arkhangelsk

Think of it this way: Jimh: "I have designed the optimal ship to meet a wide variety of situations. It has secondaries, AAA, a torp belt and all the rest." "Oh, I see. Just for reference, what would this ship look like if it is optimized only for Scenario A?" Jimh: "I don't know. I refuse to build a ship optimized for only Scenario A. Scenario A is unrealistic." "... how about if it is optimized only for Scenario B?" Jimh: "I hadn't put a single ounce of thought on such a ship either. I think it's unrealistic." "Why should I believe you actually know how to build an optimal ship to meet a wide variety of scenarios if you can't even answer my questions about ships optimized for only one scenario? What you know how to build is a "textbook" ship. You have no real idea of how important each component is - you just put them in because the textbook told you to put them or that's what other people did. When designing your ship, did you even take into account we won't be facing any planes? Have you considered how every secondary gun steals accuracy from the main armament and reduces the amount of armor you can put on the ship? Oh by the way, what is the optimal engagement range of your ship?" Jimh: "Uh, I don't know. I've only tested my ship in 'realistic' ... that is to say even-handed scenarios. I know my ship can defeat another similar ship with ammo to spare." "Well, if you had actually tried pitting your ship against multiple battleships no matter how unrealistic you think it is, you would have learnt that you could have done it using only half the ammo expenditure if you closed 5 kilometers, while still not taking a crippling amount of damage. Also, if you got rid of the secondaries, you can clobber the ship using only 40% of the ammunition because the main guns become more accurate!" Jimh: "What if it faces a destroyer? We need anti-torp defense." "If you have ever tried it, you'll know that your main guns need only five minutes before it lands a devastating hit on that stupid destroyer which is more than can be said if you just pepper it with secondaries."

Your proposal re the Naval Academy will ruin what it is trying to accomplish. Naval Academy is just that ... teaching you about the game. It's title is not "Single Missions". The scenarios are going to be unrealistically tough, though maybe they might just happen in campaign if you are a weak sea power who unfortunately gets into a fight with the strongest sea power. What a player needs to learn is a) what the game thinks is a good ship for any particular task, b) once you actually start fighting what tactics to use. Getting a feel for the interrelationship between distance, your own hit rate using your limited ammo and the enemy's ability to hurt you and c) practicing retaining enough situational awareness to dodge those torpedoes before they smack your ship and rob it of a chunk of speed. To do this, the missions are deliberately made hard. As the missions get harder, the number of solutions that will put you in the winning zone reduces. That forces you to learn the game's "scoring matrix", so to speak. If they give you something so you can just scribble a "general-purpose" ship + safe tactics and still win, you learn nothing. In fact, you'll retain bad habits because you can get away with them. If you can't even design a ship and tactical solution for one fixed (within the game's randomization of the enemy's assets) task, what makes you think you'll do very well in "the real world"?

😆😆😆 Do you remember a time when the AI actually did that? IIRC it started cutting and running when it had over half its health bar left, which is not unreasonable because if you aren't making commensurate progress by the time your ship gets to that point honestly you aren't going to win. Further, the mechanic was a great way to increase the difficulty level, for it ensured the player had to be careful with his ship, so it keeps enough of its speed for the pursuit phase (rather than burning its life to the last knowing it's only Naval Academy and their ship only has to last one mission), and had to design a ship that's faster than its probable opponent. Anyway ... people complained. Now the AI is force-restrained from using this tactically effective move.

Just 8 more percent to go. This game has a point when the ship will give up the ghost, and it's not 8%, it's 0%. And please don't think changing this is a good idea. When it is YOUR ship and it sinks before the bar hits zero, you will scream. Regarding the ship's unkillability, first, you've covered up the displacement and caliber of biggest gun, but based on its near 700 man crew, four inch armor, I'm going to guess that's at least a light cruiser of over 4000 tons. You've opened up about 80 little holes and threw grenades (the amount of bursting charge in a small caliber shell can be truly miserable) into them. Yeah ... I can see the thing not sinking. As for your the brain dead AI ... there's not enough information to tell. What are the positions and status of its competitors? Besides, did you know that players have complained when their ship shifted targets on their own? I won't. It depends on what you believe integrity means. Personally, I think 0% is the point when it starts "collapsing on itself". At 8%, it is calculated to be 8% from that point.

Oh, this part is actually very realistic, at least for the WWI and before era that everyone wants this game to put more emphasis on. Friedman, Norman. Naval Weapons of World War One: Guns, Torpedoes, Mines and ASW Weapons of All Nations (An Illustrated Directory) (p. 17). Pen & Sword Books. Kindle Edition.

I've been refraining because I don't play this game as much as some others, but for what it's worth, so far crew quality is enticing me as much to use it as secondary guns (not at all). Sure, I've maxed out the ship's displacement I'll spend the spare change on it b/c it can't hurt, but if it's between say 5 crappily trained battleship, 4 moderately well trained battleships or 3 well trained ones, so far Naval Academy isn't exactly punishing me for choosing the 5 crappily trained battleships. But then, maybe it won't be an issue in the campaign. Maybe in the campaign there won't even be a slider - crews would just start at zero and slowly work up. As for Custom Battles ... unless you want to deliberately handicap yourself, there are no cost caps anyway so why not just pick 100.

This is not a ship, but a reminder that sometimes the AI can make good decisions: Couldn't decide how to evade the two torps on the left, so clicked AI button On. Then the AI fired another torpedo (one on right) at my destroyer. AI dodged them all beautifully.

In general, I prefer just using my main armament on those things. I have no trouble with the conclusion that I don't actually need secondaries. Maybe the campaign and needing to fight more than one battle with a ship per sortie will change my mind, but right now I just use the weight of the secondary battery on a bit more padding.

Beautiful. Are the penetration values for Iron Plate armor?

Game, I don't think you can ever go wrong if a) You just lock the bulkheads to maximum. b) The fore / aft guns are always at least as big as the side guns. c) This is a Custom Battle. We have infinite money, so start with Quality 100 crews. BTW, I'll believe a 44803HP engine can push a 20000 ton thing at 28 knots when I see it.

This relates to a matter of "law" - whether this game should have National Characteristics (countries having inherent advantages or disadvantages beyond budget, industry level or geography). My thinking is that whether we like it or not, it has been clear for a long time we will be having a degree of "national characteristics", and you don't even have to peer at "Resistance" to see it. Just take a look at that first Chinese battleship (from 1890). Do you notice you can put three main gun turrets on it? Most of the other countries have designs that only allow for two. Of course, those turrets are heavy so you'll have to give something up like armor or gun size if you really want to cram three gun turrets on it, but it still represents an efficiency option that's unavailable to most other nations. I've also noticed that (at least previously, hadn't checked this latest interation) not everyone had semidreadnought hulls. Since everyone goes dreadnought at the same time, whether you previously had access to semidreadnought hulls divides whether your predreadnought fleet goes into instant obsolescence or whether they can just about tag along in the 2nd line. Like the Chinese, I notice that relatively poorly off countries like Japan got those semidreadnought hulls. So I suspect the intent of this game is to hand out these quiet little buffs to the resource-poor nations to make them somewhat more competitive. It's a valid choice and I can accept it as long as the buffs are not implausible. And if those buffs actually have some basis to them ... all the better. So if the Germans have a reputation for tough ships and they get allocated hulls with a bit more "Resistance", I can accept that choice. For PoW, I can accept it got hit in a less than ideal place but there's still not an excuse for things like: In game terms, the rudder went red, as did all the secondary turrets, from a single hit. Speed was reduced to 15 knots, so that's ... probably Engine 1 and Engine 2 fail.On Scharnhorst ... I think that's less "embarassing" than Prince of Wales, is it not? The ship was more or less ready again in half a year, only that the crew was retrained they had to go to Norway in January of 1943

I'm a bit half and half on this point, because it's also possible that different designs (and also crew practices ... that has to go into "Resistance") might mean some engine rooms can take more damage before they completely crap out, or some magazines are less likely to blow up (flash fire) than others. We also have to factor in how "modular" damage sometimes doesn't do justice to the way a real ship is interconnected. It may be possible, for example, that the British turret itself is as tough as the German one. But the electrical systems are not and when that goes down the turret will be unpowered and useless. If you just make the British turret as tough, you cease to reflect that at all, and making the British turret a bit "crunchier" along with the rest of the ship may help represent that. This kind of thing is also a consideration.

The first step to being nicer is to assume less than the worst of your opponent. Yes, darn it, I have that book. In fact I have the paper version, too. Also, what do you think I was referring to when I said: Doesn't that imply I'm aware of the less than safe crew practices aboard British battlecruisers? Doesn't that imply I might just be aware of the mitigating factors that can be put up? And while Wikipedia might not be the most glamorous source in the world, I'd like to point out I replied to a post that had no cited sources of any kind. I will also point out that it is not only the British who made tactical and handling errors that day that led to their battlecruisers taking un-necessary damage. Lots of un-necessary damage. But they survived, and today's discussion is about Resistance. You might remember that it is only in this iteration that we even had any kind of "crew" at all. Thus, if you want to represent the idea that one nation's crew may have sloppier practices, it has to go into one of the hull characteristics, like Resistance.

Doug, I applaud you for the effort in typing up so much text (I have NOT been able to find an Ebook version of On Seas Contested). However, none of what you quoted refutes the possibility of a good hearing system which is the debate at hand. All your text says is that they don't have very good active sonars or "fire control systems" or trained operators to use them. Your own text concedes that Hood was "tracked" well over the horizon, and I don't know how you can "track" something without bearing information. Hydrophone or passive listening gear still formed the backbone of underwater location technique. Might mean it is pretty good (I'm not saying good enough you can drop depth charges on it). Here, have a picture: I see it provides bearing information, approximate speed, approximate type. Here are some for Bismarck: The thing seems to work pretty well, the radar was knocked out and there's no point in trying tricky maneuvers if they can see the cruisers. Further, it's clear that the British cruisers were at the very edge of their own radar range.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SS5XGCS/ref=wl_mb_wl_huc_mrai_3_dp https://www.amazon.com/Battleship-Bismarck-Design-Operational-History-ebook/dp/B07WWP9V8K/ref=sr_1_11?dchild=1&keywords=Prinz+Eugen&qid=1633405017&s=digital-text&sr=1-11 https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Cruisers-Admiral-Hipper-Class-ebook/dp/B00SGC4YGA/ref=sr_1_14?dchild=1&keywords=Prinz+Eugen&qid=1633405017&s=digital-text&sr=1-14 That reminds me. I've been giving you free credit so far, but I still don't know the number of that stupid U-boat who said he can't hear jack, exactly what the source's name is, or exactly what it said...

You, sir, are not thinking it through. For your first point, again you are ignoring the sheer scarcity of heavy ships and the abundance of U-boats in the German navy. Suppose I have 10 ships, 990 U-boats and 1000 sonarmen to put on them. If I put my best ten sonarmen on the ten ships, then the U-boats start with #11. The average of all the U-boat sonarmen will be (11+1000)/2=505.5. Meanwhile, I've significantly improved the survivability of my ten surface ships. If I put my ten best sonarmen on the U-boat and deliberately give the ten worst sonarmen to the surface ship because the U-boat's "entire existence depending on how well that system is operated", the average of all the U-boat sonarmen will be (1+990)/2 = 495.5, a ten place improvement but still close to 500. Big deal. Meanwhile, I've significantly decreased the survivability of my ten surface ships. Still want to put your best in the U-boat? It's me, not you. Here's why: 1) It's not the noisy one you are worried about not detecting by sound in time. It's the quiet one. You are worried about the one with turbines. Especially if it is an escort. 2) You are ignoring what is perhaps the biggest contributor to overall sound level - speed.

The German Navy in World War One was the second biggest navy. Its shipbuilding industry no doubt is not as strong as the British, but to say it is "without a strong shipbuilding industry" is a bit much, and since Versailles doesn't happen in UAD, the "25 years out of date" doesn't apply. As for the "ships they did manage to build". Today, we are mostly looking at Resistance, the abstraction of everything that makes a ship tougher, which may even extend beyond structural points to include crew practices. Let me remind you of the "quality" produce in this regard from a nation that I assume you would call having a "strong shipbuilding industry". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Indefatigable_(1909) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Mary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Princess_Royal_(1911) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Prince_of_Wales_(53) (this one retreated after a few hits from Bismarck ("not that great" ship). Later the same year, she will basically be wrecked ... by ONE aerial torpedo with a mere 450 pound warhead). Oh just make your excuses, but these things did happen. 😄 My basic policy when it comes to realism vs balance is to emphasize realism on the known facts. However, go ahead and use the "fuzz zone" to balance the game. Which is to say, Paper ships are ideal places to start.

First, we are already using combat logs, so at least we are not dealing with "theoretical" or even "highly optimistic and unrealistic test" results. In fact, we are dealing with pretty unfavorable conditions - the seas far from being a flat and the ships themselves moving at over 20 knots. And between Bismarck, Schanhorst and Prinz Eugen, we are at least not talking about one source. Re German U-boats, the first thoughts that come to mind are as follows. Other than them just not listening in the right direction at the right time, there is a huge gap in operator quality. There are about 1000 U-boats versus ten battleships + heavy cruisers. Do you really think the average U-boat sonarman would be of the same cut? Third is the target - with the U-boats mostly trying to hear merchies and tiny escorts that are moving at low speeds (low noise). Third, I don't want to deny the possibility of assistance that did not make it into the log, but there's still a huge gap between this and what DougToss is doing. Sure, but in his scenario the CB radar still got the first contact and it would have provided at least an approximate position that is verified and possibly refined by any other available assets, especially UAVs many of which have straw-like vision. If no assets are available or they can't acquire / refute, and the need to suppress the battery exceeds that of the concern for collateral damage, fire can be opened on the coordinates from the CB. What I understand Doug would do, based on his previous statement, is to insist (with no proof at all) that the CB radar was only a (nondirectional) "RWR" that did not even get an approximate bearing on the incoming shells, and it was other assets whose presence is never noted in the log that provided the firing data, leaving one to wonder whether the CB radar should be cited at all.

Overall, you scored 57 hits for 2500 damage, for about 44 damage per hit. He scored 1200 damage in 13 hits, for about 92 damage per hit, so it is about 2:1 on average. I noticed his ships are significantly larger than yours which will clearly make them more resistant to damage. Also, maybe your ship is indeed more armored but I can't tell that because for all your pictures tell me is that maybe the 18" is only on your conning tower. I notice his ship is significantly slower than yours and you have comparable guns, which does not bode well on the idea that your ship is the better protected one. Besides, since you are going two on one, and the enemy ships are larger, I honestly cannot say I'm feeling much at the idea you are at ~70% structure and he is at ~84% structure. Maybe it would help if you concentrate your fire on one ship because based on the numbers you are clearly shifting back and forth between the two ships and I can't believe that's helping you to win. You need to choose pictures that clearly support your argument 🙂 Finally, depending on how the rest of the campaign is designed, even if the German H-class is ... just better it might be a balanced play. For example, it might be much easier for the British to build more ships or start building their largest class of ship. We'll have to see.

On that issue, I remember once someone proposed that we had torpedoes that occasionally fail, but up their damage a bit (so the amount of damage on average is the same). My thought is, No. Yes, I get it that this is more realistic, but in real life, players do not get the advantage of a Save / Load button. The present phenomena of turrets failing to fire on time is also somewhat ... realistic. Most people think of it as "a bug". Players do not like to see this kind of randomness.

I don't know what is this resistance to the idea of it being possible to have a somewhat competent hydrophone system. You can eventually derive range, course and speed using only bearings, but if you don't even have somewhat decent bearings, you aren't plotting. Never mind:

The problem is this. The idea that quadruples lose efficiency may be theoretical Gun Index / Turret Efficiency - Guns in multiple mounts always lose efficiency as compared with the same number of guns in single mounts. This is a factor of reduced rate of fire, handling awkwardness, interference between guns, fire control, salvo problems and so forth. To account for these factors, there is a gun-index rule of thumb that goes like this: A twin mount is roughly 1.75 times as effective a single mount, a triple mount is roughly 2.5 times as effective as a single mount and a quadruple mount is roughly 3.125 times as effective as a single mount. http://navweaps.com/Weapons/Gun_Data_p3.php But there's really nothing that goes against it. Please remember that KGV's guns are also smaller than most of her compatriots and Richelieus fired in what? One battle? For the KGVs (cited from http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_14-45_mk7.php) Some details of the problems found in action with these mountings during the 1941 battles: Prince of Wales fired only 55 out of a possible 74 shells during her action with Bismarck. Her problems included jammed shell rings and associated fittings. King George V fired 339 shells during her engagement with Bismarck compared to 380 fired by Rodney. The following description of the problems encountered by King George V is taken from "The Final Action: The Sinking of Bismarck, 27 May 1941" by John Roberts: "Initially she did well achieving 1.7 salvoes per minute while employing radar control but she began to suffer severe problems from 0920 onward [Note: King George V had opened fire at 0850]. 'A' turret was completely out of action for 30 minutes, after firing about 23 rounds per gun, due to a jam between the fixed and revolving structure in the shell room and Y turret was out of action for 7 minutes due to drill errors. . . Both guns in B turret, guns 2 and 4 in A turret and gun 2 in Y turret were put out of action by jams and remained so until after the action - 5 guns out of 10! There were a multitude of other problems with mechanical failures and drill errors that caused delays and missed salvoes. There were also some misfires - one gun (3 of A turret) misfired twice and was out of action for 30 minutes before it was considered safe to open the breech." [Note: The ellipsis in this paragraph is to omit what I believe is actually a reference to the performance of Rodney's 16" (40.6 cm) guns which was mistakenly included in this description] Admiral Sir John C. Tovey, C-in-C Home Fleet, commented upon some of these problems in his after-action report PRO Adm 234/509: "Comparatively little experience had previously been gained of the reliability of the turrets. The prolonged practice firing for the King George V had been carried out only in one turret. It was fortunate that the action [against Bismarck] was not prolonged, because the 25 rounds per gun practice previously planned would not have shown up so many of the defects." Following the Bismarck battles, King George V and Prince of Wales had numerous modifications made to their ammunition supply safety interlock system; the watertightness of the mantlet plates was improved; and the existing drains in the shell rooms were enlarged and additional drains fitted. These changes were incorporated into the rest of the class as they were being built. During her battle with Scharnhorst at North Cape, Duke of York was shooting for a total of two hours. Mechanical problems suffered included failures of the bridge flash tubes in the working chambers to close completely, the collapse of shell arresters in the lower hoists and a shell-cage defect in A turret, all of which caused some guns to drop out of firing opportunities. All guns suffered at least some failures to fire, with B1 gun being the most reliable, having missed only three out of the 80 broadsides. Notable among these missed salvos: Poor loading drill and a shell cage fault caused A1 to miss 73 broadsides. Three guns in Y turret were unable to fire for a 15 minute period, causing them to miss 17 broadsides. All together Duke of York fired 446 shells but missed 241 firing opportunities during the engagement.

What I meant was that it didn't work right. Here are the pictures it did take:

My pre-dreadnought just flashed-fire even though it already used up all its ammo. I tried to take a screenshot, but I forgot that the Screenshot functionality on UA:D doesn't work right. And despite the promises of the scenario screen, I think my enemies had more than 10" of armor. On the positive side, the enemy created a relatively good dreadnought. It actually remembered to install rangefinders and even hydro. Turret configuration was A-X-Y, with X being an 8" triple Mk 3 that actually worked pretty well with the 3x2 14" Mark 1s it installed in A and Y. The 8" gun's job is clearly to get some early hits in, which it did better than the 14" guns. Overall, the enemy's two dreadnoughts managed about twice my effective damage output (I had 5 predreadnoughts armed with 6 12" guns each) and the 8" guns did about 1/3rd the total amount of damage.

Is it just me or did the AI forget to put rangefinders and radars on the ship again? If it'll even only do that, the ship would be a more significant threat.