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Post by sleventyfive on Jul 22, 2023 20:53:12 GMT -6
I'm very happy with the 'AI-control' option for battles, since I like to be the kind of hands-off Fleet Admiral who signs off on designs and order fleets around. But I don't think I've ever seen one of my carriers launch a strike on their own. Am I just missing it? Or is there an option for this or is air ops a manual-only thing. Because I hate doing them and would love to leave it to the AI.
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Post by sleventyfive on Jan 1, 2023 0:05:31 GMT -6
Being able to increase the tonnage of the ships in major refits would be a very good thing to see. I don't really think that the tonnage is standard, as the capabilities you get on a certain tonnage in game line up with full load more than standard. Almost all refits or upgrades add tonnage, so the game must recognize this. The way I viewed it is that the 'hull size'-tonnage=reserve buoyancy, so a 50000t ship with 5000t 'left over' actually displaces 45000t with 5000t reserve buoyancy. Refits add tonnage, but there's a limit to how much you can pile onto a ship. The Essexes went from ~37000t to ~47000t so there definitely were increases that aren't modeled right now, though the refits to Midway, as you mentioned, were so expensive and caused so many seakeeping issues that they weren't done to the other two Midways, so it might not be the best example.
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Post by sleventyfive on May 16, 2019 8:10:23 GMT -6
Is there some way to auto-generate the appearance on refits? I somehow managed to add a flight deck automatically while fiddling, but never managed to repeat that. Eventually just went for quick and dirty appearance without superstructure and traditional funnel (which is kinda historical). As someone who brazenly always uses the auto-generate feature for superstructures I would also like this answer I haven't found it possible, so I've just put a a giant rectangle covering most of the hull and a smaller 'elevator' rectangle amidships.
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Post by sleventyfive on May 3, 2019 7:59:34 GMT -6
will we have extremely large anti aircraft guns such as the japanese 203mm 356mm 410mm and 460mm dual purpose guns although ineffective it would still be nice to see for extra long range aa cover (10km+ airial bursts to make aircraft turn or maneuver) I've suggested this in the past, the answer was that large caliber AA is not going to be a thing. ;( Despite germany, America, and Japan all using 8 inch and up AA guns. When you say 'used' is there any evidence for their actual use? I haven't found much reference to dual-purpose guns (or dedicated AA guns) over 6in beyond the San Shiki shells (which seemed to be more used in shore bombardment) and some other nations (the Tirpitz, specifically) having similar 'this will be a great idea' super-heavy AA shells that never really got used. Edit: I see that this was asked and answered a day ago, that's what I get for forgetting to update the page.
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Post by sleventyfive on Apr 24, 2019 19:23:19 GMT -6
I'm quite partial to 'Heart Of Oak', 'I Vow To Thee My Country', 'Jerusalem', 'It's A long Way To Tipperary', and 'Rule Britannia'. Though most of that is very British.
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Post by sleventyfive on Mar 18, 2019 10:09:10 GMT -6
All very reasonable. (Off topic, but I do appreciate the fact that the US skipped the half and half Battlestar-style Cruiser-Carrier only to strap a cruiser's guns to a full-fledged carrier.)
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Post by sleventyfive on Mar 18, 2019 9:10:20 GMT -6
If you are interested in the development of armoured carriers there is a website at armouredcarriers.com with a wealth of information about the development of the RN carriers. I was only recently made aware of it (thanks dorn ) and have found it to be a fascinating read. One thing to bear in mind when reading it is that the author is obviously a big fan, and has a tendency to mix facts and opinions without clear citation. One thing that the author fails to correctly consider is the fact that the RN carriers did not have armoured flight decks, they had armoured hangers. This comes from pre-war consideration that fighters could not protect their carriers so must be struck below and protected from air attack - hence an armoured hanger to protect the aircraft. The roof of the armoured hanger did provide the same protection as an armoured flight deck however the armour only extended over the area between the two deck lifts (about 62% of the flight deck) and provided no protection to the two areas of the flight deck that are critical for flight operations, the forward and aft ends. What is clearly shown is that the thickness of armour applied to the hanger roof on all the RN armoured carriers was insufficient. When the ships were planned the RAF assured the Navy that no bomb bigger than 500 lbs would be dropped by a carrier born aircraft, and the RN provided protection against that threat. In the event RN armoured carriers were subject to hits from bombs up to 2200 lbs in size which were able to penetrate the hanger roof armour. This threat was appreciated from very early in the war, however no attempt was made to increase the armour thickness on the hanger roof of the existing ships; probably because there was no way to add significant weight that high up without making the ship dangerously unstable. Even the follow on class laid down in 1939 had no provision for additional armour on the hanger roof. These ships were delayed in construction for several years and were substantially modified to increase the airgroup size but not to increase armour. I believe this represents wartime experience that fighters could successfully defend their carriers. The RN armoured carriers did very well in the Pacific at the end of the war and their armoured hanger roofs were able to withstand kamikaze attacks much better than their USN contemporaries, however it should be noted that Kamikaze's lack the armour penetration that a bomb would have. True armoured flight decks did not appear until after WW2 and were found on significantly larger ships, but offered very little additional protection over the RN ships in WW2. From all of this my opinion is that it is not possible in the real world to put sufficient armour onto the flight deck to provide complete protection, and that the trade offs that would be required to attempt it (primarily reduced airgroup) would be unacceptable. History showed us that once radar exists the best defense for a carrier is its aircraft, and this defense has the added benefit of also increasing its offensive capability. History has also shown us that a certain amount of flight deck armour is necessary to keep that deck in operation. In RTW2 I don't think we will get any great changes to the armour model so our carriers will only have the options we are currently familiar with, and "Deck" and "Deck Extended" will probably be all we have to work with. "Enclosed Hangers" might be implemented as a technology unlock and offer an armour weight saving for "Belt" and "Deck" to represent the construction technique used by the RN carriers, but in my opinion it would be difficult to represent that technology with all of the benefits and limitations it entailed so I would rather see it omitted. With the simplicity of the armour model it won't be possible to create ships to accurately model the differences between RN and US designs, which is a shame but not unexpected. When I design my carriers I will prioritise Airgroup size, speed, torpedo protection, and then armour. With armour I will prioritise D and DE over B and BE. In WW2 the tonnage per aircraft (displacement of carrier / airgroup size) varied from about 340 to 640 so I will try to design my RTW carriers as close to the bottom end of that range as I can get. The really great news about carrier deck armour is that it won't date anywhere near as quickly as battleship armour. In the real world 3" of deck armour lasted all the way through WW2 and only went up to 3.5" after - the armour became steadily less effective but other defenses became more effective to compensate. I anticipate carriers having a far longer effective lifespan in RTW2 than battleships. I think that there are two important points you bring up here. 1) The armor was insufficient against heavier bombs. While certainly true, I would say that this is something of a false conclusion. As designed, they were proof against the assumed firepower of the enemy. That the enemy's firepower increased is as irrelevant to the concept of armored carriers as it would be to say the Essex was a bad design because it couldn't operate F-4's. 2)Radar made fighter interception preeminent. Again, this is an excellent point, but one that misses in understanding the thought process at the time. Before the advent of air search radars, the only way for a ship to detect incoming fighters would be visually. No air group size would be sufficient to screen the carrier entirely 24/7 so the idea of passive defense makes sense. I would also add that very few ships had their armor increased after construction, and I don't know of any that had it done during the conflict, as it was exceptionally expensive and time-consuming. Basically, I think that we're looking at this with too much hindsight. With the development of higher-weight bombs and ship-borne radar, as well as increased funding for the FAA, having a larger air group does become more important. But it's important to remember that people don't make poor decisions intentionally. They make decisions that make sense at the time, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. (see the Midway's designed 8" battery. Humorously, removed in exchange for an armored flight deck in light of the British carriers' effectiveness against Kamikaze attacks)
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Post by sleventyfive on Feb 1, 2019 15:45:40 GMT -6
Issue is that you compare RTW with real history in every category. However RTW simulates more wars type Russian-Japanese. And in this case there were not total economic mobilization. RTW does not simulate world wars in any matter. It would be much more complicated, it simulate naval arms race and do (in good way) a lot of simplifications.
There are other strategic games simulating global world wars and they have a lot of flaws as they have issue to similate main strategic issues of such war. RTW does not try to do it (we are lucky) and offers something different - different types of conflict similar to Russian-Japanese war and simulates environment around it quite well. RTW2 is going to 1950 technology however the types of conflicts remain in same scope.
I agree that, so far, Rule the Waves has been most apt at simulating that kind of conflict - and, more broadly, the spirit of conflict and diplomacy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; chauvinist tensions flaring over matters of national prestige, limited wars to resolve them, ending with an exchange of colonies and reparations payments. And, for the original game, this was more or less appropriate; even though its timeframe encompasses the beginning of the age of total war, more than half of the game has gone by at that point. You might say, therefore, that the game is reasonably representative of the time period in which it is set. However, for the time period of 1900 - 1950, I do not think that it would be so appropriate for limited war to be the exclusive focus of the game. Taken as a whole, that period of time was the one age more than any other in which total war dominated political and military history. A game set in this time period which does not attempt to portray total war would not feel as appropriate for its time period as the original game did for its time period. But leaving aside the question of whether the game should aim to represent total war, why do you say that it can't? My proposal is simple, as articulated in my first post: national resources should be historical accurate - ideally measures of industrial strength rather than total economic size - and the percentage of those resources allocated to the nation in peace and in war should also be accurate. Beyond that, there is very little within the scope of this series of games that would need to be done. The tactical combat does not need to be changed; the process of designing and ordering ships does not need to be changed, except perhaps for more accelerated construction in wartime, which seems simple enough to me. Perhaps later in the game, wars should be more likely to continue until one side or the other collapses in total defeat, and the flavour text for events in the later years should probably be different from the early years, but this does not seem to be absolutely necessary to me. If it is true that a video game cannot capture the full complexity of a World War with all its nuances, then I don't see why this specific game should find it difficult to portray total war at sea any better than it portrays limited war at sea. So, what specifically would be much more complicated about a world war in this game? I would argue that you can already increase your production to some extent. When at war your budget increases, and you can rush construction or whatever it's called. How does one measure 'historically accurate' national resources and their changes over half a century? How do you account for ATL-OTL differences? Does Britain losing a war to Japan in 1910 change either countries resources by 1940? Would a country like Germany turn any significant resources to the navy if they were fighting Russia? Would it be different if they were fighting Japan? While the US clearly had an advantage in industrial capacity in the 1940s I think it has to be acknowledged that Japan had already been fighting in China for close to 10 years and pouring resources into that, while Germany had pretty much settled on a Guerre de Course with a few fast capital ships and many submarines. Neither could have beaten the US in one for one shipbuilding, but how would you account for differing decisions by the player/in the game? As for the idea of total war, The question then becomes how do you measure a total defeat of a country? Germany's navy was decimated during WW2 but that didn't stop them from holding out until Berlin was taken. So if you were fighting a Germano-Russian war would you have to wait for the armies to duke it out while you sit on blockade duty/try to scrape together enough budget to build a destroyer? (depending on how the war went up till then?)
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Post by sleventyfive on Jan 30, 2019 11:27:21 GMT -6
I like Alexbrunius' 'simple' idea. Maybe something like X# Capital Slips where a 'Capital slip' is is >50% Total Capacity? So for example "16,000 tons, 8 Capital Slips" means you could build 8 ships of 8,000t or greater and (effectively) infinite numbers <8,000t.
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Post by sleventyfive on Jan 14, 2019 7:30:51 GMT -6
My only complaint about the automatic naming system is the way it gives the lead ship in a class the name of the class (or is it the other way around?) Anyway Tribal class destroyers have a lead ship called "Tribal", Town class cruisers, County class cruisers etc etc. Capital ship classes are named after the lead ship, but smaller ship classes shouldn't be. That really depends on the Navy in question. I.E. there wasn't a 'Tribal', but there was a 'Clemson'.
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Post by sleventyfive on Oct 2, 2018 6:42:01 GMT -6
Would it be possible to get a separate 'Aircraft Technology Rate' setting alongside the regular tech rate setting? So that the Age of Dreadnoughts can last forever alongside early aircraft?
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