|
sullat posted:I seem to recall that was also the French General's plan in Grey Hunter's WW1 game Yes but my plan was actually going to work you defeatist charlatan  -every general, August 1914-May 1918 Oh right so someone asked a very long time ago what I learned from doing that: 1). The mental strength Petain would have needed to go out onto the street every day, and watch his men going up and down the Voie Sacree, and know it was all being done on his orders, and to continually confront himself with the reality of what it meant, and absolutely not take refuge in his chateau and treat the men solely as boxes and flags on a map, is absolutely mindboggling. It becomes a lot easier to understand why so many of them just hid away from the real world and kept everything as abstracted as possible and couldn't possibly confront that they were ordering thousands and thousands of men to their deaths, or just to live in filth with the rats and the dysentery. 2). Personality clashes! Holy God are they ever so much more understandable now; how easy it is to fall out, how important it is to have people working together who all have a similar view of things and can all pull on the same rope, and how quickly a command structure can fall apart once that happens. It seems so obvious now that whatsisname who was my divisional commander was going in with the mindset "I can do better than the real war by not getting people slaughtered in battles they can't possibly win", and I was going in thinking "I can do better than the real war because I know what they did wrong and I can translate that into game mechanics and achieve the victories that they couldn't", and that was always going to lead to a clash, especially with no incentive beyond roleplaying to defer to the chain of command. Not entirely unlike Rawlinson and Haig trying to plan the Somme together despite Rawlinson being Captain Bite-And-Hold and Haig believing that something more was possible.
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 01:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 20:01 |
|
|
Trin Tragula posted:Yes but my plan was actually going to work you defeatist charlatan That game was a hell of a thing from a specter perspective, shame it pettered out in the later years. It was also funny how the artillery preparation mirrored real life so closely. Too much in some sectors, not enough in others.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 05:37
|
|
|
sullat posted:I seem to recall that was also the French General's plan in Grey Hunter's WW1 game I believe it was Trin himself who once posted a set of orders that was nothing but "En avant!" in varying inflections. And yeah, I agree on the personality clashes. There was always a running tension between those who thought that the best way to fight WW1 was to never attack ever, and those who thought more was possible.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 06:57
|
|
|
Yeah, although I made a few mistakes, It was a great game. My main mistakes were - To large. I should have limited the number of corps down to 3 each MAX. I should have made it a meeting engagement. I should have enforced the 1 order change per Division per turn rule. I should have controlled the map better - the opening of the sides on turn 1 lead to things spiraling out of control. I've been tempted to do it again, but on a smaller scale.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 08:20
|
|
|
Grey Hunter posted:Yeah, although I made a few mistakes, It was a great game. I hope you do, it was fantastic even as a spectator
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 09:19
|
|
|
Please do! I'd love another go-round, it was a spectacular idea, and if only it had had about four umpires to take the load off you having to adjudicate everything...
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 09:47
|
|
|
Who ended up winning?
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 10:08
|
|
|
Mycroft Holmes posted:Who ended up winning? The undertakers? I also needed to add victory locations. I'll see how I'm doing once I'm back at work. To shattered atm.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 10:12
|
|
|
Mycroft Holmes posted:Who ended up winning? The audience, I imagine.  edit: To add my view of that game, I kept arguing with half my team about the need to cause a distraction, since our entire plan in 1915 relied on crossing a certain bridge, which could certainly be blown by the time we reached it if the enemy team figured out our plan early on. my dad fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Apr 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 11:19
|
|
|
I only remember going crazy with the idea of always having more reserves. MORE.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 12:24
|
|
|
Trin Tragula posted:Please do! I'd love another go-round, it was a spectacular idea, and if only it had had about four umpires to take the load off you having to adjudicate everything... I'd probably sign up for it 
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 12:47
|
|
|
If I have time when it comes about I'd love to have a go. Big if, though. Main thing I remember from the game was that in my round, the most aggressive generals planned for an assault but the actual execution ended up largely in the hands of those most opposed to the assault. And that's how a plan that emphasized speed and a willingness to absorb casualties above all things ended with us sitting patiently in No Man's Land waiting for the gas in the trenches to disperse while Allied artillery bombed us to bits.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 14:49
|
|
|
Tomn posted:If I have time when it comes about I'd love to have a go. Big if, though. It was them catching up to our own creeping barrage, because the planning of our artillery ended up being the most pessimistic part of the plan. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 14:57
|
|
|
God, this is like listening to people describe their loving dreams.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 14:59
|
|
|
Wait what is this? It sounds like it owns.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 15:26
|
|
spectralent posted:Wait what is this? It sounds like it owns. Grey Hunter hosts and produces some very interesting war gaming threads in the traditional games sub-forums. His Lets Plays are excellent as well.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 15:41
|
|
|
ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:God, this is like listening to people describe their loving dreams. consider posting on a subject that does interest you.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 16:01
|
|
|
Grey Hunter posted:
Sign me up if you do. Can't wait to blow some more bridges and fight the epic Second Battle of Mangepomme.  
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 16:20
|
|
|
I'll have you know that my loving dreams involve more tank destroyers, and lashings of promiscuous intercourse between officers and men 100 Years Ago It's the 22nd of April, and I do apologise for the severe delay in bringing to you a truly classic day of artisanal military failure. We begin in the North Sea, where the Grand Fleet goes looking for a mostly-illusory German sortie and finishes up merrily colliding with itself all over the place. Then we go on to consider the murders committed by General Mangin at Fort Douaumont with the police whistle. By the time we get to the Siege of Kut, like Edward Mousley I'm just about out of writing spirit. Louis Barthas does some precision drilling in the middle of a thunderstorm (guess who's to blame); E.S. Thompson and his car continue touring the bogs of northern Tanzania during rainy season; and Maximilian Mugge has an attack of snobbery because nobody else in his hut knows who Anatole France is. Knickers to you, matey. You wanted to be British.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 16:36
|
|
|
Speaking of arsing around the North Sea, does anybody know some good sources on this thing? It's possibly the least successful submarine design in history, and I'd like to write an infodump on it if I can find the material.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 17:13
|
|
|
Ainsley McTree posted:consider posting on a subject that does interest you. Okay, question: Modern ships have their missiles in vertical launch tubes. Cold War ships (by and large) ran on a more classic launcher/magazine setup. The advantages of VLS are pretty obvious - the magazine is the launcher, meaning more missiles in the same space or the same amount of missiles in less space. VLS also seems, to me, to be more straightforward and mechanically simple - you don't need to have the whole reloading mechanism set up. The question is: why did it take until after the Cold War ended for VLS to become a widespread thing?
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 17:15
|
|
|
I am pretty sure that you have to ground-up design for VLS since the box is large, heavy, and cuts across decks. At least for early missile carrying ships, it just wasn't feasible from a shipbuilding perspective.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 17:33
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:Speaking of arsing around the North Sea, does anybody know some good sources on this thing? D.K. Brown wrote a bit about it in The Grand Fleet, but you'll be disappointed because he didn't think there was anything absurd about them, just that their general concept was unworkable.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 17:37
|
|
|
You also need the box to either withstand the heat and stress of the missile's motor igniting in the box, or some kind of system to poop the missile out before it ignites, it's a lot more involved than just nailing a couple of arms to the deck. Also I don't think "after the cold war" is accurate? SSBNs have almost always had them, Soviet CGs (VLS was a Soviet invention yes?) have had them since the 1970s.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 17:40
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I am pretty sure that you have to ground-up design for VLS since the box is large, heavy, and cuts across decks. At least for early missile carrying ships, it just wasn't feasible from a shipbuilding perspective. Yeah but the magazine in a launcher/mag setup would be of an equal size, plus the ammunition lift to the actual launcher.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 17:50
|
|
|
It may also have to do with missile electronics. An arm launcher can point the missile in the right direction from the get go, so it doesn't have to "find" the signals after launch.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 18:10
|
|
|
I should totally go read the German threads to see WTF you guys were thinking there.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 18:29
|
|
|
ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:D.K. Brown wrote a bit about it in The Grand Fleet, but you'll be disappointed because he didn't think there was anything absurd about them, just that their general concept was unworkable. Respectfully beg to differ. quote:From their first appearance in mid-World War I, the Royal Navy’s K-class submarines were perhaps the most badly-conceived and ill-starred submersibles ever built by any nation. In both their original configuration and in the several derivatives that followed, the K-boats compiled an almost unbroken record of disaster and death, unredeemed by even a single instance of combat effectiveness. Spawned by a flawed tactical concept, implemented with immature and dangerous technologies, and kept at sea by the Admiralty’s stubborn refusal to admit the most obvious deficiencies, the K-class left in their wake a fascinating—even humorous—tale of operational and technical folly for which the query, “What were they thinking?” has seldom been more appropriate. [...] quote:However, the most distinctive features of the K-class derived directly from their steam power plants. Aft of the Control Room and the Beam Torpedo Rooms were located successively the Boiler, Turbine and Motor Rooms. Above the boilers were six large hull openings—two funnel uptakes and four air intakes, all closed by motor-operated valves. Each of the air intakes was 37 inches in diameter. The five-foot high funnels themselves protruded from a substantial superstructure aft of the conning tower and were tilted downward by electric motors and stowed in the superstructure prior to submerging. To dive the submarine, the boilers had to be shut down, the funnels retracted, and all the valves tightly seated to seal the Boiler Room while blowing ballast and converting over to electric drive. The residual heat was so fierce that the boiler spaces were totally uninhabitable during submergence, and had to be abandoned. A longitudinal passageway to one side thus had to be fitted to bypass the Boiler Room in moving between the two halves of the submarine. All the hatches, valves, hull penetrations, intakes, and uptakes necessitated by this Rube Goldberg arrangement led one experienced submariner to sum up the K-class boats with one pithy phrase: “Too many holes!” And on top of that, the biggest holes were located in a space that was normally unmanned while submerging. quote:Disaster in the Firth of Forth Other notes include that it was 339 ft long, but had a max diving depth of 200 ft, which meant that it could exceed its max diving depth when its stern was still at the surface if on a steep enough angle. As noted it was a very leaky ship and its internal bulkheads could only withstand 8o ft of water, meaning a rupture beneath that depth could sink the ship. Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Apr 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 18:34
|
|
|
ArchangeI posted:Yeah but the magazine in a launcher/mag setup would be of an equal size, plus the ammunition lift to the actual launcher. You don't need a hole big enough to fit all the missiles through in parallel, just big enough to fit them through in series. A VLS cell is a pretty big hole in more than one deck and I'd bet there's some real ship design wizardry to make the stresses work out. Also a ship's magazine means you don't need to have missiles that can spend their lives in a little box ready to go at a moment's notice.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 19:27
|
|
|
And you also don't need to wire everything up to to your launch/guidance system. So there'd be less equipment to fail and maintain. Also cheeper.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 20:01
|
|
|
I wouldn't say it gets anywhere near the level of "what were they thinking". Sure, it was a terrible design that was ultimately unworkable, but British submarine technology and doctrine were both still in their infancy at the time, and shipbuilding was making major leaps at the time - the K-class was designed barely a decade after the A-class that started British submarine efforts and only seven years after HMS Dreadnought was launched. For example, having a maximum dive depth that exceeded the length of the ship was a feature shared by other early British submarines, like the B-class, which was 142 feet long and was only rated for a depth of 50 feet, although it was tested against pressure levels equal to 100 feet. On top of that, the British were still playing catch-up on submarine technology in 1914, and a lot of the top admirals were well aware of the fact that German U-boats were accomplishing things the British had previously thought impossible. Within that context, it's easy to see why they said "well, let's try it and see" to the idea of a submarine that could keep up with the fleet; while the technological compromises that needed to be made for that proved crippling in 1913 and submarines eventually proved themselves to be generally much better suited for things other than fleet operations, it was par for the course in the early-20th-century Royal Navy.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 20:03
|
|
|
The biggest issue with cell-based missiles is the rounds have to be certified, that is be virtually maintenance free from the time you load the cells until the time you fire the round. The technology to do that didn't really exist until the 1970s and obviously doing it in a maritime environment is significantly harder than doing it on land
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 22:11
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:You don't need a hole big enough to fit all the missiles through in parallel, just big enough to fit them through in series That's just the main deck. The "magazine" is usually a big rotating cylinder that feeds the missiles to the launch arms and takes up a lot of internal space. Accomodating that actually takes *more* volume than a VLS launcher.  That one's the Mark 26 from the early Ticonderoga. They got away from the cylinder, but how's this saving any volume over a VLS system? Now you're storing all your missiles vertically, just like in a VLS, but you also need the machinery to maneuver them into place. quote:. A VLS cell is a pretty big hole in more than one deck and I'd bet there's some real ship design wizardry to make the stresses work out. See above: a conventional magazine is a pretty big hole in more than one deck. quote:Also a ship's magazine means you don't need to have missiles that can spend their lives in a little box ready to go at a moment's notice. Huh? Sure it does, unless you're planning on loading and unloading them on a regular basis for no particular reason. Missiles that are going to spend their lives in a magazine ready to go at a moment's notice really aren't any different.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 22:48
|
|
|
Not needing the cut to extend all the way up and out means a hole in all the decks without a mostly intact one above to take strain. Voids are bad but cuts in the box, especially extending deep in, are worse. Also, the Tico was designed when the missiles were already close to being able to be certified for VLS use, which means you don't need the same degree of access as you would earlier. There's a process from the earlier ships where, for example, fins had to be fitted, up to VLS. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some access though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2016 00:43
|
|
|
I would like to learn about Boshin war, what are some good books on the subject?
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2016 00:44
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:You don't need a hole big enough to fit all the missiles through in parallel, just big enough to fit them through in series. A VLS cell is a pretty big hole in more than one deck and I'd bet there's some real ship design wizardry to make the stresses work out. I am very confused right now. What is the alternative to a VLS for a submarine? I thought those systems were the default. I do not know poo poo about subs though. Please tell us more! oh, someone explained it before I made this post. Thanks, dude. Grand Prize Winner fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Apr 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2016 05:12
|
|
|
VLS feel like they became a necessity when they realized the twin arms weren't doing poo poo against saturation attacks. So I think you have to consider the tactical implications that went along with the technology advancement. Also, fun fact for this thread, you could never load the older Harpoons into a VLS so many of the Burkes straight up don't have a surface to surface anti-ship missile. This is one of the reasons the LRASM is a big deal in Navy procurement right now. Mazz fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Apr 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2016 06:04
|
|
|
Mazz posted:Also, fun fact for this thread, you could never load the older Harpoons into a VLS so many of the Burkes straight up don't have a surface to surface anti-ship missile. This is one of the reasons the LRASM is a big deal in Navy procurement right now. IIRC, All models of the Standard missile have the ability to be used as SSMs.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2016 06:35
|
|
|
MrYenko posted:IIRC, All models of the Standard missile have the ability to be used as SSMs. Don't SAMs kinda suck when used in the surface-to-surface role, since what you want your warhead to do is so different?
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2016 06:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 20:01 |
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:Don't SAMs kinda suck when used in the surface-to-surface role, since what you want your warhead to do is so different? Standard comes in so many varieties and modifications that I find it very hard to believe that there isn't one with a warhead optimized for killing ships.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2016 06:47
|
|