Xenospartan653

This was talked about a while back, but more nuance in actual types/quality of armament would be greatly appreciated. Right now, the game automatically updates each caliber of gun (the "Mark" system) based on year, but doesn't give any choice as to the mark selected -The designer also allows selection for propellant/filling (which should really be separated, by my understanding, but for all intents and purposes work satisfactorily), as well as weight of shell. The designer does *not* take into account barrel length or other quality differences, for a given caliber of weapon. As you all know, the most obvious example of this difference in real life is the Iowa's 16"/50 Mk 7 gun, versus the South Dakota's and North Carolina's 16"/45 Mk 6. The Mk 7 had increased muzzle velocity and penetration compared to the Mk 6. rendering it a fairly different weapon in practice. However, this is hardly the only example. When designing new 15" rifles, the French chose a 45-caliber weapon and the British used their old 42-caliber weapon. The Germans, having used a 45-caliber weapon in their WW1-era Bayerns, decided to use a 52-caliber weapon for the Bismarck; likewise, the Italins decided to use a 50-caliber weapon in their Littorios. This lead to the Germans and Italians having muzzle velocities of anywhere from 2,700 to 2,900 f/s, while the British were stuck with roughly 2,500 f/s until they started packing as much propellant as was safe with their "Supercharge" shells, which were never issued to ships with gun elevation beyond 20 degrees. The French attempted to do something similar, but experienced premature bore explosions, and so ceased doing so. Thus, while Italian rifles were markedly less accurate than their British counterparts (which is mostly put down to substandard manufacturing and close barrel spacing, rather than any fault of the gun design itself), they had markedly better muzzle velocity - as did the German guns. Increasing barrel length, instead of bore size, was thus a viable armaments upgrade, and one that was seen many times from the dawn of the Dreadnought era. The British St. Vincent-class, in 1907, upgraded to a 12"/50 armament, from a 12"/45 armament on the preceding Bellerophons. The American Wyomings did so as well, from the preceding Floridas, while the later New Mexicos upgraded to a 14"/50 rifle from their preceding Pennsylvania-class's 14"/45. The Moltke-class BCs upgraded to an 11"/50 from the VDT's 11"/45. The Japanese Kawachi-class ran into problems because the Japanese couldn't acquire enough 12"/50 guns, and so had to substitute four of the six turrets on each ship for 12"/45 guns. And so on, so forth. That's not even counting how many pre-dreadnoughts operated 12" guns of 40 and even 35 caliber, even just a scant few years before their Dreadnought cousins mounted much larger variants. They certainly served together, and thus can't be merely abstracted as different "marks" of weapon. While all my examples above are capital-ship weapons, rest assured that these differences continued as the bore size decreases. There's a world of difference between the American 5"/25, 5"/38, and 5"/54 guns, even though all were serving by the end of WW2, and a likewise difference between the Japanese 12.7cm/50 Type 3 and a 12.7cm/40 Type 89. These differences should certainly be simulated in the game, if at all possible, as they were a major part of warship design for the 20th Century. --- Also,while we're on the topic, more denominations of caliber would be nice. Both the French and British used 340mm (13.5") guns on a widespread capital-ship scale, while the German L20e design was set to field 420mm (16.5") guns. The British fielded 4.5, 4.7, and 5.5-inch guns throughout both World Wars, while the French 138mm gun was nigh-omnipresent on it's destroyer fleet. The Japanese used a 140mm gun as well. On a smaller level, many nations used 88mm-90mm naval guns (3.5") as secondary pieces - and, of course, when going even smaller, 40mm/4cm guns were far, far more common than 50mm/5cm pieces. None of these are necessary, of course, but either their implementation or, preferably, the ability to customize, yourself, the bore diameter of a weapon, would be much appreciated.

I like this idea. Overall, I'm a big fan of less restrictive shipbuilding. A lot of seemingly ridiculous ideas - heavy guns on destroyers, multiple superfiring batteries, etc - weren't technically impossible, just incredibly stupid. They jacked up tonnage, were effectively useless, et ceterum. Have that represented in the game. Put battleship-caliber guns on a destroyer (a la Ambercrombie-class), just don't be surprised when you can't get above seven knots, and never hit anything. Players, if searching for effective designs, will then naturally self-select, so long as the appropriate/realistic reactions/punishments are in place for shoddy designs.

One thing to keep in mind is that UA:D gameplay, currently, is very strictly on the tactical level, within the dozens of kilometers. You wouldn't launch a floatplane - or any plane, really - once you've already made contact and are in gunnery/torpedo range of the enemy. By the time, say, a cruiser squadron has engaged their enemy with their batteries, their floatplanes were either launched several hours ago (IE, the catapults would be empty), or, equally likely, weren't launched at all, and nobody's going to be scrambling to launch them when the ship's under fire. Aircraft combat and engagement should definitely be implemented - it became a vital, integral part of dreadnought and post-dreadnought warfare the second Lexington, Saratoga, Akagi, and Kaga were converted - but having the ability to launch aircraft while already in combat is silly. If a ship has a catapult, give the option before the battle to have the aircraft already launched, or make it random - if the fleet was caught with it's pants down, maybe no planes, whereas if they had tactical/strategic initiative, then they have the benefits of having recon planes already in place. This, incidentally, is also why Lexington&Saratoga originally had 8 8"/55cal guns - to duke it out with a raiding cruiser squadron that their aircraft squadrons didn't catch. These guns were later removed, of course, to make way for more AA (and because their air complement had become far more potent), but you can't really launch a dive-bomber squadron when you're already engaged with gunfire, no matter what Battlestations: Pacific likes to pretend. It's just not really feasible.

The question is...why? Right now, they're focusing super heavily on the campaign. After that, it seems the general atmosphere is "diversify/improve the ship editor," not add entirely new content that's not useful in the slightest until/unless they add submarines. Without subs, depth charges are, at best, a waste of tonnage and space, and, at worst, yet another thing that can explode and take off the stern of your ship. It's the same reason they haven't added aircraft catapults or dedicated AA guns. Currently, UA:D is a strictly surface-engagement game, and will be for the likely foreseeable future.

I don't think we should have "national" or unique pieces, so much as the ability to determine the caliber of the gun, in addition to the barrel width. For instance, the SoDak fast BBs had 40.6cm/45cal guns, while the Iowas had better 50cal guns with improved penetration. Ditto with the Deutschland's 28cm guns vs the Scharnhorst's (52cal vs 54.5cal), et cetera. Increased barrel-length increases range and penetration, while decreased barrel-length decreases weight and turret rotation/elevation speed, as well as cost. This was a fairly important part of warship design. "Marks" of guns would also be really interesting, but I'm honestly not sure how much of a physical difference there was between, say, the 16"/50 Mark 2, planned for the 1920's South Dakota Class, and the 16"/50 Mark 7, used on the Iowa's, that weren't accounted for by improvements in ammunition, charges, et cetera. As opposed for the physical guns themselves.

Looking on the ship designer, the German Empire literally has a "large torpedo boat" hull for up to 1912. It's just under the "destroyer" category. The 1913 large torpedoboats breached a thousand tons anyway - so just use a minimalist destroyer hull - and the 1914 model was over 1300 tons.