DougToss

Very glad to hear this. Two points to address though: The references to secondary guns and smaller calibers are left kinda open to interpretation. In the context of secondary armament, what does "useful but not overpowered" mean? In all fairness, this was a topic of debate pre-war as well. The core question being: is the purpose of secondary armament on capital ships to sink torpedo boats outright through gunfire, or is their purpose to neutralize the threat of torpedo attacks by forcing those ships to stay out of the engagement range? This was a factor in pre-war tests: Brown, D. K. (2010). The grand fleet: warship design and development, 1906-1922. Barnsley: Seaforth Pub. As well as pre-war design: Brown, D. K. (2010). The grand fleet: warship design and development, 1906-1922. Barnsley: Seaforth Pub. Having hit rates around this number in game would be in my opinion useful but not overpowered. Worth noting is that the 'hail of fire' of small caliber secondary against capital ships was decredited and also that capital ships were not lost to torpedo attack at Jutland. The problem right now is two-fold, first that the guns are far more accurate than they ought to be, and secondly that they are too damaging. Giving AI ships a sense of self-preservation ideally will show how the deterrent value of these guns was not based on being particularly damaging or accurate. Expanding on the above results: Moreover, something that is not presently accounted for is the risks of secondary armament: My emphasis, Brown, D. K. (2010). The grand fleet: warship design and development, 1906-1922. Barnsley: Seaforth Pub. Finally, regarding big gun accuracy vs that of small gun: Once again, my emphasis, Brown, D. K. (2010). The grand fleet: warship design and development, 1906-1922. Barnsley: Seaforth Pub. I am hoping to convince both the devs and the community the secondary armaments on capital ships were neither accurate nor powerful and that large guns were much more accurate than small. Secondary guns were not accurate and not powerful. That isn't to say they didn't have a use. If their value came from capital ship crews feeling they were fighting back against torpedo attacks, that should be okay to model in the game. Surely in a scenario, the player will also feel like their capital ships are "doing something" in the face of torpedo attack by banging away ineffectually with secondary armament rather than waiting out the attack helplessly or relying solely on screens. This impact on morale is important, and when a morale system is modelled in game should be adequate to show why secondary guns were installed. A morale system would also be able to model how while the secondary guns may not be accurate or powerful, a hail of gunfire throwing up splashes will give torpedo boats pause when pressing home the attack. Preventing the enemy from attacking or causing them to miss is functionally the same as sinking the enemy. For a variety of reasons, large guns were considerably more accurate than small ones. That doesn't mean there were not reasons to equip smaller guns. Size, weight, cost and the availability of guns are huge factors in ship design. Like secondary guns, smaller guns had their uses. Accurate fire was not one of them. The accuracy of 12 inch guns versus 5 is not a good reason for light cruisers to mount them to ward off destroyers, scout for the battle line or raid enemy commerce,

Obviously when it comes to game design, all of us are on the outside looking in. What I appreciate about this community though is that we do have experts, or at least very serious hobbyists and amateur historians of naval warfare. Of course implementing all of their suggestions can make something that while incredible, may not make for a very good game either in terms of accessibility for a large amount of people or coherent game design. The fleet action at Jutland took place over 4 hours. Just having one battle of that duration I think would be too much for a gameplay session even for the most serious of simulator fans. So while the "grogs" are in my opinion indisputably right when it comes to matters of historical or technical accuracy, the camp arguing for accessibility does have valid concerns. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't know how simple polls or volunteer moderators can balance these considerations because really they are differing opinions on game design, and compromising on any one point could alter the shape of the end product dramatically.

I thought the article Gunnery in Great War at Sea: A Designer's Perspective did an excellent job breaking down some of the challenges in portraying the gunnery of the dreadnought period. Obviously Ultimate Admiral is much more granular than GWAS. Having said that, the campaign and battle system of GWAS is often considered the one of the best of all time. This article touches on many of the topics of discussion concerning the accuracy of guns during the period, the effectiveness of secondary armaments and so on that have arisen on this forum recently. Especially of interest to players of Ultimate Admiral are the many well-researched articles on a variety of topics concerning naval warfare and ship design. For example, the two articles on British Pre-Dreadnoughts are an engrossing read. All in all, I think that while computer games allow for more granular simulation than boardgames, the fundamental questions of game design remain largely the same. The ability to use more detailed models in computer gaming can sometimes obscure the fact that there are always choices to be made between 1-to-1 simulation and simplification for playability or accuracy versus authenticity.

I don't see why a dedicated update for UI after the campaign is out would be a bad idea. The campaign is surely going to add tonnes of UI elements, it might be simpler to go over design, battle and campaign UI all at once?

I think this is an example of a nice addition that fits into existing gameplay and designer considerations and has simple pros and cons. I'm all for it.

Just out of curiosity, how do Jutland Pro and Rule the Waves 2 simulate gunnery?

RTW 2 with Steam and Iron's campaign layer would be just about perfect.

Turrets could definitely see some work, especially if we are going to see quads. I think RTW did a good job with the weight, cost and penalties of the different turrets as well as how different hulls can accommodate different turrets and when the tech to do so becomes available. Having said that RTW also suffers from turrets sharing the same visual footprint: As you can see, the quad 15 inch guns are displayed as about the same size as a single 6 or 7 inch gun:

Could bulkheads be gated by technology? I seem to remember that when secondaries were in the superstructure, the interior would be open or have thin, lightly armoured partitions.

@arkhangelsk RTW sets restrictions based on technology and type of hull. I think that is a smart approach - while B (pre and semi-dreads) can only have 2 centreline turrets, within that pretty much anything goes. BBs have to unlock main gun wing turrets, or 3 centerline turrets and eventually cross firing and more centerline turrets. Similarly to DDs and CLs slowly being able to mount more weapons centreline and eventually twin turrets and super-firing. Those are absolutely smart restrictions, and as you say mirror history. The important thing is allowing freedom within the restrictions, and explaining what the restrictions are.

I would guess that the ammunition was packed with dyes by the ordnance men once it was received from the depot. If naval shells are handled like the artillery, you break down the pallets issued from the base stores, distribute shells, and then when going into action set the powder and fuse. The shells you have are the shells you have though.

Ideally an in-game encyclopedia and the UI will present all of that information as well as the game manual. I'm thinking the Civilopedia is a particularly good example. With the example question you asked, clicking shell dyes in the tech screen or what-have-you UI element or looking it up in the encyclopedia would bring up an entry like: As far as @RAMJB goes, I appreciate his information in context but it's probably too demanding to ask a forum's member to write an entire naval history of the period! Someone could make a thread compiling his posts though, I've seen that done on other forums. Your best bet to getting up to speed may be the Reference Materials thread on the forums here.

Here is a wonderful write up of the issues each nation faces in RTWs campaign. Great bit of writing that breaks down the strategic problems and how that influences naval policy and design.

I know, I just don't know how you would get it to work in game. For instance, is it turning into the wind to launch aircraft while in the battle line?

I would rather go with how RTW or Clad in Iron handle land combats and do it all from the strategy map. I can't even imagine what a land combat simulator from 1885-1930 would look like. Maybe in 20 years we'll see titles that ambitious. I know nobody could have dreamed about today's Combat Mission and Graviteam games in 1999.

Does anyone know why Warspite and Enterprise were not turned into museums?

Just how winning a land combat is about control of the field and not wiping out the enemy outright, control of the sea is not about sinking every enemy ship. That has to be built into how the game rewards victories or else commerce raiding or a fleet-in-being will not be rewarding and the player and AI will be forced to see decisive battle regardless of their national situation.

Seeing casemates on a ship laid down in 1933 is going to drive me crazy but that's just a quibble. For turrets, I would like at minimum the options available in RTW2 if we're going to be confined by presets. Otherwise, for how early the game is in development there are a lot of options for recreating historical ships and the designer is very impressive, if somewhat inflexible.

if you are interested in that, I would check out Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 . It's a riveting read and one of the best works on naval history I've read. I'll also recommend On Seas Contested: The Seven Great Navies of the Second World War which is a fantastic introductory title and covers every aspect of navies from recruitment to training , doctrine, equipment, tactics and their combat histories. In fact, if you are interested on any aspect of surface warfare in the ETO during the Second World War, Vincent O'Hara probably has a book about it.

I agree. While it might be fun to say "ah ha! That's the Nassau!" the first time you see this design, that's just a starting place. With more freedom, you could say move the A turret forward and have a super-firing gun behind it, but have to make up for the weight by reducing two or the wing turrets to single mounts, or omit a pair of wing turrets entirely and decide between F+G, G+K, non-cross firing turrets en echelon. Maybe you delete the middle section of the super structure and a pair of turrets have have cross-firing. Maybe you move one wing turret to C and one to W while centring the remaining wing turrets amidships. There are so many variations and design decisions just based on this one hull, but the designer has to be opened up to allow it, otherwise adding the Nassau hull will only let players build the Nassau with variations in armour and gun calibre and not much else.

Exactly. If people want to build "Gun" destroyers like the Tribals, I say they should go for it, but the design considerations should be taken into account. Hell, if people want to try "Big-Gun" destroyers with 4x1 8", I think they should be allowed to see how impractical, top-heavy, expensive and awkward that design is. Something I liked to do in RTW every once in a while was to put casemates on destroyers. I'd like to be able to do that and see just how ridiculous it looks here. Handling 155mm shells is hard enough on a howitzer with spades dug in. I can't imagine doing it on a destroyer, especially considering the seakeeping qualities of WWI British destroyers and how wet they tended to be. It's important that be conveyed, especially when players are deciding on that range of 4" - 7" guns were things go from easy stowage in ready-use lockers and light, easy to handle fixed or separate quick firing ammunition to accessible magazines storing bagged charges and much heavier, harder to handle projectiles to 165lb projectiles that require mechanical handling (Although Friedman says it was considered the heaviest one man could handle alone, I would be interested to see how they did that on a ship, especially since men were smaller back then). Finally, this is where I think attention should be placed in ship design. Opening up turret, barbette and casemate placement would be a step forward both in allowing creative player designs, and reproducing historical ships. If a rework for full-freedom will take a while, adding more preset points in the time being would be a step forward - at the risk of being accused of plagiarism 😉 Just being able to have the F+K and G+J positions for turrets and the 1 and 2 positions really opens things up. In RTW I'll occasionally put cross-firing guns on destroyers and protected cruisers before centreline armaments are available to increase the weight of broadside, but there are obviously reasons this wasn't done and I ought to have to deal with the consequences.

I agree wholeheartedly, but would go on to say that ideally we would be able to build a pre-dread with 12" casemated guns, and suffer the compromises and drawbacks from that design accordingly (I would guess you could still probably only fit 4 within the same displacement, I have no idea how the armour arrangement or shell handling would work, and you would halve your broadside and lose the ability to fire end-on with main caliber guns). I think the placement of turrets, barbettes and casemates is going to be one of the biggest things that could really open up ship design for some interesting designs that weren't tried in reality.

It would be nice to have the hulls come with the option to have casemate mounts present or absent. Sometimes I have empty mounts because I've opted for turrets and sometimes I'd like to see what would happen if casemates stayed on into the 20's and 30's. Ideally casemate mounts would be auto-generated procedurally when you place a casemate gun, like people are asking for with barbettes. Until then, having an A and B option for hulls would be an expedient solution.

I think the game should be able to account for players using calibers that for whatever reason were not popular historically. Specifically, 7", 9" and 10" guns. I don't see why a light cruiser couldn't be built with 7" guns, or why a heavy cruiser could not have 10". I don't know how good they would be. There is surely a reason those calibers were not common, but it should be up to the players to find out if say 7" guns are too unwieldy or can't have the shells handled by hand on a protected cruiser or used in super-firing double mounts on a light cruiser or what a Brooklyn class light cruiser with 5x2 10" would be like, and if that is in fact still a light cruiser.

I would need a naval expect to weigh in, but I think calibre restrictions should be increased for casemates to maybe 10" or 11". This would maybe be within the edge of usefulness on semi-dreadnoughts and as fantastical and impractical as they may be, seem to have certainly been possible. Thoughts?