12:51 GMT -6
Welcome back. No change that I'm aware of. There is a specific tech that needs to be researched to put swivel mounts on ships larger than CL that is separate from the CL swivel mount tech. It's the last or next to last tech in that research area [Edit - last tech in the Light Forces and Torpedo Warfare area with a date of 1920.] so you don't see it until late game. I also believe the swivel launchers use the same mount locations as the main guns and large ships can only use the wing mounts for torpedo launchers not the centerline ones. So if you have some throwback wing mounted gun design it might screw with seeing the available torpedo launchers as well.
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 1, 2019 16:51:03 GMT -6
No, the enemy ships are identified by class so the've definitely been verified as enemy. He technically doesn't have the gun range circle selected. I don't know if that was intentional or not but I would think that the gun range for BB and BC in 1925 would at least equal to the sighting range so I don't think that matters. I have no idea what's going on. Not being able to change course is what sometimes happens at the beginning of a scenario but it should unlock once the enemy is sighted.
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