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Flavius Aetass posted:I'm not nearly well-versed enough in naval history to know why that's wacky, but I keep seeing comments like this from RtW goons and was hoping I could get an explanation as to why certain things that seem to me like "a bunch of big guns on a metal ship, which is what a dreadnought or battleship is" seem obviously crazy and ahistorical to others. Dreadnoughts historically began with HMS Dreadnought. In the ship naming scheme a 'B' is a pre-dreadnought and a 'BB' is a post-dreanought. wikipedia posted:HMS Dreadnought was a battleship built for the Royal Navy that revolutionised naval power. Dreadnought's entry into service in 1906 represented such an advance in naval technology that its name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the "dreadnoughts", as well as the class of ships named after it. Likewise, the generation of ships she made obsolete became known as "pre-dreadnoughts". Admiral Sir John "Jacky" Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Board of Admiralty, is credited as the father of Dreadnought. Shortly after he assumed office, he ordered design studies for a battleship armed solely with 12-inch (305 mm) guns and a speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). Basically HMS Dreadnought was such a step up in capability from all the big battleships that preceded her that she rendered them all obsolete (they are now called pre-dreadnoughts). This was mainly because of two factors. 1) A uniform main battery of big guns. 2) Steam turbines. Short version is thanks to the turbines she could be fast for the era while also carrying more armor than most comparable battleships. The uniform battery of big guns was revolutionary because previously battleships had had maybe 2-4 big guns forward and aft and a lot of 6''-8'' secondary guns mounted on the sides. It let her engage an enemy from well beyond the range of most of their guns and also meant that shell splashes (how you would range on an enemy) were not confused with the splashes of the secondary guns meaning you could find the range and start hitting a lot sooner. Basically Battleship and Dreadnought is interchangeable for most of the RtW period apart from the very start. The Battleship (B or BB)/Battlecruiser (BC) distinction is to do with their roles and design philosophy. Battleships were slower (low 20's in knots) and mounted the biggest guns and most armor possible. This enabled them to 'lie in the line of battle' and basically they were built for large scale fleet engagements where two lines of battleships sail parallel and pound the poo poo out of each other. Battlecruisers were big ships (often only slightly smaller or even bigger than battleships) designed to hunt and kill anything that was not a battleship. Theoretically they would be used to win the 'scouting' battles before a main engagement and also hunt enemy raiding ships. To do this they were very fast, often faster even than smaller cruisers. Ironically due to the physics of hull design it can be easier to make bigger ships go faster than more moderately sized ones. However to achieve this speed you have to sacrifice a lot of mass to bigger engines which usually meant they had (barely) enough armor protection to take hits from the small guns 6''-8'' of heavy/light cruisers but nowhere near enough to take hits from other Battlecruisers or Battleships/Dreadnoughts.You can see this best demonstrated at the battle of Jutland with British battlecruisers just blowing the gently caress up when they took high calibre hits. At the most basic level for ship design you choose a balance of Speed/Armor/Guns for a given size. Battleships are a Armor/Guns design and Battlecruisers are usually a Speed/Guns design though some German designs tended towards smaller guns and more armor. Specifically for the 4x12'' 10x10'' 12'' armor design its weird because it occupies a strange halfway point between the historical pre-Dreadnoughts and the Dreadnought 'all big guns' design. A proper dreadnought will always be better but you can get these guys out from basically the very start and they are nearly as good especially if you refit them with secondary battery fire controls later. Saros fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Jun 18, 2018 |
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Jun 18, 2018 15:27
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10" shells have a good deal more boom than 9", yes. So while they may penetrate roughly the same, 10" shells will do more damage.
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Jun 18, 2018 15:34
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Those are really good explanations, thanks.
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Jun 18, 2018 15:37
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I can't decide between Pike n Shot and Field of Glory 2. Does one work better than the other or do I just go by which era I prefer?
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Jun 18, 2018 15:39
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There were some weird semi dreadnoughts right before HMS Dreadnought IRL too. The design saros was talking about is is kind of like the Japanese Satsuma, which was intended to be the first all big gun battleship. Turned out they couldn’t import enough of the British 12” guns that it was meant to have, so the majority of the armament got downgraded to a 10” superheavy secondary.
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Jun 18, 2018 15:39
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Naval treaties!   For a glimpse of how far things came IRL in 1900-1925: British Duncan class:  14,000 tons and maybe 7''-8'' of armor on the belt. American South Dakota's (1920 design, never completed)  12x 16'' guns, 23kts, 13.5'' belt armor, 684 feet (208 m) long, 106 feet (32 m) wide and displaced 43,200 tons. Saros fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Jun 18, 2018 |
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Jun 18, 2018 15:55
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Saros posted:Naval treaties! I love how absolutely massive the Yamato is  It's the only ship to continue the pre-Washington treaty trendlineaphid_licker posted:I can't decide between Pike n Shot and Field of Glory 2. Does one work better than the other or do I just go by which era I prefer? Field of Glory 2 is a better game. However, I do actually like fhe Pike n Shot campaign system more ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Jun 18, 2018 16:02
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aphid_licker posted:I can't decide between Pike n Shot and Field of Glory 2. Does one work better than the other or do I just go by which era I prefer? Field of Glory II is newer and more refined, the tactical battles are the better of the two. Pike and Shot has the better campaign system, though, FoG2's is a bit simplified. So far my biggest criticism of FoG2 is the sound, there's a grand total of one sound effect recorded for every action and it gets really annoying hearing the same stock 'sword clash' sound thirty times per turn Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Jun 18, 2018 |
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Jun 18, 2018 16:44
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Fray posted:There were some weird semi dreadnoughts right before HMS Dreadnought IRL too. The design saros was talking about is is kind of like the Japanese Satsuma, which was intended to be the first all big gun battleship. Turned out they couldn’t import enough of the British 12” guns that it was meant to have, so the majority of the armament got downgraded to a 10” superheavy secondary. You've got a few: Lord Nelson Regina Elena Radetzky You can definitely see the convergence towards the all big gun idea Vittorio Cuniberti was talking about when he published his paper in 1903. Th American Mississippi class also had a similar move toward the all gun configuration that wouldn't be realized until the South Carolina class.
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Jun 18, 2018 17:44
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Saros posted:Naval treaties! What US Battleship got near 60,000 tons?
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Jun 18, 2018 18:42
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Mister Bates posted:Field of Glory II is newer and more refined, the tactical battles are the better of the two. Pike and Shot has the better campaign system, though, FoG2's is a bit simplified. I agree with this and—having never played Pike and Shot—can say that the FoG2 campaign system is really quite boring; however, I am glad there is at least some campaign system. For example I am still coming to terms with the fact Desert War has zero campaign modes.
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Jun 18, 2018 18:45
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nessin posted:What US Battleship got near 60,000 tons? The planned Montana-class.
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Jun 18, 2018 18:46
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So, I know I just talked about this a few months ago, but since it was Spring 2018, I decided to re-read John Toland’s book No Man’s Land, and well... gently caress... I am so baffled why people always talk about Second World War “What Ifs” when the First World War was such a close run thing. I mean the German Spring Offensives of 1918, despite the 250,000 Americans arriving every month, despite the effects of the blockade, and despite Ludendorff’s terrible generalship during the campaign, came a literal hair’s breadth away from forcing France to her knees and destroying a large part of the British army. It was so close, contingency plans were made for seeking peace and soldiers and generals all the way up to Haig and Petain believed the Entente was within hours of being defeated. I mean the military historian in mean is kind of amazed the Entente and the US were able to turn the defeatism and near defeat of the Allied armies in mid-June on its head with 100 days offensive just a month and a half later... This makes me real sad as a grog gamer that nobody spends time on First World War games, and that when they do, nobody has really done a great job of capturing to conflict. The closest I think is Guns of August because of its HQ offensive system, but even that is far from perfect.
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Jun 18, 2018 19:03
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Mister Bates posted:Field of Glory II is newer and more refined, the tactical battles are the better of the two. Pike and Shot has the better campaign system, though, FoG2's is a bit simplified. Man that's a bummer about the campaign system in FoG2, I think between that and a slight preference for the era I'll so with PnS.
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Jun 18, 2018 19:33
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ZombieLenin posted:So, I know I just talked about this a few months ago, but since it was Spring 2018, I decided to re-read John Toland’s book No Man’s Land, and well... gently caress... I'm not sure the Spring Offensives were THAT close in reality - from what I understand the Germans basically blew everything they had left logistically on them and would have had trouble pushing much further than they did even if every Entente soldier was simultaneously Raptured, just from supply issues alone. Unsurprising that they cracked like an egg once the counter-offensive got underway, given those circumstances, they'd burned themselves out. That being said, "what the situation is in reality" and "what the situation looks like to the politician seeing a big swathe of the map turning gray" are two different things and I can definitely see how the offensives could have caused some panicking on the home front that may well have led to peace discussions. And I also agree that WW1 was a lot more of a near-run thing than WW2. I guess it's probably the ideologies involved that make people fantasize about WW2 what-ifs - a world in which the Nazis won or the Soviet Union invaded Europe is a big, dramatic change. A world in which Imperial Germany wins? The changes aren't so interesting or easy to plot. (I assume you already know about Commander: The Great War?)
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Jun 18, 2018 21:31
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Don't forget how devastating the Uboat campaign was being until Willy got pissy and mucked about with the Navy. There was a brief period where many Americans were seriously pissed about the British constantly stopping, detaining, and searching/seizing American ships/cargos destined for Neutral ports (which may or may not have later gone on to the Central Powers) until the Uboat warfare policies changed and American ships/citizens started getting sunk/killed by boats more frequently.
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Jun 18, 2018 22:03
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Does anyone else have an issue with pike&shot's skirmish generator giving the defending side on an attack-type battle more units?
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Jun 18, 2018 22:05
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Stairmaster posted:Does anyone else have an issue with pike&shot's skirmish generator giving the defending side on an attack-type battle more units? Working as intended. There's supposed to be garrison units in every province manning the local fortress the enemy has to siege down, and if there's a battle it's assumed that some of those garrison units will march out to join the fight. Similarly, if you win a siege some of your units will vanish. This is normal, and represents them departing the main army to form the local garrison. Edit: Though come to think of it that's the campaign, not sure if they do the same thing for a randomly generated skirmish. Seems odd.
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Jun 18, 2018 22:07
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is polish and austrian calvary supposed to be this overpowering compared to the ottomans? 
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Jun 18, 2018 22:51
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Stairmaster posted:is polish and austrian calvary supposed to be this overpowering compared to the ottomans? Those Polish Hussars must've drank their Red Bulls. 
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Jun 18, 2018 23:02
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Stairmaster posted:is polish and austrian calvary supposed to be this overpowering compared to the ottomans? Something something winged hussars.
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Jun 18, 2018 23:24
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Stairmaster posted:is polish and austrian calvary supposed to be this overpowering compared to the ottomans? Yes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna
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Jun 18, 2018 23:24
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ZombieLenin posted:I agree with this and—having never played Pike and Shot—can say that the FoG2 campaign system is really quite boring; however, I am glad there is at least some campaign system. I think it's a lot better than P&S's campaign, but I hate map campaigns for these kind of games. Stairmaster posted:is polish and austrian calvary supposed to be this overpowering compared to the ottomans? The AI is really not very good at using the movement rules to beat pistol cavalry with skirmish cavalry. Horse/Vet. Horse are still generally better than horse archers/carbine light cav, but the AI magnifies the issue. Basically, horse have a pistol capability that negates swordsmen(most ottoman cav have this) until they get disrupted, and the way to disrupt horse is to shoot at them. There's a similar dynamic with janissaries/sword+gun units vs pike+shot units. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Jun 18, 2018 |
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Jun 18, 2018 23:40
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Tomn posted:I'm not sure the Spring Offensives were THAT close in reality - from what I understand the Germans basically blew everything they had left logistically on them and would have had trouble pushing much further than they did even if every Entente soldier was simultaneously Raptured, just from supply issues alone. Unsurprising that they cracked like an egg once the counter-offensive got underway, given those circumstances, they'd burned themselves out. If you haven’t already, and you’re interested, I suggest you read Toland’s No Man’s Land. It really was that close, and both Clemenceau and Loyd George were in serious risk of falling; however, it was not just the politicians. Field Marshall Wilson was predicting that the French were going to collapse and, even if the British kept the Channel ports covered, the British Army would lose a million prisoners evacuating. Haig though something similar, and briefly contemplated what the British could do to make the peace less bad. Pétain panicked, thought the war was lost and encouraged the evacuation of Paris. That being said, you are largely correct. Ludendorff had become semi unhinged and instead of focusing on any one of the strategic opportunities like the capture of Compiegne or Amien—either of which, if you consult the war diaries of Entente leadership would have forced an immediate request for armistice by one or both of the Entente powers—he decided to do both AND turn his diversion towards the Marne into a real sustained attack. Germany was also hindered by war weariness of the troops and lack of discipline (troops so hungry they would stop to gorge themselves on captured allies foodstuffs). quote:I assume you already know about Commander: The Great War?) Of course! Its a pretty good grog lite, but I really wish there were true grog WW1 games that captured the conflict, at any level, better. Like I said, Guns of August is a decent WW1 grand strategy title, particularly at capturing the static part of the war; however, its pretty terrible at capturing the more mobile parts of the conflict—Eastern Front, 1914, and 1918. Galaga Galaxian posted:Don't forget how devastating the Uboat campaign was being until Willy got pissy and mucked about with the Navy. The supreme irony being that it was really the restarting of the unrestricted uboat campaign that brought America into the war, and this campaign did relatively little... And it was the knowledge the Americans were massing that probably led to the Entente not folding during the Spring Campaign AND contributed to the demoralization of the German army during the 100 days campaign. In other words, the Americans actually played the critical role in victory against Germany in the First World War, while the Soviets would probably have beat the nazis on their own... Yet we World War Two is the war we Americans tend to want to take credit for winning. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Jun 19, 2018 |
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Jun 19, 2018 14:58
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Is Toland's work still mostly well regarded today? I read the Rising Sun a while ago when I was looking for a book on the Pacific campaign with more of a view of the Japanese side of things, and I recall being warned that while it was a good read, a whole bunch of claims in there don't hold up to modern scholarship.
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Jun 19, 2018 15:33
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:Is Toland's work still mostly well regarded today? I read the Rising Sun a while ago when I was looking for a book on the Pacific campaign with more of a view of the Japanese side of things, and I recall being warned that while it was a good read, a whole bunch of claims in there don't hold up to modern scholarship. As a bit of an aside to this, did you find any good alternatives to Rising Sun? I'm looking for that same type of book - the Pacific War from the Japanese perspective - and am coming up short. I'm listening to the audiobook of Rising Sun and it's a bit tough to follow and doesn't really feel like it's sinking in.
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Jun 19, 2018 16:04
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Gewehr 43 posted:As a bit of an aside to this, did you find any good alternatives to Rising Sun? I'm looking for that same type of book - the Pacific War from the Japanese perspective - and am coming up short. I'm listening to the audiobook of Rising Sun and it's a bit tough to follow and doesn't really feel like it's sinking in. Unfortunately I haven't been able to yet. That's part of the reason I powered through Rising Sun despite all it's caveats.
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Jun 19, 2018 16:15
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Gewehr 43 posted:As a bit of an aside to this, did you find any good alternatives to Rising Sun? I'm looking for that same type of book - the Pacific War from the Japanese perspective - and am coming up short. I'm listening to the audiobook of Rising Sun and it's a bit tough to follow and doesn't really feel like it's sinking in. He definitely writes in a more narrative style a la foot, but in so doing he relies heavily on war diaries and the like—so for a topic like “what was going on inside in Army HQ and in the trenches in 1918,” I think he does well.
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Jun 19, 2018 16:31
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The main criticism I've heard from Rising Sun was that Toland took everything he heard from the Japanese commanders and politicians he interviewed (IIRC the reason his book was so big was he was the first western academic to actually write based on their accounts) at face value without taking into account: 1. Everyone is trying to make themselves look good and their wartime rivials look like idiots. 2. Everyone deflecting blame from the emperor at all costs. Rising Sun reeeaallly leans in the whole "Poor Hirohito knew nothing of atrocities and was just misled and kept in the dark by evil ambitious military men", which by now we know was bullshit. So I don't know for sure if his other works suffer from the same credulity problem, but after reading Rising Sun I'd be a bit wary.
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Jun 19, 2018 16:43
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RTW question: if an early treaty limits gun size before you get decent guns, are you still allowed to refit once you get them? Just got a treaty that limits new ships to 10" guns; I still have B's with -1 12" guns and I'm not sure if that means I get to rebuild them once I roll better 12" guns.
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Jun 19, 2018 18:26
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Yes you can refit your old ships with better guns but not afaik enlarge their guns via trading in doubles for singles etc.
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Jun 19, 2018 19:07
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Ghostmonkey posted:Decided to pick up RTW after I started reading that battleship design book one of you linked a few pages back. So far, I got sacked about 14 turns in? So far this game seems unnecessarily difficult (why am I allowed to choose options that I haven't researched yet?). I'm gonna give it a another go maybe without bankrupting Great Britain with crew training. It might be easier to try a smaller country first? I started with Italy in my very first game and that's great - you've mostly just got the Med to worry about, A/H only has one port and the French are generally not too terrible. And then just throw poo poo together to see what works, what doesn't and what's funny while trying to avoid having your precious BBs sunk by friendly torpedoes.  This thing hit 30kts in ~1905 and lasted until 1925. I'm still not sure how.
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Jun 19, 2018 19:18
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TacticalNecromancy posted:It might be easier to try a smaller country first? I started with Italy in my very first game and that's great - you've mostly just got the Med to worry about, A/H only has one port and the French are generally not too terrible. It works great until you are accidentally at was with Great Britain. That’s the problem with small countries. My recommendation for new players is Germany. You have enough money to build a decent fleet, and you don’t have a huge overseas empire to worry about. Usually you end up at war with Russia, but if you do end up at war with a major naval power like Great Britain you have the budget to have the fleet to stand up to them given the British deployment priorities.
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Jun 19, 2018 19:29
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ZombieLenin posted:It works great until you are accidentally at war with Great Britain. That's fair. I think I avoided it with Italy, but my second game was as the CSA and that involved at least one war with GB. IIRC I mostly solved that one by declining battles without a major advantage and relying on making the Gulf of Mexico so full of submarines that 'Lusitania' became a verb. Luckily the British and French were more squeamish than the good ol' boys.
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Jun 19, 2018 19:36
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TacticalNecromancy posted:
loving lolz That thing is a travesty.
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Jun 19, 2018 19:39
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Gewehr 43 posted:loving lolz The RTW thread has my first couple of campaigns in it and I like my Confednoughts even more than the Italians. The Itis were based off of hotrods, the Confednoughts were based off Great Lakes freighters. 
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Jun 19, 2018 19:41
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TacticalNecromancy posted:The RTW thread has my first couple of campaigns in it and I like my Confednoughts even more than the Italians. The Itis were based off of hotrods, the Confednoughts were based off Great Lakes freighters. I love the lifeboat placement.
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Jun 19, 2018 20:03
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For whatever reason, the idea of a "CSS Tucker Carlson" just tickles me so much. The goofy layout just makes it all the better.
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Jun 19, 2018 20:22
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:The main criticism I've heard from Rising Sun was that Toland took everything he heard from the Japanese commanders and politicians he interviewed (IIRC the reason his book was so big was he was the first western academic to actually write based on their accounts) at face value without taking into account: Anecdotes from the losing side are notoriously unreliable. Not admitting to major personal mistakes, making your opponents seem hopelessly stronger, and throwing peers under the bus as you mentioned.
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Jun 19, 2018 20:32
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TacticalNecromancy posted:
You have invented the Battle-Destroyer
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