Scrap the German Fleet!!!!

[bebro]

That's what I wrote I just like naval warfare and think it should play an important role in an WWI setting. That you can't model everything is clear, but it doesn't mean things can't be improved

[stockwellpete]

The game is heavily abstracted you can't expect it to model all the technical details that make up a navy.

No, but you could have an extra category of ships (destroyers) that most powers seemed to have quite a few of, even if they were not a major power e.g. Turkey.

[Smirfy]

The game is heavily abstracted you can't expect it to model all the technical details that make up a navy.

No, but you could have an extra category of ships (destroyers) that most powers seemed to have quite a few of, even if they were not a major power e.g. Turkey.

The scale is roughly abstracted to army and fleet level, destroyers are an intrinsic part of the units simulated they are also simulated by the the green defensive zones. One round of combat is Jutland or the Marne, two rounds of combat is Verdun or the Somme that is my understanding of the scale. The Royal Navy began WWI with 221 destroyers and built a further 329 during it, im not sure we really want to individually model that when they spent the majority of their service screening larger warships.

[Umeu]

verdun and the somme were offensives and they lasted for months. marne and jutland were battles, so yes 1 round of combat would represent that.

[bebro]

The scale is roughly abstracted to army and fleet level, destroyers are an intrinsic part of the units simulated they are also simulated by the the green defensive zones. One round of combat is Jutland or the Marne, two rounds of combat is Verdun or the Somme that is my understanding of the scale. The Royal Navy began WWI with 221 destroyers and built a further 329 during it, im not sure we really want to individually model that when they spent the majority of their service screening larger warships.

I don't think anyone asked to model in individual vessels to the hundreds. But IMO if you have convoy-hunting subs in the game as separate units it makes sense to have dedicated ASW units to counter them. Sure you can abstract everything in various degrees. You could also abstract all land units into one type and declare everything else intrinsic parts. The question is what the devs and players think is the best appraoch for a certain game.

Personally I think the game would profit from enhancing naval combat, provided it works well enough.

/my 2 cents

[DukeOfLight]

why to scrap it...
it is necesary to protect the baltic convoys...
the allies have a battleship and a british submarine
so its a pretty close race.
i played with allies...and having control over the seas...i can make anfibios atack every where along the coast, forcing the central powers to garrison city's and coast line's.
so we just need to play a little more to see exactly how is it with the naval combat.

[stockwellpete]

I don't think anyone asked to model in individual vessels to the hundreds. But IMO if you have convoy-hunting subs in the game as separate units it makes sense to have dedicated ASW units to counter them. Sure you can abstract everything in various degrees. You could also abstract all land units into one type and declare everything else intrinsic parts. The question is what the devs and players think is the best appraoch for a certain game.

Yes. I have got quite interested in the navies of the various powers since getting this game and I have been trying to look up figures for the different types of ships that each major power had. It is a bit confusing and figures vary somewhat (for example, should armoured cruisers be called battleships?).

Anyway, I have found these numbers (from Wikipedia) about dreadnoughts in 1914 . . .

Russia 4
France 10
Britain 29
Italy 4

Germany 17
Austro-Hungary 4

Everyone else in the game 0

Now it seems quite clear that these ships (built from 1905/6 onwards) rendered all other battleships (or capital ships) pretty much obsolete - I mean the pre-dreadnought classes of battleships and the armoured cruisers built before 1906. So maybe, in the game instead of having the generic term "battleship" (which must include both dreadnoughts and pre dreadnoughts) we had units actually called "dreadnoughts" - and then the other capital ships could maybe be called "battle-cruisers" (representing pre-dreadnought battleships and the larger armoured cruisers). Then, to complete the classification there could be "destroyers" and "submarines".

In terms of scale, maybe if you divided the dreadnought figures given above by 10 then that would give the following dreadnought units in the game - a 2:1 advantage to the Entente . . .

France 1
Britain 3

Germany 2

Everyone else 0

At the moment in the game the "Battleship" units are distributed as follows (some are more modern than others, I know), again giving roughly a 2:1 advantage to the Entente, so the dreadnought ratio above looks to be OK . . .

Russia 1
France 1
Britain 1
Italy 1

Germany 1
Austro-Hungary 1

Everyone else 0

Obviously the next thing I have to do is to try and compile figures for the pre-dreadnoughts and battle-cruisers.

[Umeu]

why to scrap it...
it is necesary to protect the baltic convoys...
the allies have a battleship and a british submarine
so its a pretty close race.
i played with allies...and having control over the seas...i can make anfibios atack every where along the coast, forcing the central powers to garrison city's and coast line's.
so we just need to play a little more to see exactly how is it with the naval combat.

eh no. Russia cant win in the baltic unless britain sends like 5 subs. The german ships are way better, ive even beaten the russian battleship a couple of times when it was at 10 pp in THEIR OWN PORT... i took some losses, but the 10morale penalty, elinating the threat and the fact it meant i could then scrap my own fleet was worth it. and as said before, in the 1914 scenario its just not worth it to protect your own convoy because its only worth 30 pp. the 50pp convoys are worth to protect, obv the bring more income + a sub attack seems to knock off only 10 pp worth of dmg while the 30pp one usually lose 20 worth of dmg by a single sub attack. the cruisers do either 1-2 dmg to the sub early on if you have 2 or 0 if you have 1 and play vs a guy that camps the sub and doesnt attack near your cruiser. now ofcourse the tech is modelled such that as time goes on cruisers become way more effective vs subs than subs become vs ships so they do catch up (which is good ) BUT, the time it takes to get to that level, the cost of ship upgrades and the fact that in that time german will have lost hundreds of pp so most likely will have just scrapped his fleet + his naval tech lab (because it simply is more cost-effective) means it doesnt matter unless you start playing after 1915.

[stockwellpete]

Just a point on the difference between dreadnoughts (1906 onwards) and pre-dreadnought battleships. If we use the British fleet as an example . . .

The King Edward VII class of pre-dreadnoughts, commissioned between 1904 and 1906 (8 of them), were 16,000 tons+, capable of 18 knots and had 4x12" guns, 4x9" guns and 10x6" guns plus some torpedo tubes.

The Orion class of dreadnoughts, commissioned between 1909 and 1912 (4 of them), were 22,000 tons, capable of around 20 knots and had 10x13.5" guns plus some torpedo tubes.
The Queen Elizabeth class of dreadnoughts, commissioned between 1912 and 1916 (5 of them), were 27,500 tons, capable of 25 knots (!) and had 8x15" guns, 14x6" guns plus some torpedo tubes and anti-aircraft guns.

So the dreadnoughts being produced for the British navy around 1914 were about 75% bigger, 40% faster and had at least twice the firepower of the most modern pre-dreadnought designed battleships in the fleet.

[Smirfy]

The French only had 4 dreadnoughts in 1914 and commissioned a further 3 during the war. I guess that wiki article is confusing the Danton class with Dreadnoughts (although turbine propelled they had a pre dreadnought armament).

[stockwellpete]

The French only had 4 dreadnoughts in 1914 and commissioned a further 3 during the war. I guess that wiki article is confusing the Danton class with Dreadnoughts (although turbine propelled they had a pre dreadnought armament).

Yes, I think you are right there as there were six Danton pre-dreadnoughts launched between 1909 and 1911 . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danton_class_battleship